Beginning with his book Time Loops (2018), Eric Wargo proposes an unusual model to explain precognition, both in sleep and waking life. I have written about this elsewhere, but here’s a summary of his theory:
When we experience precognition, we are not connecting with future events themselves, but our
own future minds, at the point where news of the event enters our consciousness.
Military engineer turned author, JW Dunne, was a man who repeatedly experienced this type of precognition. For example, in 1902, he dreamt of a volcano erupting, without warning, in Martinique. He noted a very specific number of dead: 4,000. Two weeks later, a newspaper arrived, detailing the eruption and confirming 4,000 deaths.
However, it transpired that the newspaper article had one glaring inaccuracy. Tragically, the correct number of dead was ten times higher, at 40,000.
On hearing the revised death toll, Dunne said that his prediction was 'out by nought'.
Given this comment, it seems likely that Dunne believed he had experienced a direct precognitive connection (with the event itself). Hence his focus on the ‘mistake’ of the missing zero. However, if we change things slightly, and see his connection as indirect (with the moment he read about the eruption), then his prediction becomes 100% accurate.
He saw a figure of 4,000 and this is exactly what he read in the newspaper.
In my own experience, the power of Dr. Wargo’s model can be illustrated by mundane events, as well as those of earth-splitting significance. In fact, some of my own precognitive experiences are so unimportant that they serve no purpose whatsoever, except to show that the phenomenon is real.
Two of my favourite events of this kind are the Sore Jaw which I write about here, and a dream in which I fought a long and painful sword fight with the actor, Brian Blessed.
A Medieval Melee
Mr. Blessed is, for some reason, very, very upset with me.
He’s wearing medieval armour, just like his characters in the 1983 TV series Blackadder (where he played Richard IV) and the 1989 re-telling of Shakespeare's Henry V. And he’s exactly what you would expect: a bowling ball of articulated steel, topped off with an enormous red beard and mouthfuls of booming, baritone aggression.
I try to dodge his attacks, but he repeatedly stabs me with the tip of his sword.
It’s agonisingly real. For a big guy, he’s incredibly nimble, and I realise I’m completely outclassed. I try to move away, but it makes no difference. He hunts me down and continues to penetrate my feeble defence.
Amongst the mayhem, I notice something strange: his weapon is not the huge, broad-edged blade of a mud-spattered medieval warrior, but the fine, filigree weapon of a wig-wearing French aristocrat. At the same moment, a date pops into my head: 1453.
As soon as I wake up, I write the dream in my diary. The date is particularly interesting, as I’m rarely able to recall specific numbers. And it all fits perfectly, of course. In the 15th Century, Europe was replete with Brian Blessed types, running around hacking bits off one another.
But there’s a very large fly in the ointment: the sword. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen, in any historical drama from the period. In fact, in Blessed’s huge, gauntleted hand, it resembles nothing more than a toothpick. Painful, yes, but far from deadly.
It just doesn’t seem… right.
These are Not the Blades You are Looking For
Two days later, I sit down to do some research. I have a clear image of the sword in my mind: a shiny, thin silver blade, with a highly ornate, golden hand guard.
After several hours, spent looking at British medieval swords, I am getting nowhere fast. As anticipated, the weapons I am finding are all big, heavy and highly functional. Some do incorporate a rudimentary hand guard, but nothing like the elegant version held by Mr. Blessed.
I move on to the date itself, and discover that the final battle of The Hundred Years War was fought in 1453, at Castilian. So everything really does make perfect sense. Except for the sword.
Frustrated, I decide to focus on ‘French medieval swords,’ in line with my first impressions of the weapon. I certainly get a prettier and more varied collection, but they still fall short of the one in my dreams.
I am on the verge of giving up, when it occurs to me (with a groan) that I haven’t actually entered the specific search term ‘sword 1453’.
When I do so, everything falls into place.
