Section 16

156 SPIRIT us SANCTUS,
long room, then turning the look from the light to a darkened corner, when the flame is seen in a new situation. The light is seen where it is not by reason of this same superexcitability, only in the latter case the excitability is with the eye-nerve. The so- called spirit-lights will show themselves in number to any one who will risk the production of, or who happens to be laboring under, the condition known to doctors as a subacute or chronic retinitis. Astral projections are of precisely similar signification. The president of the American branch of the Indian Society of Theosophists affords me illustration in this direction. On an occasion, some six months back, I had spent the evening with this gentleman in conversation on the subject of psychical phenomena. We parted at midnight. At seven o'clock the next morning I suddenly awoke, beholding the astral of the professor standing at my bedside.
I saw. What I saw was a subjective, or an instantaneous dream. Otherwise expressed, I saw a residual impression that was wholly within and not at all without, just as the double of the candle- flame alluded to is seen within and not without. I saw, how- ever, undeniably, a personality which to itself, and to the world, possesses objectivity.
After a precisely similar manner, it is in science to be assumed that all visions are seen. The longer or shorter time a vision re- mains depends entirely on the receptivity existing with the brain- cells, the susceptibility being greater or less as influenced by cir- cumstances. The flame of an Argand burner, impressed upon a very irritable or sensitive retina, and then suddenly extinguished in an absolutely dark room, will continue to be seen sometimes for a period of several minutes. If a retina be unsensitive, all light disappears instantly with the original flame.
The science of visions is not at all difficult to come at : to allow, however, of nothing back of vision is to pronounce at once the Christian's Bible and the Bibles of all other people deceptions and lies. It is to pronounce as well a fiat as to development; an assump- tion that there is nothing back of effect ; that nothing remains to be learned or understood. It is, undeniably, to pronounce the pro- nouncer a thing of strictly dual nature, a person utterly lacking as
NINE TEE NTH' CENTUR V SENSE. 1 5 7
to composition in the essence which distinguishes between men and brutes.
The idea to be conveyed is that natural and spiritual law, as regard is had to relation of means to ends, is common law. The eye that sees neither fringed monsters nor vinegar-eels, comes to see both as it advances in the line of optical development. The line of optical development is the duplication of the common sense of sight by association with refined and high-power mag- nifying lenses. To see spiritual things, spiritual means are to be possessed. Natural sight and spiritual sight are exactly in accord with the instrument. To look through smeared glass is to see smears only. The form of inspiration, it is to be repeated, is the same : results accord with clear or smeared instruments.
It is here that a spiritual reader will pause, that through means of looking in upon himself he may find clear explanation as to what is meant. I myself have had a ride upon Mahomet's camel, and have been carried to heaven. In turn I have been snatched from the hump by the spirit of Dante and whirled into hell.
There are door-steps leading to the Spiritus Sanctus ; this is the third one.
XI.
NINETEENTH-CENTURY SENSE.
Whether two or three or many years passed in intercourse with transcendental physics stands nothing to the purpose. The confrere and the doctor have been witness to so large an extent of manifestations in the particular direction that little or nothing seems left to see. It is indeed to be premised that ac- quaintanceship has been carried to its ultimatmn.
The confrere has shown himself a wonderful medium. No
desired signals on floor or table, no ghostly messages upon slates,
but come responsive to his call. Solids pass through solids when
so commanded; floating luminous hands seem ready to do his
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158
SPJRITUS SANCTUS.
bidding. No cords, chains, or locks seem to have restraining force over him. He reads without seeing, and is fettered or un- fettered by invisible hands.
Genius and medium are discovered to us in these manifestations as terms and conditions strictly interchangeable. Physics, whether of transcendental or mundane nature, is always and necessarily, as has been evolved, within the realm of common law ; there is never an end without relation to means. The manner of the spirit or genius of the confrere is somatic, — that is to say, it works with tools. A doubter, unappreciative of the identity of genius and of somatic instrumentation and medium as to performance, will not be likely to find himself lifted by the unfolding of pro- cesses. He will more likely denounce the fact which he accepted an hour ago, simply because his intelligence has been brought to comprehension of its means. He will still stand, however, over- whelmed with the miracle done with the water-pots at the mar- riage-feast, yet, because he has comprehension, after a manner, of a physical law concerned in the process, he will deny utterly the miracle as it repeats itself directly before him each season in the vineyard.
What is just said is in consideration of what is to follow. Com- mon sense is incapable of anything save the uncomplicated pro- cesses of sight, taste, hearing, smell, and touch. These are the five media of animal relation with things external to itself. Un- educated senses are necessarily not reliable, for the reason that no two persons perceive alike by the use of them. What is beauty to one is ugliness to another ; harmony to one is discord to some other one ; the sweet to this tongue is the sour to that one ; a pleasant essence changes in the nose which smells to an offensive odor. Common sense is designed simply to relate things to wants that employ them ; it knows nothing, and is incapable of telling anything as to the real nature of a thing.
