Observations placeholder
The curious case of Mrs Field and seeing lines in a letter that weren’t there
Identifier
026803
Type of Spiritual Experience
Inter composer communication
Hallucination
Background
A description of the experience
Journal S.P.R. Volume xxxi p53 [ as quoted in Tyrrell, G N M - The Personality of Man]
Mrs. Field (pseudonym) had the following experience.
She was staying with her sister in January, 1939, when she received a letter from her daughter S, whom she had left at home. In this letter, she read aloud to her sister the words: "Nanny is in bed with bronchitis."
She wrote at once to a second daughter, B, and told her this news. When she got home, she immediately asked her daughter S how Nanny was.
"She's all right, I suppose," replied S.
"But," said Mrs. Field, "you said she was in bed with bronchitis."
"No," said S, "I never said such a thing."
Thereupon they went to see Nanny and found her just up after being confined to bed by an attack of bronchitis. Not wishing to disturb Mrs Field, whom she knew to be on holiday, she had kept the news-to herself. She admitted, however, that she had greatly longed to see Mrs. Field in order to pour out her trouble.
The letter was immediately referred to. "I knew exactly the place on the page where I had seen 'Nanny is in bed with bronchitis'; it wasn't there or anywhere else in the letter nor was there room in it for a single extra line”