INTRODUCTION.

We will now proceed to describe the process of the production of this book, and the phenomena connected with it:

In the first place, the magnetizer The person performing the hypnosis or "mesmeric" induction. and magnetizee The subject being hypnotized; in this case, Andrew Jackson Davis. are seated in easy positions facing each other. The ordinary manipulations Hand gestures or "passes" used by mesmerists to influence the subject's "animal magnetism." are then performed, with three to five minutes being required for the completion of the process. A sudden convulsion of the muscles, such as is produced by an electric shock, indicates that the subject is duly magnetized. Immediately after this, his eyes are bandaged to protect them from the light. He then remains speechless and motionless for some four or five minutes, with the exception of an occasional sudden convulsion of the muscles. One of these convulsions at length brings him to a state of external consciousness and gives him perfect command over the muscles of the body and the organs of speech. He next assumes a position inclined either to the right or to the left and becomes cold, rigid, motionless, and insensible to all external things. His pulse becomes feeble, his breathing is apparently almost suspended, and all his senses are closed entirely to the external world.

This condition, according to his own explanation, corresponds almost precisely to that of physical death. The faint vital forces still remaining in his system are only sustained sympathetically by the presence of the magnetizer, whose system is blended and united with his own by an ethereal medium. If, while he is in this condition, the magnetizer should by any means lose connection with him, the vital movements of the body would cease, and the spirit would be incapable of re-entering it, as he himself has informed us. In this respect, he is different from any person we have ever seen while under the magnetic influence.

His mind is now entirely freed from the sphere of the body and, consequently, from all preconceived ideas, from all theological "isms," and from all influences of education and local circumstances; all his impressions are received from the interior or spiritual world. His perceptions, conceptions, and reasoning powers are now immeasurably expanded. His spiritual sight, freed from its material obstructions, now extends to innumerable worlds and systems. He feels that he has almost ceased to be a member of the human family on earth and is a member only of that great family of intelligent beings which inhabit universal space.

He is thus elevated above all the narrow, local, and sectarian prejudices that pervade the earth. His philosophy is only that which is involved in the laws and principles which control the universe and mankind unerringly. His theology is only that which is written on the wide-spread scroll of the heavens, in which every star is a word and every constellation a sentence. He associates familiarly with the inhabitants of the spirit-world, and the diversified knowledge cultivated by them is rendered accessible to his mind. The associated spirits and angels of the "Second Sphere" In Davis's cosmology, the "Second Sphere" is the first level of the afterlife or spirit world. are, as one grand Man, in sympathetic communication with him to transmit knowledge to mankind on earth—knowledge which they perceive humanity is now, for the first time, prepared to receive. Thus exalted, he gives forth his impressions of truth as it actually appears to him, without reference to any of the beliefs, philosophies, theories, or sectarian prejudices that exist in the world.

Having thus access to all the knowledge of the Second Sphere combined with that of the first, such truths as are appropriate to communicate flow spontaneously into his mind, these being at the same time arranged according to a natural order of sequence. As soon as a distinct impression is thus received, the