CHAPTER VII.

Spiritualism. Any reference to Spiritualism here must be very brief, and, I am afraid, very incomplete. I will deal with the subject in the light of the preceding chapters. It has been established on the clearest evidence that thought-transference and reception between two nearly harmonised or sympathetic human beings, or embodied human spirits, are possible, and this without intermediate sense or physical agencies. If, then, between mind and mind on earth, distance or space being no obstacle, matter no hindrance, why not between mind disincarnate--if we can conceive of mind apart from the human brain and organism--and mind incarnate? If not, why not? It seems to me very difficult, if we accept the first, to reject the latter conclusion. If we accept the latter, we are committed in the main to belief in Spiritualism, ancient and modern. If we admit that it is possible for a disembodied spirit to communicate with us in dream, vision, or, as in the case of Miss Howett, have our hands influenced to write, or that we see and converse with spirits, as in the case of Mary Reynolds, we then admit, and accept in the main, the essential features of what is known as Spiritualism. The subject is not only interesting, but of vital importance; therefore, I think, the fear of being called a “Spiritualist,” or any other name, should not prevent us sounding to the depths, the psychic possibilities of our human nature. THE SPIRIT WITHIN US. There is Spiritualism _and_ Spiritualism. That which I am most interested in is not so much a hankering after spirits, “spirit controls,” and the phenomena, generally recognised as the right thing in certain circles, as that other Spiritualism which leads to an honest endeavour on our parts to ascertain if we are spirits, here and now, albeit clothed for the time being in an organic envelope, relating us to our present estate. If we are embodied spirits, it will be possible for the spirit-man (the essential self--_ego_, I am), in each human being to communicate at times, and under certain fitting conditions, with other fellow-beings, under such circumstances, and in such a way, as to make it clear:-- (_a._) That the communications could not have been transmitted and received by the ordinary channels, or physical sense organs, which in ordinary circumstances appear essential to our exchange of thought. (_b._) That the exchange of thought, in independence of the ordinary sense channels, will demonstrate that man must possess other, extraordinary or psychic, organs for the transmission and the reception of thought. Both positions I have endeavoured to sustain on the foregoing pages; and, lastly, concerning spiritualism, I have arrived at the profound conclusion that spirit-communion--that is, thought transmission from the disembodied to the embodied--is a solemn fact. After carefully eliminating all the possibilities of self-deception--auto-trance, discreet degrees of consciousness, of natural and acquired clairvoyance, of thought-transference and mind-reading, and lastly, the puerile performances of conjurors and the simulated phenomena of tricksters--there remains evidence of disembodied or disincarnate spirit, and of such control influencing and directing the actions of men, just as one man in this life influences and directs the actions of another. What I esteem, however, as satisfactory evidence might not be evidence to another; and I for one do not think it necessary to open up the life chambers of my psychic experiences to the indifferent, the thoughtless, or the sceptic, to furnish the desired evidence. Others must travel by the way I have come to understand something of that way. All men cannot believe alike, hence it will not be surprising that some will accept as sufficient evidence of spirit what others would deem insufficient. It is not my intention meantime to advocate spiritualism. I only refer to it, in so far as it is related to “How to Thought-Read.” However, phenomenal spiritualism is not a matter of belief so much as of evidence, and many eminent thinkers have been compelled by the force of the evidence to accept spiritualism now, who, a quarter of a century ago, would have hesitated, principally through fear of ridicule, to speak of the subject in language of ordinary civility. While I am convinced that such communications between the so-called dead and the living are possible, I do know and feel satisfied that much which is accepted as evidence of the existence and influence of spirits by the majority of the unthinking and excitable crowd who rush after novelties, and perchance call themselves “spiritualists,” is traceable to no other or higher source than our own innate, but little understood, human or psychic powers. I have arrived at this conclusion also, as the result of carefully investigating spiritualism, and it is therefore not an _a priori_ hypothesis conveniently elaborated from my own or borrowed from the brains of others who are opponents to spiritualism. It is probable, had I not devoted the greater part of my life to spiritualism, as one of the factors in human character, I should have known but little of that sympathetic transference of thought from one mind to another, or of the light which that fact throws upon our dual or compound existence. In this “sympathetic transference of thought” we find a solution to the problem of spiritualism, whether old or new. I conclude, with Buffon, “The true springs of our organisation are _not_ these muscles, these veins, these arteries, which are described with so much exactness and care. There exist in organised bodies _internal forces_ which do not follow the gross mechanical laws we imagine, and to which we would reduce everything.” Or, as Laplace puts it more strongly--“Beyond