CLAIRVOYANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 171, 21 July 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

CLAIRVOYANCE.

THE VOICE OF THE PROPHET. POWER OF PREVISION. DISTINCTIONS OF TIME. w. .crook es, ai.a. i'i <"jr last article, tyc mw how the ■ 11 Tl 'I■ in certain circumstances, appears 1 1".i n.'-'f'inl 11 ir> ordinary limits of time lr "l -111•• •. .V, regards time it i« to lie "'•'l Mu! '■••rtain pe..pl. ; have the power < ' ['rex i >inn. arid are :ib]e at times to 1 ' I '' •■•"ir.-i- (if event-. Modern re---•areii inr,, t hi- peculiar gift has brought light madv striking facts. In the first pl.ici-, it shows that, prevision is a human faculty, and like all human faculties, subject to error and limitation. j "The clairvoyant," says Dr. Osty, "is ■lie eye hy which lie (that is, the experimenter) -sees I,!;, future—a human eye Mvt.h its marvellous perceptive possibilities and its imperfections." As an illustration of this human limitation, Dr. Osty says, in regard to his own experiments and those of others, "The feeblell.'ss of prevision increases in proportion .is it seeks to define (tracluire) the more "list inet sections ot a. life. Revond a ceria in number of years, only the general direction of a life is revealed, and only certain salient episodes are pointed out." How does tlie medium distinguish past and future, events? Some mediums can make no such distinction. Other sensitives have a keen sense of time relation. I'Vir instance the medium will say, "This " ill . happen almost at once. 1 see it '•lose to \ou." or again. "This will not happen for many' years—l see it at a great distance." A Message of Hope. I will now give one or two examples of prevision.

One of the most striking series of predictions on record, are those made in 1020 l>y a Poli.-h medium (non-profes-sional) Madam Przvbylska, during the I!iisso-I'olish war. The prophecies were made in the presence of certain impec'•iililo witnesses, taken down and immediately dispatched to the headquarters of the Warsaw Psychic Research Society, where they were read to the Committee and then filed. All of them were thus made public and placed on record long before the events transpired, and indeed, at a time when there seemed very little hope of their being fulfilled. Fully to appreciate these stupefying predictions <>ne must read the account of them in detail, but a small sample will indicate their nature.

Message of July 12th ".Minsk. Kowel and Vilna will be taken. Many rich men will be shot. Terrible news will arrive from the country. But all will change in a month. The number or your defenders will increase. July finished your forces will be greater than those of the Bolsheviks. They will invade your lands, Ah, what a terrible calamity! But the troops of Lenin will be dispersed. The great change will come on August loth." Events realised. Minsk, Kowel and Koma were taken in the weeks that followed. Things weTe looking terribly black )or Poland, and Warsaw was in grave peril. But exactly on August 15th, victory changed hands and Warsaw was *>a vcd. Message of July 21st. "A visitor from Paris will bring unforeseen changes. Your patriotism and heroism will make a great impression 011 him. Your forces will be victorious at Kowel and Kovna. An unexpected quarrel will take place between the Bolshevik leaders. You will recover not only your lost lands, but the enemy's cannon and a great quantity of prisoners. A great victory will take place at Vilna and Lida." This message, given when Poland was getting the worst of things, was fulfilled to the letter. After the victory of t he Vistula came the victories of Kowel, kuvna, Vilna and Lida. The debacle of the Bolsheviks was complete. They lost Iho greater part of their artillery and abandoned more than 100,000 prisoners. I .Astounding as these prophecies are,] nevertheless they illustrate the principle suggested, namely, that the medium sees events with increasing clearness as she approaches them. On July 12th she prophesied the turn of the tide 011 August 15tli and victory for Poland. On July 21st she gave fuller details of the victory, the capture of 80l ishcvik arms and prisoners. She also iidds the information about French aid and the discord among the enemy leadits. It need scarcely be said that predictions of this kind are extremely rare. Moreover, most predictions concern not general events, but events occurring in individual lives. Dr. Osty found that in the years preceding the war not one of his Paris sensitives made any prophecy concerning it. Yet many of them predicted to various individuals precisely what happened to them during the war, and gave cxact descriptions of situations in -which tliey subsequently found themselves as a consequence of it. They knew nothing of the war as such, but only those aspects of it that concerned the individual lives into whose future they gnw:d.

Snatched From Death. bike all psychic phenomena, prevision is not confined solely to mediums. Ordinary people may occasionally look into the future. Sometimes, though not often, *ueh prevision may give a warning ngaiiist danger. An interesting and pari icularlv well attested case of this is by Flammarion ("Death." \ol 1). In 1865 a certain musician, Sassaroli, went to live at Santeana, a commune of i>ooo inhabitants. He became conductor of a good band of 34 performers. At his first rehearsal he announced to his astonished hearers that the apartment in rVcli they were would crumble with th«- luct of the house from the roof downwards. He had "seen" the whole hniMing collapse, destroying all in the ruin*. He gave the day aud hour of the catastrophe. His hearers were convulsed. Seeing Sassaroli had become a laughing stock, a friend, to soothe him, had the place examined by architectural experts. They declared its condition perfect. The friend gave Sassaroli the good news with the comment: May von be as long-lived as the solid building of which we speak." The unhappy musician replied that in that case he had only four days to live. Sassaroli wa.-: now a laughing stock in good ear nest. The great day arrived. I he, musicians awaited their madman coll *l ductor. He arrived in such a state ot •citation that he eventually persuaded them to quit the building. Coimnced they dealt with a lunatic, they IWw®

him out into the street, and a few minutes later the whole building, exactly at the hour predicted, crumbled into ruins. A Voice from the Tomb? Clairvoyance concerns not only the living but the dead, and some of the most puzzling cases in psychic research are those implying the seeming influence of a discarnate mind. 1 quote a typical case of this order: — A certain Mr. D had a large mechanical business in Glasgow. He rescued a young man, Kobert MacKenzie, from misery and starvation, and gave him a position in his works, thus earning his undying gratitude. "Let me look towards him at any moment, there was the pale, sympathetic face, and the large, wistful eyes literally yearning towards me as Smike's did towards Nicholas Nickleby." Mr. D- left, Glasgow, and some years later, when he had almost forgotten MacKenzie, one Tuesday morning he had a strange dream. He was in his office, and MacKenzie insisted on speaking to him. '"His face was of an indescribable bluish pale colour, and on his forehead appeared spots that seemed like blots of sweat." He said: "1 am accused of doing what I did not do —I want you to know, because I am innocent—" He repeated: "1 did not do the thing they -said I did." "W T liat?" asked Mr. D—. "Ye'll sune ken," was the retort. A few minutes later his wife burst into the room crying, "Oh, Jauies, Robert MacKenzie has committed suicide!" To which her husband firmly replied, "No, he has not committed suicide" It afterwards transpired that the unfortunate man had not taken his life, but had died through drinking aqua fortis by mistake for whisky. He passed away on Sunday, and Mr. D 's vision came the following Tuesday. Some psychic researchers would explain this pathetic case as a clairvoyant dream on the part of Mr. D . Others would be strongly of the opinion that the dream was influenced by poor MacKenzie's discarnate mind. It is not. surprising that Mr. D himself was strongly of the latter view.