Two problems in the script have engaged the serious attention
of critics. The first and simpler of the two is that which is
involved in the language and literary form of the messages. This is
a curious patchwork of Low Latin, Middle English of mixed periods,
and Modern English of varied style and diction. It is a mosaic of
multi-coloured fragments cemented together in a strangely random
fashion. This anomaly is the more remarkable from the contrast it
presents to the sustained and consistent burden of the script
itself, which, as though in obedience to some preordained intention
and settled plan, seems to proceed to the presentment, line by
line, of a completed whole, with absolute patience and indifference
to interruptions. Lapse of time seems of no account. After a break
of several hours, the thread is resumed at the point where it had
been dropped. The unfinished communications about the Loretto
Chapel in 1911 are picked up and spontaneously completed five years
later. Nevertheless, the queer patchwork of language is again
evident.
For this fact, the following explanation is
offered. It will easily be conceded that whatever the source or
inspiring influence of these messages, the language in which they
are conveyed is the mechanical side
of the matter, the most assuredly conventional element in the
process of transmission. But the obvious instruments are the brains
of F.B.B. and J.A. The reasoning and reflective faculties are at
the time in abeyance or are otherwise engaged,
[1] their attention being
entirely diverted: but the storehouse of memories and subconscious
impressions latent within are being used, and quite independently
used, though concurrently in point of time with the normal use of
the thinking faculties on a wholly different
subject.
Consider for a moment the human brain as the repository of
all impressions made on the mind from childhood upwards. Thus
viewed, it becomes, as it were, an encyclopedia of all knowledge
which the conscious mind has stored, each item recording an idea of
a certain quality, in such language as circumstances may at the
time have dictated. Suppose then—and it is not difficult to do
so—that each of these records is responsive to the impulse of an
Idea which is seeking expression, and whose instrument of
expression is some sort of sympathetic vibration attuned to the
original thought which recorded the particular memory or subject.
The sympathetic vibration lays hold of the denser or physical
particles of the record, causing them to respond and to emit their
own proper voice.
In other words, the language of the script would be simply
the product of the reaction of our brain-records to the sympathetic
vibration of Idea, from whatever source arising.
Not that such conditions are always necessary or possible.
There are, for example, many quite well-authenticated cases of
automatic writing in which not only the idea conveyed is outside
the consciousness of the writer, but the language itself is
entirely unknown to him, or to her, as the case may be. Take, for
example, the many recorded cases of automatic writing in languages
unknown to the medium, and sometimes requiring special scholarship
to appreciate. The explanation seems in this case to be that the
mind of the medium is plastic to a more direct spiritual influence
which can therefore mould its particles and create a new record for
itself. This must have been so in the Gift of Tongues at the
Pentecost, and later in the history of the Primitive
Church.
The second problem noted by critics is a more difficult
one. It concerns the intelligent source of the messages. As to
this, I have propounded the view of a Greater Memory transcending,
and interpenetrating our own. This theory is suggestive rather than
explanatory. It does not, and cannot, explain many things which in
our present state of knowledge are inexplicable. Neither does it
pretend to cover the whole ground. It is, as I say, merely
suggestive. Its virtue is that it excludes no other possible
agencies, hence leaving room not only for the exercise of
transcendental faculty, such as clairvoyance, but for any variety
of primary impulse, and for any
number or degree of directive agencies capable of employing
it.
For as we are obliged by our own experience to
acknowledge that our own latent memory is revived and brought out
in these scripts by some intelligence working apart from our
conscious minds; and to admit that telepathy between two is
involved: so we are also bound to allow the possible presence of a
further range of telepathic action working through our minds in the
production of these messages. And if we are prepared to agree on
the one hand that whereas the physical brain dissolves at death and
its action ceases, yet, on the other hand, that a more inward and
less material brain, the organ and vehicle of the subconscious or
intuitive self, still persists and survives entirely the death of
the physical body, and if we consider this more inward brain as
composed of finer particles, responsive to the far more rapid
movements of intuitive thought, then we shall have to allow that
the memory-record of any defunct personality, if capable of
response to the same stimulus of spiritual Will
and Idea which canactuate our own , can be drawn
upon in like manner by the energising Intelligence, and again, as
in our own case, without evoking the conscious
"spirit" or personality proper to it . This is
surely the meaning of Johannes when he says (p.
95):
"Why cling I to that which is not? It is I, and it is not I,
butt part of me which dwelleth in the past, and is bound to that
which my carnal soul loved and called 'home' these many years. Yet
I, Johannes, amm of many partes, and ye better part doeth other
things—Laus, laus Deo!—only that part which remembreth clingeth
like memory to what it seeth yet."
