THE UNDERLYING SELF
Allowing, then, the great probability of the existence of an after-death
state, and of a survival of some kind, the question further arises: Is
that survival in any sense personal or individual? or does it belong to
some, so to speak, formless region, either below or above personality?
It is conceivable of course that there may be survival of the outer and
beggarly elements of the mind, below personality; or it is conceivable
that the deepest and most central core of the man may survive, far
beyond and above personality; but in either case the _individual_
existence may not continue. The eternity of the All-soul or Self of the
universe is, I take it, a basic fact; it is from a certain point of view
obvious; we have already discussed it, and, as far as this book is
concerned, it is treated so much as an axiom that to argue further
without it would be useless. That being granted, it follows that if the
soul of each human being roots down ultimately into that All-self, the
core of each soul _must_ partake of the eternal nature. But as far as it
does so it _may_ be beyond all reach or remembrance or recognition of
personality.
Such a conclusion—whatever force of conviction may accompany it—is
certainly not altogether satisfactory. I remember that once—in the
course of conversation with a lady on this very subject—she remarked
that though she thought there would be a future life she did not
believe in the continuance of individuality. “What do you believe in,
then?” said I. “Oh,” she replied, “I think we shall be a sort of Happy
Mass!” And I have always since remembered that expression.
But though the idea of a happy mass has its charms, it does not, as I
say, quite satisfy either our feelings or our intelligence. There is a
desire for something more, and there is a perception that
Differentiation and Individuation represent a great law—a law so great
as probably to extend even to the ultimate modes of Being. And though a
vague generality of this kind cannot stand in the place of strict
reasoning or observation, it may make us feel that personal survival is
at any rate possible, and that a certain amount of speculation on the
subject is legitimate.
At the same time we have to bear in mind that the subject altogether is
a very complex one, and that we have to move only slowly, if we want to
move forward at all, and to avoid having to retrace our steps. We must
not too serenely assume, for instance, that we at all know what we are!
We have already (ch. v.) analyzed to some degree the constitution of the
human being, and found it complicated enough in its successive planes of
development. We have now to remember that—at least on the two middle
planes, those of the human soul and the animal soul—there is another
subdivision to be made, namely between that part which is conscious and
that which is only subconscious; so that further complications
inevitably arise. We may not only have to consider, as in the chapter
referred to, which of these planes may possibly carry survival with it,
but again whether such survival may be in the conscious region, or only
in the subliminal or subconscious. This chapter will be largely occupied
with a consideration of the subliminal or underlying portion of the
self, and it will be seen that that is probably of immense extent and
variety of content compared with the surface or conscious portion; but
it will also be seen that there is no strict line of demarcation between
the two, and that a continual interchange betwixt them is taking place,
so that for the present at any rate it is safest to give the word ‘self’
its widest scope and make it include both portions and every mental
faculty, rather than limit its application.
* * * * *
In attacking the subject, then, of the Survival of the Self, I suppose
our first question ought to be: What is the test of survival, what do we
mean by it? And to this, I imagine, the answer is, Continuity of
Consciousness. This would seem to be the only satisfying definition.
Consciousness is necessary in some form or other, as the base and
evidence of our existence; and continuity in some degree is also
necessary, in order to link our experiences together, as it were into
one chain. Continuity, however, need not be absolute. The chain of
consciousness may apparently be broken by sleep, or it may be broken by
a dose of chloroform, or by a blow on the head; but it may be re-knit
and resumed. It may pass from the supraliminal state to the subliminal,
and again emerge on the surface. It may even be discontinuous; but as
long as Memory bridges the intervals we get the _sense_ of continuity of
life or personality.[59] Supposing a body of memories—of life say in
some village of ancient Egypt—suddenly opened up in one’s mind, as
vivid and consistent and enduring as one’s ordinary memory of childhood
days, it would be natural to conclude that one really had pre-existed in
that village; it would be difficult not to make that inference. And
similarly if at some future time, and in far other than our present
surroundings, the memory of this one’s earth-life should emerge again,
vivid and personal as now, the being thus having that memory would, we
suppose, conclude that he had once lived this life here on earth.
