Is it possible to predict the future? History, is littered with examples of people claiming to foretell disasters – both natural and man made. Often, we only hear of these predictions in the event’s aftermath, by which time, it’s impossible to prove just when they were stated.
Still, history gives us a handful of infamous examples, so let’s examine them a little bit closer.
Edgar Allan Poe And The Death of Richard Parker
Best known for his poems and short stories, Poe’s only complete novel was, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, published in 1838. The novel’s narrator partakes in a sea adventure aboard the ship Grampus, which ends in mutiny and leaves a four man crew shipwrecked. Although the crew manage to eat a tortoise, it’s not enough and they’re faced with starvation.
Finding themselves out of options, they realise cannibalism is their only chance of survival. Deciding to make the decision as fair as possible, the four men draw straws to choose their victim, who fate should have it, was the young cabin boy, named Richard Parker.
This is only one of the events in Poe’s novel, but it’s become it’s most infamous. As fate would have it, the very same thing happened 46 years later, in 1884 aboard a small yacht called the Mignonette.
The four man crew were tasked with sailing the yacht from England to Australia, when a storm hit off the coast of Africa. The men managed to escape in a dingy, but found themselves without food or water, totally alone and adrift at sea.
Although they had no fishing provisions, they ended up catching and eating a turtle, but the similarities don’t stop there.
Finding themselves with no hope of rescue, they realised what needed to be done, and so enacted what is known as ‘The Custom of the Seas’- the practise of cannibalism, with the victim being selected by the drawing of lots.
According to the surviving crew members, lots weren’t necessary in this case, as the youngest of them, the cabin boy, had already fallen ill from drinking sea water and was weakened. Being the least likely to survive, they killed and ate him, before being rescued four days later.
On being brought back to England, the crew were tried and convicted of murder and cannibalism and sentenced to death. This was met with public outcry and was later commuted to six months in prison.
The name of the 17-year old cabin boy was Richard Parker.
Eryl Mai Jones and the Aberfan Disaster
One morning in October, 1966, ten-year-old Eryl Mai Jones told her mother about a dream she had. In this dream, she went to school, but found it wasn’t there. Something black had buried it.
This wasn’t the first strange thing Eryl had said recently. I the last month she seemed to have mused about her own mortality, telling her mother she was not afraid of dying, as she’d be with her school friends.
That morning, Eryl went off to school and came back with no mention of the dream. The day after, Eryl didn’t come back at all.
October 21st, 1966 was a dark day across the UK. It was the day a colliery spoil tip collapsed, sending 140,000 cubic yards (110,000 m3) of black earth crashing into the village of Aberfan, completely demolishing two farm cottages, and burying Pantglas Primary School.
It left 28 adults and 116 children dead, Eryl among them.
Eryl’s prophecy was, sadly, not the first. Residents of Aberfan had raised concerns regarding the proximity of the tip and the school to the National Coal Board as early as 1963.
Aberfan, like the rest of South Wales, is known for it’s higher-than-average rainfall, which had effected the stability of other coal tips in the area. The Pantglas side of the village had been hit with severe floods prior to the disaster, with run off from the tip causing the water to be black and greasy, and at least 11 complaints had raised the issue.
Dr. John Barker, a local psychiatrist with an interest in precognition, ran a newspaper article asking for any accounts of strange dreams leading up to the disaster. Although he received many vague replies, Eryl Mai Jones dream stood out, and thus, the story came to light.
Of course, with any published accounts coming after the event, it’s easy to imagine how a community in mourning could claw together such stories with hindsight, but I for one truly believe Eryl dreamt of the disaster. Whether that dream resulted from precognition or a concern regarding the tip, she’d subliminally picked up on from the adults around her, who’s to say.
What’s certain is if the colliery owners acted on the communities worries sooner, 144 people would not have been buried alive in Aberfan.
Abraham Lincoln And His Assassination
Perhaps one of the most well known tales of premonitions involve one of the most famous American presidents.
The story goes that Honest Abe shared a dream in which he walked into the White ouse’s East Room to find a body laid out in preparation for viewing. In this dream, he asked a guard who had died and was met with the reply, “The president. He was killed by an assassin.”
This claim was perpetuated by Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln’s former law partner and friend, which first appeared in writing almost 20 years after Lincoln’s death. However, his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln failed to mention any such dream, despite her own interest in the spiritualist movement.
Other members of Lincoln’s cabinet are thought to have said that the night before Lincoln’s assassination, he dreamed of sailing over a large body of water – a dream he had multiple times, which always occurred before important events.
Have you ever had a premonition? Tell me about it!
The Hawthorn Files 