ON SCEPTICISM.
There are two classes of people who have done more harm to the cause of
Spiritualism than the testimony of all the scientists has done good, and
those are the enthusiasts and the sceptics. The first believe everything
they see or hear. Without giving themselves the trouble to obtain proofs
of the genuineness of the manifestations, they rush impetuously from one
acquaintance to the other, detailing their experience with so much
exaggeration and such unbounded faith, that they make the absurdity of
it patent to all. They are generally people of low intellect, credulous
dispositions, and weak nerves. They bow down before the influences as if
they were so many little gods descended from heaven, instead of being,
as in the majority of instances, spirits a shade less holy than our own,
who, for their very shortcomings, are unable to rise above the
atmosphere that surrounds this gross and material world. These are the
sort of spiritualists whom _Punch_ and other comic papers have very
justly ridiculed. Who does not remember the picture of the afflicted
widow, for whom the medium has just called up the departed Jones?
"Jones," she falters, "are you happy?"
"Much happier than I was down here," growls Jones.
"O! then you _must_ be in heaven!"
"On the contrary, quite the reverse," is the reply.
Who also has not sat a _seance_ where such people have not made
themselves so ridiculous as to bring the cause they profess to adore
into contempt and ignominy. Yet to allow the words and deeds of fools to
affect one's inward and private conviction of a matter would be
tantamount to giving up the pursuit of everything in which one's fellow
creatures can take a part.
The second class to which I alluded--the sceptics--have not done so much
injury to Spiritualism as the enthusiasts, because they are as a rule,
so intensely bigoted and hard-headed, and narrow-minded, that they
overdo their protestations, and render them harmless. The sceptic
refuses to believe _anything_, because he has found out _one_ thing to
be a fraud. If one medium deceives, all the mediums must deceive. If one
_seance_ is a failure, none can be successful. If he gains no
satisfactory test of the presence of the spirits of the departed, no one
has ever gained such a test. Now, such reason is neither just nor
logical. Again, a sceptic fully expects _his_ testimony to be accepted
and believed, yet he will never believe any truth on the testimony of
another person. And if he is told that, given certain conditions, he can
see this or hear the other, he says, "No! I will see it and hear it
without any conditions, or else I will proclaim it all a fraud." In like
manner, we might say to a savage, on showing him a watch, "If you will
keep your eye on those hands, you will see them move round to tell the
hours and minutes," and he should reply, "I must put the watch into
boiling water--those are my conditions--and if it won't go then, I will
not believe it can go at all."
I don't mind a man being a sceptic in Spiritualism. I don't see how he
can help (considering the belief in which we are reared) being a
sceptic, until he has proved so strange a matter for himself. But I _do_
object to a man or a woman taking part in a _seance_ with the sole
intention of detecting deceit, not _when_ it has happened, but before it
has happened--of bringing an argumentative, disputatious mind, full of
the idea that it is going to be tricked and humbugged into (perhaps) a
private circle who are sitting (like Rosa Dartle) "simply for
information," and scattering all the harmony and good-will about him
broadcast. He couldn't do it to a human assembly without breaking up the
party. Why should he expect to be more kindly welcomed by a spiritual
one? I have seen an immense deal of courtesy shown under such
circumstances to men whom I should have liked to see kicked downstairs.
I have seen them enter a lady's private drawing-room, by invitation, to
witness manifestations which were never, under any circumstances, made a
means of gain, and have heard them argue, and doubt, and contradict,
until they have given their hostess and her friends the lie to their
faces. And the world in general would be quite ready to side with these
(so-called) gentlemen, not because their word or their wisdom was
better worth than that of their fellow guests, but because they
protested against the truth of a thing which it had made up its mind to
be impossible. I don't mind a sceptic myself, as I said before, but he
must be unbiassed, which few sceptics are. As a rule, they have decided
the question at issue for themselves before they commence to investigate
it.
