George Pelham's philosophy--The nature of the soul--The first moments
after death--Life in the next world--George Pelham contradicts Stainton
Moses--Space and time in the next world--How spirits see us--Means of
communication.
The communicator, George Pelham, did not confine himself to obtaining
recognition from his friends; he talked a great deal of philosophy with
them, especially with Dr Hodgson. Indeed, if he had not done so, the
omission might have created a doubt as to his identity, for in his
lifetime he was fond of such discussions. But for the present Dr Hodgson
has kept back these speculations from the other side of the grave,
thinking quite rightly that no value would attach to them until
unmistakable evidence had been produced for the existence of "another
world." Still there are to be found among the reports of the sittings
some fragments of these philosophic theories, and they form an
interesting subject of study.
The philosophy may be only that of Mrs Piper. But it may on the other
hand be the philosophy of the discarnate George Pelham, and for that
reason it is not unworthy of examination. Supposing, however, that the
assertions made are actually those of an inhabitant of the other world
who in this world was intelligent, honest and cultivated, the question
still arises whether we must regard them as expressing Absolute Truth.
Surely not; if another world exists beyond this one, its inhabitants
have mounted one step--but one step only--above us on the infinite
ladder of existence. They do not see the Eternal face to face. It is
quite possible that they may be able to see clearly truths of which we
have no glimpse, but we are not bound to believe more than we like of
what they tell us.
If the existence of the discarnate George Pelham is established, a new
light is undoubtedly thrown on the old problem as to the nature of the
soul, a problem as old as the world itself. The disciples of Plato's
Socrates tried to interpret it by the charming analogy of the lyre and
its harmony; asking whether man may not be compared to a lyre and his
soul to its harmony, a harmony which ceases to exist when the instrument
is broken. Using more modern terms, we may ask whether the soul is the
resultant of the forces of the bodily organism, or whether it is the
indestructible and mysterious motor which produces the action of that
organism.
George Pelham declares that the soul is in truth the motor, and that the
body is merely a machine used temporarily by the soul to act upon the
obscure world of matter. He speaks to this effect: Thought exists
outside matter and is in no way dependent upon matter. The destruction
of the body does not have as its consequence the destruction of thought.
After the dissolution of the body the Ego continues its existence, but
it then perceives thought directly, is much more free, and can express
itself much more clearly than when it was stifled by matter. The soul
and thought are one; thought is the inseparable attribute of the Ego or
individual soul. On its arrival in this world the soul is ready to
register innumerable new thoughts; it is a _tabula rasa_ upon which
nothing has been inscribed.
This is a noble thought, if true, and one that wonderfully widens our
narrow outlook. But, as I have said, I reserve my right of critical
examination. Elsewhere George Pelham says, "We have an astral
facsimile--the words are his--of our physical body, a facsimile which
persists after the dissolution of the physical body." This would seem to
be the astral body of the Theosophists. But the term "facsimile" is
perplexing, as I have always believed that the particular form which
Humanity actually has was entirely determined by the laws of our
physical universe, that it was an adaptation to its surroundings, and
that if a modification, however slight, were made in, for instance, the
laws of gravity, the human shape would undergo a corresponding
variation. Sir William Crookes has lately made some interesting
observations on this subject. But to this question I will return again.
Now, the physics of the next world must be very different from the
physics of this world, seeing that the next world is not material, or at
least that its matter is excessively subtle. How then should the shape
we men have in this world persist in the next?
Now, if we have an astral body which accompanies our Ego in the next
world, and if that astral body consists of a fluid similar to what we
suppose ether to be, or identical with that ether, this fluid must be
matter in some form, though matter obviously subject to quite other laws
than those of our world of palpable substance. Moreover, there is no
proof that the soul is not the resultant of the organic forces of this
astral body. If this astral body, as is probable, in its turn suffers
disintegration, there is no proof that the soul survives this second
disaggregation. If all these suppositions were proved, the old problem
concerning the nature of the soul would have been carried back a stage,
but it would not have been solved.
But, as things are, this is, perhaps, to carry speculation too far. Let
us curb our ambition and ask George Pelham what are the sensations felt
immediately after death. Everything was dark, he says; by degrees
consciousness returned and he awoke to a new life. "I could not
distinguish anything at first.[63] Darkest hours just before dawn, you
know that, Jim. I was puzzled, confused." This is probable enough. If
things are thus, death must be a sort of birth into another world, and
it is easy to understand that the soul which has been just born into
that new world cannot see or comprehend much in it till some time after
such birth.
