I must admit, I made an amazing discovery: our completely legitimate and normal desire to know the nature and essence of the human soul, to find out whether the soul exists separately from the body and whether it really lives after the earthly shell of a person is destroyed, this seemingly innocent desire gives us enemies, adversaries who spend incredible efforts in order to erect thousands and thousands of obstacles on the path of free and independent research, in order to stop them at any cost and put an end to the search for truth!
Now we will try to consider the problem of interest to us …
1922, June 16 - The Journal published an article on the front page entitled "The Appearance of the Spirits of the Dead After Death." I will cite it here in full.
“Studies of the nature and essence of the human soul, as well as the possibility of its existence after the death of a person, should be carried out according to the same method and according to the same system as any other scientific research, that is, without prejudice, without bias, without taking into account the influence of any feelings or religious beliefs.
Can the spirit of the deceased be alive? That's the question! And I declare that it can and is! Since the Journal drew everyone's attention to the issue of the immortality of the soul, which worried the best minds for centuries, I want to offer one story, which for me was the best proof of the immortality of the soul.
Let's move on to the presentation of the facts … It happened with the owner of two factories, one of which was located in Glasgow, and the second in London. He had a young man in his service in Scotland named Robert Mackenzie, who felt a deep sense of gratitude towards his master for having taken part in his fate. It should be noted that the patron usually lived in London, and only visited Glasgow on business trips.
One Friday night, the Glasgow workers had an annual party with abundant food, music and dancing. Robert McKenzie, who had no love for dancing, asked permission to help at the counter and serve food and drinks. Everything went pretty well, the holiday continued on the second day, Saturday. And on Tuesday, at about 8 o'clock in the morning, the spirit of Robert Mackenzie appeared to the owner of the factories, who was at that time in his home in Camden Hill in London, as it became clear later.
The boss himself told about it this way: “I had a dream that I was sitting at the table and talking with some unfamiliar gentleman. Suddenly Robert McKenzie appears and heads straight for me. I was annoyed that he interfered with our conversation, and very sharply told him that he was busy. Robert moved away, but it was noticeable that he was extremely upset about something.
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However, a few minutes later he again approached us, as if he wanted to immediately talk to me about some urgent matter. Even more sharply than the first time, I reproached Robert for lack of tact and inability to behave. Meanwhile the gentleman with whom I was negotiating took his leave, and Mackenzie again approached me.
- What does all this mean, Robert? - I cried, angry in earnest. - Why did you behave so unceremoniously? Didn't you see that I was busy?
“Yes, sir, I did,” he replied, “but I need to speak to you immediately. - About what? Why such a rush? “I want to inform you, sir, that I am accused of a crime that I did not commit. It is very important for me that you know this and that you forgive me, for I am innocent. Then he repeated again: - I did not do what I am accused of. But what are you accused of? - I insisted. In response, he repeated again that he was not to blame. - But how can I forgive you if you do not want to tell me what you are accused of?
I will never forget how sadly and with what pathos he uttered the words in the Scottish dialect: "You will soon know about everything."
I repeated the question twice, and he responded twice in the same pompous tone. Then I woke up, and after this strange dream I was left with a feeling of some vague anxiety. I wondered if this dream meant anything when my wife hurriedly entered the room, very agitated, with a printed letter in her hand. She began to speak from the doorway:
- Oh, James! What a terrible misfortune happened during the annual workers' festival! Robert McKenzie committed suicide!
It was then that I realized what the vision that dreamed in the dream meant. I said with complete confidence that I was right: - No, he did not commit suicide. - But how can you say that? How do you know?
“He just told me about it himself. I will note that I, not wanting to interrupt my story, omitted some essential details … So, when Robert appeared to me in a dream, I was struck by his appearance: his face was deathly pale, even bluish, and profuse sweat appeared on his forehead and there were some dark spots.
After a while we learned what really happened to poor Robert. When the party was over on Saturday night, Mackenzie took home a bottle of crude nitric acid with him, mistaking it for a bottle of whiskey. Arriving home, he poured himself a glass and drank its contents in one gulp. On Sunday he died in terrible agony.
Everyone thought that he had taken his own life. That is why his spirit came to me and began to assure me that he was not guilty of the crime of which he was accused. I then specifically checked what symptoms can be with nitric acid poisoning, and found that they coincide with the signs that I noted on the face of Robert Mackenzie.
