Kitabı oku: «The Law and the Word»

SOME PSYCHIC EXPERIENCES

The preceding chapter has introduced the reader to the general subject

of etheric vibration as one of the natural forces of the Universe, both

as the foundation of all matter and as the medium for the transmission

of energy to immense distances, and also as something continually

emanating from human beings. In the present chapter I shall consider it

more particularly in this last aspect, which, as included in our own

personality, very immediately concerns ourselves. I will commence with

an instance of the practical application of this fact. Some years ago I

was lunching at the house of Lady ---- in company of a well-known mental

healer whom I will call Mr. Y. and a well-known London physician whom I

will call Dr. W. Mr. Y. mentioned the case of a lady whose leg had been

amputated above the knee some years previously to her coming under his

care, yet she frequently felt pains in the (amputated) knee and lower

part of the left leg and foot. Dr. W. said this was to be attributed to

the nerves which convey to the brain the sensation of the extremities,

much as a telegraph line might be tapped in the middle, and Mr. Y.

agreed that this was perfectly true on the purely physical side. But he

went on to say, that accidentally putting his hand where the amputated

foot should have been he felt it there. Then it occurred to him that

since there was no material foot to be touched, it must be through the

medium of his own psychic body that the sensation of touch was conveyed

to him, and accordingly he asked the lady to imagine that she was making

various movements with the amputated limb, all of which he felt, and was

able to tell her what each movement was, which she said he did

correctly. Then, to carry the experiment further, he reversed the

process and with his hand moved the invisible leg and foot in various

ways, all of which the lady felt and described. He then determined to

treat the invisible leg as though it were a real one, and joined up the

circuit by taking her left foot in his right hand and her right foot

(the amputated one) in his left, with the result that she immediately

felt relief; and after successive treatments in this way was entirely

cured.

A well authenticated case like this opens up a good many interesting

questions regarding the Psychic Body, but the most important point

appears to me to be that we are able to experience sensation by means of

it. In this case, however, and those mentioned in the preceding chapter,

the physical body was actually present, and if we stopped at this point,

we might question whether its presence was not a _sine qua non_ for the

action of the etheric vibrations. I will therefore pass on to a class of

examples which show that very curious phenomena can take place without

the physical body being on the spot. There are numerous well verified

cases of the kind to be found in the records of the Society for

Psychical Research and in other books by trustworthy writers; but it may

perhaps interest the present reader to hear one or two instances of my

personal experience which, though they may not be so striking as some of

those recorded by others, still point in the same direction.

My first introduction to Scotland was when I delivered the course of

lectures in Edinburgh which led to the publication of my first book,

the "Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science." The following years I gave

a second course of lectures in Edinburgh, but the friends who had kindly

entertained me on the former occasion had in the meanwhile gone to live

elsewhere. However, a certain Mr. S., whose acquaintance I had made on

my previous visit, invited me to stay with him for a day or two while I

could look round for other accommodation, though, as it turned out, I

remained at his house during the whole month I was in Edinburgh. I had,

however, never seen his house, which was on the opposite side of the

town to where I had stayed before. I arrived there on a Tuesday, and Mr.

S. and his family at once met me with the question:

"What were you thinking of at ten o'clock on Sunday evening?"

I could not immediately recall this, and also wanted to know the reason

of their question.

"We have something curious to tell you," they replied, "but first try to

remember what you were thinking of at ten o'clock on Sunday

evening--were you thinking about us?"

Then I recollected that about that time I was saying my usual prayers

before going to bed and had asked that, if I could stay only a day or

two with Mr. S., I should be directed to a suitable place for the

remainder of the time.

"That explains it," they replied; and then they went on to tell me that

at the hour in question Mr. S. and his son, a young man of about twenty,

had entered their dining-room together and seen me standing leaning

against the mantel-shelf. They were both hard-headed Scotchmen engaged

in business in Edinburgh, and certainly not the sort of people to

conjure up fanciful imaginings, nor is it likely that the same fancy

should have occurred to both of them; and therefore I can only suppose

that they actually saw what they said they did. Now I myself was in

London at the time of this appearance in Edinburgh, of which I had no

consciousness whatever; at the same time the fact of my being seen in

Edinburgh exactly at the time when my thought, in prayer, was centred

upon Mr. S.'s house (which I had not then seen) is a coincidence

suggesting that in some way my Thought had made itself visible there in

the image of my external personality.

