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Psychics : facts and theories – M J Savage

The lady who had this experience is the one who gives us the account of it, though I tell it in my own words. She was a schoolmate of my brother, and her character and veracity are beyond question. In June, 1886, she was a patient in the family of a physician in a well-known city in a neighboring state. She was suffering much from mental depression, feeling assured in her own mind that she had an ovarian tumor.

On this particular day, she was lying alone in her room, unusually oppressed by foreboding fears. Lying thus, absorbed in thoughts of her own condition, she suddenly became conscious as of an open map of the United States being spread before her. Her attention was particularly directed to Virginia, and then westward to, as she then thought, Ohio. At the same time she heard the name "McDowell." At once she thought of General McDowell, as the only one she knew of by that name. But a calm, gentle voice seemed to reply to her unspoken thought,

" No, I am not General McDowell, but a physician. I was the first advocate and practitioner of ovarian surgery. By the urgent request of your friends, I have examined your case very carefully. Rest assured, madam, your malady is not of that character. In time you will regain your health, but never be very strong."

With a feeling of awe, gratitude, and wonder which, she says, she could not attempt to express, she rose from the couch on which she was lying, and went at once to the doctor's office in another part of the house. At once she related what had occurred, and asked,

" Am I right ? "

The physician, a lady, went to her library and took down her Medical Encyclopaedia. From this she read, " Ephraim McDowell, born in Virginia, settled in Kentucky. He performed the first operation in ovarian surgery that is recorded in this country."

She was correct, therefore, in every particular, except the substituting Ohio for Kentucky, and this is quite natural, as it is the next adjoining state.

Several points now it is important carefully to note.

In the first place, this lady has had many psychic experiences, others of which I hope to obtain.

In the second place, until these began, she was a complete sceptic as to continued existence. She tells me that she was a most unwilling convert, and only gave in when compelled to by her own undoubted experiences.

Again, she has never been surrounded by any atmosphere of belief in these things; for even now most of her friends and relatives are violently opposed to everything of the sort, and she has had to suffer much because she could not help but believe.

Once more, I have been in recent correspondence with the physician in whose house she was at the time. This physician completely confirms all the facts, and testifies in the most emphatic way to the noble character and unquestioned veracity of her patient. And yet, though she offers no other theory, she is strongly opposed to any explanation that calls for the agency of any supernormal intelligence.

This, however, grows out of the fact that she has always been bitterly prejudiced against everything of the kind.

And lastly, both the physician and her patient are perfectly assured that the name of Dr. McDowell and his work as a surgeon were entirely unknown to the teller o£ this experience at the time when the voice was heard.