Frank Podmore

“ It is not difficult to suppose, in the case of the lottery or the horse race, that the fears and hopes centred on the issue breed dreams so numerous that here and there one must in the long run coincide with the event, while those which remain fruitless soon pass away and leave no trace in the memory. ”

“ Now the hypothesis of prevision derives no support from experiment; it rests entirely on the testimony of witnesses who rarely have any claim to be regarded as expert observers. And the impressions by which foreknowledge of the future seems to be conveyed are mostly dreams—that is, they belong to a class of impressions which we have already recognised as being evidentially so weak as to give but dubious support to telepathy.
It is scarcely necessary to repeat what has been said in a previous chapter as to the inherent defects of dream evidence. ”

“ The evidence for precognition is at first sight, perhaps, more impressive than that for clairvoyance. But a little consideration will show us that it is as yet wholly inadequate to justify the tremendous assumptions implied in the hypothesis of foreknowledge of the future. Telepathy, as already indicated, does not seem necessarily to involve more than a slight enlargement of the physical scheme of the universe—just the addition of a new mode of force operating by means already sufficiently familiar. ”

“ But Myers claimed that the analysis of the orthodox school is defective and that a more resolute search would find traces, beyond the violet end of our soul's spectrum, of other faculties and modes of perception, "which this material or planetary life could not have called into being, and whose exercise even here and now involves and necessitates the existence of a spiritual world." ”

“ It is the hidden life which counts—the self which the struggle of the market-place and the senate has thrust back into the darkness, or has not yet called into conscious activity. "Each of us," he continues, "is in reality an abiding psychical entity far more extensive than he knows—an individuality which can never express itself completely through any corporeal manifestation. ”

“ It seems here that the dream-vision presented a fairly accurate and detailed picture of the event. The dream was not of a common type, and it is difficult to dismiss it as merely a chance-coincidence. But neither in this case nor in the one related by Mrs. McAlpine is it necessary to suppose that for the seer the veil of the future was momentarily lifted.
The lines of telepathic influence, as we have had already occasion to observe, do not seem invariably to be marked out by kinship or affection. ”

“ The proof of such faculties, however, is on an entirely different footing from the proof of telepathy. We have seen that the hypothesis of the transmission of ideas from one brain to another by means of ethereal vibrations presents, so far as we can see, no insuperable difficulty. Moreover, if such a faculty should be proved to exist, we could understand how it might have been called into being by the pressure of the environment to meet the needs of an earlier stage in human, perhaps even in animal history. ”

“ Terriss lying in a state of delirium or unconsciousness on the stairs leading to the dressing-rooms in the Adelphi Theatre. He was surrounded by people engaged at the theatre, amongst whom were Miss Millward and one of the footmen who attend the curtain, both of whom I actually saw a few hours later at the death scene. His chest was bare and clothes torn aside. Everybody who was around him was trying to do something for his good. This dream was in the shape of a picture. ”

“ In this case it seems to be conclusively proved that a dream of a dramatic character was dreamt by the boy Kent Packard, some weeks before the occurrence of an incident closely resembling in its main features the incident which figured in the dream. The impression made by the dream upon the boy's family seems to show that it was of an exceptional character. But one or two experiences of this kind, however impressive and however well attested, are of course insufficient in themselves to form the basis of a hypothesis. ”

“ In comparatively few cases does it appear that any note of the "prophetic" dream was made before the fulfilment.
If we consider only those "prophetic" dreams which are attested by contemporary documents, or in which there is other satisfactory evidence that the experience has been correctly reported, we shall find that in many cases the facts admit of some other explanation than foreknowledge of the future. Thus, we have several cases in which the winner of the Derby or some other race was revealed in a dream ”

“ Again, the student of the laboratory or the asylum teaches that the rays omitted from the psychical spectrum are merely the ultra-red rays, the representatives of organic activities, of obscure bodily sensations, and possibly of primitive modes of perception which in the long ascent from the ascidian have been crowded out from the waking consciousness, at any rate, of civilised man. ”

“ But as the "prophetic" dream often does not meet with its fulfilment until weeks or months later, it is clear that there is greater risk even than in the cases already considered of the dream being reshaped in memory to fit the event. As Gurney has put it:
"When the actual facts are learnt a faint amount of resemblance may often suggest a past dream, and set the mind on the track of trying accurately to recall it. This very act involves a search for detail, for something tangible and distinct ”

