An Experiment in Reincarnation – Charles Dawbarn, 9/23/1905

Republished from the occult magazine The Sunflower

The most remarkable phase of spirit-return has been its unreliable and contradictory statements as to what
happens to a man after death. The fact that spirits of mortals do come back, and thus prove they are alive,
may be taken as now accepted by most unprejudiced investigators. After most liberal allowance for the claims
of both ignorance and fraud, there is a residuum which spells spirit every time. But when so much is granted,
and we try to take another step and learn something about the next life, we find ourselves in what the French
call a cul-de-sac, and the English call a blind alley, which compels you to come out just where you went in.
As an illustration of this extraordinary confusion—and contradiction—we find the world of European spirits
almost unanimous in declaring that a man will have to be born all over again into earth life, perhaps a number
of times. He may object as much as he has a mind to, but it’s mumps and measles all over again, and all the
other agreeable and disagreeables of mortal earth life. We may object, and declare we have had all the toothache
and matrimonial infelicity necessary to eternal salvation and divine experience. But we are told that “re-incarnation”
is a fact that cannot be dodged, and that there is no system of heavenly graft by which it can be escaped.
That would seem settled. But, on the other hand, American and English spirits make flat contradiction, and
assert they have never been re-incarnated, and never expect to be, and don’t know anybody who has been.
The explanations on either and both sides are simply wearisome. Each believer swears by his own spirit teacher,
thru medium lips. This startling contradiction upon what must be a simple question of fact throws a halo of
uncertainty about every spirit revelation that teaches anything about the next life. We believe in a certain
defined future—if we believe at all—because we have more faith in the spirits who talk to us than we have
in spirits who talk to the foreigners across the ocean. Of course the dividing line is not quite so sharp as this.

There are a few in opposition on both sides the Atlantic or the channel who hold very strongly to their individual
beliefs, both for and against this coming back into earth life. But the reader will see it as merely a question of
belief on both sides, and that the world is quietly laughing at both because with all their talk, neither offers any
real proof or evidence for or against the dogma. There are whole nations, such for instance as Japan and China,
which accept immortality as a fact, beyond any reasonable dispute. In fact their daily lives are more or less
influenced by what they deem actual contact with the spirits of their ancestors. But that is not our question or
our perplexity. It is not whether we live after death that is our present study. All but a few very hard headed
skeptics accept that now as at least possible. The question before us, and the motive for this article, is to
enquire whether so important a fact as re-incarnation, if it be a fact, can be reasonably demonstrated. Here
is where, in the judgment of the writer, our theosophical friends become untheosophical. They claim a lot of
facts, called “mahatmas” and place them away off in Thibet, out of reach and sight of unbelievers. If there be
no Mahatmas there is no re-incarnation. At least that seems the substance and climax of their teaching. The
writer, speaking for himself, would give all the years and dollars he could spare just to meet a Mahatma, but
the system forbids. The pity of it is that the teachings of present day Theosophists offer a more lucid and
plausible explanation of the mysteries of manhood and mortal life than any other teachings known to the
writer. But they all hinge on re-incarnation and karma, with a substratum of Thibetan Mahatma, and are
therefore on a par with all other religions which demand great faith and offer little proof. At this point my
readers—feminine gender—might well say “you’re another”, and if I stopped here that would be true.
But I think I have a glimpse of a few facts that seem to have a real bearing on this question of re-incarnation.
And it is these facts that I want to place before the student, and leave him to ponder over them, as I did.

Those who have experimented for themselves with mesmerism, as I did in the long ago, will have occasionally
witnessed phenomena that seemed to open up a broader life than that of to-day. It was not merely the awakening
of the memory of some comparatively recent event, but the sensitive seemed to reach from past to future of
the sitter, and often with recognized accuracy. If the prescience were still more extended the poor sitter had
usually reached the limit of his power of reception, and so sat silent and unconvinced. It was, of course, most
interesting to be told of events of one’s own childhood, which upon investigation proved true. But if one asked
what lay back of that childhood, the answers seemed but romance, and usually investigation ceased. A certain
Frenchman of renown in the realm of Spiritualism has been making most interesting experiments in this field,
wherein lie the secrets of the remote past. His sensitive is a young lady of eighteen, born in India of missionary
parents, and knowing nothing of mesmerism or Spiritualism. Col. de Rochas’ experiments were made in the
presence of the family physician, and of a civil engineer who was a friend in the family, neither of whom had
any previous experience, and both made notes of all they witnessed. Occasionally others were present, including
the president of the French Theosophical Society. The young lady was mesmerised in the old fashioned way
by longitudinal passes, and the effect, as reported, is divided into a number of stages, in one of which she was
slightly suggestible, but in the others she was apparently absolutely independent. As this can only be a brief
synopsis of so much of the report as deals with the young lady’s remote past, I must refer the student to the
Annals of Psychical Science for July 1905 if he wishes to read the entire report with all its interesting details.
An early effect of the mesmeric passes was the development of the astral body of the sensitive, which, however,
could not leave the room, as it was stopped by the walls and ceiling.

