Connie wonders where Arthur is heading. She loves her large, generous, rumbustious brother. She thinks of him as Scottish practicality streaked with sudden fire.
'As I say, I believe what my Church teaches,' she replies. 'I see no alternative. Apart from atheism, which is mere emptiness and too depressing for words, and leads to socialism.'
'What do you think of spiritism?'
She knows that Arthur has been dabbling in psychic matters for years now. It is mentioned and half-mentioned behind his back.
'I suppose I mistrust it, Arthur.'
'Why?' He hopes Connie is not also going to prove a snob.
'Because I think it fraudulent.'
'You're right,' he answers, to her surprise. 'Much of it is. True prophets are always outnumbered by false – as Jesus Christ himself was. There is fraud, and trickery, even active criminal behaviour. There are some very dubious fellows muddying the water. Women too, I'm sorry to say.'
'Then that's what I think.'
'And it is not well explained at all. I sometimes think the world is divided into those who have psychic experiences but can't write, and those who can write but have no psychic experiences.'
Connie does not answer; she does not like the logical consequence of this sentence, which is sitting across from her, letting its tea go cold.
'But I said "much of it", Connie. Only "much of it" is fraudulent. If you visit a gold mine, do you find it filled with gold? No. Much of it – most of it – is base metal embedded in rock. You have to search for the gold.'
'I distrust metaphors, Arthur.'
'So do I. So do I. That is why I mistrust faith, which is the biggest metaphor of all. I have done with faith. I can only work with the clear white light of knowledge.'
Connie looks perplexed by this.
'The whole point of psychical research,' he explains, 'is to eliminate and expose fraud and deceit. To leave only what can be scientifically confirmed. If you eliminate the impossible, what is left, however improbable, must be the truth. Spiritism is not asking you to take a leap in the dark, or cross a bridge you have not yet come to.'
'So it is like Theosophy?' Connie is now nearing the extremity of her knowledge.
'Not like Theosophy. In the end, Theosophy is just another faith. As I say, I have done with faith.'
'And with Heaven and Hell?'
'You remember what the Mam told us – "Wear flannel next to your skin, and never believe in eternal punishment."'
'So everyone goes to Heaven? Sinners and the just alike? What incentive-'
Arthur cuts her off. He feels as if he is back arguing about the Tolley. 'Our spirits are not necessarily at peace after we pass over.'
'And God and Jesus? You do not believe in them?'
'Certainly. But not the God and the Jesus who are claimed by a Church which for centuries has been corrupt both spiritually and intellectually. And which demands of its followers the suspension of rational faculties.'
Connie now feels herself getting lost and also wonders if she should take offence. 'So what sort of Jesus do you believe in?'
'If you look at what it actually says in the Bible, if you ignore the way in which the text has been altered and misinterpreted to suit the will of the established Churches, it's quite clear that Jesus was a highly trained psychic or medium. The inner circle of the Apostles, especially Peter, James and John, were clearly chosen for their spiritist capabilities. The "miracles" of the Bible are merely – well, not merely, wholly – examples of Jesus's psychic powers.'
'The raising of Lazarus? The feeding of the five thousand?'
'There are medical mediums who claim to see through the body's walls. There are apport mediums who claim to transport objects through time and space. And Pentecost, when the angel of the Lord came down and they all spoke in tongues. What is that but a séance? It's the most exact description of a séance I've read!'
'So you've become an early Christian, Arthur?'
'Not to mention Joan of Arc. She was clearly a great medium.'
'Her too?'
He suspects she is now mocking him – it would be just like her; and this makes it easier, not harder, for him to explain things.
'Think of it this way, Connie. Imagine there are a hundred mediums at work. Imagine ninety-nine of them are frauds. This means, does it not, that one is true? And if one is true, and the psychic phenomena channelled through that medium are authentic, we have proved our case. We need only prove it once and it is proved for everybody and for all time.'
'Prove what?' Connie has been thrown by her brother's sudden use of 'we'.
'The survival of the spirit after death. One case, and we prove it for all humanity. Let me tell you about something that happened twenty years ago in Melbourne. It was well documented at the time. Two young brothers went out into the bay in their boat with an experienced seaman at the tiller. Sailing conditions were good, but alas they never returned. Their father was a Spiritualist, and after two days with no news he called in a well-known sensitive – that's a medium – to try and trace them. The sensitive was given some of the brothers' belongings, and managed by psychometry to provide an account of their movements. The last he could make out was that their boat was in great difficulty and confusion reigned. It seemed that they were inevitably going to be lost.
'I see that look in your eye, Connie, and I know what you are thinking – that you would not have needed a psychic to tell you that. But wait. Two days later, another séance was held with the same sensitive, and the two lads, who had been trained in spiritual knowledge, came through at once. They apologized to their mother, who had not wanted them to set off, and gave an account of the capsizing and of their death by water. They reported that they were now in exactly the conditions of brightness and happiness that their father's preaching had promised. And they even brought the seaman who had perished with them to say a few words.
'Towards the end of the contact, one of the lads told how the other brother's arm had been torn off by a fish. The medium asked if it had been a shark, and the boy replied that it was not like any shark he had ever seen. Now, all this was written down at the time and some of it published in the newspapers. Mark the sequel. Some weeks later a large shark of a rare deep-sea species, one unfamiliar to the fishermen who caught it, and quite unknown in the waters off Melbourne, was taken some thirty miles away. Inside it was the bone of a human arm. Also, a watch, some coins, and other articles which belonged to the boy.' He paused. 'Now, Connie, what do you make of that?'
Connie reflects for a while. What she makes of it is that her brother is confusing religion with his love of fixing things. He sees a problem – death – and he looks for a way of solving it: such is his nature. She also thinks Arthur's spiritualism is connected, though quite how she cannot work out, with his love of chivalry and romance and the belief in a golden age. But she confines her objections to a narrower basis.
'What I make of it, my dear brother, is that it is a wonderful story, and you are a wonderful storyteller, as we all know. I also think that I was not in Melbourne twenty years ago, and neither were you.'
Arthur does not mind being rebuffed. 'Connie, you are a great rationalist, and that is the first step towards becoming a spiritist.'
'I doubt you will convert me, Arthur.' It seems to Connie that he has just told her a revised version of Jonah and the Whale – though one in which the victims were less fortunate – but that to base any beliefs upon such a story would be as much an act of faith as it was for those who first heard the story of Jonah. At least the Bible is proposing a metaphor. Arthur, because he dislikes metaphor, sees a parable and chooses to take it literally. As if the parable of the Wheat and the Tares were mere horticultural advice.