PSYCHIC PHENOMENA.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18947, 17 May 1933, Page 9

PSYCHIC PHENOMENA.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —The mother’s dreams in connection with the tragic murder incident recorded in the Waikato Times supplement on Saturday last seem to come within the scope of psychic phenomena, and will, I think, create much interest to many of your readers. Thirty years ago i was keenly interested in reading Professor Hudson's “I,aw of Psychic Phenomena." and the personal experience of a friend of

mine should interest many of your readers. I met my friend in Dunedin 35 years ago. He was a rabid 'freethinker. I-Ie left Dunedin, and I lost sight of him for some years, and then met him Ira Wellington. He was insistent that I went to his room to be told of a wonderful change in his life. Briefly the following was his story: "You know what a rabid opponent I was of all spiritual matters. Well, I went to Sydney, and on the boat met some charming people who wero spiritualists. When we got to Sydney they would have me go and stay with them, and treated me with great kindness. Eventually, out of sheer courtesy, I went to a seance with them. The usual form was carried out, with a materialising medium in control. When a vision appeared at the back of the small hall I got a shock,, hut when, in response to my words, ‘ls it 1?" the vision bowed its head. I nearly fell off my chair —I was so disturbed. The medium told me it was the spirit of my dead brother, who wished to" communicate, and then recounted incidents' in the life of my brother when alive, and incidents in my own life, that were not known to anyone hut myself. I was converted to spiritism, and was never so happy In my life." • That was my friend’s story. I was reading Hudson’s "Law of Psychic Phenomena" at the time, and he gives an explanation of such phenomena which seems reasonable, but I had not the heart to put It. to my friend, who was so happy in his faith in spiritism. Professor Hudson says: "We have —or seem to have—two minds, the objective and the subjcetlvo. The

objeotlve intelligence takes cognisance of Its surroundings by means of the five physical senses, but the subjective intelligence, by Intuition, or super-normal qualities, and that the subjective Intelligence has the capacity of communicating with the subjective Intelligence of another person, Independent of our objeotlve knowledge." This of oourse Is an attempt to explain on natural grounds some of the phenomena of spiritualism, and in view of the known facts of radio and wireless telegraphy Hudson’s claim does not- seem unreasonable. Ho is quite frank and fair, and admits that much of the phenomena of spiritualism cannot as yet be explained on what may be termed natural grounds, but states: “That we have no logical or scientific right to attribute any phenomena to supernatural agency when cognate phenomena can be explained by reference to known natural laws.” Although 1 have a perfectly open mind on the whole subject I must admit that when I listened to Dr. Peebles lecture in Dunedin many years ago, and he kept on repealing, ‘Don’t quote Hudson to me,’ 1 lost interest in his lecture. May I now record an incident that even Professor Hudson would have found difficult to explain, as lie did incidents as the one associated with my friend— Fifty years ago the mother of a sea captain I knew died while her son was on a voyage. On his return he told how he woke suddenly and saw a vision of his mother at the end of his bed. He was so impressed tbit he got out of bed and worked out the exact time in England when his mother’s vision appeared to him, and

on his return discovered that the time of his mother's death in England corresponded with that moment. —I am, etc., JOHN SYKES. Hamilton, May 15, 1933.