264 NATUEE STUDIES. 



been so completely suspended that even experienced 

 medical men have sanctioned the arrangements made 

 for the funeral of the entranced person as of one sup- 

 posed to be dead. Crichton describes such a case, 

 where nothing saved the patient from premature burial 

 but the appearance at the last moment of beads of 

 perspiration on the patient's forehead. The young 

 lady who underwent this terrible experience for she 

 was conscious of all that went on had been severa* 

 days regarded as dead. "She heard her friends 

 lamenting her death. She felt them put on the dead- 

 clothes and lay her in the coffin, which produced an 

 indescribable mental anxiety. She tried to cry, but 

 her mind was without power, and could not act on the 

 body. . . . The internal anguish of her mind was, 

 however, at its utmost height when the funeral hymns 

 began to be sung, and when the lid of the coffin was 

 about to be nailed on. The thought that she was to 

 be buried alive was the first one which gave activity 

 to her mind and caused it to operate on her corporeal 

 frame. Just as the people were about to nail on the 

 lid, a kind of perspiration was observed to appear on 

 the surface of the body. It grew greater every 

 moment, and at last a kind of convulsive motion was 

 observed in the hands and feet of the corpse. A few 

 minutes after, during which fresh signs of returning 

 life appeared, she at once opened her eyes and uttered 

 a most pitiable shriek." In most cases trance is pro- 

 duced independently of any effort of the will. But 

 some persons seem to have possessed the power of 



