When Apparitions Serve as Announcements

The New York Times is at it again this week, continuing its long tradition of giving us what usually seems like the worst coverage of any major newspaper on the topic of paranormal phenomena.  In the extremely rare cases in which the Times covers observations of the unexplained that it should be covering frequently, what we typically get in the Times is some text trying to persuade us there is no evidence for some phenomenon for which there is very much evidence. I won't link to their recent example of shame-the-witnesses gaslighting (on the topic of apparitions), but I will merely note that the New York Times is a paper that is very much "Pravda for materialists." For decades in the Soviet Union, communist dogmatists would open their daily copy of Pravda, which would always report that the world was working just exactly the way communist dogmatists expected it to be working. Such "party organ" tactics are also used by the New York Times, a paper that will typically use whatever information blocking, cherry picking, sophistry and distortion are needed so that a materialist reader will be assured that the world is working exactly as a materialist would expect. 

In this week's article on apparitions, the Times resorts to the old murderer-lawyer's trick of complaining about a lack of "scientific evidence."  Similarly, after hearing twenty witnesses say they saw the defendant strangle someone to death, the lawyer of the defendant might say that such evidence doesn't count because none of it is "scientific."  Most of the things that we believe to be certainly true (such as the facts of history and the fact that our parents are our parents) are things we did not learn from scientific evidence. So when you have very good observational evidence for something, it is sophistry to be trying to exclude such evidence because it didn't derive from scientific instruments.  After considering facts such as the fact that 18 percent of Americans claim to have encountered an apparition or ghost,  it is clear that the observational evidence for apparitions is very  strong, far stronger than any evidence for quite a few never-observed things scientists like to talk about, such as dark matter and dark energy. In the seven posts below I have described or quoted about 150 cases of someone experiencing something like a suprising apparition of someone, only to soon learn that the corresponding person had died, usually at about the same time the apparition was seen. The seven posts are below:

25 Who Were "Ghost-Told" of a Death

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

Yet Another 25 Who Were “Ghost-Told” of a Death

Scientific American's Very Lame "Ghost Explanations"

They Also Were "Ghost Told" of a Death

More Accounts of Veridical Apparitions

Even More Cases of Veridical Apparitions

In this post I will discuss additional cases of this type.  The links I will give will usually take you to the exact page of an account that I discuss or quote. 

On page 425 of Volume 15 of the Proceeedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have the following account:

"On December 4th, 1884, at half-past three in the morning, I was wide awake, and had just got up, when I saw very distinctly the apparition of my brother Joseph Bonnet, ensign in the 2nd regiment of Spahis, in garrison at Batna, in the province of Constantino (Algeria)....My brother kissed my forehead, I felt a cold shiver, and he said to me very distinctly, 'Good-bye, Angela, I am dead.' Very much touched and quite upset, I woke my husband at once, saying 'Joseph is dead ; he has just told me so.'...During the whole of that Thursday I was quite distracted. At  nine o'clock in this evening we received a telegram ; before opening it I knew its contents. My brother had died at Kenchela (Algeria) at three o'clock in the morning."

On page 91 of Volume 3 of the Proceeedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have the following account:

"On waking in broad daylight, I saw, like a shadowed reflection, a very long coffin stretching quite across the ceiling of my room, and as I lay gazing at it, and wondering at its length and whose it could foreshadow, my eyes fell on a shadowy figure of an absent nephew, with his back towards me, searching, as it were, in my book-shelf. That morning's post brought the news of his death in Australia. He was 6 foot 2 or 3 itiches in height, and a book had been my last present to him on his leaving England, taken from that very bookcase."

On page 54 of Volume 2 of the Proceeedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have the following account by the wife of a Mr. Bee:

"Mr. Bee then said. 'Well, a lady has passed me just 
now on the landing : she came out of the small bedroom and went downstairs ; she was dressed in a black bonnet and shawl.' I said. 'Nonsense, yon must be mistaken.' He said. 'I am certain I am not, and I can assure you I feel very queer.' I then went to ask mamma if there was anyone in the house, and she said no, only ourselves : still Mr. Bee insisted someone had passed him on the landing, although we tried to reason him out of it. In the morning, while we were in bed,we received a telegram stating that Mrs. Bee had died suddenly the night before. I said at once, 'Robert, that was your mother you saw saw last night.' He said it was.  When we got to Gainsborough we asked what time she died : we were told about 10 minutes to 8, which was the exact time: also that she was taken suddenly ill in the street (wearing at the time a black bonnet and shawl), and died in 10 minutes." 

On page 124 of Volume 1 of the Proceeedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have the following account by a John Addington Symonds:

"I woke about dawn, and felt for my books upon a chair between the bed and the window; when I knew that I must turn my head the other way, and there between me and the door stood Dr. Macleane, dressed in a clergyman's black clothes. He bent his sallow face a little towards me and said, 'I am going a long way -- take care of my son.' While I was attending to him I suddenly saw the door
in the place where Dr. Macleane had been. Dr. Macleane died that night·- (at what hour I cannot precisely say) at Clifton. My father, who was a great friend of his, was with him. I was not aware that he was more than usually ill. He was a chronic invalid." 

