Chapter XV.).

No. 66.--From DR. WILTSE, Skiddy, Kansas, U.S.A.

"_March_ 16_th_, 1891.

"Some weeks ago several persons were passing the evening at my house, and two children, a little girl of eight years and a boy of six years, whose mother is stopping with us, had been put to bed in an adjoining room, the door between the rooms being closed. The company were engaged in games that did not interest me, and I took a seat some five feet from the bedroom door and began trying to make the boy see my form in the room at his bedside, he being on the front side of the bed. I knew the children were awake, as I could hear them laughing. After some ten or fifteen minutes, the boy suddenly screamed as if frightened, and, hurrying in there, I found the little fellow buried up in the bedclothes and badly frightened, but he seemed ashamed of his fright and would not tell me what was the matter.

"I kept the matter of my having tried an experiment a thorough secret, and after some two weeks it came out through the little girl that Charlie thought he saw a "great big tiger standing by his bed looking at him, and he could see Uncle Hime (myself) in the tiger's eyes." What was the tiger? I had not thought of any form but my own. The child lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and has seen the collections in Zoological Gardens, but has not been taught the different colours. I have just now shown him the plates in Wood's _Natural History_, and he pointed out a lion as the animal he saw, but as the plates are not coloured, they are little good for the purpose; but as I began at the back of the book and took through all sorts first, and the lion was the first and only animal designated by him as the one he had seen in the room, I conclude he was near enough to the classification for our purpose. No one but myself knew of my experiment until the children had told their story.

"A. S. WILTSE."

Dr. Wiltse writes later:--

"SKIDDY, MORRIS CO., KANSAS, _March_ 29_th_, 1891.

"I tried one more experiment of the same kind with the little boy, but failed, but I was conscious of wavering in mind during the whole course of the experiment, and besides this there were other unfavourable conditions. The child's mother was absent for the evening and the children with my own boy (aged fifteen) were making Rome howl in the way of untrammelled fun."

Mrs. Wiltse and Dr. Wiltse's son write as follows:--

"SKIDDY, KANSAS, _March_ 28_th_, 1891.

"I was present when Josie Skene told papa what her brother Charlie was scared about.

"She said that Charlie throwed the cover over his head and told her that he saw a tiger, and Uncle Hime, as he called papa, was in the tiger's eyes.

"JASON WILTSE."

"I certify that the above statement is substantially correct, as I also heard the little girl relate it.

"MRS. HAIDEE WILTSE."

Mrs. Charles Skene, the mother of the little boy, writes:--

"153 PLATT STREET [CLEVELAND, OHIO], _April_ 9_th_, 1891.

"Your letter dated the 6th came to hand to-day. I was on a visit to the Dr. and his family, and one evening he said he would try an experiment on my little boy; it was about seven o'clock and they had just been put to bed. The Dr. wanted to make him see him by his bedside, and him in the other room, and he did; he saw him in the form of a tiger and he also had tigers in his eyes. He commenced to shout, and said he was frightened, but did not say any more, he was so frightened. This is my daughter's statement as far as she can recollect.

"If there are any more questions you would like me to answer I will gladly do so. I was not at home the night this happened.

"MRS. CHAS. SKENE."

Later she adds:--

"_April_ 27_th_, 1891.

"Your letter of the 17th came to hand. I do not know the date, but it was about the middle of February, on a Wednesday evening. My little boy is six years old; he remembers it well, and often talks of it."

Mrs. Skene added, in answer to a question, that the boy did not know that the experiment was being tried on him. It should be added that Mr. Rasero, who was present, wrote, on the 30th October 1891, to confirm Dr. Wiltse's statement that nothing was said beforehand about trying an experiment of any kind.

The tiger in this experiment appears to have been a confused nightmare effect produced by the telepathic impression on the mind of the child percipient. In the next case, it will be seen, the percept appears to have been unusually clear and distinct.

No. 67.--From JOSEPH KIRK.[114]

Mr. Kirk has made several attempts to produce a hallucination of himself. Writing to us on the 7th July 1890, he stated that without the knowledge of his friend and neighbour, Miss G., he tried each night, from the 10th to the 20th of June, and once on the 11th in the afternoon, to induce her to see a hallucination of himself. From casual conversation, however, with Miss G. he gathered that no effect had been produced. But on June 23rd Mr. Kirk learned that the trial made on June 11th, the day and hour of which had been noted at the time, had completely succeeded. He thus describes the occasion:--

"2 RIPON VILLAS, PLUMSTEAD.

