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Magic as a natural science by Dr. Carl Freiherr Du Prel  Part One: Magical Physics

3. The ecstatic flight and the technical flight.

If gravity, which is so puzzling to physicists, were an electrical attraction, if Newton's law of gravity were contained in Weber's electrodynamic law as a special case, then for a heavy, i.e. attracted body, as soon as its electrical sign would change, its attraction would be transformed into repulsion, gravity into levitation. We know that changes in the electrical sign are possible at all; for when a magnetic iron rod is shattered into pieces, each piece gets its two poles; and when you approach an influencing glass tube to an egg, the electricity in the egg in the neutral state is broken down into positive and negative.

Physics sees electricity as a basic property of all bodies, and only subdivides electrical and non-electrical bodies into electrical and non-electrical ones in so far as in the latter the electricity is in the neutral state, just as the magnet closed by its armature no longer shows any poles and almost no iron is attracted.

Man called the microcosm, because he unites all the forces of nature in himself, also belongs to the non-electric bodies insofar as his electricity is neutral. Since electricity is stored in accumulators by being transformed into chemical forms of energy, which are reconverted during use, the constant chemical processes in the organism could also have an accumulative effect. So there is nothing wrong with the possibility of such a change in the sign, which would cause levitation, and even if we regard man as an Od source, it seems possible; because the Od is also polarized.

The centrifugal law which, as a polar opposition to gravity, abolishes it exists for man as well as for any inanimate object, and it is only a matter of the conditions under which levitation occurs. However, throughout the occultism of all countries and times there are the facts that people demonstrate levitation while in ecstatic states, but in tedious mass media reports, these phenomena occur spontaneously, and only by way of exception there is any mention of experimental trials. I repeat, however, that levitation is not just the vertical elevation, but any movement in any direction that can only occur under the abolition of gravity.

Since the discovery of animal magnetism, it has been known that the magnetizer can act on the magnetized in the same way as the magnet acts on the iron, that is, like mineral magnetism, animal magnetism also opposes gravity. Lafontaine put his somnambulist on scales with the appropriate counterweight. When he now held his hands over her head, she lost weight.[1]

Dr. Kretschmar made use of a conductor, and when in the absence of a glass rod a longer prism was approached close to the somnambulae, the parts of the body first lying on the prism were already moving at a distance of 2 feet, arms and feet followed slowly and were able to move in different positions. When the prism was held in front of the forehead, it was directed upwards. When the prism was placed on the middle of the bed, she rose with the whole body, including the blanket and the prism on it, over a span. She complained of heavy pulling, and when she touched the prism, of burning and stinging.[2] The magnetizer Neubert was able to lift the fingers, arms and upper body of Auguste K. if he held his own fingers some distance away.[3]

The greatest power of this kind consists in the vertical elevation of a standing upper body. A magnetizer, mentioned by the Charpignon, laid his hand a few inches over the heart cavity of a somnambulist and the body rose freely floating. If he held his hand over her head while she stood, she lost the ground under her feet, so that one could pass one's hand underneath.[4]

Both Kerner and his wife were able to lift the Seeress of Prevorst up by holding her fingers to theirs.[5] In the years 1846 and 1847, attempts were made in Toulouse to lift horizontally lying bodies by merely placing the index fingers of 4 men on both sides in the air. These successful attempts were repeated and simplified by Le Mans.[6] Rotational movements of up to twelve per minute were also achieved in this way.[7] Bourguignon laid his hand over the heart pit of his somnambulae and she rose horizontally floating, as did Mrs. Pourat when magnetized by her father.[8]

Dr. Nick put his right thumb on the left side of the somnambulist, allowing her arm to be steered at will. When it was stretched out horizontally, he removed the thumb and the arm remained stiff. In the same way he lifted the whole upper body until she had to stand from the chair and stood only at the tips of her toes. He also lifted her from a lying position, first following her arms, then the head with the upper abdomen, then the lower abdomen with immobile thighs, until she rested only on her toes. She remained in this position with outstretched arms until he produced free movement by blowing and stroking.[9]

Among the dervishes, the uplift of a human body by the magnetic chain of life is a well-known thing: one dervish lies on the flat ground, seven others, holding hands, stand around him. After a moment during which the Sheikh summons the spirits, the lying person is lifted up and remains floating in the air without support for as long as the Sheikh wants, about 2 feet high.[10]

