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Psychics : facts and theories – M J Savage

IV. My next story goes far beyond any of these, and, — well, I will ask the reader to decide as to whether there is any help in hypnotism or clairvoyance or mind-reading, or any of the selves of the psychic conscious, or sub-conscious.

Early on Friday morning, Jan. 18, 1884, the steamer "City of Columbus," en route from Boston to Savannah, was wrecked on the rocks off Gay Head, the southwestern point of Martha's Vineyard. Among the passengers was an elderly widow, the sister-in-law of one of my friends, and the mother of another.

This lady, Mrs. K., and her sister, Mrs. B., had both been interested in psychic investigation, and had held sittings with a psychic whom I will call Mrs. E. Mrs. B. was in poor health, and was visited regularly for treatment on every Monday by the psychic, Mrs. E. On occasion of these professional visits, Mrs. B. and her sister, Mrs. K., would frequently have a sitting. This Mrs. E., the psychic, had been known to all the parties concerned for many years, and was held in the highest respect.

She lived in a town fifteen or twenty miles from Boston. This, then, was the situation of affairs when the wreck of the steamer took place.

The papers of Friday evening, January 18, of course contained accounts of the disaster.

On Saturday, January 19, Dr. K., my friend, the son of Mrs. K., hastened down to the beach in search of the body of his mother. No trace whatever was discovered. He became satisfied that she was among the lost, but was not able to find the body. Saturday night he returned to the city. Sunday passed by. On Monday morning, the 21st, Mrs. E. came from her country home to give the customary treatment to her patient, Mrs. B. Dr. K. called on his aunt while Mrs. E. was there, and they decided to have a sitting, to see if there would come to them anything that even purported to be news from the missing mother and sister.

Immediately Mrs. K. claimed to be present ; and along with many other matters, she told them three separate and distinct things which, if true, it was utterly impossible for either of them to have known.

1. She told them that, after the steamer had sailed, she had been able to exchange her inside stateroom for an outside one. All that any of them knew, was that she had been obliged to take an inside room, and that she did not want it.

2. She told them that she played whist with some friends in the steamer saloon during the evening -, and she further told them the names of the ones who had made up the table.

3. Then came the startling and utterly unexpected statement, — 'I do not want you to think of me as having been drowned. I was not drowned. When the alarm came, I was in my berth. Being frightened, I jumped up, and rushed out of the stateroom. In the passage-way, I was suddenly struck a blow on my head, and instantly it was over. So do not think of me as having gone through the process of drowning."

Then she went on to speak of the friends she had found, and who were with her. This latter, of course, could not be verified. But the other things could be. It was learned, through survivors, that the matter of the stateroom and the whist, even to the partners, was precisely as had been stated. But how to verify the other statement, particularly as the body had not been discovered ?

All this was on Monday, the 21st. On Tuesday, the 22nd, the doctor and a friend went again to the beach. After a prolonged search amongst the bodies that had been recovered, they were able to identify that of the mother. And they found the right side of the head all crushed in by a blow.

The impression made on the doctor, at the sitting on Monday, was that he had been talking with his mother. The psychic, Mrs. E., is not a clairvoyant, and there were many things connected with the sitting that made the strong impression of the mother's present personality.

In order to have obtained all these facts, related under numbers 1, 2, and 3, the psychic would have had to be, not only clairvoyant, but to have gotten into mental relations with several different people at the same time.

The reacl- inof of several different minds at once, and also clairvoyant seeing, not only of the bruised body, but of facts that took place on the Friday previous (this being Monday), — all these multiplex and diverse operations, going on simultaneously, make up a problem that the most ardent advocate of telepathy, as a solvent of psychic facts, would hardly regard as reasonably coming within its scope.

Let us look at it clearly. Telepathy deals only with occurrences taking place at the time.

I do not know of a case where clairvoyance is even claimed to see what were once facts, but which no longer exist. Then there must have been simultaneous communication of several minds. This, I think, is not even claimed as possible by anybody. Then let it be remembered that Mrs. E. is not conscious of possessing either telepathic or clairvoyant power.

Such is the problem.

I express no opinion of my own. I only say that the doctor, my friend, is an educated, level-headed, noble man. He felt sure that he detected undoubted tokens of his mother's presence. If such a thing is ever possible, surely this is the explanation most simple and natural