There is no Need to Fear Death
There is no Need to Fear Death is an article written by Arthur Conan Doyle published in Hull Evening News on 29 november 1929.
Conan Doyle argues that Spiritualism offers humanity a new religious foundation by revealing the reality and conditions of life after death, including continued individuality, moral progress, work, beauty, and reunion with loved ones. He claims this revelation will reduce fear of death, clarify humanity's relation to God and Christ, and eventually help unite religions by shifting attention from dogma to spiritual development.
This was the 3rd article of a series of 3 in the Hull Evening News:
- Read 1st article (25 november 1929)
- Read 2nd article (27 november 1929)
There is no Need to Fear Death
Says Sir A. Conan Doyle in this striking article.
"Death loses its fears when we are aware that we are eagerly expected by loved ones upon the other side, and that we shall carry on upon more or less familiar lines. I do not think that any experienced Spiritualist could possibly fear death."
I have now shortly sketched the general idea of this new great movement. Let us see what its ultimate results may be, and what justification I have in saying that its advent is the most important thing which has occurred in the world since the coming of Christ. The Reformation was but a change in the interpretation of old matter. This is a flood of new matter which will give us a fresh basis for our beliefs.
It is a common saying that nothing important comes through from the other side. Of all the charges which we have to meet, that is the most false and foolish. The mere fact that there is shown to be another side is in itself, in these days of doubt, enormously important. But for the first time we learn at first hand what that other side is like, and have a clear view of the destiny of man. It is for this high purpose, and not to give us worldly information which we should gain for ourselves, that this revelation. has come into the world.
If you take the writings of such inspired prophets as Jackson Davis, Stainton Moses, or Vale Owen, you will find that the ways of God are not altered, and that what could be done. in olden days differs in no way from what can be done now. Religion is not a dead and dusty thing, always dating back to the past, but it is alive and palpitating with fresh messages of knowledge and encouragement flowing ever from the great central source of power and wisdom. This is the angelic psychic work, the white magic, which is the core of every religion.
There are three different strata in all this very complex movement. The first and lowest is that of physical phenomena, which are mere signs and signals in order to draw attention. A friend in this world raps when ne needs admission; but it is not the rap but the subsequent message which is important. So it is here.
The second stratum is that of personal communion upon our own level, linking us up with our friends who have passed.
The third, the rarest, and far the most important, is the contact with high spirits, with angels, who solve our religious difficulties and give us at last a perfectly clear and reasonable description of what lies before us. I have examined many religions, but this is the first time I have ever been taught what satisfies my hopes and my reason while making no demand upon blind faith.
LIFE ON THE OTHER SIDE.
Taken as a whole, it is not subversive of the general belief. It supplements and simplifies it. It would be possible for a man to continue in his present religion and yet to accept all our conclusions. It makes us understand that our fate hereafter does indeed depend upon the degree of spirituality, which largely means unselfishness, which we cultivate here.
When we pass over we continue to use our natural faculties and are quite unchanged either in general appearance, in character, or in knowledge. The life is much as it is here, but in all ways happier and brighter among more pleasant surroundings. They are not shadowy beings, but very real and solid, adjusted to their own environment as we are to ours.
They have work and they have play as we have, but the work is that which is congenial. They tell us of houses, even as the Christ speaks of mansions, and they describe lovely scenery, flowers, art, drama, music, and science.
They learn and progress even as we do. There are darker lower spheres for the undeveloped, but everything, high or low, is moving upwards, sphere above sphere, a gradual evolution of the soul corresponding with that of the body. This is not a contradiction of old ideas. It is rather a hardening and a defining. It is true that there is none of that crude infernal or celestial conception, but the general idea of higher and lower is always there in a reasonable form. The spirit makes its own environment.
THE SPIRITS AND GOD.
When the world has learned this new revelation, and when every church has been constrained to adopt these facts, then they will have so much common ground that it will tend to unite them. They will learn that forms and dogmas are secondary things, but that the essential is spiritual development by whatever means it is attained.
What do the spirits say about God? They say that He is so infinitely above them that they can no more form a conception of Him than we can. If a man went one rung up a ladder he would know no more about the sun than the man upon the ground. When we question them about the Christ He becomes a very real person. They will not discuss His degree of divinity save to say that He is nearer God than they, but they speak of Him with deep reverence.
They take the view, however, that God has sent many teachers into the world, according to the varying needs of mankind, and that the message of each has been of value. God does not make mistakes, or do things which have no object.
REVEALING THE UNKNOWN.
Descending from these high subjects we have our human consolation in piercing the veil. It is the unknown which is terrible. Death loses all its fears when we are aware that we are eagerly expected by loved ones upon the other side, and that we shall carry on upon more or less familiar lines.
I do not think that any experienced Spiritualist could possibly fear death. We know that there are lower forces, but we know also that if we have, in spite of all our human frailties, tried to lead decent lives, our future is secure, be our beliefs what they may. Compare such a philosophy with any of those creeds which claim that they alone hold the keys of heaven, and judge which is the higher or more likely to be true.
Apart from our knowledge of spirit entities outside ourselves we have to remember that we are ourselves at the present moment spirits, although our powers as such are clogged by our material bodies. These powers, how- ever, may he developed, and a know- ledge of this may open up in the future many new avenues of advance. Thus psychometry would seem to be an individual gift, and by it we may gain much information. It may, for example, be used in the diagnosis of disease, and also in the detection of crime.
Speaking generally, however, we may say that this spirit revelation is not intended to be used for worldly and utilitarian purposes, but that its real object is a consolatory and religious one. As such it is so import- ant that the line of cleavage between the dark ages of mankind and the time of real knowledge dates from the time of the first systematic communications between the two spheres of life.
