Psychometrical Experiments
by Franz Hartmann
[Reprinted from The Theosophist (Adyar, Madras, India),
March 1887, pp. 354-358.]
My last paper contained an account regarding the
clairvoyant powers of a German peasant woman, residing in the suburbs of this town,
Kempton. (1) After mailing it, it occurred
to me to test her psychometrical powers with letters, and I therefore went to her house,
armed with the following documents:
1. A letter from Mrs. Rhoda Batchelor of
Ootacamund.
2. A letter from Col. H. S. Olcott of Adyar.
3. A letter from the Countess Wachtmeister of Ostende.
4. An "occult letter," purporting to come from an Adept, and bearing neither
post mark, nor any other indication regarding the place where it had been written. (2)
I. I gave to the woman letter No. 1,
and requested her to hold it to her forehead, and to remain entirely quiet and passive;
not to think of anything, and then to tell me after awhile what she saw. She said that she
did not think she would see anything, and that she never had heard of such an experiment
before; but that she was willing to try.
After a little while she began to describe a
cottage with a verandah, standing at the side of a hill, and having a high room with a
bay-window in one corner. She described the furniture of that room and some trees which
could be seen from the verandah; "such as do not grow in this country, but look
somewhat like poplars." In short, I easily recognized in her description the
residence of Mrs. Batchelor, called The Laurels (at Ooty) and the Eucalyptus trees
in its vicinity. She also described a lady in a grey dress; but the latter is unknown to
me.
II. I then handed her letter No. 2,
written by Col. Olcott. I supposed that this letter had been written in the Colonel’s
private room, and if thought-transfer had been the cause of these psychometric imaginings,
I should probably have received a description of that room. (3) But instead of that she gave me a description of a large,
high hall with pillars and benches, corresponding to the appearance of the entrance hall
of the Head-quarters at Adyar. She also described the gravel-walks, the trees, and the
river, with astonishing correctness, and spoke of an adjoining room, (4) where "a man with a beard" was writing, (5) and near that place, towards the river, a
sort of a "cage," the use of which neither she nor I could make out. (6)
III. Next came the letter of the
Countess Wachtmeister, and I received a very good description of the "fair and
blue-eyed" countess, and of a "stately and extremely pleasant-looking old
lady," in whom I easily recognized Madame Blavatsky. The woman furthermore gave a
description of the house where these ladies resided; of a great many manuscripts "in
some foreign language;" and of the furniture of the rooms. The most remarkable
feature was that she saw a number of statues and busts about the house; a circumstance
which I cannot verify at present, as I never was at Ostende and the said house is unknown
to me. (7)
IV. After this examination the woman
was called out of the room, and during her short absence I amused myself in describing
with my finger the figure of the double interlaced triangles over a bowl of water (a
wash-dish), which stood near the window. When the woman returned, she looked into the bowl
and described the figure which I had drawn. As a test I drew with a pencil the five-pointed
star on a piece of paper and asked her, whether this was the figure she saw. But she was
not to be misled, and described the six-pointed star. She furthermore described a
number of Masonic signs, an open book with some sentences written upon it in golden
letters, which she read, and which I easily recognized, but of which the woman --- not
being a Freemason --- could not have known anything.
V. Now with a heart full of said misgivings
and forebodings of evil tidings, I handed her the "occult letter". Her
first exclamation was one of surprise, wonder and joy. "Ah!" --- she exclaimed;
--- "What is this? I never saw anything so beautiful in my life! (8) I see before me a high but artificially made elevation or
hill, and upon that hill a building which looks like a temple, with a high Chinese
roof. The temple is of a splendid white, as if it were made of pure white marble, and the
roof is resting upon three pillars. On the top of a roof there is a shining sun; --- but
no! --- it only looks like a sun; it seems to be some kind of an animal. (9) I do not know how to describe it; I never saw such a thing
before; but it shines like a sun.
