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+Project Gutenberg Etext of The New Revelation, by A. Conan Doyle
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+The New Revelation
+
+by Arthur Conan Doyle
+
+February, 1999  [Etext #1638]
+
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+Project Gutenberg Etext of The New Revelation, by A. Conan Doyle
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+
+THE NEW REVELATION
+BY
+ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
+
+
+
+
+To all the brave men and women, humble
+or learned, who have the moral
+courage during seventy years to
+face ridicule or worldly disadvantage
+in order to testify
+to an all-important truth
+
+March, 1918
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+Many more philosophic minds than mine have thought
+over the religious side of this subject and many more
+scientific brains have turned their attention to its
+phenomenal aspect.  So far as I know, however, there
+has been no former attempt to show the exact relation
+of the one to the other.  I feel that if I should
+succeed in making this a little more clear I shall have
+helped in what I regard as far the most important
+question with which the human race is concerned.
+
+A celebrated Psychic, Mrs. Piper, uttered, in the
+year 1899 words which were recorded by Dr. Hodgson at
+the time.  She was speaking in trance upon the future
+of spiritual religion, and she said:  "In the next
+century this will be astonishingly perceptible to the
+minds of men.  I will also make a statement which you
+will surely see verified.  Before the clear revelation
+of spirit communication there will be a
+terrible war in different parts of the world.  The
+entire world must be purified and cleansed before
+mortal can see, through his spiritual vision, his
+friends on this side and it will take just this line of
+action to bring about a state of perfection.  Friend,
+kindly think of this."  We have had "the terrible war
+in different parts of the world."  The second half
+remains to be fulfilled.
+
+A. C. D.
+1918.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I       THE SEARCH
+
+II      THE REVELATION
+
+III     THE COMING LIFE
+
+IV      PROBLEMS AND LIMITATIONS
+
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENTS
+
+I       THE NEXT PHASE OF LIFE
+
+II      AUTOMATIC WRITING
+
+III     THE CHERITON DUGOUT
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW REVELATION
+
+CHAPTER I. THE SEARCH
+
+The subject of psychical research is one upon which
+I have thought more and about which I have been slower
+to form my opinion, than upon any other subject
+whatever.  Every now and then as one jogs along through
+life some small incident happens which very forcibly
+brings home the fact that time passes and that first
+youth and then middle age are slipping away.  Such a
+one occurred the other day.  There is a column in that
+excellent little paper, Light, which is devoted to
+what was recorded on the corresponding date a
+generation--that is thirty years--ago.  As I read over
+this column recently I had quite a start as I saw my
+own name, and read the reprint of a letter
+which I had written in 1887, detailing some interesting
+spiritual experience which had occurred in a seance. 
+Thus it is manifest that my interest in the subject is
+of some standing, and also, since it is only within the
+last year or two that I have finally declared myself to
+be satisfied with the evidence, that I have not been
+hasty in forming my opinion.  If I set down some of my
+experiences and difficulties my readers will not, I
+hope, think it egotistical upon my part, but will
+realise that it is the most graphic way in which to
+sketch out the points which are likely to occur to any
+other inquirer.  When I have passed over this ground,
+it will be possible to get on to something more general
+and impersonal in its nature.
+
+When I had finished my medical education in 1882, I
+found myself, like many young medical men, a convinced
+materialist as regards our personal destiny.  I had
+never ceased to be an earnest theist, because it seemed
+to me that Napoleon's question to the atheistic
+professors on the starry night as he voyaged to Egypt: 
+"Who was it, gentlemen, who made these stars?" has
+never been answered.  To say that the Universe was made
+by immutable laws only put the question one degree
+further back as to who made the laws.  I did not, of
+course, believe in an anthropomorphic God, but I
+believed then, as I believe now, in an intelligent
+Force behind all the operations of Nature--a force so
+infinitely complex and great that my finite brain could
+get no further than its existence.  Right and wrong I
+saw also as great obvious facts which needed no divine
+revelation.  But when it came to a question of our
+little personalities surviving death, it seemed to me
+that the whole analogy of Nature was against it.  When
+the candle burns out the light disappears.  When the
+electric cell is shattered the current stops.  When the
+body dissolves there is an end of the matter.  Each man
+in his egotism may feel that he ought to survive, but
+let him look, we will say, at the average loafer--of
+high or low degree--would anyone contend that there was
+any obvious reason why THAT personality should
+carry on?  It seemed to be a delusion, and I was
+convinced that death did indeed end all, though I
+saw no reason why that should affect our duty towards
+humanity during our transitory existence.
+
+This was my frame of mind when Spiritual phenomena
+first came before my notice.  I had always regarded the
+subject as the greatest nonsense upon earth, and I had
+read of the conviction of fraudulent mediums and
+wondered how any sane man could believe such things.  I
+met some friends, however, who were interested in the
+matter, and I sat with them at some table-moving
+seances.  We got connected messages.  I am afraid the
+only result that they had on my mind was that I
+regarded these friends with some suspicion.  They were
+long messages very often, spelled out by tilts, and it
+was quite impossible that they came by chance.  Someone
+then, was moving the table.  I thought it was they. 
+They probably thought that I did it.  I was puzzled and
+worried over it, for they were not people whom I could
+imagine as cheating--and yet I could not see how the
+messages could come except by conscious pressure.
+
+About this time--it would be in 1886--I came
+across a book called The Reminiscences of Judge
+Edmunds.  He was a judge of the U.S. High Courts and a
+man of high standing.  The book gave an account of how
+his wife had died, and how he had been able for many
+years to keep in touch with her.  All sorts of details
+were given.  I read the book with interest, and
+absolute scepticism.  It seemed to me an example of how
+a hard practical man might have a weak side to his
+brain, a sort of reaction, as it were, against those
+plain facts of life with which he had to deal.  Where
+was this spirit of which he talked?  Suppose a man had
+an accident and cracked his skull; his whole character
+would change, and a high nature might become a low one. 
+With alcohol or opium or many other drugs one could
+apparently quite change a man's spirit.  The spirit
+then depended upon matter.  These were the arguments
+which I used in those days.  I did not realise that it
+was not the spirit that was changed in such cases, but
+the body through which the spirit worked, just as it
+would be no argument against the existence of a
+musician if you tampered with his violin so that
+only discordant notes could come through.
+
+I was sufficiently interested to continue to read
+such literature as came in my way.  I was amazed to
+find what a number of great men--men whose names were
+to the fore in science--thoroughly believed that spirit
+was independent of matter and could survive it.  When I
+regarded Spiritualism as a vulgar delusion of the
+uneducated, I could afford to look down upon it; but
+when it was endorsed by men like Crookes, whom I knew
+to be the most rising British chemist, by Wallace, who
+was the rival of Darwin, and by Flammarion, the best
+known of astronomers, I could not afford to dismiss it. 
+It was all very well to throw down the books of these
+men which contained their mature conclusions and
+careful investigations, and to say "Well, he has one
+weak spot in his brain," but a man has to be very self-
+satisfied if the day does not come when he wonders if
+the weak spot is not in his own brain.  For some time I
+was sustained in my scepticism by the consideration
+that many famous men, such as Darwin himself, Huxley,
+Tyndall and Herbert Spencer, derided this new
+branch of knowledge; but when I learned that their
+derision had reached such a point that they would not
+even examine it, and that Spencer had declared in so
+many words that he had decided against it on a
+priori grounds, while Huxley had said that it did not
+interest him, I was bound to admit that, however great,
+they were in science, their action in this respect was
+most unscientific and dogmatic, while the action of
+those who studied the phenomena and tried to find out
+the laws that governed them, was following the true
+path which has given us all human advance and
+knowledge.  So far I had got in my reasoning, so my
+sceptical position was not so solid as before.
+
+It was somewhat reinforced, however, by my own
+experiences.  It is to be remembered that I was working
+without a medium, which is like an astronomer working
+without a telescope.  I have no psychical powers
+myself, and those who worked with me had little more. 
+Among us we could just muster enough of the magnetic
+force, or whatever you will call it, to get the table
+movements with their suspicious and often stupid
+messages.  I still have notes of those sittings and
+copies of some, at least, of the messages.  They were
+not always absolutely stupid.  For example, I find that
+on one occasion, on my asking some test question, such
+as how many coins I had in my pocket, the table spelt
+out:  "We are here to educate and to elevate, not to
+guess riddles."  And then:  "The religious frame of
+mind, not the critical, is what we wish to inculcate." 
+Now, no one could say that that was a puerile message. 
+On the other hand, I was always haunted by the fear of
+involuntary pressure from the hands of the sitters. 
+Then there came an incident which puzzled and disgusted
+me very much.  We had very good conditions one evening,
+and an amount of movement which seemed quite
+independent of our pressure.  Long and detailed
+messages came through, which purported to be from a
+spirit who gave his name and said he was a commercial
+traveller who bad lost his life in a recent fire at a
+theatre at Exeter.  All the details were exact, and he
+implored us to write to his family, who lived, he said,
+at a place called Slattenmere, in Cumberland.  I
+did so, but my letter came back, appropriately enough,
+through the dead letter office.  To this day I do not
+know whether we were deceived, or whether there was
+some mistake in the name of the place; but there are
+the facts, and I was so disgusted that for some time my
+interest in the whole subject waned.  It was one thing
+to study a subject, but when the subject began to play
+elaborate practical jokes it seemed time to call a
+halt.  If there is such a place as Slattenmere in the
+world I should even now be glad to know it.
+
+I was in practice in Southsea at this time, and
+dwelling there was General Drayson, a man of very
+remarkable character, and one of the pioneers of
+Spiritualism in this country.  To him I went with my
+difficulties, and he listened to them very patiently. 
+He made light of my criticism of the foolish nature of
+many of these messages, and of the absolute falseness
+of some.  "You have not got the fundamental truth into
+your head," said he.  "That truth is, that every spirit
+in the flesh passes over to the next world exactly as
+it is, with no change whatever.  This world is full
+of weak or foolish people.  So is the next.  You need
+not mix with them, any more than you do in this world. 
+One chooses one's companions.  But suppose a man in
+this world, who had lived in his house alone and never
+mixed with his fellows, was at last to put his head out
+of the window to see what sort of place it was, what
+would happen?  Some naughty boy would probably say
+something rude.  Anyhow, he would see nothing of the
+wisdom or greatness of the world.  He would draw his
+head in thinking it was a very poor place.  That is
+just what you have done.  In a mixed seance, with no
+definite aim, you have thrust your head into the next
+world and you have met some naughty boys.  Go forward
+and try to reach something better."  That was General
+Drayson's explanation, and though it did not satisfy me
+at the time, I think now that it was a rough
+approximation to the truth.  These were my first steps
+in Spiritualism.  I was still a sceptic, but at least I
+was an inquirer, and when I heard some old-fashioned
+critic saying that there was nothing to explain, and
+that it was all fraud, or that a conjuror was
+needed to show it up, I knew at least that that was all
+nonsense.  It is true that my own evidence up to then
+was not enough to convince me, but my reading, which
+was continuous, showed me how deeply other men had gone
+into it, and I recognised that the testimony was so
+strong that no other religious movement in the world
+could put forward anything to compare with it.  That
+did not prove it to be true, but at least it proved
+that it must be treated with respect and could not be
+brushed aside.  Take a single incident of what Wallace
+has truly called a modern miracle.  I choose it because
+it is the most incredible.  I allude to the assertion
+that D. D. Home--who, by the way, was not, as is
+usually supposed, a paid adventurer, but was the nephew
+of the Earl of Home--the assertion, I say, that he
+floated out of one window and into another at the
+height of seventy feet above the ground.  I could not
+believe it.  And yet, when I knew that the fact was
+attested by three eye-witnesses, who were Lord
+Dunraven, Lord Lindsay, and Captain Wynne, all men of
+honour and repute, who were willing afterwards to
+take their oath upon it, I could not but admit that the
+evidence for this was more direct than for any of those
+far-off events which the whole world has agreed to
+accept as true.
