Connection between the Spirit and the body.

— One of our friends, Mrs. Schutz, who belongs to this world and who seems unwilling to leave it so soon, having been evoked during sleep, more than once gave us proof of the perspicacity of her Spirit in such a state. One day, or rather, one night, after a long conversation, she said: “I am fatigued; I have need of rest; I am nearly asleep, my body needs to rest.”

In response to this, I pointed out the following to her: “Your body can rest; in speaking to you, I am not harming it; it is your Spirit that is here and not your body. You can therefore converse with me, without the body suffering.”

She answered: “You are mistaken in thinking thus; my Spirit detaches itself a little from my body, as though it were a captive balloon held back by cords. When the balloon is agitated by the wind, the post that keeps it captive feels the jolts transmitted by the mooring lines. My body plays the role of post for my Spirit, with the difference that it experiences sensations unknown to the post and that such sensations greatly fatigue the brain. This is why my body, like the Spirit, needs rest.”

As that lady declared to us, while awake she had never thought of such an explanation, which serves to show perfectly the relations existing between the body and the Spirit, while the latter enjoys a part of its freedom. We knew perfectly well that absolute separation occurs only after death and, indeed, some time after. Never, however, had this connection been described to us by an image so clear and so interesting. We therefore sincerely congratulated that lady for having so well demonstrated her spiritual faculties while she slept.

Nevertheless, for us this was no more than an ingenious comparison; lately, however, the image has taken on the proportions of reality.

— Mr. R., former minister-resident of the United States to the king of Naples, a man very enlightened about Spiritism, in paying us a visit asked us whether, in the phenomena of apparition, we had ever observed a distinctive feature between the Spirit of a living person and that of a dead one. In a word, whether we would have a sure means of recognizing whether the person is dead or alive when a Spirit appears spontaneously, in waking or during sleep. Upon our answering him that we had no other means than by asking the Spirit, he told us that he knew, in England, a seeing medium endowed with great power who, every time the Spirit of a living person presented itself to him, noticed a luminous trail that started from the chest and crossed space, without being interrupted by any material obstacle, going to end in the body. It was a kind of umbilical cord that united the two momentarily separated parts of the living being. He never observed it when corporeal life had already been extinguished, and it was by this sign that he recognized whether the Spirit belonged to a dead person or to someone who was still living. Mrs. Schutz's comparison came to mind, and we found its confirmation in the fact we have just related. We will, however, make an observation in this regard.

— It is known that at the moment of death the separation is not abrupt; the perispirit detaches itself little by little and, as long as the disturbance lasts, it preserves a certain affinity with the body. Might it not be possible that the bond observed by the seeing medium, of which we have just spoken, still persisted when the Spirit appears, at the exact moment of death, or a few instants after, as so often happens? In that case, the presence of the cord would not be an indication that the person was alive. Mr. R… was unable to say whether the medium had made this observation. In any case, it is no less important and casts a new light on what we may call the physiology of Spirits.