COMMUNICATION BEYOND THE TOMB.

Otago Witness, Issue 2849, 21 October 1908, Page 81

COMMUNICATION BEYOND THE TOMB.

When it comes to proof of surviving existence and of memory beyond the tomb we are bound to discount the witness of any thing. that i« in our own minds, or, as some think, in the mind of any living person. Thus is. the difficulty of incontrovertible proof of identity enormously increased. EVen when the evidence enables a hidden, tiring to be discovered, of which no one living possessed the secret — as i» Swedenborg's discovery of the dead burgomaster's private papers— deferred telepathy issoxnetimas adduced as preferable., to wiiat must then «eem to most, as it Hid* to Swedenborg, the only rational explanation. How, then, x:an we ever, by any means, hope to prove identity? I reply: — (a) By cross-correspondence. (b) By information or criteria characteristic of the supposed intelligence, and if possible in com© sense new to the world. Cross-correspondence^ — that is, the reception of part of a message through* one medium and part through another — is good evidence of one intelligence dominating both automatists. And if the message is characteristic of some one particular, deceased person, and is received through people to whom he was not intimately known, then it is fair proof of the continued intellectual activity of that personality. If. further, we get from him a piece of literary criticism which is eminently in his vein, and has not occurred to ordinary people — not to either of the medium?, and not oven U the literary world — l>ut which on consideration is appreciated as sound as well as characteristic criticism, showing a familiar and wide knowledge of the poetry of many ages, and unifying apparently disconnected passages m some definite way, then I 6ay tne proof, already striking, would tend to become crucial. These, then, are the kinds of proof at which the society is ahning.So long as communications consisted of general conversations with what purported to be the surviving intelligence of certain JrienAi md investigators, wo were by no meaav. convinced of their identity, ev^en though the talk was of a friendly and intimaie character — such as in normal cases, would be considered amply and overwhelmingly sufficient for the identification of friends speaking, let us cay, through a telephone or a typewriter. "We required definite and crucial proof — a, proof dim cult even- to imagine, as well as difficult to .supply. The ostensible communicators realise the n-eed of such proof just as fully as we do, and are doing their best to satisfy the rational demand. Some of us think they have already succeeded : others are etill doubtful. On the whole, I am of those who, though thfy won VI lik? to s»o fu:'>er and still stronger and moTe 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 rersons may in the best casc6 fur^rve™? ; amid a mare of supplementary material, quite natui;<>l under the circumstances, but mostly of a presumably subliminal and less evident kind. — Sir Oliver Lodge in Harper's Magazine.

The cough that is contract-ed in the winter, and which continues through tho spring and summer, nearly always indicates some throat or lung trouble, and should not be neglected. The ordinary cough medicine may soothe the throaf. but it has not the power to h«al. Recovery is not complete, and a ' second attack is more liable to follow. You cannot get a better medicine for oough6 of this d-e scription than Chamberlain's Cough Remedy. Chamberlain's Cough Remedy is an excellent medicine for all throat ahd lung trouble, for it not only soothes tho irritation, but it heals the affected parts, and leaves them in suoli a healthy condition that the danger of a second attack iB removed. Tor eate eye.rjty.bere.