PREFACE
MOST of the
material in this book is new. Two chapters and a
part of a third are
reproductions of previously published matter,
and they are incorporated
because they are so relevant to the main
object of the work. But the rest of
it has been suggested by the
need of discussing some problems which are
sequels of the
scientific collection of facts with which psychic research has
so
long occupied itself in the effort to ascertain whether man
survived
bodily death or not. I have not taken the pains in this work
to
quote the facts which tend to prove such a claim. The material is
too
plentiful and voluminous, as well as complex, to take the space
for it. The
publications of the various Societies for Psychical
Research supply the
evidence in such quantity and quality that it
would require a volume by
itself to quote and explain its import. I
assume here sufficient intelligence
on the part of most people who
have done critical reading to see the cogency
of it and to accept the
proof of survival in it, though there are associated
problems not so
well secured against difficulty. The trouble with most people
is
that, in estimating the evidence, they take with them
certain
preconceived ideas of what a spirit is and so adjudge the
evidence
accordingly,
The scientific man, however, assumes nothing about a
spirit
except that it is a stream of consciousness existing apart from
the
physical body. How it may exist, he does not inquire, until he
is
convinced that there is evidence of the fact of it, and then a
large
number of associated problems arise. I have under
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