登陆注册
20034700000008

第8章 CHAPTER II(1)

PSYCHOMETRY

Now that we have eliminated the gods and the dead, what have we left? Ourselves and all the life around us; and that is perhaps enough. It is, at any rate, much more than we are able to grasp.

Let us now study certain manifestations that are absolutely similar to those which we attribute to the spirits and quite as surprising. As for these manifestations, there is not the least doubt of their origin. They do not come from the other world; they are born and die upon this earth; and they arise solely and incontestably from our own actual living mystery. They are, moreover, of all psychic manifestations, those which are easiest to examine and verify, seeing that they can be repeated almost indefinitely and that a number of excellent and well-known mediums are always ready to reproduce them in the presence of any one interested in the question. It is no longer a case of uncertain and casual observation, but of scientific experiment.

The manifestations in question are so many phenomena of intuition, of clairvoyance or clairaudience, of seeing at a distance and even of seeing the future. These phenomena may either be due to pure, spontaneous intuition on the part of the medium, in an hypnotic or waking state, or else produced or facilitated by one of the various empirical methods which apparently see only to arouse the medium's subconscious faculties and to release in some way his subliminal clairvoyance. Among such methods, those most often employed are, as we all know, cards, coffee-grounds, pins, the lines of the hand, crystal globes, astrology, and so on. They possess no importance in themselves, no intrinsic virtue, and are worth exactly what the medium who uses them is worth. As M. Duchatel well says:

"In reality, there is only one solitary MANCY. The faculty of seeing in TIME, like the faculty of seeing in SPACE, is ONE, whatever its outward form or the process employed."

We will not linger now over those manifestations which, under appearances that are sometimes childish and vulgar, often conceal surprising and incontestable truths, but will devote the present chapter exclusively to a series of phenomena which includes almost all the others and which has been classed under the generic and rather ill-chosen and ill-constructed title of "psychometry." Psychometry, to borrow Dr. Maxwell's excellent definition, is "the faculty possessed by certain persons of placing themselves in relation, either spontaneously or, for the most part, through the intermediary of some object, with unknown and often very distant things and people."

The existence of this faculty is no longer seriously denied; and it is easy for any one who cares to do so to verify it for himself; for the mediums who possess it are not extremely rare, nor are they inaccessible. It has formed the subject of a number of experiments (see, among others, M. Warcollier's report in the Annales des Sciences Psychiques of July, 1911) and of a few treatises, in the front rank of which I would mention M.

Duchatel's Enquete sur des Cas de Psychometrie and Dr. Otty's recently published book, Lucidite et Intuition, which is the fullest, most profound and most conscientious work that we possess on the matter up to the present. Nevertheless it may be said that these regions quite lately annexed by metaphysical science are as yet hardly explored and that fruitful surprises are doubtless awaiting earnest seekers.

The faculty in question is one of the strangest faculties of our subconsciousness and beyond a doubt contains the key to most of the manifestations that seem to proceed from another world. Let us begin by seeing, with the aid of a living and typical example, how it is exercised.

Mme. M--, one of the best mediums mentioned by Dr. Osty, is given an object which belonged to or which has been touched and handled by a person about whom it is proposed to question her. Mme. M-- operates in a state of trance; but there are other noted psychometers, such as Mme. F-- and M. Ph. M. de F--, who retain all their normal consciousness, so that hypnotism or the somnambulistic state is in no way indispensable to the awakening of this extraordinary faculty of clairvoyance.

When the object, which is usually a letter, has been handed to Mme. M--, she is asked to place herself in communication with the writer of the letter or the owner of the object. Forthwith, Mme.

M-- not only sees the person in question, his physical appearance, his character, his habits, his interests, his state of health, but also, in a series of rapid and changing visions that follow upon one another like cinematograph pictures, perceives and describes exactly his immediate surroundings, the scenery outside his window, the rooms in which he lives, the people who live with him and who wish him well or ill, the psychology and the most secret and unexpected intentions of all those who figure in his existence. If, by means of your questions, you direct her towards the past, she traces the whole course of the subject's history. If you turn her towards the future, she seems often to discover it as clearly as the past.

