An account

As I was at [the town where Miss P. lives] at the time, I can myself so far confirm the story as to mention that, on the day after it occurred, we heard that the young lady had been so shaken in her nerves by her illness that she had been seeing what you would call a ' hallucination,' and was going to Malvern for change of air. She adds that Miss P. was staying with her when the above account was written, and that as to the date, both she and I remembered that it was on a Thursday near the end of March or beginning of April. We find from an obituary notice that Major G. died on Thursday, April 3rd, 1884. In an interview with Mr. Myers, December 26th, 1885, Miss P. added the following details : — Major G.'s phantom was in his ordinary walking costume — hat and ulster — in which Miss P. was accustomed to see him. The figure passed quickly across the end of the room without turning its head, but the face as well as the figure were distinctly recognisable. The figure made no noise, and disappeared as it reached the wall.1 Miss P. at once conjectured that Major G. must be passing away ; but she felt no fear. Although 1 The mode of movement and of disappearance here described are not infrequent in visual hallucinations. In my collection (p. 392), besides about a dozen cases where the disappearance was through a door, behind a curtain, into a corner, and so on, I find four where it was respectively through the wall, into the wall, through the window, and into a bookcase. Movement of some sort, as will be seen later, is an extremely frequent feature of both subjective and telepathic phantoms. ix.] BORDERLAND CASES. 433 Major G. was known to be fatally ill, there was no expectation of his death from day to day. He was not prominently before Miss P.'s mind. Miss P. was somewhat out of health at the time, but never suffered from any kind of hallucination of sight or hearing. She did not mention the incident to her family for fear of ridicule. Miss P.'s sister (to whom the incident was first told) said that she remembered receiving next morning the letter as to Major G.'s death ; and also remembered that some time later Miss P. told her of the incident. [Here the knowledge of the percipient that Major G-. was in a critical state is, of course, an element of weakness ; but it remains a remarkable coincidence that she should have had her one experience of a sensory hallucination at the exact hour of his death.]