Page:The elephant man and other reminiscences.djvu/171

Rh power of bilocation which explains the phantasms and apparitions of which the book gives many detailed records. These apparitions may be objective—that is to say, may be visible to several people at the same time—or they may be subjective or capable of being perceived only by the subject or seer. "These apparitions," the author states, "are projections emanating from the soul of the dying." They are astral bodies detached for the moment from the physical body of which they are part. "It is," the author continues, "at the hour of death that transmissions of images and of sensations are most frequent" (p. 108).

These phantasms appear, either in dreams or in broad daylight, to the friends of dying persons. They may announce in words, "I am dying," or "I am dead." They may merely appear with signs upon their faces of alarm or of impending dissolution. They may appear as bodies lying dead upon a couch or in a coffin. They may predict the hour of their death, but more usually their appearance coincides with the exact moment at which their physical bodies ceased to exist.

M. Flammarion gives numerous instances of these apparitions seen under such varying circumstances as have been named. In certain examples the phantom appears to have substance and to be