Thus Memory would be the arbiter of survival and of the continuity (on
the whole) of consciousness. Frederick Myers, indeed, goes so far as to
define consciousness as that which is “potentially memorable”[60]—thus
suggesting that memory is a necessary accompaniment of any psychic state
to which we can venture to give the name of consciousness.
It may indeed seem precarious to rest our test of survival on so
notoriously fallible, and even at times fallacious, a thing as Memory;
but one does not see that there is anything better, or that there is any
alternative! The memory may not be continuously enduring and operative;
but if at any future time one should be persuaded of having survived
from this present life, it must, one would say, be by memory in some
form or other, _of_ this present life. And it must be remarked that
though memory is fitful and fallible, these epithets apply mainly to the
supraliminal memory, to that superficial memory which we make use of by
conscious effort, and which often fails us in the moment of need. Deep
below this we dimly perceive, and daily are becoming more persuaded of,
the existence of vast and permanent but latent stores, which from time
to time emerge into manifestation; and more and more our psychologists
are inclining to think that the supraliminal self gains its memories by
tapping these stores, and that its lapses and oblivions are more due to
failure in the tapping process than to any failure of the memory stores
themselves. Indeed not a few psychologists are now asking whether it is
not likely that _every_ psychic experience carries memory with it, and
so is preserved in the great storehouse.
I have already, in the last chapter, spoken of the so-called subliminal
self as, among other things, a wonderful storehouse of memory; and I
propose now to occupy a few pages with the more detailed consideration
of the nature of that self; because, as we are discussing the question
of survival, our discussion, as I have just said, ought obviously to
include the under as well as the upper strata of consciousness. We
cannot very well confine our meaning and our inquiry to the little
brain-self only, and leave out of consideration the great self of the
emotions and impulses—of genius, love, enthusiasm, and so forth.[61]
No, we must include both—the more intimate, though more hidden, self,
as well as the self of the façade and the front window.
This hidden self is indeed an astounding thing, whose extent and
complexity grows upon us as investigation proceeds. For when the term
‘subliminal’ was first used it had apparently a fairly simple
connotation—as of some _one_ obscure and unexplored chamber of the
mind; but now instead of a single chamber it would seem rather some vast
house or palace at whose door we stand, with many chambers and
corridors—some dark and underground, some spacious and well lighted and
furnished, some lofty with extensive outlook and open to the sky; and
the modern psychologists are puzzling themselves to find suitable names
for all these new domains—which indeed they cannot satisfactorily do,
seeing they know so little of their geography!
I can only attempt here—very roughly I am afraid, and
unsystematically—to point out _some_ of the properties and qualities of
the underlying or hidden or subconscious self—whichever term we may
like to use. In the first place, its memory appears to be little short
of perfect, and at any rate to our ordinary intelligence and estimate,
nothing short of marvellous. When a servant girl, who can neither read
nor write, reproduces, in her wandering speech during a nervous fever,
whole sentences of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, which she could not
possibly understand, and which had only fallen quite casually on her
ears years before from the lips of an old scholar (who used to recite
passages to himself as he walked up and down a room adjoining the
kitchen in which the girl at that time worked[62]); we perceive that the
under or latent memory _may_ catch and retain for a lengthy period, and
with strange accuracy, the most fleeting and apparently superficial
impressions. When Dr. Milne Bramwell instructs a hypnotized subject to
make a cross on a bit of paper exactly 20,180 minutes after the giving
of the order; and the patient, having of course emerged from the
hypnotic sleep, and gone about her daily work, and having no conscious
remembrance of the command, does nevertheless at the expiration of the
stated number of days and minutes take a piece of paper and make the
said cross upon it,[63] we can only marvel both at the persistence and
accuracy of memory which the subliminal being displays, and at the
strict command which this being may exercise in its silent way over the
actions of the supraliminal self. When we are repeatedly told that in
the moment of drowning, people remember every action and event of their
past life, though we may doubt the exact force of the word ‘every,’ we
cannot but be convinced that an enormous and astounding resurgence of
memory does take place,[64] and we cannot but suspect that the
memorization is somehow on a different plane of consciousness from the
usual one, being simultaneous and in mass instead of linear and
successive. Or when, again, a ‘calculating boy’ or prodigy of quite
tender years on being asked to find the cube-root of 31,855,013
instantly says 317, or being given the number 17,861 immediately remarks
that it consists of the factors 337 × 53,[65] we are reduced to the
alternative suppositions, either that the boy’s subconscious self works
out these sums with a perfectly amazing rapidity, or that it has access
to stores of memory and knowledge quite beyond the experience of the
life-time concerned. In all these cases, and hundreds and thousands of
others which have been observed, the memory of the subliminal
self—whether manifested through hypnotism, or in sleep or dreams, or in
other ways—seems to exceed in range and richness, as well as in
rapidity, the memory of the supraliminal self; and indeed Myers goes so
far as to say that the deeper down one penetrates below the
supraliminal, the more perfect is the remembrance: that, in cases where
one can reach various planes of memory in the same subject, “it is the
memory furthest from waking life whose span is the widest, whose grasp
of the organism’s upstored impressions is the most profound.”[66] This
is, I think, a very important conclusion, and one to which we may recur
later.
