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CHAPTER I SUPERNORMAL COGNITION THE study of the powers, attributes, and faculties of human consciousness has made such rapid progress during the last quarter of a century, that concepts which would have been impossible of acceptance before that period arc now gradually becoming accepted as demonstrable facts. The science of psychology has emerged as a result of this progress, and bids fair to keep pace with the remarkable evolution and growth of scientific knowledge which is such a marked characteristic of the post-War period. Those who have followed the development of psychology during recent years will recognize in this book much which is familiar to them under a different nomenclature and system of philosophy. The reader who approaches this subject for the first time, however, may well find the contents of this book to be wellnigh incredible to him. Yet the author would ask for patience, and that judgement may be reserved until the concluding chapters have been read. The phenomenon of supernormal cognition in man has presented itself continuously throughout the whole range of human history. The literature of the past races of mankind, of past civilizations, teems with accounts and incidents concerning the possession of faculties which are not possessed by the general order of mankind. The same phenomenon is with us today, and apparently in a degree which is far greater than ever it has been the case in the past. The purpose of this book Is to make a critical examination of the subject of supernormal cognition: to illustrate that study with a number of examples taken from the author’s own experience; and finally to offer an explanation of the rationale of psychic powers, together with some thoughts concerning their relationship to the five senses with which man is normally endowed. The author wishes to make it clear from the beginning that his approach to the subject of clairvoyance has nothing in common with that of the professional seer, fortuneteller, or spiritualistic medium; that such people do possess a certain form of hyper-sensitivity must be admitted, but the atmosphere in which their faculties arc employed is for the most part of such a nature that the scientific mind is