Posted on 06 September 2015, 20:15

Since September 14th will mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Second Lieutenant Raymond Lodge (below) on the battlefield near Ypres, Belgium, it seems like an appropriate time to look back at parts of Raymond’s story, as told by his father, Sir Oliver Lodge, a world-renowned physicist and inventor, in his 1916 book, Raymond or Life and Death – a story, along with four others, abridged in my 2014 book, Dead Men Talking, the Kindle version of which is now being offered for a limited time at just $1.99 at Amazon.com

Soon after his death, Raymond began communicating with his parents through two different mediums, but primarily through the mediumship of Gladys Osborne Leonard.  While skeptics of his day and today claim that Sir Oliver Lodge (below) was easily duped by charlatans because of his grief over the death of Raymond, it is clear that Sir Oliver came to his conclusions about life after death and spirit communication well before Raymond’s death.  In the wake of Darwinism, Lodge had become a materialist, but his investigation of American medium Leonora Piper 25 years before Raymond’s death converted him to a belief in spirits.

Still, Lodge was aware that there were many charlatans and was careful in his sittings.  Although Mrs. Leonard would later become as tested and as famous as Mrs. Piper, she was for the most part unknown at the time. On September 28, 1915, just two weeks after Raymond’s death, Sir Oliver and Lady Lodge had a table-tilting sitting with Mrs. Leonard, who was primarily a trance voice medium.  As a test of identity, Sir Oliver asked Raymond for his nickname.  Raymond correctly responded by correctly spelling out “Pat” with the table.  Sir Oliver then asked him to name one of his five brothers.  The table spelled out N-O-R-M-A- before Sir Oliver interrupted and commented that Raymond was confused.  He told him to begin again.  The name N-O-E-L was then spelled out, which was one of Raymond’s brothers.  It was not until Sir Oliver later discussed this with his other sons that it began to make sense.  His sons explained to him that “Norman” was a kind of general nickname used by Raymond when they played hockey together.  He would shout: “Now then, Norman,” or other words of encouragement, to any of his five older brothers whom he wished to stimulate.  Sir Oliver saw this as evidence against telepathy, since neither he nor Lady Lodge knew of the name.  He also saw it as an indication that Raymond, who had discussed psychical research with him when he was alive, was attempting to provide veridical information by giving a name unknown to him and most certainly not known to Mrs. Leonard. 

Alec Lodge, one of Raymond’s older brothers, had an anonymous sitting with Mrs. Leonard and put his own test to Raymond, asking him about his favorite music. This was a trance voice sitting in which Feda, Mrs. Leonard’s spirit control, took over her body and spoke through her vocal cords.  Alec noted that after he asked the question, he heard Feda ask Raymond, “An orange lady?”  Still confused, Feda then told Alec that “he says something about an orange lady.”  Alec felt that this was very evidential as “My Orange Girl” was the last song Raymond bought when “alive.”  Raymond also mentioned “Irish Eyes,” another of his favorites. He further tried to get a third song through, but Feda could get only “M” and “A.”  Lionel thought it might be “Ma Honey,” but at a later sitting at Mariemont, the Lodge estate, Raymond was asked what was meant by the letters M and A, and he was then able to clearly give the name “Maggie Magee,” a song unknown to anyone in the family except Norah, his sister, who was not present when the name came through.  This was still another indication that mind reading, or telepathy, was not a factor in the communication. 

In still another test, Lionel Lodge, another brother, and Norah, his sister, drove from the Lodge home, near Birmingham, to London for a sitting with Mrs. Leonard. Knowing that his brother and sister were scheduled to meet with Mrs. Leonard at noon, Alec Lodge asked two other sisters, Honor and Rosalynde, to sit with him in the drawing room and focus on asking Raymond to get the word “Honolulu” through to Lionel and Norah during the sitting.  Lionel and Norah knew nothing of this request.

During the sitting, Raymond said something about Norah playing music. Norah replied that she could not.  Feda, using Mrs. Leonard’s body, then whispered to the invisible Raymond (attention directed away from Lionel and Norah), “She can’t do what?”  Upon getting a response from Raymond, Feda then said, “He wanted to know whether you could play Hulu – Honolulu.  Well, can’t you try to?  He is rolling with laughter.”

