DISCARNATE SPIRITS
The existence of discarnate spirits has been proved in Chapter I. It is
desirable now to state what is known as to the conditions in which they
exist.
These conditions have been for thousands of years the subject-matter
of positive statements. The sacred writings and inscriptions, and the
traditions of the various religions that have flourished in olden times
or are still professed are full of descriptions of the religions in
which discarnate spirits pass their time and of the manner of their
lives in the spirit-world. Magicians, wizards, witches and necromancers
of all kinds have, it is said, received copious information to the same
effect. And during the last seventy years Spiritualistic literature has
added abundantly to the common stock.
In spite, however, of all this, great uncertainty prevails. The
statements to which reference has been made are, in well-nigh all
cases, of what is called an “unverifiable” character; that is to say,
they are not capable of test and confirmation by any mundane methods of
enquiry. But although an unverifiable assertion is incapable of normal
proof it may still be capable of disproof. If, for example, it be
self-contradictory it must, of course, be rejected. And if two separate
unverifiable statements contradict each other it is obvious that they
cannot both be true: one of them, at least, must be false, while the
other remains doubtful. Furthermore, if an unverifiable piece of
information be opposed to some clearly-established fact or well-proved
doctrine no reasonable person will regard it as worthy of credence.
This book is not concerned with the question of whether the accounts
of miracles and other supernormal details in the Bible are or are
not to be believed. The purely religious view of the matter need not
be dwelt upon. Nor will it be of any practical utility to take into
consideration the history of magic and the doings of magicians as
distinguished in the popular idea from religion and its ministers.
What is alone needful to be mentioned is the evidence that has been
more or less scientifically accumulated in modern times in connection
with psychical phenomena and with communications understood to have
taken place across the border-line between living humanity and the
spirit-world. Much of this evidence is, as has already been said,
unverifiable, and a good deal of it can be disproved. But there remains
a very substantial residuum that demands recognition and acceptance by
men of education who are free from prejudice and willing to be guided
by reason; and this is the trustworthy source of a certain degree of
precise knowledge with regard to the conditions of life beyond death.
The most striking fact that thus comes under observation is the
readiness with which communication can be opened up with discarnate
spirits by persons who are naturally capable of recognising their
presence. It happens frequently that in less than a minute after the
commencement of a “sitting” indications are given of one or more
spirits being in attendance; and it is very rarely indeed that any
sitting remains altogether blank. If, then, we reflect that since
“Spiritualism” has become a cult sittings have taken place, and are
still taking place, day by day, week in and week out, and from year’s
end to year’s end, we are forced to regard this world as being still
the habitat of many a discarnate spirit. The conclusion thus arrived
at is confirmed by the less systematic phenomena of dreams, phantoms,
haunting, “possession,” second-sight, clairvoyance, automatic speech
and writing, the spontaneous movements of material objects and other
like occurrences; merely, however, to the extent of their being really
due to the denizens of the spirit-world, which is acknowledged to be
the case in many instances.
The certainty thus arising that great numbers of spirits do not leave
the earth when they become separated from the human bodies they have
inhabited suggests a doubt as to whether any spirits at all go to some
other sphere. The evidence available does not remove the doubt. It is
true that discarnate spirits sometimes volunteer statements with regard
to another world, and sometimes in reply to questions give particulars
as to their residence in such a region. But this information is of the
unverifiable kind, is often “nonsense,” as Sir Oliver Lodge has said,
and is frequently demonstrably false; while it is always discredited by
the fact that the spirit who claims to be a resident in a far-distant
sphere of being is nevertheless self-admittedly present in a London
room or wherever else the sitting may take place. The contradiction
is never explained away in any reasonable manner. It may be said,
therefore, to be highly probable that death merely opens the way to a
further term of existence in this world, and that the spirits of the
departed remain for the period of such term in the more or less near
neighbourhood of the relatives and friends they have left behind them.
The idea of such post-mortem existence being also limited in time
arises naturally, and is to be reasonably inferred, from the evidence
now being considered. Although discarnate spirits are very numerous,
their number, so far as they manifest themselves, is altogether
insignificant when compared with that of the deaths that occur from
day to day; while if we take into account the consideration that the
entire soul-population of the earth becomes discarnate from generation
to generation, that is to say, every thirty years or so, we are faced
by the fact that living persons are but as a drop in the ocean of
possible individual existences. We have also to bear in mind that each
of these existences is separate from the rest, and does not originate
either from nothing or from inanimate matter or from inanimate energy,
as may possibly be the case with Life. If, then, souls when disembodied
remain perpetually in this world, it follows, first, that there must
be a continual supply of fresh souls coming in from some other region
of the universe; and, secondly, that of all these millions of millions
of active intelligences only one, here and there, is able or willing
to make its presence known to mankind. These conclusions are of so
extravagant a character as to be unacceptable; and if it be possible to
frame an hypothesis that avoids the difficulties they involve, it would
be a reasonable proceeding to adopt such an alternative view.
