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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE
AND CHRISTIANITY
A Problem of the XXth Century
BY
E. KATHARINE BATES
AUTHOR OF "SEEN AND UNSEEN"
LONDON
T. WERNER LAURIE
CLIFFORD'S INN
EujO.
PSYCfi.
LIBRARY
DEDICATION
to those dear relations and friends
in the " Unseen"
(G. G., C. E. B., G. E. and R. H.)>
WHOSE LOVING SYMPATHY
HAS ENCOURAGED ME TO WRITE THIS BOOK,
I DEDICATE IT
WITH GRATEFDL AFFECTION.
CONTENTS
Introduction .....
PART I.
CHAP.
I. Theology — Ancient and Modern
II. Some Clerical Difficulties
III. A New Cycle
IV. Our New Continent
V. Science and Religion .
VI. A Summary .
PART II.
VII. Spiritualism — Its Use and Abuse
VIII. Occult and Otherwise
IX. Automatic Writing — Its Use and
X. On Some Misconceptions
XI. The Bridge of Ether .
XII. In Conclusion
Abuse
PAGE
vii
i
•5
32
45
60
74
93
in
126
160
178
197
/'
01579
Build thee more stately mansions, oh, my Soul !
As the swift seasons roll ;
Leave thy low-vaulted Past,
Let each new Temple, loftier than the last,
Shut thee from Heaven, with a dome more vast ;
Till thou at length art free ;
Leaving thine outgrown shell, by Life's unresting Sea"
From " The Chambered Nautilus."
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Yet if it be that something not thy own,
Is even to thy unworthiness made known,
Thou mayst not hide, what yet thou shouldst not dare
To utter lightly, lest on lips of thine,
The real seem false — the beauty undivine.
So, weighing duty in the scale of prayer,
Give what seems given thee — it may prove a seed
Of Goodness, dropped in fallow grounds of need."
J. G. Whittier.
INTRODUCTION
Desperate diseases need desperate remedies.
The time has surely come when silence on
certain subjects is no longer discreet and ad-
visable, but absolutely criminal.
" If meat make my brother to offend, I will
eat no more flesh while the world standeth/'
said St Paul in one of his moments of magni-
ficent self-surrender.
Perhaps we have quoted this text sometimes
too liberally ; as an excuse for our silence, as
well as a reason for our discretion. There is
a time for all things : a time for silence and a
time for speech ; a time for discreet reserve,
and a time for speaking out — and speaking
boldly — even at the risk of offending some of
our " brothers' ' and sisters.
A man once passed an artist who was work-
ing in the midst of splendid mountain scenery.
He saw him put down his brushes, get up, and
step slowly backwards, the better to judge of
vii
INTRODUCTION
the effect of his work. Absorbed in this, the
artist had forgotten the precipice behind him,
and was quietly stepping further and further
back, to get just the right light upon his
picture.
The stranger, grasping the situation and
realising that a word of warning would only
precipitate the calamity, seized one of the artist's
paint-brushes and, with great presence of mind,
daubed the paint over the beautiful picture
which had cost him so many hours of patient
work. The latter naturally sprang forward to
save his beloved picture and to punish the
" wicked outrage," and was himself saved from
a hideous death.
The Churches have built up a beautiful
picture, founded on tradition, both true and
false, as to our Lord's life and mission ; true
and false because the groupings in the picture
do not always harmonise, but are often indirect
contradiction, the one to the other.
The noble lines of the most divine Life
ever lived are all there — easily filled in by the
devout and reverent soul. Our Lord said
INTRODUCTION
quite enough of Himself and of His mission
to give the true idea of both. That accretions
and additions should be found, due to the
necessary limitations or the inherited prejudices
of His recorders, must be true of any book,
however sacred, that has not dropped from the
skies, with leather binding and gilt edges com-
plete. The critic may say, " What right have
you to take certain records and reject others ?
You must take all or reject all."
I do not think this is a reasonable remark,
although of course it is a very general one, and
for many centuries has effectually silenced all
criticism.
When a beautiful, holy and consistent char-
acter is portrayed for us — when such teachings
as the Lord's Prayer and the Sermon on the
Mount are given to us in the name of Jesus of
Nazareth — then I think we have a perfect right
to reject any interpolations that contradict the
spiritual simplicity of these precepts, and to
courageously declare that we stand by our
Lord's teachings as a whole, and not by every
text in which they have been conveyed to us.
INTRODUCTION
It is "the letter that killeth. ,> How many
stock arguments have been used by superficial
critics, anxious to belittle a character too far
above their spiritual apprehension ?
We are continually told that Jesus of Naza-
reth was hard, indifferent and wanting in rever-
ence for His parents and in sympathy with
their natural anxiety about Him ; as, for ex-
ample when He was lost to them for three days
and found at last in the Temple.
It is by clinging to the letter whilst rejecting
the spirit, that all these absurdities have been
made possible : misapprehensions on the part
of His friends, and futile criticisms (such as
the one just quoted) on the part of His foes —
foes only through lack of spiritual perception.
The clerical world as a whole, both in
Anglican and Roman Catholic communities, is
stepping backwards instead of forwards, admiring
its own handiwork in the Past, so absorbed over the
details of its craft that it is absolutely blind to the
fact that a few more steps will bring it to the brink
of the precipice.
If it is not to be Spiritual Evolution in the
INTRODUCTION
Churches, then it will most certainly be
Spiritual Revolution outside of them! Is it not
time for all those who know that this accurately
describes the present crisis to come forward
boldly and attempt to save the situation, even
though this can only be done by becoming a
cause of offence to many ?
Some day we shall be judged more justly
and therefore more leniently.
It is a small matter that we shall then be
beyond the judgment of men.
E. KATHARINE BATES.
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND
CHRISTIANITY
PART I
CHAPTER I
THEOLOGY ANCIENT AND MODERN
In all thoughtful lives there must be critical
moments — revealing moments, when a new
truth flashes across our mental screen or an
old truth takes on sinews and flesh and the
breath of life comes into the dry bones, as in
the valley of Ezekiel's vision, and that special
truth lives for us for the first time in our
experience.
These revealing moments appear to come
to us " out " of the blue," but it is not
so in reality. For long months — often
for long years — the seed has been lying
and germinating under the soil of our sub-
conscious being, and then comes at last the
A
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
critical moment when it is strong enough and
sufficiently developed to push aside its old
environment and emerge into the sunshine of
the upper air. These moments come to the
individual and they come also to the Race.
It seems to many good and earnest and
capable men and women that such a racial
moment has now arrived. It is impossible any
longer to ignore that push from the heavy
superincumbent soil into the light of day.
The only question now is, How shall we deal
with it ?
" Crush it down by all means — at any cost"
has been the cry of many in past years. " 7/
is a poisonous weed — not a healthy and edible
plant — ignore it or crush it. We will have none
of this insidious poison in our well-ordered garden
plots"
But if the time is past when such growths
can be ignored, it is equally past when such
growths can be crushed. Root out the green
shoots in one place — they will inevitably crop
up in still greater force and number in a dozen
other spots.
To drop metaphor, new truths are coming
into the world, and the burning question for
all of us is no longer whether we can go on
ignoring and crushing them. Experience has
THEOLOGY— ANCIENT AND MODERN
surely proved by this time the futility of
either course ? No ! What we need to find
is some means of readjusting the old bottles to
the new wine.
Now I think hitherto we have been doing
the best we knew in the way of patching up
these old bottles, and trying to make them
capable of holding the strong, new wine that is
being poured into them daily, both by Science
and by what has been clumsily designated as
the New Theology.
The attempt to accommodate the old to the
new, and to squeeze the new into the old is in
its way praiseworthy, and was almost inevitable
under recently past conditions. There is, in
fact, an evolutionary instinct involved. We
feel that there must be no gaps — no violent
break in the chain of events, either mental or
physical, and this tinkering up of the old to
receive the new is proof of this very sound
instinct. I venture to think, however, that we
have rather overdone matters in this direction.
We have been so busy in assuring people
that nothing essential is lost ; in stretching
texts to cover new conceptions of truth ; in an
almost Spartan pulling out or chopping off
process, in the wild attempt to fit new facts
into old sockets, that we have not always
3
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
taken time to notice the real outcome of our
laudable endeavours.
Now I think one result has been that
orthodox people feel, and quite rightly feel,
that they have not been treated fairly. Dust
has been thrown in their eyes, but after a
short period of bewildered vision they have
washed it out, and are prepared to affirm with
imperturbable decision that nothing has been
really altered by our explanations and ingeni-
ous suggestions — that the Bible says one thing
and we say another, and pretend that the two
are really one, looked at from the proper
angle. Such persons may have honestly tried
to be open-minded, but the end of it is that
they feel they have been hoodwinked, that sym-
bolism and analogy have been played for all
they are worth, and that the result has been
complete failure, so far as they themselves are
concerned, and a failure accompanied by quite
unnecessary mental and spiritual confusion,
forced upon them by our methods. Black is
black and white is white, and although you
may get some shades of grey by mixing up
the two, it is useless to contend that the grey
and the original black, or the grey and the
original white, are identical
I have great sympathy for those amongst
THEOLOGY— ANCIENT AND MODERN
the orthodox who feel that they have been
unfairly treated in this way. Our intentions
have been good, but I think our methods have
often been extremely bad. We have taken
texts and given them a symbolical meaning
when it suited our purpose, and we have taken
texts and given them a literal meaning when that
suited our purpose. The fact that the purpose
itself has been an excellent one, i.e., to reconcile
old texts with new truths, does not affect the
question except so far as motive is concerned.
It was perhaps the only possible method
some years ago, by which to avoid the un-
doubted disasters attending all iconoclastic
movements. But ever-increasing light has
been thrown upon many matters since then,
and I do not think it is any longer honest to
fool ourselves or to attempt to fool others into
the belief that the Evangelists and the Apostles
said one thing, but that they really intended
all the time to convey an entirely different
meaning — often a contradictory one — and that
exaggerated Eastern symbolism, plus types and
analogies, will cover the whole ground.
They will not, and I think the sooner we
are honest enough to admit this, the better
both for ourselves and for those we may
endeavour to teach.
5
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
That Christ's personal teaching should have
come down to us so practically intact, so little
stained by the orthodox beliefs of the
" milieu " in which He lived, is proof positive
of the Divine Spirit brooding over the work of
His recorders. But apart from this, we have
numerous examples of the " stained - glass "
element which accompanies, more or less, all
inspirational or automatic writing of the
present day. We have had volumes written to
try and prove that the disciples did not look
forward to a speedy and almost immediate
second coming of their Lord to reign in
majesty upon the earth. What does it all
amount to? Is anyone really convinced by
these ingenious suggestions? Has not the
time come when it is truer and therefore wiser
to acknowledge that the same difficulties which
all psychics experience in keeping the channel
unstained by the personality, must have affected
these recorders also ; in a lesser degree, doubt-
less, because we must believe that a book with
such a mission would have very special guardian-
ship. But the writers were human as ourselves,
and liable to make mistakes with the best of
us.
I do not wish to plead for a broader theology.
We have that, thank God. Scarcely any edu-
6
THEOLOGY— ANCIENT AND MODERN
cated man nowadays would get up in his
pulpit or on any public platform to preach or
teach the old crude horrors of a physical
and eternal Hell — terms which are in them-
selves mutually destructive. For how could a
Hell of physical flames and physical torture be
everlasting ? The very idea is absurd in a
scientific age. As an old Scotch lady said to
me once in New Zealand — not intending to be
blasphemous, I am quite sure — "Why, my
dear, if you come to think of it, it is impos-
sible ! Either it would kill us, or it wouldn't
kill us. If we were put out of existence it
wouldn't matter to us, and if we were not,
why then, we should be bound to get used to
it in time" I quote this to show the very
bathos to which such teaching must lead, so
soon as our mental conceptions are ahead of it,
and so soon as we have learnt to think.
I have heard my friend, the late Dr Alfred
Williams Momerie say more than once to his
congregation : €t My dear friends, I'm afraid
you really must think. I am extremely sorry
for you, because I know how you hate thinking,
and it is a nuisance sometimes, but I see no
way of avoiding it. I cannot do the thinking
for you."
The fact is, many of us don't think and
7
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
won't think, simply because we are afraid to
contemplate where it must leave us.
We know now that we have only exchanged
a physical Hell, of endless and impossible
torture, for a very real Hell, which begins here
and now, so soon as we become sensitive
enough to realise it, and will continue just as
long as we live in separation from and antagon-
ism to, the Divine Source of our being, whose
presence with us spells Love and Life Eternal,
and whose absence means Darkness and Hate
and Separation and Remorse.
An old friend of mine, one of our greatest
Mutiny heroes, who was more terribly wounded
than almost any other man who has lived to
tell the tale, said to me once when I was quite
a young girl : a How much more terriblef
mental suffering may be than physical, and
yet how little sympathy one receives with the
former as compared with the latter ! " He
continued : "When I was cut to pieces out in
India, everyone was full of sympathy and good-
ness to me. Yet I have suffered infinitely
more in my mind and spirit, and no one has
shown the slightest sympathy."
There are two obvious reasons for this,
which I was too inexperienced in my school-
days to suggest. One is, of course, that
8
THEOLOGY— ANCIENT AND MODERN
mental scars don't show as physical wounds
generally do, and the other that many people
have not yet reached the point where they
themselves are capable of any deep mental and
spiritual suffering. But the words made a
deep impression upon me at the time, and they
occur to me now in connection with the
orthodox Hell, and the modern conception of
spiritual separation and remorse. Many, in
the terrible grip of the latter, might also be
inclined to think that any physical suffering
would be a relief from the spiritual torture.
That which makes even a spiritual Hell
impossible from the point of view of Retribu-
tion rather than Reformation, is the undoubted
fact that only the most spiritually advanced,
and therefore what we should call " the best "
people, are capable of realising such a Hell at
all. The sensualist, the materialist, the man
of crude and cruel impulses, would be proof
(either in this sphere or any other) against the
gnawing of remorse, or the agony of separation
from the more divine part of his nature ;
which is obviously at present a sealed book to
him.
Therefore we are at once confronted by
the awkward fact that only the most highly
organised and sensitive people can ever be in
9
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
the most acute form of spiritual Hell, whereas
the least developed and most wicked men and
women would live in a sort of base material
Heaven of their own, absolutely protected from
all spiritual suffering when once they have left
the theatre of their evil deeds, where material
penalties might reach them. These two states
suggest little difficulty when looked at from
the evolutionary point of view, for they are
obvious and inevitable.
" The wicked man " may hug his base
Heaven to his breast for centuries or even
aeons, but some day the turning-point must
come ; if only because Evil has no life in
itself, and is only galvanised into temporary
life by its victims. When that day comes —
no matter where or when — then Hell begins
for the emerging soul, and will continue until
the purging process is complete.
We sometimes hear people talk about the
" New Theology " as a sign of the times —
of the lazy, luxurious, selfish, motor-car times!
" They even want to get rid of Hell, with
their nasty, selfish, luxurious ways."
I have actually heard this said. It
seemed to me just a step in advance of
the more general remark of a few years ago,
which has been addressed to me personally
IO
THEOLOGY— ANCIENT AND MODERN
many times : Oh y then if you don't believe in
Hell, why should we not all be as wicked as
we like ? "
The last time this was said to me, I felt
justified in answering the lady thus :
" If that is really your view of the matter,
I am thankful that you do believe in a physical
Hell ; and what you say shows me that,
repugnant as the idea is to most progressive
minds,rthe old orthodox teaching has had its^**/wc'<
uses from the police-office point of view." d£t *»&&■*£
Then again with regard to the old beliefs 2M- cidJy t
in the Atonement as a Blood sacrifice to (J^Aa €*&
propitiate an angry God whose laws had been
broken. I remember when I was quite a
tiny child, with possibly a fairly logical head
on very small shoulders, how that question
of the Atonement worried and perplexed me.
At times it seemed quite clear that only my
own wicked obstinacy and stupidity prevented
my being absolutely satisfied with the explana-
tions given me on the subject. But at other
moments something stronger than myself
seemed to rebel and to say, " No ! it isn't
clear, and it isn't fair, and all the faith in the
world won't make it clear, any more than it
could make two and two equal five.'' The
puzzle for me was this : I was told in the
ii
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
Bible and in church that Jesus Christ had
died to save us and that God had promised
Him every soul in the human race as a
consequence of and reward for His death
upon the cross. Then again I was told that
a great many people would not be saved,
because they would die without performing
some act of faith or being converted — what-
ever that might exactly mean — a process at any
rate which appeared a very dim chance, so
far as I was personally concerned. Even at
seven or eight years of age I had tried hard —
and often succeeded — in working up some
kind of religious emotion, which made me
hope that this mysterious " conversion " might
some day take place — but it never did. One
was always naughty again under normal
temptations, and the exalted mood passed
and left a poor, little, lonely child, with no one
to confide in, and with less and less hope
of this mysterious event taking place in her
life. Then despair and depression gave way
to honest childish indignation. It was all so
horribly unfair ! What nonsense it was to
talk about God's promise to His Son that
every single human soul should be saved, and
then this mysterious f - belief and conversion "
were smuggled in somehow, to account for
12
THEOLOGY— ANCIENT AND MODERN
so many people having to go to Hell on
account of their flagrant sins and wickedness !
It may sound very blasphemous, but I am sure
a great many more children of a thoughtful
turn, used to worry and perplex themselves
over such questions than any of the <c grown-
ups " realised. Again I say, " Thank God ! "
that however selfish and materialistic we may
be nowadays, the poor little children at least
have no such heavy burdens to bear. At
eight years of age I could have provided
material for another Cry of the Children,
from some such point of view, had Mrs
Barrett Browning been available to put it
into words for me. And how many of the
children of those days might say the same !
Now that the hideous old dogma of the
Atonement has merged by slow degrees into
the beautiful and inspiring doctrine of the
At-onement, through the fruition and the
example of the One perfect human life lived
upon earth, a life which must needs lead those
who can be inspired by it into still closer conscious
union with the Source of their being, have we
not reason to rejoice in the grand example
given to us of the continuity of Evolution ?
As in the physical world, inferior forms are
always being replaced by superior organisa-
13
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
tions, so we can trace — even within the last
thirty or forty years —how the crude and
often cruel dogmas of the past have been ever
tending towards higher forms of Belief and
nobler conceptions of Truth. Some great
truth has lain at the basis of all these crude
theological ideas, just as the protoplasm and
the amoeba have lain at the basis of all
organised human life. We don't hold that
protoplasm and those earliest forms of life
in contempt, if we are normal and intelligent
beings — we acknowledge our debt to them,
and this is just what I think we ought to do
with regard to the beliefs and dogmas of
earlier centuries. They have been, after all,
a sort of theological protoplasm, which has
formed the basis for our spiritual life, without
which the latter, so far as we know, might
not have been possible to our slowly evolving
consciousness. That many men and women
would disown such indebtedness has little
significance. It simply means that they are
taking short and strictly personal views of
a very big subject, and prefer to ignore the
unity of all life, physical and spiritual, and the
links by which they are held in the great
universe of Spirit, as well as in the great
universe of physical conditions.
14
CHAPTER II
SOME CLERICAL DIFFICULTIES
A revolution in the domain of religious
thought, as radical, as far-reaching and, per-
haps, even more important than the revolution
in astronomy connected with the name of
Copernicus, has set in. It has practically
taken place within the memory of many
living men and women, in fact during the
last fifty years. The first feeble notes of pro-
test were sounded when the once famous
volume of Essays and Reviews was published.
That seems such a far-away cry, that it is
almost difficult to realise that our well-known
Mafeking hero, General Baden- Powell, is the
son of one of the chief contributors to that
well-known and much-abused book. Some
years ago I was crossing the Atlantic with
Mr Warrington Baden- Powell (another of the
professor's sons), and we chanced upon this
subject of Essays and Reviews. I said to him :
" It is years since I read the book, but I
suppose now it would be considered quite
15
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
mildly unorthodox, compared with later litera-
ture of the same kind ? "
" Dear me, yes," he replied, laughing. " I
should go further than that, and say it would
be considered a quite mildly orthodox con-
tribution to religious thought in the present
day." Yet the authors were Anathema
Maranatha for many years, after this early
indiscretion, although one of them, as we all
know, lived to be Archbishop of Canterbury.
Then came poor Bishop Colenso, who was
howled down by an infuriated mob of religious
enthusiasts for his sinful arithmetical calcula-
tions touching the Levitical books of the Bible.
I remember as a child thinking that he must
be a terribly wicked man if he deserved half
the abuse that was poured upon him so freely
in my presence.
/ was brought up as a child in the strongly
Calvinistic section of the Church of England,
and later in what used to be called the religious-
aristocratic world ; but the essential doctrines
were much the same in High Church as Low
Church. The chief difference lay in the more
or less ornate form of the services and in the
fact that the High Church clergymen being
often men of more culture and education than
their Evangelical brothers, were less addicted
16
SOME CLERICAL DIFFICULTIES
to " pulpit thumping " and the sensational
methods and lurid descriptions which were
sometimes summed up graphically as the " fire-
and-faggot " style of oratory.
There were many good, earnest and kind-
hearted men amongst them ; as also amongst
the High Church party, and in those days all
were equally happy in one important particular.
Nothing very essential had happened to shake
their faith, to rouse awkward questions, to
suggest difficulties — in a word to make them
think. Essays and Reviews and Colenso's em-
barrassing numerical calculations, were but as
voices crying in the wilderness, which made
the warm nests of the orthodox Christians
appear more cosy and desirable than ever by
contrast. Faith in " Revealed Truth " was
the test of all goodness ; I had almost said of
all morality. Certainly good deeds, and even
character, without this special faith, were
scarcely considered respectable, and most cer-
tainly not admirable.
It has been said that Truth is always born
in a manger and reared in fear of Herod.
The Herod of the mid- Victorian days took
the colour of social degradation and disabilities,
and very often of unmerited and cruel abuse.
Even good, kind people, who would not
b 17
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
have injured a free - thinking acquaintance
physically for all the world, were much too
free-speaking in their condemnation, and the
opprobrious terms "Infidel" and "Atheist/'
too often hurtled through the social atmosphere
— winged arrows dipped in gall.
We have changed all that — again, thank
God ! We have learned some respect for the
opinions of honest men, even when these differ
from our own in religious matters.
Thanks to the early pioneers of whom
mention has been made, men have learnt to
think, to question, to realise that God asks
for an intelligent love, not for grovelling
adoration or a faith born of wilful ignorance.
f How can He who is All Truth fear Truth ?
Then why should we, His children, do so, and
think to curry favour by such an attitude ?
The apotheosis of ignorance is past, but there
are many difficulties still in the path of any in-
telligent clergyman who has thought for himself,
reverently and yet courageously, and would fain
make his flock do likewise, if he dared !
I think clergymen nowadays receive scant
sympathy for what is, in fact, an extraordinarily
difficult position. I am not speaking of the
seventy or eighty per cent, who have taken
orders without experiencing the slightest diffi-
18
SOME CLERICAL DIFFICULTIES
culty in doing so, or in subscribing to the
Thirty-nine Articles and anything else included
in the doctrine of the Church of England.
Some of these may be so saturated by tradition
and custom that their minds are incapable of
facing facts which would seem to throw the
smallest doubt upon any of their cherished
beliefs. Others have what I should call com-
fortable consciences, and their mentality is
non-inflammable. It is fire-proof, so far as
Science, Literature and Philosophy are con-
cerned, when such subjects menace their
religious tenets. (These latter have been
settled once for all.) Many are excellent
men, doing most valuable work, and enabled
to do it with a cheerful heart, owing to the
very limitations of their outlook.
But then we come to the twenty per cent. —
have I put the figure high enough for these
days ? — who cannot look upon things from
this comfortable standpoint.
They have minds that must be fed — that
cry out for food as persistently as their bodies
do. Unfortunately for themselves these minds
are acute and analytical. It is impossible for
them to accept scientific conclusions when they
concern chemical combinations or other facts
of physics, and to reject them when they
19
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
speak with just as certain a voice regarding the
approximate age of man on this earth, or the
sun standing still whilst Joshua finished his
battle, and a dozen other matters where
modern knowledge and ancient tradition are
hopelessly divorced from one another.
We are very quick to denounce such men —
to gloat over their supposed hypocrisy — to
condemn their subservience to the loaves and
fishes, and we often speak with hard and
unsympathetic impatience of what they ought
to do : " The fellow has no right to stand
up in church and read or preach what he
doesn't believe, and what he knows nobody
else believes nowadays ! He has no right to
take money from a State Church to which he
is no longer absolutely faithful in his inner-
most heart. He swallowed the Thirty-nine
Articles and everything else necessary when he
took orders. If he was too young to know
what he was doing then, and if he is old enough
now to know better, he should be man enough
to say so. He ought to resign a living that he
can no longer conscientiously retain."
This sounds very specious, and no doubt
has some truth in it. On the other hand,
how would these critics act themselves under
similar circumstances ? Probably on the same
20
SOME CLERICAL DIFFICULTIES
lines as the man whom they reproach. He
may very justly say, "It is not as if I alone
rejected some of the Articles or Creeds in
which I have declared my belief. There is
probably not a thinking member of my con-
gregation who believes them all literally, and .
if we are allowed to take some things literally
and others symbolically, there is elbow-room
enough in the Church for all of us, preachers
and congregation alike.
" The Prayer-book certainly is out of date
lamentably in certain respects and needs revision
as much as the Bible did. If the authorities
refuse to give us this relief, well, then we all
suffer alike and must make the best of it for
the time being. The clergyman and the con-
gregation are both repeating occasionally, words
which don't represent to them positive truth,
unless indeed these have been twisted and
distorted from the obvious original meanings.
You might just as well say that the congrega-
tions ought to march out of church and refuse
to return until their Prayer-books have been
brought up to date ! Moreover, I am earning
my living honestly, so far as my work in the
parish is concerned. I can visit the sick and
help the poor and comfort the miserable and
get up innocent amusements in the parish for
21
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
those who would otherwise be thrown upon
the public-houses and less innocent forms of
diversion. All this must be taken into account.
/"Lastly, I have a duty also to my wife and
I family — these are obligations which I have
incurred, and which, as a man of honour, as
well as a husband and father, I must discharge.
6u Qiml What avenues are open to an ex-parson who
has given up his orders ? Moreover, I don't
GUQULm— want to give up my orders. I feel that the
* II life is suited to me and I to it. Am I to
throw everything over because I cannot at
heart wholly subscribe to the antiquated
dogmas and forms through which I received
my ordination ? If I were a man of sufficient
private means I might see things differently
and be prepared for the sacrifice of a congenial
profession, which would only touch myself, and
not bring my wife and family to penury. But
in any case I consider my present position
justified, when judged by common-sense and
common honesty, and not by carping critics."
I have put my own words into the mouth of
my imaginary parson, but I believe a great
many are thinking and acting upon some such
line of reasoning, whether consciously or un-
consciously. And I think there is a great deal
to be said for it. I remember the late Dr
22
SOME CLERICAL DIFFICULTIES
Momerie found great relief from the fact that
o
his own ordination had taken place when he was
no longer required to subscribe to the doctrines
but to the doctrine of the Church of England.
I confess this seemed to me always rather a
quibble, but it afforded him much satisfaction.
When clever and capable men are reduced to
this sort of argument, surely the time has come
to face facts boldly, ^nd bring our theology up
to date ? ^
Science has had to reconsider and readjust
her facts again and again. When the older
theories concerning light and heat were
upset, and the modern bouleversement of
scientific opinion as regards motion and matter
took place, the situation was not met by any
obstinate forcing of old text-books on to
young students. Why should not the same
argument hold good concerning theology ?
