"This Is My Last Game And I'm Going To Strike Out This Time"

Those were the words Bill Klem, the man most responsible for making Major League Baseball umpiring the profession it is today, when foretelling his death.

For thirty-six years he served the National League as ump. For Klem baseball was more than a game, "it was like a religion."

But after two years of declining health from heart problems and a month of hospitalization, Klem was ready to put his house in order. His baseball metaphors referring to his premonition of death were relayed to his lawyer a week before the end came.

I'm fascinated by the occurrence of death premonitions. It isn't an usual thing at all, but rather common.  In fact, I've collected a sizable amount of these stories.  

It has become my personal conviction that we all have spirit guides and angels that can aid and direct us in our lives. Perhaps the majority of people are unaware of this, yet still are often directed by "voices" and strong "gut feelings."

Wild as that idea might seem at first blush, I find it more satisfying than the idea of all these thing being lucky guesses. Also, there is a vast amount of NDE data which suggest that often one is sent back to this life by dead loved ones or divine entities because it isn't time for one's death. That seems to me to be a corollary.

However one understands this death premonition phenomenon, undeniably it is a strange and interesting aspect of human existence.

Country Legend Predicts Death On His Birthday

I am fascinated by the concept of premonitions, especially those folks who have premonitions of their own deaths. There is quite a bit of evidence of this, and this week provided another example.

According to a Facebook post of Ben Haggard's, son of country music legend Merle Haggard, his father informed his family a week beforehand that he would die on his birthday. He surely did.

Haggard had been in declining health, especially since late last year, so he no doubt knew the end was drawing nigh. Still, it was a bit eerie that he was able to accurately predict the day of his demise.

It jibes with my personal persuasion that there is a field of knowledge that may be tapped into.

People sometimes can find themselves aware of things they shouldn't be able to know.  I mean, how should one be able to exactly predict the day of their death beforehand? Not saying a lucky guess would be impossible, but I've cataloged enough examples to satisfy myself that this type of thing is possible.

Many, many more examples could be presented of people predicting their deaths would occur within a certain time frame.

Is something going on in the Cosmos? I think so.

Halloween And Houdini: The Strange Synchronicity

Nearly nine decades after his untimely death, Houdini is still remembered as a magician extraordinaire and original escapologist. Perhaps not as well remembered was his crusade in his final years to expose fraudulent mediums and spiritualists. And that provides the basis for what I consider the synchronicity between Houdini and Halloween - that time of year traditionally thought to be when the veil between this life and the next is at its thinnest.

It wasn't so much that Houdini disbelieved in the spirit world or those who had crossed over being able to reach out to those still on this side of the veil,  but after having been disappointed time and again in his efforts to contact his beloved mother after her death, he grew angry over those who would prey on the grief of others.

For years he investigated, challenged, lectured against and exposed mediums, and towards the end of his career/life made demonstrations of fraudulent mediumship a part of his magic show. The battle he waged was so fierce that spiritualists began to curse him and predict his demise. Evidently Houdini began to suspect the spiritualists were seriously out to get him.

Many years after Houdini's death his friend and associate wrote a newspaper column which tells of a premonition Houdini was having concerning this. In his article How Did Houdini Know? Fulton Oursler revealed:

One Saturday in early autumn, Houdini called me on the telephone. He was very excited.

"Listen," he began, I'm leaving on a tour in a little while. Probably I'm talking to you for the last time. They are going to kill me."

"Who?"

"Fraudulent spirit mediums. Don't laugh. Every night they are holding seances and praying for my death. "

Oursler goes on to relate how a few weeks after that phone call he received a visit from a lady he called Mrs. Hartley, who claimed to have a message she received in a trance. It was allegedly from Professor James H. Hyslop, founders of  the American Society for Physic Research, and read:

"The waters are dark for Houdini. He thinks he has only broken his ankle, but his days of attacking spiritualism are over."  

The waters were indeed dark for Houdini. Shortly after Oursler received this message Houdini developed a case of appendicitis that he ignored. It soon progressed into a full blown peritonitis. This was fairly a death sentence in those pre-antibiotic days of the 1920s.

Struggling for days and surviving two surgeries, Houdini finally gave up the ghost on Halloween, 1926.

His widow, Bess, tried for a decade to make contact with him through seances, finally giving up and turning off the light for good at her personal shrine to her husband. She became convinced that communication with dead was not possible.

