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THE 
 
 OF 
 
 IMMOBTALITY. 
 
 SARGENT. 
 
It shall assuredly come, that day of a new, an immortal evangel.- 
 Lessing, 
 
 The advent of Spiritualism is through facts and not theories. Its pur- 
 pose is positive knowledge.— Hudson Turtle, 
 
 Spiritualism is an experimental science, and affords the only sure foun- 
 dation for a true philosophy and a pure religion.— A If red R. Wallace, 
 
 Even in the most cloudless skies of Skepticism I see a rain-cloud if it be 
 no bigger than a man's hand: it is Modern Spiritualism.— Lord Brougham, 
 
 In the whole universe all is contingent, nothing is necessary, nothing a 
 cause of itself. To explain the cause of all, therefore, we must admit a 
 cause which may be necessarily a cause of itself and of all things. This 
 cause being, since it is necessary, it follows that God is, for it is God.— 
 Leibnitz, 
 
 The soul of man can know the Divine only so far as it knows itself.— 
 Marcus Antoninus. 
 
PORTRAIT OF THE SPIRIT "KATIE KING. 
 
 Copitd/rom a Photograph taken by tht Magnesium Light. 
 
THE 
 
 PROOF PALPABLE 
 
 OP 
 
 IMMOETALITY; 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OF THE MATERIALIZATION PHENOMENA 
 OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 REMARKS ON THE RELATIONS OF THE FACTS 
 TO THEOLOGY, MORALS, AND RELIGION. 
 
 BY 
 
 EPES SARGENT, 
 
 AUTHOR OP " PLANCHETTE, OB THE DESPAIR OF SCIENCE ; A HISTORY OP THE 
 FACTS AND THEORIES OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM." 
 
 11 Nullu8 in microcosmo spiritus, nullus in macrocosmo Deus." 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 COLBY AND RICH, 
 
 9 Montgomery Place. 
 1881. 
 

 3F /37<P 
 S3 
 
 4 
 f 
 
 A 
 
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 xiU-AAT-M-6, 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 To the uninformed many the narrative portions of this volume 
 will seem like the fantasies of a mediaeval superstition. But the faith- 
 ful observer of what is going on in the world must he well aware that 
 the accumulation of facts corresponding with those here presented 
 is getting to be irresistible. For their refutation something more 
 than a word or gesture of contempt is now required. Those critics 
 who hcpe to dispose of them thus easily will soon be counted in the 
 long procession of infatuated opponents of dawning truths. The 
 phenomena are fast spreading and becoming better known ; they 
 attract new converts daily, and are beginning to be admitted by re- 
 spectable scientific authorities, such as Wallace and Crookes in Eng- 
 land, Perty in Berne, and Wagner and Butlerof in Eussia. All the 
 frauds of real or pretended mediums are powerless to neutralize the 
 effect of what has been proved, and has now taken its place among 
 the certainties of science. Moreover, the question is beginning to be 
 raised whether much that we have set down as the conscious impos- 
 ture of certain known mediums may not be the work of foreign forces, 
 the eccentric operation'of which we do not yet understand. 
 
 But in the revision of this work I have been careful to note all those 
 instances in winch testimony has been weakened or withdrawn since 
 the first edition was printed. Thus I have stricken out the accounts 
 which Mr. K. D. Owen gave of phenomena through Mr. and Mrs. 
 Holmes, though he has since admitted that in this case genuine mani- 
 festations were probably mixed up with those he suspected as ques- 
 tionable. I have also made such qualifications as seemed pertinent 
 in other cases. Spiritualism needs no invalidated supports. 
 
 The fact that the present volume grew out of a series of familiar 
 communications respecting the materialization phenomena, will ex- 
 plain, if it will not excuse, the somewhat free and desultory manner 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 in which the many-sided subject has been treated. If my transitions 
 from fact to theory should seem irregular, the iault lies in the original 
 unambitious form of the publication. 
 
 I have brought down the record of phenomena to the beginning of 
 the year 1876 ; and it will be interesting to the student of them to re- 
 mark how what seemed incredible at one time, even to advanced Spir- 
 itualists, has been confirmed as the manifestations have gone on and 
 multiplied ; and how every new " exposure " has resulted in a reaction 
 favorable to the confirmation of the fact involved. The course of 
 truth, Goethe tells us, is spiral, and progress cannot be had without 
 occasional retrogression. 
 
 That Spiritualism now offers the grounds for a science founded on 
 observed facts is the belief of all persistent investigators. It has made 
 its way in spite of the most vehement opposition that ever a great 
 truth encountered. The large majority of the cultivated classes, the 
 religious and the scientific, have all combined to hoot it down, almost 
 blind to the consideration whether it is a thing of facts or chimeras ; 
 for there is much in it that to a superficial observer is repulsive. But 
 it still lives and grows. If true, it is God's truth, and we must not 
 fear it, however portentous to our short-sightedness it may appear. 
 It is time for people of common sense to accommodate their opinions 
 to the facts, since it is evident that the facts will not accommodate 
 themselves to the preconceptions and dislikes of any majority, how- 
 ever wise and worthy. E. S. 
 
 l?o. 68 Mor eland street, Boston, Feb. 1st, 1876. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Materializations of the Past 9-21 
 
 The recent developments— Sensitives or Mediums— Mr. Wallace on 
 Spirit-seeing— Sensations of a Medium— T. H. Noyes's testimo- 
 ny—Tangible apparitions— The Hydesville phenomena— The Da- 
 venports— J. Koons— D. D. Home- Kate Fox and the Liver- 
 more Manifestations— She marries Mr. Jencken— Their Infant 
 son a medium— Mr. Livermore's Experiences— Spirit forms, 
 drapery, flowers, etc. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Phenomenal Proofs of Immortality 21-32 
 
 Nature of spirit materializations— Chavee's three Questions- 
 Theory of the spirit-body strictly scientific— The Superior Or- 
 ganism— Christ's resurrection not a type of ours— Clairvoyance 
 proves the spirit- body— Kant on the Moral Element— Mr. Emer- 
 son answered— G-enesis of the belief in immortality— Phenome- 
 nal Proofs— Skepticism in high quarters— Socrates a medium— 
 His death— A Female Socrates. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Materializations at Moravia, N. Y., and Else- 
 where 32-41 
 
 Mr. Hazard ■ s Eleven Days in Moravia— Materializations foretold— 
 Efforts to manifest— Mrs. Hazard appears— Mr. L. A. Bigelow's 
 testimony— Mr. Isaac Kelso's— A spirit speech— Suspicions of . 
 fraud dissipated— Mrs. Packard's testimony— Dr. A. S. Hay- 
 ward's— Medium ship of Dr. Slade— Testimony of Mrs. A. A. 
 Andrews— Of Mr. Clarke Irvine— Mrs. Hollis's Mediumship— 
 Dr. N. B. Wolfe's testimony— Mr. D. H. Hale's— Mr. F. B. 
 Plimpton's— Katie King in Philadelphia— Dr. H. T. Child and 
 Mr. Owen— Question of Identity— John King— Reflections. 
 
 CHAPTER IY. 
 Materializations in England 41-67 
 
 Experiments in London— Mrs. Guppy— Messrs. Heme and Wil- 
 liams—The phenomena through Miss Cook— The spirits John 
 
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 and Katie King— Portrait of John King— Mr. Williams's medi- 
 umship— Miss Cook and Mr. Heme— Remarkable incident— Let- 
 ter from Miss Cook— Katie's efforts to materialize— Mr. W. H. 
 Harrison's testimony— Katie and her medium— Spirit drapery- 
 Mr. Blyton's testimony— Mr. Charles Blackburn— Katie walks 
 forth— Letter from Dr. Gully— Mr. Coleman's testimony- 
 Prince Emile's— Dr. G-eorge Sexton's— Dr. Gully's— Seizure of 
 the spirit- form— Mr. Dunphy's statement— Mr. Tapp's testi- 
 mony. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Scientific Investigations 67-72 
 
 Mr. Crookes investigates the materialization phenomena— His let- 
 ter— His apparatus— The Dialectical Society— Their conclusions 
 —The facts scientifically tested— Theory of Psychic Force— Dr. 
 Rogers— Serjeant Cox— Unconscious cerebration— Insufficiency 
 of the theory— Remarkable incident— Mr. H. E. Russell's testi- 
 mony—Definition of Substance. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Spirit and Matter 72-85 
 
 Are there two substances— Immateriality— Soul and Spirit— Im- 
 mortality in the Bible— Ancient belief in Spirits— The Christian 
 Fathers— Primary conception of spirit— Augustine— Descartes- 
 Spinoza an anti-Spiritualist— His con "rove rsy with a Spiritual- 
 ist— His system— His notion of immortality— Idealism and Real- 
 ism—Proofs of spirit power over matter— Astonishing facts- 
 Spirit writing— Levitation— Music— Photography— Letter car- 
 ried by Spirits— S. C. Hall's testimony— Mr. W. H. Harrison's 
 —Space to Spirits— Swedenborg's teachings— Herbert Spencer- 
 Man's limitations. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Priority of Spirit 85-94 
 
 how far the senses teach us— Two entities or one— Man a trinity- 
 Testimony of seers— Skeptical exclusion of causation— Spiritual- 
 ism extends the realm— On photographing spirit-forms— Papil- 
 lon on Matter— Hegelian doctrine of nature— Mr. Lewes" s objec- 
 tions answered— Ferrier's abuse of Spiritualists— What is meant 
 by spirit— First Causes— The Deific Nature. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 More of the Phenomena through Miss Cook . 94-110 
 
 Mr. W. H. Harrison on Miss Cook's mediumship— Her own ac- 
 count— An unspiritual spirit— Anecdotes by Mr. Dunphy— Miss 
 Kislingbury's testimony— Sittings for a photograph of the spirit 
 Katie— Mr. Harrison's testimony— Mr. Luxmoore's— Messrs. 
 Varley, Crookes and the electrical test— The crowning proof- 
 Mr. Crookes' s testimony— Katie's spirit drapery— Cut places 
 made whole— Farewell seance— Mrs. Ross-Church's account of 
 it— Photographs by Mr. Crookes— His conclusive experiments. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 American Phenomena 110-123 
 
 "What is meant by immortality— Phenomenon and Cause— The 
 Philadelphia Katie King— She disappears and reappears— Mr. 
 A. B. Crosby's testimony— Dr. C. Pane's— E. D. Owen's— 
 The proof palpable— The two Katie Kings— Credulity of Skepti- 
 cism—A question— Anecdote by Mrs. A. A. Andrews— Clair- 
 voyant Predictions— Mr. Irvine's testimony— Rev. S. Watson's 
 — Rev. R. S. Pope's— Reflections. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Materializations through the Eddy Family . 123*135 
 
 Facts for induction— Tyndall and the Cambridge professors on 
 Spiritualism— The Eddy mediums— Col. Oicott's statement- 
 Amazing phenomena— Troops of materialized spirits— A. J. 
 Davis on the phenomena— On Spirit and Matter. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 The Spirit-body 135-154 
 
 Reliability of seers— Swedenborg— James E. Smith on individual 
 revelations— All imperfect— A glorious truth— Kardec on spirit 
 teachings— The spirit-body— Universal testimony— Chaseray— 
 Cabanis— Coleridge— Dr. Georget— Scriptural pneumatology— 
 Resurrection of the body— The true body— The lower animals- 
 Sir J. E. Smith— Charles Bonnet— A future for all— W. M. Wil- 
 kinson— Melancthon— Luther— Calvin— Proofs of direct action 
 of Spirits— A nervous ether— A wonderful world of spirit— Kar- 
 dec and Bacon on the spirit-body— Plutarch on mediumship— 
 The creation out of nothing— Materializations of clothing, orna- 
 ments, etc.— The spirit-body not a mere hypothesis. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Power of Spirit over Matter 154-160 
 
 Origin of force— Vera on force— The Darwinian theory— Moleschott 
 on thought— Tyndall's speculations— Coleridge and Schelling— 
 Priestley— Paul Janet— Can matter evolve mind— Atheism con- 
 trary to science— Tyndall's slur at Spiritualism. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Unity of Forces and Phenomena 160-167 
 
 The search for unity— Aryan monotheism— Chemistry tends to 
 unity— Reduction of living forms to unity— Principle of life- 
 Suns and planets not dead mechanisms— Identity of life and 
 spirit— Protestant and Catholic concurrence— Double conscious- 
 ness—The All in All. 
 
viii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Relations of Spiritualism to Belief in God . 167-187 
 
 Atheistic spirits and seers— The finite and infinite— Descartes— 
 Emile Saisset— Mill, Spencer and Lewes on theism— The Expe- 
 rience Philosophy— Personal incident— Biichner denies clairvoy- 
 ance— Spiritualism a science— Picton— Christlieb— The supreme 
 question— Materialism explains nothing— Spiritualism not athe- 
 istic—Rev. John Caird— Dogmatic materialism answered— On 
 design in Nature- Divine personality— Hartmann— Schopen- 
 hauer— Picton— Bacon. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 The Divine Nature triune 187-138 
 
 Pantheism— Spiritualism enlarges our views of God— Union of Pan- 
 theism and Theism— John Scotus Erigena— Bruno— Wm. Law— 
 Rev. John Hunt— God personal— Huxley admits double con- 
 sciousness— Mozart" s case— Inferences— Three in One— Man has 
 a divine prototype — Naturalism and Theism — Swedenborg— 
 Christlieb— Hegel— Schelling— Vera— God self- limited in Nature 
 —The divine and human trinity— Hooker— Hamilton— Cousin. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Relations of Spiritualism to Morality . . 198-209 
 
 Direct bearings of Spiritualism on a science of natural morality- 
 Wallace's testimony— Spiritualism eclectic— Religion and ethics 
 —Conventional morality— Socrates on Evil— Nature of the moral 
 law— Baxter— Personal experience in mesmerism— Townshend 
 — Origen— St. Thomas— Spinoza— Sin punishes itself— Materiali- 
 zation— The triune principle— Atheistic begging of the question 
 —A moral creed— Teachings of Spiritualism. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 The Message of Spiritualism 209-220 
 
 Old revelations made new— Notions of a future life— Humboldt- 
 Newman— Kant— Strauss— Leon Case— Indifference to life- 
 Thomas Buckle— Laboulaye— Auerbach— St. George Stock- 
 Personal Experiences— The Mesmerists— Kerner— Objections to 
 Spiritualism — The Satanic theory— Locke's advice — Gulden- 
 stubbe— James Martineau— Dr. Carpenter answered— Rev. Mr. 
 Voysey's objections— Sentiment must yield to facts. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 Further Proofs Palpable 220-234 
 
 Spirit photographs and materializations— M. A. (Oxon.)— Mumler 
 — Gurney— Crowell— Olcott— Lenzberg — Blavatsky— Leon Case 
 —Mrs. A. A. Andrews— The facts and the inferences— Conclud- 
 ing reflections. 
 
THE 
 
 PROOF PALPABLE OF IMMORTALITY. 
 
 CHAPTER P. 
 
 The surprising character of the developments which the 
 phenomena of Modern Spiritualism have recently attained to 
 seems to call for a clear, succinct review of the whole subject 
 of similar contemporary manifestations. The concurrent 
 testimony of well-known scientists and of unprofessional in- 
 vestigators, so numerous that to attempt to set aside their at- 
 testations as inadmissible is simply irrational, is now in the 
 keeping of science. It is of a nature so astonishing, so truly 
 wonderful, that I can hardly blame the incredulity that still 
 assails the reported facts with ridicule and denial in the face 
 even of all the confirmations by which they are established. 
 
 As introductory to an account of the extraordinary mani- 
 festations through Miss Florence Eliza Cook, now Mrs. Cor- 
 ner, of London, in which manifestations, as proved by Pro- 
 fessor Crookes, Dr. J. M. Gully, Mr. C. F. Yarley, Mr. Benja- 
 min Coleman, and many others, a spirit form, temporarily 
 materialized, and undistinguishable from a human being in 
 the flesh, has come forth in the light, conversed, and submitted 
 to the most convincing tests, and then disappeared, leaving no 
 visible trace, I will give a brief account of the manifestations 
 that have preceded or accompanied this crowning wonder. 
 
 In all ages of the world and among all nations, it has been 
 claimed that there have been men and women with certain 
 (9) 
 
10 SENSITIVES OE MEDIUMS. 
 
 supersensual faculties ; faculties exceptionally or abnormally 
 developed, and by the exercise of which they have become 
 clairvoyant, clairaudient, and able to receive impressions not 
 known to the generality of mankind. All times and all tribes 
 have had their prophets, seers, sensitives, psychics, or medi- 
 ums. The inference is that these same powers are possessed 
 in different degrees by all human beings, but that it is only 
 under certain conditions of organization, temperament, or in- 
 fluence, that they are developed as we find them to be in par- 
 ticular instances. 
 
 The ready objection of skepticism is : " I will not believe that 
 another man possesses such extraordinary powers while I can 
 discover no sign of them in myself. I am the measure of all 
 other human beings ; and when you tell me that such persons 
 as Abraham, Balaam, Hagar, Paul, Peter, Swedenborg, Home, 
 Foster, Mrs. Fox-Jencken, Mrs. Andrews, Miss Cook, Miss 
 Showers and others, can see spirits, manifest clairvoyance, 
 and fall into trances, I will not believe it." 
 
 But consider to what inconsistencies assumptions like this 
 would lead us ! One man is utterly destitute of the musical 
 faculty ; he cannot tell one tune from another ; and yet here 
 is a little child, Wolfgang Mozart, who at five years of age 
 shows a musical genius, power of execution, originality and 
 taste, which can be characterized only as inexplicable and 
 amazing. And again : Here is a man of average intelligence 
 who is slow at figures, and finds it hard to perform an ordi- 
 nary sum in addition or multiplication ; and here is a boy or 
 an idiot, who will in a few seconds, by a mental computation, 
 solve a sum in arithmetic which a skillful accountant, with 
 the aid of his slate, could hardly verify in half an hour. The 
 cases of Zerah Colburn, Professor Safford, and others, prov- 
 ing this statement, are known to all inquirers into the abnor- 
 mal powers of the human mind. These instances would seem 
 to show by analogy that there may be also a faculty of spirit- 
 ual vision and clairvoyance, which may be undeveloped in one 
 person and manifested in another. 
 
 Mr. Alfred E. Wallace, in his recent " Defence of Spiritual- 
 
SENSATIONS OF A MEDIUM. 11 
 
 ism," has accurately stated the fact, of which ample proofs 
 may be given, that different individuals possess the power of 
 seeing spirit forms and figures in very variable degrees. 
 
 11 Thus it often happens at a seance," he says, " that some 
 will see distinct lights of which they will describe the form, 
 appearance and position, while others see nothing at all. If 
 only one or two persons see the lights, the rest will naturally 
 impute it to their imagination ; but there are cases in which 
 only one or two of those present are unable to see them. 
 There are also cases in which all see them, but in very differ- 
 ent degrees of distinctness ; yet that they see the same ob- 
 jects is proved by their all agreeing as to the position and 
 movement of the lights. Again, what some see as merely 
 luminous clouds, others will see as distinct human forms, 
 either partial or entire. In other cases all present see the 
 form— whether hand, face, or entire figure— with equal dis- 
 tinctness. Again, the objective reality of these appearances 
 is sometimes proved by their being touched, or by their being 
 seen to move objects— in some cases heard to speak, in others 
 seen to write, by several persons at one and the same time ; 
 the figure seen or the writing produced being sometimes un- 
 mistakably recognizable as that of some deceased friend." 
 
 The question is of ten asked, "What are the sensations of 
 the medium himself when under spiritual impression ?" As, 
 where the impression is very strong, the medium is generally 
 thrown into a state of unconsciousness, or trance, this in- 
 quiry is not often satisfactorily answered. As a contribu- 
 tion to the philosophy of the subject, the following remarks, 
 read by Mr. T. Herbert Noyes, B. A., (himself a partially- 
 developed medium) at a meeting of the London Dialectical 
 Society, are of interest : 
 
 " I have learnt by practical experience the difficulty of in- 
 ducing prejudiced men to listen even to one's premises — let 
 alone one's conclusions. The extent of that difficulty may 
 be estimated from the consideration of the absolute impossi- 
 bility of conveying to the apprehension of a man, born with- 
 out any cue of our five senses, the exact sensation experi- 
 enced by those who possess them. 
 
 "The gifts of mediumship seem to me to involve the de- 
 
12 SPIRIT FORMS. 
 
 velopment of a latent sixth sense ; indeed, I am inclined to 
 think that they may, perhaps, involve the development of 
 several latent senses not yet acknowledged by science — 
 latent senses or spiritual faculties, which are probably inher- 
 ent in all spiritual natures, prematurely developed in a few 
 only, but destined to be developed in all w r hen they emerge 
 from the prison-house of the body, just as are the wings of 
 the butterfly or the limbs of the frog, which are latent in 
 the caterpillar and the tadpole. 
 
 " I know that I should excite the derision of the skeptics 
 if I were to say that I have conversed with spirits after a 
 fashion which was asserted to be that in which spirits com- 
 municate with each other— by an ' inner voice/ which I could 
 only compare to the sensation which would be caused by a 
 telegraphic apparatus being hooked on to one of the nerve- 
 ganglia— a distinctly audible click accompanying every sylla- 
 ble of the communication, which one could n^t say one heard, 
 but of which one was made conscious by a new sense, and 
 which was clearly distinguishable from thoughts originated 
 in one's own mind; but it is nevertheless a fact, which I know 
 to be as true as that I am now in full possession of my five 
 normal senses, and in no way qualified for Hanwell. 
 
 "This enabled me, for the first time in my life, to under- 
 stand the rational insjyirational speaking, as writing medi- 
 umship, which has also been given to me, enables me to 
 understand inspirational writing. But this latter gift in- 
 volves an expenditure of vitality and nervous force which 
 is excessively debilitating if too long continued ; and I am 
 now paying the penalty of excess by enforced abstinence 
 from the exercise of the new faculty. 
 
 "If it be only the unconscious action of one's own mind, 
 how will our scientific infallibles account for this anomalous 
 result of automatic writing? But I have already trespassed 
 too long on your patience ; suffice it to say, that I can affirm, 
 with the certainty of absolute knowledge, that Modern 
 Spiritualism is true ; that it affords the most satisfactory evi- 
 dence that the soul of man survives the death of the body, 
 retains its individuality and its personal identity and its falli- 
 oility, and the power of communicating, under certain deli- 
 cate conditions, with those with whom it is still in sympathy 
 in earth-life." 
 
 The fact of palpable and tangible apparitions from the 
 spirit- world is asserted in all the records of psychological 
 phenomena that have come down to us from remotest antiqui- 
 ty. The angel who met Jacob at Peniel, and wrestled with 
 him, must have been a materialized spirit, if a legitimate in- 
 ference may be made from parallel phenomena, repeatedly 
 certified to as occurring within the last year. The hand that 
 appeared on Belshazzar's palace-wall was a materialized 
 hand, such as I myself have felt and seen, while in company 
 
SPIRIT FORMS. 13 
 
 with other witnesses who confirmed my experience by their 
 own. 
 
 With the first irruption of the modern spiritual phenomena 
 at Hydesville, N. Y., on which occasion little Kate Fox, then 
 nine years old, may be said to have initiated the modern 
 spiritual movement by interrogating the raps, and finding an 
 intelligence in them, there were instances of the appearance 
 of phantom forms and partial materializations. At the rooms 
 of J. Koons, in Athens County, Ohio, in 1854, spirit-hands 
 and voices were among the common manifestations. Before 
 this, in 1850, the Davenport Brothers began to be developed 
 as mediums ; and among the phenomena at their seances was 
 that of the appearance of entire spirit-forms, so far material- 
 ized as to be visible not only to sensitives, but to all the par- 
 ties present. 
 
 Mr. Home, the well-known medium, has, on several occa- 
 sions, had spirit-forms appear to parties in his presence. One 
 in particular is mentioned, in which a sister of Mr. S. C. Hall 
 was recognized by her brother and seen clearly by Lord Lind- 
 say and the entire party. 
 
 The first carefully-prepared account that we have, in mod- 
 ern times, of the repeated appearance of a materialized spirit- 
 form, is that furnished by my friend, Mr. C. F. Livermore, of 
 New York, formerly of the well-known firm of Livermore & 
 Clewes, bankers. Another friend, one I have known and 
 honored for thirty years, Dr. John F. Gray, of New York, 
 writes (Jan., 1869): " Mr. Livermore's recitals of the seances 
 in which I participated are faithfully and most accurately 
 stated, leaving not a shade of doubt in my mind as to the 
 truth and accuracy of his accounts of those at which I was 
 not a witness. I saw with him the philosopher Franklin, in 
 a living, tangible, physical form, several times ; and, on as 
 many different occasions, I also witnessed the production of 
 lights, odors, and sounds ; and also the formation of flowers, 
 cloth- textures, &c, and their disintegration and dispersion. 
 . . . Mr. Livermore is a good observer of spirit-phenomena ; 
 brave, clear, and quick-sighted. I have known him from 
 
14 MISS KATE FOX. 
 
 very early manhood, and am his medical adviser." He was 
 an entire skeptic before he witnessed these phenomena. 
 
 Of Miss Kate Fox, Dr. Gray writes : "She has been inti- 
 mately known to my wife and me from the time she was a 
 very young girl ; that is to say, from 1850 to this date (1867). 
 At that early day in the history of the manifestations she 
 was frequently a visitor in my family ; and then, through that 
 child alone, without the possibility of trick from collusion 
 with others, or, I may add, of imposture of any kind, all the 
 various phenomena recorded by Mr. Livermore, except the 
 reproduction of visible, human forms, were witnessed by Mrs. 
 Gray and myself, and many other relatives and friends of our 
 family." 
 
