O Livro dos Médiuns — Part II, ch. VII — Bi-corporeity and transfiguration

114These two phenomena are varieties of the phenomenon of visual manifestation, and however marvelous they may appear at first sight, it will be easily perceived, by the explanation that can be given of them, that they are not out of the order of natural phenomena. They both rest on this principle — that all that has been said of the properties of the perisprit after death applies to the perisprit of the living. We know that during sleep the spirit partly recovers its liberty; that is, it is isolated from the body; and it is in this state that we have, many times, had occasion to observe it. But the spirit, be the man dead or living, has always its semi-material envelope, which, for the same causes that we have described, can acquire visibility and tangibility. Very positive facts leave no doubt of this; we will cite some examples of our own personal knowledge, whose truth we can guarantee; every one can, no doubt, remember analogous ones, by searching his memory.
115. The wife of one of our friends several times saw a fruit merchant of the neighborhood, whom she knew by sight, but to whom she had never spoken, enter her room in the night, whether she had a light or not. This apparition caused her great terror, greater because at that time she had no knowledge of Spiritism, and the phenomenon happened very often. But the merchant was perfectly alive, and probably sleeping at that hour: while his material body was at home, his spirit and his fluidic body was with this lady; with what motive? No one knows. In such case a spiritist, initiated in such things, would have asked him; but she had no idea of it. Each time the apparition vanished without her knowing how, and each time, also, after its disappearance, she went to the doors to assure herself that they were perfectly shut, and that nobody could have been introduced into her room. This precaution proved to her that she was perfectly awake, and not the sport of a dream. At other times she saw, in the same way, a man she did not know; but one day she saw her brother, who was then in California. He had so much the appearance of a real person, that, at the first moment, she thought he had returned, and was going to speak to him; but he disappeared without giving her time. A letter, afterwards received, proved that he was not dead. This lady was what was called a natural seeing medium, but at that time, as we have said, she had never heard of mediums.
1 1 6. Another lady, who lives in the country, being very seriously ill, saw, about ten o'clock one evening, an aged gentleman, living in the same town, whom she had sometimes met in society, but of no intimate acquaintance. This gentleman was seated in an armchair, at the foot of her bed, and from time to time took snuff; he seemed to be watching. Surprised at such a visit at such an hour, she wished to ask the cause of it; but he signed to her not to speak, but to go to sleep: several times she was about to address him, but each time with the same result She ended by going to sleep. Some days after, being convalescent, she received a visit from this same gentleman, but at a more suitable hour; and this time it was himself: he was dressed the same, had the same snuffbox, the same manners. Persuaded that he had come during her illness, she thanked him for the trouble he had taken. The gentleman, much surprised, said he had not had the pleasure of seeing her for a very long time. The lady, who understood spirit phenomena, saw at once what it was, but not wishing to explain it to him, contented herself with telling him she had probably dreamed it. "Very probably," will say the skeptical, the strong-minded, for them the synonym of men of mind; but it is certain she slept not at all, no more than the preceding. Then she dreamed awake; in other words, she had a hallucination. That is the great word, the universal explanation of everything that is not understood. As we have already refuted this objection, we will continue, addressing ourselves to those who can understand us.

117Here is another and more characteristic fact, and we should be curious to see how it can be explained by the play of the imagination. A gentleman, living in the country, had never wished to marry, in spite of the importunity of his family. They had constantly insisted in favor of a person living in a neighboring town, and whom he had never seen. One day, being in his room, he was astonished to find himself in the presence of a young girl, dressed in white, her head crowned with flowers. She told him she was his betrothed, held out her hand to him, which he took in his, and on which he saw a ring. In a few moments she disappeared. Surprised at this apparition, and being sure that he was fully awake, he asked if any one had come during the day, but was answered no person had been seen. A year after, yielding to the renewed solicitations of a relative, he decided to go and see the person proposed to him. He arrived the day of the Fete-Dieu (festival of Corpus Christi day). They returned from the procession, and one of the first persons he saw, on entering the house, was a young girl, whom he recognized as the one who had appeared to him, dressed in the same manner: for the day of the apparition was also that of the Fete Dieu. He remained speechless, and the young girl uttered a cry of surprise, and fainted. Restored to her senses, she said she had already seen this gentleman, the same day in the preceding year. The marriage was concluded. This was about 1835 5 at tnat time there was no question about spirits, and besides, both were persons of extreme positivism, and imagination the least exalted possible.
It may be said, perhaps, that both had their minds occupied with the idea of the proposed union, and that this preoccupation brought about a hallucination; but it must not be forgotten, that the husband was so indifferent that he was a year without going to see his intended. Admitting even this hypothesis, the double apparition remains to be explained, the coincidence of the costume with the day of the Fete-Dieu, and then the physical recognition between persons who had never seen each other — circumstances that could not be the effect of imagination.