On page 124-125 of Volume 1 of the Proceeedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have the following account by Captain G. F. Russell Colt:

"That night I awoke suddenly, and saw facing the window of my room by my bedside, surrounded by a light sort of phosporescent mist as it were,  my brother kneeling...I decided that it must be fancy, and the moonlight playing on a towel, or something out of place. But on looking up there he was again, looking lovingly, imploringly, and sadly at me. I tried again to speak, but found myself tongue-tied. I could not utter a sound. I sprang out of bed, glanced through the window, and saw that there was no moon, but it was very dark and raining hard, by the sound against the panes. I turned, and still saw poor Oliver. I shut my eyes, walked through it and reached the door of the room. As I turned the handle, before leaving the room, I looked once more back. The apparition turned round his head slowly and again looked anxiously and lovingly at me, and I saw then for the first time a wound on the right temple with a red stream from it. His face was of a waxy pale tint, but transparent-looking, and so was the reddish  mark....I told others in the honse, but when I told my father he ordered me not to repeat such nonsense, and especially not to let my mother know. On the Monday following he received a note from Sir Alexander Milne to say that the Redan was stormed, but no particulars. I told my friend to let me know if he saw the name among the killed and wounded before me. About a fortnight later he came to my bedroom in his mother's house in Athole Crescent, in Edinburgh, with a very grave face. I said, 'I suppose it is to tell me the sad news I expect;' and he said, 'Yes.' Both the colonel of the regiment and one or two officers who saw the body confirmed the fact that the appearance was much according to my description, and the death wound was exactly where I had seen it. But none could say whether he actually died at the moment. His appearance, if so, must have been some hours after death, as he appeared to me a few minutes after two in the morning."

On the next few pages of the same volume are similar stories that I will pass over because they are not first-hand accounts.  But on page 128 of the same volume ( Volume 1 of the Proceeedings of the Society for Psychical Research), we have an account that is first-hand because it was written by Sarah Jardine:

"In 1833, Sarah and Margaret Jardine, daughters of a barrister on the Western Circuit, were girls of about ten and twelve respectively. They lived with their parents in a house in the suburbs of London, and their grandfather and grandmother on the opposite side of the road. .... One night as the children lay in their four~post bed, sleeping as they did with a rush light in the room, Sarah saw her grandmother in her night-dress standing at the foot of the bed, looking at them with a pleased smile on her face. She moved round the bed, keeping her eyes constantly fixed upon the children, till she passed behind the curtain at the head of the bed on Sarah's side, and seemed to sit down on the chair that was placed there. Sarah raised herself up and drew back the curtain in order to speak to her, when, to her great surprise, she saw no one there. She was not at all frightened, and awoke her sister, saying, ~'Grandmamma is in the room.' They both got up and looked about for her, and finding that there really was no one in the room, Margaret said that her sister must have been dreaming, and scolded her for awaking her. In the morning they were awoke by their father, who told them that a ·dreadful thing had happened, that their grandmamma had died in the course of the night." 

On pages 128-129 of the same volume ( Volume 1 of the Proceeedings of the Society for Psychical Research), we have an account by a Mrs. Hunter mentioning a former friend "Z." who she hadn't heard from in years:

"Poor Z. was very far from my thoughts, when one night I had just got into bed. The fire burned brightly, and there was my usual night-light. I was placing my head on the pillows, when I beheld, close to the side of the bed, and on a level with it,
Z. s head, and the same wistful look on his face which it had worn when we parted years before. Starting up, I cried out, 'What do you want?' I did not fear ; anger was my feeling. Slowly it retreated, and just as it disappeared in the shadow of the wall, a bright spark of light shone for a few seconds, and slowly expired. A few days after my sister wrote, 'You will have heard of poor Z.'s death, on his way to the South of France.' I had heard nothing about him for years. Special reasons prevented my inquiring particularly into the precise moment of his death."

On pages 50-51 of Volume 1 of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, we have the following story of a dying young girl (Edith) who apparently sees an apparition of a friend (Jennie) who recently died, thereby learning of her friend's death:

"In a neighboring city were two little girls, Jennie and Edith, one about eight years of age, and the other but a little older. They were schoolmates and intimate friends. In June, 1889, both were taken ill of diphtheria. At noon on Wednesday, Jennie died. Then the parents of Edith, and her physician as well, took particular pains to keep from her the fact that her little playmate was gone. They feared the effect of the knowledge on her own condition. To prove that they succeeded and that she did not know, it may be mentioned that on Saturday, June 8th, at noon, just before she became unconscious of all that was passing about her, she selected two of her photographs to be sent to Jennie, and also told her attendants to bid her goodbye.  She died at half-past six o'clock on the evening of Saturday, June 8th. She had roused and bidden her friends goodbye, and was talking of dying, and seemed to have no fear. She appeared to see one and another, of the friends she knew were dead. So far it was like the common cases. But now suddenly, and with every appearance of surprise, she turned to her father, and exclaimed, 'Why, papa, I am going to take Jennie with me ! ' Then she added, 'Why, papa! Why, papa! You did not tell me that Jennie was here !' And immediately she reached out her arms as if in welcome, and said, 'O, Jennie, I'm so glad you are here.' " 

On pages 124-125 of Volume 7 of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, we have an account of a woman being told by an apparition that her former lover has died:

