“The moment I beheld your vessel on shore, it seemed as if a voice had suddenly sounded in my ears: ‘There, Potter, in that vessel cast away on that shore is the preacher you have been so long expecting.’ I heard the voice and I believed the report; and when you came up to my door and asked for the fish, the same voice seemed to repeat, ‘Potter, this is the man, this is the person whom I have sent to preach in your house.’”
Murray says: “I was astonished, immeasurably astonished at Mr. Potter’s narrative, but yet I had not the smallest idea that it could ever be realized. I requested to know what he could discover in my appearance which could lead him to mistake me for a preacher.” “What,” said he, “could I discover when you were in the vessel that could induce this conclusion? No sir, it is not what I saw or see, but what I feel, which produces in my mind a full conviction.” “But, my dear sir, you are deceived, indeed you are deceived. I shall never preach in this place nor anywhere else.”
Potter maintained that he had preached and that he would preach in his church, and that the wind would not allow him to leave until he had. To shorten the story, Murray at last yielded and preached in that church, of which we have a picture in his biography. He had a great fear of giving out the doctrine of universal salvation, expecting universal denunciation of himself by the clergy and their followers, but he went on from this beginning and established Universalism in America.
In this instance it is evident that Potter was of a spiritual temperament, and was indebted to a spirit influence for his impressions and convictions. But whatever is possible to the disembodied spirit in the intellectual way is also possible to the embodied spirit which has not lost its material body, if the interior faculties are well developed and prophecy does not require supernal aid. In innumerable cases mesmeric subjects, in their somniloquent condition, have made most accurate predictions in reference to their own cases and others, which have been accurately verified. There is probably no good clairvoyant physician who has not often made successful predictions concerning patients.
In the daily practice of psychometry, Mrs. Buchanan, of whose powers the “Manual of Psychometry” gives a fair idea, is accustomed in speaking of the present to feel impressions of the past and the future. In reference to public men she has spoken in advance of their election or defeat, their policy and their death. She spoke prophetically of the election of Cleveland and the defeat of Blaine, of the deaths of Disraeli and Garibaldi, of the career of Gladstone and his becoming “the best friend of Ireland;” and when Ireland was believed to be on the brink of a bloody revolution or rebellion, she announced that no such outbreak would occur, but that at the end of two years Ireland would be pacified and quiet. At the end of two years this was verified, for the magistrates commented on the fact at that time that there were fewer crimes of violence before them than had been customary.
I have learned to rely on this prescience, and in reference to public men and public affairs, when they interested me, have satisfied my curiosity by the psychometric method.
For twelve months past the newspaper press and the statesmen of Europe and America have been continually agitated by apprehensions of a great European war, and have made numerous estimates of the power of belligerents and the result of the contest. France and Germany have been expected to engage in a fatal conflict, and even a noted public medium has fallen in with these ideas and predicted a coming war this year.
I have kept the record of public opinion, and from time to time have invoked the aid of psychometry, which has dissipated every fear and contradicted all the pessimistic notions of politicians and newspaper correspondents down to the present time.
On the 26th of January I recorded the psychometric impressions, again in February, and again on the 11th of March. The psychometer answers questions or discusses subjects by impression alone, not knowing what is under her hand, but expressing what arises in her mind. The first impression, January 26, was as follows:
“It looks misty, but the finale looks bright. The result of this, whatever it is, will be a grand success or achievement—good will result. There is a dissatisfaction or rivalry on a very large scale—very momentous—is it war? There is agitation and blustering.”