On another occasion, Sir Oliver asked Raymond if he knew about “Mr. Jackson.”  Feda struggled with understanding Raymond’s response, but she communicated: “Fine bird…put him on a pedestal.”  This was especially evidential as Sir Oliver was certain that Mrs. Leonard did not know that Mr. Jackson was the name of Lady Lodge’s pet peacock, nor that he had died a week earlier and was in the process of being stuffed and mounted on a wooden pedestal.

Still another evidential communication came when Raymond informed his mother that the memorial tablet which she had put up at St. George’s Church, Edgbaston, had his date of death as Wednesday, September 14, when in fact September 14 had been a Tuesday.  Raymond said it didn’t bother him, but that he thought he should call her attention to it anyway. 

Other evidential information came through convincing the Lodges that they were indeed communicating with their deceased son.  But there were also things communicated by Raymond that seemed absurd, such as when Raymond mentioned that cigars and whisky sodas could still be had on his side of the veil, although they weren’t enjoyed nearly as much and eventually not enjoyed at all.  That statement became the subject of much humor around smoking rooms in England and subjected Sir Oliver to much ridicule by his peers in the scientific community.  But Sir Oliver had already come to understand that so much of the afterlife is a thought world and that in the lower realms, spirits still live is something of a dream world, often not fully grasping that they have left the material world while still desiring earthly pleasures and partaking of them in their “dreams.”

Raymond, Bob, Claude, Thomas, and Rolf – the five WWI victims whose stories are told in Dead Men Talking, all reported that they had not found themselves in some humdrum heaven or in an abyss of nothingness but rather in a world that seemed very much like the material world they had just left.  There was initially some confusion as they awakened to their new reality, and there was a period of adjustment in which they were assisted by guides, sometimes relatives who had transitioned before them.  All were surprised at the nature of the afterlife condition, saying it was nothing like they had expected.  Probably the primary message from all was that the afterlife is made up of many realms, planes, or spheres, and that, upon physical death, we transition to the realm we have prepared ourselves for during the earth life.

“He says he thinks he was lucky when he passed on because he had so many to meet him,” Feda relayed Raymond’s words in the early sittings.  “That came, he knows now, through your (Sir Oliver) having been in with this thing for so long.  He wants to impress this on those that you will be writing for; that it makes it so much easier for them if they and their friends know about it beforehand.  It’s awful when they have passed over and won’t believe it for weeks – they just think they’re dreaming.  And they won’t realize things at all sometimes.  He doesn’t mind telling you now that, just at first, when he woke up, he felt a little depression. But it didn’t last long.  He cast his eyes round, and soon he didn’t mind.  But it was like finding yourself in a strange place, like a strange city, with people you hadn’t seen, or not seen for a long time.”

Sir Oliver Lodge concluded:  “I am as convinced of continued existence on the other side of death as I am of existence here.  It may be said, you cannot be as sure as you are of sensory experience.  I say I can. A physicist is never limited to direct sensory impressions; he has to deal with a multitude of conceptions and things for which he has no physical organ – the dynamical theory of heat, for instance, and of gases, the theories of electricity, of magnetism, of chemical affinity, of cohesion, aye, and his apprehension of the ether itself, lead him into regions where sight and hearing and touch are impotent as direct witnesses, where they are no longer efficient guides.

“I shall go further and say that I am reasonably convinced of the existence of grades of being, not only lower in the scale than man but higher also, grades of every order of magnitude from zero to infinity.  And I know by experience that among these beings are some who care for and help and guide humanity, not disdaining to enter even into what must seem petty details, if by so doing they can assist souls striving on their upward course.  And further it is my faith – however humbly it may be held – that among those lofty beings, highest of those who concern themselves directly with this earth of all the myriads of worlds in infinite space, is One on whom the right instinct of Christianity has always lavished heartfelt reverence and devotion.”

