"Spirits of the Living." Mistakes of Identity. Followed by Arrival
of Real Person. "Arrivals." Mark Twain's Phantom Lady. Phantom
Dogcart. Influence of Expectant Attention. Goethe. Shelley. The
Wraith of the Czarina. Queen Elizabeth's Wraith. Second Sight. Case
at Ballachulish. Experiments in sending Wraiths. An "Astral Body".
Evidence discussed. Miss Russell's Case. "Spirits of the Dying."
Maori Examples. Theory of Chance Coincidence. In Tavistock Place.
The Wynyard Wraith. Lord Brougham's Wraith Story. Lord Brougham's
Logic. The Dying Mother. Comparison with the Astral Body. The
Vision of the Bride. Animals as affected by the supposed Presence of
Apparitions. Examples. Transition to Appearances of the Dead.
"Spirits of the living" is the Highland term for the appearances of
people who are alive and well--but elsewhere. The common Highland
belief is that they show themselves to second-sighted persons, very
frequently before the arrival of a stranger or a visitor, expected or
unexpected. Probably many readers have had the experience of meeting
an acquaintance in the street. He passes us, and within a hundred
yards we again meet and talk with our friend. When he is of very
marked appearance, or has any strong peculiarity, the experience is
rather perplexing. Perhaps a few bits of hallucination are sprinkled
over a real object. This ordinary event leads on to what are called
"Arrivals," that is when a person is seen, heard and perhaps spoken to
in a place to which he is travelling, but whither he has not yet
arrived. Mark Twain gives an instance in his own experience. At a
large crowded reception he saw approaching him in the throng a lady
whom he had known and liked many years before. When she was near him,
he lost sight of her, but met her at supper, dressed as he had seen
her in the "levee". At that moment she was travelling by railway to
the town in which he was. {85a}
A large number of these cases have been printed. {85b} In one case a
gentleman and lady from their window saw his brother and sister-in-law
drive past, with a horse which they knew had not been out for some
weeks. The seers were presently joined by the visitors' daughter, who
had met the party on the road, she having just left them at their
house. Ten minutes later the real pair arrived, horse and all. {85c}
This last affair is one of several tales of "Phantom Coaches," not
only heard but seen, the coach being a coach of the living. In 1893
the author was staying at a Highland castle, when one of the ladies
observed to her nephew, "So you and Susan _did_ drive in the dogcart;
I saw you pass my window". "No, we didn't; but we spoke of doing it."
The lady then mentioned minute details of the dress and attitudes of
her relations as they passed her window, where the drive turned from
the hall door through the park; but, in fact, no such journey had been
made. Dr. Hack Tuke published the story of the "Arrival" of Dr. Boase
at his house a quarter of an hour before he came, the people who saw
him supposing him to be in Paris. {86}
When a person is seen in "Arrival" cases before he arrives, the affair
is not so odd if he is expected. Undoubtedly, expectation does
sometimes conjure up phantasms, and the author once saw (as he
supposed) a serious accident occur which in fact did not take place,
though it seemed unavoidable.
Curiously enough, this creation of phantasms by expectant attention
seems to be rare where "ghosts" are expected. The author has slept in
several haunted houses, but has never seen what he was led to expect.
In many instances, as in "The Lady in Black" (infra), a ghost who is a
frequent visitor is never seen when people watch for her. Among the
many persons who have had delusions as to the presence of the dead,
very few have been hoping, praying for and expecting them.
"I look for ghosts, but none will force
Their way to me: 'Tis falsely said
That there was ever intercourse
Between the living and the dead,
For surely then I should have sight
Of him I wait for day and night
With love and longings infinite."
The Affliction of Margaret has been the affliction of most of us.
There are curious historical examples of these appearances of the
living. Goethe declares that he once met himself at a certain place
in a certain dress, and several years later found himself there in
that costume. Shelley was seen by his friends at Lerici to pass along
a balcony whence there was no exit. However, he could not be found
there. The story of the wraith of Catherine the Great is variously
narrated. We give it as told by an eye-witness, the Comte de
Ribaupierre, about 1862 to Lady Napier and Ettrick. The Count, in
1862, was a very old man, and more than thirty years have passed since
he gave the tale to Lady Napier, whose memory retains it in the
following form:--
THE WRAITH OF THE CZARINA
"In the exercise of his duties as one of the pages-in-waiting,
Ribaupierre followed one day his august mistress into the throne-room
of the palace. When the Empress, accompanied by the high officers of
her court and the ladies of her household, came in sight of the chair
of state which she was about to occupy, she suddenly stopped, and to
the horror and astonished awe of her courtiers, she pointed to a
visionary being seated on the imperial throne. The occupant of the
chair was an exact counterpart of herself. All saw it and trembled,
but none dared to move towards the mysterious presentment of their
sovereign.
