"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.'
"The carriage then drove on."
A week later and three days before the letter reached Kazan, the
event foreseen in the dream was fulfilled in a tragic fashion.
Mme. Nitchinof died on the 16th of an infectious disease; and on
the 17th her body was carried out of the school for fear of
infection.
It is well to add that both Mme. Buscarlet's letter and the
replies which came from Russia were communicated to Professor
Flournoy and bear the postmark dates.
Such premonitory dreams are frequent; but it does not often
happen that circumstances and especially the existence of a
document dated previous to their fulfilment give them such
incontestable authenticity.
We may remark in passing the odd character of this premonition,
which however is fully in accordance with the habits of our
unknown guest. The date is fixed precisely; but only a veiled and
mysterious allusion (the woman lying across the carriage and
cloaked in white) is made to the essential part of the
prediction, the illness and death.
Was there a coincidence, a vision of the future pure and simple,
or a vision of the future suggested by telepathic influence? The
theory of coincidence can be defended, if need be, here as
everywhere else, but would be very extraordinary in this case. As
for telepathic influence, we should have to suppose that, on the
9th of December, a week before her death, Mme. Nitchinof had in
her subconsciousness a presentiment of her end and that she
transmitted this presentiment across some thousands of miles,
from Kazan to Geneva, to a person with whom she had never been
intimate. It is very complex, but possible, for telepathy often
has these disconcerting ways. If this were so, the case which
would be one of latent illness or even of self-suggestion; and
the preexistence of the future, without being entirely disproved,
would be less clearly established.
5
Let us pass to other examples. I quote from an excellent article
of the importance of precognitions, by Messrs. Pickering and
Sadgrove, which appeared in the Annales des Sciences Psychiques
for 1 February 1908, the summary of an experiment by Mrs. A. W.
Verrall told in full detail in Vol. XX of the Proceedings. Mrs.
Verrall is a celebrated "automatist"; and her
"cross-correspondence" occupy a whole volume of the Proceedings.
Her good faith, her sincerity, her fairness and her scientific
precision are above suspicion; and she is one of the most active
and respected members of the Society for Psychical Research.
On the 11th of May, 1901, at 11.10 p.m., Mrs. Verrall wrote as
follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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