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THE ASTRAL BODY AND ETHERIC BODY 125 been here," he continued, "I have been thinking how familiar this cabin looks. I think I have been here before. The night before you picked me up I dreamed that I came to you here in this cabin and told you to change your course to sou'west. The first time you took no notice of me, and I came the second time, in vain ; but the third time you changed your course, and I woke to find your ship alongside of us." Captain Benner then told his own story, and identified his mysterious visitor as the captain in his green sou'wester.
This story may be familiar to some of my readers, but it bears repetition for the sake of those to whom it is new.
There are several points of interest in this story, particularly as regards the conditions under which the astral body was projected and able to operate effectively to a definite end. The shipwrecked captain, having been adrift for some days without food, was reduced to a condition of physical depletion so great that unconsciousness ensued. The extreme urgency of his plight had impressed itself strongly on his subconscious mind in much the same way as deep concentration produces a nucleus of energy, and with the liberation of the astral body a purposeful direction
