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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
/1875.1
Touching Visitants from a Higher Life*
59
her promise. I observed that Katie
wore the gold ring. But when, at the
close of the sitting, I examined with a
light every nook and corner in the cabi
net, neither ring nor chain was to be
found.
June 10. Katie called me up to the
aperture, handed me back the hair chain,
and said: “Violet wishes you to keep
this, in memory of her, until you are
called to meet her in her spirit-home.”
Where was that chain during the
preceding twenty-four hours? One is
lost in conjecture on such subjects.
Ere Katie came forth, a tall figure,
partly hidden by the cabinet, laid its
luminous hand on her head; then the
hand and arm floated up out of sight;
the door being seven and a half feet
high.
June 15. Present only myself and
Mr. Oluf Stenersen, minister to the
United States from the Swedish court.
Three different faces showed them
selves: one of a middle-aged man, one
of a young lady, and another of a child.
Then Katie, from the left hand aper
ture, asked the medium for paper and
pencil. Half a sheet of note paper be
ing handed to her, she beckoned to me
and gave me the paper, saying: “Mr.
Owen, please put your private mark on
it.” I wrote at the top of the sheet
three words in the German character;
and, as I returned it to her, she
added: “ An English friend wishes to
write to you.” In a minute or two we
saw, at the left hand aperture, a lumi
nous detached hand, shaded off at the
wrist, and holding the pencil as a mun
dane writer would. Over against this
hand floated in the air a half sheet
of paper, the surface illuminated as if
phosphorescently. At first it swayed
to and fro; but presently, without ap
parent cause, it remained stretched and
motionless. Then the hand approached
it and wrote, under our eyes, during
some three or four minutes; covering
the page. Then the sheet, again with
out apparent cause, turned over in the
air, the hand continuing to write until
the second page was half filled. Then
the hand laid hold of the paper, and
passed it out of the cabinet window to
ward me. I went up and received it,
and the pencil dropped on the floor. It
was the same paper on which I had writ
ten “ lch bin bier; ” and proved to be a
letter addressed to me, didactic in char
acter and elevated in sentiment, signed:
“ Fred. W. Robertson.” 1
Afterwards, accompanied by a friend
who is an expert in autographs, I took
this paper to the Franklin Library; and
there, in presence of the librarian, we
compared it with Mr. Robertson’s signa
ture as it is given in the English edition
of his biography, by the Rev. Stopford
Brooke. Both gentlemen agreed that
the signature obtained by me was so per
fect a fac-simile of the other, that the
internal evidence of its genuine charac
ter was unquestionable.
June 19. A circle of twenty-five per
sons. The partition between parlor and
bedroom (alluded to in a previous note)
had been put up the day before. Each
time that Katie issued from the cabinet,
a brilliantly luminous hand, emitting
light, showed itself at the left upper
corner of the cabinet door. It point
ed downward, sometimes waving, to
ward Katie. The second time that she
stepped out, she beckoned me to ap
proach her. I did so, extending my
hand, which she pressed; then, as I bent
my head toward her, she took it in both
hands and kissed it, uttering her usual
low and earnest “ God bless you, Mr.
Owen.”
June 20. Present only my friend Mrs.
L. Andrews, of Springfield, and myself.
We both thoroughly examined the bed
1 At Dr. Slade’s, in New York (February 9,1874),
I witnessed, by gaslight, a precisely similar phe
nomenon. The paper, placed on a slate, lay on my
knee ; and a band, luminous and entirely detached
at the wrist, rose from under the table and wrote,
while I looked on, what proved to be three verses
from the Greek Testament; headed, in English,
“ Law of Love = Matth. 5 ; 43-45 — ” (punctuation,
contraction, and dashes exactly as here set down).
To use a common phrase, I could scarcely believe
my eyes. My knowledge of Greek has, under half
a century of disuse, almost faded out: but, having
submitted the manuscript to one of the best Hel
lenists of our country, I learned that every word
and letter was correct, a few breathings and ac
cents only being omitted.
�60
Touching Visitants from a Higher Life.
[January,
room before sitting down. For the first
time neither of the mediums, at any time
during the sitting, entered the cabinet: so
that, when we had searched it and closed
its door, we were certain that no human
being occupied it.
A remarkable sitting followed. First,
we were surprised by a dusky face at one
of the apertures. Soon after, the door
opened and a girl at least two inches
taller and rather stouter than Katie,
with dark, handsome Indian features,
and lithe figure, arrayed in richly orna
mented Indian dress, walked out to with
in two feet of us. She had a snow-white
blanket over her head, which she held
under her chin. This she waved toward
us; it was very fine, thick, and soft to
the touch. She came out three times,
spoke to us, the last time quite distinct
ly, telling us that her name was Sauntee.
“Good God!” cried Mrs. Holmes,
in evident astonishment and alarm.1
Next there issued from the cabinet
the figure of a lad dressed in sailor-boy
fashion; his bow and gestures awkward
and jerky, his face frank and pleasant.
He came out three times, and when we
asked his name he answered, in hoarse
and broken but audible tones: “ Don’t
you know me? You ’ve heard me speak
often enough; I ’m Dick.”
We had frequently heard of Dick, as
one of the (alleged) operating and talk
ing spirits in the dark circles for phys
ical manifestations which Mrs. Holmes
occasionally gave. Both he and the In
dian girl presented themselves now for
the first time.
At last Katie herself appeared. When
she stepped into the room, I asked per
mission to approach, and gave her a
mother-of-pearl cross, with white silk
braid attached, together with a small
note, folded up, in which I had written:
“I offer you this because, though it be
simple, it is white and pure and beauti
ful, as you are. ” She took both, did not
open the note, suspended the cross from
her neck, kissed it and retreated to the
cabinet, closing the door. In a minute
or two she returned, the cross, shining
as with phosphorescent lustre, in one
hand, and the folded note in the other;
bent over me, and said, in her low, ear
nest voice and with her charming smile:
‘ ‘ White and pure and beautiful like me
— is it ? ” How did she read that note ?
The cabinet, with its, closed door and its
black-covered apertures, was, as I have
often verified, quite dark. Ever after,
when she appeared, she wore that cross
on her breast; reminding one of the
well-known lines in Pope’s Rape of the
Lock.
Immediately after the close of the sit
ting we critically examined the cabinet.
No cross there! Where was it?
June 21. No medium in the cabinet.
Katie appeared at the aperture; and
Dr. Child, desiring to please all, pro
posed that every person in the circle
(upwards of twenty) might go up, one
by one, to the aperture, touch Katie’s
hand, and speak to her. They all did
so except one young lady, deterred by
fear. Toward the close, one of the
circle (not a lady) asked if Katie would
not allow him to kiss her. She instant
ly withdrew and we saw her nd more
that night.
Afterward I remonstrated, in private,
with Dr. Child, against this lack of de
corum ; adding that unless the wishes of
the spirit were consulted in all things, I
would not attend another sitting, nor
countenance the proceedings in any way.
He took what I said in excellent part,
frankly admitting that I was in the right.
Little did I expect what was to come!
June 22.2 Katie, appearing at the ap
erture after unusual delay, beckoned to
me. The pale and beautiful face, now
grown familiar, usually tinged with sad
ness, wore such a look of weary sorrow
and deep depression that I was moved
almost to tears when, in low and plaint
ive tones, she said: “Mr. Owen, in
deed, indeed I cannot come out to night
1 She explained to me, after the sitting, that
“ Sauntee ” was the name of the (alleged) control
ling spirit of Mrs. Fanny Young, an intimate friend
of hers and a trance medium ; and that she (Mrs.
Holmes) had had many a communication, through
Mrs. Young, purporting to come from this young
Indian girl. Just two months before this sitting,
Mrs. Young had died.
2 At this and all succeeding sittings, both medi
ums remained outside, unentranced.
�1875.]
Touching Visitants from a Higher Life.
unless I have assurance that my wishes
shall be respected.”
“ They shall be,” said I, “so long as
I come here.”
“ I want your promise,” she added.
“ When you touch me, it gives me
strength; but when others, with whom
I have no sympathy, are suffered to ap
proach indiscriminately, it wearies and
exhausts me. I want your promise that
no such overture as that made last night
shall be repeated. They forget that I
am a spirit. They forget why I come
to them at all.”
“ Dear Katie,” said I, “I will pro
tect you, as I would my own daughter,
from that and every other annoyance.
No one shall approach you except with
your express permission.”
The changed, more hopeful expres
sion was charming to see, as she said:
“ God bless you! Tell my medium not
to urge me; it hurts me to refuse her.”
At a request from the audience, I
stated to them, in brief, what Katie had
said.. Nothing more was needed, that
evening, to call forth a hushed reverence
such as is not often found, even in
church..
I pass by my record of sundry meet
ings where phenomena similar to those
already recorded presented themselves,
and come to a memorable seance, June
28. At Katie’s suggestion, coupled with
her promise of “ a good time,” I had
this sitting all to myself, the two medi
ums only being present, and sitting be
side me.
Sauntee again appeared. The ma
terialization seemed absolutely perfect.
She wore a rich, dark jacket, reaching
to the knee, of stuff resembling silk vel
vet, embroidered in white spangles, open
over the bosom and showing an under
garment apparently of Indian-tanned
buckskin; the jacket coming to a point
at the waist. She wore black leggins
and embroidered moccasins. This time
she had no blanket, but some soft, light,
gray tissue covering her head and falling
over her shoulders. Around her waist
was a belt, with lappets that dropped on
one side. She held one of these toward
us to touch; it was soft and thick as rich
61
velvet. Her motions were more free
than before, and there was more spirit
in her large, expressive eyes.
She
spoke, too, more readily and distinctly.
Four several times she showed herself,
uttering friendly expressions.
Then, after an interval, came Katie.
She, too, stepped out, more freely than
usual. I showed her a small tortoise
shell box, in which I had preserved sev
eral mementoes of her; to wit, a card on
which she had written my name, a small
nosegay, and a tiny lock of hair which
she had given me during the sitting with
Mrs. Andrews. She seemed pleased,
and said, smiling, “I’ll give you some
thing better worth keeping than that.”
Retreating to the cabinet, she returned
in a minute or two without the lace veil
she usually wore depending from each
side of her head; this being the first
time I had ever seen her bareheaded.
She asked for scissors, and I provided a
pair which I had brought with me, hop
ing to obtain a bit of her dress. Then
she stooped her head toward me, and,
passing both hands through her back
hair, separated a lock and bade me cut
it off. I did so, close to the head. It
proved to be a beautiful ringlet, about
four inches long, literally of a golden
color, soft and fine. After four months
it has not melted away, and it is not dis
tinguishable from human hair, though
one seldom sees any so beautiful.
The next time she came out she asked
for a large nosegay which stood on the
mantelpiece; and, coming close to me,
she knelt down, laid the flowers on the
floor, and deliberately picked out two or
three lilies. These she handed to me,
returning the rest to Mrs. Holmes. As
she knelt there, I observed that her hair
curled in short, graceful ringlets over
the top and front of her head, while
several longer curls dropped to her
shoulders. One of these, longer than
the rest, she had several times shown us,
and allowed us to touch, at the aperture.
Once more — and for the last time
that evening — she emerged from the
cabinet, came quietly close up to me,
extending a hand. I passed my left
arm gently round her, and sustained her
�62
Touching Visitants from a Higher Life.
left arm, bare from the elbow, in my
right hand. To the touch her garments
and her person were exactly like those
of an earthly creature.
In low but distinct tones, she made
some recommendations in regard to my
health. “ You have work to do,” she
said, “ before you leave your earth; and
you must rest, that you may be able to
do it.”
Then, stepping back, she took my
face in both hands, kissed me on the
forehead, and retreated to the cabinet,
as is her wont, without turning from us.
After closing the door, she half opened
it again with a smile and the words:
“Didn’t we have a good time, Mr.
Owen, as I promised? ”
“Indeed we did,” I replied; “you
kept your word. ’ ’
“ But we ’ll have far better times, by
and by, when you come to us.” The
door closed upon that earnest, beautiful
face, and we were left alone with the
memory of the marvels we had wit
nessed !
I questioned my consciousness. Had
I held familiar converse with a creature
who had already, perhaps, returned to
her fellow-denizens of the skies?
July 3. Besides myself only two
friends, Dr. P------ and Mrs. B------.
Both the mediums outside, as usual.
Sauntee came out in full form, salut
ing and touching us all : her features
handsome, .spirited, but unmistakably
Indian, and very distinct. The third
time she appeared, bending over me till
her face was scarcely a foot from mine,
she'said: “Come pale-faced chief.”
Some twenty minutes later, the cabinet
door opened and disclosed the form, dis
tinctly materialized, of a man, appar
ently of middle age, some five feet ten
in height, as I judged, with broad shoul
ders, rather dark complexion, mustache,
and short beard; his look earnest and
spirited. At the same time that he
appeared Sauntee showed herself at
the aperture and repeated: ‘ ‘ Pale-faced
chief.” The male figure showed itself
four times; its dress a white robe reach
ing to the feet, with some sort of dark
vest, partially visible, underneath.
(January,
We asked its name. After several
unsuccessful efforts, it said distinctly,
the third time it appeared: “ General
Rawlings.”
Katie, appearing ten minutes later,
repeated, in answer to our inquiries,
that it was General Rawlings.
“ Who was General Rawlings? ”
asked Mrs. B----- .
“ Secretary of War under President
Grant,” replied Katie.
Of course I knew of the general as
one of our bravest soldiers; but neither
I nor any one present had seen him or
his photograph; so that I am unable to
say whether the figure thus unexpect
edly presented to us resembled him oi'
not.
This evening Katie came out into the
room eight or nine times, appearing
more distinct than usual. She wore, as
is her wont, a resplendent white robe,
falling in loose folds, open at the neck,
running to a point on the bosom and
belted at the waist. Her arms were
bare several inches above the elbow;
the gauze sleeves which she wore being
- open half-way to the shoulder and drop
ping some six inches below the upper
arm. She remained with us three or
four minutes at a time; probably twenty
or twenty-five minutes in all.
I particularly noticed, this evening,
the ease and harmony of her motions.
In Naples, during five years, I frequent
ed a circle famed for courtly demeanor;
but never in the best-bred lady of rank
accosting her visitors have I seen Katie
outrivaled. Anything more refined than
the gentle sway of the body and turn of
the head and gesture of arm and hand,
as she passed round, saying something
pleasant or playful to each, I do not ex
pect to witness till I reach that higher
life whence this visitant descended to
teach and to charm us here.
In the course of the evening I had
asked her if she could give me a bit of
her dress, to which she replied: “I’ll
try to materialize it so that it will keep.”
The fifth time she came out, receiving
from me a pair of scissors, and turning
to the left, so as to be just opposite
where Dr. P----- and Mrs. B------sat,
�1870
Touching Visitants from a Higher Life.
63
'How the pieces cut were thus con
densed in size, I do not assume to ex
plain. Katie’s robe looks like the thin
nest gauze, and her veil like the fleeci
est cobweb-lace. But the bits of each
now in my possession seem bona-fide
lawn and lace, such as ladies wear in
this lower world.
This evening, for the first time, Katie
vanished and reappeared, but a “part
of her form was intercepted by the front
partition of the cabinet; at another sit
ting I witnessed the same phenomenon
in perfection.
July 6. Katie exhibited an amiable
trait of character. A little, slender, and
somewhat infirm old lady, already in her
seventy-sixth year, a Mrs. Peterman,
who, though never a professional medi
um, had been for half a life-time en
dowed with what Paul calls spiritual
gifts, was present, and had modestly
taken a back seat. Katie spied her,
and requested that she should have a
seat in front. Then she called me and
said: “Mr. Owen, I want to kiss that
old lady, she’s so cunning; ask her if
she would be afraid.”
Mrs. Peterman expressed great de
light; and Katie, slowly advancing, in
her usual gracious way, lightly touched
the gray head, as it bent before her,
and imprinted a kiss on the wrinkled
forehead.
A well-known artist of Philadelphia
attended this sitting; and, after exam
ining Katie through his opera-glass, said
to me, ere he left, that he had seldom
seen features exhibiting more classic
beauty. ‘ ‘ Her movements and bear
ing,” he added, “ are the very ideal of
grace.”
July 9. This evening, having ob
served that Katie seemed to delight in
flowers, I handed her a large calla lily.
She smelt it, exclaiming: “ What a
charming odor! ’ ’ And each time that
evening when she issued from the cabi
net, she carried the flower in her hand.
I had begged her, if she could, to re
peat for us the phenomenon of disap
pearance, and had placed myself so that
I could see her entire person without
the- intervention of any part of the cab
inet front.
It is an era in one’s life when one
witnesses, in perfection, this marvelous
manifestation. Katie stood on the very
threshold of the cabinet, directly in
front of me, and scarcely nine feet dis
tant. I saw her, with absolute distinct
ness, from head to foot, during all the
time she gradually faded out and reap
peared. The head disappeared a little
1 To those who may read this with incredulity, I
state that Mrs. Ross-Church (Florence Marryatt,
daughter of the well-known novelist, and editor of
London Society) relates, in the (London) Spiritual
ist of May 29,1874, a similar experience. After
giving various particulars of Katie’s last London
stance, she says : “ What appeared to me one of the
most convincing proofs of Katie’s more than natu
ral power was, that when she had cut, before our
eyes, twelve or fifteen different pieces of cloth from
the front of her tunic, as souvenirs for her friends,
there was not a hole to be seen in it, examine it
which way you would.”
In the same communication Mrs. Ross-Church
adds : “ Katie desired me to place my hands within
the loose single garment which she wore, and feel
her nude body. I did so thoroughly, and felt her
heart beating rapidly beneath my hand.”
and not more than three feet from them,
she gathered, up her dress, cutting and
handing to me a portion; then after
wards of her veil in like manner.
The piece from her dress, less than
two inches long and nearly in the form
of a leaf, proved to be a fabric like fine
bishop’s lawn; that taken from the veil
was nearly circular, an inch and a quar
ter in diameter, apparently a single
figure of the finest quality of Honiton
lace, with a star-like opening near one
edge.
An astounding incident connected
with this gift remains to be told. Dr.
P------and Mrs. B-------, under whose
very eyes the cutting was done, unite in
declaring that the hole left in the robe
where Katie cut from it, was not less
than five or six inches long, and that
made in the veil at least three or four
inches in diameter; further, that in the
course of a few seconds both openings
disappeared and the garments were
whole again. Although, when Katie
turned from me, I could not distinctly
see the cutting done, yet, intimately ac
quainted as I am with both these wit
nesses, I cannot doubt their veracity.1
�64
Touching Visitants from a Higher Life.
before the rest of her form, and the feet
and lower part of the drapery remained
visible after the body and the cross she
wore had vanished. But the lily was to
be seen, suspended in the air, for several
seconds after the hand which had held
it was gone; then it vanished, last of all.
When the figure reappeared, that lily
showed itself in advance of all else, at
first like a bright crystal, about eighteen
inches from the floor; but gradually ris
ing and assuming the lily shape, as the
hand which had held it, and the form to
which that hand belonged, first shim
mered and then brightened into view.
In less than a minute after the reappear
ance commenced, Katie issued from the
cabinet in full beauty, bearing the lily
in her right hand, with the cross on her
bosom, and arrayed in the self-same
costume which she had previously worn;
then, coming toward us, she saluted the
circle with all her wonted grace.
I am not sure whether we have, on
record, any account of the vanishing
and reappearance, in the light, of phys
ical objects; at least any example when
it was observed so closely and in such
perfection as this.
During the sitting of July 10, Katie
allowed us again to witness this phe
nomenon; and, on that occasion, a bou
quet which she held in her hand van
ished and reappeared, as the lily and
cross had done.
About this time I obtained incident
ally most cogent additional evidence
(little needed) that these phenomena
were genuine.
An old and valued friend, Mr. Fer
dinand Dreer, desiring to allay the sus
picions of certain skeptical intimates of
his, proposed to bring them to a sdance,
at which he should be allowed to keep
watch outside the parlor door. At ten
o’clock on the morning of July 13, he
called on me, asking me if I could ar
range this for him with the mediums.
As soon as he left I proceeded, in
accordance with his wishes, to the
Holmeses, whom I found just returned
from breakfast. We talked the matter
over, and I remarked: “ I wish I could
know what Katie thinks about it.”
[January,
“ I dare say we could ascertain,’’ said
Mrs. Holmes; “ we can try.”
So we locked the doors, closed the
window-blinds, lit and shaded a single
gas-burner, and sat down quietly before
the cabinet. In ten minutes Katie ap
peared at the aperture, beckoned to me,
and, before I had said a word, asked:
“ Is Mr. Dreer a man upon whose prom
ises you can rely? ”
I. Absolutely. And he has given
me his solemn promise that neither he
nor the friends he proposes to bring with
him will violate any conditions imposed.
Katie. But you must have some of
our intimate friends in the front circle.
I need such aid.
I. Be sure that we shall attend to
that.
Katie. Let Mr. Dreer examine all
the rooms before the sitting begins, and
leave the door of this parlor open, so
that he can see and hear what passes.
It did not occur to me, till after this
impromptu sitting closed, what a severe
test it was. The Holmeses had never,
up to this time, had a forenoon oi' mid
day sitting. They could not, by possi
bility, have anticipated my coming,
since the intention to visit them pre
ceded my visit by five minutes only.
Still less could they have imagined that
I would express a desire to hear from
Katie at that hour. The hypothesis of
preparation is absolutely barred. The
door of the cabinet stood open, as usual,
when I entered. I examined it care
fully, and myself closed its door, before
we sat down.
July 14. Mr. Dreer came with four
friends. Ere the sitting commenced,
he examined the house, inspected the
bedroom most critically, saw the out
side window-shutter of that room effect
ually barred, saw its door locked, and
placed a bit of adhesive plaster over the
key-hole, then sat down in the entry, so
that no one could go up or down stairs
without passing him. The door open
ing from the parlor on the passage
where he sat remained open during the
whole sitting.
Under these strict test conditions, the
manifestations were triumphantly sue-
�Touching Visitants from a Higher Life.
65
cessful. Katie came out in full form
five or six times. In the course of
the evening she jestingly deplored Mr.
Dreer’s solitary condition, begged him
to let. her know in case he saw Katie
King pass up or down stairs, and finally
®nvited him into the room, advancing
and gracefully saluting him.
Ere the sitting closed we had — now
for the fifth time — the phenomenon of
appearance and disappearance in full
perfection. During this and the sitting
of June 12, the reappearance seemed to
be effected in a somewhat modified way.
The form came into view first as a sort
of dwarfed or condensed Katie, not.over
eighteen inches high; then the figure
appeared to be elongated, almost as a
I pocket-telescope is drawn to its full
length, till the veritable Katie, not a
fold of her shining raiment disarranged,
stood in full stature before us. That
scriptural expression of “ shining rai
ment ” was constantly suggested to me
when Katie, issuing from the darkness
of the cabinet, shone out upon us in full
form.
Another phenomenon, that of levi
tation, which we witnessed during the
sitting of July 12, and on four or five
other occasions, recalled some of the
old paintings of the Transfiguration.
Within the cabinet, but in full view, we
saw Katie’s entire form — her graceful
garments literally “ white as the light ”
— suspended in mid-air. I observed
that she gently moved hands and feet, as
a, swimmer, upright in the water, might.
She remained thus, each time, from ten
to fifteen seconds.
July 16. This was my farewell sit
ting, appointed on the forenoon of the
iay on which I left Philadelphia, by
Katie herself, Dr. and Mrs. Child being
present, at her request.
I had a talk with her at the aperture.
Producing the mother - of - pearl cross
I had given her, she said: “ Father
Owen,11 shall keep this cross forever,
and when, at any time, I fall short of
my highest conceptions of duty, be sure
that the sight of it will recall me to bet
ter thoughts.”
I told hei' with how much regret I
parted from her, and she added: “ But
you will return in the autumn; for I
don’t think it is intended that you
should come to us yet awhile. But if
it is, be very certain that I shall be
there to receive you.”
I told her I should be quite content to
go at once, only that I had some work
which I desired still to do.
Katie. I think you will live to do it;
yet you ought to rest for two months at
least. The excitement of these inter
views keeps you up, but you. will feel
exhausted when that passes off.
She came out four or five times, walk
ing about freely, seated herself on a
chair, then came up to us, laying her
hands on our heads. She gave sun
dry instructions touching the sittings to
come, and expressed the hope that, in
the future, she might still be able to do
much for us.
■Myself. It is a marvel to me, dear
Katie, that you should take such pains
about us earthly creatures.
Katie. Why, I love you all. It is
beautiful to be here, among dear friends.
Toward the close of this sitting we
had a phenomenon somewhat different
from any we had yet witnessed. The
door of the cabinet opened slowly, with
out visible cause. Nothing was to be
seen within except the black walnut
boards; but, after a minute or two,
there appeared, exactly as if emerging
from the floor, first the head and shoul
ders of Katie, then her entire body;
and, as on previous occasions, after
standing a few seconds, she came out
into the parlor and approached us.2
When the astonishment called forth by
such a sight had somewhat subsided, I
thought of the text which speaks of
Samuel, at En-dor, “ arising out of the
earth.”
She came up to me, kissing me on
the forehead, and bestowing her final
benediction. Then, after a few pleas-
1 Ever since the day I promised to protect her
from annoyance as if she were my own daughter
she was in the habit ef thus addressing me.
W>L. XXXV.—NO. 207.
5
2 At that hour the music store, of which I have
spoken as being immediately below the parlor and
cabinet, was open and frequented by customers.
�66
Touching Visitants from a Higher Life.
ant words to the mediums and to Dr.
and Mrs. Child, and after looking at us
all for some time, she said: “ I am very
sorry that I shall soon have to part with
you all.”
As she spoke, the tears — literal tears
— stood in those large, kind eyes, and
she wiped them with her veil, slowly
retreating to the cabinet. Both the
ladies wept; and to us all it was a sad
and solemn leave-taking.
touch it; all as with us: also a luminous
detached hand wrote for him. But
there were differences. In his case the
materialization was effected, in every
instance, during a dark sitting, while all
our sittings were lighted. The figure
which appeared to him was made vis
ible by spiritual light; being sometimes
self-illumined, sometimes lighted from
an ephemeral light vehicle which he
saw and handled; and when the figure
vanished, the light went out with it.
Again, it never conversed with him,
uttering only (now and then) inarticu
late sounds. Nor did the expression of
the face vary, as in a human being. It
was more or less perfect in resemblance,
indeed, on different occasions; depend
ing in part, it seemed, on the weather;
but, once formed, it maintained, through
out the evening, a fixed expression, as
if crystallized.
There was another marked difference.
Mi’. Livermore obtained, as I did, a
lock of hair and a portion of the dress;
but both melted away in ten or fifteen
minutes.
1
Thus it appears that, since that time,
spirit artists have made progress. They
are now able to materialize the vocal
organs, and to give to the features that
mobility of expression which thoughts
and feelings, as they change, impart to
the human countenance. Finally, they
have learned how to give permanence
to locks of hair and portions of gar
ments, so that these gifts from spiritual
hands no longer vanish as we gaze,
The reader who may have followed
me to this point will have concluded
(correctly) that I no longer entertained
the slightest doubt touching the genuine
character of these manifestations.
The proof lies in a nutshell, and may
be stated in simplest syllogistic form;
the only axiom to be conceded being
this: Human beings cannot pass, at
will, through the substance of a brick
wall, or of a stout wooden partition.
This conceded, the case stands thus: —
Either Katie was, what she professed
to be, a visitant from another phase of
being, or else she was a confederate
stealthily introduced into the cabinet,
for purposes of deceit.
But under the conditions as they were
arranged, entrance to or exit from the
cabinet, except by the door which
opened into the parlor where we sat,
was a physical impossibility.
Therefore Katie, not being an inhab
itant of this world, was a denizen of
another, made visible to us, for the time,
by some process which has been called
materialization.
It was to a similar conclusion that
the London scientists, Mr. Crookes, Mr.
Wallace, and Mr. Varley, came, after a
long, patient, and critically conducted
investigation.
To the same effect is the experience
(ten years older than ours) of Mr.
Charles Livermore.1 He saw the eido
lon of his deceased wife on eighty or
ninety different evenings. The figure
vanished and reappeared, floated in the
air, touched him, and suffered him to
but remain in human possession, tan
gible vouchers for the reality of spirit
visitation.
It would lead me too far to extend
comparison to the sittings of the Eddys,
of Vermont, whom I have not seen.
Some of the phenomena obtained through
them seem to be even more marvelous,
and much more varied, than those here
recorded: but with them, as in London,
it has ever been necessary, in order to
1 Formerly head of the well-known New York
banking firm of Livermore, Clews, & Co. His ex
perience, running through five years (1861 to 1866),
will be found (based on his own record, made from
day to day) in The Debatable Land (Carleton &
Co., New York), pages 482 to 501.
“ Like fairy-gifts fading away; ”
�1875.]
Touching Visitants from a Higher Life.
67
obtain materialization, that a medium
should remain in the cabinet.
I have seen Katie’s brilliant form
walk forth into the room eighty or a
hundred times. Nearly as often I have
conversed with her at the aperture,
sometimes as to the manner of conduct
ing the sittings. On several of these
occasions she read, and replied to, my
thoughts. I saw her face, day after
day, as distinctly as I ever saw that of
a human being. I am as certain that it
was the same spirit, from first to last,
as I can be in regard to the identity of
any friend whom I meet daily. Not
only by the bright, changeful play of
the features, and the large, somewhat
sad eyes, with their earnest, honest look,
but by the tone and tenor of her con
versation, evincing alike good sense and
good feeling, did I recognize a distinct
and uniform, and, I may add, an ami
able and estimable character.
There are, however, certain discrep
ancies which seem, at first, not easily
explained. In somewhat strange con
trast with Katie’s high-bred finish of
manner when she walks forth from the
cabinet, are a few of her peculiarities.
When those who ought to know better,
making light of the occasion, have spok
en to her after what is sometimes called
a chaffing fashion, she has replied, if
she replied at all, in the same tone;
using such expressions as “ Of course I
be,” “I can’t,” ‘.‘I shan’t,” and giv
ing to the a in these words, and in the
word 41 thank,” its broad sound, as in
hall; occasionally, too, jestingly calling
the mediums or Dr. Child “ stoopid.”
But whenever I have conversed with
her alone, I have detected no triviality;
her language has been that of an edu
cated’woman, and her sentiments those
Of a kind and a good one. On such
occasions she has more than once re-
minded me that her mission here was to
give to the children of this world evi
dence of their immortality.
These apparent discrepancies of bear
ing and manner are, perhaps, philosoph
ically accounted for in a communication
purporting to come from Katie herself
through the mediumship of a gentleman
whose good faith is unquestionable; in
which occur these passages: —
“ The way in which I sometimes ap
pear and speak, when I am materialized,
is not a true exponent of my present
condition. . . . Spirits either in or out
of the form, as you call it, are, to a
great extent, subject to the influences
of material elements; and if you could
spend a little time with me, in an ap
preciative manner, in my home in spirit
land, you would not recognize me as the
same Katie who calls you ‘ stupid,’
and uses expressions that are often re
pulsive to my inner consciousness. . . .
All spirits, when they visit earth, must,
in subjection to a law of their being,
assume the conditions they had when
they left the earthly form, though they
may bring to your world many thoughts
and ideas which they have acquired in
the inner life. . . . All spiritual com
munications are more or, less modified
by. the channel through which they
pass.” 1
As to the side issue regarding the
identity of the Katie who appeared to
us with the Katie who was the sub
ject of Mr. Crookes’ investigations, it is
less conclusively settled than the reality
of the phenomena themselves. Yet I
see strong reason for admitting it 2 and
little or none for denying it. In the
main, our experience on this side is but
the counterpart of that obtained in En
gland, with such advance as, in the
progress of all phenomenal experiments,
is to be expected. I do not believe that
1 Holding this for truth, and being desirous not
to mix uncertainties with certainties, I refrain from
alluding here to certain (alleged) particulars of
Katie’s earth-life (with a truthful ring in them),
coming to us through such a channel. All that
Katie herself ever told me on that subject was, that
her true name is Annie Morgan, and that the spirit
usually known as John King or Henry Morgan is
her father.
2 On one occasion, without any previous allusion _
by myself to the subject, Katie said to me, from the
cabinet window: “ Some of my London friends mis
interpreted my parting words. I took final leave,
not of your earth, but of dear Florrie Cook, because
my continuance with her would have injured her
health.”
This is the only allusion which Katie has ever
made to me in regard to her London experience, or
her friends in that city.
�68
Touching Visitants from a Higher' Life fl [January,
we could have succeeded as we did in previous observers is, that the mediums
Philadelphia, unless the way had been remain outside in full view and unen-«.
prepared for us in London; nor unless tranced during the whole sitting. I have
we had been aided by the same spirit not found any record of a case in which
which had acquired, during three years’ a spirit in full form issued from the cab
experience with Florence Cook as me inet, walked about the room, conversed
dium, the skill — if I may use the earth with its visitors, touched them and was
ly expression — which enables her to touched in turn, unless a medium had
present herself in veritable earthly guise. previously entered the cabinet, and had re
To judge by the London photographs mained there (usually entranced) until
of Katie taken by electric light, the the spirit-form returned thither. Our
beautiful form and features with which light, too, was sufficient to show the
we are familiar here do not resemble features in perfection (at least when we
those which appeared to the English approached the cabinet); and this has
observers; nor is there here, as there not usually been the case at materializa
was in London, any likeness between tions elsewhere.
Nor do I doubt that, at the sittings
the spirit-form and either of the medi
ums. The face of the London Katie which have recently been recommenced,
suggests the adjectives pretty and inter- — and at which the self-same Katie has
esting. The face of our Katie is Gre already shown herself, as distinctly as
cian in its regularity. Earnestness, with ever, — we shall make important addi
a passing touch of weariness, is its ha tional progress.1
bitual expression; and even its smile,
If, now, I am asked where all this is
though bright, has an occasional dash
of sadness in it. One thinks of it as to end; what is to come of it, in case
unquestionably handsome, as full of familiar converse with visitants from a
character, as intellectual, and withal as higher life shall continue to be permitted
singularly attractive; but one would here; I reply that that is not our affair.
never call it pretty, any more than one We have to deal, for the present, with
would apply that term to the Venus of facts, not with the results from facts.
Milo. The nose is straight, not aqui We are not the governors of this world,
line as in the London photographs, and and need not trouble ourselves with
the large, clear eyes are dark gray with predictions looking to the ultimate con
a bluish tinge. The face is a trifle sequences of natural phenomena. Cos
broader than the classical model; the mical order has never, so far, been dis
upper lip somewhat less short, and the arranged by any new class of truths;
features, perhaps, less delicately chis and if we fear that it ever will be, we
eled: yet both features and expression shall merit the reproach: “ O ye of
much more nearly resemble those of little faith I ’ ’
I hold it of all human privileges the
some fine old statue, than they do the
lineaments and looks of Florence Cook, greatest, to have been permitted to wit
so far as one can judge from her photo ness these phenomena.
graph. But in this case identity must
Postscript. Since writing the above
be determined by internal evidence, not
by outward form. The mediums, from there has come to my notice a document
whom is doubtless drawn a portion of which enables me to speak with more
the elements to materialize, here and assurance of the identity of the Katie
King of Philadelphia and the spirit ap
there, being entirely different.
The chief advance which, so far as pearing under the same name in London.
Mr. J. C. Luxmore, a gentleman of
my reading goes, we have made over all
1 For brevity’s sake I have passed over the record
of more than half our sittings, with numerous
minor details ; among them the appearance, in full
form within the cabinet, of a tall, stately figure,
purporting to be that of Abraham Lincoln and of
another said to be John King. There came also, at
different times, to the apertures, fifteen or sixteen
different faces, a few of which were recognized by
relatives or friends.
�1875.]
Old Times on the Mississippi.
the utmost respectability, has been,
throughout the period of Miss Florence
Cook’s mediumship, her constant friend
I and supporter. Many of her sittings
were held at his town-house, 16 Glouces
ter Square, Hyde Park, London.
Now, in The (London) Spiritualist of
February 1, 1873, Mr. Luxmore has
given, under his own signature, the full
details of a stance, by the Holmeses,
which he attended on the evening of
January 13, 1873. After describing a
preliminary dark stance, and then the
appearance, in the light at the aperture,
of four or five faces, “ very plainly
seen,” he adds: “ Last of all came
Katie, who generally, or I believe I may
say always, presents herself at Miss
Cook’s seances. I have seen her three
times at Hackney,1 and could perfectly
identify the face. She spoke, as usual, in
a whisper, but not sufficiently loud for me
to determine what was said. I, although
I had not the slightest doubt of her iden
tity, said: ‘If you are Katie, put out
your chin as you do at Miss Cook’s.’
This was at once done. I should think
it perfectly impossible for any one who
has had the privilege of attending Miss
1 Where Miss Cook and her parents then lived.
Katie, at that time, had not appeared in full form.
69
Cook’s stances to have a single doubt of
its being the same face we see there.”
The italics are Mr. Luxmore’s.
But all those who, like myself, were
fortunate enough to converse frequently
and familiarly with Katie last summer,
will bear me out in asserting that the
one peculiarity which marked her ap
pearance at the aperture was, that each
time, after she had said something to us,
she withdrew the upper part of her face
and head, bringing her chin prominent
ly forward. The self-same peculiarity
marks her recent reappearance.
It does not at all affect the genuine
character of the phenomena whether we
conclude that the question of identity is
determined, or that it must be left open.
Nor do I assert that it is positively set
tled by the above facts. What I do
say is, that these facts, taken in con
nection with other evidence already ad
duced, afford to my mind fair and rea
sonable assurance that (though varying
in outward feature) the spirit which con
versed with Mr. Crookes and others in
London and that which has spoken to
myself and others here — in both cases
an eminent instrument to advance the
cause of Spiritualism — is but one and
the same.
Robert Dale Owen.
OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
I.
When I was a boy, there was but
one permanent ambition among my com
rades in our village on the west bank of
the Mississippi River. That was, to
be a steamboatman. We had transient
ambition® ;of other sorts, but they were
only transient. When a circus came
and went, it left us all burning to be
come clowns; the first negro minstrel
show that came to our section left us all
suffering to try that kind of life; now
and then we had a hope that if we lived
and were good, God would permit us to
be pirates. These ambitions faded out,
each in its turn; but the ambition to be
a steamboatman always remained.
Once a day a cheap, gaudy packet
arrived upward from St. Louis, and an
other downward from Keokuk. Before
these events had transpired, the day
was glorious with expectancy; after they
had transpired, the day was a dead and
empty thing. Not only the boys, but
the whole village, felt this. After all
these years I can picture that old time
to myself now, just as it was then: the
white town drowsing in the sunshine of
a summer’s morning; the streets empty,
or pretty nearly so; one or two clerks
sitting in front of the Water Street
�70
Old Times on the Mississippi.
stores, with their splint-bottomed chairs
tilted back against the wall, chins on
breasts, hats slouched over their faces,
asleep — with shingle-shavings enough
around to show what broke them down;
a sow and a litter of pigs loafing along
the sidewalk, doing a good business in
water-melon rinds and seeds; two or
three lonely little freight piles scattered
about the ‘ ‘ levee; ” a pile of ‘ ‘ skids ’ ’
on the slope of the stone-paved wharf,
and the fragrant town drunkard asleep
in the shadow of them; two or three
wood flats at the head of the wharf, but
nobody to listen to the peaceful lapping
of the wavelets against them; the great
Mississippi, the majestic, the magnifi
cent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide
tide along, shining in the sun; the
dense forest away on the other side;
the “point” above the town, and the
“point” below, bounding the river
glimpse and turning it into a sort of
sea, and withal a very still and brilliant
and lonely one. Presently a film of
dark smoke appears above one of those
remote “points;” instantly a negro
drayman, famous for his quick eye
and prodigious voice, lifts up the cry,
“ S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin’!” and the
scene changes! The town drunkard
stirs, the clerks wake up, a furious
clatter of drays follows, every house
and store pours out a human contribu
tion, and all in a twinkling the dead
town is alive and moving. Drays, carts,
men, boys, all go hurrying from many
quarters to a common centre, the wharf.
Assembled there, the people fasten their
eyes upon the coming boat as upon a
wondei’ they are seeing for the first
time. And the boat is rather a hand
some sight, too. She is long and sharp
and trim and pretty; she has two tall,
fancy-topped chimneys, with a gilded
device of some kind swung between
them; a fanciful pilot-house, all glass
and “ gingerbread,” perched on top of
the “ texas ” deck behind them; the
paddle-boxes are gorgeous with a pict
ure or with gilded rays above the boat’s
name; the boiler deck, the hurricane
deck, and the texas deck are fenced and
ornamented with clean white railings;
[January,
there is a flag gallantly flying from the
jack-staff; the furnace doors are open
and the fires glaring bravely; the upper
decks are black with passengers; the
captain stands by the big bell, calm,
imposing, the envy of all; great vol
umes of the blackest smoke are rolling
and tumbling out of the chimneys — a
husbanded grandeur created with a bit
of pitch pine just before arriving at a
town; the crew are grouped on the
forecastle; the broad stage is run far
out over the port bow, and an envied
deck-hand stands picturesquely on the
end of it with a coil of rope in his hand;
the pent steam is screaming through the
gauge-cocks; the captain lifts his hand,
a bell rings, the wheels stop; then they
turn back, churning the water to foam,
and the steamer is at rest. Then such
a scramble as there is to get aboard,
and to get ashore, and to take in freight
and to discharge freight, all at one and
the same time; and such a yelling and
cursing as the mates facilitate it all
with! Ten minutes later the steamer is
under way again, with no flag on the
jack-staff and no black smoke issuing
from the chimneys. After ten more
minutes the town is dead again, and the
town drunkard asleep by the skids once .
more.
My father was a justice of the peace,
and I supposed he possessed the power
of life and death over all men and could
hang anybody that offended him. This
was distinction enough for me as a gen
eral thing; but the desire to be a steam
boatman kept intruding, nevertheless.
I first wanted to be a cabin-boy, so that
I could come out with a white apron on
and shake a table-cloth over the side,
where all my old comrades could see
me; later I thought I would rather be
the deck-hand who stood on the end of
the stage-plank with the coil of rope in
his hand, because he was particularly
conspicuous. But these were only day
dreams — they were too heavenly to be
contemplated as real possibilities. By
and by one of our boys went away. He
was not heard of for a long time. At
last he turned up as apprentice engineer
or “ striker ” on a steamboat. This
J
x
**
�1875.]
Old Times on the Mississippi*
thing shook the bottom out of all my
f Banday-school teachings. That boy had
been notoriously worldly, and I just the
reverse; yet he was exalted to this
eminence, and I left in obscurity and
misery. There was nothing generous
about this fellow in his greatness. He
would always manage to have a rusty
bolt to scrub while his boat tarried at
our town, and he would sit on the in
side guard and scrub it, where we could
all see him and envy him and loathe
him. And whenever his boat was laid
up he would come home and swell
around the town in his blackest and
greasiest clothes, so that nobody could
help remembering that he was a steam
boatman; and he used all sorts of
steamboat technicalities in his talk, ds
if he were so used to them that he forgot
common people could not understand
them. He would speak of the “ lab
board ’ ’ side of a horse in an easy,
natural way that would make one wish
he was dead. And he was always
talking about “ St. Looy ” like an old
citizen; he would refer casually to oc
casions when he “ was coming down
Fourth Street,” or when he was “ pass
ing by the Planter’s House,” or when
there was a fire and he took a turn on the
brakes of “ the old Big Missouri ; ” and
then he would go on and lie about how
many towns the size of ours were burned
down there that day. Two or three of
the boys had long been persons of con
sideration among 'us because they had
been to St. Louis once and had a vague
general knowledge of its wonders, but
the day of their glory was over now.
They lapsed into a humble silence, and
learned to disappear when the ruthless
“ cub ”-engineer approached. This
fellow had money, too, and hair oil.
Also an ignorant silver watch and a
showy brass watch chain. He wore a
leather belt and used no suspenders. If
ever a youth was cordially admired and
hated by his comrades, this one was.
No girl could withstand his charms. He
“ cut out ” every boy in the village.
When his boat blew up at last, it dif
fused a tranquil contentment among us
such as we had not known for months.
71
But when he came home the next week,
alive, renowned, and appeared in church
all battered up and bandaged, a shin
ing hero, stared at and wondered over
by everybody, it seemed to us that the
partiality of Providence for an unde
serving reptile had reached a point
where it was open to criticism.
This creature’s career could produce
but one result, and it speedily followed.
Boy after boy managed to get on the
river. The minister’s son became an
engineer. The doctor’s and the post
master’s sons became “ mud clerks ; ”
the wholesale liquor dealer’s son be
came a bar-keeper on a boat; four sons
of the chief merchant, and two sons of
the county judge, became pilots. Pilot
was the grandest position of all. The
pilot, even in those day's of trivial wages,
had a princely salary — from a hundred
and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars
a month, and 1. > board to pay. Two
months of his wages would pay a
preacher’s salary' for a year. Now
some of us were left disconsolate. We
could not get on the river — at least
bur, parents would not let us.
So by and by I ran away. I said I
never would come home again till I was
a pilot and could come in glory. But
somehow I could not manage it. I went
meekly aboard a few of the boats that
lay packed together like sardines at
the long St. Louis wharf, and very
humbly inquired for the pilots, but got
only a cold shoulder and short words
from mates and clerks. I had to make
the best of this sort of treatment for
the time being, but I had comforting
day-dreams of a future when I should
be a great and honored pilot, with
plenty of money, and could kill some
of these mates and clerks and pay for
them.
Months afterward the hope within me
struggled to a reluctant death, and I
found myself without an ambition. But
I was ashamed to go home. I was in
Cincinnati, and I set to work to map out
a new career. I had been reading about
the recent exploration of the river Am
azon by an expedition sent out by our
government. It was said that the ex
�72
Old Times on the Mississippi.
pedition, owing to difficulties, had not
thoroughly explored a part of the coun
try lying about the head-waters, some
four thousand miles from the mouth of
the river. It was only about fifteen
hundred miles from Cincinnati to New
Orleans, where I could doubtless get a
ship. I had thirty dollars left; I would
go and complete the exploration of the
Amazon. This was all the thought I
gave to the subject. I never was great
in matters of detail. I packed my va
lise, and took passage on an ancient tub
called the Paul Jones, for New Orleans.
For the sum of sixteen dollars I had
the scarred and tarnished splendors of
“ her ” main saloon principally to my
self, for she was not a creature to at
tract the eye of wiser travelers.
When we presently got under way
and went poking down the broad Ohio,
I became a new being, and the subject
of my own admiration I was a trav
eler ! A word never had tasted so good
in my mouth before. I had an exultant
sense of being bound for mysterious
lands and distant climes which I never
have felt in so uplifting a degree since.
I was in such a glorified condition that
all ignoble feelings departed out of me,
and I was able to look down and pity
the untraveled with a compassion that
had hardly a trace of contempt in it.
Still, when we stopped at villages and
wood-yards, I could not help lolling
carelessly upon the railings of the
boiler deck to enjoy the envy of the
country boys on the bank. If they
did not seem to discover me, I presently
sneezed to attract, their attention, or
moved to a position where they could
not help seeing me. And as soon as
I knew they saw me I gaped and
stretched, and gave other signs of being
mightily bored with traveling.
I kept my hat off all the time, and
stayed where the wind and the sun could
strike me, because I wanted to get the
bronzed and weather-beaten look of an
old traveler. Before the second day
was half gone, I experienced a joy
which filled me with the purest grati
tude; for I saw that the skin had begun
to blister and peel off my face and neck.
[January,
I wished that the boys and girls at home
could see me now.
We reached Louisville in time — at
least the neighborhood of it. We stuck
hard and fast on the rocks in the mid
dle of the river and lay there four days.
I was now beginning to feel a strong
sense of being a part of the boat’s fam
ily, a sort of infant son to the captain
and younger brother to the officers.
There is no estimating the pride I took
in this grandeur, or the affection that
began to swell and grow in me for those
people. I could not know how the
lordly steamboatman scorns that sort of
presumption in a mere landsman. I
particularly longed to acquire the least
trifle of notice from the big stormy
mate, and I was on the alert for an op
portunity to do him a service to that
end. It came at last. The riotous
powwow of setting a spar was going
on down on the forecastle, and I went
down there and stood around in the
way — or mostly skipping out of it —
till the mate suddenly roared a gen
eral order for somehody to bring him
a capstan bar. I sprang to his side
and said: “ Tell me where it is — I’ll
fetch it! ”
If a rag-picker had offered to do a
diplomatic service for the Emperor of
Russia, the monarch could not have been
more astounded than the mate was. He
even stopped swearing. He stood and
stared down at me. It took him ten
seconds to scrape his disjointed remains
together again. Then he said impress
ively: “Well, if this don’t beat hell!”
and turned to his work with the air of a
man who had been confronted with a
problem too abstruse for solution.
I crept away, and courted solitude for
the rest of the day. I did not go to
dinner; I stayed away from supper until
everybody else had finished. I did not
feel so much like a member of the boat’s
family now as before. However, my
spirits returned, in installments, as we
pursued our way down the river. I was
sorry I hated the mate so, because it was
not in (young) human nature not to ad
mire him. He was huge and muscular,
his face was bearded and whiskered all
�W5J1
Old Times on the Mississippi.
Over; he had a red woman and a blue
woman tattooed on his right arm, -— one
on each side of a blue anchor with a red
rope to it; and in the matter of profanity
he was perfect. When he was getting
out cargo at a landing, I was always
where I could see and hear. He felt all
the sublimity of his great position, and
made the world feel it, too. When he
gave even the simplest order, he dis
charged it like a blast of lightning, and
sent a long, reverberating peal of pro
fanity thundering after it. I could not
help contrasting the way in which the
average landsman would give an order,
with the mate’s way of doing it. If
the landsman should wish the gang
plank moved a foot farther forward, he
would probably say: “James, or Will
iam, one of you push that plank for
ward, please;” but put the mate in his
place, and he would roar out: “ Here,
now, start that gang-plank for’ard!
Lively, now! What ’re you about! Snatch
it! snatch it! There! there! Aft again!
aft again! Don’t you hear me? Dash it
to dash! are you going to sleep over it!
’Vast heaving. ’Vast heaving, I tell
you! Going to heave it clear astern?
WHERE ’re you going with that bar
rel! for’ard with it ’fore I make you
swallow it, you dash-dash-dash-das7zed
split between a tired mud-turtle and a
crippled hearse-horse! ’ ’
I wished I could talk like that.
When the soreness of my adventure
with the mate had somewhat worn off, I
began timidly to make up to the hum
blest official connected with the boat —
the night watchman. He snubbed my
advances at first, but I presently vent
ured to offer him a new chalk pipe,
and that softened him. So he allowed
me to sit with him by the big bell on the
hurricane deck, and in time he melted
into conversation. He could not well
have helped it, I hung with such hom
age on his words and so plainly showed
that I felt honored by his notice. He
told me the names of dim capes and
shadowy islands as we glided by them in
the solemnity of the night, under the
winking stars, and by and by got to talk
ing about himself. He seemed over-
73
sentimental for a man whose salary was
six dollars a week — or rather he might
have seemed so to an older person than
I. But I drank in his words hungrily,
and with a faith that might have moved
mountains if it had been applied ju
diciously. What was it to me that he
was soiled and seedy and fragrant with
gin ? What was it to me that his gram
mar was bad, his construction worse, and
his profanity so void of art that it was
an element of weakness rather than
strength in his conversation? He was
a wronged man, a man who had seen
trouble, and that was enough for me.
As he mellowed into his plaintive history
his tears dripped upon the lantern in his
lap, and I cried, too, from sympathy.
He said he was the son of an English
nobleman — either an earl or an aider
man, he could not remember which, but
believed he was both; his father, the
nobleman, loved him, but his mother
hated him from the cradle; and so while
he was still a little boy he was sent to
“ one of them old, ancient colleges ” —
he couldn’t remember which; and by
and by his father died and his mother
seized the property and “ shook ” him,
as he phrased it. After his mother
shook him, members of the nobility with
whom he was acquainted used their in
fluence to get him the position of ‘1 lob
lolly-boy in a ship; ’ ’ and from that
point my watchman threw off all tram
mels of date and locality and branched
out into a narrative that bristled all
along with incredible adventures; a nar
rative that was so reeking with blood
shed and so crammed with hair-breadth
escapes and the most engaging and un
conscious personal villainies, that I sat
speechless, enjoying, shuddering, won
dering, worshiping.
It was a sore blight to find out after
wards that he was a low, vulgar, igno
rant, sentimental, half-witted humbug,
an untraveled native of the wilds of Illi
nois, who had absorbed wildcat literature
and appropriated its marvels, until in
time he had woven odds and ends of the
mess into this yarn, and then gone on
telling it to fledgelings like me, until he
had come to believe it himself.
Mark Twain.
