which renders
such labour unnecessary.

On the next plane, which we call the mental, conditions are very
different. There the record is full and accurate, and it would be
impossible to make any mistake in the reading. That is to say, if
three clairvoyants possessing the powers of the mental plane agreed to
examine a certain record there, what would be presented to their
vision would be absolutely the same reflection in each case, and each
would acquire a correct impression from it in reading it. It does not
however follow that when they all compared notes later on the physical
plane their reports would agree exactly. It is well known that if
three people who witness an occurrence down here in the physical world
set to work to describe it afterwards, their accounts will differ
considerably, for each will have noticed especially those items which
most appeal to him, and will insensibly have made them the prominent
features of the event, sometimes ignoring other points which were in
reality much more important.

Now in the case of an observation on the mental plane this personal
equation would not appreciably affect the impressions received, for
since each would thoroughly grasp the entire subject it would be
impossible for him to see its parts out of due proportion; but,
except in the case of carefully trained and experienced persons, this
factor does come into play in transferring the impressions to the
lower planes. It is in the nature of things impossible that any
account given down here of a vision or experience on the mental plane
can be complete, since nine-tenths of what is seen and felt there
could not be expressed by physical words at all; and, since all
expression must therefore be partial, there is obviously some
possibility of selection as to the part expressed. It is for this
reason that in all our Theosophical investigations of recent years so
much stress has been laid upon the constant checking and verifying of
clairvoyant testimony, nothing which rests upon the vision of one
person only having been allowed to appear in our later books.

But even when the possibility of error from this factor of personal
equation has been reduced to a minimum by a careful system of
counter-checking, there still remains the very serious difficulty which
is inherent in the operation of bringing down impressions from a higher
plane to a lower one. This is something analogous to the difficulty
experienced by a painter in h