I have not said anything about the S.P.R. itself, but may here add a few remarks. Says its official leaflet: “The aim of the Society is to approach these various problems without prejudice or prepossession of any kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems, once not less obscure nor less hotly debated.… Membership of the Society does not imply the acceptance of any particular explanation of the phenomena investigated, nor any belief as to the operation, in the physical world, of forces other than those recognised by Physical Science”. In other words, the Society has no creed, except that the subject is worth investigating.
The Society has well over 1,000 members, and is growing steadily. It includes many famous men in all walks of life, and indeed its membership list has been said to contain more well-known names than any other scientific society except the Royal Society itself. Among the Vice-presidents are the Right Honourables A. J. and G. W. Balfour, Sir William Barrett, Sir Oliver Lodge, the late Bishop Boyd-Carpenter and the late Sir William Crookes. The President for the current year is Lord Rayleigh, probably the greatest mathematical physicist now living.[5] The President of the Royal Society (Sir J. J. Thomson) is a member, also Professor Henri Bergson of Paris, Dr L. P. Jacks (editor of The Hibbert Journal) and innumerable other scientists and scholars whose names are known to everyone.
Finally let me assure you that the S.P.R. is so conservative and suspicious that admission is almost as difficult to obtain as membership of a high-class London club. It is extremely anxious to keep out cranks and emotional people of all sorts, and it requires any applicant to be vouched for as suitable by two existing members; and each application is separately considered by the Council. The result is a level-headed lot of members, and the maintenance of a sane and scientific attitude and management.
From the philosophic side it is sometimes urged that we cannot reason from the phenomenal to the noumenal, from the world of appearance to the world of reality; that consequently nothing happening in the material world can prove the existence of a spiritual one. But this is easily answered. We cheerfully agree, with Kant, that a spiritual world cannot be proved coercively and in such knock-down fashion that belief cannot be avoided. But it can be proved in the same way and to the same extent as many other things which we believe and find ourselves justified in believing. For instance, atoms and electrons and the Ether of Space are not phenomenal; no one has ever seen or heard or felt or smelt them; but we infer their real existence from the behaviour of the matter which does affect our senses. Again: we cannot prove to ourselves that other human beings exist, or even that an external world exists; my experience may be a huge subjective hallucination. If I were reading this paper I should not be able to prove to myself that any other mind was present. Looking around, I should receive certain impressions—sensations of sight—and I should call certain aggregations of these the physical bodies of beings like myself. From the similarity of their structure and behaviour to the structure and behaviour of my own body, I should infer that they have got minds somehow associated with them, as my mind is associated with my body. But you could not prove it to me. If you got angry with my obstinacy, and knocked me down, I should experience painful sensations, but the existence of a mind external to me—and an angry one—would still be a matter of inference only. But we find that the inference is justified. We find that it “works,” and social life is possible. For the purposes, then, both of science and of ordinary life, we do reason from phenomenon to noumenon, from appearance to reality, from attribute to substance; and our reasoning justifies itself. I affirm, therefore, that the kind of proof which we as psychical researchers put forward for the existence of and communication from discarnate minds, is philosophically the same kind as the proof we have of the existence of incarnate minds. If a short and clear exposition of the point is required, free from any psychical-research bias, I may refer inquirers to the chapter on the Psychological Theory of an External World in J. S. Mill’s Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy. Our evidence may be insufficient to justify belief—in the opinion of many, it is—and I blame no one for disbelieving; but it is evidence. And if it sufficiently accumulates and improves in quality, it may amount to a degree of proof at least comparable with that concerning electrons, which are now accepted as real by all physicists.
One or two difficulties may here be briefly referred to:
1. The appearance in Mrs Piper’s script of such obvious dream-stuff as messages from Homer, Ulysses, and Telemachus! These are of course absurdities, and no psychical researcher regards them as anything else. But they are no more absurd than many of our own dreams, and we must remember that automatic writing comes from the dream-strata of the medium’s mind, these strata seeming to lie between our normal consciousness and the spiritual world. Consequently messages which really seem to come from beyond: i.e., which are evidential—are often mixed with subliminal matter from the medium’s mind. As a communicator once said: “The medium’s dreams get in my way.” All this has to be allowed for, but in good mediums there is not much of it. In my friend Wilkinson’s case there is none, for he can distinguish. In Mrs Piper’s case there is a little, but it does not invalidate the huge mass of real evidence that has come. And it at least testifies to her honesty, for no medium would pretend to get messages from people whom everyone knows to be mythical—messages which are indeed comic and therefore enable opponents to score points with the general public by obvious witticisms.
