You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In the autumn of 1927 I had, very willingly, received a visit from a German-American journalist (G. S. Viereck), who then published a conversation with me recounting my lack of religious beliefs and my indifference to survival after death. This so-called interview was widely read, and, among others, it brought me the following letter from an American medical man:—
… What struck me most was your answer to the question whether you believe in a survival of personality after death. You are reported as having said, "I give no thought to the matter".
I am writing now to tell you of an experience that I had in the year I graduated at the University of X. One afternoon while I was passing through the dissecting-room my attention was attracted to a sweet-faced dear old woman who was being carried to a dissecting-table. This sweet-faced woman made such an impression on me that a thought flashed up in my mind, "There is no God: if there were a God he would not have allowed this dear old woman to be brought into the dissecting-room".
When I got home that afternoon the feeling I had had at the sight in the dissecting-room had determined me to discontinue going to church. The doctrines of Christianity had before this been the subject of doubts in my mind.
While I was meditating on this matter a voice spoke to my soul that "I should consider the step I was about to take". My spirit replied to this inner voice by saying, "If I knew of a certainty that Christianity was truth and the Bible was the Word of God, then I would accept it".