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CHAPTER VIII PSYCHIC POWERS, THEIR DEVELOPMENT AND USE EVIDENCE for the existence and examples of the use of the faculty of clairvoyance have been placed before the reader in the foregoing pages. In these concluding chapters consideration will be given, to the rationale of such faculties. Although the subject of seership is unfortunately enwrapped in a dense mass of superstition, charlatanry and ridicule, a study of history shows that there has always existed a body of people possessing knowledge concerning the interior constitution and supernormal faculties of man. This knowledge has been aptly styled the “Ancient Wisdom”, for it has existed throughout all ages and is, indeed, the basic body of truth behind all the great philosophies and religions of the world. According to this “Ancient Wisdom”, students and investigators have turned their attention to super- physical research from the earliest days of human history on this planet. The results of their investigations have been preserved, and are available for those who sincerely seek an understanding of the deeper truth of life and of the powers latent in man. From the study of this vast source of learning a rational explanation of the faculty of clairvoyance can be gained. The so-called psychic faculties of man are shown to have a natural place in his constitution and their activities, and even their sporadic appearance in individuals to be governed by exact law. The word “psychic” is derived from the Greek word “psyche”, which means the “soul”. Psychic faculties, therefore, are faculties pertaining to the soul, and “soul” may be taken, broadly, to mean everything that is not body—the feeling, the thinking, the willing man, as distinct from the acting or physical man. Since these psychic faculties are the powers and capacities of the soul, it is necessary to make a clear distinction between the subtle and physical bodies, which are instruments, and the soul, which uses them. Psychic faculties exist in embryo in every man— as also in every animal—and will one day be unfolded into their full and complete expression. They may be divided into two orders. Positive faculties are those which are controlled in the same way as are the normal bodily faculties of sight, hearing, touch, taste and