The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 4/Lectures and Discourses/The Basis for Psychic or Spiritual Research
THE BASIS FOR PSYCHIC OR SPIRITUAL RESEARCH
It was not often that Swami Vivekananda, while in the West, took part in
debates. One such occasion in London when he did so was during the
discussion of a lecture on, "Can Psychic Phenomena be proved from a
Scientific Basis?" Referring first to a remark which he had heard in the
course of this debate, not for the first time in the West, he said:
One point I want to remark upon. It is a mistaken statement that has been
made to us that the Mohammedans do not believe that women have souls. I am
very sorry to say it is an old mistake among Christian people, and they seem
to like the mistake. That is a peculiarity in human nature, that people want
to say something very bad about others whom they do not like. By the by, you
know I am not a Mohammedan, but yet I have had opportunity for studying this
religion, and there is not one word in the Koran which says that women have
no souls, but in fact it says they have.
About the psychical things that have been the subject of discussion, I have
very little to say here, for in the first place, the question is whether
psychical subjects are capable of scientific demonstration. What do you mean
by this demonstration? First of all, there will be the subjective and the
objective side necessary. Taking chemistry and physics, with which we are so
familiar, and of which we have read so much, is it true that everyone in
this world is able to understand the demonstration even of the commonest
subjects? Take any boor and show him one of your experiments. What will he
understand of it? Nothing. It requires a good deal of previous training to
be brought up to the point of understanding an experiment. Before that he
cannot understand it at all. That is a area difficulty in the way. If
scientific demonstration mean bringing down certain facts to a plane which
is universe for all human beings, where all beings can understand it I deny
that there can be any such scientific demonstration for any subject in the
world. If it were so, all our universities and education would be in vain.
Why are we educated if by birth we can understand everything scientific? Why
so much study? It is of no use whatsoever. So, on the face of it, it is
absurd if this be the meaning of scientific demonstration, the bringing down
of intricate facts to the plane on which we are now. The next meaning should
be the correct one, perhaps, that certain facts should be adduced as proving
certain more intricate facts. There are certain more complicated intricate
phenomena, which we explain by less intricate ones, and thus get, perhaps,
nearer to them; in this way they are gradually brought down to the plane of
our present ordinary consciousness. But even this is very complicated and
very difficult, and means a training also, a tremendous amount of education.
So an I have to say is that in order to have scientific explanation of
psychical phenomena, we require not only perfect evidence on the side of the
phenomena themselves, but a good deal of training on the part of those who
want to see. All this being granted, we shall be in a position to say yea or
nay, about the proof or disproof of any phenomena which are presented before
us. But, before that, the most remarkable phenomena or the most oft-recorded
phenomena that have happened in human society, in my opinion, would be very
hard indeed to prove even in an offhand manner.
Next, as to those hasty explanations that religions are the outcome of
dreams, those who have made a particular study of them would think of them
but as mere guesses. We no reason to suppose that religions were the outcome
of dreams as has been so easily explained. Then it would be very easy indeed
to take even the agnostic's position, but unfortunately the matter cannot be
explained so easily. There are many other wonderful phenomena happening,
even at the present time, and these have all to be investigated, and not
only have to be, but have been investigated all along. The blind man says
there is no sun. That does not prove that there is no sun. These phenomena
have been investigated years before. Whole races of mankind have trained
themselves for centuries to become fit instruments for discovering the fine
workings of the nerves; their records have been published ages ago, colleges
have been created to study these subjects, and men and women there are still
who are living demonstrations of these phenomena. Of course I admit that
there is a good deal of hoax in the whole thing, a good deal of what is
wrong and untrue in these things; but with what is this not the case? Take
any common scientific phenomenon; there are two or three facts which either
scientists or ordinary men may regard as absolute truths, and the rest as
mere frothy suppositions. Now let the agnostic apply the same test to his
own science which he would apply to what he does not want to believe. Half
of it would be shaken to its foundation at once. We are bound to live on
suppositions. We cannot live satisfied where we are; that is the natural
growth of the human soul. We cannot become agnostics on this side and at the
same time go about seeking for anything here; we have to pick. And, for this
reason, we have to get beyond our limits, struggle to know what seems to be
unknowable; and this struggle must continue.
In my opinion, therefore, I go really one step further than the lecturer,
and advance the opinion that most of the psychical phenomena — not only
little things like spirit-rappings or table-rappings which are mere child's
play, not merely little things like telepathy which I have seen boys do even
— most of the psychical phenomenal which the last speaker calls the higher
clairvoyance, but which I would rather beg to call the experiences of the
superconscious state of the mind, are the very stepping-stones to real
psychological investigation. The first thing to be; seen is whether the mind
can attain to that state or not. My explanation would, of course, be a
little different from his, but we should probably agree when we explain
terms. Not much depends on the question whether this present consciousness
continues after death or not, seeing that this universe, as it is now, is
not bound to this state of consciousness. Consciousness is not co-existent
with existence. In my own body, and in all of our bodies, we must all admit
that we are conscious of very little of the body, and of the greater part of
it we are unconscious. Yet it exists. Nobody is ever conscious of his brain,
for example. I never saw my brain, and I am never conscious of it. Yet I
know that it exists. Therefore we may say that it is not consciousness that
we want, but the existence of something which is not this gross matter; and
that that knowledge can be gained even in this life, and that that knowledge
has been gained and demonstrated, as far as any science has been
demonstrated, is a fact. We have to look into these things, and I would
insist on reminding those who are here present on one other point. It is
well to remember that very many times we are deluded on this. Certain people
place before us the demonstration of a fact which is not ordinary to the
spiritual nature, and we reject that fact because we say we cannot find it
to be true. In many cases the fact may not be correct. But in many cases
also we forget to consider whether we are fit to receive the demonstration
or not, whether we have permitted our bodies and our minds to become fit
subjects for their discovery.