psychometry (object reading, psychoscopy)
Purported means of obtaining information about people and events associated with an object merely by touching, handling, or being near to the object. "Psychic researcher" Dr. J. Rhodes Buchanan devised and named psychometry around the turn of the century. He held that all objects and events leave perpetual impressions in the "ether" or "astral light." Buchanan allegedly discovered that when psychometry students simply held drugs, the students often exhibited the symptoms that would have resulted had they ingested the drugs. Moreover, he allegedly found that some psychometrists could diagnose illness simply by holding the patient's hand. The word "psychometry" literally means "measure of the soul." (In science-oriented healthcare, the terms psychometry, psychometrics, and psychometric testing refer to the use of tests to measure such psychological characteristics as aptitude, intelligence, and personality traits.)
