Few words will be necessary by way of preface to this book,
which is designed as an introduction to a little understood and
much misrepresented subject.
I have not here written anything which is intended to
displace the observations of other authors on this subject, nor
will it be found that anything has been said subversive of the
conclusions arrived at by experimentalists who have essayed the
study of clairvoyant phenomena in a manner that is altogether
commendable, and who have sought to place the subject on a
demonstrable and scientific basis. I refer to the proceedings of
the Society for Psychical Research.
In the following pages I have endeavoured to indicate the
nature of the faculty of Second Sight or Clairvoyance, the means of
its development, the use of suitable media or agents for this
purpose, and the kind of results that may be expected to follow a
regulated effort in this direction. I have also sought to show that
the development of the psychic faculties may form an orderly step
in the process of human unfoldment and perfectibility.
As far as the nature and scope of this little work will
allow, I have sought to treat the subject on a broad and general
basis rather than pursue more particular and possibly more
attractive scientific lines. What I have here said is the result of
a personal experience of some years in this and other forms of
psychic development and experimentation. My conclusions are given
for what they are worth, and I have no wish to persuade my readers
to my view of the nature and source of these abnormal phenomena.
The reader is at liberty to form his own theory in regard to them,
but such theory should be inclusive of all the known facts. The
theories depending on hypnotic suggestion may be dismissed as
inadequate. There appear to remain only the inspirational theory of
direct revelation and the theory of the world-soul enunciated by
the Occultists. I have elected in favour of the latter for reasons
which, I think, will be conspicuous to those who read these
pages.
I should be the last to allow the study of psychism to usurp
the legitimate place in life of intellectual and spiritual
pursuits, and I look with abhorrence upon the flippant use made of
the psychic faculties by a certain class of pseudo-occultists who
serve up this kind of thing with their five o'clock tea. But I
regard an ordered psychism as a most valuable accessory to
intellectual and spiritual development and as filling a natural
place in the process of unfoldment between that intellectualism
that is grounded in the senses and that higher intelligence which
receives its light from within. From this view-point the following
pages are written, and will, I trust, prove helpful.