Yet it is permanently established and has been successfully demonstrated innumerable times, that certain methods of artificial stimulation have revivified and resuscitated the delicate organs that cause the heartbeat and give consciousness to the brain.
Recently my local newspaper contained the following item:
"DEAD" BUT SAW NO SPIRITS
Oklahoma City, Okla., February 7th—Neal Dillingham doesn't believe in after-death communication with the living. Dillingham was "dead" for twenty minutes recently, and he says he ought to know.
Doctors said Dillingham's blood circulation was stopped by a clot of blood. His heart stopped beating, and he did not breathe.
Insertion of a saline solution into his artery just above the heart caused the clot to dissolve, and Dillingham came back to life.
"I did not return to earth after I left it," said Dillingham. "I had no knowledge of anything that took place, but I must have been pretty dead, as I do know I didn't recognize several persons I had known all my life, after I was myself again. If I had any talks with anybody while I was 'dead' I don't remember anything about them."
Believing that the publicity that this case received would make the party known to the postal authorities, I sat down and wrote him a letter, hoping that, if fortunate enough to have a letter delivered to him, he might be kind enough to write me personally of his experience.
After a lapse of several days I received from him a letter substantiating in detail all that was mentioned in the newspaper clipping quoted above.
In the instance of this man Dillingham, he was "dead," so to speak, and as far as his "soul" was concerned it had "left" the body; yet the injection of a material solution, compounded by man, in conjunction with artificial respiration, caused the beating of the heart and gave back to the brain its power of consciousness.