On page 48 of the document here, we read a physician describe seeing this when a patient died:
"The head of the body became suddenly enveloped in a fine, soft, mellow, luminous atmosphere. . . . The brain began to attract the elements of electricity, of magnetism, of motion, of life and of sensation into its various and numerous departments. The head became intensely brilliant; and I particularly remarked that just in the same proportion as the extremities of the organism grew dark and cold, the brain appeared light and glowing.”
On page 20 of Death and Its Mystery: After Death by the astronomer Camille Flammarion, we have an account of an apparition that appeared as a "phosphorescent cloud" shortly after the death of someone named Cognet. We read this account by someone named Texier:
"Suddenly I saw a glow which made me utter a cry of terror. My father got up and took me into bed with him. The glow persisted; it was a sort of phosphorescent cloud, without definite outlines....My father pronounced these words in a loud voice: 'If you are Cognet, strike three blows on the chest of drawers.' This piece of furniture, marble-topped (it is still in my possession) was in the room giving on to the alcove. Three loud and measured blows were then struck upon the marble of the chest of drawers. Then, little by little, the glow thinned, melted, and I saw nothing more."In the book Occult Science in India and Among the Ancients by Lewis Jocolliot, a distinguished Chief Judge, we have many reports of seeing the paranormal. On page 246 we read this account:
"As he uttered these words, he imposed his hands above one of those immense copper platters inlaid with silver such as are used by wealthy natives for dice playing, and almost immediately there ensued such a rapid and violent succession of blows or knocks that it might have been taken for a hail-shower upon a metal roof, and I thought I saw (the reader will observe that I do not express myself positively in this respect) a succession of phosphorescent lights (plain enough to be visible in broad daylight) pass to and fro across the platter in every direction."
A professor of chemistry at the University of St. Petersburg, A. Butlerof wrote up an account in which he claimed to have witnessed the most astonishing paranormal phenomena while testing a medium named Williams, while the medium was tied up in a hotel room of Butlerof and a Mr. Aksakof. Below (dating from 1875) is an excerpt:
"Presently phosphorescent lights were floating in the air, and immediately the form of John King became visible. This apparition is accompanied by a greenish phosphorescent light..."
Another witness reported seeing something similar when seeing an apparition of his brother, one that appeared about the same night the brother died very far away:
"His death took place, or rather he fell, though he may not have died immediately, on the 8th of September, 1855. That night I awoke suddenly and saw facing the window of my room by my bedside, surrounded by a bright sort of phosphorescent mist as it were ... my brother kneeling."
In his memoir Beyond Coincidence: One Man's Experiences With Psychic Phenomena, the late psychic Alex Tanous says on page 123, "On several occasions, I saw a shapeless mist drift away from a patient when he died." Tanous says that he could create with his mind balls of light. On page 2 he says "I have created floating balls of light in totally dark rooms." On page 53 he says, "I've been able to project balls of light into my hands or into the room, in otherwise absolute darkness." On page 101 he says, "I discovered I could project not only balls of light, but actual images, images which could be seen by everyone in the room." On page 110 we read that many witnesses saw a ball of light mysteriously near Tanous.
The book The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism states this: "There are so many stories of holy priests who lit up a dark cell or a whole chapel by the light which streamed from them or upon them, that I am strongly inclined in adhere to the more literal interpretation." The book then gives several accounts of such cases.
In his long and very interesting work Human Survival After Death, Charles Tweedale gives many first-hand accounts of the paranormal, some including anomalous light phenomena. On page 218 he indicates the variety of what he saw in the quote below:
"These manifestations continued several years with varying degrees of power, frequency and interest, up to about a year ago, when there began to be a marked falling off, though occasionally we still get remarkable manifestations. This occurred so late as April- June (1918), when a wonderful materialised apparition appeared seven times, six times in daylight, seen on one occasion by my wife, myself, and my son together, and on others seen, heard and felt, by myself, wife and daughter, also in daylight. These experiences have covered the whole range of psychic phenomena : apparitions, materialisations, etherialisations, lights, pillars of fire, the direct voice, very loud and in daylight, appearances of animals, automatic writing, psychic photography, movements of furniture and other objects, volleys of bell-ringing, remarkable warnings and prophetic forecasts of coming events accurately fulfilled, sometimes to the day, hour and minute, and many evidential messages from my ' dead ' relatives and friends, a very remarkable guardian-angel attitude shown by the manifesting intelligences of the utmost service (page 139), sometimes warning us of danger, and on one occasion saving life ; and many other phases too numerous to mention."
