What Clairvoyance Is

Clairvoyance means literally nothing more than "clear-seeing," and it

is a word which has been sorely misused, and even degraded so far as

to be employed to describe the trickery of a mountebank in a variety

show. Even in its more restricted sense it covers a wide range of

phenomena, differing so greatly in character that it is not easy to

give a definition of the word which shall be at once succinct and

accurate. It h s been called "spiritual vision," but no rendering

could well be more misleading than that, for in the vast majority of

cases there is no faculty connected with it which has the slightest

claim to be honoured by so lofty a name.



For the purpose of this treatise we may, perhaps, define it as the

power to see what is hidden from ordinary physical sight. It will be

as well to premise that it is very frequently (though by no means

always) accompanied by what is called clairaudience, or the power to

hear what would be inaudible to the ordinary physical ear; and we will

for the nonce take our title as covering this faculty also, in order

to avoid the clumsiness of perpetually using two long words where one

will suffice.



Let me make two points clear before I begin. First, I am not writing

for those who do not believe that there is such a thing as

clairvoyance, nor am I seeking to convince those who are in doubt

about the matter. In so small a work as this I have no space for that;

such people must study the many books containing lists of cases, or

make experiments for themselves along mesmeric lines. I am addressing

myself to the better-instructed class who know that clairvoyance

exists, and are sufficiently interested in the subject to be glad of

information as to its methods and possibilities; and I would assure

them that what I write is the result of much careful study and

experiment, and that though some of the powers which I shall have to

describe may seem new and wonderful to them, I mention no single one

of which I have not myself seen examples.



Secondly, though I shall endeavour to avoid technicalities as far as

possible, yet as I am writing in the main for students of Theosophy, I

shall feel myself at liberty sometimes to use, for brevity's sake and

without detailed explanation, the ordinary Theosophical terms with

which I may safely assume them to be familiar.



Should this little book fall into the hands of any to whom the

occasional use of such terms constitutes a difficulty, I can only

apologize to them and refer them for these preliminary explanations to

any elementary Theosophical work, such as Mrs. Besant's Ancient

Wisdom or Man and His Bodies. The truth is that the whole

Theosophical system hangs together so closely, and its various parts

are so interdependent, that to give a full explanation of every term

used would necessitate an exhaustive treatise on Theosophy as a

preface even to this short account of clairvoyance.



Before a detailed explanation of clairvoyance can usefully be

attempted, however, it will be necessary for us to devote a little

time to some preliminary considerations, in order that we may have

clearly in mind a few broad facts as to the different planes on which

clairvoyant vision may be exercised, and the conditions which render

its exercise possible.



We are constantly assured in Theosophical literature that all these

higher faculties are presently to be the heritage of mankind in

general--that the capacity of clairvoyance, for example, lies latent

in every one, and that those in whom it already manifests itself are

simply in that one particular a little in advance of the rest of us.

Now this statement is a true one, and yet it seems quite vague and

unreal to the majority of people, simply because they regard such a

faculty as something absolutely different from anything they have yet

experienced, and feel fairly confident that they themselves, at any

rate, are not within measurable distance of its development.



It may help to dispel this sense of unreality if we try to understand

that clairvoyance, like so many other things in nature, is mainly a

question of vibrations, and is in fact nothing but an extension of

powers which we are all using every day of our lives. We are living

all the while surrounded by a vast sea of mingled air and ether, the

latter inter-penetrating the former, as it does all physical matter;

and it is chiefly by means of vibrations in that vast sea of matter

that impressions reach us from the outside. This much we all know, but

it may perhaps never have occurred to many of us that the number of

these vibrations to which we are capable of responding is in reality

quite infinitesimal.



Up among the exceedingly rapid vibrations which affect the ether there

is a certain small section--a very small section--to which the

retina of the human eye is capable of responding, and these particular

vibrations produce in us the sensation which we call light. That is to

say, we are capable of seeing only those objects from which light of

that particular kind can either issue or be reflected.



In exactly the same way the tympanum of the human ear is capable of

responding to a certain very small range of comparatively slow

vibrations--slow enough to affect the air which surrounds us; and so

the only sounds which we can hear are those made by objects which are

able to vibrate at some rate within that particular range.