+
+I still continued during these years to hold table
+seances, which sometimes gave no results, sometimes
+trivial ones, and sometimes rather surprising ones.  I
+have still the notes of these sittings, and I extract
+here the results of one which were definite, and which
+were so unlike any conceptions which I held of life
+beyond the grave that they amused rather than edified
+me at the time.  I find now, however, that they agree
+very closely, with the revelations in Raymond and in
+other later accounts, so that I view them with
+different eyes.  I am aware that all these accounts of
+life beyond the grave differ in detail--I suppose any
+of our accounts of the present life would differ in
+detail--but in the main there is a very great
+resemblance, which in this instance was very far from
+the conception either of myself or of either of the two
+ladies who made up the circle.  Two communicators sent
+messages, the first of whom spelt out as a name
+"Dorothy Postlethwaite," a name unknown to any of us. 
+She said she died at Melbourne five years before, at
+the age of sixteen, that she was now happy, that she
+had work to do, and that she had been at the same
+school as one of the ladies.  On my asking that lady to
+raise her hands and give a succession of names, the
+table tilted at the correct name of the head mistress
+of the school.  This seemed in the nature of a test. 
+She went on to say that the sphere she inhabited was
+all round the earth; that she knew about the planets;
+that Mars was inhabited by a race more advanced than
+us, and that the canals were artificial; there was no
+bodily pain in her sphere, but there could be mental
+anxiety; they were governed; they took nourishment; she
+had been a Catholic and was still a Catholic, but had
+not fared better than the Protestants; there were
+Buddhists and Mohammedans in her sphere, but all fared
+alike; she had never seen Christ and knew no more about
+Him than on earth, but believed in His influence;
+spirits prayed and they died in their new sphere before
+entering another; they had pleasures--music was
+among them.  It was a place of light and of laughter. 
+She added that they had no rich or poor, and that the
+general conditions were far happier than on earth.
+
+This lady bade us good-night, and immediately the
+table was seized by a much more robust influence, which
+dashed it about very violently.  In answer to my
+questions it claimed to be the spirit of one whom I
+will call Dodd, who was a famous cricketer, and with
+whom I had some serious conversation in Cairo before he
+went up the Nile, where he met his death in the
+Dongolese Expedition.  We have now, I may remark, come
+to the year 1896 in my experiences.  Dodd was not known
+to either lady.  I began to ask him questions exactly
+as if he were seated before me, and he sent his answers
+back with great speed and decision.  The answers were
+often quite opposed to what I expected, so that I could
+not believe that I was influencing them.  He said that
+he was happy, that he did not wish to return to earth. 
+He had been a free-thinker, but had not suffered in the
+next life for that reason.  Prayer, however, was a
+good thing, as keeping us in touch with the spiritual
+world.  If he had prayed more he would have been higher
+in the spirit world.
+
+This, I may remark, seemed rather in conflict with
+his assertion that he had not suffered through being a
+free-thinker, and yet, of course, many men neglect
+prayer who are not free-thinkers.
+
+His death was painless.  He remembered the death of
+Polwhele, a young officer who died before him.  When he
+(Dodd) died he had found people to welcome him, but
+Polwhele had not been among them.
+
+He had work to do.  He was aware of the Fall of
+Dongola, but had not been present in spirit at the
+banquet at Cairo afterwards.  He knew more than he did
+in life.  He remembered our conversation in Cairo. 
+Duration of life in the next sphere was shorter than on
+earth.  He had not seen General Gordon, nor any other
+famous spirit.  Spirits lived in families and in
+communities.  Married people did not necessarily meet
+again, but those who loved each other did meet again.
+
+I have given this synopsis of a communication to
+show the kind of thing we got--though this was a very
+favourable specimen, both for length and for coherence. 
+It shows that it is not just to say, as many critics
+say, that nothing but folly comes through.  There was
+no folly here unless we call everything folly which
+does not agree with preconceived ideas.  On the other
+hand, what proof was there that these statements were
+true?  I could see no such proof, and they simply left
+me bewildered.  Now, with a larger experience, in which
+I find that the same sort of information has come to
+very, many people independently in many lands, I think
+that the agreement of the witnesses does, as in all
+cases of evidence, constitute some argument for their
+truth.  At the time I could not fit such a conception
+of the future world into my own scheme of philosophy,
+and I merely noted it and passed on.
+
+I continued to read many books upon the subject and
+to appreciate more and more what a cloud of witnesses
+existed, and how careful their observations had been. 
+This impressed my mind very much more than the
+limited phenomena which came within the reach of
+our circle.  Then or afterwards I read a book by
+Monsieur Jacolliot upon occult phenomena in India. 
+Jacolliot was Chief Judge of the French Colony of
+Crandenagur, with a very judicial mind, but rather
+biassed{sic} against spiritualism.  He conducted a
+series of experiments with native fakirs, who gave him
+their confidence because he was a sympathetic man and
+spoke their language.  He describes the pains he took
+to eliminate fraud.  To cut a long story short he found
+among them every phenomenon of advanced European
+mediumship, everything which Home, for example, had
+ever done.  He got levitation of the body, the handling
+of fire, movement of articles at a distance, rapid
+growth of plants, raising of tables.  Their explanation
+of these phenomena was that they were done by the
+Pitris or spirits, and their only difference in
+procedure from ours seemed to be that they made more
+use of direct evocation.  They claimed that these
+powers were handed down from time immemorial and traced
+back to the Chaldees.  All this impressed me very
+much, as here, independently, we had exactly the
+same results, without any question of American frauds,
+or modern vulgarity, which were so often raised against
+similar phenomena in Europe.
+
+My mind was also influenced about this time by the
+report of the Dialectical Society, although this Report
+had been presented as far back as 1869.  It is a very
+cogent paper, and though it was received with a chorus
+of ridicule by the ignorant and materialistic papers of
+those days, it was a document of great value.  The
+Society was formed by a number of people of good
+standing and open mind to enquire into the physical
+phenomena of Spiritualism.  A full account of their
+experiences and of their elaborate precautions against
+fraud are given.  After reading the evidence, one fails
+to see how they could have come to any other conclusion
+than the one attained, namely, that the phenomena were
+undoubtedly genuine, and that they pointed to laws and
+forces which had not been explored by Science.  It is a
+most singular fact that if the verdict had been against
+spiritualism, it would certainly have been hailed
+as the death blow of the movement, whereas being an
+endorsement of the phenomena it met with nothing by
+ridicule.  This has been the fate of a number of
+inquiries since those conducted locally at Hydesville
+in 1848, or that which followed when Professor Hare of
+Philadelphia, like Saint Paul, started forth to oppose
+but was forced to yield to the truth.
+
+About 1891, I had joined the Psychical Research
+Society and had the advantage of reading all their
+reports.  The world owes a great deal to the unwearied
+diligence of the Society, and to its sobriety of
+statement, though I will admit that the latter makes
+one impatient at times, and one feels that in their
+desire to avoid sensationalism they discourage the
+world from knowing and using the splendid work which
+they are doing.  Their semi-scientific terminology also
+chokes off the ordinary reader, and one might say
+sometimes after reading their articles what an American
+trapper in the Rocky Mountains said to me about some
+University man whom he had been escorting for the
+season.  "He was that clever," he said, "that you
+could not understand what he said."  But in spite
+of these little peculiarities all of us who have wanted
+light in the darkness have found it by the methodical,
+never-tiring work of the Society.  Its influence was
+one of the powers which now helped me to shape my
+thoughts.  There was another, however, which made a
+deep impression upon me.  Up to now I had read all the
+wonderful experiences of great experimenters, but I had
+never come across any effort upon their part to build
+up some system which would cover and contain them all. 
+Now I read that monumental book, Myers' Human
+Personality, a great root book from which a whole tree
+of knowledge will grow.  In this book Myers was unable
+to get any formula which covered all the phenomena
+called "spiritual," but in discussing that action of
+mind upon mind which he has himself called telepathy he
+completely proved his point, and he worked it out so
+thoroughly with so many examples, that, save for those
+who were wilfully blind to the evidence, it took its
+place henceforth as a scientific fact.  But this was
+an enormous advance.  If mind could act upon mind
+at a distance, then there were some human powers which
+were quite different to matter as we had always
+understood it.  The ground was cut from under the feet
+of the materialist, and my old position had been
+destroyed.  I had said that the flame could not exist
+when the candle was gone.  But here was the flame a
+long way off the candle, acting upon its own.  The
+analogy was clearly a false analogy.  If the mind, the
+spirit, the intelligence of man could operate at a
+distance from the body, then it was a thing to that
+extent separate from the body.  Why then should it not
+exist on its own when the body was destroyed?  Not only
+did impressions come from a distance in the case of
+those who were just dead, but the same evidence proved
+that actual appearances of the dead person came with
+them, showing that the impressions were carried by
+something which was exactly like the body, and yet
+acted independently and survived the death of the body. 
+The chain of evidence between the simplest cases of
+thought-reading at one end, and the actual
+manifestation of the spirit independently of the body
+at the other, was one unbroken chain, each phase
+leading to the other, and this fact seemed to me to
+bring the first signs of systematic science and order
+into what had been a mere collection of bewildering and
+more or less unrelated facts.
+
+About this time I had an interesting experience,
+for I was one of three delegates sent by the Psychical
+Society to sit up in a haunted house.  It was one of
+these poltergeist cases, where noises and foolish
+tricks had gone on for some years, very much like the
+classical case of John Wesley's family at Epworth in
+1726, or the case of the Fox family at Hydesville near
+Rochester in 1848, which was the starting-point of
+modern spiritualism.  Nothing sensational came of our
+journey, and yet it was not entirely barren.  On the
+first night nothing occurred.  On the second, there
+were tremendous noises, sounds like someone beating a
+table with a stick.  We had, of course, taken every
+precaution, and we could not explain the noises; but at
+the same time we could not swear that some
+ingenious practical joke had not been played upon us. 
+There the matter ended for the time.  Some years
+afterwards, however, I met a member of the family who
+occupied the house, and he told me that after our visit
+the bones of a child, evidently long buried, had been
+dug up in the garden.  You must admit that this was
+very remarkable.  Haunted houses are rare, and houses
+with buried human beings in their gardens are also, we
+will hope, rare.  That they should have both united in
+one house is surely some argument for the truth of the
+phenomena.  It is interesting to remember that in the
+case of the Fox family there was also some word of
+human bones and evidence of murder being found in the
+cellar, though an actual crime was never established. 
+I have little doubt that if the Wesley family could
+have got upon speaking terms with their persecutor,
+they would also have come upon some motive for the
+persecution.  It almost seems as if a life cut suddenly
+and violently short had some store of unspent vitality
+which could still manifest itself in a strange,
+mischievous fashion.  Later I had another singular
+personal experience of this sort which I may describe
+at the end of this argument.[1]
+
+[1]  Vide Appendix III.
+
+
+From this period until the time of the War I
+continued in the leisure hours of a very busy life to
+devote attention to this subject.  I had experience of
+one series of seances with very amazing results,
+including several materializations seen in dim light. 
+As the medium was detected in trickery shortly
+afterwards I wiped these off entirely as evidence.  At
+the same time I think that the presumption is very
+clear, that in the case of some mediums like Eusapia
+Palladino they may be guilty of trickery when their
+powers fail them, and yet at other times have very
+genuine gifts.  Mediumship in its lowest forms is a
+purely physical gift with no relation to morality and
+in many cases it is intermittent and cannot be
+controlled at will.  Eusapia was at least twice
+convicted of very clumsy and foolish fraud, whereas she
+several times sustained long examinations under every
+possible test condition at the hands of scientific
+committees which contained some of the best names of
+France, Italy, and England.  However, I personally
+prefer to cut my experience with a discredited medium
+out of my record, and I think that all physical
+phenomena produced in the dark must necessarily lose
+much of their value, unless they are accompanied by
+evidential messages as well.  It is the custom of our
+critics to assume that if you cut out the mediums who
+got into trouble you would have to cut out nearly all
+your evidence.  That is not so at all.  Up to the time
+of this incident I had never sat with a professional
+medium at all, and yet I had certainly accumulated some
+evidence.  The greatest medium of all, Mr. D. D. Home,
+showed his phenomena in broad daylight, and was ready
+to submit to every test and no charge of trickery was
+ever substantiated against him.  So it was with many
+others.  It is only fair to state in addition that when
+a public medium is a fair mark for notoriety hunters,
+for amateur detectives and for sensational reporters,
+and when he is dealing with obscure elusive phenomena
+and has to defend himself before juries and judges who,
+as a rule, know nothing about the conditions which
+influence the phenomena, it would be wonderful if a man
+could get through without an occasional scandal.  At
+the same time the whole system of paying by results,
+which is practically the present system, since if a
+medium never gets results he would soon get no
+payments, is a vicious one.  It is only when the
+professional medium can be guaranteed an annuity which
+will be independent of results, that we can eliminate
+the strong temptation, to substitute pretended
+phenomena when the real ones are wanting.
