Strange Tales of Yester Year - No.1, Part 3 - Personal Precognitive Dreams

 

'Joseph's Dream', painting by Gaetano Gandolfi, c. 1790

As promised, this post will be about weird premonitions that I've had personally.

Now, if you're going to start reading this, I want you to stick with me.  I've had a long day, and probably in not the best position to be writing posts to prove I'm not insane....and this is probably going to sound like I'm insane, at least to some people.....but stick with it!   I can say that everything I'll be mentioning definitely happened.   There were witnesses that if required I could round up.  But would that make you believe the things I'm going to tell you any more or less?  Frankly, I don't mind.  I know these events took place, and I'm only going to give you the details as they happened in each case.  From those, you can make up your own mind on whether I'm crazy, misguided, weird or just talking nonsense.....

 It's hard to know where to start really.....it's just something I've always been around I guess.  My mother told me when I was quite young about having had dreams that came true,  (I'll maybe save those for a later post) and other people in my family have also had it happen to them...so when it started to happen with me, it just seemed almost normal and to be expected to happen at some point.

Now don't get me wrong...it is still highly odd!  And it always makes me uneasy, but what I mean is, I can't really remember when it started, because it was something unimportant and not really worth remembering....like a Deja Vu type event. "I've done this before" sort of thing.  Only, I was aware I hadn't, and it had been a dream.  Just something like someone saying a specific phrase on a tv program, or some unexpected person showing up that I'd dreamt of the night before...that type of thing.

For instance, there was one occasion when I was at my friend's house, and a whole group of friends were sitting in the kitchen talking, when I realised I had dreamt the very things that were happening, that same morning.  And so I mentioned it to somebody...and told them what was going to happen next.

"Gillian is going to come round the side of the house any second now," I told my friend Kenneth, who was Gillian's cousin, and who wasn't expecting Gillian because she stayed in a different village and had not mentioned any intention to visit.  

Gillian appeared round the corner of the house!

Excited, I told Kenneth what she was going to say when she entered. I can't remember now what it was, but it was something quite odd.  Gillian came in the door, opened her mouth...

......and said something completly different!

This worried me greatly! I thought I had broken the universe by changing what she said. But then it occurred to me eventually that what she had said just been a dream.....things weren't always going to be perfect.

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It wasn't until I was a bit older that things started to get really odd. I began to notice certain things about the nature of the premonitions. First of all, was the great, required need to tell someone about the dream.  

I dream often and love sharing my weird dreams with people, but when I have a precognitive dream it's different. I don't want to tell someone about the dream....I have to tell someone about the dream! It becomes a necessity to either tell the first person I see or to write it down so there's a note of it. Something about the dream has a feeling of urgency....

And this brings me to the second feature of the dreams.....the sense of threat!  

Every precognitive dream that I've had since I entered adulthood has been less of the Deja-Vu type affair, and more like a warning of potential threats to my well being.  It is important to mention that these aren't always real threats...just things that could be perceived as such when viewed from a different perpective.  This probably isn't making much sense, so let me try to explain by way of an example....

There was a dream I had where I was with my mother, in a cinema about to watch a movie....suddenly a group of terrorists entered the cinema and started demolishing the place. Trying to escape through the lobby, I was stopped by a big muscley man with a huge hammer.

When I woke up, I wrote the dream down as I had that weird feeling that I needed to.  

Now, I knew I was going to a cinema with my mother that day, so that would definitely be in my head, and might suggest why that would be the focus of a dream...of course this also made me slightly worried about what was going to happen in the cinema!  However, when I got to the cinema everything went as normal...no terrorists entered the building. Everything was okay......

But when the new trailers before the movie started, there was one ( I think it was for a GI Joe movie, but can't be certain) where members of COBRA show up....one of them was a muscley guy with a huge hammer!

Now, I hadn't seen these trailers beforehand, I had no idea what was going to be shown....but this could all still be coincidence...nothing too massively wild.  But it does show what I'm trying to say. A big guy with a hammer could be seen as a threat.  Luckily it was only in a trailer, but I got the impression my brain was trying to warn me of potential danger.

So that's a thing...but how do we feel about it so far?  It's all a bit odd, but is it paranormal?  Not sure, but we could do with better evidence right? 

Well,......

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After years of dreams of a similar nature to the one above (perceived but not actual threats that could be just coincidence)  I eventually had the one that I consider the perfect precognitive dream.  Everything about this means that there was no way I could possibly have faked a prediction or expected what was to happen,  and even for it to just be a case of coincidental weirdness seems a bit of a push!  So let me tell you the dream first, and then the real weirdness........

When I was younger, I used to work in a spooky old hotel as a kitchen porter.  For some reason, despite this place having been closed for a few years, in my dream I was back working there.  Something that was very unusal about this dream was that the entire cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer were also working there, and I knew them all and they were integrated into my friend group.  But these facts have nothing to do with the precognition.  Like I said, not everything will be perfect......

Towards the end of the dream, I had to get back to the small village I was staying in with my parents which was just a mile or so down from the hotel, and so we all went out and started walking across the fields to get back home.

Suddenly, a huge tornado appeared in front of us, swirling round and round and swaying slightly from side to side....not really progressing very far, but kind of stuck in one position above the woods, still swirling menacingly.

And then at either side of the tornado, another one appeared but farther away so they appeared smaller in view, making a total of three tornadoes.  The big one in the middle, the smaller ones to each side of the main one.

I awoke with a jump, and after grabbing a coffee told my brother and mother about my dream, because I got that feeling from it, and this time it felt really weird.  And being in the UK and not in a tornado zone, I was wondering what to expect....

A couple of hours after I got up, the phone rang upstairs and my mother shouted down to me that a friend I hadn't heard from for a while was calling, and so I went to take the call.  It was my old best friend Alan,  who had got married a couple of years earlier and moved which meant we saw a lot less of each other.  He was calling to say that his wife had taken ill, but they were supposed to be going to see the band 'Texas' in Glasgow, the band's home town, for the first night of their new tour, and being a huge fan he didn't want to miss it, but didn't want to go alone.  So he wondered if I would like to go with him instead.

It seemed like a good excuse for a catch up and as I don't mind Texas myself, it was pretty much a no brainer to say yes to a free ticket and a rare chance to hang out!

A few hours later and we were at the concert.  The support band had come on, and we decided to go get some drinks in before the start of the main show.  At the bar, I decided to tell Alan about my weird dream, as I still had the urge to tell absolutely everyone I saw in case it was to be relevant.

As we headed back to the stage, I was just telling him about the tornadoes and then mentioned the fact that it was one of those dreams I felt I had to tell everybody about, just as the lights dimmed for the band to appear and start the gig.

A huge curtain pulled back from the stage and a big giant TV screen flashed on with a single image.  A tornado,  swirling round and round and moving from side to side.  I looked at Alan.

His jaw had dropped and he pointed to the side of the stage where a smaller screen showing the same image was descending, and then another one at the other side appeared.

Three tornadoes, spinning and swaying, but stuck in their places.  One big huge one, and two smaller ones,  one at each side, that could have been in the distance if they were real.

