Psychometry.
[Illustration: J. RHODES BUCHANAN, M.D.]
What is psychometry? Dr. George Wyld esteems psychometry a phase of
clairvoyance--“the knowledge the psychic obtains by a _clue_, such as
a lock of the hair of some absent person, or some portion of a distant
object.” Mr. Stead calls it (_Review of Reviews_, p. 221, September,
1892) “the strange new science of psychometry.” In this he pardonably
errs. Psychometry may be strange, but _it_ is _not_ new. We may not
recognise the name as old, but the class of phenomena it specialises
is as old as clairvoyance and mind-reading.
“The word psychometry,” says Dr. Buchanan, “coined in 1842, to express
the character of a new science and art, is the most pregnant and
important word that has been added to the English language. Coined
from the Greek (_psyche_, soul; and _metron_, measure), it literally
signifies _soul-measuring_.”... “The psychometer measures the soul.”
In the case of psychometry, the measuring assumes a new character, as
the object measured and the measuring instrument are the same psychic
element, and its measuring power is not limited to the psychic, as it
was developed in the first experiments, but has appeared by successive
investigations to manifest a wider and wider area of power, until it
became apparent that this psychic capacity was really the measure of
all things in the universe. Hence, psychometry signifies not merely the
measuring of souls and soul capacities, or qualities by our own psychic
capacities, but the measurement and judgment of all things conceivable
by the human mind; and psychometry means practically _measuring by
the soul_, or grasping and estimating all things which are within the
range of human intelligence. Psychometry, therefore, is not merely an
instrumentality for measuring soul powers, but a comprehensive agency
like mathematics for the solution of many departments of science.
“Prophecy,” says Buchanan, “is the noblest aspect of psychometry, and
there is no reason why it should not become the guiding power to each
individual life, and the guiding power of the destiny of nations.”
For instance, while all Europe feared for Boulanger, Metz was getting
stored with food; Lord Wolseley declared war imminent, and the French
themselves prepared for _revanche_. Psychometers declared for peace
in 1889, and said there was no prospect of war for five years.
Subsequent events have proved Boulanger lacking in both generalship and
statesmanship--a veritable Bombastes Furioso; and peace up to the time
of writing is as yet unbroken.
Dr. Buchanan claims--“In physiology, pathology, and hygiene,
psychometry is as wise and parental as in matters of character and
ethics. A competent psychometer appreciates the vital forces, the
temperament, the peculiarities, and every departure from the normal
state, realising the diseased condition with an accuracy in which
external diagnosis often fails. In fact, the natural psychometer is
born with a genius for the healing art, and if the practice of medicine
were limited to those who possess this power in an eminent degree, its
progress would be rapid, and its disgraceful failures in diagnosis and
blunders in treatment and prognosis would be less frequently heard
of.” Many happy tests in diagnosis and in the successful treatment
of disease--out of the ordinary routine--are due, in my opinion,
not so much to elaborate medical training as to the fact of the
practitioner--perhaps unconscious to himself--being possessed of more
or less of the psychometric faculty.
Dr. Buchanan,[D] in his “Original Sketch,” gives us the history and
some details of his discovery, based upon certain investigations of
the nervous system. Already he was well versed in the phenomena of
hypnotism, which is at this late day becoming a fashionable study and
recreation of medical men. He had demonstrated the responsive action
of cerebral organs to mesmeric touch and influence, and he was already
acquainted with the curious psychological phenomena of sense and
thought transference, of double consciousness, and all the nervous and
pathological phases peculiar to natural and artificial somnambulism.
His investigation for years of the nervous system had clearly shown him
that its capacities were far more extensive, varied, and interesting
than physiologists and philosophers either knew or were prepared to
admit. He found in the nervous system a vast aggregate of powers which
constitute the vitality of man, existing in intimate connection with
the vast and wonderful powers of his mind. Was it possible or rational
to suppose that this nerve-matter, so intimately co-related with mind,
and upon which the mind depends for the manifestation of its powers,
could be entirely limited to the narrow materialistic sphere assigned
by physiologists? He thought not.
In a conversation with Bishop Polk (who afterwards became the
celebrated General Polk of Confederate fame), Dr. Buchanan ascertained
that Bishop Polk’s nervous sensibility was so acute that, if by
accident he touched a piece of brass in the night, when he could not
see what he had touched, he immediately felt the influence through his
system, and recognised an offensive metallic taste.
