library, and on one occasion _it lifted up
the mosquito-curtains_, and looked closely into my face'. Now,
could a hallucination lift a mosquito-curtain, or even produce the
impression that it did so, while the curtain was really unmoved?
Clearly a hallucination, however artful, and well got up, could do
no such thing. Therefore a being--a ghost with very little maidenly
reserve--haunted the bedroom of Mr. Harry, if he tells a true tale.
Again (p. 115), a lady (on whose veracity I am ready to pledge my
all) had doors opened for her frequently, 'as if a hand had turned
the handle'. And once she not only saw the door open, but a grey
woman came in. Another witness, years afterwards, beheld the same
figure and the same performance. Once more, Miss A. M.'s mother
followed a ghost, who _opened a door_ and entered a room, where she
could not be found when she was wanted (p. 121). Again, {206} a
lady saw a ghost which, 'with one hand, the left, _drew back the
curtain_'. There are many other cases in which apparitions are seen
in houses where mysterious thumps and raps occur, especially in
General Campbell's experience (p. 483). If the apparition gave the
thumps then he (or, in this instance, she) was material, and could
produce effects on matter. Indeed, this ghost was seen to take up
and lay down some books, and to tuck in the bed-clothes.
Hallucinations (which are all in one's eye or sensory centre, or
cerebral central terminus), cannot draw curtains, or open doors, or
pick up books, or tuck in bed-clothes, or cause thumps--not real
thumps, hallucinatory thumps are different. Consequently, if the
stories are true, _some apparitions are ghosts_, real objective
entities, filling space. The senses of a hallucinated person may be
deceived as to touch, and as to feeling the breath of a phantasm (a
likely story), as well as in sight and hearing. But a visible ghost
which produces changes in the visible world cannot be a
hallucination. On the other hand Dr. Binns, in his Anatomy of Sleep
tells us of 'a gentleman who, in a dream, pushed against a door in a
distant house, so that those in the room were scarcely able to
resist the pressure'. {207a} Now if this rather staggering anecdote
be true, the spirit of a living man, being able to affect matter, is
also, so to speak, material, and is an actual entity, an astral
body. Moreover, Mrs. Frederica Hauffe, when in the magnetic sleep,
'could rap at a distance'.

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