James Howard remarked to George Pelham that he must have been surprised
to find himself still living, to which George Pelham replied, "Perfectly
so. Greatly surprised. I did not believe in a future life. It was beyond
my reasoning powers. Now it is as clear to me as daylight." Elsewhere he
says that when he found that he actually lived again he jumped for joy.
This joy is comprehensible enough; those of us who are resigned to the
prospect of annihilation are few. The thought that death is annihilation
makes us, against all principles of logic, shiver to the very marrow.
Such a feeling perhaps points to a revolt of the soul within that knows
itself immortal and cannot without a shiver of fear face the idea of
non-existence, an idea in opposition to its very nature.
With the impressions of George Pelham may be compared those of another
communicator called Frederick Atkin Morton, who had passed into the next
world in quite a different way. This Morton had lately started a
newspaper; anxiety, overwork, and perhaps other causes made him lose his
reason. His insanity lasted but a short time; in one of its attacks he
shot himself in the head and was killed on the spot. The first time that
he tried to communicate, his remarks showed great incoherence;--no
matter for surprise if Dr Hodgson's observations on this subject are
recalled. But his thoughts soon became clear, and at the second sitting
his communications were definite enough. This is how he relates to his
brother Dick his impressions about his own death. He does not speak of
suicide, an action which he probably committed without full
consciousness of what he was doing, but at the end of the sitting Mrs
Piper's hand wrote the word "Pistol." Death had been due to a pistol
shot.[64] "When on Sunday," he says, "I began to lose my mental
equilibrium, then suddenly I realised nothing and nobody." In answer to
the question as to what his next experience was he goes on: "I found I
was in this world. I did not know for the moment where I was only I
felt strange and freer; my head was light in weight, also my body ... my
thoughts began to clear when I observed I had departed from my material
body. Ever since then I have been trying to reach you, Dick. I saw a
light and many faces beckoning me on and trying to comfort me, showing
and assuring me I should soon be all right, and almost instantly I found
I was. Then I called for you and tried to tell you all about where and
how I was, and, with one exception, this is the only chance I have had.
Now you see I am taking advantage of the opportunity."
After the question of how a man passes into the next world, the most
interesting one to us is how he feels when he gets there. Generally
speaking, the reports are satisfactory. One of Professor Hyslop's
uncles, though he seems to have had a happy life here, says to his
nephew, among other things,[65] "I would not return for all I ever
owned--music, flowers, walks, drives, pleasures of all kinds, books and
everything." Another communicator, John Hart, the first sitter to whom
George Pelham appeared, said on his own first appearance, "Our world is
the abode of Peace and Plenty." If this is the case, what a pleasant
surprise awaits us, for in this world we have not much experience of
Peace and Plenty. But I fear that John Hart has exaggerated; every day
the Reaper's sickle casts from this world into the other such elements
of discord, not to reckon those who must long ago have been there, that
I wonder what means are taken to prevent their creating a disturbance.
However this may be, if when we leave this world we pass into another,
let us hope that the new world will be a better place than the old one,
or else we shall have every reason to regret that death is not
annihilation.
But George Pelham, in his turn, assures us that we do not lose by the
change. He died, it will be remembered, at the age of thirty-two. When
Dr Hodgson asked him whether he had not gone too soon, he replied with
emphasis, "No, Hodgson, no, not too soon."
If, however, spirits are happy, more or less happy, according to the
spiritualists, as they are more or less developed--and there seems
nothing inadmissible in this theory--we must suppose that their
happiness is not purely contemplative. One could soon have enough of
such happiness as that. They are active; they are, as we are, occupied,
though we cannot understand wherein their occupation consists. That this
is so is affirmed and reaffirmed in the sittings, and we might assume
it, even if the spirits did not assert it. George Pelham says to his
friend, James Howard, that he will have an occupation soon.[66] The
first time that I read this statement, in a review which only reproduced
a short fragment and in no way gave the real effect of these sittings, I
remember that the impression produced on me was very disagreeable. How
unsophisticated, I thought, must these so-called investigators be not to
see that such a phrase as that cannot come from a spirit; it bears too
clearly the stamp of earth!
