Clairvoyance Of The Future


Future-Time Clairvoyance, as indicated by its name, is that class of

clairvoyant phenomena which is concerned with the perception of facts,

events and happenings of future time. In this class of clairvoyant

phenomena naturally fall all genuine cases of prophecy, prevision,

foretelling, second-sight, etc. History, theological and secular, is

filled with instances of the foretelling of the future by prophets, wise

men, a
d others. By many, such powers are generally regarded as

supernatural or divine. Without wishing to combat such theories and

beliefs, I would say that the advanced occultists account for all such

phenomena under the general laws of clairvoyance.



But while the phenomena itself is very well known, and is accepted as

genuine in even many cases in which past-time clairvoyance is doubted,

still it is even more difficult to explain than is past-time clairvoyance

based on the Akashic Records or the Astral Light. To the person not well

versed in occult knowledge, and esoteric principles, it is deemed

impossible to intelligently account for the perception of an event before

it has actually happened--perhaps years before its actual happening. While

I cannot hope to make this matter absolutely clear to the person who is

not an advanced student of occultism, still I shall try to throw at least

some light on the underlying principles of this wonderful class of occult

phenomena. The main point for the student to realize is that there are

natural laws underlying this phenomenon, and that it is not a matter of

supernatural power, or necessarily of divine special dispensation.



In the first place, in some of the simpler forms of future-time

clairvoyance, there is merely a high development of subconscious reasoning

from analogy. That is to say, the subconscious mental faculties of the

person reason out that such-and-so being the case, then it follows that

so-and-so will result, unless something entirely unexpected should prevent

or intervene. This is merely an extension of certain forms of reasoning

that we perform ordinarily. For instance, we see a child playing with a

sharp tool, and we naturally reason that it will cut itself. We see a man

acting in certain ways which generally lead to certain ends, and we

naturally reason that the expected result will occur. The more experience

that the observer has had, and the keener his faculty of perception and

his power of deductive reasoning, the wider will be the range of his power

in the direction of predicting future results from present happenings and

conditions.



In this connection, we must remember that the ordinary clairvoyant has

easier access to his subconscious mentality than has the average person.

The subconscious mind perceives and notes many little things that the

conscious mind overlooks, and therefore has better data from which to

reason. Moreover, as all students of the subconscious know, these

wonderful subconscious mental factulties have a very highly developed

power of reasoning deductively from a given premise or fact. In fact, the

subconscious faculties are almost perfect reasoning machines, providing

they are supplied with correct data in the first place. Much of the

so-called "intuitive reasoning" of persons arises from the operations of

the subconscious mental faculties just mentioned.



But, you may say, this is very interesting, but it is not clairvoyance.

Certainly, good student, but still clairvoyance plays an important part

even in this elementary form of prevision and future-seeing. You must

remember that by clairvoyant vision the real thoughts and feelings of a

person may be perceived. But, unless the attention of the clairvoyant is

specially directed to this, the conscious mind does not note it, and the

matter reaches the subconscious faculties without interference or

conscious knowledge on the part of the clairvoyant. This being so, it will

be seen that the subconscious mind of the clairvoyant is able to reason

deductively, in such cases, far beyond the power of even the subconscious

mind of the ordinary person--it has fuller data and more complete material

to work upon, of course.



It has become a proverb of the race that "coming events cast their shadows

before"; and many persons frequently have little flashes of future-time

seeing without realizing that they are really exercising elementary

clairvoyant powers. The combination of even a simple form of clairvoyance

and an active subconscious mind will often produce very wonderful

results--although not of course the more complex phenomena of full

clairvoyance and prevision. Some persons have claimed that even this form

of prevision implies something like fate or predestination, but this is

not fully true, for we must remember the fact that in some cases it is

possible to so act in accordance with a clairvoyant warning of this kind

that the impending calamity may be escaped. But, on the other hand, we

must also remember that every event is the result of certain preceding

events, without which it could not have happened, and which existing it

must happen unless some new element intervenes. There is such a thing as

cause and effect, we must remember--and if we can reason clearly from one

to the other with sufficient clearness, then we may actually prophesy

certain things in advance, always making allowance for the intervention of

the unexpected.



