Psychic Sciences-1

The lure of the unknown and the lore of the hidden things have long intrigued the human mind. Along with such skills as throwing rocks and fashioning flintstone spearheads, primitive man developed more subtle crafts, as foretelling the weather by the ways the birds flew or the winds blew. From those beginings came modern sciences like ballistics and meteorology and the same applies in many other instances.

Two factors were present in most primitive sciences; the psychic and the occult. The practitioner of a craft usually claimed and often believed that he possessed a special faculty not given to ordinary mortals, enabling to gain unique results and issue reliable forecasts. He backed this by professing knowledge of secret subjects which he was pledged not to reveal.

This combination of psychic power and occult learning has persisted into modern times. Skilled artists often regard their work as "inspired" or rely on "trade secrets" for results. So the pattern is similar, even though many things that once cread awe and wonderment are explainable by modern science. Now the cycle may be bringing us to new wonders, perhaps including some revivals from the past.

The science of alchemy, which flourished in the Middle Ages, has been styled the "FATHER OF CHEMISTRY," and it is interesting to note that the efforts of the alchemists to transmute one metal into another have been realised in our modern laboratories, though not as the alchemists anticipated. But that should not reflect too greatly onalchemy, for according to some authorities, it was not the alchemists, but their initiators, who stumbled upon the more important discoveries that founded modern chemistry.

Similarly, astrology, as the forerunner of astronomy, may have had its faults. But any absurdities of astrologers were outmatched by the erroneous theories held by the astronomers, until the invention of the telescope proved that they were wrong.

This is not a defense of outmoded beliefs founded on ignorance and superstition. It is all the more reason why such notions should be discarded as they have often been. But theories that have an intelligent basis, those that have stood the test of time and gained popular acceptance, were and are worthy of continued consideration. Had they not been, chemistry, astronomy, and other modern sciences would have died in infancy, whenever some new finding disproved the old.