It should be remembered that telepathic action, under whatever form it be considered, invariably implies a transmitting agent; that is to say, a brain from which is liberated—whether voluntarily or subconsciously—something supremely active, which for want of a better term we will define as an initial physiopsychic vibration, which, expanding concentrically in all directions, reaches the brain of the percipient, bringing with it the agent's thought.

The subjective mind is often able strongly to impress the objective mind, especially when danger to the person is imminent, or when some near relative or dear friend is in danger. Such impressions are known as premonitions. It is reported that dying people, at the moment of death, or just before it, appear to some near relative or friend who is far away. On the theory of telepathy, such mental action at a distance is facilitated by the dying person's intense thoughts of loved ones who are away from him. Moreover, if the last brain-waves of life be frequently intensest—convulsive in their energy, as the firefly's dying flash is its brightest, and as oftentimes the "lightning before death" would seem to show—we may understand how it is that apparitions at the hour of death are far more numerous and clear than any other ghost appearances.

But these premonitions are not always reliable, for the reason that we are seldom able to distinguish a real premonition from that feeling arising from fear and anxiety regarding the welfare of those who are absent and very dear to us. Thus, a mother will often feel that she has a premonition of danger to an absent child, but will afterwards learn that her fears were groundless. Perhaps at another time a real premonition will be disregarded.

Some consider these premonitions to be really "retro-active hallucinations." As soon as the news of a death is communicated to a person he thinks he has had a vision of the event. Another objection is the adaptability of the memory. Supposing a person has a hallucinatory perception of an event at the time of its occurrence, his memory will later on retain the hallucination as though it were the recollection of something really experienced.

Others who admit the genuineness of the hallucinations, having received their report from persons who have written their experiences down at the exact time, so that there could be no question of delusion or adaptation of memory, still hold that it is not the event of death at a distance which is the cause, but that other contributory causes have been at work.

On one point all sincere investigators must agree, that the study of these phenomena is very difficult, because we come upon practical jokers and the interested frauds of mediums.

It has already been explained in the previous chapter that in order to receive a message or impression, the recipient must be in a passive state of mind, when the brain is not consciously functioning, such as when reading or in the preliminary stage to sleep. That is why visions are seen most often at night. During the day we are too busy, or rather our brains are too busy, and receiving, besides, a multitude of subconscious impressions from our active and noisy surroundings, that such a gentle impress coming from a distance is liable to pass unnoticed.

Sometimes, however, the suggestion is transmitted to a subject in a waking state; a mother experiences a sudden anguish or suffers a strong nervous shock; she even sees her husband or child in peril in clearly defined conditions; she is able to bear witness that this presentiment, or visual or auditory hallucination, occurred exactly at the time when the person, being in peril or in danger of death, thought strongly of her and transmitted to her by unconscious mental suggestion the image, or the picture of the perilous circumstances in which he was placed.

A strange case of apparition in the waking condition was related by Dr. Lindsay Johnson in the Annals of Psychical Science a few years back. This is his story:

"In 1882, I made a tour across Norway for the purpose of taking a series of photographs. I journeyed from Christiania to the North Cape, taking views en route of all places of interest or of beauty from an artist's point of view. I was accompanied by Mr. Frith, of Reigate, son of the celebrated artist and photographer of that name.

"We journeyed without any incident of note until June 14th, when we arrived at a small posting station called Husum, situated about twelve miles from the Sogne Fjord.

"It had been pouring in torrents all day; now for three or four miles before reaching Husum the road lay at the foot of a kind of gorge with steep hills on either side, so that the Loerdal river, which flows between, from being a gentle stream had become a roaring torrent, deep and dangerous.

"On arriving at the station we secured rooms and our two carrioles were put into the coach-house. The building consisted of a single inn, a coach-house and stables on one side, and a small house for wood and fodder on the other. The ground was cleared around the inn, and no other buildings were near..

"After ordering dinner I sat down in the dining room close to a widow facing the river. As I sat, my face was on a level with a person standing upright outside on the path. I told my companion I had some letters to write; he expressed a wish to take a stroll before dinner. He went out. It was then about a quarter past five; the rain had quite ceased, and the sun was shining brilliantly.

" I had been writing for about fifteen minutes when I suddenly heard a loud tapping at the window. Looking up I saw my friend dripping wet, an expression of agony on his face, and beckoning me to come to him.

"I dropped my pen and literally flew out of the room, along the passage, and out of the front door, which stood open. To my intense surprise I saw nothing; there was absolutely no trace of anyone. I was dumbfounded. I ran round the sheds and the house shouting, but saw no one. I then called the landlady, and we ran hither and thither, but all to no purpose. It did not seem to be possible that he could have hidden; moreover, there were no traces of his footmarks.

"At last, after a fruitless search, thinking all the time he must be hiding, I entered the hotel feeling very vexed and puzzled. I had dinner, and then renewed my search for an hour or more. Next morning, seeing his bed untouched, I became seriously alarmed, and summoned everyone connected with the place.

"I offered a reward of 100 kroner (about £5 10s.) to anyone who could bring him to me, dead or alive. One of the men stated that about 5:30 on the previous evening he had seen my friend trying to cross the river by jumping from one boulder to another. He warned him of his danger, but my friend, not understanding Norwegian, paid no heed, and the man walked away.

" A thorough search was made, but no traces of my friend were to be found.

"Ten days afterwards, the river having subsided, the dead body of my companion was found wedged betwen the rocks, nearly opposite the window of the room in which I had been sitting when I heard the tapping, and saw what I thought was my friend.

