CHAPTER IX

GHOST-LAND AND ITS CITIZENS


About twenty years ago a writing medium, a sober professional man whose
character would not be questioned, showed me a pile of his automatic
"script." He sincerely believed that he had for several years been in
communication with the dead. I glanced over many sheets of platitude and
familiar moralizing, and then asked him to tell me how they described
the new world in which the dead lived. He hesitated, and tried to
convince me that this point, which seemed to me the most interesting of
all, was unimportant. When I pressed, he said that it was a world so
different from ours that the spirits could hardly convey a coherent
description of it in our language. They had to be content with such
vague phrases as that they "lived in houses of flowers."

That was the state of the "new revelation" twenty years ago. Long before
that whole volumes of quite precise description of ghost-land had been
written, but it was discredited. Andrew Jackson Davis had invented the
name "Summerland," which Sir A. C. Doyle adopts to-day; but Davis's
wonderful gospel had turned out to be a farrago of wild speculation,
founded on an imperfect grasp of a crude, early stage of science. Then
Stainton Moses and hundreds of other automatic writers had given us
knowledge about the next world. A common feature of these early
descriptions was that the dead lived in a quasi-material universe round
about the earth and could visit the various planets and the sun at any
time. In that case, of course, they could give most valuable assistance
to our astronomers, and they were quite willing. Some said that there
were living beings on the sun. As a matter of fact, one of our early
astronomers had conjectured that there might be a cool, dark surface
below the shining clouds which give out the light of the sun, and this
"spirit" was following his lead. We know to-day that no part of the sun
falls below a temperature of 7,000° C. Others described life on Jupiter
and Saturn, and we now know that they are red-hot. Another medium, Helen
Smith, attracted to herself a most romantic interest for years because
she was controlled by the spirit of a late inhabitant of the planet
Mars, and we learned a marvellous amount of weird detail about life on
Mars.

The thing was so obviously overdone, and Spiritualism was so generally
discredited in the eighties on account of the very numerous exposures of
mediums, that for a time revelations were less frequent. People fell
back very largely on the older belief, that the dead are "pure spirits,"
living in an environment that cannot be described in our language, which
is material. This, in point of fact, is a hollow and insincere pretext.
Philosophers have been accustomed for two thousand years to describe the
life of the spirit, and have provided a vocabulary for any who are
interested in it. The truth is that ideas were changing, and mediums
were not at all sure what it was safe to say.

Towards the close of the century there was some revival of Spiritualism,
and there were fresh attempts to describe the beautiful world beyond the
grave. Mediums were then in the "houses of flowers" stage. It sounded
very pretty, but you must not take it literally. With the advance of the
new century, mediums recovered all their confidence. It was at the
beginning of the present century that physicists began to discover that
matter was composed of electrons, and "ether" was the most discussed
subject in the whole scientific press. Here was a grand opportunity. A
world of ether would not be so crudely Materialistic as the earlier
post-mortem world of the mediums. Yet it might be moulded by the
imagination into a more or less material shape. It must be frankly
admitted that the "pure spirit" idea is not attractive. Those who yearn
to meet again the people they had known and loved are a little chilled
at the prospect of finding only what seems to be an abstraction, a mere
mathematical point, a thing paler and less tangible than a streak of
mist. Ether was therefore gladly seized as a good compromise. Ghost-land
was in the ether of space.

There had been, it is true, earlier references in Spiritualist
revelations to "ether bodies," but it is chiefly since the series of
discoveries in science to which radium led that the modern Spiritualist
idea has been evolved. As usual, the spiritual revelations follow in the
rear of advancing science. But in this case the automatic writers had a
great advantage. They need only follow the lead of Sir Oliver Lodge,
who, however curious his ideas of physiology may be, is certainly an
authority on ether. He began by hinting mysteriously that he saw "a
spiritual significance" in ether. Following up that clue, the automatic
writers have worked so industriously that we now know the "Summerland"
more thoroughly than we know Central Africa or Thibet.

Buoyed up by the growing sentiment of agreement, as proved by the very
profitable sales of his works, Sir Oliver Lodge, in _Raymond_, gave the
world a vast amount of detail about the land beyond the grave. He did
not guarantee it, it is true. That is not his way. But he assured the
public that his mediums were undoubtedly "in touch" with his dead son,
and the Spiritualist public must be pardoned if they understood that all
the marvellous matter put out in the name of Raymond was to be taken
seriously. The message was really ingenious. Raymond was, unhappily, not
merely unable to give "direct voice" communications, as Sir A. C.
Doyle's son is believed to have done, but he could not even directly
communicate through Mrs. Leonard, the medium. He used as an
intermediary the spirit of a child named "Feda"; and, of course, when
one has to use a child--and such an irresponsible, lisping, foolish
little child as "Feda"--as intermediary, you must not press the message
literally in every part. The method had the advantage of pleasing
Spiritualists, who found a complete confirmation of all their
speculations about ghost-land, and at the same time disarming critics,
because Raymond was not really responsible.

