861. This, for the third time, brings under discussion the report of
Dr. Bell, of Somerville, near Boston, on spiritual manifestations.
862. It is not in reference to this distinguished physician in his
individual capacity that I name him thus often, but in reference to the
hypothesis which his allegations must oblige him to sustain, and of
which he may be considered a most respectable advocate. Dr. Bell not
only admits, but confirms by his own testimony, the important fact of
the movement of heavy bodies without contact. His experience, in this
respect, is more striking than mine, since he has not only seen this
phenomena take place repeatedly, but on one occasion, as before stated,
saw tables move _fifty_ feet, intelligently obedient to his directions.
He also admits the reception of such communications from pretended
spirits, as spiritualists would consider as coming from real spirits.
Yet on the negative ground, that _agreeably to his experience, nothing
was found to be communicable_ but what pre-existed in the mind of some
mortal present, he infers that the ideas received are not derived from
spirits, but from the minds of those mortals who are parties to the
process.
863. Of course our distinguished friend thus involves himself in the
task of explaining not only the intellectual, but also the mechanical
movements, by the mental agency of the media who participate in the
conditions under which the manifestations occur.
864. I have already adduced manifestations irreconcilable with the
assumption on which the whole of Dr. Bell’s inference is built, (111
to 288.) But were his observations verified, in order to make them
justify the abnegation of spirits, it should be shown that any spirit
could tell him _any_ thing which must be known to him, whether known
to the spirits or not. Remembering all the facts communicated to
him by his spirit brother, it should be shown that any other spirit
could narrate them as well as his spirit brother. Any inquiry made of
_any_ spirit, _of which the answer is known to the inquirer_, should
be told on request as well as any other; but it will be found that
answers are given only to those of which the spirit knows the answers
independently, through his own memory. Under favourable circumstances
mental questions are answered; but often, when mental questions cannot
be answered, those put verbally are replied to. I have detected spirit
impostors, by their inability to tell the name of my sister in the
spheres.
865. I postponed the discussion on this question until I should have
submitted to the reader the communications which I had received. I
trust that these are of a nature to show that they could not have
originated in my mind, nor in those of the media through whom they were
obtained.
866. Whatever want of ability may be shown, by Dr. Bell, to exist in
the communications alleged to come from Paine, Swedenborg, and Bacon,
or from spirits personating those distinguished men, it cannot do
away the valuable information which I have obtained from my spirit
father and others, sanctioned by a convocation of spirits. It has been
shown that in a few pages of that communication, there is vastly more
knowledge of our happy prospects in the future world, than all that can
be found in the Scriptures.
867. Dr. Bell will not, I am sure, suspect me of any want of
truthfulness, and will hardly flatter the media and myself with an
unconscious origination of ideas, which had never before occurred to
either.
868. If he finds that in the case of Swedenborg and Bacon the spirits
are below their medial instruments in capacity, he will find that in
the instance of my spirit friends this estimate must be inverted.
869. My experience does not tend to establish that there is less
folly or more wisdom in the inhabitants of the spirit world than in
this. I concur with Dr. Bell in the opinion that the work to which he
alludes, attributed to the spirit of Paine, merits all the denunciation
which he bestows on it. I concur that it must be the work of a mind,
whether celestial or mundane, ignorant of the rudiments of chemical
philosophy. But if such a work coming from a mortal would not disprove
the author’s claim to be a mortal human being, wherefore then should a
foolish book coming from a foolish, ignorant spirit, personating Paine,
disprove the author to be a spirit? It only shows that low, ignorant,
foolish spirits personate the spirits of eminent authors; but does that
disprove the existence of spirits? Does madness or idiocy annihilate
the victim of these afflictions? But in all cases where communications
are obtained through speaking or writing media, the minds of the media
are liable, unconsciously, to pervert or repress the sentiments of the
spirits, and therefore are not trusted by me, unless corroborated by
communications through the alphabet.
