IMMORTALITY AND SURVIVAL
Among other unjustified spiritist claims is that of furnishing 'scientific proof' or experimental demonstration of the immortality of the soul, [1] an assertion that implies a number of ambiguities which must be cleared up even before discussing the fundamental hypothesis of communication with the dead. First, there can be ambiguities concerning the very word 'immortality', for it does not have the same meaning for everyone. What Westerners call immortality is not what Easterners designate by terms which may nevertheless seem equivalent, and which sometimes are even exactly so from a merely philological point of view. Thus the Sanskrit word amrita is translated quite literally by 'immortality', but it is applied exclusively to a state which is beyond all change; for in this context the idea of 'death' is extended to cover any change whatsoever. Westerners, on the contrary, have the habit of using the word 'death' only to designate the end of earthly existence. They hardly conceive of other, analogous changes since for them our world seems to be half the Universe, while for Easterners it represents only an infinitesimal portion thereof. We speak here of modern Westerners, because for them the influence of Cartesian dualism is largely responsible for such a restricted way of looking at the Universe. It is necessary to insist all the more on these things because they are generally ignored; and, moreover, these considerations will greatly facilitate the refutation of spiritist theory. From the perspective of pure
metaphysics, which is the point of view of Easterners, there are not really two correlative worlds, this one and the 'other', symmetrical and parallel with each other, so to speak; there is an indefinite series of worlds, graded in hierarchical order, that is to say states of existence (and not places) in which our world is only one constituent element of neither more nor less importance or value than any other. Just like all the others, it is simply at the place which it must occupy in the totality. Consequently, immortality in the meaning we have just indicated cannot be attained 'in the other world' as Westerners believe, but only beyond all worlds, which is to say beyond all conditioned states of existence. Notably, immortality is beyond time and space and beyond all analogous conditions; being absolutely independent of time and any other possible mode of duration, it is identical with eternity itself. This is not to say that immortality as envisaged by Westerners does not have a real significance, but its significance is quite different; in sum, it is only an indefinite prolongation of life in modified and transposed conditions, but which always remains comparable to those of earthly life. The very fact that it is a question of 'life' is sufficient proof; and it is worth noting that this idea of 'life' is one of those from which Westerners free themselves only with the greatest difficulty, even when they do not have the superstitious respect for it which characterizes certain contemporary philosophers. It must be added that they hardly escape the notions of time and space any more easily; but unless one does effect this escape no metaphysics is possible. Immortality in the Western sense is not outside time understood in its ordinary sense, and even according to a less simplistic conception it is not outside an indefinite duration which can properly be called 'perpetuity' but has no relation to eternity, any more than does the indefinite, which proceeds from the finite by way of development to the Infinite. This conception in fact corresponds to a certain order of possibilities, but the Far-Eastern tradition does not confuse it with that of true immortality, according it only the name 'longevity'. Basically, this is only an extension of possibilities of the human order. One can easily perceive the difference when one asks what is immortal in the two cases. In the metaphysical and Eastern sense it is the transcendent personality; in the Western philosophico-theological sense it is
the human individuality. We cannot develop here the essential distinction between personality and individuality, but knowing only too well the state of mind of many people, we expressly state that it would be vain to look for opposition between the two conceptions, for being of totally different orders, they no more exclude than meet one another. In the Universe there is a place for all possibilities on condition that one knows how to put each of them in its proper place. Unfortunately, it is not the same in the systems of the philosophers and it would be very wrong to get entangled in this contingency.
When it is a question of 'proving immortality experimentally' it goes without saying that metaphysical immortality cannot be in question in any way, for by definition this is beyond all possible experience. Moreover the spiritists have not the least idea of metaphysical immortality, so that there is no basis for discussing their claims except from the point of view of immortality understood in its Western sense. But even from this point of view the 'experimental demonstration' of which they speak appears as an impossibility for one who reflects a little on the matter. We will not dwell on the abusive use made of the word 'demonstration'; experience cannot 'demonstrate' anything in the strict sense of the word, for example that which it has in mathematics. But letting this pass we will only note a strange illusion characteristic of the modern mind that consists in introducing science, especially experimental science, into areas where it does not belong, and the belief that the competence of science extends to everything. Moderns, intoxicated with the developments they have achieved in this very particular domain, and having given themselves so exclusively to this domain that they can no longer see anything outside it, have naturally come to misconceive the limits within which experimentation is valid and beyond which it can yield nothing. We speak here of experimentation in its most general sense and with no restrictions; obviously, these limits are still narrower if one takes into consideration only the few modalities accepted and used by ordinary researchers. In the case with which we are presently concerned there is a misconception of the limits of experimentation; we will encounter another and perhaps even more striking or more singular example in connection with so-called
proofs of reincarnation, which will provide the occasion to complete these observations from a slightly different perspective.
