Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men | Page 4

and then the figure itself, must have been more scientifically operated on, but an apparition to several young ladies is harder to bring about. The original of Miss Freer's visions should be carefully traced--the one in the drawing-room especially. How many persons would be needed to produce the rather inchoate phenomena observed by Miss Freer's garrison is doubtful; three distinct voices, if not four, were heard,[10] and it seems probable that at least four persons would be necessary to produce very startling phenomenon--notably conversation.[11]
[Footnote 10: "Alleged Haunting of B---- House," p. 134.]
[Footnote 11: "Haunting of B---- House," p. 121.]
All the ears and eyes (notably one eye, the right) are affected. This number would be easily got from a body like the Shakers, but it is probably harder to collect an efficient gang elsewhere. Indeed there is, the writer believes, evidence that only one such gang exists, and its members are possibly all British subjects of various colours. It is strange there have been no informers. The failure of the minor gang at B---- to fairly beat Miss Freer's party as they had beaten the family who lived in the house the year before, made them furious, and their attacks on the weak secular priests and on a French lady of high courage but weak health, were particularly desperate. How far the latter's health was undermined, and her death brought about by them, is uncertain. She had the shock of the fire at the Paris charity bazaar to break her down. She lost relations there. Miss Freer sometimes writes as if ghosts and spirits were possible. In her essays, on page 52, she says "naughty girls or spirits"--the collation is perhaps sufficient to condemn the latter alternative. But her remark about a lady medium whom she compares to a gentleman jockey, and who had a maid of the Catholic faith, and that this fact had an effect on the later proceedings, reads as if she were not wanting in scepticism. Probably Miss Freer, subject to thought transference, and yet a thought transferrer, as she is, was interested in the effect on Miss "K." of the Catholic maid-servant. Nothing more interesting than the transfer of thought by Miss Freer to a friend, who therefore saw candles lighted on a lunch table, could be found, but here again the experience seems simply hypnotic. The chapters in her essays on visualising,[12] on "how it once came into my head," are very valuable. Those on hauntings are grave and gay, comments on realities and errors and superstitious, sometimes charming, beliefs. Miss Freer says of the visions which she sees of persons in the crystal, or otherwise, that they are (1) visions of the living--clairvoyant or telepathic; (2) visions of the departed, having no obvious relation to time and space; (3) visions which are more or less of the nature of pictures, from memory or imagination: they are like No. 2, but not of a person.
[Footnote 12: A. Goodrich Freer's "Essays," p. 126.]
Her most remarkable stories are certainly almost magical. One refers to her seeing the doings of relations, another to her seeing a friend's doings.[13] "The figures do not appear" (she says, referring to the B---- apparitions) "before 6.30 at the earliest; there is little light on their surfaces--they show by their own light--i.e. outlined by a thread of light."[14]
[Footnote 13: "Haunting of B----House," p. 102.]
[Footnote 14: Ibid., p. 142.]
She does not see things in a flash. Thus when she saw a brown wood crucifix, she saw a hand holding it, whilst a clergyman who saw the same crucifix (Father H. also saw it) got just a glimpse of it. It was also seen by Miss Langton.[15]
[Footnote 15: Ibid., p. 132.]
To turn to another characteristic of the disturbers of the peace at B----, and to illustrate it by comparison. In Mr. Podmore's book on Psychical research,[16] in the chapter describing phenomena of the Poltergeist order--the Poltergeist in one case was a girl of about twelve, Alice. She, Mrs. B. and Miss B., and Miss K. were seated at a table; it moved sharply and struck Miss K. on the arm. Miss K. was an inmate of the house, and no doubt Alice preferred hitting her to hitting her mother and sister.
[Footnote 16: "Studies," p. 153.]
Similarly the disturbers at B---- House showed great respect for the press. When a leading Edinburgh editor's son was there all was quiet; and although they flew at their pet prey the priests, yet a bishop was too imposing for them; and after he had blessed the house from top to bottom, they left it quiet for the remaining week of Miss Freer's stay.[17]
[Footnote 17: "Alleged Haunting," p. 215.]
This might be sufficient to lull any further zeal the Catholic regular clergy might find for the matter.
Again the strange fact may be