THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3618, 17 July 1923, Page 59

THE SKETCHER.

TRICKS OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND. By the Hon. Airs Alfred Lyttelton, widow of former Colonial Secretary, in the Weekly Despatch. iMrs Lyttelton has aroused widespread interest by consenting to the disclosure of the fact that she is the “Mrs King" whose work as a “medium” has been very highly valued by the Society for Psychical Research. There is no subject in the world about which more nonsense is writeen than psychical research, unless it be spiritualism, which is at once the ancestor and the unacknowledged child of psychical science. The ancestor, because if it had not been for so-called spiritualistic phenomena there would have been no psychical research; the child, because undoubtedly the result of research has fostered the growth of spiritualism. I call modem spiritualism the unacknowledged child of psychical science because, whatever may be the private opinion of those who do the work, officially the Society for Psychical Research has not proclaimed its faith in spirits or in communication with the dead. It is still investigating, collating, and in time will no doubt be able to propound a theory to account for the phenomena which have been brought to its notice in such large quantities. —Field for Research.— Spiritualists, as their very name implies, have burned their boats, and believe under some form or other in a spirit world which occasionally impinges on this one. It is, of course, quite possible and eminently reasonable to be both a psychical researcher and a Spiritualist combined. I mean, you may believe earnestly that comuni cat ion of varying kinds with the dead is possible unconsciously, and sometimes consciously, and yet be aware that beyond there lies an enormous field for inquiry and research. We know nothing yet of the laws which govern these interactions from two planes of being ; w e know nothing of the conditions of any other life but our own, and even these very ini perfectly. And the reason why it is so difficult’ to learn anything about another form of life, if it exist, is that explanations and descriptions have at present to reach us filtered through the material mechanism of psychics, and it is impossib’e to feel sure that the descriptions and messages have not been contaminated by the psychic's mind. It is far more likely that they have, than that they have not, been tampered with, however unconsciously. —Possibilities of Delusion.— I used to think that if I only could write automatically without being conscious, or if only I could go into a trance, I should be able to believe that what I wrote _ came from an intelligence outside myself. Rut I have learned to understand that- no amount of inhibition or suppression of the conscious mind is any guarantee that a message is unaffected bv that mind. I believe that it js the sub-conscious part of our minds which receives these strange impressions, and that it can do so because in an unexplained way it can he reached by telepathy—whatever telepathy may be. It is obviously much more suggestible than the normal mind, it has knowledge and intuitions and memory in far more developed forms; but it is in acute danger without its brother Reason to control it. That is why people are perfectly right to talk about the folly of frequenting mediums and of dabbling in amateur attempts to get into touch with another order of existence. The possibilities of delusion, to say nothing of fraud, are Immense. This strange subconscious mind is like a child with the dramatic sense greatly over developed. I heard a small boy of three the other day describe a thrilling adventure in the park, not one word of which was apparently true. His dramatic sense was at work, and he was dreaming aloud—that was all! If you tell your subliminal or sub-coii-scious mind that you want to get a message from Tom Smith, and if "your subliminal mind, by using its owner's hand, gets control of a ouija board, or a table which.it can tilt, you may be sure it will do its best to produce Tom Smith and invent messages. Sometimes it is clever enough to invent very- characteristic messages which seem convincing. The only real safeguard against delusion is to keep the conscious mind cool and critical, though never hostile, and this is extremely difficult to do when people under the stress of great emotion are struggling to get into communication with those they love who are dead to our sense. - —My “Voices.”— I feel that it is wiser, as a rule, not to attempt, through a medium at first, to get into contact with anyone who is dead, but to try to practise a quiet and Teceptive attitude, and sec whether this will not bring a conviction of presence. If the theory is correct that the subconscious mind is accessible to messages of a different nature than those the conscious mind receives, then it is also probable that in a greater or lesser degree all sub-conscious minds receive them. People talk a great deal about the folly and danger of inhibiting the normal mind, hut they never recognise that there is also folly—yes, and danger—in the constant inhibition of our sub-conscious mind bv the clamorous, fussy interference of question, doubt, and triviality emanating from our conscious mind. Without seelTinsr adventitious aid from professional or other mediums, wliv not give the subconscious mind a chance ?

