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vol. title: vol. period: 1881 pages in vol.: 439 |
< Adeptship versus Mediumship (continued from page 11-148) >
through a passive medium, though I doubt whether a long-lost article has ever been thus recovered at request, or a permanent duplication of another article (not an apport) effected. Have these and similar useful feats ever been performed by spirits, three or four such in a single alter noon, by request, in the light, without any of the usual conditions of a stance? I think not. But that is not my point, which is, that when all is consistent with the alleged control, and nothing inconsistent, an essential distinction is established between these facts, and the manifestations of mediumship, wherein independent, free agency is always apparent, and the more apparent, the stronger the force, notwithstanding that the wishes of the medium may sometimes be complied with. I quite agree that in mediumship there is an observable connection between the manifestations and the disposition of the medium; and I am far from saying that a medium may not learn to control some minor phenomena consciously which are commonly accordant with his or her conscious or unconscious desires. That is another question.
You will, I hope, see now why I decline to select this case or that from Mr. Sinnett’s book as establishing a decisive distinction. As I said before, the book, or great part of it, must itself be studied, if the whole force of the distinction is to be apparent. Further discussion on this subject I must leave to others, unless anything especially requiring notice from myself should be said.
8th July, 1881.
[To the problem of the "recovery of a long-lost article at request," we gave another solution last week, than the one put forth in this letter. The evidence for the "permanent duplication" of an article, depends (if our memory serves us rightly, with Mr. Sinnett's book not at hand), upon the veracity of a native Hindoo servant. If the powers about a physical medium chose to say that the medium controlled the manifestations, they would take care to produce only these phenomena, previously common enough, in which they could express some knowledge through the medium about the manifestation, a few minutes before it was witnessed. The manifestations seem to be all of a class with which we were familiar some ten years ago, and to which in our opinion, an ascetic life would be death.-Ed.]
< Do Adepts Exist? (continued from page 11-172) >
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D'g Wyld
The Theosophical Society
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<... continues on page 11-171 >
<Untitled> (I hope I may...)
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Editor's notes
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 464, July 15, 1881, pp. 28-30