The Alleged Haunting of B---- House | Page 7

out of the body,
which are themselves invisible in the ordinary and physical sense of the
term, and really acting through some means at present very imperfectly
known. Such an opinion of course reserves the question of the possible
action of unseen forces upon what is commonly called matter involved
in 'spirit'-photography, materialisation, levitation, the passage of matter
through matter, and other forms of apport, although such a distinction,
if logically carried out, becomes somewhat tenuous in face of the
generally accepted fact that all mental processes are accompanied by
physical processes in the brain. In the following pages will be found
instances of the phenomenon of the apparent removal of bed-clothing,
which raise a question as to the propriety of regarding as exhaustive an
explanation based solely upon the hypothesis of subjective
hallucination which otherwise would appear to be generally applicable.
It would stand to reason that if such an intelligence can produce an
hallucination of the appearance of the human figure, it would be at least
equally easy for it to produce an hallucination of the appearance of a
beast. A belief to this effect seems to be the explanation of the fact
mentioned in a letter to _The Times_ of June 10, 1897, by Dr. Menzies,
who refers to Major S---- as "an old and dear friend." He writes, "I have
no doubt that he created much scandal by saying to his gardener that he
had better take care to keep up the garden properly, for when he was

gone his soul would go into a mole and haunt the garden and him too."
This theory of the possibility of producing by mental force the
hallucination audible or visual of a beast, may also be the explanation,
not only of the apparition of the large dog which has been seen, as well
as that of a spaniel, but also of the phenomenon, attested by several
witnesses, of their having heard the sound as of a large dog throwing
itself from the outside against the lower part of their doors.
Major S---- died, as already stated, in 1876, and was buried beside
Sarah N---- and, it is said, an old Indian manservant. The grave is in the
middle of the parish churchyard. No monument marks their
resting-place, but a high enclosure, which surrounds it, is a prominent
object. The whole of his dogs, fourteen in number, including the
spaniel already mentioned, were killed after his death.
* * * * *
The S.P.R. some years ago published a census of hallucinations based
upon the interrogation of seventeen thousand persons, who were not
only taken casually, but from whom those were excluded whose replies
were foreseen. From the analysis of these statistics, it appears that the
great majority of these phantasms are figures of people who were living
and continue to live, although research seems to point to the fact that
their bodies are either always, or very often, in a state of apparent
unconsciousness at the moment of the phenomenon. Among the
minority, i.e. of apparitions of the dead, the frequency seems to be in
inverse proportion to the time which has elapsed since death. Those
which appear at the moment of death are very frequent, whereas, on the
other hand, those of persons who have been very long dead are almost
unknown; e.g. the apparition seen by Lady Galway a few years ago at
Rufford Abbey, where the form represented a person who must have
been dead for about three hundred years, belongs to a class of which
examples are very few.
A haunted house (or any other locality) is merely a place where
experience shows that hallucinations are more or less localised, and the
only especially interesting question about it is, why the hallucinations

should be localised at a particular place, and what causes them there.
Such Phantasms of the Living have been discussed in the monumental
work of Mr. Myers and the late Mr. E. Gurney. They need be no further
remarked upon here, than to observe that the following pages contain at
least one example, viz. that of the apparition of the Rev. P. H----. (See p.
119.)
It is very difficult to judge of the forces which may act in the conditions
of what we are accustomed to call "another world," but a plausible
explanation might be found in the Divine Word, "Where your treasure
is, there will your heart be also." The thoughts and affections appear to
dwell for a time where they have been already fixed during life, but
changes here, including the gradual reunion on the other side, of all
those who are loved with those who love them, the advancing
dissociation of the mind with things here, and, no doubt, the evolution
of a different life under different conditions, seem gradually