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Table of Contents

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.

There does not appear to be anything in these pages that anyone is likely to find difficult to follow, provided that he avoids, in Chapters XVII, XIX, XXI, XXIII, XXIV and XXVI, those occasional paragraphs enclosed within square brackets which have been written more particularly for specialists. And Part V may require reading twice. But there are a few commonplace semi-technical expressions which will crop up now and again; and it is always possible that other people may be accustomed to attach to these words meanings rather different from those which the present writer is hoping to convey. Any such misunderstanding would result, obviously, in our being at cross-purposes throughout the greater part of the book. Hence it might be advisable for us to come to some sort of rough preliminary agreement, not as to how these terms ought rightly to be employed, but as to what they are to be regarded as meant to mean in this particular volume. By so doing we shall, at any rate, avoid that worst of all irritations to a reader—a text repeatedly interrupted by references to footnote or glossary.

That the agreement will be entirely one-sided will make it all the easier to achieve.