CLAIRVOYANCE AND OCCULT POWERS/PART 10

 

LESSON X.

CLAIRVOYANCE OF DISTANT SCENES.

Let us now consider the phenomena of the second class of clairvoyance, namely, Clairvoyance in Space.

In space clairvoyance the clairvoyant person senses scenes and events removed in space from the observer—that is to say, scenes and events situated outside of the range of the physical vision of the clairvoyant. In this class also is included certain phenomena in which the clairvoyant vision is able to discern things that may be concealed or obscured by intervening material objects. Some of the many different forms and phases of space clairvoyance are illustrated by the following examples, all taken from the best sources.

Bushnell relates the following well-known case of space clairvoyance: "Capt. Yount, of Napa Valley, California, one midwinter's night had a dream in which he saw what appeared to be a company of emigrants arrested by the snows of the mountains, and perishing rapidly by cold and hunger. He noted the very cast of the scenery, marked by a huge, perpendicular front of white-rock cliff; he saw the men cutting off what appeared to be tree-tops rising out of deep gulfs of snow; he distinguished the very features of the persons, and their look of peculiar distress. He awoke profoundly impressed by the distinctness and apparent reality of the dream. He at length fell asleep, and dreamed exactly the same dream over again. In the morning he could not expel it from his mind. Falling in shortly after with an old hunter comrade, he told his story, and was only the more deeply impressed by him recognizing without hesitation the scenery of the dream. This comrade came over the Sierra by the Carson Valley Pass, and declared that a spot in the Pass exactly answered his description.

"By this the unsophistical patriarch was decided. He immediately collected a company of men, with mules and blankets and all necessary provisions. The neighbors were laughing meantime at his credulity. 'No matter,' he said, 'I am able to do this, and I will, for I verily believe that the fact is according to my dream.' The men were sent into the mountains one hundred and fifty miles distant, direct to the Carson Valley Pass. And there they found the company exactly in the condition of the dream, and brought in the remnant alive."

In connection with this case, some leading, occultists are of the opinion that the thought-waves from the minds of the distressed lost persons reached Capt. Yount in his sleep, and awakened his subconscious attention. Having natural clairvoyant power, though previously unaware of it, he naturally directed his astral vision to the source of the mental currents, and perceived clairvoyantly the scene described in the story. Not having any acquaintance with any of the lost party, it was only by reason of the mental currents of distress so sent out that his attention was attracted. This is a very interesting case, because several psychic factors are involved in it, as I have just said.

In the following case, there is found a connecting link of acquaintance with a person playing a prominent part in the scene, although there was no conscious appeal to the clairvoyant, nor conscious interest on her part regarding the case. The story is well-known, and appears in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. It runs as follows:

Mrs. Broughton awoke one night in 1844, and roused her husband, telling him that something dreadful had happened in France. He begged her to go asleep again, and not trouble him. She assured him that she was not asleep when she saw what she insisted on telling him—what she saw in fact. She saw, first, a carriage accident, or rather, the scene of such an accident which had occurred a few moments before. What she saw was the result of the accident—a broken carriage, a crowd collected, a figure gently raised and carried into the nearest house, then a figure lying on a bed, which she recognized as the Duke of Orleans. Gradually friends collected around the bed—among them several members of the French royal family—the queen, then the king, all silently, tearfully, watching the evidently dying duke. One man (she could see his back, but did not know who he was) was a doctor. He stood bending over the duke, feeling his pulse, with his watch in the other hand. And then all passed away, and she saw no more. "As soon as it was daylight she wrote down in her journal all that she had seen. It was before the days of the telegraph, and two or more days passed before the newspapers announced 'The Death of the Duke of Orleans.' Visiting Paris a short time afterwards, she saw and recognized the place of the accident, and received the explanation of her impression. The doctor who attended the dying duke was an old friend of hers, and as he watched by the bed his mind had been constantly occupied with her and her family."

In many cases of clairvoyance of this kind, there is found to exist a strong connecting link of mutual interest or affection, over which flows the strong attention-arousing force of need or distress, which calls into operation the clairvoyant visioning.

