< The History of the Movement Known As Modern Spiritualism and the Facts and Theories Connected With it (continued from page 8-186) >
covered that this was no mere phenomenal discovery of a new force which might be used for driving the Chicago railroad, and carrying speculators more cheaply thither ward, as some thought whose minds were bent upon practicalities. “Mediumship” of various kinds was beginning to develop itself, for the intelligences declared that not only could they knock and show lights, but could also entrance certain ones, and through them communicate ideas which were worth all the objective phenomena put together, and of which they were indeed only the external witness; speaking through a man’s month, writing through his hand things which were perfectly novel both to the “medium” himself and to those around him became common. In the ease of one medium, Andrew Jackson Davies, a very ignorant office-boy, whole volumes of teachings were given which in depth of thought, and, what is more surprising, decency of grammar, would have done credit to even an educated thinker; but the fact to which I desire specially to direct your attention is that the philosophy so enunciated through these various media, mostly of humble station, men and women, boys and girls, in all parts of a vast continent, and not only there, but over the seas, in sober England and in hard-thinking Germany, allowing for extravagances and absurdities, agrees in the main not only with itself, but also with the ancient Eastern philosophical systems, with the Platonic thought of Greece, and with the teachings of the mediaeval hermitists and “heretics” so-called.
I will give you some examples which will illustrate ray meaning more clearly presently. Apart from all the various religious and, I am sorry to say, moral differences of opinion among the intelligences communicating, which perhaps may be accounted for by their differing conditions of character and power of perceiving spiritual light, all have agreed in certain statements regarding man, his constitution, and his future hope.
They have declared unanimously that the human being is of a triple nature, that he consists of a Divine spirit, the highest and most real part of him, of a soul or life force residing in a structure finer than our present senses are constructed to perceive, which soul structure becomes our habitation when our grosser material body is cast off at death; of a physical or external body through which lie communicates with the external world; of these two latter also all things having physical structure are possessed, man alone being the temple of the innermost spirit.
That the cud and object of creation is the development in all its parts of the highest perfection possible to each individual part—the object of man’s existence being therefore to attain to full perfection of body, soul, and spirit, and to perfect upon earth himself, his fellows, and all lower life existing round him, in soil and plant and animal, which indeed possess life in themselves, but life which can be directed to its duo cud only by man, who has within him this Divine reason. That death is merely an event in our endless life, an entering upon another stage of being in which the soul becomes the temple of the spirit, and in which, according to our state of development, we go to our own place among those who are, like ourselves, apish men to apish men, and true men to true; our work there, as here (whether we refuse it or not), being the raising of that which is below ourselves. That finally all things tend to good, and that the Divine idea in all creation will at last be realised.
The clear communication of such thought as I have here sketched is, of course, only possible where the intelligence and the medium are both advanced to a certain extent in the inner life; but with more or less confusion and more or less interest in the destiny of things as a lower or higher intelligence is communicating, upon these points their witness agrees together, and it is upon this agreement rather than upon any deductions from external phenomena that the main evidence for the reality of “spirit” communion will finally rest.
Some of us will remember the tripartite division by Plato of the nature of man into—
νους, or rational soul.
Θυμος or ψυχη the life principle.
σομα, the physical body.
With the ancient philosophy of India this doctrine is in perfect harmony, and was doubtless originally borrowed from it. Akasa is the Sanskritt word used for the life principle in the universe and in man; it consists of the astral light or sold, and the celestial light or spirit, and is the base of all matter and of the material body of man.
Next let us take the Neo Platonists. After death, says Proclus, the spirit continues to linger in the aerial body till it is entirely purified from all angry and voluptuous passion; then doth it put off by a second dying the aerial body, as it did the earthly one; whereupon there is a celestial body always joined to the spirit, which is immortal, luminous, and starlike.*
The idea of St. Paul in Cor. xv. 35—57 is precisely similar; also that of Origen and Irenæus.
I will now quote the testimony of a poor woman, a Swiss Protestant, who for years was in a state of semi-trance, during which she had constant vision of the spiritual world; she was utterly ignorant, and had no acquaintance whatever with ancient thought upon this or other subjects.
The ψυχη she calls the nerve-spirit, describing it as constructing an airy form round the spirits, and by its means † the spirits who are in the mid-region arc brought into connection with a material in the atmosphere which enables them to make themselves heard and felt by man. The nerve-spirit is immortal and accompanies the spirit after death, unless when the spirit is perfectly pure, and enters at once among the blessed.
Comparing this with Plotinus’ words above quoted, and with those that follow from the lips of a modern medium ignorant as herself, and remembering that this woman had never heard of the old philosophies or of modern Spiritualism, we add another link to the overwhelming chain of testimony which joins together the early teachings of the world on the subject of the nature of man with those given through modern media, not one of whom had previously read or even speculated upon such subjects, and who were generally incapable of doing either.
A. J. Davis, the medium before alluded to, describes a clairvoyant vision of death thus. I give a short abstract of his account. Over the bed on which the body of the dying woman lay he saw a luminous cloud gathering; within "this the new head, and then the body and limbs appear; until the completion of the form a cord of electric light passed from the head of the dying person to that of the newly-formed body, which was then gently floated from the room; its appearance being that of the natural body, but fresh, blooming, and sublimated.
Upon the other points the uniformity of testimony is equally striking, but at present I have no time to refer to it. Marvel has succeeded marvel so rapidly from the time when Mr. Home gave his first seances in England to the present that the attention of intellect and of science has, in spite of almost frantic opposition, been brought more and more to bear upon the phenomena, so much so that a distinguished scientist has only lately declared that if our facts be true they arc “affairs for the notice of the police.” A most hopeful sign this; for when authority thinks it expedient to beat down facts with a bludgeon, a speedy and joyful resurrection for the facts may be surely looked for. An exciting but unbeautiful game, which is still played at some schools, illustrates admirably the position of this movement between the camps of theology and science; like a shuttlecock, to and for the poor little urchin has flown and reflown. “I’m the king of the castle, get out you dirty rascal,” has been his greeting at either end of his journey; but lie has survived it all, and is now a sturdy young hobbledehoy, who will hold his own ground each year more firmly; while from either stronghold a few venturesome ones have come out and patted him on the back, wishing him good luck in the names of their respective lords. Such men as Crookes and Wallace from the camp of science, and Haweis and Pago Hopps from that of theology, are good champions should the game be renewed.
But when scorn has failed, and bullying has failed, there remains yet a resort to explain to the misguided little entity, who has usurped the title of modern Spiritualism, that he is not only a misbehaver but a miscreant, having quite mistaken his own identity; and <... continues on page 8-188 >
* Isis Unveiled, Vol. I., p. 432.
† Her own words.