In all public meetings and in seances where a medium is expected to give trance and inspirational addresses the platform is “supported” or the chair surrounded by sympathisers, whose presence is esteemed favourable to “good conditions”—a “nebulous term” better understood by Spiritualists than the public. When the address is, as is often the case, a miserable jumble of things inconsequential, old, experienced Spiritualists say it is owing “to bad conditions,” i.e., the influence of the audience on the speaker being conflicting and bad, hence the inconclusive rambling of the spirit’s oration. Whether this is the true explanation or not, whether the medium was really controlled or not, or the addresses successful or not, the fact remains that Spiritualists admit that the “message” is not only “seriously modified,” according to the channel (or medium) through whom it is given, but that it may be deflected and distorted by the influences of the audience to whom it is given. Whatever the real cause of the imperfect oratory, what is this but admitting the thoughts transferred from the audience to the sensitive either make or mar the utterance? If spirit utterance is thus influenced, it becomes a difficult matter to decide how much of the original message has reached us as intended, and how unwise it is for some to have their lives directed by such uncertain counsel.
There are many persons so organised, that when they come in contact with Spiritualism, (not knowing anything about clairvoyance, psychometry, thought-transference, thought-reading, etc.) are so convinced by what they hear and see for the first time—so much out of the ordinary run of their experience—the only way they can account for the phenomena is, “that they must be the work of spirits, for no human being could tell what they knew, or what they wanted, save a spirit who could read their thoughts.” This is just where, I think, the error creeps in. Those very revelations which they in ignorance so readily attribute as only possible coming from disembodied spirits, may be and are in some instances quite possible to man, unaided by any such agency.
Many years ago I sat with Mr. David Duguid, the Glasgow painting medium. I had a “direct spirit painting” done. It was a correct—as far as I can recollect—painting of a small farm-house and stead, in the North of Ireland, where I as a child had been sent for my health. Neither Mr. Duguid nor the control claimed to possess any actual knowledge of me, or of the circumstances of my childhood. When I had an opportunity of attending the seance in question, I wondered if such a scene could be painted, and my wonder was greater when it was done.
Here again, we have evidence of thought-transference. Whether Mr. Duguid, by some occult power, caused the direct painting to be done—his own spirit doing it while his body was in the trance state—or the painting was produced by one of his controls, I am not prepared to state. I am willing to state my belief that the painting was not done by Duguid, the medium, or any other person present in the room. One of the controls of the medium claimed to have painted the little sketch, and, truth to tell, it is not more difficult to accept this hypothesis than “the spirit of the medium did it.” In our ordinary experience of human nature, we do not find it usual for men to give credit to others—men or spirits—for what they are capable of doing and saying themselves.
REFLECTIONS.
It is quite possible, seeing that out of this life into the next, through the portals of death, pass all sorts and conditions of human beings, that in the next stage of existence—most closely allied to that in which we now live—mankind are not essentially different in character from what we find now. It is not, therefore, necessary to call in the agency of demons, as distinct from human spirits, to account for the phenomena of Spiritualism. If in artificial somnambulism and the phenomena of the psychic state the operating agent is an embodied human spirit, it is possible the same human spirit, albeit disembodied, may still retain power to control or influence other human beings.
There is another and more serious matter for consideration, concerning which our investigations of Spiritualism have thrown little or no light—Spirit Identity. Not only do our friends depart and never return, and many have promised to do so. How far are we certain when spirits have returned? We may have been deceived by our own impulsiveness, anxiety, and desire to feel and to know that “they are not lost but gone before.” Again, admitting the genuineness of physical phenomena, and conceding that all the communications are really made by disembodied spirits or intelligent beings like unto ourselves, what proof do we possess that they are really what they represent themselves to be, or what they appear to be in spirit circles? “A bad or mischievous spirit,” says Dr. Nichols, “may, for aught we know, personate our friends, penetrate our secrets, and deceive us with false representations.” This is certainly worth thinking about. My object in writing is not to turn my readers against Spiritualism, but to get them to bring into the investigation judgment, not only to analyse evidence, but the capacity to “judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” It is no part of my purpose to deal with the history, ethics, or even the phenomena of Spiritualism. That has been well done by others. I merely write to show that Spiritualism “has something in it,” and is of such importance that it is neither to be lightly rejected on the one hand, nor are its phenomena at all times to be attributed to agency of disembodied spirits.
Spiritualism is a many-sided subject, and too vast in its proportions to be dealt with here, and while I have no doubt that its public mediumistic exponents are no more perfect than the rest of humanity—much is laid at their door which may have a basis on fact—yet I do think they often suffer unjustly. Firstly, from the cries of the ignorant—educated or otherwise, matters little—who charge them with fraud, simply because such people are ignorant of the psychic possibilities of man; and, secondly, from the admiring and thoughtless many who are prepared to accept the commonest of psychic phases instanter as evidence of “disembodied spirit” presence and power. I have no doubt many phenomena are quite explicable on natural grounds. Setting aside the possibilities of self-deception in untrained observers, and of fraud in dishonest mediums, and of genuine phenomena traceable to the powers of the “spirit which is within each of us,” there remains, to my mind, abundant evidence of the existence of “discarnate spirit,” possessing all the attributes of the human spirit, as we know ourselves from the study of man as a psychological subject. Unfortunately, the very best evidence in favour of both “embodied” and “disembodied spirit” is not of that kind which is available for publicity. Still, I hold, if there is evidence (psychological and physical) for disembodied spirit in Spiritualism, I am also satisfied there is abundant evidence for embodied spirit in the psychological experiences of life, apart from what we know of Spiritualism.
I may fitly close these reflections by quoting the testimony of that keen scientific observer anent phenomenal Spiritualism—namely, Cromwell F. Varley, Esq., F.R.S:—“Twenty-five years ago I was a hard-headed unbeliever.... Spiritual phenomena, however, suddenly and quite unexpectedly was soon after developed in my own family.... This led me to inquire, and to try numerous experiments in such a way as to preclude, as much as circumstances would permit, the possibility of trickery and self-deception.”... He then details various phases of the phenomena which had come within the range of his personal experience, and continues:—“Other and curious phenomena had occurred, proving the existence (a) of forces unknown to science; (b) the power of instantly reading my thoughts; (c) the presence of some intelligence or intelligences controlling those powers.... That the phenomena occur there is overwhelming evidence, and it is too late to deny their existence.”
The Bibliography of Spiritualism is somewhat extensive. What books are best to recommend to beginners is not an easy matter to decide. “The Use of Spiritualism,” by the late S. C. Hall, F.S.A.,[G] however, will repay perusal, and from the intellectual fitness, high moral tone, and spotless reputation of the author, this book may be safely recommended to all readers.