CONTENTS >
— De PANU rite usss ae ace
Editorial Notes G a ae
Dr. T. Glen Hamilton 8 Lecture (illustrated) S. De Brath l
Immortality — EE SRE ‘Winnipeg Medical Society `
Language Tests ee Ancient Egypt i EH. Wood, Mus. D.
“Psychometry > on Ushabti Figure _ Mary Menteith “Prevision ERG eae S E Eg De Brath. A New Realism che : ae Priscilla M. Wilde
2 Sittings with Mrs, Barkel and Mrs. Mason Two Members
‘The Other Side of Life
` À. Seymour Hosley, Pietermaritzburg Technical College — Nores BY THE WAY, ` Sea Ss BOOK REVIEWS.
LIBRARY NOTICE, &c., &c.
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ee iatis Oy The British Collage, 45, es: PRS London, 8. W.T, from whom it can 1 porda or ooh J, x Watkins, A Gecil ee W. °.
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BRITISH COLLEGE OF ` PSYCHIC SCIENCE LTD.
; Limited by Guarantee Founded by the Late J. Hewat McKenzie, 1920 Incorporated 1925 j
Registered Office: 15, QUEEN'S GATE, LONDON, S.W.7 Telephone : Western 3981 ;
ass Organising Secretary -. - - Mrs, M. W. HANKEY.
as Librarian - - = = =- MRs. Bartow. A bi Hon. Principal : £ A Mrs, CHAMPION DE CRESPIGNY. j E a i f š : EXECUTIVE COUNCIL: vid Mr, STANLEY DE BRATH, M.1.C.E. Dr. HOWARD COULTHARD. $ Ë. Mrs. KELWAY BAMBER Mr. DENIS Conan DOYLE. {
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Honorary Members: Sır OLIVER Lopar, F.R.S.
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Editor of “° PSYCHIC SCIENCE,” MR. STANLEY DE BRATH, M.I. C.R.
Affiliated Societies : Reading Society for Psychical Investigation The West Riding of Yorkshire Psychical Society Ipswich Psychic Society
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F
EE I SN SO PAT S a A ca T Mr. J. ARTHUR FINDLAY, J.P.
The author of “ On the Edge of the Etheric.’’ Preface by the late Sir William Barrett, F.R.S.
Frontispiece. |
Quarterly Transactions
OF THE
British College of Psychic Science,
Ltd.
Editor - - STANLEY DE BRATH, M.LC.E.
Responsibility for the Contents of any article appearing in the Transactions rests entirely with the Contributor and not with the College.
Vol. XI. OCTOBER, 1932. No. 3.
CONTENTS. PAGE Frontispiece - : - Mr.J. Arthur Findlay
Editorial Notes - - - - - Bo sis) Dr. T. Glen Hamilton s Lecture (Illustrated) - z: ANS. S. De Brath
Immortality - - - - - - 182 Winnipeg Medical Society
Language Test of Ancient Egypt (Illustrated) - - 194 F. H. Wood, Mus D.
“ Psychometry” on Ushabti Figure - - - 203 Mary Menteith
Prevision - - - - - - - 213 S. De Brath
A New Realism - - - - - - 217 Mrs. Priscilla M. Wilde
Sittings with Mrs. Barkel and Mrs. Mason - -22321 Two Members
The Other Side of Life - - - - - 233
A. Seymour Hosley, Pietermaritzburg Technical College
Notes BY THE WAY. Boox REVIEWS. LIBRARY INFORMATION, &c., &c.
Published Quarterly by THE BRITISH COLLEGE or Psycuic SCIENCE, LTD., 15, Queen’s Gate, London, 8.W.7. A
RECENT DISCOVERIES A T ST. MARY’S PRIORY, HURLEY.
(FOUNDED A.D. 1086.)
AN INTENSELY INTERESTING
ILLUSTRATED LECTURE Col: C: RIVERS. MOORE,
QUEEN’S GATE HALL, HARRINGTON ROAD, SOUTH KENSINGTON.
On WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19th, at 8 p.m.
The Lecturer will describe the ancient Priory buildings as they stood at the time when he came into possession of them. He will then trace the History from the destruction of the Saxon Church by the Danes in A.D. 870 to the formation and eventual destruction of the Priory at the time of the dissolution.
Then will follow the erection of the Mansion on the site by Lord Lovelace and the story of the plotting which took place there against James Il.
The Lecturer will then touch on the story of the sinking of the “Royal George” during the occupation of the mansion by the brother of Admiral Kempenfelt and the strange occur- rence at Hurley at that moment.
Coming to modern times, full details will be given of the Psychic revelations received by the Lecturer and his friends which have resulted in numerous interesting discoveries.
The whole Lecture will be fully illustrated by lantern slides, many being in colour.
RESERVED SEATS .. Members 2/- Non-Members 3/- UNRESERVED SEATS... = 1/- a 2/- From British College of Psychic Science, 15, Queen's Gate, S.VV.7.
Quarterly Transactions
OF THE British College of Psychic Science, Ltd. Vol. XI.—No. 3. October, 1932.
EDITORIAL NOTES
The British College of Psychic Science as represented by its Transactions started ten years ago with physical phenomena, but following in line with Science, it has put these as mere pheno- mena into the second place and seeks to probe deeply into their causes. What we know of physical phenomena are but the result of causes, and to stop at the physical plane would be wilfully to limit our researches. To explain them we must probe beyond the limits of physical matter. It is therefore our purpose to give prominence to those phenomena which show advances as yet unexplained.
In this policy they think they are supported by the actual facts from the Other Side of life. The sensational phenomena of the early days of modern Spiritualism have been succeeded by a phase of spiritual phenomena which places the mental, rather than the physical in the forefront. ;
Except the ‘‘ Margery '' mediumship and the Winnipeg in- vestigations, physical effects are less in evidence, though in all the mental aspects are very distinct. Nevertheless, it is not to be disregarded that the physical phenomena were the starting-point of the modern movement, and were, perhaps, the only method by which the attention of the world at large could have been drawn to supernormal action as a whole, at a time when Materialism was practically synonymous with science. ;
But the “ controls ” by living persons, or possibly by the extensions of consciousness by the automatic writer, are cer- tainly true in some cases at least, and constitute a very per- plexing problem. They have been explained to some extent by Dr. Rudolph Tischner’s theory of a “ universal psychic substratum '" to all human consciousness. -But the shrinkage of the medium’s form by “ dematerialisation °’, ap: ports, and automatic writing apparently from unconscious in- fluence by living persons at a distance, still remains unex- plained. Of all these things we may perhaps be usefully reminded, because no theory is valid which does not cover all
174 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
known phenomena. The theory of the subconscious mind (Animism) explains many things which used to be referred to discarnates, but does not cover such instances of spiritist action as adduced by Signor Bozzano.
The really astounding thing is, as Mrs. St. Clair Stobart re- marks in Light of Sept. 7th, that whereas almost everybody would accept unquestioningly the evidence of Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A. R. Wallace or Sir William Crookes on every other subject under the sun, nor doubt their good faith, their intelligence, or their care as investigators, yet when it comes to the investigation of Spiritualism, many people, without taking the trouble to investigate for themselves, calmly condemn off-hand all the conclusions reached by these eminent men as founded on illusion, or upon phenomena which were fraudulent.
The formulation of any general theory is for the future: we have already more than enough to occupy our minds.
The great problem before spiritualism at the present day is to awaken the interest of the clergy in modern advances. Mrs. St. Clair Stobart has provoked a lively controversy by her statement in Light of August 19th, 1982 :—
My fervent aspiration is that the Churches will absorb spiritualism, lock, stock, and barrel, and that there will be no need for separate spiritualist services. . . . The ex- tinction of the Churches would be disastrous. The world in general needs guidance in spiritual matters, and for this the Churches are materially equipped and still have authority behind them. Far from wishing them to be ex- tinguished, I suggest, for their survival, that they should realise the inadequacy of their spiritual equipment, and the fact that the waning of their old prestige, is due to lack of knowledge of modern theology. They should seek to supplement their erudition in Jewish history and tradition by a study of the modern science of the soul... I will be the spiritualistic section of Christianity that will even- tually save Christianity to the world, and will lead the people to more spiritual conceptions. Spiritualism will be the parent of the new religion.
This constitutes our immediate and pressing problem. Its ultimate solution is still far distant. It is an ideal for the future. When the Church has dropped the Devil, and Hell, the Final Judgment, the Resurrection of the body, and has recognised the pervasion of the furthest stellar systems by the One Creative Power and regards the Bible from its true his- torical point of view, recognising that its general meaning rather than its modes of expression as ‘‘ the truth,” the amal- gamation will automatically take place. But the increasing
EDITORIAL NOTES. 175
interest of the clergy is manifest in many quarters, from the letter of the Rev. R. W. Maitland in Light of Sept. 2nd to the formation of the Psychic Evidence Society with a strong clerical Advisory Committee.
The elements of concordance may perhaps be stated as under :—
When our Lord and Master lived among men, it was gener- ally supposed that the earth with its attendant sun, moon, and stars composed the whole universe. This supposition pervades the whole Bible. Some great prophets like the 8rd Tsaiah might conceive of God as “ the High and Holy One who in- habiteth Eternity,” but this was far from being the popular concept of the Divine Power. i
In these later years we have come to the knowledge that not only the earth, but the whole solar system is but a speck in the abysses of space, in which there are thousands of larger suns than ours.
Does this abolish our Lord’s presentment of God as Our Father in heaven? If we have any apprehension of the real meaning of Infinity, it does not; but it does illustrate the omnipresence of the Spirit that is Life. In all these worlds, however many there be, we have the three factors—Matter, Energy, and the Directing Power—of which the latter is the Author and Giver of Life; not of human life only, but of all life.
And the same Directing Mind or Spirit is reflected in human beings as material Body, energetic Soul, and directing Mind, or Spirit.
That Creative Spirit furnishes the reason why the general course of Evolution is from good to better. It makes the laws of Energy in the inanimate world, and it makes for right- doing, good will, harmony, and love in the animate world. To do right is to do the truth. This is philosophie Spiritualism, in which all educated Christians will agree.
But there is another factor which is experimental. It is the fact of survival. The human constitution of body, soul, and spirit (cf. I. Thess. v. 23, and Heb. iv. 12) recognises that the human spirit is indissolubly connected with the Creative Mind. Its law is the law of the Spirit from God, and conformity to that law is the guarantee of its permanent survival, because it implies spirituality, which is the essence of human life. St. Paul has laid down in what spirituality consists. The Greek had four words where we have but one; he spoke of Eros as the love of the body, Philia as the love of the mind, Storgé as human compassion, and Agapé as spiritual love, and in the xiij. chapter of Corinthians he laid down that spiritual love as the more excellent ie than Wisdom, better than Science
176 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
better than Faith, better than prophecy, and better than all the gifts of the Spirit which he has just enumerated. It is attainable by all men, educated or uneducated. It is entirely a matter of conduct. And it leads to peace between men. Is it necessary to present man as being a “ Risen Ape or a Fallen Angel,’’ as if these were the only possible alternatives?
Setting aside for the moment the multitudinous proofs of the continued life of friends and relatives, and to begin at the very beginning, Dr. Osty, the director of the International Metapsychic Institute at Paris, has recently published a series of experiments which show that Rudi Schneider in trance, can exteriorise a power which is under mental control, and cin perform various physical feats. This is shown by the occultation of the infra-red ray by this same force or substance which is nevertheless invisible. As this is proved by purely mechanical means, without any possible intervention of normal action by any person whatsoever, it is plainly supernormal, and must be taken into account by ordinary science.
This established, we come to a thousand instances of con- tinued affection, remembrance and will-power manifested to reliable men of science, and to hundreds of equally reliable and competent observers, which show that the new life is the life of the soul which survives the death of the body.
As I have endeavoured to show in “The Drama of Europe,” the Law of Spiritual Consequence is the method of the Divine Governance which determines automatically the prosperity or the decline of nations. It also determines the happiness (or otherwise) of all that pass from the seen to the Unseen phase of human existence, independently of variation in their creeds: a law which, when it is recognised, will revolutionise all human thought and will reveal that the Divine Love has given to man, through Christ, the plain and simple path of good life. ‘‘ He that hath my commandments and doeth them, he it is that loveth Me . . . These things have I spoken unto you that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be fulfilled.”
This is the conclusion of Experimental Spiritualism, which has been in the world ever since man was man, and is now demonstrated as scientific fact. When the clergy _Tecognise that the Old Testament is the product of the Massoretic schools, made after three centuries of editing and revision from B.c. 457 to B.c. 150 from much older material, and that the New Testament, including the Gospels, has gone through a somewhat similar, though shorter, process before it appeared in A.D. 384, then they will be delivered from the bondage of the letter, and will see the guidance of the Spirit of God de- termining all. It will put an end to all human disputations on unessential matters, leaving them to the personal prefer-
EDITORIAL Notes, 177
ences of Christians. Meanwhile “ the more excellent way ” remains the path all are bound to tread and into which it is the function of the clergy to guide the footsteps of mankind. How necessary such guidance is, will appear from the fact that this history has been established by the highest authorities in the English Church, and not by any outside criticism.
STANLEY DE BRATH.
We would draw special attention to Colonel C. Rivers-
Moore’s Lecture at Queen’s Gate Hall, Harrington Road on October 19th at 8 p.m.: to the visits of Mr. Hope and Mr. John Myers for psychic photography : and to the Mediums’ Reception at Queen’s Gate Hall on Wednesday, Dec. 7th, at 8 p.m. :
x * * * *
The College desires to express its grateful thanks for flowers sent by Mrs. Hodgkin, Mrs. Raikes, Mrs. Robinson and others. These contributions to the amenities are always most welcome, and are much appreciated by members.
178 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
DR. T. GLEN HAMILTON'S VISIT TO ENGLAND
` LECTURE AT THE BRITISH COLLEGE or PsycHro SCIENCE.
The visit of this distinguished experimenter from Winnipeg, Canada, is a notable event in the annals of physical medium- ship. On the evening of Saturday, July 30th, he gave a lecture illustrated by lantern slides, to a large audience, including many persons prominent in Spiritualism and Psychical Re- search.
The lecturer was introduced by Mrs. Champion de Crespigny who spoke of Dr. Hamilton’s investigations as being carried on in a Home Circle with excellent mediums trained by him, and drew our attention to the evidence of highly intelligent friends in the Unseen.
Mrs. Hewat McKenzie spoke of the interest taken by the College in his work as the leader in a body of professional men who had engaged in practical psychic experimentation along with himself. He had made a special study of trance and trance-control.
Readers of Psychic Science will recall that full details of Dr. Hamilton’s work have already been given in the issues of Oct., 1929, Jan., 1930, July, 1930, and Oct., 1930, illustrated by original photographs. These photographs we do not intend to reprint, excepting the diagram of the seance arrangements and the back-view of the equipment which will be useful to illustrate the elaborate care taken to anticipate the hostile criticism with which physical phenomena are still received in some quarters, despite the high sc‘entific position of such ex- perimenters as Crookes, Schrenck-Notzing, Crawford, Richet, Geley, Osty, Bozzano, and many other less prominent men in America, England, France, Germany, and ltaly, who have borne witness thereto. This diagram we here reproduce.
A word now regarding the experimental details under which the phenomena of September 22nd (and others in this series of experiments) were obtained. With the exception of some changes in the precautionary preparation of the medium, and in the personnel of the supporting group, they are the same as those detailed in the first article of this series (October, 1929), and to these the reader is referred. But as further aid to a clear understanding of our séance technique, a diagram of the experimental room (kindly prepared by Mr. W. E. Hobbs), and a photograph showing the camera and flashlight equipments, are included among the illustrations which accompany the present article.
The cameras, it will be noted in Fig. 1, are grouped for the most part upon two double-decked stands placed in front to the right and left of the medium. To the right-hand side of
Dr. T. GLEN HAMILTON.
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Dr. T. GLEN HAMILTON’s LECTURE. 179
the photograph will be noted a door which is the only entryway to the room. In the centre of the photograph is an open door- way to a small closet and on the top left of door-facings are placed three flashlight devices, A, B and C, which are always loaded with flash powder ready for action. To the left, attached to a heavy cord, the observer will notice a group of three push buttons, D. These buttons when pressed, explode the three flashes respectively. In the closet, closely adjacent to the ceiling, a small exit has been made, through which the smoke from the flash is rapidly driven out by the circulation of air which is maintained continuously during the time of an experiment by an electric fan at the opposite end of the room. (See diagram.)
High to the left will be noted the deck E, on which is placed a phonograph with repeater, and appended is a motor-driven mechanism which, when turned on, plays the phonograph con- tinuously. This motor is controlled by a switch attached to the writer’s chair.
The camera equipment consists of (1) a Goerz Stereoscopic camera using plates or films; (2) a 5-in. x 7-in. rapid Rectiliear camera; (8) a 5-in. x 7-in. rapid Rectilinear camera; (4) a 44-in. x 64-in. Thornton Picard Portrait camera; (5) a 5-in, x 7-in. Quartz lens camera; (6) a 5-in. x 7-in. Wide-Angle lens camera; (7) a Seneca Portrait 5-in. x 7-in. Wide-Angle lens camera; Stereoscopic camera; (9) a Doppel Anastigmat 5-in. x 7-in. camera; (10) a Zeiss Anastigmat 5-in. x 7-in. roll film or plate camera; (11) a rapid Rectilinear 5-in. x 7-in. camera. Cameras are placed on occasion by visitors at other points.
It is hoped that these various sources will provide adequate information regarding the more important details under which our experiments are conducted.
The occupations on the Other Side of life have often puzzled ine, notwithstanding the declaration often made that all artistic and scientific pursuits are as open to them as to us. But there are two factors which throw some light on this perplexing matter.
1. This material world is (necessarily) the nursery for the next evolutionary stage. The most essential condition of pro- gress in the evolution of mind is open-mindedness to truth in all its many aspects. There is, therefore, no cause for sur- prise that much of the activities of those who have passed beyond should be the training of incarnate minds to see facts.
2. Since the time of Socrates (470 B.c.) onwards, it has been generally recognised that those in the superior state can warn, can admonish, and can advise, but must not compel. The fact of ‘‘ timelessness ’’ in that state, should in itself be sufficient to explain the seemingly slow development of human perceptions.
180 - QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B,C.P.S.
That there are real ‘‘ manufactures ” in the new state is manifest by the woven texture of the teleplasmic veils in which the faces are wrapped, as may be seen with an ordinary magnifying glass in the plate which carries the micrographic examination which we hope to show in the January issue. In a long visit which he and his charming wife honoured me with, he explained that the stereoscopic view of this plate showed the teleplasm projecting some ten inches outside the plane of the face. This is a most interesting fact, and like in any minor facts, it throws much light on super-normal methods.
After a number of slides, which have already been published in the issues above quoted, Dr. Hamilton showed figs. Nos. 2, 3 and 4.
Fig. 2 shows the medium just before anything occurred, Fig. 3 shows the extrusion three minutes later, and Fig. 4, again three minutes after, shows the teleplasm just finisaing its return to her mouth.
Fig. 5 is an enlargement. In the original the four faces are almost microscopically small. They are (1) Conan Doyle, readily recognisable by anyone who knew him ; (2) the boy, said to be an excellent reproduction of a photograph of
. H. Spurgeon, “the boy preacher,’’ aged about sixteen; (3) and (4) the girl’s face and the skull; both obviously “drawn ” pictures, as Walter states. Now taking account of the way in which this photograph was produced, this is an ex- cellent example of the plasticity of the teleplasm to thought- forces none of which were in the minds of the sitters. Each of these is produced in a gap of the veiling—in a kind of shell which opens and shows the thought-moulded form.
We now come to plate No. 6. This is a reduced copy of a 10-in. x 8-in. plate. It represents Lucy ———,, one of the medium’s guides. She was left an orphan at about three years old. Later on she developed a wonderful voice and went into a convent as a novice, to be trained as a singer. A serious illness destroyed her voice by a constriction in the throat. She determined to become a nun, but died at the end of her noviti- ate, and has since been a guide to this medium, who is shown on Fig. 6. The structure of this figure is most remarkable. Only the face is a portrait of the usual kind, the figure is built up of what looks like fragments of ectoplasmic material placed to simulate or clothe the body. In a gap in this veiling, the face is clearly shown.
