< "The Theosophist" (continued from page 7-19) >
“There is a bungalow in Kussowlie called ‘The Abbey,’ and one year some friends of mine had taken this house for a season, and I went to stay with them for a short while. My friends told me the house was haunted by the ghost of a lady, who always appeared dressed in a white silk dress. This lady did really live a great many years ago, and was a very wicked woman, as far as I remember the story. Whether she was murdered, or whether she put an end to herself, I cannot say, but she was not buried in consecrated ground, and for this reason, it was said, her spirit cannot rest. Her grave may be seen by anybody, for it is still at Kussowlie. When my friends told me this I laughed, and said I did not believe in ghosts; so they showed me a small room divided from the drawing-room by a door, which they told me was an especial pet of the ghost’s; and that after it got dark they always had to keep it shut, and they dared me to go into that room at ten p.m. one night. I said I would; so at ten p.m. I lighted a candle and went into the room. It was small, had no cupboards, and only one sofa, and one table in the centre. T looked under the table and under the sofa, then I shut the door, and, blowing out my candle, sat down to await the appearance of the ghost. In a little while I heard the rustle of a silk dress, though I could see nothing. I got up, and backed toward the door, and as I backed I could feel something coming toward me. At last I got to the door and threw it wide open and rushed into the drawing-room, leaving the door open to see if the ghost would follow after me. I sat down by the fire, and, in a little while, my courage returning, I thought I would go again into the little room; but upon trying the door I found it was fast shut, and I could not open it, so I went to bed. Another evening, a lady friend and I were sitting at a small round table with a lamp, reading; all of a sudden the light was blown out, and we were left in the dark. As soon as lights could be procured, it was found that the globe of the lamp had disappeared, and from that day to this it. has never been found The ghost walks over the whole house at night, and has been seen in different rooms by different people. Kussowlie is between thirty and forty miles away from Simla, in the direction of the plains.
“I may also tell you of something that came under the observation of my mother some twenty years ago. An acquaintance of hers, a young Mr. W—, was on a ship which in a terrific gale was wrecked on an island off the coast of Africa. News of the disaster was brought to England by another ship, and it was supposed that every soul on board had been lost. Mr. W—’s relatives went into mourning, but his mother would not, for she was convinced that he had escaped. And as a matter of record she put into writing an account of what she had seen in a dream. The whole scene of the shipwreck had appeared to her as though she were an eye-witness. She had seen her son and another man dashed by the surf upon a rock, whence they had managed to crawl up to a place of safety. For two whole days they sat there without food or water, not daring to move for fear of being carried off again by the surges. Finally they were picked up by a foreign vessel and carried to Portugal, whence they were just then taking ship to England. The mother’s vision was shortly corroborated to the very letter; and the son, arriving at home, said that if his mother had been present in body she could not have more accurately described the circumstances.”
The Weighing Machine Experiments
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Spiritualism
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Editor's notes