{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_73685/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_73685","id":"gutenberg_73685","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73685","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Spiritualism"],"text":"_The Case Against Spiritualism_\n\n\n BY\n JANE T. STODDART\n\n\n HODDER AND STOUGHTON\n LONDON    NEW YORK    TORONTO\n\n MCMXIX\n\n\n\n\n_Contents_\n\n\n  CHAPTER I\n  NEW VOTARIES OF SPIRITUALISM           17\n\n  CHAPTER II\n  DISTURBERS OF THE DEAD                 31\n\n  CHAPTER III\n  THE MEDIUM                             43\n\n  CHAPTER IV\n  THE MEDIUM\u2019S \u201cCONTROL\u201d                 57\n\n  CHAPTER V\n  TABLE PHENOMENA                        71\n\n  CHAPTER VI\n  AUTOMATIC WRITING                      85\n\n  CHAPTER VII\n  IS THERE DANGER FROM THE OTHER SIDE?   99\n\n  CHAPTER VIII\n  SPIRITUALISM AND CHRISTIANITY         111\n\n  CHAPTER IX\n  QUALITY OF THE ALLEGED MESSAGES       133\n\n  CHAPTER X\n  THE CHURCHES AND THE S\u00c9ANCE           147\n\n  CHAPTER XI\n  THE APPEAL TO SCIENCE                 159\n\n\n\n\n_Preface_\n\n\nRudyard Kipling, with his robust common sense, has warned intruders\nwho seek to establish a traffic with discarnate beings that they are\nentering on a dangerous path.\n\n    \u201cOh the road to En-dor is the oldest road\n     And the craziest road of all.\n     Straight it runs to the Witch\u2019s abode,\n     As it did in the days of Saul.\n     And nothing has changed of the sorrow in store\n     For such as go down on the road to En-dor!\u201d\n\nThat old road has never been more crowded than it is to-day. The\nmerchants who travel on it appear to ignorant onlookers laden with\nbalm and spicery and myrrh. Owing to the propagandist activities of\nhonoured men like Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir W. F. Barrett and Sir Arthur\nConan Doyle, the cult of Spiritualism has received a new advertisement,\nand is proving itself, in certain quarters, a rival to Christianity.\nIts literature is growing rapidly, and the wish has often been\nexpressed for a brief, comprehensive, up-to-date exposition of the\narguments on the other side. This book is designed to supply that\nneed. While the writer is well acquainted with the older historical\nworks, both of Britain and America, the publications of the Society\nfor Psychical Research, and the standard Continental treatises, these\nchapters deal mainly with Spiritualism in the war-period and after.\nThe strongest arguments against \u201cdabbling\u201d are to be found, as will be\nseen, in the writings of Spiritualists themselves. Warnings are heard\nfrom many pulpits, though with the exception of Dr. Barnes in his\nadmirable short pamphlet, \u201cSpiritualism and the Christian Faith,\u201d none\nof our leading preachers seems to have grappled with the subject in\ndetail. The writer may therefore claim to have broken new ground. \u201cThe\nCase Against Spiritualism\u201d is set forth under many aspects, and it is\nhoped that the book may prove acceptable to Christian teachers, as well\nas to inquirers in general.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter I_\n\nNEW VOTARIES OF SPIRITUALISM\n\n\nExpert writers believed twenty years ago that Spiritualism was\ndeclining. The late Mr. Frank Podmore, about the time of Queen\nVictoria\u2019s Diamond Jubilee, called attention to the disappointing\nresults attained by the Society for Psychical Research. The number of\nbelievers, he said, had been much larger in the seventies, and the\nthings they believed much more difficult of acceptance. There was a\ntime, he thought, when the number of avowed Spiritualists in this\ncountry and the United States might fairly have been reckoned by tens\nof thousands, but between 1882 and 1897 (the first period of the\nSociety\u2019s investigations) zealous students had been brought up against\ndefeat. \u201cNo positive results,\u201d he said frankly, \u201chave been obtained\nworthy of record.\u201d There was a \u201ccooling-off\u201d in public interest.\nSir William Crookes, though a believer in Spiritualism, had seemed\nto discourage intrusive curiosity in a famous passage. \u201cIn such an\ninquiry,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthe intellect demands that the spiritual proof\nmust be absolutely incapable of being explained away; it must be so\nstrikingly and convincingly true that we cannot, dare not, deny it.\u201d\n\nThe truth is that Spiritualism breaks like waves on the modern world;\nand when each successive wave has spent its force there follows a\nperiod of lassitude. Can we wonder that a tidal wave should have\nfollowed the late war? Three classes, at least, have felt themselves\nstrongly attracted towards psychical studies.\n\n\nI\n\nThere are, first, the idle, curious gazers who under the late Roman\nEmpire would have been thronging to the worship of Isis or Mithra.\nSir Samuel Dill and Dr. Reaveley Glover have painted these men and\nwomen, some of whom had great possessions. Their successors were found\nin Paris under the Second Empire, when society, for a short time,\nwas bewitched by the revelations of Douglas Home. Neither time nor\nspace, it was believed, had any existence for him. Through his means\nthe spirits of St. Louis, Pascal, Rousseau, and even ancient Greeks\nlike Aristides and Solon, were consulted, and if we may trust French\nmemoir-writers of the period, they replied with touching alacrity.\nP\u00e8re Lacordaire, the foremost preacher of his time, was almost\ndeceived by the phenomena. He wrote to Madame Swetchine in 1853 that\nhe had heard tables talk and made them talk. \u201cThey have told me some\nvery remarkable things about the past and the present.\u201d \u201cA poor and\nvulgar phenomenon,\u201d was his verdict, yet he did not think it was all\nimposture. The Roman Catholic Church, in our own day, speaks with\nsharper condemnation. Under the Second Empire, about the time of the\nCrimean War, table-turning and spirit-rapping were the amusements of\nevery drawing-room. While our great war lasted the need for distraction\nwas felt by those who in normal times are known as \u201cthe pleasure-loving\nclasses.\u201d Individuals among these classes--hundreds, nay thousands, of\nthem--were occupied to the limit of their strength in public service.\nCrowded theatres and music-halls proclaimed their need of respite and\nexcitement. Spiritualism had its distractions to offer to the weary\nrich.\n\n\nII\n\nIt has drawn recruits, in the second place, from that large body of the\nmiddle and working-class population which has no link with any of the\norganised Churches. Mr. George Haw, writing in the _Daily News_ census\nvolume of 1904, gave a picture of Sunday as spent by non-churchgoers in\ngreater London. Among the artisans \u201cthe day opens with an idle morning,\ndivided between nap and newspaper. After a late dinner the afternoon\nsees a saunter, sometimes with wife and children, through the streets,\nor a walk into Epping Forest ... or by the banks of the Lea. An early\nsupper and a pipe close the day.\u201d That section of the working classes\nrepresented by clerks, shop assistants and warehousemen spent Sunday,\nas Mr. Haw had observed, in visiting and entertaining. \u201cThoughts of\ntaking part in public worship are as far from their minds as thoughts\nof taking part in public life.\u201d \u201cGames and concerts in their little\nparlours beguile many a Sunday night.\u201d Spiritualist lecturers to-day\nare teaching such people to \u201cform home circles\u201d for the evocation of\nspirits.\n\n\nIII\n\nFrom all these classes, whether rich or poor, is drawn a companionship\nof the bereaved. It is from them that the new Spiritualism expects a\nmultitude of recruits, for their eyes are looking towards the shadows.\nSunday morning in greater London was once \u201ca time for tending little\ngardens,\u201d but the boy who used to \u201chelp father\u201d with his spade and\npail may be resting now in a hero\u2019s grave by Somme or Tigris. Perhaps\nhe has no sleeping-place, even among the undistinguished dead. His\nbody may have been utterly obliterated, his end may be a subject for\nmysterious surmise. If the Churches cannot speak to the mourners\nwords of Divine consolation, Spiritualism will rush in with its false\nand fatal comfort. Shallow writers have told us in recent months that\n\u201cthe dead are sleeping in their graves, already half-forgotten.\u201d So it\nseems, because life\u2019s routine proceeds as usual in homes where \u201cone\nis not.\u201d If Mr. George Haw\u2019s description of the day of rest in outer\nLondon could be brought up to date, we should doubtless hear of nap\nand newspaper, country walk and evening concert, with a cigar as the\nbreadwinner\u2019s treat in the after-dinner hour. But the clay cottage\nof materialism has begun to rock and crumble. Every incident of the\nwar is marked and dated according to its bearing on the personal\nsorrow. Nor is it surprising that ignorant persons should brush\naside contemptuously vague warnings as to the peril of dabbling in\nSpiritualism. There is no more superstitious peasantry in the world\nthan that of Brittany, nor any with a darker array of ghostly legends.\nYet we are told that on St. John\u2019s Eve, when the bonfire is lit and the\npriests and choir have gone past in long procession with banners and\nrelics, places are set beside the glowing embers for those whose bodies\nare in the churchyard, that they, too, may look in at the dancers.\nIn every land which war has visited arms are stretched out towards\nthe young and beautiful who have fallen, and the cry is heard from\nmourners\u2019 lips, \u201cI am determined to take the hazard of the night along\nwith you.\u201d\n\n\nIV\n\nNew inquirers are, for the most part, wholly ignorant with regard\nto the history of Spiritualism, which Mr. Waite, our chief living\noccultist, has called \u201ca masque of anarchy.\u201d The most respectable\nleaders of the movement are only too anxious to break with the ugly,\ndisreputable past. A well-known authority says in _Light_[1]: \u201cIt has\nbeen the misfortune of Spiritualism that many of its public expositions\nhave been conducted in circumstances the reverse of dignified. It has\nsuffered from contact with stupidity and cupidity, and its enemies\nhave made the most of their numerous opportunities of holding it up to\nridicule.\u201d\n\nJust as the Government of Ebert and Scheidemann pleaded with the\nAllies: \u201cThe past is past; the old bad system is gone for ever;\nlet us write on this clean slate,\u201d so the newer exponents of\nSpiritualism--even men like Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Arthur Conan\nDoyle--seem inclined to pass over, _sub silentio_, all that was guilty\nand fraudulent in the records of seventy years. Such an amnesty could\nnot be granted in public affairs. The framers of the Peace Treaty\nof 1919 were guided in every step they took by a knowledge of the\ncrimes committed by Germany during the war. The greater her misdeeds,\nthe sterner were the guarantees required. \u201cTake up the study of\nSpiritualism _without prejudice_,\u201d says the devotee to the ignorant\nnew-comer. The words of Mr. Robert Hichens are in place, though they\nrefer to the testing of individual character: \u201cThe question is, What is\nprejudice? The facts of a life are facts, and cannot leave one wholly\nuninfluenced for or against the liver of that life. If I see a man\nbeating a dog because it has licked his hand, I draw the inference that\nhe is cruel. Would you say that I am narrow-minded in doing so? If one\ndoes not judge men and women by their actions, by what is one to judge\nthem?\u201d\n\nAs with individuals, so with movements. \u201cIt is infinitely to be\nregretted,\u201d says the French Spiritualist leader, Camille Flammarion,\n\u201cthat we cannot trust the loyalty of the mediums. They almost all\ncheat.\u201d Are we to pass over such a sentence as of trifling importance,\nor shall we receive it as a warning against all attempts to pry into\nthe fate of our dead by unlawful and unholy methods? \u201cThe judgment, the\nestimate, _where they are_,\u201d wrote Bishop Francis Paget, \u201cis formed\nwith perfect knowledge, perfect love; and our loose guesses, our hasty\nimpressions, our blundering words are like voices in the noisy street\noutside a church.\u201d\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] May 10th, 1919.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter II_\n\nDISTURBERS OF THE DEAD\n\n\nModern Spiritualism has its roots in Necromancy, a practice hated in\nall ages by sober and reverent minds. It was only the worst type of\nsorcerer, according to Mr. Waite, who attempted to communicate with\nthe spirits of departed men and women. Medi\u00e6val magic had a by-path\nleading towards the abyss, \u201can abhorrent and detested branch, belonging\nexclusively to the domain of black magic.\u201d The alchemist was bidden\nby his rules to pray as well as work. The astrologer was taught that\nin the last resort there is a law of grace by which the stars are\ngoverned, that \u201cChrist rules all things, even the stars.\u201d Though\npoisoning alchemists, like Alasco, in \u201cKenilworth,\u201d or star-gazers,\nlike Galeotti, in \u201cQuentin Durward,\u201d deceived Courts and peoples with\na pretence of superior knowledge, there was nothing actually odious to\nthe human mind in their professed and ostensible business. Necromancy,\nas Sir William Barrett points out, incurred the reprobation of Hebrew\nprophets, the statesmen and men of science of their day. From Moses to\nIsaiah, says this writer, we find them united in warning the people\nagainst any attempts to peer into and forecast the future, or to\nmeddle with psychical phenomena for this or any lower purpose. \u201cThese\npractices,\u201d he says, \u201cwere condemned ... irrespective of any question\nas to whether the phenomena were genuine or merely the product of\ntrickery and superstition. They were prohibited ... mainly because\nthey tended to obscure the Divine idea, to weaken the supreme faith\nin, and reverent worship of, the One Omnipotent Being, whom the nation\nwas set apart to proclaim.