ss 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