The Soul of Things
The soul of things, by William Denton. In this extraordinary book the author, who is a Professor of Geology in America, employed clairvoyants to reveal to him by vision events connected with the early history of geological specimens. These sensitives thus saw the Mastodon and other extinct animals as if living and moving before them; they likewise saw the scenes by which these prehistoric animals were surrounded. The author also sent his clairvoyants to examine portions of different planets, and they gave descriptions of the inhabitants, physical geography, and vegetation of each. The book is illustrated with numerous engravings, drawn by the sensitives as the visions passed before their eyes. The substance of a review of this book in “The Spiritualist” was to the effect that there is no doubt as to the Integrity of the author, who also possesses sufficient intelligence to select clairvoyants who would not cheat him. The question as to the reliability of the narratives therefore narrows itself down to the question of the reliability of clairvoyance, which, when employed to gain information about distant places on earth, has been found sometimes to give accurate results and sometimes inaccurate results. The review further expresses the opinion that if over interplanetary communication should be established, it will be by means of clairvoyance or some other of the latent and little understood spiritual powers in man. Three vols. 24s.; or Ss. per single volume. The Spiritualist Newspaper Branch Office, 33, British Museum-street, London, W.C.
Spiritualism and Religion
One result of the recent utterances of Madame de Steiger, to the effect that there is at present no religion in the civilised world which will incite men to noble deeds, to marching to the axe, the block, or the stake, for the sake of that which they believe to be true, has been to bring us in a few letters from sectarians, each setting forth that his particular system has the very truth in its midst. But it is evident that in these columns the claims of the various sects cannot be considered. The readers know already what are the claims to Divine authority of English Ecclesiastics, Roman Catholics, Calvinists, Particular Baptists, Infidels, and Jews. These, in their own periodicals, can set forth their claims to divine authority, and do Spiritualism good service by therein bringing forward our facts, in support of their own theological ideas, for without our facts Materialism will gradually sweep the whole of them from the face of the earth. Men, nowadays, will not go to the prison or the stake for the sake of mistranslated books of doubtful authorship, full of errors as to matters-of-fact; neither will they bow down to the priestly authority of fallible man. Some women, and many, children and mesmeric sensitives, will so do to the end of the chapter, but in this country, at least, the strong voice of educated public opinion, with its machinery, the press, exercises a balance of power strongly in the opposite direction, tending to save the weak from their sins, and from dragging society back to that standpoint in which ecclesiastics would once again be able to swim in such oceans of innocent blood as they once shed or boiled all over Christendom and in foreign lands, in the name of the God their actions blasphemed. They said they acted by His authority.
In those semi-savage times, doubtless, men in power were not much worse and not much better than those in subserviency. “Bloody Mary’’ roasted Protestants, as our school-books teach us. “Bloody Elizabeth” roasted Roman Catholics, as our school-books do not teach us, because the dominant ecclesiastical power has printed for our Sunday schools what it is convenient to itself we should know. It would not do to tell in schools, how the Bishop of Norwich and other authorities roasted Roman Catholics in the days of Good Queen Bess. Such inconvenient truths are for students only, and not for the common people.
In the theological musical scale we have the Catholics at the one end, with all the poetry and romance connected with their ritual and with the great historical associations of their religion, tied to mummeries in which it is difficult to imagine an intellectual man to take part. If the President of the Royal Society were to be seen in ecclesiastical millinery, bowing first to the right and then to the left, then shifting a peculiarly-shaped hat into particular positions at particular times, and sniffing while nice little boys swung incense pots before him, few persons would blame the Royal Society if it searched for a new President with less emotion and more logic.
Down in the musical scale, down through all the gradations, from Catholicism, with its full play to the emotions, down through High Church, Broad Church, Low Church, <... continues on page 8-301.1 >
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down through all the dissenting denominations to the Unitarians, and at last we come to the other extreme, the Atheistic Bradlaughites, with plenty of sound common sense, useful in breaking up superstition, but destitute of poetry, ideality, or capability of self-sacrifice unless with the hope of materialistic reward.
All these elements of the theological scale are useful in their sphere, and together produce the general result we find in the world, which outcome must be well-pleasing to the Almighty, otherwise He would not have produced such an effect. In each element of the scale good and evil are intermixed; they are in strong and intimately allied contrast at the two extremities, whilst in the middle there is an uninteresting neutrality.
But throughout the whole range of this theological scale, Materialism has for some generations been gaining an undue influence, because theologians have been separating themselves from facts and from truths which every man can verify for himself in his own home. Spiritualism brings these facts to the front, hence is a most powerful ally to all the religious sects who are otherwise striving unsuccessfully not to sacrifice ideality on the shrine of an encroaching gross and grovelling Materialism.
