Raymond, or life and death : with examples of the evidence for survival of memory and affection after death

Front matter

E AND DEATH r-

SIR OLIVER LODG

Kf^y^p

Preface

THIS book is named after my son who was killed in the War.

It is divided into three parts. In the first part some idea of the kind of life lived and the spirit shown by any number of youths, fully engaged in civil occupations, who joined for service when war broke out and went to the Front, is illustrated by extracts from his letters. The object of this portion is to engender a friendly feeling towards the writer of the letters, so that whatever more has to be said in the sequel may not have the inevitable dulness of details concerning an entire stranger. This is the sole object of this portion. The letters are not supposed to be remarkable; though as a picture of part of the life at the Front during the 191 5 phase of the war they are interesting, as many other such letters must have been.

The second part gives specimens of what at present are considered by most people unusual communications; though these again are in many respects of an ordinary type, and will be recognised as such by other bereaved persons who have had similar messages. In a few particulars, indeed, those here quoted have rather special features, by reason of the assistance given by the group of my friends "on the other side" who had closely studied the subject. It is partly owing to the urgency therein indicated that I have thought it my duty to speak out, though it may well be believed that it is not without hesitation that I have ventured thus to obtrude family affairs. I should not have done so were it not that the amount of premature and unnatural bereavement at the present time viu PREFACE

is so appalling that the pain caused by exposing one's own sorrow and its alleviation, to possible scoffers, becomes almost negligible in view of the service which it is legitimate to hope may thus be rendered to mourners, if they can derive comfort by learning that communication across the gulf is possible. Incidentally I have to thank those friends, some of them previously unknown, who have in the same spirit allowed the names of loved ones to appear in this book, and I am grateful for the help which one or two of those friends have accorded. Some few more perhaps may be thus led to pay critical attention to any assurance of continued and happy and useful existence which may reach them from the other side.

The third part of the book is of a more expository character, and is designed to help people in general to realise that this subject is not the bugbear which ignorance and prejudice have made it, that it belongs to a coherent system of thought full of new facts of which continued study is necessary, that it is subject to a law and order of its own, and that though comparatively in its infancy it is a genuine branch of psychological science. This third part is called "Life and Death," because these are the two great undeniable facts which concern everybody, and in which it is natural for every one to feel a keen interest, if they once begin to realise that such interest is not futile, and that it is possible to learn something real about them. It may be willingly admitted that these chapters are inadequate to the magnitude of the subject, but it is hoped that they are of a usefully introductory character.

The "In Memoriam" chapter of Part I is no doubt chiefly of interest to family and friends; but everybody is very friendly, and under the circumstances it will be excused.

