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{{Style P-No indent|which a lurid light has been cast by the Peterborough exposure. It is to no purpose that we spend our time in speculating whether or not certain phenomena are or may conceivably be ''true'' and ''genuine.'' No sitting should ever be held under conditions which admit of such speculative guesses at truth. Tests should be absolute, or should not be employed. “C.C.M.” is right as to tests. Mr. Podmore is right too. I have never pretended that I regard it as probable or even possible to obtain the best phenomena under conditions of prescribed test, which are not compatible with the perfect comfort of the medium, and which in themselves must imply some doubt as to his integrity. I have preferred always to adopt the method recommended by “C.C.M.” But I have tried to point out that any tests which are employed should be complete; and, with a view to extending our knowledge of the ''modus operandi'', as well as for our more simple satisfaction, I still think no condition of observation is so good as a clear view of the medium during the whole séance.}} | {{Style P-No indent|which a lurid light has been cast by the Peterborough exposure. It is to no purpose that we spend our time in speculating whether or not certain phenomena are or may conceivably be ''true'' and ''genuine.'' No sitting should ever be held under conditions which admit of such speculative guesses at truth. Tests should be absolute, or should not be employed. “C.C.M.” is right as to tests. Mr. Podmore is right too. I have never pretended that I regard it as probable or even possible to obtain the best phenomena under conditions of prescribed test, which are not compatible with the perfect comfort of the medium, and which in themselves must imply some doubt as to his integrity. I have preferred always to adopt the method recommended by “C.C.M.” But I have tried to point out that any tests which are employed should be complete; and, with a view to extending our knowledge of the ''modus operandi'', as well as for our more simple satisfaction, I still think no condition of observation is so good as a clear view of the medium during the whole séance.}} | ||
There is one difficulty in adopting “C.C.M.’s” advice to “submit, if necessary, to imperfect conditions of observation, treating as of no account . . . any phenomena which do not make up for this usual defect and carry conviction by their own spontaneous cogency and character,” and this is a serious one for the future compiler of evidence. No circle of which I have ever been a member would unanimously agree as to what was or was not “indisputably genuine.” This comes home to me just now, for the various records that I have sifted in collecting evidence for materialisation are bewildering from the very fact that no reader can now tell the exact value of the testimony so given. The Spiritualist journals, in “C.C.M.’s” contemplated case would be filled with conflicting records, and it would be impossible in the strife of tongues to get at any fair conception of what really had taken place. A would write to say what he had seen, and B would rejoin that it was pure fancy on A’s part. C would point out that the medium ''might'' conceivably have done so-and-so, and D would wax virtuously indignant and vituperative over the unmanly attack on the character of an &c., &c. And so it would go on, till (as we have seen in other cases) two mutually irritated camps were formed, one who regarded the medium as a long-suffering martyr—the other as a probable trickster; one who believed everything; the other who believed nothing (except what was in accord with preconceived opinion). This is surely a consummation devoutly to be deprecated. In private circles the method usually adopted is that advocated by “C.C.M.;” in mixed circles tests of some kind must be used. I desire only that they should be complete, though I have no hope of any being devised so satisfactory as to exclude all doubt from all minds. And, in view of those perpetual exposures, I am by no means sure that any public and promiscuous circles should be encouraged to seek for such phenomena. | There is one difficulty in adopting “C.C.M.’s” advice to “submit, if necessary, to imperfect conditions of observation, treating as of no account . . . any phenomena which do not make up for this usual defect and carry conviction by their own spontaneous cogency and character,” and this is a serious one for the future compiler of evidence. No circle of which I have ever been a member would unanimously agree as to what was or was not “indisputably genuine.” This comes home to me just now, for the various records that I have sifted in collecting evidence for materialisation are bewildering from the very fact that no reader can now tell the exact value of the testimony so given. The Spiritualist journals, in “C.C.M.’s” contemplated case would be filled with conflicting records, and it would be impossible in the strife of tongues to get at any fair conception of what really had taken place. A would write to say what he had seen, and B would rejoin that it was pure fancy on A’s part. C would point out that the medium ''might'' conceivably