Out-of-body experiences became a well-known topic once the topic of near-death experiences became well-known in the 1970's, largely due to Raymond Moody's best-selling book on the topic (Life After Life). But the study of out-of-body experiences dates from well before the 1970's. One of the first serious works on the topic was a 1937 book by the Italian researcher Ernest Bozzano, one entitled "Les Phénomènes De Bilocation" or "The Phenomenon of Bilocation." The book has attracted little attention, both because it has never been translated into English (to the best of my knowledge), and because instead of using the well-known phrase "out-of-body experience" in its title the author used the rarely recognized word "bilocation" (meaning to be in two different places at the same time).
An encyclopedia article on Bozzano (link)
Using Google Translate, I can translate the very interesting cases Bozzano cites, which are mainly cases that appeared in English publications. The book I have at www.archive.org is a French translation of an Italian work. As I wish to avoid whenever possible using Google Translate to translate the French into English (which would often end up being a possibly unreliable affair of going from Italian to French to English), I will track down whenever possible the original English text of the papers Bozzano is referring to. Luckily this is possible because Bozzano was very good about citing his sources, and the www.iapsop.com site is very good about preserving such sources.
The type of experiences Bozzano documented were largely the same as what are now called out-of-body experiences. If you have an experience in which your soul or spirit seems to float out of your body, and goes away from your body, you can either call that an out-of-body experience or a case of bilocation (being in two places in the same time).
Early on the Bozzano book cites the very interesting case below, which sounds more like a typical out-of-body experience. The case is found on page 288 of the July, 1894 edition of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, which can be read here:
"Whilst arguing with myself as to whether I was asleep or not, I suddenly seemed to divide into two distinct beings. The force that occasioned this was that which I have described above. One of these beings remained motionless on the sofa ; the other could move some little distance, and could actually look at the motionless body on the sofa. There existed between these two ' beings' an elastic force which prevented the one from severing its connection with the other. At will I could make the second ' being' lie on the floor, or move some distance about the room. As the distance between the two beings became greater, so did the elastic force seem to become more powerful. A limit was soon reached at which no effort of will could effect a further severance. This limit was about two yards. When this limit was reached, I could feel resistance to the separating efforts in both ' beings.' During this time, as before, I retained perfect consciousness of what was happening in the room. De B. had returned. I saw and heard him come in ; he commenced to play the piano again, and H. was making wry faces at the music. After a great effort I managed to call H.'s name. He looked round and went on writing. Afterwards he gave as his reason for not answering that he thought I was ' fooling ' him. The dual condition continued for five minutes more. Then fusion seemed to set in. I resisted the feeling of fusion. It could be prevented at will. Eventually, with a curiosity to know 'what was going to happen next,' I allowed it to proceed. The two beings then rapidly united again. I tried to get into the dual condition again. This seemed to be prevented by the same force that ' inhibited ' me at first. I then began to think out a theory to account for all these sensations, and during this time the inhibiting force grew weaker and gradually disappeared. There was no sensation of waking, but simply a slow cessation of the conditions. The whole time I was actively engaged not only in theorising, but in recording events in the room, to see whether I observed them accurately or not. As it turned out, my observations had been minutely correct. I continued to remain in the same position on the sofa ; I was anxious to see 'if anything more was going to happen.' Nothing did happen, so in the course of ten minutes I got up and related my experiences to my friends. They were much amused, but very much inclined to doubt the whole affair. Their idea seemed to me to be that I had been all this time manufacturing something to tell them."
We have here an account that is entirely consistent with long-standing theories that each human has an "astral body" that is connected to the physical body by a seemingly elastic cord that is sometimes called "the silver cord." Many similar accounts would later be collected by Robert Crookall, who was the main researcher of out-of-body experiences in the period between Bozzano's 1937 book and the rise of interest in out-of-body experiences occurring during the 1970's. In my post here I quote some very interesting passages from the works of Crookall, in which we hear of people describing such a "silver cord" or elastic band connecting a physical body and what has been called a spirit body or astral body.
Bozzano then cites an account which can be found on page 34 of the January 17, 1903 edition of the periodical Light, which can be read here. The author is George Wyld MD.
