Do animals have souls? (translated) E-Book

Ernesto Bozzano

• Herausgeber: anna ruggieri
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

- This edition is unique;
- The translation is completely original and was carried out for the Ale. Mar. SAS;
- All rights reserved.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Category I - Telepathic hallucinations in which an animal is the agent
Category II - Telepathic hallucinations in which an animal is the percipient
Category III - Telepathic hallucinations perceived collectively by animals and humans
Category IV - Visions, no longer telepathic, of human ghosts perceived collectively by animals and humans
Category V - Cases in which only animals gave signs of perceiving paranormal manifestations
Category VI - Animals and haunting phenomena
Category VII - Apparitions of identified animal ghosts
Category VIII - Post-mortem manifestations of animals with unusual modes of manifestation
Category IX - Animals and premonitions
Category X - Materializations of animals
Conclusions

Leseprobe

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

CATEGORY I - TELEPATHIC HALLUCINATIONS IN WHICH AN ANIMAL ACTS AS AN AGENT

CATEGORY II - TELEPATHIC HALLUCINATIONS INVOLVING AN ANIMAL AS PERCIPIENT

CATEGORY III - TELEPATHIC HALLUCINATIONS PERCEIVED COLLECTIVELY BY ANIMALS AND HUMANS

CATEGORY IV - VISIONS, NO LONGER TELEPATHIC, OF HUMAN GHOSTS PERCEIVED COLLECTIVELY BY ANIMALS AND HUMANS

CATEGORY V - CASES WHERE ONLY ANIMALS GAVE SIGNS OF PERCEIVING PARANORMAL MANIFESTATIONS

CATEGORY VI - ANIMALS AND INFESTATIONS

CATEGORY VII - APPARITIONS OF IDENTIFIED ANIMAL GHOSTS

CATEGORY VIII - POST-MORTEM MANIFESTATIONS OF ANIMALS WITH UNUSUAL MODES OF EXPRESSION

CATEGORY IX - ANIMALS AND PREMONITIONS

CATEGORY X - MATERIALISATION OF ANIMALS

CONCLUSIONS

Ernesto Bozzano

Do animals have souls?

Edition and translation 2021 Ale. Mar.

All rights reserved

INTRODUCTION

What was affirmed with regard to paranormal manifestations in which humans are "agents" or "percipients", namely that such manifestations have been observed at all times and by all peoples, must also be affirmed with regard to the complementary branch of the same manifestations in which animals are "agents" or "percipients". Naturally the paranormal manifestations in which animals are the protagonists are confined within more modest limits of extrinsicity than those in which human beings are the protagonists, limits which correspond to the intellectual capacities of the animal species in which they are manifested. These include telepathic episodes in which animals act not only as "recipients" but also as "agents"; episodes in which animals perceive, collectively with man, ghosts or other supernormal manifestations that have occurred outside of any telepathic coincidence; and episodes in which animals perceive, collectively with man, manifestations that take place in haunted localities. In addition, there are episodes of a premonitory order, episodes of materialisation of identified animal ghosts; the latter circumstance is theoretically very important, since it would tend to validate the hypothesis of the survival of the animal psyche. The investigation of this branch of the metapsychic disciplines was completely forgotten until the present day, although in the metapsychic journals, and especially in the collections of the Proceedings and the Journal of the well-deserving "Society for Psychical Research" of London, there are numerous cases of the nature indicated; which, however, were never collected, classified and analysed by anyone, as very little was written and discussed about them. There remains, therefore, very little to summarise about the theories formulated on the subject. I will only note that in the commentaries on a few individual cases belonging to the largest class of phenomena under consideration, which is that in which animals collectively perceive manifestations of a telepathic and haunting order to man, the hypothesis was put forward that psychic perceptions of this nature originate in a hallucinatory phenomenon originating in the centres of ideation of a human agent, and then transmitted unconsciously to the homologous centres of the present and percipient animal. As will be seen, this hypothesis is contradicted by the facts, which show that in numerous episodes of this nature the animals perceive the supernormal manifestations previously to man, a circumstance which suddenly nullifies the hypothesis in question. For another class of phenomenology under consideration, and more precisely for that of the apparitions of animal ghosts, a phenomenon of pure and simple hallucination on the part of the percipient individual was assumed. This hypothesis is untenable on the basis of a comparative analysis of the facts, which show that animal phantoms are often perceived collectively or successively by several persons; and, more importantly, they are identified with animals that lived and died in the same locality, and all this while the percipients were unaware that the animals visualised existed. On the basis of these findings, it must be concluded that, in general, the two hypotheses set forth above must be considered insufficient to account for the facts; a conclusion that is of great importance, since it is equivalent to admitting the existence of an animal subconsciousness that is the repository of the same supernormal faculties that exist in human subconsciousness; as well as, it is equivalent to recognising the possibility of the existence of veridical apparitions of animal ghosts. Having said this, the scientific and philosophical value of this new branch of metapsychic research is evident, and it is already fair to predict that the day is not far off when it will be recognised as indispensable for the establishment of the new "Science of the Soul", which would appear incomplete, to the point of being inexplicable, without the necessary complement that the analytical investigation and the synthetic conditions concerning the animal psyche bring to it. It can already be understood that with the present classification - which is the first of its kind - I am far from presuming to have thoroughly examined a subject so vast and of such metapsychic, scientific, and philosophical importance. I only flatter myself that I have made a first effective contribution to new research, and with that I have awakened the interest of scholars on the subject, thus favouring the further accumulation of raw material and facts, which seems indispensable for the completion of investigations into this young branch of the metapsychic disciplines. Finally, if one wished to fix the date when paranormal manifestations in relation to animals began to be taken into serious consideration, it would have to be that of a famous incident of canine telepathy in which the well-known English novelist Rider Haggard was a participant, a telepathic accident which occurred in circumstances which cannot be doubted, but which, owing to one of those providential conditions of time, place, and environment, which are so often to be found in the early history of new branches of knowledge, aroused in England an unexpected and almost exaggerated interest; It was discussed at length in political, variety and metapsychic journals, thus creating a favourable environment for such investigations. We must therefore begin our classification of "metapsychic manifestations in animals" with the telepathic case of the novelist Rider Haggard. E. B.

