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vol. title: Vol Four of The Theosophical Society of The Arya Samaj of Arya-wart vol. period: Sept 1878 – Sept 1879 pages in vol.: 350 |
Concerning Spiritualism
To the Editor of the Banner of Light:
The letter concerning Spiritualism which I give below in translation is from the famous author of the “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” Dr. Ed. von Hartmann:
Berlin, Sept. 25th, 1878.
Most Esteemed Doctor—If I have delayed answering your favor of Aug. 20th for a few weeks, it was done because I wished to previously inspect the second volume of Zöllner’s “Scientific Treatises.” This done, I must confess that those phenomena, which thus far seem to me satisfactorily vouched for (through persons known to me), cannot move me to change my opinion that the hypothesis of the coöperation of spirits has no scientific basis. If the spirits are unable to act without a living medium, if they have need of its unconscious will for their mediation, we may as well content ourselves with this unconscious will as a cause. If we have to presume the spirits to be deceased persons, we would acknowledge thereby that men possess faculties of which they are unconscious as long as they live. If this be so, then living men, too, could use those (faculties) unconsciously. The contents of the communications often indeed surpass the intelligence of the media but never that of the present persons (sitters), and they are, in the average, proportional to the latter. This is of easy explanation, if the communications come to pass through unconscious psychic influences by the sitters upon the medium; but it is hard to explain by the inspiration of spirits. That Perty has changed his former opinion on this point was not yet known to me, and was interesting to learn from you.
For the enclosed character delineation, my best thanks. Many things (in it) are kept too indefinite to put much value on them: some are astonishingly correct, others not at all. The latter (circumstance) would, however, be just explicable, if the medium had drawn (her impressions) from the public literary judgment of my person. Your former declaration in the Gegenwart has been reprinted by Zöllner.
Repeating my best thanks, I remain with the highest consideration, Yours,
This letter of the famous author of the “Philosophy of the Unconscious,” which has become in a very short time but too popular in Germany, requires a short commentary, which I will briefly add. My writing of Aug. 20th to Dr. Ed. v. Hartmann, with whom I had exchanged a few letters in 1872, was caused by my having obtained a psychometric delineation of his mental organization through a lady of this city, which I thought excellent, considering that it came from a person who, at the time when she held a letter of Mr. Hartmann in her hand, was not only in total ignorance of what she was holding, but beside this would not even have had an idea of the existence of such a person as a German philosopher of that name. Under these circumstances the assertion of Mr. Hartmann that some points in his character were astonishingly correct—I am sorry he did not state these points particularly—speaks highly for the importance of the peculiar phase of mediumship called psychometry, and for the genuineness of the manifestation in this case. Mr. Hartmann’s remark, therefore, that the points which he did not agree with might have been influenced “by the public literary judgment of his person,” appears to be totally unfounded.
From the first part of Mr. H.’s letter, American Spiritualists will learn that even the important steps which have been made by Prof. Zöllner and three or four of his colleagues at the University of Leipsic, toward establishing Spiritualism upon a scientific basis in Germany, have thus far had no effect upon the most popular philosopher of the present age. The experiments of Prof. Zöllner in the presence of Dr. Slade have failed to change the opinion of Mr. Hartmann that “the hypothesis of coöperation of spirits has no scientific basis.” He still persists in believing that the astounding phenomena observed and faithfully reported by a number of eminent German savants—including the declination of the magnetic needle, and the exhibition of footprints within a hermetically closed folding-slate—find an easier and more “scientific” explanation in the assumption of “unconscious psychic influences by the sitters upon the medium!”—although the philosopher would be sadly at a loss to explain how “unconscious mental action” of human individuals, whose feet were, no doubt, at the time encased in stockings and boots, could leave the imprints of naked feet on a blackened sheet of paper. We must, knowing human nature, not wonder at the stubborn denial of conscious intelligent action of some external invisible agency in such a case, since to acknowledge such an agency would surely and speedily upset the whole hypothesis of an universe ruled by “unconscious” spirit.
The trouble with these German philosophers, who, although claiming the privilege of calling their researches preëminently “scientific,” are constantly constructing the world from the depths of their metaphysical vagaries—I say the trouble with them is, their almost total ignorance of the overwhelming mass of Spiritualist facts, and their aversion to observing such, when an occasion is offered them. How many manifestations are there on record which would satisfactorily refute the philosopher’s assertion that “the communications never surpass the intelligence (comprising the knowledge and memory) of the sitters,” even should they surpass that of the medium! It is their ignorance of such facts which keeps our scientific men in error about their tangible cause, and forces them into forming theories affording a far more constrained and improbable explanation than the simple assumption of invisible but conscious agencies. Nevertheless, as the testimony of at least one unprejudiced scientific mind in Germany shows, we may be satisfied that if science does not conquer facts, facts will soon conquer science!
Brooklyn, N. Y.
* Yes; it is a pity for Spiritualists, certainly that the famous German philosopher, Hartmann is a Theosophist– not a flapdoodle Spiritualist…
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