A Theory of the Mechanism of Survival: The Fourth Dimension and Its ApplicationsSmith, W. Whately (Walter Whately)
Philosophy
A Theory of the Mechanism of Survival: The Fourth Dimension and Its Applications
Smith, W. Whately (Walter Whately)
Fourth dimension; Parapsychology
If we accept these experiments at their face value they certainly
support the idea to which the phenomena of Exteriorisation of
Sensibility faintly pointed, namely that there may be some
exteriorisable _substance_ under the control of the Will.
There are other experiments which also point the same way. Consider
for example those of MacDougal who weighed a number of patients at
the moment of death and found in each case that this coincided with a
_sudden_ loss of weight of about threequarters of an ounce, more than
could be accounted for by loss from perspiration or from the emptying
of the lungs. He claims that "We have experimental proof that a
substance capable of being weighed does leave the body at death." It is
of course most important that these experiments should be confirmed by
independent investigators but there seems no reason to doubt the facts
as stated, although I cannot agree with MacDougal's view that what
leaves the body _is_ the "soul."
Dr. Baraduc, again, took photographs of his son and wife shortly after
death and found that in each case a luminous, cloudlike mass or masses
were visible over the bodies.
This case is of exceptional interest in that the observations were not
personal but were photographic records. Unless the case is inaccurately
reported it follows that there must have been some objective foundation
for the results, and it would also seem that, since the object
photographed affected the plate but was invisible to the eye, it must
not only have been material or quasi-material in nature but also have
emitted light of a frequency above the range of normal vision, _i.e._,
"ultra-violet" light. Here again there is great need for confirmation
but so far as it goes the evidence continues to point the same way.
Surely this concatenation of evidences from such different sources
cannot be purely fortuitous?
The foregoing are the most important and representative experiments on
these lines but the whole of the literature of Psychic Research abounds
with minor pointers which all indicate the same sort of thing.
Let us turn again to the work of Crawford, to which I have already
referred.
He started out to investigate the causes of telekinetic phenomena and
had at the outset no sort of notion of what the explanation was likely
to be and he found that his table is supported, during levitation
without contact, by a rigid structure.
This structure is invisible to the eye and is practically impalpable.
It appears to be composed of matter taken from the medium. The main
conclusion is, I think, inevitable, but for the experiments and
reasoning which have led to it the reader must consult Dr. Crawford's
book.
Again we have this same curious substance exteriorised from the body.
But there are two points in particular which bring it closely into line
with the phenomena which we have been considering.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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