Re the “ Doyle ’’ phenomena :—
On April 17th, 1982, Arthur Conan Doyle purported to write through the hand of Mercedes in trance, to the effect that if Walter (in control) is willing, he would send through a tele- plasmic likeness of himself. On May Ist Walter unexpectedly
Dr. T. GLEN HAMILTON S LECTURE. 181
called for three flashes (approximately three minutes apart). The first flash shows nothing on the medium’s face, Fig. 2: the second shows the mass with a poor portrait (not given here): the third shows the small residues of the ectoplasm vanishing into the mouth of Mary M, the medium.
But Walter declared himself not satisfied with the ‘‘ Doyle ”’ face, and asked for a second set of experiments, at which he hoped to produce a better likeness. This request the Hamilton eroup complied with in the first part of June. The medium’s hands were held throughout, five mediums being in trance simultaneously. The head, face and neck of the medium were examined three minutes before the flash was fired and nothing was found. The second flash revealed the portrait, Fig. 5, along with two “ allegorical ’’ drawings of the girl’s face, the skull, which Walter declares are sketches only.
We hope to give another photograph with the micrograph of the tissue, in the January issue.
S. pE BRATH.
182 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S,
IMMORTALITY—AN ADVENTURE IN FAITH.
PUBLISHED BY THE WINNIPEG MEDICAL SOCIETY.
Being the Presidential Address delivered by Dr. R. RENNE Swan (M.D., Hdin.), at Manitoba Medical College, May 23rd, 1980. -
INTRODUCTION. Ladies and Gentlemen : .
Like Sir William Osler, I have to confess that to say any- thing on the subject of Immortality seems presumptuous—a subject on which everything possible has been said before, and so well said by the master minds of the race. It is such a complex problem—difticult to talk about, and still more diffi- cult to write upon. The greatness of the subject and the feebleness of man stand in striking contrast.
That there is a life beyond the grave, many, perhaps the majority, still believe, but it is a belief resting mainly upon instinct or upon tradition, the trustworthiness of which they are increasingly aware is being questioned on many sides. Science seems to have sapped the confidence of many. It seems so easy to demonstrate how intimate is the connection between the mind and the brain which is obviously perishable.
With all that has been said and written on the question of Immortality, it still remains a most fascinating subject, and my idea in addressing you to-night is to see if we cannot find some reasonable basis for the belief. May I say, that I ap- proach the subject, in a spirit of humility and reverence, and not in any conceit of my ability to tackle the problem. My ideal would be to attain a reasonable simplicity in which some of us may perchance find a greater stability for our hope.
Nonchalant, might be the word best fitted to deseribe the attitude of the majority of men on the subject to-day. Laodiceans, Osler calls them—neither hot nor cold—merely lukewarm on the subject. They are less concerned with the future life than with the price of beef or coal. ‘ The present world isn’t such a bad place after all. There will be lots of time to consider the subject when we’ have to. Nobody knows anything definite about it anyhow; therefore why should we worry about it?’ Such are the Laodiceans.
The second group Osler termed the Gallionians. These are they who have reached an intellectual conviction that there is no hope beyond the grave. The majority of this group base their attitude of mind on the fact that science has not proved, and apparently cannot prove, Immortality. Many teachers, naturalists, and investigators belong to this group. It is a strange fact, but fact it is nevertheless, that unbelievers in a
IMMORTALITY. 183
future life do not greatly differ in conduct or in values from those who believe. They do not carry their belief to its logical conclusion, which, simply stated, is: “ Let us eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die.”’
The third group Osler termed the Teresians, after Saiat Teresa. They are at the very opposite pole from the Galli- onians. They are the idealists. These are they who walk by faith. In the majority of this class the heart probably rules the head. However, these are they who by the character of the life they lead, by the beneficence of the influence they exert, compel our admiration and respect. If we take science as re- presenting the head, and taking no notice of the emotional side of life, its passions and its prejudices, then the assump- tion is, that to this group must be assigned men of somewhat lower intellect than the Gallionians. It will readily be seen that this will not do, for to this group belong Plato, the philosophers of India, and the Seers of China, and some of the most prominent thinkers of all ages. To it also belong some of the greatest scientists of recent years. This group may represent the smallest in numbers of civilised man, but assuredly we cannot lightly pass them by.
After all, life may be tolerable if it is to end in sleep, but not if it is known to end in hopeless frustration and nothingness.
I think most of us will say, “ I want to believe in Immor- tality, but can I? Is Immortality possible? What weighty arguments are there for it? I don’t wish my desire to outrun my reason. Show me that it is possible.’’ Let us therefore see if there may not be some mountain peaks from which we may get glimpses of the Promised Land.
THE HISTORICAL ASPECT.
It would be quite impossible, in a paper of this scope, to go into the details of any of the great arguments for or against Immortality. The Bibliography on each is enormous. However, outstanding among the literature is Dr. Frazer’s book founded on his Gifford lectures at St. Andrew’s. These two volumes represent an enormous amount of work and scientific study. They tell of the belief in a future life prevalent among savages and the most primitive of men. He traces the evolution of religious beliefs among the aborigines of Central Australia— the lowest savages about whom we possess accurate informa- tion. From this he goes on to trace the belief in Immortality among the natives of the Islands of the Torres Straits, the natives of British, French and Dutch New Guinea, thence on to the natives of the Fiji Islands. Altogether it is an alluring story, worth many hours of study. š
From these we may turn and read volumes by various authors on the religious beliefs of the Incas, the Chinese, the
184 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
ancient Egyptians, the Israelites, the Teutons, the Greeks, the Romans, the religions of Indians and of the Persians. Each is in itself a fascinating study. Peruse and study any or all of these.. What conclusions or deductions must the student of them come to? This is what interests us to-night. The con- clusions are, I think, three in number.
The First Conclusion.—The Universal Belief in a God, or Gods.
I have been unable to find any nation without such a belief. There may be, there are, in fact, groups of men inside nations who have no such belief—Atheists in short. But these are always and in every case, a small minority.
The Second Conclusion.—The Necessity of a Religious Belief of Some Sort.
The further one delves into the subject the more is one im- pressed with this necessity. You may attribute this to fear, to man’s realisation of his smallness and imbecility beside the forces of Nature, or to psychic necessities of one form or another, but there it is—the ONE great necessity after bodily sustenance is provided for. Professor Milliken, eighteen months ago, wrote in the New York Times: ‘‘ The world is incurably religious. Atheism is both irrational and unscientific.” Your modern Bolshevist may burn churches and shoot priests till he is tired. He may start all over again, but whatever he may ultimately do, history shows that he cannot kill the inborn necessity, deep down in the heart of man, for a religious belief. Religion and religious belief will long survive Bolshevism.
The Third Conclusion.—The Belief in a Future Life.
This follows really as a corollary to the first and second find- ings. The belief in a God and the necessity for a religious Belief simply carry with them the belief in a hereafter. If mortal life is to end simply in annihilation, it seems to me that there would be no great necessity for any belief in religion. Yet, at that I cannot see how we could get along in the world without some sort of belief, in a vast creative Intelligence. Everywhere we look in the universe we can see the hand of a Creator. Neither do I see how we could get along without some code—moral or otherwise.
The history of savage tribes, nations and peoples thus show the almost universal belief in a future life. What about the great minds of the world? Here again the student must be impressed. It is not to the pigmies that we owe the persistence of our belief in Immortality—nor is it a mark of moral weak- ness on our part to desire it. The great minds of every age believed in Immortality. You may not always agree with their arguments. Many of them fail to convince. The one thing which is convincing, however, to my mind, is, that these great ‘minds, separated as they are by time, by temperament, by race . and by civilisation, have all agreed (sometimes on very different
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grounds), in looking forward to life beyond the grave. Surely that is impressive. And, not the least impressive feature of it is that in this lish can be included the name of Christ. No matter what religious faith we hold, few will estimate Him, as less than the world’s supreme religious genius. A life beyond and better than the present was one of the things which He most valued and about which Hé was most sure.
Let us enquire the position which Christ occupies in history? The student wishes to attain real historical assurance apart from sacred history. Where is he to find it? Sacred history may or may not suffice to convince. This must be a matter in which we must not easily acquiesce. Did Christ really exist, and is the Resurrection true? Listen to what Bishop Westcott of Durham said: ‘‘ Indeed, taking all the evidence together, it is not too much to say that there is no single historic incident better or more variously supported than the Resurrection of Christ.”
Dr. Strong, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, has written: ‘‘ The evidence for the Resurrection so far as it is merely an historical event is as great or greater than the evidence for any other fact in history.’’
You may say that these men are Christian Scholars and per- haps are biased, and that they take their attitude chiefly from sacred, as apart from secular history. What have the ancient Roman historians to say? Tacitus in a.D. 64 accurately placed Christ in history. Josephus, the great historian in A.D. 93 wrote of Christ as being a wise man and a doer of wonderful works. He was crucified and appeared alive on the third day. Then there are the letters written from Palestine by the younger Pliny to the Roman Emperor, in which he refers to Christ’s work and commends Pontius Pilate for the part he played. Juvenal, the. brilliant satirical writer, also names and places Christ historically.
I have chosen these four because these men are standard writers of history whose writings are all preserved and subject to investigation. Furthermore, these men were antagonistic to Christianity. We thus see that Christ is as true_historically as Cromwell, Napoleon or George Washington. The position of the unbeliever in the reality of Christ is wholly untenable. You ask what is the importance of all this? Simply this as Dr. Fosdick says that, ‘‘ If God is the warp, then Immortality is the woof of the fabric we call Christ.” Surely we may call this the mountain peak of the historical argument for Immor- tality.
Z THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECT.
Now, let us consider the position of science to Immortality. Tt must be admitted at once that Immortality from the nature of the case cannot be proved with mathematical certainty.
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There is, however, this companion fact, that science, so far, has found it absolutely impossible to disprove it. The belief that human personality survives the dissolution of the body is neither confirmed nor discredited by Science.
Science might be described as a series of hypotheses to explain or illumine experience. One has only to think for a moment and he will easily and quickly see, that, what Science does not know amounts to a vastly greater sum than what it does know, or what it can explain. Take the theory of evolution. Evolution carries us on to a point. It starts from the first formless mass and develops till man is reached—man in whom the personal and the psychical is supreme. There it stops and tosses this, its highest and latest value, to the winds in the death of (a) the individual, or (b) the race.
There are missing links in the evolutionary theory—even in the purely materialistic evolutionary theory. It has explained and illuminated many things, and in some form is likely to be true. But, it has never yet been raised to the status of a universal law. There are gaps between various phases of life— and these gaps are the superlative facts in the matter, and they have never been bridged, as they must be, before the evolu- tionary hypothesis holds sway. Take the primary gap between the organic and inorganic. As to what life is in itself, we are totally ignorant. Biogenesis is only a dream, and it must be a reality before evolution really arrives.
It would seem to me that Science would have an easier path to tread if it frankly acknowledged that man is a sort of a duplex being. On the physical side, he is allied to the brute creation. The thing that differentiates him from the rest of creation, to which he physically belongs, is Personality. In a word, man is not simply made up of flesh. We are all perfectly conscious of this. It is impossible to explain man in terms of flesh alone. I inhabit my body and use it, but my body is not “I” I look out through my eyes; I work with my hands; I speak with my lips; but neither eyes, nor hands, nor lips, nor all of them together are “I.”
The real “T' is something within, invisible, intangible, im- ponderable, which directs, controls and governs this physical frame. That thinking, feeling, willing something is the real “I.” We know that the body cells are continuously changing, but the “T' remains. I possess a body totally different from that which I possessed as a boy. If my body were “I,” T should be an entirely different “T” from what 1 was forty-five years ago. But I know that I am not a different “T.” T am conscious that the lad of four decades ago and the man of to- day are one and the same person.
I know that T am the same individual who pitched a snow- ball at a large Scotch policeman and ran away from him forty-five years ago. The “T” therefore cannot be this changing
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body. It is something within, which throughout all the years remains conscious of its identity.
Some scientists have tried to make out that this something within, is merely a brain function, in an attempt to explain man, in terms of matter alone. Without much doubt or controversy, the brain is the instrument of thought. All our thinking is accompanied by movements of brain matter. But it does not follow that these brain movements are the source and cause of thought. Brain matter is not “I.”
Behind the thinking is the thinker. The brain as we know it is subject to the same law of changes as the other parts of the body. Now, if the “T” really resided in the brain there could be no such thing as memory. How is it that I can re- member things that happened 20, 30, 40 years ago? The mere fact of memory disposes of the idea that the “I”? resides in the brain. The real relationship between “I” and my brain must be something like that between an organist and his organ. The organist uses the organ to express what a Mozart or a Mendelssohn has conceived for him. The organ does the organist’s bidding and gives utterance to what he desires.
In some such way the brain is not the “‘I’’—it is its instru- ment. My brain is mine to use. It is not me. In a word, the real “IT” is to be found in what is termed, the spirit of man, or what the Bible calls the “Soul.” Nevertheless, flesh and body are as essential to our full concept of man as is spirit.
Thus man is a duplex being. Science must come, is coming to acknowledge it. He is a Spirit or Soul inhabiting a body. This, then, is my quarrel with materialistic Science. It, so to speak, cuts a man in half or thereabouts. Remember, I am not depreciating Knowledge or Science, but I refuse to concur on any idea that the part is equal to the whole. I suggest that Science leaves out the regal part of Man. This leads one to think of the subject of values.
What about the great principle of conservation (a) of energy, (b) of matter? Science believes in these. Energy and matter are great values. How in the matter of values do they stand alongside of, say, Mind, Personality, Character? By what yard- stick does Science measure these Values? And yet they are as real as energy or matter.
There are four points which it seems to me material Science should take note of :—
First.—Man does distinguish himself from his body.
Second.—He is conscious of his personal identity through all the changes of his body.
Third.—By his will power he knows himself not con- trolled by, but, controlling his body.
Fourth.—Man’s consciousness warrants him in denying that he and his body are one and the same thing.
-
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On the evolutionary hypotheses these latter must be taken into account before we have the complete MAN. Yes, we know that we are made of dust and that to dust we shall return,; but we were not made by dust.
When all is said, Science, we must remember, is very young. It is only within the last 150 years that the laws of Nature have even begun to be understood. To quote from an address given by our esteemed and respected fellow-member, the Hon. Edward Montgomery, M.D., earlier in the season: “Science, measured by time, is but a three- days’ zoli infant who doesn’t yet know how to use his rattle.’
Up to date, Science deals with the material world. Tt is a construction made by the human mind out of certain classes of facts, and it only suffices us so long as the other classes of facts are ignored. When we extend our investigations and seek to include these latter classes, we find that the hypothesis of mechanism is too limited. We see a creative process at work, bringing in consciousness and human personality. These dis- close the character of that creative process, and we perceive a Divine Mind working towards definite ends. Dean Welldon,
the famous headmaster of Harrow says: “ It is evident that no position in Science can be so unscientific as that of limiting the possibilities of human knowledge.’’ Science then must
recognise the claims of Beauty, Goodness, Truth, Mind, Per- sonality and Character, because we all know that these are intensely real values, immeasurable, incalculable and intangible, it is true, but nevertheless, majestically superb in their worth.
RE PSYCHIC RESEARCH.
Of recent years we in Winnipeg have heard much regarding psychic research and the evidence for survival after death. I wish to pay tribute to our friend and fellow-member, Dr. T. Glen Hamilton, for the efforts he has made and is making along this line of thought and discovery. Whatever criticism may be made of his work no one can even attempt to deny the truth of the wonderful phenomena which have come under his observation. We know our man, and we know that he is in this work as a student and investigator, and we can have nothing but admiration and praise for him, and, let me also say, thanks, for the work he is doing.
I think the finest book which I have come across on the subject is “ On the Threshold of the Unseen,” by Sir Wm. F. Barrett, F.R.S., who for many years was Professor of Experi- mental Physics in the Royal College of Science for Ireland. His work is the ripe fruit of forty years of study and investiga- tion. Like others he came to the subject a thorough-going sceptic. Here is the type of man who would approach the subject in a scientific manner and with an absolute intolerance
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and detestation of subterfuge or evasion. Listen to one of his sentences: “The most profound change im human thought that has oceurred since the Christian era, will, in all probability, follow the general recognition by Science of the immanence of a spiritual world.’’
As long ago as 1863, Professor de Morgan, the eminent mathe- matician, wrote : “I am perfectly convinced that I have both seen and heard in a manner which would make unbelief impossible, things called spiritual, which cannot be taken by any rational being, to be capable of explanation by imposture, coincidence, or mistake.”
Very far from standing alone, Sir Wm. Barrett can call to his support some of the most famous scientists of the recent day—to mention only a few—Sir Oliver Lodge, Lord Rayleigh, Sir Archibald Geikie, Sir Wm. Crookes, and Sir J. J. Thomson. These are among the greatest brains of the day. Add to these the names of G. F. Watts, and Lord Leighton, the great painters, John Ruskin and R. L. Stevenson, the great writers. Add also the name of the late Lord Balfour.
Here was a man, not alone a great statesman, but a man with a wonderfully acute philosophic mind; accustomed to weigh and sift evidence, and experienced in the errors and illusions of his fellow men. Listen to what Lord Balfour said: “T think the time is now come when it is desirable in their own interests that the leaders of scientific thought should recognise that there are well attested facts, which, though they do not easily fit into the framework of sciences, or of organised experi- ence as they conceive it, yet require investigation and explana- tion, and which is the bounden duty of Science to investigate.”
These would, I am sure, be the thoughts of most of us. The day is absolutely past when there is any use of denying the varied phenomena. It has been abundantly proven that the physical plane is not the whole of Nature, nor the only aspect of the universe with which. we are concerned. I would say that it is probably the supreme problem of Science, to solve if she can, the problem as to whether life as we know it can exist without protoplasm, or whether we are but the creatures of an idle day.
Lord Kelvin said: “ Science is bound by the everlasting law of honour, to face fearlessly, every problem which can fairly be presented to it.” It would seem to me that some deeply
interesting scientific problems lie before us, in the immediate future.
Regarding psychical research, one often hears the question, “ What use is it?’’ When all is said and done and the slowly accumulating facts are recognised and accredited, what will be the gain? There will be no gain to such as Peter Bell, to whom a primrose by the river’s brim will only produce the regret that he can neither eat nor drink it. It will be no gain
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to the simple, contented heart, nor to the saintly who live by faith alone. It will, however, be a great gain to the rest of mankind, in whom most of us are included. In a word, it will prove the continuity of life beyond the grave.
This will indeed be a noble mountain peak.
THE ETHICAL ASPECT.
The Ethical argument for Immortality (which also includes the Philosophical) is the argument of experience and reason. This physical universe is inexplicable without the assumption of Mind, as distinct from, and in fact directive of, matter. Pure materialism is a totally inadequate and bankrupt phil- osophy.
In his second proposition of the atomic theory, Democritus states: “ Nothing is accidental; there is a reason and a neces- sity for everything.” Such a proposition demands a master mind, with a directive intelligence. This Master Mind we call God.
When the ordinary man speaks of God, he means the Ruler of the World; a beneficent, Supernatural Spirit, who resembles man in nature, but far transcends him in Knowledge, Good- ness and Power. He is the Pilot at the helm of the Universe. Without such a Pilot, there could be no harmony, nor law, nor order, nor stability in the world. This is the ethical hypothesis.
Surely this is also the very fundamental assumption of Science. We can only construct Science on the hypothesis that there is reason in the world. Scientific faith is founded on the undeviating order of Nature. If this is not a rational universe, then every scientific law is a dream. Hence to me, the words Scientist and Agnostic are as far apart as the poles. Agnosticism is a “ reductio ad absurdum '" of every scientific law.