 That Modern Spiritualism was initiated by the action of 
 the child, Kate Fox, seems to admit of no doubt. The family 
 of David Fox, at Hydesville, N. Y., were disturbed by cer- 
 tain inexplicable knockings. His little girl, Kate, aroused 
 from her evening slumber by the noise and the alarm of the 
 family, asked the unknown cause of the sounds to give a cer- 
 tain number of raps. It did so ; and " Oh, mother," the little 
 girl exclaimed, " it hears what I say ! it knows what I tell it, 
 for it has rapped the number of times I asked it !" 
 
 Here was a discovery : the phenomena had an intelligent 
 cause ! A similar intelligence had been manifested by the 
 phenomena investigated by the Rev. Joseph Glanvil, at Ted- 
 worth, England, in 1661, and by those which attracted the 
 attention of the Wesley Family, in Lincolnshire, in 1716 ; but 
 the hint was not acted on, and the manifestations ende<J in 
 the families where they originated. The discovery, when 
 made by Kate Fox, however, was productive of consequences 
 that can be only estimated by the growth and future influ- 
 ence of Modern Spiritualism. 
 
 There is an interesting prediction connected with the sub- 
 sequent career of Kate Fox. It was communicated to Mr. R. 
 D. Owen by Mr. and Mrs. H. P. Townsend, living on Madison 
 Avenue, New York City. In the winter of 1869 Miss Fox 
 was the guest of Mrs. Townsend, who slept with her one 
 
AN INFANT MEDIUM. 15 
 
 night in the hope of getting some manifestations of spirit 
 power. Waking before day the two entered into conversa- 
 tion. Mrs. Townsend said, "Kate, yon are a strange crea- 
 ture. You will never get married. You will be sure to die 
 an old maid. ,, There came a loud rap on the head-board, and 
 there was spelled out through the raps : "Kate will be mar- 
 ried, and will bear a child who will be the wonder of the 
 world. Kate herself will be a cypher in comparison. She 
 will only be remembered as his mother." "His mother!" 
 said Mrs. Townsend : " it is to be a boy I" 
 
 This was related to several of Mrs. Townsend's friends long 
 before Kate went to Europe. In December, 1872, Kate was 
 married in England to Mr. H. D. Jencken, barrister-at-law, 
 London, whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making in 
 Paris in 1869. He is the son of a well-known man of science, 
 and himself an earnest and intelligent investigator of psycho- 
 logical phenomena, and one well able to give reasons for his 
 belief in Spiritualism, as his paper read before the London 
 Dialectical Society (April, 1869) abundantly shows. 
 
 In September, 1873, there was born to these parents an in- 
 fant son who, before he was three months old, began to de- 
 velop powers as a medium. On one occasion his nurse, Mrs. 
 McCarthy, saw four spirit hands making passes over his little 
 form. Rappings on his pillow and on the iron rail of the bed- 
 stead would occur almost every day. A few weeks later a 
 still more marked evidence of the wonderful power of spirits 
 to use this infant's organization was given. A legible com- 
 munication was written through his hand, of a part of which 
 the following words, a fair specimen of the chirography of 
 the whole, are afac simile : 
 
 The entire communication was as follows : 
 
 "I low this little child God bless him advise Ms father to gs 
 back to London Monday by all means Susan." 
 
16 MR. LIVERMORE'S EXPERIENCES. 
 
 The following testimonial is appended to the fac simile, as 
 published in the London Medium and Daybreak of May 
 8th, 1874 : 
 
 44 The above sentence was written through the hand of the infant boy of 
 Mrs. and Mr. Jencken, aged five months and fifteen days, on the 6th day 
 of March, 1874, at Lansdowne Terrace East, Western Road, Brighton, by 
 an invisible agency, in our presence, the pencil used having been placed in 
 the right hand of the infant by invisible means. Witness the hands of the 
 parties present, March 6th, 1874, J. Wason, K. F. Jencken, the X mark of 
 Mrs. McCarthy, the nurse who held the child. 1 ■ 
 
 The communication was supposed to come from the depart- 
 ed wife of Mr. Wason, a respectable solicitor of Liverpool, 
 and one of the witnesses. The advice given was acted upon 
 and found to be good. 
 
 In a letter, published June, 1874, Mr. Jencken writes of 
 this little infant : "Some few days ago, late iu the evening, 
 his eyes sparkled, and the restlessness of his hands warned 
 Mrs. Jencken that he wanted to write. A large sheet of pa- 
 per, the only one at hand, was then placed before him. He 
 wrote a long sentence, covering the sheet." That he does not 
 get his power from the presence of his mother is proved by 
 the fact that, on a recent occasion, when she was absent from 
 home, on Mr. Jencken's taking him up to play with him, 
 while the infant was trying to catch his gold chain, soft raps 
 came by which intelligible messages were spelt out. 
 
 Mr. Livermore's sittings for manifestations through Miss 
 Kate Fox commenced in February, 1861, extended over a pe- 
 riod of five years, and were more than three hundred in num- 
 Der. The chief phenomenon was the appearance of a tangi- 
 ble, visible female figure, which was sometimes accompanied 
 by a male figure purporting to be Dr. Franklin, and strongly 
 resembling the portraits of that well-known philosopher. 
 
 In the female figure Mr. Livermore recognized unmistak- 
 ably the face, form and voice of Estelle, his wife. " The re- 
 cognition/ ■ he says, "was complete, derived alike from the 
 features and her natural expression. The figure displayed 
 long flowing hair, which, even in its shade of color, appeared 
 like the natural tresses of my wife, and, like hers, was unusu- 
 
MR. LIVERMORE'S EXPERIENCES. 17 
 
 ally luxuriant. ... I asked her to kiss me if she could ; 
 and, to my great astonishment and delight, an arm was placed 
 around my neck, and a real palpable kiss was implanted on 
 my lips, through something like fine muslin. A head was 
 laid upon mine, the hair falling luxuriantly down my face. 
 The kiss was frequently repeated, and was audible in every 
 part of the room." 
 
 The tresses that dropped over his face Mr. L. describes as 
 " having the scent of delicate, freshly-gathered violets.' ' He 
 says: " I laid hold of the hair, which seemed to the touch, at 
 first, identical with human hair ; but, after a brief space, it 
 melted away, leaving nothing in my grasp. 
 
 During the manifestations, cards, provided by Mr. Liver- 
 more, were placed on the floor with a pencil ; and long mes- 
 sages in his wife's chirography were found written on them. 
 11 These manifestations," says Dr. Gray, " could not have 
 been produced by human means ; and if you admit the com- 
 petency of the witness, of which, from my knowledge of him, 
 I have no doubt, they are, in my opinion, conclusive evidence 
 of spirit identity." 
 
 The following passages I quote, somewhat at random, from 
 Mr. Livermore's diary : 
 
 " The spirits of my wife and Dr. Franklin came to me in 
 form at the same time — he slapping me heavily upon the 
 back, while she gently patted me upon the head and shoul- 
 der." 
 
 "The spirit-robe was shown in a variety of ways, and the 
 texture was exquisitely beautiful. Whenever it approached 
 closely, we discovered a peculiar scent of purity, like a very 
 delicious perfume of newly-gathered grass or violets." 
 
 " I asked to be touched ; when she advanced, laid her arm 
 across my forehead, and permitted me to kiss it. I found it 
 as large and as real in weight as a living arm. At first it felt 
 cold, then grew gradually warm." 
 
 "My wife came in full form, placing her arms completely 
 around my neck. Something resembling a veil in its contact, 
 was thrown over my head ; and while it was resting there, 
 2 
 
18 A SPIRIT-HAND EXAMINED. 
 
 spirit-flowers were placed at my nose, exhaling the most ex- 
 quisite perfume I have evei smelt. I asked what this was, 
 and was told, ' My wreath of spirit-flowers.' " 
 
 " Dr. Franklin was apparently dressed in a white cravat 
 and a brown coat of the olden style ; his head was very large, 
 with gray hair behind his ears ; his face was radiant with 
 benignity, intelligence, and spirituality. . . . The light be- 
 coming very vivid discovered to us Dr. Franklin seated, his 
 whole figure and dress complete. " 
 
 "Something like a handkerchief of transparent gossamer 
 was brought ; and we were told to look at the hand which 
 now appeared under the gossamer, as perfect a female hand 
 as was ever created. 1 advanced my own hand, when the 
 spirit-hand was placed in it, grasping mine ; and we again 
 grasped hands with all the fervor of long-parted friends, my 
 wife in the spirit-land and myself here." 
 
 "It was a reality which lasted through nearly half an hour. 
 I examined carefully that spirit-hand, squeezed it, felt the 
 knuckles, joints, and nails, and kissed it, while it was con- 
 stantly visible to my sight. I took each finger separately in 
 my hand, and could discern no difference between it and a 
 human hand, except in temperature ; the spirit-hand being 
 cold at first, and growing warm." 
 
 " The flowers in her hair and on her person were real in 
 appearance. Over her forehead was a crown of flowers. The 
 light shone vividly upon her face and figure ; and while we 
 stood looking intently, she instantly, as quick as thought, 
 disappeared, with a rushing sound. Then, by raps was com- 
 municated, * The electricity is very strong ; and we did this 
 to show you how quickly we can disappear.' Yery soon she 
 returned, as real as before." 
 
 " The figure of Dr. Franklin appeared perfectly delineated, 
 seated in the window, and permitted me to examine his hair 
 with my hand. The hair was to sight and touch as real as 
 human hair." 
 
 "Estelle and Dr. Franklin appeared alternately. Dr. 
 Franklin's shirt-bosom and collar were as real to appearanca 
 
SPIRIT FLOWERS. 19 
 
 as though made of linen. We handled them, and examined 
 in the same manner his tunic, which was black, and felt like 
 cloth." 
 
 "My wife appeared leaning upon the bureau, with white 
 lace hanging in front of and around her head. This lace or 
 open work (like embroidery) was so real, that the figures 
 were plainly discernible and could have been sketched. The 
 body of her dress or robe was of spotted white gossamer, 
 while the lace-work was in diamonds and flowers." 
 
 * ' Flowers again appeared. A bright light rose to the surface 
 of the table, of the usual cylindrical form, covered with gos- 
 samer. Held directly over this was a sprig of roses, about 
 six inches in length, containing two half-blown white roses 
 and a bud with leaves. The flowers, leaves, and stem were 
 perfect, and smelled as though freshly gathered. We took 
 them in our fingers, and I carefully examined the stem and 
 flowers." 
 
 "By raps we were told to ' Notice, and see them dissolve.' 
 *The sprig was placed over the light, the flowers drooped, 
 and, in less than one minute, melted as though made of wax, 
 their substance seeming to spread as they disappeared. By 
 raps : 'See them come again.' A faint line immediately shot 
 across the cylinder, grew into a stem, and, in about the same 
 time required for their dissolution, the stem, bud and roses had 
 grown into created perfection. This was several times re- 
 peated, and was truly wonderful." 
 
 "The flowers were reproduced in the same manner as last 
 evening. I felt them carefully, and a rose was placed in my 
 mouth, so that I took its leaves between my lips. They were 
 delicate as natural rose-leaves, and cold ; and there was a pe- 
 culiar freshness about them, but very little fragrance." 
 
 On one occasion a bunch of flowers, consisting of a red 
 rose, with green leaves and forget-me-nots, was shown. "I 
 inspected them," says Mr. L., "for several minutes, at inter- 
 vals ; turning off the gas and relighting five or six times. The 
 flowers still remained. Above them was written : ' Flowers 
 from our home in Heaven, 1 Finally the flowers began to fade* 
 
20 OBJECTIVE PKOOFS. 
 
 and we were requested to extinguish the gas. When we did 
 so, it was replaced by a spirit-light, under which the flowers 
 were again distinctly visible. Then, by the raps : ' Do not 
 take your eyes off the flowers ; watch them closely.' We did 
 so. They gradually diminished in size, as we gazed, till they be- 
 came mere specks ; and then they disappeared before our eyes. 
 When I lighted the gas I found no trace cf them on the card. 
 Then I carefully examined the seals on the doors and win- 
 dows, anr« found them intact/ ' 
 
 These phenomena took place in four different houses (Mr. 
 Livermore's and the medium's being both changed during 
 the period over which the seances extended), and were ac- 
 companied with the most rigid tests. The figure of Estelle 
 not only moved freely about the room, but it displaced ob- 
 jects and wrote messages. It allowed a portion of its dress to 
 be cut off, which, though at first of strong and apparently ma- 
 terial, gauzy texture, in a short time melted away and be- 
 came invisible. 
 
 At ten of these remarkable seances Dr. Gray was present"* 
 with Mr. Livermore, and at eight of them the latter's brother- 
 in-law, Mr. Groute. On one occasion Dr. Gray and Mr. Liv- 
 ermore were allowed to cut off with scissors a piece of the 
 garment of the spirit, coming under the appearance of Frank- 
 lin. The cloth seemed of so firm a texture that for a time it 
 could be pulled without coining apart. It was examined 
 closely until it melted away. During one sitting (No. 355, of 
 May 1st, 1863) both Dr. Gray and Mr. Groute were present 
 with Mr. Livermore, when the form of Dr. Franklin appear- 
 ed; it was perfect, and fully recognized by all the parties. 
 The last time the figure of Estelle appeared was the 2d of 
 April, 1866. The number of seances had been three hundred 
 and eighty-eight. 
 
 Having had the opportunity of questioning Mr. Livermore 
 closely in regard to these occurrences, and of comparing them 
 with the equally remarkable experiences of other friends, well 
 known to me, both in England and in the United States, I am 
 satisfied that he has used the most scrupulous care in describ- 
 
AN INFERENCE. 21 
 
 ing the phenomena and recording his investigations. Every 
 conceivable precaution was taken to guard against imposture. 
 The medium's hands were held during the most important 
 manifestations. Doors and windows were carefully secured ; 
 and the phenomena took place often in Mr. Livermore's own 
 house, under circumstances which render the theories of fraud 
 or illusion wholly inadmissible. And to crown the testimony 
 we have the corroborative experience of Dr. Gray and Mr. 
 Groute. These gentlemen are all still (1874) fully convinced 
 of the objective reality of the phenomena and of the absence 
 of any attempt at exaggeration or imposition on the part of 
 any human being. 
 
 Of the mediumship of Miss Kate Fox (now Mrs. Jencken) 
 through whom these remarkable phenomena occurred, Mr. 
 Wallace justly remarks : " We have here a career of twenty- 
 six years of mediumship of the most varied and remarkable 
 character ; mediumship which has been scrutinized and test- 
 ed from the first hour of its manifestation down to this day, 
 and with one invariable result— that no imposture or attempt 
 at imposture has ever been discovered, and no cause ever been 
 suggested that will account for the phenomena except that 
 advanced by Spiritualists." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The inference from the phenomena of spirit-forms is not 
 that these forms represent the spirit as it appears in its own 
 world. By an effort of the will, or by some ethereal chem- 
 istry hardly conceivable to man in his present state, the re- 
 turning spirit is supposed to reproduce certain fac-simUes of 
 its appearance while in the earth-life ; doing this mainly for 
 the purpose of identifying itself to surviving relatives and 
 friends. A feminine spirit, who manifested herself at Mo 
 ravia, was on one occasion known to produce, in rapid sue- 
 cession, facsimiles of her personal appearance at six differ- 
 
22 A TANGIBLE APPARITION. 
 
 ent periods of her earth-life, ranging from childhood to old 
 age. 
 
 According to Prof. Daumer, author of "Das Geisterreich," 
 (Dresden, 1867), these apparitions are neither bodies nor 
 souls, but a third entity, which he calls eidolon (a shape), by 
 which he understand the direct self-manifestation of the 
 psyche (soul). The soul, according to his theory, is restrict- 
 ed to the corporeal exhibition only so long as it animates the 
 body. Once released by the death of the latter, it can mani- 
 fest its immanent reality in any way it pleases ; it can even 
 reproduce whole episodes from its former life, including any 
 number of figures of itself or of other persons ; it can also 
 produce sounds and other material acts. 
 
 That spirits have these powers is proved by the recent phe- 
 nomena ; but if the theory would imply that the soul mani- 
 fests itself without an organism in the spirit-world, this is 
 contrary to nearly all the teachings we have from spirits and 
 seers. How can it be said that the apparition is not a body, 
 when the body in which it appears is tangible and undistin- 
 guishable from the human form? Mrs. Florence Marryatt 
 Ross- Church (1874) was allowed to put her hand on the nude 
 person of the spirit Katie, and felt her heart beat. A spirit 
 has been known to cut its finger with a knife, then to borrow 
 a handkerchief to wind around the wound, and, at the end of 
 the sitting, to return the handkerchief marked with blood. 
 
 In a lecture delivered May 12th, 1858, Chavee, an eminent 
 French chemist and scientist, put the following questions : 
 
 1st. Is it possible for an individual being to exist without 
 an organism ? 
 
 2d. Ought the admission of the existence in man of an 
 ethereal, invisible organism, of which the component ele- 
 ments are not patent to the senses, to be considered as con- 
 trary to the ordinary laws of chemistry, physics, or science 
 in general ? 
 
 3d. Are there cases in this life in positive pathology which 
 teach us that the organism which succeeds the one we are 
 using now, occasionally acts by itself, or nearly so, in such a 
 
TESTIMONY OF SCIENCE. 23 
 
 manner as to give us glimpses, as it were, of an organism su- 
 perior to our present one ? 
 
 To the first question Chavee replies in the negative ; in his 
 opinion there is no individual being without an organism, for 
 he thinks the soul never exists alone as simple spirit, entire- 
 ly separated from all organism ; in his present state man has 
 two organisms : the terrestrial, which falls under the cogni- 
 zance of the senses, and the ethereal, which is invisible ; at 
 the dissolution of the first the soul continues to retain the 
 second. 
 
 The celebrated lecturer replies to the second question by 
 affirming that we contravene no known law of science, chemis- 
 try, physics, mechanics, etc., in admitting the existence of an 
 ethereal or electro-luminous organism. 
 
 The third question he answers in the affirmative: Yes, 
 there are cases of positive pathology where we can grasp the 
 superior organism, and observe its action, while the inferior 
 one— that which is perceptible to the senses— is no longer in 
 exercise. These cases are natural and magnetic somnambu- 
 lism and the trance. Thus observation leads us to conclude 
 that there is a future life. 
 
 And thus neither reason, observation nor science is op- 
 posed to the belief that man survives the death of the body, 
 and that, provided with organs analogous to our present 
 ones, he may be able to manifest himself to us by means ap- 
 propriate to his new sphere, and subject to the laws which 
 regulate the intercommunication. 
 
 My attention was first called to ChaveVs lecture by M. 
 Leon Favre, a name honored by Spiritualists. Since Chavee 
 delivered it, the progress of the spiritual phenomena has sup- 
 plied wonderful confirmation of the truth of his opinions. 
 Spirits have manifested their power, not only of re-materializ- 
 ing, for the purpose of temporary use or exhibition, parts 
 and members not distinguishable from those of the human 
 body, but they have presented entire human figures, appro- 
 priately clad, conversing and moving about in the light in 
 the midst of a circle of inquirers, walking arm-in-arm with 
 
24 THE SUPERIOR ORGANISM. 
 
 mortals, writing letters, performing, with high powers of 
 execution, on the piano, and giving other proofs of faculties 
 not differing from those of ordinary mortals. 
 
 The unceasing atomic changes of the material body, and 
 the preservation of the human identity through them all, 
 present the sufficient and logical reason why there should be 
 a superior and permanent organism ; in short, a spiritual body. 
 The wings of the butterfly lie folded in the worm. If man is 
 destined to a future state, all the analogies of Nature conspire 
 to suggest that the future body ought to exist wrapt in the 
 present. 
 
 The resurrection of the natural body of Jesus is neither a 
 pledge nor a type of our own. There is much in the Bible 
 narrative of this event that is incongruous and inconsistent. 
 I cannot deny the power of spirits to work a seeming miracle. 
 But what we want for the proof of our own immortality is a 
 fact that shall show us that, after the destruction and disap- 
 pearance of the natural body, the spirit can still manifest it- 
 self to the human senses. Immortality must be inferred from 
 a resurrection of life quite independent of the corruptible 
 body that is laid in the tomb to mingle, like other corporeal 
 exuvi® which we are all the time casting off, with the ele- 
 ments. 
 
 If, as clairvoyance proves, the mind can see without the aid 
 of light or of the optic nerve, and hear without the agency of 
 the apparatus of the ear, there must be spiritual organs of 
 sight and hearing distinct from the physical ; and if there are 
 spiritual organs of sight and hearing, it is legitimate to 
 conclude that there is a complete spiritual organization or 
 body. 
 
 The phenomenal facts of Spiritualism all concur in estab- 
 lishing this hypothesis. All apparitions of departed men and 
 women are in the human form. 
 
 "In apparitions/ ' says Locke, " there is something that ap- 
 pears ; that which appears is not immaterial." 
 
 With more force than he was aware of (for he wrote in igno- 
 rance of the recont phenomena), Caro, an eloquent French 
 
THE MORAL ELEMENT. 25 
 
 writer, whom I here translate, demands: "Does the whole 
 question of our future life reduce itself for us to the inquiry 
 whether the soul's metaphysical principle shall subsist? As- 
 suredly not ! What Spiritualism, in accordance with the in- 
 stinctive faith of the human race, calls immortality, is the im- 
 mortality of the person ; of that particular soul which has 
 thought, loved, acted, struggled, suffered during a life of more 
 or less extent. It is the persistence of this individual existence, 
 keeping, if I may so say, after death, the physiognomy which it 
 created for itself here, the sign of its distinct and separate re- 
 ality. This immortality alone interests us ; every other kind 
 of immortality leaves us absolutely unaffected and insensible. 
 It is only by an effort of abstraction that I can separate my 
 substance from my person." 
 
 There are those who, in order to magnify the moral element 
 in our nature, would have us rest apathetic in regard to all 
 physical evidences of a future life. According to these writ- 
 ers it is only a coarse realism that seeks for palpable proofs. 
 Kant tells us that the disinterested nature of our morality is 
 impaired if we give to our actions for end the perspective of 
 immortality. 
 
 Mr. Emerson adopts this idea ; he objects to our severing 
 duration from the moral elements ; to our teaching the im- 
 mortality of the soul as a doctrine, and maintaining it by evi- 
 dences. "No inspired mind," he tells us, " ever asks this ques- 
 tion, or condescends to these evidences." 
 
 This is high talk, but is it true talk ? These echoes of Kant 
 (who, in his turn, gets his sentiment from the ancient Stoics 
 and Sadducees), were finely satirized by Schiller who, I think, 
 will pass for an "inspired mind. ,, He says : "I find pleas- 
 ure in my friends ; it is agreeable to me to do my duty ; all 
 this distresses me, for thus lam not virtuous." 
 
 Was Paul, then, not "inspired" when he said to his disci- 
 ples, "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain?" Did he 
 not here "condescend " to phenomenal evidences as the basis 
 of faith ? Does our Concord sage claim an inspiration supe- 
 rior to that of Paul ? 
 
26 MR. EMERSON ANSWERED. 
 
 Was Socrates not " inspired " when he drew his confident 
 belief in immortality from the fact that he was in communi- 
 cation with a spirit ? 
 
 " No inspired man condescends to these evidences," says 
 Mr. Emerson ; which I would supplement with the remark, 
 No inspired man condescends to any thing or to any person. 
 Condescension is for the vulgar and self-seeking. If Mr. 
 Emerson means that the inspired man overlooks or disdains 
 any facts of Nature, however lowly, then I say, Nay ; on the 
 contrary, his inspiration will be just in proportion to his 
 recogDition of what is true, and he will see in the physical 
 evidences of a hereafter none other than the Divine imprint. 
 
 The Rev. Joseph May repeats a common but fallacious re- 
 mark when he says : " The doctrine of immortality cannot be 
 demonstrated scientifically and to the intellect. It rests alto- 
 gether on faith." 
 
 Nay, it may rest on knowledge. Why is it that the belief 
 in immortality is stronger among savages, Hindoos, and Chi- 
 nese than among cultivated Christians ? It is because the for- 
 mer have encountered hard, objective facts which have forced 
 on them the belief. They have seen, have felt, have heard 
 the spirits. 
 
 It is related of a Hindoo woman that she allowed her son to 
 cut off her head, so that she might, as a ghost, pursue and pun- 
 ish an enemy who had wronged the family. Parallel cases 
 are numerous. They do not spring from faith ; they are not 
 the chimeras of mere superstition ; they rest on the conviction 
 inspired by familiar objective facts. 
 
 Arguments for the immortality of the soul have been drawn 
 from the universality of the belief among all tribes and at all 
 periods of time. I have heard of a pious Frenchman who 
 used to peruse every new book of travels with fear lest he 
 should learn of some tribe who did not have this belief. He 
 dreaded the loss of a staple argument for a future state. 
 
 But an argument that is thus contingent is of little value. 
 Still the fact remains ; but Spiritualism traces it to its true 
 source, and puts on it the only construction that makes it ot 
 any importance. 
 

 GENESIS OF THE BELIEF. 27 
 
 If any one doubts that the belief in a future state is com- 
 mon to all races of men, let him read Mr. E. B. Tylor's 
 " Primitive Culture," in which work the fact of this belief 
 being thus universal is made to take its place among the ad- 
 missions of a careful and comprehensive critical science. 
 
 The researches of geologists show that even the men of 
 the pre-historic period believed fully in a hereafter for man. 
 In the tenth chapter of Lyell's " Antiquity of Man," there is 
 an account of the discoveries in the cave of Aurignac, in 
 France, from which it appears that men even in the far-off 
 times, that only geology can reckon, had their funeral feasts 
 and preparations, showing that, like the North American 
 Indians, they fitted out the departing spirit with food and 
 implements for his journey. They believed in immortality. 
 
