Getting Near the Spirit World.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIII, Issue 2, 14 July 1909, Page 46

Getting Near the Spirit World.

(By Sir Oliver Lodge.)

Like excavators engaged in goring a tunnel from opposite ends, amid the roar of water and other noises, we are beginning to hear, now and again, the strokes of the piekaxes of our comrades on the other side.

The most important set of phenomena brought forth by recent investigations are those of automatic writing and talking.

And what do we find? We find the late Edmund Gurney and the late Richard Hodgson and the late F. W. H. Myers, with some other less known names, constantly purporting to communicate with us with the express purpose of patiently proving their identity, and giving us cross-correspondence between different mediums. We also find them answering specific questions in a manner characteristic of their known personalities, and giving evidence of knowledge appropriate to them.

Not easily or early do we make this admission. In spite of long conversations with what purports to be the surviving intelligence of these friends and investigators, we were by no means convinced of their identity by mere general conversation, even when of a friendly and intimate character such as, in normal cases, would be considered amply and overwhelmingly sufficient for the identification of friends speaking, let us say, through a telephone or a typewriter. We required definite and crucial proof, a proof difficult even to imagine, as well as difficult to supply. The ostensible communicators realise the need of such proof just as fully as we do, and have done their best to satisfy the rational demand. Some of us think they have succeeded; others are still doubtful. Cross-correspondence—that is, the reception of part of a message through another, neither portion separately being

understood by either—is good -.idence of one intelligence dominating both automatists. * ' -

And if the message is characteristic of some one particular deceased person, and is received as such by people to whom he was not intimately known, then it is fair proof of the continued intellectual activity of that person. If, further, we get from him a piece of literary criticism which is eminently in his ”ein, and has not occurred to ordinary people, then I say the proof, already striking, is tending to become crucial.

These are the kinds of proof which the society has had communicated to it. The phenomenon of automatic writing strikes some of us as if it was in the direct line of evolutional advance—seems like the beginnings of a new human faculty. First of all, the evidence led us to realise the truth of telepathy; and that was the first chapter of the new volume that we have set ourselves to explore. I am going to assume, in fact, that our bodies can, under certain exceptional circumstances, be controlled directly, or temporarily possessed, by another or foreign intelligence, operating either on the whole or on some limited part of it. The question lying behind such a hypothesis, and justifying it or negativing it, is the root question of identity—the identity of the control. Some control undoubtedly exists, and, in the cases thought of, it is not the normal consciousness of the person owning the body -—of that every one who knows anything about the matter is quite certain. Some of the most convincing tests of spirit identity have been made through the mediumship of Mrs. Piper, of Boston, whose fame has spread in all lands, and who has been under strict supervision and competent management over the greater part of her psychical life. This question of identity is, of course, a fundamental one. The controlling spirit proves his identity mainly by reproducing in speech or writing, facts which belong to his memory, and not to the automatist’s memory. And notice that proof of identity will usually depend on the memory of trifles. The objection raised that communications too often relate to trivial subjects

shows a lack of intelligence, or, at of due thought, on the part of the critfc. Out object is to get, not something dig* nified, but something evidential; anti what evidence of persistent memory cad be better than the recollection of trifl-* ing incidents which, for some personal reason, happen to have made a permanent impression?

Do we not ourselves remember domes!tie trifles more vividly than things which, to the outside world, seem important? Wars and coronations are affairs read of in newspapers—they are usually far too public to be of use aS evidence of persistent identity; but a broken toy, or a family joke, or a school-* boy adventure has a more personal flavour, and is more likely to be remembered in dreams and second childishness, or when the major consciousness is suspended.

In fiction this is illustrated continually. Take the ease of identification of the dumb and broken savage, apparently an Afghan prowler, in “The Man Who Was.” What was it that opened the eyes of the regiment, to which he had crawled back from Siberia, to the fact that twenty years ago he was one of themselves?

The knowledge of a trick catch in a. regimental flower vase, the former position of a trophy on the wall, and the smashing of a wine glass aftter a loyal toast. That is true to life. It is probably true to death also. This is the kind of evidence which we ought to expect, and That is true to life. It is probably true to death also. This is the kind of evidence which we ought to expect, and that is the kind of evidence which, not infrequently, we get.