\u201d Sir W. F. Barrett quotes with approval the\nwords of Sir George Adam Smith in his \u201cIsaiah\u201d: \u201cAugury and divination\nwearied a people\u2019s intellect, stunted their enterprise, distorted\ntheir conscience. Isaiah saw this, and warned the people: \u2018Thy spells\nand enchantments with which thou hast wearied thyself have led thee\nastray.\u2019 And in later years Juvenal\u2019s strong conscience expressed the\nsame sense of the wearisomeness and waste of time of these practices.\u201d\n\nIt is fair to add that Sir William Barrett is convinced that the perils\nwhich beset the ancient world in the pursuit of psychical knowledge do\nnot apply to _scientific_ investigation to-day. Enough for our purpose\nthat he lays emphasis on the warnings of Holy Scripture against\nintrusion into unhallowed realms.\n\nHow shall we explain the deep repugnance of the human mind, at its\nbest and sanest, against any attempt to summon back the souls of the\ndeparted?\n\n\nI\n\nSir Arthur Conan Doyle, in \u201cThe New Revelation,\u201d admits that the\nopponents of Spiritualism are guided in part by that strange instinct\nwhich warns men and women to keep off forbidden ground. The man who\nwould violate a grave is naturally regarded with loathing. Dickens,\nin \u201cA Tale of Two Cities,\u201d has drawn such a person in Tellson\u2019s\noutside porter, Jerry Cruncher. Jerry\u2019s good wife looks with horror\non the night work of the body-snatcher, and Mr. Lorry says sternly\nto his employee: \u201cYou have had an unlawful occupation of an infamous\ndescription.\u201d With even deeper aversion does the unsophisticated mind\nturn from those who seek to rend the veil which hangs between this\nworld and the next.\n\n\nII\n\nIf the stern voice from Sinai says \u201cThus far and no farther,\u201d a\ntenderer reproach, breathed from earliest ages, warns presumptuous\nintruders who would disturb the dead. Here, again, we venture to\nquote the words of Mr. Waite: \u201cThere was a very strong and prevailing\nimpression that the dead were at rest, and that the attempt to disturb\nthat rest was a monstrous profanation.\u201d Tennyson\u2019s lines express the\nfeeling of bereaved hearts, even where there was no hope of survival,\nin lands where Christianity was unknown:\n\n    \u201cSleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace:\n     Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,\n     While the stars burn, the moons increase,\n     And the great ages onward roll.\n\n    \u201cSleep till the end, true soul and sweet.\n     Nothing comes to thee new or strange.\n     Sleep full of rest from head to feet;\n     Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.\u201d\n\nMany sayings of Scripture confirm the Christian\u2019s assurance that the\nfaithful dead, having passed the waves of this troublesome world,\nare at rest in their desired haven. Newman\u2019s words on the calm of\nAscensiontide belong in part not only to the exalted Saviour, but to\neach of His brethren now absent from the body: \u201cHe is in the very abyss\nof peace, where there is no voice of tumult or distress, but a deep\nstillness--stillness, that greatest and most awful of all goods which\nwe can fancy--that most perfect of joys, the utter, profound, ineffable\ntranquillity of the Divine essence. He has entered into his rest.\u201d\n\nJesus said: \u201cOur friend Lazarus sleepeth; I go that I may awake him out\nof sleep.\u201d St. Paul wrote: \u201cI would not have you ignorant, brethren,\nconcerning them that are asleep.\u201d The Church does not interpret these\nand other passages as teaching that the dead are wrapped in profound\nunconsciousness, or that they are wholly unconcerned with dear ones\nleft on earth. New activities may claim their interest, while old\nmemories remain alive.\n\n    \u201cFor the breed of the Far-going,\n     Who are strangers and all brothers,\n     May forget no more than others\n     Who look seaward with eyes flowing.\u201d\n\nBut the New Testament use of the word \u201csleep\u201d ought at least to warn us\nagainst meddling with their sacred rest.\n\n\nIII\n\nSpiritualist teachers are not without a sense of the impropriety\nof such attempts, when pressed on grounds of curiosity alone. Sir\nWilliam Barrett advises that those who have attained the assurance\nof survival by means of the s\u00e9ance should not pursue the matter\nfurther, but rather learn more of the spiritual world and spiritual\ncommunion from the Christian mystics of all countries. He recommends\nespecially a study of the writings of Swedenborg. Sir Arthur Conan\nDoyle, unlike Sir W. F. Barrett, regards Spiritualism as a religion,\nbut he advises his readers to get away from the phenomenal side, and\nlearn the \u201clofty teaching\u201d from such books as those of Stainton Moses.\nThe cult of the s\u00e9ance, he says, may be very much overdone. \u201cWhen\nonce you have convinced yourself of the truth of the phenomena, the\nphysical s\u00e9ance has done its work, and the man or woman who spends\nhis or her life in running from s\u00e9ance to s\u00e9ance is in danger of\nbecoming a sensation-hunter.\u201d In all such writing there is a note of\nuneasiness. The s\u00e9ance is not regarded as a \u201cmeans of grace\u201d for the\nbeliever in Spiritualism, therefore the outsider should avoid these\ndark and perilous ways. \u201cNot for nothing,\u201d says the Rev. Cyril E.\nHudson, \u201chas the Church throughout her history discouraged the practice\nof necromancy, the morbid concern with the dead which must inevitably\ninterfere, and does in fact interfere, with the proper discharge of our\nduties in that plane of existence in which God has placed us.\u201d[2]\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[2] _Nineteenth Century_, May, 1919, p. 919.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter III_\n\nTHE MEDIUM\n\n\nIn ordinary trance-mediumship, at least four distinct entities are\ninvolved. There is first the inquirer, next the medium, thirdly the\nmedium\u2019s alleged \u201ccontrol\u201d or controlling spirit, and, lastly, the\npresumed discarnate being who speaks to the inquirer through the\n\u201ccontrol\u201d and through the medium.\n\n\nI\n\n\u201cMediumship\u201d is a word with ugly associations, as every honest-minded\nSpiritualist will admit. It used to be said that the Psychical Society\nfound its chief occupation in exposing fraud and trickery. The great\nRussian authority, Aksakof, complained bitterly of the frequent\ntransmission of obviously false messages. He wrote of \u201cthe deception\nwhich appeared along with the dark s\u00e9ance and materialisations, and\nwhich was confirmed in my experience, not only from literature,\nbut also through my personal relations with the most celebrated\nprofessional mediums.\u201d He would have agreed with Mrs. Sidgwick\u2019s words:\n\u201cThe chief scandal of Spiritualism is the encouragement it gives to the\nimmoral trade of fraudulent mediumship.\u201d\n\nOn that point, inquirers should note, there is no dispute at all among\nresponsible investigators. In the earlier stages of the movement\nexposures were so numerous that a theory was evolved to account for\nthem. It was admitted that in many cases the medium cheated, but it\nwas alleged that this was done unconsciously, and that the fraud was\nreally perpetrated from the other side. The late Professor De Morgan\nwrote of certain phenomena: \u201cIf these things be spirits, they show\nthat pretenders, coxcombs and liars are to be found on the other side\nof the grave as well as on this.\u201d The idea was also elaborated that an\nuncongenial \u201ccircle\u201d might induce bad spirits to play tricks with the\nmedium.\n\n\u201cThe cheating medium,\u201d as Mr. Waite puts it, \u201cwas sure of his defence.\nHe was caught red-handed, but it was the ill-conditioned circle that\nattracted the \u2018unprogressed spirits\u2019 to tempt him. He carried the\nbaggage of a conjuror on his tours, but the real infamy rested with\nthe persons who had dared to trespass on the liberty of the subject by\nransacking his private effects.\u201d Kind-hearted men and women would make\nany excuse rather than admit that a favourite \u201cpsychic\u201d had been guilty\nof conscious deception.\n\nSince the bad side of mediumship is admitted, it is needless to\nre-array the historic evidence. Let us turn from the past to the\npresent, and ask what has been the cumulative effect of so many\ndisastrous exposures on the leaders of the Spiritualist movement in our\nown day.\n\n\nII\n\nFour names stand out on that side as specially authoritative: Sir\nW. F. Barrett, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mr. J. Arthur Hill, and Sir\nOliver Lodge. Three of these men are eminent in the worlds of science\nand literature, while the Spiritualistic writings of Mr. Hill deserve\nattention for their knowledge, fairmindedness and sanity.\n\n(1) Sir William Barrett refrains from citing any evidence obtained\nthrough paid professional mediums, and has evidently a low esteem\nfor this class. He welcomes the action of the Psychical Society in\nclearing off \u201ca number of those detestable professional rogues who prey\non the grief and credulity of mankind.\u201d[3] The very word \u201cmedium,\u201d he\nacknowledges, is usually associated in the public mind with various\ndegrees of rascality, and he says emphatically that \u201cso long as paid\nmediums and dark s\u00e9ances are encouraged, and rogues and fools abound,\nthe evil odour which surrounds the name \u2018medium\u2019 is likely to remain.\u201d\n\nHe also recognises that many so-called communications from the unseen\nare merely the unconscious revelation of the medium\u2019s own thoughts,\nor latent memory, or subliminal self.[4] Even with honest \u201cpsychics\u201d\nthere is a natural tendency not to disappoint the sitter when a fee\nis paid, \u201cand the temptation arises to supplement genuine by spurious\nphenomena.\u201d\n\nSuper-normal gifts, in the view of our most experienced authority, are\nrare and elusive, and require patience, knowledge and discrimination on\nthe part of the inquirer.[5] Sir William Barrett dissuades uninstructed\npersons from resorting to mediums; and it is clear that he desires the\ntotal elimination of the commercial element.\n\nWe need to guard against self-deception, he thinks, even in people\nwhose character is beyond reproach.\n\n(2) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle greatly dislikes the commercial element in\nmediumship. In a letter to _Light_[6] he pleads for the \u201ctraining and\nsegregation of mediums.\u201d Like Sir William Barrett, he condemns the\nwhole system of paying by results. \u201cIt is only when the professional\nmedium can be guaranteed an annuity which will be independent of\nresults,\u201d he says, \u201cthat we can eliminate the strong temptation to\nsubstitute pretended phenomena when the real ones are wanting.\u201d He\npoints out that mediumship in its lowest forms is a purely physical\ngift, with no relation to morality.\n\n(3) Mr. J. Arthur Hill, as Sir A. Conan Doyle tells us,[7] has been\nfor many years an invalid, stretched on his back in bed. A strong and\nathletic young man, he was suddenly reduced to absolute helplessness\nby a heart-wrench sustained while cycling up a hill. The volumes\nhe has written under sad physical disabilities are among the most\ninfluential now read in Spiritualist circles, and their quiet,\nunfanatical tone commends them to outsiders. Mr. Hill, like the late\nFrank Podmore, whose place he has partly taken as the historian of\nthe movement, has a thorough knowledge of the older literature and\njournalism, both American and British. He admits deliberate fraud\non the part of professional mediums, and is sceptical with regard to\n\u201cmaterialisation.\u201d It is not unlikely, in his opinion, that sitters\nwho await, in darkness and expectancy, the appearance of discarnate\npersonalities, may \u201cpass into a mental state not quite normal, and\nclosely analogous to hypnosis.\u201d\n\nMr. Hill thinks it inevitable that doubt should linger in the mind when\nthe financial element enters at all into mediumship, and he advises\nthat this element should be eliminated as far as possible. He discusses\nvery frankly the evidence obtained from non-professionals. \u201cWe have\nsubliminal memory to deal with, and that is more difficult to exclude\nthan ordinary fraud.\u201d\n\nThe best class of Spiritualist teachers are fully aware of the attitude\nof caution imposed upon them by the gradual progress of medical\ninvestigation into the workings of the unconscious mind.\n\n\u201cOne of the principal difficulties in the way of admitting an element\nof super-normality--whether telepathy, clairvoyance or communication\nfrom the dead\u201d--remarks Mr. Hill,[8] \u201cis the unknown reach of\nsubliminal memory.... Great care is necessary as to what we say to\nsensitives who are helping us in experimentation, also close knowledge\nof their lives, their reading, their associations, in order to estimate\nthe probability or improbability of this or that piece of knowledge\never having reached them through normal channels.\u201d He advises inquirers\nto err on the safe side, setting aside as non-evidential anything that\nthe sensitive may reasonably be supposed to have ever known.\n\n(4) Sir Oliver Lodge regards the medium as \u201ca delicate piece of\napparatus, wherewith we are making an investigation.\u201d \u201cThe medium is\nan instrument whose ways and idiosyncrasies must be learnt, and to\nan extent humoured, just as one studies and humours the ways of some\nmuch less delicate piece of physical apparatus turned out by a skilled\ninstrument maker.\u201d\n\nThese words of Sir Oliver Lodge raise a serious question. Do our\ninvestigators care enough about the moral and physical injury which the\n\u201csensitive\u201d may suffer under the trance condition? Sir William Barrett\nnotes that D. D. Home suffered severely after a long series of s\u00e9ances.\nAccording to the testimony of Sir W. Crookes, he lay pale, speechless\nand almost fainting on the floor, \u201cshowing what a drain on his vital\npowers was caused by the evolution of the \u2018psychic force.\u2019\u201d The Rev.\nWalter Wynn, in \u201cRupert Lives!