The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1912-04-11

long afterward. He said he accepted
the phenomena, but not the spiritual
lists explanation. He met once In
Rome, a priest who related that as
he arose one morning he saw a vision
of his father in coffin in his home
in Canada. While he was bordering
on the subject a cable message came
announcing the fathers death. At the
time Of the vision the father was not
! yet in his coffin, which shows that
while the actual scene is not transmit
| ted through the s,1bconsciousness the
| general idea Of it is. The explanation
of the modern psychologist is that
when the father was dying he was un-
conscious. His reason was not being
| used, but his subconscious faculties
did not suffer the same atrOphy. On
| the contrary at the moment of death
| they bacame more active. His subcOn-
scious ideas were naturally; colored by
| the idea OF approaching death and it
| Is this coloring that. conveyed to the
mind of the son the idea of g. coffin.
| Il must suggest here said the Mon
| sfgnor, that the same pieces OF evil
dence have a different bearing to diff
ferent People. The explanation Of
any phenomenon appeals differently to
different persons because they have
! different fundamental ways of looking
at things. AS for myself, believe
| in. a spiritual world close to this and
that communications pass from one to
the other. hear of spirits coming
convinced of the objective character Of
the spiritual world. =. II a man does
| not believe in this he is justified in
rejecting what believe in. We are
differently constituted. - 1t Is not a
question Of evidence, but a question
we hear ghost story we bring our
first principles and our creed to bear
on the facts as they are presented.
1--WE have the evidence of haunted
houses. - This Is not so convincing as
the evidence Of appearances at death.
nomenon altogether. I do not agree
with them. There must be something
back Of an idea Of such long stand
ing" ft~E
The speaker then gave an explana-
ton of the appearance Of the ghost Of
man who was murdered by his
brother many years ago in a house
in England. There at night. when
the moon is beaming into the room.
some have seen the ghost Of the muir
dered man standing in the circle OF
light on the floor. The theory of this
Is that the subconscious self affects
surrounding objects, just as some per-
sons impress one narvelously, not for
anything they do or say. but by their
very presence. In our daily lives GER
tain objects impress US because they
have been handled by some person
whom We love or Of whom we are
afraid In this case the two brothers
were at a high emotional pitch. Their
UNCONSCIOUS selves were giving off
Impressions and affecting the sur
rounding objects in the room. Now,
WREN some person particularly suscep-
tible 70 the Impressions stored up in
these pieces Of furniture comes into
that room, when the circumstances
are as they were at the time of the
murder, these objects give expression
to the impressions made upon them
and the sympathetic subconsciousness
Of the susceptible person enables him
to take up those Impressions and to
visualize the murdered man. With
this explanation Mgr Benson does not
agree, but he did not say what his
own theory of it was.
With spiritualism as 1t Is practised
generally Mgr. Benson has little sym
patty. He thinks that 1t is surround
ed by fraud, deception and hypocrisy
and that ninety-nine out of a hundred
cases of alleged appearances of the de-
parted are humbug. But of the one
case In that 100 he has a different idea.
He said that psychologists describe
medium as person with a much de-
veloped Subconscious self, but he
wanted to know why II these mediums
can bring some spirits back they cam
not bring all, and he referred to the
fact that while Cardinal Newman has
been brought back, according to some
mediums, and has given his blessing,
1t is noteworthy that his blessing was
given with an American accent. He
said further that these alleged appear
ances are discounted by the fact that
the usual medium is far from being
a high type. of man or woman.
He then related the experience OF
Sir william Crooks, who could not be
regarded otherwise than highly in hav-
ing with him daughter who had
died and even being able to feel her
as a semi-corporeal body. The mon
signor said he had a theory of his
own of q discarnate personality that
does return after death, but he declar-
ed this theory dangerous thing to
deal with and vouchsafed no fur her
explanation. His conclusion was that
the psychologist has discovered a part
of the personality that does not share
in mortal dissolution, that the facul-
ties pertaining to this part show an
unusual energy as death approaches
and that in this part of US is per-
feet memory by which we shall be
Judged and in which is found our char
acter.
DIR. E. r. L. Gould, president of the
league, introduced Father Cornelius
Clifford OF Whippany. N. j.. as the
chairman Of the meeting. The thea
tire was we'll filled. mostly by daies,
but the number of Roman Catholic
clergymen present was noticeable.
Prof. John Bates Clark of Columbia
University conveyed to Mgr: Benson
the thanks of the audience.