BYWAYS OF GHOST-LAND
BYWAYS OF
GHOST-LAND
BY
ELLIOTT O'DONNELL
AUTHOR OF
"SOME HAUNTED HOUSES OF ENGLAND AND WALES,"
"HAUNTED HOUSES OF LONDON," "GHOSTLY PHENOMENA,"
"DREAMS AND THEIR MEANINGS," "SCOTTISH GHOST TALES,"
"TRUE GHOST TALES," ETC., ETC.
WILLIAM RIDER AND SON, LIMITED
164 Aldersgate St., London, E.C.
1911
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
1. THE UNKNOWN BRAIN 1
2. THE OCCULT IN SHADOWS 21
3. OBSESSION, POSSESSION 28
4. OCCULT HOOLIGANS 47
5. SYLVAN HORRORS 56
6. COMPLEX HAUNTINGS AND OCCULT BESTIALITIES 80
7. VAMPIRES, WERE-WOLVES, FOX-WOMEN, ETC. 110
8. DEATH-WARNINGS AND FAMILY GHOSTS 132
9. SUPERSTITIONS AND FORTUNES 153
10. THE HAND OF GLORY; THE BLOODY HAND OF ULSTER;
THE SEVENTH SON; BIRTH-MARKS; NATURE'S
DEVIL SIGNALS; PRE-EXISTENCE; THE FUTURE;
PROJECTION; TELEPATHY; ETC. 176
11. OCCULT INHABITANTS OF THE SEA AND RIVERS 198
12. BUDDHAS AND BOGGLE CHAIRS 210
INDEX 244
BYWAYS OF GHOST-LAND
CHAPTER I
THE UNKNOWN BRAIN
Whether all that constitutes man's spiritual nature, that is to say, ALL
his mind, is inseparably amalgamated with the whitish mass of soft
matter enclosed in his cranium and called his brain, is a question that
must, one supposes, be ever open to debate.
One knows that this whitish substance is the centre of the nervous
system and the seat of consciousness and volition, and, from the
constant study of character by type or by phrenology, one may even go on
to deduce with reason that in this protoplasmic substance--in each of
the numerous cells into which it is divided and subdivided--are located
the human faculties. Hence, it would seem that one may rationally
conclude, that all man's vital force, all that comprises his
mind--_i.e._ the power in him that conceives, remembers, reasons,
wills--is so wrapped up in the actual matter of his cerebrum as to be
incapable of existing apart from it; and that as a natural sequence
thereto, on the dissolution of the brain, the mind and everything
pertaining to the mind dies with it--there is no future life because
there is nothing left to survive.
Such a condition, if complete annihilation can be so named, is the one
and only conclusion to the doctrine that mind--crude, undiagnosed
mind--is dependent on matter, a doctrine confirmed by the apparent facts
that injury to the cranium is accompanied by unconsciousness and
protracted loss of memory, and that the sanity of the individual is
entirely contingent upon the state of his cerebral matter--a clot of
blood in one of the cerebral veins, or the unhealthy condition of a
cell, being in itself sufficient to bring about a complete mental
metamorphose, and, in common parlance, to produce madness.
In the deepest of sleeps, too, when there is less blood in the cerebral
veins, and the muscles are generally relaxed, and the pulse is slower,
and the respiratory movements are fewer in number, consciousness
departs, and man apparently lapses into a state of absolute nothingness
which materialists, not unreasonably, presume must be akin to death. It
would appear, then, that our mental faculties are entirely regulated by,
and consequently, entirely dependent on, the material within our brain
cells, and that, granted certain conditions of that material, we have
consciousness, and that, without those conditions, we have no
consciousness--in other words, "our minds cease to exist." Hence, there
is no such thing as separate spiritual existence; mind is merely an
eventuality of matter, and, when the latter perishes, the former
perishes too. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can exist
apart from the physical.
