118. Before going farther, we must reply to a question
that will certainly be asked, viz., How Can the body live while the spirit is absent? We
reply, that it is possible for the body to live with only the organic life, which is independent of the spirits presence. But we must add, that, during earth-life, the spirit is never
completely detached from the body. Spirits, as well as certain seeing mediums,
perceive that the spirit of one in the flesh, when away from the body, is united to it by a
luminous trail, which reaches to the body a phenomenon which never occurs when the
body is dead, for then the separation is complete. It is by this channel of
communication that the spirit is instantaneously informed, however far away he may
be, of the need which the body may have of his presence and he then returns to the
body with the swiftness of lightning.* It follows, therefore, that the body can never die
during the spirit's absence, and that the spirit, on his return, can never find the door of
his fleshly habitation closed against him, as some romancers have pretended in their
imaginary tales. (See Spirits’ Book, No. 400, et seq.)
