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was roused by hearing his own name loudly called. He searched his room in vain. His brother died suddenly,
at the hour when he heard the voice, in Canada. But the difference of time proves that the voice was heard
several hours before the death. Here, then, is a chance coincidence, which looked very like a case of
Telepathy. Another will be found in Mr. Dale Owen's Debatable Land, p. 364. A gentleman died 'after
breakfast' in Rhenish Prussia, and appeared, before noon, in New York. Thus he appeared hours after he died.
{193b} Polack, New Zealand, i. 269.
{194a} Proceedings S. P. R., xv. 10.
{194b} The writer has known a case in which a collector of these statistics, disdained non-coincidental
hallucinations as 'of no use'
{195} Proceedings S. P. R., xv. 7.
{196} Animal Magnetism, pp. 61-64, 1887.
{199} The Psychical Society has published the writer's encounter with Professor Conington, at Oxford, in
1869, when the professor was lying within one or two days of his death at Boston, a circumstance wholly
unknown to the percipient. But no jury would accept this as anything but a case of mistaken identity, natural
in a short-sighted man's vague experiences. Mr. Conington was not a man easily to be mistaken for another,
nor were many men likely to be mistaken for Mr. Conington. Yet this is what must have occurred. There was
no conceivable reason why the professor should 'telepathically' communicate with the percipient, who had
never exchanged a word with him, except in an examination.
{205} Proceedings of Society for Psychical Research, viii. 111.
{206} Proceedings of Society for Psychical Research, xiv. 442.
{207a} Modern Spirit Manifestations. By Adin Ballou. Liverpool, 1853.
{207b} Proceedings of Society for Psychical Research, xiv. 469.
Footnotes: 126
Cock Lane and Common-Sense
{209} Edinburgh, 1827, vol. i. p. xxxii.
{214} In the author's case the hypnagogic phantasms seem to be created out of the floating spots of light
which remain when the eyes are shut. Some crystal-gazers find that similar points de repère in the glass, are
the starting-points of pictures in the crystal. Others cannot trace any such connection.
{215} Compare Blackwood, August, 1831, in Noctes Ambrosianæ.
{216a} Paus., ii. 24, I.
{216b} Bouché Leclercq, i. 339.
{223} The accomplished scryer can see as well in a crystal ringstone, or in a glass of water, as in a big crystal
ball. The latter may really be dangerous, if left on a cloth in the sun it may set the cloth on fire.
{224} Animal Magnetism, second edition, p. 135.
{228} Thus an educated gentleman, a Highlander, tells the author that he once saw a light of this kind 'not a
meteor,' passing in air along a road where a funeral went soon afterwards. His companions could see nothing,
but one of them said: 'It will be a death-candle'. It seems to have been hallucinatory, otherwise all would
have shared the experience.
{231a} Darker Superstitions of Scotland, p. 481, Edinburgh, 1834.
{231b} Op. cit., p. 473.
{232a} Op. cit., p. 470
{232b} It is, perhaps, needless to add that the unhappy patients were executed.
{232c} Miscellanies, 1857, p. 184.
{233a} Wodrow, i. 44.
{233b} Aulus Gellius, xv. 18. Dio Cassius, lib. lxvii. Crespet, De la Hayne de Diable, cited by Dalyell.
{234} Miscellanies, 177.
{235} A copy presented by Scott to Sir Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck is in the author's possession; it
bears Scott's autograph.
{237} Information from Mr. Mackay, Craigmonie.
{238} 2 Kings, v. 26.
{244} i. 259. Longmans, London, 1811.
{245} Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 143.
{246} This belief is not confined to the Highlands. Mr. Podmore quotes Ghost 636 in the Psychical Society's
collections: 'The narrator's mother is said to have seen the figure of a man'. The father saw nothing till his
Footnotes: 127
Cock Lane and Common-Sense
wife laid her hand on his shoulder, when he exclaimed, 'I see him now' (S. P. R., Nov., 1889, p. 247).
{250} 'Spectral evidence' was common in witch trials. Wierus (b. 1515) mentions a woman who confessed
that she had been at a witch's covin, or 'sabbath,' when her body was in bed with her husband. If there was
any confirmatory testimony, if any one chose to say that he saw her at the 'sabbath,' that was 'spectral
evidence'. This kind of testimony made it vain for a witch to take Mr. Weller's advice, and plead 'a halibi,' but
even Cotton Mather admits that 'spectral evidence' is inconclusive.
{253} Papon. Arrets., xx. 5, 9. Charondas, Lib. viii. Resp. 77. Covarruvias, iv. 6. Mornac, s. v.,
Habitations, 27 ff., Locat. and Conduct. Other doctors do not deny hauntings, but allege that a brave man
should disregard them, and that they do not fulfil he legal condition, Metus cadens in constantem virim.
These doctors may never have seen a ghost, or may have been unusually courageous. They held that a man
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