Speculations on Paul and his Master.--Arrival at Melbourne.--Attack
in the Argus.--Partial press boycott.--Strength of the
movement.--The Prince of Wales.--Victorian football.--Rescue Circle
in Melbourne.--Burke and Wills' statue.--Success of the
lectures.--Reception at the Auditorium.--Luncheon of the British
Empire League.--Mr. Ryan's experience.--The Federal
Government.--Mr. Hughes' personality.--The mediumship of Charles
Bailey.--His alleged exposure.--His remarkable record.--A second
sitting.--The Indian nest.--A remarkable lecture.--Arrival of Lord
Forster.--The future of the Empire.--Kindness of
Australians.--Prohibition.--Horse-racing.--Roman Catholic policy.
One cannot help speculating about those great ones who first carried to
the world the Christian revelation. What were their domestic ties! There
is little said about them, but we should never have known that Peter had
a wife were it not for a chance allusion to his mother-in-law, just as
another chance allusion shows us that Jesus was one of a numerous
family. One thing can safely be said of Paul, that he was either a
bachelor or else was a domestic bully with a very submissive wife, or he
would never have dared to express his well known views about women. As
to his preaching, he had a genius for making a clear thing obscure, even
as Jesus had a genius for making an obscure thing clear. Read the
Sermon on the Mount and then a chapter of Paul as a contrast in styles.
Apart from his style one can reconstruct him as a preacher to the extent
that he had a powerful voice--no one without one could speak from the
historic rocky pulpit on the hill of Mars at Athens, as I ascertained
for myself. The slope is downwards, sound ascends, and the whole
conditions are abominable. He was certainly long-winded and probably
monotonous in his diction, or he could hardly have reduced one of his
audience to such a deep sleep that he fell out of the window. We may add
that he was a man of brisk courage in an emergency, that he was subject
to such sudden trances that he was occasionally unaware himself whether
he was normal or not, and that he was probably short-sighted, as he
mistook the person who addressed him, and had his letters usually
written for him. At least three languages were at his command, he had an
intimate and practical knowledge of the occult, and was an authority
upon Jewish law--a good array of accomplishments for one man.
There are some points about Paul's august Master which also help in a
reconstruction of Himself and His surroundings. That His mother was
opposed to His mission is, I think, very probable. Women are dubious
about spiritual novelties, and one can well believe that her heart ached
to see her noble elder son turn from the sure competence of His father's
business at Nazareth to the precarious existence of a wandering
preacher. This domestic opposition clouded Him as one can see in the
somewhat cold, harsh words which He used to her, and his mode of address
which began simply as "Woman." His assertion to the disciples that one
who followed His path had to give up his family points to the same
thing. No doubt Mary remained with the younger branches at Nazareth
while Jesus pursued His ministry, though she came, as any mother would,
to be near Him at the end.
Of His own personality we know extraordinarily little, considering the
supreme part that He played in the world. That He was a highly trained
psychic, or as we should say, medium, is obvious to anyone who studies
the miracles, and it is certainly not derogatory to say that they were
done along the line of God's law rather than that they were inversions
of it. I cannot doubt also that he chose his apostles for their psychic
powers--if not, on what possible principle were they selected, since
they were neither staunch nor learned? It is clear that Peter and James
and John were the inner circle of psychics, since they were assembled
both at the transfiguration and at the raising of Jairus' daughter. It
is from unlearned open-air men who are near Nature that the highest
psychic powers are obtained. It has been argued that the Christ was an
Essene, but this seems hard to believe, as the Essenes were not only
secluded from the world, but were certainly vegetarians and total
abstainers, while Jesus was neither. On the other hand baptism was not a
Jewish rite, and his undergoing it--if He did, indeed, undergo it--marks
Him as belonging to some dissenting sect. I say "if He did" because it
is perfectly certain that there were forgeries and interpolations
introduced into the Gospels in order to square their teaching with the
practice of the Church some centuries later. One would look for those
forgeries not in the ordinary narrative, which in the adult years bears
every mark of truth, but in the passages which support ceremonial or
tributes to the Church--such as the allusions to baptism, "Unless a man
be born again," to the sacrament, "This is my body, etc.," and the whole
story of Ananias and Sapphira, the moral of which is that it is
dangerous to hold anything back from the Church.
Physically I picture the Christ as an extremely powerful man. I have
known several famous healers and they were all men who looked as if they
had redundant health and strength to give to others. His words to the
sick woman, "Who has touched me? Much power" (_dunamis_ is the word in
the original Greek) "has gone out of me," show that His system depended
upon His losing what He gave to others. Therefore He was a very strong
man. The mere feat of carrying a wooden cross strong enough to bear a
man from Jerusalem to Calvary, up a hill, is no light one. It is the
details which convince me that the gospel narrative is correct and
really represents an actual event. Take the incident during that sad
journey of Simon of Cyrene having helped for a time with the cross. Why
should anyone invent such a thing, putting an actual name to the person?