�
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Touching visitants from a higher life
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Owen, Robert Dale [1801-1877]
Twain, Mark [1835-1910]
Description
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Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 59-74 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Pp.59-69 apparently extracted from Owen's autobiography, published in an unidentified periodical (apparently The Atlantic) January 1875. Printed in double columns. Imperfect copy - text begins in mid-sentence on p.59. Contains also (p.69-73) 'Old times on the Mississippi', by Mark Twain. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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[s.n.]
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1875
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N519
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Spiritualism
Autobiography
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NSS
Robert Owen
Spiritualism
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Text
THE SPIRIT WORLD1
By^the BishopSof Salford
I
The Church of Christ—established by her Divine
Founder for the purpose of teaching mankind those
truths in both the intellectual and the moral order
which are to lead them to the fulfilment of the end
for which they were created and to their eternal
happiness hereafter—has never ceased on the one
hand to propound full and satisfying systems of truth
on all questions concerning man’s relation to his
Maker and all that affects his own destiny; and on
the other to reprobate and condemn 'those many
false systems, religious, ethical, or social, which have
arisen in all ages from the very days of the Apostles
to our own. Many of these systems have contained,
indeed, a certain admixture of truths, or at least half
truths, which have rendered them the more insidious
and the more dangerous, as even earnest believers
may be the more easily led away into false systems
by the elements of good which appear therein, so
that they may deceive, as Christ warned us, “ even the
Elect.”2
Not unfrequently systems of this character have
been denominated by names ending in “ ism,” and
there are cases where such an ending, attached to a
term which in itself may be unobjectionable; acts as a
kind of danger signal that the complex of teachings
1 A Pastoral Letter, 1912.
2 Mark xiii. 22.
�2
The Spirit World
which it involves may contain errors of a dangerous and
a pernicious character. Thus whilst the Church may
approve and even maintain certain of the teachings
appropriated by such systems; yet. as she is bound
by her very nature to condemn the errors which are
mixed up with them, so is it her duty to reprobate
these systems as a whole and to warn her children
from attaching themselves to them and becoming
disciples or partisans of the schools which teach
them.
Modern Errors
A few recent examples will make our meaning
clear. It is well known to all, that within recent
years our present Holy Father, Pope Pius X., has
condemned with no uncertain voice and with
Apostolic severity that religious system known as
“Modernism.” Now, we are fully aware that so far
from reprobating or discouraging modern progress of
any kind, whether intellectual, political, or social, the
Church in all ages has blessed and fostered all true
progress and development. Thus she took under her
fostering wing the advancement of literature and the
fine arts in the Middle Ages. The theological and
philosophical syntheses of Thomas Aquinas, so novel
to his contemporaries1; the mighty creations of
Dante, of Raphael, and Michelangelo; the heroic
discoveries of Christopher Columbus, received the
fulness of her patronage and blessing. Similarly, at
the close of the Middle Ages, the Church fostered and
encouraged the then modern revival of ancient
classical learning, known as the Renascence, whilst at
the same time severely condemning and checking the
1 “To his contemporaries the novelty of his work was its character
istic. His first early biographer, William de Tocco, speaks of his
‘new and clear method of deciding questions’; of his ‘new
opinions,’ ‘new projects,’ ‘new ideas.’”—W. Ward, Life of Cardinal
Newman, vol. i. p. 435.
�The Spirit World
3
pernicious neopaganism, the outcome of the excess to
which that revival led, and which vitiated so much of
its action on the mind and morals of Europe.1 Yet
more strikingly did she hail that art, so thoroughly
Catholic in its inception, the art of printing, whose
earliest beginnings she blessed and even enriched
with copious indulgences.2 In our own days, she has
incorporated into her Ritual special blessings for
such modern inventions as the railway, textile
machinery, the telegraph, the motor, and even
the aeroplane. Thus the Church bestows her
approval and benediction on all that is good and
useful in modern progress and enlightenment, whilst
she condemns—-as she is obliged to do—those
dangerous philosophical and theological errors which
have been mixed up with so much of modern
criticism and methods, and are collectively known
under the title of “ Modernism.” It is not, therefore,
what is “ modern ” as such that falls under her ban,
but what is “ modernistic.”
The system known as “ Socialism ” is another
example of what we mean. So far from the Church
being opposed to social reform, it is she who from
her beginning has been the pioneer in all the social
improvements of mankind’s lot. The very adjective
“social” implies “society,” and society itself, as
indicating the brotherhood of mankind under the
fatherhood of God and the equality before God of
all men, “whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or
free,” 3 is the direct creation of the teachings of our
Lord and His Apostles, and most conspicuously of the
great Apostle of the Gentiles, St. Paul.4 The first
result of this entire revolution in the conception of
mankind was the gradual but sure extinction of
ancient slavery and of later serfdom, brought about
1 See Pastor, History of the Popes.
2 See The Catholic Church and the Printing Press, C.T. S., Jd.
3 i Cor. xii. 13.
4 See his Epistle to Philemon.
*
�4
7'he Spirit World
by the constant pressure of the Church, and especially
of the Holy See, from the days of the Apostles to the
final emancipation of the slaves of Brazil during the
reign and at the solicitation of Leo XIII. The
mention of the name of this great Pontiff cannot but
recall those magnificent Encyclicals1 on the rights of
labour, on the conditions of the working classes, and
on all the burning social questions of the day, forming
a perfect and coherent code of sound teaching, based
upon the principles of Christian doctrine, which will
be found eventually to supply the only true and real
basis for a constructive sociology capable of obviating
and curing the manifold evils and miseries of present
social conditions. But that system which has arro
gated to itself the title of “ Socialism,” based as it is
on principles quite other than those of Christ and His
Church—having for its final goal exclusively man’s
temporal instead of his eternal welfare, and thus
radically subordinating what is primary to what is
secondary—is as such condemned by the Church,
even whilst it advocates a number of practical reforms
which merit her approval and blessing. And the
Church’s wisdom in this discrimination is, alas, only
too emphatically proved by the sad fact, to which
our parochial clergy bear abundant witness, that
our young men, especially among the working classes,
who are beguiled into joining the Socialistic ranks,
invariably end by abandoning the Church and even
giving up Christianity. Here, again, the Church
disapproves not of what is “ social,” but of what is
“ socialistic.”
Spiritualism
The third case to which we would refer, and con
cerning which we shall speak at more length, is the
movement known as “Spiritualism” or “Spiritism.”
The Catholic Church at all times is chiefly concerned
1 See The Pope and the People, C.T.S.
�The Spirit World
5
with the spiritual side of man and his destiny, with
the future life beyond the grave, and with the
existence and operation of spiritual beings, whether
good or bad. Hence we might justly say that the
Catholic Church beyond all other religious systems
is a “Spiritualist” organization. But, as in the case
of Modernism and Socialism, an otherwise unobjec
tionable or even desirable epithet has been appro
priated by an entirely different and even hostile
system of teaching and practice, which is nowadays
familiar to everybody under the above-quoted titles.
The history of this remarkable movement is in
teresting. The scepticism engendered by the French
philosophers and encyclopaedists at the close of the
eighteenth century, followed by the hasty generaliza
tions and arrogant assertions of so many students of
physical science in the early part of the nineteenth,
led to the growth and wide diffusion of what is known
as “ Materialism,” which long held sway in both scien
tific and popular literature, as well as in many of
the universities. Because the anatomist and ' the
biologist in dissecting the animal body, or in studyi°g germs beneath the microscope, were unable to
find any trace of an immaterial or spiritual sub
stance ; because the astronomer, the physicist, and
the chemist, in investigating the regions of space or
analysing matter into its component elements, found
no trace of anything outside of matter to respond
to their tests ; because the philosopher, the historian,
the economist considered that the whole story of the
evolution of the universe allowed no place for the
action , of a spiritual First Cause or the agency of
subordinate and secondary spiritual beings; so the
existence of human souls, of pure spiritual beings,
of a God as the Supreme Spirit, were either roundly
denied, or at best declared to be, in the “ Agnostic ”
teaching, unknown and unknowable. There was a
time when Materialism seemed to threaten to absorb
�6
The Spirit World
the world of science and thought. But the reaction
inevitably came. Pure Materialism is so essentially
contrary to the profoundest instincts of the human
race and to the most venerable and persistent tradi
tional beliefs of every age and race, that the convic
tion of the existence and power of spiritual agencies
forced its way back into men’s minds. An old Latin
poet declared, in the form of a homely proverb, “ You
may drive out nature with a pitchfork, but she will
always return.”1 And so human nature reasserted
its innate and traditional belief in the supersensible
or spiritual by a strong and even violent reaction.
For as all reactions are apt to be violent and to
swing to extremes, so have we experienced of late
years an anti-materialist reaction in the form of an
elaborate and extravagant Spiritualism, permeating
all classes and exercising an ever-growing and, as we
believe, pernicious influence. It is not certain indi
vidual truths, which Spiritualism teaches quite in
accordance with Christian doctrine—such as the
existence of the human soul, its life after death, the
agency of disembodied spirits, the possibility of their
communicating with us—but, as in the cases of
.Modernism and Socialism, the system as a whole,
with all its concomitant errors and abuses, that the
Catholic Church reprobates. Once again we may
say the Church disapproves, not what is “ spiritual,”
but what is “spiritualistic.” And again it must be
plainly stated that Catholics who give themselves up
to spiritualistic beliefs and practices invariably make
shipwreck of their faith, unless they are happily rescued
in time and taught to see the danger of their position.
There is the less excuse for Catholics falling into
the power of Spiritism, inasmuch as the teachings
of their own faith supply them with the most perfect,
the most complete, the most logical, and the most
satisfying system of doctrine with reference to the
1 “ Naturam expellas furca tamen usque recurret.”—Horace.
�The Spirit World
7
world of Spirit and all that it implies in itself and in
its relation to man’s life and destiny.
II
The Teaching
of the
Church
What then is the Catholic doctrine on these
momentous topics? We shall endeavour as briefly
as possible to set forth this teaching.
God the Supreme Being, existing of Himself and
necessarily existing from all eternity, Himself pure
and absolute Spirit, is by His own infinite power and
freewill the Creator of all that exists, whether spiritual
or material. His creation is thus of a double nature,
the one consisting of the material universe, vast
beyond human conception in its magnitude and
extent, the other essentially and purely spiritual.
The Doctors of the Church teach that this spiritual
creation, although strictly speaking it has no direct
relation to space, is of itself immeasurably greater, of
more excellent nature and powers, more wonderful
and more splendid than the whole material universe,
as well as prior to it by creation. The first and
principal portion of this vast. creation consists of
those highly gifted spiritual beings, endowed with
pre-eminent attributes of intelligence and free will,
whom we designate by the generic term of the
Angels, of whom God says in the Book of Job, “The
morning stars praise Me together, and all the sons of
God make a joyful melody.”1 These so highlyendowed pure spirits were destined for a supernatural
end of eternal happiness, but this they had to merit
by the action of their free will; thus, though their
nature was by God endowed with grace from the
beginning, still they had to undergo a form of pro
bation, the nature of which has not been made known
to us, although the Fathers and theologians of the
1 Job xxxiii. 7.
�8
The Spirit World
Church have speculated much on the subject. What
is certain is that a large proportion of those spirits,
under the leadership of one, the most highly endowed
and the most resplendent of all, by an abuse of their
free will and a refusal to obey Almighty God, fell
away from their primitive state of grace, became
reprobate, and were cast by the terrible judgement of
their Creator into eternal punishment. “ God spared
not the angels that sinned, but delivered them ....
to the lower hell unto torments.”1 “ And the angels
who kept not their principality but forsook their
own habitation, he hath reserved under darkness in
everlasting chains.”2 And our Lord Himself tells us
of the “ everlasting fire which was prepared for the
devil and his angels.”3 Thus, henceforth there exist
two vast opposing armies of spiritual beings, respec
tively the servants and the enemies of God, actively
engaged in mutual opposition and hostility.
But this does not exhaust the spirit world. There
is a wondrous creature of God, who stands midway
between the spiritual world and the material world.
This creature is Man. Man is most justly defined as
a spirit or soul endowed with a material body ; and
the complete man consists of the two in intimate and
necessary union. By his soul man belongs to the
spirit world, and like the spirits is endowed with the
supreme gifts of intelligence and free will. By his
body man belongs to the material world, of which his
frame forms a portion physically, chemically, and
biologically. At the very moment of his conception,
man’s soul is created by God, and joined in the
mysterious union with the material germ that is to
evolve into his body; and this union is so intimate
and so necessary that it is destined to subsist for
eternity. Nevertheless, by a wonderful disposition of
Divine Providence there is in the life history of each
human being an epoch during which the spirit and
1 2 Peter ii. 4.
2 Jude 6.
3 Matthew xxv. 41.
�The Spirit World
9
the flesh are temporarily disunited ; and whilst the
one goes on living apart, the other is, perhaps for
cycles of time, resolved into its component material
elements. This epoch is the space which extends
from the moment of the man’s death on earth to the
last Judgement Day. During this space, which may,
indeed, subsist for aeons of time, but which neverthe
less must come to an end, the disembodied soul
subsists in one of three states—either united to God
in the eternal felicity of heaven, or suffering in the
eternal prison of hell, or detained for a time in the
temporary place of banishment called purgatory, but
in this latter case infallibly destined after a certain
lapse of time to pass on through the gates of heaven.
At the great Accounting Day this temporary and, so
to speak, unnatural state of separation will in all cases
come to an end, and disembodied spirits will once
again resume for eternity their bodily or material
parts.
The Activity
of
Spirits
Such is a conspectus of the Christian teaching
regarding the existence of immaterial beings, or
spirits, of all orders. But the Church teaches us, not
only of their existence, but also of their manifold
activities, and of their practical relations to and inter
course with ourselves during our mortal lives. In
the first place, there is no doubt that Almighty God
makes use of the vast hosts of those blessed and
happy spirits who share the felicity of heaven as His
agents and messengers in the government of creation.
Hence they are properly called “ Angels,” a Greek
word signifying “messengers”; hence the Psalmist
Says “ Who maketh His Angels spirits.”1 Some of the
Fathers, indeed, hold that God makes use of the agency
of His Angels even in the physical ordering of the
powers of nature and the phenomena of the physical
1 Psalm ciii, 4.
�io
The Spirit World
world.1 Be this as it may, we know from Holy Scripture
how greatly God uses the ministry of these spirits in
His dealings with mankind.2 The Angel who kept
our first parents out of Paradise,3 the Angels who at
different times appeared to Abraham,4 to Jacob;5
Gabriel in the history of Daniel,6 Raphael in that
of Tobias, are all familiar instances in the Old
Testament; whilst the New, from the Annunciation
of Gabriel to Mary to the delivery of Peter by an
Angel, is full of examples of angelic intervention.
Over and above this the Church teaches the beautiful
and consoling doctrine of our Guardian Angels ; that
is to say, that every individual human soul that is
born into the world, has assigned to it by God one of
His angelic spirits, charged to watch over and
protect it from both spiritual and material evils and
aid it on its way to salvation. “ He hath given His
Angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy
ways.”7 The task of the Angels is also represented
as that of carrying up our prayers before the throne
of God; and the whole of this angelic activity
between God and man is symbolically represented by
Jacob’s wonderful vision of the ladder between heaven
and earth : “ the Angels of God ascending and
descending by it.”8
On the other hand, there is no doubt that, according
to the mystery of God’s Providence, the lost spirits,
Lucifer and his host of fallen angels, whom we call
the devils or demons, are allowed to exercise no incon
siderable influence in the creation—perhaps, according
to some of the Fathers, even over phenomena of nature,
1 “ Omnia corporalia reguntur per Angelos.” S. Augustin., iii. de
Trinitate, c. 4 (quoted by S. Th. Aq., I. q. no, a. I. o.).
2 “Sunt igitur Angeli universales executores divinse providential”
S. Th. Aq., op. xiv., de Szibstantiis separatism c. 14.
3 Gen. iii. 24.
4 Gen. xix., xxii.
5 Gen. xxviii.
6 Daniel viii., ix.
7 Psalm xc. n.
8 Gen. xxviii. 12. On the whole of this subject, see Lanzoni, Gli
Angeli nelle Divine Scritture, Torino, 1891.
�The Spirit World
11
but certainly in the spiritual, and sometimes even
the physical, life of men.1 Part of our probation in
this life consists in the suggestions and temptations to
sin which these evil spirits are allowed to make
directly or indirectly to our mind and will. “ Our
wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but . . .
against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.”2
Nay, we know, from both the history of the New
Testament and the lives of the Saints in all ages, that
God sometimes allows these terrible spirits even
physically to attack and persecute man’s body. No
more awful phenomena are recorded than those cases
of possession or obsession which are familiar in the
New Testament, and have been known in every age
of the Church even to our own days. For, although
modern science may be able to explain by physical
and psychological forces many cases that our fore
fathers recorded as preternatural, still it must be
admitted that there is a residuum, even in modern
times, of phenomena which can only be regarded as
diabolical in origin.
This teaching has been unchanging in the tradition
of the Church from the Gospel narrative of the
temptation of Christ our Lord in the wilderness by
Satan even down to the well-authenticated cases of
the attacks of the evil spirits on the Blesssed Cure
of Ars in our own days. And although we believe
that since the death of Christ “ the old serpent, which
is the devil” has been bound 3—that is to say that
his power, both spiritual and physical, is very greatly
limited — nevertheless the Church has always held
that he and his wicked hosts exercise a very dreadful
degree of pernicious power, and that more especially
in pagan lands and where the influence of the Church
is less powerful.
1 “ Immissiones per cmgelos malos,” Psalm lxxvii. 49.
2 Eph, vi. 12.
s Apoc. xx. 2.
�The Spirit World
12
Mankind
and the
World of Spirits
Turning now from the activities of these vast
kingdoms of spirits, good and evil, we may ask what
are our relations with that other great and evergrowing multitude of disembodied spirits—that is to
say, the souls of all those who have departed this life,
whether in grace or in sin. Concerning these, the
Church teaches us that God allows the blessed souls
in heaven to know what passes on earth, and to be
interested in the fate of those living. And this is
not a mere benevolent interest, but one of immense
utility and practical value, inasmuch as charity leads
them to be our earnest and unwearying advocates
with the Divine Majesty, so that their prayers are
continually pleading for both our temporal and
spiritual welfare, particularly of those amongst us
who are bound to them by the ties of kinship or
devotion.
Likewise the holy souls, who are
temporarily detained in purgatory most probably are
similarly endowed with this knowledge of what passes
here below, and with the vicissitudes of their fellow
creatures, and more particularly of their kinsfolk and
friends ; and though these souls can no longer pray
or merit for themselves, it is held by great theologians
that they are allowed to exercise some degree of
intercession on our behalf.
The manifold good offices which living men are
constantly receiving from the world of. holy spirits,
whether the angelic hosts or the disembodied spirits
of the just, require from us in return corresponding
offices.
Towards the holy Angels and the Saints and Blessed
in heaven, we have a tribute to pay of homage,
veneration, and devotion, expressed either in the
public liturgy of the Church, so much of which is
occupied by praise and prayers addressed to them, or
by our own individual prayers and devotions. By
�The Spirit World
i3
these means the accidental glory of all the blessed
inhabitants of heaven is greatly increased, whilst the
Church and her individual members receive in return
a great accretion of help and patronage.
Towards the souls in purgatory our position is
reversed, and we living here on earth are, by God’s
generous mercy, allowed very greatly to assist them
and to shorten the weary time of their purgation by
offering up for them our prayers and good works of
every kind. In this great work of charity the blessed
spirits in heaven are also engaged. And thus it is that,
by these mutual offices, the whole of God’s kingdom
is for ever vivified by a golden stream of divine
charity which permeates every part:
“ For so the whole round world is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”1
The constant communion between the spirit world
and mankind, above described at some length, is
normally a purely spiritual or intellectual, i.e. a non
material one. Yet there are undoubtedly rare cases
where God allows spiritual beings, whether good or
bad, to make their presence known and even to
communicate with living men by impressions on the
senses of sight, hearing, or touch. Such phenomena,
when spirits thus communicate in some sensible form,
assuming even bodily appearances, are called
“ apparitions.” Not, indeed, that these spirits,
whether angelic or human, do assume real material
bodies, but, by some process which we cannot under
stand, they are allowed temporarily to exercise some
influence on our senses as if they were really embodied
material beings. The Holy Scriptures, the history of
the Church, and the lives of the Saints are full of
instances of these extraordinary phenomena, which
Gods sees fit to allow either for the consolation and
direction, or for the warning and correction, of His
1 Tennyson, Morte d'Arthur.
�14
The Spirit World
children. They are phenomena which men must
humbly endure for their spiritual good, but which we
must not desire or seek for, according to our own will
and judgement. Such a practice was reprobated in
the Old Testament in the case of Saul and his
evocation of the spirit of Samuel.1 And it is as
unlawful now as it was in the days of Saul.
Ill
The Pernicious Element of Spiritism
Now the essential and most pernicious element of
modern Spiritism is precisely this unlawful trafficking
with, or seeking to traffic with, spirits, whether good or
bad, whether human, angelic, or diabolical in their
nature. It is begotten of a morbid and fearfully
dangerous curiosity, like that of our first parents, to
know those hidden things which God does not see fit
to make known to us, and therefore to seek such
knowledge is to act contrary to and to sin against the
Divine Will. The Church in all ages has sternly
reprobated and forbidden all such unlawful commerce
with the unseen world, and has reckoned it as a grave
form of that sin which is known as superstition.
But it is not only the sinfulness of these practices
that makes them to deserve the warnings and con
demnation of Holy Church. There is no doubt that
the pursuit of spiritistic practices has a deplorable
effect upon the minds and even the bodies of its
votaries. The most appalling of these effects is the
weakening of the will power. This weakening is pro
gressive and alarmingly inevitable in its developments.
Like the taste for alcohol, but in a still more fatal
manner, it gradually grows in the soul until it absorbs
the energies of the free will and reduces its victim to
almost hopeless helplessness. Now, the loss of the
1 I Kings xxviii.
�The Spirit World
i5
free will, by which man has to co-operate in his
eternal salvation, is the greatest loss that can befall
a rational being. It leads to a slavery of the worst
kind and too often ends in the loss of mental control,
in other words in lunacy and despair. Not theo
logians only, but many experienced scientific and
medical authorities are agreed upon these sad facts.
Lest this should seem an exaggerated estimate,
listen to this pathetic outcry of a distressed soul—
one whose personality is well known to several—in a
letter in the columns of a Catholic newspaper only a
few months ago :—
“ I am a trance medium, and I might say an un
willing clairvoyante. Of course, I know Holy Church
forbids all such dangerous and pernicious practices ;
but from actual 'experience I find that the Church
does not fully appreciate their gravity. In my own
case I constantly receive absolution. But how can
I get away from the deadly fascinations of spirit
dealing, which is, as I have proved for myself, nothing
less than direct communication with the devil ? I
know and also feel the inevitable result—a lunatic
asylum. Could others only take warning ! could they
only for one frightful moment see the horrors which
it has fallen to my lot to view whilst in the trance
state! It is too ludicrous for words to imagine for a
moment that departed (passed-over) spirits reappear
at seances; yet many are willing to credit this.
Could they but realize in what close proximity they
are in reality to ‘ the prince of the powers of dark
ness,’ viz. Satan, they would in dread and horror turn
and fly before the magic powers of fascination had
succeeded in weaving that most deadly of all spells.
I have had many and varied experiences that would
take me many hours to relate; but this one thing I
must say, that for those who allow themselves to be
influenced by what they please to term departed
spirits, and who persist, in spite of the warning of
�16
The Spirit World
conscience, etc., there is but one end—damnation.
I know and feel this even at this moment; but what
hope is there now ? It is too late.”1
And in introducing the writer to the press, the
well-known authority on Spiritism, Mr. Godfrey
Raupert, writes:—
“ Although it is typical of the kind of letters which
I am constantly receiving, it puts the matter in an
exceptionally direct and uncompromising form. It
is difficult for me to describe the keen distress
which these letters cause to my mind, and how
deeply they make me realize my isolation and help
lessness in the face of this gigantic evil. It is of a
most subtle and pernicious character, and is not
merely threatening, but is steadily invading human
life, and is ruining countless souls. There is, alas !
abundant evidence that the Catholic sphere is being
increasingly affected. I am daily asking myself:
What is to be done? A letter such as this must
in any case free one from a charge of exaggera
tion, or of over-emphasizing the importance of a
subject of which one happens to have made a special
study.”
We are quite aware that a considerable part of
this modern Spiritism, with its mediums, seances, clair
voyance, evocation of spirits, etc., is demonstrably
made up of chicanery and fraud. But such an admix
ture of mere charlatanism does not preclude the
really preternatural, or even diabolical, character of
some of the phenomena of more advanced Spiritism.
And whatever explanation, whether natural or preter
natural, be given of such phenomena, there is no
doubt that the crucial evil, the specific danger, of
spiritualistic practices is the eventual subjection of
the will power to what is denominated “external
control,” be that control diabolical or merely human.
This control, this surrender of the keys of the free
1 The Tablet, 22nd July 1911.
�The Spirit World
if
will, is the true source of the frightful evils to which
Spiritualism inevitably leads.1
You may ask with some surprise why we should
have chosen such a subject as the present upon
which to address our flock in a Lenten Pastoral.
The reason is that it has been borne in upon us
by testimony from many sides that the pernicious
cult of Spiritism is spreading to an alarming extent
in all classes of the population, and even making
headway among Catholics. We have been credibly
informed that the evil is specially showing itself in
certain parts of our diocese, and that in North-East
Lancashire it is undoubtedly spreading among the
factory operatives, so many of whom belong to our
flock. It has thus appeared to us a solemn duty
to utter a timely and most serious warning against
the dangers, spiritual and even material, which the
adoption of spiritualistic beliefs and practices involves.
And this all the more so, because all the beginnings
are small and apparently harmless. A little dabbling,
perhaps for amusement, in some slight forms of
occultism, leads to deeper interest and an ever-grow
ing craving to know more and see more, until the
victim becomes a full adept and a slave of the cult,
like the writer of the pathetic letter quoted above.
We,-therefore, in the name of Almighty God and of
His Church, most earnestly warn, in the charity of
Jesus Christ, all members of our flock who shall hear
or read our words, to take heed and resist the seduc
tions of any and every form of Spiritism and super
stition of all kind, no matter how mild; and we
warmly exhort our Clergy both by public instruction
1 Full information on the dangers of Spiritism, which we can but
briefly summarize, is to be found in several recent Catholic writers,
e-f ,^auPert> Dangers of Spiritism (Kegan Paul & Co.), Modern
Spiritism (Sands & Co.), The Supreme Problem (Washbourne); F.
Lepicier, O.S.M., The Unseen World(Kegan Paul & Co.); Lapponi,
Hypnotism and Spiritism (Chapman & Hall); F. Miller, O.S.C.,
Sermons on Modern Spiritualism (Kegan Paul & Co.).
�The. Spirit World
and by guidance in the confessional, to preserve souls
committed to their care from these temptations, and
to endeavour to release such as may be already en
meshed in the evil influences.
“ Holy Michael, Archangel, defend us in the day of
battle ; be our safeguard against the wickedness and
snares of the Devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly
pray : and do thou, Prince of the heavenly hosts, by
the power of God, thrust down to hell Satan and
all wicked spirits who wander through the world
for the ruin of souls.” (Prayer of Leo XIII., said
after Mass.)
APPENDIX
The following is an extract from the report of a
theologian upon the Conference cases of the Diocese
of Salford, 1911-12, concerning Spiritism :—
“ Amongst a multitude of letters which have reached
me is one from a non-Catholic lady, telling me that
she, with a sister and two brothers, had had very
strange experiences, of which she sent me the record
she had made. I wish I could divulge the name,
because then it would be seen that the word of the
elder brother was unimpeachable. All I am allowed
to say is that this elder brother was a man who stood
in the first rank of English biologists.
“ These four determined to see whether they could
get communication with the spirits of the dead, as
they thought. In their own drawing-room, without
cabinet or medium, or lowering of lights, they com
menced operations, sitting round a table with their
hands upon it. At once there were signs of the
presence of spirits. To begin with the communica
tions were very trivial, but after a few sittings the
spirit declared that he was the spirit of Bellew.
Bellew, a c.onverted Anglican clergyman, was a great
�The Spirit World
19
friend of this family. They were pleased to think
that they were in communication with the spirit of
their old friend, and some questions were put and
answered. One evening the elder brother asked:
‘ Is your present religion similar in the main to that
which you accepted in this life ? ’ Answer: ‘Yes.’
‘ Are there any material differences between your
present religion and your past religion ? ’ Answer :
‘ Yes.’ ‘ Have you any reason to modify your views
with respect to the doctrine of atonement, which
during your earthly life you fully accepted?’ ‘Yes.’
‘To what extent? to complete negation?’ ‘Yes.’
‘ In that case I presume that you no longer believe
Christ to have been the Son of God in any special
sense?’ ‘No.’ ‘Nor that as the Messiah He was
and is the Saviour of mankind ? ’ ‘ No.’
“ These answers of the spirit perplexed and troubled
the sitters very much, for they were ardent believers
in the divinity of Christ, and in Christ as Saviour.
They began to doubt whether they were really com
municating with the spirit of Bellew, and earnestly
prayed to God that they might not be deceived by
lying spirits. A very extraordinary answer to their
prayer was displayed at the next seance. The spirit
speedily manifested his presence and seemed willing
to answer, but yet 1 like a chained animal seemed
unable to do anything.’ The younger brother was
ordered out of the room by the spirit, and he ‘went
into the country for an hour’s walk, all the time
requesting God to cause the truth to appear, and to
defend His people from deception.’ The elder brother
asked: ‘Why can you not communicate with us
to-night? Is there anything wrong on our side?’
‘No.’ ‘ Are you willing to communicate?’ ‘Yes.’
‘ Are you able to communicate ? ’ ‘ No.’ ‘ Are you
controlled?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘By whom? good spirits?’
‘Yes.’ ‘Then are you the spirit of Bellew?’ ‘No.’
‘Were you deceiving us last night and to-night?’
�20
The Spirit World
‘Yes.’ ‘ Why do you undeceive us now ? Is it because
you are compelled?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you retract all
you said about the doctrine of Christianity being
false?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘What is the nature of. the control
you are under ? ’ (Answer) ‘ God defends you.’
‘ Then what are you—are you the spirit of a human
being?’ ‘No.’ ‘You were never in the body?’
‘No.’ ‘Then you are one of the Devil’s own?’
‘ Yes.’ ‘ Do the spirits of departed persons ever visit
this earth?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then all the spirits which have
communicated with all believers .in spiritism have
always been evil?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘ What motive have you
in communicating with human beings?’ ‘Hatred.’
‘Hatred of mankind?’ ‘No.’ ‘Hatred to God?’
‘ Yes.’ ‘ You mean us to understand that your hatred
to God leads you to wish to seduce mankind (whom
He loves) from faith in our Lord Jesus Christ ? ’ ‘ Yes.’
‘ In order that they may be ruined and lost? ’ 1 Yes.’
‘ Do the spirits of wicked men ever return to attempt
to deceive their brethren?’ ‘No, none are so bad.’
‘ That appalling depth of malice is reserved for Devils
only?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Now, we know you are a lying
spirit, will you communicate with us any more ? ’
‘No.’
“ From that day, though they made a few attempts,
these four never succeeded in establishing communica
tion. It is of interest to know that these questions of
the elder brother were put mentally, without sound or
sign being made. These quotations, from a long record,
are a strange confirmation of the Church’s teaching ;
and therefore I was tempted to put them forward.
This is by no means the only instance on record of
the evil spirit being compelled, greatly against his
own wish, to declare the truth of his own discom
fiture.” (Sjtz. Saif. xxxi. pp. 106, 107.)
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, LONDON.
N.—July 1912.
�
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THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY;
OB, THE CONNECTION BETWEEN
SPIRITUALISM AND MODERN THOUGHT.
Br
GEORGE BARLOW.
“Have faith in God.”—Jesus Christ.
LONDON:
JAMES BURNS, 15 SOUTHAMPTON ROW, IIOLBORN, W.C.
1876.
��THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY;
OR, THE CONNECTION BETWEEN
SPIRITUALISM AND MODERN THOUGHT.
*
“Hava faith in God."—Jesüs Christ.
Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism. By William Crookes, F.R.S.
On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism.
Three Essays. By Alfred Russel
Wallace.
Thoughts in Aid of Faith. By Sara S. Hennell.
Present Religion: as a Faith owning Fellowship with Thought. By Sara S.
Hennell.
The Essence of Christianity. By Ludwig Feuerbach.
The Gospel of the Resurrection: Thoughts on its Relation to Reason and History.
By Brooke Foss Westcott, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity, Cambridge.
A General View of Positivism. By Auguste Comte.
Literature and Dogma: an Essay towards a Better Apprehension of the Bible.
By Matthew Arnold.
The Old Faith and the New. By Friedrich Strauss.
The Arcana of Nature. By Hudson Tuttle.
The Arcana of Spiritualism. By Hudson Tuttle.
The Great Harmonia. By Andrew Jackson Davis.
At last man wakes from his dream of centuries.
He looks back
through the receding vistas of the ages, and he understands, by
the help of science, how it is that he was made—how the slow,
unconscious, creative power toiled upward through lower forms,
tiU it emerged in man, and became, in man, for the first lime
clearly conscious-of itself, and (now) of its own origin. He sees
how intellect gradually appeared—how reason supplanted in
stinct—how the dim germ of the moral sense first glimmered,
glow-worm like, along primeval plains and banks of thought—
how, when the moral sense had fairly established itself, the con
* This article attempts to deal with the theoretical and doctrinal sides of the
subject—which are hardly yet sufficiently discerned by the public—as Mr.
Wallace, in his articles in the Fortnightly Review, dealt with the experimental
and practical.
�4
THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
ception of a God, like unto man, only larger and nobler, was not
long in following as its resultant—how that idea has gradually
become less and less anthropomorphic, till now, at last, man,
fully conscious of himself, takes back those attributes of his
own which he first, with childish eagerness, transferred to God,
and stands forth grand in the simple riches of his own divinity;
crowned with the crown of that God whom he first created, and
then detected and dethroned; bright with the product of his
own fiery, insatiable thought. Man now sees that all the motley
crowd of deities who have thronged the past, and made the ways
rich with their flashing sceptres and brilliant diadems—the
strange gods of India and the East—the Jewish stern Jehovah
—the pale, blood-stained Christ of Calvary—the lovely, golden
haired goddesses of Greece, who ruled the hills and watched the
streams of that immortal land—the weird divinities of the rough
Scandinavian thought—he sees that all these were but the crea
tions of his own fertile brain; that he himself is greater than all
these; that they find their fulfilment, as they first had their
origin, in man.
Now, if this be true; if, as many most able thinkers are now
pointing out, the word God is a symbol used by man to express
all of the highest and widest and noblest that he can conceive,
but having no objective significance; if man is, and has always
been, the creator of his own deities, and has fashioned them
according to his will—that is, according to the measure of
insight into what is really true and noble which he has pos
sessed in every age ; if the eternal essence or basis of things is,
as pointed out by Strauss and others, and hinted at by Mill in
his last work, itself unconscious, yet able to evolve conscious
ness (which then reacts upon its own originally unconscious
substance, producing further changes and improvements un
limited in extent); if a personal God is a (necessary) fiction of
the human brain, and the eternal power in which “ we live and
move and have our being” is an impersonal power, which yet,
by its upward struggles, blossoms into a consciousness of pure
and endless personality at last (a doctrine which the researches
of science daily render more probable); if the force which has
had no beginning is not a conscious force endowed with will,
but an unconscious force possessing attributes, what we call
personality and will being not causes but caused—-ultimate re
sults of the action and interaction of those inherent attributes
carried on through countless ages; if—to sum the whole matter
up briefly, and co set forth clearly the new point of view—the
first cause, or rather the perpetual cause, is an unconscious,
inevitable producer of consciousness, and that consciousness (our
own—upon this planet), again by the inevitable law of things,
�THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
O
turns round, as it were, upon itself, and, naturally ascribing its
own origin to a power in all things similar to itself, only greater,
exclaims—“ I am personal—I have a will and a moral sense—
all the elaborate works of human art that I see round me are
works of design—therefore I was created, and the world was
created, by the authoritative fiat of a beneficent, intelligent, per
sonal God”*—arranging, in so arguing, its inferences, as it is
now becoming plain to us, in a most inconsequent way;—if all
this, in very truth, be so, what is to be said about our personal
immortality ? Is that too, as Strauss thought, as Feuerbach
seems to indicate, a mere symbol—a mere outward expression of
our own intense longing for it ? Will our own proper person
ality be torn away from us along with the personality of God ?-|Must we acquiesce calmly in ideas of mere impersonal expan
sion along the tides and breezes of things—a mere unconscious
mingling with that unconscious universe whence we proceeded ?
First of all I would point out that those who believe (Feuer
bach, Strauss, S. Hennell, &c.) that God is a mere symbol—the
mere creation of our personality—ascribe a tremendous force to
that personality. I take, for the present, their view; I take it
boldly, uncompromisingly; I say that God does not exist at all
—never has existed save in our thought of him—save only in
the innermost recesses of those creative hearts of ours which
first originated the superb symbol, and then breathed upon it
and gave it a glorious life and a glorious kingdom to rule over,
even the entire universe—and gave it the sceptre of endlessness
and the crown of purity—of our purity generously transferred
to the symbol, even to the imaginary God. This view I take
and rejoice in—rejoicing in the exaltation that it confers upon
man, who thus becomes, verily, “ the master of things”—creat
ing, not created; bestowing, not gifted; the proud giver and
maker, and not the poor, humble, depraved, pitiful receiver of
life. 1 rejoice to restore his dignity to man, and the worth of
his attributes maligned and maltreated for ages.
But then,
doing and feeling all this quite as acutely as the scientific
atheists or humanitarians, I go on to ask—Why should we limit
the results of the human personality, confessedly in itself so
proud and supreme, to this life ? Why not extend the line of
its majestic continuity beyond the horizon of this life—beyond
“ the red vast void of sunset hailed from far, the equal waters of
* The Moral and Intelligent Governor of the Universe, at the popular concep
tion of whom Matthew Arnold has launched so many of his keen sarcastic arrows
in “ Literature and Dogma.”
f I am assuming in this article, for the sake of bringing my point of view
about Spiritualism clearly to bear, the truth of the modern notion as to the im
personal nature of the absolute essence.
�G
THE GOSPEL OF HUMAN II Y.
the dead ? ” If we have, indeed, from the depths of our inner
consciousness, lifted, with travail and strong effort, as it were,
the conception of an external anthropomorphic God, and are now
just discovering that this conception was our own, originated
from within, not imposed upon us from without, and not neces
sarily answering to any external reality;—if, so seeing, so know
ing, we are now taking back, resuming, with laughter and lordly
triumph, that crown and that sceptre of imperial rule which we
first bestowed upon God—or rather upon our conception of him—
how shall not all other things be ours as well, by virtue of our
own inherent attributes or those of the universe (the same
thing)—even immortality with all its sweetness, and endless
love with all its flowers ? If man could originate the giant con
ception of One God (as on the showing of Feuerbach and
Hennell he has done), besides creating the countless swarm of
smaller flame-winged deities who hovered on innumerable pinions
over Greece, over Borne, and the misty recesses of the remote
East—if man can do this, he can do something far greater—he
can take back from the symbol of God the crown of his own
divinity, and pass on in the strength of calm inherent immor
tality to meet death, which shall be to him as the golden gate
of life.
Understand, reader, clearly what I am arguing for. I am
arguing for inherent immortality—for immortality naturally in
herent in man, potentially present in the germ, waiting to be
evolved. Just as, according to Professor Tyndall, all our present
gifts and capacities were potentially latent in that wide-spread
“ fiery cloud ” whence our visible universe sprang, so, I say, is im
mortality potentially latent in man. Now, the difference between
my point of view and the orthodox point of view is just this—
that I look upon immortality as natural and inherent; they look
upon it as something inseparably connected with the Incarnation
and the Trinity—or even with certain ideas about the Incarna
tion and the Trinity—as something mercifully given to us by
God (and perhaps given only to a few)-—something w/w'cA we
might miss—which indeed we are all in great danger of missing
*
—something given by the Eternal King of Heaven as a boon/f
*
for which we have to be ceaselessly and laboriously grateful,
lifting up our praises with loud voices and urgent hearts to the
Lord for the riches of his goodness—something of which we
might have been deprived ; nay, were justly deprived by the sin
of Adam or our own, but which has been restored to us in the
* See Calvinistic and Evangelical views, passim.
+ “According to his mercy he saved us . .
that, being justified by
his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
(Titns iii. 5, 6, 7.) And in numberless other passages of the New Testament.
�THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
7
person of Jesus Christ, and for ever securely sealed to us in
him—something which the Son of God came to bring and to
bestow. From my point of view on the contrary—a point of
view which, I maintain, is strictly in accordance with the most
advanced scientific views of evolution and natural development
—immortality is not a matter of chance or divine gift at all,
but a matter of positive certainty. IVe cannot licl/p having it.
God cannot either bestow it or take it away from us It is wrapped
*
* Mr Buchanan has reached this idea by poetic intuition, though he has
probably never reasoned much about it. In one of his fine “ Coruisken
Sonnets,” he says : —
‘ ‘ All things that live are deathless—I and ye.
The Father could not slay us if he would;
The Elements in all their multitude
Will rise against their Master terribly,
If but one hair upon a human head
Should perish! ”
And in another: —
“ I heard a Whirlwind on the mountain peak
Pause for a space its furious flight and cry—
‘ There is no Death! ’ loudly it seemed to shriek;
‘ Nothing that is, beneath the sun, shall die.’
The frail sick Vapours echoed, drifting by—
‘ There is no Death, but change early and late ;
•
Powerless were God's right Hand, full arm'd with fate,
To slay the meanest thing beneath the sky. ’ ”
Surely such lines as those which I have italicised indicate a great change of
view now passing over the minds of the thoughtful upon these subjects. We
may compare also, in reference to the notion of the inherent inextinguishable
immortality of man, several very striking passages in Walt Whitman’s poems.
Take the following, for example, from “ To Think of Time”-—
“ You are not thrown to the winds—you gather certainly and safely
around yourself;
Yourself ! Yourself ! Yourself, for ever and ever!
It is not to diffuse you that you were born of your mother and father—
it is to identify you ;
It is not that you should be undecided, but that you should be decided;
Something long preparing and formless is arrived and form’d in you,
You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.”
And, from the same poem:—
“ I swear I think now that everything without exception has an eternal
Soul!
The trees have, rooted in the ground ! the weeds of the sea have! the
animals!
“ I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!
That the exquisite scheme is for it, and the nebulous float is for it, and
the cohering is for it;
And all preparation is for it! and identity is for it! and life and
materials are altogether for it! ”
And if any one should say, as it is likely that those of the scientific and
sceptical turn of mind may, that in both these cases the poets are speaking
with a flue poetic frenzy, which has little real weight when brought to bear
upon objects with which the understanding pure and simple should properly
�8
THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
up, sweetly enfolded, among the nobler necessities of our beings
it is as natural, in its place and time, as the visible life. It i;
evolved at a certain point by necessary law, just as the germs
of the lower forms of life were evolved from forms still lower by
their abiding impulse of upward progress. To make my meaning
*
quite clear, I may here quote a passage in Professor Westcott’s
“ Gospel of the Besurrection,” in which the view that I am op
posing is well stated. He says:—“The Apostles do not teach a
redemption to be wrought out by each man for himself, after the
example of Christ, but of redemption wrought for each by Christ,
and placed within their reach. . . . They do not teach an
immortality of the soul as a consequence flowing from any con
ceptions of man’s essential nature, but a resurrection of the body
. not only historically established in the rising again of Christ,
but given to us through Him who is ‘the Besurrection and the
Life,’” To which I reply generally, reserving for the present
what I have to say as to how the details of the resurrection are
affected by Spiritualism;—Why is “given to us” better than
“ a consequence flowing ” ? Surely our tenure of immortality
would be exactly the same in both cases—rather more secure as
a natural consequence I should think, being then safe from all
personal caprice of the giver. The hell of the churches could
never have been a natural consequence of man’s nature ; so subtle
a torture-chamber requires a personal giver and supporter.
Briefly, Why is it better to receive immortality than to take it,
or win it or earn it or (best of all) grow into it by certain steps,
grounded on inherent power ?
So far as regards the possibility of an inherent immortality—
“ the power of an endless life”—latent in man, without regard
deal—I reply that in this question of our immortality the fine poetic intuition,
whether expressed on its religious side by a Christ, or a Paul, or an A’Kempis,
or on its more strictly imaginative side by a Tennyson, or a Buchanan, or a
Whitman, is just the very thing we need—the very golden guiding-thread
whereby we may traverse those obscure cavernous recesses of our nature,
wherein the wished-for answer lies, but which the understanding, unassisted,
cannot reach.
* The able authors of “ The Unseen Universe” hold some view as to the
“ spiritual body,” closely akin to this I believe; only they go on (with strange
perverseness!) to deduce the theological Trinity, etc., from their physical
and scientific conclusions. It is curious that, while condemning the Spirit
ualistic manifestations of modern times as having “ no objective signifi
cance,” they should have failed to observe how exactly their own theory of
the “ spiritual body” corresponds to that of the more thoughtful among the
Spiritualists. Miss Cobbe, in the same way, in her last work, “ The Hopes of
the Human Race,” started a theory about the germ of the spiritual body being
resident in man and gradually blossoming, as if it were an original one—not
aware, apparently, that the Spiritualists, and indeed the Christians, had long
entertained and promulgated the very same notion. But these are only
instances of how we are all treading over the same ground just now; eagerly,
so that we run up against one another.
�THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
9
to capricious external divine beneficence of any kind. I now
come to the place at which Modern Spiritualism (as a theory,
for I am not here concerned with tire truth of this or that phe
nomenon) comes in to supplement and clinch my argument. As
a question of fact it must be investigated further, and the results
at present attained must be scientifically tabulated and arranged;
but as a theory or doctrine—as a system of belief, the uprising
of which was to be expected and predicted just at this precise
epoch of human development—the thing is perfect. I)r. West
cott, on page 50 of “The Gospel of the Resurrection,” says, in
reference to Spiritualism, “ Exactly when material views of the
universe seem to be gaining an absolute ascendancy, popular in
stinct finds expression now in this form of extravagant credulity,
and now in that. Arrogant physicism is met by superstitious
spiritualism; and there is right on both sides.”
Just so; but what Dr. Westcott does not appear to see is just
the very point which I want to bring out in this article, and in
which any originality of view that it may claim consists—viz.,
how beautifully Spiritualism supplements and completes the
positive Antichristian scientific teachings of modern times by
offering positive, tangible evidence of another world such as
science may lay hold of and investigate. We may say that the
“five hundred” nameless witnesses to Christ’s Resurrection,
whom science has so often longed to have in the witness-box,
are really present with us now, only tenfold in number, among
the Spiritualists. Let science examine them, and make what it
can of them, and let us know the results. I look upon Spiritu
alism, taken in its healthy and general sense, apart from the'
impostures and the nightmares of cliques, and rightly understood,
as the other world side of modern positivism—as positivism, in
fact, carried across death’s purely factitious boundary. Of
course, as Dr. Westcott (who has, I believe, some affinities with
the Spiritualists) would no doubt say, Spiritualism, if proved to
be true, would in one sense greatly strengthen the hands of the
Christians. It would show that the miracles, and notably that
of the Itesurrection, are possible. If they happen now, they
might have happened then; and the presumption would in such
case be that they, or many of them, did happen then. But
Spiritualism does far more than this, with its strong, free thought,
and its habit of pushing things to extremes. It goes further.
In its essence it is pitilessly hostile (as the clergy have instinc
tively recognised) to things orthodox, and is likeiy, if once fairly
established in England or in Europe, to do even more towards over
throwing the State Creeds than the modern advances of science.
It overcomes Christianity, in especial in this way—by outflank
*
ing it. If Christianity had miracles, Spiritualism has ten times
�10
THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
as many. If Christianity revealed the other world to us, Spirit
ualism does so far more clearly and nearly—without a hopeless
gulf of eighteen centuries between. It is a mistake to suppose
that Spiritualism is merely a réchauffé of old supernatural
doctrines. It is something more. While, as Mr. Wallace
pointed out in the Fortnightly, it professes to clear away super
stitions by explaining the real rationale of former miracles,
demoniac possessions, and so forth, it extends a hand to modern
positive thought, and asks that that method may be applied to
miracles, and extended not only to hitherto unreached portions
of this world, but to the whole domain of the unseen. Miracles
happen, it says ; they have happened occasionally throughout
history, but never capriciously, always bylaw strict and unvary
ing enough to satisfy the most fastidious positivist or scien
tist. Immortality will turn out to be a thing natural enough ;
the Resurrection of Christ was perfectly simple and natural. We
hope in time to be able to supply science with the means of in
vestigating its method, and finally establishing it—perhaps even
reproducing it. This is the creed of the most intelligent among
the Spiritualists, and I do think that the general reasonableness
of their system, and its amenableness to the requirements of
positive or experiential thought ought to be more widely known
and understood. It is not too much to say that that unknown
quantity—that residue of fact which we have most of us felt
still remains in the early records of Christianity after the utmost
efforts of the sceptical school—those occurrences which Strauss
and Renan have failed to explain away—may yet be explained
(having been accepted as actual facts) by Spiritualism. Another
Life of Jesus may yet be written, neither on the orthodox nor
the infidel basis, but upon the Spiritualistic ; and it may come
more nearly than any previous life to the actual truth.
I think I may here be forgiven for quoting a portion of a
letter which I wrote to a friend when I first began to study care
fully the Spiritualistic literature, expressing the conclusions
which I formed at the time.
*
I see no reason now (the letter
was written towards the close of December, 1873—some months
before, Mr. Wallaces article appeared) materially to differ from
them, except that I should not now' call myself a Theist. The
extract will show still more clearly what I conceive to be the
relation of modern Spiritualism to that gospel of humanity (as
opposed to the gospel of the Resurrection of Christ) which I
touched upon at the beginning of this article—that gospel which
is being preached, or has been preached, with more or less of
* The contents of the letter have all the freshness and force of first impressions,
and I cannot state, my case better.
�THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
II
variety, and with more or less of success, by Goethe, Swinburne,
M. Arnold, Theodore Parker, Miss Cobbe, Miss Hennell, Emerson,
Greg, Mazzini, Feuerbach, Strauss, J. S. Mill, A. J. Davis, F.
Newman, H. G. Atkinson, Hudson Tuttle, Walt Whitman, Fiske,
Herbert Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, Darwin, Comte, and others.
*
“ I am now going to talk a little about Spiritualism, upon which
subject I have been bringing my mind to bear lately. I think
a few observations may interest you, as you have not yet turned
the light of your mind-lantern in that direction. The subject is
one which all men of intelligence at the present day ought to
spend a certain amount of time (no£ »too much) in investigating
and coming to an opinion upon.
“ I have come to the conclusion that there is truth at the
bottom of it, and that (amidst a mass of jugglery, folly, and im
posture) many of the facts to Which it bears witness will have
to be accepted, and added to the sum of human knowledge. I
shall give up calling myself a Theist, and call myself a Spirit
ualist, by which I do not mean an adherent of table-rapping
and all that sort of thing, but simply (as opposed to a Materi
alist) a believer in an unseen and supra-sensual world, and a
believer in the creed which holds that this unseen world has acted
upon the visible world in certain exceptional cases, and at certain
exceptional epochs, in an abnormal, though not unnatural, fashion.
That is what I mean by Spiritualism; and I shall use the word
henceforward (and the word Spiritualist) in this significance,
distinguishing the creed of mere table-rapping and its adherents
by the words Spiritism and Spiritists. Do you do the same, and
then we shall have no misunderstanding.
“ Now Spiritualism is an advance upon Theism, and is in
excess of it just so far as this—that (while accepting with
Theism the results of modern criticism and of modern science to
a very large extent) it allirms where Positivism denies, and
where Theism (your position, if I understand you rightly) re
fuses either to affirm or deny. Positivism (perhaps I had better
say Materialism, as they are not exactly the same thing) denies
altogether the existence of the unseen world, and (of course) its
influence on ours; Theism affirms the unseen world, but denies
that it impinges upon ours in any way (or refuses to predicate
anything with certainty concerning this—there is a slight vari
* I have purposely thrown a large number of powerful names together, as it is
interesting to see how extraordinary is the real strength of the new thought of
the age, when its forces are combined. Those teachers whom I have mentioned
differ, of course, greatly in doctrine ; but they all unite in one thing—in pro
phesying great and speedy changes to the religion of the civilised world, and in
pointing towards new conceptions of man as man, and a new vision of the glory
and potential holiness of collective humanity, as the means whereby these mighty
and inevitable changes are to be finally achieved.
