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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. Many more philosophic minds than mine have thought over the religious side of this subject and many more scientific brains have turned their attention to its phenomenal aspect. So far as I know, however, there has been no former attempt to show the exact relation of the one to the other. I feel that if I should succeed in making this a little more clear I shall have helped in what I regard as far the most important question with which the human race is concerned.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819911708
Langue	English

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PREFACE
Many more philosophic minds than mine have thoughtover the religious side of this subject and many more scientificbrains have turned their attention to its phenomenal aspect. So faras I know, however, there has been no former attempt to show theexact relation of the one to the other. I feel that if I shouldsucceed in making this a little more clear I shall have helped inwhat I regard as far the most important question with which thehuman race is concerned.
A celebrated Psychic, Mrs. Piper, uttered, in theyear 1899 words which were recorded by Dr. Hodgson at the time. Shewas speaking in trance upon the future of spiritual religion, andshe said: "In the next century this will be astonishinglyperceptible to the minds of men. I will also make a statement whichyou will surely see verified. Before the clear revelation of spiritcommunication there will be a terrible war in different parts ofthe world. The entire world must be purified and cleansed beforemortal can see, through his spiritual vision, his friends on thisside and it will take just this line of action to bring about astate of perfection. Friend, kindly think of this." We have had"the terrible war in different parts of the world." The second halfremains to be fulfilled.
A. C. D. 1918.
THE NEW REVELATION
CHAPTER I. THE SEARCH
The subject of psychical research is one upon whichI have thought more and about which I have been slower to form myopinion, than upon any other subject whatever. Every now and thenas one jogs along through life some small incident happens whichvery forcibly brings home the fact that time passes and that firstyouth and then middle age are slipping away. Such a one occurredthe other day. There is a column in that excellent little paper,Light, which is devoted to what was recorded on the correspondingdate a generation – that is thirty years – ago. As I read over thiscolumn recently I had quite a start as I saw my own name, and readthe reprint of a letter which I had written in 1887, detailing someinteresting spiritual experience which had occurred in a seance.Thus it is manifest that my interest in the subject is of somestanding, and also, since it is only within the last year or twothat I have finally declared myself to be satisfied with theevidence, that I have not been hasty in forming my opinion. If Iset down some of my experiences and difficulties my readers willnot, I hope, think it egotistical upon my part, but will realisethat it is the most graphic way in which to sketch out the pointswhich are likely to occur to any other inquirer. When I have passedover this ground, it will be possible to get on to something moregeneral and impersonal in its nature.
When I had finished my medical education in 1882, Ifound myself, like many young medical men, a convinced materialistas regards our personal destiny. I had never ceased to be anearnest theist, because it seemed to me that Napoleon's question tothe atheistic professors on the starry night as he voyaged toEgypt: "Who was it, gentlemen, who made these stars?" has neverbeen answered. To say that the Universe was made by immutable lawsonly put the question one degree further back as to who made thelaws. I did not, of course, believe in an anthropomorphic God, butI believed then, as I believe now, in an intelligent Force behindall the operations of Nature – a force so infinitely complex andgreat that my finite brain could get no further than its existence.Right and wrong I saw also as great obvious facts which needed nodivine revelation. But when it came to a question of our littlepersonalities surviving death, it seemed to me that the wholeanalogy of Nature was against it. When the candle burns out thelight disappears. When the electric cell is shattered the currentstops. When the body dissolves there is an end of the matter. Eachman in his egotism may feel that he ought to survive, but let himlook, we will say, at the average loafer – of high or low degree –would anyone contend that there was any obvious reason why THATpersonality should carry on? It seemed to be a delusion, and I wasconvinced that death did indeed end all, though I saw no reason whythat should affect our duty towards humanity during our transitoryexistence.
This was my frame of mind when Spiritual phenomenafirst came before my notice. I had always regarded the subject asthe greatest nonsense upon earth, and I had read of the convictionof fraudulent mediums and wondered how any sane man could believesuch things. I met some friends, however, who were interested inthe matter, and I sat with them at some table-moving seances. Wegot connected messages. I am afraid the only result that they hadon my mind was that I regarded these friends with some suspicion.They were long messages very often, spelled out by tilts, and itwas quite impossible that they came by chance. Someone then, wasmoving the table. I thought it was they. They probably thought thatI did it. I was puzzled and worried over it, for they were notpeople whom I could imagine as cheating – and yet I could not seehow the messages could come except by conscious pressure.
