take it for granted that the kickings up of the bedclothes during which
Sanders became weak and faint, lasted ten minutes or more. "Being fanned
as though some bird were flying round my head," arose from his own breath
after his efforts; he felt it the more as he had got warm.[29] The sound
of breathing may have been of his own, but is not unlikely to have been
the transferred sound of the breathing of one of two people hypnotising
him. The feeling of the bed being carried round (or moved) towards the
window is a feeling of reaction: a man sticks his back against the bed to
resist the material and mental pressure, and the relief felt as the
effort ceases gives him the impression that the bed has been swung
towards the window, towards which he naturally looks, since the slight
draught refreshes him and diverts the attack. That he actually felt some
one making passes over him is not an error; he had two antagonists; one
of whom, like the young engineer Cleave,[30] was hypnotised by the other,
both willing the hypnotism of Sanders.
[Footnote 29: "Alleged Haunting," p. 46.]
[Footnote 30: "Osgood Mason," p. 234.]
He felt the passes the stronger antagonist was making over the other. If
one of the two people can obtain return messages like Mr. Godfrey,
intimate knowledge of his victim's doings might soon be obtained. A ghost
appeared to young H. in the shape of a veiled lady; perhaps the mist
round her was taken for a veil. But to return to the action of two
hypnotists on one person, it may be noted that the sound like the giving
of a tin box heard by Miss Moore, Miss Freer, and Miss Langton,[31] and
afterwards like the lid of a coalscuttle caught by a dress by Mrs.
M.,[32] was the sound of a gong doubtless used to stimulate the
hypnotised partner in the blackguard couple. Such a sound done with a
little spring gong, or with a larger one, has been heard by a victim.
[Footnote 31: "Haunting of B---- House," p. 155.]
[Footnote 32: "Haunting of B---- House," p. 173.]
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