In other cases there seems to be lacking any connecting link, although, even in such cases there may be a subconscious link connecting the clairvoyant with the scene or event. An interesting example of this last mentioned phase is that related by W.T. Stead, the English editor and author, as having happened to himself. Mr. Stead's recital follows:

"I got into bed and was not able to go to sleep. I shut my eyes and waited for sleep to come; instead of sleep, however, there came to me a succession of curiously vivid clairvoyant pictures. There was no light in the room, and it was perfectly dark; I had my eyes shut also. But, notwithstanding the darkness, I suddenly was conscious of looking at a scene of singular beauty. It was as if I saw a living miniature about the size of a magic-lantern slide. At this moment I can recall the scene as if I saw it again. It was a seaside piece. The moon was shining upon the water, which rippled slowly on to the beach. Right before me a long mole ran into the water. On either side of the mole irregular rocks stood up above the sea-level. On the shore stood several houses, square and rude, which resembled nothing that I had ever seen in house architecture. No one was stirring, but the moon was there and the sea and the gleam of the moonlight on the rippling waters, just as if I had been looking on the actual scene. It was so beautiful that I remember thinking that if it continued I should be so interested in looking at it that I should never go asleep. I was wide awake, and at the same time that I saw the scene I distinctly heard the dripping of the rain outside the window. Then, suddenly without any apparent object or reason, the scene changed.

"The moonlight sea vanished, and in us place I was looking right into the interior of a reading-room. It seemed as if it had been used as a school-room in the daytime, and was employed as a reading-room in the evening. I remember seeing one reader who had a curious resemblance to Tim Harrington, although it was not he, hold up a magazine or book in his hand and laugh. It was not a picture—it was there. The scene was just as if you were looking through an opera glass; you saw the play of the muscles, the gleaming of the eye, every movement of the unknown persons in the unnamed place into which you were gazing. I saw all that without opening my eyes, nor did my eyes have anything to do with it. You see such things as these as if it were with another sense which is more inside your head than in your eyes. The pictures were apropos of nothing; they had been suggested by nothing I had been reading or talking of; they simply came as if I had been able to look through a glass at what was occurring somewhere else in the world. I had my peep, and then it passed."

An interesting case of space clairvoyance is that related of Swedenborg, on the best authority. The story runs that in the latter part of September, 1759, at four o'clock one Saturday afternoon, Swedenborg arrived home from England, and disembarked at the town of Gothenburg. A friend, Mr. W. Castel, met him and invited him to dinner, at which meal there were fifteen persons gathered around the table in honor of the guest. At six o'clock, Swedenborg went out a few minutes, returning to the table shortly thereafter, looking pale and excited. When questioned by the guests he replied that there was a fire at Stockholm, two hundred miles distant, and that the fire was steadily spreading. He grew very restless, and frequently left the room. He said that the house of one of his friends, whose name he mentioned, was already in ashes, and that his own was in danger. At eight o'clock, after he had been out again, he returned crying out cheerfully, "Thank heaven! the fire is out, the third door from my house!" The news of the strange happening greatly excited the people of the town, and the city officials made inquiry regarding it. Swedenborg was summoned before the authorities, and requested to relate in detail what he had seen. Answering the questions put to him, he told when and how the fire started; how it had begun; how, when and where it had stopped; the time it had lasted; the number of houses destroyed or damaged, and the number of persons injured. On the following Monday morning a courier arrived from Stockholm, bringing news of the fire, having left the town while it was still burning. On the next day after, Tuesday morning, another courier arrived at the city hall with a full report of the fire, which corresponded precisely with the vision of Swedenborg. The fire had stopped precisely at eight o'clock, the very minute that Swedenborg had so announced it to the company.

A similar case is related by Stead, having been told to him by the wife of a Dean in the Episcopal Church. He relates it as follows: "I was staying in Virginia, some hundred miles away from home, when one morning about eleven o'clock I felt an overpowering sleepiness, which drowsiness was quite unusual, and which caused me to lie down. In my sleep I saw quite distinctly my home in Richmond in flames. The fire had broken out in one wing of the house, which I saw with dismay was where I kept all my best dresses. The people were all trying to check the flames, but it was no use. My husband was there, walking about before the burning house, carrying a portrait in his hand. Everything was quite clear and distinct, exactly as if I had actually been present and seen everything. After a time, I woke up, and going down stairs told my friends the strange dream I had had. They laughed at me, and made such game of my vision that I did my best to think no more about it. I was traveling about, a day or two passed, and when Sunday came I found myself in a church where some relatives were worshipping. When I entered the pew they looked very strange, and as soon as the service was over I asked them what was the matter. 'Don't be alarmed,' they said, 'there is nothing serious.' Then they handed me a post-card from my husband which simply said, 'House burned out; covered by insurance.' The day was the date upon which my dream occurred. I hastened home, and then I learned that everything had happened exactly as I had seen it. The fire had broken out in the wing I had seen blazing. My clothes were all burned, and the oddest thing about it was that my husband, having rescued a favorite picture from the burning building, had carried it about among the crowd for some time before he could find a place in which to put it safely."

