Place withheld · 1885-06-01 · from the PHANTASMS archive
June 20th, 1885. As requested, I write to tell you what I saw on two occasions. I am sorry that I am unable to give you the dates, even approximately, as many years have passed since I had the experiences referred to. On one occasion my husband was absent in Somersetshire, and on waking one morning I distinctly saw him standing by my bedside. I was much alarmed, and instinctively covered my face with the bedclothes. My friends have often tried to persuade me that I was not broad awake, but I am quite certain that I was, and that I really saw my husband's appearance. The other occasion was on a certain evening I was going to church, and on getting to the churchyard gate, which is about 20 yards from the door of the church, I saw my husband come out of the church in his surplice, walk a little way towards me, and then turn off round the church. I thought nothing of it until on entering the church I was startled at seeing him in his place in the choir, about to conduct the service. It was then broad daylight, and I am quite sure that I saw the appearance. Nothing whatever occurred after either of these appearances, and, of course, I can in no way account for them.
I can assure you that neither before nor since that time have I ever had any experience of the sort. The second account is from the Rev. T. L. Williams, Vicar of Porthleven, near Helston. Au…
the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details
NON-DREAM DREAM LUCID I remember laying in my bed at my dad's house. By the white light coming from the window in front of me, I could tell that it was morning. I also noticed something else…
the accounts read alike, found by meaning rather than by shared details
September 8th, 1884. I think that in cases of this sort one cannot be too careful as to identity, because I know practically how apt the imagination is to outrun the judgment. But of this pa…
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.
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