CATEGORY I - TELEPATHIC HALLUCINATIONS IN WHICH AN ANIMAL ACTS AS AN AGENT

CASE 1 - This is the Haggard case, which for the sake of brevity I shall only relate as it was faithfully summarised in the August 1904 issue of the Journal of Psychical Studies, referring for further details to the October 1904 issue of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research. Mr. Rider Haggard recounts that he went to bed quietly about one o'clock in the morning of July 10, 1904. An hour later, Mrs. Haggard, who was sleeping in another bed in the same room, awoke with a start, hearing her husband groaning and making inarticulate sounds like the moaning of a wounded beast. Frightened, she called out to him; her husband heard her voice as if in a dream, but could not immediately free himself from the nightmare that oppressed him. When he awoke fully, he told his wife that he had dreamt of Bob, their eldest daughter's old hound, and that he had seen him struggling in a terrible fight as if he were about to die. The dream had had two distinct parts. Of the first, the novelist could only remember feeling a sense of anxious oppression, as if he were in danger of drowning, but between the moment he heard his wife's voice and the moment he regained full knowledge of himself, the dream became much more vivid. "I saw," he said, "good old Bob lying on his side in the reeds of a pond. It seemed to me that my own personality was mysteriously emerging from the body of the dog who was strangely raising his head to my face. Bob tried to speak to me, and, unable to make himself understood by sound, he conveyed to me in some other indefinable way the notion that he was dying. The couple went back to sleep, and the novelist was no longer disturbed in his sleep. At breakfast in the morning, he told his daughter what he had dreamt, and laughed with her at the fear her mother had felt: she attributed the nightmare to poor digestion. As for Bob, no one worried about him, since the previous evening he had been seen with the other numerous dogs in the villa and had given his mistress the usual party. But the hour of the daily meal passed without Bob appearing. His mistress was worried and the novelist began to suspect that the dream had been true. The novelist himself finally found the poor dog floating in a pond, two kilometres from the villa, with its skull crushed and its legs broken. An initial examination by the veterinary surgeon suggested that the dog had been caught in a trap, but it was later found that the dog had been hit by a train over a bridge crossing the pond and thrown from the collision into the reeds of the water. On the morning of 10 July, a railway worker found Bob's bloody collar on the bridge, so there was no doubt that the dog had died on the night of the dream. By chance, an extraordinary train had passed that night shortly before midnight and had to do the deed. All the above circumstances are proven by the novelist with a series of testimonial documents. According to the vet, death must have been almost instantaneous, so that it would have preceded Haggard's dream by a couple of hours or more. Such, in brief, is the case of the English writer, in which there are many factual circumstances that contribute to categorically exclude any other explanation than that of direct telepathic transmission between the animal and the man. It could not have been the result of a telepathic impulse originating in the mind of a person present, for no one had witnessed or been informed of the drama, as is evident from Haggard's own enquiry, and as could easily have been presumed in view of the late hour at which the event took place. It could not have been a common form of hallucinatory nightmare with a chance coincidence, since there were too many truthful circumstances in the vision, besides the fact itself of the coincidence between the dream and the death of the animal. It could not have been a case of telesthesia in which the novelist's spirit had a distant perception of the drama, since in such a case the percipient would have had to remain a passive spectator, which was not the case. As we have seen, he was subjected to a remarkable phenomenon of incipient "identification" or "possession". This phenomenon - as the editor of the Journal of the S.P.R. rightly observes - presents an interesting parallel with the "immedesimations" and "dramatizations" so frequent in psychics or "mediums" during the state of trance. Finally, it could not have been a premonitory dream by which Haggard learned not of the event at the time it took place, but of the discovery of the corpse in the pond a few days later, because such a solution does not explain anything: Neither of the fact of the veridical coincidence between the dream and the event, nor of the phenomenon of the equally veridical dramatisation of the event itself, nor of the remarkable case of "identification" or "possession". These are the principal considerations that contribute to demonstrate in an incontestable way the reality of the phenomenon of direct telepathic transmission between animal and man. I thought it necessary to formulate them in order to reply to certain objections timidly put forward by various parties after the Society for Psychical Research had accepted and commented on the case in question. At the same time the same considerations may serve as a rule for the readers in order to judge as to the reliability or otherwise of the telepathic hypothesis in regard to the cases that follow.

