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Second Sight: A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance by Sepharial

VIII. ALLIED PSYCHIC PHASES

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Clairaudience is far more general than second sight, but there is the same variability in the range of perception as is seen in clairvoyance and psychometry. Thus while one hears only the evil suggestions of "obsessing spirits" or discarnate souls being dinned into his ears, another will be lifted to the third heaven and hear "things unutterable." Brain-cell discharges will hardly account for the phenomena of clairaudience. A brain-cell discharge never goes beyond the repetition of one's own name in some familiar voice, or at most the revival of a phrase or the monotonous clang of a neighbouring church bell. These are not clairaudiences at all. Clairaudience consists in receiving auditory impressions of intelligible phrases not previously associated with the name of person or place involved in the statement. These impressions may be sporadic or may be continuous. In the case of a genuine development where the interior sense is fully opened up, the communication will be continuous and normal, as much so as ordinary conversation, and the translation of consciousness into terms of sense will be so rapid and unimpeded as to give the impression to an Englishman that he is listening to his native language and to a Frenchman that he is listening to French, though the communication may proceed from a source which renders this impossible. The universal language of humanity is neither Volapuk, nor Esperanto, nor Ido. It is Thought, and when thought proceeds from a point beyond the plane of differentiation it can be determined along the line which makes for English as readily as that which makes for French, or any other tongue. It is they of the soul-world who convey the thought, it is we of the sublunary world who translate that thought into our own language. The Hebrew prophets were almost uniformly instructed by means of clairaudience. But as I have already said there are degrees of clairaudience, as of any other psychic faculty. The danger is that a false value may be set upon the experiences, especially during the early stages of development when everything is very new and very wonderful.

Telepathy is another and yet more general phrase of psychic activity. It may consist in the transmission from one person to another of a feeling or impression merely, which results in a certain degree of awareness to the state of mind in which the transmitter may be at the time, as when a mother has a "feeling" that all is not well with her absent child. Or it may yet take a more definite and perspicuous form, even to the transmission of details such as the names of persons and places, of numbers, forms and incidents. Telepathy commonly exists between persons in close sympathy; and when two persons are working along separate lines toward the same result, it is quite usual that they unconsciously "telepath" with one another, their brains being for the time in synchronous vibration. Spiritual communication in any degree is nothing more or less than sympathy--those who feel together, think together. The modern development of the aerial post is a step towards the universal federation of thought, but it is not comparable with the astral post which carries a thousand miles an hour. In this sort of correspondence the communication is written like any ordinary letter designed for transmission, but instead of stamping and posting it, a lighted match is applied to the finished work. The material part is destroyed, but the intangible and only real and lasting part remains behind. This is attached, by the direction of the will, to a particular person and set in a certain direction. If all the conditions have been properly observed it will not fail to reach its destination. I have fortunately been able to demonstrate this fact in public on more than one occasion. The phenomenon is repeated in a less striking form in every case of what is called "crossing," as when one correspondent feels suddenly called upon to write urgently to another and receives a reply to his enquiries while his letter is still in course of delivery.