A correspondent sends me the following certified experiences of psychic self-projection—
“I intended visiting a great friend (who is psychic when I am with her), twenty-five miles away, from Saturday to Monday. On the previous Tuesday night I could not sleep at all; still wide awake at 3 a.m. I suddenly thought of Miss H——, and instantly was in her dining-room, in thought, saw vividly furniture, etc., and felt beside me her dear dead mother (my friend). I thought we both went upstairs together to the ‘spare room’ I usually occupy when visiting. We went into the room, and I walked straight to the window, held the curtains back with my hands and looked out, then, turned and looked at the bed, surprised to find Miss H—— in it, instead of her own room; turned to the door and came out of my ‘brown study’ to find myself in my own bed at home.
“When I visited her on Saturday she said: ‘About 3 a.m. last Tuesday I wished you in your own home; I slept in the spare room that night for a change, and could not sleep; I felt you and my mother were downstairs, and distinctly saw you both come into the room. You went straight to the window, parted the curtains with your hands, and looked out, then turned your head and looked surprised to see me in the bed and walked out of the room.’”
Now, I had said nothing about my “psychic visit.” Yet in every detail it was authenticated at the other end!
One night I dreamed I felt nervous (it was a brilliant moonlit night), and that I would go into the next room and see if M—— was awake for company. I went in my nightdress, barefooted, and distinctly shivered with cold. I found M—— sound asleep, so did not awaken her. Wondering what time it might be, I walked to the mantelpiece, where she keeps her little clock; it was not there, but on a chair near the bed. I made out fifteen minutes past something, but the moon was not now so brilliant I thought. Then feeling very chilly, I dreamed I returned to my bed. I awoke with a shock (the shock of returning to my body?) feeling sure I had been there. My watch pointed to 4.15. My body was perfectly warm, so it could not have been sleep-walking; it was very frosty. Next morning at breakfast I said: “Where do you keep your little clock?”
M—— said: “Usually on the mantelpiece, but it is a good way from the bed these frosty mornings, so last night I put it on a chair near my bed-head.”
She also said: “I had a curious feeling when I awoke this morning that your presence had been in my room during the night.”
These experiences undoubtedly show the power of the human mind to take form and to effect visible self-presentation at a distance. It is presumptive evidence for the existence of a mind-form or karana-sharira, which if temporarily separable from the physical centres of consciousness, may be so separated permanently at the moment of death, and thus assume independent and conscious existence in a world inhering in its consciousness. While affording a priori argument in favour of a reasonable belief in post-mortem existence, it does not prove immortality. The two cases stand upon entirely different grounds and require distinctive evidence. I know that after the butterfly has emerged from the chrysalis it has independent existence and that it is neither grub nor chrysalis, but a potentiality that has become realized in a new order of being. But I also know that the butterfly comes to an end. Our problem is concerned with the soul of the butterfly and what becomes of it thereafter. The case is not identical but merely analogous. The human evolution is presumably a good many stages beyond that of the lepidoptera.
Yet I find it quite the usual thing, especially among Spiritualists, to regard evidence of post-mortem existence as equivalent to evidence for immortality. Occultism, in common with all the great Religions, teaches that post-mortem existence is natural and imperative, while immortality is spiritual and conditional. If the shell of a nut be broken the kernel will continue to exist as nut for a considerable time. It is thus with the psychoplasm after separation from the physical body or shell. It is said of those who have attained: These are they over whom the second death hath no power. The tendency to regard all that is not physical as being spiritual in its nature and constitution, is one of the greatest fallacies to which modern interpreters of psychic phenomena have contributed. A change in the sphere of activity does not involve change of character, nor does it determine the degree of spiritual consciousness of the individual. That is a matter of evolution, of knowledge and devotion. The confessed ignorance of discarnate intelligences upon matters mundane and spiritual is sufficient evidence of this fact.