806. The facts which I have noticed in relation to mediumship, are
certainly among the most inexplicable in nature.
807. There are two modes in which spiritual manifestations are made
through the influence or sub-agency of media. In the one mode, they
employ the tongue to speak, the fingers to write, or hands to actuate
tables or instruments for communication; in the other, they act upon
ponderable matter _directly_, through a halo or aura appertaining
to media; so that although the muscular power may be incapacitated
for aiding them, they will cause a body to move, or produce raps
intelligibly so as to select letters conveying their ideas,
uninfluenced by those of the medium.
808. Even where they act through the muscular frame of the media, their
vision may be intercepted by a screen, so that they cannot influence
the selection of the letters requisite to a communication. (Plate I.)
809. Rappings or tappings are made at the distance of many feet from
the medium, and ponderable bodies, such as bells, are moved or made to
undergo the motion requisite to being rang.
810. It will be perceived that my spirit father, in reply to the
queries put in relation to this mystery, asks, “_How do you move your
limbs—carry the body wheresoever it goeth? how does God cause the
movements of astronomical orbs?_” (457.)
811. Evidently some instrument must intervene between the divine will
and the bodies actuated thereby, and in humble imitation between the
human will and the limbs. Upon the viscera our will has no influence.
The heart moves without the exercise of volition.
812. As there is an ethereal medium by means of which light moves
through space from the remotest visible fixed star to the eye, at
the rate of two hundred thousand miles per second; as through an
affection of the same ether frictional electricity moves, according
to Wheatstone’s estimate, with a velocity exceeding that of light,—so
may we not infer that the instrument of Divine will acts with still
greater velocity, and that in making man in this respect after his own
image, so far as necessary to an available existence, gives him one
degree of power over the same element while in the mortal state, and
another higher degree of power in the spiritual state. But if there
be an element through which a spirit within his _mortal_ frame is
capable of actuating that frame, may not this element of actuation be
susceptible of becoming an instrument to the will of another spirit in
the _immortal state_?
813. The aura of a medium which thus enables an immortal spirit to do
within its scope things which it cannot do otherwise, appears to vary
with the human being resorted to; so that only a few are so endowed
with this aura as to be competent as media. Moreover, in those who are
so constituted as to be competent instruments of spiritual actuation,
this competency is various. There is a gradation of competency, by
which the nature of the instrumentality varies from that which empowers
violent loud knocking and the moving of ponderable bodies without
actual contact, to the grade which confers power to make intellectual
communications of the higher order without that of audible knocking.
Further, the power to employ these grades of mediumship varies as the
sphere of the spirit varies.
814. It has been stated that mortals have each a halo perceptible to
spirits, by which they are enabled to determine the sphere to which any
individual will go on passing death’s portal. Spirits cannot approach
effectively a medium of a sphere much above, or below that to which
they belong.
815. As media, in proportion as they are more capable of serving for
the higher intellectual communication, are less capable of serving for
mechanical demonstration, and as they are more capable of the latter
are less competent for the former, spirits likewise have a higher or
lower capacity to employ media. It has been mentioned that having
made a test apparatus, my spirit sister alleged that it could not be
actuated by her without assistance of spirits from a lower sphere.
I inquired whether she could not meet me again, accompanied by the
requisite aid. The reply was in the affirmative, and accordingly she
met me at an appointed hour, and my apparatus was actuated effectually
under test conditions. (Plate 4, _dd_, _ii_, _kk_.)
816. After I had read over an exposition of my information respecting
the spirit world to the spirit of the illustrious Washington, I
requested him to give me a confirmation while the medium should be
under test conditions. (Plate 4, _kk_.) I placed the hand of the medium
upon the board lever of the instrument, of which a representation has
been given, (Plate I, Plate 4,) so as to be on the outer side of the
fulcrum, and requested him to attest the reliability of the medium
during the previous intercommunion. In reply it was alleged not to
be within his power to give me that test; I urged that this test had
been given in his presence. “_We had an employee, then_,” was his
rejoinder. Fortunately I had contrived a test instrument requiring
less of the mechanical power, so that by means of it he was enabled to
perfect the evidence by bringing the index to the affirmative, under
conditions which put it out of the power of the medium to produce that
result. (See Plate 4 and description.)