�12
THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
ance among Theistic prophets at this point); Spiritualism affirms
positive law and positive criticism (with Materialism, Science,
and Theism), affirms the unseen world (with Theism), and (its
differentia) asserts that in rare instances and at rare seasons it
does impinge upon ours. I think it probable that the Resurrec
tion was one of these instances, and a cardinal one. I think it
probable that Westcott was right (so far) in his book. I do not
see any other way of reconciling the three marked books of
my this year’s reading—Westcott’s ‘ Gospel of the Resurrection,’
Comte’s ‘ General View of the Positive Philosophy,’ M. Arnold’s
‘ Literature and Dogma’—each of which has had a very strong
influence upon me, and in each of which I think I discern
several weak points—also noble truth in each. I do not see
any other way of combining these books than by affirming that
the Spiritual world has impinged upon ours at given points
(Westcott); that all worlds are under the dominion of positive
law (Comte); and, thirdly, that the critical spirit must be ap
plied to Christianity, that the day for metaphysical dogmas has
gone by, and that all religion must primarily repose upon the
Intuition (M. Arnold).
“ What do you think of the above generalisation ? Ido not
think it is a small one. It is the result of much thought, and
seems to me to contain and sum up a good deal, and to throw
great light upon many hitherto obscure subjects. To me some
of these new thoughts have been like a flood of light.
“ I have long felt that the weak point of Theism lies in the
fact that it affirms a Spiritual world, and yet denies the possi
bility of any intercourse between the inhabitants of that world
and ours. This is the point that even popular Christian writers
see so clearly, and make so much of. I think there is sound
sense in what they say. That is why I asked you why, if we
hoped to see our dead friends some day, we should not see them
occasionally now—asking if it was logical (believing in another
world) to attempt to draw a hard line of demarcation between
that world and this—pointing out what I thought the inconsis
tency of Mazzini’s addressing the brothers Bandiera in prayer,
if at the same time he held positive views about the action of
one world upon another, and their Spirits upon his. Perhaps
you remember what I said. The truth is, that if you once admit
a Spiritual world (as you do, and Mazzini and Parker did), you
cannot, without giving a larger encouragement to Materialism
than any of you three would care to do, get out of the possibility
of that world’s sometimes trenching upon ours. . . .
“ I want now to clear your mind of the misconceptions which
probably fill it (as they filled mine up till very lately) on the
subject of Spiritualism.
�THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
13
“You no doubt thought (judging from ‘Sludge the Medium’
and representations of that sort) that Spiritualism was a mere
mass of charlatanism, imposture, ignorance, and vulgarity. Now,
I find on examination that it is not so. Simply not so. I was
very much startled by discovering that there is a clear scientific
tone about a good deal of Spiritualistic writing, and that some
Spiritualistic oratory is not unworthy of Parker. There is a Mrs.
Cora Tappan in particular, an American Spiritualistic oratoress,
who is possessed of real genius, and whose addresses are in every
way remarkable.
*
Some time I will send you out some Spirit
ualistic papers, and you shall judge for yourself. I was sur
prised and pleased to find a great deal of sound criticism and
healthy thought in their work. I think at present that (for me)
Spiritualism supplies the wanting factor—the unknown quan
tity ; it seems to fill the gap of which I have long been conscious
in Theism, and which has driven me back to Christianity, only
to be expelled again by the want of reason in its advocates.
But Spiritualism professes to work upon scientific bases. I
thought it was a modern reproduction of the superstitious side
of Christianity. I dare say you are thinking the same. It is
not so. I find that it is, on the contrary, a genuine product of
the age in which we live—that Spiritualists profess advanced
philosophical opinions (not unlike those of Parker)—that they
consider the Christian dogma of the Trinity as a worn-out fable,
and worship Parker’s Father and Mother of the Universe. Some
of Mrs. Tappan’s prayers are quite as beautiful as those of Parker,
and very much in the same style. All this was new and sur
prising to me, and, I think, will be new to you. It is encour
aging and reassuring, for I had fancied that Spiritualism went
in for patching and bolstering up Christianity. I find, for
instance, that Spiritualists talk about the superstitions of Chris
tianity, and that, far from shunning, they court scientific and
honest investigation.
“ I do not place much reliance upon séances or casual pheno
mena ; my main argument is, as usual, an a priori one, and lies
higher up. The more I think and read, the more firmly am I
convinced that there are only two great divisions of opinion in
the world, which have struggled together (like Shelley’s snake
and eagle in ‘ The Revolt of Islam’) through all time, and have
taken ever-varying forms and phases—the Materialistic and the
Spiritualistic. Between these two the empires of time and
* This was written, as above stated, in 1873. I regret to have to add that
further experience of Mrs. Tappan teaches me that she sometimes talks and
writes the most egregious nonsense. Nevertheless, she is a remarkable woman,
and her principal book of poems, “Hesperia,” has true genius in it, though
mixed and overlaid with much that is tawdry, weak, and superficial.
�14
THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
thought are divided. Christianity and Theism, and Spiritism
and Comtism and Spinozism, and so forth, are only minor forms
of these enormous Creeds—chips torn from the parent rocks.
They can always be classified (like stones and fossils in the
hand of an experienced geologist) as having originally belonged
to one or the other rock-stratum. Theism has hitherto been
giving her right hand to Materialism, and all I want to do is to
spin the good lady round and give her right hand to Spiritual
ism, and bestow upon Materialism only the graces of her left.
“ Questions like that of Christ’s Resurrection are really utterly
unimportant by the side of the question—Is there a Spiritual
World at all ? Are we to believe in anything besides matter ?
And the only way to answer this question is to fall back upon
the intuition. It cannot be answered (on the one hand) by
scientific induction—nor can it be proved (on the other) by his
torical evidence, though it may be very largely confirmed by
this. To this point, I think, men of all creeds and opinions are
coming very fast. I find the same feeling among Theists—among
Spiritualists—among the modern Christian apologists. They all,
with hardly an exception, are falling back upon the intuition,
and preaching that Christianity ought to be approached by the
intuitional or a priori route. To this basis some of them add
miracles, and some do not. Once grant the intuition, and this
becomes quite a secondary question, and it is coming to be con
sidered so on all sides. But, as a secondary question, it is of
great importance. I find that the abler Spiritualists themselves
are not for pressing the more marvellous appliances of their
trade—they, too, preach immortality and the existence of God
from the intuition, and only appeal to their modern miracles in
confirmation of an intuition and a faith previously existent in
the mind. (In some instances, no doubt, it may be—and always
has been—the other way; startling external occurrences may
awake a spirit of enquiry and produce conviction ; but the ulti
mate appeal must always be to the intuition residing in each
one’s consciousness ; else how are you to “ try the spirits,”
according to the New Testament ?) Herein they are in perfect
union with the Zeit-Geist, and move in harmonious ranks with
the other advocates of progressive thought. The truth is, that
though we are “ under the dawn,” we are very far from being
under the noonday, and for a good deal we shall have to wait.
I doubt whether either of us will see in our lifetime a complete
‘System of Science’ or a complete ‘ System of Religion’—and
the utmost that our modern aspiring philosophico-artistic writers
can really hope to do is to lay (perhaps) the stones of a few steps
which shall ultimately form a basis for a complete ‘ System of
Art.’ Now, this fact of our being so far from the noonday bears
�THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
15
upon the question of miracles in this way—that we have not
yet got to the end of our destructive criticism, and therefore it is
impossible to tell what will be left when that criticism has com
pleted its work and done its duty—namely, its worst. If I may
venture to prophesy, I think that the result will be somewhat as
follows. A large portion of the results of the destructive criti
cism will have to be accepted; the mythical theory will account
for many of the Biblical legends quite satisfactorily (perhaps, for
Christ’s being born of a Virgin, among others ; a prominent Eng
lish clergyman told me, not long since, that he would be glad
not to believe this, and that he thought the time, had come for a
frank consideration of the question); the naturalistic theoiy will
account for others ; but will they account for all ? I do not feel
sure that they will; and I think it likely that a residue of nar
ratives will be left, both in our Bible and the Bibles of other re
ligions, which will never be rightly understood except by
admitting the interposition in these rare instances for rare
reasons of supernatural (but perfectly harmonious—perfectly
positive) agency. I really think that the ultimate choice lies
between this and sheer Materialism. The Resurrection may be
one such instance; the Conversion of Paul may be another; but
I would never press this upon any one as a matter of faith—-it
is Aberglaube. But where I do not agree with M. Arnold is,
that I think the tenets of Aberglaube may sometimes be founded
on facts. But I do agree with him in feeling that Aberglaube
is not of equal force with the Intuition; and this G. MacDonald
saw long ago.
“ As an example of what I call the Theistic inconsistency, I
will quote the following. M. Arnold, talking about the stoning
of Stephen, implies that the passage about Stephen’s seeing the
Lord Jesus sitting at the right hand of God is not to be taken
literally. It is to be interpreted, rather, upon the principles of
what is called Ideology. Stephen did not behold at that supreme
juncture an objective Christ; but he underwent a transfiguration
of soul, which he expressed (or which has been expressed for
him, by what M. Arnold calls ‘reporters’) in those words. Now
I am not concerned to prove that Stephen did see an objective
Christ—that is a question of importance, but not of primary im
portance ; but what I do say—and I think that I have not only
true logical argument, but sound English common sense on my
side in saying it—is this, that such an objective vision would
not be one whit more wonderful than the realisation of the
issues which are implied in M. Arnold’s own affirmation ; for he
does (practically) affirm immortality—he affirms “ the power of
an endless life;” if the feeling of this eternal life never rises in
us to a sense of its being inextinguishable, it is, he says, proba
�15
THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
bly because we fall so very far short of Christ’s moral standard
that our intuitions are weak, and we feel that we dare not trust
them and cast our whole souls upon them as Christ did. The
affirmation of the human intuition at all supreme moments is
There is no death. This affirmation forms the appropriate text
and motto of Spiritualism, and stands in precise contraposition
to the text engraved upon the banner of Materialism—Nothing
exists but matter. Now, all that M. Arnold has shown is, that
this broad human intuition, which reached its personal height (we
may say) in Christ of Nazareth, is the ultimate thing to be
relied upon—the primary basis, the ultimate test—and that we
are never safe in basing any religion upon miracles. He has not
shown more than this ; he has hardly attempted to show more;
and I think that, as far as he has gone, he is on safe ground, and
right. His weak point would be, if he ever attempted to deny
that the intuition which he affirms may sometimes be confirmed
and established (for previous believers in it) by supernatural
proofs ; at this point you will find (I expect), if you ever read
any reviews of his book, that his opponents will get hold of him.
They will say (with reason), you affirm a life which transcends
this visible life of ours; you assert that Christ possessed in a
surpassing degree the intuition of that life, and that we all
possess it in our measure, and that it may be largely increased
by faithfulness to light or (in your own words) by a rigid
attention to conduct — why, therefore, should the Resurrec
tion not be a manifestation—one, probably, among many other
manifestations, but the chief one of hitherto accomplished human
history—why should it not be a manifestation of that life in
which you say that you believe ? * Why believe in the life if
it is never to manifest itself ? Why believe in immortality if
you are never to be clothed with it ? The immortal life must
have a beginning. (Turn those four words—must have a begin
ning—over in your mind carefully; I cannot tell you what a
force they have to me.) If the immortal life is to begin, it is
only a subtle form of Materialism to endeavour to lay down the
law as to when it shall first manifest itself (that is the weak
point of Parker and what is called pure Theism). This seems
to me unspeakably important. You will find if you take the
assertion of pure Theism that there was no Resurrection,^ and
that the eternal life never impinges upon ours, but that this life
necessarily begins at the given point of death, and not till then,
* See an article in the Edinburgh Review for October, 1873, in which this
point is well brought out.
+ See for a confirmation of my statement that this is the creed of pure
Theism—the view as to the Resurrection held by the most advanced Theists
—Miss Cobbe’s “Hopes of the Human Race,” about “Jewish ghost-stories.”
�THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
17
you will find, if you patiently follow this thought to its. ultimate
analysis and proceed to disintegrate it, that you have in reality
left no scope for that eternal lite or its manifestation at all.
« The real difficulty is not to conceive of a spiritual or eternal
life manifesting itself in surprising and unusual ways, which to
the material eye appear abnormal and monstrous; the real diffi
culty is to believe in such a lite at all. Those who have no
spiritual vision by nature, or who have lost it for a time through
wrong-doing, cannot believe in a supra-mundane life ; once be
lieve in such a life as a matter of absolute truth, and endeavour
to live up to the faith in it, and special convictions as to the
truth of the assertions concerning certain ways in which that
life is said to have manifested itself upon the earth may well be
left to come of themselves—gradually. Here we begin to under
stand the meaning of ‘ the natural man understandeth not the
things of the spirit—they are foolishness unto him—because
they°are spiritually discerned,’ and the whole mass of evangelical
metaphor about the carnal man being like a man who is blind
fold in the midst of a bright room, and similar expressions
venerated by the seers and sages of all religions through all
time.”
And again, in another letter written in March, 1874:—“The
literature of Spiritualism (of which I have read a. great deal
lately) abounds with well-attested instances of revelations which
you would call ‘special’ and ‘inharmonious.’ It makes mir
acles common, and explains them. This brings me round to the
view of Spiritualism which I took at Brighton (when I thought
the matter out pretty ultimately); I do not know whether it will
be my final view. I was attracted towards the subject by my
own curious experience; I found that Spiritualists, far from
mocking and laughing at such things like the vulgar herd,
believed fully in them; nay, dealt almost exclusively in the
obscurer phenomena of mind and spirit. I found narratives of
experiences not unlike my own. Thus I was led to look further
into the subject.
‘‘Next I found accounts of intelligent disembodied agency
(you confuse the argument by talking about ‘ spirit’ and ‘ matter’
in that rigid way; we do not know what spirit and matter are;
what we call spirit may be some exceedingly attenuated form of
matter; or, spirits may be clothed in some exceedingly thin
tissue of matter—we do not know) ; I found accounts of intelli
gent agency acting upon mortals from the outside. I found
these accounts confirmed by hosts of able and honest witnesses.
So I was led to ask myself what would be the effect of this new
belief {if I found myself compelled to believe it) upon my faith
in Christianity.
�18
THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
“ Now we have got to an interesting point. I saw two ways of
regarding Spiritualism (assvm ing its essential truth) in Connec
tion with Christianity. The first way was to regard the creed of
modern miracles as confirming the old creed. Miracles are per
formed now ; therefore they were performed then. Christ, the
incarnate Logos, performed in that capacity the greatest miracles
of all—those of raising the dead. This is one view; and it is
the view of a large body of men in England and America who
call themselves Christian Spiritualists. A medium called Harris
may perhaps be regarded as their leader.
“ This view did not satisfy me, as I then should have had to
give up my Theism, with all its attendant liberty and beauty of
thought, and regard Christ as an exceptional person, with all the
ugliness and bondage of thought attendant upon that conception.
Therefore, I sought for another method of reconciling Spiritualism
with Christianity. I came to the conclusion that Spiritualism
—(I always mean ‘modern Spiritualism’ when I use the word
in this letter—the modern Science of the Miraculous, dating
from Hydesville, in the State of New York, where the rappings
began in the Fox family in 1848 ; I cannot further maintain in
writing the distinction between ‘Spiritism’ and ‘Spiritualism’)
—that°Spiritualism must be regarded simply as an expansion of
Theism—simply as its magnetic or thaumaturgic side. It seemed
to me to fill up a gap which Parker and Mazzini had left un
closed. I do not think Parker and Renan ever fairly explained
the origin of Christianity; nor do I think that Arnold has done
so in ‘Literature and Dogma.’ Something more is needed ; and
that ‘unknown quantity’ is supplied oy modern Spiritualism,
which takes up the work where Parker relinquished it. The
miracles of Christ and of the apostolic era have never become
really plain in the light of modern criticism. It is this fact
which has given their strength to Westcott and the defenders of
Christianity. As long as they brought strong evidence to show
that certain wonderful works were wrought at that time which
are not performed now, and have never been performed at
any other era, it was impossible to dislodge them from their
earth-works; but once show that such miracles are common
things of almost daily occurrence, that every religion has had
them, and that they are going on now, and the whole strength
of Christianity, as gained from its exclusiveness, totters and
stumbles to the ground. This is the true significance of modern
Spiritualism, and this is the view which I finally took of it at
Brighton. It is the one thing which was wanting to make the
fortresses of Theism impregnable. It is the one thing which
*
* It should be understood that, throughout this article, I use the word
“Theism” in the sense of the advanced Theism professed and proclaimed by
�THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
19
was needed to make the gateways of the new creed secure. It
is the missing factor which I have been looking foi so long,
which explains the Resurrection, and all books based, like
Westcott's, upon the Resurrection. Christ did rise; he appeared
to his friends; he made his spirit-form visible to them (as many
other spirit-forms have been visible in history); but he was not
the Son of God in any exclusive sense for all that (here Spirit
ualistic Theism triumphs over Westcott, and. maintains the
integrity of mem, while admitting his facts; it is at this point
that I claim some originality of conception). Other risen spirits
have made themselves manifest to their friends; they are doing
so now; they are doing so in London!
“ If they are doing so in London, why. should one man not
have done so at Jerusalem ? and if they are doing so in London,
why should the solitary man who did so at Jerusalem be dubbed
the Incarnate Word and the Visible Jehovah for so doing ? [I
cannot resist the conclusion that many of our higher poets, in
those most exalted moments of which they have left to us a
record—(as, for example, Byron during the thunderstorm on the
Jura mountains, his feelings on which occasion he describes so
wonderfully in the famous passage in Childe Harold; and
Tennvson on the night when, as he says—
‘ Word by word, and line by line,
The dead man touch’d me from the past,
And all at once it seem’d at last
His living soul was Hash’d on mine,
‘ And mine in his was wound, and whirl’d
About empyreal heights of thought,
And came on that which is, and caught
The deep pulsations of the world ’ * —
)
knew something of what the resurrection-life meant.
No
theories of a swift resurrection and reappearance of Christ could
have seemed strange or far-fetched to Byron, after his wonderful
experience of the passion of eternal life, as excited and roused
into conscious, active being within him in that instance by the
marvels of the mountains and the storm; nor to Tennyson, after
Parker in America, by Mazzini in Italy and on the Continent generally, and by
writers like Miss Cobbe and Francis Newman in England. But my own faith
has to some extent, veered round lately towards that Religion of Humanity
sketched out at the beginning and conclusion of this paper. When I wrote the
above letters, “Theism” expressed tn me an advanced reasonable creed which
should gather into itself all the fruits of the past, and all the young springing
blossoms of present thought as well. I now doubt whether “Theism” is a fit
name for such a creed. But 1 thought it best to retain, in the letters, the old
expression, while indicating elsewhere the qualifications which I now perceive to
be necessary.
* In Memoriam, p. 140. I have been informed, upon good authority, that
the brother, and also the sister, of the Laureate are Spiritualists.
�20
THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
his wondrous sense of sudden spiritual union -with his dead
friend Arthur Hallam upon that memorable night; nor to others
who have felt, in their measure, similar hints and intuitions of
immortality. I myself had, in early youth, a strange spiritual
experience, after which the faith in an immortal life can never
seem to me anything absurd or unreal—rather the most natural
and obvious thing in the world. The truth is that the Resurrec
tion is not an isolated fact at all. It is confirmed and led up to
by multitudes of spiritual experiences in all ages, felt and
enounced by those ‘magnetic men’ of whom Mr. Haweis speaks
in his recent volume.
]
*
“I am as jealous to define and defend the boundaries of our
beloved Theism as ever Athanasius or Origen or Clement were to
guard their Christian creeds. Therefore, I say that a man shall
not be called the Living God because he happens, casually, to
have risen from the dead, or has had any other abnormal Spiritual
experience ;. and here I encounter Westcott with mutual shock
of inwoven breastplates, face from face. But I differ from
Comte and Arnold in that I accept the chief of Westcott’s pre
misses. Only that I deduce from those premisses very different
conclusions. I only establish Theism on a firmer basis, and
overthrow Westcott more profoundly, in that I am able to accept
his Christian Resurrection and add twenty Theistic Resurrec
tions to it. “ Let those laugh who win.” The great love wins
in the issue, and so does the broad thought. Theism has now
finally conquered Christianity; its final victory was to inaugu
rate a code of miracles of its own, grander and more human
than any which preceded it.
Andrew Jackson Davis, the
Poughkeepsie Seer, is the prophet of this new revelation of
unchristian, superchristian miracles; he is your ‘ coming man,’
and he comes from America, as you predicted. Of his works
and thoughts more anon.
“ I argue as to Christ’s Resurrection from my own experience,
from the experience of others, from well-attested facts of history
and of modern Spiritualism. It certainly seems to me a grand
idea that Theism should have its miracles as well as Christianity.
If the light that be in Christianity turns out to be darkness,
truly ‘ great is that darkness.’ Gerald Massey, ‘ the people’s
poet,’ is a devoted and uncompromising Spiritualist. They say
that Tennyson and Walt Whitman are Spiritualists, and Tenny
son certainly ought to be, judging from his intercourse with the
spirit of Arthur Hallam, in ‘In Memoriam.’ He must have
been very near to the spirit of his dead friend at one point in
the poem. If Theism can perform even the wonders of Chris
“ Speech in Season.”
Reviewed at length in the Westminster for July
�21
THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
tianity (its inferior material phenomena) better than the Chris
tians themselves, it is truly a sign that the power of God has
passed over to the New Creed, and that the Ark is no longe^ in
the Churches. It adds the colour that was wanting to Moncure
Conway’s buok, and wrings the last lingering supernatural dyes
*
out of the Christian flag.
“ The great movement of the age (as you have yourself said)
is towards decentralisation; towards republicanism of thought.
Now, modern Spiritualism is simply the most republican creed
in its tendency that can possibly be found; for it refuses to
recognise any excess of personality—any imperialism of religion
—affirming that nascent Mediumship exists in nearly every one,
and that each, in his measure, can hold intercourse with the
Spiritual world. In all this it is at one with the age. And in
all this it is at deadly feud with the orthodox Churches and with
Christianity, because it takes even the golden handle of their
esoteric thaumaturgic weapon out of their grasp. Therefore,
the Churches hate this new movement even more than the
simple Theistic movement (which is of a more abstract and
philosophical character), and accuse its preachers of holding
communion with evil spirits, and being instigated by Satan, and
so on—the old story. But some Christians, like Mr. Haweis,
have had the sense to see that they cannot maintain their own
series of miracles intact, and exclude these modern miracles, and
all others,—and they recognise, and even preach, Spiritualism.
“ In communications alleged to be from spirits, great stress is
laid upon the fact that no one person is to be the centre of this
movement. This was the mistake the spirits made—so they
say—in inaugurating and furthering the Christian movement;
and that mistake must not be made twice. Now when one finds
thoughts of this kind emanating from the obscure brains of
illiterate American Mediums, it makes one pause—and think.
There is nothing more remarkable in the history of this move
ment than the way in which the foremost thoughts of the fore
most thinkers of the age have been repeated by ignorant and
uneducated men under alleged spirit-influence. It certainly
looks as if the Zeit-Gcist of Matthew Arnold were something
more than a mere abstraction. Thoughts are in the air, we all
know. But the idea that they are not only in the air, but in
the hearts and minds of devoted, earnest, disembodied spirits,
intent upon educating us upon earth, and inaugurating era after
era, is one of the loveliest announcements of modern Spiritualism,
and it is quite as philosophical as the conception of an abstract
Zeit-Geist. Of course, the idea, in its essence, is as old as the
* “ The Earthward Pilgrimage.” London: J. C. Hotten.
1870.
�22
THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY-.
hills ; Paul had it (compare his ‘ Cloud of Witnesses ’); Sweden
borg ’had it; Christ had it; but some of its developments are new.
“"i have now made plain the second view which may be taken
of Spiritualism when regarded in close connection with Chris
tianity. It may be called Theistic or advanced' or progressive
Spiritualism. I thought this view out for myself at Brighton,
and, subsequently, upon an examination of the best Spiritualistic
literature, could not but be gratified to discover that a similar
solution had presented itself to the most advanced among the
Spiritualists. There are two parties in their ranks as everywhere
else: the negative and the positive party; the obstructive and
the progressive; the conservative and the liberal. The acknow
ledged leader of the Liberal Spiritualistic party is the extraor
dinary man I spoke of above—Andrew Jackson Davis. He is the
author of a vast number of philosophical and metaphysical
works, some of which I have been reading lately. He is a man
of very real and massive genius—a sort of intuitive Spiritual
Comte of the west—and it is an astonishing thing to find this
American shoemaker’s apprentice (for such he was, I believe),
propounding intuitively even in his early days the very same
critical Theistic truths, which it has taken M. Arnold a life’s
perusal of ‘ the best that has been thought and written in the
world’ to reach. This, I say, is extremely astonishing; and it
is a phenomenon which one encounters constantly in examin
ing the records of Spiritualism.”
I have now shown what I conceive to be the relation between
Spiritualism, assuming that some of its phenomena shall even
tually be proved to be genuine, and modern thought. In con
clusion I will briefly recur to the other main purpose of this
article, which is to show that if the belief in a personal loving
God, constructed after the sanguine fashion of the Christian
Church, has to be abandoned, we need not therefore necessarily
give up our faith in a personal immortality.
The things, though they may at first sight (naturally) seem
similar, yet are in fact totally dissimilar, and have a totally dis
similar bearing. They are based upon different grounds. If it
is probable, as maintained at the commencement of this article,
that we have ourselves thrown the conception of a giant god
made in man’s image upon the vacant sky of our own thought;
if we have evolved from our own experience of love and tender
ness, and the overmastering conviction which we, as a race, have
now reached that unselfishness is the one thing superior to all
things else —the one thing passionately to strive after—the one
*
* Dean Stanley, in a recent remarkable speech delivered at the distribution of
prizes to the students of St. Thomas’s Hospital, said:—“Whatever course
physical science might take, nothing could ever destroy r shake in the least de-
�THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
23
thing wholly divine;—if, from this intense conviction (Mr.
Arnold’s “ Intuition”}, we have evolved the further belief (Mr.
Arnold’s “ Abcrglaube”') in a righteous God who inspires us with
the love of righteousness—who wishes to make us like himself,
“ pure even as he is pure ”—and who has sent his Son into the
world to redeem us from our sins and to prepare us for the
heavenly kingdom—if all this be Abcrglaube, and only the con
viction—the conviction that “ righteousness makes for happi
ness ”—based upon experience the one thing sure :—if all this
be so, our hope of immortality, based upon that inextinguishable
sense of life and eternal permanency which the practice of
righteousness invariably gives, remains much as. it was before.
It°is not really shaken in the least. It cannot be shaken. And
if Spiritualism can indeed help to explain the Resurrection of
Christ upon sober scientific grounds—grounds other than that
he was the Eternal Son, the only-begotten of the Father, and
therefore could not “see corruption,” nor be “holden of death,”
on account of his aboriginal kingly quality—if Spiritualism can
lift us out of the difficulty and clear up, without having recourse
to all this Abcrglaube, the mystery of Christ’s Resurrection in a
simple human way—as I have through a great part of this
article been attempting to show that there is strong hope of its
doing—if this, with all its valuable concomitants, shall turn out
to be the truth, our hope of immortality will approach an experi
mental certainty, and we shall be greatly indebted to the muchdespised much-calumniated Spiritualism !
In this connexion it is well to say that we do not really know,
much as has been made of it in priestly argument, that Jesus
Christ believed in a personal God at all. Poor Jesus! Centuries
of councils and boisterous churches have put so many words into
his mouth—so many strange opinions into his heart—that it
is becoming a matter of almost hopeless difficulty to know
what he really did believe or feel. But this much we may say
without fear— that his God was a very different Being from that
complex Divinity of the Churches whose body passes into con
secrated wafers, and who sustains the lurid dominions of hell
with his red right hand!
Christ believed in God as Father—he addressed him as Father,
and thought of him as Father, we are told; and it is likely that
in this particular we are informed correctly, as the unusual man
ner of loving and trustful utterance would have rivetted itself in
gree the glory of goodness, the excellence of purity, charity, courage—the im
mense prominence of the moral nature of man above everything else in the world.
. . . The moral being of man and the moral excellence which exists in man
are beyond everything else.’’ With this I heartily agree, maintaining as I do
that our moral intuitions are the causes and creators of our creeds, instead of our
creeds creating and nourishing them (sec Lit. and Dogma, pp. 290, 291).
�24
THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY-.
the minds of the hearers, and probably have been reported accu
rately—without additions or misapprehensions of their own.
But even then it remains to inquire, what did Jesus mean by
Father—did he use the word as we speak of God the Father, the
First Person of the Holy Trinity—did he use the word as the
Churches have used it, and are using it—or as Mil ton used it—
or as John Knox,—did he use it out of consideration for popular
ignorance and superstition (much the same in all ages), as likely
to convey the truest idea to the popular mind—did he not, in his
inmost heart, mean by it something very like that impersonal
absolute power which modern science presents to us as at the.
root of all things, and which we may call father, or brother, or
mother, not because it is indeed as a conscious father, or brother,
or mother, but because it (by the final results of the working of
its originally unconscious attributes) produces fatherhood and
motherhood, and all the tender grace of brotherliness—produces
and sustains these in us, so that we naturally call this power
father, though it heeds not nor hearkens to our voice ? Was
not (to take a very excellent instance) all that loving-kindness
and unceasing pity and tenderness which the late Frederick
Maurice used to speak about as residing in the Godhead, and
eternally manifested to us by God the Son—was not that prin
ciple of eternal, boundless, endless love, which he was never
tired of expatiating upon, really resident in the man himself,
Frederick Maurice1 and did he not unconsciously cast his own
?
grand shadow on the sky, and hear his own true voice calling
unto him as if from the fairest heights of heaven—more voluble
now, being as the fancied tongue of God ?
These questions are not intended to be irreverent. They are
being reverently, but bravely and persistently, asked on all sides
now—they will be asked more persistently and much less
reverently as time goes on, if mankind is to be drugged in reply
with superstitious fallacies, and put off with petulant half
answers. Meantime, pending the full discovery in the depths of
man’s own nature of the answers to these and similar questions,
let us remember, in removal, or at least in mitigation of that
principal dread which overwhelms him just now—lest in losing
the personal God of his own creation, he has also parted with
his own immortality—that all the analogy of nature goes to
show that from lesser to greater, from simple to increasingly
complex, is her constant plan of procedure—and that there is
really little reason to fear that that mingling with the eternal
elements, of which all the poets speak in such rapturous terms,
means anything like what we can only express as the loss of
individuality or of personality. We are not likely to return,
unconscious, to that unconscious universe from which, by ages
�THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
25
of upward agony, we have slowly emerged. We are, or have
become, immeasurably greater than our prolific mother, and we
have no desire to return to the unconscious folds of her embrace.
Devoted Pantheists, when they talk about mingling with the
universe, continually forget how much greater that thought and
moral sense which have been slowly evolved are than the forces
which evolved and produced them; they continually, without
knowing or noticing it, advocate an immense retrogression—a
vast passing from the greater to the less great, from the hetero
geneous to the homogeneous—when they preach their belief in
the annihilation of man’s conscious personality—the very thing
which all the strenuous ages have been struggling triumphantly
to produce. Do not fear, we shall not lose this. Far more
likely is it that further evolution, as yet unseen and unex
perienced, will increase and intensify it. The powers of air
and earth and ocean shall be ours; but we shall not be theirs.
We shall rejoice with the winds and the happy tumult of the
breezes; but they shall not exult and triumph over us. We
shall hold lordship over them—they shall pass into us and
become a part of us—we shall not passively pass into them; the
universe may be absorbed, in some strange, sweet fashion, into
the human spirit, as it has already in some measure been
absorbed into the souls of poets like Shelley and Keats—but it
will, must,, re-issue thence in the victorious utterance of human
personality, made greater, not smaller, by the electric human
touch. It will not absorb us, but we shall, in the end, enclose
and absorb all the blossoms of its manifold and enigmatic beauty.
We shall pass onward to become greater and more complex in
our powers of thought and love and ecstasy; we shall not flee
backward into Pantheistic viewless breezes, or Pantheistic fiery
star-dust. We have been these things—yea, all of them, or
latent in all of them—but we shall be these no more. We have
climbed above them to the conscious, glorious height of man;
and our superb self-consciousness shall only widen and deepen
and increase; it shall become world-consciousness, and even
*
the sense of many worlds, without the loss of the central govern
ing self—the central human spirit.
G e;*’’er powers of love in especial shall be ours—strange
1
lcvely xorms of passion unseen and undreamed of as yet—but
* “ I do not doubt but the majesty and beauty of the world are latent in any
iota of the world;
I do not doubt I am limitless, and that the universes are limitless—in
vain I try to think how limitless;
I do not doubt that the orbs, and the systems of orbs, play their swift sports
through the air on gmrpose—and that I shall one day be eligible to do as
much as they, and more than they.”
Walt Whitman—“ Whispers of Heavenly Death.”
�26
THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
no loss of passion; no absorption into passionless nature; no
eternal mingling with the serene but loveless stars. We pass
upward. We win nature; we are not won and conquered of
her. It may be that the passions of all planets, or experienced
on all planets, shall unite in us, but it will be only to increase
and sweetly amplify, as with the sound of many voices, or the
scent of many flowers, or the breath of many and lordly moun
tain winds,the fragrant central yearning and the pure innate desire
of each. We shall gain everything by expansion—nothing is to be
gained by lingering within the dusty precincts of ourselves. By
widening out we gain the universe, but we lose no jot nor tittle
of our true eternal selves thereby. These true endless selves
abide alway, and they shall not be diminished. Death cannot
narrow them; they are unchangeable for all the shocks and per
turbations of creeds. The forces of nature must in the end
become our servants; they are never (had not Ezekiel the vision
of a man upon the central throne ?) to be our masters and lords.
The sea and thunder will not win us, but we may win the
passion and the pleasure of thunder, and stars, and sea. When
Byron said—
“ And this is in the night:—Most glorious night!
Thou wcrt not sent for slumber! let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,—
A portion of the tempest and of thee ! ”
he had a vision of a great ecstatic joy—a voluptuous spiritual
rapture in which, too, all the quivering and throbbing senses took
*
part —beyond the reach of words; and as what he had (and all
true poets have had) a prophetic foreglimpse of was not the loss
of consciousness, but the splendid presence of a consciousness
which, while it grew (and even in proportion as it grew) wider
and less embodied, became also more personal and more intense,
so shall the loss of life bring to each soul in the end a deeper
and wider life ; more pregnant with sweet and masterly issues;
more safely and nobly lifted above all ultimate arrows of adverse
fate>
George Barlow.
NOTE.
Since the above was written, an article on “Theism” has appeared in
the Westminster Review, from which the following is an extract:—
“ Religions are not made; they grow. Their progress is not from the
enlightened to the vulgar, but from the vulgar to the enlightened. They are
not'products of the intellect, but manifest themselves .as physical forces too.
The religion of the future is in our midst already, working like potent yeast in
the minds of the people. It is in our midst to-day with signs^and wonders
uprising like a swollen tide, and scorning the barriers of Nature’s laws. But
however irresistible its effects they are not declared on the surface. It comes
* See Swinburne’s “Essay on Byron.”
�THE GOSPEL OF HUMANITY.
27
veiling its destined splendours beneath an exterior that invites contempt. Hidden
from the prudent, its truths are revealed to babes. Once more the weak will
confound the mighty, the foolish the wise, and base things and things despised, it
may be even things that are not, bring to nought things that are, for it seems
certain that whether truly or whether falsely Spiritualism will re-establish, on
what professes to be ground of positive evidence, the fading belief in a future liie
—not such a future as is dear to the reigning theology, but a future developed
from the present, a continuation under improved conditions of the scheme of
things around us. Further than this it is impossible to predict the precise
development which Spiritualism may take in the future, just as it would have
been impossible at the birth of Christianity to have predicted its actual subsequent
development: but from the unexampled power possessed by this new
religious force of fusing with other creeds, it seems likely in the end to bring
about a greater uniformity of belief than has ever yet been known.”—West
minster lieview, Oct., 1875.
It will be seen that the writer is here pursuing a new line of thought,
which runs curiously parallel to that indicated in my own treatise.—Gr. B..
Oct. 23, 1875.
In preparation, by the same Author,
WALT WHITMAN;
OR,
THE RELIGION OF ART.
The Religion of Art will redeem the world, not by producing
world-wide pangs of remorse and repentance (this is the mission of
Morality or the Moral Law; whose giver is Jesus)—not by expounding
the external truths of natural things (this is the mission of Science;
whose prophets are the patient experimentalists of all ages)—but by
exhibiting the world as it is. The prophets and preachers of this,
the final and only successful Religion, are the poets and artists of
every age: they are higher than Love, higher than Pity, higher than
Purity, higher than Repentance, higher than Truth : they pursue the
absolute Beauty of things, and this they announce and sing. Their
pitiless pitifid beautiful Song will redeem the world.
�POEMS AND SONNETS.
By GEORGE BARLOW.
7n Three Parts, price 7s. 67. each.
Crown 8ro., cloth.
JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, 74 and 75 Piccadilly.
1871.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
Part I.—11 Mr. George Barlow’s ‘ Sonnets ’ is, in several respects, a
clever and remarkable book. . . . Mr. Barlow has a peculiar gift for
quaint and captivating titles. The ‘ Ecstasy of the Hair,’ ‘ My Own
Dart,’ ‘'Blue Weather,’ ‘Death’s Lips and Palms,’ ‘To have Beheld,’
are felicitous and suggestive fancies. . . . This would scarcely have
been remarked, did it arise from lack of power to perfect. From the
evidence of his better work, we are convinced that the author has
all that is needful of such power, to make of the many eidola of good
things that sprinkle his volume, real embodiments of genius. Such
evidences are not rare. . . . Mr. Barlow has, however, sterling
qualities that compensate even these crudities; and if we have been
particular in the enumeration of his faults, it is that these qualities
are great enough to merit care in their culture—care in their libera
tion from the occasional clumsiness that obscures them. If Mr.
Barlow be a young man, his career is, to a great measure, in his own
hanus.”—Blanchard Jerrold, in Lloyd's News, Feb. 26, 1871.
“ To the Rossetti subdivision, we think, the volume before us
belongs. It has the loving yearning after loveliness which charac
terises the writers referred to, but it has no obscurity, and it has a
fine human sentiment of its own. There is, also, a sympathy with
nature which evidently is not assumed, not accepted at second-hand,
but which bursts forth from the inner personality of the writer. The
verse, if not great, is uniformly sweet, and (which is a virtue) we can
all follow its meaning.”—Weekly Dispatch, March 26, 1871.
“ A new singer to us is Mr. Barlow, but one who unquestionably
fingers the chords of his harp with a delicate, reverential, and, withal,
somewhat masterly touch. His theme is love, with variations : and
charmingly and archly he discourses upon that ancient but ever new
topic, owning apparently inexhaustible resources within himself of
heart-melody. His laudations of beauty have nothing in them that
is sickening or sensual; on the contrary, they are moderate and
graceful. His sentiment is not less tender than true and pure; his
thoughts of beauty are refining and elevating. He has less mannerism
than most of the young writers in the present day, and shows a
generous appreciation of others, which is, to a certain extent, some
proof of merit in himself.”—Public Opinion, April 1, 1871.
�OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
“ The author expresses his admiration of American Society for
being free from the ‘ pruning of Convention’s hand,’ but it is much to
be regretted that he has forborne to apply more of such pruning to
his own work......................... There are grace and melody in the pieces
entitled, ‘ Reminiscence ’ and ‘ The Discovery of Love,’ and another
called ‘ The Waking of Beauty ’ shows a genuine worship, which
ought some time to bear worthier fruit.”—Spectator, April 8, 1871.
“ This is the first part only of a collection which, thus far, reveals
so many graces that a reader of taste may well wait impatiently for
the second.”—Illustrated London News, April 22, 1871.
Speaking of Part III., The Westminster Review, for April, 1874,
says:—
“ Mr- Barlow has probably, without knowing it, been influenced
by the feeling of the day. And a man may resemble another in his
style without having read him. Influences are, as it were, in the air.
The series of poems ‘ Under the Gaslight,’ appears to us to represent
much of the spirit of the rising generation of poets. Mr. Barlow
writes not merely fluently, but with a command of both language
and thought. His ideas are thoroughly under his control. Again,
the series of poems ‘ Christ is not Risen,’ well represent much of the
spiritual unrest—for we. have no better title—of the day. It would
be utterly impossible, judging by the present volume, to say what
Mr. Barlow may do. His verse is full of promise.”
“ The quality of Mr. Barlow’s work is by no means out of propor
tion to the quantity. He has not only a fluent pen, but an indubi
table gift of beautiful and harmonious, if not commonly powerful,
expression. He is no careless workman, trusting to the force of
genius alone, and neglecting the strictness of method and the grace of
form. Indeed, grace and finish are the conspicuous and prevailing
qualities of his poetry, and the number of awkward lines and words
put in to save the credit of a rhyme is so small as to be almost
unnoticeable.”—Literary World, June 19, 1874.
Parts I., II., III.—“Mr. Barlow is a poet of no mean capacity,
whose muse is specially devoted to the somewhat unthankful task of
producing sonnets..................... In Part II. Mr. Barlow is at his
best, and his success in poems of less strict metre than is required
for the sonnet is such as to induce us to wish he had avoided the
more laborious task. As one of many excellent short pieces we may
instance £A Dream of Roses.’ .... We have read Mr.
Barlow’s three volumes with interest and pleasure, which is more
than can be said of much of the poetry of the day.”—Weekly Dis
patch, Aug. 17, 1873.
“ Mr. Barlow has read poetry, and it is probable that he under
stands it. There is no evidence in his more serious work of mis
directed energies or ill-chosen subjects..................... His sonnets are
of a subject and intention which does not forbid comparison with
Petrarch himself.”—Illustrated Review, Aug. 28, 1873.
�Ey the same Author.
A LIFE’S LOVE.
Square 8ro., cloth, price 6s.
JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, 74 and 75 Piccadilly.
1873.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
“ ‘ A Life’s Love’ is a volume of short poems from the pen of one
who evidently derives much of his inspiration from Mr. Swinburne.
As far as we have glanced at them, the poems are the reverse of
ci.mmonplace.”—Examiner, July 26, 1873.
“ Mr. Barlow’s muse has much original power and culture, but it
is a little too exuberant in the power of imitation......................... His
chief excellence is the way in which he weaves the world of nature
external to him with the fancies of imagination and the feelings of
the human heart; hence it is that his poetry, which we can cordially
commend to all lovers of the muse, is full of similes drawn from the
world of external nature.”—Standard, July 31, 1873.
“ Mr. Barlow’s book of sonnets, entitled ‘ A Life’s Love,’ reveals
earnestness of feeling, refinement of taste, and some aspiration. . . .
The endeavour after an elevated artistic ideal is apparent, but the
poems are less remarkable for what they are in themselves than
suggestive of what their author, with his idealistic tendency and
tenderness, and charm of sentiment, may one day produce.
Much of the mystic element is perceptible in Mr. Barlow’s verse.
. . . It is impossible not to wish well to a young poet whose faults
are evidently those of youth and inexperience. When the early
subjectiveness of intellect and feeling have progressed into a more
objective stage, these slight inartistic blemishes will doubtless dis
appear. . . Time is the test to show what real creative power may
be behind the downy shoots of the first growth. We shall, how
ever, look forward to Mr. Barlow’s further efforts in the hope that
his role of poet may not have been undertaken lightly to be aban
doned.”—Antiquary, Auj. 23, 1873.
“ The perfect English Sonneteer has not yet presented himself to
the public. Mr. George Barlow has, perhaps, more than any other
modern writer devoted himself to the making of sonnets.....................
From the quantity of sonnets he has written, we should say that he
lias faith in the style he has adopted, and in himself as the exponent
of the style. Whether, however, he is the long-expected perfect
sonneteer we doubt, although some of the stanzas in ‘ A Life’s Love’
contain some of the most charming and delightful poetry we have
read for some time. Mr. Barlow is Petrarchan in manner. We have
Petrarchan subtleties and Petrarchan conceits. Petrarch’s sonnets
immortalise his love for Laura; George Barlow’s ‘Life’s Love’ is
not mentioned by name, but the love is evidently genuine and the
lady human. . . . The sonnet entitled ‘ The Pearl Necklace’ is,
in our opinion, the brightest and most valuable gem in Mr. Barlow’s
rich collection. If it be not true poetry we are greatly deceived.”—
Civil Service Review, Sept. 13, 1873.
�By the same Author.
UNDER THE DAWN.
Crown 8ro., cloth extra, price 7s. 6d.
CHATTO & WINDUS, 74 and 75 Piccadilly.
1875.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
“Mr. Barlow’s former works—‘Poemsand Sonnets’ and a Life’s
Love’—attracted some attention. If they did not show him to be a
great poet, they certainly afforded ample proof that he is a fearless
thinker, and possesses a facility—we had almost said a dangerous
facility—for versification.................... The main object of the author
of ‘ Under the Dawn’ is at once political and religious. In harmony
with the prevailing spirit of our age, he hates everything in the shape
of creeds with an utter hatred, and longs to see his mind set free
from the galling bondage in which they hold their slaves. Also in
unison with the time in its desire and determination—despite tempo
rary reactions—to effect great and necessary political reforms, our
poet was as indignant in expressing the wrongs from which men
suffer, and at times eloquent in the assertion of man’s inalienable
rights. Mr. Barlow, indeed, is both republican and free-thinker.
. . . . The wearers of strait jackets of orthodoxy, therefore, had
better—indeed, they are certain, to give ‘Under the Dawn’ a wide
berth.—Birmingham Morning News, Dec. 22, 1874.
“ ‘ Christ’s Sermon in the City’ is the most brilliant and most
original of a series of poems which point Mr. Barlow out as a singer
of the most choice gifts and graces of minstrelsy.”—Evening Standard,
Dec. 24, 1874.
“ The ‘ Dedication’ is a singularly beautiful one..............................
In reading these last-named poems, we have regretted that Mr.
Barlow has not given us more of a similar description, for they show
that he is a careful observer of nature, and that he is able to stand alone
onground of his own choosing.”—Civil Service Gazette, Dec. 26, 1874.
“ The writer has a very fei-tile fancy. His powei- of illustrating
an apparently barren subject is really surprising. He has a great
mastery over verse, and his diction is rich and artistic.........................
‘ Under the Dawn’ is in many respects so meritorious as an intellec
tual production as to make us regret deeply that the author is so
widely separated from the religious feeling of his country and gene
ration.”—Irish Times, Dec. 26, 1874.
“ The opening poem of this book is liable to the charge of being
too highly coloured, but it is withal a daring and vigorous effort.
When time has a little dimmed the over bright flame of Mr.
Barlow’s fancy, and chastened the fervour of his style, we may
expect from his pen poems which will leave more than a mere passing
mark upon the poetic literature of the age.”—Newcastle Chronicle,
Jan. 2, 1875.
“ Should command a large circle of renders.”—Perthshire Adver
tiser, Jan. 4, 1875.
�OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
“Mr. Barlow lias a great deal of ideality, and also a very definite
mode of thinking; so that he is clear even in his impassioned pieces,
and delicate in his most masculine.”—Ncotewian, Jan. 5, 1875.
“ Mr. Barlow has been charged with being a copyist—an echo of
Swinburne; but we must say, after a careful perusual of his poems,
that the charge is not to be sustained.”—London Sun, Jan. 30, 1875.
“ The present work will extend the poet’s reputation; anything
more daring has not been printed since Shelley’s day.”—Sussex Daily
News, March 4, 1875.
“ Mr. Barlow, being asked by his admirers, of whom he has not a
few, to write a poem worthy of his undoubted powers, has .given
them a long preface, in which he defends himself against various
foolish charges. Some time ago, when noticing his ‘ Poems and
Sonnets,’ we made some remarks on the general style and tendency of
Mr. Barlow’s poetry. We thought, and we still think, that it repro
duces, in a very remarkable way, many of the thoughts and per
plexities which are agitating the minds of the younger generation.
To accuse Mr. Barlow of plagiarism is the height of folly. We think
that it would have been far better for Mr. Barlow to have left his
critics unanswered. Time will decide between him and them. His
duty is to be true to his Muse, and not to engage in controversy.”—
Westminster Review, April, 1875.
“ Mr. Barlow has considerable command of language, a lively
fancy, and vigorous thought ■ but we commend to him the study of
loftier masters, and a selection of purer models. His verbal harmony
should express elevated ideas and wholesome morality, and many of
his poems attest his full capacity as a poetic teacher well worthy of
an audience.”—Morning Post, May 19, 1875.
“ Under the Dawn’ is decidedly not the echo of ‘ Songs before
Sunrise,’ a few have decried it as ; but neither is it a revolt against
the pantheistic creed. Rather, it may be termed, the offspring of a
union between Theism and the worship of Nature—the production of
a mind wherein materialistic and purely spiritual ideas are blended-—
perhaps in a manner not far divergent from the truth.........................
Looking at the sonnet called ‘ Italy to England,’ and similar composi
tions, we should say that Mr. Barlow is better calculated to succeed
in the lyric than the epic.................... We like the whole tone of the
‘ Ode to Mazzini Triumphant ’—a composition which we think dis
putes with ‘ Christ’s Sermon in the City’ the praise of being the
finest poem in the volume.—Human Nature, Sept., 1875.
“ I am happy to see that we have a new ‘ birth of time’ and spark
of Promethian fire in another poet of most excellent promise, and
very considerable performance—Mr. George Barlow, who names his
volume of poems ‘ Under the Dawn,’ and whose charming verse
conveys much sound philosophy, and most beautiful and varied senti
ment, with a wholesome scorn for worn-out follies and superstitions.”
—National Reformer, Oct. 3, 1875.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The gospel of humanity; or, the connection between spiritualism and modern thought
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Barlow, George [1847-1913 or 1914.]
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 27, [5] p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Inscription on front cover: 'With the Author's Compliments'. Printed by H. Nisbet, Glasgow. Includes bibliographical references. Extracts from reviews of works by the same author listed on unnumbered pages at the end.
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James Burns
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1876
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G5333
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Spiritualism
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Conway Tracts
Spiritualism
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32
Pa m p h Iets for the Million—No» 10
THE GHOSTS
By R. G. INGERSOLL
London:
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
�THE
RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION,
LIMITED.
Chairman :
Edward Clodd
Honorary Associates :
Alfred William Benn
Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner
Sir Edward Brabrook, C.B.
George Brandes
Dr. Charles Callaway
Dr. Paul Carus
Prof. B. H. Chamberlain
Dr. Stanton Coit
W. W. Collins
F. J. Gould
Prof. Ernst Haeckel
Leonard Huxley
'Joseph McCabe
Eden Phillpotts
John M. Robertson
Dr. W. R. Washington Sullivan
Prof. Lester F. Ward
Prof. Ed. A. Westermarck
Secretary and Registered Offices:
Charles E. Hooper, Nos. 5 & 6 Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C.
How to Join and Help the R.P. A.
The minimum subscription to constitute Membership is 5s., renewable in January of
each year.
A form of application for Membership, with full particulars, including latest Annual
Report and specimen copy of the Literary Guide (the unofficial organ of the Associa
tion), can be obtained gratis on application to the Secretary.
Copies of new publications are forwarded regularly on account of Members’sub
scriptions, or a Member can arrange to make his own selection from the lists of
new books which are issued from time to time.
To join the Association is to help on its work, but to subscribe liberally is of course
to help more effectually. As Subscribers of from 5s. to 10s. and more are entitled to
receive back the whole value of their subscriptions in books, on which there is little
if any profit made, the Association is dependent, for the capital required to carryout
its objects, upon subscriptions of a larger amount and upon donations and bequests.
Ube Xiterar^ Guide
(the unofficial organ of the' R. P. A.)
is published on the 1st of each month, price 2d., by post 2W. Annual subscrip
tion : 2S. 6d. post paid.
The contributors comprise the leading writers in the Rationalist Movement,
including Mr. Joseph McCabe, Mrs. H. Bradlaugh Bonner, Mr. F. J. Gould
Mr. Charles T. Gorham, Dr. C. Callaway, Mr. A. W. Benn, and “ Mimnermus
SPECIMEN COPY POST FREE.
London : Watts & Co., 17 Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C.
�'B U <
Pamphletsfor the Million.—No. io
national secular society
R. G. INGERSOLL
THE GHOSTS
ISSUED FOR THE RATIONALIST
PRESS
ASSOCIATION,
LIMITED
WATTS & CO., 17 JOHNSON’S COURT,
FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. — 1912
�PUBLISHERS ’ NOTE
This famous Lecture of Colonel Ingersoll is taken from the
Dresden edition of his works (12 vols.; £6 net), which was
published in America shortly after his death. In this country
nearly all his principal lectures and essays, apart from his
legal addresses, are included in the series of Lectures and
Essays issued in three parts at 6d. each (by post 8d.; the
three parts is. iod.), or in one handsome cloth volume at
2s. 6d. net (by post 2s. nd.).
PAMPHLETS FOR THE MILLION
ALREADY ISSUED
1. Why I Left the Church.
6. Liberty of Man, Woman,
By Joseph McCabe.
48
and Child.
By Colonel
PP-; id.
R. G. Ingersoll. 48 pp.; id.
2. Why Am I An Agnostic?
7. The Age of Reason. By
By Colonel R. G. Ingersoll.
