How to thought-read

James Ph.D. F.A.S. Coates

How to thought-read

Published by Good Press, 2022

[email protected]

EAN 4064066432096

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER I . Somnambulism and Psychic Phenomena.

THE SIXTH SENSE.

PSYCHIC-CONSCIOUSNESS.

DOUBLE OR SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS.

CHAPTER II . Clairvoyance.

CHAPTER III . Clairvoyance Illustrated.

FAR AND DIRECT CLAIRVOYANCE

CLAIRVOYANCE AN AID TO SCIENCE.

SUBJECTIVE CLAIRVOYANCE

DIRECT AND OBJECTIVE CLAIRVOYANCE—LOST GOODS RESTORED.

CLAIRVOYANCE AN AID TO THE PHYSICIAN.

TRAVELLING CLAIRVOYANCE.

PSYCHIC VISION POSSESSED BY THE PHYSICALLY BLIND.

THE SPIRITUALISTIC AND PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF CLAIRVOYANCE

CLAIRVOYANCE FROM DISEASE.

MESMERIC CLAIRVOYANCE AND SPIRITUALISM.

CLAIRVOYANCE DUE TO SPIRITUAL CONTROL.

THE FUGITIVE NATURE OF CLAIRVOYANCE.

CHAPTER IV . Psychometry.

PSYCHOMETRIC REFLECTIONS.

PSYCHOMETRIC SENSITIVES.

WHAT PSYCHOMETRY CAN DO.

HOW TO CULTIVATE THE PSYCHOMETRIC FACULTY.

CHAPTER V . Thought-Transference and Telepathy.

TRANSFERENCE OF TASTE IN THE MESMERIC STATE.

THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE IN DREAMS.

THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE AT SEA.

THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE FROM THE DYING TO THE LIVING IN DREAM.

THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE FROM THE DEAD (?) TO THE LIVING IN DREAM.

THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE IN PRAYER.

THOUGHT TRANSMISSION IN PRAYER.

THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE IN DISTRESS.

THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE IN ORDINARY EXPERIENCE.

CHAPTER VI . Thought-Reading Experiments.

THE NORMAL EXPERIMENTS WITHOUT CONTACT.

MUSCLE-READING ENTERTAINMENTS.

CHAPTER VII . Spiritualism.

THE SPIRIT WITHIN US.

THE REJECTION OF THE PSYCHIC.

THE FRAUDULENT IN SPIRITUALISM.

SPIRITUALISM WITHOUT SPIRITS.

MIND-READING IN SPIRITUALISM

AUTOMATIC AND PLANCHETTE WRITING,

CHAPTER VIII . Spiritualism. — Continued.

TRANCE ADDRESSES.

REFLECTIONS.

THEOSOPHY.

INTRODUCTION.

Table of Contents

The

first book of this series, How to Mesmerise, gave so much satisfaction to the reading public, and having passed into several editions, my publishers have asked me to write another work on similar lines. This brochure is my response. Clairvoyance, Psychometry, and Thought Transference—briefly referred to in the former—are more fully gone into in this. Consequently, I have little doubt How to Thought-Read will meet with acceptance.

Thought-reading is duly considered and explained. A clear distinction is drawn between Musculation, or Muscle and Mind-Reading; and although these pages are not confined to Thought-Reading, as generally understood by the public, the subject itself, and as an entertainment, have been pretty fully dealt with.

During the past decade, psychological subjects have, in a remarkable way, arrested public attention. New Mesmerism and New Spiritualism are popular subjects with editors and magazine writers. Whatever the real causes—a greater influx of the spiritual from the state of the dead, or from a reaction in the minds of men against the purblind materialism of our scientific leaders—it is hard to say. Possibly these and other causes have been at work. One thing is certain, for good or ill, the majority of thinking men and women of the age are not only interested in, but are actually searching for evidence of embodied spirit. Hence we find men of science, journalists, and even professed materialists and secularists, who, a few years ago, could scarcely speak of these subjects in the ordinary language of courtesy, confess now not only their belief, but are going to the other extreme of advocating, what as yet, they have failed to fully grasp.

A few years ago The British Parliament of Science was nothing if not materialistic. The leading savants of the day declared all was matter, no matter what. Consequently, man was the highest product of protoplasm, and his only destiny the grave. The change has been great indeed, when one of its most brilliant members (Professor Oliver Lodge, D.Sc., F.R.S., British Association at Cardiff, 1891) in his address said: "It is familiar that a thought may be excited on the brain of another person, transferred thither from our brain by pulling a suitable trigger; by liberating energy in the form of sound, for instance, or by the mechanical act of writing, or in other ways. A pre-arranged code, called language, and a material medium of communication, are recognised methods. May there not, also, be an immaterial (perhaps an ethereal) medium of communication? Is it possible that an idea can be transferred from one person to another by a process such as we have not yet grown accustomed to, and know practically nothing about? In this case I have evidence. I assert I have seen it done, and am perfectly convinced of the fact; many others are satisfied of the truth, too. It is, perhaps, a natural consequence of the community of life or family relationship running through all living beings. The transmission of life may be likened in some ways to the transmission of magnetism, and all magnets are sympathetically connected, so that, if suitably suspended, a vibration from one disturbs others, even though they be distant 92,000,000 miles. It is sometimes objected that, granting thought-transference or telepathy to be a fact, it belongs more especially to lower forms of life, and that as the cerebral hemispheres develop we become independent of it; that what we notice is the relic of a decaying faculty, not the germ of a new and fruitful sense, and that progress is not to be made by studying or alluding to it. As well might the objection be urged against a study of embryology. It may, on the other hand, be an indication of a higher mode of communication, which shall survive our temporary connection with ordinary matter. The whole region is unexplored territory, and it is conceivable that matter may react on mind in a way we can at present only dimly imagine." The italics are mine.

