Lastly,
"the stories may frighten children". For children the book is not
written, any more than if it were a treatise on comparative anatomy.
The author has frequently been asked, both publicly and privately:
"Do you believe in ghosts?" One can only answer: "How do you define
a ghost?" I do believe, with all students of human nature, in
hallucinations of one, or of several, or even of all the senses. But
as to whether such hallucinations, among the sane, are ever caused by
psychical influences from the minds of others, alive or dead, not
communicated through the ordinary channels of sense, my mind is in a
balance of doubt. It is a question of evidence.
In this collection many stories are given without the real names of
the witnesses. In most of the cases the real names, and their owners,
are well known to myself. In not publishing the names I only take the
common privilege of writers on medicine and psychology. In other
instances the names are known to the managers of the Society for
Psychical Research, who have kindly permitted me to borrow from their
collections.
While this book passed through the press, a long correspondence called
"On the Trail of a Ghost" appeared in The Times.
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