Thomas Paine. 124 pp. ; 2d.
24 PP-; id.
8. Last Words on Evolu
3. Christianity’s Debt to
TO
tion. By Prof. Haeckel.
Earlier Religions.
By
64 pp.; id.
P. Vivian. (A Chapter from
9. Science and the Purpose
The Churches and Modern
OB' Life.
By Fridtjof
Thought.} 64 pp.; id.
Nansen. 16 pp.; £d.
4. How to Reform Mankind. 10. The Ghosts. By Colonel
By Colonel R. G. Ingersoll.
R. G. Ingersoll. 32 pp.; id.
24 pp.; ¿d.
11. The Passing of Histo
5. Myth or History in the
rical Christianity.
By
■Old Testament? By S.
Rev. R. Roberts. 16 pp.;
Laing. 48 pp.; id.
id.
�THE GHOSTS
let them cover their eyeless sockets with their flesh
less HANDS AND FADE FOREVER FROM THE IMAGINATION OF MEN.
HERE are three theories by which men account for all
phenomena, for everything that happens: first, the
supernatural; second, the supernatural and natural; third, the
natural. Between these theories there has been, from the
dawn of civilisation, a continual conflict. In this great war
nearly all the soldiers have been in the ranks of the super
natural. The believers in the supernatural insist that matter
is controlled and directed entirely by powers from without;
while naturalists maintain that nature acts from within;
that nature is not acted upon; that the universe is all there
is * that nature with infinite arms embraces everything that
exists, and that all supposed powers beyond the limits of
the material are simply ghosts.
You say,
Oh, this is
materialism 1 ” What is matter? I take in my hand some
earth—in this dust put seeds. Let the arrows of light from
the quiver of the sun smite upon it; let the rain fall upon it.
The seeds will grow, and a plant will bud and blossom.
Do you understand this? Can you explain it better than
you can the production of thought? Have you the slightest
conception of what it really is?
And yet you speak of
matter as though acquainted with its origin, as though you
had torn from the clenched hands of the rocks the secrets
of material existence. Do you know what force is? Can
you account for molecular action? Are you really familiar
with chemistry, and can you account for the loves and hatre s
of the atoms? Is there not something in matter that forever
-eludes?
After all, can you get beyond, above, or below
appearances? Before you cry “Materialism! ” had you not
better ascertain what matter really is? Can you think even
of anything without a material basis? Is it possible to
imagine annihilation of a single atom? Is it possible for you
to conceive of the creation of an atom? Can you have a
thought that was not suggested to you by what you call
matter ?
T
�4
THE GHOSTS
Our fathers denounced materialism, and accounted for all
phenomena by the caprice of gods and devils.
For thousands of years it was believed that ghosts, good
and bad, benevolent and malignant, weak and powerful
in some mysterious way, produced all phenomena: that
disease and health, happiness and misery, fortune and misortune, peace and war, life and death, success and failure
were but arrows from the quivers of these ghosts; that
shadowy phantoms rewarded and punished mankind; that
they were pleased and displeased by the actions of men;
that they sent and withheld the snow, the light, and the
rain ; that they blessed the earth with harvests or cursed
it with famine; that they fed or starved the children of men;
that they crowned and uncrowned kings; that they took
sides in war; that they controlled the winds; that they
gave prosperous voyages, allowing the brave mariner to
meet his wife and child inside the harbour bar, or sent
the storms, strewing the sad shores with wrecks of ships
and the bodies of men.
Formerly these ghosts were believed to be almost innumer
able. Earth, air, and water were filled with these phantom
hosts.
In modern times they have greatly decreased in
number, because the second theory—a mingling of the super
natural and natural—has generally been adopted.
The
remaining ghosts, however, are supposed to perform the same
offices as the hosts of yore.
It has always been believed that these ghosts could in
some way be appeased ; that they could be flattered by
sacrifices, by prayer, by fasting, by the building of temples
and cathedrals, by the blood of men and beasts, by forms
and ceremonies, by chants, by kneelings and prostrations,
by flagellations and maimings, by renouncing the joys of
home, by living alone in the wide desert, by the practice of
celibacy, by inventing instruments of torture, by destroying
men, women, and children, by covering the earth with
ungeons, by burning unbelievers, by putting chains upon the
thoughts and manacles upon the limbs of men, by believing
things without evidence and against evidence, by disbelieving
and denying demonstration, by despising facts, by hating
reason,, by denouncing liberty, by maligning heretics, by
slandering the dead, by subscribing to senseless and cruel
creeds, by discouraging investigation, by worshipping a book,
by the cultivation of credulity, by observing certain times
�THE GHOSTS
F
5
and days, by counting beads, by gazing at crosses, by hiring
others, to repeat verses and prayers, by burning candles and
ringing bells, by enslaving each other and putting out the
eyes of the soul. All this has been done to appease and
flatter these monsters of the air.
In the history of our poor world, no horror has been omitted,
no infamy has been left undone, by the believers in ghosts
by the worshippers of these fleshless phantoms.. And yet
these shadows were born of cowardice and malignity. They
were painted by the pencil of fear upon the canvas of ignorance
by that artist called superstition.
.
From these ghosts our fathers received information. They
were the schoolmasters of our ancestors.. They were the
scientists and philosophers, the geologists, legislators,
astronomers, physicians, metaphysicians, and historians of
the past. For ages these ghosts were supposed to be the
only source of real knowledge. They inspired men to write
books, and the books were considered sacred. If facts were
found to be inconsistent with these books, so much the
worse tor the facts, and especially for their discoverers. It
was then, and still is, believed that these books are the
basis of the idea of immortality; that to give up these volumes,
or, rather, the idea that they are inspired, is to renounce
the idea of immortality. This I deny.
The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and
flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope
and fear beating against the shores and rocks of time and
fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any
religion.
It was born of human affection, and it will
continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of
doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death.
It is the rainbow—Hope shining upon the tears of grief.
From the books written by the ghosts we have at last
ascertained that they knew nothing about the world in which
we live. Did they know anything about the next? Upon
every point where contradiction is possible they have been
contradicted.
By these ghosts, by these citizens of the air, the affairs
of government were administered; all authority to govern
came from them. The emperors, kings, and potentates all
had commissions from these phantoms.
Man was not
considered as the source of any power whatever. T<? rebel
against the king was to rebel against the ghosts, and nothing
�6
THE GHOSTS
less than the blood of the offender could appease the invisible
phantom or the visible tyrant. Kneeling was the proper
position to ,be assumed by the multitude. The prostrate
were thé good. Those who stood erect were infidels and
traitors. In the name and by the authority of the ghosts,
man was enslaved, crushed, and plundered. The many toiled
wearily in the storm and sun that the few favourites of the
ghosts might live in idleness. The many lived in huts, and
caves, and dens, that the few might dwell in palaces. The
many covered themselves with rags, that the few might
robe themselves in purple and in gold. The many crept, and
cringed, and crawled, that the few might tread upon their
flesh with iron feet.
From the ghosts men received, not only authority, but
information of every kind. They told us the form of this
earth. They informed us that eclipses were caused by the
sins of man ; that the universe was made in six days ; that
astronomy and geology were devices of wicked men,
instigated by wicked ghosts ; that gazing at the sky with a
telescope was a dangerous thing ; that digging into the earth
was sinful curiosity ; that trying to be wise above what they
had written was born of a rebellious and irreverent spirit.
They told us there was no virtue like belief, and no crime
like doubt ; that investigation was pure impudence, and the
punishment therefor eternal torment. They not only told
us all about this world, but about two others ; and, if their
statements about the other worlds are as true as about this,
no one can estimate the value of their information.
For counless ages the world was governed by ghosts, and
they spared no pains to change the eagle of the human
intellect into a bat of darkness. To accomplish this infamous
purpose ; to drive the love of truth from the human heart ;
to prevent the advancement of mankind ; to shut out from
the world every ray of intellectual light ; to pollute every
mind with superstition, the power of kings, the cunning and
cruelty of priests, and the wealth of nations were exhausted.
During these years of persecution, ignorance, superstition,
and slavery, nearly all the people, the kings, lawyers, doctors,
the learned and the unlearned, believed in that frightful
production of ignorance, fear, and faith, called witchcraft.
They believed that man was the sport and prey of devils.
They really thought that the very air was thick with these
enemies of man.
With few exceptions, this hideous and
�i
/
/
THE GHOSTS
7{
infamous belief was universal.
Under these conditions
progress was almost impossible.
Fear paralyses the brain. Progress is born of courage.
Fear_ believes courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth
and prays—courage stands erect and thinks. Fear retreats__
courage advances. Fear is barbarism—courage is civilisa
tion. _ Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils, and in ghosts.
Fear is religion—courage is science.
The facts upon which this terrible belief rested were proved
over and over again in every court of Europe. Thousands
confessed themselves guilty—admitted that they had sold
themselves to the devil. They gave the particulars of the
sale; told what they said and what the devil replied. They
confessed this, when they knew that confession was death;
their property would be confiscated, and their
children left to beg their bread. This is one of the miracles
of history—one of the strangest contradictions of the human
mind Without doubt, they really believed themselves guilty.
In the first place they believed in witchcraft as a fact, and
when charged with it they probably became insane. In their
insanity they confessed their guilt. They found themselves
abhorred and deserted—charged with a crime that they could
not disprove. Like a man in quicksand, every effort only
sank them deeper.
Caught in this frightful web, at the
mercy of the spiders of superstition, hope fled, and nothing
remained but the insanity of confession. The whole world
appeared to be insane.
In the time of James the First a man was executed for
causing a storm at sea with the intention of drowning one
of the royal family. How could he disprove it? How could he
snow that he did not cause the storm? All storms were at
that time generally supposed to be caused by the devil—the
prince of the power of the air—and by those whom he assisted.
. 1 implore you to remember that the believers in such
impossible things were the authors of our creeds and
confessions of faith.
A woman was tried and convicted before Sir Matthew Hale
one of the great judges and lawyers of England, for having
caused children to vomit crooked pins. She was also charged
with having nursed devils. The learned judge charged the
intelligent jury that there was no doubt as to the existence
teujht by the’ Kfe’ eStabHshed by a11 llis,or-v- “d exPr“sl>-
�THE GHOSTS
The woman was hanged and her body burned.
Sir Thomas More declared that to give up witchcraft was to
throwaway the sacred Scriptures. In my judgment, he was right.
John Wesley was a firm believer in ghosts and witches,
and insisted upon it, years after all laws upon the subject had
been repealed in England. I beg of you to remember that
John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist Church..
In New England a woman was charged with being a. witch,and with having changed herself into a fox. While in that
condition she was attacked and bitten by some dogs. A
committee of three men, by order of the court, examined this
woman. They removed her clothing and searched for witch
spots.” That is to say, spots into which needles could be
thrust without giving her pain. They, reported to the court
that such spots were found. She denied, however, that she
ever had changed herself into a fox. Upon the report of the
committee she was found guilty and actually executed. 1 his
was done by our Puritan fathers, by the gentlemen who
braved the dangers of the deep for the sake of worshipping
God and persecuting their fellow-men.
In those days people believed in what was known as
lycanthrophy—that is, that persons, with the assistance of. the
devil, could assume the form of wolves. An instance is. given
where a man was attacked by a wolf. He defended himself,
and succeeded in cutting off one of the animal’s paws. . lne
wolf ran away. The man picked up the paw, put it in his
pocket, and carried it home. There he found his wife with one '
of her hands gone. He took the paw from his pocket. It had
changed to a human hand. He charged his wife with being a
witch. She was tried. She confessed her guilt, and was burned.
People were burned for causing frosts in summer-tor
destroying crops with hail—for causing storms for making
cows go dry, and even for souring beer. There was no
impossibility for which someone was not tried and convicted.
The life of no one was secure. To be charged was to be
convicted. Every man was at the mercy of every, other
This infamous belief was so firmly seated in the minds ot
the people that to express a doubt as to its truth, was to be
suspected. Whoever denied the existence of witches and
devils was denounced as an infidel.
.
They believed that animals were often taken possession ot by
devils, and that the killing of the animal would destroy the
devil. They absolutely tried, convicted, and executed dumb beasts.
�THE GHOSTS
9
At Basle, in 1470, a rooster was tried upon the charge
of having laid an egg. Rooster eggs were used only in
making witch ointment—this everybody knew. The rooster
was convicted, and with all due solemnity was burned in the
public square. So a hog and six pigs were tried for having
killed and partially eaten a child. The hog was convicted,
but the pigs, on account probably of their extreme youth,
were acquitted. As late as 1740 a cow was tried and
convicted of being possessed by a devil.
They used to exorcise rats, locusts, snakes, and vermin.
They used to go through the alleys, streets, and fields, and
warn them to leave within a certain number of days. In case
they disobeyed, they were threatened with pains and penalties.
But let us be careful how we laugh at these things. Let
us not pride ourselves too much on the progress of our age.
We must not forget that some of our people are yet in the
same intelligent business.
Only a little while ago the
Governor of Minnesota appointed a day of fasting and prayer,
to see if some power could not be induced to kill the grass
hoppers, or send them into some other State.
About the close of the fifteenth century, so great was the
excitement with regard to the existence of witchcraft that
Pope Innocent VIII. issued a bull directing the inquisitors
to be vigilant in searching out and punishing all guilty of
this crime. Forms for the trial were regularly laid down in
a book or pamphlet called the Malleus Maleficorum (Hammer
of Witches), which was issued by the Roman See. Popes
Alexander, Leo, and Adrian issued like bulls.
For two
hundred and fifty years the Church was busy in punishing
the impossible crime of witchcraft; in burning, hanging, and
torturing men, women, and children. Protestants were as
active as Catholics, and in Geneva five hundred witches were
burned at the stake in a period of three months. About one
thousand were executed in one year in the diocese of Como.
At least one hundred thousand victims suffered in Germany
alone, the last execution (in Wurzburg) taking place as late
as 1739. Witches were burned in Switzerland as late as 1780.
In England the same frightful scenes were enacted.
Statutes were passed from Henry VI. to James I. defining
the crime and its punishment. The last Act passed by the
British Parliament was when Lord Bacon was a member of
theHouseof Commons; and this Act was not repealed until 1736*
Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws
�IO
THE GHOSTS
of England, says: “ To deny the possibility, nay, actual
existence, of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to
contradict the word of God in various passages both of the
Old and New Testament; and the thing itself is a truth to
which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne testi
mony, either by examples seemingly well attested or by
prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a
commerce with evil spirits.”
In Brown’s Dictionary of the Bible, published at
Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1807, it is said that “A witch is a
woman that has dealings with Satan. That such persons
are among men is abundantly plain fr.om Scripture, and that
they ought to be put to death.”
This work was' republished in Albany, New York, in 1816.
No wonder the clergy of that city are ignorant and bigoted
even unto this day.
In 1716 Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, nine years of age,
were hanged for selling their souls to the devil, and raising
a storm by pulling off their stockings and making a lather
of soap.
In England it has been estimated that at least thirty
thousand were hanged and burned. The last victim executed
in Scotland perished in 1722. “She was an innocent old
woman, who had so little idea of her situation as to rejoice
at the sight of the fire which was destined to consume her.
She had a daughter, lame of both hands and of feet—a
circumstance attributed to the witch having been used to
transform her daughter into a pony and getting her shod
by the devil.”
In 1692 nineteen persons were executed and one pressed
to death in Salem, Massachusetts, for the crime of witchcraft.
It was thought in those days that men and women made
compacts with the devil, orally and in writing; that they
abjured God and Jesus Christ, and dedicated themselves
wholly to the devil.
The contracts were confirmed at a
general meeting of witches and ghosts, over which the
devil himself presided; and the persons generally signed the
articles of agreement with their own blood. These contracts
were, in some instances, for a few years; in others, for life.
General assemblies of the witches were held at least once a
year, at which they appeared entirely naked, besmeared with
an ointment made from the bodies of unbaptised infants. “To
these meetings they rode from great distances on broomsticks,
�THE GHOSTS
ii
pokers, goats, hogs, and dogs. Here they did homage to the
prince of hell, and offered him sacrifices of young children,
and practised all sorts of license until the break of day.”
“As late as 1815 Belgium was disgraced by a witch trial;
and guilt was established by the water ordeal.” “ In 1836
the populace of Hela, near Dantzic, twice plunged into the
sea a woman reputed to be a sorceress; and as the miserable
creature persisted in rising to the surface, she was
pronounced guilty and beaten to death.”
“ It was believed that the bodies of devils are not, like those
of men and animals, cast in an unchangeable mould. It
\Vas thought they were like clouds, refined and subtle matter,
capable of assuming any form and penetrating into any
orifice. The horrible tortures they endured in their place
of punishment rendered them extremely sensitive to suffering,
and they continually sought a temperate and somewhat moist
warmth in order to allay their pangs. It was for this reason
they so frequently entered into men and women.”
The devil could transport men, at his will, through the
air. He could beget children; and Martin Luther himself
had come into contact with one of these children. He
recommended the mother to throw the child into the river,
in order to free their house from the presence of the devil.
It was believed that the devil could transform people into
any shape he pleased.
Whoever denied these things was denounced as an infidel.
All the believers in witchcraft confidently appealed to the
Bible. Their mouths were filled with passages demonstra
ting the existence of witches and their power over human
beings. By the Bible they proved that innumerable evil
spirits were ranging over the world endeavouring to ruin
mankind; that these spirits possessed a power and wisdom
far. transcending the limits of human faculties; that they
delighted in every misfortune that could befall the world;
that their malice was superhuman.
That they caused
tempests was proved by the action of the devil towards Job;
by the passage in the' book of Revelation describing the four
angels who held the four winds, and to whom it was given
to afflict the earth. They believed the devil could carry
persons hundreds of miles, in a few seconds, through the
air. They believed this, because they knew that Christ had
been carried by the devil in the same manner and placed on
a pinnacle of the temple. “The prophet Habakkuk had been
�12
THE GHOSTS
transported by a spirit from Judea to Babylon; and Philip,
the evangelist, had been the object of a similar miracle;
and in the same way St. Paul had been carried in the body
into the third heaven.”
“ In those pious days they believed that Incubi and Succubi
were forever wandering among mankind, alluring, by more
than human charms, the unwary to their destruction, and
laying plots, which were too often successful, against the
virtue of the saints. Sometimes the witches kindled in the
monastic priest a more terrestrial fire. People told, with
bated breath, how, under the spell of a vindictive woman,
four successive abbots in a Germian monastery had been
wasted away by an unholy flame.”
An instance is given in which the devil not only assumed
the appearance of a holy man, in order to pay his addresses
to a lady, but, when discovered, crept under the bed, suffered
himself to be dragged out, and was impudent enough to
declare that he was the veritable bishop. So perfectly had
he assumed the form and features of the prelate that those
who knew the bishop best were deceived.
One can hardly imagine the frightful state of the human
mind during these long centuries of darkness and super
stition.
To them these things were awful and frightful
realities. Hovering above them in the air, in their houses,
in the bosoms of friends, in their very bodies, in all the
darkness of night, everywhere, around, above, and below,
were innumerable hosts of unclean and malignant devils.
From the malice of those leering and vindictive vampires
of the air the Church pretended to defend mankind. Pursuedby these phantoms, the frightened multitudes fell upon their
faces and implored the aid of robed hypocrisy and sceptred
theft.
Take from the orthodox Church of to-day the threat and
fear of hell, and it becomes an extinct volcano.
Take from the Church the miraculous, the supernatural,
the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the un
knowable, and the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.
Notwithstanding all the infamous things justly laid to
the charge of the Church, we are told that the civilisation of
to-day is the child of what we are pleased to call the super
stition of the past.
Religion has not civilised man—man has civilised religion.
God improves as man advances.
�THE GHOSTS
13
Let me call your attention to what we have received from
the followers of the ghosts. Let me give you an outline of
the sciences as taught by these philosophers of the clouds.
All diseases were produced either as a punishment by the
good ghosts or out of pure malignity by the bad ones. There
were, properly speaking, no diseases. The sick were
possessed by ghosts. The science of medicine consisted in
knowing how to persuade these ghosts to vacate the premises.
For thousands of years the diseased were treated with
incantations, with hideous noises, with drums and gongs.
Everything was done to make the visit of the ghost as
unpleasant as possible, and they generally succeeded in
making things so disagreeable that, if the ghost did not leave,
the patient did. These ghosts were supposed to be of different
rank, power, and dignity. Now and then a man pretended
to have won the favour of some powerful ghost, and that
gave him power over the little ones. Such a man became
an eminent physician.
It was found that certain kinds of smoke, such as that
produced by burning the liver of a fish, the dried skin of a
serpent, the eyes of a toad, or the tongue of an adder, were
exceedingly offensive to the nostrils of an ordinary ghost.
With this smoke the sick room would be filled until the ghost
had vanished or the patient died.
It was also believed that certain words—the names of the
most powerful ghosts—when properly pronounced, were very
effective weapons. It was for a long time thought that
Latin words were .the best, Latin being a dead language,
and known by the clergy. , Others thought that two sticks
laid across each other and held before thé wicked ghost
would cause it instantly to flee in dread away.
For thousands of years ,the practice of medicine consisted
in driving these evil spirits out of the bodies of men.
In some instances bargains and compromises were made
with the ghosts. One case is given where a multitude of
devils traded a man for a herd of swine. In this transaction
the devils were the losers, as the swine immediately drowned
themselves in the sea. This idea of disease appears to have
been almost universal, and is by no means yet extinct.
The contortions of the epileptic, the strange twitchings
of those afflicted with chorea, the shakings of palsy, dreams,
trances, and the numberless frightful phenomena produced
by diseases of the nerves, were all seized upon as so many
\
.
�14
THE GHOSTS
proofs that the bodies of men were filled with unclean and
malignant g*hosts.
Whoever endeavoured to account for these things by
natural causes, whoever attempted to cure diseases by
natural means, was denounced by the Church as an infidel.
To explain anything was a crime. It was to the interest of
the priest that all phenomena should be accounted for by the
will and power of gods and devils.
The moment it is
admitted that all phenomena are within the domain of the
natural, the necessity for a priest has disappeared. Religion
breathes the air of the supernatural. Take from the mind of
man the idea of the supernatural, and religion ceases to exist.
For this reason, the Church has always despised the man who
explained the wonderful. Upon this principle, nothing was
left undone to stay the science of medicine. As long as
plagues and pestilences could be stopped by prayer, the priest
was useful. The moment the physician found a cure, the
priest became an extravagance. The moment it began to
be apparent that prayer could do nothing for the body, the
priest shifted his ground and began praying for the soul.
Long after the devil idea was substantially abandoned in
the practice of medicine, and when it was admitted that
God had nothing to do with ordinary coughs and colds, it
was still believed that all the frightful diseases were sent
by him as punishments for the wickedness of the people. It
was thought to be a kind of blasphemy to even try, by any
natural means,.to stay the ravages of pestilence. Formerly,
during the prevalence of plague and epidemics, the arrogance
of the priest was boundless. He told the people that they
had slighted the clergy, that they had refused to pay tithes,
that they had doubted some of the doctrines of the Church,
and that God was now taking his revenge. The people,
for the most part, believed this infamous tissue of priest
craft. They hastened to fall upon their knees; they poured
out their wealth upon the altars of hypocrisy; they abased
and debased themselves; from their minds they banished all
doubts, and made haste to crawl in the very dust of humility.
The Church never wanted disease to be under the control
of man.
Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College,
preached a sermon against vaccination. His idea was that,
if God had decreed from all eternity that a certain man should
die with the small-pox, it was a frightful sin to avoid and
annul that decree by the trick of vaccination. Small-pox
�THE GHOSTS
ij
being regarded as one of the heaviest guns in the arsenal of
heaven, to spike it was the height of presumption. Plagues
and pestilences were instrumentalities' in the hands of God
with which to gain the love arid worship of mankind. To
find a cure for disease was to take a weapon from the Church.
No one tries to cure the ague with prayer. Quinine has
been found altogether more reliable.
Just as soon as a
specific is found for a disease, that disease will be left out
of the list of prayer. The number of diseases with which
God from time to time afflicts mankind is continually decreas
ing. In a few years all of them will be under the control
of& man, the gods will be left unarmed, and the threats of
their priests will excite only a smile.
The science of medicine has had but one enemy—religion.
Man was afraid to save his body for fear he might lose his soul.
Is it any wonder that the people in those days believed in
and taught the infamous doctrine of eternal punishment—
a doctrine that makes God a heartless monster and man a
slimy hypocrite and slave?
The ghosts were historians, and their histories were the
grossest absurdities. “Tales told by idiots, full of sound
and fury, signifying nothing.” In those days the histories
were written by the monks, who, as a rule, were almost as
superstitious as they were dishonest. They wrote as though
they had been witnesses of every occurrence they related.
They wrote the history of every country of importance. They
told all the past, and predicted all the future with an impu
dence that amounted to sublimity. “ They traced the order of
St. Michael, in France, to the archangel himself, and alleged
that he was the founder of a chivalric order in heaven itself.
They said that Tartars originally came from hell, and that
they were called Tartars because Tartarus was one of the
names of perdition. They declared that Scotland was so
named after Scota, a daughter of Pharaoh, who landed in
Ireland, invaded Scotland, and took it by force of arms.
This statement was made in a letter addressed to the Pope
in the fourteenth century, and was alluded to as a well-known
fact. The letter was written by some of the highest digni
taries, and by the direction of the King himself.
These gentlemen accounted for the red on the breasts of
robins from the fact that these birds carried water to
unbaptised infants in hell.
�16
THE GHOSTS
Matthew, of Paris, an eminent historian of the fourteenth
century, gaye the world the following piece of information :
It is well known that Mohammed was once a cardinal, and
became a heretic because he failed in his effort to be elected
Pope ; and that, haying drank to excess, he fell by the road
side, and in this condition was killed by swine. “And for that
reason his followers abhor pork even unto this day.”
Another eminent historian informs us that Nero was in
the habit of vomiting frogs. When I read this I said to
myself : Some of the croakers of the present day against
progress would be the better for such a vomit.
The history of Charlemagne was written by Turpin, of
Rheims. He was a bishop. He assures us that the walls
of a city fell down in answer to prayer; that there were
giants in those days who could take fifty ordinary men under
their arms and walk away with them. “ With the greatest
of these, a direct descendant of Goliath, one Orlando, had a
theological discussion; and in the heat of the debate, when
the giant was overwhelmed with the argument, Orlando
rushed forward and inflicted a fatal stab.”
The history of Britain, written by the archdeacons of
Monmouth and Oxford, was wonderfully popular. According
to them, Brutus conquered England and built the city of
London. During his time it rained pure blood for three days.
At another time a monster came from the sea, and, after
having devoured great multitudes of people, swallowed the
king and disappeared. They tell us that King Arthur was
not born like other mortals, but was the result of a magical
Contrivance; that he had great luck in killing giants; that
he killed one in France that had the cheerful habit of eating
some thirty men a day; that this giant had clothes woven
of the beards of the kings he had devoured. To cap the
climax, one of the authors of this book was promoted for
having written the only reliable history of his country.
In all the histories of those days there is hardly a single
truth.
Facts were considered unworthy of preservation.
Anything that really happened was not of sufficient interest
or importance to be recorded. The great religious historian,
Eusebius, ingenuously remarks that in his history he carefully
omitted whatever tended to discredit the Church, and that
he piously magnified all that conduced to her glory.
The same glorious principle was scrupulously adhered to
by all the historians of that time.
�THE GHOSTS
• i7
They wrote, and the people believed, that .the tracks of
Pharaoh’s chariots were still visible on the sands of the Red
Sea, and that they had been miraculously preserved from the
winds and waves as perpetual witnesses of the great miracle
there performed.
It is safe to say that every truth in the histories of those
times is the result of accident or mistake.
They accounted for everything as the work of good and
evil spirits. With cause and effect they had nothing to do.
Facts were in no way related to each other. God, governed
by infinite caprice, filled the world with miracles and dis
connected events. From the quiver of his hatred came the
arrows of famine, pestilence, and death.
The moment the idea is abandoned that all is natural, that
all phenomena are the necessary links in the endless chain
of being, the conception of history becomes impossible. With
the ghosts, the present is not the child of the past, nor the
mother of the future. In the domain of religion all is chance,
accident, and caprice.
Do not forget, I pray you, that our creeds were written
by the contemporaries of these historians.
The same idea was applied to law. It was believed by
our intelligent ancestors that all law derived its sacredness
and its binding force from the fact that it had been com
municated to man by the ghosts.
Of course it was not
pretended that the ghosts told everybody the law; but they
told it to a few, and the few told it to the people, and the
people, as a rule, paid them exceedingly well for their trouble.
It was thousands of ages before the people commenced
making laws for themselves, and, strange as it may appear,
most of these laws were vastly superior to the ghost article.
Through the web and woof of human legislation began to
run and shine and glitter the golden thread of justice.
During these years of darkness it was believed that rather
than see an act of injustice done, rather than see the
innocent suffer, rather than see the guilty triumph, some
ghost would interfere. This belief, as a rule, gave great
satisfaction to the victorious party, and, as the other man
was dead, no complaint was heard from him.
This doctrine was the sanctification of brute force and
chance. They had trials by battle, by fire, by water, and by
lot. Persons were made to grasp hot iron, and if it burned
them their guilt was established. Others, with tied hands
�THE GHOSTS
and feet, were cast into the sea, and if they sank the verdict
of guilty was unanimous; if they did not sink, they were in
league with devils.
So, in England, persons charged with crime could appeal
to the corsned. The corsned was a piece of the sacramental
bread. If the defendant could swallow this piece, he went
acquit. Godwin, Earl of Kent, in the time of Edward the
Confessor, appealed to the corsned. He failed to swallow it,
and was choked to death.
. The ghosts and their followers always took delight in
torture, in cruel and unusual punishments. For the infrac
tion of most of their laws death was the penalty—death
produced by stoning and by fire.
Sometimes, when man
committed only murder, he was allowed to flee to some city
of refuge. Murder was a 'crime against man. But for
saying certain words, or denying certain doctrines, or for
picking up sticks on certain days, or for worshipping the
wrong ghost, or for failing to pray to the right
one, or for laughing at a priest, or for saying that
wine was not blood, or that bread was not flesh, or for
failing to regard rams’ horns as artillery, or for insisting
that a dry bone was scarcely sufficient to take the place
of water works, or that a raven, as a rule, made a poor
landlord—death, produced by all the ways that the ingenuity
of hatred could devise, was the penalty.
Law is a growth—it is a science. Right and wrong exist
in the nature of things. Things are not right because they
are commanded, nor wrong because they are prohibited.
There are real crimes enough without creating artificial ones.
All progress in legislation has for centuries consisted in
repealing the laws of the ghosts.
The idea of right and wrong is born of man’s capacity
to enjoy and suffer. If man could not suffer, if he could not
inflict injury upon his fellow, if he could neither feel nor
inflict pain, the idea of right and wrong never would have
entered his brain.
But for this, the word “conscience”
never would have passed the lips of man. *
There is one good—happiness. There is but one sin—
selfishness.
All law should be for the preservation of
the one and the destruction of the other.
Under the regime of the ghosts, laws were not supposed
to exist in the nature of things. They were supposed to be
simply the irresponsible command of a ghost. These com-
�THE GHOSTS
19
mands were not supposed to rest upon reason ; they were
the product of arbitrary will.
The penalties for the violation of these laws were as cruel as
the laws were senseless and absurd. Working on the Sabbath
and murder were both punished with death. The tendency of
such laws is to blot from the human heart the sense of justice.
To show you how perfectly every department of knowledge,
or ignorance rather, was saturated with superstition, I will
for a moment refer to the science of language.
It was thought by our fathers that Hebrew was the original
language ; that it was taught to Adam in the Garden of Eden
by the Almighty, and that consequently all languages came
from, and could be traced to, the Hebrew. Every fact incon
sistent with that idea was discarded.
According to the
ghosts, the trouble at the tower of Babel accounted for the
fact that all people did not speak Hebrew.
The Babel
business settled all questions in the science of language.
After a time, so many facts were found to be inconsistent
with the Hebrew idea that it began to fall into disrepute, and
other languages began to compete for the honour of being
the original.
André Kempe, in 1569, published a work on the language
of Paradise, in which he maintained that God spoke to Adam
in Swedish ; that Adam answered in Danish ; and that the
serpent—which appears to me quite probable—spoke to Eve
in French. Erro, in a work published at Madrid, took the
ground that Basque was the language spoken in the Garden
of Eden; but in 1580 Goropius published his celebrated work
at Antwerp, in which he put the whole matter at rest by
showing, beyond all doubt, that the language spoken in
Paradise was neither more nor less than plain Holland Dutch.
The real founder of the science of language was Leibnitz,
, a contemporary of Sir Isaac Newton. He discarded the idea
that all languages could be traced to one language.
He
maintained that language was a natural growth. Experience
teaches us that this must be so. Words are continually dying
and continually being born.
Words are naturally and
necessarily produced.. Words are the garments of thought,
the robes of ideas. Some are as rude as the skins of wild
beasts, and others glisten and glitter like silk and gold.
They have been born of hatred and revenge ; of love and
self-sacrifice ; of hope and fear ; of agony and joy. These
�20
THE GHOSTS
words are born of the terror and beauty of nature.
The
stars have fashioned them. In them mingle the darkness
and the dawn. From everything they have taken something.
Words are the crystallisations of human history, of all that
man has enjoyed and suffered—his victories and defeats—all
that he has lost and won. Words are the shadows of all
that has been—the mirrors of all that is.
The ghosts also enlightened our fathers in astronomy and
geology. According to them, the earth was made out of
nothing, and, a little more nothing having been taken than
was used in the construction of the world, the stars were
made out of what was left over.'- Cosmos, in the sixth
century, taught that the stars were impelled by angels, who
either carried them on their shoulders, rolled them in front
of them, or drew them after. He also taught that each angel
that pushed a star took great pains to observe what the other
angels were doing, so that the relative distances between the
stars might always remain the same. He also gave his idea
as to the form of the world.
He stated that the world was a vast parallelogram ; that
on the outside was a strip of land, like the frame of a common
slate; that then there was a strip of water, and in the middle
a great piece of land; that Adam and Eve lived on the
outer strip; that their descendants, with the exception of the
Noah family, were drowned by a flood on this outer strip;
that the ark finally rested on the middle piece of land where
we now are. He accounted for night and day by saying that
on the outside strip of land there was a high mountain around
which the sun and moon revolved, and that when the sun
was on the other side of the mountain it was night, and when
on this side it was day.
He also declared that the earth was flat. This he proved
by many passages from the Bible.
Among other reasons
for believing the earth to be flat, he brought forward the
following : We are told in the New Testament that Christ
shall come again in glory and power, and all the world shall
see him. Now, if the world is round, how are the people
on the other side going to see Christ if he comes? That
settled the question, and the Church not only endorsed he
book, but declared that whoever believed less or more than
stated by Cosmos was a heretic.
In those blessed days Ignorance was a king and Science an
outcast.
�THE GHOSTS
21
They knew the moment this earth ceased to.be the centre
of the universe, and became a mere speck in the starry
heaven of existence, that their religion would become a child
ish fable of the past.
In the name and by the authority of the ghosts men enslaved
their fellow-men; they trampled upon the rights of women
and children. In the name and by the authority of the ghosts
they bought and sold and destroyed each other; they filled
heaven with tyrants and earth with slaves, the present with
despair and the future with horror. In the name and by the
authority of the ghosts they imprisoned the human, mind,
polluted the conscience, hardened the heart, subverted justice,
crowned robbery, sainted hypocrisy, and extinguished for a
thousand years the torch of reason.
I have endeavoured, in some faint degree, to show you
what has happened, and what always will happen when men
are governed by superstition and fear; when they desert the
sublime standard of reason; when they take the words of
others and do not investigate for themselves.
Even the great men of those days were nearly as weak
in this matter as the most ignorant.
Kepler, one of the
greatest men of the world, an astronomer second to none,
although he plucked from the stars the secrets of the universe,
was an astrologer, and really believed that he could predict the
career of a man by finding what star was in the ascendant at
his birth. This great man breathed, so to speak, the atmos
phere of his time. He believed in the music of the spheres,
and assigned alto, bass, tenor, and treble to certain stars.
Tycho Brahe, another astronomer, kept an idiot, whose
disconnected and meaningless words he carefully set down,
and then put them together in such manner as to make
prophecies, and waited patiently to see them fulfilled. . Luther
believed that he had actually seen the devil, and had discussed
points of theology with him. The human mind was in chains.
Every idea almost was a monster. Thought was deformed.
Facts were looked upon as worthless. Only the wonderful
was worth preserving. Things that actually happened were
not considered worth recording—real occurrences were too
common. Everybody expected the miraculous.
I'he ghosts were supposed to be busy ; devils were thought
to be the most industrious things in the universe, and with
these imps every occurrence of an unusual character was in
some way connected. There was no order, no serenity, no
/
�-
the ghosts
certainty in anything.
Everything depended upon ghosts
and phantoms. Man. was, for the most part, at the mercy
of maleyoient ^Pints. He protected himself as best he could
with holy water and tapers and wafers and cathedrals He
made noises and rung bells to frighten the ghosts, and he
made music to charm them. He used smoke to choke them
and incense to please them. He wore beads and crosses.
He said prayers, and hired others to say them. He fasted
when he was hungry, and feasted when he was not
He
believed everything that seemed unreasonable, just to appease
the ghosts. He humbled himself. He crawled in the dust.
He shut the doors and windows, and excluded every ray of
light from the temple of the soul. He debauched and polluted
his own mind, and toiled night and day to repair the walls
of his own prison. From the garden of his heart he plucked
and trampled upon the holy flowers of pity.
The priests reveiiea in horrible descriptions of hell
revelled
hell. Con
xue
cerning the wrath of God they grew eloquent. They
HPnniinf'Pri
x
J
denounced mor* oo 4-^4-nllr, depraved. mt
man as totally J;____________ 1
They made reason
blasphemy and pity a crime. Nothing so delighted them as
painting the torments and sufferings of the. lost. Over the
,never dies they grew poetic; and the second
death filled them with a kind of holy delight. According to
them, the smoke and cries ascending from hell were the
perfume and music of heaven.
At the risk of being tiresome, I have said what I have
to show you the productions of the human mind, when
enslaved; the effects of widespread ignorance—the results
of fear. I want to convince you that every form of slavery
is a viper that, sooner or later, will strike its poison fang's
into the bosoms of men.
The first great step towards progress is for man to cease
to be the slave of man ; the second, to cease to be the slave of
the monsters of his own creation—of the ghosts and phantoms
of the air.
For ages the human race was imprisoned. Through the
bars and grates came a few struggling rays of light. Against
these grates and bars Science pressed its pale and thoughtful
face, wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement.
Men found that the real was the useful; that what a man
knows is better than what a ghost says; that an event is
more valuable than a prophecy.
They found that diseases
were not produced by spirits, and could not be cured by
�THE GHOSTS
23
frightening them away. They found that death was as natural
as life. They began to study the anatomy and chemistry of
the human body, and found that all was natural and within the
domain of law.
The conjurer and sorceror were discarded, and the physician
and surgeon employed. They found that the earth was not
flat; that the stars were not mere specks. They found that
being born under a particular planet had nothing to do with
the fortunes of men.
The astrologer was discharged, and the astronomer took
his place.
They found that the earth had swept through the constella
tions for millions of ages. They found that good and evil
were produced by natural causes, and not by ghosts; that
man could not be good or bad enough to stop or cause a rain ;
that diseases were produced as naturally as grass, and were
not sent as punishments upon man for failing to believe a
certain creed. They found that man, through intelligence,
could take advantage of the forces of Nature—that he could
make the waves, the winds, the flames, and the lightnings
of heaven do his bidding and minister to his wants. They
found that the ghosts knew nothing of benefit to man; that
they were utterly ignorant of geology, of astronomy, of geo
graphy ; that they knew nothing of history; that they were
poor doctors and worse surgeons; that they knew nothing of
’law and less of justice ; that they were without brains,, and
utterly destitute of hearts ; that they knew nothing of the rights
of men; that they were despisers of women, the haters of
progress, the enemies of science, and the destroyers of liberty.
The condition of the world during the Dark Ages shows
exactly the result of enslaving the bodies and souls of men.
In those days there was no freedom. Labour was despised,
and a labourer was considered but little above a beast.
Ignorance, like a vast cowl, covered the brain of the world,
¿ind superstition ran riot with the imagination of man. The air
was filled with angels, with demons and monsters. Credulity
sat upon the throne of the soul, and Reason was an exiled
king. A man to be distinguished must be a soldier or a monk.
War and theology—that is to say, murder and hypocrisy—
were the principal employments of man. Industry was a slave,
theft was commerce ; murder was war, hypocrisy was religion.
Every Christian country maintained that it was no robbery
�24
THE GHOSTS
to take the property of Mohammedans by force, and no
murder to kill the owners. Lord Bacon was the first man
of note who maintained that a Christian country was bound
to keep its plighted faith with an infidel nation. Reading
and writing were considered dangerous arts. Every layman
who could read and write was suspected of being a heretic.
All thought was discouraged. They forged chains of super
stition for the minds and manacles of iron for the bodies of
men. The earth was ruled by the cowl and sword, by the
mitre and sceptre, by the altar and throne, by Fear and Force,
by Ignorance and Faith, by ghouls and ghosts.
In the fifteenth century the following law was in force in
England :—
“ That whosoever reads the Scriptures in the mother tongue
shall forfeit land, cattle, life, and goods from their heirs for
ever, and so be condemned for heretics to God, enemies to
the Crown, and most arrant traitors to the land.”
During the first year this law was in force thirty-nine were
hanged for its violation and their bodies burned.
In the sixteenth century men were burned because they
failed to kneel to a procession of monks.
The slightest word uttered against the superstition of the
time was published with death.
Even the reformers, so-called, of those days had no idea
of intellectual liberty—no idea even of toleration. Luther,
Knox, Calvin, believed in religious liberty only when they*
were in the minority. The moment they were clothed with
power they began to exterminate with fire and sword.
Castellio was the first minister who advocated the liberty
of the soul. He was regarded by the reformers as a criminal,
and treated as though he had committed the crime of crimes.
Bodinus, a lawyer of France, about the same time, wrote a
few words in favour of the freedom of conscience, but public
opinion was overwhelmingly against him. The people were
ready, anxious, and willing with whip and chain and fire to
drive from the mind of man the heresy that he had a right,
to think.
Montaigne, a man blessed with so much common sense that
he was the most uncommon man of his time, was the first
to raise a voice against torture in France. But what was
the voice of one man against the terrible cry of ignorant,
infatuated, superstitious, and malevolent millions? It was
the cry of a drowning man in the wild roar of the cruel sea.
�THE GHOSTS
25
In spite of the efforts of the brave few, the infamous war
against the freedom of the soul was waged until at least one
hundred millions of human beings—fathers, mothers, brothers,
sisters—with hopes, loves, and aspirations like ourselves,
were sacrificed upon the cruel altar of an ignorant faith.
They perished in every way by which death can be produced.
Every nerve of pain was sought out and touched by the
believers in ghosts.
.
. ,
For my part, I glory in the fact that here in the new world —in the United States—liberty of conscience was first
guaranteed to man, and that the Constitution of the United
States was the first great decree entered in the high court of
human equity forever divorcing Church and State—the first
injunction granted against the interference of the ghosts.
This was one of the grandest steps ever taken by the human
race in the direction of progress.
.
You will ask what has caused this wonderful change in
three hundred years. And I answer—the inventions and
discoveries of the few; the brave thoughts, the heroic utter
ances of the few; the acquisition of a few facts.
Besides, you must remember that every wrong in some
way tends to abolish itself. It is hard to make a he stand
always. A lie will not fit a fact. It will only fit another
lie made for the purpose. The life of a lie is simply a question
of time. Nothing but truth is immortal. The nobles and
kings quarrelled; the priests began to dispute; the ideas of
government began to change.
,
In 1441 printing was discovered. At that time the past
was a vast cemetery, with hardly an epitaph. The ideas of
men had mostly perished in the brain that produced them.
The lips of the human race had been sealed. Printing gave
”• pinions to thought. It preserved ideas. It made it possible
for man to bequeath to the future the riches of his brain,
the wealth of his soul. At first it was used to flood the world
with the mistakes of the ancients, but since that time it has
been flooding the world with light.
When people read they begin to reason, and when they
reason they progress. This was another grand step in the
direction of progress.
The discovery of gunpowder, that put the peasant almos
upon a par with the prince; that put an end to the so-called
age of chivalry ; that released a vast number of men from the
armies ; that gave pluck and nerve a chance with brute strength.
�26
THE GHOSTS
resdessdi«7ofradvLtori“ha7broe it“'68 T? ‘r°d by the
°f -> * • <tt
• iSr
o build a school-house is to construct a fort
livery library is an arsenal filled with the weanons and
~Z ix»
is a ™“b
niTui fndK^er“6 ^eIlan
^ank Gahleo^^
nicus, and Kepler, and Descartes, and Newton, and Lanlace
I thank Locke and Hume, and Bacon, and Shakespearfind
IndW^ts andVnknd
Goetbe' 1 thank Fu’lton’
wt>r>
a’ vt. °.ta’ an^ Galvani, and Franklin, and Morse
^ho made lightning- the messenger of man
r think
Humboldt, the Shakespeare of science. I thank Crompton
and Arkwright, from whose brains leaped the looms find
spindles that clothe the world. I thank Luther for protesting
S ' „ ‘ Je abuses of tht Church, and I denounce him becausf
he was the enemy of liberty. I thank Calvin for wridnTa
book m favour of religious freedom, and I abhor him because
pLtecX XVh / XX
resistin“opal
persecution, and I hate him because he persecuted in his
is obed efcT M C 7’’f°r SaTying’ “ Resistance to tyrants
is obedience to God, and yet I am compelled to say that
they were tyrants themselves. I thank Thomas Paine because
he was a believer in liberty, and because he did as much to
vfuG.my c°untry free as any other human being. I thank
A oltaire, that great man who, for half a century, was the
�THE GHOSTS
intellectual emperor of Europe, and who, from his throne at
the foot of the Alps, pointed the finger of scorn at every
hypocrite in Christendom. I thank Darwin, • Haeckel, and
Buchner, Spencer, Tyndall, and Huxley, Draper, Lecky, and
Buckle.
I thank the inventors, the discoverers, the thinkers, the
scientists, the explorers. I thank the honest millions who
have toiled.
I thank the brave men with brave thoughts. They are
the Atlases upon whose broad and mighty shoulders rests
the grand fabric of civilisation. They are the men who have
broken, and are still breaking, the chains of Superstition.
They are the Titans who carried Olympus by assault, and
who will soon stand victors upon’s Sinai’s crags.
We are beginning to learn that to exchange a mistake
for the truth—a superstition for a fact—to ascertain the
real—is to progress.
Happiness is the only possible good, and all that tends
to the happiness of man is right, and is of value. All that
tends to develop the bodies and minds of men; all that gives
us better houses, better clothes, better food, better pictures,
grander music, better heads, better hearts; all that renders
us more intellectual and more loving, nearer just; that makes
us better husbands and wives, better children, better citizens
—all these things combined produce what I call Progress.
Man advances only as he overcomes the obstructions of
Nature, and this can be done only by labour and by thought.
Labour is the foundation of all. Without labour, and without
great labour, progress is impossible. The progress of the
world depends upon the men who walk in the fresh furrows
and through the rustling corn ; upon those who sow and reap ;
upon those whose faces are radiant with the glare of furnace
fires; upon the delvers in the mines, and the workers in
shops; upon those who give to the winter air the ringing
music of the axe; upon those who battle with the boisterous
billows of the sea; upon the inventors and discoverers; upon
the brave thinkers.
From the surplus produced by labour schools and
universities are built and fostered. From this surplus the
painter is paid for the productions of the pencil; the sculptor
for chiselling shapeless rock into forms divinely beautiful, and
the poet for singing the hopes, the loves, the memories, and
�28
•
THE GHOSTS
the aspirations of the world. This surplus has given us the
books in which we converse with the dead and living kings
of the human race. It has given us all there is of beauty,
of elegance, and of refined happiness.
I am aware that there is a vast difference of opinion as to
what progress really is; that many denounce the ideas of
to-day as destructive of all happiness—of all good. I know
that there are many worshippers of the past. They venerate
the ancient because it is ancient. They see no beauty in
anything from which they do not blow the dust of ages with
the breath of praise. They say, no masters like the old;
no religion, no governments, like the ancient; no orators,
no poets, no statesmen, like those who have been dust for
two thousand years. Others love the modern simply because
it is modern.
We should have gratitude enough to acknowledge the
obligations we are under to the great and heroic of antiquity,
and independence enough not to believe what they said simply
because they said it.
With the idea that labour is the basis of progress goes the
truth that labour must be free. The labourer must be a free man.
The free man, working for wife and child, gets his head
and hands in partnership.
To do the greatest amount of work in the shortest space of
time is the problem of free labour.
Slavery does the least work in the longest space of time.
Free labour will give us wealth. Free thought will give
us truth.
Slowly but surely man is freeing his imagination of these
sexless phantoms, of these cruel ghosts. Slowly but surely
he is rising above the superstitions of the past. He is learning
to rely upon himself. He is beginning to find that labour
is the only prayer that ought to be answered, and that hoping,
toiling, aspiring, suffering men and women are of more
importance than all the ghosts that ever wandered through
the fenceless fields of space.
The believers in ghosts claim still that they are the only
wise and virtuous people upon the earth ; claim still that there
is a difference between them and unbelievers so vast that they
will be infinitely rewarded and the others infinitely punished.
I ask you to-night, do the theories and doctrines of the
theologians satisfy the heart or brain of the nineteenth century ?
Have the Churches the confidence of mankind?
�THE GHOSTS
29
Does the merchant give credit to a man because he belongs
to a Church?
Does the banker loan money to a man because he is
Methodist or Baptist?
Will a certificate of good standing in any Church be taken
as collateral security for one dollar?
Will you take the word of a Church member, or his note,
or his oath, simply because he is a Church member?
Are the clergy, as a class, better, kinder, and more generous
to their families—to their fellow-men—than doctors, lawyers,
merchants, and farmers?
Does a belief in ghosts and unreasonable things necessarily
make people honest?
When a man loses confidence in Moses, must the people
lose confidence in him?
Does not the credit system in morals breed extravagance
L
in sin ?
Why send missionaries to other lands while every peniten
tiary in ours is filled with criminals?
Is it philosophical to say that they who do right carry a cross ?
Is it a source of joy to think that perdition is the destina
tion of nearly all of the children of men ?
Is it worth while to quarrel about original sin—when there
is so much copy?
Does it pay to dispute about baptism, and the Trinity,
and predestination, and Apostolic succession, and the infalli|. bility of Churches, of Popes, and of books? Does all this
do any good?
Are the theologians welcomers of new truths? Are they
noted for their candour? Do they treat an opponent with
common fairness ?
Are they investigators ?
Do they pull
forward, or do they hold back? s
Is science indebted to the Church for a solitary fact?
'
What Church is an asylum for a persecuted truth?
What great reform has been inaugurated by the Church?
Did the Church abolish slavery?
Has the Church raised its voice against war?
I * I used to think that there was in religion no real restrainf ing force. Upon this point my mind has changed. Religion
I will prevent man from committing artificial crimes and offences.
■*
A man committed murder. The evidence was so conclusive
i
that he confessed his guilt.
He was asked why he killed his fellow-man.
�3°
THE GHOSTS
He replied: “For money.”
“ Did you get any? ”
“Yes.”
“ How much? ”
“Fifteen cents.”
“What did you do with the money?”
“ Spent it.”
“What for?”
“ Liquor.”
“What else did you find upon the dead man? ”
“He had his dinner in a bucket—some meat and bread.”
“What did you do with that?”
“ I ate the bread.”
“What did you do with the meat? ”
“I threw it away.”
“Why? ”
“ It was Friday.”
Just to the extent that man has freed himself from the
dominion of ghosts he has advanced. Just to the extent that
he has freed himself from the tyrants of his own creation he
has progressed. Just to the extent that he has investigated
for himself he has lost confidence in superstition.
With knowledge, obedience becomes intelligent acqui
escence—it is no longer degrading. Acquiescence in the
understood—in the known-—is the act of a sovereign, not
of a slave. It ennobles, it does not degrade.
Man has found that he must give liberty to others in order
to have it himself. He has found that a master is also a
slave; that a tyrant is himself a serf. He has found that
Governments should be founded and administered by man
and for man ; that the rights of all are equal; that the powers
that be are not ordained by God; that woman is at least
the equal of man; that men existed before books; that
religion is one of the phases of thought through which the
world is passing; that all creeds were made by man; that
everything is natural; that a miracle is an impossibility;
that we know nothing of origin and destiny; that concern
ing the unknown we are all equally ignorant; that the pew
has the right to contradict what the pulpit asserts; that man
is responsible only to himself and those he injures, and that
all have a right to think.
True religion must be free. Without perfect liberty of the
�THE GHOSTS
3i
mind there can be no true religion. Without liberty the brain
is a dungeon—the mind a convict. The slave may bow and
cringe and crawl, but he cannot adore—he cannot love.
