第16章 PROBLEMS AND LIMITATIONS(1)

Leaving for a moment the larger argument as to the lines of this revelation and the broad proofs of its validity, there are some smaller points which have forced themselves upon my attention during the consideration of the subject.This home of our dead seems to be very near to us -- so near that we continually, as they tell us, visit them in our sleep.Much of that quiet resignation which we have all observed in people who have lost those whom they loved -- people who would in our previous opinion have been driven mad by such loss -- is due to the fact that they have seen their dead, and that although the switch-off is complete and they can recall nothing whatever of the spirit experience in sleep, the soothing result of it is still carried on by the subconscious self.The switch-off is, as I say, complete, but sometimes for some reason it is hung up for Page 83a fraction of a second, and it is at such moments that the dreamer comes back from his dream "trailing clouds of glory." From this also come all those prophetic dreams many of which are well attested.I have had a recent personal experience of one which has not yet perhaps entirely justified itself but is even now remarkable.Upon April 4th of last year, 1917, Iawoke with a feeling that some communication had been made to me of which I had only carried back one word which was ringing in my head.That word was "Piave." To the best of my belief I had never heard the word before.

As it sounded like the name of a place I went into my study the moment I had dressed and I looked up the index of my Atlas.There was "Piave"sure enough, and I noted that it was a river in Italy some forty miles behind the front line, which at that time was victoriously advancing.Icould imagine few more unlikely things than that the war should roll back to the Piave, and I could not think how any military event of consequence could arise there, but none the less I was so impressed that I Page 84drew up a statement that some such event would occur there, and I had it signed by my secretary and witnessed by my wife with the date, April 4th, attached.It is a matter of history how six months later the whole Italian line fell back, how it abandoned successive positions upon rivers, and how it stuck upon this stream which was said by military critics to be strategically almost untenable.If nothing more should occur (I write upon February 20th, 1918), the reference to the name has been fully justified, presuming that some friend in the beyond was forecasting the coming events of the war.I have still a hope, however, that more was meant, and that some crowning victory of the Allies at this spot may justify still further the strange way in which the name was conveyed to my mind.

People may well cry out against this theory of sleep on the grounds that all the grotesque, monstrous and objectionable dreams which plague us cannot possibly come from a high source.On this point I have a very definite theory, which may perhaps be worthy of discussion.

I consider Page 85

that there are two forms of dreams, and only two, the experiences of the released spirit, and the confused action of the lower faculties which remain in the body when the spirit is absent.The former is rare and beautiful, for the memory of it fails us.The latter are common and varied, but usually fantastic or ignoble.By noting what is absent in the lower dreams one can tell what the missing qualities are, and so judge what part of us goes to make up the spirit.Thus in these dreams humour is wanting, since we see things which strike us afterwards as ludicrous, and are not amused.

The sense of proportion and of judgment and of aspiration is all gone.

In short, the higher is palpably gone, and the lower, the sense of fear, of sensual impression, of self-preservation, is functioning all the more vividly because it is relieved from the higher control.

The limitations of the powers of spirits is a subject which is brought home to one in these studies.People say, "If they exist why don't they do this or that!" The answer usually is that they can't.They appear Page 86to have very fixed limitations like our own.This seemed to be very clearly brought out in the cross-correspondence experiments where several writing mediums were operating at a distance quite independently of each other, and the object was to get agreement which was beyond the reach of coincidence.The spirits seem to know exactly what they impress upon the minds of the living, but they do not know how far they carry their instruction out.Their touch with us is intermittent.Thus, in the cross-correspondence experiments we continually have them asking, "Did you get that?" or "Was it all right?" Sometimes they have partial cognisance of what is done, as where Myers says: "I saw the circle, but was not sure about the triangle."It is everywhere apparent that their spirits, even the spirits of those who, like Myers and Hodgson, were in specially close touch with psychic subjects, and knew all that could be done, were in difficulties when they desired to get cognisance of a material thing, such as a written document.

Only, I should imagine, by partly materialising themselves Page 87could they do so, and they may not have had the power of self-materialization.

This consideration throws some light upon the famous case, so often used by our opponents, where Myers failed to give some word or phrase which had been left behind in a sealed box.Apparently he could not see this document from his present position, and if his memory failed him he would be very likely to go wrong about it.

Many mistakes may, I think, be explained in this fashion.

It has been asserted from the other side, and the assertion seems to me reasonable, that when they speak of their own conditions they are speaking of what they know and can readily and surely discuss; but that when we insist (as we must sometimes insist) upon earthly tests, it drags them back to another plane of things, and puts them in a position which is far more difficult, and liable to error.