The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1900-03-21
BELIEVED IN GHOSTS
DR.. ELLIOTT CoueS SAID THAT he
OFTEN SAW THEM.
The Famous ornffhoIogist's Descrip-
tion of the Spirit of Dead Friend
Who Appeared TO and Convcrsed
With Him IN ifs Room

The Famous Ornifhotogisf's Descrip-
tion of the spirit of Dead Friend
Vine Appeared to and Conversed
With Him IN ifs Room.
e. Dr. Elliott Coues, the famous orni-
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
To them after his own demise, and they
are still waiting, with no little inter
est. 10 see il he can carry out the
agreement.
Il have myself seen the ghosts of a
| good maay dead persons" said the
| doctor ole day. II remember one oc-
casion when | had just gone to bed
the Hight being turned out | was com.
posing myself to sluInber when sud
denly Became aware of Il presence in
the room. The impression conveyed
TO my mind was that 1t was the pres
enee of a certain person lately deceas
ed. with whom l had been ON very III
innate terms. In fact. | felt an over
towering sense Of the nearness of the
individual in question.
About the same moment there
arose slowly from the floor nebulous
mass of what looked like shining
white vapor, which began to take
shape as did the smoke from the cas-
kct opened by the fisherman in the
Arabian Nights tales Gradually ii
assumed more distinct outline. TN
/ til 1t presented radiant image of my
friend. The lips appeared to move,
and from them came an ineligible ut
/ teranee. Il message in short, from the
departed | 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 s.ich as to eliminate. to my
own satisfaction at all events, the the
DRY of hallucination. What, then, was
this shape of shining white vapor?
Was 1t Il human soul? 1t is question
pregnant with intense interest.
Each of us, | believe, has in him n
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 it
may continue to be the vehicle and
means of expression of conscious will,
memory and understanding. st. Paul
says, There is natural body and a
spiritual body, 1t Is of the spiritual
body that | am speaking
Our senses take eogniZanee of no
forms of matter except those which
are In n certain degree of condensa-
ton. but the spiritual body may be of
more rarefied and tenuous substance.
The nonappearance of ghosts to us
may be question not of the existence
of specters, but of the acuteness of our
perceptiye faculties.
my own experience Is that the COM
Ing of an apparition is always preced-
ed by a curious sensation which | call
the ghost chilli When this symptom
arrives, the threshold of consciousness
seems to be shifted to the extent of
rendering possible a perception of
something ordinarily invisible. The
change is usually very brief, lasting
only few seconds, during which the
manifestation occurs.
"One reason that have for believing
the evidence of my own senses in this
matter Is that on several occasions the
appartion of my own personality has
presented itself to other persons in
places where my body was.not at the
time. Some years ago | was In Chica-
go, at an ordinary evening party with
about 40 friends, when an individual
In Washington, who did not even know
where | was. was visited by my phan-
tasm and received from 1t brief mes
sage stating where l was at the time
and giving the names of two or three
or the guests present-persons with
Whom the observer was unacquainted.
This was one of the rare cases where
ghost made itself audible.
You ask what would happen If one
should approach ghost such as | have
described and try to touch 1t. My re-
ply Is that there would certainly be no
danger In doing so, for specters never
do anybody any harm, the fear of them
entertained by most people being sim
ply dread of that which is unknown
and not understood. Whatever is I'M
known Is always terrible. But the
phantom is composed of matter too
tenuous to present any obstacle, and
/ do not doubt that 1t would dissolve
and disappear II you attempted to
walk through t."-Washington Post.