VI.

What is wanted is that those who profess to disbelieve in the existence of life after death should honestly attempt to define the kind of evidence which they would consider convincing. I have narrated in this paper what seems to me conclusive evidence of the continuance of personality after death. All of these incidents occurred in my own personal experience. Their credibility to my readers depends upon their estimate of my veracity. These things actually occurred as I have written them down. Supposing that they had happened to you, my reader, could you refuse to admit that there is at least a prima facie case for a careful exhaustive scientific examination into the subject? What more evidence, what kind of evidence, under what conditions, is wanted, before conviction is established?

I ask no one hastily to accept anything on other people's testimony. It is true that all people are not mediums, any more than all telephones can take Mareoni messages I am fortunate in being my own medium, which eliminate one possible hypothesis. But there are plenty of honest mediums, some possibly in your own family if you cared to seek for them.

One last word. For the last fifteen years I have convinced by the pressure of a continually accumulation[unclear: .] mass of first-hand evidence of the truth of the [unclear: persists] of personality after death, and the possibility of [unclear: in] course with the departed. But I always said, "I [unclear: will] until someone in my own family has passed [unclear: beyond] grave before I finally declare my conviction on this subject.

Twelve months ago this month of December I saw [unclear: at] eldest son, whom I had trained in the fond hope that[unclear: ]] would be my successor, die at the early age of this [unclear: thire] three. The tie between us was of the closest. No [unclear: o] could deceive me by fabricated spurious messages from [unclear: at] beloved son.

Twelve months have now passed, in almost every week[unclear: ]] which I have been cheered and comforted by messages [unclear: from] my boy, who is nearer and dearer to me than ever [unclear: before] The preceding twelve months I had been much abroad. heard less frequently from him in that year than I has heard from him since he passed out of our sight. I have [unclear: not] taken his communications by my own hand. I knew hi so well that what I wrote might have been the [unclear: unconscious] echoes of converse in the past. He has communicated [unclear: with] me through the hands of two slight acquaintances, and [unclear: they] have been one and all as clearly stamped with the [unclear: impress] of his own character and mode of thought as any of [unclear: the] letters he wrote to me during his sojourn on earth.

After this I can doubt no more. For me the problem [unclear: is] solved, the truth is established, and I am glad to have [unclear: this] opportunity of testifying publicly to all the world [unclear: that] so far as I am concerned, doubt on this subject is [unclear: hence] fourth impossible.

page 55

The nest, with the remaining three eggs, was placed in the centre of the table about six feet from the medium, and he did not touch it again. Yet when we went to look at it at the close of the circle, we found, to our amazement, that there was only one egg left. The other two, apparently, had been dematerialised and spirited away to make the test complete. Objects brought have frequently been thus taken away, and sometimes, at Mr. Stanford's request, a bird, brought by him for the purpose, has been dematerialised and has vanished mysteriously, never to be seen again.

On another occasion Mr. Stanford informed Abdul that "there was a gentleman present who would like a bird." The reference was to myself. "Me not mean to bring bird to-night;" was the reply, "but me tell Selim." Selim, apparently, acquiesced in the request, for a few minutes later a lovely bird with yellow head and delicately marked brown body, was placed in the medium's hands as he sat in the chair and I had a good look at it. It was put in a cage by Mr. Stanford, when it at once began to hop about, and I also heard it chirp. That bird went to the aviary. It is there now, and I believe it cannot be named.

One of the most convincing apports, the arrival of which I witnessed, was a large mass of seaweed, dripping with seawater and permeated with sand. It was explained by Abdul that it had just been brought from the Semaphore, South Australia. I was very watchful again that night; it fell on the table at a distance of live feet from the medium and immediately it appeared the room was filled with a strong saline odour. It could not possibly have been brought into the room beforehand or we would have smelt it. Besides, the medium had been carefully searched and therefore an accomplice would have been necessary. This implies fraud, and as Professor Morselli declares, "only ignorant people" now entertain the fraudulent theory when the experiments are conducted under test conditions.

I remember being full of expectancy on another evening when we were told that an effort was to be made to materialise a hand. The light was lowered and a few minutes later a luminous cloud—such as described by Sir William Crookes when a materialisation was about to take place—was distinctly visible in the centre of the table five or six feet from the medium and three feet from where I sat on this particular occasion. The luminosity alternately increased and decreased in intensity, but nothing further resulted from the phenomenon, and it was subsequently explained by the controlling intelligence that the power was not sufficiently strong to enable the hand to become visible.

page 56

A cool breeze, such as referred to by Sir William Crookes and Professor Morselli, is often felt by the sitters, and sometimes it amounts to a decided current.