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
No better illustration of this fact could be given than
the phenomena of psychometry, which we have just been considering. The
power to read the history of a geological specimen with a plausible
show of accuracy was first attributed to clairvoyance. As telepathic
powers began to be understood, it was thought that possibly the
percipient simply related what was read in the mind of the agent. Many
experiments were made throughout the country which demonstrated that
fact, and the recognized field of clairvoyance was thereby curtailed.
But Professor Denton determined to eliminate the element of telepathy
by so disposing of his relics as to divest himself of all knowledge of
the particular one under examination. When the percipient exhibited the
same powers of discernment under those circumstances it was thought
that the element of telepathy was eliminated, and that the power of
clairvoyance was demonstrated. But as the knowledge of telepathy is
increased, and when it is understood that telepathy is the communion
of subjective minds, and that the subjective mind is endowed with
transcendent powers in certain directions, while it is hedged about
with limitations in others, it is seen that the professor did not
succeed, as he had supposed, in eliminating the element of telepathy.
Thus the field of clairvoyance is again curtailed, and that of
telepathy correspondingly enlarged. It may be assumed, therefore, that
the boundary lines between the two supposed powers are still unmarked.
In the mean time it is unsafe to assume any one point as the boundary,
or even to assume that there is, in fact, any line at all. Judgment
must be suspended until telepathy is better understood. All that can be
safely said is that there are facts which cannot as yet be explained
on any other hypothesis than that of independent clairvoyance. When
we come across such a fact we may provisionally assume the power to
exist, and await the slow progress of experimental knowledge to enable
us to classify the fact in accordance with its legitimate relations.
It is logically safe to do this as long as we thus avoid the necessity
of wholesale denials of demonstrated facts on the one hand, and on the
other refrain from entering the domain of the supernatural in search of
a hypothesis.
It is thought that enough has now been said to explain the part which
telepathy plays in the phenomena which have been considered, and also
to enable the intelligent reader to apply the principles to all other
classes of phenomena in which telepathy constitutes a possible factor.
It is constantly reappearing in every phase of psychic phenomena,
and constitutes a factor in every manifestation of intelligent power
involving the perception of that which is beyond the reach of the
senses.
CLAIRAUDIENCE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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