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CLAIRVOYANCE
BY
C. W. LEADBEATER
Theosophical Publishing House
KROTONA
HOLLYWOOD, Los ANGELES, GAL.
Eeprinted 1918
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
WHAT CLAIRVOYANCE is 5
CHAPTER II.
SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE: FULL 27
CHAPTER III.
SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE : PARTIAL 46
CHAPTER IV.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL..: 53
CHAPTER V.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: SEMI-INTENTIONAL..*. 76
CHAPTER YI.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: UNINTENTIONAD 80
CHAPTER VII.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 89
CHAPTER VIII.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 121
CHAPTER IX.
METHODS OF DEVELOPMENT 150
! 3
CLAIRVOYANCE
CHAPTEE I.
WHAT CLAIRVOYANCE IS
CLAIRVOYANCE means literally nothing more than
"clear-seeing," and it is a word which has been
sorely misused, and even degraded so far as to be
employed to describe the trickery of a mountebank
in a variety show. Even in its more restricted sense
it covers a wide range of phenomena, differing so
greatly in character that it is not easy to give a
definition of the word which shall be at once succinct
and accurate. It has been called "spiritual vision,"
but no rendering could well be more misleading than
that, for in the vast majority of cases there is no
faculty connected with it which has the slighest
claim to be honored by so lofty a name.
]?or the purpose of this treatise we may, perhaps,
define it as the power to see what is hidden from
ordinary physical sight It will be as well to premise
6 , CLAIRVOYANCE
.that it is very frequently (though by no means al-
ways) accompanied by what is called clairaudience,
or the power to hear what would be inaudible to
the ordinary physical ear; and we will for the nonce
take our title as covering this faculty also, in order
to avoid the clumsiness of perpetually using two
long words where one will suffice.
Let me make two points clear before I begin.
First, I am not writing for those who do not believe
that there is such a thing as clairvoyance, nor am I
seeking to convince those who are in doubt about the
matter. In so small a work as this I have no space
for that; such people must study the many books
containing lists of cases, or make experiments for
themselves along mesmeric lines. I am addressing
myself to the better-instructed class who know
that clairvoyance exists, and are sufficiently interested
in the subject to be glad of information as to its
methods and possibilities ; and I would assure them
that what I write is the result of much careful study
and experiment, and that though some of the powers
which I shall have to describe may seem new and
wonderful to them, I mention no single one of which
I have not myself seen examples.
Secondly, though I shall endeavor to avoid techni-
calities as far as possible, yet as I am writing in the
main for students of Theosophy, I shall feel myself
at liberty sometimes to use, for brevity's sake and
without detailed explanation, the ordinary Theoso-
phical terms with which I may safely assume them
to be familiar.
WHAT CLAIRVOYANCE IS 7
Should this little book fall into the hands of any
to whom the occasional use of such terms constitutes
a difficulty, I can only apologize to them and refer
them for these preliminary explanations to any ele-
mentary Theosophical work, such as, Mrs. Besant's
Ancient Wisdom or Man and His Bodies. The
truth is that the whole Theosophical system hangs
together so closely, and its various parts are so in-
terdependent, that to give a full explanation of
every term used would necessitate an exhaustive
treatise on Theosophy as a preface even to this
short account of clairvoyance.
Before a detailed explanation of clairvoyance can
usefully be attempted, however, it will be necessary
for us to devote a little time to some preliminary
considerations, in order that we may have clearly in
mind a few broad facts as to the different planes on
which clairvoyant vision may be exercised, and the
conditions which render its exercise possible.
We are constantly assured in Theosophical litera-
ture that all these higher faculties are presently to be
the heritage of mankind in general — that the ca-
pacity of clairvoyance, for example, lies latent in
every one, and that those in whom it already mani-
fests itself are simply in that one particular a little
in advance of the rest of us. Now this statement
is a true one, and yet it seems quite vague and un-
real to the majority of people, simply because they
regard such a faculty as something absolutely dif-
ferent from anything they have yet experienced,
and feel fairly confident that they themselves, at any
8 CLAIRVOYANCE
rate, are not within measurable distance of its de-
lopment.
' It may help to dispel this sense of unreality if we
try to understand that clairvoyance, like so many
Bother things in nature, is mainly a question of vi-
•rations, and is in fact nothing but an extension of
owers which we are all using every day of our
ILYCS, We are living all the while surrounded by a
vast sea of mingled air and ether, the latter inter-
penetrating the former, as it does all physical mat-
ter; and it is chiefly by means of vibrations in that
vast sea of matter that impressions reach us from
the outside. This much we all know, but it may per-
haps never have occurred to many of us that the
number of these vibrations to which we are capable
of responding is in reality quite infinitesimal.
Up among the exceedingly rapid vibrations which
affect the ether there is a certain small section — a
very small section — to which the retina of the hu-
man eye is capable of responding, and these parti-
cular vibrations produce in us the sensations which
we call light. That is to say, we are capable of see-
ing only those objects from which light of that par-
ticular kind can either issue or be reflected.
In exactly the same way the tympanum of the hu-
man ear is capable of responding to a certain very
small range of comparatively slow vibrations — slow
enough to affect the air which surrounds us; and so
the only sounds which we can hear are those made
by objects which are able to vibrate at some rate
within that particular range.
WHAT CLAIRVOYANCE IS 9
In both cases it is a matter perfectly well known
to science that there are large numbers ot vibrations
both above and below tnese two sections, and that
consequently there is much light that we cannot see,
and "there" are many sounds to which our ears are
deaf. In case of light the action of these higher
aSSTower vibrations is easily perceptible in the ef-
fects produced by the actinic rays at one end of the
spectrum and the heat rays at the other.
As a matter of fact there exist vibrations of every
conceivable degree of rapidity, filling the whole vast
space intervening between the slow sound waves and
the swift light waves; nor is even that all, for there
are undoubtedly vibrations slower than those of
sound, and a whole infinity of them which are swifter
than those known to us as light. JSo we begin to
understand that the vibrations by^wnich we see and
hear are only like two tiny groups of a few strings
selected from an enormous harp of practically infi-
nite extent, and when we think how much we have
been able to learn and infer from the use of those
minute fragments, we see vaguely what possibilities
might lie before us if we were enabled to utilize the
vast and wonderful whole.
/"'Another fact which needs to be considered in this
\ connection is that different human beings vary con-
., siderably, though within relatively narrow limits, in
their capacity of response even to the very few vibra-
tions which are within reach of our physical senses.
I am not referring to the keenness of sight or of
hearing that enables one man to see a fainter object
10 CLAIRVOYANCE
or hear a slighter sound than another; it is not in
the least a question of strength of vision, but of ex-
tent of susceptibility.
' For example, if anyone will take a good bisul-
phide of carbon prism, and by its means throw a clear
spectrum on a sheet of white paper, and then get a
aumber of people to mark upon the paper the ex-
treme limits of the spectrum as it appears to them,
(he is fairly certain to find that their powers of vision
I differ appreciably. Some will see the violet extend-
ing much farther than the majority do ; others will
perhaps see rather less violet than most, while gain-
ing a corresponding extension of vision at the red
end. Some few there will perhaps be who can see
farther than ordinary at both ends, and these will
almost certainly be what we call sensitive people —
susceptible in fact to a greater range of Vibrations
than are most men of the present day.
In hearing, . the same difference can be tested by
taking some sound which is just not too high to be
audible — on the very verge of audibility as it were
—and discovering how many amoog^a,^iveG number
of people are able to hear it. The squeak of a bat is
a familiar instance of such a sound, and experiment
will show that on a summer evening, when the whole
air is full of the shrill, needle-like cries of these little
animals, quite a large number of men will be abso-
lutely unconscious of them, and unable to hear any-
thing at all.
Now these examples clearly show that there is no
hard-and-fast limit to man's power of response to
WHAT CLAIRVOYANCE IS _^~~~~*~ 11
either etheric or aerial vibrations, but that some
among us already have that power to a wider extent
than others ; and it will even be found that the same
man's capacity varies on different occasions. It is
therefore not difficult for us to imagine that it
might be possible for a man to develop this power,
and thus in time to learn to see much that is invis-
•ible to his fellow-men, and hear much that is inau-
dible to them, since we know perfectly well that
enormous numbers of these additional vibrations do
exist/ and are simply, as it were, awaiting recogni-
tion/
The experiments with the Rontgen rays give us an
example of the startling results which are produced
when even a very few of these additional vibrations
are brought within human ken, and the transparency
to these rays of many substances hitherto considered
opaque at once shows us one way at least in which
we may explain such elementary clairvoyance as is
involved in reading a letter inside a closed box, or
describing those present in an adjoining apartment.
To learn to see by means of the Rontgen rays in
addition to those ordinarily employed would be
quite sufficient to enable anyone to perform a feat
of magic of this order.
So far we have thought only of an extension of the
purely physical senses of man ; and when we re-
member that a man's etheric body is in reality
merely the finer part of his physical frame, and that
therefore all his sense-organs contain a large amount
of etheric matter of various degrees of density, the
12 CLAIRVOYANCE
capacities of which are still practically latent in most
of us, we shall see that even if we confine ourselves
to this line of development alone there are enormous
possibilities of all kinds already opening out before us.
But besides and beyond all this we know that man
possesses an astral and a mental body, each of which
can in process of time be aroused into activity, and
will respond in turn to the vibrations of the matter
of its own plane, thus opening up before the Ego,
as he learns to function through these vehicles, two
entirely new and far wider worlds of knowledge
and power. Now these new worlds, though they are
all around us and freely interpenetrate one another,
are not to be thought of as distinct and entirely un-
connected in substance, but rather as melting the one
into the other, the lowest astral forming a direct
series with the highest physical, just as the lowest
mental in its turn forms a direct series with the
highest astral. We are not called upon in thinking
of them to imagine some new and strange kind of
matter, but simply to think of the ordinary physi-
cal kind as subdivided so very much more finely and
vibrating so very much more rapidly as to introduce
us to what are practically entirely new conditions
and qualities.
It is not then difficult for us to grasp the possibil-
ity of a steady and progressive extension of our
senses, so that both by sight and by hearing we may
be able to appreciate vibrations far higher and far
lower than those which are ordinarily recognized. A
large section of these additional vibrations will still
WHAT CLAIEVOYANCE IS 13
belong to the physical plane, and will merely enable
us to obtain impressions from the etheric part of
that plane, which is at present as a closed book to
us. Such impressions will still be received through
the retina of the eye; of course they will affect its
etheric rather than its solid matter, but we may
nevertheless regard them as still appealing only to
an organ specialized to received them, and not to
the whole surface of the etheric body. /
There are some abnormal cases, however, in which
other parts of the etheric body respond to these ad-
ditional vibrations as readily as, or even more readily
than, the eye. Such vagaries are explicable in var-
ious ways, but principally as effects of some partial
astral development, for it will be found that the
sensitive parts of the body almost invariably cor-
respond with one or other of the chakrams, or centers
of vitality in the astral body. And though, if astral
consciousness be not yet developed, these centers may
not be available on their own plane, they are still
strong enough to stimulate into keener activity the
etheric matter which they interpenetrate.
When we come to deal with the astral senses them-
selves the methods of working are very different.
The astral body has no specialized sense-organs — a
fact which perhaps needs some explanation, since
many students who are trying to comprehend its
physiology seem to find it difficult to reconcile with
the statements that have been made as to the perfect
interpenetration of the physical body by astral mat-
ter, the exact correspondence between the two vehi-
14 CLAIRVOYANCE
cles, and the fact that every physical object has nec-
essarily its astral counterpart.
Now all these statements are true, and yet it is
quite possible for people who do not normally see
astrally to misunderstand them. Every order of
physical matter has its corresponding order of astral
matter in constant association with it — not to be
separated from it except by a very considerable
exertion of occult force, and even then only to be
held apart from it as long as force is being definitely
exerted to that end. But for all that the relation of
the astral particles one to another is far looser than
is the case with their physical correspondences.
In a bar of iron, for example, we have a mass of
physical molecules in the solid condition — that is to
say, capable of comparatively little change in their
relative positions, though each vibrating with im-
mense rapidity in its own sphere. The astral coun-
terpart of this consists of what we often call solid
astral matter — that is, matter of the lowest and dens-
est sub-plane of the astral; but nevertheless its par-
ticles are constantly and rapidly changing their rela-
tive position, moving among one another as easily as
those of a liquid on the physical plane might do. So
that there is no permanent association between any
one physical particle and that amount of astral mat-
ter which happens at any given moment to be acting
as its counterpart.
This is equally true with respect to the astral
body of man, which for our purpose at the moment
we may regard as consisting of two parts — the den-
WHAT CLAIRVOYANCE IS 15
ser aggregation which occupies the exact position of
the physical body, and the cloud of rarer astral mat-
ter which surrounds that aggregation. In both
these parts, and between them both, there is going on
at every moment of time the rapid inter-circulation
of the particles which has been described, so that as
one watches the movement of the molecules in the
astral body one is reminded of the appearance of
those in the fiercely boiling water.
This being so, it will be readily understood that
though any given organ of the physical body must
always have as its counterpart a certain amount of
astral matter, it does not retain the same particles
for more than a few seconds at a time, and conse-
quently there is nothing corresponding to the special-
ization of physical nerve-matter into optic or audi-
tory nerves, and so on. So that though the physical
eye or ear has undoubtedly always its counterpart
of astral matter, that particular fragment of astral
matter is no more (and no less) capable of respond-
ing to the vibrations which produce astral sight or
astral hearing than any other part of the vehicle.
It must never be forgotten that though we con-
stantly have to speak of "astral sight" or "astral
hearing" in order to make ourselves intelligible, all
that we mean by those expressions is the faculty of
responding to such vibrations as convey to the man's
consciousness, when he is functioning in his astral
body, information of the same character as that
conveyed to him by his eyes and ears while he is in
the physical body. But in the entirely different
16 CLAIRVOYANCE
astral conditions, specialized organs are not neces-
sary for the attainment of this result; there is mat-
ter in every part of the astral body which is capable
of such response, and consequently the man function-
ing in that vehicle sees equally well objects behind
him, beneath him, above him, without needing to
turn his head.
There is, however, another point which it would
hardly be fair to leave entirely out of account, and
that is the question of the chakrams referred to
above. Theosophical students are familiar with the
idea of the existence in both the astral and the
etheric bodies of man of certain centers of force
which have to be vivified in turn by the sacred ser-
pent-fire as the man advances in evolution. Though
these cannot be described as organs in the ordinary
sense of the word, since it is not through them that
the man sees or hears, as he does in physical life
through eyes and ears, yet it is apparently very
largely upon their vivification that the power of ex-
ercising these astral senses depends, each of them
as it is developed giving to the whole astral body
the power of response to a new set of vibrations.
Neither have these centers, however, any perman-
ent collection of astral matter connected with them.
They are simply vortices in the matter of the body —
vortices through which all the particles pass in turn
— points, perhaps, at which the higher force from
planes above impinges upon the astral body. Even
this description gives but a very partial idea of their
appearance, for they are in reality four-dimensional
WHAT CLAIEVOYANCE IS 17
vortices, so that the force which comes through them
and is the cause of their existence seems to well up
from nowhere. But at any rate, since all particles in
turn pass through each of them, it will be clear that
it is thus possible for each in turn to evoke in all the
particles of the body the power of receptivity to a
certain set of vibrations, so that all the astral senses
are equally active in all parts of the body.
The vision of the mental plane is again totally
different, for in this case we can no longer speak
of separate senses such as sight and hearing, but
rather have to postulate one general sense which
responds so fully to the vibrations reaching it that
when any object comes within its cognition it at
once comprehends it fully, and as it were sees it,
hears it, feels it, and knows all there is to know about
it by the one instantaneous operation. Yet even this
wonderful faculty differs in degree only and not in
kind from those which are at our command at the
present time ; on the mental plane, just as on the
physical, impressions are still conveyed by means of
vibrations travelling from the object seen to the seer.
On the buddhic plane we meet for the first time
with a quite new faculty having nothing in common
with those of which we have spoken, for there a man
cognizes any object by an entirely different method,
in which external vibrations play no part. The
object becomes part of himself, and he studies it
from the inside instead of from the outside. But
with this power ordinary clairvoyance has nothing
to do.
18 CLAIRVOYANCE
The development, either entire or partial, of any
one of these faculties would come under our defini-
tion of clairvoyance — the power to see what is hidden
from ordinary physical sight. But these faculties
may be developed in various ways, and it will be well
to say a few words as to these different lines.
We may presume that if it were possible for a
man to be isolated during his evolution from all but
the gentlest outside influences, and to unfold from
the beginning in perfectly regular and normal fash-
ion, he would probably develop his senses in regular
order also. He would find his physical senses grad-
ually extending their scope until they responded to
all the physical vibrations, of etheric as well as of
denser matter ; then in orderly sequence would come
sensibility to the coarser part of the astral plane, and
presently the finer part also would be included, un-
til in due course the faculty of the mental plane
dawned in its turn.
In real life, however, development so regular as
this is hardly ever known, and many a man has
occasional flashes of astral consciousness without any
awakening of etheric vision at all. And this irregu-
larity of development is one of the principal causes
of man's extraordinary liability to error in matters
of clairvoyance — a liability from which there is no
escape except by a long course of careful training
under a qualified teacher.
Students of Theosophical literature are well aware
that there are such teachers to be found — that even
in this materialistic nineteenth century the old say-
WHAT CLAIEVOYANCE IS 19
ing is still true, that "when the pupil is ready, the
Master is ready also, ' ' and that ' ' in the hall of learn-
ing, when he is capable of entering there, the disci-
ple will always find his Master." They are well
aware also that only under such guidance can a man
develop his latent powers in safety and with cer-
tainty, since they know how fatally easy it is for the
untrained clairvoyant to deceive himself as to the
meaning and value of what he sees, or even abso-
lutely to distort his vision completely in bringing it
down into his physical consciousness.
It does not follow that even the pupil who is
receiving regular instruction in the use of occult
powers will find them unfolding themselves exactly
in the regular order which was suggested above as
probably ideal. His previous progress may not have
been such as to make this for him the easiest or most
desirable road; but at any rate he is in the hands of
one who is perfectly competent to be his guide in
spiritual development, and he rests in perfect con-
tentment that the way along which he is taken will
be that which is the best way for him.
Another great advantage which he gains is that
whatever faculties he may acquire are definitely un-
der his command and can be used fully and con-
stantly when he needs them for his Theosophical
work; whereas in the case of the untrained man
such powers often manifest themselves only very
partially and spasmodically, and appear to come and
go, as it were, at their own sweet will.
It may reasonably be objected that if clairvoyant
20 CLAIEVOYANCE
faculty is, as stated, a part of the occult develop-
ment of man, and so a sign of a certain amount of
progress along that line, it seems strange that it
should often be possessed by primitive peoples, or by
the ignorant and uncultured among our own race —
persons who are obviously quite undeveloped, from
whatever point of view one regards them. No doubt
this does appear remarkable at first sight; but the
fact is that the sensitiveness of the savage or of the
coarse and vulgar European ignoramus is not really
at all the same thing as the faculty of his properly
trained brother, nor is it arrived at in the same
way.
An exact and detailed explanation of the differ-
ence would lead us into rather recondite technicali-
ties, but perhaps the general idea of the distinction
between the two may be caught from an example
taken from the very lowest plane of clairvoyance, in •
close contact with the denser physical. The etheric
double in man is in exceedingly close relation to his
nervous system, and any kind of action upon one of
them speedily reacts on the other. Now in the
sporadic appearance of etheric sight in the savage,
whether of Central Africa or of Western Europe, it
has been observed that the corresponding nervous
disturbance is almost entirely in the sympathic sys-
tem, and that the whole affair is practically beyond
the man's control — is in fact a sort of massive sen-
sation vaguely belonging to the whole etheric body,
rather than an exact and definite sense-perception
communicated through a specialized organ.
WHAT CLAIRVOYANCE IS 21
As in later races and amid higher development the
strength of the man is more and more thrown into
the evolution of the mental faculties, this vague sen-
sitiveness usually disappears; but still later, when
the spiritual man begins to unfold, he regains his
clairvoyant power. This time, however, the faculty
is a precise and exact one, under the control of the
man's will, and exercised through a definite sense-
organ; and it is noteworthy that any nervous action
set up in sympathy with it is now almost exclusively
in the cerebro-spinal system.
On this subject Mrs. Besant writes: — "The lower
forms of psychism are more frequent in animals and
in very unintelligent human beings than in men and
women in whom the intellectual powers are well
developed. They appear to be connected with the
sympathetic system, not with the cerebro-spinal.
The large nucleated ganglionic cells in this system
contain a very large proportion of etheric matter,
and are hence more easily affected by the coarser as-
tral vibrations than are the cells in which the pro-
portion is less. As the cerebro-spinal system de-
velops, and the brain becomes more highly evolved,
the sympathetic system subsides into a subordinate
position, and the sensitiveness to psychic vibrations
is dominated by the stronger and more active vi-
brations of the higher nervous system. It is true
that at a later stage of evolution psychic sensitive-
ness reappears, but it is then developed in connection
with the cerebro-spinal centers, and is brought un-
der the control of the will. But the hysterical and
22 CLAIRVOYANCE
ill-regulated psychism of which we see so many la-
mentable examples is due to the small development
of the brain and the dominance of the sympathetic
system. ' '
Occasional flashes of clairvoyance do, however,
sometimes come to the highly cultured and spiritual-
minded man, even though he may never have heard
of the possibility of training such a faculty. In his
case such glimpses usually signify that he is ap-
proaching that stage in his evolution when thes6
powers will naturally begin to manifest themselves,
and their appearance should serve as an additional
stimulus to him to strive to maintain that high
standard of moral purity and mental balance with-
out which clairvoyance is a curse and not a blessing
to its possessor.
Between those who are entirely unimpressible and
those who are in full possession of clairvoyant power
there are many intermediate stages. One to which it
will be worth while to give a passing glance is the
stage in which a man, though he has no clairvoyant
faculty in ordinary life, yet exhibits it more or less
fully under the influence of mesmerism. This is a
case in which the psychic nature is already sensitive,
but the consciousness is not yet capable of function-
ing in it amidst the manifold distractions of physi-
cal life. It needs to be set free by the temporary
suspension of the outer senses in the mesmeric trance
before it can use the diviner faculties which are
but just beginning to dawn within it. But of course
even in the mesmeric trance there are innumerable
WHAT CLAIRVOYANCE IS 23
degrees of lucidity, from the ordinary patient who is
blankly unintelligent to the man whose power of
sight is fully under control of the operator, and can
be directed whithersoever he wills, or to the more
advanced stage in which, when the consciousness is
once set free, it escapes altogether from the grasp of
the magnetizer, and soars into fields of exalted vision
where it is entirely beyond his reach.
Another step along the same path is that upon
which such perfect suppression of the physical as
that which occurs in the hypnotic trance is not nec-
essary, but the power of supernormal sight, though
still out of reach during waking life, becomes avail-
able when the body is held in the bonds of ordinary
sleep. At this stage of development stood many of
the prophets and seers of whom we read, who were
"warned of God in a dream," or communed with
beings far higher than themselves in the silent
watches of the night.
Most cultured people of the higher races of the
world have this development to some extent : that is
to say, the senses of their astral bodies are in full
working order, and perfectly capable of receiving
impressions from objects and entities of their own
plane. But to make that fact of any use to them
down here in the physical body, two changes are
usually necessary; first that the Ego shall be awak-
ened to the realities of the astral plane, and induced
to emerge from the chrysalis formed by his own
waking thoughts, and look round him to observe and
to learn; and secondly, that the consciousness shall
24 CLAIEVOYANCE
be so far retained during the return of the Ego in-
to his physical body as to enable him to impress up-
on his physical brain the recollection of what he has
seen or learnt.
If the first of these changes has taken place, the
second is of little importance, since the Ego, the true
man, will be able to profit by the information to be
obtained upon that plane, even though he may not
have the satisfaction of bringing through any re-
membrance of it into his waking life down here.
Students often ask how this clairvoyant faculty
will first be manifested in themselves — how they
may know when they have reached the stage at
which its first faint foreshadowings are beginning to
be visible. Cases differ so widely that it is impossi-
ble to give to this question any answer that will be
universally applicable.
