CLAIRVOYANCE (Fr. elairroyant, clear seeing, from Clair, Lat. darns, clear roir, Lat. •iders, to see). An alleged ability to see. in a trance state, objects and occurrences which are not discernible in Hie normal state. Belief in the clairvoyance of the hypnotic tramp is as old as history. Socrates, Apollonius. Cicero, Pliny. Tertollian, all furnish records of the prophetic dreams and utterances of clairvoy ants. in later Ones the visions of Swedenborg (q.v.) and Davis have become widely known.
Of the existence of the somnambulistic state of hypnosis, in which clairvoyance is said to occur most often, there can be no doubt. Suggestion (q.v.). whether it lie from without (the words, passes, or other artifices of an oper ator), or from within (auto-suggestion, q.v.), suffices in most people to induce this state. Cer tain other conditions (fasting, drugs, disease, general emotional excitability) may induce an apparently spontaneous and indeterminate ap pearance of somnambulism. Every one is fa miliar with the epidemic catalepsy of the reli gious revival, best exhibited, perhaps, by the negroes of the South.
As to the existence of clairvoyance in som nambulism. opinions are divided. Some. with Tuttle, consider "an inherent facul ty, a fo•egleam in this life of the next spiritual life." They esteem the clairvoyant as a pe culiarly sensitive person. whose mind is. for the time being, directed by sonic departed spirit, and whose lips speak with an intelligence Mit their own. Others consider that the clairvoy ant is able. without such direction. to see ob jects and oceurrenetts beyond time ken of normal vision. Still others take a middle ground. and consider that the results are to be explained by telepathic eommunivation, not between departed spirits and the medium, but hetween the minds of one or more living persons and that of (lie 'percipient' (tewputhir-it-trois). Finally, many scientific men abscdutely deny the presence of supernormal agencies. Consult : Flournoy, Prom India to the Monet (Nris, 1900) ; Pod more. Apparitions and Thought Transference (London, 1S93). See APPARITIONS: ECSTASY.