Portrait of Friederike Hauffe, The Seeress of Prevorst

Hauffe was born in Prevorst, a small village "In Wirtemberg, near the town of Löwenstein At a very early age, it was alleged she had "premonitory dreams" and could point out "metals and water with the hazel wand". She was later, unclear at what age, given into the care of her grandmother and grandfather Johann Schmidgall in Löwenstein. He recognized what was described as "sensibility to spiritual influences". Later, her parents took her back to the secluded village of Prevorst, until the family moved to Oberstenfeld. Hauffe had suffered from convulsions, and fell into spontaneous trances. She claimed to have communicated with spirits and experienced visions. Hauffe was made famous by the physician Justinus Kerner who examined her at Weinsberg in 1826. He described her trances in his book Die Seherin von Prevorst (1829). She spent much of her time in a state of somnambulism. Kerner recorded alleged instances of clairvoyance and prophetic dreams. However, psychical researcher Frank Podmore noted that the "evidence is in all cases inconclusive, and sometimes indicative of collusion with members of the Seeress's family." Psychical researcher Addington Bruce who researched the case suggested that Kerner was a biased witness and easily duped by the paranormal claims of Hauffe. He noted that Kerner's record of "facts" consisted of anecdotes given by Haufee and her friends, thus unreliable. He also wrote that Hauffe "unquestionably cooperated" with her sister and servant girl in producing fraudulent phenomena to deceive Kerner.