Occult Sensation

The term occult has a variety of meanings. To many it is the antithesis of science, the bugbear of religion. To others it is the know all and believe all. It often is dismissed with not a little display of emotion, as unworthy of intellectual consideration and is said to be akin to superstition and the unreal. On the other hand it may be used objectively merely to suggest that which is not entirely known. Any of these views alone does not give the true historical, immediate, or even future vista of what already is implied as a problem.

The farawayness of someone who has returned from a visit to a palmist, crystal-gazer, or any of the adventuresome tribe of fortune tellers, is not a phenomenon that can be belied, regardless of how much scorn and even self-scorn by the believer himself or herself is expressed. This secondary response complicates rather than simplifies the problem.

We may begin by supposing a simple situation. When a boy attempts to jump over a puddle, one of many results is possible. His attempt may be only a fleeting fancy never carried into the realm of action. He may catch himself short before the leap. He may fall short with a membranous splash. He may fall headlong over his goal. These are only some of the destinies of his leap. On the other hand he may carry out the attempt well-executed, perfectly timed and coordinately graced. His whole act then is fitting, proper, appropriate, and the example for others. In a consideration of the occult, it is very much the same. So sagacious an observer as Freud saw this realm only as a fleeting fancy. He was content to say he had never experienced an oceanic feeling. From one of his position such a categorical statement virtually amounted to a mortmain damnation. Logically carried through one would be compelled to deny an amazingly large body of facts on this platform. At another point Freud does admit some possibilities for telepathy. When anything is analyzed, a host of seemingly inconsequential data may be