attention is the
one which goes under the name of apparitions. A considerable number of
these are to be found; we will confine ourselves, however, to
referring the reader to a volume entitled _Phantasms of the Living_,
due to the patient investigations of a distinguished body of foreign
savants. Here we find, first of all, proof of the transmission of
thought to a distance. An examination into the conditions under which
most of these cases took place has convinced several students of the
existence of the finer body which we are here endeavouring to
demonstrate, as well as of the possibility of its instantaneous
transference to a great distance. As the proofs afforded by
apparitions are not mathematical, _i.e._, indisputable, and as they
give room for a variety of opinions, we will make no attempt to detail
them, preferring to pass on to a final proof--the least important,
perhaps, from a general point of view, since it is limited to the
individual possessing it; the only absolute and mathematical one,
however, to the man who has obtained it:--the personal proof.

There are persons--few in number, true--who, under divers influences,
have been able to leave the physical body and see it sleeping on a
couch. They have freely moved in an environment--the astral
world--similar to our physical one in some respects, though different
in many others, and have returned again to the body, bringing back the
memory of their wanderings. These accounts have been given by persons
deserving of credence and not subject to hallucinations.

There are other individuals, though not so numerous--of whom we have
the pleasure of knowing some personally--who are able to leave their
physical bodies and return at will. They travel to great distances
with the utmost rapidity and bring back a complete memory of their
journeyings. D'Assier gives a typical case in his work. (_L'Humanite
posthume_, p. 59.)

Such is the proof we look upon as irrefutable, as complete and
perfect. The man who can thus travel freely in his finer body knows
that the physical body is only a vehicle adapted to the physical world
and necessary for life in this world; he knows that consciousness does
not cease to function, and that the universe by no means provides the
conditions for a state of nothingness, once this body of flesh is laid
aside.

At this stage of his evolution man can, in addition, make use of his
astral body at will, and obtain on the astral plane, first