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Flammarion, C., Carroll, L,
Death and its mystery: before death, proofs of the existence of the soul

On October 10, 1881, I received a professional call into the country about seven miles from my home. It was in the middle of the night, a very dark night. I started down a sunken road, above which were trees that formed an arch overhead. The night was so dark that I could not see how to guide my horse and so let the animal choose his own path by instinct. It was about nine o’clock; the country road on which I happened to be at this moment was strewn with large round stones and sloped down steeply. The horse walked slowly, very slowly. All at once, the animal’s forefeet slipped and he fell, his mouth striking the ground. Naturally, I was thrown far over his head. My shoulder struck the earth and I fractured my collar-bone.

At this very moment my wife, who was undressing at home and preparing to go to bed, had strong inward feeling that an accident had happened to me; she was seized with a nervous trembling, began to cry and called the maid: “Come quickly, I am frightened, some misfortune has happened to my husband; he is dead or injured.”

Until my arrival she kept the servant beside her and did not know to what village I had gone. I returned home about one o’clock in the morning and called the servant to bring me a light and unsaddle my horse. “I am hurt,” I said, “I can’t move my shoulder.”

My wife’s presentiment was confirmed.

A. Olivier, Physician at Huelgoat, Finistère