the limits of this visible anatomy commences another anatomy, whose phenomena we cannot perceive; beyond the limits of this external physiology of forces, of action, and of motion, exists another _invisible physiology, whose principles, effects, and laws are of the greatest importance to know_.” It may be esteemed reprehensible to “seek communion with the dead;” but to know ourselves, to fathom this _invisible physiology_, whose principles, effects, and laws are of such importance to understand, I hold to be not only legitimate but perfectly laudable. How can we serve God, whom we have not seen, if we do not understand ourselves, whom we think we have seen, or the laws which govern our being, as created by him? To know ourselves as we should, we ought not to neglect the search for “the spirit within us.” THE REJECTION OF THE PSYCHIC. Many persons--scientific, theological, learned, and illiterate--reject the psychic, and refrain from investigating, either from constitutional bias or from crass ignorance; and such have played the part of learned Sadducees or low fellows of the baser sort before anything having the remotest flavour of spirit. The man of science is rendered purblind by “my hypothesis,” the theologian by “my belief,” the man of the world by “my business” or “my position.” The respectable church-goer--who vaccinates his children, as he has them baptised, because it is the proper thing to do--has neither head nor heart, apparently, to understand anything beyond the common ideas of the hour. He would crucify all new thought, or new spiritualism for that matter, as the Jews did Jesus, because the new doctrines promulgated and the new wonders performed tend to subvert the present respectable order of things. The worship of Diana is not confined to ancient Ephesus. The great Diana of old was the type of that “Respectable Custom” which the majority of mankind worship and obey to-day, because, as of yore, it conserves their vested interests, official connections, and brings them “much gain.” As for the man in the street--the multitude having no shepherd--he is always more or less hypnotised by the well-clad and well-fed, smug-faced worshippers of the aforesaid “Respectable Custom;” hence he is ever ready to shout “Crucify,” or “Hurrah,” or aught else he is influenced to do, especially if such exercises give him pleasure and excitement for the time being. He accepts or rejects as he sees “his betters” think best, and so, unfortunately, is unfitted to a large degree, for the intelligent investigation of his own nature. These form the largest group of rejectors of the phenomenal evidences of soul. The psychic, however, has suffered less from such rejectors than from those who claim to be recognised and known as converts and exponents of the same, who at best have only shown themselves to be “seekers after a sign.” They may have run into the wilderness and have had a bit of miraculous bread, and yet not be a pennyworth the better of it in either soul or body--_i.e._, life or conduct. These, by their foolishness, have prevented many well-meaning and otherwise able persons investigating the psychic, for the latter saw nothing in the lives of professed spiritualists to make them desire to have anything to do with spiritualism. Moreover, coming in contact with the iconoclastic in spiritualism, they have become disgusted with the crude and the coarse therein, as they have with the revelations, inspirations, and fads, advocated by certain mediums, and hence have rejected the wheat because of the apparent great quantity of tares. THE FRAUDULENT IN SPIRITUALISM. I am afraid the trend of modern civilisation, which leads men from the beauties and quietude of hill and dale, of valley and river side, into crowded city life, has tended to make men exoteric. They run after signs and wonders without, and too little to the spirit within. The broader view of being, and that self-culture and purity which arises from the exercise of man’s innate powers, and makes for true regeneration and spiritual progress, here and hereafter, have been more or less sacrificed to the external and the phenomenal. The love of the phenomenal, in and out of Spiritualism, has created a crowd of harpies, impostors, or fraudulent mediums--male and female--who trade on human credulity, some to earn a pittance, and others to gratify vanity. Men and women have been known to risk reputation for both. In this way Spiritualism has its quota of deceivers and deceived. There are some people who must have phenomena, just as there are other people who will have sermons. If they don’t get exactly what they want, they withdraw “their patronage”--the finances. So, if the patronage is to be retained, phenomena and sermons have to be supplied--if the first are fraudulent or the latter stolen. Seeing how fugitive real psychological phenomena are--natural or induced--one must necessarily hesitate to accept “trance addresses,” “inspirational orations,” “medical controls,” clairvoyant, and second-sight exhibitions, which are supplied to order, to gratify patrons, at so much per hour. It is human to err, but the manufacturer of spurious phenomena, the impostor who trades on the ties, and the dearest of human affections, is a devil. There is no iniquity too low--earthly or devilish--to which he will not as readily descend to gratify his vampirish nature. I am not disposed to accept the infallibility of spirits for that of Popes--large or small--or professional media, in place of professional priests and ministers, and there is by far too much of this in Spiritualism. In the foregoing connection, I must refer to another source of error--this time, however, more related to physical rather than psychic phenomena--viz., the credulity of those who are