HAVE WE LIVED BEFORE?

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 March 1930, Page 9

HAVE WE LIVED BEFORE?

— FAMOUS SCIENTIST’S VIEWS Among those who accept as a fact the persistence of the human spirit after bodily death there is sometimes a debate between two alternatives: for the question arises whether that existence is continuous in some state or condition apart from matter, or whether it is subject to occasional discontinuities, such as would be involved in reassociation of another and • yet another material body (writes Sir Oliver Lodge in the Daily Mail). I am acquainted with plenty of evidence in favour of persistent existence, and even temporary utilisation of other organisms, but I am not acquainted with any real evidence in favour of what may be called fullblown reincarnation; though I know that in some form a belief in the truth of this, and even a felt consciousness of it, ’is prevalent among the group of people known as Theosophists, who possibly have acquired some evidence unknown to me derived from Indian experience of meditation.

The position of myself and of many of the psychic investigators in this country is at present that incarnation, or association with matter, has for its object the development of individual character of personality by a materilising process applied to some entity which, though in a vague way existing previously, did not exist in that specific form. Encasement in matter, which is essentially more discontinuous than space, has the effect of isolating a portion—a gradually increasing portion —of a general psychic reality: so as to screen that portion from surrounding influences, except those to which it can gain access through its specially adapted and limited sense organs. During its incarnation, therefore, the mind primarily apprehends only matter —matter subject to and displaying the various forms of energy—and can thus concentrate on a comparatively undistracted mundape existence foi* a short period.

The episode of earth life thus leads to an accumulation of experience, the ' memory of which persists, and it is difficult to see what gain there would be in interrupting the continuity of this memory by once more plunging ’ the personality into a subsequent in- . carnation. It would seem to lead only to confusion. The brain is an inhibating or screening organ, in which habits may be stored, but no true i memory. Memory shown itself to be a mental process, a deposit in the mind, which demonstrably 'survives the brain; and upon the mind, presumably, our individual reactions or behaviour depends, as something sep- : arate from mere racial habits and instinct. Memory and character thus developed constitute the individual. Assuming (as we well may) that earthly existence in association with matter is of value in the age-old process of evolution, it may be surmised that in the case of frustrated incarnation, like that of still-born children, for instance, a second change may be permitted. I do not know. But foi any fully developed individual no second chance seems necessary or desirable. . It has been suggested, however, by Myers'and others that we are none ot us fully and completely incarnate here and now; that in fact our present manifestation is a portion of a larger subliminal self, a self beneath the threshold of consciousness, which only surges up occasionally in genius and other exceptional manifestations, but which is a considerable storehouse of knowledge. And it has been thought that some other portions of this larger self may hereafter become incarnate; so that a complete self shall ultimately emerge and survive as a group of composite of many experiences and memories, each fraction contributing an element of value to the whole. A frustrated or truncated incarnation would then only affect a small portion of the whole composite self, so that if full terrestrial experience were denied to this small portion the deprivation would not be of such great importance. The whole larger self would presumably be the really persistent and growing or evolving entity, though the individuality laboriously grown in each separate portion would certainly be retained, and would contribute its quota of personal experience and memory to the whole. Moreover, it might often feel a strange, inexplicable sympathy with other portions of the larger self to which it belongCd Thc doctrine, I venture to think may be some approximation of the truth. But it is not a subject on which anyone has a right to dogmatise. The business of those who study psychic subjects is gradually to accumulate more evidence, in the hope of ultimately being able to formulate a reasonable working hypothesis, and so lead gradually to a theory consistent with all the facts.