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Psychometry
A method of sensing or
'reading' from physical objects the history of each object and the history of things and
people associated with these objects which is hidden to ordinary sensibility.
The term, derived from the Greek
psyche ('soul') and metron ('measure'), was coined in the mid-19th century by Joseph R. Buchanan, an American physiologist
who claimed Psychometry could be used to measure the 'soul' of all things. Buchanan further said:
"The past is entombed in the present, the
world is its own enduring monument; and that which is true of its
physical is likewise true of its mental career. The discoveries of
Psychometry will enable us to explore the history of man, as those of
geology enable us to explore the history of the earth. There are mental
fossils for psychologists as well as mineral fossils for the geologists;
and I believe that hereafter the psychologist and the geologist will go
hand in hand, the one portraying the earth, its animals and its
vegetation, while the other portrays the human beings who have roamed
over its surface in the shadows, and the darkness of primeval barbarism.
Aye, the mental telescope is now discovered which may pierce the depths
of the past and bring us in full view of the grand and tragic passages
of ancient history."
Sounds and perfumes also leave impressions on their
surroundings, said Buchanan. Just as a photograph may be taken on film or
plate and remain invisible until it has been developed, so may those
psychometric 'photographs' remain impalpable until the developing process
has been applied. That which can bring them to light is the psychic faculty
and mind of the medium, he said.
Buchanan also claimed that this faculty operated in
conjunction with what he termed a community of sensation of varying
intensity. The psychometric effect of medicines in Buchanans experiments as
a physician was similar to their ordinary action.
Researchers who followed Buchanan
theorized that objects retain imprints of the past and their owners — variously
called 'vibrations', 'psychic ether', and
aura — that could be picked up by sensitives.
Many mediums who have
practiced psychometry have since become famous in this line. Their method is to hold in the hand or place against the forehead
some small object, such as a fragment of clothing, a letter, or a watch;
appropriate visions are then seen or sensations experienced.
While on rare occasions a psychometrist may be entranced,
normally he or she is in a condition scarcely varying from the normal. The
psychometric pictures, presumably somehow imprinted on the objects, have
been likened to pictures carried in the memory, seemingly faded, yet ready
to start into vividness when the right spring is touched. Some have
suggested, for example, that the rehearsal of bygone tragedies so frequently
witnessed in haunted houses is really a psychometric picture that, during
the original occurrence, impressed itself on the room. The same may be said
of the sounds and smells that haunt certain houses.
Psychometry is the chief technique used in
psychic criminology.
See
Remote Viewing,
Clairaudience,
Clairsentience,
Telepathy,
Psychometry,
Metagnomy,
Precognition,
Animal PSI,
Seance,
Materialization,
Asport,
Casting Black Magic Spells,
Commanding Spirits,
The Tarot Store and
Divination & Scrying Tools and
Supplies.
Sources: (1)
Dictionary of the
Occult, Caxton
Publishing; (2) Spence, Lewis,
An Encyclopedia of
Occultism, Carol Publishing Group.
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