"You're weird" Alan said, and just shook his head with his jaw still wide open. We watched the concert, and enjoyed it, but my mind was kind of just blown at the oddness of it all, and the journey home was just a bit quiet..Alan didn't really want to dwell on what had just happened.  "You're weird" just seemed to be the general thing to say to me whenever it was brought up.....

But now we have something a bit more odd, don't we.  There was no way I could have known where I was going to be that night.  I had had the dream before Alan phoned, and I wasn't expecting to hear from him at all.   His wife who was supposed to be there was become ill,  so it's not even as if Alan knew I was going to be there.  There was literally no way I could have known I would be going to see Texas.  

It was the first night of their new concert, so I had no idea there was going to be one screen let alone three.  No way of knowing that they would choose a tornado as the first thing to show.   No way of knowing it would be one big tornado repeated on two smaller screens.

But as always, there is a problem.  The only witnesses to this event are people I know.  Anyone willing to accept that this is a thing that happened has to believe that the witnesses aren't lying for the sake of the story.  I would say "Why would they?" but I know that won't be enough for a lot of sceptics.

But I know that for me,  and a few select people I know,  it was a truly weird and spooky experience!  And bizarrely, a few years later, I would have another weird experience...this time even spookier, and again involving my friend Alan in some capacity.....but with one huge difference.  This wasn't a premonition at all,  but something that was happening very far away at possibly exactly the time I was experiencing it in a dream....

....but that, is a tale, for another time...........

* ~ *

Well, I hope you read that with an open mind, and don't think I'm too weird or anything now....as I said, believe it or don't, it makes no difference to me. It's definitely something that has become something of a passion for me now, as I want to know how and why it happens, having experienced it myself.  

 If  I'd had more time I would have gone into detail about the even weirder, far scarier and downright freaky and unsettling stuff I hint at in the end of the post, but 

1) I'm still slightly hesitant to talk about it and 

2) I didn't "forsesee" the troubles I'd have with bloody buses trying to get back to the parents for Halloween!

Anyway, with this...that's another Halloween over! Congratulations to everyone for making it to the end of another Countdown to Halloween!  There's still plenty of stuff to go look at on everyone's blogs...I've got some catching up to do myself! Go click one of those Countdown badges!!!

All that remains is for me to wish everyone the very happiest of Halloweens, and to say that I'll be back on the blog very soon! Tomorrow in fact, as what with being late today there are still a few things I promised I'd post that need mopped up!  Hell, why not just keep things going until Creepmas, eh!? (Better not get too ahead of myself!)  Anyway, join me tomorrow for some more spooky shenanigans!

Laters, Stuffers!

Strange Tales of Yester Year - No.1, Part 2 - More Paper Premonitions

Aftermath of Aberfan Disaster, 1966

So after trying to work out how I was going to go about these posts, I've decided to focus this one on more predictions from old newspapers, and then my own weird predictions will feature in part three, which will hopefully appear before or on Halloween.

The sheer number of predictions that I'm finding in old newspapers helped lead to this decision. There really are a phenomenal amount....which only reinfores my belief that this is definitely something that more attention should be paid to. 

And I'm not alone. In 1967, Dr. John Barker would suggest a bureau be set up to log and check peoples predictions, after a large number of psychic hits became apparent after a tragedy in Wales.  This tragedy was the Aberfan disaster....

For those who have never heard of Aberfan, here is a brief recap.  The Aberfan disaster was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. Heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide downhill as a slurry, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed Pantglas Junior School and a row of houses. The tip was the responsibility of the National Coal Board (NCB), and the subsequent inquiry placed the blame for the disaster on the organisation and nine named employees.

One of the children killed in the landslide, Eryl Mai Jones, had a dream the night before and tried to warn her mother of it.. "I had a dream I went to school and there was no school there.  Something black had come down all over it."  Sadly, her mother, believing it to just be a dream... still sent to her to school, and to her death.

Another child, Paul Davies, drew a picture the day before of figures digging into a hillside and titled it "The End".....he also perished in the disaster.

This first article then, goes into a little more detail of Dr. John Barker's mission....

From the Daily Post (Merseyside Edition), dated Tuesday, September 3rd 1968

FRONTIERS OF THE UNKNOWN

Did their dreams really foretell disaster?

By Andrew Mackenzie

A further extract from a new book that tells of some of the strange insights of psychical research into the unconcious

In 1965 Mr. G. W. Lambert in a paper in the Society for Psychical Research's journal, enumerated five requirements,  all of which were necessary to establish any connections between a dream and a future event.

These were:

(1)  The dream should be reported to a credible witness before the occurrence of the event to which it appears to relate.

Fourteen of the dreams in this series fulfil this requirement.  Two others were pre-recorded.  Such confirmation of data helps to exclude retrospective falsification of the material by hindsight on the part of the percipient.

(2) The time interval between the dream and the event should be short.

The possibility that the two are linked by coincidence increases as the time interval extends.  In these cases dreams occurred between six weeks to a few hours in advance of the tragedy,  the majority occurring within the week before the Aberfan disaster itself.

(3) The event should be one which,  in the circumstances of the dreamer,  seemed extremely improbable at the time of the dream.

In other words, the event must be so unexpected that it cannot reasonably be inferred afterwards that both the dream itself and the subsequent event arose out of the same set of circumstances,  there being no element of precognition in the dream.

Dr. Barker maintains that this requirement is amply fulfilled in the majority of cases.  Very similar dreams were reported from persons entirely unconnected with the disaster from different parts of the country.  It seems improbable,  therefore,  that personal hopes or fears alone could induce dreams resembling the Aberfan disaster.  Afterwards,  however,  the full realisation that a dream or other premonition might have had some connection with the tragedy was regarded by several correspondents as a shocking experience.

(4) The description in the dream should be of an event destined to be literally fulfilled and not merely symbolically foreshadowed.

(5) The details of the dream should tally with the details of the event.

Both these criteria were fulfilled in many instances cited here.  Several dreams showed an undeniable resemblance to the disaster or parts of it.  Afterwards,  several dreamers claimed to be able to pinpoint the scene of their dreams in the pictures of the aberfan disaster which were flashed on television or appeared in newspaper photographs.  Dreams were generally literal,  requiring no symbolic interpreatation whatsoever.  Several symbolic were received but were omitted from the series,

Acute anxiety before disaster

In addition,  seven cases,  four men and three women,  developed non-specific symptoms of acute mental and physical unease from four days to a few hours before the Aberfan disaster.  Two percipients in this category claimed forewarning of the date of  a disaster.

Four days beforehand,  one man became convinced that "something terrible was going to happen on Friday," and nine hours before the Aberfan disaster another man predicted an earthquake for the following day.  Symptoms were in general characteristic of an acute anxiety state,  and in five instances were either witnessed or reported to others before the disaster occurred.

"It is tempting" Dr. Barker says "to ocnjecture that some persons might act like 'human seismographs' in advance of major calamities,  but it would,  of course,  need to be proved that they do not also 'react' in this strange way in the absence of impending disasters...

"Despite individual variations,  the experiences of these seven persons who claimed to have had premonitions of the Aberfan disaster had several features in common.  Their symptoms included general non-specific feelings of unease,  apprehension,  depression,  loss of concentration and in one instance a compelling thought.  Their distress was in all instances apparently relieved by the occurrence of the diaster or of hearing news of it.

