the Right Hon. John Blaine, M.P.  Having arranged these twelve volunteers in a semi-circle at the back of the stage, Mr. Curtis, standing in the centre of the stage, again addressed his audience.  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said; “the secret of separating the mind—­or what Spiritualists, who love to bolster up their pretended knowledge of the other world by the invention of pretentious nomenclature, call the ’ethical ego’—­from the body, lies in intense concentration.  If you wish to acquire the power, practise concentration—­concentrate on being in a certain place.  If nothing happens at first, don’t be discouraged, but keep on trying, and a time will come when you will suddenly leave your body, in a form, which is the exact counterpart of the body you have left.  You will visit the place whereon you are concentrating.  Perhaps the best method of practising projection is to put your forehead against a door or wall, and concentrate very hard on being on the other side.  It may take weeks before you get a result, but if you persevere, you will eventually succeed in leaving your physical form and passing through the door, or wall, into the space beyond.  Now watch me!  I shall concentrate on projecting my immaterial body, and of walking in it, three times round my material body.”

Mr. Curtis closed his eyes, and for some seconds appeared to be thinking very hard.  Then the audience witnessed a remarkable phenomenon—­a figure, the exact counterpart of Mr. Curtis, stepped out, as it were, from his body, and slowly walking round it three times, deliberately glided into it, and apparently amalgamated with it.  The twelve members from the audience who were within a few feet of the alleged ethereal body, as it walked past them, declared they saw it most vividly, and that feature for feature, detail for detail, it was the exact counterpart of Mr. Curtis, whose material body remained standing, upright and motionless, with its eyes tightly closed.  Our representative questioned several of these eye-witnesses very closely, and they were all most emphatic in their belief that what they had seen was a bona-fide case of spiritual projection.  At the request of a large part of the audience, Mr. Curtis repeated his demonstration, a further complement of men from the stalls joining those already on the stage to witness the operation.

Several tests were now applied to the ethereal body of Mr. Curtis, as it walked round his material body.  One man, clutching at its sleeve, tried to detain it, but his hand passed through the sleeve, and held—­nothing.  Another man put out an arm to act as a barrier, and the projection, without swerving from its course, passed right through it; and, on the completion of the third round, disappeared as before.