I find that few people outside the pale of Spiritualism have heard of
the Dialectical Society, which was a scientific society assembled a few
years ago for the sole purpose of enquiring into the truth of the
matter. It was composed of forty members,--ten lawyers, ten scientists,
ten clergymen, and ten chemists (I think that was the arrangement), and
they held forty _seances_, and the published report at the close of them
was, that not one of these men of learning and repute could find any
natural cause for the wonders he had witnessed. I know that there are a
thousand obstacles in the way of belief. The extraordinarily
contradictory manner in which Protestants are brought up, to believe in
one and the same breath that spirits were common visitants to earth at
the periods of which the Bible treats, but that it is impossible they
can return to it now, although the Lord is the same yesterday, to-day,
and for ever. The conditions of darkness for the creation of
materialized spirits, and the resemblance they sometimes bear to the
medium, are two fearful stumbling-blocks. Yet one must know that _all_
things are created in the dark, and that even a seed cannot sprout if
you let the light in upon it, while as for the resemblance between the
spirit and the medium, from whom it takes the material being that
enables it to appear, if investigators would only persevere with their
enquiries, they would find, as I have, that that is a disappointment
which has its remedy in Time. When people call on me to explain such
things, I can only say that I know no more how they come than they do,
or that I know how _I_ came, a living, sentient creature, into the
world. Besides (as I have said before), I write these pages to tell only
_what I have seen_, and not to argue how it came to pass that I saw it.
I have a little story to tell here which powerfully illustrates the
foregoing remarks. The lines,
"A woman convinced against her will
Is of the same opinion still,"
might have been penned with as much truth of sceptics. Men who are
sceptical, _i.e._, so thoroughly wrapt up in conceit of their powers of
judgment and determination that it becomes impossible for them to
believe themselves mistaken, will deny the evidence of all their senses
sooner than confess they may be in the wrong. Such an one may be a
clever scientist or a shrewd man of business, but he can never be a
genius. For genius is invariably humble of its own powers, and,
therefore, open to conviction. But the lesser minds, who are only equal
to grasping such details as may have been drummed into them by sheer
force of study, appear to have no capability of stretching beyond a
certain limit. They are hedged in and cramped by the opinions in which
they have been reared, or that they have built up for themselves out of
the petty material their brain affords them, and have lost their powers
of elasticity. "Thus far shalt thou go and no further," seems to be the
fiat pronounced on too many men's reasoning faculties. Instead of
believing the power of God and the resources of nature to be
illimitable, they want to keep them within the little circle that
encompasses their own brains. "I can't see it, and therefore it cannot
be." There was a time when I used to take the trouble to try and
convince such men, but I have long ceased to do so. It is quite
indifferent to me what they believe or don't believe. And with such
minds, even if they _were_ convinced of its possibility, they would
probably make no good use of spiritual intercourse. For there is no
doubt it can be turned to evil uses as well as to good.
Some years ago I was on friendly terms with a man of this sort. He was a
doctor, accounted clever in his profession, and I knew him to be an able
arguist, and thought he had common sense enough not to eat his own
words, but the sequel proved that I was mistaken. We had several
conversations together on Spiritualism, and as Dr. H---- was a complete
disbeliever in the existence of a God and a future life, I was naturally
not surprised to find that he did not place any credence in the account
I gave him of my spiritualistic experiences. Many medical men attribute
such experiences entirely to a diseased condition of mind or body.
But when I asked Dr. H---- what he should think if he saw them with his
own eyes, I confess I was startled to hear him answer that he should
say his eyes deceived him. "But if you heard them speak?" I continued.
"I should disbelieve my ears."
"And if you touched and handled them?"
"I should mistrust my sense of feeling."
"Then by what means," I argued, "do you know that I am Florence Marryat?
You can only see me and hear me and touch me! What is there to prevent
your senses misleading you at the present moment?"
