Sacred Texts New Thought Index Previous Next
Buy this Book at Amazon.com
The Secret Science Behind Miracles, by Max Freedom Long, [1948], at sacred-texts.com
Telepathy is the sending of messages (as thought forms) along the connecting cords of invisible shadowy body substance which connect one person with another. The messages are sent by the subconscious self and received by it, to be given to the conscious self in due time.
Psychometry, and its related phenomena, depend on the same mechanisms except that the shadowy cord or thread does not connect two similar persons. A psychometrist usually sits quietly and touches a letter, a ring or some object about which he wishes to get psychic information, such as the past of the object held, or the contents of a letter and the nature and surroundings of its writer.
The fact which I wish to stress is that one practicing this form of magic reaches out along the shadowy threads which are attached to an object, following them to their ends, and finding there the things and people formerly associated with the object. Or, if the object is a stone such as has fallen in a meteorite, the thread will lead only to the source of the stone—the meteorite.
Preliminary Notes: None
The Cases:
(A) A piece of lava was psychometrized by Mrs. Cridge, and the impression she received of the volcano was so vivid and frightening that she was seized with a feeling of terror that lasted for over an hour.
(B) Mrs. Denton psychometrized a fragment of mastodon tooth and described the sensations which resulted: "I feel like a perfect monster, with heavy legs, unwieldy head, and very large body. I go down to a shallow stream to drink. I can hardly speak, my jaws are so heavy. I feel like getting down on all fours. What a noise comes through the wood. I have an impulse to answer it. My ears are very large and leathery, and I can almost fancy they flap my face as I move my head. There are some older ones than I.… They are dark brown, as if they had been completely tanned. There is one old fellow, with large tusks, that looks very tough. I see several younger ones; in fact, there is a whole herd."
Note: Ossowiecki, one of the foremost psychometrists of our time, gives an excellent description of his sensations during the practice of this form of magic:
"I begin by stopping all reasoning, and I throw all my inner power into perception of spiritual sensation. I affirm that this condition is brought about by my unshakable faith in the spiritual unity of all humanity.
[paragraph continues] I then find myself in a new and special state in which I see and hear outside time and space.… Whether I am reading a sealed letter, or finding a lost object, or psychometrizing, the sensations are nearly the same. I seem to lose some energy; my temperature becomes febrile, and the heartbeats unequal. I am confirmed in this supposition because, as soon as I cease from reasoning, something like electricity flows through my extremities for a few seconds. This lasts a moment only, and then lucidity takes possession of me, pictures arise, usually from the past. I see the man who wrote the letter and I know what he wrote. I see the object at the moment of its loss, with details of the event; or again I perceive or feel the history of the thing I am holding in my hands. The vision is misty and needs great tension. Considerable effort is required to perceive some details and conditions of the scenes presented. The lucid state sometimes arises in a few minutes, and sometimes it takes hours of waiting. This largely depends on the surroundings; scepticism, incredulity, or even attention, too much concentrated on my person, paralyzes quick success in reading or sensations."
There are various phases to psychometry. Some do their best work when hypnotized before various objects are handed them to be psychometrized. Some see into the distant past, sensing the ancient surroundings of an object. Some follow psychically the deceased into the "beyond" and see their present condition and actions as disembodied spirits. Some, and these instances are rare, even see the future events which will be associated with the object which is held in their hands.
In just over a century of Psychical Research and of
effort to explain how psychometry is accomplished, several theories have been advanced. Dr. Pagenstecher offered the following:
"The associated object which practically witnessed certain events of the past, acting in the way of a tuning fork, automatically starts in our brain the specific vibrations corresponding to the said events; furthermore, the vibrations of our brain once being set in tune with certain parts of the Cosmic Brain already stricken by the same events, call forth sympathetic vibrations between the human brain and the Cosmic Brain, giving birth to thought pictures which reproduce the events in question."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle offered the explanation that all events and circumstances impressed themselves on some form of invisible and permanent, unchangeable ether. This imprinted ether, he supposed, was read by psychic vision by the psychometrist when attention was centered on a part of the ether connected with the object held in the hands.