"I have termed this constellation of symptoms 'Pre-disaster syndrome'

"If there is a link between some of these experiences and the tragedy itself then it might be possible,  for instance,  to imagine that the screaming reported by several dreamers resulted from the screams of some of the dying children of Aberfan which had somehow 'gate-crashed' the time barrier so as to be detected by these percipients in advance of the disaster...

"The principal difficulty is that few of the premonitions are in any way specific.

"Most of them might be regarded as rather vague prognostications of doom,  and with 50 million or so people in the country dreaming several dreams a night,  it would indeed be surprising if they did not produce a few dozen premonitions of doom among them.  Nevertheless,  the Aberfan disaster was an extremely unusal one so that dreams resembling it are likely to be fairly improbable."

Mrs. Eagleton's dream is one of the best documented.  In this dream she was in a valley with a big building filled with young children.  Mountains of coal and water were rushing down upon the valley,  burying the building.  The screams of the children were so vivid that the dreamer also screamed.  Mrs. Eagleton's dream took place a week before the disaster and she related it to her neighbour,  Mrs. Rollings,  three days later.

Mrs. Armstrong's dream is also convincing.  In this dream,  which she had about two weeks before the Aberfan disaster,  she was at a school "somewhere in England".  Teachers and children began running and screaming,and were pointing behind them at a "black, slimy substance" creeping towards them.  Her husband confirmed that she had told him of this dream before the disaster occurred.  There is no mention in this dream of Wales or a mountain,  but it is surely strange that a school should be involved and a black slimy substance from which she was saved by climbing a tree.

Dreams gave exact details

Eryl Mai Jones

The most convincing dream,  in my opinion,  is that of Eryl Mai Jones.  The child had a premonition of her own death,  of which she was not afraid,  and that of her friends Peter and June.  She did not know in advance the manner of her death,  but the indications are that it was connected with the destruction of the school by "something black" which had come down all over it. 

I think it may be said that the dreams of Eryl Mai Jones and Mrs. Eaglton,  and the vision of Mrs, Milder,  contain so many unlikely details that one hesitates to ascribe what they saw,  in relation to the tragedy that followed,  to chance-coincidence.  There is a considerable amount of evidential material in some of the other cases.

"No opportunity should be lost" (Dr. West says) "to impress upon the public the importance of posting to the Society for Psychical Research,  accounts of vivid dreams or impressions - which might turn out to be precognitive - as soon as they are received.  If the impression is strong enough for the percipient to tell other people about it at once (as is often the case, according to the published accounts),  there is no reason why he should not also tell the Society."

Dr. Barker says that the implications (of the Aberfan case) are that the public should be invited to report their premonitions to a central bureau,  perhaps linked with a computer to detect peaks or patterns in the incoming material and to help exclude false,  trivial or irrelevant information.  An official early warning could then be issued only if the place,  date or nature of an impending disaster became clear.

©1968 by Andrew Mackenzie "Frontiers of the Unknown" will be published by Arthur Baker Ltd,. on September 5, price 30s.

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From the Evening Standard, dated Wednesday, January 4th 1967....part of an article on the daeth of Donald Campbell, who died in a water speed attempt.

IF YOU DREAM OF DISASTER...

Donald Campbell apparently had a premonition of disaster the night before he died.  He went ahead heedless. 

Other people apparently had a premonition of the Aberfan tragedy.  More than 75 replies were received in a reponse to an Evening Standard appeal for authentic examples.

After investigating these reports,  a senior British psychiatrist beleives that there is sufficient evidence to justify the setting up of a national "early warning centre" to analyze premonitions,  detect common patterns in them and sound the alarm if a particular disaster seems imminent.

Such a centre might need a computer - an expensive piece of equipment.  But if it did prove possible tp harness premonitions so that loss of human life or damage to property could be avoided the reward would be incalculable.

We shall never know unless we try to find out.

'Clearing house'

In the belief that the time has come to investigate this phenomenon further the Evening Standard announces an experiment.

For the next 12 months Evening Standard Science Correspondent Peter Fairley will act as a 'clearing house' for premonitions.  Anyone who has a dream,  vision or intensely strong feeling that disaster is about to befall somebody or some place is invited to contact him by letter or by ringing FLE 3000.

Fairley will keep a record of all such notifications.  At the end of 1967 they will be matched against actual events.

Investigators

A small team of investigators is standing by to follow up the premonitions:  and a ,edical consultant has offered his sevices.

From time to time progress reports will appear in the Friday World of Science column in the Evening Standard.

Callers should give their names,  adresses,  details of the premonition and the time at which it occurred.

The reports of Aberfan predictions were timed from six weeks to a few hours before the actual event.  Other premonitions,  reliably tabulated in history,  have occurred years before an event.

The mechanism of them,  the truth about them,  the implications of them are unknown.

We hope to find out.

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From the Evening Standard, dated Thursday, April 20th 1967....part of an article about a Britannia airliner crash in Cyprus...

INCREDIBLE STORY OF MAN WHO DREAMED DISASTER - 30 DAYS AGO

Peter Fairley

At 6am on March 21,  30 days ago - the telephone rang in the Shropshire home of the pyschiatrist who,  with me,  is operating the Evening Standard Premonitions Bureau.

"I was hoping not to have to ring you," a man's voice said. "But now I feel I must."

The voice was that of Mr. Alan Hencher, 40, of Dagenham, Essex.  He was,  in the words of the psychiatrist,  "in an acutely disturbed state - het up and very worried."

For Mr. Hencher had had a vision.  And this was what he described :

"An aircraft was coming over mountains.  It was early morning,  and a weekday.

"It is coming over the mountains," he went on excitedly.

"It's going to radio a message that it is in trouble.  Then it will cut out and - nothing.

"There are 123 people.  Possibly 124.  One hundred and twenty three people.  It is going to crash - shortly after take off.  I cannot tell exactly where it is going to happen.  One person is saved in a very poor condition.  Where?  I have had this feeling for three days.

Swissair Brittania Disaster, 1967

Similarities

"I have felt for a week that I have been in communication with one person in this aeroplane.  This person is trying to create a peace."

Mr. Hencher went on to describe how - in the vision - he could see a church above two houses.

There were two statues, one on each side of the church.  "The nearewst one is that of Christ," he went on. "There is a light flashing on and off on this statue.  It directs me to this terrible air crash."

Did Mr. Hencher - a batchelor, described by his mother as "rather reserved" - have a premonition of the Swissair Britannia disaster?

There are some fascinating similarities.

Mountains,  early morning,  a brief radio message,  the number 123 "or possibly 124" and the sentence "one person will be saved in a very poor condition."

A total of 124 people were killed on impact - one survivor died soon afterwards.

It is tempting even to search for a link between the statue of Buddah found in the wreckage at Nicoia and the statue of Christ seen by Mr. Hencher,  with a light (perhaps an aircraft identification light?) flashing on and off.

But there are differences.

The number of survivors.  The fact that the aircraft was coming in to land - not taking off.  And the aircraft which Mr. Hencher saw in his vision was believed a Caravelle - not a Britannia.

Intriguing

But the intriguing thing is that a Caravelle never carries more than 89 passengers.

As the psychiatrist put it:  Few of these impressions that people seem to get are perfect in every detail.  But this is a most intersting report.