It is touches of this kind which place the narrative beyond all
suspicion of being a pure invention. Again and again in the New
Testament one is confronted with incidents which a writer of fiction
recognises as being beyond the reach of invention, because the inventor
does not put in things which have no direct bearing upon the matter in
hand. Take as an example how the maid, seeing Peter outside the door
after his escape from prison, ran back to the guests and said that it
was his angel (or etheric body) which was outside. Such an episode could
only have been recorded because it actually occurred.
But these be deep waters. Let me get back to my own humble experiences,
these interpolated thoughts being but things which have been found upon
the wayside of our journey. On reaching Melbourne we were greeted at the
station by a few devoted souls who had waited for two trains before they
found us. Covered with the flowers which they had brought we drove to
Menzies Hotel, whence we moved a few days later to a flat in the Grand,
where we were destined to spend five eventful weeks. We found the
atmosphere and general psychic conditions of Melbourne by no means as
pleasant or receptive as those of Adelaide, but this of course was very
welcome as the greater the darkness the more need of the light. If
Spiritualism had been a popular cult in Australia there would have been
no object in my visit. I was welcome enough as an individual, but by no
means so as an emissary, and both the Churches and the Materialists, in
most unnatural combination, had done their best to make the soil stony
for me. Their chief agent had been the _Argus_, a solid, stodgy paper,
which amply fulfilled the material needs of the public, but was not
given to spiritual vision. This paper before my arrival had a very
violent and abusive leader which attracted much attention, full of such
terms as "black magic," "Shamanism," "witchcraft," "freak religion,"
"cranky faith," "cruelty," "black evil," "poison," finishing up with the
assertion that I represented "a force which we believe to be purely
evil." This was from a paper which whole-heartedly supports the liquor
interest, and has endless columns of betting and racing news, nor did
its principles cause it to refuse substantial sums for the advertising
of my lectures. Still, however arrogant or illogical, I hold that a
paper has a perfect right to publish and uphold its own view, nor would
I say that the subsequent refusal of the _Argus_ to print any answer to
its tirade was a real breach of the ethics of journalism. Where its
conduct became outrageous, however, and where it put itself beyond the
pale of all literary decency, was when it reported my first lecture by
describing my wife's dress, my own voice, the colour of my spectacles,
and not a word of what I said. It capped this by publishing so-called
answers to me by Canon Hughes, and by Bishop Phelan--critics whose
knowledge of the subject seemed to begin and end with the witch of
Endor--while omitting the statements to which these answers applied.
Never in any British town have I found such reactionary intolerance as
in this great city, for though the _Argus_ was the chief offender, the
other papers were as timid as rabbits in the matter. My psychic
photographs which, as I have said, are the most wonderful collection
ever shown in the world, were received in absolute silence by the whole
press, though it is notorious that if I had come there with a comic
opera or bedroom comedy instead of with the evidence of a series of
miracles, I should have had a column. This seems to have been really due
to moral cowardice, and not to ignorance, for I saw a private letter
afterwards in which a sub-editor remarked that he and the chief
leader-writer had both seen the photographs and that they could see no
possible answer to them.
There was another and more pleasing side to the local conditions, and
that lay in the numbers who had already mastered the principles of
Spiritualism, the richer classes as individuals, the poorer as organised
churches. They were so numerous that when we received an address of
welcome in the auditorium to which only Spiritualists were invited by
ticket, the Hall, which holds two thousand, was easily filled. This
would mean on the same scale that the Spiritualists of London could fill
the Albert Hall several times over--as no doubt they could. Their
numbers were in a sense an embarrassment, as I always had the fear that
I was addressing the faithful instead of those whom I had come so far to
instruct. On the whole their quality and organisation were
disappointing. They had a splendid spiritual paper in their midst, the
_Harbinger of Light_, which has run for fifty years, and is most ably
edited by Mr. Britton Harvey. When I think of David Gow, Ernest Oaten,
John Lewis and Britton Harvey I feel that our cause is indeed well
represented by its press. They have also some splendid local workers,
like Bloomfield and Tozer, whole-hearted and apostolic. But elsewhere
there is the usual tendency to divide and to run into vulgarities and
extravagances in which the Spiritual has small share. Discipline is
needed, which involves central powers, and that in turn means command of
the purse. It would be far better to have no Spiritual churches than
some I have seen.