In both cases it is a matter perfectly well known to science that

there are large numbers of vibrations both above and below these two

sections, and that consequently there is much light that we cannot

see, and there are many sounds to which our ears are deaf. In the case

of light the action of these higher and lower vibrations is easily

perceptible in the effects produced by the actinic rays at one end of

the spectrum and the heat rays at the other.



As a matter of fact there exist vibrations of every conceivable degree

of rapidity, filling the whole vast space intervening between the slow

sound waves and the swift light waves; nor is even that all, for there

are undoubtedly vibrations slower than those of sound, and a whole

infinity of them which are swifter than those known to us as light. So

we begin to understand that the vibrations by which we see and hear

are only like two tiny groups of a few strings selected from an

enormous harp of practically infinite extent, and when we think how

much we have been able to learn and infer from the use of those

minute fragments, we see vaguely what possibilities might lie before

us if we were enabled to utilize the vast and wonderful whole.



Another fact which needs to be considered in this connection is that

different human beings vary considerably, though within relatively

narrow limits, in their capacity of response even to the very few

vibrations which are within reach of our physical senses. I am not

referring to the keenness of sight or of hearing that enables one man

to see a fainter object or hear a slighter sound than another; it is

not in the least a question of strength of vision, but of extent of

susceptibility.



For example, if anyone will take a good bisulphide of carbon prism,

and by its means throw a clear spectrum on a sheet of white paper, and

then get a number of people to mark upon the paper the extreme limits

of the spectrum as it appears to them, he is fairly certain to find

that their powers of vision differ appreciably. Some will see the

violet extending much farther than the majority do; others will

perhaps see rather less violet than most, while gaining a

corresponding extension of vision at the red end. Some few there will

perhaps be who can see farther than ordinary at both ends, and these

will almost certainly be what we call sensitive people--susceptible in

fact to a greater range of vibrations than are most men of the present

day.



In hearing, the same difference can be tested by taking some sound

which is just not too high to be audible--on the very verge of

audibility as it were--and discovering how many among a given number

of people are able to hear it. The squeak of a bat is a familiar

instance of such a sound, and experiment will show that on a summer

evening, when the whole air is full of the shrill, needle-like cries

of these little animals, quite a large number of men will be

absolutely unconscious of them, and unable to hear anything at all.



Now these examples clearly show that there is no hard-and-fast limit

to man's power of response to either etheric or aerial vibrations, but

that some among us already have that power to a wider extent than

others; and it will even be found that the same man's capacity varies

on different occasions. It is therefore not difficult for us to

imagine that it might be possible for a man to develop this power, and

thus in time to learn to see much that is invisible to his fellow-men,

and hear much that is inaudible to them, since we know perfectly well

that enormous numbers of these additional vibrations do exist, and are

simply, as it were, awaiting recognition.



The experiments with the Roentgen rays give us an example of the

startling results which are produced when even a very few of these

additional vibrations are brought within human ken, and the

transparency to these rays of many substances hitherto considered

opaque at once shows us one way at least in which we may explain such

elementary clairvoyance as is involved in reading a letter inside a

closed box, or describing those present in an adjoining apartment. To

learn to see by means of the Roentgen rays in addition to those

ordinarily employed would be quite sufficient to enable anyone to

perform a feat of magic of this order.



So far we have thought only of an extension of the purely physical

senses of man; and when we remember that a man's etheric body is in

reality merely the finer part of his physical frame, and that

therefore all his sense organs contain a large amount of etheric

matter of various degrees of density, the capacities of which are

still practically latent in most of us, we shall see that even if we

confine ourselves to this line of development alone there are enormous

possibilities of all kinds already opening out before us.