"After a moment of dead silence the great Catherine raised her voice
and ordered her guard to advance and fire on the apparition. The
order was obeyed, a mirror beside the throne was shattered, the vision
had disappeared, and the Empress, with no sign of emotion, took the
chair from which her semblance had passed away." It is a striking
barbaric scene!
"Spirits of the living" of this kind are common enough. In the
Highlands "second sight" generally means a view of an event or
accident some time before its occurrence. Thus an old man was sitting
with a little boy on a felled tree beside a steep track in a quarry at
Ballachulish. Suddenly he jerked the boy to one side, and threw
himself down on the further side of the tree. While the boy stared,
the old man slowly rose, saying, "The spirits of the living are strong
to-day!" He had seen a mass of rock dashing along, killing some
quarrymen and tearing down the path. The accident occurred next day.
It is needless to dwell on second sight, which is not peculiar to
Celts, though the Highlanders talk more about it than other people.
These appearances of the living but absent, whether caused by some
mental action of the person who appears or not, are, at least,
_unconscious_ on his part. {88} But a few cases occur in which a
living person is said, by a voluntary exertion of mind, to have made
himself visible to a friend at a distance. One case is vouched for by
Baron von Schrenck-Notzig, a German psychologist, who himself made the
experiment with success. Others are narrated by Dr. Gibotteau. A
curious tale is told by several persons as follows:--
AN "ASTRAL BODY"
Mr. Sparks and Mr. Cleave, young men of twenty and nineteen, were
accustomed to "mesmerise" each other in their dormitory at Portsmouth,
where they were students of naval engineering. Mr. Sparks simply
stared into Mr. Cleave's eyes as he lay on his bed till he "went off".
The experiments seemed so curious that witnesses were called, Mr.
Darley and Mr. Thurgood. On Friday, 15th January, 1886, Mr. Cleave
determined to try to see, when asleep, a young lady at Wandsworth to
whom he was in the habit of writing every Sunday. He also intended,
if possible, to make _her_ see _him_. On awaking, he said that he had
seen her in the dining-room of her house, that she had seemed to grow
restless, had looked at him, and then had covered her face with her
hands. On Monday he tried again, and he thought he had frightened
her, as after looking at him for a few minutes she fell back in her
chair in a kind of faint. Her little brother was in the room with her
at the time. On Tuesday next the young lady wrote, telling Mr. Cleave
that she had been startled by seeing him on Friday evening (this is an
error), and again on Monday evening, "much clearer," when she nearly
fainted.
All this Mr. Sparks wrote to Mr. Gurney in the same week. He was
inviting instructions on hypnotic experiments, and "launched a letter
into space," having read something vague about Mr. Gurney's studies in
the newspapers. The letter, after some adventures, arrived, and on
15th March Mr. Cleave wrote his account, Mr. Darley and Mr. Thurgood
corroborating as to their presence during the trance and as to Mr.
Cleave's statement when he awoke. Mr. Cleave added that he made
experiments "for five nights running" before seeing the lady. The
young lady's letter of 19th January, 1886, is also produced (postmark,
Portsmouth, 20th January). But the lady mentions her _first_ vision
of Mr. Cleave as on last _Tuesday_ (not Friday), and her second, while
she was alone with her little brother, at supper on Monday. "I was so
frightened that I nearly fainted."
These are all young people. It may be said that all five were
concerned in a complicated hoax on Mr. Gurney. Nor would such a hoax
argue any unusual moral obliquity. Surtees of Mainsforth, in other
respects an honourable man, took in Sir Walter Scott with forged
ballads, and never undeceived his friend. Southey played off a hoax
with his book The Doctor. Hogg, Lockhart, and Wilson, with Allan
Cunningham and many others, were constantly engaged in such
mystifications, and a "ghost-hunter" might seem a fair butt.
But the very discrepancy in Miss ---'s letter is a proof of fairness.