By the fundamental assumption that the universe is reason- able, Science thus leads to God, and also that God is reason- able. If God then is reasonable in His rocks, flowers, fossils, and stars on which the natural sciences are founded, and which are sub-human things, by deduction, God also is reasonable when He deals with man. Dr. Fosdick says, “ If God exists at all, He must care for this creation, and if He cares at all, He must care for the crown of His creation—personality ’’— which has been termed the regal part of man.
Charles Darwin wrote: “° It is an intolerable thought that man and all other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such long continued slow progress.” If God cares for His Creation then annihilation is not only intolerable, it is impossible. If death ends all, then the struggles and aspirations of humanity have meant nothing to Him, and there is no Good God. It is quite untenable to think of a reasonable God, much less a Good
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God, who would create His children only to obliterate them.
This suggests the Fatherhood of God—and what a wonderful vista this presents. It is the clearest of sunlit skies in which there isn’t the speck of a cloud, an invisible horizon, and absolutely no sunset. Talk of values—what mother that you know of, would part with her child, for all the wealth of the Indies? Such is human love. Love Divine—all other loves excelling—must be beyond human comprehension.
I suppose that it is possible for a man to believe in Immor- tality without believing in the Goodness of God, but I don’t see how he can believe in the Goodness of God without be- lieving in Immortality. Ii one believes in the Fatherhood of God, to him Immortality must be a certainty.
The ethical argument for Immortality may be summed up thus. Man’s life here is incomplete, and the more lofty his aims, the more lofty his labours, the more incomplete it appears. The man who lives for fame, wealth or power may be satisfied with this life, but he who lives for the ideals of Truth, Beauty and Goodness, lives not for time, but for eternity, for his ideals cannot be realised, and his life fulfilled this side of the grave. Unless these ideals are mocking visions, man has a right to expect the continuance of his life for its com- pletion. This was the line of argument developed by Prof. Hugo Munsterberg in 1905, and we must admit that it has great positive value—another of our mountain peaks.
FAITH.
I wish to say a few words about Faith. It has always been a strange thing to me how we accept from leading scientists as absolute facts, things which neither they nor we can prove. ~ When religious truths are propounded by our greatest seers, we seem to shake our head and to have our doubts.
We seem to require, so to speak, a larger and stronger injec- tion of faith when it comes to accepting Divine Truths. For instance, we are told that the sun is 92 millions of miles from the earth. Has anyone ever been there and back with a speed- ometer on his car? Does anyone know what gravity is, or what electricity is? Faith follows reason in things scientific.
Aren’t Love, Beauty and Truth just as real as gravity or the radio? Science has never been able to measure the height, length, breadth or depth of the bonds which unite the British Empire. Yet how certain we are of these things and what deep joy these certainties give. We do not ask for, nor demand scientific proof. We know that these things are.
Like Science, the great religious beliefs are founded on the same rock—the reasonableness of God. Is it possible, do you think, that a reasonable God would create generation after generation of His children merely to see them destroyed? What possible delight could He take in that? At once you say that
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the question must answer itself. It reduces God to an absurdity. Surely then, our reason teaches us to have faith in the Creator of the World. Haven’t we again reached one of the mountain peaks in the belief in Immortality ?
Admit as we must, that, like the journey to the sun, no mortal, having “ crossed the bar ’’ has recrossed it. Absolute verification in either case, from its very nature, is impossible. Yet we believe the 92-million mile fact. Why then should we not have faith in Immortality, when each has absolutely the same foundation—sanity, plus a reasonable, rational God.
Faith gives a meaning to human life. It gives life purpose and significance, even although there may be much in life which challenges faith. Without faith, life is a comic melo- drama. Accept your melancholy lot, and wait till death ends all—thus Schopenhauer and Bertrand Russell. No pilot at the helm of the world—no faith—then all indeed is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Faith teaches us, that at heart, there is meaning and pur- pose in the world. Futility, frustration, and despair are trans- formed into buoyant, triumphant, glorious hope. Some of us have lost hold of the simple faith that our forefathers had. Why? Because we think we are more scientific? Cannot we clearly see that Divine Truths and scientific laws are founded upon the same Rock?
Isn’t it daily becoming more evident that there is no real quarrel between Science and Religion? The plain truth is that most of us are religious pensioners. We are like rich men’s sons. We are living on the interest. We sometimes forget that the principal was earned by the labour of our forefathers’ hands, by the sweat of their brow, and by their very blood.
We have ceased to take an active interest in the Church, and have deserted, very largely, the members of our sister profession, the clergy. These men feel our loss. They need our help. It is our bounden duty to support them, for to all of us comes the time when we sorely need their help. When a clergyman, with authority, gets up and says, “ Nothing can separate me from the love of God,” he is asserting a Divine Truth which HIS faith and HIS reasonable deductions make just as positive as the laws of gravity. Certain it is that reason and faith go hand in hand, and if we are allowing our faith to slip, it is because we are not using our powers of reason. Surely this is simple logic.
In the final analysis of the question of Immortality, we can- not leave out the appeal of the human heart which has been so beautifully developed in Tennyson’s “ In Memoriam.” You know what Robert Burns said, ‘‘the heart’s aye the part aye.” This may be unscientific—but I am not so sure of that.
We have mentioned Personality as perhaps being the regal part of man, but what of the heart? Does this not bring in
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another royalty within man which has no less claim to the purple? The heart protests against the severance of death, and claims the continuance of love’s communion after death; and as man feels, though not by the Science route, that love is what is most Godlike in his nature, love’s claim has a supreme authority.
Weary and disillusioned with ourselves and the world, there are times when most of us cease to desire a future life, and when we think that the one individual about whom we have the most knowledge is perhaps not worth preserving. But what about those whom we love? You have girls, and I have boys. What does your heart and my heart demand for them ? Life that is fairest and best we all demand for our beloved children.
Tt is all that most of us seek from life—but we do seek it, absolutely. Does Destiny seek less? Does God seek less? Then you are greater than God—so am I—which is absurdity. By the route of our affections, we are thus driven to Immor- tality. We all know Love is as real as any scientific law, and comes from the same source.
Finally, we can only construct Science on the hypothesis that there is reason in the world, and that behind thinking there is the thinker. To be sure the facts in the affirmation of Im- mortality are spiritual, not material. They are more subtle, less tangible than the facts of the physical world. Love, Beauty, Truth are, however, FACTS. Men’s aspirations, their hopes, their faiths are FACTS, and they are FACTS incomparably more significant than the material component parts of rocks, or flowers, or stars.
What I ask is, that Science should use the same intellectual process, the same faculties as she uses in asserting the con- servation of energy, and rationalise the facts of experience, and she will arrive, without any doubt whatsoever, she must arrive, at the Immortality of the spiritual life of man. The foolish fear of death will then be replaced by a wondering desire for the undiscovered country.
Such, then, is my ‘‘ confessio fidei.” I may be wrong, but, like Osler, I would rather be mistaken with Plato, than be right with those who altogether deny life after death.
Ere sitting down, will you permit me to once again express to you my thanks for the gracious honour which you did me in electing me to the Presidency of this Society. For the co- operation and help of a very able and willing executive, whom you also elected, I am profoundly thankful. With the great meeting of the British Medical Association in our city, just ahead of us in August, and for which this Society is largely responsible, it has been a year fraught with responsibility and with abundant opportunities for work and service which T have thoroughly enjoyed.
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LANGUAGE TESTS OF ANCIENT EGYPT By F. H. Woop, Mus. Doc. (Author's Rights Reserved.)
Tn an article on Evolution and Reincarnation, which appeared in this journal for April, 1931, I quoted a number of state- ments given in trance-speech and automatic writing by an Egyptian guide called ‘‘ Lady Nona,” through an English girl called Rosemary. The Editor added a note at the end of the article, in which he stated, ‘‘ We do not as yet know enough to determine how far the messages which come through this medium represent the thought of the communicating Intel- ligence.”’
Mr. De Brath’s comment was quite fair. The identity of spirit-guides is always a difficult question, but when they claim to have lived their Earth-life thousands of years ago, the problem becomes more difficult, for few or no records remain to test their statements. Dr. Neville Whymant has, through direct-voice mediumship, contacted a spirit, who might have been Confucius, speaking in a Chinese idiom used about 500 B.C.. ““ Lady Nona,” the guide of Rosemary, claims to have lived in the time of the Pharoahs, probably some 800 years before the time of Confucius. If her statement be true, Lady Nona is probably one of the most remote spirit-guides actively associated with modern research. Her alleged Karth-life ante- dates that of Malachi, the famous ‘‘ Imperator ° of Stainton Moses, by nearly a thousand years. Such a remote Earth- association might help to explain the mature wisdom of Lady Nona, as shown in her teaching, and also her views upon such issues as Reincarnation, both of which were quoted in my former article. `
The purpose of this article, however, is to draw attention to a recent development, which is almost a romance in itself. Some readers may call it a ‘coincidence; others will share my view. that it was planned by spirit-intelligence.
When I first published the outline of Nona’s Earth-story in The Two Worlds,* May 22nd, 1931, I received a letter from a stranger, a reader in Brighton, Mr. A. J. Howard Hulme, asking for further details. This. gentleman, an Egyptologist, has‘ compiled a Grammar and Dictionary of that ancient hiero- glyphic tongue: Being also well-informed in psychic matters, he asked for particulars relating to Egyptian phrases possibly used by Lady Nona when controlling’ Rosemary in trance- speech. Unfortunately, up to that date none had been re- ceived. Nona long since gave adequate reasons for writing and
*Now reprinted in a sixpenny pamphlet by “The Two Worlds,” Manchester.
F. H. WOOD, Mus.D.
Miss D. ‘‘ Rosemary’s °’ recorder.
speaking English through Rosemary. She had “been in touch” with England, she said, ‘‘sufticiently long to speak her tongue.” Her English has always been fairly fluent, stumbling but rarely, at some unfamiliar word quite familiar to the well-educated Rosemary. I therefore replied to Mr. Hulme, regretting our inability to meet his wishes, and dismissed the matter from my mind.
Three months later Rosemary one day distinctly heard, clairaudiently, on waking from trance, a phrase of five syllables, ‘‘ Ah-yit-a-zhula.’’ She thought it might be a phrase of farewell from Lady Nona in closing the sitting, but was not sure. On sending the fragment, with many misgivings, to Mr. Howard Hulme, we discovered that it was indeed a phrase of pure, ancient Egyptian, meaning “° Saluted art thou, at the end.” Our correspondent was naturally delighted at this obvious attempt of Nona to meet his request, while Nona showed her appreciation by another test at the next sitting, ` Ah-yoúnk-ti-a,” afterwards translated as ‘‘ Here’s life to you,” and probably a greeting to our new friend. The third test came a week later, when Rosemary said, in the quiet pause which precedes a sitting, “ Take this down: ° Aw-pe- yah-i-a-tah.’ I have just heard it, but probably it means nothing.” Her hand immediately wrote, ‘‘ Yes it does! Send it to him when you write.—Nona.” We did so, and almost by return of post came the correct translation, ‘‘ I am open- ing presently.”
Having thus succeeded with a phrase of farewell and an opening greeting, Nona then settled down to giving a whole series of ancient Egyptian word-phrases, extending over several months. Some were received like the first two, clairaudiently ; others were given by Nona herself in partial trance-control speech for me to record by their phonetic equivalents. Some were reiterated two or three times, myself repeating the syllables as I wrote them down. Nona seemed quietly amused ` at my clumsy efforts to imitate verbally the subtle shades of vowel and consonant in some of them, and admitted frankly they could not be reproduced in English. But in a few cases, I am told, Nona’s phrases have cleared up ambiguities in pro- nunciation. For example, Mr. Howard Hulme writes, “Nona appears to use Z more frequently than S. Both have the same values, so we are on safe ground; but it does seem as if in Nona’s day the Z still persisted, though Egyptologists say they became merged very early. It was probably as with us, ERARA ona ISO: nT AR Onn pod Dine ig D EN Cyan iy ieee on | eg ey)
196 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
and earlier “ In ” or ‘‘ Inan.” Mr. Howard Hulme adds that “Bin” was a modern, up-to-date expression in Nona’s alleged Harth-period. She also dated herself with the ‘“‘P’a”’ in the phrase “ Ah-neésh-u-en. P’a-ah-sée-men °’ (“ pro- tected ones are we. ‘This is indeed established.”’) The full significance of this phrase will be seen in a moment. In both eases Nona used a form of speech employed during the period of the Middle Kingdom (2400-1356 B.c.). Out of 78 phrases received down to date (June, 1982) only two have baffled our translator, and even these may be due to my own mishearing of the syllables. Such a result is remarkable when we bear in mind that (1) neither Rosemary nor myself knows anything about the language, and no other person was present; (2) our sittings are held in the North of England; we have never met Mr. Hulme, who resides in Brighton. Nona has occasionally assised in- terpretation by supplying, at request, further details of words originally slurred or linked as they usually are in all vernacular delivery. This certainly rules out telepathy. The most im- portant of these interpretations occurred during a special test on November 21st, 1931. Acting on Mr. Hulme’s instruc- tions, I addressed Nona in a phrase of ancient Egyptian specially prepared for the occasion: ‘* Inúzh hirath, nee-soo- saht, Nona.” (‘‘ Hail to thee, Princess Nona.’’) The test had been carefully kept from Rosemary's knowledge. Yet, speaking through her, Nona promptly replied, ‘‘ Ah-neésh-u-en. P’a-ah-sée-men.’” (‘‘ Protected ones are we. This is indeed established.’’) Then she added, in English, “ I answer you.” The value of this answer to Mr. Hulme’s greeting lay in that it revealed the unnoticed fact that the syllable “ nuzh ” used in “ Hail,” also signifies “ protect.” By thus giving the hidden original meaning in her reply, Nona not only reminded him of it, but also gave an evidential test of great value. A parallel case would be found in the English word “ Goodbye,” which also implies ‘ God be with you.” As Mr. Hulme puts it, “ Linguistically, the two most satisfactory features of Nona’s language-tests are (a) the style of her salutations, archaic sur- vivals even in her day; and (b) her reply to an Egyptian message sprung upon her on November 21st, 1931; her spontaneous reply, also in Egyptian, showing quick, intelligent reception by an informative commentary on the original message. To my mind the latter phrase is the most evidential of the series.” It will be seen, moreover, that in getting these language-
F. H. WOOD, Mus.D.
Miss D. “ Rosemary’s ” recorder.
aa
"ep Ti
7 a Fep: ate
rhe t i
LANGUAGE Test or Ancient Eayrt, 195
speaking English through Rosemary. She had “been in touch”’ with England, she said, “sufñeiently long to speak her tongue.” Her English has always been fairly fluent, stumbling but rarely, at some unfamiliar word quite familiar to the well-educated Rosemary. I therefore replied to Mr. Hulme, regretting our inability to meet his wishes, and dismissed the matter from my mind.
Three months later Rosemary one day distinctly heard, clairaudiently, on waking from trance, a phrase of five syllables, ‘‘ Ah-yit-a-zhula.’’ She thought it might be a phrase of farewell from Lady Nona in closing the sitting, but was not sure. On sending the fragment, with many misgivings, to Mr. Howard Hulme, we discovered that it was indeed a phrase of pure, ancient Egyptian, meaning “ Saluted art thou, at the end.” Our correspondent was naturally delighted at this obvious attempt of Nona to meet his request, while Nona showed her appreciation by another test at the next sitting, ` Ah-younk-ti-a,’’ afterwards translated as “ Here’s life to you,” and probably a greeting to our new friend. The third test came a week later, when Rosemary said, in the quiet pause which precedes a sitting, “ Take this down: ‘ Aw-pe- yah-i-a-tah.’ I have just heard it, but probably it means nothing.” Her hand immediately wrote, ‘‘ Yes it does! Send it to him when you write.—Nona.’’ We did so, and almost by return of post came the correct translation, “ I am open- ing presently.”
Having thus succeeded with a phrase of farewell and an opening greeting, Nona then settled down to giving a whole series of ancient Egyptian word-phrases, extending over several months. Some were received like the first two, clairaudiently; others were given by Nona herself in partial trance-control speech for me to record by their phonetic equivalents. Some were reiterated two or three times, myself repeating the
syllables as I wrote them down. Nona seemed quietly amused `
at my clumsy efforts to imitate verbally the subtle shades of vowel and consonant in some of them, and admitted frankly they could not be reproduced in English. But in a few cases, I am told, Nona’s phrases have cleared up ambiguities in pro- nunciation. For example, Mr. Howard Hulme writes, “Nona appears to use Z more frequently than S. Both have the same values, so we are on safe ground; but it does seem as if in Nona’s day the Z still persisted, though Egyptologists say they became merged very early. It was probably as with us, ‘Rose’ being pronounced ‘ Roze.’ But the value of vocalised utterances is great, for the ancient language was written in consonants only.”
In other cases the “ control” dated herself by a distinctive speech-idiom. Thus, for the negative “ No” she used the word “ Bin’”’ (pronounced “‘ Been ’’), instead of the usual
196 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
and earlier “ In ” or “ Inan.” Mr. Howard Hulme adds that ‘Bin’? was a modern, up-to-date expression in Nona’s alleged Earth-period. She also dated herself with the “P'a”? in the phrase ‘‘ Ah-neésh-u-en. P’a-ah-sée-men ° (“ pro- tected ones are we. ‘This is indeed established.” The full significance of this phrase will be seen in a moment. In both cases Nona used a form of speech employed during the period of the Middle Kingdom (2400-1356 B.c.). Out of 73 phrases received down to date (June, 1932) only two have baffled our translator, and even these may be due to my own mishearing of the syllables.
Such a result is remarkable when we bear in mind that (1) neither Rosemary nor myself knows anything about the language, and no other person was present; (2) our sittings are held in the North of England; we have never met Mr. Hulme, who resides in Brighton. Nona has occasionally assised in- terpretation by supplying, at request, further details of words originally slurred or linked as they usually are in all vernacular delivery. This certainly rules out telepathy. The most im- portant of these interpretations occurred during a special test on November 21st, 1981. Acting on Mr. Hulme’s instruc- tions, I addressed Nona in a phrase of ancient Egyptian specially prepared for the occasion: “ Inúzh hirath, nee-soo- saht, Nona.” (‘‘ Hail to thee, Princess Nona.’’) The test had been carefully kept from Rosemary’s knowledge. Yet, speaking through her, Nona promptly replied, ‘‘ Ah-neésh-u-en. P’a-ah-sée-men.’’ (‘‘ Protected ones are we. This is indeed established.’’) Then she added, in English, “ I answer you.” The value of this answer to Mr. Hulme’s greeting lay in that it revealed the unnoticed fact that the syllable “ nuzh " used in “ Hail,” also signifies “ protect.” By thus giving the hidden original meaning in her reply, Nona not only reminded him of it, but also gave an evidential test of great value. A parallel case would be found in the English word ‘‘ Goodbye,” which also implies ‘‘ God be with you.” As Mr. Hulme puts it, ‘‘ Linguistically, the two most satisfactory features of Nona’s language-tests are (a) the style of her salutations, archaic sur- vivals even in her day; and (b) her reply to an Egyptian message sprung upon her on November 21st, 1931; her spontaneous reply, also in Egyptian, showing quick, intelligent reception by an informative commentary on the original message. To my mind the latter phrase is the most evidential of the series.”
It will be seen, moreover, that in getting these language- tests through to Mr. Hulme, Lady Nona had to take four risks: (1) The medium might not hear, nor (2) speak them correctly. (8) The recorder (F. H. W.) might not write their phonetic values correctly. This is a real difficulty, since some of the speech-sounds have no English equivalents. In such eases only approximate phonetic values could be recorded.
