ASPR Journal, V14 - Iapsop.com

558 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.
and unbiased minds, they would find it so full of phenomena of
the various sorts which psychical researchers are investigating
that they would be greatly surprised, and some of them would
become so shocked and peevish that they would immediately put
on their trusty old blue glasses and declare that they never saw
such horrors at all. To no species of phenomena does this remark
more fitly apply than that of prophecy.
The word prophet, according to its strict signification in the
Greek, means primarily, not a fore-teller, so much as a for-teller,
one who speaks for or in behalf of another (a Divine or invisible
being). But the most of the Biblical prophets are found
in the Old Testament, where the language is Hebrew. The
Hebrew terms employed are illuminating. One is nabi meaning
"prophet," derived from the verb naba, which signifies "to
bubble up like a fountain." · Having first noticed this derivation
at the time of the present writing, I am reminded that in my
diary of the "Doris Case of Multiple Personality" [Proc.
American S. P. R., Vols. IX, X] I was accustomed to speak of
the sentences and other impressions which automatically emerged
in the girl's primary consciousness from a secondary consciousness
below, as "bubbling up." It was a similar phenomenon in
the case of the old-time prophet, and a similar impression made
upon the observer, which caused the former to be called a nabi,
one into whose consciousness impressions and speeqh bubbled up,
without his own volition. I am not now debating whether these
came from his own secondary personality, or from an alien
consciousness in subliminal contact with him. Another tenn
applied to the Old Testament prophet is roeh, meaning " seer,''
from the verb raah signifying " to see, especially with intention."
This term would fitly apply to Joseph, when in the act of" divining"
or scrying by gazing at the liquid in his cup (Gen. 44:5).
It is the term actually applied to Samuel at the time he announced
to young Saul both the whereabouts of his father's lost asses
and his own future kingship (I Sam. Ch. 9). It would be rash
to assert that Samuel did not employ a similar means of inducing
the state requisite for the alleged acts of telopsis and prediction.
That very vial of oil which he poured on the head of Saul could
have first served as the "crystal." Chozeh is another term for
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