Her first vision of Mr. Cleave was on "Tuesday last". Mr. Cleave's
first impression of success was on the Friday following.
But he had been making the experiment for five nights previous,
including the Tuesday of Miss ---'s letter. Had the affair been a
hoax, Miss --- would either have been requested by him to re-write her
letter, putting Friday for Tuesday, or what is simpler, Mr. Sparks
would have adopted her version and written "Tuesday" in place of
"Friday" in his first letter to Mr. Gurney. The young lady,
naturally, requested Mr. Cleave not to try his experiment on her
again.
A similar case is that of Mrs. Russell, who tried successfully, when
awake and in Scotland, to appear to one of her family in Germany. The
sister corroborates and says, "Pray don't come appearing to me again".
{91a}
These spirits of the living lead to the subject of spirits of the
dying. No kind of tale is so common as that of dying people appearing
at a distance. Hundreds have been conscientiously published. {91b}
The belief is prevalent among the Maoris of New Zealand, where the
apparition is regarded as a proof of death. {91c} Now there is
nothing in savage philosophy to account for this opinion of the
Maoris. A man's "spirit" leaves his body in dreams, savages think,
and as dreaming is infinitely more common than death, the Maoris
should argue that the appearance is that of a man's spirit wandering
in his sleep. However, they, like many Europeans, associate a man's
apparition with his death. Not being derived from their philosophy,
this habit may be deduced from their experience.
As there are, undeniably, many examples of hallucinatory appearances
of persons in perfect health and ordinary circumstances, the question
has been asked whether there are _more_ cases of an apparition
coinciding with death than, according to the doctrine of chances,
there ought to be. Out of about 18,000 answers to questions on this
subject, has been deduced the conclusion that the deaths do coincide
with the apparitions to an extent beyond mere accident. Even if we
had an empty hallucination for every case coinciding with death, we
could not set the coincidences down to mere chance. As well might we
say that if "at the end of an hour's rifle practice at long-distance
range, the record shows that for every shot that has hit the bull's
eye, another has missed the target, therefore the shots that hit the
target did so by accident." {92} But as empty hallucinations are more
likely to be forgotten than those which coincide with a death; as
exaggeration creeps in, as the collectors of evidence are naturally
inclined to select and question people whom they know to have a good
story to tell, the evidence connecting apparitions, voices, and so on
with deaths is not likely to be received with favour.
One thing must be remembered as affecting the theory that the
coincidence between the wraith and the death is purely an accident.
Everybody dreams and out of the innumerable dreams of mankind, a few
must hit the mark by a fluke. But _hallucinations_ are not nearly so
common as dreams. Perhaps, roughly speaking, one person in ten has
had what he believes to be a waking hallucination. Therefore, so to
speak, compared with dreams, but a small number of shots of this kind
are fired. Therefore, bull's eyes (the coincidence between an
appearance and a death) are infinitely less likely to be due to chance
in the case of waking hallucinations than in the case of dreams, which
all mankind are firing off every night of their lives. Stories of
these coincidences between appearances and deaths are as common as
they are dull. Most people come across them in the circle of their
friends. They are all very much alike, and make tedious reading. We
give a few which have some picturesque features.
IN TAVISTOCK PLACE {93}
"In the latter part of the autumn of 1878, between half-past three and
four in the morning, I was leisurely walking home from the house of a
sick friend. A middle-aged woman, apparently a nurse, was slowly
following, going in the same direction. We crossed Tavistock Square
together, and emerged simultaneously into Tavistock Place. The
streets and squares were deserted, the morning bright and calm, my
health excellent, nor did I suffer from anxiety or fatigue. A man
suddenly appeared, striding up Tavistock Place, coming towards me, and
going in a direction opposite to mine. When first seen he was
standing exactly in front of my own door (5 Tavistock Place). Young
and ghastly pale, he was dressed in evening clothes, evidently made by
a foreign tailor. Tall and slim, he walked with long measured strides
noiselessly. A tall white hat, covered thickly with black crape, and
an eyeglass, completed the costume of this strange form. The
moonbeams falling on the corpse-like features revealed a face well
known to me, that of a friend and relative. The sole and only person
in the street beyond myself and this being was the woman already
alluded to. She stopped abruptly, as if spell-bound, then rushing
towards the man, she gazed intently and with horror unmistakable on
his face, which was now upturned to the heavens and smiling ghastly.
