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Page 6
About a month later Hanussen was facing a judge in the small Czech town of Leitmeritz. He was accused of trickery, of extracting money under false pretenses. The case had awakened tremendous interest. More than a hundred journalists came to the small Bohemian river port on the Elbe; the pressure of the crowd was so great that the court held the trial in the ball-room of the biggest hotel. It was a clash of two worlds - the world of reality, of law, represented by the State Attorney of the Czechoslovak Republic and the world of the occult (the intangible and inexplicable) of which Hanussen was the protagonist. His whole career was at stake - for if he was proved an impostor, the journalists would proclaim it to the world and he could never again make a public appearance in any reputable place. The
first rounds seemed to go all to the prosecution. Hanussen's real name,
his origin, his early career were mercilessly exposed. He made a very
unimpressive figure, sitting huddled in the dock, his arrogance, his
masterful irony apparently stripped from him. On the fourth day of the
trial he awoke from his strange lethargy and then came a sharp clash with
the State Attorney. "You
told an old woman that her son was still alive though he had been missing
for ten years. There is no proof for your statement." "Nor
is there any proof to the contrary." "But
you took money for your so-called clairvoyant prophecy." "You
are also being paid for your so-called accusations." The
presiding judge reprimanded Hanussen for his remarks and threatened to fine
him for contempt. "Do
you deny that you have accepted money for your pretended forecasts of the
future?" the State Attorney continued. "I
deny nothing." "Well,
you see... " I
see very well," Hanussen interrupted angrily. "I am a clairvoyant.
That is my profession. An honest profession. Just like that of a State
Attorney - except that one cannot learn it by study like
jurisprudence. That's why there are fewer clairvoyants than state attorneys;
though I don't deny that it would be a good thing if all state attorneys
were clairvoyants."
There was laughter, and when it subsided, the state
prosecutor said, "You heard the expert witnesses. Science denies quite
definitely the existence of anything called clairvoyance. This has nothing
to do with telepathy which has been accepted by psychologists as an
established fact. If there is no such thing as clairvoyance, anyone calling
himself a clairvoyant must be an impostor."
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