\u201d says of a medium that it took nearly\nten minutes for him to pass under control \u201cafter many strange bodily\ncontortions which are not pleasant to witness, but are quite natural if\nwe are to assume that a discarnate spirit controls his body.\u201d\n\nProstration occurred, as the New Testament records, when our Lord cast\na spirit out of some poor human frame. The liberated were restored\nby Him to normal health and vigour. St. Mark\u2019s words are in strange\ncontrast to the recurrent trance experiences of modern mediumship. \u201cAnd\nthe spirit cried, and rent him sore, and came out of him, and he was as\none dead, insomuch that many said, He is dead. But Jesus took him by\nthe hand and lifted him up, and he arose.\u201d\n\nWould He not lift up and restore and revitalise those who at the s\u00e9ance\nseem to ignorant onlookers to be invaded by some alien personality?\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] \u201cOn the Threshold of the Unseen,\u201d p. 124 (1918).\n\n[4] _ibid._\n\n[5] \u201cOn the Threshold of the Unseen,\u201d p. 257 (1918).\n\n[6] May 10th, 1919.\n\n[7] In the Introduction to Mr. Hill\u2019s book entitled \u201cSpiritualism, its\nHistory, Phenomena, and Doctrine\u201d (Cassell).\n\n[8] \u201cSpiritualism,\u201d pp. 127, 128.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter IV_\n\nTHE MEDIUM\u2019S \u201cCONTROL\u201d\n\n\nProfessor Jacks remarked in a recent address[9] that the whole problem\nof Spiritualism is largely centred in the \u201ccontrols.\u201d The \u201ccontrol\u201d\nprofesses to be the spirit of some departed person, which has taken\npossession of the entranced medium, and which causes the medium to\nspeak or write in an abnormal manner. Sir Oliver Lodge writes of\n\u201ca separate intelligence ... which some think must be a secondary\npersonality--which indeed certainly _is_ a secondary personality of\nthe medium.\u201d[10] Elsewhere he states very clearly the divergence of\nview among psychical students with regard to this mysterious entity.\n\u201cThis personality,\u201d he says, \u201cis believed by some to be merely the\nsubliminal self of the entranced person, brought to the surface, or\nliberated and dramatised into a sort of dream existence, for the time.\u201d\nOthers think we have here a case of dual or multiple personality, while\na third section believe it to be in reality the separate intelligence\nit claims to be.[11]\n\n\nI\n\nIt is hardly surprising that Spiritualists should differ among\nthemselves as to the nature of the controls, for some of these controls\nare very curious people. Let us consider, for instance, the group\nwhich appears in \u201cRaymond.\u201d One of the most active is \u201cMoonstone,\u201d who\ntells inquirers that he was a Yogi, who lived as a hermit on earth,\n\u201ca good life, but a selfish one.\u201d He now desires to help humanity,\n\u201cand so that is why I came back to my Medie, and try to bear through\nhim the sorrows of the world.\u201d Another control is \u201cRedfeather,\u201d who\nis apparently of North American Indian origin, though this is not\ndistinctly stated. At one point the spirit of the supposed Raymond\nsays, \u201cChap with red feather helping.\u201d[12] \u201cRedfeather\u201d remarks when\nfirst taking command, \u201cI come dis little minute to try experiment.\nIf we succeed, all right; if we don\u2019t, don\u2019t mind.... Who could help\nbetter than me?... Long ago I was killed.\u201d[13]\n\nTo relieve the tension of a strongly emotional scene which follows,\nan old Irishwoman named Biddy takes control. She begins: \u201cSure it\u2019s\nmeself that has come to speak. Here\u2019s another mother.... I come to help\nto soothe the nerves of the medium.... I was a washer-woman, and lived\nnext a church, and they say cleanliness comes next to godliness! One of\nmy chains is to help mothers.\u201d\n\nMost singular of all the controls in \u201cRaymond\u201d is the Oriental girl\n\u201cFeda,\u201d who in her broken language talks of \u201cYaymond,\u201d and pronounces\nthree-syllabled words in a careful and drawn-out manner. The controls,\nas Dr. Jacks says, are often remote people, and he mentions the case of\nan Egyptian priest belonging to the time of one of the Pharaohs.\n\nWhat are we to think of \u201cDr. Phinuit,\u201d that singular control of Mrs.\nPiper, who described himself as a French doctor born at Marseilles\nabout 1790? He gave particulars of his birth, education, and life\nin Paris, where, according to his own account, he died about 1860.\nEnquiries failed to reveal any trace of his existence. He gave no\nindication of possessing any scientific knowledge of medicine. More\nsurprising still, his knowledge of French appeared to extend only to a\nfew simple phrases, which might have been familiar to the medium. As\nMr. J. Arthur Hill remarks, \u201cThe French doctor spoke no more French\nthan Mrs. Piper herself might be supposed to know.\u201d[14]\n\nHow many Spiritualists believe to-day that William Grocyn, the teacher\nof Erasmus, acted as a control to Mr. Stainton Moses? Or that the\ngroup of Broad Church controls--Imperator, Rector and the rest--who\ninculcated their theology through the mediumship of Mr. Moses,\nafterwards invaded the personality of Mrs. Piper?\n\n\nII\n\nResponsible leaders of the Spiritualist movement incline to a verdict\nof Not Proven, while impartial students, among whom Mrs. Sidgwick is\npre-eminent, have expressed the strongest doubts as to the real nature\nof the controls. Writing of Mrs. Piper\u2019s trance phenomena (which were\nclosely observed by experts) Mrs. Sidgwick says that the trance \u201cis\nprobably a state of self-induced hypnosis in which her hypnotic self\npersonates different characters either consciously and deliberately or\nunconsciously and believing herself to be the person she represents,\nand sometimes probably in a state of consciousness intermediate\nbetween the two.\u201d Sir William Barrett also believes that the messages\n\u201coften spring from, and are invariably influenced by, the medium\u2019s\nown subconscious life.\u201d[15] He agrees, on the whole, with Mrs.\nSidgwick, and he gives examples of absurd communications. Thus, in a\nsitting with Mrs. Piper, in 1899, the Jewish lawgiver Moses purported\nto communicate, and prophesied a great war in the near future, in\nwhich Russia and France would be on one side, Britain and America on\nthe other. Germany, according to \u201cMoses,\u201d would not take any serious\npart in the war.[16] Another time \u201cSir Walter Scott\u201d announced to Dr.\nHodgson that he had visited all the planets and could give information\nabout Mars. \u201cAsked if he had seen a planet further away than Saturn,\nthe _soi-disant_ novelist answered, \u2018Mercury.\u2019\u201d Julius C\u00e6sar, Madame\nGuyon and George Eliot were personated, and George Eliot is reported as\nsaying: \u201cI hardly know as there is enough light to communicate,\u201d and\n\u201cdo not know as I have ever seen a haunted house.\u201d\n\nMr. J. Arthur Hill says: \u201cI am not convinced that the regular\ntrance-controls are spirits at all.\u201d His views on certain aspects\nof the problem may be gathered from the following passage: \u201cAt\nSpiritualist meetings a trance-control or inspirational speaker will\nsometimes hold forth with surprising fluency at incredible length. The\nsecretary of the Spiritualists\u2019 National Union once backed the late W.\nJ. Colville to talk \u2018till this time next week without intervals for\nmeals,\u2019 yet with a dullness and inanity that would drive any but a\nvery tolerant audience mad. Spiritualists certainly have the virtue of\npatience.\u201d[17]\n\nMr. Hill thinks it probable that in many mediums there is a\ndissociation of consciousness, and no external spirit-agency at all.\nHe warns Spiritualist societies against \u201cencouraging the flow of\nplatitudinous or almost meaningless verbiage which, whether it comes\nfrom a medium\u2019s subliminal or from a discarnate spirit, can hardly\nbe helpful to anybody, and must be very bad for the minds of most\nhearers.\u201d He admits that in \u201cat least some cases of trance-control\nthere is no reason to believe the control to be other than a subliminal\nfraction of the automatist\u2019s mind.\u201d\n\nHow can the impartial inquirer hope to discern the truth amid heaps\nof lies? The cheating medium could be detected and cast out; the\n\u201ccontrols\u201d are as irresponsible as the fairies of \u201cA Midsummer Night\u2019s\nDream.\u201d\n\nSir Oliver Lodge\u2019s views on the \u201ccontrols\u201d are of extreme interest,\nthough he is fully committed to the defence of Spiritualism. \u201cThe\n_dramatic semblance_ of the control,\u201d he says, \u201cis undoubtedly that of\na separate person--a person asserted to be permanently existing on the\nother side, and to be occupied on that side in much the same functions\nas the medium is on this.\u201d It is true, he admits, that in the case of\nsome mediums \u201cthere are evanescent and absurd obtrusions every now and\nthen, which cannot be seriously regarded. These have to be eliminated,\nand for anyone to treat them as real people would be ludicrous.\u201d[18]\nThe excuse given for their appearance is that the medium may be\n\u201coverdone or tired.\u201d Sir Oliver Lodge advises \u201csitters,\u201d nevertheless,\nto \u201chumour\u201d the controls by \u201ctaking them at their face value.\u201d With the\nutmost respect for so great a scientist, the task of discrimination,\nwe may safely say, lies beyond the capacity of ordinary men and women.\nSir Oliver Lodge thinks that \u201cthe more responsible kind of control is a\nreal person,\u201d and he has much to say of \u201cthe serious controls,\u201d but he\nadmits the occurrence of \u201cmischievous and temporary impersonations.\u201d\n\nThe question may fairly be asked, Cannot the fourth personality in\nthat strange group--composed of the inquirer on this side, the medium,\nthe medium\u2019s control, and the spirit communicator--speak directly from\nwithin the veil? Sir Oliver Lodge, while admitting that an exceptional\nmore direct privilege is occasionally vouchsafed to persons in extreme\nsorrow, gives his answer, on the whole, in the negative. The normal\nprocess \u201cinvolves the activity of several people,\u201d and we conclude from\nhis writings that he desires to uphold professional mediumship.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[9] At Denison House, Vauxhall Bridge Road, on June 11th, 1919.\n\n[10] \u201cRaymond,\u201d p. 86.\n\n[11] _ibid._, p. 357.\n\n[12] _ibid._, p. 235.\n\n[13] _ibid._, p. 166.\n\n[14] \u201cSpiritualism,\u201d p. 74.\n\n[15] \u201cOn the Threshold of the Unseen,\u201d p. 33.\n\n[16] _ibid._, p. 240.\n\n[17] \u201cSpiritualism,\u201d p. 172.\n\n[18] \u201cRaymond,\u201d p. 357.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter V_\n\nTABLE PHENOMENA\n\n\nTable-turning, as we meet it in literature, belongs to the older class\nof parlour games. Sir W. F. Barrett quotes the testimony of Delitzsch\nthat it was practised in Jewish circles in the seventeenth century:\n\u201cthe table springs up even when laden with many hundred-weight.\u201d Zebi,\nin 1615, defended the practice as not due to magic, but to the power of\nGod, \u201cfor we sing to the table sacred psalms and songs, and it can be\nno devil\u2019s work where God is remembered.\u201d\n\n\nI\n\nMrs. De Morgan, in that curious book, \u201cFrom Matter to Spirit,\u201d\ndescribes her experience in table-turning circles about the year 1853.\nThe medium was Mrs. Hayden, whose s\u00e9ances in West London were attended\nby such men as Professor Huxley and Robert Chambers. Mrs. Hayden was an\neducated lady, the wife of W. R. Hayden, editor of the _Star-Spangled\nBanner_. Her rooms were crowded with visitors, at a minimum fee of\nhalf a guinea each, and her services were in great demand for evening\nparties and private sittings. According to Mrs. De Morgan, the circle\ngathered round an old Pembroke table. The illustrations in the book\nshow a spirit appearing to a man and woman who are seated at a rather\nlarge round table. Very strange and absurd communications, as Mrs.\nDe Morgan admitted, were given by table-tipping, \u201cas, indeed, by\nall methods.\u201d \u201cI have seen instances,\u201d she writes, \u201cand been told of\nothers, in which long incongruous strings of names and titles have been\nspelt out, such as Richard C\u0153ur de Lion, Pythagoras, Byron, Cheops, and\nMr. Fauntleroy, the list, perhaps, ending with T. Browne or J. Smith.\nThe givers of these names seem to delight only in buffoonery and abuse;\nand, perhaps, after playing absurd and mischievous tricks for days or\neven weeks, will seem to come in a body, giving all their names, with\nthe information that they are come to say good-bye for ever.\u201d\n\nPhenomena not unlike the \u201cexuberant\u201d table activities at Mariemont, as\ndescribed in \u201cRaymond,\u201d were familiar over half a century ago to the\nsitters with Mrs. Hayden. Mrs. De Morgan tells of a case in which the\nwatchers were directed by raps to join hands and stand up round the\ntable without touching it. They stood patiently for a quarter of an\nhour, and just as one or two of the party talked of sitting down, the\nold table \u201cmoved entirely by itself as we surrounded and followed it\nwith our hands joined, went towards the gentleman out of the circle,\nand literally pushed him up to the back of the sofa, till he called out\n\u2018Hold, enough!\u2019\u201d\n\nRobert Chambers, who was a close examiner of the table phenomena of his\nday, formed an opinion which would be accepted, as we shall show, by\nthoughtful writers of our own time who are on other grounds believers\nin Spiritualism.\n\n\u201cI am satisfied,\u201d Robert Chambers wrote in _Chambers\u2019s Journal_, \u201cthat\nthe phenomena are natural, but to take them in I think we shall have\nto widen somewhat our ideas of the extent and character of what is\nnatural.\u201d\n\nIn 1853 a committee of British medical men held an investigation on\ntable-turning. They decided that the table-motion was due to muscular\naction, mostly exercised unconsciously. Faraday, as Mr. Podmore shows\nin \u201cModern Spiritualism,\u201d was able to prove that the table movements\nwere due to muscular action, exercised in most cases without the\nconsciousness or volition of the sitters. Table-turning, in the remoter\ntowns and villages of Europe, was a favourite drawing-room amusement as\nlate as 1876.