Psychical philosophy has in all ages been furnished with at least
one “working hypothesis” of the kind required. Its scientific name
is “metempsychosis,” which in more popular language is known as
“transmigration.” It teaches that after death the spirit enters into
some other human body which happens to be living and unprovided with a
soul; and the doctrine is frequently extended to include the idea that
the new habitat may even be the body of one of the lower animals. Many
of the most famous thinkers of Greece and the Orient were associated
with the belief in question. It is to be found in the Bible and other
sacred writings, and forms a part of the religions of many races
throughout the world. It cannot, therefore, be lightly disregarded as
a mere fantasy unworthy of consideration by civilised people in the
twentieth century.
As a matter of fact, the theory of transmigration fits in with modern
observations. It does away with the necessity of a perpetual supply of
fresh souls from extra-mundane regions. It also is consistent with,
and explains, the absence of any vast overwhelming spirit-population.
Moreover, it is the logical concomitant of our common, everyday
experience. We are familiar with the occurrence of what we call
“births,” that is, the coming into existence of new human bodies. We
know also that these new bodies become, in some way or other, the
temporary abodes of souls--the tenancy being sometimes a matter of
minutes only and sometimes enduring for rather more than one hundred
years. We see for ourselves that the habitation suits the tenant and
that the tenant suits the habitation. What, then, can be more natural
and fitting than that, when the tenant, for some reason or another,
has to quit his dwelling, he looks out for another abode of much the
same kind? So far from this course of action being fantastic and
improbable, it is pre-eminently likely. The play of mere imagination
is to be found altogether with those mental speculators who talk of
the supposed departure of discarnate spirits to supposed spheres of
existence beyond the earth.
It is quite conceivable, and probable enough, that some little time
elapses between “death” and “reincarnation.” Hence it is to be expected
that there is always a greater or less number of discarnate spirits
dwelling temporarily, and a little disconsolately, perhaps, in the
air-occupied space surrounding the earth; and this expectation is
borne out by actual observation. It is to be surmised, furthermore,
that spirits awaiting re-embodiment will feel themselves more at
home, as it were, if they remain in the immediate proximity of the
localities they inhabited and the persons they knew before “death.”
Here, again, we find the surmise to accord with experience. Some places
are undoubtedly “haunted”; and it is equally certain that some persons
are haunted also; for it would otherwise be impossible to account
reasonably for the well-known fact that sitters at _séances_ habitually
open up communications with their deceased relatives and friends
who have always been perfect strangers to the mediums with whom the
sittings take place. The spirits are not brought by the mediums; they
are introduced by the sitters themselves, who are quite unconscious
of being thus accompanied or “haunted.” To deny this is equivalent to
maintaining the absurdity that every real medium is _en rapport_ with
all the deceased relatives and friends of every living human being. The
soul of a medium is not endowed with powers vastly greater than those
of ordinary souls; any more than a discarnate spirit is able to know
and do very much beyond what he was aware of or could accomplish during
life. If either mediums or spirits were capable of really marvellous
achievements we may be sure that now and again some daring soul would
contrive to startle mankind; and as no such feat has been recorded
through the ages (“miracles,” religious and otherwise, are not here
referred to), it is a fair inference that our deceased friends are not
vastly different from, or, at any rate, are not vastly superior to,
what they were when we knew them here.
Coming now to the question of the form in which discarnate
spirits exist, all the available evidence of a verifiable or
logically-acceptable character goes to show that in the spirit-world
there are not any differences of type corresponding to what are found
among human beings. Spirits are not white, black, brown, yellow and
red; they are not Anglo-Saxon, Teutonic, Scandinavian, Gaelic, Arab,
negro, Mongolian or Polynesian. If the contrary were the case it would,
by this time, have become apparent. Something of this lack of evidence
may perhaps be due to the fact that modern psychical research has for
the most part been conducted by English and American investigators,
while most of the communications with spirits have involved the use of
the English language and have been recorded in that tongue. Hence it is
to be supposed that the spirits who have taken part in the proceedings
have been only those possessing a knowledge of English; yet, even in
that case, souls of many earthly races might have been expected to
come forward. And as the same argument applies to the less numerous
instances of psychical investigations by French, Italian, Spanish,
German, Swedish, Russian, etc., students of the occult, the conclusion
is inevitable that spirits are not divided into racial categories even
though they may differ in what may be termed bodily characteristics and
developments.
