Animal
Ghosts
By Elliott
O'Donnell
PREFACE
If
human beings, with all their vices, have a future life, assuredly
animals, who in character so often equal, nay, excel human beings, have
a future life also.
Those who in the Scriptures find a key to all
things, can find nothing in them to confute this argument. There is no
saying of Christ that justifies one in supposing that man is the only
being, whose existence extends beyond the grave.
Granted, however, merely for the sake of argument,
that we have some ground for the denial of a future existence for
animals, consider the injustice such a denial would involve. Take, for
example, the case of the horse. Harming no one, and without thought of
reward, it toils for man all its life, and when too old to work it is
put to death without even the compensation of a well-earned rest. But if
compensation be God’s law,—as I, for one, believe it to be—and
also the raison d’être of a
hereafter, then surely the Creator, whose chief claim to our respect and
veneration lies in the fact that He is just and merciful, will take good
care that the horse—the gentle, patient, never-complaining horse—is
well compensated—compensated in a golden hereafter.
Consider again, the case of another of our
four-footed friends—the dog; the faithful, affectionate, obedient and
forgiving dog, the dog who is so often called upon to stand all sorts of
rough treatment, and is shot or poisoned, if, provoked beyond endurance,
he at last rounds on his persecutors, and bites. And the cat—the
timid, peaceful cat who is mauled, and all but pulled in two by cruel
children, and beaten to a jelly when in sheer agony and fright it
scratches. Reflect again, on the cow and the sheep, fed only to supply
our wants; shouted at and kicked, if, when nearly scared out of their
senses, they wander off the track; and pole-axed, or done to death in
some equally atrocious manner when the sickening demand for flesh food
is at its height.
And yet, you say, these innocent, unoffending—
and, I say, martyred—animals are to have no future, no compensation.
Monstrous! Absurd! It is an effrontery to common sense, philosophy
anything, everything. It is a damned lie, damned bigotry, damned
nonsense. The whole animal world will live again; and it will be
man—spoilt, presumptuous, degenerate man—who will not participate in
another life, unless he very much improves.
Think well over this,—you who preach the gospel of
man’s pre-eminence;—you who prate of God and know nothing whatsoever
about Him! The horse, dog, cat,—even the wild animals, whose vices,
perchance, pale beside your own, may go to Heaven before you. The
Supreme Architect is neither a Nero, nor a Stuart, nor a clown. He will
recompense all who deserve recompense, be they great or small—biped or
quadruped.
It is to testify to a future existence for animals
and to create a wider interest in it that I have undertaken to compile
this book; and my object, I think, can best be achieved in my own way,
the way of the investigator of haunted places. The mere fact that there
are manifestations of “dead” people (pardon the paradox) proves some
kind of life after death for human beings; and happily the same proof is
available with regard a future life for animals; indeed there are as
many animal phantasms as human—perhaps more; hence, if the human
being lives again, so do his dumb friends.
Be comforted then, you who love your pets, and have
been kind to them. You will see them all again, on the soft undying
pasture lands of your Elysium and theirs.
Be warned, you—you who have despised animals, and
have been cruel to them. Who knows but that, in your future life, you
may be as they are now—in subjection?
* *
*
My
task in writing this book has been considerably lightened by the
extreme courtesy and kindness of Mr. Shirley, Mr. Eveleigh Nash, and the
Proprietors of the Review of
Reviews, in allowing me to make use of extracts and quotations
from their most valuable works.
