The Making of Religion eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 426 pages of information about The Making of Religion.

The Making of Religion eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 426 pages of information about The Making of Religion.

Miss Angus herself writes: 

’Another case was a rather interesting one, as I somehow got inside the thoughts of one lady while another was doing her best to influence me!

’Miss ——­, a friend in Brighton, has strange “magnetic” powers, and felt quite sure of success with me and the ball.

’Another lady, Miss H., who was present, laughed at the whole thing, especially when Miss ——­ insisted on holding my hand and patting her other hand on my forehead!  Miss H. in a scornful manner took up a book, and, crossing to the other side of the room, left us to our folly.

’In a very short time I felt myself getting excited, which had never happened before, when I looked in the crystal.  I saw a crowd of people, and in some strange way I felt I was in it, and we all seemed to be waiting for something.  Soon a rider came past, young, dressed for racing.  His horse ambled past, and he smiled and nodded to those he knew in the crowd, and then was lost to sight.

’In a moment we all seemed to feel as if something had happened, and I went through great agony of suspense trying to see what seemed just beyond my view.  Soon, however, two or three men approached, and carried him past before my eyes, and again my anxiety was intense to discover if he were only very badly hurt or if life were really extinct.  All this happened in a few moments, but long enough to have left me so agitated that I could not realise it had only been a vision in a glass ball.

’By this time Miss H. had laid aside her book, and came forward quite startled, and told me that I had accurately described a scene on a race-course in Scotland which she had witnessed just a week or two before—­a scene that had very often been in her thoughts, but, as we were strangers to each other, she had never mentioned.  She also said I had exactly described her own feelings at the time, and had brought it all back in a most vivid manner.

’The other lady was rather disappointed that, after she had concentrated her thoughts so hard, I should have been influenced instead by one who had jeered at the whole affair.’

[This anecdote was also told to me, within a few days of the occurrence, by Miss Angus.  Her version was that she first saw a gentleman rider going to the post and nodding to his friends.  Then she saw him carried on a stretcher through the crowd.  She seemed, she said, to be actually present, and felt somewhat agitated.  The fact of the accident was, later, mentioned to me in Scotland by another lady, a stranger to all the persons.—­A.L.]

VI.—­I may briefly add an experiment of December 21, 1897.  A gentleman had recently come from England to the Scottish town where Miss Angus lives.  He dined with her family, and about 10.15 to 10.30 P.M. she proposed to look in the glass for a scene or person of whom he was to think.  He called up a mental picture of a ball at which he had recently been, and of a young lady to whom he had

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The Making of Religion from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.