PSYCHIC DISCOVERIES.

Franklin Times, 3 January 1923, Page 6

PSYCHIC DISCOVERIES.

MYSTERY GE DEATH. SOLUTION NOT FAR OFF. The veteran French astronomer, so widely known by his popular writings on his own subjeqt, here (“At the Moment of Death ' 7 by Camille Flammarion ; second, volume of a series of three on “Death and Its Mystery”-) appeal's ih a role which is new to most readers. 'For most of his long lifetime he has been collecting - and investigating evidence bearing upon the problems of telepathy apd spiritualism, and especially uppn manifestations occurring near the momenit of death, writes Professor Jiulian Hurley. Britain's brilliant young biologist" It must be admitted that the collection in the present'volume is impressive. You'may take your, choice there are apparitions of si-ill living, but distant men and women becoming visible to a whole company; others which are perceived by one alone, while the rest of those present see nothing. There are voices heard announcing death; there are fits of gloom. best explicable as premonitions ; there are extraordinary noises o,r other physical phenomena—the banging of furniture, the ringing of a belly a gust of wind on a calm night—at the moment dissolution.

if. the occurrences were isolated 1 they could be .discounted; it would be easy to say that this was a coincidence a hallucination, a third the result of auto-suggestion. When it does so iti usually acts telephatfcally '.upon the mind of a single person. This person is usually one that is near and dear, but need nojt be bound; by any special mental ties to the transmitter —apparitions of distant persons appear often to be perceived by quite young children. It may in other, cases be capable oif what .seems -to be a higher grade of activity—it projects (it would seem) an image of the distant person noit to one,, but to several people Simultaneously a real phantombody capable of being viewed from different angles at the same moment. Finally, it may be iunable to make contact jvvjth the minds directly, and can only attract attention by playing apparently meaningless tricks with material objects ‘by hangs or wraps, flashes of light, puffs oif a#r, and so forth. Curious Happenings. The mass of documents is impressive ; but it is to be accepted as proving the author’s case as establishing that mind or ’ spirit . can ' in certain circumstances act at a distance on other minds oir on matter ? It ik perhaps relevant! to remind ourselves that there is nothing inherently impossible in such a' view. As biology progresses it becomes increasingly clear that probably all the Hiving matter which is connected in the .brain with mental processes has two sets of wholly distinct properties — those that we usiually call material which are dealt with by physics and chemistry, and those which we call mental, which are dealt with by psychology. \ These two sets qf properties are both properties of the same stdff of which living things are made.. if this is so., what is there to prevent intense activity of the mental processes from having 'an effect upon other mental happenings at a distance!, or even upon physical material happenings—especially as we know that material happenings can have very marked effects upon the mind ? Distance Cited. “Listen, professor,” said Gastan Re David a lawyer “my mother died 41 years ago and never have I dreamed of her. But last night she appeared to me;, and I saw her. approach me with open arms; we embraced • and kissed each ; other, mils dream gave rise in my mind to the conviction that my mother is summoning me, and that my death is near very neajjf. What do you say to that professor?” “Dreams,’T answered. Three or four days afterwards he was dead. —From Prcf'essof Salvatore Fiiiori, a priest of Bari Italy. But-they are cumulative ; the same sort of happenings tends to be repeated agaJ-tn and again with strange minor variations, until after a time the most sceptical begin to feel doubtful. \ i?.eai Phantasm F. W. "H. Myer’s famous “Phantasms of the Living” contained a very similar collection of occurrences, which made a very sirnjPlaftr comuiative impression. lit is ail the more interesting to find the san\© 'kind of happenings in another country collected by another hand. M. Flammarion has done us a service in focussing attention again on the subjeqt. • Most of the apparitions here recorded are perceived by one person only at the precise moment of deathBut it is most important to note that a considerable number ojcduF some time before death others again in connection with some, danger that does not prove fa-al, or, . indeed, is wholly averted. , '[ ■ . , The general ‘conclusion which one would) like to dr Aw Is that in certain states of great mdntal activity pre-eriiihently at or near the moment o,f' death but also at other times fhe human mind is capable of action at a distance.