"There is a beautiful walk of smooth
stones and some steps leading up to that temple, and I am going up to it. Now I am there,
and lo! the floor is like a lake, in which the light of that sun on the top of the roof is
reflected! But no --- I am mistaken; it is no water at all; it is a kind of a yellowish
marble, which shines like a mirror. Now I see it plainly! It is a square marble floor, and
in the centre there is a dark round spot. This is all so very beautiful. It looks to a
certain extent like the Walhalla near Regensburg. (10)
"Now I am in that temple, and I see two
gentlemen looking at something on the wall. One is a very fine-looking gentleman, but he
is dressed quite differently from the people in this country. He is dressed in a loose
flowing robe of pure white, and the forepart of his shoes is pointed upwards. The other
one is smaller and bald-headed; he wears a black coat and silver buckles (ornaments?) on
his shoes. (11)
"They are looking at a picture on the
wall. The picture represents a vase with some tropical plants; something like prickly-pear
leaves; but very different from all the prickly-pears I ever saw. The vase is not a
painting, but a real vase. I first thought it was painted. It stands in a corner, and
there are ornamental paintings on it.
"There are some paintings and drawings
on the wall. Below the ceiling, where the roof begins, there is a field, or panel, on
which there are some curious figures. Some look like a 15 and one like a V, and others
like squares and ciphers, with all sorts of garnishes between them. They look as if they
were numbers; but I do not think they are. They may be some strange letters or characters. (12)
"Above that field or panel there is
another one, on which there are some square pictures or plates, with some very queer
things painted upon them. They are movable; at least I think that they are; but I am not
quite certain." (13)
I afterwards asked the woman to draw the
figures she had seen on a paper. (14)
Being no artist, she could do so only in a very imperfect manner, but she said she did it
as well as she could. The accompanying
illustration is a copy of what she drew. (15)
She continued: "Now these two gentlemen
are going out, and I am following them. There are a great many trees looking like
pine-trees. I think they are pines. There are others with big fleshy leaves and spikes
something like prickly-pears. There are mountains and hills and a lake. They are taking me
away from that temple. I am afraid I cannot find my way back to it. There is a big ravine,
and there are some trees which I take to be olive-trees; but I am not sure of it, for I
never saw any olive-trees. Now I have arrived at a place, where I can see over a wide
expanse of country. The two gentlemen have gone away. Here there is some antiquity looking
like an old ruined wall, and something like what I saw on that paper you showed me. I
believe you call it a Sphinx. (16) There
is a sort of a pillar, and on the top of it is a statue, whose upper part looks like a
woman, while the lower part of her body seems to be a fish. She seems to be holding some
moss in her hands, or resting them upon it." (17)
Here she began to laugh, and when I asked her
what was the matter, she answered: "What a funny sight! There are lots of queer
people! They are little women and children. They wear such funny dresses, and have fur
caps on their heads. They have soles tied to their feet! (18) They are collecting something from the shore and putting
it into baskets. Now the whole scene dissolves into a cloud."
Thus ended this important experiment, and as
the former four have proved to be correct, we may be permitted to conclude that this fifth
one was also a true description of the place whence that "occult letter"
emanated; for although we have no means to verify it in all its details, we know that it
is not necessary to cut down every tree in a forest to become convinced that trees are
made of wood; and moreover "cheating" on the part of that peasant woman is a
suggestion whose possibility is beyond the limits of the wildest imagination. (19) [See Madame
Blavatsky's comments on
the psychometric statements made by this German peasant woman concerning the letter from
one of the Mahatmas. See also the confirmatory evidence cited in Sylvia Cranston's HPB
biography, pp. 95-97. --- BA Editor.]
