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Croiset the Clairvoyant - Jack Harrison Pollack

Flight to France

Jan Steffen, eighteen years old, suddenly disappeared from his home at Golfstraat 8, in Antwerp, Belgium, on October 16, 1959. Three days later, when no trace of the youth had been found, Mr. L. Leys, a Belgian newspaper reporter on De Gazet van Antwerpen telephoned Professor Tenhaeff in Utrecht from Antwerp, asking for guidance in finding Jan. Tenhaeff suggested telephoning his most gifted paragnost.

Gerard Croiset's first words to his Belgian caller were: “Is the boy sixteen or seventeen years old?"

"No, he is eighteen," was the reply.

The sensitive paused, then added with certainty, "Tell his father not to worry. I see the boy traveling in France, away from Paris. Within three days, his father will hear some definite news. The boy wants to please his father. This is only an adventure for him."

The following afternoon the missing boy's father received a telephone call from the Belgian Consul in Lyon, in southern France: 'Your son has just come in here asking for money to return home to Antwerp."

The grateful father, Alfred Steffen, visited the Parapsychology Institute nearly three weeks later, on Sunday, November 8, to document this case. "My son wanted to study navigation but was rejected by the Navy because of a hearing defect," he reported. "This made him very unhappy. He had great adjustment difficulties in school. Several times, I had to ask his teachers for special consideration of Jan. Whenever I pointed out his poor behaviour to him, Jan said he didn't know why he behaved so badly. My son ran away because he didn't want me to have any further trouble because of him."

Assessing this case, Professor Tenhaeff observes, "From the father's statements it becomes clear that Croiset's remark, 'He wants to please his father . . .' is correct. The son, obviously, ran away in the belief that in this way he would spare his father from further difficulties."