PROBING THE FUTURE.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXI, Issue 96, 21 October 1908, Page 6

PROBING THE FUTURE.

"DISCOVERIES OF THE FIRST r MAGNITUDE." SIR OLIVER LODGE'S THEORY OF LIFE'S CONTINUITY. "When, comes the dumb hour, as . Tennyson calls it, is all changed as in thc> twinkling of an eye? Who , knows? No voice has ever returned to tell the tale. But the larger hope of science is probing the future, and here, in the \ words of Sir Oliver Lodge, is what some scientists believe. Writing in Harper's Magazine an article or nearly 10 pages on "Psychical Research," v Jie says: AT THE BOUNDARY LINE. "I am of those who, though they would like to see further and still stronger and more continued proofs, are of opinion that a good case has been made out, and that as the best. Working hypothesis at the present time it is legitimate to grant that \ lucid moments of intercourse with deceased persons may in the besir cases supervene; amid a mass of sup- •\ plementary material, quite natural tinder the . circumstances, but mostly of a^ presumably subliminal and less — evident kind. J i "The boundary between the two . states — the known and the unknown • —is still substantial, but it is wear- • ing thin in places; and like excavators engaged in-boring a tunnel from opposite ends, amid tho roar of water - - and other noises, we are beginning to. "' hear now and again the strokes of the pickaxes of oxir comrades on the other side. / , LIFE'S CONTINUITY. "Meanwhile, is there anything that '-: provisionally and tentatively we can say that is earnestly taught to those N who are willing to make tlie hypothesis that the communications are genuine ? . "The first thing we learn, perhaps, the only thing we. clearly learn .in the first instance, is continuity. There is no such sudden break in the conditions of existence as may have been anticipated; and no break at all-in the continuous and conscious identity of genuine character and personality. Essential belongings, such as memory, culture, .education, habits, character, and affection — all these, and to* a certain extent tastes jand interests for better, for worse are ::.■' retained. Terrestrial accretions, such, as worldly 'possessions, bodily , pain and disabilities, these for the most part naturally drop aAvay. AFTER DEATH. "Meanwhile, it Avould appear that knowledge is not suddenly advanced : — it would be unnatural if if were — . We are not suddenly flooded with new information — nor do we at all change - our identity; but powers and faculties are enlarged, and the scope of our outlook on the \ini'verse may be widened and deepened, if effort here . has rendered the acquisition of such extra insight legitimate and possible. "On the other hand, there are doubtless some whom the removal of 'temporary accretion and accidents of . existence will leave in a feeble and impoverished condition ; for the - things are gone in which they trusted, and they are left poor indeed. Such doctrines have been taught, and tlie strength of vision and revelation, for more than a century. The visions of Swtedenborg, divested of their exuberant! trappings are not Avholly unreal, and are by no means -wholly unti i ue. There is a general consistency in the doctrines that have thus -been taught through various sensi-

tives, and all I do is to add my testimony to the rational character of the general survey of the universe indicated by Mayers in his great and eloquent work." THE DISCOVERIES OF SCIENCE. Sir Oliver declares that his article "is intended to indicate the possibility that discoveries of the" very first magnitude can still be made — .are- indeed in process of heing made — by strictly scientific methods, in the region of psychology ; discdveries quite comparable in importance with those which have been made during the last century in physics and biology, but discoveries whose opportunities for practical application^ and useful*iess will similarly "have, .to remain foi some time in the hands of experts, since they cannot be miscellaneously absorbed or even apprehended by the multitude without danger. THE FIRST FACT. "The. first fact established by the Psychical Research Society was the reality of telepathy-— that is to say, of the apparently direct action of one mind on another by means un--<known to science. That a thought or image or impression or emotion in the mind of. one person can arouse a similar impression in the. mind of another person sufficiently sympathetic and sufficiently at leisure to attend and record the impression is now proved. But the mechanism, at all, is still unknown.' The appearance is as if it were a direct action of mind .or of brain, irrespective of the usual nerves and organs of sense. ASTONISHING EXAMPLES OF TRANCE. - ' 'For twenty years at ;• least members of the society have been intimately acquainted with excellent and astonishing examples of trance speaking and automatic writing, and yet they have hesitated to make full use of all this -material, and have refrained from proceeding in the directions toward which it undoubtedly points, so long as there was a chance — even a remote chance — that telepathy might constitute a. sufficient explanation. Some of xis hold that telepathy is still sufficient — or at least as sufficient 'as it has ever been — and that no further step beyond it need be taken? Others are beginning to be impressed Avith the idea— not without qualms and surviving hesitation — that the tiifle has come, or is coming, when it may be legitimate and necessary to take a further step, and to admit, at any rate as a tentative hypothesis, the view which undoubtedly the phenomena themselves suggest, and, as it wertj, have all tlie time been endeavouring to force upon us. .'■ . ■ COMMUNICATION BY MEDIUMS. "This is the hypothesis of actual telepathy or telergic influence from the surviving intelligence of some of those who have recently lived on this planet, and who are now represented as. occasionally, under great difficulties and discouragements, endeava*ing to make known the fact that tihey can communicate with us by aid of such , intervening mechanism as is placed at their disposal — namely, the brain, nerve, and muscle of an. automatist or medium. The assertion made is that, during the temporary suspension of the normal control, they can wit-U difficulty make use of these organs for the purpose of translating their own thought into mechanical movement, and so producing some kind of, speech or writing in the physical world. Such utilisation of physiological apparatus by an intelligence -to which it does not normally belong is what is called motor ' . "~ • ■ ' ■ ■ s.-

automatism, or 'telergy,' or popularly—when of an extreme kind 'possession.'" V