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Flammarion, C., Carroll, L, - Death and its mystery: before death

200 DEATH AND ITS MYSTERY

To these observations I will add the following recent one, which we owe to the celebrated American physicist Edison, and the value of which as a critical experiment cannot be contested by any one. Here is a report written by himself.

The man of whom I am going to speak was sent to me by one of my oldest friends, who said to me by way of introduction: This man Reese is able to do certain strange things. I should like you to know him. Perhaps you will be able to explain his powers.

I appointed a meeting. Reese arrived at my laboratory on the day set. I had some of my workmen called in, in order to experiment with them. Reese asked one of them, a Norwegian, to go into an adjoining room and write on a bit of paper the maiden name of his mother, her place of birth, and several other things. The Norwegian did so, folded the paper, and kept it in his closed hand. Reese told us the exact contents. He added later that the young man had a ten-crown piece of money in his pocket, which was true.

After he had made several similar experiments with other employees, I asked him to make one like them with me. Then I went into another building and wrote these words:

"Is there anything better than hydroxid of nickel for an alkaline battery ?"

I was then experimenting with my alkaline electric battery, and I was a little afraid of not being on the right .path. After having written the above sentence, I took up another problem and gave all my attention to solving it, so as to throw Reese off the scent if he was trying to read in my mind what I had written. I then came back into the room where I had left him.

The moment I entered the room he said: “No, there is nothing better than hydroxid of nickel for an alkaline battery."

He had read my question exactly.

I do not pretend to be able to explain this faculty. I am convinced that the needs of civilization will produce some great discovery by means of men endowed with this power. The rare seers of the present generation will become the multitude of the following generations. The normal intelligence of the future will rapidly develop and complete the work of the normal intelligence of to-day.

About two years after the experiences which I have just related, the door-boy of my laboratory entered and told me that Reese was in the waiting-room and wished to see me. I took my pencil and wrote in microscopic letters, “Kenor" folded the paper, and put it in my pocket. Then I told the boy to bring in Reese.

“Reese, I have a scrap of paper in my pocket. What is written on it ?"

Without an instant's hesitation he answered, “Kenor."

Sometime after the experiments made in my laboratory, Dr. James Hanna Thompson, a well-known alienist, arranged for a fully representative seance at his home. He went into his library, wrote some words on little sheets of paper, and hid them. Reese remained, talking, in the drawing-room until Thompson returned and then said to him :

“At the back of the drawer to the left of your table is a bit of paper on which is written the word “ropsonie”.

‘Under the book lying on your table there is a bit of paper bearing another word ‘ambicapter.'

On another little paper is written the word 'antigen."'

The information given by the seer was entirely correct. Thompson was stupefied, and confessed that he yielded to the evidence.

A few years ago I undertook a series of experiments to attempt to transfer the thought of one person to another by all sorts of means, but without the least result. Also, I tried to solve the phenomenon by the help of an electric apparatus fastened to the head of the operators.  tr'our among us first stayed in different rooms, joined by the electric systems of which I have just spoken. Afterward we sat in the four corners of the same room, gradually bringing our chairs closer together toward the center of the room, until our knees touched, and for all that we obtained no result.

But Reese has no need of any apparatus.