"In the year 1865 I had a lover by the name of John A. Broad- 
head. Owing to several circumstances I was obliged to give 
him up although I was deeply attached to him. When he found 
that he could not marry me he left the town of Mount Morris, 
where I lived, but before he went he said to me, 'Mary I think 
this separation will kill me but if I die and a spirit can come back to earth I will come to you.' I replied 'Oh, no, don't, for that would frighten me dreadfully.' 'No it would not,' he answered, 'for I should come so calmly that you would not be at all afraid.' In 1868 I married George R. Howell, a presbyterian minister who knew all about my affection for John Broadhead....Suddenly I felt a pressure against my knee and limb as though some one had come very close to me and I looked up expecting to see one of my brothers but to my great surprise I saw my old lover, John Broadhead. standing there beside me. I felt greatly distressed for he lived in a distant city. I had not seen him since 1865, and I thought it an unwarrantable intrusion that he should enter my father's house thus unannounced....Before I had a chance to speak he raised his right hand and said, speaking very slowly and gently, 'Be very calm, Mary. I am what they call dead. I died in the west three weeks ago to-day.' Then lifting his left hand he pointed to a newspaper which lay at the other end of the sofa about three feet away from me. and said 'You will find my death in that paper.' Then without moving a muscle he vanished while I gazed at him... I managed to hitch along the sofa till I could reach the paper to which he had pointed. This turned out to be a copy of the New York Times that had never been taken out of the wrapper in which it had come through the mails. I tore it open and there, among the death notices I found this paragraph : 'Died in Burlington, Iowa, March 22nd, 1871, John A. Broadhead of this city in the 34th year of his age.'  "

On Page 21 of Volume 15 of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, we read the following account:

"I had gone to bed and it was about a quarter of an hour after 
we had said goodnight to each other, my neighbor and I, when I perceived at first an indistinct form leaning on the bar of my bed ; this form became clearer and I recognized my foster brother ; his voice, which I knew well said to me: ' How are you Pierre? As for me, I am going.' I sat up in bed and called my friend ; he saw nothing, the form had disappeared.  Four days later I received a letter from my good old foster parents announcing the death of their son, Auguste. The date of the apparition coincides exactly with that of his death." 

On pages 242-243 of the book Enigmas of Psychical Research by James Hyslop we have an account by a woman who was courted unsuccessfully by a Mr. Akhurst:

"I felt a cold waft of air through the room and a feeling as if some one touched my shoulder; my hair seemed to bristle all over my head and I shuddered. Raising my eyes to the door (which faced me), I saw Mr. Akhurst standing in his shirt and trousers, looking at me, when he seemed to pass through the door. In the morning I mentioned it to my husband. I did not hear of Mr. Akhurst's death for some weeks after, when I found it corresponded with that of the apparition, and though my father knew of it before, he thought in my weak state of health it were better I should not be told." 

On page 244 of the book Enigmas of Psychical Research by James Hyslop we read this account:

"In returning and entering the corridor in which my room was, I saw, standing beyond my doorway, a figure. It looked misty, as if, had there been a light behind it, I should have seen through the mist. This misty figure was the likeness of a friend of ours whom I knew to have been on a voyage to Australia. I stood and looked at ' It.' I put my hand over my eyes and looked again. Still it was there. Then it seemed to pass away, how I cannot say....Next day I told my sister-in-law what I had seen. We laughed about my ghost. I was away from home three weeks. On my return, my mother showed me the account in a newspaper of our poor friend's body having been cast on shore at Orfordness and buried as an unknown castaway the very time I saw the figure."

On page 6 of this paper, we have an account of an apparition seen in a mirror:

“My mother lived in California and I lived in Wichita, Kansas. At 9:40 A.M. on February 17, I was sitting in my bedroom at my dressing room table, brushing my hair in front of the mirror. Suddenly the room was illuminated with the strangest light, one I can’t fully describe. I then felt a rustle of wind across my shoulders, and a faint sound like the brushing of birds’ wings. Then I looked in the mirror. My mother was standing behind my chair ... She just stood and smiled at me for a full thirty seconds. I finally said, ‘Mom!’ and rushed for her, but she disappeared, light and all. I was so upset by this that I shook for an hour. When my husband came home for lunch, I told him about it and got myself ready for a phone call that mother was dead ... Sure enough, about one P.M. that same day, the call came that my mother was gone ...”

Five Levels of Complexity, the Last Two Still Unexplained

Living things have mountainous levels of complexity and functional organization. Many maintain that the level of complexity and organization in living things is too great to be explained though any theory of natural origins. But those who think otherwise may argue along these lines:

“What we see in living things is just orderly complexity. But naturally explaining orderly complexity is no big deal. We know of many natural reasons why orderly complexity can arise. For example, there are physics and chemistry reasons why atoms in a rock become organized into a crystal. That's an example of orderly complexity, and it has a natural explanation.”

But there is the most gigantic difference between the complexity seen in something like a rock crystal, and the complexity in mammals and humans. To help clarify the difference, it will be helpful to create some categories of complexity.

Category #1: Unimpressive complexity

We can use the term “unimpressive complexity” for some complexity that arises because of a simple, easy-to-explain ordering rule. An example is the complexity we see in rock crystals. Such complexity can arise when one or two simple rules are applied to some matter.  Another example is the concentric complexity of the rings in a tree, something that arises from a very simple rule.

Category #2: Information-poor static enormously-organized complexity

We can use the term “enormously organized complexity” for complexity that requires multiple levels of organization. An example would be a very complex old building.

The term “information” is defined in various ways. In this discussion, by information I mean the use of symbolic tokens such as symbols or letters or units of representation. The essence of information is the use of some kind of token in which one thing stands for another.  

There may be a little information in an old building, but not very much (if we consider only the building and not any books or electronic devices inside the building). So complex old buildings  would seem to fall into the category of information-poor static enormously organized complexity.

Category #3: Information-rich static enormously-organized complexity

We can use the term “information-rich static enormously organized complexity” for certain types of things such as libraries of books. The library has a very high degree of organization, and also very much information. But the library is static. It doesn't move or grow by itself.

Another example might be a turned-off computer. Such a computer is static. It doesn't move or grow in size. But a computer is enormously organized, and rich in information.

