mediumship, as follows:—
“I saw that one great cause of the moral looseness of thousands of
sensitive-nerved people on earth, resulted from the infernal
possessions and obsessions of their persons by delegations from
those realms of darkness and (to all but themselves) unmitigated
horror. A sensitive man or woman—no matter how virtuously
inclined—may, unless by constant prayer and watchfulness they
prevent it and keep the will active and the sphere entire, be led
into the most abominable practices and habits.”
This same writer, in the same work, pp. 108, 109, says:—
“Those ill-meaning ones who live just beyond the threshold, often
obtain their ends by subtly infusing a semi-sense of volitional
power into the minds of their intended victims, so that at last
they come to believe themselves to be self-acting, when in fact
they are the merest shuttlecocks bandied about between the
battledores of knavish devils on one side, and devilish knaves
upon the other, and between the two the poor fallen wretches are
nearly heart-reft and destroyed.”
A work by A. J. Davis called “The Diakka, and their Earthly Victims,”
mentions the nature of these denizens of the spirit world, and their
wonderful location. The country (to speak after the manner of men) which
they inhabit, is so large that it would require not less than 1,803,026
diameters of the earth to span its longitudinal extent. This he had from a
spirit he calls James Victor Wilson, a profound mathematician! This space
is occupied by spirits who have passed from earth, who are “morally
deficient, and affectionally unclean.”—_Page_ 7. The same spirit, Wilson,
describes the diakka as those “who take insane delight in playing parts,
in juggling tricks, in personating opposite characters to whom prayers and
profane utterances are of equi-value; surcharged with a passion for
lyrical narrations; one whose every attitude is instinct with the schemes
of specious reasoning, sophistry, pride, pleasure, wit, subtle
convivialities; a boundless disbeliever, one who thinks that all private
life will end in the all-consuming self-love of God.”—_Page 13._ On page
13 he says further of them, that they are “never resting, never satisfied
with life, often amusing themselves with jugglery and tricky witticisms,
invariably victimizing others; secretly tormenting mediums, causing them
to exaggerate in speech, and to falsify in acts; unlocking and unbolting
the street doors of your bosom and memory; pointing your feet into wrong
paths, and far more.”
What this “far more” is, we are left to conjecture. The advertisement of
this book says that it is “an explanation of much that is false and
repulsive in Spiritualism.” W. F. Jamieson, in a Spiritualist paper,
called these diakka “a troop of devils,” and quoted Judge Carter as
saying: “There is one thing clear, that these diakka, or fantastic or
mixed spirits, are very numerous and abundant, and take any and every
opportunity of obtruding themselves.”
Hudson Tuttle, author of “Life in Two Spheres” and other Spiritualistic
works, speaks of “a communication, through a noted medium, to Gerald
Massey from his ‘dog Pip,’ the said Pip ‘licking the slate and writing
with a good degree of intelligence.’ ” He adds, “Mr. Davis would say that
‘Pip’ was a ‘diakka,’ and to-morrow he will communicate as George
Washington, Theodore Parker, or Balaam’s ass. This diakka is flesh, fish,
or fowl, as you may desire.”
Some idea of how the spirits sometimes torment the mediums, as hinted at
above, may be gained from the following instance. In “Astounding Facts
from the Spirit World,” pp. 253, 254, Dr. Gridley describes the case of a
medium sixty years of age, living near him in Southampton, Mass. The
sufferings inflicted upon him “in two months at the hands of evil spirits
would fill a volume of five hundred pages.” Of these sufferings, the
following are specimens:—
“They forbade his eating, to the very point of starvation. He was
a perfect skeleton; they compelled him to walk day and night, with
intermissions, to be sure, as their avowed object was to torment
him as much and as long as possible. They swore by everything
sacred and profane, that they would knock his brains out, always
accompanying their threats with blows on the forehead or temples,
like that of a mallet in the hands of a powerful man, with this
difference, however; the latter would have made him unconscious,
while in full consciousness he now endured the indescribable agony
of those heavy and oft-repeated blows; they declared they would
skin him alive; that he must go to New York and be dissected by
inches, all of which he fully believed. They declared that they
would bore holes into his brain, when he instantly felt the action
suited to the word, as though a dozen augers were being turned at
once into his very skull; this done, they would fill his brain
with bugs and worms to eat it out, when their gnawing would
instantly commence. These spirits would pinch and pound him,
twitch him up and throw him down, yell and blaspheme, and use the
most obscene language that mortals can conceive; they would
declare that they were Christ in one breath, and devils in the
next; they would tie him head to foot for a long time together in
a most excruciating posture; declare they would wring his neck off
because he doubted or refused obedience.”