Thought-Transference and Telepathy may, indeed, be an indication of a higher mode of communication between human beings after we have severed our temporary connection with matter. Whether or not, the hope should repay our study. I have sought in the following pages to briefly define and illustrate what these phases of communication are.

Double and Psychic Consciousness, Clairvoyance, natural and induced; Psychometry, its natural and leading features as a spiritual faculty; Thought-Transference, visions, dreams, and their portents, are in turn briefly dealt with, in order to extract therefrom some evidence of soul.

Modern Spiritualism is referred to, in so far as Thought-Reading is likely to throw any light upon its psychological phases, as well as on its physical phenomena.

While attempting to cover so much ground my difficulty was not what to write, but what not to write, the materials at my disposal being so abundant. Much has been cut down to get the whole within reasonable compass. Nevertheless, I hope my readers will find How to Thought-Read a readable contribution to the science of soul.

JAMES COATES.

Glenbeg,

Ardbeg, Rothesay, N. B.

EXPERIMENT IN PSYCHOMETRY.—See Page 60.

MR. and MRS. COATES.

HOW TO THOUGHT-READ.

CHAPTER I.

Somnambulism and Psychic Phenomena.

Table of Contents

Before

entering upon the subject of How to Thought Read—or rather, range of interesting subjects grouped under this title—it is proposed to deal briefly with the key to the whole, which is to be found in the revelations of man’s inner life, soul-life and character, presented by somnambulism and trance, whether natural or induced.

The use of a few simple terms having a well-defined meaning will help the reader and prepare him for the more careful study of the psychic side of human life.

The somnambulistic and trance states may be divided, for the convenience of examination, into the Hypnotic, or state of hypnosis; the Mesmeric, or somnambulistic; and the Psychic, or lucid somnambulistic—or briefly, the Hypnotic, Mesmeric, and Psychic states.

The operator is the controlling agent, hypnotist, or mesmerist; in spiritualism, the guide or control.

The sensitive is the subject, the percipient, psychic, patient, or person who passes into the hypnotic, mesmeric, or trance states, etc.

Hypnosis is the term used for the hypnotic state artificially induced by the agent. Hypnosis is the lowest rung of the ladder; the psychic or soul state the highest. The intermediate phases, as indicated in conscious or sub-conscious conditions of life, are innumerable and not readily classified. Still, the states mentioned will give a favourable insight to the whole. In hypnosis, physical rather than mental phenomena are evolved; anæsthesia, or non-sensitiveness to pain, is more or less present. The senses of smell and hearing are partially exalted, and the sensitive may be partially or wholly unconscious.

The mesmeric state is the term frequently used to denote ordinary artificial somnambulism. It is actually the higher or more perfect form of hypnosis. The senses in this state are more fully submerged, and the mental faculties are more fully exalted, than in hypnosis.

The psychic state, as the mesmeric, relates to the mental, and hypnosis to the more physical, so does the psychic state refer to that class of extraordinary somnambulism in which the mental and the spiritual gifts transcend in character and power those of the foregoing states. In this state the higher phenomena of lucid somnambulism, clairvoyance, and thought-transference are manifested more perfectly than in any other.

The hypnotic, the mesmeric, and the psychic states indicated are frequently interlinked in manifestation. The sensitive may pass from the first to the last without apparent gradation. It is well to keep these divisions in thought, so that in practice no one will be content with the lower where it is possible, by wise and judicious observations and operations, to induce the higher.

To make the matter still more clear, in hypnosis and in the mesmeric state all phenomena may be said to be induced through and by the influence and the direction of the operator. Not that he produces the effects as they are exhibited by the sensitive, but they are brought about through the agency of his suggestions or operations.

In the psychic state this is not always the case. The influence of the operator may at times be almost nil. The operator will find it best—when the sensitive is in a high lucid state—to become an observer and a learner, and no longer continue the rôle of director.

In the psychic state, the soul-powers, so often submerged in ordinary life, transcend in a remarkable manner. The senses are completely suspended and the mind exalted to such a degree, a clearly defined super-sensuous condition is reached. Whether this stage or condition is induced by fasting, prayer, disease, or by mesmeric agencies, matters little. In it we find the key to the seership, and the clairvoyance, and the prophetic utterance, and the mystic powers attributed to and exercised by prophet, and seer, and sybil in the past. By the investigation of the phenomena evolved by the psychic state we are enabled to understand something of man’s soul or spiritual nature, apart from the phenomena induced by pathological conditions of brain and body.

The foregoing view presented of mesmeric conditions may be very different from that which medical men may glean from hypnotic practice with hysterical and lobsided patients, and certainly not the views