THE FIELD OF PSYCHIC RESEARCH
It is difficult to divest the words hypnotism and clairvoyance of certain sordid and sinister associations. We are apt to think of them only as urban flora of the dust and dark, cultivated for profit by itinerant professors and untidy sibyls. Larger knowledge of the night side of human nature, however, profoundly modifies this view. The invoked image is then of some hushed and studious chamber where a little group of people sit attentive to the voice of one entranced—listeners at the keyhole of the door to another world. This "news from nowhere," garnered under so-called test conditions and faithfully recorded, has grown by now to a considerable literature, accessible to all—one with which every well-informed person is assumed to have at least a passing acquaintance.
A marked and constant characteristic of trance phenomena consists of an apparent confusion between past, present and future. As in the game of three-card monte, it appears impossible to tell in what order the three will turn up—was, is and will be, lose their special significance. Clairvoyance, in its time aspect, whether spontaneous, hypnotically induced, or self-induced, is susceptible of classification as post-vision, present vision, and prevision. Post-vision is that in which past events are not recollected merely, but seen or experienced. It is the past become present. Present vision is clairvoyance of things transpiring elsewhere; the present, remote in space, but not in time. Prevision is the future in the present. These various orders of clear-seeing transcend the limits of the actual knowledge and experience of the seer. This classification and these definitions are