by H. Addington Bruce

It would be rash to conclude, as many of us do, that there is no such thing as genuine clairvoyance, by which is meant the ability to perceive distant scenes and events as if one were bodily present at the place of their occurrence. That such a faculty exists, although usable only on rare occasions, and that there is nothing in the least supernatural about it, are facts definitely established by the scientifically trained investigators who have been diligently attacking this and other psychical problems the past twenty-five years. Their researches have made it evident that in order to explain genuine clairvoyant phenomena it is not necessary to postulate the intervention of “spirits,” or the flight through space of the clairvoyant’s “astral body.” Clairvoyance is simply a special form of telepathy.

It must be acknowledged, however, that the telepathic connection is sometimes extremely difficult to trace; as, for example, in the few indisputable instances, reported by Professor James and other trustworthy investigators, in which the services of clairvoyants have been successfully invoked to find the bodies of persons drowned or otherwise accidentally killed under circumstances seemingly precluding any one from having knowledge of the place or manner of their death.

A typical case of the kind occurred a few years ago in connection with the mysterious death of a New Hampshire girl, Miss Bertha Huse, of Enfield, who was drowned in Mascoma Lake.

For three days after the disappearance of Miss Huse, one hundred and fifty of her townspeople searched vainly for her. She had last been seen alive on a long bridge crossing the lake, and it was supposed that she had fallen from it or had deliberately committed suicide. The waters were dragged but without result, and failure also attended the efforts of a professional diver from Boston employed by a sympathetic citizen.

Meantime, in the little town of Lebanon, some miles distant, a Mrs. Titus fell into a trance, during which she talked to her husband and described to him a spot in the lake where she said the body of the Huse girl was lying. So strongly was Mr. Titus impressed by her statements that, next day, he took her to Enfield, where the diver, following her instructions, quickly found the body in the place located by her.

Mrs. Titus afterwards gave other, if less sensational, demonstrations of a similar character; and Professor James, who made a close study of her case, publicly stated his belief that her experiences form “a decidedly solid document in favor of the admission of a supernormal faculty of seership—whatever preciser meaning may later come to be attached to such a phrase.”

There are also on record certain well-attested dreams presenting the same difficulty of identifying the agent, or sender, of the clairvoyant vision. A characteristic dream of this sort is reported by Mrs. Alfred Wedgwood, daughter-in-law of the English savant, Hensleigh Wedgwood.

“I spent the Christmas holidays with my father-in-law in Queen Anne Street,” says Mrs. Wedgwood, “and in the beginning of January I had a remarkably vivid dream, which I told to him next morning at breakfast.

“I dreamed I went to a strange house, standing at the corner of a street. When I reached the top of the stairs I noticed a window opposite with a little colored glass, short muslin blinds running on a brass rod. The top of the ceiling had a window veiled by colored muslin. There were two small shrubs on a little table. The drawing-room had a bow window, with the same blinds; the library had a polished floor, with the same blinds.

“As I was going to a child’s party at a cousin’s, whose house I had never seen, I told my father-in-law I thought that that would prove to be the house.

“On January tenth I went with my little boy to the party, and, by mistake, gave the driver a wrong number. When he stopped at number twenty, I had misgivings about the house, and remarked to the cab man that it was not a corner house. The servant could not tell me where Mrs. H. lived, and had not a blue-book. Then I thought of my dream, and, as a last resource, I walked down the street, looking up for the peculiar blinds I had observed in my dream. These I met with at number fifty, a corner house, and, knocking at the door, was relieved to find that it was the house of which I was in search.

“On going upstairs, the room and windows corresponded with what I had seen in my dream, and the same little shrubs in their pots were standing on the landing. The window in which I had seen the colored glass was hidden by the blind being down, but I learned on inquiry that it was really there.”