T will return to that part of the subject, in another article, and try to show how this part of the mind can be used. I only want at the moment to accentuate

the fact that if it is the sub conscious mind which is the medium for communications from another plane of existence, then every single human being is a potential medium.

Nearly everyone has had experience of some kind of extraneous influence. ■ The common phrase, “I don’t know how I came to say—or do—such a thing,” shows its trace. Sometimes the influences seem to be evil, sometimes good, but both to come from outside ourselves. If the theory is correct, they come from the subliminal mind and often from nothing else. Rut since that portion of our mind is open to every sort of impression, it seems sometimes to transmit messages from intelligences which are beyond our, perception. When I was a child, and even as a young woman, I was always laughed at for what I called my “voices.” Knowing what I know now' about various processes, I think that the “voices” generally were nothing but a method of gathering the opinion or knowledge of the subliminal mind. Sometimes I would hear the answer to my question—for in those days I only made use of my “voices” when I was in anxiety or doubt—sometimes I employed a kind of visual code. For instance, if I were in anxiety about someone’s illness, I would close my eyes a.nd wait. If I saw, in my mind’s eye, figures round the bedside of my friend, I would gather from their attitude what his fate was going to be. I do not for one moment mean that, these figures were real, or that I was using any clairvoyant perception. It was merely that in some such way I could get at what, at any rate, my sub-conscious mind thought of the situation. It was not always right, but it certainly saw and felt correctly very often. —Vision and Correction..— The mere fact, however, of a question being asked makes it difficult to get an answer uninfluenced by the thoughts and desires of the conscious mind. So obviously is this true that I hardly ever now consult the sub-conscious mind deliberately, though sometimes it will obtrude its message with real force. Not very' long ago a nurse in which I was interested fell dangerously ill. I tried to send thoughts of strength and courage to her, and I prayed for her to be helped. One evening the doctors and nurses told me there was practically no hope, they did not expect that she would live through the night. I was thinking about her, when all at once I saw with extreme vividness a large empty bed covered with a white sheet, while two misty kind of figures were smoothing it. My heart stood still and I said to myself, “She’s gone. " Then the words “Arise, take up thy bed and walk,” fell —I can use no other word—into my brain, and I felt at once that the intention cf the picture was to show she would recover and leave her bed, and that I had interpreted it wrongly. This turned out to be true, and though she hovered between life and death for several days she did recover completely. —Messages from One’s Self. — I could give numberless instances of this curious kind of correction of one impression by another ; sometimes words explained by a quick mental picture, sometimes, as in the case given, a picture corrected by words. The ancient belief in dreams, and the attempts at their interpretation were probably part of the same kind of process. The subliminal mind has many ways in which it tries to express itself. I could tell many other stories of the emergence of messages from the subliminal mind which have happened to me and to others; some very trivial, some important at all events from a personal point of view. But I am only anxious to express my belief in the constant influence of the sub-conscious mind on the conscious, and, further, mv conviction that the secret of success and happiness in life lies in a right understanding of the powers within us, and a dedication of them to unsilfish ends. A HIGH CALL TO THE CHURCHES. HOW TO TTSF. THEIR GREAT RESERVES OF SPIRITUAL POWER. Lord Haldane, the ex-Lord Chancellor, made a notable speech ?on how the churches might use their great reserves of spiritual strength when they ceased wasting their energies on internal conflicts. He was referring especially to the churches in Scotland, and was addressing the United Free Church Office-bearers’ Association. No Conflict Between Religion and Science.— “ ‘Less and less to day.’ remarked Lord Haldane, ‘do we hear of the conflict between science and religion. There is no such conflict. In the larger outlook of our times the higher the mind rises the wider its survey, the more it is seen that human knowledge points in one direction, a direction which is that of the infinite, and away from the mere limitations of the finite.’ “In these words Lord Haldane has, we think, accurately described the tendency of present day thought,’’ says the Glasgow Herald. “The new world which he envisages with a reasoned optimism born of courage, knowledge, and sympathy, is one that offers wide scope for the spiritual energies of a church that has freed itself from the handicaps of outworn dogmatisms and enfeebling divisions.” • Here are some notable points from Lord Haldane s address : Where Will You Be?— “I have been an observer, close and keenly interested, in the movement which led up to the question of union in Scotland. I am well aware of the difficulties which attend the situation. There are those who sav, and who say with force, ‘Where will you he without that focussing of interest and of passionate concentra-