 More recently, Rochas says, "If Mrs. K. was at the beginning of hypnosis, and I passed a voltage current through her - the positive pole in the right hand, the negative pole in the left - her limbs would rise by themselves, and I said that if I continued, she would rise to the ceiling".[11] It is told of a peasant girl in Spain that her body was lifted into the air when magnetized iron rods 1/2 meter high were held above her.[12]

Animal magnetism is thus able to counteract the gravity of mineral magnetism. As with autosomnambulists, however, magnetic phenomena often occur on their own, so does levitation. Dr. Eletz says that his somnambulist "gradually began to float and fly, her body floating in all directions with incomprehensible ease and in the most graceful way, as if in flight".[13]

As Dr. Klein says: "Now she bent back so much against me that she rested on the edge of the bed with only the third part of her body, so to speak, and we could not understand how it was possible to maintain balance. She assured us that she would not fall... She straightened up, fell back, threw herself over the bed, that she was only holding herself with her legs on the edge and we rushed to hold her; but at the same moment she threw herself up again.

While she had the autosuggestion of a mountain climb, she climbed up the bed drawer, held on to the wall and climbed up to the ceiling, fell back, stood up again, climbed around the edges of the bed drawer in an incomprehensible way, climbed over it to the back wall, held on to the ceiling of the room, opened her eyes and laughed from the bottom of her throat .... She held herself, as it were, to the imaginary objects of her vision, so that the most skillful juggler could not have imitated these daring positions.[14]

The seeress of Prevorst demonstrated the beginnings of the ecstatic flight; she started to fly when she was running, and her feet could no longer be seen on the ground.[15] The same is told about the Virgin of Orleans running with other girls, and when she arrived at the goal she stood "as if out of her mind" and a vision came to her.[16]

As the seeress of Prevorst said, it often seemed to her as if she was out of her mind, and then she also had no feeling of the heaviness of her body. Dr. Wurm had a somnambulist who was not allowed to be touched by anyone but him; when carrying her back and forth while removing her from bed because of her weakness, she was of a low weight that he could not explain neither by her thinness nor by his strength.[17] This lightness was also demonstrated by Alexander Dumas' somnambulist, who walked over the eggs scattered on the ground and did not break any of them.[18]

In their relation to the water, the somnambulists show phenomena which, as a result, are equivalent to a reduction in density. The Seeress of Prevorst could hardly be drown in the water while bathing.[19] Dr. Koreff's somnambulist, who could not swim, kept herself above the water in her state of somnambulism, showed herself in all her limbs and was beside herself with joy.[20] Similar to a somnambulist of Dr. Despine, who usually had a swimming belt, but in his somnambulism she lay on the water like a board.[21]

The Auguste K. noticed it while bathing in the Elbe that she did not sink in the water.[22] Dr. Franklin tells us that he lay down on his back while bathing, fell asleep and only woke up after an hour. In Ireland, a coast guard once noticed a man swimming in the sea; a boat went out and caught the swimmer, who turned out to be a somnambulist; he had left at midnight, walked two miles of a dangerous path, and swum 1 1/2 miles.[23]

Baxter cites a "melancholic" woman who threw herself into the water and lay there for three hours.[24] In Christian mysticism this swimming on the water is a very common phenomenon,[25] and in India it has been known since ancient times. Jogi is said to swim on the water like wood and to be able to walk on the waves.[26] According to human's laws, it is a sign of the truth of an oath if the swearing person does not sink into the water.[27]

Agrippa, in his commentary on Pliny, mentions after Philarchus a sorcerer on the Black Sea who, even if dressed, could not be submerged in water.[28] This is perhaps the oldest example of the water test of witches, which I have already mentioned elsewhere,[29] and about which many writings have appeared.[30]

In Szegedin in 1728 several persons were captured and subjected to the water test. At first they swam "like slippers"; then they were put on the scales, where "a large and fat woman did not weigh more than 1 1/2 quentlein, her husband, who was not one of the smallest, only 5 quentlein, the others, however, continuously weighed only 1 plumb, 3 quentlein and even less".[31] This witch scale[32] was still used in 1823 and the alleged witches passed the test[33].

Levitations also occur during religious ecstasy, and here it is shown that intense psychological excitement can also bring them about. When I saw Marie Mörl in Kaltern in 1856, she was in ecstasy and kneeling praying on her bed, but you could pass under her knees with your hand. Religious ecstasy, then, is the most common situation in which levitation occurs in the saints. The Church knows a number of saints of this kind,[34] and individual cases are as well attested as they can wish. But the levitation seemed to contradict the laws of nature so completely that the faithful people resorted it to miracles, but the unbelievers rejected the reports.

