UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA LIBRARIES Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/onehundredcasesfOObair ONE HUNDRED CASES FOR SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH Edited by A. T. BAIRD NEW YORK BERNARD ACKERMAN INCORPORATED -OPYRIGHT, 1944, BY BERNARD ACKERMAN, INC. ,-. Printed in the United States of America By Ruttle, Shaw & Wetherill, Inc., Philadelphia 7, Penna. CONTENTS PAGE Foreword 7 CHAPTER 1. Dreams 9 2. Haunted Houses 31 3. Apparitions 50 4. Death-Bed Visions 80 5. Automatic Writing 92 6. Trance Phenomena 109 7. Cross-Correspondence 129 8. Book-Tests 153 9. Proxy Sittings 167 10. Direct-Voice Phenomena 177 11. Materialization 199 Index of Cases 221 Bibliography 223 / am absolutely convinced of the fact that those who once lived on earth can and do communicate with us. It is hardly possible to convey to the inexperienced an adequate idea of the strength and cumulative force of the evidence.—Sir William F. Barrett, F.R.S. / am ashamed and grieved at having opposed the psychic facts. Genuine psychical phenomena are produced by intelligences totally independent of the parties present.—Professor C. Lombroso, University of Turin. When I remember that I branded as a fool that fearless investigator, Croo\es, because he had the courage to assert the reality of psychic phe- nomena, I am ashamed both of myself and others, and I cry from the very bottom of my heart, "Father, forgive! I have sinned against the light."— Professor Ochorowickz, University of Warsaw. / am constrained to believe by the invincible logic of facts.—Professor Raoul Pictet, University of Genoa. The facts revealed necessitate the complete overthrow of the materialistic physiology and conception of the universe.—Dr. Gustave Geley, Meta- physic Institute, Paris. I tell you we do persist. Communication is possible. 1 have proved that the people who communicate are who and what they say they are. The con- clusion is that survival is scientifically proved by scientific investigation.— Sir Oliver Lodge. FOREWORD I have only compiled this book and it could not have been published without the cooperation of many individuals, authors and publishing firms —all total strangers to me—who, when I approached them for the cases cited, granted permission freely and generously. The general public, either too busy or too lazy to delve into the litera- ture of psychical research, is unaware of the strength of the case for sur- vival of human personality after bodily death, and it was the desire to try and dissipate that ignorance that urged me to compress some of the work of countless investigators into this small volume. The cases have been collected from many sources, ranging from eighty years back right up to the present day. Many shrewd and skeptical investigators —working alone or in societies for psychical research—have contributed them, and these people were specialists in this line, ever on the alert to detect and expose fraud. To the person accustomed to accepting information on the subject from the sensational Sunday press, the cases of evidence cited may seem surprising, and he may well wonder if they have been correctly quoted—too good to be true! On that point the reader is asked to use his own judgment, but he is also asked to bear in mind that the investigators whose cases are pre- sented in this book spent much time, money, and patience in the process, and they did not embark on their self-imposed task "for the fun of the thing." They were in deadly earnest in trying to solve this great human problem, and whether they succeeded or failed, the reader must form his own opinion, but he should remember that the problem of human sur- vival can be solved in only one way, and that way is to prove that human personality does survive death. It is all a matter of scientific fact, proof, and evidence, while morality, theology, and philosophy have no bearing whatsoever on the problem. The reader must not for one moment imagine that the case for survival rests solely on the hundred examples quoted in this book; a thousand equally good cases could be produced as easily; in fact, at times I was 7 8 FOREWORD embarrassed with the wealth of material at my disposal and I may men- tion that my difficulty was in rejecting! Perhaps later, someone more energetic and enthusiastic, with more time and patience than I have, may publish Five Thousand Cases for Survival, and even then there will be plenty in reserve. Even though the Oliver Twist-like critic should still demand more, his wish could easily be granted. I think that all the writing in the world will not convince anyone so thoroughly as evidence found for oneself, but that is no reason why the investigations of others should not be collected and placed on record in a convenient form. Hence this book. Chapter 1 DREAMS Ordinary, normal dreams do not enter into the scope of this chapter; it is only the veridical dream of the supernormal variety which comes within the province of psychical research that we are concerned with. Such numbers have been recorded that skeptics find it difficult either to deny or explain them by normal or Freudian psychology, and these dreams are in a class by themselves, impossible to account for by any mechanistic scheme or chance-coincidence. A fairly large number are concerned with deceased persons, usually containing communications from such, and the prima facie explanation is that they are due to the action of the discarnate. The cases which follow possess a very definite bearing on that point. The cases in this chapter were easy to collect; though more than a dozen have been quoted and I am not certain that I have included the best available, another compiler would probably select different instances, equally good or better. The Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Re- search contain hundreds of instances; in fact, several books on the subject of dreams of this variety could be published, and there are still many in the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research and the Annates des Sciences Psychiques! case no. 1 The Perth Case1 This case is taken from an extract of a letter sent by the Rev. Charles McKay, a Catholic priest, to the Countess of Shrewsbury: "In July, 1838, I left Edinburgh to take charge of the Perthshire mis- sions. On my arrival at Perth, I was called upon by a Presbyterian woman, Anne Simpson, who for more than a week had been in the utmost anxiety to see a priest. (This woman stated that a woman lately dead [date not i Proceedings, S.P.R., VI, 33. 10 SURVIVAL AFTER DEATH given] named Maloy, slightly known to Anne Simpson, had 'appeared to her during the night for several nights' urging her to go to the priest, who would pay a sum of money, three and tenpence, which the deceased owed to a person not specified.) "I made inquiry, and found that a woman of that name had died, who had acted as washer-woman and followed the regiment. Following up the inquiry I found a grocer with whom she had dealt, and on asking him if a female named Maloy owed him anything, he turned up his books, and told me that she did owe him three and tenpence. I paid the sum. Subse- quently the Presbyterian woman came to me, saying that she was no more troubled." case no. 2 The Sarawa\ Case1 My wife, since deceased, had a brother residing at Sarawak, and at the time to which I refer he was staying with the Rajah, Sir James Brooke. The following is an extract from the second volume of The Rajah of Sarawa\, by Gertrude L. Jacob, page 238: "Mr. Wellington (my wife's brother) was killed in a brave attempt to defend Mrs. Middleton and her children. The Chinese, it appears, taking Mr. Wellington for the Rajah's son, struck off his head." And now for the dream. I was awakened one night by my wife, who started from her sleep, terrified by the following dream. She saw her headless brother standing at the foot of the bed, with his head lying on a coffin by his side. I did my best to console my wife, who continued to be much distressed for some considerable time. At length, she fell asleep again to be wakened by a similar dream. In the morning and for several days after, she constantly referred to her dream, and anticipated sad news of her brother. And now comes the strangest part of the story. When the news reached England, I computed approximately the time and found it coincided with the memorable night to which I have referred. 1 Myers, F. W. M., Phantasms of the Living, I, 365. DREAMS 11 The Brixham Case1 The facts of this case were vouched for by the Rev. R. B. F. Elrington, Vicar of Lower Brixham, Devonshire, and he certified to the good char- acter of the witnesses concerned: "In the early spring of 1881, Mrs. Barnes of Brixham, whose husband was at sea, dreamt that his fishing-boat was run into by a steamer. Their boy was with him and she called out in her dream, 'Save the boy!' At this moment another son sleeping in the next room to hers, rushed in, crying out, 'Where's Father?' She asked what he meant, when he said he had distinctly heard his father come upstairs, and kick with his heavy boots against the door, as he was in the habit of doing when he returned from sea.