nity of sensations,' we find that impressions are transmitted from the brain and nervous system of the mesmeriser to that of the mesmerised, and this when the senses of the patient seem to be closed to all external objects. And a current of power or influence is established by some mysterious union between the two systems, so that it appears, and probably is the fact, that one nervous force acts equally through both.

If I am right in extending the functions of reception and transmission even into the fibres of the brain itself, and supposing that each fibre is a channel for the conveyance of a specific feeling or mental impression, it will be easy to see that in order for one brain to obtain mesmeric control over another, the two brains must contain many fibres having similar functions, or, in other words, that the two characters must be alike in many points. The various degrees of power possessed by mesmerisers over different patients may be partly accounted for in this way, and may also depend on some unknown conditions in the temperaments of each by which the quality of the nerve force is affected.

In the spiritual manifestations it is asserted by the unseen power that the effects are produced by spirits taking the place of an earthly mesmeriser. And the conditions already laid down being kept in mind, we see how the communications made through any medium will be modified by his character; for a spirit wishing only to convey mischievous or destructive ideas

cannot find means to transmit them through a brain whose fibres are found only to receive the highest feelings, while a brain in which only the lowest elements predominate cannot furnish a channel for the beneficent influence of a good spirit.

In this part of the enquiry, though the interior action of the brain has been hinted at, I have not spoken of the action on the soul; because that portion of our being has yet to be considered.

But how do spirits become mesmerisers? This, the most puzzling portion of a difficult question, can only be answered, as other portions have been, hypothetically, but for the conjecture I am about to offer there is a strong though indirect evidence arising partly from observation, partly from the coherence of the statements made by the unseen powers, and partly from the beliefs and legends of all times, and, to crown all, that which all Christians venerate as revelation.

These presumptive arguments may receive confirmation from the accumulating mass of testimony now coming from all quarters, and the coherence of the whole may recommend it to the notice of those who would not think any separate portion of the subject worthy of attention if taken apart from the rest.

The nerve force, with all its related invisible and more refined agencies, constitutes the life of the body, inasmuch as it forms the instrument without which sensation, thought, and motion could not go on. Closely

connected, if not one form of this, is the agency employed in mesmerism. According to the common definition, the life force, even in its least refined degree, is immaterial, because imperceptible to the senses in their usual state. When the life of the body ceases, all we know is that the material, which is in fact a residuum or deposit, whose formation has been the work of the spirit, decays and returns to its original elements, like the withered husk when its contained fruit is ripe. But this immaterial vital portion of our frame is no less a reality than its outer covering, and, unlike it, has never been seen to fall to dust.

What, then, becomes of that which permeates and animates the body? Let us not seek the living among the dead. In the next chapter I will bring together some experiences which may help us to follow the released spirit, and, by connecting the visions of clearseers with some of the reasonings of physiologists, to find whether the spiritual body possesses powers of the same kind, though intensified and exalted in degree, as those which it wielded when in its now forsaken shell.

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CHAPTER IX.

PROCESS OF DEATH AND FORMATION OF THE SPIRITUAL

BODY.

How

OW are the dead raised, and with what body do they come?'

Analogy, though a bad master, is often a very good assistant in difficult enquiries. I intend to call in its aid as a pioneer to reasoning in this untrodden ground, to strengthen a theory which has more than mere conjecture in its favour. Following the analogy afforded by all the successive formations of nature, we find simple elements reproduced in a more refined complicated form in the grade of being next above that in which they first appear. Thus, the vegetable has in itself the same elements as the mineral combined under the new conditions necessary to organic life. simplest animal has the elements of organic life in a higher degree and in the conditions necessary to the developement of its organisation; the next above has again the elements of the first under new and more refined relations. The higher the animal, the more

The

complicated and refined is the combination.

And at the top of the scale we find Man, who, in the most perfect organisation apparent to our bodily senses, combines with all the elements of organic also the highest animal life, and, as might be expected, a something, possibly the result in some part of the more refined combination, superadded.

This is well said by the physiologist Bichat:

'La vie, examinée plus en détail, nous offre deux modifications remarquables. L'une est commune au végétal et à l'animal; l'autre est le partage spécial de ce dernier. Jetez, en effet, les yeux sur deux individus dans chacun de ces règnes vivans, vous verrez l'un n'exister qu'au dedans de lui, n'avoir avec ce qui l'environne des rapports de nutrition, naître, croître et périr fixé au sol qui en reçut le germe; l'autre, allier à cette vie intérieure, dont il jouit à plus haut degré, une vie extérieure qui établit des relations nombreuses entre lui et les objets voisins, marie son existence à celles de tous les autres êtres, l'en éloigne ou l'en rapproche suivant ses craintes et ses besoins, et semble ainsi, en lui appropriant tout dans la nature, rapporter tout à son existence isolée.

'On dirait que le végétal est l'ébauche, le canevas de l'animal, et que pour former ce dernier il n'a fallu que revêtir ce canevas d'un appareil d'organes extérieures propres à établir des relations.'

Reasoning thus from analogy, we may naturally