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Place withheld · 1828-11-01 · from the PHANTASMS archive

An account

With regard to my mother seeing the Hon. John Yandeleur. She saw him a few minutes after his death. She was living at a house in Limerick, and he died at Kilrush. I heard the account from my father and mother dozens of times when a girl. My mother was not an imaginative woman, or inventive. She died in 1841. I have been living over 30 years in England, and have a good deal lost sight of anyone who could authenticate all this, though everyone knew about it at the time. My uncle who saw his servant is dead. It happened at Carap, Oo. Limerick, about the year 1836. In conversation. Lady Miles told me that her uncle was dressing in the morning, when, looking round, he saw the figure of his servant, with blood about it, and addressed it, thinking it was the man himself. She was in the house at the time, and later she heard the account from her uncle's own lips. (518) From Mme. Vavin, nee Girard, a relative of our friend, M. Ch, Richet, who copied the account from a letter addressed to himself. 1885. Ma mere, etant veuve, avait ete tres aimee et demandee en mariage par un jeune professeur de Caen. Ayant quitte la ville et epouse M. Caillaux, elle avait cesse toute relation avec M. Roger, et n'en entendit plus parler depuis trois ou quatre ans. Une nuit, ^tant absolument dveillde, elle vit une forme blanchatre, comme une vapeur,^ se pencher trois^ fois sur son lit, comme pour lui dire adieu. Elle eut alors, sans pouvoir s'en rendre bien compte, le sentiment que c'etait M. Roger qui lui disait adieu. Tres emue, elle ne parla de la chose a personne ; mais, une huitaine de jours apres, elle apprit la mort de M. Roger, mort survenue la nuit m^me ou elle avait eu cette apparition. Elle ne le savait pas malade. Mme. Vavin adds the following experience of her own : — Pour moi, mes souvenirs sont plus vagues, ^tant plus lointains. Mon pere est mort a pen pres subitement. Je I'avais quitte la veille, au soir, gai et bien portant. Dans la nuit une voix, comme un soufile, et pour ainsi dire sans parole, ^ me fit comprendre que mon pere etait mort Le lendemain, lorsque on entra dans ma chambre, je me jetai en pleurant dans les bras de ma bonne en lui disant, ' Je sais que papa est mort.' Je n'avais vu ni forme, ni apparition d'aucune sorte. J'avais neuf ans.

 

Others who described something like this

1885-04-01

I have read this paper through, and the contents correctly describe what transpired. I was awake, when I saw the face. I have never experienced any similar occurrence. [The last sentence is

the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details

1886-01-01

I find the statements correct as far as my memory is concerned. W. R. Gibbes (M.R.C.S.E., &c.) In conversation, Mrs. Gibbes stated that her son's letters had contained no hint of his return,

the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details

1886-01-01

The date of my brother's death was February 21st, and as far as I can remember I had the dream that evening, but it is so long since that as regards dates I do not like to be too certain. As

the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details

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This is a witness statement collected in the 1880s by Edmund Gurney, Frederic Myers and Frank Podmore of the Society for Psychical Research, and published in Phantasms of the Living (1886), the first large scientific collection of such testimony. Witnesses signed their statements and were often corroborated by others, whose statements appear as their own accounts. The book is in the public domain; the text is verbatim save for scanning artifacts, and the full volumes are at archive.org.