tant point, and must also exercise its specific soul attributes of thought reading and communion with other souls, and transmit to and from the physical brain the impressions received at each end of the line thus established. The brain, which is the central office of the telephone exchange of the body, during the absence of its operator the soul, must transmit the soul orders automatically to and from the organs of hearing and speech, and the orders of the hypnotizer to the soul itself. The tendency of the soul while projected is to wander in its observations. This tendency the hypnotist must check, holding the projected soul to the correct reporting of the things it is directed to observe, or of spoken or unspoken thoughts. It is quite wonderful that all this can be done at one time, and that it is done demonstrates most clearly that the soul, while still incarnate, possesses all the attributes necessary to give it independent spiritual existence.

CHAPTER VIII.

FURTHER REPORTS OF MR. ALDERMAN'S EXPERIMENTS IN SOUL PROJECTION-PAST EVENTS OBSERVED AND REPORTED AS THOUGH OF PRESENT OCCURRENCE-THE NATURE OF ETERNITY ILLUSTRATED.

THE power of the soul to perceive and report cor

rectly past occurrences is quite as positively demonstrated as its power to observe what exists or is occurring at the synchronous moment of physical time.

Mr. Frank R. Alderman, complying with my request for a summary of his observations regarding soul projection, and the power of the soul to perceive past and future events, has furnished the following:

Some writer has stated, I think it was Dr. Hartmann, that we are probably surrounded by something in the nature of an impressionable ether, upon which every act of our lives is indelibly impressed. It would certainly seem that such must be the case, and that the soul, when projected by means of hypnotism, is enabled to see and read these impressions. A person is standing on a street corner conversing with a friend; not only the picture of the two persons standing there, but the exact time, and every word uttered are so impressed upon the recording substance, whatever it may be, that years thereafter it becomes visible to the soul projected back to that spot and that minute.

For the purpose of testing these powers I once sent a subject to a neighbor's house at about 8 o'clock in the evening. The boy described the interior of the house so that we knew he was in the right place. When asked to describe any persons who were in the

house, he replied that he could find no one there; but believing that the gentleman and his wife were at home, I insisted that they were there, and that he should find them. Presently he said, "Oh! here is a lady now;" and gave a correct description of the lady of the house. Then he said, "There is a gentleman sitting on the other side of the table (who was not recognized by any one present, although carefully described by the boy) talking with her, and they are talking about going out for a ride. His horse and carriage are at the door." Soon he said, "Here is another gentleman just coming in the door;” and described him. This being about all we could get, I awoke the boy, and one of the persons present went around to the house to verify, if possible, what the boy had said. The house was dark and no one was at home. The next day, on repeating the conversation to the lady whose house the boy had visited, she said it was an accurate description of two gentlemen who were at the house, and of conversation and a scene which transpired at about 4 o'clock that afternoon.

At another time, in a public audience, a gentleman who thought to be smart, gave me the street and number of a vacant house. The boy, when sent there, described the exterior of the house correctly, and on going inside at first said, "I see nothing," but finally, when pushed for a description of the interior, went on describing furniture, pictures, etc. After he had finished, the gentleman who had given me the number announced that the boy was entirely wrong, as the house had been vacant for some time. At this a gentleman on the other side of the house arose and said that he wished to state, for my benefit, that he lived next door to the house visited, and that the boy had accurately described the house as it was last furnished.

In making experiments in soul projection I have often asked questions with the intention of drawing out information as to how the soul regards itself while in that state, but with no definite results. This may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that my subjects have always been uneducated boys. They would reply that they looked as they always did, and in answer to questions as to how they obtained information, they would answer that they "simply asked the question." And this is the peculiar phase of these experiments. For instance, I once ascertained the number of a room in which a friend of mine was stopping in Chicago. I knew that the gentleman was to be at the Palmer House on a certain night. I sent the boy there and directed him to go to the clerk and ask him the number of the room occupied by my friend. He obtained the number and went to the room and described its contents,

but found no one there. I told him to go back to the clerk and ask where Mr. W. was. The clerk's reply was that, "He went out about half past seven o'clock," which I afterwards found to be true. My only theory of this is that the projected soul obtains the information from the same principle in the person with whom it is conversing.

There have been numerous instances during my experiences in which the subjects have mentioned things in distant localities very foreign to the subject of investigation. For instance: One subject whom I had sent to Albuquerque, New Mexico, passing on the railroad track from that town to a point outside of the city to which I wished him to go, remarked that in one of the hills which he was passing there was an isinglass mine. When asked how he knew that it was there, he said he could "see it glistening in the sun." He also described the peculiar dress of the people and the adobe houses, which were new and very curious to him, and when told to ask one of the natives some question, replied, “I cannot understand such gibberish as they talk." Another time the subject was sent to a town in Ohio, I think it was Mansfield, and taken back to 1861 or 1862, and while going from the railroad station to the point I desired him to reach, remarked, “There must be war, as the town is full of soldiers."

The subjects while in this condition seem to be susceptible to their physical sensations without any suggestion to that effect, such as fright, joy or sorrow. As an instance of this, in making the experiment to discover the murderers of Don Ewer, the boy was stationed in the alley where the body was found and carried along from about half past five up to the time when the murder was committed. When the attack on Mr. Ewer was made the boy became very much frightened, but when told that they could not see him and could in no way harm him, he became passive and described the remainder of the scene. Also, at another time in describing the contents of a deserted cellar, he saw something on the further side of the cellar, which he said looked like "a white board." I told him to go to it and ascertain what it was. I had no sooner made this request then he flew out of the chair in which he was lying. on to the floor, almost as though he were in a fit, and the shock was sufficient to bring him out of the sleep. When asked to explain the cause of his fright, he said that "there was a skeleton lying there."

I have never been able to ascertain anything regarding the future, and when I put questions of that nature to the subjects they would answer that they could not see the future. It seems to be a

peculiarity, with my subjects at least, that they "see" what they describe; and one of them in answer to the question of how he got the information, said that he "saw it as it came around," giving one the impression of something in the nature of a revolving panorama. At least this was the impression it made on me at the time he was explaining his sensations. But he was the only subject I ever had who gave that explanation, although they all said that they “saw" events, and even the conversations that they gave. They seem able to repeat conversations which have taken place years before as readily as if they had occurred a few hours previously. Time seems to be no obstacle to their vision.

The power possessed by Miss Annie Atwood, of Detroit, who died a few years since, was to my mind most remarkable, as illustrating the power of one mind to communicate with another. Also as a proof of the existence of a power claimed to be possessed by the Buddhist adepts. She often spoke of the strong "pulling on the wires" when in my presence, a remark common among the adepts, meaning that I had strong magnetic power, and she claimed that at any time she chose, by putting her mind on me, she could read my thoughts. She once proved this to me by telling me where I was, what I was doing, what I was thinking of, and describing my surroundings at a certain time, and the fact that she was to make this experiment at any particular time was unknown to me. I had evidence of her power to look into the past and read it correctly, but never had any conclusive evidence as to her power to read the future.

Among the experiments made by Mr. Alderman in the observation of past events by his subjects, the following were reported by a Detroit correspondent of the New York Sun, during the early part of the year 1887:

The boy was told that at half past eleven o'clock on that day an overcoat had been stolen from the second floor of a tenement. A little girl described the thief, while the owner of the coat described the garment. I wrote everything down to make sure there 'could be no error. The police withheld the complaint from publication, and there was no possible way the boy could have learned it. The experiment was begun as follows: "Now, Charley, it is about twenty minutes after eleven this morning. Are you there?" "Yes, sir."