Studies in the Out-Lying Fields of Psychic Science Part 5

How strong and enduring the impress stamped on a relic or jewel may be, is shown in the following story told of Robert Browning by Mr. Knowles (_Spectator_, Jan. 30, 1869): "Mr. Robert Browning tells me that when he was in Florence some years since, an Italian n.o.bleman (Count Ginnasi) was brought to his house. The Count professed to have great mesmeric powers, and declared in reply to Mr. Browning's avowed skepticism, he would convince him of his powers. He then asked Mr. Browning whether he had anything about him then and there, which he could hand him, and which was in anyway a memento or relic. It so happened by curious accident, that Mr. Browning was wearing under his coat sleeves some gold wrist studs to his s.h.i.+rt, which he had quite recently taken into wear in absence of his ordinary wrist-b.u.t.tons. He had never before worn them in Florence, or elsewhere, and found them in an old drawer where they had lain forgotten for years. One of these he took out and handed to the Count, who held it in his hand awhile and then said as if much impressed, 'There is something here which cries out in my ear, Murder!

murder!'

"And truly," said Mr. Browning, "these studs were taken from the dead body of a great uncle of mine, who was violently killed on his estate in St. Kitts nearly eighty years ago. They were produced in court as proofs that robbery had not been the object of the strangler, which was effected by his own slaves. They were taken out of the night-gown in which he died and given to me."

Sensitiveness During Sleep.

The _Index_ published the following:

"Recently the youngest child of Warren Wa.s.son (Katie) fell into a well and was nearly drowned. A day or two since, a letter was received from Mr. Wa.s.son, who is in Oregon, written before he had heard of the occurrence. He stated that on the same Sunday, at the time of the accident, he was taking a nap, and was awakened by a terrifying dream.

He thought he saw little Katie dripping with water, and the little boy next older than Katie was immersed in the water, and that he was able to save him only by taking hold of his ears. When he pulled him out, he was covered with spots like a leopard. Mr. Wa.s.son says that as he awoke he was covered with cold sweat, and in an agony of mind. This is a very strange coincidence, and the dream corresponds with the occurrence, save that the little boy was not in danger. It was the little girl who was spotted from the chill."

It resembles a wrongly received telegraphic dispatch, in which one word is subst.i.tuted for another.

EFFECT OF STRONG MENTAL IMPRESSION.--A strong mental impression carried into sleep is conducive to impressibility. Inspector Jewett, of the Brooklyn Police, was so worried about the lost pistol of John Kenny, who had shot a car-driver, as he wanted the weapon in evidence against the ruffian, that he dreamed about it. He saw it in a certain saloon, in a certain place, and the next morning went to the saloon and found the pistol exactly where he saw it in his dream.

The rescue of the crew of the "Sparkenhoe," November 30, 1875, by Capt.

Adam S. Smalley, as told by him, is a fine ill.u.s.tration of impressibility in sleep. He sailed from Bordeaux November 24, 1875, in the brigantine "Fred Eugene," bound for Key West, and soon encountered stormy weather. When six hundred miles at sea, on the night of the 29th, he suddenly awoke from sleep, deeply impressed with a dream, in which he had seen a number of men in great peril. He related this to his wife, adding that he hoped no s.h.i.+pwrecked crew needed his a.s.sistance. At midnight, he again retired, and again the vision was repeated with more distinctness, and the men appearing on a wreck needing the utmost dispatch to rescue them. The Captain went immediately on deck, and without any a.s.signed reason, changed the course of the s.h.i.+p two points, and, giving orders to be called at daylight, retired, and slept till the appointed time.

Going on deck at dawn, and sweeping the horizon with his gla.s.s, he discovered a s.h.i.+p far to the windward, with a signal of distress displayed. He endeavored to work his vessel up, but with short sail and heavy sea, most of the forenoon pa.s.sed, and a long distance remained. He was resolved to take a long tack, and not change his course until prompted to do so by the same impulse that bade him do so the night before. More sail was made, although prudence forbade, in the face of a gale at any moment threatening to break, and all the men stood at their posts for over an hour, awaiting the orders for tacking.

At last the prompting came, and going about, the vessel reached a point two miles to the leeward of the distressed s.h.i.+p, where her three boats, containing twenty-three men in all, had put off to intercept the brig.

