isis unveiled: xiii (alchemy)

“Some people have the natural and some the acquired power of withdrawing the inner from the outer body, at will, and causing it to perform long journeys, and be seen by those whom it visits. Numerous are the instances recorded by unimpeachable witnesses of the “doubles” of persons having been seen and conversed with, hundreds of miles from the places where the persons themselves were known to be.

Hermotimus, if we may credit Pliny and Plutarch, could at will fall into a trance and then his second soul proceeded to any distant place he chose. The Abbe Tritheim, the famous author of Steganographie, who lived in the seventeenth century, could converse with his friends by the mere power of his will. “I can make my thoughts known to the initiated”, he wrote, “at a distance of many hundred miles, without word, writing, or cipher, by any messenger. The latter cannot betray me, for he knows nothing. If needs be, I can dispense with the messenger. If any correspondent should be buried in the deepest dungeon, I could still convey to him my thoughts as clearly and as frequently as I chose, and this quite simply, without superstition, without the aid of spirits.” Cordanus could also send his spirit, or any messages he chose. When he did so, he felt “as if a door was opened, and I myself immediately passed through it, leaving the body behind me.”

The case of a high German official, a counselor Wesermann, was mentioned in a scientific paper. He claimed to be able to cause any friend or acquaintance, at any distance, to dream of every subject he chose, or see any person he liked. His claims were proved good, and testified to on several occasions by skeptics and learned professional persons. He could also cause his double to appear wherever he liked; and be seen by several persons at one time. By whispering in their ears a sentence prepared and agreed upon beforehand by unbelievers, and for the purpose, his power to project the double was demonstrated beyond any cavil.”

H. P. Blavatsky