ON MEANS OF COMMUNICATION
"In scientific truth there is no finality, and there
should therefore be no dogmatism. When this is forgotten,
then science will become stagnant, and its high-priests
will endeavour to strangle new learning at its birth."--R.
A. GREGORY, _Discovery_.
How does mind communicate with mind? Our accustomed process is
singularly indirect.
Speech is the initiation of muscular movements, under brain and
nerve guidance, which result in the production of atmospheric
pulsations--alternate condensations and rarefactions--which spread
out in all directions in a way that can be likened superficially
to the spreading of ripples on a pond. In themselves the aerial
pulsations have no psychical connotation, and are as purely
mechanical as are those ripples, though like the indentations on the
wax of a phonograph their sequence is cunningly contrived; and it is
in their sequence that the code lies--a code which anyone who has
struggled with a foreign language knows is difficult to learn. Sound
waves have in some respects a still closer analogy with the etherial
pulsations generated at a wireless-telegraph sending station, which
affect all sensitive receiving instruments within range and convey a
code by their artificially induced sequence.
Hearing is reception of a small modicum of the above aerial
pulsations, by suitable mechanism which enables them to stimulate
ingeniously contrived nerve-endings, and so at length to affect
auditory centres in the brain, and to get translated into the
same kind of consciousness as was responsible for the original
utterance. The whole is done so quickly and easily, by the perfect
physiological mechanism provided, that the indirect and surprising
nature of the process is usually overlooked; as most things are when
they have become familiar. Wireless telegraphy is not an iota more
marvellous, but, being unfamiliar, it has aroused a sense of wonder.
Writing and Reading by aid of black marks on a piece of paper,
perceived by means of the Ether instead of the air, and through
the agency of the eye instead of the ear,--though the symbols are
ultimately to be interpreted as if heard,--hardly need elaboration
in order to exhibit their curiously artificial and complicated
indirectness: and in their case an element of delay, even a long
time-interval--perhaps centuries--may intervene between production
and reception.
Artistic representation also, such as painting or music, though of
a less articulate character, less dependent on purely linguistic
convention and less limited by nationality, is still truly
astonishing when intellectually regarded. An arrangement of pigments
designed for the reception and modification and re-emission or
reflexion of ether-tremors, in the one case; and, in the other,
a continuous series of complicated vibrations excited by grossly
mechanical means; intervene between the minds of painter and
spectator, of composer and auditor, or, in more general terms,
between agent and percipient,--again with possible great lapse of
time.
That ideas and feelings, thus indirectly and mechanically transmitted
or stored, can affect the sensitive soul in unmistakable fashion, is
a fact of experience; but that deposits in matter are competent to
produce so purely psychic an effect can surely only be explained in
terms of the potentialities and previous experience of the mind or
soul itself. No emotional influence can be expressed, or rendered
intelligible, in terms of matter. Matter is an indirect medium
of communication between mind and mind. That direct telepathic
intercourse should be able to occur between mind and mind, without
all this intermediate physical mechanism, is therefore not really
surprising. It has to be proved, no doubt, but the fact is
intrinsically less puzzling than many of those other facts to which
we have grown hardened by usage.
Why should telepathy be unfamiliar to us? Why should it seem only an
exceptional or occasional method of communication? There is probably,
as M. Bergson has said, an evolutionary advantage in our present
almost exclusive limitation to mechanical and physical methods of
communication; for these are under muscular control and can be shut
off. We can isolate ourselves from them, if not in a mechanical, then
in a topographical manner: we can go away, out of range. We could not
thus protect ourselves against insistent telepathy. Hence probably
the practical usefulness of the inhibiting and abstracting power of
the brain; a power which in some lunatics is permanently deficient.
Physical things can reach consciousness--if at all--only through the
brain; that remains true as regards physical things, however much we
may admit telepathy from other minds; and, conversely, only through
the brain can we operate with conscious purpose on the material
world. To any more direct mental or spiritual intercourse we are,
unless specially awakened, temporarily dead or asleep. There is some
inversion of ordinary ideas here, for a state of trance appears to
rouse or free the dormant faculties, and to render direct intercourse
more possible. At any rate it does this for some people. For we find
here and there, a few perfectly sane individuals, from whom, when in
a rather exceptional state, the customary brain-limitation seems to
be withdrawn or withdrawable. Their minds cease to be isolated for a
time, and are accessible to more direct influences. Not the familiar
part of their minds, not the part accustomed to operate and to be
operated on by the habitually used portion of brain, no, but what is
called a subliminal stratum of mind, a part only accessible perhaps
to physical things through an ordinarily unused and only subconscious
portion of the brain.
The occurrence of such people, _i.e._ of people with such exceptional
and really simple faculties, could not have been predicted or
expected on a basis of everyday experience; but if evidence is
forthcoming for their existence--even although it be not quite
of an ordinary character--and if we can make examination of the
subject-matter and criticise the statements of fact which are thus
receivable, there is no sort of sense in opposing the facts by
adducing preconceived negative opinions about impossibility, and
declining to look into the evidence or judge of the results. There
were people once who would not look at the satellites of Jupiter,
lest their cherished convictions should be disturbed. There was
a mathematician not long ago who would not see an experimental
demonstration of conical refraction, lest if it failed his confidence
in refined optical theory should be upset. And so, strange to
say, there are people to-day who deny the fact, and condemn the
investigation, of any manner of communication outside the realm of
ordinary commonplace experience: having no ground at all for their
denial save prejudice.
