Observations placeholder

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

Third category Cases in which other people, collectively with the dying person, perceive the same ghost of the deceased.

32-nd case. - In November, 1864, I was called to Brighton, where my aunt Mrs. Harriet Pearson was seriously ill ... Her room had three windows and was placed above the living room, I slept with Mrs. Coppinger in the bedroom. Usually one of us spent the night at the bedside. On the night of December 22, 1864, however, she was watched over by Mrs. John Pearson, while we were resting.

The rooms were lit and the door to the patient's room was open. Between 1 am and 2 am, and at a time when Mrs. Coppinger and I were both awake, because the anxiety made us perceive the weak noise coming from the other room, an incident occurred which greatly impressed us. We both saw a woman's face, small, wrapped in an old shawl, with an old-fashioned hat on her head and a wig adorned with three rows of curls.

The apparition had surpassed the threshold of the door which separated the two rooms and had entered that of the patient. Mrs. Coppinger, addressing me, exclaimed: "Emma, have you seen? Get up; it's Aunt Anna! (That was the sick woman's dead sister.)

I answered immediately: "Yes, yes, it was Aunt Anna; it is a sad omen, Aunt Harriet will die in the course of the day." We both got out of bed.

At this moment Mrs. John Pearson rushed into our room and said: "It was Aunt Anna, where did she go?"

To calm her down, I said: "It was probably Elisa who came down to see how her mistress is doing."

At that, Mrs. Coppinger ran upstairs to where she found Elisa deeply asleep; she woke her up and had her dressed, all the rooms were searched, but in vain. Aunt Harriet died that evening, and before she died, she told us that she had seen her sister who had come to call her.

(Signed: Emma M. Pearson, Elisa Quinton, Proceedings of the S.P.R., VI, 21)