"... I had been rather closely engaged on some auditing work, which had tired me, and as near as I can remember the time was between 3.30 and 4 P.M. that I laid down my pencil, stretched myself, and in the act of doing the latter I was seized with the impulse to make a trial on Miss G. I did not, of course, know where she was at the moment, but, with a flash, as it were, I transferred myself to her bedroom. I cannot say why I thought of that spot, unless it was that I did so because my first experiment had been made there--_i.e._, on the previous night, the 10th June. As it happened, it was what I must call a 'lucky shot,' for I caught her at the moment she was lightly sleeping in her chair--a condition which seems to be peculiarly favourable to receiving and externalising telepathic messages.

"The figure seen by Miss G. was clothed in a suit I was at the moment wearing, and was _bareheaded_, the latter as would be the case, of course, in an office. This suit is of a dark reddish-brown _check_ stuff, and it was an unusual circumstance for me to have had on the _coat_ at the time, as I wear, as a rule, an office coat of _light_ material. But this office coat I had, a day or so before, sent to a tailor to be repaired, and I had, therefore, to keep on that belonging to the dark suit.

"I tested the reality of the vision by this dark suit. I asked, 'How was I dressed?' (not at all a leading question). The reply of Miss G. was, touching the sleeve of the coat I was then wearing (of a _light_ suit), 'Not this coat, but that dark suit you wear sometimes. I even saw clearly the _small check_ pattern of it; and I saw your features as plainly as though you had been bodily present. I _could not_ have seen you more distinctly.'"

Miss G.'s account is:--

"_June_ 28_th_, 1890.

"A peculiar occurrence happened to me on the Wednesday of the week before last. In the afternoon (being tired by a morning walk), while sitting in an easy-chair near the window of my own room, I fell asleep. At any time I happen to sleep during the day (which is but seldom) I invariably awake with tired, uncomfortable sensations, which take some little time to pass off; but that afternoon, on the contrary, I was suddenly quite wide awake, seeing Mr. Kirk standing near my chair, dressed in a dark brown coat, which I had frequently seen him wear. His back was towards the window, his right hand towards me; he passed across the room towards the door, which is opposite the window, the space between being 15 feet, the furniture so arranged as to leave just that centre clear; but when he got about 4 feet from the door, which was closed, he disappeared.

* * * * *

"I feel sure I had not been dreaming of him, and cannot remember that anything had happened to cause me even to think of him that afternoon before falling asleep."

Mr. Kirk writes later:--

"I have only succeeded once in making myself visible to Miss G. since the occasion I have already reported, and that had the singularity of being only my features--my face in _miniature_, that is, about _three inches_ in diameter."

In a letter dated January 19th, 1891, Mr. Kirk says as to this last appearance:--

"Miss G. did not record this at the time, as she attached no importance to it, but I noted the date (July 23rd) on my office blotting-pad, as it was at the office I was thinking of her. I say 'thinking,' because I was doing so in connection with another subject, and with no purpose of making an experiment. I had a headache, and was resting my head on my left hand. Suddenly it occurred to me that my thinking about her might probably influence her in some way, and I made the note I have mentioned."

Mr. Kirk enclosed in his statement to us the piece of blotting-paper on which the note of the second successful experiment had been made. The fact that the hallucination in the first case included a representation of the clothes actually worn by the agent at the time may have been a mere coincidence. But the case should be borne in mind in considering the possibility of heteroplastic hallucination.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 110: These details are taken from notes made by the writer immediately after the interview.]

[Footnote 111: _Der Magnetismus und die allgemeine Weltsprache._ A brief account of the five trials, quoted from the _Archiv für den thierischen Magnetismus_, vol. vi. pp. 136-139, will be found in _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. i. pp. 101, 102. In the other cases the impression was produced in a _dream_. The distance varied from 1/8 of a mile to 9 miles in the case quoted in the text.]

[Footnote 112: In Wesermann's book, as also in the account given in the _Archiv_, the account is headed "Fifth experiment at a distance of _nine_ miles."]

[Footnote 113: Wesermann unfortunately does not record his own state at the time of the experiments.]

[Footnote 114: See Nos. 37, 38, 39, Chapter V.]