Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1894 — HOW WE DIE. [ARTICLE]

HOW WE DIE.

The Final Departure of the Spirit Described by a Clairvoyant. Dr. Cyriax, of the Spiritualistiiche Blatter, delivered »» address some time ago in Berlin oa the subject of death. After dealing with the vegetable and animal king lores in a general way he referred t. death in man in the following terras: “In man the manner in which death is revealed has been described by hundreds of clairvoyant persons, who agree in saying that the spirit leaves its earthly envelope by the top of the cranium. They observe immediately after that a kind of a vaporous mass rises from the head and, taking human form, condenses more and more, and finally becomes a faithful portrait of a dying person. When the complete form has left the body they have seen that the spiritual element still remained attached by a kind of fluidic ligament originating in the region of the brain and heart. This form endures for five or six hours and after it is severed the man feels no more. We should not break out in lamentations beside a death bed, nor speak of the dying person, nor attempt to retain the life which is escaping. Outbursts of grief always produce a disagreeable impression upon a person who is passing away, because, although internal sensations are blunted, the impressions are nevertheless made. Death itself is nothing, but there are difficulties in dying just as in being born. Some people die fully conscious: others are half conscious that life is abandoning them, and each comprehends and hears what is passing around. For all death is similar to a dream produced by narcotics. To those who die in full consciousness, the interruption of life appears like a sudden swoon. Those who are only partially conscious are speedily insensible to pain; feel, in general, pretty well, and fall asleep like a man after a hard day’s work. The latter circumstance accounts for the fact that many spirits on awaking fancy themselves for the moment still in the flesh, until the sight of their own body stretched out before them brings the conviction that they have just entered the world of spirits. By death man suffers no change of form, of organization or of character. He is neither better nor worse; knows neither more nor less; has neither gained nor lost in any point, nor in any aptitude. He has only acquired com ditions more favorable for his ultimate development. The object of spiritualism is to call attention to these facts. Death is simply a progressive evolution under the dominion of natural laws. It is a blessed liberation which frees man from the slavery of earth, dissipates the fogs which here obscures his vision and a.cLear field to all his aptitudes.”