A long account of experiments on these lines by Durville appears in the "Journal de Magnetisme" for 1907 and 1908 but although they tend to confirm the ideas at which we have already arrived, there is nothing to be gained by going into their details here.
A very interesting case which has a considerable bearing on the subject is given in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. VIII, pp. 180-193.
The following is an abbreviated account:
The narrator is a physician and the case seems to have been singularly well attested and was carefully scrutinised by no less a critic than Dr. R.H. Hodgson.
"I passed some four hours in all without pulse or perceptible heart beat, as I am informed by Dr. S.H. Raynes, who was the only physician present. During a portion of this time several of the bystanders thought I was dead, and, such a report being carried outside, the village church bell was tolled. Dr. Raynes informs me, however, that by bringing his eyes close to my face, he could perceive an occasional short gasp, so very light as to be hardly perceptible, and that he was several times on the point of saying, 'He is dead,' when a gasp would occur in time to check him. He thrust a needle deep into the flesh at different points from the feet to the hips, but got no response.[5] Although I was pulseless for four hours, the state of apparent death lasted only about half an hour. I lost, I believe, all power of thought or knowledge of existence in absolute unconsciousness. I came again into a state of conscious existence, and discovered that I was still in the body, but the body and I had no longer any interests in common. I looked with astonishment and joy for the first time upon myself—the me, the real Ego, while the not-me closed upon all sides like a sepulchre of clay. With all the interest of a physician I beheld the wonders of my bodily anatomy, intimately interwoven with which, even tissue for tissue, was I, the living soul of that dead body. I realised my condition and calmly reasoned thus: I have died, as man terms death, and yet I am as much a man as ever. I am about to get out of the body. I watched the interesting process of the separation of soul and body. By some power, apparently not my own, the Ego was rocked to and fro, laterally as the cradle is rocked, by which process its connection with the tissues of the body was broken up. After a little while the lateral motions ceased, and along the soles of the feet, beginning at the toes, passing rapidly to the heels, I felt and heard, as it seemed the snapping of innumerable small cords. When this was accomplished, I began slowly to retreat from the feet, toward the head, as a rubber cord shortens. I remember reaching the hips and saying to myself, 'Now there is no life below the hips.' I can recall no memory of passing through the abdomen and chest, but recollect distinctly when my whole self was collected in the head, when I reflected thus: 'I am all the head now, and I shall soon be free.' I passed around the brain as if it were hollow, compressing it and its membranes slightly on all sides towards the centre, and peeped out between the sutures of the skull, emerging like the flattened edges of a bag of membranes! I recollect distinctly how I appeared to myself something like a jelly fish as regards colour and form! As I emerged, I saw two ladies sitting at my head. I measured the distance between the head of my cot and the knees of the lady opposite the head and concluded there was room for me to stand, but felt considerable embarrassment as I reflected that I was about to emerge naked before her, but comforted myself with the thought that in all probability she would not see me with her bodily eyes, as I was a spirit. As I emerged from the head I floated up laterally like a soap bubble attached to the bowl of a pipe, until I at last broke loose from the body and fell lightly to the floor, where I slowly rose and expanded to the full stature of a man. I seemed to be translucent, of a bluish cast and perfectly naked. With a painful sense of embarrassment, I fled toward the partially open door to escape the eyes of the two ladies whom I was facing, as well as others who I knew were about me, but upon reaching the door I found myself clothed, and satisfied upon that point, I turned and faced the company. As I turned, my left elbow came in contact with the arm of one of two gentlemen, who were standing in the door. To my surprise, his arm passed through mine without apparent resistance, the several parts closing again without pain, as air reunites. I looked quickly up at his face to see if he had noticed the contact, but he gave me no sign—only stood and gazed toward the couch I had just left. I directed my gaze in the direction of his, and saw my dead body. Suddenly I discovered that I was looking at the straight seam down the back of my coat. 'How is this, I thought, how do I see my back?' and I looked again, to reassure myself, down the back of my coat, or down the back of my legs to the very heels. I put my hand to my face and felt for my eyes. They were where they should be: I thought 'Am I like an owl that I can turn my head half way round' I tried the experiment and failed. No! Then it must be that, having been out of the body but a few moments, I have yet the power to use the eyes of the body, and I turned about and looked back in at the open door where I could see the head of my body in a line with me. I discovered then a small cord, like a spider's web, running from my shoulders back to my body and attaching to it at the base of the neck, in front. I was satisfied with the conclusion that by means of that cord, I was using the eyes of the body and, turning, walked down the street. A small densely black cloud appeared in front of me and advanced towards my face. I knew that I was to be stopped. I felt the power to move or to think leaving me. My hands fell powerless at my side, my shoulders and my head dropped forward and I knew no more. Without previous thought and without effort on my part, my eyes opened. I looked at my hands and then at the little white cot upon which I was lying, and, realising that I was in the body, in astonishment and disappointment, I exclaimed; 'What in the world has happened to me? Must I die again?..."
Now, if this case stood alone we should, perhaps, be right to explain it all as a dream. But it does not stand alone for there are numerous other cases to be found in the Proceedings of the S.P.R. and in Meyer's "Human Personality." In my opinion, therefore, it merits the most careful consideration and contains many points of the greatest interest and significance.
I think it will be found to work in remarkably well with the whole idea of the detachable quasi-physical replica, towards which hypothesis the whole of the observations in this chapter have been tending.
The narrator of the experience seems to think that the vehicle which he observed to become detached from the body and in which he was apparently functioning throughout the period in question, was actually the "Soul" itself, the permanent and immortal post-mortem embodiment of consciousness.
On the whole this seems to be the view taken by Mr. Carrington, who quotes the case, and to be that commonly held in France on the authority of MM. Leon Denis, Delanne and other writers. These latter refer to the organism in question as the "perisprit" and it is represented as being the vehicle by virtue of which the Consciousness persists after Death.