Section 11

The subject of the assumption of material attributes by a dematerialized Ego is inviting attention from the people learned in a psychical direction. Accept- ing as undeniable the persistence of Ego after loss of its ordinary material environment, and accepting of oneness as to the Universal and oneness as to the Now and eternity, and accepting, further, the many illustrations in such direction vouched for in the Bible as to such character of materializations, there are cer- tainly sufficient excuses for examination and inquiry.
Here ground is approached which is dangerous, in- asmuch as what is to be said furnishes certain endorse- ment of unconscionable impostors who fatten on the credulity of the ignorant. It is familiar to almost every one that a Pythoness, of Delphia, was not in any sense supposed to speak of herself, that her spirit of divination lay in use made of her materialization by an Ego, existing apart from her own, which Ego dispossessed, as to the body, her particular self, using the organ of voice for its oracular utterances, which utterances were accepted as highest truths and wisdom by the Greeks.
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It being not possible to exclude from associations here arrived at the vulgarisms of modern spiritism and confusions of a more serious nature which exist to the confounding of men, attempt is to be made, not only as to the conclusions of the present chapter, but in others that are to succeed, to lead away from, or through, the mire.
Denial as to possibilities is not to run too fast nor too uncharitably. There is a story, believed by mil- lions of people who are not at all disposed to credulity, that tells of an ass which opened its mouth and spake to Balaam.
It is an exhibition to astonish ''common sense'* to behold grouped about a materializing medium a num- ber of people who affirm to the recognition of hus- bands, wives, fathers, mothers, brothers of great pro- portions, and sisters long ago passed away in the stat- ure of infantile years, all of which people are without doubt as to the truthfulness of the manifestations beheld, even though in the moment of presentment the hand of an unbeliever holds and shows the person- ality in the shape, form, and individuality of a dis- guised medium. "It is," say the sensitives, "exactly as shown. The body held in the grasp is a body of flesh ; but at the moment of touch an aura which occu- pied it took flight." Ridiculous, supremely ridicu- lous this, to "common sense." Yet a little educated sense perceives that the claim differs not a jot from the biblical one concerning Balaam's ass.
Digression might be made here recalling to the individual reader what, at one time or another, has been seen by himself, or, more particularly, by herself,
Ij6 sfiritus sanctus.
women being the greater sensitives. A gentleman of legal education, and at the same time of a sensitivity that has made him a poet, tells the holder of the pen the following incident ; A short time back, lying upon a rug in his room, he was startled to see the door open and his father, who was then a thousand miles distant on a journey, enter, walk round the apartment to a sofa, where he seated himself. The reciter jumped up, ran toward the image with outstretched hand, having at the moment not the slightest doubt as to the reality of the appearance, finding the vision disappear as it was about to be touched. Persons at large, recalling such experiences, are to know themselves sensitives according to the number and clearness of the behold- ings. The incident related as occurring with the lawyer is appreciated as existing purely in the subjec- tive; what was seen was wholly within, not with- out. The matter, however, is not so much here as with what is referred to as Objective Materializations ; that is, intangible Ego assuming form by occupying temporarily other bodies. Common sense repeats as to the absurdity of all such things ; but, in doing this, "common sense" denies and derides necessarily the Christian's Bible. Deuteronomy xxxi. 15 recites as follows : " And the Lord appeared in the tabernacle in a pillar of a cloud : and the pillar of the cloud stood over the door of the tabernacle."
Another passage looking toward the same meaning is to be read in Genesis, chapter iii. 4, 5 : " And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as
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gods, knowing good and evil." Here, if the passage means anything outside of reference to a purely subjective voice, such voice as is heard often enough in dreams, or even by ears in the wakeful state, such voice as is familiar to perhaps every person of sensitive organiza- tion living, it means the aura, or possession, claimed by modern spiritists as witnessed in the instances of materialization seances ; the recital means nothing at all or it means that an Ego took possession of and occupied the materiality of a serpent.
A gentleman who at the time of the occurrence of the incident was a surgeon in the navy, now a prominent professor in a medical school of Philadelphia, relates to the writer that during a yellow fever epidemic he was taken sick with the disease, and passed, in its progress, to what was esteemed by his attendants the death-point. He relates vividly the story of a wonder that overwhelmed him as he found himself standing looking down on an inanimate body which was rec- ognized as his own.
