its handwriting, uses its language, and thinks its thoughts.  At such times sensitives may believe that those with whom they are for the moment en rapport descend to earth and communicate with them, whereas, in reality, it is merely their own spirits which, being correctly attuned to those others, are for the time blended with them.[50]

In a special case under examination, H.P.  Blavatsky said that the communication might have come from an Elementary, but that it was

Far more likely that the medium’s spirit really became en rapport with some spiritual entity in Devachan, the thoughts, knowledge, and sentiments of which formed the substance, while the medium’s own personality and pre-existing ideas more or less governed the forms of the communication.[51]

While these communications are not reliable in the facts and opinions stated,

We would remark that it may possibly be that there really is a distinct spiritual entity impressing our correspondent’s mind.  In other words, there may, for all we know, be some spirit, with whom his spiritual nature becomes habitually, for the time, thoroughly harmonised, and whose thoughts, language, &c., become his for the time, the result being that this spirit seems to communicate with him....  It is possible (though by no means probable) that he habitually passes into a state of rapport with a genuine spirit, and, for the time, is assimilated therewith, thinking (to a great extent if not entirely) the thoughts that spirit would think, writing in its handwriting, &c.  But even so, Mr. Terry must not fancy that that spirit is consciously communicating with him, or knows in any way anything of him, or any other person or thing on earth.  It is simply that, the rapport established, he, Mr. Terry, becomes for the nonce assimilated with that other personality, and thinks, speaks, and writes as it would have done on earth....  The molecules of his astral nature may from time to time vibrate in perfect unison with those of some spirit of such a person, now in Devachan, and the result may be that he appears to be in communication with that spirit, and to be advised, &c., by him, and clairvoyants may see in the Astral Light a picture of the earth-life form of that spirit.

IV.  Communications other than those from disembodied Souls, passing through normal post mortem states.

(a) From Shells. These, while but the cast-off garment of the liberated Soul, retain for some time the impress of their late inhabitant, and reproduce automatically his habits of thought and expression, just as a physical body will automatically repeat habitual gestures.  Reflex action is as possible to the desire body as to the physical, but all reflex action is marked by its character of repetition, and absence of all power to initiate movement.  It answers to a stimulus with an appearance of purposive action, but it initiates nothing.  When people “sit for development”, or when at a seance they anxiously hope and wait for messages from departed friends, they supply just the stimulus needed, and obtain the signs of recognition for which they expectantly watch.