An authority says on this phase of the question: "There is no doubt

whatever that, just as what is happening now is the result of causes set

in motion in the past, so what will happen in the future will be the

result of causes already in operation. Even on this plane of life we can

calculate that if certain actions are performed, certain results will

follow; but our reckoning is constantly liable to be disturbed by the

interference of factors which we have not been able to take into account.

But if we raise our consciousness to the higher planes we can see much

further into the results of our actions. We can trace, for example, the

effect of a casual word, not only upon the person to whom it was

addressed, but through him on many others as it is passed on in widening

circles, until it seems to have affected the whole country; and one

glimpse of such a vision is more efficient than any number of moral

precepts in impressing upon us the necessity of extreme circumspection in

thought, word, and deed. Not only can we from that plane see thus fully

the result of every action, but we can also see where and in what way the

results of other actions apparently quite unconnected with it will

interfere with and modify it. In fact, it may be said that the results of

all causes at present in action are clearly visible--that the future, as

it would be if no entirely new causes should arise, lies open before our

gaze.



"New causes of course do arise, because man's will is free; but in the

case of all ordinary people the use which they make of their freedom may

be calculated beforehand with considerable accuracy. The average man has

so little real will that he is very much the creature of circumstances;

his action in previous lives places him amid certain surroundings, and

their influence upon him is so very much the most important factor in his

life-story that his future course may be predicted with almost

mathematical certainty. With the developed man the case is different; for

him also the main events of life are arranged by his past actions, but the

way in which he will allow them to affect him, the methods by which he

will deal with them and perhaps triumph over them--these are all his own,

and they cannot be foreseen even on the mental plane except as

probabilities.



"Looking down on man's life in this way from above, it seems as though his

free will could be exercised only in certain crises in his career. He

arrives at a point in his life where there are obviously two or three

alternative courses open before him; he is absolutely free to choose which

of them he pleases, and although someone who knew his nature thoroughly

well might feel almost certain what his choice would be, such knowledge on

his friend's part is in no sense a compelling force. But when he has

chosen, he has to go through with it and take the consequences; having

entered upon a particular path he may, in many cases, be forced to go on

for a very long time before he has any opportunity to turn aside. His

position is somewhat like that of a driver of a train; when he comes to a

junction he may have the points set either this way or that, and so can

pass on to whichever line he pleases, but when he has passed on to one of

them he is compelled to run on along the line which he has selected until

he reaches another set of points, where again an opportunity of choice is

offered to him."



But, interesting and wonderful as this phase of future-time clairvoyance

undoubtedly is, it pales before the fuller and more complete phases. And,

in the latter, we must look elsewhere for the explanation--or approach to

an explanation. The explanation of this higher form of future-time

clairvoyance must be looked for in a new conception of the nature and

meaning of time. It is difficult to approach this question without

becoming at once involved in technical metaphysical discussion. As an

example of this difficulty, I invite you to consider the following from

Sir Oliver Lodge, in his address to the British Association, at Cardiff,

several years ago. While what he says is very clear to the mind of a

person trained along these lines of subtle thought, it will be almost like

Greek to the average person. Sir Oliver Lodge said:



"A luminous and helpful idea is that 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

sense 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 traveller

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, as it seems to me, we

are impelled to seek, in connection with the directing of form or

determinism, and the action of living being consciously directed to a

definite and preconceived end."



Sir Oliver's illustration is somewhat akin to that of a person who sees a

moving-picture show for the first time, and does not know how it is

produced. To him it looks as if the events of the pictured story actually

were developing and happening in time, whereas, in reality the whole

picture is existing at one time. Its past, present and future is already

pictured, and may be seen by one who knows the secret and how to look for

the past or future scene; while, to the ordinary observer, the scene

progresses in sequence, the present being followed by something else which

is at this moment "in the future," and therefore, unknowable. To the

senses of the ordinary observer only the present is in existence; while,

in fact, the "future" is equally truly in existence at the same time,

although not evident to the senses of the observer. Think over this a

little, and let the idea sink into your mind--it may help you to

understand something concerning the mystery of future-time clairvoyance,

prevision, or second-sight.



