Modern spiritism; its science and religion - SpiritArchive.org

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MODERN SPIRITISM
"departed spirit" becomes very explicable if the
communications come from the unconscious mind
of medium and audience. It is, however, inconceivable
that the spirit of Napoleon, or Newton, or
other great men, can be paralyzed by the presence
of an unbeliever at a seance !
If the unconscious mind be denied, we must give
up spirit agency once for all, for in a trance the one
depends on the other in any case.
"The mind of man is one, but is dual in nature,"
conscious and unconscious (or objective and subjective,
as Hudson calls it). The unconscious mind'
is constantly controlled by suggested thoughts, and
is in easy telepathic connection with both, the conscious
and unconscious minds of others.
Difficulty
of Identification
Professor H. P. Jacks, LL.D., on June 28th, 1917,
in his Presidential Address to the S.P.R., raised some
important points with regard to the truth of communications
from one's departed friends. He pointed
out the main problem of Modern Spiritism is the
difficulty of identification. He also says: "To prove
. . .
identity you want as much resemblance as
possible" (to the one you knew). "But what
greater difference . . . could be conceived than
that between an embodied and a disembodied being ?
No two beings that I can think of could be more
unlike one another than myself in my body and
myself outside my body.
"What it may be to see without eyes, to speak
without a tongue,
,
move without limbs, I find
myself wholly unable to conceive. The difference