A traveler in South America is descending a
river in a canoe; the party are just about to run close to a
promontory when a sort of mysterious voice, which he has already
heard at different momentous times of his life, imperiously
orders him immediately to cross the river and gain the other
shore as quickly as possible. This appears so absurd that he is
obliged to threaten the Indians with death to force them to take
this course. They have scarcely crossed more than half the river
when the promontory falls at the very place where they meant to
round it.[1]
[1] Flournoy: Esprits et mediums, p. 316.
The perception of imminent danger is here, I admit, even more
abnormal than in the previous example, but it comes under the
same heading. It is a phenomenon of subliminal hypersensitiveness
observed more than once, a sort of premonition induced by
subconscious perceptions, which has been christened by the
barbarous name of "cryptaesthesia." But the interval between the
moment when the peril is signalled and that at which it is
consummated is too short for those questions which relate to a
knowledge or a preexistence of the future to arise in this
instance.
The case is almost the same with the adventure of an American
dentist, very carefully investigated by Dr. Hodgson. The dentist
was bending over a bench on which was a little copper in which he
was vulcanizing some rubber, when he heard a voice calling, in a
quick and imperative manner, these words:
"Run to the window, quick! Run to the window, quick!"
He at once ran to the window and looked out to the street below,
when suddenly he heard a tremendous report and, looking round,
saw that the copper had exploded, destroying a great part of the
workroom.
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