Chapter XX: Phantasms of the Dead

Ghosts.--Scientific Investigations.--Tentative Classification of
Phenomena.--Power to create Phantasms demonstrated.--Investigations
of the London Society for Psychical Research.--Spirit
Photography.--Projection of the "Astral Body."--Witches.--Conditions
necessary.--The same in all Cases.--Spirit
"Materialization."--Magicians.--Ghosts the Creations of the
Subjective Entity.--Eliphas Levi's Views.--Raising the
Devil.--Crystal Visions.--Propositions established.--Embodied
Thoughts.--Phantasms not Spirits.--Uniform Characteristics.--A New
Classification.--Conditions of Objectivity and Persistency.--Haunted
Houses.---No General Intelligence manifested.--D'Assier's
Statements.--A Remarkable Case.--Ghosts Intensified Telepathic
Visions.--Difference in Degree, not in Kind.--Ghosts not controllable
by Suggestion.--Other Salient Peculiarities.--Ghosts
neither prove nor disprove Immortality.--Mental Atmosphere
of Houses.--Remarkable Cases.--Classification of Telepathic
Phenomena.--Conclusions 286

CHAPTER XXI.

SUSPENDED ANIMATION AND PREMATURE BURIAL.

Facts of Startling Import.--The Case of Washington Irving
Bishop.--Other Instances of Suspended
Animation.--Vampirism.--Catalepsy.--East Indian Fakirs buried
alive for Months.--Fundamental Errors.--Catalepsy not a
Disease.--A Recuperative Agent.--The Law of Suggestion governs
the Phenomena.--Subjective Insensibility impossible.--Suggestion
of Death deepens the Lethargy.--The Appalling Dangers of
Catalepsy.--The Proper Treatment 309