The Law of Psychic Phenomena: A working hypothesis for the systematic study of hypnotism, spiritism, mental therapeutics, etc.Hudson, Thomson Jay
Philosophy
The Law of Psychic Phenomena: A working hypothesis for the systematic study of hypnotism, spiritism, mental therapeutics, etc.
Hudson, Thomson Jay
Parapsychology
There is another class of phenomena which has attracted a great deal
of public attention, and which demands a passing notice in this
connection. It is that class which has received an exhaustive treatment
in the work of the late Professor Denton, entitled "The Souls of
Things." It has been denominated "psychometry," which may be defined
as the supposed power of the human mind to discern the history of
inanimate objects by clairvoyance. Many wonderful stories are related
of the exercise of this supposed faculty, under the strictest test
conditions, as test conditions were then understood. Professor Denton
made a long series of experiments with his sister, his wife, and some
others who were supposed to possess that power in a remarkable degree.
The powers of his wife and sister were indeed wonderful; but, as we
shall see, not in the line in which the experiments were directed.
It must be premised that the professor was a very learned man, not
only in his specialty, which was geology, but in all branches of human
knowledge. His wife and sister were also highly cultivated women, and
were specially interested in those branches of learning in which the
gifted professor excelled. Thus the conditions were extremely favorable
for the production of extraordinary results in whatever branch of
occult science they might jointly engage.
It was the habit of the professor to select some geological specimen,
or a fragment of some historical structure, and submit it to his
percipient for her version of its history. She would readily enter a
partially subjective condition, place the relic on her head, and at
once give a very plausible, and oftentimes a most wonderfully accurate,
history of the scenes which had been enacted within its former
environment. Thus, if the object happened to be a geological specimen,
she would launch out into a glowing description of its surroundings
when found, and going back into its history before the earth's crust
was formed, trace it down through the different geological changes
until she landed it in the professor's cabinet. Again, a piece of
mortar from the dwelling of Cicero would be handed to her, and she
would give a vivid description of the domestic life of those who had
occupied the mansion, and describe historic events which "might have
been seen" from the ancient habitat of the piece of mortar. It is
easy to see how all this might be accomplished, and all the known
facts stated with accuracy, regarding the geological environment of
the piece of stone in her hands, when her own geological learning was
taken into consideration. But the professor was not unmindful of so
obvious an explanation of her power. To eliminate that element was his
first care. To that end he would wrap the specimen in a piece of paper,
and carefully conceal its character from her objective knowledge. The
result was always the same. She would read the history of the specimen
with the same apparent accuracy as before. The professor, however, did
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