Who can doubt that such spirits are the angels of the evil one himself?
Dr. Gridley in the same work, p. 19, gives the experience of another
medium, for the truthfulness of which he offers the fullest proof:—
“We have seen the medium evidently possessed by Irishmen and
Dutchmen of the lowest grade—heard him repeat Joshua’s drunken
prayers [Joshua was a strong but brutish man he had known in
life], exactly like the original,—imitate his drunkenness in word
and deed—try to repeat, or rather act over his most brutal deeds
(from which for decency’s sake, he was instantly restrained by
extraordinary exertion and severe rebuke)—snap and grate his teeth
most furiously, strike and swear, while his eyes flashed like the
fires of an orthodox perdition. We have heard him hiss, and seen
him writhe his body like the serpent when crawling, and dart out
his tongue, and play it exactly like that reptile. These
exhibitions were intermingled with the most wrangling and horrible
convulsions.”
These descriptions, it would seem, ought to be enough to strike terror to
any heart at the thought of being a medium. But there is yet another phase
of the subject that should not be passed by. These fallen spirits who are
engineering the work of Spiritualism, to maintain their “assumed
characters,” and “play their parts” like the aforesaid diakka, represent
that disembodied spirits “just over the threshold,” still retain the
characteristics they bore in life, such as a disposition to sensuality and
licentiousness, love of rum, tobacco, and other vices, and that they can,
by causing the medium to plunge excessively into these things, thereby
still gratify their own propensities to indulge in them. The following
sketch by Hudson Tuttle, a very popular author among Spiritualists, is
somewhat lengthy, but the idea could not better be presented than by
giving it entire. In “Life in Two Spheres,” pp. 35-37, he says:—
“Reader, have you ever entered the respectable saloon? Have you
ever watched the stupid stare of the inebriate when the eye grew
less and less lustrous, slowly closing, the muscles relaxing, and
the victim of appetite sinking over on the floor in beastly
drunkenness? Oh, how dense the fumes of mingled tobacco and
alcohol! Oh, what misery confined in those walls! If you have
witnessed such scenes, then we need describe no further. If you
have not, then you had not better hear the tale of woe. Imagine to
yourselves a bar-room with all its sots, and their number
multiplied indefinitely, while conscience-seared and bloated
fiends stand behind the bar, from whence they deal out death and
damnation, and the picture is complete. _One has just arrived from
earth._ He is yet uninitiated in the mysteries and miseries of
those which, like hungry lions, await him. He died while
intoxicated—was frozen while lying in the gutter, and consequently
is attracted toward this society. He possessed a good intellect,
but it was shattered beyond repair by his debauches.
“ ‘Ye ar’ a fresh one, aint ye?’ coarsely queried a sot, just then
particularly communicative.
“ ‘Why, yes, I have just died, as they call it, and ’taint so bad
a change after all; only I suppose there’ll be dry times here for
the want of something stimulant.’
“ ‘Not so dry; lots of that all the time, and jolly times too.’
“ ‘Drink! Can you drink, then?’
“ ‘Yes, we just can, and feel as nice as you please. But all
can’t, not unless they find one on earth just like them. You go to
earth, and mix with your chums; and when you find one whose
thoughts you can read, he’s your man. Form a connection with him,
and when he gets to feeling _good_, you’ll feel so too.—There, do
you understand me? I always tell all fresh ones the glorious news,
for how they would suffer if it wasn’t for this blessed thing.’
“ ‘I’ll try, no mistake.’