Another case, related by Stead, the same authority, runs as follows: "The father of a son who had sailed on the 'Strathmore,' an emigrant ship outbound from the Clyde saw one night the ship foundering amid the waves, and saw that his son, with some others, had escaped safely to a desert island near which the wreck had taken place. He was so much impressed by this vision that he wrote to the owner of the 'Strathmore' telling him what he had seen. His information was scouted; but after a while the 'Strathmore' became overdue, and the owner became uneasy. Day followed day, and still no tidings of the missing ship. Then like Pharaoh's butler, the owner remembered his sins one day, and hunted up the letter describing the vision. It supplied at least a theory to account for the ship's disappearance. All outward-bound ships were requested to look out for any survivors on the island indicated in the vision. These orders were obeyed, and the survivors of the 'Strathmore' were found exactly where the father had seen them."

The Society for Psychical Research mentions another interesting case, as follows: "Dr. Golinski, a physician of Kremeutchug, Russia, was taking an after-dinner nap in the afternoon, about half-past three o'clock. He had a vision in which he saw himself called out on a professional visit, which took him to a little room with dark hangings. To the right of the door he saw a chest of drawers, upon which rested a little paraffine lamp of special pattern, different from anything he had ever seen before. On the left of the door, he saw a woman suffering from a severe hemorrhage. He then saw himself giving her professional treatment. Then he awoke, suddenly, and saw that it was just half-past four o'clock. Within ten minutes after he awoke, he was called out on a professional visit, and on entering the bedroom he saw all the details that had appeared to him in his vision. There was the chest of drawers—there was the peculiar lamp—there was the woman on the bed, suffering from the hemorrhage. Upon inquiry, he found that she had grown worse between three and four o'clock, and had anxiously desired that he come to her about that time, finally dispatching a messenger for him at half-past four, the moment at which he awoke."

Another, and a most peculiar, phase of space clairvoyance is that in which certain persons so awaken the astral senses of other persons that these persons perceive the first person—usually in the form of seemingly seeing the person present in the immediate vicinity, just as one would see a ghostly visitor. In some cases there is manifested double-clairvoyance, both persons visioning clairvoyantly; in other cases, only the person "visited" astrally senses the occurrence. The following cases illustrate this form of space clairvoyance.

W.T. Stead relates the case of a lady well known to him, who spontaneously developed the power of awakening astral perception in others. She seemed to "materialize" in their presence. Her power in this direction became a source of considerable anxiety and worry to her friends to whom she would pay unexpected and involuntary visits, frightening them out of their wits by the appearance of her "ghost." They naturally thought that she had died suddenly and had appeared to them in ghostly form. The lady, her self, was totally unconscious of the appearance, though she admitted that at or about the times of the appearances she had been thinking of her friends whom she visited astrally.

The German writer, Jung Stilling, mentions the case of a man of good character who had developed power of this kind, but also was conscious of his visits. He exerted the power consciously by an effort of will, it seems. At one time he was consulted by the wife of a sea captain whose husband was on a long voyage to Europe and Asia (sailing from America). His ship was long overdue, and his wife was quite worried about him. She consulted the gentleman in question, and he promised to do what he could for her. Leaving the room he threw himself on a couch and was seen by the lady (who peered through the half-opened door) to be in a state of semi-trance. Finally he returned and told her that he had visited her husband in a coffee-house in London, and gave her husband's reasons for not writing, adding that her husband would soon return to America. When her husband returned several months later, the wife asked him about the matter. He informed her that the clairvoyant's report was correct in every particular. Upon being introduced to the clairvoyant, the captain manifested great surprise, saying that he had met the man in question on a certain day in a coffee-house in London, and that the man had told him that his wife was worried about him, and that he had told the man that he had been prevented from writing for several reasons, and that he was on the eve of beginning his return voyage to America. He added that when he looked for the man a few moments afterwards, the stranger had apparently lost himself in the crowd, disappeared and was seen no more by him.

