Just then, a reprieve arrived, and in a moment he was back again in his
body. Mr. Edmund Gosse, who can hardly have been acquainted with the
Chinese view, told a similar story in his _Father and Son_: "During
morning and evening prayers, which were extremely lengthy and fatiguing,
I fancied that one of my two selves could flit up, and sit clinging to
the cornice, and look down on my other self and the rest of us."

In some parts of China, planchette is frequently resorted to as a means
of reading the future, and adapting one's actions accordingly. It is a
purely professional performance, being carried through publicly before
some altar in a temple, and payment made for the response. The question
is written down on a piece of paper, which is burnt at the altar
apparently before any one could gather knowledge of its contents; and
the answer from the god is forthwith traced on a tray of sand, word by
word, each word being obliterated to make room for the next, by two men,
supposed to be ignorant of the question, who hold the ends of a V-shaped
instrument from the point of which a little wooden pencil projects at
right angles.

Another method of extracting information from the spirits of the unseen
world is nothing more or less than hypnotism, which has long been known
to the Chinese, and is mentioned in literature so far back as the
middle of the seventeenth century. With all the paraphernalia of altar,
candles, incense, etc., a medium is thrown into a hypnotic condition,
during which his body is supposed to be possessed by a spirit, and
every word he may utter to be divinely inspired. An amusing instance
is recorded of a medium who, while under hypnotic influence, not only
blurted out the pecuniary defalcations of certain men who had been
collecting in aid of temple restoration, but went so far as to admit
that he had had some of the money himself.