ination--but I leave
that part of the story out.

"I had read," the narrator says, "some twenty minutes or so, was
thoroughly absorbed in the book, my mind was perfectly quiet, and for
the time being my friends were quite forgotten, when suddenly without a
moment's warning my whole being seemed roused to the highest state of
tension or aliveness, and I was aware, with an intenseness not easily
imagined by those who had never experienced it, that another being or
presence was not only in the room, but quite close to me. I put my
book down, and although my excitement was great, I felt quite
collected, and not conscious of any sense of fear. Without changing my
position, and looking straight at the fire, I knew somehow that my
friend A. H. was standing at my left elbow but so far behind me as to
be hidden by the armchair in which I was leaning back. Moving my eyes
round slightly without otherwise changing my position, the lower
portion of one leg became visible, and I instantly recognized the
gray-blue material of trousers he often wore, but the stuff appeared
semitransparent, reminding me of tobacco smoke in consistency,"[24]--
and hereupon the visual hallucination came.

[24] Journal of the S. P. R., February, 1895, p. 26.

Another informant writes:--

"Quite early in the night I was awakened.... I felt as if I had been
aroused intentionally, and at first thought some one was breaking into
the house.... I then turned on my side to go to sleep again, and
immediately felt a consciousness of a presence in the room, and
singular to state, it was not the consciousness of a live person, but
of a spiritual presence. This may provoke a smile, but I can only tell
you the facts as they occurred to me. I do not know how to better
describe my sensations than by simply stating that I felt a
consciousness of a spiritual presence.... I felt also at the same time
a strong feeling of superstitious dread, as if something strange and
fearful were about to happen."[25]

[25] E. Gurney: Phantasms of the Living, i. 384.

Professor Flournoy of Geneva gives me the following testimony of a
friend of his, a lady, who has the gift of automatic or involuntary
writing:--

"Whenever I practice automatic writing, what makes me feel that it is
not due to a subconscious self is the feeling I always have of a
foreign presence, external to my body. It is sometimes so definitely
characterized that I could point to its exact positio