at what was occurring somewhere else
in the world. I had my peep, and then it passed, nor have I had a
recurrence of a similar experience."

Mr. Stead regards that as a "poor and paltry experience," and it may
perhaps be considered so when compared with the greater possibilities,
yet I know many students who would be very thankful to have even so
much of direct personal experience to tell. Small though it may be in
itself, it at once gives the seer a clue to the whole thing, and
clairvoyance would be a living actuality to a man who had seen even
that much in a way that it could never have been without that little
touch with the unseen world.

These pictures were much too clear to have been mere reflections of
the thought of others, and besides, the description unmistakably shows
that they were views seen through an astral telescope; so either Mr.
Stead must quite unconsciously have set a current going for himself,
or (which is much more probable) some kindly astral entity set it in
motion for him, and gave him, to while away a tedious delay, any
pictures that happened to come handy at the end of the tube.

CHAPTER VII.

CLAIRVOYANCE IN TIME: THE PAST.

Clairvoyance in time--that is to say, the power of reading the past
and the future--is, like all the other varieties, possessed by
different people in very varying degrees, ranging from the man who has
both faculties fully at his command, down to one who only occasionally
gets involuntary and very imperfect glimpses or reflections of these
scenes of other days. A person of the latter type might have, let us
say, a vision of some event in the past; but it would be liable to the
most serious distortion, and even if it happened to be fairly accurate
it would almost certainly be a mere isolated picture, and he would
probably be quite unable to relate it to what had occurred before or
after it, or to account for anything unusual which might appear in it.
The trained man, on the other hand, could follow the drama connected
with his picture backwards or forwards to any extent that might seem
desirable, and trace out with equal ease the causes which had led up
to it or the results which it in turn would produce.

We shall probably find it easier to grasp this somewhat difficult
section of our subject if we consider it in the subdivisions which
naturally suggest themselves, and deal first with the vision which
looks backwards into the past, leaving for later examin