The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1921-01-21

most literally reproduced from The
Scientific American, to which he adds
that u is the crudeness Of the present
methods which makes him doubt the
authenticity Of purported communica-
tions with deceased persons. He be-
lieves that il we are to make any real
progress in psychical research it must
be done with scientific apparatus in
a scientific manner Edison proceeds:
What purpose to do,'s he says, s'is
to furnish psychic investigators with
an apparatus which will give scien-
tific aspect to their work. This ap-
paratus, let me explain, is in the ma
ture Of a valve, so to speak. That is
to say, the slightest conceivable effort
is made to exert many times its initial
power for indicative purposes. It is
similar to a modern power house,
where man, with his relatively puny
one-eighth horsepower, turns valve
which starts a 0,000-horsepower
steam turbine. My apparatus is along
those lines, in that the slightest eff
fort which it intercepts will be magni-
fled many times, sd as to give us what
ever form of record we desire for the
purpose of investigation. Beyond that
] don't care to say anything further
regarding its nature. I have been
working out the details for some time
indeed, a collaboration in this work
died only the other day. In that he
knew exactly what am after in this
work, / believe he ought to be the
first to use it il he is able to do so.
OF course, don't forget that I am max
ing no claims for the survival Of per-
sonality; am not promising commu
uncation with those who have passed
out cf this life. merely state that
am giving the psychic investigators
an apparatus which may help them
in their work. just as optical experts
have given the microscope to the med
ical world. And if this apparatus
fails to reveal anything of exceptional
interest, am afraid that shall have
lost all faith in the survival Of per-
sorality as we know it in this exis-
tance."
Edison does not believe In the pres
ent theories of life and death. He
believes that life, like matter, is in
destructible. Man can neither create
it nor destroy it. Our bodies. he says,
are composed of .myriads of infinitesi-
NAL entities, each a unit itself, which
band together to build man. We
ave taken it for granted that each
Of is is unit. We think Of a cat, an
elephant, a horse, a fish and SO on as
units. Edison is convinced that such
thinking is wrong. All these things
appear to be units because the life en-
titles to which he refers are far too
small to be detected even with an
ultra-microscope.
.Supposing you take finger print
Of your thumb, in the conventional
manner of the police records. Then
burn your thumbs sufficiently to de-
stroy the skin. Do you know that
after the skin has formed the finger
print of your recovered thumb will be
precisely the same as the first one?
Yes. absolutely the same, even down
to the last line and irregularity.
tried ii to make sure. Here is a mys-
tery which has remained unanswered
until now.
..Of course, you say, it is nature.
But what is nature? That seems to
me to be such an evasive reply IT
means nothing. 1t is just subterfuge
"a convenient way of shutting on fur
ther questioning by merely giving an
empty word for an answer. ! nave
never been satisfied with that WORD
.nafure.' Now my answer is that the
skin didn't happen to grow tnat way
again by accident. Some one had 70
plan the new growth an to supervise
it to make certain that it would con-
form in every way with the old skin
You do not know just what that pat
tern is, and so your brain PLAYS no
part in the operation.
Here is where our life entities
come into action.
Il firmly believe that the life enti-
ties rebuilt that thumb with consum-
mate care. drawing upon their re-
markable memory for all the details