*This is an account of the wanderings of a spiritu­alist, geographical and speculative. Should the reader have no interest in psychic things—if indeed any hu­man being can be so foolish as not to be interested in his own nature and fate,—then this is the place to put the book down. It were better also to end the matter now if you have no patience with a go-as-you-please style of narrative, which founds itself upon the conviction that thought may be as interesting as action, and whi­ch is bound by its very nature to be intensely personal. I write a record of what absorbs my mind which may be very different from that which appeals to yours.*