How easy it was to be a Scanner, when you really stood outside your own body, haberman-fashion, and looked back into it with your eyes alone. Then you could manage the body, rule it coldly even in the enduring agony of Space. But to realize that you were a body, that this thing was ruling you, that this mind could kick the flesh and send it roaring off into panic! That was bad.

Cordwainer Smith, "Scanners Live in Vain" (1948)