The Society for Psychical Research gives prominence to the celebrated case of the member of the London Stock Exchange, whose identity it conceals under the initials "S.H.B.," who possessed this power of voluntary awakening of astral sight in others by means of his "appearance" to them. The man relates his experience to the Society as follows: "One Sunday night in November, 1881, I was in Kildare Gardens, when I willed very strongly that I would visit in the spirit two lady friends, the Misses X., who were living three miles off, in Hogarth Road. I willed that I should do this at one o'clock in the morning, and having willed it, I went to sleep. Next Thursday, when I first met my friends, the elder lady told me that she woke up and saw my apparition advancing to her bedside. She screamed and woke her sisters, who also saw me." (The report includes the signed statement of the ladies, giving the time of the appearance, and the details thereof.)

"Again, on December 1, 1882, I was at Southall. At half-past nine I sat down to endeavor to fix my mind so strongly upon the interior of a house at Kew, where Miss V. and her sister lived, that I seemed to be actually in the house. I was conscious, but was in a kind of mesmeric sleep. When I went to bed that night, I willed to be in the front bedroom of that house at Kew at twelve; and to make my presence felt by the inmates. Next day I went to Kew. Miss V.'s married sister told me, without any prompting from me, that she had seen me in the passage going from one room to another at half-past nine o'clock, and that at twelve, when she was wide awake, she saw me come to the front bedroom, where she slept, and take her hair, which is very long, into my hand. She said I then took her hand, and gazed into the palm intently. She said, 'You need not look at the lines, for I never have any trouble.' She then woke her sister. When Mrs. L. told me this, I took out the entry that I had made the previous night and read it to her. Mrs. L. is quite sure she was not dreaming. She had only seen me once before, two years previously. Again, on March 22, 1884, I wrote to Mr. Gurney, of the Psychical Research Society, telling him that I was going to make my presence felt by Miss V., at 44 Norland Square, at midnight. Ten days afterwards, I saw Miss V., when she voluntarily told me that on Saturday at midnight, she distinctly saw me, when she was quite wide awake."

The records of the psychic researchers are filled with numerous accounts of cases in which similar astral projections have occurred when the person was on his or her death-bed, but was still alive. It would seem that under such circumstances the astral senses are very much freer from the interference of the physical senses, and tend to manifest very strongly in the form of appearances to persons in whom the dying person is attached by the ties of affection. Many who read this course have known of cases of this kind, for they are of quite frequent occurrence.

The student will notice that in the majority of the cases cited in this chapter the clairvoyant has been in a state of sleep, or semi-sleep—often in a dream condition. But you must not jump to the conclusion that this condition is always necessary for the manifestation of this phenomenon. On the contrary, the advanced and well developed clairvoyants usually assume merely a condition of deep reverie or meditation, shutting out the sounds and thoughts of the physical plane, so as to be able to function better on the astral plane.

The reason that so many recorded cases have occurred when the clairvoyant person was asleep, and the vision appeared as a dream, is simply because in such a condition the physical senses of the person are stilled and at rest, and there is less likelihood of interference from them, and a better opportunity for the astral senses to function effectively. It is like the familiar cases in which one becomes so wrapped up in viewing a beautiful work of art, or in listening to a beautiful musical rendition, that he or she forgets all about the sights and sounds of the world outside. One sometimes gets into this same condition when reading an interesting book, or when witnessing an interesting play. When the psychic powers are concentrated upon any one channel of vision, the others fail to register a clear impression. The same rule holds good on the astral plane, as on the physical.

There are certain psychic conditions which are especially conducive to the manifestation of clairvoyant phenomena, as all students of the subject know very well. These conditions are somewhat hard to induce, at least until the clairvoyant has had considerable experience and practice. But, in the state of sleep, the person induces the desired conditions, in many cases, though he is not consciously doing so. As might naturally be expected, therefore, the majority of the recorded cases of clairvoyance have occurred when the clairvoyant person has been asleep.

I should also state, once more, that in many cases in which the clairvoyant has witnessed the "appearance" of another person, as in the cases such as I have just mentioned, there is always the possibility of the person having actually appeared in his astral body, unconsciously to himself of course. No one but a skilled occultist is able to distinguish between cases of this kind. The line between this class of clairvoyance and astral appearance is very thin, and, in fact, the two classes of phenomena shade and blend into each other. In reality, when one gets down to bottom principles, there is very little difference between the actual appearance in the astral body, and the strong projection of one's presence by means of will, conscious or unconscious, along the lines of awakening the clairvoyant vision of others. To attempt to explain the slight points of difference here, would only involve the student in a mass of technical description which would tend to confuse, rather than to enlighten him—from this I refrain.

 

 

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