[2] Quite unlike the realistic fiction for which Eliot is best known, The Lifted Veil explores themes of extrasensory perception, possible life after death, and the power of fate.
[3][4][5] The story is a significant part of the Victorian tradition of horror fiction, which includes such other examples as Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897).
Latimer is convinced of the existence of this power, and his two initial predictions do come true the way he has envisioned them: a peculiar "patch of rainbow light on the pavement" and a few words of dialogue appear to him exactly as expected.
Blackwood's hesitated to publish The Lifted Veil due to its uncomfortable and sometimes horrifying scenes, like the blood transfusion at the end of the story.
[8] The story was influenced by the fields of physiology, phrenology, and mesmerism, as well as scientists such as William Gregory, who studied animal magnetism, and Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard, who performed transfusion experiments.