The agent most suitable for developing clairvoyance cannot therefore be definitely prescribed. It must remain a matter of experiment with the subject himself. That there are some persons in whom the psychic faculties are more prone to activity than in others is certain, and it would appear also that these faculties are native in some by spiritual or hereditary succession, which fact is evident from their genitures as interpreted by astrology. Many planets in flexed signs and a satellitium in the nadir or lower angle of the horoscope is a certain indication of extreme nervous sensibility and predisposition to telaesthenic impressions, though this observation does not cover all the instances before me. It is true, however, where it applies. The dominant influence of the planet Neptune in a horoscope is also to be regarded as a special indication of some form of psychic activity, as I have frequently observed.
In cases where the subject is not prepared by evolutional process for the exercise of the psychic faculties, it will be found that the same or similar indications will tend to the simulation of such faculties, as by mediumism, conjuring, etc., while they may even result in chicanery and fraud.
But among those who are gifted in the direction spoken of, all are not clairvoyant. The most common form of psychic disturbance is involuntary clairaudience, and telaesthesia is not perhaps less general. St. Paul indicates a variety of such psychic "gifts," e.g. the gifts of prophecy, of healing, of understanding, etc.; but these may also be regarded in quite a mundane sense. The development among the early Christians of spiritual gifts, visions, hearing, speaking in foreign tongues, psychic healing, etc., appears to have given rise to a variety of exceptional experiences by which they were induced to say "we cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard." "One star differs from another in glory," says St. Paul, and this diversity of spiritual gifts proceeds from the celestial world, and is so ordered that each may fulfil the part required of him in the economy of life.
Psychic tradition is as important a fact as is physical heredity. The latter is a factor of immense importance as affecting the constitution and quality of the organism in and through which the soul is required to function. But psychic tradition is that which determines the power and faculty brought to bear upon the physical organism. Past evolution is not a negligible quantity, and its effects are never wasted or lost to the individual. We are what we are by reason of what we have already been, as well individually as racially. "The future is, the past unfolded" or "entered upon by a new door," as it has been well said. We do not suddenly acquire faculties, we evolve them by effort and successive selection. In our upward striving for liberty we specialize along certain lines which appear to us to be those offering either the least resistance or the most ready means of self-preservation, liberty and well-being. Hence some evolve a special faculty for money-making and, as schoolboys, will be expert traders of alley-taws, jack-knives, toffee and all sorts of kickshaws. Others of another bent or list will traffic in knowledge to the abounding satisfaction of their masters and the jealous pride of their form.
So that psychic tradition while disposing some to the speedy revelation of an already acquired faculty, disposes others to the more arduous but not less interesting work of acquiring such faculty. And because the spiritual needs of mankind are ever of primary importance, there are always to be found those in whom the power of spiritual interpretation is the dominant faculty, such persons being the natural channels of intercourse between the superior and inferior worlds. The physical body of man is equipped with a corresponding order of microbic life which acts as an organic interpreter, translating the elements of food into blood, nerve, fibre, tissue and bone agreeably to the laws of their being. What I have to say in this place is addressed especially to those who would aspire to the faculty of clear vision and in whom the psychic powers are striving towards expression. Every person whose life is not wholly sunk in material and selfish pleasures but in whom the aspiration to a higher and better life is a hunger the world cannot satisfy, has within himself the power to see and know that which he seeks behind the veil of the senses. Nature has never produced a desire she cannot satisfy. There is no hope, however vague, that the soul cannot define, and no aspiration, however high, that the wings of the spirit cannot reach. Therefore be patient and strive. To others I would say: Be content. All birds cannot be eagles. The nightingale has a song and the humming bird a plumage the eagle can never possess. The nightingale may sing to the stars, the humming bird to the flowers, but the eagle, whose tireless eyes gaze into the heart of day, is uncompanioned in its lofty loneliness amid the mountain tops.
CHAPTER III.
THE FACULTY OF SEERSHIP
Until quite recently the faculty of seership has been associated in occult literature with various magical formulae. There are in existence works by Tristemius, Francis Barrett, Ebenezer Sibley and others in which the use of the crystal is made by means of magical invocations and a variety of ceremonial observances. It is not within the scope of this treatise to determine the value of such rites or the desirability of invoking extraneous intelligences and powers by the use of magical practices; but I think we may conclude that communion of this order is not unattended by grave dangers. When the Israelites were ill-content with the farinaceous manna they invoked Heaven to send them meat. They got what they wanted, but also the dire penalty which it incurred; and it is quite likely that in invoking occult forces beyond one's power to control great evils may ensue. All action and reaction are equal and opposite. A child can pull a trigger but cannot withstand the recoil of a gun, or by moving a lever may set machinery in motion which it can by no means control. Therefore without strength and knowledge of the right sort it is foolish to meddle with occult forces; and in the education of the development of the psychic and spiritual faculties native in us, it is better to encourage their natural development by legitimate exercise than to invoke the action of a stimulus which cannot afterwards be controlled. Water will wear away a rock by continual fretting, though nobody doubts that water is softer than a rock, and if the barrier between this and the soul-world be like granite, yet the patient and persistent action of the determined mind will sooner or later wear it away, the last thin layer will break and the light of another world will stream through, dazzling our unaccustomed eyes with its bright effulgence.
It is my object here to indicate by what means and by what persons the natural development of the clairvoyant faculty may be achieved. In regard then to the subject, medium or seer, there are two distinct temperaments in which the faculty is likely to be dominant and capable of high and rapid development. The first is the nervous temperament, characterized by extreme activity of body and mind, nervous excitability, dark complexion, prominent features, and wiry frame. Types of this temperament are to be seen in the descriptions of Dante, Swedenborg, Melancthon, Edgar A. Poe and others. This type represents the positive seers.