CASE 2 - I get this from the Journal of the S.P.R. , vol. II, p. 22. Mr. E.W. Mr. E.W. Phibbs relates: "On the first Monday in August, 1883 (trading holiday), I was at Ilfracombe. About 10 o'clock in the afternoon I went to bed, and soon fell asleep. I was awakened about half-past ten o'clock by my wife coming into the room, and telling her how I had at that time had a dream in which I saw my dog Fox lying wounded and dying at the foot of a wall. I had no precise idea of the locality, but happened to observe that it was one of the usual dry stone walls peculiar to the province of Gloucester. I had not a precise idea of the place, but observed, that it was one of the usual dry-walls peculiar to the province of Gloucester. The next day, Tuesday, I received a letter from the servant, informing me that Fox had not been seen for two days. I immediately replied, ordering him to make the most minute enquiries. I was answered on Saturday by a letter which I received the next day, Sunday. I was informed that the dog had been attacked and killed by two bull-dogs on the previous Monday evening. "When I returned home a fortnight later, I immediately commenced a rigorous investigation, as a result of which I was able to ascertain that about five o'clock in the afternoon of the Monday in question, a lady had seen the two bull-dogs viciously attack and tear my dog to pieces. Another woman, who lived in the neighbourhood, informed me that about nine o'clock in the afternoon of the same day, she had seen my dog lying dying at the foot of a wall, which she pointed out to me, and which I saw for the first time. The next morning the dog was no longer there. I later learned that the owner of the bull-dogs, as soon as he had learned the fact, and fearing the consequences, had arranged for him to be buried at half past ten that same evening. The time of the event coincides with the vision of my dream". (Mrs. Jessie Phibbs, wife of the said speaker, confirms her husband's narration). This case was repeatedly quoted by Professor Richet in his Traité de Métapsychique with the intention of showing that it could be explained by "cryptesthesia", without there being any need to assume a phenomenon of telepathy in which the animal was the agent and its owner the percipient. He remarks: "It would be more rational to suppose that it was the nature of the fact that affected Mr Phibbs' mentality, and not that the spirit of the dog vibrated the master's brain centres" (p. 330). By 'the nature of the fact' he refers to his own hypothesis of 'cryptesthesia', according to which existing things, and the performance of all actions in the animate and inanimate world, emit sui generis vibrations perceptible to the senses, who are thus theoretically able to become aware of everything that happens, has happened, and will happen in the whole world. I replied with a long article in the Revue Spirite (1922, p. 256), which sought to challenge this alleged omniscience of the subconscious faculties, showing on the basis of the facts that the faculties in question were instead conditioned - and therefore limited - by the unavoidable necessity of the "psychic relation"; that is to say, if there were no prior emotional ties, or even, in very rare circumstances, relations of simple knowledge, between the agent and the recipient, telepathic manifestations could not take place. Then, referring to the present case, I continued: "If we exclude the possibility that the dog's thought, directed with anxious intensity towards his distant protector, was the determining agent of the telepathic phenomenon, or, in other words, if we exclude the possibility that it could have taken place by virtue of the existence of an "affective relationship" between the dog and his master, then the question arises: Why did Mr Phibbs see his own dog dying that night, and not all the other animals that were certainly dying all over the place that night? This question can only be answered by acknowledging that Mr. Phibbs did not see the dying animals at the slaughterhouse or elsewhere, because there was no psychic relationship whatsoever between them and him, and instead saw his own dog in agony because there were emotional ties between it and him, and because at that moment the dying animal was intensely thinking of its distant protector; This latter circumstance is not at all improbable, and is indeed logically presumable in a poor animal in agony, and therefore in urgent need of rescue'. And it seems to me that these conclusions cannot be doubted. In any case, readers will find in the present classification numerous examples of various kinds that exuberantly confirm this point of view, while inexorably contradicting the hypothesis of an omniscient cryptesthesia.

