Note 9 — Chapter III

The German philosopher, Schelling, has acknowledged the great importance of somnambulism in the question of the immortality of the soul. He remarks that, in lucid sleep, there is produced an elevation of the soul, and its relative liberation with regard to the body, which does not take place in the normal state. In somnambulists, everything indicates the loftiest consciousness, as though their whole being were met in one luminous focus, uniting together past, present and future. Far from losing all memory of the past, it lies open before them, and even the veil of the future is at times cast aside in a glorious ray of light. If this is possible in earthly life, Schelling inquires, is it not certain that our spiritual personality, which follows us in death, is at this very moment present in us, that it is not born then but simply set free, and shows itself when it is no longer bound by the senses to the outside world? The post-mortem condition is accordingly more real than the earthly one. For in this life, that which is accidental, mingling with the whole, paralyzes in us that which is essential. Schelling calls the future state quite simply, clairvoyance. The spirit liberated from everything accidental in earthly life becomes stronger and more alive; the wicked man becomes worse, the good better.

Quite recently Charles du Prel has advanced the same opinion, supporting it with numerous facts and details in a well-written volume, Philosophie der Mystik (1886). He starts from this fact: the consciousness of the ego does not exhaust its object. “Soul and consciousness are not two adequate terms; they do not cover one another as they have not an equal scope. The sphere of the soul far surpasses that of the consciousness.” Consequently there is a latent ego in us. This latent ego, which manifests itself in sleep and in dreams, is the real ego, supra-terrestrial and transcendent, whose existence precedes our terrestrial ego which is bound to the body. The terrestrial ego is perishable, the transcendent ego is immortal. This is what St. Paul meant when he said—“——the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, so that it be fashioned like unto His glorious body.”