They Said They Left Their Bodies

 In general professors are extremely poor about studying reports of paranormal phenomena, reports of extraordinary human abilities and reports of extraordinary human experiences. In the rare cases when a professor attempts to research such matters, he or she will typically use some incompetent search strategy.  A professor will typically search for some topic using only a search of published scientific papers. That is not a very good strategy when searching for reports of the three types of things mentioned above, because most reports of such things do not end up in scientific papers, but appear in publications such as newspapers, books and periodicals. 

It is not true that reports published in scientific papers are in general more reliable than reports published in newspapers, books and periodicals. I can think of endless reports I have read in newspapers and periodicals that met very good standards of evidence, by giving first-person accounts of experiences that occurred a short time ago, with named witnesses, named dates of observations and named places of observations. Conversely, scientific papers typically fail to follow good standards for reporting observations, because they tend to use a passive voice without mentioning specific observers, and they usually fail to specify exactly where and when an observation occurred. When reading some scientific paper, you may ask: who was the person who made some crucial hard-to-get-right observation that an entire paper hinges upon -- some professor who has used some fancy piece of equipment many times, or merely some newly admitted graduate student who may have been fumbling around when using the equipment the first time? We can't tell, because scientific papers are always using the passive voice, in a way that no specific observer is mentioned. For example, in scientific papers we do not read sentences such as,  "On July 18, 2024 in Room 203 of the Cornell Neuroscience Lab, John Jacobsen tested the mice using a Morris water maze."  Instead we read passive voice sentence such as "The mice were tested using the Morris water maze."

Let us look at some periodical accounts of out-of-body experiences, reports that were obtained using the search phrase "out-of-the-body experience." Before about 1975, this phrase was more popular than the term "out-of-body experience," which has become the more common phrase in the past several decades. 

In the 1965 newspaper account here, TV personality Hughie Green says this about his experience in a car crash:

In the 1963 account here, a baron (Lord Ogmore) recalls an out-of-body experience:

The 1971 newspaper account below (which you can read here) discusses research by a South African researcher named J. C. Poynton. The terms "astral travel" and "astral projection" are terms for out-of-body experiences. Click on the image to read it better. 

On page 62 of the January 26, 1934 edition of the periodical Light, which you can read here, we have the account below of an out-of-body experience:

"A correspondent, Mrs. F. Shepherd, sends us an account of the following out-of-the-body experience. ' I had had a severe shock,' she writes, ' when I suddenly noticed that I was breathing in a strange way, and with the last conscious breath I found myself slipping out of the top of my head. I was an exact counterpart of the body that lay upon the bed. I could see that it had its eyes and mouth closed, and that I was connected with it by some kind of cord. I tried in vain to make myself known to the people in the room, who took no notice of me whatever. My mind was very active; I wished to recover the use of my body, and knew that in order to enter it again I must get round to the foot end of the figure. Movement was difficult in what appeared to be a very heavy atmosphere, but eventually I reached the right position ; whereupon I seemed to dissolve into a quick-silver-like fluid and slipped into my body by the toes. I advanced until I reached the centre of the body where the cord was fixed, after which I was my corporeal self once more.' "

In the 1977 article here, Joan Kron reports on research into out-of-body experiences. She states that she had several herself, stating this:

In the 1968 article here, we read of a large study of many people who had out-of-body experiences. 

At the link here, we have a speaker claiming that when she asks her audience how many have had an out-of-body experience, she gets about one third of the audience raising their hands. 

In 1968 there appeared the book Out-of-the-Body Experiences by Celia Green, the Director of the Institute of Psychophysical Research at Oxford University. Registered users at www.archive.org can read the book here. In 1966 an appeal had been made by radio for accounts of people who had such experiences. About 400 responses were received. Two questionnaires were sent to these people, and 326 replied to the first, with 251 to the second. 

On page 22 we have these statistics: about 70% reported only one out-of-body experience, about 9 percent reported 2 such experiences, about 5%  reported three such experiences, about 2% reported four such experiences, and about 21% reporting six or more such experiences. On page 24 we have a striking account by someone put in a glass cubicle in a hospital while suffering from a high fever. She reports being out of her body for 8 or 9 days, feeling no pain. She says, "I was no longer in my body but up in the corner of the cubicle watching the nurses flitting about." 

