Occult, Psychic and Spiritual Realms - The Emma Hardinge Britten ...

HARTMANN'S WHO'S WHO llS
'S. C. Hall, F.S.A., a deep scientific student, writes, "The mockers and scoffers
at Spiritualistic phenomena, are almost exclusively those who have seen little or
nothing of it, know nothing about it, and will not investigate concerning it."
Among the great men of the present scientific field, who have made full and
careful study and investigation of this subject and have announced their convictions
and conclusions fearlessly and in amplified manner, may be mentioned, Dr. W. F.
Barrett, F.R.S., Dean of the Faculty of the Royal College of Sciences; Dr. James H.
Hyslop, for many years Professor of Psychology in Columbia University; Dr. Paul
Gibler, of the Pasteur Institute, N. Y.; Dr. Hallock of New York; Dr. F. L. Nichols,
F.A.S., author of "Esoteric Anthropology"; T. B. Barkas, F.G.S.; Dr. Adam Clarke,
and Camille Flammarion, the famous French astronomer.
Flammarion has very recently remarked, "SpirHualism is not a religion but a
science." In April, 1920, he wrote as follows: "May we not admit that the atmosphere
or ether, may contain a psychic element not yet generally discovered?"
At every instant a human spirit leaves a human body; 40·,000,000 times a year
this occurs; is it destroyed? Nothing proves that it is, while there is much to prove
that it is not annihilated or destroyed.
I have but mentioned a very few of the great scientists of the past ·or present
generation, who have investigated and committed themselves on this wonderful subject;
any complete list would be too tedious to listen to; if we go into the field of
philosophy we find many thousands of the greatest minds- of modern thought, who
do not hesitate to openly announce themselves as thoroughly convinced of the facts
of psychic phenomena in its most wonderful forms as so generally rejected by the
uninformed.
All are not fully agreed as t o the causes and the effects. Quite generally they
can be classified under these three hypotheses:
1. , These powers are the human intelligence, having powers and facilities which
we are not now aware of.
2. The phenomena is produced by angelic or demonic Beings who are powerful
and omniscient.
3. These are the dead, who yet live and know, and who are near to us and can
communicate with us.
The first class, comprises generally those who, for reasons not readily understood
by others, seem to find it impossible to admit of any spiritual life whatever;
they have seen the phenomena produced without fraud, or have been so informed
through others in whom they have implicit confidence, so that they believe the
phenomena do occur; they speak freely of Telepathy and the sub-conscious mind, but
are unable to give any real explanations; in fact telepathy as an explanation, explains
nothing; it is like saying "death is caused by disease"; the sub-conscious is indeed a
great mystery; there is certainly room for diligent research and knowledge to obtain,
from that source; the Spiritualists generally hold that it is the .spiritual soul itself,
functioning when the material body is wholly or partially asleep; they have not as
yet been able to satisfactorily demonstrate or prove this to those who are skeptical
of the existence of Spirit.
The second class, comprises largely those who are so well absorbed by their
conversion to certain religious concepts and theological education, as to not be
interested in the truly scientific consideration of the subject; the great Catholic
Church, the Seven Day Adventists, the Presbyterians and other sects have generally
taught that psychic phenomena, or what some others term spiritual intercourse, is
from the Devil or from evil spirits or demons or elementals; by elementals they
usually mean, undeveloped evil spirits which have not been human beings.
It might be fair to say that some of the deepest thinking and most advanced
thinkers of these sects mentioned and others, have taken and are taking a wider view
of this subject and giving it more extended consideration.
The third class, of course, comprises what might be called Spiritualists, though
many of them resent that application, knowing that their views and their knowledge
is much broader than that of most people who do not call themselves Spiritualists, or
than what the general public understands by the word or term Spiritualist.
Personally we have been deeply interested in this study for many years, having
become a member of the Society for Psychical Research in its earlier life; we have
had some interesting and to us astounding experiences, some of which, if related in
detail, would possibly cause some of our friends to question our integrity,