PRACTICAL MIND READING/PART 1
LESSON I.
THE NATURE OF MIND READING.
Only a few years ago the
general public was in almost total ignorance of the great truth of Thought
Transference, Thought Projection, Telepathy, or Mind Reading. It is true that
here and there were to be found a few scientists earnestly investigating and
eagerly uncovering the hidden truths concerning the subjects. But the mass of
the people were either entirely ignorant of the subject, or else were intensely
skeptical of any thing concerning the matter, laughing to scorn the daring
thinker who ventured to express his interest or belief in this great scientific
phenomena.
But
how different to-day. On all hands we hear of the wonders of Thought
Transference, or Telepathy, as it is called. Scientific men write and teach of
its fascinating manifestations, and even the general public has heard much of
the new science and believes more or less in it, according to the degree of
intelligence and knowledge concerning the subject possessed by the individual.
Listen to these words from the lips of some of the greatest scientists of the
day.
Prof. William James,
the eminent instructor at Harvard University, says: "When from our
present advanced standpoint we look back upon the past stages of human
thought, whether it be scientific thought or theological thought, we are amazed
that a universe which appears to us of so vast and mysterious a complication
should ever have seemed to anyone so little and plain a thing. Whether it be
Descartes' world or Newton's; whether it be that of the Materialists of the
last century, or that of the Bridgewater treatises of our own, it is always the
same to us—incredibly perspectiveless and short. Even Lyell's, Faraday's,
Mill's and Darwin's consciousness of their respective subjects are already beginning
to put on an infantile and innocent look." These remarks are doubly
significant by reason of their having been made by Prof. James as the president
of the "Society for Psychical Research."
The
eminent English scientist, Sir William Crookes, in his address as president of
the Royal Society, at Bristol, England, a few years ago, said: "Were I now
introducing for the first time these inquiries to the world of science, I
should choose a starting point different from that of old, where we formerly
began. It would be well to begin with telepathy; with the fundamental law, as I
believe it to be, that thoughts and images may be
transferred from one mind to another without the agency of the recognized
organs of sense—that knowledge may enter the human mind without
being communicated in any hitherto known or recognized ways. Although the
inquiry has elicited important facts with reference to the mind, it has not yet
reached the scientific stage of certainty which would enable it to be usefully
brought before one of our sections. I will therefore confine myself to pointing
out the direction in which scientific investigation can legitimately advance.
If telepathy take place, we have two physical facts—the physical change in the
brain of A. the suggestor, and the analogous physical change in the brain of B.
the recipient of the suggestion. Between these two physical events there must
exist a train of physical causes. Whenever the connecting sequence of
intermediate causes begins to be revealed, the inquiry will then come within
the range of one of the sections of the British Association. Such a sequence
can only occur through an intervening medium. All the phenomena of the Universe
are presumably in some way continuous, and it is unscientific to call in the
aid of mysterious agencies when with every fresh advance in knowledge, it is
shown that ether vibrations have powers and attributes abundantly equal to any
demand—even the transmission of thought."
Prof.
Crookes then went on to say: "It is supposed by some physiologists that
the essential cells of nerves do not actually touch, but are separated by a
narrow gap which widens in sleep while it narrows almost to extinction during
mental activity. This condition is so singularly like that of a Branly or Lodge
coherer (a device which has led Marconi to the discovery of wireless
telegraphy) as to suggest a further analogy. The structure of brain and nerve
being similar, it is conceivable that there may be present masses of such nerve
coherers in the brain whose special function it may be to receive impulses
brought from without through the connecting sequence of ether waves of
appropriate order of magnitude. Roentgen has familiarized us with an order of
vibrations of extreme minuteness compared with the smallest waves of which we
have hitherto been acquainted, and of dimensions comparable with the distances
between the centers of the atoms of which the material universe is built up;
and there is no reason for believing that we have here reached the limit of
frequency. It is known that the action of thought is accompanied by certain
molecular movements in the brain, and here we have physical vibrations capable
from their extreme minuteness of acting direct upon individual molecules, while
their rapidity approaches that of the internal and external movements of the
atoms themselves."