"What is especially interesting is that Mr. Hencher also had a premonition of the Aberfan disaster  - which he communicated to a witness - although we did not record that one in advance."

This one we did.  As with all premonitions reported to the Evening Standards, the name,  the date,  the details were all logged. 

But it happened at 6am on March 21.

What does Mr. Hencher say about his premonitions?

"On some occasions I get a sick headache,  a heavy dull feeling,  until it is as if a band of steel were round my head.

"This will last anything up to two weeks.  While in this state I am able to say what sort of vehicle will be involved - plane,  train,  car, etc., etc.

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From The Spokesman Review, dated Monday June 1st 1914

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From The Richmond Daily Register, dated Thursday, 9th September 1920

PREMONITION OF DEATH PROVES TRUE

Rev. Solomon Blythe,  colored,  died at his home on Irvine street Wednesday at noon,  death resulting from a stroke of paralysis sustained while attending the Baptist Association at Berea last Saturday.  He is survived by his wife and two children.  He was one of the most highly respected coloured citizens in the city,  honorable and upright,  and his loss will be deeply felt in his church and in his family.  Funeral services will be conducted at the Baptist Church Sunday morning at eleven o'clock by the pastor,  Rev. T.H. Broaddus,  assisted by Dev. D.P. Francis.  In the last prayer he delivered at the Association,  Rev/ Blythe said he had a premonition that it would be his last - and it was.

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From The Newcastle Herald, dated Tuesday, June 13th 1911

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From The Lawrence Daily Journal, dated Sunday, September 7th 1879

MR. COTTON'S PREMONITIONS.

It is remarkable the premonition which Mr. Cotton seems to have had that he would be murdered.  It is still more remarkable that there seems to have been no sufficient motive for the terrible deed,  unless we ascribe it to tramps who sometimes murder a man for a sixpence.

The Oskaloosa Independent says :

We learn that Mr. Cotton some time before his death took his wife into the store and pointed out to her the spot where she would find any money that he might have on hand,  except change in the drawer,  should he be murdered some night while attending to his duties.  The day following his assassination, she went to the place designated, we are told,  and found $300 which had been sent to him the previous day from Kansas city.

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From The Herald and Review, dated Saturday, 7th September 1929

Premonition of Death Shown in Girl's Will

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A will,  made on a piece of scrap paper by Martha Koob,  16 years old High school girl,  who was killed instantly in an automobile accident east of Decatur Monday night,  has been found by relatives,  it became know Friday.  The girl is believed to have made it just before leaving her father's home in Hannibal, Mo., on the day of her death.

Relatives of the girl told of the discovery of the will soon after the girl had left Hannibal,  with her brother,  John Koob,  who died in St. Mary's hospital Friday night,  with injuries sustained in the same accident.

In it she disposed of her few personal possessions including a diamond ring,  a necklace and other articles.

With the will was a note explaining that she was writing in case she "didn't return from the trip" she was taking with her brother and his family to Anderson, Ind. where she planned to enter school.

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It seems that Dr. Barker and Peter Fairley had an interest in premonitions before the disaster at Aberfan too, as this clipping from the Evening Standard in October 1965 shows.....

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That was just a very small number of the many, many articles I've found....I might have to make this an ongoing series all of it's own!  Anyway, as promised, next time I'll be diving into my own predictions,  so expect things to get even weirder as you hear of this weird paranormal peculiarity first hand from a blogger of stuff!

In the meantime, go check out what everyone else is doing for the spooky season by clicking the badge below to be whisked off to the Countdown To Halloween hub page!

Strange Tales of Yester Year - No.1, Part 1 - Paper Premonitions

Toutin Premonition Illustration, 1973

 I'm guessing that a high percentage of people reading this, will at some point or another in their lives, have experienced the phenomena know as Deja-Vu (already seen).  That feeling you get where you feel as if you've visited a place before, or know someone already that you've only just met, or even how a conversation is going to play out for the next few sentences.....

I'm also guessing that a much lower percentage of you will, at some point, have had a dream which then becomes true later that day or in the next few days.  It can be something as simple as going to the place in your dream, or meeting a person unexpectedly who appeared in your dream the night before.  But what seems to be more often the case, is that your precognitive dream warns you of some potential threat.  Sometimes, it won't even be a dream...just a strange feeling of foreboding......

The frequency of these dreams and premonitions has always fascinated me. I've had many of them over the years, and they're well documented as happening to hundreds of other people.  And yet the unpredictable nature of them makes them almost impossible to properly study, which means a lot of people remain sceptical of such dreams being a thing at all, and put any accuracy within the dreams to prediciting later events, as down to coincidence or chance.  Until, of course, they have one themselves.....

To me, it's definitely a subject that warrants more study, although I have no idea how you would go about it.  Any dreams that I've had (and I'll tell you all about some of these in a later post) have happened sporadically and are of course not provable as being premonitions until the events they predict come to pass.  But from personal experience, there is one aspect that sets them apart from usual dreams...and for me that is the feeling that you absolutely must tell someone about them, or write them down.  You just get a sense that something about the dream is noteworthy......

Today then, I decided to hunt down as many experiences as I could find of precognitive dreams and premonitions from old newspaper reports, to see what I could find.  And this turned up a surprisingly large number of hits.....here are just a few of the many reports...

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From the Evening Dispatch, dated Tuesday, January 22nd 1884

A Victim Who Had a Premonition of Death.

NORTHBORO, Mass., January 22. - The body of Helon Brooks,  of this town,  a victim of the Gay Head wreck,  has arrived home.  Brooks had a premonition of disaster prior to his departure.  He regulated all his financial matters and talked freely as to the course to be pursued by relations in case he should not return alive.

On the morning after President Lincoln was assassinated Mr. Brooks gave the boys in camp with him,  being then in the army,  an account of a dream he had in relation to that tragedy,  which was corroborated by intelligence received soon after he related his dream.

(* DF Note - Lincoln himself also famously had a premonition about his assassination. *)

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From the Oakland Tribune, dated Tuesday, July 23rd 1907

GIRL SAILS ON COLUMBIA UNDER SPELL OF DEATH

Beautiful Young Texas Woman Writes to Friends of Premonition of Disaster---Among the Saved

BERKELEY, July 23. -  Miss Nannie McLennan, a beautiful girl whose home is in Waco,  McLennan county, Texas,  and whose family is among the most prominent in the South,  left Berkeley for the north on the Columbia, and before her departure had an extraordinary premonition of death on the steamer.  She is reported safe,  however,  at Eureka.

Her forebodings were expressed in letters written by her last week to friends in Texas while she was a guest in the home of W. R. Ellis at 2238 Grove Street.  On postal cards mailed from the Ellis home Miss McLennan expressed the fear she felt that the trip on the Colombia would end in death for her.

"If the steamer goes down with me on board," wrote Miss McLennan, "do not be surprised.  That will just about be my fate."

The letters were a subject of bantering conversation in the Ellis home during all of last week.  In spite of the banter Miss McLennan's cousin,  Mrs. James N. Brooks,  also a guest in the Ellis home,  decided that she would not make the trip in the steamer,  although she had originally planned to do so.  Mrs. Brooks went by rail to Portland,  while Miss McLennan went by steamer,  not withstanding all her forebodings.  They were to meet in Seattle.

