An account

April 1885 One day, while resting, I happened to glance towards a window, in the fifth story, and, just outside, beheld the spirit^ of my friend, Mr. Blake, who seemed unable to get into the room ; but, on rising and throwing up the sash, he appeared to come in and stand by my chair, make passes over me, magnetising me, and seeming to envelope me with something, just as a spider does a fly in its web. Before this, in fact some three or four weeks before I had ever met or seen him, while in a passive mood, I saw his head clairvoyantly, so distinctly that when he came to my office for the first time I recognised him as the person. And although he was at these times alive and well, I saw and recognised his presence as distinctly as though he had been there in form. u q j^ Gould [The last incident cannot, of course, carry much weight, as the recognition was a completely retrospective act ; and as regards Mrs. Gould's other experience, the fact that Mr. Blake had been hypnotising her must perhaps be regarded as favouring the hypothesis of a purely subjective hallucination. At the same time, I am not aware of any sufficient evidence that hypnotic treatment induces a liability to hallucinations representing the hypnotiser, unless that hallucination has been specially imposed on the subject's mind — as any other might be — while in the state of trance.] Another foreign example is omitted, as we have been unable to obtain the testimony of the percipients. It is clear that the fact of the telepathic transference in these casual cases cannot be considered to be proved f but the mention of the type here may serve to elicit further instances. § 6. Of the other class mentioned, where peculiarities of dress or aspect afford the only presumption that a hallucination was more than purely subjective — i.e., was due to an absent agent who, nevertheless, was in a perfectly normal state at the time — the following examples may serve.^ The first is from Captain A. S. Beaumont, of 1, Crescent Road, South Norwood Park. 1 See p. 48, note. 2 The class, it may be remembered, is the second of the four types of ambiguous cases defined in Vol. i., p. 505. 3 As regards the connection of these appearances with the agent's sub-conscious sense of his own aspect, I need not repeat the remarks already made (Chap, xii., § 8) in respect of the far stronger group where there were similar peculiarities plus some exceptional condition of the a^ent. February 24th, 1885. (259) About September, 1873, when my father was living at 57, Invern