This is an assertion--unquestionably dogmatic--that exponents of
materialism hold to be logically unassailable. To disprove it may not be
an easy task at present; but I am, nevertheless, convinced there is a
world apart from matter--a superphysical plane with which part of us, at
least, is in some way connected, and I discredit the materialist's
dogma, partly because something in my nature compels me to an opposite
conclusion, and partly because certain phenomena I have experienced,
cannot, I am certain, have been produced by any physical agency.
In support of my theory that we are not solely material, but partly
physical and partly superphysical, I maintain that consciousness is
never wholly lost; that even in swoons and dreams, when all sensations
would seem to be swallowed up in the blackness of darkness, there is
SOME consciousness left--the consciousness of existence, of impression.
We recover from a faint, or awake from the most profound of slumbers,
and remember not that we have dreamed. Yet, if we think with sufficient
concentration, our memory suddenly returns to us, and we recollect that,
during the swoon or sleep, ALL thought was not obliterated, but, that we
were conscious of being somewhere and of experiencing SOMETHING.
It is only in our lighter sleeps, when the spirit traverses
superphysical planes more closely connected with the material, that we
remember ALL that occurred. Most of us will agree that there are two
distinct forms of mental existence--the one in which we are conscious
of the purely superphysical, and the one wherein we are only cognisant
of the physical. In the first-named of these two mental existences--
_i.e._ in swoons, sleep, and even death, consciousness is never entirely
lost; we still think--we think with our spiritual or unknown brain; and
when in the last-named state, _i.e._ in our physical wakefulness and
life, we think with our material or known brain.
Unknown brains exist on all sides of us. Many of them are the
earth-bound spirits of those whose spiritual or unknown brains, when on
the earth, were starved to feed their material or known brains; or, in
other words, the earth-bound spirits of those whose cravings, when in
carnal form, were entirely animal. It is they, together with a variety
of elementary forms of superphysical life (_i.e._ phantasms that have
never inhabited any kind of earthly body), that constantly surround us,
and, with their occult brains, suggest to our known brains every kind of
base and impure thought.
Something, it is difficult to say what, usually warns me of the presence
of these occult brains, and at certain times (and in certain places) I
can feel, with my superphysical mind, their subtle hypnotic influences.
It is the unknown brain that produces those manifestations usually
attributed to ghosts, and it is, more often than not, the possessors of
the unknown brain in constant activity, _i.e._ the denizens of the
superphysical world, who convey to our organs of hearing, either by
suggestion or actual presentation, the sensations of uncanny knocks,
crashes, shrieks, etc.; and to our organs of sight, all kinds of
uncanny, visual phenomena.
All the phenomena we see are not objective; but the agents who "will"
that we should see them are objective--they are the unknown brains. It
is a mistake to think that these unknown brains can only exert their
influence on a few of us. We are all subject to them, though we do not
all see their manifestations. Were it not for the lower order of spirit
brains, there would be comparatively few drunkards, gamblers,
adulterers, fornicators, murderers, and suicides. It is they who excite
man's animal senses, by conjuring up alluring pictures of drink, and
gold, and sexual happiness. By the aid of the higher type of spirit
brains (who, contending for ever with the lower forms of spirit brains,
are indeed our "guardian angels") I have been enabled to perceive the
atmosphere surrounding drinking-dens and brothels full of all kinds of
bestial influences, from elementals, who allure men by presenting to
their minds all kinds of attractive tableaux, to the earth-bound spirits
of drunkards and libertines, transformed into horrors of the sub-human,
sub-animal order of phantasms--things with bloated, nude bodies and
pigs' faces, shaggy bears with fulsome, watery eyes; mangy dogs, etc. I
have watched these things that still possess--and possess in a far
greater degree--all the passions of their life incarnate, sniffing the
foul and vitiated atmosphere of the public-houses and brothels, and
chafing in the most hideous manner at their inability to gratify their
lustful cravings in a more substantial way. A man advances along the
road at a swinging pace, with no thought, as yet, of deviating from his
course and entering a public-house. He comes within the radius of the
sinister influences, which I can see and feel hanging around the saloon.