Since then reflection has made me admit that spirits might very well
also have their occupations; the next world, if it exists, must be a
sphere of fresh activity. Work is the universal law. When George Pelham
was asked in what consisted the occupations of spirits, he replied that
they were like the noblest occupations of men, and consisted in helping
others to advance. This reply will doubtless not satisfy those who are
actuated only by an idle curiosity, but it contains a profound
philosophic truth. If our varied occupations upon earth are regarded
from a somewhat superior point of view, it will be seen that their
ultimate end is nothing else than the perfection of mankind. Those of us
who have evolved furthest realise this, and the rest do not; the case
must be the same in the next world, though George Pelham does not say
so. All our efforts and exertions are regarded with indifference by
nature who has no use for them, but the necessities of life make men
feel that they are brothers, and oblige them to polish one another, like
the stones of the beach rolled to and fro by the waves and rounded and
polished by rubbing one against another. Willingly or not, consciously
or unconsciously, we force one another to advance and to improve in all
respects. The world has been, I think with justice, compared to a
crucible in which souls are purified by pain and work and prepared for
higher ends. I should not like to go as far as Schopenhauer and say that
it is a mere penal settlement.
A celebrated English medium, William Stainton Moses, in a book well
known to spiritualist readers, _Spirit Teachings_, developed, or rather
allowed his spirit-guides to develop, the theory that souls leave this
earth taking with them all their desires and all their evil passions.
Having no body in the next world to enable them to gratify these desires
they are subjected to a veritable punishment of Tantalus. Thereupon they
endeavour to satisfy their material passions at least, if I may so say,
vicariously; they urge on incarnate men, all unaware, to abandon
themselves to these vices and passions. They incite the gambler to play,
the drunkard to drink; in a word, they push, as far as in them lies,
every vicious man to the bottom of the abyss created by his own vice;
crime and debauchery intoxicate them and fill them with joy. Further
developed and noble souls, in spite of all their efforts, are unable to
conjure away the influence of the undeveloped and evil souls. In a word,
we have here the old fable of demons and angels arranged to suit the
doctrines of modern spiritualism. It is indeed the old fable with a
difference; demons desire the perdition of man from jealousy, because
being themselves eternally condemned they wish to drag down with them as
many souls as possible; the evil souls of Stainton Moses desire the
perdition of man to gratify their own bad inclinations. Demons are
spirits, wicked indeed, but yet spirits, whereas the evil souls of
Stainton Moses are only miserable ghosts driven mad by love of matter.
Certainly everything is possible, as Professor Flournoy says, but this
theory is somewhat astonishing, for it seems to make the inhabitants of
the next world gravitate round our miserable earth, and is like the old
astronomical theory that placed our little globe in the centre of the
universe. If there be another world, it is hard to believe that its
inhabitants spend the greater part of their time in attending to us,
some of them to harm us and the rest to do us good.
Professor William Romaine Newbold, in a sitting which took place on June
19, 1895, asked George Pelham what we ought to think of this theory of
Stainton Moses.[67]
Professor Newbold.--"Does the soul carry with it into its new life all
its passions and animal appetites?"
George Pelham.--"Oh, no, indeed, not at all. Why, my good friend and
scholar, you would have this world of ours a decidedly material one if
it were so."
Professor Newbold.--"The writings of Stainton Moses claimed that the
soul carried with it all its passions and appetites, and was very slowly
purified of them."
George Pelham.--"It is all untrue."
Professor Newbold.--"And that the souls of the bad hover over the earth
goading sinners on to their own destruction."
George Pelham.--"Not so. Not at all so. I claim to understand this, and
it is emphatically not so. Sinners are sinners only in one life."
The result of this denial of Moses's doctrine was that George Pelham was
asked to find Stainton Moses and beg him to come himself and
communicate. Here is a fragment of conversation between Professor
Newbold and the discarnate Stainton Moses.
Professor Newbold.--"You taught that evil spirits tempt sinners to their
own destruction?"
W. S. Moses.--"I have found out differently since I came over here. This
particular statement given me by my friends as their medium when I was
in the body is not true."[68]
Professor Newbold.--"Your second statement was that the soul carries its
passions and appetites with it."
W. S. Moses.--"Material passions. Untrue. It is not so. I believed that
we had every desire after reaching this life as when in the body, but I
find that we leave all such behind; in other words, evil thoughts die
with the body."
