In late October of every year we have the annual ritual of people decorating their houses in a spooky fashion, and also the annual ritual of children going "trick or treating" from door to door, ending up with bags of candy. There is also in late October a kind of annual ritual of people who are not scholars of the paranormal publishing ignorant unscholarly articles trying to explain away reports of apparitions and ghosts, through implausible explanations such as mold exposure, drafts, carbon monoxide or low-frequency sound. A careful scholar of apparition sightings would have discovered the fact that they mainly occur during death-bed visions, because a significant fraction of dying people report seeing apparitions of their relatives.
Some examples of deathbed visions can be found here and here and here. A survey of family members of deceased Japanese found that 21% reported deathbed visions. A study of 103 subjects in India reports this: "Thirty of these dying persons displayed behavior consistent with deathbed visions-interacting or speaking with deceased relatives, mostly their dead parents." A study of 102 families in the Republic of Moldava found that "37 cases demonstrated classic features of deathbed visions--reports of seeing dead relatives or friends communicating to the dying person." Such deathbed visions typically occur in normal clean warm hospital or hospice rooms, or normal modern houses, not moldy drafty old houses or weird places suffering from low-frequency "infrasound" or carbon monoxide poisoning.
Among the principal scholarly works typically never read by the dilettante authors of such late October dismissive articles is the massive two volume work Phantasms of the Living by Edmund Gurney, Frederic Myers and Frank Podmore. Volume One of the work can be read online here, and Volume Two of the work can be read here. A significant fraction of the 700+ cases reported in that two-volume work are cases in which someone reports seeing or hearing an apparition of a particular person they did not know was dead, only to find out later that just such a person had died on about the same day or exactly the same day (and often on the same hour and day). I found more than 75 such cases in "Phantasms of the Living." I have cited many of those cases in the series of posts you can read below:
An Apparition Was Their Death Notice
25 Who Were "Ghost-Told" of a Death
25 More Who Were "Ghost-Told" of a Death
A long and very interesting article about the "Phantasms of the Living" volumes appeared in an 1890 edition of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. The article entitled "A Defense of Phantasms of the Living" was written by Frederic Myers, one of the three co-authors of "Phantasms of the Living." You can read the article here. The appendix of the article has three accounts that collectively offer substantial evidence for life after death.
In the article Myers criticizes some attempts by his co-author Frank Podmore to explain the cases in Phantasms of the Living as mainly mere examples of telepathy. Podmore attempted to explain the book's many cases in which a person reported seeing an apparition of someone he did not know was dead or dying, and later found that the person had died at about the same time the apparition was seen. Podmore tried to suggest that such cases were a kind of "burst of telepathy" produced by the dying person. On page 315 Myers states this:
"For Mr. Podmore starts from a thorough belief in the reality of telepathy between living men, and endeavours to explain the so-called phantasms of the dead as being in reality generated by minds still clothed in flesh. His explanations, as he frankly admits, are many of them 'far-fetched and improbable' ; but he regards them as less far-fetched, as less improbable, than the supposition that anything in man survives the tomb."
On page 318 Myers makes a good point about ideas such as this, stating this about telepathy: "I probably go beyond Mr. Podmore in holding that the simplest case of true thought-transference, if once admitted, breaks down the purely physiological synthesis of man, and opens a doorway out of materialism which can never again be shut." Any capability of a human to transmit thoughts at a distance to someone else far away is a capability that would be utterly incompatible with claims that the human mind is merely the product of a brain. We can state it this way: telepathy is a soul capability, and cannot be a brain capability. The utter incompatibility of any notion of telepathy with materialist ideas of the body is one reason why materialists have been so stubborn about refusing to accept the overwhelming laboratory evidence for telepathy (discussed here, here and here). Such materialists seem to realize that once you concede that humans can transmit thoughts to other humans telepathically, it is pretty much "game over" for any claim of materialism or any claim that minds are purely the product of brains. The intransigent denialism of materialists about accepting 200 years of strong evidence for ESP is a reminder of the true situation: once telepathy is established, then the non-material origin of the mind is all but proven.