The Carmelite Dominic was raised to a state of delight in the presence of the king and queen of Spain and the whole court, his body being so light that he moved like a soap bubble. When King Philip II came closer and breathed on him, the body followed this influence like a feather.[35] Maria of Agreda and Peter of Alcantara presented the same phenomenon.[36] St. Agnes floated in ecstasy for days as if seemingly dead in lust and by blowing from afar she got into oscillations.[37]

Thomas Cantipratanus, the biographer of Christina Mirabilis, tells us that she was a girl when she fell into apparent death, but that after awakening she was lifted up to the entablature of the church; her body was so light that she could hang on delicate tree branches and walk upon the water.[38]

Giordano Bruno tells us where he talks about the emotional tensions - "contractions" - about Thomas Aquinas: "When he rose with all his intellectual power and devotion to the spiritual intuition of the heaven he believed in, his whole sentient and moving mind was concentrated so much in this one thought that his body was lifted from the earth into the free air, which I myself must nevertheless acknowledge for the effect of a natural spiritual force, as it happened far before with Zoroaster, although on the one hand less scientifically thinking people may label it a miracle and on the other hand narrow-minded ignore it and all-knowers may not easily believe it."[39]

Maconi reports about Catherine of Siena as an eyewitness: "Primarily when her soul, through a sublime thing, excited itself more violently in a prayer and undertook to get out with greater force, the heaviness of the body was also lifted up above the ground, so that it was often seen floating above the earth by a number of people, of whom I was one and who saw it several times with much astonishment".[40]

When Mrs Vita entered St Mark's Church in Venice, it made such an impression on her that she rose in rapture and her head touched the vault.[41] Duke Friedrich von Braunschweig, when he came to Assisi in 1650, was persuaded to become Catholic by the sight of Joseph von Copertino, who had been advertised as a hovering figure at the fair. The distance that the saint traveled, floating, varied up to 80 steps.[42]

When he once fell in such ecstasy on the earth with great force, Mme Junipero wanted to help him and could not prevent the fall, but she told afterwards that Joseph's body had appeared to her as easy as a straw.[43] At a Blessed Virgin Mary feast Joseph asked a brother to pray with him to Beautiful Mary. Ecstatically mobilized, he embraced the brother and took him up with him.[44]

The mineral magnet also carries heavier burdens than it is itself, and even when moving the table it happens that people who oppose the movement with all their might are dragged away with it. When Urban VIII saw this saint hovering, he declared, in the case of his survival, that he himself wanted to testify what he saw.[45] Even as he was dying, Joseph was levitating.[46]

For our present-day understanding the former power of the Catholic Church is an almost incomprehensible phenomenon; but mankind at that time was religiously stirred up in its deepest core and on this psychic basis a plethora of mystical phenomena had to occur which, according to the state of knowledge at that time, had to be all the more interpreted as miracles when they merged with religious exaltation. A religion, however, where miracles happen, always exerts a tremendous power. Only when the criticism brings in the doubt, the more it will carry out its destructive work as the miracles will die out, and this is the surest sign that religion has become exterior to its own representatives.

Still in the last century Calmet knew a nun and a brother, with whom levitations occurred;[47] today, however, the worst period could be over, because the former blazing fire of faith has become a glowing spark. But when the "miracles" cease, it is inevitable that they will no longer be believed even as it happened before, until finally the time comes in which they find their natural explanation and can then be believed again as facts, separated from religion.

In the history of the Jesuits at the time of their foundation we encounter many well testified "miracles", because exactly with these religiously glowing men the mystical phenomena had to occur, for which the psychic basis is completely lacking with today's intriguing associates who with proselytism, legacy-sneaking and other reprehensible means only strive for worldly ideals. They do not do miracles because they no longer believe themselves.

It is precisely because psychological disposition alone is important that we encounter levitation also outside the Catholic Church, in paganism and in sectarianism, whenever either individuals of deep introspection, or larger masses, are glowing with zeal for their faith. Jamblichus says it of the "inspired" of his time in general that they float through the air and swim through streams,[48] and he himself hovered ecstatically 10 feet above the earth during his pray, as Eunapius reports.

