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Ghosts I Have Seen and Other Psychic Experiences
In the present one lives no longer from day to day, but from hour to hour, and even a fleeting memory of the joys that are no more refreshes the soul—wearied, and fainting with a pallid anxiety that wraith-like envelops the whole being in a thrall of sadness.
273 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1919
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About the author
Violet Tweedale
26 booksViolet Tweedale, née Chambers (1862 – 10 December 1936, was a Scottish author, poet, and spiritualist.
She was a prolific writer of short stories, published as anthologies, and novels, often with a romantic or supernatural theme. She wrote over 30 books on spiritual subjects, such as The Cosmic Christ (1930), and her own personal psychic experiences were documented in Ghosts I Have Seen (1920).
Source: Wikipedia
She was a prolific writer of short stories, published as anthologies, and novels, often with a romantic or supernatural theme. She wrote over 30 books on spiritual subjects, such as The Cosmic Christ (1930), and her own personal psychic experiences were documented in Ghosts I Have Seen (1920).
Source: Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 1, 2020
As a physician by trade, I can't help but wonder if Mrs. Tweedale suffered from hypnopompic hallucinations, where REM brain patterns remain too long after one has awoken from sleep. Why do I say this? Read on!
But first, I want to emphasize to the lover of ghostly tales who may be interested in this classic of the supernatural what other reviews have already said--that this book is of two natures. On one hand it is a series of anecdotes told to the author by her vast collection of upper-class friends and aristocrat acquaintances of supernatural phenomena they have witnessed, as well of Mrs. Tweedale's own numerous examples of getting spooked in creepy bedrooms and castles. On the other, it is a remarkably thoughtful book on metaphysics and theosophy. The tonal shifts can be quite jarring.
Tweedale is a very masterful spinner of ghost stories--she would have made a fine horror writer in her own right, as she knows how to capture the "uncanny valley" so necessary to make the genre effective. A seemingly normal room just doesn't feel right somehow. A closer look at an attractive woman taking a stroll through the countryside reveals out-of-date clothes and no face beneath the hood of the bonnet. A well-bred man keeps an intense and unnerving stare fixed at you the whole time he glides silently sideways out of the room.
Regarding the more philosophical waxings in this journal, Tweedale can make some persuasive arguments about how so many religions of the world all carry amazing similarities and thus hold universal truths about the afterlife. Influenced by Darwinism, she asserts her belief that the soul is ever-evolving through animal and finally human mortal coil. This is why, she says, some people seem to be very wise for their age, for they are literally "old souls." The soul advances by the incorporation of the Divine Light of Love. Love combined with knowledge is wisdom, for example. This is all very interesting, but doesn't necessarily explain the phenomena that she writes about with so much relish. If the soul is reincarnated, what are these dead people doing scaring folks out of a good night's sleep?
Furthermore, her philosophy opens the way for some unintentional elitism on her part, though I can gather by her writing and from her history that she, despite her upper-class upbringing and surroundings, was a bit of an outsider and did not have a snobby bone in her body. But she does not merely say that the mark of a highly evolved soul is how well they have shaken off their passions and foibles as representative of how folks live a virtuous life. Instead, she explains away social class as the result of the evolution of the soul. The horrors of poverty, addiction, prostitution, child labor, slavery, and debauchery are primarily problems of the lower class that consist of people whose souls are at less advanced evolutionary stages. But what about people who have lived in poverty like the yogis or even Jesus Christ of whom she gives repeated reverence? And what about the passions of the elite who hold slaves or who themselves are slaves to their own addictions? I certainly have met very immature souls who hold high positions of power and wealth in my own political life.
So this is where some of this book may come across as boring and elitist to readers, but I still found it immensely fascinating as a character study of an amazing woman and a insider's peek at Victorian and Edwardian life. I would have loved to have lived in those times and associated with the likes of Tweedale, visiting old castles and exploring the mysteries of legacy. There's just something exciting about the idea of living in a real house so huge that entire wings have been closed off for centuries, and where bones can be found in secret passageways and dungeons, suggestive of forgotten tragedies.
As Tweedale herself says, "I have never yet met any one who was not interested in haunted houses. Even the most blatant skeptic always wants to 'hear all about it...'"