This is why a "dying spasm of telepathy" theory such as Podmore's is futile. If you concede that humans are capable of very strong bursts of telepathy, so strong as to cause an image to appear in the mind of another person, you are then in a territory in which it makes no sense to be denying something like a human soul that can survive death. Similarly, once you conceded that someone can throw a baseball from the back of an outfield to the infield, you will not be plausible in claiming the same person could not throw a football 40 meters.
A point not made by Myers against Podmore's theory is that it is rather ridiculous to think that some dying person would tend to have some ability to release some stupendous burst of telepathy, showing a power he lacked during his ordinary healthy life. Believing such a thing would be rather like thinking that just before people die, they gain the ability to stand up above the ground, supported only by their hand pressing against the ground.
On page 336 Myers points out that in quite a few cases we have not merely an apparition of a person who died, but cases of someone stating (with or without an apparition) that he has already died. Such cases are incompatible with any theory that apparitions arise merely from some strange spasm of telepathy from a dying person. I will not summarize in full the rebuttals of Podmore which Myers made. Instead I will describe some extremely interesting cases Myers presents in the Appendix of his article, to support his claims.
On page 341 Myers gives a Case #1 in which we read a letter from Karl Dignowity, who states this on December 12, 1889, describing an apparition he saw at night, of a brewer named Wunscher:
"Still thinking on it I hear Wunscher's voice scolding outside, just under my window. I sit up in my bed at once and listen, but cannot understand his words. What can the brewer want ? I thought, and I know for certain that I was much vexed with him, that he should make a disturbance in the night, as I felt convinced that his affairs might surely have waited till the morrow. Suddenly he comes into the room from behind the linen press, steps with long strides past the bed of my wife and the child's bed ; wildly gesticulating with his arms all the time, as his habit was, he called out, 'What do you say to this, Herr Oberamtmann ? This afternoon at five o'clock I have died.' Startled by this information, I exclaim, 'Oh, that is not true !' He replied: 'Truly, as I tell you; and, what do you think ? They want to bury me already on Tuesday afternoon at two o'clock,' accentuating his assertions all the while by his gesticulations. During this long speech of my visitor, I examined myself as to whether I was really awake and not. dreaming. I asked myself: Is this a hallucination ? Is my mind in full possession of its faculties ? Yes, there is the light, there the jug, this is the mirror and this the brewer ;-and I came to the conclusion: I am awake...I impart this experience to the Society for Psychical Research, in the belief that it may serve as a new proof for the real existence of telepathy. I must further remark, that the brewer had died that afternoon at five o'clock and was buried on the following Tuesday at two."
Here is a case that cannot be explained under any theory that apparitions arise from some burst of telepathy produced by dying people -- for why would a dying man say that he was already dead? Case #2 in the appendix of the Myers article is just as noteworthy. On page 343 of his article he quotes a case that appeared in the German journal Psychische Studien (page 67 of the Volume 16, 1889, which can be read here). I will quote the translation that Myers provides. I got a semantically equivalent translation when I copied text from page 67 of that edition into Google Translate, using German as the translation language. The narrator is M. Aksakof.
"On January 19th, 1887 I received a visit from the engineer Kaigorodoff, who resides in Wilna. He narrated to me the following circumstances. He had as governess for his children Mdlle. Emma Stramm, a Swiss, from the town of Neufchatel, who possessed the gift of automatic writing. At a seance held at nine o'clock on the evening of January 15th, at the house of Herr Kaigorodoff, at Wilna, the following communication was given in French in his presence. I have been shown the original, and quote this from a copy of it.
The medium, who was in her normal state, asked :- 'Is Lydia here ?' (This was a personality which had manifested itself at previous sittings.)
'No, Louis is here, and wishes to impart a piece of news.. to his sister.'
' What is it ?'
'A person of thy acquaintance passed away...about three o'clock to-day.'
' What am I to understand by this ?'
'That is to say, he is dead.'
'Who?'
'August Duvanel.'
'What was his illness?'
'The formation of a clot of blood...Pray for the redemption of his soul.'
