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The Soul and its Mechanism - Conclusion
Practical suggestions must be made in the attempt to disprove the supernatural (if it might be so expressed) and prove that the subjective states to which the mystic and seer testify are simply demonstrations of natural forces and powers. These powers man has failed as yet to recognize and control, just as he failed centuries ago to cognize those forces which he is now able, to some extent at least, to understand and use, and which are the glory of our present civilization. Let us prove one of these soul powers to be a fact in nature and the portals of a new world will open before humanity. Dr. Leary appreciates this when he says: [147] "It is somehow felt that there are some qualities, some traits at least of some personalities, which cannot be accounted for in terms of the activity of any physical structure. Nor is this an unimportant point which can be summarily dismissed as mere superstition; it is too widespread, too highly charged with emotion, too much shared in even by some psychologists to be ignored. And it is worth while once more mentioning, if there be any such traits, spiritual or what not, which by definition or assumption are not based on structure, the admission of even the smallest and seemingly most unimportant of these will inevitably and completely negative the whole field of science, for determinism to be true determinism must be completely so." - Leary, Daniel H., Ph.D., Modern Psychology: Normal and Abnormal, pp. 191, 192, First it should be possible to found a laboratory where the claims of the student of the Oriental philosophy in connection with the vitalizing soul can be substantiated or proved false. The phenomena of death can be studied from the angle of the withdrawal of the soul. The radiations from the human body have, of course, received attention, but specific investigation of the spine and its relation to the centers is as yet a new field of study, though Dr. Baraduc of the Sorbonne, Paris, did some interesting work in this connection forty-five years ago. His book, L'Ame Vitale, is suggestive, though conjectural, and his contentions need substantiating. The whole subject of the vital body and its effects on the nervous system and the glands open up an immense field for study; whilst the relationship [148] of the ether-body of man not only to his nerve apparatus but to the planetary etheric body or the ether in which he, as an organism, has his place, is yet an untouched field. Secondly it should be possible to gather testimony as to the fact and nature of the light in the head to which so many testify. The recent spectacular experiments into the nature of telepathy are tending in the right direction, but this technique of telepathy is as yet in its infancy; much will be revealed when a distinction is made between communication from mind to mind, which is mental telepathy, and that much rarer form of communication between soul and soul and between soul and brain. This latter form has been called inspiration and has brought into being the Scriptures and the so-called "inspired" writings of the world, and has guided the mental processes of the great inventors and scientists, poets and artists. Telepathy and inspiration are as dependent upon the individual human etheric body and its relation to the universal ether as is light itself or the radio. They bear witness to this subtler world of spirit and of soul. Pupin in the epilogue to The New Reformation says: "The creative power of the soul is the only guide in our attempts to decipher the meaning of this ultra-material substance. It furnishes the most reliable standard of comparing the soul of one man with the soul of another man and with that of lower animals. [149] This comparison, resembling, to some extent, the scientific methods of quantitative measurement, has been going on ever since civilization began. The procedure of this inquiry is in many ways equivalent to the scientific method of inquiry by observation, experiment and calculation; what it lacks in precision it makes up by its vast number of trials and errors extending over many centuries of qualitative measurements by careful comparison. It resulted in the universal verdict, that not only is the soul of man far superior to the animal soul, but that this difference is immeasurably greater than the difference in their bodily structures. The comparison revealed also an element in this difference which towers high above all the other differentiating elements; it is the spiritual element. The creative power of the human soul has created a new world in human consciousness; it is the spiritual world." - Pupin, Michael, The New Reformation, pp. 264, 265. Among other possible avenues of research is the carrying forward of the work of Dr. Kilner with the human aura, which he has embodied in his book, The Human Atmosphere. Still further lines of investigation into the supernormal powers have been well summed up for us in a recent statement from an Australian periodical called The Federal Independent, and from which two paragraphs are here quoted: "New light on Christ's walking on the waters was thrown recently by a scientist who has been making a special study of Einstein's newest theory of relativity. As a result of his investigations Professor H. H. Sheldon says that he may find it possible to assert that the Biblical narrative at which the skeptics have so long [150] mocked is a fact explicable by scientific laws. 'The miracle can be accepted by the most skeptical minds as soon as they recognize the fact that the basic laws of relativistic mechanics and of electricity can be reduced to one formula, and that the power of electro-magnetism can influence and completely control gravitation,' said Professor Sheldon. According to Einstein's latest mathematical theory there is only one substance and one universal law containing electric and gravitational components, both of which are united into a single formula, and each of which influences the other. Dr. Sheldon now believes that as a result of this discovery such things as keeping airplanes aloft without engines or material support, and stepping out of a window into the air without fear of falling, are avenues of investigation easily suggested. 'If this theory stands up as a proof that electricity and gravitation are virtually the same, we can actually isolate ourselves from the force of gravitation,' he declared. In actual proof of these seemingly incredible possibilities, Dr. Sheldon showed how a bar of permalloy, which is usually sensitive to magnetism, will remain suspended seemingly by air alone, if a magnet is placed underneath it. In the light of Einstein's new theory, therefore, it may be that Christ's freedom from the accepted laws of gravitation, which would have forced Him to sink as soon as His feet touched the surface of the sea, was due to a prodigious amount of electro-magnetism in His own body, and from a force springing from the strength of His personality and vitality. In all the paintings of Christ He is shown with a halo about His head. Once this halo was regarded as the product of His disciples' overwrought imaginations. But during the last few years science, along with many students of psychic phenomena, has shown by means of actual experiments that every human being has an aura which [151] strongly resembles that refulgence emanating from any powerful electric machine. Such a statement is a further proof that science is rapidly crossing the borderline separating things material from things spiritual. Once we realize that the knowledge of higher laws can overcome the resistance of lower laws, then we shall enter our true spiritual heritage."
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