CHAPTER XXII

THE PHANTASMAL DOUBLE

According to Adolphe d'Assier, member of the Bordeaux Academy of Sciences, there is no doubt that the existence of the personality in animals as a separate appearance is established, and as it is a replica of the external form of the animal, he regards it as a living and phantasmal image.[168] He cites the following stories in support of his theory.

"Towards the end of 1869, finding myself at Bordeaux, I met one evening a friend who was going to a magnetic _séance_, and asked me to accompany him. I accepted his invitation, desiring to see magnetism at close quarters. The _séance_ presented nothing remarkable. I was, however, struck with one unexpected circumstance. Towards the middle of the evening one of the persons present, having noticed a spider on the floor, crushed it with his foot.

"'Ah!' cried the medium at the same moment, 'I see the spirit of the spider escaping.'

"In the language of mediums, as we know, the word _spirit_ designates that which I have called the posthumous phantom.

"'What is the form of the spirit?' asked the hypnotiser.

"'It has the form of a spider,' answered the medium.'"

This little incident, which recalls the ghost of a flea pictured by William Blake, the artist, and Dr. Reichenbach's dying mouse, led d'Assier to study the question of the duplication of personality among domestic animals. After some investigation he was sure that the medium's vision of a spirit spider was the reality, and he quotes other examples of phantasmal doubles.

On April 18th, 1705, M. Milanges de la Richardière, son of an advocate to the Parliament of Paris, when riding through Noisy-le-Grand, was surprised when his horse came to a dead stop in the middle of the road. At the same moment he saw a shepherd, of sinister countenance, carrying a crook, and ac