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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Colonel Olcott on Psychological Phenomena|1-110}}

{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|Colonel Olcott on Psychological Phenomena|1-110}}

what he says generally is) about the cause of the lying communications given by spirits. He puts this query. “Why was this? ''Was it that the messages came from very inferior beings, who surrounded particular individuals?''" And he truthfully adds— “circumstances such as these very much opposed the progress of Spiritualism.” No more pertinent question has been asked; no truer assertion made. It is high time that this question should be pondered by every intelligent person interested in the subject. We have gone on for nearly thirty years, receiving communications and viewing phenomena, and taking it for granted that all those which are genuine are made by disembodied human spirits. This has caused all the trouble, and made all the odium.

 

{{Style P-No indent|what he says generally is) about the cause of the lying communications given by spirits. He puts this query. “Why was this? ''Was it that the messages came from very inferior beings, who surrounded particular individuals?''" And he truthfully adds— “circumstances such as these very much opposed the progress of Spiritualism.” No more pertinent question has been asked; no truer assertion made. It is high time that this question should be pondered by every intelligent person interested in the subject. We have gone on for nearly thirty years, receiving communications and viewing phenomena, and taking it for granted that all those which are genuine are made by disembodied human spirits. This has caused all the trouble, and made all the odium.}}

But the Eastern people make no such mistakes. They do not believe that all their communications are from departed friends, nor all their physical phenomena produced by them. They know better. There is not a hungry fakir or tattered sheikh who could not have taught us where to seek for the truth. They could have shown us how to produce slate writing ourselves, or any other form of physical manifestation, by controlling the currents of the “Universal Ether” by will power, and calling in the help of the elementary beings who exist in its bosom. They could have taught us what a direful calamity it is to yield to physical mediumship to the extent of perfect passivity—which is the same as saying to give oneself over as the helpless slave of the “elementaries.” Let us hope that when men of such character as Mr. Jencken formulate questions like that which I have quoted above they will be pondered over.

But the Eastern people make no such mistakes. They do not believe that all their communications are from departed friends, nor all their physical phenomena produced by them. They know better. There is not a hungry fakir or tattered sheikh who could not have taught us where to seek for the truth. They could have shown us how to produce slate writing ourselves, or any other form of physical manifestation, by controlling the currents of the “Universal Ether” by will power, and calling in the help of the elementary beings who exist in its bosom. They could have taught us what a direful calamity it is to yield to physical mediumship to the extent of perfect passivity—which is the same as saying to give oneself over as the helpless slave of the “elementaries.” Let us hope that when men of such character as Mr. Jencken formulate questions like that which I have quoted above they will be pondered over.