True religion is the perfume of a free and grateful heart.
True religion is a subordination of the passions to the percep
tions of the intellect. True religion is not a theory—it is
a practice. It is not a creed—it is a life.
A theory that is afraid of investigation is undeserving a
place in the human mind.
I do not pretend to tell what all the truth is. I do not
pretend to have fathomed the abyss, nor to have floated on
outstretched wings level with the dim heights of thought.
I simply plead for freedom.
I denounce the cruelties and
horrors of slavery. I ask for light and air for the souls
of men. I say, Take off those chains—break those manacles
—free those limbs—release that brain ! I plead for the right
to think—to reason—to investigate. I ask that the future
may be enriched with the honest thoughts of men. I implore
every human being to be a soldier in the army of progress.
I will not invade the rights of others. You have no right
to erect your toll-gate upon the highways of thought. You
have no right to leap from the hedges of superstition and
strike down the pioneers of the human race. You have no
right to sacrifice the liberties of man upon the altars of
ghosts. Believe what you may; preach what you desire;
have all the forms and ceremonies you please; exercise your
liberty in your own way, but extend to all others the same right.
I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they
accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous
—if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one
and all, because they enslave the minds of men.
I attack the monsters, the phantoms of imagination that
have ruled the world. I attack slavery. I ask for room—
room for the human mind.
Why should we sacrifice a real world that we have for one
we know not of? Why should we enslave ourselves?
Why should we forge fetters for our own hands?
Why
should we be the slaves of phantoms? The darkness of
barbarism was the womb of these shadows. In the light
of science they cannot cloud the sky forever. They have
reddened the hands of man with innocent blood. They made
the cradle a curse, and the grave a place of torment.
�32
THE GHOSTS
They blinded the eyes and stopped the ears of the human
race. They subverted all ideas of justice by promising infinite
rewards for finite virtues, and threatening infinite punish
ment for finite offences.
They filled the future with heavens and with hells, with
the shining peaks of selfish joy and the lurid abysses of
flame. For ages they kept the world in ignorance and awe,
in want and misery, in fear and chains.
I plead for light, for air, for opportunity.
I plead for
individual independence. I plead for the rights of labour
and of thought. I plead for a chainless future. Let the
ghosts go—justice remains. Let them disappear—men and
women and children are left. Let the monsters fade away—
the world is here with its hills and seas and plains, with its
seasons of smiles and frowns; its spring of leaf and bud;
its summer of shade and flower and murmuring stream;
its autumn with the laden boughs, when the withered
banners of the corn are stilly and gathered fields are growing
strangely wan; while death, poetic death, with hands that
colour what they touch, weaves in the autumn wood her
tapestries of gold and brown.
The world remains, with its winters and homes and fire
sides, where grow and bloom the virtues of our race. All
these are left; and music, with its sad and thrilling voice,
and all there is of art and song and hope and love and
aspiration high. All these remain. Let the ghosts go—we
will worship them no more.
Man i's greater than these phantoms.
Humanity is
grander than all the creeds, than all the books. Humanity
is the great sea, and these creeds, and books, and religions
are but the waves of a day. Humanity is the sky, and these
religions and dogmas and theories are but the mists and
clouds changing continually, destined finally to melt away.
That which is founded upon slavery, and fear, and ignor
ance cannot endure. In the religion of the future there will
be men and women and children, all the aspirations of the
soul, and all the tender humanities of the heart.
Let the ghosts go. We will worship them no more. Let
them cover their eyeless sockets with their fleshless hands,
and fade forever from the imaginations of men.
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The ghosts
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 32 p. : ill. (front. port) ; 19 cm.
Series title: Pamphlets for the Millions
Series number: No. 10
Notes: Issued for the Rationalist Press Association. RPA "Sixpenny books" listed inside and on back cover. No. 26h in Stein checklist. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Watts & Co.
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1912
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G1062
RA1765
N351
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Spiritualism
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English
Ghosts
Materialism
NSS
Supernatural
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE
GHOSTS
BY
COL. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
Let them cover their Eyeless Sockets with their Flesh
less Hands and fade for ever from the imagination
of Men.
Price Threepence.
R. FORDER, 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.O.
1893.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY
G. W. FOOTE,
AT 11 CLERK F KWELL GREEN, E.C.
�THE GHOSTS.
Let them cover their Eyeless Sockets with their Fleshless Hands
and fade for ever from the imagination of Men.
There are three theories by which men. account for all phe
nomena, for everything that happens : First, the Supernatural; second, the Supernatural and Natural; third, the
Natural. Between these theories there has been, from the
dawn of civilisation, a continual conflict. In this great war
nearly all the soldiers have been in the ranks of the super
natural. The believers in the supernatural insist that matter
is controlled and directed entirely by powers from without;
while naturalists maintain that Nature acts from within;
that Nature is not acted upon; that the universe is all there
is; that Nature with infinite arms embraces everything that
exists, and that all supposed powers beyond the limits of the
material are simply ghosts. You say, “ Oh, this is material
ism!” What is matter? I take in my hand some earth
—in this dust put seeds. Let the arrows of light from the
quiver of the sun smite upon it; let the rain fall upon it;
the seeds will grow and a plant will bud and blossom. Do
you understand this ? Can you explain it better than you
can the production of thought ? Have you the slightest con
ception of what it really is ? And yet you speak of matter as
though acquainted with its origin, as though you had torn
from the clenched hands of the rocks the secrets of material
existence. Do you know what force is ? Can you account
for molecular action ? Are you really familiar with chem
istry, and can you account for the loves and hatreds of the
atoms ? Is there not something in matter that for ever
eludes? After all, can you get beyond, above, or below
appearances ? Before you cry “ materialism !” had you not
better ascertain what matter really is? Can you think even
of anything without a material basis ? Is it possible to
imagine the annihilation of a single atom ? Is it possible for
�( 4 )
you to conceive of the creation of an atom ? Can you have a
thought that was not suggested to you by what you call
matter ?
Our fathers denounced materialism, and accounted for all
phenomena by the caprice of gods and devils.
For thousands of years it was believed that ghosts, good
and bad, benevolent and malignant, weak and powerful, in
some mysterious way, produced all phenomena; that disease
and health, happiness and misery, fortune and misfortune,
peace and war, life and death, success and failure, were but
arrows from the quivers of these ghosts; that shadowy
phantoms rewarded and punished mankind; that they were
pleased and displeased by the actions of men; that they sent
and withheld the snow, the light, and the rain; that they
blessed the earth with harvests or cursed it with famine;
that they fed or starved the children of men; that they
crowned and uncrowned kings; that they took sides in war ;
that they controlled the winds; that they gave prosperous
voyages, allowing the brave mariner to meet his wife and
child inside the harbor bar, or sent the storms, strewing the
sad shore with wrecks of ships and the bodies of men.
Formerly, these ghosts were believed to be almost innu
merable. Earth, air, and water were filled with these phan
tom hosts. In modern times they have greatly decreased
in number, because the second theory—a mingling of the
supernatural and natural—has generally been adopted. The
remaining ghosts, however, are supposed to perform the same
offices as the hosts of yore.
It has always been believed that these ghosts could in some
way be appeased; that they could be flattered by sacrifices,
by prayer, by fasting, by the building of temples and
cathedrals, by the blood of men and beasts, by forms and
ceremonies, by chants, by kneelings and prostrations, by
flagellations and maimings, by renouncing the joys of home,
by living alone in a wide desert, by the practice of celibacy,
by inventing instruments of torture, by destroying men,
women, and children, by covering the earth with dungeons,
by burning unbelievers, by putting chains upon the thoughts
and manacles upon the limbs of men, by believing things
without evidence and against evidence, by disbelieving and
denying demonstration, by despising facts, by hating reason,
by denouncing liberty, by maligning heretics, by slandering
the dead, by subscribing to senseless and cruel creeds, by
discouraging investigation, by worshipping a book, by the
cultivation of credulity, by observing certain times and days,
by counting beads, by gazing at crosses, by hiring others to
repeat verses and prayers, by burning candles, and ringing
�( 5 )
bells, by enslaving each, other, and putting out the eyes of
the soul. All this has been done to appease and flatter this
monster of the air.
In the history of our poor world, no horror has been,
omitted, no infamy has been left undone by the believers in
ghosts,—by the worshippers of these fleshless phantoms.
And yet these shadows were born of cowardice and malignity.
They were painted by the pencil of fear upon the canvas of
ignorance by that artist called superstition.
From these ghosts our fathers received information. They
were the schoolmasters of our ancestors. They were the
scientists and philosophers, the geologists, legislators, astro
nomers, physicians, metaphysicians, and historians of the
past. For ages these ghosts were supposed to be the only
source of real knowledge. They inspired men to write
books, and the books were considered sacred. If facts were
found to be inconsistent with these books, so much the worse
for the facts, and especially for their discoverers. It was then,
and still is, believed that these books are the basis of the
idea of immortality; that to give up these volumes, or rather
the idea that they are inspired, is to renounce the idea of
immortality. This I deny.
The idea of immortality that like a sea has ebbed and
flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of
hope and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time
and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of
any religion. It was born of human affection, and it will
continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of
doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death.
It is the rainbow of hope shining-upon the tears of grief.
From the books written by the ghosts we have at last
ascertained that they knew nothing about the world in which
we live. . Did they know anything about the next? Upon
every point where contradiction is possible, they have been
contradicted.
By these ghosts, by these citizens of the air, the affairs of
government were administered; all authority to govern
came from. them. The emperors, kings, and potentates all
had commissions from these phantoms. Man was not con
sidered as the source of any powei’ whatever. To rebel
against the king was to rebel against the ghosts, and nothing
less than the blood of the offender could appease the invisible
phantom or the visible tyrant. Kneeling was the proper
position to be assumed by the multitude. The prostrate
were the good. Those who stood erect were infidels and
traitors. In the name and by the authority of the ghosts,
man was enslaved, crushed, and plundered. The many
�( 6 )
toiled wearily in the storm and sun that the few favorites of
the ghosts might live in idleness. The many lived in huts,
and caves, and dens, that the few might dwell in palaces.
The many covered themselves with rags, that the few might
robe themselves in purple and in gold. . The many crept, and
cringed, and crawled, that the few might tread upon their
flesh with iron feet.
From the ghosts men received, not only authority, but
information of every kind. They told us the form of this
earth. They informed us that eclipses were caused by the
sins of man; that the universe was made in six days;
that astronomy and geology were devices of wicked men,
instigated by wicked ghosts ; that gazing at the sky with a
telescope was a dangerous thing ; that digging into the earth
was sinful curiosity ; that trying to be wise above what
they had written was born of a rebellious and irreverent
spirit.
They told us there was no virtue like belief, and no crime
like doubt ; that investigation was pure impudence, and the
punishment therefore, eternal torment. They not only told
us all about this world, but about two others ; and if their
statements about the other world are as true as about this,
no one can estimate the value of their information.
For countless ages the world was governed by ghosts, and
they spared no pains to change the eagle of the human intel
lect into a bat of darkness. To accomplish this infamous
purpose ; to drive the love of truth from the human heart ;
to prevent the advancement of mankind ; to shut out from
the world every ray of intellectual light; to pollute every
mind with superstition, the power of kings, the cunning
and cruelty of priests, and the wealth of nations were
exhausted.
During these years of persecution, ignorance, superstition,
and slavery, nearly all the people, the kings, lawyers, doctors,
the learned and the unlearned, believed in that frightful
production of ignorance, fear and faith, called witchcraft.
They believed that man was the sport and prey of devils.
They really thought that the very air was thick with
these enemies of man. With few exceptions, this hideous
and infamous belief was universal. Under these conditions,
progress was almost impossible.
Fear paralyses the brain. Progress is born of courage.
Fear believes—courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth
and prays—courage stands erect and thinks. Fear retreats
--courage advances. Fear is barbarism—courage is civilisa
tion. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils, and in ghosts.
Fear is religion—courage is science.
�( 7 )
The facts, upon which this terrible belief rested, were
proved over and over again in every court of Europe.
Thousands confessed themselves guilty—admitted that they
had sold themselves to the Devil. They gave the particulars
of the sale; told what they said and what the Devil replied.
They confessed this, when they knew that confession was
death; knew that their property would be confiscated, and
their children left to beg their bread. This is one of the
miracles of history—one of the strangest contradictions of
the human mind. Without doubt, they really believed
themselves guilty. In the first place, they believed in
witchcraft as a fact, and when charged with it they probably
became insane. In their insanity they confessed their guilt.
They found themselves abhorred and deserted—charged
with a crime that they could not disprove. Like a man in
quicksand, every effort only sunk them deeper. Caught in
this frightful web, at the mercy of the spiders of superstition,
hope fled, and nothing remained but the insanity of confession.
The whole world appeared to be insane.
In the time of James the First, a man was executed for
causing a storm at sea with the intention of drowning one of
the royal family. How could he disprove it ? How could
he show that he did not cause the storm ? All storms were
at that time generally supposed to be caused by the Devil—<
the prince of the power of the air—and by those whom he
assisted.
I implore you to remember that the believers in such
impossible things were the authors of our creeds and con
fessions of faith.
A woman was tried and convicted before Sir Matthew
Hale, one of the great judges and lawyers of England, for
having caused children to vomit crooked pins. She was
also charged with having nursed devils. The learned judge
charged the intelligent jury that there was no doubt as to
the existence of witches; that it was established by all
history, and expressly taught by the Bible.
The woman was hanged and her body burned.
Sir Thomas More declared that to give up witchcraft was
to throw away the sacred scriptures. In my judgment he
was right.
John.Wesley was a firm believer in ghosts and witches,
and insisted upon it, years after all laws upon the subject
had been repealed in England. I beg of you to remember
that John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist Church.
In New England, a woman was charged with being a
witch, and with having changed herself into a fox. While
in that condition she was attacked and bitten by some dogs.
�( 8)
A committee of three men, by order of the court, examined
this woman. They removed her clothing and searched for
“ witch spots.” That is to say, spots into which needles
could be thrust without giving her pain. They reported to
the court that such spots were found. She denied, however,
that she ever had changed herself into a fox. Upon the
report of the committee she was found guilty and actually
executed. This was done by our Puritan fathers, by the
gentlemen who braved the dangers of the deep for the sake
of worshipping God and persecuting their fellow men.
In those days people believed in what was known as
lycanthropy—that is, that persons, with the assistance of the
Devil, could assume the form of wolves. An instance is
given where a man was attacked by a wolf. He defended
himself, and succeeded in cutting off one of the animal’s
paws. . The wolf ran away. The man picked up the paw,
put it in his pocket and carried it home. There he found his
wife with one of her hands gone. He took the paw from
his pocket.. It had changed to a human hand. He charged
his wife with being a witch. She was tried. She confessed
her guilt, and was burned.
People were burned for causing frosts in summer—for
destroying crops with hail—for causing storms—for making
cows go dry, and even for souring beer. There was no im
possibility for which someone was not tried and convicted.
The life of no one was secure. To be charged, was to be
convicted. Every man was at the mercy of every other.
This infamous belief was so firmly seated in the minds of
the people, that to express a doubu as to its truth was to be
suspected. Whoever denied the existence of witches 'and
devils was denounced as an infidel.
They believed that animals were often taken possession of
by devils, and that the killing of the animal would destroy
the devil. They absolutely tried, convicted, and executed
dumb beasts.
At Basle, in 1470, a rooster was tried upon the charge of
having laid an egg. .Rooster eggs were used only in making
witch ointment—this everybody knew. The rooster was
convicted, and with all due solemnity was burned in the
public square. So a hog and six pigs were tried for having
killed and. partially eaten a child. The hog was convicted,
but the pigs, on account probably of their extreme youth,
were acquitted. As late as 1740, a cow was tried and con
victed of being possessed by a devil.
They used to exorcise rats, locusts, snakes, and vermin.
They used to go through the alleys, streets, and fields, and
warn them to leave within a certain number of days. In
�( 9 )
case they disobeyed, they were threatened with pains and
penalties.
But let us be careful how we laugh at these things. Let us
not pride ourselves too much on the progress of our age. We
must not forget that some of our people are yet in the same
intelligent business. Only a little while ago, the Governor
of Minnesota appointed a day of fasting and prayer, to see if
some power could not be induced to kill the grasshoppers, or
send them into some other state.
About the close of the fifteenth century, so great was the
excitement with regard to the existence of witchcraft, that
Pope Innocent VII. issued a bull directing the inquisitors to
be vigilant in searching out and punishing ail guilty of this
crime. Forms for the trial were regularly laid down in a
book or pamphlet called the Malleus Maleficorum (Hammer
of Witches), which was issued by the Roman See. Popes
Alexander, Leo, and Adrian, issued like bulls. For two
hundred and fifty years the Church was busy in punishing
the impossible crime of witchcraft; in burning, hanging, and
torturing men, women, and children. Protestants were as
active as Catholics, and in Geneva five hundred witches were
burned at the stake in a period of three months. About one
thousand were executed in one year in the diocese of Como.
At least one hundred thousand victims suffered in Germany
alone: the last execution (in Wurtzburg) taking place as
late as 1749. Witches were burned in Switzerland as late
as 1780.
In England the same frightful scenes were enacted.
Statutes were passed from Henry VI. to James I., defining
the crime and its punishment. The last Act passed by the
feritish Parliament was when Lord Bacon was a member of
the House of Commons; and this Act was not repealed
until 1736.
Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws
of England, says : “ To deny the possibility, nay, actual
existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to con
tradict the Word of God in various passages both of the Old
and New Testament; and the thing itself is a truth to which
every nation in the world hath in its turn borne testimony,
either by examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory
laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce
with evil spirits.”
In Brown’s Dictionary of the Bible, published at Edin
burgh, Scotland, in 1807, it is said that: “ A witch is a
woman that has dealings with Satan. That such persons are
among men is abundantly plain from scripture, and that they
ought to be put to death.”
�( 10 )
This work was re-published in Albany, New York, in 1816.
No wonder the clergy of that city are ignorant and bigoted
even unto this day.
In 1716, Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, nine years of age,
were hanged for selling their souls to the Devil, and raisin«a storm by pulling off their stockings and making a lather of
soap.
In England it has been estimated that at least thirty thou
sand were hanged and burned. The last victim executed in
Scotland perished in 1722. “ She was an innocent old woman,
who had so little idea of her situation as to rejoice at the
sight of the fire which was destined to consume her. She
had a daughter, lame both of hands and of feet—a circum
stance attributed to the witch having been used to transform
her daughter into a pony and getting her shod by the Devil.”
In 1692, nineteen persons were executed and one pressed
to death in Salem, Massachusetts, for the crime of witch
craft.
It was thought, in those days, that men and women made
compacts with the Devil, orally and in writing. That they
abjured God and Jesus Christ, and dedicated themselves
wholly to the Devil. The contracts were confirmed at a
general meeting of witches and ghosts, over which the Devil
himself presided; and the persons generally signed the
articles of agreement with their own blood. These contracts
were, in some instances for a few years; in others, for life.
General assemblies of the witches were held at least once a
year,.at which they appeared entirely naked, besmeared with
an ointment made from the bodies of unbaptised infants.
“ To these meetings they rode from great distances on broom
sticks, pokers, goats, hogs, and dogs. Here they did homage
to the prince of hell, and offered him sacrifices of young
children, and practised all sorts of license until the break of
day.”
“ As late as 1815, Belgium was disgraced by a witch trial;
and guilt was established by the water ordeal.” “ In 1836,
the populace of Hela, near Dantzic, twice plunged into the
sea a woman reputed to be a sorceress ; and as the miserable
creature persisted in rising to the surface, she was pronounced
guilty, and beaten to death.”
“ It was believed that the bodies of devils are not like
those of men and animals, cast in an unchangeable mould.
It was thought they were like clouds, refined and subtle
matter, capable of assuming any form and penetrating into
any orifice. The horrible tortures they endured in their place
of punishment rendered them extremely sensitive to suffer
ing, and they continually sought a temperate and somewhat
�(11)
moist warmth in. order to allay their pangs. It was for this
reason they so frequently entered into men and women.”
The Devil could transport men, at his will, through the
gjy. He could beget children; and Martin Luther himself
had come in contact with one of these children.. He. recom
mended the mother to throw the child into the river,inorder
to free their house from the presence of a devil.
It was believed that the Devil could transform people into
any shape he pleased.
Whoever denied these things was denounced as an infidel.
All the believers in witchcraft confidently appealed to the
Bible. Their mouths were filled with passages demonstrating
the existence of witches and their power over human .beings.
By the Bible they proved that innumerable evil spirits were
ranging over the world endeavoring to ruin mankind; that
these spirits possessed a power and wisdom far transcending
the limits of human faculties ; that they delighted in. every
misfortune that could befall the world; that their malice was
superhuman. That they caused tempests was proved by the
action of the Devil toward Job; by the passage in the book of
Revelation describing the four angels who held the four winds,
and to whom it was given to afflict the earth. They believed
this, because they knew that Christ had been carried by the
Devil in the same manner and placed on a pinnacle of the
temple. “ The prophet Habakkuk had been transported.by
a spirit from Judea to Babylon; and Philip, the evangelist,
had been the object of a similar miracle; and in the same
way St. Paul had been carried in the body to the third
heaven.”
“ In those pious days, they believed that. Incubi and
Succubi were for ever wandering among mankind, alluring,
by more than human charms, the unwary to their destruction,
and laying plots, which were too often successful, against the
virtue of the saints. Sometimes the witches kindled in the
monastic priest a more terrestrial fire. People, told, with
bated breath, how, under the spell of a vindictive woman,
four successive abbots in a German monastery had been
wasted away by an unholy flame.”
An instance is given in which the Devil not only assumed
the appearance of a holy man, in order to pay his addresses
to a lady, but when discovered, crept under the bed, suffered
himself to be dragged out, and was impudent enough to
declare that he was the veritable bishop. So perfectly had
he assumed the form and features of the prelate that those
Who knew the bishop best were deceived.
One can hardly imagine the frightful state of the human
mind during these long centuries of darkness and supersti-
�()
tion. To them, these things were awful and frightful realities.
Hovering about them in the open air, in their houses, in the
bosoms of friends, in their very bodies, in all the darkness of
i* everywhero, around, above and below, were innumer
able hosts of unclean and malignant devils.
From the malice of those leering and vindictive vampires
ot the air, the Church pretended to defend mankind. Pursued
by those phantoms, the frightened multitudes fell upon their
theft aD<* imPl°red
of robed hypocrisy and sceptered
Take from the orthodox Church of to-day the threat and
tear ot hell, and it becomes an extinct volcano.
Take from the Church the miraculous, the supernatural,
the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the
unknowable and the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum
remains.
Notwithstanding all the infamous things justly laid to the
charge of the Church, we are told that the civilisation of
to-day is the child of what we are pleased to call the super
stition of the past.
1
Religion has not civilised man—man has civilised religion.
God improves as man advances.
Ca^ your attention to what we have received from
the followers of the ghosts. Let me give you an outline of
" a sciences as taught by these philosophers of the clouds.
j diseases were produced, either as a punishment by the
good ghosts, or out of pure malignity by the bad ones,
lhere were, properly speaking, no diseases. The sick were
possessed by ghosts. The science of medicine consisted in
knowing how to persuade these ghosts to vacate the premises,
kor thousands of years the diseased were treated with
incantations, with hideous noises, with drums and gongs.
.Everything was. done to make the visit of the ghost as un
pleasant as possible, and they generally succi-eded in making
things so disagreeable that if the ghost did not leave, the
patient did. These ghosts were supposed to be of different
rank, power and dignity. Now and then a man pretended
to have won the favor of some powerful ghost, and that gave
him power oyer the little ones. Such a man became an
eminent physician.
It was found that certain kinds of smoke, such as that
produced by burning the liver of a fish, the dried skin of a
serpent, the eyes of a toad, or the tongue of an adder, were
i 3gly offeQsive ,t0 the nostrils of an ordinary ghost.
With this smoke the sick room would be filled until the ghost
vanished or the patient died.
”
�It was also believed that certain words—the names of the
most powerful ghosts—when properly pronounced, were
very effective weapons. It was for a long time thought that
Isatin words were the best—Latin being a dead language,
and known by the clergy. Others thought that two sticks
laid across each other and held before the wicked ghost
Would cause it instantly to flee in dread away.
For thousands of years the practice of medicine consisted
in driving these evil spirits out of the bodies of men.
In some instances bargains and compromises were made
with the ghosts. One case is given where a multitude of
devils traded a man for a herd of swine. In this transaction
the devils were the losers, as the swine immediately drowned
themselves in the sea. This idea of disease appears to have
been almost universal, and is by no means yet extinct.
The contortions of the epileptic, the strange twitchings of
those afflicted with chorea, the shakings of palsy, dreams,
trances, and the numberless frightful phenomena produced
by diseases of the nerves, were all seized upon as so many
proofs that the bodies of men were filled with unclean and
malignant ghosts.
Whoever endeavored to account for these things by natural
causes, whoever attempted to cure diseases by natural means,
was denounced by the Church as an infidel. To explain
anything was a crime. It was to the interest of the priest
that all phenomena should be accounted for by the will and
bower of gods and devils. The moment it is admitted that
all phenomena are within the domain of the natural, the
necessity for a priest has disappeared. Religion breathes
the air of the supernatural. Take from the mind of man the
idea of the supernatural, and religion ceases to exist. For
this reason, the Church has always despised the man who
explained the wonderful. Upon this principle, nothing was
left undone to stay the science of medicine. As long as
plagues and pestilences could be stopped by prayer, the priest
was useful. The moment the physician found a cure, the
¡priest became an extravagance. The moment it began to be
apparent that prayer could do nothing for the body, the
priest shifted his ground and began praying for the soul.
Long after the devil idea was substantially abandoned in
the practice of medicine, and when it was admitted that God
had nothing to do With ordinary coughs and colds, it was
»till believed that all the frightful diseases were sent by him
as punishments for the wickedness of the people. It was
thought to be a kind of blasphemy to even try, by any
Natural means, to stay the ravages of pestilence. Formerly,
during the prevalence of plague and epidemics, the arro
�( 14 )
gance of the priest was boundless. He told the people that
they had slighted the clergy, that they had refused to pay
tithes, that they had doubted some of the doctrines of the
Church, and that God was now taking his revenge. The
people for the most part believed this infamous tissue of
priestcraft. They hastened to fall upon their knees; they
poured out their wealth upon the altars of hypocrisy; they
abased and debased themselves; from their minds they
banished all doubts, and made haste to crawl in the very
dust of humility.
The Church never wanted disease to be under the control
of man. Timothy Dwight, president of Yale College, preached
a sermon against vaccination. His idea was, that if God had
decreed from all eternity that a certain man should die with
the small-pox, it was a frightful sin to avoid and annul that
decree by the trick of vaccination. Small-pox being regarded
as one of the heaviest guns in the arsenal of heaven, to
spike it was the height of presumption. Plagues and
pestilences were instrumentalities in the hands of God with
which to gain the love and worship of mankind. To find
a cure for a disease was to take a weapon from the Church.
No one tries to cure the ague with prayer. Quinine has
been found altogether more reliable. Just as soon as a
specific is found for a disease, that disease will be left out
of the list of prayer. The number of diseases with which
God from time to time afflicts mankind is continually decreas
ing. In a few years all of them will be under the control of
man, the gods will be left unarmed, and the threats of their
priests will excite only a smile.
The science of medicine has had but one enemy—religion.
Man was afraid to save his body for fear he might lose his
soul.
Is it any wonder that the people in those days believed in
and taught the infamous doctrine of eternal punishment—a
doctrine that makes God a heartless monster and man a slimy
hypocrite and slave ?
The ghosts were historians, and their histories were the
grossest absurdities. “ Tales told by idiots, full of sound and
fury, signifying nothing.” In those days the histories were
written by the monks, who, as a rule, were almost as super
stitious as they were dishonest. They wrote as though they
had been witnesses of every occurrence they related. They
wrote the history of every country of importance. They told
all the past and predicted all the future with an impudence
that amounted to sublimity. “ They traced the order of St.
Michael, in Prance, to the archangel himself, and alleged that
�( 15 )
he was the founder of a chivalric order in heaven itself. They
said that Tartars originally came from hell, and that they
were called Tartars because Tartarus was one of the names of
perdition. They declared that Scotland was so named after
Scota, a daughter of Pharaoh, who landed in Ireland, invaded
Scotland, and took it by force of arms. This statement was
made in a letter addressed to the Pope in the fourteenth
century, and was alluded to as a well-known fact. The letter
was written by some of the highest dignitaries, and by direc
tion of the King himself.”
These gentlemen accounted for the red on the breasts of
robins from the fact that these birds carried water to unbap
tised infants in hell.
Matthew, of Paris, an eminent historian of the fourteenth
century, gave the world the following piece of information :
“ It is well known that Mohammed was once a cardinal, and
became a heretic because he failed in his effort to be elected
Popeand that, having drank to excess, he fell by the road
side, and in this condition was killed by swine. “ And for
that reason his followers abhor pork even unto this day.”
Another eminent historian informs us that Nero was in the
habit of vomiting frogs. When I read this I said to myself:
Some of the croakers of the present day against Progress
would be the better for such a vomit.
The history of Charlemagne was written by Turpin, of
Rheims. He was a bishop. He assures us that the walls of
a city fell down in answer to prayer. That there were giants
in those days who could take fifty ordinary men under their
arms and walk away with them. “ With the greatest of these,
a direct descendant of Goliath, one Orlando had a theological
discussion, and that in the heat of the debate, when the giant
was overwhelmed with the argument, Orlando rushed forward
and inflicted a fatal stab.”
The history of Britain, written by the archdeacons of
Monmouth and Oxford, was wonderfully popular. According
to them, Brutus conquered England and built the city of
London. During his time it rained pure blood for three days.
At another time a monster came from the sea, and, after
having devoured great multitudes of people, swallowed the
king and disappeared. They tell us that King Arthur was
not born like other mortals, but was the result of a magical
contrivance; that he had great luck in killing giants; that
he killed one in France that had the cheerful habit of eating
some thirty men a.day. That this giant had clothes woven
of the beards of kings he had devoured. To cap the climax,
one of the authors of this book was promoted for having
w ri tten the only reli able history of his country.
�( 16 )
In all the histories of those days there is hardly a single
truth. Facts were considered unworthy of preservation.
Anything that really happened was not of sufficient interest
or importance to be recorded. The great religious historian,
Eusebius, ingeniously remarks that in his history he carefully
omitted whatever tended to discredit the Church, and that
he piously magnified all that conduced to her glory.
The same glorious principle was scrupulously adhered to by
all the historians of that time.
They wrote, and the people believed, that the tracts of
Pharaoh’s chariots were still visible on the sands of the Red
Sea, and that they had been miraculously preserved from the
winds and waves as perpetual witnesses of the great miracle
there performed.
It is safe to say that every truth in the histories of those
times is the result of accident or mistake.
They accounted for everything as the work of good and
evil spirits. With cause and effect they had nothing to do.
Facts were in no way related to each other. God governed
by infinite caprice, filled the world with miracles and discon
nected events. From the quiver of his hatred came the
arrows of famine, pestilence and death..
The moment that the idea is abandoned that all is
natural; that all phenomena are the necessary links in
the endless chain of being, the conception of history
becomes impossible. With the ghosts the present is not
the child of the past, nor the mother of the future. In the
domain of religion all is chance, accident and caprice.
Do not forget, I pray you, that our creeds were written by
the co-temporaries of these historians.
The same idea was applied to law. It was believed by our
intelligent ancestors that all law derived its sacredness and
its binding force from the fact that it had been communi
cated to man by the ghosts. Of course it was not pretended
that the ghosts told everybody the law ; but they told it to
a few, and the few told it to the people, and the people, as a
rule, paid them exceedingly well for their trouble. It was
thousands of ages before the people commenced making
laws for themselves, and strange as it may appear, most of
these laws were vastly superioi’ to the ghost article. Through
the web and woof of human legislation began to run and
shine and glitter the golden thread of justice.
During these years of darkness it was believed that rather
than see an act of injustice done ; rather than see the
innocent suffer ; rather than see the guilty triumph, some
ghost would interfere. This belief, as a rule, gave great
�( 17 )
Satisfaction to the victoi’ious party, and as the other man was
dead, no complaint was heard from him.
This doctrine was the sanctification of brute force and
chance. They had trials by battle, by fire, by water, and by
lot. Persons were made to grasp hot iron, and if it burnt
them their guilt was established. Others, with tied hands
and feet, were cast into the sea, and if they sank, the verdict
of guilty was unanimous—if they did not sink, they were in
league with devils.
So in England, persons charged with erime could appeal
to the corsned. The corsned was a piece of the sacramental
bread. If the defendant could swallow this piece he went
acquit. Godwin, Earl of Kent, in the time of Edward the
Confessor, appealed to the corsned. He failed to swallow
it and was choked to death.
The ghosts and their followers always took delight in
torture, in cruel and unusual punishments. For the infrac
tion of most of their laws, death was the penalty—death
produced by stoning and by fire. Sometimes, when man
committed only murder, he was allowed to flee to some
city of refuge. Murder was a crime against man. But for
saying certain words, or denying certain doctrines,_ or for
picking up sticks on certain days, or for worshipping the
wrong ghost, or for failing to pray to the right one, or for
laughing at a priest, or for saying that wine was not blood,
or that bread was not flesh, or for failing to regard ram’s
horns as artillery, or for insisting that a dry bone was
scarcely sufficient to take the place of water works, or that
a raven, as a ru e, made a poor landlord ¡—Death, produced
by all the ways that the ingenuity of hatred could devise,
was the penalty.
Law is a growth—it is a science. Right and wrong exist
in the nature of things. Things are not right because they
are commanded, nor wrong because they are prohibitedThere are real crimes enough without creating artificial
ones. All progress in legislation has for centuries consisted
in repealing the laws of the ghosts.
The idea of right and wrong is born of man’s capacity to
enjoy and suffer. If man could not suffer, if he could not
inflict injury upon his fellow, if he could neither feel nor
inflict pain, the idea of right and wrong never would have
entered his brain. But for this, the word “ conscience ” never
would have passed the lips of man.
There is one good—happiness. There is but one sin—
selfishness. All law should be for the preservation of the
one and the destruction of the other.
�( 18 )
Under the regime of the.ghosts, laws were not supposed toexist m the nature of things. They were supposed to be
simply the irresponsible command of a ghost. These commands were not supposed to rest upon reason, they were the
product of arbitrary will.
The penalties for the violation of these laws were as cruel
a0 the laws were senseless and absurd. Working on the
Sabbath and murder were both punished with death. The
tendency of . such laws is to blot from the human heart the
sense of justice.
To show you how perfectly every department of know
ledge, or ignorance rather, was saturated with superstition, I
will for a moment refer to the science of language.
It. was thought by our fathers, that Hebrew was the
°^jnal lan"ua#e 5 that it was taught to Adam in the Garden
of Eden by the Almighty, and that consequently all languages
came from, and can be traced to, the Hebrew. Every fact
inconsistent with that idea was discarded. According to the
ghosts, the trouble of the Tower of Babel accounted for the
fact, that all people did. not. speak Hebrew. The Babel
business settled all questions in the science of language.
After a time, so many facts were found to be inconsistent
with the Hebrew idea that it began to fall into disrepute,
and other languages began to compete for the honor of beiii0the original.
°
Andre Kemp, in 1569, published a work on the language of
Paradise,111 which he maintained that God spoke to A d am in
Swedish; that Adam answered in Danish; and that the
serpent—which appears to me quite probable-spoke to Eve
in French. Erro, m a work published at Madrid, took the
Basque was the.language spoken in the Garden
of Eden.; but in 1580 Goropius published his celebrated work
at Antwerp, m which he put the whole matter at rest by
showing, beyond all doubt, that the language spoken in
Paradise was neither more nor less than plain Holland Dutch.
The real founder of the science of language was Leibnitz,
a cotemporary of Sir Isaac Newton. He discarded the idea
that all languages could be traced to one language. He
maintained that language was a natural growth. Experience
teaches us that this must be so. Words are continually dying
out and continually being born. Words are naturally and
necessarily produced. Words are the garments of thought,
the robes of ideas. Some are as rude as the skins of wild
beasts, and others glisten and glitter like silk and gold They
have been born of hatred and revenge; of love and self
sacrifice ; of hope and fear, of agony and joy. These words
are born of the terror and beauty of nature. The stars have
�(ly)
fashioned them. In them mingle the darkness and the dawn.
From everything they have taken something. Words are the
crystalisations of human history, of all that man has enjoyed
and suffered—his victories and defeats—all that he has lost
and won. Words are the shadows of all that has been—the
mirrors of all that is.
The ghosts also enlightened our fathers in astronomy and
geology. According to them the earth was made out of
nothing, and a little more nothing having been taken than
was used in the construction of this world, the stars were
made out of what was left over. Cosmos, in the sixth century,
taught that the stars were impelled by angels, who either
carried them on their shoulders, rolled them in front of them,
or drew them after. He also taught that each angel that
pushed a star took great pains to observe what the other
angels were doing, so that the relative distances between the
stars might always remain the same. He also gave his idea
as to the form of the world.
He stated that the world was a vast parallelogram; that on
the outside was a strip of land, like the frame of a common
slate; that then there was a strip of water, and in the middle
a great piece of land; that Adam and Eve lived on the outer
strip; that their descendants, with the exception of the Noah
family, were drowned by a flood on this outer strip; that the
ark finally rested on the middle piece of land where we now
are. He accounted for night and day by saying that on the
outside strip of land there was a high mountain, around which
the sun and moon revolved, and that when the sun was on the
other side of the mountain it was night; and when on this
side it was day.
He also declared that the earth was flat. This he proved
by many passages from the Bible. Among other reasons for
believing the earth to be flat he brought forward the follow
ing : We are told in the New Testament that Christ shall
come again in glory and power, and all the world shall see
him. Now, if the world is round, how are the people on the
other side going to see Christ when he comes ? That settled
the question, and the Church, not only endorsed the book,
but declared that whoever believed less or more than stated
¡by Cosmos, was a heretic.
In those blessed days, Ignorance was a king and Science an
outcast.
They knew the moment this earth ceased to be the centre
of the universe, and became a mere speck in the starry heaven
of existence, that their religion would become a childish fable
of the past.
�( 20 )
In the name and by the authority of the ghosts, men
enslaved their fellow men; they trampled upon the rights of
women and children. In the name and by the authority of
the ghosts, they bought and sold and destroyed each other;
they filled heaven with tyrants and earth with slaves, the
present with despair and the future with horror. In the name
and by the authority of the ghosts, they imprisoned the
human mind, polluted the conscience, hardened the heart,
subverted justice, crowned robbery, sainted hypocrisy, and
extinguished for a thousand years the torch of reason.
I have endeavored, in some faint degree, to show you what
has happened, and what will always happen when men are
governed by superstition and fear; when they desert the
sublime standard of reason; when they take the words of
others and do not investigate for themselves.
Even the great men of those days were nearly as weak in
this matter as the most ignorant. Kepler, one of the greatest
men of the world, an astronomer second to none, although
he plucked from the stars the secrets of the universe, was an
astrologer, and really believed that he could predict the
career of a man by finding what star was in the ascendant
at his birth. This great man breathed, so to speak, the
atmosphere of his time. He believed in the music of the
spheres, and assigned alto, bass, tenor, and treble to certain
stars.
Tycho Brahe, another astronomer, kept an idiot, whose
disconnected and meaningless words he carefully set down,
and then put them together in such mannei’ as to make
prophecies, and then waited patiently to see them fulfilled.
Luther believed that he had actually seen the Devil, and had
discussed points of theology with him. The human mind
was in chains. Every idea almost was a monster. Thought
was deformed. Eacts were looked upon as worthless. Only
the wonderful was worth preserving. Things that actually
happened were not considered worth recording—real occur
rences were too common. Everybody expected the miraculous.
The ghosts were supposed to be busy; devils were thought
to be the most industrious things in the universe, and with
these imps every occurrence of an unusual character was in
someway connected. There was no order, no serenity, no
certainty in anything. Everything depended upon ghosts
and phantoms. . Man was, for the most part, at the mercy of
malevolent spirits. He protected himself as best he could
with holy water, and tapers, and wafers, and cathedrals. He
made noises and rung bells to frighten the ghosts, and he
made music to charm them. He used smoke to choke them,
and incense to please them. He wore beads and crosses.
�( 21 )
He said prayers, and hired others to say them. He fasted
when he was hungry, and feasted when he was not. He
believed everything that seemed unreasonable, just to
appease the ghosts. He humbled himself. He crawled in
the dust. He shut the doors and windows, and excluded
every ray of light from the temple of the soul. He debauched
and polluted his own mind, and toiled night and day to
repair the walls of his own prison. From the garden of his
heart he plucked and trampled upon the holy flowers of pity.
The priests revelled in horrible descriptions of hell. Con
cerning the wrath of God, they grew eloquent. They
denounced man as totally depraved. They made reason
blasphemy, and pity a crime. Nothing so delighted them as
painting the torments and sufferings of the lost. Over the
worm that never dies they grew poetic; and the second
death filled them with a kind of holy delight. According
to them, the smoke and cries ascending from hell were the
perfume and music of heaven.
At the risk of being tiresome, I have said what I have to
show you the productions of the human mind, when enslaved;
the effects of widespread ignorance—the results of fear. I
want to convince you that every form of slavery is a viper,
that, sooner or later, will strike its poison fangs into the
bosoms of men.
The first great step towards progress is, for man to cease
to be the slave of man ; the second, to cease to be the slave
of the monsters of his own creation—of the ghosts and
phantoms of the air.
For ages the human race was imprisoned. Through the
bars and grates came a few struggling rays of light. Against
these grates and bars Science pressed its pale and thoughtful
face, wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement.
Men found that the real was the useful; that what a man
knows is better than what a ghost says; that an event is
more valuable than a prophesy. They found that diseases
were not produced by spirits, and could not be cured by
frightening them away. They found that death was as
natural as life. They began to study the anatomy and
chemistry of the human body, and found that all was natural
and within the domain of law.
The conjnror and sorcerer were discarded, and the phy
sician and surgeon employed. They found that the earth
was not flat; that the stars were not mere specks. They
found that being born undei’ a particular planet had nothing
to do with the fortunes of men.
The astrologer was discharged and the astronomer took
his place.
�( ¿2 )
# They found that the earth had swept through the constella
tions for millions of ages. They found that good and evil
were produced by natural causes, and not by ghosts; that
man could not be good enough or bad enough to stop or cause
a rain; that diseases were produced as naturally as grass,
and were not sent as punishments upon man for failing
to believe a certain creed. They found that man, through
intelligence, could take advantage of the forces of nature—
that he could make the waves, the winds, the flames, and the
lightnings of heaven do his bidding and minister to his
wants. They found that the ghosts knew nothing of benefit
to man; that they were utterly ignorant of geology—of
astronomy—of geography;—that they knew nothing of
history;—that they were poor doctors and worse surgeons ;
—that they knew nothing of law and less of justice;—that
they were without brains, and utterly destitute of hearts;—
that they knew nothing of the rights of men;—that they
were despisers of women, the haters of progress, the enemies
of science, and the destroyers of liberty.
The condition of the world during the Dark Ages shows
exactly the result of enslaving the bodies and souls of men.
In those days there was no freedom. Labor was despised,
and a laborer was considered but little above a beast.
Ignorance, like a vast cowl, covered the brain of the world,
and superstition ran riot with the imagination of man. The
air was filled with angels, with demons and monsters.
Credulity sat upon the throne of the soul, and Reason was
an exiled king. A man to be distinguished must be a
soldier or a monk. War and theology, that is to say, murder
and hypocrisy, were the principal employments of man.
Industry was a slave, theft was commerce; murder was war,
hypocrisy was religion.
Every Christian country maintained that it was no robbery
to take the property of Mohammedans by force, and no
murder to kill the owners. Lord Bacon was the first man
of note who maintained that a Christian country was bound
to keep its plighted faith with an infidel nation. Reading
and writing were considered dangerous arts. Every layman
who could read and write was suspected of being a heretic.
All thought was discouraged. They forged chains of super
stition for the mind, and manacles of iron for the bodies of
men. The earth was ruled by the cowl and sword, by the
mitre and sceptre, by the altar and throne, by Fear and Foroe,
by Ignorance and Faith, by ghouls and ghosts.
In the fifteenth century the following law was in force in
England:
�( 23 )
“ That whosoever reads the scriptures in the mother
tongue, shall forfeit land, cattle, life, and goods from their
heirs for ever, and so be condemned for heretics to God,
enemies to the Crown, and most arrant traitors to the land.”
During the first year this law was in force, thirty-nine
were hanged for its violation and their bodies burned.
In the sixteenth century men were burned because they
failed to kneel to a procession of monks.
The slightest word uttered against the superstition of the
time was punished with death.
Even the reformers, so-called, of those days, had no idea
of intellectual liberty—no idea even of toleration. Luther,
Knox, Calvin, believed in religious liberty only when they
were in the minority. The moment they were clothed with
power they began to exterminate with fire and sword.
Castellio was the first minister who advocated the liberty
of the soul. He was regarded by the reformers as a
criminal, and treated as though he had committed the crime
of crimes.
Bodinus, a lawyer of France, about the same time, wrote a
few words in favoi’ of the freedom of conscience, but
public opinion was overwhelmingly against him. The
people were ready, anxious, and willing, with whip, and
chain, and fire, to drive from the mind of man the heresy
that he had a right to think.
Montaigne, a man blest with so much common sense that
he was the most uncommon man of his time, was the first to
raise a voice against torture in France. But what was the
voice of one man against the terrible cry of ignorant,
infatuated, superstitious and malevolent millions? It was
the cry of a drowning man in the wild roar of the cruel sea.
In spite of the efforts of the brave few the infamous war
against the freedom of the soul was waged until at least one
pundred millions of human beings—fathers, mothers,
brothers, sisters—with hopes, loves, and aspirations like
ourselves, were sacrificed upon the cruel altar of an ignorant
faith. They perished in every way by which death can be
broduced. Every nerve of pain was sought out and touched
by the believers in ghosts.
For my part I glory in the fact, that here in the new
world—in the United States—liberty of conscience was first
guaranteed to man, and that the Constitution of the United
•States was the first great decree entered in the high court of
human equity for ever divorcing Church and State—the
first injunction granted against the interference of the
ghosts. This was one of the grandest steps ever taken by
ijhe human race in the direction of Progress.
�( 24 )
You will ask what has caused this wonderful change in
three hundred years. And I answer—the inventions and
discoveries of the few ; the brave thoughts, the heroic utter
ances of the few—the acquisition of a few facts.
Besides, you must remember that every wrong in some way
tends to abolish itself. It is hard to make a lie stand always.
A lie will not fit a fact. It will only fit another lie made for
the purpose. The life of a lie is simply a question of time.
Nothing but truth is immortal. The nobles and kings quar
relled: the priests began to dispute ; the ideas of government
began to change.
In 1441 printing was discovered. At that time the past
was a vast cemetery with hardly an epitaph. The ideas of
men had mostly perished in the brain that produced them.
The lips of the human race had been sealed. Printing gave
pinions to thought. It preserved ideas. It made it possible
for man to bequeath to the future the riches of his brain, the
wealth of his soul. At first, it was used to flood the world
with the mistakes of the ancients, but since that time it has
been flooding the world with light.
When people read they begin to reason, and when they
reason they progress. This was another grand step in the
direction of Progress.
The discovery of powder, that put the peasant almost upon
a par with the prince; that put an end to the so-called age of
chivalry; that released a vast number of men from the
armies; that gave pluck and nerve a chance with brute
strength.
The discovery of America, whose shores were trod by the
restless feet of adventure; that brought people holding every
shade of superstition together ; that gave the world an oppor
tunity to compare notes, and to laugh at the follies of each
other. Out of this strange mingling of all creeds, and super
stitions, and facts, and theories, and countless opinions, came
the Great Republic.
Every fact has pushed a superstition from the brain and a
ghost from the clouds. Every mechanic art is an educator.
Every loom, every reaper and mower, every steamboat, every
locomotive, every engine, every press, every telegraph, is a
missionary of Science and an apostle of Progress. Every
mill, every furnace, every building with its wheels and levers,
in which something is made for the convenience, for the use,
and for the comfort and elevation of man, is a church, and
every school house is a temple.
Education is the most radical thing in the world.
To teach the alphabet is to inaugurate a revolution.
To build a school house is to construct a fort.
�(25)
Every library is an arsenal filled with the weapons and
ammunition of Progress, and every fact is a monitor with
fades of iron and a turret of steel.
T
I thank the inventors,., the discoverers, the thinkers. 1
thank Columbus and Magellan. I thank Galileo, and Coper
nicus, and Kepler, and Des Cartes, and Newton, and La
Place. I thank Locke, and Hume, and Bacon, and pbake'
speare, and Kant, and Fichte, and Liebmtz, and Goethe. 1
thank Fulton, and Watts, and Volta, and Galvani, and
Franklin, and Morse, who made lightning the messenger of
man. I thank Humboldt, the Shakespeare of science. 1
thank Crompton and Arkwright, from whose brains leaped
the looms and spindles that clothe the world. I thank Luther
for protesting against the abuses of the Church, and I
denounce him because he was the enemy of liberty. 1 thank
Calvin for writing a book in favor of religious freedom, and 1
abhor him because he burned Servetus. I thank Knox for
resisting episcopal persecution, and I hate him because he
persecuted in his turn. I thank the Puritans for saying,
“ Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God, and yet 1 am
compelled to say that they were tyrants themselves. 1 thank
Thomas Paine because he was a believer m liberty, and because
he did as much to make my country free as any other human
being. I thank Voltaire, that great man who, for halt a
century, was the intellectual emperor of Europe, and who,
from his throne at the foot of the Alps, pointed the finger of
scorn at every hypocrite in Christendom. I thank Darwin,
Haeckel and Biichner, Spencer, Tyndall and Huxley, Draper,
Lecky and Buckle.
,, ....
I thank the inventors, the discoverers, the thinkers, the
scientists, the explorers. I thank the honest millions who
have toiled.
,
,,
_ ..
I thank the brave men with brave thoughts. They are the
Atlases upon whose broad and mighty shoulders rests the
grand fabric of civilisation. They are the men who have
broken, and are still breaking, the chains of Superstition.
They are the Titans who carried Olympus by assault, ana
who will soon stand victors upon Sinai’s crags.
We are beginning to learn that to exchange a mistake or
the truth—a superstition for a fact—to ascertain the real is
t0Happiness is the only possible good, and all that tends to
the happiness of man is right, and is of value. All that
tends to develop the bodies and minds of men; all that gives
us better houses, better clothes, better food, better pictures,
grander music, better heads, better hearts; all that renders
us more intellectual and more loving, nearer just; that
�( 26 )
makes us better husbands and wives, better children, better
citizens—all these things combined produce what I call
Progress.
•
•
•
•
•
•
Man advances only as he overcomes the obstructions of
Nature, and this can be done only by labor and by thought.
Labor is the foundation of all. Without labor, and without
great labor, progress is impossible. The progress of the
world depends upon the men who talk in the fresh furrows
and through the rustling corn; upon those who sow and
reap; upon those whose faces are radiant with the glare of
furnace fires; upon the delvers in the mines, and the workers
in shops; upon those who give to the winter air the ringing
music of the axe; upon those who battle with the boisterous
billows of the sea; upon the inventors and discoverers; upon
the brave thinkers.
. From the surplus produced by labor, schools and univer
sities are built and fostered. From this surplus the painter
is paid for the productions of the pencil; the sculptor for
chiselling shapeless rock into forms divinely beautiful, and
the poet for singing the hopes, the loves, the memories, and
the aspirations of the world. This surplus has given us the
books in which we converse with the dead and living kings
of the human race. It has given us all there is of beauty, of
elegance, and of refined happiness.
I am aware that there is a vast difference of opinion as to
what progress really is; that many denounce the ideas of
to-day as destructive of all happiness—of all good. I know
that there are many worshippers of the past. They venerate
the ancient because it is ancient. They Bee no beauty in
anything from which they do not blow the dust of ages with
the breath of praise. They say, no masters like the old; no
religion, no governments like the ancient; no orators, no
poets, no statesmen like those who have been dust for two
thousand years. Others love the modern simply because it
is modern.
We should have gratitude enough to acknowledge the
obligations we are under to the great and heroic of antiquity,
and independence enough not to believe what they said
simply because they said it.
With the idea that labor is the basis of progress goes the
truth that labor must be free. The laborer must be a free man.
The free man, working for wife and child, gets his head
and hands in partnership.
To do the greatest amount of work in the shortest space of
time, is the problem of free labor.
Slavery does the least work in the longest space of time.
�( 27 )
Free labor will give us wealth. Free thought will give us
truth.
Slowly, but surely, man is freeing his imagination of these
sexless phantoms, of the cruel ghosts. Slowly, but surely,
he is rising above the superstitions of the past. He is
learning to rely upon himself. He is beginning to find that
labor is the only prayer that ought to be answered, and that
hoping, toiling, aspiring, suffering men and women are of
more importance than all the ghosts that ever wandered
through the fenceless fields of space.
