Spirit Messages From My Husband (article 5 october 1930)
Spirit Messages From My Husband is an article written by Lady Conan Doyle published in the Sunday Dispatch on 5 october 1930.
Spirit Messages From My Husband
Photo 1: An unconventional snapshot of the late Sir Arthur and Lady Conan Doyle in the garden with their dogs.
Photo 2: The late Sir A. Conan Doyle's home near Crowborough.
By LADY CONAN DOYLE.
Many people have written to ask me why Spiritualism has helped me through the dark Valley of the Shadow of Death — which my heart and life have had to traverse, in losing my husband.
When his dear presence was suddenly taken from me the utter sense of desolation — the void — the silence — the grey lonely path in life stretching ahead of me without that dear hand to mine was overwhelming.
Everything seemed to have gone from life, when gradually I realised a wonderful light was shining ahead showing me the way to cross the dark, dark valley.
What was that light? It was a Godgiven knowledge which brought balm and comfort immeasurable to my stricken heart. A knowledge which gave me strength to carry on — strength within a week of his passing over to sit and face 10,000 people for nearly three hours at the Albert Hall at the wonderful memorial service to my husband. That knowledge (not faith or belief) filled my heart with an inexpressible comfort and a great Certainty.
CLOSE TOUCH.
It was that I knew my husband would and could communicate with me, that he would be able to make his psychic presence felt in our home, that he would be able to keep in close touch with our dale lives and so help and guide us until he greets us at the little gate that is called Death.
That knowledge which I have tested time after time in 16 years of investigation and have proved to be 100 per cent. true was my bulwark in the great storm of my life.
What is that knowledge? It is that death is only a small gateway leading into another vibration of life, the etheric vibration, as solid to those who live in it as the material world is to us.
The veil is very, very thin between the two spheres of existence. There are, of course, higher and higher spheres — steps in the ladder of Spiritual evolution. Those in the next sphere of life can and do see into ours, but only those in our material plane who have that God-given gilt called clairvoyance, which St. Paul called the discerning of spirits, can see into the etheric sphere.
STRICTEST TEST.
How do I know these things? I will tell you. I have been in touch with people on the other side of the thin veil dividing this world from the other spheres of existence dozens and dozens of times — through mediums all over the world, in the presence of many witnesses. I have heard at a private séance of ours three Spirit people's voices talking simultaneously, the medium breathing in a deep, deep trance all the time, and three spirit people at the same time talking to three of our friends, reminding them of old days only known to the earth sitters and the Spirit people.
I have seen all the signs of Pentecost in an upper room on a Sunday : the rushing winds the tongues of fire, a great voice addressing each from above, prophesying something to my husband which it was impossible for anyone in the world to know would happen, but which was fulfilled within twenty-four hours — the whole séance under the strictest test conditions.
I have seen faces materialise as clearly as I have seen them to life, the blue eyes, the wrinkles, etc., just the same, and the people to right and left of me saw them, too.
It is no use some ignorant, conceited person saying it cannot be possible to communicate with the "dead" because he has not done so. If twelve independent people said that they had visited some newly discovered country and, although all unknown to each other, each described the same things seen in that country, we should believe those twelve persons. We should pay no attention to the man who said it was not so because be had never been there.
We should just think what a fool the man was to dare to talk of something he knew nothing whatever about.
So it is with the man who talks of Spiritualism in that way, never having spent six months in reading or in investigating it.
To communicate with those living in the higher vibrations of life is very like tuning in to the wireless. There is Daventry (the broadcasting station), for example — that is, those on the other side of the veil — strong and longing to get through to us; there is the aerial (knowledge through reading and investigation); there is the receiving instrument (the medium at this end).
How can Daventry tune in if one of the Vital Aerial wires is down (the sitter knowing nothing) and the instrument blocked (by stupid incredulity)? Clear the line and open the door of reason and a most wonderful knowledge will be yours. "Seek — and ye shall find." Those words I have proved to be true.
How often I have heard on the "other side" people say, "Why were we not told these things by the Church when we were on the earth plane; they told us nothing, and when we come over here we are all befogged for some time because everything is so different from what we expected. It would have made such a difference to my life on earth had I known; I could have borne it so much more easily had I known what a wonderful world lay ahead, such a full human and happy existence."
Far, far more important than the physical materialisations are the communications we receive from those on the other side. It is such happiness to us, and to our dear ones beyond the veil to get into touch again, and all that they tell us is so inspiring, so helpful.
