Among the less advanced nations of
the world the clairvoyant state has been produced in various objectionable
ways; among some of the non-Aryan tribes of India, by the use of
intoxicating drugs or the inhaling of stupefying fumes; among the
dervishes, by whirling in a mad dance of religious fervor until vertigo
and insensibility supervene; among the followers of the abominable
practices of the Voodoo cult, by frightful sacrifices and loathsome rites
of black magic. Methods such as these are happily not in vogue in our own
race, yet even among us large numbers of dabblers in this ancient art
adopt some plan of self-hypnotization, such as gazing at a bright spot, or
the repetition of some formula until a condition of semi-stupefaction is
produced; while yet another school among them would endeavor to arrive at
similar results by the use of some of the Indian systems of regulation of
the breath. All these methods are unequivocally to be condemned as quite
unsafe for the practice of the ordinary man who has no idea of what he is
doing--who is simply making vague experiments in an unknown world. Even
the method of obtaining clairvoyance by allowing oneself to be mesmerized
by another person is one from which I should myself shrink with the most
decided distaste; and assuredly it should never be attempted except under
conditions of absolute trust and affection between the magnetizer and the
magnetized, and a perfection of purity in heart and soul, in mind and
intention, such as is rarely to be seen among any but the greatest of
saints.
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