ANOTHER ONE

Miss Constantine Walker heeded a foreboding similar to that which Miss McLennan entertained.  Miss Walker is visiting with friends at 1632 Belton Street.  She had engaged passage on the Columbia,  but at the last moment changed here mind and canceled her order for a state room,  having a nervous dread of taking the voyage,  although a sea trip was no new experience for her,  and she knew the Captain of the Columbia as a personal friend.

(* DF Note - The article continues on with an update on some of the missing passengers.  Interestingly, there is mention of another two passengers who changed their minds about making the trip at the last moment.... *)

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From the Brooklyn Union, dated Monday, July 9th 1877

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Feom the Tampa Tribune, dated Friday, September 4th 1925

Airship Commander Had a Premonition Of Death, Is Claim

By Universal Service -

LAKEWOOD, N. J., Sept. 3 - Lieutenant-Commander Zachary Lansdowne had a premonition of his death,  Mrs. Lansdowne tearfully said today :

"The night before he left Commander Lansdowne told me it would be his last trip.  He meant this in more ways than one.  He was due for sea duty December 15, but he said that it would be his last trip,  because of unfavourable weather conditions in the Ohio Valley.

"He said that he wanted to go on this trip because he wanted to die when the ship crashed.

"Six weeks ago when the trip was planned, he asked secretary Wilbur to postpone the trip until October 15, when the weather would be more favourable.  The secretary refused,  and said this was the time,  because it was the right time for publicity which would be gained by the ship's flight.  Had he know what kind of publicity was to be received by his orders!"

Mrs. Lansdowne said she,  too,  had a premonition of disaster.  At 6am today she awoke suddenly,  went to her sister's room and told her she felt something must have happened.

(DF - Picture shows the Shenandoah, Commander Lansdowne's ship, whick killed him and 13 others when it crashed in a storm in 1925)

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From the Winona Daily News, dated Sunday, April 15th 1973

Painful dream

On May 6, 1971,  Mrs. Agnes Toutin, aged 30, was having a restless night.  As she tossed and turned, a dream began to play before her mind.  Then,  suddenly,  with a scream of terror,  she bolted upright in bed. 

"I dreamed that a stranger was in our house,  and that he shot me in the stomach," she told her startled husband,  William.

William Toutin calmed his wife with the usual assurances that her nightmare was only a dream,  nothing to worry about.  Somewhat mollified,  but still frightened,  Mrs. Toutin managed to fall into fitful slumber.

The next morning,  Mrs. Toutin,  who lives in Glanford Township,  Ontario,  told her frightening dream to her neighbor,  Mrs. Hilda Foote.  After their visit,  Agnes Toutin returned to her home and resolved to put the dream from her mind.

That afternoon,  Mrs. Toutin was upstairs getting some material to cover a chair when she heard an unexplained noise in the living room.  Coming downstairs,  she surprised a burglar in the act of ransacking her home.  The man,  a complete stranger,  pointed a gun and demanded money.  When Mrs. Toutin protested that she had none,  the man cocked the pistol and fired a shot into her stomach.

After the man had fled,  Mrs. Toutin managed to crawl to the telephone and place a call to her neighbor,  Mrs. Foote.  Hilda Foote telephoned her husband,  Harvey,  and he called an ambulance.  After two hours of surgery,  Mrs, Agnes Toutin was declared to be in a satisfactory condition.

Precognitive dreams,  that is,  dreams that foretell the future,  are the most common means of predicting the future.  The professional psychic has many methods at his disposal for parting the veil,  but the person who is not so psychically attuned can learn to rely upon his dreams.

Very often, we will dream of the day ahead of us,  and accurately too.  In fact,  most of the time precognitive dreams deal with these mundane affairs of daily living,  and we are so unimpressed by them that we forget them by the morning light.  Other times,  as in the case of Mrs. Toutin,  dramatic events in our lives are presented to us in our sleep with startling clarity.

Our dreams can trick us, too, though. Oftentimes we will have a particularly vivid dream of some dire tragedy and the dream,  far from being precognitive,  will instead reveal hidden hostilities and fantasies directed against others and ourselves.  This is an ego trap,  which gives us a sense of control over some other person's life.

The only way to determine the degree of truth in your "precognitive" dreams is to thoroughly know yourself,  or simply to let time verify them for you by bringing the event to pass.

The business of dreaming the future is tricky, at best or as Mrs. Toutin's neighbor,  Mrs. Foote,  would say, "She told me at 10AM that she dreamed last night a stranger would shoot her in the stomach.  It's real strange.  The good Lord doesn't usually doesn't let you know what's going to happen to you."

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From the Blackwell Journal Tribune, dated Tuesday, June 23rd 1953

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From the Daily News, and an article by actress Sophia Loren, dated Thursday, March 22nd 1979

Among her many talents :  ESP

I AM A WITCH.  I have acute extrasensory perception.  Eerie premonitions.  Haunting superstitions.  I always have something red on me, even though it may be out of sight, ever since I was a little girl - witch's red.  I have always believed that red would bring me good luck and ward off negative, evil forces.  Many other superstitions.  On one occasion I was making a film, "The Miller's Beautiful Wife," with Marcello Mastroianni and Vittorio de Sica, when, after a very animated scene,  I dropped the mirror my makeup man had handed to me and it broke.  I was stricken as if the set had fallen on me.  All day long I waited for the disaster the shattered mirror presaged.  By the end of the day I was a wreck.  I had barely been able to perform.  The effect of my superstition actually was the bad luck I had anticipated.

My premonitions:  I was once invited to a gala charity ball in Brussels.  The day before I was to go,  I had an overwhelming feeling of impending disaster.  I immediately cancelled my appearance.  My place was taken by Marcella Mariani,  a former Miss Italy,  who was a rising young actress.  On her return to Rome,  the plane I would have been on crashed,  killing Mariani and all aboard.

A year or so ago I had an eerie fire premonition.  In the evening,  I often light a candle in the living room,  which my secretary routinely extinguishes before she goes to bed.  On this particular night,  after I had gone to bed,  I felt impelled to go to the living room.  The candle was still burning, my secretary (for the first and last time) having forgotten to put it out.  As I snuffed out the flame,  I had a vision of a raging fire.  I put it out of my mind and went to bed.

In the predawn hours of the following morning I was awakened by cries of "Fire!"  The lower floors of the building where we lived in Paris were in flames and dense smoke was pouring into our apartment.  It was terrifying.  Carlo was out of town.  Since descent was impossible, the governess and I wrapped the children in blankets and climbed the smoke-filled stairs to the roof.  I broke a window with my shoe,  and we somehow managed to get out on the roof,  where later we were rescued by firemen.

I had to spend the day in the hospital, where I was treated for smoke intoxication - smoke from the fire I had clearly seen seven hours before it broke out.

On another occasion in Paris,  Carlo and I were having dinner together when I felt compelled to ask him if our villa in Rome had insurance.  He was startled by my question,  since ordinarily I have no interest in such things.

"Are we insured against theft?"

"Yes, of course, but why are you asking?"

"I don't know.  It's just something that has come into my mind.  Our getting robbed at Marino."

"Well,  don't worry.  We are insured, and we are protected."

