It would perhaps be premature to make any definite pronouncement as to the scientific position in regard to the psychic phenomenon known as “scrying,” and certainly presumptuous on my part to cite an authority from among the many who have examined this subject, since all are not agreed upon the nature and source of the observed phenomena. Their names are, moreover, already identified with modern scientific research and theory, so that to associate them with experimental psychology would be to lend colour to the idea that modern science has recognized this branch of knowledge. Nothing, perhaps, is further from the fact, and while it cannot in any way be regarded as derogatory to the highest scientist to be associated with others, of less scientific attainment but of equal integrity, in this comparatively new field of enquiry, it may lead to popular error to institute a connection. It is still fresh in the mind how the Darwinian hypothesis was utterly misconceived by the popular mind, the suggestion that man was descended from the apes being generally quoted as a correct expression of Darwin’s theory, whereas he never suggested any such thing, but that man and the apes had a common ancestor, which makes of the ape rather a degenerate lemur than a human ancestor. Other and more prevalent errors will occur to the reader, these being due to the use of what is called “the evidence of the senses”; and of all criteria the evidence of sensation is perhaps the most faulty. Logical inference from deductive or inductive reasoning has often enough been a good monitor to sense-perception, and has, moreover, pioneered the man of science to correct knowledge on more than one occasion. But as far as we know or can learn from the history of human knowledge, our senses have been the chiefest source of error. It is with considerable caution that the scientist employs the evidence from sense alone, and in the study of experimental psychology it is the sense which has first to be corrected, and which, in fact, forms the great factor in the equation. A person informs me that he can see a vision in the crystal ball before him, and although I am in the same relation with the “field” as he, I cannot see anything except accountable reflections. This fact does not give any room for contradicting him or any right to infer that it is all imagination. It is futile to say the vision does not exist. If he sees it, it does exist so far as he is concerned. There is no more a universal community of sensation than of thought. When I am at work my own thought is more real than any impression received through the sense organs. It is louder than the babel of voices or the strains of instrumental music, and more conspicuous than any object upon which the eye may fall. These external impressions are admitted or shut out at will. I then know that my thought is as real as my senses, that the images of thought are as perceptible as those exterior to it and in every way as objective and real. The thought-form has this advantage, however, that it can be given a durable or a temporary existence, and can be taken about with me without being liable to impost as “excess luggage.” In the matter of evidence in psychological questions, therefore, sense perceptions are only second-rate criteria and ought to be received with caution.

Almost all persons dream, and while dreaming they see and hear, touch and taste, without questioning for a moment the reality of these experiences. The dreaming person loses sight of the fact that he is in a bedroom of a particular house, that he has certain relations with others sleeping in the same house. He loses sight of the fact that his name is, let us say, Henry, and that he is famous for the manufacture of a particular brand of soap or cheese. For him, and as long as it lasts, the dream is the one reality. Now the question of the philosopher has always been: which is the true dream, the sleeping dream or the waking dream? The fact that the one is continuous of itself while the other is not, and that we always fall into a new dream but always wake to the same reality, has given a permanent value to the waking or external life, and an equally fictitious one to the interior or dreaming life. But what if the dream life became more or less permanent to the exclusion of all other memories and sensations? We should then get a case of insanity in which hallucination would be symptomic. (The dream state is more or less permanent with certain poetical temperaments, and if there is any insanity attaching to it at all, it consists in the inability to react.) Imagination, deep thought and grief are as much anæsthetic as chloroform. But the closing of the external channels of sensation is usually the signal for the opening of the psychic, and from all the evidence it would seem that the psychic sense is more extensive, acuter and in every way more dependable than the physical. I never yet have met the man or woman whose impaired eyesight required that he or she should use glasses in order to see while asleep. That they do see is common experience, and that they see farther, and therefore better, with the psychic sense than with the physical has been often proved. Emanuel Swedenborg saw a fire in Stockholm when he was resident in England and gave evidence of it before the vision was confirmed by news from Sweden. A lady of my acquaintance saw and described a fire taking place at a country seat about 150 miles away, the incident being true to the minutest details, many of which were exceptional and in a single instance tragic. The psychic sense is younger than the physical, as the soul is younger than the body, and its faculty continues unimpaired long after old age and disease have made havoc of the earthly vestment. The soul is younger at a thousand years than the body is at sixty. Let it be admitted upon evidence that there are two sorts of sense perception, the physical and the psychical, and that in some persons the latter is as much in evidence as the former. We have to enquire then what relations the crystal or other medium has to the development and exercise of the clairvoyant faculty. We know comparatively little about atomic structure in relation to nervous organism. The atomicity of certain chemical bodies does not inform us as to why one should be a deadly poison and another perfectly innocuous. We regard different bodies as congeries of atoms, but it is a singular fact that of two bodies containing exactly the same elements in the same proportions the one is poisonous and the other harmless. The only difference between them is the atomic arrangement.

