< Man as a Spirit (continued from page 4-161) >
Let us for a moment illustrate this theory by the facts of what is called electro-biology.
Take, say, John Young, and partly mesmerise him into the state of reverie, and then ask him his name. He at once replies, “John Young.” The operator replies, “No; you are Thomas Knox.” The youth replies, “No; I am John Young.” The operator imperiously asserts, “I tell you, sir, your name is Thomas Knox.” The patient replies, “Well, that is queer; but I now know I am Thomas Knox.” The operator proceeds further, and says, “You are quite mistaken; you are not Thomas Knox; you are only a chair.” Thomas Knox finds this rather too much, and resents the insult; but the operator again imperiously insists on it that he is a chair. Thomas Knox now gives in, and says, “Well, that is queer; but I now see and feel that I am a chair.”
Apply these facts to the spirit man at D. He occupies in the spirit life the corresponding position to the earth man at B. He is in the position of spirit reverie, and can be, by his own soul, or by dreamy spirits surrounding him, biologized into the belief of anything, and in such instances may declare himself to be Dictator, Excelsior, Plato, or Benjamin Franklin.
This is the explanation I would give of many of our communications from the supposed spirits of the departed. It is the view I have always held, and, much to my satisfaction, I met with a corroboration of this view on reading, for the first time, the Seeress of Prevorst last week. The Seeress says, in effect, “The spirit should be true and dominate over the soul; but if pressed by the soul with questioning, the spirit may consent to lie.”
The soul of any man possessing a dominant idea will dominate over his own spirit until that spirit has risen so high into the heavens as to assume the master and dominion over the soul for its salvation.
But it may be replied we have high inspirational speakers and writers whose assertion is that they are controlled by foreign spirits possessing definite names. To this objection I would still reply that the souls of these writers and speakers may still dominate their spirits.
The view I take is, that when our spirits are highly entranced they are not controlled by departed human spirits, but are bathed, as it were, in the light, and wisdom, and knowledge of “the spirits of the just made perfect,” and dwelling with the angels and with the spirit of God—utter the oracle “Thus saith the Lord.” They never address us in the third person, they are not controlled, they do not surrender their own individuality, but as spirit born men and women speak the words of wisdom, truth, and holiness.
No Hebrew prophet was ever controlled by any departed spirit, and no evangelist ever spoke but as from his own God enlightened spirit, and Christ spoke from himself as the divine messenger. It is true as Scrutator suggests that Moses and Elias and angels came to Christ, but they came to comfort and minister to Him, but never to control Him.
I do not deny that earth-bound spirits or “elementaries” may control our mediums, but I would urge that it is safer, wiser, and holier by a perfect life to develop the angel which is within us, and to establish him as our own familiar spirit, our daily guide and friend, and “Comforter, who will guide us into all truth.”
The early mesmerisers, knowing nothing of foreign spirit controls, produced clairvoyants who reasoned and spoke in their own spirit personality, and it is only since the subject of Spiritualism has become popularised that the idea of spirit control has become so prevalent.
For some time past I have had the assistance of Bella Tilley in cases of difficult diagnoses. So far as I can judge her medical opinion and advice when entranced have always been correct. While she herself in her normal condition is a most simple and truthful young woman. When she first came to me, she said an Indian spirit, a boy with a cloth only round his middle always came to her, and gave her medical insight and knowledge, and that his name was Wise-Acre. One day I said to her I think it is not Wise-Acre, but your own spirit which sees the cases. She replied, “I always see Wise-Acre.” Months passed without further remarks on the subject, but only the other day she said to me, “I never see Wise-Acre now, I can’t think what has become of him.” I replied, ft But you see cases as well as ever, how is that?”
“Well, I don’t know I just see the cases myself.”
The bearing of this confession on the question before us, seems tome most important. It is true Bella Tilley is a simple young woman without any knowledge of theories or I philosophies, but her evidence may be all the more valuable I on that account, for deep things are sometimes “hidden from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes.”
With these views I must emphatically deny that Scrutator has any ground for saying “our own spirits are, according to Dr. Wyld, all liars on principle.”
I never denied that Home could see spirits; I only expressed the belief that when he saw and described my deceased cousin, he saw her in my mind. Scrutator also thinks that the hidden angel and the kingdom of I heaven within us, of which I speak, must be falsities if they so mislead us; but I have explained that the spirit in the state of reverie is not an angel of light, and that the spirit on its journey to heaven, if it pass through the region of spirit reverie is, for the time, in a purgatorial rather than in a heavenly condition.
Scrutator also fears that “modern Spiritualism may dribble away into mere psychology.” But I reply that true psychology, or the wisdom of the soul, is destined to rescue modern Spiritualism from the dangers of a superstitious idolatry. “Regard not them who have familiar spirits: neither seek unto wizards, to be defiled by them. I am the Lord thy God. (Lev. xix. 31.)
For scientific purposes the physical phenomena, whether produced by the spirits of the dead or of the living are profoundly important, for it is thus, possibly, that the mystery of matter may be revealed to us.
But physical mediums are subject to great trials and temptations, and often are injured in body and mind just in proportion to their mediumistic powers. This fact alone would indicate that the highest Spiritualism is not thus to be evolved. Spirits would appear to feed on mediums as vampires. Such spirits cannot be holy.
Swedenborg tells us that in spirit life “we surround ourselves with the forms of our affections.” How profoundly important, then, must it be that we “set our affections on things above,” and how imminent must be the danger of that man who trusts more to the control of a foreign departed human spirit than to “the still small voice” speaking in his soul—the Holy Spirit of the living God.
12, Great Cumberland-place, Hyde-park, W.
Negro House in Tennessee
<Untitled> (At the fortnightly meeting)
At the fortnightly meeting of the National Association of Spiritualists, on Monday evening next, to be held at 38, Great Russell-street, Mr. C. C. Massey will read a paper on "Ideas of Time, Space, and Substance."
Editor's notes