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ASCENSION:a process whereby an individual integrates their physical body withthe subtle bodies which permits him to become fullyconscious.
CLAIRAUDIENCE,clear hearing of voices subconsciously generated and externalized inauditory perception, or of objective voices so much below thenormally audible vibratory scale as to be imperceivable by auditoryhyperaesthesia. It is a rare mediumistic gift but the phenomena hasbeen known from ancient days. "The prophet that is in Israel telleththe king of Israel the words the king of Syria speaks in hisbedchamber" (II. Kings, 6.). Joan of Arc was started on her missionby voices which she alone could hear. The experience was thusdescribed in the age of animal magnetism by one of Dr. G. Billot'ssomnambulists: "At first, I feel a little breath like a light zephyr,which refreshes and then chills my ear. From that instant I becomedeaf, and I begin to be aware of a little humming in the ear, likethat of a gnat. By giving close attention I then hear a small voicewhich says to me that which I afterwards repeat."
The biographer of Cowper, thepoet, writes that the most important events of Cowper's latter yearswere audibly announced to him before they occurred." The difficultywhere to draw the line between subjective and objective experience iswell illustrated by the following narrative of Vincent Turvey inThe Beginnings of Seership: "One afternoon a few weeks ago Iwent to sleep on the sofa; after a time, probably about fortyminutes, I became aware that there was an indistinct conversationgoing on somewhere near me. Knowing that all my people were out andthat my house stands detached in its own grounds, I wondered what itmeant. Then I realized that I was asleep and was "hearing"clairaudiently, and that those who were conversing were not"spirits," but someone inside me and someone outside me, and yet partof me, because both voices were "Turvey" in language, etc. I caughtno sentence, save here and there a word or two such as "understand-nocondition-not yet," etc., then I heard the sentence: ' But you hadbetter wake it up now, as there is a man coming to the house in aminute.' I woke and had just enough time to throw off my rug andsmooth my hair with my hand, when the front door bellrang."
One of the most interestingrecords of clairaudient experiences is to be found in Prof.Flournoy's From India to the Planet Mars. Mlle. Helen Smith,the medium of the case, heard voices which she attributed to spiritsand clairaudiently repeated messages from the Mars in a Martianlanguage of which she later furnished the translation. Prof. Flournoycontended that all her voices were of subconscious origin. TheMartian language showed close affinity with French.
Clairaudience is eitherspontaneous or experimentally induced. Sea shells are used for thelatter purpose. Everybody can hear the murmur of the sea in a shell.The clairaudient medium soon distinguishes other voices, may heardistant friends speaking, may hear part of a conversation he hasalready heard or will presently hear, and may interpret them asmessages from the dead and also from the living. Dr. Arthur Ford, ofNew York is known as a successful platform clairaudient.
Mrs. Estelle Roberts has thebest such reputation in England. Mrs. Marjorie Livingston (See)published several excellent books on esoteric matters which wereclairaudiently received.
CLAIRVOYANCE,"a supernormal mode of perception, which results in a visual imagebeing presented to the conscious mind. The perception may be ofobjects or scenes, or forms distant in space, or in time, past orfuture." (J. B. McIndoe). To make the definition complete: there is acoincidental truth in the visual perception; in some cases as indreams, or principally in trance, consciousness is absent, and theforms may not only be distant in space or time, but be altogether onanother plane of existence. (Seeing spirits). Professor Richet'scryptesthesia is a larger, Myers' telesthesia is a narrower ' conceptthan clairvoyance. The former includes clairvoyance, premonitions,monitions, psychometry, dowsing and telepathy, the latter meansperception from a distance of objects or conditions through psychicrapport with the place or environment, and also independently oftelepathic communication. As substitutes for clairvoyance Henry Holtin America suggested the word "telopsis" and Dr. Heysinger the word"telecognosis" but they again would not very well include death-bedvisions and the seeing of spirits.
The clairvoyant experience maybe spontaneous or induced by suggestion, as in hypnotism, orautosuggestion as in crystal gazing and other methods of divination.There are four important sub-divisions: X-ray clairvoyance, medicalclairvoyance, traveling clairvoyance and platform-clairvoyance. Thefirst is the faculty to see into closed space, boxes, envelopes,rooms, books, etc., the second is the ability to see the innermechanism of the human body and diagnose disease, the third involvesa change of the center of perception: mental journey to a distantscene and give description thereof, the fourth is the seeing ofspirits.
The so-called X-Rayclairvoyance is a frequently observed manifestation of the power.There are many cases on record in which sealed letters were read whenthe contents were totally unknown to the experimenter or were couchedin a language of which the -seer was ignorant. The clairvoyant oftenhas to handle the envelope but not necessarily; in pellet reading thepellets may or may not be touched at all, they may even be burnt andthe contents be revealed thereafter. Conscious effort, anxiety atdemonstration, however, mostly results in failure.
It is stated in the Reportof the Experiments on Animal Magnetism, made by a Committee ofthe Medical Section of the French Royal Academy of Sciences, 1831:"We have seen two somnambulists who distinguished, with their eyesclosed, the objects which were placed before them; they mentioned thecolor and the value of cards, without touching them; they read wordstraced with the hand, as also some lines of books opened at random.This phenomenon took place even when the eyelids were kept exactlyclosed with the fingers."
In 1837 the French Academyoffered a prize of 3,000 francs for a demonstration of trueclairvoyance. One of the claimants of the prize was the 12-years-olddaughter of Dr. Pigaire, a physician, whose clairvoyant faculty wasadmitted by Arago. At the decisive seance the jury rescued itselffrom the award of the prize by stating that, according to thedoctors, normal vision could not be excluded even if the girl's eyeswere plastered up and covered with cotton wool and a silkmask.
To quote two modern instances:Edison, experimenting with Reese, wrote in a distant room on a pieceof paper: "Is there anything better than hydroxide of nickel for analkaline electric battery?" Returning to Reese, Reese at once said:"No, there is nothing better than hydroxide of nickel for an alkalinebattery." Baron Schrenck Notzing wrote on five pieces of paper thequestions: What is my mother's name? When will you go to Germany?Will my book be a success? What is the name of my eldest son? and anintimate question. He mixed the papers and presented them withoutknowing which contained which question. Reese, barely touching them,answered all the questions.
Experimenting with Ossovietzkyin Warsaw, Prof. Richet wrote this phrase: "The sea never appears sogreat as when it is calm. Its fury lessens it." He folded the paperand put it in an envelope. Ossovietzky kneaded it feverishly and saidafter ten minutes . "I see much water, much water. You want to attachsome idea to the sea. The sea is so great that beside its motion ...I can see no more." Geley wrote on a visiting card, under the table:"Nothing is more moving than the call to prayer by the muezzins."Ossovietzky, feeling the envelope, said: "There is a feeling ofprayer, a call, from men who are being killed or wounded . . . No, itis not that . . . Nothing gives rise to more emotion than the call toprayer, it is like a call to prayer, to whom? A certain caste of men,Mazzi, madz . . . A card. I can see no more."
Sleep walkers furnish evidenceof a clairvoyant faculty of vision. The existence of such a facultymay explain strange experiences in dreams like the oft-quoted storyof Rev. Henry Bushnell (Sunday at Home, Vol. 1875) of Capt.Youatt, a wealthy man, who in a dream saw a company of emigrantsperishing in the mountain snow. He distinguished the faces of thesufferers and gave especial attention to the scenery, a perpendicularwhite rock cliff struck him particularly; he fell asleep again andthe dream was repeated. He described the scenery to a comrade whorecognized its features as belonging to the Carson Valley Pass, 150miles away. A company was collected with blankets, provisions andmules. On arriving they found the company exactly as portrayed in thedream."
That the clairvoyant vision isindependent of the normal eyesight and is exercised by the mindwithout the assistance of the senses, is further shown by a note ofStainton Moses, dated March Ist, 1874: "In the midst of the seance,when perfectly clear of influence, I saw Theophilus and the Prophet.They were as clear and palpable to the eye as human beings would bein a strong light. Placing my hand over my eyes made no difference,but turning away I could see them no longer. This experiment Irepeated several times."
Darkness presents noobstruction. Mme. d'Esperance could sketch in the dark, the paperbefore her appearing just as well illuminated as the spirit facewhich she sketched.
