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Page 32
We were given special cases, too, to study and consider, and here I had
the first inkling of how far it is possible for disembodied spirits to
be in touch with those who are still in the body.
As far as I can see, no direct intellectual contact is possible, except
under certain circumstances. There is, of course, a great deal of
thought-vibration taking place in the world, to which the best analogy
is wireless telegraphy. There exists an all-pervading emotional medium,
into which every thought that is tinged with emotion sends a ripple.
Thoughts which are concerned with personal emotion send the firmest
ripple into this medium, and all other thoughts and passions affect it,
not in proportion to the intensity of the thought, but to the nature of
the thought. The scale is perfectly determined and quite unalterable;
thus a thought, however strong and intense, which is concerned with
wealth or with personal ambition sends a very little ripple into the
medium, while a thought of affection is very noticeable indeed, and more
noticeable in proportion as it is purer and less concerned with any kind
of bodily passion. Thus, strange to say, the thought of a father for a
child is a stronger thought than that of a lover for his beloved. I do
not know the exact scale of force, which is as exact as that of chemical
values--and of course such emotions are apt to be complex and intricate;
but the purer and simpler the thought is, the greater is its force.
Perhaps the prayers that one prays for those whom one loves send the
strongest ripple of all. If it happens that two of these ripples of
personal emotion are closely similar, a reflex action takes place; and
thus is explained the phenomenon which often takes place, the sudden
sense of a friend's personality, if that friend, in absence, writes one
a letter, or bends his mind intently upon one. It also explains the way
in which some national or cosmic emotion suddenly gains simultaneous
force, and vibrates in thousands of minds at the same time.
The body, by its joys and sufferings alike, offers a great obstruction
to these emotional waves. In the land of spirits, as I have indicated,
an intention of congenial wills gives an instantaneous perception; but
this seems impossible between an embodied spirit and a disembodied
spirit. The only communication which seems possible is that of a vague
emotion; and it seems quite impossible for any sort of intellectual idea
to be directly communicated by a disembodied spirit to an embodied
spirit.
On the other hand, the intellectual processes of an embodied spirit are
to a certain extent perceptible by a disembodied spirit; but there is a
condition to this, and that is that some emotional sympathy must have
existed between the two on earth. If there is no such sympathy, then the
body is an absolute bar.
I could look into the mind of Amroth and see his thought take shape, as
I could look into a stream, and see a fish dart from a covert of weed.
But with those still in the body it is different. And I will therefore
proceed to describe a single experience which will illustrate my point.
I was ordered to study the case of a former friend of my own who was
still living upon earth. Nothing was told me about him, but, sitting in
my cell, I put myself into communication with him upon earth. He had
been a contemporary of mine at the university, and we had many interests
in common. He was a lawyer; we did not very often meet, but when we did
meet it was always with great cordiality and sympathy. I now found him
ill and suffering from overwork, in a very melancholy state. When I
first visited him, he was sitting alone, in the garden of a little
house in the country. I could see that he was ill and sad; he was making
pretence to read, but the book was wholly disregarded.
When I attempted to put my mind into communication with his, it was very
difficult to see the drift of his thoughts. I was like a man walking in
a dense fog, who can just discern at intervals recognisable objects as
they come within his view; but there was no general prospect and no
distance. His mind seemed a confused current of distressing memories;
but there came a time when his thought dwelt for a moment upon myself;
he wished that I could be with him, that he might speak of some of his
perplexities. In that instant, the whole grew clearer, and little by
little I was enabled to trace the drift of his thoughts. I became aware
that though he was indeed suffering from overwork, yet that his enforced
rest only removed the mental distraction of his work, and left his mind
free to revive a whole troop of painful thoughts. He had been a man of
strong personal ambitions, and had for twenty years been endeavouring to
realise them. Now a sense of the comparative worthlessness of his aims
had come upon him. He had despised and slighted other emotions; and his
mind had in consequence drifted away like a boat into a bitter and
barren sea. He was a lonely man, and he was feeling that he had done ill
in not multiplying human emotions and relations. He reflected much upon
the way in which he had neglected and despised his home affections,
while he had formed no ties of his own. Now, too, his career seemed to
him at an end, and he had nothing to look forward to but a maimed and
invalided life of solitude and failure. Many of his thoughts I could not
discern at all--the mist, so to speak, involved them--while many were
obscure to me. When he thought about scenes and people whom I had never
known, the thought loomed shapeless and dark; but when he thought, as he
often did, about his school and university days, and about his home
circle, all of which scenes were familiar to me, I could read his mind
with perfect clearness. At the bottom of all lay a sense of deep
disappointment and resentment. He doubted the justice of God, and blamed
himself but little for his miseries. It was a sad experience at first,
because he was falling day by day into more hopeless dejection; while he
refused the pathetic overtures of sympathy which the relations in whose
house he was--a married sister with her husband and children--offered
him. He bore himself with courtesy and consideration, but he was so much
worn with fatigue and despondency that he could not take any initiative.
But I became aware very gradually that he was learning the true worth
and proportion of things--and the months which passed so heavily for him
brought him perceptions of the value of which he was hardly aware. Let
me say that it was now that the incredible swiftness of time in the
spiritual region made itself felt for me. A month of his sufferings
passed to me, contemplating them, like an hour.
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