 But what is the genesis of the belief? " It comes," says 
 one, "from the poetical fancy." "Nay, it is born of the 
 moral element in man," says another. " My affections de- 
 mand it," say Buckle, Hortense Bonaparte, and every loving 
 soul. " It is the mere craving of egoism and morbid desire," 
 says Buchner. "It exists only in the subjective imagina- 
 tion," says Feuerbach. "It originates," says Strauss, "in 
 the survivor's retention of the conception of the deceased, 
 which meets him with delusive reality in dreams." " It is a 
 sentiment, a day-dream, a morbid and presumptuous conceit, 
 the offspring of a diseased state of the pulmonary organs," 
 say Messrs. Yogt, Moleschott, Taine, and others. 
 
 All these theories are scattered like mist, by Spiritualism, 
 which declares to us that the proofs which have made the be- 
 lief in immortality so universal and effective do not come in 
 the large sense from anything so capricious as human fancy 
 and desire, so questionable and evanescent as human tradi- 
 tion, or so transient and fickle as human sentiment and opin- 
 ion. They do not spring from any arbitrary systems, rituals, 
 theologies, philosophies, religions, whatsoever. On the con- 
 trary, the abiding proofs spring from certain constantly re- 
 curring facts of human nature, such as Modern Spiritualism 
 adduces, and which, though they may have their limitations, 
 
28 PHENOMENAL PBOOFS. 
 
 and may not be open to the immediate experience and com- 
 mand of all persons at will, are yet so general, so surprising in 
 their character, and so widely credited by those who have ex- 
 perienced them, that they have kept alive through the ages, 
 among the cultivated as well as the uncivilized races, that be- 
 lief in a future state for which merely speculative reasoners 
 assign so many false origins. 
 
 The author of " Oriental Keligions," Mr. Samuel Johnson, 
 does not dissent from Kant and Emerson. He thinks that 
 the evidences of immortality which do not meet certain con- 
 ditions of assurance are "crude and imperfect. ,, These con- 
 ditions, as far as I can glean them from his text, are : " To 
 live in the whole ; to know God by discernment of the soul 
 as real being ; to know one's self as one with necessary be- 
 ing. For," asks Mr. Johnson, " how can we possibly know 
 ourselves immortal otherwise than by experience of what is 
 imperishable, and by knowing that we are in and of and in- 
 separable from it ? " 
 
 Among the evidences to which Mr. Johnson objects, as 
 lacking " spiritual vitality and relation," are those which rest 
 11 on testimonies to the reappearance of many persons after their 
 bodily death, as through some natural law ; and those which 
 proceed on the ground that we can be spiritually fed by the 
 reflection of our curiosity or desire, or even by the echoes of 
 our gossip, from behind the veil." A blow would seem to be 
 here aimed at Modern Spiritualism. 
 
 When the question is, What is the destiny of man ? to reply 
 by telling the interrogator to " live in the whole," to " discern 
 the soul as real being," may be, for all that I know to the 
 contrary, to address a certain class of minds profitably and 
 intelligibly ; but surely there must be a large class of 
 thoughtful persons whose wants are not at all met by "condi- 
 tions of assurance " like these. As well might you point 
 them to a fog-bank, and say, " See there a proof of the eternal 
 world!" 
 
 To assume that these unsatisfied persons are an inferior or- 
 der of minds will hardly answer. Alexander Humboldt was 
 
ALL DAKK. 29 
 
 a stubborn realist and disbeliever, but a great man neverthe- 
 less. The notion that the belief in immortality, which one 
 gets from the phenomenal proofs of it, is " crude and imper- 
 fect " as compared with that which another gets from discern- 
 ing "the soul as real being,' ' is certainly not established by 
 any evidences of superior insight, faith, or refinement on the 
 part of those who would undervalue the process by which the 
 Spiritualist arrives at his convictions. 
 
 Nothing can be trivial which impresses me with a belief in 
 my immortality. Whether it be a " testimony to the reap- 
 pearance of a person after his bodily death," or an " echo of 
 gossip from behind the veil" — whether it be the waving of a 
 long- vanished hand or the simple movement of a table inde- 
 pendent of human touch— if it serve the purpose of convinc- 
 ing me that I shall survive the dissolution of the mortal body, 
 then is the evidence to me good and sufficient, and I will 
 " condescend to it " with a grateful heart. 
 
 Is the proof palpable not wanted ? Consider the deadness 
 of all belief in a future for man among some of the foremost 
 minds of the age. Listen to the almost contemptuous denials 
 that come from such men as Haeckel, Yogt, Feuerbach, 
 Buchner, Moleschott, and many of the leading scientists of 
 Germany. See the indisposition of their brother scientists in 
 England and America to gainsay what they so persistently 
 and boldly assert. Hear the shouts of approval from a crowd- 
 ed scientific assemblage in Germany when Yogt proclaimed 
 atheism and annihilation as the creed of science. 
 
 If facts like these will not satisfy you that the " condescen- 
 sion " which stoops to palpable evidences of immortality is 
 not superfluous or untimely, listen to the words that come 
 from the lips of so devout a Christian as the late Albert 
 Barnes, of Philadelphia, well known to the religious public 
 at home and abroad. Hear his cry of doubt and despair ; 
 " It is all dark, dark, dark to my soul, and I cannot disguise 
 it. In the distress and anguish of my own spirit I confess 
 that I see no light whatever." 
 
 Hardly less desponding than this in tone was the recent 
 
30 INTO THE LIGHT. 
 
 utterance of President HcCosh, of Princeton College, while 
 officiating at a funeral. 
 
 Turn from wailings of anguish like these to the last words, 
 almost playful in their serenity, of the Spiritualist, Socrates. 
 Crito asks him, " How and where shall we bury you ?" Soc- 
 rates rebukes the phrase. "Bury me," he replies, "in any 
 way you please, if you can catch me> and I do not escape from 
 you!" And, at the same time smiling and looking around on 
 his hearers, he said, "I cannot persuade Crito, my friends, 
 that I am this Socrates who is now conversing with you and 
 arranging each part of this discourse ; but he obstinately 
 thinks I am that which he shall shortly behold dead, and he 
 wants to know how he shall bury me. But that which I have 
 been arguing with you so long, that when I have drunk this 
 poison I shall be with you no longer, but shall depart straight- 
 way to some happy state of the blessed, I seem to have ar- 
 gued in vain, and I cannot convince him. . . . Say not, at 
 the interment, that Socrates is laid out, or is carried out, or is 
 buried. Say that you bury my body. Bury it, then, in such 
 a manner as is pleasing to you, and as you think is most 
 agreeable to our laws." 
 
 The sequel of the familiar narrative, the introduction of 
 the hemlock, the drinking of it amid the tears and lamenta- 
 tions of friends, the solemn silence enjoined by himself, the 
 pacing to and fro, the perfect equanimity and the unquench- 
 able faith manifested in all his last words and acts, show that 
 Socrates fulfilled in his death all the professions of his life. 
 
 As no unworthy pendant to this picture of the death of Soc- 
 rates, learn how another Spiritualist, Mrs. Rosanna C. Ward, 
 of Cincinnati, met her end. For several years she had said 
 to her husband that she should pass away in the autumn of 
 1873, in the twilight of a beautiful day. The fact verified 
 her prediction. She, too, like Socrates, was a sensitive or me- 
 dium, in her relations to spiritual influences. 
 
 A few days before her departure she sent for a Unitarian 
 clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Tickers, and requested him to con- 
 duct the services at her funeral, and to say, " This woman did 
 
A FEMALE SOCRATES. 31 
 
 not die in the faith of Spiritualism, but in an absolute knowt* 
 edge of the reality of the after-life and the fact of spirit-inter- 
 course." 
 
 She arranged all her affairs, and gave minute directions. 
 11 After the spirit leaves the body," she said, " lay the body 
 out for cooling in this room ; lower the windows about six 
 inches, and allow nobody to come in," &c. ..." There must 
 be no sitting up. Go, all, and take your needed rest, as 1 
 shall be doing." 
 
 The day preceding her death she lapsed into a deep trance, 
 and was absent three hours. During this time her arm was 
 pulseless and her breathing was imperceptible. When she 
 re- took possession of her body, she said, "There is so much 
 life in the back brain that I could not pass. away. The back 
 brain must die a little more before I can leave." She then 
 said to Mr. Ward, who had just handed her a flower, " The 
 flowers are a thousand times more beautiful in the spirit- 
 world than these ! But all God's works are beautiful, if we 
 are only in sympathy with them. My dear, it is all right." 
 
 She then spoke of the interviews she had been having with 
 departed relatives and friends, and said, "I will go to-mor- 
 row." On the morrow, a few moments before she passed 
 away, she gave some instructions for her husband's comfort, 
 and then, with a smile, looking him in the face, said, "My 
 work is now done ; the curtain falls." And so the well-pre- 
 pared spirit passed on to the better clime, "the purer ether, 
 the diviner air." 
 
 What truly " inspired " mind can depreciate evidences that 
 could lend such a lustre to death as they did in these cases of 
 Socrates and Mrs. Ward ? Who shall disparage the proof 
 palpable of immortality when it can thus give us joy for 
 mourning, beauty for ashes, and make the dissolution of the 
 mortal body the opened pathway to a nobler and more beau- 
 tiful life ? 
 
 It is by no means contended that the mere knowledge of 
 immortality, any more than of anatomy, inspires all the vir- 
 tues. We have seen that it may be accompanied with ex- 
 
32 MR. HAZARD'S EXPERIENCES. 
 
 treme vindictiveness and malignity. Belief in anything must 
 be vitalized by right thinking before it can be productive of 
 good. 
 
 But to say that the reflective mind is not lifted to a higher 
 plane of thought and aspiration by an assured sense of con- 
 tinuous life, is an absurdity. As well might it be said that 
 the man who expected to live only a week would make the 
 same provisions for his life that he would if he expected to 
 live a century. As well might it be said that the Ptolemaic 
 view of the universe is as fruitful in sublime conceptions as 
 the Copernican. 
 
 Spiritualism regards man, not only from the side of his lim- 
 itations, but of his possibilities. " Why dost thou wonder, 
 oh, man/' says Isidore, "at the height of the stars or the 
 depth of the sea ? Enter into thine own soul, and wonder 
 there 1" 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 In the year 1871 the materializations of spirit-forms at the 
 house of Mr. Keeler, in Moravia, N. Y., began to attract pub- 
 lic attention. The medium, Mrs. Mary Andrews, was of 
 Irish parentage, and lived for some time as a domestic in Mr. 
 Keeler's family. She was described (Dec, 1871) as "a well- 
 formed, comely married woman between twenty-five and 
 thirty years old, and the mother of three little girls.' ' 
 
 Mr. Thomas R. Hazard, of Rhode Island, has given, in 
 his "Eleven Days in Moravia," a clear account of the char- 
 acter of the phenomena. Mr. Hazard— who must now have 
 numbered his three-score and ten years— is well known to me 
 personally as one of the most diligent and careful investiga- 
 tors of the facts of Spiritualism. A man of culture and of 
 leisure, a wholly independent witness, his testimony is enti- 
 tled to the greatest respect. He is a brother of Rowland G. 
 Hazard, distinguished among metaphysical writers for his 
 volume entitled "Freedom of Mind in Willing." 
 
MR. HAZARD'S EXPERIENCES. 33 
 
 The manifestations at Moravia used to commence with a 
 "dark circle/ ' at which questions would be answered by 
 spirit-lights, three appearing as an affirmative. Then the 
 keys of the piano would be struck, water would be sprinkled 
 in the faces of the sitters, and stars, or lights, would appear 
 in various parts of the room, and sometimes engage in play- 
 ful exhibitions, as if mingling in a dance. Spirit-voices 
 would join in the singing. The heads and persons of sitters 
 would be patted by spirit-hands, and often spirits would man- 
 ifest themselves to the sitters by speaking audibly, or in dis- 
 tinct whispers, and sometimes at considerable length. A 
 spirit- voice would at last call for a light, and the dar^ stance 
 would close. 
 
 The medium would then take her seat in a cabinet some 
 ten feet by four or five in size, and having an aperture of 
 about twelve by thirteen inches, screened by a piece of black 
 broadcloth some fourteen inches square. The cloth was fas- 
 tened at the top only, on the inside of the aperture, so as to 
 admit or exclude the light, and the spirits in attendance 
 would raise or drop it at their pleasure. The room where 
 the spectators sat would be partially lighted by a kerosene 
 lamp, so adjusted as to reflect on the aperture. 
 
 After singing, in which spirit-voices would sometimes join, 
 faces, busts, arms and hands would appear, the faces being 
 visible, and even the motion of the lips in speaking being 
 plainly discernible. Frequently these faces would be readily 
 recognized by some one or more of the spectators as repre- 
 sentations of departed friends ; and the voices would be some- 
 times so characteristic as to afford a sufficient test of identity. 
 
 Mr. Hazard describes the apparent efforts made by his de- 
 ceased wife to manifest her presence at Moravia. For sever- 
 al years previous he had been promised, through various me- 
 diums, that, before he joined her in spirit-life, she would be 
 able not only to show herself, but to converse with him as 
 plainly as she ever did whilst on earth. Through two medi- 
 ums she had expressed her intention of manifesting herself at 
 Moravia. 
 
 3 
 
84 ME. HAZARD'S EXPEDIENCES. 
 
 On the 14th and 21st of December, 1871, a message, pur- 
 porting to be from Theodore Parker, in regard to these mani- 
 festations, came through Mrs. Staats, of New York, in which 
 the following extraordinary passage occurs : " As these mani- 
 festations increase, they will spread everywhere, and the re- 
 sult will be spirits talking face to face with man. I see great 
 advancement and earnest investigation everywhere. One 
 thing is certain : nothing else can make man a law to himself 
 and a light to others, and there is but one thing to look for 
 progress in, namely, individual reform— learning to think and 
 act for one's self." 
 
 The prediction, italicized above, was soon singularly veri- 
 fied, in the case of the spirit "Katie King" in London. 
 
 On one occasion an accompanying spirit described Mr. Haz- 
 ard's wife as "standing back, partly because she could not 
 attain the proper conditions and partly to give place to other 
 spirits who were anxious to manifest themselves to their 
 friends." Several times she would throw her arms at full 
 length, with hands clasped, out of ttie aperture. The exhibi- 
 tion was perfectly life-like and natural. 
 
 Another day, when Mr. Hazard asked if she still meant to 
 make another effort to show her face, in reply an arm was 
 thrown upward some twelve or fifteen inches above the top of 
 the aperture, in the full light, while she made lively raps on 
 the partition with her fingers. 
 
 At length, on one of the last days of his stay at Moravia, 
 he saw a face gradually developing, or approaching the aper- 
 ture, that he soon recognized " unmistakably " as that of his 
 wife. She seemed highly gratified, and so expressed herself. 
 At first she wore spectacles. Then the face disappeared, 
 but quickly returned without the spectacles, and " looking as 
 natural as in earth-life." 
 
 Upon this Mr. Hazard said : " It is enough, Fanny. I want 
 no more ; I am now fully satisfied ;" at which she thrust her 
 face partly out of the aperture, and said, in a clear, loud 
 whisper, " We have tried hard, Thomas, to make myself plain 
 to you, and I thank God that we have succeeded." 
 
ME. HAZARD'S EXPERIENCES. 33 
 
 The figure was within six feet of where Mr. Hazard sat, 
 and he saw her lips move as distinctly and naturally whilst 
 she was speaking as he ever saw them in earth-life. Over- 
 come with joyful emotion he said, "Kiss me, darling!" 
 whereupon her hand was twice raised to her lips as she threw 
 him two kisses. 
 
 " It may be imagined," says Mr. Hazard, " what my emo- 
 tions were, just as the last moment of my last seance was 
 about to expire, to see my wife's face suddenly presented be- 
 fore me, as plain and distinct as I ever saw it in our own 
 house— not as it looked in the last weary hours of life, nor 
 even yet as it was in less mature years, when the color had 
 partially faded from her cheeks, but in the full bloom of 
 health, and all the glorious beauty that so pre-eminently dis- 
 tinguished her early womanhood. Before this crowning 
 proof, my experiences had banished all doubts from my mind 
 as regards a future state of existence ; but now, even belief 
 that had passed into knowledge, was doubly confirmed. I had 
 at last obtained all I sought for. I had looked upon the re-incar- 
 nated spirit-face of a loved one, the identity of whose features 
 I am not only willing to affirm to, under the pains and penal- 
 ties of perjury, before any assemblage of mortals or tribunal 
 on earth, but, if need be, swear to it, on peril of my salva- 
 tion, before the assembled hosts of heaven and the judgment 
 seat of God." 
 
 In a letter, dated 1873, Mr. Hazard writes : 
 
 " For the last seventeen years I have been an investigator 
 of the alleged spirit phenomena ; during which time my 
 leisure, as well as my inclination, has prompted me to hold 
 converse, through the'agency of many scores of those sensi- 
 tive and peculiarly organized persons called 'spirit mediums,' 
 with what I deem" to be spirits of the so-called dead ; and of 
 the many hundreds or thousands with whom I have in this 
 way communicated, all that have referred to the subject alike 
 testify that there is a spiritual form involved in every human 
 body," and that this form not only retains its natural life and 
 Identity on passing to the higher life, but is clothed in vesture 
 more or less resplendent and beautiful, or otherwise, in ac- 
 cordance with its moral attainments or degrees of innocence 
 or guilt, that attached to it at the period it passed from earth, 
 or which it has since acquired in spirit-life. 
 
 "With like unanimity returning spirits allege that under 
 
36 OTHEE WI TXESSES. 
 
 raediumistic conditions they have, with the aid of some occult 
 alchemy unexplainable to 'material senses, the power to ex- 
 tract elements from their surroundings, wherewith they are 
 enabled to present themselves in an exact resemblance to their 
 earth body, together with its clothing and peculiarities, and 
 thus enable their earth friends to identity them, and, in many 
 instances, respond to their loving advances more readily than 
 they otherwise would. Absurd as this seems to some, and 
 once seemed to me, of the fact 1 have now no doubt ; nor, with 
 the many and varied experiences I have had, can I believe 
 that anything will ever shake my belief and acceptance 
 of it." 
 
 Mr. L. A. Bigelow, of Boston, an investigator w r ho shrinks 
 from no trouble in verifying a fact, and whose candor is be- 
 yond a question, was at Moravia, October 20th, 1871 ; and he 
 relates the following as a part of his experiences there : 
 
 "As the circle was small, we were within eiaht feet of the 
 opening, so that everything was visible. Very soon two deli- 
 cate female hands, closed and then opened, as if in benedic- 
 tion, appeared at the window before us ; a lace was next seen, 
 but indistinctly. When asked whose friend it was, a finger 
 seemed to point to a lady at my leit, and then move toward 
 me. I inquired if I were the one indicated, whereupon the 
 whole hand was shown and shaken, as if for joy. I then 
 requested the lace to come more, into the light. It did so, but 
 not far enough to enable me to distinguish it clearly. 1 then 
 said, ' Please present yourself fully in the aperture,' when I 
 most plainly saw a man's face, with gray whiskers, gold spec- 
 tacles and bald h< ad, I recog lized it beyond question as that 
 of my father-in-law, the late Otis Tufts, of this city, and so 
 remarked aloud. It bowed as if to give assent, and disap- 
 peared. I end< avored to recall it, that it might speak to me, 
 but without avail. . . . No one present knew my name or 
 address till after the close of the seance." 
 
 Mr. Isaac Kelso, of Alton, 111., writes to the St. Louis Dem- 
 ocrat, (January, 1873,) as follows : 
 
 "I saw many strange faces at the aperture— some days from 
 ten to fifteen or twenty— the most of whom were recognized 
 by some one or more present in the circle. At length two of 
 my si>ters succeeded in materializing themselves, and appear- 
 ed side by side at the aperture. The recognition was un- 
 doubted, my sister at my side recognizing them at the same 
 moment I did; and strangers present remarking upon the 
 family resemblance. But the certainty was made doubly 
 certain when the apparitions mentioned incidents in their 
 earth-life and ours which we readily and vividly remem- 
 bered. 
 
 " A few days subsequent, our mother appeared, threw open 
 the door of the cabinet, and showed herself to us from head to 
 foot. 
 
 "Six times during the three weeks an old acquaintance, 
 
SPIEIT SPEECH. 3J 
 
 who died a materialist, appeared to me, looked and talked 
 naturally ; referred repeatedly to his materialistic notions, 
 *and how unhappy they made him ; said much about his pres- 
 ent condition, and its advantages over the former; tried to 
 give me an idea of spirit-life, the pursuits, pleasures and 
 amusements of spirits, as well as their institutions for doing 
 good, educating the ignorant, and lifting higher the low and 
 debased. 
 
 " A few days before I left the place a gentleman came there, 
 bring in g with him two little girls— his own daughters — the 
 elder perhaps eight years old, the younger about six. Before 
 going into the seance room he said to me : ' When about leav- 
 ing home my wife observed, "I would go too if I thought 
 mother would show herself there ; but as she was always op- 
 posed to Spiritualism, I 'm sure she '11 have no desire to make 
 any manifestation !" But lo ! after the light seance began, 
 who should appear first at the aperture but this same old 
 grandmother ! She bent her eyes affectionately upon the 
 children. The little girls gazed a moment in mute astonish- 
 ment, then both at once, clapping their hands in ecstacy, ex- 
 claimed : ' Grandma ! Grandma !' 
 
 '"Keep still,' said the father, in a low tone of voice, and 
 evidently much moved ; then to the apparition he said, ' You 
 did n't believe in this a few weeks ago?' 
 
 " ' No,' replied the spirit ; 'but, thank God, it is true V These 
 words were uttered very distinctly and with a peculiar stress 
 of voice, indicating: earnestness 'and deep feeling. The old 
 lady had been dead but three weeks." 
 
 Messrs. Daniel D. Bonnett and John Hay ward, under date 
 of New York, Sept. 25th, 1872, testify that in the light circle 
 they saw several faces, arms and hands, and that the faces so 
 closely resembled those whom they represented, that in near- 
 ly all cases they were readily recognized ; that the late Rev. 
 John Pierpont came and was simultaneously recognized by 
 many, and that he made a short address, concluding with the 
 words, "Thank God, we live after death." 
 
 The following is a specimen of the addresses made by the 
 
 spirits at Moravia : 
 
 "Friends, it is much better to say nothing, unless you can 
 say something good. You will all be sorry if you have in- 
 jured any one. but never for the good you have done. Be not 
 ashamed, friends, to proclaim the truth of Spiritualism to the 
 world. The time is approaching when you will be proud of 
 it. Oh, how I long to speak to the hearts that are crushed 
 when their loved ones are taken from them, and they think 
 they have laid them in the ground ! I long to say, ' Rejoice ! 
 they are all free. Be glad ! they are all happy in the spirit- 
 land.' And, friends, it is but a short time before you will meet 
 them. God bless you all I" 
 
38 SPIRIT SPEECH. 
 
 AH very simple this— very common -place, you will say- 
 language which a child might have uttered ! And yet may it 
 not be that the highest truths are ever the commonest, like 
 the common sunshine and the common air ? What more, af- 
 ter all, than this substantially, could the highest seraph have 
 said in the way of saving truth ? 
 
 Occasionally, in the dark circles at Moravia, the spirits 
 would speak through a trumpet ; and in one instance, a skep- 
 tic having blackened the small end of it with printers' ink, 
 the ink was found, as soon as a light was struck, on the 
 mouth of the medium. Suspicions of fraud were raised, as 
 usual, but there was no fraud in the case. The fact has been 
 repeatedly proved that when an adhesive or coloring matter is 
 taken on the hand or lips of the spirit, it may reappear on the 
 corresponding part of the medium's person. The " nerve 
 aura," " Psychic or electric force," or what ever it may be that 
 is abstracted from the medium to form the materialization, 
 carries back with it the foreign substance it has contracted. 
 Innocent mediums have sometimes been unjustly condemned 
 by persons ignorant of this curious fact. 
 
 At a sitting described by Mrs. Chester Packard, No. 83 Lan- 
 caster street, Albany, N. Y., as occurring Nov. 21st, 1871, at 
 Moravia, a spirit with a white beard and long white hair came 
 to the aperture, and said, " Friends, I am glad to see you here. 
 You have come to Moravia to see strange things, but they will 
 be seen in other places within a few years at furthest ; you will 
 meet your spirit- friends on the highway, and they will come 
 into your houses, and you will recognize them without fear or 
 doubt." 
 
 The first part of the prediction has been verified in a strik- 
 ing manner as we have already seen. This spirit, when about 
 to leave, having been asked for his name, laughed and said : 
 "You have been singing * John Brown's body lies mouldering 
 in the grave,' and you did not know John Brown when he 
 was talking to you." 
 
 Mrs. Packard gives the following account of her recogni- 
 tion of the presence of three of her departed relatives : 
 
MRS. PACKARD'S TESTIMONY. 39 
 
 "Among the floating lights was one, star-like in appear- 
 ance, that seemed to work by itself, or for a purpose of its 
 own. Finally it became detached from the rest of the lights, 
 and floated away to the extreme corner of the room, when it 
 began to cross and recross the room, eominsr a little nearer to 
 me each time it crossed. It was nearly as high up as the ceil- 
 ing. My whole attention was attracted to i:. Soon it gained 
 a position immediately over my head, and, while I was strain- 
 ing my eyes to look upward, I was aware of a presence around 
 me, and in a moment the sweet voice of my spirit-son said, 
 'Mother ! mother V 
 
 "He took hold of my left hand and patted it so lovingly; 
 he seemed to have my' hand between both of his, as I could 
 feel a hand on each side of mine. He then raised his hand to 
 my head, and smoothed my forehead. He drummed on the 
 glasses of my spectacles, and then seemed to take hold with 
 both hands and remove the spectacles entirely from my head, 
 and then place them back again — this operation being repeat- 
 ed three times. Just then the spirits called for a light, my 
 son's manifestations at once ceased, and the star became in- 
 visible. The spectacles my son removed from my head were 
 a pair that he placed there himself for the first' time, some 
 seven or eight years ago." 
 
