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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued |"Doubles" of Entranced Mediums|12-82}} | {{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued |"Doubles" of Entranced Mediums|12-82}} | ||
... | {{Style P-No indent|If I live to finish my book of my “Experiences,” these, with plenty more from this collection of photographs, will appear in it.}} | ||
These proofs, especially the last picture, are conclusive to the effect that the doubles of entranced mediums do sometimes issue forth from their fleshly bodies. They are then Spirits literally, though temporarily, disembodied before that final disembodiment we call death. That they then sometimes work physical actions, as they may be impelled by other Spirits to do, it is reasonable enough to suppose ;—though this does not at all militate against the other certain fact that other Spirits (not the doubles of the mediums) also take form, objective, visible, palpable, and are active in producing physical phenomena; for at those same celebrated De Bullet seances we have seen the medium seated asleep in a chair, and ''four other Spirits visible at the same time, ''two standing on each side of him, three of the four being female Spirits of angel beauty, and the fourth being “John King” himself, parading his ''light ''in front of the whole row of the five forms, so as to enable us to distinguish and recognise clearly their respective faces. | |||
III. I may add a third fact, which I do not present as a certain case of the appearance of a double, but which has at least its interest as a psychological phenomenon. | |||
A few days ago a lady of my family (no friend to our Spiritualism) was approaching her residence in––Place, when she saw standing at her door a very intimate and dear young friend, Miss N., who had not been at all in her thoughts until she thus saw her with great pleasure. She quickened her steps to join her, supposing her to have rung, and to be waiting for admittance. Miss N. was looking down the street towards my relative as though now seeing her and awaiting her approach, but the latter happening to slip on a piece of cabbage leaf on the sidewalk, her eyes were for a moment diverted. On raising them again, Miss N. had disappeared, and on reaching her door she found nobody there, and naturally supposed that Miss N. had entered. When her servant then opened the door to her own ring, the latter said: “Oh, ma’am, Miss N. has been here, and was very sorry you was not in.” Looking then up the street she saw a lady moving off', whom she hastily followed, but who proved to be a total stranger. She returned of course to her door, where the servant still remained on the steps and said that it was ten minutes since Miss N. had been there, and that she had gone away down the street in the other direction, namely, that from which my relative had herself come in approaching her door. But the ten minutes had given ample time for her to have missed her, through turning off by a cross street. Here would seem to have remained, I will not say a double of Miss N., but, at least, some magnetic influence left by her recent presence and desire to ’see my relative, and regret to have been disappointed in her visit, which influence awakened in my relative the idea of her, and consequently her seemingly visible image, which, however, had disappeared within the instant of the diversion of my relative’s eyes from her form which she had seen standing on her steps. Accept whichever of the two alternatives you may prefer, double or magnetic influence. | |||
{{Style P-Signature in capitals|J. L. O’Sullivan.}} | |||
January 18th. | |||
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| source title = | | source title = Light | ||
| source details = | | source details = v. 2, No. 56, January 28, 1882, p. 39 | ||
| publication date = | | publication date = 1882-01-28 | ||
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... | <center>''To the Editor of ''“{{Style S-Small capitals|Light.}}”</center> | ||
{{Style S-Small capitals|Sir}},—In an article in a recent number of {{Style S-Small capitals|“Light”}} it is stated that “as different airs were sung they were accompanied by the piano . . . in the tone of the singers.” While professing | |||
faith in the fundamental truths of Spiritualism, I should like to ask whether such a phenomenon could be considered as evidencing the presence and operation of Spirits; or if it was not rather an occurrence which any student in acoustics could explain, viz., the apparent sympathetic vibration of strings (or, in fact, of any sonorous body) in unison with the voice of the singer? I have frequently observed, while singing in a room where there was a pianoforte, that single notes seemed to ''ring nut ''in unison with the voice; but should like to know if this is the phenomenon which took place at Mr. Husk’s seance. —Yours faithfully, | |||
{{Style P-Signature in capitals|E. H.}} | |||
Gladstone-street, Norwich. | |||
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. | It requires strength and courage to swim against the stream while any dead fish Can float with it. | ||
It is so easy to meditate on a far-off heroism; so difficult to cut off a little self-indulgence quite near at hand. | |||
