Glimpses Of The Next State.Pdf - Spiritualists' National Union

I knew nothing, personally, of Mr. Hudson, but had read with keen interest two of hisbooks, The Law of Psychic Phenomena and another that I had erroneously recalled as Proofs ofimmortality ; this book I thought had been his last ; of his two subsequent works I knew nothing.Hudson’s views while in earth life were briefly these :——Man is such a wonderful animal and has within him such marvellous potentialities that hisego or individuality is bound to survive the change we call “Death”; the ego is certain to continue itsuncompleted experiences in another phase of consciousness. He has within him two distinctconsciousnesses ; one with which he carries on his practical daily life ; the other dormant, butinfallible as a record, registering every word he has seen or heard, every scene (however trifling) hehas passed through, every experience he has ever known. The former is capable of inductivereasoning, the latter only of deductive. The subjective mind may be tapped for the use of theconscious mind, but, as it is not capable of correct processes of reasoning, if allowed to get theupper hand, so to speak, the result is mental disorder.Communication with the denizens of the next state of consciousness is impossible. Whenman thinks he is dealing with invisible intelligence’s he is simply playing the fool with his subjectivemind, or soul, which presents him with reflections of his complete record and lures him on tobelieve that he is communing with his departed friends.Hudson was deeply committed to these theses. He took care to skate warily over thephysical phenomena of spiritualism. Very rightly, he attached the highest importance to themanifestations of Jesus Christ, and drew largely from the Gospel narratives to support his case. Ihave seen him alluded to by a loose writer as a “spiritualist.” He was nothing of the sort ; and hespoke in derision of those who professed to communicate with people who had passed away. Hecertainly believed in the facts of alleged spiritistic manifestations, and in immortality ; but hisreasons for faith in the latter was entirely different from these upon which spiritualists base theirconvictions.I had thought a great deal about Hudson, but not for a year, or I should not have made themistake I did about the name of one of his books. I confess that, at one time, I was much shakenby the doctrine he put forward. I had read all the arguments for the subjective, or, as Myer’s callsit, the “subliminal” mind, and believed in its existence ; it is only another name for the soul.Hudson’s theory was plausible and well presented ; but I soon recovered, and through thisconsideration ; the existence of a subjective mind, or subliminal, or soul, whatever we please to callthe register, may possibly account for some of my purely mental experiences ; but how can itaccount for telekinesis and other physical phenomena ? Will it account for the passage of a bellfrom one room into another which is locked ? Will it account for the sudden creation of thesimulacrum of a human body, sometimes almost as solid as life ; for the movement of heavy objects; for the levitation of a human body ; for the dematerialization of flowers, and for other physicalmanifestations, all of which were, to me, proved facts ? No! It came upon me suddenly that itwas for a purpose that physical phenomena accompanied the mental during the revival inRochester sixty years ago ; it was to anticipate this very argument now set forth in such attractiveguise by Hudson.The plain fact is, a sound belief in the existence of discarnate friends cannot be establishedby mental phenomena alone, because we do not know how far the messages we receive frompsychics in trance, or out of trance, are levened by their individuality. Such messages areextremely valuable, but they require to be backed up by exhibitions of force to convince us that aperson is present who can exert power independent of the medium and sitter. If I can have acharacteristic message to-day from one medium, and tomorrow I can see the friend who has passedover, materialised, when I am sitting with another medium, conviction comes ; but if I only have themessage, it is not so ; the information contained in it may have been got surreptitiously fromoutside, or possibly from me, though this latter contingency can only happen if the subject is one inmy upper consciousness—and very rarely then.When Mrs. Georgia came to the words “He will return,” I asked her to write with her lefthand, which she immediately did. I then asked Hudson : “What was the name of your book ?”57