LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE DREAD OF THE SUPERNATURAL.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:] Sin,—Does not the rector of Lambeth, in his interesting letter on "The Dread of the Supernatural" in the Spectator of August 14th, ignore a broad distinction between the shrinking which we feel from a dead body, and from the vision, real or supposed, of what he calls a bodiless soul ? The distinction is surely that the latter is supernatural while the former is natural. The presence of the corpse may give us acute, even despairing, pain for our own loss, in the case of those we love ; but we do not fear, but rather cling to it, as Mary Magdalene did. In the case of others, we learn too -easily to look upon it with indifference. Or we may accept it calmly as a manifestation of natural law. Or where there is Christian faith we are sustained by the belief that Christ died and was buried and rose again, and that, in St. Paul's words, "to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." It is this which, all too lightly realised, lies at the root even of the unreal and conventional talk which your correspondent refers to. The effect of the real or supposed appearance of what he calls a "bodiless or nnbodied soul" is surely different. The term, indeed, "bodiless soul," is self-contradictory, for how can we see with bodily eyes that which is without body ? But what is meant is clearly a body not natural but super- natural, with qualities beyond those of natural human life, as in the case of our Lord's resurrection-body. 1 Such an appearance must produce an impression of the deepest awe, apart, as it would seem, from any horror of death, as belonging to the region of the utterly mysterious and unknown. There may also be appearances of a visionary kind, not amounting to the recognition of a bodily presence, and too momentary to be realised except in memory, the im- pression of which is consequently not so deep. In suoh the objective and subjective elements are difficult to distinguish. Whether-your correspondent holds the doctrine of an inter- mediate state of disembodied spirits, or not, I cannot clearly grasp—the question is not one as to future stages of progress, in the "many mansions," but as to the conditions of such progress, whether affecting the whole of man's nature, body, soul, and spirit, or acting through a separation of its com- ponent elements as preliminary to their final re-combination —whether the "ego" can exist apart from its bodily and mental organism.—I am, Sir, &c., Eastbourne, August 17th. H. F. MALLET.
[To THE Roma or THE " SprzTAToz:9 Six,—Some thirty years ago one of my brothers was quartered at the Tower with a detachment of his regiment, the 60th Rifles. One night when the guard was being relieved one of the sentries was found insensible at his post. He was conveyed to the guard-room, and my brother (the officer on duty) and the doctor were sent for. The latter gave it as his opinion that the man was suffering from "shock." It was long before he recovered sufficiently to answer any questions ; then he stated that he had seen some- thing "rolling" towards him which looked like a globe of luminous vapour, that it came close to him, touched him, and he became unconscious. The man was removed to the hospital, where he died that night from shock, as the doctor testified, caused by terror, produced no one knew how. My brother's theory was that some one had played a practical joke on him with a magic lantern ; but no clue to the mystery was ever obtained ; so tragic an ending to a "joke "—if " joke " there were—would effectually seal the 'joker's" lips, and cause him carefully to suppress all eviaences.--,
I am, Sir, &c., E. S. W.
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