Psychometry is the natural but latent faculty in us

Book excerpt: Madame Blavatsky on the natural but latent faculty in us, by which the inner self cognizes the dynamic world of causes. Not only are the images of the past in the picture galleries of Akasha, but also the sounds of past voices, even the perfumes of archaic flowers withered ages ago, and the aromas of fruits that hung on trees when man was but a mumbling savage, and polar ice, a mile thick, covered what are now the fairest countries under the sun. Even upon the walls of our most private apartments, where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out and our retirement can never be profaned, there exist the vestiges of all our acts, silhouettes of whatever we have done. Amidst a counterfeit Christianity, a stolid science and widespread pettiness, America is the kingdom of avarice and greed, coarse materialism, and hypocritical selfishness.