Being invisible to the Colonel he accidentally struck the astral hand, when an inflamed spot appeared on hand of
the sensitive, which remained for several days. This astral body is itself worthy of deep study, for the sensitive, by
her own will power, at request of the Colonel, caused it to shape itself into the exact resemblance of the spirit
mother of the young lady. Herein it seems to the present writer may be a clue to one of the great mysteries in
materialisation, but we cannot stop to study it now. The experiments were continued regularly for months, the
sensitive gaining more and more control of her outer self, as shown in the detailed reports of the witnesses.
At last her sole link to the earth life of today seems to be thru the Colonel, for she loses consciousness of the
others present. Still her mental action remains independent of him, for she enters into details, and describes
incidents of which the Colonel could have known nothing. He asks her how old she is? She replies “eighteen
years”. He tells her to return to the age of sixteen, and she then sees her body transformed to that age. The
same for fourteen, twelve and ten years of age. But when she was thus ten years old the Colonel asks her
where she is living? She replies “Marseilles,” of which he was unaware. At eight years of age she sees herself
in Beirut in Syria, where for a time she was staying with the sisters in a convent. She writes some letters in
Arabic, long forgotten in her normal life, and that the Colonel has to have verified. At four years of age she is
again in Marseilles. At two years old she was in Cuges-in-Provence. This was found to be true. At one year
old she can no longer speak, but just nods “yes” or “no”. Further back she is nothing more. She feels that she
exists, and that is all. When pressed still further back she describes herself as “all in the grey,” and remembers
having had another existence.

These stages in her experience are repeated in various séances, till the Colonel presses her still further back
when she declares herself a woman, and calls herself “Lina.” Various details of her life are given such as her
marriage to a fisherman in Brittany of the name of Yvon, the birth of a child which soon died, and her own suicide
in despair when her husband perished in a shipwreck. These details were slowly elaborated, and in answer
to a question she replied that something impelled her to re-incarnate, and she came down to her missionary
mother, when the latter was enceinte. As a most interesting incident all the witnesses noted that when the girl
was talking of her motherhood as Lina, her form expanded, and her breasts became swollen. A little later on
the Colonel said to her “I am going to make you still older.” This was rather a difficult task and took much time,
but at last she declared that in her incarnation previous to Lina she was a man named Charles Mauville. He
was a clerk in a ministerial office, and was a wicked man, living in a wicked age. He took pleasure in billing.
When fifty years old he fell ill and died. He remained attached to his body for some time, but finally became
Lina of the next incarnation. The Colonel tried to get descriptions of the intervening stage, which she always
calls the “grey”. She suffer, yet it is not physical suffering. It seems more like remorse. When repeating death
scenes she nearly suffocated, and had to be brought back quickly. The family doctor in one of his reports,
expresses his regret that he is not clairvoyant. He therefore could not see the astral body of the young girl,
which seemed to be describing these experiences, but he can verify its presence, for when he advanced
his hand slowly the contact produced a marked sensation of coldness on his fingers. The Colonel slowly
urged her back beyond the personality of Charles Mauville. When he was a child five years old his father
was foreman in a factory. His mother is described as clothed in black, and wearing a bonnet.

Before his birth he describes himself as “in the dark”, and tormented by spirits she calls “shining”. Before this she
was a lady whose husband was a gentleman attached to the Court. His name was Madeleine de Skint-Marc. The
details of her life are interesting, and she evinces some personal knowledge of certain historical characters of that
era. She died at the age of 45, when she entered into “the dark”. The attempts to take her back beyond the time of
Madeleine were failures, save that once she seemed to go back to the state of a child which died quite young. The
Colonel sums up by saying “it is difficult to recover the traces of the obscure personages of whom she objectivates
the types, but these personages are not improbable.” He says further “If we could prove the personalities ‘played’
by subjects had really lived, we should have a proof of very great force in favor of the survival of the soul, and
of its successive re-incarnations. Unfortunately that proof has not been obtained.” The Colonel quotes from his
experience with another sensitive called Josephine. Here he received account of persons she calls “very plausible”,
as he has ascertained that the places named and the families had really existed. But in another case studied by
a M. Bouvier there were contradictions absurdities and impossibilities. So our poor Colonel confesses himself as
yet in “darkness in which all observers have to struggle at the beginning of every new science.” So it remains for
him that ‘reincarnation has not been proved by his experiments with this young lady, and Josephine, because of
the unfortunate results with other sensitives. Necessarily the question of identity is the most important question
for judges and juries, for if a mistake be made justice fails. In some celebrated cases, such as the Tichborne trial,
a mother identified a man who was not her son. Yet this was when both were still in earth life. In the experience
of spirit-return identification becomes much more difficult. In some rare cases scientific skeptics have been
convinced, when other skeptics have declared the evidence insufficient.

