Legend
Spiritualism and Spirituality in Glasgow
Sir,—A dense fog hangs over the city; cold, miserable, and wretched as it is, it but faintly portrays the gloom and sadness in the hearts and homes of thousands. The numbers of the known poor are daily increasing, the industrious artisan, the mechanic, and clerk swelling the ranks. It is to be feared that there are thousands more, whose distress and poverty will never be known this side of the grave.
Bad as this is, it seems but the outward and visible sign of a denser fog in the mental and spiritual atmosphere. The fog of materialism is made deeper still by the mists of sectarianism hanging over the minds of men, benumbing the intellect, distorting the vision, and starving the spirit.
The wonder is, not that there is so little known of Spiritualism, but that there is so much known. Robert Owen, the socialist, George Combe, the phrenologist, Professor Gregory, late of the University of Edinburgh, and J. W. Jackson, the mesmerist, however diversified their views, have each unconsciously aided to prepare the way for the advent of modern Spiritualism here.
It is but a short step from the broad humanitarianism of Owen to the ethics and moral philosophy of Spiritualism; from the facts of mesmerism to the phenomena of Spiritualism. Other workers have, laboured in the field; the hardy soil of this northern clime is slowly but surely being prepared; and Spiritualism will take root, like heather on the adjacent mountains, a plant of sturdy if stunted growth—healthy, hardy, if not beautiful in the gaze of the canny Scot.
Mr. J. J. Morse has just completed his yearly engagement with the Glasgow Spiritualists’ Association. His lectures on Sunday, the 7th, and Monday, the 8th inst., were well received, presenting, as they did, rocks of facts, as well as flowers of eloquence.
On Friday evening, the 12th inst., a soiree was held in the Glasgow Spiritualists’ Association Rooms, in honour of Mr. Morse. After tea Mr. Robertson, the secretary, who occupied the chair, paid a graceful tribute to Mr. Morse and his guides for the manner in which they had laboured for the cause in Glasgow, in the face of the most disheartening opposition, during the last five years. But the gathering there that evening was an evidence that their (Mr. Morse and his guides) labours had not been in vain. An excellent programme of songs and recitations was admirably rendered by friends and members of the Association. The most pleasing event of the evening was when the chairman, on behalf of the members of the Association, presented to Mr. Morse a handsome gold locket, with a suitable device on it, as a token of appreciation of his work and conduct by those members of the Association in whose name it was presented. Mr. Morse (to whom the presentation was a surprise) was much affected; he made a feeling reply to the observations of the chairman. Then two of his controls made some well-chosen remarks. A few short complimentary speeches were made by Messrs. Robertson, Campbell, Birrell, and myself, and the happy evening’s reunion was terminated by the company singing “Auld Lang Syne.”
I lectured in the rooms on the 14th inst.—subject, “Is Man Immortal?” and made an attempt to answer the question in the affirmative, sustaining my arguments from facts culled from the realms of physiology, pathology, natural and artificial somnabulism, dreams, death-bed scenes and kindred material. Mr. Walker, the venerable vice-president of the Association, will read a paper on “Man’s Responsibilities” next Sunday.
Spiritualism and Religion
Sir,—I hope you will grant me space to make a few remarks on a subject suggested by Mr. Stainton Moses’ magnificent paper on the “Intelligent Operator,” read by him at the last fortnightly meeting at Great Russell-street. I did not venture to speak on that occasion, partly because of the length of the proceedings and the number of other speakers; partly because I was reluctant to say a word of dispraise, or to strike one discordant note at that happy meeting; and, lastly, because the subject I am about to touch upon is of too vast an extent to be compressed into a couple of questions, or disposed of in a few cursory remarks.