817. These facts make the subject of mediumship a most complicated
mystery; but the creation teems with mystery, so that inscrutability
cannot be a ground for disbelief of any thing. The only cases wherein
there is absolute incredibility, are those in which the definition of
the premises contradicts those of the inferences or conclusions.
818. It is evident from the creative power which the spirits aver
themselves to possess, that they exercise faculties which they do not
understand. Their explanation of the mysteries of mediumship only
substitutes one mystery for another.
819. If we undertake to generalize, it must come pretty near what I
have said above, that spirits are endowed, as my spirit father alleges,
with a “_magic will_,” capable of producing, as they allege, wonderful
results within their own world, (452;) nevertheless that this will does
not act by itself directly on mundane bodies. An intermedium is found
in the halo or aura within or without certain human organizations.
The halos thus existing are not all similarly endowed; some having
one, some another capability. Some are better for one object, some
for another object. Again, the will-power varies as the sphere of the
spirits is higher or lower, so that the medium suited for one is not
suited for another.
820. Thus the means by which they are capable of communicating
is various, and moreover precarious, according to the health and
equanimity of the mortal being under whose halo they may strive to act.
821. Evidently, the ponderable elements recognised by mundane chemists
cannot contribute to any of the bodies of the spirit world, since
their gravity must disqualify them for use in a world where every
thing is, in comparison with them, weightless. Accordingly, one of the
queries put by me to the convocation of spirits (574) was, whether
any of our elements, being ponderable, could act as such in the
imponderable spiritual creation. The reply was, Not without undergoing
a transformation. This would be equivalent to annihilating them first,
and recreating them afterward, when the process of creating alone
would be sufficient. But manifestly it is of no importance, whether
their adaptation to the spirit world be the result of creation or of
transformation.
822. Concerned in the processes of mediumship, it is manifest that
there is none of that kind of electricity or magnetism of which the
laws and phenomena have been the subject of Faraday’s researches,
and which are treated of in books, under the heads of frictional or
mechanical electricity, galvanism, or electro-magnetism.
823. Frictional electricity, such as produced usually by the
friction of glass in an electrical machine, or of aqueous globules
generated by steam escaping from a boiler, is always to be detected
by electrometers, or the spark given to a conducting body when in
communication with the earth; the human knuckle, for instance. When not
sufficiently accumulated to produce these evidences of its presence, it
must be in a very feeble state of excitement. But even in the highest
accumulation by human means, as in the discharge of a powerfully
charged Leyden battery, it only acts for a time inconceivably brief,
and does not move ponderable masses as they are moved in the instance
of spiritual manifestation. It is only _in transitu_, that frictional
electricity displays much power, and then its path is extremely narrow,
and the duration of its influence inconceivably minute. According to
Wheatstone’s experiments and calculations, it would go round the earth
in the tenth part of a second.
824. How infinitely small, then, the period required to go from
one side of a room to another! Besides, there are neither means of
generating such electricity, nor of securing that insulation which must
be an indispensable precursor of accumulation.
825. Galvanic or voltaic electricity does not act at a distance so
as to produce any recognised effects, except in the case of magnetic
metals, or in the state of transition produced by an electric
discharge. In these phenomena the potent effects are attainable only
by means of perfect insulated conductors, as we see in the telegraphic
apparatus. No reaction with imperfect conducting bodies competent
to toss them to and fro, or up and down, can be accomplished. The
decomposing influence, called electrolytic, is only exhibited at
insensible distances, within a filament of the matter affected.
826. It has appeared to me a great error on the part of spirits, as
well as mortals, that they should make efforts to explain the phenomena
of the spirit world by the ponderable or imponderable agents of the
temporal world. The fact that the rays of our sun do not affect
the spirit world, and that there is for that region an appropriate
luminary whose rays we do not perceive, (415) must demonstrate that the
imponderable element to which they owe their peculiar light differs
from the ethereal fluid which, according to the undulatory theory, is
the means of producing light in the terrestrial creation.