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die is published by White Crow Books. His latest book, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife is now available on Amazon and other online book stores.
His latest book Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I is published by White Crow Books.

Next blog post:  September 21

In other places he indicates that mediumship has real dangers. For this you will need to know more of his teachings about the opposing powers, fallen angelic heirarchies which he named Lucifer and Ahriman.
He talks about Spiritualism being initiated in the mid 19th century as a experiment by occult lodges of the ‘right’ in order to try to dispel 19th Century materialism, and when the experiment didn’t work out as they wanted, they abandoned it and lodges of the left-hand path took over. Have you read any of this? Other things he says concerns the ‘Eighth Sphere’ and Lucifer and Ahriman’s attempts to suck souls in to it, after which they would be lost to human evolution for ever.
One of the lecture cycles in which he mentions these subjects is ‘Occult Movements in the 19th Century’. Here is a link to an online version of the work, if you would care to have a look:

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/GA254/English/RSP1973/OccMov_index.html

Chapter 5 in particular mentions visionary, mediumistic clarvoyance. Here is an extract:

If you remember what is said in the book Occult Science about the evolution of man through the Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon stages, you will realise that in these stages there can be no question of freedom. In those other stages man is enclosed in a web of necessity. In order that he might be ripe for freedom, the mineral nature had to be incorporated into him; he had to become a being permeated with the mineral element. Hence man can be educated for freedom only within the earthly-material world.

This by itself indicates the tremendous significance of the earthly-material world. That which must be acquired by mankind — freedom of the will — can be acquired only during Earth-evolution. In the Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan stages men will need this freedom of will. Therefore when we consider the question of freedom, we are in a realm of great importance; for we know that the Earth is the begetter of freedom precisely because it is the Earth that impregnates man with the physical-mineral element.

From this you will understand that what stems from the free will must be kept within the realm of Earth. To Spheres Three, Two and One, it is impossible to apply anything that stems from the principle of freedom. But the endeavour of Lucifer and Ahriman is to drag the free will of man, and whatever stems from it, into the Eighth Sphere. This means that man is perpetually exposed to the danger of having his free will wrested from him and dragged by Lucifer and Ahriman into the Eighth Sphere.

This happens if the element of free will is transformed, for example, into visionary clairvoyance. When this is the case, a man is already in the Eighth Sphere. This is a matter of which occultists are so reluctant to speak, because it is an awful, terrible truth. The moment the free will is transformed into visionary clairvoyance, what unfolds in the human being becomes the booty of Lucifer and Ahriman. It is immediately captured by them and thereby spirited away from the Earth. You can see from this how, through the shackling of free will, the spectres of the Eighth Sphere are created. Lucifer and Ahriman are engaged perpetually in shackling man’s free will and in conjuring all sorts of things before him in order to tear away what he makes out of these things and let it disappear in the Eighth Sphere.

When clairvoyance in all kinds of different forms develops in naive, credulous, superstitious people, it is often the case that their free will has been sacrificed. Then Lucifer instantly seizes hold of it, and whereas these people imagine they have had an experience of immortality, the truth is that in their visions they see a part, or a product, of their souls being wrested away and prepared for the Eighth Sphere.

You can imagine from this how deep was the concern of those who, having compromised by agreeing that by way of mediumship all kinds of truths relating to the spiritual world should be given to the public, then found the mediums believing that the dead were speaking to them. But the occultists then knew that what takes place between mediums and living men is that the stream of free will is passing into the Eighth Sphere. Instead of a link being formed with the Eternal, the mediums were testifying precisely to what was continually disappearing into the Eighth Sphere.