On page 39 Green says, "Many subjects comment on their feelings of well-being and reality in their new position apart from their physical body, and there are no counter-instances, that is to say, no subjects remark on having felt incomplete, unsubstantial or unreal in their new position."

The Earliest Accounts of Out-of-Body Experiences (Part 2)

 In Part 1 of this two-part series I described the earliest accounts of out-of-body experiences, discussing account appearing between 1864 and 1911. Let us look at some more of the earliest accounts of out-of-body experiences, resuming the narrative from the early twentieth century. 

The image below shows the beginning of a much longer 1905 newspaper account you can read here. We have a very rare type of account of distinguished witnesses reporting they saw in the Parliament of London an apparition of a man (Sir Carne Rasch) who was sick and far away.  The witnesses include Sir Gilbert Parker and Sir Arthur Hayter. You could consider this an out-of-body experience involving Sir Carne Basch, alive at the time of the report. 

 

On the page here of the 1918 book Man Is a Spirit by J. A. Hill, we have an account of an out-of-body experience.  It is a second-hand account, but since many similar accounts have been collected since then, and since reports like this were all but unheard of in 1918, we have a strong reason for thinking the account is accurate. We read this:

"Some years ago I became acquainted with a stalwart ex-soldier of our Civil War. He was an artilleryman, and was sitting on the ammunition chest of his gun when it was hit by a shell from the enemy's guns and exploded. The man was thrown into the air and his body fell to the ground. He said that he was up in the air, looking down at his own body which lay upon the ground at some distance from him. He seemed to be yet connected with the body by a slender cord of a clear silvery appearance, and, while he looked on, two surgeons came by, and after looking at the body remarked that he was dead. One of the medicos took hold of an arm and turned the body on its side, and remarked that he was dead; and they both passed on and left him. Soon after the stretcher-bearers came along and found there was life in the corpse, and carried him to the rear.

After the turning of the body, he said, 'I came down that silver cord and returned to the old body and reanimated it, although my body was blind as a bat and my right arm was torn from my shoulder'; and he showed me on his face and chest forty-eight scars caused by the bursting shell. This man was living at St. Petersburg, Flo., and I think is yet living."  -- G. B. Crabbe.

On page 69 of the same 1918 book, we read this first-hand account by Beryl Hinton:

"I want also to tell you of my one and only psychical experience. Years ago, when only seventeen, I was, in Calcutta, put under chloroform to have a number of teeth out. I presently felt I, myself, was in space above my body, round which were the doctors, dentists, and my mother, and I remember wondering why I was not being judged, since I was obviously dead. I had been brought up as a strict Roman Catholic and taught that individual judgment followed death. I had never read any psychical books or experiences. I was afterwards told that my condition caused alarm, as I would not come back to consciousness. I've never forgotten that dream (?) and, when put under chloroform in September for my very serious operation, was anxious to see if anything of the same sort happened again. But it did not. I had no dream, and this time took the chloroform well. So it does look as if the soul had lifted from the body that long-ago time."

Later she says this, recalling the same experience:

"There was I, above my body, around which were gathered the people present. I could not talk to them, and I remember so distinctly wondering, 'If I am dead, how is it I am not being judged?' That I was out of the body I do not doubt. I am told they had some difficulty in restoring me to consciousness. In the long years that have passed since that experience, when doubts as to the future have assailed me, it has gone farther in my own mind to prove survival than all the books on faith I had read."

On pages 71-72 of the same 1918 book, we have an account by John Huntley:

"About five years ago I woke from sleep to find 'myself' clean out of the body, as the kernel of a nut comes out of its shell. I was conscious in two places — in a feeble degree, in the body which was lying in bed on its left side; and to a far greater degree, away from the body (far away, it seemed), surrounded by white opaque light, and in a state of absolute happiness and security (a curious expression, but one which best conveys the feeling).

The whole of my personality lay 'out there,' even to the replica of the body — which, like the body, lay also on its left side. I was not conscious of leaving the body, but woke up out of it. It was not a dream, for the consciousness was an enhanced one, as superior to the ordinary waking state as that is to the dream state. Indeed, I thought to myself, 'This cannot be a dream,' so I willed 'out there' (there was no volition in the body), and as my spirit self moved so the body moved in bed."

