Sudden Fright

One of the most pitiful objects in nature is a man or an animal in a condition of abject fear; and an examination of Plate XIV. in Man Visible and Invisible shows that under such circumstances the astral body presents no better appearance than the physical. When a man’s astral body is thus in a state of frenzied palpitation, its natural tendency is to throw off amorphous explosive fragments, like masses of rock hurled out in blasting, as will be seen in Fig. 30; but when a person is not terrified but seriously startled, an effect such as that shown in Fig. 27 is often produced. In one of the photographs taken by Dr Baraduc of Paris, it was noticed that an eruption of broken circles resulted from sudden annoyance, and this outrush of crescent-shaped forms seems to be of somewhat the same nature, though in this case there are the accompanying lines of matter which even increase the explosive appearance. It is noteworthy that all the crescents to the right hand, which must obviously have been those expelled earliest, show nothing but the livid grey of fear; but a moment later the man is already partially recovering from the shock, and beginning to feel angry that he allowed himself to be startled. This is shown by the fact that the later crescents are lined with scarlet, evidencing the mingling of anger and fear, while the last crescent is pure scarlet, telling us that even already the fright is entirely overcome, and only the annoyance remains.

Sudden Fright