Observations placeholder

The Future and Beyond – H F Saltmarsh

This case is taken from  Proc., XI, 481.

Miss Graham, between sleep and waking, heard a voice saying, 'Miss Graham, take your money out of the bank.' She had all her money in a bank in Boston.

 She paid no attention to the warning and went that morning to her dressmaker. On arrival she was obliged to wait, and another lady, also waiting, seemed determined to talk to her. Miss Graham was not socially inclined and did not respond freely, until the stranger asked, "Do you know anything of Howe's Bank?' Miss Graham replied that she had her account there. The lady then proceeded to tell her that the bank was unsafe, and said that she had felt impelled, against her will, to tell her this.

Miss Graham succeeded in withdrawing her money; the bank stopped payment the next day. This is confirmed by Dr. Caroline E. Hastings, who was with Miss Graham when she went to the bank. This case is interesting as, if we can accept the statement of the strange lady who spoke to Miss Graham, that she had felt impelled against her will to tell her about the bank, it looks as though some external agency were involved - as if two persons, mutually unacquainted, had come under the influence of whatever it was that was trying to convey the warning.

The whole set of circumstances is worthy of note. Had Miss Graham and the other lady not decided to go to the dressmaker on that particular morning, and had they not been compelled to wait, it seems probable that the original warning would have failed of its purpose. How so complicated a set of coincidences could have been brought about I cannot imagine. It is possible that this was only an instance of illusion of memory and that Miss Graham falsely imagined that she had had the dream; alternatively, the dream warning may have been a telepathic communication from some one who actually knew that the bank was unsafe, and that she had her account there.