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Croiset the Clairvoyant - Jack Harrison Pollack

When things were darkest, Gerard Croiset began to grow more aware of his paranormal powers. One day, he was dejectedly sitting by the side of the road and a former customer, riding by on a bicycle, stopped and asked, "What's the matter, Croiset?" Gerard told him his troubles. Sympathetic, the man invited Croiset to visit him and his wife that evening. Croiset eagerly accepted. In their home, Croiset discussed his psychic experiences, which he admitted not being able to understand.

His host, a spiritualist, speedily recognized Gerard Croiset’s obvious gifts. Shortly afterwards, he welcomed the impoverished man into his inner circle as a "spiritualistic medium”.  Invited to attend the sessions where seances were conducted, he soon concluded that many phenomena which the spiritualists believed were caused by spirits, could be explained in other ways. A highly ethical man, he therefore quit the spiritualist group.

On a summer evening in 1935, Croiset and his wife visited a man named Henk de Maar, a watchmaker, who lived in Borne near Enschede. Croiset picked up a meter stick lying on the table. Immediately, images of De Maar's youth flashed into his mind. Croiset began by animatedly saying, "I see an automobile accident . . . a body lying on the road of a grassy place." De Maar listened, aghast, exclaiming, "Everything you said is true. Do you have such feelings often?"

"Very often," answered Croiset.

"Then you must be a clairvoyant!"

"That's how it all began," recalls Croiset. "Other people heard about me and brought their troubles to me. I forgot about my grocery-store failure and started to think of a new career."