Arthur Conan Doyle

“ As to the worthy lecturer, he was too much engrossed by his strange studies to form an opinion upon the subject one way or the other.
For many years there was one question which had continually obtruded itself upon his thoughts. All his experiments and his theories turned upon a single point. A hundred times a day the professor asked himself whether it was possible for the human spirit to exist apart from the body for a time and then to return to it once again. ”

“ As the spirit of von Baumgarten, encased in the body of von Hartmann, strode down the winding pathway which led down to the little town, brooding angrily over his many wrongs, he became aware that an elderly man was approaching him who appeared to be in an advanced state of intoxication. ”

“ How can such knowledge be accounted for on any hypothesis save that the soul of the subject has left the body and is wandering through space? For a moment it is recalled by the voice of the operator and says what it has seen, and then wings its way once more through the air. Since the spirit is by its very nature invisible, we cannot see these comings and goings, but we see their effect in the body of the subject, now rigid and inert, now struggling to narrate impressions which could never have come to it by natural means. ”

“ I know you as well as I know myself. Who the deuce are you?"
"I am Professor von Baumgarten," said the student. "May I ask who you are? I am strangely familiar with your features." "Yen should never tell lies, young man," said the other. "You're certainly not the professor, for he is an ugly snuffy old chap, and you are a big broad-shouldered young fellow. As to myself, I am Fritz von Hartmann, at your service."
"That you certainly are not!" exclaimed the body of von Hartmann. "You might very well be his father. ”

“ Of all the sciences which have puzzled the sons of men, none had such an attraction for the learned Professor von Baumgarten as those which relate to psychology and the ill-defined relations between mind and matter. A celebrated anatomist, a profound chemist, and one of the first physiologists in Europe, it was a relief for him to turn from these subjects and bring his varied knowledge to bear upon the study of the soul and the mysterious relationship of spirits. ”

“ Never was there a riot or duel, or any other mischief afoot, but the young Rhinelander figured as a ringleader in it. No one used more free and violent language, no one drank more, no one played cards more habitually, no one was more idle, save in the one solitary subject. ”

“ Two students have dragged me along the public read. My wife nearly faints when I ask her for dinner, and my daughter flies at me and hugs me like a grizzly bear."
"You are ill, dear," the young lady cried. "Your mind is wandering. You have not even kissed me once."
"No, and I don't intend to, either," von Hartmann said with decision. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself. ”

“ Before the hour was up quite a crowd had assembled, and they were discussing the advisability of sending for an ambulance to convey the pair to a hospital, when the learned savant opened his eyes and gazed vacantly around him. For an instant he seemed to forget how he had come there, but next moment he astonished his audience by waving his skinny arms above his head and crying out in a voice of rapture, "Gott sei gedankt! I am myself again! I feel I am!" ”

“ It happened, then, that shortly after the time when Professor von Baumgarten conceived the idea of the above-mentioned experiment, he was walking thoughtfully homeward after a long day in the laboratory, when he met a crowd of roystering students who had just streamed out from a beer-house. At the head of them, half intoxicated and very noisy, was young Fritz von Hartmann. The professor would have passed them, but his pupil ran across and intercepted him.
"Heh! my worthy master," he said, taking the old man by the sleeve, and leading him down the road with him. ”

“ I therefore hope that upon mesmerizing my young friend here, and then putting myself into a trance, our spirits may be able to commune together, though our bodies lie still and inert. After a time nature will resume her sway, our spirits will return into our respective bodies, and all will be as before. With your kind permission, we shall now proceed to attempt the experiment."
The applause was renewed at this speech, and the audience settled down in expectant silence. With a few rapid passes the professor mesmerized the young man, who sank back in his chair, pale and rigid. ”

“ They had still more to whisper about afterward, for the learned man cracked the kellner's crown, and kissed the bar-maid behind the kitchen door.
"Gentlemen," said the professor, standing up, albeit somewhat totteringly, at the end of the table, and balancing his high, old-fashioned wine-glass in his bony hand, "I must now explain to you what is the cause of this festivity."
"Hear! hear!" roared the students, hammering their beer-glasses against the table; "a speech, a speech—silence for a speech!" ”

“ At last it occurred to him that by a daring and original experiment the question might be definitely decided.
"It is evident," he remarked in his celebrated article upon invisible entities, which appeared in the Keinplatz Wochenliche Medicalschrift about this time, and which surprized the whole scientific world—"it is evident that under certain conditions the soul or mind does separate itself from the body. In the case of a mesmerized person, the body lies in a cataleptic condition, but the spirit has left it. Perhaps you reply that the soul is there, but in a dormant condition. ”

“ By experiments which extended over twenty years, he obtained a basis of facts upon which it was his ambition to build up a new exact science which should embrace mesmerism, spiritualism, and all cognate subjects. In this he was much helped by his intimate knowledge of the more intricate parts of animal physiology which treat of nerve currents and the working of the brain; for Alexis von Baumgarten was regius professor of physiology at the University of Keinplatz, and had all the resources of the laboratory to aid him in his profound researches. ”

“ There was considerable applause from this eminent assembly upon the appearance of Professor von Baumgarten and his subject upon the platform. The lecturer, in a few well-chosen words, explained what his views were, and how he proposed to test them.
"I hold," he said, "that when a person is under the influence of mesmerism, his spirit is for the time released from his body, and I challenge anyone to put forward any other hypothesis which will account for the fact of clairvoyance. ”

“ In feverish haste he dragged his own frame to the side of the road and threw it into a mesmeric trance; he then extracted the crystal ball from die pocket, and managed to bring himself into the same condition. ”

“ Now it chanced that at the moment of this unexpected embrace von Hartmann was still leaning back against the end of the sofa, which, like much German furniture, was in a somewhat rickety condition. It also chanced that beneath this end of the sofa there stood a tank full of water in which the physiologist was conducing certain experiments upon the ova of fish, and which he kept in his drawing-room in order to insure an equable temperature. ”

“ There is only one way which I can see by which the fact can be demonstrated. Although we in the flesh are unable to see these spirits, yet our own spirits, could we separate them from the body, would be conscious of the presence of others. ”