Observations placeholder

Supernormal faculties in Man- Dr Eugene Osty

On July 29th, 1916, my turn having come to replace one of the doctors with the army, I received an order from the Minister directing me to join, without delay, the reserve of the medical staff at Gray. This centre, like others distributed behind the front, had the duty of placing medical officers according to their several aptitudes and the vacancies that might occur.

Passing through Paris on August 1st, I sought to profit by the unknown future by making an experiment on exact prevision. Here is an extract from the seance that I had with Mme Loni-Feignez, who was unaware of what my military duties might be, and more especially that I was in transit between one appointment and another, whose duties could not be foreseen by reasoning. As soon as she was in the hypnoid state, she asked,

"What must I see?"

"Look," I said, "for the next events in my life."

 " . . . at the present moment you are doing something of the nature of a change, as if you were moving to interchange with some one. . . . You are changing your place you are going to a town through which there is a largish river water is passing at the side. It seems that you are being questioned, as if you were submitting various matters and decision will be given according to your answers . . . a group of gentlemen will give a decision that will please you; you will be satisfied with it.

In the town to which they will send you I see two parts, one high and one low you will be in the lower part, you will work and live there you will have nothing to do with the upper town . . a small town, old and dirty . . with small ill-paved streets; a little manufacturing town, of some importance, perhaps, by the number of inhabitants, but small. .

Facing the house in which you will practise, there is an open space . you will work on the first floor... a large staircase... one would think it an old convent . . very wide staircase heavy wooden handrail . . . a large landing two large rooms on the same floor with a door between them ceilings very high . . . it is an old house.. . When you leave it to go to your lodging you will cross the place and go to a house not old like the other there are trees before the door and a wide road . you do not go upstairs, you lodge on the ground-floor; you will be not far from the river, which can be seen from your rooms although it is not before the door.

You will not stay there long … perhaps a couple of months. Just when you think yourself fixed, you will change."

What came to pass.

On August 3rd I was at Gray, on the Saone. The assistant medical staff officer asked me my preferences.

On the 8th I was attached to the 7 76th Ambulance at Moyon (Meurthe et Moselle), where I was to replace Dr. R., called elsewhere.

During the 9th I reached Moyon, a town of about one thousand inhabitants; an upper town on the slope of the hill, with dirty, worn, and narrow streets, always full of soldiers on passage, and a lower town, much better built and clean, where they told me I should find the ambulance. A soldier took me to a large house, old, and of the type of the monastery schools that are to be found more or less everywhere in the country, some forty yards back from the road, the open space being flanked by houses on both sides.

The administrative office was on the first floor, approached by a wide staircase with a heavy wooden balustrade. On the wide landing one door was lettered "Ambulance 7-76."

 I entered a large room, very high, where carboys, folded stretchers, medical canteens, dressings, etc., were scattered. The principal medical officer was in the adjoining room, and I was introduced.

 "'Where is the ambulance? "I soon inquired.

 "It is all here," he answered with a laugh," in these two rooms that you see: this one is the office that I share with the management, and the other you have just passed through. We have been here at Moyon for a month, on return from Verdun, in reserve, but we have to supervise the construction of huts near the station as an evacuation hospital, which we shall have to work in two or three months."

Really, this ambulance[hospital?], by its peculiar situation, would seem to have been the only one in the whole French army which would tally with Mme L. F-'s prediction. Usually an ambulance in working order in 1916 would have from 100 to 300 beds and a large establishment.

 I was much astonished, and thought that if the lodgings corresponded as thoroughly with the prediction, the premonitory fact would be of the first quality. Being desirous of beginning my work I asked to be shown my room.

 "To-morrow," I was told," you will have the room occupied by Dr. R who you are replacing. For to-night you will lodge far from us."

 My first night was passed in a house of the upper town. On the next day Dr. R. took me to the house where he lodged, a good and newly-built citizen's house; he did not stop on the ground-floor but went to the first landing. Curious as to what I should see, I went to the window. Two lines of trees divided the house from the road and about a hundred yards away I could see the river Mortagne.

Weeks passed, the construction of the evacuation hospital went on briskly. My comrades and I were planning the organization, when an army inspector learned that the wife of the chief medical officer was living at Moyon. Reports to the Staff of the Army of Lorraine, sanctions. etc., whence resulted some changes in the medical staff, and I was posted to another ambulance about forty-six days after my arrival. Only two small errors "a small, open place," which turned out to be a large courtyard, and the first floor instead of the ground-floor.