In this case, as I have said, I was not conscious of my psychic visit to

Edinburgh, but I will now relate a converse instance, which occurred in

connection with my first visit there. At that time I had never been in

Scotland, and so far as I knew was never likely to go there. I was wide

awake, writing in my study at Norwood, where I then lived, when I

suddenly found myself in a place totally unknown to me, where stood the

ruins of an ancient abbey, part of which, however, was still roofed over

and used as a place of worship. I felt much interested, and among other

things I noted a Latin inscription on a tablet in one of the walls.

There seemed to be an invisible guide showing me over the place, who

then pointed out a long low house opposite the abbey, and said: "This is

the house of the clergyman of the abbey"; and I was then taken inside

the house and shown a number of antique-looking rooms. Then I came to

myself, and found I was sitting at my writing-table in Norwood. I had,

however, a clear recollection of the place I had seen, but no idea where

it was, or indeed whether any such place really existed. I also

remembered a portion of the Latin inscription, which I at once wrote

down in a note-book, as my curiosity was aroused.

As I have said, I had no reason at that time to suppose I should ever

go to Scotland, but some weeks later I was invited to lecture in

Edinburgh. Another visitor in the house where I was a guest there, was

the wife of the County Court Judge of Cumberland, and I showed her and

our hostess the part of the Latin inscription I had retained, and

suggested that perhaps it might exist somewhere in Edinburgh. However

nothing answering to what I had seen was to be found, so we relegated

the whole thing to the region of unaccountable fancies, and thought no

more about it. The Judge's wife took her departure before me, and kindly

invited me to spend a few days at their residence near Carlisle on my

return journey, which I did. One day she drove me out to see Lanercost

Abbey, one of the show-places of the neighbourhood, and walking round

the building I found in one of the walls the Latin inscription in

question. I called Mrs. ----, who was a little way off, and said: "Look

at this inscription."

She at once replied: "Why! that is the very inscription we were all

puzzling over in Edinburgh!"

It turned out to be an inscription in memory of the founder of the

abbey, dating from somewhere in the eleven-hundreds. The whole place

answered exactly to what I had seen, and the long low parsonage was

there also.

"I should have liked you to see it inside," said Mrs. ----, "but I have

never met the vicar, though I know his mother-in-law, so we must give it

up."

We were just entering our carriage when the garden-gate opened, and who

should come out but the mother-in-law.

"Oh, Mrs. ----," she said, addressing the Judge's wife, "I am here on a

visit and you must come in and take tea." So we went in and were shown

over the house, much as I had been in my vision, and some portions were

so old that, among other rooms, we were shown the one occupied by King

Edward I on his march against Scotland in the year 1296, when the

Scottish regalia was captured, and the celebrated Crowning-Stone was

brought to England and placed in Westminster Abbey, where it has ever

since remained--a stone having an occult relation to the history of the

British and American peoples of the highest interest to both, but as

there is already an extensive literature on this subject I will not

enter upon it here.

I will now relate another curious experience. We had only recently

taken up our residence at Norwood, when one day I was seated in the

dining-room, but suddenly found myself in the hall, and saw two ladies

going up the stairs. They passed close to me, and turning round the

landing at the top of the stairs passed out of sight in a perfectly

natural manner. They looked as solid as any one I have ever seen in my

life. One of them was a stout lady with a rather florid complexion,

apparently between forty-five and fifty, wearing a silk blouse with thin

purple and white stripes. Leaning on her arm was a slightly-built old

lady with white ringlets, dressed all in black and wearing a lace

mantilla. I noticed their appearance particularly. The next moment I

found I was really sitting in the dining-room, and that the ladies I had

seen were nothing but visionary figures. I wondered what it could mean,

but as we had only recently taken the house, thought it better not to

mention it to any of my family, for fear of causing them alarm. But a

few days later I mentioned it to a Mrs. F. who I knew had had some

experience in such matters, and she said: "You have seen either some one

who has lived in the house or who is going to live there." Then the

matter dropped.

