It is more than likely that the ornate and mystic ceremonies indulged in by Hindoo mystics, Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman priests, had the one grand end in view--viz., to induce the requisite state of super-sensitivity, and thus prepare the consecrated youths, sybils, and vestal virgins for the influx of spiritual vision, prophecy, and what not. When this subtle influx came--by whatever name called--the phenomena manifested were pretty much the same as we know them, only varied in degree. The gods spoke per oracle, Pythean, or Delphic. The man of God either coronated a king or foretold the end of a dynasty. St. Stephen saw Christ, St. John beheld visions, Joan of Arc was directed, Swedenborg illumined, and religious ecstatics in ancient and modern times partook more or less of the sacred fire--the inner sight. This (stripped of the fantastic surroundings, priestly mummeries, and dominant belief of the times) simply indicated the evolution and exercise of clairvoyance and other psychic gifts. Coming nearer home, we hear of the mysterious visions at the Knock, and at Lourdes. Miraculous appearances of the Virgin and winged angels, to cheer the hearts of the faithful, and to cause the heads of the scornful to rejoice in sceptical derision. Then we have all the vagaries produced by the high nervous tension of modern revivalism, in which the visions seen are but a transformation of church and chapel dogmas into objective realities. These illusionary visions--mistaken for clairvoyance--possess less reality than the delusive fancies of the sensitive in the state of hypnosis. Clairvoyance will be governed by its own spiritual laws, just as sight is affected or retarded by physical conditions. What these spiritual laws are we can only surmise, but this we may safely conjecture--viz., that soul-sight is not trammelled or limited by the natural laws which govern physical optics. Clairvoyance and physical vision are absolutely distinct, and possess little in common. To illustrate a new subject, it is permissible to draw upon the old and the well-known. So I venture to illustrate clairvoyance by certain facts in connection with ordinary human vision. Although some children see better than others, the power to see, with the ability to understand the relative positions and uses of the things seen, is a matter of development. In psychic vision, we also see growth or development, with increasing power to use and understand the faculty. Some children are blind from birth, and others, seeing, lose the power of sight. Many are _blind_, although they have physical sight, they see not with _the educated eye_. Many, again, have greater powers of sight than they are aware of. As so it is with psychic vision.