The nature of the perceptionis difficult to define. It is not seeing, it is being trulyimpressed. "In the clairvoyant state" - writes Alfred Vout Peters(Light, Oct. 11, 1913) - "all bodily sensations seem to be mergedinto one big sense, so that one is able to see, hear, taste, smell,and above all, know. Yet the images stand out clear and strong." InHorace Leaf's experience sometimes they are considerably smaller thanlife-size, in some cases a few inches in height, though normallyproportioned. On the other hand he occasionally sees abnormally largeforms, sometimes the face alone covering the entire field of vision.A clairvoyant may give a perfect character delineation of a man seenfor the first time in his life. Herinrich Zschokke possessed thisgift: "It has happened to me sometimes on my first meeting withstrangers, as I listened silently to their discourse, that theirformer life with many trifling circumstances therewith connected, orfrequently some particular scene in that life, has passed quiteinvoluntarily, and as it were dream-like, yet perfectly distinct,before me."
Of medical clairvoyance wefind the first allusion in Hippocrates: "The affections suffered bythe body the soul sees with shut eyes." In the age of animalmagnetism it was widely demonstrated. The investigation committee ofthe French Academy of Medicine admitted, in 1831, the phenomena ofmedical clairvoyance. At first the gift was exercised in magneticsleep. With the coming of Spiritualism the magnetiser disappeared andboth medical and ordinary clairvoyance found an outlet in spontaneoustrance, or was exercised in the waking state. In the astoundingpsychic development of Andrew Jackson Davis, medical clairvoyancerepresented the initial stage. Both in America and in England thefirst well attested records of this power are attached to the name ofservant girls. Mary Jane, the servant of Dr. Larkin of Wrentham,Mass., diagnosed her own state and the diseases of the doctor'spatients with remarkable precision in 1844 in a trance. Emma, thehandmaid of Dr. Joseph Haddock (for details see Somnolism andPsycheism 1849) showed similar powers. Looking at the heart shecalled the auricles the ears and the ventricles the meaty part. Shedistinguished between arterial and veinous blood in the heart,calling one the "light side" and the other the "dark side." Dr.Haddock's experiences found corroboration in the instances quoted byDr. William Gregory in Letters on Animal Magnetism, 1851, inthe accounts of Sir Walter Trevelyan, Dr. Elliotson and in Dr.Herbert Mayo's Letters on the Truths contained in PopularSuperstitions. With the unfolding of Spiritualism, medicalclairvoyance became one of the lesser wonders. The power to diagnosewas soon surpassed by the power to heal. It was thought less and lesspreposterous to employ mediums professionally for medical purposes.Bessie Williams was a doctor's assistant for some years and psychicdiagnosis was further developed by Dr. Kilner's discovery of thehuman aura and its color changes according to the state ofhealth.
For traveling clairvoyance wefind abundant proofs in old and present-day records. It was freelyexercised by the shamans and medicine men of all primitive people.Indeed the conclusion of Sir William Barrett in Psychical Researchmay be justified that the reputed evidence on behalf of travelingclairvoyance is more widespread and ancient than that for telepathy.A well-authenticated and frequently quoted instance is Swedenborg'svision in 1756 at Gothenburg of a devastating fire inStockholm. Kant wrote it down in 1758 having obtained thedetails from the witnesses themselves. This is spontaneous travelingclairvoyance, not purposive, representing rather a psychic invasionby the medium like the experience of Appollonius of Tyana who, duringa lecture at Ephesus, suddenly broke off saying that the tyrantDomitian had been killed at Rome. The first instance of somethingresembling real traveling in magnetic sleep was recorded in a letterwritten to the Marquis de Puysegur in March, 1785, fromNantes. A young girl followed the movements of her magnetizer when hewent into town and described everything that was taking place aroundhim. In Germany some early records are to be found in Dr. Van Ghert'sArchive fur den thierischen Magnetismus. The first carefullyinvestigated traveling clairvoyants were the French Alexis andAdolphe Didier, and Adele Maginot. President Seguier, without givinghis name, called upon Alexis Didier. He made an imaginary journey inSeguier's room and saw a tiny bell on the table. Seguier denied this.On returning home he found that in his absence the bell had beenplaced on the table. The Didier Brothers were widely experimentedwith in England. An account of 14 seances held at Brighton withAlexis Didier is to be found in Dr. Edwin Lee's Animal Magnetism.Adolphe Didier was mainly investigated by H. G. Atkinson, F.G.S.Adele Maginot's striking adventures in traveling clairvoyance wererecorded by Alphonse Cahagnet. She not only found for his sittersdistant relatives who vanished years ago, but claimed to haveactually conversed with them. If such conversation were to beaccepted as a fact it could hardly be conceived as more than a wakingdream on the part of the object of the search, induced by telepathicimpressions from the medium's mind. To decide whether suchclairvoyant excursions may be made perceptible to people on thescene, Myers suggested hypnotic experiments, a command to the subjectto make his presence felt. The evidence for the possibility of doingit is very slight. One may, however, surmise that the excursions ofthe traveling clairvoyant may not be entirely safe fromperils.
Adele Maginot, "traveling" toa tropical country, asked to be awakened as she was afraid of wildbeasts. It is within the bounds of possibility that an actualencounter with a wild beast on the scene would have severely reactedon the clairvoyant's nervous system.
In another instance actualharm was suffered by the medium. A certain M. Lucas de Rembouilletwas very anxious about the fate of his brother-in-law. With themother of the vanished man he visited Adele Maginot. To quote: "Thatwhich astonished this good woman, not a little, as well as Mr. Lucas,and the other persons present at the seance, was to see Adele puttingher hands before the left side of her face to shelter her from theburning rays of sunshine of that climate, seeming at the same time tobe overcome with heat; but what was more marvelous still was the factthat she had a violent sunstroke, which made all the side of herface, from her brow to her shoulder, a bluish red, whilst the otherside remained white. This deep color only began to disappeartwenty-four hours later. The heat was so violent at this time thatyou could not keep your hand on her."
Five thousand, miles fromMelbourne at sea William Howitt had a vision in which he clearly sawhis brother's house, premises and the landscape around. When helanded he was so sure of his bearings that he went cross-country. Allwas as the vision portrayed.
The following case from anearly record has some curious features: Dr. F. magnetised Jane andwarned Eglinton that he would send Jane to see what he was doingbetween eight and ten that evening. Jane said: "I see a very fat manwith a wooden leg, he has no brain. He is called Eglinton. He issitting before a table where there is brandy, but he is notdrinking." The fact was that Eglinton made a fat dummy and dressed itinto his clothes.
Professor Richet gives inThirty Years of Psychic Research a dramatic instance oftraveling clairvoyance concerning himself. Leonie B. was sent intrance by Pierre Janet after Prof. Richet who had left for Paris. Theclairvoyant suddenly declared that Prof. Richet's laboratory wasburning. The laboratory indeed was burned down at the time of thevision.
To exercise the faculty,sometimes an object belonging to a distant friend or locality isnecessary, but often an index, the name of a friend or a place, issufficient. The process of locating escapes explanation.
As Myers writes "theclairvoyante will frequently miss her way, and describe houses andscenes adjacent to those desired. Then if she almost literally getson the scent-if she finds some place which the man whom she is sentto seek has some time traversed she follows up his track with greaterease, apparently recognizing past events in his life as well aspresent circumstances. The process often reminds one of the dog who,if let loose far from home will find his way homewards vaguely atfirst, and using we do not quite know what instinct; then if he oncegets on the scent will hold it easily across much of confusion andobstacle. "
"The description" - writes E.W. Cox in What Am 1? 1874- "is rarely or never that which should begiven of an object then clearly present to the sight. It is more orless wanting in definite outline, like objects seen in a fog,suggesting that the perspective faculty, whatever it may be, isexercised through more or less obstacle. The objects do not preservetheir relative proportion of size or color in the impression theymake upon the mind of the patient. Whatever the perspective facultymay be it is certainly not so powerful, nor so clear as the sense ofsight. Small and unimportant things are often perceived when moreprominent objects are unnoticed. Moreover, the faculty seems to besubject to continuous variation during the few minutes of itsexercise, as if interrupted frequently by passing clouds"
Cox asks whether the facultymay not be a survival of the mysterious power of orientation so welldeveloped in animals but nearly extinguished in men.
