GHOST STORIES TOLD BY FRANZ HARTMANN

FIVE GHOST STORIES

My personal experience concerning gruesome ghost stories and apparitions of the dead is somewhat limited; but the following well-authenticated cases have come to my notice:

First case

In the town of Kempten in the south of Bavaria there is an old house which in the seventeenth century was still used as a nunnery; the walls are of great thickness and some of the passages very narrow.

In this house strange voices were heard, like sighs and groans and sometimes the ghost of a black-robed nun was seen, gliding silently through some rooms. Moreover, it happened occasionally that, when some one went upstairs, it was as If he encountered an invisible barrier and he had to use his will-power to force his way through it.

In the year 1850, some changes and repairs were made in the house and a skeleton of a female was found immured in one of the walls. It appears that a nun was there immured alive and probably died of starvation: this kind of punishment being frequently employed at those times for infringement of the rules of the order.

Now we need not suppose that this ghost was the spirit of a very wicked woman. It may be that she was murdered in that way out of jealousy or for some similar reason.

The suffering which she had to endure was sufficient to account for the creation of a thought form of great persistency.

Second case

The wife of a laboring man whose husband was absent and his whereabouts unknown to her, lived with her children at L.

One night, she saw the door of her sleeping room open and her husband walk in. He first went to the bed where the two children slept and made over each child the sign of the cross; he then came to her couch and did the same.

After this he went out and banged the door with such force that the noise of it awoke the neighbors. It was found out that the man had died in a hospital at exactly the same hour.

This occurrence may he explained as having been caused by the intense thought of the dying person. Moreover, the physical body is a storehouse of a great deal of energy, which becomes liberated at death and by which such noises may be produced.

Theophrastus Paracelsus says these things are produced by what he calls the Evestrum. (For particulars, see my book on Paracelsus, published by Kegan Paul, Trubner and Co.)

Third case

Mrs. S. of Boston, a lady with great "mediumistic” faculties, was standing one morning early at her desk, when the door opened and a laboring man in his working clothes came in and saluted her.

Being greatly surprised at the unexpected visit of a stranger, her first thought was that the door had been left unlocked; but this was not the case. She asked the man where he came from, and he answered that he had escaped that night from a big fire by jumping out of the fourth story of a bunting factory; that he came away unharmed, but that many people had perished on that occasion.

The man could not say  by  what means lie came to Boston, neither could he have reached there by rail in such a short time, as the place of the accident was somewhere near Indianapolis.

In fact that man had perished by jumping out of the window and did not know he was dead.

Mrs. S. explained the matter to him, and invited him to call on her again. This he did the next day; but on this occasion the ghost wore Ms Sunday clothes. Mrs. S. assures me that this occurrence actually took place on the physical plane; but it may be supposed that she was in a kind of trance and that it was an astral experience which she mistook for an external reality.

The burning of that factory, however, took place on the night in question and Mrs. S. knew nothing about it.

Fourth case

The following case has nothing to do with trances or dreams, and is well known in Germany. One night at about eleven o’clock the sentinels who stood guard at the door of the palace where Field-Marshal General von Moltke lived, saw him come out and presented their arms. The general wore his usual military dress, but without a sword and was bareheaded.

At the same time General v. G. and another gentleman of the Court saw the marshal walking out of the door. He walked up the street to the place where the bridge was then building to which afterwards his name was given. There he stood still and seemed to look at the work.

The two gentlemen were very much surprised to see Moltke walk about bareheaded and at such an unusual hour and they followed him for fear that some accident might happen to him. After a while Moltke turned round a comer and went on, and they followed him again, but he mysteriously disappeared.

That night Moltke died, and when the two gentlemen heard of it, they naturally supposed that he had met with an accident when they saw him near midnight; but it turned out that he had died already at 9 p.m., or some two hours before they followed him.

The case has been made the subject of official investigation. The sentinels and the other witnesses were examined and no circumstance could have been better authenticated. It created a great sensation at the time, but the "experts” did not know what to make of it.

