rm's way, he stops, and pointing a weapon at me, takes deliberate
aim, there is a loud report, a quick flash, and the scene once more
changes.

And thus I transmigrated from one thing into another, in a seemingly
endless procession of lives, experiencing all the peculiar sensations of
the many bodies I temporarily inhabited. In some cases I was the big
strong brute--either physically or mentally--taking advantage of the
puny weakling. In others, I was the miserable weakling, being crushed by
the over-powering strength of the bully. But whether strong or weak,
either physically or mentally, I was always the moral coward and selfish
creature, ready to cater to those who were stronger, and take advantage
of those who were feebler than myself, until finally I emerged into a
most extraordinary being, utterly deficient in all human weaknesses.

Master of a physique absolutely free from all imperfections, and
controlling a mind powerful enough to grasp nature's beautiful ideas
unadulterated, I found myself seated upon a platform in the center of a
mammoth theatre and surrounded by the finest body of musicians the earth
has ever produced--the immortal Sixth National Band of Sageland. Then I
fully realized that as leader of this wonderful group I was about to
render for the first time, my latest musical conception and masterpiece--
"The Soul's Retrospection"--which would prove to humanity beyond a
doubt, the positive truth of one of nature's grandest secrets--the
indestructibility of the soul.

It was generally believed that music was the direct inspiration of the
soul. It was also thought that the soul was one of the unchangeable
forces of nature whose duty it was to operate and purify different
pieces of natural machinery known as animal lives; starting each on its
brief career and remaining a part thereof until the mechanism exhausted
its power and collapsed, after which it attached itself to another bit
of animal matter, remaining therewith until its death, and so on
indefinitely.

And now, after a life of unswerving devotion to this purpose, I was
about to establish the truth of these theories by producing a musical
composition that would cause the listener's soul to leave the body, and
going backward, revisit, as in a dream, the various animal forms it had
previously inhabited. How extremely happy I felt to think what a great
blessing humanity was about to receive direct from nature, through the
instrumentality of myse