Contents

PAGE

Preface vii

Part One: Normal Portion Chapter

I. In Memoriam 3

II. Letters from the Front . . ' . . . . . 15 III. Letters from Officers 73

Part Two: Supernormal Portion

I. Elementary Explanation 86

II. The 'Faunus' Message 90

III. Sequel to the 'Faunus' Message .... 96

IV. The Group Photograph 105

V. Beginning of Historical Record 117

VI. First Sitting of O. J. L. with Mrs. Leonard . . 125

VII. First Peters Sitting (Anonymous) .... 129

VIII. A Table Sitting 137

IX. Attempts at Stricter Evidence 151

X. Record Continued 158

XI. First Sitting of Alec 162

XII. General Remarks on Conversational Reports and

on Cross-Correspondences 171

XIII. An O. J. L. Sitting with Peters 174

XIV. First Sitting of Lionel (Anonymous) . . . .180 XV. M. P. A. L. Sitting of November 26 . . . .188

XVI. O. J. L. Sitting of December 3 191

X CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

XVIII. First Sitting of Alec with Mrs. Leonard . . 208

i XIX. Private Sittings at Mariemont 217

XX. A Few more Records, with some Unverifiable Matter 226

XXI. Two Evidential Sittings of March 3 ... 237

XXII. More Unverifiable Matter 262

XXIII. A Few Isolated Incidents 271

Part Three: Life And Death

I. The Meaning of the Term Life 289

II. The Meaning of the Term Death .... 296

III. Death and Decay 302

IV. Continued Existence 308

V. Past, Present, and Future 312

VI. Interaction of Mind and Matter . . . .317

VII. 'Resurrection of the Body' 322

VIII. Mind and Brain 326

IX. Life and Consciousness 332

X. On Means of Communication 338

XI. On the Fact of Supernormal Communication . . 345

XII. On the Contention that all Psychic Communications are of a Trivial Nature and Deal with

Insignificant Topics 349

XIII. On the Manner of Communication .... 355

XIV. Various Psycho- Physical Methods .... 362 XV. Attitude of the Wise and Prudent .... 367

XVI. Outlook on the Universe 374

XVII. The Christian Idea of God 378

Index 397

ILLUSTRATIONS

Raymond Frontispiece

PAGE

Raymond when Two Years Old 8

Group of Officers, as Sent Us by Mrs. Cheves on December

7, 1915, Showing an Arm Resting on Raymond's Shoulder i 10

Another Edition of the Group- Photograph, with Leg Touching Shoulder Instead of Hand 112

Group Subsequently Obtained, Evidently Taken at the

Same Time, BUT Pressure ON Shoulder Removed . .114

Mariemont 224

Raymond and Brodie with the Pigeons at Mariemont . 224

Large Double-Compartment Tent in Its First Form (1905)

(Built at Mariemont and Taken to Woolacombe) . 250

The Tent in Its Second Form (1906) Made out of the Remains OF the First . 250

First Edition of the Sandboat (1906) at Woolacombe, with

Alec on Board 252

Rising Ground Behind Older Tents on Woolacombe Beach 252

"Grandfather W. " 258

"Mr. Jackson" with M. F. A. L. at Mariemont . . . 258

Second Edition of Sandboat, at Mariemont, Before Being

Unshipped and Taken to Woolacombe, 1907 . . . 260

Raymond Working at the Sandboat in the Boys' Laboratory

AT Mariemont 260

"Curly" and" Vix. " Curly being the Shaggy One. [Vix was

THE Mother of Raymond's Dog "Larry" . . . 278

Raymond in His " Nagant " Motor, 1913. Outside a Friend's

House in Somersetshire 278

s

Part One: Normal Portion

"And this to fill us with regard for man, With apprehension of his passing worth."

Browning, Paracelsus.

T

CHAPTER I HE bare facts are much as reported in The Times

Second Lieutenant Raymond Lodge was the youngest son of Sir Oliver and Lady Lodge, and was by taste and training an engineer. He volunteered for service in September 1914 and was at once given a commission in the 3rd South Lancashires. After training near Liverpool and Edinburgh, he went to the Front in the early spring of 1915, attached to the 2nd South Lancashire Regiment of the Regular Army, and was soon in the trenches near Ypres or Hooge. His engineering skill was of service in details of trench construction, and he later was attached to a Machine-Gun Section for a time, and had various escapes from shell fire and shrapnel. His Captain having sprained an ankle, he was called back to Company work, and at the time of his death was in command of a Company engaged in some early episode of an attack or attempted advance which was then beginning. He was struck by a fragment of shell in the attack on Hooge Hill on the 14th September 1915, and died in a few hours.

Raymond Lodge had been educated at Bedales School and Birmingham University. He had a great aptitude and love for mechanical engineering, and was soon to have become a partner with his elder brothers, who highly valued his services, and desired his return to assist in the Government work which now occupies their firm.

In amplification of this bare record a few members of the family wrote reminiscences of him, and the following memoir is by his eldest brother: —

RAYMOND LODGE

MOST lives have marriages, births of children, productive years; but the lives of the defenders of their Country are short and of majestic simplicity. The obscure records of childhood, the few years of school and university and constructive and inventive work, and then the sudden sacrifice of all the promise of the future, of work, of home, of love; the months of hard living and hard work well carried through, the cheerful humorous letters home making it out all very good fun; and in front, in a strange ruined and desolate land, certain mutilation or death. And now that death has come.

Unto each man his handiwork, to each his crown.

The just Fate gives; Whoso takes the world's life on him and his own lays down,

He, dying so, lives.^

My brother was bom at Liverpool on January 25th, 1889, and was at Bedales School for five or six years, and afterwards at Birmingham University, where he studied engineering and was exceptionally competent in the workshop. He went through the usual two years' practical training at the Wolseley Motor Works, and then entered his brothers' works, where he remained until he obtained a commission at the outbreak of war.

His was a mind of rare stamp. It had unusual power, unusual quickness, and patience and understanding of difficulties in my experience unparalleled, so that he was

* Swinburne, Super Flumina Babylonis. 4 able to make anyone understand really difficult things. I think we were most of us proudest and most hopeful of him. Some of us, I did myself, sometimes took problems technical or intellectual to him, sure of a wise and sound solution.