As "Moltke bridge” was then nearly finished, it seems natural that the old general wished to see it, and this may have been his last thought, which caused his spirit to create such a phantasm of himself.

The fact that such "phantasms” may assume a visible and tangible shape appears as nothing supernatural, if we consider that "materiality” is also a relative term and that everything that exists is “material” in a certain sense, even if it consists, as Shakespeare says, “of such stuff as dreams are made of.”

Things visible and things invisible are only different “gradations” of matter and an ethereal form may, under certain conditions, assume a very material aspect by changing its density.

Fifth case

Such ghosts or mental images may be of very long duration. In 1860 there was a young lady at Rome, dying of consumption. Her home was at L. in Switzerland, and she desired to be buried there. So they started with her on the voyage, but she died on the way at N. and her body was buried there.

Her wish remained unfulfilled and seems to keep her shadow in unrest still, because even very recently "spirit communications” have been received, asking that the remains should be disinterred and buried in L.

~ * ~

The lesson which such cases teach seems to me very important. They prove that ideas are real things existing independently of the human brains from which they have emanated, and being capable of impressing other minds.

This is a case where a person appears to be entranced by the spirit of one deceased; the deceased person may have nothing whatever to do with the communication supposed to come from him or her; it is merely that the medium has been caught in a certain current of thought.

This is shown by the following fact: At some spiritistic séances there came repeatedly what seemed to be the spirit of a certain priest who delivered always the same sermon; but that sermon stopped at a certain point and the “spirit” could not continue it.

It was discovered afterwards that the said priest had been struck dead by apoplexy while delivering that sermon in the pulpit and this occurred exactly at the point of the sermon where the spirit communication always stopped.

As the sermon was not continued, there could be no further thought current and consequently no actual impression.

(Occult Review, July 1908, p.44-46)

HISTORICAL GHOSTS

The Lady in Black

Owing to the connexions which I had, during my youth, with the Court of Bavaria, I was personally acquainted with the actors in the following story and am enabled to give the following details:

1) King Ludwig I, having abdicated his throne owing to the revolution of 1848, retired to Aschaffenburg with his spouse, the Queen Thérèse, to seek protection from the ravages of cholera, which at that time prevailed at Munich. There he received visits frequently from his son-in-law, the Grand duke Ludwig II of Hessen, residing in Darmstadt. They used to have tea together, subsequently playing cards, and the General Du Jarrÿs de la Roche took part in the game.

It was once a stormy night when they met in this manner.

The rain was pouring down, rattling at the windows, the thunder was rolling, and lightnings illuminated the room. All at once one of the large doors of the apartment opened, a lady dressed in black entered and posted herself behind the chair of the Queen. King Ludwig and both of his guests saw that lady and exchanged looks of surprise; the Grand duke arose and went to the anteroom, where he asked the officer in charge:

-      “How could you permit an unknown lady to enter the apartment of their majesties, without having her properly announced?”

-      “Your Highness will excuse me?" was the answer; “I have been in attendance here for three hours, and no one has passed through the ante-room except their majesties and the General de la Roche.”

The Grand duke returned to his chair, but the lady in black had disappeared.  The Queen Thérèse noticed by his looks that something was taking place, and as she begged to have the matter explained, the Grand duke told her about the apparition and the answer of the officer.  The Queen turned pale and with a trembling voice exclaimed:

-      “This concerns me.”

The cholera at Munich subsided and having been assured that there was no danger, the Court returned to the “Wittelsbach Palace.”

In a couple of weeks the Queen Thérèse was dead.

2) King Maximilian of Bavaria returned one evening from one of his daily horse-back rides through the royal park and was about to dress for dinner, when a slight indisposition induced him to retire to his rooms.

At about eleven o’clock that night the officer of the bodyguards in charge made his usual round of inspection at the quarters where the princes and princesses resided. As he came near the rooms of the ladies of the Court, where the Countess Fugger and the Baroness Redwitz slept, he saw a lady dressed in black, and with a black veil covering her head, issuing from one of these rooms and walking slowly along the corridor. Thinking that she was returning from a visit to one of these ladies, the Captain called to her, as she was passing by the only staircase which led to the street door, and told her that the way out was there.

