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Ernesto Bozzano - Psychic phenomena at the moment of death [110 cases suggesting survival after death]

First category - Cases in which the apparitions of the deceased are perceived solely by the dying person, and relate to persons whose death he knew.

I finish this first category of cases by quoting an episode that can be considered exceptional, because of the absolutely unusual duration of visions and paranormal conversations on the deathbed. It deserves, from this point of view, to be examined separately.

25-th case. - It is from the Journal of The American S.P.R. (1919, pages 375-391). It is the moving story of a sick girl who, in her last three days of life, sees her dead little brother and other spiritual entities and talks with them, while she sees fugitive visions of the beyond. Unfortunately, the story occupies seventeen pages of the Journal in question, therefore I will have to limit myself to a few quotes. The girl's father was Rev. David Anderson Dryden, missionary of the Methodist Church. It was his wife who gathered what the child said, during the last days of her life. After the girl’s death, her mother’s notes were published in a pamphlet, to bring comfort to some suffering soul. The child's name was Daisy. She was born in Marysville, California on September 9, 1854. She died in San Jose, California on October 8, 1864. She was then ten years old.

What is quite remarkable in the case of Daisy is the unaccustomed duration, and yet, the extraordinary lucidity of her visions and revelations. She had time to get acquainted with the wonders she saw and heard.

Having fallen ill from typhoid fever, she had a presentiment of own end, despite the favorable prognosis of doctors. Three days before her death, she became clairvoyant. When asked if she would return she said "that she hoped to return sometimes to console them” adding "I'll ask Allie if it's possible." Allie was her little brother, who had died seven months before of scarlet fever.

After a while, she added: "Allie says it's possible and I can come back sometimes, but you will not know I'm here; I will be able, however, to chat with your thoughts."

I extract this passage from the notes taken by the mother:

Two days before Daisy left us, the school director came to visit her. She spoke to him freely about her imminent departure and sent a sincere farewell to her school friends. Before leaving, he quoted a rather obscure Bible sentence to her:

"My good Daisy," he said, "you are about to pass the great dark river."

When he had left, she asked her father what the Headmaster had meant by these words: "the great dark river".

Her father tried to explain the meaning to her, but she replied: "What a mistake! There is no river to ford, no curtain of separation. There is not even one line of distinction between this life and the other".

She held her little hand out of the sheets, saying with an appropriate sign: "The Hereafter is here; I know that it is so, since I see you at the same time as the spirits." We asked her to describe the afterlife; she then observed:  "I cannot describe it, it is too different from our world and I will not be able to make myself understood."

While I was sitting next to her bed, her hand squeezed mine and, looking in my eyes, she said to me: "My dear mother, I wish you could see Allie, who is near you." Instinctively, I looked around, but Daisy continued: "He says you cannot see him, because your spiritual eyes are closed, but I can, because my mind is now bound to the body by a very weak thread of life."

I asked, "Did he tell you that right now?"

“- Yes, right now. “

I said to her: "Daisy, how do you go about talking to Allie? I do not hear you speak and you do not move your lips."

She smiled, saying: "We chat with thought."

I then asked: "In what form does our Allie appear to you? Do you see him dressed?"

And she: "Oh! no, he is not exactly dressed as we are; it looks like he has his body wrapped in something very white, which is wonderful. If you could see how thin, light, resplendent this coat is; and how white he is! And yet, there are no folds, no signs of sewing, which proves that it is not a garment. All the same, it suits him so well!"

Her father quoted the following verse from the psalms: "He is clothed with light."

"Oh! yes, really so," she replied.

She was very fond of her sister Loulou singing for her, especially pieces from the book of religious hymns. At a certain moment when Loulou was singing a hymn in which winged angels were talking, Daisy exclaimed: "Oh! Loulou, isn't it strange;Oh! Loulou, isn't it strange; we always thought that angels had wings; but it is a mistake, they have none at all"

Loulou remarked: "But they must have some to fly in heaven." Daisy replied:

 "They do not fly; they transport. You see, when I think of Allie, he feels it and he is here immediately."

Another time I asked: "How do you see the angels?"

She replied: "I do not always see them; but when I see them, it seems as if the walls of the room disappear and my vision reaches an infinite distance; the spirits I see then are innumerable. There are some who approach me; they are the ones I knew in life; the others I have never seen."