Many people did not fully realize this when they bore down heavily and
contemptuously on the description of the next world which is given in
_Raymond_. The deceased young officer had a "nice doggie," which he
brought along with him when he strolled to the medium's shop to send a
message to his distinguished father. Presently the medium added a "cat,"
though she said nothing about a cats'-meat man. Raymond had also what I
believe young officers call "a bird"--a young lady acquaintance on
spiritual terms. There were cows in the spirit meadows and flowers in
the gardens. Our "damaged flowers," we are told, pass over to the other
side and raise their heads once more gloriously. Why they flower if
there are no bees, whether they have chlorophyll circulating in their
leaves, whether the soil is sandy or clayey, etc., we are not told. The
information comes in chance clots, as if Raymond were too busy with
ethereal billiards to study the natural history of ghostland very
closely. We are told to picture Raymond in a real suit of clothes. He
was offered the orthodox white sheet, which every right-minded spirit
wears; but he had a British young man's repugnance to that sort of
thing. So in the laboratories on the other side they made Raymond an
ordinary suit, out of "damaged worsted" which we earthly wastrels had no
use for. For other young officers, with less refined tastes, they
manufactured whisky-and-soda and cigars. "Don't think I'm stretching
it," Raymond observed to his father, through "Feda" and Mrs. Leonard.
The father does not say what he thought.

Now, it is, as I said, quite wrong for Spiritualists to plant all this
upon the authority of Sir Oliver Lodge. Does he not warn us in a
footnote that he has "not yet traced the source of all this supposed
information"? It would not take most of us long to do so, but the remark
at least leaves open a way of retreat for Sir Oliver Lodge. On the other
hand, we must not blame Spiritualists too severely. He assures them that
this lady, Mrs. Leonard, is in undoubted communication with his dead
son, and one may question whether he is entitled to take one part of the
lady's message as genuine and leave other parts open. At all events,
this puerile and bewildering nonsense was put before the world in an
expensive book by Sir Oliver Lodge, with his personal assurance that
Mrs. Leonard was a genuine medium.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle next gathered details from scores of revelations
of this kind--they fell upon us like leaves in Vallombrosa after Sir
Oliver Lodge's bold lead--and built them into a consistent picture of
"Summerland." It is an ether world. Each of us has a duplicate of his
body in ether. This is quite in harmony with science, he says, because
some one has discovered that "bound" ether--that is to say, ether
enclosed in a material body--is different from the free ether of space.
From this slight difference Sir A. C. Doyle concludes that there is a
portion of ether shaped exactly like my body; then, by a still more
heroic leap of the imagination, he gathers that this special ether has
not merely the contour of my body, but duplicates all its internal
organs and minute parts; and lastly--this is a really prodigious
leap--he supposes that this ether duplicate will remain when the body
dissolves. On that theory, naturally, every flower and tree and rock
that ever existed, every house or ship that was ever built, every oyster
or chicken that was ever swallowed, has left an ether duplicate
somewhere.

Well, when you die, your ethereal body remains, and is animated by your
soul just as the body of flesh was. A death-bed is, on the new view, a
most remarkable scene. Men and women weep round the ghastly expiring
frame, but all round them are invisible (ether) beings smiling and
joyful. When the last breath leaves the prostrate body, you stand erect
in your ethereal frame, and your ethereal friends gather round and wring
your ethereal hand. Congratulations over, one radiant spirit takes you
by the hand and leads you through the solid wall and out into the
beyond. Presumably he is in a hurry to fit you with one of the "damaged
worsted" suits. Sir Arthur stresses the fact that they have the same
sense of modesty as we.

The next step is rather vague. One gathers that the reborn man is dazed,
and he goes to sleep for weeks or months. Sleep is generally understood
to be a natural process by which nerve and muscle, which have become
loaded with chemical refuse, are relieved of this by the blood. What it
means in ghostland we have not the least idea. But why puzzle over
details where all is a challenge to common human reason? You awaken
presently in Summerland and get your bearings. This is so much like the
paradise described by Mr. Vale Owen that we will put ourselves under the
guidance of that gentleman. I would merely note here a little
inconsistency in the gospel according to St. Conan.

One of the now discovered charms of Summerland is that the young rapidly
reach maturity, and the old go back to maturity. The ether-duplicate of
the stillborn child continues to grow--we would give much for a treatise
from Professor Huxley (in his new incarnation) on this process of growth
without mitosis and metabolism--and the ether-duplicate of the shrunken
old lady of eighty smoothes out its wrinkles, straightens its back, and
recovers its fine contour of adipose tissue. But here a difficulty
occurred to Sir A. C. Doyle. In his lectures all over the kingdom he has
had to outbid the preacher. _I_ promise you, he told bereaved mothers,
that you shall see again just the blue-eyed, golden-haired child that
you lost. He even says this in his book. With all goodwill, we cannot
let him have it both ways. If children rapidly mature, mothers will not
see the golden-haired child again.

