A GHOSTLY CONFERENCE.
A distinct and well-marked epoch is reached in the history of any
particular set of opinions when its adherents begin to organize and
confer, and the individual tenets become the doctrines of a party. Such
a culmination has been attained by the believers in Modern Spiritualism.
For a long while after the date of the now historical Rochester
Rappings, the manifestations were mostly individual, and in a great
degree limited to such exercises as Mr. Home's elongation, Mrs. Guppy's
flight from Highbury to Lamb's Conduit Street, or, more recently still,
the voices and manipulations of John and Katie King, the orations of
Mrs. Hardinge, Mr. Morse, and Mrs. Tappan. But all this was spasmodic,
and not likely to take the world by storm, while Spiritualists had
adopted the time-honoured maxim--"Magna est veritas et prevalebit."
Therefore they must organize. They have done so, not without protest on
the part of some of the most noted of their adherents; but the majority
carried the day, and the result is the British National Association of
Spiritualists, which has recently been sitting in solemn conclave at
its first Annual Conference in Lawson's Rooms, Gower Street.
Now I plead guilty to being greatly interested in this subject of
Spiritualism generally, and in the doings of the Conference in
particular. I cannot help thinking that clergymen and scientists ought
to look into any set of opinions whose professors have attained the
dimensions of this body. Their doctrines have spread and are spreading.
Already the Spiritualists number among them such men as Mr. Alfred
Wallace, Mr. Varley, Mr. Crookes, Mr. S. C. Hall, &c., and are extending
their operations amongst all classes of society, notably among the
higher. I could even name clergymen of all denominations who hold
Spiritualistic views, but refrain, lest it should seem invidious, though
I cannot see why it should be incongruous for the clergy to examine
doctrines which profess to amplify rather than supplant those of
revelation, any more than I can why scientists stand aloof from what
professes to be a purely positive philosophy, based upon the inductive
method. So it is, however; Spiritualism is heterodox at once in its
religious and philosophical aspects. I suppose that is why it had such
special attraction for me. Certain it is, I have been following the
ghostly conference like a devotee.
We began on Monday evening with a musical soirée at the Beethoven Rooms,
in Harley Street; and there was certainly nothing ghostly or sepulchral
in our opening day; only then there was nothing very spiritualistic
either. For a long time I thought it was going to be all tea and muffins
and pianoforte. By-and-by, however, Mr. Algernon Joy read a report of
the organization, which was rather more interesting than reports
generally are, and Mr. Benjamin Coleman, a venerable gentleman, the
father of London Spiritualists, delivered a Presidential address. Still
there were no ghosts--not even a spirit rap to augment the applause
which followed the speakers. Once my hopes revived when two new physical
mediums, with letters of recommendation from Chicago, were introduced,
and I expected to see the young gentlemen elongate or float round the
room; but nothing of the kind occurred; and a young lady dashed my hopes
to the ground by singing "The Nightingale's Trill." Mr. Morse gave an
address in the trance state--as I was afterwards informed; but he looked
and spoke so like an ordinary mortal that I should not have found out
that he was in an abnormal condition.
I fear I went home from Harley Street not quite in so harmonious a frame
of mind as could have been wished.
The next morning (Wednesday) Dr. Gully presided at the opening of the
Conference proper in Gower Street, where the rooms were more like vaults
and smelt earthy. The President ably enough summarized the objections
which had been raised to the Association, and also the objects it
proposed to itself. He said:--"If the Association keeps clear of
dogmatic intrusion, then will there be no fear of its becoming
sectarian. Already, however, there is a signal of dogmatism among
Spiritualists--and already the dogmatizers call themselves by another
name. But the Association has nothing to do with this. It knows its
function to be the investigation of facts, and of facts only; and, as
was said, no sect was ever yet framed on undoubted facts. Now what are
the facts of Spiritualism up to this date? They are reducible to
two:--1st. The continued life and individuality of the spirit body of
man after it has quitted its body of flesh; and, 2nd. Its communion with
spirits still in the flesh, under certain conditions, by physical
exhibition and mental impression. Spirit identity cannot be regarded yet
as an established fact--at all events, not so as to warrant us in
building upon it."
I was agreeably surprised with the moderate tone of this address; and
after a brief theological discussion, Mr. W. H. Harrison, the editor of
the _Spiritualist_, followed with a paper on Organization. I do not know
what Mr. Harrison was not for organizing. Libraries, reading-rooms,
colleges, everything was to be spiritualized. Later in the day there was
a paper on Physical Manifestations. I should have preferred the
manifestations without the paper, for I fear I am a poor believer at
second hand. The reader told some "stumping" stories. Here is one as a
specimen--spiritual in more senses than one:--
"One evening I accompanied the Davenports to Mr. Guppy's residence in
Great Marlborough Street. After supper Ira, the eldest of the brothers,
Mr. Guppy, and myself, adjourned to a dark room, which Mr. Guppy had had
prepared for experimental purposes. To get to this room we had to pass
through a room that served the combined purposes of a sculptor's studio
and a billiard room. Emerging from this room we came into a yard, in one
corner of which the dark cabinet in question was constructed. Taking our
seats, we extinguished the light. Mr. Guppy was at the time smoking a
cigar. This was at once taken from his hand, and carried in the air,
where it could be seen by the light given out by its combustion. Some
whisky and water was standing on the table. This was handed to us to
drink. When it came to my turn, I found there was but little left in the
glass. This I pointed out. The glass was forthwith taken from my mouth,
and replenished and brought back again."
