Few words will be necessary by way of preface to this book, which is designed as an introduction to a little understood and much misrepresented subject.

I have not here written anything which is intended to displace the observations of other authors on this subject, nor will it be found that anything has been said subversive of the conclusions arrived at by experimentalists who have essayed the study of clairvoyant phenomena in a manner that is altogether commendable, and who have sought to place the subject on a demonstrable and scientific basis. I refer to the proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.

In the following pages I have endeavoured to indicate the nature of the faculty of Second Sight or Clairvoyance, the means of its development, the use of suitable media or agents for this purpose, and the kind of results that may be expected to follow a regulated effort in this direction. I have also sought to show that the development of the psychic faculties may form an orderly step in the process of human unfoldment and perfectibility.

As far as the nature and scope of this little work will allow, I have sought to treat the subject on a broad and general basis rather than pursue more particular and possibly more attractive scientific lines. What I have here said is the result of a personal experience of some years in this and other forms of psychic development and experimentation. My conclusions are given for what they are worth, and I have no wish to persuade my readers to my view of the nature and source of these abnormal phenomena. The reader is at liberty to form his own theory in regard to them, but such theory should be inclusive of all the known facts. The theories depending on hypnotic suggestion may be dismissed as inadequate. There appear to remain only the inspirational theory of direct revelation and the theory of the world-soul enunciated by the Occultists. I have elected in favour of the latter for reasons which, I think, will be conspicuous to those who read these pages.

I should be the last to allow the study of psychism to usurp the legitimate place in life of intellectual and spiritual pursuits, and I look with abhorrence upon the flippant use made of the psychic faculties by a certain class of pseudo-occultists who serve up this kind of thing with their five o’clock tea. But I regard an ordered psychism as a most valuable accessory to intellectual and spiritual development and as filling a natural place in the process of unfoldment between that intellectualism that is grounded in the senses and that higher intelligence which receives its light from within. From this view-point the following pages are written, and will, I trust, prove helpful.