It may easily be contended that I have been overrating the progress and prospects of spiritualism, for that the public prints as a rule make fun of it. I may be reminded that Mr. Browning has exposed it, in the region of poetry, in his Sludge the Medium; Professor Tyndall in that of prose, in his delicious account of a séance, in which he discomfits the medium and plays spirits himself, to the great edification of the company, who rebuke him solemnly for his want of faith in his own make-believe; that the keen critics of the Saturday and the Pall Mall invariably treat spiritualism as unmitigated humbug.
In reply, I point to the Report; to the testimony of an antagonist like Mr. Geary, as to the number of eminent men who believe in spiritualism; to the notorious fact that scientific men, as a whole, in Germany and America have ceased to regard spiritualism as a mere delusion; to the recent correspondence in the Times, and particularly to the article of December 26, 1872, wherein the writer, after reviewing the Report, exclaims that "it is high time competent hands undertook the unravelling of this gordian knot. It must be fairly and patiently unravelled, and not cut through. The slash of the Alexandrian blade has been tried often enough, and has never sufficed. Scientific men forget that, in the matter of spiritualism, they must make themselves fools in order that they may become wise." The writer then proceeds to relate how he went off to examine for himself. He tells us that he and his friend enter a room, the furniture of which consisted of a table and a few cane-bottomed chairs, which he previously examines; that in an inner room, during a dark séance, in which the medium's hands and feet have been carefully secured, a chair is lifted up and thrown upon the table; that afterwards, in the outer room, "the furniture became quite lively, and this in broad daylight; a chair jumped three or four yards across the carpet, our hat fell to our feet, and numerous other phenomena occurred"; but the mediums are free, and he is nervous about them. In another séance, the same writer, whilst the medium's hands and feet are in custody, has various things thrust into his hand, and once "felt distinctly the touch of a large finger and thumb." Several times during the séance he takes the opportunity, freely accorded, of carefully searching under the table with a lamp. He confesses there was nothing during the whole evening, except the phenomena themselves, to suggest imposture. "We tried our best to detect it, but found no trace of it." And then he ends with "a slash of the Alexandrian blade," after all, and suggests that still trickery it must be.
Spiritualism indubitably affords, and in all probability will continue to afford, an abundant and legitimate field for the satirist of human folly, even when its substantial reality has been admitted; for it is a condescension to a great vulgar want, and its supplies are detailed, for the most part, through the unwashed fingers of very scurvy fellows indeed. Neither is there anything in the discipline necessary for the development of a medium, so far as I know, which makes his refinement as a class probable.
Educated men are naturally shy of admitting their connection with anything involving so much that is low and disagreeable, except as a sort of "casual ward" experience; just as men are usually shy of its being known that they eat strange meats, such as rats, out of siege-time. But once let an heroic rat-eater come forward, impelled by a sense of public duty, to tell the world what a noble viand it is neglecting, when, lo! it appears, from confessions on this side and on that, that numbers know all about it, and have been secretly indulging in the rat feast. So it is with spiritualism and its adherents; it is only now and again that the curtain is lifted up, and we are enabled to appreciate the hold which it is steadily making good on the public imagination.
As to the line taken by the Pall Mall and the Saturday, the question is whether the critics who write in these periodicals could, under any circumstances, adapt their method and style, I will not say to the support, but to the fair discussion, of an uncouth, ill-conditioned, sensational enthusiasm like spiritualism. As it was the Crusader's boast that he never touched the unbeliever save with the sword, so, it would seem, some of our critics plume themselves upon never touching enthusiasm but with a sneer. Our present school of critics is the result of a reaction from the enthusiastic Young England school of forty years ago, who were romanticists, patronizing religious enthusiasm as one of the many forms of romance. We can hardly expect that a school which is inclined to regard all religious sentiment as something essentially weak and finikin; which can talk of Joan of Arc as a "crazy servant-girl,"[197] should be civil to an exhibition of enthusiasm much weaker, and vulgar to boot. Neither do I see how it would be possible to write a trenchant critique of such a nondescript medley, except by treating it as a form of mania. It admits of no precise scientific treatment, for it falls under no one category. Spiritualism, to discuss, not to banter, would be as uncongenial a subject for the Pall Mall or the Saturday as a case of chronic bronchitis for a brilliant public operator.
When the "Jupiter" of the latter days is engaged in duly chronicling, for the edification of the public, the splendid spiritualistic phenomena with which Antichrist will dazzle the world, should the Pall Mall and Saturday still exist, we should not look for them even then amongst the enthusiastic crowd. Though employed in the government interest, they will surely be allowed to do their old work in their old way, and we shall find them engaged in the congenial task of mocking the last miracles by which Enoch and Elias are gathering in the remnant of the elect.
It may be insisted that the one effectual way of repressing spiritualism is to pooh-pooh it. Surely it is too late; you must give its many sober adherents some better reason against trusting their own senses than its making other people laugh.
Assuredly spiritualism can never be safely despised until its reality has been discounted and its author recognized.
FOOTNOTES:
[192] Apoth. l. 409.