From this you will realise that Lucifer and Ahriman have an avid desire to bring as much as possible into the Eighth Sphere. Although Goethe mixed Lucifer and Ahriman together, he has nevertheless correctly described how a soul is wrested away from the clutches of Mephistopheles-Ahriman! It would be the richest prize for Lucifer and Ahriman if they could ever succeed in capturing a whole soul for themselves; for thereby such a soul would disappear into the Eighth Sphere and be lost from Earth-evolution. The greatest victory for Lucifer and Ahriman would be if one day they could claim that countless numbers of the dead had passed into their sphere. That would be their greatest victory. Moreover there is a way of achieving it. Lucifer and Ahriman may say: human beings long to know something about the life between death and a new birth. If, therefore, we tell them that they are learning something from the dead, they will be satisfied and will direct their feelings towards the realm from which announcements are made to them as coming from the dead. If therefore we desire that the hearts and minds of men shall be guided towards the Eighth Sphere, let us say to them: we are telling you something that comes from the dead. We shall capture men by alleging that the dead are in our domain.

This devilish plan — for here we have indeed to do with the devil — was put into effect by Lucifer and Ahriman when it had occurred to occultists to endeavour to accomplish something through mediumship. Lucifer and Ahriman inspired the mediums through whom they arranged the whole business, in order that people might be guided to the realm whence the dead were alleged to be speaking. Lucifer and Ahriman could then lay hold of their souls. The occultists were alarmed when they saw what course things were taking and they took counsel among themselves as to how to steer away from it. Even those who belonged to the left wing realised what was happening, and they said: we will do something different! An opportunity then presented itself through the appearance of a remarkable personality, namely H. P. Blavatsky. Now, after the plan had been seen through and the occultists on the Earth no longer lent their hands to it, Lucifer and Ahriman were obliged to pursue their aim in a different way.

Materialism had come upon the scene in the natural course of the Earth’s evolution. Therefore in order to reckon with the mineralised process of evolution, it was necessary that men’s attention should be focussed entirely on material things. That is materialism pure and simple! The occultists who had special aims of their own, said: Well and good, we will rely upon materialism. If, however, we take materialism in its purely earthly form, man will inevitably discover one day through his thinking that atoms do not exist — so that will not be very fertile soil. But human thinking can certainly be perverted if materialism is made occult. The best way of doing this is to present the Sphere that had to be created as a counterweight to the Eighth Sphere as the Eighth Sphere itself! If people can be led to believe that the materiality created as a counterweight to the Eighth Sphere is the Eighth Sphere itself, that will outstrip every conceivable earthly materialism! And earthly materialism was indeed outstripped in the assertion made by Sinnett. Materialism is there imported into the realm of occultism; occultism there becomes materialism. But sooner or later men would have been bound to discover this. H. P. Blavatsky, who had deep insight into this phase of the Earth’s evolution, divined something of what was happening, after she had seen through the tricks of that strange individuality of whom I spoke in the last lecture, and she said to herself: This cannot go on as it is; it must be changed! But she said that under the influence of the Indian occultists who belonged to the left wing. She realised that things must change but that something not easily detectable must be created. In order to create something herself that would outstrip Sinnett’s assertion, she acceded to the proposals of the Indian occultists who were inspiring her. These occultists, being adherents of the left path, had no other aim than the promotion of their own special interests — Indian interests. They had in mind to establish all over the Earth a system of wisdom from which Christ, and Jahve too, were excluded. Therefore something whereby Christ and Jahve were eliminated would have to be interpolated.

Michael, Have you read an of the works of the clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner? I have been a bit troubled by his take on the subject of mediumship, of which he is highly critical. He seems to be in favour of a highly conscious trained clairvoyance however.
Here is an extract from the the first lecture of lecture cycle ‘Cosmic and Human Metamorphosis’:

In England at the present time, the research into the Spiritual world made by one of the most prominent and learned men is making a very great impression in large circles, even of cultured people. It is a very extraordinary phenomenon that a man reckoned among the first scientists of that country should have written a comprehensive book about the relationship of man on earth with the Spiritual world, and that this should have taken such a remarkable form. Sir Oliver Lodge — who for some years has certainly striven in various ways so to extend the scientific knowledge he has acquired that it may be applied to the Spiritual world, — describes in this book a series of episodes, in which he asserts that he has come in touch with the Spiritual world. The case is as follows.