CASE 3 - I get it from Camillus Flammarion's book L'Inconnu (p. 413). Madame R. Lacassagne, née Durant, writes to Flammarion: "I can still quote you a personal case which struck me very much when it happened to me; however, since this time it is about a dog, perhaps I am wrong to abuse your time: I will excuse myself by asking where the problems to be solved stop. "I was then a young girl, and it happened quite often that I had a surprising lucidity in my dreams. We had a bitch of superior intelligence, who was particularly fond of me, although I caressed her very little. One night I dreamt of our dying dog, and saw her looking at me with human eyes. As soon as I awoke, I said to my sister, "Lionne is dead; I dreamed it. It is certain". My sister laughed, and did not believe it at all. The bell was rung, and the maid who had come in was asked to send for the bitch. They called for her, but she did not answer; they looked for her everywhere, and finally found her dead in a corner. Now, as she was not ill at all the day before, it is evident that in me there were no predisposing causes for such a dream. (Signed: Mad. R. Lacassagne, née Durant, Castres). In this case too, the most likely hypothesis is that the agonised animal anxiously turned its thoughts to its mistress, thus determining the telepathic impression that its mistress underwent in her sleep. The episode, however, is theoretically much less demonstrative in this sense than the preceding one, especially since this time there are no details capable of eliminating the other hypothesis of a presumable phenomenon of clairvoyance in sleep.

CASE 4 - I get it from Light (1921, p. 187). The speaker is F.W. Percival, who writes: "Mr. Everard Calthrop, a great breeder of "pure-blooded" horses, in his book entitled: The Horse as Camarade and Friends, relates how years ago he owned a splendid mare, named "Windemers", to whom he was deeply attached, and by whom he was reciprocated with such affectionate devotion, as to make the case even touching. As fate would have it, the poor mare drowned in a pond near Mr. Calthrop's farm, and he recounts the impressions he felt at that moment in these terms: "At 3.20 a.m. on 18 March 1913, I awoke with a jolt from a deep sleep, and not because of any noise or neighing, but because of a plea for help transmitted to me - I do not know how - by my mare "Windemers". I listened; there was not the slightest noise in the quiet night; but when I became fully awake, I felt the desperate appeal of my mare vibrate in my brain and nerves, and thus learned that she was in extreme danger, and urgently crying for help. I put on an overcoat, pulled on my boots, opened the door and took a run across the park. There was no whining or moaning, but in an incomprehensible and prodigious way I knew where I was getting the "wireless telegraphy" signal, however rapidly it was weakening. I ran and ran, but felt that the vibratory waves of the "wireless telegraphy" were getting weaker and weaker in my brain; and when I came to the shore of the pond, they had ceased. As I looked at the water, I saw that its surface was still rippling with small concentric waves reaching the shore, and in the middle of the pond I saw a black mass standing out ominously in the early morning dawn. I knew at once that this was the body of my poor mare, and that unfortunately I had been late in answering her call: she was dead". This is the fact. Mr. F.W. Percival, who reported it in The Light (1921, p. 187), observes: "It is true that in cases like the one described above we lack the testimony of the agent; but this does not prevent the three rules of Myers, which are designed to distinguish telepathic events from those which are not, from being equally applicable to our case. These rules are: 1. the agent must have been in an exceptional situation (and here the agent was struggling with death); 2. the recipient must have experienced something psychically exceptional, including a revealing impression of the agent (and here the revealing impression of the agent is obvious); 3. the two events must coincide in time (and this third rule is also fulfilled). In addition to Mr. Percival's arguments, it might be useful to point out that the telepathic impulse was so precise and energetic as to awaken the recipient from a deep sleep, to make him immediately aware that it was a call for help from his mare, and to direct his steps without hesitation towards the theatre of the drama. Having said this, it does not seem logically legitimate to question the genuinely telepathic origin of the event.

