Observations placeholder
Sir Cyril Burt describes the psychic powers of Gilbert Murray
Identifier
018747
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
from The 17th Frederic W H Myers memorial lecture 1968 by Sir Cyril Burt
... Gilbert Murray had the unusual gift of being able to bring these 'intimations' and 'impressions' into the foreground of his mind and his descriptions are particulalry revealing.
"They begin" he said "with a vague emotional quality or atmosphere:
This is horrible
This is grotesque
This is something out of a Russian novel"
In successful cases it would seem, this vague emotional content then rapidly developed concrete and specific details, rather as a slide seen under a microscope is brought into clear focus. But
"even in the failures this feeling of atmospheres gets through"
For him thought reading was:
"not so much a cognition or piece of information transferred, but a feeling or emotion"
He added "I never had any success in guessing cards or numbers"