Though his chief strength lay on the side of mechanical and electrical engineering it was not confined to that. He read widely, and liked good literature of an intellectual and witty but not highly imaginative type, at least I do not know that he read Shelley or much of William Morris, but he was fond of Fielding, Pope, and Jane Austen. Naturally he read Shakespeare, and I particularly associate him with Twelfth Night and Love's Labour's Lost. Among novelists, his favourites, after Fielding and Miss Austen, were I believe Dickens and Reade; and he frequently quoted from the essays and letters of Charles Lamb.^

Of the stories of his early childhood, and his overflowing vitality made many, I was too often from home to be able to speak at large. But one I may tell. Once when a small boy at Grove Park, Liverpool, he jumped out of the bath and ran down the stairs with the nurse after him, out of the front door, down one drive along the road and up the other, and was safely back in the bath again before the horrified nursemaid could catch up with him. [ body of Memoir incomplete, and omitted here. ]

* Note by O. J. L. — A volume of poems by O. W. F. L. had been sent to Raymond by the author ; and this came back with his kit, inscribed on the title page in a way which showed that it had been appreciated :—

"Received at Wisques (Machine-Gun School), near St. Omer,

France — 12th July 1915.

Taken to camp near Poperinghe — 13;^ July. To huts near Dickebusch — 21st July.

To first-line trenches near St. Eloi, in front of 'The Mound of

Death'— 24f/j July."

PART I— CHAPTER I [Close of Memoir]

That death is the end has never been a Christian doctrine, and evidence collected by careful men in our own day has, perhaps needlessly, upheld with weak props of experiment the mighty arch of Faith. Death is real and grievous, and is not to be tempered by the glossing timidities of those who would substitute journalese like "passing-on," "passing-over," etc., for that tremendous word: but it is the end of a stage, not the end of the journey. The road stretches on beyond that inn, and beyond our imagination, "the moonlit endless way."

Let us think of him then, not as lying near Ypres with all his work ended, but rather, after due rest and refreshment, continuing his noble and useful career in more peaceful surroundings, and quietly calling us his family from paralysing grief to resolute and high endeavour.

Indeed, it is not right that we should weep for a death like his. Rather let us pay him our homage in praise and imitation, by growing like him and by holding our lives lightly in our Country's service, so that if need be we may die like him. This is true honour and his best memorial.

Not that I would undervalue those of brass or stone, for if beautiful they are good and worthy things. But fame illuminates memorials, and fame has but a narrow circle in a life of twenty-six years. , f: /

Who shall remember him, who climb His all-unripened fame to wake, Who dies an age b^ore his time?

But nobly, but for England's sake.

Who will believe us when we cry He was as great as he was brave?

His name that years had lifted high Lies buried in that Belgian grave.

O strong and patient, kind and true, Valiant of heart, and clear of brain — They cannot know the man we knew, Our words go down the wind like rain.

Tint em

EPITAPH

ON MEMORIAL TABLET

IN ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH, EDGBASTON

REMEMBER RAYMOND LODGE

SECOND LIEUTENANT SECOND SOUTH LANCASHIRE REGIMENT

BELOVED SON OF SIR OLIVER AND LADY LODGE OF THIS PARISH

WHO GAVE HIS LIFE FOR HIS COUNTRY

HE WAS BORN JANUARY 2STH 1889

AND WAS KILLED IN ACTION IN FLANDERS

ABOUT NOON SEPTEMBER I4TH

IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD I915

AGED 26 YEARS

Whoso bears the whole heaviness of the wronged world's weight

And puts it by, It is well with him suffering, though he face man's fate;

How should he die?

Szinnburne

REMINISCENCES BY O. J. L.

OF all my sons, the youngest, when he was small, was most like myself at the same age. In bodily appearance I could recognise the likeness to my early self, as preserved in old photographs; an old schoolfellow of mine who knew me between the ages of eight and eleven, visiting Mariemont in April 1904, remarked on it forcibly and at once, directly he saw Raymond — then a schoolboy; and innumerable small mental traits in the boy recalled to me my childhood's feelings. Even an absurd difficulty he had as a child in saying the hard letters — the hard G and K — was markedly reminiscent of my own similar difficulty.

