An Experiment With Time

IT might, perhaps, be advisable to say here,—since the reader may have been glancing ahead,—that this is not a book about “occultism,” and not a book about what is called “psycho-analysis.” It is merely the account of an extremely cautious reconnaissance in a rather novel direction,—an account presented in the customary form of a narrative of the actual proceedings concerned, coupled with a statement of the theoretical considerations believed to be involved,—and the dramatic, seemingly bizarre character of the early part of the story need occasion the reader no misgivings. He will readily understand that the task which had to be accomplished at that stage was the “isolating” (to borrow a term from the chemists) of a single, basic fact from an accumulation of misleading material. Any account of any such process of separation must contain, of course, some description of the stuff from which the separation was effected. And such stuff very often is, and in this case very largely was—rubbish. The fact which has emerged in the present instance is precisely what, on theoretical grounds, we should have expected to find. It fits very nicely into its little niche in the system of knowledge ; and it seems, moreover, to possess the attribute against which nothing can ever permanently contend—the attribute of being clearly and directly observable by everyone interested. It is hoped that the present reader will take steps to satisfy himself upon this point.