CHAPTER IX
SURVIVAL OF THE SELF
In the last chapter we pointed out that for any adequate understanding of the subject before us the self must be taken to include the more obscure and subconscious portion of the mind, as well as the specially conscious portion with which we are most familiar. There is a constant interaction and flow taking place between the two parts, and to draw a strict line dividing them would be impossible. Indeed it would rather appear that growth comes largely by their blending and throwing light on each other. We also brought forward some considerations to show the nature of the underlying or subconscious self—its immense extent, the swiftness of its perceptions, and so forth. If then, to continue our argument, there should come a time (in death) when the outer and more obvious ego merges, or at least comes into closer relation, with the under-self, it would seem likely that the surviving consciousness would be greatly changed from its present form, and would take on something of the instantaneous wide-reaching character of what has been called the Cosmic Consciousness. And this is a conclusion much to be expected, and surely also much to be desired. However one may envisage the matter, it hardly seems possible to imagine an after-death consciousness quite on the same plane as our present consciousness. (This, too—one may say in passing—probably explains the difficulty we experience in holding direct communication with the dead—the same sort of difficulty, in fact, that the outer mind during life has in directly reaching the inner mind.) Myers[[85]] speaks of our supraliminal life as merely a special phase of our whole personality, and suggests that there are good reasons for thinking that there is a relation—“obscure but indisputable—between the subliminal and the surviving self.” Under these circumstances it would seem natural to inquire what definite reasons there may be for thinking that the subliminal self survives; and I shall occupy this chapter largely with that question.
(1) In the first place, from the observed process of the generation and growth of the body from a microscopic origin, we have already argued (chapter vii.) the probability of the pre-existence in a sub-atomic or fourth-dimensional state of the being which is manifested in the body, and therefore the probability of the continuance of that being after the dissolution of the body. And this argument must include the Under-self, which is responsible for so much of the organization and growth and sustentation of the body, as well as the Upper; and may well lead us to infer that both upper and under selves continue after death—only conjoined in some way, and with some added experience gained during life.
(2) In the second place, we are struck by the fact that continuous Memory—which we decided to be the very necessary condition of survival—is just the thing which is so strong in the subjective being and so characteristic of it. The huge stores of memory—and of quite personal and individual memory—which this being has at command, their long dormancy and their extraordinary resurgence at times when conditions call them forth, are a marvel to the investigator, and make us feel that it is hardly probable that they are all swept away at death. Even if dormant at the time of death, it seems not unlikely that here again later conditions may awake them once more to life.
But (3), we have a great deal of evidence to show that, as a matter of fact, the underlying self is especially active at the moment of death. The whole phenomenon of ‘wraiths’—now in the mass so amply proved[[86]]—the projection of phantasms sometimes to an immense distance,[[87]] by persons in articulo mortis—goes to show its intense energy and vitality (if one may use the word) at that moment. And the vivid resurgences of memory at the same moment (or in any hour of danger) point in the same direction. T. J. Hudson, and others, insist that the subjective mind never sleeps—that whatever drowsiness, or faintness, or languor may overpower the upper or self-conscious mind, the under mind is still acutely awake and operant, and if this is (as it appears) true with regard to sleep, it may well also be so even with regard to death.
Again (4), the Telæsthetic faculty of the under-self (I mean during life)—its power of clairvoyantly perceiving things and events at a distance, even in minutest details—is a very wonderful fact—a fact that is amply established, and one that must give us pause. Here are vision and perception at work without eyes or ears, or any of the usual bodily end-organs[[88]]—and acting in such a way as to suggest or practically to prove that the soul has other channels or instruments of perception than those connected with the well-known outer body. Every one has heard of cases of this kind. They are common on the borderland of sleep, or in dreams, and—what especially appeals to us here—they are very common in the hour of death. If the soul (as is evidently the case) can perceive without the intermediation of mortal eye or ear; then—though we may conclude that these special organs have been fashioned or developed for special terrene use—we may also conclude that, without them, it would still continue to exercise perception, developing sight and hearing and other faculties along lines with which at present we are but slightly acquainted. These faculties spring inevitably deep down out of ourselves, and will recur again doubtless wherever we are.... “Were your eyes destroyed, still the faculty of sight were not destroyed; out of the same roots again as before would another optic apparatus spring.”[[89]]
And the same may be said, (5), about the telepathic faculty—that is, the power (not of perceiving, but) of sending impressions or messages to a distance. This power which the under-self has of communicating with the under-selves of other persons, and often at a great distance, is one of the best-established facts in the new psychology; and again, it is very pregnant with inference. It shows us the soul acting vividly along certain lines independent as far as we can see of the known body, certainly along lines independent of the known organs of expression. It compels us to conclude a possible and even probable activity quite apart from that body. With this telepathic power, or as an extension of it, may be classed the image-projecting faculty, which we have already seen to be peculiarly active in death. And it may be appropriate here to notice that in quite a number of the cases of wraiths or phantasms projected (in forty cases out of three hundred and sixteen as given by Edmund Gurney in Proceedings S.P.R. vol. v. p. 408) the apparition was seen after the death had occurred—though within twenty-four hours after. This may directly indicate an after-death activity of the person who projected the image, or it may merely indicate a relay of the telepathic impression on its way, or in the subconscious mind of the recipient, previous to emerging in the latter’s conscious mind.[[90]]
All these things are strongly indicative. They do not give the impression that at death the underlying self is in the act of perishing. On the contrary, they point to its continuance, and if anything increased activity; while at the same time the strongly personal character of many of the phenomena referred to—the wonderfully distinct personal memories, the very personal images or phantasms projected, the telepathic appeal to nearest and dearest friends—all suggest that the continuing activity does not merely tail off into an abstract life-force or vague stream of tendency, but is of a distinctly personal or individual character.
There is another consideration, (6), on which I may dwell for a moment here. The passion of Love, whether considered in its physical or in its psychical and emotional aspects, is notably a matter of the subjective or subliminal life. The little self-conscious, logical, argumentative personality is completely routed by this passion, which seems to spring from the great depths of being with Titanic force, full-armed in its own convictions, and overturning all established orders and conventions. It surely must give us a deep insight into the nature of that hidden self from which it springs. Yet nothing is more noticeable about the passion than its recklessness of mortal life—nothing more noticeable than its willingness to sacrifice all worldly prospects and the body itself in the pursuit of its ends. Even the most physical love, as we have said already (chapter vi.), has a strange relation to Death, and often slays the very object of its desire:—