"The two subjects are not analogous," I
hear someone say. But that is just the initial
mistake. They are analogous. It is we who
have made the water-tight compartments for
theological science. Theology claims the
Bible as a divine or rather the divine revela-
tion. (Science has an equal right to claim
Nature as a divine revelation, and a really
more reliable one in many ways, since her
23
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
credentials are ever with us, in Spring,
Summer, Autumn and Winter, renewed day
by day, and teaching to all but blind eyes and
deaf ears the beautiful lessons which our Lord
drew from Nature so continually. (These
lessons do not depend upon oral or written
tradition nor on the uncertain memory of
man. ^ Neither can they be falsified nor lost,
nor burnt, nor destroyed for us in any way.
Our Lord seldom referred to books or records,
but again and again He bade us find our
lessons, our inspiration and our wisdom, in
Nature. The methods of our Lord Jesus
Christ were directly opposed to the isolation
system which men have set up between
Nature and God — between the science of
Nature and the science of God. After all,
science only means knowledge — the knowledge
of God's laws, so far as we have gone in
experience of them. Science per se is not
the big, black, relentless bogie that most of
us seem to conceive, and to dress up in frock-
coat and spectacles and a sniffy and rather
superior way of talking to, and generally
snubbing us ! That is our conception of
Science as it too often materialises for us,
but it is a very narrow and limited conception
of a very big Truth, and Jesus knew this
24
SOME CLERICAL DIFFICULTIES
Truth and was not afraid of it. For Him
it was the Father's Truth, to be traced in the
fields and amongst the flowers as much as
anywhere else in His Father's Kingdom.
Why should it not be the same for us ?
Why must we have ecclesiastical bogies as well
as scientific bogies, when the truth above both
of them is so impersonal, so simple, so glorious
and so identical, as soon as the music has been
beaten out and science and theology take
their rightful places in that grand orchestra ;
no longer as hated rivals, but as faithful and
loyal helpers in the universal chorus of
wisdom and happiness ?
Before closing this chapter I should like
to revert for a few minutes to what I have
already said as regards the twenty per cent,
of clergymen of the present day who would
hail some relief from the antiquated forms of
doctrine to which they have subscribed. I
have referred there more especially to men
of known progressive tendencies, but there
are also many men in orders whom Fate has
placed amongst the most orthodox and
Evangelical of their class ; honourable men,
who have done their duty admirably and
given no sort of " occasion to the enemy/'
men beloved in their parishes, and whose
25
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
names are synonymous with all that is most
fixed and immutable in orthodox theology.
Yet these very men require such relief as I
have suggested even far more urgently than
any others. Why? /Because their personal
intelligence is in advance of their personal
creed,') and whilst remaining outwardly loyal
to the latter, they have inevitably given away
the key of their inner fortress to the advanc-
ing troops of doubt and perplexity, who may
never take the citadel, but will always carry
on occasional and most disturbing raids at
its base.
I am not talking at random, but speak of
what I know through personal experience.
Owing, perhaps, to having led a very detached
life through the force of rather unique circum-
stances, and having also a fairly broad out-
look upon life in general, it has been my
fate to have had rather exceptional oppor-
tunities of getting to the "back of things."
Men have often said to me, " I always forget
when I am talking to you that I am not talk-
ing to another man." This may or may not
be a compliment, but at any rate it enlarges
one's mental area. I venture to think that
a man will often say more concerning his
inner life to an impersonal sort of woman
26
SOME CLERICAL DIFFICULTIES
than he would or could say to another man.
However this may be, I have certainly heard
some curious confessions in my life.
I need only mention two instances to prove
the truth of what I have said as regards the
undoubted fact, that even a narrow creed
[given intelligence) will not protect its disciple
nowadays from embarrassing mental situations.
In both cases I take instances of men who
have passed away during the last few years.
The first was that of a celebrated professor —
a clergyman — in one of our Universities. 1
have purposely framed my sentence to include
all Universities in the British Isles.
He combined extraordinary intelligence, not
merely in his own department but in all
branches of human knowledge, with an
apparently childlike faith, not only in God
as his Father, but also in the special tenets
of the strictly Evangelical section of the
Church of England, to which he belonged.
I have often heard him say, with beautiful
humility, that it was not for him to question
but to accept, and I am quite certain he was
sincerely convinced that in saying this he was
describing his permanent attitude towards
those questions (I remember he especially
mentioned the six days of creation, etc.) which
27
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
his special form of belief bound him to accept,
but which his intellect and scientific knowledge
alike rejected. Oddly enough his position,
from the opposite end of the pole, reproduced
the exact position of the extremely intelligent
but equally devout Roman Catholic of the
present day. I had for many years accepted
my professor's wonderful feat of mental gym-
nastics at face value, and should have done so
to this day, had I not chanced to spend one
special Christmas in his house. We were a
small but cheerful party on that Christmas
Eve. The professor had been showing us
some most interesting photographs and explain-
ing them in his inimitable way — making the
dry bones live in very real fashion.
By degrees the other members of the party
had drifted away to bed, and ultimately he and
I were left alone. I don't know how the con-
versation between us turned upon religious
difficulties, but I do remember my extreme
astonishment when he quite innocently told me
of long talks with the vicar of the University
Church, and how they had paced up and down
in that very room, engaged in the rather hope-
less task of attempting to square their honestly-
held creed with their intellectual knowledge
and development. This same vicar, by the
SOME CLERICAL DIFFICULTIES
bye, had only a short time previously pro-
secuted a clergyman in the neighbourhood for
preaching a sermon upon miracles in his
pulpit, which was not "quite sound."
The other case was that of a very old friend
of my childhood, many years my senior, and
whom I had always heard spoken of as a very
bulwark of Evangelical creed. He was a
capital parish priest, and he and his wife were
splendid " workers,'' as the technical phrase
goes. He was officially connected with a
north country cathedral where I paid long
visits in my girlhood. Later these ceased to
a great extent, but my old friend often came to
see me when business or recreation brought
him to London. Now he also was a man of
undoubted ability, and I often regretted the
cramping mental conditions under which he
lived, and marvelled at the self-hypnotism
which made it apparently possible for a man of
that calibre to remain perfectly satisfied with
his narrow creed.
But during these visits to me in London,
when we often discussed religious problems,
I found that his mentality was by no means
caged in the way I had naturally supposed.
His speculations covered quite as wide a range
as my own — rather wider if anything. He
29
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
generally ended our talks by saying in a rather
deprecating way, " Of course \ I should not think
it wise to discuss these matters with any member of
my congregation" which I could easily under-
stand. I knew him intimately up to the time
of his death, and can testify to the fact that his
spiritual outlook never ceased to be critical
of the narrow form of creed which he had
professed all his life. I am quite sure that he
was never consciously disloyal to it, but these
are the facts.
The upshot is this : Evolution of the
reasoning faculties cannot be stemmed by any
broom yet manufactured in the Partington
Factory. These reasoning faculties may
sometimes be found combined with the most
narrow religious beliefs — that is often a
question of circumstance or heredity. Some
souls are of such a type, or rather have arrived
at such a point of growth, that it is impossible
for them to endure mental coercion. They
break the bars of the cage at any cost. Others
have not arrived at this point and are therefore
content with the comforts of the cage, so long as
they are able to make little excursions from it at
times. Then they fly back to it as a refuge
from the cold blasts outside. I have only
given two instances — I could have given many
30
SOME CLERICAL DIFFICULTIES
more, to illustrate my point. Therefore the
fact that large numbers of clergymen are
working, and apparently are content to work,
within the limitations of a specially cramping
form of creed, is really no sort of proof that
they are mentally as well as outwardly im-
prisoned by their creed. All forms of work
are a very wholesome corrective to too much
introspection, and the needs of a large parish
(or even a small one if energetically ad-
ministered) must be a great sedative for too
much mental activity, and will have a very
calming effect upon the troublesome problems
that so often torment the man of leisure.
This, however, does not in the least alter the
fact that many more men in orders would hail
some reasonable changes in the ritual they are
bound to follow, than might at first sight
appear.
It all depends upon their special point of
intellectual development, and this is not by any
means always indicated by their special form of
belief.
3*
CHAPTER III
A NEW CYCLE
General Baden-Powell's uncle, Mr Piazzi
Smyth, wrote a very curious and interesting
book many years ago upon the great Pyramid,
the object of which was to prove amongst
other things that all the measurements and
calculations connected with this special Pyramid
of Cheops, found their culminating point and
came to an end in a.d. i 88 i .
With apologies to the late author of that
book, I am irresistibly reminded of the famous
Mother Shipton's prophecy :
" The world to an end shall come
In eighteen hundred and eighty-one."
Now the outside world would certainly say
that Piazzi Smyth's researches had no special
significance and that Mother Shipton's doggerel
was only an old wife's tale. Those of us who
know anything of psychical research and
occult science, however, may hold a different
opinion. Many people consider that a certain
cycle in our planet's history was closed about
the time indicated, and that we are now living
in the opening years of a new cycle of planetary
existence. In any case it is a fact that just in
or about the year 1 8 8 1 various societies were
started, which still exist, and certain remark-
able books were produced, all dealing with
a further sphere of life. The Society for
Psychical Research was started, the Theo-
sophical Society was still in its childhood,
^Madame Blavatsky's remarkable books were
being written, and Edward Maitland and Anna
Kingsford were giving to the world their con-
tribution to thought and teaching in a volume
called The Perfect Way.
It was a period of great significance as a
reaction from the materialism of the preceding
years, a materialism which was itself doubtless
a reaction from more superstitious times.
Some sixteen years ago a communication
came to me automatically from one who
claimed to have been an old Egyptian priest,
concerning the great Pyramid and the Sphinx.
I cannot put my hand upon the papers (which
were, however, preserved), but I can remember
that he spoke of the great Pyramid as sym-
bolising the cycle through which the earth had
recently passed, and the Sphinx as a symbol of
c 33
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
the new cycle and new conditions just evolving.
Certainly the last seven or eight years have
witnessed an enormous increase both in the
amount of available evidence as to hitherto
unstudied powers of the human race, and
(which is still more significant) in the amount
of interest shown in these researches by
scientific men. Perhaps in Italy and France
this has been even more marked than in our own
country, but we also can point to a goodly list
of quite respectable as well as capable men, who,
having given some time and trouble as well as
money to the investigation of psychic science,
have had the courage of their opinions in
speaking of their results.
All this has naturally had a great effect upon
the Press. The cheap sneers and silly jokes
which were common to all papers, daily or
weekly, a few years ago, are now conspicuous
by their absence from the more respectable and
better-known journals. Not one of these now
speaks upon these subjects in the silly, con-
temptuous, superior tone of only a few years
ago. Whatever the private opinions of the
critics may be, they have learnt their lesson so
far as the general public is concerned, and know
that it is no longer considered " smart," but
simply stupid, to attempt to win the cheap
34
ftfU AAL, iW^A NEW 6^CLE <vA**rfhU #fc
laugh of the ignorance of an earlier day. We s*i*£
are therefore reminded now pretty constantly (X++a-
of the " more things in heaven and earth," ti/***
and the journalists or reviewers, whilst " hold- y^« *
ing their judgment in suspense" (an endless fl/otm^
suspense apparently), are quite free to confess */-%
that " some day we may know more about
these matters than we do at present ! " If so,
it will hardly be through the efforts of these
gentleman to diminish the area of their personal-
absence of knowledge !
But this only touches the fringe of the
subject. Within the circle of these converted
or at any rate silenced scoffers, come the ranks
of what may be called the psychic outsiders.
I mean by this term that large and ever-increas-
ing mass of people who are mildly interested
and quite willing to let other people energise
in the way of experiments, and tell them the
results. Next comes the smaller circle of
those not yet convinced of the truth of any
abnormal powers, but willing and anxious to
investigate for themselves ; and, lastly, the inner
circle of the men and women who have in-
vestigated, are convinced, and only differ as to
the causes and not at all as to the facts of
extended powers manifested by certain indi-
viduals, but not as yet normal to the whole race.
35
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
We may roughly divide this latter nucleus
into two parts — those who, acknowledging the
truth of the phenomena, limit the latter to the
extended action of incarnate beings, and those
who, from personal experiences, have been led
to realise the co-operative action of incarnate
with discarnate entities.
The grouping of the latter seems to me
almost entirely a question of temperament,
which probably is only in such case another
word for evolution. Those who can see and
hear for themselves on these extended spheres
accept the testimony of their senses just as
ordinary mortals accept the testimony of their
senses on the purely material plane. Those
who are limited by an intellectual conception
without personal experience of these more de-
veloped senses, very naturally reject the evidence
of other people, which has never been their own.
They see only illusion and self-hypnotism
in the convictions of their friends and even
when convinced mentally of the presence of
abnormal phenomena will put it down, naturally
and quite rightly from their standpoint,
to an extension of incarnate intelligence.
But this chapter more especially concerns
the comparatively small, yet ever-increasing
numbers of men and women who, through
36
A NEW CYCLE
natural capacity, combined with intelligent
curiosity and interest, have been enabled to
bridge the gulf of so-called Death, and to
satisfy themselves that this latter is only the
gateway of more abundant Life. This
absolute knowledge only comes, I think —
only can come — through the removal from
earth conditions of some one very dear to
them.
Outsiders will at once say, " Just so — their
wishes and desires naturally enable them to see
what they want to see so intensely." That is
only one side of the question — the more
obvious but not the truest side. Earthly love
is always depicted as blind and bandaged, but
love raised to a higher power becomes clear as
it takes flight to higher regions. Even the
purer and more intense earthly love is always
the least blind. The woman who loves her
husband with the truest and deepest affection is
the one who loves him, knowing his faults, not
the one who is merely blind to these. This
holds good of all relations in life. Therefore,
the keenest love will always be the most clear-
sighted, the most difficult to deceive. Accord-
ing to the measure and the purity of our love
will be the instinct, the " flaire " of our recog-
nition of identity. We may not be able to
37
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
pass this perception on to others, but we shall
not in the long run be deceived ourselves,
because the sense is too subtle, too accurate,
too absolute.
And through some such " great tribulation "
alone, can positive assurance of the continued
life of our beloved come to us.
Those who have loved and lost and found
their loved ones again, will endorse my words,
to others the same experience may come later.
Now I think to those who have thus
found once more husband, or wife, or child,
there must often come a moment of sadness
in their joy, especially if they have been
brought up on orthodox lines of thought. We
read in the Bible of the blessedness of the
righteous, of a state of absolute peace and
joy, of the glories of the Redeemed, under
symbols of the glassy sea and green palms and
gold crowns, and so forth. We sing fervently
" For ever with the Lord," and have been
taught to look for the rest of the "Blessed
Dead." Some, indeed, imagine a period of
vague waiting until the number of the Re-
deemed is completed, and all are caught up
to meet the Lord in the heavens, but the goal
is ever the same — rest and peace and entire
freedom from sin and suffering. Of course I
38
/
A NEW CYCLE
am now referring specially to the conceptions
of the Anglo-Catholic Church.
Into this rather vague but comfortable and
comforting picture of our future, modern
research has suddenly burst with curious and
variable results. Some have welcomed any
facts which seem to give them back their dead,
not as a cold abstraction for the future, but as
a living, blessed experience in the present ;
but even these have sometimes been saddened
by remembering the gulf which lies between
the old conceptions and the new conceptions,
founded on the new facts. "How different it
all is in reality from what we were taught to
believe ! What a different tale is told by
those who come back to us in visions and
speech and evidential communications, from
the descriptions of life after death given to us
in our Bibles ! Why have the facts been
withheld from us in an inspired revelation ?
How can we believe anything when we have
been so terribly misled ? " I think some such
thoughts must have passed through many
minds. Roman Catholics are, of course, saved
this heart-burning in the rare cases where they
are allowed to investigate psychical phenomena,
or where they take "French leave" to do so,
because they can spell Purgatory as Proba-
39
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
tion ; or with one letter less and call it
Progress.
I want to suggest a very simple view of the
case, which seems to me highly reasonable, and
is certainly somewhat explanatory.
I must first say, however, that I do this
with no sort of idea of Bible apologia. I can
admire what is admirable and reject what does
not appeal to me in the most wonderful book
in the world, delivered through human scribes
and inevitably conveying somewhat of their
limitations in addition to their often glorious
inspiration. The people who tell you that the
Bible was not written to teach geometry or
geography or archaeology, and that this fact
explains all possible mistakes and inaccuracies
in it, have always appeared to me well-meaning
but lamentably wanting in common-sense and,
one is almost tempted to add, common honesty.
1 Regarded as a vindication of the divine inspira-
■ tion of the Scriptures as a whole, it is the sort
of argument one would expect from a Jesuit
priest or a very illogical woman.
So, in putting forward my view, I do so
entirely on its own merits and not in the least
with any idea of squaring Bible assertions to
fit in with modern facts.
It has always seemed to me that the simplest
40
A NEW CYCLE
explanations are generally the most compre-
hensive and the most satisfactory. And this
holds good also of simple analogies. Earth
training and discipline are often more than
suggestive of a big human school, and certainly
God's dealings with us individually appear
to be those of a loving and yet tenderly
severe Father with the children whom He
cherishes too much to leave uncorrected.
Carry this idea a little further and it seems
to shed some light on the orthodox descrip-
tions of Heaven as a place of absolute bliss
and absolute perfection, which we find in the
Bible. I am not now thinking of the details
given, for instance, in the Book of the Revela-
tion of St John, and rather flippantly and
foolishly stigmatised as " the Heaven of a
jeweller's shop " by those who are incapable of
appreciating the symbolism, and would seem
to know nothing of the mystic properties of
colour and precious stones, even in the physical
world.
I refer only to the state of perfect righteous-
ness as well as perfect joy described in the
Scriptures. As no intervening stages are very
clearly defined, this state has rather naturally
been hitherto taken as describing the next
conscious experience of the soul which escapes
41
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
the fate of the " Unbeliever " ; the latter being
supposed to be irrevocably fixed at the moment
of death, even if an interlude is allowed before
the punishment of such sinners is actually
carried out. Even the horrible doctrine
of an Eternal Hell may have had its uses
in earlier ages when moral instincts were
less developed — let us hope it may have
been so.
But my suggestion is this : An earthly father
will sometimes hold up the picture of a great man
— great in learning or in politics or as a Judge
or a famous Commander of men, and will say
to his little son, " Look, my child, at the picture
of this great and good man. If you are a good
boy and learn your lessons well, and do every-
thing father and mother think best for you to
do, some day you may grow up to be as good
and great as he is."
He points out the goal to be aimed at, but
a wise father does not weary and depress his
child at the moment by telling him of the
hard school-work that lies ahead — nor of the
University training that must come later — nor
of the many hard knocks that he is bound
to experience in life before the much-desired
consummation takes place. May not our
Father in Heaven have treated us in exactly
42
A NEW CYCLE
similar fashion ? — have allowed and even in-
spired these visions of the Blessed, to St John
the Divine, in loving care for the childhood
years of the human race? Now that the
human child is growing up, he must learn
to take his responsibilities and to face the facts
of his spiritual life. He is reaching an age
when the full truth will no longer appal but
may surely rather inspire him, if he has any
noble instincts? He will feel the longing to
exercise his faculties to the utmost, and a life
of earnest work and ultimate reward will no
longer oppress and frighten him, as it might
have done — probably must have done — if
suddenly sprung upon him whilst still in early
childhood.
Dr Phillipps Brooks said to me once when
I was speaking to him of the long and weary
road to be traversed in the spiritual life :
"Well, if I could have had my choice whether
to be created a man or an angel, I hope" (he
paused and looked at me with a bright smile,
then repeated), " I hope I should have had the
pluck to choose to be a man."
I cannot do better than close my chapter
with these brave words — words that may bring
comfort and fresh strength and courage to
those of us who are sometimes weary and foot-
43
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
sore, and look with sinking hearts upon the
long vista of continuous effort and warfare
which our evolving spiritual consciousness is
certainly unfolding before us in these later
days.
44
CHAPTER IV
OUR NEW CONTINENT
A few months ago I was present at a private
house where some sixty people were gathered
together, by special invitation, to hear some
extracts read from the Hope Letters, as they
have been called, adopting my name for them
in my last book — Do the Dead Depart. These
messages, as many of my readers will know (1
trust that they may be made public in extenso
before my own book appears), were given to a
mother who had lost her young son, a Tun-
bridge schoolboy, and who was distracted with
grief until this means of communication had
been opened up between them.
When these few extracts were read out at
the meeting to which I have referred, and
when our host asked us in turn to give our
various opinions upon the subject, I was greatly
interested and somewhat amused by the con-
tradictory nature of the latter. Some people
seemed to think the little boy of twelve ought
to have spoken from the other sphere to his
45
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
mother as a philosopher of sixty years of age —
others regretted the absence of any marked
religious tone in the child's communications —
many were evidently shocked by the triviality
and absolute naturalness of the boy's words.
Most of them seemed almost incapable of
seeing matters from the standpoint of the
child and the mother, and I think many in
their secret hearts wondered why they should
have been asked to come and listen to such
childish remarks.
It appeared to me that the greater number
of those who spoke later (with one or two
marked exceptions) entirely missed the point
of the whole subject.
We were not invited to listen to a feat of
mental gymnastics from the next sphere ; to a
sort of Mischa Elman or Franz von Vecsey
performance ; wonderful and beautiful as these
youthful geniuses undoubtedly have proved
themselves.
We were asked to listen to some extracts
from the messages of a very human, loving,
simple-minded little boy, who had gone "from
this room into the next," and had found
himself able to cheer and comfort his mother
by talking to her in his old, loving, natural
manner.
46
OUR NEW CONTINENT
The child did not write these " talks" with
an eye firmly fixed upon the public and their
possible prejudices and likes and dislikes,
although he certainly appears to be quite
boyishly delighted by the idea that "his book/'
as he calls it, is really going to be printed !
I think Mrs Hope is making a truly
heroic sacrifice of her feelings in giving these
records to the world — I know as a fact that it
has been a most bitter experience to her, a
sacrifice which she makes only in the interests
of other bereaved mothers. I can hardly
believe that the most ribald or superficial
reviewer will betray such generosity as she
has shown, by trampling coarsely or carelessly
on the ground sacred to mother and child.
Those who are not interested can leave the
book alone. They owe it — and her — at least
the grace of silence.
The charm of these records lies in their
spontaneity, their absolute simplicity and the
compelling sense of reality which they will
bring to many minds — others, no doubt, will
disapprove of them on account of these very
qualities. It is surely somewhat remarkable
that so many messages from the other side
— almost, in fact, without exception — are
evidently descriptive of similar states rather
47
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
than localities, and that the testimony should
be so unwavering and comparatively identical,
whether it comes from a child of Gordon
Hope's tender years, from a young man such
as Judge Forbes' son, or from a man of middle
age, such as Richard Hodgson ? The essential
facts related of the next sphere are the same,
in these and in numberless other instances.
When America was a comparatively unknown
continent and few travellers visited it, a dozen
intelligent Englishmen may have returned from
such rare visits, each with a story differing in
detail according to individual experience, but
agreeing as to the essential features of climate,
customs and nationality.
Yet even here we should expect to find con-
siderable differences in their travellers' tales.
One man may have remained in New York,
Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and the
Eastern States exclusively — another may have
travelled to California and brought back
wonderful stories of the rising townships
there and of the wonderful vegetation and
the glorious scenery, which would sound like
fairy tales, even in the ears of the Eastern State
Americans of that day. Another traveller may
have spent his time on some lonely prairie, and
his tale would differ materially from both of
48
OUR NEW CONTINENT
the preceding ones, and tell mainly a story of
loneliness and desolation.
Yet they would all be describing truthfully
facts and features not only of the same world,
but of the same continent.
Now this is just what we find as regards
u Our New continent." There are vast!
differences sometimes as regards individual
experiences, and certainly as regards individual
opinions (which seem to differ as much there
as here), but there is as marked a consensus of
testimony regarding the essential facts of the
next phase of existence, and as to some very
distinctive ways in which it differs from our
present life. Naturally, it is the similarity
which first strikes our travellers over there,
and then by degrees they realise the points
of difference as well as the points of contact.
That which shocks most of the good people
on earth seems to be that there should be any
likeness at all between this life and the next
one !
This, of course, is to be accounted for by
the dead weight of traditional teaching, even
upon those who consider themselves entirely
emancipated in thought, and who would bitterly
resent such a suggestion.
To say that any human being can have
d 49
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
wholly escaped the results of centuries of tradi-
tional environment, is as bold as it would have
been fifty years ago to say that a man could
get outside and look at himself ! I am obliged
to make this limitation to my statement,
because otherwise occult reviewers will remind
me that a man can get out of his body and
look at himself nowadays, quite easily and
comfortably.
But to go back. How can we otherwise
account for such a general howl of indigna-
tion and protest against the idea of houses
and gardens and rivers and boats and horses
and cats and dogs in the next sphere ? All
these are absolutely in line with recent
scientific ideas of evolution, which seems to
abhor gaps as much as Nature abhors a
vacuum.
From the strictly evolutionary point of
view, present spiritualistic ff facts " are just
what the scientists ought to expect and to
anticipate in tabulating any sort of continuation
of life at all.
A more tenuous form of matter, with the
inevitable differences entailed by that fact ;
more extended powers, owing to the increasing
scope of the senses belonging to this more
ethereal form of body ; greater freedom in
50
OUR NEW CONTINENT
range of thought, owing to an improved brain
apparatus ; greater freedom also from many
of the vices (such as selfishness and greed)
engendered by the fierce competition of
material life as we know it — all this and much
more that might be added, is surely just what
an intelligent scientist, who accepted evolution
in the past and continuity of life in the future,
would be bound to arrive at, if he thought
the matter out carefully ?
Yet when we find (those of us who have
had reason to accept the evidence) that this
is just what takes place, so soon as we have
cast off the outer material body for the inner
material body, everyone cries out either in
horror or in ridicule of the dreadful idea that
there can be houses and boats and lecture
rooms and colleges in the next stage of
existence.
It seems blasphemous to some and absurd
to others, although I cannot understand in
this case why they should not consider their
present life either blasphemous or absurd ?
To return for a moment to the meeting
referred to in my opening sentences. A charm-
ing and very intelligent theosophical lady of
my acquaintance was good enough to suggest
with kindly tolerance that although poor little
5i
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
Gordon's evidently materialistic tastes might
attract towards him ponies and gardens, no
doubt more advanced and superior people
would find " religious development " awaiting
them, rather than cats and horses, etc.
" Why should it not be possible over there
to have religious development and a pony ? "
was my apparently frivolous contribution to
the discussion. But the underlying idea was
not at all frivolous. I think the sooner we
get rid of the notion that matter in itself and
apart from the uses to which we may put it,
is undesirable or -undignified or unspiritual,
the better. Probably in some form or other
we shall have to put up with matter (re-
christened ether or spelt in any other way)
for a good many aeons yet, and it seems rather
premature to be trying to get rid of it com-
pletely, as a bar to spiritual development, so
early in the day !
There are spiritually-minded men — even
bishops ! — who use motor-cars for transacting
their spiritual business. Why should they
not find and make use of etheric and subli-
mated motor-cars in the next sphere of their
activities? 1 trust these latter will have
neither smell, noise, nor excessive vibration !
It seems to me not making too little but
52
OUR NEW CONTINENT
making too much of matter to judge otherwise.
We may fairly hope that in the next stage, and
with a more attenuated form of matter, we may
learn to put it in its proper place, as our
servant rather than our master, which latter is
too often the present relationship between us.
But to dismiss ponies and horses and "such-
like," as only worthy of a small boy's fancies,
and in direct antithesis to religious develop-
ment, appears to me a little premature, and
certainly not in line with what we know at
present about evolution.
All those inhabitants of " our new conti-
nent " with whom I have come in contact, agree
practically as to two or three broad distinctions
between our present life and the one immedi-
ately succeeding it.
