"There are in optics real images which can be caught on a screen. An image reflected in a flat mirror cannot be caught upon a screen, and is therefore a phantasm. Can you see your image in a flat mirror?" "Yes." "Then you can see a phantasm, or an unreal image. The eye, therefore, is a skilful instrument, which can make the unreal real. One might thus be tempted to believe in ghosts." "What are ghosts?" "They are phantasms, or unreal images which the eye can take in at certain distances. Great and credible men, such as Luther, Swedenborg, and Goethe, have seen ghosts." "Goethe?" "Yes; in the eleventh book of _Aus meinem Leben_ he relates how he met the image of himself upon a country road. 'I saw, that is to say, not with the eye of the body, but of the spirit,' he adds. Do you consider Goethe's testimony credible?" "Yes." "Well, such sights are not seen every day, just as the hoopoo is not seen every day. But that does not give one any right to doubt that they are seen." =Crex, crex!=--The pupil asked: "What is chance?" "It means something accidental, irregular, illogical in the occurrence of an event. But the word is often misused by those who see, but do not understand. For instance, if after an evil deed you are systematically persecuted by misfortune, that is no chance. Firstly, because the misfortunes appear regularly, but chance is irregular. Secondly, because the punishment follows logically on the evil deed, and chance is illogical. It is therefore something else." "Yes, it must be so. But what is it that causes me to fail in all my undertakings, to meet in the streets only enemies, to be cheated in all the shops, to get the worst eatables in the market, to read only of wickedness in the papers, not to receive pleasant letters though they have been posted, to miss my train, to see the last cab engaged under my nose, to be given the only room in the hotel where a suicide has been committed, not to meet the person I have taken a special journey to see; to have the money I earn immediately snatched away, to have to remain in a strange town from which all my acquaintances have gone? Then at last, when I have no food, and am on the point of drowning myself, I find a shilling in the street. That cannot be chance? What is it then?" "It is something else, but how it happens we don't know, since we know so little about the most ordinary phenomena." "That's only twaddle." "Crex, crex!" "That's the corn-crake." "Yes, it is." =The Electric Battery and the Earth Circuit.=--The pupil feigned ignorance, and asked: "What is religion?" "If you do not know from experience or intuition, I cannot explain it to you; in that case it would only seem to you folly. But if you know beforehand, you will be able to receive my explanations, which are many. Religion is connected with the Source or the head station. But in order to carry on a conversation one must have an earth-current." "What is that?"