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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued |A Voice from Laodicea|10-333}} | {{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued |A Voice from Laodicea|10-333}} | ||
... | {{Style P-No indent|in the Bibles, the histories, the folk-lore and minstrelsy of all the world. Poets in all ages have sung them; chroniclers have recorded them; philosophers have explained or have failed to explain them. And in this last generation, whilst they have been witnessed as before, by competent observers in every department of human knowledge, they have even excited the attention of those learned in the laws of the physical universe. These facts which seem to suspend, if not to violate the known laws of nature, have been officially sanctioned by many of those who have helped to enunciate those laws. The phenomena, from being aliens, are becoming naturalised as lawful subjects of the kingdom of Science. They have been accurately classified and recorded; the conditions under which they occur are being investigated, and their causes assigned. They have in many cases been measured by the rule and weighed in the balance; they have been tested by the galvanometer and the magnet; and doubtless the time is near at hand when the chemist shall determine the exact percentage of nitrogen in spirit albumen, and give duodecasyllabic names to their new hydrocarbons. I believe, as I said at the beginning, that the evidence for the facts of what is called Spiritualism is indisputable. It is impossible to doubt either the good faith and accuracy of the witnesses, or the adequacy of the means of investigation which they have employed. Nay more, I have myself seen many of the physical phenomena, such as slate-writing, and the movements of objects without contact, under conditions where trickery or delusion seemed impossible; and I have received communications which I could only satisfactorily explain by referring them to some intelligent incorporeal agent. I believe that the theory which maintains the existence of such agents is the only one that will adequately account for all the occurrences vouched for by competent witnesses. As such, I conceive the spirit hypothesis to stand on at least as firm a basis as the undulatory theory of light. And yet, believing all that I have said above to be within the limits of fair statement, so far am I from believing in the spiritualistic theory, that I cannot even say that I believe the most elementary of the facts which I myself have witnessed, and on which that theory is based.}} | ||
{{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on|10-335}} | <center>{{Style S-Small capitals|an analysis of psychological conditions.}}</center> | ||
If my case were at all an exceptional one, I should be guilty of the most impertinent egotism in proposing to vivisect my own morbid psychological anatomy before even a society of professed students of psychology. But within my own circle of intimates are some who hold a position similiar to my own. In the larger world I have reason to believe that there are many more. Seeing then, that I am no mere solitary sufferer, but the representative to-night of a large class similarly affected, I would invite your attention to consider our case, that we may, if possible, devise some sure prophylactic, some subtle moral vaccine, which may guard others, if not relieve ourselves from the attacks of this insidious malady. | |||
By a device well known to mathematicians, a single letter may be made to stand for an intricate formula, so saving a constant and wearisome repetition. Thus the Greek letter “''pi''”—or P, represents to the learned the proportion between the diameter and the circumference of a circle, and takes the place of a long decimal fraction. After this analogy, I will ask you, whenever the word “I” occurs in the course of this essay, to substitute for it when possible some such phrase as “the class of sceptics already mentioned, of whom the writer himself is one.” By this means I trust that I shall not offend by thrusting my own personality too prominently forward, whilst avoiding a tedious and inelegant periphrasis. | |||
<center>{{Style S-Small capitals|seances, and their influence upon the mind.}}</center> | |||
I remember reading some time ago, I think in ''The Spiritualist'' newspaper, the account of a ''séance'' which Sir D. Brewster had held with Mr. D. D. Home. This account was written some months after the ''séance''. Side by side with this, was placed another account of the same ''séance'' written by the same man in his private diary, within a few hours of the occurrences which he narrates. The contrast presented by these two records is startlingly instructive. The one was calmly contemptuous and spoke of the whole matter as merely a clever, but by no means inexplicable conjuring performance. The other was the utterance of a man in doubt; he had seen with his own eyes things which he could not disbelieve, but was quite unable to explain. The temporary effect of the ''séance'' was far more marked and of a totally different character from the impression left on the mind of the witness a few months afterwards. | |||
Now I have frequently noticed a precisely similar affection with regard to these phenomena both in myself and others. Some six years ago, when I first heard of Spiritualism, I instituted a few experiments in table-turning {{Style S-HPB SB. Continues on|10-335}} | |||