Such evidence may be produced ad infinitum;
but it will not convince the sceptic; for in this, as in all other cases, real knowledge
can be gained only by personal experience, and without that it will for ever remain a mere
opinion. "There are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit," and there may be
people who are extremely ignorant but nevertheless very good psychometers, and such people
are not at all rare; but their talents in this as well as in every other respect will not
be developed without practice. If instead of clinging to the coat-tails of
"accepted authorities" and waiting to receive the truth from them, we search for
knowledge in an independent spirit --- accepting the opinions of others merely as our
servants, but not as our guides --- we shall be adopting the true scientific methods
and also acting according to the dictates of religion, which does not say "Believe
everything," but "Weigh everything in the scales of reason and select that which
is best."
F. HARTMANN, M.D.
Endnotes
(1) On account of the prejudice against new discoveries
existing among the ignorant, it is not considered advisable to publish the woman’s
name. If, however, an honest investigator desires to make her acquaintance, I will
introduce him to her.
(2) This letter was one which I took at random out of my box
containing letters of a similar kind. After the experiment was over I examined it and saw
that it was one which I had found one day upon my table in my room at Adyar, where a
moment before no such letter had been. Its contents are private, but I may say that it
referred to a now well-known letter in which my own handwriting had been forged, and it
spoke of the attempts which had been made to ruin the reputation of Madame Blavatsky. The
latter was at that time in London. [See Madame Blavatsky's comments on the psychometric statements made by this German peasant woman
concerning the letter from one of the Mahatmas. See also the confirmatory evidence cited
in Sylvia Cranston's HPB biography, pp. 95-97. --- BA Editor.]
(3) I have repeatedly attempted to impress her with my
thoughts, but never succeeded.
(4) Probably the office.
(5) Perhaps Colonel Olcott himself.
(6) It may be that it refers to a wire-screen, which divides
the private office at Adyar from the public reception room. (More probably, since it was
described as "towards the river," the description refers to a heap of the
peculiar wide native ladders, some of which, having been used in the building of a new
Sanskrit Library, were so stacked for a time on the river-bank as to present exactly the
appearance of a cage; but of this accidental arrangement of course Dr. Hartmann knew
nothing. --- Ed.)
(7) Since writing the above I received a letter from the
Countess in answer to my inquiry. She says: "The woman was quite right about the
statuary here. There are many busts in the house."
(8) Here follows the literal translation of what the woman
said, leaving out merely unimportant details.
(9) I have since then been informed that the description
answers to a certain temple in Tibet, having on its top a dragon of gold and a globe; and
they are so brightly burnished, that their radiance may be mistaken for the direct rays of
the sun.
(10) The "Walhalla" is a "temple of fame"
built by King Louis I, of Bavaria, in which many statues of famous people are preserved.
(11) The description would answer to that of a shaven-headed
Buddhist priest. (All the Buddhist priests we have seen wore robes of the tawny colour
called Buddhist yellow, and sandals on their feet. It is not improbable that the
clairvoyant saw an European adept in the Tibetan ashram. --- Ed.)
(12) I believe that they look like Tibetan letters. It would
be interesting to hear the opinion of some expert.
(13) Such moveable slides are said to be in such temples, for
the purpose of studying geometrical and mathematical problems, etc.
(14) The woman informs me, that if she merely imagines
a thing, the memory of it soon leaves her; but if she once sees a thing clairvoyantly, it
remains in her mind, and she can recall it with all its details whenever she pleases.
(15) See Frontispiece.
(16) The German periodical, called The Sphinx.
(17) This may be a representation of some god or goddess
(personification of forces of nature.)
(18) Probably sandals, of which the women had never
heard.
(19) Since writing the above I have made other similar
experiments with that woman. Psychometrizing a lock of hair from a friend at Galveston,
Texas, I received from her a correct description of the harbour and the shipping. A letter
from New Orleans, La., produced a view of a Mississippi steamboat with its three decks,
and of the people around. Examining a letter from Madame H. P. Blavatsky, she immediately
exclaimed: "This is the kind-looking lady I saw the other day" (see experiment
No. 3), and on looking through my collection of photographs, she recognized her picture.
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