Damis, the companion of Apollonius of Thana, saw Brahmins floating in the air in India.[49] Abaris, the priest of Apollo and teacher of Pythagoras had the nickname Acrobates, the one walking in the air. Kanne tells that the Protestant Gichtel, the founder of the Angel Brotherhood (died 1710), was once lifted out of bed in broad daylight and then stretched out on the floor.[50] During the Protestant rebellion in the Cevennes there was the whole range of mystical phenomena, including levitation. The body of de Lacy, an English nobleman who had enthusiastically joined the foreigners, was lifted up by invisible force and carried through the room.[51]

Levitation cannot therefore be called a Catholic miracle, since it also occurs in other denominations. That should have been dissuaded by the consideration that levitation also occurs in those people who were considered possessed by demons in the Middle Ages. The physician Constans, in his report on such an epidemic, tells us about the obsessed children of Morzine (1861): "Several of these children have done things that seem to contradict nature's doings. They climbed trees with incomprehensible speed and ease up to the highest top, 40-50 meters high, overturned there, or jumped, like squirrels, meters away on other trees, descended, head down, stood with one foot on the outermost branch of a tree, with the other on the branch of another tree.[52]

The possessed Alexandra of Fraito flew like a bird in the air and swayed on the tiniest branches. A possessed woman with tied hands was shown to St. Theodor and rose into the air.[53] Twelve possessed, presented in Paris the holy Genovefa, jumped up to the ceiling and floated freely in the air. Beata Natona was alternately raised 6 cubits high and thrown back again. A possessed nun of Nursia rose up to 30 cubits.[54]

On the other hand a possessed man stretched himself out on the ground and became so heavy that ten strong men could hardly move him.[55] A commission of doctors from Rouen wrote a report about the obsessed nuns of Louviers, saying that they had quickly climbed trees like squirrels with their clothes and sandals, proceeded to the far end of the branches, stayed there and returned.[56]

It is told of a witch that soon she was very heavy, then she appeared very light again.[57] As is well known, it is a symptom also with madmen that they often have the feeling of insurmountable heaviness, then again a feeling as if they had to fly.[58] Du Potet saw a so-called demonic individual walking on a ledge surrounding a room against the law of gravity; the light wooden moulding on the wall was only fixed with a few sharp nails.[59]

Müller in his description of Freiberg tells us that the epileptic and visionary Anna Fleischer was often lifted up by force and floated horizontally.[60] The Margarete Rule was lifted to the ceiling and several people had trouble pulling her down with all their might.[61] Bodinus says: "These nuns were lifted up into the air every day, sometimes every hour, and fell down again without pain."[62] In Auxonne, the people who are possessed: in the state of unconsciousness, they weigh the double of the ordinary state; two men often have trouble carrying a child of 10 years, sometimes four, in all the effort, are unable to carry a child.[63] The somnambulist Auguste K. seems to have experienced this in herself; she says that in her seizures she is more heavy than usual.[64]

The levitation force, when overcome by the gravitational force, still applies itself to the extent that the falling bodies are not noticeable with their natural heaviness. A possessed nun of Louviers was lifted up on a wall and then fallen without any injury.[65] The convulsive people on the tomb of abbé Paris also experienced levitation, and when they then fell from heights onto the marble again, they did not injure themselves, or only insignificantly.[66] This is consistent with the mystical ballistics in the haunted stories, where the projectiles only gently strike the people they hit.

Görres calls "ecstatic flight" for the saints and "demonic flight" for the possessed.[67] But the ecstasy occurs with both levitations, and furthermore only a difference of the persons is spoken, not a difference of the acting force. It is purely arbitrary for the theologians to explain levitation differently depending on the person on whom it occurs, such as Ribet with the words: Ecstatic flight, for example: divine, is a suspension of the laws of gravity; diabolical, it is a simple transfer invisibly executed by demons."[68]

The natural scientist cannot accept such distinctions, and it probably is best advised to point out that levitation also occurs in persons who are not at all suspected of being neither saint nor demonic. I mean the sleepwalkers and the modern mediums.