Some people begin by a plunge, as it were, and
under some unusual stimulus become able just for
once to see some striking vision; and very often in
such a case, because the experience does not repeat
itself, the seer comes in time to believe that on that
occasion he must have been the victim of hallucina-
tion. Others begin by becoming intermittently con-
scious of the brilliant colors and vibrations of the
human aura ; yet others find themselves with increas-
ing frequency seeing and hearing something to
which those around them are blind and deaf; others,
again, see faces, landscapes, or colored clouds float-
ing before their eyes in the dark before they sink
to rest; while perhaps the commonest experience of
WHAT CLAIRVOYANCE IS 25
all is that of those who begin to recollect with greater
and greater clearness what they have seen and heard
on the other planes during sleep.
Having now to some extent cleared our ground,
we may proceed to consider the various phenomena
of clairvoyance.
They differ so widely both in character and in
degree that it is not very easy to decide how they
can most satisfactorily be classified. We might, for
example, arrange them according to the kind of
sight employed — whether it were mental, astral, or
merely etheric. We might divide them according to
the capacity of the clairvoyant, taking into consider-
ation whether he was trained or untrained; whether
his vision was regular and under his command, or
spasmodic and independent of his volition; whether
he could exercise it only when under mesmeric in-
fluence, or whether that assistance was unnecessary
for him ; whether he was able to use his faculty when
awake in his physical body, or whether it was avail-
able only when he was temporarily away from that
body in sleep or trance.
All these distinctions are of importance, and we
shall have to take them all into consideration as we
go on, but perhaps on the whole the most useful
classification will be one something on the lines of
that adopted by Mr. Sinnett in his Rationale of Mes-
merism— a book, by the way, which all students of
clairvoyance ought to read. In dealing with the
phenomena, then, we will arrange them rather ac-
cording to the capacity of the sight employed than
26 GLAIEVOYANCE
to the plane upon which it is exercised, so that we
may igroup instances of clairvoyance under some
such headings as these :
1. Simple clairvoyance — that is to say, a mere
opening of sight, enabling its possessor to see what-
ever astral or etheric entities happen to be present
around him, but not including the power of observ-
ing either distant places or scenes belonging to any
other than the present.
2. Clairvoyance in space — the capacity to see
scenes or events removed from the seer in space, and
either too far distant for ordinary observation or
concealed by intermediate objects.
3. Clairvoyance in time — that is to say, the capa-
city to see objects or events which are removed from
the seer in time, or, in other words, the power of
looking into the past or the future.
SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE: FULL 27
CHAPTER II.
SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE: PULL
WE have defined this as a mere opening of etheric or
astral sight, which enables the possessor to see what-
ever may be present around him on corresponding
levels, but is not usually accompanied by the power
of seeing anything at a great distance or of reading
either the past or the future. It is hardly possible
altogether to exclude these latter faculties, for astral
sight necessarily has considerably greater extension
than physical, and fragmentary pictures of both
past and future are often casually visible even to
clairvoyants who do not know how to seek specially
for them ; but there is nevertheless a very real dis-
tinction between such incidental glimpses and the
definite power of projection of the sight either in
space or time.
We find among sensitive people all degrees of this
kind of clairvoyance, from that of the man who gets
a vague impression which hardly deserves the name
of sight at all, up to the full possession of etheric
28 CLAIRVOYANCE
and astral vision respectively. Perhaps the simplest
method will be for us to begin by describing what
would be visible in the case of this fuller develop-
ment of the power, as the cases of its partial pos-
session will then be seen to fall naturally into their
places.
Let us take the etheric vision first. This consists
simply, as has already been said, in susceptibility to
a far larger series of physical vibrations than ordin-
arj^Jbut nevertheless its possession brings into view
a good deal to which the majority of the human race
still remains blind. Let us consider what changes
its acquisition produces in the aspect of familiar
objects, animate and inanimate, and then see to
what entirely new factors it introduces us. But it
must be remembered that what I am about to de-
scribe is the result of the full and perfectly-con-
trolled possession of the faculty only, and that most
of the instances met with in real life will be ] likely
to fall far short of it in one direction or another.
The .'most striking change produced in the appear-
ance of inanimate objects by the acquisition of this
faculty is that most of them become almost trans-
parent, owing to the difference in wave-length of
some of the vibrations to which the man has now
become susceptible. He finds himself capable of
performing with the utmost ease the proverbial feat
of "seeing through a brick wall," for to his newly-
acquired vision the brick wall seems to have a con-
sistency no greater than that of a light mist. He
therefore sees what is going on in an adjoining room
SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE: FULL 29
almost as though no intervening wall existed; he
can describe with accuracy the contents of a locked
box, or read a sealed letter; with a little practice he
can find a given passage in a closed book. This last
feat, though perfectly easy to astral vision, presents
considerable difficulty to one using etheric sight,
because of the fact that each page has to be looked
at through all those which happen to be superim-
posed upon it.
It is often asked whether under these circum-
stances a man sees always with this abnormal sight,
or only when he wishes to do so. The answer is that
if the faculty is perfectly developed it will be en-
tirely under his control, and he can use that or his
more ordinary vision at will. He changes from one
to the other as readily and naturally as we now
change the focus of our eyes when we look up from
our book to follow the motions of some object a mile
away. It is, as it were, a focussing of consciousness
on the one or the other aspect of what is seen; and
though the man would have quite clearly in his
view the aspect upon which his attention was for the
moment fixed, he would always be vaguely conscious
of the other aspect too, just as when we focus our
sight upon any object held in our hands we yet
vaguely see the opposite wall of the room as a
background.
Another curious change, which comes from the
possession of this sight, is that the solid ground up-
on which the man walks becomes to a certain extent
transparent to him, so that he is able to see down
V
30 CLAIEVOYANCE
into it to a considerable depth, much as we can now
see into fairly clear water. This enables him to
watch a creature burrowing underground, to dis-
tinguish a vein of coal or of metal if not too far
below the surface, and so on.
The limit of etheric sight when looking through
solid matter appears to be analogous to that im-
posed upon us when looking through water or mist.
We cannot see beyond a certain distance, because the
medium through which we are looking is not per-
fectly transparent.
The appearance of animate objects is also con-
siderably altered for the man who has increased his
visual powers to this extent. The bodies of men and
animals are for him in the main transparent, so that
he can watch the action of the various internal or-
gans, and to some extent diagnose some of their
diseases.
The extended sight also enables him to perceive,
more or less clearly, various classes of creatures,
elemental and otherwise, whose bodies are not capa-
ble of reflecting any of the rays within the limit
of the spectrum as ordinarily seen. Among the
entities so seen will be some of the lower orders of
nature-spirits — those whose bodies are composed of
the denser etheric matter. To this class belong
nearly all the fairies, gnomes, and brownies, about
whom there are still so many stories remaining
among Scotch and Irish mountains and in remote
country places all over the world.
The vast kingdom of nature-spirits is in the main
SIMPLE CL AIEVOYANCE : FULL 31
an astral kingdom, but still there is a large section of
it which appertains to the etheric part of the phy-
sical plane, and this section, of course, is much more
likely to come within the ken of ordinary people
than the others. Indeed, in reading the common
fairy stories one frequently comes across distinct in-
dications that it is with this class that we are deal-
ing. Any student of fairy lore will remember how
often mention is made of some mysterious ointment
or drug, which when applied to a man's eyes enables
him to see the members of the fairy commonwealth
whenever he happens to meet them.
The story of such an application and its results
occurs so constantly and comes from so many dif-
ferent parts of the world that there must certainly
be some truth behind it, as there always is behind
really universal popular tradition. Now no such
anointing of the eyes alone could by any possibility
open a man's astral vision, though certain ointments
rubbed over the whole body will very greatly assist
the astral body to leave the physical in full con-
sciousness— a fact the knowledge of which seems to
have survived even to mediaeval times, as will be
seen from the evidence given at some of the trials
for witchcraft. But the application to the physical
eye might very easily so stimulate its sensitiveness as
to make it susceptible to some of the etheric vibra-
tions.
The story frequently goes on to relate how when
the human being who has used this mystical oint-
ment betrays his extended vision in some way to a
32 CLAIRVOYANCE
fairy, the latter strikes or stabs him in the eye, thus
depriving him not only of the etheric sight, but of
that of the denser physical plane as well. (See The
Science of Fairy Tales, by E. S. Hartland, in the
"Contemporary Science " series — or indeed almost
any extensive collection of fairy stories.) If the
sight acquired had been astral, such a proceeding
would have been entirely unavailing, for no injury
to the physical apparatus would affect an astral
faculty; but if the vision produced by the ointment
were etheric, the destruction of the physical eye
would in most cases at once extinguish it, since that
is the mechanism by means of which it works.
Anyone possessing this sight of which we are
speaking would also be able to perceive the etheric
double of man; but since this is so nearly indentical
in size with the physical, it would hardly be likely
to attract his attention unless it were partially pro-
jected in trance or under the influence of angesthetics.
After death, when it withdraws entirely from the
dense body, it would be clearly visible to him, and
he would frequently see it hovering over newly made
graves as he passed through a churchyard or ceme-
tery. If he were to attend a spiritualistic seance he
would see the etheric matter oozing out from the
side of the medium, and could observe the various
ways in which the communicating entities make use
of it.
Another fact which could hardly fail soon to
thrust itself upon his notice would be the extension
of his perception of color. He would find himself
SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE: FULL 33
able to see several entirely new colors, not in the
least resembling any of those included in the spec-
trum as we at present know it, and therefore of
course quite indescribable in any terms at our com-
mand. And not only would he see new objects that
were wholly of these new colors, but he would also
discover that modifications had been introduced into
the color of many objects with which he was quite
familiar, according to whether they had or had not
some tinge of these new hues intermingled with the
old. So that two surfaces of color which to ordinary
eyes appeared to match perfectly would often pre-
sent distinctly different shades to his keener sight.
We have now touched upon some of the principal
changes which would be introduced into a man's
world when he gained etheric sight; and it must
always be remembered that in most cases a corre-
sponding change would at the same time be brought
about in his other senses also, so that he would be
capable of hearing, and perhaps even of feeling,
more than most of those around him. Now suppos-
ing that in addition to this he obtained the sight of
the astral plane, what further changes would be ob-
servable ?
Well, the changes would be many and great; in
fact, a whole new world would open before his eyes.
Let us consider its wonders briefly in the same order
as before, and see first what difference there would
be in the appearance of inanimate objects. On this
point I may begin by quoting a recent quaint ans-
wer given in The Vdhan.
34 CLAIRVOYANCE
" There is a distinct difference between etheric
sight and astral sight, and it is the latter which
seems to correspond to the fourth dimension.
"The easiest way to understand the difference is
to take an example. If you looked at a man with
both the sights in turn, you would see the buttons
at the back of his coat in both cases; only if you
used etheric sight you would see them through him,
and would see the shank-side as nearest to you, but
if you looked astrally, you would see it not only like
that, but just as if you were standing behind the
man as well.
"Or if you were looking etherically at a wooden
cube with writing on all its sides, it would be as
though the cube were glass, so that you could see
through it, and you would see the writing on the
opposite side all backwards, while that on the right
and left sides would not be clear to you at all unless
you moved, because you would see it edgewise. But
if you looked at it astrally you would see all the
sides at once, and all the right J*vay up, as though
the whole cube had been flattened out before you,
and you would see every particle of the inside as
well — not through the others, but all flattened out.
You would be looking at it from another direction,
at right angles to all the directions that we know.
"If you look at the back of a watch etherically
you see all the wheels through it, and the face through
them, but backwards; if you look at it astrally, you
see the face right way up and all the wheels lying
separately, but nothing on the top of anything else."
SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE: FULL 35
Here we have at once the keynote, the principal
factor of the change; the man is looking at every-
thing from an absolutely new point of view, entirely
outside of anything that he has ever imagined be-
fore. He has no longer the slightest difficulty in
reading any page in a closed book, because he is
not now looking at it through all the other pages
before it or behind it, but is looking straight down
upon it as though it were the only page to be seen.
The depth at which a vein of metal or of coal may
lie is no longer a barrier to his sight of it, because he
is not now looking through the intervening depth of
earth at all. The thickness of a wall, or the number
of walls intervening between the observer and the
object, would make a great deal of difference to the
clearness of the etheric sight; they would make no
difference whatever to the astral sight, because on
the astral plane they would not intervene between
the observer and the object. Of course that sounds
paradoxical and impossible, and it is quite inexpli-
cable to a mind not specially trained to grasp the
idea ; yet it is none the less absolutely true.
This carries us straight into the middle of the
much-vexed question of the fourth dimension — ques-
tion of the deepest interest, though one that we can-
not pretend to discuss in the space at our disposal.
Those who wish to study it as it deserves are recom-
mended to begin with Mr. C. H. Hinton's Scientific
Romances or Dr. A. T. Schofield's Another World,
and then follow on with the former author's larger
work, A New Era of Thought. Mr. Hinton not only
36 CLAIRVOYANCE
claims to be able himself to grasp mentally some of
the simpler fourth-dimensional figures, but also
states that anyone who will take the trouble to fol-
low out his directions may with perseverance ac-
quire that mental grasp likewise. I am not certain
that the power to do this is within the reach of
everyone, as he thinks, for it appears to me to re-
quire considerable mathematical ability; but I can at
any rate bear witness that the tesseract or fourth-
dimensional cube which he describes is a reality, for
it is quite a familiar figure upon the astral plane.
He has now perfected a new method of representing
the several dimensions by colors instead of by ar-
bitrary written symbols. He states that this wiH
very much simply the study, as the reader will be
able to distinguish instantly by sight any part or
feature of the tesseract. A full description of this
new method, with plates, is said to be ready for the
press, and is expected to appear within a year, so
that intending students of this fascinating subject
might do well to await its publication.
I know that Madame Blavatsky, in alluding to the
theory of the fourth dimension, has expressed an
opinion that it is only a clumsy way of stating the
idea of the entire permeability of matter, and that
Mr. W. T. Stead has followed along the same lines,
presenting the conception to his readers under the
name of throughth. Careful, oft-repeated and de-
tailed investigation does, however, seem to show quite
conclusively that this explanation does not cover all
the facts. It is a perfect description of etheric vis-
SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE: FULL 37
ion, but the further and quite different idea of the
fourth dimension as expounded by Mr. Hinton, is
the only one which gives any kind of explanation
down here of the constantly-observed facts of astral
vision. I would therefore venture deferentially to
suggest that when Madame Blavatsky wrote as she
did, she had in mind etheric vision and not astral,
and that the extreme applicability of the phrase to
this other and higher faculty, of which she was not
at the moment thinking, did not occur to her.
The possession of this extraordinary and scarcely
expressible power, then, must always be borne in
mind through all that follows. It lays every point
in the interior of every solid body absolutely open to
the gaze of the seer, just as every point in the inter-
ior of a circle lies open to the gaze of a man looking
down upon it.
But even this is by no means all that it gives to
its possessor. He sees not only the inside as well as
the outside of every object, but also its astral coun-
terpart. Every atom and molecule of physical mat-
ter has its corresponding astral atoms and molecules,
and the mass which is built up out of these is clearly
visible to our clairvoyant. Usually the astral of any
object projects somewhat beyond the physical part
of it, and thus metals, stones and other things are
seen surrounded by an astral aura.
It will be seen at once that even in the study of
inorganic matter a man gains immensely by the
acquisition of this vision. Not only does he see the
astral part of the object at which he looks, which
38 CLAIRVOYANCE
before was wholly hidden from him; not only does
he see much more of its physical constitution than
he did before, but even what was visible to him be-
fore is now seen much more clearly and truly. A
moment's consideration will show that his new vision
approximates much more closely to true perception
than does physical sight. For example, if he looks
astrally at a glass cube, its sides will all appear
equal, as we know they really are, whereas on the
physical plane he sees the further side in perspective
— that is, it appears smaller than the nearer side,
which is, of course, a mere illusion due to his phy-
sical limitations.
When we come to consider the additional facilities
which it offers in the observation of animate objects
we see still more clearly the advantages of the astral
vision. It exhibits to the clairvoyant the aura of
plants and animals, and thus in the case of the lat-
ter their desires and emotions, and whatever thoughts
they may have, are all plainly shown before his
eyes.
But it is in dealing with human beings that he
will most appreciate the value of this faculty, for he
will often be able to help them far more effectually
when he guides himself by the information which it
gives him.
He will be able to see the aura as far up as the
astral body, and though that leaves all the higher
part of a man still hidden from his gaze, he will
nevertheless find it possible by careful observation
to learn a good deal about the higher part from what
SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE: FULL 39
is within his reach. His capacity of examining the
etheric double will give him considerable advantage
in locating and classifying any defects or diseases
of the nervous system, while from the appearance of
the astral body he will be at once aware of all the
emotions, passions, desires and tendencies of the
man before him, and even of very many of his
thoughts also.
As he looks at a person he will see him surrounded
by the luminous mist of the astral aura, flashing
with all sorts of brilliant colors, and constantly
changing in hue and brilliancy with every variation
of the person's thoughts and feelings. He will see
this aura flooded with the beautiful rose-color of
pure affection, the rich blue of devotional feeling,
the hard, dull brown of selfishness, the deep scarlet
of anger, the horrible lurid red of sensuality, the
livid grey of fear, the black clouds of hatred and
malice, or any of the other hundredfold indications
so easily to be read in it by a practised eye ; and thus
it will be impossible for any persons to conceal from
him the real state of their feelings on any subject.
These varied indications of the aura are of them-
selves a study of very deep interest, but I have no
space to deal with them in detail here. A much ful-
ler account of them, together with a large number
of colored illustrations, will be found in my work
on the subject Man Visible and Invisible.
Not only does the astral aura show him the
temporary result of the emotion passing through it
at the moment, but it also gives him, by the arrange-
40 CLAIRVOYANCE
ment and proportion of its colors when in a condi-
tion of comparative rest, a clue to the general disposi-
tion and character of its owner. For the astral
body is the expression of as much of the man as can
be manifested on that plane, so that from what is
seen in it much more which belongs to higher planes
may be inferred with considerable certainty.
In this judgment of character our clairvoyant will
be much helped by so much of the person's thought
as expresses itself on the astral plane, and conse-
quently comes within his purview. The true home
of thought is on the mental plane, and all thought
first manifests itself there as a vibration of the mind-
body. But if it be in any way a selfish thought, or if
it be connected in any way with an emotion or a
desire, it immediately descends into the astral plane,
and takes to itself a visible form of astral matter.
In the case of the majority of men almost all
thought would fall under one or other of these heads,
so that practically the whole of their personality
would lie clearly before our friend's astral vision,
since their astral bodies and the thought-forms con-
stantly radiating from them would be to him as an
open book in which their characteristics were writ
so largely that he who ran might read. Anyone
wishing to gain some idea as to how the thought-
forms present themselves to clairvoyant vision may
satisfy themselves to some extent by examining the
illustrations accompanying Mrs. Besant's valuable
article on the subject in Lucifer for September 1896.
We have seen something of the alteration in the
SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE: FULL 41
appearance of both animate and inanimate objects
when viewed by one possessed of full clairvoyant
sight as far as the astral plane is concerned; let us
now consider what entirely new objects he will see.
He will be conscious of a far greater fulness in na-
ture in many directions, but chiefly his attention
will be attracted by the living denizens of this new
world. No detailed account of them can be at-
tempted within the space at our disposal; for that
the reader is referred to No. V. of the Theosophical
Manuals. Here we can do no more than barely
enumerate a few classes only of the vast hosts of
astral inhabitants.
He will be impressed by the protean forms of the
ceaseless tide of elemental essence, ever swirling
around him, menacing often, yet always retiring be-
fore a determined effort of the will; he will marvel
at the enormous army of entities temporarily called
out of this ocean into separate existence by the
thoughts and wishes of man, whether good or evil.
He will watch the manifold tribes of the nature-
spirits at their work or at their play; he will some-
times be able to study with ever-increasing delight
the magnificent evolution of some of the lower or-
ders of the glorious kingdom of the devas, which
corresponds approximately to the angelic host of
Christian terminology.
But perhaps of even keener interest to him than
any of these will be the human denizens of the as-
tral world, and he will find them divisible into two
great classes — those whom we call the living, and
42 CLAIEVOYANCE
those others, most of them infinitely more alive,
whom we so foolishly misname the dead, among the
former he will find here and there one wide awake
and fully conscious, perhaps sent to bring him some
message, or examining him keenly to see what pro-
gress he is making; while the majority of his neigh-
bors, when away from their physical bodies during
sleep, will drift idly by, so wrapped up in their own
cogitations as to be practically unconscious of what
is going on around them.
'" Among the great host of the recently dead he will
find all degrees of consciousness and intelligence, and
all shades of character — for death, which seems to
our limited vision so absolute a change, in reality
alters nothing of the man himself. On the day after
his death he is precisely the same man as he was the
day before it, with the same disposition, the same
qualities, the same virtues and vices, save only that
he has cast aside his physical body; but the loss of
that no more makes him in any way a different man
than would the removal of an overcoat. So among
the dead our student will find men intelligent and
stupid, kind-hearted and morose, serious and frivol-
ous, spiritually-minded and sensually-minded, just
as among the living.
Since he can not only see the dead, but speak with
them, he can often be of very great use to them, and
give them information and guidance which is of the
utmost value to them. Many of them are in a con-
dition of great surprise and perplexity, and some-
times even of acute distress, because they find the
SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE: FULL 43
facts of the next world so unlike the childish legends
which are all that popular religion in the West has
to offer with reference to this transcendently im-
portant subject; and therefore a man who under-
stands this new world and can explain matters is
distinctly a friend in need.
In many other ways a man who fully possesses
this faculty may be of use to the living as well as to
the dead ; but of this side of the subject I have al-
ready written in my little book on Invisible Helpers.
In addition to astral entities he will see astral
corpses — shades and shells in all stages of decay;
but these need only be just mentioned here, as the
reader desiring a further account of them will find
it in our third and fifth manuals.
Another wonderful result which the full enjoy-
ment of astral clairvoyance brings to a man is that
he has no longer any break in consciousness. When
he lies down at night he leaves his physical body to
the rest which it requires, while he goes about his
business in the far more comfortable astral vehicle.
In the morning he returns to and re-enters his phy-
sical body, but without any loss of consciousness or
memory between the two states, and thus he is able
to live, as it were, a double life which yet is one,
and to be usefully employed during the whole of
it, instead of losing one-third of his existence in
blank unconsciousness.
Another strange power of which he may find him-
self in possession (though its full control belongs
rather to the still higher devachanic faculty), is that
44 CLAIRVOYANCE
of magnifying at will the minutest physical or astral
particle to any desired size, as though by a micro-
scope— though no microscope ever made or ever
likely to be made possesses even a thousandth part
of this psychic magnifying power. By its means the
hypothetical molecule and atom postulated by science
become visible and living realities to the occult
student, and on this closer examination he finds them
to be much more complex in their structure than the
scientific man has yet realized them to be. It also
enables him to follow with the closest attention and
the most lively interest all kinds of electrical, mag-
netic, and other etheric action; and when some of
the specialists in these branches of science are able
to develop the power to see those things whereof they
write so facilely, some very wonderful and beautiful
revelations may be expected.
This is one of the siddhis or powers described in
Oriental books as accruing to the man who devotes
himself to spiritual development, though the name
under which it is there mentioned might not be im-
mediately recognizable. It is referred to as "the
power of making oneself large or small at will/' and
the reason of a description which appears so oddly
to reverse the fact is that in reality the method by
which this feat is performed is precisely that indi-
cated in these ancient books. It is by the use of
temporary visual machinery of inconceivable minute-
ness that the world of the infinitely little is so clearly
seen; and in the same way (or rather in the opposite
way) it is by temporarily enormously increasing the
SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE: FULL 45
size of the machinery used that it becomes possible
to increase the breadth of one's view — in the physi-
cal sense as well as, let us hope, in the moral — far
beyond anything that science has ever dreamt of as
possible for man. So that the alteration in size is
really in the vehicle of the student's consciousness,
and not in anything outside of himself; and the old
Oriental book has, after all, put the case more ac-
curately than we.
Psychometry and second-sight in excelsis would
also be among the faculties which our friend would
find at his command; but those will be more fitly
dealt with under a later heading, since in almost all
their manifestations they involve clairvoyance either
in space or in time.
I have now indicated, though only in the roughest
outlines, what a trained student, possessed of full
astral vision, would see in the immensely wider world
to which that vision introduced him; but I have
said nothing of the stupendous change in his mental
attitude which comes from the experimental certainty
as to the existence of the soul, its survival after
death, the action of the law of karma, and other
points of equally paramount importance. The dif-
ference between even the profoundest intellectual
conviction and the precise knowledge gained by di-
rect personal experience must be felt in order to be
appreciated.
