Psychic Science 598 



8 



Summary 



The main thing which psychic science has so far established 

 is the possible disconnection of mind and body, the proof that 

 mind can exist, and can even act in certain ways, apart from the 

 usual instrument. This fact has a close bearing on the possibility 

 of survival, for it shows that the mind and personality and char- 

 acter and memory need not become extinct when the brain and 

 other usual organs of manifestation are destroyed. 



Mind cannot function, or display itself, without a physiologi- 

 cal organ of some kind, but it has shown itself capable of existing 

 under other conditions ; and, moreover, it can telepathically pro- 

 duce an effect, not only on other minds in like condition with itself, 

 which presumably is easy, but occasionally even on incarnate 

 minds; minds presumably of sympathetic persons who are not 

 too busy to attend, and who are not too wholly and closely guarded 

 by their bodily screen. 



For it would seem that the brain and body, being instruments 

 for use during our practical sojourn on the earth amid material 

 surroundings, are adapted to isolate us as individuals and to sever 

 us from a multitude of cosmic influences which would otherwise 

 distract us and prevent our attending to the business in hand. 

 These instruments are not an essential part of ourselves, and we 

 go on without them, but meanwhile they are useful, and in most 

 people give complete isolation for the development of an indi- 

 vidual personality, since the only channels of communication 

 with others are through the physiological sense and motor organs 

 with which we are all familiar. So familiar with the usual methods 

 of communication do we become that we are tempted to think 

 them the only conceivable way. But it turns out that in the case of 

 a few persons not so few perhaps as had been thought the 

 screening apparatus is incomplete, the brain is as it were leaky, 

 and impressions can get through from the psychic universe which 

 are not brought by the sense organs and nervous network 



