compared with the gift to transmit not only the
sound of the voice but the actual visible image of the speaker for
hundreds of miles without any conductor known to man.

Chapter IV.

The Hypnotic Key.

Hypnotism is the key which will enable us to unlock most of these
mysteries, and so far as hypnotism has spoken it does not tend to
encourage the belief that the immaterial body has any substance other
than the hallucination of the person who sees it. Various cases are
reported by hypnotist practitioners which suggest that there is an
almost illimitable capacity of the human mind to see visions and to hear
voices. One very remarkable case was that of a girl who was told at
midsummer by the hypnotist, when in the hypnotic state, that he would
come to see her on New Year's Day. When she awoke from the trance she
knew nothing about the conversation. One hundred and seventy-one days
passed without any reference to it. But on the 172nd day, being New
Year's Day, she positively declared that the doctor had entered her
room, greeted her, and then departed. Curiously enough, as showing the
purely subjective character of the vision, the doctor appeared to her in
the depth of winter, wearing the light summer apparel he had on when he
made the appointment in July. In this case there can be no question as
to the apparition being purely subjective. The doctor did not make any
attempt to visit her in his immaterial body, but she saw him and heard
him as if he were there.

The late Mr. Gurney conducted some experiments with a hypnotic subject
which seem to confirm the opinion that the phantasmal body is a merely
subjective hallucination, although, of course, this would not explain
how information had been actually imparted to the phantasmal visitant by
the person who saw, or imagined they saw, his wraith. Mr. Gurney's cases
are, however, very interesting, if only as indicating the absolute
certainty which a hypnotised patient can be made to feel as to the
objectivity of sights and sounds:--

"S. hypnotised Zillah, and told her that she would see him standing in
the room at three o'clock next afternoon, and that she would hear him
call her twice by name. She was told that he would not stop many
seconds. On waking she had no notion of the ideas impressed upon her.

"Next day, however, she came upstairs about five minutes past three,
looking ghastly and startled. She said, 'I have seen a ghost.' I assumed
intense amazement,