278 HAS SCIENCE DISCOVERED GOD? 



give the prima fades of contact with a spirit world. 

 With both, if we are to question this prima facies, we 

 must give (a) a reason for so doing; (b) an alterna- 

 tive explanation; and {c) a thoroughly adequate ex- 

 planation of the spirit masquerade. 



We approach these matters through a type of phe- 

 nomenon upon which the name psychometry has been 

 fastened by vicious usage plus the failure of anybody 

 to suggest another name that really "clicks." Super- 

 ficially It does not look much like the mediumistic 

 seances which we have described. The performance 

 centers not around a sitter at all but around a physical 

 object. Inasmuch as success means so much more 

 when got under conditions where there is nobody to 

 help the medium by saying "No" or being unrecep- 

 tlvely silent, we shall set up our hypothetical sitting 

 after that technique. We shall suppose that you have 

 wrapped, in such a way as completely to conceal its 

 character, a watch that belonged to your grandfather. 

 This you handed to me without telling me what it was 

 or anything about it. I have taken or sent it to the 

 psychometrist without knowing anything about it save 

 that it comes from you. He holds it in his hands. 

 Perhaps he stares fixedly at the package, evidently 

 using it as an artificial aid to auto-hypnosis; perhaps 

 he just holds it and lapses spontaneously into that 

 slight detachment of consciousness that permits hal- 

 lucination. Like the clairvoyant, he reports what he 

 "sees" and "hears." The stenographer sets it all 

 down, and when it is transcribed and submitted to you 

 it comj^Ises as good a prima facie case of contact with 

 facts from the past of your grandfather (and of the 