tion which arose from the possession of the old formulas of which so much is made to-day?’ “Borne might say that the themes for which Chalmers and Cunningham and Candlish fought with the great leaders of the Church of Scotland in those days are themes which are outworn, and all abstract for our time. No doubt the spirit of the period is changed, but I am not one of those who think little of these formulas. They were the symbols of deep conviction on each side; convictions which came into sharp antagonism, but none the less inspired great energy and great power. It was a magnificent period, the period in which those controversies raged, and it was a period which we do well to keep before our minds. This is not an age which brings into prominence great men with the freedom of the time of which I speak, but if we do not produce peaks and pinnacles perhaps the reason is not far to seek. An Age of Democracy.— “Ours is an age in which the level of education and of interest is rising. It is an age of democracy, and if there are fewer peaks and pinnacles the general level is higher. It has brought with it new considerations which we are forced to have before our minds. The problem is changing. Our spiritual forefathers were concerned most with the individual. We, too, are concerned with the individual, but we are also deeply concerned with environment, because to-day we have learned that the individual is nothing apart from the environment, just as the environment is nothing apart from the individual. You cannot dissociate them. The churches are forced to turn their attention away from the doctrinal abstractions to the concrete realities of social life and its surroundings in which those for whom they keep watch and ward have been brought up and influenced. The result is a change in the apparent attitude of to-day. —“More Than He Knows Himself to be.”—“I say apparent because it is always the old problem of how to awaken and keep alive in man a sense of that spark of the divine, to teach the finite individual that he is more than he knows himself to he, and that he is called on to rise above the limits of his finalities. It is an old problem in other words, but just the same problem, notwithstanding the difference of the words. Oniv it has to be approached in another fashion. We have to attack it with full consciousness of the uneven chances that come in this life to men and women—uneven only apparently because the verv hardships and hazards of life are in themselves a stimulus to the turning away from the conditions which satisfy earth and things which are of the eternal. It may be in poverty and sickness the highest may be reachel more easily than amidst luxury and robustness. Spiritual Compensations.— “A great Frenchman published a book on the future of knowledge, in which he said that if you lode at the world’s records you will find the manifestations of genius have come more freely when people have been downtrodden and in misery than when enervated by prosperity. And the moral he draws is that there is far more evenness in human life than you would think. It is in times when thev seem to be downtrodden that genius rises to the highest level. So it is with he work of the church to-day. It’ its ministers go out among the poor and needy they are not by any means going into dark and heathen places, but into places where the response of the human spirit and its sense of infinity is as much to he reached as in the mansions of the rich. It is a new calling for the church, this problem of how to combine social problems with religion. To my mind there is a connection; and if the church is to succeed in its new mission it will have to realise that more and more. Hard Tests for Preachers.—

“Then, in addition, this is a century in which the growth of knowledge has produced new discoveries in science. The remoulding of ideas in philosophy, the researches which are being carried on in all the directions are raising the level of human knowledge and making the test of those who speak and preach a harder test than it has ever been before. Our clergy of the future, in all the denomination, will have to remember that, to recollect that their outlook must be wider and that they must come armed for the task.

