Second Sight

Second Sight. the name given to the power of foreseeing events which was formerly believed to be no uncommon attainment in the Scottish Highlands. The most awful vision was the "wraith" or "fetch" (ie. the shadowy image) of a person about to die. The reputed seers were commonly men of stern and upright character, who through their elevation above the things of sense were supposed to have acquired peculiar insight into the spiritual world. But second sight was not confined to events of a solemn nature; it frequently gave intelligence of the most ordinary occurrences of every-day life. A full description of all its varieties, given in Martin's Description of the Western Isles of Scotland (1703), is reproduced in a shorter form in Defoe's Life and Adventures of Duncan Campbell, (1720). Numerous modern cases have recently been investigated by the Society for Psychical Research.