Vincent Turvey writes inThe Beginnings of Seership? "In the mental body-traveling the'I' (the spirit) appears to leave the ' me ' (the body) and to flythrough space at a velocity that renders the view of the countrypassed over very indistinct and blurred. The 'I' appears to be abouttwo miles above the earth, and can only barely distinguish water fromland, or forest from city; and only then, if the tracts perceived befairly large in area. Small rivers or villages would not bedistinguishable."
Traveling clairvoyance maytake the seer into the future. Robert James Lees' visions of thecrimes which Jack the Ripper was going to commit the following day,with an exact description of the locality, belong to thisorder.
Perhaps traveling clairvoyancecould also be exploited for historical research in guiding the mediuminto the past. Many sensitives claim to be able to go back into pastages in trance, some as far back as the mythical Atlantis or thestill older Lemurian civilisation. Accomplishments of this sort,however, are more psychometrical than clairvoyant and defyverification. Many trance communications are to be classed under theheading of traveling clairvoyance if the control is considered thesubconscious self of the medium. Sir Oliver Lodge's deceased auntAnne said that Charley had eaten the bird, the chicken and madehimself sick. A subsequent letter from Charley in Manitoba elicitedthat he shot a prairie hen, he ate most of it and he was ill at thetime.
A strange mixture of travelingclairvoyance, clairaudience or control by the subconscious of theliving is described in the following letter from Mrs. Thompson to Mr.Piddington of the S.P.R., May 24, 1900: "On Monday, March 7, 1900,about 7.30 in the evening, I happened to be sitting quite alone inthe dining-room and thinking of the possibility of my subliminalcommunicating with that of another person-no one in particular. I wasnot for one moment unconscious. All at once I felt someone wasstanding near and quietly opened my eyes, and was very surprised tosee -clairvoyantly, of course-Mr. J. G. Piddington. I was very keento try the experiment, so at once spoke to him aloud. He looked somaterial and life-like I did not feel in the least alarmed. Icommenced: "Please tell me of something I may afterwards verify toprove that I am really speaking to you."
J.G.P.: "I have had a beastlyrow with ..." (name).
Mrs. Thompson: "What about?"(no answer).
J.G.P.: "He says he did notintend to annoy me, but I said he had been very successful in doingso whether he intended or not."
After saying that hedisappeared
According to Mr. Piddingtonall the details were correct. The quarrel was in correspondence. Thefinal remark was addressed to Mrs. Piddington at breakfast. It isimpossible that Mrs. Thompson should have heard of theremark.
A curious form of clairvoyanceis what Vincent Turvey describes as phone-voyance, a sort of psychictelevision in which apparently the telephone wire plays some part butwhich is nevertheless replete with elements of mystery notencountered with in physical television. (SeePhone-Voyance).
Psychical research can offerno explanation for the phenomena of clairvoyance. In Letters onthe Truths contained in Popular Superstitions, published in 1849Dr. Herbert Mayo, Professor of Physiology in King's College and theRoyal College of Surgeons, London, suggested an exo-neural action ofthe mind.
"I hold-he wrote-that the mindof a living person in its most normal state is always, to a certainextent, acting exoneurally or beyond the limits of the bodily person,and in the lucid state this exo-neural apprehension seems to extendto every object and person around." This hypothesis only differs indegree from another, much bolder speculation which Sir WilliamBarrett clothes into these words "It may be that the intelligenceoperating at a seance is a thought-projection of ourselves-that eachone of us has his simulacrum in the unseen. That with the growth ofour life and character here, a ghostly image of ourselves is growingup in the invisible world; nor is this inconceivable." This is inessential agreement with part of the spiritistic view, according towhich the sense organs of the etheric body come into play or theinformation is impressed on the seer's mind by the spirits. It isalso suggested that in traveling clairvoyance the double travels tothe scene. The difficulty of this suggestion is that, in those casesin which the double is temporarily separated, the body is usuallyleft behind unconscious and the memory of the journey is seldombrought back, whereas in traveling clairvoyance the subject describeswith living voice what transpires at a distant place. Thetheosophists speculate on an "astral tube" which the clairvoyantsconstruct for themselves from astral matter to seethrough.
Vincent Turvey appeared to seethrough some such agency. "In plain, long distance clairvoyance," hewrites, "I appear to see through a tunnel which is cut through allintervening physical objects, such as towns, forests and mountains.This tunnel seems to terminate just inside Mr. Brown's study, forinstance, but I can only see what is actually there, and am not ableto walk about the house, nor to use any other faculty but that ofsight. In fact, it is almost like extended physical sight on a flatearth void of obstacles. (This tunnel also. applies to time as wellas to space). In mental body-traveling the "I" (the spirit) isactually on the spot and sees and hears and smells and uses all thesense of the "me" (the body) which remains at home; although, ifphysical force be needed this is as a rule borrowed from a thirdparty."
Theosopists also suggest. thatthe clairvoyant may see thought-pictures. Mediums themselves are atvariance as to how they do it. Bessie Williams (Mrs. Russel-Davies)claimed that clairvoyance is vision by our spirit. W. H. Bach, inMediumship and its Development contends that both clairvoyanceand clairaudience are impressional. The gift is often noticed inchildren and it may disappear later. Mme. d'Esperance, when a child,continually saw "shadow people" in the house where she lived. BessieWilliams played with spirit children in the garden. Most of thegifted mediums had similar experiences. Alfred Vout Petersexperiences a feeling of irritability or excitement before becomingclairvoyant.
Conan Doyle suggested that thespecial atmosphere of clairvoyants might be the result of ectoplasmemanating from the sensitive's body and enabling the spirit toimpress it. In seeing ghosts the cold chill and subsequent faintingmay not only be due to terror but to the drain on the body. In TheComing of the Fairies he proposes a vibrational theory. "If wecould conceive a race of beings," he writes, "which were constructedin material which threw out shorter or longer vibrations (than ours),they would be invisible unless we could tune -ourselves up or tonethem down. It is exactly that power of tuning up and adapting itselfto other vibrations which constitutes a clairvoyant and there isnothing scientifically impossible, so far as I can see, in somepeople seeing that which is invisible to others. If the objects areindeed there, and if the inventive power of the human brain is turnedupon the problem, it is likely that some sort of psychic spectacles,inconceivable to us at the moment, will be invented and that we shallall be able to adapt ourselves to the new conditions. If high-tensionelectricity can be converted by a mechanical contrivance into a lowertension, keyed to other uses, then it is hard to see why somethinganalogous might not occur with the vibrations of ether and otherwaves of light."
Dr. Daniel Frost Comstock, whowas Professor at the Massachusetts Technical Institute, claims tohave known a clairvoyant lady with whom he made the discovery thather range of vision extended far past the point in the violet end ofthe spectrum where most of us cease to get any further retinastimuli. She therefore had an actual ultra-violet vision to a degreegreatly beyond anything Dr. Comstock had ever heard ofbefore.
In the experiments of Heymans,Brugmans and Weinberg with the clairvoyant D. Vandam, it was foundthat by the ingestion of certain substances, now thirty grams ofalcohol, now two grammes of bromide, clairvoyance became moreintense. The reason, according to Brugmans, is that alcohol lessensthe power of inhibition, of reasoning and of attention, increasingthereby the power of the subconscious.
Charles W. Donville-Fifedescribes in his Among Wild Tribes of the Amazons howclairvoyance can be induced by a drug named yage or peyotl. Hewas convinced by actual experiments of the strange workings of thedrug.
Dr. Norman Jeans, inexperiments with himself under various anaesthetics, has found thatunder the influence of laughing gas (Nitrous oxide) he becameclairvoyant and was able to see events happening at various distantplaces.
Complication of the mechanismof clairvoyance is shown in the instance of the medium Knudsen who,blindfolded, steered a steam-launch around the harbor of Copenhagen.But to do it somebody in the boat had to place his hand on his head.A similar feat was demonstrated by Gaston Overien, a Frenchman, inAugust, 1928. With his face and eyes completely covered by a thickmask he rode twice round the dirt track at White City, London, on amotor cycle and avoided numerous obstacles which had been placed inthe way after he had been blindfolded. Of other strange uses of themysterious faculty the discovery of murderers may be mentioned. InGermany they often employ clairvoyants to track down criminals. Manysuccesses are registered. In such cases there is again a blending ofclairvoyance and psychometry. It is often difficult to draw the linebetween the two. Between telepathy and clairvoyance the difference isclear. The latter is independent of any outside mind.
