Gerard Croiset
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Gerard Croiset a.k.a. Gerard Boekbinder[1] (March 10, 1909 – July 20, 1980) was a Dutch parapsychologist, psychometrist and psychic.[2]
Biography
Croiset was born in Laren, North Holland, in 1909. He said he began to become aware of his gifts while a youth working for a watch repairer. On one occasion he held a ruler belonging to his employer and saw events which he related to his employer and which his employer confirmed were accurate.
Early work
After World War II, Croiset was sometimes consulted by Dutch police authorities in cases involving missing persons, or murder. On one occasion he was said to have examined the property of a murdered woman, and provided accurate information relating to her murder, and also gave the name of her murderer. The name matched a man who was being held in connection with the crime. He gained a reputation as a reliable consultant in the area of missing persons, and his fame extended beyond the Netherlands, as anecdotes about his abilities came to be discussed in other countries. He also gained a reputation as a psychic healer, and would allow people to visit him in his clinic for healing sessions.
Missing children cases
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In 1966, he was invited to Australia to aid in an investigation relating to the disappearance of the three Beaumont children, who had disappeared without trace from a beach in Adelaide, South Australia. Although police were skeptical, his expenses were paid by the wealthy property tycoon Con Polites who was interested in the case, and public pressure was such that Croiset's views were thought to be worthy of consideration. During his short stay in Australia he attracted widespread publicity but failed to find any trace of the missing children.[3]
In January 1970, Croiset assisted in the investigation of the kidnapping of Muriel McKay in England. Mrs McKay was the wife of publishing tycoon Rupert Murdoch's Deputy Chairman Alick McKay. Croiset was asked by a McKay family friend, Eric Cutler, to help locate her. Croiset said that she was in a white farmhouse in the north or north east of London and that nearby to her was another farm and an abandoned aerodrome and that if she was not found within 14 days she would be dead. Her body was never found. Brothers Arthur and Nazimoodeen Hosein were convicted of her murder—the first case in British history for a murder conviction without a body.
In the mid 1970s, he was invited to Puerto Rico to find the two missing children of a local businessman. He concluded that the children were no longer on an "earthly plane" and could offer no clues. Also, he was called upon to locate a missing woman in Scotland, and once again failed to provide any clues.
Croiset's reputation became tarnished in his later years by his well publicised failures. However, he claimed to have achieved one more notable success when he was invited to Tokyo, Japan in the 1970s to locate a missing child. As he claimed, he had provided a description of the location in which her body could be found within 24 hours. When her body was found after following his instructions, all details seemed to match exactly with his prediction. There are no known independent sources for this claim.
In another apparently successful case in May 1976, Croiset was flown from the Netherlands to Japan by a Japanese television station to see if he could help locate a missing seven-year-old girl. After being shown a picture of the missing girl, Miwa Kikuchi, Croiset stated that she was dead “on the surface of a lake near her home and near a quay for boats near a yellow protruding structure”.
The girl’s body was later recovered floating in the reservoir near a quay for rowing boats and a water supply tower, which was painted yellow. Although the press were astounded at Croiset’s paranormal abilities, some policemen stated that they would have found the girl’s body without Croiset’s help.
He died in Utrecht in 1980, aged 71.
Evaluation
Croiset claimed he helped to solve the case of an assault of a girl in Wierden, the Netherlands. The Chief of Police of Wierden stated however, that the information by Croiset was inaccurate and his communications were not used in the case.[4] He was investigated under controlled conditions by The Belgian Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Phenomena Reputed to be Paranormal and they found no evidence of psychic ability.[5]
The skeptic James Lett has written:
The truth is that the overwhelming majority of Croiset’s predictions were either vague and nonfalsifiable or simply wrong. Given the fact that Croiset made thousands of predictions during his lifetime, it is hardly surprising that he enjoyed one or two chance “hits”.[6]
The Dutch parapsychologist Wilhelm Tenhaeff has written Croiset had genuine psychic powers due to the information he had given in police cases, however it was discovered that much of Tenhaeff’s data was fraudulent.[7]
References
- ^ BOEKBINDER, Gerard (1909, Laren, North Holland - 1980), a bio at the Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis (Institute of Dutch History) website
- ^ Dutch translation by Karel Beckman available online as published in the Dutch skeptical magazine called Skepter 1(3+4), sept/dec 1988
- ^ Troy Lennon (25 January 2016). "Clairvoyant Gerard Croiset failed to crack the Beaumont case but gave rise to the 'psychic detective'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2016-03-25.
- ^ Neher, Andrew. (2011). Paranormal and Transcendental Experience: A Psychological Examination. Dover Publications. p. 221
- ^ Clement, Stone and Browning, Norma. (1964). The Other Side of the Mind. Prentice-Hall. p. 85
- ^ A Field Guide to Critical Thinking by James Lett
- ^ Hoebens, Piet Hein. (1981). Gerard Croiset: Investigation of the Mozart of "Psychic Sleuths". Skeptical Inquirer 6, no 1: 18-28. Hoebens, Piet Hein. (1982). Croiset and Professor Tenhaeff: Discrepancies in Claims of Clairvoyance. Skeptical Inquirer 6, no 2: 32-40.
External links
- BOEKBINDER, Gerard (1909-1980) Dutch language entry in scholarly biographical dictionary
