Future Time Clairvoyance.
In what is known technically as Future Time Clairvoyance, we have the manifestation of the clairvoyant vision in the direction of scenes and events of the future. In this phase of clairvoyance the seer perceives the events and scenes of future time just as if they were present before him at that very moment. This phase of clairvoyance is far rarer and more uncommon than any of the other phases. In fact, it is so seldom met with in its perfection that its manifestation is a matter of greatest interest to those who make a study of the subject. It occasionally occurs in flashes, and can not be produced at will by the ordinary clairvoyant. Unfortunately, its very rarity and uncommonness cause it to be counterfeited and imitated by unprincipled persons.
Seeing What Has Not Yet Happened.
The student who reasons carefully and logically usually meets with what to him, at least at first, seems to be an unsurmountable obstacle in the way of a rational explanation of Future Time Clairvoyance—when it comes to an understanding of how anyone can expect to see, or can really see, that which has never happened, he throws up his hands in despair. But, in this as in all the other phases of clairvoyant phenomena, there is found a reason and cause, although it requires some subtle thinking to find it, and to grasp it even when it is found. Let us see what are the highest teachings on this subject, as announced by the careful thinkers along the lines for many centuries.
Simple Prevision.
There is a phase of prevision, or prophecy of coming events, however, that is not true clairvoyance at all, but simply the subconscious workings of the mind along the lines of a supernormal perception of the laws of cause and effect. Give the active subconscious mental faculties the perception of a strong existing cause, and it will often reason out the probable effect (the almost certain effect, in fact) of that cause, even though that effect lies in the mist of the future. The subconscious mind works upon the principle that "coming events cast their shadows before." But this, at the best, is not true clairvoyance—it is merely the statement of "probable" results, and effects of existing causes, wonderfully exact and clear though the deduction may be in some cases. But a thousand-and-one unforeseen things may arise to completely upset the prediction, or deduction, for it is never actually true until it occurs. We must look further for real instances of Future Clairvoyance.
The Nature of Time.
That eminent scientist, Sir Oliver Lodge, offers an ingenious and interesting, though very technical explanation of this class of clairvoyant phenomena as follows: "Time is but a relative mode of regarding things; we progress through phenomena at a certain definite pace, and this subjective 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 sort of 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 traveler in a railway 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, therefore, 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 existing, we can recognize that they may have a controlling influence on all present action, and the two together may constitute the 'higher plane' or totality of things after which, it seems to me, we are impelled to seek, in connection with the directing of form or determinism, and the action of human beings consciously directed to a definite and preconceived end."