An interesting question: canblind people be made to see clairvoyantly? If they were born blindthe brain has no visual education. But if they lose sight later theymay see while in hypnotic trance.
CRYSTALGAZING, or scrying-an ancient method of divination, a form ofclairvoyance, induced by gazing into a small sphere of crystalusually 2-3 inches across. The crystal may be white, blue, violet,yellow, green, opalescent or transparent. Blue or amethyst colouredcrystals tire the eyes less. This tiring effect may bring about astate of partial hypnotisation. In general experience, however,hypnotic symptoms are rarely found in crystal gazers. The vision isheralded by a milky clouding of the ball. This clouding is a picturein itself. It depends on no optical conditions, it is not the resultof a strain on the eye, it persists and will be visible even afterthe scryer turns away his head for a while. After the first picturesit acts as a kind of drop-scene and its closest parallel is the cloudout of which, in materialisation seances, phantasmal figures emerge.The pictures to which the cloud gives way may be small or may fillthe depth of the sphere to an amazing extent. Occasionally, thecrystal entirely disappears from the scryer's vision and a group o flife size pictures remains. The scryer may have a sense ofbilocation, of psychic presence among the scenes which the crystalinitiated. Yet the case differs from travelling clairvoyance. Thevisions are often symbolic and elements of choice are discerniblewhich point to presentation by an outside intelligence. Generally,however, the pictures are either disconnected, vague images, or theyhave a clear sense. Thought pictures, dreamlike visions, forgottenreflected memories may give way to scenic representation of presentday, past or future events. Such veridical, truthtelling visions arecomparatively rare. In the majority of cases crystal gazing isnothing else than an amusing psychical entertainment provided by thesubconscious self. It is the least harmful psychical experiment andaffects the health in no way. Indeed, in common experience, perfecthealth is necessary to see pictures in the crystal. According toRichet about one person in twenty may succeed in the experiment butperhaps one among twenty successful experimenters will receiveveridical impressions that could not have been obtained by normalmeans. Myers considered it a form of automatism by which thesubconscious self may send messages to the conscious self. Thisconstriction does not divest the subject of interest. Misplaced orlost objects of which the subconscious may have preserved perceptionsmay be found through the agency of the crystal ball, forgotten dreamsmay be revived and a systematic exploration of the subconscious mindmay take place. This possibility, however, has not been sufficientlyexploited yet. It also remains for future research to use thecrystal, as a means of information, in haunted houses, in cases ofobsession and of multiple personality.
Mrs. A. W. Verrall, a lecturerat Newnham College, inferred. from many well-recorded personalexperiences
that the picture is built upfrom the bright points of light reflected in the crystal; onceformed, the picture has a reality and spontaneity quite unlike animaginary scene called up voluntarily with closed eyes. The picturesare mostly coloured but occasionally resemble black and whitesketches. She was successful in tracing most of her visions to recentmemories.
Miss X (Miss Goodrich Freer),'author of Essays in Psychical Research ' herself an experiencedcrystal gazer, says that the best way to begin scrying is to lookabout the room and observe some brightly coloured object, close theeye and try to transfer the picture to the ball. If this issuccessful, the next stage should be an attempt to recall a vividmemory picture and to transfer it into the ball in the same way.After this it is very likely that spontaneous images will alsoappear. Miss X. often traced her visions to forgotten memories. Sheused the crystal for the purpose of consciously reviving them. "Ihave forgotten the day of the month," she writes. "I read The Timesthis morning, and I chance to remember that the first name in thebirths was Robinson. My power of visualisation enables me to createin the crystal a picture of the top of the first column, my memory,helped by this association, does the rest. I carry my eye along andsee the date is September 6."
Occasionally she could see inthe ball the characters of a work of fiction which she was writing.If she did not know how to proceed with the plot she looked into thecrystal and watched the figures enact the next steps of thestory.
A curious instance howunconscious observation may become externalised in the crystal is herfollowing experience: "I saw, as if in a cutting from The Times, theannouncement of the death of a lady, intimate with near friends of myown, and which I should certainly have regarded as an event ofinterest and consequence under whatever circumstances communicated.The announcement gave me every detail of place, name and date, withthe additional statement that it was after a period of prolongedsuffering. I had heard nothing of the lady-resident in America-forsome months. and was quite willing to suppose the communicationprophetic or clairvoyant. Of this flattering notion I was soondisabused. An examination of the paper of the day before soon showedthat the advertisement was there, just as I had seen it in thecrystal, and though at first I was inclined to protest that "I hadnever looked at yesterday's paper"I presently remembered that I had,in fact, handled it, using it as a screen to shade my face from thefire, while talking with a friend in the afternoon. I may add thefact that we have since discovered that the lady in question is aliveand well, and that the announcement related to someone else of thesame name, by no means a common one."
The range of such unconsciousobservation may be very wide. "I have" says Miss Freer "for example,occasionally been able to reproduce in the crystal the titles ofbooks in a bookcase or of engravings on a wall, whichafter-experiment has shown to be beyond my range ofvision."
The play of possiblethought-transference in the origin of crystal images was demonstratedin a highly interesting way by the same author. "We were talking of ahouse she had never seen, and I was describing the entrance hall.Presently she said: "Wait, I see it; let me go on. Is there acurtained archway opposite the front door? and is there a gong in arecess by the stairs?" This was perfectly correct, and knowing myfriend to have psychic faculty, I wondered how far this might beclairvoyance. On the other hand, so keen is my own power ofvisualising, that I had all the time a vivid picture of the scene inmy own mind. I looked into the crystal and planned my little test."Go into the dining room"I said. A correct description followed. "Thetable is laid for lunch," she proceeded, "but why have they lightedthe candles in broad daylight?" The fact was that, as soon as I sawthat her attention was fixed on the table, I lighted the candles inmy crystal picture. Hers followed suit, proving some, at least, ofher impressions telepathic."
The most arresting question,of course, is whether the pictures are ever objective. In manyexperiences this appears to be the case. There are instances in whichthe pictures grow larger under a magnifying glass, may be reflectedin a mirror and may be seen by several persons. Sometimes they haveeven been photographed. It is very likely that in these cases thevision is due to spirit-operators. The pictures are built up as ameans of communication just as messages may be given in the crystalin writing. The fact that in some cases the messages are spelt outbackward points to a conscious effort on the operator's part tofurnish proof of the exclusion of the medium's subconsciousmind.
Mr. F. Fusedale, in histestimony submitted to the Dialectical Society on spiritmanifestations in his own house, wrote: "and they would also show thechildren pictures on the wall, and they would look in rapture on whatthey saw. Sometimes the scenes appeared to be scenes in distantlands, for they would write the nature of the scenery and sometimesscenes from the spirit land. And they all used to show them graphicalscenes in a crystal, or, more correctly speaking, simply a toy ballsilvered, taken from a Christmas tree. I have seen them so engaged (1mean the children) for half an hour at a time, the scenes constantlychanging; and let me state that I was a little sceptical at firstmyself about what they saw, but they (the spirit friends) told methey would show me a scene in the crystal to convince me of the truthof what they said, which they did by showing me a scene in the Arcticregions-a ship embedded in the ice, the men on board, and dogs comingto them on the ice, which scene the children also saw."
Collective visions were alsorecorded by Miss X. Sometimes the pictures were veridical, sometimespurely imaginative.
On the physiological changesin the eye which accompany crystal vision a series of experiments andobservations, in collaboration with Dr. Bates, have been recorded byCarrington in his Modern Psychical Phenemona. He found, i.e. that theseer sometimes looks at a point in space nearer or further off thanthe crystal, and if the scene is a distant one the focus of the eyeadjusts itself to the apparent perspective.
For trick devices see: TheLife and Mysteries of the Celebrated Dr. Q and On the Other Side ofthe Footlights. For comprehensive bibliography, Theodore Besterman:Crystal Gazing: a study in the History, Distribution, Theory andPractice of Scrying, London, 1927.
