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vol. title: vol. period: 1882 pages in vol.: 229 |
Notes by the Way.
Contributed by “M.A. (Oxon.)”
The Journal of Science shews a regrettable tendency to fasten on Spiritualists generally an aggressive disposition against biological science, chiefly in consequence of opinions expressed by Mr. Newton Crosland and Dr. Anna Kingsford. I ventured before (see No. 64) to protest against a whole body of persons, who have little or nothing in common beyond this one belief in man’s survival after death, and the possibility of communicating between the world of matter and the world of Spirit, being implicated in the private opinions of any one of its members. Spiritualists have an unquestionable tendency to espouse what a scoffing world calls “crazes.” There is in them a certain fondness for the new and illicit, as against the orthodox and established order of things: and there is too what an American critic called “a certain unripeness of thought,” a jumping to conclusions, a gathering in of surface impressions and explanations, which leads to bewildering results.
I am fully possessed with a belief in that which gives Spiritualism its name and place in modern thought. I am a Spiritualist ex animo. Am I therefore committed to all the views and opinions of my co-believers? Then am I a vegetarian, unless indeed the link between the animal and vegetable world made clear by science causes me to extend to the tender cabbage the sympathy that I feel for the sportive lamb, and refuse to kill either. I drink no wine, nor any strong drink, nor stimulating tea nor coffee, but cheer myself with the “largely diluted sewage” supplied to me by the London waterworks. I eschew narcotics in all their seductive forms. I probably wear some strange form of raiment, being obviously “hygienic” in my proclivities; and, moreover being, as an anti-vivisectionist, averse to the slaughter of animals on any pretence whatever. I am sound on the great vaccination virus question, and refuse to poison or be poisoned. I am strong on the rights of women, and expansive on the rights of man, the chief of them being his inalienable and sacred right to do what he pleases without taking the consequences. When I am sick I am magnetically healed, or perchance am homœopathically pilled, but under no circumstances am I allopathically dosed, it being a principle of mine never to use drugs whose action can be traced in the system. My views on the marriage question I had rather not reveal: an unenlightened and stiff-necked generation is not prepared for them. I draw a vail over other specialities, and only beg that, in the name of logic, and for pity’s sake, our friendly critic will not again involve us all in one common condemnation.
The very case which is used to this end supplies an illustration of what I contend for. Mr. Crosland’s attack on Darwinism is criticised at length as appearing in “the accredited organ of the Spiritualists;” but not one word of allusion is made to that almost savage repudiation of such views printed in the following number by Mr. Podmore, in the course of which he expressly protests against the Quixotism of “championing distressed causes” displayed by so many Spiritualists; and even regrets that such a paper as Mr. Crosland’s was ever published in a journal devoted to Spiritualism. Fairness—a conspicuous quality in the criticisms usually published in the Journal of Science—requires that both bane and antidote should be noticed.
The Theosophist for March contains part the second of the Theosophical declaration of faith, called Fragments of Occult Truth, which I will endeavour to place before my readers in a condensed summary, without interpolating any criticisms of my own. Dealing with the contention so often made in controversies—I know so and so to be the fact—the ground is cleared for discussion by an investigation of what constitutes real knowledge. There are two kinds of knowledge, the real and the illusory, the former dealing with underlying causes, the latter with illusory effects: with essential verities, and with superficial appearances. The Physicist deals with what he claims to be real facts which appeal to his senses: and it is precisely these which the Occultist condemns as “illusory effects, transitory secondary consequences of the real underlying fact.” The knowledge that appeals to the senses cannot get beyond these superficial phenomena. It is unreal. Now arises the question, Is it possible to get below the surface at the real? Can observation be extended beyond the range of the material senses? So only can that knowledge which is concerned with eternal verities and primal causes be attained. The Physicist pooh-poohs any such notion. He hugs his illusion, and refuses to see the reality, doubly deceived and deceiving.
But can the eternal truth be got at? There can be no difficulty in the way of a Spiritualist, who believes that the Spirit of man lives on, thinks, and communicates thought, after bodily death, admitting it to be conceivable that such a spirit may separate itself temporarily from the body during life, and may thus get into relations with the world of spirit. There he, as the adept does, will acquire a knowledge which is real respecting the world of causes, and returning to this illusory world with a clear recollection, will, even in this life, have drunk at the fountain of true knowledge. Not so, however, when the imprisoned Spirit does not rise into direct relation with the world of spirit, but receives its information from a Spirit who descends to communicate with it. It is in the realm of illusion, and its impressions and messages are of necessity potentially illusory.
The Occultist therefore contends as a logical sequence from these considerations, that the adepts alone can possess real knowledge, and that Spiritualists are “mistaken when they think themselves in contact with the Spirits of departed friends, or with such benevolent beings of another sphere” as descend to earth for purposes of instruction. Thus contending, it is incumbent on him, however, to explain every incident of Spiritualism, and to shew how its various phenomena are explicable on other than Spiritualistic hypotheses. This can be done (it is alleged), and accordingly a recital is given of a case of automatic writing through the hand of a Russian lady, in which facts were truly given, mixed with theological beliefs held by the medium; but the communicating Spirit, believed to be dead, was alive in the body all the time. The case reads like one of established Spirit-identity, and might pass as such to a superficial observer. The inference is drawn that one such case vitiates the Spiritualist argument, and shews that any number of such cases do not establish the Spiritualist contention.
What, then, is the Occultist’s explanation? It is this. The fifth principle, the anima, or physical soul of the medium, was the active agent, as the soul of the clairvoyant is during the sleep of the body. She revived early memories, reproduced in the Astral Light, and mixed them up with fanciful bits of religious teaching, giving an account of her relative in Heaven, in company with the Virgin Mary, whereas she was still a dweller on this earth. This is, it is alleged, the case ninety-nine times out of a hundred: though the Spiritualist is too strongly prepossessed to see and own it. If he be a medium he is “fascinated by <... continues on page 13-78 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ Notes by the Way. by unknown author (signed as M.A. (Oxon.)), Light, v. 2, No. 67, April 15, 1882, pp. 173-74
Sources
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Light, v. 2, No. 67, April 15, 1882, pp. 173-74