Magnetic Affinity
A somewhat celebrated investigator of psychic and occult phenomena has
said concerning this phases of Clairvoyance: "The untrained clairvoyant
usually cannot find any particular astral picture when it is wanted,
without some special link to put him en rapport with the subject
required. Psychometry is an instance in point. It seems as though there
were a sort of magnetic attachment or affinity between any particle of
ma
ter and the record which contains its history--an affinity which
enables it to act as a kind of conductor between that record and the
faculties of anyone who can read it. For instance, I once brought from
Stonehenge a tiny fragment of stone, not larger than a pin's head, and
on putting this into an envelope and handing it to a psychometrist who
had no idea what it was, she at once began to describe that wonderful
ruin and the desolate country surrounding it, and then went on to
picture vividly what were evidently scenes from its early history,
showing that the infinitesimal fragment had been sufficient to put her
into communication with the records connected with the spot from which
it came. The scenes through which we pass in the course of our life seem
to act in the same way upon the cells of our brain as did the history of
Stonehenge upon that particle of stone. They establish a connection with
those cells by means of which our mind is put en rapport with that
particular portion of the records, and so we 'remember' what we have
seen."