quently conceive a dislike for certain persons upon first meeting them, and that they are seldom at fault in reading character by first impressions. Men study character more closely than women, and by that means cultivate the intuitive faculty so that they are frequently able to read the characteristics of another person like an open book. The physical consciousness becomes cognizant of many facts by intuition; perhaps of a greater number and variety of primary truths than by study or reasoning. And while it is not always safe to follow intuitions blindly, it is still more unsafe to disregard them.

Intuition as an inherited faculty has been quite extensively discussed by physiologists and metaphysicians. The claim is made by some students of mental phenomena that intuition in man is the same faculty as instinct in the lower animals, and that it is to be credited to the accumulated experiences of the race, transmitted by heredity. If this was true it would manifest itself only as an unreasoning recognition of fixed facts, the avoidance of conditions and actions which have proved injurious to our ancestors, and the pursuit of those things which have been proved beneficial. But intuition does much more than this. Its possession enables a person to perceive without study or reason facts which are incident to the period or the environment, and are not fixed in nature. It is distinctly a soul attribute, but its operation is only comprehended when intuitive perceptions are brought to the comprehension of the physical consciousness.

A mental impression which many people have experienced, and which has caused much speculation

among metaphysicians and physiologists, is the repetition of sensations or experiences. To illustrate :

One summer's day when I was not much past fourteen years of age I was driving with a relative along a road in a section of country where I had never been before. Coming to the top of a hill I saw stretched out before me a beautiful country scene which seemed strangely familiar. I knew I had never been there previously, and had never seen that particular stretch of country before with my physical eyes. Then why did it appear familiar, and why was the impression so strong upon me that I had at some previous time looked upon the scene before me from exactly that spot at the top of the hill? I had been quite a reader as a boy, and remembered a sketch I had read not long before entitled, "Recollections of a Previous Life," in which the theory was set forth that the recurrence of experiences and sensations like that then presented was a repetition of a like experience in a previous life. But this explanation would not answer, as the country I was looking upon had been nearly all forest at the time I was born, and must have presented an entirely different appearance at all periods before I entered the present life. Years afterward I read another theory, put forth by a physiologist, to explain phenomena of that character, which was that one hemisphere of the brain receives the impressions in such cases an instant before the other, bringing to the mind the sensation of seeing the object, or passing through the experience, twice.

Similar experiences have been common with me at different periods since boyhood, and I have been told by many others that they have had like impressions. I have also frequently experienced the sensation of being a different person, or occupying a different sphere, or being in some other place from what is really the fact. Such impressions are most likely to be felt when in deep thought, often after prolonged mental work, and sometimes when walking on the street engaged in thought so absorbing as to cause partial unconsciousness of the environment.

I understand now that all these impressions are soul perceptions or experiences, brought to the comprehension of the physical consciousness. Take the case of the scene at the top of the hill which appeared familiar. The soul, which in its attributes is thought individualized, in such instances goes out in advance

of the body and perceives the scene; and when the same scene is perceived by the physical senses, the the physical mind calls up from the soul the memory of that which it had first perceived.

And in cases where there is the impression of being in some other place than that where the physical body actually is, or of being some other individuality, the physical consciousness is for an instant turned aside, and the soul views other scenes, or comprehends its own individuality, independent of its relationship to the body. When the operation of the soul through the physical organism is resumed and physical consciousness returns, there is recollection of the experience, but without comprehension of its character. Dreams are of the same nature, as set forth and illustrated in subsequent chapters of this book.

The mental phenomena cited and illustrated in this chapter, and much other of like character, hase been learnedly discussed by mental physiologists, and philosophers, in all ages. In ancient times such phenomena were usually referred to a faculty or principle in man capable of perceiving independently of the physical senses; but since the development of the physical sciences in modern times most physiologists and metaphysicians have endeavored to account for all mental phenomena as the result of the operations of the physical brain, nerve centers and nerves, and the physical organism as a whole. Their failure to establish a consistent and demonstrable philosophy upon such a basis has been marked, and disagreement among them has been general. But starting from the

basic truth upon which all manifestations of life, consciousness and intellect rest, that man's primary consciousness and individuality is his soul, which possesses spiritual attributes and is subject to spiritual conditions and limitations only, and mental philosophy becomes harmonious in all its parts.

CHAPTER III.

EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL DECLARED-IT IS MAN'S EGO AND CONSCIOUS INDIVIDUALITY-PROVED BY SOUL PROJECTION DURING HYPNOSIS EVIDENCE PRESENTEd in De· TAIL.

MAN

AN has a soul! This fact is so clearly and perfectly demonstrated by the phenomena of hypnotism and clairvoyance, that if it had never been asserted before, or believed by man, it could not be doubted after the evidence now available is presented. These phenomena also prove beyond question that the soul of man is his conscious individuality, his ego, his life, and that the physical consciousness is but a secondary result of the operations of the soul upon and through the physical organism. Through the evidence supplied by the various phases of hypnotic phenomena the manifold attributes and powers of the soul may be observed and studied by all who desire to know the truth. This evidence I shall proceed to detail, with analysis and classification, and with synthetic synopsis.

What is hypnotism? Heretofore the phenomena have been treated very much as astronomy was treated before Copernicus promulgated his theory of the solar system. The Ptolemaic theory made the earth the center of the universe, and sent the sun, the planets, and all the stars coursing around it. So it has been