A roofer finds in pigment a paint for the protection of his tin ; a Raphael discovers in the same color means to the expression of an inspiration. Color proves something entirely different to tinner and artist. The same thing becomes not at all the same thing ; earthy in one hand, it is heavenly in another hand.
NINETEENTH-CENTURY SENSE. 159
Common sense is incapable as to differentiating, measuring, or estimating. These latter qualities are strictly properties of educa- tion. Nineteenth-century sense differs from common sense as expressed by educated taste differing from common taste. Nine- teenth-century sense finds, or searches after, a law governing the miracle. It comprehends ventriloquism, and thus measures the voice overwhelming an Indian as speech is heard from a spirit of the air. It knows the arcana of chemistry, and from bottles, empty of everything, as estimated by an uneducated eye that looks on them, it pours forth a stream of living water. It shows a sitter's face transferred to a card. It takes a sheet of paper, im- maculately clean and white, and electrifies the ignorant as in presence of the sun a message appears upon it. It stealthily rubs a trace of mercury over a silver coin, and startles the beholder in discovering solidity turned into softness.
Miracles, all of these, in the sense that anything is a miracle. Done by occult power, these things, in the sense that anything is occult. Everything is in law ; the matter is to understand law. Nineteenth-century sense is learning law rapidly.
A whip is an appeal to a beast ; it stings the flesh : the hurt is soon gone. A whip is an appeal to man ; it makes a cut that is internal : the scar never fades out. Yet a lash is a lash. Dif- ference in a lash lies with what perceives difference. A thing is to the sense that uses it what to that sense it is found to be ; it is never anything else.
Open is occult, save to an opener. What opens the shell of an oyster to the advancing tide is no mystery to an oysterman ; a child, on the contrary, beholds with wonderment. The sacra- mental wafer is an incomprehensible mystery to the ignorant. Appeal here is to unresponsive, uncultivated sense. A consecrated wafer is to the learned, at the same moment, a piece of dough and the body of Christ. Appeal here is to cultivated appreciative sense.
Occult and open are what is found in them, and this finding, as understood, is different to different people. The confrere explains his long retirement and intercourse with the spirits. His spiritus functus is shown to be a common laboratory, his Familiars a free
l6o SPIRITUS SANCTUS.
purse and the elements of the arts. Yet who may help results to individuals ? An unspiritual man unlearns in learning. A doubter doubts the more in seeing nothing while deeming that he has seen all. Still the pious flock to Naples in hope of beholding the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius, but no single one of the multitude stops in his garden to consider the miracle of a bud thrust from a stick. The hand of the God, existing every- where upon the road, is beheld by devotees nowhere but at Naples.
Differences are not to be helped, perhaps. The confrere sees what I do not. I see, not unlikely, what he does not. Appeals to men are after a various manner.
The sequel to transcendental physics opens at a breaking-up stance with a long and hearty laugh on the part of the confrere. He retires for a few moments, and returns with a large box con- taining his ** Familiars."
"We will unravel," he says, "the mysteries of the occult. Spirits, show yourselves!" he commands. The spirits did show
themselves. They proved to be A full description of
what they proved to be has not only been written out, but oc- cupies proof pages from which at the present hour the writer is engaged in expunging the experiences ; this out of the fact that the whole matter as it shows in print seems so supremely and ridiculously simple, that while personally I do not fail to laugh at the deceptions as boisterously as does the medium, yet I am unwilling to even indirectly reflect more than has been done on the common sense so valued as a possession by many honest spiritualists, who esteem as little better than a fool him who denies the seeing of what has been seen and the hearing of what has been heard. I put the matter in a line by saying that the confrere made a medium of me, in the line of transcendental physics, in the course of a few hours. I know to-day just what he knows of the art, albeit well satisfied that twenty years of practice would not yield me his wonderful skill in legerdemain. It is to be added that the matter lies with not seeing what is seen nor hearing what is heard. The whole is a fact of sense deception, and no demon- stration might be offered more directly in point of proof as to
CONFUSIONS. l6l
the unreliability and nothingness of what is lauded as common sense.
Here another paradox. A little multitude of deceptions ex- plained as lying with unreliability of the senses. As contrast to this, things defined as lying with the senses and being never else than what the senses make them to be. Let then a putting be after this manner. A thing amounts to its lesson or result.
There are door-steps leading to the Spiritus Sanctus ; this is the fourth one.
XII.
CONFUSIONS.
A PERIOD between the old and the new. The tmie, like all moving times, comprehensions not in place, and neither hand, heart, nor brain knowing satisfactorily where anything is. Believ- ing, doubting; hoping, despairing.
Inquiry, directed by little or great learning, finding God and the beautiful and the merciful everywhere. Observations, influ- enced by the same nature of erudition, seeing the devil and the hateful and the pitiless everywhere.
