THE MEDIUMS’ BOOK

124. "We can understand," it may be objected, "that a body may be made to assume the appearance of another body of the same dimensions, or even of a larger one; but how could it assume that of a smaller one, that of a little child, as has just been suggested? In such a case, would not the real body exceed the limits of the apparent body?" We reply that, the portion of the real body which, in such a case, would be in excess of the apparent body, might easily be rendered invisible by spirit-action. But we do not assert that this phenomenon has actually been produced we only desire to show, theoretically, that both the size and the weight of the body might be made to undergo an apparent diminution. As to the phenomenon itself, we neither affirm nor deny its possibility; but, should it occur, and, should no more satisfactory solution have been arrived at, our theory would show how it might have been produced. We must never forget that we are on the threshold of the subject, and that we have still as much to learn in regard to the laws of spirit-manifestation as of all others.

125. We might here touch on the singular phenomenon of the "agénères" or ungenerated,* which, however extraordinary it may appear, is no more supernatural than the other phenomena we have been considering. But having fully explained this subject in the Revue Spirite of February 1859, we think it unnecessary to reproduce that explanation here. We will merely add that it is a variety of the class of tangible apparitions ; a peculiar state of certain spirits, enabling them to clothe themselves, temporarily, with a form so exactly resembling a body of flesh as to appear to be such to those about them.

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* From the Greek privative a, and geinomai to engender; that which has not been engendered.