Spirit Doubles

Spirit Doubles

In January 1865 Charles Good, a member of the Legislative Council of British Columbia, took his place with other members of the Council for a group photograph. It was a routine sitting in all respects but one -at the very moment that Mr. Good was having his photograph taken he was also seen lying in a coma at his home.

Such episodes are not as uncommon as we might imagine. There are so many cases of bilocation (appearing to be in two places simultaneously), doppelgangers (seeing one's own spirit double) and other related phenomena that they cannot be readily dismissed as just mere illusions. There is the possibility that such apparitions may instead be the result of thought-projection, created by an intensity of desire and animated by the will, as are the thought forms created consciously by Tibetan monks as a part of their mental discipline. Understanding such phenomena may go some way towards explaining the nature of the etheric body and ultimately of consciousness.

Bilocation

One of the most revealing and well documented cases of bilocation occurred in France in the 1840's. Emilie Sagee', a young French schoolmistress, was dismissed from no less than 17 schools in just 16 years because it was said that she had an unsettling habit of appearing in two places at once. Whenever she felt tired and her concentration wandered her double would appear - often standing by her side at the blackboard to the astonishment of the entire class. But as soon as her attention was caught by the chattering schoolgirls the apparition vanished. It was as if her thoughts were wandering in the form which had given them life. On a subsequent occasion, Emilie was adjusting a pupil's dress when a girl caught sight of two 'Emilies' staring back at her from the mirror. Not surprising the poor girl fainted.

Another time Emilie was walking with a number of her pupils in the schools grounds when the girls claimed to be able to see her 'double' through the window of the classroom across the lawn. The girls were initially too frightened to approach the apparition, but eventually a couple plucked up sufficient courage to touch it and described it as  feeling like muslin.

Emilie was eventually forced to take early retirement and went to live with her sister-in-law after which the sightings apparently ceased.

Astral Projection

Such sightings might be explained as the projection of the astral body, or spirit double, by someone who is literally 'thinking ahead' and willing themselves to be somewhere else. This would explain why the phenomenon occurs most frequently among people who are ill and whose link with the physical body is weakened as a result. Or those like Emilie who do not appear to be sufficiently 'grounded'. But it does not explain the appearance of an individual's double in solid form. In 1908 two members of the British House of Commons, Sir Carne Rasch and Dr Mark MacDonnell, who had been confined to bed by their doctors were seen on separate occasions to take part in critical debates. Dr MacDonnell's double even cast his vote, although it is not known if it was sufficient to alter the outcome! An even rarer form of the spirit double is known as 'the forerunner' from its apparent ability to precede the individual days or even weeks in advance of their physical appearance. In many cases witnesses claimed to have held conversations with the doubles while the physical person is elsewhere, unaware of what their 'double' is doing on their behalf. A good example of the forerunner occurred in 1955 when New York businessman Erkson Gorique travelled to Norway on business for the first time, only to be greeted as an old valued customer by the clerk of his Oslo hotel. Gorique dismissed it as a case of mistaken identity, even though the clerk had called him by name before Gorique had given it. The next day Gorique's  cynicism was utterly confounded when he called on a prospective customer who told him there had been no need for him to make a second trip to Oslo. The Norwegian assured Gorique that they had met and agreed to terms some two months earlier!

Courtesy of New Age Living
Author: Paul Roland
ISBN 0 600 59768 7