But besides and beyond all this we know that man possesses an astral

and a mental body, each of which can in process of time be aroused

into activity, and will respond in turn to the vibrations of the

matter of its own plane, thus opening up before the Ego, as he learns

to function through these vehicles, two entirely new and far wider

worlds of knowledge and power. Now these new worlds, though they are

all around us and freely inter-penetrate one another, are not to be

thought of as distinct and entirely unconnected in substance, but

rather as melting the one into the other, the lowest astral forming a

direct series with the highest physical, just as the lowest mental in

its turn forms a direct series with the highest astral. We are not

called upon in thinking of them to imagine some new and strange kind

of matter, but simply to think of the ordinary physical kind as

subdivided so very much more finely and vibrating so very much more

rapidly as to introduce us to what are practically entirely new

conditions and qualities.



It is not then difficult for us to grasp the possibility of a steady

and progressive extension of our senses, so that both by sight and by

hearing we may be able to appreciate vibrations far higher and far

lower than those which are ordinarily recognised. A large section of

these additional vibrations will still belong to the physical plane,

and will merely enable us to obtain impressions from the etheric part

of that plane, which is at present as a closed book to us. Such

impressions will still be received through the retina of the eye; of

course they will affect its etheric rather than its solid matter, but

we may nevertheless regard them as still appealing only to an organ

specialized to receive them, and not to the whole surface of the

etheric body.



There are some abnormal cases, however, in which other parts of the

etheric body respond to these additional vibrations as readily as, or

even more readily than, the eye. Such vagaries are explicable in

various ways, but principally as effects of some partial astral

development, for it will be found that the sensitive parts of the body

almost invariably correspond with one or other of the chakrams, or

centres of vitality in the astral body. And though, if astral

consciousness be not yet developed, these centres may not be available

on their own plane, they are still strong enough to stimulate into

keener activity the etheric matter which they inter-penetrate.



When we come to deal with the astral senses themselves the methods of

working are very different. The astral body has no specialized

sense-organs--a fact which perhaps needs some explanation, since many

students who are trying to comprehend its physiology seem to find it

difficult to reconcile with the statements that have been made as to

the perfect inter-penetration of the physical body by astral matter,

the exact correspondence between the two vehicles, and the fact that

every physical object has necessarily its astral counterpart.



Now all these statements are true, and yet it is quite possible for

people who do not normally see astrally to misunderstand them. Every

order of physical matter has its corresponding order of astral matter

in constant association with it--not to be separated from it except by

a very considerable exertion of occult force, and even then only to

be held apart from it as long as force is being definitely exerted to

that end. But for all that the relation of the astral particles one to

another is far looser than is the case with their physical

correspondences.



In a bar of iron, for example, we have a mass of physical molecules in

the solid condition--that is to say, capable of comparatively little

change in their relative positions, though each vibrating with immense

rapidity in its own sphere. The astral counterpart of this consists of

what we often call solid astral matter--that is, matter of the lowest

and densest sub-plane of the astral; but nevertheless its particles

are constantly and rapidly changing their relative position, moving

among one another as easily as those of a liquid on the physical plane

might do. So that there is no permanent association between any one

physical particle and that amount of astral matter which happens at

any given moment to be acting as its counterpart.



This is equally true with respect to the astral body of man, which for

our purpose at the moment we may regard as consisting of two

parts--the denser aggregation which occupies the exact position of the

physical body, and the cloud of rarer astral matter which surrounds

that aggregation. In both these parts, and between them both, there is

going on at every moment of time the rapid inter-circulation of the

particles which has been described, so that as one watches the

movement of the molecules in the astral body one is reminded of the

appearance of those in fiercely boiling water.



This being so, it will be readily understood that though any given

organ of the physical body must always have as its counterpart a

certain amount of astral matter, it does not retain the same particles

for more than a few seconds at a time, and consequently there is

nothing corresponding to the specialization of physical nerve-matter

into optic or auditory nerves, and so on. So that though the physical

eye or ear has undoubtedly always its counterpart of astral matter,

that particular fragment of astral matter is no more (and no less)

capable of responding to the vibrations which produce astral sight or

astral hearing than any other part of the vehicle.



It must never be forgotten that though we constantly have to speak of

"astral sight" or "astral hearing" in order to make ourselves

intelligible, all that we mean by those expressions is the faculty of

responding to such vibrations as convey to the man's consciousness,

when he is functioning in his astral body, information of the same

character as that conveyed to him by his eyes and ears while he is in

the physical body. But in the entirely different astral conditions,

specialized organs are not necessary for the attainment of this

result; there is matter in every part of the astral body which is

capable of such response, and consequently the man functioning in that

vehicle sees equally well objects behind him, beneath him, above him,

without needing to turn his head.



