Three explanations are offered: _First_, that the astral body of the living medium detaches itself from its corpus and assumes the appearance of the so-called spirit; for one of the properties of the astral matter is capacity to reflect an image existing unseen in ether. _Second_, the actual astral shell of the deceased—wholly devoid of his or her spirit and conscience—becomes visible and tangible when the condition of air and ether is such as to so alter the vibration of the molecules of the astral shell that it may become visible. The phenomena of density and apparent weight are explained by other laws. _Third_, an unseen mass of electrical and magnetic matter is collected, and upon it is reflected out of the astral light a picture of any desired person either dead or living. This is taken to be the “spirit” of such persons, but it is not, and has been justly called by H. P. Blavatsky a “psychological fraud”, because it pretends to be what it is not. And, strange to say, this very explanation of materializations has been given by a “spirit” at a regular _séance_, but has never been accepted by the spiritualists just because it upsets their notion of the return of the spirits of deceased persons. Finally, the astral body will explain nearly all the strange psychical things happening in daily life and in dealings with genuine mediums; it shows what an apparition may be and the possibility of such being seen, and thus prevents the scientific doubter from violating good sense by asserting you did not see what you know you have seen; it removes superstition by showing the real nature of these phenomena, and destroys the unreasonable fear of the unknown which makes a man afraid to see a “ghost”. By it also we can explain the apportation of objects without physical contact, for the astral hand may be extruded and made to take hold of an object, drawing it in toward the body. When this is shown to be possible, then travelers will not be laughed at who tell of seeing the Hindu yogee make coffee cups fly through the air and distant objects approach apparently of their own accord untouched by him or any one else. All the instances of clairvoyance and clairaudience are to be explained also by the astral body and astral light. The astral—which are the real—organs do the seeing and the hearing, and as all material objects are constantly in motion among their own atoms the astral sight and hearing are not impeded, but work at a distance as great as the extension of the astral light or matter around and about the earth. Thus it was that the great seer Swedenborg saw houses burning in the city of Stockholm when he was at another city many miles off, and by the same means any clairvoyant of the day sees and hears at a distance. CHAPTER VI.