Perhaps even floating and flying in an ordinary dream is an introductory and dramatized feeling of levitation. In any case, the sleepwalker shows by the lightness of his movements and the boldness of his climbing that levitation is present. The magnetic somnambulists, who can also give the best information because they themselves are subject to levitation, should first of all be heard. The somnambulist Kachler says: "Magnetism is capable of reducing and increasing gravity. ... The heaviness of the lunatics is diminished; for you can put them on a glass and it will not break. . . If it were possible to weigh a lunar addict during his wandering, one would find that he weighs nothing (?)."[69]

Therefore, the same phenomenon appears with night transformers as with the water test of the witches. A sleepwalker was found swimming in the river, but one was so careful not to call him by his name, because he could woke up and drowned.[70] It is reminiscent of the witch's scales, however, when a nightwalker is said to have seemed to be completely relieved of the burden of weight; he jumped on the back of those present, but they by no means felt the full weight of his body.[71]

Catherine Emmerich was sometimes found in the church in places where she could not normally go.[72] When the nightwalkers fall down, it becomes apparent once again, as with the mystical projectiles and the demonic ones, that they do not strike with full weight. A 17-year-old nightwalker jumped 40' high onto the pavement without doing herself any harm.[73]

In Paris in 1846, a young nightwalker opened the window and fell from the third floor onto the pavement. He was found awake, standing on his feet and without an injury.[74] I have already given further examples elsewhere.[75]

What the mediums can release, but also absorb, is Od, a polarized force, therefore levitation also occurs in them. Such mediums of course existed long before modern spiritualism, such as Simon the Magician in the Age of the Apostles. His abilities, which he enumerates, all occur in our mediums, and below them he says: I fly in the air like a bird.[76] According to Bastian, Ibn Kalifa at the court of the Emperor of Hindostan saw two magicians in their coats rising into the air.[77]

In the report about the witch of Brookes there is an enchanted boy who was lifted up in the garden and brought to a distance of 100 steps over the fence. He said that the witch had led him through the air. Sometimes the boy was missed and, holding himself on a beam, the body was found in the air.[78] For savage races, where doctors and wizards are still undifferentiated professions, only that person who can fly counts as a good doctor.[79]

Emperor Franz, husband of Maria Theresa, had at his court a mystic, named Schindler, who had the ability to rise from the ground on 2-3 fathoms. In a paper about the freemasonic life of our grandparents by Gustav Brabble it says: "It is mentioned that Schindler, among other pikeperch arts, had also known how to rise gently, as often as it was demanded, 2-3 fathoms high "on his own free will" into the air and to walk there "for quarter of an hour" as if on a floor, in all ease, until he let himself descend to earth just as slowly, safely and fearlessly.

Once, in the presence of Franz I and three trusted lords, he put this astonishing ability to the test in a strange way. At the monarch's command, a glass chandelier had been removed from one of the high and spacious halls of the imperial castle in Vienna and a purse with 100 new ducats from Kremnitz had been hung up on the hook that had been freely acquired.

Schindler, who should receive this sum as a fee if he were able to bring it down without a ladder or other help, immediately got to work and for about a minute he flapped his hands and feet around like a maniac or with epileptic convulsions, until he finally, drooling foam on his lips, bathed in sweat and trembling at all limbs as in the chills, slowly rose higher and higher into the air, as if carried by invisible wings, so that his head almost touched the ceiling of the hall and his hand could reach for the hook carrying the purse.

When, after repeatedly unsuccessful efforts, he had finally succeeded in grasping it with a strong and bold grip, he stretched out his whole body in a horizontal position parallel to the ceiling, and thus, finally pressed completely against the ceiling, remained lying against it for several minutes, "as if to rest a little from his efforts," even after he had seized the imperial gift, and taken care of it in his chest, slowly floated down again, during his descent "giving all sorts of extremely graceful hand swings and pirouettes to the best of his ability, with which he probably tried to express his gratitude."[80]

Like all forms of decultism, levitation has been known in India since ancient times. Jacolliot says of the Fakir Cowindasamy, that the same one is leaning on a stick with only one hand, two feet high above the ground and, his feet crossed according to oriental custom, remained motionless in this position. When he said goodbye, he stopped at the door, crossed his arms across his chest, rose 25-30 cm without support and stayed about 5 minutes above the ground. "The fakir was able to rise into the clouds," he finally said,[81] but that was not the case.

