(To the Editor of the Occult Review) [1]
Dear Sir,—Acting upon a suggestion contained in your magazine concerning the importance of giving attention to such little experiences of an occult character as sometimes happen on one day and are usually forgotten the next, I beg permission to send you the following account of a remarkable case of “telepathy,” which happened recently to myself, and which seems to me interesting and instructive, although it would probably find little favour in the eyes of a scientific committee for investigation of psychic phenomena; because, unfortunately, dreams, visions and subjective experiences cannot be demonstrated or attested to by sworn witnesses, there being no other witness except the one to whom such a thing happens.
I am living in the Tyrol, near the Italian frontier, and a lady friend of mine lives at K——, a town in the northern part of Germany, on the shore of the Baltic, and for some time in the past I had frequent visits from her of an invisible kind; that is to say, I often, when she thought of me, felt her almost palpable presence, and could sometimes see her apparition. In the month of February last these visits suddenly ceased, and there was no occasion for correspondence by letter; but on March 23, at about 8 p.m., I suddenly felt her presence as distinctly as ever before, and what surprised me most was that she appeared to me in a bridal dress; because I did not know that she thought of getting married, and, in fact, I had been thinking of her very little of late, as my mind was occupied with other things. I immediately wrote to her; but before she could have received my letter I received one from her, telling me that she had become engaged to a gentleman at K——, and that the celebration of her marriage would take place in the evening of March 23.
Again, on Sunday, April 11, at 10 p.m., I had another such visit from her, and it seemed as if she came with a rush and had some trouble to communicate to me. I did not see her on this occasion; but it was as if she were present in her physical form. I wrote to her on the following day, inquiring what was the matter, and received a letter from her in answer, saying that on the same Sunday at 10 in the evening she had been very much frightened by being the involuntary witness of a brutal fight between two men in her immediate neighbourhood.
It is unnecessary to give a description of the cause of that disturbance, which somehow concerned her; but in regard to the effect it had upon her she wrote in her letter: “You may imagine my feelings; but I do not understand how it was that I felt a void within myself, as if all energy, all power for joy or for suffering, all emotion had left me. I knew I was myself and, nevertheless, incapable of thinking or acting myself; it was as if my spirit were occupying an empty house, from which my soul had escaped. Your letter now shows to me that my soul had partly departed and was seeking refuge with you.”
These occurrences, insignificant as they may appear, nevertheless seem to me to teach two important lessons: “First, they go to show that the thought-body of a person may assume a symbolical representation of the state of her mind; for in all probability the mind of the lady was (perhaps unconsciously) directed towards the marriage, and this called forth the image of a bridal dress. Secondly, it proves that no voluntary effort is required to send the thought-body forth on an ethereal voyage, but that emotion alone is sufficient to liberate the soul. As to the fact that distance offers no hindrance for such communication, if only the link of sympathy exists between the two persons, this is already well known and requires no further proof.”
Yours faithfully,
Franz Hartmann.
Note:
[1] Telepathy (To the Editor of the Occult Review). Franz Hartmann, M.D. The Occult Review 10, no. 2 (August 1909), 102-104 {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}