To get an answer to the question of whether the souls of the dead live after the death of the body, one should take into account the cases when the dead in some way influence the lives of people still living on earth. More and more such facts are described in the literature.
• Rudolf Passian gave several impressive examples in his book:
1. During an appointment with Professor GV Shugarev, a girl dressed in a pink dress approaches him and stubbornly asks him to immediately go with her to her sick mother. The doctor hesitates, as he does not visit patients in their apartments: the girl's mother must come to the appointment. But the girl left him the address and asked with great persistence. Then she left. The professor regretted having refused her, followed her into the waiting room and asked the people there about the girl who had just left his office. He was confidently answered that there was no girl.
The puzzled doctor went to the indicated address and found a sick woman there. When he told the woman about the visit to the girl, she was extremely surprised and said that she had not sent anyone for him: her only daughter had died two days ago and her coffin was in the next room. Professor Shugarev goes to this room and fearfully recognizes in the deceased the girl in the pink dress who was at his reception about an hour ago.
2.1948 - in some German Catholic newspapers the following report of the French Abbot Labute about an event in his life that took place in 1944 appeared.
One evening he was extremely tired of the day's work and was going to pray at midnight by the prayer book. Suddenly the doorbell rang so loudly that he involuntarily flinched. On the threshold stood a woman of about 40 years old. She stretched out her arms pleadingly and said: “Mr. Abbot, let's go quickly. It's about a young man dying. " The abbot replied: "Madam, I have to get up early in the morning in order to be in time for the 6 o'clock Mass." Then she said: "Mr. Abbot, I beg you, it will be very late, make up your mind!" “Okay, please write the address, street name, house number, floor in my registration book.”
The woman hurried to the waiting room. Only here did the abbot see her in full light: her face expressed extreme suffering. She wrote her name in the book, followed by the address: 37, Rue Descartes, second floor. “You can go,” the abbot told her. "I'll be there in 20 minutes." She said quietly, “You are tired. May God protect you in danger for this! " Then she went out and disappeared into the darkness.
The abbot walked along the dark deserted streets of the city. He thought about the reasons for visiting an unfamiliar family. He regretted that he did not know all of his parishioners. Not without difficulty, he was able to find the 37th street number of Descartes. A 5-storey residential building, the front door of which, fortunately, is not yet locked.
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Illuminating his way with his lantern, he went up to the second floor and knocked on an unfamiliar door. Footsteps were heard. A light came on and the door was opened. A young man of about 20 years old looked at the night visitor with an expression of respectful surprise. "I have come to a terminally ill," said the abbot, "is he here?" “No, Mr. Abbot, there’s some mistake.” - The abbot showed the address written in his book, which spoke of the young man. Laughing, the young man replied that he was standing there and not going to die.
The abbot told him that he had a woman in her 40s who wrote this address with her own hand. At the same time, he showed what he had written to the young man. “Yes, Mr. Abbot, it seems to me that this handwriting is familiar to me. How similar it is to my handwriting … but no, it can't be! I live alone with my father, who is now on the night shift at the factory. This is probably a mistake. The woman may have wanted to write Rue Depart, but she wrote Rue Descartes by mistake. But come in just a minute, Mr. Abbot! You are shaking! I will quickly prepare grog for you."
There were books on the sofa in an elegant little room. “I just listened to Hungarian music,” the young man said, turning off the radio. Then he continued: "Mr. Abbot, for two years now I want to talk to you, but I do not find the courage to come to you." He laughed embarrassedly and added, "I was a lost son." After listening to the guy's story about his life, the abbot hurried out to find the Rue Departure, but it turned out that it did not have number 37, the street ends at number 16.
Suddenly a siren began to howl: air raid! The city was heavily bombed. With many other people, the abbot spent 30 minutes full of fear. When it was over, he walked through the streets, saw destruction, people killed. Many killed and wounded, mainly women and children, were gathered in one yard. Suddenly he stopped dumbfounded. One of the doctors asked him: "Who are you looking for, Mr. Abbot, a relative?" - "No, one parishioner." “He stood in front of the dead body of the young man he had just visited.
Looking in his pockets, he found a work book addressed to B. N., 21 years old, and also found a yellowed letter with a photograph. On it is a 40-year-old woman who visited it! The abbot jumped up in surprise: there is no doubt that this is the same woman who visited him and asked to save the guy. On the back of the photo was written "Mom". In another photo, this woman was shot on her deathbed, arms crossed on her chest, with a rose wreath. Two dates were written: 1898 - April 8, 1939. The handwriting on the yellowed photograph strongly resembled the toga with which the night visitor wrote the address of her son.
“Think what you want about this incident,” the abbot concludes. - For me, there is no doubt. It was the young man's mother who came back from eternity. The abbot swore that everything he said was true.
But there are also other kinds of visits. The same Rudolph Passian cites a case told to him by a chemist he knows.
3. A student of the Institute of Arts, who lived in one of the cities of Germany, decided to earn extra money in the summer and went to work for a farmer. She was given a small room with a window opening towards the courtyard. On the very first night of her stay in this room and on the following nights, exactly at 11.45 pm, from the side of the window, she could hear a noise resembling the sound of heavy footsteps. These sounds at first were weak, then more and more strong, as if someone was walking under the windows. After that, the steps were gradually removed.
