Clairvoyance
Clairvoyance is a branch of occultism in which I have had little experience, and can, therefore, only refer to in brief. When I was the Principal of a Preparatory School, I once had on my staff a Frenchman of the name of Deslys. On recommencing school after the Christmas vacation, M. Deslys surprised me very much by suddenly observing: "Mr O'Donnell, did you not stay during the holidays at No. ... The Crescent, Bath?"
"Yes," I replied; "but how on earth do you know?" I had only been there two days, and had certainly never mentioned my visit either to him or to anyone acquainted with him.
"Well!" he said, "I'll tell you how I came to know. Hearing from my friends that Mme. Leprès, a well-known clairvoyante, had just come to Paris, I went to see her. It is just a week ago to-day. After she had described, with wonderful accuracy, several houses and scenes with which I was familiar, and given me several pieces of information about my friends, which I subsequently found to be correct, I asked her to tell me where you were and what you were doing. For some moments she was silent, and then she said very slowly: 'He is staying with a friend at No. ... The Crescent, Bath. I can see him (it was then three o'clock in the afternoon) sitting by the bedside of his friend, who has his head tied up in bandages. Mr O'Donnell is telling him a very droll story about Lady B——, to whom he has been lately introduced.' She then stopped, made a futile effort to go on, and after a
protracted pause exclaimed: 'I can see no more—something has happened.' That was all I found out about you."
"And enough, too, M. Deslys," I responded, "for what she told you was absolutely true. A week ago to-day I was staying at No. ... The Crescent, Bath, and at three o'clock in the afternoon I was sitting at the bedside of my friend, who had injured his head in a fall, and had it tied up in bandages; and amongst other bits of gossip, I narrated to him a very amusing anecdote concerning Lady B——, whom I have only just met, for the first time, in London."
Now M. Deslys could not possibly have known, excepting through psychical agency, where I had been staying a week before that time, or what I had been doing at three o'clock on that identical afternoon.
Automatic Writing
I have frequently experimented in automatic writing. Who that is interested in the occult has not! But I cannot say I have ever had any astonishing results. However, though my own experiences are not worth recording, I have heard of many extraordinary results obtained by others—results from automatic messages that one can not help believing could only be due to superphysical agency.