of reach during waking life, becomes available when the
body is held in the bonds of ordinary sleep. At this stage of
development stood many of the prophets and seers of whom we read, who
were "warned of God in a dream," or communed with beings far higher
than themselves in the silent watches of the night.

Most cultured people of the higher races of the world have this
development to some extent: that is to say, the senses of their astral
bodies are in full working order, and perfectly capable of receiving
impressions from objects and entities of their own plane. But to make
that fact of any use to them down here in the physical body, two
changes are usually necessary; first, that the Ego shall be awakened
to the realities of the astral plane, and induced to emerge from the
chrysalis formed by his own waking thoughts, and look round him to
observe and to learn; and secondly, that the consciousness shall be so
far retained during the return of the Ego into his physical body as to
enable him to impress upon his physical brain the recollection of what
he has seen or learnt.

If the first of these changes has taken place, the second is of little
importance, since the Ego, the true man, will be able to profit by the
information to be obtained upon that plane, even though he may not
have the satisfaction of bringing through any remembrance of it into
his waking life down here.

Students often ask how this clairvoyant faculty will first be
manifested in themselves--how they may know when they have reached
the stage at which its first faint foreshadowings are beginning to be
visible. Cases differ so widely that it is impossible to give to this
question any answer that will be universally applicable.

Some people begin by a plunge, as it were, and under some unusual
stimulus become able just for once to see some striking vision; and
very often in such a case, because the experience does not repeat
itself, the seer comes in time to believe that on that occasion he
must have been the victim of hallucination. Others begin by becoming
intermittently conscious of the brilliant colours and vibrations of
the human aura; yet others find themselves with increasing frequency
seeing and hearing something to which those around them are blind and
deaf; others, again, see faces, landscapes, or coloured clouds
floating before their eyes in the dark before they sink to rest; while
perhaps the commonest experience of all is that of those wh