There is, however, another point which it would hardly be fair to

leave entirely out of account, and that is the question of the

chakrams referred to above. Theosophical students are familiar with

the idea of the existence in both the astral and the etheric bodies of

man of certain centres of force which have to be vivified in turn by

the sacred serpent-fire as the man advances in evolution. Though these

cannot be described as organs in the ordinary sense of the word, since

it is not through them that the man sees or hears, as he does in

physical life through eyes and ears, yet it is apparently very largely

upon their vivification that the power of exercising these astral

senses depends, each of them as it is developed giving to the whole

astral body the power of response to a new set of vibrations.



Neither have these centres, however, any permanent collection of

astral matter connected with them. They are simply vortices in the

matter of the body--vortices through which all the particles pass in

turn--points, perhaps, at which the higher force from planes above

impinges upon the astral body. Even this description gives but a very

partial idea of their appearance, for they are in reality

four-dimensional vortices, so that the force which comes through them

and is the cause of their existence seems to well up from nowhere. But

at any rate, since all particles in turn pass through each of them, it

will be clear that it is thus possible for each in turn to evoke in

all the particles of the body the power of receptivity to a certain

set of vibrations, so that all the astral senses are equally active in

all parts of the body.



The vision of the mental plane is again totally different, for in this

case we can no longer speak of separate senses such as sight and

hearing, but rather have to postulate one general sense which responds

so fully to the vibrations reaching it that when any object comes

within its cognition it at once comprehends it fully, and as it were

sees it, hears it, feels it, and knows all there is to know about it

by the one instantaneous operation. Yet even this wonderful faculty

differs in degree only and not in kind from those which are at our

command at the present time; on the mental plane, just as on the

physical, impressions are still conveyed by means of vibrations

travelling from the object seen to the seer.



On the buddhic plane we meet for the first time with a quite new

faculty having nothing in common with those of which we have spoken,

for there a man cognizes any object by an entirely different method,

in which external vibrations play no part. The object becomes part of

himself, and he studies it from the inside instead of from the

outside. But with this power ordinary clairvoyance has nothing to

do.



The development, either entire or partial, of any one of these

faculties would come under our definition of clairvoyance--the power

to see what is hidden from ordinary physical sight. But these

faculties may be developed in various ways, and it will be well to say

a few words as to these different lines.



We may presume that if it were possible for a man to be isolated

during his evolution from all but the gentlest outside influences, and

to unfold from the beginning in perfectly regular and normal fashion,

he would probably develop his senses in regular order also. He would

find his physical senses gradually extending their scope until they

responded to all the physical vibrations, of etheric as well as of

denser matter; then in orderly sequence would come sensibility to the

coarser part of the astral plane, and presently the finer part also

would be included, until in due course the faculty of the mental plane

dawned in its turn.



In real life, however, development so regular as this is hardly ever

known, and many a man has occasional flashes of astral consciousness

without any awakening of etheric vision at all. And this irregularity

of development is one of the principal causes of man's extraordinary

liability to error in matters of clairvoyance--a liability from which

there is no escape except by a long course of careful training under a

qualified teacher.



Students of Theosophical literature are well aware that there are such

teachers to be found--that even in this materialistic nineteenth

century the old saying is still true, that "when the pupil is ready,

the Master is ready also," and that "in the hall of learning, when he

is capable of entering there, the disciple will always find his

Master." They are well aware also that only under such guidance can a

man develop his latent powers in safety and with certainty, since they

know how fatally easy it is for the untrained clairvoyant to deceive

himself as to the meaning and value of what he sees, or even

absolutely to distort his vision completely in bringing it down into

his physical consciousness.



It does not follow that even the pupil who is receiving regular

instruction in the use of occult powers will find them unfolding

themselves exactly in the regular order which was suggested above as

probably ideal. His previous progress may not have been such as to

make this for him the easiest or most desirable road; but at any rate

he is in the hands of one who is perfectly competent to be his guide

in spiritual development, and he rests in perfect contentment that the

way along which he is taken will be that which is the best way for

him.