Apart from the ghost stories, I was tickled by the Edwardian pop culture references, which were fun to read about with 21st Century eyes. For example, I was intrigued at the idea that the French religious mystic Claire Ferchaud, dubbed "The New Joan of Arc," was supposed to have her prophecies fulfilled and thus be relieved of her earthly life in 1922. Well, she didn't die until 1972, but what's 50 years to God anyway? I also loved her implication that the now famous Arthur Machen novella, "The Great God Pan," was a product of some late 19th Century mass hysteria of the collective subconscious, where every Anglican writer, including herself, had some inexplicable compulsion to write about the minor mythological figure.
"But Warren, you mad High Priest of the Psyche," I hear you cry, "what about Mrs. Tweedale's hallucinations?"
Oh yes, well, you will notice if you read this book that many of her experiences with ghosts take place in a bedroom. Awakening from sleep, she first hears an uncanny sound, perhaps paper rustling or the sound of a dog shuffling across the carpet. Then a vision of a humanoid form appears at the foot of the bed. She thinks to cry out but she does not. She does not move from her spot until the spectre vanishes. Often, she goes back to sleep.
I don't know about you, but if I woke up and found some weird dude was in my house, I'd either make a lot of noise or kick the stuffing out of him. But if I were in a hypnopompic hallucinatory state, whether from narcolepsy, sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, or other sleep disorder, I wouldn't be able to do either. The brain effectively paralyzes the body during REM to prevent you from acting out in your dreams, which can cause injury (and does in disorders of sleep paralysis like somnambulism, but that's another story). Folks who frequently wake up while still in the throws of dream sleep will experience paralysis and superimposed dream imagery on their environment.
So that's my theory on some of Violet Tweedale's experiences, though there are MANY to be found here, and not necessarily all have a cozy explanation, unless you believe she made all these stories up.
But whether or not you are a believer in the afterlife or a sceptic, I hope you enjoy having a visit with Mrs. Tweedale in her interesting world, and not blame me afterwards for sleeping with one eye open.
But first, I want to emphasize to the lover of ghostly tales who may be interested in this classic of the supernatural what other reviews have already said--that this book is of two natures. On one hand it is a series of anecdotes told to the author by her vast collection of upper-class friends and aristocrat acquaintances of supernatural phenomena they have witnessed, as well of Mrs. Tweedale's own numerous examples of getting spooked in creepy bedrooms and castles. On the other, it is a remarkably thoughtful book on metaphysics and theosophy. The tonal shifts can be quite jarring.
Tweedale is a very masterful spinner of ghost stories--she would have made a fine horror writer in her own right, as she knows how to capture the "uncanny valley" so necessary to make the genre effective. A seemingly normal room just doesn't feel right somehow. A closer look at an attractive woman taking a stroll through the countryside reveals out-of-date clothes and no face beneath the hood of the bonnet. A well-bred man keeps an intense and unnerving stare fixed at you the whole time he glides silently sideways out of the room.
Regarding the more philosophical waxings in this journal, Tweedale can make some persuasive arguments about how so many religions of the world all carry amazing similarities and thus hold universal truths about the afterlife. Influenced by Darwinism, she asserts her belief that the soul is ever-evolving through animal and finally human mortal coil. This is why, she says, some people seem to be very wise for their age, for they are literally "old souls." The soul advances by the incorporation of the Divine Light of Love. Love combined with knowledge is wisdom, for example. This is all very interesting, but doesn't necessarily explain the phenomena that she writes about with so much relish. If the soul is reincarnated, what are these dead people doing scaring folks out of a good night's sleep?
Furthermore, her philosophy opens the way for some unintentional elitism on her part, though I can gather by her writing and from her history that she, despite her upper-class upbringing and surroundings, was a bit of an outsider and did not have a snobby bone in her body. But she does not merely say that the mark of a highly evolved soul is how well they have shaken off their passions and foibles as representative of how folks live a virtuous life. Instead, she explains away social class as the result of the evolution of the soul. The horrors of poverty, addiction, prostitution, child labor, slavery, and debauchery are primarily problems of the lower class that consist of people whose souls are at less advanced evolutionary stages. But what about people who have lived in poverty like the yogis or even Jesus Christ of whom she gives repeated reverence? And what about the passions of the elite who hold slaves or who themselves are slaves to their own addictions? I certainly have met very immature souls who hold high positions of power and wealth in my own political life.