Two weeks later, Herr Kaigorodoff, who was again in Petersburg, showed me a letter from David Stramm, the father of the medium, dated from Neufchtel, on January 18th, 1887 ....thus written three days after the death of Duvanel. This letter was received at Wilna on January 23rd. In it her father informs her of the event in the following words. I copy them literally from the original :-- ' My much loved daughter...August Duvanel died on January 15th, about three o'clock in the afternoon. It was, so to speak, a sudden death, for he had only been ill a few hours. He was attacked by blood-clotting ... when he was at the bank. He spoke very little, and everything that he said was for thee. He commended himself to thy prayers. These were his last words. "
The case here involves no apparition, but seems weighty as evidence. At a seance on the evening of January 15th, word is received (supposedly from Louis, a deceased brother of the medium) that one August Devanel died on that day (January 15th), of blood clotting (something that can kill people suddenly because blood clotting can lead to sudden fatal pulmonary embolisms). Not long after, notification is received by writing that this exact person did suddenly die on January 15th, from blood clotting.
Case #5 cited by Myers in the appendix of his article is just as noteworthy. On page 337 he cites M. Aksakof as the source of the case, stating he believes he is publishing it for the first time. On page 355 we read this:
"Document 1.-Copy of report of seance held November 18th, 1887, in the house of M. Nartzeff, at Tambof, Russia...The sitting began at 10 p.m. at a table placed in the middle of the room, by the light of a night-light placed on the mantelpiece. All doors closed...Sharp raps were heard in the floor, and afterwards in the wall and the ceiling, after which the blows sounded immediately in the middle of the table, as if someone had struck it from above with his fist; and with such violence, and so often, that the table trembled the whole time.
M. Nartzeff asked, 'Can you answer rationally, giving three raps for yes,. one for no ?'
' Yes.'
'Do you wish to answer by using the alphabet ?'
' Yes.'
' Spell your name.' The alphabet was repeated, and the letters indicated by three raps-' Anastasie Pereliguine.'
' I beg you to say now why you have come and what you desire.'
' I am a wretched woman. Pray for me. Yesterday, during the day, I died at the hospital. The day before yesterday I poisoned myself with matches.'
'Give us some details about yourself. How old were you ? Give a rap for each year.' Seventeen raps.
'Who were you ?"
'I was housemaid. I poisoned myself with matches.'
'Why did you poison yourself ? '
'I will not say. I will say nothing more.'
After this, a heavy table which was near the wall, outside the chain of bands, came up rapidly three times, towards the table round which the chain was made, and each time it was pushed backwards, no one knew by what means. Seven raps (the signal agreed upon for the close of the sitting) were now heard in the wall; and at 11.20 p.m. the s6ance came to an end. Signed, A. SLEPZOF, N. TOULOUCHEFF, A. NARTZEFF, A. IVANOF."
On page 356 of the article there is a Document II on this case, dated April 6th, 1890, in which all four of the witnesses above state that they had no previous knowledge of the death of Anastasie Pereliguine. On page 356 of the article there is a Document 3 on this case, dated April 15th, 1890, written by N. Touloucheff, one of the signed witnesses listed above:
"At the sitting held at M. Nartzeff's house, November 18th, 1887, we received a communication from an intelligence giving the name of Anastasie Pereliguine. She asked us to pray for her; and said that she had poisoned herself with lucifer matches, and had died on the 17th of that month. At the first moment I did not believe this ; for in my capacity as physician of the municipality I am at once informed by the police of all cases of suicide. But since Pereliguine had added that her death had taken place at the hospital and since at Tambof we have only one hospital, that of the 'Institutiona de Bienfaisance,' which is in no way within my official survey, and whose authorities, in such cases as this, themselves send for the police or the magistrate ; I sent a letter to my colleague, Dr. Sundblatt, the head physician of this hospital. Without explaining my reason I simply asked him to inform me whether there had been any recent case of suicide at the hospital, and, if so, to give me the name and particulars. I have already sent you a copy of his reply, certified by Dr. Sundblatt's own signature. The original is at M. Nartzeff's house, with the protocols of the seances. Tambof, rue du Seminaire. N. TOULOUCHEFF."
