The Elliott O’Donnell Supernatural Megapack

by Elliott O'Donnell

  It would seem that certain houses, such, for example, as Knebworth and the one in which Mrs. Wright (whose case I have already mentioned) lived, as well as families, have ghosts attached to them that have the power of warning people of their approaching doom.

  It is, of course, quite possible that these ghosts were once attached to people, either living in those houses, or in some way connected with them, and, that leaving those people, they took up their freed abode in the houses, continuing, however, their function of Death Warning. On the other hand, they may be a type of Vagrarian who, being brought to the house with some antique piece of furniture, resolve to take up their abode in it. As this type of Elemental prefers solitude, it would naturally take every means in its power to insure it. Or, again, they may be a type of Elemental closely allied to Morbas, who are attracted to these houses by crimes once committed there (for I think when once a murder has been committed no Benevolent Powers can prevent Vice and other antagonistic Elementals from taking up their abode on the spot), and who have the power committed to them to bring about all manner of catastrophes fatal to the material inmates of the house; hence houses where death warnings of the nature of phantom clocks have been heard should be studiously avoided.

  IMPERSONATING ELEMENTALS.

  One of the functions of Impersonating Elementals, as I have already stated, is to perform the rôles both of the victim of murder and of suicide, though only in those cases where the spirits of the murdered person and the suicide are not themselves earth-bound. These Elementals would seem to be Neutrals, or spirit properties, employed alike by the Benevolent and Antagonistic Forces. In cases of suicide, for example, they would be employed by the Benevolent Forces with the object of warning people against self-destruction; and, at the same time, they might be employed by the Antagonistic Forces with the object of leading people on to self-destruction.

  I think Impersonating Elementals sometimes manifest themselves at Spiritualistic séances, when they appear as relatives and friends of the sitters, and are pronounced to be such by the “controls.”

  In dreams, too, Impersonating Elementals frequently find constant employment, assuming every variety of guise—indeed, dreams, as I have already remarked, are completely under the control of Benevolent, Impersonating, and Antagonistic Elementals.

  NEUTRAL ELEMENTALS.

  Under this heading are included all Impersonating Elementals, some Clanogrians, and the greater number of Vagrarians, Pixies, and Fire Elementals.

  MATERIALISATION.

  All superphysical spirits, whether earth-bound spirits of the dead or Elementals, have the power of materialisation, though the conditions under which they may do so vary considerably. What the conditions actually are, is quite unknown at present to physical man.

  THE PSYCHIC FACULTY.

  I think the seeing, hearing, or feeling of psychic phenomena is determined by the Phenomena themselves, and that the latter themselves select the person to whom they wish to become manifest—hence there is no actual psychic faculty. I have, for example, in a haunted house, seen the phenomenon on one night and not on another, though on both occasions other people in the room have witnessed it. There are no end of other instances, too, in which people, who see apparitions on one occasion, do not see them on another, although the manifestations are of a precisely similar nature.

  PHANTOM COACHES, CLOCKS, SHIPS, ETC.

  Phantom coaches, clocks, ships, etc., are merely illusionary accessories to help carry out the design of Elementals. A coach was said at one time to haunt a road in Monmouthshire, and there are numerous cases of similar hauntings in different parts of England.

  From time to time, too, phantom ships are reputed to have been seen off the North Cornish coast, whilst there is hardly a coast in the world that has not been visited by them. As they are usually seen before maritime catastrophes, they undoubtedly belong to the order of Clanogrians, with which I accordingly classify them.

  PHANTASMS IN MINES.

  In certain mining districts, after work hours, the miners say they hear the sounds of knocking and picking proceeding from the levels they have just vacated, and they declare it is “The Buccas” at work, the Buccas being a species of Neutral Elemental (closely allied to the Pixie) peculiar to mines. I have never heard of any of the miners seeing the Buccas, though several have spoken to me of the noises they have heard.

  Deserted old mines are often alleged to be haunted, and I have been told that if one stands by the mouth of an empty shaft on a still night, one can hear the rolling of the Buccas’ barrows and the thud, thud, of the Buccas’ picks. Interesting accounts of similar phenomena are given in Carne’s Tales of the West and Hunt’s Popular Romances of the West of England.

  Another species of ghost, allied, perhaps, to the Clanogrian, is a blue, luminous hand that appears in various parts of the mine before a catastrophe; sometimes it is seen climbing ropes, sometimes resting on the edge of one of the cages, and sometimes hovering in mid-air with a finger pointed at the doomed men.

  Certain mines in France are haunted by a white hare that appears with the same purport, whilst in Germany the miners are haunted by Elementals of the Pixie order, called respectively Kobolds and Knauffbriegen, that play all sorts of mischievous pranks (very often of a dangerous nature) on the miners. Mines are, in addition, of course, subjected to all the ordinary forms of hauntings.

  PHANTASMS OF THE SEA.

