123. Transfiguration, in certain cases, may be caused simply by a muscular
contraction which gives so new an expression to the face as to render the person no
longer recognisable. W e have often observed this, in the case of certain
somnambulists, but, in such cases, the transformation is not radical; a woman, for
instance, may appear young or old, handsome or plain, but she will still appear as a
woman, and she will not increase or diminish in weight. In the instance before us, it is
quite evident that there was something more than this; something which only a know-
ledge of the perispirit will enable us to explain.
We assume, as a fundamental principle, that the spirit has the power of giving to
his perispirit every kind of appearance, and that, by modifications of its atomic
conditions, he can give it temporary visibility, tangibility, and consequently opacity.
We also lay it down as a rule that the perispirit of a person in the flesh, when partially
separated from the body, can be made to undergo the same transformations, and that
this change of state is effected by the combinations of fluids to which we have so often
adverted.
Let us, then, imagine the perispirit of a person in the flesh, not as separated from the
body, but as radiating around the body, so as to envelop it like a vapour. In this state,
the perispirit can be made to undergo the same modifications as if it were entirely
separated from it; by causing the perispirit to lose its transparency, the body may be
made to disappear and become invisible, being veiled, so to say, by the perispirit, as
though surrounded by a mist. It may even change its aspect, and become luminous, if
such be the will, or in the power, of the spirit. A second spirit, combining his own fluid
with that of the former one, may substitute his own appearance for that of the former
spirit, and so completely that the real body may be made to disappear under an exterior
fluidic envelope, the appearance of which may be changed indefinitely at the will of the
spirit-operators. * Such appears to be the true cause of the strange and very rare
phenomenon in question. As to the difference of weight, that may be explained in the
same way as the change of weight in inert bodies. The intrinsic weight of the young
lady's body was not changed, because there was no change in the amount of matter it
contained ; but her body was, for the time being, brought under the control of an
exterior agent that was able to augment or to diminish its apparent weight, as we
explained above (78 et seq.). It is therefore probable that, if the transfiguration had
caused it to assume the aspect of a little child, the apparent weight of the body would
have been proportionally diminished.
