Teachers unseen, speaking back to the world they have gone from, often say
that, when here, they possessed two _bodies_--one of which is entombed
below, while in the other they went forth and still abide; they say also
that they possessed two mental systems and a double consciousness, one
only of which survives. Quite recently, science, pressing forward in
explorations, obtained perceptions of this latter fact. In his eighth
lecture on the "Method of Creation," given May 1, 1873, and reported in
the New York Tribune, the eminent Agassiz spoke as follows:--
"Are all mental faculties one? Is there only one kind of mental power
throughout the whole animal kingdom, differing only in intensity and range
of manifestation? In a series of admirable lectures, given recently in
Boston by Dr. Brown-Sequard, he laid before his audience _a new philosophy
of mental powers_. Through physiological experiments, combined with a
careful study and comparison of pathological cases, he has come to the
conclusion that there are _two sets_, or a double set, of mental powers in
the human organism, or acting through the human organism, essentially
different from each other. The one may be designated as our ordinary
conscious intelligence; the other as a superior power which controls our
better nature, solves, sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly, nay, even in
sleep, our problems and perplexities, suggests the right thing at the
right time, acting through us without conscious action of our own, though
susceptible of training and elevation. Or perhaps I should rather say, our
own organism may be trained to be a more plastic instrument through which
this power acts in us.
"I do not see why this view should not be accepted. It is in harmony with
facts as far as we know them. The experiments through which my friend Dr.
Brown-Sequard has satisfied himself that the subtle mechanism of the human
frame, about which we know so little in its connection with mental
processes, is sometimes acted upon by a power outside of us as familiar
with that organization as we are ignorant of it, are no less acute than
they are curious and interesting."
Many persons, including the author of these pages, more than twenty years
ago found among "phenomena called spiritual," many which seemed
imperatively to demand a broadening of the base of any mental philosophy
which the world at large had presented to their notice, and apprehended
that light was dawning amid the dark work of spirits, which might reveal
to man more knowledge than he had ever obtained both of his own mysterious
structure, and of his relations to and possible intercourse with his
predecessors on earth. Many, perceiving this, have held on prosecuting
such observations, and drawing such conclusions as their opportunities and
powers permitted, undeterred by sneers and cold shoulders; and such now
spontaneously hail with joy the arrival of the world's most advanced
scientists at "_a new philosophy of mental powers_;" such a philosophy,
too, as manifestations well scrutinized have long been indicating would
some day be based on the firm foundation of proved facts, and become a
blessing to our race. Both spiritualism and science, by distinct routes,
have reached a common point, and each testifies to the other's discovery
of a new world _in_ man.
"The subtle mechanism of the human frame, about which we know so little in
its connection with mental processes, _is sometimes acted upon by a power
outside of us as familiar with that organism as we are ignorant of it, ...
acting through us without conscious action of our own, though susceptible
of training or elevation_." Such is the conclusion of Dr. Brown-Sequard,
which is indorsed by Agassiz. Backed by such authority, one may very
courageously move forward in efforts to show that the very structure of
man through all ages may have permitted certain human forms to have been
controlled and used by intelligent powers outside of themselves, and
without conscious action of their own, that is, without consciousness on
the part of the individual minds to which those bodies naturally
pertained. Such facts are guide-boards designating pathways along which
producers of prophetic, witchcraft, and spiritualistic phenomena can reach
standing-points for speech and action perceptible by men's external
senses; these facts are keys, too, that will unlock many chambers of
mystery, and we have used them in searches among the records of
witchcraft.
Those eminent savants do not state, and therefore we shall not maintain,
that the outside power they refer to is spirits of former occupants of
human bodies; but since that power "is as familiar with the human organism
as we are ignorant of it," the language surely implies reference to _some
intelligent_ power, for its familiarity with the organism is that of
_knowledge_, the acquisition of which is contrasted with our _ignorance_.
To whom can they refer, if not to spirits of some grade?
The nature of things contains provision for temporary reincarnations of
some departed spirits in the physical forms of some peculiarly organized
and endowed human beings. This fact is important, and should be borne in
mind during a perusal of the present work.