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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Life After Death (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 45. The Responses That Do Come
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The Responses That Do Come
Now these are the people, these three groups, who answer yes to our question. They say there is a response to this attempt to communicate. And let it be said here quite plainly and positively that there are responses. There can be no question of that.
But please note keenly, the character of these responses. Without exception they are vague, indefinite, insufficient, frequently childish. They are double meaninged; that is they can be turned this way, or this other opposite way. They sometimes are dovetailed with exquisite shrewdness into suggestions given or drawn out.
If indeed these responses were communications from our loved dead it would be rather disheartening. For judging from these, it would seem clear that those we loved have undergone a decided decadence in their mental powers. The commonsense with which they used to talk seems painfully missing.
Now, the intense, vital question is where do these undoubted responses come from? The spiritists or mediums say they come from the spirits of our dead talking with us. Certain psychologists, who specialize on the psychical side of things, say they come from within ourselves, from the workings of our subconscious minds.
After long careful, prayerful study I have reached the deliberate conclusion that there are five possible sources from which they may come, and only these five. These experts say they do come from our loved dead.
They may come from a subtle interplay of the inner working of two human minds, the mind of the enquirer and that of the professional. That would make it wholly mental. They may come through the cunning deception of the expert working on an overwrought emotional condition of the enquirer, or, dealing with undisciplined, untaught, credulous enquirers or observers.
They may come, are you listening quietly, for this is tremendous, yet I am saying it very deliterately, they may come from demons. Or, they may come through a subtle mixture of two or more of these, inextricably interwoven. I am quite clear that all these five things must be taken into account, and that they cover all the ground.
Our English friend, who lectured so widely in the United States, in response to the criticism that these responses are so unsatisfactory and childish, is reported to have replied in effect that the fact of a response established that there is communication with the one desired. It seems quite incredible that a man of his intelligence could have made such a reply. It is so utterly childish in its ignorance of the various possible sources of such phenomena.
Now, let me go one step further. I have come to a clear settled personal conviction about where these responses come from. This conviction has come slowly. It has come, not through ignoring any evidence, but weighing everything most carefully.
I have carefully read ghost stories and allied literature. I have talked, both here and in Great Britain and Continental Europe, with sensible people, who have had unusual experiences. I have tried to examine the Psychical Research Society, and similar, literature. And though I have never gone to a spiritistic seance, as a matter of principle and of deep conviction, yet I have talked with those who have.
And I have come to three deliberate conclusions. First, human spirits do not return to talk with us. There is never communication with them. Second, haunted houses, apparitions, and the like, can always be explained fully, either by the presence of demons, or by the working of our subtler mental processes, that is, by subjective impressions, hallucinations, and the like.
And third, the responses that come through spiritistic experts, are never messages from the dead. Some of them are from demons. And their purpose in this we shall see in a few moments. Some are the unconscious interplay of the subtler mental processes of the two in touch, the enquirer and the expert. And some are simply deliberate skilful deception by the spiritistic expert.
It is of intense interest to note the conditions - which these experts say are essential to getting what they call good results, namely, there must be a non-critical spirit. That really means with them a non-scrutinizing spirit. There should in-stead be a passive, acquiescent, sympathetic spirit. The more fully one can yield up all self-control over his faculties, and yield wholly to the influences of the expert, the better the results gotten, they say.