In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the King's palace: and the King saw the part of the hand that wrote.

Daniel V, 5.

After the inferior, but very significant phenomena of which we have hitherto spoken, it is fitting to mention apparitions.

They are of two orders: First, telepathic; second, those which result from a real presence. Telepathy calls forth a visual image, similar to reality, which would be to the uninitiated equivalent to an apparition. On the other hand, the phenomenon of animism, which exteriorizes a portion of the animistic substance, would be falsely called an hallucination.

We have, therefore, two wholly different phenomena in conjunction with the telepathic vision, there are corporeal materializations. We have seen that the London Society of Psychical Research had instituted, under trustworthy conditions of control, a series of experimental tests intended to set aside all doubt concerning the transmission of images created by thought. Granting this, the "sensitive" who perceives and draws with exact detail the picture of a small animal transmitted by an agent, may be considered as having had an apparition of the lowest degree.

It is under the same influence, that of a distant agent, that a woman sees her husband at the moment when he falls upon the battlefield. Many incidents of this nature are known to have occurred, and although they depend for credence upon the testimony of witnesses, their reality is undoubted.

Here, then, a relation may be established between an apparition and the experimental transmission of thought. Apparitions themselves have been successfully produced experimentally. Stainton Moses resolved one evening to appear to Z. who was three miles away. He succeeded fully, and a few weeks later renewed the experiment with the same success. (Telepathic Hallucinations, p. 37.) Mr. S. H. B. having determined with all the power of his being to appear in a bedroom on the second floor where two persons of his acquaintance were sleeping, three miles away, was perceived standing near the bed of one. She awakened her sister who also saw him.

These ladies, the Verity sisters, were interviewed by the authors of Phantasms of the Living: they gave explicit testimony and Gurney adds: "Miss Verity is a very exact and conscientious witness. She does not like the supernatural, but rather fears and dislikes it - above all, in this particular form."

Gurney asked Mr. S. H. B. to repeat the experiment after warning her in advance. This was done, and Miss Verity, while fully awake, saw the apparition distinctly in her room.

It may be seen from this example, that an apparition is produced by the act of an extraneous will, that it is not always due to the illusion of an overheated brain, and that it is a far cry to the ghost stories which are used to discredit apparitions. The following is a case of apparition willed by a living person (Telepathic Hallucinations, Case IX, p. 38):

"I was living in Scotland with an aunt who was very dear to me, while my mother and sisters were in Germany. Each year I went to Germany to see my family. It happened that for two years I had not been able to visit them as had been my custom. I decided suddenly to leave for Germany, letting my family know nothing of my intention. I had never gone to them in early spring. I had no time to inform them of my plan by letter, and I did not wish to send a telegram for fear of alarming my mother. The idea came to me to wish with all my will to appear to one of my sisters, as a way of announcing my arrival. I thought of them with all possible intensity for a few moments only. I desired with all my power to be seen by one of them, and I myself experienced a vision which half-transported me to my family. I concentrated my thoughts for about ten minutes only, I think. I set out by steamboat from Leith one Saturday evening toward the end of April, 1859. and it was about six o'clock of that same evening that I willed to appear before some member of my family. I reached the house near six o'clock in the morning the following Tuesday, and entered the house without being seen, for the vestibule had just been swept and the entrance door was open. I entered the room where one of my sisters was standing with her back to the door. She turned as she heard the door open, stared at me fixedly, grew pale and dropped what she held in her hand. I had said nothing, but now spoke: 'It is I. Why are you so frightened?' She replied, 'I thought I was seeing you as Stinchen (another of my sisters) saw you Saturday.'

"In answer to my questions, she told me how on Saturday evening about six o'clock, my sister had distinctly seen me come through a door into her room, open another door into my mother's room and close that door behind me. She hurried after what she thought was I, calling my name. She was absolutely shocked when she did not see me with my mother. They looked everywhere but naturally could not find me. My mother was greatly wrought up over the occurrence, as she feared I must be dying.

"The sister who had seen me (that is, my apparition) had gone out the morning of my arrival. I seated myself upon the steps to await her return and note the effect upon her of seeing my real self. When she raised her eyes and saw me on the stairway, she called me and fainted. My sister had seen nothing supernatural before or since, and I have not renewed these experiments, nor shall I ever do so, for my sister who was first to see me when I really came to the house fell seriously ill as a result of the shock she had undergone."

J. M. Russell.