The Wrong Kind of Psychic Bleeding

July 30th, 2008

Filed under: Medicine

From the Darwin Awards website:

The Soviet Union is home to a growing number of psychics and mentalists. E. Frenkel, became convinced that he could use his powers to stop vehicles in their tracks. He believed that “in extraordinary conditions of a direct threat to my organism, all my reserves will be called into action.”

Frenkel started small — a bicycle here, an automobile there — before graduating to streetcars. Finally, he devised an ultimate test of his psychic power: he would halt a freight train in its tracks.

The engineer of the train that ran Frenkel over saw him toss his briefcase aside, and step onto the tracks with arms raised, head lowered, and body tensed. The engineer applied the emergency brakes, but it was too late.

At the very least, I’m sure his nose was bleeding.

3 Responses to “ The Wrong Kind of Psychic Bleeding ”

  1. Keith
    July 30th, 2008 at 3:14 pm

    This “in extraordinary conditions of a direct threat to my organism, all my reserves will be called into action.” theory has been used in science fiction and comics for years. Specifically see ‘The Stars My Destination’ by Alfred Bester, where the first teleporter had to be threatened with death in order to do his trick.

    I’m not sure Frenkel’s experiment yielded any reliable result, and anyway, that doesn’t seem like a very useful ability.

  2. Conor E
    July 30th, 2008 at 4:06 pm

    Sounds like he ‘practiced’ on vehicles with faster reaction times, and the drivers just hit the breaks in time up until then.

  3. Sean Duggan
    August 4th, 2008 at 11:20 am

    I had a friend who tried that with cars. While at a church youth group function, hopped up on Mountain Dew, he was arguing that drivers are so cautious these days that they would stop if someone jumped out in front of them. And, seeing an oncoming car, he jumped out to prove his point. He was lucky enough to just sustain bruises and scrapes. Oh did we tease him over that in the proceeding years…

    The idea of abilities manifesting in stress conditions occurs through literature from the Belgariad (actually, the Malloreon, I think… researcher who independently figured out Sorcery after being tossed out a window) to the more recent Harry Potter book (Neville and being dangled out of windows by uncles as a child).

Leave a Reply

« Monday PSA: Boys Town National Hotline. I Think I See the Problem Here »