There is a growing interest in all the occult phenomena to which this work is devoted. It is in evidence on every hand. The topic is in the air, and will be discussed and is being discussed, whether we take notice of it or not. That it has its dangers those who have studied it most closely are most aware, but these dangers will exist in any case, and if those who ought to guide are silent, these perils will be encountered without the safeguards which experience would dictate and prudence suggest. It seems to me that it would be difficult to do better service in this direction than to strengthen the hands of those who have for many years past been trying to rationalise the consideration of the Science of Ghosts.
It is idle to say that this should be left for experts. We live in a democratic age and we democratise everything. It is too late in the day to propose to place the whole of this department under the care of any Brahmin caste; the subject is one which every common man and woman can understand. It is one which comes home to every human being, for it adds a new interest to life, and vivifies the sombre but all-pervading problem of death.
Part I.--The Ghost That Dwells in Each of Us.
Chapter I. The Unconscious Personality 17
Part II.--The Thought Body, or the Double.
" II. The Evidence of the Psychical Research Society 72
Part III.--Clairvoyance.--The Vision of the Out of Sight.
" II. Tragic Happenings Seen in Dreams 127
Chapter I. My Own Extraordinary Premonitions 145
" IV. Some Historical and Other Cases 192
Part V.--Ghosts of the Living on Business.
Chapter I. Warnings of Peril and Death 199
" II. A Dying Double Demands its Portraits! 211
"Real Ghost Stories!--How can there be real ghost stories when there are no real ghosts?"
But are there no real ghosts? You may not have seen one, but it does not follow that therefore they do not exist. How many of us have seen the microbe that kills? There are at least as many persons who testify they have seen apparitions as there are men of science who have examined the microbe. You and I, who have seen neither, must perforce take the testimony of others. The evidence for the microbe may be conclusive, the evidence as to apparitions may be worthless; but in both cases it is a case of testimony, not of personal experience.