The evidence of the concreteness, and wholeness and self-awareness of the Individual Intelligence, functioning in and through, and separable from the physical body, was complete. No other explanation or conclusion would fit or cover the case at all. Had I been clairvoyant and able to see the entity, it would have been another link in a chain whose sequence pointed all one way. But even here I was not without a witness.
In another case, an old lady was dying. A “Platform Lecturer” (Mediumistic) was present and described, incidentally, what she saw. She was a good, clean, ignorant woman and only “controlled” on the Platform.
She described a vapor emanating from the body, as the “death-damp” increased, and outer “awareness” failed. This vapor seemed to adhere together until it stood near the head, rounded and nearly reaching the ceiling. Then the “spirit form” passed out from the top of the head, was inclosed in the ball of “vapor,” and together they “floated away.”
I found that she had never heard of the “Auric-egg” nor read a page of the old Eastern philosophy, and yet she had accurately described, step by step, what the Masters for ages declare occurs at death.
Science is the careful observation, demonstration and record of Facts, their orderly grouping or classification, and the logical and sequential conclusions resulting therefrom.
It is not a matter of opinion and belief, nor dogma and denial, no matter how large, respectable, and sincere may be the army of the dogmatists.
Take these suggestions and conclusions—my friend—for what you think them worth, since now you know how far they have grown from experience and the love and search for the simple Truth.
The temptation to quote and annotate from many authors is very great, but the material is so abundant that one scarcely knows where to begin, where to end; and as the address is solely to the reader of “average intelligence,” and argument is eliminated as far as possible, many quotations could do little more than confirm opinions, and would extend beyond the limits designed by the author, or the brief space and popular form more desirable for the average reader.
Repetitions in the text seemed unavoidable for the reason, that at every phase of the subject I have continually to regard the Individual, and that aggregate called Society; the inner conscious life of one, and the associate elements and conditions regarding the many, and from different viewpoints.
Man, the Individual, is like a “wheel within a wheel,” the larger circle being Humanity as a whole.