Experience deals only with particular and determinate facts that take place at a definite point in space and in an equally defined moment of time; these at least are the phenomena that can be the object of an experimental or so-called 'scientific' verification (and this is what the spiritists also understand). This is commonly recognized, but one is perhaps more easily mistaken as regards the nature and significance of the generalizations that experience can legitimately yield, generalizations that go beyond experience itself. Such generalizations can bear only upon classes or groups of facts. Each of these groups taken by itself is quite as particular and determinate as those facts from which observations were made and from which the results are thus generalized. Hence these groups are indefinite only numerically and as groups, but not as to their constituent elements. In short, it cannot be concluded that what has been asserted in a certain place on the earth happens in the same way in every other place, nor that a phenomenon observed in a very limited period of time can be extended for an indefinite duration. Naturally, we do not have to go outside space and time in all this, nor consider anything but phenomena, that is to say appearances or outward manifestations. One must know how to distinguish between experience and the interpretation of experience; spiritists and psychists report certain phenomena, and we do not intend to debate the descriptions they give of these. It is the interpretation the spiritists offer as to the real cause of these phenomena that is radically false. Let us admit for a moment, nevertheless, that their interpretation may be correct and that what is manifested may really be a 'disincarnated' human being. Would it necessarily follow that this being would be immortal, that is, that his posthumous existence would really be of indefinite duration? It is easy to see that there is here an illegitimate extension of experience, namely, attributing temporal indefinity to a fact observed for a determinate period of time. This alone would suffice to diminish interest in the spiritist hypothesis to a very modest level even if one accepted their premise. The attitude of the spiritists who imagine that their experiences prove immortality is logically no better than that of a man who, because
he had never seen a living being die, might assert that such and such a being would live indefinitely and changelessly simply because he had been so observed during a certain interval. And this, we repeat, is not to prejudge the truth or falsity of spiritism itself, for our comparison, if it is to be entirely just, implicitly assumes the truth of the spiritist hypothesis.
There are nevertheless spiritists who perceive this element of illusion more or less clearly and who in order to dispel this unconscious sophism have ceased speaking of immortality and now speak only of 'survival'. And we readily concede that they thereby escape the objections we have expressed. We do not mean to say that these spiritists are any less convinced of immortality than the others or that they themselves do not, like the others, believe in the perpetuity of 'survival'; but this belief then has the same character that it has with non-spiritists, not differing appreciably from what it may be on the part of the adherents of any religion except for the support sought, over and above the ordinary reasons, in the witness of the 'spirits'. But the statements of these latter are subject to caution, for in the view of the spiritists themselves they may often be only the results of ideas entertained during earthly life. If a spiritist who believes in immortality explains in this way 'communications' that deny immortality (and there are such 'communications'), by what principle will he grant greater authority to those that affirm it? In fact, it is simply because the latter agree with his own convictions. But these convictions must have another basis, they must be established independently of his experience and be founded on reasons that are not specific to spiritism. In any case, it suffices to observe that some spiritists feel the need to renounce claims to prove immortality 'scientifically'; and this is already a point gained, and even an important point, for determining exactly the scope of the spiritist hypothesis.
The attitude we have just defined is also that of contemporary philosophers with somewhat marked tendencies toward spiritism. The only difference is that the philosophers speak conditionally of what spiritists assert categorically. In other words, the former are content to speak of the possibility of proving survival experimentally, while the latter consider the proof as already accomplished.