"One day in the year 1874, as I took chloroform to relieve the intense agony I was suffering from the passage of a renal calculus, I suddenly lost all pain, and as suddenly saw my 'soul-form’ standing and contemplating my body as it lay motionless on the bed, about six or seven feet from where my ‘spirit-form’ stood. The revelation was only for a few seconds, but it was sufficient to convince me that I saw my soul-form outside the body. Shortly afterwards I called upon three medical men who were accustomed to administer anaesthetics, and they all said they had frequently heard their patients make the same remark as to their experiences as I had done. I also called at the Dental Hospital, and my experience was further confirmed, but the view there taken was that it was an illusion. But I knew it to be an experience, exactly such as happens in cases of drowning, when by manipulations the lungs are emptied of water, and the soul then returns to the body. If this be so, then we have in the use of anaesthetics a scientific means of proving the existence of the soul as an individuality external to the body, and the question that has engaged psychologists for thousands of years is solved ; and if so it is the most momentous discovery ever made. Impressed by these ideas I wrote to the editor of ‘ The Lancet ’ one day in 1895, and much to my surprise he replied that he would be happy to insert a paper from me on the subject, which he did, also drawing the attention of the profession to my views. Seeing that there are probably twenty thousand medical men who read ‘ The Lancet ’ ; and as perhaps not fewer than one thousand patients are placed under the influence of anaesthetics weekly in Great Britain, I expected to see an extensive correspondence in ‘ The Lancet’ on the subject; but, on the contrary, no serious notice was taken of the matter."
What Wyld encountered here is the senseless tendency of scientists and doctors to ignore important clues about nature which defy dogmas they were taught in school. Such a tendency has been the most terrible impediment to the advance of science and knowledge.
Bozzano then refers us to the article "Astral Excursions" by Franz Hartmann MD, which appears on page 159 of the March 1908 Occult Review, which can be read here. It begins with a third-hand account of an out-of-body experience, which I won't describe. Then Hartmann gives a first-hand account:
"To this I may be permitted to add a similar experience of my own which I had at Colombo (Ceylon) in 1884. I went with my friend B------ to a dentist, to have a tooth extracted. I took chloroform, and after getting under its influence I soon saw myself standing beside the dentist’s chair in which my body was lying. I appeared to myself just the same person as when in my normal state. I saw all the objects in the room, heard all that was spoken; but when I tried to lift one of the instruments on a little table next to the chair, I could not do so, as my fingers passed through it. Since then I have occasionally seen myself stepping out of my physical form, and this occurs in two ways; namely, if, while this separation takes place my consciousness is centred in the physical body, I see myself in the astral body standing before me at the side of my bed, and if my consciousness is centred in the astral body, I see my physical form lying in bed. I have never made consciously any astral excursions to distant places, but such experiences may be sufficient to convince one that man has an astral body capable of existing independently of the physical form, and to those who have experienced such things the doubts of those who have experienced nothing may appear quite as unworthy of consideration, as would the arguments of one who had never seen railways and were in consequence to deny their existence."
Next Bozzano quotes from an account that appeared on page 46 of the February 8, 1919 edition of the periodical Light, which can be read here. We hear an account by Captain Gilbert Nobbs of getting a severe head injury during World War I. A bullet passed out through his left eye, and he was permanently blinded. He gives this account of what happened:
"I hesitate to tell what followed. But as I am trying to record the sensations experienced at the time of receiving a head wound I will describe the next experience simply and leave the reader to form his own conclusions.
I was blind then as I am now : but the blackness which was then before me underwent a change. A voice from somewhere behind me said : ' This is death , will you come ?' Then gradually the blackness became more intense. A curtain seemed to be slowly falling ; there was space ; here was darkness blacker than my blindness ; everything was past. There was a peacefulness, a nothingness ; but a happiness indescribable .
I seemed for a moment somewhere in the emptiness looking down at my body lying in the shell-hole, bleeding from the temple. I was dead, and that was my body ; but I was happy !
But the voice I had heard seemed to be waiting for answer. I seemed to exert myself by a frantic effort, like one in a dream who is trying to awaken . I said , ' No, not now ; I won't die .' Then the curtain slowly lifted ; my body moved and I was moving it. I was alive ! There, my readers, I have told you , and I have hesitated to tell it before . More than that, I will tell you that I was not unconscious; neither did I lose consciousness until several minutes later , and then unconsciousness was quite rent.
I have told you how clear was my brain the moment I was hit, and I tell you also that after the sensation I have just related my brain was equally clear, as I will show you , until I became unconscious. Call it a hallucination , a trick of the brain , or what you will. I make no attempt to influence you...Whatever it was, I no longer feel there is any anxiety about death. Nor do I dread it."