+
+I have now traced my own evolution of thought up to
+the time of the War.  I can claim, I hope, that it was
+deliberate and showed no traces of that credulity with
+which our opponents charge us.  It was too deliberate,
+for I was culpably slow in throwing any small influence
+I may possess into the scale of truth.  I might have
+drifted on for my whole life as a psychical Researcher,
+showing a sympathetic, but more or less dilettante
+attitude towards the whole subject, as if we were
+arguing about some impersonal thing such as the
+existence of Atlantis or the Baconian controversy.  But
+the War came, and when the War came it brought
+earnestness into all our souls and made us look more
+closely at our own beliefs and reassess their values. 
+In the presence of an agonized world, hearing every day
+of the deaths of the flower of our race in the first
+promise of their unfulfilled youth, seeing around one
+the wives and mothers who had no clear conception
+whither their loved ones had gone to, I seemed suddenly
+to see that this subject with which I had so long
+dallied was not merely a study of a force outside the
+rules of science, but that it was really something
+tremendous, a breaking down of the walls between two
+worlds, a direct undeniable message from beyond, a call
+of hope and of guidance to the human race at the time
+of its deepest affliction.  The objective side of it
+ceased to interest for having made up one's mind that
+it was true there was an end of the matter.  The
+religious side of it was clearly of infinitely greater
+importance.  The telephone bell is in itself a very
+childish affair, but it may be the signal for a very
+vital message.  It seemed that all these phenomena,
+large and small, had been the telephone bells
+which, senseless in themselves, had signalled to the
+human race:  "Rouse yourselves!  Stand by!  Be at
+attention!  Here are signs for you.  They will lead up
+to the message which God wishes to send."  It was the
+message not the signs which really counted.  A new
+revelation seemed to be in the course of delivery to
+the human race, though how far it was still in what may
+be called the John-the-Baptist stage, and how far some
+greater fulness and clearness might be expected
+hereafter, was more than any man can say.  My point is,
+that the physical phenomena which have been proved up
+to the hilt for all who care to examine the evidence,
+are really of no account, and that their real value
+consists in the fact that they support and give
+objective reality to an immense body of knowledge which
+must deeply modify our previous religious views, and
+must, when properly understood and digested, make
+religion a very real thing, no longer a matter of
+faith, but a matter of actual experience and fact.  It
+is to this side of the question that I will now turn,
+but I must add to my previous remarks about personal
+experience that, since the War, I have had some
+very exceptional opportunities of confirming all the
+views which I had already formed as to the truth of the
+general facts upon which my views are founded.
+
+These opportunities came through the fact that a
+lady who lived with us, a Miss L. S., developed the
+power of automatic writing.  Of all forms of
+mediumship, this seems to me to be the one which should
+be tested most rigidly, as it lends itself very easily
+not so much to deception as to self-deception, which is
+a more subtle and dangerous thing.  Is the lady herself
+writing, or is there, as she avers, a power that
+controls her, even as the chronicler of the Jews in the
+Bible averred that he was controlled?  In the case of
+L. S. there is no denying that some messages proved to
+be not true--especially in the matter of time they were
+quite unreliable.  But on the other hand, the numbers
+which did come true were far beyond what any guessing   
+or coincidence could account for.  Thus, when the
+Lusitania was sunk and the morning papers here
+announced that so far as known there was no loss of
+life, the medium at once wrote:  "It is terrible,
+terrible--and will have a great influence on the war." 
+Since it was the first strong impulse which turned
+America towards the war, the message was true in both
+respects.  Again, she foretold the arrival of an
+important telegram upon a certain day, and even gave
+the name of the deliverer of it--a most unlikely
+person.  Altogether, no one could doubt the reality of
+her inspiration, though the lapses were notable.  It
+was like getting a good message through a very
+imperfect telephone.
+
+One other incident of the early war days stands out
+in my memory.  A lady in whom I was interested had died
+in a provincial town.  She was a chronic invalid and
+morphia was found by her bedside.  There was an inquest
+with an open verdict.  Eight days later I went to have
+a sitting with Mr. Vout Peters.  After giving me a good
+deal which was vague and irrelevant, he suddenly said: 
+"There is a lady here.  She is leaning upon an older
+woman.  She keeps saying 'Morphia.'  Three times she
+has said it.  Her mind was clouded.  She did not mean
+it.  Morphia!"  Those were almost his exact words. 
+Telepathy was out of the question, for I had entirely
+other thoughts in my mind at the time and was expecting
+no such message.
+
+Apart from personal experiences, this movement must
+gain great additional solidity from the wonderful
+literature which has sprung up around it during the
+last few years.  If no other spiritual books were in
+existence than five which have appeared in the last
+year or so--I allude to Professor Lodge's Raymond,
+Arthur Hill's Psychical Investigations, Professor
+Crawford's Reality of Psychical Phenomena,
+Professor Barrett's Threshold of the Unseen, and
+Gerald Balfour's Ear of Dionysius--those five alone
+would, in my opinion, be sufficient to establish the
+facts for any reasonable enquirer.
+
+Before going into this question of a new religious
+revelation, how it is reached, and what it consists of,
+I would say a word upon one other subject.  There have
+always been two lines of attack by our opponents.  The
+one is that our facts are not true.  This I have dealt
+with.  The other is that we are upon forbidden ground
+and should come off it and leave it alone.  As I
+started from a position of comparative materialism,
+this objection has never had any meaning for me, but to
+others I would submit one or two considerations.  The
+chief is that God has given us no power at all which is
+under no circumstances to be used.  The fact that we
+possess it is in itself proof that it is our bounden
+duty to study and to develop it.  It is true that this,
+like every other power, may be abused if we lose our
+general sense of proportion and of reason.  But I
+repeat that its mere possession is a strong reason why
+it is lawful and binding that it be used.
+
+It must also be remembered that this cry of illicit
+knowledge, backed by more or less appropriate texts,
+has been used against every advance of human knowledge. 
+It was used against the new astronomy, and Galileo had
+actually to recant.  It was used against Galvani and
+electricity.  It was used against Darwin, who would
+certainly have been burned had he lived a few centuries
+before.  It was even used against Simpson's use of
+chloroform in child-birth, on the ground that the Bible
+declared "in pain shall ye bring them forth." 
+Surely a plea which has been made so often, and so
+often abandoned, cannot be regarded very seriously.
+
+To those, however, to whom the theological aspect
+is still a stumbling block, I would recommend the
+reading of two short books, each of them by clergymen. 
+The one is the Rev. Fielding Ould's Is Spiritualism
+of the Devil, purchasable for twopence; the other is
+the Rev. Arthur Chambers' Our Self After Death.  I
+can also recommend the Rev. Charles Tweedale's writings
+upon the subject.  I may add that when I first began to
+make public my own views, one of the first letters of
+sympathy which I received was from the late Archdeacon
+Wilberforce.
+
+There are some theologians who are not only opposed
+to such a cult, but who go the length of saying that
+the phenomena and messages come from fiends who
+personate our dead, or pretend to be heavenly teachers. 
+It is difficult to think that those who hold this view
+have ever had any personal experience of the consoling
+and uplifting effect of such communications upon the
+recipient.  Ruskin has left it on record that his
+conviction of a future life came from Spiritualism,
+though he somewhat ungratefully and illogically added
+that having got that, he wished to have no more to do
+with it.  There are many, however--quorum pars parva
+su--who without any reserve can declare that they
+were turned from materialism to a belief in future
+life, with all that that implies, by the study of this
+subject.  If this be the devil's work one can only say
+that the devil seems to be a very bungling workman and
+to get results very far from what he might be expected
+to desire.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE REVELATION
+
+I can now turn with some relief to a more
+impersonal view of this great subject.  Allusion has
+been made to a body of fresh doctrine.  Whence does
+this come?  It comes in the main through automatic
+writing where the hand of the human medium is
+controlled, either by an alleged dead human being, as
+in the case of Miss Julia Ames, or by an alleged higher
+teacher, as in that of Mr. Stainton Moses.  These
+written communications are supplemented by a vast
+number of trance utterances, and by the verbal messages
+of spirits, given through the lips of mediums. 
+Sometimes it has even come by direct voices, as in the
+numerous cases detailed by Admiral Usborne Moore in his
+book The Voices.  Occasionally it has come through
+the family circle and table-tilting, as, for example,
+in the two cases I have previously detailed
+within my own experience.  Sometimes, as in a case
+recorded by Mrs. de Morgan, it has come through the
+hand of a child.
+
+Now, of course, we are at once confronted with the
+obvious objection--how do we know that these messages
+are really from beyond?  How do we know that the medium
+is not consciously writing, or if that be improbable,
+that he or she is unconsciously writing them by his or
+her own higher self?  This is a perfectly just
+criticism, and it is one which we must rigorously apply
+in every case, since if the whole world is to become
+full of minor prophets, each of them stating their own
+views of the religious state with no proof save their
+own assertion, we should, indeed, be back in the dark
+ages of implicit faith.  The answer must be that we
+require signs which we can test before we accept
+assertions which we cannot test.  In old days they
+demanded a sign from a prophet, and it was a perfectly
+reasonable request, and still holds good.  If a person
+comes to me with an account of life in some further
+world, and has no credentials save his own assertion, I
+would rather have it in my waste-paperbasket than
+on my study table.  Life is too short to weigh the
+merits of such productions.  But if, as in the case of
+Stainton Moses, with his Spirit Teachings, the
+doctrines which are said to come from beyond are
+accompanied with a great number of abnormal gifts--and
+Stainton Moses was one of the greatest mediums in all
+ways that England has ever produced--then I look upon
+the matter in a more serious light.  Again, if Miss
+Julia Ames can tell Mr. Stead things in her own earth
+life of which he could not have cognisance, and if
+those things are shown, when tested, to be true, then
+one is more inclined to think that those things which
+cannot be tested are true also.  Or once again, if
+Raymond can tell us of a photograph no copy of which
+had reached England, and which proved to be exactly as
+he described it, and if he can give us, through the
+lips of strangers, all sorts of details of his home
+life, which his own relatives had to verify before they
+found them to be true, is it unreasonable to suppose
+that he is fairly accurate in his description of his
+own experiences and state of life at the very
+moment at which he is communicating?  Or when Mr.
+Arthur Hill receives messages from folk of whom he
+never heard, and afterwards verifies that they are true
+in every detail, is it not a fair inference that they
+are speaking truths also when they give any light upon
+their present condition?  The cases are manifold, and I
+mention only a few of them, but my point is that the
+whole of this system, from the lowest physical
+phenomenon of a table-rap up to the most inspired
+utterance of a prophet, is one complete whole, each
+attached to the next one, and that when the humbler end
+of that chain was placed in the hand of humanity, it
+was in order that they might, by diligence and reason,
+feel their way up it until they reached the revelation
+which waited in the end.  Do not sneer at the humble
+beginnings, the heaving table or the flying tambourine,
+however much such phenomena may have been abused or
+simulated, but remember that a falling apple taught us
+gravity, a boiling kettle brought us the steam engine,
+and the twitching leg of a frog opened up the train
+of thought and experiment which gave us electricity. 