About a month later my wife arranged by correspondence for a certain

Miss B. to come as governess to our children. When she arrived there was

no mistaking her identity. She was the stout lady I had seen, and the

next morning she came down to breakfast dressed in the identical blouse

with purple and white stripes. There was no mistaking her, but I was

puzzled as to who the other figure could be whom I had seen along with

her. I resolved, however, to say nothing about the matter until we

became better acquainted, lest she should think that my mind was not

quite balanced. I therefore held my peace for six months, at the end of

which time I concluded that we knew enough of each other to allow one

another credit for being fairly level-headed. Then I thought, now if I

tell her what I saw she may perhaps be acted upon by suggestion and

imagine a resemblance between the unknown figure and some acquaintance

of hers, so I will not begin by telling her of the vision, but will

first ask if she knows any one answering to the description, and give

her the reason afterwards. I therefore took a suitable opportunity of

asking her if she knew any such person, describing the figure to her as

accurately as I could.

Her look of surprise grew as I went on, and when I had finished she

explained with astonishment: "Why, Mr. Troward, where _could_ you have

seen my mother? She is an invalid, and I am certain you have never seen

her, and yet you have described her most accurately."

Then I told her what I had seen. She asked what I thought was the

explanation of the appearance, and the only explanation I could give

was, that I supposed she was on the look-out for a post and paid us a

preliminary visit to see whether ours would suit her, and that, being

naturally interested in her welfare, her mother had accompanied her.

Perhaps you will say: "What came of it?" Well, nothing "came of it," nor

did anything "come" of my psychic visits to Edinburgh and Lanercost

Abbey. Such occurrences seem to be simple facts in Nature which, though

on some occasions connected with premonitions of more or less

importance, are by no means necessarily so. They are the functioning of

certain faculties which we all possess, but of the nature of which we as

yet know very little.

It will be noticed that in the first of these three cases I myself was

the person seen, though unaware of the fact. In the last I was the

percipient, but the persons seen by me were unconscious of their visit;

and in the second case I was conscious of my presence at a place which I

had never heard of, and which I visited some time after. In two of these

cases, therefore, the persons, making the psychic visit, were not aware

of having done so, while in the third, a memory of what had been seen

was retained. But all three cases have this in common, that the psychic

visit was not the result of an act of conscious volition, and also, that

the psychic action took place at a long distance from the physical body.

From these personal experiences, as well as from many well authenticated

cases recorded by other writers, I should be inclined to infer that the

psychic action is entirely independent of the physical body, and in

support of this view I will cite yet another experience.

It was about the year 1875, when I was a young Assistant Commissioner in

the Punjab, that I was ordered to the small up-country station of

Akalpur,[1] and took possession of the Assistant Commissioner's

bungalow there. On the night of our arrival in the bungalow, my wife and

I had our charpoys--light Indian bedsteads--placed side by side in a

certain room and went to bed. The last thing I remembered before falling

asleep, was seeing my wife sitting up in bed, reading with a lamp on a

small table beside her. Suddenly I was awakened by the sound of a shot,

and starting up, found the room in darkness. I immediately lit a candle

which was on a chair by my bedside, and found my wife still sitting up

with the book on her knee, but the lamp had gone out.

"Take me away, take me into another room," she exclaimed.

"Why, what is the matter?" I said.

"Did you not see it?" she replied.

"See what?" I asked.

"Don't stop to ask any questions," she replied; "get me out of this room

at once; I can't stop here another minute."

I saw she was very frightened, so I called up the servants, and had our

beds removed to a room on the other side of the house, and then she told

me what she had seen. She said: "I was sitting reading as you saw me,

when looking round, I saw the figure of an Englishman standing close by

my bedside, a fine-looking man with a large fair moustache and dressed

in a grey suit. I was so surprised that I could not speak, and we

remained looking at each other for about a minute. Then he bent over me

and whispered: 'Don't be afraid,' and with that there was the sound of a

shot, and everything was in darkness."

"My dear girl, you must have fallen asleep over your book and been

dreaming," I said.

"No, I was wide awake," she insisted; "you were asleep, but I was awake

all the time. But you heard the shot, did you not?"

"Yes," I replied, "that is what woke me--some one must have fired a shot

outside."

"But why should any one be shooting in our garden at nearly midnight?"

my wife objected.

