been aware of the existence of the other, and yet the
two accounts are so alike as to be practically the
same.[2]

[2] Vide Appendix II.


The message upon these points seems to me to be
infinitely reassuring, whether we regard our own fate
or that of our friends. The departed all agree that
passing is usually both easy and painless, and followed
by an enormous reaction of peace and ease. The
individual finds himself in a spirit body, which is the
exact counterpart of his old one, save that all
disease, weakness, or deformity has passed from it.
This body is standing or floating beside the old body,
and conscious both of it and of the surrounding
people. At this moment the dead man is nearer to
matter than he will ever be again, and hence it is that
at that moment the greater part of those cases occur
where, his thoughts having turned to someone in the
distance, the spirit body went with the thoughts and
was manifest to the person. Out of some 250 cases
carefully examined by Mr. Gurney, 134 of such
apparitions were actually at this moment of
dissolution, when one could imagine that the new spirit
body was possibly so far material as to be more visible
to a sympathetic human eye than it would later become.

These cases, however, are very rare in comparison