+So the lowly manifestations of Hydesville have ripened
+into results which have engaged the finest group of
+intellects in this country during the last twenty
+years, and which are destined, in my opinion, to bring
+about far the greatest development of human experience
+which the world has ever seen.
+
+It has been asserted by men for whose opinion I
+have a deep regard--notably by Sir William Barratt--
+that psychical research is quite distinct from
+religion.  Certainly it is so, in the sense that a man
+might be a very good psychical researcher but a very
+bad man.  But the results of psychical research, the
+deductions which we may draw, and the lessons we may
+learn, teach us of the continued life of the soul, of
+the nature of that life, and of how it is influenced by
+our conduct here.  If this is distinct from religion, I
+must confess that I do not understand the distinction. 
+To me it IS religion--the very essence of it.  But
+that does not mean that it will necessarily crystallise
+into a new religion.  Personally I trust that it
+will not do so.  Surely we are disunited enough
+already?  Rather would I see it the great unifying
+force, the one provable thing connected with every
+religion, Christian or non-Christian, forming the
+common solid basis upon which each raises, if it must
+needs raise, that separate system which appeals to the
+varied types of mind.  The Southern races will always
+demand what is less austere than the North, the West
+will always be more critical than the East.  One cannot
+shape all to a level conformity.  But if the broad
+premises which are guaranteed by this teaching from
+beyond are accepted, then the human race has made a
+great stride towards religious peace and unity.  The
+question which faces us, then, is how will this
+influence bear upon the older organised religions and
+philosophies which have influenced the actions of men.
+
+The answer is, that to only one of these religions
+or philosophies is this new revelation absolutely
+fatal.  That is to Materialism.  I do not say this in
+any spirit of hostility to Materialists, who, so far as
+they are an organized body, are, I think, as earnest
+and moral as any other class.  But the fact is
+manifest that if spirit can live without matter, then
+the foundation of Materialism is gone, and the whole
+scheme of thought crashes to the ground.
+
+As to other creeds, it must be admitted that an
+acceptance of the teaching brought to us from beyond
+would deeply modify conventional Christianity.  But
+these modifications would be rather in the direction of
+explanation and development than of contradiction.  It
+would set right grave misunderstandings which have
+always offended the reason of every thoughtful man, but
+it would also confirm and make absolutely certain the
+fact of life after death, the base of all religion.  It
+would confirm the unhappy results of sin, though it
+would show that those results are never absolutely
+permanent.  It would confirm the existence of higher
+beings, whom we have called angels, and of an ever-
+ascending hierarchy above us, in which the Christ
+spirit finds its place, culminating in heights of the
+infinite with which we associate the idea of all-power
+or of God.  It would confirm the idea of heaven and of
+a temporary penal state which corresponds to
+purgatory rather than to hell.  Thus this new
+revelation, on some of the most vital points, is
+NOT destructive of the beliefs, and it should be
+hailed by really earnest men of all creeds as a most
+powerful ally rather than a dangerous devil-begotten
+enemy.
+
+On the other hand, let us turn to the points in
+which Christianity must be modified by this new
+revelation.
+
+First of all I would say this, which must be
+obvious to many, however much they deplore it: 
+Christianity must change or must perish.  That is the
+law of life--that things must adapt themselves or
+perish.  Christianity has deferred the change very
+long, she has deferred it until her churches are half
+empty, until women are her chief supporters, and until
+both the learned part of the community on one side, and
+the poorest class on the other, both in town and
+country, are largely alienated from her.  Let us try
+and trace the reason for this.  It is apparent in all
+sects, and comes, therefore, from some deep common
+cause.
+
+People are alienated because they frankly do not
+believe the facts as presented to them to be true. 
+Their reason and their sense of justice are equally
+offended.  One can see no justice in a vicarious
+sacrifice, nor in the God who could be placated by such
+means.  Above all, many cannot understand such
+expressions as the "redemption from sin," "cleansed by
+the blood of the Lamb," and so forth.  So long as there
+was any question of the fall of man there was at least
+some sort of explanation of such phrases; but when it
+became certain that man had never fallen--when with
+ever fuller knowledge we could trace our ancestral
+course down through the cave-man and the drift-man,
+back to that shadowy and far-off time when the man-like
+ape slowly evolved into the apelike man--looking back
+on all this vast succession of life, we knew that it
+had always been rising from step to step.  Never was
+there any evidence of a fall.  But if there were no
+fall, then what became of the atonement, of the
+redemption, of original sin, of a large part of
+Christian mystical philosophy?  Even if it were as
+reasonable in itself as it is actually unreasonable, it
+would still be quite divorced from the facts.
+
+Again, too much seemed to be made of Christ's
+death.  It is no uncommon thing to die for an idea. 
+Every religion has equally had its martyrs.  Men die
+continually for their convictions.  Thousands of our
+lads are doing it at this instant in France.  Therefore
+the death of Christ, beautiful as it is in the Gospel
+narrative, has seemed to assume an undue importance, as
+though it were an isolated phenomenon for a man to die
+in pursuit of a reform.  In my opinion, far too much
+stress has been laid upon Christ's death, and far too
+little upon His life.  That was where the true grandeur
+and the true lesson lay.  It was a life which even in
+those limited records shows us no trait which is not
+beautiful--a life full of easy tolerance for others, of
+kindly charity, of broad-minded moderation, of gentle
+courage, always progressive and open to new ideas, and
+yet never bitter to those ideas which He was really
+supplanting, though He did occasionally lose His temper
+with their more bigoted and narrow supporters. 
+Especially one loves His readiness to get at the spirit
+of religion, sweeping aside the texts and the forms. 
+Never had anyone such a robust common sense, or such a
+sympathy for weakness.  It was this most wonderful and
+uncommon life, and not his death, which is the true
+centre of the Christian religion.
+
+Now, let us look at the light which we get from the
+spirit guides upon this question of Christianity. 
+Opinion is not absolutely uniform yonder, any more than
+it is here; but reading a number of messages upon this
+subject, they amount to this:  There are many higher
+spirits with our departed.  They vary in degree.  Call
+them "angels," and you are in touch with old religious
+thought.  High above all these is the greatest spirit
+of whom they have cognizance--not God, since God is so
+infinite that He is not within their ken--but one who
+is nearer God and to that extent represents God.  This
+is the Christ Spirit.  His special care is the earth. 
+He came down upon it at a time of great earthly
+depravity--a time when the world was almost as wicked
+as it is now, in order to give the people the
+lesson of an ideal life.  Then he returned to his own
+high station, having left an example which is still
+occasionally followed.  That is the story of Christ as
+spirits have described it.  There is nothing here of
+Atonement or Redemption.  But there is a perfectly
+feasible and reasonable scheme, which I, for one, could
+readily believe.
+
+If such a view of Christianity were generally
+accepted, and if it were enforced by assurance and
+demonstration from the New Revelation which is coming
+to us from the other side, then we should have a creed
+which might unite the churches, which might be
+reconciled to science, which might defy all attacks,
+and which might carry the Christian Faith on for an
+indefinite period.  Reason and Faith would at last be
+reconciled, a nightmare would be lifted from our minds,
+and spiritual peace would prevail.  I do not see such
+results coming as a sudden conquest or a violent
+revolution.  Rather will it come as a peaceful
+penetration, as some crude ideas, such as the Eternal
+Hell idea, have already gently faded away within our
+own lifetime.  It is, however, when the human soul
+is ploughed and harrowed by suffering that the seeds of
+truth may be planted, and so some future spiritual
+harvest will surely rise from the days in which we
+live.
+
+When I read the New Testament with the knowledge
+which I have of Spiritualism, I am left with a deep
+conviction that the teaching of Christ was in many most
+important respects lost by the early Church, and has
+not come down to us.  All these allusions to a conquest
+over death have, as it seems to me, little meaning in
+the present Christian philosophy, whereas for those who
+have seen, however dimly, through the veil, and
+touched, however slightly, the outstretched hands
+beyond, death has indeed been conquered.  When we read
+so many references to the phenomena with which we are
+familiar, the levitations, the tongues of fire, the
+rushing wind, the spiritual gifts, the working of
+wonders, we feel that the central fact of all, the
+continuity of life and the communication with the dead,
+was most certainly known.  Our attention is arrested by
+such a saying as:  "Here he worked no wonders
+because the people were wanting in faith."  Is this
+not absolutely in accordance with psychic law as we
+know it?  Or when Christ, on being touched by the sick
+woman, said:  "Who has touched me?  Much virtue has
+passed out of me."  Could He say more clearly what a
+healing medium would say now, save that He would use
+the word "Power" instead of "virtue"; or when we read: 
+"Try the spirits whether they be of God," is it not the
+very, advice which would now be given to a novice
+approaching a seance?  It is too large a question for
+me to do more than indicate, but I believe that this
+subject, which the more rigid Christian churches now
+attack so bitterly, is really the central teaching of
+Christianity itself.  To those who would read more upon
+this line of thought, I strongly recommend Dr. Abraham
+Wallace's Jesus of Nazareth, if this valuable
+little work is not out of print.  He demonstrates in it
+most convincingly that Christ's miracles were all
+within the powers of psychic law as we now understand
+it, and were on the exact lines of such law even in
+small details.  Two examples have already been
+given.  Many are worked out in that pamphlet.  One
+which convinced me as a truth was the thesis that the
+story of the materialization of the two prophets upon
+the mountain was extraordinarily accurate when judged
+by psychic law.  There is the fact that Peter, James
+and John (who formed the psychic circle when the dead
+was restored to life, and were presumably the most
+helpful of the group) were taken.  Then there is the
+choice of the high pure air of the mountain, the
+drowsiness of the attendant mediums, the transfiguring,
+the shining robes, the cloud, the words:  "Let us make
+three tabernacles," with its alternate reading:  "Let
+us make three booths or cabinets" (the ideal way of
+condensing power and producing materializations)--all
+these make a very consistent theory of the nature of
+the proceedings.  For the rest, the list of gifts which
+St. Paul gives as being necessary for the Christian
+Disciple, is simply the list of gifts of a very
+powerful medium, including prophecy, healing, causing
+miracles (or physical phenomena), clairvoyance, and
+other powers (I Corinth, xii, 8, 11).  The early
+Christian Church was saturated with spiritualism, and
+they seem to have paid no attention to those Old
+Testament prohibitions which were meant to keep these
+powers only for the use and profit of the priesthood.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE COMING LIFE
+
+Now, leaving this large and possibly contentious
+subject of the modifications which such new revelations
+must produce in Christianity, let us try to follow what
+occurs to man after death.  The evidence on this point
+is fairly full and consistent.  Messages from the dead
+have been received in many lands at various times,
+mixed up with a good deal about this world, which we
+could verify.  When messages come thus, it is only
+fair, I think, to suppose that if what we can test is
+true, then what we cannot test is true also.  When in
+addition we find a very great uniformity in the
+messages and an agreement as to details which are not
+at all in accordance with any pre-existing scheme of
+thought, then I think the presumption of truth is very
+strong.  It is difficult to think that some fifteen or
+twenty messages from various sources of which I
+have personal notes, all agree, and yet are all wrong,
+nor is it easy to suppose that spirits can tell the
+truth about our world but untruth about their own.
+
+I received lately, in the same week, two accounts
+of life in the next world, one received through the
+hand of the near relative of a high dignitary of the
+Church, while the other came through the wife of a
+working mechanician in Scotland.  Neither could have
+been aware of the existence of the other, and yet the
+two accounts are so alike as to be practically the
+same.[2]
+
+[2]  Vide Appendix II.
+
+
+The message upon these points seems to me to be
+infinitely reassuring, whether we regard our own fate
+or that of our friends.  The departed all agree that
+passing is usually both easy and painless, and followed
+by an enormous reaction of peace and ease.  The
+individual finds himself in a spirit body, which is the
+exact counterpart of his old one, save that all
+disease, weakness, or deformity has passed from it. 
