"The first difference between the psychical researcher and
the unexpert person is that the former realizes the commonness
and typicality of the phenomenon here, while the latter, less
informed, thinks it is so rare as to be unworthy of attention.
I wish to go on record for the commonness."
-William James
"Professor Henri Bergson in his Presidential Address to the
Society for Psychical Research: 'I am led to believe in
telepathy in the same way that I believe, for example, in the
defeat of the Invincible [Spanish] Armada."
-SPR Proceedings, vol. xxxi
"Suddenly, like a gunshot, inside, outside, and all around,
there broke out the most appalling shriek - a prolonged
wail of horror, which seemed to freeze the blood... Of my
fright and horror I can say nothing - increased tenfold when
I walked into the dining-room and found my wife sitting quietly
at her work close the the window, in the same line and distant
only 10 or 12 ft. from the corresponding window in the
breakfast-room. She had heard nothing."
-Phantasms
"On going downstairs, I met one of our clergy, the Rev. George
Wrench, the greatest friend I had in Bishop's gate [since deceased],
and said, 'Laugh at me! Here am I, a man supposed to be educated,
of average intelligence, at least, living in the very centre
of civilisation, an utter disbeliever in ghosts, and
yet last night I saw one.' 'Nonsense!' said he. 'Tis true!'
I repeated."
-Phantasms of the Living
"A very large number of our first-hand witnesses are educated
and intelligent persons, whose sobriety of judgement has never
been called in question. For the most part, moreover, they have
been in no way inclined to admit the reality of the phenomena,
prior to themselves encountering them."
-Phantasms of the Living
"He said he felt convinced that he should hear very
shortly of his Uncle's death."
-Phantasms of the Living
"I remember going to third grade, walking up to the new girl in
class, and saying, 'Hi, Julie.' Nobody could figure out how I
knew her name. Not only that, I knew we were going to be best
friends and we were."
"One night, at 12 o'clock, I felt a conviction that a friend of
ours, Mr. Jephson, was coming to see us very shortly. I mentioned
it to my sister, who merely said it was very improbable, as he
must be on his way to Canada, as such was his intention when we
had last seen him. It was greatly to her astonishment when he actually
arrived next morning at 9 a.m."
-Phantasms of the Living
"So strong was the impression as to the reality of his presence
and so vivid the whole scene as dreamt, that I left my bedroom
to search for my brother in the sitting-room."
[Brother died that night.]
-Phantasms
"There can be no doubt whatever that there is some transmission
for which no explanation has yet been given by the savants.
I am a practical business man, and look upon all theories of
spiritualism, & c., as so much humbug that only deludes weak-
minded people. But, at the same time, I recently had an experience
of a most extraordinary character, which I should scarcely have
believed if related to me of anyone else, and the plain facts
of which I will give as they actually occur."
-Phantasms
"Every human being knows his own entire life according to laws
that are still to be discovered, and mediumistic subjects are
psychic instruments of variable quality that reveal what each
human being knows concerning himself without being aware
consciously, or even subconsciously, that he has this knowledge."
-Dr. Osty
"The body limits consciousness; it does not create it."
-W. Osborne
"And hence, in the view of some ardent physiologists, it is
becoming more and more probably that we are in fact physiological
automata; that our consciousness is a mere superadded phenomenon -
a mere concomitant of some special intensity of cerebral action,
with no basis beyond or apart from the molecular commotion of the brain."
-Phantasms
"It might well seem that, in abandoning the belief in any
spiritual or permanent element in man, it were wise to abandon
also that intensity of the affections which is ill adapted to
bonds so perishable and insecure, that reach of imagination
which befitted only the illusory dignity which was once
attached to human fates."
-Phantasms
"If they fall we need not help them up, for soon we, too,
shall fall, and between their fall and ours is but a moment
of time... When we think of other men, and of ourselves, as
mere temporary victims of the disease of consciousness, love
and compassion are a waste of time and a sign of weakness."
-Immortality
"At the same time the case suggests that there may well be
something more than observation through the senses in producing
our impressions of each other."
-Phantasms of the Living
"Each of us is in reality an abiding psychical entity far
more extensive than he or she knows..."
-F.W.H. Myers
"I could see only the man's back, but I felt a sense of
personal significance as between him and myself, though he was
a complete stranger to me. It was of a joyous nature in spite of
the extreme embarrassment his question was causing me. I have
always regarded the experience as one of recognition. I just
knew him. It would not have mattered who or what he was -
the relationship was there."
"There is one thing which strikes me as singular - the instant
certainty I felt that my friend was dead, as there was nothing
to lead up to the idea; and also that I seemed to accept all that
passed without feeling surprise, and as if it were an ordinary
matter of course."
-Phantasms of the Living
"Many volumes have been filled with accounts of spontaneous
telepathy and clairvoyance. As I have pointed out elsewhere, these
facts destroy all mechanistic attempts to explain consciousness
as being merely a product of neural functioning."
