< Soma Personal Experiences in Spiritualism and Thoughts Thereon* (continued from page 7-94) >
either. There were present my friend and his wife, their visitor, the medium, and myself. After a time the medium stated she saw standing before her a youth whose personal appearance she described, including the fact that he was dressed in sailor’s clothes. She also stated that he had come to the strangers present; in fact, that he was a brother, and that he had met his death by drowning. She then added what to my mind was a most marvellous test, viz., that he was not drowned at sea, but in shallow, muddy water—she could feel the mud in her mouth, choking her. Every detail of this was acknowledged to be strictly accurate.
These séances but being examples of a class, we have now to consider what such phenomena teach. I would first ask our friends the Theosophists if they think that the facts narrated by mediums during such seances as those above described are discovered by the mediums by <c will-power,” or whether the “sub-human” spirits of their philosophy are also so superhuman as to be able to become the manifesting agencies at such seances. Another section of our friends, headed, I believe, by Dr. Wyld, I would ask if they think the spirit of the medium becomes so knowing immediately he begins practice on his own account, apart from his at-other-times, partner, the much-abused and so very “gross” material body, as to be able to become the successful manifesting agency under such circumstances. Observe what he has to do. He (with the body) is going to be taken to give a seance to an utter stranger, and at an address he knows nothing of until he gets there. Either He (without the body) must wait till both Hes get there to begin his pranks, or He (without the body) knows already all about the stranger and his address, and his friends that have been, but are now no one knows where, since they do not come back to us—unless it be this particular He (without the body), in which case he can get all his material for the imposition ready to hand. But whether He (without the body) gets all ready before He (with the body) gets to the stranger’s house, or afterwards, can matter little to him, since only give him a chance of working without the He (with the body) and he is evidently immediately such a clever fellow that a mere paltry difference of materials and circumstances, and time to work with, are of little object to him. The stance having commenced, He (without the body) successfully personates spirit after spirit belonging to the different sitters, giving such details of their past life as leave no doubt on their minds that they are really and gloriously communing with saints—with the loved ones who have gone on before. There is, however, one point which must not be overlooked— Whereis He (without the body)? because, remember, it is He (with the body) who is talking to the sitters. Oh! He (without the body) is the personating spirit, giving information to Him with the body; and we have thus obtained two distinct individualities, the second one (where he has come from nobody knows) almost omnipotent, and, at the same time, the very essence of all that is foul, false, and sinful, since he gleefully, and without cause, tampers with the most sacred feelings of humanity, passes his life in such occupation, [and all this he does because and the while he has become spirit, and has thrown off, for the time being, the gross, material body. While he has the gross, material body, he is an honest man, as more than one of our mediums may claim to be; and one is sufficient to prove the whole case. Strange freak of nature, is it not?
To another section of our friends, who say it is thought reading by the medium, I would ask—How about those particulars given and continued whilst nobody in the room recognised the description? Here were no thoughts to read, except such as pointed altogether in the opposite direction. Besides, what is thought-reading? and will those who hold the theory kindly “tell us how it is done?”
I think all the above theories, to account for the occurrence of phenomena such as those above described, may be at once dismissed from the mind. But then comes the question—What do such phenomena prove? How far are they evidence of spirit individuality and identity?
I contend that these phenomena go a long way towards proving the immortality and the continuity of the individuality of man and the identity of the spirit communicating.
Firstly, without doubt, we have evidence of an extraneous intelligence in action, and as we cannot understand such intelligence apart from an organism, we have thus fair presumptive evidence of an intelligent organism. But there is a peculiarity in this intelligence, viz., that it takes the form of an intimate knowledge of—firstly, the fact that a certain seance is going to be or is being held, the sitters at such seance and the object of it; secondly, of the friends, departed this life, of one or more of the sitters; thirdly, of the particulars of their relationship; and, fourthly, a like intimate knowledge of the personal characteristics of such friend or acquaintance even to the secrets and feelings of his inner life, known perhaps only to himself and another on earth, that other being the one to whom he communicates them as tests of his continued life after death. Added to this there is also the minute description of the personal appearance of the manifesting agency given by the medium, we thus having evidence of a minute and correct representation of the entire individuality of a friend who has lived on earth, and has passed on before us. More than this, the manifesting agency tells us that it or he is such friend, and appears not once only, but as frequently almost as we please, often manifesting an anxious interest in those left behind, and preserving in each subsequent visit the same characteristic individuality. Why, then, should we doubt that our friend still lives? How do we know different people on earth, and distinguish one from the other? How do we know each other but by the particular and characteristic individuality of each? If, then, we have clear evidence of a particular individuality from the spirit world, we must accept the proof that the individual still lives, unless and until we can find a stronger reason for disbelieving it, and have another interpretation, more logical, of the phenomena. Moreover, as the manifesting agencies, with all the attributes of individualities, themselves testify to being our departed friends, we can only disbelieve them by assuming that such agencies, whatever they may be, are members of some vast organization, the object of which is to wilfully, maliciously, and cruelly deceive mankind in general and sport with their most sacred feelings, and this for some reason of their own, unknown and mysterious to us, or for no reason at all, such agencies being endowed at the same time with almost infinite knowledge and power to carry out their work. Which of the two interpretations is the more logical I will leave each of my audience to decide for himself.
I should have liked to have narrated other experiences bearing on other phases of Spiritualism, but I feel that I have already sufficiently trespassed on your time and attention, and so will now beg to leave the matter with you.
Mr. J. T. Markley writes that his poems in The Spiritualist have attracted the attention of one of the chief musical composers in Paris, who is about to set some of them to music.
Pictures of Saints among the South Slavonians.—In one of his first pages Mr. Evans entertains his readers with the tale of a Metropolitan, appropriately named “Dionysos,” for he had the habits of a Bacchus, who used, in visiting the clergy placed beneath his supervision, to carry with him an assortment of Icons for sale and a pack of cards for gambling purposes. One occasion a pious Bosnian peasant asked for an image of St. George, and, having already exhausted his stock of holy pictures, the worthy prelate did his best to gratify the devout man’s wish by selling him at a high price the King of Spades. This experiment is said to have been so successful, that the bishop afterwards passed off the Queen of Hearts as the Holy Virgin and Knaves of all suits as angels.”—Athenceum,
Voltaire.—I see that in Paris they are going to get up one of their grand solemnities on the centennial day of Voltaire’s death in 1778. His birth was much more remarkable than his death. But how many readers and worshippers of “the great philosopher of Ferney ft are there who know that no one of the name of “Voltaire’’ ever was born? It happened by the narrowest squeak that on November the 21st, 1691, a baby-boy, with the destiny of a “Voltaire” upon him, did somehow escape the ready shears of Atropos. But had it not been for the sprinkling of cold water on that inanimate infant face when it was feared he would die unbaptised, we should, perhaps, have lost our Voltaire; and, as it was, the good people who assumed the functions of the Church on the moment never dreamt of calling the child by any other name than Francois Marie Arouet. How often the old cynic must have chuckled over the thought that he should live and die baptized by himself. Nobody has ever discovered the old family estate on the mother’s side, from which it has been said the name of “Voltaire” was derived. Neither, so far as I know at least, has any better suggestion been offered than that the name was a whimsical fancy of his own, and formed as an anagram out of “Arouet l.j” (Arouet le jeune), the w being changed into a v and they j into an i,—Truth.