force of our minds."

Shadows began to form, and dancing prismatic colours appeared, but as
yet there was no sign of the deceased bishop, when suddenly he took
shape among them, his appearance and disappearance being much like that
of stereopticon views on the sheet before a lantern. He held himself
erect, and his thoughtful, dignified face had the same calm expression
it had worn before.

"We attracted your attention," said Ayrault, "in the way you said we
might, because we longed so to see you."

"Yes," added Bearwarden and Cortlandt, "we felt we MUST see you again."

"I am always at your service," replied the spirit, "and will answer
your questions. With regard to my visibility and invisibility"--he
continued, with a smile, "for I will not wait for you to ask the
explanation of what is in your minds--it is very simple. A man's soul
can never die; a manifestation of the soul is the spirit; this has
entity, consciousness, and will, and these also live forever. As in
the natural or material life, as I shall call it, will affects the
material first. Thus, a child has power to move its hand or a material
object, as a toy, before it can become the medium in a psychological
seance. So it is here. Before becoming visible to your eyes, I, by my
will, draw certain material substances in the form of gases from the
ground, water, or air around me. These take any shape I wish--not
necessarily that of man, though it is more natural to appear as we did
on earth--and may absorb a portion of light, and so be able to cast a
shadow or break up the white rays into prismatic colours, or they may
be wholly invisible. By an effort of the will, then, I combine and
condense these gases--which consist principally of oxygen, hydrogen,
nitrogen, and carbon--into flesh, blood, water, or anything else. You
have already learned on earth that, by the application of heat, every
solid and every liquid substance, which is solid or liquid simply
because of the temperature at which you find it, can be expanded into
gas or gases; and that by cold and pressure every gas can be reduced to
a liquid or a solid. On earth the state of a substance, whether solid,
liquid, or gaseous, depends simply upon those two conditions. Here
neither thermal nor barometric changes are required, for, by mastering
the new natural laws that at death become patent to our senses, we have
all the necessary control. It requires but an effort of my will to be
almost