Doing an experiment involving what he described as "illusions of levitation,"  an experimenter in 1918 may have produced evidence for out-of-body experiences. His research is described in a later book:

"I cannot do better than summarize the interesting articles of Mr. Lydiard H. Horton, which appeared in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology (April, 1918 ; June, 1918 ; August, 1919), in which he attempted to prove this fact — that such illusions of levitation may be so produced — even without sleep ! He induced a number of experimental subjects to lie upon a bed or couch, and relax completely. Upon the degree of relaxation thus attained depends the success of the experiment. If the patient can induce this complete relaxation of the muscular system without falling asleep, he will often experience an 'illusion of levitation.' ' Out of the thirty subjects who relaxed completely, and of the twenty or so who retained consciousness after they had completely relaxed, eight of them reported illusions of levitation.'  The following are typical experiences of this nature :

“ One of them jumped out of the chair and was afraid to continue the experiment, so realistic was his apperception of a soaring motion.

" Another, this time a woman, gripped the chair in the momentary belief that she was floating away ; two others reported that they felt ‘ caught up ’ by a wave, but that their reason reassured them at the time.

" One other...reported himself ‘ just floating away,’ the sensation being overwhelmingly real. ...”

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. He says, "I seemed for a moment somewhere in the emptiness looking down at my body lying in the shell-hole."

The 1919 book "Modern Psychical Phenomena" by Hereward Carrington had a Chapter IX entitled "Projection of the 'Astral Body' " that you can read here.  The chapter begins like this:

"One of the latest achievements of 'psychical science' — which is constantly making new and important discoveries — is the voluntary projection of the 'astral body' of man — the expulsion of the human 'double' or etheric counterpart of the physical body — by methods under control of the human will. Occult science has long since proved that — besides this physical body, which we know — there is also a more subtle and refined envelope — the 'spiritual body' of St. Paul — and that this body is capable of being detached, at times, and of being ' projected' — leaving the physical body entranced, while the subtle body journeys and makes itself manifest to others at considerable distance."

On the page here of the Carrington book we have a sketch showing the idea of astral projection, one that shows the "silver cord" reputed to connect the astral body and the regular physical body. 

The chapter has some interesting instructions on how a person can attempt to perform a voluntary out-of-body experience. But we have no testimonies by people who claim to have performed such experiences. A 1920 work by Carrington ("Higher Psychical Development") has a chapter entitled "Projection of the Astral Body." On page 282 Carrington makes this remarkable claim: "It is estimated that about 15,000 persons now living 'see' more or less on the astral plane; and that about fifty persons can consciously go out into that plane at will." The reference to going out into the astral plane is a claim of willful out-of-body experiences. 

The 1923 newspaper article here attempts to summarize a long book by M. Pierre-Emile Cornillier, one entitled "The Survival of the Soul and Its Evolution After Death." I have been unable to find the book on sites such as www.archive.org. The article makes it sound as if the author had out-of-body experiences. 

In 1925 a very long French work appeared on out-of-body experiences, one by Charles Lancelin entitled "Méthode de dédoublement personnel : extérioration de la neuricité, sorties en astral," which translates as "Method of personal doubling: exteriorization of neuritis, astral projections."  (The book is listed on www.archive.org with a publication date of 1925, although it may have been published earlier.)  At its end on page 504 we have the photo below, which has a French caption, which translates as follows: "Miss B's splitting following a serious cholera-anaemia condition lasting three years." The author apparently is claiming to have a photo capturing an "astral body" projected during an out-of-body experience. As I don't read French, I cannot say much about the credibility of this author or whether the photo should be taken seriously. 

The next major account of out-of-body experiences occurred in the 1929 book "The Projection of the Astral Body" by Sylvan Muldoon and Hereward Carrington, which you can read online here. Muldoon begins his account like this:

"When my first out-of-the-body experiences occurred I was but twelve — so young and immature in mind that I did not realize their magnitude. The occurrences came about involuntarily and repeated themselves frequently, until I became so accustomed to them that, as a matter of fact, I soon regarded them as nothing extraordinary and seldom mentioned them even to members of my own family, to say nothing of keeping a record of them, although I had been urged to do so by many interested persons.