Sir Oliver Lodge had a son, Raymond, who in 1915 took part on the English side, in the war in Flanders. At a time when his parents knew him to be at the front, they received some remarkable news from America, which, to people possessing what I might call materialistic-Spiritualistic tendencies, must certainly have appeared very striking. This message was supposed to come from the English psychologist, Frederick Myers who, before his death many years ago, had studied the relationship between the physical world and the Spiritual worlds, and who himself now in the Spiritual world, pronounced that world to be prepared to receive young Lodge in the near future. At first it was not very clear to what the message referred. There was some delay in its reaching Sir Oliver Lodge; it reached him after his son had fallen. I think it was a fortnight later but I am not quite sure as to this. Then came other messages given through mediums in America, advising the parents to go to an English medium; consequently, Sir Oliver went to one, but preserved a critical attitude towards her. I shall have more to say presently on the significance of this — Sir Oliver is a scientist, and is trained to the scientific testing of such cases. He went to work just as he would in his laboratory and what follows was given not through one but several mediums. The soul of Raymond wished to communicate with the Lodge family. All sorts of communications followed through automatic writing and table-turning, communications so surprising that not only Sir Oliver himself but the rest of the family, who had till then been extremely sceptical in such matters, were now quite convinced. Among other statements, the soul of Raymond stated that Myers was with him, acting as a Guardian; he told them several things about his last days on earth, and much that was of significance to the parents and family, and made a great impression upon them, especially as various things communicated by Raymond through mediums were intended for the family and particularly for Sir Oliver. The way the sittings were held afforded great surprise to the family, and strangely enough, they also caused great surprise to a wide public. They would not have surprised anyone who had experience of such things, for in reality, the nature of the communications concerning the dead which comes through mediums, and the manner of the communication, is very familiar to the investigator. One thing, however, made a profound impression in England, and was well calculated to impress and convince the civilised world of England and America, and to bring conviction hitherto lacking to many of our sceptical age; this factor which converted many and will convert many more, made a very strong impression on the Lodge family and particularly on Sir Oliver, and also impressed a large public. It was the following incident. A description was given through a medium of some photographs taken while Raymond was still alive. Raymond himself described them to the medium, by means of rappings. In this way a photographic group was described; that is to say the soul of Raymond was by means of the medium evidently trying to describe this photograph taken of him in a group shortly before he passed through the gates of death. From the other side he told them that he had sat in two groups with his companions, and that these were taken one after the other, and that his position in the groups was such and such. Further he described the differences in the two different photographs, saying that he sat on the same chair and in the same attitude in both, but that the position of the arm was a little different, and so on. All this is minutely described. Now the family knew nothing of these photographs, they did not know that any such had been taken. Thus indirectly through the medium, the fact was made known that there was in existence a photographic group representing Raymond Lodge with several companions. Some few weeks later, a photograph was sent over to Sir Oliver from France, corresponding exactly to the one described by the soul of Raymond through the medium. This would naturally make a strong impression on anyone who approaches such things in a dilettante way — as all those concerned clearly did. It was an experimental test. The case in point is that of a soul from the other side, describing a photograph of which several copies were taken, and which reached the family some time later, and was then found to correspond in every detail to the description given. It was quite impossible that either the medium or anyone present at the sittings could have seen this photograph. Here we have a case which must be reckoned with both scientifically and historically, for not only might one say that such a case would naturally make a great impression, but it really did occur and did make an enormous impression. As far as could be seen, this photographic proof, which has nothing to do with thought-transference, was very convincing.

