Perplexing diversity prevails among users of English language in their
application of the terms spirit and soul. Some regard spirit as only a
fine, invisible robe of the essential man; while others speak of soul as
the robe and spirit as the man who wears it. Our own custom has been to
regard soul as _the man_, and spirit as his under-garment during
earth-life, and his outer one, if he shall have more than one, when he
shall put off his present outer. This view is not novel. The sometimes
clairvoyant Paul stated that there is a natural or outer, and a spiritual
or inner body--yes, _body_. Opened inner eyes to-day often see
spirit-forms pervading the outer forms of people around them. Their
observations are in harmony with the apostle's declaration.
The essential nature of spirit is all unknown by us. Whether matter,
spirit, and soul are but different combinations and conditions of like
primal elements, we are utterly incompetent to determine. Practically we
accept, what is probably a common notion, that matter and soul differ
fundamentally; and, having done that, we are unable to identify spirit
with either of them elementally. Therefore, without any definite
conceptions as to its inherent alliances, we speak of it as possibly
something between the other two--_a tertium quid_. Thought regards it as
the substance of worlds unspeakably finer than material planets. Spirit,
in mass, is not a living, conscious entity, any more than matter is; but
is a finer than gossamer substance, capable, like matter, of becoming
organized, and growing into a living enrobement of the soul--enrobement of
that which constitutes the on-living man through all changes of vestiture.
Such is our present conjecture.
We apprehend that a world whose elemental substance is spirit both
pervades and surrounds this material one--a world, we will say for the
purpose of indicating our thought, composed of spirit matter. The
invisibility and impalpability of such spirit substance are no conclusive
refutation of its existence in and around us perpetually. Who sees
electricity, magnetism, gravitation, attraction, cohesion, repulsion? Who
sees either mind, or the force by which an aching toe reports to the brain
and excites the sympathy of the whole organism? Many things are about us,
and yet known only in their perceptible phenomena. Spirit substance may be
all about us; the spirit world may be in, through, upon, and around the
material one. Many manifestations hint at the existence of an
all-permeating something, which--since the word is shorter than
atmosphere, and not so liable perhaps to be suggestive of palpable
matter--we will call _aura_, that contains and furnishes the elements out
of which spirit _bodies_ are formed, elements of the solid globe on which
spirits live, and also is the medium of sight, sound, touch, and all
sensation to man's spiritual or inner organism even now and here. A soul,
encased within a body elaborated from and within that aura, may, when and
where conditions favor, live, move freely, and be happy, whether near the
fireside of its former earthly mansion, in earth's atmosphere above and
around us, in the earth below our feet, under and in the waters of ocean,
in the heavens over us, or _wherever thought can go_. It gives body to
thought itself. Brick walls and granite mountains may be no hindrances to
its movements, or its freedom and power to see, act, and enjoy. All such
powers and privileges probably pertain to us as spirits, even while
residents in these outer forms, provided only we can effect temporary
disentanglements from the outer, as is often done by or for the highly
mediumistic. And yet, so long as the two bodies of a human being retain
their ordinary conjunction, something not yet well understood, generally
either keeps the spirit senses from cognizable contact with what is
conceived to be their native aura, and therefore holds them seemingly
embryonic, or it keeps the exterior consciousness of most persons from
perceptions of many things which inner senses may be latently
experiencing.
A broad survey of mediumistic phenomena raises the question, whether the
inner powers of mediums--now in this life, and daily--see, hear, and learn
any more of spiritual things than do the inner powers of others, or
whether the chief difference between the mediumistic and others is that
the inner faculties of mediums are enabled, in consequence of some
peculiarity in relative strength between the outer and inner or in the
attachments between the two sets of organs, to report to the outer
consciousness, and thus let their outer faculties perceive and report what
the inner have cognized, while in the mass of mankind such process is not
cognized.