But to this argument Dr. H---- only returned a pitying smile, professing
to think me, on this point at least, too feeble-minded to be worthy of
reply, but in reality not knowing what on earth to say. He often,
however, recurred to the subject of Spiritualism, and on several
occasions told me that if I could procure him the opportunity of
submitting a test which he might himself suggest, he should be very much
obliged to me. It was about this time that a young medium named William
Haxby, now passed away, went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Olive in Ainger
Terrace, and we were invited to attend a _seance_ given by him. Mrs.
Olive, when giving the invitation, informed me that Mr. Haxby had been
very successful in procuring direct writing in sealed boxes, and she
asked me, if I wished to try the experiment, to take a secured box, with
writing materials in it, to the _seance_, and see what would happen to
it.
Here was, I thought, an excellent opportunity for Dr. H----'s test, and
I sent for him and told him what had been proposed. I urged him to
prepare the test entirely by himself, and to accompany me to the
_seance_ and see what occurred,--to all of which he readily consented.
Indeed, he became quite excited on the subject, being certain it would
prove a failure; and in my presence he made the following
preparations:--
I. Half a sheet of ordinary cream-laid note-paper and half a cedar-wood
black lead pencil were placed in a jeweller's cardwood box.
II. The lid of the box was carefully glued down all round to the bottom
part.
III. The box was wrapt in white writing paper, which was gummed over it.
IV. It was tied eight times with a peculiar kind of silk made for tying
up arteries, and the eight knots were knots known to (as Dr. H----
informed me) medical men only.
V. Each of the eight knots was sealed with sealing-wax, and impressed
with Dr. H----'s crest seal, which he always wore on his watch-chain.
VI. The packet was again folded in brown paper, and sealed and tied to
preserve the inside from injury.
When Dr. H---- had finished it, he said to me, "If the spirits (or
anybody) can write on that paper without cutting the silk, _I will
believe whatever you wish_." I asked, "Are you _quite_ sure that the
packet could not be undone without your detecting it?" His answer
was--"That silk is not to be procured except from a medical man; it is
manufactured expressly for the tying of arteries; and the knots I have
made are known only to medical men. They are the knots we use in tying
arteries. The seal is my own crest, which never leaves my watch-chain,
and I defy anyone to undo those knots without cutting them, or to tie
them again, if cut. I repeat--if your friends can make, or cause to be
made, the smallest mark on that paper, and return me the box in the
condition it now is, _I will believe anything you choose_." And I
confess I was very dubious of the result myself, and almost sorry that I
had subjected the doctor's incredulity to so severe a test.
On the evening appointed we attended the _seance_, Dr. H---- taking the
prepared packet with him. He was directed to place it under his chair,
but he tied a string to it and put it under his foot, retaining the
other end of the string in his hand. The meeting was not one for
favorably impressing an unbeliever in Spiritualism. There were too many
people present, and too many strangers. The ordinary manifestations, to
my mind, are worse than useless, unless they have been preceded by
extraordinary ones; so that the doctor returned home more sceptical than
before, and I repented that I had taken him there. One thing had
occurred, however, that he could not account for. The packet which he
had kept, as he thought, under his foot the whole time, was found, at
the close of the meeting, to have disappeared. Another gentleman had
brought a sealed box, with paper and pencil in it, to the _seance_; and
at the close it was opened in the presence of all assembled, and found
to contain a closely written letter from his deceased wife. But the
doctor's box had evaporated, and was nowhere to be found. The door of
the room had been locked all the time, and we searched the room
thoroughly, but without success. Dr. H---- was naturally triumphant.
"They couldn't undo _my_ knots and _my_ seals," he said, exulting over
me, "and so they wisely did not return the packet. Both packets were of
course taken from the room during the sitting by some confederate of the
medium. The other one was easily managed, and put back again--_mine_
proved unmanageable, and so they have retained it. I _knew_ it would be
so!"
And he twinkled his eyes at me as much as to say, "I have shut _you_ up.
