“Prophecy,” says Buchanan, “is the noblest aspect of psychometry, and there is no reason why it should not become the guiding power to each individual life, and the guiding power of the destiny of nations.” For instance, while all Europe feared for Boulanger, Metz was getting stored with food; Lord Wolseley declared war imminent, and the French themselves prepared for revanche. Psychometers declared for peace in 1889, and said there was no prospect of war for five years. Subsequent events have proved Boulanger lacking in both generalship and statesmanship—a veritable Bombastes Furioso; and peace up to the time of writing is as yet unbroken.
Dr. Buchanan claims—“In physiology, pathology, and hygiene, psychometry is as wise and parental as in matters of character and ethics. A competent psychometer appreciates the vital forces, the temperament, the peculiarities, and every departure from the normal state, realising the diseased condition with an accuracy in which external diagnosis often fails. In fact, the natural psychometer is born with a genius for the healing art, and if the practice of medicine were limited to those who possess this power in an eminent degree, its progress would be rapid, and its disgraceful failures in diagnosis and blunders in treatment and prognosis would be less frequently heard of.” Many happy tests in diagnosis and in the successful treatment of disease—out of the ordinary routine—are due, in my opinion, not so much to elaborate medical training as to the fact of the practitioner—perhaps unconscious to himself—being possessed of more or less of the psychometric faculty.
Dr. Buchanan,[D] in his “Original Sketch,” gives us the history and some details of his discovery, based upon certain investigations of the nervous system. Already he was well versed in the phenomena of hypnotism, which is at this late day becoming a fashionable study and recreation of medical men. He had demonstrated the responsive action of cerebral organs to mesmeric touch and influence, and he was already acquainted with the curious psychological phenomena of sense and thought transference, of double consciousness, and all the nervous and pathological phases peculiar to natural and artificial somnambulism. His investigation for years of the nervous system had clearly shown him that its capacities were far more extensive, varied, and interesting than physiologists and philosophers either knew or were prepared to admit. He found in the nervous system a vast aggregate of powers which constitute the vitality of man, existing in intimate connection with the vast and wonderful powers of his mind. Was it possible or rational to suppose that this nerve-matter, so intimately co-related with mind, and upon which the mind depends for the manifestation of its powers, could be entirely limited to the narrow materialistic sphere assigned by physiologists? He thought not.
In a conversation with Bishop Polk (who afterwards became the celebrated General Polk of Confederate fame), Dr. Buchanan ascertained that Bishop Polk’s nervous sensibility was so acute that, if by accident he touched a piece of brass in the night, when he could not see what he had touched, he immediately felt the influence through his system, and recognised an offensive metallic taste.
The discovery of such sensitiveness in one of the most vigorous men, in mind and body, of his day, led Dr. Buchanan to believe it might be found in many others. It is needless to say his conjecture was correct. Accordingly, in the numerous neurological experiments which he afterwards commenced, he was accustomed to place metals of different kinds in the hands of persons of acute sensibility, for the purpose of ascertaining whether they could feel any peculiar influence, recognise any peculiar taste, or appreciate the difference of metals, by any impression upon their own sensitive nerves. It soon appeared that the power was quite common, and there were a large number of persons who could determine by touching a piece of metal, or by holding it in their hands, what the metal was, as they recognised a peculiar influence proceeding from it, which in a few moments gave them a distinct taste in the mouth. But this sensitiveness was not confined to metallic substances. Every substance possessing a decided taste—sugar, salt, nutmeg, pepper, acid, etc.—appeared to be capable of transferring its influence. The influence appeared to affect the hand, and then travel upwards. He afterwards demonstrated when a galvanic or electric current passed through a medicinal substance, the influence of the substance was transmitted with the current, detected and described by the person operated upon. Medicinal substances, enclosed in paper, were readily recognised and described by their effects. In due time, stranger still, a geological specimen, an article worn, a letter written upon, a photograph which had been handled, a coin, etc., transmitted their influence, and the psychometrist was enabled to read off the history concerning the particular object.
Nearly fifty years have elapsed since the discovery of this “strange new science” and art. “To-day it is widely known, has its respected and competent practitioners, who are able to describe the mental and vital peculiarities of those who visit or write them, and who create astonishment and delight by the fidelity and fulness of the descriptions which they send to persons unknown, and at vast distances. They give minute analysis of character and revelations of particulars known only to the one described, pointing out with parental delicacy and tenderness the defects which need correction, or in the perverse and depraved they explain what egotism would deny, but what society, family, and friends recognise to be too true.”
PSYCHOMETRIC REFLECTIONS.
Professor J. W. Draper says:—“A shadow never falls upon a wall without leaving thereupon a permanent trace—a trace made visible by resorting to proper processes. Upon the walls of private apartments, where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out, and our retirement can never be profaned, there exists the vestiges of our acts, silhouettes of whatever we have done. It is a crushing thought to whoever has committed secret crime, that the picture of his deed, and the very echo of his words, may be seen and heard countless years after he has gone the way of all flesh, and left a reputation for ‘respectability’ to his children.”
Detectives have received impressions from a scene of crime, a clue to the unravelment of the mystery and the detection of the criminal. Yet they could not trace the impressions to anything they saw or heard during their preliminary investigations. No detective will throw aside such impressions. Indeed, those most successful are those who, while paying attention to all outward and so-called tangible clues, do not neglect for one moment the impressions received, and the thoughts felt, when gathering information likely to lead to the detection of the law-breakers. Hugh Miller was right when he said, “I suspect that there are provinces in the mind that physicians have not entered into.”
Thoughts are things—living, real and tangible, images, visions, deep and pungent sensations—which exist after their creation distinct and apart from ourselves—“Footprints on the sands of time,” in more senses than one. We all leave our mark in a thousand subtle ways. No material microscope or telescope can detect, nevertheless our mark can be discovered by the powers of the human soul. From our cradle to the grave—does it stop there?—every thought, emotion, movement, and action have left their subtle traces, so that our whole life can be traced out by the psychometric expert. We verily give hostages to fortune all through life.