The Wanderings of a Spiritualist

Chapter Ii 24

Gibraltar.--Spanish right versus British might.--Relics of Barbary Rovers, and of German militarists.--Ichabod!--Senegal Infantry.--No peace for the world.--Religion on a liner.--Differences of vibration.--The Bishop of Kwang-Si.--Religion in China.--Whisky in excelsis.--France's masterpiece.--British errors.--A procession of giants.--The invasion of Egypt.--Tropical weather.--The Russian Horror.--An Indian experiment.--Aden.--Bombay.--The Lambeth encyclical. A great novelist.--The Mango trick.--Snakes.--The Catamarans.--The Robber Castles of Ceylon.--Doctrine of Reincarnation.--Whales and Whalers.--Perth.--The Bight.

Chapter Iii 60

Mr. Hughes' letter of welcome.--Challenges.--Mr. Carlyle Smythe.--The Adelaide Press.--The great drought.--The wine industry.--Clairvoyance.--Meeting with Bellchambers.--The first lecture.--The effect.--The Religious lecture.--The illustrated lecture.--Premonitions.--The spot light.--Mr. Thomas' account of the incident.--Correspondence.--Adelaide doctors.--A day in the Bush,--The Mallee fowl.--Sussex in Australia.--Farewell to Adelaide.

Chapter Iv 84

Speculations on Paul and his Master.--Arrival at Melbourne.--Attack in the Argus.--Partial press boycott.--Strength of the movement.--The Prince of Wales.--Victorian football. Rescue Circle in Melbourne.--Burke and Wills' statue.--Success of the lectures.--Reception at the Auditorium.--Luncheon of the British Empire League.--Mr. Ryan's experience.--The Federal Government.--Mr. Hughes' personality.--The mediumship of Charles Bailey.--His alleged exposure.--His remarkable record.--A test sitting.--The Indian nest.--A remarkable lecture.--Arrival of Lord Forster.--The future of the Empire.--Kindness of Australians.--Prohibition. --Horse-racing.--Roman Catholic policy.

Chapter V 114

More English than the English.--A day in the Bush.--Immigration.--A case of spirit return.--A seance.--Geelong.--The lava plain.--Good-nature of General Ryrie.--Bendigo.--Down a gold mine.--Prohibition v. Continuance.--Mrs. Knight MacLellan. --Nerrin.--A wild drive.--Electric shearing.--Rich sheep stations. --Cockatoo farmers.--Spinnifex and Mallee.--Rabbits.--The great marsh.

Chapter Vi 136

The Melbourne Cup.--Psychic healing.--M. J. Bloomfield.--My own experience.--Direct healing.--Chaos and Ritual.--Government House Ball.--The Rescue Circle again.--Sitting with Mrs. Harris.--A good test case.--Australian botany.--The land of myrtles.--English cricket team.--Great final meeting in Melbourne.

Chapter Vii 151

Great reception at Sydney.--Importance of Sydney.--Journalistic luncheon.--A psychic epidemic.--Gregory.--Barracking.--Town Hall reception.--Regulation of Spiritualism.--An ether apport.--Surfing at Manly.--A challenge.--Bigoted opponents.--A disgruntled photographer.--Outing in the harbour.--Dr. Mildred Creed.--Leon Gellert.--Norman Lindsay.--Bishop Leadbeater.--Our relations with Theosophy.--Incongruities of H.P.B.--Of D.D. Home.

Chapter Viii 176

Dangerous fog.--The six photographers.--Comic Advertisements.--Beauties of Auckland.--A Christian clergyman.--Shadows in our American relations.--The Gallipoli Stone.--Stevenson and the Germans.--Position of De Rougemont.--Mr. Clement Wragge.--Atlantean theories.--A strange psychic.--Wellington the windy.--A literary oasis.--A Maori seance.--Presentation.