You will not venture to describe any of the marvels you have seen to me
after this." Of course the failure did not discompose me, nor shake my
belief. I never believed spiritual beings to be omnipotent, omnipresent,
nor omniscient. They had failed before, and doubtless they would fail
again. But if an acrobatic performer fails to turn a double somersault
on to another man's head two or three times, it does not falsify the
fact that he succeeds on the fourth occasion. I was sorry that the test
had been a failure, for Dr. H----'s sake, but I did not despair of
seeing the box again. And at the end of a fortnight it was left at my
house by Mr. Olive, with a note to say that it had been found that
morning on the mantel-piece in Mr. Haxby's bedroom, and he lost no time
in returning it to me. It was wrapt in the brown paper, tied and sealed,
apparently just as we had carried it to the _seance_ in Ainger Terrace;
and I wrote at once to Dr. H---- announcing its return, and asking him
to come over and open it in my presence. He came, took the packet in his
hand, and having stripped off the outer wrapper, examined it carefully.
There were four tests, it may be remembered, applied to the packet.
I. The arterial silk, procurable only from a medical man.
II. The knots to be tied only by medical men.
III. Dr. H----'s own crest, always kept on his watch chain, as a seal.
IV. The lid of the cardboard box, glued all round to the bottom part.
As the doctor scrutinized the silk, the knots, and the seals, I watched
him narrowly.
"Are you _quite sure_," I asked, "that it is the same paper in which you
wrapt it?"
"I am _quite sure_."
"And the same silk?"
"Quite sure."
"Your knots have not been untied?"
"I am positive that they have not."
"Nor your seal been tampered with?"
"Certainly not! It is just as I sealed it."
"Be careful, Dr. H----," I continued. "Remember I shall write down all
you say."
"I am willing to swear to it in a court of justice," he replied.
"Then will you open the packet?"
Dr. H---- took the scissors and cut the silk at each seal and knot, then
tore off the gummed white writing paper (which was as fresh as when he
had put it on), and tried to pull open the card-board box. But as he
could not do this in consequence of the lid being glued down, he took
out his penknife and cut it all round. As he did so, he looked at me and
said, "Mark my words. There will be nothing written on the paper. It is
impossible!"
He lifted the lid, and behold _the box was empty_! The half sheet of
notepaper and the half cedar wood pencil had both _entirely
disappeared_. Not a crumb of lead, nor a shred of paper remained behind.
I looked at the doctor, and the doctor looked completely bewildered.
"_Well!_" I said, interrogatively.
He shifted about--grew red--and began to bluster.
"What do you make of it?" I asked. "How do you account for it?"
"In the easiest way in the world," he replied, trying to brave it out.
"It's the most transparent deception I ever saw. They've kept the thing
a fortnight and had time to do anything with it. A child could see
through this. Surely your bright wits can want no help to an
explanation."
"I am not so bright as you give me credit for," I answered. "Will you
explain your meaning to me?"
"With pleasure. They have evidently made an invisible slit in the
joining of the box cover, and with a pair of fine forceps drawn the
paper through it, bit by bit. For the pencil, they drew that by the same
means to the slit and then pared it, little by little, with a lancet,
till they could shake out the fragments."
"That must have required very careful manipulation," I observed.
"Naturally. But they've taken a fortnight to do it in."
"But how about the arterial silk?" I said.
"They must have procured some from a surgeon."
"And your famous knots?"
"They got some surgeon to tie them!"
"But your crest and seal?"
"Oh! they must have taken a facsimile of that in order to reproduce it.
It is very cleverly done, but quite explicable!"
"But you told me before you opened the packet that you would take your
oath in a court of justice it had not been tampered with."
"I was evidently deceived."
"And you really believe, then, that an uneducated lad like Mr. Haxby
would take the trouble to take impressions of seals and to procure
arterial silk and the services of a surgeon, in order, not to mystify or
convert _you_, but to gratify _me_, whose box he believes it to be."
"I am sure he has done so!"
"But just now you were equally sure he had _not_ done so. Why should you
trust your senses in one case more than in the other? And if Mr. Haxby
has played a trick on me, as you suppose, why did you not discover the
slit when you examined the box, before opening?"
