Note 46 — VII

Could it have been only an apparition? The "census of hallucinations" conducted some ten years since by the Society for Psychical Research evinced the reality of veridical apparitions of deceased persons at or near the time of their death, showing the number of verified cases to be so large as to exclude the supposition of chance hallucination (see Proceedings, August, 1894). Or could it have been a material body suddenly becoming visible in a closed room, as narrated by Luke and John? First-class evidence, if there can be any such for such occurrences, has been exhibited for such phenomena as the passage of solid substances through intervening doors and walls—easy enough, say mathematicians, for a being familiar with the "fourth dimension"—and of the levitation of heavy bodies without physical support. (See Proceedings, January, 1894, and March, 1895.) As to such things scepticism is doubtless in order, but dogmatic contradiction is not. Sub judice lis est.