-Osborne
"We must suppose that some people have a way of dating their letters
in indifference to the calendar, or making entries in their diaries
on the wrong page and never discovering the error; and that whole
families have been struck by the collective hallucination that one
of their members has made a particular remark, the substance of
which has never entered that member's head; and that it is a
recognised custom to write mournful letters about bereavements
which have never occurred..."
-Phantasms of the Living
"According to the best scientific theories, are perception of
time is an illusion - perhaps the grandest one in nature. Our
seemingly rock-solid notions of "now," "past," and "future"
crumble beneath mountains of scientific evidence that time is
not what it seems."
-Quickening Universe
"Just as I awoke that morning - some would say I was
dreaming - I heard the voice of an old schoolfellow (C.C.) who
had been dead at least a year or two, saying, 'Your brother
Mark and Harriet are both gone.' These words were echoing
in my ears as I woke."
-Phantasms
"Neither Miss Varah nor myself are at all given to dreams,
and had not till then believed in them at all."
-Phantasms
"One evening I suddenly laid down the book I was reading,
with this thought so strong upon me I could scarcely refrain
from putting it into words: "I believe that Mr. C. is at
this moment dying." So strangely was I imbued with this
belief - there had been nothing whatever said to lead to it -
that I asked my husband to note the time particularly.
-Phantasms
"N.J.S. quoted to himself from Job, 'And lo, a spirit
passed before me, and the hair of my flesh stood up. At
that moment an icy chill passed through him, and his hair
bristled. He then turned to his wife, and asked her the
time; she said, '12 minutes to 9.' He then said, 'The
reason I ask you is that F.L. is dead. I have just seen him."
-Phantasms of the Living
"The worst of all possible kinds of suffering, Gurney
felt, is hopeless suffering, the suffering of those
who are absolutely certain that never, under any circumstances,
will they know anything but pain."
-Founders of SPR
"But am I bound to feel - can any bribe of personal happiness
justify me in feeling - religious enthusiasm for a universe
in which even one being may have been summoned into a sentiency
destined to inescapable pain? The answer to this ethical scruple
must be a matter largely of faith."
-FWH Myers
"I am perfectly sure that I could not have been mistaken; I
was never more certain of anything in my life than that I had
actually seen my friend and her little child.
For the next 10 minutes or so, I was puzzling to think
what could have brought her back to London, and was very
vexed with myself for not having at once the coachman to turn
and drive after the carriage."
-Phantasms
"The next morning I was not the least surprised when my sister
handed me a note from Miss G. announcing her brother's death,
and was fully prepared before reading it to find that he had
passed away before the previous evening - which presentiment,
strange to say, was fully verified; Major G. having died at
a quarter to 11."
-Phantasms
"Movement of some sort, as will be seen later, is an extremely
frequent feature of both subjective and telepathic phantoms."
-Phantasms
"About the 5th of July following, at 4 o'clock in the morning,
while in bed, I suddenly awoke and said to my wife, 'Someone
has taken hold of my hand; the hand was quite cold. I believe
it was my aunt; I saw her rush out of the room." ... I said
to my wife, 'My aunt is dead, and she has come again over the
water,' to which she replied, 'You are dreaming; you had too
much supper last night."
-Phantasms
"Indeed the widespread occurrence of cases of permanent, and
above all undeserved, suffering was amongst his chief reasons
for doubting the existence of a benevolent Deity."
-Founders
"...now he began to see himself [Myers] as a puppet whose
gyrations had only the appearance of meaning, and who would before long
be put away forever. The thought of personal extinction was
dreadful to him, and he could not understand how anyone could
feel otherwise. It was not merely that the prospect of
annihilation seemed to rob his life of all its point and
purpose; he loved life, he loved experience for its own sake
that he found the idea of it coming to an end unbearable."
-Founders of SPR
"The subliminal consciousness uses many devices to convey its
knowledge to the normal waking self. In the above instance,
it was a 'voice' in others it may be a symbolical dream or even a 'hunch'."
-Osborne
"... it is the memory furthest from waking life whose span is
the widest, whose grasp of the organism's upstored impressions
is the most profound. Inexplicable as this phenomenon has
been to observers who have encountered it... hundreds of
physicians and hypnotists have united in affirming its reality."
-Myers
"Although social problems are the more vociferous and urgent,
individual problems are the deeper; and indeed, it is upon
the nature and destiny of the individual that all else depends."
-Tyrell
"Such fears, I say, vanish when we learn that it is the
soul in man which links him with other souls; the body
which dissevers even while it seems to unite -"
-Myers
"This life is but a fragment of our existence, a fragment
which, by itself, has no meaning: its meaning is rooted in
an eternal past and carried on in an eternal future. We are on
the steps of a stair, with many steps beneath us and many yet above."
-Carrington