Miracles of the Gods: A New Look at the Supernatural (461 page)

with an accuracy and persistence that would do credit to' Scotland Yard. Out of dozens of examples I shall describe one of the cases Kerner recorded:

On 25th November, 1826, Friederike Hauffe entered Kerner's house in Weinsperg. She did not know the town and had no acquaintances there. The house was on the same level as and not far from the Law Courts. A certain K, who had died in the house some years previously, had managed the affairs of a Mr. F very badly, so that the 'business had gone bankrupt'. Mrs. Hauffe said, in a magnetic sleep: That man F is there again, disturbing me ... what is he showing me? A page, not quite as long as a folio, covered with figures. The upper right-hand corner is folded slightly, in the left-hand corner there is a figure ....This page lies underneath a lot of documents; no one takes any notice of it. He wants me to tell my doctor and through him to issue a warning .... This page lies in a building that stands sixty paces from my bed. In it is a large, then a small, room. In the latter a tall man sits working at a table.

He goes out and now he is returning. Beyond this room there is an even larger one with longish chests in it. I see a cupboard that stands at the entrance and its door is somewhat open. ... Above on the table there is something made of wood ... and on it lie papers; I see them lying in three piles .... In the right-hand pile there is nothing of this man's, but in the other two I feel from him, to be precise in the centre one, a little below half-way down, that page which torments him so.

Kerner recognized the high court from the building she described, but took her vision for a dream image. Mostly to pacify his patient, for she was constantly plagued by the story, he went to the judge, who was staggered because at the moment described he had actually gone into another room and then returned to his place.

The apparition returned; the data became more and more precise. Kerner and the judge examined the

'pile of files' which Mrs. Hauffe had described so vividly. They got the sort of surprise a police inspector would not hope for in his wildest dreams. 'We found in an envelope a page just as the visionary had described it with figures and words in the hand of that man ... (whom Mrs. Hauffe had

'seen'). ... This page contained a proof, the only one, that K had kept a secret book, which was not found after his death, in which he had apparently entered a great deal that never came to light....'

In a sleep-waking state Friederike Hauffe dictated a letter to the dead man F's wife telling her she was innocent and could face the bankruptcy confidently. The judge prepared a conclusive official statement of the whole business. Frau Hauffe seemed to be revivified after the long drawn out affair.

On 5th August, 1829, the visionary of Prevorst died in exactly the way she had predicted in a magnetic sleep on 2 May.

How could that outstanding doctor Justinus Kerner sense or know about the conclusions of modern psi research 150 years ago? What could he know about the conversion of energy/time? For what else appeared to the visionary but the conscious energy of the dead Mr. F, who wanted to help his wife in her imminent bankruptcy? Who else besides Mr. F knew about the bundle of files and the letter which played a decisive part in the proceedings?

The case described by Kerner is more than clairvoyance: it is exact knowledge of an event. We can