Belgian essays (French) -- Translations into English; Death
The evidence of a man like Dr. Maxwell, especially when we have to do
with a so-to-speak personal incident, possesses an importance on which it
is needless to insist. We have here, therefore, several days beforehand,
the very clear prevision of an event which, moreover, in no way concerns
the percipient: a curious detail, but one which is not uncommon in these
cases. The mistake in reading _Leutschland_ for _Deutschland_, which
would have been quite natural in real life, adds a note of probability
and authenticity to the phenomenon. As for the final act, the foundering
of the vessel in the place of a simple heaving to, we must see in this,
as Dr. J. W. Pickering and W. A. Sadgrove suggest, “the subconscious
dramatization of a subliminal inference of the percipient.” Such
dramatizations, moreover, are instinctive and almost general in this
class of visions.
If this were an isolated case, it would certainly not be right to attach
decisive importance to it; “but,” Dr. Maxwell observes, “the same
sensitive has given me other curious instances; and these cases, compared
with others which I myself have observed or with those of which I have
received first-hand accounts, render the hypothesis of coincidence very
improbable, though they do not absolutely exclude it.”[10]
4
Another and perhaps more convincing case, more strictly investigated
and established, a case which clearly does not admit of explanation by
the theory of coincidence, worthy of all respect though this theory
be, is that related by M. Théodore Flournoy, professor of science
at the university of Geneva, in his remarkable work, _Esprits et
médiums_. Professor Flournoy is known to be one of the most learned
and critical exponents of the new science of metapsychics. He even
carries his fondness for natural explanations and his repugnance to
admit the intervention of superhuman powers to a point whither it is
often difficult to follow him. I will give the narrative as briefly as
possible. It will be found in full on pp. 348 to 362 of his masterly book.
In August 1883, a certain Mme. Buscarlet, whom he knew personally,
returned to Geneva after spending three years with the Moratief family
at Kazan as governess to two girls. She continued to correspond with the
family and also with a Mme. Nitchinof, who kept a school at Kazan to
which Mlles. Moratief, Mme. Buscarlet’s former pupils, went after her
departure.
On the night of the 9th of December (O.S.) of the same year, Mme.
Buscarlet had a dream which she described the following morning in a
letter to Mme. Moratief, dated 10 December. She wrote, to quote her own
words:
“You and I were on a country-road when a carriage passed in front of us
and a voice from inside called to us. When we came up to the carriage, we
saw Mlle. Olga Popoi lying across it, clothed in white, wearing a bonnet
trimmed with yellow ribbons. She said to you:
“‘I called you to tell you that Mme. Nitchinof will leave the school on
the 17th.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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