< The Evidence in Favor of Future Existence Examined (continued from page 1-129) >
You say, “Intelligence, apart from the animal organism, is manifested, and this is what we call ‘spirit’, and this is what the intelligence itself asserts it to be.” But hold, Mr. Editor. Have you proved that the intelligence thus manifested is “apart from the animal organism”? I claim that you have fallen very far short of this; that the whole grand effort of Spiritualism, ancient as well as modern, to prove the truth of this simple claim, has been ever and only an utter and an entire failure. Farther than this, I claim that whenever you admit the necessity of a human medium for the manifestation of these phenomena, you yourselves adduce the evidence and the strongest possible evidence short of absolute proof, that the intelligence manifested is not thus “apart from the animal organism,” but is wholly dependent upon it, and more or less intimately associated with it.
What, then, will the intelligent utterences by that material form thus improvised, and speaking from either of those platforms, prove? Simply and only this — that there are forces of mind or matter, or both, combined or separate, with which we have never as yet become acquainted. Of the origin and nature of these forces, and the significance of the phenomena, we have yet to learn.
I know there are Spiritualists, as there are Christians, good and noble and true, to whom the above statements will appear profane. But I regard them as true, nevertheless.
Yours for the right,
Wellesley, Mass., March 15th, 1876.
The Mysteries in Spiritual Phenomena
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A Theory of Spiritual Evolution
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Editor's notes