Category #4: Information-rich dynamic enormously-organized complexity (IRDEOC)

We can use the term “information-rich dynamic enormously-organized complexity” (or the corresponding acronym IRDEOC) for things that are complex, enormously organized, information-rich and dynamic in the sense of moving, growing or changing internally.

We have in the biological world many examples of such things: large visible organisms such as lions and tigers and bears. The amount of organization in large living things is greater than in anything you can buy at an electronics store. Such an organization is hierarchical, existing on multiple levels. Atoms are organized into amino acids, which are organized into protein molecules, which are organized into organelles, which are organized into cells, which are organized into tissues, which are organized into organs, which are organized into organ systems, which are organized into bodies. 

Living things are rich in information. The DNA in every living thing surely qualifies as information. In DNA particular combinations of nucleotide base pairs serve as tokens or units of representation which stand for particular amino acids. Large visible organisms such as mammals are dynamic for three different reasons: (1) because they grow during their lifespan; (2) because they move around;  (3) because inside such organisms is an enormous amount of complex dynamic activity more impressive than the choreography of all the Broadway shows running in 2010.

In his interesting recent book Cosmological Koans, which has some nice flourishes of literary style, the physicist Anthony Aquirre tells us about just how complex biological life is. He states the following on page 338:

"On the physical level, biological creatures are so much more complex in a functional way than current artifacts of our technology that there's almost no comparison. The most elaborate and sophisticated human-designed machines, while quite impressive, are utter child's play compared with the workings of a cell: a cell contains on the order of 100 trillion atoms, and probably billions of quite complex molecules working with amazing precision. The most complex engineered machines -- modern jet aircraft, for example -- have several million parts. Thus, perhaps all the jetliners in the world (without people in them, of course) could compete in functional complexity with a lowly bacterium."

There are also some examples of IRDEOC (information-rich dynamic enormously-organized complexity) in the artificial world. One example is robots. Robots are information-rich because they use complex software rich in information. Robots are dynamic because they can move around. Most robots are enormously organized, consisting of very complex arrangements of parts.

Some IRDEOC

Category #5: Comprehending information-rich dynamic enormously-organized complexity (CIRDEOC)

By “comprehending” I mean being able to understand complex knowledge in the way that humans can. We know of one definite example of comprehending information-rich dynamic enormously-organized complexity (CIRDEOC): human beings. If it can be demonstrated that some other mammals are capable of comprehension, such mammals can also be classified as examples of CIRDEOC.  We can consider humans to be examples of both IRDEOC (information-rich dynamic enormously-organized complexity) and CIRDEOC (comprehending information-rich dynamic enormously-organized complexity), so the five categories I have given are not all mutually exclusive. 

Why Scientists Can't Naturally Explain IRDEOC or CIRDEOC

Technologists have natural explanations for man-made examples of IRDEOC (information-rich dynamic enormously-organized complexity).  The explanation is that human beings made such examples.  But scientists have no credible explanation for natural examples of IRDEOC. 

Neither Charles Darwin nor his successors have advanced a credible theory of how information-rich dynamic enormously-organized complexity can arise in the natural world.  Explaining such a thing would require a theory of organization, but Darwinism is no such thing.  Darwinism has tried to explain things by offering merely a theory of accumulation, the idea that favorable random mutations accumulate.  A theory of accumulation can never explain examples of enormously organized complexity.  We cannot explain the origin of incredibly complex things by the simplistic idea of accumulation.  Incredibly complex organizations never arise merely because of accumulation. We don't accumulate our way to computers; we don't accumulate our way to automobiles; and it is safe to say that nature does not accumulate its way to biological organisms that show far higher degrees of organization than computers or automobiles. 

Unconscious nature does not actually select things, and the not-literally-accurate term "natural selection" is not an explanation for IRDEOC complexity.  So-called "natural selection" is merely a filter excluding bad designs, not something creating good designs. As the leading botantist Hugo de Vries stated:

"Natural selection is a sieve. It creates nothing, as is so often assumed; it only sifts."  

You can't sieve your way or sift your way to things more organized and functionally complex than anything humans have ever created, and that is what mammals are. 

Our scientists have no credible explanation for the information richness of human beings, the fact that our DNA contains instructions for making the polypeptide sequences of more than  20,000 proteins. The chemical ingredients of proteins are specified by genes. A typical gene specifies a unique sequence of amino acids used by a protein.  The average human protein has an amino acid sequence length of about 375.  There are twenty amino acids used by proteins. If we calculate that a protein has to have exactly the amino acid sequence that it has, we would calculate that a total of twenty to the three-hundred-seventy-fifth power random trials would be needed before nature could discover the correct amino acid sequence for that protein. If we assume that only half of the amino acids in a protein have to be in exactly the same sequence for the protein to be functional, we would calculate that a total of twenty to the one-hundred-eighty-seventh power random trials would be needed.  Twenty to the one-hundred-eighty-seventh power equals ten to the two-hundred-forty-third power. So you would need at least 10²⁴³ random trials before nature could discover a functional protein by trial and error.  There would be no possibility that more than 10⁶⁰ random trials could be attempted, even given billions of years of evolutionary activity on Earth.

You do not get around such a difficulty by assuming that small fractions of protein molecules are functional. It is well known that most of a protein molecule must exist for the protein molecule to fold properly, and protein molecules that do not fold properly are not functional.  The calculation above (that nature would need at least 10²⁴³ random trials before it could discover a functional protein by trial and error) is already assuming that merely half of the amino acid of a protein must be exactly right, so you don't change those numbers by appealing to the possibility that some half-completed protein might be functional. 