\n\n\nII\n\nSir Oliver Lodge, in his deeply interesting address to the Dublin\nsection of the Society for Psychical Research,[19] delivered more\nthan ten years ago, spoke wise words on the physical phenomena of the\ns\u00e9ance. \u201cThere is but little doubt in my mind,\u201d he says, \u201cthat such\nmovements do take place; I have had personal experience of them.\nNevertheless they are not yet really established as facts, and if they\nwere there would still be a question whether these movements are due\nto some independent intelligent agency, or whether, as is most likely,\nthey are an extension of the ordinary power of the organism through\nwhich they are produced.\u201d\n\nSir Oliver Lodge, eleven years ago, took practically the same view as\nRobert Chambers in 1853. \u201cI can move this tumbler with my hand,\u201d he\nsaid, \u201cbut the question remains whether I can move the same tumbler at\na distance of a couple of feet from my hand without actually touching\nit. Note that there is nothing inconceivable about this. The boundary\nof an organism, as of everything else, is more or less arbitrary; we\nknow that in a sense a vortex ring exists, not only where it is seen,\nbut at some distance also, and that the influence of every atom\nextends throughout the visible universe. And so, perhaps, on analogous\nlines, we may look for some explanation of these curious occurrences\nwhich will not take them altogether beyond the reach of more ordinary\nexperience.\u201d\n\n\nIII\n\nWe have given the opinion of scientific men in 1853 and in 1908 with\nregard to the phenomena of table-turning. Spiritualists to-day are much\ninterested in the experiments of a distinguished Belfast scientist, Dr.\nW. J. Crawford, with the Goligher family, whose table experiments have\nsatisfied him that \u201cthe invisible operators\u201d are \u201cthe spirits of human\nbeings who have passed into the beyond.\u201d Sir William Barrett, who has\npersonally watched the Belfast experiments, suggests that \u201cmany of the\nphysical manifestations witnessed in a Spiritualistic s\u00e9ance are the\nproduct of human-like, but not really human, intelligences. Good or bad\nd\u00e6monia they may be; elementals some have called them, which aggregate\nround the medium--drawn from that particular plane of mental and moral\ndevelopment in the unseen which corresponds to the mental and moral\nplane of the medium.\u201d\n\nSir Oliver Lodge, in a recent article,[20] speaks of \u201cmany grades of\ndevelopment\u201d in the other world, \u201csome lower than humanity.\u201d\n\nMr. Arthur E. Waite, writing more than twenty years ago on\nSpiritualistic phenomena, set forth the theory of the Kabalists that\n\u201cshells and elementals,\u201d the \u201clow life deeps of the world of souls,\u201d\nmight exercise a baneful influence on humanity. \u201cThe revelations of the\nunseen world which have come to us through Spiritualism,\u201d he says,\n\u201ccan have come only from the dregs and lees of the unseen, or, as I\nshould prefer to put it, from the roots and the rudiments of that house\nwhich, however, on account of those rudiments, may not be less the\nHouse of God.\u201d\n\nScientific students of to-day seem divided between two theories as they\nexamine the table phenomena. These are ascribed (1) to supernormal\nand little understood powers of the human personality, or (2) to the\nintervention of irresponsible and, it may be, sub-human intelligences.\n\nReaders of \u201cRaymond\u201d will remember Sir Oliver Lodge\u2019s reference to the\ndifficulties of \u201ctable-sittings.\u201d Various passages show that he himself\nhas been greatly puzzled. Accounts of sittings at \u201cMariemont,\u201d Sir\nOliver Lodge\u2019s home, tell of obstreperous doings on the part of the\ntables. Two got broken, and \u201ca stronger and heavier round table with\nfour legs was obtained, and employed only for this purpose.\u201d In one of\nthe s\u00e9ances with \u201cFeda,\u201d the alleged spirit of Raymond referred through\nthe \u201ccontrol\u201d to table-doings at Mariemont.\n\n\u201cOther spirits get in, not bad spirits, but ones that like to feel\nthey are helping. The peculiar manifestations are not him, and it only\nconfuses him terribly. Part of it was him, but when the table was\ncareering about it was not him at all. He started it, but something\ncomes along stronger than himself, and he loses the control.\u201d[21]\n\nIn a later sitting with the same medium and control we find the\nsentence (supposed to come from Raymond), \u201cThe Indians have got through\ntheir hanky-panky.\u201d The reference was understood by his brother to mean\n\u201cplaying with the table in a way beyond his control.\u201d[22]\n\nMr. J. Arthur Hill has some sensible remarks on the general subject\nof table phenomena. \u201cThere seems no particular point,\u201d he says, \u201cin\nphysical phenomena alone, except as providing a problem for the\nphysicist and psychical researcher. A table or other object may move in\nsome inexplicable way, but that is no proof of \u2018spirits\u2019; the energy is\nsupplied from physical matter--mainly the medium\u2019s and sitters\u2019 bodies,\napparently--and it is only through evidential messages conveyed by the\nphenomena that spirit agency can reasonably be inferred.\u201d Mr. Hill\ndisapproves of \u201cprivate circles,\u201d except when held for investigation by\nqualified persons.\n\nTable phenomena, of whatever kind, afford no proof that discarnate\nhuman spirits are seeking to communicate with friends on earth.\n\nWe close this chapter with the words of Camille Flammarion, the French\nastronomer, whose name is so highly honoured in Spiritualistic\ncircles:--\n\n\u201cThe physical phenomena ... do not prove the existence of spirits, and\nmay possibly be explained without them ... that is, by unknown forces,\nemanating from the experimenters, and especially from the mediums.\u201d\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[19] Fully reported in the Journal of the S.P.R. for December, 1908.\n\n[20] _Weekly Dispatch_, May 18th, 1919.\n\n[21] \u201cRaymond,\u201d pp. 182, 183.\n\n[22] _ibid._, p. 273, and _see also_ pp. 276-277 for table phenomena.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter VI_\n\nAUTOMATIC WRITING\n\n\nThe Society for Psychical Research has for many years given close\nattention to the subject of automatic writing. This has been defined\nas \u201cthe faculty possessed by certain people of holding a pencil over a\nsheet of paper and writing coherent and intelligible sentences without\nany conscious volition.\u201d Sometimes the medium sits entranced with\naverted face, and the circle looks on while \u201cthe moving finger writes.\u201d\nThe script, in most cases, purports to emanate from a human being who\nhas passed into the Unseen.\n\n\nI\n\nSTAINTON MOSES\n\nThe most remarkable automatist of the Victorian period was the Rev.\nWilliam Stainton Moses (\u201cM.A., Oxon\u201d), whose \u201cSpirit Teachings\u201d are\nstill widely read, and whose character was regarded with admiration\nby men like F. W. H. Myers and Sir W. F. Barrett. Mr. Moses, who was\na clergyman of the Church of England, and a master at University\nCollege School, revealed to a curious world the existence of a group\nof \u201cspirits,\u201d who concealed their identity, for the most part, under\nsuch pseudonyms as \u201cImperator,\u201d \u201cRector,\u201d \u201cMentor,\u201d and \u201cDoctor.\u201d It\nhas often been pointed out that the messages of \u201cImperator,\u201d who was a\nspirit of a highly didactic and clerical turn of mind, were very much\nwhat the curate William Stainton Moses might have written of his own\nvolition. Their main purpose appears to have been the inculcation of\nBroad Church theology.\n\nMr. Podmore considered that Stainton Moses was \u201cperhaps the most\nremarkable private medium of the last generation,\u201d but of his trance\nutterances this critic said: \u201cThey contain no evidence of supernormal\nfaculty.\u201d\n\nMr. Arthur E. Waite, in a passage on automatic script, refers to \u201cthat\ndark border-line of mystery where deception and self-deception meet and\njoin hands.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is, indeed, open to question,\u201d he says, \u201cwhether under some aspects\n\u2018the spirit teachings,\u2019 for example, obtained through the mediumship of\nthe Rev. Stainton Moses are not, on the whole, more hopeless than the\nquality of the trance address delivered in a back street on a Saturday\nnight before a circle of mechanics, for the simple reason that from\nthe normal gifts of the medium we had fair reason to look for better.\u201d\n\nThe revelations conveyed through \u201cSpirit Teachings\u201d suggest to this\nexperienced occultist that \u201cif the dead have spoken at any time since\nthe beginning of the Rochester knockings they have said nothing to\narrest our attention or to warrant a continued communication.\u201d Mr.\nPodmore, in \u201cModern Spiritualism,\u201d mentions that \u201cImperator\u201d and his\nassociates were supposed to represent personages of some importance on\nearth. Their real names were revealed by Stainton Moses to one or two\nfriends. After the migration of these \u201ccontrols\u201d to Mrs. Piper, \u201cthey\nmore than once professed, as a proof of identity, to give their names,\nbut their guesses have been incorrect.\u201d\n\nMr. Podmore thought that the clue to the enigma of Stainton Moses\u2019 life\n\u201cmust be sought in the annals of morbid psychology.\u201d In justice to\nthe medium it should be added that, while working as a curate in the\nIsle of Man, he showed remarkable courage and zeal during an outbreak\nof smallpox, helping to nurse sick and bury the dead. In the various\npositions he held as parish clergyman and schoolmaster he was liked and\nrespected by all. The physical phenomena of his mediumship were always\nsaid to be secondary; his own wish was to emphasise the religious\nteaching he promulgated through automatic writing.\n\nSpiritualists of to-day reject entirely the notion that the phenomena\nassociated with Stainton Moses were produced by fraud, but as Mr. Hill\nsays, \u201cWhether they were due to spirits is another question, not to\nbe finally settled until we know the extent of our subliminal self\u2019s\nhidden powers.\u201d\n\n\nII\n\nIf doubts are felt by Spiritualists themselves with regard to\nthe origin of such a standard work as \u201cSpirit Teachings,\u201d can we\nwonder that all but the most credulous reject great masses of\nordinary automatic writing and concentrate their attention on a\npossibly valuable \u201cresiduum\u201d? As Sir William Barrett recognises, the\nautomatist, even when absolutely above suspicion, may unconsciously\nguide the pencil or the indicator of the \u201couija board.\u201d May not the\nexplanation of surprising communications, when such occur, be found in\n\u201cthought-transference from those who are sitting with the medium, or\ntelepathy from other living persons who may know some of the facts that\nare automatically written?\u201d[23]\n\nSir William Barrett asks the question, though he does not consider\nthat an affirmative answer covers the facts. Honest-minded\nSpiritualists are groping after a natural explanation of the phenomena.\nThe best of them, we are sure, would agree with Dr. Barnes that\nautomatic writing, taken as a whole, has no evidential value in favour\nof the theory that it is possible to communicate with the dead. As the\n\u201ctable phenomena\u201d point to dimly realised extensions of man\u2019s physical\npowers, so the unexplained facts of automatic writing find their\nprobable explanation in thought-transference, or in that mysterious\nrealm where experts talk of \u201cthe dissociation of the personality.\u201d\n\nMr. Gerald Balfour, whose writings on Psychical Research deserve the\nclosest and most attentive study, discussed in the _Hibbert Journal_\nten years ago the problem of dissociation, \u201cwhereby an element of the\nnormal self may be supposed to become in a lesser or greater degree\ndivided off from that self, and to acquire, for the time being, a\ncertain measure of independence.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt would appear to be with this secondary self (or selves, if there be\nmore than one of them) that we have to reckon in dealing with the facts\nof automatism rather than with the normal self: a deduction drawn from\nthe consciousness or unconsciousness of the latter may be altogether\ninapplicable to the former. How ready these second selves are to act a\npart, and how cleverly they often do so, the experience of hypnotism is\nthere to show.\u201d\n\n\nIII\n\n\u201cNearly every woman,\u201d writes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in \u201cThe New\nRevelation,\u201d \u201cis an undeveloped medium. Let her try her own powers\nof automatic writing.\u201d Doctors have cried out against this dangerous\nadvice given by one of the medical fraternity, and we have not found\nit supported by any leading authority in the ranks of Spiritualism. We\nare able to state, on excellent authority, that the late Dr. Alfred\nRussel Wallace strongly deprecated any similar attempts by amateurs.\nIn private conversation he used to tell of a man who, having practised\nautomatic writing, became absolutely incapable of writing the simplest\nnote without his hand being used by other agencies. He was not able\nto hinder this by his own will, and in order to effect a cure he was\nobliged to abstain for years from using a pencil at all. Dr. Russel\nWallace had a strong belief in the existence and activity of malignant\nlow-grade spirits who seek to gain control over men.\n\nSir William Barrett, in a very grave passage, discourages \u201cyoung\npersons and those who have little to interest their time and thoughts\u201d\nfrom \u201cmaking any experiments in this perplexing region.\u201d Sir Arthur\nConan Doyle has never known \u201ca blasphemous, an unkind, or an obscene\nmessage\u201d to be transmitted ostensibly from the other side. Sir W. F.