Any real foundation possessed by the various sects rests chiefly upon traditions, and sometimes accurate records of bygone Spiritualistic mental and physical phenomena. The revival of these will put new life into the churches, thereby meeting the requirements of the many, but a deeper philosophy will have to be evolved from the facts by research to meet the requirements of the few. We think that the philosophy of Berkeley, welded to the phenomena of Spiritualism, will give a strong spiritual position which deserves serious examination.
At all events, we cannot print letters from any sectarian, to the effect that his particular system contains all religious truth. If such writers will send their assertions to their own journals, the readers will be delighted with their defence of knotty points of abstruse theological doctrine, and at the same time learn that Spiritualism is at hand to save their denomination from drowning, and that it is the only possible defence from the Materialism now in the ascendant everywhere. Spiritualism will bring other than devotees to the knowledge that there is another and a better world, that the conditions of that world are spiritual, and so diverse from ours that men must enter the next life before they can conceive its nature and its glories, and that every man and every woman must work for the position individually attained therein, When the time comes for men to know beyond question that life on earth is but a small and unimportant part of their existence, it may be that once again will they live not in inglorious ease, with low motives and small aims, but be ready to go forth to battle and to die for the sake of that which they believe to be true, and to prefer, were it possible, to sleep in stone upon their altar tombs with their hands uplifted to heaven, rather than to live on in subserviency to anything which would tarnish a noble soul in the eyes of its Maker, Something is needed now-a-days to incite men to go forth, as in the days of old, with their lives in their hands, to do battle for that which is right.
<Untitled> (Newcastle)
Newcastle.—Two correspondents in the Newcastle district, who append what purport to be their names and addresses to their communications, state that sealed letters they had given to a medium to read by clairvoyance were tampered with by being opened and cunningly reclosed. As we do not know the correspondents who make these serious statements, and they have not forwarded us letters of introduction, they had better officially inform the Newcastle Spiritual Evidence Society of the alleged circumstances, those in the locality being best able to understand the merits of the case.
The Religion of Spiritualism
“The word adieu is the expression of hope; for all that is beautiful and good in us will go to God—A Dieu. To God all that is love; to God all that is' our highest ideal.” So says Arsene Houssaye in his recent and admirable work. The Destinies of the Soul.
I assume that it is proven that we require some fresh impetus to give us cause for the longed-for feeling of enthusiasm and emotion. The cry for commonplace or uncommon place sensation is one of the proofs. This seeking after sensation is the vulgar outcome of the higher want, as the feeling penetrates from one plane of mind down to another. From the yearning poet and if; artist or philosopher, those who in their hearts wink that the old so-called fables were true, that they could reproduce with all the fire of their natures the thoughts engendered by the contemplation of the mighty “myths” of antiquity,—from these minds demanding freedom for the expansion of their wings, fluttering aimlessly in the trammelled present, we come to those which are less ardent, but are still seeking after some breathing-place for the soul. The latter have no ideas beyond the religion of orthodoxy; the fulfilment of their desire for sensation, or food for the imaginative faculties, is sought for in high ritualism, or in startling sermons—sermons in which something is said out of the common order of thought; and so on through all classes, from those who only seek animal pleasures from morning till night, from year to year, throughout their lives, down to the very poorest and lowest, whose only idea of the highest enjoyment of mankind is the excitement of their starved faculties by the only methods they know—“crime and drink.” It is not a particularly bright picture of the present time, and on its surface it is not a true one; but any one who seeks below that surface must know that it is a true one.
And why is it possible that such a state of things should be permitted, by either the Being we call Almighty, or by ourselves, who ought to enjoy, at all events, the results of all improvements for the welfare of mankind from past ages to the present century? The reply will not seem difficult to Spiritualists; and it is that we are suffering from spiritual starvation. The “materialising theology” of the present day has at length almost finished its labours. It has taken us farther and farther from the source of life for the soul. By condemning us perpetually to the past it has shut up that sixth sense which nature has given to every man— that of the future. The science of the soul is lost, and man is perishing for the want of it. People feel this, and so the cry goes upwards, and is reaching its utmost strength. No cry has ever ascended for spiritual light without being heard. This is a law which cannot be evaded any more than any of our known and demonstrated physical ones. An answer therefore is coming in the great Wave of spiritual force which is sorely needed on the earth to wash and refresh our wearied souls, and to invigorate and give fresh life to us all.
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Editor's notes
- ↑ The Soul of Things by Denton, William, London Spiritualist, No. 361, July 25, 1879, p. 37
- ↑ Spiritualism and Religion by unknown author, London Spiritualist, No. 361, July 25, 1879, pp. 37-8
- ↑ Newcastle by unknown author, London Spiritualist, No. 361, July 25, 1879, p. 38
- ↑ The Religion of Spiritualism by unknown author, London Spiritualist, No. 360, July 18, 1879, pp. 25-8
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 361, July 25, 1879, p. 37
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London Spiritualist, No. 361, July 25, 1879, p. 38
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London Spiritualist, No. 360, July 18, 1879, pp. 25-8