Chapter Ix 198

The Anglican Colony.--Psychic dangers.--The learned dog.--Absurd newspaper controversy.--A backward community.--The Maori tongue.--Their origin.--Their treatment by the Empire.--A fiasco.--The Pa of Kaiopoi.--Dr. Thacker.--Sir Joseph Kinsey.--A generous collector.--Scott and Amundsen.--Dunedin.--A genuine medium.--Evidence.--The Shipping strike.--Sir Oliver.--Farewell.

Chapter X 223

Christian origins.--Mithraism.--Astronomy.--Exercising boats.--Bad news from home.--Futile strikes.--Labour Party.--The blue wilderness.--Journey to Brisbane.--Warm reception.--Friends and Foes.--Psychic experience of Dr. Doyle.--Birds.--Criticism on Melbourne--Spiritualist Church.--Ceremony.--Sir Matthew Nathan.--Alleged repudiation of Queensland.--Billy tea.--The bee farm.--Domestic service in Australia.--Hon. John Fihilly.--Curious photograph by the State photographer.--The "Orsova."

Chapter Xi 255

Medlow Bath.--Jenolan Caves.--Giant skeleton.--Mrs. Foster Turner's mediumship.--A wonderful prophecy.--Final results.--Third sitting with Bailey.--Failure of State Control.--Retrospection.--Melbourne presentation.--Crooks.--Lecture at Perth.--West Australia.--Rabbits, sparrows and sharks.

Chapter Xii 280

Pleasing letters.--Visit to Candy.--Snake and Flying Fox.--Buddha's shrine.--The Malaya.--Naval digression.--Indian trader. --Elephanta.--Sea snakes.--Chained to a tombstone.--Berlin's escape. --Lord Chetwynd.--Lecture in the Red Sea.--Marseilles.

Chapter Xiii 303

The Institut Metaphysique.--Lecture in French.--Wonderful musical improviser.--Camille Flammarion.--Test of materialised hand.--Last ditch of materialism.--Sitting with Mrs. Bisson's medium, Eva.--Round the Aisne battlefields.--A tragic intermezzo. --Anglo-French Rugby match.--Madame Blifaud's clairvoyance.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

On the War-Path in Australia, 1920-1921 Frontispiece

Facing page

How This Book was Written 9

The God-Speed Luncheon in London. On this occasion 250 out of 290 Guests rose as testimony that they were in Personal touch with their Dead 16

The Wanderers, 1920-1921 72

Bellchambers and the Mallee Fowl. "Get along with you, do" 80

Melbourne, November, 1920 96

A Typical Australian Back-Country Scene by H. J. Johnstone, a Great Painter Who Died Unknown. Painting in Adelaide National Gallery 128

At Melbourne Town Hall, November 12th, 1920 144

The People of Turi's Canoe, after a Voyage of Great Hardship, at last Sight the Shores of New Zealand. From a Painting by C. F. Goldie and L. G. A. Steele 208

Laying Foundation Stone of Spiritualist Church at Brisbane 240

Curious Photographic Effect referred to in Text. Taken by the Official Photographer, Brisbane. "Absolutely mystifying" is his Description 252

Our Party en route to the Jenolan Caves, January 20th, 1921. In Front of Old Court House in which Bushrangers were Tried 256

Denis with a Black Snake at Medlow Bath 264

TO MY WIFE.

THIS MEMORIAL OF A JOURNEY WHICH HER HELP AND PRESENCE CHANGED FROM A DUTY TO A PLEASURE.

A. C. D.

July 18/21.

Illustration: HOW THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN.

CHAPTER I. The Inception of the Enterprise.--the Merthyr Seance.--Experience

The inception of the enterprise.--The Merthyr Seance.--Experience of British lectures.--Call from Australia.--The Holborn luncheon.--Remarkable testimony to communication.--Is individual proof necessary?--Excursion to Exeter.--Can spiritualists continue to be Christians?--Their views on Atonement.--The party on the "Naldera."

