The Cordova daily times., 1922-05-16

thor, who died in 1916. A large part of the communications are purely per sonal. MT. Payne was an editor of Overland Monthly" in which Lon don's tales first appeared. Mrs. Payne is the aunt and foster mother of Mrs. Charmian London, wife of the au- thor It was at the Payne home that many of London's most imortant works were written. They were his confidantes. MT. Payns has been per suaded to write two articles outlining what he knows of the communications. Tomorrow he will present perhaps the most important of the communica tions, What Life Means to Me Now" allegedly written by Jack London from beyond the grave.
 BERKELEY, Cal, May 16. - The communication" given forth are se- lected from many, most of them Of a private nature, purporting to come from Jack London, in a new life into which he was surprised to find him. self emerging after his death in 1916. There are certain attendant circum- stances which might well be borne in mind in forming judgment on these messages as a possibly genuine Jack London product.
 In the first place, the psychic through whom the alleged communi- cations reached us is not public or commercial medium. She makes her living in a professional vocation and until recent years was herself de- cided materialist, with no leanings whatever toward spiritualism. She had met Mr. London a few times, but had little knowledge of him be- yohd that gathered in a casual ac- uuaintance. She is an educated and cultured woman. In my own home we are not spipitualists, although we hold the immortal hope for ourselves and our kind. While we do not rank ourselves as spritualists we are in- clined to believe that the avenues are not wholly closed between this sphere of life and other realms of conscious being. And both my wife and myself. who loved MT. London much and cherished the memory of his love for us, find many things in these communications which impress us with their possible genuineness.
 LONDON A MATERlALIST
 MT. London's declared position, philosophically, was that of the out asd-out uncompromising materialist. Everywhere and always he was ready to affirm, and to reaffirm with utmost emphasis, that the evolution of all things must be referred back to matter alone, with it's primal en- ergies and potencies. This was his conclusion while he had not yet at tained his majority; and this was his unrevised and outspoken opinion throughout his life In book pub lished in the last summer just pre- ceding his death he again elaborates this creed And in the mid years of his mature life he wrote in letter:
 'T am hopeless materialist. I see a soul as nothing else than the sum of the activities of the organism, plus personal habit, memories, expert ences of the organism. I believe that when I am dead I am dead. I believe that with my death I am just as much obliterated as the last mosquito you or l smashed"
 But now I come to affirm, as a counter fact and fact of tre- mendous import for him, that Jack London whatever may have been his London, whatever may have been his philosophical or scientific creed, was yet by nature, by endowment, by his very birth and by instinctive tendency an idealist.
 IDEALS IN CONFLICT
 In the conscious life of MT. London there was consequently clash, an ir- reconcilable conflict between his ma terialistic theory and his native ideal ism. This latter, the idealistic ele- ment in his nature, was never eradi- cated, though he tried to discipline it, to numb it, to drown it even, if that possible, to kill it out. It lived on within him despite his philosophy, and it made a deal of trouble for him. He found that the world, the universe, as he conceived them to be, were not fitted to satisfy his nature, or that he him golf mas ma hle tQ hannilY adiuSt