Matter there is more malleable, more under
our control and at our disposition, to be mani-
pulated in a way quite impossible for us under
present normal conditions. Probably Oriental
occultists (when not frauds as well as fakirs)
have anticipated some of these powers, but I
think most of us will be wise if we content
ourselves with present conditions until we are
quite sure that our morality has kept pace with
our mentality — otherwise we shall inevitably
find (to use a vulgar but expressive Americanism)
53
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
that we have " bitten off more than we can
chew " with comfort, either to ourselves or to
our neighbours.
Another point of agreement is the extended
and well-nigh creative power of Thought.
The influence of thought on the mental plane
is obvious enough here, and it has of course
an indirect and secondary effect upon matter,
but in the next sphere we are always told that
Thought controls matter in a direct rather than
indirect fashion (through hands as well as
brains), as is the case with us. Howard Forbes,
Gordon Hope and all those who have spoken
to me, tell the same story — " Here you must
think hard when you want anything" " Thoughts
are Things," is the Christian Science formula.
" Things are Thoughts " we may also say in this
respect. Howard Forbes used to speak of the
home he was preparing for his parents, and
ask his mother what pictures and ornaments
she would like to find there when she went
over : " Tou see, mother, you must think hard
when you settle what you want — that is how we
get things here — we have to think them, and when
we think hard enough they remain with us"
Gordon says practically the same thing, again
and again. The permanence of surroundings
there seems to be in direct ratio not only to
54
OUR NEW CONTINENT
our thought, but to its power of concen-
tration.
Now concentration is one of the most
difficult things for most of us to achieve. It
needs much practice and patience, but it is
good mental discipline here, and may prove of
the greatest importance hereafter.
The difference between arriving in the next
sphere with some small power of concentration
instead of arriving there, as so many must do,
with their thinking an untrained and chaotic
process, may well prove to be as the difference
between travelling on the Continent with some
knowledge of the languages, and arriving there
in helpless confusion and dependent upon the
first good-natured stranger who will take pity
upon our incapacity and ignorance.
I have likened the present revolution of
Thought, not only in Theology but also in
Science, to that which heralded the Copernican
view of the universe. Is history to repeat
itself ? Are the churches once more to be the
obscurantists ; to stand between us and the
sun?
Surely not ! Surely they will have learnt
from the bitter experience of the Past, to
welcome their prophets rather than stone
them ? Are we to have a repetition of the bad
55
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
old days — the days of Galileo and Giordano
Bruno — of clerical oppression and tyranny,
taking God's name in vain and sheltering
beneath the cloak of misnamed reverence, to
conceal their real love of power and dread of
seeing it wane in the clearer light of advancing
knowledge ?
Let us hope not. It can at least do us no
harm to be sanguine. Clerical disapproval can
no longer light up the faggots, but it can and
in many cases will, struggle fiercely to shut out
the light.
It has always been so. The prophets and
the priests have ever been at war. Sometimes
it seems to us in our despair that as it was
in the beginning, it is now, and ever shall
be!
Is it because the true prophet worships
Truth, whilst the priest too often worships
Form ? Yet we have amongst us, in our
English State Church and elsewhere, some of
those finer spirits who are bold enough to
stand up and declare the truth as it has been
revealed to them, in spite of abuse and loss
of favour and persecution of various kinds.
Such men are often accused of being mere self-
advertisers, and making a cheap bid for popu-
larity, although they may be making the greatest
56
OUR NEW CONTINENT
sacrifices, both of time and money, in order to
follow where their inspiration leads.
I do not speak of that modern development,
the flippant and often agnostic clergyman, who
tells you that he is not going to put his eyes
out with his grandmother's knitting-needles —
that he is as much a man of the world as your-
self, and means to " have as good a time " too.
No — I am speaking of the devoted and
earnest men who are standing shoulder to
shoulder in the present crisis — who see, whether
they be Anglicans or Nonconformists, that the
time has come when it is a question of Evolu-
tion or Revolution in the history of Religion.
Few but fervent, and fired by a grand en-
thusiasm, these are the men who will save our
churches, if they can be saved — who will stand
between us and spiritual anarchy and confusion.
They represent the " ten righteous men "
who may yet save the city from destruction !
Surely these modern questions of extended
psychical capacities, with the light they throw
upon spiritual facts and methods, should most
naturally and rightly attract the special attention
of those religious teachers whose hands would
be so greatly strengthened by studying them ?
We have in Telepathy more than a sugges-
tion of the probable channels used in Prayer ;
57
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
in Clairaudience the verification in modern days
of the old stories of the child Samuel and of
the Prophet of the Lord ; in the " passage of
matter through matter " and the disintegration
of matter, a marvellous light upon various
episodes in the life of our Lord ; in " apports "
and in some of the verified recitals of true
Oriental phenomena, we see how these spas-
modic possibilities, only to be achieved now
through fasting and much ceremonial, were the
powers belonging to the sphere to which our
Lord belonged, and were exercised by Him in
perfectly normal fashion.
All this and much more has been unfolded
to us of late years in psychical phenomena and
a better comprehension of Eastern lore ; but
those who should have been the first to open
our eyes and bid us take heed to these things,
have been the ones to try and screen us from
the dawn of a brighter day, by telling us it all
comes from the devil being let loose upon the
world, and that we must resist him tooth and
nail.
Now Science at least, is not going to be
frightened out of the evolutionary path by
any such cry of " wolf," or rather of u roaring
lions ! " She has already started in the psychic
field, and a daily increasing number of her
58
No i
Jin fact
OUR NEW CONTINENT
votaries are already equipping themselves for
an intelligent investigation of the claims put
forward.
intelligent man without preconceptions,
with a " mind to let," has ever yet f &*jh
given time and talents to the research without f\ .
eventually admitting the facts (whatever may
be his interpretation of them).
""Therefore we are now within measurable
distance of the day when Science will be in the
van as regards giving a welcome to these
twentieth-century facts.
Are our spiritual pastors and masters content
to lag behind as usual, until they are forced to
step along, by pressure from the crowd behind
them ?
Is that a dignified mode of progression ?
59
CHAPTER V
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
It has sometimes struck me that a really
romantic and fascinating chapter might be
written, by some one wielding a golden pen, on
the relations between Religion and Science —
as they are — as they were — and as they will be
again.
I say Religion and Science advisedly, because
of course Religion must come first — man must
have had some conception of a Divine or
Superior Being before beginning to have any
curiosity about His Law» or Ways of treating
him. The first dim conceptions of a Power to
be propitiated by gifts or sacrifices must have
been succeeded by the instinct of worship;
founded on gratitude for some relief or in-
dulgence, in supposed answer to propitiatory
ceremonies of the rudest and most barbarous
kind. Then in the succeeding ages when Fear
and Propitiation were succeeded by curiosity
and investigation, the first feeble cry of the
child "Science" was heard. It came with the
60
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
wish to know why something happened, as well
as to find the best means of protection, if the
something happening chanced to be unpleasant.
So that we must look upon the scientific
instinct as the offspring of the religious in-
stinct, and not as its parent, and I think the
relationship between the two has been just that
of many fathers to many sons.
Some months ago we were all reading with
delight that fascinating book by Mr Edmond
Gosse, entitled Father and Son : A Study of "Two 01 did £4^
temperaments. There we have the relationship /*j*f
to which I refer, indicated under the most '
favourable circumstances, because there was
evidently great affection though little affinity
between the two. In the years of childhood
very little friction occurred, because the child
was naturally under the dominion of the
parental rule, and although possessing both
originality and independence of thought in a
marked degree, he was evidently content for
some years to be the " Infant Phenomenon "
along the lines of his environment. It was
only later, when the boy realised the essential
narrowness of his father's outlook upon life as
compared with his own, that the real mental
antagonism set in and the divergence of the
paths took place, which was to land them later
61
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
such worlds apart in everything save mutual
affection and respect.
It is only as I write this last sentence that
my analogy alas ! breaks down after the usual
fashion ; for I fear we cannot say that the
extreme divergences of opinion between Re-
ligion and Science have been accompanied by
any marked affection between the two, or even
by any great amount of mutual esteem. But
the earlier lines of description make a very fair
comparison between the real father and son
and the father and son of my parable.
There was a time when Science and Religion
must have jogged along quite comfortably
together ; in fact when Religion, like the elder
Mr Gosse, must have been quite proud of its
clever child, so eager to learn and so quick to
assimilate. In those early days there could
have been no question of friction or separation
between the two ; for the Churches had too
strong a grip upon the feebler hands of their
children.
But the child " Science " grew up — just as
other children do, and then came friction, as is
almost inevitably the case when the younger
generation begins to realise other standards
than the parental one, and to think and weigh
and decide for itself. And so by the fifteenth
62
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
century, Science had come of age and began to
assert its rights and its individuality. Un-
fortunately, the parent against whose decrees it
rebelled was far more stern and inexorable and
pig-headed than the father depicted in the
autobiography of modern days.
" No individual judgment allowed here !
Out of my house you go, if you question a
single word that I say ! We will imprison you
for your souls' good, and exorcise you with bell,
book and candle, but we will have no scandals
in this house. It is like your youthful impud-
ence to think you know better than your
parents ! — that your wonderful discoveries give
their instructions the lie ! Whatever is true is
known already by Us, and can be read in this
book. Therefore what you think you have
discovered is not true. That is absolutely
logical, and if you ask me to look down your
telescope, I tell you I won't, because I should
only find a blasphemous lie at the other end
of it."
This was the form of reasoning, and it was
very effectual for a time, because the eccles-
iastical authority was top in those days, and
everyone else nowhere.
We have reversed all that in the last four
hundred years. Science has come into its
63
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
rights and privileges of Manhood ; and has no
longer anything to fear from the thunders of
the Church.
The positions in fact are reversed, for the
Churches have acted as though they had good
cause to fear the result of the researches they
condemned. Is it to be wondered at, that
Science should feel not only a tolerant contempt
for the present ecclesiastical attitude towards
scientific men, but also some bitterness, en-
gendered no doubt by a latent memory of the
persecutions which their forerunners endured
at the hands of these clerical tyrants ? This is
just what might be expected.
A quasi-scientific attitude is common enough
in the modern pulpit it is true, but scientific
men listen (if at all) with the amused contempt
of the professional expert when an amateur
poaches on his ground ; and also probably say
to themselves : " That is all very well, my good
friends ! you are civil enough to us now, because
you daren't be anything else, but you would
like to put a spoke into the wheels of Science
if you could, and if you and your brother
clerics were not in danger of being so hopelessly
left behind ! "
But I believe brighter days are coming ; days
when without unworthy capitulation on either
64
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
side, Religion and Science will once more be in
harmony and accord, not because one has all
the power and the other all the knowledge, as
in past days ; but because both have come to
realise that the ancient antagonism between
them originated in human misconceptions,
and that their real affinity rests upon the
impregnable Rock of Truth.
I think we all owe a very deep debt of
gratitude to Sir Oliver Lodge for the great
work he has been doing in this direction. He
has come to us as a reconciler, not by unworthy
capitulation as to his own position as a Scientist ;
not by any futile attempt to exaggerate facts or
to minimise them with the object of finding
some possible junction ; but by the much
worthier and more successful method of showing
to Science on the one hand, and to Religion on
the other, the Spirit of essential Truth and
Unity which must underlie both departments
cf human knowledge, and without which,
neither could have survived the corruptions of
Time and of Error. If there is not some
spark of Life, corruption must set in and
destroy the human frame. The same truth
holds good of the various departments of
human knowledge. If a system of thought
or action survive, it is thanks to that spark of
e 65
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
life at the centre, and not to the corroding
accretions of error which are bound to be mani-
fested in the circumference.
Given two men who have been living in
constant antagonism, through misconceptions
and bitterness, perhaps of years, but each of
whom has some sterling qualities — some real
desire at heart to be an honest and just citizen,
and even some underlying affinity with his
enemy. A wise man who sees this comes and
says to each separately, —
--^" You two who are wasting strength in bitter-
ness and antagonism, are really one at heart, and
you could do splendid work together — far more
than double what either of you can achieve
alone ; your true destiny and your greatest wis-
dom is to combine forces, for you are really
essential to each other in working out your
aims. This misunderstanding and bitterness
between you is only a hard shell that has formed
on the surface and which hides your true
natures from each other — natures which have in
reality so much in common. Let me help you
to get rid of these misconceptions, and then you
will both see things from a new and true
standpoint."
This is just the work that Sir Oliver Lodge
appears to be doing, and doing so admirably.
66
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
Only a layman and a Scientist could do it, for
a clerical reconciler would be met by the
inevitable sneer from the ordinary man of the
world, that in the first place he was no scientist,
and in the next place that it was obviously
a part of his profession to preach peace and
goodwill all round ; and shut his eyes to
facts.
Now this reproach cannot be brought against
Sir Oliver Lodge, who is an eminently practical
man of Science.
"The letter killeth — the spirit maketh
alive/ ' The letter divides — the spirit unites.
This is the "Spirit of Truth" which we are
being taught to search for, as underlying the
surface incrustations caused by error or intoler-
ance on either side.
We are daily recognising in greater degree
the essential unity between Religion and
Science. Their aim is one — the finding of
Truth. Even their methods are identical, for
if the Christian or Buddhist needs faith, so also
does the Scientist. If the Spiritualist dream
dreams and have visions, so does the Scientist,
who is going to do any original work, and not
merely plod along the road that others have
pioneered. No great discoveries in Science
could have been made without scientific
67
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
intuition or flaire, if people prefer that word.
The discoverer is the man who argues from the
known to the unknown, and to whom flashes
of real inspiration come from time to time.
What matter if they seem to him to come
"out of the blue" and without rhyme or
reason ? They come, and he acts upon them,
and Humanity is the richer for that fact.
Then again the enthusiasm and endurance
which inspire the religious martyr, inspire also
the scientific martyr. When men sacrifice life
and health in the pursuit of their researches,
as is being done every day under our very eyes,
what is their motive ?
" Love for Humanity " people say glibly, but
this does not cover the facts. Sometimes these
men have never shown any special or extra-
ordinary love for Humanity, but they must
have an all-absorbing and dauntless love of
Truth, and think no toil too great, no bodily
pains too agonising, if only they may catch a
glimpse of that radiant presence. It may be
the truth in X rays or in radium, or in some
chemical combination, or in any phenomena of
Nature. It matters little what the special goal
of each man may be — it is the search for Truth
which is so all-absorbing, so relentless and so
monopolising. And whether it be the devout
68
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
Christian or the enthusiastic Scientist, the aim is
the same for each in his differing area of thought ;
the methods demanded are similar, and so are
the sacrifices entailed on the physical plane.
Can we doubt that the rewards also of this
single-minded service will be to each man
according to his faith and to his powers of
appreciation ?
Since writing this, I have been reading
Edouard Schure's interesting book, Les grands
Inittts, and am tempted to translate the follow-
ing lines from his introduction : —
" Science and Religion— those guardians
of civilisation — have equally lost their
supreme and magical gift — that of a great
and powerful teaching.
" The Temples of India and of Egypt
produced the greatest sages upon
earth.
"The Greek Temples have moulded heroes
and poets.
a The apostles of Christ were amongst the
most sublime of martyrs, and thus have
begotten thousands of others.
" The Church of the Middle Ages, in spite of
its primitive theology, made saints and
knights, because she had faith and felt
69
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
the Spirit of the Christ vibrating within
her.
" To-day, neither the Church, bound within
the limits of her dogma, nor Science,
imprisoned in matter, knows how to pro-
p duce the most perfect type of man.
M The art of creating and guiding the Soul
has been lost, and will never be found
again, until Science and Religion, remelted
into a living Force, apply themselves to
the work together and with one accord ;
for the good and for the salvation of
mankind.
" For this, Science will not need to change
her methods, but to extend her dominion ;
nor need Christianity part with her
traditions, but rather study to understand
their origin, their spirit and their scope.' '
These are very suggestive words, and
seemed to me curiously appropriate to my own
train of thought, which I have endeavoured
feebly to indicate in the present chapter.
Mons. Schure goes on to say : —
" This time of intellectual regeneration and
of social transformation is bound to come
— we may be sure. Already certain signs
are announcing it. When Science knows,
70
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
Religion will be strengthened, and man
will act with renewed energy. The art of
Life and all other arts can only be reborn
through such a union.
:f But, meanwhile, what can be done during
these last years of a century which re-
sembles a descent into an abyss in threaten-
ing twilight, although its beginning
appeared as the ascent to the mountain
tops, under a brilliant dawn ?
" A great philosopher has defined Faith as
the courage of the Spirit, which rushes
forward, certain of finding Truth. Such
Faith is not the enemy of reason, but is,
on the contrary, its torch. It is the
faith of Christopher Columbus — the Faith
of Galilee, which demands proof upon
proof, and it is the only Faith possible for
us to-day.
" For those who have irrevocably lost their
power of Faith — and they are numerous
(for the example has come in high places,
and the road is easy and well beaten) — it
only remains to float with the current of
the day, to submit to the times instead
of fighting them, to resign themselves to
doubt and negation, to console them-
selves for all human misery and for
7i
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
future catastrophes by a disdainful smile,
whilst disguising the profound emptiness
in which alone they believe, by a brilliant
veil, decorated with the beautiful name of
Ideal ; although they consider this latter
only in the light of a useful fantasy.
"As for us, who believe that the Ideal is
the only reality and the only truth, in
the midst of a passing and changing
world ; who believe in the sanction and
in the accomplishment of its promises in
the history of Humanity, as well as in a
future life — who know that this sanction
is necessary, and that it is the recompense
of the Human Brotherhood as well as the
meaning of the universe and the logic of
God — for those of us who have these
convictions, only one course is possible.
Let us affirm this truth as boldly and as
loudly as we can ! Let us throw ourselves
with her and for her, into the arena of
action, and above the crowds and con-
fusion, let us endeavour to penetrate
through meditation and individual
initiation, into the temple of immut-
able Ideas, in order that we may arm
ourselves with the principles that will
endure. This is what I have attempted
72
SCIENCE AND RELIGION
in this book, trusting that others will
follow me and do better/ '
Here the quotation ends, and I cannot " do
better " than close the present chapter with a
sincere echo of Mons. Schure's last words.
73
CHAPTER VI
A SUMMARY
In summing up this last chapter of the first
part of my book, I think it is well to remind
my readers that we have Biblical authority for
no longer attempting to pour new wine into
old bottles, nor to piece old garments with
new stuff. Both these feats have been
attempted hitherto in ecclesiastico-scientific
matters — from the ecclesiastical side. It has
been perhaps inevitable that it should have
been so, but the new wine is already bursting
the old bottles, and explosions are better
avoided if possible. My clerical readers will
doubtless wish here to remind me that I have
omitted to quote the verse immediately follow-
ing those above ; where our Lord says, " No
man also having drunk old wine straightway
desireth new, for he saith, the old is better :"
But that exactly describes what many men
are saying nowadays as regards old and new
doctrines — " The old are better. We are accus-
tomed to the good, old, heavy port and matured
74
A SUMMARY
brown sherry — what do we want with these raw,
immature , young wines ? Away with them ! M
Men mistrust the New Theology, as it is bar-
barously christened. They talk of Cf new fashions
in religion/' and say — very truly — that this is
a time of fads and fancies, both as regards
spiritual and material diet. So it is, but why ?
Simply because this is a time of progress, of
readjustment of old ideas in both departments.
We are all experimenting to some extent in
order to find the best physical fare, because the
world is arriving at the very wholesome conclu-
sion that we have most of us eaten a great deal
more food than we needed in the past, and a great
deal of indigestible food into the bargain.
Naturally, the pendulum swings a little to the
other extreme at first, and some get ill from
insufficient or badly-chosen nourishment.
What suits one does not suit another. Yet
we clamour incessantly for uniformity in our
dining-rooms as well as in our churches ! " If it
suits me to eat no meat at all and live on vegetables,
then it must also suit my neighbour, and his health
would be as good as mine if he were not too
obstinate to change his diet" Another man
thinks the vegetarian equally mistaken in his
ideas, and boldly declares that in fruit and
nuts alone, lies the true way of physical salva-
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
tion. In fact, I think the latter would go a
little further and say that the effects could not
be limited by the physical, as the w fruit-and-
nut" disciple would be in a much more
receptive mood for spiritual teaching and
experience !
It is the same in theology. Here, also, it is
a time of fads and fancies no doubt, but why ?
For the same reason. Because the whole-
some idea is permeating the world that we
have consumed too much theological dogma,
and that a good deal of it has not been nourish-
ing to us at all, but has brought on at last a
fit of very undeniable indigestion. Many of
us are trying to experiment here and there in
order to find the spiritual nourishment that is
best suited to us. When we think we have
found it, we are too often intolerant of those
who differ from us, and who choose a spiritual
diet which is not the same as our own. We
make no allowance for differences of age, of
temperament, of surroundings. We do not
realise that all are at varying stages in spiritual
as in physical evolution, and that one man's
meat is truly another man's poison.
Surely this latter truth has been once for all
revealed to us in Swedenborg's teaching, where
he describes the varying effects of the same
76
A SUMMARY
Divine Fire on various temperaments ? The
simple prayer of a little child and the ecstasy
of a Santa Theresa are at very different points
in spiritual evolution ; yet they spring from the
same divine source acting upon different ages,
different temperaments and certainly different
stages in development.
We are often reminded of the mental rest-
lessness and absence of peace in the present
day, and sometimes we are bidden to note how
different it is in the Roman Catholic Church.
How united in the faith all the worshippers
are, there, compared with the members of our
own church, rushing hither and thither to hear
some new preacher, and yet finding no rest to
their souls in spite of all their efforts ! This
is perfectly true and must necessarily be true.
The Pope gains uniformity of belief at the cost
of individuality in growth ; but even here the
uniformity must sometimes be only in the outer
manifestation, and not in the inner heart. No
artificial act of faith in the tenets of any church
upon earth can always and for ever " put back the
clock" of human development, through all time
and through all eras of increasing revelation.
Many are happy in the spiritual atmosphere
of the Roman Catholic Church — others are
wearied of the clash of opinion and the prob-
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
lems to which neither their hearts nor their
intellects seem to have any answer, and they
are thankful for any refuge where they can
remain in peace ; until that terrible Soul of
ours wakes them up again to fight their
individual battle and to beat out . their own
music. That may never happen on this pre-
sent sphere of life, and no one can grudge
them their temporary repose. Lastly, come the
numbers of excellent men and women who have
been born into the Church of Rome and hope
to die in the odour of " Catholic sanctity,"
and have never been troubled by doubts or
perplexities as regards their spiritual welfare.
The fact is, that behind all creeds, all languages,
all forms of worship, lies the blessed fact of
spiritual communion with the source of our
being — the Lord and Giver of all life.
Those of us who know what that means, may
be tossed hither and thither on the waves of
this troublesome world, and in proportion to
our intellectual development and according to
our temperament will the surface of the waters
of life be sometimes troubled and perturbed.
But in such case our Sheet-anchor can
never fail, nor can we really remain for any
length of time oblivious to this fact. He or
she who has once experienced that personal
78
A SUMMARY
touch between the Soul and its Source, can
never wholly lose it ; even though clouds may,
and often must, obscure the sun for a time.
It depends upon no special church nor special
creed, although we may identify it with such,
at certain stages in our spiritual growth. But
some day we shall know that in the free-
masonry of these experiences there are no
labels and no limits. The secret but
unmistakeable sign may come to us from a
Mahomedan sitting in the midst of his
disciples in an Arab mosque (as happened to
me once in Algeria) ; in some poor cottage
in England or Ireland ; from a priest in the
churches of Assisi ; from an extreme Ritualist,
or a devout Roman Catholic, or a convinced
Evangelical, or in any other surroundings.
The fact that most of these might consider
their personal experiences identical with their
personal beliefs, does not affect the question.
The spiritual masonic sign may be uncon-
sciously given where we should least expect it,
and be unmistakeably absent when we might
most reasonably look for it.
Perhaps the true mystic alone will be willing
to admit the truth of these words ; to him it
will be simply obvious.
But here we are outside the limits of theo-
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
logy and in the boundless kingdom of the
Eternal Father, in whom we live and move
and have our being.
To return to theology.
I have already spoken of the Roman
Catholic atmosphere as being so satisfying
to many, and I must at once admit that the
many include myself. Often in passing the
Brompton Oratory, or when near the West-
minster Cathedral, I go in and sit there — just
to saturate myself with this atmosphere. One
finds it, thank God, in our own churches,
but, I must confess, less often. I have vainly
tried to find a reason for this that is entirely
satisfying, but am unable to do so. There
are many Roman Catholic churches where
this spiritual atmosphere is markedly absent,
but when present, it seems to be so in a very
astonishing degree.
I suppose people must be to some extent
(< sensitives " in order to realise just what
is meant by a spiritual atmosphere clinging
to a church or a cathedral ? I think I never
felt it more strongly than in the a Porziuncula "
at the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, in
the outskirts of Assisi. The place I especially
wished to visit in that church was the altar
raised over the spot where Saint Francis and
80
A SUMMARY
Santa Chiara partook of their historical meal
together. That story seems to me always
of so beautiful and sacramental a nature, that
I had expected to find the spot where it
had taken place full of the most wonderful
and mystic influences. For me, at least, it
was not so. Against all theories of sub-
conscious expectation raising strange images,
and so forth, I experienced absolutely nothing ;
to my great disappointment as well as
surprise.
I had already looked into the chapel of
the Porziuncula in passing through, with a
very unsympathetic priest ; and had merely
remarked to myself how bare and uninteresting
it looked. Being left to my own devices later,
and after the visit to the altar already men-
tioned, 1 returned for a last glance at the
u Porziuncula" before leaving the church to
resume my journey to Assisi ; and here a great
surprise awaited me.
Kneeling down on one of the relentless-
looking wooden benches to say a short prayer
before leaving the church, as is my usual
practice in foreign churches, to my astonish-
ment I became at once conscious of this
remarkable " spiritual atmosphere," for I can
call it by no other name. Wave after wave
f 81
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
seemed to pass over me. With no conscious
effort on my own part, my whole being seemed
to be bathed in this divine element. Prayer
appeared all too cold and mechanical ; in fact
one's soul seemed to be wafted into spheres
where earth language was no longer necessary
or possible, and where the spiritual communion
took place through other channels than speech ;
" uttered or unexpressed."
It was only afterwards that I learned that
my visit was paid the very day after sixty
thousand pilgrims had been praying in that
very spot. Certainly the prayer of faith had
left a wonderful impression on those bare,
wooden benches and plain, rough walls !
The only church which I can compare with
the (i Porziuncula " in this respect, is a small
military chapel on the very highest point of
Fort Nazionale in Algeria, certainly the last
spot where one would naturally have expected
to find such spiritual conditions! I only
went there once, and am not aware that any
special function had taken place in it at the
time of my visit.
This last paragraph leads us back to the
psychic aspect, with which I wish to end this
chapter.
At the very moment of writing these words
82
A SUMMARY
a letter has been handed to me from a clergy-
man of the Church of England, addressing me
from New Zealand on the subject of my two
last books, Seen and Unseen, and Do the Dead O^^a^
Depart.
He says, "I have recommended them, together
with Stead's After Death, to many anxious
enquirers. I often wonder whether to envy
people with these psychic gifts or not. On the
one hand, it must be very delightful to be able
to give help in the way that you can ; but, on
the other hand, many of your experiences seem
a little creepy, and I would rather be without
them. But I suppose we cannot have the
pleasures of any gifts without the pains?