The best-confirmed case of levitation is that of the medium Home. Crookes says that the collected testimonies are overwhelming, and he himself saw the phenomena several times. One time Home sat on an armchair, the second time he kneeled out of it, the third time he stood on it.[82] Crookes says: "The most wonderful event of all, the uprising of Home into the air, has not taken place once or twice in dim light, but has taken place over 100 times under all conceivable circumstances, in the open air, in bright sunshine, in a room, in the evening, sometimes during the day and at every opportunity, and hasty uprising each time witnessed by a number of quite different people. ... The evidence in its favour is stronger than the evidence in favour of almost any natural phenomenon that the British Association could investigate".[83]

The testimony of Mr. Jones, delivered before the dialectical society, states: "I have seen Mr. Home's uprisings. I saw him rise and float horizontally across the window. We all saw him clearly. It happened directly in the same way as if a person were swimming on the water. At my request he floated back again. The window curtains were pulled up and down without anyone touching them. This seemed to take place to reduce the light."[84]

Lord Lindsay's testimony says: "I saw the uprisings in Victoria Street, where Home floated out the window. He first went into a rapture and walked restlessly. From here he went into the vestibule. During this absence I heard a voice whispering in my ear: "He swings out to one window and back to the other". I was excited and frightened at the thought of such a dangerous experiment.

I told the audience what I had heard and we waited for Home's return. Shortly after he stepped into the room, I heard the window go out, but I couldn't see it because I sat with my back against it. But I saw his shadow on the opposite wall; he floated horizontally out of the window and I saw him outside the other window in the next room floating in the air. It was 85' high from the ground. There was no balcony along the windows either, but only a strong 1 1/2" wide ledge underneath it." Another time he saw Home standing 17" high from the ground in the air in full light.[85]

Home himself made statements before the dialectical society[86] and in his autobiography about his levitations. Usually he was raised vertically, his arms stiff over his head as if to grasp the invisible being that slowly lifted him from the ground. When he reached the ceiling, his feet lifted up to the height of his head and he found himself in a resting position. When one of those present touched him during these rises, Home immediately returned to earth as if he had been discharged; even when he was attentively observed, but from a certain height the glances had no effect.[87]

The experiment with Miss Fairlamb shows that the levitations of the mediums are connected with their Odic gift. During a spiritualist séances, she was stitched into a hanging wadding and floated freely between the bars carrying the mat. These bars marked the weight of the medium. Soon one noticed a gradual decrease of the weight, whereupon a phantom appeared and walked around in the room. The weight loss was now 60 pounds, half the normal weight. When the phantom was dematerialized, the weight increased and at the end of the séance the medium had lost only 3-4 pounds.[88]

Also phantoms were already weighed and showed considerable weight changes. The phantom of an Indian girl soon weighed 88, then 58 and 65 pounds, changing the size and girth of the figure.[89] The Od losses of the mediums are also shown in the fact that levitations are associated with luminous phenomena. The face and clothes of Jamblichus shone in gold, i.e. odically, when he was raised into the air while praying. Ignaz of Loyola remained floating for days without sensibility and almost without breath, his body shining above the ground.[90]

In man's teaching there is talk of seers who were so permeated by light that they shone themselves and in their magical emotion their bodies were lifted up.[91] When Peter of Alcantara recited Mass, his face was on fire.[92] To give an example of this obsession, it is said that in Louvier's monastery nun Francoise's phosphorescent malodorous vapours rose from her breast, which became all the more visible when the light was turned on. The report was made by magistrates and doctors.[93]

The question as to how far a human body can be carried in ecstatic flight can only be answered insufficiently, if the experiment has not yet performed, and the natural patterns of Christian mysticism have often been enlarged by the imagination of the faithful. Those in one piece. Agnes was raised so gently in the monastery garden that she was lost from sight; after an hour she came back again.[94]

Görres, in his introduction to Suso's life, says that this saint was once lifted up in the open air during a snow storm, whereby the centrifugal effect also propagated into the aura surrounding him, so that the falling snow remained "like a roof" over his head. Assuming the truth of this report, it would be a hint for the natural scientist to draw on the analogy with comet tails. These vapours, developed under the influence of the sun's heat from the comet's nucleus, must necessarily be transformed into a snow flurry in the cold room, and in fact they are repelled by the sun. Now that the crystallization of snowflakes is an abundant Od source, their repulsion by the body of the levitated saint would be explained by the fact that both sources had developed Od of the same name. Similarly, various "miracles" of Christian mysticism will probably find their scientific explanation over time without us having to reject the facts.

It may at least be mentioned that in the Bible the ecstatic flight to the actual displacement occurs at great distances.[95] It also occurs in Spiritism, but I am unable to cite a very well-certified case. Basically, the phenomenon is identical with the very frequently observed apport.

