begins to actually experiment
and practice, the way opens out gradually and steadily, and then the
person can grasp the meaning of the little "hints" dropped by others who
have traveled the same path. So, after all, it comes down to the matter
of Practice, Experiment, and Learning by Trying!

PART IV

CLAIRVOYANCE AND KINDRED PHENOMENA

A very large and very interesting class of occult or psychic phenomena
is that known under the very general classification of "Clairvoyance,"
which term we have thought it advisable to employ in this sense in this
book, notwithstanding the technical objections urged by some against
such a general usage. The term "Clairvoyance" really means "clear
seeing," or "clear sight," but its special meaning, established by long
usage, is "A power of discerning objects not perceptible to the normal
senses." When it comes to the technical use of the term by students and
teachers of psychic research and occultism, however, there is found a
confused meaning of the term, some employing it in one sense, and others
in another one. Accordingly, it is perhaps as well to explain the
particular usage adopted and followed in this book.

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