The discovery of such sensitiveness in one of the most vigorous men,
in mind and body, of his day, led Dr. Buchanan to believe it might
be found in many others. It is needless to say his conjecture was
correct. Accordingly, in the numerous neurological experiments which he
afterwards commenced, he was accustomed to place metals of different
kinds in the hands of persons of acute sensibility, for the purpose of
ascertaining whether they could feel any peculiar influence, recognise
any peculiar taste, or appreciate the difference of metals, by any
impression upon their own sensitive nerves. It soon appeared that the
power was quite common, and there were a large number of persons who
could determine by touching a piece of metal, or by holding it in their
hands, what the metal was, as they recognised a peculiar influence
proceeding from it, which in a few moments gave them a distinct taste
in the mouth. But this sensitiveness was not confined to metallic
substances. Every substance possessing a decided taste--sugar, salt,
nutmeg, pepper, acid, etc.--appeared to be capable of transferring its
influence. The influence appeared to affect the hand, and then travel
upwards. He afterwards demonstrated when a galvanic or electric current
passed through a medicinal substance, the influence of the substance
was transmitted with the current, detected and described by the person
operated upon. Medicinal substances, enclosed in paper, were readily
recognised and described by their effects. In due time, stranger
still, a geological specimen, an article worn, a letter written upon,
a photograph which had been handled, a coin, etc., transmitted their
influence, and the psychometrist was enabled to read off the history
concerning the particular object.
Nearly fifty years have elapsed since the discovery of this “strange
new science” and art. “To-day it is widely known, has its respected
and competent practitioners, who are able to describe the mental
and vital peculiarities of those who visit or write them, and who
create astonishment and delight by the fidelity and fulness of the
descriptions which they send to persons unknown, and at vast distances.
They give minute analysis of character and revelations of particulars
_known only to the one described_, pointing out with parental delicacy
and tenderness the defects which need correction, or in the perverse
and depraved they explain what egotism would deny, but what society,
family, and friends recognise to be too true.”
PSYCHOMETRIC REFLECTIONS.
Professor J. W. Draper says:--“A shadow never falls upon a wall
without leaving thereupon a permanent trace--a trace made visible by
resorting to proper processes. Upon the walls of private apartments,
where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out, and our
retirement can never be profaned, there exists the vestiges of our
acts, silhouettes of whatever we have done. It is a crushing thought
to whoever has committed secret crime, that the picture of his deed,
and the very echo of his words, may be seen and heard countless years
after he has gone the way of all flesh, and left a reputation for
‘respectability’ to his children.”
Detectives have received impressions from a scene of crime, a clue to
the unravelment of the mystery and the detection of the criminal. Yet
they could not trace the impressions to anything they saw or heard
during their preliminary investigations. No detective will throw aside
such impressions. Indeed, those most successful are those who, while
paying attention to all outward and so-called tangible clues, _do not
neglect for one moment_ the impressions received, and the thoughts
_felt_, when gathering information likely to lead to the detection of
the law-breakers. Hugh Miller was right when he said, “I suspect that
there are provinces in the mind that physicians have not entered into.”
Thoughts are things--living, real and tangible, images, visions, deep
and pungent sensations--which exist after their creation distinct
and apart from ourselves--“Footprints on the sands of time,” in more
senses than one. We all leave our mark in a thousand subtle ways. No
material microscope or telescope can detect, nevertheless our mark
can be discovered by the powers of the human soul. From our cradle
to the grave--does it stop there?--every thought, emotion, movement,
and action have left their subtle traces, so that our whole life can
be traced out by the psychometric expert. We verily give hostages to
fortune all through life.
PSYCHOMETRIC SENSITIVES.
Professor Denton was very fortunate in having in his wife, children,
and in his sister, Mrs. Cridge, gifted psychometers. His sister
possessed this psychic, intuitive faculty in a high degree. Dr.
Buchanan was equally fortunate; not only was his wife a first-class
sensitive, but he discovered the faculty in several university
professors, and in students innumerable. Denton in his travels over
America, Europe, and Australia found several hundred good sensitives,
some of whom have since made a reputation both in Europe and America
for their powers.
One important fact we learn from these pioneers in psychometric
research is that not one of these persons knew they were endowed with
the psychometric gift prior to taking part in classes or experiments.
The possession of the faculty is not confined to any age, or to the
gentle sex; and Denton concludes, as an average, that one female in
four and one man in ten are psychometric sensitives. The possibility is
all healthy, sensitive, refined, intuitive, and impressionable persons
possess the soul-measuring faculty, and this faculty, like all other
innate human powers, can be cultivated and brought to a high stage of
perfection.
