WRAITH-SEEING.

Otago Witness, Issue 2883, 23 June 1909, Page 87

WRAITH-SEEING.

DUE TO OVER-LMAGIXATION.

Recently one of our distinguished scientists said thai the evidence in support cf

the appearance of wraiths was as strong as, at least, a large number of the facts of history and o£ science. Ii we credit the latter we must therefore, in common. fairness, he said, credit the former also.

When we. come to investigate a number of the cases in which, the wraiths of the living; havi been seen, we find that there are many instances in which sue-h appearances have been chronicled without any evil eff-ects. following to the parties- whose wraiths were seen. Only in January last a weH-known banker in the city of Edinburgh distinctly saw the figure of an equally well-known clergyman, now stationed in the south side of the town, enter his bank and proceed to- the .telleT s desk. He looked away for a moment, and then when ha again turned his ga2e in fhe clergyman's direction tka form had disappeared. Sa convinced was the banker that he had seen the minister that he went to the idler and. asked him where Mr D hud gone? The teller stared, and. replied that he had not seen Mr I> all day.

Up to this date no harm has befd^eu the minister in question-. W« vaay, therefore, accept this as our first position — that it is somewhat of an exploded theory to afgiie that the- sight" of anyone's wraith betokens the death of the individaal so represented^

[ The next point is that, in all probability, wraiths* are- usually the emanation of the perfer*rid imagination of the seer, not any spiritual "image-" oi the party seen. This is rendered almost self-evident when we- cite Mia circumstance t-hast a wraith is seldoni — I may almost say never — seen by two persons at the same time. When- a wraith «ff any individual is s?en by a party, and he points it owt to another, uhere is no well- authenticated instance on record that it has also been , visible to that second party. In the year 1817 De Quiracey saw the wraith of John Wilson walking along the road leading to the "Nab" — the cottage of the opium eater* at Grasmer-e. Bat on summoning his wife to come and see their 'approaching guest, Mrs De Quincey .could perceive nothing, and, in fact, Wilson was then distant at least 250 miles r in a remote part of Scotland. -This fact, therefore, renders the statement at least strongly probable that the image is formed in the visual organs of the seer, an-d is not an objective creation at- all.

— Famous Case- from Hawthornd-en,—

Further, wraiths are always seen in connection- with some exalted state of the feelings of the one who perceives them. Ex Abercrombie maintained that no one ever, did ace a wraith when- the feelings • were in a normal state. He instanced the case of the poet, William Drummond, of Hawthornden. The- latter had been engaged to a young lady of great beauty and high qualities of head and heart, a daughtei oi William Cunningham,, of Barns, a charming estate on libe northern coast of the Firth of Forth, in the eastern section of Fifeshire. As is stated in his memoir, written in 1711, "he met with suitable returns of chaste love from her, , and. f uMy gained her affections ; but when the day appointed for the marriage arrived and all things were ready for the solemnisation of it, suddenly the lady contracted a fever, and was snatched away by death, to Ms great grief and sorrow."

Seldom has lady fair been celebrated by her lover in sweeter and more musical eulogic verse than that in which Drummond was wont to commemorate the charms and the delightful graces of the fair Miss Cunningham. For her he sorrowed long and profoundly. One day before her death, however, he chanced to> be walking into town, when, neaa* Liberton, he encountered her wraith coming to meet him. He fully believed it wa« his lady love herself, and, surprised, lie hastened forward to greet her. She appeared to be very -3ad, and her face was dejected-lookin-g 1 . Thinking that something had occurred to trouble her in connection with the household affairs, Drummond stepped! forward to offer consolation, and to beg her to tell him wliat was troubling her. To his amazement he addressed the wind. The young lady had disappeared, and Di*ummond was left stunned' a,nd stupefied.

He confesses in his letters that, wh&n, he saw th& wraith, his- mind was in. a high state of spiritual exaltation. He was the accepted lover of the beautiful Miss Cunningham of Barn^ and that fact of itself was calculated to raise his feelings to an abnormal, or lather extra normal, state.

It was some months before Miss Cunningham died, and he only associated the appearance of the wraith with her demise after all was over. The memory of Ihi-s experience dogged him far into life, and Ke was a man of 46 when, he manied Elizabeth Logan of Restalrig, the "randchild of Sir Robert Logan of that ilk. She was exceedingly like Mi-,8 Cunningham, and it is related that when Druinmond fir*t met her he put his ha.nd before h ; s eyes, saying: "Stay, O fond, illusion, and do not vanish as thou didst before !"

His delight may be imagined when he discovered that this time the beautiful vision did not di?appea.r, but remained with him in the gracious presence of Elizabeth Logan.

Finally, wraiths seldom if ever repeat themselves. There is scarcely one case on record where anyone ever saw the same wraith twice in succession. I have asked thosß who have had experiences of that nature, and one and all tell me that in. no case was the appearance of the wraith ever repeated.

— Becoming a Lo?t Art. —

"Wraith-seeing," like "ghost-seeing," is becoming one of the lost arts. Probably we are getting too matter-of-fact and prosaic, probably we "do»not rejoice as did our fathers in securing temporary detachment from the realism of life. We live on a lower spiritual level, and men now criticise and sneer where formerly they implicitly believed thai there were- more

things in heaven and earth than were dreamed of in any philosophy. Yet sometimes event the severely practical were startled out of their incredulity.

A well-known Unionist statesman was startled one day, when staying in a country house In Renfrewshire, by seeing what Tut believed was his own wraith. He-w as dressing in the grey of the morning to

catch an early train when, he was alarmed

by seeing his own figur& standing before bam in the room. - He was appalled at the circumstance, because the night before he had been arguing with his host that

_ such things could not be. With some 'agitation be referred to the matter when taking farewell of his host. The latter ' with a good-natured laugh explained that he had been sleeping in what was known as the SHrror Room, an apartment which, was surrounded by large and strong mir- , rr.rs, a fad of the previous owner of the mansion, who bad been fond of studyingthe laws and phenoma of light imd optics. , He was asked to return for - a moment to the room, aaid there his doubte were for ever allayed when the fame appearance 1 was at once reproduced by the host, who arranged the mirrors- in such a way that . t&e 'reflection of his figure was projected" into the centre of the room, upon the • same principle that Professor Pepper was accustomed to produce his strange spectral r illusions, which passed, current under the title of "Professor Pepper's ghost." Needless to cay the worthy statesman had- his doubts relieved, though he has never been so positive again in declaring that "such ■ things simply cannot be." — A Scottish Note-taker, in tne Scotsman. • j