_ _————— F -<—- KF A —
“u IdF quaiouy Jo s2sƏl ƏŞONŞUDTu ƏTor3ae IPBAIJSOUTTI 0% FLVId
(*SatQededmy) i eanqaedep áuq Zuraty
ACh = URAC) y
"aspue ul jiġ uqoosiao “sí qeyy os S DSU Se
>? Gaye SpsTJsryes s,sy [Trqyun °° *AUTZTƏS ST Supuem y "9M IIe (PAUSTUTI) paatyegay “Əmoo T -ATIL Tnofyaed ‘mou nok ƏqoN
I əƏ9ueaəqqn : noun amooTay *KT3auəsəd4d #Buruədo ue T
I noá oq ƏjJTT s,aaaq
"pus əy} ye ‘noyy qae pəqnT8S
ü aka =
i OF om yaq QS k, EVM Y
ie sd
FPX il 24h = WH Sha
es
VIZT-e44-T2T-(T) sq Pe~U-@ATY-TATZ MT ráq *=Janu=(d)I UTM"YR—8 EJT Á TZ T u3 une }T=4-MI eTOM=Je(4)=%Á3ST ezZzrIq=9Kqa-2-KT1ÁV
(8) ye~h~ehetd=uy eKq=ugao(8u)y
gTnuz-8áÁq4=ÁA TÁ eH
LANGUAGE TEST OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 197
Finally (4) the translator (Mr. H. H.) might misinterpret the recorded written phonetic values.
The accompanying plate shows a few of the more important phrases received down to date. By numbering the phrases as they appear in The Rosemary Records, both the translator and myself can refer back to them easily for comparison and further elucidation. Such comparison becomes necessary when the same phrase appears later in a different context, resulting, perhaps, in a slightly different translation. Mr. Howard Hulme has also kindly supplied the hieroglyphic symbols to all his translations, some of which are published herewith. The reader will easily follow the three columns of the table itself :— No. As spoken by Transcribed by Literal translation by
Rosemary in A. J. Howard Hulme. A. J. Howard Hulme. partial trance,
and recorded pho-
netically by F. H.
Wood.
1. Ah-yit-a-zhula. Ha-yiy-tya-zhula. Saluted art thou, at the end
2. Ah-younk-ti-a. A-onkh-tya. Here’s life to you.
3. Aw-pe-yah-i-i-tah. — Aw-pi-ya-y-at(a). I am opening presently.
5. Istia-vaula. Istya-(r)af-wola. Note you now, particularly.
6. OO-yita-men. Iw-y-itam-en. I come. Negatived (finished) are we.
7. HE-zéet-y-ah-win. — Izi-y-itya-ah-win. Let me go. A waning is seizing. z
16. A-húrf-tee. I(r)-hur-f-tyi. es gnti he’s satisfied; when...
19. OO-zeet-a-mahd. Iw-ziyi-tiya-m-ad. What is, forsooth? In
anger. 21. Dee-zéet-yah-zéet. Dy(1)-ihi-tya-izit. Giving thy departure! (Imperative.)
Many of these had a special application at the time, the significance of which was not apparent until I received Mr. Howard Hulme’s translations. Thus a sitting prematurely dis- turbed and ended, produced No. 6 above, with its apt meaning. Others are quite intelligible taken with their context in the Rosemary Records, as, for example, No. 19, which was fol- lowed by a clairvoyance of Nona, by Rosemary: ‘‘ She shows herself sitting on a high, square-backed armchair, raised on a dais of three steps. She suddenly stands, as though in anger, and dashes something to the ground, where it breaks into
many pieces. She stands with her hands clenched, and is - feeling terribly angry.” Whether this clairvoyant present-
ment was merely a picture from the past, or had some present significance, we could not tell. The incident is quoted to show its relationship to phrase No. 19, ‘‘ OO-zeeta-mahd.”’
At this point I may explain that Rosemary’s Egyptian guide herself asked to call her “ Nona ’’ when she took charge of the medium nearly four years ago. The name, she tells us, has no special significance and no association with Egypt. At first she refused to disclose her identity; then, after many
198 QUARTERLY Transactions B.C.P.S.
months, finding she could trust us, she told us something of her Harth-life as one of the queens of a certain Pharoah known to history. Some day I may publish her story in book form, together with the corroboration yielded by my researches in the British Museum and elsewhere. She has many times tried to get through her Earth-name, not only through Rosemary, but through other mediums too, notably Mrs. Mason of the College. So far, the results have not been conclusive, and in any case it is not of material importance, but the quest produced an interesting series of language-tests on December 5th, 1981. They took the form of a crude sort of poem, recited by Nona through Rosemary when in deep trance. The frequent repeti- tion of one phrase is curious, but the translations appear to suggest that Nona was attempting an experiment. I have omitted portions of the poem which suggest an effort to give her name, as until my researches are complete, its disclosure at the present moment might be a source of fruitless specula- tion to students, and of annoyance to Lady Nona herself :— Dyi-zée-y-ee-ty-ah-men Oo-éli-ah-wént. Ka(w)n-d-yi-stee-a-dh-men. Nan dyis-ty-ah-dw-ren . Oo-éli-ah-wént. Dyi-nées-ty-ah-dw-ren Ah-oo-Ekh-fa (i) Oo-eli-ah-wént. See-ilis-ty-ah-hwénty-oo Ys-séng-y-ah-aw-ren Oo-éli-ah-wént.
The subsequent translations of this crude poem show that Lady Nona was attempting to convey “ a hidden thing ” in the form of her own Harth-name, which is concealed in the poem, and has since been established beyond doubt by later tests. Lest some of my readers should wonder if it is Cleopatra, let me say at once that Nona belongs to a much earlier period, about which, unfortunately, little is known at present. Mr. Howard Hulme has “ dated ’’ her by the language-tests them- selves, many of them forms of speech characteristic only of her period and dynasty.
Before closing this article, I would add my deep sense of indebtedness to our translator for the patient labour and time he has given to these fragments of a long-forgotten tongue. They constitute reasonable proof, I think, of a separate communi- cating intelligence, colloquially familiar with the speech-idioms of Egypt about 1400 B.c. Beyond that it might be unwise to make any claim in our present state of psychic knowledge. . On the other hand, they provide a case which the sceptic will find difficult to answer. Telepathy with Mr. Howard Hulme
LANGUAGE TEST OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 199
would not meet the case, as I have already shown. Again, if the phrases come from some deep strata of the medium’s own subconsciousness, reincarnation might be a possible solution; but there is abundant evidence elsewhere in the Rosemary Records to show that the medium and Lady Nona are entirely separate entities. Quite frankly, to Rosemary and myself these tests have brought added confidence in the bona-fides of her trusted guide, and in the spiritual teaching, which, through us, she hopes to publish to the world. Her desire is not to tell the world her Earth-story, nor to establish her Earth- identity. She would probably attach far more importance to her own spiritual development, and her work as a means of furthering it, than to these evidences of an Harth-life she has left so far behind.
The major importance of these experimental language-tests of Ancient Egypt lies rather in the number of problems they raise, the study of which may deepen our interest in Psychic Science and extend the present boundaries of our knowledge of spirit-guidance and spirit-identity.
Nores on OTHER LAnGuAGE-Trests, GIVEN BY “ Lapy Nona ” THROUGH ROSEMARY.
As recorded by Transcribed by English translation. F. H. W. A. J. H. H. No. in series. 8. EE-lásh-a. ilash-y. - Tm gld = 9. EE-zéet-y-óh-ven. izhit-tyi-wabin(2). Continuity is rising.
10. En-zéeta. in-zeet-a. Not ‘‘zeeta’’ (A correction.) 11. Dit-cheet-an-kaw- dyi-chi-tan-k’a(u)-ts. You make yourself into értz. the personality of her.
12. A-deést-a. adyis t'a. Let her give this.
13. Con-véel-i-a. k’a(u)nf-ail-y. Worked (mentally) has ç he, on behalí of me.
14. Dáy-sta-win. dyi-s t'a wa’ina(t). Makes she this opening.
15. Con-judh. k’a(u)n-y oowd(y). I have planned to push š Íorward. š
16. A-húrf-tee. i(r)hur-f tyi- Until satisfied is he.
17. In-dis-zéef-man. inty zi-f man. The one who is a man of
stability.
The whole of these were given at one sitting on October 10th, 1931. Apart from the correction (“ not zeeta °) of a previous mistranslation—due to my defective recording—it will be seen that Nos. 8 to 14 show logical continuity of the idea that Nona has appreciated the early results of Mr. Hulme’s translation and collaboration. Nos. 15 to 17 are equally con- tinuous and logical, and conclude with a grateful tribute to Mr. Hulme.
Next, let us consider the crude “ poem this issue, beginning :—
“ Dyi-zée-y-ty-ah-men, QOQ-éli-ah-wént,’’
x.
on page 198 of
200 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
Mr. Howard Hulme’s translation is as follows:— “To give what, forsooth, a hidden thing ? Important is evidence. So (we say) “She shall give, forsooth, the hidden thing.” She has not given, indeed, all concerning us. Important is evidence.
“ She has now given, forsooth, indeed, all about us (or name.) The whole; therefore carry. Important is evidence. ‘“ It is even she, please, Ventiu. (Hwentiu or Fentiu.) Does it magnify all about us? (or name ?) Important is evidence.”
As already stated, this crude ‘‘ poem ’’ was Nona’s first attempt to give her Harth-name “ Ventiu.’’ The question of her identity had puzzled me for a long time. Her life-story as one of the queens of ancient Egypt is published by The Two Worlds, reprinted from a former article of mine. But so far Nona has not succeeded in getting through Rosemary the name of her Pharoah. The sceptic can never understand why such an apparently simple matter should be so difficult, but experi- enced investigators know that names are frequently a real stumbling-block in certain forms of mediumship. There is much indirect evidence in Nona’s writings, however, which points to the reign of Amenhotep III. (1406-1870 8.c.). Mr. Hulme states that the language-tests also point to that period.
Further, Nona’s own story of her tragic death receives curious support, I find, from one of the Tell El-Amarna* letters un- earthed in Egypt in 1887. Kadashman Bel, King of Babylonia, sent a letter to Amenhotep, which runs as follows: “ Behold, thou desirest my daughter for thyself in marriage, while my sister, that my father gave thee, is there with thee, and nobody now has seen her, whether she be living or dead.” Kadashman Bel had sent messengers to Egypt to identify his sister. This they failed to do, although the Pharoah presented for their inspection all the women of his household. Unfortunately, the name of the missing princess is not preserved in any of the historical records, nor is the Amarna letter itself. Apart from the latter, all trace of her has disappeared. But there is an inference, at least, from the suspicion of foul play shown in the letter of Kadashman Bel, that the Lady Nona was his sister, and she herself confirms it in the Records of Rosemary’s mediumship. According to her story, she was drowned secretly in the Nile by the Pharoah’s orders, following a political intrigue in which the priests of the Temple played a discreditable part. The crude poem quoted above is an attempt to give her Earth- name, now definitely established by more recent language- tests, as “ Ventiu,’’ or “ Fentiu.’’
* Die Amarne Tafeln, J. A, Knudtzon. Leipsic. 1907.
LANGUAGE TEST oF ANCIENT EGYPT. 201
It is possible, of course, that further excavation in Egypt may yet supply the missing link which would clinch one of the most evidential episodes in modern psychic research; but until that happens, we have only the testimony of Lady Nona herself, the proof of her identity furnished by the language-tests, and my own subsequent researches in the British Museum and elsewhere, to go upon.
Before quoting a few of the sayings of Nona, let me state, briefly, that she became Rosemary’s guide in October, 1928. Six series of articles on The Rosemary Records have already appeared in The Two Worlds, and other occasional articles in Light, etc. The following are selected from the writings and trance-utterances of Nona through Rosemary.
“ After my death, he (the Pharoah) suffered as I suffered, and yet we could not meet. In his despair he turned to another queen, but she did not bring light to his spirit, especially when he had discovered the wrong he had done to me. Thus we were unhappy, he thinking me dead forever to him, while I went far away, and by rigid self-discipline overcame my morbid earth-longings. I trained, and in due time became a medium on this side: for I, having known the despair of being unable to approach my loved one, was only too anxious to help others in similar straits.”’
“ I was too rash in my Harth-life ever to learn, even by my bitterest experiences. Indeed, I blamed the gods, and bewailed my sad fate. How much better it would have been to realise one’s own shortcomings, conquer them, and so set oneself free to live even through the worst troubles with a calm, philosophic outlook. To-gain the right perspective of the infinitesimal part your Earth-life plays in your long existence, is to become the possessor of your soul.”
“ He (the Pharoah) had much to un-learn, and much to re- learn, and a long way to travel up when he left Earth, where he did much violence. Still, there remained the spark of love. That grew with the years, and now he is all of himself, and no other. Now, after all these years, our guides have brought us together again, for all bitterness is gone from our spirits, and there remains nothing but the sweetness of perfect contact of soul and spirit. Each now strengthens the other, and when my work with you is over we shall pass away to seek yet hizher places of light and service, each with the other.”
“ You think I have been passed on for ages, Doctor! But it is nothing in the development which is before us. On our side Time is gone for ever. We live solely in thought and action. My own happiness is the result of ages of development and yearnings of the spirit. I desired greatly, and worked, and hoped. ”
202 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
““ Past, present and future are limitless possibilities, bounded only by our faculties for taking advantage of them. If you had these faculties, you would be in the spirit-world. You are prevented from having them partly by your physical body, partly by your lack of development. You are limited by the density of matter, which causes your physical body to be sub- ject to time. and place. Our our side, we ourselves are the limitations. There are none of time and place. Therefore as we expand and develop our own faculties, we can express our- selves as we will and where we will. Thus you have a sitting in your study, and I am there, my hand actually on the medium’s. At the same time I can with practice project my thought-self where I will. I can thus be conscious of what is taking place anywhere in your world.”
“We are thwarted by adverse Earth-conditions everywhere. But to break down the falsely-erected barriers between your plane and the next will be to the ultimate good of the Earth- people. Once they realise our guidance, the greatest evils in the world will cease to be.”
“One difficulty of overcoming the barrier is caused by un- developed spirits on our side. They often block communica- tion, and are a source of real danger. Etherialise your material senses, to dissipate the cumulative evil of undeveloped spirits around you. That is a point which has never yet been con- sidered by your investigators. It is part of the teaching we want you to put before people. If you did nothing else, Doctor, but make people realise they must purify their thought, you would have done a life’s work indeed.”
“To set your spirit free is the main lesson for which you are placed in the Earth-sphere. So many Earth-people are slaves to their own bodies. If a spirit is not set free in Earth-life, it. passes out with a double burden into spirit-life.’’
“ Even I have doubts, Doctor! If ever we lose these doubt- ings, it will be when we have reached the bosom of Almighty God. Till then we are all imperfect, and although our faith ' ` and our knowledge increase with the passing of ages, yet there is always something ahead about which we wonder, and wonder brings doubt. I sometimes think that until we reach the Ultimate Goodness, our whole existence is a kind of striving : but it becomes more glorified as one progresses; a kind of joyful race unhampered by the bitterness of despair which encompasses struggle on the Earth-plane, and a capacity for greater effort, greater appreciation, and greater love.”
i, H, Woop,
“PSYCHOMETRY” ON. USHABTI FIGURE. 208
PSYCHOMETRY OF EGYPTIAN USHABTI FIGURE
By Mrs. HUMPHREY Marten (Mary MENTEITHB), on November 18th, 1981.
The figure was handed to Mrs. Marten, wrapped in thick folds of tissue paper, by Major F. C. Tyler, who was the only person present with Mrs. Marten. The following notes of the reading were made by him, in long-hand, as near as possible verbatim.
A Ushabti Figure is a small mummiform figure, of which numbers are found in Egyptian tombs.
The British Museum authorities gave the date of this particu- lar figure as about B.C. 1,000. The name of the dead man, on the figure, is “ Rwd- Amen, Overseer of the Palace.’
The substance of the reading is on the Science of s s The dead man may, perhaps, have been a Priest who instructed pupils in that Science. The reading gives us the externals of the inner knowledge of the day, in regard to ideas of Life; and references to certain geometrical symbols vice are to be found, to-day, in Freemasonry.
(The paragraphing is purely arbitrary).
1. With this I get a capital “ D.”
2. Now, I’m looking at . . . Oh! Surely this is something Egyptian? You know how I told you about the gateways and the pillars at Memphis, that are sloped in to look straight ? I am looking at something in ancient Egypt; the pillars are not corrected for perspective.
3. Now, I get a priest; an extremely strong influence. He has in his hand a cylinder of hieroglyphics or writing. Whether it is a roll of papyrus, or a cylinder that has to be read round, I don’t know. I am more inclined to the roll of papyrus.
4. This is a very tall man, with very piercing eyes that look into the distance.. As he speaks he holds this roll between his hands, speaking to the multitude, turning his head from side to side in a real orator’s way, catching the attention of his listeners, as it were individually. As he lectures, he is perfectly aware of the minds of his people, and answers the questions in the minds of his listeners. An extremely fine form of lecturing.
5. He is discoursing on some subject which is not common ; a deep subject. It is what we would call “ science,” not “ yeligion.”” The science of something which is proved by action.
204 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
6. I get a feeling of circles within circles; and, again, circles within circles. I get an octave of circles; eight being, in this case, a perfect number. š :
7. An exact X with crosslets << ; and en- closed in a square xX °
(It was by Mrs. Marten's direetions that the three figures were drawn, in succession, making the third figure the com- plete one. The Cross,” was definitely described by her as a “St. Andrew’s Cross,” as we call it now. F. C. Tyler.)
8. I believe I’m at the very beginning of geometry (that came; I don’t know the word); and this man is working out designs upon a certain calculation, or on a certain observation in Nature.
9. He has learnt from Nature that which he is teaching. I am not certain whether he is basing his knowledge on ancient Egyptian knowledge. I think that is more like it—unless I have moved from Egypt; for I am in either Greece or Rome ?
10. Who was the first geometrician? What did Archimedes do? Was he a mathematician? Look it up.
11. Now, I can go on. Do you know anything about geometry in ancient Egypt? Didn't he invent a screw? EET < Yes) “‘ I knew that."
12. “I get this:—there was some discovery of geometry in ancient Egypt, written on papyrus (the roll, as above) and I know I jumped from that man .. . You can somehow join up Archimedes and his work with the Great Pyramid.”
13. (Q. by F.C.T.):—“‘ Why do you say the Great Pyramid ? ”’ :
Mrs. Marten :—“ I don’t know. It joins up knowledge of his method of working with the Great Pyramid. -Is the Great Pyramid geometry? ” (F.C.T. “ Yes.”) “ What’s Euclid?” (That was not psychometry). What is algebra? All math- ematics come -from a central point; the central point being geometry. -
14. I’m getting patterns; only patterns; I get these eight circles intertwined. Have they any relation to. ...? That makes an octagonal pattern. I could go on, and on. . . A long-shaped cube. Is that geometry? (F.C.T. “ Yes.’’) The absolute Square; and the Ellipse. The Cirele. And the Circle within the Circle. And two intertwining Circles would make an Ellipse.
2
“PSYCHOMETRY” ON USHABTI FIGURE, 205
15. There is some significance of the absolute Circle within the absolute square. * And the sum total of all this is that the discoveries of Archimedes are a proof that everything, spiritually, is of a mathematical proportion: the Law and Order, which we call the Spiritual Universe, is beyond com- prehension; and wherever there is Law and Order in material things—in this world, however slight—it is good. And I am even going so far as to say that the methodical mind is the first step on the road to Spirituality, as we understand it. Now, a quotation, by association with that: ‘‘ Law and Order is Heaven’s first Law.” *
16. What in the world has Archimedes to do with the thing that I am holding First, Egypt; and second, Archimedes.
17. Funny. I’m in an Egyptian tomb, now; with the furniture in it.
18. There’s not a doubt that those great men of Greece were the re-incarnated Egyptian Priesthood.
19. “ A Man of Knowledge was a Man of God’; and that rather swung back, later, to: “ A Man of God was a Man of Knowledge,” and the Great Initiates. To-day, neither is a Man of God necessarily a Man of Knowledge, nor is a Man of Knowledge necessarily a Man of God. But TRUTH is GOD —and GOD is TRUTH; and, eventually, the two will become one.
I couldn't go over that again. I got that word by word.
Tt will be neither Religion nor Science, but scientific Religion, or religious Science. In one word—TRUTH.