DIVINATION,exploring the unknown or the future by scrying practices, dreams,drugs, omens or reading of the stars. "Any system . . . is good forthe man gifted with supernormal powers, and any system is bad for theman not so gifted" (Vesme). Divination is an ancient art. The Biblesays that Joseph saw visions from his childhood. "The cup out ofwhich my lord drinketh and whereby he divineth" possibly refers tomirror gazing. Psychical research is mostly concerned with thevisions which diviners see. Anatole France writes in his Le Livre demon ami: "On the night of the 9th to the 10th Thermidor of the yearIII - (July 27, 1794) we had heard of stirring eventsthe arrest ofRobespierre and the tumults in the Convention and in the city, butnothing more. My grandmother kept her room with my father, Mme. deLaville and young Amelie, her sister. At half past one in themorning, Amelie, leaning over a mirror, seemed to be looking on atragic scene and cried out ',' I see him, I see him. How pale he is.Blood is flowing from his mouth. His teeth and jaws are shattered.God be praised. The bloodthirsty wretch will drink no more blood buthis own "-then she cried out with horror and fainted. At the samehour Robespierre's jaw was shattered by a pistol-shot at theHotel-de-Ville."
The Seeress of Prevorst sawpictures in a soap bubble blown before her.
There is a curious case in theJournal S.P.R., December, 1903, of a Mrs. Leeds. She woke up suddenlyin the night, raised a glass of water from the night-table to herlips, and saw in the water the image of a moving train, then thehurling of one truck on the other and the damaged guard's van. Twohours later her husband, who was on night duty on the railway, camehome and told her that there had been an accident, the brakeman beingbadly hurt.
For visions in, crystal ballssee Crystal gazing.
FOURTHDENSITY, hand in glove with many of the newer descriptions of thedays to come is the concept of fourth density, sometimes alsoreferred to as ascension or a fourth or fifthdimensional shift. In this scenario, all those that survive theearth changes will go through a rapid spiritual advancement. Thisgrowth will be characterized by a new closeness to the creator, lossof ego, telepathic abilities, an increased vibrational rate and astrong desire for world peace. These terms and a more exoticexplanation for them via a "photon belt" came into being fromcommunications through early contactees. The concepts preceeded thisperiod and date back to Blavatsky's writings in the last century.Though the terms were bandied about early, it wasn't until a decadelater that they were described in detail in the sixties by Gildas.Different authors may use the terms in confusing ways. Others mayloosely be said to call this concept by names like the coming of theNew Age, the Golden Age, the Age of Light, the Christing of Earth,the Age of Aquarius, the Sixth World and from a more Christianperspective the Second Coming, the Tribulation, the Rapture orArmageddon..
MONITION,supernormal warning; or, in the larger sense of Prof. Richet'sdefinition: the revelation of some past or present event by otherthan the normal senses. The Proceedings of the A.S.P.R., 1907, p.487, publish a typical instance. Mr. McCready, editor of The DailyTelegraph, in church on a Sunday morning heard a voice: "Go back tothe office." He ran and found a petroleum lamp blazing in his room.It threw out such clouds of smoke that everything was covered withsoot.
They may range from triflingevents to monitions of death, they occur always accidentally and tellthe truth. All the monitive phenomena lie within the field ofnon-experimental telepathy and clairvoyance and include apparitionsof the dead and of the living, provided they are mess age-bearing. Itis characteristic of all monitions that they deeply impress the mindof the percipients and permit an accurate remembrance even after thelapse of many years. They may come in the waking state and in dreamswhich sometimes repeat themselves. The borderland between waking andsleeping is usually the most favourable for their reception. They maybe visual or auditory, seeing apparitions, or hearing voices, andthey often take a symbolical form as, for instance, the idea of deathbeing presented by a coffin, as seen by Lord Beresford in his cabinwhile steaming between Gibraltar and Marseilles. The coffin containedthe body of his father. On arriving at Marseilles he found that hisfather died six days before and was buried on the day he saw thevision.
As regards perception,monitions may be collective yet non-simultaneous and non-identical,and simultaneous and collective. The former is well illustrated byMrs. Hunter's case, cited by Ernesto Bozzano in the Annals ofPsychical Science. Mrs. Hunter saw, in the waking state and in daytime, a large coffin on the bed and a tall, stout woman at the footof the bed looking at it. The governess saw that evening a phantomwoman in the same dress in the sitting room where there was nothingvisible and cried Go away, go away, naughty ugly oldwoman."
To quote another instance:Prof. Charles Richet imagined during the winter of 1899 in his home,while his wife and daughter were at the Opera, that the Opera was onfire. The conviction was so powerful that he wrote on a piece ofpaper Feu! Feu!
About midnight, on the returnof his family, he immediately asked them if there had been a fire.They were surprised and said that there was no fire, only a falsealarm and they were very much afraid. At the very time Prof. Richetmade his note his sister fancied that the Professor's room was onfire.
In simultaneous and collectivemonitions the phantom or symbol is perceived at the same time byseveral people.
PRECOGNITION, anacademic term for knowledge of something in advance of itsoccurrence, especially by extrasensory perception.
PREDICTIONof future events is a most perplexing puzzle of psychical science.That it is a fact there is ample evidence.
Dr. Osty writes in his epochalbook, Supernormal Faculties in Man: "Twelve years of personalexperimentation with a large number of metagnomic percipients and ona considerable number of persons have given me complete certitudethat there are human beings who can predict the eventuation of thelife of another. Of, this I have the same degree of certainty as ofthe existence of what we call the earth, the sun, the stars,minerals, plants and animals."
Laplace said that the futuredepends absolutely on the present and he who would know the whole ofthe present would know also the whole of the future. We are no wiserfor this statement. In an attempt to be practical Carrington offersthe analogy of a rapidly moving train from which we perceiveever-changing scenery. They existed before we came to them but wewere unable to see them. The analogy is not perfect. The astoundingfeature about prediction is the minuteness of detail. The sceneswhich we witness from the train did exist before we perceived thembut only as a frame in which life itself was constantly changing. Inprediction we meet with a fixation of this changing element, theforesight of incidents which neither on the basis of probabilitiesnor on the higher knowledge of character and abilities are likely tooccur as they are of accidental nature like missing a train, trippingin the street, etc.
A most curious case ofprediction, involving such incidents of small significance wasrecorded by Mrs. Verrall on December 11, 1911, in the followingautomatic script: "Nothing should be neglected, the most triflingfacts may be useful; be trustful. ' . . The cold was intense and asingle candle gave poor light. He was lying on the sofa or on a bed,and was reading Marmontel by the light of a single candle. . . . Thebook was lent him, it did not belong to him." On December 17, themessage was supplemented: "The name Marmontel is correct. . . . AFrench book, I think his memoirs. The name Passy may help him toremember Passy or Fleury. The book was bound in two volumes, thebinding was old, and the book was lent him. The name Marmontel is noton the cover." On March 1, Mrs. Verrall was told by a friend, Mr.Marsh that he read the memoirs of Marmontel on a bitterly cold nightin Paris on the 20th February by the light of a candle. Once he wasin bed, another time he reclined on two chairs. He borrowed the book,it had three volumes, and on February 21, he had read the chapter inwhich the finding of a picture, painted at Passy, is described byMarmontel, the discovery being associated with Mr. Fleury.
Predictions of this nature maybe brought within understanding if we suppose that the future may notbe the result of our own actions and thoughts alone but also ofplanning by higher intelligences, for the very purposes of test, inthe spirit realms. Free-will is in no way influenced by thesupposition that from time to time we may be impressed to certainactions. The majority of cases are not of this nature. The case of afamous young Italian savant which Lombroso relates cannot be theresult of test and planning. According to his account, Dr. C.predicted, on the 4th February, 1894, the burning of the Comoexhibition (which actually took place on the 6th July) with such firmassurance that his family sold all their shares in the Milan FireInsurance Company. At the time of the prediction even the building ofthe main edifice had not progressed very far. Dr. C. was a mostneurotic man ' with not a few marks of degeneracy and gravehereditary defects.
The Shadow of theFuture
If, as it is said, futureevents forecast their shadows we ought to find predictions for everygreat event. There are proofs for the correctness of theassumption.
The great pestilence of 1665and the great fire of London following the plague in 1666 werepredicted. In a book published in 1661 George Fox, the younger, saysthat the Lord has spoken to him: "The people are too many, the peopleare too many, I will thin them, an overflowing scourge shall comeupon the land." Further he says: "And the spirit of the Lordsignifieth unto me that the time draweth nigh and the decree of theLord is firm and not to be altered." This prophecy was reiterated in1664, May 29th, by Captain Bishop, of Bristol: "To the King and bothHouses of Parliament, thus saith the Lord: Meddle not with my peoplebecause of their conscience to Me, for if ye do I will send myplagues upon you, and you shall know that I am the Lord. Written inobedience to the Lord by his servant, George Bishop." William Bayleywas also seized with inspirational ecstasy and warned the King andthe Parliament against the religious persecution: ". . . the plagueswill pursue you to destruction, if you proceed in this work . . . TheLord hath spoken it."