"An account of Mr. Frith's death is to be found in the Visitor's Book at the Posting Station at Husum, Sogne, Norway.

"I offer no explanation. I am not superstitious, nor have I ever seen a ghost or apparition before or since. I am not a spiritualist, nor have I ever busied myself with such things. I can only give these facts for what they are worth, and leave others to explain the phenomenon."

Here we have one of those typical stories of apparitions of persons in danger. Mr. Frith at the moment of danger to his life must have thought of his friend, Dr. Johnson, who had accompanied him on the journey. Dr. Johnson sitting more or less passively at the desk, thinking what to write to his friends at home, so to say, waiting for inspiration what to say, receives the impression of Mr. Frith's thoughts sent out powerfully: " See, here I am drowning, come and help me." This thought-force, or whatever you like to call this form of energy, strikes Dr. Johnson's brain, and Stimulates various centres and nerves, so that he hears a tapping at the window and has a vision, that of his friend "dripping wet with an expression of agony on his face, and beckoning him to come to him."

I quote Dr. Johnson's experience merely as an example of similar stories, for some of which we have still more conclusive evidence of the accuracy of the report, details of the incident being recorded and testified by witnesses before the explanation of the vision could be obtained, and which only some time afterwards was confirmed by the death of the man who was the cause of the apparition. Those who admit that a person can be hypnotised at a considerable distance from the operator, should experience no difficulty in accepting the possibility of messages from persons whose vital energy is, so to say, flaring up because of danger to their existence, which messages are received by those for whom they are intended, if they happen to be in the same condition as a hypnotised person at the time, namely, in the passive state.

The vision, as already explained, need not be at all accurate. Thus, as a rule, the person is seen not in the clothes that he really wore when at the point of danger, but he is in the clothes that we are familiar with as having seen him wear in our company, or dressed in some other more or less undefined garment. The reason for this is that it is some form of brain-energy which strikes the passive recipient, who then interprets the message in accordance with his own previous recollections. It is the person's spiritual image which is transmitted, and not the image of his clothes or his beard—which he may have allowed to grow since we saw him last—nor anything material whatsoever. Only his spiritual image, and possibly an image of the form of danger that threatened him, and caused his life-energy to vibrate.

There is a something—some kind of force—that is generated (by persons in danger, etc.) and then passed from the one mind to another, conveying mental states and even thoughts. The probability is that our physical force creates a movement in the ether (as wireless telegraphy does) and becomes perceptible to brains in harmony with our own.

Even hallucinations depend on our recollections, past impressions, on our dominant ideas and beliefs. They are in accordance with the habit of thought and feeling of the person to whom they occur. The reason why no ghosts are seen now, when people pass through churchyards on dark nights, as our forefathers saw them, is that ghosts are not believed in nowadays. But the fact that ghosts are hardly ever seen nowadays is no proof against their existence. Maybe that it is we who have altered, and not the events which result in their possible existence. "We are hardly ever passive. Even at night, owing to the populated districts in which we live, there is always some sense-impression going on which we have learned to disregard, but which nevertheless exists. It is only powerful energy which makes an impression upon us, therefore the only visions we see are asa rule, of friends and relations who are in danger, so that their life force is sent vibrating through the all-pervading ether.

The emotions attending a death by violence are necessarily of the most intense character. The desire to acquaint the world with the circumstances attending the tragedy is overwhelming. The message is not for a single individual, but to all whom it may concern. Hence the ghost does not travel from place to place, and show itself promiscuously, but confines its operations to the locality, and generally to the room in which the death-scene occurred. In the castles of bygone times, the walls were thicker, there were fewer and smaller windows, and hardly any ventilation, hence the energy that was created by such a circumstance would cling to the room. Moreover, the room in which a murder occurred would most likely be shut up and never be used again. If years after, some new tenant inhabits the death-chamber, he may when in a passive state receive an impression, which he translates into the vision of a ghost. Then it becomes known that the room is "haunted." One man is pluckier than the rest, says he will sleep in that room and slay the ghost should he meet him. He waits and waits, sword in hand, but no ghost appears. Then he tires, and just as he is on the point of falling asleep, his brain, too, receives an impression—and the ghost stands before him, frightening him out of his wits, like the rest.

This is an explanation which has the charm of reasonableness, and I know of no better to account for the occurrences which are authenticated.

This theory would also explain another peculiarity of ghosts that they invariably disappear, never to return, when the building which was the scene of their visitation has been destroyed. Another building may be erected on the same spot, but the ghost never reappears.

The powerful emanations at the time of danger may account for the fact that the ghosts which are best authenticated, and which seem to possess the greatest longevity, so to speak—that is, the greatest persistency of power and purpose—are of those who have died violent deaths. All phantasms of the dead are of those who have died under circumstances of great mental stress or emotion.

Another salient characteristic, which seems to be universal, and which possesses the utmost interest and importance in determining the true source of the phantasm, is that it possesses no general intelligence. That is to say, a ghost was never known to have more than one idea or purpose. That one idea or purpose it will follow with the greatest pertinacity, but it utterly ignores everything else.

A ghost is, therefore, nothing more or less than an intensified telepathic vision; its objectivity, power and persistence and permanence being in exact proportion to the intensity of the emotion and desire which called it into being.

This is as far as we can go in our examination of so-called spiritualistic phenomena. Whether the hypothesis is right or wrong, future "investigators must decide.