It is necessary for us to bring the whole of this case before our mental vision. We must be quite clear as to the fact that when a man passes through the gate of death, the human individuality is at first for a short time, enshrouded in the astral body and etheric body; and that the latter after a more or less brief period — varying in different cases, but never lasting more than a few days — passes out into the etheric world and there pursues its further destiny; so that the individuality enters the Spiritual world with the astral body only, and continues its further wanderings in that world. The etheric body is severed from the human individuality just as the physical body was on earth. Now we must clearly understand that in Spiritualistic seances, — and the whole work of Sir Oliver Lodge is based on these, — only one who has real knowledge is able to distinguish whether the communications come from the actual individuality, or only from the cast-off, forsaken etheric corpse. This etheric corpse still remains in continual communication with the individuality. Only, when one gets into connection with the spiritual world in a round-about way through a medium, one comes in touch with the etheric corpse first, and so can never be sure of reaching in this way the actual individual. It is certain that there is in our age a striving to find for Spiritual existence some sort of proof such as is found by experiments in the laboratory, something which can be grasped with hands and that one can see before one in the world of matter. Our materialistic age does not care to follow the inner path the soul must take in the Spiritual worlds, the purely Spiritual path. It wants the spirit to descend into the material world and be discovered there. We are experiencing all kinds of materialistic Spiritualism, a materialistic turning to the worlds of the spirit. Now, it is quite possible for the etheric body, which has been separated from the actual human individuality, to manifest a certain life of its own which, to the uninitiated, may easily be mistaken for the life of the individual himself. We must not think that the etheric body when given over to the etheric world only manifests reminiscences and recollections, mere echoes of what the man passes through here; it manifests a real continuous individuality. It can relate incidents and say quite new things, But we should be going quite off the track if we thought that because a connection is established with the etheric body, we are necessarily in connection with the individual himself. It is very possible in the case of people sitting in a small circle — all being members of the family as was the case with the Lodges, all thinking in one way or another about the dead man, and all filled with thoughts and memories of him, — that their thoughts may be conveyed to his etheric body through the medium, and that this etheric body may occasionally give striking replies, which may really produce the impression of being spoken by the individuality of the dead. Yet, perhaps, they may only proceed from his etheric corpse. Those who are acquainted with such things actually find this to be the case, and when Raymond Lodge was supposed to come to his family through the medium, in reality it was the etheric corpse speaking; Raymond Lodge had not really held communion with the circle at all. Hence, as I have said, to those accustomed to the course of events in such seances, the communications do not appear very remarkable. It is probable that the whole story would not have made so much impression on a wide public, nor would it continue to do so, if it were not for the incident of the photographs. For this story of the photographs is very remarkable, indeed exceptionally so. For here it was impossible that any transference of thoughts should take place, — passing through the medium to the etheric body of Raymond, as might have been the case in the other instances. Nobody in England could have known of the photographs; they had not yet come over at the time when the communications were made. But still it is very strange that such a learned scientist as Sir Oliver Lodge, who had for so long been interesting himself in these matters, should not know how such a circumstance is to be regarded. I have taken particular trouble to look more minutely into this case. Sir Oliver Lodge is a learned man, and a scientist upon whose descriptions one can rely; we are not dealing with any ordinary document produced by ordinary Spiritualistic seances but with the communications of a man describing with the certainty of a scientist, who has developed the conscientiousness customary to a scientist in the laboratory and, therefore, it is possible to form a complete picture of what happened, from the descriptions he gives. It is remarkable that such a learned man as Sir Oliver Lodge, who was for so many years interested in the subject, although in this case he was specially interested because it was a question of his own son, yet should not have known what has often been referred to in our Spiritual science, when giving descriptions of the atavistic forms of clairvoyance, which appear as presentiments. For this is none other than a very special case of Deuteroscopia. The case is as follows.

We have a medium. To this medium the Spiritual world is in a certain respect accessible; of course, as we know — through atavistic forces — such mediums can in their vision reach beyond space, but not only does their so-called second sight extend beyond space it also extends beyond time. Let us take a special case; one quoted hundreds of times. You may read descriptions of it, if you have not experienced it yourself through your acquaintances.

The case I mean, is when some one who has that tendency sees as in a dream, half in vision, his own coffin or funeral. He dies a fortnight afterwards. He saw in advance what was to occur fourteen days later. Or perhaps, one may see not his own funeral or coffin, but that of a complete stranger, an event to which the dreamer is quite indifferent. To instance a particular case, one may see oneself leaving the house and falling from horseback. This thing did occur — someone saw that happen, and tried to avert it, — but, notwithstanding all precautions, it still came to pass. That is a case of a vision extending in time, and what Sir Oliver Lodge describes is precisely this second-sight in time. His descriptions are given so accurately that it was possible to investigate the case. The medium through her forces was able to see an event still in the future. At the time she spoke, the photograph was not there; but it arrived a fortnight later, or thereabouts. It was then shown round to friends and relatives. This happened some time after but the medium saw it in advance, it was a prophetic vision, a case of Deuteroscopia. It was a pre-vision; that is the explanation. It had nothing to do with a communication between those on the physical plane and one in the Spiritual world.

