Another fact which needs to be considered in this connection is that
different human beings vary considerably, though within relatively
narrow limits, in their capacity of response even to the very few
vibrations which are within reach of our physical senses. I am not
referring to the keenness of sight or of hearing that enables one man
to see a fainter object or hear a slighter sound than another; it is
not in the least a question of strength of vision, but of extent of
susceptibility.
For example, if anyone will take a good bisulphide of carbon prism,
and by its means throw a clear spectrum on a sheet of white paper, and
then get a number of people to mark upon the paper the extreme limits
of the spectrum as it appears to them, he is fairly certain to find
that their powers of vision differ appreciably. Some will see the
violet extending much farther than the majority do; others will
perhaps see rather less violet than most, while gaining a
corresponding extension of vision at the red end. Some few there will
perhaps be who can see farther than ordinary at both ends, and these
will almost certainly be what we call sensitive people--susceptible in
fact to a greater range of vibrations than are most men of the present
day.
In hearing, the same difference can be tested by taking some sound
which is just not too high to be audible--on the very verge of
audibility as it were--and discovering how many among a given number
of people are able to hear it. The squeak of a bat is a familiar
instance of such a sound, and experiment will show that on a summer
evening, when the whole air is full of the shrill, needle-like cries
of these little animals, quite a large number of men will be
absolutely unconscious of them, and unable to hear anything at all.
Now these examples clearly show that there is no hard-and-fast limit
to man's power of response to either etheric or aerial vibrations, but
that some among us already have that power to a wider extent than
others; and it will even be found that the same man's capacity varies
on different occasions. It is therefore not difficult for us to
imagine that it might be possible for a man to develop this power, and
thus in time to learn to see much that is invisible to his fellow-men,
and hear much that is inaudible to them, since we know perfectly well
that enormous numbers of these additional vibrations do exist, and are
simply, as it were, awaiting recognition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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