The atomic theory refers all bodies to one homogeneous basic substance, which has been termed protyle (proto-hyle), from which, by means of a process loosely defined as differentiation, all the elements are derived. These elements are the result of atomic arrangement. The atoms have various vibrations, the extent of which is called the mean free path of vibration; greatest in hydrogen and least in the densest element. All matter is indestructible, but at the same time convertible, and these facts, together with the absolute association of matter and force, lead to the conclusion that every change of matter implies a change of force. Matter, therefore, is ever living and active, and there is no such thing as dead matter anywhere. The hylo-idealists have therefore regarded all matter as but the ultimate expression of spirit, and primarily of a spiritual origin.

The somewhat irksome phraseology of Baron Swedenborg has dulled many minds to a sense of his great acumen and philosophical depth, but it maybe convenient to summarize his scientific doctrine of “Correspondences” in this place as it has an important bearing on the subject in hand. He laid down the principle of the spiritual origin of force and matter. Matter, he argued, was the ultimate expression of spirit, as form was that of force. Spirit is to force what matter is to form its substratum. Hence for every spiritual force there is a corresponding material form, and thus the material or natural world corresponds at all points to the world of spirit, without being identical. The apparent hiatus between one plane of existence and the next he called a discrete degree, while the community between different bodies on the same plane he called a continuous degree. Thus there is community of sensation between bodies of the same nature, community of feeling, community of thought, and community of desire or aspiration, each on its own plane of existence. But desire is translated into thought, thought into feeling, and feeling into action. The spirit, soul (rational and animal in its higher and lower aspects), and the body appear to have been the principles of the human constitution according to this authority. All spirits enjoy community, as all souls and all bodies on their respective planes of existence; but between spirit and soul, as between soul and body, there is a discrete degree. In fine, mind is continuous of mind all through the universe, as matter is continuous of matter; while mind and matter are separated and need to be translated into terms of one another.

Taking our position from the scientific statement of the atomic structure of bodies, atomic vibration and molecular arrangement, we may now consider the action exerted by such bodies upon the nervous organism of man.

The function of the brain, which may be regarded as the bulbous root of a plant whose branches grow downwards, is twofold: to affect, and to be affected. In its active and positive condition it affects the whole of the vital and muscular processes in the body, finding expression in vital action. In its passive and negative state it is affected by impressions coming to it in different ways through the sense organs, resulting in nervous and mental action. These two functions are interdependent. It is the latter or afferent function with which we are now concerned. The range of our sense-perceptions puts us momentarily in relations with the material world, or rather, with a certain portion of it. For we by no means sense all that is sensible, and, as I have already indicated, our sense impressions are often delusive. The gamut of our senses is very limited, and also very imperfect both as to extent and quality. Science is continually bringing new instruments into our service, some to aid the senses, others to correct them. The microscope, the microphone, the refracting lens are instances. It used to be said with great certainty that you cannot see through a brick wall, but by means of X-rays and a fluorescent screen it is now possible to do so. I have seen my own heart beating as its image was thrown on the screen by the Röntgen rays. Many insects, birds and animals have keener perceptions in some respects than man. Animalculae and microbic life, themselves microscopic, have their own order of sense-organs related to a world of life beyond our ken. These observations serve to emphasise the great limitation of our senses, and also to enforce the fact that Nature does not cease to exist where we cease to perceive her. The recognition of this fact has been so thoroughly appreciated by thoughtful people as to have opened up the question as to what these human limitations may mean and to what degree they may extend.

We know what they mean well enough: the history of human development is the sequel to natural evolution, and this development could never have had place apart from the hunger of the mind and the consequent breaking down of sense limitations by human invention. As to the extent of our limitations it has been suggested that just as there are states of matter so fine as to be beyond the range of vision, so there may be others so coarse as to be below the sense of touch. We cannot, however, assert anything with certainty, seeing that proof must always require that a thing must be brought within our range of perception before we can admit it as fact. The future has many more wonderful revelations in store for us, no doubt. But there is really nothing more wonderful than human faculty which discovers these things in Nature, things that have always been in existence but until now have been outside our range of perception. The ultra-solid world may exist.

The relations of our sense-organs to the various degrees of matter, to solids, fluids, gases, atmosphere and ether, vary in different individuals to such a wide extent as to create the greatest diversity of normal faculty. The average wool-sorter will outvie an artist in his perception of colour shades. An odour that is distinctly recognizable by one person will not be perceptible to others. In the matter of sound also the same differences of perception will be noted. On a very still night one can hear the sugar canes growing. Most people find the cry of a bat to be beyond their range. The eye cannot discern intervals of less than one-fiftieth of a second. Atmospheric vibration does not become sound until a considerable frequency is attained. Every movement we make displaces air but our sense of touch does not inform us of it, but if we stand in a sunbeam the dust particles will show that it is so. Our sense of feeling will not register above certain degrees of heat or below certain degrees of cold. Sensation, moreover, is not indefinitely sustained, as anyone may learn who will follow the ticking of a watch for five minutes continuously.

But quite apart from the sense and range of our perceptions, the equality of a sense-impression is found to vary with different persons, affecting them each in a different way. We find that people have “tastes” in regard to form, colour, flavour, scent, sound, fabric and texture. The experience is too general to need illustration, but we may gather thence that, in relation to the nervous system of man, every material body and state of matter has a variable effect. These remarks will clear the ground for a statement of my views upon the probable effect a crystal may have upon a sensitive person.