The believers in ghosts claim still, that they are the only
wise and virtuous people upon the earth; claim still, that
there is a difference between them and unbelievers so vast,
that they will be infinitely rewarded, and the others infinitely
punished.
I ask you to-night, do the theories and doctrines of the
theologians satisfy the heart or brain of the nineteenth
century p
Have the churches the confidence of mankind ?
Does the merchant give credit to a man because he belongs
to a church ?
Does the banker loan money to a man because he is a
Methodist or Baptist P
Will a certificate of good standing in any church be taken
as collateral security for one dollar ?
Will you take the word of a church member, or his note, or
his oath, simply because he is a church member.
Are the clergy, as a class, better, kinder and more generous
to their families—to their fellow-mem—than doctors, lawyers,
merchants and farmers P
Does a belief in ghosts and unreasonable things necessarily
•make people honest ?
When a man loses confidence in Moses, must the people
lose confidence in him ?
Does not the credit system in morals breed extravagance
in sin ?
Why send missionaries to other lands while every peni
tentiary in ours iB filled with criminals ?
Is it philosophical to say that they who do right carry a
-cross ?
Is it a source of joy to think that perdition is the destinaon of nearly all of the children of men ?
Is it worth while to quarrel about original sin—when there
is so much copy ?
Does it pay to dispute about baptism, and the Trinity, and
predestination, and apostolic succession, and the infallibility
�( 28 )
of churches, of popes, and of books ? Does all this do anv
good ?
J
Are the theologians welcomers of new truths ? Are they
noted for their candor? Do they treat an opponent with
common fairness? Are they investigators? Do they pull
forward or do they hold back ?
Is science indebted to the Church for a solitary fact ?
What Church is an asylum for a persecuted truth ?
What great reform has been inaugurated by the Church ?
Did the Church abolish slavery ?
Has the Church raised its voice against war ?
. I used to think that there was in religion no real restrain
ing force. Upon this point my mind has changed. Religion
will prevent man from committing artificial crimes and
offences.
A man committed murder. The evidence was so conclusivethat he confessed his guilt.
He was asked why he killed his fellow man.
He replied: “Formoney.”
“Did you get any?”
“Yes.”
“ How much ?”
“ Fifteen cents.”
<< What did you do with this money ?”
li
Spent it.”
“ What for ?”
“ Liquor.”
“ What else did you find upon the dead man ?”
“ He had his dinner in a bucket—some meat and bread.”
“ What did you do with that ?”
“ I ate the bread.”
“ What did you do with the meat ?”
“ I threw it away.”
“ Why ?”
“ It was Friday.”
Just to the extent that man has freed himself from thehe has advanced. Just to the extent
that he has freed himself from the tyrants of his own creation
he has progressed. Just to the extent that he has investi. £or himself he has lost confidence in superstition.
With knowledge obedience becomes intelligent acquiescence.
It is no longer degrading. Acquiescence in the understood
in the known is the act of a sovereign, not of a slave. It
ennobles, it does not degrade.
Man has found that he must give liberty to others in order"
to have it himself. He has found that a master is also a
slave; that a tyrant is himself a serf. He has found that-
�( 29 )
■governments should be founded and administered by man
■and for man; that the rights of all are equal; that the
powers that be are not ordained by God ; that woman is at
least the equal of man; that men existed before books; that
relig'on is one of the phases of thought through which the
world is passing; that all creeds were made by man; that
everything is natural; that a miracle is an impos-ibility;
that we know nothing of origin and destiny; that concerning
the unknown we are equally ignorant; that the pew has a
right to contradict what the pulpit asserts; that man is
responsible only to himself and those he injures, and that all
have a right to think.
True religion must be free. Without perfect liberty of
the mind there can be no true religion, Without liberty the
brain is a dungeon—the mind a convict. The slave may
bow and cringe and crawl, but he cannot adore—he cannot
love.
True religion is the perfume of a free and grateful heart.
True religion is a subordination of the passions to the per
ceptions of the intellect. True religion is not a theory—it
is a practice. It is rot a creed—it is a life.
A theory that is afraid of investigation is undeserving a
place in the human mind.
I do not pretend to tell what all the truth is. I do not
pretend- to have fathomed the abyss, nor to have floated on
outstretched wings level with the dim heights of thought.
I simply plead for freedom. I denounce the cruelties and
horrors of slavery. I ask for light and air for the souls of
men. I say, take off those chains—break those manacles—
free those limbs—release that brain ! I plead for the right to
think—-to reason—to investigate. I ask that the future may
be enriched with the honest thoughts of men. I implore every
human being to be a soldier in the army of progress.
I will not invade the rights of others. You have no right
to erect your toll-gate upon the highways of thought. You
have no right to leap from the hedges of superstition and
strike down the pioneers of the human race. You have no
right to sacrifice the liberties of man upon the altars of
ghosts Believe what you may; preach what you desire;
have all the forms and ceremonies you please; exercise your
liberty in your own way; but extend to all others the same
right.
I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they
accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous,
if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one
$nd all, because they enslave the minds of men.
�( 30 )
I attack the monsters, the phantoms of imagination thathave ruled the world. I attack slavery. I ask for room
room for the human mind.
Why should we sacrifice a real world that we have for one
we know not of? Why should we enslave ourselves? Why
should we forge fetters for our own hands ? Why should we
be the slaves of phantoms ? The darkness of barbarism was
the womb of the shadows. In the light of science they'
cannot cloud the sky for ever. They have reddened thehands of man with innocent blood. They made the cradle a
curse, and the grave a place of torment.
They blinded the eyes and stopped the ears of the human
race. They subverted all ideas of justice by promising infinite
rewards for. finite virtues, and threatening infinite punish—i
ment for finite offences.
They filled the future with heavens and with hells, with
the shining peaks of selfish joy and the lurid abysses of flame.
For ages they kept the world in ignorance and awe, in want
and misery, in fear and chains.
I plead for light, for air, for opportunity. I plead for
individual independence. I plead for the rights of labor and
of thought. I plead for a chainless future. Let the ghostsgo—justice remains. Let them disappear—men and women
and children are left. Let the monsters fade away—the
world is here with its hills and seas and plains, with its
seasons of smiles and frowns, its spring of leaf and bud, its
summer of shade and flower and murmuring stream ; its
autumn with laden boughs, when the withered banners of
the corn are still, and gathered fields are growing strangely
wan; while death, poetic death, with hands that color what
they touch, weaves in the autumn wood her tapestries of
gold and brown.
The world remains with its winters and homes and firesides,
where grow and bloom the virtues of our race. All these
are left; and music, with its sad and thrilling voice, and all
there is of art and song and hopo and love and aspiration
high. All these remain. Let the ghosts go—we will worship
them no more.
Manis greater than these phantoms. Humanity is grander
than all the creeds, than all the books. Humanity is the
great sea, and these creeds, and books, and religions, are but
the waves of a day. Humanity is the sky, and these religions
and dogmas and theories are but the mists and clouds
changing continually, destined finally to melt away.
That which is founded upon slavery, and fear, and igno
rance, cannot endure. In the religion of the future there
�( 31 )
will be men and women and children, all the aspirations of
the soul, and all the tender1 humanities of the heart.
Let the ghosts go. We will worship them no more. Let
them cover their eyeless sockets with their fleshless hands,
and fade for ever from the imaginations of men.
�WORKS BY COL. R. G. INGERSOLL.
MISTAKES OF MOSES
...
...
...
Superior edition, in cloth ...
..
...
DEFENCE OF FREETHOUGHT
Five Hours’ Speech at the Trial of C. B.
Reynolds for Blasphemy. ...
...
. .
REPLY TO GLADSTONE
With a Biography by
J. M. Wheeler ...
...
...
...
ROME OR REASON ? Reply to Cardinal Manning
CRIMES AGAINST CRIMINALS
...
...
AN ORATION ON WALT WHITMAN...
...
ORATION ON VOLTAIRE ...
...
...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
...
...
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PAINE THE PIONEER
...
...
...
HUMANITY’S DEBT TO THOMAS PAINE
...
ERNEs 1' RENAN AND JESUS CHRIST
..
THE THREE PHILANTHROPISTS
...
...
TRUE RELIGION
...
...
...
...
FAITH AND FACT. Reply to Rev. Dr. Field
...
GOD AND MAN.Second Reply to Dr. Field
...
SKULLS ...
...
...
...
...
THE HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH
...
...
LOVE THE REDEEMER. Reply to Count Tolstoi
THE LIMITS OF TOLERATION
A Discussion with Hon. F. D. Coudert ...
THE DYING CREED
...
...
...
DO I BLASPHEME ?
...
...
...
THE CLERGY AND COMMON SENSE
...
SOCIAL SALVATION
...
...
...
MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE ...
...
...
GOD AND THE STATE
...
...
...
WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC ?
...
...
WHY AM I AN AGNOSTIC ? Part II.
...
ART AND MORALITY
...
...
...
CREEDS AND SPIRITUALITY
...
...
CHRIST AND MIRACLES
...
...
...
THE GREAT MISTAKE
...
...
...
LIVE TOPICS
...
.
...
REAL BLASPHEMY
...
...
...
REPAIRING THE IDOLS
...
...
...
MYTH AND MIRACtE
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
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Title
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The ghosts
Creator
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 31 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: "Works by Col. R.G. Ingersoll" listed on back cover. No. 26f in Stein checklist. Printed by G.W. Foote. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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R. Forder
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1893
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N350
Subject
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Spiritualism
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The ghosts), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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English
Ghosts
NSS
Supernatural
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QS^K>3-
IHojal 1‘iiBtHutton of ffir® Britain,
ALBEMARLE STREET, PICCADILLY, W.
.
November, 1871.
i: : Hi ;
SY L L AB U S
>A')
*« ®
<
OF
A COURSE OF FOUR LECTURES
\-.-X.
LtV
V
p•
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DE MON OLO G Y,
•(;:j '&>&.
;O
t: .' .‘3 7 Lrf.r
hIJ ;i, - ?O ■
a.
••
'
W
A ■:
BY
MONCURE D. CONWAY, Esq.
>t< ' io
' '
h
_• ; •
: no .
.
■ i(,‘.
To be delivered on the following days, at Three o’clock:—
‘ "X. '
Lecture I.—Saturday, March 2, 1872.
Relation of Celestial and Elemental Phenomena to the primitive Philo
sophy of Evil.—The Evolution of Deities and Devils.—The transformation
of Agathodemons into Kakodemons.—The evidence that every Demon
was originally the Deity of some race.—Devil-worship.—Why and when
Demons became ugly.
Lecture II.—Saturday, March 9.
Earthly Demons, their origin and variations.—Animal Demons, as the
Serpent, Dragon, Werewolf, Dog, Cat, Raven, Vampyre.—Tree Demons, as
those of the Ash, Hazel, Indian Peepul, Mandrake.—Ethnical distribution
of Demons.—Survivals of mythical Demons in modern superstitions.—Places
named after the Devil.
Lecture III.—Saturday, March 16.
Anthropomorphic Demons.—The Talmudic legend of Lilith, and her
progeny of Demons.—Demoniac possessions.—The natural history of Ahri
man, Siva, Satan, Pluto, Tchornibog, Tenjo, Loki, the Wild Huntsman, and
the horned and cloven-hoofed Devil.—The Eumenides, Satyrs, Elves, and
local Demons comparatively considered.
s
[turn over.
�Lecture IV.—Saturday, March 23.
The Demons of Literature and Art.—Patristic Legends.—The Miracle
Plays.—Mephistopheles.—Milton’s Lucifer.—The Demonology of Dante and
Swedenborg.—The Demons of early religious art and architecture.—The
so-called Devil’s Bible at Stockholm.—The decline of Demons.—Witchcraft.
—Caricatures.—Psychological Science and the problem of Evil.
SUBSCRIBERS TO LECTURES {Not being Members')
For this Course pay Half-a-Guinea:
For all the Courses of Lectures (extending from Christmas to Mid
summer) pay Two Guineas:
For a single Course of Lectures pay One Guinea or Half-a-Guinea,
according to the length of the Course :
For the Christmas Course Children under Sixteen Years of Age pay
Half-a-Guinea.
The Wives of Members, and Sons and Daughters (under the age
of Twenty-one) of Members are admitted, for the Season, to all Courses of
Lectures and to the Museum, on the payment each of One Guinea, and
to any separate Course of Lectures on the payment each of Half-a-Guinea.
It is Requested, That Coachmen may be ordered to set d&wnwith their
Horses' heads towards Piccadilly, and to take up towards Grafton-street.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Syllabus of a course of four lectures on demonology by Moncure D. Conway
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Royal Institution of Great Britain
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 2 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Date
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1871
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G5707
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Spiritualism
Lectures
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Syllabus of a course of four lectures on demonology by Moncure D. Conway), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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Conway Tracts
Demonology
Moncure Conway
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����������������������������
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Spiritualism a delusion: its fallacies exposed. A criticism from the standpoint of science and impartial observation
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Watts, Charles
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An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 24 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Author's list on back cover. Includes Appendix: Origin of the Belief in a Future Life -- Bodily Changes and Immortality -- Life is the Result of Organisation -- The Caterpillar.
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Freethought Publishing Company Ltd.
Date
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1900
Identifier
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G2932
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Spiritualism
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Text
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English
Spiritualism
-
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SPIRITUALISM
By the Rev. R. H. Benson
It is becoming every day increasingly impossible
for any educated man to dismiss the subject of
Spiritualism with mere contempt. A matter which
is engaging the earnest attention of men like Professor
Barrett, Professor Oliver Lodge, and women like Mrs
Henry Sidgwick; a branch of inquiry which absorbs
Professor Richet, which has changed Professor Lombroso from a convinced materialist into a believer in
the spiritual world; a religion which numbers hun
dreds of thousands of adherents throughout the
civilized globe, including many professors at foreign
universities, and has produced societies in every
European country, which can trace back its spiritual
descent in every civilization practically as far as
ordinary theistic religion itself; which claims, unlike
other religions, to produce evidential phenomena
practically at will, and to bring spiritual existences
before the bar of the senses—all this can no longer be
ignored or simply laughed at. A generation or two
ago it was possible to take up such an attitude ; it
appeared then, at least to men of average education,
as if the matter had become finally discredited ; the
thing lurked about among ill-informed people in
slightly disreputable and dingy surroundings; its
professors, when they engaged public attention at all,
were frequently detected in fraud ; there was scarcely
one adherent to its philosophy—scarcely even one
who thought it worth investigation—whose name was
known beyond his own immediate circle. But all
this has changed. The affair has come out into the
light of day; its phenomena are in process of being
36
1
�2
The History of Religions
136
respectfully judged by scientists as well as by theo
logians ; and it must take its place at last among the
recognized religions of the world.
I 0)
Its history is, as has been said, as old as the history
of civilization, and even older, since, under the form
of Necromancy, it is said to be traceable among vari
ous nations in almost every part of the world, and it
survives to-day among peoples so far removed from
one another as the Esquimaux and the Hindus. It
is also one of its characteristics that it usually under
goes strong revivals at periods when established
creeds are beginning to lose their hold, and that it is
one of the most common signs of decadence in re-,
ligious thought. It is mentioned, with decided con
demnation, in book after book of the Old Testament.1Yet it is difficult to determine its creed, since this
appears to take its colouring to a large extent from
the religious thought of the respective countries in
which it flourishes.2 It is by its phenomena, and its
startling claims to bring the spiritual world within
the range of the senses, rather than by its dogmas,
that it may be identified as one religion rather than
many.
It would be impossible therefore to give a coherent
or exhaustive account of Spiritualism considered as a
world-religion. All that is possible is to describe it
as it appears in the world to-day, to state its claims,
and to examine its credentials. In its present form,
especially under the aspect of communication through
1 Lev. xx. 6. “The soul that shall go aside after magicians and
soothsayers ... I will set my face against that soul.’; xix. 31 ;
1 Kings xxviii. 3 • 4 Kings xxi. 6 ; etc.
2 Spiritistic practices have been traced amongst nations so far removed
from one another as the ancient Egyptians, the Greeks, the Jews, the
North American Indians. (Cf. Lapponi, Hypnotism and Spiritism,
pp. 20 ff.)
�361
Spiritualism
3
rapping on tables, it first appeared in America in
the year 1848, whence it spread quickly all over
Europe.1
(ii)
Briefly speaking, the spiritualist claims that the
“ other world ” is directly accessible to this, not merely
by one revelation made once for all and preserved in
its integrity, not merely by sacraments or the recep
tion of supersensual grace, not merely by exceptional
and abnormal apparitions very occasionally granted
by direct Divine permission; but by constant com
munications from the spirits of the departed, through
which men can be assured of the survival of human
souls, and can receive a kind of progressive revelation
of the supreme laws of the universe.
These communications are made (it is said) in a
variety of ways; but for all of them there is required
what is known as the mediumistic faculty on the part
of at least.one of the inquirers. The medium in fact
is a person living in this world who, through his
peculiar constitution, is enabled to act as a channel
between'the two worlds, and to be so used by the
discarnate personalities who desire to communicate
with human beings. For those communications to
take place it is usually necessary for the medium to
pass into a state of trance, such as was that into
which the priests and priestesses of the old oracles
were accustomed to pass. The usual method of
procedure at spiritualistic meetings then, though not
the invariable method, is as follows:—
The inquirers themselves sit round a table and
endeavour to put themselves into a sympathetic
attitude of mind, placing their hands upon the table
in order to establish the “ circle ”—that is, a kind of
psychical ring, connected perhaps with some unknown
1 Its revival at the present day is no doubt largely due to the Pro
testant disregard of the doctrine of the Communion of Saints.
�4
The History of Religions
[36
laws of magnetism—through which the communica
tions may be more easily made. The “spiritual
atmosphere” is often helped by the singing of hymns,
the playing of soft music, or the offering of prayer.
The medium, according to circumstances, sits either
with the inquirers or in a cabinet apart by himself.
Precautions are usually taken intended to guard against
possible fraud, conscious or unconscious.
After a certain period has passed it is claimed that
phenomena frequently take place that put it beyond
a doubt that discarnate and intelligent spirits are
present and are beginning to communicate. These are
generally of one or more of the following kinds :—
(a) Movements of inanimate objects.—The table at
which the inquirers are seated begins to tremble, to
move, to emit rapping sounds, to rise from the floor
in such a manner as cannot be explained by human
agency. Objects in the room are seen (in the twilight,
in which the seances are usually held) to move through
the air ; or, in darkness, are felt by the sitters to touch
therrf. Objects are brought through closed doors and
placed upon the table. Other objects are actually
“ materialized,” that is, are brought into existence in
a manner to be discussed later. Lights of a peculiar
nature are formed in the air and move about fast or
slowly. A pencil placed upon a sheet of paper or
within locked slates is heard to move upon the paper,
and messages are found later written upon the paper
or slates.1
1 Extract from “Report on a Series of Sittings with Eusapia Palla
dino,” reprinted from the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical
Research, part lix,, vol. xxiii. pp. 404, 431, 498. By the Hon.
Everard Feilding, W. W. Baggally, and Hereward Carrington:—
(<z) “ 12.5 a.m. Complete levitation of the table.
C. I hold both her ankles with my two hands.
F. I was holding her right hand in the middle of the table.
Prof. G. I was holding her left hand on the rim of the table.
I1. Prof. G.’s left hand was on my right hand (across the table).
Note by M. Large movements of the table; I can just see the
table up in the air. ...”
(Extract from shorthand report taken at the time.)
�36]
Spiritualism
5
(jo) Messages delivered through the mouth of the
medium.—These consist in sentences spoken by the
medium, generally in a voice alien to himself, pur
porting to come from one or more discarnate spirits
present in the room, known either personally or by
repute while they lived in the body to one or more
of the inquirers. It is claimed that these messages
often concern private matters utterly unknown to the
medium, known only to the inquirer and to the
departed soul who is present. Sometimes these
messages are of a private nature, sometimes of public
interest, and concern spiritual and religious truths.
(c) Messages delivered through inanimate objects.—
These come sometimes, as has been said, by means of
a pencil placed on paper or within locked slates,
sometimes by means of raps upon the table or the
walls of a room, interpreted by a code agreed upon
by the sitters. Three raps usually are taken to stand
for “yes,” one rap for “ no.”1
“ 11.26 p.m. The small table is levitated right on to the seance
table, through the curtains between B. and the medium.
It rose to a height of two and a half feet from the floor,
and is now resting on the seance table. ...”
“ 12.5° a. m. F. She taps with her right hand on mine, and the
tambourine shakes synchronously within the cabinet.
C. The bell rings, and has been brought on the top of the
medium’s head from the cabinet, and remains there.
F. I was holding her right hand on the top of the table. I saw
the bell arrive on her head. ...”
(5) “F. A light flashed out about a foot behind and above the
medium’s head. It was of a brilliant bluish-green colour.
(It was a steady light, and lasted about two seconds.)
11.37 p.m. F. Now another light has come out, this time on
the medium’s lap.
B. Both C. and F, saw a brilliant light inside the cabinet,
about two and a half feet from the medium, inside the
right-hand curtain. ...”
It must be noted that these seances were conducted by trained
observers under stringent test-conditions. The extracts are given from
this report as containing, on the whole, descriptions of the most
accurate and scientific observations made in recent times.
1 “Report,’’etc., pp. 470, 475.
“ 11.1 p.m. Four nods of her head are followed by four thumps on
the table. She did not touch the table with her head.
II.54 p.m. Table tilts four times, meaning ‘ talk.’”
36
I*
�6
The History of Religions
[36
(d) Automatic handwriting.—For this two methods
are employed, (i) Some person, usually the medium,
holding a pencil passively in his fingers, begins after
a little preliminary scribbling to write, sometimes at
a superhuman speed, sometimes with a superhuman
minuteness, sometimes in a handwriting closely re
sembling that used by the person whose spirit is said
to be present, messages and sentences concerning
private matters known to none present except the
one to whom the message is directed. (2) The same
results are obtained by the use of an instrument
called planchette—that is, a little heart-shaped board
running on three castors, pierced by a pencil whose
point just touches a paper placed beneath. The
medium’s fingers are placed lightly upon the board,
and the pencil moves apparently without the medium’s
volition. It must be noted that both these methods
of communication are frequently employed by in
quirers quite apart from any seance, and results are
often equally well obtained.
(e) Materialization.—This is considered the triumph
of spiritualism, and consists in its full form in the
actual appearance, before the senses of sight, hearing,
and touch, of a discarnate soul that has clothed
itself with a body for the occasion. The phenomenon
takes place in a variety of ways. It will be enough
to describe the more usual.
The medium seats himself, generally partly in view
of the sitters, or, if not, tightly secured by cords,
within the cabinet, and passes into the state of trance.
After a certain period, often of apparent distress to
the medium, a certain disturbance makes itself felt:
sounds are heard, or movements perceived, or a
sensation of cold. There appear then, sometimes in
the full sight of the sitters, a luminous cloud that
gradually takes shape and existence, and is ultimately
recognized by some one present as possessing the
form and features of a dead friend. The degree of
“ materialization ” varies with the amount of “ power ”
�36”)
Spiritualism
7
that is present. Sometimes it is little more than a
faint vaporous intangible model, generally swathed
in drapery; sometimes, it is said, the power is great
enough to produce a figure that can be handled and
touched, and is, apparently, in all respects like a
human body, with powers of free speech and move
ment. Further claims are made with regard to the
effect of this appearance upon the photographic lens.
Photographs are shown, declared to be taken under
test-conditions, representing such figures which were
at the time invisible to the human eye; in such cases
it is said that the “ materialization ” took place, but
not with sufficient power to manifest itself to a less
delicate instrument than the camera. The disappear
ance of the apparition takes place in various manners.
Sometimes it passes back into the body of the medium
from which it has been seen to emerge ; sometimes
it retires behind a curtain; sometimes it disintegrates
visibly before the eyes of the sitters into a small in
coherent mist, which presently itself disappears.1
(iii)
The spiritualist theory as to the manner of these
phenomena is commonly as follows:—There is said
to be resident in the human body a certain force or
matter called “ astral ”; and a medium is a person
from whom this substance can be easily detached.
This “ astral ” substance is situated on the border line
between matter and spirit, and is the means by which
discarnate spirits can communicate.2
1 “ Report,” etc., pp. 448, 449, 453, 463
“ B, A hand comes out from behind the curtain and presses me tightly
on my shoulder. I feel the thumb and the four fingers, which are
now pressing downwards with very considerable force. ...”
* ‘At 11.38 there appeared one of these strange objects seen from
time to time at Eusapia’s seances, to which, for want of a better
name, the word ‘head’ is applied. ...”
“ C. I saw a head come out from the curtains slowly, and within
six inches from my head, and it stayed out about two seconds
and then went back.”
2 The word “astral” would seem to have been imported into
Spiritualism from the East through Theosophy.
�8
The History of Religions
[36
For example:—In the case of the sounds and
movements mentioned above, it is believed that it is
through this “astral force” that the relations with
matter are set up. In the case of “ materialization ”
it is this “ astral substance ” that is drawn off in great
quantities, not only from the medium but even from
the persons of the sitters, and moulded by the will
of the communicating soul into the aspect of that
body which it inhabited on earth. To the loss of
this “astral substance” is attributed the state of
nervous exhaustion in which mediums are so often
found after emerging from trance; and to its vital
relations with the medium is attributed the violent
shock caused to the medium if the “materialized”
figure is in any way interfered with. Opinions differ
as to the extent in which the substance is reabsorbed
by the person from whom it was taken after the close
of the phenomena.
With regard to the explanation of the phenomena
of automatic handwriting, it is held by spiritualists
that the communicating spirit, through means of the
astral power with which the writer is charged, controls
his hand and his brain; with regard to the com
munications made through the mouth of the medium,
it is his voice that is so used. It is freely conceded
by spiritualists that certain well-defined dangers to
the nervous centres of the medium usually accompany
all attempts (especially by means of “materializa
tion ”) to communicate with the spiritual world ; that
deceiving spirits occasionally seek to play tricks upon
the inquirers, and even to impersonate their dead
relatives; but it is claimed that those perils are
reduced to a minimum by the methods used, and
that the gain to spiritual knowledge is incalculably
greater than the loss to health or serenity.
(iv)
The Spiritualist Creed, as has been said, is exceed
ingly difficult of definition, since professed spiritual
�36]
Spiritualism
■-
9
teachings, when brought together, are frequently found
to be mutually exclusive. Yet, on the whole (at
least at the present day in European countries), spirit
ualist dogmas seem to be emerging into some kind
of coherent form.
The existence of God is usually acknowledged ;
indeed, Sunday schools and churches organized for
purposes of worship as well as of instruction, and for
the training of children as mediums, have been in
existence in England for many years. Beyond this
it is taught that the actions of life here have a
corresponding effect upon the state of existence
hereafter, though the doctrine of eternal punishment
is, practically always, explicitly denied. The con
dition of life in the next world is said to be one of
progressive purification, rising, it would seem, up to
some kind of absorption into the Supreme Spirit,
to whom the name of God is given. All distinctively
Christian doctrines are usually denied, although it
is said of Jesus Christ that as a spiritual teacher
He has had few equals and no superiors. It is
claimed that He Himself was an adept medium, and
that His appearances after the Resurrection were in
stances of “ materialization.” His Divinity is practi
cally always explicitly denied.
It is exceedingly difficult to say more than this
of the Spiritualistic creed, since, besides the diverg
ences in various countries already mentioned, there
is occasionally a further divergence even in teaching
given to the same inquirer as he advances in know
ledge. The disciple is at first told to practise his
religion; but later on is informed that Christian
worship and doctrine are only embryonic stages of
the truth, and that the initiate will find all that he
needs in the teaching given him by the spirits.
The dogmatic system of the Spiritualists, therefore,
is best described as a vague kind of Theism, at times
closely resembling Pantheism.
�IO
The History of Religions
[36
II
It will be seen plainly from the foregoing pages
that it will be impossible within the limits of a
pamphlet to do more than sketch very lightly the
criticisms that may be passed upon Spiritualism,
and the reasons why the Catholic Church (and in
deed all the historical religions of the world) has
condemned and rejected it, and forbidden it to her
children, both in its present form and under its old
presentment in Necromancy. The Jewish Church
herself always regarded it with horror, and inflicted
the severest penalties upon all her people who meddled
with it.
Very briefly, however, the reasons and criticisms
are as follows :—
(i)
First, it is necessary to remember the enormous
amount of fraud that has always accompanied the
practice of Spiritualism—fraud that is acknowledged
and deplored, to be frank, by Spiritualists themselves.
While, therefore, fraud on the part of the professors
of a religion is not enough to discredit entirely the
religion itself (for in that case hardly any creed would
be immune), it is yet, in this instance, of sufficient
gravity to cause us to doubt very seriously the reck
less assertions occasionally made by Spiritualists, and
to demand very searching tests indeed before any of
the more startling phenomena are accepted as facts.
In addition to the instances of this deliberate and
conscious fraud—instances known to all who have
studied the history of the movement (as, for example,
in the case of the famous William Eglinton)—there
must also be added unconscious fraud, exaggeration
and doubtful testimony, due on the one side to the
almost irresistible desire of the medium to produce evi
dence, and on the other to the very fierce state of
nervous excitment of most inquirers under the cir-
�36]
Spiritualism
11
cumstances described above.1 Large deductions,
therefore, must be made with regard to the whole
body of evidence that is circulated generally among
the public.
(ii)
There remains, however, when all such deductions
have been made, a residuum (and of a very startling
nature) which it is impossible to disregard ; evidence,
too, that fits in in a remarkable manner with much
that has always been believed by Catholics ; though
these, as will be shown presently, give a very different
explanation of it from that offered by Spiritualists.2
But even this, however, must be sifted further before
anything even resembling a Spiritualistic theory can
be deduced from it.
It is now an established fact among psychologists
that ideas, or sense-images, can be transmitted from
the brain of one living person to that of another, and
that the transmission takes place with increased ease
if the mind of the recipient or the agent is in a
1 The most recent opinion of competent judges in the case of Eusapia
Palladino is that the medium in question, while possessing und ubted
“ powers,” supplements them by fraud, both conscious and unconscious.
2 From “Report of Sittings with Eusapia Palladino,” etc., p. 463 :—
“ B., who is evidently passing through the same stages as I did in my
earlier seances, toys with the suggestion of an apparatus, by way of
easing his mind. It would be an interesting problem to set before a
manufacturer of conjuring machines to devise an apparatus capable of
producing alternatively a black, flat, profile face, a square face on
a long neck, and a ’cello-like face on a warty, wobbly body two feet
long ; also a white hand with movable fingers, a yellowish hand, and
a hand invisible altogether—all these for use outside the curtain.
Further, for use within, a hand with practicable living thumb and
fingers having nails. . . . Our manufacturer must so construct the
apparatus that it can be actuated unseen by a somewhat stout and
elderly lady, clad in a tight plain gown, who sits outside the curtain,
held visibly by hand and foot, in such a way as to escape the obser
vation of the practical conjurers clinging about her, and on the look-cut
for its operation. It must further be of such dimensions as to be con
cealed about the lady while parading herself for inspection upon a
chair, clad in her stays and a short flannel petticoat.—E. F., Dec. 6,
1908.”
�12
The History of Religions
[36
passive condition.1 We are bound, therefore, in
approaching the subject from the purely scientific
side, to allow that a great number at least of the
alleged messages from the dead, whether given by
the voice or the hand of the medium, may be nothing
more than the result of this transmission of thought,
or telepathy. It is of no evidential value to say that
the inquirer in this or that instance has been re
minded through such a message of a fact he had
forgotten : the very fact that he recognized it as true
shows that the thought somewhere resided in his
brain.
(iii)
There remain the physical phenomena—all such
things as sounds, lights, the movement of objects
and “materializations”—the physical phenomena that
remain, that is to say, after due deductions have been
made for fraud, conscious or unconscious. There
remains further to be discussed the Spiritualistic
philosophy concerning them.
First, then, it must be said in fairness that, at any
rate until recently, many eminent scientists who have
gravely examined the physical phenomena are dis
satisfied with the evidence presented in their favour.
They deny, in fact, the assertion that the things in
question prove the presence of discarnate spirits.
Fraud and imagination, they say, are sufficient to
account for all. To this, again in fairness, it must
be answered that, as a rule, these inquirers approach
the question in a state of convinced scepticism, and
1 It is impossible, in view of recent researches, to deny any longer
that Telepathy is an established conclusion of science. It need not be
concluded, however, that what St. Thomas appears to teach as to the
impossibility of purely mental communications is at all assailed by this
discovery. For, curiously enough, some of the characteristics of tele
pathy are markedly in accordance with the philosophy of St. Thomas.
For example, communications by telepathy are nearly always conveyed
by faint visualized pictures. The idea is not communicated direct.
This seems to correspond remarkably with what St. Thomas implies, at
least, with regard to sense-images.
�36]
Spiritualism
13
that convinced scepticism is exactly that condition of
mind that prevents the best manifestations. Certainly
it is an unfortunate dilemma, but a perfectly legitimate
one. It is the dilemma in which both Huxley and his
Christian adversaries were placed when the former
proposed testing the efficacy of prayer by the ex
pedient of praying for the recovery of the patients in
one selected ward of a hospital, and of comparing
results with those of the other wards. Faith, or at
least passivity of mind, it is claimed by Spiritualists,
is a condition necessary to manifestations.
To Catholics,however,and indeed to most Christians,
the evidence must naturally be of a very different value
from that which it has to those who are not satisfied
that a spiritual world exists at all. Catholics are
persuaded that it does exist, that it does manifest
itself (as in the lives of the saints) to the dwellers in
this. They are bound, therefore, to be predisposed to
accept good evidence to the effect that in this or that
instance it has manifested itself; and the only questions
that remain to be settled are, firstly, do these phe
nomena take place among spiritualists? secondly, how
are they to be interpreted ?
To this first question, no adequate answer can, of
course, be given. A Catholic is perfectly free to deny
that such things happen if he has examined the
evidence and found it insufficient. He is not free,
however—if he claims to be an intelligent man—to
deny its possibility. Allowing, then, that the evidence
has been found sufficient to show that at seances
phenomena take place—of the kind described above—
in sufficient number to be considerable, and of such
a nature that they cannot be attributed to human
agency1—what further criticisms can be passed upon
them, and what conclusions can be drawn ?
1 It would occupy too much space to discuss adequately the theory put
forward tentatively by some observers to the effect that the ‘ ‘ subconscious
self” {i.e. the range of these powers and faculties, such as the power of
thought-transference, unconscious cerebration, etc., lying beneath the
ordinary faculties of man) is capable of producing actual physical phe-
�14
The History of Religions
[36
These criticisms are of various kinds—founded
respectively upon observation, and on the principles
of theology.
A. Criticisms founded on observation.
(a) First it cannot but be remarked that the phe
nomena are extremely frequently of a very trifling
nature at the best. Foolish tricks are continually
played upon the sitters; mocking answers given, or
evasions, to their questions.1 These are explained by
spiritualists as being the work of low-caste or earthbound spirits who intrude themselves into the circle.
Yet the very possibility of this—and it is not denied
that this phenomenon is fairly common—throws a
very great doubt upon the genuineness of the other
communications. If it is found impossible for in
quirers, even with the best intentions, to protect
themselves against these annoyances, how can it be
possible for them to be sure that even the graver
nomena such as some of those described in these pages. It is, of course,
a possible explanation—(possible, at least, in the sense that such an
assertion cannot possibly be disproved, since it attributes to an almost
wholly unknown part of human nature forces completely unanalogous to
any others possessed by man)—but so also might it be attributed to
electricity or ether, or some completely unknown but natural agency.
To those, however, who believe at all in the existence of a spiritual world,
it will seem a far more tenable hypothesis to suppose that it is from this
spiritual world that the force is generated ; and therefore, so far as the
evidence goes, a more scientific hypothesis.
1 (a) “ I was suddenly startled by a noise like that of hammering, and
of occasional footsteps, clearly emanating from the bedroom occupied by
my friend. . . . The strange noises, which appeared to have ceased at
the moment of my entrance, recommenced almost immediately with the
utmost vigour, and I became the witness of a scene such as I have
never witnessed before. ... A hundred hands seemed to be hammering
away on walls and doors and table and bed, and every now and then
there was the sound of feet tramping along the floor. ... As morning
dawned the noises gradually ceased.”—{Dangers of Spiritualism, pp.
45> 46.)
.
.
, ,
(5) “The moment the door is opened, it may be by the presence of
persons of like inclinations, of ignorant or credulous mediums . . . or
men of immoral or intemperate habits, troops of so-called ‘dark’ spirits
rush in, and indulge these propensities to silly tricks, lying deception,
and temptation to evil.”—(Letter from a spiritualist of twenty years’
standing, quoted in Dangers oj Spiritualism, p. 125.)
�36]
Spiritualism
15 •
messages come from those personalities that profess
to send them ?
(p) This doubt is further enhanced by the extra
ordinary meagreness even of the most solemn
“spiritual teachings.” If the spiritualistic theory
were true, if it were a fact that some of the greatest
thinkers and scientists in the world’s history, con_ sumed by a desire to illuminate their brethren still living
on earth, returned to give them that teaching, how is
it that no historical mystery has ever yet been solved
by this means, no scientific problem answered, no
ascetical doctrine superior to that already given by
teachers on earth ever yet bestowed ? The collections
of “ spiritual teachings ” circulated from time to time
among the public seldom surpass in intelligence or
knowledge the average works of writers even still
incarnate; much less do they approximate in know
ledge or spirituality to the teachings of the greatest
spiritual Leaders of the past.
(f) It is a matter of regret among spiritualists them
selves that occasionally, after the most poignant
scenes, when the presence of some departed friend
has been recognized by one of the inquirers, further
investigation has shown that the communicating
personality has broken down in some perfectly simple
test of identity.1 This seems to lead to the inevitable
conclusion that in some cases at least the discarnate
spirit that has manifested itself has been deliberately
1 “The absolute futility of any attempt at identifying spirits is another
discouraging or unsatisfactory circumstance. It is no proof that the
spirit communicating is A. B. if he tells me of words or circumstances
(supposed to be) known only to A. B. and myself. . . . The alleged
‘ friend ’ of a few years ago (while he was writing through me, and
turning my ideas upside down through his extraordinary ‘ counsel ’ and
hypocrisy) certainly was possessed of knowledge of my present history
unknown to anybody else. . . . Now if one’s diary of thoughts and acts
is an open book for one spirit and another to read at his convenience,
nothing that he may resurrect to one’s mind is any proof that he is trust
worthy .... any more than would be the case if a shoeblack read over
one’s shoulder what one had written . . . . and claimed by virtue of his
knowledge that he was one’s father or mother.”—(Extract from a
letter quoted in Dangers of Spiritualism, pp. 115, 116.)
�16
The History of Religions
[36
impersonating another in a most heartless manner.
Grave suspicion then is bound to remain even in cases
where fraud of this kind has not been detected.
(<7) It is a matter of common knowledge among
spiritualists that the nervous exhaustion which so often
comes upon the medium during or after a seance has
led in many cases to a complete breakdown of the
mental and moral powers. This is not, of course, in
any sense a conclusive argument; religious mania is
known in every creed; but the fact becomes more
significant when it is remembered that, on the other
side, Spiritualism has not produced characters of any
extraordinary sanctity or eminence. Except in the
cases where materialists have been convinced through
means of Spiritualism of the existence of another
world, it is impossible to point to any spiritual or
mental gain to balance the extremely numerous losses
on the other side.
(e) Further, it is exceedingly easy to adduce testi
mony after testimony from those who, once spiritualists,
have relinquished the life because of the loss not only
of mental but also moral virtues. An extremely un
pleasant symptom in the case of inquirers too much
absorbed in such practices as those of planchette or
ordinary automatic handwriting is the appearance of
the obscene and blasphemous element in the communi
cations received. Of course such results as those, as
well as others less terrible (such as loss of will-power,
morbidity, etc.) may very well arise from the mere
passivity of mind necessary for success in such experi
ments, and from the consequent uprush of those
realms of human consciousness not directly controlled
by the will (as in the case of delirium). Yet, even
with all allowances made for such possibilities, there
would seem to remain a certain malignancy of delib
erate purpose, a certain design followed in the process,
certainly not intended by the inquirer, that would
argue strongly in favour of another personality being
at work. At any rate, in such cases, there is an inten-
�36]
Spiritualism
17
tion of communicating with the spiritual world; and if
this means of communication were according to the
Divine will—if even it were true that the communi
cating personalities were those which they professed
to be—it would be difficult to account for the per
sistence of this phenomenon.
The following extract from a letter to the author of
The Dangers of Spiritualism is given at length, as
containing an excellent analysis of the state of brain
and nerves—to say the least—brought on by the
continued practice of automatic handwriting.
“ But now comes the worst part of the whole story.
My whole being had manifestly undergone a change ;
I seemed to have received another nature—gross, vile,
sensual, originating the most vile and abominable
ideas, such as had never formerly entered into my
mental life. My old self was still there, thank God !
I have never quite lost that. But, although rebellious
and disgusted, it nevertheless seemed powerless against
the stronger, evil influence which was dominating it.
It was as if some unclean spirit had taken possession
of me, had driven out my old self, and was using my
mind and body for its own vile purposes. At first, I
fought and struggled against it, and tried to rouse
myself; but it was all to no purpose. All the day
long my body was tired, weighed down by a heavy,
languid, care-for-nothing feeling. I had no desire but
to lie down and to let my thoughts go wandering. I
lost interest in everything I used to delight in in
former times. I dropped my studies; my hobbies
had no longer any charm for me; everything seemed
an effort and a trouble. I have read of the mental
and physical condition of opium-smokers, and it
certainly seemed to me as if I was overpowered by
a kind of moral opium which simply rendered me
powerless to make any more effort. Only when
evening came I seemed capable of moving. I then
began to grow restless. If I went to bed I could not
sleep, but simply lay a.wake, my brain all activity,
�18
The History of Religions
[36
imagining, picturing the most wretched abominations.
Dreading, therefore, to go to bed, I used to go out.
Invariably I would find myself proceeding to some
low public-house, not to drink, but just to be in the
company of, and to hobnob with, any dirty, low
fellow I would find there. And, strange to say, such
would receive me just as one of themselves, while I
felt perfectly at home with them—I, who had never
been in the habit of frequenting the bar of even the
most respectable public-house. I had no desire what
ever to go among decent people of my own station
of life; on the contrary, I liked the company I met
with in these places; I liked the low, foul conversation;
I revelled in the filthy talk! I would treat my com
panions to drink, and positively enjoyed seeing them
drunk. The smell of the stale beer, of the rank
tobacco, their crude familiarities, were like tonics to
me. The weariness would go; I would sing and
laugh with the loudest of them, thinking it a fine
thing to be called a ‘jolly good chap.’ I could never
get drunk myself; a single pint of beer would make
me sick. When morning came I would get up,
haggard, tired, ashamed, disgusted, afraid to meet
any person of my acquaintance. I can’t describe all
the horrible things I went through, some of them
veritable orgies. Time passed, things gradually got
worse; I dropped my old friends, or they dropped
me. I became unsettled and miserable in my work;
I felt that I could not remain in my place, that I must
get away. With new scenes and new faces I might
get the better of this thing. So I sent in my resig
nation and left the town. ... At present I am
living an idle, aimless life, just existing on the
payment I obtain for a few hours’ private teaching
a week, and a few shillings picked up playing the
piano in public-houses. I am without hopes, pros
pects, or friends. What is there to live for ?
“ And now let me draw attention to one or two
curious points in my history. It is very difficult to
�36]
Spiritualism
19
explain exactly the relationship between the two
natures inhabiting my body. I shall make myself
better understood if I use the word ego to signify my
own mental identity, and alter that of the other. By
I and me I mean my physical self (common to both).
Both of them are I \ but the two are never ‘ in residence ’
at the same time. There is now no struggle for
mastery. The change is imperceptible. I may now
be ego, then I suddenly find myself alter. This latter,
without warning, comes and takes possession, drives
out ego, or paralyses him, does what he likes, and just
as suddenly goes. He just ignores, never remembers
or thinks of ego. Ego, on the contrary, has a vivid
recollection of alter, is disgusted with him, loathes
him, fears him, looks upon him as a vile, sensual thief,
who has robbed him (ego) of all that made life worth
living. When I am alter I am strong, active in mind
and body, full of devilry, daring anything, imagining
and enjoying all evil. When alter goes, poor, pitiful
ego just creeps back into a weak, exhausted body,
weary, tired of life, full of remorse, making good
resolutions, yet having no power to carry them out.
There is one other point. If I can manage to get off
into a good sleep, alter seems to be powerless. My
dreams are always pleasant, mostly of people and
places of the good old times, never of anything bad.
It is only when I am awake, and when my mind is
unemployed, that alter catches me. My worst time
is at night. If I go to bed without being able to
sleep, alter is in full possession, running riot with my
imagination till the morning.
“There may have been no connection between my
dabbling in telepathy and this other thing, but, rightly
or wrongly, I believe that on that night some unclean
spirit attached itself to me, gradually gaining influence
over my nature, and in the end making me his mere
slave. For very shame I have been obliged to keep
the whole matter to myself. People sometimes marvel
(and well they might) at the change which has come
�20
The History of Religions
[36
over me. My sense of fairness will not permit me to
put the whole blame upon telepathy ; there may have
been some unconscious error on my part, or some
circumstance unknown to me may have caused this
alteration in my life. The fact itself remains ; I know
what I was before that evening, and I know what I
have been since.
“ I have only succeeded in writing this by fits and
starts when I am ego; alter nearly threw it all into the
fire last evening, calling it a d----- d lot of rubbish.”
So much, then, for criticisms founded on observation.
We pass on to—
B. Criticisms founded on theology.
It must first be remarked that the following criti
cisms will have no weight with those who approach
the subject of Spiritualism as pure agnostics—beyond
the weight of the fact that historical religion has
always recognized the existence of Spiritualism or
Necromancy, and, up to a certain point at least, the
objectivity of its phenomena.
For it is not only the Catholic Church that has
condemned Spiritualism, the Protestant bodies have
usually done so as well, and the Jewish Church
punished the adherents of Necromancy with death.
Spiritualism, or Necromancy, or the dealing with
“familiar spirits,” has always been regarded by the
other great world-religions as a bastard, rather than
a competitor with a dignity comparable to their own.
This fact is at least significant.
(a) First, then, it is sufficient for the Catholic to
recognize that Spiritualism is, dogmatically, an ad
versary, and not an ally of his own creed. It is
claimed sometimes that Spiritualism and Christianity
are compatible, and, theoretically, it may be so; but,
practically, their dogmatic systems are mutually
exclusive, and Christians who practise Spiritualism
are bound in the long-run to choose between that
faith and their own. So far as Spiritualism has
produced a coherent creed at all, it directly traverses
�36]
Spiritualism
21
even such fundamental doctrines as that of the Incar
nation.
(p) Catholic theology teaches in detail that the
destiny of all men at death takes them elsewhere in the
spiritual world. It is entirely incompatible with
Catholic belief to believe that the souls of the departed
are allowed, except under very peculiar and unusual
circumstances, to revisit this earth with the intention
of communicating with those still living upon it. To
believe that those souls are so far at the mercy of
mediums as to be compelled, practically, in instance
after instance, to manifest themselves here—parti
cularly under such circumstances as usually accompany
spiritualistic seances—is utterly antagonistic both to
the letter and the spirit of Catholic teaching.
For these two main reasons, then, as well as for
others mentioned above, the Catholic Church con
demns Spiritualism without reserve. She acknowledges
the fact that the spiritual world is accessible to this,
and this to that; but she lays down most stringently
the only modes in which such communication may
be sought, and denounces the rest as methods contrary
to the Divine Will.
(r) What, then, is the view of Catholic theologians
as regards the phenomena claimed by Spiritualists?
First it must be noted that Catholics do not pledge
themselves, as a matter of faith, even to the objectivity
of the phenomena. This or that piece of evidence
must be judged, as all other evidence, even in support
of alleged Catholic miracles, simply on its own weight.
At the same time it is undoubtedly true that Catholic
theologians as a whole are disposed to accept much
of the evidence offered by Spiritualists as a sufficient
proof that phenomena do take place at stances and
elsewhere which cannot be accounted for on natural
grounds. The explanation given, then, is as follows :—
(1) Christians are aware from quite other reasons
than those given by Spiritualists that the spiritual
world is a fact, that it is inhabited by innumerable
�22
The History of Religions
[36
personalities, good and bad, and that to many of
these personalities—that is, to spirits that have never
been incarnate—this world is perfectly accessible.
On the one side are the unfallen angels of God, on
the other the fallen; and this earth is to a large
extent the battle-ground between these opposing
forces. The object of the angels of light is to draw
men nearer to God, to protect them from spiritual
and even bodily dangers, and to help them towards
heaven ;■ the object of the angels of darkness is ex
actly the opposite.
Now the precise range of powers permitted to the
evil angels has not been revealed to men; we know
only that they are considerable, though limited; and
we may at least conjecture that as it has been per
mitted in the past to the angels of light to assume
a human appearance, so it is at any rate quite possible
that the same power maybe allowed to their adversaries.
We know also as a positive fact that the evil angels
are permitted under certain circumstances to obtain
such a hold over men who yield to them as actually
to obsess or possess^ their powers and their will.
(2) Turning once more to the phenomena of Spirit
ualism, it is to be noticed that the Christian faith is
continually assailed by those professed “ benefactors ”
of man ; that the mental powers or the morality of
those who practise Spiritualism are extremely liable to
decay; and further, that the process employed is one
calculated to undermine almost imperceptibly the
faith and morals of even those who approach the
investigation with good intentions. In a word, it
would seem that—if the alleged experiences are
facts—they are designed with considerable skill to
the carrying out of that very object which Catholics
believe to be the aim of the spiritual enemies of man.
Inquirers are met on their most tender side, the
1 “ Obsession ” means the persecution of the human will or imagina-.
tion ; ‘ ‘ possession,” its more or less complete control by a discarnate
spirit.
�36]
Spiritualisin
23
appeal is made to their highest human affections;
they are led on by apparent proof after apparent
proof to believe that they are actually in communi
cation with those they once loved on earth. It would
appear almost inevitable, then, that such inquirers
should ultimately accept such teaching as they re
ceive—and we have seen of what character that teach
ing is—as undeniable truth. For every man that is
converted by Spiritualism to believe in the immortality
of his soul, there are probably a hundred who are
led by it to relinquish the beliefs and practices of
Clmstianity.
urther evidence in support of the Catholic theory
is found in the facts related above under the heading
Criticisms founded on observation. The large propor
tion of fraud, both on the part of mediums and of the
personalities that claim to communicate, the trifling
and often mischievous tricks and evasions with which
serious inquiry is so often met, the solemnity of the
claim to shed light from the spiritual world upon the
problems of this world, coupled with the extraordinary
futility of the “ revelations ” so made, as well as the
continual injuries inflicted upon the bodily and
mental health of the mediums and the inquirers—all
those considerations support very strongly the Cath
olic contention that the phenomena, if genuine, must
be the work of the avowed spiritual enemies of the
human race. Theologians emphasize this the more
from the fact that in extreme cases of nervous or
mental breakdown following upon the practices of
Spiritualism, symptoms make their appearance iden
tical with, or at least closely resembling, those which
accompany undoubted cases of “ possession ”; and
“ possession,” it must be remembered, has been familiar
to Catholics for many centuries; its treatment finds a
regular place in the Ritual and Exorcisms of the
Church, and the fact of it is vouched for explicitly in
the New Testament.
As regards the exact mode by which the genuine
�'24
The History of Religions
[36
phenomena—if they exist—are produced, Catholic
theology offers no definite opinion. All that can be
said is that an acceptance of the “ astral ” theory
is not condemned. It is conceivable that there may
be some such force or substance in the human con
stitution, but of this Catholic theology has no
cognizance. It is a matter of psychical, or even
physical science, rather than of theology or philosophy.
This, then, is the attitude of the Catholic Church
towards Spiritualism:—
(1) She does not in any way commit herself to
the acceptance of the phenomena. Yet she does not
deny them, and allows fully for their possibility.
Each claim stands or falls on its own proper evidence.
(2) So far as the alleged phenomena are genuine,
the Catholic Church accounts for them by the action
of evil discarnate spirits—called “ fallen angels.” She
utterly rejects, therefore, their testimony, and warns
her children against accepting it.
(3) She condemns in the gravest manner any
attempt to communicate in this manner with the
spiritual world, as contrary to the Divine Will.
(4) She leaves open—granted the genuineness of
the phenomena—the mode in which such phenomena
are accomplished.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED.
Modern Spiritism. By J. Godfrey Raupert. Kegan Paul, 1907.
The Dangers of Spiritualism. By J. Godfrey Raupert. Kegan
Paul, 1906.
Sermons on Modern Spiritualism.
By Rev. A. V. Miller.
Kegan Paul, 1908.
Hypnotism and spiritism. By Lapponi. Chapman & Hall,
1906.
