(1) cases in which someone was surprised to see an apparition of someone thought to be alive, only to soon find out the person had died about the time the apparition was seen (examples such as we can read here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here);
(2) cases in which an apparition was seen by more than one observer (examples such as we can read here, here, here, here and here).
In the annals of parapsychology, there are some interesting apparition cases that fall outside of such categories. One such case is the remarkable one discussed on page 102 of Volume 1 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. We read the following:
"At the beginning of our researches we received tidings of a ghost which had been seen within the last few years by an artist at his studio·in Chelsea. Having obtained an introduction, two of our number called upon him, and received from him a very striking and circumstantial account of his experiences. The apparition was seen in broad daylight; it appeared to him, during his three years' tenancy of the·studio, over a hundred times. He was in his ordinary health throughout this period, and neither before nor since had ever seen anything of the kind. The circumstances were such as to preclude all possibility of' deception, and the figure itself was so distinct and lifelike that he·succeeded in producing a portrait of it. A rough sketch of this portrait-which is now in the possession of the Society-represents a young man of about twenty-five, with the right arm torn away from the shoulder, and a strangely mournful, pleading expression in the eyes. Our informant was perfectly clear in his account; and the minute·examination to which we subjected him failed to disclose any inconsistencies. Further, it was impossible to question his good faith. That he was fully convinced he did actually see what he described to us is a matter which, in our judgment, does not admit of doubt."
This account is very untypical in the sense that normally an apparition will appear only once to an observer. But here we have someone claiming to have seen an apparition over a hundred times.
"Towards the end of March, 1878, in the dead of the night, while believing myself to be awake, I thought the door at the head of my bed was opened and a white figure passed along the side of the bed to the foot, where it faced about and showed me it was covered head and all in a shroud. Then with its hands it suddenly parted the shroud over the face, revealing between its two hands the face of my sister, who was ill in another room. I exclaimed her name, whereupon the figure vanished instantly. Next day (and certainly
on account of the shock given me by the above experience), I called in Sir W. Jenner, who said my sister had not many days to live."
On page 48 of his book Death and Its Mystery: At the Hour of Death by the astronomer Camille Flammarion, we read of another case of an apparition of someone who was still alive. He quotes this report from an English correspondent:
"For some days a report has spread that a suite of the House of Conmions, giving upon the speaker's courtyard, was haunted. Nothing was said as to whether the specter had ever ventured into the lobbies of the House. Several members of Parliament grew uneasy. The truth was at last discovered. The phantom is not a ghost, but the double of a person still living. And this person is none other than the wife of one of the principal office-holders of Westminster Palace, Mr. Archibald Milman, secretary of the House of Commons (at a salary of 38,000 francs). Mrs. Milman tells in these words the story of her specter: 'The strangest thing about it is that it is true. It has lasted for years. I am afflicted with another self, that people meet in places where I am not. The other day a friend took leave of me in the work-room in which I give myself up to a passion for binding books. Scarcely had he stepped out at the door, when he found me again on the landing of the stairway. Dumfounded, he shrank aside to let me pass. I had not stirred....This very day a young woman living with us saw me in the courtyard, without my having left the house.' "
On page 63 of his book Death and Its Mystery: At the Hour of Death by the astronomer Camille Flammarion, we read of another case of an apparition of someone who was still alive. Some people tried an experiment in which one person tried to project an apparition of himself so that another person could see it. This reportedly resulted in just such an apparition being seen at the arranged time, by not just one person but two people. On page 69 Flammarion cites another such experiment. A male tried an experiment in which he tried to project his image to a female. The female saw an apparition corresponding to the male, and was so shocked that she fainted. On page 70 Flammarion discusses a similar experiment in which Frederic Myers attempted to project an apparition of himself to Stainton Moses. Moses reported that the experiment succeeded, and that at the time such an attempt was made, Moses saw an apparition of Myers.
