Modern spiritism; its science and religion - SpiritArchive.org

148 MODERN SPIRITISM
shortly after death the form of the dead person
(astral body?) appears to relatives and friends at a
distance.
It is stated scientifically, on what authority I
know not, with regard to this, that the production
of genuine apparitions (unconsciously and involuntarily)
resembling the person they profess
to represent
is a possibility within the range of psychic
power; in other words, that it can be projected
subjectively by the seer's own unconscious
mind. At best this is but a surmise, and we require
to advance a good way before it
as a fact.
Trend of Psychic Advance
will be established
Facts, however strange, have to be admitced on
sufficient evidence. How they are produced, and
all questions relating to cause and effect, and the
formation of hypotheses, must be most .tentatively
advanced and never used as dogmas. The present
trend of all psychic progress is doubtless to
show that countless facts which we were certain
were objective (i.e., produced by others) are one
and all subjective (i.e., produced unconsciously by
ourselves) .
The next case' is quite different and raises the
question of the pre-existence of the future. To our
minds it seems, when we consider it, equally difficult
to believe it does not pre-exist as to believe that it
does.
The wife of a clergyman at Folkestone was an
old patient of mine, a member of a well-known
English family, and one gifted with a certain amount