Thus it seems to me the problem of personality, in the sense
of the conscious personal presence of individuals deceased, need
not arise at all in connection with these writings. All that it
seems vital to assume is the union of the deeper strata of our own
latent mind or dream-consciousness with others of a kindred nature
and tone, by virtue of their sympathetic and accordant motion in
the presence of a greater and all-inclusive spiritual essence,
Idea, or Will, omnipresent and all-permeating, waking into activity
all dormant memory-records, and directing them into any channel of
mind which by previous preparation on the conscious plane has
become receptive and retentive of them.
Still small Voices from a distant Time!—thrilling through the
void and stirring faint resonances within the deeps of our own
being—the great Telepathy, the true Communion of Mind, the gate of
the Knowledge, the Gnosis of the apostle, whose key is Mental
Sympathy, the key that the lawyers took away, neither entering
themselves, nor suffering others to enter.
No discord can mar this communion, since love and
understanding are its law. Death cannot touch it: rather is he
Keeper of the Gate. Time, as we know it, here counts for naught,
for to the deeper dream-consciousness, a day may be as a thousand
years, and a period of trance or sleeping as one tick of the
clock.
By SIR WILLIAM BARRETT, F.R.S.
As some readers of this remarkable book have thought it too
incredible to be a record of fact, but rather deemed it a work of
imagination, it may be useful to add my testimony to that given in
the book as to the genuineness of the whole narrative.
The author has, I am sure, with scrupulous fidelity and care,
presented an accurate record of the scripts obtained through the
automatic writing of his friend, together with all the
archæological knowledge of the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey that was
accessible before the excavations were begun. In order to remove
any doubt on this point, before further excavations were made, Mr.
Bligh Bond has wisely asked representatives of certain societies to
examine the later scripts which refer to the Loretto Chapel, note
their contents, and see how far the further excavations may or may
not verify any of the statements made in the later
scripts.
From any point of view the present book is of great
interest. To the student of psychology, who ignores any supernormal
acquisition of knowledge and yet accepts the good faith of the
author, the problem presents many difficulties. Chance coincidence
may be suggested, but this does not carry us far. The question
therefore arises, where did the veridical or truth-telling
information given in some of these scripts come from? As is so
often the case in automatic writing a dramatic form is taken, and
messages purport to come from different deceased people. The
subconscious or subliminal self of the automatist, doubtless, is
the source of much contained in the scripts, and may possibly be
responsible for all the insight shown. But in that case we must
confer upon the subconsciousness of the automatist faculties
hitherto unrecognised by official science. The author has pointed
out, on p. 156, some of the powers the subconscious mind must be
assumed to possess; to these we may add a possible telepathic
transfer of information between the author and the automatist, and
also occasionally the faculty of
clairvoyance , or a transcendental
perceptive power; for, according to the investigations of the
author, some of the statements made in the script were unknown to
any living person, and not found in historical records, prior to
their verification in subsequent excavation. We must, however, be
on our guard against the too facile use of words such as
"telepathy" and "subliminal consciousness" as a cloak to our
ignorance. The history of physical science shows how progress has
often been retarded by the use of phrases to account for obscure
phenomena—words such as "Phlogiston," "Catalysis," etc., which
explained nothing, and now are ridiculed, but which were once used
by scientific authorities as unquestionable axioms. It is wiser to
acknowledge our ignorance and convey our thanks to the author and
his friend for the patient and laborious care with which they have
furnished valuable material for future psychological explanation.
Nor must we omit to recognise the courage shown by Mr. Bligh Bond
in the publication of a work which might possibly jeopardise the
high reputation he enjoys.
Grey among the meadows, solitary, bare
:
Thy walls dismantled, and thy rafters
low ,
Naked to every wind and chilly air
That steeps the neighbouring marsh, yet standest
thou ,
Great cloistral monument of other days
!
Though marked by all the storms that beat thee
through ,
A radiant Parable of heavenly ways
That scarce thy lordly builders guess'd or
knew !
Vanishing image of great service done
,
Smiling to God under the open sky
:
Even in thy translation, stone by stone
,
Keeping thy spirit-grace and symmetry
,
Through ruined clerestory and broken rood
Our chastened souls with tears ascend to
God .
A. M. Buckton: from Songs of
Joy
" Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are
zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that ye may excel to the edifying
of the church.
" Wherefore let him that speaketh in
an unknown tongue pray that he may
interpret.
" For if I pray in an unknown tongue,
my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is
unfruitful.
" What is it then? I will pray with
the spirit and I will pray with the understanding also.
"
I Cor. xiv. 12-15.