SPECIFIC CAUSES OF DISEASE 83One night some time ago while in transit to a place
in a far country where I had a mission to perform, I
heard a cry. Though the human voice can be heard
only in air, there are overtones which are heard in the
spiritual realms at distances exceeding those traversed
by wireless messages. The cry was close by, however,
and I was on the scene in an instant, but not soon
enough to give the needed help. I found a man sliding
down a slanting embankment, bare of vegetation,
perhaps a dozen feet in width, and as it proved on
subsequent examination, almost smooth, and without a
fissure which would have afforded a hold for his
fingers. To have saved him would have involved
materialization of both hands and shoulders, but there
was no time. In a moment he had slid over the
overhanging precipice and was falling to the floor of
the canyon below, probably several thousand feet.
Prompted by a natural spirit of fellow feeling I
followed and on the way observed the phenomenon
which is the basis of this article, namely, that when the
body had attained a considerable velocity, the ethers
composing the vital body commenced to ooze out, and
when the body crashed to the rocks below, a mangled
mass, there was very little if any ether left in it.
Gradually, however, the ethers drifted together, took
form, and hovered with the finer vehicles above the
mangled corpse; but the man was in a stupor and
unable to sense or realize the fact of his altered
condition.
As soon as I saw that he was beyond help, I went
on; but on thinking the matter over it dawned on me
that something unusual had happened and that it was
my duty to find out if the ethers left that way in