+This body is standing or floating beside the old body,
+and conscious both of it and of the surrounding
+people.  At this moment the dead man is nearer to
+matter than he will ever be again, and hence it is that
+at that moment the greater part of those cases occur
+where, his thoughts having turned to someone in the
+distance, the spirit body went with the thoughts and
+was manifest to the person.  Out of some 250 cases
+carefully examined by Mr. Gurney, 134 of such
+apparitions were actually at this moment of
+dissolution, when one could imagine that the new spirit
+body was possibly so far material as to be more visible
+to a sympathetic human eye than it would later become.
+
+These cases, however, are very rare in comparison
+with the total number of deaths.  In most cases I
+imagine that the dead man is too preoccupied with his
+own amazing experience to have much thought for others. 
+He soon finds, to his surprise, that though he
+endeavours to communicate with those whom he sees, his
+ethereal voice and his ethereal touch are equally
+unable to make any impression upon those human organs
+which are only attuned to coarser stimuli.  It is a
+fair subject for speculation, whether a fuller
+knowledge of those light rays which we know to exist on
+either side of the spectrum, or of those sounds which
+we can prove by the vibrations of a diaphragm to exist,
+although they are too high for mortal ear, may not
+bring us some further psychical knowledge.  Setting
+that aside, however, let us follow the fortunes of the
+departing spirit.  He is presently aware that there are
+others in the room besides those who were there in
+life, and among these others, who seem to him as
+substantial as the living, there appear familiar faces,
+and he finds his hand grasped or his lips kissed by
+those whom he had loved and lost.  Then in their
+company, and with the help and guidance of some more
+radiant being who has stood by and waited for the
+newcomer, he drifts to his own surprise through all
+solid obstacles and out upon his new life.
+
+This is a definite statement, and this is the story
+told by one after the other with a consistency which
+impels belief.  It is already very different from any
+old theology.  The Spirit is not a glorified angel or
+goblin damned, but it is simply the person himself,
+containing all his strength and weakness, his
+wisdom and his folly, exactly as he has retained his
+personal appearance.  We can well believe that the most
+frivolous and foolish would be awed into decency by so
+tremendous an experience, but impressions soon become
+blunted, the old nature may soon reassert itself in new
+surroundings, and the frivolous still survive, as our
+seance rooms can testify.
+
+And now, before entering upon his new life, the new
+Spirit has a period of sleep which varies in its
+length, sometimes hardly existing at all, at others
+extending for weeks or months.  Raymond said that his
+lasted for six days.  That was the period also in a
+case of which I had some personal evidence.  Mr. Myers,
+on the other hand, said that he had a very prolonged
+period of unconsciousness.  I could imagine that the
+length is regulated by the amount of trouble or mental
+preoccupation of this life, the longer rest giving the
+better means of wiping this out.  Probably the little
+child would need no such interval at all.  This, of
+course, is pure speculation, but there is a
+considerable consensus of opinion as to the
+existence of a period of oblivion after the first
+impression of the new life and before entering upon its
+duties.
+
+Having wakened from this sleep, the spirit is weak,
+as the child is weak after earth birth.  Soon, however,
+strength returns and the new life begins.  This leads
+us to the consideration of heaven and hell.  Hell, I
+may say, drops out altogether, as it has long dropped
+out of the thoughts of every reasonable man.  This
+odious conception, so blasphemous in its view of the
+Creator, arose from the exaggerations of Oriental
+phrases, and may perhaps have been of service in a
+coarse age where men were frightened by fires, as wild
+beasts are seared by the travellers.  Hell as a
+permanent place does not exist.  But the idea of
+punishment, of purifying chastisement, in fact of
+Purgatory, is justified by the reports from the other
+side.  Without such punishment there could be no
+justice in the Universe, for how impossible it would be
+to imagine that the fate of a Rasputin is the same as
+that of a Father Damien.  The punishment is very
+certain and very serious, though in its less severe
+forms it only consists in the fact that the grosser
+souls are in lower spheres with a knowledge that their
+own deeds have placed them there, but also with the
+hope that expiation and the help of those above them
+will educate them and bring them level with the others. 
+In this saving process the higher spirits find part of
+their employment.  Miss Julia Ames in her beautiful
+posthumous book, says in memorable words:  "The
+greatest joy of Heaven is emptying Hell."
+
+Setting aside those probationary spheres, which
+should perhaps rather be looked upon as a hospital for
+weakly souls than as a penal community, the reports
+from the other world are all agreed as to the pleasant
+conditions of life in the beyond.  They agree that like
+goes to like, that all who love or who have interests
+in common are united, that life is full of interest and
+of occupation, and that they would by no means desire
+to return.  All of this is surely tidings of great joy,
+and I repeat that it is not a vague faith or hope, but
+that it is supported by all the laws of evidence which
+agree that where many independent witnesses give a
+similar account, that account has a claim to be
+considered a true one.  If it were an account of
+glorified souls purged instantly from all human
+weakness and of a constant ecstasy of adoration round
+the throne of the all powerful, it might well be
+suspected as being the mere reflection of that popular
+theology which all the mediums had equally received in
+their youth.  It is, however, very different to any
+preexisting system.  It is also supported, as I have
+already pointed out, not merely by the consistency of
+the accounts, but by the fact that the accounts are the
+ultimate product of a long series of phenomena, all of
+which have been attested as true by those who have
+carefully examined them.
+
+In connection with the general subject of life
+after death, people may say we have got this knowledge
+already through faith.  But faith, however beautiful in
+the individual, has always in collective bodies been a
+very two-edged quality.  All would be well if every
+faith were alike and the intuitions of the human race
+were constant.  We know that it is not so.  Faith means
+to say that you entirely believe a thing which you
+cannot prove.  One man says:  "My faith is
+THIS."  Another says:  "My faith is THAT." 
+Neither can prove it, so they wrangle for ever, either
+mentally or in the old days physically.  If one is
+stronger than the other, he is inclined to persecute
+him just to twist him round to the true faith.  Because
+Philip the Second's faith was strong and clear he,
+quite logically, killed a hundred thousand Lowlanders
+in the hope that their fellow countrymen would be
+turned to the all-important truth.  Now, if it were
+recognised that it is by no means virtuous to claim
+what you could not prove, we should then be driven to
+observe facts, to reason from them, and perhaps reach
+common agreement.  That is why this psychical movement
+appears so valuable.  Its feet are on something more
+solid than texts or traditions or intuitions.  It is
+religion from the double point of view of both worlds
+up to date, instead of the ancient traditions of one
+world.
+
+We cannot look upon this coming world as a tidy
+Dutch garden of a place which is so exact that it can
+easily be described.  It is probable that those
+messengers who come back to us are all, more or
+less, in one state of development and represent the
+same wave of life as it recedes from our shores. 
+Communications usually come from those who have not
+long passed over, and tend to grow fainter, as one
+would expect.  It is instructive in this respect to
+notice that Christ's reappearances to his disciples or
+to Paul, are said to have been within a very few years
+of his death, and that there is no claim among the
+early Christians to have seen him later.  The cases of
+spirits who give good proof of authenticity and yet
+have passed some time are not common.  There is, in Mr.
+Dawson Roger's life, a very good case of a spirit who
+called himself Manton, and claimed to have been born at
+Lawrence Lydiard and buried at Stoke Newington in 1677. 
+It was clearly shown afterwards that there was such a
+man, and that he was Oliver Cromwell's chaplain.  So
+far as my own reading goes, this is the oldest spirit
+who is on record as returning, and generally they are
+quite recent.  Hence, one gets all one's views from the
+one generation, as it were, and we cannot take them as
+final, but only as partial.  How spirits may see
+things in a different light as they progress in the
+other world is shown by Miss Julia Ames, who was deeply
+impressed at first by the necessity of forming a bureau
+of communication, but admitted, after fifteen years,
+that not one spirit in a million among the main body
+upon the further side ever wanted to communicate with
+us at all since their own loved ones had come over. 
+She had been misled by the fact that when she first
+passed over everyone she met was newly arrived like
+herself.
+
+Thus the account we give may be partial, but still
+such as it is it is very consistent and of
+extraordinary interest, since it refers to our own
+destiny and that of those we love.  All agree that life
+beyond is for a limited period, after which they pass
+on to yet other phases, but apparently there is more
+communication between these phases than there is
+between us and Spiritland.  The lower cannot ascend,
+but the higher can descend at will.  The life has a
+close analogy to that of this world at it its best.  It
+is pre-eminently a life of the mind, as this is of the
+body.  Preoccupations of food, money, lust, pain,
+etc., are of the body and are gone.  Music, the Arts,
+intellectual and spiritual knowledge, and progress have
+increased.  The people are clothed, as one would
+expect, since there is no reason why modesty should
+disappear with our new forms.  These new forms are the
+absolute reproduction of the old ones at their best,
+the young growing up and the old reverting until all
+come to the normal.  People live in communities, as one
+would expect if like attracts like, and the male spirit
+still finds his true mate though there is no sexuality
+in the grosser sense and no childbirth.  Since
+connections still endure, and those in the same state
+of development keep abreast, one would expect that
+nations are still roughly divided from each other,
+though language is no longer a bar, since thought has
+become a medium of conversation.  How close is the
+connection between kindred souls over there is shown by
+the way in which Myers, Gurney and Roden Noel, all
+friends and co-workers on earth, sent messages together
+through Mrs. Holland, who knew none of them, each
+message being characteristic to those who knew the
+men in life--or the way in which Professor Verrall and
+Professor Butcher, both famous Greek scholars,
+collaborated to produce the Greek problem which has
+been analysed by Mr. Gerald Balfour in The Ear of
+Dionysius, with the result that that excellent
+authority testified that the effect COULD have been
+attained by no other entities, save only Verrall and
+Butcher.  It may be remarked in passing that these and
+other examples show clearly either that the spirits
+have the use of an excellent reference library or else
+that they have memories which produce something like
+omniscience.  No human memory could possibly carry all
+the exact quotations which occur in such communications
+as The Ear of Dionysius.
+
+These, roughly speaking, are the lines of the life
+beyond in its simplest expression, for it is not all
+simple, and we catch dim glimpses of endless circles
+below descending into gloom and endless circles above,
+ascending into glory, all improving, all purposeful,
+all intensely alive.  All are agreed that no religion
+upon earth has any advantage over another, but that
+character and refinement are everything.  At the same
+time, all are also in agreement that all religions
+which inculcate prayer, and an upward glance rather
+than eyes for ever on the level, are good.  In this
+sense, and in no other--as a help to spiritual life--
+every form may have a purpose for somebody.  If to
+twirl a brass cylinder forces the Thibetan to admit
+that there is something higher than his mountains, and
+more precious than his yaks, then to that extent it is
+good.  We must not be censorious in such matters.
+
+There is one point which may be mentioned here
+which is at first startling and yet must commend itself
+to our reason when we reflect upon it.  This is the
+constant assertion from the other side that the newly
+passed do not know that they are dead, and that it is a
+long time, sometimes a very long time, before they can
+be made to understand it.  All of them agree that this
+state of bewilderment is harmful and retarding to the
+spirit, and that some knowledge of the actual truth
+upon this side is the only way to make sure of not
+being dazed upon the other.  Finding conditions
+entirely different from anything for which either
+scientific or religious teaching had prepared them, it
+is no wonder that they look upon their new sensations
+as some strange dream, and the more rigidly orthodox
+have been their views, the more impossible do they find
+it to accept these new surroundings with all that they
+imply.  For this reason, as well as for many others,
+this new revelation is a very needful thing for
+mankind.  A smaller point of practical importance is
+that the aged should realise that it is still worth
+while to improve their minds, for though they have no
+time to use their fresh knowledge in this world it will
+remain as part of their mental outfit in the next.
+
+As to the smaller details of this life beyond, it
+is better perhaps not to treat them, for the very good
+reason that they are small details.  We will learn them
+all soon for ourselves, and it is only vain curiosity
+which leads us to ask for them now.  One thing is
+clear: there are higher intelligences over yonder to
+whom synthetic chemistry, which not only makes the
+substance but moulds the form, is a matter of
+absolute ease.  We see them at work in the coarser
+media, perceptible to our material senses, in the
+seance room.  If they can build up simulacra in the
+seance room, how much may we expect them to do when
+they are working upon ethereal objects in that ether
+which is their own medium.  It may be said generally
+that they can make something which is analogous to
+anything which exists upon earth.  How they do it may
+well be a matter of guess and speculation among the
+less advanced spirits, as the phenomena of modern
+science are a matter of guess and speculation to us. 