CASE 5 - I get this from the Journal of the S.P.R. (vol. XII, p. 21). Lady Carbery, wife to Lord Carbery, sends from Freke Castle, County Cork, on the 23rd of July, 1904, the following report: 'On a hot Sunday afternoon, in the summer of 1900, I went after breakfast to make the usual visit to the stables, to distribute sugar and carrots to the horses, among whom was a favourite mare of mine, shady, nervous, named Kitty. There was a great and uncommon fondness between us. I rode her every morning, before breakfast, and in all weathers. They were quiet, solitary excursions along the hills above the sea, and it always seemed to me that Kitty rejoiced as much as the mistress in these morning rides, in the freshness of the hour. "On the afternoon in question, on leaving the stables, I set out alone into the park, walking about a quarter of a mile, and sat down in the shade of a tree with an interesting book to read, intending to remain there a couple of hours. After about twenty minutes, a sudden influx of painful sensations came between me and my reading, and at the same time I was sure that something painful had happened to my mare Kitty. I tried to banish this untimely impression by continuing my reading, but the impression grew so great that I was forced to give up and hurry to the stables. When I arrived there, I went without fail to Kitty's stall, and found her lying on the ground, suffering, and in urgent need of help. I immediately went in search of the grooms, who were in another section away from the stables, who rushed to offer the assistance that the case required. The surprise of the grooms was great when they saw me appear in the stable for the second time, which was most unusual. (Signed: Lady Carbery). The coachman who assisted in such contingencies, confirms in these terms: 'At that time I was coachman at Freke Castle, and her ladyship came to the stables in the afternoon to distribute, as usual, sugar and carrots to the horses. Kitty was free in her stall, and in excellent health. Immediately afterwards I returned to my apartment above the stables, and the grooms went up to their rooms. After half an hour, or three-quarters of an hour, I was surprised to see his lordship return, and rush in to call me and the grooms to assist Kitty, who was lying on the ground from a sudden illness. In the interval, none of us had entered the stables". (Signed: Edward Nobbs). This second case is less emotional than the first, and the impression made upon Lady Carbery was also less circumstantial and more vague; but nevertheless it was always strong enough to instil in the recipient the conviction that her sensations indicated that Kitty was in urgent need of assistance, and to determine her to rush to the spot without delay. These exceptional circumstances of precise and suggestive significance are sufficient to warrant the conclusion that the case is genuine telepathy.

CASE 6 - I take it from Light (1915, p. 168). Mr. Mildred Duke, a well-known psychic and author of profound articles on the subject of the metapsychic, relates the following incident which occurred to himself: "I was writing late at night, and was totally absorbed in the subject, when I was literally invaded by the idea that my kitten needed me. I had to get up and go in search of her. After wandering around the house to no avail, I went into the garden and, since the darkness made it impossible to see, I began to call out to her. At last I heard a faint meow at a distance, and every time I repeated the call, the faint meow was repeated, but the cat did not come. So I went back to get a lantern, and then I crossed the garden and went into a field, where the mewing seemed to be coming from, and after a short search I found my cat in a hedge, caught in a snare made for rabbits, with a slip-knot round her neck. If she had tried to extricate herself she would undoubtedly have strangled herself, but fortunately she had the intelligence not to move any more, and to send her master a message of help. "This is a kitten to which I am deeply attached, and it is not the first time that a telepathic relationship has been established between her and me. A few days ago she seemed to be lost, because she was nowhere to be found, and family members were scrambling to call her from every corner of the garden. Suddenly, in a sort of mental photograph, I saw her as a prisoner in an empty attic room, which was almost always closed. And the vision turned out to be true: somehow she had been locked up in there. Did she send me a telepathic message to inform me of her imprisonment? Even in this third case, in which the telepathic phenomenon is expressed in the form of "impressions" and nothing more, no doubts can be raised as to the telepathic genesis of the sensory impressions to which the speaker was subjected. Readers will have noted that in the three cases in question - as in many others that follow - the protagonists are unanimous in making the same observation, that there existed between them and the animals with which they entered into telepathic intercourse an affectionate relationship of an exceptional order; and this circumstance is worthy of note, since it is identical in telepathic communications between human beings; so that it may be asserted that a condition of exceptional mutual affection lies at the heart of every telepathic relationship. In other words, it is always the great "law of affinity" that governs the whole range of telepathic communications, whether they take place between living persons, or between living and dead persons, or between human beings and animals; just as, in the final analysis, the same law prevails throughout the universe - physical and psychic - in the form of "vibratory attunements" that are increasingly refined and sublimated in an endless series.

