Page:Dealings with the dead.djvu/236

 however, it was raining; and here was an opportunity to solve a much mooted point, namely: "Do spiritual beings get wet in a rain storm? Do the rain-drops and hail-stones pass through them, or do they bound off as from a solid body?" Most attentively did I make the closest observations, in order to be able to solve the question. I decided that the, rain passed through us, yet touched us not at all, as apparently did the wind. Preferring to make every point as clear as possible, I shall attempt to illustrate this one, even at the risk of a little prolixity and repetition. The subject is an interesting one, and demands it. Now, everybody knows that nothing less dense than water, save air, in violent motion, will turn aside or shed it; and that which constitutes the spiritual body is, of course, infinitely finer and more subtle than even the rarest gas, much less the thick and heavy atmosphere surrounding this and all other globes.

This fact being conceded, it follows that all such bodies must be pervious; and they are so, and not so at the same time. Remember that spirit is not soul; forget not that the latter is the Winged Globe, of Which I have spoken, and the former is a projection, an out-creation from it. This out-projection or spirit is, of course, perfectly atomless and unparticled. We gaze into a mirror, and behold a semblance of ourselves; and the same figure may be gazed at by a hundred thousand eyes; everybody will at once acknowledge that the likeness is perfect and real, yet every one knows that not one single atom of any sort of matter enters into its composition. It cannot be handled, but everybody can see it; nor would a pistol ball, shot through the head of that