Each time the shadow of a man passed in front of the windows. And every day the ghost appeared at exactly the same time. Two days before the end of her service on the farm, the girl for the first time - again after she was awakened by the noise of footsteps - clearly saw the man's face in the window frame: he looked into the room and then disappeared. She was so scared that she could no longer sleep.
When in the morning she told the inhabitants of the farm about her night visions and stated that she no longer wanted to live in this room, she was told that the farmer's brother had lived in this room before. One morning he was found in the same room and on the same bed on which the girl was now sleeping, with his throat cut. No doubt it was established that he had committed suicide. This happened a long time ago, and since that time no one has lived in the room.
Finishing his story, this chemist suggested that the soul of the suicide could not find rest and, perhaps, he was tied to the place of his death. It may be that every night he had to relive his death over and over again.
• Case described in the book by Frank Edwards: “The late Dr. S. Ware Mitchell, originally from Philadelphia, was one distinguished and respected member of his profession. During his long career, he served as both the president of the American Medical Association and the president of the American Neurological Society. Such high honorary positions have been awarded to Dr. Mitchell for his knowledge and professional integrity. It is against the backdrop of such a high social status that what happened to Dr. Mitchell deserves every possible confidence, and this story cannot be simply dismissed.
The last patient left the doctor's office at half past ten in the evening. The working day dragged on and was exhausting for the doctor. With a sigh of relief, aging, he hung up his stethoscope, turned down the gas light in the waiting room, and walked across the hall to the kitchen for a glass of milk.
After checking a few minutes later to see if the front door was locked, he noticed that it was snowing outside. Large fluffy flakes, swirling in the air, fell on the path in front of the house, covering it with a thick blanket. Dr. Mitchell turned down the hall lights and wearily climbed the stairs to the bedroom.
Half an hour passed. He was lying in bed and reading a book. The bell rang softly at the front door downstairs. Or did he hear it? A minute later the call was repeated, this time more persistently. Whoever is there will leave if you don't pay attention. But what if urgent help was required to one of the seriously ill who remained at home? There was no way out, I had to put on my robe again, put my feet into my slippers and go downstairs, despite my fatigue.
Opening the door, he saw a complete stranger girl. She was dressed rather lightly for such a night: without a coat, in her usual high boots, in a thick woolen green dress, on her head a thin gray Scottish shawl, fastened under her chin with a blue glass brooch. The doctor quickly realized that the girl must be from the poor neighborhoods down the hill.
- Come in, please, it's snowing outside.
The girl entered.
“My mother is very sick. She urgently needs your help, sir. Please come with me.
Dr. Mitchell hesitated. A completely unknown girl, and the call is purely for charitable purposes. In such weather, tired, to leave the house, and the night. The doctor clearly did not want to go on the road.
“Don't you have your own family doctor, my child?
She shook her head and flakes of snow fell from the shawl to the floor.
- No, sir. But my mother is seriously ill. Doctor, please come with me. Please, now, please!
A pale face, genuine impatience in his voice, tears welling up in his eyes prompted the doctor not to refuse the request. He invited her to sit down while he was changing clothes, but the girl replied that she would stand. Dr. Mitchell hurried upstairs.
A few minutes later, a strange couple came out of the house and walked through the blizzard towards the hill, as the doctor had suggested. The girl walked in front. The doctor knew these quarters: the poor people huddled in them, workers from the factory, living from paycheck to paycheck, interrupting from bread to water. He had to go here a lot at the beginning of his medical career. Nothing will happen to him if he comes down again and saves the person.
The girl did not say a word on the way. She walked in the soft snow two or three steps ahead, without turning around. Finally she turned into a narrow alley between the dilapidated houses, or rather, the barracks. Keeping close, the doctor followed her up the dark, rickety staircase and down a corridor dimly lit by the yellow light of an oil lamp. The girl silently opened the door and stepped to the side, allowing Dr. Mitchell to pass.
Poverty reigned everywhere. The heavily worn carpet only covered the middle of the floor. There is a small buffet in the corner. An iron stove that has not been heated for a long time. A middle-aged woman was lying on the bed against the wall, breathing heavily. The doctor got busy.
The woman had pneumonia, and, as the girl correctly said, her condition was serious. In such conditions, the doctor cannot do much. He injected her with the required drugs. Tomorrow he will visit her. The doctor noticed with relief that the woman was coming to her senses, which meant there was hope.
Dr. Mitchell turned to ask the girl to light the stove: in this cold, a sick man cannot lie. Where is she? The thought crossed his mind that he had not seen her after he entered the room. He looked around again. The door of the old wardrobe was open. He was wearing the robe he'd seen the girl in some time ago: a thick woolen green dress, high button-up shoes, and a gray tartan shawl with a blue glass brooch. When did she have time to change? And even in his presence?
He went up to the wardrobe and began to carefully examine the clothes, the patient followed his movements with her eyes. Dr. Mitchell touched his boots and shawl. They were dry!
“These are my daughter's clothes,” the woman said.
“Yes, I know,” said Dr. Mitchell. - But where is your daughter? I need to talk to her.
There was a painful silence. The sick woman slowly turned her face to him. She cried.
- Talk to her? Doctor, it's been two months since she died!"
A. Nalchajyan