\nBarrett has been less fortunate in his experience. \u201cIt not infrequently\nhappens,\u201d writes this great authority, \u201cas some friends of mine found,\nthat after some interesting and veridical messages and answers to\nquestions had been given, mischievous and deceptive communications took\nplace, interspersed with profane and occasionally obscene language.\nHow far the sitters\u2019 subliminal self is responsible for this, it is\ndifficult to say; they were naturally disquieted and alarmed, as the\nideas and words were wholly foreign to their thoughts, and they threw\nup the whole matter in disgust.\u201d[24]\n\nSir Oliver Lodge, in \u201cRaymond\u201d (p. 225), warns his readers against\nthe misapplication of psychic power. His paragraph headed \u201cWarning\u201d\ngleams like a sea-light over sunken rocks. It was with a deep sense of\nresponsibility, we may be sure, and with a consciousness of surrounding\ndanger, that the world-famed scientist wrote these words: \u201cSelf-control\nis more important than any other form of control, and whoever possesses\nthe power of receiving communications in any form should see to it that\nhe remains master of the situation. To give up your own judgment and\ndepend solely on adventitious aid is a grave blunder, and may in the\nlong run have disastrous consequences. Moderation and common sense are\nrequired in those who try to utilise powers which neither they nor any\nfully understand, and a dominating occupation in mundane affairs is a\nwholesome safeguard.\u201d\n\nSir Arthur Conan Doyle, we believe, stands alone among leading\nSpiritualistic teachers in his advice that all and sundry should\npractise planchette-writing. \u201cSuch practices,\u201d as Dr. Barnes remarks,\n\u201cdo little harm to men and women whose minds are healthy; but there is\na danger that through them persons whose minds are unstable may develop\nfixed illusions.\u201d[25]\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[23] \u201cOn the Threshold of the Unseen,\u201d pp. 162, 163.\n\n[24] \u201cOn the Threshold of the Unseen,\u201d p. 322.\n\n[25] \u201cSpiritualism and the Christian Faith,\u201d p. 47.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter VII_\n\nIS THERE DANGER FROM THE OTHER SIDE?\n\n\nCanon Barnes, in his excellent pamphlet, \u201cSpiritualism and the\nChristian Faith,\u201d warns the clergy against a line of opposing argument\nwhich would commit them to an acceptance of the medi\u00e6val system of\ndemonology. We can confirm the testimony of Dr. Barnes that it is not\nuncommon to hear in Christian pulpits an admission that the medium can\nreceive communications from another world, and to find this admission\ncoupled with the suggestion that these communications are sent by\nevil spirits. We entirely agree with Dr. Barnes that the worst way\nof attacking Spiritualism is to admit its fundamental claim that\ncommunication with \u201cspirits\u201d can be set up, and then to assert that the\n\u201cspirits\u201d with whom intercourse is established are evil. \u201cSuch teaching\nattempts to combat Spiritualism by a revived belief in demonology.\u201d\nThe \u201cdanger from the other side\u201d is of a different and more subtle\nnature. \u201cNo one at the present day,\u201d writes Mr. Arthur E. Waite,\n\u201cwould desire to submit that a Spiritualist who receives at a s\u00e9ance\nthat which, so far as his knowledge extends, is satisfactory evidence\nthat he is holding some kind of communication with, let us suppose,\na departed relative, is in reality being imposed upon by any satanic\nintelligence according to the conventional view; but it remains that\nhe is assuming throughout the good faith of the other side of life,\nand that it is incapable of utilising particular means of knowledge in\nan unscrupulous way.\u201d Trustworthy teachers of Spiritualism do not, in\ntheir own investigations, \u201cassume the good faith of the other side of\nlife.\u201d The most serious warnings as to possible dangers to the inquirer\ncome from men of high character and responsible position, who accept\nthe tenets of Spiritualism.\n\n\nI\n\nThe Church has taught in every age that man\u2019s soul is engaged in\nwarfare with unseen powers. St. Paul\u2019s words in Ephesians vi. 11, 12,\nare impressively rendered by Dr. Moffatt: \u201cPut on God\u2019s armour so as\nto be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil. For we have\nto struggle not with blood and flesh, but with the Angelic Rulers,\nthe Angelic Authorities, the potentates of the dark present, the\nspirit-forces of evil in the heavenly sphere.\u201d\n\nThere is no stranger, more disputed, passage in Dante\u2019s \u201cPurgatorio\u201d\nthan that in which the poet represents the evil serpent seeking to gain\naccess to the penitents on the lower slopes of the Mount. Sinless they\nare, but they have not reached the terraces of suffering; they are\nwaiting, pale and humble, for permission to move upward at daybreak,\nand they sing the compline hymn.\n\nGuardian angels come at once to the defence of those whose rest in\nthe flowery dell is disturbed by thoughts of the adversary. These\nangels, as Maria Rossetti says, are \u201cgreen-winged and robed for hope,\ngolden-haired and radiant-visaged for glory, with fiery swords against\nthe lurking serpent, with blunted swords towards the reposing elect,\nfalcons to watch, falcons to fly, moved swifter than seen to move.\u201d\n\nThose penitents of Dante\u2019s \u201cDell of Princes\u201d would have echoed the\nwords with which John Bunyan closed the first part of the \u201cPilgrim\u2019s\nProgress\u201d: \u201cI saw that there was a way to hell even from the gates of\nheaven, as well as from the city of destruction.\u201d Would they not, as\nthe dawn-light guided them upward to St. Peter\u2019s gate, have warned\nChristian souls on earth against any tampering with \u201cspirit-forces of\nevil\u201d?\n\n    \u201cPrincipalities and powers,\n     Mustering their unseen array,\n     Wait for thy unguarded hours;\n           Watch and pray.\u201d\n\n\nII\n\nMental and moral wreckage may be the fate of those who surrender the\nwill in a vain attempt to lift the curtain of unseen realms. It was\nan ancient belief that evil spirits could not obtain a footing in any\nhouse unless the inmate gave them a deliberate invitation to enter.\n\u201cReverend father,\u201d says Magdalen in \u201cThe Abbot,\u201d \u201chast thou never\nheard that there are spirits powerful to rend the walls of a castle\nasunder when once admitted, which yet cannot enter the house unless\nthey are invited, nay, dragged, over the threshold?\u201d We remember how\nColeridge uses the same superstition in the mysterious fragment,\n\u201cChristabel\u201d:\n\n    \u201cThe lady sank, belike thro\u2019 pain.\n     And Christabel with might and main\n       Lifted her up, a weary weight,\n       Over the threshold of the gate;\n       Then the lady rose again,\n     And moved as she were not in pain.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is prudent,\u201d says Camille Flammarion, \u201cnot to give oneself\nexclusively to occult subjects, for one might soon lose the\nindependence of mind necessary to form an impartial judgment.\u201d\n\n\nIII\n\nImpressive warnings as to possible dangers from the other side have\ncome from leading spiritualists who have not separated themselves\nfrom the Christian faith. It will not be the fault of Sir William\nBarrett if foolish and credulous s\u00e9ance-haunters get into deep waters.\nIn the latest edition of his standard book he reprints, with slight\nmodification, an often cited passage which he wrote more than ten years\nago.\n\n\u201cCertainly,\u201d he says, \u201cthe Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the\nEphesians, points to a race of spiritual creatures, not made of flesh\nand blood, inhabiting the air around us, and able injuriously to affect\nmankind. Good as well as mischievous agencies doubtless exist in the\nunseen; this, of course, is equally true if the phenomena are due to\nthose who have once lived on the earth. \u2018There are as great fools in\nthe spirit world as there ever were in this,\u2019 as Henry More said over\n200 years ago. In any case, granting the existence of a spiritual\nworld, it is necessary to be on our guard against the invasion of our\nwill by a lower order of intelligence and morality.\u201d\n\nIt is the danger to the will, fully recognised and acknowledged, which\nleads Sir Oliver Lodge and others to press on students of Spiritualism\nthe need for a primary absorption in worldly affairs. Camille\nFlammarion, the chief French authority, urges the same view. \u201cThere\nare foods and drinks,\u201d he says, \u201cwhich it is most wholesome to take\nonly in small quantities.\u201d After a lifetime devoted to the study of\nmediumship, this brilliant Frenchman thought that three principles only\nwere established:\n\n(1) The soul exists as a real entity independent of the body.\n\n(2) It is endowed with faculties still unknown to science.\n\n(3) It is able to act at a distance without the intervention of the\nsenses.\n\n\nIV\n\nPassing, then, from the first part of our subject, we may summarise as\nfollows:--\n\n(1) The past of Spiritualism is deeply tainted with fraud, and the\npresent is \u201cclouded with a doubt.\u201d There may have been unconscious\ncheating, but there has been much deliberate roguery.\n\n(2) Even where fraud seems to be eliminated, it is probable that the\nunexplained phenomena of mediumship will become clear as a wider\nknowledge is gained of man\u2019s physical and mental powers. \u201cI hold,\u201d says\nDr. Barnes, \u201cthat all the well-attested evidence, on which the theory\nof spirit-communication is based, will ultimately be explained by a\nfuller knowledge of the interchange of consciousness between living\npersons.\u201d\n\n(3) We reject the crude theory that mediumistic phenomena are caused\nby diabolic intervention.\n\n(4) We believe that mental and moral ruin may result from \u201cborderland\u201d\nstudies, because in these the personality is peculiarly liable to the\nloss of will-power and self-control. \u201cWe shall do well to keep the\ndoors of the soul shut until we can open them to God.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter VIII_\n\nSPIRITUALISM AND CHRISTIANITY\n\n\nSpiritualism, a recent writer[26] says, is more and more proving itself\na rival to Christianity. Its votaries cease, almost invariably, to be\nChristians in any traditional sense of the word. It grips the mind of\n\u201cdabblers\u201d with an extraordinary fascination, and \u201cseems to demand a\nself-surrender as great as that which Christianity itself involves, a\nsurrender of the whole personality.\u201d\n\nWe propose to ask in this chapter, \u201cWhat is the attitude of\nSpiritualist teachers towards the Christian faith?\u201d An exceptional\nposition, let us remark at the outset, is occupied by two of the\nleaders, Sir W. F. Barrett and Sir Oliver Lodge. The former regards the\nevidence afforded at the s\u00e9ance as \u201ca handmaid to faith,\u201d and warns\nbeginners \u201cagainst making a religion of Spiritualism.\u201d[27]\n\nSir Oliver Lodge, as we know from his writings, has a sincere reverence\nfor the Person of our Lord. He is convinced that grades of being\nexist, not only lower in the scale than man, but higher also, grades\nof every order of magnitude from zero to infinity. Among these lofty\nbeings \u201cis One on whom the right instinct of Christianity has always\nlavished heartfelt reverence and devotion. Those who think that the day\nof the Messiah is over are strangely mistaken; it has hardly begun....\nWhatever the Churches may do, I believe that the call of Christ\nhimself will be heard and attended to, by a large part of humanity\nin the near future, as never yet it has been heard or attended to on\nearth.... My own time down here is getting short; it matters little;\nbut I dare not go till I have borne this testimony to the grace and\ntruth which emanate from that divine Being.\u201d[28]\n\nThere is something characteristic in the question asked by the bereaved\nfather at an \u201cautomatic\u201d s\u00e9ance reported in \u201cRaymond\u201d:\n\n\u201cO. J. L.: Before you go, Raymond, I want to ask a serious question.\nHave you been let to see Christ?\u201d\n\n\u201cFather, I shall see him presently. It is not time yet.\u201d\n\nIntercourse with the departed means for Sir Oliver Lodge \u201cnothing less\nthan the possibility some day of a glance or a word of approval from\nthe eternal Christ.\u201d\n\n\nI\n\nA different world opens upon us as we examine the general literature of\nSpiritualism. Its \u201cSeven Principles\u201d have been set forth as follows:[29]\n\n    I. The Fatherhood of God.\n   II. The Brotherhood of Man.\n  III. Continuous Existence.\n   IV. Communion of Spirits and Ministry of Angels.\n    V. Personal Responsibility.\n   VI. Compensation and Retribution Hereafter for good or ill\n         done on earth.\n  VII. A path of endless progression.\n\nThe name of our Lord is not mentioned, yet these \u201cprinciples\u201d would\nbe words of little meaning but for His life on earth, His death,\nHis resurrection, and His glorious reign. It was He who taught us to\nsay \u201cOur Father.\u201d New ideas were poured by Him into the Roman world.\n\u201cOne is your teacher, and you are all brothers.\u201d[30] \u201cThe King will\nanswer them, \u2018I tell you truly, in so far as you did it to one of\nthese brothers of mine, even to the least of them, you did it to\nme.\u2019\u201d[31] The Risen Saviour said on Easter morning, \u201cGo to my brothers\nand tell them, \u2018I am ascending to my Father and yours, to my God and\nyours.\u2019\u201d[32] Though exalted far above all heavens, \u201cHe is not ashamed\nto call them brothers.\u201d[33] His followers believe in the communion\nof saints. The ministry of angels is not strange to them, since\n\u201cangels came and ministered to Him.\u201d His teaching on responsibility,\ncompensation and retribution is the highest yet vouchsafed to mankind.\nIf continuous existence is the master-chord of Spiritualism, it was\nHe who brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel, who\nshowed to dying men the path of life. Why, then, is His name omitted\nfrom the \u201cSeven Principles\u201d of Spiritualism? The challenge cannot be\nput aside. The question goes sounding through the ages to every new\ndiscipleship, \u201cWhat think ye of Christ?