" I do hope you will give us some more
books like these two. They really help one
very much. I think the Church ought to
establish the sort of bureau that ' Julia '
demands in After Death, and guard it very
carefully from irreverence or profanity/ \
Now this last remarkable suggestion comes,
be it noted, from the vicar of one of the most
important cities in New Zealand. Nothing
could have strengthened my hands so much in
making the impassioned appeal I should like to
83
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
make, more especially to all other clergymen
of my own church — the dear old Church of
England. There are evidently some men
within its orders who can judge of these things
in a sane and reverent spirit — who feel that no
truth can ever be endangered by any other
truth — who realise the enormous engine for
good that these newly-discovered and emerging
facts and capacities may be, when reverently
used, with discretion and courage.
Why should the number of such men be so
lamentably small at present ?
Why should not all clergymen and religious
preachers, who are capable of taking an intelli-
gent interest in scientific research and who
have the interests of their congregations at
heart, say to themselves : —
"These subjects are no longer merely the
playground of the weak-minded or the dis-
honest. They are being investigated by a
certain and ever-increasing number of scientific
men all over the world, and those who investi-
gate long enough are always convinced in the
end that the supernormal is no myth, and
is really in our very midst at the present
moment.
" These modern facts throw a searchlight
upon old traditions and superstitions that is
84
A SUMMARY
almost blinding in its intensity, but illuminat-
ing in its suggestion. Surely it is for us, as
guardians of religion, to investigate these
abnormal occurrences vouched for by scientists
of known reputation and prahit v ? It is for
us to experiment. It is for us to encourage
the use of God's last gift to us, in stemming
the rising tide of overwhelming materiality.
It is for us to learn also the best means of
avoiding the abuse of His gift, and of teaching
the members of our flocks to keep a level head
and a pure conscience ; to avoid mere idle
curiosity and to cultivate a reverent and grate-
ful attitude towards this as towards every other
branch of knowledge. If we miss our oppor-
tunity it will not return, and then when those
who trusted to us learn that their trust has
been betrayed, through our culpable negligence
or inveterate prejudice, they will have found
other teachers who may not be nearly such
safe guides for them."
As the French abb£ of whom I speak in Seen
and Unseen said to his brother-priests in Paris :
" La lumiere est venue, mes freres — et si vous ne
la suivez pas, vous serez laissds seuls dans vos
iglisesr
The parting of the ways was bound to come,
«5
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
so soon as Science had been persuaded, at long,
long last, to look seriously into the facts.
Through my heredity — through the pure
and beautiful memory of my own dear father —
I have a special feeling of respect and affection
towards clergymen of the Church of England.
How will they elect to act at this critical
juncture ? Along the path of Evolution they
are bound to walk in time, but shall it be as
unwilling and carping critics, or as free men
going forward with joy and thankfulness to
welcome this new proof of a father's love ?
It is for them to decide.
Some years ago an old friend of mine died,
who had been for many years chaplain at a
Foreign Embassy, where he had a congregation
who believed in him absolutely, and were
entirely devoted to him. The foreign country
to which I refer was rather off the ordinary
track of tourists, but in time modern spiritualism
penetrated even there, and the English residents
appealed to their beloved minister to preach
against this poisonous and wicked development
of modern times, which, of course, could only
emanate from the devil ! My friend was a
clever man and also a courageous one. In
spite of a very denned creed, he thought for
himself on a good many subjects, and kept his
86
A SUMMARY
judgment in suspense. So he told them that
he really could not " preach against " a subject
upon which he was entirely ignorant, but that
if they liked to trust him, he would investi-
gate it.
So he did, with the result that he became
convinced of abnormal facts and powers, but in
those days Science had not taken up the matter,
nor had the startling occurrences of later years
taken place. So my friend left the subject as
he found it ; but remained convinced that some
of the facts he had come across in his rather
exhaustive investigation could not possibly be
explained by any normal or known laws.
Now this seems to me the right spirit in
which to meet the present crisis. " Always
investigate before you denounce" and then
perhaps you will find more to encourage than
to denounce, and your denunciations or
warnings will at least have double significance.
But there are different ways of investigating.
A man who, without being a professional
Scientist, has written a good deal upon scientific
subjects, and whose name (if I felt at liberty to
give it) would be known to all my readers,
tells us in one of his best-known volumes that
he has made a complete and exhaustive examina-
tion of the claims of modern spiritualism, and
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
that he is in a position to assure the world that
there is absolutely nothing but fraud and imposture
in the whole movement.
I have heard this gentleman's statement
(which I am sure he made in all good faith)
quoted again and again, as settling the matter
once for all. A near relation of my own told
me once that it was extremely conceited of me
to suppose for one moment that I could know
better than a man of this calibre, who had
given time and trouble to the investigation.
Now it so happened, by curious coincidence,
that I was able on the spot to tell my relative
the exact scope and amount of the investigation
in question. One of this gentleman's daughters
happens to be an old and intimate friend of
mine, and I had the account from her. It was,
in fact, only at her instigation and by her
urgent request that her father was unwillingly
induced to visit a clairvoyant of her choosing.
This was what took place : The moment he
entered the room he said to the clairvoyant
(a woman), " Now tell me at once the name of
the ship in which I went to India (or Australia)
twelve years ago, and then perhaps I shall think
it worth while going further. Tou cant know
that, so here's your chance.' ' The poor woman
was naturally rather perturbed by this sudden
88
A SUMMARY
and masterful attack, and pleaded for a little
time to get into harmonious conditions, etc.
" Ah ! the usual humbug. Harmonious
conditions means trying to fish it out of me
unawares 9i (or words to that effect). (< Now,
then, I give you one more chance. It is a
simple enough question, and if you really have
these wonderful powers, there can be no diffi-
culty in answering it. What was the name of
the ship I sailed in for Australia, twelve vears
ago ? "
Of course the test failed. How could it be
otherwise, considering what we now know of
necessary mental conditions? He might as
well have thrown a heavy stone into a pond
and have said, " Now, if there are no ripples, I
will believe that is water — not otherwise ! "
The poor medium tried to get him his test,
but in vain. He lost patience at once and
jumped up. " Come along, Marian, out we
go ! I knew it was all humbug when it came
to any real test."
This is the type of investigation upon which
in the old days we were expected to found our
judgments — " Nous avons changS tout cela"
As a proof of the saner and more tolerant
days that are coming, I may quote a little
personal experience of only a few weeks ago,
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
which makes a good pendant to the letter of
my New Zealand vicar — more especially as it
occurred within the Roman Catholic Church.
A cousin of mine, the other day, left a card
at my rooms in London, asking me to lunch
with her next day. I found this was in order
that she might invite a trained nurse, who had
accompanied her and her little son to Las
Palmas in the preceding spring, to meet me.
This nurse, whom I will call Miss Bird, had
expressed a great wish to see me after reading
Do the Dead Depart? My cousin mentioned
the fact that she was a Roman Catholic.
" Then how is she allowed to read such a book ? "
was my natural comment.
" / really dont quite know, but 1 believe her
priest knew all about it" was the answer. At
the moment Miss Bird was announced, and
came into the drawing-room with my book in
her hands, intending possibly to ask me some
questions about it.
In the few minutes before going down to
luncheon, I told her that I was specially
interested to hear that she belonged to the
Roman Catholic Church, and yet had not been
forbidden to read my book.
" Forbidden ! " she said in surprise. " On
the contrary, it was my priest who gave me
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A SUMMARY ^y
your book, and told me to read it, and he is
going to give me Seen and Unseen later. He
has been my best friend and guide for many
years. He knows that I have these capacities
myself and am bound to develope on these lines,
and he said he wished me to read the most sane
and wholesome literature on the subject."
Now — putting the personal note in this
entirely aside — I do think we have here two
very cheering episodes, both happening within
a month of each other, and coming from widely
differing ecclesiastical camps. It gives us
courage to hope that the ten righteous men
will be found within the city after all, and that
their influence will permeate in time both the
great Anglo-Catholic and Roman Catholic
centres. So may it be !
I cannot do better than close this portion of
my book with the wise and pertinent remarks
of Dr Philipps Brooks, late Bishop of Massa-
chusetts, than whom it would be difficult to
find a nobler character or a greater man.
'N He says, " Certainly there is nothing clearer
or more striking in the Bible than the calm,
familiar way with which from end to end it
assumes the present existence of a world of
spiritual beings always close to and acting on
this world of flesh and blood. It does not
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
belong to any one part of the Bible. It runs
through the whole vast range. From creation
to judgment, the spiritual beings are for ever
present. They act as truly in the drama as the
men and women who, with their unmis-
takeable humanity, walk the sacred stage in
the successive scenes. There is nothing of
hesitation about the Bible's treatment of the
spiritual world. There is no reserve, no
vagueness which would leave a chance for the
whole system to be explained away into dreams
and metaphors. The spiritual world, with all
its multitudinous existence, is just as real as
the crowded cities and the fragrant fields and
the loud battle-grounds of the visible and palp-
able Judaea, in which the writers of the sacred
books were living." — Dr Philipps Brooks.
92
PART II
CHAPTER VII
SPIRITUALISM ITS USE AND ABUSE
I have divided this book into two parts : the
first dealing in a brief and cursory manner with
the results of psychical research as they affect
modern Theology and modern Science ; the
second dealing more exclusively with the same
subjects on their intrinsic merits.
Everyone knows the story of the old woman
" who found such comfort in that blessed word
Mesopotamia." Now I am sure, to many of
my readers and probably to most of my critics,
the word " Spiritualism " will bring not com-
fort and blessing, but hatred, boredom, and
gnashing of teeth ! There are several obvious
reasons why this should be so. To begin with,
we have all inherited from our savage fore-
fathers a feeling of enmity and hatred towards
the unknown, the stranger, and the foreigner.
Probably this instinct was their salvation in
93
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
the earlier and ruder developments of Humanity
— events must so often have justified their
rooted suspicion of strangers and strange
events ; especially before the social instincts had
had time to develop.
I often think this must be the reason for
our own instinctive antagonism towards
strangers, even when the antagonism may be
very mild and scarcely conscious to ourselves.
But when the stranger has become a pleasant
acquaintance or even a trusted friend, we are
almost uniformly surprised to realise how
different he or she really is from our first
conception. I need not labour a point which
will scarcely be disputed, unless somebody is
very much in want of an argument.
Well, that is reason No. i for disliking a
subject upon which so many people are entirely
ignorant.
No. 2 I am afraid I must confess is due to
the very " bad company " in which the words
" spiritualists" and " spirits * have too often
been found ; as Mr Myers was fond of
reminding us at one time.
Of course the same applies to every other
label upon earth, more or less. We might as
reasonably object to clergymen, because many
of us have known, or certainly heard of, ministers
94
SPIRITUALISM— ITS USE AND ABUSE
of religion who were not only immoral, but
also dishonest, and sometimes hopeless hypo-
crites. Or we might refuse to meet doctors,
because the famous William Palmer poisoned
so many unfortunate people, thanks to his
medical training and knowledge. A school-
fellow of my own, to whom I was greatly
attached, insisted on marrying a clever doctor,
against the wishes of her family. After living
together for several years and having five
children, he grew tired of her and poisoned
her, in order that he might marry a young
governess, whom he had insisted upon keeping
in the house. Fortunately for the vindication
of justice, he committed the extraordinary
blunder of marrying this young woman in
London during the Queen's Jubilee — the very
week after he had buried his poor wife. He
had managed the poisoning so well and so
carefully, that except for this monstrous
stupidity no one would have suspected him —
no one at least, except another schoolfellow of
mine, who had been trained as a nurse and who
was staying in the house at the time, or rather
up to three days previous to, the death of our
poor friend. The doctor evidently suspected
her of suspecting him, for it came out in
evidence that he had insulted her in every
95
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
possible way for some weeks before the con-
summation of the tragedy, wishing to get her
out of the way. She refused to accept any
insult from him, when broad hints had failed
to move her ; but finally his patience was
exhausted, and he practically turned her out of
the house. Three days later my poor married
school-friend died, her husband having hurried
matters up so soon as he felt himself free from
the keen watch that had been kept upon him,
with so much courage and devoted friendship.
As a matter of fact it was the diary so carefully
kept by this brave woman, which hanged the
doctor in the end ; but his own extraordinary
lapse from common-sense, by marrying the
governess within a week or ten days, tied the
noose round his neck by supplying motive,
and leading to the exhuming of the remains of
his poor victim.
Now I think I have made out a very good
case — in this true story — for denouncing all
doctors, if I were as much at the mercy of my
prejudices as many anti-spiritualists seem to be !
I must apologise for going off the track
when this sad and gruesome little story
suggested itself as an illustration. To return
to the subject. There is a No. 3 reason,
which is possibly the strongest of all, and
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SPIRITUALISM— ITS USE AND ABUSE
which may be split into two. Firstly, that
spiritualists are often intense bores and apt to
become monomaniacs, and secondly that they
look " queer," and are sometimes eccentric. I
suppose all enthusiasts are apt to look queer
and to be eccentric. But I must confess we
might have a more keen sense of humour
sometimes, and talk less, perhaps, of the
u summer land" and of " planes of thought
and expression," and ff unfoldment" and
M development/' and so forth and so on.
This is why I am personally extremely
thankful that my own education and " unfold-
ment" had gone on for a good many years,
upon social and musical and literary lines,
before the special study and investigation to
which I have devoted my later life, came
within my horizon.
I think it is a decided advantage, because it
gives one more perspective, a truer sense of
values and proportion, and lastly and most
important of all, because it is so very hard to
give individual attention to other matters when
once this absorbing subject comes into one's
life. We came here for the experiences of life
as a whole ; and I think the " other life "
investigations come for most of us, more season-
ably, wholesomely and naturally, when we have
g 97
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
already had ample opportunity for experience
of life on the present plane.
Moreover, I think this wider experience gives
us greater influence and weight in dealing with
the outside world. But every rule has its ex-
ceptions and there are of course many born
psychics, to whom it appears quite natural to
live in both spheres at once. Much of the
best work in the world has been done by these ;
from prophets and mystics onwards.
I have been reading lately the French trans-
lation from the German by Dr Encausse, of a
remarkable book given in the form of an occult
romance, and entitled Au Pays des esprits.
Towards the end of the book the subject of
Modern Spiritualism is handled in the following
way :
A great occult teacher, named Chundra, is
speaking to his pupil " Louis," the hero of the
story, and he says : " The mediums of whom
John Dudley has written such marvellous de-
scriptions, declare themselves inspired by the
great spirits of the earth. They affirm that
their accounts are exact and describe that
which we believe it to be impossible to put
into human language.
"They are ( sensitives/ Louis — magnetised
by the spirits, they give information that the
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SPIRITUALISM— ITS USE AND ABUSE
world is ripe for receiving. Imagine the most
difficult and abstract problem of Euclid brought
down to the comprehension of children !
Well ! The descriptions of the countries of
the Unseen, which come to us through the lips
of somnambulists, have equally to be brought
within our comprehension. As for the great
names used, so long as Humanity is dependent
upon their authority, they will be heard in all
stance rooms, for mediums are perhaps even
more influenced by their audience than by the
spirits. The latter are only anxious to give us
the information in the words that we desire/ *
Then Louis, the pupil, says : " All this
seems very unworthy of a great movement."
Chundra continues : " It must be that the
world should progress, Louis ; and Spiritualism
is the only means through which it can pro-
gress. Do you trouble yourself as to how
your bread is made? If you knew, perhaps
you would never eat any more of it ! And yet
through this you are nourished, and you evolve
physically. Don't trouble yourself too much
about details. The movement of modern
Spiritualism is only the chaotic reflection of
ignorance and credulity. It is, however, the
first step towards the breaking of the seals,
towards the Apocalyptic time which is approach
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
ing. These beginnings are more important
than the next efforts of the kind. Man will
advance more and more towards the Divine
Kingdom — the elements will approach nearer
to Humanity — all creation will go up one step
on the Ladder of Life. Everything depends
therefore on the initial movement which comes
to break up the old order of things and to in-
augurate the new — Be patient."
The anonymous author is a little too hard
in his generalisation of modern Spiritualism as
merely a necessary evil — a chaotic reflection of
ignorance and credulity. Yet perhaps at some
future time, in the irradiating light of further
revelations, many of the most convinced
Spiritualists of the present day, may describe
their earlier and more limited knowledge in
similar words. In the blaze of sunshine we are
apt to forget the beauty and rapture of the
dawn, thanks to which we are not still in the
dark.
Some readers may think — judging by my
fervent appeal to our spiritual teachers and
pastors to look into these things for them-
selves, that I write as a spiritualistic propa-
gandist pur et simple.
Such is by no means the case — but quite
the contrary. I have always said, and shall
IOO
SPIRITUALISM—ITS USE ^ND ; : ABU£E
always maintain, that indiscriminate investiga-
tions of this nature are, in the highest degree,
dangerous — dangerous both to the physical
and the moral health. It must be so. You
open a door through which may rush a crowd
of ignorant, undeveloped, even malignant
entities, anxious only to make mischief and
eager to play upon your idle curiosity or your
vanity, whilst showing you a few specimens
of abnormal powers as their credentials. Few
of us will be bold enough to affirm that we
can always be sure of keeping our heads level
in the face of subtle flattery, so long as it is
not laid on with too heavy a hand.
The lower class of spirits on the other side
become great adepts in the art of discriminat-
ing flattery. The soothing ointment is con-
cocted very carefully and with a view to the
peculiar necessities of each individual case.
For the ordinary investigator, it is sufficient to
promise riches and earthly possessions as the
direct outcome of his very superior acumen
and business instinct, or power of dealing with
his fellow-men — but all cannot be manipulated
in this very obvious way.
Others are told that they have been chosen
as great teachers of evolutionary truth, and
that their mission is "unfolding" daily, and
IOI
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
will do so still more rapidly, if they keep in
touch with their spirit friends — generally
through the help of mediums.
A step higher than this come the messages
from departed friends, or even from departed
foes, craving help in their upward course or
forgiveness for some vague wrong in the past.
Far be it from me to say that there may not
be a basis of truth in any or all of these cases,
but I do know from personal experience that
even when the conscious or unconscious mind
of medium and sitter are both justifiably ex-
cluded, there remains a residuum of specious
flattery on the part of the entities themselves,
which ought to warn us that we are dealing,
not with wise counsellors, but with spirits who
have an object to gain, and who are not over
scrupulous as to the means employed. Possibly
such spirits are more frequently actuated by
ordinary love of power than by any more
malignant motives, but the latter cannot be
entirely ignored. I know of a case where a
young and charming woman, intelligent,
musical and artistic, has had her life com-
pletely wrecked by listening to the counsels
of a spirit on the other side, professing to be
one of those nearest and dearest to her. This
entity promised her all sorts of marvellous
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SPIRITUALISM— ITS USE AND ABUSE
experiences "and wonderful knowledge if she
would only listen to his advice. Unfortun-
ately she believed in the identity of her self-
constituted guide, and blindly followed his
directions, with the result that her mind
became unhinged, her home broken up, and
that which might have been a very happy and
normal life was turned into misery for herself
and those who love her. There are hundreds
of such cases, attesting to the abuse and not
the use of Spiritualism. They should not be
ignored by us, but should rather act as marsh
lights, warning us of the swamps and morasses
for the unwary on the darker side of psychical
research. Was it not Martin Luther who
declared that he would go to the Diet of Worms,
even " if it rained devils" or, as some chronicles
put it — u even if there were as many devils there
as tiles on the roofs of the houses" I prefer the
former version as stronger and more picturesque,
and I daresay it is equally historical. Martin
Luther had a great work to perform, and he
could meet devils on more equal terms than
most of us weaker souls. Unless we are firmly
convinced of some very pressing necessity, I
think most of us had better give them a wide
berth.
In saying this, I do not of course ignore the
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
very helpful and loving intercourse that may
exist between us and the next sphere. To
many of us life would be unthinkable and
unbearable without the consciousness of this.
Here there is no question of false flattery or
selfish counsels, for the pure and loving help
of our dear ones on the other side is far above
any such criticism.
Again, to some people, these investigations
have come as an obvious life-work. They
have been set apart, perhaps all their lives,
from ordinary human ties and human interests,
and may have fiercely rebelled against that
fact. They have watched the often happy
and certainly full and busy lives of their
neighbours, with envy and regret. The years
pass and only negation and renunciation of
the ordinary joys and sorrows of human life
seem to be their portion. And then, at long
last, the dawn may come and the key to
the riddle of their "universe" is put into
their hands. They have been preparing
unconsciously during these long years of
drought and famine for the work that
was to come later ; and we cannot doubt
that the full Harvest of the years of plenty
will some day crown their efforts. I have
known more than one case where the dark
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SPIRITUALISM— ITS USE AND ABUSE
problems of a long life have received such a
solution.
These people may well say, in spite of all
dissentient voices and protesting friends and
relatives, " i Henceforth let no man trouble me,
for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord
Jesus ; ' of His mission for me in these
modern days of strife and confusion and mental
unrest/ '
But we must remember that it is not only
pioneers who are needed in these researches.
We want also guides and even scouts to warn
us of the approach of the enemy. Perhaps the
best scout will be that inner monitor who
warns us (if we encourage rather than silence
him) that our outworks are being captured by
the insidious forces of flattery, and that we
shall soon be bound hand and foot in our own
citadel, if the enemy be not instantly repulsed.
George Eliot said to me, many years ago, but
after passing to the other side of life, " If you
and others could only see the dark and malign
influences surrounding you, under which you
have to fight your life's battle, you would lose
heart and courage entirely."
Fortunately for most of us, " our eyes are
balden/' and for the more sensitive souls there
is but one course left open — to go forward as
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
brave old Martin Luther did, u in the strength
of the Lord/' and say with him, " If it rains
devils , 1 will not be afraid. They shall not turn
me from my purpose — from the work put into
my hands. I will look upon them as necessary
discipline, so long as I am not able wholly to
ignore their presence. God is greater than the
devils. They are but negative to His divine
positive, and the day must come when they are
negative also to my divine consciousness."
Most people are inclined to ignore this
darker side of psychic facts altogether, and
in the main this is a wise course. There
are many psychical researchers and workers
who are not in the least degree highly sensi-
tive. Mr W. T. Stead, for instance, always
maintains that he is one of these. Probably
he could not do all the work to which he
has been called under any other conditions.
But in an evolving world, this higher degree of
sensitiveness to impressions is bound to come
at some stage in our evolution, simply because,
as we have said before, evolution abhors gaps
as much as Nature abhors vacuums. So that
the whole human body must at some time
become more highly sensitised ; which merely
means become receptive to finer vibrations, and
therefore conscious of the presence of entities
1 06
SPIRITUALISM— ITS USE AND ABUSE
living in a more ethereal condition than that of
which our ordinary physical senses can at
present take cognisance.
Such sensitives may have some interest (prob-
ably must have some interest) in psychical
questions ; but so long as they take no active
part in the propaganda, they may expect to be
left alone by the malignant entities to which I
refer. Both these classes will therefore join
in advising their less fortunate (?) fellow-
creatures to ignore these darker facts and to
treat them as illusions of the imagination.
But this is poor comfort for those of us who
know that malignant entities, eager to discour-
age all efforts towards a fuller comprehension
of God's truth, are an undeniable fact.
They do not dwell only in the imagination,
but are too often permitted to give practical
proof both of their presence and, within limits,
of their power to bring about physical disaster
upon their victims. I shall have more to say
about this in a future chapter. I only touch
upon it here in order to explain my reason for
treating this unpleasant subject from a positive
rather than a purely negative point of view.
Three-fourths or possibly four-fifths of our
psychical investigators can afford to treat the
matter in the latter way, and they will tell you
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
quite sensibly and reasonably, that by ignoring
such ideas they have kept entirely free from
any trouble. But I am writing just at this
moment for that minority of highly-sensitised
workers who can only ignore what is as real to
them as any other fact in life, by the Christian
Science device of changing words and thereby
supposing they have changed facts. To say
you have only a " belief in sore throat" instead
of saying boldly that you u have a sore throat,"
is not much consolation to the sufferer. If the
Science healer can try conclusions with your
sore throat and get the better of it, or
enable you to do the same, that is quite another
matter.
If a fact is too patent to be simply ignored,
we must find some other way of dealing with
it, and I think Luther helps us there. When
his malignant spirits on the psychic plane
became too aggressive, he didn't ignore them —
he threw inkpots at them, and this seems to
have been equally efficacious! Anyway, they
were not allowed in the long run to stop his
work, although no doubt they obstructed it as
much as possible, and gave him " a very bad
time/' in modern parlance.
We must expect the same, in our own small
way, if we attempt to oppose the forces of
1 08
SPIRITUALISM— ITS USE AND ABUSE
darkness and obscurantism by doing any
definite work, and if we are at the same time
extremely sensitive.
My friend, Lady Wincote (of Seen and
Unseen) told me once of some experiences of
her own, arising from a sensitive condition to
Unseen entities, and of a curiously suggestive
message which was given to her at the time,
and which was to the following effect :
" If you are not strong enough for these
tests, then you had better give up the whole
subject. But before deciding to do so, you
must realise that no second opportunity will
come to you during your present lifetime. All
have to pass through these dark zones in their
upward path, at some stage in their experience.
If you feel unequal to the task, it is better to
resign it ; but you will have to work out the
experience later.' '
She said she felt at the time such an influx
of courage that it seemed impossible to doubt
or to hesitate.
In proportion as the Light shines, the dark-
ness disappears ; and so in the measure in
which we can appropriate and keep burning
brightly the divine Sun of Righteousness in our
hearts, will the shadows of the night flee away.
The dark entities of ignorance and envy
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
may work us some spiritual and even physical
discomfort and harm now ; but if we are
faithful to the Light that is within, and are
chiefly concerned to keep that shining, it will
search out all dark corners in our surroundings
and chase away all ghostly enemies, that may
injure the body or " assault and hurt the soul."
no
CHAPTER VIII
OCCULT AND OTHERWISE
A lady, with whom I was at one time in rather
close relations regarding psychic matters (as to
which she had known nothing before my meet-
ing with her) told me of a curious dream she
had had about herself and me just about that
time.
She dreamed that she and I were walking
together and came to a narrow lane in the
country. This lane had a locked gate at either
end, and a guardian was placed at each gate.
As we approached, he unlocked the gate for us
and allowed us to go in without any word of
warning. As we went further on, however,
some most unpleasant experiences came to us.
The lane seemed to be the haunt of wild
beasts : lions and tigers prowled around and
came a great deal too near us for our peace of
mind. By extra agility and some display of
courage we seem to have eluded them and
managed to get safely and with our bones
intact, to the other end of the lane, where we
in
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
found the second gate, also locked, and the
second guardian.
My friend immediately attacked him and
his fellow-janitor with bitter reproaches for
not having given us some idea of the dangers
we were running ; upon which he said quietly
and in a very final tone, which admitted of no
discussion : " If it had not been known that
you would be able to get through in safety,
you would not have been allowed to enter the
lane at all "
This has always seemed to me a very sug-
gestive little parable. I think it is very
applicable to all forms of psychical research,
and more especially to the occult side of it.
The domain of occult science must naturally
be a shifting boundary, according to the amount
of our individual knowledge of abnormal
capacities and possibilities. The commonest
forms of human knowledge are necessarily
66 occult " (hidden — unknown) to the nearest
ant-heap, and, in a lesser degree, probably to
most of our domestic animals — although the
latter certainly seem to run some of us rather
close in the question of intelligence.
All the great religions of the world have
had their esoteric as well as their exoteric
aspects. In ancient days the knowledge of the
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OCCULT— AND OTHERWISE
priest always transcended the knowledge of
the people. The former depended upon
the essence of the faith, of which the people
saw only the more or less ornate manifesta-
tions.