So on this point the teaching of George Pelham differs from that of
Stainton Moses. But, says Professor Newbold, for the most part they
agree pretty well.
Now when we reach this other world it is certain that we shall at first
be completely at a loss there, as all that we here regard as
indispensable conditions of existence will there be lacking. Spirits say
that they do not perceive matter which is for them as if non-existent,
whereas here present-day science asserts that outside matter moved by
force there is nothing. It would be strange if the science of to-morrow
were to prove that matter is only a sort of temporary illusion of mind.
Here we conceive nothing outside space and time, whereas spirits seem to
have but confused notions of space and time. Such, in the first place,
is the view which they constantly assert; and, in the next place, if
they are asked, for example, how long it is since they died they are
generally unable to say. In their communications again, they often
relate as occurring in the present actions that have taken place long
ago. I have said already that George Pelham has often been asked to go
and see what certain absent persons are doing and to return and report
it; he has generally been successful, but he has sometimes made the
curious mistake of taking the past for the present. Here is an
illustration. He is told to go and see what Mrs Howard, absent at the
time, was doing; he returns and reports. Dr Hodgson writes to ask Mrs
Howard what she was doing at the time of the sitting, and hears from her
in reply that she did none of the things reported on the day of the
sitting, but that she had done them all in the course of the afternoon
and evening of the preceding day.[69] It seems likely that George Pelham
had read the thoughts of Mrs Howard, and in his inability to appreciate
time had taken the past for the present.
The same sort of thing seems to occur in the case of space. Phinuit, to
oblige Professor Newbold, goes to find Stainton Moses. Phinuit says that
he inhabits a great sphere, and that Stainton Moses lives in a very
distant part of this sphere. But in spite of this he brings him back
almost at once. When the medium is presented with objects likely to
attract the so-called spirits with whom the sitters are anxious to
communicate, these spirits for the most part arrive at once, no matter
where they may have died; John Hart, who died at Naples, communicates
two days afterwards at Boston. But it is hardly to be presumed that the
spirits are there waiting for us. If their appearance can be hastened
or delayed by sympathy or antipathy, on the other hand what we call
distance seems not to disturb them in the least; and yet we are
perpetually finding in the communications such phrases as, "Every day I
am getting further from you," "Now I am very far away from you." But
such phrases are probably not to be interpreted literally. The spirits
go further from us as they make progress in the spiritual world and
doubtless also as the things of this world occupy less and less place in
their recollections.
The spirits see us but they do not see our bodies, since they do not
perceive matter. They see the spirit within us but it appears to them
more or less obscure, as long as it is within the body. "It is by the
spiritual part of your being that I see you," says George Pelham, "that
I am able to follow you and to tell you from time to time what you are
doing."
And what do they think of our life upon earth? Here is a quotation from
George Pelham which will tell us:[70] "Remember we always shall have our
friends in the dream life, _i.e._, your life so to speak, which will
attract us for ever and ever, and so long as we have any friends
sleeping in the material world; you to us are more like as we understand
sleep, you look shut up as one in prison."
Professor Hyslop had a sister who died as a very young child; she sends
a short message to her brother saying that he dreams while she lives and
that she sends him her love.
Our life then would seem to be but a sleep accompanied by dreams which
are sometimes terrible nightmares. If this be so we can but hope for
dawn and waking, and wish soon to hear the crowing of the cock which
will put to flight the phantoms of the night. Happy should we be if we
had a certainty that it would be so!
This reminds me of a fine passage in a Spanish poet, which I cannot
refrain from quoting: "To live is to dream; experience teaches that man
dreams what he is till the moment of awakening. The king dreams that he
is a king and passes his days in the error, giving orders and disposing
of life and property. The rich man dreams the wealth that is the cause
of his anxiety; the poor man dreams the poverty and need from which he
suffers. I too dream that I am here laden with chains, and in by-gone
days I dreamt that I was happy. Our dreams are but dreams within a
dream."
So our world may be compared with the cave of which Plato speaks in the
Seventh Book of the _Republic_. In the conversation between Dr Hodgson
and George Pelham, when George Pelham promised that if he were the first
to die and if he found that he had another life he would do all that he
could to prove its existence, they referred to the old Platonic myth. In
the communications of the so-called George Pelham allusion was made to
the allegory, and that justifies me in briefly recalling it.
