Note 199 — Chapter IX · TRANCE, POSSESSION, AND ECSTASY

One important point of similarity is the concurrence in some savage ceremonies of utterance through an invading spirit and travelling clairvoyance exercised meantime by the man whose organism is thus invaded. The uncouth spirit shouts and bellows, presumably with the lungs of the medicine-man, hidden from view in profound slumber. Then the medicine-man awakes,—and tells the listening tribe the news which his sleep-wanderings, among gods or men, have won.

If this indeed be thus, it fits in strangely with the experience of our modern seers,—with the spiritual interchange which takes place when a discarnate intelligence occupies the organism and meantime the incarnate intelligence, temporarily freed, awakes to wider percipience,—in this or in another world.