I had been told, by persons professing to know, that conscious projection of the astral body was nothing unusual, and that many psychics could produce it at will. I, too, wanted to be able to produce it at will, and I admit that I was envious of those who (I had heard) could do so. So I began a search for some one who could produce the phenomenon voluntarily. But my search proved fruitless, and eventually I concluded that I could not find that 'some one.'  Thus I began to experiment with the phenomenon myself, and in this book you will find the results of my experiments."

The term "projection of the astral body" that Muldoon uses is a term equivalent to "out-of-body experience," although the term "projection of the astral body" has more of a connotation of something that happen from willful effort.  The term "projection of the astral body" also is a more dogmatic term, as it involves the doctrine that there is such a thing as an "astral body," a term that is pretty much equivalent to "spirit body." 

On this page the co-author Carrrington explains the term:

" The Astral Body may be defined as the Double, or the ethereal counterpart of the physical body, which it resembles and with which it normally coincides. It is thought to be composed of some semi-fluidic or subtle form of matter, invisible to the physical eye. It has, in the past, been spoken of as the etheric body, the mental body, the spiritual body, the desire body, the radiant body, the resurrection body, the double, the luminous body, the subtle body, the fluidic body, the shining body, the phantom, and by various other names. In recent Theosophical literature, distinctions have been made between these various bodies ; but for our present purposes we may ignore these distinctions, and speak of the 'Astral Body' as some more subtle form, distinct from the organic structure known to Western science, and studied by our physiologists.

The broad, general teaching is that every human being 'has' an astral body just as he has a heart, a brain and a liver. In fact, the astral body is more truly the Real Man than the physical body is, for the latter is merely a machine adapted to functioning upon the physical plane. But it must not be thought that the astral body is held to be the Soul of man either. That is a mistake often made. It is said to be the vehicle of the Soul — just as truly as the physical body is a vehicle — and constitutes one of the essential connecting links between mind and matter."

The idea may seem less fantastic when you consider that the modern astrophysicist claims that a spiral galaxy has essentially two bodies or forms: a visible body or form of regular matter, and an invisible body or form consisting of dark matter. 

On the page here Carrington argues for the plausibility of Muldoon's accounts of out-of-body experiences:

"I should like to draw the reader’s attention particularly to the fact that no wild or preposterous claims are anywhere made in this book as to what has been accomplished during these 'astral trips.'  Mr. Muldoon does not claim to have visited any distant planets — and return to tell us in detail their modes of life ; he does not claim to have explored any vast and beautiful 'spirit worlds' ; he does not pretend to have penetrated the past or the future ; to have re-lived any of his past 'incarnations' ; to have read any ' Akashic Records' ; to have travelled back along the stream of time, and reviewed the history of mankind, or the geologic eras of our earth. He asserts, merely, that he has been enabled to leave his physical body at will, and travel about in the present, in his immediate vicinity, in some vehicle or other, while fully conscious. This is perfectly rational, and is precisely what we should expect, on the theory that these 'trips' are actual experiences. "

On pages 116-117 of a 1936 book Sylvan Muldoon describes his first out-of-body experience:

"Slowly ...I was moving toward the ceiling, all the while lying horizontal and powerless. Naturally I believed that this was my physical body as I had always known it, but that it had mysteriously begun to defy gravity...Involuntarily, at about six feet above the bed, as if the movement had been conducted by an invisible intelligent force, present in the very air, I was uprighted from the horizontal position, to the perpendicular, and placed standing upon the floor of the room... where I remained for two or three minutes, still unable to move of my own accord... I managed to turn around. There were two of me! In the name of common sense — there were two of me! There was another 'me' lying quietly upon the bed. It was difficult to conceive of this being real — but there I was, fully conscious, fully able to reason and know what I saw was actual. The next thing which caught my eye, explained the curious sensation in the back of my head — for my two identical bodies were joined by means of an elastic-like cord, one end of which was fastened to the medulla oblongata region of my phantom counterpart, while the other end centered between the eyes of my physical counterpart. This cord extended across the space of probably six feet which separated us."

Muldoon's 1929 book includes this illustration depicting the idea of an astral body floating outside of a physical body, with the two connected by an elastic-like cord. 