However, I seem to have got to some of my final conclusions at Melbourne
before I have begun our actual experience there. We found the place
still full of rumours and talk about the recent visit of the Prince of
Wales, who seems to have a perfect genius for making himself popular and
beloved. May he remain unspoiled and retain the fresh kindliness of his
youth. His success is due not to any ordered rule of conduct but to a
perfectly natural courtesy which is his essential self and needs no
effort. Our waiter at the hotel who had waited upon him remarked: "God
never made anything nearer to Nature than that boy. He spoke to me as he
might have spoken to the Governor." It was a fine tribute, and
characteristic of the humbler classes in this country, who have a vigour
of speech and an independence of view which is very refreshing. Once as
I passed a public house, a broken old fellow who had been leaning
against the wall with a short pipe in his mouth, stepped forward to me
and said: "I am all for civil and religious liberty. There is plenty of
room for your cult here, sir, and I wish you well against the bigots." I
wonder from what heights that old fellow had fallen before he brought up
against the public house wall?
One of my first afternoons in Melbourne was spent in seeing the final
tie of the Victorian football cup. I have played both Rugby and Soccer,
and I have seen the American game at its best, but I consider that the
Victorian system has some points which make it the best of
all--certainly from the spectacular point of view. There is no off-side,
and you get a free kick if you catch the ball. Otherwise you can run as
in ordinary Rugby, though there is a law about bouncing the ball as you
run, which might, as it seemed to me, be cut out without harming the
game. This bouncing rule was put in by Mr. Harrison who drew up the
original rules, for the chivalrous reason that he was himself the
fastest runner in the Colony, and he did not wish to give himself any
advantage. There is not so much man-handling in the Victorian game, and
to that extent it is less dramatic, but it is extraordinarily open and
fast, with none of the packed scrums which become so wearisome, and with
linesmen who throw in the ball the instant it goes out. There were
several points in which the players seemed better than our best--one was
the accurate passing by low drop kicking, very much quicker and faster
than a pass by hand. Another was the great accuracy of the place kicking
and of the screw kicking when a runner would kick at right angles to his
course. There were four long quarters, and yet the men were in such
condition that they were going hard at the end. They are all, I
understand, semi-professionals. Altogether it was a very fine display,
and the crowd was much excited. It was suggestive that the instant the
last whistle blew a troop of mounted police cantered over the ground and
escorted the referees to the safety of the pavilion.
I began at once to endeavour to find out the conditions of local
Spiritualism, and had a long conversation with Mr. Tozer, the chairman
of the movement, a slow-talking, steady-eyed man, of the type that gets
a grip and does not easily let go. After explaining the general
situation, which needs some explanation as it is full of currents and
cross-currents caused by individual schisms and secessions, he told me
in his gentle, earnest way some of his own experiences in his home
circle which corroborate much which I have heard elsewhere. He has run a
rescue circle for the instruction of the lower spirits who are so
material that they can be reached more easily by humanity than by the
higher angels. The details he gave me were almost the same as those
given by Mr. MacFarlane of Southsea who had a similar circle of which
Mr. Tozer had certainly never heard. A wise spirit control dominates the
proceedings. The medium goes into trance. The spirit control then
explains what it is about to do, and who the spirit is who is about to
be reformed. The next scene is often very violent, the medium having to
be held down and using rough language. This comes from some low spirit
who has suddenly found this means of expressing himself. At other times
the language is not violent but only melancholy, the spirit declaring
that he is abandoned and has not a friend in the universe. Some do not
realise that they are dead, but only that they wander all alone, under
conditions they could not understand, in a cloud of darkness.
Then comes the work of regeneration. They are reasoned with and
consoled. Gradually they become more gentle. Finally, they accept the
fact that they are spirits, that their condition is their own making,
and that by aspiration and repentance they can win their way to the
light. When one has found the path and has returned thanks for it,
another case is treated. As a rule these errant souls are unknown to
fame. Often they are clergymen whose bigotry has hindered development.
Occasionally some great sinner of the past may come into view. I have
before me a written lament professing to come from Alva, the bigoted
governor of the Lowlands. It is gruesome enough. "Picture to yourself
the hell I was in. Blood, blood everywhere, corpses on all sides,
gashed, maimed, mutilated, quivering with agony and bleeding at every
pore! At the same time thousands of voices were raised in bitter
reproaches, in curses and execrations! Imagine the appalling spectacle
of this multitude of the dead and dying, fresh from the flames, from the
sword, the rack, the torture chambers and the gibbet; and the
pandemonium of voices shrieking out the most terrible maledictions!