It certain seemed strange, but it was the only explanation that

suggested itself; so we had to agree to differ, she being convinced that

she had seen a ghost, and that the shot had been inside the room, and I

being equally convinced that she had been dreaming, and that the shot

had been fired outside the house.

The next morning the owner of the bungalow, an old widow lady, Mrs. La

Chaire, called to make kindly enquiries as to whether she could be of

any service to us on our arrival. After thanking her, my wife said: "I

expect you will laugh at me, but I cannot help telling you there is

something strange about the bungalow"; and she then went on to narrate

what she had seen.

Instead of laughing the old lady looked more and more serious as she

went on, and when she had done asked to be shown exactly where the

apparition had appeared. My wife took her to the spot, and on being

shown it old Mrs. La Chaire exclaimed: "This is the most wonderful thing

I have ever heard of. Eighteen years ago my bed was on the very spot

where yours was last night, and I was lying in it too ill to move, when

my husband, whom you have described most accurately, stood where you saw

him and shot himself dead."

This statement of the widow convinced me that my wife had really seen

what she said she had, and had not dreamed it; and this experience has

led me to make further enquiries into the nature of happenings of this

kind, with the result, that after carefully eliminating all cases which

could be accounted for in any other manner, I have found myself

compelled to admit a considerable number of instances of what are

called "ghosts," on the word of persons whose veracity and soundness of

judgment I should not doubt on any other subject. It is often said that

you never meet any one who has himself seen a ghost, but only those who

have heard of somebody else seeing one. This I can entirely contradict,

for I have met with many trustworthy persons of both sexes, who have

given me accounts of such appearances having been actually witnessed by

themselves. In conclusion, I may mention that I was telling this story

some twenty years later to a Colonel Fox, who had known the unfortunate

man who committed suicide, and he said to me: "Do you know what were the

last words he said to his wife?"

"No," I replied.

"The very same words he spoke to your wife," said Colonel Fox.

This is the story I refer to in my book "Bible Mystery and Bible

Meaning" as that of "the Ghost that I did not see." I do not attempt to

offer any explanation of it, but merely give the facts as they occurred,

and the reader must form his own theory on the subject; but the reason I

bring in this story in the present connection is, that in this instance

there could be no question of the physical body contributing to the

psychic phenomenon, since the person seen had been dead for nearly

twenty years; and coupling this fact with the distance from the physical

body at which the psychic action took place in the other cases I have

mentioned, I think there is a very strong presumption that the psychic

powers can, and do, act independently of the physical body; though of

course it does not follow from this that they cannot also act in

conjunction with it.

On the other hand, a comparison of the present case with those

previously mentioned, fails to throw any light on the important question

whether the deceased feels any consciousness of the action which the

percipient sees, or whether what is seen is like a sort of photograph

impressed upon the atmosphere of a particular locality, and visible only

to certain persons, who are able to sense etheric wave-lengths which are

outside the range of the single octave forming the solar spectrum. It

throws no light on this question, because, in the case of my being seen

by Mr. S. in Edinburgh and that of Miss B. and her mother being seen by

me at Norwood, none of us were conscious of having been at those

places; while in the case of my psychic visit to Lanercost Abbey, and

other similar experiences I have had, I have been fully aware of seeing

the places in question. The evidence tells both ways, and I can

therefore only infer that there are two modes of psychic action, in one

of which the person projecting that action, whether voluntarily or

involuntarily, experiences corresponding sensations, and the other in

which he does not; but I am unable to offer any criterion by which the

observer can, with certainty, distinguish between the two.

It appears to me, that such instances as those I have mentioned, point

to ranges of etheric action beyond those ordinarily recognized by

physical science, but the principle seems to be the same, and it is for

this reason that I have taken the modern scientific theory of etheric

vibration as our starting-point. The universe is one great whole, and

the laws of one part cannot contradict those of another; therefore the

explanation of such queer happenings is not to be found by denying the

well-ascertained laws of Nature on the physical plane, but by

considering whether these laws do not extend further. It is on this

account that I would lay stress on the Mathematical side of things, and

have adduced instances where various discoveries have been made by

following up the sequence indicated by the laws already known, and which

have thus enabled us to fill up gaps in our knowledge, which would

otherwise stop, or at least seriously hinder, our further progress. It

is in this way that Jachin helps Boaz, and that the undeviating nature

of Law, so far from limiting us, becomes our faithful ally if we will

only allow it to do so.

