ONLINE LIBRARY

An Amazing Experiment

Publisher: Lectures Universal Ltd
Published: 1936
Pages: 128

Appendix: Psychometry

 - Charles Drayton Thomas -

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         PSYCHOMETRY HAS been defined thus: "The faculty of reading the characters and surroundings of persons, by holding in the hand small objects which they have had in their possession." The gifted psychometrist, taking the object in his hand, presently begins to feel this or that relating to the history of the object or to its owner. We can but conjecture what it is in the object used which causes this feeling, but it is this kind of feel or sensing which forms the basis of all mental-psychical phenomena.

Just as our five physical senses can be traced to modifications and variations in feeling, so can the various forms of mental impression be resolved into feeling. When the feeling is faint the psychic "has an impression" of this or that, an idea forms in his mind. When the feeling is more intense it may emerge into consciousness as a kind of inward sight. But what do we mean when speaking of a feeling emerging into consciousness? Where was it felt before it reached one's consciousness?

In order to answer this question we must introduce the reader to the Subliminal Mind, that elusive area wherein all forgotten memories are stored, and where there takes place much of which he is never conscious, but which, nevertheless, influences health and happiness every hour of his life. It is sometimes termed "Subconscious mind," and is the area of our unconscious mental activity.

Up to the present time its powers have not been satisfactorily defined; we know that it does much, but the limits of its operation have not been ascertained. It is apparently the sender and receiver of thought in telepathy. It supervises the activities of our involuntary physical operations, it also affects our dreams. The mind, as we know it, is but a small part of our real and complete mind; we know mind only by its activities within consciousness, but its activities beyond the narrow range of consciousness are many and varied.

To those unacquainted with the works of recent authors on this subject, it may be confusing to learn of this mysterious Subliminal Mind. We will, therefore, venture upon a theory which is probably true to fact, and which also helps us to form a picture of the mind's twofold sphere of action. It is this: in addition to his physical body, man has one which is more or less a duplicate, but formed of so ethereal a substance as to be invisible. The two bodies interpenetrate. Man has, thus, a physical brain and an ethereal brain. When we think consciously we are using the physical brain; but when we use the ethereal brain alone, our waking consciousness, just because it is limited to the physical brain, is unaware of the result.

It would, of course, be easy to picture this hypothesis so grotesquely that the sane mind must reject it. Quite otherwise is it when one considers how modern theories have pushed the formation of matter far into the invisible. Each cell of one's body is an interweaving of invisible atoms, each of which may be likened to a solar system in miniature. The cells are guided to their respective positions by "a directive idea" which thus builds up the body. It scarcely needs saying that this directive idea is a puzzle to physiologists because it is invisible and elusive. We may surmise that ultimately it will be found that this directive idea works through an intermediary, and that the intermediary is none other than the hypothetical invisible body. This discovery would not solve the mystery, but would take us one step nearer its solution.

We may, therefore, think of the physical body as being formed upon the invisible body which is at once its pattern and its builder. The pattern persists when the material counterpart decays in death.

In this connection the following remarks by the late Dr. Geley are of interest: "This subconscious psychic activity, powerful in itself, is reinforced by a still more potent and infallible memory which leaves the feeble and limited conscious memory far behind." "Everything happens as though the psychic state which we call a remembrance, registered by the cerebral cells - ephemeral as they and destined soon to disappear with them - were at the same time registered in 'a something' permanent, of which this remembrance will henceforth be an integral and permanent part." "It is not conditioned by the organism; on the contrary, everything happens as though the organism and the cerebral functions were conditioned by it." (From The Unconscious to the Conscious, pp. 123, 127, 136)

Our mind is much more than the brain it uses. Mind is an activity of the soul or self. When using the physical brain it is limited, and cannot accomplish all it desires. It had more scope when using its ethereal brain, but has difficulty in bringing back information about its activities there and impressing this upon the physical brain. In other words, we are able to reveal ourselves to our waking consciousness only partially. We know more when using the invisible brain than we can recall when consciously trying with the physical brain; hence the puzzling facts of memory and forgetfulness. The storehouse of memory is in the ethereal brain, that is to say, in the subliminal areas of our mind. The conscious area holds but few memories at any one moment, we cannot think of many things at once; it is like the office in which important business is transacted while the warehouse is elsewhere. People differ greatly in ability to obtain access to the stores of the subliminal area.

Let us now apply this to mental psychical phenomena. It is mind acting in the etheric brain which produces that "feeling" by which psychometrists can learn surprising facts, such as could not have been obtained from the psychometrised object consciously. It is mind acting in the etheric brain which observes clairvoyantly and hears clairaudiently.

It is also mind acting in the etheric brain which receives and interprets those impressions which result in thought-transmission from people at a distance.

In short, the etheric brain may be thought of as Nature's Radio receiver and Television apparatus. It is used by gifted psychics to transform and make intelligible the subtle fields of influence which we speak of as Psychometry or Sensing, Clairvoyance, Clairaudience and Telepathy.

If the reader will substitute the term Subconscious or Subliminal for Ethereal Brain, he will follow without much difficulty the explanations put forward.

We may now return to the subject of Psychometry. We have spoken of it as a feeling which emerges into consciousness. If we now ask, Where was that feeling before it emerged? the reply is that it was an impression on the etheric brain. The difference between a gifted psychic and other men is chiefly that the psychic can, to some degree, extend the area of his consciousness, so that a part of it is directed to the etheric brain, instead of being wholly directed upon the physical brain.

The basis of psychic sensitivity is ability to make contact with the subconscious areas of mental action. How mental action transforms what the etheric brain feels, and so reproduces it as an interior sight and sound, we no more understand than we can understand how the physical brain enables us to enjoy seeing and hearing, when its nerves bring to it from eye and ear the vibrations of ether and air.

Psychometry, then, is the interpretation of a special kind of subliminal feeling, a feeling which conveys information. That feeling results when an object is handled, but it may be even stronger when, instead of handling an article which has been worn by some person, that person's hand is held. People can be psychometrised and information obtained by this method about their character and past life.

The above note on Psychometry is taken from the author's book, The Mental Phenomena of Spiritualism, published by the London Spiritualist Association, 16 Queensberry Place, London, S.W.7. Further information on the same subject will be found in that book on pages 29, 33, 48-51, 74-85.

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