THE INNER OR SPIRITUAL BODY
In order to form a conception of what kind of body the surviving Self
may have, it seems best for the moment to go back to the genesis of our
present body. We saw (chapter vii.) that we were compelled to suppose,
even in the first germ of our actual body an intelligent form of some
kind at work, which while gathering up and representing race-memories of
the past, presided over and directed their rehabilitation in the
present, thus building up the present body according to a certain
pattern—(though subject of course to modification by outer difficulties
and obstacles). From the very first, the exceeding complexity and
delicacy of the movements within the germ-cells, combined with the
decisiveness of their divisions and differentiations, and the perfection
and adaptation of the bodily structures and organs ultimately produced,
all point in the suggested direction.[91] At the same time, we were
compelled to conclude that this form, whose first manifestations in the
tiny germ-cell evidently originate from quite ultra-microscopic
movements, was itself invisible, invisible through belonging either to
an ultra-microscopic world, or to a world of a fourth-dimensional or
other order of existence. I think, therefore, that for the present we
may accept that conclusion, and fairly suppose that some such invisible
form underlies the genesis of each of our bodies.
But at the same time the conclusion of invisibility must not be supposed
to carry with it the conclusion of immateriality. Quite the contrary. A
creature living in the two-dimensional world formed by the water-film on
the surface of a pond might have no conception of the water-world below
or the air-world above—both of which might be quite invisible to it;
all the same a fish or a bird breaking through the surface would
instantly cause some very powerful and very material phenomena there!
And again, though atoms and electrons individually may be quite
invisible, it is only a question of their number and the force of their
electric charges, as to how far they intrude upon what we call the
material world. Also, we must remember that invisibility or
imperceptibility does not by any means imply non-occupation of space. On
the contrary again. For four-dimensional existence carries with it an
occupation of space which is quite miraculous to us—as, for instance,
the power of appearing in two places at the same time; while a number of
ultra-microscopic atoms, by their electrostatic attractions and
repulsions, may maintain definite relations of distance from each other,
and may altogether constitute a cloud of considerable size and complex
organization—quite imperceptible as a rule, yet occupying a definite
area and fully capable of affecting material things.
It may be a question, then, whether it is not some such invisible
cloud—perhaps of quite human size and measurement—which at conception
begins to enter the fertilized germ-cell, stimulating it to division,
and penetrating further and further into the newly-formed body-cells, as
by thousands and millions they divide and multiply to form the growing
organism. Whatever it is, it is something of infinitely subtle
organization and constitution, representing the inmost vitality of the
body, and not that inmost vitality in a merely general sense, but the
vitality of every portion and section of the body. It establishes itself
within the gross body (or it builds that body round itself) and becomes
the organizer and provider of its life; maintains its form and structure
during life, fortifies it against change and disease, and wards off as
long as it can the arrival of death.
What, then, of Death? Why, granted so much as we have supposed, it seems
easy to suppose that at death this inner body passes away again. It just
leaves the gross body behind and passes out of it. For a
fourth-dimensional being this must be easy to do! But not to presume too
much on other-dimensional conditions, if we only assume the inner body
to be such a cloud of atoms or electrons as already mentioned, the
passage of such atoms through the tissues of the gross body would be
entirely in accordance with the well-known facts of _osmose_ and the
diffusion of liquids and gases, and would present no exceptional or
impossible problem. Through cell-walls and muscular and other tissues
such atoms would pass, conceivably maintaining still their relative
‘form’ and organization with regard to each other, and forming a cloud
similar to that which entered the germ and other cells at conception
(though of course so far modified by the life-experience), and leaving
now the gross body devitalized, and doomed to slow corruption and to
serve only as material for lower forms.
* * * * *
One would not, of course, venture on conjectures so speculative as the
above, if it were not that long tradition and history, and even modern
experience, so singularly confirm or favor their general truth. The
conception of a cloud-like ghost—sometimes visible, sometimes
invisible[92]—leaving the body at death, roaming through the fields of
Hades or some hidden world, and from time to time revisiting the
glimpses of the moon and the gaze of wondering mortals—penetrates all
literature and tradition. Among all primitive peoples it seems to be
accepted as a matter of course; it informs the legends and the drama and
the philosophies of the more cultivated; it claims detailed historical
instances and proofs[93] (as in the case of Field-marshal von Grumbkoff,
to whom the wraith of King Frederick Augustus announced his own
death—which had just occurred; or in the case of the poet Petrarch, to
whom Bishop Colonna made a similar announcement); and in modern times it
has met with extraordinary and in many quarters quite unexpected
confirmation at the hands of scientific investigation.