On Thursday Mr. Everitt read a paper on Direct Writing by Spirits,
telling us that on one occasion nine hundred and thirty-six words were
written in six seconds. Mr. Everitt must be a bold man--I don't mean
altogether for asking us to believe that, but for saying what he did
about the medium, who was his wife:--"There are many considerations why
it would be impossible for the medium to have produced these writings.
For instance, we have sixteen papers upon the same subject, and in those
papers there are a great many ancient authors referred to. Mrs. Everitt
has never read or seen a single book of any of these authors, and, with
a few exceptions, their names had never been heard by her before, much
less did she know the age they lived in, the country they belonged to,
the works they had written, or the arguments made use of for the defence
of their doctrines and teachings. Besides the above reasons there are
physical and mental difficulties which preclude the possibility of their
being produced by the medium. The physical impossibility is the
marvellous rapidity of their production, as many as 936 words having
been written in six seconds. The mental difficulty is that the medium
has not a logical mind. Like most females, she takes a short cut by
jumping to conclusions. She does not, indeed cannot, argue out any
proposition by the ordinary rules of logic. Now the papers referred to
show that the author or authors are not only well acquainted with
ancient lore and the classics, but also possessed very high ability as
logicians. For the above reasons we conclude that the medium, from sheer
incapacity, both mentally and physically, could not have written these
papers, nor any other human being under the same circumstances. We are
therefore absolutely driven, after looking at the subject from every
conceivable point of view, to conclude respecting their production that
they came from a supernatural source, and were produced by supernatural
means."
In the afternoon of this day a clergyman, whose name it would be highly
indecorous in me to mention, descanted on the aspect of Spiritualism
from his point of view in the Church of England. I understood the
purport of the paper to be (1) that he claimed the right of members of
the Church of England to investigate the phenomena; (2) that, if
convinced of their spiritual origin, such conviction need not shake the
investigator's previous faith. If the clergyman in question really said
no more than the printed reports of the Conference represent him to have
done, he rather reversed the conduct of Balaam, and cursed those he came
to bless. This is the curt résumé that went forth:--
"The Rev. ---- read a paper, in which he defined his position with
regard to Spiritualism as that of a mere inquirer, adding that even if
he became convinced of its truth, he saw no reason why he should alter
the opinions he at present held as a clergyman of the Church of England.
After eighteen months' inquiry into the subject, however, he was,
perhaps, more of a sceptic than before." If that was all the clergyman
in question had to say for the Association, they must rather regret they
ever "organized" him, and might well pray to be saved from their
friends; but I heard it whispered--presumably by a spirit voice--that
there had been a passage at arms between the lady secretary and the
clergyman in question, and that Miss--but no, I must not mention
names--the fair official punished the delinquent that most awful
penalty--silence.
Friday finished the Conference with a trance paper--I did not know there
were such things--dictated to Mrs. Cora Tappan by invisible guides, and
was read by Miss--I mean by the fair incognita above-mentioned. Not a
manifestation--literally not the ghost of one--only this very glowing
peroration:--"But it is in a larger sense of social, mental, political,
and even religious renovation, that Spiritualism is destined to work its
chief results. The abrogation of the primal terror of mankind, the most
ancient spectre in the world of thought, grim and shadowy Death, is, in
itself, so vital a change that it constitutes a revolution in the world
of mind. Chemistry has already revealed the wonderful fact that no
ultimate atom can perish. The subtle chemistry of Spiritualism steps in
where science ceases, gathering up the ultimate atoms of thought into a
spiritual entity and proving them imperishable. Already has this thought
pervaded the popular mind, tinged the decaying forms of theology and
external science with its glow, and made the life of man a heritage of
immortal glory. More than this, taking spirit as the primal basis of
life, each individual, and all members of society and humanity in the
aggregate, must for ever strive to express its highest life (i.e. the
life of the spirit). The child will be taught from within, external
methods being employed only as aids, but never as dictators of thought.
Society will be the flowing out of spiritual truths, taking shape and
substance as the expression of the soul. Governments will be the
protecting power of a parent over loving children, instead of the
dictates of force or tyranny. Religion will wear its native garb of
simplicity and truth, the offspring of the love and faith that gave it
birth. Modern Spiritualism is as great a solvent of creeds, dogmas,
codes, scientific sophisms, as is the sunlight of the substances
contained in earth and air, revealing by the stages of intermediate
life, from man, through spirits, angels, archangels, seraphim, and
cherubim, to God, the glorious destiny of every soul. There is a vine
growing in the islands of the tropic seas that thrives best upon the
ancient ruins or crumbling walls of some edifice built by man; yet ever
as it thrives, the tiny tendrils penetrate between the fibres of the
stone, cutting and cutting till the whole fabric disappears, leaving
only the verdant mass of the foliage of the living vine. Spiritualism is
to the future humanity what this vine is to the ancient ruin."
There was another paper coming on "Compound Consciousness," but the
title did not attract me. After my four days' patient waiting for ghosts
who never came and spirits that would not manifest, I felt, perhaps, a
little impatient, put on my hat and left abruptly--the fair secretary,
of whom I shall evermore stand in supreme awe, scowling at me when I did
so. As I passed into Gower Street--sweet, serene Gower Street, sacred
from the wheels of profane cabmen, I was almost surprised to see the
"materialized" forms around me; and it really was not until I got well
within sound--and smell--of the Underground Railway that I quite
realized my abased position, or got out of the spheres whither the lofty
periods of Mrs. Tappan's paper, so mellifluously delivered, had wafted
me!