The lady in black paid no attention to him, but continued her way through several apartments. She finally descended the stairs slowly, passed by one of the sentinels and disappeared at the entrance of the chapel. The officer, feeling some suspicion, ran quickly down stairs, calling to the sentinel to stop the stranger. The guard swore that he had seen no one. Next morning the King was dead.

The Lady in White

A similar case is the one of the Lady in White, who is said to appear in the royal castle of Stockholm whenever a death at the Court is about to take place. The following is an account of such an occurrence given by the Princess Eugénie, a sister of King Oscar:

« During one of the last days of the month of March 1871, and a short time before the death of Queen Louisa, I had been spending the evening with my mother the Queen-widow Jose fin a. We both were glad that the illness of the Queen had taken a favorable turn, and that the physicians expected a speedy recovery.  It was late at night and I was about to retire, when the servant entered, informing us that a big fire had broken out in the vicinity of the castle.  My mother desired to look at it, so we went to the great hall, where it could be seen from the windows.

After a while we returned, and as we passed through a room that was connected with the rooms of the Queen by means of a staircase, I saw a tall lady standing in the middle of the apartment right below the lighted chandelier.  She was dressed in white silk, and wore a large collar of lace reaching down upon the shoulders. I felt quite certain that she was one of the ladies of the Court ordered to wait for the return of my mother and to inform her about the condition of the Queen. However, the lady in white looked at both of us without stirring and without showing us any attention.

I had never seen that lady before, and I thought at first to ask my mother whether she was acquainted with her; but I did not, because I expected my mother would speak to her and tell me her name. Great was my surprise when my mother did not seem to see the lady while we passed her. Still I never suspected anything uncanny about it; I merely thought that my mother did not wish to notice her because she had not yet been presented. Nevertheless the fact that none of us had seen that lady before seemed strange to me; but as my mother said nothing, I kept silent about it.

Before we stepped out of the room, I turned around once more and saw the lady still standing at the same place, like a statue of marble. After a few moments she made a few steps in advance, as if she wanted to come nearer. We entered into the next room and I immediately asked my mother:

-      “Who was she?”

-      “She?—What she?” asked my mother in surprise.

-      “She, the lady in a white dress, who stood there without saluting us.”

My mother stopped and asked in a voice trembling with fear:

-      “Did you see a white-dressed lady in the room that leads to the apartments of the Queen?”

-      “Most certainly I did,” was my answer. “She stood just below the chandelier. Did you not notice her? I will open the door again to see whether she is still there.”

My mother caught my hand and she said:

-      “Don’t tell anybody at present of what you have seen, you have perhaps seen the Lady in White, and that means the Queen’s death.”

I went to bed, but I could not sleep for a long time. I prayed for Queen Louisa and for the King, who was perhaps soon to experience such a loss. Next morning the physicians sent word that the Queen was worse, and in three days she died. »

This account was given by the Princess to Pastor Wadstrom and was published in his “Memoirs.”

The explanation in regard to such cases is that an “elemental” or thought image had been formed for the purpose of giving warnings of approaching death. Further particulars about the nature of such appearances may be found in my book on The Life and Writings of Theophrastus Paracelsus. (Kegan Paul and Co.).

(Occult Review, July 1907, p.14-17)

  

THE GHOST OF A CARDINAL

(Reincarnation)

A very remarkable case which would go to show the truth of the doctrine of reincarnation came to my knowledge last autumn. My friends at Florence, of whom I already made mention in a previous article, are in almost continual contact with the invisible world.

They do not need to hold “sittings” for spiritistic phenomena, because they are already surrounded by such phenomena, very much against their wishes. There are often the most unearthly noises in their house, in daytime as well as at night; noises like the firing of guns, rolling of cannon balls over the floor, moving of furniture, etc.

What those evidently intelligent powers are I do not know; but there seem to be a great many “undeveloped and earth-bound spirits” who come for instruction and aid.