CASE 7 - I take this from the Journal of the S.P.R. (vol. XI, p. 323). Mr. J. F. Young communicates the following incident which is personal to him: 'New Road, Lanelly, Nov. 13, 1904. - I own a 'terrier' dog of the age of 5 years, bred by me. I was always a great lover of animals, but especially of dogs. The dog in question returns my affection to such an extent that I cannot go anywhere, not even to leave my room, without him following me constantly. He is a terrible hunter of mice, and as the back-kitchen is occasionally frequented by such rodents, I had placed a comfortable kennel there for Fido. In the same room was a hearth with an oven for baking bread, and a laundry boiler with a pipe leading into the chimney. It was my constant custom to accompany him in the evening to the kennel before retiring for the night. I had undressed and was about to go to bed, when I was suddenly seized with an inexplicable feeling of imminent danger. I could think of nothing but fire; and the impression was so strong that I gave way. I put on my clothes again, came downstairs, and went room by room to make sure that everything was in order. When I got to the back of the kitchen, I did not see Fido, and thinking he had slipped away to go upstairs, I called for him, but to no avail. I quickly went to my sister-in-law's house to ask for news, but she knew nothing. I began to feel uneasy. I went back to the back of the kitchen and called the dog repeatedly, but to no avail. I didn't know what to do. Suddenly it occurred to me that if there was one thing that could make him respond, it was the phrase: "Let's go for a walk, Fido!", a phrase that always put him in a great mood. I said it aloud, and a stifled moan, as if faded by distance, reached my ear this time. I quickly replied, and there came a distinct whine of a dog in distress. I had time to ascertain that it came from inside the pipe that connects the boiler with the chimney. I did not know how to get the dog out of it; moments were precious, his life was in danger. I took a sledgehammer and set about breaking the wall there. I finally managed, not without difficulty, to get him out of there semi-alive, panting, in the throes of vomiting, with his tongue and whole body blackened by soot. If I had been a few moments longer, my little favourite would have died; and as the boiler is very rarely used, I would never have known the fate of the dog. My sister-in-law had rushed to the noise. Together we found a rat's nest in the hearth from which the pipe starts. Fido had evidently chased a mouse into the interior of the pipe, so that he was caught in it and could neither turn around nor retreat. "All this happened some months ago, and was published in the local papers of the time, but I would certainly never have thought of communicating it to this Society, had not the case of Mr. Haggard occurred in the meantime". (Signed: J.F. Young). Miss E. Bennett, sister-in-law of the petitioner, confirms the account of her relative. (For further details I refer to the publication referred to above.) This fourth case of telepathy by "impression" differs markedly from the other two above, in which the essential feature of the telepathic impulse consisted in the exact perception of an urgent appeal from the animal in distress, as well as in the intuitive localisation of the animal's whereabouts. Here, on the contrary, the "impression" to which the percipient is subjected suggests to him the idea of imminent danger in relation to the fire. However, the "impression" is so strong that it induces him to get dressed in a hurry and to go and inspect the house; so that on reaching the kitchen, and sensing the absence of the dog, he is prompted to call him, look for him and save him. It follows that in this case the telepathic message is expressed in an imperfect way, assuming a symbolic form; which does not detract from its intrinsic value, since this circumstance does not constitute a theoretical perplexity. For it is well known that telepathic manifestations, in their transit from the subconscious to the conscious, follow the "path of least resistance", which is determined by the special idiosyncrasies of the agent and the percipient taken together. These, from the human point of view, consist first of all in the 'sensory type' to which each individual belongs (mental, visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, emotional); then they consist in the conditions of the environment in which he lives (habits, customs, repetition of the same incidents in daily life). It follows that when the telepathic impulse is not expressed directly, it is transformed into a mode of indirect or symbolic perception, which more or less faithfully translates the thought of the telepathising agent, although it is always in some kind of relationship with the agent's own thought. Having said this, it could be said that in the case under consideration the anxious appeal of the dog in danger had indeed succeeded in impressing the subconscious of the percipient, but in order to emerge in his consciousness it had had to lose a large part of its clarity, transforming itself into a vague impression of imminent danger in relation to the fire; which still corresponded to the truth, considering that the animal was effectively a prisoner, and in danger of death by asphyxiation, in the pipe of the hearth.