That spirits have organised bodies is clear. The “stuff” of which their
bodies are made is, however, not ordinary matter. We already know by
Dr. Crawford’s experiments--mentioned in Chapter I of this book--that
a something exists which gravitates and yet is invisible to our eyes.
We also know, by common psychical experience, that spirits are able to
see, hear, speak and touch, and can by us be seen, heard, spoken to and
touched. If these facts be co-ordinated they do not leave any room for
doubt as to there being spiritual equivalents of human bodies equipped
with organs of sense and perception. It does not follow necessarily
that these equivalents are counter-parts or facsimiles in form and
appearance, even if in many of their functions they are practically
indistinguishable from their human prototypes. Racial peculiarities
are admittedly absent, as also is Life with its physiological
requirements. Spirits are free from wear and tear, from the need of
food, clothing and shelter, and from the maintenance of health. They
are not divided by sex differences and they are not characterised by
any form of reproduction: they have neither ancestry nor posterity.
These various features lend force to the theory of transmigration.
They show the possibility of an ordinary human body being permeated,
so to say, by a spirit’s body which can enter or leave at any time and
which always maintains its separate existence. Here, again, there are
facts of common knowledge and experience that support the doctrine of
metempsychosis. Most persons are, now and then, conscious of memories
or reminiscent impressions that cannot be traced to any events of the
present life. It occasionally happens that when a person first visits
some particular locality he finds himself in surroundings with which
his mind is already familiar. The only reasonable explanation is that
the soul remembers somewhat of its experiences in a previous earthly
life.
Another line of thought leading in the same direction is that suggested
by the marked and well-known phenomena of mental heredity. Family
peculiarities of mind and character are commonly supposed to be
transmitted from parents to children in the form of material germs
which are imagined, but have never been proved, to exist. And yet in
many cases--as also happens with physical peculiarities--an intervening
generation is skipped, and it is the mental characteristic of a
grandparent or great-grandparent that reappears in the descendant. It
would, therefore, seem more reasonable to infer that the true cause
of heredity is to be found in the preference manifested by discarnate
spirits for reincarnation in the direct posterity of the human bodies
they have at one time or another inhabited. Nor is it a far-fetched
supposition to hold that, in the spirit-world, as in this life, souls
of similar characters associate together and, to whatever extent may
be possible, seek to be reincarnated in the same earthly families:
a supposition that accounts for more than one child of a family
presenting what are considered to be the hereditary characteristics.
It should not, however, be concluded that soul and body are without
reaction on each other. We know, as a fact, that mental habits
and emotional indulgences gradually affect a person’s features
and disturb the functioning of various organs. We also know that
bodily peculiarities warp the mind and influence the thoughts. The
phrenological mapping of the brain has some foundation in reality; and
probably there does not exist a single person of mature age who is not
to some extent a physiognomist. Intelligent capacity, sensitiveness and
moral character do, most undoubtedly, depend a good deal upon the size,
form and texture of the brain. In other words, a soul when in the body
is fettered and guided and is not fully able to reveal its true self.
From this it follows that when a soul becomes separated from the body
it cannot logically be expected to have exactly the same character that
it apparently possessed in life. Psychical experience in spiritualistic
sittings and otherwise is to this effect. It is customary, indeed, for
sitters to say--and, emotionally, to believe--that the spirits of their
deceased relatives and friends behave and speak exactly as they used to
do in life; but this is not quite borne out by the recorded evidence.
It is customary also, where the discrepancies are of too glaring
a nature to be glozed over or hushed up, to put them down to the
interference of mischievous spirits who personate the spirits called
for; but this is a very lame method of explanation. The best plan in
all cases of difficulty is to face boldly the facts. A disembodied
spirit is less cribbed, cabined and confined than when it was attached
to a living body; it is more free for both good and evil. We are
familiar enough with good, bad and indifferent souls in this world:
why should we expect the same souls to be otherwise simply because of
a change in their environment? All that we can reasonably look for is
a certain degree of revelation, a certain manifestation of what before
was more or less hidden and which may be estimable or the reverse.