46 CLAIRVOYANCE
CHAPTER III.
SIMPLE CLAIRVOYANCE: PARTIAL
THE experiences of the untrained clairvoyant — and
l)e it remembered that that class includes all Euro-
pean clairvoyants except a very few — will, however,
usually fall very far short of what I have attempted
to indicate ; they will fall short in many different
ways — in degree, in variety, or in permanence, and
above all in precision.
Sometimes, for example, a man's clairvoyance
will be permanent, but very partial, extending only
perhaps to one or two classes of the phenomena
observable ; he will find himself endowed with some
isolated fragment of higher vision, without appar-
ently possessing other powers of sight which ought
normally to accompany that fragment, or even to
precede it. For example, one of my dearest friends
has all his life had the power to see the atomic
ether and atomic astral matter, and to recognize their
structure, alike in darkness or in light, as inter-
penetrating everything else; yet he has only rarely
SIMPLE CLAIEVOYANCE: PARTIAL 47
seen entities whose bodies are composed of the much
more obvious lower ethers or denser astral matter,
and at any rate is certainly not permanently able to
see them. He simply finds himself in possession of
this special faculty, without any apparent reason
to account for it, or any recognizable relation to any-
thing else : and beyond proving to him the existence
of these atomic planes and demonstrating their ar-
rangement, it is difficult to see of what particular
use it is to him at present. Still, there the thing is,
and it is an earnest of greater things to come — of
further powers still awaiting development.
There are many similar cases — similar, I mean, not
in the possession of that particular form of sight
(which is unique in my experience), but in showing
the development of some one small part of the full
and clear vision of the astral and etheric planes. In
nine cases out of ten, however, such partial clair-
voyance will at the same time lack precision also —
that is to say, there will be a good deal of vague
impression and inference about it, instead of the
clear-cut definition and certainty of the trained man.
Examples of this type are constantly to be found,
especially among those who advertise themselves as
"test and business clairvoyants."
Then, again, there are those who are only tem-
porarily clairvoyant under certain special conditions.
Among these there are various subdivisions, some
being able to reproduce the state of clairvoyance
at will by again setting up the same conditions,
while with others it comes sporadically, without any
48 CLAIRVOYANCE
observable reference to their surroundings, and with
yet others the power shows itself only once or twice
in the whole course of their lives.
To the first of these subdivisions belong those who
are clairvoyant only when in the mesmeric trance —
who when not so entranced are incapable of seeing
or hearing anything abnormal. These may some-
times reach great heights of knowledge and be ex-
ceedingly precise in their indications, but when that
is so they are usually undergoing a course of regu-
lar training, though for some reason unable as yet
to set themselves free from the leaden weight of
•earthly life without assistance.
In the same class we may put those — chiefly
Orientals — who gain some temporary sight only un-
der the influence of certain drugs, or by means of
the performance of certain ceremonies. The cere-
monialist sometimes hypnotizes himself by his repe-
titions, and in that condition becomes to some ex-
tent clairvoyant; more often he simply reduces him-
self to a passive condition in which some other en-
tity can obsess him and speak through him. Some-
times, again, his ceremonies are not intended to af-
fect himself at all, but to invoke some astral entity
who will give him the required information; but of
course that is a case of magic, and not of clairvoy-
ance. Both the drugs and the ceremonies are meth-
ods emphatically to be avoided by any one who
wishes to approach clairvoyance from the higher
side, and use it for his own progress and for the
helping of others. The Central African medicine-
SIMPLE CLAIEVOYANCE : PAETIAL 49
man or witch-doctor and some of the Tartar Sha-
mans are good examples of the type.
Those to whom a certain amount of clairvoyant
power has come occasionally only, and without any
reference to their own wish, have often been hysteri-
cal or highly nervous persons, with whom the faculty
was to a large extent one of the symptoms of a
disease. Its appearance showed that the physical
vehicle was weakened to such a degree that it no
longer presented any obstacle in the way of a cer-
tain modicum of etheric or astral vision. An ex-
treme example of this class is the man who drinks
himself into delirium tremens, and in the condition
of absolute physical ruin and impure psychic ex-
citation brought about by the ravages of that fell
disease, is able to see for the time some of the loath-
some elemental and other entities which he has
drawn round himself by his long course of degraded
and bestial indulgence. There are, however, other
cases where the power of sight has appeared and dis-
appeared without apparent reference to the state of
the physical health; but it seems probable that even
in those, if they could have been observed closely
enough, some alteration in the condition of the eth-
eric double would have been noticed.
Those who have only one instance of clairvoyance
to report in the whole of their lives are a difficult
band to classify at all exhaustively, because of the
great variety of the contributory circumstances.
There are many among them to whom the experi-
ence has come at some supreme moment of their
50 CLAIRVOYANCE
lives, when it is comprehensible that there might
have been a temporary exaltation of faculty which
would be sufficient to account for it.
In the case of another subdivision of them fhe
solitary case has been the seeing of an apparition,
most commonly of some friend or relative at the
point of death. Two possibilities are then offered
for our choice, and in each of them the strong wish
of the dying man is the impelling force. That force
may have enabled him to materialize himself for a
moment, in which case of course no clairvoyance
was needed; or more probably it may have acted
mesmerically upon the percipient, and momentarily
dulled his physical and stimulated his higher sensi-
tiveness. In either case the vision is the product of
the emergency, and is not repeated simply because
the necessary conditions are not repeated.
There remains, however, an irresolvable residuum
of cases in which a solitary instance occurs of the
exercise of undoubted clairvoyance, while yet the
occasion seems to us wholly trival and unimportant.
About these we can only frame hypotheses; the
governing conditions are evidently not on the physi-
cal plane, and a separate investigation of each case
would be necessary before we could speak with any
certainty as to its causes. In some such it has ap-
peared that an astral entity was endeavoring to
make some communication, and was able to impress
only some unimportant detail on its subject — all the
useful or significant part of what it had to say fail-
ing to get through into the subject's consciousness.
SIMPLE CLAIEVOYANCE: PAETIAL 51
In the investigation of the phenomena of clairvoy-
ance all these varied types and many others will be
encountered, and a certain number of cases of mere
hallucination will be almost sure to appear also, and
will have to be carefully weeded out from the list of
examples. The student of such a subject needs an
inexhaustible fund of patience and steady persever-
ance, but if he goes on long enough he will begin
dimly to discern order behind the chaos, and will
gradually get some idea of the great laws under
which the whole evolution is working.
It will help him greatly in his efforts if he will
adopt the order which we have just followed — that
is, if he will first take the trouble to familiarize
himself as thoroughly as may be with the actual
facts concerning the planes with which ordinary
clairvoyance deals. If he will learn what there
really is to be seen with astral and etheric sight, and
what their respective limitations are, he will then
have, as it were, a standard by which to measure the
cases which he observes. Since all instances of par-
tial sight must of necessity fit into some niche in this
whole, if he has the outline of the entire scheme in
his head he will find it comparatively easy with a
little practice to classify the instances with which he
is called upon to deal.
We have said nothing as yet as to the still more
wonderful possibilities of clairvoyance upon the men-
tal plane, nor indeed is it necessary that much should
be said, as it is exceedingly improbable that the in-
vestigator will ever meet with any examples of it
52 CLAIRVOYANCE
except among pupils properly trained in some of the
very highest schools of occultism. For them it opens
up yet another new world, vaster far than all those
beneath it — a world in which all that we can imagine
of utmost glory and splendor is the commonplace,
of existence. Some account of its marvellous faculty,
its ineffable bliss, its magnificent opportunities for
learning and for work, is given in the sixth of our
Theosophical manuals, and to that the student may
be referred.
All that it has to give — all of it at least that he can
assimilate — is within the reach of the trained pupil,
but for the untrained clairvoyant to touch it is
hardly more than a bare possibility. It has been
done in mesmeric trance, but the occurrence is of
exceeding rarity, for it needs almost superhuman
qualifications in the way of lofty spiritual aspiration
and absolute purity of thought and intention upon
the part both of the subject and the operator.
To a type of clairvoyance such as this, and still
more fully to that which belongs to the plane next
above it, the name of spiritual sight may reasonably
be applied; and since the celestial world to which it
opens our eyes lies all round us here and now, it is
fit that our passing reference to it should be made
under the heading of simple clairvoyance, though it
may be necessary to allude to it again when dealing
with clairvoyance in space, to which we will now
pass on.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL 53
CHAPTEE IV.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL
WE have defined this as the capacity to see events
or scenes removed from the seer in space and too far
distant for ordinary observation. The instances of
this are so numerous and so various that we shall
find it desirable to attempt a somewhat more de-
tailed classification of them. It does not much mat-
ter what particular arrangement we adopt, so long
as it is comprehensive enough to include all our
cases; perhaps a convenient one will be to group
them under the broad divisions of intentional and
unintentional clairvoyance in space, with an inter-
mediate class that might be described as semi-inten-
tional— a curious title, but I will explain it later.
As before, I will begin by stating what is possible
along this line for the fully-trained seer, and en-
deavoring to explain how his faculty works and
under what limitations it acts. After that we shall
find ourselves in a better position to try to under-
stand the manifold examples of partial and un-
54 CLAIRVOYANCE
trained sight. Let us then in the first place discuss
intentional clairvoyance.
It will be obvious from what has previously been
said as to the power of astral vision that any one
possessing it in its fulness will be able to see by its
means practically anything in this world that he
wishes to see. The most secret places are open to
his gaze, and intervening obstacles have no existence
for him, -because of the change in his point of view ;
so that if we grant him the power of moving about
in the astral body he can without difficulty go
anywhere and see anything within the limits of the
planet. Indeed this is to a large extent possible to
him even without the necessity of moving the astral
body at all, as we shall presently see.
Let us consider a little more closely the methods
by which this super-physical sight may be used to
observe events taking place at a distance. When,
for example, a man here in England sees in minut-
est detail something which is happening at the same
moment in India or America, how is it done?
A very ingenious hypothesis has been offered to
account for the phenomenon. It has been suggested
that every object is perpetually throwing off radia-
tions in all directions, similar in some respects to,
though infinitely finer than, rays of light, and that
clairvoyance is nothing but the power to see by
means of these finer radiations. Distance would in
that case be no bar to the sight, all intervening ob-
jects would be penetrable by these rays, and they
would be able to cross one another to infinity in all
CLAIBVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL 55
directions without entanglement, precisely as the vi-
brations of ordinary light do.
Now though this is not exactly the way in which
clairvoyance works, the theory is nevertheless quite
true in most of its premises. Every object un-
doubtedly is throwing off radiations in all directions,
and it is precisely in this way, though on a higher
plane, that the akashic records seem to be formed.
Of them it will be necessary to say something under
our next heading, so we will do no more than men-
tion them for the moment. The phenomena of psy-
chometry are also dependent upon these radiations,
as will presently be explained.
There are, however, certain practical difficulties in
the way of using these etheric vibrations (for that is,
of course, what they are) as the medium by means of
which one man may see anything taking place at a dis-
tance. Intervening objects are not entirely trans-
parent, and as the actors in the scene which the ex-
perimenter tried to observe would probably be at
least equally transparent, it is obvious that serious
confusion would be quite likely to result.
The additional dimension which would come into
play if astral radiations were sensed instead of eth-
eric would obviate some of the difficulties, but would
on the other hand introduce some fresh complications
of its own; so that for practical purposes, in en-
deavoring to understand clairvoyance, we may dis-
miss this hypothesis of radiations from our minds,
and turn to the methods of seeing at a distance which
are actually at the disposal of the student. It will
56 CLAIEVOYANCE
be found that there are five, four of them being
really varieties of clairvoyance, while the fifth does
not properly come under that head at all, but be-
longs to the domain of magic. Let us take this last
one first, and get it out of our way.
1. By the assistance of a nature-spirit. — This
method does not necessarily involve the possession of
any psychic faculty at all on the part of the ex-
perimenter; he need only know how to induce some
denizen of the astral world to undertake the investi-
gation for him. This may be done either by invo-
cation or by evocation ; that is to say, the operator
may either persuade his astral coadjutor by prayers
and offerings to give him the help he desires, or he
may compel his aid by the determined exercise of a
highly-developed will.
This method has been largely practised in the East
(where the entity employed is usually a nature-
spirit) and in old Atlantis, where "the lords of the
dark face" used a highly-specialized and peculiarly
venomous variety of artificial elemental for this pur-
pose. Information is sometimes obtained in the
same sort of way at the spiritualistic seance of mod-
ern days, but in that case the messenger employed
is more likely to be a recently-deceased human being
functioning more or less freely on the astral plane —
though even here also it is sometimes an obliging
nature-spirit, who is amusing himself by posing as
somebody's departed relative. In any case, as I
have said, this method is not clairvoyant at all, but
magical ; and it is mentioned here only in order that
CLAIBVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL 57
the reader may not become confused in the endeavor
to classify cases of its use under some of the fol-
lowing headings.
2. By means of an astral current — This is a phrase
frequently and rather loosely employed in some of
our " Theosophical literature to cover a considerable
variety of phenomena, and among others that which
I wish to explain. What is really done by the stu-
dent who adopts this method is not so much the
setting in motion of a current in astral matter, as the
erection of a kind of temporary telephone through it.
It is impossible here to give an exhaustive disquisi-
tion on astral physics, even had I the requisite knowl-
edge to write it ; all I need say is that it is possible
to make in astral matter a definite connecting-line
that shall act as a telegraph-wire to convey vibrations
by means of which all that is going on at the other
end of it may be seen. Such a line is established, be
it understood, not by a direct projection through
space of astral matter, but by such action upon a
line (or rather many lines) of particles of that mat-
ter as will render them capable of forming a conduc-
tor for vibrations of the character required.
This preliminary action can be set up in two ways
— either by the transmission of energy from particle
to particle, until the line is formed, or by the use of
a force from a higher plane which is capable of act-
ing upon the whole line simultaneously. Of course
this latter method implies far greater development,
since it involves the knowledge of (and the power
to use ) forces of a considerably higher level ; so that
58 CLAIEVOYANCE
the man who could make his line in this way would
not, for his own use, need a line at all, since he
could see far more easily and completely by means
of an altogether higher faculty.
Even the simpler and purely astral operation is a
difficult one to describe, though quite an easy one to
perform. It may be said to partake somewhat of the
nature of the magnetization of a bar of steel ; for it
consists in what we might call the polarization, by an
effort of the human will, of a number of parallel
lines of astral atoms reaching from the operator to
the scene which he wishes to observe. All the atoms
thus affected are held for the time with their axes
rigidly parallel to one another, so that they form a
kind of temporary tube along which the clairvoyant
may look. This method has the advantage that the
telegraph line is liable to disarrangement or even
destruction by any sufficiently strong astral current
which happens to cross its path; but if the original
effort of will were fairly definite, this would be a
contingency of only infrequent occurrence.
The view of a distant scene obtained by means of
this "astral current77 is in many ways not unlike
that seen through a telescope. Human figures us-
ually appear very small, like those on a distant stage,
but in spite of their diminutive size they are as
clear as though they were close by. Sometime it is
possible by this means to hear what is said as well
as to see what is done ; but as in the majority of
cases this does not happen, we must consider it
rather as the manifestation of an additional power
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL 59
than as a necessary corollary of the faculty of sight.
It will be observed that in this case the seer does
not usually leave his physical body at all ; there is no
sort of projection of his astral vehicle or of any part
of himself towards that which he is looking, but he
simply manufactures for himself a temporary astral
telescope. Consequently he has, to a certain extent,
the use of his physical powers even while he is ex-
amining the distant scene; for example, his voice
would usually still be under his control, so that he
could describe what he saw even while he was in
the act of making his observations. The conscious-
ness of the man is, in fact, distinctly still at this
end of the line.
This fact, however, has its limitations as well as
its advantages, and these again largely resemble the
limitations of the man using a telescope on the phy-
sical plane. The experimenter, for example, has no
power to shift this point of view; his telescope, so
to speak, has a particular field of view which can-
not be enlarged or altered ; he is looking at his scene
from a certain direction, and he cannot suddenly
turn it all round and see how it looks from the other
side. If he has sufficient psychic energy to spare,
he may drop altogether the telescope that he is us-
ing and manufacture an entirely new one for him-
self which will approach his objective somewhat dif-
ferently; but this is not a course at all likely to be
adopted in practice.
But, it may be said, the mere fact that he is using
astral sight ought to enable him to see it from all
60 CLAIEVOYANCE
sides at once. So it would if he were using that
sight in a normal way upon an object which was
fairly near him — within his astral reach, as it were ;
but at a distance of hundreds or thousands of miles
the case is very different. Astral sight gives us the
advantage of an additional dimension, but there is
still such a thing as position in that dimension, and
it is naturally a potent factor in limiting the use of
the powers of its plane. Our ordinary three-dimen-
sional sight enables us to see at once every point of
the interior of a two-dimensional figure, such as a
square, but in order to do that the square must be
within a reasonable distance from our eyes; the
mere additional dimension will avail a man in Lon-
don but little in his endeavor to examine a square in
Calcutta.
Astral sight, when it is cramped by being directed
along what is practically a tube, is limited very much
as physical sight would be under similar circum-
stances; though if possessed in perfection it will
still continue to show, even at that distance, the
auras, and therefore all the emotions and most of the
thoughts of the people under observation.
There are many people for whom this type of clair-
voyance is very much facilitated if they have at
hand some physical object which can be used as a
starting point for their astral tube — a convenient fo-
cus for their will-power. A ball of crystal is the
commonest and most effectual of such foci, since it
has the additional advantage of possessing within
itself qualities which stimulate psychic faculty; but
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL 61
other objects are also employed, to which we shall
find it necessary to refer more particularly when we
come to consider semi-intentional clairvoyance.
In connection with astral-current form of clair-
voyance, as with others, we find that there are
some psychics who are unable to use it except when
under the influence of mesmerism. The peculiarity
in this case is that among such psychics there are two
varieties — one in which by being thus set free the
man is enabled to make a telescope for himself, and
another in which the magnetizer himself makes the
telescope and the subject is simply enabled to see
through it. In this latter case obviously the subject
has not enough will to form a tube for himself, and
the operator, though possessed of the necessary will-
power, is not clairvoyant, or he could see through
his own tube without needing help.
Occasionally, though rarely, the tube which' is
formed possesses another of the attributes of a tele-
scope— that of magnifying the objects at which it is
directed until they seem of life-size. Of course the
objects must always be magnified to some extent, or
they would be absolutely invisible, but usually the
extent is determined by the size of the astral tube,
and the whole thing is simply a tiny moving pic-
ture. In the few cases where the figures are seen
as of life-size by this method, it is probable that an
altogether new power is beginning to dawn; but
when this happens, careful observation is needed in
order to distinguish them from examples of our next
class.
62 CLAIEVOYANCE
3. By the projection of a thought -form. — The
ability to use this method of clairvoyance implies a
development somewhat more advanced than the last,
since it necessitates a certain amount of control up-
on the mental plane. All students of Theosophy are
aware that thought takes form, at any rate upon its
own plane, and in the vast majority of cases upon
the astral plane also ; but it may not be quite so
generally known that if a man thinks strongly of
himself as present at any given place, the form as-
sumed by that particular thought will be a likeness
of the thinker himself, which will appear at the
place in question.
Essentially this form must be composed of the
matter of the mental plane, but in very many cases
it would draw round itself matter of the astral
plane also, and so would approach much nearer to
visibility. There are, in fact, many instances in
which it has been seen by the person thought of —
most probably by means of the unconscious mes-
meric influence emanating from the original thinker.
None of the consciousness of the thinker would, how-
ever, be included within this thought-form. When
once sent out from him, it would normally be a
quite separate entity — not indeed absolutely uncon-
nected with its maker, but practically so far as the
possibility of receiving any impression through it is
concerned.
This third type of clairvoyance consists, then in
the power to retain so much connection with and so
much hold over a newly-erected thought-form as
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL 63
will render it possible to receive impressions by
means of it. Such impressions as were made upon
the form would in this case be transmitted to the
thinker — not along an astral telegraph line, as be-
fore, but by sympathetic vibration. In a perfect
case of this kind of clairvoyance it is almost as
though the seer projected a part of his consciousness
into the thought-form, and used it as a kind of out-
post, from which observation was possible. He sees
almost as well as he would if he himself stood in
the place of his thought-form.
The figures at which he is looking will appear to
him as of life-size and close at hand, instead of tiny
and at a distance, as in the previous case; and he
will find it possible to shift his point of view if he
wishes to do so. Clairaudience is perhaps less fre-
quently associated with this type of clairvoyance
than with the last, but its place is to some extent
taken by a kind of mental perception of the thoughts
and intentions of those who are seen.
Since the man's consciousness is still in the physi-
cal body, he will be able (even while exercising the
faculty) to hear and to speak, in so far as he can
do this without any distraction of his attention. The
moment that the intentness of his thought fails the
(vhole vision is gone, and he will have to construct
a fresh thought-form before he can resume it. In-
stances in which this kind of sight is possessed with
any degree of perfection by untrained people are
naturally rarer than in the case of the previous type,
because of the capacity for mental control required,
64 CLAIRVOYANCE
and the generally finer nature of the forces em-
ployed.
4. By travelling in the astral "body. — We enter
here upon an entirely new variety of clairvoyance,
in which the consciousness of the seer no longer re-
mains in or closely connected with his physical body,
but is definitely transferred to the scene which he is
examining. Though it has no doubt greater dangers
for the untrained seer than either of the methods
previously described, it is yet quite the most satisfac-
tory form of clairvoyance open to him, for the im-
mensely superior variety which we shall consider un-
der our fifth head is not available except for specially
trained students.
In this case the man's body is either asleep or in
trance, and its organs are consequently not available
for use while the vision is going on, so that all de-
scription of what is seen, and all questioning as to
further particulars, must be postponed until the
wanderer returns to this plane. On the other hand
the sight is much fuller and more perfect; the man
hears as well as sees everything which passes before
him, and can move about freely at will within the
very wide limits of the astral plane. He can see
and study at leisure all the other inhabitants of that
plane, so that the great world of the nature-spirits
(of which the traditional fairy-land is but a very
small part) lies open before him, and even that of
some of the lower devas.
He has also the immense advantage of being able
to take part, as it were, in the scenes which come
CLAIEVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL 65
before his eyes — of conversing at will with these
various astral entities, from whom so much informa-
tion that is curious and interesting may be obtained.
If in addition he can learn how to materialize him-
self (a matter of no great difficulty for him when
once the knack is acquired), he will be able to take
part in physical events or conversations at a distance,
and to show himself to an absent friend at will.
Again, he has the additional power of being able
to hunt about for what he wants. By means of the
varieties of clairvoyance previously described, for all
practical purposes he could find a person or a place
only when he was already acquainted with it, or
when he was put en rapport with it by touching
something physically connected with it, as in psy-
chometry. It is true that by the third method a cer-
tain amount of motion is possible, but the process
is a tedious one except for quite short distances.
By the use of the astral body, however, a man can
move about quite freely and rapidly in any direction,
and can (for example) find without difficulty any
place pointed out upon a map, without either any
previous knowledge of the spot or any object to
establish a connection with it. He can also readily
rise high into the air so as to gain a bird-eye view
of the country which he is examining, so as to ob-
serve its extent, the contour of its coast-line, or its
general character. Indeed, in every way his power
and freedom are far greater when he uses this
method than they have been in any of the previous
cases.
