A writer has said:  “On this plane, in some manner which down here is totally inexplicable, the past, the present, and the future, are all there existing simultaneously.  One can only accept this fact, for its cause lies in the faculty of that exalted plane, and the way in which this higher faculty works is naturally quite incomprehensible to the physical brain.  Yet now and then one may meet with a hint that seems to bring us a trifle nearer to a dim possibility of comprehension.  When the pupil’s consciousness is fully developed upon this higher plane, therefore, perfect prevision is possible to him, though he may not—­nay, he certainly will not—­be able to bring the whole result of his sight through fully and in order into his physical consciousness.  Still, a great deal of clear foresight is obviously within his power whenever he likes to exercise it; and even when he is not exercising it, frequent flashes of foreknowledge come through into his ordinary life, so that he often has an instantaneous intuition as to how things will turn out.”

The same writer says:  “Short of perfect prevision we find that all degrees of this type of clairvoyance exist, from the occasional vague premonitions which cannot in any true sense be called sight at all, up to frequent and fairly complete second-sight.  The faculty to which this latter somewhat misleading name has been given is an extremely interesting one, and would well repay more careful and systematic study than has hitherto been given to it.  It is best known to us as a not infrequent possession of the Scottish Highlanders, though it is by no means confined to them.  Occasional instances of it have appeared in almost every nation, but it has always been commonest among mountaineers and men of lonely life.  With us in England it is often spoken of as if it were the exclusive appanage of the Celtic race, but in reality it has appeared among similarly situated peoples the world over, it is stated, for example, to be very common among the Westphalian peasantry.

“Sometimes the second-sight consists of a picture clearly foreshowing some coming event; more frequently, perhaps, the glimpse of the future is given in some symbolical appearance.  It is noteworthy that the events foreseen are invariably unpleasant ones—­death being the commonest of all; I do not recollect a single instance in which the second-sight has shown anything which was not of the most gloomy nature.  It has a ghastly symbolism of its own—­a symbolism of shrouds and corpse-candles, and other funeral horrors.  In some cases it appears to be to a certain extent dependent upon locality, for it is stated that inhabitants of the Isle of Skye who possess the faculty often lose it when they leave the island, even though it be only to cross to the mainland.  The gift of such sight is sometimes hereditary in a family for generations, but this is not an invariable rule, for it often appears sporadically in one member of a family otherwise free from its lugubrious influence.