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Blavatsky H.P. - (New) York Against Lankester (view source)
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{{Style P-Title|(NEW) YORK AGAINST LANKESTER}} | {{Style P-Title|(NEW) YORK AGAINST LANKESTER}} | ||
{{Style P-Subtitle|A NEW WAR OF THE ROSES — DEGENERATION OF SPECIES — | |||
A THEOSOPHIST COMES TO THE DEFENSE OF A MEDIUM. | A THEOSOPHIST COMES TO THE DEFENSE OF A MEDIUM.}} | ||
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To the Editor of the Banner of Light: | To the Editor of the Banner of Light: | ||
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As one entrusted by the Russian Committee with the delicate task of selecting a medium for the coming St. Petersburg experiments, and as an officer of the Theosophical Society, which put Dr. Slade’s powers to the test in a long series of séances, I pronounce him not only a genuine medium, but one of the best and least fraudulent mediums ever developed. From personal experience, I can not only testify to the genuineness of his slate-writing, but also to that of the materializations which occur in his presence. A shawl thrown over a chair (which I was invited to place wherever I chose) is all the cabinet he exacts, and his apparitions immediately appear, and that in gaslight. | As one entrusted by the Russian Committee with the delicate task of selecting a medium for the coming St. Petersburg experiments, and as an officer of the Theosophical Society, which put Dr. Slade’s powers to the test in a long series of séances, I pronounce him not only a genuine medium, but one of the best and least fraudulent mediums ever developed. From personal experience, I can not only testify to the genuineness of his slate-writing, but also to that of the materializations which occur in his presence. A shawl thrown over a chair (which I was invited to place wherever I chose) is all the cabinet he exacts, and his apparitions immediately appear, and that in gaslight. | ||
No one will charge me with a superfluous confidence in the personality of materializing apparitions, or superabundance of love for them; but honour and truth compel me to affirm that those who appeared to me in Slade’s presence were real phantoms, and not “made up” confederates or dolls. They were evanescent and filmy, and the only ones I have seen in America which have reminded me of those which the adepts of India evoke. Like the latter, they formed and dissolved before my eyes, their substance rising mist-like from the floor, and gradually condensing. Their eyes moved and their lips smiled; but as they stood near me their forms were so transparent that I could see through them the objects in the room. These I call genuine spiritual substances, whereas the opaque ones that I have seen elsewhere were nothing but animated forms of {{Page aside|224}} matter—whatever they be—with sweating hands and a peculiar odour which I am not called upon to define at this time. | No one will charge me with a superfluous confidence in the personality of materializing apparitions, or superabundance of love for them; but honour and truth compel me to affirm that those who appeared to me in Slade’s presence were real phantoms, and not “made up” confederates or dolls. They were evanescent and filmy, and the only ones I have seen in America which have reminded me of those which the adepts of India evoke. Like the latter, they formed and dissolved before my eyes, their substance rising mist-like from the floor, and gradually condensing. Their eyes moved and their lips smiled; but as they stood near me their forms were so transparent that I could see through them the objects in the room. These I call genuine spiritual substances, whereas the opaque ones that I have seen elsewhere were nothing but animated forms of {{Page aside|224}} matter—whatever they be—with sweating hands and a peculiar odour which I am not called upon to define at this time. | ||
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<center>1824-1878</center> | <center>1824-1878</center> | ||
<center>(From Emma Hardinge-Britten’s Nineteenth Century Miracles, London, 1883. Consult the Bio-Bibliographical Index for biographical data)</center> | <center>(From Emma Hardinge-Britten’s Nineteenth Century Miracles, London, 1883. Consult the Bio-Bibliographical Index for biographical data)</center> | ||
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{{Page aside|225}} {{Style P-No indent|of that “amiable idiot,” Colonel Olcott, for trusting his own two-months’ observation of the Eddy phenomena in preference to the electric doctor’s single séance of an hour.}} | {{Page aside|225}} {{Style P-No indent|of that “amiable idiot,” Colonel Olcott, for trusting his own two-months’ observation of the Eddy phenomena in preference to the electric doctor’s single séance of an hour.}} | ||
I am an American citizen in embryo, Mr. Editor, and I cannot hope that the English magistrates of Bow Street will listen to a voice that comes from a city proverbially held in small esteem by British scientists. When Professor Tyndall asks Professor Youmans if the New York carpenters could make him a screen ten feet long for his Cooper Institute lectures, and whether it would be necessary to send to Boston for a cake of ice that he wished to use in the experiments; and when Huxley evinces grateful surprise that a “foreigner could express himself in your [our] language, in such a way as to be so readily intelligible, to all appearance,” by a New York audience, and that those clever chaps—the New York reporters—could report him despite his accent, neither New York witnesses nor New York “spooks” can hope for a standing in a London court, when the defendant is prosecuted by English scientists. But fortunately for Dr. Slade, British tribunals are not inspired by the Jesuits, and so Slade may escape the fate of Leymarie. He certainly will, if he is allowed to summon to the witness stand his Owasso and other devoted “controls,” to write their testimony inside a double slate, furnished and held by the magistrate himself. This is Dr. Slade’s golden hour: he will never have so good a chance to demonstrate the reality of phenomenal manifestations and make Spiritualism triumph over skepticism; and we who know the doctor’s wonderful powers, are confident that he can do it, if he is assisted by those who in the past have accomplished so much through his instrumentality. <ref> {{HPB-CW-comment|[Consult the Bio-Bibliographical Index of the present volume for other data concerning Dr. Slade.—Compiler.]}}</ref> | I am an American citizen in embryo, Mr. Editor, and I cannot hope that the English magistrates of Bow Street will listen to a voice that comes from a city proverbially held in small esteem by British scientists. When Professor Tyndall asks Professor Youmans if the New York carpenters could make him a screen ten feet long for his Cooper Institute lectures, and whether it would be necessary to send to Boston for a cake of ice that he wished to use in the experiments; and when Huxley evinces grateful surprise that a “foreigner could express himself in your [our] language, in such a way as to be so readily intelligible, to all appearance,” by a New York audience, and that those clever chaps—the New York reporters—could report him despite his accent, neither New York witnesses nor New York “spooks” can hope for a standing in a London court, when the defendant is prosecuted by English scientists. But fortunately for Dr. Slade, British tribunals are not inspired by the Jesuits, and so Slade may escape the fate of Leymarie. He certainly will, if he is allowed to summon to the witness stand his Owasso and other devoted “controls,” to write their testimony inside a double slate, furnished and held by the magistrate himself. This is Dr. Slade’s golden hour: he will never have so good a chance to demonstrate the reality of phenomenal manifestations and make Spiritualism triumph over skepticism; and we who know the doctor’s wonderful powers, are confident that he can do it, if he is assisted by those who in the past have accomplished so much through his instrumentality.<ref> {{HPB-CW-comment|[Consult the Bio-Bibliographical Index of the present volume for other data concerning Dr. Slade.—Compiler.]}}</ref> | ||
{{Style P-Signature|H. P. BLAVATSKY, | {{Style P-Signature|H. P. BLAVATSKY, | ||
Corresponding Secretary of the Theosophical Society. | Corresponding Secretary of the Theosophical Society.}} | ||
New York, October 8th, 1876.}} | {{Style P-No indent|New York, October 8th, 1876.}} | ||
{{Footnotes}} | {{Footnotes}} | ||