Another great advantage which he gains is that whatever faculties he

may acquire are definitely under his command and can be used fully and

constantly when he needs them for his Theosophical work; whereas in

the case of the untrained man such powers often manifest themselves

only very partially and spasmodically, and appear to come and go, as

it were, at their own sweet will.



It may reasonably be objected that if clairvoyant faculty is, as

stated, a part of the occult development of man, and so a sign of a

certain amount of progress along that line, it seems strange that it

should often be possessed by primitive peoples, or by the ignorant and

uncultured among our own race--persons who are obviously quite

undeveloped, from whatever point of view one regards them. No doubt

this does appear remarkable at first sight but the fact is that the

sensitiveness of the savage or of the coarse and vulgar European

ignoramus is not really at all the same thing as the faculty of his

properly trained brother, nor is it arrived at in the same way.



An exact and detailed explanation of the difference would lead us into

rather recondite technicalities, but perhaps the general idea of the

distinction between the two may be caught from an example taken from

the very lowest plane of clairvoyance, in close contact with the

denser physical. The etheric double in man is in exceedingly close

relation to his nervous system, and any kind of action upon one of

them speedily reacts on the other. Now in the sporadic appearance of

etheric sight in the savage, whether of Central Africa or of Western

Europe, it has been observed that the corresponding nervous

disturbance is almost entirely in the sympathetic system, and that the

whole affair is practically beyond the man's control--is in fact a

sort of massive sensation vaguely belonging to the whole etheric body,

rather than an exact and definite sense-perception communicated

through a specialized organ.



As in later races and amid higher development the strength of the man

is more and more thrown into the evolution of the mental faculties,

this vague sensitiveness usually disappears; but still later, when the

spiritual man begins to unfold, he regains his clairvoyant power. This

time, however, the faculty is a precise and exact one, under the

control of the man's will, and exercised through a definite

sense-organ; and it is noteworthy that any nervous action set up in

sympathy with it is now almost exclusively in the cerebro-spinal

system.



On this subject Mrs. Besant writes:--"The lower forms of psychism are

more frequent in animals and in very unintelligent human beings than

in men and women in whom the intellectual powers are well developed.

They appear to be connected with the sympathetic system, not with the

cerebro-spinal. The large nucleated ganglionic cells in this system

contain a very large proportion of etheric matter, and are hence more

easily affected by the coarser astral vibrations than are the cells in

which the proportion is less. As the cerebro-spinal system develops,

and the brain becomes more highly evolved, the sympathetic system

subsides into a subordinate position, and the sensitiveness to psychic

vibrations is dominated by the stronger and more active vibrations of

the higher nervous system. It is true that at a later stage of

evolution psychic sensitiveness reappears, but it is then developed in

connection with the cerebro-spinal centres, and is brought under the

control of the will. But the hysterical and ill-regulated psychism of

which we see so many lamentable examples is due to the small

development of the brain and the dominance of the sympathetic system."



Occasional flashes of clairvoyance do, however, sometimes come to the

highly cultured and spiritual-minded man, even though he may never

have heard of the possibility of training such a faculty. In his case

such glimpses usually signify that he is approaching that stage in his

evolution when these powers will naturally begin to manifest

themselves, and their appearance should serve as an additional

stimulus to him to strive to maintain that high standard of moral

purity and mental balance without which clairvoyance is a curse and

not a blessing to its possessor.



Between those who are entirely unimpressible and those who are in full

possession of clairvoyant power there are many intermediate stages.

One to which it will be worth while to give a passing glance is the

stage in which a man, though he has no clairvoyant faculty in ordinary

life, yet exhibits it more or less fully under the influence of

mesmerism. This is a case in which the psychic nature is already

sensitive, but the consciousness is not yet capable of functioning in

it amidst the manifold distractions of physical life. It needs to be

set free by the temporary suspension of the outer senses in the

mesmeric trance before it can use the diviner faculties which are but

just beginning to dawn within it. But of course even in the mesmeric

trance there are innumerable degrees of lucidity, from the ordinary

patient who is blankly unintelligent to the man whose power of sight

is fully under the control of the operator, and can be directed

whithersoever he wills, or to the more advanced stage in which, when

the consciousness is once set free, it escapes altogether from the

grasp of the magnetizer, and soars into fields of exalted vision where

it is entirely beyond his reach.



