edingly trivial
and unimportant.

A well-known story of second-sight in Scotland will illustrate what I
mean. A man who had no belief in the occult was forewarned by a
Highland seer of the approaching death of a neighbour. The prophecy
was given with considerable wealth of detail, including a full
description of the funeral, with the names of the four pall-bearers
and others who would be present. The auditor seems to have laughed at
the whole story and promptly forgotten it, but the death of his
neighbour at the time foretold recalled the warning to his mind, and
he determined to falsify part of the prediction at any rate by being
one of the pall-bearers himself. He succeeded in getting matters
arranged as he wished, but just as the funeral was about to start he
was called away from his post by some small matter which detained him
only a minute or two. As he came hurrying back he saw with surprise
that the procession had started without him, and that the prediction
had been exactly fulfilled, for the four pall-bearers were those who
had been indicated in the vision.

Now here is a very trifling matter, which could have been of no
possible importance to anybody, definitely foreseen months beforehand;
and although a man makes a determined effort to alter the arrangement
indicated he fails entirely to affect it in the least. Certainly this
looks very much like predestination, even down to the smallest detail,
and it is only when we examine this question from higher planes that
we are able to see our way to escape that theory. Of course, as I said
before about another branch of the subject, a full explanation eludes
us as yet, and obviously must do so until our knowledge is infinitely
greater than it is now; the most that we can hope to do for the
present is to indicate the line along which an explanation may be
found.

There is no doubt whatever that, just as what is happening now is the
result of causes set in motion in the past, so what will happen in the
future will be the result of causes already in operation. Even down
here we can calculate that if certain actions are performed certain
results will follow, but our reckoning is constantly liable to be
disturbed by the interference of factors which we have not been able
to take into account. But if we raise our consciousness to the mental
plane we can see very much farther into the results of our actions.

We can trace, for example, the effect of a casual word, not