\u201d\n\n\nII\n\nImpatience and annoyance seem to be roused in certain Spiritualists\nwhen the question is put to them. Mr. J. Arthur Hill, in the concluding\npages of his best-known volume,[34] refers to the complaint of \u201ca\nclerical reviewer of a recent book of mine ... that I nowhere stated\nmy belief regarding Christ.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt seemed a curious objection,\u201d he goes on, \u201cand it had not occurred\nto me that anyone would expect Christology in a book mainly describing\npsychical investigations.\u201d He refers to \u201ctechnical theological details\non which I am incompetent to pronounce,\u201d and adds that \u201cSpiritualists\nseem for the most part to be uninterested in the subtleties of the\nTrinitarian doctrine. All venerate the person and teaching of Jesus.\u201d\n\nThe writer expresses his own belief that \u201cJesus may have belonged to\nsome order higher than ours.\u201d \u201cI admit,\u201d he says, \u201cthat I have felt\nthis about Emerson.... Consequently, I sympathise with those who, being\nrightly humble about their own persons, but rating others and human\npossibilities in general too low, feel the necessity of regarding Jesus\nas more than man.\u201d\n\nIt is strange that a writer of Mr. Hill\u2019s intelligence should forget\nthat we are living in a Christian land, and that Spiritualism professes\nto bring new certainties about the future life to those whose hope and\nanchor on futurity has hitherto rested wholly in the Christian faith.\nHe goes as far as he possibly can to meet the inquiries of Christian\nreaders, but evidently thinks it unfair that they should tease him.\nThat is the surprising thing.\n\nTake in contrast the language of James Smetham, when he was studying\nthe Epistle to the Hebrews: \u201cThe great difference of such a subject\nfrom all others is that all the interests of Time and Eternity are\nwrapped up in it. The scrutiny of a title-deed of \u00a3100,000 a year is\nnothing to it. How should it be? Is there a Christ? Is He the heir of\nall things? Was He made flesh? Did He offer the all-perfect sacrifice?\nDid He supersede the old order of priests? Is He the Mediator of a new\nand better covenant? What are the terms of that covenant? There are no\nquestions like these. All other interests seem low, trivial, momentary.\u201d\n\n\nIII\n\nTwo affirmations meet us on the threshold of the Gospels. One is the\nassertion of our Lord\u2019s Divinity, which Mr. Gladstone called \u201cthe only\nhope of our poor wayward human race.\u201d \u201cImmanuel, God with us,\u201d has\nbeen the conquering cry of Christian ages. \u201cThe Word was made flesh\nand dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only\nbegotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.\u201d\n\nThe other is the proclamation that a Redeemer had come to Sion. \u201cThou\nshalt call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their\nsins.\u201d\n\nWhat is the attitude of Spiritualism towards these central truths?\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE DIVINITY OF OUR LORD\n\nWe need say little about the controversy on the Divine Nature of our\nLord which has broken out in the ranks of Spiritualism. The difference\nwas proclaimed in a letter to _Light_[35] by the Rev. F. Fielding-Ould,\na London clergyman, who is himself a Spiritualist, and whose writings\nare recommended by Sir A. Conan Doyle. \u201cNo one,\u201d says this clergyman,\n\u201chas a right to call himself a Christian unless he believes in the\nDivinity of Jesus Christ. He may be a person of estimable character,\nand greatly developed spirituality, but he is not a _Christian_.\u201d On\nthe truth of our Lord\u2019s Divinity the Church is erected. \u201cTake it away,\nand the whole elaborate structure falls into ruins. It is upon that\nrock that the great vessel of modern Spiritualism is in imminent danger\nof being wrecked.... In the Spiritualist hymn-book the name of Jesus is\ndeleted--_e.g._, \u2018angels of Jesus\u2019 reads \u2018angels of wisdom.\u2019 At their\nservices His name is carefully omitted in the prayers, and the motto of\nvery many is, \u2018Every man his own priest and his own saviour.\u2019 Christian\nSpiritualists, who rejoice in many of the revelations of the s\u00e9ance\nroom, are alarmed. They are quite prepared to allow every man to make\nhis own decision, but that the movement as a whole should be identified\nwith Theism, and that they themselves should be considered as having\nrenounced their faith and hope in Jesus Christ is intolerable.\u201d\n\nMr. Fielding-Ould adds that Spiritualism is \u201cutterly discredited and\ncondemned\u201d if it can be shown that \u201cthe communicating spirits are the\nauthors of and responsible for this anti-Christian tendency.\u201d His\nlanguage is that of a man who has been misled through ignorance, and\nwho has been brought up sharply on the edge of a precipice.\n\nThere never was a time when the Church of England, and all the\nChristian Churches of this country, accepted with firmer conviction the\nlanguage of the Te Deum and of the Nicene Creed. \u201cThou art the King of\nGlory, O Christ. Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.\u201d\n\n\u201cI believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God,\nbegotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light,\nVery God of Very God.\u201d\n\nIf mockers within the fold of Spiritualism cry contemptuously, \u201cYou\nare uttering language far beyond the range of mortal understanding,\u201d\nthe Christian knows that the reality is indeed far beyond his finite\napprehension. He looks up and says with St. Thomas, \u201cMy Lord and my\nGod.\u201d\n\n\nV\n\nTHE SAVIOUR FROM SIN\n\nThe witness of the Christian heart confirms the testimony of the human\nrace in all ages that a Saviour is needed. It is not only the races\ninfluenced by Hebrew literature who have shared the consciousness of\nsin. A modern scholar quotes from an Egyptian hymn to Amon, Lord of\nThebes, helper of the poor:\n\n\u201cThough the servant be wont to commit sin, yet is the Lord wont to\nbe gracious. The Lord of Thebes spends not the whole day wroth. If\nhe be wroth for the space of a moment it endureth not--turns to us\nin graciousness. Amon turns with his breath.\u201d[36] The cry for mercy\nrises from the oldest literature of Hinduism. An ancient Vedic hymn\nhas these words, \u201cWithout thee, O Varuna, I am not the master even of\nthe twinkling of an eye. Do not deliver us unto death, though we have\noffended against thy commandments day by day. Accept our sacrifices,\nforgive our offences. Let us speak together again like old friends.\u201d[37]\n\nA saint of Buddhism, the noble Lama from Tibet, is represented by\nRudyard Kipling as a pilgrim seeking for the River which washes away\nsin.\n\nAs buried civilisations gradually yield up their treasures to the\nexplorer, the cry is heard without need of sound or language: \u201cIf Thou,\nLord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there\nis forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared.\u201d How is it that\nSpiritualism cannot hear that _De Profundis_? Spiritualism is without\na message for the penitent, for it knows nothing of a Divine Redeemer.\nThere is a harshness and shallowness in its conceptions of the future\nstate, except in so far as these are influenced by Christianity.\nGeneral Drayson said to Sir A. Conan Doyle, \u201cYou have not got the\nfundamental truth into your head. That truth is, that every spirit\nin the flesh passes over to the next world exactly as it is, with no\nchange whatever. This world is full of weak or foolish people. So is\nthe next.\u201d\n\nCompare such words with the language of the Burial Service. Spirits\ndo not always pass away at their best and truest. Long illness may\nhave clouded the perceptions, infirmities of old age may deface the\ncharacter, there may come at the last \u201cfightings and fears within,\nwithout.\u201d P\u00e8re Gratry tells us that the young priest, Henri Perreyve,\none of the bravest and best of men, cried twice in his dying hour,\n\u201c_J\u2019ai peur_\u201d (\u201cI am afraid\u201d), as if he saw the Arch-Fear confronting\nhim in visible form. Deep knowledge of the human heart lies behind the\nwords of the Prayer Book: \u201cSpare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty,\nO holy and merciful Saviour, Thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us\nnot, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from Thee.\u201d To\nthe latest moment of life and beyond it the soul has no resting-place\nexcept in the Rock of Ages. \u201cThe souls of believers are at their death\nmade perfect in holiness.\u201d The burden of sin drops away, and the\npilgrim, as he passes over, may say, as in the hour of his conversion,\n\u201cHe hath given me rest by His sorrow and life by His death.\u201d\n\nBut Sir Arthur Conan Doyle thinks that in \u201cconventional Christianity\u201d\n\u201ctoo much seemed to be made of Christ\u2019s death.\u201d \u201cThe death of Christ,\nbeautiful as it is in the Gospel narrative,\u201d he says again, \u201chas seemed\nto assume an undue importance, as though it were an isolated phenomenon\nfor a man to die in pursuit of a reform.\u201d \u201cIn my opinion,\u201d he goes on,\n\u201cfar too much stress has been laid upon Christ\u2019s death, and far too\nlittle upon His life. That was where the true grandeur and the true\nlesson lay.\u201d... \u201cIt was this most wonderful and uncommon life, and not\nHis death, which is the true centre of the Christian religion.\u201d[38]\n\nSpiritualism, in a word, does not wish to face the Cross. The\n\u201cspirit-guides\u201d talk vaguely of a \u201cChrist-Spirit,\u201d whose special\ncare is the earth. There is nothing in their report of Atonement or\nRedemption. As Dr. Jowett has pointed out, the \u201cNew Revelation\u201d has\nmuch to say on our Lord Jesus Christ as a \u201cmedium.\u201d It says nothing\nof Him as Mediator. It offers fellowship with discarnate human\npersonalities, but has no longing for fellowship with the Risen Lord.\nThe ideas of the \u201cspirit-guides\u201d on prayer are set forth by Sir A.\nConan Doyle in \u201cThe New Revelation.\u201d The \u201cspirits\u201d declare that \u201cno\nreligion upon earth has any advantage over another, but that character\nand refinement are everything. At the same time, they are also in\nagreement that all religions which inculcate prayer and an upward\nglance rather than eyes for ever on the level are good. In this sense,\nand in no other--as a help to spiritual life--every form may have a\npurpose for somebody.\u201d[39]\n\nThe cardinal doctrines of the faith are rejected by Spiritualists. Man\nis not regarded in their creed as \u201ca sinner saved by grace.\u201d Many\ncannot understand, Sir A. Conan Doyle tells us, such expressions as\n\u201credemption from sin,\u201d \u201ccleansed by the blood of the Lamb.\u201d But the\nChristian says from his heart:\n\n    \u201cGrace and life eternal\n       In that Blood I find.\n     Blest be His compassion,\n       Infinitely kind.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe mystic life leads no one from the life of the Church.\u201d The\ncontrary is true of Spiritualism.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[26] Rev. Cyril E. Hudson in _The Nineteenth Century and After_, May,\n1919.\n\n[27] \u201cOn the Threshold of the Unseen,\u201d pp. 25, 33, 34.\n\n[28] \u201cRaymond,\u201d p. 376.\n\n[29] The pamphlet with the title \u201cThe Seven Principles of\nSpiritualism,\u201d by the Secretary of the Spiritualists\u2019 National Union,\nis quoted by Mr. Hill in \u201cSpiritualism,\u201d p. 144.\n\n[30] St. Matt. xxiii. 8.\n\n[31] St. Matt. xxv. 40.\n\n[32] St. John xx. 17.\n\n[33] Hebrews ii. 11 (Dr. Moffatt\u2019s translation of each text).\n\n[34] \u201cSpiritualism: Its History, Phenomena, and Doctrine,\u201d pp. 256-260.\n\n[35] July 12th, 1919. Some of the letters printed in _Light_ during\nsubsequent weeks are very instructive, and confirm the view of Mr.\nFielding-Ould as to a widespread division in the ranks.\n\n[36] Professor Breasted, \u201cDevelopment of Religion and Thought in\nAncient Egypt,\u201d p. 352.\n\n[37] Quoted by Max M\u00fcller.\n\n[38] \u201cThe New Revelation,\u201d pp. 72-74.\n\n[39] \u201cThe New Revelation,\u201d p. 100.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter IX_\n\nQUALITY OF THE ALLEGED MESSAGES\n\n\nWhen a Spiritualist tells us that he receives messages from discarnate\nhuman beings through the medium and the medium\u2019s \u201ccontrol\u201d certain\nquestions immediately arise. \u201cOf what nature are these messages? What\nhave you learned from them? How have they affected your judgment of\nthis world and the next? Are they likely to help mankind in its upward\nprogress?\u201d\n\n\nI\n\nA twofold answer reaches us from within the ranks of Spiritualism.\n\n(1) At an early stage of the inquiry, as Mr. A. E. Waite points out,\nthe belief was accepted that \u201clife for man on the other side of the\nscreen of material things was, specifically, neither better nor worse\nthan our own ... it was so entirely human, with all the folly that\nresides in humanity.\u201d\n\nSpiritualist leaders of to-day would not dispute that point. \u201cYes,\nof course,\u201d they would say, \u201cit is always possible that the inquirer\nmay get in touch with \u2018naughty boys\u2019 on the other side. The spirit\npasses over just as it was on earth. Bad influences as well as good are\npresent in every s\u00e9ance.\u201d Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has said plainly: \u201cWe\nhave, unhappily, to deal with absolute cold-blooded lying on the part\nof wicked or mischievous intelligences. Every one who has investigated\nthe matter has, I suppose, met with examples of wilful deception,\nwhich occasionally are mixed up with good and true communications.\u201d\n\nAside from wilful deception, there seems to be a certain mocking\nmalevolence, where we should least expect it, on the part of the\nsupposed spirits. \u201cWe do not want to make it too easy for you\u201d is a\nstrange utterance from the other side to bereaved parents.