“Loss and less to-dav do we hear of the conflict between science and religion. There is no such conflict in the larger outlook of our times. The higher it rises the wider its survey, the. more it is seen that if you take in the whole theme of human knowledge it points in one direction. a direction which is that of the infinite. But if that be so the church has to-dav for its young men a new calling, a new mission in which, though there may not be the prop to lean on of the old formulas, there is a new staff of life put into the hand of the preacher to maintain him in his mission. The union has come not too soon. A Changed Church.— “The idea of the union, which I hope to see accomplished before long time has passed, is an idea which has been forced on us by the changes in the spirit of the age and by the necessities which are pressing on us. The church must enlarge the scope of its mission. It must more and more realise it is not in some different world, hut just here, and now is the place where its enterprise lies: and it must always have in mind that between religious and secular life there is no hard and fast line to be drawn, but that God is everywhere present. “That being so a new call has come which requires a changed church, a church not separated into sections, a church which can combine on this wider outlook of which I have spoken and devote itself with energy undiminished by the demands

of denominational strife to a great calling, a calling not less thitn that of being the chiefest factor in holding up the standard of the highest life. That is why I believe in this union. I thifik it will bring difficulties with it. I 'ihink you will be in danger of seeing a. certain want of the old fire which sprang from the old controversies ; but that will be only for a time, because the new calling and the wider outlook will so open the doors that I hope more and more the barrier between democracy and the church will be broken down.” LIVING ON NOTHING A YEAR HOW IT IS DONE IN AMERICA. Br Sydney Pekcival Eaden, in the Glasgow' Weekly Herald. Living on nothing a year is a pressing, practical, present day problem, the solution of which would call forth undying thanks from the unemployed. Impossible? In Glasgow it may be, but in New York it is regarded by those who practise it as one of the finest of the fine arts. So dependent is the American down-and-out upon the rescue missions of New York, Chicago, and other centres of population that at tlie outset a. brief analysis of these institutions is necessary. For the “hobo’’ and the “mission-stiff,” with whom Jack London has acquainted the English reader, make their living by pandering to the mission halls for their material needs under the cloak of seeking spiritual guidance. So attractive is the life made that thousands of men walk the streets of New \ ork every night in preference to occupying a bed. A Typical Rescue Hall. — The Bowery Mission on the east side of New York is typical of the average rescue hall. It seats 20C0, and is packed to the doors every night in the year. The superintendent occasionally arranges a “slumming” trip with a view to introducing the idle rich to those whom the world deems less fortunate. Invitations are duly despatched to the wives of Fifth Avenue millionaires who delight in the prospect of a new sensation. Upholstered chairs are placed on the platform, liirlier during the appointed day expeiien&d “missionstiffs” are sort out, bribed, and instructed what to say when testimonies are called for. They are planted in various parts of the hall and jump up like so many jacks-in-the-box when, following the singing of some familiar hymns, a short prayer, and a brief address, the call for testimonies is given.

Says one : “Having committed every crime on the calendar short of murder, I was walking down the Bowery, preparatory to committing suicide by jumping from the Brooklyn (Bridge, when I heard the strains of ‘Tell Mother I’ll be There’ come floating through the open mission doorway. As if bv some mystic influence I was drawn inside, and now, through the kindly ministrations of our superintendent, I am a credit to the mission which rescued me, to the city, and to myself.” Other testimonies follow in quick succession. This time, perhaps, it is a Ger-man-American with a sense of humour and an aptitude for briefness. He earns his two dollars very easily, for this is all he says: —“I came down the Bowery looking for butts (cigarette ends), and found the Lord.’’ Sandwiches and coffee are banded round. In the meantime the ultra-rich ladies are glaring through their lorgnettes at this hungry mob, pearls of great price glistening from bejewelled fingers and shimmering robes of silk and satin. The intended climax has now been reached. They are seized with a frenzy of sympathy’ and emotion. A few words from the superintendent about the urgent need for funds, and the psychological moment has arrived] “What a marvellous work Air Hallimond is doing” one is heard to remark, simultaneously pulling out her cheque book and writing down a good round sum. M'Auley’s “Dry Dock.”— Equally well known is the Jerry M'Auley Mission, concerning which a book of deep human interest has been written, entitled “The Dry Dock of a Thousand Wrecks.” It was founded by a river pirate of that name, who became converted. Crude and illiterate, he proved a power for good in this mission close to the waterside. His philosophy, howover, differed from that of the Bowery Mission superintendent, who used to give out supper at the close of the service. M'Auley said : “Hit a man in the stomach with a beef steak and then talk religion.” Fifteen thousand New Yorkers followed his bier to its final resting place. Two other missions of interest are the Midnight Mission and the All-night Mission. At the latter relays of clergymen are engaged every hour from 7 p.m. till 5 a.m., supported by altruistic young ladies who covet the credit of being referred to as “social workers.” This mission is utilised by the submerged entirely for sleeping purposes. “Nicodemus’s” Plan.— Should you ever find yourself in Union Square, at the junction of Broadway and Fifth Avenue, you will encounter a soapbox orator who styles himself “Nicodemus.” He was formerly a bricklayer's labourer, but since taking up the mission business he is reputed to be worth half a million dollars. He cannot speak the King’s English, but that does not matter. . He has organising ability. On the left band side of bis soapbox are 2000 down-and-outs who can, without reference to the words, sing every hymn ever written —the result of long practice. Close by are several luxurious hotels, cafes, grill rooms, and clubs. Wealthy clubmen and hotel pueets come up out of curiosity to scrutinise these men and the soap-box preacher. Nicodemus then reminds them that it is 15 degrees below zero, and that every one of them may be frozen to death before the

