Saturday, April 26, 2014

The Amazing (Or At Least Fascinating) Nell St. John Montague



Psychics and clairvoyants have always held a certain fascination for me. The whole idea that knowledge is somehow "out there" and may be perceived by our minds in other than normal ways is intriguing, to say the least. If (big if here, I know) the universe is one grand thought, say composed of billions and billions of little thoughts ... well, the possibilities would be inestimable.
 
As seriously as I take the above proposition, I can't say the idea of professional seers impresses me that much. Theoretically, if one could somehow "tune in" to a putative information field then I suppose the concept of psychics would make sense. Nevertheless, from my personal investigations I'm convinced that these folks (no doubt many well meaning souls alongside the opportunistic fakers) mostly make guesses - and enough of these that a few are bound to be spot on. These are usually better remembered than the scores of misses.
 
Might it not be - giving for the sake of argument it's possible for anyone to receive true impressions from an information field - that when these impressions prove true it leads us to go with our instincts more and more and then some folks take this natural instinct as some form of psychic "gift" that has been bestowed upon them? And, of course, as I mentioned, alongside these folks are the charlatans.
 
Today's post was inspired by a World War ll era newspaper article about the British crystal gazer Nell St. John Montague (pen name of Eleanor Lucie-Smith). She was once widely known as a clairvoyant. She authored a few books of a psychic nature which have been out of print for many years now, as well as some other things. She also was an actress in the silent era - or perhaps more accurately I should say she had an uncredited role in 1922's The Glorious Adventure.
 
But she received a big write up in November, 1944, a few months after she was killed in a war bombing. (If you are a clicker you can click this link and read the whole thing for yourself.) According to that news story:
 
After a life time of predicting the frequently violent fortunes of others, she finally turned her remarkable crystal on herself. The results were revealed to friends in these words:
 
"I saw a fiery streak. Then a red mist spread over everything...."
 
Red mists, as long experience had taught her, always mean but one thing: "Blood - a violent death."
 
But the "fiery streak" remained something of a puzzle until a few weeks ago, when a Nazi "buzz bomb" struck her London home. Then the hidden meaning became clear.
 
Nell St. John Montague had accurately predicted her own violent death.  
 
Okay. So maybe, maybe not.
 
There are other interesting tidbits about her psychic career contained in this story. But then I noted the next to last paragraph which contained some (then) future prognostications:
 
Miss Montague lived to see many of her wartime prophecies confirmed by events. Among those which so have escaped fulfillment, are: (1) that Winston Churchill, like Lloyd George, will outlast his popularity, and (2) that Lord Louis Mountbatten, British commander in Burma, will some day find a watery grave.
 
We live nearly seventy years after this, so we are in a position to check up on how she did.
 
As for Churchill, as Prime Minster of the United Kingdom he was instrumental in rallying his nation as well as the United States into defeat of Nazi Germany. His Conservative Party lost the elections of 1945, but he made a comeback in 1951 and became again the Prime Minister. So I suppose it could be said he outlasted his popularity.
 
Mountbatten's future proved interesting as well. I'm sure if I had been alive back then and heard Montague's forecast, I might have suspected that Lord Mountbatten was destined to die in a sea battle and literally go down with his ship - a true watery grave. That of course is not what happened.
 
What did take place, however, is still striking. His Wikipedia biography recounts his assassination while in retirement. He had gone tuna fishing and suffered through a radio-controlled bombing of his boat. It is then reported that
 
The boat was destroyed by the force of the blast, and Mountbatten's legs were almost blown off. Mountbatten, then aged 79, was pulled alive from the water by nearby fishermen, but died from his injuries before being brought to the shore.
 

Not literally a watery grave, but certainly a watery death. Believers would no doubt score Montague's prediction a "hit." I will just say it fascinates me. There are a lot of ways a man can die. This seems to me at least a bit uncanny.

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