It is not at all true that each protein achieves its functionality purely by virtue of its amino acid sequence. A large fraction of all protein molecules have external dependencies, such as a dependency on other protein molecules called chaperone proteins.   Were we to calculate the probability of the chance formation of a protein molecule and its required chaperone molecules, we would have some number incredibly smaller than the microscopic probability just calculated. 

The mathematical considerations above are rather complicated, but you can express the explanatory problem very simply by saying this: very complex functional information is something that humans have never observed arising from anything other than intelligent sources, and we have no understanding of how vast amounts of very complex functional information could arise from unconscious accidental processes. 

Looking at the "dynamic" word in the phrase "information-rich dynamic enormously-organized complexity," we find that our scientists have done almost nothing to explain a key part of the dynamic nature of organisms: the fact that organisms grow from a tiny state to a large state. How does a speck-sized fertilized egg grow to become a full-sized human? Darwinism has no realistic answer for this fundamental mystery of nature. It is untrue that this occurs because an organism reads assembly instructions for making a human. There are no such assembly instructions in DNA, which merely specifies low-level chemical information such as protein ingredients to be used in making a human. 

Then there is the constant dynamic activity inside the human body, which is so complex and targeted and seemingly goal-oriented that it can be compared to the purposeful movements of the US Pacific fleet during World War II, or the activity of 50,000 construction workers involved in building new buildings in a city and tearing down old buildings.  Virtually none of this activity is specified by a genome, which merely specifies chemicals, and completely lacks any power of expression to describe high-level processes.  The constant enormous activity within our bodies is almost entirely unexplained by scientists, who still cannot even give a credible low-level explanation of what low-level factors would cause a cell to reproduce. Such explanatory shortcomings were not recognized by Charles Darwin, who had no knowledge of the information richness of organisms, and had almost no knowledge of the enormous dynamic activity within organisms. 

As for CIRDEOC complexity, our scientists have done nothing to credibly explain the "comprehending" part of Comprehending Information-Rich Dynamic Enormously Organized Complexity. No one has presented any credible explanation of how a brain could ever produce understanding, an idea or a thought.  Contrary to the claim that the brain is the source of our thinking and understanding, we know of many cases when humans could think very well and understand very well when half of their brain had been removed in an operation to prevent seizures, or when 70% or more of their brains had been lost to disease.  Sometimes the measured intelligence of such persons was above average, as discussed here and here and here and here. Such cases suggest that scientists have no actual understanding of how humans are able to comprehend anything, and that the "brains produce your understanding" idea is untrue. 

Early Twentieth Century Evidence for ESP

The evidence for ESP is overwhelming, and consists of a great abundance of convincing experimental evidence, and a huge mountain of observational reports from daily life.  You can study such evidence by reading the 24 posts here. Let us look at some additional examples of evidence for ESP.  My sources will date from the early twentienth century, although in one or two cases the incident mentioned may have occurred in the nineteenth century. 

On page 152 of Death and Its Mystery: Before Death by Camille Flammarion, we have an account by David Harris of a strange vision he had while relaxing in an easy chair of a hotel:

"I was in a state of passive tranquillity, when all at once I lost the sense of where I was. Instead of the wall and the pictures that were hung on it, I saw before me the front of my house in London; my wife was standing on the door-step and speaking to a workman who held a big broom in his hands. My wife seemed much distressed, and I felt an instant certainty that the man was in a wretched condition of poverty. I did not hear their conversation, but something told me that the unfortunate man was asking my wife to help him. At this moment the servant brought the tea and the vision vanished."

The man later found out that at this time his wife had talked on her doorstep to a very poor man begging for assistance.  Harris states on page 153 that "a few days later I saw the man myself; he was exactly the one I had seen in my vision."

On pages 130-131 of Volume 13 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we have the case of a man who tried a mind-reading test with a woman:

"After some time she announced that she got absolutely nothing, and said that with some she never had any success. I remarked that perhaps it was because I was not thinking of anything persistently or deeply. She replied by telling me to think of some occurrence of recent date—say some man I had met—his name and features. I thought of a gentleman I had met the morning before on the platform at Bakersfield as the train was changing engines. He stepped up to me, accosting me by name and said : 'You don't remember me, do you?' I confessed that I did not. He said, 'My name is Harris,' ....Well, I thought of this man. Presently Mrs. A. said, 'His name is of two syllables—accented on the first'—and then she asked me to signify assent if it was true— as it seemed to help her. I therefore said 'Yes.' After perhaps ten seconds she said, 'It is a name that sounds like  "Parish," ' but, she added quickly, 'That's not it'—a slight pause—'It is Harris.' I, much astonished, said it was."

On page 158 of Death and Its Mystery: Before Death by Camille Flammarion, we have an account by Dr. G. de Messimy of a patient who was put under hypnosis:

"My subject's lucidity went so far as even to read the thoughts of those present. . . . Having placed twelve members of the society before the subject ... we asked each one of them to think freely of a chosen flower, without telling its name to any one. . . . Then turning toward the subject, we asked him to name out loud the flower each of these persons had thought about, and he named them all, without the least hesitation and without making a single mistake, as if he were reading from a book of human thought."

