< A Retrospective View of Spiritualism in 1877 (continued from page 7-13) >
as its chief and noblest work is to deepen the religious sentiment by imparting true knowledge of the soul and spirit, it should possess the sympathy of all good men.
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Evidence of the Personal Identity of Certanin Communicating Spirits
The identity of spirits and of their spirit-messages is confirmed by a great number of mediums and Spiritualists.
I was one day writing automatically, under the influence of my guides, when I suddenly felt my arm impelled by a strange and unknown power, and the following was written in large letters:— “I am here, Joseph Schmied.” As I had never known any one of that name, and many people called Schmied die in a day, I suspected that I was being imposed upon, and asked, “What Schmied?” “I, Jacob Schmied, died to-day, in Vienna, Bernals, of disease of the throat; help me. The day after to-morrow you will see my death in the newspaper.” I awaited with impatience the day mentioned, and on looking over the list of deaths in that day’s paper I found—“Died, from disease of the throat, ’in Vienna, Hernals, Jacob Schmied.” The date of his death was also the same as that of the day on which I received his message. Now, if this was not indeed the spirit of Jacob Schmied, I do not know how all this could have entered into my brain.
I was once in correspondence with a lady, C—E—, for the purpose of curing her of a nervous affection. I had had no previous acquaintance with her, either personally or otherwise, and she was living in Bavaria at the time. My guides wrote to me:—“Deliver C—E—from the influence of her uncle, Ferdinand E—. He was a bad man, and now, as a spirit, hovers around his family; his presence brings on these nervous attacks in the sensitive C—.” I wrote to the father of the lady, asking him if he had a relative in the spirit-land named Ferdinand, and who had been rather a bad sort of man. He answered me, greatly moved, that he had had a brother Ferdinand, who had, indeed, not behaved well to them. I then received a communication from the spirit Ferdinand, whose manner of expression and writing were so very like what they had been in his earth-life that his brother, who was no Spiritualist, immediately acknowledged his identity. Now a reconciliation is effected between the living and the spirit-brother, and C—E— is freed from her nervous attacks. These people were total strangers to me, and living in Bavaria.
A gentleman, a stranger, wrote to me from Hanover, that he had been unable to sleep for seven years. He had dreadful visions, heart disease, a feeling of suffocation, and he often feared he should go mad. He begged me to give him deliverance. My guides said:— “Again it is a very low and base spirit of the name of Anton Stein. Mr. C—, who writes to you is about sixty years old; he knew this Anton Stein in his youth. Try to bring this spirit into a better sphere and Mr. C—will be cured.” I wrote this to Mr. C—. All was correct. He was nearly sixty years old, had known two brothers Stein, in Hanover, thirty years ago. One of the brothers, Anton, was a dissipated youth, and had disappeared in a mysterious manner.
Doctor M— was on a visit here. First, he obtained through my mediumship a communication from his father, which he identified; then came some small writing, half Italian, half German. A girl signing herself Annetta wrote:— “Do you remember having seen me? I was your old nurse.” The doctor was greatly moved, and happy to recognise his old nurse Annetta.
A man suffering from epilepsy wrote to me from Marienberg, Saxony. I immediately received the following communication from a spirit, who wrote in large rough characters, and called himself Theodor:—“I was a sort of critin, but a very wicked one. I and the uncle of your patient were brothers, and as we were walking together in a wood, we quarrelled; he became angry, struck me on my head, and I was dead. He buried me in the wood, and no one ever knew what had become of me, while he lived quietly and died a respected man. Now, I will slay his nephew.” This communication greatly shocked me. I wrote to the patient’s father asking him if he remembered having had a relative, a half idiotic young man, who had suddenly disappeared. He answered—“Your question greatly astonishes me. How can you, a lady in Austria, know anything about this poor relative, who, forty years ago, disappeared from a small town in Saxony, and was never more heard of? Some believed he was murdered. He was seen to go into a wood one day from which he never returned.” I had the greatest struggles with that spirit, and then the murderer came, and by thus bringing them together they were reconciled.
I could give you hundreds of such examples proving spirit identity, and the reality of communications from base and low spirits, whose pain it is that no annihilation is possible for them.
Gonobitz, Hungary, March 9, 1878.
Spiritualism and Theosophy: a Last Word
The proportions which the claims of Theosophists have now assumed are not such as to need further assault. Mr. Massey’s contention that any who is “dissatisfied with the evidence of disembodied human agency has, pro tanto, evidence of the existence of spirits other and, probably, lower than those of our race as actors in the field of Spiritualism, is a very mild statement, and one to which I raise no objection, except that it is in no sense proof, or even presumptive evidence on which such claims as Colonel Olcott’s can reasonably be allowed to rest. The platform which he erected needs a broader and securer basis; and, had this been all that the Theosophists meant, I, for one, should not have troubled to take exception to their statements on this particular point.
Mr. Massey wishes to know whether I “do or do not hold to the popular creed of Spiritualism—that every physical manifestation and spirit-communication is due to the agency of a departed human being.” He knows my opinions: no man better. I must presume, therefore, that he challenges me to put in print yet again what I have not been slow to maintain at all seasons, in public as well as in private, with such clearness as I am master of; so that I should fancy that any one who honours my action with a thought could not possibly mistake my position. I stated that position briefly and very plainly in a speech after the reading of Dr. Wyld’s paper, which preceded this discussion; and I am sorry that I cannot refer Mr. Massey to that speech in print. If he had heard or read it, he would not have needed to ask his question. But, since he appeals to me, and desires me to repeat a ten-times-told story, I have no hesitation whatever in avowing myself a Spiritualist first and before all. I have no mental reservation whatever as to the action of departed human spirits. That is to me a fact which I know. It has entered into my spiritual life, and I act upon the knowledge.
For the rest, I do not know all the agencies at work in producing the various phenomena of modem Spiritualism; but I will claim for myself, now and always, the fullest liberty to investigate every phase of spirit- action, and I shall not be surprised to find, as the result of repeated experiment, and of more extended knowledge, that what now exists in my mind as a suspicion, strengthened by report, is true—that the grades of spirit are infinitely various, and that most or all of them impinge upon our world in some one of many ways. It would not surprise me to find, as a fact, that much that is now propounded as theory has basis in truth, though I do not expect to live long enough to verify or disprove all the theories that the busy brain of man finds time to spin. But, if my friends please, I will wait before I promulgate my belief in what I know very little about. I do not refuse to investigate their theories; quite the reverse. I do not say they are untrue; I only say they are unproven speculations in the main, and that they seem to me to have been rashly and rather recklessly accepted and promulgated.
It is one thing to advocate the frankest and fullest inquiry into all facts and theories. This I do. It is another and very different, thing to accept or advocate hypothetical theories without proof, and even in the teeth of facts which are not successfully attacked. This I am not prepared to do.
Editor's notes
- ↑ image by unknown author
- ↑ image by unknown author
- ↑ image by unknown author
- ↑ Evidence of the Personal Identity of Certanin Communicating Spirits by Vay, Adelma Von, London Spiritualist, No. 290, March 15, 1878, p. 126
- ↑ Spiritualism and Theosophy: a Last Word by Moses, W. S. (signed as M.A. (Oxon)), London Spiritualist, No. 290, March 15, 1878, p. 126
Sources
London Spiritualist, No. 290, March 15, 1878, p. 126