She indulged in her strange contemplation but during very few seconds,
then with extraordinary and unexpected speed for her weight and age
she ran away with a terrific shriek and yell. This woman never have I
seen or heard of since, and but for her presence I could have
explained the incident: called it, say, subjection of the mental
powers to the domination of physical reflex action, and the man's
presence could have been termed a false impression on the retina.
"A week after this event, news of this very friend's death reached me.
It occurred on the morning in question. From the family I learned
that according to the rites of the Greek Church and the custom of the
country he resided in, he was buried in his evening clothes made
abroad by a foreign tailor, and strange to say, he wore goloshes over
his boots, according also to the custom of the country he died in. . .
. When in England, he lived in Tavistock Place, and occupied my rooms
during my absence." {95a}
THE WYNYARD WRAITH {95b}
"In the month of November (1785 or 1786), Sir John Sherbrooke and
Colonel Wynyard were sitting before dinner in their barrack room at
Sydney Cove, in America. It was duskish, and a candle was placed on a
table at a little distance. A figure dressed in plain clothes and a
good round hat, passed gently between the above people and the fire.
While passing, Sir J. Sherbrooke exclaimed, 'God bless my soul, who's
that?'
"Almost at the same moment Colonel W. said, 'That's my brother John
Wynyard, and I am sure he is dead'. Colonel W. was much agitated, and
cried and sobbed a great deal. Sir John said, 'The fellow has a
devilish good hat; I wish I had it'. (Hats were not to be got there
and theirs were worn out.) They immediately got up (Sir John was on
crutches, having broken his leg), took a candle and went into the
bedroom, into which the figure had entered. They searched the bed and
every corner of the room to no effect; the windows were fastened up
with mortar. . . .
"They received no communication from England for about five months,
when a letter from Mr. Rush, the surgeon (Coldstream Guards),
announced the death of John Wynyard at the moment, as near as could be
ascertained, when the figure appeared. In addition to this
extraordinary circumstance, Sir John told me that two years and a half
afterwards he was walking with Lilly Wynyard (a brother of Colonel W.)
in London, and seeing somebody on the other side of the way, he
recognised, he thought, the person who had appeared to him and Colonel
Wynyard in America. Lilly Wynyard said that the person pointed out
was a Mr. Eyre (Hay?), that he and John Wynyard were frequently
mistaken for each other, and that money had actually been paid to this
Mr. Eyre in mistake."
A famous tale of an appearance is Lord Brougham's. His Lordship was
not reckoned precisely a veracious man; on the other hand, this was
not the kind of fable he was likely to tell. He was brought up under
the regime of common-sense. "On all such subjects my father was very
sceptical," he says. To disbelieve Lord Brougham we must suppose
either that he wilfully made a false entry in his diary in 1799, or
that in preparing his Autobiography in 1862, he deliberately added a
falsehood--and then explained his own marvel away!
LORD BROUGHAM'S STORY
"December 19, 1799.
" . . . At one in the morning, arriving at a decent inn (in Sweden),
we decided to stop for the night, and found a couple of comfortable
rooms. Tired with the cold of yesterday, I was glad to take advantage
of a hot bath before I turned in. And here a most remarkable thing
happened to me--so remarkable that I must tell the story from the
beginning.
"After I left the High School, I went with G---, my most intimate
friend, to attend the classes in the University. . . . We actually
committed the folly of drawing up an agreement, written with our
blood, to the effect that whichever of us died the first should appear
to the other, and thus solve any doubts we had entertained of 'the
life after death'. G--- went to India, years passed, and," says Lord
Brougham, "I had nearly forgotten his existence. I had taken, as I
have said, a warm bath, and while lying in it and enjoying the comfort
of the heat, I turned my head round, looking towards the chair on
which I had deposited my clothes, as I was about to get out of the
bath. On the chair sat G---, looking calmly at me. How I got out of
the bath I know not, but on recovering my senses I found myself
sprawling on the floor. The apparition, or whatever it was that had
taken the likeness of G---, had disappeared. . . . So strongly was I
affected by it that I have here written down the whole history, with
the date, 19th December, and all the particulars as they are now fresh
before me. No doubt I had fallen asleep" (he has just said that he
was awake and on the point of leaving the bath), "and that the
appearance presented so distinctly to my eyes was a dream I cannot for
a moment doubt. . . ."
