entirely refute it as being altogether wrong. I have myself, while in a perfectly normal state, seen or experienced nearly everything that has been discussed under this heading.
I am willing to admit that ordinarily a trance state is developed before the best results can be obtained; but to say that it MUST be developed is to contradict my own experience and refute my own observations. I have never, at any time, gone into a trance state, and would no more consider doing so than I would consider jumping from the roof of a ten-story building. If, then, I were to refute my sanity during these experiences, by what manner of judgement could I consider myself to be sane at all? It is useless for those who know nothing at all about psychic phenomena to deny its reality. I can understand any one saying that he does not understand it, but I cannot grasp the position of an individual who denies something of which he is entirely ignorant.
We will say then THAT EVERY ACT OF THE HUMAN INSTRUMENT WHICH WE CALL THE BODY CAN BE REPRODUCED THROUGH SOME AGENCY WHICH IS NOT PHYSICAL, OR THROUGH SOME AGENCY THAT PHYSICS CANNOT EXPLAIN. We will call this agency some power of mind with which we are not yet well familiar. It is all simple enough, anyway, for our bodies could not move unless we were here to move them, and so every act is mental, even though we use the body as an instrument.
I can find no explanation for the above-stated facts, unless we suppose that we have a mental body which reproduces the physical one; and which can function without its counterpart, and is entirely independent of it.
It makes no difference whether we attribute the phenomena to spirits or whether we say that we are unconsciously producing it ourselves, THE FACT WILL STILL REMAIN THAT THE PHENOMENA ARE PRODUCED and can be accounted for only on the basis that we either have a mental body, which acts independent of the physical one, or that the power of thought alone, and without any physical instrument, can operate upon matter. Personally, I prefer to accept the theory that we have a mental body, since this