Only the great Initiates, prepared through long
years of self-denial and abstinence for the recep-
tion of the innermost revelation of the truths of
the universe could really penetrate to the heart
of the mysteries of their religion. It was not
a question of " keeping things" from the
outer crowds. It was the mere fact that with-
out long spiritual training and vast experience
these latter coula not enter the holy of holies
with any degree of understanding, and would
therefore merely have vulgarised and miscon-
ceived the most sacred truths of the Shrine.
At the root of all these great religions and
behind their outward manifestations, the initial
truths seem always to have been the same.
The outer manifestations differed with differing
countries, climates and social conditions. The
basic and esoteric truth was always the Unity
of the Divine — His dual and thence His
threefold nature. God the Essence — male
and female — God the Son thence proceeding —
God, the Divine Word — the Divine Manifesta-
tion in all worlds — in this or any other
h 113
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
Universe. How could the vast congregations
who flocked to the temples realise these trans-
cendent truths en masse? It was impossible,
and so the esoteric doctrine grew and was
tenderly nurtured in the very innermost shrines
of the Initiates ; whilst they gave to the outer
world as much as it could assimilate, under the
only forms of speech or ceremony which could
be " understanded of the people."
Jesus Christ Himself, the last and greatest
Divine Word in manifestation, followed the
same course, in spite of His sublime simplicity
of teaching and absence of all ceremonial or
outward show. There were still "many
things" He could not tell His disciples —
why ? Simply because they were not at
a point of growth when they could have
received these many things without mental
confusion and misconception. Christ always
worked along the lines of evolution, never
in antagonism to them. He never forced
spiritual experiences upon those unprepared
for them.
His appeal was ever to Nature in his parables,
and He followed the methods of Nature in
allowing growth to develope — in never forcing
it to do so.
Therefore with Him pre-eminently there
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OCCULT— AND OTHERWISE
was an esoteric as well as an exoteric aspect of
Truth.
Whether we read of Krishna in India, of
Hermes in Egypt, of Orpheus in Greece, or of
Pythagoras (who although a Samian by birth,
was educated in the mysteries of the esoteric
doctrine in Egypt), the story is the same — long
years of discipline, of learning to control the
will and its rebellious instincts, of submitting
to tests of courage and endurance — of trials
by fire or water, or the menace of death, or
the awakening from deep trance to renewed
terrestrial life. These were only so many
different methods of " keeping under the body "
and " bringing it into subjection," which was
the Pauline translation of the same great truth.
The great tests of initiation of which we read,
seem to have been in reality a sort of condensed
object-lesson on the fierce trials of human life
for each human soul, and the courage and
endurance and submission and faith needed by
each one of us, if we are to be accounted worthy
in the end of the prize of our high calling —
worthy to be instructed further in the divine
spiritual wisdom.
These ancient initiations often seem to have
lasted the best part of a lifetime. One wonders
that any neophyte had patience to endure to
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
the end ; yet we all have to endure our own
lives to the end, and for many of us these need
as much courage and faith and often self-
sacrifice ! It is the grand initiation of Life — of
which all of us are the neophytes.
Pythagoras spent twenty-two years with the
priests of Egypt, going through the most
severe tests before they considered him fit to
receive the Divine mysteries which were
guarded with such unswerving devotion. But
what a grand twenty-two years it must have
been, for he was preparing all the time for
the final revelation ! It was in Egypt that he
studied the Divine Science of Number and the
Universal Principles, which afterwards, through
the crucible of his genius, became the centre
of his scheme of philosophy. There also he
learnt the prodigious powers of the human
will, trained and exercised with wisdom and
discretion — how it could affect for good or for
evil the human body or the human soul.
The Egyptian priests, his masters, taught that
the Science of Number and the power of the
human will were the two magical keys, and
that with them all doors in the universe could
be opened. Finally, it was in Egypt that he
learnt to comprehend the grand truth of the
involution of Spirit in matter by a universal
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OCCULT— AND OTHERWISE
creation, and the evolution of spirit, ascending
once more to the Divine Unity through that
individual creation which we call the develop-
ment of consciousness.*
Wonderful knowledge all this ! Well worth
an immolation of more than twenty years
amongst the grand old Egyptian temples ! No
wonder the priests waited all those years to
assure themselves of his being a worthy disciple,
fit to receive the two keys which would open
all gates in the Universe.
How different were these old methods from
the superficial, half-digested knowledge of too
many of our modern schools of occultism ! We
seem to have lost count of the great spiritual
truths of genuine occultism, and to be chiefly
concerned with the marvellous and abnormal
powers that we may learn to develope — powers
which may land us in the very gravest dangers,
and land our unfortunate friends there with us,
if we begin experimenting upon them with our
two keys of the Universe !
Law will act, whether evoked wisely or
unwisely — gravitation will bring us down from
the top of an omnibus or the window of a
railway train, if we lean out too far, just as
inevitably as it will enable us to keep our
* Les Grands InitUs — Pytkagore.
117
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
feet whilst whirling round in space, at inconceiv-
able rates of motion.
Therefore if we study occult science physi-
cally before we have reached that extreme
high- water mark morally, which would render
us safe custodians of such abnormal powers,
we shall no doubt succeed in using them and
very possibly in doing considerable damage
mentally, if not also physically, to that special
ion in the universe of human atoms which
represents our individual self.
We can learn how to call up elementals no
doubt, and even insure their coming to us,
but would most of us be any better for the
experience ? I think not. We should probably
learn too late that this form of service might
have to be too dearly paid for in the end.
If we want something done which we are not
ashamed of owning to, I think it is much
safer to appeal to the angels than to the ele-
mentals, and leave it to them to make use
of the latter, should they see fit to do so. I
confess that I don't know in the least what
an angel is like ; but I use the term in a
general sense to cover the kindly guardians,
of whose presence the most obtuse amongst
us must surely sometimes be conscious ?
In this way we should at least be appealing
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OCCULT— AND OTHERWISE
to those wiser than ourselves and not more
limited ; to those who can see from above
and not merely grope about at our good
pleasure from below. And the common-sense
argument seems to me that if we are to have
dealings with entities in any sphere but our
own present one, it is a good deal better to
invoke those further on in the evolutionary
spiral and not those who are still many coils
lower down — no, not even to get service
out of them or as a sop to our curiosity and
love of power.
I am not speaking merely from theory in
saying this. I joined an occult society once
and went through several degrees in it. No
doubt it was conducted on similar lines to
others of the kind, and I have no reason to
doubt the bona fides of any member of it — I
speak only of my individual feeling in the
matter, and have no wish to lay down the
law or to force any opinion upon other people
which does not appeal to their own views in
such questions. Everyone must judge for
himself, and it is only as concerns our motives
that, any one of us will finally be judged — even
by his own conscience.
Before closing the subject I feel inclined
to quote the words of a wise woman, who has
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
been a constant source of help and consolation
to me, and whose automatic script I have
given in Seen and Unseen under the initials
u E. G." She passed over many years ago,
and I did not know her personally in earth-
life, although her name was naturally well-
known to me, and I have often been in the
same company with her.
She seemed quite willing that I should have
the experience of a short novitiate in occult
science, but after six or seven months, appeared
to be equally anxious that I should renounce
these studies. As I have an almost morbid
dread of allowing the " other side" friends
to influence me unduly, I determined to wait
until I could feel quite sure that I was acting
upon my own initiative, and not blindly follow-
ing her ideas. After all, we cannot live our
lives at second hand any more than we can
learn to paint by allowing our master to touch
up our feeble attempts and cover our errors
with a few bold strokes of his practised brush !
So months passed on, and an evening came
when I was anxious to have a little chat with
one of my kind friends in the Unseen, as I
was feeling rather depressed at the time. I
think the scourge of influenza was upon us
just then, and the whole nation was mourning
I2Q
OCCULT—AND OTHERWISE
the loss of the King's eldest son. I had a
most interesting and touching experience with
the latter just about this time, by the bye ; but
for obvious reasons this cannot be made
public.
To return to our subject. Greatly to my
disappointment, the friend I specially wished
to see could not apparently come, and almost
immediately the initials E. G. were knocked
out. I asked if she would begin her message,
and on receiving an affirmative answer, started
the usual wearisome alphabet, which I used
at that time almost exclusively, having been
warned that I was not yet sufficiently trained
to take automatic messages with impunity.
We had got as far as " you ha/' when to
hurry up matters (non-evidential) I did what
I have often done in those days, made a guess
and asked, u Is the next letter V"? I felt
quite sure the answer would be yes, and that
the obvious word was " have." But I was
wrong — a most emphatic " No " was rapped
out, and I was told to begin the alphabet over
again. I did so, with the result that we
arrived at " y M without any intimation or rising
of the table to mark the right letter. I con-
cluded that I must have passed it, by repeating
some letter too rapidly to give time for the
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
deliberate " rise M ; and was just going to start
again impatiently, when to my surprise and
relief the unmistakeable sign came at the letter
" z." Now I must confess, although it seemed
to me very stupid later, that I could not for
the moment think of any word beginning haz.
So in perfect mental fog, which prevented any
possibility of mere lazy guessing on my part,
we started again. The table rose at " a "
instantly, and the word " hazard " was spelt
out.
I have only given this special word in
detail, because it was so entirely outside
any mental suggestion of my own at the
time. Of course we must always make terms
for the mysterious and omniscient subconscious
self of which we all talk so much — and know
so little !
When the sentence was completed it ran
thus : " You will soon hazard my respect for
you if you neglect my repeated injunction to
give up your novitiate in occult science."
I asked at once :
" Why ? Is it wrong in itself, or wrong
for me ? "
The answer was very suggestive, and although
some will think it too drastic as regards occult
studies in general, it certainly put the truth so
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OCCULT— AND OTHERWISE
far as I, personally, was concerned, into a
nutshell :
" Both. It should only be studied as a natural
stage in the soul's progression ; not as a forced and
artificial growth — -full of danger "
We are between " Scylla and Charybdis " in
this as in everything else in life. We are
here to find the true balance of things, and
our own special stage of growth — mental,
moral and physical — without dogmatising
and laying down hard and fast rules for other
people.
To shut ourselves out from all studies that
may have a dangerous possibility would mean
practically exclusion from all forms of knowledge,
though not of wisdom. But I suppose know-
ledge and its acquisition is perfectly legitimate
in its proper place, and is obviously part of our
present training? All knowledge may be
abused as well as used, in common with every
other human possession. This fact doubtless
led to the deification of ignorance and terror of
the intellect which marked a previous age to
this one.
We might as well refuse to go out into the
streets for fear of being run over by a motor-
car or an omnibus, and sit at home all day, to
pine away from want of exercise or to be
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
crushed by the falling of a wall in our own
house !
With reference to what I have already said
as regards the esoteric side of our Lord's
mission, I think the following translation from
an interesting commentary on Saint Jean by a
doctor of the Sorbonne, who calls himself Alta,
may be worth quoting. Speaking of the many
things which Jesus Christ said His followers
could not yet understand, but which He
promised should be revealed later, the author
goes on to say : —
"The fact that the Holy Spirit — the Re-
vealer — has suggested for a certain moment
a certain wise decision, does not prevent the
same Divine Spirit enlightening our spirits
still further during the course of the ages.
u A formula, no matter whence it comes, in
what language, in what phase of the human
mentality, falls quickly from the domain of
authority into the domain of Science ; for no
matter how infallible such a formula may be,
it must of necessity appeal to criticism, to
philology, to philosophy, to intelligence, in
order to establish the authenticity, the intention,
the sense and meaning of the words which con-
stitute it. Yesterday cannot suppress to-day,
nor can to-day paralyse to-morrow.
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OCCULT— AND OTHERWISE
" The symbol of the true Church is not a
Rock but a Ship. It is not the Basilica of St
Peter in Rome. It is St Peter's ship upon the
waters of Galilee — the Galilee of the nations.
Peter may be the pilot, but it is the function
neither of the pilot nor of the captain of a ship
to command the waves nor to forbid them to
break, to swell, or to recede in due course.
On the contrary, it is just this breaking and
movement of the waves which bears onward
the ship.
" The Divine Spirit breathes in different
ways in different souls ; so that from the clash
of opinions the light may be kindled, and thus
the daring of one mind will balance the timidity
of another ; the resistance of this man will
moderate the dogmatism of that one, and thus
the progress of the Future shall carry on —
without breaking them — the links of the
Past."
I2 5
CHAPTER IX
AUTOMATIC WRITING ITS USE AND ABUSE
I think it may be well to recapitulate the
divisions I have given to this subject in my
last book Do the Dead Depart ?
First — Intuitional writing. By this I mean
to indicate where pen or pencil is used, but
where only the broad general idea is given
from the Unseen, the whole detail being con-
sciously added by the use of the medium's
own brain capacity with its individuality of
wording and expression. This kind of writing,
although lowest in the scale from the automatic
point of view, has its own very obvious advan-
tages. It is more usually found in agents of
some strength of character and power of in-
tellect, and such persons are those least likely
to be victims of trifling or deceptive messages.
Their own strong personality drives off the
mere tramp or vagrant from the spirit spheres.
Secondly — Inspirational writing. This is
perhaps the most desirable of all, given a
person of solid character and high aspirations,
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AUTOMATIC WRITING
likely to attract inspiration of the noblest
kind. We are too apt to forget that inspira-
tion merely indicates a method and may be
divine or infernal.
In inspirational writing, not only the main
idea would be given, but also as much of the
clothing of the idea in earth language as is
compatible with an absence of entire control
over the personality of the agent.
Thirdly — Automatic writing in the primary
sense of the term. This would be where the
personality of the scribe is completely over-
shadowed, and in such cases the process is
generally slower, more deficient, and necessarily
more exhausting. It is probably more ex-
hausting, for the communicating intelligence
also, and perhaps not always more truly
accurate, except in verbal expression.
Fourthly — The last class comprises automatic
writing of the above description, where the
control is so absolute that the message does
not pass through the conscious physical brain
at all, but seems to take place as though some
unseen hand guided the fingers of the recipient,
without impressing the physical brain. My
own first attempts at automatic writing took
place when I was a young girl of eighteen,
and I am thankful to say they were eminently
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
unsuccessful. Nothing but long straggling
lines of meaningless pothooks, or endless loops
and twists, were the result. At long last I
did get a few letters of the alphabet and even
a sentence, but this sentence always was the
same : "Emmie is an enemy — Emmie is an
enemy," repeated ad nauseam!
No matter when or where I made the
attempt, this was the invariable outcome,
after a good many meaningless lines and
loops had been drawn. So I became tired
of automatic writing as a parlour game and
left it severely alone for many years. After
my first visit to America and when circum-
stances had led me to the path of psychical
investigation^ which I have never deserted, I
made fresh attempts to develope in this way ;
not knowing enough in those days to realise
the dangers lurking under this apparently
innocent pursuit. These efforts were not so
unsuccessful as those of my early girlhood,
but I abandoned the subject, so far as personal
experiment went, simply because my kind
friends and helpers on the other side most
urgently requested me to do so, although they
did not at that time enter into any detail of the
reason for the prohibition. This, however, was
so constant and so decided in tone that I did not
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AUTOMATIC WRITING
feel it possible to disregard their repeated in-
junctions, and as a matter of fact it did not
occur to me to ask for an explanation of the
precise dangers they foresaw, and which I have
since had so many opportunities of observing.
u Leave it alone — lay it down — do not attempt
this kind of writing — it is dangerous for you at
present — we will let you know later if you can try
it with safety"
In one or other of these sentences the warning
was always given. I accepted it, feeling con-
vinced of their bona fides and wise precaution,
and I have never failed to thank them for
the counsel. I know now what untold trouble
and confusion might have followed, both for
myself and for others, had I disregarded the
prudent counsel.
For fully five years the embargo remained.
Then it was lifted, and I was told that a strong
band of spirits would now be formed to pro-
tect me from danger if I wished to communicate
at stated and reasonable times with my friends
in the " higher life." This has always been
the case. I cannot recall a single instance
where any real discomfort has been caused or
any positively false information has been given.
Mistakes have often been made, especially as
regards time, which the friends always say
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
they cannot calculate as we do. They have
ever warned me not to give absolute credence
to any prevision. They can see a little further
than we do, and can often calculate the probable
trend of events more accurately, but they are
no more omniscient than ourselves, and so far
as time calculations are concerned, they see
events as far or near, not according to our
time divisions of weeks or months or years,
but as clouds, of which the nature can be
gathered by the brighter or deeper shadows,
and the approximate time-limit by their greater
or lesser density.
Apart from the usual old stories of foolish
women parting with diamonds and valuable
lace or large sums of money in response to
messages from the Unseen, and of foolish men
and women contracting disastrous marriages in
accordance with the supposed advice of the
"dear spirits ,, — advice not always obtained by
automatic script — I think my first important
experience of the danger of tampering with
automatic writing whilst in an undeveloped and
therefore unguarded psychical condition, came
through my acquaintance with the Mrs Forbes
of the Society for Psychical Research records.
When she was overwhelmed with grief at the
sad and sudden loss of her only son, I had
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AUTOMATIC WRITING
advised her — as a very old friend of her hus-
band — to try sitting alone every day for ten or
fifteen minutes, and concentrating her mind
upon the boy ; striving to realise his presence
and continued life, and to give hospitality
mentally to any attempt on his part to respond.
It would never have occurred to me to suggest
her attempting automatic writing, as she had
then no experience whatever in these subjects.
Moreover, her husband disapproved of them,
and had never allowed her to join the Society
for Psychical Research, and out of loyalty to him
I should certainly not have taken the responsi-
bility of attempting to set her feet at once in
such an advanced stage on the road. I felt
that no one could object to any mother sitting
quietly and alone to meditate upon her boy as
a living reality, and I hoped that by degrees
this daily exercise might bring some consolation
in helping her to realise spiritual facts.
Even when she wrote to me ten days later
and said, with delighted gratitude, that she was
now in constant, daily communication with her
boy, I was still under the impression that this
communion was on the mental and spiritual
plane, and did not understand until weeks
later, that she had already, and from the first,
used material means to bring about the com-
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
munications. Had I done so, I should not
have been so much surprised by receiving a
despairing letter from her a week or two later,
which was in sad contrast to those which had
preceded it : —
" / must give it all up> this intercourse with my
son. It cannot be a right and holy thing, or I
should not have had such a terrible experience. It
seems to me in my despair as if I had lost my boy
over again."
She then went on to describe what must
certainly have been a most painful and terrify-
ing experience. It seems that some entity,
giving the name of a man she had known and
esteemed, and one well-known in psychic circles,
had forced his way in through the door left
open by her premature and inexperienced
efforts at communication ; that she had felt as
if an almost personal combat were going on
between him and her son for the supremacy,
the clash of personalities and ensuing discord
being thrown upon her, and resulting in a
terrifying nights experience. Towards morn-
ing the attack seemed to be relaxed, and eventu-
ally she felt that she and her boy together had
won the victory. It had left her naturally
much perturbed and with a strong conviction
for the time being that she must cut herself off
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AUTOMATIC WRITING
from all intercourse of any sort or kind with
her beloved son, on this side of the Veil.
Now Mrs Forbes was, and no doubt still is,
firmly convinced that the intruding spirit was
a false one, assuming the name and personality
of an old acquaintance, and that he had nothing
in the world to do with the original and true
individual. Of course, this may be so ; on the
other hand, I think this special episode admits
of a far more natural explanation. When this
gentleman was alive, Talbot Forbes must have
been quite a young child, and probably rather
in the way when the former came to see his
mother ; as young children requiring a good
deal of attention are apt to be in the eyes of
casual visitors. Later, the child grows up, is
suddenly cut off in early manhood and goes
over to the other side, within reach, no doubt,
of the mother's old friend. Through com-
munication opened up between mother and
son, ^he former friend would find himself once
more within touch, as it were, of Mrs Forbes.
Talbot Forbes (who must have appeared almost
a boy to the man, much older when on earth,
and still older in spirit life) was, however, in
complete monopoly of the spirit telephone, and
doubtless resented any interference with his
rights. He knew nothing of the man claiming
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
to know his mother and who had died in his
own childhood. Why should he accept his
word and give up his place to a stranger, even
for a moment, of this short and precious time
of intercourse with his mother? The older
man would almost inevitably be put down by
the young one as an impostor, whilst the
former would doubtless look upon Talbot as a
great nuisance, and obstacle in the way of
renewing a valued friendship so unexpectedly
made possible for him. In fact, Talbot as a
young man, was playing the same role con-
sciously, as I have suggested may possibly have
been played unconsciously by him as a child.
The antagonism on either side and the miscon-
ception on Talbot's part, who might feel he
must guard his mother from this impersonating
evil and deceitful spirit ; all this would be
thrown upon Mrs Forbes and materialise itself
as a deadly conflict between her son and an
emissary of Satan. She, on this plane, and
the son on the other plane, withstood the
enemy, who appears to have given way at last
in sheer despair.
Now this is only my alternative suggestion,
which I have no doubt Mrs Forbes herself
would deny from start to finish. Knowing
something of human nature in general and by
i34
AUTOMATIC WRITING
report of this special man's nature in particular,
I think my view is at any rate a common-sense
one? The suggestion of wickedness in con-
nection with the impersonating spirit would
not materially affect the question ; because it
might obviously be the hypnotic response of
Mrs Forbes to her son's preconception.
It was on this occasion that I begged my
friends in the next sphere to give me some
information on the subject. They did not
enter into the rights or wrongs of this special
case (which may or may not have been clear to
them.) They took the more practical course
of explaining to me the confusion and decep-
tions that might so easily arise through a
premature exercise of automatic writing, and
for the following very sensible reason. They
said practically — "The initial mistake was
made when Mrs Forbes adopted this method
of communication instead of following your
instructions literally. She is not at present
sufficiently developed to be able to use auto-
matic writing without risk." When I asked
why automatic writing was more risky than
mental communication with the other side, the
answer was — as it seemed to me — both simple
and sensible : " The more material your
methods of communication, the greater risk
i35
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
there is of attracting the more material spirits,
who are ever waiting about, watching for suit-
able opportunities to make themselves recog-
nised by you on earth. Now a pen or pencil
is obviously more material than a thought.
Therefore the more earth-bound spirits can
manipulate pen or pencil or table and Planchette
more easily than they can manipulate and
mould your thoughts."
The mention of Planchette reminds me of
another case which came under my own obser-
vation, and where the results were obviously
and unmistakeably bad, and admit of no such
white-washing as I have attempted in the Forbes'
case.
A lady I know took a house some years ago in
the South Kensington district, and she and her
husband went to live there with their four
children.
I think some of the fixtures and possibly a
little furniture were taken over with the house.
At any rate it turned out subsequently that an
old Planchette had been left in one of the
nurseries. This lady's eldest daughter, whom I
will call Pansy, was at that time a pretty child
of twelve, very truthful and straightforward,
whose word could be absolutely relied upon.
Soon after they were all established in the
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AUTOMATIC WRITING
home, poor little Pansy complained to her
mother of seeing a cf wicked-looking old
woman, with thin grey hair and terribly cruel
black eyes/' in the back drawing-room. Up
to this time the lady knew nothing at all about
psychic matters and took absolutely no interest
in them. She had lived for years in one of
our Colonies and had had far more practical
matters to occupy her time and thoughts.
Naturally, however, she was greatly distressed
when this child — whose word she had never
had reason to doubt — persisted in her tale.
She said the old woman did not frighten her so
much when other people were in the room,
because she did not put on such a horrible
expression then. But when the poor child was
left alone by any chance in the drawing-room,
especially in the back part of it, the old woman
took the opportunity of making faces at her
and rendering herself altogether extremely
terrifying and unpleasant.
When my friend investigated the matter
further, she heard for the first time about the
Planchette that had been left in a nursery cup-
board, and also found that Pansy and her nurse
had u been trying to write with it for fun." It
was no fun for the poor little girl, for some
months at least.
i37
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
The door having been opened in this
ignorant and casual way, the old woman seems
promptly to have walked in and to have done
her best to make the poor child's life a burden,
owing to her unfortunate and hitherto unsus-
pected clairvoyant power.
The mother, a very practical and sensible
woman, did not waste time in fruitless regrets.
She heard of the Society for Psychical Research,
and at once became a member, thinking she
might in this way get some practical advice in
dealing with the matter and releasing her little
daughter from the painful and frightening
experience. I think as a matter of fact that the
relief came eventually either through private
friends or through no St Martin's Lane.
Anyway, I have great pleasure in mentioning in
this connection the name of Mrs Manx, who
has been in England and whose absence is
regretted by all who knew her.
When Pansy's mother went to her, she at
once described without the slightest suggestion,
exactly the features and appearance of the
haunting old woman. I cannot remember
whether she was also able to see why this
special entity clung to the house. In any case,
she gave some excellent and very disinterested
advice as to the best means of getting rid of
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AUTOMATIC WRITING
the l< unwelcome guest." For when my
friend suggested Mrs Manx coming to the
house and holding a seance the latter at once
dissuaded her from any such course. " Don't
do anything of the kind" she said, "you may
attract other undesirable visitors whilst trying to
get rid of this one" She then gave some simple
instructions which turned out to be quite
successful.
My friend continues to live in the house,
but neither she nor her daughter have experi-
enced any discomfort or undesirable visits from
other than mundane personalities.
As for Pansy, the last I heard of her was a
year ago, when she was enjoying her first ball,
and I am told she has grown into a very
charming and pretty girl.
So the "wicked old woman" has mercifully
not been allowed to cast any permanent shadow
on this bright young life.
But matters might have been very different.
If a sin-stained man or woman, rather than an
innocent young girl, had been in question,
what untold misery might have been the
result of such a haunting presence ! — a
haunting directly due to the apparently
innocent but premature and ignorant playing
with forces whose powers and conditions were
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
not understood, and could therefore not be
guarded against.
In addition to the initial and most obvious
danger in automatic writing, namely that it is
one of the most subtle and yet easiest ways in
which a door may be opened and left unguarded
for the entrance of undesirable spirit visitors,
there are many minor dangers on the moral
plane associated with any indiscreet use of this
alluring phenomenon.
In the first place we may give up too much
of our time to it, and thus neglect more
immediate duties, besides losing all taste for
them. Exactly the same argument might be
used in regard to excessive novel-reading, and
I am quite willing to admit this. Our sceptical
friends would probably say there was quite as
much fiction in one case as the other !
Then again automatic writing, unless we
are very much on our guard, may minister
greatly to our natural vanity. Like attracts
like, and people with a well-developed bump of
vanity on this plane, are apt to attract those of
the same class behind the veil. I am thankful
to say that my most frequent correspondents
from the other side are of rather robust con-
stitution, and more apt to give me salutary
rebukes than to prophesy smooth things ;
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AUTOMATIC WRITING
but we all need to be on our guard in this
respect.
We get so many buffets in this world,
unless we are extremely rich or excessively
dense. In the first case nobody dares to tell
us the truth about ourselves — in the second
case we don't care " a button " if they do !
But most of us belong to neither extreme, and
may very reasonably think that after getting
some hard raps down here, our unseen friends
might at least put us on good terms with
ourselves again — just as a worried business
man, who may have been lectured in his office,
expects a little soothing syrup at home, ad-
ministered by an admiring wife and family.
This is all right within due limits, but when
we are told that all our views and arguments
are in the main true, and those of our neigh-
bours mistaken, so far as they diverge from our
own — or that a great mission is laid upon us
as to which we alone are competent, and for
which the world has been waiting for many
hundreds of years, then I think we ought to
recognise the danger-signals and " go slow."
I know it is very difficult, because often
these messages may be perfectly sincere with-
out being perfectly correct. Apart from the
question of deceiving entities, we naturally
141
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
attract to us those who are in affinity with us
or have a strong affection for us. Probably
they often do think we are right in this or that
opinion or action. It does not follow that
their view is correct, but one often hears
people backing up their own prejudices or
actions by telling you of the beautiful messages
they have received on the subject ; as though
that were a final appeal.