On the morning of the day of her death, she asked me to give her a mirror. I hesitated, fearing she was impressed by the appearance of her emaciated face. But her father said: "Let her contemplate her poor little face, if she has the desire."

I handed her the mirror and she was looking at her image for a long time with a calm but sad expression. Then she said:

 "My body is now worn; it looks like mama's old dress, tied up in the closet. She no longer wears it, and I will not be long in wearing my clothes. But I have a spiritual body that will replace it, I already have it on me. It is with spiritual eyes that I see the spiritual world, although my earthly body is still bound to the spirit. You will deposit my body in the tomb, because I will not need it anymore; it was made for life here; it is over, so it is natural that we put it aside. But I will put on another body much more beautiful and similar to that of Allie. Mama, do not cry; if I leave soon, it's in my interest. If I had grown up, I might have become a wicked woman, like so many others, and only God knows what's right for us."

She then asked: "Mama, open the window for me; I want to contemplate for the last time my beautiful world. Before the dawn of tomorrow appears, I will end my existence."

I fulfilled her desire and, turning to her father, she said: "Papa, lift me up a bit." And then, supported by her father, she looked through the open window, exclaiming:

"Farewell, my fair heaven! Goodbye, my trees! Farewell flowers! Goodbye, sweet little roses! Farewell, little red eglantines! Farewell, goodbye, my beautiful world!"

She added: "I still like it, and yet, I do not wish to remain."

On the same evening, at half-past eight, she looked at the clock and said:

"It is half-past eight; when it's eleven-thirty, Allie will pick me up."

She let her head rest on her father's shoulder, saying: "Papa, that's how I'd like to die! When the time comes, I'll let you know."

At a quarter past eleven she said: "Papa, lift me up. Allie has come to get me."

When she had resumed the desired position, she asked for singing.

Someone said: "Let's go call Loulou"; but Daisy remarked: "No, do not disturb her, she sleeps."

And then, just as the clock was ticking at half-past eleven - the expected time for departure - she held her arms up, saying: "I'm coming, Allie," and stopped breathing.

His father put this little inanimate body back in her bed, saying: "Our dear child is gone; she has ceased suffering."

A solemn silence reigned in the room, but no one cried.

Why to cry?

On the contrary, we had to thank the Supreme Father for the teachings he had kindly given us by means of a child, in these three days consecrated to the glory of heaven. And while we were looking at the figure of the little dead girl, we felt that the room was filled with angels who came to comfort us; a very sweet peace descended into our minds, as if the angels repeated:

"She is not here, she is resuscitated!"

Professor Hyslop entered into correspondence with the sister of the little seer, Mrs. Loulou Dryden, who confirmed the scrupulous veracity of the facts set forth in their mother's diary and authorized her to reprint them in her journal.

I regret not being able to reproduce the entire story in question.

In this episode, besides the exceptional prolongation of the paranormal visions with complete absence of delirium until the last moment, it should be noted that the observations of the seer on the spiritual world agree admirably with the spiritist doctrine - and all this through a girl absolutely ignorant of the very existence of this doctrine.

Who then suggested them to her?

Certainly not her parents, by means of a transmission of thoughts, since they were as ignorant as their daughter of the spiritist doctrines which, in 1864, had scarcely hatched.

How, then, did she manage to conceive by herself so many transcendental truths diametrically opposed to those learned with the religion of her father? How could she spontaneously formulate profound conceptions such as those implied in the assertions that "the hereafter is beyond it"?

That there are no lines of demarcation between the sojourn of men and that of spirits? That the people connect to each other by thought? That they telepathically perceive a thought, that the living turn towards them and come at once, without limits of distance? That spirits do not fly, but transport themselves? That the deceased come back to see the people they love, but that their presence is generally ignored, although they cause with their thought (or their subconsciousness)? That a man has a spiritual body?

That the spiritual world is so different from ours, that we cannot describe it, because we would not be able to make ourselves understood?

Frankly, let us agree that in all of this, the hallucinatory, self-serving, and telepathic assumptions play no role.

It follows that the visions of the little Daisy can only be explained by admitting that her observations were made objectively and that she reported explanations communicated to her by a third party, in accordance with what she affirmed besides.