Quite a few examples of people reporting the existence of such an elastic-like cord can be read in my post here. The author of a 2023 PhD dissertation ("Investigating the Nature and Psychological Impact of Out-of-Body Experiences") performed an online survey of 213 people who claimed to have had an out-of-body experience (page 156).  He states that 11% reported "seeing a ray of light, cord, ribbon, or rope connecting the nonphysical self to the physical self" (page 450).

The Earliest Accounts of Out-of-Body Experiences (Part 1)

 A recent scientific study "Out-of-body experiences: interpretations through the eyes of those who live them" gives us two cases of what we may call veridical out-of-body experiences. We read this:

"Participant 5 described an out-of-body experience where she visited the hospital to see her aunt in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The following day, upon visiting the hospital in reality, she was deeply surprised to find that the hallway, the door, and the ICU where her aunt was located were exactly as she had seen during the OBE. Participant 10 reported that during her OBE, she visited a village in Scotland. As she flew in, she observed a bridge and a specific landscape, and upon 'landing' in the village, she noticed the village's name. Later, she confirmed on a map that both the river and the village existed."

Many similar cases of veridical out-of-body experiences can be read in my post  here, where we read many cases of people who seemed to learn about some details of physical reality during an out-of-body experience, with the details later being confirmed through regular observation.  The authors of the "Out-of-body experiences: interpretations through the eyes of those who live them" paper erroneously state this:

"Given the complexity and subjective nature of OBEs, analyzing and explaining them within the scientific paradigm is an extremely complex task. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first publications on this phenomenon appeared in parapsychology journals (Alvarado, 1982; De Foe et al., 2013; Irwin, 2000)." 

To the contrary, out-of-body experiences were thoroughly documented in many publications much earlier than 1982. Reports of out-of-body experiences date back to 1845. Let us look at some of the earliest writings on this topic. 

On this page and the next one in the 1845 book The Seeress of Prevorst by  the physician Justinus Kerner. We read that Frederika Hauffe (the subject of the book) had out-of-body experiences (like many others):

"She was frequently in that state in which persons, who, like her, have had the faculty of ghost-seeing, perceive their own spirit out of their body, which only enfolds it as a thin gauze. She often saw herself out of her body, and sometimes double. She said, ' It often appears to me that I am out of my body, and then I hover over it, and think of it ; but this is not a pleasant feeling, because I recognize my body.' "

Frederika Hauffe (1801-1829)

One of the earliest out-of-body experience ever recorded in a first person account was the account given on pages 44-47 of the 1864 book Incidents in My Life by Daniel Dunglas Home. 

Home undergoing tests supervised by William Crookes

Here are some excerpts from a much longer account by Home:

"One evening I had been pondering deeply on that change which the world calls death, and on the eternity that lies beyond, until wearied I found relief in prayer, and then ill sleep. My last waking consciousness had been that of perfect trust in God, and a sense of gratitude to Him for the enjoyment I received from contemplating the beauties of the material creation. It might have been that my mind was led to this by the fact of my having watched a beautiful star as it shone and twinkled in the profound stillness of the night. Be this as it may, it appeared to me that, as I closed my eyes to earthly things, an inner perception was quickened within me, till at last reason was as active as when I was awake. I, with vivid distinctness, remember asking myself the question, whether I was asleep or no? when, to my amazement, I heard a voice which seemed so natural, that my heart bounded with joy as I recognised it as the voice of one, who while on earth was far too pure for such a world as ours, and who, in passing to that brighter home had promised to watch over and protect me. And, although I well knew she would do so, it was the first time I had heard her voice, with that nearness and natural tone. She said, ' Fear not, Daniel, I am near you ; the vision you are about to have is that of death, yet you will not die. Your spirit must again return to the body in a few hours. Trust in God and his good angels : all will be well.'...I was at this instant brought to a consciousness of light, by seeing the whole of my nervous system, as it were, composed of thousands of electrical scintillations, which here and there, as in the created nerve, took the form of currents, darting their rayons over the whole body in a manner most marvellous ; still this was but a cold electrical light and besides, it was external. Gradually, however, I saw that the extremities were less luminous, and the finer membranes' surrounding the brain became as it were glowing, and I felt that thought and action were no longer connected with the earthly tenement, but that they were in a spirit-body in every respect similar to the body which I knew to have been mine, and which I now saw lying motionless before me on the bed. The only link which held the two forms together seemed to be a silvery-like light, which proceeded from the brain ; and, as if it were a response to my earlier waking thoughts, the same voice, only that it was now more musical than before, said, 'Death is but a second birth, corresponding in every respect to the natural birth, and should the uniting link now be severed, you could never again enter the body.' "

The long account might be dismissed as some fantasy, but it actually holds high credibility, coming from a witness of unblemished integrity, who very many reported as levitating during seances, with the witness passing with flying colors an investigation by the world-class scientist William Crookes, as described here. 

