Abstract

The Scottish tradition of `second sight,' a special psychic ability asso­ciated with the Highlands and Western Isles, was studied. A large-scale survey, which used a random sampling procedure, was conducted to find out the incidence of people reporting second sight in the Western Isles, Highland, Grampian and Lowland regions in Scotland. The survey also looked at whether people who reported second sight differed from people without it with regard to the following characteristics: highland descent, gender, family members reporting second sight and knowledge of people other than relatives reporting second sight. The frequency of reported second sight ranged from 10% to 16% with the exception of Grampian, which reported 33%. In general, neither highland descent nor gender seemed to be significantly related to people's reporting second sight, though this was not true for the Lowland region. People reporting second sight are more likely to know people other than relatives with second sight than those who do not report second sight, though this was not true for the Lowlands. Lastly, in all regions, people reporting second sight are significantly more likely to report second sight in blood-related family members, The implications of these findings for the traditional view of second sight are discussed.