weight. I have many times helped to lift him, or even lifted him single-handed, when he was in this state, and he
weighed no more than a child. A man can fake many things, but he cannot fake his weight. I have lifted him single
handed from the floor on to a sofa when in this state. It is quite true that, being rigid as a board, he was much easier to
handle than the ordinary limp, unconscious human form; but there is a certain ratio between the weight of a grown man
and the strength of a woman of average physique.
What became of the missing weight on these occasions I found out one night. He had been ill, with some delirium, and
the lion's share of the nursing, especially the night work, had fallen to my lot. There came a time, however, when we
decided that he was so far recovered that it was unnecessary for anyone to sit up with him, so to bed we all went, for
the first time for several days. I shared a room with another member of the community. It was a comparatively small
cottage we were in, and our two beds were close together, side by side, right under the uncurtained open window. It
was the time of the full moon, and I remember that I had no need to light a candle in order to see to undress.
I fell asleep at once, for I was very tired. I could not have been asleep very long, however, when I was awakened by the
sensation of a weight upon my feet. It was as if a good-sized dog, say, a collie, had jumped up and lain down on the
bed. The room was flooded with moonlight, and as bright as day, and I clearly saw, lying apparently asleep across the
foot of my bed, the man whom we had left safely tucked up for the night in the room below. It was a somewhat
embarrassing situation, and I lay still, taking thought before I did any thing. I was wide enough awake by now, as may
well be imagined. I concluded that Z., as I will call this man, had either had a return of the delirium, or was
sleep-walking. In any case I was very anxious to get him safely back to bed again without a fuss or a scene. My
companion had a bad heart, and I did not want her to get a shock; neither did I want him to get a shock in his weak
state. I was afraid that if I waked my room-mate first, she might scream, and wake Z. up with a start, with disastrous
consequences. I decided therefore to wake him gently, as being the worse case of the two, and let her take her chance.
Having cogitated these matters for several moments at least, I finally took action. I sat up in bed and leant quietly
forward with the intention of touching him gently on the shoulder and so arousing him. In order to lean forward, I had
to withdraw my feet from under him, for they were pinned by his weight, which until now had rested upon them, for I
had been careful not to stir while thinking out my plan of campaign.
Z. was plainly visible in the moonlight, clad apparently in his dressing-gown, or so I took the muffling folds of material
to be that swathed him about. Both his face and wrappings appeared grey and colourless in the moonlight, but there
was no question in my mind as to his solidarity, for not only could I see him, but I could feel his weight resting upon
my feet. But the moment I moved, he vanished, and I was left staring in amazement at the smooth fold of the blankets
over the end of the little camp-bed on which I lay. It was then, and then only, that I realised he had appeared all grey
and colourless, more like a shaded pencil sketch than a human being of flesh and blood.
I asked him about this incident in the morning, but he said he had no recollection of it; he had been dreaming the
uneasy, broken dreams of a sick man, but could not recall them.
This, of course, was in no way an occult attack, but rather the visit of a friend, who had come to lean upon me in the
course of his illness, and instinctively came to me for consolation when out of his body in trance at a time when his
weakened condition prevented him from retaining his normal control over his psychic activities. Nevertheless, it serves
to illustrate what could be done if the etheric form that visited me had been energised by a malignant will. It may
explain the nature of the sense of weight that oppresses the victims of a certain type of nightmare.
I have heard of more than one case wherein bruises resembling finger-marks were found on the throats of people who
had been victims of an astral attack. I have never actually seen such bruises myself, but I have been told of them by
people who have either had them themselves, or seen them. It is a well-known fact that if an occultist, functioning out
of the body, meets with unpleasantness on the astral plane, or if his subtle body is seen, and struck or shot at, the
physical body will show the marks. I myself have many times found curiously patterned bruises on my body after an
astral skirmish. The mechanism of the production of such marks must, I think, be of the same nature as that which
produces the stigmata of saints and the curious physical marks and swellings sometimes seen in hysterics - the mind,
powerfully stirred, affects the etheric double, and the etheric double acts upon the physical molecules held in its
meshes. I dare to prophesy the next advances in medicine will be bound up with the knowledge of the nature and
function of the etheric double.
The next type of psychic attack which we must consider is that conducted by means of artificial elementals. These are
distinguished from thought-forms by the fact that, once formulated by the creative mind of the magician, they possess a
23 of 103