Man as a Spirit; Phenomena as Produced by the Spirits of the Living
We are often told that in Spiritualism our great first pi duty is to accumulate facts. So, indeed it is; but in this paper I shall, being thoroughly satisfied of the reality of the facts, take them for granted, and attempt to maintain a theory as to their nature.
Briefly stated, my theory is this: Man is a spirit; therefore, if the phenomena we call Spiritual are produced by spirits, there is no reason why the operating spirits should not be those of the living beings present. I wish it to be distinctly kept in mind that I do not say that all the phenomena we are acquainted with are so produced; I simply say and believe that all the phenomena we have yet obtained might be produced by the spirits of the living.
Secondly: I say that inasmuch as we, as spirits, know we are present, but have no absolute proof that the spirits of the departed are present, the presumption is that our spirits, known to be present, are the operators.
Thirdly: The presence of a medium is almost always necessary to the production of the phenomena; therefore the presumption is that the spirit of the medium is the chief operator.
One day, in the year 1853,1 met my old artistic and mesmeric friend, Mr. Collin, who, knowing me to be interested in psychological phenomena, asked me if I had seen Mr. Home, the wonderful American medium, who had just arrived in London. I replied that I had not, when he said, “Then lose no time in making his acquaintance, for you will find that Spiritualism is a fact, and that it beats mesmerism into fits.” He then narrated to me what he had seen and felt, namely, the production of spirit hands, which to the evidence of the senses were identical with human hands.
I replied, that I had believed in mesmerism since the year 1839, and was therefore mentally prepared to receive almost any mystery; but he must excuse me if I declined to believe in his narrative until I had witnessed the facts with my own eyes.
Mr. Collin admitted that I was quite right, but, at the same time, assured me that I had only to witness the phenomena to be at once convinced of the solid reality of the facts.
A few days later I had the good fortune to secure a sitting with Mr. Home, when sure enough a hand became visible, and grasped my hand with a reality as palpable as this I wear, “compelling an instantaneous belief,” Mr. Home being about ten feet distant from me, and every hand at the table being joined together.
Mr. Home afterwards passed into a trance, and said to me: “I see Isabella,” a cousin of mine, who had shortly before passed into spirit life. That he saw Isabella mentally I felt convinced, because he gave me the most positive evidence, by mimicking the gestures and actions which in one minute detail I have never seen repeated in any other woman, Being well acquainted with the phenomena of mind-reading and clairvoyance, I at once, in my own mind, secretly coneluded that Home was a clairvoyant; but no sooner had this idea entered my mind, than Mr. Home replied to my thought by saying, “You think this mind-reading, but it is not; I see Isabella;” and I felt that I could not have obtained a better proof that the vision was one of mind-reading.
I did not at that time see how my theory applied to the production of palpable hands, but this revelation so astonished me, that, when I awoke the following morning, I had some difficulty in believing that the whole had not been a dream.
Home, as we know, on certain occasions became elongated several inches, but it is much easier to believe that his own spirit, the master of his own body, exercised his disintegrating spiritual organic chemistry, than that a foreign spirit performed the operation.
Home also floated in the air, but we do not find any necessity to call in the aid of foreign spirits to accomplish this feat. Home also might have been repelled from the earth, just as two bodies positively electrified repel each other; or his irradiating or levitating spirit may have rendered his body specifically lighter than the atmosphere; and this view I would rather suggest, as the motion of Home floating I through the upper part of the room, and in and out of window, had a close resemblance to the gliding, floating actions of the fish in water, moving here and there as by volition.
I did not at that time continue my investigations, because events occurred which showed to me that the subject was one the investigation of which might involve terrible consequences.
Some years later Miss Hardinge came to London, and delivered those powerful orations which purported to be the dictations of wise spirits from the spirit-land.
Here again I received the impression that these orations were not the dictation of departed spirits, but the improvisations of her own partially entranced, and therefore clairvoyant spirit.
I had on former occasions seen very plain, common, and uninteresting women, when entranced, become at once, as it were, transfigured in both mind and body, and speak and act in a manner far beyond their natural powers; and why should not Emma Hardinge, with her educated and powerful mind, in her partially entranced condition, deliver orations transcending her natural abilities?
Mr. Dove and I urged this view on Miss Hardinge, and she admitted that she believed it might often be so, at least to some extent.
These views I expressed at the meeting held in the Harley-street Rooms, to discuss the question of Spiritualism, and Mr. Coleman has printed them in his interesting little book, The History of Spiritualism in England. It was objected to my views that communications were received on subjects either forgotten, and therefore not in our minds, or on subjects beyond our knowledge. To this my answer was, that to the entranced and clairvoyant spirit, all minds and books were open for inspection and instruction; and that, although subjects had faded from our memories, there yet remained their impress on the tablets of our minds.
Afterwards the Davenport brothers arrived and astonished us, and asserted that their bandages were untied by spirits, and that spirit hands assisted them. No doubt the Davenports were released from the most perfect tying, and no doubt spirit hands and arms were multiplied; but I said, if departed spirits can do this work, why not spirits present in our own bodies?
Regarding this theory I received what seemed to me a strong confirmation, when, on asking Mr. Everett if he could give me any idea how he was liberated from the most perfectly secure handcuffs, as applied by the most experienced police-sergeants, he replied that he did not know how it was, but that at the moment the act took place he felt himself entranced. This confirmed me in my belief that the hand-cuffs were removed by the chemical superiority of his own spirit over solid matter.
Lastly arrived Dr. Slade, and, with regard to slate writing, I would observe that there is no order of spiritual phenomena which impresses me more powerfully. Slade and his slate-writing were to me objects of absorbing interest. All was done in the light, and above-board, and the evidence that the writing was produced by a spiritual intelligence, without the intervention of human hands, was overwhelming. When, therefore, brutal and intolerant ignorance seized Slade, and dragged him into a police-court, I felt prepared to run any risk, and incur any responsibility in his defence.
Slade believed that the writing was chiefly produced by the spirit of his deceased wife; but I believed that it was produced by his own partially entranced spirit; and this view has recently received a strong confirmation by the admission of Mr. Watkins, the most surprising of the slate writers, that he is convinced that his own spirit frequently produces the writing, as he feels a something go out of him as the writing is being done, and a something returning into him as the writing is finished.
But it is objected, how can an ignorant medium write Greek. My reply is, that the spirit of the medium may instinctively know Greek, or receive a vision of it, or find it in the brain of those present, or in books.
Swedenborg tells us that spirits can summon to their presence any simulacrum desired. If so, why should Slade’s <... continues on page 4-110 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ Man as a Spirit; Phenomena as Produced by the Spirits of the Living by Wyld, George, London Spiritualist, No. 277, December 14, 1877, pp. 283-6
London Spiritualist, No. 277, December 14, 1877, pp. 283-6