The herald., 1897-04-06
A Prophetic Dream

To the Editor of the Los Angeles Her
ald-Senator White, in his argument
yesterday in the Spiritualist's cause
celebre, reserved his most bitter excoria-
ton of the plaintiff for certain al
lusions made by her in letter, in which
she spoke of seeing a disturbing ele-
ment around her correspondents house
hold" This. truly, may have been pure
buncombe on the writer's part, but the
inference to be drawn from Senator
Whites language that II was an I'M
possibility, is. at least, open to doubt.
A vast number of well authenticated
cases are on record where knowledge of
distant events has been manifested to
persons both in the sleeping and waking
condition. Andrew Lang, the litterateur.
within the last month only has drawn at
tention to a curious case OF most In
tricate problem being solved by person
during sleep, and by the aid, apparently.
of a person long dead. The hero was
DR.. Hilprecht, professor of Assyrian in
the University of Pennsylvania.
The professor was trying to decipher
the fragmentary inscriptions on two
broken bits of agate-pieces, as
was supposed, of old Babylonian
finger rings. He did not have
the bits of stone before him, only
sketches made from the originals, which
were discovered by professors from the
university. The professor guessed
their date, widely, at 1700-1140 B. c., and
he did decipher one character as K. u.
He ascribed this to King Kurigalzu,"
and set the fragment down as "unclassi-
fable" He marked his proof "for
press" and went to bed. tired and dis
satisfied. Then he dreamed that a
Chaldean priest took him into a temple
treasure chamber, wherein was "a large
wooden chest, with scraps of agate and
1at aie t,1, H. IL -
told him that the two fragments, pub
lished on page % and page 26 of the pro-
fessor's book were not finger rings. King
kurigalZu had once offered to the shrine
of Bel an inscribed cylinder of agate,
and suddenly the priests were ordered
to make agate ear rings for the god
Ninib. Now the priests were out OF
agate in the rough. and therefore cut
the cylinder of Kurigalzu into three
parts. whereof two were converted int
ear rings. The priest bade DR.. Hill
precht put his two fragments together,
and then departed. The professor, upon
awakening, jumped out of bed, his mind
filled with the details of his dream. Com
bning the fragments as instructed and
an inscription to the god Bel was re-
vealed. A difficulty still remained, how
ever. In the sketches the fragments
were represented as of different colors
of agate. and it seemed hard to under
stand how they could have been parts of
the same cylinder. Later. DR.. Hilprecht
went to Constantinople and examined
the two fragments. They fitted into
each other, but when originally sawn
out of the cylinder, "the whitish vein of
the stone apeared on one fragment, the
larger, gray surface upon the other
Needless to say there are other ways
of explaining this dream than by spirit
interpostion, and so, also, in the case of
far distant happenings to a person who
has-for want of more explicit term
the clairvoyant faculty. 1t would, there
fore, appear that upon its face there Is
no inherent impossbility in the light of
modern investigation, in any OF the as
sertions of the plaintiff in her notable
letter; but her denial of the ordinary in
depreciation to be placed upon them, and
her reputation of any acquaintance
with spiritualstic phenomena, offered
more valid ground for condemnation.
Los Angeles, April 5. TIC.