A
formidable range of phenomena must be scientifically sifted before we
effectually grasp a faculty so strange, so bewildering, and for ages so
inscrutable, as the direct action of mind on mind. It has been said that
nothing worth the proving can be proved, nor yet disproved. True this may have
been in the past, it is true no longer. The science of our century has forged
weapons of observation and analysis by which the veriest tyro may profit.
Science has trained and fashioned the average mind into habits of exactitude
and disciplined perception, and in so doing has fortified itself for tasks
higher, wider and incomparably more wonderful than even the wisest among our
ancestors imagined. Like the souls in Plato's myth that follow the chariot of
Zeus, it has ascended to a point of vision far above the earth. It is
henceforth open to science to transcend all we now think we know of matter, and
to gain new glimpses of a profounder scheme of Cosmic Law. In old Egyptian days
a well-known inscription was carved over the portal of the Temple of Isis: 'I
am whatever has been, is, or ever will be; and my veil no man hath yet lifted.'
Not thus do modern seekers after truth confront Nature—the word that stands for
the baffling mysteries of the Universe. Steadily, unflinchingly, we strive to
pierce the inmost heart of Nature, from what she is, to reconstruct what she
has been, and to prophesy what she yet shall be. Veil after veil we have
lifted, and her face grows more beautiful, august and wonderful with every
barrier that is withdrawn.
Camille
Flamarrion, the eminent French astronomer, is a believer in Thought
Transference and Mind Reading, and has written the following expression of his
convictions on this subject: "We sum up, therefore, our preceding
observations by the conclusion that one mind can act at a
distance upon another, without the habitual medium of words, or any other
visible means of communication. It appears to us altogether unreasonable
to reject this conclusion if we accept the facts. There is nothing
unscientific, nothing romantic, in admitting that an idea can influence the
brain from a distance. The action of one human being upon another, from a
distance is a scientific fact; it is as certain as the existence of Paris, of
Napoleon, of Oxygen, or of Sirius." The same authority has also said
"There can be no doubt that our psychical force creates a movement of the
ether, which transmits itself afar like all movements of
ether and becomes perceptible to brains in harmony with our own. The
transformation of a psychic action into an ethereal movement, and the reverse,
may be analogous to what takes place on a telephone, where the receptive plate,
which is identical with the plate at the other end, reconstructs the sonorous
movement transmitted, not by means of sound, but by electricity."
We
have quoted at length from this eminent authority to show once and for all that
this great science of MIND-READING is recognized, and approved of by the
highest authorities on Modern Science, and also to give our students the
benefit of the current scientific theories upon the subject. In this work we
have but very little to say about theory, but shall confine ourselves to facts,
and actual instruction.
Science
knows and has proven that thoughts may be and have been transmitted from one
mind to another, in some cases over thousands of miles of space, but it has not
as yet solved the mystery of the "Why" of the subject, and contents
itself with explaining the "How." The nearest approach to a correct
theory seems to be the one which compares the mind with the "wireless
telegraph," and which supposes that the vibrations of thought travel
through the ether, just as do the waves of this high order of electricity. The mind
of one person acts like a "transmitter" of the wireless telegraph,
while the mind of the other acts as a "receiver" of the same set of
instruments.
There
are undoubtedly vibrations set up in the brain when one thinks, and there are
undoubtedly waves of thought just as there are waves of electricity. Science
informs us that there is an increase of temperature in the human brain during
periods of thought-activity, and also that there are constant chemical changes
in the structure going on when the brain cells are active. This is akin to the
generation of electricity in a battery, and undoubtedly acts in the same way in
producing vibrations, and transmitting them to the brain of another. Sir
William Crookes, in the address just quoted, points out the direction of the scientific
theories concerning the matter. But, this is all that we shall have to say
about the theory of Mind Reading. We shall now pass on to the actual practical
instruction. The student is asked, however, to always carry in his mind the
fact that Mind travels in waves from one brain to another just as electricity
travels from the Transmitter to the Receiver. By holding this picture in your
mind, you will have the whole practical theory, in condensed form, right before
you, so that you may be able to act accordingly.
NEXT CHAPTER
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