process of formation of sound seems to originate near the pit of the stomach, namely, in the great solar plexus; and this may justify the assertion of Swedenborg, that the deepest and most internal degree, corresponding to celestial love, has its seat not in the brain, but more near the heart.

The following extract from Dr. Dickson's little work contains an instance of spiritual hearing:

'I have some notes which point at the introduction of a spiritual element into the circuit. The clairvoyante was behind her usual hour one morning. She said that when about half way, a voice sounded, "Go back." She thought it was some distant exclamation, and proceeded. She heard the voice again, and felt herself stopped by some invisible agency, still hearing "Go back." She returned home. Her little boy had fallen and was considerably hurt. She said that the same voice said what she should do in her perplexity, namely, "Magnetise, and arnica lotion." When she was in the sleep, she said that she found it was her mother and another spirit who had turned her back.

'She drew her hand wavingly from mine one day on her passing into the sleep, and said, "What a beautiful red and blue ray came from your hand!” "And yet I don't feel well," I said. "It came from Dr. Ley," she answered. "We are on these occasions surrounded by invisible friends, who sometimes magnetise through you, and who make use of my tongue.

I have to express what they would say, which I do very imperfectly."

'The same day she was, while in the sleep, locally magnetising a patient. He said, "That does me good." "We should do much more good," she replied, "if all were believers like you." He asked, "How is it you know so well what to do in this state?" She pointed upwards. "Is the mind," he went on, "in this state among spirits?" "I see them about us."

in spirit as you will be after death?"

"Are you

"Indeed I

hope to be better and happier. You may awake me

Some years ago, Miss Emma Jay, now I believe married and in America, came to England. The manifestation of the voice in Miss Jay's case was very remarkable. During the impression she appeared like a person under very powerful mesmerism, with gasping, twitching of the muscles, and other very perceptible effects of the unseen magnetic influence. When the system was quite brought under the controlling power, the eyes were shut; or if the lids were in the least degree open, the eyeballs were turned up, and the subject was, with very little variation, apparently in a state like that of some clairvoyantes. A question was put to her; she waited for a minute, and then gave an answer, in expression, range of thought, and beauty

*This is a confirmation of former statements respecting language.

of imagery, far surpassing anything she could achieve in her normal state. When out of the trance, she described herself as being quite passive, listening to her own words, and learning from the spirit, who had control over her organs, exactly as she would have done to the teaching of another person. She said that explanations given through her were often quite unexpected, and contrary to her previous notions. With a very finely developed brain, and a nervous system calculated to receive and transmit the influence, the medium's education had not been at all proportionate to her natural abilities. Yet few persons, especially women, could have entered at all on questions which she, or the spirit controlling her, discussed and answered with great ability and clearness. Miss Jay's voice and manner differed much when under different influences, but the phraseology was always, with variations, her own, and the chains of argument such as her well-organised brain was able to convey.

Mr. T. L. Harris, who has in a high degree the internal voice, dwells much on the phenomenon of internal respiration. This breathing, deeper in the system than that of the lungs, seems to be a usual accompaniment of all states of impression and clairvoyance. It may be observed in the deep mesmeric sleep or trance, and the change from it to the external process of inspiration and expiration of the lungs is very curious indeed. I have seen persons just waking from a trance, cough

and breathe with difficulty, often declaring that the entrance of the coarse outer air is painful to them, after the pure atmosphere of the spirit world in which they have been breathing. It is said, and I believe with truth, that no real influx can take place till the medium is susceptible of this state. It seems to be an ebb and flow of the spirit within, agreeing with the waves of influx from the spirit without, whose action, as has been said, is so often perceptible as fanning, or a current of fresh, pure air. When our pulmonary breathing and spiritual breathing are brought into harmony of action, or polarised together, we shall all be receptive, as a natural condition of every-day life, of the streams of influx from higher beings.

92

WH

CHAPTER VIII.

MEDIUMSHIP--NATURE OF INFLUENCE.

HEN an enquirer ventures into a new region of knowledge, he has not only to establish, but to systematise facts; and in the first arrangement, these will probably not hold the same rank as they will take when the now unrecognised territory has been measured, observed, and cultivated. The order, too, in which facts present themselves to such an enquirer, is not always that in which the whole is most easily communicated, and the earliest information must be rather a history of discovery than a welldigested essay on the subject.

I do not forget that the theme of spirit life and impression has been far more fully discussed by Swedenborg and a few others than it can be in such a slight account as this. But the seers do not assume that every step is to be established. They speak with the authority of teachers; as a dweller in the land can give descriptions of every part from his own knowledge; while one who undertakes to gather from the