< What is the Intelligence? (continued from page 8-27) >
one particular medium happened to bear out much of the theosophic theory, “M.A.” can afford to be peculiarly funny at the expense of accuracy. “M.A.” ventures to suggest a remedy for these spirit vagaries. It is the old one, but unfortunately does not always apply. We are told to “purify our circles.” I have seen this done, and half a dozen worthy Christians listening, through a medium, to exhortations from “St. Peter” and St. Paul” by the hour—given through the lips of an entranced medium, in language which the men of Jewry or Athens would not have tolerated for a moment. I have seen in the quiet of a home circle, when the planchette has been used, a message written out describing the horrible death of a relative in a distant land, when no thought of such a person was present in the minds of the company. The name, age, and minute particulars were given to “identify” the spirit of the deceased woman, and of course the statement, so apparently truthful, was believed, until weary months afterwards letters arrived showing that the whole story of the planchette was a bit of as abominable a fiction as could be conceived of. It is useless for “M.A.” to tell me that the circle had anything to do with such a message. Is it possible that the embodied spirits of the family would have concocted a tale of murder for their own amusement? The theosophical elementaries are a more likely explanation. I fancy “M.A.” must be unacquainted with the mediumship of the Durham, Yorkshire, and Lancashire district. If he made a tour through some of the “circles”—not “promiscuous” ones, but those confined to earnest truth-seekers—he would find much to amuse, and not a little to astound him. At several there are the healing controls, who declare that they were medical men in earth-life, and talk rather learnedly on the subject, until you suddenly prove them to be arrant “quacks” from the expressions they let fall. Let me guard myself by saying, this is not everywhere the case, but frequently so.
A hackneyed expression is made use of by “M.A.”—“a theory which pretends to explain facts must explain all the facts, or it is worthless.” Certainly. But one theory will explain one set of facts, whilst it takes another theory for a dissimilar set. One theory is not going to cover all the facts of Spiritualism, though it may embrace those which have a relevancy for each other. If my theory as to “thought-reading” by spirits explains a very large variety of manifestations, it does not follow that I am to account for form phenomena or trance speaking by the same hypothesis.
“M.A.” asks, “How do we stand as Spiritualists in the face of the three Mentors who have been raised up to ‘smite us friendly, and reprove us?’” He supplies his own answer. Spiritualists are, to a great extent (particularly through clairvoyant mediums), the victims of my “masquerading spook,” and others of the genus. “Are we,” he wants to know, “befooled by the loose spirit of the medium?” I think I must also say, “Yes”—or how account for the fiasco at Blackburn? unless, indeed, you call in that unknown quantity, x, in the shape of a theosophic “elemental,” an even lower order of creation than my maligned “spook,” who has thrown a good deal of information upon a difficult subject, and rendered much that was hard easy of comprehension.
In reply to your contributor, Mr. J. Carson, I must say I should be prepared to accept his case as a genuine manifestation; but it is only another instance of a person recently deceased paying his final leavetaking. I have, in my own experience, met with two or three instances somewhat similar through different mediums. These cases are, however, I maintain, only oases in the desert of difficulty; but were it not for their friendly shelter, many of us in our spiritual progress might fall into “Doubting Castle,” or perish by the wayside of scepticism.
Ulverston, January 8, 1878.
What Truch is There in Astrology?
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Haunted Houses
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<Untitled> (Mr. George Harris's...)
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Editor's notes