Both Mr. Moses and Professor Cassal alluded to the “universal instinct” which, apart from all external manifestation, furnishes good a priori grounds for belief in a future life, to my mind the best “proof presumptive” of man’s immortality. But then Mr. Moses went on to say that this belief in immortality constituted the “sole code of personal religion.” It is to this astonishing statement that I intend to demur. Indeed, I am not sure that Mr. Stainton Moses has not hereby furnished the key to the puzzling question, “How is it that Spiritualism, with all its pretensions and with all its proofs, does not take the place of religion, does not supply any real spiritual food to the hungry and thirsty soul?”
Question after question rises in my mind the longer I contemplate. Is the “sole code of personal religion” a belief in immortality, as demonstrated by Spiritualism? Will it save a man’s soul to know that he lives for ever? Or does not religion rather consist in this—that man, knowing himself to be immortal, seeks the means whereby he shall purify his soul, and render himself worthy of that higher life to which he aspires? The burning questions in Spiritualism are not— Shall I renew my earthly affections, however sweet and holy, in that farther life? not, Shall I know my long-lost brother, the companion of my early years, the sharer of never-to-be-forgotten influences? but—Will it teach me anything new of the relations of my soul to God? what has it to tell about the doctrines of sin and forgiveness, and many other important and vital points in man’s spiritual history and development? So far from Spiritualism inciting men to a higher self-sacrifice, to greater self-abnegation, to a more complete possession of their souls in awe and patience, to a more perfect detachment from the things of sense and of matter, I see Spiritualists who believe (oh, yes! thoroughly believe) in their soul’s immortality act as though both this life and the next were one great tea-garden or happy hunting-ground, in which they can disport themselves endlessly, and at will, instead of a stern training school for better states of existence. They say that God is not a hard taskmaster, and that He wishes us to be happy, forgetting that the greatest Spiritualist who ever walked the earth has taught that “strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life.” They think that immortality is theirs by right, not that it has to be won by hard fighting with the powers of this world; forgetting that spirituality, not Spiritualism, is the end and aim of our striving. Does any one tell me that progress is the law of life? I say, that life has another law, and that law is death. To pass from death unto life, by which I mean from spiritual deadness to spiritual awakening and growth, is what we seek and wrestle for. And how is this to be furthered? How is our spiritual life to be sustained, if not by worship, by contemplation of the Infinite, by communion and union with God, in the person of His Divine and Eternal Son? Instead of this, we see the majority of Spiritualists forsaking worship for “wonder-hunting” at seances, for trance addresses, spirit-teachings, and communications.
Some will answer—“If Spiritualism is not a religion, it is nothing.” I think its mission is best described in the words of Mr. Stainton Moses himself, that it is a “sledge-hammer for breaking the skulls of materialistic sceptics also, it is an aid to religion in enabling us to understand conditions and doctrines of which it gives a reflection; its progressive spirit spheres have an analogy with purgatorial states, its intercourse with spirits with the Church’s communion of saints; its trance conditions prefigure religious ecstasy and inspiration; it shows to our sight a portion of that which we must still for the greater part hold by what theologians term faith. More than this experience has taught me not to expect from Spiritualism; and so far from encouraging all persons to form spirit-circles in their own homes, I would rather, as I have often said before, see the subject confined to a few qualified individuals, “pure in heart and sound in head,” who should “report progress,” and give to the world whatever may appear to them to be for its benefit.
If Spiritualism is teaching us to put spirits in the place of God; if it is to abrogate the rule of Christ and His Apostles, that we must overcome the world, and the flesh, and whatever else to us and in us is Satanic, then it is failing of its mission, it is a false prophet, a thing to be cast out and trodden under foot. Let us take heed to our ways, that we be not found fighting on the wrong side, and encouraging that very state of mind in ourselves which we profess to combat in others.
The whole tone of Mr. Moses’ paper is so admirable, that I am grieved to have to appear in the character of a dissentient to anything therein contained, or which he may have spoken. But the words which I have taken as my text are, to my mind, fraught with issues so tremendous, that I should deem myself unfaithful if I did not raise my voice against them, even though it be the solitary voice of (as Mrs. Hollock has said) “one crying in the wilderness.”
Editor's notes
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 331, December 27, 1878, p. 312