118Before going further, we should answer immediatcly a question that will not fail to be asked; this is, to know how the body can live while the soul is absent. We can say that the body can live with the organic life, which is independent of the presence of the spirit, and the proof of this is, that plants live, and have no spirit; but we would add that during life the spirit is never completely detached from the body. Spirits, as also some seeing mediums, recognize the spirit of a living person by a luminous train joined to its body, a phenomenon that never occurs when the body is dead, for then the separation is complete. Thus, the body can never die during the absence of the spirit, and it can never happen that the spirit on its arrival finds the door shut, as some romancers have said, in their fairy histories. {Book on Spirits, Nos."400 and following.)

119To return to our subject. The spirit of a living person isolated from the body can appear the same as that of a dead person, and have all the appearance of reality; and further, for the same causes that we have explained, it can acquire a momentary tangibility. It is this phenomenon called bi-corporeity that has given foundation to the stories of double men, that is to say, individuals whose simultaneous presence has been verified in two different places. Here are two examples, drawn not from our popular legends, but from ecclesiastical history.
St. Alphonse de Liguori was canonized before the usual time, for having been seen simultaneously in two different places, which passed for a miracle.
St. Antoine de Padua was in Spain, and at the time he was preaching, his father, who was in Padua, was going to the torture, accused of murder. At this moment St. Antoine appeared, showed the innocence of his father, and pointed out the true criminal, who was afterward punished. It was proved that St. Antoine had not left Spain.
St. Alphonse, having been invoked and interrogated by us on this fact, gave us the following answers: —
1. "Can you give us the explanation of this phenomenon?"
"Yes; man, when he is completely dematerialized by his virtue, when he has elevated his soul toward God, can appear in two places at once, and in this way. The incarnated spirit, feeling sleep come, can ask God to transport him to some especial place. His spirit, or his soul, as you would call it, then leaves his body, followed by apart of his perisprit, and leaves the unclean matter in a state bordering on death. I say, bordering on death, because there remains in the body a tie which attaches the perisprit and the soul to the matter, and this tie cannot be defined. The body appears then in the place desired. I believe this is all you wish to know."
2. "This does not give us the explanation of the visibility and tangibility of the perisprit."
"The spirit, finding himself freed from matter, can, according to his degree of elevation, make matter tangible."
3. "Is the sleep of the body indispensable to the spirit appearing in other places?"
"The soul can divide itself, when it feels itself taken to a different place from where the body is. It may happen that the body does not sleep, though that is very rare; but then the body is not in a perfectly normal condition; it is always in a state more or less ecstatic."
Remark. The soul does not divide itself in the literal sense of the word; it radiates on different sides, and thus can be manifested on several points without being divided; the same as a light, which can be reflected simultaneously in several glasses.
4. "A man being asleep while his spirit appears elsewhere, what would happen were he awakened suddenly?"
"That could not happen, because, if any one had such an intention, the spirit would reenter the body, and foresee the intention, for the spirit reads the thought."
This identical explanation has been given to us several times, by the spirit of persons dead or living. St. Alphonse explains the fact of this double presence, but does not give the theory of its visibility and tangibility.
120. Tacitus relates an analogous fact. During the months that Vespasian passed in Alexandria to await the periodical return of the spring winds, and the season when the sea should become safe, several prodigies took place, showing the favor of the heavens, and the interest which the gods seemed to take in this prince.
These prodigies redoubled in Vespasian the desire of visiting the sacred dwelling-place of the god, to consult him about the empire. He ordered that the temple should be closed to every one, entered himself, and just as the oracle was about to be pronounced, he perceived behind him one of the principal Egyptians, named Basilide, who, he knew, had been left sick several days' journey from Alexandria. He inquired of the priests if Basilide had come that day to the temple, and asked of the passers-by if he had been seen in the city; finally, he sent some men on horseback, and was assured that, at that moment, he was eighty miles distant. Then he no longer doubted that the vision was supernatural, and the name of Basilide was to him instead of an oracle. (Tacitus, Histories, Book IV., Chap. 81, 82. Translation of Burnouf.)

121The individual who is seen in two different places simultaneously has, then, two bodies,~but only one of them is real; the other is but an appearance; we might say the first has the organic life, the second the life of the soul; at the awakening, the two bodies reunite, and the life of the soul reenters the material body. It does not appear possible, at least we have no example of it, and reason seems to show it, that in the state of separation the two bodies can enjoy, simultaneously, and to the same degree, active and intelligent life. It shows, moreover, what we have said — that the real body could not die if the apparent body remained visible; the approach of death always recalling the spirit into the body, were it but for an instant. It equally results that the apparent body could not be killed, because it is not organic, and is not formed of flesh and bones; it would disappear the moment a person might desire to kill it.

