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HPB-SB-1-57: Difference between revisions
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| author = | | author = | ||
| title = Those Liberal Club Snuffers | | title = Those Liberal Club Snuffers | ||
| subtitle = | | subtitle = Phenomena Without a Spirit Hypothesis | ||
| untitled = | | untitled = | ||
| source title = Tribune, The | | source title = Tribune, The | ||
| Line 25: | Line 25: | ||
}} | }} | ||
... | ''To the Editor of The Tribune.'' | ||
{{Style S-Small capitals|sir}}: Our attention has been called to a long letter from Col. Henry S. Olcott in {{Style S-Small capitals|the Tribune}} of Aug. 30, in which he goes out of his way to be funny over a member of the Liberal Club, “hailing the idea of annihilation,” and being “seized with rapture at the sight of a tray of snuffers as the fitting emblem of his faith.” This will seem witty only to those who do not know how untrue, unfair, and evasive it is. | |||
1. It is untrue, for, taking the world as a whole, there are, in proportion, more Spiritualists and Christians in the Liberal Club than out of it. | |||
2. It is unfair, for the unspiritual members of the Club have fairly sought for the information and facts that | |||
would enable them to become otherwise. The whole subject, including the phase presented by Col. Olcott, was lectured upon and discussed until it was evident that nothing but “tested facts” would bring out the truth. It was then alleged that the “conditions” were such that the “facts” could not be presented to the Club. Thereupon, some years ago the “unspiritual members” suggested that the undersigned, being one physicist, one physician who made a specialty of nervous diseases, and one lawyer, with such assistants as they might find necessary, should act as a committee to investigate “spiritual facts and phenomena” within this city or vicinity. This Committee have been and still are waiting for more business. | |||
3. This offer is not made to gratify an idle curiosity, it has seemed to us that “the phenomena,” even if they are not “facts of Spiritualism,” may have a scientific value. So far as we have been able to discover, however, we find no “spirit hypothesis” needed to account for them. They all fall quite readily under one or more of the following categories: | |||
: 1. Fraud. | |||
: 2. Illusion. | |||
: 3. Delusion. | |||
: 4. Disease. | |||
If any man or woman can produce or knows of “phenomena” that they will assert upon their honor that they believe cannot be so reduced, the undersigned will give such phenomena and their conditions a careful, and, as far as possible, a scientific investigation. Until that is done, they submit that ridicule of the Liberal Club or of any of its members is evasive and singularly out of place in regard to this subject. Very respectfully, | |||
{{Style P-Signature in capitals|P. H. Vander Weyde, M.D.}} | |||
{{Style P-Signature in capitals|Frederic R. Marvin, M.D.}} | |||
{{Style P-Signature in capitals|T. B. Wakeman.}} | |||
''New-York'', Sept. 10, 1875. | |||
{{Style S-HPB SB. HPB note|See Vol. I, Chap. III of <u>Isis Unveiled</u> written against these <u>Soul snuffers</u>.}} | {{Style S-HPB SB. HPB note|See Vol. I, Chap. III of <u>Isis Unveiled</u> written against these <u>Soul snuffers</u>.}} | ||