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HPB-SB-14-35: Difference between revisions
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| notes = | | notes = The underlying masthead belongs to the 16 September issue of Light; the pasted texts are from the 30 September issue. | ||
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| style="text-align:left; width:25%;" | September 16, 1882.] | |||
| style="text-align:center; width:50%;" | LIGHT. | |||
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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Supersensuous Perception and Prophetic Dreams.|14-34}} | {{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Supersensuous Perception and Prophetic Dreams.|14-34}} | ||
... | {{Style P-No indent|Lawrence herself would be, were she now living. One would also like to know to whom Mrs. Lawrence said that the dream would never be fulfilled because she would not go to London again. Miss Eliot resides at Bodmin, Cornwall. Mr. Pearce took down the above account, verbatim, from her, as also the following:—}} | ||
{{Style P-Quote|1=“Mrs. Essery, of Launceston; her husband died ''circa'' 1818, and she dreamed one night that her husband came to her and said to her, ‘—— will come to you and say “Perhaps you are not aware of it, Mrs. Essery, but I am £20 in your late husband’s debt;” and you are to say that it is £80.’ Next morning she was sitting in her window, and round the corner of the street came the very man, which made her feel very queer. He came in and sat down, and said, ‘You may not know it, Mrs. Essery, that I am owing your husband £20.’ She at once said, ‘I think you are mistaken, sir, it is £80.’ He appeared somewhat disconcerted, and she reasserted it most positively. Some discussion took place, and he said that he would go home and consult his books, and the result was he paid her the £80. She had known nothing of the debt, and her husband had left no record of the loan. She would never tell the name of the borrower, as she said he was a friend of her husband. Miss Eliot heard the above from Mrs. Essery.”}} | |||
In a third case of a dream and literal fulfilment, also communicated to me by Mr. Pearce, I find on inquiry that the dreamer’s present recollection of the details is defective, and he moreover objects to the publication of his name. | |||
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| author signed = M. A. (Oxon.) | | author signed = M. A. (Oxon.) | ||
| source title = | | source title = Light | ||
| source details = | | source details = v. 2, No. 91, September 30, 1882 | ||
| publication date = | | publication date = 1882-09-30 | ||
| original date = | | original date = | ||
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... | {{Style P-Title|NOTES BY THE WAY.}} | ||
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<center>'''Contributed by “M.A. (Oxon.)”'''</center> | |||
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There is nothing to be added to what I have so frequently said about the conditions under which promiscuous séances for materialisation are held. The last exposure has but emphasised anew the necessity for a stern and searching reform. Possibly the steady frequency with which these miserable frauds recur may suggest the expediency of discountenancing altogether the holding of such experimental circles at all, except in private, and in the presence of experienced investigators. If they be held, it is imperative that they should be purged absolutely of the conditions which so readily lend themselves to fraud. But there are grave reasons for thinking that they are undesirable as ''public exhibitions.'' “A.P.S.” set forth some of these in his last letter, and the experience of instructed Spiritualists will supply others. It has, most unfortunately, become a received idea that a medium will be defended by some crazy enthusiasts, no matter how mean the fraud committed, nor how palpable it be. It is this, quite as much as the frauds themselves, that has brought such flagrant discredit on public Spiritualism. The outside investigators, who gather their opinions from the journals, have come to believe that fraud is rife, for they see little else than newspaper comments on exposures and prosecutions. And, what is worse, they have come to believe that there is a large class of men, whose names are prominent among Spiritualists, who are always ready to bolster up imposture, to cloak deceit, and to find an excuse for the most mean and miserable fraud. So, in their eyes, Spiritualists are ''participes criminis'', accessories after the fact, if not before, not ashamed of what to them should be sheer sacrilege. And such men ask, “How can these people believe what they profess? They and their phenomena are one vast sham!” It is this that, even more than repeated fraud, of which the ''raison d’être'' is not far to seek, discredits Spiritualism. And it is this that must be resolutely dealt with. | |||