So long as we are prepared to keep our
automatic script within reasonable bounds and
not allow it to encroach unduly upon other
duties — so long as we are willing to receive
blame as well as praise if need be — to hold our
judgment in suspense and receive these com-
munications as we should receive those from
esteemed friends on earth — and most important
of all, so long as we keep our independence of
action intact, and don't learn to run to the
unseen friends for every small or great decision
in life ; so long we may no doubt exercise
our gift without abusing it.
But all this is a rather large order ! I
wonder how many of us, automatic writers,
can feel honestly convinced that we have filled
in the contract satisfactorily ?
There is another less pleasing possibility to
contemplate, but one which I don't feel justi-
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AUTOMATIC WRITING
fied in ignoring completely, since it has been
more than once brought under my personal
notice. It is a temptation which so-called
"religious people' ' occasionally fall into, that
of thinking they are influenced by the highest
motives instead of the lowest ones, and using
their religion or their psychic gifts to con-
found or humiliate their enemies — as Bishop
Creighton used to say to some of his obstinate
clergy, who refused to submit on points really
not vital : u A great deal that you call conscience
is> in reality, temper!' I have seen the germ
of this subtle temptation to spiritual priggish-
ness and a desire to score off any one who has
offended them, in quite small children. I
have heard one little girl say to another
severely, " Tou are a very naughty little girl, and
all I can do is to 'pray for you!'' This is one
of my earliest childish reminiscences, and I am
always devoutly thankful to have been the
" naughty little girl" upon that occasion !
Christian Scientists, in the early stages of
their initiation into what one might politely
call the technical terms of the sect, are apt to
say to any one who disagrees with them or
annoys them, "This just shows that you are
still in mortal mind."
And so I am afraid sometimes we may use
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
our automatic script, quite unconsciously, in the
same way, to score off our enemies or to put
ourselves in a superior spiritual position with
regard to them. It may be objected that in
such case it would prove that the writing was
simply self-suggestion — not necessarily, I think
— I have long felt convinced that many of our
unkind thoughts of our neighbours are really
thrust upon us from outside.
If we open the door even an inch or two
by a passing criticism, or perhaps a satirical
remark upon an acquaintance, how quickly a
rush of very unkind thoughts will often dash
in and almost frighten us with the strength of
the flood! ^If we are wise we shall stem it
at once, by trying to say or think something
kindly of them. All of us who have any
introspective faculty at all, must be aware of
the truth of my words/) Then is it difficult to
realise that these unseen tempters may mani-
pulate our pens more easily than our brains ;
especially when we have made ourselves inten-
tionally passive and receptive, as in automatic
writing ?
Asa "pendant" to the "mortal mind" illus-
tration, as regards Christian Scientists, I will
give a true experience of my own as regards
automatic writers.
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AUTOMATIC WRITING
Some years ago a lady who happened to be
staying in the same house with me, and who
was an acquaintance of some years' standing
but not an intimate friend, took occasion to
come into a morning-room where I was sitting
alone a few days after my arrival. I must tell
you, by the bye, that this lady had some
psychic development of rather an elementary
nature.
She brought a square MS. copybook with
her and a pencil, and told me at once (without
any encouragement on my part) that she had
just received an automatic message to the
effect that I was obsessed by a very undesir-
able spirit who had followed me from India, I
think, and that her spirit-friends were greatly
perturbed as to the effect my presence might
have upon her, under such painful and un-
desirable conditions.
Now I knew that this lady was slightly
piqued by my not having cultivated her
acquaintance more energetically, and it seemed
to me a very obvious, although probably really
unconscious way of taking a mild revenge, in
which it is quite possible that she may have
had co-operation from the other side.
She was quite kindly willing to put her
automatic gift at my disposal, and doubtless
k 145
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
we should have had sheets of details had I
been equally willing to respond, or in any way
impressed by the announcement. As it was,
I laughed good-naturedly and said quite
pleasantly, " To-morrow evening, Mrs X., I
shall find out where you are, and come in with
a big MS. book of my automatic writing, and
I expect you will find you are the victim of
several obsessing spirits, and that I have been
ordered to leave the house and your company
at once ! "
She took the hint and I heard no more about
that undesirable spirit who had followed me
from India. This again I consider may be
classed as an abuse of automatic script. In
any case we have no right to forget our manners
and insist upon thrusting automatic messages
upon acquaintances who have not asked for
them.
There is an unwritten law in all such matters,
and one of the first rules should be that we
give nobody the benefit of our automatic script
about them, unless they have requested this
favour at our hands ! Secondly, that we should
consider it a point of honour not to attempt in
this way to tap the subliminal consciousness of a
friend or an acquaintance (far less of an enemy)
with the same reservation and with the addi-
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AUTOMATIC WRITING
tional safeguard which Mr W. T. Stead quite
rightly imposes upon himself, namely to send
any such script at once to the person concerned,
even where it has been obtained by that person's
express wish and permission.
My readers may justly accuse me of speaking,
so far, only of the abuse of automatic writing.
How about the other portion of my subject ?
With the sad case before my eyes, to which
I have referred in another chapter, where a
young and gifted woman has apparently de-
stroyed her health and domestic happiness by
ill-advised and unreasoning faith in the entities
purporting to communicate with her through
her own hand in automatic script, is it any
wonder that the abuse should loom largest in
my mental horizon ?
But this is not the only reason for my
devoting the larger part of my chapter to the
darker side of the subject. The uses of auto-
matic writing are so obvious and so numerous
that there is not the slightest fear of their
being overlooked. Too many grateful people
are ready to testify to the help and comfort
and happiness and consolation they have re-
ceived through the wise and discreet exercise of
the gift. The difficulty is not in realising the
use but in realising the possible and very
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
probable abuse of it, where a wise reserve and
discretion are not observed.
To many these dangers have not become
apparent , because they have instinctively guarded
themselves or have been wisely guarded, as in
my own case, where for five years my spirit-
friends themselves begged me to leave the
subject alone, until sufficiently advanced to
take it up without danger to myself and others.
There is just one other small danger to
which I have not yet referred, but which has
come quite lately under my immediate and
personal experience.
I refer to the constantly increasing tendency
to use this means of attempting to scan our
own past lives and still more eagerly the past
lives of our neighbours. In these days, most
progressive minds have a tentative and modified
belief in a sort of conditional reincarnation,
such as that held by Mr C. C. Massey, and
extremely well defined by him in the posthumous
papers edited so excellently by Professor W. R.
Barrett, F.R.S.
We are all inclined to be curious about our
"past lives," and to welcome any clairvoyant
visions which assign to us important and
interesting "parts" when we last trod this
earthly stage.
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AUTOMATIC WRITING
Probably 90 per cent, or even more of such
announcements are absolutely void of even the
most fragile foundation in truth. It is far
wiser to wait until insistent memories awake in
our own brains, and even these must be taken
with many grains of salt when they come
spontaneously, for self-suggestion would have
to be tabulated as well as outside hypnotic sug-
gestion from the thoughts of others with whom
we are in contact. Proud and loving parents
of a metaphysical turn, would be bound to think
their own children had played very important
parts in previous lives, and would probably
impress these ideas mentally upon their off-
spring. All this, however, does not affect the
subject of my chapter. What is really to be
deprecated is a growing tendency to gain
supposed information as to the past lives of
our friends, and this I think is palpably unfair,
although I am sure it has been done, in many
cases, without the slightest notion of going
beyond legitimate experiment.
You may receive the most appalling state-
ments concerning the past lives of your neigh-
bours and friends. They are perfectly power-
less in your automatic hands, when once this
automatic-vivisection game begins. It can
have no limits, within the limits of the writer's
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
imagination, and as it is obviously impossible to
refute such statements or to start a libel case, in
which the Prosecutor would have to be your
own previous personality (perhaps several
hundred years old), there is nothing for it but
to beg your intelligent experimental friends to
unpin you from the psycho-dissecting table and
turn their attention elsewhere.
Another grave possibility strikes me in this
respect. We will suppose that a perfectly
honourable and well-intentioned gentleman,
interested in psychology and with some gift of
automatic script, receives a message about your
supposed past incarnations in which, after the
manner of such messages, you may be quite sure
some dark and terrible insinuations will be made
— probably against your moral character. By
chance, some guest staying in the house sees
the message or at any rate hears about it.
Probably he or she has never set eyes upon you,
but the suggestion of immorality — let us say —
and the name connected with it } remain in the
memory. In these sensational days this is quite
sufficient to start the " white hare." People
have no time to listen perfectly to anything
nowadays ; far less to remember it accurately.
"Surely I heard something very doubtful about
Mrs So-and-so when I was in Cheltenham ? —
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AUTOMATIC WRITING
a divorce case or something of that kind — any way,
r m positive 1 heard she had beeyi the means of
separating a man from his wife, etc., etc." The
guest in question might quite conceivably have
forgotten the circumstances and remembered
only the scandal, little dreaming that it was all
connected with a supposed previous incarnation
of the poor victim.
This sounds an exaggeration, but I am
absolutely convinced that it is a possibility.
In any case I think it is wiser not to tap the
supposed previous incarnations of our friends,
unless at their special request. Personally, I
should refuse to do it, even then.
We are all walking just now amongst a good
deal of very fragile china, and need to be very
careful to avoid breakage.
And now to turn to the brighter side of the
picture. Automatic writing within reasonable
and sane conditions needs no further justifica-
tion than the fact that Spirit 'Teachings, by the
late Stainton Moses ( M.A. Oxon.), now in
its sixth edition, was received in this manner.
I do not include the marvellous works of
that grand seer and divine philosopher, Andrew
Jackson Davis, simply because I believe his
inspired writings came from trance utterances,
immediately taken down by a secretary on the
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
spot, in which case they can hardly be included
in our present subject.
So far as private experiences go, I suppose
every intelligent and well-balanced automatic
writer can tell of happy instances where he or
she has not only received personal help and
comfort, but has been able to convey this to
others by the exercise of this gift.
I have mentioned several cases of the kind
in my own experience in my two last books,
and need not refer to them again. Many
people speak of automatic writing as if only
silly and frivolous messages were received by
this means. This is a great mistake. As
Emerson has so truly said : " If 'we meet no gods,
it is because we harbour none" and if we meet
only with silly and lying messages, it may be
because we are not very wise, nor even perhaps
very truthful, ourselves.
But those who are not conversant at first-
hand with automatic writing, are apt to repeat
this rather general statement, as though it were
an axiomatic truth.
Even so lately as a few years before the
death of Mr Frederic Myers, I remember his
giving an address on psychic subjects at the
Sesame Club, and in referring to automatic
messages he said : " / dont for a moment defend
I<52
AUTOMATIC WRITING
the substance of these messages. I quite admit
the folly and triviality almost without exception of
what comes in this way ; but the question of the
source is still of interest to us, whether the water
that comes through these channels be clear or
tainted" I remember this the more readily,
because an American friend of mine, a very
active old lady, got up at once and indignantly
refuted this statement, instancing my own
messages as contradicting the truth of it.
In connection with these latter and in fact
with all automatic messages, Sir Oliver Lodge
and many others have raised the very pertinent
question of " stained glass," by which, of course,
I mean the possible intrusion of the scribe's
personal knowledge or prejudices and pre-
conceptions upon the supposed communicating
intelligence.
No doubt we must always allow not only for
the possibility but for the certain fact of such
intrusion in greater or less degree, the amount
of course varying in different writers, and at
different stages of their development in this
branch of psychic knowledge. Some colouring
matter no doubt is bound to come in where
the brain of the agent is used, and where the
control of him or her is not absolute. The
highest spirits object strongly to gaining this
i53
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
entire control of their medium (except under
very special circumstances), thinking that it
weakens the individuality and tends to loss
of self-reliance. Invading the personality to this
extent is not generally considered desirable. We
may get entirely false messages, of course, even
where the complete control exists which renders
the medium absolutely ignorant of the message
conveyed ; but where the control is only
partial — given through the conscious brain and
not through the submerged part of the person-
ality — it seems impossible that some colouring
matter from the medium should not be assimil-
ated. Sir Oliver Lodge raised another point
in saying of some automatic script of mine
that i( the ideas were not beyond my own range of
thought"
We must of course be careful not to jump
to the conclusion that what is not beyond the
range of a certain brain must therefore of
necessity have emanated from that brain alone.
Where philosophical and theological subjects
are in question, the only evidence worth any-
thing would be where statements are made or
ideas propounded, which are both directly
contrary to the views and also out of the
intellectual range of the writing medium.
But where other matters are concerned, the
i54
AUTOMATIC WRITING
question of range must be dropped in favour
of corroboration of the evidence.
For example, if an automatic script tells me
that a friend of mine, greatly perplexed about
her future plans, will quite unexpectedly have
an opportunity of going to India ; that she
will make the voyage within eighteen months
at the latest, and will marry a man whom she
will meet at Simla during the following hot
season, and if all this come to pass within a
reasonable period, this automatic script is
certainly not beyond the range of my intel-
lectual capacity. It is equally certain that it is
beyond the range of my normal powers as a
prophet.
Therefore it points to an intelligence guiding
my pen, which is not normal to my ordinary
personality, although of course, here as else-
where, the theoretically omniscient subliminal
may be trotted out, and harnessed up, and we
may prefer a galop round on this overridden
steed to the more simple but less popular idea
of communication from the cxcarnate.
Direct writing is rather wide of my present
subject. As most of you will know, the term
refers to those instances where a blank sheet of
paper is locked up, either with or without pen
or pencil, and kept carefully under one person's
iS5
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
strict guardianship, and yet when opened is
found to have been written upon. The paper
may be locked away for several days and writing
may yet be found upon it when opened after
such an interval.
This has been considered in times past the
most absolute proof we can ever have of
direct spirit presence — granted the bona fides
of the investigator who locks up the paper
and carries the key day and night upon his
person.
But now that we are daily finding out more
of the wonders of our own living personalities
— their enormous range of being — their un-
limited powers, comparatively speaking, as
witnessed by clairvoyance, hypnotic experiments,
and abnormal powers of action, perception, and
endurance, it becomes more and more difficult
to draw any definite line between the capacities
of those emancipated from the outer body, and
of those still imprisoned, but daily emerging
from the prison-house, even now and here,
through the cultivation of hitherto undreamed-
of powers of will and concentration.
How do we know that it is impossible for
a highly evolved incarnate spirit to produce
" direct writing' ' through those finer forces
which must be implicit in the evolutionary
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AUTOMATIC WRITING
being, but not as yet brought forth into normal
manifestation ?
But this way madness lies !
Again we may develope one part of our
entire consciousness abnormally, but at the
expense of other and perhaps more immediately
important parts of it. Hence the danger of
books and pamphlets exhorting to this kind of
self-culture. Many things are possible which
are not expedient. These may be amongst
them.
As a wise old ancestress of mine said to me
once in automatic script: "You are here to
learn Balance, and that will not come through
any abnormal development at the cost of
atrophy of other equally, and often more,
valuable qualities." Even messages from the
discarnate may be paid for too heavily, if dis-
cretion does not go hand in hand with develop-
ment.
This may be an appropriate moment to
mention a difficulty in automatic writing which
I would not speak of earlier, as it cannot come
under the heading of either a danger or an
abuse of our subject. I can best illustrate it
by an example.
Some months ago Mr Stead received some
automatic script from an unknown corre-
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
spondent — a lady — who said it purported to
come from Mr Frederic Myers. There was
nothing very startling in the communications,
which were very sane and sensible, but in a
style markedly differing from that of Mr
Myers. This, however, need not have pre-
sented any insurmountable difficulty as regards
evidence, had not the substance of the messages
been so accurately and obviously in line, not
only with theosophical conceptions in general,
but with the modern Western theosophical
framing of these conceptions, and even dogmas.
It seemed extremely unlikely that if Mr Myers
had become a convert to Theosophy on the
other side of the veil, that it should be this
special blend. Of course it turned out that the
lady scribe was herself a convinced modern
Western Theosophist, and Mr Myers* supposed
statements as regards reincarnation were doubt-
less the colouring matter supplied by this fact.
But an interesting message with regard to this
script came through another and quite inde-
pendent source. I give it for what it may be
worth evidentially, but the idea conveyed is
in any case suggestive : Another lady, also in
supposed communication with Mr Myers, gave
the following message as to the former com-
munication :
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AUTOMATIC WRITING
" Yes, I did certainly try with Miss W., but
the trouble is, that I can set the current going
with her, but cannot sufficiently direct and
control it. I know nothing about reincarnation
but often discuss it here with those who do
hold the belief firmly. It is quite possible
Miss W. took from my mentality some of the
remnants of these discussions still present with me."
Probably Miss W/s own preconceptions
would involuntarily affect the question of which
part of his latent mentality she pitched upon.
This would then come through, as if it were
a direct communication from F. W. H. Myers
himself.
So we see that the more we learn of these
subjects the less we seem to know, and the
more perplexing and therefore the more
challenging they become !
i59
^ *M CHAPTER X
ON SOME MISCONCEPTIONS
I have been asked to write this chapter as a
special plea against some crude and limited
conceptions, or rather misconceptions, as
regards the vast and undeniable differences in
the varying lots into which Humanity is cast.
I think the first and most flagrant of these
is the very usual idea of the world at large and
the almost universal idea of modern Theoso-
phists in the Western World, that the more or
less favourable earthly destiny of an individual
is the inevitable outcome, not of his Karma
(that we might all concede, if Karma is kept
within its legitimate meaning), but of his
previous good or evil deeds. If Karma is held
to mean consequences, we must all agree that
every fact or event has its cause as well as its
consequence — in fact, its Past — Present — and
Future.
But the idea I wish to combat is one which I
have heard propounded again and again, ad
1 60
ON SOME MISCONCEPTIONS
nauseam, by otherwise intelligent Theosophists
and by other people as well ; namely, that
happiness and prosperity in this life are the
inevitable results, in exact measure, of an
excellent life in a previous incarnation, and
that suffering and poverty, with all their attend-
ant consequences and miseries, demonstrate
with equal precision that those who are con-
demned to suffering in this life, physical or
mental, must have led very wicked lives when
I they were last incarnated. I am, for the
moment, taking some phase of belief in rein-
carnation for granted, but many outside the
charmed circle of modern Theosophy seem to
hold much the same idea ; only the " past life "
would in this case be limited to the earlier
years of the present incarnation.
No matter from what special camp the idea
is promulgated, it has always struck me as such
an exceedingly crude, childish and superficial
judgment. Generalisations are of necessity
always in error, but the measure of error would
probably be decidedly less, if we generalised
from the exact converse of this proposition.
I have many theosophical friends, for whom
I have both esteem and affection, and some of
whom are decidedly above the average in
l 161
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
intelligence. We have discussed this question
frequently, but I have never succeeded in oust-
ing them from what is surely a most superficial
view of life, even as a mere question of personal
experience ?
I remember once trying to bring the u error
in the sum " home to a very intelligent theo-
sophical friend, by pointing out two brothers
(bo f h of whom she knew), the one extremely
sympathetic and benevolent and spiritually
advanced ; the other indisputably selfish and
material in his views and ideas, and certainly in
a most elementary spiritual stage. She knew
enough about them to recognise the truth of
the facts I have stated, and did not attempt to
question them ; the illustration was too flagrant
for that. The former brother was crushed
down all his life by physical and mental suffer-
ing, his best and brightest qualities suppressed
by ill-health and atrophied by absence of
opportunity. The other from cradle to grave
had a life of exceptional and almost abnormal
prosperity, and was not sufficiently developed
spiritually, to miss or regret in himself the
absence of the higher nature of his relative.
Even then, with the argument reduced to
this one salient fact, under her very eyes, the
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ON SOME MISCONCEPTIONS
"Karmic" hypnosis worked too strongly not
to master her normal intelligence, and she
answered feebly that perhaps the prosperous
man had been quite unselfish and a most
charming and delightful and sympathetic
person in his previous life! And this when
the whole question was one of character, which
we know means the slow accretion and develop-
ment of years — probably of many centuries —
for aught we know !
Again we have to define what we mean by
happiness and prosperity. A certain kind of
both of these is obviously more likely to be
found in unsympathetic and elementary natures,
for the very sound reason that the less we feel
for our neighbours and their calamities, the
" better time" we are likely to have here. It
is quite a mistake to take for granted that
extremely selfish people are always very un-
happy and continually suffering from remorse
on account of their limitation. It is not so,
and anybody who has had some experience or
life, and has any critical and analytical faculty,
knows this as a matter of course. Very selfish
people are generally very obtuse, and therefore
very comfortable in their personal judgments.
It is always the other people who are to blame
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
and who get in their way so unjustifiably ! It
is only a highly sensitive selfish person who is
in the least danger of suffering from remorse.
I do not mean a physically highly sensitive
person. That is only a usual form of selfish-
ness itself. I am referring to a highly sensitive
person, mentally and spiritually speaking. As
a rule, these latter are very seldom abnormally
selfish. Therefore my argument holds good,
I think, that the more selfish a person is, the
more obtuse, and the less likely to be troubled
by scruples or remorse. Such people as the
man I have last described, are also apt to be
extremely deficient in imagination ; another
proof of the crude and elementary character.
Here again he is spared much suffering, and
although, no doubt, he loses much enjoyment,
it is of a kind which he is not as yet sufficiently
developed to experience, and therefore for him
it has no existence — whereas a comfortable
income and absence of cares and well-padded
armchairs and broughams, or motor-cars, have
a very real existence, to say nothing of other
creature comforts or even intellectual luxuries,
which money can obtain for such a one. It is,
moreover, a mistake to suppose that a man may
not be very obtuse morally and yet sufficiently
164
ON SOME MISCONCEPTIONS
advanced intellectually to enjoy good music or
good acting or good pictures or well-written
books.
Again, a very selfish man will often include
his wife in a sort of double-selfishness, and
even his children, if they don't interfere too
much with his comfort, which, under the
circumstances, is not likely to happen. Selfish
parents have proverbially devoted children, and
vice versa, so here again we are confronted by
a contradiction of the idea that the happiness
and well-being of men and women here is in
direct ratio to their deserts.
Now given a thoroughly selfish person, with
good digestion, a liver that works well, a
conscience comfortably on terms with itself,
and in addition a good income, good health to
enjoy it, and an adoring wife and children who
make him feel himself a sort of domestic hero,
what more can be needed for " happiness and
prosperity," as these terms are generally
understood ? I think the confusion of ideas
as regards Karmic prosperity and Karmic
misery has arisen from a confusion as to
standards. Are we judging by the standards
of this plane or of the next ? It is necessary
to settle this question rather definitely, for the
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
two are very seldom compatible. I do not say
never , because one or two of the most prosper-
ous people I have known, judging by present
standards even, have also been the most
spiritually-minded and the most sympathetic,
but these have been but ff one or two "
amongst thousands of my acquaintances, and
in their cases a healthful imagination has been
one of their most strongly marked charac-
teristics. No character can be developed
without suffering, but in these rare cases the
suffering seems to have taken place elsewhere,
even when we have the chance of tracing such
exceptional lives from cradle to grave.
I think it is Allan Kardec who suggests that
every spirit upon earth has three cardinal
incarnations : the first in favourable conditions,
so that the youthful pilgrim through each
planet should not be too much discouraged at
the outset ; the second unfavourable, as a test ;
and the third dependent upon the use made of
the intermediate existence, and therefore either
very unfortunate or extremely prosperous.
This might help us to see how the rare lives
I have referred to may come about ?
It has sometimes struck me that the history
of Job, if intended, as has been claimed by
1 66
ON SOME MISCONCEPTIONS
mystics, as a history of the soul, seems cer-
tainly to point to some such possibility. His
first estate was prosperous — the second stage a
terrible test of faith and courage and resigna-
tion, which he came through with a fair amount
of success ; and his last experience gave him
back all his prosperity with much more added
to it.
Now I think it would be a great advantage
to ourselves and decidedly a boon to our less
fortunate neighbours, if we could give up this
crude and superficial judgment, which a mis-
taken conception appears to have read into
the overridden Karmic argument. I think it
must have been started by some opulent and
materially prosperous devotees, who naturally
would wish to justify their own pleasant
destinies in the eyes of less prosperous friends
and neighbours. Of course I am perfectly
aware that no Western Theosophist upon earth
would allow that he or she took the view I
have here demonstrated. So many of us judge
matters practically, from a point of view we
should all condemn as quite foreign to us,
theoretically. Not one of us is capable of
casting the "first stone," so far as this little
human foible is concerned !
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
I would only ask one question : If I have
merely described a figment of my own imagina-
tion, how does it happen that I have not met
a single theosophical friend with whom I have
discussed the matter, who has not used some
argument of the kind described ? Yet my
friends in this Society are certainly equal in
intelligence to the average — if not beyond that
mark. I should wish to repeat, however,
most emphatically, that it is not only amongst
Theosophists that some misconception of the
kind exists ; but I do think that a misconcep-
tion of the word Karma (practically — not
theoretically) has given some fresh impetus
to the misconception of true standards.
I may quote in support of my contention
that even such an advanced and wide-minded
writer as M. Edouard Schure says, in speak-
ing of the light thrown by the doctrine of
reincarnation on " the inequality of human con-
ditions' 1 :
" The variety of souls, of conditions, of
destinies, can only be justified by a plurality
of lives and by the doctrine of reincarnation.
If man is born on this earth for the first time,
how can you explain the numberless evils with
which a blind Fate seems sometimes to over-
168
ON SOME MISCONCEPTIONS
whelm him ? How can you admit that there
is eternal justice, since some are born into
conditions which relentlessly bring with them
misery and humiliation, whilst others are born
fortunate and live happily ? The differences in
condition result from an unequal use made of the
free will in preceding lives } whilst intellectual
differences result from different stages of evolution."
He goes on to say :
" The earth resembles a ship, and all of us
who inhabit it are the travellers, who come
from distant countries, and disperse at different
stages, to all points of the horizon.' '
Finally : " The doctrine of reincarnation gives
a reason compatible with justice and eternal logic ,
for the most appalling evils as well as for the
most enviable joys" (of human beings).
We shall all agree with what Monsieur
Schure says about the reason for intellectual
differences, and probably also all appreciate
his simile of the earth as a ship, distributing
her crew to all quarters of the horizon, after
voyages of varying length. But the first and
the last paragraphs of my quotations from him
suggest unmistakeably the very point I am
trying to make. Here again the standard of
happiness as the antithesis of misery, is a
169
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
standard of material happiness as contrasted
with material misery. This is proved by his
speaking of our seeing and envying one lot,
and seeing and deploring the other. Now the
things that are seen are decidedly "temporal,"
because material.
I think this proves my point, that the
taking of this temporal standard is a mis-
conception into which many of our most
remarkable writers and teachers are apt to fall,
when attempting to justify the ways of Provi-
dence via reincarnation. It seems to me it
would be better to say boldly, "There are
two standards for success and two standards
for happiness — the standard of this present
plane and the standard of eternal truth, or as
much of it as we shall be able to grasp in the
next round of our spiral. Although for a time
and in rare cases these standards may appear
to us to be superimposed, they are in reality
entirely distinct, and it is for us to make up
our minds which one we are using, in speaking
of the cruelty and misery of our fate." " Which
world are you booked for ? " as I heard a very
young girl say once to an elderly and amused
man, who had been speaking of the expediency
or inexpediency of some particular course ot
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ON SOME MISCONCEPTIONS
action. " Ah I that depends entirely upon which
world you are booked for" said innocent Fifteen,
in a cheerful, practical tone ! This exactly
expresses what I mean.