About this time – it would be in 1886 – I cameacross a book called The Reminiscences of Judge Edmunds. He was ajudge of the U.S. High Courts and a man of high standing. The bookgave an account of how his wife had died, and how he had been ablefor many years to keep in touch with her. All sorts of details weregiven. I read the book with interest, and absolute scepticism. Itseemed to me an example of how a hard practical man might have aweak side to his brain, a sort of reaction, as it were, againstthose plain facts of life with which he had to deal. Where was thisspirit of which he talked? Suppose a man had an accident andcracked his skull; his whole character would change, and a highnature might become a low one. With alcohol or opium or many otherdrugs one could apparently quite change a man's spirit. The spiritthen depended upon matter. These were the arguments which I used inthose days. I did not realise that it was not the spirit that waschanged in such cases, but the body through which the spiritworked, just as it would be no argument against the existence of amusician if you tampered with his violin so that only discordantnotes could come through.
I was sufficiently interested to continue to readsuch literature as came in my way. I was amazed to find what anumber of great men – men whose names were to the fore in science –thoroughly believed that spirit was independent of matter and couldsurvive it. When I regarded Spiritualism as a vulgar delusion ofthe uneducated, I could afford to look down upon it; but when itwas endorsed by men like Crookes, whom I knew to be the most risingBritish chemist, by Wallace, who was the rival of Darwin, and byFlammarion, the best known of astronomers, I could not afford todismiss it. It was all very well to throw down the books of thesemen which contained their mature conclusions and carefulinvestigations, and to say "Well, he has one weak spot in hisbrain," but a man has to be very self- satisfied if the day doesnot come when he wonders if the weak spot is not in his own brain.For some time I was sustained in my scepticism by the considerationthat many famous men, such as Darwin himself, Huxley, Tyndall andHerbert Spencer, derided this new branch of knowledge; but when Ilearned that their derision had reached such a point that theywould not even examine it, and that Spencer had declared in so manywords that he had decided against it on a priori grounds, whileHuxley had said that it did not interest him, I was bound to admitthat, however great, they were in science, their action in thisrespect was most unscientific and dogmatic, while the action ofthose who studied the phenomena and tried to find out the laws thatgoverned them, was following the true path which has given us allhuman advance and knowledge. So far I had got in my reasoning, somy sceptical position was not so solid as before.
It was somewhat reinforced, however, by my ownexperiences. It is to be remembered that I was working without amedium, which is like an astronomer working without a telescope. Ihave no psychical powers myself, and those who worked with me hadlittle more. Among us we could just muster enough of the magneticforce, or whatever you will call it, to get the table movementswith their suspicious and often stupid messages. I still have notesof those sittings and copies of some, at least, of the messages.They were not always absolutely stupid. For example, I find that onone occasion, on my asking some test question, such as how manycoins I had in my pocket, the table spelt out: "We are here toeducate and to elevate, not to guess riddles." And then: "Thereligious frame of mind, not the critical, is what we wish toinculcate." Now, no one could say that that was a puerile message.On the other hand, I was always haunted by the fear of involuntarypressure from the hands of the sitters. Then there came an incidentwhich puzzled and disgusted me very much. We had very goodconditions one evening, and an amount of movement which seemedquite independent of our pressure. Long and detailed messages camethrough, which purported to be from a spirit who gave his name andsaid he was a commercial traveller who bad lost his life in arecent fire at a theatre at Exeter. All the details were exact, andhe implored us to write to his family, who lived, he said, at aplace called Slattenmere, in Cumberland. I did so, but my lettercame back, appropriately enough, through the dead letter office. Tothis day I do not know whether we were deceived, or whether therewas some mistake in the name of the place; but there are the facts,and I was so disgusted that for some time my interest in the wholesubject waned. It was one thing to study a subject, but when thesubject began to play elaborate practical jokes it seemed time tocall a halt. If there is such a place as Slattenmere in the world