A woman recalled seeing a strange light when an apparition of her dying father occurred:
"A day or two before his death, somewhere between the 4th and 10th of December (the day of his decease), when he was lying in an unconscious state in a room on the ground floor, and I was sleeping on the second floor, I was awoke suddenly by seeing a bright light in my bedroom — the whole room was flooded with a radiance quite indescribable — and my father was standing by my bedside, an etherealised semi- transparent figure, yet his voice and his aspect were normal. His voice seemed a far-off sound, and yet it was his same voice as in life. All he said was. 'Take care of mother.' He then disappeared floating in the air, as it were, and the light also vanished."
In his autobiography Incidents in My Life (which includes many a fascinating account), the medium Daniel Dunglas Home describes a case of a paranormal luminosity:
"The family had retired to rest, and I at once went to my room, which was so completely filled with the moonlight as to render a candle unnecessary. After saying my prayers, I was seated on the bed, and about to draw the sheet over me, when a sudden darkness seemed to pervade the room. This surprised me, inasmuch as I had not seen a cloud in the sky ; and on looking up I saw the moon still shining, but it was on the other side of the darkness, which still grew more dense, until through the darkness there seemed to be a gleam of light, which I cannot describe, but it was similar to those which I and many others have since seen when the room has been illuminated by spiritual presence. This light increased, and my attention was drawn to the foot of my bed, where stood my friend Edwin. He appeared as in a cloud of brightness, illumining his face with a distinctness more than mortal. His features were unchanged except in brightness, and the only difference I saw was that his hair was long, and that it fell in wavy ringlets upon his shoulders. He looked on me with a smile of ineffable sweetness, then slowly raising the right arm, he pointed upward, and making with it three circles in the air, the hand began slowly to disappear and then the arm, and finally the whole body melted away. The natural light of the room was then again apparent. I was speechless and could not move, though I retained all my reasoning faculties. As soon as the power of movement was restored, I rang the bell, and the family, thinking I was ill, came to my room, when my first words were, ' I have seen Edwin — he died three days ago at this very hour.' This was found to be perfectly correct by a letter which came a few days afterwards, announcing that after only a few hours illness, he had died of malignant dysentery."
On page 94 of a July 1951 edition of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, we have this account of a paranormal luminosity:
"I was sitting in
my living room reading. It was about 7:30 in the morning on a
nice clear day. Suddenly the room seemed to be filled with
brilliant light—not light seen by the physical eye but a quality of
light akin to ecstatic joy or triumph, and yet with the physical radiance of light too. In a moment I 'heard’ Carl Morgan telling
me it was wonderful, that he had always believed that death must
lie something like this. He was free now and so happy he could
scarcely believe it. The experience lasted for about two minutes
and was so vivid I can recall every detail. I did not hear a
physical voice but the words seemed to speak inside my head
somehow and were unmistakably Carl Morgan’s in ‘voice’ and
intonation. My sister-in-law taught in the same studio with me
at that time and as soon as we met there (about 8:30 that same
morning) I told her of this experience. She insisted that I write
it down and that we both sign it before we tried to check on
Carl Morgan’s condition.”
On the next page we read this:
"Going to considerable trouble, the two women finally learned that
Carl Morgan had died in a hospital in their city early on the morning
of the experience, after having been in coma for some hours. They
never were able to ascertain the exact moment of death (for he was
found dead by a hospital nurse), but it seems reasonably certain
that it occurred within a half hour to two hours before the auditory
apparition was experienced."
Another woman recalls seeing a dramatic luminous sight when her father died:
"I was just about to slip quietly down into the bed when on the opposite side of it, that on which the nurse was sleeping, the room became suddenly full of a beautiful light, in the midst of which stood my father absolutely transfigured, clothed with brightness. He slowly moved towards the bed, raising his hands as though to clasp me into his arms, and I ejaculated, 'Father.' He replied, 'Blessed for ever, my child, for ever blessed.' I moved to climb over nurse and kiss him, reaching out my arms to him, but with a look of mingled sadness and love he appeared to float back with the light towards the wall and was gone. The vision occupied so short a time that glancing involuntarily at the window again I saw the morning dawn and the little bird just as they had looked a few minutes before. I felt sure that God had vouchsafed to me a wonderful vision, and was not in the least afraid, but, on the contrary, full of joy that brought floods of grateful tears, and completely removed all anguish except that of having lost my father from earth."
