Scandinavian Fires

The new Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research has just turned up. It has an interesting paper by Erlendur Haraldsson on an Icelandic case which is reminiscent of the famous Stockholm fire incident involving Swedenborg, and described by Immanuel Kant.

The Icelandic case first. It concerns Indridi Indridason, a physical medium who began sitting in Reykavik in 1905, producing strong table movements, automatic writing and trance speech. In November of that year a new communicator appeared, unrecognised by anyone present. He spoke Danish and identified himself as 'Mr Jensen', a common Danish name. There was a rest break, and when the sitting resumed, 'Jensen' reappeared. He said that during the interval he had been to Copenhagen (1300 miles distant) and seen a fire that had just started in a factory there. He left but then returned later in the sitting, saying the fire service had succeeded in putting the fire out after an hour.

As Haraldsson has established, there exist press reports of a fire in Copenhagen at this time. The details match up, that it was in a factory, the time it started, and that it was brought under control within an hour. At this time Iceland was not connected telegraphically with anywhere else. Telephones arrived a year later, and telegraphy only in 1918. The island was completely dependent on snail mail by sea.

A rather obvious explanation is coincidence. Fires in big cities are hardly uncommon. In the four weeks during which the fire occurred (two before and two after), four fires were reported in the main newspaper, including the one described in the Icelandic séance. Only that one started in a factory, which was a far less common occurrence than fires in homes. And only that one was a major fire - the others were small and quickly extinguished, and attracted much less notice.

Haraldsson dutifully considers some other possibilities, that the medium had a confederate in Copenhagen who started the fire or that the message was brought by carrier pigeon - neither of which really get off the ground.

I don't think this is particularly strong evidence, simply because it can be dismissed as coincidence. But I do find it interesting for this reason: that if mediumship is a genuine phenomenon, and if, even, it's more than clairvoyance, and disembodied spirits can return to this world and pay us a visit, then this is the sort of thing one would expect to happen. It would be surprising if the visitors couldn't travel around the globe and observe what's going on.

The incident of the Stockholm fire is a case of seeming clairvoyance. It occurred in 1759 and is described in a letter written four years later by Kant to a friend. The Swedish intellectual (seer, polymath, etc) Swedenborg had been travelling from England and had arrived in the port of Gothenburg, some 250 miles from Stockholm.

About six o'clock, Swedenborg went out, and returned to the company quite pale and alarmed. He said that a dangerous fire had just broken out in Stockholm, at the Södermalm, and that it was spreading fast. He was restless and went out often. He said that the house of one of his friends, whom he named, was already in ashes, and that his own was in danger. At eight o'clock, after he had been out again, he joyfully exclaimed, "Thank God! The fire is extinguished three doors from my house!". The news occasioned great commotion throughout the whole city, but particularly among the company in which he was. It was announced to the Governor the same evening. On Sunday morning, Swedenborg was summoned to the Governor, who questioned him concerning the disaster. Swedenborg described the fire precisely, how it had begun, and in what manner it had ceased, and how long it had continued. On the same day the news spread throughout the city, and as the Governor had thought it worthy of attention, the consternation was considerably increased; because many were in trouble on account of their friends and property, which might have been involved in the disaster.

On Monday evening a messenger arrived in Gothenburg who was sent by the Board of Trade at the time of the fire. In the letter brought by him, the fire was described precisely in the manner stated by Swedenborg. On Tuesday morning the royal courier arrived at the Governor's with the sad news of the fire, the loss which it had occasioned, and houses it had damaged or ruined, not in the least different from that which Swedenborg had given at the time when it happened, for the fire was extinguished at eight o'clock.

This is very unlikely to be mere coincidence. The dates and times match, and Swedenborg's alarm is appropriate to the scale of the conflagration, the largest to occur in the city for many years. It started in Södermalm half a mile from Swedenborg's home and was extinguished less than 300 feet from his house.

Kant seems to have considered it good evidence, and having got a friend to check it out, in both cities, says it is "free from all possible doubt". On the other hand, apart from descriptions of the fire in two newspapers there doesn't seem to be much in the way of independent supporting evidence, so that's all there is to go on. Purely anecdotal. But still pretty startling stuff and, again, if psi is a genuine phenomenon it's the sort of thing we'd expect sometimes to happen.

Comments

[Robert Perry]

Interesting stuff. I particularly like the Swedenborg example, which I've read about a number of times before, but either I hadn't read carefully enough or the accounts weren't full enough for me to realize the widespread stir caused by Swedenborg's pronouncements. It's really quite a dramatic story.

Both of these remind me of a time when the American psychic Edgar Cayce was giving one of his health readings for someone, who lived somewhere else in the country. Cayce would go into his trance, would be given the name and address of the person, and after a brief time would say, "Yes, we have the body." But this time he said that the body had just died. And it turned out later that he was right--the person had died at that moment.

[Juan]

What I think is worthy of admiration is that a philosopher of the stature of Kant looked into this case of fire in Stockholm, because very few philosophers throughout history have been interested in psi phenomena, which is a disgrace because both discuss the mind-body problem, the immortality of the human soul, and so on., then that does not focus just kind of phenomena that could have more implications for all these issues, psi phenomena. Even today most philosophers do not realize the relevance of parapsychology and psychical research to philosophy.

[Julie Baxter]

And yet Goethe, who is regarded by many as one of the greatest - if not the greatest - philosophers of all time, was very interested in psi phenomena. He said, "The future casts its shadow before it," and the work of Dean Radin seems to be proving his point.

[Juan]

You're right Julie, but I've made ​​a career of philosophy and never spoke of Goethe, I think that the history of philosophy that the ruling elites want us to narrate ignores the phenomena psi.

[Julie Baxter]

Yes, and Nietzsche is pretty well ignored too. Sad isn't it. 8/