Review of Reviews, ^19/06. 



Leading Articles. 



265 



PSYCHIC LOCOMOTION AT 250 MILES AN HOUR. 



In the Occuh Review, Franz Hartmann, M.D., dis- 

 cusses magical metathesis, or the almost instanta- 

 neous transfer of living pversons to distant places by 

 occult means ! The writer, among other instances, 

 gives one of a friend of his. Dr. Z., a young, strong 

 and healthy man, but having a peculiar medium- 

 istic organisation. He was once ■' spirited away " 

 from Livorno to Florence, a distance of loo kDo- 

 metres, in about fifteen minutes. This is the story 

 as written down by Dr. Z. himself : — 



I bad already b«en two days at Livorno, when a very 

 strange thing happened to me. It was after 9 p.m., and 

 I iiad been to supper, when I distinctly felt an occult meB- 

 sage coming from our friends at Florence, asking me to 

 come as soon as possible, because they needed my pre- 

 sence. , 



Instinctively I took my cloak, and wiuiout even chang- 

 ing my jacket bestrode my bicycle and went tor the 

 station, intending to take the first train leaving for Flor- 

 ence; but as I went on I was forced by an irresistible 

 impulse to take the road to the right, which leads towards 

 Pisa, and at tlie same time my bicycle went on with such 

 a velocity that I became giddy and my legs could not 

 follow an,v more the ciuick movement of the pedals, so I 

 had to abandon them. Still the velocity grew to such an 

 extent that it seemed to me as if I was flying without 

 touching the t^round. For a moment I saw Pisa and its 

 lights, then the breath began to fail me owing to the pres- 

 sure of the air caused by the rapidity of the motion, and 

 I lost consciousness. 



When I regained my senses, I found myself in the par- 

 lour of our friends M , at Florence, and they expressed 



tlieir suri)rise, seeing that I had come so soon, as there 

 were no trains arriving from Livorno at tliat hour. I 

 looked at my watch. It was 9.30 p.m. Thus it could not 

 have taken me more than a quarter of an hour to travel 

 the lOG kilometers from Livorno to Florence considering 

 the time necessary to put on my cloak and get my 

 bicycle. 



CYCLING THROUGH CLOSED DOOES. 



Dr. Z. then tells how he asked his friends how he 

 happened to enter the house. They said they heard 

 a racket and noise as if a bomb had exploded at the 

 window towards the street, and heard a thump as if a 

 human body had fallen upon the chair: — 



They struck a light and found that the human body was 

 myself and that I seemed to sleep. While this conversa- 

 tion took place the doorbell rang violently. It was the 

 night watciimaii who claimed to have seen somebody, pre- 

 sumably a robber, enter the house through the window. 

 Evidently, it wa.s I whom he saw. Our friends told him 

 th.-it everything was all right and the watchman retired, 

 apparently not quite satisfied and not fully convinced. 



While our friends went to open the door to speak with 

 the watciiman they found a bicycle in the entrance hall. 

 Thus it seems th.-it my bicycle was carrietl through the 

 closed door and I through tlie window, which was also 

 closed. This happened in March. 1902. I had my full con- 

 sciousness when I left Livorno until I passed through 

 Pisa and regained it at the house of our friends at Flor- 

 ence. 



AN EXPL.\XATION. 



Psychic locomotion so far in advance of the 

 movement of even the swiftest motor-car seems as 

 hard to believe as was the first news of Marconi's 

 wireless telegraphy. But the writer has his theory 

 to offer. He says: — 



It may be asked: How is it possible that an organised 

 being can become dissolved, so ae to pass through solid 

 walls, and be rematerialised again? It seems that for the 

 purpose of solving this question we should understand 

 the mystery of matter and force. We should then perhaps 

 find that we are ourselves an orsr.inisra of forces composed 

 of vibrations of ether upon so low a scale as to appear 

 as what we cali ' matter," and that matter and force are 

 essentially one and the same thini; We know that tho 

 higher may contiol the lower, tho active tlie passive. Mind 

 can control the motions of tho body and spirit the emo- 

 tions of the mind. If our spirituality were fully devel- 

 oped, there is no reason why we should not be able, by 



the power of our spiritual will, to change the vibrations 

 of which our material body is composed ajid send them 

 as " organised force," guided by our thought, to any part 

 of the world. We know that the influence of mind gradual- 

 ly changes the physical body; perliaps if our mental force 

 were stronger great changes in our physical constitution 

 might be produced at will, and certain things which now 

 are regarded as impossible would be found to be perfectly 

 natural. 



DYING TO LIVE AGAIN. 



A Weird Story of an Indian Yogi. 

 The Hindoo Spiritual Magazine, which is becom- 

 ing, under the able editorship of Shishir Kumar 

 Ghose one of the most interesting of all the occult 

 periodicals, pubUshes in its May number a most 

 interesting account of Samadhi, which being inter- 

 preted is : — 



A state iuto which a man, who has been able to enter, 

 can die at hia sweet pleasure, derive all the advantages of 

 a dead man for the time being, and yet can come hack 

 to life whenever he wishes. 



In support of this extraordinary assertion, the 



writer quotes a statement made by Dr. G. D'Ere 



Browne, F.R.C.P., who resided thirty years in India. 



He declares that he saw at the Hardwar festival a 



yogi practise Samadhi. This yogi stood in the 



centre of the sacred square, surrounded by a great 



multitude, and became cataleptic : — 



A group of yogis of the highest order then advanced, 

 bearing a long narrow earthen trough which had been 

 standing over a smoiUdering fire. This was filled with 

 melted wax. Into this each emptied the contents of a little 

 wliite package which he carried. A group from tlie flttli 

 order prepared the body for burial. They wrapped it in 

 many folds of white muslin, and the two ends were closely 

 fastened and wound with white cord. 



Before doing this, however, they worked for some time 

 on the body. Eyes, nose and mouth were firmly sealed 

 with some specially prepared kind of wax. They lilted the 

 body by the cords and gently immersed it in the melted 

 wax". It was then lifted out and held suspended till the 

 wax whitened bv cooling and becoming solid. It was then 

 immersed again and again, eight times in all. a group 

 Ironi another order were at the same time busied in dig- 

 ging a grave. There were about twenty of them at work 

 with spades and shovels, and the work advanced rapidly 

 till tho hole was six or eight feet deep. 



The burial followed. To a repetition of the chant and 

 the procession around the square, the three old men placed 

 the body in a rude wooden box which served as the 

 coffin, and it was lowered into the grave. The earth was 

 filled in and heaped up in a mound on top. 



On the eighth day occurred the resurrection. The 

 grave, which had never been disturbed, was opened. 

 The coffin, which had been nailed down with wooden 

 pegs, was opened by means of wedges. The body 

 was found as he had last seen it. The wrappings 

 were unwound, the flakes of wax removed from 

 eyes, nose, mouth and ears. The other yogis then 

 walked three times round the square. At the third 

 round the yogi raised himself slowly to a sitting 

 posture and looked about him like a man awakened 

 from a sleep. 



The resurrected one then walked sIo^v^y away to 

 his cave in the mountains, where he was to spend 

 the rest of his life in solitary meditation. The cere- 

 mony enabled him finally to interdwell in the two 

 spheres, spiritual or matorial, at will. His followers 

 maintained that he could have remained in his 

 grave a year at least and have come forth alive and 

 well. 



