This Classic work is now copyright expired and therefore in the public domain.

Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research by Michael Sage

XI George Pelham's philosophy--The nature of the soul--The first moments after death--Life in the next world--George Pelham contradicts Stainton Moses--Space and time in the next world--How spirits see us--Means of communication.

page 5 of 7 | page 1 | Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research - home

So on this point the teaching of George Pelham differs from that of Stainton Moses. But, says Professor Newbold, for the most part they agree pretty well.

Now when we reach this other world it is certain that we shall at first be completely at a loss there, as all that we here regard as indispensable conditions of existence will there be lacking. Spirits say that they do not perceive matter which is for them as if non-existent, whereas here present-day science asserts that outside matter moved by force there is nothing. It would be strange if the science of to-morrow were to prove that matter is only a sort of temporary illusion of mind. Here we conceive nothing outside space and time, whereas spirits seem to have but confused notions of space and time. Such, in the first place, is the view which they constantly assert; and, in the next place, if they are asked, for example, how long it is since they died they are generally unable to say. In their communications again, they often relate as occurring in the present actions that have taken place long ago. I have said already that George Pelham has often been asked to go and see what certain absent persons are doing and to return and report it; he has generally been successful, but he has sometimes made the curious mistake of taking the past for the present. Here is an illustration. He is told to go and see what Mrs Howard, absent at the time, was doing; he returns and reports. Dr Hodgson writes to ask Mrs Howard what she was doing at the time of the sitting, and hears from her in reply that she did none of the things reported on the day of the sitting, but that she had done them all in the course of the afternoon and evening of the preceding day.[69] It seems likely that George Pelham had read the thoughts of Mrs Howard, and in his inability to appreciate time had taken the past for the present.

The same sort of thing seems to occur in the case of space. Phinuit, to oblige Professor Newbold, goes to find Stainton Moses. Phinuit says that he inhabits a great sphere, and that Stainton Moses lives in a very distant part of this sphere. But in spite of this he brings him back almost at once. When the medium is presented with objects likely to attract the so-called spirits with whom the sitters are anxious to communicate, these spirits for the most part arrive at once, no matter where they may have died; John Hart, who died at Naples, communicates two days afterwards at Boston. But it is hardly to be presumed that the spirits are there waiting for us. If their appearance can be hastened or delayed by sympathy or antipathy, on the other hand what we call distance seems not to disturb them in the least; and yet we are perpetually finding in the communications such phrases as, "Every day I am getting further from you," "Now I am very far away from you." But such phrases are probably not to be interpreted literally. The spirits go further from us as they make progress in the spiritual world and doubtless also as the things of this world occupy less and less place in their recollections.

The spirits see us but they do not see our bodies, since they do not perceive matter. They see the spirit within us but it appears to them more or less obscure, as long as it is within the body. "It is by the spiritual part of your being that I see you," says George Pelham, "that I am able to follow you and to tell you from time to time what you are doing."