Imagine never being able to get away from these sights and sounds, and
then tell me, was I not in hell?--a hell of greater torment than that to
which I believed all heretics were consigned. Such was the hell of the
'bloody Alva,' from which I have been rescued by what seems to me a
great merciful dispensation of Almighty God."
Sometimes in Mr. Tozer's circle the souls of ancient clerics who have
slumbered long show their first signs of resuscitation, still bearing
their old-world intolerance with them. The spirit control purports to be
a well-educated Chinaman, whose presence and air of authority annoy the
ecclesiastics greatly. The petrified mind leads to a long period of
insensibility which means loss of ground and of time in the journey
towards happiness. I was present at the return of one alleged Anglican
Bishop of the eighteenth century, who spoke with great intolerance. When
asked if he had seen the Christ he answered that he had not and that he
could not understand it. When asked if he still considered the Christ to
be God he threw up his hand and shouted violently, "Stop! That is
blasphemy!" The Chinese control said, "He stupid man. Let him wait. He
learn better"--and removed him. He was succeeded by a very noisy and
bigoted Puritan divine who declared that no one but devils would come to
a seance. On being asked whether that meant that he was himself a devil
he became so abusive that the Chinaman once more had to intervene. I
quote all this as a curious sidelight into some developments of the
subject which are familiar enough to students, but not to the general
public. It is easy at a distance to sneer at such things and to ask for
their evidential value, but they are very impressive to those who view
them at closer quarters. As to evidence, I am informed that several of
the unfortunates have been identified in this world through the
information which they gave of their own careers.
Melbourne is a remarkable city, far more solid and old-established than
the European visitor would expect. We spent some days in exploring it.
There are few cities which have the same natural advantages, for it is
near the sea, with many charming watering places close at hand, while
inland it has some beautiful hills for the week-end villas of the
citizens. Edinburgh is the nearest analogy which I can recall. Parks and
gardens are beautiful, but, as in most British cities, the public
statues are more solid than impressive. The best of them, that to Burke
and Wills, the heroic explorers, has no name upon it to signify who the
two figures are, so that they mean nothing at all to the casual
observer, in spite of some excellent bas-reliefs, round the base, which
show the triumphant start and the terrible end of that tragic but
successful journey, which first penetrated the Continent from south to
north. Before our departure I appealed in the press to have this
omission rectified and it was, I believe, done.
Illustration: _Photo: Stirling, Melbourne._ MELBOURNE, NOVEMBER,
1920.
Mr. Smythe, my agent, had been unfortunate in being unable to secure one
of the very few large halls in Melbourne, so we had to confine ourselves
to the Playhouse which has only seating for about 1,200. Here I
opened on October 5th, following my lectures up in the same order as in
Adelaide. The press was very shy, but nothing could have exceeded the
warmth and receptivity of my hearers. Yet on account of the inadequate
reports of the press, with occasional total suppression, no one who was
not present could have imagined how packed was the house, or how
unanimous the audience.
On October 14th the Spiritualists filled the Auditorium and had a
special service of welcome for ourselves. When I went down to it in the
tram, the conductor, unaware of my identity, said, when I asked to be
put down at the Auditorium, "It's no use, sir; it's jam full an hour
ago." "The Pilgrims," as they called us, were in special seats, the
seven of us all in a line upon the right of the chair. Many kind things
were said, and I replied as best I might. The children will carry the
remembrance of that warm-hearted reception through their lives, and they
are not likely to forget how they staggered home, laden with the flowers
which were literally heaped upon them.
The British Empire League also entertained my wife and myself to lunch,
a very select company assembling who packed the room. Sir Joseph Cook,
Federal Chancellor of the Exchequer, made a pleasant speech, recalling
our adventures upon the Somme, when he had his baptism of fire. In my
reply I pulled the leg of my audience with some success, for I wound up
by saying, very solemnly, that I was something greater than Governments
and the master of Cabinet Ministers. By the time I had finished my
tremendous claims I am convinced that they expected some extravagant
occult pretension, whereas I actually wound up with the words, "for I am
the man in the street." There was a good deal of amusement caused.
Mr. Thomas Ryan, a very genial and capable member of the State
Legislature, took the chair at this function. He had no particular
psychic knowledge, but he was deeply impressed by an experience in
London in the presence of that remarkable little lady, Miss Scatcherd.
