Sidney Dickinson - True Tales of the Weird

It is a pleasure to testify that the MS. of this volume of stories has been submitted with abundant testimonies from the individuals who knew their author and his facts at first hand, to the American Society for Psychical Research for approval or disapproval.

No more interesting or better attested phenomena of the kind have come to our attention, and we have asked that a copy of the MS. be filed permanently in the Society's archives for preservation from loss. These accounts by Mr. Dickinson bear internal evidence to their true psychic origin and to the trained observer scarcely need corroboration or other external support. They ring true. And they are, in addition, moving human documents, with a strong literary appeal.

This account of striking and peculiar events by Mr. Sidney Dickinson is but the fulfillment of an intention of the writer interrupted by sudden death. Mr. Dickinson had taken careful notes of the happenings described and, being a professional observer and writer, it was inevitable that he should preserve the narrative. He had been slow to prepare it for publication because of the prominent and enabling part played by his wife in the occurrences. After her death, when an increasing interest in the subject had developed, it seemed to Mr. Dickinson that the narrative might be received as he had written it – as a careful and exact account of most remarkable events. In reverence to the memory of his wife and out of respect to the friends concerned he could not present it otherwise to the public.

As the narrative is of some time ago and the principal witnesses are dead or inaccessible the account must stand for itself; the endorsement of the American Society for Physical Research testifies to its intrinsic interest. But the character and personality of the writer is a vital consideration. Mr. Sidney Dickinson was a professional journalist and lecturer. After graduation from Amherst in 1874 he served on the Springfield Republican and the San Francisco Bulletin . Later he was prominent as an art and dramatic critic on the staff of the Boston Journal . After extended study of art in European galleries he lectured before many colleges, universities and art associations. He spent some years in Australia, where many of the events of this account took place. While travelling in Europe and Australia he was correspondent for a number of papers and magazines, including Scribner's Monthly , the New York Times , the Boston Journal , and the Springfield Republican . During a visit to New Zealand he was engaged by the Colonial Government to give lectures on New Zealand in Australia and America.

His work and his associates testify to careful observation and sane judgment. Mr. Dickinson had an unusual memory, a keen sense of accuracy and he was cool and practical rather than emotional or excitable. No one who was much with him in the later days could doubt the entire sincerity of the man. There could have been no ulterior motive as the account itself will show. The narrative was written because he felt that it might well be a contribution of some scientific interest.

These stories are not "founded upon fact"; they are fact. If I may claim any merit for them it is this – they are absolutely and literally true. They seem to me to be unusual even among the mass of literature that has been written upon the subject they illustrate; if they possess any novelty at all it may be found in the fact that the phenomena they describe occurred, for the most part, without invitation, without reference to "conditions," favorable or otherwise, and without mediumistic intervention.

I have written these stories with no purpose to bolster up any theory or to strengthen or weaken any belief, and I must say frankly that, in my opinion, they neither prove nor disprove anything whatsoever. I am not a believer, any more than I am a sceptic, in regard to so-called "Spiritualism," and have consistently held to my non-committal attitude in this matter by refraining, all my life, from consulting a medium or attending a professional séance. In the scientific study of Psychology I have a layman's interest, but even that is curious rather than expectant; – my experience, which I think this book will show to have been considerable, in the observation of occult phenomena has failed to afford me anything like a positive clue to their causes or meaning.

In fact, I have long ago arrived at the opinion that any one who devotes himself to the study of what, for want of a better word, we may call "supernatural" will inevitably and at last find himself landed in an impasse . The first steps in the pursuit are easy, and seductively promise final arrival at the goal – but in every case of which I, at least, have knowledge the course abruptly ends (sometimes sooner, sometimes later) against a wall so high as to be unscalable, not to be broken through, extending to infinity on either hand.

That disembodied spirits can at least make their existence known to us appears to me as a well-approved fact; that they are "forbid to tell the secrets of their prison-house" is my equally firm conviction. I am aware that such an opinion can be only personal, and that it is hopeless to attempt to commend it by satisfactory evidence; those who have had experiences similar to those which I have recorded (and their number is much greater than is generally supposed) will understand how this opinion has been reached – to others it will be inconceivable, as based upon what seems to them impossible.

If what I have written should seem to throw any light, however faint, upon the problem of the Mystery of Existence in whose solution some of the profoundest intellects of the world are at present engaged, my labor will have been worth the while. I submit the results of this labor as a record, with a lively sense of the responsibility I assume by its publication.

This story, as well as the one that immediately follows it, was first related to the late Wilkie Collins, the noted English novelist, with whom I had the good fortune to be acquainted – and who, as all his intimates know, and as those whose knowledge of him is derived from his romances may surmise, was an earnest and careful student of occult phenomena. I placed in his hands all the concurrent data which I could secure, and furnished the names of witnesses to the incidents – which names are now in possession of the publishers of this volume – equipped with which he carried out a thorough personal investigation. The result of this investigation he made known to me, one pleasant spring afternoon, in his study in London.

"During my life," he said, "I have made a considerable study of the supernatural, but the knowledge I have gained is not very definite. Take the matter of apparitions, for instance, to which the two interesting stories you have submitted to me relate: – I have come to regard these as subjective rather than objective phenomena, projections from an excited or stimulated brain, not actual existences. Why, I have seen thousands of ghosts myself! Many a night, after writing until two o'clock in the morning, and fortifying myself for my work with strong coffee, I have had to shoulder them aside as I went upstairs to bed. These apparent presences were nothing to me, since I knew perfectly well that their origin was nowhere else than in my overwrought nerves – and I have come to conclude that most cases of visions of this sort are to be explained by attributing them to a temporary or permanent disorganization of the brain of the percipient. Mind, I do not say all cases – there are many that are not to be set aside so readily. Again, it is not easy to arrive at the facts in any given case; even if the observer is honest, he may not have cultivated the habit of exact statement – moreover, stories are apt to grow by repetition, and a tendency to exaggerate is common to most of us. Now and then, however, I have come upon an account of supernatural visitation which seems an exception to the general run, and upsets my theories; and I must say that, having from time to time investigated at least fifteen hundred such instances, the two stories you have furnished me are of them all the best authenticated."