So this is where some of this book may come across as boring and elitist to readers, but I still found it immensely fascinating as a character study of an amazing woman and a insider's peek at Victorian and Edwardian life. I would have loved to have lived in those times and associated with the likes of Tweedale, visiting old castles and exploring the mysteries of legacy. There's just something exciting about the idea of living in a real house so huge that entire wings have been closed off for centuries, and where bones can be found in secret passageways and dungeons, suggestive of forgotten tragedies.
As Tweedale herself says, "I have never yet met any one who was not interested in haunted houses. Even the most blatant skeptic always wants to 'hear all about it...'"
Apart from the ghost stories, I was tickled by the Edwardian pop culture references, which were fun to read about with 21st Century eyes. For example, I was intrigued at the idea that the French religious mystic Claire Ferchaud, dubbed "The New Joan of Arc," was supposed to have her prophecies fulfilled and thus be relieved of her earthly life in 1922. Well, she didn't die until 1972, but what's 50 years to God anyway? I also loved her implication that the now famous Arthur Machen novella, "The Great God Pan," was a product of some late 19th Century mass hysteria of the collective subconscious, where every Anglican writer, including herself, had some inexplicable compulsion to write about the minor mythological figure.
"But Warren, you mad High Priest of the Psyche," I hear you cry, "what about Mrs. Tweedale's hallucinations?"
Oh yes, well, you will notice if you read this book that many of her experiences with ghosts take place in a bedroom. Awakening from sleep, she first hears an uncanny sound, perhaps paper rustling or the sound of a dog shuffling across the carpet. Then a vision of a humanoid form appears at the foot of the bed. She thinks to cry out but she does not. She does not move from her spot until the spectre vanishes. Often, she goes back to sleep.
I don't know about you, but if I woke up and found some weird dude was in my house, I'd either make a lot of noise or kick the stuffing out of him. But if I were in a hypnopompic hallucinatory state, whether from narcolepsy, sleep apnea, restless leg syndrome, or other sleep disorder, I wouldn't be able to do either. The brain effectively paralyzes the body during REM to prevent you from acting out in your dreams, which can cause injury (and does in disorders of sleep paralysis like somnambulism, but that's another story). Folks who frequently wake up while still in the throws of dream sleep will experience paralysis and superimposed dream imagery on their environment.
So that's my theory on some of Violet Tweedale's experiences, though there are MANY to be found here, and not necessarily all have a cozy explanation, unless you believe she made all these stories up.
But whether or not you are a believer in the afterlife or a sceptic, I hope you enjoy having a visit with Mrs. Tweedale in her interesting world, and not blame me afterwards for sleeping with one eye open.
September 29, 2020
When it comes to relating ghost stories and other personal paranormal experiences, author Violet Tweedale does a better job than most. However, her classic book, Ghosts I Have Seen and Other Psychic Experiences, may try the patience of readers who are mostly interested in the ghostly encounters she so effectively, though somewhat intermittently, relates.
Frequently departing from her well written ghostly tales, a good half of the book is devoted to the author's sometimes lengthy musings about mysticism and turn of the 20th century Spiritualism. Using often quite flowery prose, she waxes poetical about all sorts of things of a "psychic" nature, from religion to reincarnation, to spirit auras, and so on and so forth.
Many of the ideas Ms. Tweedale meditates upon in the chapters sandwiched in between her paranormal reporting are actually quite profound, while some of her musings are more than a little eccentric, or perhaps even at times, a little odd. Other tangential subjects she expounds upon are simply hard to follow. So naturally, while reading the book, I frequently found myself wishing that she'd just stuck with the good old fashioned art of telling ghost stories.
Unfortunately, the rather dualistic nature of the book makes it a bit of a mixed bag. It seems to lack cohesion and is at times like reading the work of two different authors. More than anything however, I would lay odds that, upon finishing the original manuscript, Ms. Tweedale simply found it to be a bit too short for her liking, and then decided to flesh it out by including more than just her paranormal experiences.
The weaker bits of the book are actually really a shame, because the author herself comes off as being an extremely amiable and highly interesting person. When reading her quite chilling and always fascinating paranormal encounters, I found myself really enjoying her narrative style. Quite simply; she is someone I would have loved to have known on a personal basis. I mean, the woman was Scottish, for goodness sake! And since I have a wee bit of that in my own bloodline, I really felt at home with her decidedly Celtic sense of wonder at everything and anything mystical or otherwise supernatural in the world at large.
All in all, I enjoyed reading this book immensely, but would be quite remiss if I failed to mention its weaker points. Ghosts I Have Seen is more or less an uneven work, and is at times a bit tedious - although most of the less interesting parts are easy enough to plod on through, and the ghost stories are simply delightful.
