第4章 THE SEARCH(3)

In a mixed seance, with no definite aim, you have thrust your head into the next world and you have met some naughty boys.Go forward and try to reach something better." That was General Drayson's explanation, and though it did not satisfy me at the time, I think now that it was a rough approximation to the truth.These were my first steps in Spiritualism.I was still a sceptic, but at least I was an inquirer, and when I heard some old-fashioned critic saying that there was nothing to explain, and that it was all Page 23fraud, or that a conjuror was needed to show it up, I knew at least that that was all nonsense.It is true that my own evidence up to then was not enough to convince me, but my reading, which was continuous, showed me how deeply other men had gone into it, and I recognised that the testimony was so strong that no other religious movement in the world could put forward anything to compare with it.That did not prove it to be true, but at least it proved that it must be treated with respect and could not be brushed aside.Take a single incident of what Wallace has truly called a modern miracle.I choose it because it is the most incredible.I allude to the assertion that D.D.Home -- who, by the way, was not, as is usually supposed, a paid adventurer, but was the nephew of the Earl of Home -- the assertion, I say, that he floated out of one window and into another at the height of seventy feet above the ground.I could not believe it.And yet, when I knew that the fact was attested by three eye-witnesses, who were Lord Dunraven, Lord Lindsay, and Captain Wynne, all men of honour and repute, who Page 24were willing afterwards to take their oath upon it, I could not but admit that the evidence for this was more direct than for any of those far-off events which the whole world has agreed to accept as true.

I still continued during these years to hold table seances, which sometimes gave no results, sometimes trivial ones, and sometimes rather surprising ones.I have still the notes of these sittings, and Iextract here the results of one which were definite, and which were so unlike any conceptions which I held of life beyond the grave that they amused rather than edified me at the time.I find now, however, that they agree very closely, with the revelations in Raymond and in other later accounts, so that I view them with different eyes.I am aware that all these accounts of life beyond the grave differ in detail -- I suppose any of our accounts of the present life would differ in detail -- but in the main there is a very great resemblance, which in this instance was very far from the conception either of myself or of either of the two ladies who made up the circle.Two communicators sent messages, the first of Page 25whom spelt out as a name "Dorothy Postlethwaite," a name unknown to any of us.She said she died at Melbourne five years before, at the age of sixteen, that she was now happy, that she had work to do, and that she had been at the same school as one of the ladies.On my asking that lady to raise her hands and give a succession of names, the table tilted at the correct name of the head mistress of the school.This seemed in the nature of a test.She went on to say that the sphere she inhabited was all round the earth; that she knew about the planets; that Mars was inhabited by a race more advanced than us, and that the canals were artificial; there was no bodily pain in her sphere, but there could be mental anxiety; they were governed; they took nourishment; she had been a Catholic and was still a Catholic, but had not fared better than the Protestants; there were Buddhists and Mohammedans in her sphere, but all fared alike; she had never seen Christ and knew no more about Him than on earth, but believed in His influence;spirits prayed and they died in their new sphere before entering another;they had Page 26 pleasures -- music was among them.It was a place of light and of laughter.

She added that they had no rich or poor, and that the general conditions were far happier than on earth.

This lady bade us good-night, and immediately the table was seized by a much more robust influence, which dashed it about very violently.In answer to my questions it claimed to be the spirit of one whom I will call Dodd, who was a famous cricketer, and with whom I had some serious conversation in Cairo before he went up the Nile, where he met his death in the Dongolese Expedition.We have now, I may remark, come to the year 1896 in my experiences.Dodd was not known to either lady.

I began to ask him questions exactly as if he were seated before me, and he sent his answers back with great speed and decision.The answers were often quite opposed to what I expected, so that I could not believe that I was influencing them.He said that he was happy, that he did not wish to return to earth.He had been a free-thinker, but had not suffered in the next life for that reason.Prayer, how Page 27ever, was a good thing, as keeping us in touch with the spiritual world.

If he had prayed more he would have been higher in the spirit world.

This, I may remark, seemed rather in conflict with his assertion that he had not suffered through being a free-thinker, and yet, of course, many men neglect prayer who are not free-thinkers.

His death was painless.He remembered the death of Polwhele, a young officer who died before him.When he (Dodd) died he had found people to welcome him, but Polwhele had not been among them.

He had work to do.He was aware of the Fall of Dongola, but had not been present in spirit at the banquet at Cairo afterwards.

He knew more than he did in life.He remembered our conversation in Cairo.