It makes life seem so different, so much more worth while, when told of that wonderfully happy and human existence, to know clearly and definitely of the conditions of the future life ahead of one; to know that all you have in you that so often in this life, owing to circumstances, is never able to find expression will have full scope for its development; to know that there will be for you the realisation of a greater personality, the fulfilment of your inner and greater self.
I had a very fine medium spending the week-end with me recently. She had never met my husband. We had a séance in the evening and he communicated with me, and through her (she being in deep trance) he talked of something unknown to anyone. He also repeated to me what he had said to me at our own private faintly séance the night before, which we, of course, had not mentioned to her or to anyone else.
PSYCHIC DAVENTRY.
At the same séance he told me of something which would come through to me from Fleet-street the next day. The following morning I was rung up by that very paper twice within an hour.
Trivial? Yes, just as something on the wireless may be. But proving that there is a psychic Daventry there, able to tune in to us.
Here is another incident which the ignorant person would call trivial, but it was by no means trivial to me. Judge this as a human and not only as a brain-box, as the foolish person seems to expect as to become when we get into touch with our dear ones through the veil.
I had bought a delightful garden swing seat to put in our garden in our New Forest home which opens into the Forest. The seat is like a most comfortable hanging bed with a canopy over it. I had planned that my dear husband should lie in it and regain his strength in the lovely restful surroundings of the Forest garden when we came to it in August. But his dear presence was taken from me, and when I came to the Forest house after his passing I could not bear even to have the seat and all belonging to it unpacked.
AT RIVER BEND.
I had it put out of sight. A short time after arriving at our home in the Forest I received a letter from Africa — it was from a friend who had just had a séance with a fine medium in Johannesburg. My friend said that my husband had communicated and was most urgent that a message should be sent to me. It was that he wanted the seat put near the bend of the river and that I should rest in it. The friend went on: "I do not know if you have a stream in your garden at Crowborough, but I feel I must send the message to you."
The people at the séance did not know that we had a house in the New Forest, still less that there was a stream in the garden, and no one knew that I had bought the seat, but my husband knew, and he knew, too, of the lovely sharp bend in the stream with the glorious Forest vista, quite the loveliest spot for the seat, where it now stands at my husband's request.
Trivial? Yes, to the outsider, but, oh! what comfort and joy to have evidence in the little everyday things of the closeness of our beloved — seeing — watching over, and comforting one.
THE DOVE.
Some weeks ago my family and I had been staying in London for a few days. The evening that we returned to our house at Crowborough we at once went out to the Sanctum — that is what we call my husband's grave — and while standing all together near it I happened to look up, and over us I saw a most lovely white dove. We saw it circle just over our heads and then fly away again, and as it turned the corner past some trees the sunlight fell on it, and it was a glorious silver-white.
In all the twenty-three years I have lived at Crowborough I had never seen a white dove before. It was a very lovely incident and symbolical.
A year or two ago my husband and I, having a séance alone at home at 11.30 at night, were told of something important which had happened that day in Europe. (We have no wireless in the house.) The next morning there were big headlines in the paper about the event. Trivial? Yes. But showing a third unseen person was with us who knew more than we did.
The night before the last great Japanese earthquake we were told of it in our own home séance, no outside medium being present.
To show how closely our dear ones keep in touch with our daily lives: A friend of ours went to a séance and had a long talk with his son. Before leaving, the son said, "Daddy, please thank mother and Edith for the red and white roses." The father replied, "I don't know what you mean, my boy." "Never mind, daddy," he said, "do, please, give them the message."
REASON GUIDE.
When the father got home his wife and daughter were out. They returned soon afterwards and said that they had been to the cemetery to take some flowers to the son's grave. The father asked what flowers they had taken, and they replied, "Red and white roses."
Of course, it is essential for investigators in Spiritualism, which is really a science, to be as alert and watchful as they would be in receiving communications from those on earth. But always, always be guided by clear-sighted reason, and when proofs come to you — after reading and investigating — go ahead as you would in any other science and build on your results, and you will find that the knowledge gained and the comfort and by which will emanate from that knowledge will help you through all the hard and difficult bits on life's roadway, and that when you are called to go through the dark valley of the shadow of death your tears he dried, your heart be soothed, because of that lovely light creating a bridge between you and that dearly beloved one who has lust gone a step ahead.
I write of what I know, because I have just come through that dark valley myself and am in touch once more with my beloved husband, through that God-given knowledge — Spiritualism.
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