Duration of life in the next sphere was shorter than on earth.He had not seen General Gordon, nor any other famous spirit.Spirits lived in families and in communities.Married people did not necessarily meet again, but those who loved each other did meet again.Page 28I have given this synopsis of a communication to show the kind of thing we got -- though this was a very favourable specimen, both for length and for coherence.It shows that it is not just to say, as many critics say, that nothing but folly comes through.There was no folly here unless we call everything folly which does not agree with preconceived ideas.On the other hand, what proof was there that these statements were true? I could see no such proof, and they simply left me bewildered.Now, with a larger experience, in which I find that the same sort of information has come to very, many people independently in many lands, I think that the agreement of the witnesses does, as in all cases of evidence, constitute some argument for their truth.At the time I could not fit such a conception of the future world into my own scheme of philosophy, and I merely noted it and passed on.
I continued to read many books upon the subject and to appreciate more and more what a cloud of witnesses existed, and how careful their observations had been.This impressed my mind very much more than the Page 29limited phenomena which came within the reach of our circle.Then or afterwards I read a book by Monsieur Jacolliot upon occult phenomena in India.Jacolliot was Chief Judge of the French Colony of Crandenagur, with a very judicial mind, but rather biassed against spiritualism.He conducted a series of experiments with native fakirs, who gave him their confidence because he was a sympathetic man and spoke their language.He describes the pains he took to eliminate fraud.To cut a long story short he found among them every phenomenon of advanced European mediumship, everything which Home, for example, had ever done.He got levitation of the body, the handling of fire, movement of articles at a distance, rapid growth of plants, raising of tables.Their explanation of these phenomena was that they were done by the Pitris or spirits, and their only difference in procedure from ours seemed to be that they made more use of direct evocation.
They claimed that these powers were handed down from time immemorial and traced back to the Chaldees.All this impressed me very Page 30much, as here, independently, we had exactly the same results, without any question of American frauds, or modern vulgarity, which were so often raised against similar phenomena in Europe.
My mind was also influenced about this time by the report of the Dialectical Society, although this Report had been presented as far back as 1869.It is a very cogent paper, and though it was received with a chorus of ridicule by the ignorant and materialistic papers of those days, it was a document of great value.The Society was formed by a number of people of good standing and open mind to enquire into the physical phenomena of Spiritualism.A full account of their experiences and of their elaborate precautions against fraud are given.After reading the evidence, one fails to see how they could have come to any other conclusion than the one attained, namely, that the phenomena were undoubtedly genuine, and that they pointed to laws and forces which had not been explored by Science.It is a most singular fact that if the verdict had been against spiritualism, it would certainly have been hailed Page 31as the death blow of the movement, whereas being an endorsement of the phenomena it met with nothing by ridicule.This has been the fate of a number of inquiries since those conducted locally at Hydesville in 1848, or that which followed when Professor Hare of Philadelphia, like Saint Paul, started forth to oppose but was forced to yield to the truth.
About 1891, I had joined the Psychical Research Society and had the advantage of reading all their reports.The world owes a great deal to the unwearied diligence of the Society, and to its sobriety of statement, though I will admit that the latter makes one impatient at times, and one feels that in their desire to avoid sensationalism they discourage the world from knowing and using the splendid work which they are doing.