In levitation we therefore have a process based on the natural law which has been observed in countless natural patterns since ancient times and has in part already been accessible to experimentation. It would have been the 19th century's business to investigate this phenomenon, all the more so since the movement of the table, which has been known for 50 years, provides proof for the fact that the levitation force in the human organism can be transferred to inanimate bodies.

Our scholars, however, have laughed for 50 years - as if laughing could make uncomfortable facts disappear - and have done nothing about it. The practical use of this power is therefore still pending. It may be permissible for me to dedicate a few words to it at the end:

Ernst Kapp[96] has proven that our mechanisms are "organ projections", i.e. they unconsciously reproduce organic patterns. The technology of the future will look around for organic patterns and consciously reproduce them when it comes to solving a mechanical problem. If, however, we presuppose that all so-called miracles are stained by unknown natural science, the logical justification arises from this to continue the idea of Kapp and to extend the technical organ projection to all those functions of man, by which the so-called miracles are worked.

The ecstatic flight would thus be the natural pattern of the technical flight, and the above explanation of the ecstatic flight from the reversal of the poles would at the same time be the guide for the establishment of the technical flight. We know that inanimate tables and human bodies can levitate; therefore, for the natural scientist who wants to solve the problem of flight, the program of levitating either man or an apparatus carrying him emerges.

Nature always solves its problems in the simplest way; therefore, if a human invention does not contain an organ projection, such as the balloon, then the proof is that the greatest possible simplicity has not yet been achieved; if, on the other hand, a technical apparatus is invented, which subsequently turns out to be completely identical to that of an organic pattern, then the proof is that the apparatus is perfect.

The technical wing is an organ projection, so we are on the right way to solve the flight problem; but there is no reason to stop at this point, because the ecstatic flight is also caused by natural laws, so there must also be an organ projection for it, which will perhaps be combined with the technical wing. If the polarizability of gravity is assumed, the ground is removed from the doubt about the possibility of ecstatic flight and at the same time the ground is prepared for the invention of technical flight. The enormous amount of levitation phenomena proves that the weight of the body is only the one pole of a force, the second pole of which causes levitation, as electricity can be both attractive and repulsive.

If man reverses this pole, he will be repelled by the earth with natural necessity just as surely as the elder mark beads are repelled by the electric bell. As Hellenbach says, the Indians explain to me the levitation of the Jogi because of his same-name polarization with the earth.[97]

Electricity and Od lie in the human body, and since they are polarized forces, they can be used in both directions, to attract and repel. The comet's way, the mineral and animal magnetic attraction, the table moving, the harmlessness of the ballistics in the haunted stories, the water test of the witches, the witch's scales, the climbing of the somnambulists and the possessed, the spiritualistic apport, the floating of the fakirs and the ecstatic flight of the saints and mediums: - there are just so many natural samples, which prove that there are influences, of which the molecular currents in the body can be changed in such a way that levitation occurs; the causes are either physical, physiological or psychic.

Precisely because all these phenomena are not miracles, but natural legal processes, the possibility of copying these natural patterns cannot be at all doubted, and even man can develop molecular currents that express themselves as repulsive forces and overcome gravity. How to do this is a matter for the natural scientist.

