Two Expiriences of the Process of Death
We are all interested in this subject—young and old, and especially we old folk. I once happened to be present when two persons who had just passed through this experience— which (with taxes) is the only thing certain to all of us— told how it had passed with them. It is a reminiscence of some ten or twelve years back, but it seems to me worth preserving and recording—as all the material facts of Spiritualism are—while the other witnesses are still living who can confirm my statement.
It occurred at the house of Mrs. Makdougall Gregory. There were present, besides herself, Mrs. Honywood (I do not feel bound to withhold the names of two such well- known and nobly outspoken Spiritualists), Lady—, Mrs. H—, her son, a young gentleman of about nineteen; the medium, Mrs. Mary Marshall; and myself. All are still living in the flesh. None will impugn the accuracy of my report.
We had agreed upon a course of six seances with Mary Marshall, rapping medium, to be held on a stated evening each week. The method was that, as we sat round a table, each in secession would communicate with her or his friendly or kindred spirits, not evoked by us, though perhaps invoked by love, desire, and hope. The one always sure to announce herself to me was my mother. To Mrs. IT—the unfailing one was her father.
One evening, after we had passed through our customary experiences in this way, which we all used to find respectively very satisfactory, for Mary Marshall was an excellent medium, Mrs. H—begged us, just as we were about breaking up, to sit a little longer. She wished to try an experiment. She had lost a very dear friend within the twenty-four hours, and wished to see if she could communicate with him. She knew also of a singular death which had occurred within, I think, thirty-six hours, and would like to try the experiment of communication with that spirit also.
We re-formed the circle. Again her father responded to her. She asked him if he could bring there the spirit of their dear old friend who had just left this life. “Yes.” And then there was that peculiar sound of a spirit going away, which all must remember who ever had much experience with Mary Marshall; a sort of rapid galloping sound on the ceiling, gradually dying away at one corner overhead. A minute, or two, or three, of silence. Then the rappings on the table announcing return. “Is that you, dear father?” “Yes.” “Have you brought him with you?” “Yes.” “And can he communicate with you?” “Yes.” Then ensued an affectionate dialogue between Mrs. H—and the spirit thus brought. He gave his name, “Thomas.” Then his surname, “Kenna.” “Yes,” she said, “Sir Thomas Kenna.” Then his age eighty odd; I believe eighty-four. And the name (Albemarle), and the number (34, or thereabouts) of the street of his residence in which he had passed away. Mrs. H—told him how happy she was thus to be able to communicate with him still. Amongst other things she said, “We have all had many proofs, dear Sir Thomas, of your friendship and affection, but I beg you to mention the last aet of kindness from you to one of my family.” “Put your son's name down for Arthur's Club" was the reply. She told us that this was correct, though some time afterwards she told me how she had since learned that it was not literally the fact; he had promised and intended to do so, but his last illness had prevented the consummation of the purpose. But the thought and intention of kindness were all the same, and the answer was in spirit the truth. She asked him where he was now? “Still in Albemarle-street” How long would he remain there? “About three or four days." When she had got through what I may call general affectionate talk with her aged friend, she said (and to tell this is my reason for relating the ease): “Well, now, dear Sir Thomas, you have passed through that experience which sooner or later awaits us all, that of what we call Death. Tell me something about it. Did you find it a painful process?” “Not at all; it was like waking up out of a sleep.” “And how did you know that you had passed through it; that you were what we call dead?” Observe his reply: “I found myself outside of my body, and looking upon it as it lay there before me.” “How did you feel when you found yourself separated from your body?” “I turned from it with disgust.” “I suppose you woke up in the next life with a rejuvenated body, and so turned from the old worn-out one?” “Yes.” Note, I repeat these replies in connection with what is about to follow.
The precise date of this seance can be ascertained from the obituary columns of the Times. It was two or three days before the appearance there of the death of Major-General Sir Thomas Kenna, of the age, and of the exact address given us by the spirit, though Mrs. H—had not given the slightest indication about him.
When she had got through with her communication with him, though she had seemed loathe to bring it to a close, she asked her father (still present) whether he could also bring to her the other spirit, just departed, whom she had in her thoughts. “Yes;” and again the same occurred as before, and the new spirit announced himself as present. As before, Mrs. H—gave no inkling of anything about him. Only, she had said at the outset that he had died in a very singular way. He gave correctly his name, age, &e., in response to her questions. He was a mere youth, twenty-one years of age or thereabout. Unlike the former spirit, who had answered to the request of his name, first, by his Christian name, this one gave first his surname, and, curiously enough, it was, if I remember right (“Death,” which is a family name in England (witness a watchmaker’s sign in Cheapside). Mrs. H—thereupon remarked: “That is curious; he answers as he would have answered to the roll-call in his company by his surname; he was a private in a cavalry regiment at Windsor, in which my son is an officer. My son has just arrived this afternoon from Windsor, and told me the singular mode of death of this young man.” She then went on to say to him: “I beg you to tell, for the satisfaction of my friends here, the cause of your death.” “A bone in my throat,” was the answer. I exclaimed: “Oh! he swallowed a fishbone.” “No,” by an immediate very emphatic single rap under the table. “Well, tell us what it was,” said Mrs. H—. “A bone of beef.” This was a surprising answer; but Mrs. H—told us that this was indeed very curious; and she proceeded to explain. A common trooper, receiving rations sometimes roughly cut or cloven, he had swallowed a thin needle-like slitter of bone in his allotted portion. He had gulped it down, but it had cut its way, like a needle, through his gullet. A few days afterwards he had felt a little uneasiness, had gone into hospital; but became better, and nothing was perceived to be the matter with him, when at last he was taken with convulsions, and such vomitings of blood that his bed was inundated with it, and he died in those convulsions. Autopsy discovered the sharp slitter or needle of bone sticking a short distance in his heart; so do needles that have been swallowed work their way through the human body. Such was the report her son had brought up to her about this extraordinary ease, which had prompted her to try this experiment of communication with the very recently departed spirit, well known to her son, his officer.
In the Times, a few days later, I read a short notice of the coroner’s inquest, at Windsor, on this singular death. Also, at Mrs. H—’s I met, at an evening party, the regimental surgeon who had made the autopsy, and who showed me the slitter of bone (much smaller than the bare bodkin, which we knew to be sufficient for a quietus). He earned it in his pocket-book as a curiosity to show to his professional brethren; and I understood from him that he was about to publish the ease in the Lancet, or some other professional journal, where, no doubt, it may be found. Of course, we were all impressed with this remarkable ease. Mrs. H—then turned to the spirit, who had remained there while she related these particulars, and put to him the same inquiries she had before put to her old friend, Sir Thomas Kenna. What had been his experience of what we call death; was it painful? “Extremely so,” was the reply, the opposite of what had been said before. But this was a death of convulsions and physical agony on the part of a youth, very different from the gentle separation of the slender cord which held to the worn-out and used-up flesh the spirit, ready and willing to depart, of the cultured and Christian octogenarian. “Well, how did you know that you were what we <... continues on page 8-176 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ Two Expiriences of the Process of Death by unknown author, London Spiritualist, No. 343, March 21, 1879, pp. 139-40
Sources
London Spiritualist, No. 343, March 21, 1879, pp. 139-40