This is an account of the wanderings of a spiritualist, geographical and speculative. Should the reader have no interest in psychic things--if indeed any human being can be so foolish as not to be interested in his own nature and fate,--then this is the place to put the book down. It were better also to end the matter now if you have no patience with a go-as-you-please style of narrative, which founds itself upon the conviction that thought may be as interesting as action, and which is bound by its very nature to be intensely personal. I write a record of what absorbs my mind which may be very different from that which appeals to yours. But if you are content to come with me upon these terms then let us start with my apologies in advance for the pages which may bore you, and with my hopes that some may compensate you by pleasure or by profit. I write these lines with a pad upon my knee, heaving upon the long roll of the Indian Ocean, running large and grey under a grey streaked sky, with the rain-swept hills of Ceylon, just one shade greyer, lining the Eastern skyline. So under many difficulties it will be carried on, which may explain if it does not excuse any slurring of a style, which is at its best but plain English.

There was one memorable night when I walked forth with my head throbbing and my whole frame quivering from the villa of Mr. Southey at Merthyr. Behind me the brazen glare of Dowlais iron-works lit up the sky, and in front twinkled the many lights of the Welsh town. For two hours my wife and I had sat within listening to the whispering voices of the dead, voices which are so full of earnest life, and of desperate endeavours to pierce the barrier of our dull senses. They had quivered and wavered around us, giving us pet names, sweet sacred things, the intimate talk of the olden time. Graceful lights, signs of spirit power had hovered over us in the darkness. It was a different and a wonderful world. Now with those voices still haunting our memories we had slipped out into the material world--a world of glaring iron works and of twinkling cottage windows. As I looked down on it all I grasped my wife's hand in the darkness and I cried aloud, "My God, if they only knew--if they could only know!" Perhaps in that cry, wrung from my very soul, lay the inception of my voyage to the other side of the world. The wish to serve was strong upon us both. God had given us wonderful signs, and they were surely not for ourselves alone.

I had already done the little I might. From the moment that I had understood the overwhelming importance of this subject, and realised how utterly it must change and chasten the whole thought of the world when it is whole-heartedly accepted, I felt it good to work in the matter and understood that all other work which I had ever done, or could ever do, was as nothing compared to this. Therefore from the time that I had finished the history of the Great War on which I was engaged, I was ready to turn all my remaining energies of voice or hand to the one great end. At first I had little of my own to narrate, and my task was simply to expound the spiritual philosophy as worked out by the thoughts and experiences of others, showing folk so far as I was able, that the superficial and ignorant view taken of it in the ordinary newspapers did not touch the heart of the matter. My own experiences were limited and inconclusive, so that it was the evidence of others which I quoted. But as I went forward signs were given in profusion to me also, such signs as were far above all error or deception, so that I was able to speak with that more vibrant note which comes not from belief or faith, but from personal experience and knowledge. I had found that the wonderful literature of Spiritualism did not reach the people, and that the press was so full of would-be jocosities and shallow difficulties that the public were utterly misled. Only one way was left, which was to speak to the people face to face. This was the task upon which I set forth, and it had led me to nearly every considerable city of Great Britain from Aberdeen to Torquay. Everywhere I found interest, though it varied from the heavier spirit of the sleepy cathedral towns to the brisk reality of centres of life and work like Glasgow or Wolverhampton. Many a time my halls were packed, and there were as many outside as inside the building. I have no eloquence and make profession of none, but I am audible and I say no more than I mean and can prove, so that my audiences felt that it was indeed truth so far as I could see it, which I conveyed. Their earnestness and receptiveness were my great help and reward in my venture. Those who had no knowledge of what my views were assembled often outside my halls, waving banners and distributing tracts, but never once in the course of addressing 150,000 people, did I have disturbance in my hall. I tried, while never flinching from truth, to put my views in such a way as to hurt no one's feelings, and although I have had clergymen of many denominations as my chairmen, I have had thanks from them and no remonstrance. My enemies used to follow and address meetings, as they had every right to do, in the same towns. It is curious that the most persistent of these enemies were Jesuits on the one side and Evangelical sects of the Plymouth Brethren type upon the other. I suppose the literal interpretation of the Old Testament was the common bond.

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