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

7I have discussed this incident with many people, and tried to spoil it; it is wise to do thisafter an apparent manifestation by invisible intelligence’s. But in this care everyone whoattempted to give a normal explanation asserted something which is more incredible than thespiritual hypotheses. To me there is only one rational explanation: Iola was in the room, andimpressed the psychic to pick out these two photographs and to present them to me as those of mywife. The portrait of Iola herself was not selected at first shot. Two were brought to me first; oneof those was a near relative, and considered by the family to resemble her.On this occasion I remained in America one month, and saw and heard quite enough toconvince me that those whom I had thought of as dead were very much alive. I returned toEngland in a frame of mind ready to receive the truths of spiritualism if I could find them in anyhonest quarter.I now made a mistake. I endeavoured to persuade others that this spiritism was no vaindelusion, but a hypothesis which had come to stay, and was not to be disregarded. I caused cardsto be sent o my friends for our private séances, and, after they took place, discussed the matter withthem. The men and women selected were people of good social standing, and intellectually abovethe average. There were Fellows of the Royal Society, soldiers and sailors who had distinguishedthemselves in their profession, engineers, country squires, and others whose common sense andcapacity were not to be disputed. I found they could not see as I did; could not hear as I heard.Their minds were unprepared. Some were considerably impressed at the moment, but the nextday thought themselves the victims of jugglery on the part of the medium or some confederate; theycould not, and did not, suspect that the rooms were prepared, or that I and my friends in the circlewere imposing upon them; but speaking generally their view was: “We are not experts in juggling,and we do not know what may be possible in that line; this is contrary to all human experience; wecannot believe it.” I remember, especially, one electrical engineer and one lady who could see orhear hardly anything. They were both hostile to the subject, and their eyes and ears were openonly to what their minds expected – which was nothing – or fraud.Since that time I have become convinced that all propagandism is useless. It is the duty ofthose who have the privilege of being shown the effects of the higher and more delicate forces ofnature to state in plain terms what they have seen; it is their duty to seek to make converts. Noman can give to another the understanding to assimilate facts new to ordinary human experience.Nor do I imagine that science will prove anything in either the mental or physical aspects ofspiritism. Mortals know of only three dimensions. They may suspect that, outside their ken, thereare beings operating in four or more, but all they see is the effect of these operations. The effects ofgravity have been reduced to law; but, so far, nothing is known of gravity itself. When it comes tothe passage of matter through matter, and others of the higher forces of spiritism that can only bewitnessed under favourable mental and atmospheric conditions, it is difficult to see how science canprove anything. Every man and woman must search individually for the truth. If all who havethe time to do this according to their opportunity, and communicate their experiences to theirfellow men, a body of irresistible testimony will be collected upon which faith can be reasonablyfounded.But to resume. By 1908 I had seen every phenomenon worth seeing in England. I had readevery book worth reading on the subject of spiritism, and a good deal of trash, including TheConfessions of a Medium, which bears internal evidence of being written by an anti-spiritualist, andwhich, though pure fiction, has been out forward as a true narrative. I knew that, owing to ourunfortunate climate, it was useless to pursue my inquiries further in this country; and I resolved toreturn to America to complete my study in December 1908. This time I determined to go inland,where I was wholly unknown; and I spent two and a half months I Rochester, N.Y.; Toledo Ohio;Detroit, Michigan; and Chicago, Illinois. The evidence I obtained in these cities convinced me thatI had been in direct communication with Iola, and with many relatives and friends through herinfluence, by the mediumship of professional and non-professional psychics. The phenomenaconsisted of automatic mirror-writing, materialisation, direct writings, pictures precipitated byinvisible intelligence’s, and the direct voice. The correlation of the evidence through differentpsychics who did not know one another, and in some cases had not even heard of one another, wasstriking, an – to me – conclusive of the genuineness of each; I left the United States with an