Soon the authorities in Glasgow admitted that they had mistakenly attributed the dare of poor Mackenzie to suicide, of which my representative in Scotland informed me by letter the next day.
His spirit appeared to me, apparently because Mackenzie felt deep gratitude for me for having pulled him out of poverty. The poor fellow, apparently, wanted my good attitude towards him to remain unchanged.
What about the report put at my disposal by a Glasgow industrialist? Does the appearance of the spirit of a dead worker serve as proof of the immortality of the soul? By the way, it should be noted that in England suicide was considered a crime.
In the above case, a young man who was poisoned by mistake on Saturday night in Glasgow, appeared on Tuesday to his patron in London, who knew nothing about his death, in order to declare that he did not commit suicide. But by that time he was already dead, and not an hour, not two, but two whole days! In this case, it is impossible to assume the presence of a coincidence … Camille Flammarion."
Here is an article published by "Journals". The article had the desired effect, and the reaction was not long in coming. The very next day, our learned fellow, Monsieur Clement Votel, answered me with an article. So, here's this article:
“I will tell you this case.
1861 - One evening Mr. Harry Kauer was sitting in the dining room of his home in Sydney (Australia). He was in a bad mood, he had no appetite, and he could not manage to distract himself from sad thoughts. Suddenly he heard a strange, quiet sound, something like a crackle. He turned and saw that the mirror over the fireplace had cracked.
- How strange! Harry Kower was surprised. - Why's that?
And what do you think? A few weeks later, he learned that just as the mirror cracked, his elderly aunt, Mrs. Dorothea-Elizabeth McClure, died suddenly at her home in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Here is the story of Mr. Archibald Blackburn of Chicago, who in 1874 in Woodstone (Ohio) received the spirit of his friend Mr. John-William Sullivan, who lived in the town of New Tipperary (Massachusetts). According to Blackburn, he suddenly saw his friend in a rather strange form: his face was somehow wrinkled, twisted, he was breathing heavily, gasping for air and waving his arms absurdly.
- What's wrong with you? Blackburn asked. - For help! I'm drowning! Sullivan croaked and disappeared immediately.
Very alarmed, Blackburn returned home. A week later, he learned that his friend had drowned while swimming in the Missouri River, and it happened just at the very time when his spirit was calling for help.
“On the night of March 25, 1880, I had a dream that my brother Richard was sitting in a chair opposite me. I say something to him, and he just nods his head, then gets up and leaves the room. Then I woke up and found that I was not lying, but standing in a rather strange position: with one foot on the floor and the other on the bed. Plus I try to speak and pronounce my brother's name. The feeling that he had actually just been in my room was so strong, and the scene itself was remembered so accurately and vividly, that I immediately went in search of my brother.
Suddenly I had a premonition that some terrible and inevitable misfortune was about to happen. I made a diary entry about my vision … that I had a bad feeling. In conclusion, I wrote: "Do not allow this, Lord!" But this did not help … Three days later I received the news that my brother died on March 24 at half past nine in the evening due to injuries that he received when he fell from a horse while hunting. So, death came a few hours earlier than I had a vision."
It happened in Paris in 1911 …
“My father died as a result of an unsuccessful operation in February 1906 in the hospital. Our family was so poor that my mother did not have money for a decent funeral, and therefore the hospital took care of the care and expenses of burial, as a result of which my father was buried in a common grave at the Bane cemetery.
The incident I am talking about happened five years after my father's death, when I lived in Paris on the Rue Etex. So I was at home one morning. I went to the kitchen, going to have breakfast (it was 7 o'clock in the morning), and suddenly I saw my father's spirit standing right in the middle of the kitchen, with one hand resting on the sink. It was him, I recognized him! And he looked as calm and peaceful as he usually was in life.
Several months passed after that. I did not tell anyone that my father's spirit had come to me, as I was afraid of ridicule. But one day, when I came to visit my sister, I told her my secret. She listened to my story very carefully, pondered, and then exclaimed with genuine amazement:
- Well, you must! After all, it happened on the very day when the ashes of my father were reburied!
Now it was my turn to be surprised. I did not know anything about the fact that my father was reburied, and asked why I was not told and called.