Document 4 (reproduced on page 356) was a reply by Dr. Sundblatt, dated November 19, 1897:
"My dear Colleague, — On the 16th of this month I was on duty ; and on that day two patients were admitted to the hospital, who had poisoned themselves with phosphorus. The first, Vera Kosovitch, aged 38, wife of a clerk in the public service . . . was taken in at 8 p.m. ; the second, a servant in the insane ward [a part of the hospital], Anastasie Pereliguine, aged 17, was taken in at 10 p.m. This second patient had swallowed, besides an infusion of boxes of matches, a glass of kerosine, and at the time of her admission was already very ill. She died at 1 p.m. on the 17th, and the post-mortem examination has been made to-day. Kosovitch died yesterday and the post-mortem is fixed for to-morrow. Kosovitch said that she had taken the phosphorus in an access of melancholy, but Pereliguine did not state her reason for poisoning herself."
So the seance witnesses reported that on November 18, 1897 Anastasie Pereliguine claimed through mysterious raps that she had killed herself by swallowing matches; and a prompt inquiry to a hospital revealed that a person with exactly that name did kill herself the previous day, by swallowing matches and kerosene. The links above go the original article stating these accounts, and require scrolling to the page numbers I have given. Anyone wishing to avoid the trouble of scrolling to the right pages can use the link here, which will take you to the exact spot where a 1924 book quotes these passages as I have done.
The topic of psychic phenomena and the paranormal is a topic of oceanic depth that requires deep efforts by investigators and long serious study by anyone who advises the public about the topic. The evidence accumulated by men such as Frederic Myers was extremely weighty, with Myers writing the 740-page tome Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death, which can be read here. Men such as Myers, Podmore and Gurney (and many of their colleagues at the Society for Psychical Research) did the leg work and face-to-face work and the scholarly work needed to seriously investigate reports of apparitions, with very fruitful results that it is folly for the modern age to ignore. There is no comparison between the efforts of such weighty figures and the unscholarly efforts of the "psychic phenomena dilettantes" who write the typical late October dismissive articles on apparition sightings, sounding just as if they were too lazy to do their homework. The difference is like the difference between major league baseball and little league baseball.
Postscript: The book Apparitions and Survival of Death by Raymond Bayless is an interesting book that can be read online. Chapter 13 of the book (which can be read using the link here) is entitled "Appartitions Showing Intelligence and Awareness." The chapter cites quite a few cases in which apparitions seemed to act like agents aware of where they were seen or people who observed the apparitions. Such accounts cast further doubt on attempts to explain apparitions as a kind of telepathic projection of a dying person.
On page 92 of a July 1951 edition of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, we read this account of an observer in Indianapolis, Indiana:
"One night after being asleep for three or four hours I was awakened by someone calling my name. I sat up in bed and there stood granddad. Very calmly he said, ‘Don’t be frightened, it’s only me. I have just died.’ I started to cry and reached across the bed to awaken my husband. Granddad continued. ‘This is how they will bury me.’ I saw him dressed with a black bow tie. ‘Just wanted to tell you I’ve been waiting to go ever since Ad was taken.’ Adaline was my grandmother who had been gone several years. My husband awoke and asked what was the matter. I told him my grandfather was just here and that he told me he had just died. My husband insisted it was a nightmare but I knew it wasn’t....My husband went to a public telephone on the corner and called my parents’ home in Wilmington to prove to me that 1 had been asleep, but my mother answered. She was surprised at the call and said she had been up most of the night. She was waiting to call us in the morning to let us know that Granddad had died at 4 :00 o’clock that morning.”
Another person corroborated the story:
"My son-in-law called our home in Wilmington from Indianapolis early in the morning of June 11, 1923, and told us Gladys woke him up and said my father had been there (Indianapolis) and told her he had just died. Gladys had always been my father’s favorite grandchild and we had promised her to let her know if and when he became seriously ill. (He made his home with us.) He took sick the day before. We called the doctor and thought he was going to be all right. The end came suddenly around four o’clock in the morning. We were going to wait until later in the morning to get in touch with Gladys ... I believe sincerely in the truth of this experience as my daughter writes it.” (Rev.) Walter E. Parker, Sr.
