Scientific men in their investigations need not expect to come into
contact with miracles; but they may and do find in the border-land of
science facts which reveal the agency of intellectual beings distinct
from men, and too vulgar in their manifestation to be confounded with
God or His blessed angels. Such agents in the book of the Scriptures are
called devils, and intercourse with them is styled superstition, seeking
their assistance is magic or witchcraft, and consulting them is
divination or fortune-telling. All these practices are directly and
strictly forbidden in the Scriptures, and yet they are commonly enough
in use in our own day to procure effects that gratify the curiosity of
such, especially, as have no settled belief in supernatural religion.
Some of these effects are connected with bodily cures and thus are of
interest to physicians. For instance, spiritualistic mediums, whether
connecting their practices with magnetism or not, though entirely
ignorant of medicine, are at times able to state the exact bodily
indisposition of sick persons living at a great distance, put into
communication with them by holding some object belonging to them. They
will indicate the seat of the disorder, its nature and progress, its
complications. They propose simple and efficacious remedies, using not
infrequently technical terms which are certainly unknown to them before.
They manifest the thoughts of others, reveal family secrets, answer
questions put in languages of which they know nothing. To deny facts
attested by thousands of witnesses of various nations belonging to
various religious denominations or professing no religion whatever, is
not the spirit of science. It it estimated that 100,000 spiritist books
and pamphlets are sold yearly in the United States alone. It is certain
that much, very much imposture is mixed up with many undeniable facts,
but that does not dispose of the real facts mixed up with the
impostures. Tyndall once caught an ill-starred spiritualistic impostor
at his juggling. He concluded that all other spiritists were impostors.
The world now laughs at him for his foolish reasoning.
Of course, I do not suppose that spiritism is mainly employed in such
matters as would directly interest the physician. It has grown into a
system of religion and morals, very peculiar and at variance with the
Christian religion, a system rather resembling the religion of Buddha,
with its reincarnations and transmigrations of souls while struggling
after eternal after-progress. This is fully and clearly explained in an
article on "Spiritism in its True Character" in the English publication
called "The Month," for September, 1892. But with this phase of it we
are not now concerned. As to the facts, it is enough to remark that
spiritists claim a following of 20,000,000. Suppose there are only
one-half that number. 10,000,000 people are not readily deceived about
matters of their daily observation, for their meetings or séances
consist chiefly of those manifestations which others call impostures.
Their adherents are chiefly among the educated classes, I believe.
Certainly they include multitudes of doctors, lawyers, professors,
scientists, magistrates, clergymen, close students, keen intellects,
even such men as Alfred Russell Wallace, Profs. Morgan, Marley, Challis,
William Carpenter, and Edward Cox. If one has still lingering doubts on
this matter let him read the four learned articles written by my
predecessor in this chair of Medical Jurisprudence, Rev. James F.
Hoeffer, S.J., the former president of Creighton University. They are
found in the "American Catholic Quarterly Review" for 1882 and 1883.
What must we think of the nature of spiritism, with its spirit-rappings,
table-turning, spirit-apparitions, and so on? Can such of the facts as
are not impostures and realities be explained by the laws of nature, the
powers of material agents and of men? All that could possibly be done by
the most skilled scientists, by the most determined materialists who
believe neither in God nor demon, as well as by the most conscientious
Christians, has only served to demonstrate to perfect evidence that
effects are produced which can no more be attributed to natural agency
than speech and design can be attributed to a piece of wood. One
principle of science throws much light on the nature of all those
performances, namely, that every effect must have a proportionate cause.
When the effect shows knowledge and design, the cause must be
intelligent. Now many of these marvels evidently show knowledge and
design; therefore the cause is certainly intelligent.
A table cannot understand and answer questions; it cannot move at a
person's bidding. A medium cannot speak in a language he has never
learned, nor know the secret ailment of a patient far away, nor
prescribe the proper remedies without knowledge of medicine. Therefore
these effects, when they really exist, are due to intelligent agents,
agents distinct from the persons visibly present; invisible agents,
therefore, spirits of another world.
Who are these agents? God and His good angels cannot work these wretched
marvels, the food of a morbid curiosity, nor could they put themselves
at the disposal of impious men to be marched out as monkeys on the
stage. The spirits which are made to appear at the séances are degraded
spirits. Spiritualists themselves tell us they are lying spirits. Those
lying spirits say they are the souls of the departed, but who can
believe their testimony if they are lying spirits, as they are
acknowledged to be? This whole combination of imposture and superstition
is simply the revival in a modern dress of a very ancient deception of
mankind by playing on men's craving for the marvellous. Many imagine
these are recent discoveries, peculiar to this age of progress. Why?
This spirit-writing is and has been for centuries extensively practised
in benighted pagan China, while even Africans and Hindoos are great
adepts at table-turning. It is simply the revival of ancient witchcraft,
which Simon Magus practised in St. Peter's time; which flourished in
Ephesus while St. Paul was preaching the Gospel there. It is more
ancient still. These were the abominations for which God commissioned
the Jews in Moses' time to exterminate the Canaanites and the other
inhabitants of the Promised Land. In the Book of Moses called
Deuteronomy, or Second Law, admitted as divine by Catholics,
Protestants, and Jews alike, we have this fact very emphatically
proclaimed by the Lord. He says: "When thou art come into the land which
the Lord thy God shall give thee, beware lest thou have a mind to
imitate the abominations of those nations; neither let there be found
among you any one that ... consulteth soothsayers, or observeth dreams
and omens, neither let there be any wizard, nor charmer, nor any one
that consulteth pythonic spirits, or fortune-tellers, or that seeketh
the truth from the dead."
Is not this just what spiritualists pretend to do? Many may call it only
trifling and play. The Lord does not. The Scriptures continue: "For the
Lord abhorreth all these things, and for these abominations He will
destroy them at thy coming." I certainly do not mean to say that all
that passes for spiritualism is thus downright deviltry to-day, nor was
it so in pagan times. Much imposture was mixed with it. The oracles of
the pagan gods and goddesses were not all the work of the pythonic
spirits. Much was craft of the priests of idols; and yet all were
abominations before the Lord, on account of the share that Satan took
in the deceptions.
What must be the attitude of the scientific man towards all such
matters? It should be an attitude of hostility and opposition. Science
should frown down all imposture and superstition. Medicine in
particular, intended to be one of the choicest blessings of God to man,
should not degrade its noble profession by pandering to a vulgar greed
for morbid excitement. Not only will you personally keep aloof from all
that is allied to quackery and imposture, but in after-life your
powerful influence for good will be most efficient in guarding others
against such evils, and even perhaps in withdrawing from such
associations those who have already got entangled in dangerous snares.
At all events the enlightened views you shall have formed to yourselves
on all such impostures and impieties will be a power for good in the
social circle in which your mental superiority and your moral integrity
will make you safe guides for your fellow-men.