20. Now, I’m getting, first, the Christian text: ‘‘ Seek ye first the Kingdom of God,’’ because Knowledge will not become permanent until it is used exclusively for the good and better- ment of mankind. Civilisations may rise and fall; discoveries may be lost in the fall—but only because these discoveries have not been applied in the Spirit of Love.
Mrs. Marten now seems to be describing a Greek philosopher. (See note to para. 3.)
21. I’m getting the Practical side dominating the Spiritual side; and, you know, while I’m speaking to you now, I see great discoveries coming into the world. You and I may not see them, but they are not far off; and when they come upon the world they will come as a Flood of Light, and be poured forth upon the minds of the Teachers, in an Inspirational Stream.
22. Now, I’m looking at a comet. There is some great comet which is due to appear not long after our time; it is known when it is expected. It is a great comet; that I know. That will be the time; not far distant. (Look this up.)
206 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
23. I’m still back in ancient Greece, and I see the Athletics. This is going back. You know what I said, that Order and Method, even at the lowest, is a touch of the Divine? From that I come to the Greek idea (which I know) of the absolute control of the body, in poise. It is a pity that that sort of thing is not practised to-day; for that perfect control of the muscles, in poise, had a very great effect upon the mind— the Spirit. A greater effect than the powers of endurance which came on at a later date.
24. The temples—in those days of Archimedes—had they live doves in them? (F. C. T.: “ I daresay.’’) I’m in a temple, and am looking at live doves. It is a temple to a god, or goddess. They must have had incense in those Greek Temples.
25. The difference between Greek and Egyptian temples is that the first were light, and the latter dark and sinister. (This is psychometry.)
26. Are there two birds in the ancient Egyptian religion? I only know one, but I am looking at two; and between them they support the Ankh (verify this).
27. Now, I’m going back (i.e., to what has been said at the beginning; see p.l. F.C.T.), and this time I am really looking at a cylinder which you have to turn round and read—not a roll. This, which I have been speaking of, might be found on a metal cylinder, not Egyptian; I am quite certain of that. It was where the two great teachings coincide. Egyptian was the papyrus; Greek on parchment, I think; I don’t know the metal—was it Assyrian? You can see those metal cylinders to-day, and they can be read.
28. Where was the origin of the Calendar? I’m not sure that we are very far away from geometry. And I’m now in a time when I am not sitting on a chair or stool, but as I am now. (Mrs. Marten had taken up a position on a low footstool, with her two feet tucked away sideways.—F. C. T.) I am wearing a white tunic; and I am sitting so, “ at the feet,” learning. I am a boy. It’s a much nicer time than ancient Jeypt. To me it is the difference between day and night. There is always something sinister, near by, in Egypt, amongst great beauty and learning and understanding. It was not a time that I would ever want to go back to. There was great
cruelty and fierce natures. The temples are wonderful, but dark.
29. What’s the meaning of void? (F. C. T.: “ Empty.’’) I don’t mean that. But I come out into . . . It’s Greece; and I find whiteness and lightness and beauty of form, and great cleanliness. I am aware of being clean—through and through and through. I didn’t say there was no cleanliness in Egypt.
“PsyCHOMETRY” ON USHABTI FIGURE. 207
It seems that, in Greece, there was a Spirit of Light with Wisdom. But there is the White Flame of Altruism. (I can’t get the correct word.) No more; I think.
Mrs. Marten then unwrapped the paper in which the figure was concealed.
She remarked that, when reading from a cornelian figure, just before the. Ushabiti, she had crossed her arms; this was so; she explained that that was by confusion with the Ushabti figure, which was giving out its influence. This sort of thing is not unusual with Mrs. Marten.
She added to the reading of the Ushabti figure this further (psychometric) information :—
80. “This knowledge was known in Egypt and handed on in Greece, and is fulfilled, in many ways, in the present day. There’s a Hebrew (influence). I wonder if you find any trace of geometry in the Hebrew? Is there any in the Talmud? or in Solomon’s Temple? The Hebrew influence. Known everywhere, it came into the light with Archimedes. He made it into a marketable commodity.”
After the psychometry was ended, we sat talking, and Mrs. Marten said (again lapsing into psychometry) :— J
31. “ With you, my psychometry is not always ‘ local.’ I get to the spirit of those times, and connect it with the same spirit working through other times.
“ I want to find out the significance of the Bird in ancient Egypt. I rather think that it is the Soul. Then I want the significance of two Birds. I think it is this: I gave you the emblem of two Birds supporting the emblem of Eternity, the ANKH. I can give you the interpretation now. Two great Souls supporting Eternal TRUTH. The ETERNITY of TRUTH.
“I see this priest in ancient Egypt teaching the same TRUTH as in ancient Greece.
‘ One will be a name unknown.”
Nores By Masor TYLER. The paragraphing of the text is arbitrary. The numbers of the Notes refer to the numbers of the paragraphs.
1. An initial given in this manner usually refers to either the name of something, or of somebody, connected with the object which is being psychometrised; or to the name of the present owner. In this case I cannot identify the “ D.”
2. Mrs. Marten got straight on to the Egyptian origin of the object in her hand, although it was quite unrecognis- able to her in its paper wrapping; the wrapping was too thick for any sense of touch to reveal the nature of the object.
208 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
The idea of the gateways (“° pylons °) being sloped in to “ look straight ' is not actually given in the reading referred to about Memphis. In that reading the fact that the pylons were sloped in is mentioned, but not the object of that arrange- ment. Personally, I always suppose that the object of the inward slope is not exactly what Mrs. Marten. described, but rather that a deliberate and definite inward slope would remove the false sensation of slope, due to perspective, which strictly vertical towers would have given.
8. The confusion between the roll of papyrus and the cylinder may be explained by reference to paras. 27 and 81. The same knowledge was held in different lands, hence this con- fusion at the outset of the reading.
Para. 4 gives us the information that the Teacher was hold- ing a papyrus roll. That is, he was Egyptian.
4. I have heard Mrs, Marten describe an orator in this sort of way before, even to rendering his intonation and style of delivery.
5. From what follows, it is clear that the “ Science ” is the Science of Numbers, and all that it connotes. This Science is, commonly, connected (in our modern minds) with Pytha- goras, but that he got his knowledge from Egypt and Chaldaea there seems no doubt.
6. “ Circles within Circles ’’—Symbolical of the ‘‘ Celestial World of Heaven.” (Albert Churchward, “ Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man,” p. 175. A Masonic book.)
“ An Octave of Circles ’’—Symbolical of the Heavens, in Egypt. (ibid. p. 208).
Neither Mrs. Marten were aware, at the time, of such things; they were found afterwards.
7. In “ The Observer, of 10th April, 1932, is an account of the discovery, in an Egyptian tomb of 6,000 years ago, of what is referred to (conjecturally) as a model of a ‘“ tribal . standard.” The emblem on this “ model ' is a ‘‘ white St. Andrew’s Cross ' on a crimson field.
8. Mrs. Marten knows nothing of geometry, The word came, as it were, by inspiration; this is not extraordinary, in as much as the greater part of this reading is—to me—obviously inspirational. By this I mean that at times the matter which she gave out was being given to her by “ dictation.” I say this from a long experience with her. š
Geometry is the basis of the Science of Numbers, which embraces the whole philosophy of Life and of the Universe. The Egyptian was teaching what Pythagoras gave to the world. Plato said, “ God geometrises,’’ i.e., the Universe follows definite geometrical forms and laws. (See also para. 15.)
“PSYCHOMETRY” ON USHABTI FIGURE. 209
9. It follows, from what has been said above, that the Science which is being taught is obtained “ from Nature.”
10. Chambers’ Ency., “ Geometry, says: ‘‘ Tradition ascribes (and modern research tends to confirm rather than to invalidate the ascription) the origin of geometry to the Egyptians ... U also, “ the history of geometry as a branch of science begins with Thales of Miletus (640-542 B.c.). .. . After Thales came Pythagoras of Samos (580 B.c.)’’ Euclid was circa B.c. 300. Archimedes was B.c. 287-212.
Ibid., “ Archimedes ” : ‘‘ Archimedes was the most celebrated of ancient mathematicians.”
11, 12 and 13. Certainly, the work of Archimedes can be connected up with what went to the design and construction of the Great Pyramid; for, in the latter, geometry is expressed in full terms.
Chambers’ Ency. “ Mathematics °: ‘‘ The branches of pure mathematics which were first developed were, naturally, arith- metic, or the Science of Numbers, and Geometry, or the Science of Quantity (in extension). . . . Algebra, or the Science of Numbers in its most general form, is of much later growth. . . .”’ So, it is truly said that “ all mathematics come from geometry, which was the basis of Numbers.
We read that “ In some of the older schools of (Greek) philosophy it was said: ‘ No one can enter who does not know mathematics.’ That meant, not what we call, now, ‘ mathe- matics,’ but that Science (of Numbers) which embraces the knowledge of the higher planes, of their mutual relations, and the way in which the whole is built by the Will of God. When Plato said: “God geometrises,’ he stated a profound truth, which throws much light upon the methods and mysteries of evolution. These (geometrical) forms are not conceptions of the human brain, they are the Truths of the Higher Planes. We have formed the habit of studying the books of Euclid, but we study them now for themselves, and not as a guide to something higher. The old philosophers pondered upon them because they led to the understanding of the true Science of Life.” (From “ Glimpses of Masonic History,” by C. W. Leadbeater, 330.) ss
14. This is all geometry. The “ long-shaped cube ” is, ap- parently, related to the Freemason’s “ oblong square ’’ (see Churchward, op. cit. p. 11). “The absolute Square ’’—‘‘ a square which all R.A. Masons will understand .” (Ibid. p. 13.) The Ellipse of “two intertwining circles’’ is a ‘‘ false ellipse.
2
>
The “ long-shaped cube " is the same thing as the “ double eube,’’ which Churchward (op. cit. p. 41) describes.
210 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
15. Tt is figured as showing the square with a Circle within it, on the top surface. The author states that this sign refers to the Royal Arch degree in Freemasonry.
In Carlile’s “ Manual of Freemasonry,’’ p. 229, it is stated that “ The circle and the Square have a reference to the degree of Perfect Master in Freemasonry.”’
These symols are found in ancient Mexico, as well as in modern Freemasonry, and (as given by Mrs. Marten) in ancient Egypt.
The correct quotation seems to be: ‘‘ Order is Heaven’s first Law.” (Pope, “ Essay on Man,” Ep. iv. 49.)
The portion of the text between the stars is, without doubt, inspirational, as, indeed, a great part of the reading is.
17. The Ushabti figure came from an Egyptian tomb, though Mrs. Marten was quite ignorant of what she was hold- Ing, as it was wrapped in thick folds of paper.
19. It would be difficult to state the difference between yes- terday, great antiquity, and to-day, in a more expressive manner. This was inspired, of course. The words were not Mrs. Marten’s own.
20. To be taken to heart.
21. Presumably the Flood of Light refers to the knowledge of spiritual matters that must precede the “ great discoveries.”
22. The periodic comets are :—
Encke’s Bee eis ... period ... 3.29 years. Winnecke’s = wi dy teen OLA ees Brorsen’s a ws ane Fs aah See MONOD a ss Temple’s I. ... oe ai jy toes Z02845 Y D'Arrest's ... ae — ‘Gh Asas OOO RI yo Biela's i pa oe Ay ate ie 0101 S = Faye’s or ee ait gy 1 Tana saan aspa Tuttle’s fs of bai eines Seve LOMO bees: Halley’s oe ae Y AQ yy aa OOO per Temple’s II. Sa sate i) SOBA USOS Swift’s ee sie 5.51
(Eney. Brit. Vol. VT. p. 768.) Of all the above, perhaps Halley’s comet is the one referred to by Mrs. Marten; for she refers to it as “ due to appear not long after our time '" (i.e., her’s and mine), and it is a ‘‘great comet.” Halley’s comet is due to return in the year 1896. Halley’s comet is thought to have been seen in the years B.c. 52, A.D. 885, 1006, 1230, 1305, 13878, 1456, 1531, 1607; 1682, 1759, 1835, April, 1910. Ë Halley, the astronomer, was born in 1656, and died in 1742. He predicted the return of the comet which goes by his name,
Ba
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“PsYCHOMETRY”’ ION USHABTI FIGURE. P11
that one which appeared in 1682. His prediction was not accepted by astronomers, but the comet came back. (Chambers’ Eney. 1908.)
So, in 1986, or thereabouts, those who are living may expect a great outpouring of knowledge.
23. “° I’m still back in ancient Greece.” How much of the preceding refers to Greece, and how much to Egypt?
24. It seems highly probable that the temples of Aphrodité would have had live doves in them, as this was her bird.
“ The dove is a symbol of the Soul.” (Churchward, op. cit. p. 307.)
26. (i) In the Papyrus of ANI (B. M. Papyrus No. 10470, vighette No. 7 (e) is shown “ The Mummy in a shrine, with Isis and Nepthys in the form of two birds,’’ one on either side of the shrine. (ii) The B. M. “ Guide to the Egyptian Col- lections,’’ pp. 225, 226, says that the KA and the BAI were associated. The KA was the “ personality,’ the BAI the Soul. The latter had ‘‘ a dual nature,” and is often depicted as a human-headed hawk.
Reference is made, on p. 225, to the “ dual Soul.”’
Between the above two references we must surely have Mrs. Marten’s two birds; the dual Soul, or two Souls. . (See para. 31.)
I have not yet come across the emblem of two birds sup- porting the ANKH.
Para. 26. “ When writing out the text, for publication, I wrote, at the end of this note, “ I have not yet come across the emblem of the two birds supporting the ANKH.” In my own original copy I had added to this, ‘‘ but probably shall do so (if it exists).”’
On July 29th, 1982, I went to the exhibition of finds of The British School of Egyptian Archaeology from GAZA, where T purchased Sir Thomas Flinders Petrie’s “ A Vision of the Ages.” In this I find (p. 8) a photograph of a “ Gold Pectoral of Senusert II., s.c. 2400.” This is characterised as “° per- haps the finest known example of Egyptian inlay, with 372 cut stones of turquoise, lazuli, and carnelian.” :
The design is of two birds, between whom is a design which includes two Ankhs, which are hanging from the bodies of two cobras, each cobra being supported on the beak of one of the birds.
Mrs. Marten told me to “ verify this.” As has happened more than once, the verification came from a source of which I was ignorant—(I have practically no knowledge of Egypt- ology)—and, in this case, the particular publication in which
919 - QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
I find the emblem had not even been available to me before the date mentioned above.
27. Assyria and Babylonia have left to us “ libraries,” but they are tablets of baked clay. I find no mention of metal tablets, or metal cylinders, though cylinders are mentioned.
Perhaps Mrs. Marten confused baked clay with metal?
In the Victoria and Albert Museum is a statue of ‘‘ A Korean Mandarin,” holding a cylinder. The statue comes from a row, leading to a sepulchere. Cirea A.D. 300.
28. The ultimate origin of the Calendar was geometry—the geometry of the Universe, manifested in the regular move- ments of the heavenly bodies, giving the divisions of the year. Egypt, in ancient times, does not seem to have been altogether an attractive place !
The description of the boy, “ sitting at the feet,’’ coupled with the attitude adopted by Mrs. Marten, was wonderfully lifelike.
29. “ Void.” It would seem that Mrs. Marten was search- ing after a word to express the difference experienced between coming out of the dark temples of Egypt into the lightness of the Grecian.
30. Certainly. The Science of Numbers is found “ in the Hebrew.” See “ The Kabala,” in any encyclopaedia.
‘It came into the light with Archimedes.” This is practi- cally true, though Mrs. Marten did not know it.
31. It is quiite correct that Mrs. Marten’s psychometry, when she is working with me, does seem to tend to give “ the spirit of the times,” rather than the individual history of the object, which she is reading.
“One will be a name unknown.’
,
The reference is obscure.
F. C. Tyrmr.
m
PREVISION. 213
PREVISION
Spiritualism, as gathered from Psychical Research, or more probably from the daily or monthly Press, has become a fre- quent feature in modern novels. The horrible situations de- picted in some of these may in many cases only raise a laugh in those who understand the subject, but the better class of works, such as John Buchan’s Gap in the Curtain, deal with the nature of Time or the cause of prevision. In this very read- able story, a Professor Moe deals with prevision as sensibility to vibrations to which the bulk of mankind are insensible. That prevision of events to come is a real possibility in a few rare cases, we have many undeniable proofs.
Such are the prophecies of Sheik Hassan el Merghani related by Colonel Perey Machell, C.M.G., Inspector General of the Egyptian Coastguard Department, in Blackwood’s Magazine for August, 1910, who heard at Tokar in 1892, five years before the battle of the Atbara, and six years before the battle of Omdurman, the prophecies which foretold the end of the Mahdist rebellion, even to the place of the final battle. A most remarkable prediction of the whole course of the Russo-Polish war is recorded in the Revue Metapsychique, for September- October, 1921. The first prediction was obtained at Warsaw by the Polish S.P.R., countersigned by twelve members and sent to Paris before the events predicted took place. It was followed by others in great detail, all of which were exactly verified. There were received clairaudiently, and claimed to be from an external source. I have given the whole prediction, with others, in my book Psychical Research, Science, and Religion, p. 82.
Another even more remarkable prediction is published in the revue Metapsychique for December, 1925. It is absolutely authenticated by publication in the Athenian newspapers Asty and Ethnike in August, 1914. On June 6th, 1914, the pre- diction was repeated at greater length, and in reply to a ques- tion when this might be expected, the answer was given, “ In about two months.” Dr. Antoniou, to whom the prediction was given by a young lady under hypnotic treatment, com- municated the prediction to 18 ‘persons of position and influence whose certificates he gives, and on the lith to the 14th of August, 1914 (Greek calendar) the Greek newspaper Asty pub- lished the whole, which stated that the war would end with the victory of the Entente, that Germany would become a republic, that Austria would perish, that England would be the dominant Power at the Peace Conference, and that after terrible distress, Germany would regain her position. The prediction was re- ceived with sneers, and surprise that Dr. Antoniou should be so simple as to attach any importance to such absurd fables.
214 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
Nevertheless, out of 28 predictions in great detail 21 were fulfilled to the letter. Dr. Osty has the files on record at the Institut Metapsychique at 89, Avenue Niel, Paris. He says: “They are open to inspection by anyone who may wish to consult them.’’ One such instance of prevision came under my own notice.
In 1897 I was employed as Technical Assistant to the Uganda Railway Construction Board at the Foreign Office, and though the work was far advanced I had no thought of leaving it. But in December of that year, Miss B., a friend living with my wife and myself, went on a visit to a lady, Kate B, not a pro- fessional clairvoyante, who very rarely exercised her powers. She shut her eyes, took Miss B’s hand, not as a palmist but merely holding her hand, and said: “ Now I see you going overseas; now you are living in a large house; it looks like a barrack or institution of sorne kind, and it has two towers. Now I see you driving in a country lane with a stout elderly lady who has curls all over her head, in a curious vehicle like a large bath-chair drawn by a pony.”’
On Miss B’s return, nothing more was thought of the pre- diction which seemed quite wide of any probability, though it was noted down exactly as given above.
But in March, 1898, quite unexpected events took me to ‘the Channel Islands where I was offered a single-storied house « unsuitable for the purpose under discussion, which concerned the son, N., of the owner. He suggested that the house might be remodelled, and asked me to draw the plans. These in- volved raising the house one storey and adding a new wing. I drew the plans for him in May. To my drawing he added two towers. The alterations were completed in September. I re- signed my appointment at the Foreign Office, and we went into residence. Some weeks later, Miss B. found herself driving with a lady, the wife of the owner, precisely as described, and in a vehicle as specified, which is peculiar to the Channel Islands. The prediction, till then forgotten, flashed into her mind. I suggested laying before Kate a photograph of the house along with others of the same kind, but giving no hint of the purpose. This was done, and Kate at once picked out the photograph, saying, “ Why! that is the house I ‘saw’ you in.”
The points of interest are that the house was not even de- signed at the time of the vision; the people were unknown to us even by name; I had no thought of going overseas; the house was not built till six months later; the drive in the lanes was later still; and the vision in this cage was precise, not sym- bolical.