+If one of us were suddenly called up by the denizen of
+some sub-human world, and were asked to explain exactly
+what gravity is, or what magnetism is, how helpless we
+should be!  We may put ourselves in the position, then,
+of a young engineer soldier like Raymond Lodge, who
+tries to give some theory of matter in the beyond--a
+theory which is very likely contradicted by some other
+spirit who is also guessing at things above him.  He
+may be right, or he may be wrong, but be is doing his
+best to say what he thinks, as we should do in
+similar case.  He believes that his transcendental
+chemists can make anything, and that even such
+unspiritual matter as alcohol or tobacco could come
+within their powers and could still be craved for by
+unregenerate spirits.  This has tickled the critics to
+such an extent that one would really think to read the
+comments that it was the only statement in a book which
+contains 400 closely-printed pages.  Raymond may be
+right or wrong, but the only thing which the incident
+proves to me is the unflinching courage and honesty of
+the man who chronicled it, knowing well the handle that
+he was giving to his enemies.
+
+There are many who protest that this world which is
+described to us is too material for their liking.  It
+is not as they would desire it.  Well, there are many
+things in this world which seem different from what we
+desire, but they exist none the less.  But when we come
+to examine this charge of materialism and try to
+construct some sort of system which would satisfy the
+idealists, it becomes a very difficult task.  Are we to
+be mere wisps of gaseous happiness floating about
+in the air?  That seems to be the idea.  But if there
+is no body like our own, and if there is no character
+like our own, then say what you will, WE have
+become extinct.  What is it to a mother if some
+impersonal glorified entity is shown to her?  She will
+say, "that is not the son I lost--I want his yellow
+hair, his quick smile, his little moods that I know so
+well."  That is what she wants; that, I believe, is
+what she will have; but she will not have them by any
+system which cuts us away from all that reminds us of
+matter and takes us to a vague region of floating
+emotions.
+
+There is an opposite school of critics which rather
+finds the difficulty in picturing a life which has keen
+perceptions, robust emotions, and a solid surrounding
+all constructed in so diaphanous a material.  Let us
+remember that everything depends upon its comparison
+with the things around it.
+
+If we could conceive of a world a thousand times
+denser, heavier and duller than this world, we can
+clearly see that to its inmates it would seem much the
+same as this, since their strength and texture would be
+in proportion.  If, however, these inmates came in
+contact with us, they would look upon us as
+extraordinarily airy beings living in a strange, light,
+spiritual atmosphere.  They would not remember that we
+also, since our beings and our surroundings are in
+harmony and in proportion to each other, feel and act
+exactly as they do.
+
+We have now to consider the case of yet another
+stratum of life, which is as much above us as the
+leaden community would be below us.  To us also it
+seems as if these people, these spirits, as we call
+them, live the lives of vapour and of shadows.  We do
+not recollect that there also everything is in
+proportion and in harmony so that the spirit scene or
+the spirit dwelling, which might seem a mere dream
+thing to us, is as actual to the spirit as are our own
+scenes or our own dwellings, and that the spirit body
+is as real and tangible to another spirit as ours to
+our friends.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV,
+
+
+PROBLEMS AND LIMITATIONS
+
+Leaving for a moment the larger argument as to the
+lines of this revelation and the broad proofs of its
+validity, there are some smaller points which have
+forced themselves upon my attention during the
+consideration of the subject.  This home of our dead
+seems to be very near to us--so near that we
+continually, as they tell us, visit them in our sleep. 
+Much of that quiet resignation which we have all
+observed in people who have lost those whom they
+loved--people who would in our previous opinion have
+been driven mad by such loss--is due to the fact that
+they have seen their dead, and that although the
+switch-off is complete and they can recall nothing
+whatever of the spirit experience in sleep, the
+soothing result of it is still carried on by the
+subconscious self.  The switch-off is, as I say,
+complete, but sometimes for some reason it is hung up
+for a fraction of a second, and it is at such
+moments that the dreamer comes back from  his dream
+"trailing clouds of glory."  From this also come all
+those prophetic dreams many of which are well attested. 
+I have had a recent personal experience of one which
+has not yet perhaps entirely justified itself but is
+even now remarkable.  Upon April 4th of last year,
+1917, I awoke with a feeling that some communication
+had been made to me of which I had only carried back
+one word which was ringing in my head.  That word was
+"Piave."  To the best of my belief I had never heard
+the word before.  As it sounded like the name of a
+place I went into my study the moment I had dressed and
+I looked up the index of my Atlas.  There was "Piave"
+sure enough, and I noted that it was a river in Italy
+some forty miles behind the front line, which at that
+time was victoriously advancing.  I could imagine few
+more unlikely things than that the war should roll back
+to the Piave, and I could not think how any military
+event of consequence could arise there, but none the
+less I was so impressed that I drew up a statement
+that some such event would occur there, and I had it
+signed by my secretary and witnessed by my wife with
+the date, April 4th, attached.  It is a matter of
+history how six months later the whole Italian line
+fell back, how it abandoned successive positions upon
+rivers, and how it stuck upon this stream which was
+said by military critics to be strategically almost
+untenable.  If nothing more should occur (I write upon
+February 20th, 1918), the reference to the name has
+been fully justified, presuming that some friend in the
+beyond was forecasting the coming events of the war.  I
+have still a hope, however, that more was meant, and
+that some crowning victory of the Allies at this spot
+may justify still further the strange way in which the
+name was conveyed to my mind.
+
+People may well cry out against this theory of
+sleep on the grounds that all the grotesque, monstrous
+and objectionable dreams which plague us cannot
+possibly come from a high source.  On this point I have
+a very definite theory, which may perhaps be worthy of
+discussion.  I consider that there are two forms of
+dreams, and only two, the experiences of the released
+spirit, and the confused action of the lower faculties
+which remain in the body when the spirit is absent. 
+The former is rare and beautiful, for the memory of it
+fails us.  The latter are common and varied, but
+usually fantastic or ignoble.  By noting what is absent
+in the lower dreams one can tell what the missing
+qualities are, and so judge what part of us goes to
+make up the spirit.  Thus in these dreams humour is
+wanting, since we see things which strike us afterwards
+as ludicrous, and are not amused.  The sense of
+proportion and of judgment and of aspiration is all
+gone.  In short, the higher is palpably gone, and the
+lower, the sense of fear, of sensual impression, of
+self-preservation, is functioning all the more vividly
+because it is relieved from the higher control.
+
+The limitations of the powers of spirits is a
+subject which is brought home to one in these studies. 
+People say, "If they exist why don't they do this or
+that!"  The answer usually is that they can't.  They
+appear to have very fixed limitations like our own. 
+This seemed to be very clearly brought out in the
+cross-correspondence experiments where several writing
+mediums were operating at a distance quite
+independently of each other, and the object was to get
+agreement which was beyond the reach of coincidence. 
+The spirits seem to know exactly what they impress upon
+the minds of the living, but they do not know how far
+they carry their instruction out.  Their touch with us
+is intermittent.  Thus, in the cross-correspondence
+experiments we continually have them asking, "Did you
+get that?" or "Was it all right?"  Sometimes they have
+partial cognisance of what is done, as where Myers
+says:  "I saw the circle, but was not sure about the
+triangle."  It is everywhere apparent that their
+spirits, even the spirits of those who, like Myers and
+Hodgson, were in specially close touch with psychic
+subjects, and knew all that could be done, were in
+difficulties when they desired to get cognisance of a
+material thing, such as a written document.  Only, I
+should imagine, by partly materialising themselves
+could they do so, and they may not have had the
+power of self-materialization.  This consideration
+throws some light upon the famous case, so often used
+by our opponents, where Myers failed to give some word
+or phrase which had been left behind in a sealed box. 
+Apparently he could not see this document from his
+present position, and if his memory failed him he would
+be very likely to go wrong about it.
+
+Many mistakes may, I think, be explained in this
+fashion.  It has been asserted from the other side, and
+the assertion seems to me reasonable, that when they
+speak of their own conditions they are speaking of what
+they know and can readily and surely discuss; but that
+when we insist (as we must sometimes insist) upon
+earthly tests, it drags them back to another plane of
+things, and puts them in a position which is far more
+difficult, and liable to error.
+
+Another point which is capable of being used
+against us is this:  The spirits have the greatest
+difficulty in getting names through to us, and it is
+this which makes many of their communications so vague
+and unsatisfactory.  They will talk all round a
+thing, and yet never get the name which would clinch
+the matter.  There is an example of the point in a
+recent communication in Light, which describes how
+a young officer, recently dead, endeavoured to get a
+message through the direct voice method of Mrs.
+Susannah Harris to his father.  He could not get his
+name through.  He was able, however, to make it clear
+that his father was a member of the Kildare Street Club
+in Dublin.  Inquiry found the father, and it was then
+learned that the father had already received an
+independent message in Dublin to say that an inquiry
+was coming through from London.  I do not know if the
+earth name is a merely ephemeral thing, quite
+disconnected from the personality, and perhaps the very
+first thing to be thrown aside.  That is, of course,
+possible.  Or it may be that some law regulates our
+intercourse from the other side by which it shall not
+be too direct, and shall leave something to our own
+intelligence.
+
+This idea, that there is some law which makes an
+indirect speech more easy than a direct one, is
+greatly borne out by the cross-correspondences, where
+circumlocution continually takes the place of
+assertion.  Thus, in the St. Paul correspondence, which
+is treated in the July pamphlet of the S.P.R., the idea
+of St. Paul was to be conveyed from one automatic
+writer to two others, both of whom were at a distance,
+one of them in India.  Dr. Hodgson was the spirit who
+professed to preside over this experiment.  You would
+think that the simple words "St. Paul" occurring in the
+other scripts would be all-sufficient.  But no; he
+proceeds to make all sorts of indirect allusions, to
+talk all round St. Paul in each of the scripts, and to
+make five quotations from St. Paul's writings.  This is
+beyond coincidence, and quite convincing, but none the
+less it illustrates the curious way in which they go
+round instead of going straight.  If one could imagine
+some wise angel on the other side saying, "Now, don't
+make it too easy for these people.  Make them use their
+own brains a little.  They will become mere automatons
+if we do everything for them"--if we could imagine
+that, it would just cover the case.  Whatever the
+explanation, it is a noteworthy fact.
+
+There is another point about spirit communications
+which is worth noting.  This is their uncertainty
+wherever any time element comes in.  Their estimate of
+time is almost invariably wrong.  Earth time is
+probably a different idea to spirit time, and hence the
+confusion.  We had the advantage, as I have stated, of
+the presence of a lady in our household who developed
+writing mediumship.  She was in close touch with three
+brothers, all of whom had been killed in the war.  This
+lady, conveying messages from her brothers, was hardly
+ever entirely wrong upon facts, and hardly ever right
+about time.  There was one notable exception, however,
+which in itself is suggestive.  Although her prophecies
+as to public events were weeks or even months out, she
+in one case foretold the arrival of a telegram from
+Africa to the day.  Now the telegram had already been
+sent, but was delayed, so that the inference seems to
+be that she could foretell a course of events which had
+actually been set in motion, and calculate how long
+they would take to reach their end.  On the other
+hand, I am bound to admit that she confidently
+prophesied the escape of her fourth brother, who was a
+prisoner in Germany, and that this was duly fulfilled. 
+On the whole I preserve an open mind upon the powers
+and limitations of prophecy.
+
+But apart from all these limitations we have,
+unhappily, to deal with absolute coldblooded lying on
+the part of wicked or mischievous intelligences. 
