Evening journal., 1900-04-11
BELIEVED IN GHOSTS
DR.. ELLIOTT coUEs SAID THAT &c
OFTEN SAW THEM.

tion of the Spirit of Dead Friend
Who Appeared to and Conversed
with Him In His Room.
DR.. Elliott Coues. the famous ornl-
biologist and member of the Ameri-
can Academy of Sciences, was long
recognized as the foremost advocate of
belief in the existence of ghosts. He
had promised several Of his friends
that, If able to do so, he would appear
10 them after his own demise and they
are still waiting, with no little inter
est, to see IL he can carry out the
agreement
81 have myself seen the ghosts of
good many dead persons said the
doctor one day. 81 remember one oc-
casion when l had just gone to bed,
the light being turned out, / was COM
posing myself to slumber when sud
denly became aware Of a presence in
the room. The impression conveyed
TO my mind was that it was the pres
ence of a certain person lately deceas-
ed, with whom 1 had been on very in
innate terms. In fact felt an over
powering sense Of the nearness Of the
individual in question.
about the same moment there
arose slowly from the floor a nebulous
mass of what looked like shining
white vapor, which began to take
shape, as did the smoke from the cas-
ket opened 1by the fisherman in the
Arabian Nights tales. Gradually il
assumed a more distinct outline, un-
til It presented a radiant image Of my
friend. The lips appeared to move,
and from them came an ineligible ut
terance, a message in short, from the
departed. l do not care to say what
that message was.
81 can assure you that the vision was
no dream, and the nature Of the mes
sage was such as to eliminate. to my
own satisfaction at all events, the the
ory Of hallucination. What, then, was
this shape of shining white vapor?
Was 1t n human soul? 1t is a question
pregnant with intense interest.
Each of us, believe, has in him a
ghost, which ordinarily is confined to
the precincts of the body. When
die, my ghost leaves my body perma-
nently. and. having done so, perhaps il
may continue to be the vehicle and
means of expression of conscious will
memory and understanding. St Pau
says. There is a natural body and
spiritual body 1t is Of the spiritual
body that / am speaking.
"Our senses take cognizance of nC
forms of matter except those which
are In a certain degree Of condensa
ton. but the spiritual body may be oi
a more rarefied and tenuous substance
The nonappearance Of ghosts to NJ
may be question not of the existence
Of specters, but Of the acuteness Of oui
perceptive faculties.
"iy own experience is that the com
ing of an apparition is always preced
ed by n curious sensation which l cal
the ghost chill When this symptom
arrives, the threshold of consciousness
seems to be shifted to the extent o
rendering possible a perception o
something ordinarily invisible Tn
change is usually very brief, lasting
only a few seconds, during which tn
manifestation occurs.
zone reason that have for believin
the evidence of my own senses in thi
matter is that on several occasions tn
apparition of my own personality ha
presented itself TO other persons /
places where my body was not at tn
time. Some years ago was in Chics
20, at an ordinary evening party wit
about 40 friends, when an individui
in Washington, who did not even kno'
where l was, was visited by my phaI
tasm and received from it a brief mei
sage stating where / was at the tim
and giving the names of two or thre
Of the guests present-persons wit
whom the observer was unacquainte'
This was one of the rare cases whel
a ghost made itself audible.
'You ask what would happen If on
should approach a ghost such as hay
described and try TO touch t. My r.
ply is that there would certainly be Il
danger in doing so. for specters nev'
do anybody any harm, the fear of the
entertained by most people being sin
ply dread of that which is unlSnow
and not understood. Whatever is II
known is always terrible. But Il
phantom is composed of matter Il
tenuous to present any obstacle, al
do not doubt that it would dissol'
and disappear If you attempted
walk through it."-WashingtOn Post.