have done so-and-so, and D would wax virtuously indignant and vituperative over the unmanly attack on the character of an &c., &c. And so it would go on, till (as we have seen in other cases) two mutually irritated camps were formed, one who regarded the medium as a long-suffering martyr—the other as a probable trickster; one who believed everything; the other who believed nothing (except what was in accord with preconceived opinion). This is surely a consummation devoutly to be deprecated. In private circles the method usually adopted is that advocated by “C.C.M.;” in mixed circles tests of some kind must be used. I desire only that they should be complete, though I have no hope of any being devised so satisfactory as to exclude all doubt from all minds. And, in view of those perpetual exposures, I am by no means sure that any public and promiscuous circles should be encouraged to seek for such phenomena. | ||
The appeal that “C.C.M.” makes to the Physical Phenomena Committee of the Society for Psychical Research is one that touches a very important matter. I believe that nothing will be easier than for that Committee to pursue a long series of investigations under conditions so devised that nothing can take place. It is not unlikely that a fear of such conditions will make it very difficult to persuade mediums to give them opportunity of investigation. Private mediums will not submit to the elaborate system of testing. Public mediums have before their eyes the fear of failure. It will be hard, perhaps impossible, for them to get good results, and then investigators or Spiritualists generally will say “Ah! yes; his power is failing; he sat for the Committee of the Society for Psychical Research and got nothing. Better go to someone else!” And so the trade would depart, and they who live by it naturally fear and hesitate. It is a delicate question; for the absence of all tests, and the trusting of the unseen agents to tell us when they can dispense with such and such conditions, is risky. I, for one, do not believe that ''all'' the illusion, deception, and what we roughly call fraud, ''i.e.'', the elements of misconception as well as of deception, come from this side only. I have said repeatedly, and I maintain the opinion, that such demonstrably come, in cases which I have known, from a source other than the medium. I have seen, after watching a particular manifestation over and over again under conditions which were good enough for any reasonable being, the same phenomenon presented in such a way as to suggest the most obvious and foolish attempt at trick, such as no sane man would attempt. And this has been Spirit-trickery. We can{{Style S-HPB SB. Restored|n}}o{{Style S-HPB SB. Restored|t}}<ref name="editor-restoration-38">Two abraded letters in “cannot” are restored from Light, 23 September 1882, p. 418.</ref> reckon without the intelligent operator, but all difficulties will not vanish by leaving all in his power. | The appeal that “C.C.M.” makes to the Physical Phenomena Committee of the Society for Psychical Research is one that touches a very important matter. I believe that nothing will be easier than for that Committee to pursue a long series of investigations under conditions so devised that nothing can take place. It is not unlikely that a fear of such conditions will make it very difficult to persuade mediums to give them opportunity of investigation. Private mediums will not submit to the elaborate system of testing. Public mediums have before their eyes the fear of failure. It will be hard, perhaps impossible, for them to get good results, and then investigators or Spiritualists generally will say “Ah! yes; his power is failing; he sat for the Committee of the Society for Psychical Research and got nothing. Better go to someone else!” And so the trade would depart, and they who live by it naturally fear and hesitate. It is a delicate question; for the absence of all tests, and the trusting of the unseen agents to tell us when they can dispense with such and such conditions, is risky. I, for one, do not believe that ''all'' the illusion, deception, and what we roughly call fraud, ''i.e.'', the elements of misconception as well as of deception, come from this side only. I have said repeatedly, and I maintain the opinion, that such demonstrably come, in cases which I have known, from a source other than the medium. I have seen, after watching a particular manifestation over and over again under conditions which were good enough for any reasonable being, the same phenomenon presented in such a way as to suggest the most obvious and foolish attempt at trick, such as no sane man would attempt. And this has been Spirit-trickery. We can{{Style S-HPB SB. Restored|n}}o{{Style S-HPB SB. Restored|t}}<ref name="editor-restoration-38">Two abraded letters in “cannot” are restored from Light, 23 September 1882, p. 418.</ref> reckon without the intelligent operator, but all difficulties will not vanish by leaving all in his power. | ||
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Revision as of 19:12, 4 November 2026
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vol. title: vol. period: 1882 pages in vol.: 174 |
LIGHT.