In the Great Fire of Londonover 13,000 homes and 89 churches were burnt down. George Fox, in hisJournal, tells of his own vision and that of Thomas Ibbott, ofHuntingdonshire. Ibbott came to London two days before the fire,alighted off his horse with clothes loose, as one distracted, and rantowards Whitehall in such posture as many inhabitants were forced toflee from the fire, and foretold his vision which he had before, thatthe City would be laid waste by fire. (Memoirs of GeorgeWhitehead). Thomas Briggs, the prophet preacher, passing throughLondon some years before the fire, cried out in Cheapside that unlessthe city repented as Nineveh did, God would destroy it. HumphreySmith foresaw the great fire in 1660: "there was none that sought tostop the foundations the city stood on, and all the tall buildingsfell, and few were left in her ... and thus she became a desolation,and the vision remained in me as a thing secretly shewed me of theLord."
Archbishop Usher, Lord Primateof Ireland, in a sermon preached in Dublin in 1601, foretold theIrish Rebellion, 40 years before it came to pass, to theday.
The German prophet,Englebrecht, in 1625, foresaw the French Revolution, the fall of theEcclesiastical, Political and Family State all over Europe. Stillearlier, in 1555, Dr. Michael Nostradamus gave the date of the FrenchRevolution as 1789 and foretold the execution of the King and Queen,the new Calendar and the persecution of the Church.
A high degree of predictivepower was noticed during the French revival among the Huguenots afterthe edict of Nantes was revoked and religious persecution began.Thousands of Protestants received the gift of prophecy. Cavalier,Roland, Marion, their leaders, often foretold the fortunes of war intheir ecstasies. Marion and Lacy prophesied 80 years in advance thedivision of France among the Catholics, the revolution, its spreadover the continent and the division between the great Catholicmonarchies who will be engaged in exterminating each other instead ofslaughtering Protestants, as later happened in the revolutionary warswith France, Spain, Italy, Austria and others.
The French ex-JesuitBeauregard, preaching before the Court on May 20, 1789, was suddenlyseized with a fit of frenzy and pronounced these words: "Yes! Thytemples, 0 Lord, shall be destroyed. Thy worship abolished. Thy nameblasphemed. But what do I hear, Great God! To the holy strains whichbeneath sacred roofs arose in Thy praise shall succeed profane andlicentious songs; the infamous rites of Venus shall usurp the placeof worship of the Most High! And she herself sit on the throne of theHoly of Holies, to receive the incense of her new adorers." Theprophecy was accomplished in Notre Dame, Mme. Maillard personifyingthe Goddess. The same scene was repeated in the Church of St.Sulpice.
The gift of prophecy is oftennoted in religious revivals and is apt to spread to other members ofthe community. They remind one of the times of the Bible. Moses-toquote a single startling prophecypredicted centuries before theoccurrence that a fierce nation, swift as the eagle flies, should bebrought against the Jews from the end of the earth.
The American civil war hadmany prophets. The first announcement was made by J. D. Stiles, ofWeymouth, Mass., in 1854. As the prediction neared fulfilment itdeveloped in points of detail and precision through the seership ofothers. Stiles' prediction was published in book form long before itsverification, it also giving the final result, the victory of theabolitionists and emancipation of the slaves. In 1860 in thelegislative hall of Alabama, Mrs. Hardinge Britten became entranced,saw long lines of regiments, military music, the tramp of vast bodiesof infantry with a joyous rhythm, then wild agonising shrieks andheart-rending groans. "Woe, woe to thee, Alabama"-she broke out likethe prophets of old and foretold all the desolation and fearfulsuffering that indeed befell Alabama, the most active Southern statein the defense of slavery during the war between North and South. Theprophecy was taken down by a press reporter and testified to by sixpersons present.
A gypsy prophesied toJosephine, while a child in Martinique, that she would become Empressof France. Josephine was so convinced that the dream would come truethat during the revolution while she was in jail and threatened bythe jailor that her turn would soon come for the guillotine, she toldher shrieking fellow-prisoners that she would not die but live to beQueen of France.
Daniel Offord, anine-years-old-boy, predicted the 1853 cholera epidemic two monthsbefore it struck England. Dr. Dixon writes in the Yorkshire SpiritualTelegraph (Vol. 3, 1856) "Daniel said on August 30, 1853, the cholerawould be here in two months; all were to take a half-teaspoonful ofcarbon every day. Exactly two months to a day the officialnotification appeared."
The assassination of PresidentLincoln was predicted by Home at Dieppe in 1863. He was asked by aRussian to look into a crystal. He saw a crowd and in it a man whowas assassinated and in the act of falling from his chair. He said"That is Lincoln, and within the year it will take place." The timewas not quite accurate.
Andrew Jackson Davis, in hisbook Penetralia, 1856, predicted the coming of the motor-car and thetypewriter. He writes: "Look out about these days for carriages andtravelling saloons on country roadswithout horses, without steam,without any visible motive power-moving with greater speed and farmore safety than at present. Carriages will be moved by a strange andbeautiful and simple admixture of aqueous and atmospheric gases-soeasily condensed, so simply ignited, and so imparted by a machinesomewhat resembling fire engines as to be entirely concealed andmanageable between the forward wheels. These vehicles will preventmany embarrassments now experienced by persons living in thinlypopulated territories. The first requisite for these land-locomotiveswill be good roads, upon which, with your engine, without yourhorses, you may travel with great rapidity. These carriages seem tobe of uncomplicated construction."
About the typewriter: "I amalmost moved to invent an automatic psychographer-that is, anartificial soul-writer. It may be constructed something like a piano,one brace or scale of keys to represent the elementary sounds;another and lower tier to represent a combination, and still anotherfor a rapid re-combination so that a person, instead of playing apiece of music may touch off a sermon or a poem."
The assassination of the Kingand Queen of Serbia took place on June 10, 1903. As William Steadrelates in the Review of Reviews of June 20th, 1903, hehanded, on March 20, to Mrs. Burchell, the Yorkshire Seeress, anenvelope containing the signature of the King of Serbia. She said,"This belongs to Royalty." Then she became very excited andexclaimed: "I see the interior of the Palace, I can see the King andhis Queen; now I see a number of men, they are murdering the King.The Queen prays for mercy; I cannot see whether the Queen has beenkilled, but the King is dead. It is terrible, terrible!" Mrs.Brenchley, another sensitive corroborated what Mrs. Burchell saidwith further particulars.
On the same subject a curiousmessage was received by raps the day previous the murder in Paris inthe presence of Prof. Richet: "Bancalamo," to which Prof. Richetexclaimed: Oh, it is Latin, calamo." The message continued "Banca lamort guette famille." The rest of the message was incoherent. Whenthe news of the assassination of Queen Draga reached Paris Prof.Richet learned for the first time that Draga's father was namedPanka. The message came at 10.30 p.m., exactly the time at which theassassins left the Hotel de la Couronne de Serbie to extirpate theRoyal family. Prof. Richet counted the mathematical probabilities ofchance and found it to be 1 to 50010001 which makes it certain thatthe message was not accidental.
The Prophets of the WorldWar
Did the world war haveprophets? The question must be answered in the affirmative. The firstamazing prediction was printed by Nostradamus at Lyons in 1555. Hespoke of its cruelty and terror, that it will
be carried on by land, in thesea and in the air. The aeroplane especially puzzled him: "a flock ofravens high in the air, and throwing fire from the sky on the citiesand on the soldiers below." He names the King of Bulgaria: "fairhaired Ferdinand," foretells his fortunes of war and downfall. Heforesees the collapse of the Turkish Empire, independence of Hungary,Bohemia and Poland, the enlargement of Rumania and the formation ofJugoslavia. Dr. Tardieu put on record in 1914 the following prophecyof Leon Sonrel, a scientist of the Juisy observatory uttered in 1868of the war in 1914: "Wait, now, wait . . . years pass. It is a vastwar. What bloodshed! God? What bloodshed. Oh, France, oh, my country,thou art saved! Thou art on the Rhine"
Sir Arthur Conan Doylereceived in February, 1914, through the well-known Australian medium,Mrs. Foster Turner, before an audience of nearly a thousand peoplethe following prediction: "Now, although there is not at present awhisper of a great European war at hand, yet I want to warn you thatbefore this year, 1914, has run its course, Europe will be deluged inblood. Great Britain, our beloved nation, will be drawn into the mostawful war the world has ever known. Germany will be the greatantagonist, and will draw other nations in her train. Austria willtotter to its ruin. Kings and kingdoms will fall. Millions ofprecious lives will be slaughtered, but Britain will finally triumphand emerge victorious."
