The Incarnate Purpose: Essays on the Spiritual Unity of LifePercival, G. H.
Religion
The Incarnate Purpose: Essays on the Spiritual Unity of Life
Percival, G. H.
Christianity; Spiritual life
Truth is infinite, as God is infinite, and
apprehension of this divine fact does not rest
upon evidential testimony. But comprehension
entails the evidence of reason, and is necessary
to the evolution of the human understanding.
Such evidence forms a link between mystery
and knowledge, and offers a means by which
the maturing intellect of man may obtain
a gradual conversion of mystery into knowledge.
Desire must precede fulfilment. May[37]
not the longing to penetrate ever further into
mysteries not as yet, by reason of our imperfections,
demonstrable to our intellects, be the
pioneer of the discovery of truths now unknown,
but which in the fulness of time will
be given as the spiritual inheritance of all
those who, being pure in heart, shall see God
in a light of revelation that has kept pace
through all ages with the evolution of mankind?
In such a manner does it seem that the
desire for proof of human immortality should
be considered.
It is difficult to conceive how, on the
physical plane of existence, evidence of the
survival of human individuality after death
could be obtained.
The results of modern psychical research
would seem to show that it is possible for the
spirit of a dead person to be temporarily
reinvested with a physical form other than its
own body, and to communicate by this means
with living persons. It is suggested that a
spirit can so control a living person as to direct[38]
itself through him as a medium for some
purpose not necessarily known to him. It is
further suggested that, presupposing the
survival of individual consciousness after death
to be a fact, a disembodied spirit might so
possess a living person with its influence as to
become virtually reincarnate. It is known in
ordinary life that the will of one person can so
influence the thoughts of another as practically
to annihilate his individuality, which, falling
more and more completely beneath this
dominating mental force, becomes finally a
mere passive instrument of another's will. Is
it not possible that this same domination of
one personality over another, so often noticed
in life, may be continued after death in an
even more intense degree, and thus provide
proof of the survival of individuality?
Unfortunately, although such hypotheses
have been supported by psychical evidence
and phenomena seemingly confirmative of their
truth, there has been as yet no positive
assurance that this so-called proof of survival[39]
of individual consciousness is not the result
of telepathy either deliberately or innocently
evoked from an extreme sensitiveness of the
medium to the mental suggestions of those
who desire to see the particular phenomena
that are subsequently produced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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