66 CLAIRVOYANCE
A good example of the full possession of this power
is given, on the authority of the German writer Jung
Stilling, by Mrs. Crowe in The Night Side of Nature
(p. 127). The story is related of a seer who is
stated to have resided in the neighborhood of Phil-
adelphia, in America. His habits were retired, and
he spoke little ; he was grave, benevolent and pious,
and nothing was known against his character, except
that he had the reputation of possessing some secrets
that were considered not altogether lawful. Many
extraordinary stories were told of him, and amongst
the rest the following: —
"The wife of a ship captain (whose husband was
on a voyage to Europe and Africa, and from whom
she had been long without tidings), being over-
whelmed with anxiety for his safety, was induced
to address herself to this person. Having listened
to her story he begged her to excuse him for a while,
when he would bring her the intelligence she re-
quired. He then passed into an inner room and she
sat herself down to wait; but his absence continuing
longer than she expected, she became impatient,
thinking he had forgotten her, and softly approach-
ing the door she peeped through some aperture, and
to her surprise beheld him lying on a sofa as motion-
less as if he were dead. She of course did not think
it advisable to disturb him, but waited his return,
when he told her that her husband had not been able
to write to her for such and such reasons, but that
he was then in a coffee-house in London and would
very shortly be home again.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL 67
"Accordingly he arrived, and as the lady learnt
from him that the causes of his unusual silence had
been precisely those alleged by the man, she felt
extremely desirious of ascertaining the truth of the
rest of the information. In this she was gratified,
for he no sooner set his eyes on the magician than he
said that he had seen him before on a certain day in
a coffee-house in London, and that he told him that
his wife was extremely uneasy about him, and that
he, the captain, had thereon mentioned how he had
been prevented writing, adding that he was on the
eve of embarking for America, He had then lost
sight of the stranger amongst the throng, and knew
nothing more about him."
We have of course no means now of knowing what
evidence Jung Stilling had of the truth of this story,
though he declares himself to have been quite sat-
isfied with the authority on which he relates it; but
so many similar things have happened that there is
no reason to doubt its accuracy. The seer, however,
must either have developed his faculty for himself or
learnt it in some school other than that from which
most of our Theosophical information is derived; for
in our case there is a well-understood regulation ex-
pressly forbidding the pupils from giving any mani-
festation of such power which can be definitely
proved at both ends in that way, and so constitute
what is called "a phenomena. " That this regula-
tion is emphatically a wise one is proved to all who
know anything of the history of our Society by the
68 CLAIRVOYANCE
disastrous results which followed from a very slight
temporary relaxation of it.
I have given some quite modern cases almost
exactly parallel to the above in my little book on
Invisible Helpers. An instance of a lady well-known
to myself, who frequently thus appears to friends at
a distance, is given by Mr. Stead in Real Ghost
Stories (p. 27) ; and Mr. Andrew Lang gives in his
Dreams and Ghosts (p. 89), an account of how Mr.
Cleave, then at Portsmouth, appeared intentionally
on two occasions to a young lady in London, and
alarmed her considerably. There is any amount of
evidence to be had on the subject by any one who
cares to study it seriously.
This paying of intentional astral visits seems very
often to become possible when the principles are
loosened at the approach of death for people who
were unable to perform such a feat at any other
time. There are even more examples of this class
than of the other; I epitomize a good one given by
Mr. Andrew Lang on p. 100 of the book last cited —
one of which he himself says, "Not many stories
have such good evidence in their favor."
"Mary, wife of John Goffe of Rochester, being
afflicted with a long illness, removed to her father's
house at West Mailing, about nine miles from her
own.
"The day before her death she grew very im-
patiently desirous to see her two children, whom she
had left at home to the care of a nurse. She was too
ill to be moved, and between one and two o'clock in
CLAIEVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL 69
the morning she fell into a trance. One widow
Turner, who watched with her that night, says that
her eyes were open and fixed, and her jaw fallen.
Mrs. Turner put her hand upon her mouth, but
could perceive no breath. She thought her to be in
a fit, and doubted whether she were dead or alive.
"The next morning the dying woman told her
mother that she had been at home with her children,
saying, 'I was with them last night when I was
asleep.'
"The nurse at Rochester, widow Alexander by
name, affirms that a little before two o'clock that
morning she saw the likeness of the said Mary Goffe
come out of the next chamber (where the elder child
lay in a bed by itself), the door being left open, and
stood by her bedside for about a quarter of an hour ;
the younger child was there lying by her. Her eyes
moved and her mouth went, but she said nothing.
The nurse, moreover, says that she was perfectly
awake ; it was then daylight, being one of the longest
days in the year. She sat up in bed and looked
steadfastly on the apparition. In that time she
heard the bridge clock strike two, and a while after
said: 'In the name of the Father, Son and Holy
Ghost, what art thou?' Thereupon the apparition
removed and went away ; she slipped on her clothes
and followed, but what became on't, she cannot tell."
The nurse apparently was more frightened by its
disappearance than its presence, for after this she
was afraid to stay in the house, and so spent the
rest of the time until six o'clock in walking up and
70 CLAIRVOYANCE
down outside. When the neighbors were awake she
told her tale to them, and they of course said she
had dreamt it all; she naturally enough warmly re-
pudiated that idea, but could obtain no credence
until the news of the other side of the story arrived
from West Mailing, when people had to admit that
there might have been something in it.
A noteworthy circumstance in this story is that
the mother found it necessary to pass from ordinary
sleep into the profounder trance condition before she
could consciously visit her children; it can, however,
be paralleled here and there among the large num-
ber of similar accounts which may be found in the
literature of the subject.
Two other stories of precisely the same type — in
which a dying mother, earnestly desiring to see her
children, falls into a deep sleep, visits them and
returns to say that she has done so — are given by
Dr. F. G. Lee. In one of them the mother, when
dying in Egypt, appears to her children at Torquay,
and is clearly seen in broad daylight by all five of
the children and also by the nursemaid. (Glimpses of
the Supernatural, vol. ii., p. 64.) In the other a
Quaker lady dying at Cockermouth is clearly seen
and recognized in daylight by her three children at
Settle, the remainder of the story being practically
identical with the one given above. (Glimpses in the
Twilight, p. 94.) Though these cases appear to be
less widely known than that of Mary Goffe, the
evidence of their authenticity seems to be quite as
good, as will be seen by the attestations obtained by
CLAIEVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL 71
the reverend author of the works from which they
are quoted.
The man who fully possesses this fourth type of
clairvoyance has many and great advantages at his
disposal, even in addition to those already mentioned.
Not only can he visit without trouble or expense all
the beautiful and famous places of the earth, but if
he happens to be a scholar, think what it must mean
to him that he has access to all the libraries of the
world! What must it be for the scientifically-
minded man to see taking place before his eyes so
many of the processes of the secret chemistry of na-
ture, or for the philosopher to have revealed to him
so much more than ever before of the working of
the great mysteries of life and death ? To him those
who are gone from this plane are dead no longer,
but living and within reach for a long time to come ;
for him many of the conceptions of religion are no
Longer matters of faith, but of knowledge. Above all,
he can join the army of invisible helpers, and really
be of use on a large scale. Undoubtedly clairvoy-
ance, even when confined to the astral plane, is a
great boon to the student.
Certainly it has its dangers also, especially for the
untrained ; danger from evil entities of various kinds,
which may terrify or injure those who allow them-
selves to lose the courage to face them boldly; dan-
ger of deception of all sorts, of misconceiving and
misinterpreting what is seen; greatest of all, the
danger of becoming conceited about the thing and
of thinking it impossible to make a mistake. But a
72 CLAIRVOYANCE
little common-sense and a little experience should
easily guard a man against these.
5. By travelling in the mental body. — This is sim-
ply a higher and, as it were, glorified form of the
last type. The vehicle employed is no longer the
astral body, but the mind-body — a vehicle, therefore,
belonging to the mental plane, and having within it
all the potentialities of the wonderful sense of that
plane, so transcendent in its action yet so impossible
to describe. A man functioning in this leaves his as-
tral body behind him along with the physical, and if
he wishes to show himself upon the astral plane for
any reason, he does not send for his own astral ve-
hicle, but just by a single action of his will mater-
ializes one for his temporary need. Such an astral
materialization is sometimes called the mayavirupa,
and to form it for the first time usually needs the
assistance of a qualified Master.
The enormous advantages given by the possession
of this power are the capacity of entering upon all
the glory and the beauty of the higher land of bliss,
and the possession, even when working on the astral
plane, of the far more comprehensive mental sense
which opens up to the student such marvellous vistas
of knowledge, and practically renders error all but
impossible. This higher flight, however, is possible
for the trained man only, since only under definite
training can a man at this stage of evolution learn to
employ his mental body as a vehicle.
Before leaving the subject of full and intentional
clairvoyance, it may be well to devote a few words to
CLAIEVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL 73
answering one or two questions as to its limitations,
which constantly occur to students. Is it possible,
we are often asked, for the seer to find any person
with whom he wishes to communicate, anywhere in
the world, whether he be living or dead?
To this reply must be a conditional affirmative.
Yes, it is possible to find any person if the experi-
menter can, in some way or other, put himself en
rapport with that person. It would be hopeless to
plunge vaguely into space to find a total stranger
among all the millions around us without any kind
of clue ; but, on the other hand, a very slight clue
would usually be sufficient.
If the clairvoyant knows anything of the man
whom he seeks, he will have no difficulty in finding
him, for every man has what may be called a kind of
musical cord of his own — a chord which is the ex-
pression of him as a whole, produced perhaps by
a sort of average of the rates of vibration of all his
different vehicles on their respective planes. If the
operator knows how to discern that chord and to
strike it, it will by sympathetic vibration attract the
attention of the man instantly wherever he may be,
and will evoke an immediate response from him.
Whether the man were living or recently dead
would make no difference at all, and clairvoyance of
the fifth class could at once find him even among
the countless millions in the heaven-world, though in
that case the man himself would be unconscious that
he was under observation. Naturally a seer whose
consciousness did not range higher than the astral
74 CLAIEVOYANCE
plane — who employed therefore one of the earlier
methods of seeing — would not be able to find a per-
son upon the mental plane at all; yet even lie would
at least be able to tell that the man sought for was
upon that plane, from the mere fact that the strik-
ing of the chord as far up as the astral level pro-
duced no response.
If the man sought be a stranger to the seeker, the
latter will need something connected with him to act
as a clue — a photograph, a letter written by him, an
article which has belonged to him, and is impreg-
nated with his personal magnetism; any of these
would do in the hands of a practised seer.
Again I say, it must not therefore be supposed
that pupils who have been taught how to use this
art are at liberty to set up a kind of intelligence
office through which communication can be had with
missing or dead relatives. A message given from
this side to such an one might or might not be
handed on, according to circumstances, but even if
it were, no reply might be brought, lest the transac-
tion should partake of the nature of a phenomenon
— something which could be proved on the physical
plane to have been an act of magic.
Another question often raised is as to whether,
in the action of psychic vision, there is any limita-
tion as to distance. The reply would seem to be that
there should be no limit but that of the respective
planes. It must be ' remembered that the astral and
mental planes of our earth are as definitely its own
as its atmosphere, though they extend considerably
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: INTENTIONAL 75
further from it even in our three-dimensional space
than does the physical air. Consequently the pas-
sage to, or the detailed sight of, other planets would
not be possible for any system of clairvoyance con-
nected with these planes. It is quite possible and
easy for the man who can raise his consciousness to
the buddhic plane to pass to any other globe be-
longing to our chain of worlds, but that is outside
our present subject.
Still a good deal of additional information about
other planets can be obtained by the use of such
clairvoyant faculties as we have been describing. It
is possible to make sight enormously clearer by pass-
ing outside of the constant disturbances of the
earth's atmosphere, and it is also not difficult to
learn how to put on an exceedingly high magnifying
power, so that even by ordinary clairvoyance a good
deal of very interesting astronomical knowledge may
be gained. But as far as this earth and its immedi-
ate surroundings are concerned, there is practically
no limitation.
76 CLAIRVOYANCE
CHAPTER V.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: SEMI-INTENTIONAL
UNDER this rather curious title I am grouping to-
gether the cases of all those people who definitely set
themselves to see something, but have no idea what
the something will be, and no control over the sight
after the visions have begun — psychic Micawbers,
who put themselves into a receptive condition, and
then simply wait for something to turn up. Many
trance-mediums would come under this heading ; they
either in some way hypnotize themselves or are hyp-
notized by some "spirit-guide," and then they de-
scribe the scenes or persons that happen to float be-
fore their vision. Sometimes, however, when in this
condition they see what is taking place at a distance,
and so they come to have a place among our "clair-
voyants in space."
But the largest and most widely-spread band of
these semi-intentional clairvoyants are the various
kinds of crystal-gazers — those who, as Mr. Andrew
Lang puts it, "stare into a crystal ball, a cup, a mir-
CLAIBVOYANCE IN SPACE : SEMI-INTENTIONAL 77
ror, a blob of ink (Egypt and India), a drop of blood
(among the Maories of New Zealand), a bowl of
water (Red Indian), a pond (Roman and African),
water in a glass bowl (in Fez), or almost any pol-
ished surface" (Dreams and Ghosts, p. 57.)
Two pages later Mr. Lang gives us a very good
example of the kind of vision most frequently seen in
this way. "I had given a glass ball/7 he says, "to a
young lady, Miss Baillie, who had scarcely any suc-
cess with it. She lent it to Miss Leslie, who saw a
large square, old-fashioned red sofa covered with
muslin, which she found in the next country-house
she visited. Miss Bailie's brother, a young athlete,
laughed at these experiments, took the 'ball into the
study, and came back looking 'gey gash/ He ad-
mitted that he has seen a vision — somebody he knew
under a lamp. He would discover during the week
whether he saw right or note This was at 5 :30 on a
Sunday afternoon.
"On Tuesday, Mr. Baillie was at a dance in a
town some forty miles from his home, and met a
Miss Preston. 'On Sunday/ he said, 'about half-
past five you were sitting under a standard lamp in
a dress I never saw you wear, a blue blouse with
lace over the shoulders, pouring out tea for a man in
blue serge, whose back was towards me, so that I
only saw the tip of his moustache.'
" 'Why, the blinds must have been up/ said Miss
Preston.
" 'I was at Dulby/ said Mr. Baillie, and he unde-
niably was."
78 CLAIRVOYANCE
This is quite a typical case of crystal-gazing — the
picture correct in every detail, you see, and yet abso-
lutely unimportant and bearing no apparent signifi-
cation of any sort to either party, except that it
served to prove to Mr. Baillie that there was some-
thing in crystal-gazing. Perhaps more frequently
the visions tend to be of a romantic character — men
in foreign dress, or beautiful though generally un-
known landscapes.
Now what is the rationale of this kind of clairvoy-
ance? As I have indicated above, it belongs usually
to the "astral current " type, and the crystal or other
object simply acts as a focus for the will-power of
the seer, and a convenient starting-point for his as-
tral tube. There are some who can influence what
they will see by their will, that is to say they have
the power of pointing their telescope as they wish;
but the great majority just form a fortuitous tube
and see whatever happens to present itself at the
end of it.
Sometimes it may be a scene comparatively near at
hand, as in the case just quoted; at other times it
will be a far-away Oriental landscape; at others yet
it may be a reflection of some fragment of an
akashic record, and then the picture will contain
figures in some antique dress, and the phenomenon
belongs to our third large division of "clairvoyance
in time." It is said that visions of the future are
sometimes seen in crystals also — a further develop-
ment to which we must refer later.
I have seen a clairvoyant use instead of the ordin-
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: SEMI-INTENTIONAL 79
ary shining surface a dead black one, produced by
a handful of powdered charcoal in a saucer. In-
deed it does not seem to matter much what is used
as a focus, except that pure crystal has an un-
doubted advantage over other substances in that its
peculiar arrangement of elemental essence renders
it specially stimulating to the psychic faculties.
It seems probable, however, that in cases where a
tiny brilliant object is employed — such as a point of
light, or the drop of blood used by the Maories — the
instance is in reality merely one of self-hypnotiza-
tion. Among non-European nations the experiment
is very frequently preceded or accompanied by magi-
cal ceremonies and invocations, so that it is quite
likely that such sight as is gained may sometimes
be really that of some foreign entity, and so the
phenomenon may in fact be merely a case of tem-
porary possession, and not of clairvoyance at all.
80 CLAIRVOYANCE
CHAPTER VI.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: UNINTENTIONAL
UNDER this heading we may group together all
those cases in which visions of some event which is
taking place at a distance are seen quite unexpectedly
and without any kind of preparation. These are peo-
ple who are subject to such visions, while there are
many others to whom such a thing will happen only
once in a life-time. The visions are of all kinds and
of all degrees of completeness, and apparently may
be produced by various causes. Sometimes the rea-
son of the vision is obvious, and the subject-matter
of the gravest importance ; at other times no reason
at all is discoverable, and the events shown seem of
the most trivial nature.
Sometimes these glimpses of the super-physical
faculty come as waking visions, and sometimes they
manifest during sleep as vivid or oft-repeated dreams.
In this latter case the sight employed is perhaps us-
ually of the kind assigned to our fourth subdivision
of clairvoyance in space, for the sleeping man often
CLAIEVOYANCE IN SPACE: UNINTENTIONAL 81
travels in his astral body to some spot with which
his affections or interests are closely connected, and
simply watches what takes place there ; in the for-
mer it seems probable that the second type of clair-
voyance, by means of the astral current, is called in-
to requisition. But in this case the current or tube
is formed quite unconsciously, and is often the au-
tomatic result of a strong thought or emotion pro-
jected from one end or the other — either from the
seer or the person who is seen.
The simplest plan will be to give a few instances
of the different kinds, and to intersperse among them
such further explanations as may seem necessary.
Mr. Stead has collected a large and varied assort-
ment of recent and well-authenticated eases in his
Real Ghost Stories, and I will select some of my
examples from them, occasionally condensing slightly
to save space.
There are cases in which it is at once obvious
to any Theosophical student that the exceptional
instance of clairvoyance was specially brought about
by one of the band whom we have called "Invisible
Helpers7' in order that aid might be rendered to
some one in sore need. To this class, undoubtedly,
belongs the story told by Captain Yo»nt, of the
Napa Valley in California, to Dr. Bushriell, who re-
peats it in his Nature and the Supernatural (p. 14.)
"About six or seven years previous, in a mid-
winter's night, he had a dream in which he saw what
appeared to be a company of emigrants arrested by
the snows of the mountains, and perishing rapidly
82 CLAIEVOYANCE
by cold and hunger. He noted the very cast of the
scenery, marked by a huge, perpendicular front of
white rock cliff; he saw the men cutting off what
appeared to be tree-tops rising out of the deep gulfs
of snow; he distinguished the very features of the
persons and the look of their particular distress.
"He awoke profoundly impressed by the distinct-
ness and apparent reality of the dream. He at
length fell asleep, and dreamed exactly the same
dream over again.' In the morning he could not
expel it from his mind. Falling in shortly after with
an old hunter comrade, he told his story, and was
only the more deeply impressed by his recognizing
without hesitation the scenery of the dream. This
comrade came over the Sierra by the Carson Valley
Pass, and declared that a spot in the Pass exactly
answered his description.
"By this the unsophistical patriarch was decided.
He immediately collected a company of men, with
mules and blankets and all necessary provisions.
The neighbors were laughing meantime at his cre-
dulity. 'No matter/ he said, 'I am able to do this,
and I will, for I verily believe that the fact is ac-
cording to my dream. ' The men were sent into the
mountains one hundred and fifty miles distant direct
to the Carson Valley Pass. And there they found
the company exactly in the condition of the dream,
and brought in the remnant alive. "
Since it is not stated that Captain Yonnt was in
the habit of seeing visions, it seems clear that some
helper, observing the forlorn condition of the emi-
CLAIRVOYANCE IN SPACE: UNINTENTIONAL 83
grant party, took the nearest impressionable and
otherwise suitable person (who happened to be the
Captain) to the spot in the astral body, and aroused
him sufficiently to fix the scene firmly in his memory.
The helper may possibly have arranged an "astral
current " for the Captain instead, but the former
suggestion is more probable. At any rate the motive,
and broadly the method, of the work are obvious
enough in this case.
Sometimes the "astral current " may be set going
by a strong emotional thought at the other end of
the line, and this may happen even though the
thinker has no such intention in his mind. In the
rather striking story which I am about to quote, it is
evident that the link was formed by the doctor's
frequent thought about Mrs. Broughton, yet he had
clearly no especial wish that she should see what he
was doing at the time. That it was this kind of
clairvoyance that was employed is shown by the
fixity of her point of view — which, be it observed, is
not the doctor's point of view sympathetically trans-
ferred (as it might have been), since she sees his
back without recognizing him. The story is to be
found in the Proceedings of the Psychical Research
Society (vol. ii., p. 160.)
"Mrs. Broughton awoke one night in 1844, and
roused her husband, telling him that something
dreadful had happened in France. He begged her to
go to sleep again, and not trouble him. She assured
him that she was not asleep when she saw what she
insisted on telling him — what she saw in fact.
84 CLAIRVOYANCE
" First a carriage accident — which she did not ac-
tually see, but what she saw was the result — a broken
carriage, a crowd collected, a figure gently raised and
carried into the nearest house, then a figure lying on
a bed which she then recognized as the Duke of
Orleans. Gradually friends collecting round the bed
— among them several members of the French royal
family, watching the evidently dying duke. One man
(she could see his back, but did not know who he
was) was a doctor. He stood bending over the duke,
feeling his pulse, with his watch in the other hand.
And then all passed away, and she saw no more.
' ' As soon as it was daylight she wrote down in her
journal all that she had seen. It was before the
days of electric telegraph, and two or more days
passed before the Times announced 'The Death of
the Duke of Orleans.7 Visiting Paris a short time
afterwards she saw and recognized the place of the
accident and received the explanation of her im-
pression. The doctor who attended the dying duke
was an old friend of hers, and as he watched by
the bed his mind had been constantly occupied with
her and her family."
A commoner instance is that in which strong
affection sets up the necessary current ; probably a
fairly steady stream of mutual thought is constantly
flowing between the two parties in the case, and some
sudden need or dire extremity on the part of one
of them endues this stream temporarily with the
polarizing power which is needful to create the
CLAIEVOYANCE IN SPACE: UNINTENTIONAL 85
astral telescope. An illustrative example is quoted
from the same Proceedings (vol. i., p. 30.)
"On September 9th, 1848, at the siege of Mooltan,
Major-General R , C.B., then adjutant of his
regiment, was most severely and dangerously
wounded; and supposing himself to be dying, asked
one of the officers with him to take the ring off his
finger and send it to his wife, who at the time was
fully one hundred and fifty miles distant at Feroze-
pore.
" 'On the night of September 9th, 1848,' writes
his wife, 'I was lying on my bed, between sleeping
and waking, when I distinctly saw my husband be-
ing carried off the field seriously wounded, and
heard his voice saying, "Take this ring off my finger
and send it to my wife." All the next day I could
not get the sight or the voice out of my mind.
" 'In due time I heard of General E having
been sevely wounded in the assault of Mooltan.
He survived, however, and is still living. It was not
for some, time after the siege that I heard from
General L , the officer who helped to carry my
husband off the field, that the request as to the ring
was actually made by him, just as I heard it at
Ferozepore at that very time.' '
Then there is the very large class of casual clair-
voyant visions which have no traceable cause — which
are apparently quite meaningless, and have no recog-
nizable relation to any events known to the seer. To
this class belong many of the landscapes seen by
some people just before they fall asleep. I quote a
86 CLAIRVOYANCE
capital and very realistic account of an experience of
this sort from Mr. W. T. Stead's Real Ghost Stories
(p. 65.)
"I got into bed but was not able to go to sleep.
I shut my eyes and waited for sleep to come ; instead
of sleep, however, there came to me a succession of
curiously vivid clairvoyant pictures. There was no
light in the room, and it was perfectly dark; I had
my eyes shut also. But notwithstanding the dark-
ness I suddenly was conscious of looking at a scene
of singular beauty. It was as if I saw a living minia-
ture about the size of a magic-lantern slide. At this
moment I can recall the scene as if I saw it again. It
was a seaside piece. The moon was shining upon the
water, which rippled slowly onto the beach. Eight
before me a long mole ran into the water.
"On either side of the mole irregular rocks stood
up above the sea-level. On the shore stood several
houses, square and rude, which resembled nothing
that I had even seen in house architecture. No one
was stirring, but the moon was there and the sea and
the gleam of the moonlight on the rippling waters,
just as if I had been looking on the actual scene.
"It was so beautiful that I remember thinking that
if it continued I should be so interested in looking at
it that I should never go to sleep. I was wide awake,
and at the same time that I saw the scene I distinctly
heard the dripping of the rain outside the window.
Then suddenly, without any apparent object or rea-
son, the scene changed.
The moonlit sea vanished, and in its place I was
CLAIEVOYANCE IN SPACE: UNINTENTIONAL 87
looking right into the interior of a reading-room.
