(Had another worldly conscious energy notified her?) .... The seven magnetic strokes she received had the result that the next morning to her great surprise, for she herself did not know how it happened, she could sit up easily in bed and felt far stronger than after all the remedies tried hitherto.'

Kerner introduced a regular magnetic treatment (*) by strokes from the temples down to the epigastrium.

Mrs. H was in such a deep somnambulistic life owing to my magnetic treatment that she was never in the waking state even when she seemed to be so. Admittedly she was more awake than other men, for it is strange not to call this state, which is actually the most vivid wakefulness, awake, but she was in the state of inwardness.

There are no dates in the relevant literature about the visionary's inner state. Friederike Hauffe put on record: It often seems to me as if I am outside myself, I float above my body and then I also think above my body. But it is by no means an unpleasant feeling because I am still conscious of my body. If only my soul was more closely attached to the 'nerve spirit' (!), then it would also bind itself closer to the nerves, but the bones of my nerve spirit becomes looser and looser.

Mrs. Hauffe could also see parts of the body in magnetic sleep: Once ... apparently in the waking state Mrs. H's eyes closed and she could not open them. She said she saw a sun moving slowly in the region of the stomach and she only wished she could open her eyes so as not to see the sun any longer. She had this vision of a sun slowly moving in the region of the solar plexus quite often later. Mrs. H said about it: I've already said that I see the point like a small sun from which small rays emerge, yet the more I concentrate on it the more wakeful I become ....

----

[*] The slightest electric current creates a magnetic field. In a straight conductor (handles) the lines of force form concentric circles.

---- For years Kerner noted down many examples of clairvoyance and seeing the future; they related to a large circle of people both known and unknown. Every statement was checked with the many doctors whom Kerner consulted, 'All the experiments and phenomena in connection with Mrs. H speak of a nerve spirit that was present in her in great intensity and became free ....'

I know of no earlier medical-cum-scientific documentation of a 'case' like the one Dr. Justinus Kerner described in the two volumes which are now nearly 150 years old. As doctor and scientist he first examined the phenomena of Friederike Hauffe as a clinical picture of illness: he went into her childhood and origins, living conditions and habits. He wanted to get to the heart of the matter. The final conclusion he came to after all these efforts was that the state of magnetic sleep released special visionary abilities. He examined every case of precognition, which to him verged on the miraculous, 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 righthand 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 understand why Kerner's account still keeps on appearing in modern scientific literature. It established standards for carrying out experiments and evaluating results. The visionary's message that she received all her impressions and visions from a 'nerve spirit' runs like a leitmotiv through all the accounts. I should like to posit boldly that Kerner supplied the first 'proof of my theory that conscious energies seek the media appropriate to them - and find them!

Mankind cannot complain about a shortage of prophets and their frightening communications. We must have hindsight to understand why the prophecies which every now and then have exploded like thunder in history always announced disaster. For why should otherworldly conscious energies make contact with terrestrial ones simply to spread happiness and joy? 'Children, it's a wonderful age!

Rejoice! Taxes are going to be reduced! In twenty years' time you will still own what you do today!

Love each other, for no shadow will fall on your lives! Disarm, there will never be any more idiotic wars!' The energetic news apparatus would hardly be set in motion for cheerful messages like that.

The 'spirits above' still exclusively transmit, as they have always done, descriptions of imminent catastrophes, world destruction, misery and famine. A wretched job for a messenger, but who warns anyone about happiness?

What does even a brief glance at the annals of visionaries 'reveal'?

The itinerant Greek priest Peregrinus Proteus at first preached the doctrine of Christianity; then he had doubts and changed his philosophy. He became a cynic, one of those philosophers who cultivated the ideal of frugality to the point of folly. The convert was not happy. He 'saw' - and as a preacher naturally told everybody - that mankind was on 'the brink of annihilation'. As he did not want to take part in this mass disaster, he logically burnt himself to death during the Olympic games in 165.