< Notes by the Way (continued from page 12-107) >
There are one or two points in respect to which I should like to put my friends right. “Says ‘ ‘Light’ in its ‘Notes by the Way,’ edited by M.A., Oxon.” I do not edit “Light,” nor do I edit Notes. I contribute over my signature certain paragraphs to “Light,” and can claim no merit for any other contributions to that excellent paper, any more than I can take credit for what I have no hand in, its direction. “M.A., Oxon., takes the opportunity for another quiet little fling at his well-wishers, the Theosophists.” Protest “fling” not at all! I enunciate what to me are profound convictions, which I regret to find are not shared, as I could wish, by my “well-wishers the Theosophists.” They enunciate certain ideas, of which they are no doubt equally profoundly convinced, and I do my best to comprehend, test, and try them. I did the same through many years before I arrived at my present standpoint of conviction in Spiritualism. It is my method. I am a faithless mortal, and if I accept anything, must accept it on evidence that thoroughly satisfies my reason. It is a source of regret to me that I am not able to arrive at that standpoint with reference to Theosophy. This I say with complete respect for the wiser heads that enunciate its doctrines, and with a full acknowledgment of much that I have learned from them.
In one other point I think I may say that scant justice is done me by my friends. I have never ignored that most interesting domain of psychology, the powers of the human spirit while still incarnate. “We Hindus,” I read, “and European disciples of Eastern philosophy are trying to spiritualise our grosser material selves, while the American and European Spiritualists are endeavouring in their seance rooms to materialise Spirits.” The antithesis is perfect, but its perfection is gained, as is too frequently the case, at some sacrifice of truth. I wonder how often in writing and speaking on this subject during the last decade I have used words such as these: “Phenomenalism is hollow and unsatisfying. It is truer wisdom to raise ourselves to the plane of spirit than to attempt to drag spirit down to the plane of matter.” The phrase may not be so neat; but is the sense very different I I am a little more exact, perhaps; for in this matter there is no necessary antagonism between East and West. I assure our Eastern friends that we are many of us full of desire to do what we can to purify ourselves, and make ourselves less gross and earthy, if it be only to do that forbidden thing—“to hold an hour’s communion with the dead.”
“No one ever thought of calling ‘Imperator+’ (the very name is wrong!) a ‘shell,’ but then the latter, whether a living or a disembodied Spirit, neither materialises himself objectively, nor is it yet proved to the satisfaction of any one except ‘M.A. (Oxon.)’ himself that he descends to the medium instead of the spirit of the latter ascending to meet his instructor.” It is extremely difficult to deal with such an extraordinary remark as this within the limits of courtesy. Its assumption of a knowledge (which is perfectly apocryphal) of that which is known to myself alone, a secret of my own inmost spiritual life, is one that I find it hard to treat in any such way as I should wish to treat the remarks of a friend who professes so to regard me. There must be some reasonable acceptance of facts on my word, such facts being in their very nature ascertainable only in that way, if there is to beany friendly discussion. Now “whether a living or a disembodied Spirit” is in communication with me is known to him and to me, and is not known to the Theosophist writer, all pretence to the contrary notwithstanding. I have never sought “to prove to the satisfaction of anyone” whether this Spirit be “living” or not, i.e., the Spirit of one living on this earth, simply because it never occurred to me that anyone would spend time on evolving out of nothing such an utterly erroneous notion, merely to square with preconceived theory. Such an idea, I must now say, is totally false. And how can anyone, except one gifted with omniscience, presume to say in this airy way that it has never been proved to the satisfaction < f anyone except “M. A. (Oxon.)” that so and so is the case? Before the writer can say so much, lie must know the inmost mind of all mankind. For the rest, 1 ascend nowhere. 1 am an ordinary mundane person with opportunities of which I have made such use as in me lies; and my converse with my Instructor is held in a perfectly normal state, and not with him only, as my critic obviously supposes, but with many others of his peers. What end can be served by such criticism, so plainly guess-work, so totally wide of the mark, so easily disproved by the careful records of ten years which have never been intermitted, I am quite Unable to divine.
