also in accord with
many facts, and explains them as no other theory can or does.

Colonel A. de Rochas, in his article on "Regression of Memory" (_Annals
of Psychical Science_, July 1905), claimed that he had experimentally
produced one of these doubles in a mesmerised subject. After several
seances, and while the subject was in a deep trance, the following
occurred:

"The astral body is now complete. M. de R. tries to make it rise,
to send it into another room. The body is stopped in its journey by
the ceiling and the walls. M. de R. tells Mayo to stretch towards
him the astral right hand, and he pinches it; Mayo feels the
pinch."

Experiments such as these could be multiplied _ad infinitum_. There are
cases on record in which the astral form has been pricked with needles,
while the "sensitive" felt the prick, and so on. These experiments are
suggestive, and if they should prove an etheric body, or anything
corresponding to it, that would be at least one great step in advance in
psychic research. It would also enable us to understand many of the
phenomena of witchcraft, which are at present looked upon as mere
superstitions.

A word, finally, as to the phenomena of "exteriorization of
sensibility," to which reference was made in the last paragraph. Many
French observers have, apparently, obtained these phenomena; but there
seems to be much scepticism regarding them in England and America, where
they are generally considered to be due entirely to "suggestion." For my
own part--while I do not uphold past experiments in this direction as
being particularly convincing--I must confess that I see no inherent
improbability in the facts themselves. If we have an etheric body, this
is doubtless more or less detachable, at times--indeed, the ingenious
author of _The Maniac_ suggests that the premature loosening
of this body is the cause of much insanity. (See also my own remarks
along the same general lines in the _Annals of Psychical Science_,
October-December 1909, pp. 657-67; "Concerning Abnormal Mental Life.")
This etheric body is doubtless highly sensitive to external forces and
energies acting upon it, and would also feel physical pressure, etc.,
when applied. If this were true, we should have a ready explanation for
these cases of exteriorized sensibility.

But it would not even be necessary for us to assume this! If the
phenomena of exteriorization of _motivity_ be true (the phenomena
pr