Henri Bergson, immediately before writing the sentence cited above wherein he envisaged precisely this possibility, acknowledges that 'immortality itself cannot be proven experimentally.' His position is therefore quite clear in this regard; and as to survival, he is prudent enough to speak only of its 'probability', perhaps because he recognizes to some degree that experimentation does not yield true certitude. But even though he thus reduces the value of experimental proof, he avows nevertheless that 'there is something there,' that 'it could even be a great deal.' In the eyes of a metaphysician however, and even without bringing in so many restrictions, it would amount to very little, and would even be altogether negligible. Indeed, immortality in the Western sense is already quite relative which, as such, is unrelated to pure metaphysics. What, then, to say of mere survival? Even apart from any metaphysical consideration, we do not see that there can be any great interest for man to know, whether probably or even with certainty, that he can count on a survival that may be only 'for a period x'. Could this have more importance for him than to know more or less exactly the duration of his earthly life, which also appears to him as of indefinite duration? One sees how this differs from the truly religious point of view, which considers as worthless a survival that is not assuredly perpetual. Given the consequences that result from the appeal of spiritism to experience in this order of things, one can see one of the reasons (and far from the only one) why spiritism will never be anything but a pseudo-religion.
There is still another side of the question: whatever the basis for their belief in immortality, spiritists believe that everything in man that survives is immortal. Let us recall that for them the surviving elements are the ensemble making up the 'spirit' properly so called and the 'perispirit' which is inseparable from it. For the occultists, what survives is likewise the ensemble of the 'spirit' and the 'astral body'; but in this ensemble only the 'spirit' is immortal, while the 'astral body' is perishable. [2] Nevertheless, both spiritists and occultists alike claim to base their assertions on experience, an experience that seems to reveal to one group the dissolution of the 'invisible
organism' of man, while the others would never have had occasion to note anything of the kind. According to the occultist theory there is a 'second death' that on the 'astral plane' is what ordinary death is on the physical plane. And the occultists are forced to recognize that psychic phenomena cannot in any case prove survival beyond the 'astral plane'. These divergences should show the weakness of these alleged experimental proofs, at least as regards immortality, if there is still any need of them after all the other reasons we have given; in our view these other reasons are much more decisive since they establish the complete inanity of the claims for experimental proof of immortality. Nevertheless, it is not without interest to note that for two schools of experimenters using the same hypothesis, what is immortal for the one is not so for the other. It must be added that the question is further complicated, as much for the spiritists as for the occultists, by the introduction of the hypothesis of reincarnation: 'survival' as it is envisaged, the conditions of which are variously described by different schools, naturally represents only the intermediary period between two successive earthly lives, for each new 'incarnation' things must evidently find themselves in the same state they were previously. It is therefore always a provisional 'survival' that is in question, and in the final analysis the question remains entirely unanswered since it cannot be said that this regular alternation between terrestrial and supra-terrestrial existences must continue indefinitely. The different schools may debate this, but experience cannot cast the deciding vote; if the question is deferred, it is not thereby resolved and the same doubt always exists regarding the final destiny of the human being. At least that is what a reincarnationist must admit if he is honest with himself, for reincarnationist theory is less capable than any other of providing a solution, especially if it is based on experience. In fact, there are those who believe they have found experimental proofs of reincarnation, but this is another matter which we will examine further on.
What must be remembered is that what the spiritists say of the 'afterlife' or of 'survival' applies essentially, for them, to the interval between two 'incarnations'. This is the condition of the 'spirits' whose manifestations they believe they observe; this is what they call 'wandering' [erraticité] or 'life in space'-as if earthly life did not
unfold in space! A term like 'afterlife' is quite appropriate to designate their conception, for it is literally that of an extended life in conditions as much like earthly life as possible. For them, there is not that transposition which permits others to see the 'future life', even a perpetual life, in a way that corresponds to a real possibility, whatever the place this possibility occupies in the total order. On the contrary, 'afterlife' as represented by the spiritists is only an impossibility, for a literal transposition of the conditions of one state into another implies bringing together incompatible elements. This impossible supposition, moreover, is absolutely necessary to spiritism, because without it communications with the dead would not even be conceivable. In order to manifest themselves as they are supposed to do, it is necessary that the 'disincarnated' be very close to the living in every respect, and the existence of the one be remarkably like that of the other. This similarity is pushed to a hardly believable degree, which shows that the descriptions of this 'afterlife' are only a reflection of earthly ideas, a product of the 'subconscious' imagination of the spiritists themselves. We think it well to pause a little before this aspect of spiritism, which is not one of the least ridiculous.