And we all know that, for the most part, believers have been convinced by purely emotional evidence, accepting
fancied likeness, and possibly statements of some fancy proved true, as satisfactory. The broad fact of spirit-
return has today a thousand believers to one who can produce proofs satisfactory to a scientific or legal mind.
In other words, both the evidence and the spirit are received as personal matters with which outsiders have
nothing to do, any more than with any mortal friend who honors them with a visit. If there be such difficulty
with proof of identity in spirit-return, which is only one remove from earth life, the difficulty becomes much
greater when we seek proof of the verity of visitors, or even of their earth experiences which claim to go back
of spirit return. If Socrates came back with at least a spark of his old sagacity, and some knowledge of historical
facts, we listen respectfully, and each makes up his individual opinion as to his identity. But if the intelligence
who says he was Socrates claims that in a previous existence he was a Court Jester, our belief stretches and
cracks beyond repair. Yet in the nature of the case one might be as many…Many of us believe today that the
aural powers of the sensitive very largely account for spirit phenomena. We find in clairvoyance, telepathy
and many other occult forces, powers that may mean much or little in the individual case we are investigating.
Yet at last, like Myers and some other prominent members of the S. P. R., we avow ourselves convinced of
the truth of human immortality. That was a step beset with difficulties, but in re-carnation we face a far deeper
problem, so far as identity is to be proved. Spirit return from its one remove always exhibits weakness in
memory of its earth experiences. At best we grope amidst confusions and perplexities before we dare say
identity is reasonably proved. But if spirit return of two, three or more removes presents itself, no real proof
of identity is possible. It must remain a matter of individual belief, or at least of individual assertion.

Some of us have revered spirit friends who have denied re-incarnation as a possible fact, in nature. This has
seemed to us almost conclusive. Yet we must not forget that the spirit friends of myriad Europeans declare
and teach just the contrary. So the unprejudiced student will carefully study such facts as these now produced
before making up his mind either way. As a further most interesting fact the writer is told that spirit John
Pierpont, who has denied re-incarnation thru his life long medium Mrs. Longley, now asserts that he has
discovered evidence in spirit life that satisfies him of its possible truth. Still I understand him as not even
now presenting it as a universal law, but rather as an effect of conditions that may be personal. And many
of us would hope to escape such conditions and fate. If we have to wend our way into such mysteries
without Mahatma assistance I don’t see any path so hopeful as that explored by Col. de Rochas. If under
mesmeric influence a sensitive can travel back year by year thru his own life, producing reasonable test
facts as he goes, there seems no natural impossibility when this young lady sensitive declares she has
lived in mortal form before, and can recall certain experiences. If these experiences are dim, uncertain
and confused, so were the records of spirit return that convinced Myers, Hodgson, Hyslop and many others.
And if the sensitive goes back yet another, and perhaps a third step in her re-incarnations there seems
nothing but the confused and limited recollections to dim the record. It seems doubtful if we can ever
advance much further in such investigations while we are mortals. There will, of course, be minds to
whom such proofs will be satisfactory, because out of them, or upon them, they can, like theosophists,
build up a system of creative mathematics which seems to solve many of the greatest mysteries of
earth life.

Most assuredly the writer is not at present able to enroll himself as a believer in re-incarnation,
but these experiments of the French Colonel have given him a respect for that dogma he never
felt before. So he commends it to the careful study of every intelligent reader. If it be that re-
incarnation is a possibility only, it seems at least suggested that those only reincarnate whose
spiritual development was not sufficient to evolve a manhood adapted to a higher existence.
So we close with the long taught spirit axiom that an earth life lived to its highest possibility is
the best possible preparation for the life to come. If re-incarnation be subject to that condition
then such a life may render it unnecessary and perhaps impossible.