But that did not keep his admirers from continuing the Halloween seance tradition. I remember well as a teenager the hoopla in 1976 - the fiftieth anniversary of his death - when once again Houdini disappointed his fans. And you can bet that somewhere there will be those trying again to reach him this Halloween. The two forever seem to be connected.

When William Jennings Bryan Lay Down And Died

William Jennings is certainly one the United States most colorful historical figures. He was a politician, serving as Secretary of State in the Woodrow Wilson administration. A position his convictions forced him to resign from. But perhaps most amazing of all concerning his political career are his three failed attempts to become president. He ran and was defeated in 1896, 1900 and lastly in 1908. But Bryan was also an outspoken Christian fundamentalist who waged war against "Darwinism" during the latter part of his life, the last battle being his assistance in the defense of John T. Scopes at Dayton, Tennessee's infamous "Monkey Trial."

Strange and perhaps fitting as it seems, Bryan died at Dayton shortly after the trial ended. Stranger still is the premonition Bryan had of his exact manner of death.

In reporting his death, the July 29, 1925 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle had this bit of reportage:

Bryan Last Summer Had a Premonition He Would Die in Sleep

Macon, Mo., July 29 (AP)--William Jennings Bryan had a premonition he would die in sleep.

Last summer he said to Dr. A. C. Hildreth of Macon: "My heart has not been treating me just right. Some time after a big meeting, or an occasion where I have been engaged in some sharp contest, I will lie down to rest and sleep a sleep that will be eternal." 

Nailed it exactly, I would say. Perhaps Bryan having a premonition of dying was not so strange.  After all, he was 65 and tired, suffering from diabetes and heart trouble.

But no, he had a premonition of dying peacefully in his sleep. Exactly the way his premonition had it, after a "sharp contest," which is an accurate description of his toe-to-toe exchanges with prosecuting attorney Clarence Darrow during the Scopes Trial.

It is a strange world....

Fireworks Display Predicts Ascent Of A President

The study of coincidence, I believe, is fascinating in itself. But when you plumb the possibility of meaningful coincidences - Synchronicity, as it is known - you go beyond the fascinating into the uncanny.

Below is an old newspaper clipping I found. While the story it tells is easy enough to dismiss as mere coincidence, it yet proved to be an eerie prediction of the future.

At that same Pan-American Exposition in 1901 President William McKinley was cut down by assassin Leon Czolgosz. fulfilling the fireworks prediction; for when that tragic event occurred, the presidency fell to Vice-president Theodore Roosevelt.

Interestingly enough, just as the fireworks display gradually dissolved from Our Vice-President into Our President, President McKinley did not die at once after being shot but lingered on for a week. At that point Theodore Roosevelt was "Our President."

Dream Warns Of Death In "Unseen Way"

Robert J. Grier II was the attorney for Andrew J. Nestler and he filed with probate court his client's handwritten will based on a dream. The will, dated November 17, 1952, stated:

The reason I am writing this statement Nov 11-17-52 (is) what happened tonight at a little after 3 a.m.

I was sudden awaken up by a dream of mother.

It was more like a warning than a dream. It was so clear to me.

So I bought this tablet for five cents at corner drugstore at Atwood and Forbes Street and I wrote down this statement.

Mother was close to me. One could believe she was still living. But I know she is dead. This is the third time she came to me.

She show (told) me in this dream I must write or make a paper. I must make a will or some kind of statement of all my affairs if (because) I Andy J. Nestler by some unseen way would not be here on April 1, 1953.

I used the transcription the newspaper provided because Mr. Nestler's note was a bit hard to decipher.

This interesting newspaper story, along with a picture of the handwritten will and of Mr. Nestler, can be found at this link.

The story goes on to relate that Mr. Nestler "was found unconscious by a guard in the washroom of the library." Nestler lived for only three more days.

A police report stated that all Nestler could tell them was he was hit on the head with some kind of instrument and he did not see who struck the blow, except for the assailant's feet.

This warning dream is fascinating because of its detail. Nestler was not "here" on April 1, 1953, as he died on March 1. His death was in an "unseen way" because he never saw who or what hit him the blow that directly led to his demise.

Dream insight fascinates because I feel I have been directed and informed by my dreams - although nothing as dramatic as this. But history is replete with dream warnings and information delivered through dreams.

Some feel we can communicate with spirits via the dream realm. My own personal theory is that during the dream state our normal filters are off and we are better able to connect with the great Cosmic Mind that undergirds reality.