The next morning we received word that the Villa Marino had indeed been robbed by a band of thieves who stole,  among other things,  my Oscar and a prized collection of antique boxes that Carlo had collected from all over the world.

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From the Evening Express, dated Thursday, August 25th 1921, in an article telling news of the crash of the British R 38 Airship

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From The Daily Republican, dated Thursday, October 20th 1927

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From the Evening Chronicle, dated Saturday, June 14th 1930

Premonitions of Death

DOES FATE WARN US OF IMPENDING DOOM

Asks Air Commodore Samson.

As yet little attention seems to have been paid by scientific and psychic investigators into the causes of what might be called "the premonition of evil."  It cannot be doubted that almost daily instances of this mysterious power occur which are put down to coincidence,  yet that is an explanation which is in no way satisfactory for all times.

I should think that I am one of the most un-psychic persons in the world,  yet I have known many cases where neither I nor anyone else could account for unheard warnings which appear to come direct from "the other side."

There was the case,  for instance,  when some years ago I was in command of the Royal Naval Flying School at Eastchurch.  I had been home for a week-end,  and one of my officers,  a paymaster lieutenant,  called in for breakfast with us before we returned together by train.  On the journey he was so silent that I taxed him with it.

"I've got a premonition," he replied.  "Something pretty awful is going to happen.  Don't ask me how or why - I just KNOW!"

*****

Grim Fulfilment.

I did not press him further,  since at that moment I was experiencing the same feeling!  Some inner voice was warning me "Do not fly to-day!" and,  do what I could,  I was unable to escape a feeling of impending doom.

Yet I realised that it was out of the question to allow that creeping terror to dominate me,  and immediately we arrived at the Flying School I ordered out a machine.  As I taxied off I wondered whether I should ever return alive,  and for ten minutes every nerve was strained for a false note in the engine or a twang of an important wire,  the breaking of which would send the machine spinning earthwards.

Yet nothing happened.  I landed,  only to meet a white-faced sailor who rushed up to say that the Paymaster Lieutenant had been killed.  In the centre of a little crowd I found the poor fellow,  who had been standing in front of an aeroplane and had been caught by the propeller as it started off.

"Don't leave me old man - don't let go!" he muttered as I kneeled beside him and gripped his hand.  The pilot of the machine was standing beside us,  with the tears rolling down his face,  for the Lieutenant was one of the most popular men on the Station.

Within an hour he was dead,  and I was left wondering what could have been the cause of that premonition which had been fulfilled in so ghastly a manner.  Possibly from fear of being ridiculed I mentioned my premonition to no one,  but within a fortnight it returned more strongly than before.

This time it was so strong that I actually considered the issue of orders cancelling all flying practice for that day!  Then I realised that this would be impossible.  It would create a sort of mental precedent involving an inferiority complex,  and each time the feeling returned I should feel a stronger inclination to give way before the unuttered warning.

*****

Once Again.

Thus it was that routine went on as usual,  and not one of my officers or men knew of that secret fear which lurked behind an impassive exterior.  Yet that decision proved fatal.  Throughout the morning I had been on tenterhooks,  expecting each moment to hear of an accident,  but it was not till the afternoon that it actually ocurred.  The same pilot officer who had been concerned in the previous fatality spun to the ground from a height of 200 feet,  and once again my mysterious premonition of evil proved true.

It is possible that these two incidents were purely fortuitous,  the result of coincidence,  and they may have worked on my mind to such an extent that I went about "looking for trouble."

But it is curious that only a short while later that inexplicable feeling returned a third time,  heralding the death of one of my men,  who was also killed by a propeller.  It was then that I promised myself to stop all flying for the day if ever these premonitions occurred again.  Oddly enough they never did,  at least not until I was in the operations at the Dardanelles.

One morning it appeared like magic out of a blue sky,  accompanied by the thunder of big guns.  There was no reason for it,  but I would have sworn on oath some terrible evil was about to befall me or one of my friends.  This time it was one of my old Eastchurch pilots,  who went up on reconnaissance and crashed to his death before our very eyes on the edge of the aerodrome.

*****

An Extra Sense.

Possibly airmen are gifted with some extra sense denied to others,  for within my own knowledge there have been several cases where pilots have admitted to a premonition of disaster.  Yet I have never known an instance where,  on account of that,  they have made the slightest effort to escape duties which,  as they felt,  would involve their deaths.  

It amy be that the dangers they run key their nerves up to a pitch so receptive that they receive "messages" to which the ordinary man remains deaf,  but there is also the problem which faced me as,  time after time,  those premonitions proved true.  Ought I have stopped all flying,  and should I thus have saved valuable lives for the country?

For some years I was free from this "influence," yet not long ago it occurred once more when I was in command  of all the Fighting Squadrons whose headquarters were at Kenley Aerodrome.  I had been in London when assailed by that black depression,  and as I motored back I decided this time to obey the warning.  Alas,  it was too late.  When actually arriving at the aerodrome I saw one of my pilots dive vertically to earth within a few hundred yards of my car!

To my mind there is little doubt that many ordinary people are susceptible to messages which,  often through fear of ridicule,  they ignore or keep silent about.

Perhaps within a few years psychical research will bring us enlightenment on this point,  but in the meanwhile I shall take no further chances if and when that terrible feeling of foreboding returns.  I shall immediately take steps to warn my friends of their peril.

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It's interesting that Commodore Samson brought up the point about airmen maybe having an extra sense, as there were an unusually high amount of precognitive dreams and premonitions to do with air transport.  Is this because of the dangers involved in such travel,  or is there something else going on?  

I'm not sure what the next part of this is going to be...whether I post more premonitions from newspapers or whether I get into my own fountain of weirdness with such things.  Both seem like good calls, but join me later in the week to see which one wins through, when we return with Part Two!

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I would of course also love to hear from anybody who has had premonitions themselves.  If you've had any such occurrences,  and don't fear ridicule,  please let me know in the comments below,  as this is one of my favourite topics and one which I would love to study more!

In the meantime,  go check out what everyone else has been up to over at the Countdown to Halloween Hub by clicking the badge below!

Spook Sightings of Yester Year - No.26 - The Caledonian Mills Fire Spook (Part 5)

All that remains of the MacDonald farm.

 Okay....let's try this again.  If you've been following the blog you'll know that I already spent three hours typing all of this post out the other day, only for me to accidentally press a wrong button combination as I was trying to post the last photo, accidentally deleting the whole post...and Blogger decided to pick that very second to auto save, meaning I couldn't go back to a back-up draft.  Needless to say, I was somewhat annoyed....

Hopefully this time it won't delete every thing, but I'm going to try and take precautions at the end of every other paragraph just in case!  But you've waited long enough...let's get on with the case!  If you remember last time, the Doc had just decided that the ghost was none other than Mary Ellen, who either wittingly or unwittingly was starting the fires.....but now perhaps the most paranormal of peculiarites in the whole case was about to occur.....

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From the pages of the Evening Mail, dated March 16, 1922

The Sounds and Tactual Sensations of Messrs. Whidden and Carroll

   Of course, I was not able to test these as I did the fires, since they leave no trace.  But from similarity to other known instances, only a small share of which I have already referred to from the occurrence in them of the same indicia, which I am in the habit of likening to the spectrum lines by which the presence of a particular element in combustion is identified.  I strongly incline to think that we have here super-physical, or if you please, occult phenomena.

