The noted occult writer, Melita Denning, has re-counted one of the oddest psychic attack accounts ever recorded.

It began late one evening in 1975, when a small group of people emerged from a lecture delivered at London’s College of Psychic Science and meandered up Victoria Street on their way to a restaurant to continue their conversations before turning in.

Two of them, publisher Fletcher Garland and psychic Kitty Somerset, walked slightly behind the rest and talked quietly but intently about matters of mutual interest. But then Somerset lapsed into silence and when she failed to answer a question, Garland looked at her anxiously, wondering if something was wrong. In the dim light he saw her suddenly remove her shoes. The next thing he knew, she had stepped into the street. She seemed in a dazed state, as if lost in a trance.

Other members of the group, noting the abrupt silence, turned and were horrified to see a speeding car narrowly miss Somerset. Garland dashed into the street and had almost reached her when Somerset fell violently forward "as if poleaxed," in Garland’s words. She crashed hard into the concrete and lay still. Another car passed by, this one so close that it ran over her outstretched blond hair.

As Garland waved oncoming cars away, the others helped Somerset to her feet. Even though it was obvious she was badly hurt, and in a state of shock, she insisted that they continue on to the restaurant. She said she would feel better there. Besides, she wanted to phone someone.

But on their arrival at the cafe, Somerset was overcome with pain, and it was clear to all concerned that she had to be taken to the nearest hospital as soon as possible. Fletcher and Roberta Livingstone, another member of the group, called a taxi and rode with Somerset to the emergency ward.

Asked how she had become injured, her two friends could only tell doctors that she had been "in a road accident," and fallen down. But her injuries were so extensive that no simple fall was adequate to explain them. Her neck, collarbone, wrist, and three ribs on her right side (the side on which she had fallen) were fractured; the fingers of her right hand were so violently dislocated that they were lying against the back of her hand. If her friends had not known better, they would have thought she had fallen from some great height.

At first the doctors thought she might have suffered an epileptic fit, but Somerset had no history of such an affliction. Nor did she have abnormally brittle bones. Although much about the incident baffled them, the doctors knew that if they did not operate on her neck, she would be paralyzed from the pressure on the spinal cord.

A few days later, as she lay in bed slowly recovering, Somerset made a phone call. She asked the man who answered the phone if she could speak to Ralph Seigel.

Occult Tragedy

Ralph Seigel, 10 years Somerset’s junior, was an odd, unprepossessing man who some months earlier had come to see Somerset seeking psychic guidance. He told her he hoped to master occultism and was reading extensively on the subject. He was even working as a watchman so that he would have long, peaceful hours in which to continue his studies.

Somerset cautiously took him on as an occasional pupil, but kept herself aloof from him, not wanting to encourage him in a romantic way. She was a beautiful former model who naturally at-tracted men, but she was not attracted to this peculiarly passive, yet obsessive fellow. She tried to space their visits as much as possible.

Nonetheless, he began to confide in her more and more. He told her he was beginning to learn how to project his astral body. But he also told her about his past, about a bizarre and pathetic relationship he had had with a woman for whom he had worked as a domestic servant. The woman, a wealthy widow, had taken him as a lover, but had quickly transformed the relationship into a sadomasochistic exercise. She had treated him as a slave, beaten and otherwise abused him. He had accepted this and adored her. Then, after a brief illness she died, leaving him desperately sad and lonely.

As he related the story, Somerset realized that her aloof, distant manner, far from discouraging the young man, had actually drawn him to her, reminding him of the woman he had loved and lost. Not wanting to hurt him, but still desiring to remove herself from a potentially unpleasant situation, she further reduced the frequency of their meetings.

The night she had her accident, she realized it had been nearly two months since she last had seen him. She vowed to call him immediately to make amends but was unable to do so until she had spent some time recovering in the hospital.

When she finally did make her call, a night watchman whose voice she did not recognize an-swered. She asked to speak to Ralph Seigel. The man replied, "Didn’t you hear of his death?"

It developed that he had committed suicide at work two weeks earlier. Somerset learned that he had stabbed himself with a pair of scissors at the same moment she had suffered her terrible fall.

As she lay back stunned and strickened, she remembered something Seigel had said in one of their last conversations. He said he could project astrally and visit people, but there was one problem: he would get so excited that he would "bump into them." But could the undersized body of the young occultist have been magnified enough in its psychic state to have caused such a catastrophic accident?