[1] Lafontaine: Memoirs of a magnetizer. I. 95. II. 280. Du Potet: Journal of magnetism XIII. 279 Anm.
[2] Archive for animal magnetism. XII. 1. 72.
[3] Notifications about Sleeping life of Auguste K. 322.
[4] Charpignon: Psychology of animal magnetism. 74. 75.
[5] Kerner: Seeress of Prevorst. 105.
[6] Du Potet: Journal XI. 673-675. XII. 449. 632. XIII. 81. 356.
[7] Same XII. 530.
[8] Richard: Journal of magn. I. 50. II. 37.
[9] Archive I. 2. 93-110.
[10] Kerner: The Somnambulist Tables 6.
[11] Rochas: Deep states of hypnosis 36.
[12] Perty: Visible and invisible world. 109.
[13] Archive  IV, 1. 83.
[14] Archive V, 1. 91. 96. 100-113.
[15] Perty: The mystical apparitions II. 204.
[16] Eysell: Johanna d'Arc. 41 Anm.
[17] Worm: Presentation of the Mesmeric Healing Method. 99.
[18] Du Potet: Journ. VI. 51.
[19] Kerner: The Seeress of Prevorst. 61.
[20] Deleuze: Pract. teaching about the animal magn. 372.
[21] Pigeon: Animal electricity. 275.
[22] Notices about Sleep life of the Aug. K. 294.
[23] Brierre de Boismont: hallucinations. 331.
[24] Hutschinson: Experiment on witchcraft. 184.
[25] Görres: The Christian mysticism. II. 515 to 528.
[26] Windischmann: Philosophy in the course of world history. IV. 1886.
[27] Perty: Spiritualism. 250.
[28] Plinius: hist. nat. VII, 2. XXX, 2.
[29] du Prel: Studies in the fields of secret science. I. c. 2.
[30] Hauber: Bibliotheca magica I. 502-506.
[31] Hauber III. 804.
[32] Becker: Enchanted World I. 209. Horst: Magic Library IV. 339-343. Soldier: History of the Witches' Trials I. 397.
[33] Horst IV. 365.
[34] Görres II. 528-553.
[35] Perty II. 403.
[36] Derselbe 411.
[37] Jamaniego: Life of the venerable Mother Mary of Jesus. c. 9.
[38] Daumer: Christina Mirablis.
[39] Bruno: sigilus sigillorum.
[40] Hase: Katharina von Siena. 86.
[41] Perty II. 412.
[42] Physical studies. IV. 241-247.
[43] Görres II. 547.
[44] Ribet: the divine mysticism. II. 598.
[45] Görres II. 547.
[46] Daumer: Christina Mirabilis and Joseph from Copertino. 73.
[47] Calmet: The Apparitions of the Spirits I. 153
[48] Jamblihus: of mysterious Egypt. III, 4.
[49] Philostratus: Vita Apollon. III. 18.
[50] Jug: Life of strange and awakened Christians.
[51] Hofmann: Geschichte des Aufruhrs in den Cevennen. 236.
[52] Constans: Report on an outbreak of hystero-demonophobia in 1861.
[53] Perty I. 353.
[54] Görres IV, 189.
[55] Perty I. 355.
[56] Du Potet: Journal XVII. 24.
[57] Hutschinson: Experiment with witchcraft 167.
[58] Schaller: Spiritual life of man. 145.
[59] Perth I. 271.
[60] Horst: Magic library. III, 335. V, 398-405.
[61] Beaumont: Tractate on spirits 131.
[62] Bodinus: Daemonomanie p. 21.
[63] Bizouard: man's relationship with the demon. IV. 263
[64] Witteilungen of the Auguste K.'s sleeping life. 294
[65] Spirit of Bosroger: the pieté displayed II. c. 2.
[66] Wontgeron: the truth of miracles. II. Idea of the work 36. III. 4.
[67] Görres IV 187 -195.
[68] Ribet: Divine mysticism. III. 151.
[69] Notifications about Sleep life of the Auguste K. 294. 295.
[70] Gauthier: History of sleepwalking. II. 217.
[71] Kerner: Magikon II. 239.
[72] Perty II. 433.
[73] Kerner: Magikon IV. 227. Moris: The Journal for experiential psychology. VII. 1. 215.
[74] Du Potet: Journal III. 24.
[75] du Prel: Discovery of the soul I. c. 3.
[76] Clemens: Recogn. I. 2.
[77] Perty: Looking into the hidden life. 169.
[78] Glanvil: Saducismus triumphatus II. 38. 39.
[79] Sphinx 1881. 23.
[80] Prabbee: Sub rosa. 140-142.
[81] Jacolliot: spiritualism in the world. 187. 307. 308.
[82] Psychic Studies I. 109.
[83] Psychic Studies IV. 17.
[84] Report of the dialectical society. II. 191.
[85] The same II. 195. 196.
[86] The same II. 146.
[87] Revelations about my supernatural life. 53. 194.
[88] Psychic studies. VIII. 52.
[89] Perty: Spiritualismus 171.
[90] Perty: The myst. Apparitions. II. 403.
[91] Ennemoser: History of Magic. 317.
[92] Perty II. 411.
[93] Dupouy: the medical middle ages. 234. 250.
[94] 1)       Perty II 413.
[95] Acts of the Apostles 8, 39-40. 1 Kings18, 12. 2 Kings 2, 16. Ezekiel 3, 14.
[96] Kapp: Philosophy of technology.
[97] Hellenbach: Birth and iodine.