They were taken on board, the boats cut loose, and all sail taken in as quickly as possible, and in ten minutes a fierce hurricane lashed the sea to foam. The gale raged four days with unabated fury, so that, had they not been rescued at the very moment they were, they would have certainly perished.

We have two explanations. The first is that of thought transference--the reception on the sensitive brain of Captain Smalley of the intense thoughts of the peris.h.i.+ng crew. As the inductive plate sends its influence across miles of s.p.a.ce, we may suppose that the vibrations from them would go out across the wide sea interval, and, finding a receiving instrument, be converted again to thought. The second explanation is that of the interference of spiritual beings, who impress their thoughts on the mind of the Captain in the same manner. The prompting as to the course to steer is beyond and outside of the dream, and proves the extreme sensitiveness of the commander.

A DREAM SAVES A s.h.i.+PWRECKED CREW.--Of precisely similar character is the impression received by Capt. G. A. Johnson of the schooner "Augusta H.

Johnson." He sailed from Quero for home, encountering a terrible hurricane. On the second day, he saw a disabled brig, and near by a barque. He was anxious to reach home, and thinking the barque would a.s.sist the brig, continued on.

But the impression came that he must turn back and board the brig. He could not shake it off, and at last he, with four men, boarded the brig in the dory. He found her deserted, and made sail on her. After a time they saw an object ahead, appearing like a man on a cake of ice. The dory was again manned, and sent to the rescue. It proved to be the mate of the bark "Leawood," clinging to the bottom of an overturned boat, which, being white, appeared in the distance as ice. This premonition came without seeking, and in direct opposition to the desire of Captain Johnson, desiring to escape from the storm, and reach home without delay.

A LIFE SAVED.--The Biddeford (Me.) _Journal_ thus relates the story of the narrow escape of a sailor:

"Last week the schooner "Ida May" lay at Government Wharf, near the mouth of Kennebunk River, with one man on board, Freeman Grove, who was in the cabin asleep. In the night he was awakened by some one touching him and saying, 'You will be drowned.' On opening his eyes, no one was present, but he immediately went on deck, and found the side of the vessel caught under the wharf by the tide, and shortly it would have sunk, and cabin and all been under water. With a plank he pried the side from the wharf, and she came up with the tide. The sleeper, being in the cabin, must have been drowned had he not been awakened by the voice."

Perhaps no greater disaster was ever accompanied by a greater number of special premonitions and warnings of coming danger than the "Ashtabula horror," where a train crowded with pa.s.sengers plunged into a gulf in a fearful storm, and, taking fire, was burned. The _Times_ published a list of the names of those saved by "presentiments." One, in particular, is related at length, and is thoroughly vouched for. A young lady, by the name of Hazen, having with her a colored servant, started from Baltimore for Pittsburg, where she was to be married. She had purchased tickets at Buffalo for the ill-fated train. During the night previous, "Aunt Chloe," the colored slave, had a dream, which so impressed her that when they reached the depot she positively refused to go on that train. "Auntie" had been as a mother to Miss Hazen, who lost her mother in infancy. The young lady, perhaps somewhat a believer in the superst.i.tions of the slaves, humored Auntie's mood, and deferred going until the next train--in all probability thereby saving the lives of both.

CLAIRVOYANT DREAM-STATE.--The Oakland (Cal.) _Tribune_ records a pleasing story, which fully ill.u.s.trates what may be called a permanent dream-sensitiveness identical with clairvoyance: "Twenty years ago, a bachelor in Oakland dreamed of visiting a family consisting of parents and two little girls, who were unknown to him in his waking hours. From that time forth, he continued to dream of them for a score of years. He saw the children grow from childhood to womanhood. He was at the closing exercises when they graduated. In fact, he shared all the pleasures and griefs of the family. His friends.h.i.+p to his dreamland friends seemed so real, he often remarked that he felt certain he would know them in reality at some future time.

"Two months ago, in a dream, he saw the husband die, and from that time he ceased to dream of them in a period of twenty years. He received a letter from New York City, the writer being the widow of a cousin of his, with whom he had had no intercourse since his boyhood--over thirty years. She wrote that she wished to make San Francisco her future home, and it was arranged for him to meet her and her two daughters at the wharf at Oakland. On their arrival, imagine his surprise to see his dream friends. They were equally so when he related to them the dreams in which they had figured. He told them incidents connected with their past lives which he could not have known under ordinary circ.u.mstances.