Based on these accounts and others he cites, Flammarion stated this on page 66: "It can no longer be doubted that human beings possess fluid phantasms which may, under certain conditions, become visible and tangible."
On page 126 of the book Contact with the Other World by James H. Hyslop, we have another account suggesting the idea of an apparition of someone appearing before the person died:
The account below is from page 33 of the Volume 7 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. We read of an accidental death, and a woman's vision of that death. After reading that while working on a tug boat an Edmund Dunn "fell or was thrown overboard by the towline, and drowned," we read this account by a Mrs. Paquet who was Edmund's sister:
"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.' At about half- past ten a. m. my husband received a telegram from Chicago, announcing the drowning of my brother."
It is not very rare for people to see an apparition of someone appearing at about the time the person died. I have collected more than 200 such accounts, which you can read using the links I gave earlier in this post. But it is rare for someone to see an apparition that is rather like a scene displaying how the person died.
Another rare type of apparition is the one described below on page 94 of his book Death and Its Mystery: At the Hour of Death by the astronomer Camille Flammarion. We read an account by a Antoine Hornung of Geneva:
"One morning, some months ago, when I was in bed, wide awake, my eyes turned toward a mirror near me. In one of its panels I saw, very distinctly, the head and features of a person whom I had known very well some years before, — a most friendly relationship which had been broken off in consequence of calamitous circumstances. This person had left Geneva for her own distant country, and I had never had any news of her. When I saw her in the mirror looking at me fixedly, I felt, though frightened, a certain happiness; I sat up in bed, talking to her, asking her if it were really she. Her features, rather hard, softened, her eyelids fluttered with pleasure, and a peaceful smile appeared on her lips. I kept on looking at her, but the vision vanished. Some days afterward, I learned that this person had died at that precise date."
The "learning of someone's death through an apparition" is one I have read countless times before, but this is the first time I can recall reading of someone seeing an apparition in a mirror. Another way in which an apparition can "break the mold" is when an apparition of someone appears shortly before the person's death, rather than at the same time or shortly thereafter. One case of such a thing appears on pages 440-441 of Volume 11 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. We read the following:
"A white figure passed along the side of the bed to the foot, where it faced about and showed me it was covered head and all in a shroud. Then with its hands it suddenly parted the shroud over the face, revealing between its two hands the face of my sister, who was ill in another room. I exclaimed her name, whereupon the figure vanished instantly. Next day (and certainly on account of the shock given me by the above experience), I called in Sir W. Jenner, who said my sister had not many days to live. (She died, in fact, very soon afterwards.)"
On page 123 of the book Death and Its Mystery: At the Hour of Death by the astronomer Camille Flammarion, we have an account told by a Madame Dobelmann. Again, we read of an apparition of someone appearing not at the moment of that person's death, but somewhat beforehand (in this case, a single day earlier). We read the following:
"My friend Madame Turban was taking care of a younger sister who was ill... Soon they lost hope of saving her. One Sunday afternoon she expressed to her sister her great regret at never having heard her fiance, the pastor several leagues from there, preach. She fell into catalepsy, and lay for two hours as one dead. When she awakened she told of having seen her fiance, and of having heard him preach in such and such a way. She died the next day. After the burial Madame Turban asked the fiance if on Sunday afternoon he had preached on such and such a subject. Stmck by her question, and very much surprised, he asked, 'How do you know that!' — 'Your fiance told me.' — 'It's very strange,' he answered. 'Just imagine — in the middle of my sermon I thought I saw a white form enter the church, which resembled my fiance; she sat down in an empty seat in the midst of the assembly, and disappeared toward the end of the service.' "
On page 309 of the book Apparitions and Thought Transference by Frank Podmore, we have an account of an apparition sighting that is very unusual in that the person seeing the apparition did not recognize the person corresponding to the apparition, but only identified the person after seeing a photo of the person. Here is the account:
"The facts are simply these. I was sleeping in a hotel in
Madeira in January 1885. It was a bright moonlight night.