Theosophists, building on ideas found in India, propound (see the works of Blavatsky) the theory that there is a World-Soul or Akasa, upon whose memory is impressed all that happens. Psychometry, under this theory, becomes more definitely mechanical. One uses the object held in the hands to make a psychic connection with the part of the memory of the World-Soul having to do with the object's past. By a form of psychic telepathy, or—better yet—mind reading, the psychometrist "reads the Akashic Records."
Another angle of the problem of psychometry is to be found in visions of a psychometric nature which occur
in the vicinity of past battles or other less exciting events. These visions appear to a number of persons gathered on the scene, and all agree as to what they see—however, there are usually present people who see not a thing. Dr. Nandor Fodor gives some of the instances which have been recorded and which are widely accepted as true. The following case is one of them:
(C) "The Battle of Edge Hill … was fought on October 22, 1624. Two months later a number of shepherds and village people witnessed an aerial reenactment of the battle with all the noises of the guns, the neighing of the horses and the groans of the wounded. The vision lasted for hours, and was witnessed by people of reputation for several consecutive days and when its rumor reached the ears of Charles I., a commission (sent out to investigate) not only reported to have seen the vision, on two occasions, but actually recognized fallen friends of theirs among the fighters, among others Sir Edmund Varney."
Dr. Fodor also calls attention to a well-verified case of Psychometric Premonition experienced by Count Buerger Moerner in recent times, and described in a German psychological periodical in 1931:
(D) "Passing through the little garden and glancing in at the window as he approached the house … the Count was horrified to see the body of an old woman hanging from a ceiling beam… but once across the threshold was stunned with amazement to find the old woman rising startled from her chair, demanding the reason for his surprising intrusion.… Some days later … he decided to visit the hut once more,
curious to see if by some peculiarity of the windowpane he might not have been observing an optical illusion. Nearing the hut … as before, the same terrible sight met his eye. This time, however … he entered to find what he saw this time was no vision. The old woman's body was indeed hanging from the beam. She had committed suicide."
Crystal gazing is akin to psychometry with the difference that instead of an object to hold in the hands, the thought of a certain person may be held in mind while gazing into the crystal in expectation of seeing a vision form in its depths. This form of psychometry, while not generally recognized as such, is not to be overlooked in a study of the problem.
Comment:
To make the matter of this particular magical practice all inclusive, one has but to include dreams in which the future is seen. Here we have not even a thought to be held in mind (as in crystal gazing) to form the seed of the psychometric action.
In the premonitory dream the same elements are contained as in the other examples which have been given. (1) Evidence of an impress on some intangible medium capable of recording impressions of events. (2) Evidence of some form of consciousness or intelligence which directs this recording process. (2A) Evidence—in the case of events recorded on such a medium before they occur—that this Intelligence has some form of mentation superior to ours in so far as it enables it to see into the future, to say nothing of the past or of the happenings of the moment at distant places. (3) Evidence
of some mechanism by which the psychometrist, the crystal gazer, or the dreamer of premonitory dreams comes into contact with the postulated recording substance, or reads a postulated memory and pre-memory in the mind of the postulated Intelligence. (4) Evidence that this connection is of a telepathic nature, or is related to clairvoyance and mind reading. (5) Evidence—because the psychometrist cannot command the visions but must wait until they rise before his consciousness—that the subconscious is the one who does this mysterious work of making telepathic contact, not the conscious.
I have, in order to pull together the scattered and seemingly unrelated phenomena just discussed, made several points in such rapid order that the report may seem confusing at this place. However, the reader will now have a general picture of the ancient magic of the kahunas, and if it can be kept in mind that there are three sets of three things, and a physical body, as I list them below for ease in checking back, the picture will grow clearer as the several phenomena related to psychometry are taken up in cases and examined in detail.
