From these facts it is fair to conclude,-- 1. That the power to create phantasms resides and is inherent in the subjective mind, or personality, of man. 2. That the power becomes greater as the body approaches nearer to the condition of death; that is, as the subjective, or hypnotic, condition becomes deeper, and the subjective personality in consequence becomes stronger in its sphere of activity. 3. That at the hour of death, or when the functions of the body are entirely suspended, the power is greatest. Hence, ghosts. It will be understood from the foregoing that my theory is that ghosts, or phantasms of the dead, are produced exactly as phantasms of the living are produced; that is, they are creations of the subjective entity. How they are created is of course a question that may never be answered in terms comprehensible by the objective intelligence of man. It is as far beyond our finite comprehension as are the processes by which the Infinite Mind has brought the universe into being. All that we can know is the fact that phantasms are created by some power inherent in the subjective personality of man. They may be called "embodied thoughts," as man may be called the embodied thought of God. If, as the Scriptures teach us, "we are gods," that is, "sons of God" and "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ," it is fair to presume that that part of the Infinite which is embodied in each of us must partake, to a limited extent, of His power to create. Experimental psychology suggests to us that we have that power, and that it is thus that phantasms are produced. To the supposition that phantasms of the dead are thus created is opposed but one other hypothesis, and that is, that the phantasms are the real spirits of the dead persons whom they represent. Granted that ghosts do exist and make themselves manifest to the living, one or the other of these hypotheses must be true, and the other false. To determine which is true, we must have recourse to the ghosts themselves; that is, we must collate the facts regarding the characteristics of these supposed dwellers on the border-land, and ask ourselves whether their known and admitted characteristics are those which would naturally belong to the real spirit of a man, or to an embodied thought of a man. The salient characteristics which seem to belong to all ghosts, and which pertain to the question under consideration, are these:-- The ghosts which are best authenticated and which seem to possess the greatest longevity, so to speak,--that is, the greatest persistency of power and purpose,--are of those who have died violent deaths. There are exceptions to this rule, which will be noted later on.