disposed to believe that certain conjurors are aided in their performances by spirit agency. Personally, I would sooner believe that mediums for “Physical Phenomena” resorted to conjuring to aid “spirits,” than believe that “spirits” resorted to “hanky-panky” to aid conjurors. No wonder “frauds” smile. Years ago I had to protest against this absurdity, when people--who ought to know better--talked this kind of nonsense about conjurors, as they do about certain fraudulent mediums now--viz., “they are aided by spirits.” Owing to this lack of discrimination and want of trained discernment in Spiritualists and the general public, mediumistic frauds have fooled, to their utmost bent, fresh groups of dupes at home and abroad. I am none the less disposed to accept the genuine, because we recognise sources of error connected therewith, and are determined to set our faces against palpable frauds. SPIRITUALISM WITHOUT SPIRITS. We may now turn from the wretched arena of imposture, duplicity, and credulity, to genuine, but little understood, phenomena in Spiritualism. We have seen that much which has been attributed to the agency of disembodied spirits is due, in many instances, to the action of man’s own psychic states, “the double, who is wiser than we,” and to the fact that, as often as not, trance states, automatic and planchette writing, are self-induced conditions. Equally so, clairvoyance, thought-transference, and psychometry do not require the “agency of spirit” to account for their existence as “gifts,” qualities or powers. It will be time enough to admit such agency--that of disembodied spirit--when the evidence in each particular case is reasonably conclusive. I think this is the only wise and safe course to pursue. Clairvoyance may be native or induced, self-cultivated or cultivated by aid of a mesmerist. As it has been exercised naturally, and without any such aid, the exhibition of clairvoyance--in itself--is no evidence of disembodied spirit-presence or control. Equally, the seeing of, and the describing of, spirits by a clairvoyant--even if the descriptions are apparently accurate--may present no evidence of the real presence of such spirits. I do not deny that clairvoyants can see spirits, but the mere fact of being able to see and describe spirits, is not sufficient evidence--the _seer_ is controlled by spirit-power to see, or that the spirits described are actually _bona-fide_ spirits. Frequently, so-called spirits have no other existence than the image of them possessed by some positive-minded individual. A clairvoyant, _perceiving_ these images, might naturally enough conclude she was actually seeing the spirits which she described. If Mr. Stead, for instance, is convinced that “Sister Dora,” “Cardinal Manning,” or “Lord Tennyson,” are at his side, in his rooms, influencing and directing his mind, or at other times actually controlling his arm and hand to write, a clairvoyant in sympathy with him may describe this or that other spirit he is _thinking_ about. But that does not prove the spirit or spirits are actually present. A lady (Mrs. Davis), whose name has come prominently before the public as Mr. Stead’s clairvoyante, being questioned as to Mr. Stead’s automatic writing and her own gift, said:--“I know probably more about that than anyone. I was in his office some time in the beginning of December last regarding the forthcoming publication of a book of mine concerning spiritualism. The conversation turned upon spiritualistic automatic handwriting. I did not know the deceased lady who was writing through him, but I saw her behind his chair as distinctly as if she had been in the flesh. I described her position as she stood and her appearance. She at once wrote through Mr. Stead’s hand confirming all I had stated concerning her in my description. Mr. Stead’s hand continued to write. I knew afterwards it wrote out a message stating that another spirit was in the room. Mr. Stead asked me if I could describe that spirit. I had to wait some little time before I detected it, and there I recognised as in the flesh a very famous personage recently dead, whose loss was mourned all the world over in prose and verse. I carefully described the spirit as he appeared to me, and then Mr. Stead said I was right. But, I answered, I see another male spirit. Ask the deceased lady who is writing through you to write the name of the last spirit. Mr. Stead’s hand automatically moved, and he wrote the name of a son of the famous personage already alluded to.” Mrs. Davis says she has been strongly impressed with the fact that Mr. Stead has been selected by the spirits as their champion from the peculiar and unique position he occupies in the journalistic world, and he will be the agent who will break through the solid walls of bigotry and prejudice. Mr. Stead may or may not have written under spirit influence, and this lady may or may not have seen spirits as described. We must not conclude in the latter case that Mr. Stead and his “trustworthy clairvoyante” are stating anything they do not believe to be true. I believe she saw, as described or thought of by Mr. Stead, a “deceased lady;” and that she also saw, as equally thought by him, “a very famous personage recently dead;” also “another male spirit,” whose name she did not know until Mr. Stead wrote the name. This narrative, however interesting as to automatic writing and spirit agency in the opinions of those concerned, conveys no tangible evidence of either the one or the other. To us it is interesting in the fact that Mrs. Davis _saw the spirits thought of by Mr. Stead_. We must think twice before we can accept this as evidence of spirits and spirit-presence. Although it is possible those concerned have evidence, we have not. We