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vol. title: vol. period: 1879-1880 pages in vol.: 577 |
Spiritualism and Theosophy*
Ladies and Gentlemen:—Thirteen years ago, one of the most eminent of modern American jurists, John W. Edmonds, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New York, declared in a London magazine that there were then at least ten millions of Spiritualists in the United States of America. No man was so well qualified at the time as he to express an opinion upon this subject, for not only was he in correspondence with persons in all parts of the country, but the noble virtue of the man as well as his learning, his judicial impartiality and conservatism, made him a most competent and convincing witness. And another authority, a publicist of equally unblemished private and public reputation, the Hon. Robert Dale Owen, while endorsing Judge Edmonds’ estimate, adds† that there are at least an equal number in the rest of Christendom. To “avoid chance of exaggeration” he, however, deducts one-fourth from both amounts and (in 1874) writes the sum-total of the so-called spiritualists at fifteen millions. But whatever the aggregate of believers in the alleged present open intercourse between our worlds of substance and shadow, it is a known fact that the number embraces some of the most acute intellects of our day. It is no question now of the self-deceptions of boors and hysterical <... continues on page 10-566 >
* A lecture delivered, upon invitation, at the rooms of the United Service Institution of India, at Simla, October 7th, 1880. The European audience which gathered to hear Colonel Olcott discourse upon the mediumistic phenomena and their relationship to Theosophical Science, is said to have been the largest ever seen at Simla upon any such occasion. Even Sir Samuel Baker’s was smaller, though he had His Excellency the Viceroy as Chairman. Among many others of note, there were present Lieut.-General Sir Donald Stewart, Major-General Napier Campbell, Lieut.-General W. Olpheits, Mr. C. Lindsay, C.S., Mr. A. O. Hume, C.S., Major-General J. Hills, Lieut.-Colonel E. R. C. Bradford, C.S.I., Colonels A. H. Murray, R. Murray, Maisey and Bampfield, Major P. D. Henderson, of the Foreign Department, Captain P. J. Maitland, Depty. Asst. Q.M.-General. A large number of ladies also attended. The room and lobbies were over-crowded and many had to stand. The lecture occupied somewhat more than an hour in the delivery, including the explanation of the diagrams drawn on the black board, and the interest excited may be inferred from the fact that no one left before the conclusion. Col. Olcott was introduced by Captain A. D. Anderson, R.A., Honorary Secretary of the United Service Institution.
† The Debatable Land between this world and the next, p. 174, London, Ed. 1874.
Editor's notes
- ↑ Spiritualism and Theosophy* by unknown author, London Spiritualist, The, No. 436, December 31, 1880, pp. 313-17
Sources
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London Spiritualist, No. 436, December 31, 1880, pp. 313-17