LIFE IN NEXT WORLD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20296, 2 July 1929, Page 14

LIFE IN NEXT WORLD.

SIR OLIVER LODGE'S VIEWS. NO GREAT CHANGE EXPECTED. [from our own correspondent.] LONDON, May 0. " Perhaps (ho next world is not the remotely dignified, continually religious place we have been inclined to think it," said Sir Oliver Lodge, in an address given under the auspices of tho Society for Psychical Research. " All tho gloom and blackness associated with it, as well as all tho blazing brightness, may be inappropriate." Briefly, Sir Oliver's contention is that tho recognition of ether a-*, the tertiuni quid can correlate the two. " The problem of mind and matter," ho said, " will not be solved until wo bring tho ether into account." Matter, lie said, did not act on matter direct; it acted through the ether. Psychicists were not so far from orthodox science as was supposed; and he himself was convinced not only of psychic survival, but also of demonstrated survival, by occasional interaction with matter in such it way as to produ .'c physical results. Sir Oliver admitted that tho bounds of science would have to bo enlarged and that human activities would have to bo taken into'account by scientists if the difliculty of formulating the spiritualistic hypo thesis in a scientific manner were to be j overcome. We did not yet fully understand tho phenomenon of weight and gravitation, lie added; and yet we accepted them. Similarly, although exact knowledge as to the agency of psychical manifestations was lacking, that was not a reason for denying their scientific existence. "Ask a scientist what is a magnetic field," he said. "He can talk a lot and write a lot, but he cannot really explain it." "I believo," Sir Oliver continued, " that we are immortal spirits in temporary association with matter; and that it is through (his bodily isolation that wo beonmo individuals and acquire a personality able to adjust itself to new surroundings." All tho evidence was that the next world was not very different from this. Whoever it- was who produced that world, produced this. " I seo no reason to suppose that any existence in tho future will seem to us entirely different. In so far as we remain ourselves we may expect other things to remain much the same too. I do not expect to he much surprised when I get there. I think it will bo equally real and equally substantial, freer and less hampered, but not greatly different."