But the hidden being within us does not show this extraordinary command
of mental processes merely in technical matters. Its powers extend far
deeper, into such regions as those of Genius and Prophecy. The wonderful
flashes of intuition, the complex combinations of ideas, which at times
leap fully formed and with a kind of authority into the field of man’s
waking consciousness, obviously proceed from a deep intelligence of some
kind, lying below, and are the product of an immensely extended and
rapid survey of things, brought to a sudden focus. They yield us the
finest flowers of Art; and some at any rate of the most remarkable
instances of Prediction. For though there may be—and probably is—a
purely clairvoyant prophetic gift, freed as it were from the obscuration
of Time, yet it cannot be doubted that much or most of prophecy is
simply very swift and conclusive inference derived from very extensive
observation.
These flashes and inspirations are clearly not the product of the
conscious brain; they are felt by the latter to come from beyond it.
They are, in the language of Myers, “uprushes from the subliminal self.”
And even beyond them there are things which come from the same
source—there are splendid enthusiasms, and overwhelming impulses of
self-sacrifice, as well as mad and dæmonic passions.
Yet again, it is not merely command of _mental_ processes that the
subconscious being displays, but of the bodily powers and processes too.
Intelligent itself to the marvellous degrees already indicated, it is
evident also that its intelligence penetrates and ordains the whole
body. Every one has heard of the _stigmata_ of the Crucifixion appearing
on the hands and feet of some religious devotee, as in the celebrated
case of Louise Lateau. Dr. Briggs of Lima once told a hypnotized patient
that “a red cross would appear on her chest every Friday during a period
of four months”—and obediently the mark appeared.[67] A whisper in such
cases is often sufficient; and the latent power swiftly but effectually
modifies all the complex activities and functions of the organism to
produce the desired result. What an extraordinary combination of
elaborate intelligence and detailed organizing power must here be at
work! And the same in the quite common yet very remarkable cases of
mental healing, with which we are all now familiar!
Sometimes again—quite apart from any oral suggestion or apparent
outside influence—we find the subjective being taking most decisive
command of a person’s faculties and actions. This happens, for instance,
in somnambulism, when the sleepwalker perhaps passes along the narrow
and perilous ridge of a roof or wall with perfect balance and sureness
of foot—adjusting a hundred muscles in the most delicate way, and yet
with total unconsciousness as far as the supraliminal self is concerned.
Or it happens sometimes—even more remarkably—to people in full
possession of their waking faculties, at some moment when extreme danger
threatens to overwhelm them. John Muir in his _The Mountains of
California_,[68] describes how when scaling the very precipitous face of
a cliff he found himself completely baffled, at a great height from the
ground, and unable to proceed either up or down. He was seized with
panic and a trembling in every limb, and was on the point of falling,
when suddenly a perfect calm and assurance took possession of him, and
somehow—he never quite knew how—with an astonishing agility and
sure-footedness he completed the ascent, and was saved. “I seemed
suddenly to become possessed of a new sense. The other Self—bygone
experiences, Instinct or Guardian Angel, call it what you will—came
forward and assumed control. My trembling muscles became firm again,
every rift and flaw in the rock was seen as through a microscope, and my
limbs moved with a positiveness and precision with which I seemed to
have nothing at all to do. Had I been borne aloft upon wings, my
deliverance could not have been more complete.”