To this evidence of general probability that at death a vital and subtle
yet substantial inner body is withdrawn from every part and portion of
the gross body, we may add the evidence, such as it is, from actual
_sensation_ and _experience_. In the hour of death and in allied
physical changes sensations are experienced corresponding to such a
conclusion. Though necessarily there is little quite direct evidence,
for the actual moment of death, yet in the just preceding stage, of
extreme weakness, the sensation of depletion in every part of the body,
and of withdrawal, as of a hand being drawn out of a glove, is very
noticeable. (And it may be remarked that clairvoyants not unfrequently
observe, at death itself, a luminous cloud of the general outline and
shape of the dying person being slowly distilled, head first, from his
or her head.) Furthermore, in the state of _ecstasy_—which is closely
allied to death—the same sensation of withdrawal is experienced. The
person seems to himself to stand outside and a little beyond his own
body—and doubtless this experience is denoted in the very etymology of
the word. In trance the same: the medium experiences the extreme of
exhaustion while some portion of her vital being is functioning (as it
appears) outside. Under anæsthetics it is a common experience to dream
that one has left the body and is flying through space. (See _The Art of
Creation_, p. 18.) And again, in the case of love—whose close relation
to death we have several times already noted—whether it be in the
strain of emotional desire or the stress of the physical orgasm this
‘hand from the glove’ sensation is often most acute and seems to suggest
that every portion of the body is contributing its part to the process
in hand; which indeed in this case of love may very fairly be supposed
to consist in a transfer of the cloud-like organism (or a large part of
it) to the other person concerned.
There are cases, too, where in a kind of dream-consciousness the
sensation of the self passing out through walls and other obstacles is
so powerful as to leave an impress on the mind ever after. Such is the
case already alluded to (chapter viii. p. 148, _supra_) from _Footfalls
on the Boundary of Another World_, where a lady half waking from sleep
“felt herself carried to the wall of her room, with a feeling that it
must arrest her further progress. But no; she seemed to pass through it
into the open air. Outside the house was a tree; and this also she
appeared to traverse as if it interposed no obstacle.” She thus passed
to the house of a lady friend, held a conversation with her, and in her
dream returned. But afterward the friend reported that she had _seen_
the apparition that night and conversed with it. Similarly a young
friend of mine, dreaming one night that his mother (in the same house)
was ill, was intensely conscious of dashing—not along corridors and
through doorways but _through the partition walls of two rooms_—into
the chamber where his mother slept, when finding her all right he
returned; and the experience was so vivid that it remained with him for
days afterward.
Taking all these considerations together, we may say that there is a
strong general probability in favor of the proposition put forward. And
it is interesting and important to find that at this juncture modern
science is coming out from her old haunts and beginning seriously to
tackle a question which she has hitherto for the most part evaded or
ignored. The whole of the psychology and even physiology of Death have
(as I have previously remarked) been sadly neglected; but now and of
late quite a number of books on this subject have been published,[94]
and a good deal of scientific activity is moving in that direction.
