If we accept the idea that passing to the other life does not essentially change the character of the man, that his peculiarities remain the same, we can account for many things in the séance-room that appear to be simply acting,—performances which have no other object than to attract the audience, to show what power the spirits can acquire under conditions which seem impossible to us.
Considering the state of feeling with which many persons enter the séance-room, it is not singular that they are sometimes treated to what seems to be deception. The spirits, perceiving the condition of the minds around them, act very much as they would if they were still on this side of life. Thoughts are things, which appear to them very much as solid substances do to us. If, instead of attempting to remove them, they can accomplish their object by going round them, they feel themselves justified in doing so. They act very much, at times, as children would under similar circumstances; and, until they obtain complete control over the form that encases them, they cannot express themselves with much force. They are as children learning to walk, to think, and talk through a medium that is new to them.
A simple, childlike bearing, blended with the warmest affection, is the only element that enables them to progress and meet us upon the highest plane of thought.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ATTITUDE OF SCIENTISTS.
The world is indebted to scientists for their clear arrangement of and deductions from what others have discovered; for, as a rule, they are not inventive. Hasty in condemning everything new, their timidity and lack of generous bearing toward what seems to conflict with their materialistic theories are conspicuous.
Nothing can be more unscientific than the attitude of most of them toward this subject. Obliged in the past to antagonize the despotism of the old Theology, they have themselves become despotic. Condemning dogmatism, they assume a dogmatic bearing toward everything that does not square with their pre-conceived notions. Walking with faces toward the ground, they refuse to look up, or admit the existence of anything beyond matter; denying the possibility of spirit, and claiming that the earth contains within itself the "promise and potency" of everything that is or has been.
Against this sweeping claim may be opposed the fact that, in the light of a purely scientific analysis, the earth gives no promise of the living beings that cover its surface; that it creates nothing, furnishes nothing except the environments or clothing of the beings that for the time find their abiding-place here.
When scientists are confronted with materialization, they deny it without investigation, or refuse to examine it unless they can dictate their own conditions, and yet no class of men understand better than they do the necessity of adhering closely to the laws governing any operation in nature, if it is to be fairly studied. The course that has been and is now being pursued by the two scientific bodies supposed to be investigating this subject must necessarily lead to failure. Individual members may be more or less impressed with the reality of the phenomena, but no report worthy of the subject will ever be made by either society. The ridiculous farce enacted by the French Academy of Science in their report on Mesmerism, will probably be repeated here.
It has been charged upon me that I am not a scientist, and that my methods are not scientific,—all of which, if their implied definition of science is correct, I admit. I have had the fairness, notwithstanding my skepticism, to lay aside my prejudices and study this subject purely in relation to itself, and not in connection with pre-conceived ideas. The facts which I have presented have been attested by competent witnesses; and until scientists have made themselves familiar with them, their allegations amount to nothing. The course which I have pursued in studying this subject is far more sensible and scientific than a denial without investigation.