On pages 216 to 217 of Volume 26 of the Society for Psychical Research, we have the testimony of a Georg Korf who witnessed a person who could do painting while in a trance, and who also seemed to be able to read minds very accurately in such a trance.
"While present last night at your sitting for trance-painting,
this idea suddenly occurred to me : 'If Miss Gentes is clair-
audient and clairvoyant, or even clair-sentient in this peculiar
state, then I should like to get an answer to a question put.'
I then wrote a test-word on a card, which I hid in my waist-
coat-pocket. A few seconds later Miss Gentes paused in her
painting-work and wrote on a sheet of paper put ready to her
hand : 'The wings you may construct ; you yourself will live
to fly ; much else besides, but not here.' Only then I showed
those present the test-word I had written down, without their
seeing it. The word I had written was 'wings,' and I had
asked mentally : 'Shall I attain my purpose with my wings
(living-machine)?' I thus got an exact [and] apposite reply to
a question mentally put, which I herewith truthfully testify to."
This account of "just like reading a book" telepathy in a trance reminds me of the account of Dr. G. de Messimy who reported equally flawless telepathy in someone else who was in a trance.
On pages 218 to 220 of Volume 26 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we have a remarkable account regarding the same Miss Gentes. She suddenly stated on September 26, 1908 at 10:00 AM that her sister, thought by others to be healthy, had died, saying "My sister is dead." She then soon found out that her sister had indeed died in a railway accident, which had occurred on the same day as the premonition of her sister's death. The train accident is listed on a wikipedia.org page as having killed 21 on September 26, 1908.
On page 343 of Volume 15 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we have an account regarding the famous sinking of the Titantic. Shortly after the sinking of the Titantic, while she was busy with some other matter, a Mrs. Henderson saw a vision of a Bessie and Nina "crying and clinging to one another." She says, "They seemed to appear to me in a kind of mist." This Bessie and Nina were relatives of a Mr. Simpson who died in the Titantic sinking. This could be one of the rare cases in which someone reports a kind of telepathic apparition, caused not by the dead but by strong mental or emotional activity of the living. Two other such cases can be read here, and a third case (that of J.M. Russell) can be read here.
On pages 38-39 of Volume 10 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we have an account of a woman who saw a psychic. We read this:
"In February last I called upon Madame Zuleika without making any appointment, but going on a sudden impulse which I put down to spirit guidance, having had many experiences of this before. She told me that my husband was going at once to South Africa, and that I should not see him before he went unless I made a special effort ; that he could not come and see me, as expected, but that I should have to go to him. She warned me that I must be careful to get all papers relating to business and also his will, before he left, as she saw that he would not live out the year. I demurred to this, giving her my reasons, but she said she was sure of the fact, as his 'span was run.' When she said this I felt intuitively that what she predicted would happen at the fall of the year, and pictured November as the time in my mind. Everything came to pass exactly as Madame Zuleika foretold. My husband got sudden orders to proceed to South Africa. I had to rise from a sick bed to go and meet him, and he, although enjoying excellent health until November, died after a short illness early in that month. These facts were told at the time to several relations in confidence, but not to my husband, and they can all bear witness to the exact veracity of this statement."
On page 171 of the same volume, we read of a vision of a child dying by fire, one that tragically came true the next day:
"My husband, Mr. John Polley, gave me, on Thursday morning, May 9th, 1901, an account of a vision of the burning of a child that he had had at a seance at which he had been present on the previous evening of Wednesday, 8th May, 1901. It was not till the evening of Thursday, 9th May, 1901, that I or any other member of our family residing with us knew of the death, through burning, of our little nephew, John Frederick Polley. Mr. Frederick Sinnett visited us on the evening of Thursday, May 9th, 1901, and communicated the sad news to us for the first time."
On pages 124-125 of Volume 13 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, we have a case of a psychic who described the exact status of a missing girl who had drowned. We read this:
"On Wednesday evening Mrs. Titus became entranced, and on being wakened by her husband said if he had let her alone she could have discovered by the morning where the girl was. That night she had two more trances, during which she told her husband that she saw the girl standing on a frost-covered log on the bridge, that her foot slipped and she fell backwards into the water, and that she was lying in a certain place by the bridge, head downwards between two logs, the body covered with mud and brush and one foot projecting with a new rubber shoe on....They told their story and persuaded Mr. Whitney to return to the bridge with them and order the diver to go down at the point indicated by Mrs. Titus. He did so and found the body just in the place and position described. The testimony of the diver, which, as well as that of Mr. Whitney, is given in full detail, shows that the body was found at a depth of about 18 feet in the water ; that the water was so dark that no one could see into it ; and that he himself could see nothing while in the water, but found the body entirely by feeling."
On page 62 of his book Death and Its Mystery: At the Hour of Death by the astronomer Camille Flammarion, we read of a man who apparently had an out-of-body experience at the time of a close brush with death:
"I had a disease of the heart, which is now cured, but which played me some nasty tricks. On one occasion, among others, I remained for a certain time plunged in a lethargy. I heard all my family talking around me, but I was not I : my self was beside me, standing, a white and fluid body; I saw the grief of those who were striving to revive me and I had this thought: 'Of what use is this miserable cast-off skin that they seek to bring to life again?' Nevertheless, perceiving their sadness, a great longing came over me to return to them, — a thing which happened. However, it seems to me that if I had wished it I could have remained in the Beyond; I saw the door to it half open, but cannot say what was behind."
On page 146 of the book On the Threshold of the Unseen by Sir William Barrett we are told by a Hester Travers Smith that she used an ouija board and got a message referring to the death of a Hugh Lane in the sinking of a ship. She said she had no idea that Hugh was on a ship, that the message came on the day word arrived that the Luisitania had sunk, and that she soon found out that Hugh Lane died in the sinking of the Luisitania.