Another peculiarity which we shared in childhood was dislike of children's parties — indeed, in my own case, a party of any kind. I remember being truly miserable at a Christmas party at The Mount, Penkhull, where I have no doubt that every one was more than friendly, — though probably over-patronising, as people often are with children, — but where I determinedly abstained from supper, and went home hungry. Raymond's prominent instance was at the hospitable Liverpool house, "Greenbank," which the Rathbones annually delivered up to family festivities each Christmas afternoon and evening, being good enough to include us in their family group. On one such occasion Raymond, a very small boy, was found in the hall making a bee-line for the front door and home. I remember sympathising with him, from ancient memories, and taking him home, subsequently returning myself.

At a later stage of boyhood I perceived that his ability and tastes were akin to mine, for we had the same passionate love of engineering and machinery; though in my case, having no opportunity of exercising it to any useful extent, it gradually turned into special aptitude for physical science. Raymond was never anything like as good at physics, nor had he the same enthusiasm for

RAYMOND WHEX TWO YKARS OLD mathematics that I had, but he was better at engineering, was in many ways I consider stronger in character, and would have made, I expect, a first-rate engineer. His pertinacious ability in the mechanical and workshop direction was very marked. Nothing could have been further from his natural tastes and proclivities than to enter upon a military career; nothing but a sense of duty impelled him in that direction, which was quite foreign to family tradition, at least on my side.

He also excelled me in a keen sense of humour — not only appreciation, but achievement. The whole family could not but admire and enjoy the readiness with which he perceived at once the humorous side of everything; and he usually kept lively any gathering of which he was a unit. At school, indeed, his active wit rather interfered with the studies of himself and others, and in the supposed interests of his classmates it had to be more or less suppressed, but to the end he continued to be rather one of the wags of the school.

Being so desperately busy all my life I failed to see as much as I should like either of him or of the other boys, but there was always an instinctive sympathy between us ; and it is a relief to me to be unable to remember any, even a single, occasion on which I have been vexed with him. In all serious matters he was, as far as I could judge, one of the best youths I have ever known; and we all looked forward to a happy Hfe for him and a brilliant career.

His elder brothers highly valued his services in their Works. He got on admirably with the men ; his mode of dealing with overbearing foremen at the Works, where he was for some years an apprentice, was testified to as masterly, and was much appreciated by his "mates" ; and honestly I cannot bethink myself of any trait in his character which I would have had different — unless it be that he might have had a more thorough liking and aptitude for, and greater industry in, my own subject of physics.

When the war broke out his mother and I were in Australia, and it was some time before we heard that he had considered it his duty to volunteer. He did so in September 1914, getting a commission in the Regular lo PART I— CHAPTER I

Army which was ante-dated to August; and he threw himself into military duties with the same ability and thoroughness as he had applied to more naturally congenial occupations. He went through a course of training at Great Crosby, near Liverpool, with the Regiment in which he was a Second Lieutenant, namely the 3rd South Lancashires, being attached to the 2nd when he went to the Front; his Company spent the winter in more active service on the south coast of the Firth of Forth and Edinburgh; and he gained his desired opportunity to go out to Flanders on 15 March 191 5. Here he applied his engineering faculty to trench and shelter construction, in addition to ordinary military duties ; and presently he became a machine-gun officer. How desperately welcome to the family his safe return would have been, at the end of the war, I need not say. He had a hard and strenuous time at the Front, and we all keenly desired to make it up to him by a course of home "spoiling." But it was too much to hope for — though I confess I did hope for it.

He has entered another region of service now ; and this we realise. For though in the first shock of bereavement the outlook of life felt irretrievably darkened, a perception of his continued usefulness has mercifully dawned upon us, and we know that his activity is not over. His bright ingenuity will lead to developments beyond what we could have anticipated; and we have clear hopes for the future.

O. J. L.

Mariemont, September 30, 1915.

A MOTHER'S LAMENT

Written on a scrap of paper, September 26, 1915, ^'To ease the pain and to try to get in touch"

RAYMOND, darling, you have gone from our world, and oh, to ease the pain. I want to know if you are happy, and that you yourself are really talking to me and no sham.

"No more letters from you, my own dear son, and

II

I have loved them so. They are all there; we shall have them typed together into a sort of book.

"Now we shall be parted until I join you there. I have not seen as much of you as I wanted on this earth, but I do love to think of the bits I have had of you, specially our journeys to and from Italy. I had you to myself then, and you were so dear.

