GS AND FAMILY GHOSTS

Candles are very subject to psychic influences. Many years ago, when I
was a boy, I was sitting in a room with some very dear friends of mine,
when one of them, suddenly turning livid, pointed at the candle, and
with eyes starting out of their sockets, screamed, "A winding-sheet! A
winding-sheet! See! it is pointing at me!" We were all so frightened by
the suddenness of her action, that for some seconds no one spoke, but
all sat transfixed with horror, gaping at the candle. "It must be my
brother Tom," she continued, "or Jack. Can't you see it?" Then, one
after another, we all examined the candle and discovered that what she
said was quite true--there was an unmistakable winding-sheet in the wax,
and it emphatically pointed in her direction. Nor were her surmisings in
vain, for the next morning she received a telegram to say her brother
Tom had died suddenly. I am sceptical with regard to some
manifestations, but I certainly do believe in this one, and I often
regard my candle anxiously, fearing that I may see a winding-sheet in
it.

To have three candles lighted at the same time is also an omen of
death, and as I have known it to be fulfilled in several cases within my
own experience, I cannot help regarding it as one of the most certain.

I am sometimes informed of the advent of the occult in a very startling
manner--my candle burns blue. It has done this when I have been sitting
alone in my study, at night, writing. I have been busily engaged penning
descriptions of the ghosts I and others have seen, when I have been
startled by the fact that my paper, originally white, has suddenly
become the colour of the sky, and on looking hastily up to discover a
reason, have been in no small measure shocked to see my candle burning a
bright blue. An occult manifestation of sorts has invariably followed. I
am often warned of the near advent of the occult in this same manner
when I am investigating in a haunted house--the flame of the candle
burns blue before the appearance of the ghost. It is, by the way, an
error to think that different types of phantasms can only appear in
certain colours--colours that are peculiar to them. I have seen the same
phenomenon manifest itself in half a dozen different colours, and blue
is as often adopted by the higher types of spirits as by the lower, and
is, in fact, common to both. I have little patience with occultists who
draw hard and fast lines, and, ignoring everyb