If we could see with the r< eyes of the soul/'
we should be more likely to judge correctly,
and then perhaps from (what Schure himself
calls) "la vue den haut" we might see that
the " miserable lots" are more really enviable
than more "prosperous" ones. They may
even be much happier, judged by the real
things of life ; for happiness which comes
from a plus of prosperity and comfort, or even
of intellectual enjoyment alone, cannot weigh
in the scale with the smallest true spiritual
emotion, but (barring the intellectual) finds
its ultimate in the pig and the trough ; even
though the trough be gilded and the pig a very
refined type of animal, and exceedingly faddy
and fastidious in his tastes.
When a medium in trance (Mrs Howarth by
name) told me once of a previous incarnation
of mine, she added, <( but your present one is
far more favourable." "Far less favourable,"
I hastened to assure her, " so far as money and
social position are concerned." " What do we
care for that?" said the trance control in a
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
tone of impatient contempt. " 7/ is far more
favourable for spiritual development^ and that is
the only thing you need trouble about"
It always seems to me that a public school
(as Mr C. C. Massey points out) or a garden,
gives us our best symbols for the education
and development of the soul, under earth
conditions.
I have spoken of the former already in Do
the Dead Depart? Here also we find that
the hardest lessons (the hardest lots) are given
to the more advanced scholars. In the garden
symbol we have the same significant fact taught
us in the pruning process, which comes only
at a certain stage in the plant's or tree's
development. It is "the branch that beareth
fruit that is fit for purging." All this seems
to me so much wiser and truer than any such
crudity as attempting to explain present earthly
drawbacks by past earthly sins.
We have indeed a famous instance of the
latter process being reproved in the well-known
words of Scripture tradition, u Neither did this
man sin nor his father."
Surely Christ came to show us a " more
excellent way M — how to escape from this
wheel of re-births into the glorious liberty of
172
ON SOME MISCONCEPTIONS
the sons of God ; no longer the slaves of
matter ? This escape, however, does not come
(as some of us have been erroneously taught)
by an act of faith in repeating certain formulas,
but by being made partakers of His Blood ; Le.
by sharing His Life — the life of the spiritual
sonship.
Surely this is the inner truth of the outer
symbol in our service of the Holy Com-
munion? We "drink His Blood" in token
of our wish to share (however feebly) in His
Life. Blood is the symbol of physical life,
and therefore used by " correspondence " as
the symbol of spiritual life.
All this does not for a moment preclude
the teaching of the very salutary lesson that
" who breaks — pays" in the spiritual as in the
physical world. I don't think an honourable
and generous soul would wish to be " let off"
trying to make amends, where others have
suffered through his fault, especially where
the fault or " sin " has been consciously com-
mitted? That seems to me as dishonourable
and wanting in self-respect as to wish to be
"let off" the money debts that we have
contracted.
But I do earnestly believe that such a flood
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
of spiritual apprehension may come through
even a poor attempt to share the Christ life
(and this apart from any labels), that the soul
may be freed from these lower conditions and
allowed to " work out its salvation," and even
C( to pay its debts" from a higher and probably
more effectual plane. I only throw this out
as a suggestion to those who feel forced —
unwillingly — to accept some form of the
reincarnation doctrine. It is only reasonable
to suppose that we might be more helpful to
others (whether we have injured them here
or not) from a more ethereal sphere, should
our spirits be sufficiently developed otherwise,
to function from there.
As to the law of consequences and compen-
sation per se, I remember an interesting
discussion in a country-house between my old
friend Judge Forbes and Dr Richard Hodgson
on the subject. The Judge stigmatised it as
" a horrible idea," and from his earlier theo-
logical training was inclined to trust to the
efficacy of (c Chrises sacrifice" for blotting
out not only our sins, but their results.
Dr Hodgson threw back his head with a
delightful gesture of confidence in the Supreme
Will, and said, " But it is splendid to feel you
174
ON SOME MISCONCEPTIONS
have to pay for everything — of course you
must! That is just the beauty of it! How
else are you going to learn to do better ? 9i
This absolute confidence in the love and
wisdom of the Father's training, seemed to
me the most truly religious attitude to which
any of us can attain ?
St Paul, in his famous words, " There is
therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus," is constrained to add at
once, " who walk not after the flesh hut after the
spirit" This gives us the whole <c Process
of Christ," as it has been called. It is the
<f walking after the spirit, and not after the
flesh " which removes the condemnation, and
St Paul identifies this as a necessary result of
the mystic " being in Christ " and sharing His
life. These words, with their mystic meaning,
are far more convincing than the carefully
reasoned out passage from Romans iii. 25 to
Romans iv. 6.
As regards St Paul, we have always to
remember two facts : First, that he brought
all his power of logic to bear upon any pro-
position that seemed expedient, in combating
an opposite error.
In this latter case he is obviously combating
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
the idea that spiritual growth can come about
through the mere materialistic keeping of the
Mosaic Law — " the deeds of the law " as he
calls it.
Secondly, St Paul himself always tried to
the best of his ability to distinguish between
that which appeared to him to be direct inspira-
tion and other parts of his teaching. He is
very tentative as to the latter ; so I think we
are at liberty to suppose that his eagerness to
press home one side of a truth may sometimes
have outrun his spiritual insight ?
For St Paul must have known as well as
anybody else that true faith and "good
works V are but two sides of the same shield.
Faith cannot exist without works, any more
than a well-grown, healthy child can exist
without moving its arms and legs. These
movements will be in proportion to its vitality.
St James endorses this when he tells us that
P Faith without works is dead, being alone "
(marginal rendering " by itself)."
In all these matters it is, as usual, the letter
that killeth — the spirit that maketh alive.
And now I think I had better finish this
chapter by a sincere apology for poaching upon
what are usually considered clerical (i preserves/'
176
ON SOME MISCONCEPTIONS
All the same, I think, it would be better for
many of us if we tried to air these difficult
questions occasionally in our own backyards,
instead of looking upon them as the exclusive
right of the clergy — to be taken or left — in
church. As a matter of fact we must think
them out for ourselves — if at all ! No one
can do our thinking for us.
I merely note down my own thoughts with-
out the slightest wish to impose them upon
others. Many will disagree and perhaps more
will disapprove. But some may be at a similar
point of view.
In a world where, as Mons Schure says, " we
are all travellers on the same ship for the time
being, but hailing from different and far-distant
countries, and dispersing at different stages on
all points of the horizon," this is surely the
most that any of us can expect ?
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CHAPTER XI
THE BRIDGE OF ETHER
This chapter differs slightly from the others in
this book, in being addressed primarily to
those who have already devoted some time and
study to modern psychical research. I hope,
however, that it may carry some suggestive
ideas to readers outside this circle ; even if at
first sight it should strike them as fanciful.
(As we have said before, if some men had not
been capable of scientific imagination, we should
be much nearer the dark ages in civilisation
than at present.) Imagination in this respect
implies inductive hypotheses founded on facts.
The inductive process is the only process
possible for finite beings. Therefore we are
entirely justified in holding an inductive
hypothesis so long as it is founded on some
fact, and not merely hanging like Mohammed's
coffin, 'twixt earth and sky. Now surely we
may consider the scientific conception of ether
as having a basis in fact ? although the cleverest
178
THE BRIDGE OF ETHER
scientist cannot tell you what ether is, and the
name itself is of course purely arbitrary. He
simply knows there must be some finer medium
which interpenetrates all matter as we perceive
it ; which is imponderable, invisible but
ubiquitous ; since it has become a necessary
assumption in regard to all phenomena of the
visible universe, including Nature's finer forces,
such as light, heat and electricity. These are
now assumed to be the resultants of vibrations
in this invisible but omnipresent medium.
Electricity, as the highest and most mysterious
manifestation which we yet know, has been
spoken of as the cradle of physical matter, and
even as the Garment of God. The medium
through which these electric vibrations of
intense and inconceivable frequency act, is
postulated by modern science as etheric, in
distinction to atmospheric.
Taking the word Etheric therefore with
these limitations as an x of which we know
little beyond the necessity for its invisible
presence, I think it may be interesting to put
down a few thoughts and suggestions on the
subject, both from the point of view of ancient
religions and still more of modern psychical
phenomena.
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
We have seen that, as the true basis, /.*.,
the esoteric basis, of all great religions, we find
the same few and simple truths — simple in their
various modes of presentation, but gigantic in
their implications. Esoteric Christianity has
been practically lost to us since the second
century, owing to a variety of obvious circum-
stances ; but it is now being restored by the
researches of earnest and reverent and capable
scholars and thinkers. Here again we find at
its roots the very same universal truths.
The Unity of the Godhead (always believed
in by the adepts of all religions in their vary-
ing manifestations) — the Word, made flesh,
through being first made light — the eternal
co-existent principles of the Deity, of which
the numerous "gods" of the ancients typified
only the powers, forces and various manifesta-
tions of the one Divinity ; so long as these
ancient religions remained uncorrupted by the
usual incursions of materialistic thought upon
esoteric conceptions.
But of all the inner and mystic teachings,
none is so clear, so all-pervading, so continu-
ally insisted upon in every true initiation as
this of the " Verbe lumiere " as it is called in
French. I ^ 'j^r)
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THE BRIDGE OF ETHER
Amongst the Hindus we find the same
truth pervading all the traditions of Krishna
and of Devaki, his virgin mother. He is
struck to the earth by a lightning flash after the
death of Vasichta, and in a kind of magnetic
trance sees his mother bathed in this sublime
light, which radiates out from her and embraces
him also, in the celestial spheres. We hear of
it as the "Light of Osiris." It is the "Veil
of Isis" in Egypt or of Persephone in Greece,
behind which are woven the souls of all things
living. It is made manifest to Hermes in
his celebrated vision, as the " Divine Word of
Light." It is the "Celestial Fire" of the
Orphic mysteries and the " Light of Dionysius/ *
in that aspect in which he is spoken of as the
Son of Zeus. The writer of the first chapter
of Genesis clearly refers to it as the light of
the creative word, which was divided from the
darkness and preceded by three "days," or
stages of evolution, the " creation' ' of the
physical lights of sun, moon and stars.
Now this universal knowledge of some
divine, primeval light, or the Word of God
in manifestation, must have clothed itself
in some sort of " body,' Ysimply because the
moment an idea enters our brain or emerges
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
in it, it becomes clothed upon by our con-
sciousness?)
It seems a justifiable supposition that this
outer manifestation, of which our Thought is
the inward expression and correspondence,
may be the mysterious Ether to which modern
Scientists have been driven, in order to make
the physical universe comprehensible and to
bring some sort of order into that which would
otherwise be mental chaos ?
For Forces and manifestations must have a
cause and a medium through which to manifest,
and since Science has discovered that this
medium has infinite tenuity, but is neither
visible nor ponderable, then it must be con-
ceived of as invisible and imponderable. Here
in fact we step on to the Bridge of Ether —
the bridge between physical matter and force —
between the visible and the invisible in the
Higher Physics.
The question is, Do we know anything from
a phenomenal point of view of this so-called
ether, or is it a mere scientific conception, as
the matrix of light, heat and electricity? I
think we do know something — those of
us at least who have studied experimental
psychology. This is just where my warning
182
THE BRIDGE OF ETHER
comes in, that I am writing this chapter from
the point of view of a convinced and experi-
mental psychical researcher, but with no wish
to dogmatise as to the supposed intelligences
who may be manipulating the etheric substance.
Some convinced researchers limit this intelli-
gence to the abnormally developed latent
powers of the incarnate individual ; others
extend this intelligence to the individualities
of the discarnate. This fact need not affect
our present discussion, because both classes
practically admit the truth of the phenomena,
and we are just now mainly concerned in dis-
cussing the channel through which these are
made manifest.
The ancients, in Egypt and Persia alike,
worshipped, under the symbol of the visible
sun, this invisible light proceeding from the
Unity in Manifestation. (It is interesting to
realise that the dernier cri of the modern
advanced Scientist is the discovery of the light
rays emanating not only from radium but
from every atom of physical matter, and most
obviously from that enormous congeries of
atoms of which the human body is com-
posed. J
I am aware that Sir William Crookes has not
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
yet given in his adhesion to the truth of the N
rays, but this doubtless arises from the fact
that he cannot yet see them for himself, and
very wisely refuses to take them on trust.
But we all know the apparently miraculous
extent to which even purely physical sight can
be trained, in the case of experts. The
moment the higher physical light is developed
in a sufficient number of responsible and de-
pendable men and women (this number is daily
increasing), it will become a simple matter of
evidence. Even now it is quite possible to
test the bona fides of various clairvoyants, for
it is not only asserted that each one of us is
surrounded by an atmosphere of " Light/' but
that the amount and the colours differ accord-
ing to our physical and mental states. There-
fore if half a dozen clairvoyants, susceptible to
auras, as they are called, are brought succes-
sively in contact with the same stranger, and of
course debarred from meeting each other, and
if they all describe independently the same
colours and the same proportions of each colour
round this individual, we have at least a prima
facie piece of evidence in favour of something
more than coincidence.
Now this light — allowing that it is an
184
THE BRIDGE OF ETHER
invisible fact — cannot be atmospheric light, or
it would be visible to all of us.
So I put this down as one little stone in my
Bridge of Ether. Ail direct clairvoyance (by
which I mean where thought-reading is elimin-
ated) must mean actually seeing the scenes
so accurately described, and such sight would
require a non-physical channel or medium.
Please understand that when I use the word
physical, it is to distinguish it from the higher
physical, which latter is also, of course, matter
of some kind. We cannot speak of any sub-
stance as immaterial, until we know a great
deal more about matter per se than at present.
The whole scientific conception of matter has
been shaken up in the kaleidoscope of modern
scientific discoveries. What then can outsiders
dare to say upon the subject?
From the psychic point of view, we do
know something about the etheric body or
astral body, because it has been seen, not only
as the double of an incarnate individual, again
and again, but by many independent witnesses,
as being drawn out of the physical body,
through the eyes, ears, mouth and nose, as a
sort of grey misty replica of the latter.
I have spoken of direct clairvoyance, imply-
18;
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
ing sight which would need a non-physical
channel or medium, and have for the moment
excluded thought transference, in order to
distinguish true clairvoyance from that which
should be more accurately termed " thought-
reading."
But this latter phenomenon is one of which
we do not understand the conditions in the
slightest degree, although we toss the phrase
about so carelessly, and certainly imply that
we know all about it when we use it as a
missile to silence a credulous adversary in
argument.
We know nothing about thought transfer-
ence, except that it sometimes takes place
J/ iCU qkr beyond any possible limits of coincidence.
But we do not understand how it takes place,
and talking in a cheerfully vague way about
" brain-waves 9i does not elucidate the matter.
In Hans Andersen's delightful story of the
Emperor's New Clothes, there was only one
man (or was it a boy?) bold enough to say
that he had not any clothes at all — new or old !
In the same way we seem all to be tongue-
tied when any convinced thought - reading
maniac hurls Thomson Jay Hudson at our
defenceless heads ! Why don't we challenge
1 86
THE BRIDGE OF ETHER
him to prove by demonstration the unlimited,
unconditional, and omniscient thought-read-
ing theory as covering all facts? I suppose
we are paralysed or hypnotised by sheer force
of brazen assertion !
All honour to Dr Hyslop for bravely assert-
ing that he, at least, challenges the Emperor's
New Clothes, and won't join in the paean of
praise and adulation over them. Thought
transference is an undoubted fact, but its
mantle is not as wide as Charity, and, more-
over, we know nothing at all about the conditions
through which it occurs.
So I am quite justified in assuming for the
moment that the process, whatever it may be,
takes place, as wireless telegraphy does, in the
medium we have elected to call Etheric.
Experiments have been made from time to
time with reference to photographing the
Double or Astral of a living person, at a con-
siderable distance from the agent, and some
of these have been very successful. Where
private individuals, using their own photo-
graphic apparatus without outside assistance,
have procured these results, they must, at
least, be entirely satisfactory to those who are
engaged in the experiments, and it is to be
187
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
hoped that more and more people will be
induced to devote some leisure to this import-
ant branch of psychical research. It will cer-
tainly need perseverance, but the results may
be eminently successful, and it is surely as well
worth while to spend time and strength over
this as over any other scientific study ? It is
only by becoming our own photographers that we
can eliminate the elements of doubt and dis-
trust with which we naturally approach the
u spirit photographs" of a professional photo-
grapher and medium.
This doubt and distrust are, as I know by
persona] experience, often unnecessary and
misplaced, but as they exist and are a needful
corrective of over-credulity, it is well to take
the only sensible means of dispelling them.
Our standard of criticism is, of course, far
more severe when turned upon the efforts of
our neighbours than upon our own ! This
fact has come out rather strikingly during the
last few months in some very suggestive cases.
It simply means that we are all very human —
even psychical researchers !
Talking of private spirit photographs, I am
reminded of an interesting incident which
occurred a few years ago, and which was told
188
V
THE BRIDGE OF ETHER
me by my brother and his wife, both of whom
are convinced sceptics.
They were staying in a country house in
Dorsetshire, where they met a Captain and Mrs
Northcote (I have changed the name), who
had just arrived there from another country
house in Somersetshire. Captain Northcote
was in the Rifle Brigade, and he and his wife
were both bitten by the photographing mania so
prevalent a few years ago. The Somersetshire
house possessed a very beautiful old terrace in
front of it, and this officer and his wife were
both anxious to take photographs of it before
they went away. Armed with their kodaks,
they selected a good point of view therefore
with this object. When Mrs Northcote's films
were developed, the terrace appeared perfectly
normal and just as it had been when they saw
it, but on each of the Captain's films the figure
of a woman appeared on the terrace, although
no living woman had been there except his
wife. Greatly astonished, other photographs
were taken with a similar result. Finally,
Captain Northcote suggested that when his
wife took the next photograph, he should place
his, hand on her arm or wrist, and under these
conditions the woman's figure again appeared !
189
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
I do not know if any history connected with
her was ever discovered, but the story is a fact,
and was told by Captain and Mrs Northcote to
my brother just after its occurrence.
There appears to be certainly some im-
pregnation of the camera by the mediumistic
photographer, conscious or unconscious, and
which I trust and believe Mr Myers will now
pardon me for suggesting might be of a
magnetic nature. He was rather angry with
me once for using this word, and declared it
was most unscientific. I quite see his point,
but we must use some term to express that of
which we can see the effects without knowledge
of the cause.
Any way, this undoubted fact may account
for the objection made by certain spirit photo-
graphers to use new and untried cameras, and
it seems to me a very reasonable one. How
many men and women prefer using a special
billiard cue or golf club, and get better results
when they do so ? It is not that the club or
cue is any better in itself, but they have
established relations with it. I have known a
most sceptical and materialistic doctor agree
with me that some kind of affinity may exist
between a man and his watch, and I am quite
190
THE BRIDGE OF ETHER
convinced of the fact myself. In truth, we
are all extremely ignorant still, and the wise
people are those who are the most conscious
of their colossal ignorance !
Three or four years ago I went to see
Signor Volpi in Rome — a devoted student of
modern psychology — and he showed me some
very interesting photographs. My friend,
Countess di Brazza, who had asked to accom-
pany me in my visit, considered that the most
interesting of all was one which contained no
figure (I think) ; but a very excellent photo-
graph of what looked like a large mass of a sort
of white membranous "stuff," falling over a
chair, and which was explained as being the
material used in materialisations. It would be -
/ ' i c i I *y/ '4
interesting to know if this were a kind ot
temporary ethenc condensation, in which case
it would, of course, speedily dissipate, as vrtftfAi&t
see the materialised form actually does, and w&fTvi*
sometimes under our very eyes. Another
photograph of Signor Volpi's interested me
very much, especially when he told me the
history of it. He had lost his first wife, as a
man in the early thirties, and was in deep grief
over her loss, when advised to go to a certain
photographer, devoutly hoping that she might
191
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
be able to make her presence visible to him on
the plate. He took a friend with him, and
there was some spontaneous movement of a
chair by them before the photograph was
taken, of which I forget the exact detail, but
which excluded the possibility of any prepared
' ( spirit " on the plate, owing to the special
position of this suddenly moved chair in con-
nection with the position of the figure. The
latter, however, was extremely disappointing to
Signor Volpi. It was a lady, certainly, but
one whom he had never seen, and whose face
and figure had not the least likeness to those of
his wife, or any other lady of his acquaintance.
He was so much depressed by this failure,
that a day or two later he took the disappoint-
ing photograph with him, when paying an
evening visit to a Russian lady friend, who
had some psychic intuition, especially when in
a condition of slight trance. Under these
circumstances she held the photograph in her
hands and whispered to him, " Ce ri est fas le
passe 1 — c'eu pour V avenir" and then suddenly
put her hand to her face, as if she were in great
suffering, murmuring at the same time, " Ah,
que je souffre ! Que je souffre ! "
Neither of them had the least idea what the
192
THE BRIDGE OF ETHER
words or gestures meant when the friend
became normal, and the photograph was locked
away as a hopeless enigma. Some years later
he met and became engaged to his second wife,
whose face seemed to have a haunting memory
which he could not place. Where had he seen
her before? One day he came upon the
photograph in question, and then realised that
it was the face of his fiancee when a few years
younger. My recollection is that Signor
Volpi's photograph had been taken at some
rather marked season, such as Easter or Whit-
suntide — anyway, his fiancee was able to trace
her own movements, or rather absence of
movement, on that particular day, for she had
been in bed all the afternoon and suffering
agony from toothache or neuralgia, which made
her half dazed at times. Some unseen friends
may have taken advantage of one of those
temporary reactions from violent pain to
suggest her astral appearance on the photo-
graphic plate in the presence of her future
husband ?
'X As invisible substance is found to be the
medium and background for the visible forces
of light, heat and all forms of electricity, so
there are phenomenal substances as real and
n 193
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
perceptible on their normal plane to the organs
of the etheric and invisible body, as purely
physical substance is real and perceptible to us
on our present plane of life.
A friend of mine on the other side of life,
wishes me to say that he is working at this
exact point — the Bridge of Ether, as I have
called it. He is studying experimentally to
find out the nature of the " electric ions"
hidden within the atom on our side, and pre-
sumably more open to the astral vision, which
is now his normal condition. He tells me that
his present researches into the composition
of etheric matter (visible on this side only
by clairvoyance) will enable him (he hopes),
to demonstrate the conditions under which
materialisations, voice production, "apports"
and other puzzling psychical phenomena can
be classed as normal, to what we may call the
point of junction, between the two spheres.
No doubt he will, in due time, be able to
convey this and much more information through
the properly attuned brains of some of his
progressive scientific friends.
Those scientists whose labours lie in the
department of the higher physics must step
over the bridge — the evolutionary, etheric
194
THE BRIDGE OF ETHER
bridge — although physiologists may for the
present remain content to study the grosser
forms of matter, without wishing to trace these
to their ultimates. There is room enough in
the world and work enough in the world for
all sorts of scientists, as well as other useful
people.
Lastly, my friend wishes me to say that his
present studies in etheric matter, and the
studies of the most advanced and progressive
scientists in the same subject on this side, are
the literal tunnellings of which Sir Oliver Lodge
speaks when he remarks that " we are like
workers in a mountain tunnel, who have got
so far as to hear the picks of their comrades at
work upon the other side, but the last barrier
is not yet broken down. ,,
This is all that can be given through an
unscientific and therefore unprepared mind,
such as my own. If it suggest a possibility
for opening up personal (f communication "
between this worker and any progressive
scientist, I feel that my humble role as
"mouse" to the scientific lions, will have
been amply played and rewarded.
I need only add that my friend's name is
well known to many of them, and that this
i95
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
assertion as to his present employment and its
motive has been given to me in several in-
dependent directions, as well as endorsed by
myself in my automatic script. I give it for
what it is worth > and upon its own merits
alone.
It appears to be at least reasonable and
sensible.
196
CHAPTER XII
IN CONCLUSION
I have been reading lately the admirable
Introduction * to M. L6on Denis* new book,
Le Probleme de Fitre et de la Destinie, which
seems to sum up sane thought on modern
problems of life — social, moral and political —
in a nutshell.
It would be well if some of these words of
wisdom and insight could be translated into all
languages and hung up, in letters of gold, in
all international churches, universities, and
most especially Houses of Parliament.
He begins by remarking very truly that in
all University centres the most complete un-
certainty still reigns with regard to the most
important problem that has been given to man
to solve, and that this uncertainty is reflected
in all their teachings.
Most of the professors and teachers carefully
* This Introduction is practically reproduced with the kind and
express permission of the Author.
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
avoid all questions touching upon the great
problem of life, its goal and its duration.
He goes on to say that the same source
of weakness pervades ecclesiastical circles —
the priest by his affirmations, which carry no
proof, can only communicate to the souls under
his charge a belief which has no answer either
to the rules of sane criticism or to the demands
of reason.
" In truth, both in universities and in churches,
the modern enquirer meets only with darkness
and obscurity in all that concerns the problem
of his life and of his future. The education
given to the present generation is complicated
enough, but it does not illuminate for them the
way of life, nor does it arm them against its
struggles. Classic lore may point to the culti-
vation of the intellect, but it does not in itself
suffice to teach men how to act, to love, or to
sacrifice themselves. Still less can it teach a
conception of life and destiny which will
develope the deepest energies and direct our
efforts towards the highest aims. It is to this
state of things that we must in great measure
attribute the evils of the present day : in-
coherence of ideas, disorders of the conscience,
and, in fact, moral and social anarchy.
198
IN CONCLUSION
" Francisco Sarcey, the accomplished Uni-
versity Professor, wrote {Petit Journal, chronique
7 mars, 1894J : i I am on this earth. I am
absolutely ignorant of how I came here ; and why I
was sent here. I am equally ignorant of how I
shall depart and of what will happen to me
when I do depart!
" Nothing can be more frank than this,
surely !
" The philosophy of the schools, after so
many centuries of study and labour, is still, a
teaching without light, heat, or life. The souls
of our children, tossed about between different
and contradictory systems of thought — the
positivism of Comte, the naturalism of Hegel,
the materialism of John Stuart Mill, the
eclecticism of Cousin, etc., float uncertainly and
without ideals or any precise goal. Hence
precocious pessimism ; the disease of all
decadent society ; is a terrible menace for
the future. (^Add to this the bitter and
mocking scepticism of the young men of the
present day, who believe only in money, who
honour success alone, and often consider them-
selves vanquished before they have even stepped
into the arena of life.y
" Until recently, Thought has been confined
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PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
within the strict limits of religions, schools or
systems, which are mutually exclusive and
continually at war with one another. Hence
the divisions amongst us, and the violent and
contrary currents which disturb and upset the
social equilibrium.
" We must learn to dispense with these rigid
circles, and to give new spring to our ideas.
Every system contains some truth — no system
can contain the whole truth. The aspects of
life and of the universe are too varied and too
numerous for any human system to be able to
embrace all of these. We must try to discover
the elements of Truth in all these systems, and
to harmonise them ; then uniting them with
the new and varied aspects of Truth which are
daily being unfolded to us, we shall be on the
true road towards a grand unity and harmony
of Thought. The human spirit has been
crystallising too long. It must be shaken out
of its inertia and carried to the heights, yet
without losing sight of the social foundations
which a re-organised and more complete Science
will afford.
" It is for this Science of To-morrow that
we are working, for this alone will provide us
with the indispensable standards, the means of
200
IN CONCLUSION
verification and control, without which,Thought
left to itself, will always risk going astray.
" The same difficulties and uncertainties
which we have spoken of already as regards
teaching, find an echo in the entire social
system. Everywhere we find a disturbing crisis.
Under the brilliant exterior of a refined and
advanced civilisation we find a deep-seated
uneasiness, and this irritation grows in the
social ranks. The conflict of interests and
the fight for life become daily more emphasised.
The sentiment of duty meanwhile is weakened in
the popular conscience ; so much so, that many
men no longer recognise where their duty lies.