122We pass to the second phenomenon, that of transfiguration. It consists in a change of aspect of a living body. In this connection is a fact whose perfect authenticity we can guarantee, and which happened in the years 1858 and 1859. In the suburbs of St. Etienne, a young girl of fifteen years of age enjoyed the singular faculty of being transfigured, that is to say, of taking, at given moments, all the appearances of certain persons dead; the illusion was so complete, that people would suppose the person before them, so like were the features, the expression, the sound of the voice, and even the speech. This phenomenon was renewed hundreds of times, the will of the young girl counting for nothing. Several times she took the appearance of her brother, dead some years before; she had not only his face, but the height and size of his body. A doctor of the country was many times witness c£ these strange effects, and wishing to be assured that he was not the sport of an illusion, made the following experiment.
We have the facts from himself, from the father of the young girl, and from several other honorable and trustworthy eye-witnesses. He conceived the idea of weighing her in her normal state, then in that of the transfiguration, when she had the appearance of her brother, more than twenty years old, and much larger and stronger. Well, it was found that in this last the weight was nearly doubled. The experiment was conclusive, and it was impossible to attribute the appearance to a simple optical illusion. Let us try to explain this fact, which, at one time, would have been called a miracle, and which we call a simple phenomenon.

123Transfiguration, in some cases, may be caused by a simple muscular contraction which can give to the countenance an entirely different expression, so as to render the person unrecognizable. We have often seen it with somnambulists, but in such cases the transformation was not radical; a woman could appear young or old, beautiful or ugly, but it would be always a woman; and her weight neither augmented nor diminished. In the case we are considering it is very evident it is something more: the theory of the perisprit will put us on the right road.
It is admitted that the spirit can give every appearl6o BOOK ON MEDIUMS. ^ ance to his pevisprit; that by a modification of the molecular disposition he can give it visibility, tangibility, and consequently opacity; that the perisprit of a living person, isolated from the body, can undergo the same transformations; that this change of state is effected by the combination of fluids. Imagine, now, the perisprit of a living person, not isolated, but radiating around the body in such a way as to envelop it like a vapor: in this state it could undergo the same modifications as if it were separated; if it lose its transparency, the body can disappear, become invisible, and be vailed, as if it were plunged in a fog. It could even change its aspect, become brilliant, if such be the will or the power of the spirit. Another spirit, combining his own fluid with the first, can substitute his own appearance, in such a way that the real body could disappear under an exterior fluidic envelope, whose appearance could vary at the will of the spirit. Such appears to be the cause of the phenomenon, strange and rare, it must be said, of transfiguration. As to the difference in weight, it is explained in the same manner as for inert bodies. The intrinsic weight of the body does not vary, because the quantity of matter has not augmented; it is under the influence of an exterior agent, who can increase or diminish relative weight, as we have explained above, Nos. 78 and following. It is thus probable that if the transfiguration had taken place under the form of a small child, the weight would have diminished in proportion.

124It may be imagined that the body can take an appearance larger or of the same dimension, but how take one smaller, that of a small child, as we have said? In such case, would not the real body exceed the apparent body? But we have not said that the effect BI-CORPOREITY AND TRANSFIGURATION. l6l can be produced; we have simply desired to show, in reverting to the theory 'of specific weight, that the apparent weight would have diminished. As to the phenomenon in itself, we affirm neither its possibility nor its impossibility; but in the case where it has taken place, no satisfactory solution having been given does not invalidate the thing; it must not be forgotten that we are at the beginning of science, that it is far from having said its last word on this point, as on many others. Besides, the parts in excess could perfectly well be made invisible.
The theory of the phenomenon of invisibility comes very naturally within the preceding explanation, and those given on materialization, Nos. 96 and following.

125It remains to speak of the singular phenomenon of agenercs, which, extraordinary as it may appear at first sight, is no more supernatural than the others. But as we have explained in the Revue Spirite (February 1859), we consider it useless to reproduce the details in this work; we will only say, it is a variety of the- tangible apparition; it is the state of some spirits who can momentarily assume the form of a living person, so as to create a complete illusion. (From the Greek a privative, and geine, geinomai, to engender; which has not been engendered.)
Clothing of Spirits. — Spontaneous Formation of Tangible Objects. — Modification of the Properties of Matter. — Magnetic Curative Action.