Genuine Mediumship; or, The Invisible PowersAtkinson, William Walker
Religion
Genuine Mediumship; or, The Invisible Powers
Atkinson, William Walker
Mediums
There is a phase of prevision, or prophecy of coming events, however,
that is not true clairvoyance at all, but simply the subconscious
workings of the mind along the lines of a supernormal perception of the
laws of cause and effect. Give the active subconscious mental faculties
the perception of a strong existing cause, and it will often reason out
the probable effect (the almost certain effect, in fact) of that cause,
even though that effect lies in the mist of the future. The subconscious
mind works upon the principle that "coming events cast their shadows
before." But this, at the best, is not true clairvoyance--it is merely
the statement of "probable" results, and effects of existing causes,
wonderfully exact and clear though the deduction may be in some cases.
But a thousand-and-one unforeseen things may arise to completely upset
the prediction, or deduction, for it is never actually true until it
occurs. We must look further for real instances of Future Clairvoyance.
The Nature of Time.
That eminent scientist, Sir Oliver Lodge, offers an ingenious and
interesting, though very technical explanation of this class of
clairvoyant phenomena as follows: "Time is but a relative mode of
regarding things; we progress through phenomena at a certain definite
pace, and this subjective advance we interpret in an objective manner,
as if events moved necessarily in this order and at this precise rate.
But that may be only one mode of regarding them. The events may be in
some sort of existence always, both past and future, and it may be we
who are arriving at them, not they which are happening. The analogy of a
traveler in a railway train is useful; if he could never leave the
train, nor alter its pace, he would probably consider the landscapes as
necessarily successive, and be unable to conceive their co-existence. We
perceive, therefore, a possible fourth dimensional aspect about time,
the inexorableness of whose flow may be a natural part of our present
limitations. And if we once grasp the idea that past and future may be
actually existing, we can recognize that they may have a controlling
influence on all present action, and the two together may constitute the
'higher plane' or totality of things after which, it seems to me, we are
impelled to seek, in connection with the directing of form or
determinism, and the action of human beings consciously directed to a
definite and preconceived end."
The Oriental Teaching.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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