“ ‘Here’s a covey,’ spoke an ulcerous-looking being; ‘he’s of our
stripe. Tim, did you hear what an infernal scrape I got into last
night? No, you didn’t. Well, I went to our friend Fred’s; he
didn’t want to drink when I found him; his dimes looked so
extremely large. Well, I _destroyed that feeling_, and made him
think he was dry. He drank, and drank, more than I wanted him to,
until I was so drunk that I could not break my connection with
him, or control his mind. He undertook to go home, fell into the
snow, and came near freezing to death. I suffered awfully, ten
times as much as when I died.’... Reader, we draw the curtain over
scenes like these, such as are daily occurring in this society.”
In these cases the whole evil of the indulgences of course falls upon the
mediums; and who would wish to assume personal relation with such a world,
and be forced to bear in their own bodies the evils of the unhallowed
indulgences of unseen spirits, against their will?
Other scenes represented as taking place in the spirit land, are most
grotesque and silly and would be taken as a burlesque upon Spiritualism,
were they not put forth in all gravity by the friends and advocates of
that so-called new revelation. Thus Judge Edmunds, giving an account of
what he had seen in the spirit world, mentions the case of an old woman
busy churning, who promised him, if he would call again, a drink of
buttermilk; he speaks of men fighting, of courtezans trying to continue
their lewd conduct; of a mischievous boy who split a dog’s tail open, and
put a stick in it, just to witness its misery; of the owner of the dog,
who, attracted by its cries, discovered the cause, and beat the boy, who
fled, but was pursued and beaten and kicked far up the road. See Edmund’s
“Spiritualism,” Vol. II, pp. 135-144, 181, 182, 186, 189. Surely here are
the diakka playing their pranks in all their glory.
Miscellaneous Teaching.
On the leading points of faith as held by Christians generally, quotations
have been given to show sufficiently what the spirits teach, and the
object they are trying to effect. But the reader will be interested to
learn what they teach on some other points which incidentally appear in
their communications.
Spiritualists object most strenuously to the idea of unconsciousness in
death, or to the Bible declaration, “The dead know not anything.” But the
spirits themselves teach this very thing. Thus Judge Edmunds, Vol. II,
Appendix B, p. 524, quotes the confession of a spirit that he was totally
unconscious for a time, he could not tell how long, and awoke to
consciousness gradually; and that the state of unconsciousness differs
with different persons, depending on circumstances. A. J. Davis admits
that Professor Webster was eight days and a half unconscious.—_“__Death
and the After Life,__”__ pp. 18, 19._
Through Mrs. Conant, medium, in _Banner of Light_, June 3, 1865, we have
this information: “It is said that some spirits require a thousand years
to awake to consciousness. Is this true?—Yes, this is true.” In “Automatic
Writing,” p. 93, the spirits teach the same thing to-day. If others deny
such statements, it only shows that their testimony is contradictory and
therefore unreliable.
Again, the Bible doctrine that the incorrigibly wicked must cease from
conscious existence, is denounced by Spiritualists; but on this point the
spirits confess also:—
“_Ques._—Do I understand you to say that a diakka is one who
believes in ultimate annihilation?
“_Ans._—Only yesterday one said to a lady medium, signing himself
‘Swedenborg,’ this: ‘Whatsoever is, has been, will be, or may be,
_that_ I AM, and private life is but the aggregative phantasms of
thinking throblets rushing in their rising onward to the central
heart of eternal death.’—_“__Diakka__”__ p. 11._
“_Q._—Does every human being continue life on higher planes?
“_A._—Shall not all who are abortions die?”
“_Q._—Do you mean that some born on this plane may spiritually die
from lack of force to persist?
“_A._—Yes—both women and men are born into the divine humanity who
must necessarily perish, because they have not sufficient soul
strength to persist.”—_“__Automatic Writing,__”__ pp. 101, 102._
There is, it seems, a purgatory in the spirit world. In answer to a
question, a spirit replied:—
“There is a sphere in spirit life allotted to those who leave the
earthly plane in spiritual ignorance, which is _not pleasing_ to
dwell upon, yet which is absolutely necessary to spiritual soul
growth.”—_Id., p. 90._
Spiritualism is claimed to settle the question of immortality; but the
spirits confess themselves ignorant of it:—
“_Ques._—On your plane do you arrive at certainty in regard to
immortality?
