Clairvoyance Defined


The English Society for Psychical Research, in its glossary, defines the

term as follows: "The faculty or act of perceiving, as though visually,

with some coincidental truth, some distant scene; it is used sometimes,

but hardly properly, for transcendental vision, or the perception of

beings regarded as on another plane of existence." A distinguished

investigator along psychic lines, in one of her reports to the English

Society for Psychical Research, has given the following definition of

this term as employed by her in her reports, viz., "The word

'clairvoyant' is often used very loosely, and with widely different

meanings. I denote by it a faculty of acquiring supernormally, BUT NOT

BY READING THE MINDS OF PERSONS PRESENT, a knowledge of facts such as we

normally acquire by the use of our senses. I do not limit it to

knowledge that would normally be acquired by the sense of sight, nor do

I limit it to a knowledge of present facts. A similar knowledge of the

past, and if necessary, of future events, may be included. On the other

hand, I exclude the mere faculty of seeing apparitions, which is

sometimes called clairvoyance."



The last stated definition agrees almost perfectly with the views of the

writer of the present book, and the term "Clairvoyance" is used here in

the particular sense indicated by such definition. The student of this

book, therefore, is asked to distinguish Clairvoyance, on the one hand,

from the phenomena of Telepathy or Thought Transference, and, on the

other hand, from the phenomena of communication with entities on other

planes of existence, including the perception of apparitions.



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