Their shadowy, silent brain power at once comes into play and gains
ascendancy over his weaker will. He halts because he is "willed" to do
so. A tempting tableau of drink rises before him and he at once imagines
he is thirsty. Soft and fascinating elemental hands close over his and
draw him gently aside. A look of beastly satisfaction suffuses his eyes.
He smacks his lips, hastens his steps, the bar-room door closes behind
him, and, for the remaining hours of the day, he wallows in drink.
But the unknown brain does not confine itself to the neighbourhood of a
public-house--it may be anywhere. I have, intuitively, felt its presence
on the deserted moors of Cornwall, between St Ives and the Land's End;
in the grey Cornish churches and chapels (very much in the latter);
around the cold and dismal mouths of disused mine-shafts; all along the
rocky North Cornish coast; on the sea; at various spots on different
railway lines, both in the United Kingdom and abroad; and, of course, in
multitudinous places in London.
A year or so ago, I called on Mrs de B----, a well-known society lady,
at that time residing in Cadogan Gardens. The moment I entered her
drawing-room, I became aware of an occult presence that seemed to be
hovering around her. Wherever she moved, it moved with her, and I FELT
that its strange, fathomless, enigmatical eyes were fixed on her,
noting and guiding her innermost thoughts and her every action with
inexorable persistence.
Some six months later, I met Lady D----, a friend in common, and in
answer to my inquiries concerning Mrs de B----, was informed that she
had just been divorced. "Dorothy" (_i.e._ Mrs de B----), Lady D---- went
on to explain, "had been all right till she took up spiritualism, but
directly she began to attend séances everything seemed to go wrong with
her. At last she quarrelled with her husband, the climax being reached
when she became violently infatuated with an officer in the Guards. The
result was a decree _nisi_ with heavy costs." I exhibited, perhaps, more
surprise than I felt. But the fact of Mrs de B---- having attended
séances explained everything. She was obviously a woman with a naturally
weak will, and had fallen under the influence of one of the lowest, and
most dangerous types of earth-bound spirits, the type that so often
attends séances. This occult brain had attached itself to her, and,
accompanying her home, had deliberately wrecked her domestic happiness.
It would doubtless remain with her now _ad infinitum_. Indeed, it is
next to impossible to shake off these superphysical cerebrums. They
cling to one with such leech-like tenacity, and can rarely be made to
depart till they have accomplished their purposes.
Burial-grounds appear to have great attractions for this class of
spirit. A man, whom I once met at Boulogne, told me a remarkable story,
the veracity of which I have no reason to doubt.
"I have," he began, "undergone an experience which, though,
unfortunately, by no means unique, is one that is rarer nowadays than
formerly. I was once all but buried alive. It happened at a little
village, a most charming spot, near Maestel in the valley of the Rhone.
