54...
A SAD LOOKOUT
. . . An English gentleman, a Fellow of the British Theosophical Society, writing to a Hindu Brother Theosophist of Bombay, says the following: “As to the absolutely shocking state at which Spiritualism has arrived in London, you can scarcely form a conception: it has degenerated, in many cases, into the grossest and most immoral forms of the BLACK MAGIC—this is a fact. Physical mediums, materialized spirits, and circles, are often descending to the very lowest depths of . . . moral depravity (we 55substitute a less offensive term). Such a disgusting state of matters, that I even forbear from writing. . . . But you will be able to judge when they (mediums, Spirits, and Spiritualists) familiarly talk of their materialized ‘Spirit wives,’ and ‘husbands.’ . . . I can assure you this is no misstatement of the case.”
This is no news, though a sad confirmation of a state of things we have found growing among the American Spiritualists some years ago. Of course, it is needless to say that highly educated and refined Spiritualists will ever avoid such séance-rooms and circles. Yet we are afraid these are the small minority, while the majority will do everything in their power to attract the Western Piśachas. Surely no “spiritual” minded Spiritualist will ever take us to task for saying that neither the generic “John King,” who descends from “the spheres of light” to drink tea with brandy and eat toast in the medium’s cabinet, nor yet the disembodied clown “Peter,” cracking his vulgar and heavy jokes, can be viewed as “angels.” That both are male Piśachas, we have the assurance from an American lady medium’s own lips.