CAN THE DEAD COMMUNICATE WITH US?

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 231, 1 December 1916, Page 6 (Supplement)

CAN THE DEAD COMMUNICATE WITH US?

CANON ADDERLEY DISCUSSES THIS MOMENTOUS QUESTION.

In answering this question I thin.c we should begin by recognising that the vast majority of the human race have always believed that in some sort of way the dead do communicate wrtn tho living. I know that this argument from universal consent does not impress us much in this scientific age, btu it ought to impress us more than it does.

But the question does interest us more now, because science is continually aiding the common belief. It is not religion which has brought us out of mid-Victorian scepticism, but modern science. We cannot ignore the conclusions of such men as Sir William Barrett and Sir Oliver Lodge, i remember the late Frederick Myers saying to me at a Psychical Research Meeting about twenty years ago, 'Tiemember that you clergy begin all your sermons on a tremendous asumption that there is another world. We are trying to make that assumption a certainty." The Society for Psychical Research got us away from the quacks of spiritualistic movement and accepted no evidence but that which would beat scientific enquiry. The result of that work is not by any means fully attained yet, but it has gone to establish at least two great facts. The first is the truth of telepathy. I suppose telepathy is practically accepted now, and that is of enormous importance. If one man's mind l can and does exercise not only an influence upon the mind of another, but actually communicates with another from a distance, it is simply a question whether or not these communications go on after death. The other fact is that communications have passed at the moment of death between one and another in spite of distance of space. I think I am right in saying that the Society is quite convinced about this, too. I have myself had no personal experience of either of these facts, though I have had experience of that which, to my mind, only telepathy can explain. For instance, I have often taken part with Mr. Alfred Capper in his manifestations. He can find objects hidden among the audience without actually touching the person who knows where the object is. Even when lie does touch you he leads you to the object in such a way to exclude the possibility of his being led or pushed. But this, you will say, has nothing to do with communications from the dead. It has, so far as the reality of telepathic comunication is concerned. Then 1 have heard often from his own lips the stroy of one who actually .saw his brother at the moment of (faath, though they were thousands of miles apart. Again, 1 have seen written communications which a girl honestly believed to have come from her deceased lover. She was absolutely serious about it, and not long ago told me that the communications still go on. I liave also heard one of our greatest scientists say that he is as certain that he does communicate with the late Frederick Myers as that he spoke with him on earth when he was alive.

I have no doubt whatever about the fact of clairvoyance, and this is a kindred subject. If clairvoyants are ab'o to see tilings, though separated by timerand space, there seems to me no reason why the mere fact of death should make such 0: difference as io force us to say that no more communication is possible. I have purposely said nothing on the religious side of this question, but it is clear to me that to deny tclepathio communication of any kind is almost equivalent to denying religion. Leaving out of consideration the question of prayer to the Deity, I do not see how we can deny that tho experiences the disciples in the New Testament (not to mention the Old) were distinctly of the nature of telepathic intercourse with the other world. The same must he said of the lives of tho saints an dtheir followers. To those, again, ,who do not believe in the Tightness of the invocation of saints I would say, "What do you think it right to believe in the ministry of angels?" And if the angels do minister to us on earth in any sense, how is it done except by something . ajkin to telepathy ? To return once (more to the alleged modem communications. It is sometimes asked why what the dead tell us is so scrappy and unconvincing? Why, for instance, do they not say quite plainly who they are and where they are ? Why do they waste our time with laboured sentences. quotations from the poets, and such like? I put this to a- scientific believer once, and he replied that, probably, just as in a. dream or nightmare we often strain every nerve to express what we want to say and cannot, so it may be with them. Also ; t is probable that much dbpends on us. We may not be the sort of people to .whom communications can tta made. "Suggestion" also, I think, throws light on this subject. I know a hypnotist who, without "endorming" his patients, can make them do a certain tiling or go to a certain spot at a particular time." This means, I suppose, that ho has imprinted something on the patient's brain, and it comes into action like the ring of an alarum-clock nt the right moment. Is it not possible that when we feel impelled to do some particular act or to avoid one (perhaps quite against our inclination) it is really that some suggestion has como to 11s from the other world, not perhaps sent us at that moment- (for that would imply omniscience to the dead), but some suggestion which our love.l 0110 is continually throwing out from tire other world as be thinks of us and prays for us? It has reached us somehow by a telepathic process and it is stored in our brain to bo used when needful. We cannot tell whence 't fame, but there it. is, ready like clockwork when the moment arrives for use.