Where skilful homoeopathic prescribing is not available, or where the patient is not susceptible to the action of the finer remedial forces of nature by reason of his pathological condition, his character, previous habits or environment, the administration of narcotics may be justifiable if they are demanded.
But their use should be avoided if and as long as possible, because in the usual intervals of more or less clear consciousness, even in the dreadful cases already described, there may arise new perceptions, new insights, new realizations of the significance of the experience, new convictions, out of which may come remembrance of forgotten truth, repentance, important directions or requests, last injunctions, very valuable and precious to both the departing and remaining ones.
And now to the source of most modern, most truly, scientific and most comforting conception of death.
As long ago as 1835, Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-1887), one of the great thinkers of the world, while yet a young man, first published a little book entitled Das Buchlein vom Leben nach dem Tode, (A Booklet on Life After Death.) It made but little impression, and a second edition was not undertaken until 1866. A third edition in 18887 bore witness that the new generation had begun to appreciate the booklet, and also that its author, then long celebrated for his attainments in the highest problems of moral and natural philosophy, still upheld the views set forth in one of his earliest publications.
In the meantime it had been translated into English and other languages, and several editions have been published since his death in 1887. When it was written Fechner was professor of physics in the University of Leipzig. He labored for many years in the fields of scientific investigation and philosophical and metaphysical speculation. His works steadily made their way among men of science, at home and abroad. Fechners Law, the fundamental law of psychophysics (stating that sensation varies in the ratio of the logarithm of impression) has become a term of international currency.
“He (Fechner) was the first to introduce exact methods, exact principles of measurement and experimental observation for the investigation of psychic phenomena, and thereby to open the prospect of a psychological science, in the strict sense of the word.” (Wundt.).
Fechner was the author of a long and varied list of publications, all bearing the imprint of a master mind. Great as are his acknowledged scientific attainments, however, his highest claim to literary immortality will, I believe, ultimately rest upon his little masterpiece, On Life After Death. For that the world will never cease to owe him a debt of gratitude. This, in its English dress, was issued in 1906 by The Open court Publishing Company.
Fechners psychological teachings were given wide currency in America first, probably, by Professor William James of Harvard, in his Principles of Psychology, and his Life After Death, by the publication in 1908 of The Living Word, by Elwood Worcester, D.D., the famous rector of Immanuel Church in Boston. Dr. Worcester had known and studied under Fechner in Leipzig shortly before the old masters death.
“The effect of his personality and of his thought marked a turning point in my life,” says Dr. Worcester, “and his influence has deepened with the passing years. The greater of Fechners works can be compared only with the Sacred Books of the nations. They are inspired, and they contain a true revelation of God. I can say of them what Schopenhauer said of the Upanishads, They have been the consolation of my life and they will be the consolation of my death”.
It was my privilege to meet and converse with Dr. Worcester while he was writing his book.
Fechners influence upon the great thinkers in science, philosophy and religion has been profound. Professor William James splendid thought is saturated with Fechner, although he does not agree with Fechner in important points. In short, like other men too great for their age, the world is overtaking Fechner and he is coming into his own.
Limitations of space will not permit any lengthy review, nor even an adequate summary of Fechners teachings on death. Perhaps the best that can be done here is to present two or three brief extracts from his Life After Death, in which he sets forth very briefly, but with wonderful clarity and simplicity, the substance of his teaching.
It should be noted that his theory is developed under the principles of the Higher Logic, most important of which is the Law of Analogy, the application of which has led to many of the highest attainments in science.
“Man lives on earth not once, but three times; the first stage of his life is continual sleep; the second sleeping and waking by turns; the third, waking forever.
In the first stage man lives in the dark alone; in the second, he lives associated with, yet separated from, his fellow-men, in a light reflected from the surface of things; in the third, his life, interwoven with the life of other spirits, is a higher life in the HIghest of spirits, with the power of looking to the bottom of finite things.
