ly also
visions, which are but dreams brought into the field of conscious
reality. But any such argument, however tempting, would be
beyond the scope of this work.

CHAPTER VIII.

ALLIED PSYCHIC PHASES

The faculty of second sight is not by any means the most
common of the psychic powers. Psychometric impressions which
proceed by the sense of touch into that of a superior order of
feeling are far more general. We are affected much more than is
generally recognized by the impressions gathered from the things
we have contact with, and it is quite a common experience that
very delicate and sensitive people take the "atmosphere" of places
into which they go. I have in mind an instance of an extremely
high-keyed person who invariably takes on the atmosphere of
new localities, houses and even rooms. Going to view a house
with the object of taking it on rental, she will as likely as not
pronounce against the moment she enters on the ground that it is
a "house of death" or a "quarrelsome house," full of sickness,
intemperance or what not, and wherever enquiry has been
possible it has invariably confirmed her impressions. On one
occasion she had telegraphed to engage a room at an hotel in a
seaside town, and on being shown to it by the maid found that it
was locked. While the maid went to fetch the key the young
lady tried the door and immediately received a psychometric
impression. "Oh, M--," she said to her companion, "we cannot
possibly have this room, there's a corpse in it!" This was
confirmed, almost as soon as said, by the appearance of the
proprietor, who explained that the maid had made a mistake in
the number of the room, and then, feeling that there was a state of
tension, confidentially informed his visitors that the locked room
had really been booked to them but the old lady who was to have
vacated it that morning had unfortunately died, and in order not
to distress the other visitors the door had been locked pending the
removal of the body, and even the servants had not been
informed of it.

The experiments of Denton recorded in his _Soul of Things_ are
full of interest for those who would learn something more about
the phenomena of psychometry.

The suggestion is that every particle of matter has its own aura or
"atmosphere" in which are stored up the experiences of that
particle. What is said of the particle applies also to the mass of
any body, and in effect we get the aura of a room, of a house, of