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... | <center>'''By Mrs. A. J. Penny.'''</center> | ||
<center>''(Continued from page ''29.)</center> | |||
Now, as it is probable that the element in which the disembodied live is as impossible for us to occupy consciously with our bodies as for birds to live under water, or fishes in the air, one can understand why anything like ''tangible ''nearness is out of the question—unless for a very short time—but the soon dissolving image that is touched may be as real an indication of nearness as the shadow on the surface of the water is to fish of the nearness of birds. | |||
“Il est certain,” says Eliphaz Levi ''(L’Abbe Constant), ''with all the positiveness of a man who thinks he has seen to the end of a mystery, “que les images des morts apparaissent aux personnes magnetisees qui les dvoquent; il est certain aussi qu’elles ne leur revelent jamais lien des mystercs de l’autre vie. On les revoit telles qu’elles peuvent etre encore dans le souvenir de ceux qui les ont connues, telles que leurs reflets sans doute les ont laissees empreintes dans la lumiere astrale.” ''(“Doqme et Rituel de la Haute Magie,” p. ''182.)* | |||
But in the very same book, at page 184, he gives a detailed form of evocation, which could only, one would imagine, appeal to a living heart still within reach, and he assures his readers that the “revenant” will ultimately be seen! Are impressions left on the astral light that surrounds us likely to be revived by tender tones and affectionate observances? Truly, it seems to me that this mode of disposing of the phenomena in question is far more in need of explanation than the world-wide theory it is intended to displace. | |||
Colonel Olcott is even more ingenious. After giving a most wonderful account of personified phantoms following each other in sequence, at the house of the Eddys, at Chittender, Vermont, United States, he asks, “If it can be shewn that the soul of the living medium can, unconsciously to his physical self, ooze out and by its elastic and Protean nature take on the appearance of a deceased person whose image it sees in the visitor’s memory; if all the phenomena can be produced at will by an educated psychologist; if in the ether of science, the ''Akasa ''of'' ''the Hindus, the ''anima mundi ''of the Theosophists, the astral light of the Cabalists, the images of all persons and events, and the vibration of every sound are eternally preserved—as these occultists affirm and experimentally prove—if all this is true, then why is it necessary to call in the Spirits of the dead to explain what may be done by the living?” ''(Spiritualist for ''January 21st, 1881.) | |||
My answer would be, even while ready to accept his assertion of possible feats of magic, that the Spirits of the dead ''must be somewhere''; that the belief of every people in all parts of the world, before learning smothers intuition, is that the Spirits of ancestors keep near their descendants;† and because the idea of a medium producing in one evening seventeen perfect likenesses of totally unknown men and women—from his physical ''matter ''delineating, “unconsciously to his physical self,” copies of what he found in the memory of spectators—appears far more difficult to believe than that seventeen Spirits availed themselves of William Eddy’s strong mediumistic powers to recall their likeness, and prove their nearness to those they still loved. | |||
“The will of the Spirit of the soule,” says Böhme, “that the soule carrieth with it when soule and body part.” ''(“Threefold Life of Man,” chap. ''xii., ''par. ''1.) Now, what can we be more certain of than that the will of most disembodied Spirits is to speak again with those most dear to them, or most familiar as companions? And a strong medium being, as Swedenborg has explained, one through whom departed Spirits can see back into this mortal life, is it not highly probable that many should take advantage of that opening—not very likely the ''most ''blessed Spirits, but numbers of the thousands who are hurried out of the body with all their earthly desires strong and eager, and no new body yet, even in embryonic form?‡ | |||
{{Footnotes start}} | |||
<nowiki>*</nowiki> “It is certain that images of the dead appear to magnetised people who evoke them; it is certain also that they never reveal to them anything of the mysteries of the other life. People see them again such as they still are in the memory of those who have known them; such ns doubtless their reflections have left them impressed in astral light.” | |||
† Swedenborg says the same: “The Spirits of every earth are near their own earth, because they are from its inhabitants; for every man after death becomes a Spirit; and because they are of a similar genius, and can be with the inhabitants, and be serviceable to them.”— (''“The Earths of the Universe,” par. ''47.) | |||
‡ I mean here the true substantial body that results from regeneration, not the ''bodily shape ''assumed by Spirits,—well distinguished by Böhme in this passage, speaking of the soul: “Its own substance is altogether crude without a body, and yet it hath the ''forme of the body in its own Spiritual forme.” (“Three Principles of the Virtue Essence,” chap, ''iv., ''par. ''18.) | |||
{{Footnotes end}} | |||
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