Time, you know, is far more relative than we generally conceive it. It is

a scientific fact that a person in the dream state may cover years of

time in a dream that occupies only a few seconds of time. Persons have

nodded and awakened immediately afterwards (as proved by others present in

the room), and yet in that moment's time they have dreamed of long

journeys to foreign lands, great campaigns of war, etc. Moreover, a loud

sound (a pistol shot, for instance) which has awakened a sleeping person,

has also set into effect a dream-state train of circumstances,

constituting a long dream-state story which, after many events and

happenings, terminated in the shot of a firing-squad--and then the man

awoke. Now in this last mentioned case, not only has the dreamer

experienced events covering a long time, all in the space of a second of

time; but, also, the very sound which terminated the dream, also induced

it from the very beginning--the last thing caused the first things to

appear and proceed in sequence to the last! Persons under the influence of

chloroform, or "laughing gas," have similar experiences--often the first

sound heard at the moment of recovering consciousness seems to be the last

thing in a long dream which preceded it, though the long dream was really

caused by the final sound. Now, remember, that here not only did past,

present and future exist at the same moment of time; but, also, the future

caused the past and present to come into being.



On the physical plane, we have analogies illustrating this fact. It is

said that in every acorn rests and exists, in miniature, the form of the

future oak. And, some go so far as to say that the oak is the "ultimate

cause" of the acorn--that the idea of the oak caused the acorn to be at

all. In the same way, the "idea" of the man must be in the infant boy,

from the moment of birth, and even from the moment of conception.

But, let us pass on to the bold conception of the most advanced

metaphysicians--they have a still more dazzling explanation, let us listen

to it.



These occultists and metaphysicians who have thought long and deeply upon

the ultimate facts and nature of the universe, have dared to think that

there must exist some absolute consciousness--some absolute mind--which

must perceive the past, present and future of the universe as one

happening; as simultaneously and actively present at one moment of

absolute time. They reason that just as man may see as one happening of a

moment of his time some particular event which might appear as a year to

some minute form of life and mind--the microscopic creatures in a drop of

water, for instance; so that which seems as a year, or a hundred years, to

the mind of man may appear as the happening of a single moment of a higher

scale of time to some exalted Being or form of consciousness on a higher

plane. You remember that it is said that "a thousand years is but as a day

to the Lord;" and the Hindu Vedas tell us that "the creation, duration,

and destruction of the universe, is as but the time of the twinkling of an

eye to Brahman." I shall not proceed further along this line--I have given

you a very strong hint here; you must work it out for yourself, if you

feel so disposed. But there are certain consequences arising from this

ultimate universal fact, which I must mention before passing on.



The high occult teachings hold that there is a plane of the higher astral

world which may be said to carry a reflection of the Universal Mind--just

as a lake contains a reflection of the distant mountain. Well, then, the

clairvoyant vision at times is able to penetrate to the realm of that

astral reflecting medium, and see somewhat dimly what is pictured there.

As the future may be discerned in this reflected picture, by the

clairvoyant mind, we see how future-seeing, prevision, and second-sight

may be explained scientifically.



A writer has said: "On this plane, in some manner which down here is

totally inexplicable, the past, the present, and the future, are all there

existing simultaneously. One can only accept this fact, for its cause lies

in the faculty of that exalted plane, and the way in which this higher

faculty works is naturally quite incomprehensible to the physical brain.

Yet now and then one may meet with a hint that seems to bring us a trifle

nearer to a dim possibility of comprehension. When the pupil's

consciousness is fully developed upon this higher plane, therefore,

perfect prevision is possible to him, though he may not--nay, he certainly

will not--be able to bring the whole result of his sight through fully and

in order into his physical consciousness. Still, a great deal of clear

foresight is obviously within his power whenever he likes to exercise it;

and even when he is not exercising it, frequent flashes of foreknowledge

come through into his ordinary life, so that he often has an instantaneous

intuition as to how things will turn out."