Well, like other little systems, they have their day and cease to be.
We need not attend to them overmuch. If the facts of the Universe
have come within our contemplation, a certain amount of contemporary
blindness, though it may surprise, need not perplex us. The study
of the material side of things, under the limitations appropriate
thereto, has done splendid service. Only gradually can mental scope
be enlarged to take in not only all this but more also.
In so far as those who are open to the less well-defined and more
ambitious region are ignorant or unresponsive to what has been
achieved in the material realm, it is no wonder that their asserted
enlargement of scope is not credited. It does not seem likely that
a new revelation has been vouchsafed to them, when they are so
ignorant concerning the other and already recognised kind of Natural
knowledge. They cannot indeed have attained information through the
same channels, or in the same way. And it is this dislocation of
knowledge, this difference of atmosphere, this barely reconcilable
attitude of two diverse groups of people--though occasionally, by the
device of water-tight compartments, the same individual has breathed
both kinds of air and belonged to both groups--it is this bifurcation
of method that has retarded mutual understanding. There are
pugnacious members of either group who try to strengthen their own
position by decrying the methods of the other; and were it not for
the occurrence from time to time of a Wallace or a Crookes, _i.e._
of men who combine in their own persons something of both kinds of
knowledge, attained not by different but by similar methods--all
their theses being maintained and justified on scientific grounds,
and after experimental inquiry--the chances for a reasonable and
scientific outlook into a new region, and ultimately over the
border-line into the domain of religion, would not be encouraging.
The existence of such men, however, has given the world pause, has
sometimes checked its facile abuse, and has brought it occasionally
into a reflective, perhaps now even into a partially receptive, mood.
We need not be in any hurry, though we can hardly help hoping for
quick progress if the new knowledge can in any way alleviate the
terrible amount of sorrow in the world at present; moreover, if a new
volume is to be opened in man's study of the Universe, it is time
that the early chapters were being perused.
It may be asked, do I recommend all bereaved persons to devote the
time and attention which I have done to getting communications and
recording them? Most certainly I do not. I am a student of the
subject, and a student often undertakes detailed labour of a special
kind. I recommend people in general to learn and realise that their
loved ones are still active and useful and interested and happy--more
alive than ever in one sense--and to make up their minds to live a
useful life till they rejoin them.
What steps should be taken to gain this peaceful assurance must
depend on the individual. Some may get it from the consolations of
religion, some from the testimony of trusted people, while some
may find it necessary to have first-hand experience of their own
for a time. And if this experience can be attained privately, with
no outside assistance, by quiet and meditation or by favour of
occasional waking dreams, so much the better.
What people should not do, is to close their minds to the possibility
of continued existence except in some lofty and inaccessible and
essentially unsuitable condition; they should not selfishly seek to
lessen pain by discouraging all mention, and even hiding everything
likely to remind them, of those they have lost; nor should they give
themselves over to unavailing and prostrating grief. Now is the time
for action; and it is an ill return to those who have sacrificed
all and died for the Country if those left behind do not throw off
enervating distress and helpless lamentation, and seek to live for
the Country and for humanity, to the utmost of their power.
Any steps which are calculated to lead to this wholesome result in
any given instance are justified; and it is not for me to offer
advice as to the kind of activity most appropriate to each individual
case.
* * * * *
I have suggested that the new knowledge, when generally established
and incorporated with existing systems, will have a bearing and
influence on the region hitherto explored by other faculties, and
considered to be the domain of faith. It certainly must be so,
whether the suggested expansion of scientific scope is welcomed or
not. Certainly the conclusions to which I myself have been led by
one mode of access are not contradictory of the conclusions which
have been arrived at by those who (naturally) seem to me the more
enlightened theologians; though I must confess that with some of
the ecclesiastical superstructure which has descended to us from a
bygone day, a psychic investigator can have but little sympathy.
Indeed he only refrains from attacking it because he feels that, left
to itself, it will be superseded by higher and better knowledge,
and will die a natural death. There is too much wheat mingled with
the tares to render it safe for any but an ecclesiastical expert to
attempt to uproot them.
Meanwhile, although some of the official exponents of Christian
doctrine condemn any attempt to explore things of this kind by
secular methods; while others refrain from countenancing any results
thus obtained; there are many who would utilise them in their
teaching if they conscientiously could, and a few who have already
begun to do so, on the strength of their own knowledge, however
derived, and in spite of the risk of offending weaker brethren.[38]
[Footnote 38: For instance, a book called _The Gospel of
the Hereafter_, by Dr. J. Paterson Smyth, of Montreal, may
be brought to the notice of anyone who, while clinging
tightly to the essential tenets of orthodox Christianity,
and unwilling or unable to enter upon a course of study,
would gladly interpret eastern and mediæval phrases in a
sense not repugnant to the modern spirit.]