Mæterlinck, in his chapter on “The Psychology of Accident” (in _Life and
Flowers_), describes how in the nerve-commotion of danger, Instinct, “a
rugged, brutal, naked, muscular figure,” rushes to the rescue. “With a
glance that is surer and swifter than the onrush of the peril, it takes
in the situation, then and there unravels all its details, issues and
possibilities, and in a trice affords a magnificent, an unforgettable
spectacle of strength, courage, precision, and will, in which
unconquered life flies at the throat of death.” And similar
instances—of instinctive presence of mind, and an almost miraculous
development of faculty in extreme danger—are within the knowledge of
most people. The subliminal being steps in quite decisively, and the
ordinary conscious mind _feels_ that another power is taking over the
reins.
But there is another faculty of the subjacent self which must not be
passed over, and which is very important—I mean the image-forming
power. This is one of the prime faculties of all intelligent beings,
lying at the very root of creation; and it is a faculty possessed to an
extreme and impressive degree by the self “behind the scenes.” I have
discussed this subject generally at some length in my book _The Art of
Creation_, and need not repeat the matter here, except to allude to a
few points. The image-forming faculty is a natural attribute of the
conscious mind, in all perhaps but the lowest grades of evolution; at
any rate it is difficult to think of a mind at all like ours _without_
this faculty. This faculty is most active when the mind is withdrawn
into itself, in quietude. In his study or when burning the midnight oil
the writer’s brain teems, or is supposed to teem, with images! But in
sleep the image-forming activity is even greater. It then shows itself
in the subconscious mind, in the world of dreams, whose bodiless
creations are more vivid and energetic than those of our waking hours,
and have a strange sense of _reality_ about them. But again, in the
deeper sleep of trance still more vivid images are produced. A young
student hypnotized imagines himself to be Napoleon, then to be
Garibaldi, then to be an old woman of ninety, then to be a mere child.
He acts the parts of these characters, imitates their handwriting, their
voices, issues proclamations to his soldiers in the name of the first
two, assumes the shaky penmanship of childhood and of old age; and all
in the course of half-an-hour or so.[69] The images thus formed in the
deep trance of the young man are so vivid, so powerful, so dramatic,
that they take possession of the organism and compel it to become the
means of their manifestation. In mediumistic trance the same thing
happens. There may be suggestion from outside, or there may not, but in
the depth of the medium’s mind images are formed which speak and act
through the entranced person, making use in doing so of the marvellous
stores of memory and knowledge which the inner mind has at command, and
sorely puzzling the spectators at times, as to whether the performance
is merely histrionic or whether by chance it indicates a _bona fide_
communication from the dead.[70]
This energetic dramatic quality of the image-forming faculty is
tremendously important. It has not been enough insisted upon; and it has
been greatly misunderstood and misrepresented. It is, as I say, a
root-property of creation. It is seen everywhere in the healthy activity
of the human mind, in its delight in romance and imagination, in the
play of children, the stage, literature, art, scientific invention—the
sheer joy of creation, going on everywhere and always. Lay the conscious
and controlling and selective power of the upper mind at rest, in the
trance-condition, and you have in the deeps of the subliminal self this
primal creative power exposed. Offer to it the lightest suggestion, and
there springs forth from that abyss a figure corresponding, or a dozen
figures, or a whole procession! The mere delight of creation calls them
forth. Could anything be more wonderful? What a strange glimpse it gives
us of the possibilities of Creation.
Some people seem to be quite shocked at the idea that this subliminal
mind, or whatever it is that possesses these marvellous powers, should
act these parts, and lend itself to unsubstantial and quasi-fraudulent
representations. But why accuse of deception? It is a game—the great
game we are all of us playing—the whole Creation romancing away; with
endless inexhaustible fertility throwing out images, ideas, new shapes
and forms forever. Those forms which hold their own, which substantiate
themselves, which fill a place, fulfil a need—they win their way into
the actual world and become the originals of the plants, the animals,
human beings, works of art, and so forth, which we know. Those which
cannot hold their own pass back again into the unseen. In the far depths
of the entranced medium’s mind we see this abysmal process going
on—this fountain-like production of images taking place—the very
beginnings of creation. It is the sheer joy of manifestation. As one
gives a musician a mere hint or clue—a theme of three or four
notes—and immediately he improvises a spirited piece of music; so is it
with the hypnotized person or with the medium. One gives him a
suggestion and he immediately creates the figures according. And so it
is for us, to direct this wonderful power, even in ourselves—not to
call it fraudulent, but to make use of it for splendid ends.
