GHOST STORIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3275, 20 December 1916, Page 62

GHOST STORIES.

SOME GOOD SPECIMENS. It was the Christmas gathering of the International Club for Psychical Research. T,he members (writes a special representative of the Observer), who arc well known in society and the professions, gathered round the bright little tea-tables and the blazing fires in a room overlooking Piccadilly, ' and told ghost stories —stories of extraordinary happenings, of weird hauntings, and of things strange and most unaccountable. Lady Muir Mackenzie related that of a missionary in Mauritius who was known to Sir Harry Johnston. He had managed to convert one of the native chiefs, and after a time left for Australia. One day there was a knock at the door, and to his surprise in walked the chief, who begged him to read the Communion service and certain prayers. It was not until the chief left that he began to wonder how he, could have got there.. He wrote to his friends ,in Mauritius, and they replied that after he left the chief went to the bad, was arrested, and was hanged the same day as that on which his ghost appeared to him in Australia. THE GHOST WITH RED HAIR. A haunted house in Bristol was the subject of a story by Mr Elliott O'Donnell. For many years the house stood empty. Mr O'Donnell interviewed the family who once lived there, and they told him that one of the phenomena was that of a servant with flamintr red hair, whom three members of the house had seen in the kitchen. A friend visited the house with him one night, but they were disappointed ; nothing was seen. Three nights later Mr O'Donnell went to the house alone with a dog. After waiting for some time he heard footsteps coming up the stairs of the empty house, and saw a big whitish light. As the footsteps came nearer he saw first the head of a woman, and then the rest of her body. The figure corresponded exactly with that which had been seen b the former occupants of the house —just an ordinary-looking servant with very red hair.

The figure passed him very slowly, went upstairs, and vanished. His dog was very uneasy all the time, and he himself confessed to a feeling of panic. GHOST WITHOUT A HEAD. An Indian experience of a headless man was given by Mrs Buck. "It was race week," she said, " in a large military station in the north of India. My father and mother having a great number of guests, it made it necessary for my sister and I to share the same room, our beds being placed two feet apart. "One night we came home very late from a ball. To my horror, as I lay in bed, not knowing \vhether my sister was asleep or awake, and being too terrified to speak, I heard a sort of uneven footstep crossing the room, and I was just able to define an awful sort of hunchback figure coming from the bathroom towards our beds. It was like a pair of legs and a great hump, which, arriving at the foot of the beds, came gradually up the narrow opening between them." Mrs Buck got more and more terrified, but presently the awful figure disappeared, and she was relieved to hear her sister ask if she had seen anything. Her sister had been lying awake and seeing it too, but was also unable to speak. At breakfast next moi-ning, while relating their experience, they noticed two of the servants exchanging glances. Their father wanted to brush the story aside as rubbish, but it soon appeared that the servants knew all about the ghost and had seen it frequently. It was that of a man ,who had had his head hacked of by an enemy, and his ghost still haunted the house and went about without a head, filling the bath at night and doing other work to which in life he had been accustomed. GHOSTS EXPLAINED. In the smoking room, after the stories had been told, one or two members remained to find an explanation of the phenomenon'. One of these recalled a story which left a great impression on F. W. H. Myers. It was that of a citizen of London, well known to his friend Edmund Gurney, who, after reading an author who treats of the power of the human will, determined with the whole force of his being to be present in spirit, and, if possible, perceptible, to tw r o sisters of his acquaintance. They were aged 25 and 11, and lived about three miles off. Without mentioning his intention of trying such an experiment, he decided to appear to them at 1 o'clock in the morning, and at that hour projected his mind toward them with great force. • "Besides exercising my power of volition very strongly," he said, "I put forward an effort I cannot find words to describe. 1 was conscious of a mysterious influence of some sort permeating my body, and had a distinct impression that I was exercising some force with which I had been hitherto unacquainted, but which now I can at certain times set in motion at will." A day or two afterwards he called on the two sisters, but kept silent about what he had done. They, on their part, had intended to keep silent too, but their resolution gave way, and they told their friend that .it 1 o'clock on Monday morning they had seen his phantom. The elder girl was awake, but the younger one was asleep. Upon seeing the anparition, which was in evening dress, the former roused the latter, who saw it also. The gas was burning low, and the phantasm was clearer than .a material figure would have been. Both sisters were much terrified.

The same man appeared once again to the aider sister at a time agreed upon between him and Edmund Burney. He succeeded upon this occasion also, but the percipient was so shocked that he had to relinquish the experiments. The question then arose that, if a living

man can thus project an image of himself to a distance, why should not a departed spirit do the same? This, it is thought, would give a rational explanation oi ghosts. Such, indeed, is the explanation given by Myers.