Excerpt from Psychometry and Thought-Transference: With Practical Hints for Experiments
It is forty or more years since the word "Psychometry" was coined by Prof. J. R. Buchanan, of America. He intended by it to express the power of the human brain to detect a certain subtle fluid, or aura, which pervades all things in nature, and preserves indefinitely micrographic impressions, images, or pictures of all things which have had objective existence - Nature's memory, in short. It is about as long since Baron Karl von Reichenbach, an eminent Austrian metallurgical chemist, reported a series of delicate experiments he had made with neuro-sensitives in the same direction, though not upon identical lines. The results of the two scientific observers were mutually corroborative, and unitedly opened out a limitless field of research of the deepest interest and value. If the Western mind had not been so completely dazzled by the phenomena of mediumship and spiritualism, doubtless the clues afforded by Buchanan and Reichenbach would have been well followed up, and psychical science by this time have been greatly advanced. Forty years of phenomena have at last begun to dull the edge of public curiosity; and, though mediumistic phenomena grew more and more weird and sensational, a healthy reaction towards the calm study of spiritual philosophy has set in. Mesmerism, too long neglected, is again receiving the attention it merits; and this, if continued, must inevitably lead to a rational comprehension of many psychical mysteries. The experiments of Dr. Charcot and other French biologists, in the public hospitals of their country, have yielded results of the highest importance; and, it may be also added, corroborative proofs of the value of the pioneer researches of the two eminent men above mentioned.
Not that they are as yet getting their proper credit; quite the contrary. The new experimenters are rechristening the old facts, as Manchester exporters sometimes substitute their own trade-labels for the American ones on cloth sent out to India. But Time and Justice are twins.
The literature of Psychometry has, for the reasons stated, been very meagre. Besides Professor and Mrs. Denton's "Soul of Things," a few articles in the long-extinct "Journal of Man"; a chapter in Dr. Buchanan's "Outlines of Anthropology"; a biographical memoir of a Mrs. Semantha Mettler, an American psychometer; "Psychometry," a work recently published by Dr. Buchanan, but which does only justice to one of the noblest of specialties, and a few less Important publications, the literary field has been practically unoccupied.
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