Seer Wins Freedom by Amazing Feat in Court.
Out of the mass of humbug and charlatanry about mind reading, fortune telling, clairvoyance, et cetera, there emerges an occasional definite fact apparently proving that the human intellect may possess psychic powers. A case in point is the exhibition of mind reading made by “Professor” Bert Reese in Judge Rosalsky’s court in New York, N. Y.
Arrested and previously convicted in a magistrate’s court for posing as a fortune teller, Reese strikingly demonstrated his possession of clairvoyant powers. He read names written on concealed slips of paper, gave the amount of the judge’s bank balance, and performed other feats showing familiarity with what was passing in the minds of his examiners.
Obviously, a man who can do these things under conditions making collusion impossible, shows himself endowed with mental gifts as rare as they are inexplainable. Washington Irving Bishop possessed them in even greater degree; older New Yorkers readily recall his extraordinary exhibitions of occult intelligence a quarter of a century ago.
More recently, Beulah Miller, a ten-year-old Rhode Island girl, gave manifestations of the possession of such powers which aroused great scientific expectations, but her later achievements or present whereabouts seem to be unknown.
The mind-reading feats which won Reese his liberty unfortunately will give a new impetus to imposture. But[Pg 63] on the other hand they stimulate a legitimate interest in questions relating to the possibility of the development of a new sense and add to the data through which science may some day solve the problem of human consciousness.
“This man is not a fortune teller, but a scientist and I offer him as an exhibit,” said the counsel for Reese, the accused seer, to Judge Rosalsky.
The judge selected two newspaper men to assist in the experiment. They went into an adjoining room and wrote on slips of paper the maiden names of their mothers. They also wrote two questions each on slips. The slips were brought into the room where Reese was waiting. They had been folded so that no writing was visible. Under his direction they were placed in a hat and mixed up. Then the slips were placed in the reporters’ pockets.
Each man then took out a slip, still folded, and pressed it against the exhibitor’s bald head. He turned to one man and said:
“Your mother’s maiden name was Electa Winans.”
To the other he said: “You want to know if Charley Becker is guilty. He is not really guilty.”
The reporters then took two other slips from their pockets.
“You want to know how old Henry C. Terry is,” promptly said Reese. Then plainly puzzled, he shook his head and went on to a question as to what was the floor covering. The next question was: “Where did I do my first newspaper work?”
He gave correctly the answer. The last slip Reese took in his hand, but did not open it. He handed it back and directed the writer to hold it. Then Reese said:
“Emma Drew was your mother’s maiden name.”
The answer to the first five questions had been given in a room adjoining the court, but for the last Reese walked into the courtroom and gave his answer in the presence of the judge and jury.
Judge Rosalsky wrote several questions, as follows:
“What was the ruling in the Shelly case?”
“How much money have I in the bank?” and
“What is the name of my favorite school-teacher?”
The demonstrator not only told what the questions were, but gave the correct replies. Reese is seventy-four years old.
“I don’t know myself how I do it,” he said. “The answers just sort of flash on my brain as a picture, just as ordinary objects are seen through the eye.”