On page 84 of his book Death and Its Mystery: Before Death by the astronomer Camille Flammarion, we read of a man who had a ghastly vision that soon proved true.
"All at once, at three o^clock in the morning, I sat up in my bed, wakened by a frightful nightmare. I saw my comrade, his skull open, breathing his last, bidding me farewell and embracing me. It was horrible! I can still see clearly that frightful vision. I got up terrified, dressed, and waited for day in the hope that the distraction of the coming and going in the streets would drive away the frightful nightmare that obsessed me. At seven o'clock in the morning I set out from my home. They were just coming to tell me that my lamented comrade, Theaubon, while visiting a friend, had, after events that do not concern us here, jumped out of a window and broken his skull, which had caused instant death."
On page 129 of Volume 5 of the Annals of Psychical Science (1907), we have an account of the paranormal that is unlike any I have heard before:
"One day, in the fall of the year 1903, I went into the Roman History Class at school without having looked at my lesson. I was not in the habit of bluffing, so when the teacher called upon me to answer a question I rose to my feet and commenced to say: ' I do not know my lesson today,' when suddenly on the blackboard behind me appeared in red letters the answer to the question. I hesitated, and then read aloud what was written on the board. It proved to be the correct answer. The red letters did not look like chalk, but like ink. This occurred several times during the year but only in this one subject, Roman History."
On page 130 of Volume 7 of the Annals of Psychical Science (1908), we read this fascinating and tragic tale:
"Mrs. Ella Cooper, his mother, who lives in Philadelphia, saw in a dream her son killed by a tramcar in New York. She woke in great agitation and was not able to close her eyes for several hours. W'hen eventually she did go to sleep again the dream was repeated with such striking clearness that Mrs. Cooper, in great excitement, rose and took the first train to New York in order to assure herself that nothing had happened to her son. When she arrived there she took the tramcar from 23rd Street to Broadway. At the point where the tram crosses Seventh Avenue, Mrs. Cooper saw a crowd gathered round a man who had been knocked down by a car. She passed quickly through the crowd and recognized the injured man as her son. She knelt down beside him until he had recovered consciousness and could be removed to the hospital. There is very little hope that the unfortunate man will survive his injuries. Mrs. Cooper says that she has had similar premonitory warnings of former calmnities."
"I had a disease of the heart, which is now cured, but which played me some nasty tricks. On one occasion, among others, I remained for a certain time plunged in a lethargy. I heard all my family talking around me, but I was not I : my self was beside me, standing, a white and fluid body; I saw the grief of those who were striving to revive me and I had this thought: 'Of what use is this miserable cast-off skin that they seek to bring to life again?' Nevertheless, perceiving their sadness, a great longing came over me to return to them, — a thing which happened. However, it seems to me that if I had wished it I could have remained in the Beyond; I saw the door to it half open, but cannot say what was behind."
On page 146 of the book On the Threshold of the Unseen by Sir William Barrett we are told by a Hester Travers Smith that she used an ouija board and got a message referring to the death of a Hugh Lane in the sinking of a ship. She said she had no idea that Hugh was on a ship, that the message came on the day word arrived that the Luisitania had sunk, and that she soon found out that Hugh Lane died in the sinking of the Luisitania.
On page 84 of his book Death and Its Mystery: Before Death by the astronomer Camille Flammarion, we read of a man who had a ghastly vision that soon proved true.
"All at once, at three o^clock in the morning, I sat up in my bed, wakened by a frightful nightmare. I saw my comrade, his skull open, breathing his last, bidding me farewell and embracing me. It was horrible! I can still see clearly that frightful vision. I got up terrified, dressed, and waited for day in the hope that the distraction of the coming and going in the streets would drive away the frightful nightmare that obsessed me. At seven o'clock in the morning I set out from my home. They were just coming to tell me that my lamented comrade, Theaubon, while visiting a friend, had, after events that do not concern us here, jumped out of a window and broken his skull, which had caused instant death."
On page 129 of Volume 5 of the Annals of Psychical Science (1907), we have an account of the paranormal that is unlike any I have heard before:
"One day, in the fall of the year 1903, I went into the Roman History Class at school without having looked at my lesson. I was not in the habit of bluffing, so when the teacher called upon me to answer a question I rose to my feet and commenced to say: ' I do not know my lesson today,' when suddenly on the blackboard behind me appeared in red letters the answer to the question. I hesitated, and then read aloud what was written on the board. It proved to be the correct answer. The red letters did not look like chalk, but like ink. This occurred several times during the year but only in this one subject, Roman History."
On page 130 of Volume 7 of the Annals of Psychical Science (1908), we read this fascinating and tragic tale:
"Mrs. Ella Cooper, his mother, who lives in Philadelphia, saw in a dream her son killed by a tramcar in New York. She woke in great agitation and was not able to close her eyes for several hours. W'hen eventually she did go to sleep again the dream was repeated with such striking clearness that Mrs. Cooper, in great excitement, rose and took the first train to New York in order to assure herself that nothing had happened to her son. When she arrived there she took the tramcar from 23rd Street to Broadway. At the point where the tram crosses Seventh Avenue, Mrs. Cooper saw a crowd gathered round a man who had been knocked down by a car. She passed quickly through the crowd and recognized the injured man as her son. She knelt down beside him until he had recovered consciousness and could be removed to the hospital. There is very little hope that the unfortunate man will survive his injuries. Mrs. Cooper says that she has had similar premonitory warnings of former calmnities."
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