Clairvoyance Defined
The English Society for Psychical Research, in its glossary, defines the
term as follows: "The faculty or act of perceiving, as though visually,
with some coincidental truth, some distant scene; it is used sometimes,
but hardly properly, for transcendental vision, or the perception of
beings regarded as on another plane of existence." A distinguished
investigator along psychic lines, in one of her reports to the English
Society for Psychical Research, has given the following definition of
this term as employed by her in her reports, viz., "The word
'clairvoyant' is often used very loosely, and with widely different
meanings. I denote by it a faculty of acquiring supernormally, BUT NOT
BY READING THE MINDS OF PERSONS PRESENT, a knowledge of facts such as we
normally acquire by the use of our senses. I do not limit it to
knowledge that would normally be acquired by the sense of sight, nor do
I limit it to a knowledge of present facts. A similar knowledge of the
past, and if necessary, of future events, may be included. On the other
hand, I exclude the mere faculty of seeing apparitions, which is
sometimes called clairvoyance."
The last stated definition agrees almost perfectly with the views of the
writer of the present book, and the term "Clairvoyance" is used here in
the particular sense indicated by such definition. The student of this
book, therefore, is asked to distinguish Clairvoyance, on the one hand,
from the phenomena of Telepathy or Thought Transference, and, on the
other hand, from the phenomena of communication with entities on other
planes of existence, including the perception of apparitions.