with Mr. Vincey before his remarkable attack. Mr. Bessel's
first attempts at self-projection, in his experiments with Mr. Vincey,
were, as the reader will remember, unsuccessful. But through all of
them he was concentrating all his power and will upon getting out of the
body--"willing it with all my might," he says. At last, almost against
expectation, came success. And Mr. Bessel asserts that he, being alive,
did actually, by an effort of will, leave his body and pass into some
place or state outside this world.

The release was, he asserts, instantaneous. "At one moment I was seated
in my chair, with my eyes tightly shut, my hands gripping the arms of
the chair, doing all I could to concentrate my mind on Vincey, and then
I perceived myself outside my body--saw my body near me, but certainly
not containing me, with the hands relaxing and the head drooping forward
on the breast."

Nothing shakes him in his assurance of that release. He describes in a
quiet, matter-of-fact way the new sensation he experienced. He felt he
had become impalpable--so much he had expected, but he had not expected
to find himself enormously large. So, however, it would seem he became.
"I was a great cloud--if I may express it that way--anchored to my body.
It appeared to me, at first, as if I had discovered a greater self of
which the conscious being in my brain was only a little part. I saw the
Albany and Piccadilly and Regent Street and all the rooms and places in
the houses, very minute and very bright and distinct, spread out below
me like a little city seen from a balloon. Every now and then vague
shapes like drifting wreaths of smoke made the vision a little
indistinct, but at first I paid little heed to them. The thing that
astonished me most, and which astonishes me still, is that I saw quite
distinctly the insides of the houses as well as the streets, saw little
people dining and talking in the private houses, men and women dining,
playing billiards, and drinking in restaurants and hotels, and several
places of entertainment crammed with people. It was like watching the
affairs of a glass hive."

Such were Mr. Bessel's exact words as I took them down when he told
me the story. Quite forgetful of Mr. Vincey, he remained for a space
observing these things. Impelled by curiosity, he says, he stooped down,
and, with the shadowy arm he found himself possessed of, attempted to
touch a man walking along Vigo Street. But he could not do s