   1 - Two men heard sounds of a peculiar and novel character, hardly describable as of dull thumps and footsteps.  It was therefore, a collective experience.

   2 - Mr. Whidden emphatically says that these sounds could not have been made by the animals in the barn, rats or the wind, with all of which species he is quite familiar.  I have not been able to talk with Mr. Carroll.

   3 - There was also felt by Mr. Whidden a novel sensation as of a slap, upon his arm, and every physical cause seems to be effectually excluded by his statement of the circumstances.

   4 - Mr. Carroll also felt a similar but lighter sensation in a somewhat different place.  There was, therefore, sharing of this kind of experience also.

   5 - There was no reason for expecting such experiences, for none had been told them, and so far as I can learn, none had been had by the family.

   6 - If they were pure hallucinations. brought about by general apprehension, they should have occurred the first night, and not on the second when any apprehensions that we may imagine should have been quieted by the previous absence of anything out of common.

   7 - There is no data for supposing that the mere sensations of cold produced the experiences.  If a man is actually freezing he may have hallucinations, but not of this character, especially being cold - not freezing by any means - would not account for both having two species of nearly identical strange impressions.

   8 - Neither was asleep, and they had not long lain down.

   9 - As I have said, the house is remarkably firm, and the utmost effect of the strongest wind that blew during our subsequent five days and six nights was to produce slight creaking.  Yet, we had no winds, Mr. Whidden testifies, much stronger than at the hour of the strange sounds, wind from the north, and wind from the south, and not a solitary instance of such a sound was heard as both Whidden and Carroll heard.  On the night which I spent there alone I went into the attic specially to observe whether a particular loose board which someone suspected moved at all, and it did not.

   10 - Such sounds have been heard in other well-authenticated instances, and normal causes could not be found, though skilled observations continued for weeks.

   11 - Tactual sensaions have been observed in other cases.  In my own "haunted house" in New Jersey, a member of my family was frightened one night by repeated sensations as of the bedclothes being pulled while she was awake.  Afterwards, by accident, a lady who had no knowledge of this told me of an exactly similar experience when she had rented rooms in the same otherwise empty house a year before, and which made her flee the house.  These appear to be facts ; explain them as you may ; only you must not form a theory that does not account for all the facts.

___________________________________________________________________________

Alex, 70, Jenny, 69, Mary Ellen, 15

   Why did these experiences begin when Mr. Whidden occupied the House?  Because he happens to be that type of psychic in whose proximity those types of phenomena can take place.  That I say only tentatively, but it appears certain that there is a relation between certain species of phenomena and certain persons.

   Why did Mr. Carroll have the same experience?  According to this theory, because he was with Mr, Whidden.  There were periods when my daughter's bed shook, as I have said.  I could put my hand on the frame and feel it shake, when I could detect no movement on her part.  Moreover, I could exchange rooms and for one or two nights experience the shaking myself, but never if she was not in the house.

   Why did not similar experiences recur during our period of six nights?  Because such phenomena are sporadic and we know little of their laws.  Perhaps the presence of certain other persons, for instance, myself, disturbed or neutralized the forces, whatever they are.

   There is one more point to come, that designated B 2.

The Automatic Writing by Mr. Whidden, March 10.

   Some one recently said that the state of the person who writes without his conscious guidance that it is undesirable, is akin to the state of the sleep-walker.  Well, this is true and it isn't, according to the circumstances and degrees.  On one side, it is akin to sleep-walking, and on he other side it is akin to the power by which some persons deliver their most lofty oratory, or compose their most beautiful music or poetry - the work that is called "inspired."  It may only be different ways of handling and cultivating peculiar capacity which makes one man eccentric and another a genius.  Thus a "psychic" - that is a person who is capable of automatic writing or other kinds of power.  Such as is known as telepathic, clairvoyant, etc., may be induced thereby to become a crank or he may be stimulated to higher efficiency.  If my friend, Mr. Whidden is "psychical",  I am sure that with his character and good sense,  he will not be harmed,  but will rather be helped by the fact.  Goethe,  the greatest literary light of Germany,  was a psychic to a degree,  who was not ashamed to tell of his experiences.  So were Dickens,  the natualist John Muir,  Harriet Beecher Stowe,  and many another distinguished person.  If  I could by being "psychic",  write such literature as Mrs. Curran has automatically written in her "Patience Worth" etc.,  I would jump at the chance.  That marvellous saint Jeanne D'Arc did her historic work because she was a psychic.  Many of the canonized saints appear to have possessed psychical experiences which led them to holy ways.  Martin Luther,  who heard inexplicable sounds and saw an apparition which he interpreted but did not prove to be a devil,  was,  therefore, a psychic to that degree, but did not lose his practical efficiency.

___________________________________________________________________________

   Automatic writing is carried on as an act by the subconscious part of the human mind.  The question is whether anything ever is injected into that writing which transcends the subconscious mind.  This question has been answered by experienced scientific students of the phenomena practically unanimously in the affirmative.  Then another question rises, whether that factor which could not have originated from subconscious knowledge or chance coincidence is from discarnate spirits...

   All scientific experienced students agree that some automatic writings give no clue from their contents whether they are totally from the subconscious or not.

   Practically all such agree that there exist automatic writings containing a factor which could not have originated solely in the subconscious mind, but which require either the spiritistic hypothesis for its explanation, or the telepathic  (Transmission of thoughts between living persons or by other than the known channels)  hypothesis strained to its utmost capacity.

   The automatic writing produced by Mr. Whidden so unexpectedly to him and so dramatically, belongs to the second class, that is, I should be unable to from its contents say whether or not it all came from his subconscious mind.  Although one correct statement not within his knowledge was made, that is not enough for a judgement.  Usually it requires a period of development before evidential matter begins to appear, though in one case a noted writer who did her first automatic writing with me, produced highly evidential matter in the second and third experiments and none in those which I had with her after that. 

   ___________________________________________________________________________

   But there is one fact which is hard to explain on the theory of solely subconscious origination.  I picked Mr. Whidden out as the one with whom first to try the experiment, because he seemed to be the most likely one, a fact not at all to his discredit.  My object was merely psycological curiosity and to pass the time away.  He had no appearance of expectation, and says he had not any, and the first experiment was without result, the second succeeding to a rather volcanic degree.  Naturally, after this he fully expected that the next trial would be as successful, and, being curious about the new experience, hoped it would be.  But there was absolute failure in the next and three following trials.  Not a word was written.

   This is a hard riddle on the solely subconscious theory.  Psychologists expect that strong expectation and desire on the part of an automatist will manifest itself.  Had the four last experiments increased in extent they would certainky have pointed to the increased expectation and desire.  It is hard to see how the opposite result could equally serve the same theory.  We know that the subconscious is capable of contradicting the opinions of the conscious mind in cases where there has been previous mental debate settled in reason and will on one side of the question, and locking up and suppressing the other side tinged with desires, in the subconscious.  But there had been no old debate upon this sort of thing by Mr. Whidden.  It was a new experience and almost a new topic to his mind.

