"Doyle, Arthur Conan - The New Revelation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doyle Arthur Conan)

rules of science, but that it was really something
tremendous, a breaking down of the walls between two
worlds, a direct undeniable message from beyond, a call
of hope and of guidance to the human race at the time
of its deepest affliction. The objective side of it
ceased to interest for having made up one's mind that
it was true there was an end of the matter. The
religious side of it was clearly of infinitely greater
importance. The telephone bell is in itself a very
childish affair, but it may be the signal for a very
vital message. It seemed that all these phenomena,
large and small, had been the telephone bells
which, senseless in themselves, had signalled to the
human race: "Rouse yourselves! Stand by! Be at
attention! Here are signs for you. They will lead up
to the message which God wishes to send." It was the
message not the signs which really counted. A new
revelation seemed to be in the course of delivery to
the human race, though how far it was still in what may
be called the John-the-Baptist stage, and how far some
greater fulness and clearness might be expected
hereafter, was more than any man can say. My point is,
that the physical phenomena which have been proved up
to the hilt for all who care to examine the evidence,
are really of no account, and that their real value
consists in the fact that they support and give
objective reality to an immense body of knowledge which
must deeply modify our previous religious views, and
must, when properly understood and digested, make
religion a very real thing, no longer a matter of
faith, but a matter of actual experience and fact. It
is to this side of the question that I will now turn,
but I must add to my previous remarks about personal
experience that, since the War, I have had some
very exceptional opportunities of confirming all the
views which I had already formed as to the truth of the
general facts upon which my views are founded.

These opportunities came through the fact that a
lady who lived with us, a Miss L. S., developed the
power of automatic writing. Of all forms of
mediumship, this seems to me to be the one which should
be tested most rigidly, as it lends itself very easily
not so much to deception as to self-deception, which is
a more subtle and dangerous thing. Is the lady herself
writing, or is there, as she avers, a power that
controls her, even as the chronicler of the Jews in the
Bible averred that he was controlled? In the case of
L. S. there is no denying that some messages proved to
be not true--especially in the matter of time they were