La Vie Nouvelle ofBeauvais published in March, 1914, the predictions of a simplepeasant girl, communicated by the Abbe J. A. Petit of an impendingwar in which France is going to be invaded, saying among others: "ButFrance is not alone. The violation of neutral territory hasdispleased other powers who unite with the French, for it is clearthat this violation has been made to take possession of that land andto have a direct passage to the French frontier."
The Revue Metapsychiqueprinted in December, 1925, the prediction of Sophie, a youngGreek woman, hypnotized by Dr. Antoniou of Athens on June 6, 1914.She gave many details, such as the neutrality of Italy at thebeginning, her subsequent alliance with the Entente and the role ofGreece. The prophecy. save three errors out of 21, proved to betrue.
In Major W. Tudor Pole'sPrivate Dowding, published anonymously in London in 1917, thefollowing communication from the Beyond is registered: "So far as Iam allowed to see, peace will be re-established during 1919, andworld-federations will come into being during the following sevenyears. Although actual fighting may end in 1918, it will take manyyears to bring poise and peace into actual and permanentbeing."
The predictions of the GreatWar have been analysed by Mr. J. G. Piddington in Proceedings,Vol. XXXIII. under the title Forecasts in Scripts Concerningthe War. F. C. S. Schiller dwelt on the same subject in theJournal, S.P.R., June, 1916, under the title WarProphecies. Of books, Ralph Shirley's Prophecies and Omens ofthe Great War, Herbert Thompson's The War and the Prophets,and Leon Denis' Monde Invisible et la Guerre deservespecial mention.
Hypnotic and DreamPredictions
Prediction occurs underhypnosis. A lady patient of Dr. Teste (Manuel Pratique)foretold that on Tuesday at three something would frighten herand cause her a fall and miscarriage. On the Tuesday at her house hehypnotized her, when she repeated the prediction.
She was kept in sight, everyprecaution was taken, but the shock ensued. She saw a rat, fell andthe result followed as foreseen.
Many visions of the future areimparted in prophetic dreams. John Williams three times dreamt of theshooting of Perceval, Chancellor of the Exchequer, ten days before itreally happened on May 11, 1812. (See: Dreams.)
The murder of Terris, theEnglish actor, on the evening of December 16, 1897, was seen in dreamthe night before by Countess Toutschkoff and Mr. Lane in an accuratescene. Witnesses testify to the truth of the story as told before themurder.
Camille Flammarion writes onthe subject in L'Inconnu
I do not hesitate to affirm atthe outset that the occurrence of dreams foretelling future eventswith accuracy must be accepted as certain. Nor can the realization ofthis kind of dream be explained by the fortuitous coincidences whichwe call chance." Later he says: "My mother dreamed that she receiveda letter from my father in which she read the following sentence: "Iam the bearer of sad news; little Henry has just died in convulsions,with hardly any previous illness." A week after a letter from myfather contained this very phrase. My poor sister had just lost heryoungest child."
However true many predictionsturn out to be one is well advised not to receive them with implicitcredence. A far larger percentage of predictions prove untrue, andpsychical research owes serious loss, at least in two instances, tothe trust in this incomprehensible gift. Myers was seriously ill withheart disease when he told Sir Lawrence J. Jones that he had fourhundred and fourteen days to live. "Yes," he said, "my death has beendefinitely predicted to me for a day in February, 1902. I have madeall my arrangements on this basis. I have divided up the work thatstill remains to do on my book (Human Personality) into twelveparts, and I am going to do one part each month. I shall then finishthe book and have a few weeks before my time comes." He died within amonth and the book was not finished. His experiments with Mrs.Thompson which contained most of the evidence on which he based hisbelief in survival were never written out. Richard Hodgson wassimilarly misled by predictions through Mrs. Piper with the resultthat his third report on this important mediumship never saw thelight. There are other instances on record in which death waspredicted and the forecast was not fulfilled. Eugen Osty has beenoften told of his own death within a certain period. He survived theprediction. Hodgson received a message through Mrs. Piper that Prof.Sidgwick would soon (months) die of heart failure. He lived for sixmore years and did not die of heart failure.
PREMONITION,a supernormal indication of events still in the future. Truepremonitions, according to Prof. Richet, should have two fundamentalconditions: 1. The fact announced must be absolutely independent ofthe person to whom the premonition has come. 2. The announcement mustbe such that it cannot be ascribed to chance or sagacity. Richet doesnot employ the term "presentiment." He rules out personalpremonitions. Subconscious perception or suggestion may come intoplay if sickness or death are announced. He alludes to a curiousmedical fact for illustration. A photograph taken of a personsuffering from a slight attack of fever may show signs of a rash oreruption on the face which is quite invisible to ordinary sight. Thephotograph foresees the sickness. He accepts, however, personalpremonitions (auto-premonitions, to use his term) in cases whenaccidental death figures in the supernormal perception.
The terrifying dream of EarlHartington is a good illustration of pseudo -premonitions. In goodhealth he saw in his dream a skeleton which looked like him, itraised the coverlet and slipped between him and his wife. He diedfifteen days later. True premonition is instanced by the dream ofArmand Carrell in which he saw his mother clad in mourning and heardher say: "I weep for you my son." On the following day Armand Carrellwrote for the National the famous article as a consequence ofwhich, in a duel with Emile de Girardin, he was killed.
True premonitions where thesubconscious is ruled out may be received under hypnosis, in trance,or accidentally in the dream or waking state. The Seeress of Prevorstsaw in hypnotic sleep a spirit who was anxious to speak of hisdaughter as misfortune was threatening her. A few weeks later thegirl was nearly killed by a tile which fell on her head. The son ofDr. Alfred Russel Wallace was told by a clairvoyant that "there willbe an explosion in your laboratory in February or March and someonewill be injured." The explosion took place on the 9th of March. Oneof the students was seriously injured.
It would be more appropriateto call this an instance of prediction. When the event foreseen isnot precisely outlined or of little consequence to convince, orprompt to a prophetic utterance, premonition is the more appropriateterm. For vague future events of a personal nature presentimentshould be employed. If the percipient is positive that the event inquestion is about to happen we may use the term precognition. If theknowledge takes visual form prevision is more appropriate. Whenpredictions involving the fate of larger units, countries, nationsare made prophecy should be spoken of. Premonition may be conceivedof as the lowest degree of prophecy. The events which it concerns areoften trifling occurrences. But whether the premonition comes in thewaking state or sleep the impression is usually deep and lasting. Therecipient is apt to write it down, narrate it and enable laterverification thereby.
The Society for PsychicalResearch, in its early days, collected 668 cases of premonitions ofdeath; 252 more were added in 1922. Flammarion collected 1824 cases.From time to time dozens were registered in English, German, Frenchand Italian psychical periodicals. E. Bozzano collected 260 cases inhis Des Phenomenes Premonitoires. Count Cesar Baudi de Vesmehas analysed, with great erudition, the play of premonition in gamesof chance (Le Merveilleux dans les jeux de hasard, Paris,1930). An earlier work of William Mackenzie (Metapsichicamoderna, Rome, 1923) relates some astonishing experiments in thesame field with mediumistic intervention. But as Prof. Richet(L'Avenir et la Premonition, 1931) points out, with referenceto Dr. Ochorowicz's experiment (Annales des Sciences Psychiques,1909-10) the telekinetic explanation in the stopping of theroulette ball at the announced- number should, in the case ofmediumistic premonitions, also be drawn intoconsideration.
The following cases give anillustration of the general nature of premonitions:
Two days before his daughterfell ill Field Marshal Lord S. dreamed to have urged her to read theLife of Charles James Fox. She replied: "Oh, I do not need toread it; it is the end."-and showed the last page on which "The End"was written in large black characters." (Proceedings, S.P.R.,1895, XI, 442).