You see how greatly one may be misled by striving to give a materialistic explanation of Spiritual circumstances in the world, and how blind one may be to the actual facts; such a vision is, of course, none the less a proof of the reality of a world behind the ordinary world of sense. The case is an interesting one; only it should not be quoted as proving a connection between the dead and the living. We must seek for the dead — if indeed we should or ought to seek for them at all — by following a really Spiritual path. In the near future I shall have many things to say on this subject; for it is my intention to give much consideration to the subject of the relation between the living and the dead.

I have brought up the subject of this book of Sir Oliver Lodge to show you how, although the longing after the Spiritual world does exist, it may here be said to have taken a materialistic form. Sir Oliver Lodge is a learned scientist; even although he strives after the Spiritual world he tries to gain knowledge of it by methods of the chemical world or of physics. Just as he experiments in his laboratory according to the laws of chemistry, so he wants ocular proof of what relates to the Spiritual world. But the way we must recognise as the right one is very far from his; our way leads the soul by an inner method to the Spiritual world, as we have often described, and no less often have we described what the soul first becomes acquainted with there and which immediately concerns us at the present time and underlies the world of physical sense, in which we live. We learn to recognise the whole materialistic character of our age, in the materialistic strivings that are directed to the Spiritual world. If our movement is to have any meaning at all, a meaning which it should eventually have in accordance with the necessary evolutionary laws of mankind, it must sharply define and emphasise the Spiritual inwardness of true Spirituality, as compared with these materialistic and absurd strivings after a world of spirit.

This is a skeptic book about “Raymond”:

https://app.box.com/s/938kzemix1fsey0942zpovlsebap82cz

Raymond, the book, can be downloaded free at http://www.spiritarchive.org/ebooks-in-english.html . Scroll down alphabetically to “Sir”—there you will find Sir Oliver Lodge’s books including Raymond. It is a fantastic book.

Virginia, Many thanks for that link.
Leslie

For Leslie and anyone else interested, “Raymond” is readable online here:

http://www.survivalafterdeath.info/library/lodge/raymond/contents.htm

Thanks to you for this post, Mike! Thanks also to Raymond, Sir Oliver, and Mrs. Leonard. I’m so glad to know about all of you. You all enrich my life greatly!

I purchased a Kindle copy of “Raymond. Life and Death” via Amazon some time ago and added it to the lengthening list of books to read.  Michael’s post was a good prompt to start reading it so I opened the Kindle copy with some anticipation.
~ Oh dear!  It was a thorough mess and effectively unreadable.  Its content is not conventional text; it is in fact all graphic images strung together, all of which are lying on their left side!!  My guess is that it was scanned, page by page, as images and inserted as images; it never got to the text stage.
~ I opened a Chat session with Amazon Support and, after three quarters of an hour, they finally reached the point of agreeing that it was in an unreadable format and they have pulled it out of their listing.  They tell me that it will be reworked and reissued.  They expect this will take several weeks.
~ So, if anyone wants to read the original, they will have to wait until it reappears.

A wonderfully fascinating article, Michael.  You are so incredibly knowledgeable, and it is always a joy to read what you write and to learn many things that I share with my classes.  Thank you!

Appreciatively, John

Excellent summary of this case. Other highly evidential cases - including that of a chess match between a living and a deceased chess grandmaster - can be found in my third book Science and the Afterlife.

One again a wonderful post Mike. Sir Oliver’s conclusions are totally in accordance with some of the most recent transmissions coming from the afterlife. A true pioneer who braved derision from the scoffers to bring in the light. Well done Raymond- mission accomplished.