Fechner points to a connection between the consciousness of the individual and that of a world-soul. Paul's reference to the Father in whom "we live, and move and have our being," agrees with the concept of psychic-monism. According to this theory, which may be regarded as a proposed explanation for psychic phenomena in general, all beings are conditioned by, and in fact, owe their very existence to a world-soul. Like fish in the sea, they are derived from its substance, live their lives under its influence (Nature's laws), and at death are resolved within its universal being.

Hence, in the light of this view, such an apparently complex phenomenon as bi-location, or even tri, or multiple location of identical personality, becomes, in principle, understandable. But, as fish in the sea, or seed bearing plants in the soil leave seeds of personality behind them for species propagation, so is it necessary for the maintenance of a train of thought which squares with scientific epistemology, to think of the spirit world in this manner.

Without the guidance which biological epistemology, in particular, offers us, we may fall into the sentimental error with which some Spiritualists indulge themselves. We will find ourselves insisting, on an entirely a priori basis, that the soul, in post-mortem existence, "lives just like it does here"; it possesses a body five or six feet tall, has stately flowing garments to wear, and a new hat just out of the cardboard box. Not even the necessary molar teeth, for the mastication of the turkey at the sanctified feast of Thanksgiving or Christmas cannibalism are forgotten. The slant-eyed devas and mahatmic gods of the Orient, and the round-eyed cherubim of the Occident are also indicative of this misleading tendency to anthropomorphically shackle universal law into the sphere of wish fulfilment.

Now the facts of scientific epistemology are not contra-indicated by those of the experimental laboratory which is the seance room. Far from this being the case, the two are in harmony. For granting that the materialized spirit does often have a white robe, it is an ideoplastically generated one. It is made in a crudely [8] extemporized construction, for identification purposes. It would be a strange thing if the tadpole were to spring like the Greek deity, from an ovo-plasm, fully formed. The laws governing parsimony in nature, and those relating to function as the excuse for the development of an organ would be violated. Nowhere in the embryology of the phyla of the animal and plant series does such biological absurdity exist. Its life history over, the tadpole frog exists only as an egg again. I am now speaking of the physical form only. But I am arguing that if the soul survives, it would be contrary to biological epistemology for it to possess other than a seed form. The materialized spirit form glides; it does not walk. What need then for feet? Lacking a measuring rod for the interpretation of the variable and ephemeral visions of the prophets, followers of religious groups become tied by dogma. Through repetition of the creeds which verbally impress and re-impress the experience of the prophets and the Fathers of the Churches upon the church masses, the dreams and visions of the latter tend to repeat the experience of the prophets. Thus they become ever more sacred and inviolate to the thus millennially hypnotized groups. That there is basic truth underlying such experience, I do not deny, but affirm. Let us now see whether the facts of objective and subjective experience can be reconciled to this line of thought.

An experience of the writer may be used here to illustrate the discussion. It can be checked by the general experience of parapsychologists in the seance room. While sitting, with perhaps ten or more other observers, at a seance before a cabinet in which reclined on a chair, the medium M. Williams, two forms appeared. One was the wife and the other the husband of a couple, related, during life, to the writer. Both were quite unknown to Williams. The wife had been of plump, short stature, and the husband tall, slender and bearded. The wife had been killed perhaps a year previously, when struck by a careless motorist. At the mortician's parlors, her face showed four marked contusions which appeared dark on her skin because of a pronounced ecchymosis due to subcutaneous blood vessel rupture. Two of these were on the forehead, and the remaining two in the region of the maxillary facial surfaces.

As the writer, checked by other sitters, looked, a tiny, bright "spirit light" moved out of the cabinet to a point perhaps one meter from the opening in the curtain. It was about five feet from the floor. Here it remained stationary and an ideoplastic moulding process began. The tiny light enlarged. It seemed to possess a dim corona of luminous mist about it. It proceeded to grow, like the germinal disc of an embryo, in lateral and longitudinal directions, until a roughly square mass of bluish-white ectoplasm, seemingly about 16 to 24 inches, had developed. A constriction near the center, in the horizontal plane now appeared. Crude buds, which became short arms and legs became evident, two above and two below the waist line of partial segmentation. A cephalic vesicle then became visible, with a cervical constriction for the neck. On the face of the ephemeral head four dark marks were apparent. In size and location they resembled those described above. They were, of course, intended to identify the injured wife, as were also her plumpness and shortness of stature. To assist in this identification for both forms, a tall, slender and bearded masculine figure emerged from the cabinet, following the wife, and remained somewhat nearer to the curtain. The two remained in full view of all sitters for perhaps 30 seconds. They then began a slow dissolving movement characteristic of such psycho-biological presentations.

The writer has used, to assist clarity, a few embryological terms, since the forms seemed to roughly parallel the development of the mammalian germinal disc with its primitive (egg-cell) point of light, central notochordal streak and [9] vesicular anlages.

We see here, that while the husband possessed a "robe", it was of fugitive character, and hence should not be regarded as normal to a spirit in spirit life. Rather, the concept and fact of the point of light is fundamental. It fits in, as does its succeeding ephemeral development, with the facts of biological epistemology. It conforms to universal law.

The observations of the clairvoyant, as the writer has personally studied them in himself and others square, in the main, with seance room notes. The Spirit (except for certain apparitional appearances), comes before the gaze transitorially, and is gone in a moment, frequently. When the time of remaining is extended it is for some purpose requiring time. Usually only the face, built up in sketchy fashion, is dimly seen in "the astral light". His identification and "message" are the important thing. Spirits do not waste time, but come only for some helpful purpose, be it ever so slight. As in the case mentioned, form is wholly subordinate to these two items. When he comes as a face or a form he is not usually seen as a point of light because the "building up" process has been done from his seed form, (spiriton) state so quickly it could not be seen.