The top result matches my request precisely. However, it comes not from an academic source, such as a museum catalogue or history blog, but from an auction site called Bygone Blades. Here, the beautiful filigree sword of my dreams is listed as an item for sale… under Lot Number 1453.
Lot 1453 has nothing to do with medieval warfare. It is described, very specifically, as a ceremonial sword from the 19th Century.
So how did the weapon I would see (in my waking life) for the first time on Thursday, appear in my dream of the preceding Tuesday night? It’s utterly perplexing… unless you swap things around, and see my visit to the auction site as the catalyst for the dream.
If we accept the idea of retrocausation - the ability of future events to influence those in the past - then a different, and surprisingly consistent, version of events can unfold:
On Thursday, I found an interesting sword for sale, listed under the lot number 1453. Information from that discovery travelled backwards in time, to become the focus of my dream on Tuesday night. In that dream, 1453 was reinterpreted as a date, and an entire (and highly realistic) medieval battle scene was constructed around it. The final step: to ensure that the dream was memorable, Brian Blessed was recruited to be my assailant, and every successful attack left my nerve-ends jangling.
Just to recap the really important bit:
I would never have searched for the sword in the first place, but for the dream. Which is precisely why Dr. Wargo describes these events as ‘Time Loops’.
Once you get your head around the possibility of a reality in which precognition is actually a form (or major symptom) of retrocausation, then you start seeing it everywhere.
Julian Lennon and the See-Through Maya
On a recent episode of the Jo Rogan podcast, Julian Lennon recounts, with obvious honesty (and a huge dose of disbelief) how he saw ghosts of Mayan warriors, dancing around a camp fire, during a trip to Mexico.
Sitting alone, multiple ‘see-through’ figures appeared to him out of nowhere, performed some kind of traditional ceremony, and then faded away, just as mysteriously.
At breakfast the next day, he recounted his experience to his hostess. She explained that the hotel was built on a Mayan cemetery, and she showed him a number of native artefacts, including spear heads and various other tools. To drive the point home, she then produced a history book, with an illustration of kind of ceremony (she felt) he had just witnessed.
To his astonishment, the figures in the picture were dressed in exactly the same way as the figures of the previous night, right down to the specific colours and patterns of their headdresses and skirts.
Given the passion with which he recounts this story, there is clearly no doubt in his own mind: the spirits of Mayan warriors appeared to him one night, and the next morning the historical validity of his experience was confirmed by the book.
But, there’s a suspicious detail here: the fact that the ghosts were not wearing similar clothing to the warriors in the illustration, but identical clothing.
Looking through the lens of retrocausation produces a very different version of events. And one that automatically explains the huge coincidence of the clothing being identical:
Information gained from looking at the book illustration travelled back in time, to the previous night, and manifested as the ghostly apparitions of his campfire experience.
Of course, he would never have seen the illustration, if he had not mentioned the ghostly vision to his hostess...
Time Loops, baby. Everywhere.
Boring Your Way Through Time
Highly personalised, self-contained, moments of precognition, such as these, rank amongst my favourites. Precisely because they have no wider significance.
They do not foretell momentous or tragic events. They do not take your life in a radically different direction, or reveal the path to fame and riches. And they do not help you to make friends and influence people, at parties or other social gatherings. Trust me, I’ve tried.
However, they do gently nudge your understanding of reality away from the ten-lane highway of physical materialism, into the interesting side-streets of a universe in which consciousness underlies everything. A universe that intermingles cause and effect, such that it becomes impossible to tell which is which.
I’d rather have this realisation delivered through something other than the tip of a blade, but you don’t get to choose the nature of your nudging.
References
Paul Amirault Premonitions, Paranormal, and Psychic Phenomena Involving the Titanic (March 2020)
Sam Knight The Vision Collector: The Man Who Used Dreams and Premonitions to Predict the Future Guardian (April 2022)
Jo Rogan Julian Lennon Details His Startling Ghost Experience (December 2024)
Eric Wargo The Night Shirt
Credit Other images: Google Gemini
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