Huxley is often referred to, as having wisely declined to investigate, knowing beforehand that it was all nonsense. Huxley was busy with his own work, and, believing à priori that alleged psychical phenomena were either fraud or self-delusion, naturally declined to give any time to them. We need not regret his decision, for he was doing work that was more important than psychical investigation would have been, just then. But he was wrong in his à priori belief, or rather unbelief. He had never seen any of these phenomena, but that did not prove that they did not happen. A native of mid-Africa may never have seen snow, but that does not prove that no snow exists.
And it happens that the Dialectical Society went on with its task, appointing committees which investigated without any paid medium. The majority of the investigators were utterly sceptical at first; they were practically all convinced at the finish. I state this merely as a fact, not as a specially important fact; for I find that beginners, when suddenly faced with striking phenomena, are liable to go from the extreme of unbelief to an extreme of belief. When one’s materialistic scheme is exploded, there seems no criterion left, and anything may happen. It usually takes an investigator a year or two to adjust himself and to learn to follow the evidence and not overshoot it.
Some people say: “But if communication is possible, why cannot I communicate direct with my own departed loved ones?” The question is seen on reflection, however, to be easily answered. In the first place, we cannot communicate direct even with our friends in the next town; we have to get the help of postmen or telegraph clerks and the like. It is therefore not at all surprising that an intermediary is needed when they are removed further from our conditions. Probably all of us have germs of psychic faculty—though I have not yet discovered any in myself—somewhat as we can all play or sing a little; but the Paderewskis and Carusos are few. Similarly with psychic faculty. Few have enough of it to communicate for themselves. On the other hand, it is much commoner than Carusos are; but of course, when it occurs in a private person, that person does not advertise the fact. Outsiders would either scoff, or say “lunacy”, or crowd round asking for “sittings”, out of curiosity. Consequently only sympathetic intimates are told, or people who, like myself, are known to be sympathetic investigators. Some of the most remarkable sensitives in England at the present day are of this private kind—people of education and position—and they are not even spiritualists in the sense of belonging to the spiritualist sect. They are of various religious persuasions, and belong mostly to rather orthodox bodies. There is nothing of the crank about them; they are not Theosophists or Christian Scientists or adherents of any other of what the sergeant called “fancy religions.” I may say that the most extraordinary experiences I have ever had have been with a psychic of this kind. I have not alluded to these experiences in my paper, because the matter is private. But I just mention these things because I find that psychic faculties are more common than I once thought, and a sympathetic minister could probably hear of private cases if he let his sympathy and interest be known. But of course, if he is known to have condemned the whole thing as Satanic—as Father Bernard Vaughan does—or as lunacy, people with psychic experiences will take very good care not to tell him about them.
As to details about the nature of the after-life, I have no dogmatic opinions to offer. Probably it is impossible for those over there to describe their experience adequately, in our earthly terms. Such information as we get must be largely symbolical, as when mediums describe a specially good deceased person as surrounded with radiance. I have several times noticed that the relative “brightness” or “radiance” of a spirit, as described by the medium, has correctly indicated that spirit’s character, though the medium had no normal knowledge whatever of either the person’s character or even existence. But though our information must probably be mainly symbolical, I think we are justified in believing that we begin the next stage pretty nearly where we leave off here. There is no sudden jump to unalloyed bliss for even such good people as you, no sudden plunge to everlasting woe even for sinners like me. This, I admit, is not in accordance with what I used to hear from the pulpit twenty years ago. But it agrees with what I read now of the opinions of such men as the Bishop of London and Dr J. D. Jones; and other clerical writers, such as Canon Storr in his Christianity and Immortality and Dr Paterson Smyth in his excellent Gospel of the Hereafter take the same view. Our modern moral sense refuses to believe that a good God will sentence any creature to everlasting pain; and although it may be contended that man has free-will and is therefore the arbiter of his own fate, it still remains that God gave him that freedom, and therefore still bears the ultimate responsibility. To retain belief in a God who can be loved and worshipped, I at least must disbelieve in everlasting pain for anyone.