The same writer says: "Short of perfect prevision we find that all degrees

of this type of clairvoyance exist, from the occasional vague premonitions

which cannot in any true sense be called sight at all, up to frequent and

fairly complete second-sight. The faculty to which this latter somewhat

misleading name has been given is an extremely interesting one, and would

well repay more careful and systematic study than has hitherto been given

to it. It is best known to us as a not infrequent possession of the

Scottish Highlanders, though it is by no means confined to them.

Occasional instances of it have appeared in almost every nation, but it

has always been commonest among mountaineers and men of lonely life. With

us in England it is often spoken of as if it were the exclusive appanage

of the Celtic race, but in reality it has appeared among similarly

situated peoples the world over, it is stated, for example, to be very

common among the Westphalian peasantry.



"Sometimes the second-sight consists of a picture clearly foreshowing some

coming event; more frequently, perhaps, the glimpse of the future is given

in some symbolical appearance. It is noteworthy that the events foreseen

are invariably unpleasant ones--death being the commonest of all; I do not

recollect a single instance in which the second-sight has shown anything

which was not of the most gloomy nature. It has a ghastly symbolism of

its own--a symbolism of shrouds and corpse-candles, and other funeral

horrors. In some cases it appears to be to a certain extent dependent upon

locality, for it is stated that inhabitants of the Isle of Skye who

possess the faculty often lose it when they leave the island, even though

it be only to cross to the mainland. The gift of such sight is sometimes

hereditary in a family for generations, but this is not an invariable

rule, for it often appears sporadically in one member of a family

otherwise free from its lugubrious influence.



"There may be still some people who deny the possibility of prevision, but

such denial simply shows their ignorance of the evidence on the subject.

The large number of authenticated cases leave no room for doubt as to the

fact, but many of them are of such a nature as to render a reasonable

explanation by no means easy to find. It is evident that the Ego possesses

a certain amount of previsional faculty, and if the events foreseen were

always of great importance, one might suppose that an extraordinary

stimulus had enabled him for that occasion only to make a clear impression

of what he saw upon his lower personality. No doubt that is the

explanation of many of the cases in which death or grave disaster is

foreseen, but there are a large number of instances on record to which it

does not seem to apply, since the events foretold are frequently trivial

and unimportant."



In the following chapter I shall present to your consideration some very

remarkable cases of future-time clairvoyance, prevision, or second-sight;

some of these are historical cases, and all are vouched for by the best

authorities. I quote these cases not merely for their own interesting

features, but also to give you an idea of how remarkable some of these

instances are; and also to give you a clear conception of the way in which

this form of clairvoyance tends to manifest itself.



Before passing on to these interesting cases, however, I wish to remind

you that in future-time clairvoyance, as well as in past-time

clairvoyance, the phenomenon may be manifested in many ways and according

to several methods. That is to say, that in future-time clairvoyance the

vision may come in the state of meditation or reverie; it may come along

the lines of psychometry, some associated object or person supplying the

connecting link; or, again, it may come as the result of crystal-gazing,

etc. This is as we might naturally expect, for this form of clairvoyance

is merely one special and particular phase of clairvoyance in general, and

of course, comes under the general laws and rules governing all

clairvoyant phenomena.



Future-time clairvoyance, prevision and second-sight may, like any other

form of clairvoyance, be developed and unfolded, by means of the same

rules and methods that I have already suggested to you in the preceding

lessons. It is all a matter of attention, application, patience, exercise

and practice. I may say, however, that the strong desire and wish for the

perception of future events, held firmly in mind during the practicing and

exercising, will tend to unfold and develop the clairvoyant faculties in

this particular direction. Strong desire, and earnest attention in the

desired direction, will do much to cultivate, develop and unfold any

psychic faculty.



Just as meditation and reverie about past times and things tend to develop

past-time clairvoyance, so will meditation and reverie about future time

and things tend to develop prevision and the seeing of future things.

This, indeed, is the very first step toward the attainment of this form of

clairvoyance. The attention clears the psychic path, over which the astral

faculties travel. In the astral, as on the physical, the rule is: always

look where you are going--look ahead on the path over which you wish to

travel.



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