870. By their existence in the spheres, it seems to me that spirits
improve as to their talents, not as to their reasoning powers. They
have a superior knowledge to that which we possess of their own world,
but not of our sciences, as far as I have had means of judging. Having
no great objects to effect, they have no great incentive to thought or
contrivance. It is by learning, more than by invention, that they rise
in the spheres.
871. These inferences are not, however, admitted by the spirits. They
allege that as their medial instruments improve, they will give me
reason to change my opinion. They assume to go deeper and farther into
the nature of things than mortals.
872. To me it seems that their happiness is due in part to
self-felicitation and seeing every thing under a rosy hue. They often
advert to the superior height upon which they stand, without showing
that they see more in consequence.
873. So far as I can judge, in some branches of knowledge, the spirits
will improve by discussion with mortals. They will be cured of some of
their “sky scraping!”
874. They seem to be mainly improved by their reciprocal intercourse.
Thus honest bigots of all sects, find when they get together that in
point of fact none of their records are true!
875. It is by getting rid of error, more than acquiring knowledge, that
they rise in reciprocal estimation.
876. Very soon after my father began to communicate with me, nearly
fourteen months ago, he said—“We know little more in religion than
you.”
877. They all agree that good works are solely of importance, creeds
only being good or bad as they induce good or bad deeds.
878. A good man cannot accept a creed which sanctions wickedness; that,
for instance, which authorizes, under certain sophistical pretences,
spoliation, massacre, rape, fraud, &c. Whenever any man brings himself
to believe that his God ever authorized such crimes, or patronized
those who were guilty of them, he becomes more or less immoral. Dr.
Berg truly alleged that “_a devotee is assimilated to the God whom he
worships_.”
879. To assist me, as it were, in exposing the errors of those who
with Dr. Bell admit, for the most part, the facts of Spiritualism, yet
ascribe the whole to the minds of mortals acting as media or inquirers,
an advocate of that side of the question gives this explanation of the
fact of my having sent a message to Mrs. Gourlay by my spirit sister:
880. He alleged it as a fact, that if two snails be placed in
proximity, and afterward apart to a considerable distance, that the
contact of one, will affect the other perceptibly.
881. That Mrs. Gourlay and myself being frequently in each other’s
society, it followed that if at the distance of about a hundred
miles I wished her to induce Dr. Gourlay to apply at the bank, Mrs.
Gourlay, although at the time engaged in receiving a most interesting
communication from her mother for her brother, had so much more
snail-like sympathy, with me at Cape Island, than with the ideas she
believed to proceed from her mother, that she would interrupt the one
forthwith, to attend to the other at that particularly inconvenient
time! Meanwhile, the phenomenon of the index of my disk being moved
independently of any effort of mine, so that I can make oath that no
mortal moved it, is not taken into view. Surely if by such means a
message respecting a pecuniary affair could awaken sympathy, there are
many messages which it would be of immensely more importance to convey,
than that which I sent in the instance in question.
882. But how comes it that neither I nor any other of her friends can
send messages to Mrs. Gourlay while in the same city with her? Must
her friends go to Cape Island for the purpose? Will this erudite and
ingenious psychologist inform me by what means I may bring about this
object, which, on business account, would be more convenient than
sending notes by penny post?
883. Am I to go through the same process of sitting down at my
spiritoscope? Will this learned assailant of Spiritualism inform me why
I must do this, and must wait till the index moves? Wherefore should it
move after a quarter of an hour’s invocation, when it will not move at
first?
884. Again, I wish the circumstance I am about to mention to be
explained by psychology: I was sitting in my solitary third-story
room at Cape Island, invoking my sister as usual, when to my surprise
I saw Cadwallader spelt out on my disk. “My old friend, General
Cadwallader?” said I. “Yes.” A communication ensued of much interest.
But before concluding, I requested him, as a test, to give me the
name of a person whom I met in an affair of honour more than fifty
years ago, when he (General Cadwallader) was my second. The name was
forthwith given, by the pointing out on the disk the letters requisite
to spell it.
