There were many other such illustrations given.  They were, I discovered, by no means imaginary cases, projected into our minds by a kind of mental suggestion, but actual things happening upon earth.  We saw many strange scenes of tragedy, we had a glimpse of lunatic asylums and hospitals, of murder even, and of evil passions of anger and lust.  We saw scenes of grief and terror; and, stranger still, we saw many things that were being enacted not on the earth, but upon other planets, where the forms and appearances of the creatures concerned were fantastic and strange enough, but where the motive and the emotion were all perfectly clear.  At times, too, we saw scenes that were beautiful and touching, high and heroic beyond words.  These seemed to come rather by contrast and for encouragement; for the work was distinctly pathological, and dealt with the disasters and complications of emotions, as a rule, rather than with their glories and radiances.  But it was all incredibly absorbing and interesting, though what it was to lead up to I did not quite discern.  What struck me was the concentration of effort upon human emotion, and still more the fact that other hopes and passions, such as ambition and acquisitiveness, as well as all material and economic problems, were treated as infinitely insignificant, as just the framework of human life, only interesting in so far as the baser and meaner elements of circumstance can just influence, refining or coarsening, the highest traits of character and emotion.

We were given special cases, too, to study and consider, and here I had the first inkling of how far it is possible for disembodied spirits to be in touch with those who are still in the body.

As far as I can see, no direct intellectual contact is possible, except under certain circumstances.  There is, of course, a great deal of thought-vibration taking place in the world, to which the best analogy is wireless telegraphy.  There exists an all-pervading emotional medium, into which every thought that is tinged with emotion sends a ripple.  Thoughts which are concerned with personal emotion send the firmest ripple into this medium, and all other thoughts and passions affect it, not in proportion to the intensity of the thought, but to the nature of the thought.  The scale is perfectly determined and quite unalterable; thus a thought, however strong and intense, which is concerned with wealth or with personal ambition sends a very little ripple into the medium, while a thought of affection is very noticeable indeed, and more noticeable in proportion as it is purer and less concerned with any kind of bodily passion.  Thus, strange to say, the thought of a father for a child is a stronger thought than that of a lover for his beloved.  I do not know the exact scale of force, which is as exact as that of chemical values—­and of course such emotions are apt to be complex and intricate; but the purer and simpler the thought is, the greater