Clairvoyance, originally a French word, means the ability to see clearly. The reason so few people possess this extraordinary psychic faculty, is because most human beings are three-quarter parts blind, deaf, and insensate to anything beyond the ordinary emotions.

The power of prophecy and acute intuition is a sixth sense which most of us have in a slight degree dormant and uncultivated.

Clairvoyance has often been mistaken for superstition or wilfully imposed and cunning deceptions, and it is difficult for ignorant and cynical people to believe that it is founded on science and truth.

It has stood firm through the ages in spite of the quackery of wizards, paraphernalia of sorcerers (used to inspire fear and awe in the uninitiated), the sneers of those of material minds. All of us at some time or other have felt the control of that still small voice, potent and penetrating as conscience, which comes, unaccompanied by earthquake or fire, to instill us with awe, joy, extreme sadness, or warning at some critical juncture of our lives; often anticipating, with power greater than speech can convey, some event that concerns our well-being.

Why this power should be deemed more extraordinary or mysterious than the senses of sight, hearing, smell, and touch which, even to those thoroughly conversant with the anatomy of the human body, remain steeped in mystery, it is difficult to say.

Science teaches that a million delicate sounds escape the ear and brain, and as many minute exquisitely fashioned atoms escape the eye.

A magnifying glass reveals the marvelous structure of insects and microbes invisible to naked sight, and it is only by means of a telescope that the beauty of the stars is discerned; thus the developed power of clairvoyance may be called the magnifying lens of the soul.

It is because this lens is dull and misty that we fail to see.

The history of ages and a great deal of our most cherished literature prove its existence.

Many of the stories and prophecies of the Bible are founded on clairvoyance. People were simpler and more trusting then; for this reason visions and clear sight were granted them.

Pilate’s disregard of the warning conveyed in his wife’s dream, affected the whole course of Christianity, and the Bible abounds with examples of the disasters that befell those who disobeyed the spiritual promptings sent them.

This wonderful faculty of inner sight is the possession of the individual born blind. He demonstrates its existence when by merely passing his fingers over an object he can describe exactly a color he has never seen. In him it is nature’s recompense, and no one who watches his movements can doubt that he is guided by this psychic organism, yet when we note the same power granted to a man or woman blessed with eyesight, we at once decide that happy coincidence, trickery, or charlatanism is the origin of the manifestation.

Clairvoyance teaches that everybody has a distinctive color, which conveys more of character and personality than any word or action. The shades of these colors vary according to temperament, and are as much concealed from untrained vision as the million tints composing the gold, purple, and green bands of the rainbow.

• Optimistic persons emanate a pale blue aura.
• Large-minded progressive persons, a pale green.
• Pessimistic worried persons, gray.
• Ill-health in mind or body, dark green.
• Kindly benevolent, humane persons, pink.
• The thinker and scholar, deep blue.
• The degraded, brown.
• The passionate and bad-tempered, red.
• The ambitious, orange.
• The lover of the beautiful in Art, yellow.

Keys to Character

These colors, however, although providing the key to the character, are subject to constant changes. Our moods sway and change our thoughts according to the happenings that affect us.

For example, bereavement or anxiety has power to transform the blue aura of the optimistic temperament to gray, and this temporary change of color studied alone may perplex the clairvoyant, and mislead him to a false diagnosis of character.

In order to prevent this, the seer will do well to request some article constantly worn by the inquirer to be handed him; the older and shabbier it is the better. A dilapidated glove, an everyday tie or a ring constantly worn are equally valuable by which to discriminate between the temporary and habitual aura peculiar to temperament. When a man’s glove emits a pale blue aura, in contradiction to the gray of his own personality, the deduction is that he is naturally of a hopeful and cheerful tendency, but that some mental anxiety or bereavement causes the gray, deep or pale, according to the depth of emotion dominating him.

The reason of this difference of colors is that the glove is, as it were, saturated with the essence of his normal disposition, while the color of his character has been changed by circumstances or environment.

In the brain there exists a small and delicate organ known as the pineal gland, and it is thought by some scientists that this is responsible for, and sensitive to, the subtle vibrations of ether which are too minute to stir the tympanum of the ear. Its cultivation produces the power that beholds and distinguishes the difference in shades of mental color in which the mind is absorbed.

People of erratic temperament possess an aura of many and constantly changing colors, but those whose calm never varies maintain but one.

Some few persons are aware of the tones of their aura, and are therefore keenly sensitive to the influence of their surroundings.

They will be perfectly miserable if the paper on their walls, or the material of their clothes, clashes in color with that of their character; while they are at their best and happiest surrounded by the tints that blend or contrast harmoniously.

The clairvoyant’s outfit consists of six qualities:—

• 1. Power of magnetism.
• 2. Mental health and influence.
• 3. Physical health and cleanliness.
• 4. Temperance in food and drink.
• 5. The power of discerning the aura and interpreting its colors.
• 6. The liberty from all evil or slothful habits.

In advanced clairvoyance the use of the crystal for vision is designated by many seers as “clap-trap” and vulgar “playing to the gallery.” It is found to be injurious to eyesight and brain centers to gaze at any shining article for too long a period, yet in parlor clairvoyance there is no doubt that it has great power of inducing concentration of sight and thought.

