In an era of slow communication, it was entirely possible to not know that a close friend or even family member had died, and Barrett considered visits by the recently dead to be exceptionally strong evidence of an afterlife. A Frenchman named Paul Durocq died of yellow fever while traveling with his family in Venezuela, in 1894. In his last hours, he seemed to be visited by the spirit of a close friend who had died while the Durocqs were away—although they didn’t know that. The Durocqs found his funeral announcement in the mail when they got home.