The Unseen World. By Lepicier. Kegan Paul, 1906.
�
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Spiritualism
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
a state of ignorance persons are liable to numerous
impositions ; they are easily imposed- on by rumours
IbSj
ar* reports which they have not the power of investid
pat'nS> and still more easily imposed on by their own
iMCiMiSSffi impressions or notions. Of all the impositions which
have vexed the ignorant, a belief in the reality of spectral appear
ances has been one of the most ridiculous, yet one of the longest
and most zealously supported. This belief was once current even
among men reputed for their learning—that is, a kind of learning, not
founded on a correct knowledge of nature—but, by the progress of
inquiry, it has gradually been abandoned by persons of education,
and now is maintained only by those whose minds have not been
instructed on the subject. Considering that this belief, like every
other error, is injurious to happiness, and that, in a particular
manner, the young require to be put on their guard against it, we
propose, in the present paper, to explain the theory of spectral
illusions—how they originate in the mind, and are in no respect
supernatural in their character.
To obtain right ideas of this curious, and, to many, mysterious
subject, it is necessary to understand, in the first place, what kind
of a thing the human mind is, and how it operates in connection
with the senses, or at least two of them—seeing and hearing. The
seat of the mind is in the brain ; in other words, the brain is the
organ or mdss of organs by which the thinking faculties act. Like
No. 159.
,
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
an instrument finely tuned, the brain, when in a sound state of
health, performs its part in our economy with fidelity. Shut up in
the skull, however, it has no communication with external nature
except through the medium of the senses. The senses are the
channels of intelligence to the brain. When the eye receives the
impression or picture of a thing presented to it, that impression iscarried by a nerve to the brain, where the consciousness or mind
recognises it; and the same thing occurs with the ear in the trans
mission of sound. The ordinary notion, therefore, that the eye sees,
is scarcely correct. It is the mind, through the operation of the
brain, the optic nerve, and the eye, which sees. The eye is only an
instrument of vision and recognition. Such is the ordinary process
of seeing, and of having a consciousness of what is presented to the
eye ; and we perceive that the outer organ of vision performs but an
inferior part in the operation. There is, indeed, a consciousness of
seeing objects, without using the eyes. With these organs shut, we
can exert our imagination so far as to recall the image of objects
which we formerly have seen. Thus, when in an imperfect state of
sleep, with the imagination less or more active, we think that we
see objects, and mingle in strange scenes ; and this is called dream
ing. Dreams, therefore, arise principally from a condition of partial
wakefulness, in which the unregulated imagination leads to all kinds
of visionary conceptions. In a state of entire wakefulness, and with
the eyes open, unreal conceptions of objects seemingly present may
also be formed; but this occurs only when the system is disordered
by disease.
We are now brought to an understanding of the cause of those
illusions which, under the name of ghosts, apparitions, or spectres,
have in all ages disturbed the minds of the credulous. The disorder
which leads to the formation of these baseless visions may be
organic or functional, or a combination of both. Organic disorder
of the body is that condition in which one or more organs are
altered in structure by disease. Functional disorder is less serious
in character : it is that condition of things where the healthy action
of the organ or organs, in part or whole, is impeded, without the
existence of any disease of structure. Lunacy, if not arising from
organic disorder, hovers between it and functional derangement, in
either case producing unreal conceptions in the mind. Functional
disorder may arise in various ways, and be of different kinds. It
may be said that violent excitement of the imagination or passions
constitutes functional mental disorder : ‘ Anger is a short madness/
said the Romans wisely. As for functional bodily disorder, tem
porary affections of the digestive organs may be pointed to as
common causes of such cases of physical derangement. All these
disorders, and kinds of disorders, may appear in a complicated
form; and, what is of most importance to our present argument,
the nervous system, on which depend the action of the senses, the
2
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
powers of the will, and the operation of all the involuntary functions
(such as the circulation of the blood, and digestion), is, and must
necessarily be, involved more or less deeply in all cases of constitu
tional disorder, organic or functional. These powers of the nerves,
which form, as we have seen, the sole medium by which mind and
body act and react on each other, are clearly, then, connected with
the production of every kind of illusory impression.
In lunacy, from organic derangement, these impressions are
usually the most vivid. Every lunatic tells you he sees spectres, or
unreal persons ; and no doubt they are seemingly present to his
diseased perceptions. The same cause, simple insanity, partial or
otherwise, and existing either with or without structural brain disease,
has been, we truly believe, at the foundation of many more apparition
cases than any other cause. By far the greatest number of such
cases ever put on record, have been connected with fanaticism in
religious matters ; and can there be a doubt that the majority of the
poor creatures, men and women, who habitually subjected themselves,
in the early centuries of the church, to macerations and lacerations,
and saw signs and visions, were simply persons of partially deranged
intellect ? St Theresa, who lay entranced for whole days, and who,
in the fervour of devotion, imagined that she was frequently addressed
by the voice of God, and that St Peter and St Paul would often in
person visit her solitude, is an example of this order of monomaniacs.
That this individual, and others like her, should have been perfectly
sensible on all other points, is a phenomenon in the pathology of
mind too common to cause any wonder. We would ascribe, we
repeat, a large class of apparition-cases, including these devotional
ones, to simple mental derangement. The eye in such instances
may take in a correct impression of external objects, but this is not
all that is wanting. A correct perception by the mind is essential to
healthy and natural vision, and this perception the deranged intellect
cannot effect.
We should go further than this for a complete elucidation of
spectral illusions. At the time the spectre makes its appearance,
the mind may be neither altogether diseased nor altogether health
ful ; the perceptive powers may recognise through the eye all
surrounding objects exactly as they appear, but, almost in the same
instant of time, the mind may mix up an unreal object with them.
How, then, is the unreal object introduced into the scene ? There
is the strongest ground for believing that the unreal object—the
spectre—is an idea of the mind acting on the optic nerve, and
impressing a picture on the retina, just as effectually as if the object
were external to the person. The mind, as it were, daguerreotypes
the idea—the flash of thought—on the retina, or mirror of the eye,
where it is recognised by the powers of perception. That spectres
are mental pictures, is forcibly stated as follows by Sir David
Brewster : ‘ I propose to shew that the “ mind’s eye ” is actually the
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
Tody’s eye, and that the retina is the common tablet on which both
classes of impressions are painted, and by means of which they
receive their visual existence according to the same optical laws.
Nor is this true merely in the case of spectral illusions. It holds
good of all ideas recalled by the memory, or created by the imagina
tion, and may be regarded as a fundamental law in the science of
pneumatology.
‘ In the healthy state of the mind and body, the relative intensity
•of these two classes of impressions on the retina are nicely adjusted.
The mental pictures are transient, and comparatively feeble, and in
ordinary temperaments are never capable of disturbing or effacing
'the direct images of visible objects. The affairs of life could not be
• carried on if the memop' were to intrude bright representations of
‘•the past into the domestic scene, or scatter them over the external
{-landscape. The two opposite impressions, indeed, could not co
exist. The same nervous fibre which is carrying from the brain to
the retina the figures of memory, could not at the same instant be
carrying back the impressions of external objects from the retina to
the brain. The mind cannot perform two different functions at the
same instant, and the direction of its attention to one of the two
classes of impressions necessarily produces the extinction of the other.
But so rapid is the exercise of mental power, that the alternate
appearance and disappearance of the two contending impressions is
710 more recognised than the successive observations of external
objects during the twinkling of the eyelids.’ *
With these general observations, we proceed to an analysis of the
-different kinds of spectre-seeing, beginning with a short explanation
of dreaming and somnambulism, with which apparitional illusions
are intimately associated.
DREAMS—SOMNAMBULISM.
Dreaming is a modification of disordered mental action, arising
usually from some kind of functional derangement. In sound sleep,
■The functions of digestion, the circulation of the blood, and all others,
may be said to be duly in action, and the mind is accordingly not
•disturbed. If, however, any of the bodily functions be in a state of
derangement ; if, in particular, the digestion be incommoded, which
it ordinarily is in an artificial mode of life, the senses, the nerves,
"the mind, will also be probably affected, and an imperfect sleep,
with an imperfect consciousness, is the result. According to the
Test writers on the subject, it has been ascertained that, in beginning
To sleep, the senses do not unitedly fall into a state of slumber, but
drop off one after the other. The sight ceases, in consequence of
The protection of the eyelids, to receive impressions first, while all
* Letters on Natural Magic.
4
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
the other senses preserve their sensibility entire. The sense of tasteis the next which loses its susceptibility of impressions, and then the
sense of smelling. The hearing is next in order ; and, last of all,,
comes the sense of touch. Furthermore, the senses are thought to
sleep with different degrees of profoundness. The sense of touch
sleeps the most lightly, and is the most easily awakened; the next
easiest is the hearing ; the next is the sight ; and the taste and
smelling awake the last. Another remarkable circumstance deserves
notice ; certain muscles and parts of the body begin to sleep before
others. Sleep commences at the extremities, beginning with the feet
and legs, and creeping towards the centre of nervous action. The
necessity for keeping the feet warm and perfectly still, as a prelimi
nary of sleep, is well known. From these explanations, it will not
appear surprising that, with one or more of the senses, and perhaps
also one or more parts of the body imperfectly asleep, there should
be at the same time an imperfect kind of mental action, which pro
duces the phenomenon of dreaming.
A dream, then, is an imperfectly formed thought. Much of the
imperfection and incoherency of such thoughts is from having no
immediate consciousness of surrounding objects. The imagination
revels unchecked by actual circumstances, and is not under the
control of the will. Ungoverned by any ordinary standards of
reason, we, in dreaming, have the impression that the ideas which.,
chase each other through the mind are actual occurrences: a mereill-formed thought is imagined to be an action. As thought is veryrapid, it thus happens that events which would take whole days or
a longer time in performance, are dreamed in a few moments. Sowonderful is this compression of a multitude of transactions into the
very shortest period, that when we are accidentally ‘ awakened from
a profound slumber by a loud knock at, or by the rapid opening of,
the door, a train of actions which it would take hours, or days, or
even weeks to accomplish, sometimes passes through the mind.
Time, in fact, seems to be in a great measure annihilated. An
extensive period is reduced, as it were, to a single point, or rather a
single point is made to embrace an extensive period. In one
instant we pass through many adventures, see many strange sights,,
and hear many strange sounds. If we are awaked by a loud knock
,
*
we have perhaps the idea of a tumult passing before us, and knowall the characters engaged in it—their aspects, and even their very
names. If the door open violently, the flood-gates of a canal mayappear to be expanding, and we may see the individuals employed,
in the process, and hear their conversation, which may seem an
hour in length ; if a light be brought into the room, the notion of
the house being in flames invades us, and we are witnesses to the
whole conflagration from its commencement till it be finally extin
guished. The thoughts which arise in such situations are endless,,
and assume an infinite variety of aspects.
5.
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
' ‘ One of the most remarkable phenomena attendant upon dream
ing, is the almost universal absence of surprise. Scarcely any event,
however incredible, impossible, or absurd, gives rise to this emotion.
We see circumstances at utter variance with the laws of nature, and
yet their discordancy, impracticability, and oddness never strike us
as at all out of the usual course of things. This is one of the
strongest proofs that can be alleged in support of the dormant
Condition of the reflecting faculties. Had these powers been awake
and in full activity, they would have pointed out the erroneous
nature of the impressions conjured into existence by fancy, and
shewn us truly that the visions passing before our eyes were merely
the chimeras of an excited imagination—the airy phantoms of
imperfect sleep.’*
Dreams are in general connected with snatches of waking recol
lections, and assume a character from the dreamer’s ordinary'
pursuits and feelings. Shakspeare has admirably described the
effects of dreams of different classes of persons; and the subject
has been also well illustrated by Stepney in the following lines :
‘ At dead of night imperial reason sleeps,
And Fancy with her train her revels keeps.
Then airy phantoms a mixed scene display,
Of what we heard, or saw, or wished by day;
For memory those images retains
Which passion formed, and still the strongest reigns.
Huntsmen renew the chase they lately run,
And generals fight again their battles won.
Spectres and fairies haunt the murderer’s dreams;
Grants and disgraces are the courtier’s themes.
The miser spies a thief, or a new hoard ;
The cit’s a knight; the sycophant a lord.
Thus Fancy’s in the wild distraction lost,
With what we most abhor, or covet most.
Honours and state before this phantom fall;
For sleep, like death, its image, equals all.’
Chaucer’s description, versified by Dryden, is also worthy of being
quoted :
.
‘ Dreams are but interludes which Fancy makes ;
When monarch reason sleeps, this mimic wakes;
Compounds a medley of disjointed things,
A court of cobblers, and a mob of kings :
Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad:
Both are the reasonable soul run mad ;
And many monstrous forms in sleep we see,
That neither were, or are, or e’er can be.
* Macnish’s Philosophy of Sleep.
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
Sometimes forgotten things, long cast behind,
Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind.
The nurse’s legends are for truth received,
And the man dreams but what the boy believed;
Sometimes we but rehearse a former play,
The night restores our actions done by day;
As hounds in sleep will open for their prey.
In short, the farce of dreams is of a piece
In chimeras all; and more absurd or less.’
In ordinary dreaming, the powers of voluntary motion are often
exercised to a slight extent. A dreamer, under the impression • that
he is engaged in an active battle, will frequently give a bed-fellow
a smart belabouring. Often also, in cases of common dreaming,
the muscles on which the production of the voice depends are set
in action, through the instrumentality of that portion of the brain
which is not in a quiescent state, and the dreamer mutters, or talks,
or cries aloud. Sometimes nearly all the senses, along with the
muscles of motion, are in activity, while part of the cerebral organs
are dormant, and in this condition the dreamer becomes a somnam
bulist, or sleep-walker. ‘ If we dream,’ says Mr Macnish, 1 that we
are walking, and the vision possesses such a degree of vividness
and exciting energy as to arouse the muscles of locomotion, we
naturally get up and walk. Should we dream that we hear or see,
and the impression be so vivid as to stimulate the eyes and ears,
or more properly speaking, those parts of the brain which take
cognizance of sights and sounds, then we both see any objects, or
hear any sounds, which may occur, just as if we were awake. In
some cases the muscles only are excited, and then we simply walk,
without hearing or seeing.’ In other cases we both walk and see,
and in a third variety we at once walk, see, and hear. In the same
way the vocal organs alone may be stimulated, and a person may
merely be a sleep-talker; or, under a conjunction of impulses, he
may talk, walk, see, and hear.
Cases of persons in a state of somnambulism rising from bed and
walking to a distant part of the house, or of looking for some object
of which they were dreaming, and so forth, are exceedingly common,
and the seeming marvel is explained by the fact already noticed—
only certain senses and portions of brain are asleep while others are
waking. The boy who, according to the common story, rose in his
sleep and took a nest of young eagles from a dangerous precipice,
must have received the most accurate accounts of external objects
from his visual organs, and must have been able to some extent to
reason upon them, else he could never have overcome the difficulties
of the ascent. He dreamed of taking away the nest, and to his great
surprise found it beneath his bed in the morning in the spot where
he only thought himself to have put it in imagination. The follow
ing case, mentioned by Mr Macnish, is scarcely less wonderful. It
7
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
occurred near one of the towns on the Irish coast. ‘About two
o’clock in the morning, the watchmen on the Revenue Quay were
much surprised at descrying a man disporting himself in the water,
about a hundred yards from the shore. Intimation having been
given to the Revenue boat’s crew, they pushed off, and succeeded in
picking him up ; but, strange to say, he had no idea whatever of his
perilous situation, and it was with the utmost difficulty they could
persuade him he was not still in bed. But the most singular part
of this novel adventure was, that the man had left his house at
twelve o’clock that night, and walked through a difficult and to him
dangerous road, a distance of nearly two miles, and had actually
swum one mile and a half when he was fortunately discovered and
picked up.’ The state of madness gives us, by analogy, the best
explanation of the condition of these climbers and swimmers. With
one or more organs or portions of his brain diseased, and the
rest sound, the insane person has the perfect use of his external
senses, yet may form imperfect conclusions regarding many things
around him. The somnambulist, with one or more of his senses in
activity, but with some of his cerebral organs in a torpid state, is
in much the same position as regards his power of forming right
judgments on all that he hears or sees.
A respectable person, captain of a merchant-vessel, told Sir
Walter Scott the following story, in illustration of illusion from
somnambulism. While lying in the Tagus, a man belonging to his
ship was murdered by a Portuguese, and a report soon spread that
the spirit of the deceased haunted the vessel. The captain found,
on making inquiry, that one of his own mates, an honest, sensible
Irishman, was the chief evidence respecting the ghost. The mate
affirmed that the spectre took him from bed every night, led him
about the ship, and, in short, worried his life out. The captain knew
not what to think of this, but he privately resolved to watch the mate
by night. He did so, and, at the hour of twelve, saw the man start
up with ghastly looks, and light a candle ; after which he went to
the galley, where he stood staring wildly for a time, as if on some
horrible object. He then lifted a can filled with water, sprinkled some
of it about, and, appearing much relieved, went quietly back to his
bed. Next morning, on being asked if he had been annoyed in the
night, he said : ‘Yes; I was led by the ghost to the galley ; but I
got hold, in some way or other, of a jar of holy-water, and freed my
self, by sprinkling it about, from the presence of the horrible phantom.’
The captain now told the truth, as observed ; and the mate, though
much surprised, believed it. He was never visited by the ghost
again, the deception of his own dreaming fancy being thus discovered.
Had the mate burned his hand with the candle, and, by the same
mode of reasoning which led him to believe in the banishment of
the ghost by holy-water, formed the conclusion that the spectre had
touched his hand to imprint on it a perpetual mark, what would
8
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
have been said of the matter by his comrades and himself in the
morning, supposing no watching to have taken place? They would
assuredly have held the scar as an indubitable proof of the super
natural visitation, and the story would have remained as darkly
mysterious as could be desired.
The condition of nightmare, in which the sufferer is under the
feeling of some terrible oppression, is one of the most afflicting kinds
of dreaming. In the more simple order of cases of nightmare, the
dreamer is only labouring under the influence of indigestion; but in
the more severe, the cause is ascribed to cerebral disorder. A
gentleman in Edinburgh was afflicted for years with a night
mare which rendered existence almost unsupportable. On falling
asleep, he dreamed that he was chased by a bull; and frequently, in
terror of being tossed by the horns of the infuriated animal, he leaped
from the bed to the opposite side of the room, on one occasion doing
himself a serious injury. At the death of this unhappy gentleman,
his head was opened, and a portion of his brain found to be affected
with a deep-seated ulcer. In cases of this kind, the spectral
illusions of the dreamer are usually most vivid, and on awakening,
it requires a strong effort of reason to be convinced that the appear
ances were nothing more than airy phantoms of the disordered brain.
With these explanations on the subject of dreaming, we are pre
pared for a consideration of those unreal impressions made on the
mind while in a wakeful condition.
ILLUSIONS FROM CONGESTION OF THE BLOOD-VESSELS.
One of the more simple kinds of functional disorder producing
false impressions on the mind, is an overfulness of blood in the
circulatory vessels. Persons who have followed the discommendable
practice of blood-letting periodically, and have neglected it for more
than the usual length of time, are the most liable to this species of
illusion. Upwards of seventy years ago, Nicolai, a celebrated book
seller in Berlin, experienced the feeling of seeing spectres from this
cause. According to an interesting account he has given on the
subject, it appears that he was a man of a vivid imagination and
excitable temperament, who, some years previous to the occurrences
he relates, was troubled with violent vertigo, which he relieved by
periodical bleeding with leeches. It became with him a custom to
be bled twice in the year; but at length having on one occasion
neglected this means of relieving the system, his mind became
depressed, and apparitions began to be seemingly present to his eyes.
The following is his narration of this painful condition :
‘ My wife and another person came into my apartment in the
morning in order to console me, but I was too much agitated by a
series of incidents, which had most powerfully affected my moral
feeling, to be capable of attending to them. On a sudden I perceived,
159
9
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
at about the distance of ten steps, a form like that of a deceased
person. I pointed at it, asking my wife if she did not see it. It was
but natural that she should not see anything; my question, therefore,
alarmed her very much, and she immediately sent for a physician.
The phantom continued about eight minutes. I grew at length more
calm, and being extremely exhausted, fell into a restless sleep, which
lasted about half an hour. The physician ascribed the apparition to
a violent mental emotion, and hoped there would be no return; but
the violent agitation of my mind had in some way disordered my
nerves, and produced further consequences which deserve a more
minute description.
‘At four in the afternoon, the form which I had seen in the
morning reappeared. I wp.s by myself when this happened, and, •
being rather uneasy at the incident, went to my wife’s apartment,
but there likewise I was persecuted by the apparition, which, how
ever, at intervals disappeared, and always presented itself in a
standing posture. About six o’clock there appeared also several
walking figures, which had no connection with the first. After the
first day the form of the deceased person no more appeared, but its
place was supplied with many other phantasms, sometimes repre
senting acquaintances, but mostly strangers ; those whom I knew
were composed of living and deceased persons, but the number of
the latt'er was comparatively small. I observed the persons with
whom I daily conversed did not appear as phantasms, these repre
senting chiefly persons who lived at some distance from me.
‘ These phantasms seemed equally clear and distinct at all times
and under all circumstances, both when I was by myself and when
I was in company, as well in the day as at night, and in my own
house as well as abroad; they were, however, less frequent when I
was in the house of a friend, and rarely appeared to me in the street.
When I shut my eyes, these phantasms would sometimes vanish
entirely, though there were instances when I beheld them with my
eyes closed; yet when they disappeared on such occasions, they
generally returned when I opened my eyes. I conversed sometimes
with my physician and my wife of the phantasms which at the
moment surrounded me; they appeared more frequently walking
than at rest; nor were they constantly present. They frequently
did not come for some time, but always reappeared for a longer or
shorter period, either singly or in company; the latter, however,
being most frequently the case. I generally saw human forms of
both sexes ; but they usually seemed not to take the smallest notice
of each other, moving as in a market-place, where all are eager to
press through the crowd; at times, however, they seemed to be
transacting business with each other. I also saw several times
people on horseback, dogs, and birds.
‘ All these phantasms appeared to me in their natural size, and as
distinct as if alive, exhibiting different shades of carnation in the
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�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
uncovered parts, as well as different colours and fashions in their
dresses, though the colours seemed somewhat paler than in real
nature. None of the figures appeared particularly terrible, comical,
or disgusting, most of them being of an indifferent shape, and some
presenting a pleasing aspect. The longer these phantasms continued
to visit me, the more frequently did they return, while at the same
time they increased in number about four weeks after they had first
appeared. I also began to hear them talk: these phantoms sometimes
conversed among themselves, but more frequently addressed their
discourse to me ; their speeches were commonly short, and never of
an unpleasant turn. At different times there appeared to me both
dear and sensible friends of both sexes, whose addresses tended to
appease my grief, which had not yet wholly subsided : their consolatory speeches were in general addressed to me when I was alone.
Sometimes, however, I was accosted by these consoling friends while
I was engaged in company, and not unfrequently while real persons
were speaking to me. These consolatory addresses consisted some
times of abrupt phrases, and at other times they were regularly
executed.’
Having thus suffered for some time, it occurred to him that the
mental disorder might arise from a superabundance of blood, and he
again had "recourse to leeching. When the leeches were applied, no
person was with him besides the surgeon ; but during the operation
his apartment was crowded with human phantasms of all descriptions.
In the course of a few hours, however, they moved around the
chamber more slowly; their colour began to fade; until, growing
more and more obscure, they at last dissolved into air, and he ceased
to be troubled with them afterwards.
ILLUSIONS FROM DERANGEMENT IN DIGESTION.
Any derangement of the digestive powers acts on the brain; when
the derangement is excessive, and the health otherwise impaired,
the mind becomes affected, so as to deceive the senses and to produce
spectral illusions. Sir David Brewster, in his Letters on Natural
Magic, narrates the case of a lady of high character and intelligence,
but of vivid imagination, who was so affected from only simple
derangement of the .stomach. The facts were communicated by
the husband of the lady, a man of learning and science, and are as
follow:
‘ I. The first illusion to which Mrs A. was subject was one which
affected only the ear. On the 26th of December 1830, about half
past four in the afternoon, she was standing near the fire in the hall,
and on the point of going up stairs to dress, when she heard, as she
supposed, her husband’s voice calling her by name : “------------ J
come here! come to me 1” She imagined that he was calling at
the door to have it opened; but upon going there and opening the
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�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
door, she was surprised to find no person there. Upon returning to
the fire, she again heard the same voice calling out very distinctly
and loudly: “----- , come; come here!” She then opened two
other doors of the same room, and upon seeing no person, she
returned to the fireplace. After a few moments, she heard the same
voice still calling: “------------ , come to me! come! come away!”
in a loud, plaintive, and somewhat impatient tone. She answered
as loudly: “Where are you? I don’t know where you are;” still
imagining that he was somewhere in search of her : but receiving no
answer, she shortly after went up stairs. On Mr A.’s return to the
house, about half an hour afterwards, she inquired why he called to
her so often, and where he was ; and she was of course greatly sur
prised to learn that he had not been near the house at the time.
‘2. The next illusion which occurred to Mrs A. was of a more
alarming character. On the 30th of December, about four o’clock
in the afternoon, Mrs A. came down stairs into the drawing-room,
which she had quitted only a few minutes before, and on entering
the room she saw her husband, as she supposed, standing with his
back to the fire. As he had gone out to take a walk about half an
hour before, she was surprised to see him there, and asked him why
'he had returned so soon. The figure looked fixedly at her with a
serious and thoughtful expression of countenance, but did not speak.
Supposing that his mind was absorbed in thought, she sat down in
an arm-chair hear the fire, and within two feet at most of the figure,1
which she still saw standing before her. As its eyes, however, still
continued to be fixed upon her, she said, after the lapse of a few
minutes: “Why don’t you speak,----- ?” The figure immediately
moved off towards the window at the farther end of the room, with
its eyes still gazing on her, and it passed so very close to her in
doing so, that she was struck by the circumstance of hearing no step
nor sound, nor feeling her clothes brushed against, nor even any
agitation in the air. Although she was now convinced that the figure
was not her husband, yet she never for a moment supposed that it
was anything supernatural, and was soon convinced that it was a
spectral illusion. The appearance was seen in bright daylight, and
lasted four or five minutes. When the figure stood close to her, it
•concealed the real objects behind it, and the apparition was fully as
vivid as the reality.
‘ 3. On these two occasions Mrs A. was alone, but when the next
phantasm appeared her husband was present. This took place on
the 4th of January 1831. About ten o’clock at night, when Mr and
Mrs A. were sitting in the drawing-room, Mr A. took up the poker
to stir the fire, and when he was in the act of doing this, Mrs A.
exclaimed : “Why, there’s the cat in the room !” “ Where?” asked
Mr A. “ There, close to you,” she replied. “ Where ?” he repeated.
“ Why, on the rug to be sure, between yourself and the coal-scuttle.”
Mr A., who had still the poker in his hand, pushed it in the direction
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�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
y
mentioned. “Take care,” cried Mrs A.; “take care, you are hitting
her with the poker.” Mr A. again asked her to point out exactly
where she saw the cat. She replied : “Why, sitting up there close
to your feet on the rug : she is looking at me. It is Kitty—come
here, Kitty ?” There were two cats in the house, one of which went
by this name, and they were rarely if ever in the drawing-room. At
this time Mrs A. had no idea that the sight of the cat was an illusion.
When she was asked to touch it, she got up for the purpose, and
seemed as if she were pursuing something which moved away. She
followed a few steps, and then said : “ It has gone under the chair.”
Mr A. assured her it was an illusion, but she would not believe it.
He then lifted up the chair, and Mrs A. saw nothing more of it..
The room was then searched all over, and nothing found in it. There was a dog lying on the hearth, which would have betrayed great
uneasiness if a cat had been in the room, but he lay perfectly quiet.
In order to be quite certain, Mr A. rung the bell, and sent for the
two cats, both of which were found in the housekeeper’s room.
‘ 4. About a month after this occurrence, Mrs A., who had taken
a somewhat fatiguing drive during the day, was preparing to go
to bed about eleven o’clock at night, and, sitting before the dressing
glass, was occupied in arranging her hair. She was in a listless
and drowsy state of mind, but fully awake. When her fingers were
in active motion among the papillotes, she was suddenly startled
by seeing in the mirror the figure of a near relation, who was then
in Scotland, and in perfect health. The apparition appeared over
her left shoulder, and its eyes met hers in the glass. After a few
minutes, she turned round to look for the reality of the form over
her shoulder; but it was not visible, and it had also disappeared
from the glass when she looked again in that direction.’
Passing over from the fifth to the ninth cases, we come to the
tenth. ‘ On the 26th of October, about two P.M., Mrs A. was sitting
in a chair by the window in the same room with her husband. He
heard her exclaim : ‘ What have I seen ! ’ And on looking at her,
he observed a strange expression in her eyes and countenance.
A carriage and four had appeared to her to be driving up the
entrance road to the house. As it approached, she felt inclined
to go up stairs to prepare to receive company, but, as if spell-bound,
she was unable to move or speak. The carriage approached, and
as it arrived within a few yards of the window, she saw the figures
of the postilions and the persons inside take the ghastly appearanceof skeletons and other hideous figures. The whole then vanished
entirely, when she uttered the above-mentioned exclamation.
‘11. On the morning of the 30th October, when Mrs A. was
sitting in her own room with a favourite dog in her lap, she distinctly
saw the same dog moving about the room during the space of about
a minute or rather more.
‘12. On the 3d December, about nine P.M., when Mr and Mrs
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�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
A. were sitting near each other in the drawing-room, occupied in.
reading, Mr A. felt a pressure on his foot. On looking up, he
observed Mrs A.’s eyes fixed with a strong and unnatural stare on
a chair about nine or ten feet distant. Upon asking her what she
saw, the expression of her countenance changed, and upon recover
ing herself, she told Mr A. that she had seen his brother, who was
alive and well at the moment in London, seated in the opposite chair,
but dressed in grave-clothes, and with a ghastly countenance, as
if scarcely alive 1
‘ From the very commencement of the spectral illusions,’ observes
Sir David in conclusion, ‘ both Mrs A. and her husband were well
aware of their nature and origin, and both of them paid the most
minute attention to the circumstances which accompanied them,
not only with the view of throwing light upon so curious a subject,
but for the purpose of ascertaining their connection with the state
of health under which they appeared.’
ILLUSIONS
FROM
DELIRIUM
TREMENS.
A bodily disorder, which in itself ought to afford a solution of
nearly all apparitions, is that called delirium tremens, or vulgarly
blue devils. This is most commonly induced, in otherwise healthy
subjects, by continued intemperance in intoxicating liquors. It is a
disorder intimately connected with a derangement of the digestive
functions. So long as the drinker can take food, he is comparatively
secure against the disease, but when his stomach rejects (jommon
nourishmept, and he persists in taking stimulants, the effects are
for the most part speedily visible, at least in peculiarly nervous
constitutions. The first symptom is commonly a slight impairment
of the healthy powers of the senses of hearing and seeing. A ringing
in the ears probably takes place; then any common noise, such
as the rattle of a cart on the street, assumes to the hearing a
particular sound, and arranges itself into a certain tune perhaps,
or certain words, which haunt the sufferer, and are by and by rung
into his ears on the recurrence of every noise. The proverb, ‘ As
the fool thinks, so the bell tinks,’ becomes very applicable in his
case. His sense of seeing, in the meanwhile, begins to shew equal
disorder; figures float before him perpetually when his eyes are
closed at night. By day also, objects seem to move before him
that are really stationary. The senses of touch, taste, and sfnell
are also involved in confusion. In this way the disturbance of
the senses goes on, increasing always with the disorder of the
alimentary function, until the unhappy drinker is at last visited,
most probably in the twilight, by visionary figures as distinct in
outline as living beings, and which seem to speak to him with the
voice of life. At first he mistakes them for realities; but, soon
discovering his error, is thrown into the deepest alarm. If he
14
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
has the courage to approach and examine any one of the illusory
figures, he probably finds that some fold of drapery, or some shadow,
has been the object converted by his diseased sense into the appari
tion, and he may also find that the voice was but- some simple house
hold sound, converted by his disordered ear into strange speech:
for the senses, at least in the milder cases of this sort, rather convert
than create, though the metamorphosed may differ widely from the
real substance. The visitations and sufferings of the party may
go on increasing, till he takes courage to speak to the physician,
who, by great care, restores his alimentary organs to a state of
health, and, in consequence, the visions slowly leave him. If, how
ever, remedies are not applied in time, the party will probably sink
under the influence of his disorder. The spectral figures and voices
being solely and entirely the creation of his own fancy, will seem
to do or say anything that may be uppermost in that fancy at
the moment, and will encourage him to self-murder by every possible
argument—all emanating, of course, from his own brain. The whole
consists merely of his own fancies, bodied forth to him visibly and
audibly in his seeing and hearing organs. His own poor head is
the seat of all; there is nothing apart from him—nothing but
vacancy.
Dr Alderson, a respectable physician, mentions his being called
to a keeper of a public-house, who was in a state of great terror, and
who described himself as having been haunted for some time with
spectres. He had first noticed something to be wrong with him on
being laughed at by a little girl for desiring her to lift some oyster
shells from the floor. He himself stooped, but found none. Sooh
after, in the twilight, he saw a soldier enter the house, and, not
liking his manner, desired him to go away; but receiving no answer,
he sprang forward to seize the intruder, and to his horror found the
shape to be but a phantom ! The visitations increased by night and
by day, till he could not distinguish real customers from imaginary
ones, so definite and distinct were the latter in outline. Sometimes
they took the forms of living friends, and sometimes of people long
dead. Dr Alderson resorted to a course of treatment which restored
the strength of the digestive organs, and gradually banished the
spectres.
,
ILLUSIONS FROM SEVERE DISORDERS.
Among the other varieties of bodily ailments affecting either
structure or function, which have been found to produce spectral
illusions, fevers, inflammatory affections, epileptic attacks, hysteria,
and disorders of the nerves generally, are among the most pro
minent. As regards fevers and inflammatory affections, particularly
those of the brain, it is well known to almost every mother or
member of a large family, that scarcely any severe case can occur
l5
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
without illusions of the sight to a greater or less extent. In hysteric
and epileptic cases also, where fits or partial trances occur, the same
phenomena are frequently observed. But we shall not enlarge on
the effects produced by the influence of severe and obviously exist
ing maladies, as it is in those cases only where the spectre-seer has
exhibited apparent sanity of mind and body that special wonder has
been excited. It is so far of great importance, however, to notice
that these diseases do produce the illusions, as in most cases it will
be found, on inquiry, that the party subject to them, however sound
to appearance at the time, afterwards displayed some of these
complaints in full force; and we may then rationally explain the
whole matter by supposing the seeds of the ailments to have early
existed in a latent state. A German lady, of excellent talents and
high character, published an account some years back of successive
visions with which she had been honoured, as she believed, by
Divine favour. The case of this lady throws so much light on
delusions arising from deranged temperament and kindred maladies,
that we take the liberty of extracting it from the interesting work of
Dr Hibbert.
‘The illusions which the lady experienced first came on in the
fourth year of her age, while she was sitting with her little doll upon
her knees; and, for the greater convenience of dressing and
undressing it, resting her feet upon a large folio Bible. “ I had
scarcely taken my place,” she observes, “ above a minute, when I
heard a voice at my ear say: ‘Put the book where you found it;’
but as I did not see any person, I did not do so. The voice, how
ever repeated the mandate, that I should do it immediately; and,
at the same time, I thought somebody took hold of my face. ' I
instantly obeyed with fear and trembling; but not being able to
lift the book upon the table, I called the servant-maid to come
quickly and assist me. When she came, and saw that I was alone
and terrified, she scolded me, as nobody was there.” It may be
remarked of this part of the account, that the voice which the
narrator heard can only be regarded as a renovated feeling of the
mind, resulting from some prior remonstrances that she might have
incurred from her protectors, whenever she treated with unbecoming
irreverence the holy volume ; while the impression of a person
taking hold of her face, may be referred to some morbid sensation
of touch, incidental to many nervous affections, which would easily
associate itself with the imaginary rebuke of her mysterious monitor,
so as to impart to the whole of the illusion a certain degree of
connection and consistency. The patient (for such I shall call her)
next describes the extreme diligence and the peculiar delight with
which, as she grew up in years, she read twice over, from the
beginning to the end, the pages of the Scriptures ; and she likewise
dwells upon her constant endeavour to render the Bible more
intelligible, by often hearing sermons and reading religious books.
16
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
It is certainly of importance to know the subject of her incessant
and anxious studies, as it is well calculated to explain the nature of
her visions, which, as we might expect, were generally of a religious
description. We are, in the next place, told by the lady, that after
she had reached her seventh year, she saw, when playing, a clear
flame which seemed to enter through the chamber door, while in
the middle of it was a long bright light about the size of a child of
six years old. The phantasm remained stationary for half an hour
near the stove of the room, and then went out again by the room
door ; the white light first, and the flame following it. After this
vision, we hear of no other until the lady is married, when, unfor
tunately, her husband made her life so bitter to her, that she could
think only of death. Hence must have necessarily arisen the
combining influence of strong mental emotions, which could not
but act as powerful exciting agents upon a frame the mental feelings
of which, from constitutional causes, were of the most intense kind.
Spectral illusions would of course become very frequent. Thus, on
one occasion, when she had received some ill-treatment from her
husband, she made a resolution to desist from prayer, thinking the
Lord had forsaken her; but, upon further consideration, she
repented of this purpose, and, after returning thanks to Heaven,
went to bed. She awakened towards the morning, and then, to her
astonishment, found that it was broad daylight, and that at her bed
side was seated a heavenly figure in the shape of a man about sixty
years of age, dressed in a bluish robe, with bright hair, and a
countenance shining like the clearest red and white crystal. He
looked at her with tenderness, saying nothing more than ‘■'■Proceed,
proceed, proceed!” These words were unintelligible to her, until
they were solved by another phantasm, young and beautiful as an
angel, who appeared on the opposite side of the bed, and more
explicitly added : “ Proceed in prayer, proceed in faith, proceed in
trials” After this incident, a strange light appeared, when she
immediately felt herself pulled by the hairs of her head, and pinched
and tormented in various ways. The cause of this affliction she
soon discovered to be the devil himself, who made his debut in
the usual hideous form under which he is personated, until at length
the angel interfered and pushed away the foul fiend with his elbow.
“Afterwards,” as the lady added, “the light came again, and both
persons looked mournfully at it. The young one then said : ‘ Lord,
this is sufficientand he uttered these words three times. Whilst
he repeated them, I looked at him, and beheld two large white
wings on his shoulders, and therefore I knew him to be an angel
of God. The light immediately disappeared, the two figures
vanished, and the day was suddenly converted into night. My
heart was again restored to its right place, the pain ceased, and I
arose.” ’
Dr Crichton, author of an able work on insanity, found that this
17
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
unfortunate lady was always affected with the aura epileptica during
the prevalence of the illusions ; or, in other words, that she was
labouring under slight attacks of epilepsy. Thus simply was
explained a series of phenomena which, from the high character
for veracity of the subject of them, astonished a great part of
Germany.
ILLUSIONS OF THE IMAGINATION.
Persons in a desponding or gloomy state of mind are exceedingly
liable to be deceived by their fancies. The morbid imagination
catches at every seemingly mysterious appearance, and transforms
it into a spectre, or warning of approaching dissolution. ‘ A man
who is thoroughly frightened,’ observes a popular American writer,
*
* can imagine almost anything. The whistling of the wind sounds
in his ears like the cry of dying men. As he walks along trembling
in the dark, the friendly guide-post is a giant; the tree gently waving
in the wind is a ghost; and every cow he chances to meet is some
fearful apparition from the land of hobgoblins. Who is there that
•cannot testify, from personal experience, of some such freaks of
imagination? How often does one wake up in the night and find the
clothes upon the chair, or some article of furniture in the room,
assuming a distinctly defined form, altogether different from that
which it in reality possesses!
‘ There is in imagination a potency far exceeding the fabled power
of Aladdin’s lamp. How often does one sit in wintry evening
musings, and trace in the glowing embers the features of an absent
friend! Imagination, with its magic wand, will there build the
city with its countless spires—or marshal contending armies
—or drive the tempest-shattered ship upon the ocean. The
following story, relate.d by Scott, affords a good illustration of
this principle :
‘ “ Not long after the death of a late illustrious poet, who had filled,
while living, a great station in the eye of the public, a literary friend,
to whom the deceased had been well known, was engaged, during
the darkening twilight of an autumn evening, in perusing one of the
publications which professed to detail the habits and opinions of the
distinguished individual who was now no more. As the reader had
enjoyed the intimacy of the deceased to a considerable degree, he
was deeply interested in the publication, which contained some
particulars relating to himself and other friends. A visitor was
sitting in the apartment, who was also engaged in reading. Their
sitting-room opened into an entrance-hall, rather fantastically fitted
up with articles of armour, skins of wild animals, and the like. It
was when laying down his book, and passing into this hall, through
• Scientific Tracts (Boston, 1832).
18
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
which the moon was beginning to shine, that the individual of whom
I speak saw right before him, in a standing posture, the exact repre
sentation of his departed friend, whose recollection had been so
strongly brought to his imagination. He stopped for a single
moment, so as to notice the wonderful accuracy with which fancy
had impressed upon the bodily eye the peculiarities of dress and
position of the illustrious poet. Sensible, however, of the delusion,
he felt no sentiment save that of wonder at the extraordinary accuracy
of the resemblance, and stepped onward towards the figure, which
resolved itself, as he approached, into the various materials of which
it was composed. These were merely a screen occupied by great
coats, shawls, plaids, and such other articles as are usually found in
a country entrance-hall. The spectator returned to the spot from
which he had seen the illusion, and endeavoured with all his power
to recall the image which had been so singularly vivid. But this he
was unable to do. And the person who had witnessed the appari
tion, or, more properly, whose excited state had been the means of
raising it, had only to return into the apartment, and tell his
young friend under what a striking hallucination he had for a
moment laboured.”
‘Most persons under such circumstances would have declared
unhesitatingly that the ghost of the departed had appeared to them,
and they would have found great multitudes who would have believed
it. When the imagination has such power to recall the images of
the absent, is it at all wonderful that many persons should attribute
such appearances to supernatural visitations? Had the poet himself
been in the place of the screen, he probably would not have been
more vividly present. How many, then, of the causes of vulgar fear
are to be attributed to the effect of imagination 1 A lady was once
passing through a wood, in the darkening twilight of a stormy
evening, to visit a friend who was watching over a dying child. The
clouds were thick—the rain beginning to fall; darkness was increas
ing ; the wind was moaning mournfully through the trees. The
lady’s heart almost failed her as she saw that she had a mile to walk
through the woods in the gathering gloom. But the reflection of
the situation of her friend forbade her turning back. Excited and
trembling, she called to her aid a nervous resolution, and pressed
onward. She had not proceeded far, when she beheld in the path
before her the movement of some very indistinct object. It appeared
to keep a little distance in advance of her, and as she made efforts
to get nearer to see what it was, it seemed proportionably to recede.
The lady began to feel rather unpleasantly. There was some pale
white object certainly discernible before her, and it appeared
mysteriously to float along at a regular distance, without any effort
at motion. Notwithstanding the lady’s good sense and unusual
resolution, a cold chill began to come over her. She made every
effort to resist her fears, and soon succeeded in drawing nearer the
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�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
mysterious object, when she was appalled at beholding the features
of her friend’s child, cold in death, wrapped in its shroud. She
gazed earnestly, and there it remained distinct and clear before her
eyes. She considered it a monition that her friend’s child was dead,
and that she must hasten on to her aid. But there was the apparition
directly in her path. She must pass it. Taking up a little stick,
she forced herself along to the object, and behold, some little animal
scampered away. It was this that her excited imagination had
transformed into the corpse of an infant in its winding-sheet. The
vision before her eyes was undoubtedly as clear as the reality could
have been. Such is the power of imagination. If this lady, when
she saw the corpse, had turned in terror and fled home, what
reasoning could ever have satisfied her that she had not seen some
thing supernatural? When it is known that the imagination has
such a power as this, can we longer wonder at any accounts which
are given of unearthly appearances ?’
The numerous stories told of ghosts, or the spirits of persons who
are dead, will in most instances be found to have originated in
diseased imagination, aggravated by some abnormal defect of mind.
We may mention a remarkable case in point; it is told by the com
piler of Les Causes Celebres. Two young noblemen, the Marquises
De Rambouillet and De Precy, belonging to two of the first families
of France, made an agreement, in the warmth of their friendship,
that the one who died first should return to the other with tidings of
the world to come. Soon afterwards, De Rambouillet went to the
wars in Flanders, while De Precy remained at Paris, stricken by a
fever. Lying alone in bed, and severely ill, De Precy one day heard
a rustling of his bed-curtains, and turning round, saw his friend De
Rambouillet in full military attire. The sick man sprung over the
bed to welcome his friend, but the other receded, and said that he
had come to fulfil his promise, having been killed on that very day.
He further said that it behoved De Precy to think more of the after
world, as all that was said of it was true, and as he himself would
die in his first battle. De Precy was then left by the phantom ; and
it was afterwards found that De Rambouillet had fallen on that day.
De Precy recovered, went to the wars, and died in his first combat.
Here, a'fter a compact—the very conception of which argues credu
lousness or weakness of mind—we not only have one of the parties
left in anxiety about the other, but left in a violent fever, and aware
that his friend was engaged in a bloody war. That a spectral illusion
should occur in such a case, is a thing not at all to be wondered at, as
little as the direction and shape that the sick man’s wanderings took.
The fulfilment of the prophecy is the point of interest; and regard
ing it we would simply use the words of Dr Hibbert, in referring to
the story of Lord Balcarras and Viscount Dundee. Lord Balcarras
was confined as a Jacobite in the castle of Edinburgh, while Dundee
was fighting for the same cause ; and on one occasion the apparition
20
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
of the latter came to the bedside of Balcarras, looked at him stead
fastly, leaned for some time on the mantel-piece, and then walked
away. It afterwards appeared that Dundee fell just about the time
at Killiecrankie. ‘ With regard to this point,’ says Dr Hibbert, ‘ it
must be considered that, agreeably to the well-known doctrine of
chances, the event [of Dundee’s death] might as well occur then as
at any other time ; while afar greater proportion of other apparitions,
less fortunate in such a supposed confirmation of their supernatural
origin, are allowed quietly to sink into oblivion? This observation
applies equally as well to the case of De Precy as to that of Balcarras,
each of whom knew that his friend was then hotly campaigning, and
could most probably even guess, from the latest bulletins, on what
day the hostile armies would decisively meet. We are not told
whether or not Balcarras, like De Precy, was in ill health, but the
Scottish lord was confined on a charge of high treason, and on
Dundee’s life or death, victory or defeat, the fate of the prisoner
must have been felt by himself to rest. This was enough to give his
lordship a vivid dream, and even to give him a waking portraiture of
Dundee, after the fashion of the bust of Curran case.
But though explanations may thus be given of the common run
of apparition cases, it may seem to some that there are particular
cases not to be so accounted for. Of this nature, such readers
may say, is the well-warranted story of the Irish lady of rank, who,
having married a second time, was visited in the night-time by the
spirit of her first husband, from whom she received a notification of
the appointed period of her own death. The lady was at first
terrified, but regained her courage. ‘ How shall I know to-morrow
mom,’ said she boldly to the spectre, ‘ that this is not a delusion of
the senses—that I indeed am visited by a spirit ?’ ‘ Let this be a
token to thee for life,’ said the visitant, and, grasping the arm of the
lady for an instant, disappeared. In the morning a dark mark, as
if of a fresh burn, was seen on the wrist, and the lady kept the scar
covered over while she lived. She died at the time prophesied.
This story is told with great unction by some memoir writers,
and the circumstances are said to have been long kept secret by
the lady’s family. For argument’s sake let us admit the most striking
points of the case to be true. As for the circumstance of her death
at the time foretold, it is well known how powerful imagination is in
causing fulfilment in these cases ; and at all events, one instance of
such a fulfilment is no great marvel amid hundreds of failures.
But the black mark—what of it ? We confess to the reader, that if
we had actually seen the scar upon the wrist of the lady, we should
not have been one step nearer to the admission of supernatural
agency. Supposing, however, that the mark actually existed, could it
not have been explained by somnambulism ? The lady may readily
have risen in her sleep, burnt her hand against the bedroom grate,
and, conscious of an unpleasing sensation, though not awakened by
2X
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
it, her fancy may have formed the whole story of the preternatural
visitation, precisely as the Irish mate of the merchant vessel in
vented the circumstances connected with the holy-water. When
we find that such an explanation of the matter is accordant with
observed and unquestionable facts, it would be irrational to over
look it, and seek a solution in a supposed breach of the laws of
nature.
In some instances, it may be difficult to decide whether spectral
appearances and spectral noises proceed from functional derange
ment or from an overwrought state of mind. Want of exercise and
amusement may also be a prevailing cause. A friend mentions to
us the following case. An acquaintance of his, a merchant in London,
who had for years paid a very close attention to business, was one
day, while alone in his counting-house, very much surprised to hear,
as he imagined, persons outside the door talking freely about him.
Thinking it was some acquaintances who were playing off a trick, he
opened the door to request them to come in, when, to his amazement,
nobody was there. He again sat down at his desk, and in a few
minutes the same dialogue recommenced. The language employed
was now very alarming. One voice seemed to say : ‘ We have the
scoundrel safe in his counting-house ; let us go in and seize him.’
‘ Certainly,’ replied the other voice ; ‘ it is right to take him ; he has
been guilty of a great crime, and ought to be brought to condign
punishment.’ Alarmed at these threats, the bewildered merchant
rushed to the door; and there again no person was to be seen. He
now locked his door and went home ; but the voices, as he thought,
followed him through the crowd, and he arrived at his house in a
most unenviable state of mind. Inclined to ascribe the voices to
derangement in mind, he sent for a medical attendant, and told his
case ; and a certain kind of treatment was prescribed. This, how
ever, failed: the voices menacing him with punishment for purely
imaginary crimes continued, and he was reduced to the brink of
despair. At length a friend prescribed entire relaxation from business,
and a daily game of cricket; which, to his great relief, proved an
effectual remedy. The exercise banished the phantom voices, and
they were no more heard.
In bygone times, when any kind of nonsense was believed without
investigation, the Lowland Scotch, as they alleged, occasionally saw
wraiths, or spectral appearances of persons who were soon to quit
this mortal scene ; the Irish were also accustomed to the spectacle
offetches; and the Highlanders had their second-sight; the whole,
be it observed, being but a variety of mental disease or some
kind of delusion. In some instances the appearances were a
result of atmospheric refraction, but generally they were nothing
more than the phantoms of a morbid and overexcited fancy. The
progress of education and intelligence has almost everywhere
banished such delusions.
28
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
ILLUSIONS
FROM
DERANGEMENT
OF
THE
EYES.
In our preliminary observations, it was shewn that spectral appear
ances produced by mental disorder were really formed or daguerreotyped on the eye; but an unsound state of the eye itself may
also cause these phantoms. Dr Abercrombie mentions two cases
strikingly illustrative of this fact. In one of these, a gentleman of
high mental endowments, and of the age of eighty, enjoying unin
terrupted health, and very temperate in his habits, was the person
subject to the illusions. For twelve years this gentleman had
daily visitations of spectral figures, attired often in foreign dresses,
such as Roman, Turkish, and Grecian, and presenting all varieties
of the human countenance, in its gradations from childhood to old
age. Sometimes faces only were visible, and the countenance of
the gentleman himself not unfrequently appeared among them.
One old and arch-looking lady was the most constant visitor, and
she always wore a tartan plaid of an antique cut. These illusory
appearances were rather amusing than otherwise, being for the most
part of a pleasing character. The second case mentioned by Dr
Abercrombie was one even more remarkable than the preceding.
‘ A gentleman of sound mind, in good health, and engaged in active
business, has all his life been the sport of spectral illusions, tosuch an extent that, in meeting a friend on the street, he has first
to appeal to the sense of touch before he can determine whether
or not the appearance is real. He can call up figures at will by
a steady process of mental conception, and the figures may either
be something real, or the composition of his own fancy? Another
member of the family was subject to the same delusive impressions.
These very curious cases indicate, we think, a defective condition,
of the retina, which may be held as one distinct and specific source
of spectral deceptions. That defective condition seems to consist
in an unusual sensitiveness, rendering the organ liable to have
figures called up upon it by the stimulus of the fancy, as if impressed
by actual external objects. In ordinary circumstances, on a friend
being vividly called to one’s remembrance, one can mentally form
a complete conception of his face and figure in their minutest
lineaments. ‘ My father ! ’ says Hamlet; ‘ methinks I see him now !’’
‘Where, my lord?’ ‘In my mind's eye, Horatio? In Hamlet’s
case, an apparition is described as having followed this delineation
by the memory, and so may a vivid impression of any figure or
object be transferred from the mind to the retina, where the latter
organ is permanently or temporarily in a weak or peculiarly sensitive
state. In this way the spectral illusions seem to have been
habitually caused in the two cases described. There the defect in
the retina was the fundamental or ultimate cause of their existence,
and the fancy of the individual the power which regulated their
23 •
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
frequency and character. Slighter cases of this nature are of com
paratively common occurrence—cases in which the retina is for a
short time so affected as to give the impression of an apparition.
