Observations placeholder

Supernormal faculties in Man- Dr Eugene Osty

Circumstances, conditions of experiment and words uttered.

From 1916 to 1920 my friend, M. Louis M-, undertook by himself and. through friends a long series of metagnomic enquiries with several subjects in order to obtain information that might be useful on his eldest son severely wounded and missing at the battle of Verdun.

This series is of great psychological interest and will be given in detail in a later chapter.

The premonition here following is given because it foretold an event in the family surroundings of the missing officer. - - One of the persons who gave enlightened help to M. Louis M- was Mme G-, a friend of the family, who had several seances with Mme Morel (hypnotized) in 1916- 17-18, using letters, pieces of clothing, and other objects. In a seance of 1916, after having spoken of the wounded and missing officer, she said:

"I see in this family another young man, younger than he, a brother . . he will contract a union, ardently desired, and will be very happy."

M. Louis M-'s second son, Pierre, was then seventeen and destined for the medical profession. His age, the length of the curriculum probably still further lengthened by the war, caused Mme G-- to judge this prediction erroneous, and that if true it could only apply to some student's union of which it would be inadvisable to speak to the parents. She therefore suppressed this information in the copy of the proceedings at the seance that she gave to the parents, till October 6th, 1918, when the form of the forecast seemed more suitable. The percipient said on that day:

"This young man is a student . there is, however, an approaching marriage. He will continue his studies after his marriage."

In October, 1917, M. Pierre M-, commissioned by his father to have a seance with M. de Fleuriere, with whom he was unacquainted, in order to verify what might be said on the missing brother in connection with a delineation of Pierre's own life. I detach the words concerning the particular event now under discussion from the context of which it formed but a very small part. With reference to that event, concerning which he had not been informed of the previous predictions, he was told:

 "I see for you a speedy union with a young lady who is in your immediate surroundings. This marriage will change nothing in your mode of life or your occupations. You will continue to live as at present."

 To M. Louis M-, the father of the young man, Mme Morel, in a long series of seances from March, 1916, to November, 1918, said nothing of the marriage of this son, though she mentioned it at nearly all the séances with Mme G--. On November 6th, 1918, she said to his father for the first time:

"Your youngest son will not remain long where he is at present (he was at Grenoble going through his military service), he will return to Paris to resume his interrupted studies . . . he will be deeply in love; then there will be a marriage, and family life."

Censorship. Mental, content of the persons relative to the premonition.

Madame G- thought the anticipation false or implying some temporary student's union.

M. Louis M- wrote down the prediction and told it me with the rest of his account of that seance, saying that he saw no reason for it.

M. Pierre M- chiefly concerned, was aged nineteen in, 1917, and saw nothing at that time supporting the anticipation made.

What came to pass.

Demobilized in 1919, M. Pierre M- returned to Paris and resumed his studies. M. and Mme G-, friends of his father from childhood, kept an hotel. He lived there en pension. M, and Mme G- had two daughters. The elder was married the same year. Pierre was deeply in love with the younger, aged eighteen.

His affection was returned, and the families consented to the marriage, which took place August 20th, 1921. The bridegroom was twenty-two and only in the second year of his medical studies. Mme G .never suspected five years before that the "union" she apprehended would be with her own daughter. Thus all came to pass exactly as foretold by M. de Fleuriere.

Nothing in the young man's life was changed. This fact of premonition had a curious epilogue. After his son's marriage M. Louis M- came to read over the note- books in which he had written down the accounts of seances held by him with various percipients.

Under the date May 4th, 1916, he found his first seance with Mlle de Berly. She gave him the physical, moral, and social descriptions of a score of the persons in his surroundings, among whom were M. and Mme G_ and their daughters. As to these latter she said:

" Both children will marry early, first the elder (here followed a sketch of the bridegroom) and the younger not long afterwards. . . . I see the husband of the younger . he is there, very clear before me . . . blond, tall, rather stout, with a thick lower lip. . ."

 In 1921 this description applied to M. Louis M-'s younger son.