Confronted with such facts, most persons either pass them by without any thought at all, or infer sheer fatalism. The truth seems to be that we act from conditioned choices, the condi-
¥
PREVISION. 215-
tions being inherent in the mentalities that we have made for ourselves and in the environing circumstances. Miss B. de- ceased in August, 1913, having been a most valued colleague in my educational work from 1898 to that date, and one whose loss affected me greatly. Some years latet, when my military duties during the war were ended, I received through a very passive automatist who is ignorant of what she writes, fre- quent communications purporting to come from the deceased lady. Among many other questions, I put the following and received the answers appended :—
Q.: Can you explain how Kate could foresee in January, the house not built till September?
A.: I cannot say how, but although you did not know it, those events were bound to follow the workings of the minds. Tt had nothing to do with Kate, really.
Q.: Then whom had it to do with?
A.: You and me, with N’s need, and his father and mother.
Kate was only the medium.
Q.: How was she impressed ?
A.: She was clairvoyant, and the link came through me as being closely associated with you.
Q.: That agrees with Osty’s conclusions, but what is so difficult to get at is, how could the fact of your connection
«with me, bring the future into vision? ‘ Clairvoyance ° is only a word expressing a fact.
A.: I am not able to say more than Our Lord said, “ Ye are
all members one of another,’’ and as colleagues, of course my
personality showed signs of your future and mine.
The automatist had certainly not read Osty’s book, the Eng- lish translation not having then appeared; and T, as certainly, did not connect the prediction with any theory. My own state of mind was rather a hope that I might get some new light on the nature of Time. This, it will be noticed, was not referred to in the answers; and whatever the source of the information, the facts remain.
T do not think these facts imply Fatalism; but they do imply Determinism. In cases of prediction it seems to me probable that the subconsciousness of the medium, or the consciousness of the communicating intelligence (as the case may be) has access to the minds that will produce the events. Laplace said that an Intelligence cognisant of all causes could predict the results. In the cases of the Russo-Polish war and the Great War, the military movements were the results of the minds concerned, and any person with full written reports of all that was happening on both sides, could have predicted the move- ments and their issues.
In Mr. Buchan’s book, ae author assumes (for the founda- tion of his story) that the facility can be stimulated by artificial apathy and a drug. Taking this for granted Professor Moe in-
216 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
duces five persons fo make the experiment, and to imagine each some pertinent paragraph in The Times newspaper a year ahead.
Mayot had a vision of the leader-page and two sentences of comment on the Prime Minister’s speech, the name not being that of the then holder of the office.
Tavanger, on the City-page, had a glimpse of a note of a great combine by the Anatilla Corporation on the world- interests of Michelite.
Reggie Daker, on the Court-page saw his own name as one of the members of an archaeological expedition to Yucatan.
Goodeve, and Charles Ottery saw the announcements of their own deaths. In each of these cases the percipients were deeply impressed with the idea that the forecasts had been re- vealed by “ Science,” and were therefore unquestionable. They at once proceeded to plan how they could use this ‘‘scienti- fic "” information to serve their own interests; Mr. Taverner for money, Mr. Mayot for ambition, Mr. Daker in his love- affairs, Mr. Goodeve died from sheer fear of death; and Mr. Ottery in nearly the same way, but he found that the forecast though accurate, did not refer to him at all but to a distant relation of the same name.
Now this would be merely a story-teller’s “ plot ’’ and would scarcely be worth discussion, were it not that suche stories have much more hold on average minds than the prem- ises on which they are based.
All the protagonists acted in their own material interests. How I might have reacted in like case I do not know. I have had an announcement that my own time on earth is “ very short,” but as I am in my 79th year this is scarcely super- normal(!) Its only effect is to make me settle up my temporal affairs, which T should have done in any case. One thing, how- ever, is clear, that all such predictions should be received with caution, and should not affect daily life in any way unless as revealing a curious problem.
That any spiritualist should be agitated by a forecast of tran- sition seems to me an amusing instance of irrational fear.
Mr. Buchan deduces that it is better not to know what the future has in store. This is unquestionably true as long as men are so materially minded and so prone to receive the wildest “° scientific ’’ speculations without considering on what they rest.
S. DE BRATH.
À NEW REALISM. 217
A NEW REALISM The Shaping by Life of a Credo By Priscinta MAGMILLAN WILDE.
“The true faculty of knowing is the faculty that exponen reen —Blake. _ My first. remembered contact with “ Something Else occurred at the age of five, and is,still as vivid in my mind as if it had happened yesterday. The occasion was the first time I was promoted to the honour of going to church. The unaccustomed beauty of the tiny old Sussex church, combined with the singing, made up a spell of awe and loveliness which became unbearable, and which resolved itself into two distinct things. The first was a sudden, heart-breaking realisation that the mother I worshipped, and all my blissful life, were im- permanent—each day passing away.
This was quickly followed by a deeper, comforting assurance and intuition that the passing away would only be apparent— in reality, all I loved would remain as it was for ever, and later on I would be able to return to it.
Of course it was only the “ sensations ’’ that were clear „to me, in the sense that Keats wrote (and was so misinter- preted for writing): ‘‘ Oh for a Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts l’
As regards putting them into words, I was quite inarticulate, even to myself. Nor did I try to describe this experience to anyone till an occasion arose when life almost forced out something like a confession concerning it, which shall be described later.
Outwardly, the effects were disastrous.
I hastily told my mother that I had a bad sore throat, which was the nearest I could get to describing the choking feeling induced by trying not to disgrace myself on so great an occasion.
I was bundled out, weeping and ashamed. When the larger members of the congregation joined me after the service, I remember the humiliation of their chaffing enquiries about my mysterious sore throat, which had arrived (and vanished) with such surprising speed.
From the age of about fifteen, in spite of having a very happy temperament, I was often searching for something that would give an underlying clue of meaning and reality to every-
>
thing. T came across these words by Drummond: “° For here and now is the Eternal Life begun.” I knew then that my search
would not end unless in some inconceivable way life itself showed me that those words were true. I felt sure that for
218 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
me the nearest approach to the Mystery called God, would be through the symbol of personality, which seemed to hold something divine and not temporary, like its physical body.
Although I* had not then come across the words of Keats describing his own search, I knew that I was looking for “A system of ‘salvation which does not affront our reason and our humanity.”’
I also felt dimly that if the universe were built up of quite separate compartments, as it were, it would not be a Universe at all. If there were meaning and purpose and love behind it all, every experience that could happen to me or to others, and every aspect of existence would be found to make some great Whole, if and when I were ever able to discover any clue. I felt sure that if I ever did find one, my intuition of the divinity of human personality would prove to be a true instinct, a part of nature.
But I could never believe with my brain alone, nor with my desires alone: it had to be everything or nothing. I did try very hard to find all that modern man could need in the New Testament, and in the rendering of the New Testament given by the churches; and I was always hoping that something would make the truth that I felt was there become closer, and more real and alive.
I did very rarely, and always unexpectedly, have a glimpse of “ Something Else.” Any experiences that .appeared to be linked with some unusual vibrations always seemed to include a sort of reversal of the usual way of looking at time as definitely past, present, or future.
Perhaps the strongest instance of this happened at the age of sixteen, when a: sudden and almost overwhelming lucidity of vision came over me for a few minutes—showing the exact quality of life awaiting me. I saw in a flash of blinding clear- ness how things were going to “ turn out,” although, of course, apprehending no details.
It was almost like having the corner of an architect’s plan uncovered for a moment, after which life proceeded to work it out according to that plan. The same mixing-up of time hap- pened at least three times in connection with human relation- ships. It was an intuitive and apparently irrational flash of knowledge that some “° job ° in connection with the person indicated, was waiting ahead for me to do, and in each case the intuition was justified by subsequent events.
One of these intuitions came at the age of fifteen, and con- cerned a child to whom I had then not yet spoken. Another, coming many years later, concerned a complete stranger, whom it seemed most unlikely that I should ever meet. She was a widow in great distress at the death of her husband, Dr. Arthur Neve of Kashmir. I had to obey when unforeseen circumstances gave me a chance of approaching her. As things
_ Á NEW REALISM. + 219
turned out, had I disobeyed I could not have remained ‘‘ free from. sin ’’ in the sense that Keats wrote in a letter: “ May I not in this be free from sin?” Keats was referring to his “ Straining at particles of light in the midst of a great dark- ness,” thereby fulfilling his own words so full of insight: ““They
. refine one’s sensual vision into a sort of north star which can never cease to be open-lidded and steadfast over the wonders of the great power.”
Francis Thompson dwells on this timelessness in his poem, ‘From the Night of Forebeing,’’ and elsewhere. Although at our present stage of little knowledge, such intuitions as regards a certain unity of past, present and future time cannot be verified, Sir Oliver Lodge has suggested the possibility of the likeness between happenings in time and a cinema film, of which we see only a portion at once.
Incidentally, my own small experiences as regards time make me understand in part when the new type of scientist, such as Jeans, Einstein, and Eddington, say marvellous things about time and space: but it is only an intuitive understanding.
As regards the first of these personal happenings, the one in early. childhood, I think it is a fairly usual experience which comes, in some degree, to young children. I have met at least one other person to whom much the same thing hap- pened at about the same age.
I believe that Wordsworth recognised it, and that this type of early experience is linked with his “ Ode to Immortality.’’
As life went on, I always took any such experiences quite naturally, but never spoke of them to anyone, nor did I ever think of any possible connection between any glimpses of Something Else and an after-life. And it was not till I was very much older that I found my “ sanctions ° for them in reading: about similar, but greater, experiences of others.
In November, 1917, I found myself often alone during many happy days spent in marvellous solitudes high up in the Himalayas. Something Else began to happen and went on for many days. It was a happy, peaceful influence, and there was no choice but to accept it without trying to apprehend its exact. nature. I saw nothing either then or at any other time, and I have never heard anything orally. I was, however, quite aware that some part of this experience consisted in my being extremely conscious of the personality of a friend, Herbert Watson, who had died of war wounds in the preceding March. I had lately come across a book on Survival, by Sir O. Lodge. Before that I had never heard that any idea of possible com- munication between the living and the dead had been thought of. It seemed remote, and it never occurred to my mind that it might happen in my life. The nearest I got to telling any- one about this influence in the mountains was in a letter written there, saying something like this: ‘‘ T cannot understand what.
D
220 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
is happening in this wonderful place. The next life has always seemed quite unreal, and now suddenly it feels almost as if half of me were already there.”
Five days after our happy return home to the lower moun- tains came the hardest thing of my life. After a terrible two days, far from much medical help, a surgeon arrived, who told me I must go and tell my mother, who was not at all old, that she was dying. At first I refused, saying I must save her from the suffering of knowing she was leaving us. He went on insisting that I ought to tell her the truth, and suddenly I knew that he was right, and saw that this was the meaning of my recent ‘‘ preparation.” We had about an hour together, and that was a new type of parting. After a very short time, an influence that we both felt, Something Else, managed to force us both into acceptance, and more than acceptance— almost a kind of joy. We discussed the past, present, and future together, Sir O. Lodge’s new scientific certainty of belief, based on proof and experience, and we spoke of what had happened to me on the mountain. I told her then about my five years’ old experience, and said that I had only just understood that it was some kind of true glimpse into reality, though I could not apprehend its exact nature. My mother said that if she were allowed, she would want to be often close to me and to my son, and that she would try to make me conscious of her presence and influence. Her unfailing sense of proportion and her clearness of vision were enhanced, and she seemed to be able to sense just a little, in some respects, about future circumstances. It makes it easy for me to understand- just that slight extra power, capacity and freedom that probably come to us when we are set free from the physical body. It also makes me realise the truth of her joyful message to me quite lately, through a first-rate “ sensitive” “ T have a REAL life, and a REAL body now.”
That final talk with my mother was a crucial thing to us both. I am convinced that it was only the help that had been sent to me during the preceding days in the mountains, and during the crisis itself, that enabled me to face it. With- out that I could not have told her the truth, and we would both have missed everything.
Herbert Coleridge Watson was a writer, journalist and barrister. The following is an extract from the obituary notice in the Daily Telegraph: “ As Mrs. Meynell says in her introductory note to a collection of his Essays, ‘ Herbert Watson was con- spicuous . . . for a grave spirituality, wistfully. but never weakly suggested,’ and it was this fine spiritual detachment which lent quality to everything he wrote.’ ”’
In 1919 during daily walks in India, a peculiar, strong and happy feeling of power, entirely new, began coming to me. I could not at first place it in any way, but knew that all I could
A New REALISM. 227
do was to “ be still,” and try to be as receptive as possible. It took some days before I recognised that it was connected with Herbert Watson, but I knew that more was to come,
I began feeling that words were trying to get through to my consciousness, and after a few more days I suddenly sensed two lines of a poem, and at once knew beyond all doubt that the “ sensation,” and these words, were one: the desired end had been attained. I did not know the poem at all well, and did not know who had written it till I found it in an anthology. Although in no event could it be evidential, I felt that for me personally it would be an important clue if I could ever discover that the poem had been connected with Herbert Watson, and it seemed unlikely that his family would know this. After my return to England a year later, his mother sent me a copy of the newly published book of some of his Essays and Reviews, none of which I had seen before. When I saw those two lines of poetry, quoted by him with intense admiration in a review, it made a great impression on me.
I only learned the following facts about Herbert Watson some years after I had felt his influence in India, as recorded. I had never thought of him as being specially interested in an after-life, and did not know that he was. Of his own personal search he has written in his essay, “ Something Else.” When quite a young man he wrote to someone, saying that the hope of meeting again in a future life was “ the one bright hope beyond,” and more than a hope, it was to him a certainty; and he spoke of the fact that to him the thought of any destruction of personality was terrible.
Before going to the War in France, he promised to try to sum up and express to a friend, Miss L. B., the results made upon his mind as regards any sense of values learned or con- firmed through his experiences and sufferings in the war. After his death in France in 1917, Miss L. B. became aware of his presence, and asked him to give her, as arranged, some indica- tion of knowledge or experience he had gained or had con- firmed. He replied, ‘‘ One hurts one’s self,” and told her to look in a drawer for an article she had on that subject, which she did. She asked him if he could give her some evidential proof that it was indeed he—could he tell her something that she did not know? He asked her to suggest a test. She re- membered that he had a brother living in America, whose address she had never heard, so she asked for that. He gave her the name of a house, town, and state. She pointed out that he had omitted the name of the street, and he replied that there was no street. She wrote to ask his family, and it was confirmed, the address was right, and there was no street. Herbert Watson must have had a number of friends unknown to his sister, F. W., and with some of these he has probably com- municated. Of those friends she does know, there are five
222; . QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
different people with whom she knows he has been in touch, in various ways, since his death. It makes one think of “Then was He seen of all the brethren.”
His sister is herself very gifted and EEE in this way, and her own experiences with her brother since his death, are far more wonderful than those of anyone else, but are of too intimate a nature to be described here. This necessary reserva- tion of-things too sacred to be written about, applies not only to the experiences mentioned in this article, but almost in- variably :to those of us who: have been brought into spon- taneous contact with this aspect of life.
-Many of us have had such experiences, and will not speak
of them at all, while those of us who feel impelled to bear some witness to the truth are, as a rule, silent as regards some sixty per cent. of our experiences, which are too intimate to be spoken of, excepting under unusual conditions. _- Their father was a saintly old scholar, a rector, who died a few years ago. Shortly after, Mrs. Alice Liddell, who then hardly knew the family, was having a private “ sitting '" with a medium who had never heard of them, when a message came, unsought, purporting to be from H. W. to be given to his daughter. Mrs. Liddell did not know whether the Christian name given was correct; she wrote to her daughter and found that it was. Amongst several things in this message he said: “I have found here all I could possibly have hoped for.” That episode, with its later developments, has made all the difference to his daughter’s life. Two years later, under the same conditions, another communication was interrupted by a request from: “ Father W.” to tell his daughter that he was. immensely interested in her developing sensitiveness, and was now sometimes able to “ drop things into her mind.”’
This family of parents, son and a daughter, are now often in touch with this surviving daughter, giving her continued loving help and encouragement. I have been privileged to know something of their family re-union, and have understood their happiness in it, including their mutual delight in the sharing of- mirth. Herbert Watson wrote in one of his Essays: ‘Humour bubbles irrepressibly in living and dying, in the heights and depths.”’ ` Why should so precious a quality as mirth be excluded from a personality, just because it is freed from the physical body, as we understand it at present?
Surely we should discard such an old-fashioned and un- natural point of view, as we are learning to discard. our crape, black plumes, and other trappings of woe.
‘To me, far: from there seeming to be any trace of sacrilege or ‘of vulgarity—(in the sense that Burke defined vulgarity as being the essence of unsuitability)—this communion has seemed: holy indeed,
A New REALISM, 0 l 223
~- But it has taken fifteen years of thought, study; help, and teaching to make me see that it is all perfectly natural— an all-inclusive Realism. Of course, there. is noring super- natural; how could there be?
But our minds are so shut and conservative: they are so slow in learning, even from great pioneers like Barrett, Crookes, Flammarion, Lodge, and, above all, from F. W. H. Myers, that our old conception of death as a shut door, leaving only silence on this side, is “ hurting ourselves °: that there is being discovered a law of the universe far more important for the progress of mankind than any other law.
Myers wrote that communion must be “no isolated phenomenon, but the inevitable deduction from a universal law.’
-If friends in a distant country take pains to keep in touch with us, unless we are ungrateful or unkind we cannot fail to respond.
And I feel strongly that some of us cannot possibly be “free from sin ” unless we do all in our power, within reasonable limits and using a sense of proportion, to eultivate any capacity, however small, for being responsive and sensitive, and for being ready to meet half-way any gesture of continued companion: ship from our so-called dead.
This obligation is particularly felt as regards any possibilities it opens up with regard to helping those in despair.
It often happens that the joy and delight of those who have gone on ahead is very great, when we take advantage of any unusual opportunity for communion with them: they obviously take loving pains to show us that they love to keep in touch with us. They assure us that what Keats called their “ Individual beings, identical Souls’’, “ each as various as their lives,” “ Made by God of the sparks of His own essence,”’ remain such, and are not dissolved by death but are, rather, intensified, and go on developing, learning and serving... ->
And is it likely that the clear-sighted Keats believed Ce in his day of less knowledge than ours) that the “Identical Soul.’’, which he said himself could only be shaped by life— often-at such terrible cost of pain and sorrow, as his own beautiful soul was shaped—would be allowed to lose any essential part of its identity?
The objection that the communications received are trivial ` and commonplace is not borne out by patient experiment. They are often-marvellous, full of the teaching, help, and inspira- tion that. we most need, full of unmistakeable and distinctive personality, and of exactly the same quality as the communi- cating mind. Sometimes, of course, the sublime and the ridiculous may appear to meet, and perhaps that very fact makes one realise afresh that there is nomeg common or unelean.
224 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
Another personal experience of a spontaneous gesture occurred in connection with a friend, John A. Ross, I.C.S. He had always been a seeker—a mind and personality of singular beauty.
In 1924 I was in London, and my latest news of him was that he was in India, well, and soon coming home to his children. Suddenly one morning while busily engaged upon practical things, I was amazed at being made aware of his presence, very happy, and recalling to my mind in a very strong and surprising impression, a delightful episode we had shared together in India, and which I had completely forgotten, till thus reminded. Later on that day I met someone who knew him too, and I spoke of this unusual occurrence.
The next day I read in the Times foreign cables that he had fallen from a train in India and been killed. No details were given, only the fact. In great distress, I sensed slowly, during that day, first the miserable conviction of the manner in which the disaster had occurred, and later a deeper and more com- forting impression that though this was true, it had nothing to do with his conscious self.
Weeks later both these impressions were confirmed: acute tuberculosis had appeared, turning to meningitis on the train journey.
Nothing could have been more characteristic of him than this assurance to a friend that all was indeed well with him: and the happy quality of his gesture could not fail to evoke the response of peace and acquiescence for which it had been given.
