Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Life After Death: 42. An Aftermath of the War

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Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Life After Death: 42. An Aftermath of the War



TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Life After Death (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 42. An Aftermath of the War

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An Aftermath of the War

And so it was quite the thing to be expected that there would be an intense revival of interest in the old questions about the. dead, and. especially about whether we can communicate with the dead. And it has come, with a rush.

The movement has swept these two English-speaking peoples like the wild-fire of the prairies that spreads and rages unchecked. Under various names, spiritualism, spiritism, psychic phenomena, occultism and so on, it is the old fire burning more intensely than ever, even in pulpits, as well as out of them.

There has suddenly sprung up unparalleled additions to the literature of the subject. In our own country decidedly more than a hundred new books have appeared since the Spring of 'Eighteen, with new titles being added every week. There are said to be nineteen periodicals devoted to spiritism as a cult, able to pay their own way. One book, from a British pen, is listed in the public libraries as among the five or six most in demand. One London society is said - to have a collection of three thousand volumes dealing directly with various phases of spiritism.

And the mechanical means provided to facilitate so-called communication with the dead have been in common demand and use to such an extent as to be used to point witticisms in the daily papers.

The more recent name for this contrivance is very suggestive, a "ouija" board. The name is a mongrel combination of two languages, "oui," French; "ja," German; that is, "yes yes." It will assent to anything you suggest, whatever your language, and give the comfortable feeling that you are right in your hopes and yearnings.

Two prominent men in England have become leaders in the movement. One of these has made quite a remarkable visit to the United States. An able scientist in the physicist realm, with a noble presence, fine use of cultured language, and skilful publicity, he has had great crowds wherever he has gone.

It is interesting that in a recent review of the opinion of more than a hundred leading American scientists, educators and specialists in psychology, the concensus was decidedly against his stand and teaching, judged wholly from the scientific, scholarly standpoint. It has been suggested that if he had employed the same puerile methods in the physicist realm he would never have emerged from the shades of obscurity.

Yet one can be sympathetic with him to a certain degree, personally, while utterly opposed to his teaching. For as great an emotional nature as his, unsteadied by moorings, could easily be swept aside by the great personal grief that came to him through the war.

The other of these two is a gifted writer of detective stories, chiefly, which have been read wherever English is read. It is not surprising that these two Englishmen have had such a wide hearing among the unthinking.

Yet in neither case do the special training and achievement which have made these men so well and favorably known, give special qualification for sifting evidence, or of being competent judges, on this present subject. Rather it would take a specialized mental discipline to break away from their accustomed work, and acquire competence of judgment in examining a. matter so utterly removed from their special studies.

But let us get to our question about communication with the dead. And it is most striking to note that this is one of the very oldest of questions. Its beginnings run far back into the mistiest past. This present wild-fire is not only not a new thing, but one of the oldest and grayest, its edges all frayed by the wear of time.

Communication with the dead, in some phase of it, is the main underpinning of nearly all the religions of the world, both civilized and savage. The two outstanding exceptions are Judaism and Christianity. Ancestor-worship, or the cult of the dead is the staple of most religions from early Egyptian through Greek, Roman, Phoenician, up to present day Chinese and Japanese.

It is associated most in our thought today with China. With them the spirit of the dead father or other kinsman is supposed to enter the ancestral tablet and to commune with his living kin. He is supposed to do more, he favors and helps and protects his living kinsfolk. For a slavish fear really underlies their ancestor-worship, though perhaps unconsciously.

In its higher forms this ancestor-worship is an abnormal, morbid extension of proper veneration for one's parents and elders. It becomes an improper exaggeration of a perfectly proper thing. It easily degenerates into its lower form of communication with spirits, that is, into necromancy, witchcraft, and the like. Veneration degenerates into slavish fear and dread.