rSVCIllCAL RESEARCH. 32I 



to assert itself in the waking state — a memory of the conscious 

 or subconscious perception of the lost article by ordinary vision, 

 or again by telepathic reception of the fact from some other 

 person, there still remain cases that seem inexplicable on any 

 simpler hypothesis than that of telaesthesia, that is, perception 

 at a distance. Such dreams therefore introduce the general 

 subject of clairvoyance. Here, again, the natural starting-point 

 is the fact that hypnosis, which may be regarded as a particular 

 form of sleep, is specially favourable to perception of a super- 

 normal kind. The main condition of all such phenomena is 

 found in complete detachment from normal sensory impressions. 

 What is called crystal-gazing is nothing but the use of one 

 specially helpful means of inducing incipient hypnosis and 

 thereby getting visions or appearances of some sort which 

 transcend ordinary sense perception. But the phenomena con- 

 cerned are independent not only of the dream-state, but of 

 hypnotic conditions, and also of the use of crystals or any 

 similar inducing agent. 



It seems to rne to be an altogether undue strain on the tele- 

 pathic hypothesis to make it cover all cases under this head.* 

 The hypothesis of chance is still less adequate. As already said, 

 any single instance may be set down to chance — that is, may be 

 regarded as a mere coincidence of occurrences, though the odds 

 against events of this kind being the result of chance have been 

 calculated to be as many as a million, sometimes hundreds of 

 millions, to one. With regard to the hypothesis of telepathy, 

 the point to be noted is that cases of prevision or precognition, 

 that is, dr.eams or the like in which future events have been fore- 

 told, though not perhaps authenticated in sufficient number and 

 with sufficient evidence to give an indubitable conclusion, are 

 clearly, if established, inexplicable by telepathy alone. It may 

 be added here that what is called dowsing, that is, the locating 

 of water, metals, etc., is so far the same as clairvoyance that 

 it seems to imply the possession of a supernormal perceptive 

 power which enables detection of the hidden object, and which 

 expresses itself in an involuntary muscular tremor akin to 

 the unconscious muscular movement by which thought-reading 

 is made possible. 



The last set of subjects are those connected with the hypo- 

 thesis of survival after bodily death and communication with the 

 unseen world. The phenomena concerned fall mainly under the 

 two heads of — (i) hauntings and kindred apparitions; (2) 

 messages delivered through trance and automatism. By haunt- 

 ing is usually meant the appearance, at dififerent times and to 

 . different people, but in the same locality, of a quasi-human form 

 resembling in various particulars some deceased person. Various 



* Some of Podmore's explanations, for example, are ingenious 

 rather than convincing (see Naturalisation of the Supernatural, pp. 92, 

 343, 354-7). 



