§ 4. The next type that presents itself is different from any that has yet been mentioned. We have encountered several cases, which there seemed strong grounds for considering telepathic, where the phantasmal form was not recognised; and we have seen that on the theory that the telepathic impulse may take place on various levels, or even below any level, of consciousness, and may be projected into sensory form by the percipient with various degrees of distinctness, this lack of recognition is not surprising. But all the visual cases so far examined have presented a human appearance; the hallucination has been developed at any rate up to that point. It will be remembered, however, that there have been instances where the human appearances developed out of something of a formless kind, which gradually assumed outline and detail (Chapter XII (The Development Of Telepathic Hallucinations), § 3); and this might naturally lead us to expect that other cases might occur of a more rudimentary type - hallucinations, as we might say, of arrested development, and not suggestive or but faintly suggestive of any human likeness.

Instances of the undeveloped type are met with among the purely subjective hallucinations of the sane; but they are very rare in comparison with the hallucinations which represent a definite figure;l it need not, therefore, surprise us to find that the analogous group, which there are grounds for regarding as very possibly telepathic, is a small one. Physiologically, we might compare these undeveloped flashes of hallucination to a motor effect which, instead of taking the complex form of automatic writing, is limited to a single start or twitch. The experiments in Chapter II (The Experimental Basis: Thought-Transference), § 13, seemed to indicate that the sequel of a telepathic impulse might be a single tremor or vibration, sent down to the motor centre from the higher tracts of the brain; just so may we suppose the speech-centre to have been stimulated in the case of the percipient's cry in case 147 [see p. 257, but the case is not quoted in full. - Ed.]; and in the rudimentary hallucinations the stimulation of the sensory centre may be conceived as of the same simple and explosive sort.

1 In my collection of purely subjective hallucinations of the sane, the only visual examples that I find of a quite rudimentary type are a star, and two or three appearances of shapeless cloudy masses; to which I might add a few of the "collective" cases in Chap. xviii., § 5. But since this chapter was written, M. Marillier's paper, above cited, has supplied me with a case eminently in point. After describing some most distinct and complete hallucinations from which he suffered at one period of his life, ho continues: "Depuis lors, je n'ai plus cu d'hallucinations tres nettes; parfois eneore je vois des lueurs, j'entends des craquements, des bruissements, je sens en moi ce sentiment d'attente anxicuse qui precede d'ordinaire l'apparition d'une hallucination; mais rien ne parait: 1'hallucination est reduite avant meme qu'elle ait eu le temps de se produire." This seems exactly to illustrate "arrested development." See also case 311 below, where a hallucination of light develops into human form; and case 332, where it seems probable that what appeared to one percipient as a complete and recognised figure appeared to another as a formless luminous cloud.

The following case stands in an intermediate position, as there was a suggestion, but not exactly a representation, of human form. The account is from a witness whom we believe to have stated the facts correctly. She is the wife of an Inspector on the G.N. Railway, and resides at 4, Taylor's Cottages, London Road, Nottingham.

"April 23rd, 1883. (251) "We received a letter a few days since, asking me to give you . the account of our dear little girl's death, which took place on the 17th of May, 1879. I beg to state it is as fresh on my mind as if it only occurred a few days ago. The morning was very bright, and I think the sun shone more bright than I had ever seen it before. The child was four years and five months old, and a very fine girl. A few minutes after 11 she came running into the kitchen and said to me, ' Mother, may I go and play? ' I said, ' Yes.' She then went out. Soon after I spoke to her, I went and fetched a pail of water from the bedroom. As I was walking across the yard, the child came in front of me like a bright shadow, and I stopped quite still and looked at her, and turned my head to the right, and saw her pass away. I emptied my water, and was coming in. My husband's brother, who was staying with us, called to me, and said, 'Fanny have got runned over.' I then came through the house and went just across the road, and found her. She was knocked down by the horse's feet, and the wheel of a baker's cart had broken the brain at the back of her neck.

She only breathed a few minutes in my arms.

"This is just as the sad accident occurred. I have been looking for the piece of paper with it in, but I cannot find it.

" Annie E. Wright".

The accident occurred at Derby. The Derby and Chesterfield Reporter gives a full account of it, which completely corresponds with the above.

[In a conversation with Mr. and Mrs. H. Sidgwick on December 16th, 1883, Mrs. Wright explained that the apparition was "like a flash of lightning in the form of a child's shadow." It could not have been a real child; it was " not the least like one," nor did she recognise in it the image of any particular child; but it gave her a kind of shock and made her think, "I wonder where those children are." It lasted long enough for her to gaze steadily at it - "about half a minute" - and "moved away to the right, with her eyes upon it," and so disappeared. Not more than a quarter or three-quarters of a minute passed before her brother-in-law called to her. It must have been 5 or 7 minutes since the child had gone to play, when the accident happened. Mrs. Wright afterwards learnt from an eye-witness what the child had been doing out in the road for some minutes previously to the accident. While holding the dying child in her arms, she said to the people standing by, " This is her death-blow. I saw her shadow in the yard." She has had no hallucination of vision on any other occasion].

It is open to doubt, of course, whether the experience here was of a sufficiently marked kind to have remained in the percipient's mind, had no accident occurred. But the description of the phantasm appears at any rate to point to something more than a mere illusion caused by the sunlight; nor is it of a sort that seems specially likely to have been unconsciously invented or exaggerated after the event.

The next two cases, of a much more rudimentary type, [are omitted].