Plutarch (_De Gen. Soc._ p. 266) would seem to indicate the same phenomenon. The Neoplatonic interlocutor, having distinguished the intelligence (νοῦς) from the soul (ψυχή), inasmuch as the former is not properly the body at all, except by reflection, as light in a mirror, but floats above the man's head, bound to the incorporated soul and yielding light for its conduct, says, in respect to the case of one Hermodorus, whose soul was supposed periodically to leave his body: "But this is not true, for his soul did not go forth from his body, but, slackening and loosing the reins to the intelligence (the δαίμων, as the wise call it, regarding it as something external), allowed it circumgyration and circum-frequentation (περιδρομὴν καὶ περιφίτησιν), and, when it had seen or heard anything, to bear in the tidings." Catholic theologians, although commonly denying that the soul can be separated from the body in natural or diabolical ecstasy, admit generally that, in the case of the divine _raptus_, this separation, or rather projection--for death is supposed not to ensue--may take place; although many of them--amongst others Benedict XIV. (_De Beatif._, lib. iii. cap. 49)--deny that, in fact, such separation ever does occur. On this question, Cardinal Bona (_De Discret. Spir._, cap. 14) says: "Whether the soul, in the higher or more vehement rapt, sometimes leaves the body, or can leave it, is a doubtful and difficult question; for the apostle, caught up into the third heaven, professed that he knew not whether this was in the body or out of the body; and what so great a man did not know it is not for us to define. 'For who,' saith Augustine, most learnedly disputing of the rapt of Paul, 'would dare to say he knew what the apostle said he did not know?' The same ignorance possessed S. Teresa's mind; for, describing the effects of rapture in _The Castle of the Soul_, mans. 6 c. 5, she says: 'Whether in the body or out of the body these things take place, I cannot tell: I certainly dare not affirm on my oath either that the soul is then in the body, or that the body can, in the meanwhile, live without the soul.' Then, making use of some similitude to explain the matter, she ends by saying she knows not what to say. But S. Catherine of Sienna, herself a divine patient (_Epist. xii. ad P. Raym._), does not hesitate to affirm for certain that her soul sometimes left her body and tasted the sweets of immortality; which occasional separation of the soul and body it is manifest could take place, not by the powers of nature, but by the omnipotence of God." I would suggest that separation or projection would seem to admit of degrees, some of which may be possible to other powers short of omnipotence.