MISUSE OF TERMS
The words clairvoyance, trance and
even cataleptic have been used as synonymous, although each has a
distinct meaning, and confusion must arise from their indiscriminate
use.
Catalepsy is a state of suddenly
suspended vital function in which it is impossible to move, and its new
meaning as clairvoyance is wholly unwarranted. When persons fall into a
sleep resembling death, in which they may or may not be conscious, it is
called trance. This applies when they are in a lethargy, resembling
sleep. But when their spiritual perceptions are intensified to a degree
exceeding their physical senses, it shows the presence of clairvoyance,
which is a sensitive state, of all degrees of acuteness, from that
wherein the personality predominates and modifies the perception, to
that wherein the
mind is independent of the physical
body and its surroundings, and is in direct contact with superior
intelligences.
Clairvoyance is the perception of the
spirit, independent of all the physical organs of sense. It is seeing with
the spiritual eyes, as clairaudience is hearing with the spiritual organs
of hearing. In this the spirit while in the body approaches, for a brief
time, a state which is the normal with the freed spirit.
It may be developed without spirit aid,
or it may be induced by spirit control. We are spirits while in the body
with spiritual capabilities, latent, perhaps, but at times, unexpectedly
breaking through the restraining walls of physical matter which environ
it.
Clairvoyance may come spontaneously or
be induced by the magnetism of
those within or without the body. The process is identical in both cases. |
