GHOST STORIES TOLD IN A LONDON CLUB.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 156, 17 March 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

GHOST STORIES TOLD IN A LONDON CLUB.

SP()()K-IlINTERS' EX PERIENC'ES. It was the Christmas gathering of the International Clu hfor Pliycliical Research. The members, well known in Society and the professions, gathered round the bright little tea-tables and the blazing fires in a room overlooking Piccadilly and to'd ghost stories—stories of extraordinary happenings, of weird hauntings, and of things strange and most unaccountable.

Lady Muir Mackenzie (-ays a special representative of the Sunday "Observer') related that of a missionary in Mauritius who was known to Sir Hairy John>ton. He had managed to convert one of the native chiefs, and after a tune 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 lie began to wonder how he could have got there. He wrote to Irs friends in Mauritius, and they replied that alter he lett. the chief went to the bad, was arrested, and wa s hanged the same day as that (in which his ghost appeared to him in Australia.

A DAYLIGHT GHOST. Most of the ghosts ol which wo heard were seen at night, but Mrs. Irwin described a daylight ghost. Her grandfather, she said, had an old farmhouse ill Worcestershire. Near it was the manor house, in which lived Captain Preedy and his sister. Miss Preedy disliked the lady whom her brother married, and some time after her death sardonic laughter used to be heard in various parts of the house, lhe servants began to compla n that someone pulled the clothes off their beds at lught, and after a while Miss Preedy herself was seen in broad daylight, dre«sed a< she used to dress 111 life, with a 1110b cap and lace round her shoulders.

\\ lien the ghost approached Mis. Preedy on the >tair-s or in tin- rooni s it liihl tlu> disagreeable habit of bursting out laughing. Sometimes it would be seen looking out ot a bedroom window, and it was in this position that Mrs! Irwin herself saw it.

A: clergyman was called in to lay the. ghost, but his ministrations had no effect. The ghost continued to haunt the old manor house until Mrs. Preedv left.

" That shows, - ' remarked Mi-s Seatcherd, who presided over the gathering, "that, as Mr. Stead has said to me since he passed over, hatred as well as love is a compelling force in psychic phenomena."

THE GHOST WITH RED HAIR. A haunted house in Bristol was the subject of a story by Mr. Elliott O'ljonnel!. For many years the house stood empty. Mr. O'Donnell interviewed the iamily who once lived there, and they told h ni that one of the phenomena was that of a servant with naming 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 sometime 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 by the former occupants 01 the house—just an ordinary-looking servant with verv red hair.

The figure pa-i-od liini very slowly, wont upstairs, and vanished. His dog was very uneasy all the t'nio, and lio himse'f confessed to a I'ooling of panic.

GHOST WIT HO IT A HEAD. An Indian experience of a headless man was given by Mrs. Buck. "It was race week," sho said, "in a large military station in the north ol' India. My father smd mother having a great number of guests, it made it necessary for niv sister and I to share the same room, our bods Uving placed two foot apart. "One n:glit we canie homo very late from a ball. To my horror, as 1 lay in bod, not knowing whether my sister was asleep or awake, and being too terrified to speak, 1 hoard a sort of uneven footstep crossing the room, and I was just able to define an awful sort of hunchback figure coming from the bath-room towards our beds. It was like a pair of logs and a groat hump, which, arriving at the foot of the bods, came gradually up the narrow opening between them." Mrs. Buck got more and more terrified, but presently the awful figure d'sappeared, and sho was relieved to hear her sister a>k if sho had soon anything. Her sister had been lying awake and seeing it too, but was also unable to speak. At breakfast next morning, while re. lating their experience, they noticed two of the servants exchanging glances. Their father wanted to brush the story aside as rubbcdi, hut it soon appeared that the servants know all about the <_ r host and had seen it frequently. It was that of a man who had his head hacked off by an enemy, and his gho>t r-till haunted the house and wont about without •> head, filling the bath at night and doing other work to which in life ho had been accustomed.

GHOSTS EXPLAINED. In tho smoking-room, after the stories bad been told, one or two members remained to find an explanation of the phenomena. One of them recalled a storv which left a great impression on E. \Y. H. .Myers. It was that of a citizen of London, well known to Iris friend Edmund (Jumpy, who, after reading j.n author who treats of the power of human will, determined with the whole force of his being to be present in spirit, and if possible perceptible, to two sisters of his acquaintance. They were aged twenty-live and eleven, and lived about three miles off. Without mentioning Irs intention of trying such an experiment, lie decided to appear !o them at one o'clock in the morning, and at that hour projected his mind toward th"in with great force.

" Besides exercising my power of volition very strongly," he said. " 1 put forward an effort I cannot find word* 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 iiad been hitherto unacquainted, but which now I can at certain times set in motion at will."

A day of two afterwards he called on the two sistor<. but kept silent about what he had done. They, on their part, had intended to keep silent, too, but their resoliit on gave way, and they told their friend that at one o clock oil .Monday morning they had seen his phantom. The elder girl wis awake. I.ul the younger one asleep. I'pon seeing the apparition, wlrcli was in evening dres>, th-> former arouse I the latter, who saw it also. The gas was burning low, and the phan-

tasm was clearer than a materia] figure would have boon. Both sisters were much terrified.

The same man appeared again to the e'der sister at a time agreed between hiin and Edmund Gurnoy. He succeeded upon this o<-casion also, hut the percipient was m> .shocked that lie had to relinquish the experiment.". The question then arose that if a living man can thus project an image of himself to a distance, should not a departed spirit do the same? This, it. is thought, would give a natural t xplan.itoil of ghosts. Such, indeed, i> the explanation —.l bv M vers.