[40]\n\nSpeaking at Manchester on May 28, 1919, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle reported\na singular experience of his own in Glasgow a few weeks earlier.\n\n\u201cI had to address a very large meeting,\u201d he said, \u201cexactly double the\nsize of this one, and in the morning I went to a s\u00e9ance; we had a\nnumber of wonderful manifestations, and finally we had a message sent\nin a direct voice. The message which came to me was: \u2018You are going to\nhave a very good meeting to-night.\u2019 I said, \u2018Thank you.\u2019 The voice\nthen said, \u2018It won\u2019t be quite the same as you are accustomed to; we\nhave a little surprise for you.\u2019 I said, \u2018Not unpleasant, I hope?\u2019\nThey just chuckled at that, and that was all I got.\u201d When the lecturer\nfaced his audience everything he had intended to say passed entirely\nout of his head. Preachers and platform orators can tell something\nof the agony of that experience, which has not infrequently been the\npremonitory symptom of a nervous illness. \u201cI don\u2019t know how long I\nstood; I suppose about a minute, though it seemed like a week, and all\nthe time I was struggling in the endeavour to find something to say.\u201d\nThe lecturer recovered himself, and all went well; but is there not\nhere a parallel with the Celtic superstition that the powers of nature\nare malicious, and will do us a bad turn if they can? Alexander Smith\nwrites of \u201cthat sense of an evil will, and an alienation from man in\nnature,\u201d which is found in ancient fragments of Scottish river-lore.\n\n(2) A cautious attitude might seem advisable under such conditions,\nand we are surprised to note a tendency on the part of our newer\nSpiritualist teachers to dogmatise on theological matters. \u201cSpirit\nTeachings,\u201d by Stainton Moses, has become a sort of Bible to the sect.\nSir Oliver Lodge reprints passages from it in \u201cRaymond.\u201d Sir Arthur\nConan Doyle takes the rubbish received through \u201cImperator\u201d and his\nfellows with the utmost seriousness, though the genius which created\nSherlock Holmes has not otherwise been dulled in psychical studies. Sir\nArthur is quick enough to criticise the famous \u201ccross-correspondence\u201d\nanalysed by Mr. Gerald Balfour in \u201cThe Ear of Dionysius.\u201d Two eminent\nGreek scholars, Professor Verrall and Professor Butcher, are supposed\nto have collaborated to produce a Greek problem. \u201cIt may be remarked,\nin passing,\u201d says Sir A. Conan Doyle, \u201cthat these and other examples\nshow clearly, either that the spirits have the use of an excellent\nreference library, or else that they have memories which produce\nsomething like omniscience. No human memory could possibly carry all\nthe exact quotations which occur in such communications as \u2018The Ear of\nDionysius.\u2019\u201d\n\nThe Churches must, however, in Sir Arthur\u2019s view, accept the tenets of\nSpiritualism or perish.\n\n\nII\n\nImpartial students of the literature--a growing mass of documentary\nevidence--are impressed (1) by the triviality of the messages. Punsters\nwould seem to carry on their jokes from the other side. A message which\nwas presumed to come to Mrs. Holland from Myers contained a mysterious\nallusion to \u201ca peck of pickled pepper.\u201d In the opinion of the best\nS.P.R. critics the words conveyed a punning allusion to Mrs. Piper.\nIs there not something pitiable in the thought that the great writer\nwho gave us \u201cSt. Paul\u201d and the \u201cClassical\u201d and \u201cModern\u201d Essays should\nbe occupied in the unseen life in trying to transmit to earth punning\nreferences to the name of a medium? Professor William James remarked on\nthe extreme triviality of the supposed communications.\n\n\u201cWhat real spirit,\u201d he wrote, \u201cat last able to revisit his wife on\nthis earth, but would find something better to say than that she had\nchanged the place of his photograph? And yet that is the sort of remark\nto which the spirits introduced by the mysterious Phinuit are apt to\nconfine themselves.\u201d\n\nA woman writer passed away not long ago in early middle life. Her\nmother tried to get in touch through a medium with the departed\nspirit, and received a message to the effect that some valuable old\nlace had been forgotten in the top drawer of a tallboy, and that it\nought to be taken out and washed! In a recent newspaper article by\nan eminent Spiritualist, reference was made to a supposed authentic\ncommunication lately received from the other side. It concerned a pair\nof grey su\u00e8de shoes and a fountain pen.\n\nSpiritualists tell us that such \u201ctrivial fond records\u201d as we find, for\ninstance, in \u201cRaymond,\u201d are of more value as evidence than graver talk\nof a general kind. Sir Oliver Lodge says, for instance, \u201cThe idea that\na departed friend ought to be occupied wholly and entirely with grave\nmatters, and ought not to remember jokes and fun, is a gratuitous claim\nwhich has to be abandoned. Humour does not cease with earth life. Why\nshould it?\u201d[41]\n\nWith the utmost respect, we reply that Sir Oliver misses the point. The\nsolemn platitudes of \u201cImperator\u201d are, if possible, even less convincing\nthan the descriptions of life in the unseen world given in \u201cRaymond,\u201d\nover which Mr. Wells makes merry in \u201cThe Undying Fire.\u201d Why is it that\nthe outpourings of Spiritualism almost invariably, as Dr. Barnes points\nout, \u201creflect the commonplace thoughts of commonplace minds\u201d?\n\nIf spirits were indeed communicating with men from within the veil,\nwould not their language bear some trace of the mighty change they\nhave undergone? Mr. Birrell, in one of his Bristol speeches, raised a\nquestion which must occur to every thoughtful inquirer. \u201cThe records of\nSpiritualism,\u201d he said, \u201cleave me unconvinced. They lack the things of\nmorality, of grandeur, of emotion; in a word, of religion. They deal\nwith petty things, mere prolonged egoism, as if the one thing we want\nto be assured of is continued existence, and an endless capacity to\nexchange platitudes. A revelation of the life beyond the grave ought\nsurely, if it is to do any good in the world, to be more stupendous\nthan that--something of really first-class importance. Otherwise we are\njust as well without it.\u201d\n\n(2) Among Spiritualists themselves we hear constant discussion as to\nthe singular failure of the \u201cspirits\u201d to give names. Dr. L. P. Jacks\nexamines this problem in the _Journal_ of the S.P.R. for May, 1919.[42]\n\nHe had been \u201cstruck by the fact that a spirit who manifested his former\npersonal appearance with great accuracy, even to minute details, was\nyet apparently unable to manifest his name, except in an imperfect and\ndoubtful manner.\u201d Why was his old coat manifested and his name not?\n\n\u201cOur names, while unessential to our self-consciousness, do play a\nprominent part in our sensible experience, especially with those of us\nwho are cursed with an interminable correspondence, and one would think\nthat a mind returning to its old tracks, as Sir Oliver Lodge suggests\nthe spirits do, would find his name one of the easiest things to pick\nout.\u201d\n\nProfessor Jacks is disposed to find a solution of the puzzle in\ntelepathy. \u201cIt is easier,\u201d he says, \u201cto understand how a telepathist,\nhaving succeeded in reading one part of my mind, should fail or omit to\nread another, than it is to understand how an educated man in the other\nlife should be able to reproduce his coat, but unable to trace the\nletters of his own name.\u201d\n\nThe failure of the \u201cspirits\u201d to give names is a highly suspicious fact.\nHow is it, asks Dr. Jacks, that the \u201ccontrol\u201d which reproduces through\nthe medium long messages as given by the communicating spirit, should\nfail to \u201ccatch\u201d the name, in spite of the effort of all parties to get\nit through?[43]\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[40] \u201cRaymond,\u201d p. 121.\n\n[41] \u201cRaymond,\u201d p. 349.\n\n[42] In an article entitled \u201cPersonal Appearance of the Departed,\u201d\n_Journal of the Society for Psychical Research_, May, 1919.\n\n[43] _Journal_, May, 1919, p. 28.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter X_\n\nTHE CHURCHES AND THE S\u00c9ANCE\n\n\nThe late Dr. Amory Bradford, one of the most eminent leaders of\nAmerican Congregationalism, caused something of a sensation eleven\nyears ago when he urged the students of Hackney College, Hampstead,\nto occupy themselves with psychical matters. Not a few of the younger\nCongregational ministers can recall that strange hour in the library\nwhen Dr. Bradford seemed to challenge the Churches with the names of\nSir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Crookes, and Dr. Russel Wallace. \u201cThese\nlearned scientists,\u201d he argued, \u201care trying to lift the fringe of the\ndark veil, and you young ministers ought to show an equal eagerness.\u201d\nIn the American Churches, he said, people were asking their pastors:\n\u201cCannot you reveal to us the secret of the world beyond the grave?\nOur scientific men are occupied with psychical research; what are you\nministers doing? Ought not every divinity student to have his attention\ndirected early to these occult mysteries which laymen are discussing\nin the privacy of their own homes?\u201d As the audience streamed into the\nlobbies, it was admitted that no more surprising address had been\ndelivered of late years in a London theological college. When the\ntwilight of the June evening enwrapped the departing company, many must\nhave been wondering, with Dr. Garvie, how the students were to find\ntime for such highly-specialised and laborious researches as those\nconducted by the Psychical Society.\n\nThe Principals of our theological institutions are level-headed men,\nand they did not see their way to provide a dark-room for the s\u00e9ance,\nas hotels supply a dark-room for the amateur photographer. The Churches\nhave rejected the proposal that they should enter into competition\nwith the experts on whom it falls to investigate the phenomena of\nSpiritualism. Is their refusal based on cowardice? Very far from it.\nSir Walter Scott, in \u201cThe Monastery,\u201d has shown us once for all how\na great Christian, before the dawn of modern science, met the onset\nof what seemed to him a supernatural being. When the Monk Eustace was\nchallenged by the White Lady in the Vale of Glendearg, he answered in\nwords which Christian teachers would use to-day, were a similar demand\nmade upon them:\n\n\u201cIn the name of _My_ Master,\u201d said the astonished monk, \u201cthat name\nbefore which all things created tremble, I conjure thee to say what\nthou art that hauntest me thus.... At the crook of the glen? I could\nhave desired to avoid a second meeting, but I am on the service of the\nChurch, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against me.\u201d\n\nOn negative and on positive grounds the Churches decline to lift the\ngauntlet thrown down to them by Spiritualism.\n\n\nI\n\n(1) They note, in the first place, that the challenge comes in language\nof insult from some of their deadliest foes.\n\nThat well-known Spiritualist teacher, Professor James H. Hyslop,\nSecretary of the American Society for Psychical Research, denounced the\nChurch for its \u201cfatal genius in allying itself with decadent causes.\u201d\n\u201cThe self-confidence of science,\u201d he wrote, \u201cis directly proportioned\nto the despair of religion. The ministry do not know what creed is\nsafe to believe or assert, and the churches have become social clubs,\nand talk about the poor as an excuse for an existence that, so far as\nsocial efficiency is concerned, can as well be supplied by literature\nand art.\u201d Enemies of the Church, who view with contempt her action\nthroughout the Christian ages, are among the very people who are urging\nher ministers to become Spiritualists.\n\n(2) Christian ministers have not the training, capacity, or experience\nrequisite for the detection of conjuring tricks, which may account for\nthe phenomena in a s\u00e9ance.\n\nWe may quote these propositions formulated by the late Mr. Frank\nPodmore in his \u201cStudies in Psychical Research:\u201d\n\n    (_a_) \u201cThe conditions under which the phenomena generally\n    occur--conditions for the most part suggested and continually\n    enforced by the medium--are such as to facilitate fraud and to\n    render its detection difficult.\n\n    (_b_) \u201cAlmost all the phenomena are known to have been produced\n    under similar conditions by mechanical means.\n\n    (_c_) \u201cAlmost every professional medium has been detected in\n    producing results by trickery.\n\n    (_d_) \u201cThere are cases on record in which private persons, with no\n    obvious pecuniary or social advantage to secure, have been detected\n    in trickery.\n\n    (_e_) \u201cThe conditions of emotional excitement in which\n    investigators have for the most part approached the subject ...\n    are calculated seriously to interfere with cold and dispassionate\n    observation.\u201d\n\nThe above passage is none the less impressive because it was written\nmore than twenty years ago. The task of examination belongs to those\nwho, while fully acquainted with the records of the past, possess the\nknowledge and trained powers of observation which such investigations\nrequire.\n\n\nII\n\nThe Churches have positive duties, and may not turn aside from their\nchief business. (1) It is the fashion with Spiritualists to write as\nif their cult were the only alternative to blank Materialism, because\nthey forget that the one sure message about the Unseen has been\ncommitted by our Lord Jesus Christ to His servants and friends. The\nChurches proclaim that message. Christian ministers, like the Shepherds\nof Bunyan\u2019s Delectable Mountains, have in their hands a perspective\nglass through which the pilgrims may see the gates of the Celestial\nCity. Their teaching, like that of the Shepherds, bears the mark of\n\u201cother-worldliness,\u201d which thirty years ago was applied as a term of\nreproach to the organised denominations in this country. The Churches\ncan say, in the words of a saintly Wesleyan minister, William Arthur,\n\u201cThe last tunnel is on the east of the land of Beulah, towards the\nrising of the sun, and opens in face of the golden gate, where are the\nShining Ones. How far off it is I cannot tell: the Everlasting Hills\nare covered with a golden haze. Glory be to God.