Every one is aware that a peculiarly bright or shining object, if long
gazed upon, does not leave the retina as soon as the eye is with
drawn from it. It remains upon the nerve for a considerable time
afterwards, at least in outline, as may be observed by closing the
eyelids on such occasions. This retentive power, when aided by
the imagination, and perhaps by a little bodily derangement with
which the senses sympathise, may be carried so far as to produce
an actual and forcible spectral illusion. A gentleman, who had
gazed long and earnestly on a small and beautiful portrait of the
Virgin and Child, was startled, immediately on turning his eye
from the picture, by seeing a woman and infant at the other end
of his chamber of the full size of life. A particular circumstance,
however, disclosed in a moment the source of the appearance.
The picture was a three-parts length, and the apparitional figures
also wanted the lower fourth of the body, thus shewing that the
figures had merely been retained on the tablet of the eye. But
the retina may retain an impression much longer than in this case;
or rather may recall, after a considerable time, an impression that
has been very vividly made at the first. A celebrated oculist in
London mentioned to us that he had been waited on by a gentle
man who laboured under an annoying spectral impression in his
eye. He stated that, having looked steadfastly on a copy of the
Lord’s Prayer, printed in minute characters within a circle the size
of a sixpence, he had ever since had the impression of the Lord’s
Prayer in his eye. On whatever object he turned his organs of
vision, there was the small round copy of the Lord’s Prayer present,
and partly covering it.
It appears, then, from the cases described, that the eye, through
defectiveness of its parts, or through the power of the retina in
retaining or recalling vivid impressions, may itself be the main
agent in producing spectral illusions. From one particular circum
stance, we may generally tell at once whether or not the eye is the
organ in fault on such occasions. In Dr Abercrombie’s cases,
the spectral figures never spoke. This is equivalent to a positive
indication that the sense of hearing was not involved in the derange
ment ; in short, that the eye, and not the whole of the senses, or
general system, constituted the seat of the defect.
ILLUSIONS EXPLAINED BY PHRENOLOGY.
In previous sections, it has been stated that maladies of various
kinds are capable of producing spectral illusions by their effects on
the brain and nervous system. In some cases, it was stated that the
brain is directly diseased; in other cases, that the perceptions made
24
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
by that organ are only indirectly deranged by sympathy with some
bodily malady. Madness, for example, having its origin in diseased
cerebral structure, may be attended with spectral illusions ; and
disorder of the alimentary organs, caused by dissipation, may be an
indirect source of them; the senses, and the brain which forms per
ceptions through their reports, being functionally disordered from
sympathy. That a peculiar temperament of body, and, in part, a
particular mental constitution, are requisite to give a predisposition
to the affection, there can be little doubt. Some mental philosophers
go a great way further. The phrenologists hold that it is chiefly on
a particular development of one portion of the brain, which they
describe as the seat of the sentiment of Wonder, that the tendency
to see visions depends. It is observed by them that this ‘sentiment,
when in a state of extreme exaltation (great development and high
excitement), may stimulate the perceptive faculties to perceive objects
fitted to gratify it; and that spectres, apparitions, spirits, &c. are
the kind of ideas suited to please an inordinate Wonder.’ They
class pretenders to supernatural messages and missions, the seers of
visions and dreamers of dreams, and workers of miracles, among
such patients. Separating the remark just quoted from its reference
to the organology of the phrenological science, we may hold it to
signify that the sentiment of wonder, when predominant in an
individual’s mind, will stimulate those faculties which take cognizance
of the forms, colours, sizes, &c. of material existences, to such a
pitch of activity, that illusory perceptions of objects, characterised by
qualities fitted to gratify wonder, will be formed in the brain. The
following case, contributed by Mr Simpson to the Phrenological
Journal, No. 6, affords an interesting example of the manner in
which spectral illusions are accounted for by the strict rules of this
science.
‘Miss S. L., a young lady under twenty years of age, of good
family, well educated, free from any superstitious fears, and in perfect
general health of body and soundness of mind, has, nevertheless,
been for some years occasionally troubled, both in the night and in
the day, with visions of persons and inanimate objects, in numerous
modes and forms. She was early subject to such illusions occasion
ally, and the first she remembers was that of a carpet spread out in
the air, which descended near her, and vanished away.
‘ After an interval of some years, she began to see human figures
in her room as she lay wide awake in bed, even in the daylight of
the morning. These figures were whitish, or rather gray, and trans
parent like cobweb, and generally above the size of life. At this
time she had acute headaches, very singularly confined to one small
spot of the head. On being asked to point out the spot, the utmost
care being taken not to lead her to the answer, our readers may
judge of our feelings as phrenologists when she touched with her
forefinger and thumb each side of the root of the nose, the com
as
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
mencement of the eyebrows, and the spot immediately over the top
of the nose—the ascertained seats of the organs of Form, Size, and
Individuality! Here, particularly on each side of the robt of the
nose, she said the sensation could only be compared to that of
running sharp knives into the part. The pain increased when she
held her head down, and was much relieved by holding'her face
upwards. Miss S. L., on being asked if the pain was confined to
that spot, answered, that ‘ some time afterwards the pain extended
to right and left along the eyebrows, and a little above them, and
completely round the eyes, which felt often as if they would have
burst from their sockets.’ When this happened, her visions were
varied precisely as the phrenologist would have anticipated, and she
detailed the progress without a single leading question. Weight,
Colouring, Order, Number, Locality, all became affected-; and let us
■observe what happened. The whitish or cobweb spectres assumed
the natural colour of the objects, but they continued often to present
themselves, though not always, above th'e size of life. She saw a
beggar one day out of doors, natural in size and colour, who
vanished as she came up to the spot. Colouring being overexcited,
began to occasion its specific and fantastical illusions. Bright spots,
like stars on a black ground, filled the room in the dark, and even in
daylight; and sudden and sometimes gradual illumination of the
room during the night seemed to take place. Innumerable balls of
fire seemed one day to pour like a torrentjjout of one of the rooms
of the house down the staircase. On onefbccasion the pain between
the eyes, and along the lower ridge of l^te brow, struck her suddenly
with great violence—when instantly thfe room filled with stars and
bright spots. On attempting on that occasion to go to bed, she said
she was conscious of an inability to balance herself, as if she had
been tipsy; and she fell, having made repeated efforts to seize the
bedpost, which, in the most unaccountable manner, eluded her
grasp, by shifting its place, and also by presenting her with a number
of bedposts instead of one. If the organ of Weight, situated between
Size and Colouring, be the organ of the instinct to preserve, and
power of preserving equilibrium, it must be the necessary consequence
of the derangement of that organ to overset the balance of the person.
Overexcited Number we should expect to produce multiplication of
objects, and the first experience she had of this illusion was the
multiplication of the bedposts, and subsequently of any inanimate
object she looked at, that object being in itself real and single : a
book, a footstool, a work-box, would increase to twenty, or fifty,
sometimes without order or arrangement, and at other times piled
regularly one above another. Such objects deluded her in another
way, by increasing in size, as she looked at them, to the most
amazing excess—again resuming their natural size—less than which
they never seemed to become—and again swelling out Locality,
overexcited, gave her the illusion of objects, which she had been
26
1
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
accustomed to regard as fixed, being out of their places; and she
thinks, but is not sure, that on one occasion a door and window in
one apartment seemed to have changed places; but, as she added,
she might have been deceived by a mirror. This qualification gave
us the more confidence in her accuracy, when, as she did with regard
to all her other illusions, she spoke more positively. She had not
hitherto observed a great and painful confusion in the visions which
visited her, so as to entitle us to infer the derangement of Order.
Individuality, Form, Size, Weight, Colouring, Locality, and Number
only seemed hitherto affected.
. ‘For nearly two years Miss S. L. was free from her frontal head
aches, and—mark the coincidence—untroubled by visions or any
other illusive perceptions. Some months ago, however, all her
distressing symptoms returned in great aggravation, when she was
conscious of a want of health. The pain was more acute than before
along the frontal bone, and round and in the eyeballs; and all the
organs there situated recommenced their game of illusion. Single
figures of absent and deceased friends were terribly real to her, both
in the day and the night, sometimes cobweb, but generally coloured.
She sometimes saw friends on the street, who proved phantoms
when she approached to speak to them; and instances occurred
where, from not having thus satisfied herself of the illusion, she
affirmed to such friends that she had seen them in certain places,
at certain times, when they proved to her the clearest alibi. The
confusion of her spectral forms now distressed her. (Order affected.)
The oppression and perplexity was intolerable when figures presented
themselves before her in inextricable disorder, and still more when
they changed—as with Nicolai—from whole figures to parts of
figures, faces and half faces, and limbs—sometimes of inordinate
size and dreadful deformity. One instance of illusive disorder which
she mentioned is curious, and has the further effect of exhibiting
what cannot be put in terms, except those of the derangement of the
just perception of gravitation or equilibrium. (Weight.) One night,
as she sat in her bedroom, and was about to go to bed, a stream of
spectres, persons’ faces, and limbs, in the most shocking confusion,
seemed to her to pour into her room from the window, in the manner
of a cascade ! Although the cascade continued apparently in rapid
descending motion, there was no accumulation of figures in the room,
the supply unaccountably vanishing after having formed the cascade.
Colossal figures are her frequent visitors. (Size.)
‘Real but inanimate objects have assumed to her the form of
animals ; and she has often attempted to lift articles from the
ground, which, like the oysters in the pothouse cellar, eluded her
grasp.
‘ More recently, she has experienced a great aggravation of her
alarms ; for, like Nicolai, she began to hear her spectral visitors
speak! (The organs of Language and Tune, or Sound, affected.)
87
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
At first her crowds kept up a buzzing and indescribable gibbering,
and occasionally joined in a loud and terribly disagreeable laugh,
which she could only impute to fiends. These unwelcome sounds
were generally followed by a rapid and always alarming advance of
the figures, which often on those occasions presented very large and
fearful faces, with insufferable glaring eyes close to her own. All
self-possession then failed her, and the cold sweat of terror stood
on her brow. Her single figures of the deceased and absent then
began to gibber, and soon more distinctly to address her ; but terror
has hitherto prevented her from understanding what they said.
‘ She went, not very wisely, to see that banquet of demonology,.
Der Freischutz ; and of course, for some time afterwards, the dram
atis persona of that edifying piece, not excepting his Satanic
majesty in person, were her nightly visitors. Some particular
figures are persevering in their visits to her. A Moor, with a turban,
frequently looks over her shoulder, very impertinently, when she uses
a mirror.
‘ Of the other illusive perceptions of Miss S. L., we may mention
the sensation of being lifted up, and of sinking down and falling
forward, with the puzzling perception of objects off their perpendic
ular ; for example, the room, floor, and all, sloping to one side.
(Weight affected.)
‘ Colours in her work, or otherwise, long looked at, are slow to
quit her sight. She has noises in her head, and a sensation of heat
all over it; and, last of all, when asked if she ever experienced acute
pain elsewhere about the head than in the lower range of the fore
head, she answered that three several times she was suddenly affected
with such excruciating throbbing pain on the top of the head, that
she had almost fainted; and when asked to put her finger on the
spot, she put the points of each forefinger precisely on the organ of
Wonder, on each side of the coronal surface I’
In the same paper Mr Simpson adduces the singular illusive
perceptions suffered occasionally by Mr John Hunter, the great
anatomist, several of which are identical with Miss S. L.’s. In the
eighteenth and other numbers of the Phrenological Journal, other
cases of spectral illusions are mentioned, several with local pain,
which are held to corroborate the inferences drawn from that of Miss
S. L. But the case of that lady seems to us the most comprehensive
on the subject.
In a subsequent paper by Mr Simpson (in No. 7), the most brief
and satisfactory explanation of the illusions of the English OpiumEater is given. The forms and faces that persecuted him in millions
(Form diseased)—the expansion of a night into a hundred years
(Time)—his insufferable lights and splendours (Colour)—his descent
for millions of miles without finding a bottom (Weight or Resistance,
giving the feeling of support, diseased)—all described by him with
an eloquence that startled the public—are only aggravated illusions,
28
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
•due to his irregularities. It is extremely probable that the intoxi
cating gas affects the same organs.
ILLUSIONS FROM ARTIFICE.
Illusions from the use of phantasmagoria, magic lanterns, mirrors,
and other means of deception connected with professed jugglery,
need not here be more than alluded to. Illusions arising from the
alleged appearance of, and intercourse with, spirits, are of a different
kind, and a regular notice of such would form a dark chapter in the
history of our popular superstitions. In all ages, there have been
persons who lived by imposing on the vulgar, and pretending to
possess supernatural powers. Others, either through heedlessness or
a wanton spirit of mischief, have inflicted scarcely less injury on
society by terrifying children and weak-minded persons with tales of
ghosts and other spectral appearances. It is little more than a cen
tury since the metropolis was thrown into a state of extraordinary
excitement by the Cock Lane ghost; and as the history of this affair
will best illustrate the absurdity of this class of illusions, we may be
allowed to add it to our list of apparition anecdotes.
About the year 1759, Mr Kempe, a gentleman from the county of
Norfolk, came to reside with the sister of his deceased wife, in the
house of a Mr Parsons in Cock Lane, near Smithfield. The lady, it
appears, slept with a girl, the daughter of Parsons, and complained
of being disturbed with very unaccountable noises. From this or
some other cause, Mr Kempe and his sister-in-law removed to
another lodging in Bartlett Street. Here, unfortunately, the lady,
who passed by the name of Mrs Kempe, was attacked with small-pox,
and died ; and on the 2d of February 1760, her body was interred in
a vault in St John’s Church, Clerkenwell.
From this event two years elapsed, when a report was propagated
that a great knocking and scratching had been heard in the night at
the house of Parsons, to the great terror of all the family ; all methods
employed to discover the cause of it being ineffectual. This noise
was always heard under the bed in which lay two children, the
eldest of whom had slept with Mrs Kempe, as already mentioned,
during her residence in this house. To find out whence it proceeded,
Mr Parsons ordered the wainscot to be taken down ; but the knocking
and scratching, instead of ceasing, became more violent than ever.
The children were then removed into the two pair of stairs room,
whither they were followed by the same noise, which sometimes
continued during the whole night.
From these circumstances, it was apprehended that the house was
haunted ; and the elder child declared that she had, some time
before, seen the apparition of a woman, surrounded, as it were, by a
blazing light. But the girl was not the only person who was favoured
with a sight of this luminous lady. A publican in the neighbour29
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
hood, bringing a pot of beer into the house, about eleven o’clock at
night, was so terrified that he let the beer fall, upon seeing on the
stairs, as he was looking up, the bright shining figure of a woman,
which cast such a light that he could see the dial in the charityschool, through a window in that building. The figure passed by him,
and beckoned him to follow ; but he was too much terrified to obey
its directions, ran home as fast as possible, and was taken very ill.
About an hour after this Mr Parsons himself, having occasion to go
into another room, saw the same apparition.
As the knocking and scratching only followed the children, the
girl who had seen the supposed apparition was interrogated what
she thought it was like. She declared it was Mrs Kempe, who about
two years before had lodged in the house. On this information,
the circumstances attending Mrs Kempe’s death were recollected,
and were pronounced by those who heard them to be of a dark and
disagreeable nature. Suspicions were whispered about, tending to
inculpate Mr Kempe ; fresh circumstances were brought to light, and
it was hinted that the deceased had not died a natural death ; that,
in fact, she had been poisoned.
The knocking and scratching now began to be more violent; they
seemed to proceed from underneath the bedstead of the child, who
was sometimes thrown into violent fits and agitations. In a word,
Parsons gave out that the spirit of Mrs Kempe had taken possession
of the girl. The noises increased in violence, and several gentle
men were requested to sit up all night in the child’s room. On the
13th of January, between eleven and twelve o’clock at night, a
respectable clergyman was sent for, who, addressing himself to the
supposed spirit, desired that, if any injury had been done to the
person who had lived in that house, he might be answered in the
affirmative, by one single knock ; if the contrary, by two knocks.
This was immediately answered by one knock. He then asked
several questions, which were all very rationally answered in the
same way. Crowds now went to hear the ghost; among others, Dr
Johnson, ‘the Colossus of British literature,’ who was imposed on like
the rest. Many persons, however, would not be duped. Suspecting
a trick, with the sanction of the lord mayor, they set themselves
carefully to watch the movements of the girl. The supposed ghost
having announced that it would attend any gentleman into the vault
under St John’s Church, in which the body of Mrs Kempe was
entombed, and point out the coffin by knocking on the lid, several
persons proceeded to the vault accordingly, there to await the result.
On entering this gloomy receptacle at midnight, the party waited
for some time in silence for the spirit to perform its promise, but
nothing ensued. . The person accused by the ghost then went down,
with several others, into the vault, but no effect was perceived.
Returning to the bedroom of the girl, the party examined her closely,
but could draw no confession from her; on their departure, however,
30
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
towards morning, they arrived at the conviction that the girl possessed
the art of counterfeiting noises. Further examinations took place, and
ultimately it was discovered that she was a finished impostor. They
found that she had been in the habit of taking with her to bed a thin
and sonorous piece of wood, on which she produced the noises that
had deceived such crowds of credulous individuals. Parsons, who had
been privy to the plot for injuring the reputation of Mr Kempe, with
his daughter and several accomplices, were now taken into custody;
and after a trial before Lord Mansfield, were condemned to variousterms of imprisonment; Parsons being, in addition, ordered to stand,
in the pillory. Such was the termination of an affair which not
only found partisans among the weak and credulous, but' even stag
gered many men reputed for possessing sound understandings. A
worthy clergyman, whose faith was stronger than his reason, and
who had warmly interested himself in behalf of the reality of the
spirit, was so overwhelmed with grief and chagrin, that he did not
long survive the detection of the imposture.
CONCLUSION.
A word of advice may now be given in conclusion to those whoare subject to illusions of a spectral kind. If hysteria, epilepsy,
or any well-marked bodily affection be an accompaniment of these
illusions, of course remedial measures should be used which have
a reference to these maladies, and the physician is the party to be
applied to. If, however, no well-defined bodily ailment exists, a
word of counsel may be useful from ourselves. We believe that,
in general, spectral illusions are caused by disorders originating
in the alimentary system, and that the continued use of stimulating
liquors is to be most commonly blamed for the visitation. If the
patient is conscious that this- is the case, his path to relief lies open
before him. The removal of the cause will almost always remove
the effect. At the same time, the process of cure may be slow.
The imagination becomes morbidly active in such cases, and many
maintain the illusions after the digestive system is restored to order.
But this will not be the case long, for the morbidity of the imagina
tion does not usually survive, for any length of time, the restoration
of the sanity of the body. To effect a cure of the fundamental
derangement of the alimentary system, aperient medicines may be
used in the first instance, and afterwards tonics—nourishing food,
in small quantities, at the outset—and gentle but frequent exercise
in the open air. Last, but not least, for the cure of the sufferer
from spectral illusions, the indulgence in cheerful society is to be
recommended. Solitude infallibly nurses the morbidity of the
imagination. The notion that the use of ardent spirits should only
be dropped by degrees, is found to be a mistake. Even in instances
of the most inveterate drunkards, no harm follows from instantaneous
31
�SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.
abstinence. Therefore, as a little too often leads to much in the
matter of drinking, those who would break off the practice should
not be over-indulgent to themselves, through fear of the consequences
•of change. If opium have been the cause of the illusions, a gradual
cessation from its use may be advisable.
Should the sufferer from spectral illusions be conscious of no error
as regards the use of stimulants or narcotics, some affection of
the brain may be suspected, and headaches will corroborate this
suspicion. . Local or general blood-letting will prove in most cases
the best remedy. Leeches or cupping may be tried in the first place,
and, if tried ineffectively, the lancet may then be employed.
With rdspect to the demonstrable truthfulness of stories of appari
tions, we consider that the whole may be referred to natural causes.
Let us think of the apparent reasons for the majority of spectral
communications, supposing them to be supernatural. Can we deem
it accordant with the dignity of that great Power which orders
the universe, that a spirit should be sent to warn a libertine of
his death ? Or that a spiritual messenger should be commissioned
to walk about an old manor-house, dressed in a white sheet, and
dragging clanking chains, for no better purpose than to frighten
old women and servant-girls, as said to be done in all hauntedchamber cases? Or that a supernatural being should be charged
with the notable task of tapping on bed-heads, pulling down plates,
and making a clatter among tea-cups, as in the case of the Stockwell ghost, and a thousand others ? The supposition is monstrous.
If to any one inhabitant of this earth—a petty atom, occupying a
speck of a place on a ball which is itself an insignificant unit among
millions of spheres—if .to such a one a supernatural communication
was deigned, certainly it would be for some purpose worthy, of the
all-wise Communicator, and fraught with importance to the recipient
of the message, as well, perhaps, as to his whole race.
32
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Victorian Blogging
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Spectral illusions
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Apparitions
Hallucinations and illusions
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1
t
tv.
AND
'f:
Thought Transference:
THEIR MEANING AND RECENT HISTORY
M. EDEN PAUL, M.D.
[issued
for the rationalist press association, limited]
London *
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
Price Threepence
��NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
AND
THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE:
THEIR MEANING AND RECENT HISTORY
BY
M. EDEN PAUL, M.D.
[issued
for the rationalist press association, limited]
London:
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C
1911
��Psychical Research and Thought
Transference
NT EARLY thirty years have elapsed since the foundation,
1
in 1882, of the Society for Psychical Research, whose
purpose it was, as stated in its first manifesto, to make “ an
organised and systematic attempt to investigate that large
group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms
as ‘mesmeric,’ ‘psychical,’ and ‘spiritualistic.’” Six
committees were appointed to deal with different sections of
the inquiry; the references to these committees will be
given in the sequel. The “ occult ” phenomena for whose
study the Society was founded exhibit a relationship and to
some degree a historic continuity with three others that have
played a great part in certain stages of human history—viz.,
magic, witchcraft, and miracle.
The belief in all three of
these latter still persists in many parts of the world ; in
Western Europe a belief in magic and miracle was dominant
throughout the period known as the Dark Ages ; the belief
in witchcraft—which is but another form of the other beliefs
—was widely prevalent in Europe during the two centuries
that followed the Protestant Reformation, and will be found
lingering in out-of-the-way corners even in our own day.
(In the Island of Alderney, where I lived from 1903 to 1905,
the belief in witchcraft was certainly still maintained among
those belonging to the old island families, and occasionally
gave rise to scandals ; but the people were shy of exposing
their credulity to strangers.) Among the half-educated
peasantry of Southern Europe a belief in the power of the
Evil Eye is said to be still almost universal.
With the spread of Rationalism, and the gradual growth
of a reasoned belief, based on positive science,in a universe
subject to invariable laws, the belief in the occult powers of
magicians, witches, and miracle-mongers gradually declined.
3
�4
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Ghosts, frequently seen as long as people believed in their
existence, seemed to wither and vanish before the chill blasts of
incredulity. But, notwithstanding the general decay of belief
in the occult, revivals have from time to time occurred,
displaying all the vigour and expansive energy of new
religious faiths. It will suffice to mention three of these,
(i) Mesmer (1734-1815), an inspired charlatan, discovered or
rediscovered certain obscure powers and peculiarities of the
human mind ; and his work, notwithstanding all the follies,
delusions, and impostures with which “mesmerism” has
been associated, was the starting-point of the science now
known as hypnotism, and of the practical methods of healing
which we shall subsequently consider under the name of
“psychotherapeutics.” (2) In 1848, at Rochester, New York
State, were living certain girls named Fox, in whose presence
there occurred curious rapping noises, widely known at the
time as the “Rochester knockings.”
“From this small
beginning,” writes Mr. Podmore, in his Studies in Psychical
Research, “ the occurrence of mysterious raps betraying an
intelligent source, and referred by some to the agency of
spirits, by others to supernormal powers exercised uncon
sciously by the ‘mediums,’ and by a few scientific men who
investigated the occurrences at the time to voluntary
‘cracking’ (i.e., partial dislocation) of the knee-joints on the
part of the girls concerned, arose the whole movement of
modern Spiritualism.” (3) Finally, the last twenty-five years
have witnessed the origination, also in the United States of
America, of the latest of that country’s numerous new religious
faiths, “ Christian Science ” (so called, apparently, on the
lucus a non lucendo principle, because it attempts to reconcile
the irreconcilable—Christianity and science—without having
anything to do with either). The historical continuity with
mesmerism of this strange creed—whose founder, Mrs. Eddy,
died only a short time ago—has been lucidly traced by
Mr. Podmore in his work on Mesmerism and Christian
Science.
In an article on “ Mysticism and the Reputed Reaction
from Naturalism,” published in the Literary Gttnde for
March, 1911, the present writer endeavoured to show how
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
5
the very spread of Rationalism, which has led to the over
throw of the earlier forms of occultism—magic, witchcraft,
and thaumaturgy, or miracle-mongering — and has at the
same time undermined the faith of many in the olderestablished religious beliefs, is, in a sense, responsible for
the appearance of the luxuriant crop of neo-occultisms
and neo-religions for which the nineteenth century will be
memorable in the history of human error. Their aim has
been, either to restore the belief in immortality, which had
been associated with a belief in the dogmas of one of the
older religious creeds, but which had been shaken in con
sequence of a loss of faith in these dogmas ; or else, to find
some means of curing or preventing disease more speedy
and certain than the methods of ordinary medical science. I
shall hope to show that, while the primary object of search
has in neither case been attained, yet, as often happens, a
by-result of the search will prove of greater interest and
perhaps of greater value to humanity than the original aim.
Now let us ask what was the general attitude of able men
whose minds had been rigorously trained to a belief in what
is called “ the uniformity of nature ” by means of the prolonged
study of science, and especially of physical science, towards
the phenomena which the Society for Psychical Research set
itself to investigate. It was, as a rule, one of rather obstinate
incredulity. And there was no small justification for such an
attitude. Professional mediums, persons who gained a live
lihood by means of the demonstration to the credulous of
such phenomena as those exhibited by the above-mentioned
Fox Sisters, of Rochester, U.S.A., had again and again been
detected in gross frauds ; and yet these proved cheats never
failed to find ardent defenders and fresh victims. To the
physicist, as to Robert Browning, they were all in the same
class with “Mr. Sludge, the Medium.” As regards the amateur
experimentalists, playing at the fashionable game of “table
turning” in their drawing-rooms after dinner, when Faraday
came with a cleverly-devised “ indicator ” and proved beyond
the possibility of reasonable doubt that the motion of the table
was solely due to the unconscious muscular action of the per
formers, many of the table-turners refused to accept the proof.
�6
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
“ Faraday may have proved,” said A, “that B and his circle
moved the table with their hands ; but we know that we do
not." Yet, when A was asked to test the value of his belief
by the use of the same indicator, he declined to do so, for he
would not be so “ irreverent” as to show any “distrust ” of
the source of the wonderful “spirit-communications” his
table had rapped out (see Carpenter’s Mental Physiology,
4th ed., pp. 293-6). It is hardly surprising that such a man
as Tyndall, after attending a spiritualistic sitting and detect
ing what to him was satisfactory evidence of conscious or
unconscious fraud, should write {Lectures and Essays—
“ Science and the ‘ Spirits ’ ”) : “ The victims like to believe,
and they do not like to be undeceived. Science is perfectly
powerless in the presence of this frame of mind......... Surely
no baser delusion ever obtained dominance over the weak
mind of man.”
A psychologist like Carpenter, one of the first scientific
elucidators of the activity of the sub conscious mind, having
made a detailed study of the phenomena of mesmerism and
spiritualism, naturally took a more cautious and less dogmatic
view than a pure physicist such as Tyndall. Witness, for
example, Carpenter’s admirable summary of the various
mental attitudes towards the phenomena in question {Mental
Physiology, p. 611 et seq.} :—
Some persist in the determination to disbelieve in the genuineness
of all the asserted facts, designating them as “all humbug,” and
maintaining that none but fools or knaves could uphold such non
sense......... Others, again, admit such of the facts as seem to them the
least repugnant to common-sense ; but, without attempting to give
any rational explanation of these, consider they have sufficiently dis
posed of them by characterising them as “ all imagination.”....... The
members of the medical profession have too generally satisfied them
selves with the phrase “ all hysterical ”—a reply which affords no
real information......... Then there is a class of partial believers, who
admit there is “ something in it ”—they cannot exactly tell what.........
And the ascending series is terminated by that assemblage of thorough
going believers who find nothing too hard for “ spiritual ” agency,
nothing improbable (much less impossible) in any of its reputed per
formances......... It is a phenomenon of no small interest to the student
of human nature that from the first of these classes the transition
should often be immediate and abrupt to the last. It is, in fact, from
the very same disposition to jump at important conclusions without
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
7
due examination....... that a large proportion of mankind become utter
sceptics on the one hand, or thoroughgoing believers on the other.
A feather’s weight will often turn the scale when it is vibrating
between these two states.
Referring to the class of cases in which a number of more
or less credible witnesses combine to testify to some apparently
incredible occurrence—such as the “ levitation ” of the human
body ; that is, the raising of a human being from the ground
without any evident or adequate physical means—Carpenter
shows that similar occurrences were reported in connection
with witchcraft. “Thus” (p. 634), “ in 1657, Richard Jones,
a sprightly lad of twelve years old, living at Shepton Mallet,
was bewitched by one Jane Brooks. He was seen to rise in
the air, and pass over a garden wall some thirty yards ; and
at other times was found in a room with his hands flat against
a beam at the top of the room, and his body two or three feet
from the ground, nine people at a time seeing him in this
position. Jane Brooks was accordingly condemned and
executed at Chard Assizes, in March, 1658.”
Before we dismiss this brilliant and original writer (Dr.
Carpenter), let us study the canons he laid down for
investigations in this obscure and debatable field of inquiry.
He considered that reports of occult phenomena which appear
to conflict with the generally accepted acquirements of positive
science must all be rejected, “save those” (p. 626) “which
shall have been carefully, sagaciously, and perseveringly
investigated, by observers fully qualified for the task, by
habits of philosophical discrimination, by entire freedom
from prejudice, and by a full acquaintance with the numerous
and varied sources of fallacy which attend this particular
department of inquiry. These being the rules of other
branches of scientific research, there is no reason why they
should be departed from in one which so pre-eminently
needs a constant reference to the canons of sound philo
sophy.”
Now, it must be noted that it is precisely on the lines
thus wisely and carefully formulated that the Societies for
Psychical Research in England and America have, during
the last thirty years, conducted their investigations ; and it is
�8
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
to this fact that they owe the attainment of certain results of
enduring value. Let us consider some of these results. The
first committee of the English S. P. R. was appointed to
examine “the nature and extent of any influence which may
be exerted by one mind upon another, apart from any generally
recognised mode of perception.” This has been one of the
most fruitful branches of inquiry, and, in conjunction with
several of the other lines of research, it has led, in the opinion
of many of the most cautious and unprejudiced members of
the Society, to the adequate proof of the existence of the
faculty of thought-transference or “telepathy.” This will be
discussed in some detail presently.
The second committee was appointed for “ the study of
hypnotism, and the forms of the so-called mesmeric trance,
with its alleged insensibility to pain ; clairvoyance, and other
allied phenomena.” At the date of the foundation of the
Society, notwithstanding the work of Elliotson, Esdaile,
Braid (all Englishmen), and other early students of “animal
magnetism,” hypnotism was in England a neglected
branch of psychic inquiry. On the Continent also, owing to
the early association of “mesmerism” with charlatanry, the
subject had fallen into disrepute. But in the last thirty years
the science of hypnotism has been placed on a sure foundation ;
its study has greatly increased our knowledge of the workings
alike of the normal and of the abnormal mind ; and psycho
therapeutics has become an accredited branch of the healing
art. The advance of knowledge has thus taken the study of
hypnotic manifestations largely out of the hands of the
Society for Psychical Research ; and all that is necessary
here is to detail briefly the historic lines of development of
mesmerism or animal magnetism.
“Trance,” apart from
hypnotism, will be considered later.
Through its appeal, on the one hand to the perennial
interest in healing of a suffering humanity, and on the other
hand to the love of the marvellous of a bored and inquisitive
humanity, mesmerism became the historic parent of two
divergent tendencies. The love of the marvellous and the
development of the more occult aspect of mesmerism gave
birth to modern spiritualism ; the desire for a better means of
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
9
treatment of numerous chronic and apparently incurable
diseases gave rise to “mental healing,” “faith-healing,
“Christian Science,” and on the scientific side to psycho
therapeutics. The mental healers, mind curers, etc., fastened
from the first upon the psychical side of mesmerism. Had
the medical profession not been so slow to adopt “ suggestion
(always a large unconscious element in the physician’s
success) as a recognised part of the medical art, it is likely
that such faith-healing shrines as Lourdes and such new
quasi-religious cults as Christian Science might have been
less successful. But the profession is slow to move out of
its old grooves, and therefore deserves to suffer at the hands
of its rivals. Whatever the causes of the success of Christian
Science, that success is greatly to be regretted—more to be
regretted than the growth of most other superstitions, evil as
they all are. For the disciples of Mrs. Eddy are taught to
believe in what is called “ malicious animal magnetism ;
and this involves, in effect, a revival of the belief in witch
craft, of which our race has rid itself with so much difficulty.
In the second place, the Christian Scientists do much harm
by the application of their doctrine that “ disease is a delusion ”
to illnesses in which the psychic element is slight—as, for
instance, to broken legs and typhoid fever.
Finally, it is
assuredly a distressing fact that in our day, and among a
people claiming to lead the van of civilisation, a new creed
should gain millions of adherents, when that creed is utterly
devoid, as is Christian Science, of all humanist enthusiasm.
The third committee was appointed for the study of
“sensitives,” and to ascertain if they have any “powers of
perception other than a highly exalted sensibility of the
recognised sensory organs.” Here, also, the work of the
Society has tended to convince its members of the reality of
thought-transference. The same is true of their study of
what is called “clairvoyance,” or “ second-sight ” (a sub
section of the work of the second committee). In so far as
alleged cases of clairvoyance, crystal-gazing, and the like,
are not due to misrepresentation, illusion, or deliberate fraud,
the results of this inquiry tend to strengthen the evidence in
favour of a belief in the reality of thought-transference.
�IO
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
The fourth committee was to undertake “a careful
investigation of....... reports........ regarding apparitions at the
moment of death, or otherwise, or regarding disturbances in
houses reputed to be haunted.” As regards “haunted”
houses, of which I shall write very briefly, the Society has
examined a large mass of evidence, much of it of little true
evidential value. Some of the residual evidence, after the
most thorough sifting, would appear to demand for its
explanation the existence of some hitherto unknown or
“occult” force—if not “haunting” by a demon or dis
embodied spirit, at least the occurrence of telepathic hallucina
tions. “ Rats ” and “ lies ” will not explain all the evidence
in this department 1
As regards the accounts of “death-visions” or “ phantasms
of the dying,” there are few who have not heard some such
story, at least at third or fourth hand. I will give here an
example of the kind of case of which an enormous number
have been reported to the Society ; choosing this case, not
because it is what is called a “strong ” one, but because it is
rather typical, and because I have first-hand knowledge of
the facts.
“ On Friday, December 8, 1893, an English lady, living
in Japan, woke with a start at 11.5 p.m., after a very brief
sleep, saying she had seen her father fall dead in a shop.
She thinks he had just gone in, but is not clear what gave
her this impression ; she saw him clutch the counter, stand
in this position for a short time, and then fall dead. It was
a very real image, a vision rather than an ordinary dream,
and frightened her very much. But she admits that it is
most likely all nonsense.” (The above is a transcription of
the actual note, written down thirty minutes after the
awakening from the “vision” by someone who was present
when it took place—not by the person who had the vision.)
Now at this time Mrs. X. had no definite knowledge that
her father was dangerously ill ; nor had she any knowledge
of his death (other than that conveyed by the vision) until
she received a letter towards the end of January, 1894,
telling her that he had died in Glasgow at 4 a.m. on
Saturday, December 9, 1893. This is the sort of material
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
11
out of which most of these “ death-visions ” are constructed.
They are common enough ; what is rather exceptional about
this “ vision ” is that we have a precise record made at the
time of the occurrence, and that the record is corroborated
to some extent by further knowledge of the facts. In the
absence of such a record, and in the hands of uncritical
lovers of the marvellous, discrepancies would have been
forgotten, and that there had been a highly dramatic vision
of the actual death at the actual time of its occurrence would
have become a legendary belief in the families of those
*
concerned.
As a matter of fact, Mrs. X.’s vision occurred,
by Greenwich time, about nine hours earlier than the time
stated above. That is to say, when the vision occurred in
Japan at 11.5 p.m., it was, in Glasgow, 1.45 p.m. on the same
day, Friday, Decembers. The father died at 4 a.m. on the
Saturday morning, fourteen hours later. Moreover, as the
hour suggests, he was not in a shop, but in bed, when he
died, and he had been in bed, profoundly unconscious, since
the previous Sunday. The vision may have been suggested
by thought-transference from someone at the bedside of the
dying man ; but it is to be noted, first, that Mrs. X., before
she had the vision, was aware that her father suffered from
chronic heart-disease, and that she had had several recent
letters indicating increasing anxiety about his health ;
secondly, that some years before, when Mrs. X. was in a
hairdresser’s shop in Glasgow, in a room off the main shop,
a man came into the latter, and suddenly dropped dead
while standing at the counter. It seems more probable that
her vision was constructed out of a combination of her
apprehensions for her father with memories of this earlier
experience than that there was any telepathic communication.
In this way many of the stories of “death-visions” in
which there is a precise and trustworthy record (and no
others have any evidential value) prove, on close scrutiny,
to be explicable without recourse to any “occult” influences
* Such was, in fact, the belief of the lady herself, when spoken to about
the matter a few days ago, and the production of the contemporary record
was necessary to convince her that her 11 mythopceic faculty” had been
at work !
�12
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
whatever. But there are others among the large number
studied by the Society which, provided there is neither
deliberate nor unconscious misrepresentation, can be ex
plained only by thought-transference—either from the dying,
or else (especially in those cases in which the vision occurs
shortly after the death) from those who have stood beside
the death-bed. Unless, indeed, to account for manifesta
tions of the latter order, we prefer the hypothesis (which to
me seems to involve far greater difficulties) of the influence—
telepathic or other—of a disembodied spirit.
Besides dealing with visions of the dying, the S. P. R.
undertook an investigation of the very numerous cases in
which visions, simultaneous or deferred, of living persons at
a distance were perceived ; in some cases these are stated to
have been experimentally produced—i.e., the experimenter
deliberately willed to appear in a vision before some absent
friend, and succeeded in doing so. Evidentially, the most
valuable cases of the last-named kind are, of couse, those in
which the vision is produced unexpectedly, in the entire
absence of pre-arrangement. A number of these “telepathic
hallucinations,” as they are termed, have been published in
the well-known volumes by Gurney and others, Phantasms
of the Living. It need hardly be said that telepathic hallu
cinations, when accurately recorded, and when the good
faith of the experimenters and percipients is beyond question,
afford the strongest possible evidence of the reality of the
alleged faculty of telepathy.
The fifth committee of the S. P. R. was formed to under
take “ an inquiry into the various physical phenomena
commonly called spiritualistic, and to attempt to discover
their causes and general laws.” In the introduction to the
last work finished by Mr. Podmore before his death, The
Newer Spiritualism, the author points out that prior to the
days of Swedenborg the “ spirits ” with whom people believed
themselves to hold converse were spirits sent by God or by
the powers of darkness, and that Swedenborg appears to have
been the first to claim that he held intercourse with pvyal in
the sense of Homer—with the souls or spirits of the departed.
This is a point of the first importance, for the following
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
i3
reason. In his brilliant volume on The Churches and Modern
Thought, Mr. Vivian quotes Mr. Lowes Dickinson upon the
subject of religious “ conversions,” based upon direct personal
revelation, as follows :—
The truth supposed to be revealed at the moment of conversion is
commonly, if not invariably, the reflection of the doctrine or theory
with which the subject, whether or no he has accepted it, has hitherto
been most familiar. I have never heard, for example, of a case in
which a Mohammedan or a Hindoo, without having ever heard ot
Christianity, has had a revelation of Christian truth. Conversion,
in fact, it would seem, is not the communication of a new truth ; it
is a presentation of ideas already familiar in such a way that they
are accompanied by an irresistible certainty that they aie true.
There is a strong analogy here with the supposed com
munications with extra-human intelligences. In the Middle
Ages, when people had a vivid belief in the existence of
angels and devils, it was with angels and devils that they
held communion. Martin Luther not only saw the devil,
but even threw an inkpot at him (perhaps a better use than
he ordinarily made of his writing materials). Japanese and
Chinese peasant girls, who have a firm belief, in evil spirits
in the form of foxes, will talk freely to hallucinatory demon
foxes. Similarly, Swedenborg and his spiritualistic followers
communicate with the spirits of the kind they believe in the
souls of the departed. Communications are occasionally
made at spiritualistic sittings which appear at first sight to
involve a preternatural knowledge on the part of the medium ;
but of such communications few will bear strict criticism, and
of those that do the great majority, if not all, find their readiest
explanation by the hypothesis of thought-transference. The
trance-personality (for the medium, when not a vulgar cheat,
is commonly entranced when such communications are made)
would appear at times to have an exceptionally powerful
telepathic faculty. But most of the mysteries at the ordinary
spiritualistic sitting would appear to be explicable by the
extreme credulousness and by the unwitting self-deception of
those who take part in them. Hodgson, of the American
S. P. R-, has laid especial stress on this fact, and has pointed
out that the medium’s art, like the conjurer’s, consists in
�PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
diverting the sitter’s attention at critical moments in such a
manner that he himself remains unaware of the momentarylapse. This “dissociation of consciousness,” or “unrealised
break in attention,” explains much that would otherwise be
puzzling. It is often maintained that there must be a great
deal more in spiritualism than is commonly admitted, because
of the attention paid to spiritualistic phenomena by such
leading men of science as Wallace, Lombroso, Richet,
Crookes, and Lodge—men accustomed to precise observation.
.Those who take this line forget that neither in biological nor
in physical experimentation is unremitting attention required,
and that the men I have named can be as easily deceived by
a clever conjurer as anyone else (as Sir Oliver Lodge himself
would probably be the first to admit).
Of the mediums producing “ the physical phenomena of
spiritualism, the one who in recent years has attracted most
attention is the Italian peasant woman, Eusapia Palladino.
After an exhaustive study of the records of her sittings, Mr.
Podmore comes to the conclusion that to explain her results
it is only necessary to assume on the part of the sitters
hallucination of the sense of touch and occasional lapses of
attention. Apart altogether from the question of “spirit
agency,” these assumptions are surely simpler than the
assumption of the quasi-spiritualists, that the “ physical
phenomena ” of spiritualism are “ manifestations of a new
and unknown force of nature.” As long ago as 1874 Crookes
pointed out that, to establish the existence of such a hypo
thetical “new force,” all that would be necessary would be
(under test conditions) (1) to deposit no more than tWt of a
grain of matter in the pan of a locked balance, or (2) to carry
tAt of a grain of arsenic into the interior of a sealed tube.
No such evidence has ever been obtained. Eusapia has
actually been detected in deliberate trickery ; and although
this perhaps cannot be said of all “ professional mediums,”*
Mr. Podmore’s conclusion is that, “as the case stands, it may
fairly be claimed that the occurrence of physical phenomena
is frima facie evidence—I had almost said of fraud, but the
Daniel Dung'las Home appears to be the solitary exception.
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
*5
word does not fit the facts—of the production of things which
are other than they seem.”
Mr. Podmore makes this reservation (as to the use of the
word “ fraud ”) for an important reason related to the
peculiarities of the trance personality. Sometimes in con
nection with the production of physical phenomena, but
above all in connection with automatic writing (by means of
which the famous—non-professional—medium, Mrs. Piper,
produces her often mysterious revelations), the medium is apt
to pass into a trance state, allied to, but perhaps not identical
with, the hypnotic trance. Now this is one of the cases in
which the direct study of hypnotism has thrown much light
on the phenomena. The medium in the waking state may
be a person whose honesty is above suspicion ; but the trance
state is one of what is called “ secondary consciousness,”
which may be very different from the primary or waking
consciousness ; and “ the presumption of honesty based on
the character and conduct of waking life counts for nothing
in the case of a medium who is liable to pass into spontaneous
trances.” The secondary consciousness is generally a maimed
and mutilated form of the primary consciousness which is
our friend ; it is commonly non-moral, so that it does not
respect what is, and still less what ought to be. It has few
scruples, and does not distinguish between fact and fiction ;
it has a strong dramatic faculty, being inclined to cultivate
“ art for art’s sake
it cannot say “ I don’t know
it is very
cunning, and at the same time it probably possesses exalted
sensory and perceptive powers—powers altogether in excess
of those possessed by the same person in the primary or
waking state ; and “ in many cases we have proof of a faculty
by which this uncanny monster can on occasion read secret
thoughts.” To sum up, in addition to its increased sensory
and perceptive powers and to its endowment with a mysterious
telepathic faculty upon which no certain limits can be placed,
the secondary personality is “an actor whose mimicry is as
subtle as it is unscrupulous ”; and at the same time it is not
a social being, so that it cannot be relied upon to observe the
ordinary social and moral conventions in respect of truth and
honesty.
�i6
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
Before passing to the consideration of some of the latest
evidence, and to the final discussion of the bearings of all the
evidence, a few words may be given to the literature of the
subject. Few will have access to, and only the enthusiast is
likely to struggle through, the vast bulk of the Proceedings of
the Society for Psychical Research. The most valuable
summaries of the evidence and critical discussions of its
interpretation are to be found in the writings of Mr. Podmore;
and to read all even of these, interesting as they are, is no
mean labour. Mr. Podmore, accidentally drowned last year,
was a member of the Society from the early days; he
approached the matter from the first in a scientific, dispas
sionate, and truly critical spirit; and it is most interesting
to trace his growing conviction that, while many of the
phenomena cannot be explained without invoking the power
of thought-transference, the need for any really “occult”
explanation (in the “spiritualistic” sense) does not exist.
Most of his principal works have already been mentioned ;
they are, Studies in Psychical Research, Apparitions and
Thought-Transference, Mesmerism and Christian Science,
and The Newer Spiritualism. The works of Gurney, Myers,
and Lodge are also of great value, and are all written in the
scientific spirit, though the two last-mentioned authors incline
rather to accept the view that the mundane activity of dis
embodied spirits has been established by the evidence.
Essays in Psychical Research, by Miss Goodrich-Freer (the
“ Miss X ” of the S. P. R.), is also useful. There are works
by more fervent believers in the spiritist theory, too numerous
to mention, which those who wish to make an exhaustive
study of the subject will do well to read. Anyone with access
to a good library of fiction will find in The Tyranny of the
Dark, by Hamlin Garland, a talented American writer, a
novel which presents the facts and problems of the newer
spiritualism as fairly and picturesquely as Howell’s The
Undiscovered Country presented those of the spiritualism
of an earlier day.
The main fruits of the work of the S. P. R. have been
twofold. In the first place, the Society’s study of abnormal
psychic manifestations, in conjunction with the scientific
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
i7
study of hypnotism altogether apart from the work of the
S. P. R., has thrown much light upon the nature of human
consciousness. To the newer experimental psychology, as
Mr. Podmore says, the “ unity of consciousness ” is an
illusion ; like the elementary nature of air, fire, earth, and
water, it is the fruit of youthful ignorance. The laboratory
and the alienist’s clinic show that consciousness, in the last
analysis, is but the casual and transitory co-ordination of
countless ill-defined and variable elements.
And, he
continues, “to found an argument for the survival of the soul
on the supposed unity and indissolubility of this shifting
aggregation must seem, indeed, the building of a house upon
the sand.” In the second place, we owe to the Society the
rescue from the hands of charlatans of the mysterious faculty
of telepathy.
But before passing to our final conclusions on the subject
of thought-transference, let us consider some of the latest
evidence, obtained largely from the automatic writings of
Mrs. Piper, but also from several other automatic writers—
Mrs. Holland, Mrs. Verrail, etc.—who have been engaged in
a lengthy series of experiments.
The most remarkable
features of these experiments have been what are termed
“cross correspondences.” From November, 1906, to June,
1907, Mrs. Piper was in England, and gave a number of
sittings, producing large quantities of automatic writings.
During the same period Mrs. Holland was in India, knowing
nothing then about the Piper sittings being held simul
taneously in England, but conducting independent experi
ments in automatic writing. Mrs. Verrail, at the same time,
was practising automatic writing. Now, when these various
automatic scripts are collated, certain correspondences appear
in their subject-matter; and, what is still more extraordinary,
the different writings contain certain allusions which, when
studied separately, seem unmeaning, but which become explic
able by the light they throw each upon the others ; just as if—
as, indeed, the trance personality of Mrs. Piper maintains to be
the case—some disembodied consciousness, independent ot
our limitations of space and time, were endeavouring to
demonstrate its reality by this means. It is not possible here
�i8
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
to give details, but I have carefully studied Mr. Podmore’s
collation of the evidence. As he says, there are coincidences
of thought and expression much too numerous to be accounted
for by chance.
There is something extraordinary to be
explained. It may ultimately be proved that there is no
indication of disembodied spiritual agency ; but to prove that
it is necessary to assume the action of living minds upon one
another of an altogether unprecedented kind.
In the present state of the evidence it is not possible to
dogmatise as to its bearing.
Provisionally, those who
examine it will accept a working hypothesis coincident with
their general opinions regarding the existence or non
existence of disembodied intelligences, and the probable
powers and occupations of these if they do exist.
For
example, the late William James, the great American
psychologist, speaking of the whole record of spirit posses
sion in human history, writes: “The notion that so many
men and women, in all other respects honest enough, should
have this preposterous monkeying self annexed to their per
sonality seems to me so weird that the spirit theory takes on
a more possible appearance.”
But, then, the existence of this “monkeying” secondary
self is proved by hypnotic data ; and the faculty of telepathy
must apparently be assumed to exist in order to explain many
of the obscurer manifestations of psychical activity. Is it not,
then, better to accept the explanation which these two
hypotheses afford, without superadding the enormous im
probabilities involved in the claim that “spirit-control” is a
reality? Entia non sint multiplicanda prceter necessitatem.
It must be remembered that the sympathies of the trance
personality are usually on the side of the “occult”; that,
in the search for “spirit communications,” the history of the
subject shows that demand creates supply ; and that “ distant
telepathy by a disembodied spirit is just as improbable as
distant telepathy from the mind of a living person, with the
superadded gross improbability that the disembodied spirit
exists at all 1 I, at any rate, agree with the view taken by
Mi. Podmore.
He holds that the results of the “ cross
correspondence experiments add considerably to the strength
�AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE
i9
of the case for the existence of supernormal faculty of some
kind, more especially because the other experimental evidence
indicates that telepathic influences act most freely in the
sphere of the automatic or dream consciousness. These
experiments furnish us, in fact, with yet another illustration
of the readiness of our mysterious inner self to meet any
demands that may be made on its dramatic powers.
So
far,” concludes Mr. Podmore, “as my analysis of the complex
cases of cross correspondence has gone, there has been no
coincidence of thought and expression not adequately
explained by the natural association of ideas in minds
occupied by the same themes, aided by occasional telepathic
interaction among the automatists themselves.
Thus the work of the S. P. R. seems, in a sense, to have
been justified by results. If it has not provided the scientific
proof (for which some have hoped, though to me it appears
extremely undesirable) of the reality of conscious life after
death, it has thrown much light on the dark places of
psychology, and it seems to render necessary at least a
provisional belief in the reality of thought transference.
Of the physical or physiological basis of thought trans
ference we know nothing at present; for to speak of “ brain
waves,” or “etheric thought waves,” is to speak of that of
which we know absolutely nothing. But from another point
of view it is permissible to ask what is the nature of the
faculty. Is it, as some suppose, the germ of a developing
faculty destined to play a great part in the future of the race?
Or is it merely the decayed vestige of a primitive faculty of
communication which has been superseded by the develop
ment of articulate speech? To me, indeed, the latter view
seems far more probable. There is considerable evidence
suggesting that a faculty of the nature of telepathy exists
among some of the lower animals. AVatch, for example, a
flight of pigeons wheeling in the sunlight; do they not seem
to turn, now in one direction, now in another—not as if
following a leader, but rather as if in obedience to an impulse
communicated simultaneously to the nervous systems of all
the birds? In the present state of our knowledge the matter
must be left open ; and I will conclude by saying that, if
�20
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
thought transference is a developing instead of a decaying
faculty, there are obvious inconveniences, as George Eliot
has shown, attached to this notion of “The Lifted Veil ” 1
But in this matter our descendants will have to bear their
own burden, if it should ultimately be placed upon their
shoulders.
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Psychical research and thought transference : their meaning and recent history
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Paul, Eden [1865-1944]
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Place of publication: London
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Psychical Research