Plato imagines prisoners who from their birth have been enchained in a
dark cave in such a way that they are not able either to move or to turn
their heads, and can only look straight in front of them. Behind and
above the captives a great fire burns, and between the fire and the
captives men pass to and fro carrying in their hands vessels, statues,
images of animals and plants, and many other objects. The shadows of
these men and of the objects that they carry are thrown upon that wall
of the cavern which is opposite to the captives, who thus know nothing
of the external world but these shadows which they take to be realities,
and they spend their time discussing the shadows, naming them and
classifying them.
One of the captives is carried off from the gloomy place and transported
into the external world. At first the light dazzles him and he can
distinguish nothing. But by degrees, as time goes on, his sight adapts
itself to its surroundings and he learns to look upon the stars and
moon, and the sun itself. When he has been brought back into the cave
and again sits beside his companions, he takes part in their discussions
and tries to make them understand that what they take for realities are
only shadows. But they, confident in the results of their lengthy
reflections on the subject, laugh him to scorn. The same thing would
happen to a soul which had dwelt for a time in the world of spirit and
had been brought back into the world of matter.
When Plato's captive is brought back into the cave, his eyes, no longer
used to half-darkness, can distinguish nothing for some time; if he is
questioned about the shadows of the passing objects he does not see
them, and his answers are full of confusion. Perhaps something like this
happens to the discarnate spirits who try to manifest themselves to us
by borrowing the organism of a medium. Such at least is the suggestion
of George Pelham; in that way he would explain the incoherence, the
confusion, the false statements made by many of the communicating
spirits:[71] "For us to get into communication with you, we have to
enter into your sphere, as one like yourself asleep. This is just why we
make mistakes as you call them, or get confused and muddled so to put
it. I am not less intelligent now. But there are many difficulties. I am
far clearer on all points than I was, shut up in the body. 'Don't view
me with a critic's eye, but pass my imperfections by.'"
George Pelham also tells us how we may summon the spirits of those with
whom we desire to communicate. The thoughts of his friends reach him; if
he is to come and make himself manifest his friends must think of him.
He adds that, so far from the communications being injurious to the
communicating spirits or the sitters, they are positively to be desired.
On one occasion Dr Hodgson asked what became of the medium during the
trance.[72]
George Pelham.--"She passes out as your ethereal goes out when you
sleep."
Dr Hodgson.--"Well, do you see that there is a conflict, because the
brain substance is, so to speak, saturated with her tendencies of
thought?"
George Pelham.--"No, not that, but the solid substance called brain--it
is difficult to control it simply because it is material; her mind
leaves the brain empty as it were, and I myself, or other spiritual mind
or thought, take the empty brain, and there is where and when the
conflict arises."
All this is very unintelligible in the present condition of our
knowledge. But here is another passage even less intelligible and one
which in its _naivete_ almost suggests that the speaker is playing with
us. George Pelham says to his friend James Howard at the first sitting
at which James Howard was present:[73] "Your voice, Jim, I can
distinguish with your accent and articulation, but it sounds like a big
brass drum. Mine would sound to you like the faintest whisper."
J. Howard.--"Our conversation, then, is something like telephoning?"
George Pelham.--"Yes."
J. Howard.--"By long-distance telephone."
George Pelham laughs.
Understand who may! Are these only analogies? One does not know what to
think. Another difficult thing to understand is the "weakness" which the
spirits complain that they feel, especially towards the end of the
sittings. George Pelham actually says that we must not demand from
spirits just what they have not got, namely, strength. If the spirits
mean that the medium's "light" grows weak and no longer provides them
with the unknown something that they require in order to communicate,
why do they not express themselves more clearly?
It will perhaps be thought that I have dwelt a little too long on what
I have called the philosophy of George Pelham. I have thought it best to
do so, and there is no harm done so long as I leave it to my readers to
believe as much as they like.
FOOTNOTES:
[63] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 301.
[64] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiv. p. 18.
[65] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xvi. p. 315.
[66] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 301.
[67] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiv. p. 36.
[68] In another sitting W. S. Moses says that, as he held this view very
strongly in life, he felt sure that he had been told it by his
spirit-guides.
[69] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. pp. 305, 306.
[70] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 362.
[71] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. pp. 362, 363.
[72] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 434.
[73] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xiii. p. 301.