HPB-SB-8-92

T i

vol. 8, p. 92

H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

vol. 8 (September 1878 - September 1879)

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eng • рус

Cabinet and Council

Sir,—It is long since I have read anything in The Spiritualist which has commanded my so general and hearty concurrence as the letter of Mr. Stainton-Moses on “Form Manifestations by the Light of Recent Events,” this week. It is by taking such counsels as his to heart, and acting upon them, rather than by sham investigations to formulate foregone conclusions, that we shall purify, if ever, that which we are pleased to call Spiritualism, from abuses that too notoriously belong to the trade in physical manifestations. Our Association might have done good service if it had made this wretched Amsterdam incident the occasion for some general declaration on the subject of cabinet seances for so-called materialisations. Not that I would abolish them for all purposes. With very select investigators—persons who are present to study and observe, not to believe and wonder, or to disbelieve and “expose,” or to doubt and dissemble—the cabinet may be often useful for the solution of quite different and very difficult problems, of the psychological, rather than of the physicalorder. And I am glad to take this opportunity of testifying that there are mediums who sit out of sight, and whose manifestations sometimes suggest the doubts to which I am now referring, who yet are, I believe, sincerely and liberally tolerant of those doubts, who do not demand that friendly feeling should take the form of blind acquiescence, and who, if treated on a footing of equal intelligence and sincerity, and not merely as instruments for the demonstration of what is perhaps not, or not always, a vera causa, could and would help us with a record where we too hastily assume there is a blank. If we would only recognise mediums as investigators like ourselves, if we could only cease from hypocrisy towards them, not with the view of getting them to submit to “tests” (for the whole system of prearranged “tests” I believe to be a thoroughly false and crude method of investigation, except, of course, for mere beginners), but for the establishment of what I may call a scientific confidence between us and them, I am sure, from some experience in this direction, that it would greatly facilitate our progress. In that case we need not fear the cabinet, and might often find it useful. But this is only for private circles, where there is a perfectly frank and friendly spirit, and none of that pretence of believing without evidence which to an intelligent medium ought to be, and, I believe, sometimes is, as offensive as the rudest scepticism. But for the general public circle, let us by all means declare against the cabinet altogether, and for the reasons so cogently put forth by Mr. Stainton- Moses, and enforced by yourself. Our Council is composed of persons all, probably, more than commonly conversant with the facts of Spiritualism, and whose expressed judgment ought to carry weight. A collective denunciation of the “cabinet” from such authority would be a record to which every Spiritualist might appeal to distinguish representative opinion in. the movement from the credulity which is the nutriment of fraud, and which would stop at least fair and well-informed opponents from fastening future “exposures” of this description upon us to the discredit of our cause. But to pass judgment on individual cases not occurring on our premises is, in my opinion, quite beyond our province, and that whether the judgment is pronounced with or without the pretence of an “investigation,” which could not possibly satisfy the conditions of a fair and sufficient inquiry. My use of the term “judicial inquiry” was objected to at the Council last week; but the object of the special committee either was or was not to arrive at the truth of a matter of fact by means of evidence. If they had no other evidence before them than the letters which had been already published, and the statement of the accused, which was also known to everybody, I don’t see how, even with the additional privilege of the sight of a darned rag, they had better materials for decision than any other reader of The Spiritualist. Every bit of “evidence” before them would have been properly rejected in any English court of law. I venture to say with the utmost confidence, and without the least imputation on any of- the witnesses, that no two of them, separately examined, would have told the story exactly to the same effect, or exactly as it appears in the statement signed by them all, without material divergences therefrom, or material additions thereto; and any lawyer in the world would share my assurance on this point. It is always found to be the case that witnesses, in volunteering evidence which has led them to a certain conclusion, tell only what they think material, omitting, or forgetting, till it is recalled to their often reluctant minds by the process of cross-examination, many circumstances which to the tribunal may seem highly important. Be this as it may, what I wish to point out is that this committee has added just nothing to our knowledge or to our justifiable assurance. The chairman, Mr. Dawson Rogers, replying upon me at the Council, amusingly betrayed his own consciousness of this. He rather significantly observed that there was not a member present who did not believe that the committee had come to a right conclusion. I do not think Mr. Rogers meant this on the ground of our unlimited confidence in his committee. But if not, his remark assumed a conclusion that was quite independent of the so-called “investigation.” And, indeed, one of the members of that very committee had already, before its appointment, proposed a resolution which recognised the truth of the charges. Whether we agree with it or not, I cannot conceive a document more absolutely worthless, for what it professes to be, than the report which was adopted by a large majority of the Council last Tuesday. And I fear that its adoption, and the whole action of the Council in this matter, is in a great measure due to a feeling expressed by one of its best, ablest, and most esteemed members, that “a medium stood in relation to Spiritualism much as a minister stood in relation to his church, and if any charge is brought against a minister, his church is bound, in self-defence, to inquire into it.” I presume the Church of “Peter.” I am not a member of it.

C. C. Massey.

Temple.

How the Rose Turned Red

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Spiritualism Abroad

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Editor's notes

Sources

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  London Spiritualist, No. 324, November 8, 1878, p. 248