Prophecy, Second Sight & John Barker’s Premonitions Bureau

Dark Histories

Ben Cutmore

History

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2024

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“As to the divination which takes place in sleep, and is said to be based on dreams, we cannot lightly either dismiss it with contempt or give it implicit confidence.” These were the words of Aristotle, written in 350 BCE, and taken very much to heart by a British psychiatrist in the 1960’s, when he took on the monumental task of collecting and collating hundreds of premonitions from across the country, with the ultimate goal of not only researching the phenomena, but then also using the data to avert disaster and perhaps even to save the world.SOURCES Knight, Sam (2022) The Premonitions Bureau: A True Account of Death Foretold. Penguin Press, NY, USA. Ulanowski, Krzysztof (2014) Mesopotamian Divination. Some Historical, Religious and Anthropological Remarks. Miscellanea Anthropologica et Sociologica 2014, 15 (4): 13–28. Martin, Martin (1719) A description of the Western Islands of Scotland. A. Bell, London, UK. Dunne, J. W. (1927) An Experiment With Time. A & C Black, London, UK. Barker, John (1968) Scared To Death. Dell Publishing, London, UK. Psychic News (1968) Doctor Who Studied Premonitions Dies. Psychic News, Thurs 31 Aug 1968, p1. London, UK. Fairley, Peter (1966) Did Anyone Have A Genuine Premonition OF Aberfan Disaster? Evening Standard, Fri 28 Oct 1966, p13. London, UK. Fairley, Peter (1967) If You Dream Of Disaster… . Evening Standard, Wed 4 Jan 1967, p19. London, UK. Barnes, Michael (1966) Learning To Hate Your Bad Habits. The Daily Telegraph, Fri 30 Dec 1966, p5. London, UK. Birmingham Evening Mail (1967) 124 Killed In Holiday Air Crash. Birmingham Evening Mail. Thurs 20 April 1967, p1. Birmingham, UK. The Guardian (1967) As Torrey Canyon Breaks Up Oil Battle Is Extended To Strait Of Dover. Tues 28 March 1967, p1. Manchester, UK. Evening Standard (1967) Giant Tanker On Reef. Evening Standard, Sat 18 March 1967, p9. London, UK. Birmingham Daily Post (1968) A Bureau To Avert Disasters? Birmingham Daily Post, Fri 23 Feb 1968, p34. Birmingham, UK. Fairley, Peter (1968) The Londoners Who Believe They Saw Disaster In Advance. Evening Standard, Mon 11 March 1968, p8. London, UK. Fairley, Peter (1968) Did Mr Hencher Forecast The Hither Green Rail Disaster? Evening Standard, Tues 12 March 1968, p7. London, UK. Psychic News (1968) Doctor Who Studied Premontions Dies. Psychic News, Aug 31 1968, p1. London, UK. ------- This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp, check out betterhelp.com/darkhistories to get 10% off your first month. ------- For almost anything, head over to the podcasts hub at darkhistories.com Support the show by using our link when you sign up to Audible: http://audibletrial.com/darkhistories or visit our Patreon for bonus episodes and Early Access: https://www.patreon.com/darkhistories The Dark Histories books are available to buy here: http://author.to/darkhistories Dark Histories merch is available here: https://bit.ly/3GChjk9 Connect with us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/darkhistoriespodcast Or find us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/darkhistories & Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dark_histories/ Or you can contact us directly via email at [email protected] or join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/cmGcBFf The Dark Histories Butterfly was drawn by Courtney, who you can find on Instagram @bewildereye Music was recorded by me © Ben Cutmore 2017 Other Outro music was Paul Whiteman & his orchestra with Mildred Bailey - All of me (1931). It's out of copyright now, but if you're interested, that was that.

Transcript

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0:00.0	As to the divination, which takes place in sleep, and is said to be based on dreams, we cannot lightly either dismiss it with contempt or give it implicit confidence.
0:10.0	These were the words of Aristotle written in 350 bc.C. and taken very much to heart by a British
0:17.4	psychiatrist in the 1960s, when he took on the monumental task of collecting and collating hundreds of
0:24.4	premonitions from across the country with the ultimate goal of not only
0:28.8	research in the phenomena but then also using the data to avert disaster and perhaps even to save the world.
0:37.0	This is dark histories where the facts are worst in fiction.
0:50.0	Hello and welcome to Dark History season 8 episode 5. I'm your host Ben.
0:52.0	Today we've got a story that's a little bit more modern than usual. I thought we'd sort of
0:57.2	step a little bit past World War II. I don't tend to do that very frequently. I did it once or twice in the past.
1:03.0	Did it once actually fairly recently with, was it Jeff, I think?
1:07.0	But yeah, I tend to think, you know, if the story is interesting enough, then I will do it.
1:11.0	But it does make things interesting for me as well every now and then because the research
1:15.6	changes I think once you get sort of this modern. I say this modern still from the 60s so
1:22.2	1960s so it's not exactly, you know, yesterday. But anyway, it's an
1:26.1	interesting story. I found it and I just thought, it's too interesting to pass up,
1:30.9	despite the fact that it's not you know Victorian or earlier. So anyway I hope you
1:35.8	enjoy it there's not much else to say about it so we might as well just get started. This
1:40.1	episode is called prophecy second Sight and John Barker's Premonitions Bureau.
1:48.0	5,000 years ago, when an ancient Mesopotamian king fell ill,
1:52.2	it was less a matter for the doctors or medicine folk,
1:55.6	and far more a matter for the scholars who spent their time reading omens and scripting
2:00.4	out the paths of the future. These court diviners or Baru would commonly practice
	...

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