I had been stopping at the only inn the place possessed, and, cycling
out one morning, met with an accident--my machine skidded violently as I
was descending a steep hill, with the result that I was pitched head
first against a brick wall. The latter being considerably harder than my
skull, concussion followed. Some villagers picked me up insensible, I
was taken to the inn, and the nearest doctor--an uncertificated
wretch--was summoned. He knew little of trepanning; besides, I was a
foreigner, a German, and it did not matter. He bled me, it is true, and
performed other of the ordinary means of relief; but these producing no
apparent effect, he pronounced me dead, and preparations were at once
made for my burial. As strangers kept coming to the inn and the
accommodation was strictly limited, the landlord was considerably
incensed at having to waste a room on a corpse. Accordingly, he had me
screwed down in my coffin without delay, and placed in the cemetery
among the tombs, till the public gravedigger could conveniently spare a
few minutes to inter me. The shaking I received during my transit (for
the yokels were exceedingly rough and clumsy), together with the cold
night air which, luckily for me, found an easy means of access through
the innumerable chinks and cracks in the ill-fitting coffin-lid, acting
like a restorative tonic, I gradually revived, and the horror I felt in
realising my position is better, perhaps, imagined than described. When
consciousness first began to reassert itself, I simply fancied I was
awakening from a particularly deep sleep. I then struggled hard to
remember where I was and what had taken place. At first nothing came
back to me, all was blank and void; but as I continued to persevere,
gradually, very gradually, a recollection of my accident and of the
subsequent events returned to me. I remembered with the utmost
distinctness striking my head against the wall, and of SEEING myself
carried, head first, by two rustics--the one with a shock head of red
hair, the other swarthy as a Dago--to the inn. I recollected seeing the
almost humorous look of horror in the chambermaid's face, as she rushed
to inform the landlord, and the consternation of one and all during the
discussion as to what ought to be done. The landlady suggested one
thing, her husband another, the chambermaid another; and they all united
in ransacking my pockets--much to my dismay--to see if they could
discover a card-case or letter that might give them a clue as to my home
address. I saw them do all this; and it seemed as if I were standing
beside by own body, looking down at it, and that on all sides of me, and
apparently invisible to the rest of the company, were strange,
inscrutable pale eyes, set in the midst of grey, shapeless, shadowy
substances.
"Then the doctor--a little slim, narrow-chested man, with a pointed
beard and big ears--came and held a mirror to my mouth, and opened one
of my veins, and talked a great deal of gibberish, whilst he made
countless covert sheep's eyes at the pretty chambermaid, who had taken
advantage of his arrival to overhaul my knapsack and help herself from
my purse. I distinctly heard the arrangements made for my funeral, and
the voice of the landlord saying: 'Yes, of course, doctor, that is only
fair; you have taken no end of trouble with him. I will keep his watch'
(the watch was of solid gold, and cost me £25) 'and clothes to defray
the expenses of the funeral and pay for his recent board' (I had only
settled my account with him that morning). And the shrill voice of the
landlady echoed: 'Yes, that is only fair, only right!' Then they all
left the room, and I remained alone with my body. What followed was more
or less blurred. The innumerable and ever-watchful grey eyes impressed
me most. I recollected, however, the advent of the men--the same two who
had brought me to the inn--to take me away in my coffin, and I had vivid
recollections of tramping along the dark and silent road beside them,
and wishing I could liberate my body. Then we halted at the iron gate
leading into the cemetery, the coffin was dropped on the ground with a
bang, and--the rest was a blank. Nothing, nothing came back to me. At
first I was inclined to attribute my memory to a dream. 'Absurd!' I said
to myself. 'Such things cannot have occurred. I am in bed; I know I am!'
Then I endeavoured to move my arms to feel the counterpane; I could not;
my arms were bound, tightly bound to my side. A cold sweat burst out all
over me. Good God! was it true? I tried again; and the same thing
happened--I could not stir. Again and again I tried, straining and
tugging at my sides till the muscles on my arms were on the verge of
bursting, and I had to desist through utter exhaustion. I lay still and
listened to the beating of my heart. Then, I clenched my toes and tried
to kick. I could not; my feet were ruthlessly fastened together.
