GERMANY: Find The Pin

At Leitmeritz last week it pleased the court to engage in a game of hide & seek. Finder was Herman Scheinschneider—who prefers to be called Erik Hanussen—a clairvoyant whose services include discovering lost property, giving stock tips, fortune telling.

Industrious Herr Scheinschneider receives $12 per consultation, professes to be able to solve 80% of the problems brought him. One client, Professor Albert Einstein, left him declaring: “Wunderbar! I am astounded!” But because 34 of the clairvoyant’s clienteleaccused him of being a faker and haled him into court, the judge last week arranged a game in which the accused was “it.”

Scheinschneider was sent from the courtroom while an attendant hid a pin under a chair.

When he returned, Scheinschneider found the pin. Then the prosecuting attorney gave the accused a fragment of a letter. Scheinschneider gave a thoroughgoing character analysis of the writer. Then another lawyer told him the date and place of an occurrence. Scheinschneider told what had happened. Then he was given a watch. Scheinschneider identified its owner.

Astonished at the outcome of his game, the judge ruled: “The accused is acquitted. The court may not judge in a sphere where science remains undecided. . . . No one has a right to complain if, going to a clairvoyant, he does not learn the truth, even as no one ought to find fault if he does not draw the winning number in a lottery.”