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Croiset the Clairvoyant - Jack Harrison Pollack

Berlin Journey

A- middle-aged man and woman stood on the Utrecht railroad platform late one summer evening.  This is a common sight on a station platform but Mr. and Mrs. A. F. Wolf of the nearby village of Bilthoven looked particularly happy as they waited to meet the night train from Berlin. It was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and they were eagerly anticipating the arrival of Mrs. Wolf’s older sister, whom I shall call Mrs. B., as she prefers to remain anonymous.

Mrs. B.'s strange journey took place on Sunday, August 30th , 1953, shortly after demonstrations by East Berlin workers against increased work quotas had erupted into anti-Communist riots. A resulting general strike affected 200,000 East Germans. Soviet troops quelled the disturbances, killing many people.

Finally, the evening Berlin train, presumably the right one, chugged into Utrecht, half an hour late. But Mrs. B. was not on it. Now the Wolfs really began to grow uneasy. Their sister was in frail health, and they were concerned that she might be lying alone at some station in the Russian zone, ill and without help.

The station master at Utrecht telephoned all the Dutch stations en route, covering all possibilities. But there were no reports of any passenger becoming ill on the train or getting off at the wrong station. In fact, no passenger fitting Mrs. B.'s description was found on the train.

Frantic with worry, Mrs. Wolf sent an urgent telegram to her niece who had remained in Berlin. Two hours later, the niece telephoned Mrs. Wolf saying, "Mother started out on the right train and was feeling well. But I have heard nothing further about her, either."

"I then decided to phone Mr. Croiset in Enschede," Mr. Wolf later reported on September 10th  to the Parapsychology Institute. "It was now very early in the morning but he immediately came to the telephone, anyway. Even before I had finished my story, he said: 'No accident has happened. She is not sick, either. The case has to do with train difficulties. I see an empty platform.'

"In answer to my question, 'Will she arrive today?' he said, 'You will hear from her today.'

"Croiset was right. Just before noon, twelve hours after we expected her, my sister-in-law arrived at our home."

Mrs. B. was almost too exhausted to speak at first. But gradually, she recounted the story of her long, hard journey:

Elections were taking place in East Germany, causing considerable excitement and heavy travel between the Russian and Western zones, which was possible then because the Wall had not yet been erected. The numerous border-control posts were so overcrowded that trains could not pass through normally. Mrs. B.'s train had left on schedule but had been shunted onto a siding three times during the journey and stood immobile each time for periods up to four hours.

Yet Gerard Croiset, who was approximately 350 miles away, in another country, had a clear and instantaneous vision of the scene.