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vol. title: vol. period: 1879-1880 pages in vol.: 577 |
Slate Withing in Greek
Sir,—In Mr. Massey’s translation of Zöllner’s Transcendental Physics, there are some facts shown on plate IX., facing page 229, which suggest some considerations of value to Greek scholars.
A well known Greek quotation is given, and surrounded by inscriptions in other languages, that unmistakably bear the mark of the handwriting identifiable with the hand of “Allie,” one of Slade’s “controls.” Of course I use the word “control” in the artificial sense, and do not imply more than that Slade was undoubtedly and sincerely at certain times en rapport with an unknown force, which may be called by any name, the shorter the better.
It is to the character of the Greek handwriting that I especially wish to call the attention of your readers. It appears to me to repeat letter for letter the peculiarities of the slate inscribed with a copy of the Lord’s Prayer obtained under circumstances described by Mr. Blackburn, and which used to be under glass at 38, Great Russell Street. Five letters in it are, to my mind, conclusive of this theory, the π, κ, ς, μ and δ. The π shows a peculiar curve on its second limb, which is, even in cursive writing, unique to my experience. Like the writer of the Lord’s Prayer, the inscriber in what I suppose now we must call “Kiesewetter’s case” has had the vaguest possible idea of how to write a Greek κ. The spelling of the word κερδος indicates that the writer has evidently written, or rather painfully painted, an initial character that has some resemblance to the Greek κ, and in which the strokes have not been made in the manner in which a Greek scholar would write them.
The fifth word, also, presents in the final κ a ring, twist, or pig’s-tail curve, which is peculiar. The sixth word indicates that the μ has not been formed by one downstroke initiating the letter, but by a curved stroke to which a straight one has been added subsequently, so as to complete the letter. The last word also indicates in the medial κ a certain amount of artificiality which is unusual, and which does not partake of the cursive form of handwriting. There is nothing in this which looks like a natural scrawl, but rather a slow and laborious production, copied from printed Greek, and written by one who evidently was ignorant of the way that modern Greeks write the ancient character. I confess that these undisguised coincidences are, to my mind, at least, strong argument in favour of the genuineness of the communication, of which the very badness of the handwriting is proof of its sincerity. Certainly an impostor, as I have often said that Slade was not, could have prepared a much better message, and the better because it was unlike the previous communications.
Concerning "Geists"
I am permitted to send you the following remarkable extracts from an unpublished work of Thomas Lake Harris. Some such conception as this of the “geist” has been long in my own mind, partly as a hypothesis to explain the fragmentary “tests” obtained at séances, partly derived from the accounts given by occultists of the “astral body.” The main difference is that Harris makes the “geist” indestructible, whereas Eliphas Levi, for example, represents it as in process of dissolution. That after death there remains a representation of ourselves, the resultant of our past life, which is yet not ourselves, appears to me to afford a clue to much that is perplexing in so-called Spiritualistic communications. These “remains” of organic intelligence and memory will naturally offer tests of identity which will satisfy an investigator who is content to take what he can get and ask no questions. Spontaneous memory can be expressed without the effort which supposes the presence of original intelligence; but call upon the “spirit” by your questions for intelligent reaction on your intelligence, and lo! “the power is exhausted.” Are we not all familiar with the ever-recurring excuses? Poor geist! “If you fret him, he is gone.” Many of the visions of Swedenborg seem to me thus explained. The great seer was in geist-land when he thought himself to be in spirit-land. So his geists did not know that they were out of the world. How could they, when they were only representations of the world-life of the men they were, or belonged to? They kept all their opinions, even those which their mere exit from the flesh must have dispelled for rational intelligence, and were busy about the same controversies which occupied the living minds on earth.
To the question, What and where then are we? Harris, in the following extracts, gives no answer that can be accepted as at all sufficient. That “The spirit is taken by angels” is a pretty and soothing piece of information, which no more satisfies the question-<... continues on page 10-422 >
Editor's notes
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 417, August 20, 1880, pp. 85-7
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London Spiritualist, No. 417, August 20, 1880, p. 90