Parlour Games and Psychic 'Memory'

There is an old parlour game that I used to play with my friends. Some may find it rather tedious, but any one interested in psychic phenomena might find it worth a trial.

Select a few random antique objects or at least items that belonged to some one else previously. Place them in a box and blindfold the first 'player' of the game. Instruct the individual to choose one of the items and place it in the palm of his/her hand while still blindfolded.

Now ask the person to relate his/her impressions but not where others can hear the account. These 'impressions' are not a matter of describing the object physically although that can be part of it. What is requested rather are visual 'memories' connected to the item as well as any emotional responses, symbols that arise in the mind or anything else that surfaces.

It is sort of a psychic version of 'Dictionary' where players invent definitions for a word that no one in the circle knows.

Depending on the amount of interest or time one has, you can go through every item with each player or simply take the items that the first player chose and have each participant give his/her responses to it in the same fashion. If one really wishes to test the abilities of the participants, it is best to have some real knowledge of the provenance of the items. Even so, what is 'picked up' by some one may be a moment in time or a situation that does not figure in the item's 'official' history. Or it could be nothing more than a vivid imagination at work...

The results can be very dramatic or can be totally disappointing. The reason I write about it now is that I tried it with another individual with a set of Neolithic tools BEFORE I asked the former owner about their actual history. It was interesting to compare points of intersection:

Actual descriptions from the previous Danish owner of a couple of the blades with our impressions while blindfolded:

Actual description of previous owner of first blade:'brown yellow, from a bog, bogfinding, this maybe lost during hunt'

First person: A hunt; some one running fast, hair streaming in the wind, something going down into a hole or tunnel; a pool reflecting the sky; a large, dark, liquid round eye, such as that of a doe or bull, with long eyelashes

Second person: bunnies hopping into a hole; an eagle flying; a stick figure of a man running

Of two others: 'white sea-patinated, they have been in seawater, they maybe have been used to clean some fish or cut some rope in boats'

First person: heavy water, stormclouds, a storm; fish gliding, something twisting in the water

Second person: Rain, lots of rain; rain and water; badly wanting it to rain, fish; something diving into water

Bearing in mind the fact that water, animals, rain and fish are very general indeed and that imagination rules visions, it still is interesting to see how our responses were similar in each case. Of course, where items that are this old are concerned, there is a lack of real factual 'history' for the most part. One can state where they were found, but how they came there is conjecture.

Another parlour game that people play quite successfully involves sending and receiving basic shapes or symbols. It is interesting how the mind of the receiver slightly changes the original in many cases. A triangle sent becomes a triangular sail. A crescent moon may become a hook. I always believed that the power of the human mind far transcends our recognition of it and that our main problem is lack of ability to train the raw power that we possess. Especially in our own era, where so many signals crowd the airs and so much noise and visual clutter fills our environment, it is difficult to discipline the mind to disregard all of that and focus on a single thread. Nonetheless, I maintain that we all have psychic abilities if only we could tap into them. I am a Romantic, of course, in this respect and some one who believes that what is accepted 'Science' only scratches the surface of reality.

Even so, in actual belief in supernatural evidence, I tend to be very skeptical. I am not some one who will accept any claim without question and even when I have seen extraordinary events, I usually remain unconvinced that they were caused by anything that was truly 'supernatural'.