The word doppelganger has come to have many uses over the years. In modern usage, it’s typically used as a neutral term for a person who holds a strong resemblence to another person. It’s also been used when talking about the idea of an evil twin.
But historically, doppelganger referred to a very strange and particular paranormal phenomenon in which a person encountered a ghostly double of themselves.
This was often considered to be a harbinger of misfortune, with many believing that a run in with one’s doppelganger signified an approaching demise.
One such encounter is found in the stranger story of Emilie Sagée, who seemed to not only meet her doppelganger, but seemed to be chronically haunted by it.
In 1845, 32-year-old Emilie was hired as a teacher at Pensionat von Neuwelcke, a boarding school in present-day Latvia. Although Emilie had only been teaching for sixteen years, this school would be her nineteenth workplace.
By all accounts, Emilie was a hard worker and a wonderful teacher. It seemed a mystery why she had struggled to hold down a job and why she had moved around so often.
But quickly, the problem became clear.
Emilie was teaching a class of seventeen girls when her spectral double first appeared, standing beside her as she wrote on the chalkboard, her back turned to her students. The double seemed to mimic Emilie’s movements and appeared to be visible only to the students, not to Emilie herself.
On another occasion, Emilie had been outside tending to the gardens while a class inside was learning to sew. When the teacher excused herself for a moment, Emilie entered the classroom and took the teacher’s place.
Nothing seemed to be wrong with this picture, until one of the students pointed out that Emilie was, in fact, still in the garden. The students could see her plainly through the windows, tending to the plants, while a second Emilie sat with them in the classroom.
Many such sightings followed. People would see a double of Emilie sitting beside her, seeming to imitate her as it mimicked her movements.
In one notable sighting, Emilie helped a student alter a dress and when the student looked down, she was shocked to see two Emilies working on her gown and immediately fainted on the spot.
The more sightings happened, the more word got around, the bigger the problem became. Soon, staff were worried and parents were complaining. Emilie herself was unable to provide any explanations. Not only did she have no idea what was causing her unusual situation, she wasn’t even aware when it was happening as she never laid eyes on the double herself.
Ultimately, and despite Emilie’s clear talent as a teacher, the school had no choice but to let her go, marking her nineteenth termination.
But what caused Emilie’s identical apparition?
In many of the sightings, the double simply appeared beside Emilie and copied her movements, as if she was simply projecting a second version of herself. Other times, though, the double appeared to move independently, even appearing in different locations.
Speaking out the garden incident, when the double appeared before a class while the real Emilie tended to the gardens, Emilie said that she had considered returning to the classroom that day, but chose instead to remain in the garden, which has been interpreted as evidence that Emilie’s double was somehow acting out her thoughts, or somehow reflecting an alternate universe where she made a different choice.
Notably, it is said that when Emilie’s double would appear, she would become tired and lethargic, only to spring back to her usual energetic self when the double disappeared, implying that the double was indeed a part of her, rather than just an image.
Emilie’s story is an outlier becaue of its chronic nature. Other stories of ghostly doppelgangers tend to be single encounters, whereas Emilie’s double seemed to haunt her constantly for more than a decade.
Perhaps this comes down to the fact that Emilie managed to never lay eyes on her doppelganger. Indeed, this fact may have saved her life, given the legend that encountering one’s double is a sign of impending doom.
The original source for the story of Emilie Sagée is an 1860 book, Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World by Robert Dale-Owen, in which the story is told second hand through a student who claimed to have known Emilie during her time at Pensionat von Neuwelcke, so the story is almost impossible to verify as anything more than hearsay.
The story, however, is certainly creepy and almost two hundred years, it’s certainly got staying power as we’re all still pondering the mystery of Emilie Sagée and her ghostly Doppelganger.
