Credo

This is the centenary edition of White’s first foray into metaphysics by a man who had established his reputation as a novelist and wilderness enthusiast. This was about the same time as Sir William Barrett’s Deathbed Visions, and in this book the offer does not reveal as he later did in The Betty Book (1937) and The Unobstructed Universe (1940 and which I read many years ago) the source of his reflective philosophy in the mediumship of his wife. The 22 chapters cover a multitude of philosophical themes in elaborating the author’s outlook such as the nature of the self, life, consciousness and matter, manifestations of consciousness, the question of survival, individuality and continuity, memory and reincarnation, free will, the subconscious, and the nature of I AM. The scheme involves trying to know things along three lines: ‘What is the material of which we and the things about us are made? What is the life that animates them? What is the consciousness by which we become aware of them and of ourselves?’ He concludes that these three elements are in essence expressible one in terms of the other: Consciousness IS, of which we are all finite manifestations, and our task is to become aware of this, as Thomas Troward also insisted. A profound and systematic series of reflections.