827. In one of the replies made by the convocation, (571,) the idea was
sanctioned of the effulgence of the spirit being due to an appropriate
ethereal fluid, analogous to that above alluded to. But it has, I
think, been shown by me, that as light is due to the _undulations_ of
_our_ ether, so electricity is due to _waves_ of _polarization_. But
if undulations produce light in the ether of the spiritual universe
as well as in ours, why may not polarization produce in the ether of
the spirit world an electricity analagous to ours? Thus, although
in spiritual manifestations our electricity takes no part, their
electricity may be the means by which their will is transmitted
effectually in the phenomena which it controls.
828. The words _magnetism_ and _magnetic_ are used in this world in
two different senses. In one, it signifies the magnetism of magnets
or electromagnets; in the other, the animal magnetism of which the
existence was suggested by Mesmer, and which is commonly called
Mesmerism.
829. This mesmerical magnetism seems to be dependent rather on
properties which we have as immortals, encased in a corporeal clothing,
than as mortals owing our mental faculties to that frame. If it be
the spiritual portion of our organization which is operative in
clairvoyancy, spiritual electricity may be the intermedium both of that
faculty and of mesmeric influence.
830. All spirits are clairvoyant more or less, and where this faculty
is exercised, it seems to be due to an unusual ascendancy of the
spiritual powers over the corporeal, so that clairvoyants possess some
of the faculties which every spirit, after _shuffling off the mortal
coil_, must possess to a greater or less extent.
831. In striving to make a test apparatus by which the communication
should be uninfluenced by the muscular power of the medium, through
which alone her will could modify the ideas communicated, an
interesting fact was ascertained. The nullifying of the power of
muscular control, which it is the object of this contrivance to
accomplish, is obtained unexceptionally by means of two balls and a
plate, as already illustrated, (Plate 2,) or by placing the hands of
the medium exterior to the fulcrum of the lever-board, as described
in the instance of testing the communication received from the
convocation. But these methods requiring that the conditions should
be favourable, both, as respects the spirit communicating and the
medium, are liable to fail. It struck me that the distance between the
hands and the surface of the table or tray to be moved, by lessening
the influence of the medium on the table or tray, lessened the power
of actuation. My efforts were therefore directed to contrive to have
the hand of the medium near the surface to be moved, without the
possibility of contact.
832. With this view I placed a board for receiving the hands of the
medium upon delicate rollers, so that no horizontal movement would
affect the base board supporting the rollers and actuating the index.
To give greater efficacy to the aura, a plate of glass was supported
in a wooden frame or sash by means of four screw rods fixed upright
on the base board, each furnished with two screw nuts. The screw rods
passed through four suitable holes, so as to have one nut beneath, the
other above, the sash. Thus situated, by adjusting the nuts, the sash
could be regulated to any horizontal level, so as to be near the upper
surfaces of the hands without any contact therewith.
833. On trying this arrangement, it was found as difficult for a spirit
to actuate it as if the glazed sash had not been employed.
834. Under these circumstances, I had the glass plate or pane slit
lengthwise into two equal strips. These being restored to the position
previously occupied in the sash, I interposed between their edges a
piece of sheet-tin, with teeth cut in one of its edges, (Plate 4,
_kk_,) so as to make it look like a long narrow saw, such as are used
by sawyers in frames. With the aid of a leaden joint, (such as is used
by glaziers to join glass panes,) to which the saw was soldered, the
teeth of this projected about the eighth of an inch below the glass,
so as to be near the upper surface of any hand, resting on the sliding
board.
835. It was with no small degree of satisfaction that I found the
apparatus now sufficiently susceptible of actuation by my spirit
friends.
836. From this result it would seem that the saw-shaped metallic
conductor, operated precisely as it would have acted had it been
necessary to impart to the pane those means of electric discharge of
which, as at first used, it was deficient.
837. As soon as I had introduced the serrated conductor, my spirit
father corroborated the impression that it promoted the influence of
the medium.
838. This was the first instance in which I have discovered any analogy
between the laws governing the communication of the medium of the
spirit will-power, and those obeyed by electrical phenomena.
839. An account is given in my narrative of an experiment in which
a board, suspended at one end from a spring-balance, was made to
descend with a force of three pounds, through the instrumentality of
a medium who had no connection with the board, excepting water which
was interposed. Hence, as the hook screwed into the board, by which
it was secured to the hook of the balance, was six times as far from
the fulcrum as the hands of the medium, the force exerted by the
officiating spirit was equal to 3 × 6 = 18 pounds. (See Plate 3, and
description.) Nevertheless, no upward reaction was perceptible to me,
nor was any experienced by the medium, Henry Gordon, as he declared.
