Page:Weird Tales Volume 12 Issue 06 (1928-12).djvu/55

trical agitation of the brain throws the subject into a state from which he can view the events of a previous existence. You are not, by the way, a believer in the theory of transmigration of souls? No? Well, no matter—whether you believe now or not is a thing of small consequence, for I am quite convinced you will be a firm believer before we are done with our experiment.

"Suffice it to say that the soul which occupies the body of Ralph Hearne at this moment has existed in other bodies since the beginning of time. What I do is only to cast the soul back into a previous state. Your body and your conscious will remaining here with me, however, you are able to tell me exactly what you are doing at the period of time to which your soul returns. Although you are now Ralph Hearne, a simple American citizen, you have been in the past a Russian grand duke or a tsar or perhaps only a poor mujik. I make the reference Russian because of the ring you wear; Although you may not know it, it is Russian; I have seen many of them in Russia, being myself of Russian descent."

"I don't know that I understand what you mean," said Hearne dubiously. "You say you wish to cast my soul back into a previous life in order that I may live through the events of that life. In my understanding, the word 'previous' means something which has gone before—something which has been completed. If, perchance, I had been a grand duke in some past age, as you say, then the body of that grand duke has by this time turned to dust. How would it lie possible for my soul to go back and live in a body which has long since crumbled in dust?"

"There you are wrong," answered Dr. Trask. "I used the word 'previous' merely because I wished you to understand better what I intended to do with your soul. You make the common mistake of assuming that these past lives of yours came before this one in point of time, but I tell you they do not come before, or after, but run co-existent with it."

"You mean," demanded Hearne, incredulously, "that at this identical moment my soul is occupying a body not only in this world but in some other world also?"

"Precisely. I might go even farther than that. I might say your soul inhabits another body on this very same planet, Earth. It would, however, be in a different dimension from the one in which you now are. It is theoretically possible that your soul inhabits not only the body of Ralph Hearne here on this floor in this room, but also another body on this floor in this room. The body of Ralph Hearne would be unaware of the other body because the other body would be in another dimension of space.

"Let me make an analogy for you," continued Dr. Trask, seeing the puzzled look in Hearne's eyes. "We will first begin with the old theory of the transmigration of souls, which has nothing to do with the dimensions of space. Imagine a series of iron tubes—say six—placed side by side. Imagine that when a person is born he begins life at one end of one of these tubes and progresses through this tube until death releases him at the other end. Each tube, therefore, represents the course of a lifetime.

"Now imagine that these tubes are numbered from left to right beginning with No. 6 at the left and ending with No. 1 at the right. Imagine that Tube 6 encloses the life of a person born in the year 1000 and dying in the year 1100. Tube five encloses the life of a person born in 1300 and dying in 1400. Tube 4 encloses a life born in 1900 and dying in 2000. Tube 3 encloses the life of Ralph Hearne, born, let us say, in the year 2000 and dying in the year 2100. And so on with the other two tubes.

"Now according to the old theory of the transmigration of souls, a soul