"Death garments! A winding-sheet! I could feel it clinging to me all
over. It compressed the air in my lungs, it retarded the circulation,
and gave me the most excruciating cramp, and pins and needles. My
sufferings were so acute that I groaned, and, on attempting to stretch
my jaws, found that they were encased in tight, clammy bandages. By
prodigious efforts I eventually managed to gain a certain amount of
liberty for my head, and this gave me the consolation that if I could do
nothing else I could at least howl--howl! How utterly futile, for who,
in God's name, would hear me? The thought of all there was above me, of
all the piles of earth and grass--for the idea that I was not actually
buried never entered my mind--filled me with the most abject sorrow and
despair. The utter helplessness of my position came home to me with
damning force. Rescue was absolutely out of the question, because the
only persons, who knew where I was, believed me dead. To my friends and
relations, my fate would ever remain a mystery. The knowledge that they
would, at once, have come to my assistance, had I only been able to
communicate with them, was cruel in the extreme; and tears of
mortification poured down my cheeks when I realised how blissfully
unconscious they were of my fate. The most vivid and alluring visions of
home, of my parents, and brothers, and sisters, flitted tantalisingly
before me. I saw them all sitting on their accustomary seats, in the
parlour, my father smoking his meerschaum, my mother knitting, my eldest
sister describing an opera she had been to that afternoon, my youngest
sister listening to her with mouth half open and absorbing interest in
her blue eyes, my brother examining the works of a clockwork engine
which he had just taken to pieces; whilst from the room overhead,
inhabited by a Count, a veteran who had won distinction in the campaigns
of '64 and '66, came strains of 'The Watch on the Rhine.' Every now and
then my mother would lean back in her chair and close her eyes, and I
knew intuitively she was thinking of me. Mein Gott! If she had only
known the truth. These tableaux faded away, and the gruesome awfulness
of my surroundings thrust themselves upon me. A damp, foetid smell,
suggestive of the rottenness of decay, assailed my nostrils and made me
sneeze. I choked; the saliva streamed in torrents down my chin and
throat! My recumbent position and ligaments made it difficult for me to
recover my breath; I grew black in the face; I imagined I was dying. I
abruptly, miraculously recovered, and all was silent as before. Silent!
Good heavens! There is no silence compared with that of the grave.
"I longed for a sound, for any sound, the creaking of a board, the
snapping of a twig, the ticking of an insect--there was none--the
silence was the silence of stone. I thought of worms; I imagined
countless legions of them making their way to me from the surrounding
mouldering coffins. Every now and then I uttered a shriek as something
cold and slimy touched my skin, and my stomach heaved within me as a
whiff of something particularly offensive fanned my face.
"Suddenly I saw eyes--the same grey, inscrutable eyes that I had seen
before--immediately above my own. I tried to fathom them, to discover
some trace of expression. I could not--they were insoluble. I
instinctively felt there was a subtle brain behind them, a brain that
was stealthily analysing me, and I tried to assure myself its intentions
were not hostile. Above, and on either side of the eyes, I saw the
shadow of something white, soft, and spongy, in which I fancied I could
detect a distinct likeness to a human brain, only on a large scale.
There were the cerebral lobes, or largest part of the forebrain,
enormously developed and overhanging the cerebellum, or great lobe of
the hindbrain, and completely covering the lobes of the midbrain. On the
cerebrum I even thought I could detect--for I have a smattering of
anatomy--the usual convolutions, and the grooves dividing the cerebrum
into two hemispheres. But there was something I had never seen before,
and which I could not account for--two things like antennæ, one on
either side of the cerebrum. As I gazed at them, they lengthened and
shortened in such quick succession that I grew giddy and had to remove
my eyes. What they were I cannot think; but then, of course the brain,
being occult, doubtless possessed properties of a nature wholly
unsuspected by me. The moment I averted my glance, I experienced--this
time on my forehead--the same cold, slimy sensation I had felt before,
and I at once associated it with the cerebral tentacles. Soon after this
I was touched in a similar manner on my right thigh, then on my left,
and simultaneously on both legs; then in a half a dozen places at the
same time. I looked out of the corner of my eyes, first on one side of
me and then the other, and encountered the shadowy semblance to brains
in each direction. I was therefore forced to conclude that the
atmosphere in the coffin was literally impregnated with psychic
cerebrums, and that every internal organ I possessed was being subjected
to the most minute inspection. My mind rapidly became filled with every
vile and lustful desire, and I cried aloud to be permitted five minutes'
freedom to put into operation the basest and filthiest of actions. My
thoughts were thus occupied when, to my amazement, I suddenly heard the
sound of voices--human voices. At first I listened with incredulity,
thinking that it must be merely a trick of my imagination or some
further ingenious, devilish device, on the part of the ghostly brains,
to torture me. But the voices continued, and drew nearer and nearer,
until I could at length distinguish what they were saying. The speakers
were two men, François and Jacques, and they were discussing the task
that brought them thither--the task of burying me. Burying me! So, then,
I was not yet under the earth! The revulsion of my feelings on
discovering that there was still a spark of hope is indescribable; the
blood surged through my veins in waves of fire, my eyes danced, my heart
thumped, and--I laughed! Laughed! There was no stopping me--peal
followed peal, louder and louder, until cobblestones and tombstones
reverberated and thundered back the sound.