I think, then, that the scientific idea of the ether, as a universal

medium pervading all space, and permeating all substance, will help us

to see that many things which are popularly called supernatural, are to

be attributed to the action of known laws working under, as yet, unknown

conditions, and therefore, when we are confronted with strange

phenomena, a knowledge of the general principles involved, will show us

in what direction to look for an explanation. Now applying this to the

present subject, we may reasonably argue, that since all physical matter

is scientifically proved to consist of the universal ether in various

degrees of condensation, there may be other degrees of condensation,

forming other modes of matter, which are beyond the scope of physical

vision and of our laboratory apparatus. And similarly, we may argue,

that just as various effects can be produced on the physical plane, by

the action of etheric waves of various lengths, so other effects might

be produced on these finer modes of matter, by etheric waves of other

lengths. And in this connection we must not forget that a gap occurs

between the "dark heat" groups and the Hertzian group, consisting of

five octaves of waves, the lengths of which have been theoretically

calculated, but whose action has not yet been discovered. Here we

admittedly have a wide field for the working of known laws under as yet

unknown conditions; and again, how can we say that there are not ranges

of unknown waves, yet smaller than the minute ultra-violet ones, which

commence the present known scale, or transcending those largest ones,

which bear our messages across the Atlantic? Mathematically, there is no

limit to the scale in either direction; and so, taking our stand on the

demonstrated facts of science, we find, that the known laws of Nature

point to their continuation in modes of matter and of force, of which we

have as yet no conception. It is therefore not at all necessary to

spurn the ground of established science to spread the wings of our

fancy; rather it affords us the requisite basis from which to start,

just as the aeronaut cannot rise without a solid surface from which to

spring.

Now if we realize that the ether is an infinitely subtle fluid,

pervading all space, we see that it must constitute a connecting link

between all modes of substance, whether visible or invisible, in all

worlds, and may therefore be called the Universal Medium; and following

up our conception of the Continuity of Law, we may suppose that trains

of waves, inconceivably smaller or greater than any known to modern

science, are set up in this medium, in the same way as the

electro-magnetic waves with which we are acquainted; that is, by an

impulse which generates them from some particular point. In the region

of finer forces we are now prospecting, this impulse might well be the

Desire or Will of the spiritual entity which we ourselves are--that

thinking, feeling, inmost essence of ourself, which is the "noumenon" of

our individuality, and which, for the sake of brevity we call our "Ego,"

a Latin word which simply means "I myself." This idea of spiritual

impulse is quite familiar to us in our every-day talk. We speak of an

impulsive person, meaning one who acts on a sudden thought without

giving due heed to consequences; so in our ordinary speech we look upon

thought as the initial impulse, only we restrict this to the case of

unregulated thought. But if unregulated thought acts as a centre of

impulse, why should not regulated thought do the same? Therefore we may

accept the idea of Thought as the initial impulse, which starts trains

of waves in the Universal Medium, whether with or without due

consideration, and having thus recognized its dynamic power, we must

learn to make the impulsions we thus send forth intelligent, well

defined, and directed to some useful purpose. The operator at some

wireless station does not use his instruments to send out a lot of

jumbled-up waves into the ether, but controls the impulsions into a

definite and intelligible order, and we must do the same.

On some such lines as these, then, we may picture the desire of the Ego

as starting a train of waves in the Universal Medium, which are

reproduced in corresponding _form_ on reaching their destination. As

with the electro-magnetic waves, they may spread all round, just as

ripples do if we throw a stone into a pond; but they will only take form

where there is a correspondence able to receive them. This is what in

the language of electrical engineers is called "Syntony," which means

being tuned to the same rate of vibration, and no doubt it is from some

such cause, that we sometimes experience what seem inexplicable feelings

of attraction or repulsion towards different persons. This also appears

to furnish a key to thought-transference, hypnotism, and other allied

phenomena.

If the reader questions whether thought is capable of generating

impulses in the etheric medium I would refer him to the experiment

mentioned in Chapter XIV of my "Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science,"

where I describe how, when operating with Dr. Baraduc's biometer, I

found that the needle revolved through a smaller or large arc of the