  In all parts of the world there is a firm belief among many of the people living in lonely spots on the coast, that the sea and rocks are haunted by the earth-bound spirits of the drowned, and often when I have been walking alone at night along the cliffs or sandy beaches between Bude and Clovelly, and Lamorna and the Land’s End, Dalkey and Bray and Lunan Bay, I have heard the rising and falling of ghostly voices from over the deserted, star-lit sea—voices that may either have come from the superphysical bodies of those who lay engulfed there, or from Impersonating Elementals.

  I have repeatedly heard it said that in the grey hours of the morning all sorts of queer filmy shapes rise out of the sea and glide over the silent strand.

  Mr. Dyer, in his Ghost World, refers to “The Bay of the Departed” in Brittany, where boatmen are summoned by some unseen power to launch their boats and to ferry to some island near at hand the souls of the men who have been drowned. In this bay, too, the wails and cries of the phantasms of shipwrecked sailors are clearly heard in the dead of night. So strong is the antipathy of the seafaring community in many parts of Brittany to the sea coast that none will approach it after nightfall.

  Mr. Hunt, in his Romances of West of England, says that one night when a fisherman was walking along the sands at Porth-Towan, he suddenly heard a voice cry out three times from the sea, “The hour is come, but not the man,” whereupon a black figure, like that of a man, appeared on the top of the hill, paused for a moment, and then, rushing impetuously down the steep incline, over the sand, vanished amid the gently lapping waves.

  The figure, of course, may have been the actual earth-bound spirit of someone who was once drowned in that spot, or it may have been an impersonating or Vice Elemental attracted to that spot by some tragedy that had taken place there; since I have heard of many similar instances of tall, thin figures bounding over cliffs or across sandy beaches, vanishing in the sea, I conclude such phenomena are by no means uncommon.

  In certain parts of the Norfolk coast it is still, I believe, affirmed that before any person is drowned a voice is heard from the sea predicting a squall, and a great reluctance is still shown in many countries to rescue anyone from drowning, since it is popularly supposed that the drowning person will at some time or another injure his rescuer—an idea which should certainly be discouraged, whether there is any truth in it or not. But the sea certainly has a peculiar fascination for most people, and, I feel sure, it possesses a species of Elemental peculiar to itself. Those Elementals probably
resent the rescue of their would-be victims, and use the latter as a means of wreaking their vengeance on the rescuer!

  HAUNTED TREES.

  Cases of trees haunted by particularly grotesque kinds of phantasms (presumably Vagrarians, Vice Elementals, and Neutrals) are numerous.

  A few years ago, a Mrs. Cayley told me that when riding along a certain road in India, she had the greatest difficulty in making her horse pass a particular tree, and that on mentioning the matter to a native servant, the man at once exclaimed, “Allah preserve you, mem-sahib, from ever passing near that tree. A dog-faced man sits at the base of the trunk, and, with his long arms outstretched, watches for passers-by. He springs upon them, half frightens them to death, and overwhelms them with misfortune. If ever you come within the clutches of the dog-faced spirit, mem-sahib, you will shortly afterwards meet with some dire calamity. The horse has second sight, mem-sahib; it can see the spirit and its evil nature, and has no desire to place either itself or you within its clutches. Be wise, mem-sahib, and never go near that tree!”

  Mrs. Cayley, however, was not wise. Laughing at the Indian’s credulity, she immediately saddled her horse, and riding to the tree, compelled the reluctant and terrified animal to pass under its branches. Just as it did so, Mrs. Cayley felt an icy current of air pass right through her, and, glancing down, saw, to her horror, a misty something crouching against the trunk of the tree and peering up at her. She couldn’t tell what it was, its shape being altogether too indistinct, but from the fact that it impressed her with sensations of the utmost terror and loathing, she realised that it was something both diabolical and malignant. At this moment her horse shied, and she knew nothing more till she found herself with a sprained ankle, lying on the ground close to the tree. Her terror was then so great that, without daring to look round, she rolled over and over till she had got from under cover of the branches, when, despite the pain caused by her injury, she got up and hobbled home.

  That evening a very near relative of hers was accidentally shot, and within the week her favourite brother died from the effects of sunstroke!

  The ghost in this case was either a Vice Elemental attracted to the tree by some tragedy once enacted there, or a phantasm of the malignant order of Clanogrian.

  Hauntings of a similar nature are not uncommon in Ireland.

  According to certain North American Indian tribes, trees have spirits of their own, which resemble beautiful women, whilst in Greece certain trees are haunted by “Stichios” (see Superstitions of Modern Greece, by M. Le Baron d’Estournelles), a malignant kind of Vagrarian or Clanogrian that wreaks vengeance on anyone or anything venturing to sleep beneath the branches.

  In Australia, too, the Bushmen often shun trees, declaring them to be haunted by demons that whistle in the branches. Whether this is true or not, many trees are haunted, and the phantasm that most commonly haunts them is undoubtedly the sub-human and sub-animal type of Vice Elemental—such as was seen by Mrs. Cayley on the day her relative was accidentally shot and shortly before her brother succumbed to sunstroke.

  TELEPATHY.

