Observations placeholder

Light (1912, page 324).

Professor Arthur Lovell writes in the following terms to the Editor-in-chief of the journal:

We know of many examples of music perceived near the room, or in the room itself, where a dying person lies. Now I know of one of these episodes, it was communicated to me by one of my students, daughter of a priest of the Scottish Church. I am transcribing for you the passage from the letter that contains the story in question, noting that it was not sent to me for publication, but as confidential information about a fact that, for my student, was absolutely new and inexplicable. She writes:

"My father passed away three weeks ago; this sad event was accompanied by a mysterious incident that I think may interest you; it may be a common occurrence, but I, for one, have never heard of it.

Three months before his death, he suffered a stroke, with loss of speech and diminished consciousness. He was only still able to recognize people. He died one morning, around dawn; I was not present, because my mother had not thought she should call me, for there was no hope that the patient would recover his consciousness.

And this is what happened. At 2 o'clock in the morning, my father died, two minutes later (my mother had looked at the time), we began to hear on the outside of the window (which is on the upper floor of the house) a wonderful song which awakened in my mother the memory of a young singer from the church of Saint Paul. The voice seemed to come out from above and move away into the sky like an echo of music from paradise. Only this time there were three or four voices singing in chorus a triumphal hymn of joy. The singing continued until 2:10 a.m. - that is for eight minutes - then it gradually weakened, until it faded away; my father died out at the same time as the singing.

If my mother had been the only perceiver, I would not have felt that this incident was worth recalling. In short, one could logically have assumed that the tension of mind in which she found herself was the cause for which she would have believed she heard what no human ear had ever heard. But there was also the nurse, who was an exceptionally practical and positive woman.

When the musical performance stopped, she addressed my mother (who would not have wanted to talk to her about what had happened), saying, "So you also heard the angels singing? I noticed that because you looked twice, with surprise, at the window. And if it wasn't the angels, what could it be? I have heard that angels sometimes sing on the death bed of very good people, but this is the first time I have heard the song."

Those are the facts. Now it seems to me that the testimony of this woman, absolutely unrelated to the family, constitutes an excellent proof of the unquestionable objectivity of the music perceived by my mother, whatever explanation can be used to clarify the mystery. It is necessary to exclude in an absolute way the idea that the origin of the music was natural; first, we were in the middle of the night; then our house is in a remote locality, far from any other house and surrounded by a garden, beyond which the countryside extends. Moreover, the sound of this choir did not rise from the ground, but seemed located right in front of the window, that is to say in the air...

Professor Lowell notices:

The passage I transcribed does not need comment. It provides clear and authentic evidence that invisible powers exist and operate around human personalities.