In 1918 Alexandrina M'Gillivray reported the very unusual sight of seeing a strange luminosity on the night her sister had an unusually vivid dream of her late mother:
"Once when sharing a room with a sister I could not sleep. I was looking towards her bed when I saw a luminous cloud hovering over her head. It did not frighten me in the least so I did not waken her, but in the morning she told me that she had had a very vivid dream of our mother who had died some time previously — so vivid that she could hardly believe my mother was not present."
On page 141 of the document here, a woman recalls a strange experience with light, one occurring three weeks after her husband's death:
" I woke up with a rushing noise of wind in the room, as if all
the windows were open and everything in the room was swirling
round and round as it does at sea in a storm. But the strange
thing is, I was not in the least frightened ; only I knelt up in my
four-poster to see if the windows were really shut (as they were)
and to look at what was happening. . . . Then I saw a small light
by the fireplace and it grew bigger and brighter. . . . All on a
sudden, before one could think, the whole room and all in it— I
myself and the bed— everything was enveloped in a perfectly
gorgeous light, like the most wonderful, bluish opaque light—
opaline— lovely ! It seemed clear, and yet I cannot remember
being able to see through it. I fell back on my pillows saying: 'Oh! don't go ! ’ It
seemed to bring so extraordinary a rest. . . . Remember there
was not the least fear in my mind from the beginning ; only the
feeling one could go on watching this fight for ever. . . . It was
so peaceful— so full of bliss— no least atom of fear. I kept on saying : ‘ Oh ! don’t go ! ’ But it went. While the whole room was illuminated it suddenly went. It went as it came, only more quickly, for it began
with a small light that spread. . . ."
Below is a quote from Professor Charles Richet, who won a Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 1913, describing a human form seeming to appear from a luminous orb:
"I see something like a white luminous ball of undetermined outline suspended above the floor. Then suddenly there appears, emerging from this white orb of light as from a trap-door, the phantom 'Bien Boa.' It is of moderate height. He is draped in a flowing garment with a belt around his waist. One cannot say whether he walks or glides...Without opening the curtain he suddenly collapses and vanishes on the floor. At the same time one hears the noise of a body falling on the floor. Three or four minutes afterwards the same white orb appears in the opening of the curtains above the floor, then a body is seen quickly rising straight up and attaining the height of an adult, and then it again collapses on the floor."
This was observed in a place that had no trap-door. A similar account by Richet can can be found here. Richet's very interesting book "Thirty Years of Psychical Research" can be read online here.
"I see something like a white luminous ball of undetermined outline suspended above the floor. Then suddenly there appears, emerging from this white orb of light as from a trap-door, the phantom 'Bien Boa.' It is of moderate height. He is draped in a flowing garment with a belt around his waist. One cannot say whether he walks or glides...Without opening the curtain he suddenly collapses and vanishes on the floor. At the same time one hears the noise of a body falling on the floor. Three or four minutes afterwards the same white orb appears in the opening of the curtains above the floor, then a body is seen quickly rising straight up and attaining the height of an adult, and then it again collapses on the floor."
This was observed in a place that had no trap-door. A similar account by Richet can can be found here. Richet's very interesting book "Thirty Years of Psychical Research" can be read online here.
In the account here a witness reports both a shockingly inexplicable paranormal luminosity and also a sudden drop in temperature, often reported when paranormal phenomena are witnessed:
"On the night of 19th December 1907 my wife was awakened by a feeling of intense cold, and by a strong cold breeze blowing upon her cheek. She turned her head, raising herself, and saw, to her amazement, standing at the foot of the bed, and on my side of it, a tall column of white cloudy light reaching from the bed’s foot right up to the ceiling. She gazed at it spellbound (the cold wind blowing the whole time) for a minute or more, during which period she noticed that the light illuminated the bed coverlet, and she could see its pattern distinctly, and also the dressing table and mirror by the light, and then becoming terrified she buried her head under the clothes, and on looking up after a considerable time found the room in darkness. She described the light to me when I awoke as like a column of muslin wrapped in spiral swathes, with a strong electric light in the midst and shining through it."
