It is, of course, unnecessary to state in detail the fact that communication with decarnate entities has been known and practiced by the human race from the earliest days of recorded history, and probably long before that time, and is far from being a modern discovery. Moreover, such communication has been known and practiced by races of human beings other than those inhabiting Europe and America--particularly in the oriental countries. In the oriental lands such communication has been well established for many thousand years, and the most ancient records give evidences of it. The Hebrew Scriptures contain many instances of such communication, showing that the same was an accepted fact of the life of the race at the time and in the places at which these records were written. Mediumship and Religious Belief. The careful student will of course notice that this communication with the higher planes of life and being--this so-called "mediumship"--does not depend upon any particular form of religious belief, or teaching, concerning the nature of the state or place of abode of the departed spirits of men; but, on the contrary, is common to all form of religion and to all phases of belief in the survival of the human soul. Therefore, a scientific consideration of the general subject does not necessitate the acceptance of any one particular phase of religious belief, or of any particular system of teaching concerning the nature or state of "life after death." All that is required of the person accepting the general fact of "higher plane communication" may be stated as follows: (1) Acceptance of the fact that the human soul persists after the death of the body, and independent of and removed from the dead body; (2) acceptance of the fact that the decarnate souls of human beings may, and do, establish communication with human beings still dwelling upon the earth-plane of existence. We may state here that the term "decarnate" means "away from the physical body," or "out of the flesh;" the term being the opposite of "incarnate," meaning "clothed with flesh, or embodied in flesh." We may also state here that the teachings of most philosophies of the life after death hold that the decarnate human soul is not entirely devoid of a body, but rather occupies a body composed of some ethereal substance; this ethereal body being called the "astral body," or the "spiritual body." The Ideals of Modern Spiritualism.