< Visions in Mirrors and Crystals (continued from page 7-59) >
and at the next row it seems to slacken its pace. Now, there rises like heads above the board, like a white cloud rising in heads, and it is now forming into heads with hair and curls. Now the shoulders seem rising; there are five coming up out of it; they are all rising in human shape, and white drapery. The heads are the most distinct, and below it only like a cloud. The board appears as a cloud now, and all the rows of spirits have opened to let them through when they get up to the last. They are just such figures as the shadowy ones; the five get up round one of them, and then they all go away. S—keeps letting the others through all the while; there are five more of them gone away with one of the spirits in colours; the clear white cross seems as though water was round it, and the red cross looks like a flame-coloured light all round it. Now there is another white cloud coming up the hole, larger than the other; it is doing just the same as the other, except when it gets through the wheel it stops close to the clear white cross, lying down, and begins to change as soon as it gets over the cross, and all the rows of spirits open for them; it has got up to the shadowy spirit at the top, and one of them is going up with this five. Now it is going. It is all gone, 9.25 p.m.
It will thus be seen that the mirror spirits reside within their own sphere, having a classification intelligible to themselves, and rank in proportion to their essential purity. When speaking with them of religious subjects, they uniformly display a large-hearted catholicity, to which mundane creeds are alien—but they do not condemn any one for his creed, nor seek by specious arguments to alter or vary it. I will now, by way of explanation, read one of these spirit messages, which has some bearing upon what I have just said, and in doing so I beg that it be remembered that the seeress was a quite uneducated girl. I was speaking to the spirit in reference to the rules to be observed in connection with spirit intercourse, when he replied as follows:—
“Lay down as an unalterable law, rules of good. Upon these form your conscience, and then use that mediumship only for such actions, such communications, and such information as can be approved of by that, and agrees with the other. Such a law of conscience will tell you that you may not turn the gift of a good power to the gaining of wealth, for that cause is desecrated, the effects of which can be bought and sold; that as Almighty God gives His blessing unto all men, a free gift, without distinction or choice, So you, in the receipt of such a gift, must give it unto others as He has given it unto you. Thus the first duty is performed. Again, in giving the benefit of your gift to others, you would so temper it as to carry out the plans your reason teaches you to think was the intention of the donor—use it only for the purposes that you believe they who give it would use it were they in your place—use it with loving-kindness and charity to men—not with harshness and severity. Do not give it to others without mature thought and careful consideration, and you may do harm by a too quick application of what would afterwards prove a remedy for suffering. And, again, in all your intercourse with them, be they spirits of the highest order, maintain, calmly and resolutely, reason on its firm throne of the mind—be not overpowered or influenced by their assertions, other than through your intellect, and judge them by the criterion of consistency, for consistency is truth.”—(Spirit World, Vol. III., pp. 90—1, No. 603. Friday, Sept. 11, 1857.)
Up to the spirit of these recommendations, during the whole of my experience of Spiritualism, I have acted, and shall continue to act. It maybe thought, however, by many of my hearers that I have not handled this subject in a sufficiently philosophical spirit—that I have displayed too much faith and too little criticism. Yet I have not transgressed the wise remark of La Place in what I have brought forward. All this spirit world may be nothing more than a mere figment of the imagination; but, as La Place says, “we are so far from knowing all the agents of nature, and their different modes of action, that it would be a proof of small wisdom to deny phenomena simply because they are inexplicable in the present state of our knowledge.” And La Place is undoubtedly right. When we are yet so sadly ignorant even as to the very commonest problems of psychology—the most ordinary causes of forms of insanity—it would be premature to a priori deny the truth of what is thus shown us by the aid of credible persons within our own sphere in a healthy condition of brain, and possessing all ordinary faculties—persons of different ranks, disposition, education, and general bent of mind. Were it possible for a number of persons unknown to each other to be engaged in a common plot for no possible advantage to themselves, or, rather, on the contrary, the highest amount of disadvantage, then I would fearlessly stigmatise them as cunning persons, not to be credited even on oath; but when I discover persons of the most diverse nature in a general unconscious agreement, I am forced to accept the general truth of what they say. And when to this is added the universal fact exhibited by each and all of them of a dread and dislike of the supernatural —as it is very iufelicitously termed—the main basis becomes clearer.
This is perhaps best illustrated by the phenomena connected with the water vessel. I became acquainted, by letter only, with a family, in which there was certainly one seeress, perhaps more. At their request, I consecrated two water vessels, one in my own possession and one in theirs, and we commenced our investigations. One of these water vessels was filled with pure water at Oxford, Liverpool, or wherever they might be, the other was filled by myself in London We sat at the same hour, and the visions called for by me in London were seen hundreds of miles away by this family, and reported by post. Here there could be no complicity, no plot, and no ulterior object, save that of attaining truth. Had the experiments fallen out otherwise, no one would have been to blame, nor could any one have been disappointed.
One other fact, and I have done, for yon must be weary of the same subject placed in so many different ways. I have for several years been engaged in some matters of moment, the nature of which I can hardly explain, nor is it to the purpose, but a singular confirmation of the verity of these things was unexpectedly furnished within the last few weeks. Being troubled about these matters, I inquired whether any clue could be given me, and was immedisftely referred to my diaries, of which I have a great number; indeed, I have received over 25,000 communications from the spirit world. This was wholly unexpected, as I never dreamt my diaries could have contained anything about them. On looking for the special vision, I found one referring to the present year, 1878, but seen by a casual seer, a visitor at our house, as long ago as 1865, and the circumstances exactly fitted the appearance of the persons engaged in the matter. Here there could be no complicity, for the medium in the case was unconscious of the very existence of all the other persons, and the vision was so little esteemed by myself that I had absolutely forgotten all about it; and yet the circumstances fitted like a glove to things actually now going on.
Under these circumstances, I have only to surrender the further consideration of the subject into your hands, and entreat of you, on reference to the facts I have attempted to talk about, to use the spirit’s phrase in the spirit’s meaning—“Judge of them by the criterion of consistency, for consistency is truth.”
Answers to Correspondents
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