In the following case, there is found a connecting link of acquaintance with a person playing a prominent part in the scene, although there was no conscious appeal to the clairvoyant, nor conscious interest on her part regarding the case.  The story is well-known, and appears in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.  It runs as follows: 

Mrs. Broughton awoke one night in 1844, and roused her husband, telling him that something dreadful had happened in France.  He begged her to go asleep again, and not trouble him.  She assured him that she was not asleep when she saw what she insisted on telling him—­what she saw in fact.  She saw, first, a carriage accident, or rather, the scene of such an accident which had occurred a few moments before.  What she saw was the result of the accident—­a broken carriage, a crowd collected, a figure gently raised and carried into the nearest house, then a figure lying on a bed, which she recognized as the Duke of Orleans.  Gradually friends collected around the bed—­among them several members of the French royal family—­the queen, then the king, all silently, tearfully, watching the evidently dying duke.  One man (she could see his back, but did not know who he was) was a doctor.  He stood bending over the duke, feeling his pulse, with his watch in the other hand.  And then all passed away, and she saw no more.  “As soon as it was daylight she wrote down in her journal all that she had seen.  It was before the days of the telegraph, and two or more days passed before the newspapers announced ‘The Death of the Duke of Orleans.’  Visiting Paris a short time afterwards, she saw and recognized the place of the accident, and received the explanation of her impression.  The doctor who attended the dying duke was an old friend of hers, and as he watched by the bed his mind had been constantly occupied with her and her family.”

In many cases of clairvoyance of this kind, there is found to exist a strong connecting link of mutual interest or affection, over which flows the strong attention-arousing force of need or distress, which calls into operation the clairvoyant visioning.

In other cases there seems to be lacking any connecting link, although, even in such cases there may be a subconscious link connecting the clairvoyant with the scene or event.  An interesting example of this last mentioned phase is that related by W.T.  Stead, the English editor and author, as having happened to himself.  Mr. Stead’s recital follows: 

“I got into bed and was not able to go to sleep.  I shut my eyes and waited for sleep to come; instead of sleep, however, there came to me a succession of curiously vivid clairvoyant pictures.  There was no light in the room, and it was perfectly dark; I had my eyes shut also.  But, notwithstanding the darkness, I suddenly was conscious of looking at a scene of singular beauty.  It was as if I saw a living miniature about the size of a magic-lantern