Legends

self as bankrupt in everything, and distrusts everyone. Deprived of the faculties which render us capable of enjoyment and of suffering, he is indifferent to everything. He began his career as an enthusiast for the freedom of the individual,

sed in the laboratory where he was an assistant. As a result of his privations he had less power to resist alcohol, and although lie was not a drunkard, the effect of the small quantity of drink which he could procure was too much for him. Abandoned to the mercy of fortune by his relatives, he was helped by a Swedenborgian, whom he hardly knew, to enter an institution fo

works of Swedenborg, whom the cultivated classes in Sweden openly despise, yet now he turns u

repeatedly dealt him. He cannot stoop, and thinks it unworthy of a man to kneel to unknown powers who might

ishing to influence him. "You see," I say to him, "religion is a thi

er, as though he were vexed, but he comes again and looks as if he had been brooding over some thought. Sometimes,

o absurd that there mu

is it,

sion,-you cannot think what it looks like,-and the table in a mess.

e with a spite

ve the room, and if there were anyone

is i

l, w

one un

re watching me, and could read my most secret thoughts. And if I

similar abnormal

e Swedenborgians, have. Wait a minute, though!

me he

e on me remained with me unconsciously, and in order to shake it off I continued my walk outside the town, and finally found myself in the country. Tired and hungry I entered an inn, where I ordered at the bar a Frankfort sausage and a pint of beer. 'A Frankfort sausage and a pint-' of beer,' repeated some one at my side, and, as I turn

though he wished to obliterate the picture by rubbing the p

our goal. On the first of May I went pretty early through the Park to eat dinner with a school-master. When we had sat down at a table in the large, open balcony, which was empty, I su

n, who was an old inhabitant of Lu

gner, ce

e changed our seats. The man followed us without breaking silence. His looks were neither malicious nor severe, but rather melancholy and expressionless like those of a somnamb

t like what our friend Mar

emories the Berlin Lavatory and "Friend Martin" (as the

astonishment when I noticed a protuberance on his neck! In order to clear up the

inctly. Wh

been too long a story. Besides, the scho

m of students. Without beating about the bush I asked him di

hat?" And he looked em

swer my

d to sleep in the day, and theref

side and roam about

I slept, I saw the fire which had broken o

ed to him the appearance in the Park, and c

erance in the neck made him shudder, he exclaimed

both

und the possible theories of the phenomeno

can be visible to many. All so-called telepathic experiences are thus explained. The creations of the imagination have no reality, but some visions and hallucinations have a kind of mate

image of me by a free and conscious effort of his own. But suppose again that an old aunt of mine in a foreign country sits at

ch a degree that I saw the inside of my house and for a moment forgot my surroundings, having lost the consciousness of where I was. I was really there behind the piano as I appeared, and the imaginati

ere an essay of my own printed last year in the Initiation, wh

S ON THE IRR

LITY OF

hich express well the capacity which the soul possesses of expanding and contractin

crossing of irradiations from souls in different moods which causes a general feeling of oppression. It is not warm, but one feels as though one were stifled; the senses, charged to overflow

ce, and the various currents neutralise each other when all present

and lets his thoughts wander, while he steps outside the magic circle of those shut up with him, to whom, however, he is indifferent. The secret of the success of a great actor consists in his i

not acquired the power of going out of himself, will never make a great impression on

existence itself is threatened, th

to seek a life somewhere else, where living is easier, and it is not for nothing

window, which looked out on a gloomy street in a small industrial town of Moravia. In the neighbouring

the sunshine. The little garden which I had myself cultivated in my youth was there; the roses-I could tell them by their names-the syringas, the jasmines exhaled their scents so that I could smell them; I picked caterp

ad come from behind in order to say good morning, a

nd I said it in my native language, which m

nterval to recollect in some degree that I was conscious and intact in the room, where I had just been sitting and working. If, according to the old methods of explanation, my soul had merely sunk in herself and st