On pages 160-161 of Death and Its Mystery: Before Death by Camille Flammarion, we have an account by a Dr. Jean of a boy who had a vision of his father's drowning death:

"The frightened mother told me that the child had had a sudden paroxysm of delirium. He had awakened, as usual, and all seemed to be going well, when at about ten o'clock he rose up in his bed, terrified by a sudden hallucination. He saw water everywhere and began to cry for help, for his father was drowning, he said. His father was away from home. He had gone to Nice, where his brother lived, and was to spend several days there. When I arrived the child was calm, but insisted that he had seen his father drown. A telegram from the brother soon urgently called the widow (for such she really was) to Nice, where she learned that her husband had been drowned at about ten in the morning, in trying to save his brother, who had been seized with a cramp while swimming in the ocean. His last words had been, 'our poor children.' " 

On page 139 of Volume 19 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we have the following account of what seems like telepathy in a dream. 

"At 8.30 a.m. this morning at breakfast at the above address. Miss Ethel Thomas, a visitor, related what she said at the time was a dream, just on the point of waking up, as follows : 'I was counting the number of men and women going on board ship at Southampton, and the number was fifteen. I could almost tell who they were.' I mentioned that I thought that this was a case of 'telepathy without conscious effort,' and related that at 8.15 a.m. I was shaving in an adjoining room, and counting up in my mind the number of people going on board ship on Thursday, and on a ship at Southampton, the same time. The total number was 15."

On page 143 of Death and Its Mystery: Before Death by the astronomer Camille Flammarion, we have an account by Valarie Dobelmann, who claimed to have had a dream of her son being injured by boards, at about the same time that her son suffered such an injury far away:

 "One night, especially, I was overcome with sharp distress and dreamed that I saw my youngest son caught between two rows of planks which had fallen on him, unable to free himself and calling me, 'Mama!' I spoke of it to my sister, while I was still very much oppressed by this nightmare....On my son's return we questioned him, and he told me that he had had an accident, for a pile of boards had fallen on him; but it had been nothing serious, and it would have been useless to frighten us. 'But I knew it,' I said. 'I dreamed about it all one night and the curious thing is that the place did not at all resemble your wood-yard. You were in the midst of planks, unable to get up, in a great unfamiliar yard, and the sun was shining brightly.' — 'That 's correct,' replied my son ; 'the sun was shining on that day and it did not happen in my place but in a neighbor's yard, which is just as you have described it without having ever seen it.' "

On page 127 of Volume V of the the Annals of Psychical Science (1907), we read an account of a person (Leo Primavesi) who suddenly "had the impression of being in a friend's house in the suburbs of this city (Antwerp), and of seeing a strong light, as of an unshaded lamp, to my right." Leo said that "on coming to myself I found that it was 11:47 p.m." Upon visiting the friend, and before saying anything about this experience, Leo was told "I saw you last night!" The friend reported that Leo "disappeared like the melting away of a cloud."  The friend looked at the clock and saw that it was "just after a quarter to twelve," which matches the time of 11:47 PM. 

On pages 278-279 of the 1906 book Enigmas of Psychical Research by the distinguished researcher James Hyslop, we read the following account of clairvoyance, told by a Professor Gregory, who recalls speaking to a hypnotized female who he asked to do some "remote viewing" of a distant location:

" I now asked her to go to Greenock, forty or fifty miles from where we were (Edinburgh was nearly thirty miles distant), and to visit my son, who resides there with a friend. She soon found him, and described him accurately, being much interested in the boy, whom she had never seen nor heard of. She saw him, she said, playing in a field outside of a small garden in which stood the cottage, at some distance from the town, on a rising ground. He was playing with a dog. I knew there was a dog, but had no idea of what kind, so I asked her. She said it was large, but young Newfoundland, black, with one or two white spots. It was very fond of the boy and played with him. 'Oh,' she cried, suddenly, ' it has jumped up and knocked off his cap.' She saw in the garden a gentleman reading a book and looking on. He was not old, but had white hair, while his eyebrows and whiskers were black. She took him for a clergyman, but said he was not of the Established Church, nor Episcopalian, but a Presbyterian dissenter. (He is, in fact, a clergyman of the highly respectable Cameronian body, who, as is well known, are Presbyterians, and adhere to the covenant.) Being asked to enter the cottage, she did so, and described the sitting-room. In the kitchen she saw a young maid servant preparing dinner, for which meal a leg of mutton was roasting at the fire, but not quite ready. She also saw another elderly female. On looking again for the boy, she saw him playing with the dog in front of the door, while the gentleman stood in the porch and looked on. Then she saw the boy run upstairs to the kitchen, which she observed with surprise was on the upper floor of the cottage (which it is), and receive something to eat from the servant, she thought a potato. I immediately wrote all these details down and sent them to the gentleman, whose answer assured me that all, down to the minutest, were exact, save that the boy did not get a potato, but a small biscuit from the cook. The dog was what she described; it did knock off the boy's cap at the time and in the place mentioned; he was himself in the garden with a book looking on; there was a leg of mutton roasting and not quite ready; there was an elderly female in the kitchen at that time, although not of the household. Every one of which facts was entirely unknown to me, and could not, therefore, have been perceived by thought-reading, although, had they been so, as I have already stated, this would not have been less wonderful, but only a different phenomenon." 

What we have in this narrative is very strong evidence not for telepathy or mind-reading, but instead what is called clairvoyance, a kind of paranormal "second sight." The US government spent much money and quite a few years investigating such a thing, calling it "remote viewing."  Many spectacular successes were achieved. Even better results might well have been achieved if the experiments had involved subjects who were hypnotized or placed in a trance, as was the female in this account. 

Even More Cases of Veridical Apparitions

In the six posts below I have described or quoted about 130 cases of someone experiencing something like a suprising apparition of someone, only to soon later learn that the corresponding person had died, usually at about the same time the apparition was seen. The six posts are below:

25 Who Were "Ghost-Told" of a Death

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

Yet Another 25 Who Were “Ghost-Told” of a Death

Scientific American's Very Lame "Ghost Explanations"

They Also Were "Ghost Told" of a Death

More Accounts of Veridical Apparitions

In this post I will discuss additional cases of this type.  The links I will give will usually take you to the exact page of an account that I discuss or quote. 

