Second Sight Explained - A Complete Exposition of Clairvoyance or Second Sight, as Exhibited by the Late Robert Houdin and Robert Heller, Showing How the Supposed Phenomena May Be Produced #224145

Words can be rapidly repeated without the slightest effort of memory. These strings of words are what we may call natural associations. They would be useful in recollecting a discourse which it was desired to keep in mind under circum stances where note-taking was inadmissible. They are natural evolutions in the process of thought which is evoked by a well-reasoned discourse. But we want in the case of the Clairvoyant to associate things that differ, that are not natural, and, therefore, are not evoked one from the other. We therefore must find an association connecting two unconnected ideas, and, if we have a brooch on one person to be associated with a yellow flower on another, we Should have some other process of connecting the two things than simply repeating one after the other in the manner of parrot talking or schoolboy repetition. But this can easily be arranged. Professors of mnemonics associate, by the inter position of one word as a connecting link, two ideas which they desire to connect — as, for instance, Death and Abyssinia might be associated, with War between them, each of which would be recalled instantly by the repetition of the one word.