Professor Fournier d’Albe, in his book _New Light on Immortality_,[95]
has made some very interesting suggestions—which though they may not as
yet be accounted more than suggestions, seem to be in the right
direction, and certainly acquire some authority from his intimate
command of the modern discoveries in Physics as well as in the field of
Psychical Research. His view is that every one of the twenty-five
thousand million million cells which constitute say the human body has
probably some ‘centrosome’ or other vital point within it, which is in
fact the governing and organizing power of that cell. Such point or
collection of points, though ‘material,’ may likely weigh only a
ten-thousandth part of the cell-weight. Hence if this ‘soul’ was
abstracted from each cell, the total weight of the twenty-five thousand
billion souls resulting would be only a ten-thousandth part of the body
weight, or about a fifth of an ounce! But these soul-fragments or
_psychomeres_ as he calls them, would together make up the total soul of
the man, and—as already explained—might not only by their negative and
positive charges maintain certain spatial relations and organization
with regard to each other, but would, owing to their extreme minuteness,
easily pass through the tissues and liberate themselves from the gross
body. Thus a human soul, weighing a fraction only of an ounce, but of
like shape and size to the human body, and of intense vitality and
subtlety, might disengage itself at death, to begin a fresh career and
to enter into a new life—leaving the existing body to fall to ruin and
decay. Further, Professor Fournier d’Albe, greatly bold in speculation,
surmises that such a spiritual body, discharging the atmosphere from its
interior frame, might quite naturally rise in the air till it attained
its position of equilibrium at a great height up—say in a region 35–80
miles over the earth, which would thus become the (first) abode of the
departed.
Whatever may be said about the details of this theory, and whatever
difficulties they may present, the main outlines—as I have already
indicated—seem quite feasible and probable, and in line with world-old
belief and tradition. And certain details (which we shall return to
again) are powerfully corroborated by modern observation.
Meanwhile it is interesting to find, in corroboration of the general
theory, that some experiments lately carried out, in weighing the body
before and after death, have apparently yielded the result of a decided
loss of weight at or very shortly after, the moment of Death. Dr. Duncan
M‘Dougall, experimenting with considerable care, found that one of his
patients lost ¾ ounce precisely at death;[96] another lost ½ ounce, with
an additional loss of 1 ounce during the next few minutes, after which
no further loss took place; another yielded very nearly the same result;
and so on. Thus we have the old Egyptian idea of the weighing of the
soul after death resuscitated in a very practical form in modern
times—only with the medical practitioner in the place of Thoth, the
great assessor of the Underworld! And it would be satisfactory to know
how far modern observation of a normal soul weight corresponds with
ancient speculation in the matter. It is curious anyhow to find that
Fournier d’Albe’s estimates are so nearly corroborated by Dr. M‘Dougall;
and we must await with interest further and perhaps more detailed
observations along the same line.
Another line along which something seems to have been done by hard and
fast science to corroborate the general theory of the extrusion of a
cloud-like spirit form from the body at death, is in the matter of
photography. Dr. Baraduc, in his book, _Mes Morts: leurs manifestations_
(1908), gives an account of photographs which he took of his wife’s body
within an hour after death and of his son’s body (in the coffin) nine
hours after death. When developed the plates all showed cloud-like
emanations hovering over the corpses, not certainly having definite
human outline, but apparently shot through by lines and streaks of
light. And though here again the experiments are not conclusive, they so
far are corroborative, and may be taken to indicate a direction for
further inquiry.
This last I think we are especially entitled to say, on account of what
has been already done in the way of photographing the cloud-figures
(some of them very definite in outline) which are found to emanate on
occasions from mediums in the state of trance. For notwithstanding the
doubt which has commonly been cast on all such photographs and
notwithstanding the very obvious ease with which cameras can be
manipulated and shadow-figures of some kind fraudulently produced, the
evidence for the genuineness of some such ‘spirit’ photographs is—to
any one who really studies it—beyond question. The celebrated “Katie
King,” who appeared at seances in connection with the medium Florence
Cook, and during a period of two years or more was seen by some hundreds
of people—and especially studied by Sir William Crookes—was
photographed several times under test conditions.[97] Professor Charles
Richet, who when he first heard of Crookes’ conclusions was convulsed
with laughter over their supposed absurdity, afterward confessed his
error,[98] for time after time he not only saw a phantasm (“Beni Boa”)
in connection with the Algerian medium Aisha, but obtained photographs
of the same.[99] Dr. A. R. Wallace, in a long note, pp. 190, 191 of his
book, _Miracles and Modern Spiritualism_, gives a careful description of
his own experiments in this line. Several different figures were at
different times photographed in connection with Mme. D’Espérance; and
the very detailed account, with illustrations, which she gives of these
phenomena in ch. xxvii. of her book, _Shadowland_, must give the
unbeliever pause. And so on.[100] The evidence is so abundant, and so on
the whole so well confirmed, that we are practically now compelled to
admit (and this is the point in hand) that cloud-like forms of human
outline emanating from a medium’s or other person’s living body may at
times be caught by the photographic plate. And this is important because
it removes the phenomenon from the region of the fanciful or imaginative
and gives it automatic and objective registration.