Doubtless it can be used for unworthy ends. It is easy to understand
that the mediumistic person, finding this wonderful dramatic and
creative faculty within himself or herself, is sometimes tempted to turn
it to personal advantage; and succumbs to the temptation. The dramatic
habit catches hold of the waking self, and renders the person tricky and
unreliable.[71] But below it all is creation, and the instinct of
creation—the power that gives to airy nothing a local habitation, the
genius of the dramatist, of the artist, of the inventor, and the _very
source of the visible and tangible world_.
For from the Under-self—as exposed in the state of trance, or in
extreme languor and exhaustion of the body, or in the moment of death,
or in dreams, or even in profound reverie—proceed (strange as it may
seem) Voices and Visions and Forms, things audible and visible and
tangible, things anyhow which are competent to impress the senses of
spectators so vividly as to be for the moment indistinguishable from the
phenomena, audible, visible and tangible, of our actual world. Amazing
as are the materializations connected with mediums—the figures which
appear, which speak, which touch and are touched, the faces, the
supernumerary feet and hands, the sounds, the lights, the movements of
objects—all in some way connected with the medium’s presence—these
phenomena are now far too well established and confirmed by careful and
scientific observation to admit (in the mass) of any reasonable
doubt.[72] And similarly with the wraiths, or phantoms which are
projected from dying or lately dead persons, the evidence for them in
general is much too abundant and well attested to allow of
disbelief.[73] What an extraordinary story, for instance, is that given
by Sir Oliver Lodge in his _Survival of Man_ (p. 101)—of a workman who
having drunk poison by mistake, appeared in the moment of death, with
blue and blotched face to his employer, to whom he was greatly attached,
and told him not to be deceived by the rumor that he (the workman) had
committed suicide! Yet the story is fully and authoritatively given in
the _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. iii. p.
97, and cannot well be set aside. But if such things happen in the hour
of death, so do they also happen in the dream-state.[74] The dreamer has
a vivid dream of visiting a certain person, and is accordingly and at
that time, seen by that person. And in the state of reverie the same. It
is at times sufficient to think profoundly of any one, or to let one’s
inner self go out toward that person in order to cause an image of
oneself to be seen by him.
It will of course be said, and often is said, that those phenomena are
only hallucinations, and have no objective existence. But the sufficient
answer to that is that the things also of our actual world are
hallucinations in their degree, and certainly have no full objective
existence. The daffodil in my garden is an hallucination in that degree
that with the smallest transposition of my senses, its color, its scent,
and even its form might be quite altered. What we call its objectivity
rests on the permanence of its relations—on its continued appearance in
one spot, its visibility to different people at one time, or to one
person at different times, and so forth. But if that is the definition
of objectivity, it is obvious that the forms which have been seen over
and over again, and under strict test-conditions, in connection with
certain mediums, have had in their degree an objective existence.
In America, in connection with Kate Fox (one of the earliest and most
spontaneous and natural of modern mediums), a certain Mr. Livermore—a
thoroughly capable business man of New York—came into communication as
it seemed with his deceased wife. She appeared to him—not in one house
only, but in several houses—over and over again; sometimes only the
head, sometimes the whole figure; her appearance was accompanied by
inexplicable sounds and lights; she communicated sometimes by raps,
sometimes by visibly writing on blank cards brought for the purpose; and
these phenomena extended over a period of six years and 388 recorded
sittings, and at many of the sittings were corroborated by independent
witnesses.[75] It is difficult to imagine hallucinations or deceit
maintained under such circumstances.
In England (in connection with the medium Florence Cook) the figure
“Katie King” appeared to Sir William Crookes a great number of times
during three years (1881–84) and was studied by him and Mr. C. F.