- Yes, we thought that you were a sleepyhead and you would not be able to come to the cemetery so early, - answered the sister.
- And at what time were you at the cemetery? - At 7 a.m.
Why did my father's spirit come to me? Perhaps he wanted to reproach me for not being present at the cemetery at that time? But it's not my fault, I was not warned …
Then I still didn’t believe in God, I didn’t believe in anything at all, because I was brought up outside of any religion, but from the very day when I saw the ghost of my father, I swear I believed in God and in the immortality of my soul.
Please accept my assurances of the complete truth of all that I have told you.
Mademoiselle NN (please keep my name a secret from everyone)."
I will give one more example of the appearance of the soul of the deceased, in this case there are two independent witnesses. The letter came from Strasbourg and was written on June 17, 1922:
“My brother Hubert Blanc was the confessor of the inhabitants of the monastery at Saint-Paul-Trois-Château in the Drome department. One of the monastic brothers had been so bad for a long time that he did not get out of bed. Everyone knew that he was dying. My brother visited the dying man almost daily to spend a few minutes at his head. Once, during a leisurely conversation, the patient, who knew that his days were numbered, said:
- You know, my father, I will not leave for another world without saying goodbye to you. If you are not nearby, I myself will come to say goodbye to you.
“I really count on it,” my brother replied in a joking tone.
Two or three days later, my brother and my mother, having gone to bed at 10 o'clock in the evening, simultaneously heard someone turn the key in the lock of the front door, and then heard someone's footsteps in the corridor. It should be noted that their bedrooms were quite far from each other.
My mother, frightened by an incomprehensible night visit, began to shout, calling for my brother's help: - Hubert, someone got into our house! My brother, hearing the mysterious sounds and screams of my mother, jumped out of bed, walked around the whole house, examined the front door and made sure that it was locked. There was no one in the house except the two of them. But as soon as my brother finished his inspection of the house and was about to go to bed again, the phone rang.
- Hello! Father, brother such and such is dying and wants to say goodbye to you. Come quickly!
The brother, of course, hurried to the monastery and was in time just at the moment when the monk breathed his last.
The brother immediately told this story to the abbot of the monastery, and it made a great impression on the brethren, because they had no reason to question the testimony of brother and mother, people of integrity, honest and believers.
My brother and mother often recall that incident, and I ask you, if you deem it necessary and appropriate, to bring it to the attention of your readers.
My brother died and is buried in Grignan (department of Drome), where he served the Lord and the people as the cantonal priest.
Marius Blanc, technical manager of the Aist biscuit factory in Strasbourg.
I will give one more example of the manifestation of the soul of the deceased, and not the telepathic contact of two living people.
So, a certain Mrs. Storey from Edinburgh, who lived in the town of Hobart Town in Tasmania, once had a strange, confusing and nightmare dream, which consisted of a series of vague visions, seemingly not even connected with each other. First, she saw her twin brother, who was sitting in the open air on some kind of dais.
He raised his hands to the black night sky and said: “Train! Train! Then there was a dull blow, as if some large body had bumped into this man, he fell to the ground lifeless, and something huge and black whistled past. Then Mrs. Storey saw in her dream a railway carriage compartment, and in this compartment sat Pastor Johnston, whom she recognized at once. Then she again saw her brother, raising his hand to his forehead, as if he had a very bad headache and he was in great pain, and after that, someone unfamiliar voice told her that her brother had just died.
As it became known later, Mrs. Storey's brother died that night under the wheels of a train, as he sat down on the embankment to rest.
It should be noted that all the details of the dream exactly corresponded to reality; for example, the Honorable Pastor Johnston was in fact on the train that killed Mrs. Storey's brother. Since this fact could not become known to the unfortunate victim of this tragedy during his lifetime, it remains to admit that it was the spirit of the deceased who learned about this circumstance and, showing the course of events to Mrs. Storey, telling her this detail.
As a rule, obeying the laws of logic, a person must look for an explanation of some phenomena in the abilities inherent in living people, but not yet known to science. As for me, I tend to do just that, because in astronomy we are dealing with stars that no longer exist. But the light of these long-extinguished luminaries reaches us now, although it was emitted a million years ago. The stars are dead, but they speak to us in their own language …
F. Camille