Mr. Ryan had said that he wanted some evidence before he could accept
psychic philosophy, upon which Miss Scatcherd said: "There is a spirit
beside you now. He conveys to me that his name is Roberts. He says he is
worried in his mind because the home which you prepared for his widow
has not been legally made over to her." All this applied to a matter in
Adelaide. In that city, according to Mr. Ryan, a seance was held that
night, Mr. Victor Cromer being the medium, at which a message came
through from Roberts saying that he was now easy in his mind as he had
managed to convey his trouble to Mr. Ryan who could set it right. When
these psychic laws are understood the dead as well as the living will be
relieved from a load of unnecessary care; but how can these laws be
ignored or pooh-poohed in the face of such instances as this which I
have quoted? They are so numerous now that it is hardly an exaggeration
to say that every circle of human beings which meets can supply one.
Mr. Hughes was good enough to ask me to meet the members of the Federal
Government at lunch, and the experience was an interesting one, for here
round one small table were those who were shaping the course of this
young giant among the nations. They struck me as a practical hard-worked
rough-and-ready lot of men. Mr. Hughes dominated the conversation, which
necessarily becomes one-sided as he is very deaf, though his opponents
say that he has an extraordinary knack of hearing what he is not meant
to hear. He told us a series of anecdotes of his stormy political youth
with a great deal of vivacity, the whole company listening in silence.
He is a hard, wiry man, with a high-nosed Red Indian face, and a good
deal of healthy devilry in his composition--a great force for good
during the war.
After lunch he conducted me through the library, and coming to a
portrait of Clemenceau he cried: "That's the man I learned to admire in
Europe." Then, turning to one of Wilson, he added, "And that's the man I
learned to dislike." He added a number of instances of Wilson's
ignorance of actual conditions, and of his ungenial coldness of heart.
"If he had not been so wrapped in himself, and if he had taken Lodge or
some other Republican with him, all could have easily been arranged." I
feel that I am not indiscreet in repeating this, for Hughes is not a man
who conceals his opinions from the world.
I have been interested in the medium Bailey, who was said to have been
exposed in France in 1910. The curious will find the alleged exposure
in "Annals of Psychical Science," Vol. IX. Bailey is an apport
medium--that is to say, that among his phenomena is the bringing of
objects which are said to come from a distance, passing through the
walls and being precipitated down upon the table. These objects are of
the strangest description--Assyrian tablets (real or forged), tortoises,
live birds, snakes, precious stones, &c. In this case, after being
searched by the committee, he was able to produce two live birds in the
seance room. At the next sitting the committee proposed an obscene and
absurd examination of the medium, which he very rightly resented and
refused. They then confidently declared that on the first occasion the
two live birds were in his intestines, a theory so absurd that it shakes
one's confidence in their judgment. They had, however, some more solid
grounds for a charge against him, for they produced a married couple who
swore that they had sold three such birds with a cage to Bailey some
days before. This Bailey denied, pointing out that he could neither
speak French, nor had he ever had any French money, which Professor
Reichel, who brought him from Australia, corroborated. However, the
committee considered the evidence to be final, and the seances came to
an end, though Colonel de Rochas, the leading member, wound up the
incident by writing: "Are we to conclude from the fraud that we have
witnessed that all Bailey's apports may have been fraudulent? I do not
think so, and this is also the opinion of the members of the committee,
who have had much experience with mediums and are conversant with the
literature of the subject."
Reading the alleged exposure, one is struck, as so often in such cases,
with its unsatisfactory nature. There is the difficulty of the language
and the money. There is the disappearance of the third bird and the
cage. Above all, how did the birds get into the carefully-guarded seance
room, especially as Bailey was put in a bag during the proceedings? The
committee say the bag may not have been efficient, but they also state
that Bailey desired the control to be made more effective. Altogether it
is a puzzling case. On my applying to Bailey himself for information, he
declared roundly that he had been the victim of a theological plot with
suborned evidence. The only slight support which I can find for that
view is that there was a Rev. Doctor among his accusers. I was told
independently that Professor Reichel, before his death in 1918, came
also to the conclusion that there had been a plot. But in any case most
of us will agree with Mr. Stanford, Bailey's Australian patron, that the
committee would have been wise to say nothing, continue the sittings,
and use their knowledge to get at some more complete conclusion.
With such a record one had to be on one's guard with Mr. Bailey. I had a
sitting in my room at the hotel to which I invited ten guests, but the
results were not impressive. We saw so-called spirit hands, which were
faintly luminous, but I was not allowed to grasp them, and they were
never further from the medium than he could have reached. All this was
suspicious but not conclusive. On the other hand, there was an attempt
at a materialisation of a head, which took the form of a luminous patch,
and seemed to some of the sitters to be further from the cabinet than
could be reached. We had an address purporting to come from the control,
Dr. Whitcombe, and we also had a message written in bad Italian. On the
whole it was one of those baffling sittings which leave a vague
unpleasant impression, and there was a disturbing suggestion of cuffs
about those luminous hands.