He described their former home, even to the furniture and household ornaments, and was correct in every particular. The sequel is that he married the lady, and they are living happily in this city."

ALLEGORICAL DREAMS.--When important intelligence comes in allegorical form, it is difficult to give adequate explanation, without calling to our aid an outside intelligence. The London _News_ has the following:

"Most people remember the terrible railway accident, in which d.i.c.kens himself and his proof-sheets escaped, while so many perished. In the train there chanced to be a gentleman and lady just returned from India.

The lady said to her husband, 'I see the great wave rolling on; it is close to us,' and then the crash came, and she was a corpse. The husband was unhurt, and at a later time explained his wife's strange words. Ever since they had set sail from India, she had been haunted in sleep by a dream of a vast silvery wave, and always, just as it was about to break on her, she had awakened in terror."

Less tragic, but quite odd enough for Mr. Proctor's collection, is the anecdote of the south-country farmer's dream. The good man awakened from his first sleep, and aroused his wife to tell her about a startling vision. He had dreamed that he saw a favorite cow drowning in a pond in a neighboring common. "There ain't no pond there;" said the wife, with natural irritation and double-shotted negatives. This was undeniably true, but the farmer was uneasy. At last he arose, dressed, and walked up the long lane which led to the common. Everything was quiet, but just at the top of the lane the farmer heard a sound as of a man digging.

Then a light caught his eye. It glimmered through a hedge that divided the lane from the fields. The farmer cautiously drew near, till he was just above the ditch. There he spied a country fellow, with a lantern, digging a long, straight, deep hole in the ground. An ax lay beside the hole. At this point the farmer slipped, the hedge rustled, and the delver fled away. The farmer secured the lantern and made for home. Just at the entrance of the lane, the time being about two in the morning, he met one of his servant wenches hurrying in the direction whence he had come. "What do you want, my la.s.s? No good, I fear," said the agricultural moralist; and, in short, he made the girl tell him her story. She was going to an a.s.signation with her "young man," who had jilted her, and was courting another girl. She had threatened him with an action for breach of promise of marriage, and the swain had promised that, if she would but meet him at two in the morning, at the bend of the lane, he would satisfy her, and remove all jealousy and differences.

"Very well, my la.s.s," said the farmer, "come, and I'll show you what he had to give you." He led the way, and revealed to the horrified girl the long, deep, narrow hole and sharp ax which had awaited her. Naturally, she did not any longer pursue her lover; and here is a dream which even Mr. Proctor will admit not to have been purposeless. Indeed, the "machinery" of the drowning cow made the vision appeal directly to the bucolic mind.

Of the same prophetic character is the following well-authenticated dream:

Mrs. Jacob Condon, living a few miles from Reed, Pa., dreamed a few nights ago that her year-old baby was burned to death, and that she sent word of the casualty to her husband, who was working at a distance from home, by James Portlewaith, a neighbor. The next morning she told her husband of her dream, and admitted that it made her despondent. He laughed at her fears, and went away to his work. Late in the forenoon, Mrs. Condon left her kitchen to go to the wood-shed, a few steps away.

While she was there she heard her baby screaming. She ran into the house and found the child lying in front of an open grate, wrapped in flames.

She threw an old coat about the child, and smothered the flames, but it was so badly burned that it died in a few minutes. Mrs. Condon went to the door to call for a.s.sistance. As she reached the door, James Portlewaith was pa.s.sing the gate. She sent him to her husband with the dreadful news, thus fulfilling her terrible dream to the letter.

Mrs. Howitt, whose veracity no one can dispute, gives the following experience in the _Psychological Review_, London, which may be taken as an ill.u.s.tration of thought transference, or as the interposition of a supreme intelligence:

"I dreamed that I received a letter from my eldest son. In my dream I eagerly broke open the seal, and saw a closely-written sheet of paper, but my eye caught only these words in the middle of the first page, written larger than the rest and underlined, '_My father is very ill_.'

