Apparitions: Two Theories

Abstract

An apparition may be roughly defined as a visible but non-physical phenomenon closely resembling a particular human being. The human being in question is not necessarily dead. (The assumption that all apparitions are apparitions of the dead is one of the popular misconceptions engendered by the word ‘ghost’.) Certainly there are what one may call ‘post mortem apparitions’ however we explain them. But there are also apparitions of the living. That is, cases when the human being whom the apparition resembles is not dead. In some cases an apparition of a living person occurs when he is near the point of death, or is in some other ‘critical’ situation; for instance, he is undergoing some accident at the time (not necessarily a fatal one) or is dangerously ill. But such crisis apparitions, as they are called, are not the only apparitions of the living. There are apparitions of living persons who are in perfectly good health at the time or are in no sort of critical situation at all. Occasionally the person to whom or in whose immediate neighborhood the apparition appears is himself in a critical situation (very ill, or dying, or is threatened by some danger or other, known to him or not) but this is not necessary either. If I may say so, the circumstances in which an apparition occurs need not be in any way lurid or soul-stirring, either on the side of the person appearing or on the side of the percipient, though sometimes they are.

The Journal of Parapsychology, 24(2) (June 1960), pp.110–28. This paper was delivered as part of the Symposium on Incorporeal Personal Agency which was held at the Parapsychology Laboratory of Duke University (June 9–12 1959). Two of the addresses appeared in the December 1959 number of the Journal.