In the first stage his body develops itself from its germ, working out organs for the second; in the second stage his mind develops itself from its germ, working out organs for third; in the third the divine germ develops itself, which lies hidden in every human mind, to direct him, through instinct, through feeling and believing, to the world beyond, which seems so dark at present, but shall be as light as day hereafter.
The act of leaving the first stage for the second we call Birth; that of leaving the second for the third, Death. Our way from the second to the third is not darker than our way from the first to-the second; one way leads us forth to see the world outwardly; the other, to see it inwardly.
The infant, in the first stage, is blind and deaf to all the light and all the music of the second stage, and having to leave its mothers womb is hard and painful, and at a certain moment of its birth the dissolution of its former life must be like death to it, before it wakens to its new existence. In the same way we, in our present life, with all our consciousness bound up within this narrow body, know nothing of the light, the music, the freedom, and the glory of the life to come, and often feel inclined to look upon the dark and narrow passage which leads towards it, as a little lane with no thoroughfare” to it. Whereas death is merely a second birth into a happier life, when the spirit, breaking through its narrow hull, leaves it to decay and vanish, like the infants hull in its first birth. And then all those things which we, with our present senses, can only know from the outside, or, as it were, from a distance, will penetrated into, and thoroughly known, by us.
The infant, when in its mothers womb, has merely a body-spirit – the Formative Principle. Its actions are limited to growing, to producing and developing its several limbs and organs. It does not feel them as its own property, it does not use them, nor is it able to use them. A beautiful eye, a beautiful mouth are merely beautiful objects to the infants; it has produced them without being aware that one day they shall be useful parts of its own self. They are made for the world to come whereof it knows nothing, fashioned through some mysterious impulse, the origin of which must be traced back to the organization of its mother.
As soon, however, as the infant, nurtured for the second stage of life, leaves its primary organs behind, it grows self- conscious, feels itself an independent unity of all its self- created organs; the eye, the ear, the mouth, henceforth are its own; and having produced them through some innate impulse, unconsciously, it now learns to use them, rejoicing in its strength; a world of light, of colors, sounds, odors, tastes, reveals itself through the organs produced for those purposes.
Now, the relation of the first stage of life to the second will recur, in a climax, in the relation of the second stage to the third. In a way similar to the one just alluded to, all our volitions and actions in this world are intended to produce an organism, which in the world to come we shall perceive and use as our own new Self. All the mental influences, all the results due to the actions of a person in his lifetime, which spread all over mankind and all over the earth, are, even at present, bound up together by a mysterious, invisible bond, thus forming a persons spiritual organs, fashioned during his life and combined into a spiritual body, an organism of continually active powers and effects, of which, though indissolubly connected with his present existence, he has at present no consciousness.
In the moment of death, however, when man has to part with those organs in which his powers of acting lay, he will, all at once, become conscious of all the ideas and effects which, produced by his manifold actions in life, will continue living and working in this world, and will form, as an organic offspring of an individual stem, an organic individuality which only then becomes alive, self-conscious, self-active, relay to act through the human and natural world of its own will and power”.
Dr. Close was born November 24, 1860 and came to study homeopathy after the death of his father in 1879. His mother remarried a homoeopathic physician who turned Close's interests from law to medicine.
His stepfather helped him study the Organon and he attended medical school in California for two years. Finishing his studies at New York Homeopathic College he graduated in 1885. Completing his homeopathic education. Close preceptored with B. Fincke and P. P. Wells.
Setting up practice in Brooklyn, Dr. Close went on to found the Brooklyn Homoeopathic Union in 1897. This group devoted itself to the study of pure Hahnemannian homeopathy.
In 1905 Dr. Close was elected president of the International Hahnemannian Association. He was also the editor of the Department of Homeopathic Philosophy for the Homeopathic Recorder. Dr. Close taught homeopathic philosophy at New York Homeopathic Medical College from 1909-1913.
Dr. Close's lectures at New York Homeopathic were first published in the Homeopathic Recorder and later formed the basis for his masterpiece on homeopathic philosophy, The Genius of Homeopathy.
Dr. Close passed away on June 26, 1929 after a full and productive career in homeopathy.