On pages 57-58 of the book we read that Mrs. Nathalie Annenkof wrote the following about two out-of-body experiences she had:
"You asked me to write down the two cases of 'exit from my body' that I told you about. I will try to do it as accurately as possible. It is 4 years since the first case took place. I did not know then that it was possible, having no idea about such things. In the spring of 1926, on a very beautiful and warm day, I was sitting in the cemetery, on the edge of the grave of my little girl, whom I had just lost. I was depressed and sad, but in good health. I remember very well that while I was watching the bees gathering honey from the flowers I had just planted, I felt myself becoming light, then lighter and lighter physically and mentally. My first impression was that my legs and arms were no longer heavy, then my stomach, then my chest. And suddenly I found myself above and next to my body, which I saw sitting on the edge of the grave. I looked at my tired face. I even noticed that my coat was stained with dirt. And I had the sensation of hovering above my body in complete bliss. I had the sensation of a great and luminous joy of living, as if I were living a thousand lives at once, and of complete tranquility.
I could not move and did not feel the need to. But I could see, understand and feel an inner and happy life. My body looked like a rag, like an abandoned thing. I thought: 'This is death!' And yet I had the joy of living.
I saw the cemetery guard approach my body, touch it, feel it, call me and run away. He told me later that he had gone to call for an ambulance, and that my hands and face were starting to get cold.
When I saw him leave, I understood that he thought I was dead and suddenly I was seized with fear. 'This is death,' I thought. 'How will my husband live without me?'
But I felt so alive that I said to myself: 'I must get back into my body.' I tried to get back into it and was afraid of not being able to do so.
I began by feeling heaviness, then the pains, the little discomforts to which we are so accustomed that we no longer notice them. Then came the sadness and the desire to cry. I walked home.
Two weeks ago the same thing happened again. I was reading a cheerful book one evening in bed, laughing to myself...Suddenly, I had the impression of leaving myself, and I saw my body lying down, book in hand, while I felt myself in the air, very happy, with a feeling of inner life. I looked at my body, I found it good and I said to myself: 'It's a pity to die so young!' I approached my lying body and tried to enter it. I immediately felt that it absorbed me, like a sheet of blotting paper, or like a sponge absorbs water. My husband rang, I got up to open the door for him."
On page 63 of the book, we read an account by Joseph Costa:
"I had the clear and precise sensation of finding myself with my thinking 'self' alone, in the middle of the room, completely separated from the body, which continued to lie on the bed. I saw - if it is permissible to designate thus the sensation that I experienced - the things around me as if a radiation penetrated through the molecules of the objects on which my attention was fixed, as if matter had dissolved on contact with thought....I saw my body perfectly recognizable by its particularities, its profile, my figure, but also bundles of veins and nerves vibrating with a luminous tingling....My thinking 'me' was weightless, or, to put it better, without the impression of the force of gravity and the notion of volume or mass. I was no longer a body, since my body lay inert on the bed: I was like the tangible expression of a thought, of an abstraction, capable of transporting me to any place on earth, sea, or sky, faster than lightning, in the same instant that I would have formulated it at will, and without even the notion of time and space. If I said that I felt free, light, ethereal, I would only be expressing from afar the sensation that I felt in this moment of infinite liberation....I can assure the reader that until this moment, I had not read or heard of spiritualism: spiritualist theories, phenomena of bilocation, splitting of soul and body. Mediumistic experiences and spiritualist sessions were completely unknown to me. I can therefore absolutely exclude the hypothesis that for me it was simply a phenomenon of suggestion. Nor could it be a question of a dream, because of the enormous difference in the sensations remaining in the memory of the images provoked by a dream and those too dissimilar in their sensitive reception, which I had present to my mind at that moment. In fact, I did not encounter in this memory that nebulosity, that indistinct sensation between the chimerical and the reality that the impressions of a dream have. Because finally I never had such a vivid sensation of really existing as in the moment when I felt separated from my body."
Bozzano then cites the account on page 515 of the 1908 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, which can be read here. A woman describes an out-of-body experience that includes a life review. On page 70 Bozzano quotes Eugenie Garcia as having an out-of-body experience, apparently while being hypnotized:
"I saw myself suddenly standing in the middle of the room where I had just been put to sleep; 'Look, it seems to me that I was sitting only a moment ago; so I got up without knowing it, let's see.' I cast my eyes on myself: 'Look! I am luminous, transparent, light as a feather.' Suddenly, I saw my body lying motionless in an armchair. Three or four people surrounded me, watching me attentively. What are they looking at me like that? Let's see. I come closer and look at myself too. doing like everyone else. I could clearly see the inside of my body, I could see the heart beating, the blood circulating, the networks....Then I looked around me, but, instead of meeting with my eyes an opaque and non-transparent surface as houses or movable objects usually are, I saw everything clear as glass. I saw my neighbors' people and apartments as if we lived in a crystal house."