840. In the case of the boy (Plate 3,) a downward action of seven
pounds was observed, which, multiplied by the difference of distance,
amounted to 7 × 6 = 42 pounds, and yet the boy was not perceptibly
impelled in the opposite direction. Nor, when through the same juvenile
mediumship, the whole of the apparatus was thrown upon the floor, did
the boy appear to be impelled in the opposite direction. Nor was there
any reaction when the apparatus was thrown down. Now, agreeably to
the laws of nature, as established by human experience, in all cases
of motion or momentum, there must be an equal force exercised in the
opposite direction by the _vis inertiæ_ of some other matter endowed
with that attribute. Hence Archimedes said, “Give me but where to
stand, and I will move the world.” A point of support, a place of
resistance, however, was held to be indispensable.
841. The only explanation of which I can conceive is, that spirits,
by volition, can deprive bodies of _vis inertiæ_, and move bodies, as
they do themselves, by their will. But the necessity of the presence
of a medium to the display of this power, granting its existence, is a
mystery.
842. That the spirit should, by its “magic” will-power, take
possession of the frame of a human being, so as to make use of
its brain and nervous system, depriving its appropriate owner of
control, is a wonderful fact sufficiently difficult to believe,
yet, nevertheless, intelligible. The aura which surrounds a medium
must be imponderable. No volition of the medium can, through its
instrumentality, move ponderable bodies, nor cause raps or consequent
vibrations in the wooden boards. Hence, the presence of a medium
imparts power to spirits which the medium does not possess.
843. The aura on the one side, and the spirit on the other, are inert
unless associated. Thus the volition of the spirit gives activity to
an effluvium, by itself, so devoid of efficacy that it wholly escapes
the perception of the possessor or the observation of his mundane
companions. It has been already alleged, that the usual reference to
mundane electricity must be wholly unsatisfactory to all acquainted
with the phenomena and laws associated under that name; since no such
movements have ever been produced by such electrical means, nor is it
consistent with those mundane electrical laws, nor the facts which
electricians have noticed, that such movements should be produced.
Those movements which have been produced by electricity have never
been effected without surfaces oppositely charged, nor, of course,
without the means of charging them. Neither are there associated with
the spiritual manifestations means at hand of creating nor of holding
charges either much more minute than those which display perceptible
force or cause audible sound.
844. Electro-magnetic phenomena require the use of powerful galvanic
batteries or magnetic metals. Galvanic series, of the most powerful
kind, do not act at the minutest distance without contact.
845. Even lightning could not move a table backward and forward, though
it might shatter it into pieces, if duly interposed in a circuit.
846. Electrical sparks produce _snapping_ sounds in the air, not
_knockings_ or _rappings_ upon sonorous solids.
ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE ILL-TREATMENT OF MEDIA, ON SPIRITUAL
MANIFESTATIONS.—OF COUNTER-MEDIUMSHIP.
847. Allusion has been above made to the unfavourable influence upon
manifestations of the demeanour and incredulity of the investigator,
displayed in suspicious, cold, scrutinizing looks, such as would be
merited only by a cheat or pickpocket. All this has a deteriorating
influence upon mediumship, and likewise repels the spirits. While
communicating through a medium, a near blood relative, much beloved
by the communicating spirit while in this world, coming into the
circle, an immediate departure of the spirit was the consequence.
It was subsequently alleged in explanation that there existed a
repulsiveness between him and the spirit, founded on the idea that his
opinions were under the influence of worldly considerations, whence a
predetermination to disbelieve, as far as possible, by an unfavourable
view of the evidence.
848. An incredulity liable to be overcome by the reason by which it
has been created does not form a bar; but where an impregnable bigotry
has been introduced merely by education, so that the person under its
influence would have been a Catholic, Calvinist, Unitarian, Jew, or
Mohammedan by a change of parentage, cannot usually be changed by any
evidence or argument. Spirits will not spend their time subjecting
their manifestations to such impregnable bigotry, or to predetermined
malevolence.
