823. Tactile sensibility, again, must be carefully allowed for. The sense of varying resistance in the air, to which I just now alluded, may reach in some seeing persons, as well as in the blind, a high degree of acuteness. It is perhaps possible that even the interposition of a chair in a narrow passage might thus make itself felt. But Mr. W. (a good witness and well known to Dr. Hodgson) has had (as we shall see later on in 873) other experiences where supernormal influences seemed plainly indicated. (From Proceedings S.P.R., vol. xi. p. 423).

State of New York, December 28th, 1893.

Dr. Hodgson, - Dear Sir, - In compliance with your request to write out an account of my chair experience, which I described to you when here, I submit the following:-

My office consists of three rooms, and the library in the back one is reached by passing through the full length of the other two. The middle room is rather narrow, and well filled on both sides with furniture, leaving a rather narrow passage through the room lengthwise, particularly at a point about the middle of the room, where the passage is only three feet wide. This passage was very naturally kept free from obstructions, but on the occasion of which I am about to speak, some one, probably the janitor when he came in to see to the fires soon after the office was closed for the day, had placed a chair in this narrow passage, so that any one who should attempt to pass through the room would be certain to fall over it, if dark. I think it was about the last days of December 1892. I recollect the days were very short. I had left the office for the day with the passage free. I visit the office occasionally evenings, but not often. On this occasion during the evening, when it was very dark, I visited the office alone. I unlocked the outside door, walked through the first room, stopping at the door that leads to the second or middle room, to get a match from the safe hanging on the door casing with which to light a lamp in the library, where I wished to get something.

I was in a very great hurry, and walked very rapidly; after taking the match from the safe, I started at a very rapid pace to go through this narrow passage and into the library. It was very dark, none of the objects in the room were visible, but as I was very familiar with the place, I did not hesitate. I had proceeded six or eight feet in this rapid manner, when suddenly I saw a bright, yellow light lighting up very plainly the back of the chair which was in the passage. The light was confined to the chair, and at the same time I stopped short. The stopping was quite involuntary on my part. The light lasted for but a second, but it had showed me the chair distinctly, especially the carving on the back of the chair.

Immediately it occurred to me to discover the origin of the light, if possible, so, before proceeding to get a light or to leave the room, I approached the chair again in a similar manner, but no light appeared, and I experienced no check. I also looked very carefully for the origin of the light, but could discover none. There was no light anywhere near, and even had there been, I am at a loss to see how it could have shone into the centre of this room, and the difficulty is still further increased by the fact that it shone only in one place, and even there the light was of a somewhat different colour and appearance from ordinary artificial light.

After satisfying myself that there was no light anywhere that could have produced it, I went into the library and got a lamp and made an examination.

The chair was in the passage in the most dangerous part; otherwise the room was in its usual condition. I should also state that at one end of this room there was a coal stove, with a fire in it of hard coal. It was burning very low, and was ashed over. I examined it before I got a lamp, and I am confident that no light of any kind proceeded from it.

As to my sudden stop. The stop and the light were simultaneous. I hardly think the light unaided caused me to stop; it undoubtedly prevented me from starting after I had stopped. I fully believe I should have sustained a heavy fall, but for the light and the stop. W.

P.S. - When I mention that the colour of the light appeared different, I mean that it did not look as a light reflected from or shining from a distance on to a spot would - it was more like looking directly at a light.

See also a case given in Proceedings S.P.R., vol. viii. p. 345, where a lady hurrying up to the door of a lift, is stopped by seeing the figure of a man standing in front of it, and then finds that the door is open, leaving the well exposed, so that she would probably have fallen down it, if she had not been checked by the apparition.