vail
themselves of their services. Some successful physicians themselves
possess this faculty well developed, and use it to great advantage,
though, as a rule they keep very quiet about it, from fear of creating
unfavorable comment from their fellow-physicians and from the general
public who "do not believe in such tom-foolery."

A step further is the power of some psychometrists to correctly describe
the personal characteristics, and even the past history of persons with
whom they come in contact, or whose "associated article" they have in
their hands. Some very remarkable instances of this phase of psychometry
are related in the books containing the history of clairvoyance. An
interesting case is that related by Zschokke, the eminent German writer,
who relates in his autobiography his wonderful experience in this
direction. Listen to the story in his own words: "It has happened to me
occasionally at the first meeting with a total stranger, when I have been
listening in silence to his conversation, that his past life up to the
present moment, with many minute circumstances belonging to one or other
particular scene in it, has come across me like a dream, but distinctly,
entirely involuntarily and unsought, occupying in duration a few minutes.
For a long time I was disposed to consider these fleeting visions as a
trick of the fancy--the more so as my dream-vision displayed to me the
dress and movements of the actors, the appearance of the room, the
furniture, and other accidents of the scene; till on one occasion, in a
gamesome mood, I narrated to my family the secret history of a seamstress
who had just quitted the room. I had never seen the person before.
Nevertheless, the hearers were astonished, and laughed and would not be
persuaded but that I had a previous acquaintance with the former life of
the person, inasmuch as what I had stated was perfectly true.

"I was not less astonished to find that my dream vision agreed with
reality. I then gave more attention to the subject, and as often as
propriety allowed of it, I related to those whose lives had so passed
before me the substance of my dream-vision, to obtain from them its
contradiction or confirmation. On every occasion its confirmation
followed, not without amazement on the part of those who gave it. On a
certain fair-day I went into the town of Waldshut accompanied by two young
foresters, who are still alive. It was evening, and, tired with our walk,
we went