"I want to say, dear, how we recognise the glorious way in which you have done your duty, with a certain straight pressing on, never letting anyone see the effort, and with your fun and laughter playing round all the time, cheering and helping others. You know how your brothers and sisters feel your loss, and your poor father !"

'TT^HE religious side of Raymond was hardly known to the ■*■ family; but among his possessions at the Front was found a small pocket Bible called "The Palestine Pictorial Bible" (Pearl 24mo), Oxford University Press, in which a number of passages are marked; and on the fly-leaf, pencilled in his writing, is an index to these passages, which page I copy here : —

Ex. xxxiii. 14 St. John xiv.

Eph. ii. .

Ezra ix. 9 Isa. xii. 2 Isa. i. 18 Isa. xl. 31 Rev. vii. 14 Rev. xxi. 4

MizpAH. Gen. xxxi. 49.

PAGE

R. L.

12 PART I— CHAPTER I

T

HE following poem was kindly sent me by Canon Rawnsley, in acknowledgment of a Memorial Card : —

OUR ANGEL-HOST OF HELP

IN MEMORY OF RAYMOND LODGE, Who Fell in Flanders, 14 Sept. 1915

"His strong young body is laid under some trees on the road from Ypres to Menin." [From the Memorial Card sent to friends.]

'Twixt Ypres and Menin night and day

The poplar trees in leaf of gold Were whispering either side the way Of sorrow manifold,

— Of war that never should have been,

Of war that still perforce must be, Till in what brotherhood can mean The nations all agree.

But where they laid your gallant lad

I heard no sorrow in the air.

The boy who gave the best he had That others good might share.

For golden leaf and gentle grass

They too had offered of their best To banish grief from all who pass His hero's place of rest.

There as I gazed, the guests of God,

An angel host before mine eyes, Silent as if on air they trod

Marched straight from Paradise.

And one sprang forth to join the throng

From where the grass was gold and green, His body seemed more lithe and strong Than it had ever been.

I cried, "But why in bright array

Of crowns and palms toward the north And those white trenches far away, Doth this great host go forth?"

He answered, "Forth we go to fight

To help all need where need there be, Sworn in for right against brute might Till Europe shall be free."

H. D. Rawnsley

EXTRACTS FROM PLATO'S DIALOGUE

"MENEXENUS"

Being part of a Speech in honour of those who had DIED IN Battle for their Country

AND I think that I ought now to repeat the message which your fathers, when they went out to battle, urged us to deliver to you who are their survivors, in case anything happened to them. I will tell you what I heard them say, and what, if they could, they would fain be saying now, judging from what they then said; but you must imagine that you hear it all from their lips. Thus they spoke: —

"Sons, the event proves that your fathers were brave men. For we, who might have continued to live, though without glory, choose a glorious death rather than bring reproach on you and your children, and rather than disgrace our fathers and all of our race who have gone before us, believing that for the man who brings shame on his own people life is not worth living, and that such an one is loved neither by men nor gods, either on earth or in the underworld when he is dead,

"Some of us have fathers and mothers still living, and you must encourage them to bear their trouble, should it come, as lightly as may be; and do not join them in lamentations, for they will have no need of aught that would give their grief a keener edge. They will have pain enough from what has befallen them. Endeavour rather to soothe and heal their wound, reminding them that of all the boons they ever prayed for the greatest have been granted to them. For they did not pray that their sons should live for ever, but that they should be brave and of fair fame. Courage and honour are the best of all blessings, and while for a mortal man it can hardly be that everything in his own life will turn out as he would have it, their prayer for those two things has been heard. Moreover, if they bear their troubles bravely, it will be perceived that they are indeed fathers of brave sons, and that they themselves are like them. ... So minded, we.

14 PART I— CHAPTER I

at any rate, bid those dear to us to be ; such we would have them be; and such we say we are now showing that we ourselves are, neither grieving overmuch nor fearing overmuch if we are to die in this battle. And we entreat our fathers and mothers to continue to be thus minded for the rest of their days, for we would have them know that it is not by bewailing and lamentation that they will please us best. If the dead have any knowledge of the living, they will give us no pleasure by breaking down under their trouble, or by bearing it with impatience. . . . For our lives will have had an end the most glorious of all that fall to the lot of man ; it is therefore more fitting to do us honour than to lament us."