The New Revelation | Page 7

I began to ask him questions exactly as if he were seated
before me, and he sent his answers back with great speed and decision.
The answers were often quite opposed to what I expected, so that I
could not believe that I was influencing them. He said that he was
happy, that he did not wish to return to earth. He had been a
free-thinker, but had not suffered in the next life for that reason. Prayer,
however, was a good thing, as keeping us in touch with the spiritual
world. If he had prayed more he would have been higher in the spirit
world.
This, I may remark, seemed rather in conflict with his assertion that he
had not suffered through being a free-thinker, and yet, of course, many
men neglect prayer who are not free-thinkers.
His death was painless. He remembered the death of Polwhele, a young
officer who died before him. When he (Dodd) died he had found people
to welcome him, but Polwhele had not been among them.
He had work to do. He was aware of the Fall of Dongola, but had not
been present in spirit at the banquet at Cairo afterwards. He knew more
than he did in life. He remembered our conversation in Cairo. Duration
of life in the next sphere was shorter than on earth. He had not seen
General Gordon, nor any other famous spirit. Spirits lived in families
and in communities. Married people did not necessarily meet again, but
those who loved each other did meet again.
I have given this synopsis of a communication to show the kind of
thing we got--though this was a very favourable specimen, both for
length and for coherence. It shows that it is not just to say, as many
critics say, that nothing but folly comes through. There was no folly
here unless we call everything folly which does not agree with
preconceived ideas. On the other hand, what proof was there that these
statements were true? I could see no such proof, and they simply left
me bewildered. Now, with a larger experience, in which I find that the
same sort of information has come to very, many people independently
in many lands, I think that the agreement of the witnesses does, as in all
cases of evidence, constitute some argument for their truth. At the time
I could not fit such a conception of the future world into my own
scheme of philosophy, and I merely noted it and passed on.

I continued to read many books upon the subject and to appreciate
more and more what a cloud of witnesses existed, and how careful their
observations had been. This impressed my mind very much more than
the limited phenomena which came within the reach of our circle. Then
or afterwards I read a book by Monsieur Jacolliot upon occult
phenomena in India. Jacolliot was Chief Judge of the French Colony of
Crandenagur, with a very judicial mind, but rather biassed{sic} against
spiritualism. He conducted a series of experiments with native fakirs,
who gave him their confidence because he was a sympathetic man and
spoke their language. He describes the pains he took to eliminate fraud.
To cut a long story short he found among them every phenomenon of
advanced European mediumship, everything which Home, for example,
had ever done. He got levitation of the body, the handling of fire,
movement of articles at a distance, rapid growth of plants, raising of
tables. Their explanation of these phenomena was that they were done
by the Pitris or spirits, and their only difference in procedure from ours
seemed to be that they made more use of direct evocation. They
claimed that these powers were handed down from time immemorial
and traced back to the Chaldees. All this impressed me very much, as
here, independently, we had exactly the same results, without any
question of American frauds, or modern vulgarity, which were so often
raised against similar phenomena in Europe.
My mind was also influenced about this time by the report of the
Dialectical Society, although this Report had been presented as far back
as 1869. It is a very cogent paper, and though it was received with a
chorus of ridicule by the ignorant and materialistic papers of those days,
it was a document of great value. The Society was formed by a number
of people of good standing and open mind to enquire into the physical
phenomena of Spiritualism. A full account of their experiences and of
their elaborate precautions against fraud are given. After reading the
evidence, one fails to see how they could have come to any other
conclusion than the one attained, namely, that the phenomena were
undoubtedly genuine, and that they pointed to laws and forces