"The effect on François and Jacques was the reverse of what I wished.
When first they heard me, they became suddenly and deathly silent. Then
their pent-up feelings of horror could stand it no longer, and with the
wildest of yells they dropped their pick and shovel, and fled. My
laughter ceased, and, half drowned in tears of anguish, I listened to
their sabots pounding along the gravel walk and on to the hard highroad,
till the noises ceased and there was, once again, universal and
awe-inspiring silence. Again the eyes and tentacles, again the yearnings
for base and shameful deeds, and again--oh, blissful interruption! the
sound of human voices--François and Jacques returning with a crowd of
people, all greatly excited, all talking at once.
"'I call God as my witness I heard it, and Jacques too. Isn't that so,
Jacques?' a voice, which I identified as that of François, shrieked. And
Jacques, doubtless as eager to be heard--for it was not once in a
lifetime anyone in his position had such an opportunity for
notoriety--as he was to come to his companion's rescue, bawled out; 'Ay!
There was no mistaking the sounds. May I never live to eat my supper
again if it was not laughter. Listen!' And everyone, at once, grew
quiet.
"Now was my opportunity--my only opportunity. A single sound, however
slight, however trivial, and I should be saved! A cry rose in my throat;
another instant and it would have escaped my lips, when a dozen
tentacles shot forward and I was silent. Despair, such as no soul
experienced more acutely, even when on the threshold of hell, now seized
me, and bid me make my last, convulsive effort. Collecting, nay, even
dragging together every atom of will-power that still remained within my
enfeebled frame, I swelled my lungs to their utmost. A kind of rusty,
vibratory movement ran through my parched tongue; my jaws creaked,
creaked and strained on their hinges, my lips puffed and assumed the
dimensions of bladders and--that was all. No sound came. A weight, soft,
sticky, pungent, and overwhelming, cloaked my brain, and spreading
weed-like, with numbing coldness, stifled the cry ere it left the
precincts of my larynx. Hope died within me--I was irretrievably lost. A
babel of voices now arose together. François, Jacques, the village curé,
gendarme, doctor, chambermaid, mine host and hostess, and others, whose
tones I did not recognise, clamoured to be heard. Some, foremost amongst
whom were François, Jacques, and a boy, were in favour of the coffin
being opened; whilst others, notably the doctor and chambermaid (who
pertly declared she had seen quite enough of my ugly face), ridiculed
the notion and said the sooner I was buried the better it would be. The
weather had been more than usually hot that day, and the corpse, which
was very much swollen--for, like all gourmands, I had had chronic
disease of the liver--had, in their opinion, already become insanitary.
The boy then burst out crying. It had always been the height of his
ambition, he said, to see someone dead, and he thought it a dastardly
shame on the part of the doctor and chambermaid to wish to deny him this
opportunity.
