After yesterday, a bit of light relief. This short story was first published on Unexplained Mysteries. I wrote it after doing an essay on out-of-body experiences, and I asked that eternal question, ‘what if?’
What is mind? Is it a form of energy, whirling around the body, or even the world? Or is it a spin-off of the physical body?
To most scientists the latter is clearly the case. Without a physical body there is no vehicle through which mind can activate. As for mind itself, it is simply the result of chemical reactions within the brain. Yet, to mystics, to religionists, this is a fallacy. Mind is a product of soul and is separate from the body. It may animate the body, but it is separate, higher, and able to move away from the body at will.
I’d always been worried about such a concept.
Surely the scientists have the truth! But with my early researches into the out of the body experience, or OBE, my mind began to change, and I begun to accept a more spiritual base for mind. But nothing nudged me more towards this idea than my experiences with Hyram Nash. If indeed, it was Hyram Nash I met.
He walked into my office one day, having heard about my research, and said: ‘I need your help.’
He looked a clumsy kind of man, as if he wasn’t sure of his actions. Indeed, as he told me his predicament, this turned out to be a bit of an understatement:
‘I’m an astral traveller. I’ve learnt, over the years, how to detach my soul at will, and disappear into the spirit world, or walk, as a spirit form, on the Earth.’
I’d heard tales of such people, yet I admitted my doubts to him.
‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘It’s all true. We can do anything. At times, we can even take over the bodies of other people.’
Which was, for me, a claim too far. ‘Who’s put you up to this?’ I asked, aware that many sceptics wanted nothing better than to rubbish my work.
‘No one. I’m genuine; I promise you.’
He seemed emphatic enough, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt; although retaining my scepticism about his claims.
‘So what, exactly, do you want me to do for you?’
He adopted a serious air. ‘I was astral travelling last night, when suddenly I was unaware of where I was. Maybe it was a momentary lapse of consciousness – I don’t know. But when I woke up, I was not in my body.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
He sighed. ‘I was in this one.’
It was becoming too much.
‘Let me get this right,’ I said. ‘You are saying that the body you are presently inhabiting is not your own?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So who’s is it?’
‘I don’t know. All I know is that I woke up in this body in the morgue.’
‘In the morgue?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid I’ve animated a corpse.’
Suddenly, I found an interest in this case; not regarding his claims, but for what I considered a unique delusion. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘suppose I believe you. What do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to help me find my real body.’
So that is how I first became acquainted with Hyram Nash. And it was soon clear why he needed my help. For as soon as he attempted to do anything too complicated with his purloined body, his co-ordination collapsed, and all too often, so did he. Hence, in such a condition, he needed someone to guide him round his usual haunts in the hope of finding just where he had left his body.
The whole episode was, I have to report, bizarre in the extreme; and if anything was likely to make me change my mind about my work, it was Hyram Nash himself – if, indeed, it was him. But the eventual repercussion of the episode did, I’m afraid, leave me in no doubt whatsoever regarding the abilities of the astral traveller.
I took him around all his usual haunts, but we simply could not find the sleeping body of Hyram Nash. However, as we approached the very last place it could possibly be, he suddenly became excited, jumping up and down in what was, quite frankly, a rather busy street.
‘It’s in there,’ he said, pointing up to a flat above a shop, attracting much attention.
‘Calm down,’ I said, ‘let’s get inside.’
‘What’s going on?’ said a policeman as he approached.
‘No need to do that,’ said Hyram.
‘I beg to differ,’ I said, the policeman getting closer.
‘No. Thank you very much,’ said Hyram.
Then, before my very eyes, the man by my side turned a funny colour, closed his eyes, and collapsed, totally and absolutely dead.
Confusion appeared on the policeman’s face; and sheer panic on my own. Suddenly not knowing what to do, I turned round to the policeman and said: ‘What?!’
© Anthony North, June 2007
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