"Because my eyes misled me!"
"Then after all," I concluded, "the best thing you can say of yourself
is that you--a man of reputed science, skill, and sense, and with a
strong belief in your own powers--are unable to devise a test in which
you shall not be outwitted by a person so inferior to yourself in age,
intellect and education as young Haxby. But I will give you another
chance. Make up another packet in any way you like. Apply to it the
severest tests which your ingenuity can devise, or other men of genius
can suggest to you, and let me give it to Haxby and see if the contents
can be extracted, or tampered with a second time."
"It would be useless," said Dr. H----. "If they were extracted through
the iron panels of a fireproof safe, I would not believe it was done by
any but natural means."
"Because you do not _wish_ to believe," I argued.
"You are right," he confessed, "I do _not_ wish to believe. If you
convinced me of the truth of Spiritualism, you would upset all the
theories I have held for the best part of my life. I don't believe in a
God, nor a soul, nor a future existence, and I would rather not believe
in them. We have quite enough trouble, in my opinion, in this life,
without looking forward to another, and I would rather cling to my
belief that when we die we have done with it once and for ever."
So there ended my attempt to convince Dr. H----, and I have often
thought since that he was but a type of the genus sceptic. In this
world, we mostly believe what we want to believe, and the thought of a
future troubles us in proportion to the lives we lead here. It must
often strike spiritualists (who mostly look forward to the day of their
departure for another world, as a schoolboy looks forward to the
commencement of the holidays) as a very strange thing, that people, as a
rule, evince so little curiosity on the subject of Spiritualism. The
idea of the spirits of the departed returning to this world to hold
communication with their friends may be a new and startling one to them,
but the very wonder of it would make one expect to see them evince a
little interest in a matter which concerns us all. Yet the generality of
Carlyle's British millions either pooh-pooh the notion as too utterly
ridiculous for their exalted minds to entertain, or inform you, with
superior wisdom, that if Spiritualism is true, they cannot see the use
of it, and have no craving for any further knowledge. If these same
people expected to go to Canada or Australia in a few months' time, how
eagerly they would ask questions concerning their future home, and
procure the best information on what to do, whilst they remained in
England, in order to fit themselves for the journey and the change.
But a journey to the other world--to the many worlds which perhaps await
us--a certain proof that we shall live again (or rather, that we shall
never die but need only time and patience and well-living here to
reunite us to the dear one gone before)--_that_ is a subject not worthy
of our trying to believe--of not sufficient importance for us to take
the trouble of ascertaining. I pity from my soul the men and women who
have no dead darling buried in their hearts whom they _know_ they shall
meet in a home of God's own choosing when this life ends.
The old, cold faiths have melted away beneath the sun of Progress. We
can no longer be made to believe, like little children, in a shadowy
indefinite Heaven where the saints sit on damp clouds with harps in
their hands forever singing psalms and hymns and heavenly songs. That
sort of existence could be a Heaven to none, and to most it would be a
Hell. We do not accept it now, any more than we do the other place, with
its typical fire and brimstone, and pitch-forking devils with horns and
tails. But what has Religion given us instead? Those whose common-sense
will not permit them to believe in the parson's Heaven and Hell
generally believe (like Dr. H----) in nothing at all. But Spiritualism,
earnestly and faithfully followed, leaves us in no doubt. Spiritualists
know where they are going to. The spheres are almost as familiar to them
as this earth--it is not too much to say that many live in them as much
as they do here, and often they seem the more real, as they are the more
lasting of the two. Spiritualists are in no manner of doubt _who_ their
eyes will see when opening on another phase of life. _They_ do not
expect to be carried straight up into Abraham's bosom, and lie snugly
there, whilst revengeful demons are torturing those who were, perhaps,
nearest and dearest to them down below. They have a better and more
substantial religion than that--a revelation that teaches them that the
works we do in the flesh must bear their fruit in the spirit, and that
no tardy deathbed repentance, no crying out for mercy because Justice is
upon us, like an unruly child howling as soon as the stick is produced
for chastisement--will avail to wipe off the sins we have indulged in
upon earth. They know their expiation will be a bitter one, yet not
without Hope, and that they will be helped, as well as help others, in
the upward path that leads to ultimate perfection. The teaching of
Spiritualism is such as largely to increase belief in our Divine
Father's love, our Saviour's pity, and the angels' ministering help. But
it does more than this, more than any religion has done before. It
affords the _proof_--the only proof we have ever received, and our
finite natures can accept--of a future existence. The majority of
Christians _hope_ and _trust_, and say they _believe_. It is the
Spiritualist only that _knows_.