So, if you're only interested in reading ghost stories, and could care less about the author's opinion about almost everything else of a vaguely "psychic" nature, you may want to either arm yourself with an ample supply of patience while reading this book, or... simply choose another title altogether. For me however, the book was mostly time well spent, and Violet Tweedale is an author I am quite pleased that I took the time to get to know in the classic literary sense. To be sure, if there really is a "Great Beyond" (and in concurrence with Ms. Tweedale, I'm pretty darned sure there is), one could do a lot worse than to run into her, before or after slipping beyond "the Great Veil."
Frequently departing from her well written ghostly tales, a good half of the book is devoted to the author's sometimes lengthy musings about mysticism and turn of the 20th century Spiritualism. Using often quite flowery prose, she waxes poetical about all sorts of things of a "psychic" nature, from religion to reincarnation, to spirit auras, and so on and so forth.
Many of the ideas Ms. Tweedale meditates upon in the chapters sandwiched in between her paranormal reporting are actually quite profound, while some of her musings are more than a little eccentric, or perhaps even at times, a little odd. Other tangential subjects she expounds upon are simply hard to follow. So naturally, while reading the book, I frequently found myself wishing that she'd just stuck with the good old fashioned art of telling ghost stories.
Unfortunately, the rather dualistic nature of the book makes it a bit of a mixed bag. It seems to lack cohesion and is at times like reading the work of two different authors. More than anything however, I would lay odds that, upon finishing the original manuscript, Ms. Tweedale simply found it to be a bit too short for her liking, and then decided to flesh it out by including more than just her paranormal experiences.
The weaker bits of the book are actually really a shame, because the author herself comes off as being an extremely amiable and highly interesting person. When reading her quite chilling and always fascinating paranormal encounters, I found myself really enjoying her narrative style. Quite simply; she is someone I would have loved to have known on a personal basis. I mean, the woman was Scottish, for goodness sake! And since I have a wee bit of that in my own bloodline, I really felt at home with her decidedly Celtic sense of wonder at everything and anything mystical or otherwise supernatural in the world at large.
All in all, I enjoyed reading this book immensely, but would be quite remiss if I failed to mention its weaker points. Ghosts I Have Seen is more or less an uneven work, and is at times a bit tedious - although most of the less interesting parts are easy enough to plod on through, and the ghost stories are simply delightful.
So, if you're only interested in reading ghost stories, and could care less about the author's opinion about almost everything else of a vaguely "psychic" nature, you may want to either arm yourself with an ample supply of patience while reading this book, or... simply choose another title altogether. For me however, the book was mostly time well spent, and Violet Tweedale is an author I am quite pleased that I took the time to get to know in the classic literary sense. To be sure, if there really is a "Great Beyond" (and in concurrence with Ms. Tweedale, I'm pretty darned sure there is), one could do a lot worse than to run into her, before or after slipping beyond "the Great Veil."
May 17, 2016
Fascinating
I enjoyed reading this book, the fact that it was written over a hundred years ago made it all the more interesting for me. The author discusses all things spiritual, and describes many ghostly encounters that she has had. I enjoyed the very olden times feeling the book gave you. The author has a sure unshakeable belief in the afterlife which comes across very clearly. I would recommend.
I enjoyed reading this book, the fact that it was written over a hundred years ago made it all the more interesting for me. The author discusses all things spiritual, and describes many ghostly encounters that she has had. I enjoyed the very olden times feeling the book gave you. The author has a sure unshakeable belief in the afterlife which comes across very clearly. I would recommend.
January 22, 2018
Mystery Opinion
I think this book is a very intelligently and professionally done well. There is ghost experiences and some other mysterious experiences in the book. This book is brings out questions, and wonders about the mortal life that it's incredible. The book also explain some things that is interesting. This is the sort of book that may interest some people. This is a well done and wonderful book. I recommended this book to people who likes to read about ghost and some other mysterious unusual things. Thank you to the author.
I think this book is a very intelligently and professionally done well. There is ghost experiences and some other mysterious experiences in the book. This book is brings out questions, and wonders about the mortal life that it's incredible. The book also explain some things that is interesting. This is the sort of book that may interest some people. This is a well done and wonderful book. I recommended this book to people who likes to read about ghost and some other mysterious unusual things. Thank you to the author.
February 19, 2020
Boring book
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews