It is the opinion of these psychologists, however, that in the normal and healthy condition of man, the union of body, soul, and spirit, is most complete, and that all the degrees of disunion in the waking state are degrees of morbid derangement. Hence it is that somnambulists and clairvoyants are chiefly to be found among sickly women. There have been persons who have appeared to possess a power which they could exert at will, whereby they withdrew from their bodies, these remaining during the absence of the spirit in a state of catalepsy, scarcely if at all to be distinguished from death. I say _withdrew from their bodies_, assuming that to be the explanation of the mystery; for, of course, it is but an assumption. Epimenides is recorded to have possessed this faculty; and Hermotinus, of Clazomenes, is said to have wandered, in spirit, over the world, while his body lay apparently dead. At length his wife, taking advantage of this absence of his soul, burned his body and thus intercepted its return: so say Lucien and Pliny the elder;—and Varro relates, that the eldest of two brothers, named Corfidius, being supposed to die, his will was opened and preparations were made for his funeral by the other brother, who was declared his heir. In the meantime, however, Corfidius revived, and told the astonished attendants, whom he summoned by clapping his hands, that he had just come from his younger brother, who had committed his daughter to his care, and informed him where he had buried some gold, requesting that the funeral preparations he had made might be converted to his own use. Immediately afterward, the news arrived that the younger brother was unexpectedly deceased, and the gold was found at the place indicated. The last appears to have been a case of natural trance; but the two most remarkable instances of voluntary trance I have met with in modern times is that of Colonel Townshend, and the dervish who allowed himself to be buried. With regard to the former, he could, to all appearance, die whenever he pleased; his heart ceased to beat; there was no perceptible respiration; and his whole frame became cold and rigid as death itself; the features being shrunk and colorless, and the eyes glazed and ghastly. He would continue in this state for several hours and then gradually revive; but the revival does not appear to have been an effort of will—or rather, we are not informed whether it was so or not. Neither are we told whether he brought any recollections back with him, nor how this strange faculty was first developed or discovered—all very important points, and well worthy of investigation.[2]