+Everyone who has investigated the matter has, I
+suppose, met with examples of wilful deception, which
+occasionally are mixed up with good and true
+communications.  It was of such messages, no doubt,
+that the Apostle wrote when he said:  "Beloved,
+believe, not every spirit, but try the spirits whether
+they are of God."  These words can only mean that the
+early Christians not only practised Spiritualism as we
+understand it, but also that they were faced by the
+same difficulties.  There is nothing more puzzling than
+the fact that one may get a long connected description
+with every detail given, and that it may prove to be
+entirely a concoction.  However, we must bear in
+mind that if one case comes absolutely correct, it
+atones for many failures, just as if you had one
+telegram correct you would know that there was a line
+and a communicator, however much they broke down
+afterwards.  But it must be admitted that it is very
+discomposing and makes one sceptical of messages until
+they are tested.  Of a kin with these false influences
+are all the Miltons who cannot scan, and Shelleys who
+cannot rhyme, and Shakespeares who cannot think, and
+all the other absurd impersonations which make our
+cause ridiculous.  They are, I think, deliberate
+frauds, either from this side or from the other, but to
+say that they invalidate the whole subject is as
+senseless as to invalidate our own world because we
+encounter some unpleasant people.
+
+One thing I can truly say, and that is, that in
+spite of false messages, I have never in all these
+years known a blasphemous, an unkind, or an obscene
+message.  Such incidents must be of very exceptional
+nature.  I think also that, so far as allegations
+concerning insanity, obsession, and so forth go, they
+are entirely imaginary.  Asylum statistics do not
+bear out such assertions, and mediums live to as good
+an average age as anyone else.  I think, however, that
+the cult of the seance may be very much overdone.  When
+once you have convinced yourself of the truth of the
+phenomena the physical seance has done its work, and
+the man or woman who spends his or her life in running
+from seance to seance is in danger of becoming a mere
+sensation hunter.  Here, as in other cults, the form is
+in danger of eclipsing the real thing, and in pursuit
+of physical proofs one may forget that the real object
+of all these things is, as I have tried to point out,
+to give us assurance in the future and spiritual
+strength in the present, to attain a due perception of
+the passing nature of matter and the all-importance of
+that which is immaterial.
+
+The conclusion, then, of my long search after
+truth, is that in spite of occasional fraud, which
+Spiritualists deplore, and in spite of wild imaginings,
+which they discourage, there remains a great solid core
+in this movement which is infinitely nearer to positive
+proof than any other religious development  with
+which I am acquainted.  As I have shown, it would
+appear to be a rediscovery rather than an absolutely
+new thing, but the result in this material age is the
+same.  The days are surely passing when the mature and
+considered opinions of such men as Crookes, Wallace,
+Flammarion, Chas. Richet, Lodge, Barrett, Lombroso,
+Generals Drayson and Turner, Sergeant Ballantyne, W. T.
+Stead, Judge Edmunds, Admiral Usborne Moore, the late
+Archdeacon Wilberforce, and such a cloud of other
+witnesses, can be dismissed with the empty "All rot" or
+"Nauseating drivel" formulae.  As Mr. Arthur Hill has
+well said, we have reached a point where further proof
+is superfluous, and where the weight of disproof lies
+upon those who deny.  The very people who clamour for
+proofs have as a rule never taken the trouble to
+examine the copious proofs which already exist.  Each
+seems to think that the whole subject should begin
+de novo because he has asked for information.  The
+method of our opponents is to fasten upon the latest
+man who has stated the case--at the present instant it
+happens to be Sir Oliver Lodge--and then to deal
+with him as if he had come forward with some new
+opinions which rested entirely upon his own assertion,
+with no reference to the corroboration of so many
+independent workers before him.  This is not an honest
+method of criticism, for in every case the agreement of
+witnesses is the very root of conviction.  But as a
+matter of fact, there are many single witnesses upon
+whom this case could rest.  If, for example, our only
+knowledge of unknown forces depended upon the
+researches of Dr. Crawford of Belfast, who places his
+amateur medium in a weighing chair with her feet from
+the ground, and has been able to register a difference
+of weight of many pounds, corresponding with the
+physical phenomena produced, a result which he has
+tested and recorded in a true scientific spirit of
+caution, I do not see how it could be shaken.  The
+phenomena are and have long been firmly established for
+every open mind.  One feels that the stage of
+investigation is passed, and that of religious
+construction is overdue.
+
+For are we to satisfy ourselves by observing 
+phenomena with no attention to what the phenomena mean,
+as a group of savages might stare at a wireless
+installation with no appreciation of the messages
+coming through it, or are we resolutely to set
+ourselves to define these subtle and elusive utterances
+from beyond, and to construct from them a religious
+scheme, which will be founded upon human reason on this
+side and upon spirit inspiration upon the other?  These
+phenomena have passed through the stage of being a
+parlour game; they are now emerging from that of a
+debatable scientific novelty; and they are, or should
+be, taking shape as the foundations of a definite
+system of religious thought, in some ways confirmatory
+of ancient systems, in some ways entirely new.  The
+evidence upon which this system rests is so enormous
+that it would take a very considerable library to
+contain it, and the witnesses are not shadowy people
+living in the dim past and inaccessible to our cross-
+examination, but are our own contemporaries, men of
+character and intellect whom all must respect.  The
+situation may, as it seems to me, be summed up in a
+simple alternative.  The one supposition is that
+there has been an outbreak of lunacy extending over two
+generations of mankind, and two great continents--a
+lunacy which assails men or women who are otherwise
+eminently sane.  The alternative supposition is that in
+recent years there has come to us from divine sources a
+new revelation which constitutes by far the greatest
+religious event since the death of Christ (for the
+Reformation was a re-arrangement of the old, not a
+revelation of the new), a revelation which alters the
+whole aspect of death and the fate of man.  Between
+these two suppositions there is no solid position. 
+Theories of fraud or of delusion will not meet the
+evidence.  It is absolute lunacy or it is a revolution
+in religious thought, a revolution which gives us as
+by-products an utter fearlessness of death, and an
+immense consolation when those who are dear to us pass
+behind the veil.
+
+I should like to add a few practical words to those
+who know the truth of what I say.  We have here an
+enormous new development, the greatest in the history
+of mankind.  How are we to use it?  We are bound in
+honour, I think, to state our own belief,
+especially to those who are in trouble.  Having stated
+it, we should not force it, but leave the rest to
+higher wisdom than our own.  We wish to subvert no
+religion.  We wish only to bring back the material-
+minded--to take them out of their cramped valley and
+put them on the ridge, whence they can breathe purer
+air and see other valleys and other ridges beyond. 
+Religions are mostly petrified and decayed, overgrown
+with forms and choked with mysteries.  We can prove
+that there is no need for this.  All that is essential
+is both very simple and very sure.
+
+The clear call for our help comes from those who
+have had a loss and who yearn to re-establish
+connection.  This also can be overdone.  If your boy
+were in Australia, you would not expect him to
+continually stop his work and write long letters at all
+seasons.  Having got in touch, be moderate in your
+demands.  Do not be satisfied with any evidence short
+of the best, but having got that, you can, it seems to
+me, wait for that short period when we shall all be re-
+united.  I am in touch at present with thirteen
+mothers who are in correspondence with their dead
+sons.  In each case, the husband, where he is alive, is
+agreed as to the evidence.  In only one case so far as
+I know was the parent acquainted with psychic matters
+before the war.
+
+Several of these cases have peculiarities of their
+own.  In two of them the figures of the dead lads have
+appeared beside the mothers in a photograph.  In one
+case the first message to the mother came through a
+stranger to whom the correct address of the mother was
+given.  The communication afterwards became direct.  In
+another case the method of sending messages was to give
+references to particular pages and lines of books in
+distant libraries, the whole conveying a message.  The
+procedure was to weed out all fear of telepathy. 
+Verily there is no possible way by which a truth can be
+proved by which this truth has not been proved.
+
+How are you to act?  There is the difficulty. 
+There are true men and there are frauds.  You have to
+work warily.  So far as professional mediums go, you
+will not find it difficult to get recommendations. 
+Even with the best you may draw entirely blank.  The
+conditions are very elusive.  And yet some get the
+result at once.  We cannot lay down laws, because the
+law works from the other side as well as this.  Nearly
+every woman is an undeveloped medium.  Let her try her
+own powers of automatic writing.  There again, what is
+done must be done with every precaution against self-
+deception, and in a reverent and prayerful mood.  But
+if you are earnest, you will win through somehow, for
+someone else is probably trying on the other side.
+
+Some people discountenance communication upon the
+ground that it is hindering the advance of the
+departed.  There is not a tittle of evidence for this. 
+The assertions of the spirits are entirely to the
+contrary and they declare that they are helped and
+strengthened by the touch with those whom they love.  I
+know few more moving passages in their simple boyish
+eloquence than those in which Raymond describes the
+feelings of the dead boys who want to get messages back
+to their people and find that ignorance and
+prejudice are a perpetual bar.  "It is hard to think
+your sons are dead, but such a lot of people do think
+so.  It is revolting to hear the boys tell you how no
+one speaks of them ever.  It hurts me through and
+through."
+
+Above all read the literature of this subject.  It
+has been far too much neglected, not only by the
+material world but by believers.  Soak yourself with
+this grand truth.  Make yourself familiar with the
+overpowering evidence.  Get away from the phenomenal
+side and learn the lofty teaching from such beautiful
+books as After Death or from Stainton Moses'
+Spirit Teachings.  There is a whole library of such
+literature, of unequal value but of a high average. 
+Broaden and spiritualize your thoughts.  Show the
+results in your lives.  Unselfishness, that is the
+keynote to progress.  Realise not as a belief or a
+faith, but as a fact which is as tangible as the
+streets of London, that we are moving on soon to
+another life, that all will be very happy there, and
+that the only possible way in which that happiness can
+be marred or deferred is by folly and selfishness
+in these few fleeting years.
+
+It must be repeated that while the new revelation
+may seem destructive to those who hold Christian dogmas
+with extreme rigidity, it has quite the opposite effect
+upon the mind which, like so many modern minds, had
+come to look upon the whole Christian scheme as a huge
+delusion.  It is shown clearly that the old revelation
+has so many resemblances, defaced by time and mangled
+by man's mishandling and materialism, but still
+denoting the same general scheme, that undoubtedly both
+have come from the same source.  The accepted ideas of
+life after death, of higher and lower spirits, of
+comparative happiness depending upon our own conduct,
+of chastening by pain, of guardian spirits, of high
+teachers, of an infinite central power, of circles
+above circles approaching nearer to His presence--all
+of these conceptions appear once more and are confirmed
+by many witnesses.  It is only the claims of
+infallibility and of monopoly, the bigotry and pedantry
+of theologians, and the man-made rituals which take the
+life out of the God-given thoughts--it is only
+this which has defaced the truth.
+
+I cannot end this little book better than by using
+words more eloquent than any which I could write, a
+splendid sample of English style as well as of English
+thought.  They are from the pen of that considerable
+thinker and poet, Mr. Gerald Massey, and were written
+many years ago.
+
+"Spiritualism has been for me, in common
+with many others, such a lifting of the mental
+horizon and letting-in of the heavens--such a
+formation of faith into facts, that I can only
+compare life without it to sailing on board
+ship with hatches battened down and being kept
+a prisoner, living by the light of a candle,
+and then suddenly, on some splendid starry
+night, allowed to go on deck for the first time
+to see the stupendous mechanism of the heavens
+all aglow with the glory of God."
+
+
+
+SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENTS
+
+
+I. THE NEXT PHASE OF LIFE
+
+I have spoken in the text of the striking manner in
+which accounts of life in the next phase, though
+derived from the most varied and independent sources,
+are still in essential agreement--an agreement which
+occasionally descends to small details.  A variety is
+introduced by that fuller vision which can see and
+describe more than one plane, but the accounts of that
+happy land to which the ordinary mortal may hope to
+aspire, are very consistent.  Since I wrote the
+statement I have read three fresh independent
+descriptions which again confirm the point.  One is the
+account given by "A King's Counsel," in his recent
+book, I Heard a Voice (Kegan Paul), which I
+recommended to inquirers, though it has a strong Roman
+Catholic bias running through it which shows that our
+main lines of thought are persistent.  A second is the
+little book The  Light on the Future,
+giving the very interesting details of the beyond,
+gathered by an earnest and reverent circle in Dublin. 