It seemed as if it had been used as a schoolroom in
the daytime, and was employed as a reading-room in
the evening. I remember seeing one reader who had
a curious resemblance to Tim Harrington, although
it was not he, hold up a magazine or book in his
hand and laugh. It was not a picture — it was there.
t ' The scene was just as if you were looking through
an opera-glass; you saw the play of the muscles, the
gleaming of the eye, every movement of the unknown
persons in the unnamed place into which you were
gazing. I saw all that without opening my eyes, nor
did my eyes have anything to do with it. You see
such things as these as it were with another sense
which is more inside your head than in your eyes.
"This was a very poor and paltry experience, but
it enabled me to understand better how it is that
clairvoyants see than any amount of disquisition.
"The pictures were apropos of nothing; they had
been suggested by nothing I had been reading or
talking of ; they simply came as if I had been able to
look through a glass at what was occurring some-
where else in the world. I had my peep, and then it
passed, nor have I had a recurrence of a similar ex-
perience. "
Mr. Stead regards that as a "poor and paltry ex-
perience/ ' and it may perhaps be considered so
when compared with the greater possibilities, yet I
know many students who would be very thankful to
have even so much of direct personal experience to
tell. Small though it may be in itself, it at once
88 CLAIEVOYANCE
gives the seer a clue to the whole thing, and clair-
voyance would be a living actuality to a man who
had seen even that much in a way that it could never
have been without that little touch with the unseen
world.
These pictures were much too clear to have been
mere reflections of the thoughts of others, and be-
sides, the description unmistakably shows that they
were views seen through an astral telescope ; so
either Mr. Stead must quite unconsciously have set
a current going for himself, or (which is much more
probable) some kindly astral entity set it in motion
for him, and gave him, to while away a tedious de-
lay, any pictures that happened to come handy at
the end of the tube.
CLAIEVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 89
CHAPTER VII.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST
CLAIRVOYANCE in time — that is to say, the power of
reading the past and the future — is, like all the other
varieties, possessed by different people in very vary-
ing degrees, ranging from the man who has both
faculties fully at his command, down to one who
only occasionally gets involuntary and very imper-
fect glimpses or reflections of these scenes of other
days. A person of the latter type might have, let
us say, a vision of some event in the past; but it
would be liable to the most serious distortion, and
even if it happened to be fairly accurate it would
almost certainly be a mere isolated picture, and he
would probably be quite unable to relate it to what
had occurred before or after it, or to account for any-
thing unusual which might appear in it. The trained
man, on the other hand, could follow the drama con-
nected with his picture backwards or forwards to any
extent that might seem desirable, and trace out with
equal ease the causes which had led up to it or the
results which it in turn would produce.
90 CLAIEVOYANCE
We shall probably find it easier to grasp this some-
what difficult section of our subject if we consider it
in the subdivisions which naturally suggest them-
selves, and deal first with the vision which looks
backwards into the past, leaving for later examina-
tion that which pierces the veil of the future. In
each case it will be well for us to try to understand
what we can of the modus operandi, even though our
success can at best be only a very modified one, ow-
ing first to the imperfect information on some parts
of the subject at present possessed by our investiga-
tors, and secondly to the ever-recurring failure of
physical words to express a hundredth part even of
the little we do know about higher planes and facul-
ties.
In the case then of a detailed vision of the remote
past, how is it obtained, and to what plane of nature
does it really belong? The answer to both these
questions is contained in the reply that it is read
from the akashic records; but that statement in re-
turn will require a certain amount of explanation
for many readers. The word is in truth somewhat
of a misnomer, for though the records are undoubt-
edly read from the akasha, or matter of the mental
plane, yet it is not to it that they really belong.
Still worse is the alternative title, "records of the
astral light," which has sometimes been employed,
for these records lie far beyond the astral plane, and
all that can be obtained on it are only broken
glimpses of a kind of double reflection of them, as
will presently be explained.
CLAIEVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 91
Like so many others of our Theosophical terms,
the word akasha has been very loosely used. In
some of our earlier books it was considered as synon-
ymous with astral light, and in others it was em-
ployed to signify any kind of invisible matter, from
mulaprakriti down to the physical ether. In later
books its use has been restricted to the matter of the
mental plane, and it is in that sense that the records
may be spoken of as akashic, for although they are
not originally made on that plane any more than on
the astral, yet it is there that we first come definitely
into contact with them and find it possible to do re-
liable work with them.
This subject of the records is by no means an easy
one to deal with, for it is one of that numerous class
which requires for its perfect comprehension facul-
ties of a far higher order than any which humanity
has yet evolved. The real solution of its problems
lies on planes far beyond any that we can possibly
know at present, and any view that we take of it
must necessarily be of the most imperfect character,
since we cannot but look at it from below instead of
from above. The idea which we form of it must
therefore be only partial, yet it need not mislead us
unless we allow ourselves to think of the tiny frag-
ment which is all that we can see as though it were
the perfect whole. If we are careful that such con-
ceptions as we may form shall be accurate as far as
they go, we shall have nothing to unlearn, though
much to add, when in the course of our further
progress we gradually acquire the higher wisdom.
92 CLAIRVOYANCE
Be it understood then at the commencement that a
thorough grasp of our subject is an impossibility at
the present stage of our evolution, and that many
points will arise as to which no exact explanation is
yet obtainable, though it may often be possible to
suggest analogies and to indicate the lines along
which an explanation must lie.
Let us then try to carry back our thoughts to the
beginning of this solar system to which we belong.
We are all familiar with the ordinary astronomical
theory of its origin — that which is commonly called
the nebular hypothesis — according to which it first
came into existence as a gigantic glowing nebula, of
a diameter far exceeding that of the orbit or even the
outermost of the planets, and then, as in the course
of countless ages that enormous sphere gradually
cooled and contracted, the system as we know it was
formed.
Occult science accepts that theory, in its broad out-
line, as correctly representing the purely physical
side of the evolution of our system, but it would add
that if we confine our attention to this physical side
only we shall have a very incomplete and incoherent
idea of what really happened. It would postulate,
to begin with, that the exalted Being who undertakes
the formation of a system (whom we sometimes call
the Logos of the system) first of all forms in His
mind a complete conception of the whole of it with
all its successive chains of worlds. By the very act
of forming that conception He calls the whole into
simultaneous objective existence on the plane of His
CLAIEVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 93
thought — a plane of course far above all those of
which we know anything — from which the various
globes descend when required into whatever state of
further objectivity may be respectively destined for
them. Unless we constantly bear in mind this fact of
the real existence of the whole system from the very
beginning on a higher plane, we shall be perpetually
misunderstanding the physical evolution which we
see taking place down here.
But occultism has more than this to teach us on
the subject. It tells us not only that all this wonder-
ful system to which we belong is called into existence
by the Logos, both on lower and on higher planes,
but also that its relation to Him is closer even than
that, for it is absolutely a part of Him — a partial
expression of Him upon the physical plane — and that
the movement and energy of the whole system is His
energy, and is all carried on within the limits of His
aura. Stupendous as this conception is, it will yet
not be wholly unthinkable to those of us who have
made any study of the subject of the aura.
We are familiar with the idea that as a person pro-
gresses on the upward path his causal body, which is
the determining limit of his' aura, distinctly increases
in size as well as in luminosity and purity of color.
Many of us know from experience that the aura of a
pupil who has already made considerable advance on
the Path is very much larger than that of one who is
but just setting his foot upon its first step, while in
the case of an Adept the proportional increase is far
greater still. We read in quite exoteric Oriental
94 CLAIRVOYANCE
scriptures of the immense extension of the aura of
the Buddha ; I think that three miles is mentioned
on one occasion as its limit, but whatever the exact
measurement may be, it is obvious that we have here
another record of this fact of the extremely rapid
growth of the causal body as man passes on his up-
ward way. There can be little doubt that the rate of
this growth would itself increase in geometrical pro-
gression, so that it need not surprise us to hear of an
Adept on a still higher level whose aura is capable
of including the entire world at once ; and from this
we may gradually lead our minds up to the concep-
tion that there is a Being so exalted as to compre-
hend within Himself the whole of our solar system.
And we should remember that, enormous as this
seems to us, it is but as the tiniest drop in the vast
ocean of space.
So of the Logos (who has in Him all the capacities
and qualities with which we can possibly endow the
highest God we can imagine) it is literally true, as
was said of old, that ' ' of Him and through Him, and
to Him are all things, " and "in Him we live and
move and have our being. "
Now if this be so, it is clear that whatever happens
within our system happens absolutely within the con-
sciousness of its Logos, and so we at once see that
the true record must be His memory; and further-
more, it is obvious that on whatever plane that
wondrous memory exists, it cannot but be far above
anything that we know, and consequently whatever
records we may find ourselves able to read must be
CLAIBVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 95
only a reflection of that great dominant fact, mir-
rored in the denser media of the lower planes.
On the astral plane it is at once evident that this
is so — that what we are dealing with is only a re-
flection of a reflection, and an exceedingly imperfect
one, for such records as can be reached there are
fragmentary in the extreme, and often seriously dis-
torted. We know how universally water is used as
a symbol of the astral light, and in this particular
case it is a remarkably apt one. From the surface of
still water we may get a clear reflection of the sur-
sounding object, just as from a mirror; but at the
best it is only a reflection — a representation in two
dimensions of three-dimensional objects, and there-
fore differing in all its qualities, except color, from
that which it represents; and in addition to this, it
is always reversed.
But let the surface of the water be ruffled by the
wind and what do we find then? A reflection still,
certainly, but so broken up and distorted as to be
quite useless or even misleading as a guide to the
shape and real appearance of the objects reflected.
Here and there for a moment we might happen to
get a clear reflection of some minute part of the
scene — of a single leaf from a tree, for example;
but it would need long labor and considerable
knowledge of natural laws to build up anything like
a true conception of the object reflected by putting
together even a large number of such isolated frag-
ments of an image of it.
Now in the astral plane we can never have any-
96 CLAIRVOYANCE
thing approaching to what we have imaged as a still
surface, but on the contrary we have always to deal
with one in rapid and bewildering motion; judge,
therefore, how little we can depend upon getting a
clear and definite reflection. Thus a clairvoyant who
possesses only the faculty of astral sight can never
rely upon any picture of the past that comes before
him as being accurate and perfect; here and there
some part of it may be so, but he has no means of
knowing which it is. If he is under the care of a
competent teacher he may, by long and careful
training, be shown how to distinguish between re-
liable and unreliable impressions, and to construct
from the broken reflections some kind of image of
the object reflected ; but usually long before he has
mastered those difficulties he will have developed the
mental sight, which renders such labor unnecessary.
On the next plane, which we call the mental, con-
ditions are very different. There the record is full
and accurate, and it would be impossible to make
any mistake in the reading. That is to say, if three
clairvoyants possessing the powers of the mental
plane agreed to examine a certain record there, what
would be presented to their vision would be abso-
lutely the same reflection in each case, and each
would acquire a correct impression from it in read-
ing it. It does not however follow that when they all
compared notes later on the physical plane their re-
ports would agree exactly. It is well known that if
three people who witness an occurrence down here
in the physical world set to work to describe it after-
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 97
wards, their accounts will differ considerably, for
each will have noticed especially those items which
most appeal to him, and will insensibly have made
them the prominent features of the event, some-
times ignoring other points which were in reality
much more important.
Now in the case of an observation on the mental
plane this personal equation would not appreciably
affect the impressions received, for since each would
thoroughly grasp the entire subject it would be im-
possible for him to see its parts out of due propor-
tion ; but, except in the case of carefully trained and
experienced persons, this factor does come into play
in transferring the impressions to the lower planes.
It is in the nature of things impossible that any
account given down here of a vision or experience on
the mental plane can be complete, since nine-tenths
of what is seen and felt there could not be expressed
by physical words at all; and, since all expression
must therefore be partial, there is obviously some
possibility of selection as to the part expressed. It
is for this reason that in all our Theosophical in-
vestigations of recent years so much stress has been
laid upon the constant checking and verifying of
clairvoyant testimony, nothing which rests upon the
vision of one person only having been allowed to
appear in our later books.
But even when the possibility of -error from this
factor of personal equation has been reduced to a
minimum by a careful system of counterchecking,
there still remains the very serious difficulty which
98 CLATEVOYANCE
is inherent in the operation of bringing down im-
pressions from a higher plane to a lower one. This
is something analogous to the difficulty experienced
by a painter in his endeavor to reproduce a three-
dimensional landscape on a flat surface — that is,
practically in two dimensions. Just as the artist
needs long and careful training of eye and hand
before he can produce a satisfactory representation
of nature, so does the clairvoyant need long and
careful training before he can describe accurately on
a lower plane what he sees on a higher one ; and the
probability of getting an exact description from an
untrained person is about equal to that of getting a
perfectly-finished landscape from one who has never
learnt how to draw.
It must be remembered, too, that the most perfect
picture is in reality infinitely far from being a repro-
duction of the scene which it represents, for hardly a
single line or angle in it can ever be the same as
those in the object copied. It is simply a very
ingenious attempt to make upon one only of our five
senses, by means of lines and colors on a flat surface,
an impression similar to that which would have been
made if we had actually had before us the scene
depicted. Except by a suggestion dependent entirely
on our own previous experience, it can convey to us
nothing of the roar of the sea, of the scent of the
flowers, of the taste of the fruit, or of the softness or
hardness of the surface drawn.
Of exactly similar nature, though far greater in
degree, are the difficulties experienced by a clairvoy-
CLAIEVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 99
ant in his attempt to describe upon the physical
plane what he has seen upon the astral; and they
are furthermore greatly enhanced by the fact that,
instead of having merely to recall to the minds of his
hearers conceptions with which they are already fa-
miliar, as the artist does when he paints men or
animals, fields or trees, he has to endeavor by the
very imperfect means at his disposal to suggest to
them conceptions which in most cases are absolutely
new to them.
Small wonder then, that however vivid and strik-
ing his descriptions may seem to his audience, he
himself should constantly be impressed with their
total inadequency, and should feel that his best ef-
forts have entirely failed to convey any idea of what
he really sees. And we must remember that in the
case of the report given down here of a record read
on the mental plane, this difficult operation of trans-
ference from the higher to the lower has taken place
not once but twice, since the memory has been
brought through the intervening astral plane. Even
in a case where the investigator has the advantage of
having developed his mental faculties so that he has
the use of them while awake in the physical body,
he is still hampered by the absolute incapacity of
physical language to express what he sees.
Try for a moment to realize fully what is called
the fourth dimension, of which we said something in
an earlier chapter. It is easy enough to think of our
own three dimensions — to image in our minds the
length, breath and height of any object; and we see
100 CLAIRVOYANCE
that each of these three dimensions is expressed by
a line at right angles to both of the others. The
idea of the fourth dimension is that it might be pos-
sible to draw a fourth line which shall be at right
angels to all three of those already existing.
Now the ordinary mind cannot grasp this idea in
the least, though some few who have made a special
study of the subject have gradually come to be able
to realize one or two very simple four-dimensional
figures.
Still, no words that they can use on this plane can
bring any image of these figures before the minds of
others, and if any reader who has not specially
trained himself along that line will make the effort
to visualize such a shape he will find it quite impos-
sible. Now to express such a form clearly in physi-
cal words would be, in effect, to describe accurately
a single object on the astral plane ; but in examining
the records on the mental plane we should have to
face the additional difficulties of a fifth dimension!
So that the impossibility of fully explaining these
records will be obvious to even the most superficial
observation.
We have spoken of the records as the memory of
the Logos, yet they are very much more than a
memory in an ordinary sense of the word. Hopeless
as it may be to imagine how these images appear
from His point of view, we yet know that as we rise
higher and higher we must be drawing nearer to the
true memory — must be seeing more nearly as He
sees; so that great interest attaches to the experience
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIHK: HIF PAST 101
of the clairvoyant with reference to these records
when he stands upon the buddhic plane — the highest
which his consciousness can reach even when away
from the physical body until he attains the level of
the Arhats.
Here time and space no longer limit him; he no
longer needs, as on the mental plane, to pass a series
of events in review, for past, present and future are
all alike simultaneously present to him, meaningless
as that sounds down here. Indeed, infinitely below
the consciousness of the Logos as even that exalted
plane is, it is yet abundantly clear from what we see'
there that to Him the record must be far more than
what we call a memory, for all that has happened in
the past and all that will happen in the future Is
happening now before His eyes just as are the events
of what we call the present time. Utterly incredible,
wildly incomprehensible, of course, to our limited
understanding; yet absolutely true for all that.
Naturally we could not expect to understand at
our present stage of knowledge how so marvellous a
result is produced, and to attempt an explanation
would only be to involve ourselves in a mist of words
from which we should gain no real information. Yet
a line of thought recurs to my mind which perhaps
suggests the direction in which it is possible that that
explanation may lie : and whatever helps us to realize
that so astounding a statement may after all not be
wholly impossible will be of assistance in broadening
our minds.
Some thirty years ago I remember reading a very
IDS- CI;AI&VOYANCE
curious little book, called, I think, The Stars and the
Earthy the object of which was to endeavor to show
how it was scientifically possible that to the mind of
God the past and the present might be absolutely
simultaneous. Its arguments struck me at the time
as decidedly ingenious, and I will proceed to sum-
marize them, as I think they will be found somewhat
suggestive in connection with the subject which we
have been considering.
When we see anything, whether it be the book
which we hold in our hands or a star millions of
miles away, we do so by means of a vibration in the
ether, commonly called a ray of light, which passes
from the object seen to our eyes. Now the speed with
whicH this vibration passes is so great — about 186,000
miles a second — that when we are considering any
object in our own world we may regard it as practi-
cally instantaneous. When, however, we come to
deal with interplanetary distances we have to take
the speed of light into consideration, for an apprer
ciable period is occupied in traversing these vast
spaces. For example it takes eight minutes and a
quarter for light to travel to us from the sun, so
that when we look at the solar orb we see it by
means of a ray of light which left it more than eight
minutes ago.
From this follows a very curious result. The ray
of light by which we see the sun can obviously report
to us only the state of affairs which existed in that
luminary when it started on its journey, and would
not be in the least affected by anything that hap-
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 103
pened there after it left; so that we really see the
sun not as he is, but as he was eight minutes ago.
That is to say that if anything important took place
in the sun — the formation of a new sun-spot, for in-
stance— an astronomer who was watching the orb
through his telescope at the time would be quite un-
aware of the incident while it was happening, since
the ray of light bearing the news would not reach
him until more than eight minutes later.
The difference is more striking when we consider
the fixed stars, because in their case the distances are
so enormously greater. The pole star, for example,
is so far off that light, travelling at the inconceivable
speed above mentioned, takes a little more than fifty
years to reach our eyes; and from that follows the
strange but inevitable inference that we see the pole
star not as and where it is at this moment, but as and
where it was fifty years ago. Nay, if tomorrow some
cosmic catastrophe were to shatter the pole star into
fragments, we should still see it peacefully shinning in
the sky all the rest of our lives; our children would
grow up to middle age and gather their children
about them in turn before the news of that tre-
mendous accident reached any terrestrial eye. In
the same way there are other stars so far distant
that light takes thousands of years to travel from
them to us, and with reference to their condition our
information is therefore thousands of years behind
time.
Now carry the argument a step farther. Suppose
that we were able to place a man at the distance of
104 CLAIRVOYANCE
186,000 miles from the earth, and yet to endow him
with the wonderful faculty of being able from that
distance to see what was happening here as clearly
as though he were still close beside us. It is evident
that a man so placed would see everything a second
after the time when it really happened, and so at the
present moment he would be seeing what happened
a second ago. Double the distance, and he would
be two seconds behind time, and so on ; remove him to
the distance of the sun (still allowing him to pre-
serve the same mysterious power of sight) and he
would look down and watch you doing not what you
are doing now, but what you were doing eight minutes
and a quarter ago. Carry him away to the polar star,
and he would see passing before his eyes the events
of fifty years ago ; he would be watching the childish
gambols of those who at the very same moment were
really middle-aged men. Marvellous as this may
sound, it is literally and scientifically true, and can-
not be denied.
The little book went on to argue logically enough
that God, being almighty, must possess the wonderful
power of sight which we have been postulating for
our observer; and further, that being omnipresent,
He must be at each of the stations which we
mentioned, and also at every intermediate point, not
successively but simultaneously. Granting these
premises, the inevitable deduction follows that every-
thing which has ever happened from the very begin-
ning of the world must be at this very moment taking
place before the eye of God — not a mere memory of
CLAIEVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 105
it, but the actual occurrence itself being now under
His observation.
All this is materialistic enough, and on the plane
of purely physical science, and we may therefore be
assured that it is not the way in which the memory
of the Logos acts; yet it is neatly worked out and
absolutely incontrovertible, and as I have said before,
it is not without its use, since it gives us a glimpse of
some possibilities which otherwise might not occur
to us.
But, it may be asked, how is it possible, amid the
bewildering confusion of these records of the past, to
find any particular picture when it is wanted? As
a matter of fact, the untrained clairvoyant usually
cannot do so without some special link to put him
en rapport with the subject required. Psychometry
is an instance in point, and it is quite probable that
our ordinary memory is really only another present-
ment of the same idea. It seems as though there
were a sort of magnetic attachment or affinity between
any particle of matter and the record which contains
its history — an affinity which enables it to act as a
kind of conductor between that record and the facul-
ties of anyone who can read it.
For example, I once brought from Stonehenge a
tiny fragment of stone, not larger than a pin's head,
and on putting this into an envelope and handing it
to a psychometer who had no idea what it was, she
at once began to describe that wonderful ruin and the
desolate country surrounding it, and then went on to
picture vividly what were evidently scenes from its
106 CLAIEVOYANCE
early history, showing that that infinitesimal fragment
had been sufficient to put her into communication
with the records connected with the spot from which
it came. The scenes through which we pass in the
course of our life seem to act in the same manner
upon the cells of our brain as did the history of
Stonehenge upon that particle of stone : they establish
a connection with those cells by means of which our
mind is put en rapport with that particular portion of
the records, and so we " remember " what we have
seen.
Even a trained clairvoyant needs some link to
enable him to find the record of an event of which
he has no previous knowledge. If, for example, he
wished to observe the landing of Julius Caesar on the
shores of England, there are several ways in which
he might approach the subject. If he happened to
have visited the scene of the occurrence, the simplest
way would probably be to call up the image of that
spot, and then run back through its records until he
reached the period desired. If he had not seen the
place, he might run back in time to the date of the
event, and then search the Channel for a fleet of
Roman galleys; or he might examine the records of
Roman life at about that period, where he would have
no difficulty in identifying so prominent a figure as
Caesar, or in tracing him when found through all his
Gallic wars until he set his foot upon British land.
People often enquire as to the aspect of these
records — whether they appear near or far away from
the eye, whether the figures in them are large or
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 107
small, whether the pictures follow one another as in
a panorama or melt into one another like dissolving
views, and so on. One can only reply that their
appearance varies to a certain extent according to
the conditions under which they are seen. Upon the
astral plane the reflection is most often a simple
picture, though occasionally the figures seen would
be endowed with motion; in this latter case, instead
of a mere snapshot a rather longer and more perfect
reflection has taken place.
On the mental plane they have two widely different
aspects. When the visitor to that plane is not think-
ing specially of them in any way, the records simply
form a background to whatever is going on, just as
the reflections in a pier-glass at the end of a room
might form a background to the life of the people in
it. It must always be borne in mind that under these
conditions they are really merely reflections from the
ceaseless activity of a great Consciousness upon a
far higher plane, and have very much the appearance
of an endless succession of the recently invented
cinematograph, or living photographs. They do not
melt into one another like dissolving views, nor do a
series of ordinary pictures follow one another; but
the action of the reflected figures constantly goes on,
as though one were watching the actors on a distant
stage.
But if the trained investigator turns his attention
specially to any one scene, or wishes to call it up
before him, an extraordinary change at once takes
place, for this is the plane of thought, and to think of
108 CLAIRVOYANCE
anything is to bring it instantaneously before you.
For example, if a man wills to see the record of
that event to which we before referred — the landing
of Julius Caesar — he finds himself in a moment not
looking at any picture, but standing on the shore
among the legionaries, with the whole scene being
enacted around him, precisely in every respect as he
would have seen it if he had stood there in the flesh
on that autumn morning in the year 55 B. c. Since
what he sees is but a reflection, the actors are of
course entirely unconscious of him, nor can any effort
of his change the course of their action in the smallest
degree, except only that he can control the rate at
which the drama shall pass before him — can have
the events of a whole year rehearsed before his eyes
in a single hour, or can at any moment stop the
movement altogether, and hold any particular scene
in view as a picture as long as he chooses.
