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JAINA GAZETTE. [Aug. & Sept. F. W. H. Myers' “Human Personality," in A. R. Wallace's “History of My Life,” C. Flammarion's "L'Inconnu,” and in the writings of Tuckett, Podmore, Barrett, Dale Owen, E. Gurney, W. S. P. Haynes, and a host of others, many of them“ sceptics." Edward Carpenter says. the whole phenomenon of “wraiths” is “ now in the mass so amply proved ;" and W. S. P. Haynes, in the very act of trying to disprove the survival of self, says, "Such apparitions at the moment of death are, of course, coinmon and frequently recorded.”
The acknowledgment of telepathy, phantasms of the dying, and many allied phenomena has led to the formulation of theories to account for them, all of which necessitate the recognition of some element in human nature which is at least normally inappreciable by our physical senses, something which, although science still very generally refuses to admit the existence of the “soul,” at any rate corresponds very closely with what has always been understood by this term.
It is quite unnecessary to haggle over names. The great fact is that science now admits the existence of a part of our natare not ordinarily appreciable by the physical senses, some part which can act directly on the minds of others without the intervention of the sense-organs.
This part of self is found to be most active in times of great crisis, and, above all, at the moment of bodily death. So far from sharing in the general enfeeblement of the body and of the ordinary consciousness at such moments, this subliminal consciousness, as psychologists call it, appears to be most active and most vigorous.
This certainly does not look as if this, admittedly the greatest share of our true selves, was at the point of dissolution or annihilation. Rather, it goes to show that the body is a restraint on its activities, and that at the moment of the death of the body it is freer and more capable of manifesting itself than during the health and vigour of the body.
But not only have we cases where this portion of self makes itself felt during the last moments of life, but we have also other well-authenticated cases-cases whiob have stood the
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
