According to legends, doubles are supernatural duplicates of real people. They can appear in several ways: they can be seen out of the corner of your eye, or you can see them on a deserted road, or you can see them standing behind your shoulder in the reflection in the mirror. Sometimes a person may not see his double at all, but other people see him. The double can even help a person in any business or act as a fictitious body.
There are many explanations for the appearance of a double. For centuries, mystics have believed that they are supernatural beings: either divine copies of man, or demonic. Meanwhile, scientists say that doubles are nothing more than hallucinations or the consequences of mental illnesses like schizophrenia. Only two things can be said with certainty about them: often their appearance portends disaster, and many prominent historical figures claimed that their counterparts persecuted them.
1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was a renowned German writer, poet and politician who made an enormous contribution to the development of literature. His words were listened to and his opinion respected.
Once, Goethe, depressed after a quarrel with a girl named Frederika, was driving along a path. Suddenly, he ran into a mysterious man riding a horse to meet him. According to Goethe, he saw this man not with his eyes, but with his “mind's eye”, like himself, although Johann Wolfgang and the man were dressed in different clothes. Soon the figure disappeared, and Goethe, who found the sight of the mysterious traveler strangely soothing, forgot about the incident.
Eight years later, he was driving along the same path in the opposite direction to see Frederica again. It was then that he realized that he was wearing exactly the same clothes as his double was eight years ago.
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This was not the only doppelganger that Goethe saw: on another occasion he saw his friend Friedrich walking down the street wearing Goethe's own robe. Puzzled, the writer went home and found Frederick there, wearing the same robe that Goethe saw on the ghost - his friend got caught in the rain and put on a robe while his clothes were drying.
2. Catherine the Great
Catherine the Great, the empress who ruled Russia in the 18th century, was a strong and dangerous person. But strange things happened to her too - for example, she saw her ghostly double sitting on her throne.
One night, as Catherine lay in bed, worried servants told her that they had just seen her enter the throne room. Catherine decided to figure out what was the matter, and found her double in the throne room, calmly sitting on the throne. Catherine immediately ordered the sentries to shoot the impostor.
History is silent as to whether the bullets somehow harmed the empress's ghostly double, but soon after that the real Catherine died.
3. Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was a brilliant poet, but he is mostly remembered as the husband of Mary Shelley, creator of Frankenstein. Although one would assume that Mary, as a writer in the horror genre, is much more likely to see a double, it was Percy who saw him.
Shortly before his death in 1812 (the ship on which Percy was traveling sank), he confessed to Mary that he had met his double many times. One of these meetings was especially frightening: Percy went out onto the terrace and saw his double, who asked: "How long will you be happy?"
Oddly enough, their close friend Jane Williams witnessed the appearance of Percy's double - she often saw Percy pass under her window, the street ended in a dead end, but he never returned. The real Percy at this time was always in another place.
4. Sir Frederick Carn Rush
In 1906, a member of the British Parliament, Sir Gilbert Parker, was participating in a debate and suddenly noticed that next to him was another Member of Parliament, Sir Frederick Carn Rush. This greatly surprised Sir Gilbert, since Sir Frederick was seriously ill with the flu at the time. However, he greeted Sir Frederick politely, saying, "I hope you feel better." Karn Rush didn’t react to it, he just continued to sit with a stone, grim expression on his face.
When Sir Gilbert soon looked at him again, the seat was empty. Confused, Sir Gilbert began looking for Carn Rush in the building, but no one saw him come out. When he discussed the event with fellow parliamentarians, it turned out that others had also seen Karn Rush.
When the real Karn Rush, who was actually at home in bed at the time, found out about what had happened, he was very surprised. He really wanted to take part in the discussion, believing that his spirit had looked into parliament. His household, however, was terrified and feared that the double was a bad sign.
It soon turned out that they were right: for a long time, Karn Rush's colleagues annoyed him when they met, poking their fingers at him to make sure that he was flesh and blood. In the end, he had to write a few sarcastic letters to the local newspaper apologizing for not having enough common sense to die to make room for a double, and next time he promised to behave more decently.
5. Queen Elizabeth I
Queen Elizabeth I of England (reigned 1558–1603) was the last ruler of the Tudor dynasty. She was considered a charismatic, level-headed and sane monarch. She was one of those people who cannot be expected to experience the paranormal.
She claimed to have seen her double. According to the queen, the ghostly Elizabeth lay motionless on her bed, almost like a corpse at a funeral. This was especially remembered by her, because such appearances, according to legends, are a sign of imminent death. However, it would be easy to make people forget about this incident if Elizabeth did not really die soon.
6. Maria Agredskaya
Although doubles are generally considered to be something sinister, there is evidence that sometimes a person can not only control them, but also use them as a kind of second body, capable of moving anywhere in an instant.
In the 17th century, researchers and missionaries in the New World were surprised to find that many tribes in New Mexico were already professing Catholicism. In response to a question, the Indians said that they were addressed to God by a mysterious lady in blue, who taught them everything and even gave them crucifixes and other objects of worship.