In truth he observes not only what he would have
seen if he had been there at the time in the flesh, but
much more. He hears and understands all that the
people say, and he is conscious of all their thoughts
and motives; and one of the most interesting of the
many possibilities which open up before one who has
learnt to read the records is the study of the thought
of ages long past — the thought of the cave-men and
the lake-dwellers as well as that which ruled the
mighty civilizations of Atlantis, of Egypt or Chaldsea.
What splendid possibilities open up before the man
who is in full possession of this power may easily be
imagined. He has before him a field of historical
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 109
research of most entrancing interest. Not only can
he rev^w at his leisure all history with which we are
acquainted, correcting as he examines it the many
errors and misconceptions which have crept into the
accounts handed down to us; he can also range at
will over the whole story of the world from its very
beginning, watching the slow development of intellect
in man, the descent of the Lords of the Flame, and
the growth of the mighty civilizations which they
founded.
Nor is his study confined to the progress of
humanity alone ; he has before him, as in a museum,
all the strange animal and vegetable forms which
occupied the stage in the days when the world was
young; he can follow all the wonderful geological
changes which have taken place, and watch the
course of the great cataclysms which have altered
the whole face of the earth again and again.
In one especial case an even closer sympathy with
the past is possible to the reader of the records. If in
the course of his enquiries he has to look upon some
scene in which he himself has in a former birth taken
part, he may deal with it in two ways; he can either
regard it in the usual manner as a spectator (though
always, be it remembered, as a spectator whose insight
and sympathy are perfect) or he may once more
identify himself with that long-dead personality of his
— may throw himself back for the time into that life
' of long ago, and absolutely experience over again the
thoughts and the emotions, the pleasures and the
pains of a prehistoric past. No wilder and more vivid
110 CLAIRVOYANCE
adventures can be conceived than some of those
through which he thus may pass ; yet through it all he
must never lose hold of the consciousness of his own
individuality — must retain the power to return at
will to his present personality.
It is often asked how it is possible for an investi-
gator accurately to determine the date of any picture
from the far-distant past which he disinters from the
records. The fact is that it is sometimes rather tedious
work to find an exact date, but the thing can usually
be done if it is worth while to spend the time and
trouble over it. If we are dealing with Greek or
Roman times the simplest method is usually to look
into the mind of the most intelligent person present in
the picture, and see what date he supposes it to be ; or
the investigator might watch him writing a letter or
other document and observe what date, if any, was
included in what was written. When once the Roman
or Greek date is thus obtained, to reduce it to our
own system of chronology is merely a matter of cal-
culation.
Another way which is frequently adopted is to turn
from the scene under examination to a contemporary
picture in some great and well-known city such as
Rome, and note what monarch is reigning there, or
who are the consuls for the year ; and when such data
are discovered a glance at any good history will give
the rest. Sometimes a date can be obtained by exam-
ining some public proclamation or some legal docu-
ment; in fact in the times of which we are speaking
the difficulty is easily surmounted.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 111
The matter is by no means so simple, however, when
we come to deal with periods much earlier than this
— with a scene from early Egypt, Chaldsea, or China,
or to go further back still, from Atlantis itself or any
of its numerous colonies. A date can still be obtained
easily enough from the mind of any educated man,
but there is no longer any means of relating it to our
own system of dates, since the man will be reckoning
by eras of which we know nothing, or by the reigns
of kings whose history is lost in the night of time.
Our methods, nevertheless, are not yet exhausted.
It must be remembered that it is possible for the in-
vestigator to pass the records before him at any speed
that he may desire — at the rate of a year in a second
if he will, or even very much faster still. Now there
are one or two events in ancient history whose dates
have already been accurately fixed — as, for example,
the sinking of Poseidonis in the year 9564 B. c. It is
therefore obvious that if from the general appearance
of the surroundings it seems probable that a picture
seen is within measurable distance of one of these
events, it can be related to that event by the simple
process of running through the record rapidly, and
counting the years between the two as they pass.
Still, if those years ran into thousands, as they
might sometimes do, this plan would be insufferably
tedious. In that case we are driven back upon the
astronomical method. In consequence of the move-
ment which is commonly called the precession of the
equinoxes, though it might more accurately be de-
scribed as a kind of second rotation of the earth, the
112 CLAIBVOYANCE
angle between the equator and the ecliptic steadily but
very slowly varies. Thus, after long intervals of time
we find the pole of the earth no longer pointing to-
wards the same spot in the apparent sphere of the
heavens, or in other words, our pole-star is not, as at
present, a Ursae Minoris, but some other celestial
body ; and from this position of the pole of the earth,
which can easily be ascertained by careful observa-
tion of the night-sky of the picture under considera-
tion, an approximate date can be calculated without
difficulty.
In estimating the date of occurrences which took
place millions of years ago in earlier races, the period
of a secondary rotation (or the precession of the equi-
noxes) is frequently used as a unit, but of course
absolute accuracy is not usually required in such
cases, round numbers being sufficient for all practical
purposes in dealing with epochs so remote.
The accurate reading of the records, whether of
one's own past lives or those of others, must not, how-
ever, be thought of as an achievement possible to
anyone without careful previous training. As has
been already remarked, though occasional reflections
may be had upon the astral plane, the power to use
the mental sense is necessary before any reliable read-
ing can be done. Indeed, to minimize the possibility
of error, that sense ought to be fully at the command
of the investigator while awake in the physical body;
and to acquire that faculty needs years of ceaseless
labor and rigid self -discipline.
Many people seem to expect that as soon as they
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 113
• \
have signed their application and joined the Theo-
sophical Society they will at once remember at least
three or four of their past births; indeed, some of
them promptly begin to imagine recollections and de-
clare that in their last incarnation they were Mary
Queen of Scots, Cleopatra, or Julius Caesar ! Of course
such extravagant claims simply bring discredit upon
those who are so foolish as to make them; but unfor-
tunately some of that discredit is liable to be reflected,
however unjustly, upon the Society to which they
belong, so that a man who feels seething within him
the conviction that he was Homer or Shakespeare
would do well to pause and apply common-sense tests
on the physical plane before publishing the news to
the world.
It is quite true that some people have had glimpses
of scenes from their past lives in dreams, but natur-
ally these are usually fragmentary and unreliable. I
had myself in earlier life an experience of this nature.
Among my dreams I found that one was constantly
recurring — a dream of a house with a portico over-
looking a beautiful bay, not far from a hill on the top
of which rose a graceful building. I knew that house
perfectly, and was as familiar with the position of its
rooms and the view from its door as I was with those
of my home, in this present life. In those days I knew
nothing about reincarnation, so that it seemed to me
simply a curious coincidence that this dream should
repeat itself so often ; and it was not until some time
after I had joined the Society that, when one who
knew was showing me some pictures of my last in-
114 CLAIRVOYANCE
carnation, I discovered that this persistent dream had
been in reality a partial recollection, and that the
house which I knew so well was the one in which I
was born more than two thousand years ago.
But although there are several cases on record in
which some well-remembered scene has thus come
through from one life to another, a considerable
development of occult faculty is necessary before an
investigator can definitely trace a line of incarnations,
whether they be his own or another man's. This will
be obvious if we remember the conditions of the prob-
lem which has to be worked out. To follow a person
from this life to the one preceding it, it is necessary
first of all to trace his present life backwards to his
birth and then to follow up in reverse order the stages
by which the Ego descended into incarnation.
This will obviously take us back eventually to the
condition of the Ego upon the higher levels of the
mental plane ; so it will be seen that to perform this
task effectually the investigator must be able to use
the sense corresponding to that exalted level while
awake in his physical body — in other words, his con-
sciousness must be centered in the reincarnating Ego
itself, and no longer in the lower personality. In that
case, the memory of the Ego being aroused, his own
past incarnations will be spread out before him like
an open book, and he would be able, if he wished, to
examine the conditions of another Ego upon that level
and trace him backwards through the lower mental
and astral lives which led up to it, until he came to the
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 115
last physical death of that Ego, and through it to his
previous life.
There is no way but this in which the chain of
lives can be followed through with absolute certainty :
and consequently we may at once put aside as con-
scious or unconscious impostors those people who ad-
vertise that they are able to trace out anyone's past
incarnations for so many shillings a head. Needless,
to say, the true occultist does not advertise, and never
under any circumstances accepts money for any exhi-
bition of his powers.
Assuredly the student who wishes to acquire the
power of following up a line of incarnations can do so
only by learning from a qualified teacher how the
work is to be done. There have been those who per-
sistently asserted that it was only necessary for a
man to feel good and devotional and "brotherly,"
and all the wisdom of the ages would immediately
flow in upon him; but a little common-sense will at
once expose the absurdity of such a position. How-
ever good a child may be, if he wants to know the
multiplication table he must set to work and learn it ;
and the case is precisely similiar with the capacity to
use spiritual faculties. The faculties themselves will
no doubt manifest as the man evolves, but he can learn
how to use them reliably and to the best advantage
only by steady hard work and persevering effort.
Take the case of those who wish to help others
while on the astral plane during sleep; it is obvious
that the more knowledge they possess here, the more
valuable will their services be on that higher plane.
116 CLAIEVOYANCE
For example, the knowledge of languages would be
useful to them, for though on the mental plane men
can communicate directly by thought-transference,
whatever their languages may be, on the astral plane
this is not so, and a thought must be definitely for-
mulated in words before it is comprehensible. If,
therefore, you wish to help a man on that plane, you
must have some language in common by means of
which you can communicate with him, and conse-
quently the more languages you know the more widely
useful you will be. In fact there is perhaps no kind
of knowledge for which a use cannot be found in the
work of the occultist.
It would be well for all students to bear in mind
that occultism is the apotheosis of common-sense, and
that every vision which comes to them is not neces-
sarily a picture from the akashic records, nor every
experience a revelation from on high. It is better
far to err on the side of healthy scepticism than of
over-credulity; and it is an admirable rule never to
hunt about for an occult explanation of anything
when a plain and obvious physical one is available.
Our duty is to endeavor to keep our balance always,
and never lose our self-control, but to take a reason-
able, common-sense view of whatever may happen to
us ; so shall we be better Theosophists, wiser occultists,
and more useful helpers than we have ever been be-
fore.
As usual, we find examples of all degrees of the
power to see into this memory of nature, from the
trained man who can consult the record for himself
CLAIEVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 117
at will, down to the person who gets nothing but oc-
casional vague glimpses, or has even perhaps had only
one such glimpse. But even the man who possesses this
faculty only partially and occasionally still finds it of
the deepest interest. The psychometer, who needs an
object physically connected with the past in order to
bring it all into life again around him, and the crystal-
gazer who can sometimes direct his less certain astral
telescope to some historic scene of long ago, may both
derive the greatest enjoyment from the exercise of
their respective gifts, even though they may not al-
ways understand exactly how their results are pro-
duced, and may not have them fully under control
under all circumstances.
In many cases of the lower manifestations of these
powers we find that they are exercised unconsciously ;
many a crystal-gazer watches scenes from the past
without being able to distinguish them from visions
of the present, and many a vaguely-psychic person
finds pictures constantly arising before his eyes with-
out ever realizing that he is in effect psychometrizing
the various objects around him as he happens to
touch them or stand near them.
An interesting variant of this class of psychics is
the man who is able to psychometrize persons only,
and not inanimate objects as is more usual. In most
cases this faculty shows itself erratically, so that,
such a psychic will, when introduced to a stranger,
often see in a flash some prominent event in that
stranger's earlier life, but on other similar occasions
will receive no special impression. More rarely we
118 CLAIRVOYANCE
meet, with someone who gets detailed visions of the
past life of everyone whom he encounters. Perhaps
one of the best examples of this class was the German
writer Zschokke, who describes in his autobiography
this extraordinary power of which he found himself
possessed. He says: —
"It has happened to me occasionally at the first
meeting with a total stranger, when I have been
listening in silence to his conversation, that his past
life up to the present moment, with many minute
circumstances belonging to one or other particular
scene in it, has come across me like a dream, but
distinctly, entirely involuntarily and unsought, oc-
cupying in duration a few minutes.
"For a long time I was disposed to consider these
fleeting visions as a trick of the fancy — the more so
as my dream-vision displayed to me the dress and
movements of the actors, the appearance of the room,
the furniture, and other accidents of the scene; till
on one occasion, in a gamesome mood, I narrated to
my family the secret history of a sempstress who had
just before quitted the room. I had never seen the
person before. Nevertheless the hearers were aston-
ished, and laughed and would not be persuaded but
that I had a previous acquaintance with the former
life of the person, inasmuch as what I had stated was
perfectly true.
"I was not less astonished to find that my dream-
vision agreed with reality. I then gave more atten-
tion to the subject, and as often as propriety allowed
of it, I related to those whose lives had so passed
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST 119
before me the substance of my dream- vision, to obtain
from them its contradiction or confirmation. On
every occasion its confirmation followed, not without
amazement on the part of those who gave it.
"On a certain fair-day I went into the town of
Waldshut accompanied by two young foresters, who
are still alive. It was evening, and tired with our
walk, we went into an inn called the 'Vine.' We
took our supper with a numerous company at the
public table, when it happened that they made them-
selves merry over the peculiarities and simplicity of
the Swiss in connection with the belief in mesmerism,
Lavater's physiognomical system and the like. One
of my companions, whose national pride was touched
by their raillery, begged me to make some reply, par-
ticularly in answer to a young man of superior ap-
pearance who sat opposite, and had indulged in un-
restrained ridicule.
"It happened that the events of this person's life
had just previously passed before my mind. I turned
to him with the question whether he would reply to
me with truth and candor if I narrated to him the
most secret passages of his history, he being as little
known to me as I to him? That would, I suggested,
go something beyond Lavater's physiognomical skill.
He promised if I told the truth to admit it openly.
Then I narrated the events with which my dream-
vision had furnished me, and the table learnt the his-
tory of the young tradesman's life, of his school years,
his peccadilloes, and, finally, of a little act of roguery
committed by him on the strong-box of his employer.
120 CLAIEVOYANCE
I described the uninhabited room with its white walls,
where to the right of the brown door there had stood
upon the table the small black money-chest, etc. The
man, much struck, admitted the correctness of each
circumstance — even which I could not expect, of the
last/'
And after narrating this incident, the worthy
Zschokke calmly goes on to wonder whether perhaps
after all this remarkable power, which he had so
often displayed, might not really have been always
the result of mere chance coincidence !
Comparatively few accounts of persons possessing
this faculty of looking back into the past are to be
found in the literature of the subject, and it might
therefore be supposed to be much less common than
prevision. I suspect, however, that the truth is rather
that it is much less commonly recognized. As I said
before, it may very easily happen that a person may
see a picture of the past without recognizing it as
such, unless there happens to be in it something
which attracts special attention, such as a figure in
armour or in antique costume. A prevision also
might not always be recognized as such at the time;
but the occurrence of the event foreseen recalls it
vividly at the same time that it manifests its nature,
so that it is unlikely to be overlooked. It is probable,
therefore, that occasional glimpses of these astral re-
flections of the akashic records are commoner than
the published accounts would lead us to believe.
CLAIBVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 121
CHAPTER VIII.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE
EVEN if, in a dim sort of way, we feel ourselves able
to grasp the idea that the whole of the past may be
simultaneously and actively present in a sufficiently
exalted consciousness, we are confronted by a far
greater difficulty when we endeavor to realize how
all the future may also be comprehended in that con-
sciousness. If we could believe in the Mohammedan
doctrine of kismet, or the Calvinistic theory of pre-
destination, the conception would be easy enough, but
knowing as we do that both these are grotesque dis-
tortions of the truth, we must look round for a more
acceptable hypothesis.
There may still be some people who deny the pos-
sibility of prevision, but such denial simply shows
their ignorance of the evidence on the subject. The
large number of authenticated cases leaves no room
for doubt as to the fact, but many of them are of such
a nature as to render a reasonable explanation by no
means easy to find. It is evident that the Ego pos-
122 CLAIRVOYANCE
sesses a certain amount of previsional faculty, and if
the events foreseen were always of great importance,
one might suppose that an extraordinary stimulus
had enabled him for that occasion only to make clear
impression of what he saw upon his lower personality.
No doubt that is the explanation of many of the cases
in which death or grave disaster is foreseen, but there
are a large number of instances on record to which it
does not seem to apply, since the events foretold are
frequently exceedingly trivial and unimportant.
A well-known story of second-sight in Scotland
will illustrate what I mean. A man who had no be-
lief in the occult was forewarned by a Highland seer
of the approaching death of a neighbor. The proph-
ecy was given with considerable wealth of detail, in-
cluding a full description of the funeral, with the
names of the four pall-bearers and others who would
be present. The auditor seems to have laughed at
the whole story and promptly forgotten it, but the
death of his neighbor at the time foretold recalled
the warning to his mind, and he determined to falsify
part of the prediction at any rate by being one of the
pall-bearers himself. He succeeded in getting matters
arranged as he wished, but just as the funeral was
about to start he was called away from his post by
some small matter which detained him only a minute
or two. As he came hurrying back he saw with sur-
prise that the procession had started without him,
and that the prediction had been exactly fulfilled, for
the four pall-bearers were those who had been indi-
cated in the vision.
CLAIKVO^ANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 123
Now here is a very trifling matter, which could have
been of no possible importance to anybody, definitely
foreseen months beforehand; and although a man
makes a determined effort to alter the arrangement
indicated he fails entirely to affect it in the least.
Certainly this looks very much like predestination,
even down to the smallest detail, and it is only when
we examine this question from higher planes that we
are able to see our way to escape that theory. Of
course, as I said before about another branch of the
subject, a full explanation eludes us as yet, and ob-
viously must do so until our knowledge is infinitely
greater than it is now; the most that we can hope to
do for the present is to indicate the line along which
an explanation may be found.
There is no doubt whatever that, just as what is
happening now is the result of causes set in motion in
the past, so what will happen in the future will be the
result of causes already in operation. Even down
here we can calculate that if certain actions are per-
formed certain results will follow, but our reckoning
is constantly liable to be disturbed by the interference
of factors which we have not been able to take into
account. But if we raise our consciousness to the
mental plane we can see very much farther into the
results of our actions.
We can trace, for example, the effect of a casual
word, not only upon the person to whom it was ad-
dressed, but through him on many others as it is
passed on in widening circles, until it seems to have
affected the whole country; and one glimpse of such
124 CLAIRVOYANCE
a vision is far more efficient than any number of
moral precepts in impressing upon us the necessity of
extreme circumspection in thought, word, and deed.
Not only can we from that plane see thus fully the
result of every action, but we can also see where and
in what way the results of other actions apparently
quite unconnected with it will interfere with and
modify it. In fact, it may be said that the results of
all causes at present in action are clearly visible —
that the future, as it would be if no entirely new
causes should arise, lies open before our gaze.
New causes of course do arise, because man's will is
free; but in the case of all ordinary people the use
which they will make of their freedom can be calcu-
lated beforehand with considerable accuracy. The
average man has so little real will that he is very
much the creature of circumstances; his action in
previous lives places him amid surroundings, and
their influence upon him is so very much the most im-
portant factor in his life-story that his future course
may be predicted with almost mathematical certainty.
With the developed man the case is different ; for him
also the main events of life are arranged by his past
actions, but the way in which he will allow them to
affect him, the methods by which he will deal with
them and perhaps triumph over them — these are all
his own, and they cannot be foreseen even on the
mental plane except as probabilities.
Looking down on man's life in this way from above,
it seems as though his free will could be exercised only
at certain crises in his career. He arrives at a point
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 125
in his life where there are obviously two or three al-
ternative courses open before him; he is absolutely
free to choose which of them he pleases, and although
some one who knew his nature thoroughly well might
feel almost certain what his choice would be, such
knowledge on his friend's part is in no sense a com-
pelling force.
But when he has chosen, he has to go through with
it and take the consequences; having entered upon
a particular path he may, in many cases, be forced to
go on for a very long way before he has any oppor-
tunity to turn aside. His position is somewhat like
that of the driver of a train; when he comes to a
junction he may have the points set either this way
or that, and so can pass on to whichever line he
pleases, but when he has passed on to one of them he
is compelled to run on along the line which he has
selected until he reaches another set of points, where
again an opportunity of choice is offered to him.
Now, in looking down from the mental plane, these
points of new departure would be clearly visible, and
all the results of each choice would lie open before
us, certain to be worked out even to the smallest
detail. The only point which would remain un-
certain would be the all-important one as to which
choice the man would make. We should, in fact, have
not one but several futures mapped out before our
eyes, without necessarily being able to determine
which of them would materialize itself into accom-
plished fact. In most instances we should see so
strong a probability that we should not hesitate to
126 CLAIEVOYANCE
come to a decision, but the case which I have de-
scribed is certainly theorically possible. Still, even
this much knowledge would enable us to do with
safety a good deal of prediction ; and it is not difficult
for us to imagine that a far higher power than ours
might always be able to foresee which way every
choice would go, and consequently to prophesy with
absolute certainty.
On the buddhic plane, however, no such elaborate
process of conscious calculation is necessary, for, as I
said before, in some manner which down here is totally
inexplicable, the past, the present, and the future,
are there all existing simultaneously. One can only
accept this fact, for its cause lies in the faculty of the
plane, and the way in which this higher faculty works
is naturally quite incomprehensible to the physical
brain. Yet now and then one may meet with a hint
that seems to bring us a trifle nearer to a dim possi-
bility of comprehension. One such hint was given
by Dr. Oliver Lodge in his address to the British
Association at Cardiff. He said.
"A luminous and helpful idea is that time is but
a relative mode of regarding things; we progress
through phenomena at a certain definite pace, and
this objective advance we interpret in an objective
manner, as if events moved necessarily in this order
and at this precise rate. But that may be only one
mode of regarding them. The events may be in some
sense in existence always, both past and future, and
it may be we who are arriving at them, not they which
are happening. The analogy of a traveller in a rail-
CLAIEVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTUEE 127
way train is useful; if he could never leave the train
nor alter its pace he would probably consider the
landscapes as necessarily successive and be unable to
conceive their co-existence. . . . We perceive there-
fore, a possible fourth dimensional aspect about time,
the inexorableness of whose flow may be a natural
part of our present limitations. And if we once grasp
the idea that past and future may be actually exist-
ing, we can recognize that they may have a controll-
ing influence on all present action, and the two to-
gether may constitute the t higher plane7 or totality
of things after which, as it seems to me, we are im-
pelled to seek, in connection with the directing of
form or determinism, and the action of living beings
consciously directed to a definite and preconceived
end."
Time is not in reality the fourth dimension at all;
yet to look at it for the moment from that point of
view is some slight help towards grasping the un-
graspable. Suppose that we hold a wooden cone at
right angles to a sheet of paper, and slowly push it
through it point first. A microbe living on the sur-
face of that sheet of paper, and having no power of
conceiving anything outside of that surface, could not
only never see the cone as a whole, but he could form
no sort of conception of such a body at all. All that
he would see would be the sudden appearance of a
tiny circle, which would gradually and mysteriously
grow larger and larger until it vanished from his
world as suddenly and incomprehensibly as it had
come into it.
128 CLAIEVOYANCE
Thus, what were in reality a series of sections of
the cone would appear to him to be successive stages
in the life of a circle, and it would be impossible for
him to grasp the idea that these successive stages
could be seen simultaneously. Yet it is, of course,
easy enough for us, looking down upon the transaction
from another dimension, to see that the microbe is
simply under a delusion arising from its own limita-
tions, and that the cone exists as a whole all the
while. Our own delusion as to past, present, and
future is possibly not dissimilar, and the view that is
gained of any sequence of events from the buddhic
plane corresponds to the view of the cone as a whole.
Naturally, any attempt to work out this suggestion
lands us in a series of startling paradoxes; but the
fact remains a fact, nevertheless, and the time will
come when it will be clear as noonday to our com-
prehension.
When the pupil's consciousness is fully developed
upon the buddhic plane, therefore, perfect prevision
is possible to him, though he may not — nay, he cer-
tainly will not — be able to bring the whole result of
his sight through fully and in order into this light.
Still, a great deal of clear foresight is obviously with-
in his power whenever he likes to exercise it ; and even
when he is not exercising it, frequent flashes of fore-
knowledge come through into his ordinary life, so
that he often has an instantaneous intuition as to
how things will turn out even before their inception.