The young servant of Elisha (2 Kings vi. 17) was unable to see spirit
hosts upon the hills about Dothan, which were visible to his master; but
"Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may
see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and,
behold, the mountain was full of horses, and chariots of fire round about
Elisha." The prophet did not ask that his young man should be endowed with
any new organs of vision, but only for the opening of such as he already
possessed. As soon as those visual organs in him, which could be reached
and illumined by spirit aura, came into action of which he became
conscious, the young man beheld spiritual beings; which beings, since the
prophet had been seeing them all the time, were obviously as near and as
visible before as after the prayer. Some spirit perhaps ejected spirit
force upon the young man in such way as helped internal perceptions to
impress themselves on his external consciousness. Spirits frequently throw
some invisible aura with perceptible force upon the external eyes of
modern mediums, when these sensitives are being brought into condition for
conscious discernment of spirits. Whether the object be to awaken new
vision, or simply to impress existing internal vision upon the outer
consciousness, is yet an unanswered question. Perhaps each in different
cases.
Possibly an actual discernment of earth-emancipated intelligences by our
inner organs, especially in our hours of sleep, occurs frequently with
most human beings; that is, the "inward man," or inner consciousness, of
each mortal may be well acquainted now with many spirits and spirit
scenes, so that, upon liberation from the flesh, emerging spirits may find
themselves among acquaintances and at home. With some
individuals--especially with prophetic and otherwise mediumistic
ones--their knowledge, gained through sensations experienced by the inner
faculties, is sometimes brought to and impresses itself upon the outer
consciousness, and becomes to palpably operative that those individuals
are deemed inspired, for they speak as never _man_--that is, as the
outward man--spake.
Either physical peculiarities, or peculiar relations between the outer or
natural and the inner or spiritual bodies, more than the quantum of either
mental or moral developments, seem to be the requisites for facile
mediumship. That view is often set forth in statements made by spirits,
and is rendered probable by observation of many facts. Mediumistic
proclivities run much in families, about as much as musical ones do; and
the capabilities for either mediumistic or musical performances are
measurably constitutional and transmissible. Moses, Aaron, and their
sister Miriam, all prophesied, or were mediums of communications from the
realm of spirits. In our antecedent pages it appears that four children of
John Goodwin,--that three noble, adult, and married sisters, Nurse, Easty,
and Cloyse, living apart from each other, whose mother had been called a
witch,--that Sarah Good and her little daughter Dorcas, five years
old,--that Mrs. Ann Putnam and her daughter Ann, and that Martha Carrier
and four of her children, were mediumistic. We can add to the list seven
sons of Seva, and four daughters of Philip, in apostolic times.
Constitutional properties, combinations, or endowments, differing from
such as are most common in the make-up of man, pertain to such persons as
are or can be the most plastic mediums. In many people, the organized
properties of their physical or mental structures, or of both these, and
the relations of such properties to each other, and their mutual action,
become, at times, so modified by severe sickness, proximate drownings,
protracted fastings, sudden frights, intense griefs, by use of
anaesthetics, narcotics, and stimulants, and from many other causes, that
those to whom the properties belong become temporarily mediumistic, though
they be not observably or consciously such in their more normal states.
The most common, and the more mildly acting agents or instrumentalities of
such change, and those which produce the more abiding effects, are
magnetic emanations and psychological influences from the positively
mediumistic acting upon relatively negative systems. Such emanations may
be seed originating new, or fertilizers quickening and expanding existing,
inward growths.
Emanuel Swedenborg was, prior to and independently of his marked spiritual
illumination late in life, one of the most erudite and illustrious
scientists of the last century, and, being a truthful, conscientious,
devout man, trained to accuracy of observation and statement, he was
admirably fitted for a reporter to the external world, of facts which came
under his observation as an observer in spirit realms; and we take from
his works the following short extracts, which have some bearing upon the
topic just presented.
"Man loses nothing by death, but is still a man in all respects.... Many
are bewildered after death by finding themselves in a body, in garments,
and in houses, ... some had believed that men after death would be as
ghosts, specters of which they had heard."
"The will and understanding ... are two _organic_ forms, ... forms
organized from the purest substances. It is no objection that their
organization is not manifest to the eye, being interior to sight.... How
can love and wisdom act upon what is not a substantial existence? How else
can thought inhere?"