The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1919-11-09
THE TWENTIETH PLANE"

/ JSGNNbt StiNC OhAy 70 Cei9t AhiO RACaSeNti'
relief the delicate, tender love story
that gives to the novel its true charm
THE TWENTIETH PLANE"
| "a Psychic Revelation. BY Albert Dur
rant Watson. George w, Jacobs com
pany, publishers, Philadelphia.
/ The revela lions contained in "Tht
! Twentieth Plane" by Albert Durrant
| Watson, are the most convincing and
valuable of any among the remarkable
psychological experiences of the last
/ few years.
There is sound substance and good
| phrasing in the messages, whoever the
author may be. The medium used, Louis
| Benjamin, is not considered capable OF
such thought or such language, and
DIR. Albert Durrant Watson of Toronto
Canada, under whose supervision the
sittings were held, is beyond suspicion
DIR. Watson is fellow of the Royal
| Astronomical Society of Canada, and
president of the Association of Psychi
! cal Research of Canada.
| The book claims nothing-attempts
to prove nothing-merely recounts
what took place, and deserves the at
tention of that vast body of readers
who in the last few months have shown
such interest in the possibility of COM
municating with the dead.
| Is the answer merely mental telepa-
thy or is this one more piece of evil
dence that the world is really on the
brink of intercourse with outside in
telligence?
The Reviewer of the New York Sun
says of THE Twentieth Plane:
Life on the Twentieth Plane" seems
10 be just one darned chautaudua after
another. That is the one clear impress
sion that remains after reading the
confusing tumble of communications
received via Ouija board and other well
beaten paths of interastral transporta-
, ton and set down by Albert Durrant
Watson of Toronto in bulky volume
called The Twentieth Name That isn't
the highest plane-thank goodness
There are references by various late la
mented individuals to the twenty fifth
plane, in which things are said to be
similar though rather more so. There
is, then, at least some slight ground for
hope that at some stage in the life after
death it will not be compulsory to sit
under pink sky in an astral Morris
chair, absorbing synthetic beef extract
and listening to disquisitins by Ebert
Hubbard. That, one gathers, is the way
in which many, if not all. of the dwell
ers in the Twentieth Plane spend their
time.
at was a curiously mixed company
that gathered in Cor on) the Twentieth
Plane to send communications to DR..
Watson through Louis Benjamin Lin
coin, Wordsworth, Shelley, Poe, Coler-
idge, Whitman, Taine, Hugo, Voltaire,
George Eliot, Shakespeare-one could
, almost fill out the list from the backs
of any five-foot shelf of the world s
l. st literature. This and the statement
| that the denzens of the Twentieth
Plane spend their time in mental inn
provement help to create the chau-
/ tauqua atmosphere with which the
whole revelation is surrounded. Rob
ert G. Ingersoll is president of col
lege in the Twentieth Plane. In the
faculty are Emerson, Carlyle and Lin
coin. Did we not have the authors as
surance that both he himself and Mr.
Benjamin, the medium. (called The In
strument in the book, are above sus-
picion, it would be natural to suspect
some of those concerned with having
delved deeply in the curricula of some
! of our worthiest correspondence uni
versities
1.-THE Communications" themselves
are the same sort of deliberately plati-
| tudinous and obvious tommyrot one al
ways gets from spirits. Why doesn't
some one invent a Ouija board that will
permit the spirits to say something
original? The present crude contriv-
ance seems designed to strain out every
| new or interesting II "o1ie
/ be a tremendous relief to pick up 9
| book of spirit world communica lions
| and find something that hasn't already
| been said in this mundane plane by the
good DR.. Marden, or Elizabeth Towne
| or Mrs. Eddy To be sure, the deadly
chautauqua atmosphere of the TWEEN
| tieth Plane must sooner or later reduce
the mental processes of the dwellers
therein to sort of platitudinous mush
III VIZ rpallV getting the
best they have to offer. They are all
so self satisfied one strongly suspects
this is the case.
One wonders, too, why the only spirits
we hear from are those folk we al
ready know all about. The merit of
Patience Worth lay as much in the fact
that nobody had ever heard of her as
in the story she had to tell. surely
there must have been wise men before
Bacon, poets before Chaucer, statesmen
before Lincoln. The suggestion is
freely offered to psychical researchers
that they read up on the styles OF con-
fucius, Zoroaster Saadi. Caedmon and
Ariosto, for example, and see II tney
can't get their Ouija boards to give up
something fresh.
1.-THE BRANDING IRON
By Katherine Newlin Burt. illustrated.
Houghton, Mifflin Co., publishers, No.
Park Row. Boston.
1.-THE Branding Iron" has already
found wide popularity with the maya
zine reading public; its dramatic and
motion picture rights have been eager
Ilv bartered for and bought at high fig
ures. leading English publisher is
enthusiastically bringing out the book
in the British Isles. After reading 1t
Canadian and Australasian publishers
have placed unusually large orders for
importations.
OF wild west stories there have been
many of passionate romances there
have been more but novels of these
types are too often without literary