HOW TO CULTIVATE THE PSYCHOMETRIC FACULTY.
Class Experiments.—The sensitives are not to be magnetised or unduly influenced by positive manner and suggestions, but are to sit in their normal state (and without mental effort or straining to find out what they have in their hands), and simply give expression to their impressions—sensations, tastes, etc., if any, and no matter how strange to them these may be. Let the experimenter or operator place different metallic substances in their hands, taking care that these substances are carefully covered with tissue paper or other light substance, which will help to hide their character, and at the same time not prevent their influence being imparted, or try them with medical substances. In those sufficiently sensitive, an emetic will produce a feeling of nausea. The substance must be put down before it causes vomiting. Geological specimens can be given—a shell, a tooth, or tusk. Let the experimenter record the utterances patiently, and seek confirmation of the description from an examination of the specimen subsequently. He should not know what special specimen it is previous to the psychometer’s declared opinion. Good specimens are best. Thus a fragment of pottery, a piece of scori, or a bit of brick from, say, Pompeii would present material from which the psychometrist could glean strong and vivid impressions.
If a medical man is not satisfied as to the correct pathological conditions of his patient, he might ask the psychometer to take some article of the patient in hand, and get, in the sensitive’s own—and therefore very likely untechnical—language, what he feels and sees regarding this particular patient’s case. Unsuspected abscesses and tumours have been correctly pointed out in this way.
In the same way a correct diagnosis of character can be given in many instances more correctly, more subtle, and penetrating in detail, than estimates built upon mere external and physical signs of temperament and cranial contours.
Lay a coin on a polished surface of steel. Breathe upon it, and all the surface will be affected save the portion on which the coin lay. In a few minutes neither trace of breathing nor of the coin are likely to be seen on the surface of the polished steel. Breathe again, and the hitherto unseen image of the coin is brought to light. In like manner, everything we touch records invisibly to us that action. Hand your sensitive a letter which has been written in love or joy, grief or pungent sorrow, and let them give expression to their sensations. As the breath brought back the image on the steel, so will the nervous and the psychic impressionability of the sensitive bring to light the various emotions which actuated the writers who penned the letters. Mr. G. H. Lewes says “that he has brushed the surface of the polished plate with a camel’s-hair brush, yet on breathing upon it the image of the coin previously laid upon it was distinctly visible.” The mere casual handling of letters by intermediates will not obliterate the influence of the original writers; they have permeated the paper with their influence, so that, if a score or more of psychometrists held the paper, they would coincide, perhaps not in their language, but in their descriptions of the originals and the state of their minds while writing.
The experimenter may help, by asking a few judicious but not leading questions, to direct and guide the attention of the psychometrist. The description will be a capital delineation of the individual who wrote the letter. We have frequently tested the sincerity of correspondents, real and other friends, by this process. If the results have sometimes been unpleasant revelations, we have yet to find in any case that we have been mistaken. How is the sensitive able to glean so much of the real character of the original? one is inclined to ask. While writing, sincerity and earnestness leave a deeper impression than indifference, pretence, or ordinary come-to-tea politeness. Some letters are instinct with the writer’s identity, individuality, masculinity, earnestness, and enthusiasm. Others are lacking in these things, because the writers were devoid of these qualities, while others vary at different times. The writer writes as his soul moves him, and the writing expresses his aims and hopes as they appear to his external consciousness. While writing, his soul draws his image on the paper, and pictures out thereon his real thoughts; and when the sensitive gets hold of the letter, outstands the image of the writer and the imagery of his thoughts. The psychic consciousness of the psychometer grasps the details and describes them.
“The strange new science of psychometry” is of profound interest to all. Psychometers are to be found in every household. The whole subject is one about which a good deal more could be easily written, but this must do.
Those who desire to understand psychometry cannot do better than read up fully the literature of the subject, and those who desire to practise psychometry may do much to ascertain whether they possess the faculty in any degree; but all are warned to have nothing to do with persons who undertake to develop their powers, a self-evident absurdity.
CHAPTER V.
Thought-Transference and Telepathy.
Thought-Transference is evidently a phase of psychic perception. In some respects it bears a greater relation to feeling than sight. It is distinguished from pure clairvoyance by the result of experiment. For instance, suppose I had in the Rothesay case designed M. C., the clairvoyante, should see “a maid in the room, dressed in a black dress, with neat white collar and cuffs, wearing a nicely-trimmed white apron, and a white tulle cap with bows and streamers, or that a black-and-white spotted cat lay comfortably coiled up upon the hearth-rug, or some other strongly-projected mental image.” Now, suppose while M. C. was examining the room, she declared she saw the maid, and described her, or the cat, or other objects projected from my mind, and described these, then this would be a case of thought-transference.