The Psychical Researchers Tale - The Sceptical Poltergeist | Page 4

live without food, you see. We have to eat and drink
and sleep; protect ourselves against heat and cold and the weather
generally, which means clothes and shelter--garments to wear and
houses to live in, that is."
Spirit. "I have inferred something of this very vaguely from my
experiments. For instance, I gather that you put on hair in the daytime,
and take it off when you are--where you are at the present time. Also, I
have noticed that when the coverings which at present conceal you are
pulled away, you invariably replace them. Am I to deduce from that
that you try to keep your bodies warm and your heads cool at night?"
Myself. "Well, that's a trifle complicated. About the hair, you
understand, some of us lose our hair--it comes out, we don't know
why--in middle life, as mine has, and women and some men are rather
ashamed of this and wear--er--other people's hair in the daytime to hide
the defect."
Spirit. "Why?"
Myself. "Oh, vanity. We want to appear younger than we really are."

Spirit. "Why?"
The Researcher bent a little lower over his notebook as he said:
I seem to have written "Damnation" at this point; but so far as I can
remember I did not speak the word aloud. You will see, however, that I
tried my best to be patient in what were really the most exasperating
circumstances. But I will miss the next page or two, and come to more
interesting material. Ah I here:
Spirit. "This thing you call death, or dying? Am I to understand that it
corresponds to what we call incarnation?"
Myself. "We are not sure. Some of us believe that our actual bodies
will rise again in the flesh; others that the body perishes and the spirit
survives in an uncertain state of which we have very little knowledge;
others, again, that death is the end of everything."
Spirit. "In brief, you know nothing whatever about it?"
Myself. "Uncommonly little."
Spirit. "Do you remember your lives as elementals?"
Myself (definitely). "No!"
Spirit. "Then where do you suppose yourselves to begin?"
Myself. "We don't know. There are various guesses. None of them
particularly likely."
Spirit. "Such as?"
Myself. "Oh, some of us believe that the soul or spirit is a special
creation made by a higher power we call God, and breathed into the
body at birth. And some that the soul or spirit, itself eternal, finds a
temporary house in the body, and progresses from one to another with
intervals between each incarnation."

Spirit. "Then this being born is what we should call dying?"
Myself. "Quite. It makes no difference. And, as a matter of fact, the
overwhelming majority of us--that is to say, all but about one in every
million--never bother our heads where we came from, or what's likely
to happen to us when we die, or are born, as you would call it."
I have a note here that after this we were both silent for about ten
minutes.
Spirit (despondently). "I wish I could get some sort of idea what you do
all the time and what you think about. I thought, when I so
unexpectedly got into touch with someone in the future state, that I
should be able to learn everything. And I have, so far, learnt
nothing--absolutely nothing. In fact, except that I have been able to
correct my inferences with regard to one or two purely material
experiments, I may say that I know less now than I did before. And, by
the way, those things over there--he pointed to the washstand--I noticed
that at certain times you go through some ceremony with them upstairs,
and as I wished to discover if there was any reason why you should not
perform the same ceremony downstairs, I moved the things. Well, I
noticed that the spirit who was here before you was apparently very
annoyed. Can you give me any explanation of that?"
Myself. "Our bodies become soiled by contact with matter, and we
wash ourselves in water. We prefer to do it in our bedrooms."
Spirit. "Why?"
Myself. "We use a certain set of rooms for one purpose and another set
for other purposes."
Spirit. "Why?"
Myself. "I don't know why. We do."
Spirit. "But you are sure of the fact, even if you can give no reason?"

Myself. "Absolutely."
Spirit. "I wish I could prove that. One of my fellow-scientists, who has
recently been able to press his investigations even further than I have
up to the present time, has recently brought forward good evidence to
prove that spirits are all black, wear no coverings on their bodies, live
in the simplest of dwellings, and, although they have a few ceremonies,
certainly have none which in any way corresponds to that you