Another friend, Mrs. Raymond Daniell, was a War widow, left with two small children: she went through a time of com- plete and utter despair, longing to join her husband. Through the broadmindedness of her rector, she heard a lecture by Miss H. A. Dallas, whose chief mission in life is to help such cases, and no pains were spared in helping this one. It took time and many efforts on the part of her husband to convince her that she was “ hurting herself ’’: but finally the absolute certainty that her husband was giving her constant help and proofs of his identity, completely changed her outlook, and consequently her life. She became full of a radiant hope and courage, which never left her. An account of one of the proofs her husband conveyed to her is given in a well-written book, “ Comrades on the Homeward Way,” by H. A. Dallas.
Fourteen years later the widow had to rejoin her husband, after months of trying illness, during which her radiant courage impressed both the doctors looking after her as being unique in their experience.
Messages from those on the other side often came through to her, from various sources, full of help and cheer. Her passing was indeed a triumph of the spirit which is unforgetable
A New! REALISM. 225
to anyone who had the privilege of being near her. Physical discomfort, and the far greater mental pain of leaving her children at an age when they needed her so greatly, were swallowed up in the peace and loveliness of her attitude of reverent wonderment at the love she felt to be underlying it all. The children were brought up to share their mother’s certainty that she and their father will be able to keep in touch with them and give them help in whatever way is best for them, and they are enriched by the triumph their mother has won for them through the conquering of her own pain and despair. In spite of the inevitable loss and missing of their mother’s physical presence, they have not failed to meet the parting exactly in the way she wished and hoped they might meet it.
Personally, I have only once been to a first-rate “ sensitive,” which I did anonymously. During that one happy hour, practi- cally everyone I have “ lost ° since early childhood, mentioning each name, gave eager and characteristic welcome. My mother referred to many details of the circumstances of her death thirteen years before, and sent me the message already quoted. Both my parents showed knowledge of every detail of some troubles through which I was then passing, though I had been quite unconscious of their influence. Sympathy, encourage- ment, and advice showing sane, sensitive intelligence and humour, was given by them and by others, each showing most distinctive personality. Promises of continued efforts to help were given; and an indication was also given of the quality of the probable solution of the trouble, and of how many more months it would probably take before that end was attained. The tonic effect of this sympathy was very great, and things turned out as they had indicated. If I am told that my sub- conscious self—or the sub-conscious self of another human organism who does not yet know that anyone of my name exists—can account for all this, then I am content to have it so described. I could not quarrel about a word for so great a joy.
Of course, the mere fact of communication no more entails spirituality than the dusting of pews or the stoking of central heating in a church entails religion. It is merely the outer machinery through which advance may come. It is quality that counts here as everywhere.
The work of the spirit cannot be hurried: one must “‘hasten slowly ’’ or perhaps do harm. Yet if our faith does not quite naturally resolve itself into works of some type, as and when clearly indicated, it follows that we are insincere—sentimental, in the sense that Meredith defined a sentimentalist as a person who wishes to enjoy something without paying for it.
Teaching from the other side is often emphatic that com- munion through definite words is only to be thought of as
ce
226 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
means to an end—that end being the conviction that whether we are aware of it or not, we are never alone: Loving Intel- ligences are about us every moment of our lives, unable to alter Law, unable in any degree to interfere with the-free-will we possess, powerless to prevent us forcibly from ‘‘ hurting ourselves,” which we generally do through the hurting: of others.
But, nevertheless, when we will allow them to have access to us and not shut them out, they can by encouragement and subtle influence do more for us than anything we can imagine.
One of the finest of living sensitives has written that she is convinced that inherent in some measure in the make-up of every human being, is the lucidity (with which she is endowed by nature to a superlative degree) that is, the capacity for being able, under certain conditions, to apprehend vibrations which are just as real but more subtle than those to which we are all attuned at present. The belief that some fraction of this “sixth sense ’’, however undeveloped it may be, exists in all human beings, fits in with the belief of Blake and of Keats that every human being is in some degree potentially a poet.
The chapter on Genius and the Epilogue in ‘‘ Human Per- sonality ° by Myers shows his greatness—quality combined with the scientific mind: the following extract from the former is worth noting in this connection: “ The man of genius is for us the best type of the normal man . . . the completest type of humanity . . . in so far as he effects a successful co-opera- tion of an unusually large number of elements of his personality —reaching a stage of integration slightly in advance of our own.” Perhaps it is we ordinary people who are nature’s semi- failures, the freaks, the partly developed ones. Í
Of the nature and quality of the belief to whieh his patient researches finally led Myers, he wrote: “ I believe it is no mere metaphor which describes Love as- the: characteristic energy of the spiritual world. ‘Joy, then, I will boldly affirm, is the Aim of the universe—that Joy which is the very bloom of Love and Wisdom—and men’s souls need tuning to that inconceivable delight.’’
It is evident that the treatment of this subject, which Myers believes to be the most important of all for mankind, often jars on one by its lack of dignity, its tendency to take short cuts. os Great scientists have done and are doing their part as pioneers. Great men of letters will soon be coming forward to do theirs.
Myers and other teachers are showing us that great as is any conviction of truth that can comfort individual people when in despairing bereavement, the Cause is far more tre- mendous than that. - It is the Cause for the progress of mankind towards Civilisa- tion. 3 eet
r 6 U & New REALISM ~~" - 227
- Many of us believe that the only hope for a real civilisation or for any essential cure for the futilities of our present un- satisfactory state, lies im a growth of love and the spirit. `
We believe in the truth of the claim recently made by Mr. L. A. G. Strong in a journal: “ If there is a quickening of the spirit, all else will follow.”
In a letter on survival, William Archer wrote of “ The pos: sibility of methods of communication, between mind and mind, which, if developed, would revolutionise life.” Life is teaching some of us that this revolution has already begun, and that it is shaping the lives and deaths of ordinary
. men and women to a new perfection, a new enlargement, and ‘a new beauty which has hitherto only been shown in the lives and deaths of ‘exceptional people.
Tt seems that selfishness in some form, even if it be un- conscious selfishness, is the chief reason for the slowness of the improvement of our world. When ordinary people actually feel convinced, each in his lesser degree, as Socrates was con- vinced, that a world of the spirit does actually exist, and that cause and effect operate as surely in the spiritual law as in any other universal law, their lives will (and do) become new. Their sense of values is altered; they become less selfish, and con- sequently, less unhappy. š
Attention has been drawn to the two things for which D. H. Lawrence cried out at the end of his life—‘‘ another life, and more love amongst his fellow-men.” If he had asked for any- thing else, or anything less, he might have been heroic, but he would not have been completely human.
‘As it was, he voiced the need of every man and every woman.
But modern man, accustomed to science, cannot live by faith alone; he must have proof, certainty; and this is nothing to be ashamed of; it is a natural and inherent part of our present stage of evolution. ~The only. way in which fulfilment could be given ito the ‘eraving of modern man for a solution—the craving which is an integral part of nature, felt by us all, would be in the con- ‘viction that religion, with all that word includes, and science are not a Duality, but one great Whole, making a Unity of Lite. : Much unrest and unhappiness lie behind this universal ‘search. There is much heartache and little inner peace, even amongst those whose outward circumstances are fairly easy, and who are not enduring the definite sorrows of life.
. Already in the minds of some great scientists there is the conviction that Mind and Matter, the Spiritual and the Physical, are not really dual, but are different aspects of one whole stupendous Universe, im which Loving Law is the greatest of all Realities.
. We-are told that the matter we thought so solid is made up of electricity and vibrations, and that the same applies to
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A NEW REALISM. 229
whereas, in default of the new evidence, no reasonable man, a century hence, would have believed it." The shaping of our lives, which has included instances, in
some form, of this new-old evidence, has made the New.
Testament spring into vivid life, truth, and consistency with Law.
The beauty was always there for us to see.
Some of us have found that our new outlook, combined with the interpretation of Jesus as Divine and real on account of the full perfection of his Humanity, make up a Christianity which is true Realism—an integral part of the universe. It constitutes “ A system of salvation which does not affront our reason and our humanity.” It is a Naturalism which ful- fils and includes the deepest intuitions and experiences of Shakespeare, of Walt Whitman and Edward Carpenter, of Richard Jefferies and Francis Thompson.
Jesus, being the greatest in Spirit, was naturally and in- evitably the greatest of Materialists. In the fully evolved human being, as in the small child, there is little cleavage between the two. The new kind of Man, Jesus, loved the seen so greatly because he had a more living vision of the Unseen, and a more direct contact with it than anyone else has ever had.
He had greater personal tenderness than anyone else, and greater impersonal tenderness too—if it be right to call im- personal a loving yearning over unseen and unborn multitudes, which are precious because they are composed entirely of individuals, who make mistakes, and suffer, and are loveable. Tt followed inevitably that there was no division between his faith and his works. He wanted everyone else to be the same kind of Man that he was, and he would expect us to love as he did.
Jesus talked much about happiness, and hinted at repres- sions, when he spoke of bringing a more abundant life to men, and of making them more free by giving them the truth of a larger outlook.
The essence of the teaching of Buddha, “ There is no (separate) self,” differs very little from the paradox: “ He that would save his life shall lose it,” and from “ Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”’
Our great creators, the poets, the teachers, the composers, those who have had what we call genius, have known enough about the truth for them to be free and unrepressed in their creative work. It is the ordinary men and women that have suffered and been cramped and stunted—‘‘repressed’’ in count- less numbers—‘‘ hurting themselves,’’ because they have been missing the freedom and joy of realising their own capacity and birthright. However slow of recognition, the truth is waiting for each man and each woman to seize for their own
230 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.,
at the right moment of their lives: And the truth is that an environment and destiny benefiting each one as a unique evolving Spirit, is theirs by rightful heritage.
The essential difference between the modern variation of the Creative Spirit of Life —the ‘‘ Cosmic Love ’’—and any. great emergence that has hitherto been, is this. In the past some Great One has been born, to whom a clear and true vision of the Essential Values was given, which he tried to hand on to his fellow-men. They were not ready for it; and so, in spite of the partial success of having some portion of his own per- fection handed on to succeeding generations by the great move- ments and churches founded in his name, in just so much as his own Essence became confused or lost, would he have gauged the inability of men to receive what he so longed to give them.
But this new evolution comes, and is yet to come, as a Universal thing.
Of course this new Realism could not be confined to any one religion—even Christianity of the widest type—it must of necessity include whatever is vital and true in every religion. There is room for everything except two things—they are nar- rowness and intolerance. a :
However little we can express what we feel to be the truth, however dimly and humbly we can apprehend it, some of us ‘cannot but acknowledge with infinite gratitude that Life Itself has created for us the fulfilment of our search. >- We are thankful that we were born in a generation which has. seen considerable development and recognition of these hitherto unaccustomed variations of life.
Those of us to whom some indication of these variations haye come, have been bound to accept them, with all their vast and unexplored implications for the gradual enlargement and perfecting of human life. : i
For: only in their acceptance can we attain or preserve. our integrity. Only in their acceptance do we find fulfilment, py Life Itself, of the wonderful: words uttered by one of Life’s most- clear-sighted sons—
“ Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.”
_A SITTING WITH Mrs. BARKEL. = 931
SITTINGS WITH MRS. BARKEL & MRS. MASON By A MEMBER
On November 12th, 1931, M. B. McK. took an amethyst ring, belonging to J. W. (whom she had just recently met) to a sitting with White Hawk. J. W. had never had .a sitting, and was not at all sure about spirits in general, and communica- tion in particular, but she wanted to believe it.
When M. B. McK’s sitting was well under way, she gave White Hawk J. W.’s ring to hold to see if he could “ get ” anything. M. B. McK. knew nothing of J. W.’s history except that she had lost her husband six years ago, and that she was terribly sad. sy
These notes are as M. B. McK. wrote them at the time, and every single thing mentioned proved to be accurate, much to J. W.’s astonishment and joy.
White Hawk: ‘‘ I feel a nervous condition, lack of stamina, as if someone said, ‘ Oh dear, Oh dear, what is the use!’ There is French talk with this ring (J. W. is French). There is a man here, in spirit, who belongs to this, and he seems to understand that the owner has been in a mist. The 17th November has some connection with this (that was the date on which he gave J. W. the ring.) Why does he say ° Cherry ?’ (His special name for her, only it was Cherie, and not Cherry.) She has pictures of him; she is in the mist a bit, and things will not brighten much for her before May, when she will find her condition changed. She. must call upon God and. assert her oneness with Him. i
‘© She should keep on where she is. This man says something about Chanson d’Amour. She will understand. I get a sound with her. Why so I get embroideries with her? (She and her husband both loved them and had collected a lot of them.) ~~
“ This man gives me the feeling of great love. He is her lover, her husband. He sends red roses of love to her. Thank her for the flowers. Tell her he took a vacant chair near her very recently; she will understand. He was sorry to see the eyes wet. She did not ery, they were just wet. Say: “The years only strengthen the tie that unites us, and the days that pass are the milestones that bring you nearer to me...
“ Ts this lady’s birthday in February? (It is the 19th of February.) ‘Tell her it matters little what her occupation is; the ultimate issue is the same.
“What she has just done will bring more comfort into her life. Who is Jean or Jane? (Jeanne is her name.) Because he is saying that word. He saw her pack up and wrap up hig
232 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
photograph, and he says this to show her he is near her and knows what she does. She does not wear the other rings he gave her. They are different from this one.
“She has felt his presence, he says, and will one day hear his voice.”’
She, J. W., has since had a wonderful sitting with White Hawk, and already she is a changed being.
* * * * *
ANOTHER MEMBER'S EXPERIENCE.
On August 19th I went to the Psychic College for a sitting with Mrs. Mason, and my friend X came with me for a sitting, at the same time, with Miss Francis in an adjoining room. I had told my family before going that I would try an experi- ment, but did not mention it to X.
About half-way through the sitting I asked Maisie (Mrs. Mason’s control) if she thought my communicator could go into the adjoining room and give his name and some message to X and return to me. She answered at once, “ This is a good idea—he can do this,’’ and added, “ He is gone.” After about two minutes pause, Maisie said: ‘‘ He is back, and says he has given his message,” and I resumed my sitting.
On meeting X after our sittings, I asked her if she had been interrupted during her sitting. “ Oh yes,” she said, “ about half-way through my sitting, while I was talking to my com- municator through Lucio (Miss Francis’ control), the latter said he was sorry to interrupt, but there was someone who wished to give a message and was most insistent. At first I was annoyed at the interruption, not knowing who it was. He tried to give his name, but as I could not understand it, he went on to explain who he was, and said he had been an old friend of my husband, even before we were married, and would like to send a message to his wife.” My friend, of course, by then had understood who was Speaking, and was very pleased to take the message. She said that, after receiving that message, she had resumed her conversation with her com- municator until the end, when again her husband’s friend said a word of farewell. Mrs. X’s sitting, in fact, ended three or four minutes before mine!
THE OTHER SIDE oF LIFE. 233
THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE.
By A. Seymour Hosrgyv, Pietermaritzburg Technical College.
These extraordinary interesting experiences illustrate several matters which are usually taken as figurative—but may very well be literally true. These are here given not as objective fact, but as interesting subjective experiences. The allusion that “actual words never passed” would seem to be illustrative of discarnate conversation.
If one were to announce publicly that one had been into “ the next world,” had seen that ‘‘ other side ” of which one hears so much, and which is described in so many different ways, one would probably be called mad, if not worse.
Yet I believe such, a thing is possible, that I have been there not once, but several times, have seen and talked with people there—and come back again.
Recently I have put my experiences in this way before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and he replied as follows :—
‘ There is no doubt that you have the rare but well-attested power of freeing your Etheric body at times, which then gets in touch with the Etheric world, which is much as you describe.
‘|. . The Allegory in each vision is clear and no doubt your control arranged it all for your consolation. I have my- self once—but in sleep—visited the other world in much the same way. My guide promised to take me—and then took me.
“ You are a lucky man to have such a helpful control.’
I have also submitted some of my experiences to Mrs. Lucy Smith, the well-known Clairvoyant, of. Kimberley, whose opinion confirms that of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Therefore, for the benefit of those few friends of mine who may be interested, I am going to put down what. I saw and did “in the great beyond.”
But before I commence, I should just like to say this: Firstly, I actually saw myself on certain occasions, at others I merely took part in a perfectly natural manner in the scenes I will endeavour to describe. Secondly, on each occasion I was wearing a brown suit of the same pattern that I wear in this life, but brown is a colour which I never wear. I was told, however, that was the ‘‘ earth colour,’’ which brings me to my third point. Although I talked with people there, actual words never passed. If one may say so, they were unnecessary, as the thought was actually spoken or felt. On one occasion, how- . ever, I came back with my father’s words literally thundering in my ears, but, generally speaking, the actual word seemed unnecessary. One understood.
The first occasion on which I peeped into the land of Promise, I found myself standing beside a small stream, about six yards
234 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
wide, and only a few inches deep. The water was clear as crystal, so that one could clearly see the silver sand over which it ran. On the other side was a low hedge which ran at the bottom of a small hill. The hedge was of a most vivid green, and was the boundary of a garden which was simply a mass of most gorgeous flowers. Bed after bed, terrace above terrace, these rose until the whole mound appeared to be one gigantic posy backed on the far side by a row of stately trees. Half way up the hill, and in the midst of the flowers was a kind of summer house, seemingly of pure white stone, a roof supported by. a series of arches in the form of a hexagon, and in front of it stood my father. For some time I stood there wondering, and at last I essayed to cross the stream. But, as if he understood my thoughts, which no doubt he did, he raised his hand to stop me. “Not yet, there is more for you to do,’’ were his words. Reluctantly I turned back and came to, with his words thun- dering in my ears. I say thundering, because as I came back the whole atmosphere of the room seemed to be vibrating with them. But the light that had surrounded me remained with me for quite an appreciable time, and I saw the common articles of my room as it were through a most of colours. This light I have seen more than once since. Tt is difficult to describe, and the only idea I can give is to call it a pearl light; for one might get the same effect, the same delicate blend of beautiful colours from looking at mother of pearl. The light seemed to do more than just illuminate, it wrapped one round as it were with a a beautiful warm glow. At a later date it was my privilege to sit for some time bathed in this light. On that occasion I saw no one, although I felt that numerous entities were near me, but for some time I was wrapped round in this wonderful pearly hued glow, and awoke with a most beautiful feeling of rest, and happiness. ` This light seems to pervade everything on that other side, although at times it has been brighter than others. Golden yellows, delicate pinks and blues all seem mingled to- gether in a shimmering cloud. Anything grey or approaching it I never saw, nor were there any shadows.
On the second occasion, I seemed to be seeing a vision of my- self. Again, dressed in brown, I was standing on the edge of a great chasm or valley out of which I had just climbed. Behind me were masses of hills split up with chasms filled with gigantic rocks. From one of these gloomy places I had just succeeded in climbing, and was just climbing round the last great boulder. My hands were clutching the sides, and my right foot out- stretched. All around were smaller pieces of rock. But within’ a few yards the stones and roughness ended, and stretching away in-front was a path of beautifully smooth yellow gravel. . All’ around were fields of the greenest softest turf. Trees beside the path -at intervals threw their shadows across it. This path went-up a gentle. slope of one small. mound, disappeared round
THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE. 235
the other side to re-appear on the side of one further off, and eventually to be lost in the distance.
On this occasion I saw no one, but it seemed to be my own life that I had seen, the rough past and the brighter path of the future, still climbing and occasionally a shadow until the path faded in the gorgeous golden land far distant, for the land in the distance was all golden coloured. Perhaps I may say here that this vision was given to me at a time when I was in great trouble.
Another followed soon after, within a few days. On this occasion, I was floating over a most appalling chasm. It was not the first occasion on which I had experienced this de- lightful sensation of floating, but as a rule, before I had simply been surrounded by shimmering clouds of light. On this occasion these were absent. Below me yawned a dark gulf, the sides of which were covered with rank weeds and under- growth, amidst which dark forms appeared to be moving. In front to the left was a jagged mass of black rock which I expected every moment to see fall into the chasm, the bottom of which I could not see for darkness. On my right was a precipitous cliff in the middle of which wound a small path. Through a break in the cliff I could clearly see green fields above with the same golden tipped hills of a former vision. But of the path I had no need. I gently floated, borne on unseen wings, over the terrific chasm and upwards to the hills. And here comes the curious part, I was not afraid. The horrible pit, the overhanging rocks, the horrible shapes below held no terrors for me, and as I floated upwards and onwards a voice told me, “ It is despair, but you are safe from it.”