to cause me suffering. But the pains were felt in the neighbourhood of the spine and not in the brain, and th

his nerves were in a very over-strained condition, and after having received in the course of the day a letter containing reproaches from his father, he was quite beside himself. I forgot my own wounds while I was tending those of another. The task was a difficult one, and caused me some mental disturbance. After arguments and endless appeals, I wished to call up in his memory a past event which might influence his resolve. He had forgotten the occurrence in question, and in order to stimulate his memory, I began to describe it to him. "You remember that evening in the Augustiner tavern." I continued to describe the table where we had eaten our meal, the position of the bar, the door through which people

feeling a pang pass through me,

was distorted with

matter?" I

readful," h

ha

le and explain nothing. First and foremost, fainting fits and giddiness are accompanied by loss of consciousness. Nor was it a case of

." Now that I know it, I am sure that the soul possesses the power of expansion which it exercises in a very high de

want to cut off the connection between the two, but it could not be avoided, and I felt a keen feeling of discomfort as I passed between the two quarrelling men

clothe herself in our other "I," and becomes our counterpart. When she takes it into her head to depart with our soul, the pain which it causes us is perhaps the most violent that there is, only to be compared to that of a mother who has lost her child. There is a painful sense of emptiness and woe to the

e mutual "suggestion" when they like. They no longer feel the need of speech; the mere presence of the beloved gives joy, her soul radiates warmth. When they are divided t

arrived at the conviction lat mail leads a double life, that

evil conscience and fears of the consequences. And from reasons, which I reserve the right to explain some other time, I believe that the so-called persecution-mania really springs from pa

about deat

tage of my experience have recommended the following experiment, which I have repeat

al symptoms follow-a slight throbbing of the throat, and an indescribable taste in the mouth, which I might by analogy call "cyanic," paralysis of the biceps-muscle, and pain in the stomach. The deadly effect of cyanic acid remains still a myster

hod of operation must be regarded much more as psychical, especially when one has regard

ring which the pleasant sensations far outweigh the trifling pains. The mental capacities gain in clearness, exactly contrary to their condition at the approach

nt one must proceed with the various methods which are used to resuscitate a person who has been choked. The fakirs use warm compresses on the brain, the Chinese warm the pit of the stomach and cause sneezing. In his remarkable book, Positive

quack Francis Schlatter who was suspected of being his "double." The time has come when I am obliged t

"My Friend H." Under this title a certain Herr H. Lugner had published in the feuilleton of the Journal des Débats for 26th November 1858 a narrative which he asserted to be fact, and offered

leep, from which nothing could rouse him. In brief, H. lived a double life, so that at night he committed criminal acts in Melbo

of the circumstances. Modern literature has already dealt with the phenomenon of the Doppelg?nger (double) in the famous romance T

ertook a cruise to Norrland and Norway, and expected to derive from it a real fee

a pleasant j

, and I found myself alone. I only stayed in my room one day, and was then turned out of it by a stranger to whom my brother, by mistake, had previously promised it. Ill-luck made me so stupid that I did not go and see the exhibition, and as I wandered about alone in the streets, suddenly

antipathies had appointed a rendezvous. The Free Church pastor was feeding his flock there, and they were singing psalms morning, noon, and evening. It was enough to drive one wild, and yet it seemed quite

your

to Norway. When I ask the hotel manager for an explanation, he de

es

absurdity suggest the existence of a reality, which yet is neither real objectively nor a mere

ralplanet," is also described by Swedenborg in

n placed merely to experience what they are like, and what is to be understood by the ex

te he seems to himself to be fully awake. This is the condition of being "rapt fro

ting the road. Yet all the while I was in a vision, and saw woods, rivers, palaces, houses, men, and other things. But after I had wandered thus for some hours, I fell suddenly into a state of corporeal

raid, but he is uncomfortable. Sometimes he hears steps and other sounds from the room of his absent sister, sometimes sneezing. Some days ago he heard in the middle of the night a sharp metallic s

d, as autumn approach

a pecul