Are the Dead Alive?

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 29, 1909

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 36, No. 50.

“Are the Dead Alive?”

By Fremont Rider. Illustrated from photographs, copious index, 372 pages. Fixed price, $1.75. B. W. Dodge & Company, New York.

This book is the outgrowth of a series of articles which appeared in The Delineator last year under the same caption as the title of the book, “Are the Dead Alive?” The object of the book is the statement of “the problem of physical research that the world’s leading scientists are trying to solve, and the progress they have made.” Statements of personal belief are given from Sir Oliver Lodge, Tolstoy, Lombroso, Dr. Maxwell, Professor Barrett, Wm. T. Stead, Andrew Lang, Sir William Crookes, Dr. Chas. Richet, Dr. Bottazzi, Flammarion, Professor James, and others. The author does not express an opinion. He presents no theories; does not argue on either or any side of the question. His aim is to give a selection of typical observed facts and unbiased inferences which may logically be drawn from them. He endeavors to sum up past achievement.

When the articles in an abbreviated form first appeared in The Delineator, they called forth a tremendous flood of letters from the readers. The publishers say that no subject introduced recently by that magazine aroused so much comment, both of approval and of condemnation. Many personal experiences were given corroborative of the articles as they there appeared.

The book consists of 15 chapters, in which are discussed the Mediumship of Home and Palladino, Obsession, Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, Ghosts, Materializations, Telepathy, Premonitions, Mediumship, Telepathy versus Spiritualism. There are more than a score and a half of illustrations, which number among them portraits of noted investigators, as well as reproductions of photographs of various phenomena connected with the investigations, as, for instance, “spirit photographs,” “table levitation,” etc.

Some of the investigators endeavor to explain the phenomena of Spiritualism by telepathy, “the subliminal self,” “dual personality,” etc.; and yet their investigations have carried them so far that none of these hypotheses can explain the phenomena. With some it is considered to be a proof of life after death, or to answer in the affirmative the title of Mr. Rider’s book, “Are the Dead Alive?” Some of the noted writers who have been quoted declare that “the dead have never really died,” as Alfred Russell Wallace; or, “I am convinced that after death man does not perish entirely,” as Bottazzi; or, “I do not believe the dead depart,” as Stead. While others, like Richet, declare that “Survival is improbable.” On the contrary, Prof. Wm. James says that “psychical research has bridged the chasm.” Therefore the conclusion to which some of these investigators have come is that the dead are proved to be alive in the phenomena of Spiritualism,—a conclusion to which all will be bound to come if they follow their investigations along that line alone. The only true solution of the problem lies in the truth of the Scripture. This is not even touched upon in this book. A portion of a chapter is entitled, “Spiritualism and the Bible,” but the Bible basis for Spiritualism is not even mentioned. What the Bible has to say regarding man in death is not even referred to. In that Book we are repeatedly told in different words that “the dead know not anything,” that a resurrection is absolutely necessary if he is to live again. The Bible also explains the good and the evil spirits; the malefic and the beneficent influences which have to do with mankind; angels who kept their first estate and who are still in harmony with God and His purposes; angels who kept not their first estate, and are among the fallen, discordant, degenerated spirits which come to us in the guise of the spirits of the dead and are manifest through the phenomena of modern Spiritualism.

As a summary of opinions Mr. Rider’s book is admirable. We have here some of the very best things that investigators in these lines have to offer us. One reads the book almost in agony to think that men will stumble on as they do over a problem that never can be satisfactorily solved by science, and which to those who deem that they have solved it, gives no basis of soul rest, no hope of a blessed future, no elevation of character beyond the veil. Not so the Bible.