I have been reading Bailey's record, however, and I cannot doubt that he
has been a great apport medium. The results were far above all possible
fraud, both in the conditions and in the articles brought into the room
by spirit power. For example, I have a detailed account published by Dr.
C. W. McCarthy, of Sydney, under the title, "Rigid Tests of the Occult."
During these tests Bailey was sealed up in a bag, and in one case was
inside a cage of mosquito curtain. The door and windows were secured and
the fire-place blocked. The sitters were all personal friends, but they
mutually searched each other. The medium was stripped naked before the
seance. Under these stringent conditions during a series of six sittings
138 articles were brought into the room, which included eighty-seven
ancient coins (mostly of Ptolemy), eight live birds, eighteen precious
stones of modest value and varied character, two live turtles, seven
inscribed Babylonian tablets, one Egyptian Scarabaeus, an Arabic
newspaper, a leopard skin, four nests and many other things. It seems
to me perfect nonsense to talk about these things being the results of
trickery. I may add that at a previous test meeting they had a young
live shark about 1-1/2 feet long, which was tangled with wet seaweed and
flopped about on the table. Dr. McCarthy gives a photograph of the
creature.
My second sitting with Bailey was more successful than the first. On his
arrival I and others searched him and satisfied ourselves he carried
nothing upon him. I then suddenly switched out all the lights, for it
seemed to me that the luminous hands of the first sitting might be the
result of phosphorised oil put on before the meeting and only visible in
complete darkness, so that it could defy all search. I was wrong,
however, for there was no luminosity at all. We then placed Mr. Bailey
in the corner of the room, lowered the lights without turning them out,
and waited. Almost at once he breathed very heavily, as one in trance,
and soon said something in a foreign tongue which was unintelligible to
me. One of our friends, Mr. Cochrane, recognised it as Indian, and at
once answered, a few sentences being interchanged. In English the voice
then said that he was a Hindoo control who was used to bring apports for
the medium, and that he would, he hoped, be able to bring one for us.
"Here it is," he said a moment later, and the medium's hand was extended
with something in it. The light was turned full on and we found it was a
very perfect bird's nest, beautifully constructed of some very fine
fibre mixed with moss. It stood about two inches high and had no sign of
any flattening which would have come with concealment. The size would be
nearly three inches across. In it lay a small egg, white, with tiny
brown speckles. The medium, or rather the Hindoo control acting through
the medium, placed the egg on his palm and broke it, some fine albumen
squirting out. There was no trace of yolk. "We are not allowed to
interfere with life," said he. "If it had been fertilised we could not
have taken it." These words were said before he broke it, so that he was
aware of the condition of the egg, which certainly seems remarkable.
"Where did it come from?" I asked.
"From India."
"What bird is it?"
"They call it the jungle sparrow."
The nest remained in my possession, and I spent a morning with Mr.
Chubb, of the local museum, to ascertain if it was really the nest of
such a bird. It seemed too small for an Indian sparrow, and yet we could
not match either nest or egg among the Australian types. Some of Mr.
Bailey's other nests and eggs have been actually identified. Surely it
is a fair argument that while it is conceivable that such birds might be
imported and purchased here, it is really an insult to one's reason to
suppose that nests with fresh eggs in them could also be in the market.
Therefore I can only support the far more extended experience and
elaborate tests of Dr. McCarthy of Sydney, and affirm that I believe Mr.
Charles Bailey to be upon occasion a true medium, with a very
remarkable gift for apports.
It is only right to state that when I returned to London I took one of
Bailey's Assyrian tablets to the British Museum and that it was
pronounced to be a forgery. Upon further inquiry it proved that these
forgeries are made by certain Jews in a suburb of Bagdad--and, so far as
is known, only there. Therefore the matter is not much further advanced.
To the transporting agency it is at least possible that the forgery,
steeped in recent human magnetism, is more capable of being handled than
the original taken from a mound. Bailey has produced at least a hundred
of these things, and no Custom House officer has deposed how they could
have entered the country. On the other hand, Bailey told me clearly that
the tablets had been passed by the British Museum, so that I fear that I
cannot acquit him of tampering with truth--and just there lies the great
difficulty of deciding upon his case. But one has always to remember
that physical mediumship has no connection one way or the other with
personal character, any more than the gift of poetry.
