The mind would play strange tricks on the body. Erotic pictures would plague the glands.The walls of the thick black room would seem to crowd in;the hermit would have the strongest sensation of being crushed. Breathing would become hard_laboured,as the air became stale. Only every two days was the stone removed from the small gap in the inner wall so that a bowl of water,a handful of barley,and life-giving air could enter. Then it would be blocked up again.
When the body wad mastered,when all the emotions had been conquered,the astral vehicle would float free like smoke rising from a bonfire. The material body would lie supine on the littered floor and only the Silver Cord would unite the two. Down the precipitious paths it would wander while it savoured the joys of being free from the chains of the flesh. Into lamaseries it would creep and telepathic and clairvoyant lamas would converse with it. Neither nigh tnor day,or heat or cold would impede it,nor the stoutest doors prove an obstacle. The council chambers of the world were ever available and there was no sight nor experience which the astral travellers could not witness