On page 8 of Volume 7 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we read the following case:

"My little daughter Gwendoline was playing with her dolls, and she suddenly laughed so as to attract my attention, and I asked her what she was laughing at. She said, 'O mother, I thought I saw little Jack in that chair'—a vacant chair in the room—and indicating her little cousin. About five minutes after this the clerk telephoned from the office saying he had just received a telegram from Penzance announcing the death of little Jack."

People once learned of a death by a telegram like this

On page 80 of Volume 7 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we read the following case:

"Mrs. Shaw has nephew at Mentone for his health. No special anxiety on his account. One night (10 o'clock summer) she met his apparition at her mother's gate, and noted details of costume. Before she could speak figure vanished. Telegram announced death at that hour."

On page 259 of Volume 7 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we read the following case told by Charles E. Martratt:

"I went to bed one evening about 9 o'clock. About an hour afterward, I was awakened from sleep by my wife, who said, 'Charlie, granny has been here, and she spoke to me. She said to me "Ellen, I am dead, but don't be afraid. When you come to the funeral, look at the left side of the back part of my head, and you will see the cause of my death." Granny stood at the foot of the bed, with a night-cap on.'  My wife said that when she had spoken to her she disappeared. The next morning about 8 o'clock a.m., a telegram came, saying that the old lady was dead. My wife took the earliest possible train to the nearest railway station to where her grandmother had lived, which was Gansvoort near Fort Edward, New York), and then rode some five miles into the country to the house where she had died. The old lady had not been put in her coffin yet, and lay in the front parlour with a night-cap still on her head. My wife said that she went and raised the night-cap and examined the head of the corpse, and found a large bump or bruise on the back of the head."

On the same page, Martratt tells us of a very similar incident involving his wife:

"She was sitting in a room sewing, and noticed a shadow at the door. On looking up, she saw my brother Matthew standing before her. She said, 'Why, Mat, what are you doing here? I thought you were sick.' She arose to get a chair, but when she turned toward him, he was gone. She looked up and down the street, but could find no trace of him. On my return in the evening, she told me what had happened, and expressed a fear that my brother was dead. The next morning a telegram came, saying that my brother had died the previous day at about the hour in which she saw the vision. He died about ten miles distant." 

On page 64 of Volume 5 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we read the following case:

"Naval lieutenant sees apparition of sister on bridge of his steamer. Vision persists while he makes a note. Some months afterwards he learns that sister died at the same hour."

On pages 86-87 of the same volume, we read of the following case of seeing the apparition of someone at about the time of his death:

"C. and I had gone to sleep, when we were suddenly

awakened by L.'s bursting into our room, at about two o'clock, and calling out, 'Oh, Mr. K. has been in my room !' She said that he had come in while she was reading a novel in bed. She heard his footsteps up the stairs, and saw him come in and go to the window, where he stood looking out for a few moments, and then went away. We said that this must be all nonsense ; but she insisted that she had not been to sleep. We went to sleep, but were again awakened in a couple of hours by a groom, who came from the great house, taking telograms to the village, to say that Mr. K. was dead."

On page 108 of Volume 5 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we read the following case of a godmother seeing the apparition of a boy of 17 at the time of his death:

"The following is a case, coming within the range of my own experience, of a lad of 17 years appearing to his godmother at the moment of his death. The lad was dying of consumption, and wrote to me to come to him. He was hundreds of miles distant from where I was residing at the time.....I was in bed at a quarter-past eight, and at 20 minutes to nine I saw standing at the door, illumined by a soft light which appeared to emanate from his person, and thereby rendered him visible, as the room was dark. An ecstatic expression lit up his countenance, and he appeared to be habited in his usual day wearing apparel. I felt intuitively that it was a phantom, although real appearance, and was daily in expectation of receiving news of his departure. On the third day from this

occurrence I got a letter informing me that he had died at the very time I saw him."

On page 163 of the same volume, we read of the following case:

"Mrs. Parker saw face and form of brother-in-law just as he appeared when last seen. He was known to be very seriously ill at a distance. His death occurred at the time of the apparition."

On page 164 of Volume 5 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we read the following case:

"Martin informs us that when in India in 1857 Major Gall left Lucknow with dispatches to go across country. On the second day after his departure Mrs.Gall communicated to Mrs. Martin that she had seen the apparition of her husband on the previous night and she felt assured he must be dead. Tidings of the Major's death reached Lucknow a few days after."

On page 50 of Volume 10 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, dating from 1894, we read the following:

"The number of apparitions thus included of persons who are definitely reported as dead at the time is nine, and the number of apparitions of persons who died at or near the time their apparition was seen—but about whom it cannot be affirmed that they were at the moment either living or dead—is 56."

Not all apparitions have full-body forms. Some are only partial body forms. On page 123 of Volume 10 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have this account:

 "Mrs. B. described the apparition as exactly like a coloured picture of her mother, head and shoulders, which passed along the wall and faded. She did not mention what she had seen to anyone, and the following evening an aunt of hers arrived from London to tell her that her mother was dead."

On page 212 of Volume 10 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have this account:

"He had gone to bed early, 8.30 or a little later ; and between 9 and 12 he woke up and saw the figure of his aunt, Mrs. P——, standing with her arms down near the foot of the bed at one side, dressed in an ordinary black dress such as he had seen her in many times....Then the figure gradually vanished...So he put down on a piece of paper, 'I believe Aunt P died on the 17th,' and put the paper in a drawer....Then in due time an English paper gave the news of his aunt's death with date, November 17th."