   If - I only say if - the girl was temporarily obsessed to perform acts not properly her own, then the "communication" through Mr. Widden to the effect that the "communicator" "caused the fires" would be consistent enough. 

___________________________________________________________________________

   Dr. Hyslop was convinced that there were cases of obsession.  I once witnessed a scene which was very suggestive that it might be in operation.   A professional man, whose work is widely know, came to me to see if he was "bughouse," as he expressed it, and in a shamed manner laid before me two pieces of script which I at once knew had the marks of automatism.  "My hand did this of itself," he said,  "I want to know if I am getting crazy."  It appeared that the purported communicator, a relative, had lately died.  I had an experiment with the gentleman, he went into spontaneous trance, and the same "communicator" wrote.  Presently she named a man whom she said was trying to influence him wrongly, and expressed much concern.  I asked where he lived, and it was stated, "He is on our side."  Suddenly the writing changed, the movements became vicious, the pencil was flung away, the features writhed, the eyes opened, and for some moments the man glared at me in stony horror, then passed into full consciousness.  It appeared that he had seen a vision of that dead man and for a little after waking had thought I was he.  The only reason I mention this case is because the man was singularly ignorant of such matters, had never heard of obsession, yet the identical claim was made in his writing and subjective experience that we have had in other quarters.

___________________________________________________________________________

   In a few words, I restate my findings.

   The fires were set by human hands, but almost certainly without guilt, probably in an altered state of consciousness and possibly influenced by a discarnate agency.  The sounds and tactual sensations experienced by Messrs. Whidden and Carroll were probably super-normal experiences due to causes which psychical research has not yet determined.  The automatic writing of Mr. Whidden was an absolutely valid psychological fact which possibly, though not yet proveably, transcends the purely psychological, and if so, would be in harmony with the suggestion that the girl was temporarily obsessed.  I have, as yet, no convictions on the last point one way or the other, but I am glad to add this case to the data under consideration.

___________________________________________________________________________

   One final word : Many statements and acts have been attributed to me in certain papers and thence have become widely disseminated which have no foundation.  There have even appeared purported interviews with me which never took place.

   One claim was that I regarded the wireless wave theory of the fires.  I did not for a moment, though I entertain great respect for the proponents.  And after I had examined the house, I knew that the waves could not be responsible unless they were endowed with intelligence to know when people were in the house, with a dislike for wall area more than six feet and six inches high, with shyness about breaking out into flames directly before witnesses, and with capacity to carry sofa cushions downstairs and to tuck rags into pasteboard boxes and to set them on the floor.

   I much prefer that my movements and opinions should be sought by those they chance to interest in statements written and signed by me. 

* ~ *

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So wow....automatic writing, eh!?  What do we make of that?  And do you believe that Mary Ellen is the one responsible for the fires?  How did Mr. Whidden feel about writing appearing outwith his control?  Well, on that last point we do have an idea....

(Click to go big)

Yes, poor Mr. Whidden was deeply changed by his experience and was so distraught by the personal details divulged by the spirits that he withheld a lot of the experience from the papers and only passed the writings on to the Psychical Society.  He did later write a pamphlet for his friends and family members so they would better undertand what he went through though, which you can read in full by clicking here.....

Here though, is an extract from when the automatic writing was starting to happen....

"Suddenly I felt a prickly sensation in the end of some of the fingers of my right hand, which increased. The hand then became numb. Before I realized what was happening, the pencil began to move slowly, without any effort or intention on my part. This lasted less than a minute, probably, when it commenced to form circles. The motion became more rapid, and my hand simply worked like a toy top over the paper. The movement became so fast and the pressure so hard that three sheets of paper were torn. Six sheets of paper had been covered in this manner, when the slanting lines on the seventh sheet. It next formed various movements over the paper and stopped for a fraction of a minute. Then it began to write in large, peculiarly shaped letters. This whole experience lasted over two hours A message seemed to be transmitted to me in this weird manner. I had no idea what was going to happen next; in fact, most of the time I did not know what letter was coming next. At other times, I conjectured after the first letter was written what the word was going to be. But most of the time I had absolutely no idea what was coming next. I had no control-over my hand, which was numb; I had a feeling of numbness about my heart as well; and although I could appreciate what was transpiring, my mind seemed to be control- led by some unseen power. Every movement appeared to be dictated or automatic. The writing was not of my own violation.

I felt sometimes as if drawn down over the table, with my eyes only four or five inches from the paper. This was almost invariably when something of outstanding importance or significance was to be written. Dr. Prince was an eye-witness, and there were times when he was sharpening pencils or getting more paper that my elbow shot out, my hand tugged him, and after attracting his attention, the hand proceeded again with the “message.” At times the movement was slow and decidely painstaking; at others it was incredibly rapid, inpetuous and eager. At times it tried to write words of the greatest significance, but went through odd contortions instead, and in some cases the questions were not answered. In others, the sentences were never completed. The unseen power seemed to increase its influence all the time, and less than thirty words of the message were written when my speech was even controlled by it. When statements of the greatest significance or importance were being written, it repeated every letter and sometimes the writing stopped for a few seconds, while Dr. Prince through my mouth, was requested to ask the “communicator” certain questions. Sometimes it looked as if the unseen power was so eager that it even wrote the questions down itself and answered them."

And as to anyone not believing the experiences that he had, he said...

"Those who wish to scoff and ridicule this simple story are at liberty to do so. It is not many weeks ago that my own credulity would not have been equal to it, but as I have already intimated, these events have revolutionized my mnd. The communication was, I am convinced, from at last one spirit. Its name was given; significant evidential statements were made. I will, as a result, believe to the hour of my death at least, that the fires in Alexander Macdonald’s house and the mysterious unfastening of his cattle were caused by spirits."

Please do go and read the whole pamplet though, as it does give you a great perspective from Mr. Whidden's side of the ghost slaps and writings, and does convince you that he at least, believed there was something other than a bored young girl to blame for the happenings at Caledonian Mills.

And what of Mary Ellen?  What happened to her? Well, reports vary...some say The MacDonalds and her moved back in and the ghostly happenings started again, but the public and the papers were far less interested and Dr. Prince was also unable to be bothered with them.  Some say they then moved away and faded into obscurity, but there are later photos of Mary Ellen and rumours that as she was to blame for the fires, she was incarcerated in an asylum for a while. 

Mary Ellen

This seems very unfair.  The words of one paranormal investigator accusing her of being a pyro and she's shunted off to the asylum and locked up?  Well, there are also other reports, which I was unable to confirm, that she was later arrested for starting another fire at her place of work.

Whatever the case, she apparently ended her years relatively happy and unhindered by the events of Caledonian Mills.  I guess everyone else would have their own beliefs of what had happened, and now you will too...but for one Mr. Whidden at least, things would never be the same, as he had definitely had a paranormal awakening!

* ~ * 

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I kind of wish that I was able to write all of that with the aid of Automatic Writing!  But there we have it, the end of the Caledonian Mills saga...now we can finally look at some other spook sightings, and unlike Mr. Whidden, I feel that maybe it's time to share something of a more personal nature....but more on that at a later date!

Be sure to go see what everyone else is up to for the Countdown by clicking the badge below, or just head straight over to Action Figure Barbecue where there's a really cool Invisible Man figure for you to check out!

Laters, Stuffers!