Ghosts - By Hans Holzer Page 0,34

the Iona Island powder depot would be blown up by saboteurs. She had trouble getting to the right person, of course, but eventually she succeeded, and the detonation was headed off just in the nick of time. During the ten years I knew and sometimes worked with her, Sternfels was consulted in dozens of cases of mysterious disappearances and missing persons. In one instance, she was flown to Colorado to help local law officers track down a murderer. Never frightened, she saw the captured man a day or two later. Incidentally, she never charged a penny for this work with the authorities.

The well-known Dutch clairvoyant Gerard Croiset has worked with the police in Holland on a number of cases of murder or disappearance. In the United States, Croiset attempted to solve the almost legendary disappearance of Judge Crater with the help of his biographer, Jack Harrison Pollack. Although Croiset succeeded in adding new material, Pollack was not able to actually find the bones in the spot indicated by Croiset through the use of clairvoyance. However, Croiset was of considerable help in the case of three murdered civil rights workers. He supplied, again through Jack Pollack, a number of clues and pieces of information as to where the bodies would be found, who the murderers were, and how the crime had been committed, at a time when the question of whether they were even dead or not had not yet been resolved!

Croiset sees in pictures rather than words or sentences. He need not be present at the scene of a crime to get impressions, but holding an object belonging to the person whose fate he is to fathom helps him.

What do the police think of this kind of help?

Officially, they do not like to say they use it, but unofficially, why that’s another matter. When I worked on the Serge Rubinstein case a year after the financier’s murder—when it was as much a mystery as it is, at least officially, today—I naturally turned over to the New York police every scrap of information I obtained. The medium in this case was Mrs. Ethel Meyers, and the evidence was indeed remarkable. Rubinstein’s mother was present during the trance session, and readily identified the voice coming from the entranced psychic’s lips as that of her murdered son. Moreover, certain peculiar turns of language were used that were characteristic of the deceased. None of this was known to the medium or to myself at the time.

As we sat in the very spot where the tragic event had taken place, the restless spirit of Serge Rubinstein requested revenge, of course, and named names and circumstances of his demise. In subsequent sittings, additional information was given, safe deposit box numbers were named, and all sorts of detailed business, obtained; but, for reasons unknown, the police did not act on this, perhaps because it hardly stands up in a court of law. The guilty parties were well known, partly as a result of ordinary police work, and partly from our memos and transcriptions, but to make the accusation stick would prove difficult. Then, after Rubinstein’s mother died, the case slid back into the gray world of forgotten, unsolved crimes.

* * *

Some police officers, at least, do not hesitate to speak up, however, and freely admit the importance of ESP in their work. On October 9, 1964, Lieutenant John J. Cronin gave an interview to the New York Journal-American’s William McFadden, in which he made his experiences with ESP known. This is what the reporter wrote:

In the not too distant future, every police department in the land will have extra-sensory perception consultants, perhaps even extra-sensory perception bureaus, New York Police Lt. John J. Cronin said today.

For 18 years—longer than any other man in the history of the department—he headed the Missing Persons Bureau.

“After I retire, I might write a book on ESP,” he said. “It has provided much information on police cases that is accurate.”

One of the fantastic cases he cited was that of a 10-year-old Baltimore girl who was missing last July.

A Baltimore police sergeant visited Mrs. Florence Sternfels of Edgewater, N.J., who calls herself a psychometrist. On her advice, when he got back to Baltimore he dug in a neighbor’s cellar. The body of the girl was found two feet under the dirt floor.

Lt. Cronin also noted that Gerard Croiset, the Dutch clairvoyant, is credited with finding 400 missing children.

“Right now, ESP is a hit and miss proposition. It’s in an elementary stage, the stage electricity