 After the lamp was lighted, the spirits began to show them- 
 selves at the aperture. Soon, in a full glare of light, she saw 
 her deceased husband. She writes : 
 
 " He stood before me smiling ; his lips were moving, as if 
 holding an earnest conversation, although I heard no sound. 
 As he seemed about to move away I called him back, saying, 
 'Do not leave ; I want to see you again.' In a moment he 
 was back again, and my mother stood beside him, looMng so 
 happy and smiling at me ! She stood long enough for all in 
 the room to observe that she wore a cap with a full border on 
 each side, and plain across the top, with loops of narrow 
 white satin ribbon in the border on each, and tied under the 
 chin with white satin ribbon. She wore (as in life) a band 
 of brown hair across the forehead. The band seemed pushed 
 back a little too high, and showed some of her gray hair be- 
 low the band— which was very natural. She looked precise- 
 ly as she did when in the form. 
 
 11 As she was moving away, I asked her to come back again 
 that I might see her more. She nodded, smiled, and was gone, 
 but did not return. My husband went out of sight, and re- 
 turned five or six times at my request. Each time he came I 
 looked at him closely ; I saw a dimple on his cheek and a pe- 
 culiar wrinkle in the out-comerof his eye— the same he used 
 to have in earth-life when much pleased/ All was so life-like! 
 My husband looked as he used to in health, and very much 
 better than he did for months before he passed away ; his lips 
 moved as if talking, but I did not see my mother's lips move 
 at all. I looked after them until they were gone ; I felt the 
 great question answered— that the soul lived on, and, under 
 proper condition, could return and look at, and be looked upon 
 by, those left behind !" 
 
40 DK. SLADE'S MEDIUMSHIP. 
 
 Dr. A. S. Hay ward, writing from Moravia, under date of 
 Aug. 31st, 1872, after describing the phenomena, remarks : 
 " In conclusion, I would say, that what occurs in the pres- 
 ence of Mrs. Andrews I believe to be done by disembodied 
 spirits that have once lived on this earth. I could find hardly 
 a person who has attended the seances who did not hold to 
 the same opinion." 
 
 Testimonials similar to these could be multiplied to fill 
 large volumes ; but the time has gone by when they were 
 needed. They are now corroborated by the larger and more 
 conclusive phenomena to which I havje yet to call attention. 
 
 The phenomena of materialization have attended the me- 
 diumship of so many in the United States that I can only 
 attempt to narrate a few well-attested cases. 
 
 In the presence of Dr. Henry Slade, of New York, remark- 
 able physical proofs of spirit power have been repeatedly 
 witnessed. Mrs. A. A. Andrews, of Springfield, Mass., (1873) 
 testifies in regard to some of these as follows : — 
 
 " I have had a spirit-hand write a letter on paper placed 
 upon my lap, when the room was sufficiently lighted by gas 
 for me to see distinctly the long lead pencil held in the white 
 fingers, and remaining in sight, directly under my eyes, until 
 the writing was finished, when both hand and pencil disap- 
 peared ; in a moment afterwards the latter was thrown upon 
 the table, close to our hands, from a point opposite to where 
 the medium sat. 
 
 " I have seen the faces of spirits within three feet of me, 
 about whose identity I could no more mistake than I could 
 fail to recognize members of my own family who are still in 
 the material body. 1 have watched these faces condense and 
 form from what seemed a luminous mist. I have seen them 
 smile brightly and naturally upon me. 
 
 "I have had one among 'them, in compliance with a sug- 
 gestion made from the impulse of the moment, turn away, 
 showing me the back of the head, that I might recognize the 
 naturally curling hair, falling upon the neck, as worn in life. 
 I have watched the moving lips, and heard whispered mes- 
 sages of love and warning sent to absent friends." 
 
 Communications purporting to come from Mrs. Andrews's 
 spirit-son were written upon a slate which was laid in full 
 view, with a fragment of pencil beneath it ; and sometimes 
 this took place while the slate was held by herself. The men- 
 tal proofs of identity were so strong, that after many repetitions 
 
MKS. HOLLIS'S MEDIUMSHIP. 41 
 
 and ever-recurring tests, doubt became more difficult to her 
 than belief. A hand, in shape and size like her son's, came 
 forth in broad daylight. She saw and felt it ; it patted and 
 caressed her, and played with her dress ; it took out her 
 watch by a guard which used to belong to him, and then the 
 following words were written :•— " Dear mother, always wear 
 my guard ; I love to see you have it." 
 
 The phenomenon of slate- writing in the light, independent 
 of human touch, has been witnessed by hundreds at Dr. 
 Slade's seances. Mr. Clarke Irvine, of Oregon, Holt County, 
 testified that he received a message which was written on a 
 slate, placed on his own head, while Dr. Slade sat some yards 
 from him, and the message was correctly signed, "Thomas 
 Irvine, your grandfather ; " Mr. Irvine never having seen 
 the medium before, or communicated with him in any way. 
 
 Mr. H. Barnard, of Minneapolis, Minn., a stranger to Dr. 
 Slade, brought a folding slate of his own ; a grain of pencil 
 was put inside of it, and while no one touched the slate, and 
 it lay before him in plain sight on the table, a message, pur- 
 porting to be from Mr. Barnard's mother, was written, 
 which was so characteristic and apt, that he says of it : "I 
 now have as good evidence of my mother's existence as I 
 have of that of my brothers and sisters whose letters I re- 
 ceive by mail." 
 
 Many of the manifestations known to Modern Spiritualism 
 have occurred in the presence of Mrs. E. J. Hollis, of Louis- 
 ville, Kentucky. These include levitations of the medium, 
 slate- writing independent of the human touch, the exhibition 
 of spirit hands, transmission of messages through a common 
 telegraph by spirit power, singing and talking by spirit voices, 
 and, finally, the materialization of spirit forms. 
 
 For a period of thirty weeks, Dr. N. B. Wolfe, of Cincin- 
 nati, investigated the phenomena through Mrs. Hollis, spar- 
 ing no expenditure of time, money or personal ease, in order 
 to satisfy himself of their character, and engaging other 
 persons of well-known intelligence to cooperate with him. 
 He gives the result in a volume of 543 pages (1874). On tha 
 
42 MRS. HOLLIS'S MEDIUMSHIP. 
 
 27th of May, 1872, he received a test which could not fail to 
 make a deep impression ; he saw and heard his deceased mother 
 under circumstances which lie describes as follows : 
 
 "The table on which the music-box was placed, stood not 
 more than two feet from the cabinet. I proceeded to wind it 
 up, and was just turning to resume my seat in the circle, in 
 doing which Iliad to face the aperture. As 1 did this, 1 be- 
 held my mother 'a face in the opening of the cabinet door. ' Why, 
 mother,' i exclaimed, 'is it possible?' I riveted my gazeupon 
 her for twenty seconds, during which time she smiled, bowed, 
 and pronounced my name. The curtain then swung between 
 her face and me. All in the room saw and heard as I did. I 
 was not more than two feet from tho'cabinetand aperture. 
 
 " I am not given to illusions, and rarely dream when asleep, 
 much less when awake. I am a very cool, quiet man in emer- 
 gencies, and was never more so than upoi this occasion. 
 Every person in the circle saw this face, but only I recognized 
 it. It was niy mother's face. She recognized me, and called 
 me by my given name. To make assurance doubly sure, I 
 said, 'Mother, please materialize your left hand, and present 
 it at the aperture.' 
 
 'Iua very brief space of time a left hand appeared at the 
 opening, with the forefinger shut at the middle joint. My 
 mother had just such a ringer on her left hand. When a 
 child she received a burn which contracted the tendon, and 
 fixed the forefinger of her left hand permanently in that 
 position." 
 
 Instances innumerable could be named where peculiarities 
 similar to that here described have been reproduced, in these 
 extemporized representations of the mundane body. Quick 
 as thought the communicating spirit seems to be able to show 
 the bodily scars or malformations which are needed for iden- 
 tification. 
 
 On another occasion the spirit-representation of Dr. Wolfe's 
 mother remained at the aperture two minutes, and was recog- 
 nized not only by himself but by his nephew, a lad fifteen 
 years old, who had never been at a seance before. 
 
 It is unnecessary to record the many explicit testimonials 
 to the recognition of departed friends in the materializations 
 through Mrs. Hollis. Mr. D. H. Hale and his son, Clinton 
 B. Hale, from Indiana, being present, both recognized simul- 
 taneously, the one a daughter, the other a sister. A young 
 lady appeared and wrote: "Dear Mr. Hale, how kind you 
 were to me ! " Mr. Hale wept as he recognized the features of 
 one whom he had assisted in her destitution. 
 
KATIE IX PHILADELPHIA. 43 
 
 Mr. F. B. Plimpton, associate editor of the Cincinnati Com- 
 mercial, gives, under date of May 8th, 1873, an account of his 
 investigations. In the autumn of 1872 he had studied the 
 phenomena that take place in the presence of Mrs. Hollis, 
 and, though thoroughly satisfied of their genuineness, was 
 not quite sure that they could not be explained upon some 
 other than the spiritual solution. But to this he was driven 
 after prosecuting his inquiries further ; and such has been 
 the fate of nearly all the persevering investigators with whom 
 I am acquainted. He concludes his Report as follows : 
 
 "Beginning these investigations as a skeptic, with a feeling 
 almost of contempt for believers in Spiritualism, but at the 
 same time determined to testify to the truth, regardless of 
 the consequences to myself, to what other conclusion can I 
 come, as one after another of my doubts have been vanquish- 
 ed, and my unbelief overcome, than that these manifestations 
 are precisely what they profess to b>3 / The conviction is forced 
 upon me, that intelligences, invisible to us, save as they 
 manifest tnemselves through the medium of persons peculiar- 
 ly endowed, can and do communicate with the living, and 
 that they have as absolutely a personal existence and identi- 
 ty as ourselves. 
 
 "They not only assert this, but assure us that they live in 
 a world as rationally constructed for the development^ their 
 finite capacities and for their progression to still higher con- 
 ditions of being. In manifesting their presence to our grosser 
 sense, they assure us they employ natural agencies; and as 
 the world becomes more receptive of the truth, they antici- 
 pate still greater power to reveal themselves, and convince 
 us that we are indeed compassed about by an innumerable 
 cloud of witnesses, testifying to the immortality of man." 
 
 The 12th of May, 1874, a spirit calling herself "Katie King" 
 appeared in a materialized form at a seance in Philadelphia, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Holmes being the mediums. Dr. Henry T. 
 Child, himself a "sensitive/' and at the same time an expe- 
 rienced and studious investigator, was present. He writes 
 that on the 5th of June, while he and Bobert Dale Owen were 
 among the witnesses, Katie King appeared in "a very beauti- 
 ful shape, clothed in white robes." June 7th, they had a long 
 conversation with Katie at the cabinet, window. She allowed 
 Dr. Child to count her pulse ; it was about seventy- two per 
 minute, and perfectly natural. She also permitted him 
 to see her tongue, and asked if he thought she was "right 
 •relL" 
 
44 THE HOLMES AFFAIR. 
 
 Mr. Owen was of the opinion that the "Katie King," or 
 " Annie Morgan, " who thus appeared, was identical with the 
 spirit who for three years communicated through Miss Cook 
 in London. There were many circumstances, however, that 
 threw doubt on the identity. The features were unlike those 
 of the Londou Katie. In London the Holmeses, one or both, 
 had been proved to possess remarkable medial powers ; but it 
 was also charged that they would sometimes eke out their 
 manifestations with imposture. It will be seen further on 
 in my narrative (page 114) that both Mr. Owen and Dr. Child, 
 having encountered what seemed to them doubtful features 
 in the phenomena, withdrew their confidence and publicly 
 expressed their dissatisfaction. When we consider that they 
 had been forewarned by English investigators that frauds 
 might be anticipated, the wonder is that they should have 
 been so over-sanguine in their expressions of confidence under 
 the circumstances. That genuine phenomena were given, 
 however, there is now every reason to believe. The whole 
 subject of spirit materialization was thrown under a cloud 
 for a time by the conflicting statements growing out of the 
 Holmes affair. But as the phenomena through other mediums 
 were multiplied, and test conditions were adopted, and the 
 number of witnesses greatly increased, the affair gradually 
 dwindled into insignificance. 
 
 In weighing charges of imposture, it should be borne in 
 mind by investigators, that however the ignorant may scout 
 and ridicule the idea, it is nevertheless probable that under 
 certain inharmonious conditions such mischievous spirits may 
 be attracted as will force an unconscious medium to do things 
 automatically which, to the inexperienced, look like deliber- 
 ate frauds on his part. The more we study the phenomena 
 the larger becomes our charity for the sensitives through 
 whose peculiar receptiveness to influences good or bad the 
 wonders are wrought. 
 
 The power of spirits to reproduce simulacra of persons who 
 have passed from the earth-life suggests the question, How 
 far can we be assured of the identity of any spirit, let the 
 
QUESTION OF IDENTITY. 45 
 
 tests be what they may ? We have not yet arrived at that 
 stage of enlightenment that would enable us to reply confi- 
 dently to this inquiry. The John Kings and the Katie Kings 
 who have come in the full form, and conversed with mortals, 
 have not yet given proofs of their identity, that can be sub- 
 stantiated by documentary evidence. In claiming to have 
 been Sir Henry Morgan and a contemporary of Baleigh, John 
 King does not give us such minute corroborative proofs as 
 must be had before his declaration can be accepted. 
 
 There is much that is yet a puzzle in the language and ac- 
 tion of this class of materialized spirits. How far they are 
 limited in their mental operations and in' their recollections 
 by the act of materialization, or how far by the intellectual 
 horizon of the medium, is still a question. In other cases, 
 proofs of identity, both mental and physical, satisfactory to 
 the recipients, have been given, as Mr. Hazard, Mrs. A. A. 
 Andrews, and others from whom I have quoted, testify. 
 
 It is satisfactory to discover that the further we proceed in 
 investigation the more apparent does it become, that if there 
 are deceptive, frivolous, immature spirits, there are also those 
 who are sincere, intelligent, affectionate and earnest in their 
 efforts to do good. The great majority, as in this world, are 
 of the unintellectual sort. Perhaps the development of a 
 spiritual sense in ourselves is needed before we can have a 
 confirmation, that can be conclusive, of identity. Perhaps, 
 under mortal and spiritual limitations as they now are, we 
 can have only an approximate assurance. The science of 
 Spiritualism being still in its infancy, we may hope for more 
 light on this question. 
 
 As for the Orthodox notion that "the devil is the only 
 spirit authorized to communicate with the laity," and that all 
 spiritual communications that do not come through certain 
 prescribed channels are Satanic, this will hardly weigh with 
 people of common sense engaged in a strictly scientific in- 
 vestigation. 
 
 "Nothing is so brutally conclusive asa/ac£," says Brous- 
 sais ; and, therefore, facts must win in the long run. Tha 
 
46 TKT THE SPIKITS. 
 
 truth itself, and not our mere conceptions of what ought to 
 be true, must ultimately prevail. 
 
 Meanwhile we see the significance of the caution to us to 
 ''try the spirits;" to try them not by conjuration through 
 this or that name, however sacred, but by our reason, the pu- 
 rification of our motives, and the singleness of our aspirations 
 for the truth. 
 
 Plainly it is not the proved law of our being, that we should 
 surrender to any one, mortal or immortal, the custody of our 
 individuality, our reason, and our self respect. Every earnest 
 and rational spirit, whether in the flesh or out of it, at the 
 same time that he has relations to the universe, and the uni- 
 verse to him, would seem to be impelled by the environments, 
 the restrictions, and the varied experiences to which he is 
 subjected, and by the fallacies with which he soon finds that 
 all human teachings and interpretations are mixed, to exer- 
 cise his own reason, to discipline his own powers, and to de- 
 velope his own individuality; end, while courting all good 
 influences, to resist the dictation of those who would con- 
 strain him, by aught else than appeals to his sense of right, 
 to adopt their opinions or walk in their ways. 
 
 11 Think as 1 do, or drink the hemlock," embodies in words 
 the monster sin that is not confined to mortals or to ancient 
 Athens. As there were spirits of old who would try to force 
 a way for their authority by a " Thus saith the Lord," so there 
 are spirits now who claim a divine infallibility when they can 
 find dupes to heed them. 
 
 Spiritualism enforces upon us the fact that in being loosen- 
 ed by death from this exterior husk we call a body, the veri- 
 table man is not greatly changed. With a corresponding organ- 
 ism of subtler elements, he starts on his new career from the 
 vantage-ground, low or high, which he has attained to here. 
 Condition follows character ; and the spiritual environments 
 which our prevailing thoughts and affections, our noblenesses 
 or our meannesses, have created for us in this life, will impart 
 their beauty or their deformity to our objective surroundings 
 on our entrance into what is now to us the unseen world. 
 
ADDRESS BY JOHK KING. 47 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The news of the manifestations through Mrs. Andrews, at 
 Moravia, N. Y., was received by Spiritualists in England 
 with some incredulity, accompanied by a wish to ascertain if 
 similar phenomena could be had through their own mediums. 
 Accordingly, several of these began to sit for spirit forms. 
 The faces appeared at the seances of Mrs. Guppy, and subse- 
 quently Messrs. Heme and Williams succeeded in obtaining 
 these manifestations at dark circles, the spirits manufacturing 
 a light of their own, which they held in their hands to show 
 themselves by. 
 
 Certain phenomena in the presence of Miss Florence Eliza 
 Cook, a young lady of fifteen, daughter of a member of the 
 Dalston Association of Inquirers into Spiritualism, began to 
 attract attention in England the latter part of the year 1871. 
 The spirits producing these manifestations claimed to be 
 John and Katie King, and their daughter Katie ; but Morgan, 
 they said, was their true earth- name ; and Katie, on several 
 occasions, would sign herself, Katie King, properly Annie 
 Morgan. 
 
 At numerous seances in America, and at those of Heme 
 and Williams, in England, spirits calling themselves John 
 and Katie King have frequently manifested themselves. The 
 name King would seem, for some reason, to be a favorite one 
 among the class of spirits giving physical manifestations. 
 
 "John King" used to make himself audible, at an early 
 period, at the sittings of the Davenport Brothers j and, subse- 
 quently, at those of Jonathan Koons, in Dover, Athens Co., 
 Ohio, where he once made a long address, written by a spirit 
 hand s apposed to be his own, in which he calls himself, a 
 " servant and scholar of God," and says : " We know that our 
 work will be rejected by many, and condemned as the pro- 
 duction of their King Devil, whom they profess to repudiate, 
 
48 ME. WILLIAMS'S MEDIUMSHIP. 
 
 but do so constantly serve by crucifying truth and rejecting 
 all that is contrary to their own narrow pride and vain imag- 
 inings." 
 
 In manifesting himself through the English mediumo, John 
 King claimed to be identical with this spirit, and it cannot be 
 denied that a certain unity of speech and character has dis- 
 tinguished him on these occasions. He asserted that his name 
 on earth was Sir Henry Morgan, and that he was a contempo- 
 rary of Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 
 The 20th of March, 1873, at a sitting in London, of which 
 full particulars are given by the well-known publisher, Mr. 
 James Burns, in "Human Nature/' for April, 1873, the spirit 
 claiming to be John King manifested himself in a material- 
 ized form so successfully that a sketch was made of him by a 
 skillful artist. The seance took place in the daylight, Charles 
 E. Williams being the medium. This sitting was followed 
 by another the next week (March 27th), when John King ap- 
 peared visibly, as before, as solid and material as an ordinary 
 human being, while the medium's hands were held by Mrs. 
 Burns, and he sat entranced in his seat. 
 
 On this last occasion the spirit spoke aloud, saying : " You 
 won't doubt any more, will you ? It is God's truth, is it not? 
 It is a glorious truth. God bless you ! It is. God bless you !" 
 Having more than satisfied the sitters, he withdrew inside the 
 cabinet, but returned to the aperture to renew the colloquy. 
 While Mrs. Burns dragged the medium's hands through the 
 door of the cabinet into full view, John King also showed his 
 at the window : the test was complete. 
 
 Of the sincerity and intelligence of Mrs. Burns, no one who 
 has made her acquaintance, as I have, can doubt. 
 
 The genuineness of the mediumship of Mr. Williams has 
 been tested by Prince Wittgenstein and others, who have sat- 
 isfied themselves of the objective appearance of "John King" 
 and his wonderful lamp. Even Serjeant Cox admits that he 
 has found Mr. Williams "most trustworthy." On the 14th 
 of May, 1874, at a seance held at the house of Mr. Chinnery, 
 in Paris, 52 Rue de Rome, when John King with his lamp 
 
STRANGE PROCEEDINGS. 49 
 
 was seen, a young man rushed forward to seize the spirit. 
 The latter eluded his grasp, leaving behind only a small por- 
 tion of the drapery which covered the form. A light wa?< 
 struck, and the medium was found entranced in his chair. 
 He was searched, but nothing in the slightest degree suspi- 
 cious was discovered. What had become of the drapery ? The 
 integrity of Mr. Williams was fully vindicated. 
 
 At some experiments at Mr. Cook's house, April 21st, 1872, 
 of which Mr. W. H. Harrison, editor of the London Spiritu- 
 alist, has given an account, a dark seance for the voices was 
 held, Miss Cook and Mr. Heme being the mediums. The fol- 
 lowing remarkable incident occurred : A tapping was heard 
 upon one of the window panes ; the bar of the shutter was 
 unlocked and taken down, and the shutter opened, and John 
 King's voice said : "Cook, you must take that plug out of 
 the gutter, if you do n't want the foundations of your house 
 sapped. The gutter is stopped up." On examination this 
 proved to be true. It had been raining, and the area was full 
 of water. Nobody inside the house knew of this until told in 
 this remarkable way. 
 
 " Strangely human all this!" you will say; "so strangely 
 human, that we think there must have been a human person- 
 ator of the spirit ! " But, as I shall have stranger things 
 than this to relate by and by, I will only pause to remark 
 that the incident is in full harmony with occurrences the con- 
 firmation of which, under test conditions, is ample. 
 
 We now approach the early manifestations through Miss 
 Cook, in whose presence the phenomena eventually became 
 so marked. On the 22d of April, 1872, a seance was held at 
 which Mrs. Cook, the children, and the servant were wit- 
 nesses. In the endeavor to abolish dark seances, Mr. Harri- 
 son had made experiments with different kinds of light. 
 He had tried, at Mr. Cook's house, a phosphorescent light, 
 made by coating the inside of a warm bottle with phosphorus 
 dissolved in oil of cloves, and then letting in the air. 
 
 The oil was left at Mr. Cook's, as will be learnt by the fol- 
 lowing passage from a letter from Miss Cook herself to Mr. 
 4 
 
60 LETTER FROM MISS COOK. 
 
 Harrison, under date of April 23d, 1872. I quote the passage 
 because it is interesting as giving us some notion of the intel- 
 lectual calibre of the writer, Miss Cook, who was soon to be- 
 come so famous as a medium : 
 
 " Yesterday afternoon Katie told us that if we liked to put 
 up a cabinet of curtains for her, she would try to show us 
 something, but as I was not developed enough for her to take 
 enough phosphorus from me to show her face by, we were to 
 give her some of your phosphoric oil, I was delighted, and 
 at half-past eight yesterday evening all was ready. Mamma, 
 auntie, the children, and the servant stood on the stairs. I 
 was left alone (not in my glory, for \ was very frightened) 
 inside the breakfast-room. Katie began by giving mamma 
 some fresh ivy leaves ; none were in our house or garden of 
 the size she brought. A hand and arm with a white sleeve 
 came to the opening holding the bottle of oil ; then, at the 
 lower opening in the curtain, came a face, unveiled, the head 
 covered with a quantity of pure white drapery. Katie held 
 the bottle to her face so that all outside could see her plainly. 
 She remained for quite two minutes. It was an oval face, 
 straight nose, bright eyes, and a very pretty mouth. She 
 again came to the opening, her lips moved, and at last she 
 spoke. All outside could see her lips moving ; she talked 
 with mamma some few minutes. I could not see her face 
 plainly, so asked her to turn and show me. She said, 'Of 
 course I will,' came to my chair and bent over me. She was 
 materialized only to the bust. From there she went into a 
 cloud, slightly luminous. She told mamma to look at her 
 carefully, and made the observation that ' she knew she 
 looked most unearthly.* It was indeed very startling. I was 
 too frightened to move or call out when she came near me. 
 She used no tubes for speaking. The last time she appeared 
 she stayed quite five minutes, and directed mamma to send to 
 you, asking you if you could come here one day this week. . . . 
 Katie King finished her seance with ■ God bless you all. I am 
 so pleased to show myself.' " 
 
 On the occasion here referred to by Miss Cook, the face of 
 Katie King was described by Mrs. Cook, as " looking white 
 and deathlike, while her eyes were fixed and staring, as if 
 made of glass." 
 
 At a seance at Mr. Cook's, April 25th, 1872, Katie made 
 several efforts to materialize a form. Mr. W. H. Harrison 
 was present. He has given a curious description of some of 
 the performances. The medium, Miss Cook, sat in a dark 
 room. A scraping noise was heard ; Katie had some spirit 
 drapery in her hand, which she rubbed down over the medium 
 to collect some of the "influence" used by spirits in materi- 
 
KATIE AND HEK MEDIUM. 51 
 
 alization. A conversation, in low tones, varied with an occa- 
 sional scraping noise, then took place between Florence Cook 
 and the spirit : 
 
 Miss Cook— Go away, Katie; I do n't like to be scraped. 
 
 Katie— Do n't be stupid. Take that thing off your head and look at me. 
 {Scrape, scrape.) 
 