have, however, evidence here of thought-transmission and psychic impressionability. When we read of persons who have been raised up, as mediums of St. Peter, St. Paul, or St. John, or a publishing company being run by Shakespeare through a special medium, and worked by a syndicate of Spiritualists, I think we are entitled to doubt these claims, even though a dozen clairvoyants vouched for the existence and presence of the aforesaid spirits. Psychometry furnishes evidence that many so-called spirits are not spirits “at all, at all”--only visions of the originals; and the fact that such and such an individual has been accurately described--actions and manners carefully indicated--and this has been and is accurately done in health and disease daily--is no evidence, in itself, that psychometers have seen spirits. Thus, when a psychometer places a geological specimen to his forehead, and describes an “antediluvian monster,” roaring and walking about, no one but a very shallow individual would imagine for a second the psychometer was actually seeing the original. So many of the spirits and spectres seen do not proceed from our own brains, but from objects, relics, and old houses, which had been in times past impinged by the living presence and magnetism of the originals. Then we must take into consideration those spectres which proceed from our own brains, such as the realistic images which are sometimes projected from the background of consciousness to our eyes and ears. Many so-called spirits are simply the product of diseased neurological conditions, in short, hallucinations, which arise from some derangement of the optic and auditory centres. The spectres seen by Nicolai gradually disappeared as he lost blood, as the prescribed leeches tranquilised his system. We have no reason to believe the spectres he saw, visions and what not, were actually either spirits or produced by spirits. MIND-READING IN SPIRITUALISM is the commonest of most common experiences. I have known mediums to graphically describe scenes, persons, and incidents with such vividness as to impress one they must be controlled by spirits intimately acquainted with the whole circumstances which were revealed. Closer examination indicates that all the information so given by these mediums was based on the thought-read phase. That is, the information was culled from the minds of spirits in the flesh, and did not come from disembodied sources. Some years ago I attended a series of seances in Liverpool. Nearly all the family were mediums of some sort. I was at this time very enthusiastic in my investigations. Consequently, the following incident was not lost upon me. One evening the circle met, with the usual members. Shortly after the circle was formed, the daughter of the house went into the trance state. There were several controls, one of whom professed to be a man who, the day before, had been injured on board one of Lambert & Holt’s steamers, which lay in the Bramley Moore Dock. The “spirit” described the accident, how he was injured, and that he was carried to the hospital, and had “passed away.” Owing to the suddenness of his death, he wished us to communicate with his family, and desired the circle to pray for him, etc. As near as I can recollect, when asked for further particulars, name, family, there was no definite reply. The medium quivered, and a new control had taken possession of her. I, however, neither doubted the _bona-fides_ of the spirit nor the medium. I was especially interested in this control. I thought this time I had obtained a test of spirit identity. But alas for the imperfection of human hopes, I was doomed to disappointment. I clung to the idea the spirit would come back again, and when he got “more power,” we would get the particulars he wanted to give us. He did not come back--and no wonder. Four months subsequently, I met the real Simon Pure in the flesh. To explain more fully: On the day previous to the seance mentioned, I was on board the newly-arrived steamer in question. The lumpers were getting out the cargo. This man had been working on the top of the cargo in the main hold “hooking on.” I paid no particular attention at the time to him, but an hour after I heard a great outcry, and saw a rush of men to the main hold. When I turned back and got there, I found this man senseless and bleeding. The hooks had slipped off a bale while easing out some cargo. One of them had caught the poor fellow in the mouth, and had torn up his cheek almost to the right ear. He was to all appearance dying. I temporarily dressed his face, and the stevedore had him put on a stretcher and sent to the hospital. _I did not know his name or the hospital to which he was removed._ That day and the next the whole scene was vividly impressed on my mind. Hence that night the circumstances at the seance seem to me to be quite natural. Everything advanced was wonderfully apposite and convincing. It was not till I saw the man, and conversed with him, that my so-called test of spirit identity resolved itself into so much thought or mind reading, so that, even presuming the medium or sensitive was controlled by “a spirit,” there can be no doubt the source of the spirit’s information was purely mundane. AUTOMATIC AND PLANCHETTE WRITING, upon which so much reliance is placed, as furnishing evidence of “disembodied spirit control,” presents similar difficulties. The recording of forgotten incidents, and predicting possibilities in the future, are not beyond the powers of the innate human spirit--wholly and utterly unaided by spirit agency. Therefore automatic writing--when genuine--does not necessarily furnish evidence of spirit control, not even when the person who writes believes, and honestly believes too, he is so controlled to write.