Short of this perfect prevision we find, as in the
previous cases, that all degrees of this type of clair-
CLAIEVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 129
voyanoe exist, from the occasional vague premoni-
tions which cannot in any true sense be called sight
at all, up to frequent and fairly complete second-
sight. The faculty to which this latter somewhat
misleading name has been given is an extremely in-
teresting one, and would well repay more careful and
systematic study than has ever hitherto been given
to it.
It is best known to us as a not infrequent pos-
session of the Scottish Highlanders, though it is by
no means confined to them. Occasional instances of
it have appeared in almost every nation, but it has
always been commonest among mountaineers and
men of lonely life. With us in England it is often
spoken of as though it were the exclusive appanage
of the Celtic race, but in reality it has appeared
among similiarly situated peoples the world over. It
is stated, for example, to be very common among the
Westphalian peasantry.
Sometimes the second-sight consists of a picture
clearly foreshowing some coming event; more fre-
quently, perhaps, the glimpse of the future is given
by some symbolical appearance. It is noteworthy
that the events foreseen are invariably unpleasant
ones — death being the commonest of all ; I do not
recollect a single instance in which the second-sight
has shown anything which was not of the most gloomy
nature. It has a ghastly symbolism which is all its
own — a symbolism of shrouds and corpse-candles, and
other funeral horrors. In some cases it appears to be
to a certain extent dependent on locality, for it is
130 CLAIRVOYANCE
stated that inhabitants of the Isle of Skye who possess
the faculty often lose it when they leave the island,
even though it be only to cross to the mainland. The
gift of such sight is sometimes hereditary in a fam-
ily for generations, but this is not an invariable rule,
for it often appears sporadically in one member of a
family otherwise free from its lugubrious influence.
An example in which an accurate vision of a
coming event was seen some months beforehand by
second-sight has already been given. Here is another
and perhaps a more striking one, which I give ex-
actly as it was related to me by one of the actors in
the scene.
"We plunged into the jungle, and had walked on
for about an hour without much success, when
Cameron, who happened to be next to me, stopped
suddenly, turned pale as death, and, pointing
straight before him, cried in accents of horror:
1 ' ' See ! see ! merciful heaven, look there ! '
" ' Where? what? what is it?' we all shouted
confusedly, as we rushed up to him and looked round
in expectation of encountering a tiger — a cobra —
we hardly knew what, but assuredly something ter-
rible, since it had been sufficient to cause such evident
emotion in our usually self-contained comrade. But
neither tiger nor cobra was visible — nothing but
Cameron pointing with ghastly, haggard face and
starting eyeballs at something we could not see.
' ' ' Cameron ! Cameron ! ' cried I, seizing his arm,
" 'for heaven's sake, speak! What is the matter?'
"Scarcely were the words out of my mouth when
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTUBE 131
a low, but very peculiar sound struck on my ear, and
Cameron, dropping his pointing hand, said in a
hoarse, strained voice, 'There! you heard it? Thank
God it's over!7 and fell to the ground insensible.
" There was a momentary confusion while we un-
fastened his collar, and I dashed in his face some
water which I fortunately had in my flask, while
another tried to pour brandy between his clenched
teeth ; and under cover of it I whispered to the man
next to me (one of our greatest sceptics, by the way),
'Beauchamp, did you hear anything?'
" 'Why, yes/ he replied, 'a curious sound, very;
a sort of crash or rattle far away in the distance, yet
very distinct; if the thing were not utterly impossi-
ble, I could have sworn it was the rattle of mus-
ketry.'
' ' ' Just my impression, ' murmured I ; ' but hush ;
he is recovering.'
"In a minute or two he was able to speak feebly,
and began to thank us and apologize for giving
trouble; and soon he sat up, leaning against a tree,
and in a firm, though still low voice said:
" 'My dear friends, I feel I owe you an explana-
tion of my extraordinary behavior. It is an ex-
planation that I would fain avoid giving; but it
must come some time, and so may as well be given
now. You may perhaps have noticed that when
during our voyage you all joined in scoffing at
dreams, portents and visions, I invariably avoided
giving any opinion on the subject. I did so because
while I had no desire to court ridicule or provoke
132 CLAIEVOYANCE
discussion, I was unable to agree with you, knowing
only too well from my own dread experience that
the world which men agree to call that of the super-
natural is just as real as — nay, perhaps, even far
more real than — this world we see about us. In other
words, I, like many of my countrymen, am cursed
with the gift of second-sight — that awful faculty
which foretells in vision calamities that are shortly
to occur.
" 'Such a vision I had just now, and its excep-
tional horror moved me as you have seen. I saw be-
fore me a corpse — not that of one who has died a
peaceful natural death, but that of the victim of
some terrible accident; a ghastly, shapeless mass,
with a face swollen, crushed, unrecognizable. I saw
this dreadful object placed in a coffin, and the fun-
eral service performed over it. I saw the burial-
ground, I saw the clergyman: and though I had
never seen either before, I can picture both perfectly
in my mind's eye now; I saw you, myself, Beau-
champ, all of us and many more, standing round as
mourners; I saw the soldiers raise their muskets af-
ter the service was over; I heard the volley they
fired — and then I knew no more.'
"As he spoke of that volley of musketry I glanced
across with a shudder at Beauchamp, and the look of
stony horror on that handsome sceptic's face was not
to be forgotten."
This is only one incident (and by no means the
principal one) in a very remarkable story of psychic
experience, but as for the moment we are concerned
CLAIEVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 133
merely with the example of second-sight which it
gives us, I need only say that later in the day the
party of young soldiers discovered the body of their
commanding officer in the terrible condition so graph-
ically described by Mr. Cameron. The narrative con-
tinues :
"When, on the following evening, we arrived at
our destination, and our melancholy deposition had
been taken down by the proper authorities, Cameron
and I went out for a quiet walk, to endeavor with
the assistance of the soothing influence of nature to
shake off something of the gloom which paralyzed
our spirits. Suddenly he clutched my arm, and
pointing through some rude railings, said in a
trembling voice, 'Yes, there it is! that is the burial-
ground I saw yesterday.' And when later on we
were introduced to the chaplain of the post, I no-
ticed, though my friends did not, the irrepressible
shudder with which Cameron took his hand, and I
knew that he had recognized the clergyman of his
vision. ' '
As for the occult rationale of all this, I presume
Mr. Cameron's vision was a pure case of second-
sight, and if so the fact that the two men who were
evidently nearest to him (certainly one — probably
both — actually touching him) participated in it to
the limited extent of hearing the concluding volley,
while the others who were not so close did not, would
show that the intensity with which the vision im-
pressed itself upon the seer occasioned vibrations in
his mind-body which were communicated to those of
134 CLAIRVOYANCE
the persons in contact with him, as in ordinary
thought-transference. Anyone who wishes to read
the rest of the story will find it in the pages of Luci-
fer, vol. xx., p. 457.
Scores of examples of similar nature to these might
easily be collected. With regard to the smybolical
variety of this sight, it is commonly stated among
those who possess it that if on meeting a living per-
son they see a phantom shroud wrapped around him,
it is a sure prognostication of his death. The date
of the approaching decease is indicated either by the
extent to which the shroud covers the body, or by the
time of day at which the vision is seen; for if it be
in the early morning they say that the man will die
during the same day, but if it be in the evening,
then it will be only some time within a year.
Another variant (and a remarkable one) of the
symbolic form of second-sight is that in which the
headless apparition of the person whose death is
foretold manifests itself to the seer. An example of
that class is given in Signs before Death as having
happened in the family of Dr. Ferrier, though in
that case, if I recollect rightly, the vision did not
occur until the time of the death, or very near it.
Turning from the seers who are regularly in pos-
session of a certain faculty, although its manifesta-
tions are only occasionally fully under their control,
we are confronted by a large number of isolated in-
stances of prevision in the case of people with whom
it is not in any way a regular faculty. Perhaps the
majority of these occur in dreams, although exam-
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 135
pies of the waking vision are by no means wanting.
Sometimes the prevision refers to an event of dis-
tinct importance to the seer, and so justifies the ac-
tion of the Ego in taking the trouble to impress it.
In other cases, the event is one which is of no ap-
parent importance, or is not in any way connected
with the man to whom the vision comes. Sometimes
it is clear that the intention of the Ego (or the com-
municating entity, whatever it may be) is to warn
the lower self of the approach of some calamity,
either in order that it may be prevented or, if that
be not possible, that the shock may be minimized by
preparation.
The event most frequently thus foreshadowed is,
perhaps not unnaturally, death — sometimes the death
of the seer himself, sometimes that of one dear to
him. This type of prevision is so common in the
literature of the subject, and its object is so obvious,
that we need hardly cite examples of it; but one or
two instances in which the prophetic sight, though
clearly useful, was yet of a less somber character,
will prove not uninteresting to the reader. The fol-
lowing is culled from that storehouse of the student
of the uncanny, Mrs. Crowe's Night Side of Nature,
p. 72.
"A few years ago Dr. Watson, now residing at
Glasgow, dreamt that he received a summons to at-
tend a patient at a place some miles from where he
was living ; that he started on horseback, and that as
he was crossing a moor he saw a bull making furi-
ously at him, whose horns he only escaped by tak-
136 CLAIEVOYANCE
ing refuge on a spot inaccessible to the animal, where
he waited a long time till some people observing his
situation, came to his assistance and released him.
"Whilst at breakfast on the following morning the
summons came, and smiling at the odd coincidence
(as he thought it), he started on horseback. He was
quite ignorant of the road he had to go, but by and
by he arrived at the moor, which he recognized, and
presently the bull appeared, coming full tilt towards
him. But his dream had shown him the place of
refuge, for which he instantly made, and there he
spent three or four hours, besiged by the animal, till
the country people set him free. Dr. Watson de-
clares that but for the dream he should not have
known in what direction to run for safety."
Another case, in which a much longer interval
separated the warning and its fulfilment, is given by
Dr. F. G. Lee, in Glimpses of the Supernatural, vol.
i., p. 240.
"Mrs. Hannah Green, the housekeeper of a coun-
try family in Oxfordshire, dreamt one night that she
had been left alone in the house upon a Sunday even-
ing, and that hearing a knock at the door of the
chief entrance she went to it and there found an
ill-looking tramp armed with a bludgeon, who in-
sisted on forcing himself into the house. She thought
that she struggled for some time to prevent him so
doing, but quite ineffectually, and that, being struck
down by him and rendered insensible, he thereupon
gained ingress to the mansion. On this she awoke.
"As nothing happened for a considerable period
CLAIEVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 137
the circumstance of the dream was soon forgotten,
and, as she herself asserts, had altogether passed
away from her mind. However, seven years after-
wards this same housekeeper was left with two other
servants to take charge of an isolated mansion at
Kensington (subsequently the town residence of the
family), when on a certain Sunday evening, her fel-
low-servants having gone out and left her alone, she
was suddenly startled by a loud knock at the front
door.
"All of a sudden the remembrance of her former
dream returned to her with singular vividness and
remarkable force, and she felt her lonely isolation
greatly. Accordingly, having at once lighted a lamp
on the hall table — during which act the loud knock
was repeated with vigor — she took the precaution to
go up to a landing on the stair and throw up the
window; and there to her intense terror she saw in
the flesh the very man whom years previously she
had seen in her dream, armed with the bludgeon and
demanding an entrance.
"With great presence of mind she went down to
the chief entrance, made that and other doors and
windows more secure, and then rang the various bells
of the house violently, and placed lights in the upper
rooms. It was concluded that by these acts the in-
truder was scared away."
Evidently in this case also the dream was of prac-
tical use, as without it the worthy housekeeper would
without doubt from sheer force of habit have opened
the door in the ordinary way in answer to the knock.
138 CLAIEVOYANCE
It is not, however, only in dream that the Ego im-
presses his lower self with what he thinks it well for
it to know. Many instances showing this might
be taken from the books, but instead of quoting
from them I will give a case related only a few weeks
ago by a lady of my acquaintance — a case which, al-
though not surrounded with any romantic incident,
has at least the merit of being new.
My friend, then, has two quite young children, and
a little while ago the elder of them caught (as was
supposed) a bad cold, and suffered for some days
from a complete stoppage in the upper part of the
nose. The mother thought little of this, expecting it
to pass off, until one day suddenly saw before her
in the air what she describes as a picture of a room,
in the center of which was a table on which her child
was lying insensible or dead, with some people bend-
ing over her. The minutest details of the scene were
clear to her, and she particularly noticed that the
child wore a white night-dress, whereas she knew
that all garments of that description possessed by
her little daughter happened to be pink.
This vision impressed her considerably, and sug-
gested to her for the first time that the child might
be suffering from something more serious than a
cold, so she carried her off to a hospital for examina-
tion. The surgeon who attended to her discovered
the presence of a dangerous growth in the nose,
which he prounounced must be removed. A few
days later the child was taken to the hospital for the
operation, and was put to bed. When the mother
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 139
arrived at the hospital she found she had forgotten
to bring one of the child's night-dresses, and so the
nurses had to supply one, which was white. In this
white dress the operation was performed on the girl
the next day, in the room that her mother saw in
her vision, every circumstance being exactly repro-
duced.
In all these cases the prevision achieved its result,
but the books are full of stories of warnings neglected
or scouted, and the disaster that consequently fol-
lowed. In some cases the information is given to
someone who has practically no power to interfere in
the matter, as in the historic instance when John
Williams, a Cornish mine-manager, foresaw in the
minutest detail, eight or nine days before it took
place, the assassination of Mr. Spencer Perceval, the
then Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the lobby of the
House of Commons. Even in this case, however, it
is just possible that something might have been done,
for we read that Mr. Williams was so much impressed
that he consulted his friends as to whether he ought
not to go up to London to warn Mr. Perceval. Un-
fortunately they dissuaded him, and the assassination
took place. It does not seem very probable that,
even if he had gone up to town and related his story,
much attention would have been paid to him, still
there is just the possibility that some precautions
might have been taken which would have prevented
the murder.
There is little to show us what particular action on
higher planes led to this curious prophetic vision.
140 CLAIEVOYANCE
The parties were entirely unknown to one another,
so that it was not caused by any close sympathy be-
tween them. If it was an attempt made by some
helper to avert the threatened doom, it seems strange
that no one who was sufficiently impressible could
be found nearer than Cornwall. Perhaps Mr. Will-
iams, when on the astral plane during sleep, some-
how came across this reflection of the future, and be-
ing naturally horrified thereby, passed it on to his
lower mind in the hope that somehow something
might be done to prevent it ; but it is impossible to
diagnose the case with certainty without examining
the akashic records to see what actually took place.
A typical instance of the absolutely purposeless
foresight is that related by Mr. Stead, in his Real
Ghost Stories (p. 83), of his friend Miss Freer, com-
monly known as Miss X. When staying at a coun-
try house this lady, being wide awake and fully
conscious, once saw a dogcart drawn by a white
horse standing at the hall door, with two strangers
in it, one of whom got out of the cart and stood
playing with a terrier. She noticed that he was
wearing an ulster, and also particularly observed the
fresh wheel-marks made by the cart on the gravel.
Nevertheless there was no cart there at the time;
but half an hour later two strangers did drive up in
such an equipage, and every detail of the lady's
vision was accurately fulfilled. Stead goes on to cite
another instance of equally purposeless prevision
where seven years separated the dream (for in this
case it was a dream) and its fulfilment.
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 141
All these instances (and they are merely random
selections from many hundreds) show that a certain
amount of prevision is undoubtedly possible to the
Ego, and such cases would evidently be much more
frequent if it were not for the exceeding density and
lack of response in the lower vehicles of the majority
of what we call civilized mankind — qualities chiefly
attributable to the gross practical materialism of the
present age. I am not thinking of any profession of
materialistic belief as common, but of the fact that
in all practical affairs of daily life nearly everyone
is guided solely by considerations of worldly interest
in some shape or other.
In many cases the Ego himself may be an un-
developed one, and his prevision consequently very
vague ; in others he himself may see clearly, but may
find his lower vehicles so unimpressible that all he
can succeed in getting through into his physical
brain may be an indefinite presage of coming dis-
aster. Again, there are cases in which a premonition
is not the work of the Ego at all, but of some outside
entity, who for some reason takes a friendly interest
in the person to whom the feeling comes. In the
work which I have quoted above, Mr. Stead tells us
of the certainty which he felt many months before-
hand that he would be left in charge of the Pall
Mall Gazette, though from an ordinary point of view
nothing seemed less probable. Whether that fore-
knowledge was the result of an impression made by
his own Ego or of a friendly hint from someone else
142 CLAIRVOYANCE
it is impossible to say without definite investigation,
but his confidence in it was fully justified.
There is one more variety of clairvoyance in time
which ought not to be left without mention. It is
a comparatively rare one, but there are enough
examples on record to claim our attention, though
unfortunately the particulars given do not usually
include those which we should require in order to be
able to diagnose it with certainty. I refer to the
cases in which spectral armies or phantom flocks of
animals have been seen. In The Night Side of Nature
(p. 462 et seq.) we have accounts of several such
visions. We are there told how at Havarah Park,
near Ripley, a body of soldiers in white uniform,
amounting to several hundreds, was seen by reput-
able people to go through various evolutions and
then vanish; and how some years earlier a similar
visionary army was seen in the neighborhood of In-
verness by a respectable farmer and his son.
In this case also the number of troops was very
great, and the spectators had not the slightest doubt
at first that they were substantial forms of flesh and
blood. They counted at least sixteen pairs of
columns, and had abundance of time to observe every
particular. The front ranks marched seven abreast,
and were accompanied by a good many women and
children, who were carrying tin cans and other im-
plements of cookery. The men were clothed in red,
and their arms shone brightly in the sun. In the
midst of them was an animal, a deer or a horse, they
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 143
could not distinguish which, that they were driving
furiously forward with their bayonets.
The younger of the two men observed to the other
that every now and then the rear ranks were obliged
to run to overtake the van; and the elder one, who
had been a soldier, remarked that that was always
the case, and recommended him if he ever served to
try to march in the front. There was only one
mounted officer; he rode a grey dragoon horse, and
wore a gold-laced hat and blue Hussar cloak, with
wide open sleeves lined with red. The two spectators
observed him so particularly that they said after-
wards they should recognize him anywhere. They
were, however, afraid of being ill-treated or forced
to go along with the troops, whom they concluded
to have come from Ireland, and landed at Kyntyre;
and whilst they were climbing over a dyke to get
out of their way, the whole thing vanished.
A phenomenon of the same sort was observed in
the earlier part of this century at Paderborn in
Westphalia, and seen by at least thirty people; but
as, some years later, a review of twenty thousand
men was held on the very same spot, it was con-
cluded that the vision must have been some sort of
second-sight — a faculty not uncommon in the district.
Such spectral hosts, however, are sometimes seen
where an army of ordinary men could by no possi-
bility have marched, either before or after. One
of the most remarkable accounts of such appari-
tions is given by Miss Harriet Martineau, in her
144 CLAIRVOYANCE
description of The English Lakes. She writes as
follows : —
"This Souter or Soutra Fell is the mountain on
which ghosts appeared in myriads, at intervals dur-
ing ten years of the last century, presenting the
same appearances to twenty-six chosen witnesses, and
to all the inhabitants of all the cottages within view
of the mountain, and for a space of two hours and a
half at one time — the spectral show being closed by
darkness ! The mountain, be it remembered, is full
of precipices, which defy all marching of bodies of
men; and the north and west sides present a sheer
perpendicular of 900 feet.
' ' On a Midsummer Eve, 1735, a farm servant of Mr.
Lancaster, half a mile from the mountain, saw the
eastern side of its summit covered with troops, which
pursued their onward march for an hour. They
came, in distinct bodies, from an eminence on the
north end, and disappeared in a niche in the summit.
When the poor fellow told his tale, he was insulted
on all hands, as original observers usually are when
they see anything wonderful. Two years after, also
on a Midsummer Eve, Mr. Lancaster saw some men
there, apparently following their horses, as if they
had returned from hunting. He thought nothing of
this; but he happened to look up again ten minutes
after, and saw the figures, now mounted, and fol-
lowed by an interminable array of troops, five
abreast, marching from the eminence and over the
cleft as before. All the family saw this, and the
manoeuvres of the force, as each company was kept
CLAIEVOYANCB IN TIME: THE FUTUEE 145
in order by a mounted officer, who galloped this way
and that. As the shades of twilight came on, the
discipline appeared to relax, and the troops inter-
mingled, and rode at unequal paces till all was lost
in darkness. Now of course all the Lancasters were
insulted, as their servant had been; but their justi-
fication was not long delayed.
"On the Midsummer Eve of the fearful 1745,
twenty-six persons, expressly summoned by the
family, saw all that had been seen before, and more.
Carriages were now interspersed with the troops;
and everybody knew that no carriages had been, or
could be, on the summit of Souter Fell. The multi-
tude was beyond imagination; for the troops filled
a space of half a mile, and marched quickly till
night hid them — still marching. There was nothing
vaporous or indistinct about the appearance of these
spectres. So real did they seem, that some of the
people went up, the next morning, to look for the
hoof -marks of the horses; and awful it was to them,
to find not one foot-print on heather or grass. The
witnesses attested the whole story on oath before a
magistrate ; and fearful were the expectations held
by the whole country-side about the coming events of
the Scotch rebellion.
"It now comes out that two other persons had
seen something of the sort in the interval — viz., in
1743 — but had concealed it, to escape the insults to
which their neighbors were subjected. Mr. Wren,
of Wilton Hall, and his farm servant, saw, on,e
summer evening, a man and a dog on the mountain,
146 CLAIEVOYANCE
pursuing some horses along a place so steep that a
horse could hardly by any possibility keep a footing
on it. Their speed was prodigious, and their disap-
pearance at the south end of the fell so rapid, that
Mr. Wren and the servant went up, the next morn-
ing, to find the body of the man who must have been
killed. Of man, horse, or dog, they found not a
trace ; and they came down and held their tongues.
When they did speak, they fared not much better for
having twenty-six sworn comrades in their disgrace.
"As for the explanation, the editor of the Lons-
dale Magazine declared (vol. ii., p. 313) that it was
discovered that on the Midsummer Eve of 1745 the
rebels were * exercising on the western coast of
Scotland, whose movements had been reflected by
some transparent vapor, similar to the Fata Mor-
gana.' This is not much in the way of explanation;
but it is, as far as we know, all that can be had at
present. These facts, however, brought out a good
many more ; as the spectral march of the same kind
seen in Leicestershire in 1707, and the tradition of the
tramp of armies over Helvellyn, on the eve of the
battle of Marston Moor/'
Other cases are cited in which flocks of spectral
sheep have been seen on certain roads, and there are
of course various German stories of phantom caval-
cades of hunters and robbers.
Now in these cases, as so often happens in the
investigation of occult phenomena, there are several
possible causes, any one of which would be quite
adequate to the production of the observed occur-
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 147
rences, but in the absence of fuller information it is
hardly feasible to do more than guess as to which
of these possible causes were in operation in any
particular instance.
The explanation usually suggested (whenever the
whole story is not ridiculed as a falsehood) is that
what is seen is a reflection by mirage of the move-
ments of a real body of troops, taking place at a
considerable distance. I have myself seen the
ordinary mirage on several occasions, and know
something therefore of its wonderful powers of
deception; but it seems to me that we should need
some entirely new variety of mirage, quite different
from that at present known to science, to account
for these tales of phantom armies, some of which
pass the spectator within a few yards.
First of all, they may be, as apparently in the
"Westphalian case above mentioned, simply instances
of prevision on a gigantic scale — by whom arranged,
and for what purpose, it is not easy to divine.
Again, they may often belong to the past instead of
future, and be in fact the reflection of scenes from
the akashic records — though here again the reason
and method of such reflection is not obvious.
There are plenty of tribes of nature-spirits per-
fectly capable, if for any reason they wished to do
so, of producing such appearances by their wonder-
ful power of glamour (see Theosophical Manual, No.
V., p. 60), and such action would be quite in keeping
with their delight in mystifying and impressing
human beings. Or it may even sometimes be kindly
148 CLAIRVOYANCE
intended by them as a warning to their friends of
events that they know to be about to take place. It
seems as though some explanation along these lines
would be the most reasonable method of accounting
for the extraordinary series of phenomena described
by Miss Martineau — that is, if the stories told to her
can be relied upon.
Another possibility is that in some cases what
have been taken for soldiers were simply the nature-
spirits themselves going through some of the ordered
evolutions in which they take so much delight,
though it must be admitted that these are rarely of
a character which could be mistaken for military
manoeuvres except by the most ignorant.