849. On this account such persons find it hard to obtain the
manifestations which they seek with ill-will to Spiritualism, and a
predisposition to ridicule and pervert it.
850. Besides this difficulty, there is no doubt a constitutional state,
the inverse of that which creates a medium. The atmosphere of persons
so constituted, neutralizes that of those who are endowed with that of
mediumship.
851. It were impossible for any one to be more incredulous than I
was when I commenced my investigations; but in the first place, my
recorded religious impressions, founded on more than a half century
of intense reflection, in no respect conflicted with the belief which
Spiritualism required. As I said to a clergyman, I wish I knew as well
what I ought to believe, as I can perceive what I ought not to believe.
I was ardently desirous that the existence of a future state should be
established in a way to conform to positive science, so that they might
start together. This was perceived by my spirit friends, and that they
had only to give me sufficient evidence of the existence of spirits
and their world, to make me lay down in the cause my comparatively
worthless mortal life, could I be more useful to truth in dying than in
living.
852. My father and sister, brother and friend Blodget, were therefore
not deterred by my sneers or denunciations. Moreover, I was never
predisposed to suspect any medium of treachery, and therefore never
disgusted them by the display of any such impressions. To the aid
of these truly angelic spirits who were nearly allied with me, came
another angel, (whom I will designate by his initials W. W.,) who,
from philanthropic motives, seems to have selected me to serve in this
invaluable dispensation. Hence, his first annunciation of my destined
course, in language which so far, however it may imply an overestimate
of my capacity to serve, shows the more the partiality with which it
seems to have been estimated by him. (47.)
_The Author’s Discovery of his powers as a Medium._
853. It occurred to me to try how far the interposition of my hand
would interfere with the powers of the medium to whom I resorted. To my
surprise, it seemed very little to impair the actuation of the index by
the officiating spirit. It next occurred to me to ascertain how far a
diminution of contact, between the hand of the medium and mine, would
impair the power exercised under these conditions. In pursuance of my
request, the contact was diminished by successively lifting the fingers
of the medium and the rest of the hand from mine, until only one finger
was left. Finally, this finger was removed, and yet the power of
actuation still continued to exist, though enfeebled. The officiating
spirit, my friend W. W., now was made a party to this investigation,
being requested to estimate the effects as well as myself.
854. I requested the medium to pick up a pair of scissors which lay on
the table, and, while holding the blades between the finger and thumb,
to lay the rings upon the back of my hand. An increase of power was
manifested to my observation and that of W. W.
855. At a subsequent sitting, having made due preparation, a strip of
sheet tin about two inches wide, and about fifteen inches in length,
being applied to the back of my hand while resting on the base board of
the spiritoscope, (Plate 4, Fig. 2,) the medium held it successively
at various distances. Under these circumstances, the facilitation was
greater as the distance between her hand and mine was diminished.
856. A plate of glass of about four inches square, interposed between
the palm of the hand of the medium and the back of mine, interrupted
the power entirely; but neither cork nor a metallic plate of a similar
size much reduced the power.
857. The frame (Fig. 3, Plate 4) being _in situ_, as described,
paragraph _kk_ of the description, under these circumstances the
removal of the serrated strips diminished the power more and more as
removed.
858. Thus it appears that there is a mesmeric electricity, or spiritual
electricity, which may be considered as appropriate to the spirit world
as their vital air is; but which like that air, may influence our
spiritual bodies while in their mundane tenement. It may, as well as
the vital air of the spirit world, belong in common to the inhabitants
of that world and to us as spirits, being a polarizing affection of
the spiritual ethereal medium, of which the undulations constitute the
peculiar rays of their spiritual sun.
859. That this spiritual or mesmeric electricity should be auxiliary to
the efficacy of the magic will-power, of spirits, is of course one of
those mysteries which, like that of gravitation, may be ascertained to
prevail, and yet be to spirits as well as mortals inexplicable.
860. We live in a wonder-working universe, which becomes more and more
wonderful as we learn more of it, instead of being brought more within
our comprehension. When we compare what we know with the knowledge of
savages, it may appear a mountain of learning and science; but this
very learning and science only makes us see still more how great is our
ignorance!