 Miss Cook— I won't. Go away, Katie; I do n't like you. You frighten 
 me. 
 
 Katie— Do n't be silly. {Scrape, scrape, scrape.) 
 
 Miss Cook— I won't sit for these manifestations. 1 do n't like them. 
 Go away. 
 
 Katie— You are only my medium, and a medium is nothing but a ma- 
 chine. {Scrape, scrape.) 
 
 Miss Cook— Well, if I am only a machine, I do n't like to be frightened. 
 Go away. 
 
 Katie— Do n't be stupid. 
 
 Miss Cook, who as yet had not been entranced by the spirit, 
 said that the spirit's head and shoulders were materialized ; 
 but below, her form melted into thin air. Katie would be 
 sometimes high up and sometimes low down, so that the bust 
 nearly touched the floor, in which position she looked "most 
 unearthly." It sometimes appeared as if a head were " wan- 
 dering about with no legs or body, visible or invisible." 
 
 At the next sitting Miss Cook was entranced by the spirit, 
 and a little benzoline lamp was used for seeing the material- 
 ization. The spirit would cry out "higher," or " lower," as 
 she wanted the light adjusted. Mr. Harrison gives the fol- 
 lowing interesting account of what occurred : 
 
 " Katie's face came out, all the rest of the head being ban- 
 daged round with white, 'in order,' she said, 'to keep the 
 power by which she materialized herself from passing away 
 too quickly.' She said that only her face and not all her head 
 was materialized. This time all present had a good look at 
 her, and saw her features. It was remarked that her eyes 
 were closed. Each time the face came out for, perhaps, half 
 a minute. Afterwards she said, 'Willie, see me smile,' and, 
 again, 'see me talk,' suiting the action to the word. Then 
 she said, 'Now, Cook, turn on the light.' 
 
 "The light was turned fully up, sending a bright glare 
 upon the face for an instant, and for the first time Katie King 
 was clearly seen. She had a young, pretty, happy face, and 
 sparkling eyes, with some little mischief in them. It was not 
 ghastly, as when Mrs. Cook and family saw it, on April 22d, 
 'because,' said Katie, ' I know now how to do it better.' 
 
 "When her face in its natural colors was seen in full 
 light, nearly all the observers said, ' We can see you all right 
 now, Katie.' 'Well, then,' said, she, 'clapl' Accordingly, 
 
52 KATIE AND HER MEDIUM. 
 
 there was a shower of applause, in which Katie joined by 
 thrusting out her arm and hand, holding a fan taken from the 
 mantelpiece ; with the fan she began to gleefully beat the 
 wall outside the door, and to ring the bells hanging above the 
 door. 
 
 " During the interval of one hour for supper, Mr. Thomas 
 Blyton came in, and he was present at the next sitting. Katie 
 showed herself as before. Once she said, 'Put out the light, 
 and strike a match when I call/ This was done, and at~the 
 moment of the striking of the match, her face was again seen 
 for an instant in a full light. She showed her face a second 
 time in the same way. Once she said, ' Cook, don't gaze at me 
 too fixedly ; it hurts me.' On another occasion she said, ' The 
 light hurts me ; it makes me feel tired.' All along she was 
 very careful in adjusting the amount of light, and the dis- 
 tance of the sitters from the curtains. Xow and then she 
 said, 'Sing, sing, all of you.' Singing evidently helped her 
 as much as at an ordinary seance. 
 
 "She threw out about a yard of white fabric, but kept hold 
 of it by the other end, saying, 'Look, this is spirit drapery.' 
 I said, ' Drop it into the passage, Katie, and let us see it melt 
 away; or let us cut apieceotf.' She replied, 'I can't; but 
 look here !' She then drew back her hand, which was above 
 the top of the curtain, and, as the spirit drapery touched the 
 curtain, it passed right through, just as if there were no resist- 
 ance whatever. 
 
 "She then threw it out again, and again the yard of 
 drapery passed through the curtain. It was a clear case of 
 something which looked like solid matter passing through 
 solid matter, and we all saw it. I think that at first there 
 was friction between the two fabrics, and that they rustled 
 against each other ; but that when she said ' Look here !' some 
 quality which made the drapery common matter was with- 
 drawn from it, and at once it passed through the common 
 matter of the curtain, without experiencing any resistance." 
 
 Mr. Blyton, in a published communication, confirms all that 
 is reported as occurring in his presence, by Mr. Harrison. 
 "At times, when speaking," says Mr. Blyton, " Katie's fea- 
 tures were very natural and human. On our requesting to 
 see a piece of the white drapery, the spirit held out a strip 
 from the opening, resembling muslin in appearance. On her 
 withdrawing her arm and hand, this white spirit drapery dis- 
 appeared through the curtain. This passing of the drapery 
 through the curtain was repeated several times." 
 
 As Miss Cook's mediumship grew in power, she was placed 
 above the temptation of exercising it for gain. Mr. Charles 
 Blackburn, of Manchester, with a. wise liberality, and in the 
 cause of science, supplied the means for this. 
 
KATIE WALKS FORTH. 53 
 
 For a long time only a feeble light was permitted at the 
 manifestations of spirit forms. The face of the spirit would 
 be covered with white drapery, the chief use of which was 
 said to be to economize the power by enabling the spirit to 
 leave part of the head unmaterialized. 
 
 As the developments went on, Katie began to exhibit not 
 only the whole of her bare face, but her hands and arms, in a 
 strong light. In these early stages, Miss Cook was almost al- 
 ways awake during the manifestations ; but sometimes, when 
 the weather was bad, or other conditions were unfavorable, 
 Katie would entrance her, the purpose of which was simply 
 to increase the power, and to prevent the mental activity of 
 the medium from operating as an interference. After a time 
 Katie never appeared without the medium being in a trance. 
 
 Some sittings for recognizable faces were had in the pres- 
 ence of Miss Cook ; but they began, as did Katie's manifesta- 
 tion, in a weak light, and were imperfect. They were aban- 
 doned, therefore, for the more marked phenomenon in which a 
 certain success had been won. Two instances, however, in 
 which recognizable faces were presented through Miss 
 Cook's mediumship, occurred, and seem to have been well 
 authenticated. 
 
 At a sitting at Hackney, Jan. 20th, 1873, Katie changed 
 her face from white to black in a few seconds, several times ; 
 and to show that her hands were not mechanically moved, 
 she sewed up a hole in the curtain. On the 12th of March, 
 at Hackney, Miss Cook's hands being tied and sealed, Ka- 
 tie, with her hands perfectly free, walked out of the cabinet. 
 A month or two later, several photographs were taken of 
 Katie, under strictly test conditions, and by the magnesium 
 light* 
 
 Thus it was not till after many imperfect trials and partial 
 materializations, accompanied with very gradual develop- 
 ments of increasing force, that the spirit Katie, in the full 
 human form, and habited in white, as represented in her 
 
 ♦An account of these sittings, by Mr. J. C. Luxmoore. Justice of the 
 Peace for the County of Devon, may be found in the London Spiritualist 
 of May 15th, 1873. 
 
54 DR. GULLY'S TESTIMONY. 
 
 photographs, came forth in the light from the cabinet, and 
 walked about the room before a semi-circle of spectators. 
 
 Dr. J. M. Gully, formerly of Great Malvern, England, a 
 thoroughly experienced physician and a careful investigator, 
 under date of July 20th, 1874, writes me as follows : 
 
 " To the special question which you put regarding my ex- 
 periences of the materialization of the spirit-form, with Miss 
 Cook's mediumship, I must reply that, after two years* ex- 
 amination of the fact and numerous seances, I have not the 
 smallest doubt, and have the strongest conviction, that such 
 materialization takes place, and that not the slightest at- 
 tempt at trick or deception is fairly attributable to any one 
 who assisted at Miss Cook's seances. 
 
 "That the power grows with use was curiously illustrated 
 by the fact that, for some time, only a face was producible, 
 with, occasionally, arms and hands ; with no hair, and some- 
 times with no back to the skull at all— merely a mask, with 
 movement, however, of eyes and mouth. Gradually the whole 
 form appeared— after, perhaps, some five months of seances — 
 once or twice a week. This again became more and more 
 rapidly formed, and changed, in hair, dress, and color of face, 
 as we desired. 
 
 " The voice came long before the whole form of the body, 
 but was always husky, and as if there was a whispering ca- 
 tarrh ; save when she joined us in singing, when she gave out 
 a most lovely contralto. 
 
 11 The feel of the skin was quite natural, soft and warm ; 
 her movements were natural and graceful, except when she 
 stooped to pick up anything from the floor, when it seemed 
 as if her legs as well as her trunk bent backwards. 
 
 " When that photograph* was taken, I held her hand for at 
 least two minutes, three several times, for we sat three times 
 for it on one and the same evening ; but I was constrained to 
 close my eyes by reason of the intense magnesium light 
 which shone directly upon me ; moreover she desired that 
 
 * The well-known published photograph, in which Katie is represented 
 Itanuing with Dr. Gully sitting at her side and holding her hand. 
 
DR. GULLY'S TESTIMOOT. 51 
 
 none of us would gaze at her whilst the lens was directed up- 
 on her. 
 
 " I believe that much information might have been obtained 
 from her concerning the outre-tombe, but the circle seemed al- 
 ways bent on talking chaff to her, complimenting her, and in- 
 dulging in ordinary inconsequential conversation ; for only 
 on one or two occasions was I (who hate all the nonsense 
 that was said to and by her) able to put a few questions on 
 the subjects about which every thoughtful Spiritualist is nat- 
 urally anxious. 
 
 " It may be questioned whether these spirit beings can con- 
 vey anything like an accurate idea of their state and powers ; 
 but I believe that, just as their power of physical manifesta- 
 tion augments with use, so would their power of mental com- 
 munication increase were an intelligent curiosity always pre- 
 sented for their sympathetic reply. In fact, I believe that if 
 less idle and more serious curiosity was felt by the circles, 
 spirits of a higher and more powerful character would sym- 
 pathetically come and teach by vocal words, written words, 
 inspired words. 
 
 "So soon as a man has convinced himself of the reality of 
 the spirit-presence, and the absence of all deception, he 
 should, I think, use all his will power to place his own spirit 
 in a state of reception for spirit knowledge, and feel assured 
 he will get it. Physical manifestations are the alphabet of 
 the subject, and if Spiritualism went no further it would do 
 but little for humanity. 
 
 "But I quite believe in your suggestion, that, carried out 
 to its consequences in thought and sympathy, it is destined to 
 abolish a thick cloud of darkness which at present renders all 
 religions more or less superstitious, and all philosophy a mere 
 circle; and to substitute a light which will enable the mind in 
 a body to hold communion with minds whose freedom enables 
 them to see the workings of Great Cause and Great Effect, 
 and so to bring forth a philosophic religion ; whilst philoso- 
 phy itself will be able to look ever onwards instead of going 
 round and round, as it has done from Plato to Mill, tedious 
 to study, and barren of result.' ' 
 
56 ME. COLEMAN'S TESTIMONY. 
 
 Similar materializations to those through Miss Cook had 
 taken place not unfrequently in America, at seances where 
 the light was very dim. Mr. Home, Mrs. Mary Hardy, 
 Messrs. Bastian and Taylor, Mrs. Maud Lord, Mrs. Jennie 
 Lord Webb, and others had, while sitting in the dark or in 
 twilight, satisfied many of the presence of materialized spirits, 
 who made themselves felt and heard, if they could not be dis- 
 tinctly seen. The materializations through Miss Kate Fox 
 had satisfied Mr. Livermore, Dr. Gray, and Mr. Groute of the 
 objective reality of the appearing forms. 
 
 But the bold and startling manifestations through Miss 
 Cook, occurring in the light, and in the presence of a dozen 
 or more spectators, were peculiarly impressive and satisfac- 
 tory ; and I give prominence to her case on this account. The 
 manifestations, after the initiatory experiments had been 
 made, were conducted under strict test conditions, and in the 
 presence of persons of well-known character and intelligence, 
 whose single object was the establishment of the truth ; the 
 apparition, being visible under the most powerful light, and 
 solid to the touch, could be subjected to tests which were 
 eventually supplied by scientific men and found satisfactory ; 
 and the medium, being exempted from all necessity of asking 
 pay from the investigators, was comparatively independent 
 and free in allowing the manifestations to take their course. 
 
 At a sitting at Mr. Luxmoore's, Nov. 18th, 1873, a witness, 
 well known to me personally, Mr. Benjamin Coleman, was 
 present, and from his account I have abridged the following : 
 
 The seance was given in the large drawing-room, in which 
 an ordinary fire was kept burning throughout the evening. 
 The small drawing-room, separated by sliding doors, was ap- 
 propriated as a cabinet, and a dark curtain was hung between 
 the open parts, by which all light was excluded. A lamp was 
 placed on the table of the audience room, where there was a 
 fire, and at no time was it dark. The fourteen ladies and 
 gentlemen, who formed a horse-shoe circle in front of the cab- 
 inet, could see each other the whole evening. 
 
 A low chair was placed in the cabinet, upon which Miss 
 
MR. COLEMAN'S TESTIMONY. ffi 
 
 Cook, the medium, was seated-, and Mr. Coleman and Mr. 
 Blackburn were invited by Mr. Luxmoore to see hei secured. 
 Her hands were tied together with tape, the ends of which 
 were sewn and sealed with wax ; and then the tape was 
 passed around her waist, and tightly knotted and sewn^ and 
 sealed again. The tape was then passed through a staple in 
 the floor, leaving a slack of about a foot, and there knotted 
 again. Thus it was impossible for Miss Cook to move from 
 her seat more than a few inches. 
 
 The ties were all found secure, and the line of tape undis- 
 turbed, after the seance ; and even had this precaution not 
 been taken, the fact that, the instant Katie disappeared, the 
 medium was found tied and differently clad, and asleep in her 
 chair, would have satisfied any reasonable person that there 
 was no trick or attempt to deceive. Whatever the figure of 
 Katie might be, it evidently was not Miss Cook. 
 
 The figure of Katie entered the room. She was clad in 
 a loose white dress, tied in at the waist, having long sleeves 
 terminating at the wrists, with a close hood on her head, long 
 lappets hanging over her shoulders, and her hair closely 
 banded. 
 
 She at once saluted each of the company in turn, first ask- 
 ing the name of the only stranger unknown to the medium. 
 Mr. Coleman asked Katie if she had shoes and stockings on. 
 She said, "No," and at once drew aside her dress, and show- 
 ed that her feet were naked ; and to satisfy all, she raised one 
 foot on to the dress of Mrs. Corner, in the most natural man- 
 ner, and said, " Now you can all see that I have bare feet, 
 can't you ? " 
 
 There were pencils and sheets of writing paper on the ta- 
 ble, and Mr. Coleman asked her if she would be good enough 
 to write something for him. " Yes, I will," she said, taking 
 a chair, and sitting down on it. " What shall I write ? " Mr. 
 Coleman said he was engaged in getting up a testimonial to 
 Judge Edmonds, and perhaps she might have something to 
 say to him. 
 
 Upon this Katie raised one knee, and commenced writing ; 
 
58 PRINCE EMILE'S TESTIMONY. 
 
 but, finding the position uncomfortable, asked for something 
 hard "to rest the paper upon. ,, This being supplied, she 
 wrote off the following letter : — 
 
 • ■ My Dear Friend— You have asked me to write a few words to you. 
 I wish you every success with regard to Judge Edmonds's testimonial. 
 He is a good mau, and an earnest worker. Give him my affectionate 
 greeting. I know him well, although he does not know me. My power 
 is going, so with every good wish, 
 
 44 1 am your sincere friend, Katie King, 
 
 "Properly Annie Morgan. 11 
 
 The letter was handed back to Mr. Coleman, who read it 
 aloud, and then said to her, "I see you have not addressed 
 it ;" she took it back and deliberately folded it upon her knee, 
 and wrote on the back, "Mr. Coleman." 
 
 On his requesting her to let him feel the texture of her 
 dress, she replied by coming round past the back of Mr. Lux- 
 moore's chair sideways, as there was barely room to pass, and 
 holding up the dress to Mr. C; he took it with both hands, 
 and pulled it, and it was to all appearance, in substance, as if 
 it were made of strong white calico. She then passed round 
 the circle and shook hands, by gently touching the hands of 
 each. Both her hands and her face throughout the seance 
 were of a perfectly natural color, the reverse of pallid ; her 
 cheeks were red, and hands decidedly so ; in fact, her whole 
 appearance was that of a gentle and graceful young woman. 
 She stooped down to pick up two sheets of paper which were 
 in her way whilst crossing the room, and stepped aside to lay 
 them on the table. 
 
 "This completed, ,, writes Mr. Coleman, "the impression, 
 which all must have felt, that we had been for an hour and a 
 half holding intercourse with an intelligent living woman, 
 who glided, rather than walked about, and who showed by 
 iier constant watchfulness of the medium, that there was the 
 tie to which she was bound. It was altogether a marvelous 
 exhibition." 
 
 Prince Emile of Sayn Wittgenstein, who was present at a 
 seance at Mr. Luxmoore's, December 16th, 1873, published in 
 the Revue Spirite, of Paris, an account of it, which was trans- 
 
PRINCE EMILE'S TESTIMONY. 59 
 
 lated by Dr. G-. L. Ditson, from whose version I quote most 
 of the following : 
 
 " The gauze curtain of the cabinet was agitated, and a 
 naked arm was thrust forth and made a sign. Then the right 
 side of the hanging was opened, giving us a view of an appa- 
 rition of ravishing beauty. She stood erect ; the right arm 
 was across her breast, the other fell at her side, holding the 
 curtain. She seemed to review the persons present. It was 
 the spirit of Katie, a thousand times more lovely than her 
 photograph. 
 
 "I had before me a young lady of an ideal beauty, supple, 
 elegant, and clad in most graceful drapery, with chestnut 
 locks visible through her white veil. Her robe, trailing like 
 that of an antique statue, entirely covered her naked feet. 
 Her arms, of surpassing beauty, delicate, white, were visible 
 to the shoulders. Their attachment to the body was finely 
 statuesque ; and the hands, a little large, had long, tapering 
 fingers, rosy to the ends. 
 
 "Her face was pale and rather round than oval. Her 
 mouth, smiling, shewed beautiful teeth. Her nose was aqui- 
 line ; her eyes were very large and blue, almond-shaped, 
 shaded by long, heavy eyelashes, and having eyebrows deli- 
 cately arched. And, to conclude, there was in this apparition 
 the grace of a Psyche descended from her pedestal. 
 
 •Yet this rare feminine embodiment, this faithful repro- 
 duction of one many years dead, was soon to evaporate and 
 di-appear like a breath ! One might mistake her, seen from 
 a distance, for Miss Cook ; but the apparition was large, with 
 slender waist, while Miss Cook, though pretty, is much small- 
 er, and her hands are not as large as Katie's. There could be 
 no mistake : they were two distinct personalities. 
 
 '•The apparition seemed to regard me with curiosity, and I 
 saw in her something that reminded me of a spectre, and that 
 was the eye. It was as beautiful as possible, yet it had a 
 haggard, fixed, glassy expression ; but in spite of that, with 
 mouth smiling, with bosom heaving, she seemed to say, ■ I am 
 happy to be a moment among mortals/ She then remarked, 
 in a sort of tremulous whisper, but with infinite grace, ' I can- 
 not yet go far away from my medium, but soon I shall have 
 more force.' When she was not fully understood, she repeat- 
 ed her words with infantile impatience. 
 
 " I asked to be favored with a sight of her foot ; she grace- 
 fully raised her robe to comply with my request, and, when 
 being solicited to show more of it, the robe was lifted to the 
 ankle, and I saw a delicate foot, like that of an antique 
 statue, white, plump, lovely as a child's, high and arched, the 
 toes finely attached, and of a purity of design irreproachable ; 
 but all this ensemble was as if of bne piece, and the real life 
 was wanting. 
 
 " Katie King talked, laughed, chatted pleasantly with those 
 present, calling each one by name with a roguish, iufantile, 
 defiant vivacity ; gesticulating with her right hand as do the 
 women of the Orient, with the movement of the fingers and 
 curvature of the hand peculiar to that people ; accenting her 
 
60 DR. SEXTON'S TESTIMONY. 
 
 words with the most gracious movement of her head ; often 
 with gentle modesty gathering her veil about her neck ; in a 
 word, in everything, in her features, form, costume, gestures, 
 giving an impression of the women of the Levant that could 
 not be mistaken. 
 
 " A man of little intelligence, who was present, having ad- 
 dressed some rude words to Katie, she crumpled some paper in 
 her hand, and threw it at him with an expression of disdain.'* 
 
 As an evidence of the spirit's clairvoyant powers, Prince 
 
 VTittsgenstein sends the following to the London Spiritualist 
 
 of July 10th, 1874, in a letter from Nieder Walluf, on the 
 
 Rhine : 
 
 " A very striking fact, in direct writing, was recently ob- 
 tained by Miss Cook, at my request, putting my sealed letter 
 at night on her dressing table, with some pencils and sheets 
 of paper near it. The letter, closely sealed by me, was fur- 
 ther put into a second envelope by Mr. William Crookes, who 
 also sealed it several times with his private signet. 
 
 11 When it was sent back to me with Katie's answer, his 
 seals, as well as mine, were quite intact. 
 
 " Katie copied the contents of my sealed letter to her, word 
 for word, without a mistake or omission, on a separate sheet 
 of paper. She also wrote an answer to me, with the follow- 
 ing postscript : 
 
 *" *I have given a copy of your letter, dear friend, to show you I have 
 really read it. I must trust to your good nature to excuse any errors, as I 
 have never done anything like this before.— A. Morgan, or Katie King."' M 
 
 Dr. George Sexton was for many years one of the most 
 earnest of the secularist teachers, and an energetic lecturer 
 against Spiritualism and all other forms of belief in a future 
 life. After fifteen years of skepticism, during which, how- 
 ever, he did not disdain to investigate, the needful evidence 
 came. In his own house, in the absence of all mediums other 
 than those members of his own family and intimate private 
 friends in whom mediumistic powers became developed, he 
 got evidence of an irresistible character that the communica- 
 tions came from deceased friends and relatives. 
 
 Dr. Sexton's first atter dance on the manifestation through 
 Miss Cook, took place at Mr. Luxmoore's, Nov. 25th, 1873. 
 The usual precautions for the satisfaction of skeptics were 
 taken. Tied as she was, it seemed to him impossible for Miss 
 Cook to remove from her seat more than a few inches. We 
 quote the concluding portion of his testimony : 
 
 " The seance commenced, as is usual, with singing. The 
 
DR. SEXTON'S TESTIMONY. 61 
 
 lights were turned down, but not so low as to prevent our see- 
 ing each other most distinctly, and being eye-witnesses of all 
 that was taking place in the room. The medium speedily be- 
 came partially entranced, hands were shown at a small aperture 
 at the top of the cabinet, and Katie gave indications of being 
 present. Soon after, the curtain was moved aside, and the 
 full form of the spirit, dressed in white, was distinctly seen 
 by all present. 
 
 "Katie requested me to ask her questions, which I did con- 
 tinually for at least half an hour. These questions were 
 mostly of a semi-philosophic character, having reference 
 mainly to the laws and conditions under which spirits assume 
 materialized forms, and such, therefore, as it is very question- 
 able whether a young lady like the medium would have been 
 able to answer. They were all replied to so satisfactorily 
 that more than one well-known and highly-educated Spirit- 
 ualist present stated that they had obtained information 
 which they had previously often wished for, but could not 
 procure. 
 
 " The spirit form came out of the cabinet several times dur- 
 ing the evening, and walked about amongst the audience. 
 She showed her feet, which were perfectly naked, and stamped 
 them on the floor to prove that she was not standing on tip- 
 toe, this latter fact being a very important one, seeing that 
 she was at least four inches taller than Miss Cook. Her fig- 
 ure and complexion were almost totally unlike those of the 
 medium. She came across the room to me, patted me on the 
 head, and returned. I then asked her if she would kiss 
 me. She replied she would try to do so. In a few minutes 
 she again crossed over to me, and kissed me on the forehead 
 three or four times. I may here remark that although the 
 sound of the kisses were distinctly heard by all present, and 
 the attitude of the figure seen, I felt no pressure of the lips 
 whatever. 
 
 " Toward the end of the seance the spirit requested me to 
 examine the cabinet to see that the medium was still fastened 
 in her chair. Mr. Luxmoore lifted the curtain, and said, 'She 
 is still there, lying down in the corner.' The curtain was 
 then dropped again, and I, being on the opposite side of the 
 room, had, of course, not seen into the cabinet. The spirit 
 immediately inquired, 'Did Dr. Sexton see that?' I replied, 
 'No, I did not.' 'Then,' she said, 'come and look; I want 
 you to see.' 
 
 " I at once crossed over to the cabinet, raised the curtain, 
 and looked in. There I saw Miss Cook, sitting, or rather ly- 
 ing, in a trance on the chair in which she had been fastened, 
 knots, seals, and all intact. The seance continued for some- 
 thing over an hour. I may remark that the spirit in the course 
 of the evening wrote several short notes to persons present. 
 The following was the substance of the one given to me : 
 
 4 My Dear De. Sexton— I am pleased you have asked me questions. 
 
 * Yours, truly, Annie Moegan.' 
 
 " Thus ended one of the most marvelous seances at which 
 it has ever been my good fortune to be present." 
 
62 DR. GULLY'S TESTIMONY. 
 
 Dr. J. M. Gully, from whose letter to myself I have al- 
 ready given an extract, was for many years at the head of 
 the well-known water-cure establishment at Great Malvern, 
 England, and is known to thousands of Americans as a skill- 
 ful and scientific physician and a thoroughly estimable gen- 
 tleman. He satisfied himself of the genuineness of the niani 
 testations through Mr. Home, several years ago. The 28th 
 of November, 1873, he was present at Mr. Luxmoore's, at one 
 of Miss Cook's seances, of which he gives the following ac- 
 count : 
 
 "The spirit, Katie King, appeared this time dressed in a 
 longer and more flowing white dress than usual, the sleeves 
 reaching to the wrists and bound there, whilst over her head 
 and face a beautifully transparent veil fell, giving to the 
 whole figure an appearance of grace and purity which is not 
 easily conveyed by words. 
 