To return to this particular seance, it was unequal. We had luminous
hands, but they were again within reach of the cabinet in which the
medium was seated. We had also a long address from Dr. Whitcombe, the
learned control, in which he discoursed like an absolute master upon
Assyrian and Roman antiquities and psychic science. It was really an
amazing address, and if Bailey were the author of it I should hail him
as a master mind. He chatted about the Kings of Babylon as if he had
known them all, remarked that the Bible was wrong in calling Belthazar
King as he was only Crown Prince, and put in all those easy side
allusions which a man uses when he is absolutely full of his subject.
Upon his asking for questions, I said: "Please give me some light as to
the dematerialisation and subsequent reassembly of an object such as a
bird's nest." "It involves," he answered, "some factors which are beyond
your human science and which could not be made clear to you. At the same
time you may take as a rough analogy the case of water which is turned
into steam, and then this steam which is invisible, is conducted
elsewhere to be reassembled as visible water." I thought this
explanation was exceedingly apt, though of course I agree that it is
only a rough analogy. On my asking if there were libraries and
facilities for special study in the next world, he said that there
certainly were, but that instead of studying books they usually studied
the actual objects themselves. All he said was full of dignity and
wisdom. It was curious to notice that, learned as he was, Dr. Whitcombe
always referred back with reverence to Dr. Robinson, another control not
present at the moment, as being the real expert. I am told that some of
Dr. Robinson's addresses have fairly amazed the specialists. I notice
that Col. de Rochas in his report was equally impressed by Bailey's
controls.
I fear that my psychic experiences are pushing my travels into the
background, but I warned the reader that it might be so when first we
joined hands. To get back to the earth, let me say that I saw the
procession when the new Governor-General, Lord Forster, with his
charming wife, made their ceremonial entry into Melbourne, with many
workman-like Commonwealth troops before and behind their carriage. I
knew Lord Forster of old, for we both served upon a committee over the
Olympic Games, so that he gave quite a start of surprised recognition
when his quick eye fell upon my face in the line of spectators. He is a
man who cannot fail to be popular here, for he has the physical as well
as the mental qualities. Our stay in Melbourne was afterwards made more
pleasant by the gracious courtesy of Government House for, apart from
attending several functions, we were invited to a special dinner, after
which I exhibited upon a screen my fairy portraits and a few of my other
very wonderful psychic photographs. It was not an occasion when I could
preach, but no quick intelligence could be brought in contact with such
phenomena without asking itself very seriously what lay behind them.
When that question is earnestly asked the battle is won.
One asks oneself what will be the end of this system of little viceroys
in each State and a big viceroy in the Capital--however capable and
excellent in themselves such viceroys may be. The smaller courts are, I
understand, already doomed, and rightly so, since there is no need for
them and nothing like them elsewhere. There is no possible purpose that
they serve save to impose a nominal check, which is never used, upon
the legislation. The Governor-Generalship will last no doubt until
Australia cuts the painter, or we let go our end of it, whichever may
come first.
Personally, I have no fear of Britain's power being weakened by a
separation of her dominions. Close allies which were independent might
be a greater source of moral strength than actual dependencies. When the
sons leave the father's house and rule their own homes, becoming fathers
in turn, the old man is not weakened thereby. Certainly I desire no such
change, but if it came I would bear it with philosophy. I hope that the
era of great military crises is for ever past, but, if it should recur,
I am sure that the point of view would be the same, and that the starry
Union Jack of the great Australian nation would still fly beside the old
flag which was its model.
If one took a Machiavelian view of British interests one would say that
to retain a colony the surest way is not to remove any danger which may
threaten her. We conquered Canada from the French, removing in
successive campaigns the danger from the north and from the west which
threatened our American colonies. When we had expended our blood and
money to that end, so that the colonies had nothing to fear, they took
the first opportunity to force an unnecessary quarrel and to leave us.
So I have fears for South Africa now that the German menace has been
removed. Australia is, I think, loyal to the core, and yet self-interest
is with every nation the basis of all policy, and so long as the British
fleet can guard the shores of the great empty northern territories, a
region as big as Britain, Germany, France and Austria put together, they
have need of us. There can be no doubt that if they were alone in the
world in the face of the teeming millions of the East, they might, like
the Siberian travellers, have to throw a good deal to the wolves in
order to save the remainder. Brave and capable as they are, neither
their numbers nor their resources could carry them through a long
struggle if the enemy held the sea. They are natural shots and soldiers,
so that they might be wiser to spend their money in a strategic railway
right across their northern coast, rather than in direct military
preparations. To concentrate rapidly before the enemy was firmly
established might under some circumstances be a very vital need.
