up into full view, accompanied by a
complete lapse of the seer into full consciousness of his
surroundings.

This may be the only experience during the first few sittings. It
may be that of many. But if it occurs it is an entirely satisfactory
and hopeful symptom. For sooner or later, according to the
degree of susceptibility or responsiveness in the subject, there
will come a moment when the milky-looking clouds and dancing
starlights will suddenly vanish and a bright azure expanse like an
open summer sky will fill the field of vision. The brain will now
be felt to palpitate spasmodically, as if opening and closing again
in the coronal region; there will be a tightening of the scalp about
the base of brain, as if the floor of the cerebrum were contracting;
the seer will catch his breath with a spasmodic sigh and the first
vision will stand out clear and life-like against the azure screen of
space.

Now the danger at this supreme moment is that the seer will be
surprised into full waking consciousness. During the process of
abstraction which precedes every vision or series of visions, the
consciousness of the seer is gradually but imperceptibly
withdrawn from physical surroundings. He forgets that he is
seated in a particular place or room, that he is in the company of
another or others. He forgets that he is gazing into a crystal or
mirror. He knows nothing, sees nothing, hears nothing, save that
which is being enacted before the senses of his soul. He loses
sight for the time even of his own identity and becomes as it were
merged in the vision itself.

When, therefore, his attention is suddenly arrested by an
apparition, startling in its reality and instantaneous production,
the reaction is likely to be both rapid and violent, so that the seer
is frequently carried back into full waking consciousness. When,
however, the mind is previously instructed and warned of this
stage of the process, a steady and self-possessed attitude is
ensured and a subconscious feeling of expectancy manifests at
the critical moment. I have known so many cases of people being
surprised out of clairvoyance and so to have lost what has often
been an isolated experience, that this treatise will be wholly
justified if by the inclusion of this warning the novice comes
successfully through his first experience of second sight.

We come now to the point where it becomes necessary to consider
other important reactions which the development o