The psychometer, unlike the induced clairvoyant or entranced medium, is
in general, or outwardly at least, a mere spectator, as one who beholds
a drama or witnesses a panorama, and tells in his own way to someone
else what he sees and what he thinks about it. The sensitive can dwell
on what is seen, examine it closely, and record individual opinions
of the impressions of the persons, incidents, and scenes of the long
hidden thus brought to light. The sensitive has merely to hold the
object in hand--as Mrs. Coates is represented doing in frontispiece--or
hold it to the forehead (temple), when he or she is enabled to come in
contact with the soul of the person or thing with which the object has
been in relation. There is no loss of external consciousness, no “up
rush” of the subliminal, obliterating and overlapping that of common
life. The sensitive appears to be in a perfectly normal condition
during the whole time of examination, can lay the article down,
noticing what takes place, and entering into conversation with those in
the room, or drawing subjects, seen or not, as they think best.
WHAT PSYCHOMETRY CAN DO.
We can do little more than give a few general illustrations.
Professor Denton, having thoroughly satisfied himself of the reality
of psychometry, wondered if letters had photographed upon them the
impressions of the life and the image of the writer. Why not fossils?
“He gave his sister a specimen from the carboniferous formation;
closing her eyes, she described those swamps and trees, with their
tufted heads and scaly trunks, with the great frog-like animals that
existed in that age. To his inexpressible delight the key to the ages
was in his hands. He concluded that nature had been photographing from
the very first. The black islands that floated upon the fiery sea, the
gelatinous dots, the first life on our planet, up through everything
that flew or swam, had been photographed by Nature, and ten thousand
experiments had confirmed the theory. He got a specimen of the lava
that flowed from Kilava, in Hawaii, in 1848. His sister by its means
described the boiling ocean, the cataract of molten lava that almost
equalled Niagara in size. A small fragment of a meteorite that fell in
Painesville, O., was given to his wife’s mother, a sensitive who did
not then believe in psychometry. This is what she said: ‘I seem to be
travelling away, away, through nothing, right forward. I see what look
like stars and mist. I seem to be taken right up; the other specimens
took me down.’ His wife, independently, gave a similar description,
but saw it revolving, and its tail of sparks. He took steps to prove
that this was not mind reading by wrapping the specimens in paper,
shaking them up in a hat, and allowing the sensitive to pick out one
and describe it, without anyone knowing which it was. Among them were a
fragment of brick from ancient Rome, antimony from Borneo, silver from
Mexico, basalt from Fingal’s Cave. Each place was described correctly
by the sensitive in the most minute detail. A fragment from the Mount
of Olives brought a description of Jerusalem; and one from the Great
Pyramid enabled a young man of Melbourne to name and describe it. There
was a practical side to the question. His wife had, from a chip of
wood, described a suicide; this was subsequently confirmed. A number of
experiments from a fragment of Kent’s Cave, fragments from Pompeii and
other places brought minute descriptions from the sensitive.”
Mr. Stead bears his testimony to psychometry. He gave a shilling
to two ladies, at different periods, and unknown to each other. In
fact, they were perfect strangers. This shilling, in his mind, had a
special story connected with it. The first lady lived in Wimbledon,
and had the profession of being a clairvoyante. To use Mr. Stead’s
own words, he states:--“I took from my purse a shilling which I most
prized of all the pieces of money in my possession. I said nothing to
her beyond that I had carried it in my pocket for several years. She
held the shilling in her hand for sometime, and said:--‘This carries
me back to a time of confusion and much anxiety, with a feeling that
everything depended upon a successful result. This shilling brings me
a vision of a very low woman, ignorant and drunken, with whom you had
much better have nothing to do. There is a great deal of fever about. I
feel great pains, as if I had rheumatic fever in my ankles and joints,
but especially in my ankles and my throat. I suffer horribly in my
throat; it is an awful pain. And now I feel a coarse, bare hand pass
over my brow as distinctly as if you had laid your hand there. It must
be her hand. I feel the loss of a child. This woman is brought to me
by another. She is about thirty-two years; about five feet high, with
dark brown hair, grey eyes, small, nicely-formed nose, large mouth.’”
“Can you tell me her name?” asked Mr. Stead. “Not certain, but I think
it seems like Annie.” “That is all right,” said Mr. Stead, and he told
her the story of that shilling. About a month afterwards, Mr. Stead
tried a Swedish opera singer, who had clairvoyant powers, with the
shilling. She pressed it to her brow, and then she told Mr. Stead “she
saw a poor woman give him, from her pocket-money, the last shilling she
possessed. She has a great admiration for you, she said. She seems to
think you have saved her, but she is not _une grande dame_. Indeed, she
seems to be a girl of the town.” Mr. Stead said:--“I had not spoken a
word, or given her the least hint of the story of the shilling.” Now,
what are the facts? Mr. Stead says that he “was standing his trial at
the Old Bailey, a poor outcast girl of the streets, who was dying of a
loathsome disease in the hospital, asked that the only shilling that
she possessed in the world, might be given to the fund which was being
raised in his defence. It was handed to him when he came out of jail,
with, ‘From a dying girl in hospital, who gives her last shilling,’
written on the paper.” He (Mr. Stead) has carried it about him ever
since, never allowing it to be out of his possession for a single day.
