CLAIRVOYANCE (Lat. clorus, clear, + videre, to see), defined as the power of perceiv ing without the use of the organ of vision or under conditions in which the organ of vision with its natural powers alone would be useless. It comprises the sight of things past, present or future. Various methods of clairvoyance are recounted; by direct vision of things at a dis tance (opaque substances being no hindrance) ; by looking into a black surface; by looking into water, into a crystal, etc.; or by laying the ob ject to be described on the forehead or chest of the clairvoyant; but clairvoyants now usually represent the cerebral region as the seat of illumination. From remote antiquity the pos session of such powers by favored Individuals has been believed. In the Old Testament (2 ICings vi, 15-17) is an account of the opening of the inner vision in the case of the servant of Elisha in answer to the prayer of the prophet Clairvoyant powers were claimed for the Pythia at Delphi. Apollonius of Tyana and Diodorus Siculus testify to the clairvoyance of the Indian sages. Macrobius gives an instance of clairvoyance on the part of the oracle of the Heliopolitan god when consulted by the Em peror Trajan. Tertullian speaks of a seeress who could prophesy and prescribe for the sick. Clairvoyance was lcnown among the nations of antiquity, and is still generally accepted as an undoubted fact among Eastern nations. As In stances of clairvoyants in later times may be mentioned Jacob Bohme (1575-1624) and Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), the Swedish scientist and founder of the religious body called ((The Church of the New Jerusalem)) The phenomena of clairvoyance have been carefully observed. The clairvoyant state seems
to be intimately connected with the mesmeric, the somnambulistic and the so-called "biologi cal.* Mesmeric somnambulism and clairvoy ance were first brought to notice by Puysigur in 1784. The clairvoyant is usually in a state of trance, which may be induced by mesmeric passes. In this state he is sometimes conscious. only of his mesmerizer; in others, his clairvoy ance is unrestricted; but the clairvoyant may enter the trance state spontaneously, or he may even be in possession of his ordinary faculties, both of which characteristics are to be found in Zscholdce, the German novelist. In °second sight," as found in Denmadc, parts of Germany and especially in the Highlands of Scotland, the seer is not in a state of trance similar to that in other forms of clairvoyance. Others consider that the results are to be explained by telepathic communication hem cell the minds of one or more living persons and that of the percipient. Some modern scientists claim that the discovery of the X-ravs, by ROntgen, in 1895, has solved a number of the questions raised bv clairvoy ance. Comult Flournoy, (From India to the Planet Marb) (New York 1900); Podmore, 'Apparitions and Thought Transference' (Lon don 1895); Hyslop, 'Enigmas of Psychical Re search' (Boston 1906).