Crisis apparitions: Taylor excerpt #10

Greg Taylor writes: Anomalous experiences at the time of death are not restricted to the dying or those in the room with them: many people have reported having ominous feelings, seeing apparitions, and dreaming of the dead at the time of their passing, despite being removed from them by some distance. Over the years literally thousands of these experiences have been reported and investigated.

One astounding account is that of a mother who dreamt that her son had drowned:

I saw my twenty-two-year-old son walking toward me, his clothes dripping wet. He was talking to me, telling me that he was dead but that I was not to worry or be upset because he was all right... When I woke I was very disturbed and tried to contact my son. I found out later that day that he had drowned the previous night. I am convinced that he did contact me... I have drawn great comfort from his visit to me over the years.

Respected psychologist Dr. Stanley Krippner has told how he, at the age of 12 – while awake – “had a sudden premonition that my uncle had died. And, I was in my room, and heard downstairs the phone ring, and then I heard sobbing and crying, and indeed my cousin had just told my mother, saying that her father – my uncle – had just died. That was quite an alarming experience, I didn’t tell anybody about that for years.”

A major investigation of cases of this type was undertaken in the late 19th century by the British Society for Psychical Research (S.P.R.), an organization blessed with a membership consisting of some of the most respected intellectuals of the time, who nevertheless were committed to scientific investigation of strange phenomena suggestive of the survival of consciousness beyond death. The S.P.R. invested much time and effort collecting testimony from the public about such phenomena, even publishing advertisements in major newspapers and periodicals. The response to their enquiries was overwhelming, and one experience that was reported often was that in which a dying person was ‘seen’ by family at a remote location as they passed away (labeled ‘crisis apparitions’ by the S.P.R.). 

 

The Society’s researchers quickly realized that crisis apparitions differed substantially from the more commonly known ghost stories, not least due to their lack of ‘spook factor’: such tales, were – apart from the extraordinary nature of what they implied – overtly ordinary. Witnesses simply saw someone they knew, who would then disappear from view – there was no fright involved, only confusion as to what was just seen. It was only after some time had passed (remembering that in this era, communication took some time) they would they find out that the individuals who had appeared to them had died around the same time as the vision.

 

In 1886 the S.P.R. published their detailed report on such accounts as a book, under the title Phantasms of the Living. More than 1300 pages long and consisting of over 700 cases, the work involved in compiling the two-volume report was meticulous: researchers would follow up each case reported to them, interviewing the witness and verifying the account with testimony from third parties, contemporary written reports, and so on.

 

One ‘textbook’ case presented in Phantasms of the Living was that of Lieutenant-General Albert Fytche, who served as the Chief Commissioner of the British colony of Burma during the 1860s. Arising from bed one morning, Fytche was please to find an old friend had come to visit him. He greeted him warmly and suggested to the friend that they meet on the veranda for a cup of tea, though the man didn’t seem to respond in any way. When Fytche went to join him a few minutes later, the friend was nowhere to be found. Fytche was shocked to later read in the newspaper that this friend had died at the time he had seen him, some 600 miles distant.

 

The S.P.R.’s investigation revealed the huge volume of accounts of this nature occurring to everyday people. And in the modern day, Dr Peter Fenwick’s survey of palliative carers shows that they continue unabated: a full half of respondents said that they were aware of “coincidences, usually reported by friends or family...who say the dying person has visited them at the time of death.”

 

Could it be, as many skeptics might argue, that the prosaic explanation for such ‘coincidences’ is that we should in fact expect them as random, mundane occurrences in any survey of a large number of people? The S.P.R. investigated this by surveying more than 5000 individuals and extrapolating the results; they found that chance could not explain the number of well-attested crisis apparitions in their collection. And S.P.R. researcher Edmund Gurney was scathing on the question of whether accounts may have been made-up, noting that they had been collected from well-regarded members of the public, and the S.P.R.’s investigators had done much work to corroborate stories before including them. “When we submit the theory of deliberate falsification to the cumulative test...there comes a point where the reason rebels,” he wrote.

 

Furthermore, like cases at the bedside of the dying, some reports also featured multiple witnesses. For example, in one case a man and his son simultaneously saw his father’s face above them, although his wife did not (though she did acknowledge witnessing their reaction and comments at the time), only later learning that the man’s father had died at this time.

 

In the mid-20th century, researcher G.N.M. Tyrell identified 130 cases in which crisis apparitions were perceived by two or more people. Furthermore, he remarked that he had “no doubt that this list is not exhaustive.”

Greg Taylor, “What is the Best Available Evidence for the Survival of Human Consciousness after Permanent Bodily Death?” An essay written for the Bigelow contest addressing this question. I am presenting excerpts without references, but this essay is available with footnotes and a bibliography at https://bigelowinstitute.org/contest_winners3.php.