885. Now as the spirit of General Cadwallader, during more than fifteen
months that other friends had sought to communicate with me, had never
made me a visit, why should his name have been spelt out when I had not
the remotest hope of his coming, and was expecting another spirit, the
only one who had been with me at the Cape?
886. Further, the breakfast bell having rung, I said, “General, will
you come again after breakfast?” I understood him to consent to this
invitation. Accordingly, when afterward I reseated myself in _statu
quo_, I looked for the General, but, lo! Martha, my sister’s name, was
spelt out!
887. I challenge this psychologist to put his hypothesis on paper, in
order that I may psychologize him into a more consistent assumption of
premises and conclusions.
888. Let him show his hand by reducing his sophistry, as I
conscientiously consider it, to black and white. He may learn the
difference between talent and judgment. I am aware that he shows a vast
deal more of the _appropriate_ ability of his profession in defending
the view he has espoused, than I could hope to exert. It is only in the
strength of truth that I feel strong. “Thrice is he armed that hath
his quarrel just.”
889. It is of no small importance that this learned and subtle
psychologist, should explain how my spiritoscope, or any other
instrumental means of alphabetic indication, becomes necessary to
effect the psychologization of a medium at a great distance, so as to
convey to her mind the ideas which it is an object to impart. Why is
it necessary that the index over a disk at Cape May, should revolve to
the letters requisite to spell a message, in order that the index of
another disk in Philadelphia, should revolve at a _subsequent_ time?
How does the mechanism in one place, acquire a power from the remote
actuation of another? Will it be pretended that they are affected
analogously to the sympathetic snails; whence, having kept each other’s
company, this miracle ensued? But even this is not true, since they
were not kept together, if ever they were in each other’s company.
890. Could any process be divined by which an instrument for supposed
alphabetic communication with spirits, could be applied to transmit
such messages as that for which I employed mine, according to this
psychological hypothesis, it would be superior to the existing
telegraphic process, since the ocean could be no barrier to messages
which, although dependent on snail-like sympathy, would have nothing in
it of the proverbial creeping attribute of the animal in question.
891. The following manifestations are of a nature, as it seems to me,
to invalidate Dr. Bell’s notion that the communications received from
the spirit are acquired from the minds of the bystanders:
892. Calling on Miss Ellis, it was found that her time was so
pre-engaged, that she could not, as she said, sit for me till the
day but one succeeding. My spirit sister manifested her desire to
communicate, and conveyed the idea that Miss Ellis could give an hour
named next day, if she would examine her list. This examination being
made, the suggestion was verified.
893. Here was an idea not obtained from the mind of any person present.
It could not exist in the minds of those who, like my friend and
myself, had not seen the list, nor could it have been in Miss Ellis’s
mind, as in that case she would not have had to consult the list, in
order to determine the truth of the suggestion.
894. In this visit, Dr. W. F. Channing, who was my companion, said
that possibly he had better not accompany me. It was left to my spirit
sister to decide. No instrument being ready, as the quickest mode
of communication, the medium was made to take up her pen, and began
forthwith to make figures upon a sheet of paper. When the operation
terminated, nothing but figures were seen to have been written. The
medium said she did not know what to make of it. But _under_ the
letters it was written, “Select, from the alphabet, the letters
corresponding, and you have my answer.” This being done, the following
sentence was obtained: “_My dear brother, come alone._”
895. It cannot be reasonably imagined that either Miss Ellis, my
friend, or myself suggested this reply, as my friend and myself
regretted the result, and it was not the interest of Miss Ellis to
lessen the circle. But none of us had the ability to have perceived the
numbers indicating the relative position of letters in the alphabetic
row, so as to have selected them correctly. It would take some time to
associate the letters with the numbers duly, and an unusual strength of
memory to recollect them.
