Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-10-02
Scientific Discussions
by Garrett P. Serviss

How do you account for the fact
that some people have PRESENT.
ment before trouble or death comes?
l happen to be gifted this way If
we may call it a gift. I have never
presentiment before death or trouble
comes, without anything else occur
ing to make ME suspect it. l can't
tell just what is going to happen,
but 1 can always tell that something
is going to happen. What is your
opinion?-P. f. G."
My opinion is that if you reason
on the scoop-shovel plan, like q
weather prophet" you can always
find something somewhere that will
serve for a confirmation of any pre-
sentiment or prediction. Your state
ment that you cannot tell just what
is going to happen, but simply feel
that something or other is going
is not a true prescience, or fore
knowledge.
You fit it to anything in the nature
of trouble" that chance to come
along within an indefinite period
after the vague premonition crept
over your spirit. 1t is q state OF
mind and not a grasp on future
events that constitutes your gift
should call such a condition un-
healthy; not in the sense of mental
disease" but III the sense of bad
habit, or mood, of the mind.
A shadow falls upon your spirit
due to some physical cause opefat-
ing somewhere in your body, some
functional arrangements of the stom-
ach, liver, or what not, ana you
take it for q premonition of some
thing about to happen outside your
self. although phobably within your
circles of personal or family inter-
est.
If something untoward does nap
pen you pitch upon it as the event
that your prophetic spirit was
striving to warn you OF. Or else
you assume-and some theorlsto
would, perhaps, encourage such an
Iidea-that your nature is supersen-
sitive, keeping you informer OF the
slightest disturbances in the lnVls-
ible and mysterious sea of life around
YOU, so that you can detect the com
ing wave by indications too dellcate
to affect the nervous sustems OF
ordinary persons.
This idea, while it has been used
to explain certain cases OF aieseo
prescience, such as that of a pre-
vision by a clarivoyant in London or
the assassination of the kng ana
Queen of Serbia in Belgrade in 1913,
has not scientific standing. e., II
rests upon no experimentally Verl-
fled basis-and 1 should advise you
not to look to it for an explanation
of your own case, but to subject
yourself to very careful thought
out series of tests, aiming at dis
covering how many of your PRESENT.
ments are followed by really impor-
tant and significant troubles, and
how many by nothing that could pe
so called; how long time elapses
between the premonition and its SUP
posed fulfilment; what your con-
dition of health and your mental
mood are at the time, etc.
In a word, look first for sub
jective explanation, remembering
that the burden of proof is and prop
erly should be, always on whatever
contradicts practically universal ex-
periences.
Belief in the possession of power
of premonition. acting independent
ly of ordinary mental processes,
grows rapidly "by what it feeds on"
viz, supposed fulfilments. Often
| it grows into an obsession which ii
has fastened. He becomes afraid
of his own moods.
When an uneasy feeling comes
over him, instead of casting it off
and forgetting it as soon as posi-
BILE, he begins secretly to worry
wondering what will happen, and
| terrified lest the menace may be
directed against himself, or those
nearest to him. Women more of
| ten than men are victims of this
morbid state of mind, which may
coexist with a disposition by nc
means melancholy or detected.
A real power of foreseeing the
| future would take all the joy out
| of life. And it would rob the joy
even though it showed nothing but
sunshine ahead IT that is what
the serpent was trying to bestow
upon Eve in the Garden of Eden We
can understand the full malignity
of his intention.
| But, if a true power of pro-
phetiC sight would be unWelcome
and intolerable. how much worse
must be a false and deceiving one?
So. I repeat, try to dissipate your
faith in your paresentim ents by SUBJ
jecting them to scientific expert
ment and logical analysis. and they
will cease to haunt you.
| A "presentimen of trouble. OF
disease, affecting the person con-
cerned. is different thing; that is
explicab'e without any resort to
occultism. So, too, one may foresee
a bankruptcy. or an accident without
being a Seer