But the form of clairvoyance characteristic of spirit-guidance is that which enables the sensitive to perceive the spiritual environment interpenetrating the environment which we know.

To perceive it how? with what senses? with what standard of interpretation or faculty of control? We cannot say. We know that even our perception of this common world is in a sense symbolical; that the whirling molecules are translated for us by our narrow senses into patterns which our minds can comprehend. Still more strangely symbolical must be man's perception of those things which come to him through channels which he knows not, and on a tide of life which he can neither sound nor stem. When hues beyond his spectrum are revealed to him, with what words shall he describe the broadening ray? We have seen the single phantasm presented as by a special subliminal effort to the still dominant supraliminal view; we have seen the ghost stand in detachment and incommensurable amid a scene of common day. But at the farther stage at which we have now arrived there is for the percipient a fusion of subliminal and supraliminal outlook; he sees the terrene perspective still, but the cloud qua nunc obducta tuenti Mortalis hebetat visus has been caught away, and he sees moving through the familiar outlook the visitants of an interwoven world.

Such a condition - varying in degree and duration - has been described in various places as coming upon Mr. Moses during or after a seance. The habit of double perception grew on him as time went on, and is described in the latter paragraph of a letter which I print as given in Light, January 20th, 1894.1

1 The letter is quoted by Light from Col. Olcott, to whom it was written September 4th, 1876. I have not seen the original MS., but the internal evidence of genuineness is convincing.

I have followed out the train of thought myself of late. Myself, what is it? I do things one day, and especially say things, of which I have no remembrance. I find myself absorbed in thought in the evening, and go to bed with no lecture for the morrow prepared. In the morning I get up, go about my work as usual, lecture a little more fluently than usual, do all my business, converse with my friends, and yet know absolutely nothing of what I have done. One person alone, who knows me very intimately, can tell by a far-off look in the eyes that I am in an abnormal state. The notes of my lectures so delivered - as I read them in the books of those who attend my lectures - read to me precise, accurate, clear, and fit into their place exactly. My friends find me absent, short in manner, brusque and rude of speech. Else there is no difference. When I "come to myself" I know nothing of what has taken place, but sometimes memory recurs to me, and I gradually recollect. This is becoming a very much more frequent thing with me, so that I hardly know when I am (what I call) my proper self, and when I am the vehicle of another intelligence. My spirit friends give hints, but do not say much.

I am beginning, however, to realise far more than I once could, how completely a man may be a "gas-pipe" - a mere vehicle for another spirit. Is it possible a man may lead the life I do, and have no Individuality at all? I lead three distinct lives, and I often think that each is separate. Is it possible for a man, to ordinary eyes a common human being, to be a vehicle for Intelligences from above, and to have no separate personality? Can it be that my spirit may be away, learning perhaps, leading a separate spiritual life, whilst my body is going about and is animated by other Intelligences? Can it be that instruction is so administered to my soul, and that growth in knowledge becomes manifest to me as now and again I return from my spirit life and occupy my body again? And is it possible that I may one day become conscious of these wanderings, and lead a conscious spiritual existence alongside of my corporeal existence?

Once or twice - once very lately in the Isle of Wight - my interior dormant faculties awoke, and I lost the external altogether. For a day and a night I lived in another world, while dimly conscious of material surroundings. I saw my friends, the house, the room, the landscape, but dimly. I talked, and walked, and went about as usual, but through all, and far more clearly, I saw my spiritual surroundings, the friends I know so well, and many I had never seen before. The scene was clearer than the material landscape, yet blended with it in a certain way. I did not wish to talk. I was content to look and live among such surroundings. It was as I have heard Swedenborg's visions described.