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of these cavalrymen quite distinctly.
I did not say a word about it at first, but I watched them for about
twenty minutes. The other two officers had stopped talking.
At last one of them asked me if I saw anything in the fields. I then told
him what I had seen. The third officer then confessed that he, too, had
been watching these horsemen for the past twenty minutes.
So convinced were we that they were really cavalry that, at the next
halt, one of the officers took a party of men out to reconnoitre, and
found no one there. The night then grew darker, and we saw no more.
The same phenomenon was seen by many men in our column. Of course, we
were all dog-tired and overtaxed, but it is an extraordinary thing that
the same phenomenon should be witnessed by so many people.
I myself am absolutely convinced that I saw these horsemen; and I feel
sure that they did not exist only in my imagination. I do not attempt to
explain the mystery-I only state facts.
This evidence sounds good, and yet it must be admitted that in the stress
and tension of the great retreat men's minds were not in the best
condition to weigh evidence. On the other hand, it is at such times of
hardship that the psychic powers of man are usually most alive.
A profound aspect of the World War is involved in the consideration that
the war on earth is but one aspect of unseen battles on higher planes
where the powers of Good and Evil are engaged. The late Mr. A. P.
Sinnett, a prominent Theosophist, deals with this question in an article
entitled "Super-Physical Aspects of the War." *
* THE OCCULT REVIEW, December 1914, p. 346.
We cannot enter into the subject here, except to say that there are
evidences from many sources to indicate that what Mr. Sinnett speaks of
has a basis of fact.
A considerable number of books, and a very much larger number of
manuscripts, record the alleged experiences of those who passed over in
the war, which differ, of course, in no way from those who pass over at
any other time, but are rendered more dramatic by the historical
occasion. The greatest of these books is "Raymond." Sir Oliver Lodge is
so famous a scientist and so profound a thinker that his brave and frank
avowal produced a great impression upon the public. The book appeared
later in a condensed form, and it is likely to remain for many years a
classic of the subject. Other books of the same class, all of them
111
corroborative in their main details, are "The Case of Lester Coltman,"
"Claude's Book," "Rupert Lives," "Grenadier Rolf," "Private Dowding," and
others. All of them depict the sort of after-life existence which is
described in a subsequent chapter.
CHAPTER X
THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF SPIRITUALISM
Spiritualism is a system of thought and knowledge which can be reconciled
with any religion. The basic facts are the continuity of personality and
the power of communication after death. These two basic facts are of as
great importance to a Brahmin, a Mohammedan, or a Parsee as to a
Christian. Therefore Spiritualism makes a universal appeal. There is only
one school of thought to which it is absolutely irreconcilable: that is
the school of materialism, which holds the world in its grip at present
and is the root cause of all our misfortunes. Therefore the comprehension
and acceptance of Spiritualism are essential things for the salvation of
mankind, which is otherwise destined to descend lower and lower into a
purely utilitarian and selfish view of the universe. The typical
materialistic state was prewar Germany, but every other modern state is
of the same type if not of the same degree.
It may be asked, why should not the old religions be strong enough to
rescue the world from its spiritual degradation? The answer is that they
have all been tried and all have failed. The Churches which represent
them have themselves become to the last degree formal and worldly and
material. They have lost all contact with the living facts of the spirit,
and are content to refer everything back to ancient days, and to pay a
lip service and an external reverence to an outworn system which has been
so tangled up with incredible theologies that the honest mind is
nauseated at the thought of it. No class has shown itself so sceptical
and incredulous of modern Spiritual manifestations as those very clergy
who profess complete belief in similar occurrences in bygone ages, and
their utter refusal to accept them now is a measure of the sincerity of
their professions. Faith has been abused until it has become impossible
to many earnest minds, and there is a call for proof and for knowledge.
It is this which Spiritualism supplies. It founds our belief in life
after death and in the existence of invisible worlds, not upon ancient
tradition or upon vague intuitions, but upon proven facts, so that a
science of religion may be built up, and man given a sure pathway amid
the quagmire of the creeds.
When one asserts that Spiritualism may be reconciled with any religion,
one does not mean that all religions are of the same value, or that the
teaching of Spiritualism alone may not be better than Spiritualism mixed
with any other creed. Personally, the author thinks that Spiritualism
alone supplies all that man needs, but he has found many men of high soul
who have been unable to cast off the convictions of a lifetime, and yet [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
