Clairvoyance and Occult PowersAtkinson, William Walker
Religion
Clairvoyance and Occult Powers
Atkinson, William Walker
Clairvoyance
In the records of the Society for Psychical Research, the following case
appears, the person reporting it being said to be of good character and
reputation for truthfulness and reliability. The story is as follows: "One
morning in December, 1836, A. had the following dream, or he would prefer
to call it, revelation. He found himself suddenly at the gate of Major
N.M.'s avenue, many miles from his home. Close to him was a group of
persons, one of whom was a woman with a basket on her arm, the rest were
men, four of whom were tenants of his own, while the others were unknown
to him. Some of the strangers seemed to be assaulting H.W., one of his
tenants, and he interfered. A. says, 'I struck violently at the man on my
left, and then with greater violence at the man's face on my right.
Finding, to my surprise, that I had not knocked down either, I struck
again and again with all the violence of a man frenzied at the sight of my
poor friend's murder. To my great amazement I saw my arms, although
visible to my eye, were without substance, and the bodies of the men I
struck at and my own came close together after each blow, through the
shadowy arms I struck with. My blows were delivered with more extreme
violence than I ever think I exerted, but I became painfully convinced of
my incompetency. I have no consciousness of what happened after this
feeling of unsubstantiality came upon me.'
"Next morning, A. experienced the stiffness and soreness of violent bodily
exercise, and was informed by his wife that in the course of the night he
had much alarmed her by striking out again and again in a terrific manner,
'as if fighting for his life.' He, in turn, informed her of his dream, and
begged her to remember the names of those actors in it who were known to
him. On the morning of the following day (Wednesday) A. received a letter
from his agent, who resided in the town close to the scene of the dream,
informing him that his tenant had been found on Tuesday morning at Major
N.M.'s gate, speechless and apparently dying from a fracture of the
skull, and that there was no trace of the murderers.
"That night A. started for the town, and arrived there on Thursday
morning. On his way to a meeting of magistrates, he met the senior
magistrate of that part of the country, and requested him to give orders
for the arrest of the three men whom, besides H.W., he had recognized in
his dream, and to have them examined separately. This was at once done.
The three men gave identical accounts of the occurrence, and all named the
woman who was with them. She was then arrested and gave precisely similar
testimony. They said that between eleven and twelve on the Monday night
they had been walking homewards altogether along the road, when they were
overtaken by three strangers, two of whom savagely assaulted H.W., while
the other prevented his friends from interfering. H.W. did not die, but
was never the same man afterwards; he subsequently emigrated."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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