Truly in this life, I had just before “ looked despair in the face,” and had been rescued from it by the kindly word of a friend who had no knowledge of my troubles. Yet I cannot doubt that he had been “ sent,” that he was the instrument which had been used by one who had passed on to rescue me.
My next vision seemed to be the outcome of thought as to what the condition of things in the next life could be. It has always been a jest of mine that when J retired I would buy a kopje, put a hut on top of it, and live there. In this vision I saw my jest glorified, for there was my kopje covered with beds of flowers and on the top a house, but such as I had never conceived. The walls were of some white material, and the roof, which was not completed, of red tiles. The house was almost square, but rather longer from back to front, there being two windows and a big double door in front and four windows on each side. The tops of the walls had battlements. But the surprising part was the part over the front door above the verandah, which appeared to be gold or brass and blazed in the light. At the far end I.saw myself just putting the last few tiles on to the roof,
236 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
But J, as I was there standing and looking on, was not allowed to go in yet, so leaving what I knew to be my own place, I walked (if one can call the effortless motion, walking), to a house away on my left. There my guide and I sat on a big verandah talking and looking out over a beautiful, but very hilly, piece of country. In front of me stood my motor-cycle with the chain broken. We sat and talked of what I had seen, and I was told it was not quite ready for me. As we talked, many people passed. All were wearing clothes of a glistening white, the men much as we do, and the girls loose straight frocks just as to-day. They seemed embroidered with various colours. Many were carrying armtuls of flowers as though they were off to decorate some building. Although: none spoke to me, some looked up and smiled in a friendly way.
As I arose to go through that hilly country the man with me said, “ You will find it hard for your help has broken, but you will do it.” And with that I came back to earth.
This was perhaps the most distinct and vivid recollection that I have. Every detail being imprinted on my mind, and at the same time it was the one occasion that I actually moved from place to place. For example, I walked round the garden and to the house, which in our earthly measurements would have been a distance of half a mile or more.
On all my other visits, my actual remembrance of walking any distance is limited. For example, on another occasion, I found myself searching for my wife, in what appeared to be an oriental bazaar. This was a huge building of many arches, and in each arch were Orientals sitting on mats. It was a dull and gloomy place, and I was looking for my wife to take her up to the brighter lands. That is a curious expression, but it is the only one that occurs to me, and is a correct deseription of what I felt. This place seemed on a lower level, almost below the surface, and I wanted to find my wife and some friends and take them up into the sunshine, glimpses of which could be seen between the roofs of the buildings. But although I was seeking and had knowledge of having looked into several of the archways, I do not remember more than just one or two, within a radius of say, fifty feet.
Similarly, on another occasion, I was accompanied by my little daughter, Lorraine, and spent some time with her, but the actual distance I travelled with her was nothing. There seemed no such thing as distance really, any more than time, except that I was returning to my earthly life, I looked back and a short distance from me Lorraine was standing with arms outstretched in loving Good-bye, or rather Au revoir. There was no sorrow in the parting, which seemed only temporary and very short. This is one of the few occasions on which I noticed the detail of dress. Lorraine was wearing a white dress, plain and straight, such as one sees many young girls wearing
THE OTHER SIDE OF LIFE. 291
to-day, with short sleeves. In the light it glistened as though covered with silver spangles.
On this occasion, too, I knew that I was coming back to Maritzburg, and recognised the actual road, as it were, by which I was travelling back.
There are other times when I have been over into the next world (I use the expression which will be easily understood, rather than “released the etheric from the physical ’’), but these are outstanding occasions in which there was something definite upon which to work, and perhaps it may be ot interest to. someone to know my impressions.
The light I have mentioned specifically and the effect of ‘wrapping one round " was curious. I have met the same once before physically in going into a room where all the light was reflected from a ceiling and the source of the light—electric bulbs—were all concealed. But, of course, the colours were missing in the electric light.
Then there was the matter of talking. When I say speech was ‘ felt,” I mean that there was no effort required to com- municate to others my thoughts nor to receive theirs. The thought seemed “ caught up and interpreted ’’ without being spoken. Many times in entering a room, or in speaking in public, I have sensed the feeling of those in front of me. The idea here was something similar. The vibration of the thoughts impinged direct was something similar. The vibration of the thoughts impinged direct upon my consciousness. This might be interpreted to mean that everybody felt everybody’s thoughts, but that was not so. On one occasion that I had mentioned several people passed me whom I did not recognise nor did they recognise me. Some, however, did, and a wordless greeting passed simultaneously between us.
As regards the general scenery, it was much the same as in this world, only more magnificent. By that it must not be understood that everything was bigger because relative propor- tions were, as far as I could judge, identical. Some of those places which I looked into certainly were more appalling than anything I have seen in this world, as for example, the Chasm of Despair.
The colours of the flowers were more vivid, the blues a purer blue, the pinks a more delicate shade. In fact, ‘‘ purer ” is the one word which describes the condition.
Then, again, motion was so much easier. It was effortless, or almost so, as opposed to the effort required to carry the physical body along with us.
But the solid part, such as the rocks, the walls, and so on, were just as solid to all, as those of this life are to us here. For example, the arches in the Bazaar in which I was searching for my wife and her friends were every bit as solid, relatively, as those of buildings here, Nor was there anything
‘
238 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
“ diaphanous ° about the clothes or persons whom I saw. To use an earthly expression, they were real—as real as I was. For example, Lorraine, the little daughter, a twin to my son Errol, “ died ” at birth. She is now a tall, slim girl, proving to me that the progress of the next world is much the same as in this.
There was, however, one case in which I saw no one. Then I seemed to have strayed into somewhere, where I did not belong; in fact, I only stood for a few moments as it were on the edge of it.
There was only a more intense light, but all around me | felt delicate whispers. That people were there I knew, but could not see. The light too was more vivid and more golden in colour.
This occasion was a peculiar one. I was sitting at tea one afternoon, and an old lady opposite me—she has since passed over—was detailing some horrors from the “Johannesburg Star.” Such things I loathe, and I felt annoyed, but to combat it, I tried to keep in my mind the one thought, “ you are reflecting God, His Light is round you, let it wrap you warmly.”’ It was just a thought that came to me. Gradually her voice faded away, and I was wrapped in the light. Was it that the thought had carried my etherie body to another plane? I came back to find myself still at tea, and was told that for some minutes I had been “ very quiet.” Three people were in the room at the time.
The impression left on my mind in this case was that my thought had lifted me to a higher sphere, but that as yet I was too material to be able to appreciate things there: hence my inability to hear or to see anyone. There was only the light and a realisation that others were there.
My experiences proved to me that this next world, the etheric world, is much the same as this one, but more intense. Intense is the only word I can find to describe it because the beauty was more beautiful as in the case of the light and flowers, with a beauty that was felt rather than was merely seen. On the other hand, the ugly and sordid, as in the case of some parts of the bazaar, the awful, as the Chasm of Despair, were more intensely sordid and awful.
It may be of further interest to some to know that this releasing of the etheric body, which I supose is something akin to “ death,” was accomplished with no pain and no struggle. It seems rather to be of the same nature as going to sleep. It was accomplished, both the going and the coming back, sud- denly and without effort—except in one case—the last mentioned. Then it was seemingly difficult to take up my physical body again. “I did not want to but had to,” that was the feeling. This, too, is the only case in which I felt tired afterwards, which to me is curious, for I notice that Clair-
THE OTHER. SIDE OF LIFE. 239
voyants appear tired after a trance. Of course, in my case, as far as I know, my physical body was not under control by any one else as is the case in a trance. It was resting peace- fully. On the other hand, the etheric bodies and my own were in all respects exact counterparts of the physical except that I saw nothing of the halt, the maimed and the blind. Even in the case of those in the bazaar, although there was something repulsive, there was nothing hideous. They appeared dark and gloomy and sad, but not ugly.
It was curious that I should be looking for my wife. My impression was that she and several friends were down there simply having a look round, much in the same way that tourists visit such places, and I had come to find her, and take her up to brighter places. I did not, however, find them; I was called back.
Finally, these experiences of mine were something entirely different to the ordinary Clairvoyant state, when I sometimes see others around me.
As I write these last few words I have been conscious of my little daughter opposite me. She sits, as she often does, with one elbow on the table, laughing happily at me. But now I am quite conscious of my physical state. I only see her mentally, that is, I look away, but as still conscious of her every move- ment.
What, after all, is the outcome of these experiences? Just this; if there is any truth, any reality in them, then there is nothing to fear in death, it is truly just the doorway to a more beautiful life, and if indeed my lot is to be cast in such pleasant places, may my work here soon end, but I must not shirk it.
When T have reached my journey’s end, And I am dead and free,
I pray that God will let me go
And wander with them to and fro,
Along the flowered fields I know, That look towards the sea.
240 QUARTERLY Transactions B.G.P.S.
NOTES BY THE WAY
Margery’s mediumship hag taken on a new form,—the penetrability of matter. The August Journal of the American S.P.R. contains very interesting details from which we extract the following in anticipation of fuller detail to be published later on. : Following is a brief narrative of some of the principal events of the sittings.
The first sitting—June 5, 1982. s
The writer—the President of the Am. S.P.R.—marked an American half dollar and had the markings inspected by Doctor Crandon. He placed it inside a small pasteboard box and securely sealed the box with surgeon’s tape. The box was placed on the table in front of Margery and the writer’s desires were expressed at some length to Walter. After some demurring, the coin was placed in the writer’s hand and was identified by Doctor Crandon and the writer. There was no substitution of boxes and the box was not opened. It is significant that Walter accomplished this amazing result the first time he was asked to do so.
The second sitting—June 12, 1982.
In this sitting a marked American quarter dollar was taken out of a pasteboard box sealed by Doctor Richardson with surgeon’s tape.
The third sitting—June 17, 1932.
This sitting produced notable results. A pasteboard candy box was most securely taped and was thoroughly marked in- side and out. Fig. 1 shows this box before it was opened and illustrates the thoroughness with which the box was sealed and the variety of the markings on it. The writer had some days previously placed a marked half dollar in the box, the markings verified by Mr. Litzelmann. At the sitting the box was shaken by every sitter and each verified the fact that some rattling object was inside. The coin was shortly placed in the writer’s hand and immediately identified by Mr. Litzelmann and the writer. The sealed box was then shaken by each sitter in turn and each verified the fact that it was empty so far as sound indicated. Walter then announced that he proposed to bring to the writer a present which he had procured in Canada and would put it in the box. Shortly thereafter at Walter’s direc- tion the box was again shaken by each sitter and all agreed that it contained some hard object, according to the sound. The box was retained in the writer’s possession under lock and key until the next day when it was photographed by Mr. Thorogood and opened in the presence of Mr. Thorogood and Mr, Adams. There
NoTES BY THE WAY. 241
was taken out an English penny. So far as determinable no sitter had seen it before. There was no tampering with the box. The tapes had not been moved. The markings inside the box were disclosed. Here then the half dollar was taken out of the box and as true apport the English penny was put in. At this sitting also Mr. Jones (pseudonym) puta wooden spool marked by him inside the very carefully constructed and secured wooden box known as the Edwards box, Fig. 2. This spool was taken out of the locked box and put into the writer’s hand.
x * x * *
It is usual to explain such occurrences by a “° Fourth dimen- sion ” in space. But this same term—the Fourth dimension —has been applied to Time. It is said, for instance, that if a man had been photographed daily from his birth onwards, and these were piled together in order they would give his world- line, or the fourth dimension in time.
Tt is obvious that this throws no light on the removal of an object from a closed box, nor on “ vanishing articles,’’ nor on “ apports.” I had a curious experience of like kind. I had oceasion to use a Nasal Atomizer, and looked for it in its box, in which I was quite sure I had placed it some two months before. It was not there. I enquired of the two persons in my house if they had touched it. Both denied. That evening, as I got into bed, my foot felt something cold. It was the Atomiser, between the sheets. No one. had been in my room, and I had myself made the bed in the morning. The presence of the Atomiser in the bed was totally inexplicable. The box was closed and put away in its usual place.
* * * * *
Light of July 22nd last has a most interesting communica- tion from Mr. A. E. Shattuck of Canada. He says :— from Mr. A. E. Shattuck of Canada. He says:—
New theories are challenging Darwinism and new advances in Physics take sharp issue with Sir James Jeans who, in his recent visit to California, contended that the Universe of matter is gradually disintegrating into light- and heat „and that the planets are slowly dying.
Dr. R. A. Milliken, the head of the Californian Institute of Technology, who was the first to isolate and measure the electron, has just given out that they have now succeeded in making the first measurement of the voltages of his compara- tively recently-discovered Cosmic rays. He explained that when hydrogen, the lightest and simplest element, is created, a ray of 25 million volts is given off. Similarly the voltage of a cosmic ray from helium, which is four times as heavy as hydrogen, very consistently gave off 100 million volts.
249 QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
According to this hypothesis, cosmic rays are given off when
atoms are formed in the intensely cold pressureless depths of inter-stellar space. In the stars, where there is enormous pressure and intense heat, atoms are disintegrated into rays of light and heat. . . . And now come scientists challenging Darwinism, based on 42,000,000 years of actual evolutionary records.” Dr. Osborne continues: “ These anatomical contrasts were not only un- known to Darwin, but are directly antagonistic to one of his fundamental theses.”
Professor Eddington was recently impressed to say, ‘‘ Science has had to make room for a spiritual conception of the universe and man’s place on it.”
* * * * *
Mrs. E. A. Cannock, in giving some impressions she gathered during her recent Canadian tour, tells us that in Canada, as in other countries, there is a considerable body of sincere and intelligent spiritualists who are upholding the dignity of the subject and doing admirable work. But she found in many places that Spiritualism was debased by the pursuit of fortune- telling and divination of the cheapest and most rubbishy kind. She told us of one case of a crowd of over 200 people waiting to have their fortunes told by cards or teacups. Very naturally the demand was being supplied by charlatans and unscrupulous exploiters of human credulity. These things, she says, disgust the sincere spiritualists, but they apply mostly to Eastern Canada. Westward she found a better state of things, and gives good reports of Calgary and Edmonton.—(Light, July 22nd.) ;
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Tae MEURIG Morris APPEAL.
The following statement has just been issued by Mrs. Philip Champion de Crespigny as Chairman of the Committee of the Meurig Morris House of Lords Appeal Fund :—
Artillery Mansions, Westminster, S.W.1.
It is felt that the decision of the Court of Appeal in the action ` Morris v. Associated Newspapers Ltd.” is most unsatisfac- tory, and one which opens the door to the possibility of grave injustice to British citizens in future. Mrs. Meurig Morris has therefore decided to take the case to the House of Lords.
This course will naturally entail considerable expense, but it is regarded as something which should be- undertaken, not only in the interest of Spiritualism and Psychical Research, but also in that of the public at large.
It is no longer an issue personal to Mrs. Meurig Morris, who has been completely vindicated, but one of principle,
NOTES BY THE WAY. 243
affecting the right of all to equality of justice and religious freedom.
It is proposed to create a fund and to invite the co-operation of those who are interested in the question, and in sympathy with the need for the revision of the judgment given in the Court of Appeal. A Committee, whose names are given below, has been organised for this purpose and subscriptions, large, or small, will be very gratefully received.
Cheques and Money Orders may be forwarded to Mrs, P. Champion de Crespigny, Artillery Mansions, Westminster, S.W.1, or to the Editor of Light, 16, Queensberry Place, S.W.7.
The names of the Committee appended to the notice are as follows :—
Vice-Admiral Armstrong, Mrs. Kelway Bamber, Maurice Barbanell (Editor Psychic News), Sir Frank Benson, Miss Ursula Bloom, General Sir Ernest De Brath, K.C.B., Lady De Brath, Mrs. J. J. Cadwalladr, Mrs. Philip Champion de Crespigny (Chairman), Rachael, Countess of Clonmell, Mrs. M. Crookes, Captain Dampier, Mrs. Dawson-Scott, Lady Conan Doyle, Denis Conan Doyle, W. H. Evans (Editor, Beyond), J. Arthur Findlay, Lady Gait, Miss Nellie Tom-Gallon, David Gow (Advisory Editor, Light), The Lady Hardinge, Major-General Sir Pomeroy Holland-Pryor, K.C.B., C.M.G., DSO M .N:Q5 @ H: Lethem (Editor, Light); John Lewis (Editor, International Psychic Gazette °), J. B. Melndoe, (President, Spiritualist National Union), The Viscountess Moles- worth, Ernest W. Oaten (Editor, The Two Worlds), Clifford W. Potter (Editor, Survival), H. Cecil Powell, H. M. Polak, Dr. William Stede, Ph.D., Miss Estelle Stead, Lady Smiley, Colonel John Somerville, C.M.G., C.B.E., Mrs. St. Clair Stobart (Chairman, The Spiritualist Community), Miss Ethel Abel Thomas, Mrs. Treloar (President, Marylebone Spiritualist Association), Mrs. Violet Tweedale, F. Whitmarsh (President, London District Council, S.N.U.), T. H. Wilson.
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« Professor T. J. Littlejohn, of Exeter, whose amazing feats prove him to be one of the most gifted of living telepathists, with his famous greyhound ‘Nell,’ whose telepathic faculties rival those of man. Thus, in one instance, her master, when at Falmouth in August, 1926, when about 100 miles away from ‘Nell’ (left at Exeter), and at the tea-table he felt ‘ Nell’s ’ paws upon his neck, and he received a mental message from her to the effect that she was shut up in the coal-house and had gone without her tea. This he reported to three friends at the tea-table. On returning home he asked what had been done to ‘Nell ' at tea-time on the evening he left. His daughter said : ° She was so troublesome, mother punished her by locking her
244 ` QUARTERLY TRANSACTIONS B.C.P.S.
up in the coal-house without her tea.’ Considered with other cases of transfer of thought by ‘Nell,’ it is impossible under the Law of Probability to attribute such cases to coincidence or parallel thinking. ° From Telepathy: Its Secrets and Fruits, by Dr. H. Mansfield Robinson.
It may be “‘impossible’’ (though I think not) to attribute Mr. Littlejohn’s anxiety about his pet to coincidence; but it seems to me more probable that the faculty is resident in him rather than in his dog. There are many instances of clairvoyance at a distance in the records of mediumship.
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Mr. Harry Price has an excellent article in Light of August 12th on the attitude of conjurers towards psychic phenomena. He gives names and dates for his conclusion that “ T hope this paper will dissipate any idea the reader may have formed that all conjurers are antagonistic to the idea of abnormal pheno- mena: the evidence points entirely the other way. All the world’s greatest professional magicians have been believers in the occult.’’ This should settle Father Knapp. The Rev. Father H. Thurston, S.J., also writes to The Universe dis- sociating himself from Father Knapp. He says: “ While I strongly deprecate the practice of Spiritualism, I submit that his attitude is a mistaken one. Communications manifesting intelligence do come, and they often come without conscious fraud by anyone. Further, though I should be the first to admit that there is a great deal of trickery among professional mediums, especially in America, I would urge that those who are in contact with the best type of mediums (some of them highly educated people, natural psychists, who do not make their gift a source of. gain) soon lay aside the idea that the procedure is all fraudulent.’’
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That the Daily Mail and The Guardian should both have opened their columns to spiritualists is a manifest tribute to the advances which the cult is making, despite such abuses as are described by Mrs. E. A. Cannock above, and despite the denunciations by clerical and ‘‘ scientific ” opponents, who mostly show very slight acquaintance with what it really teaches. The Daily Mail sums up the case in a long article, from which we extract the following :—
“ From it all emerges one very patent fact—there are many thousands of people who firmly believe that they can hold communication with the dead, a belief which brings them solace and comfort of no mean kind. ... It is not