At the risk of seeming meticulous, I would point out another aspect of
the revelation on which more information is desirable. Golden hair
implies a certain chemical combination which is well known to the
physiologist. Blue eyes mean a certain degree of thinness of pigment on
the front curtains of the eye. Now, ether has no chemical elements. It
is precisely the subtle substance of the universe which is not yet
moulded into chemical elements. Are we to take it that Summerland is
really a material universe, not an ether world?

As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has glowingly praised the revelations which
have come through the Rev. Mr. Vale Owen, I turn to these for closer
guidance, and I find that my suspicion is correct. The next world is a
material world. Whether it has a different sun from ours is not stated,
but it is a world of wonderful colour. Flowers of the most gorgeous
description live in it perpetually. Whether they ever grew up or will
ever decay, whether they have roots in soil and need water, the prophet
has not yet told us. But the world is lovely with masses of flowers.
People also dress like the flowers. They have beautifully coloured robes
and gems (none of your "damaged worsted" for Mr. Vale Owen). In other
words, light, never-fading light, is the grand feature of the next
world. Since ether does not reflect light, it is obviously a material
universe.

Music is the second grand element. Perhaps Mr. Owen would dispute this,
and say that preaching is the outstanding feature. Certainly, everybody
he describes preaches so constantly and so dully that many people will
not like the prospect. Let us take it, rather, that music is the second
great feature. They have great factories for musical instruments which
make a mockery of Brinsmeads. The bands go up high towers and produce
effects which no earthly musician ever dreamed of producing. It follows,
of course, that the ghosts not only tread a solid soil, in which flowers
grow, on which they build towers and mansions, but a very considerable
atmosphere floats above the soil. Mr. Vale Owen, in fact, introduces
streams and sheets of water; lovely lakes and rivers for the good ghosts
and "stagnant pools" in the slums of ghostland. We will not press this.
Mr. Owen forgot for a moment that it _never rains_ in Summerland. But
the atmosphere is an essential part of the revelation, as without it
there will certainly be no music or flying birds. And an atmosphere
means a very solid material world. Our moon, which weighs millions of
billions of tons, is too light to possess an atmosphere and water.
Consequently, there must be thousands of miles of solid rock and metal
underfoot in ghostland.

It follows further that, since ghostland is very spacious, and since at
least a billion humans (to say nothing of animals) have quitted this
earth since the ape men first wandered over it, this other material
universe must be very extensive. If all the inhabited planets in the
universe have their Summerlands, or all pour their dead into one vast
Summerland, one begins to see that modern science is a ridiculous
illusion. We should not see the sun, to say nothing of stars a thousand
billion miles away, or even remoter nebulæ. As to astronomical
calculations of mass and gravitation....

I can sustain the comedy no longer. These "revelations" are the most
childish twaddle that has been put before our race since the Middle
Ages. They are the meanderings of imaginations on a level with that of a
fifteen-year-old school-girl. One really begins to wonder if our
generation is _not_ in a state of senile decay, when tens of thousands
of us acclaim this sort of thing as an outcome of superhuman
intelligence. It is on a level with the "happy hunting grounds" of the
Amerind. It is a dreamy parson's idea of the kind of world he would
like to retire to, and continue to "do good" without getting tired. It
is a flimsy, irresponsible, juvenile thing of paint and tinsel and
gold-foil: the kind of transformation-scene in which we revelled, at the
Christmas pantomime, when we were young. Our generation needs guidance
if ever any generation of men did. Another great war would wreck the
planet. The social soil heaves with underground movements. The stars are
hidden from view. And people come before us with this kind of insipid
puerility, and tell us it is "the greatest message ever offered to man."

Seriously, what it is can be told in few words. It is partly a fresh
attempt to bring our generation back to religion. It is partly an
attempt to divert working people from the politics and economics of
_this_ world. And it is partly a fresh outbreak of the unlimited
credulity which every epidemic of Spiritualism has developed since 1848.
There was such a phase in the fifties of the nineteenth century, when
Spiritualism swept over the world. There was a second such phase in the
seventies, when materializations began. This was checked by exposures
everywhere in the early eighties, and not until our time has
Spiritualism partly recovered. Now the vast and lamentable emotional
disturbance of the War has given it a fresh opportunity, and for a time
the flame of credulity has soared up again.

To come back to the question which forms the title of this book, the
reader may supply the answer, but I will venture to offer him a few
summary reflections. We do well to distinguish two classes of phenomena.
Broadly, but by no means exactly, this is the distinction between
psychical and physical phenomena. Messages on slates or paper from the
spirit-world I would class with the physical phenomena. We have seen
that they reek with fraud, and there is no serious claim that any of
them are genuine.

The nearest we can get to a useful division is to set on one side a
small class of mediums of high character who claim that, in trance and
script, they are spirit-controlled.

Spiritualism is not based on these things. The thousands of enthusiastic
Spiritualists of Great Britain and America know nothing about the "Ear
of Dionysius" and the "cross-correspondences" of the Psychical
Researchers. Their faith is solidly based on physical phenomena. They
are taught by their leaders to base it on physical phenomena. Sir A. C.
Doyle and Sir W. Barrett urge the levitations and other miracles of D.