Place withheld · 1847-01-01 · from the PHANTASMS archive
The second appearance of my ' double ' was in the spring (February or March) of 1847, at Leigh Rectory, in Essex, my father, the Rev. Robert Eden (now Primus of Scotland), being rector of the parish. The person who saw it was the nurserymaid. I am not quite sure of her name ; but if, as I think, she was a certain ' Caroline,' she has been dead many years, therefore I can only give you my own very vivid recollections of her story, told with tears of agitation. But first I should mention that I had the mumps at that time, and was going about with my head tied up, and the only other person in the house who had it was my little brother, nearly 10 years younger than myself, who could not possibly be mistaken for me. On the first floor of Leigh Rectory there is a passage which runs the length of the house, terminated at one end by the door of a room that was then the nursery. One morning, about 10.30, ' Caroline ' came out of the nursery, and, walking along the passage, had to pass a doorway opening on to the stairs which led down into the front hall. As she passed, she glanced down, and saw me (conspicuous by the white handkerchief round my head, and facing her) come out of the drawing-room door and walk across the corner of the hall to the library. She proceeded along the passage, and, coming to the foot of the attic stairs, met our maid, who said to her, ' Do you know where Miss Eden is 1 I want to go to her room.' ' Oh yes,' answered Caroline, ' I just saw her go into the library. So they came together up to my room, which was one of the attics, and found me sitting there, where I had been for at least half an hour, writing a letter. After a moment's pause of astonishment, they fled, though I called to them to come in. When I went downstairs a few minutes afterwards, and reached the passage, I saw in the nursery a group of maids, all looking so perturbed that, instead of proceeding down the front stairs, I went on to the nursery and asked what was the matter. But as no one answered, and I saw the nurserymaid was crying, I thought they had been quarrelling, and went away, quite unconscious that it was on my account they were so disturbed.
(1) The vision in a general way resembled James, especially as to size. The features were not clearly defined, but more like a magic-lantern view not properly focussed. (2) I knew that he wa…
the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details
Mrs. B. described me as being in white, and I asked her what I had on my head. She said, ' A thing like this ' — taking hold of a woollen cap which I had given her. It was the fac-simile of …
the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details
I have never before or since suffered from any experience of the kind [i.e., had any visual hallucination]. I cannot give you the date, it was so long ago. Still, the past days are often pre…
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.
Anomaly