< The Causes of the Phenomena of Spiritualism (continued from page 4-241) >
not, I would ask whether all human experience and belief on this subject, prior to the year 1847, are to count for nothing? Sub-human spiritual agencies, intelligent and non-intelligent, have been recognised in all ages except the present; and the doctrines respecting them which Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Olcott have put forward have come down to us upon authority which we say ought not to be despised but studied. I contend, for instance, that St. Augustine knew something about u the phenomena of Spiritualism,” and that his statement that “demons” will simulate—and that often with great ingenuity—the characters of deceased persons, is one worth our serious attention. So of the “elementals.” By and by, when we are all agreed that the processes of evolution result in peopling the universe with some few spiritual forms and natures besides our own, perhaps it will be acknowledged that the old world teachings were not so very “profitless,” or at variance with present experience.
Meanwhile allow me to say, in correction of a passage in the letter of M.A., Oxon, this week, that the Theosophical Society did not first announce itself to the American public through the address of its President “in blind faith” in the pretensions of Mr. Felt, at least in the sense (in which alone the statement could have point and relevance) that the society was announced to the public in consequence of this blind faith or sanguine expectation. It is not quite the same thing to hold an opinion in blind faith in a future experiment as to entertain an ill-founded hope of being able to demonstrate an opinion already firmly held by some particular means or process. The publication of that expectation may have been a mistake, but it seemed to be justified, as we learn from Mr. Storer Cobb, by the assurances of a gentleman who, whether he can or cannot, will or will not, display the “elementaries,” was well known for his scientific attainments, which have led him to other results of a very rare and curious order.
Temple, 4th March.
Scientific Bigotry
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"Isis Unveiled" and the Todas
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Editor's notes