The Chrøicle. LEVIN SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1916 SUPERNATURAL OR "EXTRANATURAL."

Horowhenua Chronicle, 22 July 1916, Page 2

The Chrøicle. LEVIN SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1916 SUPERNATURAL OR "EXTRANATURAL."

A notowoi thy feature of the present gitvi! war l;u,> been the reference b,v various witnesses to what

hare been termed "supernatural manile.statH.ns," during the progress of great battles. It is about <u year since the "The Angel of -Mons" was reported to have appealed amongst the Allies' troops at a critical time in j that internecine engagement ; less than a month ago we had cabled news from the novelist Philip GiVbs that the British troops at Verdun, im the height of the action, were swayedi to heroic endeavor by the unmistakable influence of "supennutunal conditions" : I and, latest and least, this week we have had the word of the German Emperor (cabled to us on Thursday last) that "the T-ord is now walking through the world: perhaps to judgment." All these witnesses of what they consider to he the truth have evidence to go upon; hut what is its iiitrimisi'c worth? Primarily—to our mind—its worth must be discounted to the extent that the witnesses attach to the word "supernatural" its ordinary acceptation. To express in truer phnase the conditions and forces that are utilised and worked upon (for divers ends) by human agencies. to produce weird and unbelievable effects, the word "extra-natural" should be used. The type of "manifestations" to which public attention fs being drawn. has been observable (from time to time) from a period further back than the commencement of the war: end the strange events recorded on the 1> ittlefiekls of Europe have heen hut an apex to exemplifications that had tbcii basic rest in New Zealand as weM as in other countries over two years ago. for certain, and similor phenomenon may have been manifesting itself for thousands of years. Not only tradition, but written word, tells of many strange find seemingly supernatural occurrences, but the average mat. dismisses these accounts with an incredulous shrug of the "shoulder* and considers the deponents deluded. Yet strong-minded men such as Charles Reade. Charles Dickens, Byron, and a great many others have written in unmistakable terms regarding some aspects of these strange manifestations of what we have terniedi uextra-nat-nral" powers; hut the writers we speak of have failed to throw light 11 poll possible causes of the strange occurrences to which they have referred. People who are content to

let such problems reet unsolved are ■ good judge* of what best ensures an easy mind; but there are those to whom such freedom of action is not possible; folk 011 wliom cognisance and enduring experience of extra-natural powers has been forced.. Such people are to be found in every country and ill every community, but they are disinclined—and wisely—to incur the easily-bestowed sympathy or the lialfcomtomptuous toleration oi the man of wholly materialistic judgment—and the present writer must admit having been of that class himself, and to have been positive that every strange .occurrence wins wholly explainable by normal laws of atmospheric and magnetic influences. Through experience of this attitude of the happy normal man, . those whose knowledge of the deeper truths is greater and clearer feel constrained to keep a veil over their extraordinary experiences. One here and there writes in guarded terms of his psychic puzzles and beliefs; but unfortunately for the World the majority of these deponents have been misled* into believing their own sectional manifestation to be the sum iof all such things; whereas, actually, it may have been either the centrality or the apex—or, mgain, a quite distinct vet co-operating force—participating in the perfecting of some ultimately potential evokation. Thus it came about thsit the late W 0. Stead was iself-coiiviinced (lor rcoseins far j from .sufficient) that his speaking visitor "Tulia" was the departed spirit of some long-dend woman : and 011 like insufficient grounds "The Angel of Mons r ' is regarded by thousands of people as having been a manifestation of heavenly succor sent to man in extremity; and thus, further, the impressionable Kaiser of Germany is selfpersuaded and otherwise convinced that "the Lord is walking through the world and perhaps coming to judgment." These people have postulated from sectional ex|>erience.s, and ava unaware of deeper forces than they wot of that coalesce to make these demonstrations convincing. Yet there are men in Auckland* and Wellington, Levin and London, who alike have convincing knowledge of these deeper and dangerous verities; deeper beoause of tile widespread and wonderful extranatural forces by which they are evoked and. at times controlled; dangerous because of the differences in the awakenings tlint come to one man a,s distinguished from another. and the liability he incurs of having his case misjudged and his liberty taken away for insufficient reason. Hut for good or ill these strange powers are in existence amongst us in this "enlightened Twentieth Century," and are ill understood bv those who should be competent to exeieise fairer judgment. The chief reason for the failure of people in authority to do their lull duty may lie in a fe.ar of the risks of investigating the problem; but the Until remains that these problems ''have" been investigated and utilised to a dangerous extent by certain cults of people whose use ol tne forces has not been always for their fellow man's best advantage.

