re faculties, we evolve them
by effort and successive selection. In our upward striving for
liberty we specialize along certain lines which appear to us to be
those offering either the least resistance or the most ready
means of self-preservation, liberty and well-being. Hence some
evolve a special faculty for money-making and, as schoolboys,
will be expert traders of alley-taws, jack-knives, toffee and all
sorts of kickshaws. Others of another bent or list will traffic in
knowledge to the abounding satisfaction of their masters and the
jealous pride of their form.

So that psychic tradition while disposing some to the speedy
revelation of an already acquired faculty, disposes others to the
more arduous but not less interesting work of acquiring such
faculty. And because the spiritual needs of mankind are ever of
primary importance, there are always to be found those in
whom the power of spiritual interpretation is the dominant
faculty, such persons being the natural channels of intercourse
between the superior and inferior worlds. The physical body of
man is equipped with a corresponding order of microbic life
which acts as an organic interpreter, translating the elements of
food into blood, nerve, fibre, tissue and bone agreeably to the
laws of their being. What I have to say in this place is addressed
especially to those who would aspire to the faculty of clear
vision and in whom the psychic powers are striving towards
expression. Every person whose life is not wholly sunk in
material and selfish pleasures but in whom the aspiration to a
higher and better life is a hunger the world cannot satisfy, has
within himself the power to see and know that which he seeks
behind the veil of the senses. Nature has never produced a
desire she cannot satisfy. There is no hope, however vague, that
the soul cannot define, and no aspiration, however high, that the
wings of the spirit cannot reach. Therefore be patient and strive.
To others I would say: Be content. All birds cannot be eagles.
The nightingale has a song and the humming bird a plumage the
eagle can never possess. The nightingale may sing to the stars,
the humming bird to the flowers, but the eagle, whose tireless
eyes gaze into the heart of day, is uncompanioned in its lofty
loneliness amid the mountain tops.

CHAPTER III.

THE FACULTY OF SEERSHIP

Until quite recently the faculty of seership has been associated
in occult literature with various magical formul