It was getting late. The last guests had left the café. The waiters, tired and sleepy, were prowling around our table with a peculiar expression in their countenances which clearly challenged us to call for our checks....
We took no notice of them. Or rather, we refused to take notice. The sudden death of one of our dearest friends had aroused something incomprehensible in us which made us very restless. We were speaking about premonitions, and that peculiar intangible awe which one feels in the presence of the incomprehensible, the supernatural, which at certain times overcomes even the most confirmed sceptic, sat at our table.
The journalist—who could not deny a slight tendency to mysticism—was of the opinion that he would certainly not die a natural death. That was all we could get him to say on the subject at this time. Finally however he confessed, with pretended indifference, that he has the certain premonition that he will one day be trampled to death by frightened horses.
“Nonsense!”—“Nursery tales!”—“Superstition!” several voices exclaimed simultaneously.
But the physician shook his head gravely. [Pg 181]“Strange! Very strange! Do you put any stock in this looking into the future?”
The journalist blushed so slightly that it could hardly be noticed, the way men blush when they fear that they had betrayed a weakness. Cautiously he replied: “And why not? Can you prove the contrary? Have we not until only a few years ago pooh-poohed the idea of telepathy and called it superstition? But nowadays that the X-rays, wireless telegraphy and other marvels have revolutionised our ideas about matter and energy and even space, we no longer laugh pityingly at the poor dreamers who, like Swedenburg, the northern magician, see things that are beyond the field of vision of their bodily eyes. Why then should I doubt the possibility of somebody some day finding an explanation for the ability to ‘look into the future’?”
“Bosh!” exclaimed the lawyer. “That’s all fantastic piffle! I can cite you an example from my own experience which is as interesting as it is instructive. I was very sick and confined to bed. Suddenly I awoke, my heart palpitating, and heard a loud voice screaming these words right into my ears: ‘You will live fourteen days more! Take advantage of this period!’ Just fourteen days later I was sailing on the ocean. A frightful sirocco wind was tossing our little steamer from right to left and from left to right so violently that we could not retain our upright positions. And suddenly my prophecy—which I [Pg 182]had almost completely forgotten—came back to me. But I remained very cool, like a scientist who is on the eve of making a great discovery and risking his life to do so. As you see I did not die, and the ship came safely into port. But had I accidentally perished, and if my prophetic dream—the outward projection of my unconscious fear—my unpleasant hallucination had been known to the people about me—the matter would have been construed as a new confirmation of the truth of premonitions. We have so many premonitions that are never fulfilled that the few that happen accidentally to come true do not really matter. Lots of things in life are that way. We speak of our ‘hard luck’ because we forget the times when we have been lucky. Luck rushes by so swiftly! Bad luck creeps, oh, so slowly! And, coming down to facts, I do not know of a single instance of an undoubted fulfillment of a prophecy. For I must confess that all these American and Berlin prophets who have recently given such striking proofs of their ‘second sight’ do not impress me. They have not uttered a single prophecy precisely and accurately, and oracular speeches delivered in general terms are as elastic as a rubber band, and can be applied to almost anything. A great conflagration, a destructive earthquake, or a cruel war will rarely disappoint a prophet. Somewhere or other in this wide world there is a conflagration some time during the year, the earth rocks somewhere, and somewhere machine guns [Pg 183]are being fired. I therefore do not believe that our friend will be trampled to death by frightened horses. At the most what will happen will be that his pegasus, growing tired of being abused by him, will suddenly throw him down.”
For a little while there was silence. We had the feeling that the counsellor’s malicious witticism was out of place at this time. The doctor broke the silence. “What will you say, my dear friends, if I tell you that a prominent scientist and psychologist has reported a case which seems to prove the possibility of looking into the future. I say ‘seems’ only because there is an explanation which re-transforms the supernatural into the natural. The physician in question, the well-known Dr. Flournoy, had frequently been consulted by a young man who was suffering from peculiar attacks of apprehension. Day and night he was haunted by the idea that he would fall from a high mountain into a deep precipice, and so be killed. Logic and persuasion were of no avail in dealing with this obsession. It was easy enough for Flournoy to point out that all the young man had to do was to keep away from mountains, and there would be no possibility of his meeting such a frightful end. The patient grew very melancholic, and could not be persuaded to enjoy life as formerly. Imagine this experienced psychologist’s amazement on reading in his newspaper one day that his patient had been instantly killed by accidentally falling from a steep but easily passable ridge while he was taking a walk [Pg 184]in a sanitarium in the Alps.”
The journalist exclaimed triumphantly: “Doctor, you’ve disproved your own theory. If what you’ve just told us doesn’t prove the power to look into the future, then nothing does.”
“Pish! Pish!” replied the physician. “Haven’t I said that the explanation is to follow?”
We were all very curious to hear how such a strange occurrence could be explained without the aid of the supernatural. The physician lit another cigar and continued: “What, coming down to facts, is fear? You all know what it is, for I have told you often enough: fear—anxiety—apprehension—is a repressed wish. Every time that two wishes are in conflict as to which one is to have mastery over the individual the wish that has to yield is perceived in consciousness as apprehension. A young girl is apprehensive when she finds herself for the first time alone in a room with her sweetheart. For the time being she is afraid of what later on she may wish for. Dr. Flournoy’s melancholic young man was clearly tired of life. The wish may have come upon him once to make an end of his life by throwing himself from a great height—from such a height as would make failure of the suicidal attempt impossible. This wish may have come to him at night in a dream, or perhaps just before he fell asleep, while he was in a state between sleep and waking. Who knows? But it must have prevailed before the will to live had repressed [Pg 185]it and converted it into apprehension. And his prophetic premonitions were nothing but the misunderstood voice from within. And his mysterious death was nothing but—suicide. I have forgotten to tell you that, according to the newspaper reporters, he had sat down on the edge of a precipice and fallen asleep. He had fallen down while asleep. As if the voices in his dream had whispered to him: ‘Come! do what you so earnestly yearn to do! Die! Now you have a fine opportunity!’ The moment had come when the fear had become the stronger wish.”
The journalist was pale. The doctor’s explanation seemed to have stirred up something in the deepest layers of his soul. His voice box was seen to make that automatic movement which we all make when we are embarrassed, as if we wished to speak but could not find the right word. Fina............