The symptoms which the first clairvoyante, or psychometrix, described,
were very like those which this poor creature was suffering from in her
dying hours. It is too probable that the donor was a low, drunken woman.
These two readings are actually more psychometric than clairvoyant,
because, from the clue furnished, they went back and described the
conditions and surroundings of the woman who parted with this shilling.
They were not thought-readers, because they did not describe what was
passing in Mr. Stead’s mind. Mr. Stead’s experiences fairly illustrate
the exercise, in the earlier stages of employment, of the psychometric
faculty.
While engaged writing the “Real Ghost Stories,” Mr. Stead says:--“My
attention was called to a young lady, Miss Catherine Ross, of 41 High
Street, Smethwick, Birmingham, who, being left with an invalid sister
to provide for, and without other available profession or industry,
bethought herself of a curious gift of reading character, with which
she seems to have been born, and had subsequently succeeded in earning
a more or less precarious income by writing out characters at the
modest fee of 5s. You sent her any article you pleased that had been in
contact with the object, and she sent you by return a written analysis
of the subject’s character. I sent her various articles from one person
at different times, not telling her they were from the same person. At
one time a tuft of hair from his beard, at another time a fragment of
a nail, and a third time a scrap of handwriting. Each delineation of
character differed in some points from the other two, but all agreed,
and they were all remarkably correct. When she sent the last she added,
‘I don’t know how it is, but I feel I have described this person
before.’ I have tried her since then with locks of hair from persons of
the most varied disposition, and have found her wonderfully correct.”
“All these things are very wonderful, but the cumulative value of the
evidence is too great for any one to pooh-pooh it as antecedently
impossible. The chances against it being a mere coincidence are many
millions to one.”
I believe had this young lady, or others thus endowed, had the
training, such as Buchanan, Denton, or other experienced teachers give
their pupils, she would make a high class psychometer.
Rev. Minot J. Savage had a paper in a recent number of _The Arena_, on
Psychical Research, etc., in which he said--“On a certain morning I
visited a psychometrist. Several experiments were made. I will relate
only one, as a good specimen of what has occurred in my presence more
than once. The lady was not entranced or, so far as I could see, in
any other than her normal condition. I handed her a letter which I had
recently received. She took it, and held it in her right hand, pressing
it close, so as to come into as vital contact with it as possible.
I had taken it out of its envelope, so that she might touch it more
effectively, but it was not unfolded even so much as to give her an
opportunity to see even the name. It was written by a man whom she had
never seen, and of whom she had never heard. After holding it a moment
she said, ‘This man is either a minister or a lawyer; I cannot tell
which. He is a man of a good deal more than usual intellectual power.
And yet he has never met with any success in life as one would have
expected, considering his natural ability. Something has happened to
thwart him and interfere with his success. At the present time he is
suffering with severe illness and mental depression. He has pain here’
(putting her hand to the back of her head, at the base of the brain).
“She said much more, describing the man as well as I could have done
it myself. But I will quote no more, for I wish to let a few salient
points stand in clear outline. These points I will number, for the sake
of clearness:--
1. “She tells me he is a man, though she has not even glanced at the
letter.”
2. “She says he is either a minister or a lawyer; she cannot tell
which. No wonder, for he was both; that is, he had preached for some
years, then he had left the pulpit, studied law, and at this time was
not actively engaged in either profession.”
3. “She speaks of his great natural ability. This was true in a most
marked degree.”
4. “But he had not succeeded as one would have expected. This again was
strikingly true. Certain things had happened--which I do not feel at
liberty to publish--which had broken off his career in the middle and
made his short life seem abortive.”
About eighteen years ago a lady in Swansea sent me a lock of hair,
and asked me to send her my impressions. I did so, which I remember
were not pleasant. I informed her, as near as my recollection now
serves, that the person to whom the hair belonged was seriously ill.