 11 The spirit greeted every one in the circle by name ; then 
 retired into the dark room, where she was heard moving 
 heavy furniture about, and talking to the medium who was 
 sealed and bound as usual. Sho then brought a large bowl 
 into the circle and gave it to the hands of a sitter. After- 
 wards she brought a low chair, or prie-dieu, out of the dark 
 room, and placed it wholly in the circle, sat down upon it, 
 and desired that the sitters should sing, but not loudly, as 
 she would try to join them, which she did with the clear con- 
 tralto voice which she has several times exhibited. It is im- 
 possible to convey the impression of that voice issuing from 
 an inhabitant of tin 1 outretombe 1 
 
 She then begged that all would join hands in order that she 
 might get all the possible power for what she wished to do, 
 and whilst we, the sitters, did so, she retired for a minute or 
 two to get fresh power from her medium, returned, and then 
 deliberately w r alked around the entire circle (composed of 
 fourteen persons) and touched each one in turn, some of the 
 ladies on the cheek, the men on the hands ; one man she told 
 to put out his hand and she would show him that she could 
 press it, which .she did. The circle occupied a great portion 
 of a large-sized drawing-room. She then desired to be ques- 
 tioned, and something like this colloquy took place : 
 
 *' ' Is it possible for you to explain to us what are the pow- 
 ers or forces you employ in materializing and dissolving your 
 form ?' * No, it is not.* ' Is it electricity, or does it bear any 
 resemblance to it?' i No ; it is all nonsense what th<ytalk 
 about electricity.' ' But have you no name or mode of convey- 
 ing it?' ' It is more like will-power than anything else; in 
 fact, it is the will which is at the bottom of the power I exercise.* 
 1 When you disappear where is it to ?' ' Into the medium, giv- 
 ing her back all the vitality 1 took from her. When I have got 
 very much power from her, if any one of you were to take her 
 suddenly round the waist and try to carry her, you might kill 
 
THE FACTS TOO MARVELOUS. 63 
 
 her on the spot : she might suffocate. 1 can go in and out of her 
 readily, but, understand, I am not her — not her double; they 
 talk a deal of rubbish about doubles; I am myself all the time.* 
 ' When you dissolve, which part disappears the first, the body 
 or the dress ?' ' The body, of course ; its material power goes 
 back to her, and then the dress goes into its elements.' ' Do you 
 think one in the flesh can ever appreciate the powers you use 
 in manifesting ?' ' No; you never can.' ( You speak of being 
 yourself, and not a double of the medium— who were you 
 when in the flesh ?' ' I to as Annie Morgan.' ' Were you mar- 
 ried ?' ' Yes; but do n't talk of that.' (At this she retired be- 
 hind the curtain, apparently either hurt or grieved at the 
 question, a state she has exhibited before when questioned 
 about her married life.) She speedily returned, and was 
 asked, ' Have you a husband now?' ' Of course I hare.' 'Can 
 you give us any idea under what reign you lived?' ' I left 
 the body when I was twenty-one years old, and I lived in the 
 latter part of the reign of Charles L, during the Commonwealth, 
 and to the early part of the reign of Charles II. I remember 
 the high peaked hats of the Commonioealth and the broad hats of 
 Charles I. and II.; the short hair of the men, but Cromwell's 
 was not short.' " 
 
 " At this point the time which had been agreed on as the 
 utmost that could be given, having the health of the medium 
 in regard, was reached, and, although the spirit expressed a 
 desire to remain longer, she retired on Mr. Luxmoore's insist- 
 ing on it, and the seance terminated. 
 
 "It is not always, nor even often, that the spirit Katie is 
 in the humor to give us information of her present and past 
 history, such as the above, and it has occurred to me that she 
 declines it because she has been accustomed — too much, in my 
 opinion — to jokes, and what might be called ' chaffing ' from 
 the circle, and this probably is more to the taste of a spirit 
 who, as she has herself stated, is not by any means in a high- 
 ly spiritual sphere. But this may be mere speculation on my 
 part." 
 
 Notwithstanding the confidence of these and many other 
 intelligent parties in the genuineness of the manifestations 
 through Miss Cook, the phenomena were so extraordinary 
 that doubt, even among confirmed Spiritualists, would fre- 
 quently be excited. That a spirit, palpably materialized or 
 reincarnated, could come into the presence of mortals, that 
 she should be undistinguishable in appearance from a human 
 being, that she should allow herself to be touched, write let- 
 ters before the spectators, converse fluently and audibly, and, 
 in fact, show all the traits of an average and somewhat petu- 
 lant young woman, and then disappear at once, on reentering 
 the cabinet, naturally awakened an amazement akin to dis- 
 trust. 
 
64 SEIZURE OF THE SPIRIT-FORM. 
 
 Although the faces of Miss Cook and Katie were much 
 alike, it was found, on close examination, that there were 
 marked differences, varying in degree at different times. 
 The hair of the two was decidedly unlike ; that of Miss Cook 
 being dark, and that of the spirit of a light auhurn or brown. 
 That the hair of the latter was not false was proved by trac- 
 ing it back to the scalp. This was done by Prof. Crookes, 
 and also by Mrs. Florence Marryat Ross-Church. Specimens 
 of the spirit hair have been subjected to the microscope, and 
 found to be genuine hair, though rather coarse for a woman. 
 The spirit-form was repeatedly measured and found to be, in 
 its bare feet, taller by from two to four inches than Miss 
 Cook. Other points of difference were noticed ; but it is un- 
 necessary to dwell upon them here, inasmuch as the distinct- 
 ive individuality of Miss Cook and Katie was subsequently 
 proved by irresistible tests. 
 
 Mr. Coleman suggested the theory that Katie was the double, 
 or, as the Germans call it, the doppLlgangcr, of the medium ; 
 but he was soon led by Professor Crookes's decisive experi- 
 ments to abandon the idea. 
 
 While even among Spiritualists the element of skepticism 
 was thus at work, an incident occurred at a seance at Mr. 
 Luxmoore's, December 9th, 1874, which seemed to be, for the 
 moment, a triumph of the skeptics. In violation of the condi- 
 tions of the seance, Mr. Volckman rose from his seat and at- 
 tempted to seize the supposed spirit. She glided from his 
 grasp, however, and Miss Cook was soon afterwards found 
 tied as she had been left. 
 
 This occurrence served only to confirm belief in the genu- 
 ineness of the phenomena, for it drew forth testimonials from 
 many in behalf of the reliability of the medium. Mr. Henry 
 Dunphy, a barrister, and well known man of letters, who 
 was present at the attempt, published in the February num- 
 ber of London Society (1874) an account, from which we 
 quote the following : 
 
 " I was seated between Lady Caithness and Mr. Blackburn, 
 holding a hand of each. The apparition appeared several 
 times and came out into the centre of the room. It was ar- 
 
ME. TAPP'S TESTIMONY. t>5 
 
 rayed in a long white dress with a double skirt, had naked feet, 
 and wore a veil over the head and falling clown below the 
 waist. Count de Pomar asked whether he might approach it ; 
 and, having obtained permission, left the circle and walked 
 straignt up to it. Katie held out her hand, which he took, 
 and subsequently returned to his seat. 
 
 " The apparition then advanced to the portion of the room 
 farthest from the cabinet, when a person, who to me was a 
 perfect stranger, jumped up, caught the figure round the 
 waist, and held it, exclaiming 'It is the medium!' Two or 
 three gentlemen present rushed forward and caught him, and 
 a struggle ensued. I watched the result with considerable in- 
 terest, and observed that the figure appeared to lose its feet 
 and legs, and to elude the grasp, making for that purpose a 
 movement somewhat similar to that of a seal in the water. 
 Although the person who made the attempt was apparently 
 well able to hold on to anything he might happen to clutch, the 
 apparition glided out of his grip, leaving no trace of corporeal 
 existence, or surroundings in the shape of clothing." 
 
 Mr. George Henry Tapp, of the Dalston Association of In- 
 quirers, added his testimony to that of others on this occasion, 
 and threw light on some mooted questions. He says that the 
 points of difference between Katie and the medium were often 
 remarkable, not only in regard to features, but as regards 
 height, bulk, &c. The resemblance between the two was at 
 times hardly perceptible. When he first saw the full form of 
 Katie she stood five feet six inches high, with her naked feet 
 flat on the floor. She was stout and broad across the waist 
 and shoulders, quite a contrast to her medium, who was much 
 shorter and petite in person. 
 
 Katie has frequently stood by Mr. Tapp, and leaned against 
 him at seances for several minutes together, permitting him 
 to thoroughly scan her face and figure in a good light. Once 
 she laid her right arm in his outstretched hands, and allowed 
 him to examine it closely. It was plump and shapely, longer 
 than that of the medium. The hands, too, were much larger, 
 with beautifully shaped nails, unlike those of Miss Cook, who 
 was in the bad habit of biting her nails. 
 
 Holding the arm of Katie lightly in one hand he passed his 
 other hand along it from the^shoulder. "The skin," he says, 
 "was beautifully— I may say, unnaturally— smooth, like wax 
 or marble ; yet the temperature was that of the healthy human 
 body. There was, however, no bone in the wrist. I lightly felt 
 5 
 
66 MR. TAPP'S TESTIMONY. 
 
 round the wrist again, and then told Katie that the bone was 
 wanting. She laughed, and said, 'Wait a bit,' and after go- 
 ing about to the other sitters, came round and placed her arm 
 in mj' hand as before." 
 
 This time Mr. Tapp was satisfied. Sure enough, the bone 
 was there. 
 
 In two instances he saw Katie with long ringlets reaching 
 to her waist, the hair being of a light brown color ; while the 
 medium's hair was cut short, and was not curled, its color be- 
 ing a very dark brown, almost black. Katie's eyes were 
 sometimes a light blue color, sometimes dark brown ; and this 
 difference was frequently noticed. 
 
 On one occasion Katie, on coming out of the cabinet, held 
 up her right arm, which was of a dusky black color. Letting 
 it fall by her side, and raising it again almost instantaneously, 
 it was the usual flesh color like the other arm. 
 
 One evening Mr. Tapp made some jesting remark to Katie, 
 when she suddenly struck him heavily in the chest with her 
 clenched fist. He was startled, and, indeed, hurt by the un- 
 expected blow ; so much so, that he inadvertently caught hold 
 of her right arm by the wrist. 
 
 "Iler wrist," he says, " crumpled in my grasp like apiece 
 of paper, or thin cardboard, my fingers meetiny through it. 
 I let go at once, and expressed my regret that I had forgotten 
 the conditions, fearing that harm to the medium might ensue ; 
 but Katie reassured me, saying, that as my act was not inten- 
 tional, she could avert any untoward result." 
 
 In conclusion Mr. Tapp bears the fullest testimony to the 
 good faith and integrity of Miss Cook and her family. 
 
 That some abnormal power was at work in the manifesta- 
 tions through Miss Cook, no intelligent investigator seems to 
 have denied. Katie would not be gone more than forty sec- 
 onds at most from the circle, when the curtain of the cabinet 
 would be drawn, and Miss Cook would be found waking from 
 her trance. It was manifestly a physical impossibility for 
 her to have changed her gown, put on her boots, dressed her 
 hair and altered the color of it, and, in addition to all this, 
 
MR. CROOKES'S TESTIMONY. 67 
 
 destroyed all trace of the " spirit's" flowing white robes, in 
 less than a minute. 
 
 The question, therefore, reduced itself to this : Does the 
 mysterious force do all these things, after having thrust forth 
 the entranced medium to play the part of a spirit ? What re- 
 mained now to do in this investigation, was to establish still 
 more conclusively, and by scientific tests, the separate identi- 
 ty of the two forms. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 Early in the year 1874, Prof. William Crookes, F. R. S., a 
 well-known chemist, discoverer of the metal thalium, author 
 of several esteemed scientific works, and editor of the Quar- 
 terly Journal of Science, undertook the investigation of the 
 phenomena through Miss Cook. 
 
 In a letter dated 20, Mornington-road, London, Feb. 3d, 
 1874, Mr. Crookes writes: " Miss Cook is now devoting her- 
 self exclusively to a series of private seances with me and one 
 or two friends. The seances will probably extend over some 
 months, and I am promised that every desirable test shall be 
 given to me. . . . Enough has taken place to thoroughly 
 convince me of the perfect truth and honesty of Miss Cook." 
 
 Mr. Crookes began his investigations of Spiritualism as 
 early as 1869. He endeavored to study the subject in its sci- 
 entific aspect solely, without any bias from its sentimental or 
 theological bearings. Under date of Dec, 1871, he says : "1 
 wish to ascertain the laws governing the appearance of very 
 remarkable phenomena, which, at the present time, are oc- 
 curring to an almost incredible extent. That a hitherto un- 
 recognized form of force— whether it be called psychic force 
 or x force is of little consequence— is involved in this occur- 
 rence, is not with me a matter of opinion, but of absolute 
 knowledge \ but the nature of that force, or the cause which 
 
68 THE DIALECTICAL SOCIETY. 
 
 immediately excites its activity, forms a subject on which I 
 do not at present feel competent to offer an opinion." 
 
 On the 6th of January, 1869, the London Dialectical Society 
 appointed a committee to investigate the phenomena. Five- 
 sixths of the members of it entered on their duties in the full 
 conviction that they should detect a fraud, or dissipate a 
 delusion. 
 
 The theories of self-delusion and imposture were soon dis- 
 missed by the committee as out of the question. The motions 
 and sounds were undoubtedly real, and were certainly not 
 caused by any trickery. 
 
 The committees' third and last explanatory conjecture, 
 that, namely, of unconscious muscular action, which they 
 had eagerly accepted on the authority of Faraday, they were 
 compelled reluctantly to abandon, and to admit that there is 
 a force, independent of muscular force, producing motion in 
 heavy substances without contact or material connection, of 
 any kind, between such substances and the body of any per- 
 son present. 
 
 This mysterious force was found to be frequently directed 
 by intelligence ; and Sub-committee Number One. reported 
 unanimously that the one important physical fact thus 
 proved to exist, that motion may be produced in solid bodies 
 without material contact, by some hitherto unrecognized force 
 operating within an undefined distance from the human organ- 
 ism, and beyond the range of muscular action, should be sub- 
 jected to further scientific examination, with a view to as- 
 certain its true source, nature and power. 
 
 Mr. Crookes constructed an ingenious apparatus, whereby 
 not only could the existence of any force be demonstrated by 
 delicate tests, but the amount and direction of it measured 
 with perfect accuracy. Prof. Hare, of Philadelphia, and Dr. 
 J. R. Nichols, a Boston chemist, had long before satisfied 
 themselves, by similar tests, of the reality and independence 
 of the force. 
 
 In his London Quarterly Journal of Science for January, 
 1874, Mr. Crookes published the result of further investiga- 
 
THE FACTS TESTED BY SCIENCE. 69 
 
 tions, from which it would appear that he had made great 
 progress. The occurrences to which he here testifies took 
 place mostly in his own house, in the light, and with only pri- 
 vate friends present besides the medium. He classifies some 
 of the phenomena of which he became assured under the 
 following heads : 
 
 1. The movement of heavy bodies with contact, but with- 
 out mechanical exertion ; 2. The phenomena of percussive 
 and other allied sounds ; 3. The alteration of weight of 
 bodies ; 4. Movements of heavy substances when at a dis- 
 tance from the medium ; 5. The rising of tables and chairs off 
 the ground without contact with any person ; 6. The levita- 
 tion of human beings ; 7. Movement of various small articles 
 without contact with any person ; 8. Luminous appearances ; 
 9. The appearance of hands, either self-luminous or visible 
 by ordinary light ; 10. Direct writing ; 11. Phantom forms 
 and faces ; 12. Special instances which seem to point to the 
 agency of an exterior intelligence ; 13. Miscellaneous occur- 
 rences of a complex character. 
 
 The mediums for these phenomena were chiefly Miss Kate 
 Fox and Mr. D. D. Home ; and Mr. Crookes took such pre- 
 cautions as place trickery out of the list of possible explana- 
 tions. Every fact, moreover, which he observed, is corrobo- 
 rated, as he admits, by the records of independent observers 
 at other times and places. 
 
 " It will be seen," he says, " that the facts are of the most 
 astounding character, and seem utterly irreconcilable with 
 all known theories of modern science. ,, Having satisfied him- 
 self of their truth, he saw it would be moral cowardice to 
 withhold his testimony. 
 
 Mr. Crookes cautiously abstains from any confident theory 
 in regard to the source of the phenomena. He is not yet pre- 
 pared, like Mr. Wallace, to accept Spiritualism as the only 
 theory that can cover all the facts. At first he was disposed 
 to stop, in company with Serjeant Cox, at the half-way house 
 of Psychic Force, or "x force," whatever that may be. We 
 
(0 PSYCHIC FORCE. 
 
 must not complain of him for this, for nearly all earnest in- 
 vestigators have had to tarry at this point for a while. 
 
 The theory of Psychic Force is by no means new. It was 
 advocated, under the name of Odic Force, by the late Dr. E. 
 C. Rogers, of Boston, with whom I had many discussions as 
 far back as the year 1852, at which time he published a book 
 on the subject. The theory was subsequently urged by Prof. 
 Mahan and President Samson in America, and by Count 
 Gasparin in France. Under its present name it was put 
 forth by Mr. E. W. Cox, serjeant-at-law, a member of the Di- 
 alectical Society, author of a pamphlet entitled " Spiritual- 
 ism answered by Science," and of an interesting psychologi- 
 cal work in two volumes, entitled, " What Am I ?*' 
 
 The term "Psychic Force " may be regarded as a euphem- 
 ism, useful in lessening the shock which the facts might im- 
 part to those who are disaffected by the term Spiritualism. 
 Psychic force, if it means anything, means spiritual force, 
 and the question, bluntly stated, is, whether spirits out of the 
 flesh can have and exercise spiritual force as well as spirits in 
 the flesh. 
 
 Does the medium, under the effect of "unconscious cere- 
 bration," send forth from the human organism a troop of 
 visible, materialized forms, that can write, play on instru- 
 ments, dance, sing, and converse rationally, the medium the 
 while, as in the case of Mrs. Andrews, of Moravia, being 
 herself aware of what is going on, though not that she her- 
 self is doing it ? Or, are these materialized forms what they 
 by speech declare themselves to be, manifestations by some 
 independent spirit or spirits ? 
 
 Was it psychic force that enabled Mr. Jencken's infant boy, 
 when not six months old, to write, in the chirography of an 
 adult, intelligible sentences? 
 
 Will psychic force explain an occurrence like the following, 
 related by Mr. Henry E. Eussell, and published in the Lon- 
 don Medium of July 17th, 1874, in a notice of the mediumship 
 of Mr. Charles Edward Williams, of Londor 
 
A PKOOF DIRECT. 71 
 
 " The writer has been often visited by Mr. Williams, and on 
 many occasions when sitting with his family round a harmo- 
 nium, the medium being deeply entranced upon an adjacent 
 couch, and distinctly seen by every one in the room, the 
 writer's father, many years since 'passed on before,' has 
 drawn up a chair from a remote part of the room and joined 
 the members of the circle, talking with them, singing with 
 them, and selecting pieces of music to be played on the in- 
 strument. He has knelt down beside the writer's mother, as 
 in prayer, has placed portions of his robes around the shoul- 
 ders of some, and has drawn back their heads so as to lean on 
 his breast, and stooping dow r n kissed each of them before 
 floating up to the ceiling, wishing them good night, and then 
 dematerializing his form, or rather, apparently, vanishing 
 from their sight, the medium at the same time being seen still 
 extended on the couch. On such occasions several recognized 
 spirits have been walking about and talking at the same time." 
 
 Truly the psychic force that could accomplish all this must 
 be something more marvelous than the agency of a whole 
 legion of spirits. 
 
 Of Mr. Russell, the witness of this remarkable occurrence, 
 my friend, Benjamin Coleman, writes me, (July 21st, 1874): 
 "Mr. Russell is a very reliable man, and the postmaster of 
 Kingston, near Richmond." 
 
 The theory of a force unconsciously exercised by the me- 
 dium, and producing all the various phenomena, is based only 
 on a portion of the admitted facts. The higher phenomena, 
 manifested in the actual appearance and tangibility of spirit 
 forms, and the preterhuman rapidity of spirit action, are not 
 included in the synthesis on w r hich the theory is built. The 
 best answer to this theory may be found in the facts to which 
 I shall soon return. 
 
 Before I do this, however, let us consider what light, if any, 
 Spiritualism throws on the great question of the ages, What 
 is meant by spirit, and what by matter ? 
 
 By substance, in metaphysics, is meant, not the equivalent 
 of matter, but that which stands under phenomena. It is 
 the fundamental fact of all existence. Spinoza defines it as 
 self-existence ; Leibnitz, as an active force like that of the 
 strained bow ; while Berkeley ironically tells us that it is the 
 tortoise that supports the elephant that supports the world. 
 We can never know it, for we know only phenomena, which 
 are its appearances. 
 
72 SPIRIT AND MATTER 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 11 What do you mean by spirit ?" is the question with which 
 the sanguine Spiritualist is often checked. 
 
 To reply intelligently he ought to know something of the 
 efforts of human thought to throw light on the problem ; but 
 this knowledge can be had only by patient attention to certain 
 results of philosophical speculation. These I will endeavor 
 to present as briefly as possible ; but the reader, if not in a 
 mood for meditation, will do well to postpone their considera- 
 tion for a more convenient moment. 
 
 Man has been described variously as a trinity, a duality, and 
 a unity of two parts, physical and psychical. 
 
 Are there two substances ? 
 
 "The arguments for the two substances," says Alexander 
 Bain (1873), "have, we believe, lost their validity ; they are 
 no longer compatible with ascertained science and clear 
 thinkiDg." 
 
 This sweeping declaration is by no means admitted by 
 many of the profoundest thinkers of the age. 
 
 Are there, then, simply degrees of one and the same sub- 
 stance ? Or, are matter and spirit distinct entities ? 
 
 The question is at the bottom of nearly all the controversies 
 in philosophy and theology that have vexed human brains the 
 last two centuries ; and from the solutions, arrived at by dif- 
 ferent minds, emerges either Theism or Pantheism. 
 
 According to Mr. Herbert Spencer, the disputants on both 
 sides are "equally absurd ;" for they are both trying to fathom 
 the "unknowable." 
 
 But one ougli t to know a good deal to have a right to say 
 that. 
 
 My present object is to learn how far the question is affect- 
 ed by the facts of Spiritualism. Do we get from that quarter 
 any new light ? 
 
SPIRITUALISM IN THE BIBLE. 75 
 
 Is immateriality a necessary quality of spirit ? Lccke says 
 it is not ; that the thinking substance in us, whether matter 
 or not matter, is a spirit. This was the notion of the ancients, 
 and is still the belief of uncivilized men. To their concep- 
 tions, naught is immaterial but what is naught. 
 
 By soul, and its correlative words in other languages, has 
 been understood, generally, the spirit while animating a hu- 
 man body, and by spirit, the same soul as it is after that body's 
 dissolution. But the use of the words is arbitrary and far 
 from uniform. 
 
 Cicero and Virgil regard the soul as a subtile matter which 
 might come under the name of aura (breeze), or ignis (tire), 
 or ather, and this soul they both of them called spiritus (a 
 breathing). In the Bible we find the same conception of 
 spirit ; though, that sometimes the scriptural use of the word 
 will bear the interpretation of immateriality, is not denied. 
 
 Immortality is taken for granted, both in the Old Testa- 
 ment and in the language of Christ. Warburton's specula- 
 tions to the contrary are now regarded as worthless. Belief 
 in immortality entered into all the science, customs, actions 
 and thoughts of the Egyptians. Could Moses, brought up in 
 the palace of the Pharaohs, could the Israelites, so long dwell- 
 ers in the land, have escaped the influence of the belief? Not 
 only historical induction, but the text itself, refutes the sup- 
 position. 
 
 Repeatedly we find it prohibited in the Pentateuch to evoke 
 the dead. In the Book of Samuel, the Witch of Endor calls 
 up the shade of the prophet. Belief in spirits is equally im- 
 plied in all the accounts of visions, spirit writings, hands and 
 voices, apparitions, levitations, ascensions, and other preter- 
 human phenomena, so like those of Modern Spiritualism, 
 throughout the Bible. Even Job, who often speaks as if the 
 future life were left out of his calculations, has a spirit pass 
 before his face, and hears a spirit voice. 
 
 Spiritualism does not use the terms spirit and soul as hav- 
 ing only a negative meaning ; as merely implying non-cor- 
 poreity. Tertullian gives an account of a female medium 
 
74 SPIRIT AND MATTER. 
 
 wto described a soul as corporeally exhibited to her view, 
 and as being " tender and lucid, and of aerial color, and every 
 way of human form. ,, 
 
 Others, both seers and theologians, among the ancients, 
 regarded man as a trinity of earth-body, spirit-body and 
 spirit. 
 
 The Spiritualism of many of the early Christian Fathers 
 seems to have been a sort of Organicism, explaining life by 
 the properties of organs, and regarding matter, once organ- 
 ized, as sufficient to explain all the phenomena of man, 
 whether we consider him as existing in the natural or in the 
 spiritual body. 
 
 The primary conception of spirit seems to have been that of 
 an attenuation of matter. Men must have become early 
 aware that there are certain invisible essences of things. If 
 wine is subjected to a boiling temperature, there is a separa- 
 tion of elements ; but the finer part, disengaging itself from 
 the grosser, may not be distinguished by all the senses until, 
 by the aid of a distilling apparatus, the escaping spirit is 
 liquefied and made visible. 
 
