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SECOND SIGHT

A Study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance

by

SEPHARIAL

Author of "A Manual of Astrology," "Prognostic Astronomy," "A Manual
of Occultism," "Kabalistic Astrology," "The Kabala of Numbers,"
Etc., Etc.







London
William Rider & Son, Limited
1912

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
Brunswick Street, Stamford Street, S.E.,
and Bungay, Suffolk.





CONTENTS

Introduction                                 7
Chapter I.     The Scientific Position      10
Chapter II.    Materials and Conditions     21
Chapter III.   The Faculty of Seership      29
Chapter IV.    Preliminaries and Practice   39
Chapter V.     Kinds of Vision              51
Chapter VI.    Obstacles to Clairvoyance    59
Chapter VII.   Symbolism                    67
Chapter VIII.  Allied Psychic Phases        76
Chapter IX.    Experience and Use           84
Conclusion                                  93


INTRODUCTION

Few words will be necessary by way of preface to this book,
which is designed as an introduction to a little understood and
much misrepresented subject.

I have not here written anything which is intended to displace
the observations of other authors on this subject, nor will it be
found that anything has been said subversive of the conclusions
arrived at by experimentalists who have essayed the study
of clairvoyant phenomena in a manner that is altogether
commendable, and who have sought to place the subject on a
demonstrable and scientific basis. I refer to the proceedings of
the Society for Psychical Research.

In the following pages I have endeavoured to indicate the nature
of the faculty of Second Sight or Clairvoyance, the means of its
development, the use of suitable media or agents for this
purpose, and the kind of results that may be expected to follow
a regulated effort in this direction. I have also sought to show
that the development of the psychic faculties may form an
orderly step in the process of human unfoldment and perfectibility.

As far as the nature and scope of this little work will allow, I
have sought to treat the subject on a broad and general basis
rather than pursue more particular and possibly more attractive
scientific lines. What I have here said is the result of a personal
experience of some years in this and other forms of psychic
development and experimentation. My conclusions are given
for what they are worth, and I have no wish to persuade my
readers to my view of the nature and source of these abnormal
phenomena. The reader is at liberty to form his own theory in
regard to them, but such theory should be inclusive of all the
known facts. The theories depending on hypnotic suggestion
may be dismissed as inadequate. There appear to remain only
the inspirational theory of direct revelation and the theory of the
world-soul enunciated by the Occultists. I have elected in
favour of the latter for reasons which, I think, will be
conspicuous to those who read these pages.

I should be the last to allow the study of psychism to usurp the
legitimate place in life of intellectual and spiritual pursuits, and
I look with abhorrence upon the flippant use made of the
psychic faculties by a certain class of pseudo-occultists who
serve up this kind of thing with their five o'clock tea. But I
regard an ordered psychism as a most valuable accessory to
intellectual and spiritual development and as filling a natural
place in the process of unfoldment between that intellectualism
that is grounded in the senses and that higher intelligence which
receives its light from within. From this view-point the
following pages are written, and will, I trust, prove helpful.


CHAPTER I.

THE SCIENTIFIC POSITION

It would perhaps be premature to make any definite pronouncement
as to the scientific position in regard to the psychic phenomenon
known as "scrying," and certainly presumptuous on my part
to cite an authority from among the many who have examined
this subject, since all are not agreed upon the nature and
source of the observed phenomena. Their names are, moreover,
already identified with modern scientific research and theory,
so that to associate them with experimental psychology would
be to lend colour to the idea that modern science has recognized
this branch of knowledge. Nothing, perhaps, is further from
the fact, and while it cannot in any way be regarded as derogatory
to the highest scientist to be associated with others, of less
scientific attainment but of equal integrity, in this comparatively new
field of enquiry, it may lead to popular error to institute a connection.
It is still fresh in the mind how the Darwinian hypothesis was