Projecting one's "self": Ruickbie excerpt #13

Psychologist Leo Ruickbie writes in “The Ghost in the Time Machine,” his 2021 prize winning essay in a competition sponsored by the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies: 

A surprising finding of the Society for Psychical Research’s Census was that many ‘apparitions’ were not ‘spirits of the dead,’ but actually living people. This realization should open a whole avenue of research: if the living could accidentally be seen as ghosts, could anyone do it intentionally?

In 1890, Joseph Kirk of Plumstead, London, decided to become a ghost, or, as he put it, attempt a “telepathic experiment” upon Miss G., a young lady of his acquaintance. From June 10 to 20 that year, Kirk concentrated each evening on making himself visible to the unsuspecting Miss G. She later complained of disturbed sleep and feeling “uneasy” at night. Disappointed and a little guilty, Kirk decided to leave off, but had another go on June 23. This time Miss G. confessed to having had a very peculiar experience: “seeing Mr. Kirk standing near my chair, dressed in a dark brown coat, which I had frequently seen him wear.”

Mr. Kirk’s coat was a key piece of evidence. He was, he explained, in the habit of wearing a light coat in the office, but as this had been sent to the tailor to be repaired, he was wearing his dark jacket, matching his suit of distinctive “dark reddish-brown check stuff.” Kirk used this fact to test the veracity of Miss G.’s vision. “How was I dressed?” he later asked, noting that this was not a leading question. He was wearing a light suit at the time and Miss G. touched the sleeve of his jacket, saying “Not this coat, but that dark suit you wear sometimes. I even saw clearly the small check pattern of it.” And therein rests the case for the defense, except that Miss G. also added that “I saw your features as plainly as though you had been bodily present. I could not have seen you more distinctly.”

Frank Podmore  

Here is a deliberate attempt to visibly appear before another person, unbeknownst to them, subsequently confirmed with additional evidential details. SPR researcher Frank Podmore collected this and several more such examples, including the Rev. Clarence Godfrey, who projected himself into a lady’s bedroom in 1886, and Mr. H. Percy Sparks who projected his friend Mr. Arthur H.W. Cleave into the dining-room of a young lady in Wandsworth. Cleave’s abilities outshone those of Godfrey: not only did he make himself visible to the target but was conscious of what happened whilst he was there. 

Leo Ruickbie, “The Ghost in the Time Machine,” his 2021 prize winning essay in a competition sponsored by the Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies. Ruickbie teaches psychology at Kings College and the University of Northamptom in the United Kingdom. Footnotes have been deleted from these online excerpts from his essay. The entire essay may be downloaded at the Bigelow site https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php.