Varley, F.R.S., with the greatest scientific care. Her apparition often
spoke to those present, was touched by, and touched them, wrote, or
played with the children. It often came outside the cabinet, and three
times was seen by those present simultaneously with, and by the side of,
the entranced medium. The figure was taller than the medium and
different in feature; Crookes observed its pulse and found it making 75
beats a minute to the medium’s 90, and so forth.[76]
Professor Richet, the French scientist, examined with great care the
phantasm “Beni Boa,” which appeared to him some twenty times in
connection with the Algerian medium Aisha; he obtained several
photographs of it, and observed its pulse, its respiration, and so
forth.[77] Lombroso, the author of many scientific works, and a man who
to begin with was a complete sceptic on these matters, assures us that
at the sittings of Eusapia Paladino he saw his own mother (long dead) a
great number of times, and that she repeatedly kissed him.[78] In
connection with Mme. D’Espérance[79] the girlish figure of “Yolanda”
appeared and disappeared very frequently during a period of ten years,
and was well known to frequenters of her circle; and in 1896 a committee
formed by some twenty-five high officials and well-known persons in
Norway publicly attested the repeated appearance at her seances of a
very beautiful female figure who glided among the sitters, grasped their
hands, gave them messages, and so forth, and disappeared before their
eyes in a misty cloud.[80] Such evidence of the objectivity of seance
figures could be rather indefinitely multiplied. But the same may be
said, though perhaps less conclusively, of various ghosts and other
manifestations, whose relations to certain persons or places or houses
seem quite definite and well established—and not unfrequently steadily
recurrent under the same conditions.[81]
Without going into the vexed question of whether these and the like
manifestations are merely products or inventions of the trance-mind of
the medium or other person concerned, or whether some at least of them
are the work or evidence of separate ‘spirits’—leaving that question
open for the present—we may still say that all these things are actual
creations—creations of the hidden self of Man in some form or other;
not so assured, certainly, and not so permanent as the well-known shapes
of outer Nature; abortive creations, if you like, which come a little
way forward into manifestation, and then retreat again; but still
creations in the same sense as those more established ones; and
wonderfully revealing to us the secret of the generation and birth of
all the visible world.
* * * * *
That we should have, all of us, this magic source somewhere buried
within—this Aladdin’s lamp, this vase of the Djinns, this Pandora box
of evil as well as of good, is indeed astounding; and must cause us,
when we have once fully realized the fact, to envisage life quite
differently from what we have ever done before. It must cause us to feel
that our very ordinary and daily self—which we know so well (and which
sometimes we even get a little tired of) is only a fraction, only a flag
and a signal, of that great Presence which we really are, that great
Mass-man who lies unexplored behind the very visible and actual.
Difficult or impossible as this being may be to define, enormously
complex as it probably is, and far-reaching, and hard to gauge, yet we
see that it is _there_, undeniably there—a being that apparently
includes far extremes of faculty and character, running parallel to the
conscious self from low to high levels,[82] having in its range of
manifestation the most primitive desires and passions, and the highest
feats of intellect and enthusiasm; and while at times capable of
accepting the most frivolous suggestions and of behaving in a humorous
or merely capricious and irresponsible manner, at other times capable,
as we have seen, of taking most serious command and control of the whole
physical organism, and as far as the spiritual organism is concerned, of
rising to the greatest heights of prophecy and inspiration.[83]
I say, then, that we must include in this problem of survival both the
ordinary upper and conscious self and the deep-lying subjective and
subconscious (or superconscious) being. Just as the organizing power of
the Body includes the Cerebro-spinal system of nerves on the one hand,
and the Great-Sympathetic system on the other, so the organism of the
soul includes the supraliminal and subliminal portions. The two must be
taken together, and either alone could only represent a fraction of the
real person. The exact relation of these two selves to each other is a
matter which can only become clear with long time and study of this
difficult subject. It may be that the subliminal self is destined to
become conscious in our ordinary sense of the word. It may be, on the
other hand, that the conscious self is destined to rise into the much
wider consciousness of the subjective being. There is a great deal to
suggest that the supraliminal self is only the front as it were of the
great wave of life; and that the brain consciousness is only a very
special instrument for dealing with the surroundings and conditions of
our terrestrial existence—an instrument which will surrender much of
its value at death and on mergence with the larger and differently
constituted consciousness which underruns and sustains it. That the two
selves are in constant communication with each other, and that they are
both intelligent in some sense, is obvious from the facts of
_suggestion_, by which often the lightest whisper so to speak from the
upper is understood and attended to by the under self; while, on the
other hand, the under-self communicates with the upper, sometimes by
inner Voices heard and Visions seen, sometimes by automatic actions, as
in dream- or trance-writing, sometimes even by Sounds and Apparitions so
powerful as to _appear_ at least external.