The windows were open and the blinds up. I felt some one was
in my room. On opening my eyes, I saw a young fellow about
twenty-five, dressed in flannels, standing at the side of my bed
and pointing with the first finger of his right hand to the place I was lying in. I lay for some seconds to convince myself of some one being really there. I then sat up and looked at him. I saw his features so plainly that I recognised them in a photograph which was shown me some days after. I asked him what he wanted ; he did not speak, but his eyes and hand seemed to tell me I was in his place. As he did not answer, I struck out at him with my fist as I sat up, but did not reach him, and as I was going to spring out of bed he slowly vanished through the door, which was shut, keeping his eyes upon me all the time. Upon inquiry I found that the young fellow who appeared to me died in that room I was occupying."
"The knock was heard by both mother and daughter. On opening the door with the least loss of time possible, my grandmother was surprised to find not only no one there, but no one even in the long corridor which led to the drawing room. My mother distinctly remembered the look of astonishment in her mother’s face as she returned from the door. Nothing more was said on the subject, but in a short time afterwards a letter was received from London from my
grandmother’s sister, saying that she (the sister) had been most seriously ill, at death’s door indeed, but was now a little better, and wished my grandmother to come and see her. The latter went up to town and found her sister still very ill, but slowly recovering. After the mutual endearments natural to such an occasion, my grandmother said: ‘Do you know, such a strange thing occurred, exactly at the time, it seems, when you were supposed to be dead or dying.’ ‘I know what you are going to say,’ said the other. ‘ When I was in the trance which was mistaken for death, I thought I went to your house in the Isle of Wight and knocked at your drawing room door. You opened it instantly and looked much affrighted at not seeing me or any one, though I saw you.’ The singular point in the story is the anticipation by the one sister of what the other was going to say."
The account below is from page 33 of the Volume 7 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. We read of an accidental death, and a woman's vision of that death. After reading that while working on a tug boat an Edmund Dunn "fell or was thrown overboard by the towline, and drowned," we read this account by a Mrs. Paquet who was Edmund's sister:
"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.' At about half- past ten a. m. my husband received a telegram from Chicago, announcing the drowning of my brother."
It is not very rare for people to see an apparition of someone appearing at about the time the person died. I have collected more than 200 such accounts, which you can read using the links I gave earlier in this post. But it is rare for someone to see an apparition that is rather like a scene displaying how the person died.
Another rare type of apparition is the one described below on page 94 of his book Death and Its Mystery: At the Hour of Death by the astronomer Camille Flammarion. We read an account by a Antoine Hornung of Geneva:
"One morning, some months ago, when I was in bed, wide awake, my eyes turned toward a mirror near me. In one of its panels I saw, very distinctly, the head and features of a person whom I had known very well some years before, — a most friendly relationship which had been broken off in consequence of calamitous circumstances. This person had left Geneva for her own distant country, and I had never had any news of her. When I saw her in the mirror looking at me fixedly, I felt, though frightened, a certain happiness; I sat up in bed, talking to her, asking her if it were really she. Her features, rather hard, softened, her eyelids fluttered with pleasure, and a peaceful smile appeared on her lips. I kept on looking at her, but the vision vanished. Some days afterward, I learned that this person had died at that precise date."
The "learning of someone's death through an apparition" is one I have read countless times before, but this is the first time I can recall reading of someone seeing an apparition in a mirror. Another way in which an apparition can "break the mold" is when an apparition of someone appears shortly before the person's death, rather than at the same time or shortly thereafter. One case of such a thing appears on pages 440-441 of Volume 11 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. We read the following:
"A white figure passed along the side of the bed to the foot, where it faced about and showed me it was covered head and all in a shroud. Then with its hands it suddenly parted the shroud over the face, revealing between its two hands the face of my sister, who was ill in another room. I exclaimed her name, whereupon the figure vanished instantly. Next day (and certainly on account of the shock given me by the above experience), I called in Sir W. Jenner, who said my sister had not many days to live. (She died, in fact, very soon afterwards.)"