MODERN PROCESS FOR ALPHABETIC CONVERSE WITH SPIRITS, AS NEW TO MAN AS
THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.
896. In his instructive work on Spiritualism, the idea is advanced by
Capron, that the species of modern spirit communication, of which his
book mainly treats, dates back to a period of history so early that no
age or country is exempt from accounts of them.
897. To me it seems that I have never read any thing in history
in which intellectual communication was established by sounds or
mechanical movements with invisible beings. Sight has almost always
been the sense most appealed to in evidence of the appearance of
ghosts. In the instance of the Witch of Endor, Samuel is made to come
from his grave, not like one of our happy spirits from his beautiful
abode in the spirit world:—
“Then said the woman, Whom shall I bring up unto thee? And he said,
Bring me up Samuel. And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a
loud voice: and the woman spake to Saul, saying, Why hast thou deceived
me? for thou art Saul. And the king said unto her, Be not afraid: for
what sawest thou? And the woman said unto Saul, I saw gods ascending
out of the earth. And he said unto her, What form is he of? And she
said, An old man cometh up; and he is covered with a mantle. And Saul
perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the
ground, and bowed himself. And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou
disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed;
for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me,
and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore
I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall
do. Then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the
Lord is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy? And the Lord
hath done to him as he spake by me: for the Lord hath rent the kingdom
out of thine hand, and given it to thy neighbour, even to David:
Because thou obeyedst not the voice of the Lord, nor executedst his
fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the Lord done this thing unto
thee this day. Moreover, the Lord will also deliver Israel with thee
into the hand of the Philistines: and to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons
be with me: the Lord also shall deliver the host of Israel into the
hand of the Philistines.” 1 Sam. xxviii. 11-19.
898. It is represented in this quotation, that the ghost of Samuel came
and conversed with Saul; that he “_ascendeth out of the earth; an old
man cometh up, and he is covered with a mantle_.” Where is there any
thing in common between this representation and the process by which
I communicate with my familiar spirits,—not coming up from the grave,
or the disgusting heaven of Josephus, but from their magical abodes in
the skies! I challenge any one to adduce the idea, as having ever been
expressed, that any one had found any mode of conversing with spirits
resembling in its operation that which we now have discovered. This
seems to be as new to the spirits as to us, being as much a novelty as
the electric telegraph. The very limited degree in which it has been
recently accomplished has been attained with very great difficulty. It
appears that efforts were made to establish this intercourse in England
at the mansion of the celebrated Wesley, without any beneficial result.
If ever this art had been discovered, certainly it would not have been
lost. Even the idea of rapping or knocking _independently of mortal
agency_, had the fact ever been established, could not have been held
so incredible as it was, almost universally, when it took place at
Hydesville, or in Great Britain, as above mentioned.
899. The learned Dr. Priestley, utterly incredulous that the rappings
at Wesley’s could be ascribed to any supermundane agency, attributes
it to some trick on the part of servants, assisted by neighbours. It
appears that in general the most scientific and well-read persons are
the most backward in ascribing such phenomena to invisible spirits. If,
therefore, during past ages such inscrutable noises and movements of
bodies had occurred, resembling those recently noticed, still no such
use had been made of them as we now behold. Such manifestations being
once so far demonstrated as to induce people of sound mind to unite in
referring them to the immortal spirits of departed friends, is a fact
of such awful, thrilling interest, that it never could have become
obsolete; especially as the same state of things which permitted it
once to be successfully witnessed, would have led to its reiteration.
Neither the spirits nor mortals had laid it aside, any more than the
telegraph or the railways will be disused, after experiencing the
advantages of those inventions.
900. Is there not as much reason for the lateness of this discovery,
as for that of any of those inventions by which modern times are
distinguished from ancient? Even now, with what difficulty has it been
accomplished to the degree to which it has arrived. After eighteen
months of laborious investigation, I find myself surrounded by
inveterate skeptics among my own family friends and most of my comrades
in science.
