THE STAR ROVER
  (Copyright by Jack London, 1915)   full text at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/London/Writings/StarRover/

The story goes that Jack London following an interview with a prisoner wrote a novel concerning the excess of torture prior to 1920 when such punishment was still legal in California Penitentiaries. By the constraining power of the strait jacket a prisoner's physical will was crushed but not always his spirit. Jack London recorded that prisoners under this severe punishment had in some cases left their body and soared above their place of captivity, time traveled and even visited upon their various incarnations. While reading this novel one may wonder as to the extent that Jack London himself had visited his past lives having crossed beyond the line where spirit is free of the body.