CONTENTS
PART I
DOMESTIC
ANIMALS AND THEIR ASSOCIATIONS WITH THE UNKNOWN
CHAPTER
I
Cats
The
Black Cat of the Old Manor House, Oxenby—Correspondence re
Cat Phantasms—The Headless Cat of No. —, Lower Seedley Road,
Seedley, Manchester—The Cat on the Post—Mystic Properties of Cats
CHAPTER
II
Dogs
The
Case of James Durham—The Grey Dog of—— House, Birmingham—The Dog
in the Cupboard— How the Ghost of a Dog saved Life—A Precentor’s
Adventure—Phantom Dog seen on Souter Fell— The Jumping Ghost—Dogs
seen before a Death—A Dog scared by a Canine Ghost—The Phantom
Dachshund of W. — Street, London, W.—An ALL Hallow Eve Ghost—The
Strange Disappearance of Mr. Jeremiah Dance—Phantasms of Living
Dogs—The Yellow Dog of K— University—National Ghosts in the form
of Dogs—The Mauthe Doog—Spectral Hounds
CHAPTER
III
Horses and the Unknown
A
Phantom Cavalcade—The Miller on the Grey Horse—A Phantom Horse and
Rider—The White Horse of Eastover—The Afrikander’s Story—Heralds
of Death—Phantom Coach in U.S.A.—A Story from Marseilles—Summary
of Horses—Phantasms of Living Horses—Horses and the Psychic Faculty
of Scent— Phantom Policeman and Horse—Phantom Huntsmen and Horses
CHAPTER
IV
Bulls, Cows, Pigs,
Etc
The
Kirk-grim—Phantasm of a Goat—Phantom Hogs of the Moat
Grange—Sheep—Spectre Flock of Sheep in Germany
PART II
WILD ANIMALS AND THE UNKNOWN
CHAPTER
V
Wild Animals and the Unknown
Animal
Phantasms and the Moon—The Case of Martin Tristram—Phantasms of Cat
and Ape—Hauntings by a White Rabbit—John Wesley’s Ghost—Psychic
Faculty in Hares and Rabbits
CHAPTER
VI
Inhabitants of the Jungle
Elephants,
Lions, Tigers, etc.—The White Tiger—Jungle Animals and Psychic
Faculties
PART III
BIRDS AND THE UNKNOWN
CHAPTER VII
Birds and the Unknown
Case
from Occult Review—Bird
Hauntings in Russia—Hauntings in the Country Church—Capt. Morgan’s
Experiences—Addenda—Old Authorities on Bird Omens
CHAPTER VIII
A BRIEF RETROSPECT
If I
have failed to convince my readers as to the reality of a future
existence for all species of mammalia, I trust I have at least suggested
to them the idea of probability in such a theory; for did the belief
that all animals possess imperishable spirits similar to mankind only
become general, I feel quite sure that a marked improvement in our
treatment of all the so-called “ brute” creation—and God alone
knows how much such an improvement is needed—would speedily result. It
is still only the comparative few who are kind to animals—the majority
are either wholly indifferent or absolutely cruel. But if children
were made to realize that even insects have spirits, they, at least, let
us hope, would cease to take delight in pulling off the wings and legs
of flies.
Man has hitherto entertained the ridiculously
unjustifiable idea that all the animal and insect world has been created
solely for his benefit, to be killed or to be kept alive entirely at his
discretion. Such an absurd and presumptuous belief ought to be exploded
once and for all. The animal world, so all sane people must agree, was
undoubtedly created to lead the same, free, untrammelled life as does
man himself. Man—save in cunning—is nothing superior either to the
dog, horse, or other mammalia; indeed, he is not infrequently so
inferior that one cannot help thinking that possibly the higher
spiritual planes are not for him at all, but for those who—misnamed
the lower creation—have surpassed man in spirituality. Let those who
doubt this study the superphysical all around them. Let them carefully
watch animals, and observe their propensities, their psychic faculties
of scent, sight, and hearing. They can easily test them in any house or
locality which has a well-established reputation for being haunted. They
will then see how close a relationship there really is between the
animal and superphysical worlds. And if they want further proof,—proof
of a more material nature,—let them search around for some spot stated
to be haunted by a ghostly phenomenon in the form of a dog, horse, cat,
or other animal,—and investigate there themselves.
Such investigations have convinced me, and surely,
by using these same methods with patience and perseverance, other people
might also be convinced. At all events, let them try. For, a conviction
like mine—a conviction that an eternity exists for our canine pets and
dumb friends—is certainly worth a lot of striving after. At least so I
think.
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