Case A.
About three years prior to my sitting with Miss Gaule, a relative by marriage died of cancer of the throat at the Garfield Hospital, Washington, D. C. He was a retired army officer, with the brevet of General, and lived part of the time at Chambersburg, Penn., and the rest of the time at the National Capital. He led a very quiet and unassuming life, and outside of army circles knew but few people. He was a magnificent specimen of physical manhood, six feet tall, with splendid chest and arms. His hair and beard were of a reddish color. His usual street dress was a sort of compromise with an army undress uniform, military cut frock-coat, frogged and braided top-coat, and a Sherman hat. Without these accessories, anyone would have recognized the military man in his walk and bearing. He and his wife thought a great deal of my mother, and frequently stopped me on the street to inquire, “How is Mary?” I went to Miss Gaule’s house with the thought of General M— fixed in my mind and the circumstances surrounding his decease. The medium greeted me in a cordial manner. I sat at one end of the room in the shadow, and she near the window in a large armchair. “You wish for messages from the dead,” she remarked abruptly. “One moment, let me think.” She sank back in the chair, closed her eyes, and remained in deep thought for a minute or so, occasionally passing her hand across her forehead. “I see,” she said, “standing behind you, a tall, large man with reddish hair and beard. He is garbed in the uniform of an officer—I do not know whether of the army or navy. He points to his throat. Says he died of a throat trouble. He looks at you and calls “Mary,—how is Mary?” “What is his name?” I inquired, fixing my mind on the words David M—. “I will ask”, replied the medium. There was a long pause. “He speaks so faintly I can scarcely hear him. The first letter begins with D, and then comes a—I can’t get it. I can’t hear it.” With that she opened her eyes.
The surprising feature about the above case was the alleged spirit communication, “Mary—how is Mary?” I did not have this in my mind at the time; in fact I had completely forgotten this form of salutation on the part of Gen. M—, when we had met in the old days. It is just this sort of thing that makes spirit-converts.
However, the cases of unconscious telepathy cited in the “Reports of the Society for Psychical Research,” are sufficient, I think, to prove the existence of this phase of the phenomena.
T. J. Hudson, in his work entitled “A scientific demonstration of the future life”, says: * * “When a psychic transmits a message to his client containing information which is in his (the psychic’s) possession, it can not reasonably be attributed to the agency of disembodied spirits. * * When the message contains facts known to some one in his immediate presence and with whom he is en rapport, the agency of spirits of the dead cannot be presumed. Every investigator will doubtless admit that sub-conscious memory may enter as a factor in the case, and that the sub-conscious intelligence—or, to use the favorite terminology employed by Mr. Myers to designate the subjective mind, the ‘sublimal consciousness’—of the psychic or that of his client may retain and use facts which the conscious, or objective mind may have entirely forgotten.”
But suppose the medium relates facts that were never in the possession of the sitter, what are we to say then? Considerable controversy has been waged over this question, and the hypothesis of telepathy is scouted. Minot J. Savage has come to the conclusion that such cases stretch the telepathic theory too far; there can be but one plausible explanation—a communication from a disembodied spirit, operating through the mind of the medium. For the sake of lucidity, let us take an example: A has a relative B who dies in a foreign land under peculiar circumstances, unknown to A. A attends a séance of a psychic, C, and the latter relates the circumstances of B’s death. A afterwards investigates the statements of the medium, and finds them correct. Can telepathy account for C’s knowledge? I think it can. The telepathic communication was recorded in A’s sub-conscious mind, he being en rapport with B. A unconsciously yields the points recorded in his sub-conscious mind to the psychic, C, who by reason of his peculiar powers raises them to the level of conscious thought, and gives them back in the form of a message from the dead.
Case B.
On another occasion, I went with my friend Mr. S. C., of Virginia, to visit Miss Gaule. Mr. S. C. had a young son who had recently passed the examination for admission to the U. S. Naval Academy, and the boy had accompanied his father to Baltimore to interview the military tailors on the subject of uniforms, etc. Miss Gaule in her semi-trance state made the following statement: “I see a young man busy with books and papers. He has successfully passed an examination, and says something about a uniform. Perhaps he is going to a military college.”
Here again we have excellent evidence of the proof of telepathy.
The spelling of names is one of the surprising things in these experiments. On one occasion my wife had a sitting with Miss Gaule, and the psychic correctly spelled out the names of Mrs. Evans’ brothers—John, Robert, and Dudley, the latter a family name and rather unusual, and described the family as living in the West.
The following example of Telepathy occurred between the writer and a younger brother.
Case C.
In the fall of 1890, I was travelling from Washington to Baltimore, by the B. & P. R. R. As the train approached Jackson Grove, a campmeeting ground, deserted at that time of the year, the engine whistle blew vigorously and the bell was rung continuously, which was something unusual, as the cars ordinarily did not stop at this isolated station, but whirled past. Then the engine slowed down and the train came to a standstill.
“What is the matter?” exclaimed the passengers.
“My God, look there!” shouted an excited passenger, leaning out of the coach window, and pointing to the dilapidated platform of the station. I looked out and beheld a decapitated human head, standing almost upright in a pool of blood. With the other male passengers I rushed out of the car. The head was that of an old man with very white hair and beard. We found the body down an embankment at some little distance from the place of the accident. The deceased was recognized as the owner of the Grove, a farmer living in the vicinity. According to the statement of the engineer, the old man was walking on the track; the warning signals were given, but proved of no avail. Being somewhat deaf, he did not realize his danger. He attempted to step off the track, but the brass railing that runs along the side of the locomotive decapitated him like the knife of a guillotine.
When I reached Baltimore about 7 o’clock, P. M., I hurried down to the office of the “Baltimore News” and wrote out an account of the tragic affair. My work at the office kept me until a late hour of the night, and I went home to bed at about 1 o’clock, A. M. My brother, who slept in an adjoining room, had retired to bed and the door between our apartments was closed. The next morning, Sunday, I rose at 9 o’clock, and went down to breakfast. The family had assembled, and I was just in time to hear my brother relate the following: “I had a most peculiar dream last night. I thought I was on my way to Mt. Washington (he was in the habit of making frequent visits to this suburb of Baltimore on the Northern Central R. R.) We ran down an old man and decapitated him. I was looking out of the window and saw the head standing in a pool of blood. The hair and beard were snow white. We found the body not far off, and it proved to be a farmer residing in the neighborhood of Mt. Washington.”
“You will find the counterpart of that dream in the morning paper”, I remarked seriously. “I reported the accident.” My father called for the paper, and proceeded to hunt its columns for the item, saying, “You undoubtedly transferred the impression to your brother.”
Case D.
This is another striking evidence of telepathic communication, in which I was one of the agents. L— was a reporter on a Baltimore paper, and his apartments were the rendezvous of a coterie of Bohemian actors, journalists, and litterati, among whom was X—, a student at the Johns-Hopkins University, and a poet of rare excellence. Poets have a proverbial reputation for being eccentric in personal appearance; in X this eccentricity took the form of an unclipped beard that stood out in all directions, giving him a savage, anarchistic look. He vowed