On page 123 of the book Death and Its Mystery: At the Hour of Death by the astronomer Camille Flammarion, we have an account told by a Madame Dobelmann. Again, we read of an apparition of someone appearing not at the moment of that person's death, but somewhat beforehand (in this case, a single day earlier). We read the following:
"My friend Madame Turban was taking care of a younger sister who was ill... Soon they lost hope of saving her. One Sunday afternoon she expressed to her sister her great regret at never having heard her fiance, the pastor several leagues from there, preach. She fell into catalepsy, and lay for two hours as one dead. When she awakened she told of having seen her fiance, and of having heard him preach in such and such a way. She died the next day. After the burial Madame Turban asked the fiance if on Sunday afternoon he had preached on such and such a subject. Stmck by her question, and very much surprised, he asked, 'How do you know that!' — 'Your fiance told me.' — 'It's very strange,' he answered. 'Just imagine — in the middle of my sermon I thought I saw a white form enter the church, which resembled my fiance; she sat down in an empty seat in the midst of the assembly, and disappeared toward the end of the service.' "
On page 309 of the book Apparitions and Thought Transference by Frank Podmore, we have an account of an apparition sighting that is very unusual in that the person seeing the apparition did not recognize the person corresponding to the apparition, but only identified the person after seeing a photo of the person. Here is the account:
"The facts are simply these. I was sleeping in a hotel in
Madeira in January 1885. It was a bright moonlight night.
The windows were open and the blinds up. I felt some one was
in my room. On opening my eyes, I saw a young fellow about
twenty-five, dressed in flannels, standing at the side of my bed
and pointing with the first finger of his right hand to the place I was lying in. I lay for some seconds to convince myself of some one being really there. I then sat up and looked at him. I saw his features so plainly that I recognised them in a photograph which was shown me some days after. I asked him what he wanted ; he did not speak, but his eyes and hand seemed to tell me I was in his place. As he did not answer, I struck out at him with my fist as I sat up, but did not reach him, and as I was going to spring out of bed he slowly vanished through the door, which was shut, keeping his eyes upon me all the time. Upon inquiry I found that the young fellow who appeared to me died in that room I was occupying."
On pages 156-157 of the book Contact with the Other World by James H. Hyslop, we have an account of a daughter who (when she did not know her mother was dead) saw an unusual apparition of her mother: one in which her mother appeared dead (not ghost-like as in a typical apparition sighting), and in which a remote scene appeared as if a movie had been projected on a wall:
"The wall opposite me seemed to open, and I saw my mother lying dead on her bed in her little house....Some flowers were at her side and on her breast: she looked calm, but unmistakably dead, and the coffin was there. It was so real that I could scarcely believe that the wall was really brick and mortar, and not a transparent window — in fact, it was a wall dividing the hotel in which we were living from the Carabinieri."
On page 159 of the same book, we have this unusual account by an A. B. Weymouth who had made a pact with a Jennie D. that whoever died first would appear to the other:
"On Saturday evening, October 22, 1910, I retired to rest soon after nine o’clock. After refreshing sleep I awoke, with the impression that something unusual was about to happen. Then I distinctly heard a voice saying: ‘Jennie D. is coming.’ A few moments later, something like a bright cloud appeared in my bedroom. In the midst of the cloud I recognized the form of my long lost friend. While hovering in the air she sang two verses sweetly. Then other spirit forms appeared (the faces not recognized) and joined in the refrain. I had never heard the words or the music before; and I regret that I cannot recall the words. They were very beautiful and so was the melody.
When the music ceased, the bright cloud and the celestial visitors disappeared and my room was dark again."
The account "breaks the mold" both in its musical aspect and also in there appearing multiple apparitions rather than just one.
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