+The other came in a private letter from Mr. Hubert
+Wales, and is, I think, most instructive.  Mr. Wales is
+a cautious and rather sceptical inquirer who had put
+away his results with incredulity (he had received them
+through his own automatic writing).  On reading my
+account of the conditions described in the beyond, he
+hunted up his own old script which had commended itself
+so little to him when he first produced it.  He says: 
+"After reading your article, I was struck, almost
+startled, by the circumstance that the statements which
+had purported to be made to me regarding conditions
+after death coincided--I think almost to the smallest
+detail--with those you set out as the result of your
+collation of material obtained from a great number of
+sources.  I cannot think there was anything in my
+antecedent reading to account for this coincidence.  I
+had certainly read nothing you had published on the
+subject.  I had purposely avoided Raymond and
+books like it, in order not to vitiate  my own results,
+and the Proceedings of the S.P.R. which I had read
+at that time, do not touch, as you know, upon after-
+death conditions.  At any rate I obtained, at various
+times, statements (as my contemporary notes show) to
+the effect that, in this persisting state of existence,
+they have bodies which, though imperceptible by our
+senses, are as solid to them as ours to us, that these
+bodies are based on the general characteristies of our
+present bodies but beautified; that they have no age,
+no pain, no rich and poor; that they wear clothes and
+take nourishment; that they do not sleep (though they
+spoke of passing occasionally into a semiconscious
+state which they called 'lying asleep'--a condition, it
+just occurs to me, which seems to correspond roughly
+with the 'Hypnoidal' state); that, after a period which
+is usually shorter than the average life-time here,
+they pass to some further state of existence; that
+people of similar thoughts, tastes and feelings,
+gravitate together; that married couples do not
+necessarily reunite, but that the love of man and
+woman  continues and is freed of elements which
+with us often militate against its perfect realization;
+that immediately after death people pass into a semi-
+conscious rest-state lasting various periods, that they
+are unable to experience bodily pain, but are
+susceptible at times to some mental anxiety; that a
+painful death is 'absolutely unknown,' that religious
+beliefs make no difference whatever in the after-state,
+and that their life altogether is intensely happy, and
+no one having ever realised it could wish to return
+here.  I got no reference to 'work' by that word, but
+much to the various interests that were said to occupy
+them.  That is probably only another way of saying the
+same thing.  'Work' with us has come usually to mean
+'work to live,' and that, I was emphatically informed,
+was not the case with them--that all the requirements
+of life were somehow mysteriously 'provided.'  Neither
+did I get any reference to a definite 'temporary penal
+state,' but I gathered that people begin there at the
+point of intellectual and moral development where they
+leave off here; and since their state of happiness was
+based mainly upon sympathy, those who came over in
+a low moral condition, failed at first for various
+lengths of time to have the capacity to appreciate and
+enjoy it."
+
+
+
+AUTOMATIC WRITING
+
+This form of mediumship gives the very highest
+results, and yet in its very nature is liable to self-
+deception.  Are we using our own hand or is an outside
+power directing it?  It is only by the information
+received that we can tell, and even then we have to
+make broad allowance for the action of our own
+subconscious knowledge.  It is worth while perhaps to
+quote what appears to me to be a thoroughly critic-
+proof case, so that the inquirer may see how strong the
+evidence is that these messages are not self-evolved. 
+This case is quoted in Mr. Arthur Hill's recent book
+Man Is a Spirit (Cassell & Co.) and is contributed
+by a gentleman who takes the name of Captain James
+Burton.  He is, I understand, the same medium (amateur)
+through whose communications the position of the buried
+ruins at Glastonbury have recently been located. 
+"A week after my father's funeral I was writing a
+business letter, when something seemed to intervene
+between my hand and the motor centres of my brain, and
+the hand wrote at an amazing rate a letter, signed with
+my father's signature and purporting to come from him. 
+I was upset, and my right side and arm became cold and
+numb.  For a year after this letters came frequently,
+and always at unexpected times.  I never knew what they
+contained until I examined them with a magnifying-
+glass: they were microscopic.  And they contained a
+vast amount of matter with which it was impossible for
+me to be acquainted." . . .  "Unknown to me, my mother,
+who was staying some sixty miles away, lost her pet
+dog, which my father had given her.  The same night I
+had a letter from him condoling with her, and stating
+that the dog was now with him.  'All things which love
+us and are necessary to our happiness in the world are
+with us here.'  A most sacred secret, known to no one
+but my father and mother, concerning a matter which
+occurred years before I was born, was afterwards
+told me in the script, with the comment:  'Tell your
+mother this, and she will know that it is I, your
+father, who am writing.'  My mother had been unable to
+accept the possibility up to now, but when I told her
+this she collapsed and fainted.  From that moment the
+letters became her greatest comfort, for they were
+lovers during the forty years of their married life,
+and his death almost broke her heart.
+
+"As for myself, I am as convinced that my father,
+in his original personality, still exists, as if he
+were still in his study with the door shut.  He is no
+more dead than he would be were he living in America.
+
+"I have compared the diction and vocabulary of
+these letters with those employed in my own writing--I
+am not unknown as a magazine contributor--and I find no
+points of similarity between the two."  There is much
+further evidence in this case for which I refer the
+reader to the book itself.
+
+
+
+THE CHERITON DUGOUT
+
+I have mentioned in the text that I had some recent
+experience of a case where a "polter-geist" or
+mischievous spirit had been manifesting.  These
+entities appear to be of an undeveloped order and
+nearer to earth conditions than any others with which
+we are acquainted.  This comparative materialism upon
+their part places them low in the scale of spirit, and
+undesirable perhaps as communicants, but it gives them
+a special value as calling attention to crude obvious
+phenomena, and so arresting the human attention and
+forcing upon our notice that there are other forms of
+life within the universe.  These borderland forces have
+attracted passing attention at several times and places
+in the past, such cases as the Wesley persecution at
+Epworth, the Drummer of Tedworth, the Bells
+of Bealing, etc., startling the country for a time--
+each of them being an impingement of unknown forces
+upon human life.  Then almost simultaneously came the
+Hydesville case in America and the Cideville
+disturbances in France, which were so marked that they
+could not be overlooked.  From them sprang the whole
+modern movement which, reasoning upwards from small
+things to great, from raw things to developed ones,
+from phenomena to messages, is destined to give
+religion the firmest basis upon which it has ever
+stood.  Therefore, humble and foolish as these
+manifestations may seem, they have been the seed of
+large developments, and are worthy of our respectful,
+though critical, attention.
+
+Many such manifestations have appeared of recent
+years in various quarters of the world, each of which
+is treated by the press in a more or less comic vein,
+with a conviction apparently that the use of the word
+"spook" discredits the incident and brings discussion
+to an end.  It is remarkable that each is treated as an
+entirely isolated phenomenon, and thus the
+ordinary reader gets no idea of the strength of the
+cumulative evidence.  In this particular case of the
+Cheriton Dugout the facts are as follows:
+
+Mr. Jaques, a Justice of the Peace and a man of
+education and intelligence, residing at Embrook House,
+Cheriton, near Folkestone, made a dugout just opposite
+to his residence as a protection against air raids. 
+The house was, it may be remarked, of great antiquity,
+part of it being an old religious foundation of the
+14th Century.  The dugout was constructed at the base
+of a small bluff, and the sinking was through ordinary
+soft sandstone.  The work was carried out by a local
+jobbing builder called Rolfe, assisted by a lad.  Soon
+after the inception of his task he was annoyed by his
+candle being continually blown out by jets of sand,
+and, by similar jets hitting up against his own face. 
+These phenomena he imagined to be due to some gaseous
+or electrical cause, but they reached such a point that
+his work was seriously hampered, and he complained to
+Mr. Jaques, who received the story with absolute
+incredulity.  The persecution continued, however,
+and increased in intensity, taking the form now of
+actual blows from moving material, considerable
+objects, such as stones and bits of brick, flying past
+him and hitting the walls with a violent impact.  Mr.
+Rolfe, still searching for a physical explanation, went
+to Mr. Hesketh, the Municipal Electrician of
+Folkestone, a man of high education and intelligence,
+who went out to the scene of the affair and saw enough
+to convince himself that the phenomena were perfectly
+genuine and inexplicable by ordinary laws.  A Canadian
+soldier who was billeted upon Mr. Rolfe, heard an
+account of the happenings from his host, and after
+announcing his conviction that the latter had "bats in
+his belfry" proceeded to the dugout, where his
+experiences were so instant and so violent that he
+rushed out of the place in horror.  The housekeeper at
+the Hall also was a witness of the movement of bricks
+when no human hands touched them.  Mr. Jaques, whose
+incredulity had gradually thawed before all this
+evidence, went down to the dugout in the absence of
+everyone, and was departing from it when five stones
+rapped up against the door from the inside.  He
+reopened the door and saw them lying there upon the
+floor.  Sir William Barrett had meanwhile come down,
+but had seen nothing.  His stay was a short one.  I
+afterwards made four visits of about two hours each to
+the grotto, but got nothing direct, though I saw the
+new brickwork all chipped about by the blows which it
+had received.  The forces appeared to have not the
+slightest interest in psychical research, for they
+never played up to an investigator, and yet their
+presence and action have been demonstrated to at least
+seven different observers, and, as I have said, they
+left their traces behind them, even to the extent of
+picking the flint stones out of the new cement which
+was to form the floor, and arranging them in tidy
+little piles.  The obvious explanation that the boy was
+an adept at mischief had to be set aside in view of the
+fact that the phenomena occurred in his absence.  One
+extra man of science wandered on to the scene for a
+moment, but as his explanation was that the movements
+occurred through the emanation of marsh-gas, it did not
+advance matters much.  The disturbances are still
+proceeding, and I have had a letter this very morning
+(February 21st, 1918) with fuller and later details
+from Mr. Hesketh, the Engineer.
+
+What is the REAL explanation of such a matter? 
+I can only say that I have advised Mr. Jaques to dig
+into the bluff under which he is constructing his
+cellar.  I made some investigation myself upon the top
+of it and convinced myself that the surface ground at
+that spot has at some time been disturbed to the depth
+of at least five feet.  Something has, I should judge,
+been buried at some date, and it is probable that, as
+in the case cited in the text, there is a connection
+between this and the disturbances.  It is very probable
+that Mr. Rolfe is, unknown to himself, a physical
+medium, and that when he was in the confined space of
+the cellar he turned it into a cabinet in which his
+magnetic powers could accumulate and be available for
+use.  It chanced that there was on the spot some agency
+which chose to use them, and hence the phenomena.  When
+Mr. Jaques went alone to the grotto the power left
+behind by Mr. Rolfe, who had been in it all
+morning, was not yet exhausted and he was able to
+get some manifestations.  So I read it, but it is well
+not to be dogmatic on such matters.  If there is
+systematic digging I should expect an epilogue to the
+story.
+
+Whilst these proofs were in the press a second very
+marked case of a Polter-geist came within my knowledge. 
+I cannot without breach of confidence reveal the
+details and the phenomena are still going on. 
+Curiously enough, it was because one of the sufferers
+from the invasion read some remarks of mine upon the
+Cheriton dugout that this other case came to my
+knowledge, for the lady wrote to me at once for advice
+and assistance.  The place is remote and I have not yet
+been able to visit it, but from the full accounts which
+I have now received it seems to present all the
+familiar features, with the phenomenon of direct
+writing superadded.  Some specimens of this script have
+reached me.  Two clergymen have endeavoured to mitigate
+the phenomena, which are occasionally very violent, but
+so far without result.  It may be some consolation to
+any others who may be suffering from this strange
+inflition, to know that in the many cases which
+have been carefully recorded there is none in which any
+physical harm has been inflicted upon man or beast.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg Etext of The New Revelation, by A. Conan Doyle
+
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