morning as they are all without a bed to sleep in. Perhaps 20 dollars is thrown in the ring in answer to this appeal. Then an interesting procedure takes place. The exhod carrier at once counts off 200 men and places them on the right of his soap-box, thus indicating that those men have now received a bed at ten cents a head as the result of the 20 dollars subscribed. He remains there till 12 midnight or later, by which time he has collected enough for ail to have a bed. He then marches them like an army down the Bowery and distributes them among the East side lodg-ing-houses, receiving a commission from the lodging-house proprietors for having provided the lodgers. This is his source of wealth. The Down-ana-out’s Daily Round.— And now to explain what connection the missions have with the problem of living on nothing a year. The best way of doing this is to outline the daily routine of the down-and-out. Commencing- in the evening he goes to any one of the mission halls, ami after sitting through the service receives a corned beef sandwich and a cup of coffee. Leaving there he walks up to the Fleischman breadline at 9th and Broadway, endowed for ail time by a millionaire German baker of that name. There he receives bread and coffee at 1 a.m. He then returns to the all-night mission to sleep. At. daylight he walks uptown to a Roman Catholic convent where he is provided with a free breakfast. Returning at 9 a.m. he is to be seen awaiting a free shave at the Moler Barber School, the barber students, who are learning the trade, being delighted to shave such as he free of charge in order that they may become proficient in their calling. Following this comes the free bath, all Corporation baths in the American cities providing soap, towel, and bath at the taxpayers’ expense for those who cannot pay. Perhaps the down-and-out is of a studious turn of mind. In which case he attends the Cooper Institute, endowed by the late Peter Cooper, philanthropist and leading educator, where he listens to university professors lecturing free of charge upon a diversity of topics. When winter comes in order to save the expense of buying an Overcoat, lie migrates with the birds to California by jumping a freight train and hiding away in a box car as Jack London used to do. Therq he mav be seen lying about in the orange groves around Los Angeles waiting for the oranges to fall—it saves the trouble of picking them. When tired of the Pacific Coast he travels by the same method to Florida, where he revels in the salubrious air of Palm Beach, Tampa Bay, Key West, and Havana, Cuba. Excellent Havanah cigars are almost given away there—cigars which are priced half-a-crdwn on this side of the Atlantic. Each year a Hobos’ Convention is held, usually presided over by a St. Louis millionaire social worker, Mr Eads How. There they discuss the pros and cons of their accepted calling. Roughly, these hobos number 3,000,000 in winter and 5,000.000 in summer. Owing to the vast expanse of railroad lines (4000 miles from east to west) the authorities are quite unable to check this “jumping” of freight trains, though many attempts have been made to do so in various States.