Crystal Gazing

By means of crystal scrying the gazer creates and becomes subject to the influence of auto-hypnosis—that is, he is able to throw himself into a trance which veils his own personality and links him to that of his client.

The surface of the crystal gradually reflects images, and subconscious impressions conveyed by and vital to the individual whose past, present, and future are being revealed.

Sympathy and intuition merge the soothsayer’s aura with the temperamental coloring of his client. His magnetic force creates further powers, while his psychic discernment or sixth sense is the nucleus about which these are bound.

No student of clairvoyance can be successful in discerning character and personal emanations of color unless he is disciplined by simple rules which should govern his life.

Excessive eating, drinking, intemperance in any form, self-indulgence, bad habits, and drugs destroy this delicate sixth sense past redemption.

Want of sincerity and integrity results in the rapid decline of its power.

The body and mind must be pure and of perfect mental and physical balance. No nervous fretting or pettiness of outlook should be permitted to intrude.

In clairvoyance the brain is ruled by large and lofty aims, and it must be kept as unspotted and clean as a white garment; so only is it capable of performing its proper functions.

Likewise it is essential to remember the important, nay, vital dominion it exerts over the body, which cannot rise to perfect beauty and health unless its mental orbit is lofty and serene.

In consulting a clairvoyant the client should be serious, earnest, and trustful that he will hear the truth. Frivolity, incredulity, or idle curiosity forms as it were a thick crust between the mind of exponent and inquirer, which prevents the penetrating of thoughts and vision, strains the powers, and results in disappointment.

In the same spirit in which one visits a doctor or solicitor should the clairvoyant be approached, and there must be no determined reserve to conceal thoughts and character in the mind.

Clairvoyance in a drawing-room full of people is extremely difficult—indeed impossible, unless the onlookers can be induced to keep perfect silence during the operation.

It is always better to be closeted alone with the inquirer in a small room to which street noises do not penetrate, provided only with the necessary furniture, kept clean and fresh, airy, and well lighted.

The crystal should never be touched by any one save the clairvoyant, and must be kept free from spots and smudges. A black silk handkerchief round its globe will be a help to divination by preventing the reflection of lights.

There may be, especially to beginners, temptations to pose as the possessor of supernatural powers—to make passes over the crystal, light wax tapers, burn perfumes, and murmur incantations—but these methods, although employed by the ancient prophets, are of no aid to the modern sage. Indeed, they do harm by appealing to the senses and superstitions, and, being a mere affectation, are unworthy of that sixth sense and harmful to it.

Simple Manifestations Best

The simpler the manifestation, the more assured the clairvoyant may be of arriving at the truth.

Self-confidence, an absolute belief in his gift, and faith in his methods dominate him.

He does not endeavor to avoid exertion of his nervous forces by discreetly “pumping” the inquirer as to ways and means, but takes a delight in silent investigation.

The clairvoyant should come to his task fresh and buoyant, bubbling with enthusiasm, and yet without frivolity or thoughtless mind. At the slightest sense of fatigue he should desist from his efforts, for it is extremely harmful to apply any force or strain to this abstract power.

Physical fatigue and excitement must be avoided, for these engender jangled nerves, sleeplessness, and finally inability to isolate the mind from the orbit of our own concerns to the sphere of others.

The processes that occur in crystal-gazing are thought transference and telepathy. A communication of ideas is set up between the prophet and client, and the mirror-like surface of the crystal is the medium by means of which innate thoughts are reflected.

As far as possible, the clairvoyant submerges his own personality in that of the inquirer, putting himself in his or her place. The best means of creating these links is to place an article constantly worn by the inquirer to the head. Profound silence brings about the sense of atmosphere and aura usual to the latter, and by these means, and an intent gazing into the crystal, visions originate.

The crystal is supposed to be the magic bridge which spans the chasm fixed between itself and the spiritual world. In the iron it contains are situated the collective and culminating forces.

Mists of white, green, blue, and violet tints are symbols of good fortune and happiness; black, yellow, and red are warnings of disaster.

When the mists disperse and gradually ascend to the surface, the clairvoyant may reply to any question in the affirmative; mists that descend to the bottom are signs of negation.

Images that develop to the left of the clairvoyant are real; those on the right are purely symbolical.

It will be seen from the above that in order to apply oneself to the achievement of reading the secret depths of mind, character, talent, and circumstances, it is necessary to possess the power of separating oneself from material surroundings and allowing the spirit to dominate the body.

This can only be executed by the process of hypnotizing oneself. Clairvoyance is based on certain forms of this semi-somnolent state, for, just as in hypnotism, the mind reigns supreme over matter and becomes isolated by means of an object, so, in clairvoyance, a waking trance is brought about by fixed gazing into the crystal.

However, there are other methods of inducing this state, more or less difficult of manipulation, until constant practice and experience have made them a habit.

For the reason, formerly mentioned, that long gazing at a bright surface is injurious to eyesight, many clairvoyants prefer to create visions without the use of a crystal.

Words repeated over and over again have a mysterious power of isolating the sixth sense from the rest.

For example, the word AUM is extraordinarily symbolical. It stands for three influences—

A = the objective.
U = the subjective.
M = the Eternal.