Tlie world to-day is in danger from attempts that are being madie to control large sections of its inhabitants by telepathic and other psychic forces. These in short, are the basiv means adopted to build up by amalgamation of varying and various psychic forces tiie strange manifestations such as those of Hons and Verdun and a few moi'c places ; and regarding the reality of which almost a cloud of witnesses have given spoken and; written testimony. The emotional part of mam's mature can be raised to extraordinary degrees at certain times, and when helped by abnormal conditions of healtli or by the super-excitement induced bv exciting events. The great battlefields li'itura/ly help the making of such manifestations : and always there will remain the risk that the "cloud of witnesses." reasoning from insufficient lexpeirience a.ndl therefore from I'fallacious yet iiot untrue piemises. will I be led to overestimate the effects they have seen «nd to deduce too much therefrom; andi, further, to hold in too great fe>ar or revei ence (or even detestation), according to temperament, the extraordinary powers disclosed by the culminating wonder they have witnessed. Doubtless it was a minor manifestation of some such "vision" that induced the folk in the Middle Ages to journey through Europe on their "dancing pilgrimages": and. to take an J example only twenty years old, that induced the Russian dubokirs to dieelare against all war and to go on what was intended to be a never-ending pilgrimage pending "the end of the world." They .judged bad\v, because they knew only a part of the system that swayed them ; had not realized the human influence in it. Mad ideas these when judged by normal <sta,n- ( dards; but everything is mad when tested by superficial, sectional judgment, end it is well to realise the soundness of the distinctions that lie between the word "abnormal" and the word, "madness." Galileo Galilei was adjudged "mad" only three hundred years ago, and cost into prison, by the unanimous judgment of a bench eccelsiaKtieal judges, because ho preached the heresy that the world turned rounds! To-day's judgm'-ent would find his "judges mad—or worse. The moral for present day commentators is that the wise man should preserve an open mind on airl matters, and never pronounce a. final opinion on any subject not mathematically demonstrable. Spiritualism, with a great amount of error embodied in its

tenets, doubtless preserves, a few basic truths as well; hypnotism, for good or'ill, also ha.s its powers and restrictions; but there are in and around the earth powers of greater and more marvellous resources than either of these, <and the self-elected heads of tlnse and at least two other cults of mystery probably are but slaves of powers which they affect to control. Thus we come to our postulate that the weird manifestations of the recent I battlefields liadi their hold in n combi-

nation of magneto-hypnotic powers lKiially dwelling apart; and the fact that their influence won cast upon the side of our Allies and ourselves is no proof that the enemy does not possess his hold upon them also. And we venture to predict now that all the soldiers of cither side who came under the helpful ''supernatural" force referred to by Phillip Gihbs in his description of tile Verdun fight will be poorer soldiers in all their future fights as a result of "the reaction from the great uplift" that they experienced. This week it seems to be Kaiser "Wil-

helm's turn to be uplifted. Ho is anticipating an early coming to judgment" of The Head of the churches. He is not the first highly-placed ad ministrator who has hud such an idea : and the reasoiv why it has become implanted in his brain could be explained by many unwilling (and also willing) hypnotists outside of Germany as weV. as in it. These so-called "delusions" aie man-made. and. emphatically "not" prodiuei'd by one's own mind. When the world's people become snfficiemtlv siwakc to the ramifications and strange processes of the occult systems tlifit work and are worked upon the earth, a better understanding of many forces of potential good "will be arrivedi at; there will he l<v-s opportunity for chnrlitans and despots to impose their wills upon humanity; and. incidentally some folk at present immured in "Mental Hospitals" as harmless hut incurable lunatics wiTi get their opportunity to come again into the outer world from which tliey are unjustly haired to-da.v.