901. There is scarcely a country besides this in which I should escape
legal penalties or tyrannical restraint, in expressing the opinions
which I most devoutly entertain, and am impelled irresistibly to
express; and, although in this country, free from legal penalties,
there is scarcely an orthodox female tongue belonging to some of the
best of the sex (in all other respects amiable) which will not devote
itself universally in the service of bigotry and intolerance.
902. But beside the arguments thus founded, there is another, resting
on the fact that had there been any intellectual communication with
the spirit world, there could not have been such an ignorance of the
religious doctrines which there prevail. There is in that world no
diversity as respects the existence and unity of God; nor as to the
unimportance of those creeds which have caused in this world so much
mischief, by the consequent animosity, persecutions, and warfare. The
superior efficacy of good works over creeds is by the _higher_ spirits
invariably insisted upon.
903. Then, agreeably to the same authority, the idea of an omnipotent,
omniscient, and prescient God being under the necessity of subjecting
things to trial, is considered as involving a contradiction; the
premises being irreconcilable with the conclusion. There is not an
elevated spirit that will not answer in the affirmative, every query
proposed in the verses inserted, (page 34.)
904. There is but one sentiment as respects the question between
probation and progression, and that is in favour of the latter.
“Onward and upward is the motto on our spiritual banner.” Such is the
language held, and repeated over and over again. It would not take a
quarter of an hour for a spirit to pour information into the ear of
a mortal which, if credited, would put an end to all honest discord
respecting religion, and induce that mortal thenceforth to look to the
spirit world as his ultimate destination. The language of the paragraph
in the address through Lanning, would go home to every human mortal
having reason to comprehend it, so that whatever they might pursue in
this world would be with an ultimate view to ascendancy in the other.
(See Preface.)
905. Bigotry, fanaticism, selfish sectarianism, the want of media and
bold, enlightened investigators, seem to have formed impenetrable
obstacles to the promulgation of a knowledge of the greatest importance
to human prosperity, morals, and future happiness. No doubt that so
much evil should arise merely from want of a knowledge so near at
hand, is one of the facts which human reason finds it most difficult
to reconcile with the power and goodness of the Almighty Ruler of the
universe; but that is a difficulty which exists in case any one creed
be assumed as true; since none has been heretofore so communicated as
to be within the reach of mankind in general. Meanwhile the error has
originated in various sects, that they have been especially favoured
by God, so that they alone of all his creatures have had true light let
in upon them.
906. Happily, from the mode in which the light of Spiritualism has
been received by its present votaries, it may be gradually extended to
all their fellow-creatures; and meanwhile those who enjoy this light
do not assume that their fellow-creatures who are in this respect
less fortunate, are on that account to be censured, denounced, and
persecuted as far as the power to persecute goes. Spiritualists believe
the wonderful manifestations on which their creed rests, to have far
more testimony in its favour than any other before accredited; and
that the manifestations relied on being more recent, and observed by
multitudes of eye-witnesses, known by their neighbours to be truthful,
have, as _mere hearsay proof_, an immense superiority over the recorded
tradition of an obscure, illiterate, superstitious age and country. But
then the same privilege which has been enjoyed by one set of observers
belongs to any succeeding number, and no less to succeeding ages than
to this. It is not assumed that any special inspiration appertains to
any existing being, as an instrument of promoting truth, that will
not inure to others. No particular exclusive capacity for miracles is
claimed for this age; on the contrary, the belief is that in this, as
in other things, there will be improvement and progression, and that
posterity will learn directly from the same high angelic source whence
we learn.
907. The more the moral code of Spiritualism is contrasted with that
which has heretofore prevailed, the better we shall be pleased. We
challenge the strongest, the most learned of those who adhere to that
dispensation, to meet us _ore rotundo seu currente calamo_. Confident
in the strength of truth and the feebleness of error, the writer of
these lines fears not any competitor who makes error his client.