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Sunday, July 19, 2020

They Also Seemed to Know of Deaths They Should Not Have Known Of

In my 2014 post "They Seemed to Know of Deaths They Should Not Have Known Of," I summarized twenty cases of people who reported seeing an apparition or vision of someone who had died, but whose death was unknown to the person seeing the apparition or vision.  I was summarizing cases discussed in a paper by Bruce Greyson.  More than 175 additional cases of this type can be found in my posts below (most involving an apparition sighting at about the same time as someone died, often on the same day and hour):

25 Who Were "Ghost-Told" of a Death

25 More Who Were "Ghost-Told" of a Death


Below are some additional cases of this type. 

On page 72 of Volume 1 (Number 1) of the Psychical Review (1892), we read an account of a woman who "ghost-learned" of another woman's death at about 9:50 PM on October 4:

"It was now October 4...They were both awakened out of their sleep by their mother, who came and told them that their Aunt Melinda was dead, for she had just seen her standing in the doorway, in her nightdress. They noted the time, and it was 9.50 p. m. In those days there were no telegraphs. The mails, even, were very irregular, and the post-office was four miles away. They had heard nothing to make them think that their aunt was any nearer death than she had been for a long time. Three days after, i. e., on October 7, news came that Mrs. C. had passed away on the evening of October 4, after being dressed for bed. At 9.30 they had left her for a few moments, sitting comfortably in her chair. At 10 they returned and found her dead, and they said she looked as though she had been dead for some minutes. Of course when they sent this news, they knew nothing of the fact that, by some subtle express, they had been anticipated by at least three days."

On page 78 of the same volume is a similar story of a veridical apparition. On page 84 of the book Hidden Channels of the Mind by Louisa Rhine, we read an account of someone who learned of the death of his friend by seeing an apparition:

"One day while I was shaving, Earl stood before me in his army uniform and looked me over for a few minutes and then disappeared. I informed my parents at the time that I had seen him and that I felt he had been killed and had returned to me. Several weeks later I found out that he had been killed in action at the time he appeared to me."

On page 87 of his book Death and Its Mystery: At the Hour of Death by the astronomer Camille Flammarion, we read of a man who was suprised to see an apparition of his brother-in-law:

"I saw on the other side of it my brother-in-law, to whom I was greatly attached....He smiled and waved  to me. I told my comrade to look at the apparition, but he saw nothing, and when I wished to fix my gaze upon it again it had disappeared. Greatly depressed, I went up to my uncle's home and told him what I had just seen. He pulled out his watch: it was ten minutes past one. Two days afterward I got a letter from my father, telling me of the death of my brother-in-law, which had occurred at precisely that time."

On page 60 of Volume 11 of the of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we have the following account of a veridical apparition, narrated by the father of Edgardo:

"I found Edgardo complaining of a headache. It was the beginning of a malady that sometimes assumed the character of a pernicious fever, sometimes that of a typhoid, but which really presented all the symptoms of the bubonic plague and terminated fatally after nine days of suffering. Up to the last moments my son was conscious. He took leave of his mother and me about an hour before he expired, and he again embraced us a few minutes before the end. The death agony had not yet ceased when Senr. Franklin, a neighbour of ours, with whom, however, we were not on very intimate terms, rushed into our house exclaiming, ' I am not a spiritist, Senr. Joppert, but your son came to take leave of me !' Senr. Franklin remained with us and was present at the death of my son, which took place at 7 o'clock in the morning of August 10th, 1901.Edgardo had not yet completed his twentieth year. We afterwards heard that at the hour of his death Senr. Lage's 
daughter Deolinda also received a warning. She was yet in her room, and having to attend to a child, lighted a candle. The candle, however, went out of its own accord and she felt both her hands grasped."

On page 213-page 214 of Volume 4 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we have the following account of a veridical apparition:

"I have noted down the remarkable incident I mentioned. The time of its occurrence was in the early part of July, 1885, between 1 and 2 in the morning. I was wide awake, not having slept at all, when all of a sudden I was startled by a bright light, and I saw at my bedside a tall figure, and distinctly recognised the face of a valued old friend who resided many miles from my home. He was earnestly gazing at me, and on vanishing from my sight the room became dark as before. My sister, who occupied the  next room, on hearing me make an exclamation, came in and found me striking a light, when I told her whom I had seen. Strange to say we received an early communication from a member of his family acquainting us that our dear old friend had passed away at the very time he appeared to me."

On page 85-86 of his book Death and Its Mystery: At the Hour of Death by the astronomer Camille Flammarion, we read of another veridical apparition. On May 31, 1895 a soldier died in an accident. On the same day his very young goddaughter reported seeing the soldier in front of her. Her mother thought it was just childish imagination, but soon received a telegram telling her that the soldier had died on the same day.  

In Volume 7 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, page 33, we are given the details of the drowning death of Edmund Dunn, brother of Agnes Paquet, involving a rope called a towline: "While adjusting the towline Mr. Dunn fell or was thrown overboard by the towline, and drowned." Here is the narrative given by Agnes Paquet of what she saw on the same morning:

"I went into the pantry, took down the tea canister, and as I turned around my brother Edmund — or his exact image — stood before me and only a few feet away. The apparition stood with back toward me, or, rather, partially so, and was in the act of falling forward — away from me — seemingly impelled by two ropes or a loop of rope drawing against his legs. The vision lasted but a moment, disappearing over a low railing or bulwark, but was very distinct. I dropped the tea, clasped my hands to my face, and exclaimed, 'My God! Ed. is drowned.' "

On the next page we read this comment on the case by Henry Sidgwick: "Here Mrs. Paquet not only had a vivid impression of her brother within a few hours of his death — not only knew that he was dead — but saw a more or less accurate representation of the scene of his death." 

On pages 221-224 of the book Psychical Research by Sir William Barrett, we read about the trance writings of Stainton Moses, who while in a trance would produce "spirit writings" in handwriting far different from his own.  We read this on page 224:

"There is evidence in Mr. Moses' script of supernormal knowledge. In three cases he had distinct prevision of a death before the news was generally known. One was the death of President Garfield twelve hours before even a rumour of it had reached England. Another was that of a man who threw himself under a steam-roller in Baker Street, London. A former member of the S.P.R. Council, well known to me, was with Mr. Moses at the time, and has narrated the whole occurrence. Mr. Moses' hand suddenly drew a rough sketch of some horsed vehicle, and then wrote : 'I killed myself to-day, Baker Street ; ' after which, passing into a trance, Mr. Moses, greatly agitated, said : 'Yes, yes, killed myself to-day under a steam-roller — yes, yes, killed myself.'  No one present knew what this meant, but later on, an evening paper related that a cabman had that day committed suicide in Baker Street by throwing himself under a steam-roller."


A steam roller

Cases such as these (and countless other cases of paranormal phenomena) are innumerable. But we do not hear about such cases in our mainstream media news sources.  Such sources keep their readers in filter bubbles so that the readers only read stories about the world behaving as they expect the world to behave.  Similarly, you almost never hear on the Fox News TV channel about things contrary to the prevailing beliefs of Republicans, and you  almost never hear on the MSNBC TV channel about things contrary to the prevailing beliefs of Democrats.  And in the old Soviet Union, when you picked up your daily edition of Pravda, you would never read about the many in the gulag camps, and never read about  people waiting in line for hours to get some groceries. So when a person hears about some paranormal incident and says, "Things like that don't happen," it is usually because that person has got his news and education only from places that prevented him from learning about such occurrences. 

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