To see in one's self, as do the sensitives, is in no sense the same as seeing with another. This former aspect of spiritualism is the only one of which the holder of the pen has real knowledge. Confusion, however, need not exist even in relation with the latter. A pro- fessed embodiment may always be measured after the manner of taking a thing for what it shows itself to be worth. What a Pythoness tells is the matter for consideration, not the manner of telling. Should a donkey that might happen to belong to the holder of the pen suddenly open its mouth and give utterance to pearls of thought, it would not unwisely be accepted
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that voice had driven out and replaced bray; the holder of the pen would assuredly accept this. Should the holder of the pen be brought in any future relation with wisdom or experience above the lore of surround- ings and possibilities of an occasion where a professed materialization should be before him, his judgment would be made up precisely as in the case of the donkey. Standing where he now stands, the judgment could be made up after no other manner.
The manner of communication of like with like is one that appeals not less to common than to educated sense ; milk mingles itself in the oneness of milk, water in the oneness of water, oil in the oneness of oil. Ego, continuously looking away from body toward soul will assuredly, sooner or later, catch sight of the God. Sounds are best heard by one who is alert as to ears. The inner eyes keeping themselves inward come to increasing acquaintance with what is internal. This is subjectivism ; it is subjectivism which develops as the man refines ; which is understandable in proportion as man understands himself.
It is, however, not at all strange that with internal are confusions and deceptions ; these are certainly met with as to externals. Worldly wise means to act with worldly judgment. It is assuredly the case that worldly judgments have the single simple meaning of acting in the light of experiences and comparisons.
Sensitives, as a rule, — here we dismiss the cabinet pic- tures,— are unconscious as to the existence of such an- tagonizing conditions as mental myopia, hypermetropia, presbyopia, astigmatism. Instruments, as the rule rather than as the exception, are faulty; they turn, twist,
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and bend even light-rays in wrong directions. The grammar of a poem is seldom according to the rules of a sphere on which the poetry is to be read. De- signs have to be touched here, there, and all around in order to show harmony. One looking into the apparent mystery of clairvoyance or of clairaudience differentiates according as he is able to differentiate.
What follows as to the next two chapters contains the proposition that a thing corresponds with what is found in it.
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•VIII.
DETAILS.
Treating of the nearness of the Ridiculous to the Sublinjje, and the danger of losing the latter by not separating it from the former.
Concerning certain once ctirious things now become common, illus- trating that the philosophy of one generation becomes the common sense of the next.
Shall a man not believe that he sees what he sees, or may he doubt that he has heard what he has heard?
Neither denying nor accepting, but looking without prejudice into a matter that is presented, is a proper manner of reception. Having in mind things that have preceded the present page and others which are to follow, reference is to be made to the chapter treating of Sensitivity and Mediumism ; with that chapter lying the opening of the analysis of Subjectivity. Subjectivity is a Rosicrucian's word for the familiar one of every-day speech. Imagination. An imagination is the first beholding by an in- ventor of what he is said to invent. It is also one with num- berless apparently silly things talked abcyit and dreamed about by people at large. With inventor and people, however, there is difference without difference. Here a great paradox. Un- derstanding of this paradox is a Rosicrucian's key to the Ar- canum.
A few years back the multitude were agog on the subject of seeing spirits ; at the present time the tide runs the other way. Changing the word Spiritualism for its equivalent Subjectivism, and assuming a reader fully possessed of the width of definition of the latter term, spirits and no spirits are found alike realities, and so with the runners either way is like justification. Objec-
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tive and Subjective are the commcn distinctions of the day, signi- fying real and unreal. Error is with the '* common distinctions." Real and unreal are one. Objective things are phenomenal ; so also are subjective things. Nothing is otherwise than as it is to a sense that uses it. The seeing of spirits drops its mystery in presence of this wholly undeniable fact, and attests its truth. Here, however, is confusion to all who do not know that what are called Imaginations are of nearer approach, if possible, to the so- esteemed real than are such handleable things as pages of poetry, scores of music, steamboats, and locomotives. Nobody can un- derstand invention who does not understand subjectivism. In- vention is identical with revelation. An inventor is inventor by reason of being a sensitive. A sensitive, as understood, is an impressionable person.
Copying, in place of inventing, is the manner in which inven- tion is to be looked at if subjectivism is to be analyzed. Every- thing that is, or that is to be, has awaited or awaits a sensitivity refined enough for the perception. An illustration exists in origi- nal as contrasted with present perception of things lying with electricity. Certainly the wonderful capability as now employed lying with electricity was with it at beginning. What was not at beginning were the electrical sensitives or geniuses.
What immediately follows is much more likely to prove intro- ductory to an arcanum than what has preceded. The haven is worthy the voyage, however accomplished.
