“Again, on December 1, 1882, I was at Southall.  At half-past nine I sat down to endeavor to fix my mind so strongly upon the interior of a house at Kew, where Miss V. and her sister lived, that I seemed to be actually in the house.  I was conscious, but was in a kind of mesmeric sleep.  When I went to bed that night, I willed to be in the front bedroom of that house at Kew at twelve; and to make my presence felt by the inmates.  Next day I went to Kew.  Miss V.’s married sister told me, without any prompting from me, that she had seen me in the passage going from one room to another at half-past nine o’clock, and that at twelve, when she was wide awake, she saw me come to the front bedroom, where she slept, and take her hair, which is very long, into my hand.  She said I then took her hand, and gazed into the palm intently.  She said, ’You need not look at the lines, for I never have any trouble.’  She then woke her sister.  When Mrs. L. told me this, I took out the entry that I had made the previous night and read it to her.  Mrs. L. is quite sure she was not dreaming.  She had only seen me once before, two years previously.  Again, on March 22, 1884, I wrote to Mr. Gurney, of the Psychical Research Society, telling him that I was going to make my presence felt by Miss V., at 44 Norland Square, at midnight.  Ten days afterwards, I saw Miss V., when she voluntarily told me that on Saturday at midnight, she distinctly saw me, when she was quite wide awake.”

The records of the psychic researchers are filled with numerous accounts of cases in which similar astral projections have occurred when the person was on his or her death-bed, but was still alive.  It would seem that under such circumstances the astral senses are very much freer from the interference of the physical senses, and tend to manifest very strongly in the form of appearances to persons in whom the dying person is attached by the ties of affection.  Many who read this course have known of cases of this kind, for they are of quite frequent occurrence.

The student will notice that in the majority of the cases cited in this chapter the clairvoyant has been in a state of sleep, or semi-sleep—­often in a dream condition.  But you must not jump to the conclusion that this condition is always necessary for the manifestation of this phenomenon.  On the contrary, the advanced and well developed clairvoyants usually assume merely a condition of deep reverie or meditation, shutting out the sounds and thoughts of the physical plane, so as to be able to function better on the astral plane.

The reason that so many recorded cases have occurred when the clairvoyant person was asleep, and the vision appeared as a dream, is simply because in such a condition the physical senses of the person are stilled and at rest, and there is less likelihood of interference from them, and a better opportunity for the astral senses to function effectively.  It is like the familiar cases in which one becomes so wrapped up in