WE often hear the phrase “double trouble”, but it is usually referred to an unsavoury incident occurring twice or as far as people are concerned, it is mostly used when talking about a set of naughty twins. But in the more sinister and literal sense, according to mythology and paranormal references, spirit doubles or ‘doppelgangers’ are the exact replica of a living person. Meaning, anyone, like you, your neighbour, the gardener, and I all have another spiritual double, just like the individuals themselves.

The word, doppelganger comes from the German language, meaning, “double goer”. It is supposed to be an entity that is exactly like its living counterpart and has no shadow. According to legends and folklore, seeing one’s own double or “alter ego’ as it is also called, is not considered a good omen. If people saw the double of their relative in a place that he or she was not actually there, it meant that they had seen their spirit double and that particular relative was to meet his death.

According to some beliefs and superstitions, doppelgangers are supposed to be the ‘evil twin’ that suggests and insinuates to its human counterpart to do bad and unlawful things.

This reminds me of the tiny little red-horned creatures in comic books suggesting all kinds of evil tricks or ideas to the real person. One of the most interesting paintings depicting how the effect of one’s own doppelganger has on a person is a painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in 1864, titled “How they met themselves”.

In it, a couple is walking through the woods at twilight and sees their doubles that were glowing strangely. The lady faints at the sight while the man takes out his sword in utter confusion. In addition, many poems of medieval times refer to spirit doubles. While people might wave aside the entire scenario as hallucination, which by the way most people think it is, there is one interesting case to ponder over.

In his book on Abraham Lincoln, Noah Brooks wrote in Washington in Lincoln’s Time (1865), about a most intriguing occurrence. The account read that in 1860, after Lincoln was elected as America’s president, he came home one day and looked in the mirror in his bureau. What Lincoln saw amazed him. He saw himself in double, meaning he saw two of himself in the mirror instead of just one reflection. Moreover, one image had the same face and colour but in the other image, the face seemed much paler.

“A little paler-say five shades paler,” said the narration. The writer also stated that Abraham Lincoln’s wife seemed to be quite worried and interpreted the vision to mean that Lincoln would not finish his second term as president and would die before that.

There are many written accounts in older texts about doubles for example in poems such as Edgar Allen Poe’s William Wilson written in 1839, Hans Christian Anderson’s The Shadow, which by the way is a fairy tale, but not so popular and many other written works. But the legends of spirit doubles are found in very ancient texts also. Ancient Egyptians believed that ‘Ka’ was a person’s double, in fact in the story regarding the Trojan War.

Helen’s ‘Ka’ was used to help stop the war. Norse folklore talks about ‘vardogar’ that are spiritual doubles of individuals and often are seen at places before the actual person is even present.

In Scotland, people from Orkney Islands believe in small mischievous ‘trows’ that change their ill young babies with human newborns who are healthy. The trow babies grow up to look like the human babies, often referred to as ‘changelings’.

Native American myths believe that there is an Upper World and an Under World. While the good people reside in the upper world, their evil doubles live in the underworld. All this double people stuff is too ridiculous for our scientific friends who say that they are nothing but hallucinations. Others say that they are just visions that some people are capable of having and theologians say that there is another parallel universe.

The exact replica-like reflection of ours sometimes referred to as a ‘mirror universe’. Now that theory is quite intriguingly interesting and mysterious by itself. What is this belief in spirit doubles that comes up in folk tales and mythology? Is there another ‘yours truly’ busy writing mystery stories in another dimension perhaps? Personally, as long as one can lead a meaningful and sincere life, who cares?