“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 into an inn called the ‘Vine.’  We took our supper with a numerous company at the public table, when it happened that they made themselves merry over the peculiarities of the Swiss in connection with the belief in mesmerism, Lavater’s physiognomical system, and the like.  One of my companions, whose national pride was touched by their raillery, begged me to make some reply, particularly in answer to a young man of superior appearance who sat opposite, and had indulged in unrestrained ridicule.

“It happened that the events of this person’s life had just previously passed before my mind.  I turned to him with the question whether he would reply to me with truth and candor, if I narrated to him the most secret passages of his history, he being as little known to me as I to him.  That would, I suggested, go something beyond Lavater’s physiognomical skill.  He promised that if I told the truth he would admit it openly.  Then I narrated the events with which my dream vision had furnished me, and the table learned the history of the young tradesman’s life, of his school years, his peccadilloes, and finally, of a little act of roguery committed by him on the strongbox of his employer.  I described the uninhabited room with its white walls, where to the right of the brown door there had stood upon the table the small money-chest, etc.  The man, much struck, admitted the correctness of each circumstance—­even, which I could not expect, of the last.”

The above incident is typical of this class of psychometry, and many persons have had at least flashes of this phase of the power.  The only remarkable thing about this particular case is its faithfulness regarding details—­this shows a very fine development of the astral sense.  The feature that makes it psychometric, instead of pure clairvoyance, is that the presence of the other person was necessary to produce the phenomenon—­a bit of clothing would probably have answered as well.  Zschokke does not seem to have been able to manifest time-clairvoyance independent of the presence of the person concerned—­he needs the associated link, or loose end of the psychic ball of yarn.