HPB-SB-10-568

H. P. Blavatsky Scrapbooks

from Adyar archives of the International Theosophical Society

T i

vol. 10, p. 568	volume 10, page 568 vol. title: vol. period: 1879-1880 pages in vol.: 577
Legend HPB note HPB highlighted HPB underlined HPB crossed out <Editors note> <Archivist note> Lost or unclear SBT, DT Restored

<<   ☰   >>

eng • рус

< Spiritualism and Theosophy (continued from page 10-567) >

around the medium, and by doing away with test-conditions, invite to the perpetration of gross frauds. Mediums actually caught red-handed in trickery, with their paraphernalia of traps, false panels, wigs and puppets about them, have been able to make their dupes regard them as martyrs to the rage of sceptics, and the damning proofs of their guilt as having been secretly supplied by the unbelievers themselves to strike a blow at their holy cause! The voracious credulity of a large body of Spiritualists has begotten nine-tenths of the dishonest tricks of mediums. As Mr. Crookes truly observed in his preliminary article in the Quarterly Journal of Science.– “In the countless number of recorded observations I have read, there appear to be few instances of meetings held for the express purpose of getting the phenomena under test conditions.”

Though this is true, it is also most certain that within the past thirty-two years, enquirers into the phenomena have been vouchsafed thousands upon thousands of proofs, that they occur under conditions quite independent of the physical agency of the persons present, and that intelligence, sometimes of a striking character, is displayed in the control of the occult force or forces producing the phenomena. It is this great reserve of test facts upon which rests, like a rock upon its base, the invincible faith of the millions of Spiritualists. This body of individual experiences is the rampart behind which they entrench themselves whenever the outside world of sceptics looks to see the whole ‘delusion’ crumbling under the assault of some new buna critic, or the shame of the latest exposure of false mediumship or tricking mediums. It ought by this time to have been discovered that it is worse than useless to try to ridicule away the actual evidence of one’s senses; or to make a man who has seen a heavy weight self-lifted and suspended in the air, or writing done without contact, or a human form melt before his eyes, believe any theory that all mediumistic phenomena are due to ‘muscular contraction,’ ‘expectant attention,’ or ‘unconscious cerebration.’ It is because of their attempts to do this that men of science, as a body, are regarded with such compassionate scorn by the experienced psychologist. Mr. Wallace tells us that after making careful inquiry he has never found one man who, after having acquired a good personal knowledge of the chief phases of the phenomena, has afterwards come to disbelieve in their reality. And this is my own experience also. Some have ceased to be “Spiritualists” and turned Catholics, but they have never doubted the phenomena being real. It will be a happy day, one to be hailed with joy by every lover of true science, when our modern professors shall rid themselves of the conceited idea that knowledge was born in our days, and question in an humble spirit the records of archaic science.

the nature of the phenomena.

We have seen that the existence of a force-current has been proven by the experiments of Dr. Hare and Mr. Crookes, so we need trouble ourselves no more with the many crude conjectures about table-moving, chair-lifting, and the raps, being the result of muscular energy of the medium or the visitor, but pass on to notice some of the forms in which this force has displayed its dynamic energies. These may be separated into phenomena indicating intelligence and conveying information, and purely physical manifestations of energy. Of the first class the one demanding first place is the so-called “spirit-rap.” By these simple signals the whole modern movement called Spiritualism is ushered in. These audible concussions vary in degree from the sound of a pin-head ticking to that of blows by a hammer or bludgeon powerful enough to shatter a mahogany table. The current of psychic-force producing them seems to depend upon the state of the medium’s system, in combination with the electric and hygrometric condition of the atmosphere. With either unpropitious, the raps, if heard at all, are faint; with both in harmony, they are loudest and most persistent. Of themselves these rapping phenomena are sufficiently wonderful, but they become a hundred-fold more so when we find that through them communications can be obtained from intelligences claiming to be our dead friends; communications which often disclose secrets known only to the enquirer and no other person present; and even, in rare cases, giving out facts which no one then in the room was aware of, and which had to be verified later by consulting old records or distant witnesses. A more beautiful form of the rap is the sound of music, as of a cut-glass vessel struck, or a silver bell, heard either under the medium’s hand or in the air. Such a phenomenon has been often noticed by the Rev. Stainton Moses, of University College, London, in his own house, and Mr. Alfred R. Wallace describes it as occurring in the presence of Miss Nichol, now Mrs. Volckmann, at Mr. Wallace’s own house. An empty wine-glass was put upon a table and held by Miss <... continues on page 10-569 >