鈥淭he invisibility at the heart of things was traditionally named the听deus absconditus, the 鈥榗oncealed god鈥�,鈥� but ours is 鈥渁 culture that marginalizes the invisibles.鈥澨齋o says psychologist James Hillman鈥檚听The Soul鈥檚 Code.听听He adds that 鈥渕ore enigmatic moments tend to be shelved.鈥澨鼴ut not always.
Last year,听The Walrus听magazine published 鈥淲hy Do We See Dead People?鈥� an article by Patricia Pearson.听听鈥淗umans have always sensed the ghosts of loved ones,鈥� the article鈥檚 tagline notes.听听鈥淚t鈥檚 only in the last century that we convinced ourselves this was a problem.鈥�
Pearson surveys the evolution of views on grief from Sigmund Freud鈥檚 鈥溾�檞ishful psychosis鈥� 鈥� a notion of temporary madness featuring wilfully conjured visions of the dead鈥� (he advocated letting go and moving on), to the subsequent relabelling of ghostly presences as 鈥済rief hallucinations,鈥� to a mid-1990s model called 鈥渃ontinuing bonds.鈥�
Pearson also examines related developments such as the work of London鈥檚 Society for Psychical Research in the 1880s, which included a ten-nation Census of Hallucinations.听听The census concluded 鈥渢hat between 7 and 19 percent of people experience sensory hallucinations at some point in their lives.鈥�
A 1972 study of Welsh widows and widowers found that the prevalence rate of grief hallucinations (seeing the face of their beloved, hearing their voice, smelling their pipe or perfume, or otherwise sensing their presence) was 鈥渁bout 50 percent鈥� and that 75 percent of the study participants had never spoken of their experiences before being asked by the study survey.听听These 鈥減eople didn鈥檛 wish to be pathologized,鈥� Pearson says.听听鈥淭hey also didn鈥檛 want to move on.鈥�
These reactions indicate a bifurcation of experience in the general population that Gerry Fenge, author of听The Two Worlds of Wellesley Tudor Pole, amusingly references when he observes that the experience of unusual 鈥減henomena belongs to the personal but incommunicable order of things: utterly convincing to the subject but a matter for polite coughing to others.鈥�
As Fenge鈥檚 title suggests, the British mystic Tudor Pole (1884-1968) had the rare ability to move between our visible world and the (to us) invisible ones that interlace it.听听In August 1917, TP, as he was known to many, published a little book,听Private Dowding, the subtitle of which explains that it鈥檚 鈥淎 plain record of the after-death experiences of a soldier鈥� killed on the Somme in mid-1916 (confirmed by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission).
Thomas Dowding had been a schoolmaster and recluse before becoming a soldier.听听His discarnate being tells TP he鈥檇 feared 鈥渆xtinction鈥� and 鈥淚t is because extinction has not come 鈥� I want to speak to you.鈥澨鼿e confesses, 鈥淚 never used my opportunities during earth life.听听My spiritual nature atrophied鈥�. The spiritual world is everywhere鈥�. We humans hide from the light.听听We grovel among the illusions created by our own thoughts.听听We surround ourselves with misconceptions.鈥�
Dowding describes being in purgatory.听听鈥淭he majority who come over here rise above or rather THROUGH purgatory into higher conditions鈥�. A man sinks or rises through the action of a spiritual law of gravity.听听He is never safe until he has emptied himself completely.听听Release comes from within.鈥澨鼿e says elsewhere, 鈥淚 shall remain near earth conditions whilst learning lessons I refused to learn before.鈥� 听
Although TP says his 鈥渃ommunications with Thomas Dowding were so real that he seemed to be in the room sitting at my elbow, prompting my pen,鈥� he admits 鈥渢here can be no final proof concerning these matters.听听One must be guided by the interior worth of the messages themselves.鈥�
Digitized by Google,听Private Dowding听is available free on the internet.听听It can be read in about an hour.
础耻迟丑辞谤听of the forthcoming book,听A Snake on the Heart 鈥� History, Mystery, and Truth: The Entangled Journeys of a Biographer and His Nazi Subject,听writer/historian Patrick Wolfe has an abiding interest in grace and the mystic.听听His article 鈥淲ellesley Tudor Pole and the Big Ben Silent Minute鈥� is available on his web site:听
You can read more articles on our interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking, HERE
* This article was published in the print edition of the sa国际传媒 on Saturday, August 7th 2021
Photo by听听辞苍听
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