There is no limit really to the resources of astral clairvoyance ininvestigations concerning the past history of the earth, whether weare concerned with the events that have befallen the human race inprehistoric epochs, or with the growth of the planet itself throughgeological periods which antedated the advent of man, or with morerecent events, current narrations of which have been distorted bycareless or perverse historians. The memory of Nature is infalliblyaccurate and inexhaustibly minute. A time will come as certainly asthe precession of the equinoxes, when the literary method ofhistorical research will be laid aside as out of date, in the case ofall original work. People among us who are capable of exercisingastral clairvoyance in full perfection--but have not yet been calledaway to higher functions in connexion with the promotion of humanprogress, of which ordinary humanity at present knows even less thanan Indian ryot knows of cabinet councils--are still very few. Thosewho know what the few can do, and through what processes of trainingand self-discipline they have passed in pursuit of interior ideals, ofwhich when attained astral clairvoyance is but an individualcircumstance, are many, but still a small minority as compared withthe modern cultivated world. But as time goes on, and within ameasurable future, some of us have reason to feel sure that thenumbers of those who are competent to exercise astral clairvoyancewill increase sufficiently to extend the circle of those who are awareof their capacities, till it comes to embrace all the intelligence andculture of civilised mankind only a few generations hence. Meanwhilethe present volume is the first that has been put forward as thepioneer essay of the new method of historical research. It is amusingto all who are concerned with it, to think how inevitably it will bemistaken--for some little while as yet, by materialistic readers,unable to accept the frank explanation here given of the principle onwhich it has been prepared--for a work of imagination.