Wallace - The thinning of the veil : a record of psychic experience

The Thinning of the Veil

Mary Bruce Wallace

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This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world's books discoverable online. See the back of the book for detailed information.

FOREWORD

Empirical evidence that human personality survives the physical body through which it has manifested itself, and that communication is possible between persons discarnate and those still in the flesh, has been gathered, sifted in some degree, and made accessible to the public, by Spiritualists, the Society for Psychical Research, and other investigators. In recent years such evidence has presented itself from many sides, in rapidly growing volume; and it now amounts, in the judgment of some eminent scientists, to ample proof. At any rate, no theory hitherto suggested short of the Spiritualist one, is reconcilable with all the relevant facts of well-authenticated experience. It may be, however, that the subject does not quite lend itself to scientific demonstration, and that absolute conviction can be

reached only through a quickening of the individual consciousness which will make the essential deathlessness of one's spirit to be intuitively perceived. Such a quickening was part of the illumination that the late R. M. Bucke described in his book Cosmic Conscious ness, and that more "orthodox" Christians would probably identify with "the baptism of the Holy Ghost."

The record which this little book contains of intercourse with a world beyond the range of the usually-recognized bodily senses, is not intended as an addition to the psychical evidence available for inquirers on those elemental questions. A critic that is unconvinced with regard to them will probably remain sceptical after reading this book. He will readily suppose that what my wife thinks she hears and sees through newly-unfolded interior faculties only wells up from some deep reservoir of memory and spring of imagination; and that, when it seems to her an objective perception, her subconscious mind is just playing her a trick. But to those who are in the best position to form an opinion concerning her experiences, no such hypothesis appears adequate. After observing, day by day for now more than two years, the signs of the quiet unforced blossoming of those psychic faculties in her, after receiving through her several messages that subsequently have been verified in my own experience, I cannot doubt that she is being used by a group of discarnate beings who, under the Lord of all, are working for the thinning of the veil between the life in the physical body and the life beyond.

Nor have I been the only convinced witness of, and gainer by, my wife's psychic development. It was during a visit that she paid to her father, mother, and sister, in August 1916, that her psychic sensitiveness first revealed itself. Since then, whenever they have visited us, or she them, they have joined with her in her daily meeting with heavenly visitants. Each of her two brothers has also been present on two or three occasions. In rare cases just three times with the consent of her Guides beyond the veil, friends outside the family circle have likewise been admitted. And all these relatives and friends have through her got communications that have been to them distinctly helpful and quite relevant to their respective difficulties and needs. The cumulative convincing effect of such experiences could, however, scarcely be conveyed to strangers.

Some of our dearest relatives "deceased" have so we believe visited us and spoken to us, responding thus to a call mediated through the spirit-friend who was the first to make himself audible to my wife. It is of course a great and solemn delight to come once more into conscious touch with them, and learn how they have fared and what they have been doing since their transition. But of this kind of satisfaction we are not permitted to seek a very frequent experience. Not all discarnate human beings have as their mission to continue co-operating with those they have left behind on the material plane. Most of them have elsewhere lessons to learn and good work to do, from which it would not be well to divert them. Besides, those best qualified to instruct us here and lead us on the upward way, are less likely to be found among those who belonged when on earth to our own or our parents' generation and were in closest association with us, than among those who, through an ampler experience both on this and the other side of death, are further evolved. The gain to earth-dwellers would be small perhaps, instead of gain, there might be added confusion and waste of time if an extension of psychic development among them resulted merely in their maintaining or resuming communication with deceased relatives and friends little, if at all, wiser than themselves. But there would be great gain if closer intercourse could be opened up with the Masters of wisdom and love, the "spirits of just men made perfect."

In reading such a book as this, one should of course take into account that there are limitations on the part of the "sensitive" through whom it has come. What passes through the sensitive's mind (subconscious and conscious), from however pure and lofty a source, may be in some degree shaped and coloured by the thought-moulds and emotional channels that are the only ones available there. Heavenly Teachers may have much to tell and show which as yet they cannot pass distinctly and completely through an organism such as ours. But these communications through my wife whatever their imperfections may be have made the spiritual world more real to the few who have heard them; and it is hoped that this selection from them may be of use likewise to a wider circle.

Communion even with saints and angels, if this be possible for us, is no substitute for communion with the Universal Power, infinitely more than personal, in Whom we all, whether in the body or out of it, live and move and have our being. The influence exerted by, say, a St. Thomas a Kempis, a Brother Lawrence, a St. Catharine of Siena, a Samuel Rutherford or a Frances Ridley Havergal, while on earth, would not tend to distract any companion's attention from the Highest, but would rather lead to a more earnest "practice of the presence of God." Any influence, therefore, which such as they, or servants of God still further advanced in the spiritual life, might exert from the other side of death, would certainly be in the same holy direction, while more powerful and penetrating. Precious is intercourse with those on earth who are morally and spiritually ahead of us, still more so is fellowship with those "ministering spirits" who, from higher planes, are seeking to help us into the Will of God, as instruments of righteousness and love unto Him. Such fellowship is what is to be hoped for from " the thinning of the veil."