On page 214-215 of Volume 10 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have this account:

"In June, 1879, I was a teacher in Macclesfield. A friend, Mrs. ____ , was near her confinement. She told me she was afraid she would die. I went into the county of Durham for a holiday. While there I was roused from sleep by Mrs. ______ as I supposed. She was shaking me, and saying, ' I have passed away, but the baby will live.' Then the figure left the room by the door. I got out of bed and went to my sister and related the incident. We agreed to make a note of it. Next day I received a letter from a friend in Macclesfield
saying that Mrs. ______ was dead but the baby was alive."

On page 225 of Volume 10 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have this account:

"The first Thursday in April, 1881, while sitting at tea with my back to the window and talking with my wife in the usual way, I plainly heard a rap at the window, and looking round I said to my wife, 'Why, there's my grandmother,' and went to the door, but could not see anyone ; and still feeling sure it was my grandmother, and knowing, though 83 years of age, she was very active and fond of a joke, I went round the house, but could not see anyone. My wife did not hear it. On the following Saturday I had news my grandmother died in Yorkshire about half an hour before the time I heard the rapping."

On page 228 of Volume 10 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have this account:

"I remember very distinctly my step-brother, J. H. , getting up in bed one night in August, 1878, and saying he could see an apparition of my brother in a kneeling position, and my father coming into the bedroom to ask what was the matter. He referred to his watch, and found it was about 2.30 a.m. The following morning we received news of my brother's death at the time stated."

On page 237 of Volume 10 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have this account:

"I saw very distinctly the apparition of a friend passing in front of a looking glass. I was then in bed. I lived at the time in Rio de Janeiro. It was, I believe, about 3 a.m....The appearance coincided, as nearly as we could make out, with the moment of death."

On page 252 of Volume 10 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have an account by a Mrs. G. who says, "I saw my mother...standing at my bedside," but that "when I spoke to her and tried to touch her, she immediately vanished."  Mrs. G. stated, "My mother died at the exact time I saw her at my bedside, as I found next morning."

On page 370 of Volume 10 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have an account by a woman who says that she saw an apparition of someone she said had not seen in years, only to get a letter the next day saying the person had died. 

On pages 155-156 of Louis Rhine's book Hidden Channels of the Mind, we have the following extremely spooky account of a young girl who apparently saw a ghost she did not know was a ghost, a figure wearing the traditional First Communion attire of a white dress:

"In New York City a bright three-year-old girl had a play mate, Anne, who was seven. Anne, a diabetic, died. The little three-year-old was told that Anne had gone away on a trip. She did not see her or go to the funeral. Several days after the funeral, the mother says, 'I sent my daughter to get a broom for me from the hall closet and she returned without it. I asked her why. She said Anne would not let her. I asked what she meant, and she said Anne was standing in the hall closet and would not let her by. When I was convinced she was not joking or telling a story, I asked what Anne had on. She said a pretty white dress and veil, and that they could not go out because Anne had no coat. Anne had been buried in her communion dress....Two days later my daughter became ill and two weeks from the day Anne died, my daughter died of pneumonia.'"

On page 263 of the same book, we have this spooky account:

"Several young daughters slept in one room in different beds. One night ten-year-old Mary wakened her mother in an adjoining room to complain that her older sister Nancy was standing by her bed and wouldn't go away. The mother went to the girls' room, and saw that Nancy was asleep in her own bed, and she thought Mary was just imagining things. Before long Mary again disturbed her mother. Nancy was standing by her bed, she said, but she wouldn't answer when spoken to. Again the mother went to the girls' room and again found Nancy asleep. Throughout the night at intervals Mary kept talking to Nancy, asking her to please go over to her own bed. The next morning, as was their custom, the family arose, leaving Nancy asleep, for she was not a strong child and needed extra rest. Later, at bed-making time, her mother called her and getting no response, came closer and discovered that Nancy was dead. The doctor's opinion was that she must have died soon after retiring."

On pages 409-410 of Volume 5 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have an account of a woman who saw an apparition of a man who previously seemed to have some romantic interest in her:

"I felt a cold waft of air through the room and a feeling as though some one touched my shoulder; my hair seemed to bristle all over my head and I shuddered. Raising my eyes to the door (which faced me), 1 saw Akhurst standing in his shirt and trousers looking at me, when he seemed to pass through the door. In the morning 1 
mentioned it to my husband. I did not hear of Mr. Akhurst's death for some weeks after, when I found it corresponded with that of the apparition, and though my father knew of it before, he thought in my weak state of health it were better I should not be told."

On pages 373-374 of Volume 10 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, we have an account of a Miss M. who saw an apparition of someone named Jessie, before she knew Jessie was dead. The apparitions persisted for a while. She stated, "I received a letter the next morning informing me that she was dead, after which I saw her only at intervals that day and part of the next, when the appearances ceased."

On page 10 of Volume 5 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we have an account by a Mrs. V.:

"I then saw most beautiful lights at the end of the room ; these lights gave place to a cloud, and after a few moments the face of a dear sister, then living (as I believed), appeared in the cloud, which remained a little while and then gradually faded away. I became much alarmed and at once felt I should hear bad news of my sister, who was living in London and had been very ill, though the last accounts we had received had been better. I told my husband what had happened, and when a telegram was brought by a friend at 8 o'clock that morning I knew what its contents must be. The telegram contained the news of my sister's death during the previous night."