So we cannot but think that the question of survival may ultimately
resolve itself very much into the question of the more complete and
effectual understanding between these different portions of the self.
When they come into clear relation with each other, when the unit-man
and the Mass-man merge into a perfect understanding and harmony, when
they both become conscious of their affiliation to the great Self of the
universe, then the problem will be solved—or we may perhaps say, the
problem will cease to exist.
NOTE TO CHAPTER VIII
ON TRANCE-PHENOMENA
It may seem rash or unbalanced to dwell, in the preceding chapters, on
trance and mediumistic phenomena as much as I have done, considering
that they are in some sense abnormal—that is, they are unusual, and
comparatively few people have an opportunity of verifying them; also
they may (it is said) be abnormal in the sense of being the products of
conditions so special or even so morbid that conclusions drawn from them
can have no general importance or value.
There is a certain fashion in such matters, and with large sections of
the public and during a long period it has no doubt been the habit
simply to dismiss all consideration of this subject, as for one reason
or another unadvisable. But now these phenomena in general (or enough of
them to constitute a solid body of observation) are so thoroughly
corroborated that it would be mere affectation to pass them by; and the
best science nowadays refuses to ignore exceptional happenings on
account of their exceptionality—recognizing that these very happenings
often afford the key to the explanation of more common events.
The phenomena connected with mediums and seances have been so amazing
and unexpected that they have often produced a kind of fear and dismay.
The religious people have been terrified at the prospect of having to
acknowledge miracles not connected with the Church; or of having to
confess to the resurrection of John Smith as well as of Jesus Christ.
The scientific folk (in many or most quarters) being always just on the
point of completing their pet scheme of the universe—whatever it may
happen to be at the time—have naturally been in no mood to admit new
facts which would totally disarrange their systems; and have, therefore,
with a few brilliant exceptions, consistently closed their eyes or
looked another way. And the general public, not without reason, has
feared to embark on a subject which might easily float it away from the
dry land of practical life, into one knows not what sea of doubt or even
delusion.
But these difficulties attend at all times the introduction of a new
subject—or at least of one which is new to the generation concerned;
and can of course not be allowed to interfere with the candid and
impartial examination of the subject, or with the assimilation, as far
as feasible, of its message. It should certainly, I think, be admitted
that there are dangers attending the new science—or rather attending
the hasty and careless investigation of it—just as there are attending
any other science. There is no doubt that the phenomena connected with
it are so astounding that they in some cases unhinge people’s minds, or
at least for the time upset them; and what we have already said once or
twice of the frequent bodily exhaustion of the Medium, not to mention
the occasional exhaustion of the sitters, must convince us that the
greatest care should be exercised in connection with trance-conditions,
and that the whole subject should be studied with a view to discovering
its proper and best handling. It is clear—whatever view is taken of the
process—that a certain disintegration of the organism, and even of the
personality of the medium, is liable to occur, one portion of the
organism acting in a manner and under influences foreign to another
portion, and that such disintegration oft repeated or long continued may
be liable to produce a permanent degeneration of physique or even
possibly demoralization of character. If there is a danger in this
direction—and the extent of the danger should certainly be
gauged—equally certainly it ought to be minimized or averted by the
proper conditions. On the other hand, while noting this danger, we
should not leave out of mind that some evidence points in the other
direction—namely, to the favorable effects and influences of trance
when rightly conducted.[84] We may also in this connection allude to the
changed attitude of the general mind to-day toward Hypnotism—a subject
allied to that which we are considering. Fifty years ago the word had a
sinister sound, and hypnotism and mesmerism were thought to be
inventions of the devil and agencies of all evil. To-day they are
recognized as a great power for good, and in at least two hospitals (in
France) as the main instrument of healing. Naturally, when people are
ignorant of a subject, or only in the first stages of knowledge with
regard to it, they mishandle and misunderstand it. It may well happen
therefore that with better understanding of mediumship and
trance-conditions, some of their drawbacks or less favorable aspects may
pass out of sight.