  The transference of thought from one mind to another without any other medium than air is an established fact—such communications are of daily occurrence. At present, however, the communications usually take place without any conscious endeavour on the part of the transmitter, or knowledge of actual reception on the part of the receiver.

  For example, a certain Mr. Philpotts, with whom I am acquainted, when on a visit to London, was wishing very earnestly one morning that his wife, whom he had left at home, would go into his study and write a letter in reply to one which he had forgotten to answer. On his return home next day, he found to his astonishment that at the very time he had been thinking of the letter, his wife had actually gone into the study and penned it. Up to that moment, she had had no intention of going into the study, and no idea that any letter there needed an answer.

  Instances like this are numerous. The questions now arise as to whether it is possible for the transmitter of the thoughts to raise in the recipient’s mind visions which might be thought to be objective, and that if such a process should be possible, if it would not account for many of the so-called superphysical phenomena?

  In instances where phenomena are seen individually, i.e., where they manifest themselves to single individuals, I think it possible, but not probable, that they may be due to telepathy; but where the demonstrations take place, either visually or auditorially, before a number of people, several of whom are conscious of them, then those demonstrations are without doubt objective, and consequently in no way traceable to telepathic communication. This being so, why, then, should not all such demonstrations, whether manifesting themselves individually or collectively, be objective?

  In the case of Miss D., a case I have already mentioned in reference to projection, the phenomenon was without a doubt objective. Four of us suddenly saw what we all took to be the natural body of Miss D. descend the staircase, pass between us, open a door and slam it behind her, the fact of her disappearance—there being no exit from the room she had entered and into which we had immediately followed her—proving beyond question that what we had seen was her superphysical body. She was actually a long distance from the house at the time of the occurrence, and could not remember thinking either of us or the house, so that the separation of her superphysical from her physical body must have taken place unconsciously. I had a decided impression of her dress as it swept over my feet during her descent of the staircase. We were all busily engaged in discussing our programme for the day when the phantasm appeared, and had, certainly, not been thinking of Miss D.

  I do not think, then, that Phantasms of the Living are in any way attributable to telepathy, but that, like all other phantasms, they are purely superphysical. I have often been to haunted houses where the nature of the haunting was entirely unknown to me, and witnessed the same phenomena that I have subsequently learned have been experienced by countless other people. This has happened to me individually and collectively; collectively when my companions have been in as complete ignorance as to the nature of the manifestations as myself. Indeed, in most of my investigations I am accompanied by pronounced sceptics, who are, in addition, complete strangers to the neighbourhood. Hence there can be no question, under these circumstances, either of telepathy or suggestion.

  SPIRITUALISTIC SÉANCES.

  As I have already inferred, I think it quite likely that genuine superphysical manifestations do, at times, take place at spiritualistic séances, but I am convinced that all such phenomena are confined to earth-bound spirits of the Dead, and Impersonating and Vice Elementals. For this reason I think constant, or even casual, attendance at séances is a very dangerous thing, as, not content with appearing at the séance, these undesirable Elementals will attach themselves to the sitters, accompanying them home and wherever they may go, with the sole object of doing them mischief; and when once attached, they will not easily, if ever, be got rid of.

  I am often asked if I know of a materialising medium who is above the suspicion of trickery. I do not. There is no medium that I have ever met, or even heard of, that has not at times (at all events) resorted to fraudulent means of producing phenomena.

  If spirits can manifest themselves in haunted houses without the assistance of a medium, or the necessity of sitting round tables with joined hands, or facing “curtained off” recesses or mysterious cabinets—why cannot they thus simply manifest themselves at a séance? To my mind the reason is obvious, since the genuine superphysical manifestations cannot be summoned at will by any medium, the latter, rather than allow his audience to go away unsatisfied, invariably makes use of conditions, under cover of which—failing the genuine phenomenon—he can always produce a fraudulent representation.

  The stock-in-trade of many spiritualistic séances seems to be an Indian, who executes a wild dance and speaks in a Hill di
alect only known to one or two people in the room (confederates, of course), a beautiful girl who was once a very naughty nun, or hospital nurse, and several soldiers stated to have been killed in recent wars and who are anxious to materialise. This, however, they do not do, as one or two ladies in the audience (confederates again) declare they dare not under any circumstances behold bullet wounds and sabre cuts—a protest that at once meets with the approval of the “control,” who bids the soldiers remain invisible, and talk only. The sound of voices is then heard proceeding from behind a heavy curtain that is hung across the recess of a window conveniently left open. Sometimes, a number of feet are seen moving backwards and forwards under the curtain, and, occasionally, a very ugly but unmistakeably material head (wearing a mask) is poked through between the drawn curtains, much, of course, to the horror of the more timid of the audience, who are only too ready to believe the declaration of the medium and his confederates, that the head is that of some Earth-bound Spirit.

  The darkness of the room—for séances are seldom held in the light—facilitates every manner of trickery, whilst the window, cabinet, and door all furnish easy means of entrance and exit.

  The knockings on the table and the banging of tambourines are, as I have proved over and over again, invariably the work either of the medium himself or of confederates amongst the audience.