On 16th October, 1862, Lord Brougham copied this extract for his
Autobiography, and says that on his arrival in Edinburgh he received a
letter from India, announcing that G--- had died on 19th December. He
remarks "singular coincidence!" and adds that, considering the vast
number of dreams, the number of coincidences is perhaps fewer than a
fair calculation of chances would warrant us to expect.
This is a concession to common-sense, and argues an ignorance of the
fact that sane and (apparently) waking men may have hallucinations.
On the theory that we _may_ have inappreciable moments of sleep when
we think ourselves awake, it is not an ordinary but an extraordinary
coincidence that Brougham should have had that peculiar moment of the
"dream" of G--- on the day or night of G---'s death, while the
circumstance that he had made a compact with G--- multiplies the odds
against accident in a ratio which mathematicians may calculate.
Brougham was used to dreams, like other people; he was not shocked by
them. This "dream" "produced such a shock that I had no inclination
to talk about it". Even on Brougham's showing, then, this dream was a
thing unique in his experience, and not one of the swarm of visions of
sleep. Thus his including it among these, while his whole language
shows that he himself did not really reckon it among these, is an
example of the fallacies of common-sense. He completes his fallacy by
saying, "It is not much more wonderful than that a person whom we had
no reason to expect should appear to us at the very moment we had been
thinking or speaking of him". But Lord Brougham had _not_ been
speaking or thinking of G---; "there had been nothing to call him to
my recollection," he says. To give his logic any value, he should
constantly when (as far as he knew) awake, have had dreams that
"shocked" him. Then _one_ coincidence would have had no assignable
cause save ordinary accident.
If Lord Brougham fabled in 1799 or in 1862, he did so to make a
"sensation". And then he tried to undo it by arguing that his
experience was a thoroughly commonplace affair.
We now give a very old story, "The Dying Mother". If the reader will
compare it with Mr. Cleave's case, "An Astral Body," in this chapter,
he will be struck by the resemblance. Mr. Cleave and Mrs. Goffe were
both in a trance. Both wished to see persons at a distance. Both
saw, and each was seen, Mrs. Goffe by her children's nurse; Mr. Cleave
by the person whom he wished to see, but _not_ by a small boy also
present.
THE DYING MOTHER {101}
"Mary, the wife of John Goffe of Rochester, being afflicted with a
long illness, removed to her father's house at West Mulling, about
nine miles from her own. There she died on 4th June, this present
year, 1691.
"The day before her departure (death) she grew very impatiently
desirous to see her two children, whom she had left at home to the
care of a nurse. She prayed her husband to 'hire a horse, for she
must go home and die with the children'. She was too ill to be moved,
but 'a minister who lives in the town was with her at ten o'clock that
night, to whom she expressed good hopes in the mercies of God and a
willingness to die'. 'But' said she, 'it is my misery that I cannot
see my children.'
"Between one and two o'clock in the morning, she fell into a trance.
One, widow Turner, who watched with her that night, says that her eyes
were open and fixed and her jaw fallen. Mrs. Turner put her hand upon
her mouth and nostrils, but could perceive no breath. She thought her
to be in a fit; and doubted whether she were dead or alive.
"The next morning the dying woman told her mother that she had been at
home with her children. . . . 'I was with them last night when I was
asleep.'
"The nurse at Rochester, widow Alexander by name, affirms, and says
she will take her oath on't before a Magistrate and receive the
sacrament upon it, that a little before two o'clock that morning she
saw the likeness of the said Mary Goffe come out of the next chamber
(where the elder child lay in a bed by itself) the door being left
open, and stood by her bedside for about a quarter of an hour; the
younger child was there lying by her. Her eyes moved and her mouth
went, but she said nothing. The nurse, moreover, says that she was
perfectly awake; it was then daylight, being one of the longest days
in the year. She sat up in bed and looked steadfastly on the
apparition. In that time she heard the bridge clock strike two, and a
while after said, 'In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, what
art thou?' Thereupon the apparition removed and went away; she
slipped on her clothes and followed, but what became on't she cannot
tell.
"Mrs. Alexander then walked out of doors till six, when she persuaded
some neighbours to let her in. She told her adventure; they failed to
persuade her that she had dreamed it. On the same day the neighbour's
wife, Mrs. Sweet, went to West Mulling, saw Mrs. Goffe before her
death, and heard from Mrs. Goffe's mother the story of the daughter's
dream of her children, Mrs. Sweet not having mentioned the nurse's
story of the apparition." That poor Mrs. Goffe walked to Rochester
and returned undetected, a distance of eighteen miles is difficult to
believe.
