Foreseeing the future

Morgan Robertson’s novel The Wreck of the Titan, published in 1898 predicted the Tatanic disaster 14 years before it happened.

S. N. Arseculeratne

Synonyms for this title are, precognition, predictions, predestination, fore-knowledge, fore-casting premonitions and prognostications. The term precognition arises from Pre – before, and cognition – knowing. Those who make major predictions are termed prophets and their predictions are termed prophecies. Human life is becoming increasingly complex and it is natural that Aristotle’s dictum will apply, “It is of man’s nature that he wants to know,” and in the context of this essay, know about what the future has in store for him.

Some physical sciences do make predictions, eg; geology with terrestrial and climatic upheavals. Chemists make predictions about what results from chemical reactions. Economists use market events to predict the future in monetary matters. Medical doctors make predictions about a patient’s illness and its consequences. Apart from research in medical science over 65 years, I have also been fascinated by another area, the Paranormal which I believe will next have a major influx into modern science over the next century. However, factors that inhibit the development of this field include fraudulent and biased

investigators, ignorance and prejudice of non-believers, that add to the inherent difficulties of parapsychological research which, as yet, does not have the objective methodologies of modern science. Stratton in his important essay (1954), cites some of these factors that inhibit the growth of parapsychological research.

There are three routes to the paranormal fore-seeing of the future events, astrology, palmistry and psychic performances; precognitive dreams have been documented. Notable persons who have contributed to this field are, J. B. Rhine who was a pioneer in the US, Arthur Koestler and the Arthur Koestler Foundation, William McDougal, Ian P. Stevenson, Edgar Cayce, the Indian psychic Sai Baba whom I witnessed personally, and Cheiro the palmist. Precognition is a component of the Paranormal and as in this wide field, it is still subject to controversy, doubt, and scepticism. However strides have been made such as the formation of the Society for Psychical Research, in the UK. This Society had 12 Nobel Laureates and many members of The Royal Society of London; members included Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.

A glance at the Internet on precognition illustrates the very controversial nature of the subject although there is much evidence to suggest some degree of validity in it. It is a rich field and hunting ground for sceptics. I cite two instances of predictions which proved to be valid; (1) John Hogues’s book Nostradanus and the Millenium. Nostradamus (originally Michel de Nostradem in France, predicted six world apocalypses (a) the fall of Napoleon, (b) the fall of Hitler (whose name was written as Hister, (c) the assassination of John Kennedy and (d) the French Revolution and (e) the bombing of Hiroshima, (f) ISIS terrorists in the Middle East. One of his more spectacular predictions was The Great Fire of London in 1666. He learnt languages, mathematics, and astrology. He accepted the Copernican theory about the world, which was round and circled around the sun more than 100 years before Galileo was prosecuted for the same belief. (Seneviratne, 2001). Nostradamus was regarded as a ‘Prophet’. (2) Morgan Robertson’s novel ‘Futility’ or ‘The Wreck of the Titan’, published in 1898. It was a time of increasing sea travel between Europe and the United States at the end of the last century. Futility exploited this trend. It described a luxury liner built by the White Star Line of the UK which travelled from Britain across the Atlantic Ocean, struck an iceberg about 400 miles from New York and sank resulting in the loss of several hundred lives. Fourteen years later the ship Titanic was also built by the White Star Line and suffered an identical fate as Robertson’s Titan. What is incredible is the total correspondence of Titan with the Titanic in its physical characteristics and the tragedy. Both ships were labelled ‘unsinkable’. Titan was 800 feet and 45,000 tons. Robertson’s ship was named the Titan while the real ship was named Titanic. Titanic was 882 feet long and weighed 46,000 tons. Both had triple screws. Both had insufficient lifeboats, both hit icebergs on their right sides, in the North Atlantic. This story was described by me in two instalments in The Island of 9 and 10 November, 2019. Over 1500 passengers lost their lives and to each of them it was a personal tragedy which was their destiny. Sceptics of Precognition will argue that the White Star Line built their ship Titanic to match Robertson’s Titan.

These predictions inevitably involve the concept of destiny. I would conclude with two quotations, (1) from Prof. K.R. Rao, Chairman of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research,”Rather, I believe, that there is a hand of destiny which is more or less decisive in the final outcomes. In other words, destny cannot be reshaped; in life we cannot take a step backwards.” (2) Professor Jen F. Borel, the discoverer of the drug Cyclosporine that prevents rejection of transplanted organs said in his 1998 Florence Dinner Speech: “The ancient Greeks had created the concept of destiny – Man had to fulfil his destiny and no one could escape it.” F. J. M. Stratton, in the University of Ceylon Review of 1954, wrote: “Sir William Crookes, who was president of The Royal Society and of our Society , was convinced as a scientific observer of the genuineness of the phenomena that he observed with D. D. Home and certain other mediums.”

With the numerous instances of precognition as a component of paranormal phenomena, I am amazed by the crass scepticism of people who dismiss these well-documented phenomena as ‘mumbo-jumbo’ as did the Oxford ‘scientist’ Richard Dawkins. They should try to understand what Johannes Muller 1801-1858 wrote, “There are two sorts of living phenomena; one the result of physic-chemical causes and amenable to experimental inquiry, the other explainable only by the action of a vital principle and outside the domain of science: (Kenneth Stone, Evidence in Science, 1966). In an attempt to cure the skeptics of disbelief in this parapsychological phenomenon, I will quote two sources – (1) “In the solution of these problems, the way of observation and precise knowledge and deliberate reasoning, according to the method of science, must be followed. This method may not always be applicable in our quest of truth, for art and poetry and certain psychic experiences seem to belong to a different order of things and to elude the objective methods of science.” Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India. (2) from Brian Inglis’s book, The paranormal, An encyclopedia of Psychic Phenomena. 1986. p261; “….Jean Stoeffler who worked out from his horoscope that he was doomed to die on a certain day in 1530 from a blow on the head…. decided to take no risks, he decided to stay at home all day; but reaching for a book on an upper shelf, he dislodged the shelf and its contents which fell on his head and killed him”.

Personal experiences provide a final comment; the possibility of fore-seeing the future was well illustrated by a psychic who predicted my foreign assignment three months earlier; another psychic who predicted my biotechnical work three years earlier; though being just a layman he gave a very accurate immunological description of my biomedical research in organ transplantation. “You will produce something which will give balance to the body when something foreign is put into the body. Some one else will help you in this work.” “Some one else” was the foreign scientist who did the final work. I am confused as to what evidence could cure the cynics of their scepticism, in view of the cogent evidence for paranormal phenomena. The likely cause for scepticism is fear of the unknown, best illustrated by the thoughts of the Titanic’s passengers (see ref. 9);

I will conclude with the suggestion that despite the evidence for the validity of precognition and other paranormal phenomena, the lack of objective scientific proof that scientists deal with, and the influence of contrary beliefs and prior conditioning will explain the scepticism that these phenomena provoke. These thoughts are perhaps the last words on the idea of precognition. In the hard sciences, chemistry, physics, there is not much scepticism about their bases but with parapsychology, scepticism abounds.