Legend
< The Religious Aspects of Spiritualism (continued from page 8-125) >
his own answer. I believe I have found mine, but I cannot fit it on to another’s question. That is not my business.
Before concluding, allow me, sir, as Mr. Stainton-Moses has done, to thank those many kind friends whose letters, published and private, on the subject we have been discussing, have been written in the spirit of true friendship and courtesy, as well as in love for the cause of truth.
I should be sorry to leave any under the impression that I think Spiritualism an evil. I think it only insufficient for certain needs, and that it points to more than it embraces. It is a sign-post to the goal, but not the goal itself.
38, Great Russell-street, January 3rd, 1879.}}
<Untitled> (Sir,—I ought not to...)
Sir,—I ought not to occupy your space till this correspondence is done. But I wish to express my great satisfaction at reading the letters in your last issue. I believe them to be a very valuable contribution to the philosophy of Spiritualism.
There are words in the letters of Madame de Steiger, Mrs. Nicholls, and Mr, Fitz-Gerald that I am thankful to see in print.
I am afraid I am more in accord with Dr. Blake’s manner than with his matter. I feel this so completely that I do not enter into any verbal argument. I can only recognise the absolute divergence of thought, and express my profound astonishment that the experience of five-and- twenty years should have led him to the impotent conclusion that “Spiritualism offers only a number of physical facts in which he does not see any moral bearing whatsoever.”
Turning from what would be mere waste of time to argue to something more profitable, may I put a few propositions in the shape of queries?
1. If we were to define what we mean by Spiritualism, would not a good deal of fog lift?
2. If we were to separate between what we know and what we believe, would it not tend to clearness?
3. If we were to separate between what we, in our own experience, know, and the deductions therefrom derived, and the prescriptions of tradition, would not that tend to clear the atmosphere?
4. 'Within certain easily defined cases, are not the divergent views of honest investigators only so many individual views of the same truth, views which advanced knowledge will enable us to recognise and reconcile?
5. And for my own instruction, I should like to ask Miss Kislingbury what authority she has for saying that “immortality has to be won by hard fighting with the powers of this world?”
Any further comments I request your permission to reserve.
<Untitled> (Sir,—Miss Kislingbury’s...)
Sir,—Miss Kislingbury’s earnest letter has had this good result, that it has called forth many earnest responses.
For myself, I believe that the phenomena and philosophy of Spiritualism are destined to re-mould science, philosophy, psychology, and religion from their very foundations, by showing how a spiritual and intelligent force constitutes the essence of all things.
The power to move matter by will, and without the intervention of mechanism, demonstrates the intelligent spiritual nature of man; while the spiritual phenomena which occur in the presence of believers can in five minutes refute the material philosophy of thousands of years.
Beyond this, the higher philosophy of Spiritualism reveals the structure of the human soul, and thus becomes the only scientific psychology.
The mere knowledge of the facts of Spiritualism cannot save the soul; but true Spiritualism can show how the soul is saved as a psychological and scientific fact.
When Spiritualists proceed further to speak of Spiritualism as a new religion, they utter that which to me has no meaning. The essence of all religion is one and identical. It is the cry of the soul after its hidden centre and its Lord—as the child cries for its mother, or, “As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks.”
There may be those who in Spiritualism find a new sect, or a new superstition; but to discover a new religion would be as impossible as to find a new God.
Spiritualism, as it demonstrates man to be a spirit, at the same time demonstrates the fact of a spiritual life hereafter. But the immense majority of human beings require no such demonstration, as ninety-nine in a hundred instinctively believe, and are assured that there is a future life.
Swedenborg and Spiritualism certainly show good reasons for believing that our future life will be the exact counterpart of this life, and that we shall occupy a position there in exact relation to our works here.
But Christianity also teaches the same when it says, “Shall not the Lord render to every man according to his works,” and “One star differeth from another star in glory,” and “To whom much is given, of him shall much be required,” and “Ide who knew not shall be beaten with few stripes.”
Moreover, modern Spiritualism cannot be a new religion, inasmuch as the whole Bible is full of Spiritualism, and the Roman Church has never ceased to exemplify this in the lives of her saints.
Protestantism has laughed to scorn these spiritual claims of the Romish Church, but modern Spiritualism proves that these claims are founded on facts.
The Romish St. Teresa was a saint and prophetess, but so also was the Lutheran Seeress of Prevorst. The spiritual teachings of both arc identical, and their lives were equally pure and given to God; but St. Teresa worshipped more the Supreme, while the Seeress gave herself chiefly to spiritual philosophy and to the benefaction of her race.
The simple doctrine of the love of God and the love of man taught by Christ as the sum and substance of all religion and morality cannot be surpassed, and can be understood by all; but the hidden and esoteric doctrine of Christ can be understood, by those only who hold the mystical key, and in this respect the Romish Church is wiser than Protestantism. I admit this, but let no one suppose from this admission that a true Spiritualist, to whom had been revealed the secret of the Logos, could ever find it necessary to enter that Church, I or that he could regard, except with horror, his subjugation to a priesthood which, asserting that it holds the keys of the kingdom of heaven, too often, alas! has used those keys only to shut the door, neither I going in itself, “nor suffering them who are entering to go in.”