On page 67 of the February 9, 1877 edition of The Spiritualist, we have an account that should interest those who study near-death experiences and out-of-body experiences. We have an account by William Q. Judge claiming that he was able to willfully produce out-of-body experiences or telepathic interactions with others. He states this:

"In my sleep at night, through intense desire and will, I have gone long distances. Once, while down in New Jersey, sixty miles from here, I have come up to this city, and been visible to friends in Mdme. Blavatsky’s house. To her house in spirit I have frequently gone.....Now here I have to take the evidence of others. They say that while my body snored, my double, or simulacrum...or whatever you may name it—that is, a visible counterfeit presentment  of me—could be seen walking down the passage to the kitchen."

In an 1892 edition of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (Volume VIII, page 196), we have an account by L. J. Bertrand of an out-of-body experience he had 30 years earlier. He states this:

" 'Well,'  thought I, 'at last I am what they call a dead man, and here I am, a ball of air in the air, a captive balloon still attached to earth by a kind of elastic string and going up and always up. How strange ! I see better than ever, and I am dead—only a small space in the space without a body ! . . . Where is my last body ?  Looking down, I was astounded to recognise my own envelope. ' Strange ! ' said I to myself. 'There is the corpse in which I lived and which I called me, as if the coat were the body, as if the body were the soul ! What a horrid thing is that body ! —deadly pale, with a yellowish-blue colour, holding a cigar in its mouth and a match in its two burned fingers ! Well, I hope that you shall never smoke again, dirty rag ! Ah ! if only I had a hand and scissors to cut the thread which ties me still to it."

The report of something like an elastic string or elastic band connecting the body and a kind of astral body or spirit body floating above the physical body is one that would reappear many times in future accounts of out-of-body experiences. 

One of the earliest reports of an out-of-body experience is an 1899 report made by a Dr. Wiltse. According to the page here, the account "was printed in the St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal,  November, 1889, and in the Mid-Continental Review, February, 1890." The account is quoted at length in my post here, which quotes from the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research edition here (Volume 8, page 180, from the year 1892).  We have in the account quite a few of the classic aspects of out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences. 

On page 288 of the July, 1894 edition of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, which can be read here, a witness reported being an observer above his own body, with an "elastic force" preventing him from floating too far away from his body. He reported he could not rise higher than "two yards" above his body. On page 34 of the January 17, 1903 edition of the periodical Light, which can be read here, George Wyld MD describes having an out-of-body experience in which his "soul-form" was "six or seven feet" above his body. 

On pages 254 to 255 of the 1895 book Brown Studies by George H. Hepworth, we have a description of an out-of-body experience, one that includes an account of being able to pass through matter. We read this:

"While sitting with my right hand resting on the arm of the chair I seemed to step out of my body, and stand beside it, looking upon it with mingled curiosity and astonishment. I felt as light as air, and said to myself, 'This must be what St. Paul calls the spiritual body.' It is true that I looked on what sat in the chair with a kind of tenderness, but the sense of freedom which I soon became conscious of was almost ecstatic, and it seemed as though I would not go back into those narrow quarters again for worlds. The body was so clumsy, so heavy, so uncomely, so uncouth and ungraceful, while this other body, on the contrary, was a delight, a dream, a poem....I moved away from my body toward the door, thinking to open it and go out into the starlight ; but to my surprise I found that the door was no obstruction whatever. I simply passed through it as the sun's rays pass through a pane of glass."

Around the time of about 1900 there appeared some newspaper accounts describing out-of-body experiences. You can read about them in my post here. In a 1901 newspaper article you can read this reference to out-of-body experiences:

"The. theory which Count de Rochas puts forth after ten years' investigation is that a subject under hypnotic influence can exteriorize the astral body, make it depart a certain distance from the material body, and when the air is grasped, as one would grasp an arm where the astral body is, it will be felt in the material or physical. It has been verified by eminent seers that the breath of this projection or astral-body carries sensibility with it."

