The New Revelation | Page 4

destiny. I had never ceased to be an earnest theist, because it
seemed to me that Napoleon's question to the atheistic professors on the
starry night as he voyaged to Egypt: "Who was it, gentlemen, who
made these stars?" has never been answered. To say that the Universe

was made by immutable laws only put the question one degree further
back as to who made the laws. I did not, of course, believe in an
anthropomorphic God, but I believed then, as I believe now, in an
intelligent Force behind all the operations of Nature--a force so
infinitely complex and great that my finite brain could get no further
than its existence. Right and wrong I saw also as great obvious facts
which needed no divine revelation. But when it came to a question of
our little personalities surviving death, it seemed to me that the whole
analogy of Nature was against it. When the candle burns out the light
disappears. When the electric cell is shattered the current stops. When
the body dissolves there is an end of the matter. Each man in his
egotism may feel that he ought to survive, but let him look, we will say,
at the average loafer--of high or low degree--would anyone contend
that there was any obvious reason why THAT personality should carry
on? It seemed to be a delusion, and I was convinced that death did
indeed end all, though I saw no reason why that should affect our duty
towards humanity during our transitory existence.
This was my frame of mind when Spiritual phenomena first came
before my notice. I had always regarded the subject as the greatest
nonsense upon earth, and I had read of the conviction of fraudulent
mediums and wondered how any sane man could believe such things. I
met some friends, however, who were interested in the matter, and I sat
with them at some table-moving seances. We got connected messages.
I am afraid the only result that they had on my mind was that I regarded
these friends with some suspicion. They were long messages very often,
spelled out by tilts, and it was quite impossible that they came by
chance. Someone then, was moving the table. I thought it was they.
They probably thought that I did it. I was puzzled and worried over it,
for they were not people whom I could imagine as cheating--and yet I
could not see how the messages could come except by conscious
pressure.
About this time--it would be in 1886--I came across a book called The
Reminiscences of Judge Edmunds. He was a judge of the U.S. High
Courts and a man of high standing. The book gave an account of how
his wife had died, and how he had been able for many years to keep in
touch with her. All sorts of details were given. I read the book with
interest, and absolute scepticism. It seemed to me an example of how a

hard practical man might have a weak side to his brain, a sort of
reaction, as it were, against those plain facts of life with which he had
to deal. Where was this spirit of which he talked? Suppose a man had
an accident and cracked his skull; his whole character would change,
and a high nature might become a low one. With alcohol or opium or
many other drugs one could apparently quite change a man's spirit. The
spirit then depended upon matter. These were the arguments which I
used in those days. I did not realise that it was not the spirit that was
changed in such cases, but the body through which the spirit worked,
just as it would be no argument against the existence of a musician if
you tampered with his violin so that only discordant notes could come
through.
I was sufficiently interested to continue to read such literature as came
in my way. I was amazed to find what a number of great men--men
whose names were to the fore in science--thoroughly believed that
spirit was independent of matter and could survive it. When I regarded
Spiritualism as a vulgar delusion of the uneducated, I could afford to
look down upon it; but when it was endorsed by men like Crookes,
whom I knew to be the most rising British chemist, by Wallace, who
was the rival of Darwin, and by Flammarion, the best known of
astronomers, I could not afford to dismiss it. It was all very well to
throw down the books of these men which contained their mature
conclusions and careful investigations, and to say "Well, he has one
weak spot in his brain," but a man has to be very self- satisfied if the
day does not come when he wonders if the