The pages treat of tricks and, possibly, of hallucinations not understood by him who writes about them ; certainly little un- derstood by people who look with staring eyes one day and with mocking lips on another day. Question is not with legerdemain or with pathological optic lobes, but with lesson. What is a suggestion residing with a trick ? What as to a sight beheld by an eye, whether diseased or otherwise ? Most practically ex- pressed, is an invention that had its vision in a something most dissnnilar to itself a reality or a myth? — for example, steam emerging from the spout of a kettle turning itself into a mighty steam-ship.
F II
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Recitals here given are descriptive of meetings between a Dr. W. and the doctor vv^ho vi^rites, in a common search made by the two into the claims of modern spiritism.
It was accepted as start that, as unsensitized people are con- cerned, the occult is without way of making its existence recog- nized save by manifestations to the common five senses. Shall a man not believe that he sees what he sees, or may he doubt that he has heard what he has heard ? It is to be accepted that the records here made have been put down with regard to closeness and accuracy of detail after the most careful manner at the com- mand of the writer. It is also desired to lay emphasis on the fact that common sense, or, to better express this, the common senses, were exercised to the utmost extent of their vigilance to detect and explain the presence and nature of the mysterious agency at work in the manifestations described.
The attention of the doctor who writes and of his confrkre was first directed in the way of investigation, to occult phenomena, by an unexpected experience that occurred to the former, and which was as follows :
On the afternoon of a certain day in the fall of i8 — a gentleman of great learning, well advanced in years, the son of a father who, prior to his departure from material environment, was among the most famous of the professors in Philadelphia's university, dropped into the doctor's office, kindly bringing an invitation for a meeting with a widely-known writing medium whom he had engaged for an entertainment to be held at his house in the evening.
To say that the invited one was not delighted at an opportunity which was to afford intercourse with a something of which he had heard much yet seen nothing would be to dissemble indeed. The hour of appointment was anxiously awaited, and when arrived found him amongst the first of arrivals. Not the very first, however, for on entering the room he beheld himself preceded by a judge of wide prominence and a physician scarcely less celebrated ; besides these, by some half-dozen ladies, a general of the army, and a retired merchant of fortune. Seated at the piano, quietly thrum- ming out a half-played tune, was an unassuming, modest, and honest-looking man who was presented as the medium.
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Looking quite out of place with elegant surroundings, there lay upon the piano a bundle done up in ordinary coarse wrapping- paper, which, when opened, was seen to contain a dozen common slates ; the package having remained undisturbed, as explained by the host, that his guests might see it exactly as received from a store where the purchase had been made, and which had been entered for the first and only time a couple of hours before.
A few minutes of general conversation was followed by an invitation given the judge, the physician, and the writer to take each a couple of the slates and to pass, with the medium, to a large circular table occupying the centre of a dining-room directly across a hall from the parlor in which we sat. Over this table was a chandelier of many burners, all of them blazing brilliantly; upon it were a number of sheets of ordinary fool's-cap paper and several lead-pencils.
Being seated, and quiet observed at the request of the medium, question was made as to whether or not spirits were present. After a little while faint knocks were heard as if coming from the under surface of the table, the faintness of which seemed to the discomfiture of the medium, signifying, as he asserted, absence of interest on the part of any spirits present in the individuals assembled. Attempts to get slate-writing resulted in absolute failure.
Response to questions becoming dimmer and dimmer, interest and curiosity subsided, and a move was made towards the salon with a view to joining the other company. The slates, carried by the writer with intention of returning them to the pile, happened by accident to be in a lifted hand, which position brought them in close relation to the head, and while crossing the hall he heard, to his unspeakable surprise, scratching as if writing was being done upon them by a pencil. This being observed by the medium, who was directly at his side, decided a return to the table, where occurred the following series of incidents : —
" Is there," asks the medium, " a spirit present who desires to communicate?" To say that the responsive knocks were vigorous is scarcely to express it. So impressed was the medium that he declared unhesitatingly that no question could be asked that
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would not have answer. The sitter was requested to write upon strips of paper the names of three persons deceased who he could have any reason to suppose might have desire to hold communi- cation with him. At this time he had just finished writing, under what seemed some odd circumstances, the book " Two Thousand Years After;" and as this volume is an attempt to carry to its con- clusion the argument of the Phsedo as to the immortality of the soul, and its composer was full of the association, he wrote the names Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. These slips were rolled into little balls and laid in front of the medium, who, taking up each in turn, asked if it stood for a spirit present. To these questions there being no response, it was accepted that further inquirj' might be made.