Letters to a candid inquirer, on animal magnetism / by William Gregory.

  • Gregory, William, 1803-1858.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letters to a candid inquirer, on animal magnetism / by William Gregory. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    457/532 (page 361)
    The following case, which was mentioned to me by Sir David Brewster as well attested, is of a similar nature. I do not remember the names of the parties, but I believe the case has been published. Case 64.—A nobleman one day went to hear a very dis- tinguished Professor of Philosophy lecture in Berlin. Dur- ing the lecture, which turned on apparitions, he observed the Professor to be much agitated; and after it was over, he mentioned this to the Professor, and begged for an ex- planation. This he gave, observing that the subject ,was one on which he could not dwell without deep emotion. It appeared that he had once been appointed to a living in East Prussia, where his predecessor was a priest generally respected. The first time he slept there, he saw, as he awoke in the morning, the figure of a priest cross the room leading two children by the hand, and disappear behind the stove. If I remember rightly, he recognised the priest he saw to be the late incumbent, from a portrait in the room. Having discovered it was a vision he had seen, he made some enquiries, and was informed that two children, sup- posed to be natural children of the late incumbent, and who lived with him, had disappeared. For some time nothing more was discovered; but when it became necessary to light a fire in the stove, behind which the figures had vanished, a most offensive smell was observed to proceed from the fire, which would not burn properly, and, on examination, and taking down the wall of the stove, the remains of two chil- dren were found concealed in it. I shall here mention another case, kindly communicated to me by Sir David Brewster. It is that of the Tower Ghost. Unlike the two preceding cases, the origin of it is quite obscure. Case 65.—At the trial of Queen Caroline, in 1821, the guards at the Tower wTere doubled, and Col. S., the keeper of the Regalia, was quartered there with his family. To- wards twilight, one evening, and before dark, he, his wife, son, and daughter, were sitting, listening to the sentinels, who were singing and answering one another, on the beats above and below them. The evening was sultry, and the door stood ajar, when something suddenly rolled in through the open space. Col. S. at first thought it was a cloud of smoke, but it assumed the shape of a pyramid of dark thick 31