Mediums and trance-phenomena—prophecy, second sight, speaking in
strange tongues, the appearance of flames and lights, and of figures
apparently from the dead—are things that have been known all down
history, and recognized almost as a matter of course, both among quite
primitive peoples like the Kaffirs, or the Aleuts or the Mongolians, or
among the more cultured like the Greeks, the Romans, the Hindus,
Chinese, and so forth. The Bible teems with references to wizards and
“necromancers” (note the meaning of the word); and the story of the
Witch of Endor gives us a penetrating glimpse into what was evidently a
common practice of “consultation.” These phenomena have never been so
common as to break up and disorganize the routine of ordinary life, yet
they have always been there, and recognized, as on the fringe or
borderland—in somewhat the same way as the knowledge or recognition of
Death does not interfere with daily life or prevent us making
engagements; though we know it _may_ do so at any time. And beyond any
direct uses that trance-communication and manifestations may have now,
or may have had in the past (a matter on which no doubt there is a good
deal of difference of opinion), we may fairly suppose that as examples
of real things and of a real world lying just outside the sphere of our
ordinary and actual experience they may be of immense value—both as
delivering us from a cramped and petty belief that we have already
fathomed the possibilities of the universe, and as giving us just a hint
and a glimpse of directions in which we may fairly look for the future.
That we should for the present be limited for the most part to a
definite sphere of activity, or to a definite region of creation, seems
only natural. “One world, please, at a time!” said Thoreau when on his
deathbed he was plagued by some pious person about the future life; and
if _we_ in our daily life were entangled in the manifestations of two
very different planes of existence it might be greatly baffling. At the
same time, the occasional hint or message from another plane may be of
the greatest help.
Condensations and manifestations (as of beings from such other plane)
may be abnormal at present. They may be rare, they may occur under
unexpected and even unhealthy conditions, they may cause dislocations of
mind and of morals, they may be confused and confusing. All these things
we should indeed in some degree _expect_; and yet it may not follow that
these objections will continue. It is quite possible that in the future
they will disappear. As I have had occasion to say many times, every new
movement or manifestation of human activity, when unfamiliar to people’s
minds, is sure to be misrepresented and misunderstood. It appears in
humble guise, without backing or patronage, forcing its way to light in
the most unlikely places, “to the Jews a stumbling-block, to the Greeks
foolishness,” often distorted and out of shape owing to its very
birth-struggles, and for the very same reason diffident at first and
uncertain of its own mission. Possibly a time is coming when Mediumship,
instead of being left over (as not unfrequently now) to quite ignorant
and uncultured specimens of humanity, and being exercised in haphazard,
careless fashion, or for monetary gain, or personal vanity, will be
looked upon as a sacred and responsible office, worthy of and requiring
considerable preparation and instruction, demanding the respect of the
public, yet thoroughly criticized, both in method and result, by
intelligent examination and logic. Possibly a time is coming when
messages and manifestations from another plane than that of our daily
life will come to us under the most obviously healthy and sane
conditions, and will be fully recognized as having value and even, in
their way, authority.
* * * * *
For the present—allowing (as I do) the absolute genuineness of a great
body of “spiritualistic” phenomena—there still is (owing to various
causes already indicated) considerable doubt as to _who_ or _what_ the
manifesting beings or forces are. I suppose the main theories on the
subject may be gathered under the following heads: that the manifesting
powers are (1) Images, more or less unconsciously projected from the
Medium’s own mind; or, in case of raps, and so forth, emissions of force
from the medium’s body; (2) that they are the same projected from the
minds or bodies of other persons present; (3) that they are independent
Beings, making _use_ of the medium’s or other person’s organism for the
purpose of expression; or (4) that there is a blending of these actions.
I think everyone who has studied the matter practically admits the first
explanation in some degree; most people perhaps allow the second and
fourth; but a good many—though not all—exclude the third. With regard,
however, to this last theory (that there really are occasional messages
or manifestations from the dead—or from “the other side”) there
certainly seems to be a very considerable residuum of evidence which,
though not absolutely conclusive, is favorable to it; and there
certainly are a considerable number of eminent and responsible men—like
Myers, Lodge, Lombroso, and others—who, though not dogmatic, profess
themselves inclined to accept the theory, on the evidence so far
available. For myself—having so little personal and direct experience
in this field—I do not feel in a position to form a definite opinion,
and am content to leave the evidence to accumulate.