In this case the dream, though devoid of any dramatic feature, served a useful purpose, as did a much more spectacular dream occurring to Doctor A. K. Young, an Irish magistrate and landowner. In his dream he suddenly found himself standing at the gate of a friend’s park, many miles from home. Near by were a group of persons, one a woman with a basket on her arm, the rest, men, four of whom were tenants of his own, while the others were unknown to him. Some of the strangers seemed to be making a murderous attack on one of his tenants, and he ran to his rescue.

“I struck violently at the man on my left,” he says, “and then with greater violence at the man to my right. Finding to my surprise that I did not knock either of them down, 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 that 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 think I ever 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 Doctor Young awoke feeling stiff and sore, and his wife informed him that he had greatly alarmed her during the night by striking out “as if fighting for his life.” He then told her of his curious dream, and asked her to remember the names of the actors in it recognized by him. The following day he received a letter from his land agent stating that the tenant whom he had dreamed he saw attacked had been found unconscious, and apparently dying, at the very spot where Doctor Young had in his dream tried to defend him; and that there was no clue to his assailants.

That night Doctor Young started for the scene of the tragedy, and immediately upon his arrival applied to the local magistrate for warrants for the arrest of the three men whom, besides the injured tenant, he had recognized in the vision. All three, when arrested and questioned separately, told the same story, confirming the details of the dream, even to the incident of the presence of the woman with the basket. They had said nothing about the affair because they were afraid it would make trouble for them, but they denied any complicity in it, asserting that while walking home with them between eleven and twelve at night, the tenant—who, by the way, ultimately recovered—had been attacked by a couple of strangers, whose companions had prevented them from interfering to protect him.

According to Mrs. Young, it was between eleven and twelve o’clock on the night of the fight that her sleeping husband had frightened her by his violent actions.

Here the telepathic impulse causing the clairvoyant dream may have come either from the injured tenant himself or from one of the three spectators known to Doctor Young. The difficulty is to conceive an adequate reason for any of them thinking of him, even subconsciously. But, granting for argument’s sake the possibility of independent clairvoyance, the still more thorny question at once arises why his “astral body” should have chosen to journey to that precise spot at that precise moment.

The obstacles in the way of such a conception as independent clairvoyance are too serious to be overcome. Nor is it necessary to resort to it, in view of the fact that in the vast majority of clairvoyant cases it is possible to establish definitely the telepathic association.

Here, by way of illustration, is a typical case, fully as impressive as Doctor Young’s, but leaving no doubt as to its origin. It was reported to the Society for Psychical Research by Mrs. Hilda West, daughter of Sir John Crowe, who was at the time British consul general for Norway.

“My father and brother,” runs Mrs. West’s narrative, “were on a journey during the winter. I was expecting them home, without knowing the exact day of their return. I had gone to bed at the usual time, about eleven P. M. Some time in the night I had a vivid dream, which made a great impression on me.

“I dreamed I was looking out of a window, when I saw father driving in a Spids sledge, followed in another by my brother. They had to pass a crossroad, on which another traveler was driving very fast, also in a sledge with one horse. Father seemed to drive on without observing the other fellow, who would, without fail, have driven over father if he had not made his horse rear, so that I saw my father drive under the hoofs of the horse. Every moment I expected the horse would fall down and crush him. I cried out ‘Father! Father!’ and woke in a great fright.

“The next morning my father and brother returned. I said to them: ‘I am so glad to see you arrive quite safely, as I had such a dreadful dream about you last night.’ My brother said: ‘You could not have been in greater fright about him than I was.’ And then he related to me what had happened, which tallied exactly with my dream. My brother in his fright, when he saw the feet of the horse over father’s head, called out: ‘Oh, father! Father!’”

Compare with this the very similar instance of clairvoyance in a waking or semi-waking state, experienced by Mrs. Helen Avery Robinson, of Anchorage, Kentucky, and communicated by her, with a corroborative letter from her son, to Professor Hyslop:

“My son and a friend had driven across the country to dine and spend the evening with friends. The rest of the household had retired for the night. I was awakened by the telephone, and looked at the clock, finding it eleven-thirty. I knew my son would soon be in, and thought of a window downstairs, which I felt might not have been locked, and I determined to remain awake and ask my son to make sure it was secure.