Let us turn new to the theory of the spiriton. The writer will not describe the basic (theoretical) form seen in the blue sky typically, and also under other conditions. This has already been covered in other pages of the R.R. and in his books and pamphlets. Most of those who wrote, beside the writer, however, spoke from a point of view which is only intermediate between normal and clairvoyant vision. Many do not seem to "develop" their seeing beyond this point. But by the now well known and established methods of occult progress, the point which has been described as the "spiroculon" may be reached.

When small, bright or dull, whitish blue or yellowish lights are seen against any sort of background; when these appear and disappear quickly; when something of a pragmatic or useful sequence occurs just after, indicating their precognitive character; when they, in other words signal to one, one may assume that he already has, or is developing a "spirit band." Some people among the occult groups, having followed the prophets in their thinking, prefer to think of these appearances as "fire lives," or to designate them by some other term such as "virgin spirits." But since the arrangement of psychic photographs which may be made as proceeding from tiny points of light to larger ones nearly always show human faces, and since these lights develop in the seance room as human faces generally, and since one can see them as human, and since appeal to "the angel" of which recent R.R. writers have spoken designates them as human, for the writer at least, they are here treated as human and the basic form of soul survival. The spiroculon signalling, if one may take the word of some occult writers for it, and other material purporting to come from spirit sources, is a universal system of signalling among spirits, and from spirits to men. About the time the spiroculon is seen the "angel" (Superior Dynamism of Geley) should or does make his debut into consciousness, at least for many.

A brief description of the mode of manifestation has been given in the preceding paragraph. A further illustration of the work and functions of spiroculons will now be attempted. It must be understood that the writer, here, in giving one of his own experiences, is speaking from the point of subjectively observed occurrences. Having made an appeal to the Superior Dynamism for information as to how [10] clairvoyantly-seen writing is constructed, a vision at the hypnagogic level was noted. A multitude of tiny points or spheres appeared and moved into position to produce alphabetic characters. The writing so produced, the tiny spheres scattered and took on a slow undulatory movement, resembling the blue sky motions of spiritons. Their speed, though visible, was incredibly swift and accurate for the mass movement of bodies into prearranged form. Here, it seemed to the writer, was a workable hypothesis, if not a theory, for the mechanism of the presentation of subjective appearances of at least some kinds. While it is admitted that autosuggestion played its part, if it is assumed that the small bodies seen were spiroculons or spiritons, a glimpse of the way of work of the latter may have been obtained.

When one sits quietly and gazes at the atmosphere, or even the floor or blank walls of a room, if he is a "developed" psychic, he may see a streak as though of a tiny light passing him. In time he will see that these streaks are the rapid motions of small lights. The writer has been told, via the Superior Dynamism, that these are "directions". They are invariably practical, and usually precognitive. At times when conditions are favorable, they will invite to meditation. Meditation being undertaken, they will shine in considerable number, somewhat like stars in the sky. At such a time, also, at the hypnagogic level very often, a sound which resembles the rush of wind in short gusts, but without cutaneous sensation will be felt. It may be assumed that this phenomenon is caused by spiroculons impinging upon the tympanum or disturbing the fluids of the middle ear. The next step will be, or should be "messages" audibly received.

The precognitive work of this mechanism has often been observed by the writer when on street cars, the starting, stopping and swaying of the vehicle being shown in a sort of pantomime made by the behaviour of the spiroculons. While sitting at a theater, a psychic person can, in a sketchy way, perceive a pantomime play going on before the real movement appears.

The writer thinks he is due to pause at this point, and explain to the Editor of the R.R. and his readers, that he must admit that he has broken a previously made promise not to inflict too much clairvoyance upon a reading public, when he cannot check it by experiment of objective sort. Early issues of the R.R. had made the writer feel that this was the preferred procedure, but his cryptaesthesic accelerator has been stepped on a little by the astral excursions of Mr. Crump and Frater I.N.A., resulting in the impulse to also glorify his own visions a little. This whether or no he sticks to his cabinet and camera.

By way of a brief summary, may I point out that:

*****

References

1. Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887), German philosopher, physicist, psychologist, founder of psychophysics. Author of "Das Büchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode" [The Little Book of Life After Death] (1836) <https://archive.org/details/littlebookoflife00fechuoft>, "Elemente der Psychophysik" [Elements of Psychophysics] (1860). Developed Fechner's scale, which holds that perception of a stimulus (as sensation) is logarithmically proportional to the intensity of the stimulus [S = K \ln I], in addition to his related studies of color perception, synesthesia, and aesthetics.

   Further reading: Heidelberger, Michael. Nature from Within: Gustav Theodor Fechner and His Psychophysical Worldview. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. Print. <http://amzn.to/1tlugmr> [Survey of Fechner's work in relation to modern psychology]; Worcester, Elwood, and Gustav T. Fechner. The Living Word. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co, 1908. Print. <https://archive.org/details/livingword00worcrich> [Translations of Fechner's writings on the nature of the spirit and God, related metaphysics.]

2. Gustave Geley (1868-1924), French physician and psychical researcher, director of Institut Métapsychique International (IMI). Author of "L'être Subconscient" [Being subconscious] (1899), "De l’Inconscient au Conscient" [From The Unconscious To The Conscious] (1919) <https://archive.org/details/fromunconscioust00geleiala>. Postulated a "superior, organising, centralising, and directing dynamism."

   Further reading: IMI biography of Geley (in French), <http://www.metapsychique.org/Gustave-Geley.html>; SurvivalAfterDeath.info bio (in English), <http://www.survivalafterdeath.info/researchers/geley.htm>