CHAPTER VIII
THE RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF THE HYPOTHESIS
Although I have no wish to become involved in controversial theology, I feel it incumbent on me to examine briefly the question of whether a general acceptance of the four-dimensional hypothesis would be fraught with any considerable consequences in the sphere of religious thought.
No one venturing to advocate conceptions so far-reaching as those I have been discussing, would be justified in ignoring their relation to any important stream of thought with which they might be held liable to come in contact. And it is evident that any hypothesis formulated, however tentatively, as a solution to the problems of Survival of Death and the nature of post-mortem conditions, must inevitably come into very close contact with Religion.
I shall try to show that it is a matter of contact only and not of conflict.
Even so, I might have omitted the present discussion had I not found a tendency, on the part of certain representatives of orthodox theology, to deprecate any attempt to find an intelligible solution to the problems involved.
It must be clearly understood that I am not concerned here with the defence of Psychical Research as a means of investigation, but only with the legitimacy of the end.