Now if a living man can by force of will project a telepathic phantasm
of himself, it is reasonable to suppose that a dead man can do the same,
if the so-called dead man still exists; for telepathy does not seem to
be a physical process of ether-waves, does not conform to the law of
inverse squares or propagate itself in all directions as physical forces
do. It seems to occur in the mental world, between mind and mind rather
than between brain and brain. Consequently, telepathy from the dead is
likely to be easier than from the living, for they over there are not
clogged with the fleshly body. Certainly, however they may be explained,
there are many cases of the apparition of a deceased person. The
difficulty about accepting the evidentiality of some of them is that if
the percipient knew that the person appearing was dead, the apparition
may be merely a subjective hallucination. And even if the death was not
known, it might be surmised, and the apparition might be the result of
expectancy if the person appearing was known to be ill or in danger. But
there are some cases in which a certain amount of detail is conveyed,
rendering a subjective explanation not very probable. For instance,
Captain Colt had a vision of his brother, in a kneeling position, with
a bullet wound in his right temple. He described the vision to several
people in the house before any news came, so the case does not rest on
his word alone. In due time information arrived that his brother had
been killed. He had been shot through the right temple, had fallen among
a heap of others, and was found in a kneeling position. In his pocket
was a letter from Capt. Colt asking him, if anything happened to him,
to make his presence known in the room in which as a matter of fact the
apparition was seen. The vision, it was found, occurred a few hours
after the death. Mr Myers gives full details in _Human Personality_.
In this case the bullet-wound and the kneeling position are points of
correct detail which are hardly explicable on a subjective theory. The
best sceptical theory is that the incident was telepathic, the wounded
brother sending out his telepathic message after being shot. This is
possible, but hardly probable; for death in the case of a bullet-wound
through the temple must be almost instantaneous.
Spontaneous cases of this kind and of this degree of evidentiality
are rare, but there is a large mass of evidence of the same general
character. The S.P.R. once carried out an extensive inquiry, receiving
answers from 17,000 people, and tabulating the results in a volume of
the _Proceedings_. The final conclusion, expressed in weighed and
guarded words, was that "Between deaths and apparitions of the dying
person a connexion exists which is not due to chance alone". This was
signed, among other members of the Committee, by Professor Sidgwick,
whom Professor James once called "the most exasperatingly critical mind
in England". Some of the apparitions occur before the person's actual
death, but usually in such cases he is already unconscious and the
spirit practically free. As to those occurring after, the main
difficulty about admitting them as proof of survival is, as just said,
the possibility that although they may appear after the death of the
person, the telepathic impulse may have been sent out before, and may
have remained latent for some time in the mind of the percipient. This
has been carefully considered by investigators, and in many cases there
are reasons for regarding it as an insufficient theory. On the whole,
the evidence tends more and more to suggest that in at least some
instances these happenings are due to the agency of a discarnate mind.
The proof is cumulative, and no single case can be crucial. There is
no coerciveness about it, and each can invent his own hypothesis. But
those who have considered the subject most carefully have come to the
provisional conclusion that the agency of the so-called dead is in some
cases a reasonable, and indeed the most reasonable, supposition. There
are of course many narratives of this kind in the Bible,[4] the _Lives_
of the Saints, and other literature, but these records, being of
pre-scientific date, and lacking the corroborative testimony which we
now require, are of a lower order of evidentiality. The new evidence,
however, is throwing a backward light on many of these ancient stories,
and making them credible once more. To me personally, the Bible is a
much more living book than it used to be. I believe that many things in
it which I used to regard as myths may have been facts.
[4] _E.g._, Moses and Elias on the Mount.