But in whom does it reside? Is it hidden in ourselves or in the medium?According to Dr. Osty, the clairvoyants are mirrors reflecting the intuitivethought that is latent in each of us. In other words-it is we ourselves whoare clairvoyant, and they but reveal to us nor own clairvoyance. Theirmission is to stir, to awaken, to galvanize, to illumine the secrets of oursubconsciousness and to bring them to the surface of our normal livesThey act upon our inner darkness exactly as, in the photographic darkroom, the developing-bath acts upon the sensitized plate, I am convincedthat the theory is accurate as regards intuition and clairvoyance proper,that is to say, in all cases where we are in the mediums presence and moreor less directly in touch with him. But is it so in psychometry? Is it wewho, unknown to ourselves, know all that the object contains, or is it themedium alone who discovers it in the object itself, independently of theperson who produces the object? When, for instance, we receive a letterfrom a stranger, does this letter, which has absorbed like a sponge thewhole life and by choice the subconscious life of the writer, disgorge althat it contained into our subconsciousness? Do we instantly learn all thatconcerns its author, absolutely as though he were standing before us in theflesh and, above all, with his soul laid bare, though we remain profoundlyignorant of the fact that we have leant it until the mediums interventiontells us so?This, if you lke, is simply shifting the question Let it be the mediumor myself that discovers the unknown personality in the object or tracks tacross time and space: all that we do is to widen the scope of our niddle,while leaving it no less obscure. Nevertheless. there is some interest inknowing whether we have to do with a general faculty latent in all men oran explicable privilege reserved to rare imdividuals. The exceptionalshould always be eliminated. if possible, and not left to hang over theabyss lke an unfinished bridge leading to nothing. I am well aware thatthe compulsory intervention of the medium implies that in spite of all, werecognize his possession of abnormal faculties, but at any rate we reducetheir power and their extent appreciably and we retum sooner and moreeasily to the ordman laws of the great human mystery. And it is ofthat we should be ever coming back to that myster and everbringing all things back to it But, unfortunately actual experience doesnot admit of this generalization. It is cleariy a case of a special faculty, ofpecular to the medium, one which is wholly unknown to our latentintuition we can easily assure ourselves of this bv causing the medium toreceive through a third party and enclosed m a senes of three envelopes, asm the experiment descnbed above, a letter of which we know the writer,but of which both the source and the contents are absolutely unknown tothe messenger These unusual circumstances. in which all subconsciouscommunications between consultant and consulted are strictly cut off, willm no way hamper the mediums clairvoyance; and we may fairly concludethat it is actually the medium himself who discovers directhy without anmtermediary, without relays, to use M Duchatels expression, all that theobject holds concealed. It therefore, seems certain that there is, at least inpsychometry.ng more than theor of which Dr Ost
I consider it necessary to declare for the last time that thesepsychometric phenomena, astonishing though they appear at first, areknown, proved and certain and are no longer denied or doubted by any ofthose who have studied them seriously. I could have given full particof a large number of conclusive experiments; but this seemed to me assuperfluous and tedious as would be, for instance, a string of names of therecognized chemical reactions that can be obtained in a laboratory. Anyone who pleases is at liberty to convince himself of the reality of the factsprovided that he applies to genuine mediums and keeps aloof from theinferior"seers"and especially the shams and imposters who swarm in thisregion more than in any other. Even with the best of them, he will have toe careful of the involuntary, unconscious and almost inevitableinterference of telepathy, which is also very interesting, though it is aphenomenon of a different class, much less surprising and debatable thanpure psychometry. He must also learn the art of interrogating the mediumand refrain from asking incoherent and random questions about casual orfuture events. He will not forget that"clairvoyance is strictly limited to theperception of human personality, "according to the role so well formulateby Dr. Osty. Experiments have been made in which a psychometer, ontouching the tooth of a prehistoric animal, saw the landscapes and thecataclysms of the earth's earliest ages displayed before his eyes; in whichanother medium, on handling a jewel, conjured up, it would seem withmarvellous exactness, the games and processions of ancient Greece, asthough the objects permanently retained the recollection or rediscoveredthe"astral negatives"of all the events which they once witnessed. But itwill be understood that, in such cases, any effective control is, so to speak,impossible and that the part played by telepathy cannot be decided. It ismportant, therefore, to keep strictly to that which can be verifiedEven when thus limiting his scope, the experimenter will meet withmany surprises. For instance, though the revelations of two psychometerto whom the same letter is handed in succession most often agreeremarkably in their main outlines, it can also happen that one of themperceives only what concems the writer of the letter, whereas the otherwill be interested only in the person to whom the letter was addressed or toa third person who was in the room where the letter was written. It is wellto be forearmed against these first mistakes, which, for that matter, in thefrequent cases where strict control is possible, but confirm the existenceand the independence of the astounding faculty