“As I lay waiting and listening for him, I suddenly saw their vehicle, a light break-cart, turn over, my son jump out, land on his feet, run to the struggling horse’s head, his friend hold on to the lines, and in a moment it was gone and I knew all was right and felt no disturbance.

“I met my son as he came in, and spoke of the window. He said: ‘We tipped over, mother.’ I replied: ‘Yes, I know it. I saw you.’ And described what I saw, which he said was just as it happened. I did not see them before they started out, as his friend called for him with his horse and vehicle, so I did not know in what style they went.”

It should be added that the spot where the cart was overturned was so far from the Robinson house that, even had it been broad daylight, Mrs. Robinson could not possibly have witnessed the accident from her bedroom.

In the same way a young man named Frederic Marks, in Wallingford, Connecticut, clairvoyantly—and most dramatically—beheld an accident occurring to his brother, Charles, on Oneida Lake, in New York State, hundreds of miles from Wallingford. Charles Marks and a friend, Arthur Bloom, had gone for a sail on the lake, were caught in a storm, and almost wrecked through the giving way of their boom. Charles, however, springing into the bow, managed to make the boom fast again, and they succeeded in running to shore.

It was when their danger was greatest that they were seen clairvoyantly by Frederic Marks, who, it being a rainy afternoon in Wallingford, was lounging in his room.

“I do not think I fell asleep,” he testifies, “nor did I seem fully awake. But all at once I seemed to be facing a severe storm of wind and rain. As I looked into the storm a small boat with a sail came, driven helplessly along through a seething, boiling mass of water. Two young men were in it, one trying to steer and control the boat, the other apparently trying to dip out water and work on the sail.

“One of the two, in a moment of greatest peril, tried to tear down the sail from its mast. The face of my brother came clearly into view, with an expression on it that remains with me now. The boat righted and sped on. I saw a low shore that it was driving toward. The boat grew fainter as it neared the shore, and consciousness came back to me, and, whatever it was, whether a dream or a vision, passed away.”

Fortunately, young Marks did not keep his singular experience to himself, but hastened downstairs and told his employer—a Mr. Bristol, with whom he was living—of what he had seen. He was laughed at, of course, and assured that it was “only a dream.” But three or four days afterward a letter arrived from Charles Marks, bringing unexpected verification of his brother’s story.

Even more detailed, in point of clairvoyant perception of a distant scene, is the strange dream of a physician, Doctor C. Golinski, of Krementchug, Russia. It was Doctor Golinski’s custom to take a nap during the day, and one afternoon he lay down on a sofa as usual, about half-past three. While asleep, he says:

“I dreamed that the doorbell rang, and that I had the usual rather disagreeable sensation that I must get up and go to some sick person. Then I found myself transported directly into a little room with dark hangings. To the right of the door leading into the room is a chest of drawers, and on this I see a little paraffin lamp of a special pattern. To the left of the door I see a bed, on which lies a woman suffering from severe hemorrhage. I do not know how I come to know that she has a hemorrhage, but I know it. I examine her, but rather to satisfy my conscience than for any other reason, as I know beforehand how things are, although no one speaks to me. Afterward I dream vaguely of medical assistance which I give, and then I awake.”

It was then half-past four. About ten minutes later the doorbell rang, and Doctor Golinski was summoned to a patient. His surprise may be imagined when he found that he was ushered into the identical room of his dream. So astonished was he that he immediately approached the bed on which his patient was lying, and said to her:

“You are suffering from a hemorrhage.”

“Yes,” was her reply, in a tone of great astonishment. “But how do you know it?”

She then told him, in answer to his questions, that the hemorrhage had set in about one o’clock, but had not been severe enough to alarm her until between three and four; and that it was not until nearly half-past four that she had decided to send for him.