“ In the rarer cases, when details would be given of the scene taking place at the moment of the experiment and unknown to any of those present in the room with the sleeper, the operation of telepathy from a distance is still not excluded. We should clearly not be justified in attributing a power of independent vision to the clairvoyant. ”

“ The vision in one case represented a detailed picture of a distant scene and the actors in it. [7]
It is perhaps hardly necessary to point out that the finding of lost objects through indications given in dreams, in the crystal, or though planchette cannot be attributed to clairvoyance. In most cases the revival of a lost memory on the part of the actual seer will explain the fact. More rarely, we have to assume that the seer is enabled to reach telepathically the subliminal memory of another. ”

“ More rarely this power of prediction extended to the ailments of others. Recent observations have confirmed the accuracy of these early reports in both respects. Several cases have been reported to us in which persons have predicted serious illness or death to themselves. For an instance, see the case recorded by the Rev. A. T. Fryer, in which a lady, the wife of a clergyman, had a warning in a dream of a serious illness and her eventual recovery. The illness—blood-poisoning—in fact came on the day following the dream. ”

“ Impressions of this type are, however, very rare, and their occurrence is reported, so far as I am aware, only in dreams. It would not be safe, therefore, to build any hypothesis on such slender support. Moreover, improbable though the conception may appear of a malefactor revealing telepathically his own misdeed to any of those concerned, the remarkable dream connected with the death of W. Terriss, which is given below, would certainly seem to indicate such a possibility. ”

“ As we have seen in the last two chapters, recent psychology tends to show that consciousness in the last analysis is but the transitory co-ordination of countless ill-defined and variable factors; and the study of hypnotism and hysteria has only served to deepen our sense of the inadequacy of this surface consciousness, and to reveal the possibility of other combinations amongst its shifting elements. ”

“ And this forgetfulness of the unfulfilled omen is especially likely to occur with persons of the peasant class, who form the bulk of our witnesses for symbolic hallucinations; and, again, is specially liable to affect dreams, the form of symbolism for which we have most educated testimony. ”

“ Mrs. Verrall's sister, landing from the steamer at Ouistreham, between ten and eleven P.M., on the fist, made a false step and plunged into the water of the harbour. She was rescued by the boatswain, who heard the splash, and suffered no serious ill effects. But no one had seen her fall, there was imminent risk of being drawn under the ship, and her life was for a few moments in great danger.
On another occasion Mrs. Verrall noted down the occurrence of the ticking, and subsequently found that the time coincided with the commencement of the serious illness of an intimate friend. ”

“ T. Packard, and her brother Kent, aged 13;, have been spending the summer here. Kent met us on the wharf, and on the way up told me something about being 'chased by a white horse,' but I paid little attention to him. After dinner, while his mother and sister and I were talking over the happenings of the summer, Kent came into the room and said to his mother something—I did not catch the exact words—as to the dream he had some time ago about being chased by a white horse. ”

“ It will thus be noted that the script in December, 1901, describes (as past) an incident which actually occurred two and a half months later, in February, 1902,—an incident which at the time of writing was not likely to have been foreseen by any one. I ascertained from Mr. Marsh that the idea of reading Marmontel occurred to him not long before his visit to Paris. ”

“ Amongst these dormant faculties, which we yet cannot reckon as vestigial, are the exceptional powers exhibited by some hypnotic subjects of subconsciously reckoning with precision long periods of time, and the remarkable feats of calculating boys. ”

“ No. 77. From Mrs. Verral. [20]
"On December 11th, 1901, the script wrote as follows:
"'Nothing too mean the trivial helps, gives confidence. Hence this. Frost and a candle in the dim light. Marmontel he was reading on a sofa or in bed—there was only a candle's light. She will surely remember this. The book was lent not his own—he talked about it.'
"Then, after a reference to a separate incident, recognised as such, there appeared a fanciful but unmistakable attempt at the name Sidgwick." ”

“ A. R. Wallace in Proceedings S.P.R.. vol. xiv., p. 373. has claimed genuine powers of clairvoyance for Alexis Didier. Mr. Myers (Human Personality, vol. i., pp. 556–8) , has quoted some of Major Buckley's experiments. ↑ See my Modern Spiritualism, vol. ”