I think that the marvellous indifference displayed by the crowd to
ascertain these truths for themselves must be due, in a large number of
instances, to the unnatural but universal fear which is entertained of
Death and all things connected with it. The same people who loudly
declaim again the possibility of seeing a "ghost," shudder at the idea
of doing so. The creature whom they have adored and waited on with
tenderest devotion passes away, and they are afraid to enter the room
where his body lies. That which they clung to and wept over yesterday,
they fear to look at or touch to-day, and the idea that he would return
and speak to them would inspire them with horror. But why afraid of an
impossibility? Their very fears should teach them that there is a cause.
From numerous notes made on the subject I have invariably found that
those who have had the opportunity of testing the reality of
Spiritualism, and either rejected or denied it, have been selfish,
worldly, and cold-hearted people who neither care, nor are cared for, by
those who have passed on to another sphere. Plenty of love is sure to
bring you plenty of proof. The mourners, who have lost sight of what is
dearest to them, and would give all they possess for one more look at
the face they loved so much, or one more tone of the voice that was
music to their ears, are only too eager and grateful to hear of a way by
which their longings may be gratified, and would take any trouble and go
to any expense to accomplish what they desire.
It is this intense yearning to speak again with those that have left us,
on the part of the bereaved, that has led to chicanery on the part of
media in order to gratify it. Wherever money is to be made,
unfortunately cheating will step in; but because some tradesmen will
sell you brass for gold is no reason to vote all jewellers thieves. The
account of the raising of Samuel by the witch of Endor is an instance
that my argument is correct. The witch was evidently an impostor, for
she had no expectation of seeing Samuel, and was frightened by the
apparition she had evoked; but Spiritualism must be a truth, because it
was Samuel himself who appeared and rebuked Saul for calling him back to
this earth. What becomes, in the face of this story, of the impassable
gulf between the earthly and spiritual spheres? That atheists who
believe in nothing should not believe in Spiritualism is credible,
natural, and consistent. But that Christians should reject the theory is
tantamount to acknowledging that they found their hopes of salvation
upon a lie. There is no way of getting out of it. If it be _impossible_
that the spirits of the departed can communicate with men, the Bible
must be simply a collection of fabulous statements; if it be _wrong_ to
speak with spirits, all the men whose histories are therein related were
sinners, and the Almighty helped them to sin; and if all the spirits who
have been heard and seen and touched in modern times are devils sent on
earth to lure us to our destruction, how are we to distinguish between
them and the Greatest Spirit of all, who walked with mortal Adam and Eve
in the garden of Eden. "O! yes!" I think I hear somebody cry, "but that
was in the Bible;" as if the Bible were a period or a place. And did it
ever strike you that there is something else recorded in the Bible? "And
He did not many miracles there because of their _unbelief_." And yet
Christ came to call "not the righteous but the sinners to repentance."
Surely, then, the unbelieving required the conviction of the miracles
more than those who knew Him to be God. Yet there He did them not,
_because_ of their unbelief, because their _scepticism_ produced a
condition in which miracles could not be wrought. And yet the nineteenth
century is surprised because a sceptic, whose jarring element upsets all
union and harmony, is not an acceptable addition to a spiritual meeting,
and that the miracles of the present--gross and feeble, compared to
those of the past, because worked by grosser material though grosser
agents--ceased to be manifested when his unbelief intrudes itself upon
them.