After careful investigation, several priests managed to "see" the appearance of Mary of Agreda, a young Spanish nun in a blue robe. She claimed that Christianity "taught" her to transfer to the Indians overseas. Maria never left her monastery and only knew that the places she visited were “wild lands”. However, her words were enough to convince the priests.
Initially, the Inquisition was extremely suspicious of Mary, she was even accused of witchcraft, but then she was acquitted - perhaps because her story was too good to just give it up.
Her abilities began to be attributed to divine origin. She became an international celebrity, the leader of her monastery, and the author of rambling books on how she gained her ability. However, over the course of her life, she changed her mind several times: sometimes she claimed that she was forced to say that she could easily move her spiritual copy to another continent, sometimes she said that all this is pure truth.
7. Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln has been open about his interest in the paranormal, at least in private. According to him, he had some experience in this kind of thing. On the night after his first election, he found time to sleep and settled down on the sofa. Lying there, he accidentally looked in the mirror and saw his own face. This would not have been unusual if he had not noticed that there are two faces in the mirror.
The second Lincoln, pale and ghostly, looked at him from the mirror next to his own face. Startled, Lincoln got up from the couch … and the double disappeared. He sat down again to see the double again.
Lincoln was amazed, but his wife Mary was horrified. She was convinced that the doppelganger was a sure sign that Lincoln would be re-elected for a second term (perhaps because two Lincolns are two terms), but she would not bear it (because the second Lincoln looked like a dead man).
Lincoln kept repeating the experiment on the couch every night at the same time. He managed to see the double again, but then he stopped appearing. Maybe he already got his message across, and Lincoln really didn't live to see the end of his second term.
8. George Tryon
June 22, 1893 was not a very good day for Vice Admiral George Tryon. He commanded two columns of ships off the coast of Syria and ordered the columns to turn their noses towards each other. This attempt to perform a magnificent sea maneuver turned out to be the stupidest mistake, since the first ships almost immediately rammed each other, and one of them, on which Tryon was, sank. Tryon died knowing that he had just condemned 357 men to death. His last words were dignified and sad: "It is completely my fault."
At the same time, Tryon's wife threw a party for her friends at their house in London. Suddenly, to the surprise of the guests, Tryon appeared at the party. Silently he went down the stairs, solemnly strode through the living room, and opened the door to exit, and then suddenly disappeared. He was dressed in full dress, as if commanding a demonstration of ships.
True, there are some inconsistencies in this story: for example, someone says that Lady Tryon was busy with guests at that time and did not see a double, others claim that she was one of the witnesses. However, the story is similar to the eerie stories of sailors whose doppelgangers told families about their deaths.
9. Guy de Maupassant
French writer Guy de Maupassant, perhaps, described the closest experience of meeting a double. Towards the end of his life, he was rumored to interact with him regularly. This creepy twin not only spoke to the writer, but one day he sat down and began to dictate a story to him. De Maupassant claimed that one of his last stories was literally written by a ghost.
The story, dictated to de Maupassant by the spirit, "Orla", tells the story of a man whose reason slowly gives way to an evil spirit using his body. As if echoing the story, Maupassant's mental health began to deteriorate shortly after the story was finished.
According to another version, the double did not dictate the story, because he disappeared immediately after the frightened de Maupassant called the servant. However, the doppelganger returned a few months later. He entered the writer's room, looking at him sadly, then sat down and covered his face with his hands, as if in despair. Maupassant decided that the double brought terrible news, and from that day on, the writer's life went downhill, and a year later he died in an insane asylum.
10. Emily Sagee
Emily Sedgy herself never saw her double, but other people did.
Sedgy worked in elite girls' schools. She was an excellent teacher, but for some reason she preferred to constantly change her place of work: in 16 years she changed it 19 times, and in 1845 the reasons became known.
Saji was allegedly the victim of her doppelganger's strange behavior. Her ghostly twin first appeared during the lesson, and 13 schoolgirls saw the doppelganger stand side by side with Sagi and mirrored her movements with mirror accuracy. The next time the double appeared behind her when she was eating, and again began to repeat her movements. Saji paid absolutely no attention to the ghost, although everyone else saw him quite clearly.
However, Saji became addicted to drinking and was at times almost unconscious when the doppelganger appeared and did strange things while doing so. Saji later said that she was thinking about them at that moment, and assumed that she may have some subconscious control over the doppelganger.
Soon, the double ceased to appear in the immediate vicinity of the "original". First, he entered a classroom full of students and calmly sat down in a chair, while Sagi herself was outside and worked in the garden. The few who dared to approach the doppelganger found that they could pass through it, but it felt like dense fabric to the touch.
Time passed, and the ghost became a regular visitor to the school, and worried parents of the girls began to pick up their children from school. Although Saji was the perfect employee, the headmistress had no choice but to fire her along with her ghostly doppelganger.