CHAPTER II
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ASTRAL CATALEPSY
ENTION was made of astral catalepsy, and as this condition is the cause of many different phenomena attributed to other sources, it will be well to under- . stand it more thoroughly . We have all heard of catalepsy . Webster defines it as " a sudden suspension of sensation and volition, with muscular rigidity ." That is what it is when the astral body is in coincidence with the physical ; yet catalepsy is subconscious control of the astral body, and can exist apart from the physical organism-as was shown in the above-quoted experience . Under catalepsy, the astral body is set, unyielding to form, " rigid " one might say, not unlike the physical body during cataleptic rigidity . When a person is physically cataleptic, he is in that condition because he is astrally cataleptic . Most of us have seen demonstrations in hypnotism, where a subject, under cataleptic rigidity, is suspended, horizontally, by his heels and head, while huge boulders are placed upon the centre of his body and smashed into bits with a sledge-hammer . It is catalepsy of the astral body which produces physical catalepsy . With the phantom once exteriorized and powerless, under catalepsy, the subconscious can manoeuvre it as it pleases . This is an example of the wisdom of the super-intelligence . All of us know how difficult it is to lift a limpid, living body to the upright position, and how easy it is if the body be resistless and stiff . The subconscious, it seems, makes use of this law . Even though the astral body be cataleptically controlled, the conscious mind can function, or partially function ; but usually it does not function until the spell is removed . Astral catalepsy reigns from the beginning of exteriorization until it progresses to that point where the phantom is in the vertical or standing position . It is not unusual for the phantom to stand there for some time before being liberated . Some projectors get only to this point, and never become free-interiorizing again, all the time in a cataleptic condition . When such is the case, the body will always be unstable, swaying to and fro, from side to side, forward and backward . This is really an incompleted projection . A completed projection could not be considered so unless the phantom were liberated from catalepsy . 10