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It may very reasonably be asked, how far this precise
description of life beyond the grave is my own conception, and
how far it has been accepted by the greater minds who have
studied this subject? I would answer, that it is my own
conclusion as gathered from a very large amount of existing
testimony, and that in its main lines it has for many years been
accepted by those great numbers of silent active workers all over
the world, who look upon this matter from a strictly religious
point of view. I think that the evidence amply justifies us in
this belief. On the other hand, those who have approached this
subject with cold and cautious scientific brains, endowed, in
many cases, with the strongest prejudices against dogmatic creeds
and with very natural fears about the possible re-growth of
theological quarrels, have in most cases stopped short of a
complete acceptance, declaring that there can be no positive
proof upon such matters, and that we may deceive ourselves either
by a reflection of our own thoughts or by receiving the
impressions of the medium. Professor Zollner, for example, says:
"Science can make no use of the substance of intellectual
revelations, but must be guided by observed facts and by the
conclusions logically and mathematically uniting them"--a passage
which is quoted with approval by Professor Reichel, and would
seem to be endorsed by the silence concerning the religious
side of the question which is observed by most of our great
scientific supporters. It is a point of view which can well be
understood, and yet, closely examined, it would appear to be a
species of enlarged materialism. To admit, as these observers
do, that spirits do return, that they give every proof of being
the actual friends whom we have lost, and yet to turn a deaf ear
to the messages which they send would seem to be pushing caution
to the verge of unreason. To get so far, and yet not to go
further, is impossible as a permanent position. If, for example,
in Raymond's case we find so many allusions to the small details
of his home upon earth, which prove to be surprisingly correct,
is it reasonable to put a blue pencil through all he says of the
home which he actually inhabits? Long before I had convinced my
mind of the truth of things which appeared so grotesque and
incredible, I had a long account sent by table tilting about the
conditions of life beyond. The details seemed to me impossible
and I set them aside, and yet they harmonise, as I now discover,
with other revelations. So, too, with the automatic script
of Mr. Hubert Wales, which has been described in my previous
book. He had tossed it aside into a drawer as being unworthy of
serious consideration, and yet it also proved to be in harmony.
In neither of these cases was telepathy or the prepossession of
the medium a possible explanation. On the whole, I am inclined
to think that these doubtful or dissentient scientific men,
having their own weighty studies to attend to, have confined
their reading and thought to the more objective side of the
question, and are not aware of the vast amount of concurrent
evidence which appears to give us an exact picture of the life
beyond. They despise documents which cannot be proved, and they
do not, in my opinion, sufficiently realise that a general
agreement of testimony, and the already established character of
a witness, are themselves arguments for truth. Some complicate
the question by predicating the existence of a fourth dimension
in that world, but the term is an absurdity, as are all terms
which find no corresponding impression in the human brain. We
have mysteries enough to solve without gratuitously
introducing fresh ones. When solid passes through solid, it
is, surely, simpler to assume that it is done by a
dematerialisation, and subsequent reassembly--a process which
can, at least, be imagined by the human mind--than to invoke an
explanation which itself needs to be explained.
In the next and final chapter I will ask the reader to
accompany me in an examination of the New Testament by the light
of this psychic knowledge, and to judge how far it makes clear
and reasonable much which was obscure and confused.
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