September 23, 1882.
< Notes by the Way. (continued from page 14-37) >
which a lurid light has been cast by the Peterborough exposure. It is to no purpose that we spend our time in speculating whether or not certain phenomena are or may conceivably be true and genuine. No sitting should ever be held under conditions which admit of such speculative guesses at truth. Tests should be absolute, or should not be employed. “C.C.M.” is right as to tests. Mr. Podmore is right too. I have never pretended that I regard it as probable or even possible to obtain the best phenomena under conditions of prescribed test, which are not compatible with the perfect comfort of the medium, and which in themselves must imply some doubt as to his integrity. I have preferred always to adopt the method recommended by “C.C.M.” But I have tried to point out that any tests which are employed should be complete; and, with a view to extending our knowledge of the modus operandi, as well as for our more simple satisfaction, I still think no condition of observation is so good as a clear view of the medium during the whole séance.
There is one difficulty in adopting “C.C.M.’s” advice to “submit, if necessary, to imperfect conditions of observation, treating as of no account . . . any phenomena which do not make up for this usual defect and carry conviction by their own spontaneous cogency and character,” and this is a serious one for the future compiler of evidence. No circle of which I have ever been a member would unanimously agree as to what was or was not “indisputably genuine.” This comes home to me just now, for the various records that I have sifted in collecting evidence for materialisation are bewildering from the very fact that no reader can now tell the exact value of the testimony so given. The Spiritualist journals, in “C.C.M.’s” contemplated case would be filled with conflicting records, and it would be impossible in the strife of tongues to get at any fair conception of what really had taken place. A would write to say what he had seen, and B would rejoin that it was pure fancy on A’s part. C would point out that the medium might conceivably have done so-and-so, and D would wax virtuously indignant and vituperative over the unmanly attack on the character of an &c., &c. And so it would go on, till (as we have seen in other cases) two mutually irritated camps were formed, one who regarded the medium as a long-suffering martyr—the other as a probable trickster; one who believed everything; the other who believed nothing (except what was in accord with preconceived opinion). This is surely a consummation devoutly to be deprecated. In private circles the method usually adopted is that advocated by “C.C.M.;” in mixed circles tests of some kind must be used. I desire only that they should be complete, though I have no hope of any being devised so satisfactory as to exclude all doubt from all minds. And, in view of those perpetual exposures, I am by no means sure that any public and promiscuous circles should be encouraged to seek for such phenomena.
The appeal that “C.C.M.” makes to the Physical Phenomena Committee of the Society for Psychical Research is one that touches a very important matter. I believe that nothing will be easier than for that Committee to pursue a long series of investigations under conditions so devised that nothing can take place. It is not unlikely that a fear of such conditions will make it very difficult to persuade mediums to give them opportunity of investigation. Private mediums will not submit to the elaborate system of testing. Public mediums have before their eyes the fear of failure. It will be hard, perhaps impossible, for them to get good results, and then investigators or Spiritualists generally will say “Ah! yes; his power is failing; he sat for the Committee of the Society for Psychical Research and got nothing. Better go to someone else!” And so the trade would depart, and they who live by it naturally fear and hesitate. It is a delicate question; for the absence of all tests, and the trusting of the unseen agents to tell us when they can dispense with such and such conditions, is risky. I, for one, do not believe that all the illusion, deception, and what we roughly call fraud, i.e., the elements of misconception as well as of deception, come from this side only. I have said repeatedly, and I maintain the opinion, that such demonstrably come, in cases which I have known, from a source other than the medium. I have seen, after watching a particular manifestation over and over again under conditions which were good enough for any reasonable being, the same phenomenon presented in such a way as to suggest the most obvious and foolish attempt at trick, such as no sane man would attempt. And this has been Spirit-trickery. We cannot[1] reckon without the intelligent operator, but all difficulties will not vanish by leaving all in his power.
“THE PERFECT WAY” AND ITS CRITICS.
