, which is a part of Buddhist belief, long subsequent
to the time I speak of, and which is an accepted fact of modern
mysticism, had its rise in Ancient Egypt; at least, so far as we know.
It is that the gifted individual can at will, quick as thought itself,
transfer his body whithersoever he chooses, by the dissolution and
reincarnation of particles. In the ancient belief there were several
parts of a human being. You may as well know them; so that you will
understand matters relative to them or dependent on them as they occur.

"First there is the 'Ka', or 'Double', which, as Doctor Budge explains,
may be defined as 'an abstract individuality of personality' which was
imbued with all the characteristic attributes of the individual it
represented, and possessed an absolutely independent existence. It was
free to move from place to place on earth at will; and it could enter
into heaven and hold converse with the gods. Then there was the 'Ba',
or 'soul', which dwelt in the 'Ka', and had the power of becoming
corporeal or incorporeal at will; 'it had both substance and form....
It had power to leave the tomb.... It could revisit the body in the
tomb ... and could reincarnate it and hold converse with it.' Again
there was the 'Khu', the 'spiritual intelligence', or spirit. It took
the form of 'a shining, luminous, intangible shape of the body.'...
Then, again, there was the 'Sekhem', or 'power' of a man, his strength
or vital force personified. These were the 'Khaibit', or 'shadow', the
'Ren', or 'name', the 'Khat', or 'physical body', and 'Ab', the
'heart', in which life was seated, went to the full making up of a man.

"Thus you will see, that if this division of functions, spiritual and
bodily, ethereal and corporeal, ideal and actual, be accepted as exact,
there are all the possibilities and capabilities of corporeal
transference, guided always by an unimprisonable will or intelligence."
As he paused I murmured the lines from Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound":

"'The Magnus Zoroaster...
Met his own image walking in the garden.'"

Mr. Trelawny was not displeased. "Quite so!" he said, in his quiet
way. "Shelley had a better conception of ancient beliefs than any of
our poets." With a voice changed again he resumed his lecture, for so
it was to some of us:

"There is another belief of the ancient Egyptian which you must bear in
mind; that regarding the ushaptiu figures of Osiris, which were placed
wit