This patient could distinguish with absolute certainty “mesmerized” water from that which had not been so treated; my finger, also, pointed at her even at a distance and when her back was turned to me caused convulsive action, and the same result followed when the experiment was made through a closed door, and when she did not suspect that I was in the neighborhood.
It will be seen, then, how marvellously the action of certain senses may be exalted by long and careful training on the one hand, and suddenly by disease on the other. We have seen, moreover, how some persons known as sensitives are able to receive impressions by thought-transference so as to name cards, repeat words and fictitious names, both of persons and places, merely thought of but not spoken by another person known as the agent or operator, and to draw diagrams unmistakably like those formed in the mind or intently looked upon by the agent.
We have also seen how the hypnotized or mesmerized subject is able to detect objects which have only been touched or handled by the mesmerizer, and even to feel pain inflicted upon him, and recognize by taste substances put in the mesmerizer’s mouth.
It will be seen, then, that not only increased but entirely supernormal perception on the part of some individuals is a well-established fact. But all these conditions of increased power of perception, and especially thought-transference, must be carefully distinguished from independent clairvoyance. It is not the purpose of this paper to discuss the method or philosophy of clairvoyance, but simply to call attention to well-authenticated facts illustrating the exercise of this power, and to briefly point to the current theories regarding it.
A belief in supernormal perception, and especially in the clairvoyant vision, is apparent in the history, however meagre it may be, of every ancient nation.
Hebrew history is full of instances of it. A striking example is recorded as occurring during the long war between Syria and Israel. The King of Syria had good reasons for suspecting that in some manner the King of Israel was made acquainted with all his intended military operations, since he was always prepared to thwart them at every point. Accordingly he called together his chiefs and demanded to know who it was among them who thus favored the King of Israel, to which one of the chiefs replied: “It is none of thy servants, O King: but Elisha, a prophet that is in Israel, telleth the King of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy chamber.”
Pythagoras, a century before the time of Socrates, found this faculty believed in, and made use of in Egypt, Babylon, and India, and he himself, as the founder of the early Greek philosophy and culture, practised and taught the esoteric as well as the exoteric methods of acquiring knowledge, and he is credited with having acquired by esoteric methods—internal or mental perception and clairvoyant vision—a knowledge of the true theory of the solar system as expounded and demonstrated in a later day by Copernicus.
As an example of responses by the Greek oracles, take the experience of Crœsus, the rich King of Lydia. He sent messengers to ascertain if the Pythoness could tell what he, the King of Lydia, was doing on a certain specified day. The answer came:—
“I number the sands—I fathom the sea.
I hear the dumb—I know the thoughts of the silent.
There cometh to me the odor of lamb’s flesh.
It is seething, mixed with the flesh of a tortoise.
Brass is beneath it, and brass is also above it.”
The messenger returned and delivered the reply, when he found that Crœsus, in order to do something most unlikely to be either guessed or discovered, had cut in pieces a lamb and a tortoise, and seethed them together in a brazen vessel having a brazen cover.