Now, leaving this large and possibly contentious subject of the modifications which such new revelations must produce in Christianity, let us try to follow what occurs to man after death.The evidence on this point is fairly full and consistent.Messages from the dead have been received in many lands at various times, mixed up with a good deal about this world, which we could verify.When messages come thus, it is only fair, I think, to suppose that if what we can test is true, then what we cannot test is true also.When in addition we find a very great uniformity in the messages and an agreement as to details which are not at all in accordance with any pre-existing scheme of thought, then I think the presumption of truth is very strong.It is difficult to think that some fifteen or twenty messages from Page 64various sources of which I have personal notes, all agree, and yet are all wrong, nor is it easy to suppose that spirits can tell the truth about our world but untruth about their own.
I received lately, in the same week, two accounts of life in the next world, one received through the hand of the near relative of a high dignitary of the Church, while the other came through the wife of a working mechanician in Scotland.Neither could have been aware of the existence of the other, and yet the two accounts are so alike as to be practically the same.
Note: Vide Appendix II.
The message upon these points seems to me to be infinitely reassuring, whether we regard our own fate or that of our friends.The departed all agree that passing is usually both easy and painless, and followed by an enormous reaction of peace and ease.The individual finds himself in a spirit body, which is the exact counterpart of his old one, save that all disease, weakness, or deformity has passed from it.This body is standing or floating beside the old body, and conscious Page 65both of it and of the surrounding people.At this moment the dead man is nearer to matter than he will ever be again, and hence it is that at that moment the greater part of those cases occur where, his thoughts having turned to someone in the distance, the spirit body went with the thoughts and was manifest to the person.Out of some 250 cases carefully examined by Mr.Gurney, 134 of such apparitions were actually at this moment of dissolution, when one could imagine that the new spirit body was possibly so far material as to be more visible to a sympathetic human eye than it would later become.
These cases, however, are very rare in comparison with the total number of deaths.In most cases I imagine that the dead man is too preoccupied with his own amazing experience to have much thought for others.He soon finds, to his surprise, that though he endeavours to communicate with those whom he sees, his ethereal voice and his ethereal touch are equally unable to make any impression upon those human organs which are only attuned to coarser stimuli.It is a fair subject for speculation, Page 66whether a fuller knowledge of those light rays which we know to exist on either side of the spectrum, or of those sounds which we can prove by the vibrations of a diaphragm to exist, although they are too high for mortal ear, may not bring us some further psychical knowledge.Setting that aside, however, let us follow the fortunes of the departing spirit.
He is presently aware that there are others in the room besides those who were there in life, and among these others, who seem to him as substantial as the living, there appear familiar faces, and he finds his hand grasped or his lips kissed by those whom he had loved and lost.Then in their company, and with the help and guidance of some more radiant being who has stood by and waited for the newcomer, he drifts to his own surprise through all solid obstacles and out upon his new life.
This is a definite statement, and this is the story told by one after the other with a consistency which impels belief.It is already very different from any old theology.The Spirit is not a glorified angel or goblin damned, but it is simply the person himself, Page 67containing all his strength and weakness, his wisdom and his folly, exactly as he has retained his personal appearance.We can well believe that the most frivolous and foolish would be awed into decency by so tremendous an experience, but impressions soon become blunted, the old nature may soon reassert itself in new surroundings, and the frivolous still survive, as our seance rooms can testify.
And now, before entering upon his new life, the new Spirit has a period of sleep which varies in its length, sometimes hardly existing at all, at others extending for weeks or months.Raymond said that his lasted for six days.That was the period also in a case of which I had some personal evidence.Mr.Myers, on the other hand, said that he had a very prolonged period of unconsciousness.I could imagine that the length is regulated by the amount of trouble or mental preoccupation of this life, the longer rest giving the better means of wiping this out.Probably the little child would need no such interval at all.This, of course, is pure speculation, but there is a considerable consensus Page 68of opinion as to the existence of a period of oblivion after the first impression of the new life and before entering upon its duties.
Having wakened from this sleep, the spirit is weak, as the child is weak after earth birth.Soon, however, strength returns and the new life begins.This leads us to the consideration of heaven and hell.
Hell, I may say, drops out altogether, as it has long dropped out of the thoughts of every reasonable man.This odious conception, so blasphemous in its view of the Creator, arose from the exaggerations of Oriental phrases, and may perhaps have been of service in a coarse age where men were frightened by fires, as wild beasts are seared by the travellers.Hell as a permanent place does not exist.But the idea of punishment, of purifying chastisement, in fact of Purgatory, is justified by the reports from the other side.
