Legend
<Untitled> (The pusillanimity of the men)
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<Untitled> (Another Batch of Facts)
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... that trial.<*>
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Did you have the best of them this time, O, manure, of the odoriferous “Angel World” on sweet mediumistic dung?.. I think not... Try again.
<*> Oh the dirty, mean ... !
Dr. Bloede, D.D.Home, Madame Blavatsky, and Col. Olcott
Dr. G. Bloede has found the columns of the Herald open to him and he takes occasion to continue his abuse of the subject of magic, of which he confessedly knows nothing. His forte is personalities; and as Mrs. Emma Hardinge Britten has threatened legal penalties against future offences of this nature in connection with her name, he transfers his attention to Mme. Blavatsky, and makes Home, the medium, the monkey to pull his chestnuts out of the tire. He says Home wrote to him, and thereupon he makes extracts from the letter; but singularly enough the London Spiritual Magazine prints almost the same ideas, and in many instances couched in the same language. Home, in his letter to the Spiritual Magazine, with a slight touch of egotism, occasionally refers to “my cousin M. Aksakoff.” We believe Home does stand in this relation to this gentlemen, who, it will be remembered, is editor of Psychic Studien, and Russian Imperial Councillor. M. Aksakoff commissioned Mme. Blavatsky and Col. Olcott as representatives to select mediums to appear before the scientific committee of Russia; but Home, his American cousin, in a letter to Dr. Bloede, as alleged by Dr. Bloede, casts reflections upon Mme. Blavatsky. The public have their choice between the unequivocal endorsement of M. Aksakoff, Russian Imperial Councillor or the insinuations of Home, —his American Cousin by marriage.
Dr. Bloede doubts the mediumship of Mme. Blavatsky; but she does not claim to be a medium. Col. Olcott says she can control spirits to do her bidding: he probably has proof of it. The Baroness Adelma Von Vay, an authority in Austria, says: —
“Persons of strong mesmeric power, who understand the art of magic, can draw numbers of doubles around them, and send them out on various missions; but a deep knowledge of magical power is necessary for this.’’
That Madame B. is a person of strong mesmeric power none of her acquaintance, can doubt; of her knowledge of magic others testify forcibly. Apparently the problem is easily solved with the above simple explanation.
Col. Olcott relates in his book, that George Dix (a materialized spirit of the Eddys’) gave her a medal, saying it had been brought from her father’s grave; whereupon Madame B. announced that the medal had been worn by her father, “and according to universal custom must have been buried with her father's body.” It is not stated that it was buried, but must have been—signifying doubt. But Dr. Bloede hastens to make a point here; he quotes from Home who is accredited with saying, “Never are the dead interred with the decorations.” Perhaps not now, but Madame B. tells the time when her father was buried—years previous to Home's knowledge of the subject. Even his language implies that the customs of the country are constantly changing, for he says, “it is but a short time ago when the relatives were obliged to return them to the Government.”
If Dr. Bloede has any more charges to make we hope he will not be permitted to usurp the greater portion of the space which the Herald has devoted to Spiritualism; especially when ideas he has to convey can be compressed into a few lines. The letter meant simply that Home, like many other mediums, did not believe in any medium but himself; and as he couldn’t produce phenomena at will Mme. Blavatsky couldn’t; the latter portion of which Dr. B. was quite ready to believe.
We have examined this matter without prejudice; and only on the evidence presented. Gen. F. J. Lippitt, Col. Olcott, G. L. Ditson, M. D., have previously testified concerning her wonderful powers; her passeports show her to be the person she claims to be—not an adventuress. Her relation to prominent Russians is that of birth—not marriage.
Furthermore, we have heard of some good deeds done by Mme. Blavatsky in connection with Spiritualism while in this country; we have yet to hear of a well-sustained evil report.
“A tree shall be known by its fruits.”
Soul not Spirit
Says a correspondent of the London Spiritualist, “In my view, the use of the word ‘spirit’ to designate the spirit body is erroneous. In scriptual psychology, and in that of the Greek fathers, the spirit-body is termed the soul (psyche anima, and perhaps nephesh). Justin Martyr says: ’The body is the house of the soul, and the soul is the house of the spirit.’ St. Paul says: ‘I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body may be preserved blameless.' That ‘by virtue of the possession of which man is immortal’ should properly, I think, be termed spirit (pneuma, sfiritus, and perhaps, ruach) The question may be merely one of the correct, or conventional, use of terms. In the dichotomy of the Latin fathers, which, until comparatively recently, prevailed in the modern churches, the word soul seems to include both the pneuma and the psyche; and the proper distinction between spirit and soul has been very generally lost sight of. We talk of seeing ‘spirits’ in the same way as we speak of so many ‘souls’ perishing at sea, or elsewhere. What the clairvoyant medium sees are spirit-bodies, or souls; and what perish at sea are bodies.”
# His “Spirit guides” have you see ordered him to real the memory of a poor, honest died man who can not defend himself!! What kind of “Spirits” must they be!
Editor's notes
- ↑ The pusillanimity of the men by unknown author
- ↑ Another Batch of Facts by unknown author
- ↑ Dr. Bloede, D.D.Home, Madame Blavatsky, and Col. Olcott by unknown author, Spiritual Scientist, v. 4, No. 1, March 9, 1876, p. 10
- ↑ Soul not Spirit by unknown author, Spiritual Scientist, v. 3, No. 26, March 2, 1876, p. 303
Sources
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Spiritual Scientist, v. 3, No. 26, March 2, 1876, p. 303
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Spiritual Scientist, v. 4, No. 1, March 9, 1876, p. 10