104. Sometimes a spirit, who desires or who is able to appear, assumes a form
still more defined, and having all the appearance of a solid body, so as to produce a
complete illusion, causing us to believe that we have a corporeal body before us. In
some cases, and tinder certain circumstances, this apparent tangibility becomes a
reality; that is to say, we can touch the spirit, handle it, and feel the same resistance, the
same warmth, as we should feel in a fleshly body; but this does not hinder it from
vanishing with the celerity of lightning. In such cases, it is not the eye alone which
attests the reality of their presence, but also the sense of touch; and though we might
attribute a merely visual apparition to illusion, or to a sort of fascination, we cannot do
so when we are able to seize and handle the apparition, or when the latter seizes and
touches us. The phenomena of tangible apparitions are the rarest of all; but those which
have appeared, in these latter days, through the influence of certain powerful mediums,
confirm and explain many historical statements in regard to persons who, in former
days, have shown themselves, after death, with all the appearances of reality. For the
rest, as we have said however extraordinary such phenomena may be, their
marvellousness disappears when we know the means by which they are produced ; for
we then see that, so far from being a derogation from the laws of nature, they are only
another application of those laws.
