Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1900-03-22
BELIEVED IN GHOSTS
DR.. ELLIOTT couEs SAID THAT HE
OFTEN SAW THEM.

The Famous Ornithologlst's Descrip-
ton of the Spirit of n Dead Friend
Who Appeared to and Convened
With Him In His Room.
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, to see if he can carry out the
agreement.
Il have myself seen the ghosts of Il
good MANY dead persons said the
doctor one day. 81 remember one &C.
casion when l had just gone to bed.
the light being turned out, l was com
posing myself to slumber when | sud
denly became aware of Il presence in
the room. The impression conveyed
to my mind was that it was the pres
ence of a certain person lately deceas-
c1l, Will w llolil lluNt pCCh oh Wei 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-
ket opened by the fisherman in the
Arabian Nights tales. Gradually it
assumed more distinct outline, I'M
til it presented a radiant image of my
friend. The lips appeared to move
and from them came an ineligible ut
terance, Il message in short, from the
| that message was.
Il 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
DRY of hallucination. What, then, was
this shape Of shining white vapor.
| Was it human soul? 1t is a question
pregnant with intense interest.
Each of us. | believe, has in him s
ghost, which ordinarily is confined tt
! the precincts of the body. When
die. my ghost leaves my body perma
nently, and, having done SO, perhaps i
may continue to be the vehicle an(
memory and understanding. st. Pau
says, There is natural body and /;
spiritual body 1t is of the spiritua
body that am speaking.
"Our senses take cogniZance Of II,
forms of matter except those which
are in certain degree of condensa
ton. but the spiritual body may be o
a more rarefied and tenuous substance
The nonappearance of ghosts to u
may be question not of the eXistenc
of specters, but of the acuteness of on
perceptiye faculties.
my own experience is that the com
ing of IN apparition is always preced
ed by 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 perception 0
something ordinarily invisible. TIL
change is usually very brief, lastin
only Il few seconds, during which til
manifestation occurs.
Zone reason that l have for believin
the evidences of my own senses in thi
matter is that on several occasions TIL
appartion of my own personality ha
presented itself to other persons i
places where my body was not at til
time. Some Years ago | was in Chict
so, ut an ordinary evening party wit
about 40 friends, when an individu;
in Washington, who did not even know
where | was. was visited by my phaI
tasm and received from it a brief me:
sage stating where | was at the tim
and giving the names of two or tire
of the guests present-persons wit
whom the observer was unacquaintet
This was one of the rare cases whel
ghost made itself audible.
You ask what would happen if on
I should approach ghost such as l hay
described and try to touch it. My II
ply is that there would certainly be Il
danger in doing so, for specters nevt
! do anybody any harm, the fear of thel
entertained by most people being sin
, ply dread of that which is unknow
and not understood. Whatever is III
known is always terrible. But tt
! phantom is composed of matter t.
tenuouS to present any obstacle, IN
do not doubt that it would dissolN
and disappear if you attempted
walk through it."-,Washington Post.