Psychical Miscellanea / Being Papers on Psychical Research, Telepathy, Hypnotism, Christian Science, etc.

BY J. ARTHUR HILL Author of “Psychical Investigations,” “Man is a Spirit,” “Spiritualism; Its History, Phenomena and Doctrine,” etc.
NEW YORK: HARCOURT, BRACE & HOWE, 1920
Printed in England
Many friends and correspondents have suggested that I should republish a number of articles which have appeared from time to time in various quarters. The present volume brings these articles together, with some which have not appeared before.
Each chapter is complete in itself, but there is more or less connexion, for each deals with some aspect of the subject to which I have given most attention during the last twelve years—namely, psychical research.
I thank the editors of the Holborn Review , National Review , World’s Work , and Occult Review for permission to republish articles which have appeared in their pages.
J. A. H. Thornton, Bradford.

Our feelings with regard to the termination of our earthly existence are remarkably varied. In some people, there is an absolutely genuine and strong desire for cessation of individual consciousness, as in the case of John Addington Symonds. Probably, however, this is met with only in keenly sensitive natures which have suffered greatly in this life. Such unfortunate people are sometimes constitutionally unable to believe in anything better than cessation of their pain. Anything better than that is “too good to be true”, so much too good that they hardly dare wish for it. Others, who have had a happy life, naturally desire a continuance of it, and are therefore eager, like F. W. H. Myers, for that which Symonds dreaded. Others, again, and these are probably the majority, have no very marked feeling in the matter; like the good Churchman in the story, they hope to enter into everlasting bliss, but they wish you would not talk about such depressing subjects. This seems to suggest that they have secret qualms about the reality of the bliss. Perhaps they have read Mark Twain’s Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven , and, though inexpressibly shocked by that exuberant work, are nevertheless tinged with a sneaking sympathy for its hero, who found the orthodox abode of the blest an unbearably dull place. The harp-playing in particular was trying, and he had difficulty in managing his wings.