The law of numbers — that means of blind force
— is stronger and more masterful than ever,
A treacherous oratory is employed to let loose the
passions and the worst instincts of the people ',
and to spread unwholesome and even criminal
theories amongst them. Then when the waters
rise and the tempestuous winds are let loose,
these orators are quick to hide themselves and
to deny all responsibility for the hurricane they
have raised!
"What is the explanation of this riddle, of
this striking contradiction between the generous
aspirations of the present day and the brutal
201
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
reality of its facts ? Why should a century
which has excited such high hopes threaten to
end in anarchy and in the rupture of all social
equilibrium ?
" Inexorable logic will answer us. Democracy,
radical or socialistic, in its profound depths, or
in its directing spirit, is inspired only by
negative doctrines. How then can it have any
but a negative result upon the happiness or
progress of Humanity ? As is the ideal, so is
the man — as the nation, so is the country.
" Negative ideas in their ultimate results must
end fatally, in anarchy, in emptiness, in social
nothingness. Human history has too often
suffered this sad experience.
" So long as it is only a question of destroying
vestiges of the Past, of giving the final blow to
privileges which are anachronisms, Democracy
has known how to use its weapons. But now
it is a question of reconstructing the city of the
future, that vast and powerful building, which
is to shelter the Thought of future generations.
And before such a task, negative doctrines
show their weak points and their insufficiency.
Even the best workmen sink into a moral and
material incapacity. They have no constructive
power. They can only destroy. No human
202
IN CONCLUSION^ ^ ,
-'- "
WORK CAN BE GREAT OR DURABLE UNLESS IT
IS INSPIRED BOTH THEORETICALLY AND
PRACTICALLY, IN PRINCIPLE AS WELL AS IN
APPLICATION, BY THE ETERNAL LAWS OF THE
UNIVERSE. All THAT IS CONCEIVED AND BUILT
up in opposition to these laws, is built
upon sand and must perish. now the
doctrines of modern socialism have one
fatal flaw they are trying to impose
a rule which is in contradiction to
Nature, and to the law of Humanity.
(^Individual and progressivee evolution is
the fundamental law of Nature and of
Life^) It is the only solution of the
problems of fate, the raison d'etre of
MAN, AND THE NORM OF THE UNIVERSE. L WfltCoA.
"To rebel agafnst this law and to try to ^m^i
substitute another goal is just as foolish as it
would be to attempt to stop the movement of the
earth or to interfere with the tides of the ocean.
" The weakest side of the socialistic doctrine
lies in man's ignorance of his essential being,
and of the laws which govern his destiny.
And if individual man is to be ignored, how is
social man going to be governed ?
" The source of all our woes lies in our
ignorance of our moral inferiority.
203
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
"All society must remain weak, powerless and
divided, so long as Doubt and Defiance, Egoism,
Envy and Hatred govern it. No society can
be transformed by laws alone. Laws and
institutions are of little value without elevated
beliefs and good morals. Whatever may be
the special political model or legislation of
a nation, if they possess good morals and strong
convictions, that nation will always be happier
and more powerful than one of lower moral
calibre.
"As a Society is the result of individual forces,
good or bad, it is obvious that such a Society
cannot be improved except by acting first upon
the intelligence and conscience of individual
members. But for the democratic Socialist, the
inner man, the man of individual consciousness,
does not exist. He is absorbed in the mass.
The principles thus adopted are those which are
a negation to all superior philosophy and to all
great causes. Nothing is to be considered but
the conquest of rights. (Yet rights cannot be
legitimately enjoyed without practising the
duties attached to themj) Rights without
duties, which limit and correct them, will only
give birth to new cataclysms and fresh
sufferings.
204
IN CONCLUSION
" This is why the formidable Push of Social-
ism will only displace the centre of yearnings and
desires and sufferings, and substitute for the
oppressions of the past a new despotism, and
one still more intolerable. We can see already
the disasters caused by these negative doctrines.
The moral world has become merely an annexe
of physiology, that is to say, the reign and
manifestation of a blind and irresponsible
Force. The more elevated spirits profess a kind
of metaphysical negation, and the mass of
Humanity — the People — without beliefs or
fixed principles, are delivered up, soul and
body, to men who play upon their passions and
speculate upon their desires.
"Positivism is no less fatal although less wide
spread. By its theory of the Unknowable, it
suppresses all notions of a goal and of the
greater evolution. It takes hold of man in his
present phase of life — a mere fragment of his
Destiny, and hinders him from looking either
backwards or forwards ; a barren, dangerous
doctrine, fit only for those whose spirits are
blind ; although falsely proclaimed as the most
glorious conquest of the modern mind.
" Such is the actual state of Society. The
danger is enormous. The world must fall into
205
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
incoherence and confusion unless some great
Spiritual and Scientific Reformation can be
brought about. It is true that the Churches, in
spite of their retrograde movement, still attract
many earnest souls, but they are powerless to
combat present evils, because they can furnish
no definite knowledge concerning human
destiny, founded on salient and well-established
facts. Religion, upon this most important
question in its domain, remains vague.
Humanity, tired out with dogmas and baseless
speculations, has plunged into materialism or
indifference. There is no longer any hope left,
except in a doctrine based upon experience and
the testimony of Facts.
" Whence can such a doctrine come ? What
power is to deliver us from the abyss over
which we are hovering ? What new ideal will
come, to restore to man confidence in the
future and enthusiasm in his aspirations ? In
the tragic moments of history, when all seemed
lost, help has never failed. The human soul
cannot absolutely founder and perish ! At a
time when the beliefs of the Past have grown
misty, a new conception of life and destiny,
based upon the science of facts, reappears.
The grand old traditions live once more,
206
IN CONCLUSION < j /fi j>
autiful . /
under more youthful and more bea
forms.
" Once more they demonstrate a future full
of hope and promise. Let us welcome this
Ideal, victorious over matter, and let us work
together to prepare its paths. The task will
be a heavy one. It will mean a reconstruction
of man's education. We have seen that neither
Church nor University, as at present constituted,
is capable of giving this education, because they
have not the syntheses necessary to enlighten
the path of the rising generations. One
system alone can offer this synthesis, namely
Scientific-Spiritualism^ It is already appear-
ing above the horizon of the intellectual world,
with promise of light for the future. To this
philosophy and science, free and independent,
with no official stamp nor political compromise
about it, modern discoveries are bringing every
day new and valuable additions. The phe-
nomena of Magnetism, of Radio-activity, of
Telepathy, are applications of one principle,
manifestations of the same law which governs
the universe and also the individual.
f^ 6 Still some years more of patient labour, of
conscientious experiment, of persevering re-
search, and the new education will have
1^ 207
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
found its scientific formula and its true
foundations.
" Education, as we know, is the most im-
portant factor in progress and contains in itself
the germs of the future, but in order to be
complete, education must realise and be
inspired by the study of life under its two
alternating forms, visible and invisible.
" The teachers of Humanity have therefore
an immediate duty to perform. It is to
recognise the spiritual once more as the base
of all education, and to endeavour to bring
the inner man into true manifestation. The
human soul, lulled to sleep by a fatal rhetoric,
must be awakened and shown its hidden powers
and made to realise still more its glorious
destiny.
" Modern Scie nce has analysed the ^outsid e
world and made deep investigations of the
objective side of the Universe. All honour to
it ! But modern Science knows nothing at
present of the invisible universe nor of the
invisible man. This is the boundless empire
which still remains for her to conquer. To
know by what links man is attached to the
Cosmos, to descend into the mysterious folds
of Being, where light and shadow mingle as
208
IN CONCLUSION
they do in Plato's Cave, to pass through these
labyrinths of existence, to sound the normal
and the abnormal Ego, the conscious and the
subconscious ; no study can be more necessary
than this. So far as the schools and academies
of instruction have left this out of their pro-
gramme, so far have they failed in any definite
teaching of Humanity.
" But already we see a marvellous and un-
expected psychology, emerging from which
must come a new conception of being and
the ideal of a higher law which will em-
brace and solve all the problems of future
evolution.
" The present time is one of transition and
therefore of birth pangs. The old forms of
the past are growing feeble and giving place
to others, which at first appear vague and con-
fused, but will become more and more defined
in time. These new forms are the first sketch
and plan of the growing thought of Humanity.
The human spirit is " in travail." Everywhere,
in Science, in Art, in Philosophy, even in the
bosom of Religion, the attentive observer will
note a period of slow and painful conception.
Science above all gives abundant promise for
the future. The coming century will be one
o 209
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
of great production. Whatever may be our
attitude of sentiment towards the teaching
bequeathed to us by our fathers, most of us
will agree that these teachings have not
sufficed to dissipate the agonising mystery of
the purpose of life. Yet action and life were
never more intense — but can we either live or
act in the fullest sense, without being conscious
of the goal to be attained ?
" The soul of the present day demands a
science, an art, a religion of light and liberty,
to deliver her from her doubts, to free her
from old slaveries and miseries of thought, to
guide her to those shining horizons towards
, . / which she is impelled by her very nature and
by the impulses of irresistible force. We
hear much of Progress, but it is too often a
word of empty sound in the mouth of orators,
who are generally materialistic in their philo-
sophy. Twenty civilisations have passed over
our earth, lighting up the march of Humanity.
They have shone through the night of the
centuries and have become extinguished. Yet
man, even now, has no defined sense in his
limited thoughts, of the unlimited spheres
where Fate is swiftly bearing him. Men can
only truly progress and advance when they
2IO
IN CONCLUSION
believe in a future, towards which they walk
in confidence and certainty.
" Progress does not consist alone in material
works — in the invention of powerful machines
or agricultural instruments. Neither does it
consist in finding new technicalities and pro-
cesses in art, literature, or forms of eloquence.
Its great objective is to find the leading idea
which will fertilise all human life, the pure and
high Source, from which will flow the truths,
the principles and the sentiments which will
inspire all great works and all noble actions.
Civilisation and Society can only grow and
expand where thoughts even more pure and
elevated, and light increasingly clear, come to
illuminate the spirits and touch the hearts of
individuals.
" The Universe is ruled by the law of evolu-
tion. This alone is what we understand by
the word Progress. We are all subjected to
the same law. We cannot fail to recognise the
working of this sovereign law, which carries the
soul across the infinities of time and space
towards an increasingly splendid goal — but the
law can only work with our co-operation.
" To do any really useful work, to co-operate
with the cosmic evolution and gather its fruits,
211
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
we must above all things learn to apprehend
the reason, the cause and the goal of this
evolution, to learn where it is bearing us, so
that we may participate with all our latent
faculties and capacities in this glorious
ascension.
" It is our duty also to trace out these paths
for Future Humanity, of which we shall still
make an integral part, as we teach it of the
communion of souls, and as Nature teaches
by her thousand voices, and by her perpetual
changes and renewals, all those who can study
and understand her."
In the above pages I have endeavoured to
give, not an entire and literal but at least a
faithful resume of the thoughts of a wise and
philosophic mind on the present state of the
world, physical and mental. The picture is
strikingly true. The colours have been put in
with a strong hand, but I think no reasonable and
thinking mind can question their correctness.
This is how the present position, national and
international, appears to a man of thoughtful
intelligence and observation ; apart from any
limitations of special creed or sect. I am
reminded of the old story (is it told in Lalla
212
IN CONCLUSION
Rook/iP), where the man who is climbing up
the mountain peaks sees the earth crumbling
beneath him as he steps forward. At length a
terrible moment arrives when no solid ground
appears in front of him, and he is apparently
plunging into a terrible abyss. He looks up
to the heavens in despair ; but at that very
moment he sees a golden chain let down to
him. He swings himself on to it in an access
of sublime faith, and finds himself drawn up to
the skies.
We have reached the abyss — there can be
little doubt of that, when we look round on
the misery and menace and unrest of the world.
The golden chain is already within sight, thank
God ! Are we going to seize it or to let it
pass us by ; unheeded by our feeble yet despair-
ing hands?
That is the question which must soon be
answered. M. Leon Denis points out to us, as
others have done, though perhaps with less
clear and unbiassed judgment, just where we
must now look for help, to stem the disastrous
tides that threaten to overwhelm us. Truth
alone can do this, and the truth most earnestly
needed just now is the truth of the eternal
laws of the universe and of our individual co-
213
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
operation in the grand cosmic unity of the
future.
Hear what another noted Frenchman (Mons.
Edouard Schure) has to say on the same
subject : —
"If the law of Christ has penetrated the
individual conscience, or even to some extent
the social life, Pagan and barbarous laws still
govern our political institutions. Political
power everywhere rests on an insufficient basis.
On the one hand it rests on the divine right
of kings, which means military force — on the
other it rests upon universal suffrage, which
merely means the instincts of the masses without
selective intelligence.
"A nation does not consist of a number of
indeterminate values ; nor is it a sum in
addition. It is a living organism. So far as
national representation is not in the likeness
and image of this organism, from its workmen
to its teachers ; there will be no national repre-
sentation of a radical and intelligent nature/ '
" So long as the delegates of all scientific bodies
and of all Christian churches do not meet together
in a i Supreme Council] so long will our societies
be governed by instinct, by passion and by force —
there will be no social temple."
214
IN CONCLUSION
Mons. Schur6 also sees in the developments
of modern psychology our only hope for the
future. I think he would say that the greatest
hope of all rests with our Christian mystics, to
whom the grand work is entrusted of rescuing
the esoteric teaching of Jesus Christ from the
misapprehensions and accretions of centuries.
The misapprehensions were sometimes those of
His devoted but not wholly illuminated
disciples ; to whom He said that there were
still many things that could not yet be assimi-
lated by them. The accretions have come
through the fights of the Fathers and the
heretical persecutions which have so often led
to the over-emphasis of one side of a truth in
the attempt to crush some error on the other
side ; and thus, again and again, the true
balance has been lost.
Behind all these human misconstructions and
this exalting of the letter which kills, above
the spirit which makes alive, stands the Silent
Figure of the Patient Master, waiting for His
Second Coming into our hearts^- in a wider
knowledge and a broader sympathy with His
true mission and His true meaning.
Every great religion of the past has had its
esoteric wisdom hidden from the multitude,
215
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
not through any arbitrary fiat, but in the
ordinary working of evolutionary law. Is it to
be supposed that Christianity, the last and
grandest " word of God " to man, should alone
lack this element ? That our Lord knew less
than other teachers of the past, of the great yet
simple truths of the universe ? To those who
have eyes and ears beyond the material ones of
sense, even such words of His as have come
down to us, through oral and written tradition,
are full of this inner meaning which flesh and
blood cannot accept, and which our spirits
alone can fathom, when guided by the Divine
Spirit within.
That is why I say that earnest and reverent
Christian mystics are imperatively needed just
now, to speak openly of those subjects. It is
no easy matter, and it needs much courage.
Human Nature now is very much what it was
nineteen hundred years ago, when our Lord
Himself was reproved again and again by the
limited and narrow creed-holders of that day —
the orthodox Jews.
The Mystic will not only have narrow pre-
judices to confront, but (which is far more
painful), the reverent and deep-seated beliefs
of those good and earnest Christians who have
216
IN CONCLUSION
clung to the special meanings they have always
heard attached to certain texts of Scripture, and
who feel that the whole edifice of their faith
will crumble, if one single brick be removed.
It is so easy to identify the letter with the
spirit — a special interpretation with a universal
fact — the scaffolding with the building ; to
which it was at one time a necessity, but has
now become an unnecessary obstruction.
Why are we so fearful that the Social build-
ing may tumble about our ears if we remove
the scaffolding ? It is because our reverence
for the letter ot the Past is stronger than our
faith in the spirit of the Future.
We are so ready to patronise Truth, and even,
it would almost seem, the Almighty Himself!
We appear to think that neither can stand
alone and without our assistance.
This attitude, which is very general, would
be almost grotesque if it were not also so
pitiful.
We draw down the blinds and shut out the
light and try to turn our backs on the wicked
laws of evolution, through some queer idea of
loyalty to the Father who works through these
laws, or to the Son, who came here as the repre-
sentative of them upon earth.
217
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
The same mistaken loyalty is the stumbling-
block which prevents so many " Christian
people " from taking any active part in our
research. They think and say that " We are
not intended to know this or that." But surely
when God does not intend us to know anything,
He can very easily keep the knowledge from
us ! Certainly, He has done so in the past,
over and over again. £.
Why has so much knowledge (presumably
within the limits of ancient lore) been buried
in the obscurity of past ages ? Surely for one
of two reasons; probably both. Ot would have
been disastrous to have had too much know-
ledge, combined with too little wisdom, as has
j been proved in these past centuries. ; Also, we
seem to be treated, very wisely , as our children
are treated at school. They only gain prizes
when they have worked for them.
Therefore, I really think, when such an
influx of psychical knowledge is bestowed upon
us — when scientists, after fierce rebellion
against it, are at long last slowly but surely
coming within the field of investigation — when
our studies in that subject are daily gaining,
not only in experience, but (which is even
more necessary) in wise direction, owing to the
218
IN CONCLUSION
number of competent men and careful observers
who are now interesting themselves on these
lines — when all this is happening under our
very eyes, I would suggest in all reverence
that it is time for us, poor blind moles, to trust
the Almighty to know His own business with-
out our intervention. The Society which has
adopted the somewhat ambitious title of " The
Theosophical Society,' ' has done excellent work
during the last thirty years or so in popularis-
ing Eastern teachings and bringing them within
the scope of the ordinary Western man and
woman. Until then, these ancient religions
had been considered the speciality and sole
possession of the few learned Eastern scholars
in European countries, such as Max Mailer
in Germany (naturalised in England), Rhys
Davids, and many others who could be men-
tioned ; plus, a limited number of distinguished
amateur students, who from time to time have
taken the trouble to learn Sanscrit, Arabic,
Hindustani and other Eastern tongues, in order
to prosecute their studies in the leading
religions of the world, at the respective fountain-
heads.
Many of these latter, including also numer-
ous Buddhists, and not a few Hindus, have
219
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
scouted the labours of modern a Theosophy,"
and have declared that the theosophists have
" muddled up " various different systems of
thought in the endeavour to make a compre-
hensive if somewhat complicated whole.
Doubtless all attempts at synthesis between
various sources of religious teachings must
labour under similar difficulties.
Nothing in the world can be separated from
its indigenous surroundings without some loss.
If we take a doctrine, a system of thought, a
philosophy, we need also to take the race,
the conditions of life, of climate, of soil,
through which the doctrine or system of
philosophy, was nurtured and developed — you
might add to these, the mentality of the nation
that evolved it. Otherwise, it is like going
round the world and collecting specimens of
the flora and fauna of many lands, and then
coming home to plant them in your own little
garden under totally different conditions.
Some may grow, many more will die, whilst
others will of necessity change their nature and
appearance under the new conditions. And
this is very much what has happened in the
attempt to graft Eastern thought (in detail) on
to Western stock.
220
IN CONCLUSION
Yet we are the richer for seeing even dried
specimens of the flowers and fruits of other
countries. Therefore I think we owe a debt
of gratitude to any movement that aims at
spreading knowledge and placing it within
reach of those who might otherwise not search
for it themselves.
" If I dared" as the witty Frenchman
said who wrote some bright articles lately in
the Daily Mail, I should like to give a word
of warning to these latter ; having many
friends amongst modern " Theosophists."
We are all apt to think that what is new to
us must be unknown to others. The reverse
proposition that " everyone probably knows
what we know " is equally dangerous, because
it takes too much for granted ; but it is not
quite so aggressively irritating to poor, fallen
human nature ! Yet it is very natural to
identify a certain piece of knowledge with the
particular channel through which it reached
you individually. But it is sometimes a little
trying to have theories and ideas, which may
have been familiar to us for many years,
through quite other sources, suddenly sprung
upon us as theosophical copyright !
The second word I should like to say " If I
221
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
dared" is that we all need to remind ourselves
continually of the distinction between know-
ledge and wisdom. We may know every
technical term connected with every system
of thought in the past ; or in the present, for
that matter. We may be able to stand an
examination as to the division of the human
personality into its component parts — physical —
animal — spiritual, and give exactly the right
proportions and names to each. We may have
the most accurate information as to the human
aura, or even the various future spheres, and
know the correct Sanscrit and Hindustani
words for every subject upon which we write,
or speak, or lecture. All this is knowledge — it
is not wisdom. It is multiplicity — not unity.
No adept can teach us Wisdom. We must
be our own adepts for that ; since it comes
only by living the life and treading the path
ourselves, not by merely knowing the name
of the road ; even in Sanscrit ! And that road
will differ for each one of us, for it is part of
the multiplicity. It is only on reaching the
goal that we shall once more come into Unity
with all who have arrived there, through very
varied experiences.
Fasting and prayer may help us in the path,
222
Of**.
f/V /'- : IN OCCLUSION .
but we must use our own feet in walking
along it. Neither Madame Blavatsky nor
Mr Sinnett, nor MrsTBesant, nor even Mr ^ #>Kv y #
G. S. Mead (with whose writings I feel person-
ally the most intellectually affinitive) can do
that bit of walking for us.
But it seems to me that Wisdom — not only
knowledge — does underlie all the earliest con-
ceptions of all the great religions, so long as
their esoteric teachings remained pure and
unadulterated. These teachings, so profound
in essence and so simple in form, consisted as
we have seen of a few grand principles —
The Father-Mother God — in Unity.
The " Word " of God — Humanity — in
manifestation.
The Spirit of God — in the interior illu-
mination of the Divine Human.
Three lines, which sum up Life and Death
and Eternity.
I will end this chapter as I began it (after
my quotation) with a fervent appeal to all
those who are in authority — State or Ecclesi-
astical — not only to read their Bibles in the
light of scientific and psychological discoveries
223
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
of the present day (many doubtless do that
already), but to have the courage of their
opinions in stating openly and in the highest
places that the time is ripe when we must read
all revelation of truth in its inner and there-
fore truest meaning; or be content to see
Christianity put aside, as a superstition of the
past, useful enough in its time, but with no
message for the thinking men and women of
the present day. Some may say, " This can
never be," but it will be, unless we bestir our-
selves and take warning ere it be too late.
In being over careful of the letter (for fear of
giving offence or pain to others), we are in
danger of losing the spirit, which alone carries
the germ of life.
What matter if the disciples were occasion-
ally mistaken on a few points ? — If they read
their own limited ideas into the Lord's words ?
Is not this just what He Himself knew they
would do ? Was not this His reason for saying
so little, since even that little was so obviously
beyond their powers of understanding at
times ?
We have parted with " verbal inspiration"
as a manifest absurdity — and the most " con-
vinced Christian " has survived the shock.
224
IN CONCLUSION
Now we are asked to go a step further — to
say (as many clergymen in their hearts are
saying to-day) that the Bible is the history of
an inspired nation, but that it is not wholly
or equally inspired as a record.
Even within my lifetime I can recall the
fierce lights over verbal inspiration, where all
now is peace. Another and far more important
crisis has arrived.
Are we to rescue the teaching of our Master,
even at the expense of allowing limitations in
His disciples and apostles ?
Or are we to lose that teaching — at least in
its possible fulness and truth ?
That is the choice — the only choice now
possible for us.
Viewed from the present standpoint of Science
and Psychology, there are such numerous and
unmistakeable indications in His words, of the
inner meaning, which always accompanied the
outer symbol. But we fear to bring this into strong
re lief y lest a shadow should he cast on some textual
difficulty, which we feel hound to accept as of equal
value. This is the popular problem which has
to be solved. How are we going to meet it ?
I am writing in the interest of the Anglo-
Catholic world at large ; not for those scholars
f 12$
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
and mystics, lay or ecclesiastical, who can air
their advanced views in various advanced
theological magazines, or before eclectic circles
of friends. It is a popular danger which I have
indicated, and it needs a popular (and not
eclectic) remedy.
When the thoughtful middle classes and
the thoughtful lower classes (with ample apolo-
gies) are beginning to realise that they know
enough of modern scientific discoveries and of
modern psychological discoveries, to feel them-
selves ahead of generally accepted Christian
u doctrines,' ' surely there must be some-
thing wrong which needs readjustment ?
There are some who can assimilate spiritual
food more easily when served up with Thibet
Sauce. This is probably a question partly of
temperament and perhaps of previous incarna-
tion, but it is also due to the fact that they
find thus a freedom of intelligent thought and
intuition, a sense of space, of spiritual oxygen,
which are too often absent, from the ministra-
tions of our own churches — absent, we may
almost say, of necessity. Preaching that must
compromise with, or even openly defy, public
opinion, may, in the latter case, be courageous,
but it can never be healthily normal.
226
IN CONCLUSION
The Resurrection of our Lord — the very-
corner-stone of Christianity, as St Paul so truly
and logically declared — brought life and im-
mortality to light. Until within the last fifty
years this has been an article of blind faith
to most good Christian people — a stumbling-
block to many of the more thoughtful and
intellectual amongst them. As with the
miracles, so with the Resurrection ; they have
had the wish, but often not the power, "to
believe."
Modern psychology has come to the rescue,
and has pointed the way out of this impasse, a
way lighted by the torch of evolving Science.
As Jesus Christ rose in the psychical body and
manifested this to His disciples and to certain
others at various times, with the powers and capa-
cities normal to such a body ; so now, after nearly
two thousand years, it is necessary to bring about
the Second Coming of our Lord into our ad-
vancing spiritual consciousness, and this can
only be done through the co-operation of the
human race. It is for us to realise first our-
selves, and then to show forth to others, that
Jesus Christ, the Divine Master, taught only
through principles, never through narrow
doctrines or creeds — that this is the standard
227
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
by which we must test all accounts of His
doings and sayings. Water must rise to its
own level. How can the Divine Messiah sink
below the level of His own teachings ? If He
is ever represented as doing so y we must reject that
representation, rather than allow such an impos-
sibility. There is more than enough of the
high water-mark in our New Testaments by
which to judge of His credentials.
To those who believe firmly in Evolution —
Spiritual Evolution will appear not only reason-
able but absolutely essential, both for the race
and for the individual. It is true that we are
all at varying points in spiritual as in physical
evolution, but surely we have justification for
concluding that the Divine Messenger, who
showed us the grand Love principle — not
merely as a fine human emotion, but as the
beginning and end — the Alpha and Omega
of all conscious existence — Love, as the very
essence of the Almighty, must be Himself in
advance of the grandest and purest revelations
of the past, which have lacked this final word
of the Creator to the children of His creation ?
St Paul attempted to define the undefinable
mystery in his grand chapter on Love, in the
first of Corinthians ; but even there he failed.
228
IN CONCLUSION
How can Eternity be compressed into
words ?
St John — the greater mystic — did not make
the attempt. He only tells us that the Divine
is Love, and gives us some tests by which we
may know how far the human copy approaches
the original.
Christ — the greatest Mystic as well as
Messiah — tells us of the love of God. That
was His special message to the world, but He
does much more than this. He shows us love
incarnate through His own life, as well as in
His own death, and by doing this He shows
us the Father (who is Love), and thus justi-
fies His magnificent claim — u He that hath seen
Me, hath seen the Father." Yet in the very
next sentence He distinguishes between Him-
self, in His human aspect, and the Father, by
hastening to add : " The words that I speak
unto you, I speak not of Myself but the Father
that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.' '
Could He have defined the position more
clearly for those who have ears to hear and
hearts to understand? For spiritual truth
must be apprehended by the heart, as well as
by the intellect.
"In My Father's house are many mansions."
229
PSYCHICAL SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY
Each cycle seems to bring another mansion
in the Fathers House within our view.
Can we doubt, in the light of the Past — in
the light of the Present— above all, in the light
already filtering down to us from the Future,
that a grand destiny awaits us, when we have
passed through the waves of this troublesome
world, and as many more troublesome worlds
as may be necessary for our development, and
enter once more into the Father's House,
having received, through the weary path of
Evolution, the right to call ourselves no longer
His servants, but His sons ?
THE END
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