 Thus, the earliest conceptions of the relations of body and 
 soul amounted to a sort of double materialism. Among primi- 
 tive and uncivilized races this notion is universally prevalent. 
 (See Tylor's " Primitive Culture," passim). We find it com- 
 mon when we go back as far as history and tradition extend. 
 It was the belief of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the 
 Medes, and the early Christians, as it is now of the North 
 American Indian, the Australian, the Hottentot and the Es- 
 quimaux. To its prevalence, all the traditions, all the reli- 
 gions, and all the narratives of navigators testify conclusively. 
 
 Among the Christian Fathers the conception of a soul- 
 body, involved, larva-like, in the earth-body— a conception 
 simple, obvious and aboriginal— was generally held up to the 
 time of Gregory of Nyssa (331-394) and of Augustine 
 (354-430). Before this, neither from Judaism nor from 
 Christianity had the doctrine of immateriality received much 
 countenance. 
 
DESCAKTES ANP SI INOZA. 75 
 
 Even Augustine, embarrassed to decide how the immate- 
 rial soul can act on the dense matter of the body in producing 
 movement, postulated a subtle corporeal substance, equiva- 
 lent to a soul-body, which, as intermediate, may be affected 
 and put in action by the mind. 
 
 Tertullian argues that what is bodiless is nothing ; he predi- 
 cates corporeity of Deity itself. The modern Christian no- 
 tion that the soul is perfectly simple, incorporeal, and imma- 
 terial, was unknown to the early church. 
 
 It was not till Descartes (1640) taught the dogma of the im- 
 materiality of the soul, that it began to supersede the common 
 belief. "To the best of my knowledge," says Coleridge, 
 "Descartes was the first philosopher who introduced the 
 absolute and essential heterogeneity of the soul as intelli- 
 gence, and the body as matter." 
 
 "It is manifest," says Hallam, "to any one who has read 
 the correspondence of Descartes, that the tenet of the soul's 
 immateriality, instead of being general, as we are apt to pre- 
 sume, was by no means in accordance with the common 
 opinion of his age." 
 
 And Descartes, let it be noted, in the effort to be consistent 
 with his philosophy, made the declaration, still acquiesced 
 in by many "Orthodox" teachers, but rejected totally by 
 Spiritualism, that there are no valid proof s of the soul's immor- 
 tality except those founded on revelation. 
 
 Spinoza, (1665,) who was largely under the influence of 
 Descartes, having identified mind and matter, God and the 
 universe, seems to have regarded the phenomenal facts of 
 witchcraft, somnambulism and Spiritualism, as fatal to his 
 Pantheistic system ; and so he repudiated them all. 
 
 The soul, according to Spinoza, is nothing but a conscious 
 body, and the body nothing but a soul having extension. 
 
 In his dread of dualism he rejects the positive facts, indi- 
 cating preterm undane power, which were well known to 
 many of his contemporaries. He might have admitted them, 
 and still clung to his theory of a single substance, if the Car- 
 tesian notion of the soul's immateriality had not driven out of 
 
76 SPINOZA OPPOSES SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 his head the double materialism of the early Christians. For 
 there may be grades of matter, and still a single substance. 
 But he strove to make everything tally unequivocally with 
 his Pantheistic scheme. 
 
 Body and soul being, in his system, identical in substance, 
 we may understand how they should be united in the terres- 
 trial life, but how the soul, bodiless and unsubstantial, and 
 parted from the one only substance, is going to get along any 
 better under "the aspect of eternity" than under "the as- 
 pect of time," he does not make clear to us; nor does he 
 explain why, the substance being one, death should not 
 destroy soul as well as body. 
 
 In Spinoza's scheme the departed soul is indeed poorly off. 
 The senses, the imagination, the human affections, all be- 
 come annihilated with the death of the body. Reason only 
 remains ; there is light, but no warmth ; intellect, but no love. 
 
 Thus, by depriving us, at death, of all that we have acquir- 
 ed, through the senses, during the earth-life, Spinoza virtual- 
 ly destroys our individuality, and leaves the soul, after separa- 
 tion from the body, equivalent, as Emile Saisset remarks, to 
 " little more than a naked syllogism." 
 
 In failing to see that there may be, though impenetrable to 
 sense, a duplicate and permanent ground of being in man, in 
 which memory, affection and all knowledge may organically 
 inhere, Spinoza was obliged to strip man of all those constitu- 
 ents essential to a conscious immortality. A glimpse of the 
 spiritual body beyond the material would have saved him 
 from many inconsistencies. 
 
 Among Spinoza's letters are several that passed between 
 himself and a Spiritualist, though not a very enlightened one, 
 of his day. To the phenomenal facts adduced by the latter, 
 Spinoza replies petulantly : "lam indeed confounded to dis- 
 cover men of parts and ingenuity misusing their powers in 
 attempts to persuade mankind of the truth of such absurdi- 
 ties." 
 
 Here Spinoza loses his temper, and scolds like a Cambridge 
 professor at the thought of a spiritual manifestation. 
 
THE GREAT PROBLEM. 77 
 
 / 
 
 " Had I only," he writes, " as clear a conception of a spectre 
 as I have of a triangle or a circle, I should not hesitate to ac- 
 knowledge that it was created by God." 
 
 To this his correspondent replies with some point : "Tell 
 me, 1 entreat you, whether you have as clear an idea of a God 
 as of a triangle ?" 
 
 And Spinoza's answer is : " Yes ; but if you ask whether I 
 can form an image or picture of God as clear as that I form of 
 a triangle, I answer No. For we cannot picture God to our- 
 selves, but we can verily understand him." 
 
 This is a subterfuge unworthy of the great Spinoza; but with 
 all his hair-splitting he does not parry the fhrust of his cor- 
 respondent. The latter, when pressed to explain his concep- 
 tion of a spectre, might have replied in words very like those 
 of Spinoza himself, when qualifying his remark in regard to 
 his conception of God. The retort would have been perfect- 
 • ly apt. 
 
 But let it be remembered that Spiritualism, in Spinoza's 
 day, had to bear the burden of many gross superstitions, evi- 
 dent in the burning of witches and the prevailing demonpho- 
 bia; and it is not surprising that, in his contempt for such 
 wrongs and such cowardice, he should have undervalued and 
 gradually taught himself to discredit the phenomena on which 
 the belief in the agency of spirits was founded. 
 
 I come back to the great discussion stigmatized by Spencer 
 as "absurd." 
 
 If the question is put, " What do you mean by spirit?" the 
 obvious retort is, "What do you mean by matter ?" 
 
 Materialism regards matter as the first and only existence, 
 and mind as one of its modes or properties, like heat, elec- 
 tricity, or chemical action. 
 
 Idealism regards mind as the first and only existence, hav- 
 ing matter for one of its modes ; the conception of matter be- 
 ing only a mental synthesis of qualities. 
 
 Realism denounces the Idealist's notion of the non-reality 
 of matter. "Metaphysics, in all its anti-realistic develop- 
 ments," says Herbert Spencer, " is a disease of language." 
 
78 SPIRIT AND MATTER. 
 
 Even Hehnholtz, the great German scientist, who criticises 
 the human eye as a very bad piece of work, which he should 
 have sent back for alteration if it had been produced by a hu- 
 man artificer, tells us that our senses report aright, and that 
 things are what they appear ; all which, considering the low 
 character of the Maker in Helmholtz's estimation, would 
 seem to be somewhat contradictory. 
 
 On the contrary, Plato, Plotinus, Kant, Hamilton, and other 
 profound philosophical thinkers, tell us that we cannot know 
 things in themselves ; we can perceive only the appearances 
 of things. 
 
 Mr. Spencer says that these great men did not believe their 
 own speculations. Perhaps not ; and yet there may have 
 been some truth in them. We may be often wiser than we 
 know. 
 
 The stupendous phenomena of Modern Spiritualism make 
 us pause, and ask once more : What, then, is this mystery 
 called matter ? 
 
 All the conceptions of matter we get through the senses 
 are modified, if not contradicted, by some of the well-attested 
 proofs of spirit-power. 
 
 The materialized figure of Katie has been known to disap- 
 pear instantly on reentering the cabinet where Miss Cook was 
 lying entranced. 
 
 In describing the remarkable phenomena through Mrs Anna 
 Stewart at Terre Haute, Ind., Mr. Theodore F. Price of Mon- 
 son, Ind., under date of March 4th, 1875, writes : " The doors 
 of the cabinet were thrown open, and the spirit appeared 
 holding the medium by the hand. Both spirit and medium 
 advanced from the cabinet, now vacated by all things visible 
 save the chair in which the medium previous to this had been 
 seated. Said the spirit : ■ Can you now all see the medium, 
 and distinguish us both clearly ? Are you all satisfied now 
 that there is no deception about this?' Both spirit and me- 
 dium remained standing in front of the cabinet for some 
 minutes, the former asking that all should closely scrutinize 
 the features of each." The light on this occasion was " clear 
 and satisfying." 
 
ASTONISHING FACTS. 79 
 
 The spirit Florence that came through Miss Showers, at Mr. 
 Luxmoore's house, in London, April 11th, 1874, dematerial- 
 ized herself and her white robes almost instantly, so as to be 
 invisible, and this three times in quick succession. 
 
 Mr. Alfred K. Wallace, in his "Defence of Spiritualism, ,, 
 
 gives the following account of some of the phenomena through 
 
 Miss Nichol (afterwards Mrs. Guppy) : 
 
 " The most remarkable feature of this lady's mediumship 
 is the production of flowers and fruits in closed rooms. The 
 first time this occurred was at my own house, at a very early 
 stage of her development. All present were my own friends. 
 Miss Nichol had come early to tea, it being mid- winter, and 
 she had been with us in a very warm, gas-lighted room four 
 hours before the flowers appeared. The essential fact is, that 
 upon a bare table, in a small room closed and dark (the adjoin- 
 ing room andpassage being well lighted), a quantity of flowers 
 appeared, which were not there when we put out the gas a 
 few minutes before. They consisted of anemones, tulips, 
 chrysanthemums, Chinese primroses, and several ferns. All 
 were absolutely fresh, as if just gathered from a conservato- 
 ry. They were covered with a fine, cold dew. Not a petal 
 was crumpled or broken, not the most delicate point or pin- 
 nule of the ferns was out of place. I dried and preserved the 
 whole, and have, attached to them, the attestation of all pres- 
 ent that they had no share, so far as they know, in bringing 
 the flowers into the room. I believed at the time, and still 
 believe, that it was absolutely impossible for Miss N. to have 
 concealed them so long, to have kept them so perfect, and, 
 above all, to produce them covered throughout with a most 
 beautiful coating of dew, just like that which collects on the 
 outside of a tumbler when filled with very cold water on a 
 hot day." 
 
 At a meeting of the Marylebone Association of Inquirers 
 into Spiritualism, in London, March 18th, 1871, Mr. Thomas 
 Everitt said that he had known as many as nine hundred and 
 thirty-six words to be written in a second by spirit-power. A 
 pencil was used in this work ; and that the writing was not 
 done by some process analogous to lithography was rendered 
 probable by several specified tests. 
 
 The flowing white robes of the spirit Katie would disappear 
 instantly with the spirit- form, and yet, as we have learnt, she 
 cut strips from her tunic and distributed them, and these have 
 remained materialized, though the cut places were instantly 
 made whole by the spirit. 
 
 Not only have inanimate objects been brought through 
 
80 SPIRIT AND MAT TER. 
 
 walls and ceilings into closed rooms, but living things. In 
 the London Medium (Dec. 30th, 1870), a case is mentioned 
 in which a dog and a cat were brought from Mrs. Guppy's 
 house by the spirits, a distance of two or three miles. The 
 names of eight witnesses to the occurrence are given. 
 
 The floating of the human body in the air has been a very 
 common phenomenon. Dr. Davies narrated, at one of the 
 Ilarley street meetings, in London, how he felt Mr. Home all 
 over, while he was floating about in a semi-darkened room. 
 Mr. E. B. Tylor (author of Primitive Culture), gave, in a lec- 
 ture at the Royal Institution (1871), several instances of 
 statements in historical records, that certain of the early 
 fathers of the church were very often floated in the air. 
 While holding the hand of a medium, in the dark, I have my- 
 self known her to be lifted in her chair and placed on the ta- 
 ble. In the Loudon Spiritualist (June 15th, 1871), will be 
 found an account of a sitting at which Mr. Ilerne was float- 
 ed in the air in the light. 
 
 Spirit music, in the absence of all human instruments, has 
 been heard, not only by mediums, but by several persons at 
 once, who were in thefr normal state. 
 
 Solid objects have been introduced in some unaccountable 
 manner. " I have been present," says Mr. W. II. Harrison, 
 l< often in broad daylight, with Messrs. Ilerne and Williams, 
 when solid objects, such as books and flowers, have fallen on 
 us from above, where nothing but the whitewashed ceiling 
 was to be seen." 
 
 Spirit photography, though genuine specimens are easily 
 imitated, is now an admitted fact. I have received a remark- 
 able photograph got by Mr. John Beattie, a retired photog- 
 rapher of Clifton, England. He had his own plates and appa- 
 ratus, and superintended the whole process himself. A me- 
 dium present would describe the form of the spiritual pres- 
 ence, and then the photographic impression would confirm 
 the report. The figure in my copy, though almost grotesque, 
 is yet human in its features, and sufficiently distinguishable. 
 Mr. Alfred R. Wallace gives his testimony explicitly to the 
 
A LETTEK CARRIED BY SPIRITS. 81 
 
 reality of spirit-photography. Lady Caithness, whom I knew 
 in London, vouches (July 24th, 1874) for five recognizable 
 spirit-photographs she and her son got through Buguet, the 
 Parisian, to whom they went perfect strangers. Buguet took 
 too many genuine spirit-photographs in London to leave it 
 doubtful that he was a medium. L'nfortunately he was 
 tempted by want of money to supplement with fraud his in- 
 sufficient and variable medial power, and subsequently, on 
 being arrested in Paris, to abjure his mediumship. Once safe 
 in Brussels, he addressed a letter (Sept. 27th, 1875) to the 
 French Minister of Justice, confessing his apostasy. 
 
 In a letter from Florence, Italy, April 4th, 1872, to Professor 
 Crookes, Baron Seymour Kirkup, an honorable man and sin- 
 cere student of Spiritualism (see Hawthorne's account of him), 
 relates that on a certain occasion he asked Annina Carboni, a 
 spirit, to take a letter to her sister, Teresa, still in the earth- 
 life, and residing at Leghorn. Paolina Carboni, another sis- 
 ter, was the medium. The Baron made a sketch of the letter, 
 and Paolina copied it. In this letter Teresa is told to note 
 the exact minute of its arrival, and to mention in her answer 
 the exact time of sending it. "When Paolina," says the 
 Baron, "had finished her letter, she went away, and I shut 
 the door and remained alone. I folded the half sheet, and 
 placed it at 6 p. m. on the piano, unsealed, and without an en- 
 velope. I watched it, expecting to see it go ; but after two 
 minutes, finding that it remained, I took a book, and after two 
 minutes more I looked, and the note was gone. The door re- 
 mained shut, and no one entered the room. At eight minutes 
 past seven came three loud raps on the sofa. I went to the 
 piano, to see— nothing. I returned to the table, and there on 
 my book was a little triangular note, like Paolina's. It was 
 a punctual answer to it, and I called Paolina to read it. The 
 spirit had made two journeys of sixty miles each, besides 
 waiting for the writing of the answer (fifteen lines), in the 
 short time of one hour and fifteen minutes. As I remained 
 on purpose totally alone, there could be no trick, no smug- 
 gling a prepared letter. . . . Another witness of my dear 
 6 
 
82 SPIRIT AND MATTER. 
 
 Annina's exploit, is her mother, wife of a former English 
 vice-consul at Rome. She has just come from Leghorn, where 
 she was present when her daughter Teresa received and an- 
 swered the letter of Paolina." 
 
 Subsequently to this, Baron Kirk up received still more strik- 
 ing evidences of the speed of the actual transmission of real, 
 objective letters, to great distances, by spirit power. 
 
 The venerable S. C. Hall, honorably known in English lit- 
 erature, referring to the mediumship of Mr. D. D. Home, 
 writes (1871): " I have held an accordion (my 'own property) 
 in my hand, when delicious music was played on it, lasting 
 several minutes. It has been taken from me, and carried to 
 the end of a large room, playing there ; I saw the stops mov- 
 ing and heard the music : I could only not see the power that 
 produced the sounds. . . . Since this was written I have 
 seen a hand moving the accordion up and down, and another 
 hand acting on the stops. Two other gentlemen saw these 
 hands also. The room was well lit. ... I have seen a 
 man (Mr. Home) taken from his seat by some power invisi- 
 ble, and conveyed about the room ; and he has marked on the 
 ceiling with a pencil, a mark that is still there. A red-hot 
 blazing coal has been taken from a fierce fire, and placed (by 
 Home) on my head, without singeing a single hair. I have 
 seen nearly a hundred flowers — among them two large 
 bunches of apple-blossom— thrown on my table ; the medium, 
 a lady (Miss Nichol), having been previously examined by 
 two ladies on entering my house. I have repeatedly grasped 
 ? spirit-hand. I have seen lights that seemed phosphoric, to 
 the number of, it may be twenty, at once, floating in all parts 
 of a room. I have seen a heavy table floated to the ceiling. 
 A grand piano has been raised from the floor, no visible per- 
 son being within two yards of it. I have seen a hand-bell 
 raised by a shadowy hand, and rung over the head of each 
 person in the circle." 
 
 Mr. W. H. Harrison relates that on one occasion Katie in 
 the dark, gave the persons present something to feel, saying, 
 " That is what we make the faces of. Do not pinch it. " It felt 
 
SPIRIT POWER OYER MATTER. 83 
 
 liUe a piece of damp wash-leather. Next she said: "Feel 
 this; it is true spirit drapery.' ' The texture was certainly 
 remarkable. As it was drawn over the fingers it felt as light 
 and fragile as a spider's web ; fine silk would be coarse and 
 heavy in comparison. "Now feel it materialized," said 
 Katie, and it felt like the heavy white drapery which ordina- 
 rily adorns the spirit heads. 
 
 But I need only refer to the facts I have already given in 
 the narrative parts of this work, of the materialization and 
 dematerialization of hands and entire human forms ; of the 
 extemporaneous production of appropriate clothing, orna- 
 ments, flowers, etc. ; the passage of articles through solid mat- 
 ter; the production of drawings and writings with incon- 
 ceivable swiftness, the motions literally equaling the quick- 
 ness of thought; the apparent mastery of all material 
 impediments. 
 
 It may be inferred from these phenomena that matter is to 
 spirits something very different from what it is to mortals in 
 the flesh ; that our knowledge of it is, as the highest philoso- 
 phy often asserts, simply relative and phenomenal ; that a 
 change in our organs of sense and perception would make 
 matter other than what it now appears to us. 
 
 Leibnitz concluded that space is not something real, but 
 only a subjective representation. Kant teaches that space 
 and time are forms of our sensibility, pure intuitions, and 
 have no corresponding objective reality. De Remusat, J. S. 
 Mill, Bain, and others, believe that extension is a concep- 
 tion derived from our muscular sensibility. 
 
 These views, so astounding and even absurd to thinkers 
 who have not yet risen into this rarefied air of speculation, 
 accord with the teachings professedly got from personal com- 
 munion with spirits by Swedenborg, the great Swedish me- 
 dium and seer. But Swedenborg further teaches that the 
 only possible existence, the sole ground of consciousness, for 
 finite and derivative beings, must be phenomenal. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer thinks that the experience-hypothesis 
 better explains the genesis of our conceptions of space and 
 
84= SPIRIT AND MATTER. 
 
 time. Whatever may be the genesis, the fact of their relativ* 
 ity may be realized by a few simple considerations :* 
 
 Suppose that while you are unconscious of any change, the 
 whole world and all its contents should become enlarged a 
 hundred times. Imagine the foot measure to be a hundred 
 times longer, and everything increased to correspond. 
 
 When consciousness should return, things would appear to 
 you just as they did before their enlargement. Tou would 
 perceive no change. Your senses would be the measure- of 
 things as before. The relations and proportions of tilings 
 would be the same. The whole outer world would be the 
 same ; how, then, to you can it be said to have any other exist- 
 ence or place than what your sensations and thoughts assign to it t 
 
 If our organs of sensation, with the brain and the nerves, 
 were formed and proportioned otherwise than they are, the 
 whole visible world would not appear as it does now. If our 
 eyes were so formed as to have telescopic and microscopic 
 powers, or if they were as sensitive to impressions as the 
 photographer's prepared plate, the whole creation would as- 
 sume new aspects. Proximity and distance would affect us 
 very differently ; and spiritual beings might be plainly seen. 
 
 A knowledge of optics soon teaches us that the report we 
 get through the senses is often merely relatively correct. 
 Yesterday I looked out of my window at a church steeple, 
 which, in a peculiar light, just before an August sunset, and 
 while a thunderstorm was brooding in a background of ebon 
 cloud, appeared of a pure, snowy white. My wife and her 
 brother looked also at the steeple, and it appeared a pure 
 white to them ; and yet we all knew it was of a rather dark 
 drab color. 
 
 Ever to the senses the limitations of the seeming are the 
 end of all things. We see nothing leave the body at death, 
 and, therefore, we fancy that nothing leaves it. The delu- 
 sion is an inseparable accompaniment of our finiteness. Thus 
 all human systems are necessarily imperfect. We can only 
 make approximations to the truth. 
 
 * For a fuller illustration of the fact, see an excellent little work entitled 
 
 * The Infinite and the Finite, ' ' by Theophilus Parsons. Boston : 1873. 
 
SPIRIT AND MATTER. 8ft 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 Only He who can see all things in the universe at once can 
 see any one thing in its true relations and, therefore, in the 
 light of absolute truth, and as it actually is. 
 
 But because we do not see things as a Supreme Power may 
 see them, or as spirits may partially see them, it does not 
 follow that we do not see them aright under the limitations 
 and relations to which we are here subjected, and so far as 
 our external senses can aid us. Our mistake lies in supposing 
 that these senses teach us all ; that their report is a finality ; 
 whereas there are supersensual faculties in man, as indicated 
 in the phenomena of somnambulism, clairvoyance, prevision, 
 mediumship ; and it is the business of man's aspiring intelli- 
 gence to acquaint himself with these faculties, to study and 
 interpret their revelations. 
 
 Thus one purpose of our subjection here to these limitations 
 of sense and matter may be in order that, by our own efforts, 
 we may rise above them into a higher atmosphere of truth. 
 This discipline may be necessary to the growth of our spiritu- 
 al and thinking faculties, since life without thought is a ru- 
 dimental stage. 
 
 Materialism says truly that it is contrary to sound phi- 
 losophy to introduce two entities to explain the phenomena of 
 j!ife when one will answer. It asks : As the vibrations of the 
 light produce color, why may not the movements of the mole- 
 cules of the brain generate thought and consciousness? 
 
 To this the Spiritualist may reply : Since we are as ignorant 
 of the substance of matter as we are of that of mind, of course 
 we cannot say that they may not be one and the same sub- 
 stance, supporting two very different sets of properties. Only, 
 if this be so, then must matter have properties directly the re- 
 verse of those we usually ascribe to it. Even Hartley admits 
 
86 MAN A TRINITY. 
 
 that it is the same thing whether I suppose that matter has 
 properties and powers unlike those which appear, and superi- 
 or to them, or whether I suppose an immaterial substance. 
 
 Whether we annihilate mind and make matter think, or 
 whether we get rid of matter and substitute ideas, we are in 
 an equal dilemma. The Materialist is as helpless as the Im- 
 materialist or the Spiritualist in respect to the use of words. 
 Materialism mocks at philosophy; but " to mock at philoso- 
 phy," says Pascal, " what is it but to philosophise?*' 
 
 Under the facts of Spiritualism we may regard it as still an 
 open question, whether the unknown basis of matter may not 
 be equivalent to the unknown basis of mind. Each may flow 
 into existence from one divine creative substance ; but that 
 they result in two exhibitions of power, distinct not only in 
 degree but in kind, and justifying the trichotomy of earth- 
 body, spirit-body, and soul, the facts of this volume tend to 
 show. 
 
 "To me," says Mrs. J. II. Conant, the well-known Ameri- 
 can medium, "the soul is the inner life, the principle eternal 
 with God, a part of God ; while the spirit is the covering or 
 body of the soul, the intermediate body acting between the 
 soul and the physical body in this life, and acting for the soul 
 in the other life." 
 
 This was substantially the notion of Plato, who regarded 
 terrestrial man as a trinity of soul, soul-body, and earth-body. 
 
 Such was the view of many of the early Christian Fathers, 
 including Clement, Tatian, and Origen ; and it is taught in 
 the writings of Rivail (1804—1869), who, under the pen-name 
 of Allan Kardec is identified with the history of Modern Spir- 
 itualism, and who derived his system from the teachings of 
 spirits. 
 
 Andrew Jackson Davis, while he holds that the human 
 spiritual structure is a result wrought out by the physical or- 
 ganization, believes in an uncreated principle of spirit ; so 
 that here, too, we have a trinity. The spirit's organism, ac- 
 cording to Davis, is substantial and obeys laws, superior, but 
 not antagonistic, to ordinary gravitation and the known phy- 
 sical forces. 
 
SKEPTICAL SOPHISTRY. 87 
 
 Judge Edmonds says : " There is in man the emanation 
 from God in the soul, the animal nature in the body, and the 
 connection of the two in what I will designate as the electri- 
 cal body. Hence, man is a trinity." 
 