The utmost distress seized me, and I suddenly awoke, to find it only a dream; yet the painful impression of reality was so vivid, that it was long before I could compose myself. The first thing I did the following morning was to commence a letter to my husband, relating this distressing dream. Six days afterwards, on the 18th, an Australian mail came in and brought me a letter, the only letter I received by that mail, and not from any of my own family, but from a gentleman in Australia with whom we were acquainted. This letter was addressed on the outside, '_Immediate_,' and with a trembling hand I opened it; and true enough, the first words I saw--and these written larger than the rest, in the middle of the paper, and underlined, were: '_Mr. Howitt is very ill_.' The context of these terrible words was, however, 'If you hear that _Mr. Howitt is very ill_, let this a.s.sure you that he is better;'

but the only emphatic words which I saw in my dream, and these, nevertheless, slightly varying, as, from some cause or other, all such mental impressions, spirit revelations, or occult, dark sayings generally do vary from the truth or type which they seem to reflect."

Stainton Moses, M. D., who has given life-long attention to psychic research, remarks on the apparent discrepancy between the words of the dream, and the letter as follows:

"It may be permitted to the writer to suggest, that through a fuller acquaintance with, and deeper observation of, the phenomena of 'spirit revelation, occult, dark sayings', etc., the truth has forced itself upon various philosophic minds, that in obedience to a primal law of spirit's intercourse with spirit--it is always the essence or spirit of an idea or fact which is sought to be conveyed to the mind, and not the mere literal clothing of that idea or fact. This essence or spirit of the idea is the grain of true wheat alone needed; the form is simply the husk that clothes it for a temporary purpose, and must of necessity fall away from it as a dead thing. 'In this material, matter-of-fact age, literal truth,' says the Rev. James Smith, 'the lowest of all truths in one sense, is generally regarded as the highest. But they are superficial thinkers who dabble only in literal truth or physical truth.' This is a knowledge of Law Spiritual, without which progress is impossible for the student of psychology."

THE IDEA, NOT WORDS, CONVEYED.--If the idea was sent through the psychic-ether, as a wave of thought, it would translate itself into language, and the language of the receiving mind would be the one into which it would be translated. It would pa.s.s through s.p.a.ce as the essence of thought, and the sensitive recipient would clothe it with the garments of words.

Wm. Howitt, on his visit to Australia, had a dream which he regarded as having great importance as a fact in Mental Science. He says:

"Some weeks ago, while yet at sea, I had a dream of being at my brother's at Melbourne, and found his house on a hill at the further end of the town, next to the open forest. The garden sloped a little way down the hill to some brick buildings below; and there were greenhouses on the right hand by the wall as you looked down the hill from the house. As I looked out the windows in my dream, I saw a wood of dusky-foliaged trees, having a segregated appearance in their heads; that is, their heads did not make that dense ma.s.s like our woods.

'There!' said I, addressing some one in my dream, 'I see your native forest of Eucalyptus!' This dream I told to my sons, and to two of our fellow-pa.s.sengers, at the time, and on landing, as we walked over the meadows, long before we reached the town, I saw this very wood. 'There!'

I exclaimed, 'is the very wood of my dream. We shall see my brother's house there.' And so we did. It stood exactly as I saw it, only looking newer; but there, over the wall of the garden, is the wood exactly as I saw it and now see it, as I sit at the dining-room window writing. When I look upon this scene I seem to look into my dream."

This mysterious perception of scenes and events which, after perhaps years, come before the dreamer or enter into his life, is supported by ample testimony.

In the _Spiritual Magazine_, 1871, the author, speaking of this dream, gives further curious details:

"In a vision at sea, some thousand miles from Melbourne, I not only clearly saw my brother's home and the landscape around it, but also saw things in direct opposition to news received before leaving England. It was said that all the men were gone to the gold-fields, and that even the Governor and Chief-Justice had no men-servants left. But I now saw abundance of men in the streets of Melbourne, and many sitting on doorsteps asking employment.... When in the street before my brother's house, we saw swarms of men, and some actually sitting on steps, seeking work. All was so exactly as I had described, that great was the astonishment of my companions."

If we were to regard sleep, after the common usage, as a simple state, dreams, visions, thought transference, and the appearance of a person while living at a distance, become a ma.s.s of irreconcilable details. But this is a wholly erroneous view of the character of sleep. It is one of the most complex and changeful conditions, ranging from the disturbed doze of the overweary, to the most sensitive clairvoyance. It will be seen that many of the so-called dreams are really visions received in a more sensitive condition than is furnished during the waking hours.

Dreams.