The flocks of animals are probably in most in-
stances mere records, but there are cases where they,
like the "wild huntsmen " of German story, belong
to an entirely different class of phenomena, which is
altogether outside of our present subject. Students
of the occult will be familiar with the fact that the
circumstances surrounding any scene of intense ter-
ror or passion, such as an exceptionally horrible
murder, are liable to be occasionally reproduced in
a form which it needs a very slight development of
psychic faculty to be able to see ; and it has some-
times happened that various animals formed part of
such surroundings, and consequently they also are
periodically reproduced by the action of the guilty
conscience of the murderer (see Manual V., p. 83).
Probably whatever foundation of fact underlies
the various stories of spectral horsemen and hunt-
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 149
ing-troops may generally be referred to this category.
This is also the explanation, evidently, of some of
the various stories of spectral horsemen and hunting-
re-enactment of the battle of Edgehill which seems
to have taken place at intervals for some months
after the date of the real struggle, as testified by a
justice of the peace, a clergyman, and other eye-
witnesses, in a curious contemporary pamphlet en-
titled Prodigious Noises of War and Battle, at Edge-
hill, near Keinton, in Northamptonshire. According
to the pamphlet this case was investigated at the
time by some officers of the army, who clearly recog-
nized many of the phantom figures that they saw.
This looks decidedly like an instance of the terrible
power of man's unrestrained passions to reproduce
themselves, and to cause in some way a kind of
materialization of their record.
In some cases it is clear that the flocks of animals
seen have been simply hordes of unclean artificial
elementals taking that form in order to feed upon
the loathsome emanations of peculiarly horrible
places, such as would be the site of a gallows. An
instance of this kind is furnished by the celebrated
"Gyb Ghosts," or ghosts of the gibbet, described in
More Glimpses of the World Unseen, p. 109, as being
repeatedly seen in the form of herds of mis-shapen
swine-like creatures, rushing, rooting and fighting:
night after night on the site of that foul monument
of crime. But these belong to the subject of appari-
tions rather than to that of clairvoyance.
150 OLAIBVOYANCE
CHAPTER IX
METHODS OF DEVELOPMENT
WHEN a man becomes convinced of the reality of
the valuable power of clairvoyance, his first question
usually is, "How can I develop in my own case this
faculty which is said to be latent in every one ?"
Now the fact is that there are many methods by
which it may be developed, but only one which can
be at all safely recommended for general use — that
of which we shall speak last of all. Among the less
advanced nations of the world the clairvoyant state
has been produced in various objectionable ways;
among some of the non- Aryan tribes of India, by the
use of intoxicating drugs or the inhaling of stupefy-
ing fumes; among the dervishes, by whirling in a
mad dance of religious fervor until vertigo and in-
sensibility supervene; among the followers of the
abominable practices of the Voodoo cult, by frightful
sarcifices and loathsome rites of black magic. Methods
such as these are happily not in vogue in our own
race, yet even among us large numbers of dabblers
in this ancient art adopt some plan of self-hypnotiza-
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 151
tion, such as gazing at a bright spot or the repetition
of some formula until a condition of semi-stupefae-
tion is produced; while yet another school among
them would endeavor to arrive at similar results by
the use of some of the Indian systems of regulation
of the breath.
All these methods are unequivocally to be con-
demned as quite unsafe for the practice of the ordin-
ary man who has no idea of what he is doing — who
is simply making vague experiments in an un-
known world. Even the method of obtaining clair-
voyance by allowing oneself to be mesmerized by an-
other person is one from which I should myself
shrink with the most decided distaste ; and assuredly
it should never be attempted except under condi-
tions of absolute trust and affection between the
magnetizer and the magnetized, and a perfection of
purity in heart and soul, in mind and intention, such
as is rarely to be seen among any but the greatest
of saints.
Experiments in connection with the mesmeric
trance are of the deepest interest, as offering (among
other things) a possibility of proof of the fact of
clairvoyance to the sceptic, yet except under such
conditions as I have just mentioned — conditions, I
quite admit, almost impossible to realize — I should
never counsel anyone to submit himself as a subject
for them.
Curative mesmerism (in which, without putting
the patient into the trance state at all, an effort is
made to relieve his pain, to remove his disease, or to
152 CLAIRVOYANCE
pour vitality into him by magnetic passes) stands
on an entirely different footing; and if the mesmer-
izer, even though quite untrained, is himself in good
health and animated by pure intentions, no harm is
likely to be done to the subject. In so extreme a
case as that of a surgical operation, a man might
reasonably submit himself even to the mesmeric
trance, but it is certainly not a condition with which
one ought likely to experiment. Indeed, I should
most strongly advise any one who did me the honor
to ask for my opinion on the subject, not to attempt
any kind of experimental investigation into what are
still to him the abnormal forces of nature, until he
has first of all read carefully everything that has
been written on the subject, or — which is by far the
best of all — until he is under the guidance of a quali-
fied teacher.
But where, it will be said, is the qualified teacher
to be found? Not, most assuredly, among any who
advertise themselves as teachers, who offer to impart
for so many guineas or dollars the sacred mysteries
of the ages, or hold "developing circles " to which
casual applicants are admitted at so much per head.
Much has been said in this treatise of the necessity
for careful training — of the immense advantages of
the trained over the untrained clairvoyant; but that
again brings us back to the same question — where is
this definite training to be had?
The answer is, that the training may be had
precisely where it has always been to be found since
the world's history began — at the hands of the Great
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 153
White Brotherhood of Adepts, which stands now, as
it has always stood, at the back of human evolution,
guiding and helping it under the sway of the great
cosmic laws which represent to us the Will of the
Eternal.
But how, it may be asked, is access to be gained to
them? How is the aspirant thirsting for knowledge
to signify to them his wish for instruction?
Once more, by the time-honored methods only.
There is no new patent whereby a man can qualify
himself without trouble to become a pupil in that
School — no royal road to the learning which has to
be acquired in it. At the present day, just as in the
mists of antiquity, the man who wishes to attract
their notice must enter upon the slow and toilsome
path of self-development — must learn first of all to
take himself in hand and make himself all that he
ought to be. The steps of that path are no secret; I
have given them in full detail in Invisible Helpers,
so I need not repeat them here. But it is no easy
road to follow, and yet sooner or later all must fol-
low it, for the great law of evolution sweeps man-
kind slowly but resistlessly towards its goal.
From those who are pressing into this path the
great Masters select their pupils, and it is only by
qualifying himself to be taught that a man can put
himself in the way of getting the teaching. Without
that qualification membership in any Lodge or
Society, whether secret or otherwise, will not advance
his object in the slightest degree. It is true, as we all
know, that it was at the instance of some of these
154 CLAIEVOYANCE
Masters that our Theosophical Society was founded,
and that from its ranks some have been chosen to
pass into closer relations with them. But that choice
depends upon the earnestness of the candidate, not
upon his mere membership of the Society or of any
body within it.
That, then, is the only absolutely safe way of
developing clairvoyance — to enter with all one's
energy upon the path of moral and mental evolution,
at one stage of which this and other of the higher
faculties will spontaneously begin to show them-
selves. Yet there is one practice which is advised by
all the religions alike — which if adopted carefully
and reverently can do no harm to any human being,
yet from which a very pure type of clairvoyance has
sometimes been developed; and that is the practice
of meditation.
Let a man choose a certain time every day — a time
when he can rely upon being quiet and undisturbed,
though preferably in the daytime rather than at
night — and set himself at that time to keep his mind
for a few minutes entirely free from all earthly
thoughts of any kind whatever and, when that is
achieved, to direct the whole force of his being
towards the highest spiritual ideal that he happens
to know. He will find that to gain such perfect
control of thought is enormously more difficult than
he supposes, but when he attains it it cannot but be
in every way most beneficial to him, and as he grows
more and more able to elevate and concentrate his
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 155
thought, he may gradually find that new worlds
are opening before his sight.
As a preliminary training towards the satisfactory
achievement of such meditation, he will find it desir-
able to make a practice of concentration in the
affairs of daily life — even in the smallest of them.
If he writes a letter, let him think of nothing else
but that letter until it is finished ; if he reads a book,
let him see to it that his thought is never allowed to
wander from his author's meaning. He must learn
to hold his mind in check, and to be master of that
also, as well as of his lower passions; he must
patiently labor to acquire absolute control of his
thoughts, so that he will always know exactly what
he is thinking about, and why — so that he can use
his mind, and turn it or hold it still, as a practiced
swordsman turns his weapon where he will.
Yet after all, if those who so earnestly desire clair-
voyance could possess it temporarily for a day or
even an hour, it is far from certain that they would
choose to retain the gift. True, it opens before them
new worlds of study, new powers of usefulness, and
for this latter reason most of us feel it worth while ;
but it should be remembered that for one whose
duty still calls him to live in the world it is by no
means an unmixed blessing. Upon one in whom that
vision is opened the sorrow and the misery, the evil
and the greed of the world press as an ever-present
burden, until in the earlier days of his knowledge he
often feels inclined to echo the passionate adjura-
tion contained in those rolling lines of Schiller's:
156 CLAIRVOYANCE
Die Orakel zu verkuenden, warum warfest du mich hin
In die Stadt der ewig Blinden, mit dem auf geschloss 'nen Sinn?
Frommt's den Schleier aufzuheben, wo das nahe Schreckniss
droht?
Nur der Irrthum ist das Leben; dieses Wissen ist der Tod.
Nimm, O nimm die traur 'ge Klarheit mir vom Aug ' den blut '•
gen Schein !
Schrecklich ist es deiner Wahrheit sterbliches Gefaess zu seyn?
which may perhaps be translated "Why hast thou
cast me thus into the town of the ever-blind, to pro-
claim thine oracle by the opened sense ? What profits
it to lift the veil where the near darkness threatens?
Only ignorance is life ; this knowledge is death. Take
back this sad clear-sightedness; take from mine eyes
this cruel light ! It is horrible to be the mortal
channel of thy truth " And again later he cries,
"Give me back my blindness, the happy darkness of
my senses ; take back thy dreadful gift ! ' '
But this of course is a feeling which passes, for
the higher sight soon shows the pupil something
beyond the sorrow — soon bears in upon his soul the
overwhelming certainty that, whatever appearances
down here may seem to indicate, all things are with-
out shadow of doubt working together for the
eventual good of all. He reflects that the sin and the
suffering are there, whether he is able to perceive
them or not, and that when he can see them he is
after all better able to give efficient help than he
would be if he were working in the dark ; and so by
degrees he learns to bear his share of the heavy
karma of the world.
Some misguided mortals there are who, having the
good fortune to possess some slight touch of this
CLAIEVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTUKE 157
higher power, are nevertheless so absolutely destitute
of all right feeling in connection with it as to use it
for the most sordid ends — actually even to advertise
themselves as "test and business clairvoyants!"
Needless to say, such use of the faculty is a mere
prostitution and degradation of it, showing that its
unfortunate possessor has somehow got hold of it
before the moral side of his nature has been suffici-
ently developed to stand the strain which it imposes.
A perception of the amount of evil karma that may
be generated by such action in a very short time
changes one's disgust into pity for the unhappy
perpetrator of that sacrilegious folly.
It is sometimes objected that the possession of
clairvoyance destroys all privacy, and confers a
limitless ability to explore the secrets of others. No
doubt it does confer such an ability, but neverthe-
less the suggestion is an amusing one to anyone who
knows anything practically about the matter. Such
an objection may possibly be well-founded as re-
gards the very limited powers of the "test and busi-
ness clairvoyant," but the man who brings it for-
ward against those who have had the faculty opened
for them in the course of their instruction, and con-
sequently possess it fully, is forgetting three funda-
mental facts: first, that it is quite inconceivable
that anyone, having before him the splendid fields
for investigation which true clairvoyance opens up,
could ever have the slightest wish to pry into the
trumpery little secrets of any individual man;
secondly, that even if by some impossible chance our
158 CLAIBVOlANCE
clairvoyant had such indecent curiosity about mat-
ters of petty gossip, there is, after all, such a thing
as the honor of a gentleman, which, on that plane
as on this, would of course prevent him from con-
templating for an instant the idea of gratifying it;
and thirdly, in case, by any unheard-of possibility,
one might encounter some variety of low-class pitri
with whom the above considerations would have no
weight, full instructions are always given to every
pupil, as soon as he develops any sign of faculty, as
to the limitations which are placed upon its use.
Put briefly, these restrictions are that there shall
be no prying, no selfish use of the power, and no
displaying of phenomena. That is to say, that the
same considerations which would govern the actions
of a man of right feeling upon the physical plane
are expected to apply upon the astral and mental
planes also; that the pupil is never under any cir-
cumstances to use the power which his additional
knowledge gives to him in order to promote his own
worldly advantage, or indeed in connection with
gain in any way; and that he is never to give what
is called in spiritualistic circles "a test" — that is,
to do anything which will incontestably prove to
sceptics on the physical plane that he possesses what
to them would appear to be an abnormal power.
With regard to this latter proviso people often say,
"But why should he not? it would be so easy to
confute and convince your sceptic, and it would do
him good!" Such critics lose sight of the fact that,
in the first place, none of those who know anything
CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTURE 159
want to confute or convince sceptics, or trouble them-
selves in the slightest degree about the sceptic's
attitude one way or the other; and in the second,
they fail to understand how much better it is for
that sceptic that he should gradually grow into an
intellectual appreciation of the facts of nature, in-
stead of being suddenly introduced to them by a
knock-down blow, as it were. But the subject was
fully considered many years ago in Mr. Sinnet's
Occult World, and it is needless to repeat again the
arguments there adduced.
It is very hard for some of our friends to realize
that the silly gossip and idle curiosity which so
entirely fill the lives of the brainless majority on
earth can have no place in the more real life of the
disciple; and so they sometimes enquire whether,
even without any special wish to see, a clairvoyant
might not casually observe some secret which another
person was trying to keep, in the same way as one's
glance might casually fall upon a sentence in some-
one else's letter which happened to be lying open
upon the table. Of course he might, but what if he
did? The man of honor would at once avert his
eyes, in one case as in the other, and it would be as
though he had not seen. If objectors could but grasp
the idea that no pupil cares about other people's
business, except when it comes within his province
to try to help them, and that he has always a world
of work of his own to attend to, they would not be
so hopelessly far from understanding the facts of
the wider life of the trained clairvoyant.
160 CLAIRVOYANCE
Even from the little that I have said with regard
to the restrictions laid upon the pupil, it will be
obvious that in very many cases he will know much
more than he is at liberty to say. That is of course
true in a far wider sense of the great Masters of
Wisdom themselves, and that is why those who have
the privilege of occasionally entering their presence
pay so much respect to their lightest word even in
subjects quite apart from the direct teaching. For
the opinion of a Master, or even of one of his
higher pupils, upon any subject is that of a man
whose opportunity of judging accurately is out of all
proportion to ours.
His position and his extended faculties are in
reality the heritage of all mankind, and, far though
we may now be from those grand powers, they will
none the less certainly be ours one day. Yet how
different a place will this old world be when human-
ity as a whole possesses the higher clairvoyance!
Think what the difference will be to history when all
can read the records; to science, when all the pro-
cesses about which now men theorize can be watched
through all their course; to medicine, when doctor
and patient alike can see clearly and exactly all that
is being done ; to philosophy, when there is no longer
any possibility of discussion as to its basis, because
all alike can see a wider aspect of the truth ; to
labor, when all work will be joy, because every
man will be put only to that which he can do best;
to education, when the minds and hearts of the
children are open to the teacher who is trying to
CLAIEVOYANCE IN TIME: THE FUTUEE 161
form their character; to religion, when there is no
longer any possibility of dispute as to its broad
dogmas, since the truth about the states after death,
and the Great Law that governs the world, will be
patent to all eyes.
Above all, how far easier it will be then for the
evolved men to help one another under those so much
freer conditions! The possibilities that open before
the mind are as glorious vistas stretching in all direc-
tions, so that our seventh round should indeed be a
veritable golden age. Well for us that these grand
faculties will not be possessed by all humanity until
it has evolved to a far higher level in morality as
well as in wisdom, else should we but repeat once
more under still worse conditions the terrible down-
fall of the great Atlantean civilization, whose mem-
bers failed to realize that increased power meant
increased responsibility. Yet we ourselves were most
of us among those very men; let us hope that we
have learnt wisdom by that failure, and that when
the possibilities of the wider life open before us once
more, this time we shall bear the trial better.
INDEX
Advantages of astral vision 38, 60, 65
mental vision 72
training 19, 53, 64, 96, 107, 112
Akashic records 78, 90, et seq., 147
Apparitions 50
Armies, phantom 142
Assassination of Mr. Perceval 139
Aspect of the records 106
Astral body 64
counterpart 15
current 57, et seq., 81, 88
matter, polarization of 58
senses 16
sight 34, et seq., 54, et seq., 60
telescope 59, 78, 95
world r 74, 95
Aura, the 39, et seq., 93
Balance 116
Bat's cry, experiment with „ 10
Battle of Edgehill 149
Body, the astral 64
the causal 93
Brownies 30
Buddhic faculty 17, 101, 126, 128
Bull and the doctor, the story of 135
Causal body 93
Centers of vitality 13, 16
Cerebro-spinal system 21
Ceremonies used to gain clairvoyance 48, 152
Certainty of eventual good 160
Character, judgment of 38
Chakrams 13, 16
Chord of a man, the 73
Clairaudience 6, 63, et seq.
Clairvoyance by drugs or ceremonies t 48, et seq., 94
casual ~ 86
does it destroy privacy? ., ~ 157
INDEX 163
PAGE
Clairvoyance during sleep 24
how first manifested 24
hysterical 49
limitations of 73, 74, 158
meaning of word 5
occasional flashes of 22
of the uncultured 20
on mental plane 51
on trival subjects 50, 87, 140
partial and temporary 49
restrictions upon 74, 158
sadness of 156
under mesmerism 22, 48 151
Clairvoyants, "test and business" 47, 157
Classification of phenomena 25
Colors, new ., 32
Common-sense in occultism, necessity of 116
Consciousness, continuous 45
the focus of 29
Considerations, preliminary 7
Contemplation 154
Continuous consciousness 45
Control of thought 155
Counterpart, astral 15
Crystal-gazing 60, 77, et seq., 117
Curative mesmerism 151
Curiosity not permitted 159
Current, astral 57, et seq., 81, 88
Dangers 71
Date, how to find a 110, et seq.
Dead, the 41, 54
Death, visits at 68, et seq.
Delirium tremens 49
Dervishes, the 150
Devas, the 41
Development, methods of 150
the path of 154
regular 18
Difference between etheric and astral sight 34
Difficulties 95, et seq.
Dimensions, the fourth 35, et seq., 59, 99, 127
Distance, sight at a 54, 74
Double, the etheric 32
Drugs used to gain clairvoyance 48, 150
Duke of Orleans, the story of 83
Earth, the Stars and the 101
164 INDEX
PAGE
Edgehill, battle of 149
Elemental 30, 41, 149
Equation, the personal 97, et seq.
Eternal now, the 102, 126
Etheric double, the 32
vision 28, et &eq.
Experiments in crystal-gazing 60, 77, et seq.
with bat 's cry 10
with spectrum 10
Extension of senses _ 11
Faculties, latent 7
buddhic 17, 101, 126, 128
Fairy ointment 31
Finding a stranger 73
First manifestations of clairvoyance 24, et seq.
Flocks, phantom 142, 148, 149
Focus of consciousness, the _ 29
Fourth dimension, the 35, et seq.j 59, 99, 127
Freewill limited 122, et seq.
Future prospects 161
Ghosts of the gibbet 149
Glamour 147
Goffe, the story of Mary 68
Helpers, invisible 43, 68, 81, 153
Historical study, possibilities of 105, et seq.
Hinton 's works ~ 35
Housekeeper's dream, the story of the 136, et seq.
How a picture is found 107, et seq.
to find a date 110, et seq.
to investigate 51
Huntsman, the wild 148
Hypnotization, self 79
Hysterical clairvoyance 49
Incarnations, past , 109, 114, et seq.
Investigate, how to 51
Invisible helpers 43, 68, 81, 153
Judgment of character 38
Jung Stilling 's story 66, et seq.
Knowledge, the value of 115
Latent faculties 7
Limitations of clairvoyance, the 73, 74, 158
Limited freewill 122, et seq.
Links needed 106
Lodge, address by Dr. Oliver 126
Logos of the system, the 92, et seq.
Magic 53
INDEX 165
PAGE
Magnifying, the power of 43, 61
Manifestations of clairvoyance, the first 24
Masters of Wisdom, the 19, 153, 160
Materialization 64
Mayavirupa, the .--...-• 72
Meaning of word clairvoyance 5
Meditation 154
Mediums, trance 76
Mental plane clairvoyance 51
plane sense 17
world 73, 96, 107
Mesmerism, clairvoyance under 22, 48, 151
curative - 15 1
Methods of development 150
Micawbers, psychic 76
Mooltan, story of the siege of 85
Murder, reproduction of 148
Nature spirits 30, 41, 56, 147
Necessity of common-sense in occultism 116
New colors 32
Now, the eternal 102, 126
Occasional clairvoyance 22
Ointment, fairy and witch 31
Orleans, the story of the Duke of 83
Other planets 75
Partial and temporary clairvoyance 49
Past incarnations 109, 114, et seq.
Path of development, the 154
Perceval, assassination of Mr 139
Personal equation, the 97, et seq.
Phantom flocks 142, 148, 149
Phenomena, classification of 25
seance room 32, 56
Philadelphia seer, the story of a 66, et seq.
Physical objects, the transparency of 28
Pictures before going to sleep 86
Planets, other 75
Polarization of astral matter 58
Poseidonis, the sinking of Ill
Possibilities of historical study 105, et seq.
Power of magnifying, the 43, 61
Power of response to vibrations 8, 11
Preliminary considerations 7
Premonition, Mr. Stead's 141
Prevision 120, 128
Prospects of the future 161
166 INDEX
PAGE
Psychic Micawbers 76
Psychometry 105, 117
Qualifications of the student 152
Qualified teachers 152
Eadiations 54
Records, akashic 78, 90, et seq., 147
aspect of the 106
Regular development 18
Reproduction of a murder 148
Restrictions upon clairvoyance 74, 158
Rontgen rays, the 11
Sadness of clairvoyance, the 156
Schiller 'a lines 156
Seance-room phenomena 32, 56
Second-sight '. 128, et seq.
the symbolism of 134
Seer, a Philadelphian 66, et seq.
Self-hypnotization 79
Sense, extension of 11
Senses, astral 16
Sight, astral 34, et seq., 54, et seq., 60
at a distance 54, 74
spiritual 52
Sleep, clairvoyance during 24
Society, the Theosophical 153
Solar system, the 92
Spectral armies 142
Spectrum, experiment with 32, 56
Stars and the Earth, the 101
Stories of crystal-gazing 77, et seq.
second-sight ...122, 128, et seq.
Story of Jung Stilling 66-
Mr. Stead 's 86
of Captain Yonnt 81
Mary Goffe 68
Miss X's dogcart 140
Mr. Stead's premonition 141
Story of Souter Fell 144, 146
the bull and the doctor 135
the Duke of Orleans 83
the housekeeper's dream 136, et seq.
Story of the siege of Mooltan 85
the white nightdress 138
Zschokke 118, et seq.
Stranger, finding a 73
Sympathetic system, the 21, et seq.
INDEX 167
System, the Logos of the 92, et seq.
Teachers, qualified 152
Telescope, the astral 59, 79, 95
Temporary and partial clairvoyance 49
Tests not given 157
Theosophical Society, The 153
terms 7
Thought-control 155
Thought-forms 36, 67
Throughth 36
Time only relative 127
Training, the advantage of 152
where to be had 153
Trance mediums 76
Transparency of physical objects 28
Trivial subjects, clairvoyance on 50, 87, 140
Uncultured, clairvoyance in the 20
Value of knowledge, the 115
Variable capacity of response 9, et seq.
Vibrations 8
power of response to 11
Vision, astral 34, et seq., 54, et. seq., 60
etheric 28, et seq.
Visions, casual 129
Visits at death 68, et seq.
Voodoo or Obeah 150
White nightdress, the story of the 138
Wild huntsman, the 148
Wisdom, the Masters of 19, 153, 160
World, the astral 74, 95
mental 73, 96, 107
X 's story, Miss 140
X Eays 11
Yonnt 'a story, Captain 81
Zschokke >s story 118, et seq.
.
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