Psychometry Explained

In the context of the paranormal, there are many ways that an individual can communicate with inhabitants and objects of other worlds, spaces and times. These methods are usually grouped under extra-sensory perceptions, one of which is psychometry.

What is psychometry?

Psychometry is a form of psychic reading in which a psychic is able to obtain details about another person through physical contact with the latter’s possessions or read the history of an object by touching it. A psychometrist for instance can hold an antique watch and be able to tell something about the history of that watch, about the person who owned it, about the experiences that person had while in the possession of that watch. An expert psychic may go further and be able to sense what the person was like, what they did and even how they died.

In psychometry, a person can receive impressions from an object by holding it in his/her hands or, perhaps, touching it to the forehead. Such impressions can be perceived as images, sounds, smells, tastes - even emotions. One of the most important aspects of psychometry is reading the emotions that are "recorded" in the object. Thus in keeping with the above example, a consummate psychic will be able to sense by touching the watch, how the owner felt or the emotions of the person at a particular time.

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History of the concept

The word psychometry is derived from the Greek words psyche, meaning "soul," and metron, meaning "measure." As a term in parapsychology, psychometry was coined in 1842  by Joseph R. Buchanan, an American professor of physiology who carried out experiments in order to demonstrate this particular extra-sensory phenomena in action. Using his students as subjects, he placed various drugs in glass vials, and then asked the students to identify the drugs merely by holding the vials. Their success rate was more than what could be explained by chance and he published the results in his book, Journal of Man. To explain the phenomenon, Buchanan theorized that all objects have "souls" that retain a memory.

William F. Denton was another researcher to use psychometry but in the context of geological samples. He wrapped his specimens in cloth and then asked his sister Ann to ‘read them’. By placing the samples to her forehead, Ann was able to accurately describe the specimens through vivid mental images she was receiving.

In the beginning of twentieth century, Gustav Pagenstecher, a German doctor and psychical researcher carried out further experiments in psychometry. From 1919 to 1922, he explored psychometric abilities in one of his patients, Maria Reyes de Zierold. While holding an object, Maria could place herself in a trance and be able to state facts about the object's past and present, describing sights, sounds, smells and other feelings about the object's "experience" in the world.

Famous psychometrists

Stefan Ossowiecki, a Russian-born engineer became famous as a psychic in the 1930s after he claimed to be able to see people's auras and to move objects through psychokinesis. In 1935, he participated in a test of his psychometric powers - a test devised by a wealthy Hungarian named Dionizy Jonky that involved a sealed package which was to be entrusted to another person after his own death. Ossowiecki was not only able to correctly identify Jonky from a several photographs even though the two had not met previously, but accurately described many details of Jonky's life and even identified the man who held the package for the past eight years. Most incredible though was Ossowiecki’s identification of the contents of the sealed package – a meteorite wrapped in candy paper.

George McMullen started out as a carpenter and wilderness guide but soon came into the notice of educator J. Norman Emerson for his psychometric abilities. Over two years, McMullen accompanied Emerson to various Iroquois sites in Canada where the psychic was able to provide highly detailed information about the lives of the Native Americans who lived there simply by holding and ‘reading’ archeological objects.

Yet another well-known psychometric was Gerard Croiset who assisted law enforcement officials in cracking criminal cases during the late 1930s and into the '40s. In one of the most celebrated cases, he was asked to help in the search for a missing four-year-old girl from Brooklyn, New York. Without leaving Holland, Croiset was given a photo of the girl, a map of New York City and a piece of her clothing. He correctly described that she was dead, the location of her body and the man who murdered her. His information eventually led police to the girl's body and to the murderer, who was convicted of the crime.

Psychometry explanations

According to experts of the paranormal, every object and creature in the universe has an aura which can be understood as a kind of field of energy surrounding it. Some  psychical researchers think the information about an object's past is recorded in its aura which a psychometrist, removed in time and space, taps into and thus able to offer a ‘reading’. One of the variations of this theory likens the psychometric ability to a tape recorder based on the concept that human bodies give off magnetic energy fields.  Thus If an object has been passed on down the family, it will contain information about its previous owners. The psychic can then be thought of as a tape player, playing back the information stored on the object and thus able to access its history and information about its user.

Yet another explanation of psychometry depends upon the theory of vibrations. In case of psychometry, the information about an object is conveyed to the psychic through vibrations imbued into the object by emotions and actions in the past.
Explanations of psychometry may not seem all that fanciful when viewed through the scientific perspective that all matter on a subatomic level exists essentially as vibrations. Thinker and author Michael Talbot in his book The Holographic Universe, asserts that consciousness and reality exist in a kind of hologram that contains a record of the past, present and future and psychometrics may be able to tap into that record. All actions, Talbot says, "instead of fading into oblivion, [remain] recorded in the cosmic hologram and can always be accessed once again."

Still others like Mario Varvoglis, at "PSI Explorer" believe psychometry to be a highly evolved form of clairvoyance. In this case the psychometrist may gain psychic impressions directly from the person to whom the object belongs through a process like telepathy or may clairvoyantly learn about past or present events in the life of the person. The object which other explanations of psychometry hold all-important, here  simply serves as a kind of focusing device which keeps the mind from falling prey to distractions.

At the other extreme are the skeptics who claim that instead of reading objects, what mediums and psychics are actually good at is reading the expectations of  people around them and performing accordingly. like any other significant psychic process, psychometry too lends itself to varied interpretations and explanations.