“_Ans._—We here are as _ignorant as you are_ as to the ultimate of
existence. Immortality is still an _undetermined issue_. One life
at a time seems as pertinent with us as with you.”—_Id., p. 103._
The spirits’ heaven, it seems, is not so desirable a place that it
prevents their being homesick.
“_Ques._—Why are you homesick?
“_Ans._—Have not found out the real reason; things are so
different from former ideas.”—_Id., p. 111._
Spirits are not allowed to tell too much about their condition, as the
following question and answer show:—
“_Ques._—Can’t you tell us what makes it pleasanter,—describe so
we can understand?
“_Ans._—You’ll find out as I did—_’gainst the rules here to
tell_.... Just be patient—it’s all easy enough when you learn how.
I was puzzled, but it all seems straight enough now.”—_Id., p.
115._
They teach the pre-existence of souls, and the old pagan doctrines of the
reincarnation of souls, and the final absorption of all into Nirvana. A
spirit having answered that all had been asserted in some other form,
questions and answers followed from which we quote:—
“_Q._—Is that statement an intimation of the truth of
reincarnation?
“_A._—Souls of all who have preceded you are centered in you in
spite of your childish protests. Ask not of those predecessors;
for they yet live in you, and you in them.... Long ago you and I
went over the ground under eminent names.... Were not we together
when Socrates and Aspasia talked?”—_Id., pp. 151, 152._
“_Q._—Can you tell us, at least, whether spirit, as a whole or in
its individual atoms, exists eternally?
“_A._—Yes; spirit as a whole is eternal—exists—did exist—by force
of Powers you cannot understand. But you as individual,
self-conscious, atomistic particles of spirit wholeness, are not
eternal, and must return to the Primal Source.”—_Id., p. 133._
Spirits Cannot Be Identified.
Having now sufficiently examined the teaching of the spirits, a final
question arises in regard to them, whether it is possible to identify
them, and determine with any absolute certainty whether they are the
spirits of the particular individuals they claim to be, or even spirits of
the dead at all, or not. It should be distinctly borne in mind, always,
that evil angels, whose existence has been proved from the Bible, whose
nature and delight is to deceive, can walk the earth unseen, imitate and
personate any individual, and reveal their characteristics of thought,
writing, acts, form, and features, and make so perfect a counterfeit as to
defy detection. How, then, can it be told what spirit it is, even though
it shows the face and features of some well-known friend? On this topic,
as on preceding questions, Spiritualists themselves may produce the
evidence. President Mahan (“Discussion with Tiffany and Rhen,” p. 13)
remarks:—
“Certain experiments have been made, in order to determine whether
spirits are present. Individuals go in as inquirers, and get
definite answers—in the first place, from _departed spirits_ of
persons _yet living_; in the second place, from departed spirits
of persons who _never existed_ here or anywhere else; in the third
place, from the departed spirits of brute beasts.”
When it is considered, as already noted, that spirits do their work
through mesmeric power, it is easy to understand how the medium is made to
believe that such and such a spirit is communicating when it is not so at
all. This question of identity came up in the very early stages of
Spiritualism, and is no nearer settled, on their own confession, now than
then. A Mr. Hobart, in 1856, who claimed to be the first Spiritualist in
Michigan, made the following admission:—
“The spirit sometimes _assumes_ the name of an individual
belonging to the same church, to induce them to hear. This is
necessary with some who are so bigoted they would not believe
unless a name was assumed which they respected.”
An article in the _Spiritual Telegraph_, of July 11, 1857, begins as
follows:—
“The question is continually being asked, especially by novitiates
in spiritual investigations, How shall we know that the spirits
who communicate with us are really the ones whom they purport to
be?... In giving the results of our own experience and observation
upon this subject, we would premise that spirits unquestionably
can, and often do, personate other spirits, and that, too, often
with such perfection as, for the time being, to defy every effort
to detect the deception.... If direct tests are demanded at all,
we would recommend that they be asked for the purpose of proving
that the manifesting influence is that of _a spirit_, rather than
to prove what _particular_ spirit is the agent of its production.”