Another step along the same path is that upon which such perfect

suppression of the physical as that which occurs in the hypnotic

trance is not necessary, but the power of supernormal sight, though

still out of reach during waking life, becomes available when the

body is held in the bonds of ordinary sleep. At this stage of

development stood many of the prophets and seers of whom we read, who

were "warned of God in a dream," or communed with beings far higher

than themselves in the silent watches of the night.



Most cultured people of the higher races of the world have this

development to some extent: that is to say, the senses of their astral

bodies are in full working order, and perfectly capable of receiving

impressions from objects and entities of their own plane. But to make

that fact of any use to them down here in the physical body, two

changes are usually necessary; first, that the Ego shall be awakened

to the realities of the astral plane, and induced to emerge from the

chrysalis formed by his own waking thoughts, and look round him to

observe and to learn; and secondly, that the consciousness shall be so

far retained during the return of the Ego into his physical body as to

enable him to impress upon his physical brain the recollection of what

he has seen or learnt.



If the first of these changes has taken place, the second is of little

importance, since the Ego, the true man, will be able to profit by the

information to be obtained upon that plane, even though he may not

have the satisfaction of bringing through any remembrance of it into

his waking life down here.



Students often ask how this clairvoyant faculty will first be

manifested in themselves--how they may know when they have reached

the stage at which its first faint foreshadowings are beginning to be

visible. Cases differ so widely that it is impossible to give to this

question any answer that will be universally applicable.



Some people begin by a plunge, as it were, and under some unusual

stimulus become able just for once to see some striking vision; and

very often in such a case, because the experience does not repeat

itself, the seer comes in time to believe that on that occasion he

must have been the victim of hallucination. Others begin by becoming

intermittently conscious of the brilliant colours and vibrations of

the human aura; yet others find themselves with increasing frequency

seeing and hearing something to which those around them are blind and

deaf; others, again, see faces, landscapes, or coloured clouds

floating before their eyes in the dark before they sink to rest; while

perhaps the commonest experience of all is that of those who begin to

recollect with greater and greater clearness what they have seen and

heard on the other planes during sleep.



Having now to some extent cleared our ground, we may proceed to

consider the various phenomena of clairvoyance.



They differ so widely both in character and in degree that it is not

very easy to decide how they can most satisfactorily be classified. We

might, for example, arrange them according to the kind of sight

employed--whether it were mental, astral, or merely etheric. We might

divide them according to the capacity of the clairvoyant, taking into

consideration whether he was trained or untrained; whether his vision

was regular and under his command, or spasmodic and independent of his

volition; whether he could exercise it only when under mesmeric

influence, or whether that assistance was unnecessary for him; whether

he was able to use his faculty when awake in the physical body, or

whether it was available only when he was temporarily away from that

body in sleep or trance.



All these distinctions are of importance, and we shall have to take

them all into consideration as we go on, but perhaps on the whole the

most useful classification will be one something on the lines of that

adopted by Mr. Sinnett in his Rationale of Mesmerism--a book, by the

way, which all students of clairvoyance ought to read. In dealing with

the phenomena, then, we will arrange them rather according to the

capacity of the sight employed than to the plane upon which it is

exercised, so that we may group instances of clairvoyance under some

such headings as these:



1. Simple clairvoyance--that is to say, a mere opening of sight,

enabling its possessor to see whatever astral or etheric entities

happen to be present around him, but not including the power of

observing either distant places or scenes belonging to any other time

than the present.



2. Clairvoyance in space--the capacity to see scenes or events removed

from the seer in space, and either too far distant for ordinary

observation or concealed by intermediate objects.



3. Clairvoyance in time--that is to say, the capacity to see objects

or events which are removed from the seer in time, or, in other words,

the power of looking into the past or the future.