In the very interesting 1907 book The Psychic Riddle by Isaac Funk (the same Funk of the famous Funk and Wagnall's dictionary), we read this account on pages 179 to 184 by a person who Funk tells is a " well-known gentleman in New York, a man whose veracity would be questioned by no one who knows him, a physician of standing, also an editor and publisher of reputation."  We read this account:

"As the movement continued upward, all at once there came a flashing of lights in my eyes and a ringing in my ears, and it seemed for an instant as tho I had become unconscious. When I came out of this state, I seemed to be walking in the air. No words can describe the exhilaration and freedom that I experienced. No words can describe the clearness of mental vision. At no time in my life had my mind been so clear or so free. Just then I thought of a friend who was more than a thousand miles distant. Then I seemed to be traveling with great rapidity through the atmosphere about me. Everything was light, and yet it was not the light of the day or the sun, but, I might say, a peculiar light of its own, such as I had never known. It could not have been a minute after I thought of my friend before I was conscious of standing in a room where the gas-jets were turned up, and my friend was standing with his back toward me, but suddenly turning and seeing me, said, 'What in the world are you doing here? I thought you were in Florida,' and he started to come toward me. While I heard the words distinctly, I was unable to answer. An instant later I was gone, and the consciousness of the things that transpired that memorable night will never be forgotten. I seemed to leave the earth, and everything pertaining to it, and enter a condition of life of which it is absolutely impossible to give here any thought I had concerning it, because there was no correspondence to anything I had ever seen or heard or known of in any way. The wonder and the joy of it was unspeakable, and I can readily understand now what Paul meant when he said, 'I knew a man, whether in the body or out of it I know not, who was caught up to the third heaven, and there saw things which it is not possible (lawful) to utter.'...I may add here that the friend referred to having been seen by me that night was also distinctly conscious of my presence and made the exclamation mentioned. We both wrote the next day and relating the experiences of the night, and the letters corroborating the incident crossed in the post....If the whole world was to rise up and say that there was no life after one left the physical organism, it would not make one particle of difference in my mind, as I am absolutely certain that I have been as free from my physical body as l ever will be, and that my life apart from it was far more wonderful than any life I have ever experienced in it."

In the article "Astral Excursions" by Franz Hartmann MD, which appears on page 159 of the March 1908 Occult Review, which can be read here, Hartmann describes an out-of-body experience. He says that during this experience "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."  

On page 480 of the October 7, 1911 edition of the journal Light, we read Mary Hamilton state this:

"The articles on ‘ Bilocation’ have been very interesting to me, and I think with ‘B. C. W'  that this phase of mediumship ought to be studied, for it is undoubtedly a form of mediumship, and in my own case I have had so many experiences of this kind that I never think of the physical body as myself. It is difficult to write on this matter, but I have been shown how the body is linked to the spiritual and sustained by it just as simply and naturally as the unborn child is by the mother. I have stood by my body fully conscious and been given this lesson by an Egyptian friend just as naturally as a teacher in the body could give it, and I have been overjoyed at the beauty and order of all things spiritual."

On the previous page of the same edition, we have a letter by Vincent N. Turvey of "Marrington, Branksome Park, Bournemouth." He quotes an account of an experience he had that could be an out-of-body experience. But the wording is too vague for us to tell whether what is going is an out-of-body experience or telepathy or clairvoyance. 

An important fact for anyone researching for the earliest literature on this topic is that before the phrase "out-of-body experience" became widely used, it was more common to use the slightly different phrase "out-of-the-body experience." Anyone searching for the earliest literature needs to search for all of these terms:

• Out-of-body experience
• Out-of-the-body experience
• Astral journey (an early term for an out-of-body experience)
• Astral projection (a term meaning a willfully produced out-of-body experience)
• Bilocation (a term meaning to be in two places at once, one sometimes used to describe a soul existing in a spot outside of the body)

The second part of this two-part series will take us from 1911 to the year 1930. 

Bozzano's Pioneering Study of Out-of-Body Experiences

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."