Real Ghost Stories | Page 8

questioned, said he did his best to keep the peace between his
troublesome guests, but that sometimes they got out of hand."
Ansel Bourne and A. J. Brown.
A similar case, although not so violent or chronic in its manifestation,
is recorded in Vol. VII. (Part xix.) of the Psychical Research Society's
Proceedings, as having occurred on Rhode Island some years ago. An
excellent citizen, and a very religious lay preacher, of the name of
Ansel Bourne, was the subject:--
On January 17th, 1887, he went from his home in Coventry, R.I., to
Providence, in order to get money to pay for a farm which he had
arranged to buy, leaving his horse at Greene Station, in a stable,
expecting to return the same afternoon from the city. He drew out of
the bank 551 dollars, and paid several small bills, after which he went
to his nephew's store, 121, Broad Street, and then started to go to his
sister's house on Westminster Street. This was the last that was known
of his doings at that time. He did not appear at his sister's house, and
did not return to Greene.
Nothing was heard of him until March the 14th, when a telegram came
from a doctor in Norristown, Philadelphia, stating that he had just been
discovered there. He was entirely unconscious of having been absent
from home, or of the lapse of time between January 17th and March
14th. He was brought home by his relatives, who, by diligent inquiry
were able to make out that Mr. Ansel Bourne, five weeks after leaving
Rhode Island, opened a shop in Norristown, and stocked it with toys
and confectionery which he purchased in Philadelphia. He called
himself A. J. Brown, and lived and did business, and went to meeting,
like any ordinary mortal, giving no one any suspicion that he was any
other than A. J. Brown.

On the morning of Monday, March 14th, about five o'clock, he heard,
he says, an explosion like the report of a gun or a pistol, and, waking,
he noticed that there was a ridge in his bed not like the bed he had been
accustomed to sleep in. He noticed the electric light opposite his
windows. He rose and pulled away the curtains and looked out on the
street. He felt very weak, and thought that he had been drugged. His
next sensation was that of fear, knowing that he was in a place where
he had no business to be. He feared arrest as a burglar, or possibly
injury. He says this is the only time in his life he ever feared a
policeman.
The last thing he could remember before waking was seeing the Adams
express wagons at the corner of Dorrance and Broad Streets, in
Providence, on his way from the store of his nephew in Broad Street to
his sister's residence in Westminster Street, on January 17th.
The memory of Ansel Bourne retained absolutely nothing of the doings
of A. J. Brown, whose life he had lived for nearly two months.
Professor William James hypnotised him, and no sooner was he put
into the trance and was told to remember what happened January 17th,
1887, than he became A. J. Brown again, and gave a clear and
connected narrative of all his doings in the Brown state. He did not
remember ever having met Ansel Bourne. Everything, however, in his
past life, he said, was "mixed up." He only remembered that he was
confused, wanted to get somewhere and have rest. He did not
remember how he left Norristown. His mind was confused, and since
then it was a blank. He had no memory whatever of his name or of his
second marriage and the place of his birth. He remembered, however,
the date of his birth, and of his first wife's death, and his trade. But
between January 17th, 1887, and March 14th he was not himself but
another, and that other one Albert J. Brown, who ceased to exist
consciously on March 14th, but who promptly returned four years
afterwards, when Ansel Bourne was hypnotised, and showed that he
remembered perfectly all that happened to him between these two dates.
The confusion of his two memories in his earlier life is puzzling, but it
in no way impairs the value of this illustration of the existence of two
independent memories--two selfs, so to speak, within a single skin.

The phenomenon is not uncommon, especially with epileptic patients.
Every mad-doctor knows cases in which there are what may be
described as alternating consciousnesses with alternating memories.
But the experiments of the French hypnotists carry us much further. In
their hands this Sub-conscious Personality is capable of development,
of tuition, and of emancipation. In this little suspected region lies a
great resource.