Looking as an optimist, and beholding nothing but an over- ruling Providence. Looking as a pessimist, and finding little but the malevolent. Looking as a philosopher, and seeing the mean- ing of things to lie with paradoxes.
Finding the macrocosm of the universe in the microcosm of a grate. Seated in meditative mood before glowing coals, having before one a panorama of life. Flames rushing up the throat of a chimney, ashes falling into a pit. Red changing to gray. Hot becoming cold. Power declining to weakness. Animate sinking / 14*
1 62 SPIRITUS SANCTUS.
to inanimate. Form losing itself in formless. Identity merged in contrariety. Image back into essence. Phenomenon again be- come noumenon.
Changes in the universal which reverse themselves ; ashes get- ting upward by means of the stalks of growing plants; gray morn- ing lightened into red evening; coldness made warmth by relation with a mid-day sun; puny childhood waxed into giant manhood; decomposed fertilizers correlated into life-sustaining corn; running water as solidity carved in ice ; germs which no sight can differ- entiate enlarging into individual selfhoods ; ideas become living form through image; waves falling back into the sea.
Water cooled in the depths of forest springs for the delectation of thirsty lips. Slime running in ditches for the gullets of tad- poles for which it is food. Air in which birds fly blithely. Dense woods for the hiding of timid deer. The sea for fishes. Broad- chested, full-throated, bellowing wild herds; the prairies for these. Valleys for fruitage ; the mountains for outlook. Pain to warn of danger. Joy to commend the right. Bodies terrestrial and bodies celestial. Difference between life and death no differ- ence at all. Bodies for the materialized; bodies for the de- materialized. Bodies heavy enough to weigh down scales and to wield heavy tools ; bodies light enough to walk upon water or to float in the air. Bodies visible and invisible. Corporal and spiritual essences. Passions of the body, ecstasies of the soul. Joy and luxury everywhere. Exhilarating songs. Sparkling wines. Children full to wastefulness of costly luxuries. Women bespangled with diamonds pleasuring until the break of morning. Well people, people never tired; lounges and couches everywhere. Men possessed of coffers that overflow. Prayer never made with- out immediate answer. Prayer scarcely breathed until immensely reciprocated.
Considering the love of God and the kindness of men; the lovely heaven and the beautiful earth ; nature's abundant gifts. A world filled with beings, every being blessed with office ; a world of law where nothing is error but what opposes law ; a world of absolute justice. A world going round and round forever; having no stopping-place. Considering the feeding of helpless
CONFUSIONS. ,5^
things by helpers; the stabling of cows in well-littered stalls; horses pampered with golden oats ; swine filled to fatness, their skins glossy with oil ; chickens and ducks and turkeys tenderly housed and cared for. Considering intelligent man working for the unintelligent brute. Considering a humming-bird fed on nectar by a flower.
Considering beautiful scenes ; a field of clustered wheat-sheaves, the intervening ground yellow with undried stubble. Over the field white and gray cloud-rifts mellowing into haziness mid-day sun- rays. All around a fence of living green. Here low bushes giving wild blackberries, dwarfed trees bearing the chincapin clambered after eagerly by the children of farmers. In the front of a picture a great oak having wide-spreading branches, under which harvesters gather, wiping the sweat from nut-brown arms, or, with long-stretched necks, drinking from home-grown gourds. Beyond the field a world of other fields ; scenes as fair and riches as plentiful stretching away in the near lands and away into dis- tant lands ; beauties and riches and luxuries for everybody.
Here a midnight full moon illumining a plashing stream flowing out of green depths lost to sight in the distance. In the nearness a damming back and tumble of water over fallen logs ; red moss clothing an overhanging rock. Along fern-bordered flat banks clusters of the pink almond blossoms. Arboring trees, their leafy crowns amongst the clouds. Tangle and thicket and impene- trable wild, confining thought and imagination to a single spot. A picture to carry away for a frame, — a picture composing the looker to rest.
Considering, on the other hand, cries and groans coming from a wreck at sea ; banks of merciless, unrestrained waves falling upon the deck and filling the hold of a fated ship ; swirls, long and angry, gathering strength in a race of miles, high-topped, phosphorescent, tumbling masses of water washing praying fathers and mothers and screaming, terrified children into the jaws of sharks ; torn sails, splintered planks, everything rifted and broken up, nothing left to take hold of. No hearing ear, no helping hand, no Providence.
i64 SPIRITUS SANCTUS.
Considering sick and maimed persons growing worse daily. Considering the unheard supplications of priests and the unhelped workers in hospitals. Considering the cancer-stricken pushed into a grave. Considering tornadoes and the overflow of rivers. Considering the stopped-up throat of a diphtheritic babe. Con- sidering a simple old woman, who, with Bible in one hand and cross and beads in the other, climbs wearily a long hill leading to a temple ; considering whether or not the old woman will get what she goes after. Considering the nun, with her black veil, who marries Christ. Considering the trying to be better than God shows himself to be, by keeping up coast-stations for the help of wrecked sailors.