United States or Norfolk Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Yet the coincidences are so many, or so striking, that when a Maori woman has a hallucination representing her absent husband, she may marry without giving him recognised ground for resentment, if he happens to be alive. By comparing coincidental with non-coincidental hallucinations known to him, Mr. Suppose that some 20,000 people answer such questions as: Have you ever had any hallucination?
The general reader, even if credulously inclined, is more staggered by a few examples of non-coincidental hallucinations, than confirmed by a pile of coincidental examples. Now it seems to be a defect in the method of the friends of wraiths, that they do not publish, with full and impressive details, as many examples of non-coincidental as of coincidental hallucinations.
The elder sister was in her room, in a white shawl. She was visible, when absent on another occasion, to another spectator. Here then are eight cases of non-coincidental hallucination, some of people awake, some of people probably on the verge of sleep, which are wholly without 'coincidence, wholly unveridical. None of the 'percipients' was addicted to seeing 'visions about.
Again, the seers were sometimes under anxiety, though such cases were excluded from the final computation: they frequently knew that the person seen was in bad health: they were often very familiar with his personal aspect. Now what are called 'subjective hallucinations, non-coincidental hallucinations, usually represent persons very familiar to us, persons much in our minds.
It is the story that takes the public: if we are to be fair we must give the non-coincidental story in all its features, as is done in the matter of wraiths with a kind of message or meaning. The old lady wept as she sat by the bedside. 'Why do you weep, grandmamma, are you not happy where you are? asked the girl. 'Yes, I am happy, but I am weeping for your mother. 'Is she going to die?
The non-coincidental hallucinations were multiplied by four, to allow for forgetfulness of 'misses. The results being compared, it was decided that the hallucinations collected coincided with death 440 more often than ought to be the case by the law of probabilities. Therefore there was proof, or presumption, in favour of some relation of cause and effect between A's death and B's hallucination.
Anxiety is only reported, or to be surmised, in two or three cases. In a dozen the existence of illness was known. It would have been desirable, of course, to publish all the non-coincidental cases, and show how far, in these not veridical cases, the recognised phantasms were those of kindred, dear friends, known to be ill, and subjects of anxiety .
Word Of The Day