I have said all that seems necessary; if I have said it plainly it is because it is a duty to guard against misconception. I have been most scrupulously careful as to my facts; they remain in the careful records, dated and kept from week to week, of nearly ten years. They can be attested by those who have been cognisant of them from the first: who know him whom it is sought indirectly to claim as a “Brother”—that I presume is the underlying idea—as well as such an one can be known. The whole matter is susceptible of the directest proof. If I am to be told that I am mistaken, I must reply that the mistake is elsewhere, and that to make a mistake at all about the matter is inexcusable. If anything is calculated to make me “give up the Theosophists in despair,” it is their resort to such methods of bolstering up their theory. It is fair neither to the cause of truth, which we both have at heart, nor to me, of whom the writer speaks as a friend, that such misleading suggestions should be made. Imperator, who may at least be presumed to know who and what he is, has repeatedly disclaimed, and that from the very first, any connection with the mysterious Brotherhood with which it is so oddly sought to associate him, or any specific knowledge of its members. Of this there must be no misapprehension.
Tho Theosophist deals rather hardly with Mr. Oxley’s “Philosophy of Spirit.” There again it would seem to be what is distinctive of Spiritualist as differentiated from Theosophist belief that is the stumbling-block. Gerald Massey gets a long answer to his question about Elementals, which, I fancy, will draw him out. “There may be some small details of Modem Science that Occult Philosophy has not anticipated centuries ago”! “The Eastern Occult Philosophy is the great block of
solid truth from which the quaint, exoteric mysticism of the outer world has been casually thrown off from time to time.” Ah! as the dear old Count would say, “Madame Fosco is sublime, magnificent!”
There is, it would seem, at Calcutta, a Moulvi, or Mahomedan priest, who takes up his stand on the banks of the Hoogly and heals all and sundry who flock to him. And there is also a Hindu with a very long name, who petitions the Commissioner of Police to stop this heretic, who is converting Hindus “by means which to your petitioner appear extremely foul”! He suggests that ho “be made to fly, or drink a quantity of molten lead,” by way of proving his pretensions! And there is Mr. Eglinton, who is an Œthrobat, and does fly, or, at least, is levitated. If these three could, perchance, meet, there might be a very pretty exhibition of psychic power.
The Physical Power of the "Double"
To the Editor of “Light.”
Sir,—With reference to my letter in “ “Light,” 21st inst., on the power of the double, “M. A. (Oxon.)” says in “Light,” 28th inst.:—
“A good deal of the applicability of Dr. Wyld’s narrative to the special matter under debate lies in one little point. Did the door-handle positively turn, and was the door absolutely opened I If so, the apparition was able to act upon a material object.”
Now, there are many loose records made of Spiritual facts, but I have always endeavoured to he as exact as possible in such cases; and in the case alluded to, knowing the necessity for strict adherence to fact, I made very careful inquiry, and Miss J. and her mother repeatedly assured me that two servants being in the kitchen, one only saw the handle turn, but both saw the doth opened.
I know a lady who assures me that by will she has rung a. bell at a distance from her body, and I know a gentleman who assures me that by will he has, although miles away from his home, knocked at his own door in the middle of the night. A servant responded to the ring of the bell, and the solitary wife heard her husband’s knock.
But those two cases might admit, as an explanation, of the intervention of assisting Spirits, although the parties assure me that their beliefs are that no foreign assistance was given them.
12, Great Cumberland-place,
January 31st, 1882.
<Untitled> (“M.A. Oxon’s” admirable work...)
“M.A. Oxon’s” admirable work, “Psychography,” is, wo hear, out of print, and the author proposes shortly to issue a new aild enlarged edition, brought down to date.
Editor's notes
Sources
-
Light, v. 2, No. 57, February 4, 1882, p. 50