This is an entire begging of the whole matter in question; for it is not
denied that it is _a_ spirit; we want to know what _particular_ spirit it
is; but for that we must not ask; for it cannot be ascertained. The same
article states that other and lower spirits often crowd in and take the
place of the spirit communicating, without the knowledge of the medium. We
might also quote “Spiritualism as It Is,” p. 14, that “not one per cent.
of the manifestations have had a higher origin than the first and second
spheres, which are filled with low, ignorant, deceptive, mischievous,
selfish, egotistical spirits;” and “Dealings with the Dead,” p. 225, that
“the fact is, good spirits do not appear one tenth as often as imagined.”
Jan. 7, 1888, the following appeared in the _Banner of Light_:—
“_Ques._—What is the cause of our receiving inconsistent and
untruthful communications? Does the blame, if any there is, rest
with us or the controlling intelligence?
“_Ans._—There are spirits who delight in imposing upon mortals;
they realize their power outside of material things, and that
those who seek knowledge from them _cannot see nor get hold of
them_; therefore to an extent they exercise a certain power over
those mortals who approach; and if the mortals are themselves
tricky by nature, insincere, ready to take advantage of others,
whether it be at the time of sitting or in their daily life, rest
assured they may be imposed upon by spirits from the other side
who occupy a like plane of existence with themselves.”
Mediums themselves will not trust the spirits, according to statements
made as late as 1896. Mrs. S. A. Underwood, medium, in “Automatic
Writing,” p. 55, says:—
“With all my experience in it, I would not to-day venture upon any
change, business venture, friendship, or line of conduct, advised
from this source, unless my own common material sense endorsed it.
Indeed, I would not take as fact any of its even reasonable advice
without question, because it is not reliable as a guide in earthly
affairs.”
Spirit communication, then, certainly does not amount to much as a
heavenly instructor, a celestial guide to enlighten the ignorance of men.
Whatever we know ourselves, we may rely upon; all else is uncertain.
Again, on p. 56, she says:—
“Then the assumption of great names by apparently common-place
minds is a very strange thing. I was horrified and annoyed when
this occurred under my own hand, because that is one of the things
which disgusted me with spiritual messages before this writing
came to me, as I had occasionally glanced over such messages. When
I protested against such assumption, I was told that ‘Elaine and
Guinevere’ were not real beings, but types. So somewhere in our
sphere are spirits who embody cleverness in creations of their own
fancy, and adopt names suited to that fancy.”
Thus the spirits themselves confess that the names they often assume are
not those of real beings, but typical and fanciful. Nothing more, it would
seem, is necessary to complete the condemnation of Spiritualism, so far as
its own nature is concerned. When in addition to all else, it appears that
the spirits cannot be identified; that the whole underlying claim that the
spirits are the spirits of the dead, must itself be assumed; and that,
too, in the face of the numberless known falsehoods and deceptions that
are constantly issuing from the unseen realm,—there is nothing left for it
to stand upon.
Chapter Six.
ITS PROMISES: HOW FULFILLED.
It is fair to call Spiritualism to account as to the fulfilment of the
promises involved in its challenge to the world when it stepped upon the
stage of action. No movement ever opened with more magnificent promises.
It posed before the world as an angel of heavenly light. It claimed to be
the second coming of Christ. It claimed to have been sent to regenerate
mankind, and renovate the world. We give herewith a few of its
spirit-inspired pretensions. Its “Declaration of Principles,” Article 20,
says:—
“The hearty and intelligent convictions of these truths [the
teachings of spirits] tend to energize the soul in all that is
good and elevating, and to restrain from all that is evil and
impure, ... to quicken all philanthropic impulses, stimulating to
enlightened and unselfish labors for universal good.”
In behalf of the cause of woman it says:—
“Spiritualism has done more for the advancement of true womanhood
than the Church or any of its accessories.”—_Dr. Watson, in Banner
of Light, April 16, 1887._
Miss A. L. Lull, in the _Religio-Philosophical Journal_ of Jan. 23, 1886,
said:—
“Spiritualism is the saviour of humanity, because it is reaching
out toward the criminal, and in its effort to lift humanity to a
higher plane, it is laying the foundation for future
generations.... Spiritualism comes to cleanse out the dregs and
wretchedness of humanity.”
Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond, in a mediumistic discourse reported in the
_Banner of Light_, April 3, 1886, said:—