But we will for the moment reserve this latter point, to which we shall return later in a chapter devoted to the knowledge of the future.

同类推荐
  • 佛说济诸方等学经

    佛说济诸方等学经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 清季台湾洋务史料

    清季台湾洋务史料

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 能净一切眼疾病陀罗尼经

    能净一切眼疾病陀罗尼经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 嘉义管内采访册

    嘉义管内采访册

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 酒谱

    酒谱

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 注意,妖狐出没

    注意,妖狐出没

    他如同黑夜里的一抹月光,她却只是阳光下的一道阴影!她样貌丑陋内心扭曲,从来都是胆小懦弱,大家眼中不该存在的人,是公认的废物,“来,介绍下你是谁的契约者。”他一边说着一边拿起长剑挠痒痒。
  • 天心印记

    天心印记

    序:这是一个传奇的时代,这是一个强者并出、神魔割据的时代,智慧与修为的比拼,武技与决心的较量。情与恩,将如何取舍?正义与邪恶,该何去何从?惊天的阴谋,千古的杀局,又如何破除……诸多精彩,敬请期待。
  • 杂纂之纂得确

    杂纂之纂得确

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 中介好辛苦

    中介好辛苦

    一个融资租赁公司普通职员的成长故事,伴随事业、家庭、亲友等共同成长。
  • 客座偶谈

    客座偶谈

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 红尘寂静

    红尘寂静

    时光荏苒,父亲双鬓渐渐灰白,我们之间还剩下什么?
  • 伏魔风云录

    伏魔风云录

    他是被选中的人,选中他的却不是上天,而是魔鬼。自幼饱受疏离之苦,唯一待他如手足的师兄不知何故杳然无踪。谁也无法陪谁到永远,终生相伴不过是最美的谎言,人生的旅程还是要自己独自走完。当烽烟再起,他毅然决然孤身入魔界,要将命运掌控在手中,纵然成则名震寰宇,败则万劫不复。无人看好又怎样?不搏怎知自身极限?无人认同又怎样?一剑平狼烟。几经历险,几番苦战,站在世界的尽头,重生的土地上,他最终领悟了人生至道。
  • 风飞萱舞

    风飞萱舞

    “听说了吗?昨天艺术系的玉思思在舞蹈教室自杀了。人长的挺漂亮的怎么就?唉,真可惜啊!”“呃!这是第几个了?现在艺术系的人都不敢去那栋楼上课了,都怕会成为下一个玉思思?”“是啊!要我我也不敢去上课。都死了那么多个了,还都是自杀,怎么可能一连自杀这么多个?听说前一天还是好好的结果第二天就发现死了?”“你们说不会是我们学校不干净吧?”“去去去,什么不干净,别说的那么吓人好不好?危言耸听”“哎!哎!别说了老师来了。”
  • 逆天剑狂

    逆天剑狂

    一把剑斗破乾坤,一挥手震碎苍穹,一滴血踏出无极,一回眸看破大道,一眨眼冲向巅峰!一处孤陋寡闻的帝国,看一位血战的少年在剑的领域——纵横天下,直至剑指浮屠!
  • 我对校草一见不钟情

    我对校草一见不钟情

    她在他眼里是一个不起眼的女生!他在她眼里是个恶魔处处针对她挑衅她的恶魔!因为踩脏了一双鞋,要她赔他60万,或者给他当保姆当一年!自从俩人认识后有了交集,在不知不觉中过去,不知俩人谁先认输向对方告白,俩人幸福的在一起了!洛家的人很喜欢她,认定她是洛家少奶奶!但在国外听到这个消息的前女友回国了!想法设法把洛泽宇抢回来既然他答应给她一个幸福的生活和幸福的家庭就不会辜负她!但故事....