The study of human immortality through hypnotic age regression moved one step closer to public recognition and acceptance three evenings ago when a number of local business people and literary luminaries crowded into Sharon Fugleman’s bookshop in order to meet and listen to the distinguished London-based hypnotherapist, Harry Vilbert. After a characteristically lucid and modest introductory lecture, in the course of which he vigorously disassociated himself from those ‘cocktail party illusionists’ who bring the work of serious students of the paranormal into disrepute, Mr Vilbert proceeded to a demonstration of his remarkable gifts. As is often the case with first-time regression groups, where apprehension does not yet recognise itself as joyful expectancy, it took a little time for a volunteer to be found, but finally Mr Barney Fugleman, the husband of the bookshop’s proprietress, stepped forward. He did not at first appear to be an ideal subject. His initial movements and responses suggested unwillingness and even suspicion, and when asked to relax he sat bolt upright in his chair, his fists clenched tightly on his knees, his eyes forced open to an unnatural degree. But Harry Vilbert proved to us once again that there is no recalcitrance which cannot be turned into quiescence. Only idiots cannot be hypnotized. Within a few minutes Mr Fugleman’s head fell forward and he was taken with consummate ease through all the preliminary stages of hypnosis. Released from the constraints of his present personality and sent back to ransack the boundless immensities of time that preceded his birth for some vital memory or recollection, he dropped almost at once into a voice and style of diction not normally his own. What follows is given verbatim, and it can be seen that Harry Vilbert asked the most straightforward of questions and in no way coaxed or prompted the subject.

‘Where are you?’

(Silence, but a rapid movement of the eyes and some moistening of the lips.)

‘Where are you? Do you hear me?’

‘Yes. Be quiet. I’m trying to see.’

‘What is it that you are trying to see? What do you see?’

‘I didn’t come on purpose to look. I’m on an errand.’

‘You didn’t come on purpose to look at what?’

‘The woman.’

‘What is the woman doing?’

‘I don’t know … nothing … she is just swinging.’

‘Do you know this woman?’

‘I’ve read about her. Everyone has read about her.’

‘Do you know her name?’

‘How else could I have read about her? It’s Martha … Martha Brown.’

‘What kind of swing is she on?’

‘She isn’t on a swing. She is on a rope.’

‘She’s swinging on a rope?’

‘Yes.’

‘What is the rope attached to then? Is it tied to a tree?’

‘No. (Laughter) It is tied to her.’

‘Around her waist?’

‘Around her neck.’

‘Isn’t that rather dangerous?’

‘(More laughter) Not now it isn’t.’

‘Is she already dead then, this woman?’

‘Just about.’

‘Did you hang her?’