- 79 - 9. 0 Epilogue (By Priest Johannes Greber) We tend to reject anything that conflicts with our traditions. This is a part of human nature. Habit is the strongest of all forces in the life of the individual as in that of a people. That is why we cling so closely to the customs and habits handed down to us by our parents and observed from childhood on. This is particularly true of anything related to the religion of our parents. What a child's father and mother hold up to it as sacred and Divine, what they practiced as a religious duty and imprinted as such on the child’s heart, is difficult to eradicate completely. Even though most of us do not actually conduct ourselves in accordance with our early teachings, we continue to regard them as something to be held in reverence, as something before which we stand in awe and which we are not ready, outwardly at least, to discard completely. We still feel that our own funeral should be conducted in the traditional way of our fathers, even if we have led lives not consistent with their faith, holding that we owe that much at least to family and religious tradition. We are all so strongly coloured by the religious opinions and feelings of our parental home and of our fellow believers, that something of the dye remains, no matter how often we may have bathed in the waters of an irreligious daily life. • This force of habit is the greatest enemy of truth in all fields and particularly in that of religion. It not only discouraging people from seeking the truth by their own efforts, but driving them instinctively to reject without further investigation anything that may conflict with their previous ideas. For this there is only one remedy: I t i s a p e r s o n a l e x p e r i e n c i n g o f t h e t r u t h . My own experience with respect to the truths related in this book was not very different. My religion had taught me that there is a God and a spirit world, and of this much I was convinced, but the fact that communication perceptible to the human senses could be established with that spirit world conflicted with the doctrine of my church, and I therefore regarded any such idea as folly. Consequently, when I was called upon one day to investigate what were allegedly spirit messages, I was inwardly convinced that I would easily be able to expose the whole matter as a fraud. Of course, I realized that any such investigation could be conclusive only if conducted on the same scientific principles as those that must be applied in all fields if the truth is to be discovered. These are the laws of cause and effect, which are generally valid and admit of no exception. An effect without a corresponding cause is unthinkable in any field. Thus, wherever thoughts are uttered clearly and distinctly, there must be a bearer of these thoughts, a thinking "Ego". If a human being utters thoughts that are and always have been unfamiliar to him, he speaks and writes in foreign languages whose very sound he has never before heard, then it cannot be that person's own "Ego" that is the cause of the effect produced. This is all even more true, if the speaking or writing are done during a state of utter unconsciousness, it being contrary to all reason to believe that a person in that condition can speak rationally for hours on the most difficult subjects and answer and discuss all questions and side issues in an intelligent manner. Still less would an unconscious person be able to speak and to write in a language he had never heard or studied.
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