Not long ago there came an entity, claiming to be the spirit of a cardinal D. This cardinal asserted that in his past life he had committed a murder. He said that he had poisoned a certain person, and that this person was now reincarnated and living as a young boy at Florence.

He gave the age and the name of the boy as G.P., and described him. He said that he could not find peace until he had received forgiveness from that boy for having murdered him in his past incarnation.

He gave the street and the number of the house where the boy lived, and begged that our friends should hunt him up, tell him the story and ask his forgiveness.

Research proved that this cardinal had been living at the time stated.

Thereupon our friends started to hunt for the boy, whom they finally found after some difficulties caused by the fact that he was an adopted son of a family, living in a tenement now occupied by many poor people, and that his real name was but little known.

To make the matter still more interesting, this boy had a dream in which he witnessed the perpetration of the murder. After having been told the request of the cardinal, he, of course, freely pardoned him, and the spirit appeared only once more and expressed his gratitude.

This case hardly admits of any other explanation, except that the whole thing was a comedy played by some “elemental.”

It is surely more probable that the spirit of the cardinal was actually earth-bound and detained in purgatory until his conscience had found the relief desired, by being pardoned by his victim.

(Occult Review, March 1907, p.143)

THE GHOST OF MY GRANDMOTHER

(The souls of ghosts)

« My mother died on the eighteenth of October, 1838, and my first child was born on the twenty-second of November of the same year. Her great desire was to live to see the child; but her wish was not gratified, and it may be supposed that she died with that thought in her mind.

Now, after the child was born, the attendants put it into a cradle, when, to the surprise of all, my mother entered the room, walked up to the cradle, looked lovingly at the child, smiled with a joyful expression in her face, after which she disappeared, and never was seen again.

All those present, the physician and the rest, saw her as plainly as they ever saw her when she was alive. It never occurred to me, when she entered the room, to think that she was dead, and that the apparition was only a ghost.

I even called out to her, ‘Mother!’ None of us were frightened, but only surprised, and before we had time to recollect our thoughts, the apparition was gone. »

The above account was given to me by my mother, and that first-born child was myself.

Now, it may be supposed that if that ghost of my grand­mother had been in possession of all the faculties of my grand­mother before her death, she would probably have paid some attention to my mother and the rest; but she took no notice of them.

The thought of seeing the child seemed to absorb her entirely and leave no room for any other desire.

This circumstance seems to supply an answer to the question:

What is the real nature or “soul” of a ghost?

By the term “soul” we understand a form of will combined with a thought which guides and controls it, and the shape which that form assumes would naturally be that of the person as she appeared while alive — clothes and all, as she habitually used to appear — and as the image of herself existed in her own imagination, or as it was contained within her mind.

In our dreams we do not see ourselves nude or in a dress which we never wear; but we sometimes dream of appearing in our night-clothes in society where we would not thus appear, and such dreams are evidently caused by the act of undressing at bedtime, impressing itself upon the subconscious mind.

If the soul is a form of will impressed by a certain thought, the soul of a ghost would consequently only be a single thought projected by a corresponding desire, and forming an image which, under favorable conditions, may be semi-materialized or fully materialized and dense enough to become visible and tangible on the physical plane.

Such an image would only last as long as the desire or thought which ensouls it exists.

The “ghost” is thus what Sankaracharya calls the “dream body,” and such a form may be of long or short duration, according to the strength of the impression received by the mind of the dying personality.*

(* Further explanations may be found in Sankaracharya’s Tattwa Bodha, German translation. Liepzig: A. Weber).

It is said that the dream bodies of suicides, executed criminals, or such as die during a fit of passion, are very enduring, and they continually perform and repeat the scenes which took place shortly before their death.

The man who shoots himself repeats his act in his post-mortem dream-state; the executed criminal is continually tried and executed again, until the vibrations caused by the real act cease and the power is exhausted.

But while this play takes place within the lower principles of his nature, his real soul, belonging to his higher nature, may be in an entirely different state (?).

(Occult Review, November 1906, p.246-247)