The true Spiritualist requires no such priesthood, but for him it is sufficient, when he discovers that all his past life he has been “feeding I on the husks which the swine do eat,” to say, “I will arise and go to I my Father,” for he then experiences “the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Even the Popish St. Teresa, when in her highest ecstasies she became united to Christ and thus found that she was one with God actually, shows the utter impertinence of all priestly interference; and she could thus in the magnificent language of St. Paul say, “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor. things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
<Untitled> (Sir,—Mr. Carter Blake...)
Sir,—Mr. Carter Blake has proved the strange want of oneness of religious belief in the supposed compact body called Spiritualists. This has arisen from the physical phenomena, directly and indirectly Spiritualistic, attracting minds from the various divisions of theology and no theology, which endeavour to dovetail their new experiences with their old opinions; and in proportion to their lack of historical knowledge, so is the extent of their surmisings and readiness for pen and voice utterances—utterances which show their ignorance; but the tall talk chills the inclinations of plodding, studious men to associate with, or appear to countenance, a Spiritualism so untrue in historical accuracy.
Therefore it is that so many who were Spiritualists publicly have passed from public view into the privacy of church life—a life where worship, praise, and thanksgiving are given to the Lord God Almighty without wrangling, and enable them to devote themselves quietly to the ordinary everyday duties of this preliminary life. This result is sad, as Spiritualism ought to be sacredly used as leaven, to leaven the atoms of materialistic human life in the barrel of human society.
If I were to give my advice how to effect the most good in the shortest time, it would be—speak, write, prove that knowledge has been given to many, and may be had by many more; that there is continued human life after the close of this preliminary life, in a state of joy to some, and of sorrow to others, depending entirely on the mannerism of heart-life now in action in each mind. If sectional religious surmisings were avoided by Spiritualists, Spiritualism would speedily become a national power.
Enmore Park, S.E.
<Untitled> (Sir,—In Miss Kislingbury’s...)
Sir,—In Miss Kislingbury’s admirable letter in your impression of the 27th inst., there are some things “hard to be understood,” and respecting them I should like a clearer explanation. Miss Kislingbury speaks of those who “think that immortality is theirs by right, not that it has to be won by hard fighting with the powers of this world.” I may be wrong, but it has always been my impression that the laziest rascal that ever crawled through the world is as sure of immortality as the most struggling, dauntless hero that ever conquered the temptations of the “flesh and the devil.” The difference between these two personages—the lazy man and the industrious saint—is not in the fact of their immortality, but in the degree of elevation to which they will respectively attain hereafter.
Again your correspondent recommends that the subject of Spiritualism “should be confined to a few qualified individuals, who should give to the word whatever may appear to them to be for its benefit.” Thank you, I would rather not have my experience dictated to me in this fashion. I prefer, when and how I choose, to examine and report upon the subject for myself; to collect my own facts and draw my own inferences from them. Miss Kislingbury’s teaching is precisely the doctrine of the Roman Church, which has taken upon itself-for a consideration-to organize a belief for me. We all know to what enormities such a system has led in the history of mankind, and we must be on our guard against it. Even in our own small spiritualistic way, we cannot fail to notice how pernicious is any attempt to delegate to a committee the conduct of an inquiry into the genuineness of spiritual phenomena. The Society, of which Miss Kislingbury is secretary, cannot keep itself free from perpetrating occasionally an egregious act of incompetence and folly. I allude particularly to the affair of Mr. Williams in Holland, whose conduct was quite consistent with entire innocence of any fraudulent intention. Those who have had a large experience of the tricks of spirits, know how difficult it is to separate and distinguish the genuine from the spurious phenomena. The preposterous resolutions arrived at by the British National Association of Spiritualists are sufficient to disgrace to disgrace it, and even to break it up altogether. Our Dutch friends are evidently in a very elementary state of knowledge on this subject.
In Captain Burton’s very objectionable paper your issue of 6th December there occurs the following passage:— “The Hebrews, Moses included, agreed to banish from their system a Soul-land, a Spirit-land, a Ghost-land; in other words, a future world,” &c.
Where can Captain Burton find any authority for asserting that Moses “agreed” to any such monstrous conclusion?
The fact, I believe to be, that the ancient Hebrews so thoroughly accepted the belief in the immortality of the soul that they did not think it necessary to formulate it in a specific shape; they did not dream that any Hebrew would be so intensely stupid, if not insane, as to dispute this fundamental principle of existence. Accordingly we find that it was not till after the Babylonish captivity, and not till after the conquests of Alexander the Great introduced the Grecian philosophy into the East, that the sect of Sadducees arose who disputed the resurrection.
London, December 30th, 1878.
Editor's notes
- ↑ Sir,—I ought not to... by Moses, William Stainton, M.A., London Spiritualist, No. 333, January 10, 1879, p. 21
- ↑ Sir,—Miss Kislingbury’s... by Wyld, George, M.D., London Spiritualist, No. 333, January 10, 1879, p. 21
- ↑ Sir,—Mr. Carter Blake... by Jones J.E., London Spiritualist, No. 333, January 10, 1879, p. 21
- ↑ Sir,—In Miss Kislingbury’s... by Ellis, Theodore, London Spiritualist, No. 333, January 10, 1879, pp. 21-2
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 333, January 10, 1879, p. 21