A feature that deserves notice as related to this view of the matter is
the consensus of testimony to the effect that communicating spirits,
whether those who are sought for or those who are what may be termed
casual and errant, have habitually a less regard for truth than is
the case with highly-educated human beings; though, if an average be
struck of mankind in general, it does not seem that there is much to
choose between the trustworthiness of statements made by the living
inhabitants of the earth and the truth of what is said by disembodied
spirits. Still, the matter is of some importance, seeing that it bears
very materially upon the question of whether individual spirits are
always the particular disembodied souls they profess to be.
Another feature, equally worthy of attention, is the apparent absence
of spirits who can properly be regarded as diabolical. Sittings for
the purpose of communication with “surviving” souls are not attended
by devils or by beings occupied mainly in the pursuit of evil. It
may, of course, be the case that the published records and the verbal
accounts that are current suppress all mention of occurrences deemed
to be demoniacal, in the same way that, according to Sir Oliver Lodge,
spiritualists “usually either discourage or suppress” statements “about
the nature of things ‘on the other side.’” The eminent authority here
quoted goes on, indeed, to say--
“These are what we call the ‘unverifiable’ communications; for we
cannot bring them to book by subsequent terrestrial inquiry in the
same way as we can test information concerning personal or mundane
affairs. _Information of the higher kind has often been received but
has seldom been published_; and it is difficult to know what value to
put upon it, or how far it is really trustworthy.”
This very frank confession of the reports of _séances_ being
systematically garbled is a little disconcerting, especially when
coming from one of the shining lights of the scientific world; but it
probably means no more than that the champions of spiritualism do not
desire to arouse antagonism that can be avoided. In the same way it may
well be that those persons who, whether as mediums or sitters or in the
privacy of individual attempts at communication, happen to come into
contact with evil spirits do not feel disposed to subject themselves to
the hostility of the religious world by detailing their experiences.
But, however this may be, the fact remains that, so far as common
knowledge and common repute are concerned, the devilish element is not
likely to be encountered by those persons who seek to speak with the
dead.
If, now, the particulars set forth in the present chapter be summarised
we find the state of things to be as follows:--
1. Disembodied souls do not depart from this world when “death”
occurs.
2. They remain for a time free from bodily environment of an ordinary
material kind.
3. Sooner or later they enter into new human bodies, and perhaps,
also, in some cases, into new bodies of the lower animals.
4. During the period of their free existence while awaiting
transmigration, many of them make a practice of haunting localities
and living human beings.
5. They possess in themselves the equivalent of bodies constructed
of something analogous to matter and having organisms by which they
perceive and act.
6. Each disembodied soul is an individual entity existing permanently
apart from all others and not distinguished by any racial or sexual
characteristics.
7. Each individual soul has its own idiosyncrasies of intellect,
sense, emotion, conscience and volition. These idiosyncrasies are
subject to at least temporary modification by the association of the
soul with a human body.
8. The character and conduct of a disembodied soul are not
necessarily the same in all respects as were apparent during
life, and do not necessarily remain completely unchanged when
transmigration takes place.
9. The existence of souls that are wholly evil has not yet been
established by actual observation or experience of any kind.
This summary does not involve any religious views and is not based on
any religious teaching. It is essentially scientific; that is to say,
it puts into plain language the conclusions arrived at by impartial
students of physical and psychical facts and phenomena, irrespective
of whether such conclusions do or do not fit in with ecclesiastical
teaching, popular notions, or “sceptical” dogmatism.
At the same time it is to be observed that the view here taken of
discarnate spirits leaves the ground quite open for Religion. It
is quite consistent with the existence of a Divine Ruler, with the
doctrine of progression in either rightdoing or wrongdoing, and with
an Eternal Justice that inflicts punishment upon souls whose volition
is employed for base purposes. For example, it may well be that in
transmigration the choice does not always rest with the soul concerned,
but is divinely decreed; the new life may be higher or lower than the
preceding life, according to whether the latter was turned to good or
bad account. The number of transmigrations of any particular soul may
be limited; and metempsychosis may thus correspond to the doctrine of
Purgatory--an evolutionary period at the conclusion of which the soul
is transferred to a Heaven or Hell beyond the confines of the earth.
Even the idea of a Holy Ghost that continually appeals to the mind and
will is not excluded from the psychical summary above given; nor is
there therein anything that contradicts the theory of a Christ or a
Buddha. What the truth is with regard to such matters as these must be
determined by each person for himself or herself. The readers of the
present volume are not addressed as Christians or as non-Christians, as
Deists or as Atheists. They are considered merely as being interested
in the subject of speaking with the dead, and as being desirous of
receiving information with regard to the ascertained facts and admitted
logic of the matter.