Charles Dickens dreamt of alady in a red shawl. She said: "I am Miss Napier." He did not knowwho this woman was. Some hours later he was visited by two ladies anda girl in a red shawl was introduced as Miss Napier. (Proceedings,A.S.P.R., XIV, 1920).
Sir Oliver Lodge quotes theaccount of an English Minister who dreamt of a terrible storm and ofa globular lightning which entered the dining room and destroyed thechimneys of the roof opposite. Under the impression of the dream,though it was bright sunshine, he directed his wife to prepare lunchat an earlier hour. It happened as in the dream. Soon a storm brokeout, a fiery globe struck through the dining room and demolished thechimneys of the neighboring roof.
Field Marshal Earl Robertsrelates in his Autobiography concerning his experiences whencommanding
"My intention, when I leftKabul, was to ride as far as the Kyber Pass, but suddenly apresentiment which I have never been able to explain to myself, mademe retrace my steps and hurry back to Kabul, a presentiment of comingtrouble which I can only characterise as instinctive. The feeling wasjustified when, about half way between Butkhak and Kabul I was met bySir Donald Stewart and my Chief of Staff, who brought me theastounding news of the total defeat by Ayub Khan of Brigadier GeneralBurrow's brigade at Maiwand and of Lieutenant- General Primrose, withthe remainder of his force, being besieged at Kandahar."
President Lincoln had strangepresentiments of his coming end. Forster, in his Life of Dickens,quotes a letter of the novelist, written to him, dated February4, 1868. Charles Summer told Dickens that on the day of hisassassination an extraordinary change was noticeable in Lincoln. Hesaid: "Gentlemen, something extraordinary will happen, and that verysoon." Later he spoke of a dream which came to him the third time andsaid: "I am on a deep, broad, rolling river; I am in a boat, and I amfalling in! I am falling in!" Six weeks before his assassination hesaw a great concourse of mourners in the White House in a dream. Themourners surrounded a coffin in which he saw his own body.
President Garfield, McKinleyand Nelson also had premonitions of their coming violent ends.William T. Stead, the publicist, had a presentiment that he would notdie normally. He thought he would be kicked to death by a mob.Instead, he went down in the Titanic. Zola always dreadedasphyxiation by gas. It caused his death.
A method of experimentalpremonitions is described by Prof. Richet in L' Avenir et laPremonition and La Grande Esperance. To quote from thelatter (p. 198): "Thirty six pieces of paper, each containing anumber written in pencil. They are carefully folded, all alike.Armand, a painter of my friends, the brother of Brigitta, indicatesthe number which Brigitta is going to draw. There are errors,certainly. Armand is not always correct, but the result is farsuperior to the probability. There are periods of error and periodsof astonishing lucidity. At my formal recommendation Armand onlymakes one experiment per day which gives the probability of 1/36.Well, during a certain week, in six draws, his prediction was fivetimes correct. This is about 1/30,000,000."
We have no explanation ofpremonitions. Possibly Prof. Richet is right: "If we knew thetotality of things in the present we should know the totalityof
things to come. Our ignoranceof the future is the result of our ignorance of the present."According to Maeterlinck the phenomenon of premonition is far lessexceptional than it is thought. He believes in "' humanforeknowledge." He observed that the great catastrophes usually claimfewer victims than the probabilities of each case would allow. Hefound that generally some strange chance keeps away a number ofpeople who otherwise would be there and perish. They are warned by amysterious, unfailing instinct.
The conclusion, drawn by Prof.Richet from the reality of premonitions, that the future isdetermined .seems obvious but not necessarily the right one. Thebasis of premonitions need not be the supposition of an EternalPresent. If time is an illusion of the fleshly existence our unknownpowers may occasionally place us outside time and give us a glimpseof the accomplished future. Premonition, in that sense, would in noway interfere with free agency for what the seer sees would always bethe result of free choice and not a preordained course. In each casepremonition announces a future state which cannot be altered. If,therefore, the announcement did not come to pass we did not have truepremonition. The forecast might have been based on the potentialinstead of the accomplished future. In everyday life we often makesuch forecasts. With psychic perceptions they might be made with fargreater accuracy, yet they will not be infallible. The trouble isthat there is no telling whether a certain announcement has been madeon the potential or accomplished future, except, perhaps, anannouncement of distant events with minute and humanly unforeseeabledetail.
PRESENTIMENT, personalpremonition of vague .events still in the future. See:Premonition.
PREVISION,foreknowledge of the future acquired in a visual form. Such visionsare mostly spontaneous. But there are means of experimentallyinducing them through crystal gazing and other forms ofdivination.
The experiments of Col. Rochasstand in a class by themselves. He plunged his hypnotic subjects bylongitudinal passes back into past phases of their life and broughtthem back by transversal passes. If these passes were continuedbeyond the present age the subject went into the future.Unfortunately the subjects passed out of the sphere of Col. Rochas'observation and the future could not be verified.
Sufficient circumstancesremained, however, for examination. They proved that these states ofprevision were simple subjective fancies. Those who contend thatprevision is primarily an attribute of life in the spiritual worldmay quote in support the interesting story of Florence Marryat in herThere is No Death of an instance in which her own spirit wassummoned by friends, sitting in a circle, while she was fast asleepin her home. Her spirit begged to be sent back with the words: "Thereis a great danger hanging over my children, I must go back to mychildren." The day after the seance her brother-in-law accidentallydischarged a rifle in the midst of her seven children, the ballpassing through the wall within two inches of her eldest daughter'shead.
The mechanism of prevision isdescribed in an interesting way in Vincent Turvey's The Beginningsof Seership: "At certain times I see a sort of film or ribboncontinually moving as does an endless belt in a cinematograph film.This film is in color of a very, very pale pinky-heliotrope, and itseems to vibrate with very great velocity. Upon it are numerouslittle pictures, some of which appear to be engraved on the filmitself, whilst others are like pale blue photographs stuck on thefilm. The former I have found to refer to past events, the latter tothose about to happen. The locality of the event is judged by thescenery and the climatic heat. I have to estimate dates by theclearness of the pictures. I foresee more unpleasant than pleasantthings. I believe the reason to be that evil, being nearer to matterthan to spirit, is more ponderous in the ether than its opposite, andis therefore sensed more easily by a Seer. I not only see, but feel,the density of evil."
Prevision was bothsentimentally and physically painful to him. If the event foreseenwas a murder or an accident in which pain would be felt by the victimhe actually got the pain. When he described a revolver mystery whicheventually happened he felt as if shot through the, head and when heforesaw a robbery in which the watchman was stunned by a blow he feltit delivered on his own head.
PROPHECY, In bygoneeras predictions by prophets were regarded as a direct revelatoryutterances of a deity, taking a human being as mouthpiece, orstatements of those seeking inspiration from the fountain of wisdom.Nowadays the utterances are more often attributed to spirit guidesfrom hundreds of sources concerning millennial predictions of earthchanges and an accompanying new era of spiritual transformation andpeace. There are also traditional voices with apocalyptic messagesfrom a wide range of religious sources.
PROPHET, In premodernsociety, prophets appeared both informally as gifted individuals witha sudden prophetic insight or as functionaries identical with whatWestern scholars in the nineteenth and twentieth century calledwitchdoctors, priests or shaman. Today they are more likely to be anauthor or public speaker. Very few channelers consider their mainfunction to be that of a prophet, though at least a third of themwill be likely to bring forth incidental material that many wouldview as prophetic.
SCRYING, See CrystalGazing.
SEER, SEERESS, anatural born clairvoyant.
SIGNS,supernormal, to portend great events, were recorded in history intimes of great suffering and persecution. When priests are ejectedfrom their churches, places of worship closed or razed, whenreligious fervour is barred from its usual expression, it appears asif it would charge the air with psychic force. The ecstatic statebecomes epidemical, prophecies are uttered and great physicalphenomena produced.
Josephus and Tacitus write offearful sights and great signs from heaven before the judgment onJerusalem. Aerial armies were seen, supernatural voices heard, gateswere shutting and opening by themselves. When, three centuries later,Julian, the apostate, attempted to rebuild Jerusalem fiery ballsburst forth upon the workmen and took strange shapes. Some resembledcrosses and stars, filling the men with terror. This was recorded notonly by Julian's own historian but by Jewish and heathen writers aswell.
Of the signs and wondersduring the persecution of the Huguenots in France many fairly modernaccounts testify.
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