Sir,—Permit us space in your columns for a few words in reply to the strictures of Dr. Wyld and Mrs. Penny upon the above book.
“The Perfect Way” neither is, nor purports to be, a “new” Gospel in the sense implied by your correspondents. On the contrary, it is expressly declared in the preface that “nothing new is told, but that which is ancient—so ancient, that either it or its meaning has been lost—is restored and explained.” Its mission is that simply of Rehabilitation and Interpretation, undertaken with the view, not of superseding Christianity, but of saving it.
For as the deepest and most earnest thinkers of our day are painfully aware, the Gospel of Christendom, as it stands in the Four Evangels, does not suffice, uninterpreted, to satisfy the needs of the age, and to furnish a perfect system of thought and rule of life. Christianity—historically preached and understood—has for eighteen centuries filled the world with wars, persecutions, and miseries of all kinds; and in these days it is rapidly filling it with agnosticism, atheism, and revolt against the very idea of God. “The Perfect Way” seeks to consolidate truth in one complete whole, and by systematising religion to demonstrate its Catholicity. It seeks to make peace between Science and Faith; to marry the Intellect with the Intuition; to bring together East and West, and to unite Buddhist philosophy with Christian love, by demonstrating that the basis of religion is not historical, but spiritual,—not physical, but psychic—not local and temporal, but universal and eternal. It avers that the true “Lord Jesus Christ” is no mere historical character, no mere demi-god, by whose material blood the souls of men are washed white, but “the hidden man of the heart,” continually born, crucified, ascending and glorified in the interior Kingdom of the Christian’s own Spirit. A scientific age rightly refuses to be any longer put off with data which are more than dubious, and logic which morality and philosophy alike reject. A deeper, truer, more real religion is needed for an epoch of thought and for a world familiar with biblical criticism and revision;—a religion whose foundations no destructive agnosticism can undermine, and in whose structure no examination, however searching, shall be able to find flaw or blemish. It is only by rescuing the Gospel of Christ from the externals of history, persons, and events, and by vindicating its essential significance, that Christianity can be saved from the destruction which inevitably overtakes all idolatrous creeds. There is not a word in “The Perfect Way” at variance with the spirit of the Gospel of the “Lord Jesus Christ.” If your correspondents think otherwise, it can only be because they are themselves dominated by idolatrous conceptions in regard to the personal and historical Jesus, and cannot endure to see their Eidolon broken to pieces in the presence of the Ark of the Mysteries of God.
It is just those who have fully accepted, and who comprehend the Spirit of, the old Gospel, who are ready and anxious to hear what the promised Spirit of Truth has yet to reveal. But the world at large never has accepted that Gospel, and cannot accept it for need of that very interpretation which our opponents deprecate. If the Spirit of Truth be really charged to “shew all things,” such exposition will certainly not consist in a mere reiteration, in the same obscure, because symbolical, terms, of the old formulas. But if they elect to close their minds against any elucidation of sacred mysteries other than that provided by a Behmen or a Swedenborg, they virtually quench the Spirit and fossilise its revelation.
Despite the eulogy of Dr. Wyld, Mrs. Penny’s letter is altogether inadequate to its intention. Like the utterances of conventional pulpiteers, it is profuse of phrase and meagre of explanation. Terms such as “the water of life,” and “the painful mysteries of our own nature,” are used wholly without indication as to their meaning; and the sense in which it speaks of “the Lord Jesus Christ” is left entirely to the reader’s imagination. Surely she must be aware that these oft-repeated expressions have failed of their proper practical spiritual issue, precisely because they have lacked the interpretation necessary to render them intelligible, and that until they are so explained the world’s conversion is not to be hoped for. But, as it seems to us, Mrs. Penny is one of those who, contemning knowledge, postulate as the condition of salvation a faith which is divorced from understanding, and which, therefore, is no true faith, indefeasible and constant, but a blind, mechanical assent, born of mere wilfulness, and liable at any instant to fail and fall away.
<... continues on page 14-39 >
Editor's notes
Sources
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Light, v. 2, No. 90, September 23, 1882, p. 425