HPB-SB-1-57

H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

T i

vol. 1, p. 57	volume 1, page 57 vol. title: vol. period: 1874-1876 pages in vol.: 208
Legend HPB note HPB highlighted HPB underlined HPB crossed out <Editors note> <Archivist note> Lost or unclear SBT, DT Restored

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eng • рус

Those Liberal Club Snuffers

Phenomena Without a Spirit Hypothesis

To the Editor of The Tribune.

sir: Our attention has been called to a long letter from Col. Henry S. Olcott in 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,

P. H. Vander Weyde, M.D.

Frederic R. Marvin, M.D.

T. B. Wakeman.

New-York, Sept. 10, 1875.

See Vol. I, Chap. III of Isis Unveiled written against these Soul snuffers.

Spiritualism Rampant. Embryonic Men

...

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Spiritual Scientist Sept. 18, 1875.

Oriental Spiritualism

One of the most talented writers, now contributing to Spiritual literature, is Dr. G. L. Ditson, an able scholar, a calm and clear thinker. It gives us pleasure to find him in the ranks of those who are willing to seize upon “truth wherever found, on heathen or on Christian ground;” and his testimony to the possibility of there being a residuum of force, in spiritual manifestations not satisfactorily accounted for on the theory of spirit-communication, is worthy of consideration. He has no fear that a study of the hidden forces in Nature will undermine his Spiritualism; and that there are these forces he evidently has no doubt; for he says: —

“When in Egypt and India I saw such feats performed by jugglers (so-called), that trenched so largely upon the boundaries of the impossible—seemingly so to us—that I, for one, am anxious to look into any and every work, whatever title it may bear and under whatever mysterious aspect it may be put forth, in which there may possibly lie a clue to those unfathomed secrets (unfathomed in our day—exceptions allowed), that in ancient times, hidden under cabalistic signs and figures, master-spirits in the flesh knew bow to utilize. To be sure the things here hinted at receive their share of ridicule, as does Spiritualism and mesmerism, and as the Copernican system did at a more remote period; but this, certainly, with intelligent Spiritualists should not have a feathers weight If “pooh-pooh,” and “nonsense,” am “humbug,” and “crazy fool,” had been material substances, we should have had a wall built around us to high we should never have seen its capstone. Let us, then, beware how we use such terms concerning that of which we are ignorant, though in our conceit we may fancy that we have the key rationale to <... continues on page 1-58 >

The present generation of men gradually evolving from—plants, vegetables, fish and becoming finally Whiskey bottles,—the “Embryonic man” or ancestor of the present race.

Editor's notes

Sources

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  Spiritual Scientist, v. 3, No. 11, November 18, 1875, p. 127