No earthly skill could do anything for him. Diagnosing the character
of the insidious disease which was then undermining a once powerful
and active organisation, I felt constrained to add he _would live six
weeks_. I held the envelope, with its contents, in my left hand, and
wrote the impressions as they came with my right. I remember hesitating
about sending that letter, but eventually sent it. The accuracy of
my diagnosis, description of the patient, and the fulfilment of the
prophecy as to his death were substantiated in a Swansea paper, _The
Bat_. The patient was no other than Captain Hudson, the British master
mariner who sailed the first ship on teetotal principles from a British
port, and who subsequently became one of the most powerful of British
mesmerists. The lady who sent the lock of hair was his wife, and the
lady who contributed the letter to the papers was his widow. Of similar
experiences Mrs. Coates and I have had many.
HOW TO CULTIVATE THE PSYCHOMETRIC FACULTY.
_Class Experiments._--The sensitives are not to be magnetised or
unduly influenced by positive manner and suggestions, but are to sit
in their normal state (and without mental effort or straining to find
out what they have in their hands), and simply give expression to
their impressions--sensations, tastes, etc., if any, and no matter
how strange to them these may be. Let the experimenter or operator
place different metallic substances in their hands, taking care that
these substances are carefully covered with tissue paper or other
light substance, which will help to hide their character, and at the
same time not prevent their influence being imparted, or try them with
medical substances. In those sufficiently sensitive, an emetic will
produce a feeling of nausea. The substance must be put down before it
causes vomiting. Geological specimens can be given--a shell, a tooth,
or tusk. Let the experimenter record the utterances patiently, and seek
confirmation of the description from an examination of the specimen
subsequently. He should not know what special specimen it is previous
to the psychometer’s declared opinion. Good specimens are best. Thus
a fragment of pottery, a piece of scori, or a bit of brick from, say,
Pompeii would present material from which the psychometrist could glean
strong and vivid impressions.
If a medical man is not satisfied as to the correct pathological
conditions of his patient, he might ask the psychometer to take some
article of the patient in hand, and get, in the sensitive’s own--and
therefore very likely untechnical--language, what he feels and sees
regarding this particular patient’s case. Unsuspected abscesses and
tumours have been correctly pointed out in this way.
In the same way a correct diagnosis of character can be given in many
instances more correctly, more subtle, and penetrating in detail, than
estimates built upon mere external and physical signs of temperament
and cranial contours.
Lay a coin on a polished surface of steel. Breathe upon it, and all
the surface will be affected save the portion on which the coin lay.
In a few minutes neither trace of breathing nor of the coin are likely
to be seen on the surface of the polished steel. Breathe again, and
the hitherto unseen image of the coin is brought to light. In like
manner, everything we touch records invisibly to us that action. Hand
your sensitive a letter which has been written in love or joy, grief
or pungent sorrow, and let them give expression to their sensations.
As the breath brought back the image on the steel, so will the nervous
and the psychic impressionability of the sensitive bring to light the
various emotions which actuated the writers who penned the letters.
Mr. G. H. Lewes says “that he has brushed the surface of the polished
plate with a camel’s-hair brush, yet on breathing upon it the image
of the coin previously laid upon it was distinctly visible.” The mere
casual handling of letters by intermediates will not obliterate the
influence of the original writers; they have permeated the paper with
their influence, so that, if a score or more of psychometrists held
the paper, they would coincide, perhaps not in their language, but in
their descriptions of the originals and the state of their minds while
writing.
The experimenter may help, by asking a few judicious but not leading
questions, to direct and guide the attention of the psychometrist. The
description will be a capital delineation of the individual who wrote
the letter. We have frequently tested the sincerity of correspondents,
real and other friends, by this process. If the results have sometimes
been unpleasant revelations, we have yet to find in any case that we
have been mistaken. How is the sensitive able to glean so much of the
real character of the original? one is inclined to ask. While writing,
sincerity and earnestness leave a deeper impression than indifference,
pretence, or ordinary come-to-tea politeness. Some letters are instinct
with the writer’s identity, individuality, masculinity, earnestness,
and enthusiasm. Others are lacking in these things, because the writers
were devoid of these qualities, while others vary at different times.
The writer writes as _his soul_ moves him, and the writing expresses
his aims and hopes as they appear to his external consciousness.
While writing, _his soul_ draws his image on the paper, and pictures
out thereon his real thoughts; and when the sensitive gets hold of
the letter, outstands the image of the writer and the imagery of his
thoughts. The psychic consciousness of the psychometer grasps the
details and describes them.
“The strange new science of psychometry” is of profound interest to
all. Psychometers are to be found in every household. The whole subject
is one about which a good deal more could be easily written, but this
must do.
Those who desire to understand psychometry cannot do better than
read up fully the literature of the subject, and those who desire to
practise psychometry may do much to ascertain whether they possess
the faculty in any degree; but all are warned to have nothing to do
with persons who undertake to _develop_ their powers, a _self-evident
absurdity_.