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Fan, issue 2, July 1945
Page 12
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12 PRELUDE IN FLAME DR. FREDERIC SHERMAN rose slowly, solemnly from the banquet table in response to the applause that greeted his name. He did not bow, he did not smile. Even the light that usually shone through his kindly blue eyes was absent now. Finally there was silence, but still he did not speak. He seemed almost unaware of those about him. Someone coughed lightly, and the doctor gave a start. Then solemnly, as if it were of great moment, he reached to his side coat pocket. He drew out a long, golden, threadlike object and held it up gleaming in the light so that all could see. "This," he began in a grave voice," is all I have left to remind me of the most outstanding and memorable case im my experience. It is the only shred of proof I have to offer in corroboration of the story I shall tell you tonight. It is a strange and terrible story. And this" -- he twisted the strand so that it turned in his fingers as a thing alive -- "this, though it is of unknown substance is yet a metal string with a mundane function: a string from a violin." He paused as if arranging his memories, and each listener around the long table took the opportunity to settle down more comfortably in his chair. This was the Sixth Annual Convention of the International Congress of Psychologists. The purpose of the Convention is dual in nature. While on the surface it is as any other gathering whose members have the same interests and vocations in life, there is underneath a far more serious purpose. The Annual Convention is important in its function, for it affords its world-wide members an opportunity to meet en masse so that they may exchange ideas, experiences and case histories. To these Conventions come the world's most distinguished philosophers and psychologists, men who truly know and understand the world in which we live and perhaps other worlds as well; men whose experiences contain cases so bizarre and outre', so utterly out of the sphere of normal events, that members of the press are barred from the meetings to that they will not carry some of the incredible tales that are told. Annually one member is chosen to relate the outstanding case of his experience. Among these guest speakers have been much men as Maurice Devries of Paris, Lo Yat Sun of the Royal University at Peiping, Sir Clelland Smith of Australia and many others. Now it was Dr. Frederic Sherman
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12 PRELUDE IN FLAME DR. FREDERIC SHERMAN rose slowly, solemnly from the banquet table in response to the applause that greeted his name. He did not bow, he did not smile. Even the light that usually shone through his kindly blue eyes was absent now. Finally there was silence, but still he did not speak. He seemed almost unaware of those about him. Someone coughed lightly, and the doctor gave a start. Then solemnly, as if it were of great moment, he reached to his side coat pocket. He drew out a long, golden, threadlike object and held it up gleaming in the light so that all could see. "This," he began in a grave voice," is all I have left to remind me of the most outstanding and memorable case im my experience. It is the only shred of proof I have to offer in corroboration of the story I shall tell you tonight. It is a strange and terrible story. And this" -- he twisted the strand so that it turned in his fingers as a thing alive -- "this, though it is of unknown substance is yet a metal string with a mundane function: a string from a violin." He paused as if arranging his memories, and each listener around the long table took the opportunity to settle down more comfortably in his chair. This was the Sixth Annual Convention of the International Congress of Psychologists. The purpose of the Convention is dual in nature. While on the surface it is as any other gathering whose members have the same interests and vocations in life, there is underneath a far more serious purpose. The Annual Convention is important in its function, for it affords its world-wide members an opportunity to meet en masse so that they may exchange ideas, experiences and case histories. To these Conventions come the world's most distinguished philosophers and psychologists, men who truly know and understand the world in which we live and perhaps other worlds as well; men whose experiences contain cases so bizarre and outre', so utterly out of the sphere of normal events, that members of the press are barred from the meetings to that they will not carry some of the incredible tales that are told. Annually one member is chosen to relate the outstanding case of his experience. Among these guest speakers have been much men as Maurice Devries of Paris, Lo Yat Sun of the Royal University at Peiping, Sir Clelland Smith of Australia and many others. Now it was Dr. Frederic Sherman
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