Gerard Croiset [1909–1980] Born in the Netherlands, Croiset grew up to become an internationally renowned clairvoyant, highly regarded as a police psychic for his ability to find missing people, animals and objects.

Croiset was raised in foster homes and orphanages and began to experience clairvoyance at the age of six. He dropped out of school at 13 and drifted into unskilled work. The turning point in his life came in 1935 when he was introduced to a group of local spiritualists, and over the next few years his reputation as a psychic and healer grew.

In 1945 Croiset volunteered to be a test subject for the parapsychologist Willem Tenhaef from the University of Utrecht. Tenhaef was so impressed by Croiset’s ability that he began to mentor him, and introduced him to police work. In the years that followed Croiset became famous for his help in solving crimes all over the world. His passion was finding missing children.

Croiset never accepted payment for his psychic readings, but he did accept donations for his healing clinic where he treated thousands of clients. He was able to diagnose a person instantly on seeing them. Perhaps his most famous contribution to the field of parapsychology was to popularize the chair test. In this test, chairs in a room would be numbered, and Croiset was able to predict successfully who would sit in a selected chair a month or so before a meeting took place.

The Element Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Hauntings: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World: The Ultimate A-Z of Spirits, Mysteries and the Paranormal by Theresa Cheung