Goethe has an obiter dictum on the possibility of intercommunion
without the aid of the ordinary senses, between the souls of lovers.
Something of the kind is indicated in anecdotes of dreams dreamed in
common by husband and wife, but, in such cases, it may be urged that
the same circumstance, or the same noise or other disturbing cause,
may beget the same dream in both. A better instance is
THE VISION OF THE BRIDE
Colonel Meadows Taylor writes, in The Story of my Life (vol. ii., p.
32): "The determination (to live unmarried) was the result of a very
curious and strange incident that befel me during one of my marches to
Hyderabad. I have never forgotten it, and it returns to this day to
my memory with a strangely vivid effect that I can neither repel nor
explain. I purposely withhold the date of the year. In my very early
life I had been deeply and devotedly attached to one in England, and
only relinquished the hope of one day winning her when the terrible
order came out that no furlough to Europe would be granted.
"One evening I was at the village of Dewas Kudea, after a very long
afternoon and evening march from Muktul, and I lay down very weary;
but the barking of village dogs, the baying of jackals and over-
fatigue and heat prevented sleep, and I was wide awake and restless.
Suddenly, for my tent door was wide open, I saw the face and figure so
familiar to me, but looking older, and with a sad and troubled
expression; the dress was white and seemed covered with a profusion of
lace and glistened in the bright moonlight. The arms were stretched
out, and a low plaintive cry of 'Do not let me go! Do not let me go!'
reached me. I sprang forward, but the figure receded, growing fainter
and fainter till I could see it no more, but the low plaintive tones
still sounded. I had run barefooted across the open space where my
tents were pitched, very much to the astonishment of the sentry on
guard, but I returned to my tent without speaking to him. I wrote to
my father. I wished to know whether there were any hope for me. He
wrote back to me these words: 'Too late, my dear son--on the very day
of the vision you describe to me, A. was married'."
The colonel did not keep his determination not to marry, for his Life
is edited by his daughter, who often heard her father mention the
incident, "precisely in the same manner, and exactly as it is in the
book". {103}
If thinking of friends and lovers, lost or dead, could bring their
forms and voices before the eye and ear of flesh, there would be a
world of hallucinations around us. "But it wants heaven-sent moments
for this skill," and few bridal nights send a vision and a voice to
the bed of a wakeful lover far away.
Stories of this kind, appearances of the living or dying really at a
distance, might be multiplied to any extent. They are all capable of
explanation, if we admit the theory of telepathy, of a message sent by
an unknown process from one living man's mind to another. Where more
than one person shares the vision, we may suppose that the influence
comes directly from A to B, C and D, or comes from A to B, and is by
him unconsciously "wired" on to B and C, or is "suggested" to them by
B's conduct or words.
In that case animals may be equally affected, thus, if B seems
alarmed, that may frighten his dog, or the alarm of a dog, caused by
some noise or smell, heard or smelt by him, may frighten B, C and D,
and make one or all of them see a ghost.
Popular opinion is strongly in favour of beasts seeing ghosts. The
people of St. Kilda, according to Martin, held that cows shared the
visions of second-sighted milk-maids. Horses are said to shy on the
scene of murders. Scott's horse ran away (home) when Sir Walter saw
the bogle near Ashiestiel. In a case given later the dog shut up in a
room full of unexplained noises, yelled and whined. The same dog (an
intimate friend of my own) bristled up his hair and growled before his
master saw the Grey Lady. The Rev. J. G. Wood gives a case of a cat
which nearly went mad when his mistress saw an apparition. Jeremy
Taylor tells of a dog which got quite used to a ghost that often
appeared to his master, and used to follow it. In "The Lady in
Black," a dog would jump up and fawn on the ghost and then run away in
a fright. Mr. Wesley's mastiff was much alarmed by the family ghost.
Not to multiply cases, dogs and other animals are easily affected by
whatever it is that makes people think a ghost is present, or by the
conduct of the human beings on these occasions.
Absurd as the subject appears, there are stories of the ghosts of
animals. These may be discussed later; meanwhile we pass from
appearances of the living or dying to stories of appearances of the
dead.