I. Three spirits which compose the man (living or deceased).
B. The conscious. Cannot remember but has full reasoning power.
C. The superconscious. It has a form of mentation by which it knows by a process of "realizing." It knows the past, the present and as much of the future as has been crystallized or definitely planned, created or projected on its level.
II. The three voltages of vital force (mana) used by the three spirits of man.
B. The brain waves or vital force of the next higher voltage, used by the conscious mind spirit in us in all its thinking and "willing" activities. Used as will, it can be mesmeric or hypnotic force, provided that a thought form is introduced into the mind of the subject. It cannot travel over the shadowy substance threads, as can the lower voltage. (Or at least it seems not to do so.)
C. The high voltage of vital force (not discovered by science as yet), that thought by the kahunas to be used by the superconscious for its various purposes. It is of the atom-smashing voltage of electrical energy, in all probability.
III. The invisible or shadowy substance (etheric or astral) bodies in which the three spirits composing man reside. The lower two usually interblend with each other and with the body, during life. They remain interblended after death unless separated by some unfortunate circumstance.
B. The shadowy body of the conscious mind spirit of man is less dense than that of the subconscious. It seems not to be sticky or to pull out into threads. It may or may not be a conductor of low voltage vital force, but undoubtedly is a conductor of the middle voltage—its own peculiar voltage as used in its form of mentation and "will." It forms the ghostly body in which the spirit functions as a spirit after death. C. The shadowy body of the superconscious spirit of man. The superconscious is supposed to reside in this invisible and very light body at all times, seldom making direct contact with the physical body by entering it. By analogy, it is supposed to have characteristics somewhat resembling the shadowy bodies of the two lower spirits.electrical force or currents, and can be used as a storage place for it. When heavily charged with the low voltage of the force it becomes rigid and firm enough to be used as a "hand" or instrument to move or affect physical objects—as in table tipping, etc.
The use of terms familiar to us through modern Psychology is difficult, and a simpler set of terms, patterned after the terminology of the kahunas, will be handier. Below I give the simpler terms (near the above check list of the ten elements, for convenience in referring to them):
I. Low spirit or low self: the subconscious. A separate spirit.
II. Low mana or low voltage of vital force. Used by the low spirit.
III. Low aka or low shadowy body (low astral or etheric double) of the low self.
IV. Middle spirit or self: the conscious mind, spirit or entity. It is a separate spirit and not a permanent part of the low self.
V. Middle mana or middle voltage of vital force. Used only by the middle spirit.
VI. The middle aka or middle shadowy body, inhabited by the middle spirit.
VII. The High Self or Spirit: the superconscious. A separate spirit or self connected distantly with the low and middle selves, and acting as an "over-self," or parental guardian spirit.
VIII. The High Aka or high shadowy body of the High Self, in which it lives.
IX. The High Mana or high voltage of vital force, used by the High Self or High Spirit.
X. The body: the physical body which is entered by the low and middle spirits or selves in their aka bodies and used by them during life. The High Self is distantly connected to the physical body, probably, for the most part, by aka threads issued by the low self from its shadowy body.
The corresponding terms in Hawaiian are listed below for convenient checking:
I. Low self: unihipili.
II. Low vital force: mana.
III. Low shadowy body: kino aka.
IV. Middle self or spirit: uhane.
V. Middle voltage of vital force: mana-mana (a symbol, meaning "to spread out as a vine"). (Doubling the root often indicates an increase in the strength of the meaning.)
VI. Middle shadowy body: kino aka. (No differentiation of term.)
VII. High Self or Spirit: Aumakua (meaning older, parental and perfectly trustworthy spirit). There are a number of other names also used to indicate the High Self in its various activities, and it is obvious that the kahunas paid it much attention.
VIII. High voltage of vital force: mana-loa (meaning strongest or greatest force). The symbol of the High Self was the sun, and its force was symbolized by the light.
IX. High shadow body: kino aka, with no differentiation of the term as applied to the two lower spirits, although there seems to have been some use of symbolic terms to indicate it. The Berber kahuna thought its symbol was the moon.
X. The physical body: kino.