"The gendarme thinking, no doubt, he ought to have a say in the matter,
muttered something to the effect that children were a great deal too
forward nowadays, and that it would be time enough for the boy to see a
corpse when he broke his mother's heart--which, following the precedence
of all spoilt boys, he was certain to do sooner or later; and this
opinion found ready endorsement. The boy suppressed, my case began to
look hopeless, and the poignancy of my suspense became such that I
thought I should have gone mad. François was already persuaded into
setting to work with his pick, and, I should most certainly have been
speedily interred, had it not been for the timely arrival of a village
wag, who, planking himself unobserved behind a tombstone close to my
coffin, burst out laughing in the most sepulchral fashion. The effect on
the company was electrical; the majority, including the women, fled
precipitately, and the rest, overcoming the feeble protests of the
doctor, wrenched off the lid of the coffin. The spell, cast over me by
the occult brains, was now by a merciful Providence broken, and I was
able to explain my condition to the flabbergasted faces around me.
"I need only say, in conclusion, that the discomfiture of the doctor was
complete, and that I took good care to express my opinion of him
everywhere I went. Doubtless, many poor wretches have been less
fortunate than I, and, being pronounced dead by unskilled physicians,
have been prematurely interred. Apart from all the agony consequent to
asphyxiation, they must have suffered hellish tortures through the
agency of spirit brains."
This is the anecdote as related to me, and it serves as an illustration
of my theory that the unknown brain is objective, and that it can, under
given circumstances--_i.e._ when physical life is, so to speak, in
abeyance--be both seen and felt by the known brain. At birth, and more
particularly at death, the presence of the unknown brain is most marked.
And here it may not be inappropriate to remark that, in my experience at
least, the hour of midnight is by no means the time most favourable to
occult phenomena. I have seen far more manifestations at twilight, and
between two and four a.m., than at any other period of the day--times, I
think, according with those when human vitality is at its lowest and
death most frequently takes place. It is, doubtless, the ebb of human
vitality and the possibility of death that attracts the earth-bound
brains and other varying types of elemental harpies. They scent death
with ten times the acuteness of sharks and vultures, and hie with all
haste to the spot, so as to be there in good time to get their final
suck, vampire fashion, at the spiritual brain of the dying; substituting
in the place of what they extract, substance--in the shape of foul and
lustful thoughts--for the material or known brain to feed upon. The food
they have stolen, these vampires vainly imagine will enable them to rise
to a higher spiritual plane.
In connection with this subject of the two brains, the question arises:
What forms the connecting link between the material or known brain, and
the spiritual or unknown brain? If the unknown brain has a separate
existence, and can detach itself at times (as in "projection"), why must
it wait for death to set it entirely free? My answer to that question
is: That the connecting link consists of a magnetic force, at present
indefinable, the scope, or pale, of which varies according to the
relative dimensions of the two brains. In a case, for example, where the
physical or known brain is far more developed than the spiritual or
unknown brain, the radius of attraction would be limited and the
connecting link strong; on the other hand, in a case where the spiritual
or unknown brain is more developed than the physical or known brain, the
magnetic pale is proportionately wide, and the connecting link would be
weak.
Thus, in the swoon or profound sleep of a person possessing a greater
preponderance of physical than spiritual brain, the conscious self would
still be concerned with purely material matters, such as eating and
drinking, petty disputes, money, sexual desires, etc., though, owing to
the lack of concentration, which is a marked feature of those who
possess the grossly material brain, little or nothing of this conscious
self would be remembered. But in the swoon, or deep sleep of a person
possessing the spiritual brain in excess, the unknown brain is partially
freed from the known brain, and the conscious self is consequently far
away from the material body, on the confines of an entirely spiritual
plane. Of course, the experiences of this conscious self may or may not
be remembered, but there is, in its case, always the possibility, owing
to the capacity for concentration which is invariably the property of
all who have developed their spiritual or unknown brain, of subsequent
recollection.
At death, and at death only, the magnetic link is actually broken. The
unknown brain is then entirely freed from the known brain, and the
latter, together with the rest of the material body, perishes from
natural decay; whilst the former, no longer restricted within the limits
of its earthly pale, is at liberty to soar _ad infinitum_.