Is our fate determined?

2.6.1 Interference with previewed events Of particular interest in this respect are cases where the preview of an unpleasant event was known by the affected person before the event took place. Let’s assume that the preview was accurately received by the predictor and that an unalterable determination continues to exist. It would have to be impossible in such cases to arrest the exact fulfilment of the preview, even if one would hear about the preview in good time. There are in fact reports where the fateful outcome of an event could be averted. Justinus Kerner 16 reports of such an event about his patient Friederike Huffel from the year 1827: “She saw her brother lying on a bier dying during a number of previews and, pressed for answers, she said that her brother would become the victim of an attempt on his life on the 18 th of January, she was even able to give the age and the pedigree of the assailant. The brother was thus warned and behaved very carefully on the specified day and during this questionable situation. The culprit, a wood thief, therefore missed him when he shot at him. The shot only left traces on a tree and in the snow.” The immediately affected knows nothing about the preview in the following report. But his relatives know about it and they try to have an influence on the prediction from a distance: “A woman who had what she called ‘second sight’ from when she was a child, repeatedly dreamt: Her son kneeling in a fallow field in the beam of a search light, insignias torn from his shoulders, without a belt and his eyes looking to the right at her in mortal fear as of looking for help. He had a greyish black spot on his neck like a bullet wound. She confided in her father confessor who calmed her down by saying that the ‘second sight” must not necessarily eventuate. He advised her to pray for mitigation. For all the years her son spend in Russia she suffered greatly, particularly in early spring – the time indicated by the fallow field. An ‘inner voice’ told her on the 8 th of February that the day of fulfilment had arrived. The family prayed for divine assistance the whole evening and all through the night. A calmness came over her in the morning like something a seriously ill person would feel after getting over a crisis. She then knew that her son had survived. He was either dead or in captivity. He returned from Russia in 1948. On the evening of the 8 th of February 1945, Russian tanks had broken through German lines, surrounded the fleeing wounded of a military field hospital with spotlights and shot them in a fallow field. They also asked him to kneel down in order to shoot him in the neck. The order came through at the last possible moment to take this individual prisoner away to be interrogated. As morning broke, the Russian colonel told him to sit on the turret of the tank. He was the only one that was saved.” 17 The third report does not actually deal with a preview and this means that none of the involved people can correctively intervene. But one gets the impression that an otherworldly entitiy 18 is aware of the looming fate and tries to correctively intervene: “It was during the war, on a beautiful autumn morning, when we emerged from an air-raid shelter into daylight, pleased that the attack had passed without causing us any damage. The doorbell rang soon after and my neighbour stood there very excited. ‘Mrs. H. the police bunker received a direct hit and all the men inside are dead.’ I ran to the phone filled with fear in order to find certainty. I received it. ‘Yes, your husband was also in the bunker’ answered the voice on the other end of the line. Still feeling completely numb, I sat on my bike in order to drive there. ‘Franz, Franz’ I called out loud, ‘that I will see you again buried under rubble cannot be true.’ I could and did not want to believe it. 16 Die Seherin von Prevost , published by Verlag Ph. Reclam, Leipzig 1938, P. 162. 17 H. Bender, Der Krieg im Spiegel okkulter Erlebnisse, in Neue Wissenschaft 1960, H. 1, P. 18 – 24. 18 This report can however also be interpreted from an animistic point of view.