CASE 8 - Professor Emilio Magnin communicates to the Anuales des Sciences Psychiques (1912, p. 347) the following case: "I read with great interest in the Annales the report of the telepathic case of the dog Bobby. Another case, quite analogous, was told me years ago by my friend P.M., one of the greatest lawyers of the Parisian Bar, and I communicate it to you, convinced that I am doing something pleasing to my readers. Mr P.M. of our Court of Appeal owned a Spanish bitch named Creola. He kept her constantly in Paris with him, and had placed her kennel in the passage leading into his room, near the door of the room. Every morning, as soon as the bitch sensed any movement in her master's room, she would start scratching at the door and whining until it was opened. "One day P.M. entrusted the bitch to the gamekeeper of Rambouillet for a hunting trip. "On the morning of a Saturday, very early in the day, the lawyer in question suddenly heard a rasping sound at his door and a yelp. Surprised to learn in this way of the presence of his bitch, he promptly got up, convinced that the gamekeeper had returned to Paris for some important communication. He opened the door, and to his amazement saw neither dog nor gamekeeper. "Two hours later, he received a telegram from the gamekeeper informing him that his bitch Creola had been accidentally killed by a hunter. Also in this episode, in which the veridical hallucination was of an "auditory" nature, it does not seem possible to doubt the genuinely telepathic origin of the manifestation. With regard to the manner in which the episode unfolded, it should be noted that this demonstrates that the telepathic impulse was also of an indirect or symbolic nature. Recalling, therefore, the considerations made above, we shall say that since the deceased dog had in life the habit of rasping at her master's door and yelping until it was opened, it follows that the telepathic impulse, unable to express itself directly, did so indirectly and symbolically, assuming those modes of expression that were most familiar to the agent and the percipient together. I note in this connection that the circumstance of a fundamental law of telepathic manifestation being scrupulously realised even when it is a matter of an animal agent, presents a high theoretical value, since it cannot but be inferred that if animal telepathic manifestations conform to the same laws as human ones, this demonstrates the identity of nature of the manifestations themselves, and consequently the identity of nature of the spiritual element in operation in both circumstances.

CASE 9 - I reproduce from the Journal of the S.P.R. (vol. IV, p. 289), the following case, reported by Mrs. Beauchamp, of Hont Lodge, Twiford; who expresses herself thus in the extract of a letter reproduced here, and addressed to Mrs. Wood, Colchester: ".... Megatherium is the name of a little Indian dog of mine, who sleeps in my daughter's room. Last night I was suddenly awakened by hearing him prancing about the room. I am very familiar with his characteristic prancing. My husband was also quick to awaken. I asked him: "Do you hear that?" We lit a candle, looked everywhere, but found nothing in the room, and noticed that the door was firmly closed. Then I got the idea that something bad had happened to Meg: I had the feeling that he had died at that very moment. I looked at my watch to see what time it was, and thought I must go downstairs and ascertain the fact. I stood there for a moment undecided, and my sleep returned. Not long after, someone came knocking at the door: it was my daughter, who, with an expression of great anxiety, warned me: "Mama, Mama, Meg is dying. We all took to the stairs and found Meg lying on his side, his legs stretched out and stiff as if he were dead. My husband lifted him off the ground and ascertained that the dog was still alive, but for a moment he couldn't grasp what had happened. At last he found that Meg, who knew not how, had twisted the strap of her jacket around her neck, and was almost strangled by it. We released him at once, and as soon as the dog could breathe, he soon revived and recovered. "From now on, should I ever experience any other similar precise sensations about anyone, I propose to rush without delay. I can swear I heard Meg's characteristic hopping around the bed, and so can my husband. (For further details, see the Journal, place cited). In this case too, whose genuinely telepathic origin is not to be doubted (all the more so since this time there were two persons who underwent the same auditory impressions), the telepathic manifestation is also expressed in a symbolic form, that is to say that an urgent plea for help, formulated in the mind of the little agent dog, reaches the percipients transformed into the characteristic echo of the habitual hopping which the little dog performed every morning around his masters' bed. It is undoubtedly true that such a perception, given the conditions in which it took place, could not be the faithful expression of the agent's thought, but only a symbolic-veridical translation of that thought; For if it is logical and natural to assume that an animal about to be strangled to death should have directed its thoughts intensely towards those who alone could save it, it would be neither logical nor admissible to assume that the animal itself, at that supreme moment, should instead have thought serenely of the tripping he himself had done every morning around his masters' bed.

