Omaha daily bee., 1920-02-09
BY H. CARRINGTON, Phi. D.,
Member Of American and Royal Societies
For Psychical Research.

Instrumental communication witt
TIE spirit world" That has beer
the ambition of certain group oI
occult and psychical students since
the very origin OF their investiga.
tion. lnlprobable-nay, impossible
as i, sounds, many have. continued
to believe, in spite of grievous disap,
pointments, that this would one day
be accomplished; that the time
would come when we should have
some sort Of telephone by means ot
which direct communication with
the spirit world would be render
ed possible; or that some sort of in
strument would be devised which
would render this dream an actual
reality.
1t really seems that this vision is
at last becoming an established
fact-and that the day is at hand
when unreliable or fraudulent me
diums will be dispensed with, and
Communication" held directly with
those who have gone before.
Upstern Of Wealth.
This, at least, is the startling
claim made by two Dutch physicists
whose researches | propose 10 sum
nlarize in this article; and, without
actually endorsing their conclu-
sions. it may be said at once that
they have adopted bold and orig
inal method of research, and that
their experiments will have to be
explained away" in some satisfac-
tory manner, if we are to refrain
from accepting the dramatic conclu-
sions which they believe they have
reached.
The experilnenters, whose work
| summarize. are DR.. ]. L. w. P.
Malta apd DR.. G. J. Zaalberg van
Zelst OF The Hague, Holland. They
are well known in spiritistic and oc-
cult circles there; and also for their
original work in high-frequency
currents of electricity, liquid air, and
the compression of gases. Scien-
tihcally. they were we'll equipped for
the task. More than % years of
labor had preceded their final con-
clusions, which were given to the
world in a voluminous work. in
Dutch, entitled the Mystery of
Death. ct IS from this work that
many of the facts contained in this
article are drawn.)
Man Consists of Ego"
What we know as a man con-
sists, not in the clothes he wears,
nor in his hody-fesh and bones, but
in the mental being, the EGO"
within. This is always invisible to
us, SO that it may in truth be said
that we never see a man in his life.
We see only his externals. His
real self" is never known by us
except indirectly. Let this truth be
fully grasped at the outset, as it is
very essential.
This mental being consists of
consciousness and memory; to-
gcther they constitute what we
know as the personal identity" We
say that this consciousness is John
Smith. or Henry Wood, or whoever
it may be. Even if we do not see
his body, but only hear his voice
over the telephone, we say the same
thing.
We must get in touch with that
consciousness after death, if it still
exists, and obtain from it proof of
its continued existence. Just as we
proved the existence of argon in the
atmosphere by isolating it, so we
must prove the existence of this
surviving consciousness by isolating
it: and getting it to prove its per
sonal identity" to us by much the
same means that it did on earth
by telling us facts which only that
knew. This is proof
of personal identity-proof of some
form of survival.
Now, there are two ways in
which this can be done-by mental
manifestations, so-called auto
matte writing and speech, vision,
messages" and all the class of
phenomena known to stu
dents of the occult.. The other way,
is by means of physical manifesto
tions-by materializations, photo
graphic means, voices, raps, etc,
indicating intelligence.
Telephone to Spirits.
Instrumental means-such as the
and telephone-are the
latest methods tried, and it is such
a process which we will describe in
this article. The question. there
fore, is this: Were the instruments
in question manipulated directly by
some external intelligence "a spirit)
and if so, how? If we exclude all
normal methods of moving the in
struments in question, some other
must be forthcoming;
if spirit-identity be proven, we
stand face to face with the great
possibility of direct instrumental
communication, with the spiritual
world 1t is a great--a tremendous
thought!
The first experiments were crude
and primitive enough. A small
room was constructed-witll a solid
concrete floor, so as to shut off
earth vibrations so far as possible
feet long, six feet broad
and nine feet high. 1t was con-
nected, with the outside passage by
means of one door-all other doors
and windows having been carefully
sealed with thick, black material.
Watch Through Window.
This door into the passage con-
tanned a small window, guarded by
blinds, and the experimenters took
up their position outside, in the
passage-whence they watched the
fluctuations of the instruments
during the experiments. That is,
they were not IN the room at the
time at all. Sometimes it was nee
essary to employ opera-glasses to
see the variations in the recording
in nstruuents DURING the eourea ~