\u201d[44]\n\nGoethe put the same thought somewhat differently in \u201cFaust\u201d:\n\n    \u201cWhat a cloud of morning hovers\n       O\u2019er the pine-trees\u2019 tossing hair!\n     Can I guess what life it covers?\n       They are spirits young and fair.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen said the Shepherds one to another, Let us here show to the\npilgrims the gates of the Celestial City, if they have skill to look\nthrough our perspective glass. The pilgrims then lovingly accepted the\nmotion. So they had them to the top of a high hill, called Clear, and\ngave them their glass to look.\u201d\n\nThe Church possesses to-day the gift of clairvoyance, but she exercises\nit like the Shepherds on bracing mountain-tops, not in dark and\nstifling rooms. Her messengers go among the sick, the dying, and the\nbereaved, speaking of eternal life through Christ.\n\n(2) The Church has never denied that the blessed dead may in ways\nunknown to us influence the living and lead them upward. St. Teresa\nlearned much from the devout monk, St. Peter of Alc\u00e1ntara. At the\nmoment of his death, according to Teresa\u2019s testimony, he appeared to\nher in great glory, and said he was going to rest. \u201cIt seems to me,\u201d\nshe added, \u201cthat he consoles me more than when he was here with me.\u201d\n\nTo the mourning heart the Christian teacher may say in St. Paul\u2019s\nwords: \u201cPerhaps he therefore departed from thee for a season that thou\nmightest receive him for ever.\u201d\n\n    \u201cHave not we too?--Yes, we have\n     Answers, and we know not whence;\n     Echoes from beyond the grave,\n     Recognised intelligence.\n\n    \u201cSuch rebounds our inward ear\n     Catches sometimes from afar;--\n     Listen, ponder, hold them dear.\n     For of God, of God they are.\u201d[45]\n\nAs Dr. J. D. Jones has written, \u201cThe dead who are so gloriously\nalive can hold fellowship with the living who have not yet died. The\ncommunion of saints is not to be limited to those who still dwell in\nthis temporal and material world; it extends to those who have passed\nto the other side of death.... The only way in which we can combat\nSpiritualism is ourselves to rescue this truth about fellowship from\nthe neglect into which it has fallen--to speak and think in a more\nChristian way about those who have passed on.... \u2018Ye are come to the\nspirits of just men made perfect.\u2019\u201d\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[44] In a letter written during his last illness to his friend, Dr. J.\nH. Rigg.\n\n[45] Wordsworth.\n\n\n\n\n_Chapter XI_\n\nTHE APPEAL TO SCIENCE\n\n\nSeventy-eight years have passed since Nathaniel Hawthorne warned\nhis future wife, Sophia Peabody, against \u201cthe so-called \u2018magnetic\u2019\nand \u2018mesmeric\u2019 impostures which prepared the way for an unspiritual\nSpiritism.\u201d[46] The words of his letter are not obsolete, though\nwritten in 1841.\n\n\u201cTake no part, I beseech you,\u201d he wrote, \u201cin these magnetic miracles. I\nam unwilling that a power should be exercised on you of which we know\nneither the origin nor consequence, and the phenomena of which seem\nrather calculated to bewilder us than to teach us any truths about the\npresent or future state of being.... Supposing that the power arises\nfrom the transfusion of one spirit into another, it seems to me that\nthe sacredness of an individual is violated by it; there would be an\nintruder into the holy of holies.... Without distrusting that the\nphenomena have really occurred, I think that they are to be accounted\nfor as the result of a material and physical, not of a spiritual\ninfluence.... And what delusion can be more lamentable and mischievous\nthan to mistake the physical and material for the spiritual? What so\nmiserable as to lose the soul\u2019s true, though hidden, knowledge and\nconsciousness of heaven in the mist of an earth-born vision?... The\nview which I take of this matter is caused by no want of faith in\nmysteries, but by a deep reverence of the soul and of the mysteries\nwhich it knows within itself, but never transmits to the earthly\neye and ear. Keep the imagination sane--that is one of the truest\nconditions of communion with heaven.\u201d\n\nScience has made great advance since Hawthorne wondered whether the\nphenomena of his \u201cVeiled Lady\u201d foreshadowed \u201cthe birth of a new science\nor the revival of an old humbug.\u201d Is not the public entitled to some\nindication of the attitude of science toward Spiritualism? Michael\nFaraday summed up his thoughts, when nearing the end, on a problem he\nhad closely investigated. Answering one who had questioned him about\nthe spirits, the great scientist wrote: \u201cWhenever the spirits can\ncounteract gravity or originate motion, or supply an action due to\nnatural physical force, or counteract any such action; whenever they\ncan punch or prick me, or affect my sense of feeling or any other\nsense, or in any other way act on me without my waiting on them; or\nworking in the light can show me a hand, either writing or not, or in\nany way make themselves visibly manifest to me; whenever these things\nare done or anything which a conjuror cannot do better; or, rising to\nhigher proofs, whenever the spirits describe their own nature, and like\nhonest spirits say what they can do, or pretending, as their supporters\ndo, that they can act on ordinary matter, whenever they initiate\naction, and so make themselves manifest; whenever by such-like signs\nthey come to me, and ask my attention to them, I will give it. But\nuntil some of these things be done, I have no more time to spare for\nthem or their believers, or for correspondence about them.\u201d[47] Has the\nscience of our day advanced beyond the standpoint of Michael Faraday?\nIn the absence of a united pronouncement, can we define the attitude of\nmodern science towards Spiritualism?\n\n\nI\n\nWe are impressed at once, as we seek to answer these questions,\nby the contemptuous indifference of the learned world as a whole.\nSpiritualists ring the changes on a handful of eminent names. How is\nit that the leaders of the Psychical Society have not drawn after\nthem a larger following? Canon Barnes, himself a Doctor of Science,\nobserves that the most distinguished supporters of Spiritualism have\nnot _themselves_ received messages which prove the possibility of\ncommunication with the dead. The messages have come through others,\nfor the most part professional mediums.[48] Dr. Barnes recognises that\nthe task of investigation belongs to psychologists, and he considers\nit \u201csignificant that practically none of the leading experimental\npsychologists of the world are prepared to accept the theory of\nspirit-communication.\u201d \u201cNor is it accepted,\u201d he goes on, \u201cby leading\nmedical men, whose careful study of mental disease and experiments with\nabnormal mental states, would permit them to speak with authority. So\nlong as such experts refuse to accept the spiritualistic explanation of\nthe observed phenomena, it is mere superstition for the mass of men to\ndo so.\u201d[49]\n\nOught not the public to know, through some clear and simple statement,\nwhere the medical profession stands with regard to Spiritualism? The\nvoice of authority should be heard in difficult times.\n\n\nII\n\nCamille Flammarion, speaking fifty years ago at the grave of Allan\nKardec, the French apostle of Spiritualism, used language which might\nalmost seem justified in view of modern discoveries. \u201cWhen we compare\nour small knowledge and the narrow limits of our sphere of perception\nwith the vast mass of that which really exists,\u201d he says, \u201cwe can\nhardly avoid the conclusion that we do not really know anything,\nand that all true knowledge lies in the future.\u201d The phenomena of\nSpiritualism to the French astronomer look like twinkling stars in\nthe Milky Way of science. Thomas Hardy, in \u201cTwo on a Tower,\u201d dwells\non man\u2019s sense of infinite littleness as he confronts the stellar\nuniverse. \u201cI often experience a kind of fear of the sky after sitting\nin the observing chair a long time,\u201d says Swithin St. Cleeve to Lady\nConstantine. \u201cAnd when I walk home afterwards I also fear it, for what\nI know is there, but cannot see, as one naturally fears the presence\nof a vast formless something that only reveals a very little of\nitself.\u201d[50]\n\n\u201cPatience and equanimity\u201d are the watchwords of true science.\nWordsworth, in his poem \u201cStar-Gazers,\u201d notes the bitter disappointment\nof the crowd which looked through the telescope in Leicester Square.\nFee in hand, they had come to behold the wonders of the heavenly\nspaces, but showman or implement failed to answer their desires.\n\n    \u201cWhatever be the cause, \u2019tis sure that they who pry and pore\n     Seem to meet with little gain, seem less happy than before;\n     One after one they take their turn, nor have I one espied\n     That doth not slackly go away as if dissatisfied.\u201d\n\nA similar disappointment awaits the pushing crowd which gazes through\nthe telescope of Spiritualism. \u201cHave patience,\u201d say the masters of\nscience, \u201cwe are only on the threshold of knowledge. In a single\ngeneration we have added two vast provinces to the human spirit. By\nwireless telegraphy we have turned the farthest ocean solitudes into\nman\u2019s whispering gallery. In conquering the air we have revolutionised\nthe course of history.\u201d\n\nCan we doubt that from the wonderful works of God, no less than from\nHis holy Word, new light and truth will yet break forth for humanity?\nScience is prepared for extensions of man\u2019s physical and mental powers\nwhich will put to shame the phenomena of Spiritualism. We are living in\na transitional epoch, and faith alone can support the soul as it beats\nthe prison bars, knowing not how or when the sentence of its liberation\nmay be spoken.\n\n    \u201cI wait, my soul doth wait,\n       For Him who on His shoulder bears the key;\n     I sit fast bound and yet not desolate,\n       My mighty Lord is free.\u201d[51]\n\n\u201cO Key of David, and Sceptre of the house of Israel, Thou that openest,\nand no man shutteth, and shuttest, and no man openeth, come and bring\nthe prisoner out of his prison house.\u201d\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[46] Introduction to \u201cThe Blithedale Romance,\u201d p. XIX. (Service & Paton\nedition).\n\n[47] Letter of November 4th, 1864.\n\n[48] \u201cSpiritualism and the Christian Faith\u201d (Longmans), p. 49.\n\n[49] \u201cSpiritualism and the Christian Faith\u201d (Longmans), p. 56.\n\n[50] \u201cTwo on a Tower,\u201d ch. viii.\n\n[51] Dora Greenwell.\n\n\n\n\n_Index_\n\n\n  Arthur, Rev. William, 153.\n\n\n  Balfour, Mr. Gerald, 91, 137.\n\n  Barnes, Dr., 91, 96, 99, 107, 141, 163.\n\n  Barrett, Sir W. F., 32, 33, 37, 38, 46, 48, 52, 62, 71, 77, 86, 90,\n        93, 94, 105, 112.\n\n  Bradford, Dr. Amory, 147.\n\n  Bunyan, John, 103, 153.\n\n  Butcher, Professor, 137.\n\n\n  Chambers, Robert, 72, 74, 76.\n\n  Coleridge, S. T., 104.\n\n  Crawford, Dr. W. J., 77.\n\n  Crookes, Sir William, 18, 52.\n\n\n  Dante, 102.\n\n  Dickens, Charles, 34.\n\n  Dill, Sir Samuel, 19.\n\n  Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, 25, 34, 38, 46, 48, 49, 92, 94, 95, 120,\n        125, 126, 134, 137, 138.\n\n\n  Faraday, Michael, 75, 161, 162.\n\n  Flammarion, Camille, 27, 81, 104, 106, 164.\n\n\n  Glover, Dr. Reaveley, 19.\n\n\n  Haw, George, 21, 23.\n\n  Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 159-161.\n\n  Hayden, Mrs., 72.\n\n  Hichens, Robert, 26.\n\n  Hill, J. Arthur, 46, 49, 50, 51, 61, 64, 81, 89, 114, 116-118.\n\n  Home, D. D., 19, 52.\n\n  Hudson, Rev. Cyril E., 39, 111.\n\n  Huxley, Professor, 72.\n\n\n  Jacks, Professor, 57, 60, 142-144.\n\n  James, William, 139.\n\n  Jones, Dr. J. D., 156.\n\n  Jowett, Dr. J. H., 127, 128.\n\n\n  Kardec, Allan, 164.\n\n\n  Lacordaire, P\u00e8re, 19.\n\n  Lodge, Sir Oliver, 25, 46, 51, 52, 57, 65-67, 75, 76, 78-80, 94, 106,\n        112, 113, 140, 141.\n\n\n  Moffatt, Dr. James, 101, 115.\n\n  Morgan, Professor De, 45.\n\n  Morgan, Mrs. De, 72-74.\n\n  Moses, Stainton, 38, 61, 86-89, 137.\n\n  Myers, F. W. H., 86, 138.\n\n\n  Newman, J. H., 36.\n\n\n  Ould, Rev. F. Fielding, 120-122.\n\n\n  Paget, Bishop Francis, 27.\n\n  Perreyve, Henri, 126.\n\n  Peter, St., of Alc\u00e1ntara, 155.\n\n  Piper, Mrs., 60, 61-63, 88, 139.\n\n  Podmore, Frank, 17, 49, 75, 87, 88, 151, 152.\n\n  Psychical Research, the Society for, 17, 43, 44, 47, 85, 148, 163.\n\n\n  Rossetti, Maria, 102.\n\n\n  Scott, Sir Walter, 32, 103, 149.\n\n  Sidgwick, Mrs., 44, 62, 63.\n\n  Smetham, James, 118.\n\n  Smith, Alexander, 136.\n\n  Smith, Sir George Adam, 33.\n\n  Swedenborg, 38.\n\n  Swetchine, Madame, 19.\n\n\n  Tennyson, Alfred, 35.\n\n  Teresa, St., 155.\n\n\n  Verrall, Professor, 137.\n\n\n  Waite, Arthur E., 24, 31, 35, 45, 78, 87, 100, 134.\n\n  Wallace, Dr. Alfred Russel, 93.\n\n  Wells, H. G., 141.\n\n  Wordsworth, William, 155, 166.\n\n  Wynn, Rev. Walter, 52.\n\n\n_Printed in Great Britan by Wyman & Sons Ltd., London and Reading_\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes\n\n\n \u2022 Italic text denoted by _underscores_.\n\n \u2022 Footnotes have been renumbered consecutively and relocated to the\n   end of the related chapters.\n\n \u2022 Punctuation and other obvious typographic inaccuracies were\n   silently corrected.\n\n \u2022 Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.\n\n \u2022 Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.\n\n \u2022 The author\u2019s transcription of sources and verse are often inaccurate,\n   especially regarding capitalization and punctuation. Where possible,\n   any subsequent use of the quoted material should be checked against\n   a primary source.\n\n \u2022 P. 9: Corrected incorrect page reference in Contents for chapter 3\n   from 34 to 43.","title":"The case against spiritualism","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":17674}