The following account is of a similar nature, clairvoyant dream, reported by a lady who has declined to allow her name to be published:

“A number of years ago I was invited to visit a friend who lived at a large and beautiful country seat on the Hudson. Shortly after my arrival I started, with a number of other guests, to make a tour of the very extensive grounds. We walked for an hour or more, and thoroughly explored the place. Upon my return to the house, I discovered that I had lost a gold cuff-stud, which I valued for association’s sake. I merely remembered that I wore it when we started out, and did not think of or notice it again until my return, when it was missing. As it was quite dark, it seemed useless to search for it, especially as it was the season of autumn and the ground was covered with dead leaves.

“That night I dreamed that I saw a withered grapevine clinging to a wall, and with a pile of dead leaves at its base. Underneath the leaves, in my dream, I distinctly saw my stud gleaming. The following morning I asked the friends with whom I had been walking the previous afternoon if they remembered seeing any such wall and vine, as I did not. They replied that they could not recall anything answering the description. I did not tell them why I asked, as I felt somewhat ashamed of the dream; but, during the morning, I made some excuse to go out on the grounds alone. I walked hither and thither, and, after a long time, I suddenly came upon the wall and vine exactly as they looked in my dream.

“I had not the slightest recollection of seeing them, or passing by them on the previous day. The dead leaves at the base were lying heaped up, as in my dream. I approached cautiously, feeling rather uncomfortable and decidedly silly, and pushed them aside. I had scattered a large number of the leaves when a gleam of gold struck my eye, and there lay the stud, exactly as in my dream.”

Akin to this is an exceptionally interesting case that was reported to me by a young lady attending college at Greeley, Colorado. Her father, it appears, had sent her a check, which for a day or two she delayed cashing. Then, being without money, she looked for it in the place where she supposed she had put it, but, to her dismay, discovered that it was not there. A thorough search of her room failed to bring it to light, and, as it was not a personal check of her father’s, she was greatly worried, thinking that it might be impossible to duplicate it.

A couple of nights later she had a curious dream in which she saw herself standing in front of a bookcase in the college library. On a certain shelf were five books, one bound in blue, another in yellow, and between them three with a white binding. She took down one of the white-covered volumes, opened it idly, and in the middle of the book found her check.

Next morning she awoke with no memory of the dream, nor did she recall it when, later in the day, she visited the college library and came across this identical placing of books. It recurred to her only when she glanced into one of the white-covered volumes. Feeling rather “foolish,” and also not a little apprehensive, she took down a second volume of the same set, opened it, and there, sure enough, was the missing check!

She then remembered that the book in which it was found had been in her room for some hours the day she received her father’s letter. What happened, I have no doubt, was that she absentmindedly slipped the check into the book, and then, so far as her upper consciousness was concerned, forgot all about it. But subconsciously she would remember and subconsciously would be reminded of it the day before the dream when, in the college library, she happened to see the same book again, without, perchance, any conscious knowledge of seeing it. That night, in sleep, her mind busied itself once more with the problem of the missing check, this time to good purpose.

Very similar is a dream for which I am indebted to Mr. Andrew Lang, who got it from the dreamer, an English lawyer. This gentleman had sat up late to write letters, and about half-past twelve went out to post them. On his return he missed a check for a large amount received by him during the day. He searched everywhere in vain, went to bed, and soon fell asleep. Then he dreamed that he saw the check curled around an area railing not far from his own door. Waking, he was so impressed that, although it was not yet daylight, he got up, dressed, walked out of the house, and found the check at the spot indicated by his dream.

In another case a Californian, visiting in Sullivan County, New York, lost a gold ring given him by his sister. That night he dreamed he saw it lying in the sand beneath a swing, in which he had been sitting in the afternoon. It was actually there, as he ascertained by looking next day. Similarly, a clerk in a customs house recovered a valuable document, the loss of which would have cost him his position. And the wife of a clergyman, the Reverend W. F. Brand, of Emmorton, Maryland, had revealed to her in a dream the hiding-place of a sum of money which, six months before, she had put away at her husband’s request, but had afterward accidentally slipped into a bundle of shawls.

Excerpt from Adventurings In The Psychical