CASE 10 - I take it from vol. VIII, p. 45 of the Annales des Sciences Psychiques, which deduced it from the Italian review Il Vessillo Spiritista. "Mrs. Ludow Krijanowsky (now Mrs. Semenoff), relates to us the following fact that has happened to her, and which concerns the much debated question of the soul of animals. "It concerns a little dog who was a great favourite of us all, but especially of Wera, and who, somewhat as a result of this affection and the consequent care he was the object of, fell ill. He suffered from bouts of suffocation and coughing, but the vet who treated him did not say that the disease was dangerous. Nevertheless, Wera was very concerned about him, and got up at night to give him rubs and medicine, but no one suspected that he might die. "One night Bonika's condition (that was the name of the little dog) suddenly worsened. We were very worried, especially thinking of Wera, and decided to go to the vet early in the morning, because if we had sent for him, he would not have come until evening. "When morning came, Wera and our mother went out carrying the sick child; I stayed at home and started writing. I was so absorbed in my work that I forgot that my parents were not at home. All of a sudden I heard the little dog coughing in the adjoining room. That was where his kennel was, and since he was ill, as soon as he started coughing or moaning, one of us rushed to see what had to be done. He was given a drink, medicine, and the bandages around his neck were adjusted. Out of habit, I got up and hurried to the kennel. It was only when I saw it that I remembered that mum and Wera had gone out with Bonika. I was therefore very puzzled and astonished, since the coughs had been so loud and distinct that I had to rule out any possibility of a mistake. "I was lingering pensively by the empty kennel, when suddenly there was one of those yelps with which Bonika greeted us when we came into the house, then a second yelp that seemed to come from the adjoining room, and finally a third yelp that seemed to be lost in the distance. "I confess that I was impressed and shivered. The idea that the little dog was dead had flashed through my mind. I looked at my watch: it was five minutes to noon. "Restless and agitated, I looked out of the window, waiting impatiently for my parents. At last I saw Wera coming back alone, and rushing towards her, I said point-blank: "Bonika is dead". "How do you know that?" exclaimed Wera in amazement. Instead of answering, I asked her if she knew the exact time Bonika died, and she said, "A few minutes before noon. When they arrived at the vet's house at about 11 o'clock, the vet was not there, but the person on duty insisted that they wait for him to return, as he had to be back around noon for visiting hours. So they stayed, but as the little dog seemed to be getting more and more agitated, Wera put him down on the sofa, then laid him on the carpet, looking impatiently at the grandfather clock. To her great relief she saw that it was only a few minutes before noon; but at that moment the little dog was seized with a fierce attack of suffocation. Wera made to put him back on the couch, and as she did so, she saw that her hands and the little dog glowed with an intense, dazzling purple glow. Understanding nothing of what was happening, he began to shout, "Fire! Fire!" Mama had seen nothing, but as she turned her back to the fire, she thought the fire had stuck to her dress, and turned back in fright, finding that the fire was out. It was at that moment that they both realised that the little dog had expired, which kept Mama from scolding Wera for the fear her untimely cry had caused in her". This is the interesting episode narrated by Mrs Semenoff. I note that it also has a symbolic character. As I have said, it is common to find cases in which the telepathic impulse assumes more or less aberrant representational forms according to the particular idiosyncrasies of the percipients. However, when episodes of this nature occur among human beings in which the agent is a deceased person, it may be presumed that, although the manner in which they occur always depends on the fact that a telepathic impulse cannot but follow "the path of least resistance" in order to reach the consciousness of the recipient, they may nevertheless sometimes take place at the will of the agent, which conforms to the idiosyncrasies of the recipient. In the collections of telepathic cases published by the Society f.. P. R. there is an episode in which an entity of the deceased manifests itself simultaneously in three different ways to three persons: one of whom sees the ghost, the other hears the voice of the deceased uttering a phrase of greeting, and the third perceives a sweet scent of violets, a scent which coincides with the fact that the body of the deceased on his deathbed was literally covered with violets. In such circumstances it would appear rational to assume that the communicating entity consciously manifested itself in different ways to the recipients, in order to necessarily conform to their personal idiosyncrasies, i.e., that it manifested itself in an objective form to the person of the "visual type", that it transmitted a greeting to the person of the "auditory type" and generated an olfactory sensation for the person whose "path of least resistance" in order to impress him was the olfactory sense. The incident that makes this explanatory variant rational is the phrase of greeting perceived by the "auditory type" person, a phrase of greeting that could hardly be considered to have originated in the transit from the subconscious to the conscious of a single telepathic impulse, whereas everything would be clarified by assuming that the phrase in question had been conceived and transmitted by the communicating entity. Returning to the case referred to above, I note in it a factual circumstance that complicates the theoretical interpretation, and that is that the little dog Bonika had died in the arms of his own mistress; which leads one to presume that for the dying animal there should not have existed any emotional reasons that would have drawn him to turn his thoughts to the other familiar person who had remained at home, thus determining a telepathic phenomenon. This being so, we should conclude that it is very probable that the same thing occurs in the case of animals as in many cases of human beings, in which the dying person brings about telepathic manifestations merely by turning his thoughts in regret to the distant environment in which he has lived so long and happily. I observe, however, that, in the case of human beings, there is another explanation, not a telepathic one, but a spiritic one, namely, that it must be supposed that, under special circumstances, the spirit of the deceased, not so quickly freed from the bonds of the body, returns to the environment in which he lived, and attempts every means at his disposal to make his presence known to his relatives. As for the luminous phenomenon perceived by the woman who carried Bonika in her arms at the moment of death, it does not concern the manifestations considered here, although, from another point of view, it does not fail to appear interesting and suggestive, taking into account that similar manifestations sometimes occur at the deathbed of human creatures.