The report of being able to see inside a human body was one quite a few times reported by people hypnotized during the nineteenth century. In the literature of the time, such an ability was sometimes described as lucidity, clairvoyance or clairvoyant lucidity. As discussed here, clairvoyants such as Alexis Didier passed very many successful tests in which a similar ability was demonstrated, with Alexis many times identifying what was inside the contents of locked boxes and folded pages inside sealed heavy envelopes.
Bozzano then cites the case below, found on page 40 of the January 22, 1932 edition of the periodical Light:
"DOCTOR'S OUT-OF-THE-BODY EXPERIENCE
An out-of-the-body experience which brought assurance of conscious life after death is related by Dr. Overend G. Rose, of 8 Roval Well Terrace, Cheltenham, in the first issue of the new and enlarged series of The Spiritualist, the organ of the Spiritualist Community, London, of which Mr. Ernest Hunt is now in editorial charge. Dr . Rose relates that, after being thrown from a horse and badly injured, he was ' picked up for dead ' by two men who witnessed the accident and five hours passed before he regained consciousness. 'Although I was insensible,' Dr. Rose writes, ' I could see my body lying there on the ground. I could see the men pick me up (heard them say I was dead) and carry me into the house. I was able to see the doctors trying to bring me ta, and all the time I was able to see myself lying there. I seemed to be floating in a summer sea. I cannot describe the sensation of peace and happiness and yet someone seemed to tell me I had to go back. And that is why I told the doctors I was not going to die.' Commenting on his experience, Dr. Rose writes : 'Now, the points I wish to make are-first, I had never seen the men who picked me up before and have never seen them since, as they were strangers to the district, just riding through. Yet I was able to describe them even to their clothes, and also their horses, which they had tied to the fence when they went to pick me up. Secondly, although I was totally unconscious, I was able to tell the doctors everything that had taken place, and what my injuries were. I am convinced that I was outside my body, yet I was able to see and hear. It makes me certain there is a life after death, which does not require a material body for us to be able to see and hear, and that we shall retain our personality.' "
On page 79 Bozzano quotes an account of an out-of-body experience:
"I lay down on the bed and began to read. It was then that I was suddenly invaded by a wave of sleep which I could not resist. This upset me greatly, for I was reading Amiei's Journal, which interested me greatly, and I would have liked to continue. But it was all in vain, and I fell asleep suddenly. I immediately felt as if I had left my body. I turned over, and seeing my body curled up in an uncomfortable position, I wondered how one could fall asleep in such a posture. I had the idea of leaving and I went into the corridor by going through the door, but this was evidently by force of habit, since I could just as well have gone through the wall, seeing that I did not open the door, but went through the wood. I did not move my feet, since to go to any place, I only had to desire it. Which did not prevent me from seeing myself in possession of legs, arms and body, and from feeling better than usual. There was no one in the corridor, except a negro who was polishing the floor. I confronted him, but he did not seem to see me. I understood that I must have become invisible, which increased my curiosity all the more. I then amused myself by passing in front of him, behind him, around him, brushing against him, but he never glanced at me. The thing amused me. But then I suddenly had the thought that if someone came to get me, and that my body should be awakened from its sleep while I was out of it, complications might result, probably not very pleasant. I immediately returned through the wood of the door and when I was near the bed, my body 'sucked' me imperiously, 'sheathing' me by the feet! It was fortunate that this idea came to my mind, because immediately there was a knock at the door and Mrs. Canfield, the landlady of the inn, came in and asked me permission to take my dressing gown."
On page 81 Bozzano quotes this account of an out-of-body experience:
"While I was ill in the great hospital of Pittsburgh, I was subjected to a serious operation. For the first time in my life, I had to be given an anesthetic. Scarcely had I begun to breathe it than I experienced a wonderful sensation of well-being and beatitude. But, to my great surprise, I found myself in the company of the doctor and the nurse, and in front of me, lying on the operating table, I saw my body inert and lifeless. I noted the surgical instruments and bottles placed next to it, and I even noticed that one nurse had her cap askew, which was rather comical.
I was led to look up and I saw coming towards me, through the ceiling, my dear grandmother, dead ten years ago. She approached me and took me by the hand, saying that I must hurry, because the time available was very short. We passed through the ceiling together, as easily as we would have passed through a smoke screen. We found ourselves outside, in a luminous atmosphere where my grandmother drew my attention to a landscape that was familiar to me, showing me where my home was, which emerged from magnificent trees. While I was ecstatic at this perspective, my grandmother exclaimed: 'We don't have time! Now we have to go back into your body!' And before I could even answer, I woke up in my bed and saw a nurse leaning anxiously over me.
This is what I have been able to report about my experience of out-of-body experience, which was for me a powerful revelation: If what happened to me must be repeated at the moment of death, then there is no point in fearing death."
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