But so long as the British Empire lasts Australia is safe, and in twenty
years' time her own enlarged population will probably make her safe
without help from anyone. But her empty places are a danger. History
abhors a vacuum and finds some one to fill it up. I have never yet
understood why the Commonwealth has not made a serious effort to attract
to the northern territories those Italians who are flooding the
Argentine. It is great blood and no race is the poorer for it--the blood
of ancient Rome. They are used to semitropical heat and to hard work in
bad conditions if there be only hope ahead. Perhaps the policy of the
future may turn in that direction. If that one weak spot be guarded then
it seems to me that in the whole world there is no community, save only
the United States, which is so safe from outside attack as Australia.
Internal division is another matter, but there Australia is in some ways
stronger than the States. She has no negro question, and the strife
between Capital and Labour is not likely to be so formidable. I wonder,
by the way, how many people in the United States realise that this small
community lost as many men as America did in the great war. We were
struck also by the dignified resignation with which this fact was faced,
and by the sense of proportion which was shown in estimating the
sacrifices of various nations.
We like the people here very much more than we had expected to, for one
hears in England exaggerated stories of their democratic bearing. When
democracy takes the form of equality one can get along with it, but when
it becomes rude and aggressive one would avoid it. Here one finds a very
pleasing good fellowship which no one would object to. Again and again
we have met with little acts of kindness from people in shops or in the
street, which were not personal to ourselves, but part of their normal
good manners. If you ask the way or any other information, strangers
will take trouble to put you right. They are kindly, domestic and
straight in speech and in dealings. Materialism and want of vision in
the broader affairs of life seem to be the national weakness, but that
may be only a passing phase, for when a nation has such a gigantic
material proposition as this continent to handle it is natural that
their thoughts should run on the wool and the wheat and the gold by
which it can be accomplished. I am bound to say, however, that I think
every patriotic Australian should vote, if not for prohibition, at least
for the solution which is most dear to myself, and that is the lowering
of the legal standard of alcohol in any drink. We have been shocked and
astonished by the number of young men of decent exterior whom we have
seen staggering down the street, often quite early in the day. The
Biblical test for drunkenness, that it was not yet the third hour, would
not apply to them. I hear that bad as it is in the big towns it is worse
in the small ones, and worst of all in the northern territories and
other waste places where work is particularly needed. It must greatly
decrease the national efficiency. A recent vote upon the question in
Victoria only carried total abstinence in four districts out of about
200, but a two-third majority was needed to do it. On the other hand a
trial of strength in Queensland, generally supposed to be rather a rowdy
State, has shown that the temperance men all combined can out-vote the
others. Therefore it is certain that reform will not be long delayed.
The other curse of the country, which is a real drag upon its progress,
is the eternal horse-racing. It goes on all the year round, though it
has its more virulent bouts, as for example during our visit to this
town when the Derby, the Melbourne Cup, and Oaks succeeded each other.
They call it sport, but I fear that in that case I am no sportsman. I
would as soon call the roulette-table a sport. The whole population is
unsettled and bent upon winning easy money, which dissatisfies them
with the money that has to be worked for. Every shop is closed when the
Cup is run, and you have lift-boys, waiters and maids all backing their
fancies, not with half-crowns but with substantial sums. The danger to
honesty is obvious, and it came under our own notice that it is not
imaginary. Of course we are by no means blameless in England, but it
only attacks a limited class, while here it seems to the stranger to be
almost universal. In fact it is so bad that it is sure to get better,
for I cannot conceive that any sane nation will allow it to continue.
The book-makers, however, are a powerful guild, and will fight tooth and
nail. The Catholic Church, I am sorry to say, uses its considerable
influence to prevent drink reform by legislation, and I fear that it
will not support the anti-gamblers either. I wonder from what hidden
spring, from what ignorant Italian camarilla, this venerable and in some
ways admirable Church gets its secular policy, which must have central
direction, since it is so consistent! When I remember the recent
sequence of world events and the part played by that Church, the attack
upon the innocent Dreyfus, the refusal to support reform in the Congo,
and finally the obvious leaning towards the Central Powers who were
clearly doomed to lose, one would think that it was ruled by a Council
of lunatics. These matters bear no relation to faith or dogma, so that
one wonders that the sane Catholics have not risen in protest. No doubt
the better class laymen are ahead of the clergy in this as in other
religious organisations. I cannot forget how the Duke of Norfolk sent me
a cheque for the Congo Reform Movement at the very time when we could
not get the Catholic Church to line up with the other sects at a Reform
Demonstration at the Albert Hall. In this country also there were many
brave and loyal Catholics who took their own line against Cardinal
Mannix upon the question of conscription, when that Cardinal did all
that one man could do to bring about the defeat of the free nations in
the great war. How he could face an American audience afterwards, or how
such an audience could tolerate him, is hard to understand.