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We do not know enough of mediumship to be rash in apportioning blame. We do not know how far responsibility attaches to those whom we recklessly and cruelly submit to conditions that apparently ''invite'' fraud. We do not know enough of the conditions under which materialisation is possible to venture dogmatically to prescribe them. But we can at least so place the medium that he will be exonerated from complicity. We can do our best to eliminate those dubious conditions which have been proven over and over again to lead to fraud and deceit. If this fraud be a mere cheat of a pretender to mediumship, we can prevent that sham. If it be a piece of deception perpetrated by low and deceiving Spirits, we can rescue the medium from such obsession by declining to provide the conditions which make it easy. Whatever source the fraud may have, we can and we must deal directly with ''it'', by cutting directly at the conditions which foster it. And this we may do not only with a true regard for “delicately organised and highly sensitive” persons of whom we have lately heard so much; but in doing it we may righteously claim to be acting in the direct interest of honesty, truth, and the cause which is being stifled by repeated fraud. More than this. We shall directly raise for solution a question the moral import of which is vast. What right have we to expose our sensitives to these hideous risks, if the fraud have a Spirit-source? Who are the Spirits who so act? What is the responsibility of those who encourage and provide means for their antics? | |||
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Owing to prolonged absence from the sources of knowledge, I have only just read in the ''Relig{{Style S-HPB SB. Restored|io-}}Philosophical Journal'', an excellent paper by W. Emmette Coleman, on “Spiritualism and its Scientific Analysis.” Everything that he writes is worth attention, and there are, in this essay, some very striking criticisms and expressions of belief. Starting with the admission that there is very much in the current phases of Spiritualism to repel average scientists, and that, therefore, they are not to be blamed for declining to meddle with the unsavoury mess, he puts as a ''per contra'' the fact that “no instance is known of a person of scientific or philosophical attainments” who investigated Spiritualism without attaining conviction of the objective reality, if not of the spiritual origin of the phenomena. Mr. Coleman has apparently not heard of Mr. Moncure Conway, who once wrote to the ''Spectator'' to place himself in that category, which, as far as I know, he occupies in lonely isolation. Mr. Conway always excepted, the case is as Mr. Coleman puts it. | |||
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When he comes to classify psychical and spiritual phenomena he makes three divisions. (1) Those due to fraud (though it is hard to see how such are either spiritual or psychical, being due either to muscular contortion, sleight of hand, or elaborated imposture by aid of confederates). (2) Those properly called ''psychical'', and due to the action of powers and forces resident in the human body. (3) Those properly called ''spiritual'', and due to the action of disembodied or unembodied intelligence. The phenomena of the second class occur, he thinks, in the presence of a sensitive or ''psychic''; those of the third class only in the presence of a fully developed ''medium.'' The distinction is plain. The psychic is but partially developed, and is subject to the influence of minds with which he comes into contact, or gives off what is in his own mind. The ''medium'' is so developed as to be amenable to the direct influence of Spirit, which keeps all mental influence in abeyance. Psychics abound, and through them come the distorted images, the half-truths, the confusion that has fallen on Spiritualism. The true medium is extremely rare, and through him, when found, comes the clear spiritual truth which carries its own proof of genuineness with it. | |||
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This view, just the antithesis of the Theosophical teaching, squares considerably with what I have observed. I am disposed to think that there is much to be said for it. At the time, now long past, when I was obtaining a great deal of instruction from what purported to be a spiritual source, and which I have no doubt was what it claimed to be, one of the constantly reiterated instructions was to maintain complete mental passivity. “It is in your mind to argue,” would be written, and then the communications would cease. If I took a book and fixed my mind on it, the automatic writing would be resumed. For it was a peculiarity of the communications I received that I could never elicit them at will, or by the most urgent request, ''unless what were deemed requisite conditions were to be had.'' Of these, passivity, isolation, and physical health were most insisted on. When these were not to be had the writing would at once cease. It was a governing principle with the communicating intelligence not to give any message which would be tainted by admixture from any other source. The most distinctive messages were written when I was in a state of complete absorption, and I have no doubt whatever that they are untinged by any conscious thought of mine. I never had the faintest doubt as to the individuality of Imperator as separate from my own. And from the care and pains he took to keep the channel of communication pure, as well as from the experience I have since had of what Mr. Coleman calls psychical phenomena proper, I think that the distinction drawn is sound. | |||
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Mr. Coleman is severe on the “unscientific, unphilosophic, emotional” natures of the mass of Spiritualists, whence comes | |||
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Light v.02 n.91 1882-09-30.pdf|page=1|Light, v. 2, No. 91, September 30, 1882, p. 429 | |||
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