That these forms occurring and occasionally photographed in connection
with mediums are independent ‘spirits’ or souls is of course in no way
assumed. They may be such, or (what seems more likely) they may be
simply extensions of the spiritual or inner body of the medium. The
point that interests us here is that their appearance in either case
points to the actual existence of such an inner body, capable of
becoming extruded from the gross body, and of becoming the seat and
manifestation of intelligence. Further than that we need not go at
present.
But it will be objected, if the inner or spiritual body is, as has just
been supposed, of such a subtle and tenuous nature as to be in itself
quite invisible, what connection can this have with phantoms that can be
photographed, or that can be seen, or that can be actually touched and
handled? This question—the question as to how an excessively rare and
tenuous and invisible being may gradually condense and materialize so as
to come first within the region of photographic activity, and then
within the region of normal visibility, and so on into audible and
tangible and material existence and operation, I shall discuss more at
length in the next chapter. Suffice it here to point out that the
general consensus of thoughtful opinion on this subject at the present
time points to a probable condensation of some kind, and utilization of
such suitable materials as may be to hand, by which the subtle inner
body gradually clothes itself in an outer and denser garment. Whether
with Fournier d’Albe we suppose a soul-like core to every single cell,
or whether we take a more diffused and general view, in any case we seem
compelled to believe that our actual bodies are carried on by organizing
powers distributed in centres throughout the body.[101] If by any means
these vital centres were separated from the gross body, it would still
seem natural for them to continue their organizing activity whenever
they were surrounded with suitable material. And if, as seems likely, in
the case of mediums and seances, a considerable quantity of loose
floating organic material is commonly evolved from the bodies of those
present, such effluences might be quickly caught up and condensed by any
such vital centres present into more or less visible forms and figures.
If, by way of illustration, we were to suppose an army-corps to
represent a gross body, then the officers, from corporals to general,
would represent the inner or organizing soul; and all these officers
together, though really being a ‘body,’ would constitute a mass so small
and so scattered compared with the mass-body of the army, that in
comparison they would be invisible, and might easily all pass out and
away from the army without being observed. They might pass out and
conceivably organize another army-corps elsewhere; but the result on
that left behind (of which they were really the soul) would soon be seen
in its complete disintegration and collapse. Now suppose further that in
a neighboring nation, across the frontier, there was a great deal of
disaffection existing—that large masses of the people there were out of
touch with their own Government (the case of a medium in trance), and
waiting for some one to come and organize them. Then it is easy to
imagine the small group of officers aforesaid passing across the
frontier (quite unseen and unobserved) and immediately on doing so
finding ready to their hands a quantity of material just suitable for
their activity. In a wonderfully short time the various officers would
begin to organize the various departments of a new army-corps; the
people would flock to their standard. Even in a day or two the faint
outline of a new political form or movement would show itself; and in a
week this might become substantial enough to exhibit serious
manifestations of force!
The general application of this to the question in hand is obvious
enough. But there is another point which it illustrates—a point which
we have raised before. I am convinced that science will never yield any
very fruitful understanding of the world, until it recognizes that
_life_ and _intelligence_ (of course in the broadest signification)
pervade all the phenomena of Nature. It is perfectly useless to try to
explain human development, human destiny, mental activity, the forces of
nature, and so forth, in terms of dead matter. No explanation of such a
kind could possibly be satisfying. And more and more it is becoming
clear that even what we call the inorganic world is as subtle and swift
in its responses as what we call the organic. Many difficulties must
inevitably arise in any attempted solution of the problem before
us—that problem which is generally denoted by “the nature of the soul
and its relation to the body”; but we shall never arrive at any
harmonious view of the whole question until we are persuaded, and
practically assume, that life and intelligence in some degree are
characteristic of all that we call ‘matter’ as well as of all we call
mind, and pervade the whole structure of the universe. We shall then see
that the forces, for instance, which organize and direct the human body,
even down to its minutest parts, are probably just as individual and
intelligent in their action as those (to take the example just given)
which organize and direct an army-corps.