 The notion that spirit is merely an efflorescence of matter, 
 that it is nothing until, in the words of Milton, "Body up to 
 spirit work," is not consistent with these teachings, which re- 
 gard spirit as the higher power, and matter as something 
 which, if not distinct in essence, is at least subordinate, medi- 
 ate and auxiliary. 
 
 In Swedenborg's system man is an organism, fitted by an 
 earth-body to live in this world, and by a spirit-body to live 
 simultaneously in the spirit- world, and vivified by continual 
 influx from the divine creative source. In the dissolution of 
 the earth-body the real man remains unimpaired in his indi- 
 viduality, except that his body and his surroundings are spir- 
 itual. Thus in this system, as in the others I have named, 
 terrestrial man has, besides his twofold body, a divine influx, 
 the equivalent of a soul. 
 
 " Either all matter," says Alfred R. Wallace, " is conscious, 
 or consciousness is something distinct from matter, and in the 
 latter case," which he claims to be true, " its presence in ma- 
 terial forms is a proof of the existence of conscious beings, 
 outside of, and independent of, what we term matter." 
 
 Admitting that "what we term matter" may not include 
 all matter— since our senses do not tell us what matter is in 
 itself, but simply what it is to us, constituted as we are— this 
 view will be found not inconsistent with the theories I have 
 named. 
 
 There is a skeptical philosophy somewhat active in our day, 
 which would treat the subject of man's destiny as if all no- 
 tion of causation could be excluded without doing violence to 
 our reason. This school asserts, that for aught that we know 
 to the contrary, anything may produce anything ; astonish- 
 ing phenomena may occur without basis, cause or reason, 
 outside of some antecedent phenomenon ; matter may pro- 
 duce mind since there is no need that a cause should be ade- 
 
88 SPIRIT AND MATTER. 
 
 quate to the production of an effect. " Every objectively real 
 thing," says a writer of this school, " is a term in numberless 
 series of mutual implications, and its reality outside of these 
 series is utterly incoDceivable." 
 
 But what scientific validity has an hypothesis like this? 
 Does it not simply amount to a declaration that the problem 
 is unsolvable and " unthinkable," and that we must abandon 
 the attempt to meet the mind's legitimate demand for some- 
 thing to explain the derivation of intelligence and other phe- 
 nomena ? 
 
 "It is impossible," says the same writer, " to construct mat- 
 ter by a mere synthesis of forces." 
 
 But this, aud his previous assertion, Spiritualism, by ex- 
 tending, or rather duplicating the realm of causation and in- 
 troducing new and transcendent facts, consigns to the limbo 
 of exploded dogmas. 
 
 Spiritualism gives us proofs of an intelligent Force, exert- 
 ing itself both centrifugally and centripetally, repelling or 
 attracting what, to our senses, is matter ; using this matter as 
 its slave, its toy, its vestment, and its ready instrument ; find- 
 ing in it, whether solid, fluid, or gaseous, no impediment] 
 making it the plastic recipient of astonishing activities that 
 seem to be independent of space and time, and ruled by an 
 understanding will. 
 
 " Among the unquestionable rules of scientific method," 
 says Jevons, "is that first law that whatever phenomenon is, 
 is. We must ignore no existence whatever ; we may various- 
 ly interpret or explain its meaning and origin, but if a phe- 
 nomenon does exist, it demands some kind of explanation. 
 If, then, there is to be a competition for scientific recognition, 
 the world without us must yield to the undoubted existence 
 of the spirit within. 
 
 "A phenomenon which entirely fails to be explained by 
 any known laws may indicate the interference of some wholly 
 new series of natural forces. Thus the doctrine of the load- 
 stone was anciently thought to contradict the law of gravita- 
 tion ; but there is no breach of that law." 
 
SPIRITUAL CAUSES. 8S 
 
 Hence we may see how irrational are the notions of those 
 who say that the law of gravitation is violated when a man is 
 lifted by an unseen force, spiritual, but still natural, to the 
 ceiling of a room. The phenomenon plainly has a cause, and 
 the inquiry, What is that cause ? is perfectly legitimate ; 
 although certain skeptics, when driven to the wall, reply, 
 " Well, it proves nothing ; there are plenty of things quite as 
 mysterious !" 
 
 It proves this much at least : The limit which an atheistic 
 Materialism would set up for us is swept away like mist by 
 such a fact, and a new realm of causation is revealed for the 
 exploration of thought. Science can no longer deny the exist- 
 ence of beings and things because they cannot be seen, 
 weighed and measured. 
 
 Mr. John Beattie, whose investigations I have already 
 mentioned, is of opinion that "spirit substance" is never 
 photographed. His reasons are, that the spirit has power to 
 attract to itself material envelopes or forms, upon which light 
 may impinge, and which, in some cases of darkness, are self- 
 luminous ; that these exteriors only are photographed ; that 
 all forms of matter are merely the equivalents of motion- 
 producing force ; not compositions of final atoms, but coordi- 
 nations of forces which may be re-combined or changed into 
 their equivalents ; and that thus the most enlightened Materi- 
 alism must, when it arrives at its last analysis, merge in Spir- 
 itualism, and confess that behind all material play there 
 exists the source of all force, namely, Universal Mind. 
 
 This last was the opinion of Plato, Plotinus, Bruno, Leib- 
 nitz, and many of the greatest thinkers. 
 
 The present tendency of science is to confirm their view by 
 proving the unity of all forces and phenomena. But to this 
 subject I shall again return. 
 
 "Instead of regarding spirit," says Fern and Papillon, "as 
 a property of matter, we should regard matter as a property 
 of spirit. Materialism is false and imperfect because it stops 
 short at atoms, in which it localizes those properties for which 
 atoms supply no cause, and because it neglects force and 
 
90 SPIRIT AND MATTER. 
 
 spirit, which are the only means we have, constituted as oui 
 souls are, of conceiving the activity and the appearings of be- 
 ings. It is false and imperfect, because it stops half-way, 
 and treats compound and resolvable factors as simple and 
 irreducible ones ; and because it professes to represent the 
 world by shows without attempting to explain the production 
 of those shows. . . . The source of differentiations can- 
 not be in energy itself; it must be in a principle apart 
 from that energy, in a superior will and consciousness, of 
 which we have doubtless only a dim and faulty idea, but as to 
 which we can yet affirm that they have some analogy with 
 the inner light which fills us, and which we shed forth from 
 us, and which teaches us, by its mysterious contact with the 
 outer world, the infinite order of the universe." 
 
 Science tells us that the microscopic germ which evolves 
 into a human being does not differ from the germ of the net- 
 tle, the reptile, or the beast. The chemical constituents are 
 the same : oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon, with about 
 four per cent, of other elements. 
 
 What, then, causes the one germ to issue in a man and the 
 other in a weed ? "An unknown something ," says Dr. Hitch- 
 mau, 'must be posited in addition to the physiological pro- 
 cesses accompanying the phenomena." Since the differ- 
 ence is not in the material properties, it must be in what 
 manifests itself as the psychical ; in something not explained 
 by the word matter unless we make that word comprehend 
 what we mean by spirit. 
 
 Thus the ultimate form is predetermined in the embryo ; 
 and this fact harmonizes with the Hegelian doctrine of Nature, 
 which teaches that for every form of existence we may find 
 the motive in that which apparently follows. For example, 
 we may say that matter exists as a theatre for life, and life as 
 a manifestation of mind. But that for the sake of which a 
 phenomenon, takes place, muse be, in truth, though not in ap- 
 pearance, prior to the phenomenon, and, moreover, it must be 
 the substance and the truth of the phenomenon. The psychical, 
 then, is the prior, the real, and the substantial ; the physical 
 is the dependent, the phenomenal and the changing. 
 
SPIRIT FIRST. 91 
 
 St. Paul speaks from appearances when he says, " That was 
 not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural." On 
 the contrary, spirit is the senior, the causative and the 
 essential. 
 
 " The demonstration/ ' says Mr. G. II. Lewes (1873), "that 
 thinking is a seriation, and that a series involves time, dis- 
 proves the notions of ultimate unity and simplicity applied 
 tc a Thinking Principle." 
 
 But the facts of clairvoyance shiver this assumption. Not 
 long since a peasant in Germany gave the following test : he 
 would let you grasp a handful of beans from a bag, and then 
 he would tell instantly the exact number in your hand. 
 
 The marvelous and instantaneous solution of complicate 
 arithmetical problems by Zerah Colburn and other mathe- 
 matical "prodigies" cannot be explained by the theory of a 
 seriation of thought, as we mortals understand the word seri- 
 ation. 
 
 The hypothesis of a spiritual organism is " untenable," ac- 
 cording to Mr. Lewes, because it is the introduction of an un- 
 known to take the place of the knowable. 
 
 But is not this a begging of the question ; an assumption, 
 contravened by the facts of Spiritualism ; the assumption, 
 namely, that our physical senses must be the measure of our 
 entire organism? 
 
 When an inexplicable phenomenon is presented, what says 
 the Materialist ? Why, that we do not know all the resources 
 and powers of Matter ! 
 
 I readily admit the suggestion. We will suppose that it is 
 unaided Matter which not only sees, feels, and thinks, but 
 which produces the phenomena of clairvoyance, levitation, in- 
 dependent movement, materialization and dematerialization 
 of forms. 
 
 Here, then, is a supposed particular matter, expressing it- 
 self in phenomena, of which we have no reason to believe 
 that matter in general is capable. This particular matter, 
 therefore, is truly " unknown " to us, so far as its power to 
 produce the phenomena is concerned. So unknown is it, that, 
 
92 SPIEIT AKD MATTER. 
 
 in order to distinguish it from matter comparatively known t 
 we call it by the name of spirit. 
 
 Because we do this, it is not correct to say that we introduce 
 an unknown to take the place of the known; for the matter 
 that can produce the phenomenal have specified is not a mat- 
 ter that is known to us, and we are justified in distinguishing 
 it by the name of spirit from the matter that we know. 
 
 The question whether this spirit is not a higher, subtler, and 
 unknown form or grade of matter is distinct and perfectly 
 legitimate. 
 
 But the objections which men of science often raise to the 
 use of the word spirit will be found, under a strict analysis, to 
 apply equally to the use of the word matter. 
 
 The late James F. Ferrier, though an acute metaphysician, 
 used to lose his head when arguing against Spiritualism. In 
 his day (1851) the phenomena had not attained their present 
 development. Of Spiritualists, he says : " Oh, ye miserable 
 mystics ! have ye bethought yourselves of the backward and 
 downward course which ye are running into the pit of the 
 bestial and the abhorred ?" 
 
 These are but wild and whirling words. Ferrier's mistake 
 was in imagining that there is such a chasm between the mor- 
 tal and the immortal, that spirits are not human still, taking 
 with them the characteristics which constituted their individ- 
 uality while in the earthly body. 
 
 Of matter he says : "It is already in the field as an ac- 
 knowledged entity. Mind, considered as an independent en- 
 tity, is not so unmistakably in the field. Therefore, as enti- 
 ties are not to be multiplied without necessity, we are not 
 entitled to postulate a new cause, so long as it is possible to 
 account for the phenomena by a cause already in existence ; 
 which possibility has never yet been disproved." 
 
 But the matter which sees without material eyes, and hears 
 without material ears, and manifests supersensual knowl- 
 edge, is not in the field as an entity. A simple fact of clair- 
 voyance confutes Ferrier's assumption, and reintroduces the 
 question which he would bar out. 
 
METAPHYSICAL PROBLEMS. 9S 
 
 Having a solid basis of facts on which to rest, Spiritualism 
 can well afford to concern itself but little about the meta- 
 physical disputes that have always agitated the human mind 
 as to the nature of matter and spirit ; as to whether there are 
 two entities or only one ; as to whether there is an underlying 
 substance, apart from inhering qualities, or whether such a 
 substance is a contradiction in thought, and only to be con- 
 ceived of as inconceivable ; as to whether time and space are 
 forms of our sensibility, pure intuitions, or real things ; as to 
 whether extension is a conception got from our muscular sen- 
 sibility, or something as real as it seems to us. 
 
 All these high and subtle questions do not affect the one 
 dominant proof of man's continued existence. There are 
 phenomena in abundance, which, if they do not enlighten us 
 as to the nature of matter in itself, at least show that matter 
 has its master in what we are obliged, in the poverty of lan- 
 guage, to distinguish by the name of spirit. 
 
 One single decisive fact, says Dr. J. R. Buchanan (1873), 
 " illustrating the mind's capacity for action independent of 
 the brain, or its capacity for anything after the dissolution of 
 the body, is worth a whole library of metaphysics." 
 
 What spirit is in itself, or in its substance, may remain one 
 of the inscrutable secrets of Nature ; but of spiritual power 
 we may know something, just as we may know any natural 
 fact. We know that a spirit can materialize and dematerial- 
 ize a form, so as to manifest itself objectively to mortals in 
 the flesh ; and that it can do many inexplicable things with a 
 celerity that can be only described by the word magical, 
 though the process is undoubtedly in strict conformity with 
 natural laws. 
 
 To the skeptic's question, "What do you mean by spirit?" 
 we need therefore merely reply : " We mean by it some- 
 thing that we cannot intelligently express by the word 
 matter." 
 
 Whether this something is simply some unknown matter, 
 or whether its substance is distinct from that of all matter, 
 are questions still open. 
 
94 MISS COOKS ACCOUNT. 
 
 That spirit, though it may employ matter, for individuals 
 zation and manifestation, is essentially distinct from it, and 
 an entity independent of the conditions of space and time, 
 seems, however, to be the belief of most Spiritualists ; and 
 so, unless they lapse into Idealism, and regard matter as 
 something unreal, the Pantheistic view of things can be ac- 
 cepted only in company with a still higher truth. 
 
 Thus Spiritualism, if it neither discredits nor confirms the 
 doctrine of two substances, at least makes doubly distinct the 
 separation between the phenomena of so-called matter and 
 the phenomena of so-called spirit. The two in one have been 
 compared to the convex and concave of the same curve. 
 
 Plainly the domain of science does not extend to the region 
 of first causes ; and Spiritualism, though by its proofs of what 
 inferior spirits can do, it helps us to the grandest conceptions 
 of a Supreme Spirit, to whom all the facts of the universe are 
 known, is yet unable to lift the veil from that Power which is 
 at once Ground and Cause of the universe and its phenomena ; 
 impersonally immanent, (intra-mundane), automatic, evolu- 
 tionary, and self-limited ; personally transcendent, (supra- 
 mundane), conscious, omniscient, absolute and omnipotent ; 
 the God in whom we live and move and have our being, 
 and Our Father in Heaven ; the God of Pantheism and, in 
 his higher hypostasis, the God of Theism also. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 From these abstruse though not irrelevant considerations, 
 the course of our narrative leads us back to Miss Cook. 
 
 She had begun to exhibit medial powers as early as 1870. 
 
 In a letter to Mr. Harrison, dated May, 1872, she writes : 
 
 "lam sixteen years of age. From my childhood I could 
 see spirits and hear voices, and was addicted to sitting by 
 myself talking to what I declared to be living people. As no 
 one else could see or hear anything, my parents tried to make 
 me believe it was all imagination, but I would not alter my 
 
HER DEVELOPMENT. 95 
 
 belief, so was looked upon as a very eccentric child In the 
 spring of 1870 I was invited to the house of a school-friend, 
 whose name I am not at liberty to mention. She asked me if 
 I had ever heard of spirit rapping, adding that her father, 
 mother and self had sat at a table, and got movements, and 
 that if I liked, they would try that evening." 
 
 Miss Cook, though at first somewhat "horrifisd" at the 
 
 idea, got her mother's consent and sat with her friends. She 
 
 soon found that the raps followed her. A message was given 
 
 to her from what purported to be the spirit of her aunt ; and 
 
 then, she being left by herself at the table, it rose four feet. 
 
 Miss Cook continues : 
 
 " I went home astonished. Mamma and I went a few days 
 after. We had some excellent tests of spirit identity given 
 us ; still toe did not believe in spirits* At last it was spelt out 
 that if we would sit in the dark I should be carried round the 
 room. I Jau^iied, not thinking it would be done, and put out 
 the light. The room was not perfectly dark, a light came in 
 from the window. Soon I felt my chair taken from me. I 
 was lifted up until I touched the ceiling. All in the room 
 could see me. I felt too startled at my novel position to 
 scream, and was carried over the heads of the sitters, and put 
 gently on to a table at the other end of the room. Mamma 
 asked if we could get manifestations at our own home. The 
 table answered, ' Yes,' and that I was a medium. The next 
 evening we sat at liome ; a table and two chairs were smashed, 
 and a great deal of mischief done. We said we could never 
 sit again, but we were not left in peace. Books and other 
 articles were thrown at me, chairs walked about in the light, 
 the table tilted violently at meal-times, and great noises were 
 sometimes made at night. At last we sat again ; the table be- 
 haved better, and a communication was given to the effect 
 that we were to go to 74, Navarino-road, and that there was 
 an association of Spiritualists there. Out of curiosity mamma 
 and I went, and found we had been told quite correctly. Mr. 
 Thomas Blyton came to a seance at our house ; he invited me 
 to a seance"at Mr. Wilkes's library, in Dalston-lane. There 1 
 met Mr. Harrison. He came to see the manifestations at my 
 home. By this time we were convinced of the truth of spirit 
 communion. About this time I was first entranced ; a spirit 
 spoke through me, telling papa that if I sat with Messrs. 
 Heme and Williams 1 should get the direct voice. I had sev- 
 eral sittings with them, and finally succeeded in getting the 
 direct voice, direct writing, and spirit touches. The presiding 
 spirit of my circles is Katie, John King's daughter." 
 
 * Hero is a touch of Nature, similar to that which Shakspeare makes 
 manifest in the character of Hamlet. Just after he 1ms seen and conversed 
 with the spirit of his father, Hamiet talks of "'that bourn from which no 
 traveler returns. * ' Just after Miss Cook has told us that she used to ' ■ see 
 spirits and hear voices, ' , she says, "still we did not believe in spirits. " 
 Perhaps, however, all that she here meant was that she did not believe 
 they were active in this particular instance. 
 
96 AN UNSPIRITUAL SPIRIT. 
 
 Of the subsequent developments, the sittings with Mr. 
 Heme, and the final appearance of Katie in full form, I have 
 already given an account. 
 
 Mr. Henry M. Dunphy relates that on one occasion, at a 
 seance, Katie called for pencil and paper, saying she wanted 
 to write a note. He produced a gold pencil-case with a 
 double movement, one for producing the lead, and the other 
 a pen. When handed to Katie, she unscrewed the little cap 
 at the top, so as to scatter the leads on the carpet ; she laughed, 
 screwed on the top again, and then wrote the follow mg mes- 
 sage on a sheet of note-paper and threw it out : " I am much 
 pleased that you have all come to-night at my invitation. — 
 Annie Morgan." 
 
 On another occasion Mr. Dunphy inquired whether Katie 
 would put on a heavy gold ring which he took off his finger 
 and offered to her. This she immediately took out of his 
 hand and placed on her own wedding finger, saying naively, 
 "We are now engaged." On his subsequently reaching with 
 his hand to receive the ring, Katie allowed him to touch hers, 
 and afterwards told him to touch her lips, which he did with 
 his hands, and she imprinted on them a kiss. 
 
 At another sitting, a passing remark having been made 
 about lawyers, Katie asked whether her hearers knew what 
 the Irish usher said when he was ordered to clear the court. 
 " No," was the reply. " Well, then," said she, " he shouted, 
 1 Now, then, all you blackguards who are not lawyers, leave 
 the court.' " 
 
 Trivial and unspiritual as some of these acts and expres- 
 sions may seem, I quote them as having a bearing on the 
 question of the intellectual calibre of these materialized 
 spirits. 
 
 Miss Emily Kislingbury, who has given considerable study 
 to Miss Cook's mediumship, in a description of a seance at 
 which she was present, Feb. 22d, 1873, remarks: "When 
 Katie herself came and showed a fair-complexioned, large, 
 massive face, and mouth set with brilliantly white teeth, I 
 failed to see in it any resemblance to her medium ; and my 
 
PHOTOGRAPH OF KATIE. 97 
 
 mother, who saw Katie for the first time, expressed her sur- 
 prise that a comparison should ever have been made between 
 them. I have, however, under more strict test conditions, 
 seen in the spirit face a very striking resemblance to Miss 
 Cook. . . . 
 
 " A slow tune was played with great expression inside the 
 cabinet. . . . Katie asked me, to my astonishment, to 
 sing the song beginning 
 
 1 Du bist die Kub\ der Friede mild, ' 
 
 and she would follow me. * But,' said I, l Katie, you cannot 
 sing the German words.' * Oh, can't I?' she said. ' My me- 
 dium can't, but I am not so stupid'; you try me.' I sang the 
 song through, and the same clear, bell-like voice again fol- 
 lowed mine, pronouncing the German perfectly." 
 
 In the spring of 1873 a series of sittings was held for the 
 purpose of getting a photographic likeness of Katie. The 
 photographing was done by Mr. Harrison whose close and in- 
 telligent study of this remarkable case of materialization 
 seems to have aided largely in the right development of Miss 
 Cook's extraordinary powers. On the 7th of May a success- 
 ful sitting was had, and no less than four photographs were 
 taken. It is from one of the best of these that the engraving, 
 which forms the frontispiece of this volume, was copied. 
 
 "In the photograph itself," says Mr. Harrison, "the fea- 
 tures are more detailed and beautiful, and there is an expres- 
 sion of dignity and ethereality in the face which is not fully 
 represented in the engraving, which, however, has been exe- 
 cuted as nearly as possible with scientific accuracy, by an 
 artist of great professional skill." 
 
 In a statement signed by Amelia Corner, Caroline Corner, 
 J. C. Luxmoore, G. R. Tapp, and W. H. Harrison, we have a 
 clear and interesting account, which I here slightly abridge, 
 of the process of getting a photograph of Katie by the magne- 
 sium light : 
 
 "The cabinet doors were placed open, and shawls hung 
 
 across. The seance commenced at six p. m., and lasted about 
 
 two hours, with an interval of half an hour. The medium 
 
 was entranced almost directly she was placed in the cabinet, 
 
 7 
 
98 PHOTOGRAPHING A SPIKIT-FOKM. 
 
 and in a few minntes Katie stepped out into the room. The 
 sitters, in addition to the undersigned, were Mrs. Cook and 
 her two children, whose delight at Katie's familiarity with 
 them was most amusing. 
 
 " Katie was dressed in pure white, except that her robe was 
 cut low, with short sleeves, allowing her beautiful neck and 
 arms to be seen. Her head-dress was occasionally pushed 
 back so as to allow her hair, which was brown, to be visible. 
 Her eyes were large and bright, of a dark blue or gray color. 
 Her countenance was animated and lifelike, her cheeks and 
 lips ruddy and clear. 
 
 "Our expressions of pleasure at seeing her thus before us 
 seemed to encourage her to redouble her efforts to give a good 
 seance. By the light of a candle and a small lamp, during the 
 intervals of portography, she stood or moved about, and chat- 
 ted to us all, keeping up a lively conversation, in which she 
 criticised the sitters, and the literary photographer and his 
 arrangements very freely. By degrees she walked away from 
 the cabinet, and came boldly out into the room. 
 
 "Katie usually leaned on the shoulder of Mr. Luxmoore, 
 and stood up to' be focussed several times, on one occasion 
 holding the lamp to illuminate her face. Once she looked at 
 the sitters through Mr. Luxmoore's eye-glass. She patted his 
 head, and pulled his hair, and allowed him and Mrs. Corner 
 to pass their hands over her dress, in order that they might 
 satisfy themselves that she wore only one robe. 
 
 " As one of the plates was taken out of the room for devel- 
 opment, she ran a few feet out of the cabinet after Mr. Harri- 
 son, saying she wished to see it ; and on his return it was 
 shown to her, he standing close to her and touching her at the 
 time. While he was absent she walked up to the camera and 
 inspected that ' queer machine,' as she called it. 
 
 "Just before one of the plates was taken, as Katie was re- 
 posing herself outside the cabinet, a long, sturdy, masculine 
 right arm, bare to the shoulder, and moving its fingers, was 
 thrust out of the opening at the top of the cabinet. Katie 
 turned round and upbraided the intruder, saying that 'it was 
 a shame for another spirit to interpose while she stood for her 
 likeness/ and she bade him ' get out.' 
 
 " Toward the close of the seance Katie said that her power 
 was going, and that she was 'really melting away this time.' 
 The power being weak, the admission of light into the cabinet 
 seemed gradually to destroy the lower part of her figure, and 
 she sank down until her neck touched the floor, the rest of her 
 body having apparently vanished, her last words being that 
 we must sing, and sit still for a few minutes, ' for it was a sad 
 thing to have no legs to stand upon.' This was done, and 
 Katie soon came out again, entire as at first, and one more 
 photograph was successfully taken. Katie then shook hands 
 with Mr. Luxmoore, went inside her cabinet, and rapped for 
 us to take the medium out. 
 
 "The seance had been given under strict test conditions. 
 The only stipulation Katie made throughout was, that the sit- 
 ters would not stare fixedly at her whilst she stood for her 
 photograph. 
 
PRECAUTIONS AGAINST FRAUD. 99 
 
 " Before commencing, Mrs. and Miss Corner took the me- 
 dium to her bedroom, and, having taken off her clothes and 
 thoroughly searched them, dressed *her without a gown, but 
 simply with a cloak of dark gray waterproof cloth over her 
 underclothing, and at once led her to the seance room, where 
 her wrists were tied tightly together with tape. The knots 
 weie examined by the sitters respectively, and sealed with a 
 signet ring. She was then seated in the cabinet, which had 
 been previously examined. The tape was passed through a 
 brass bracket in the floor, brought under the shawl, and tied 
 securely to a chair outside the cabinet, so that the slightest 
 movement on the part of the medium would have been at 
 once detected. 
 
 " During the interval of half an hour, Mrs. Correr took 
 charge of the medium, whilst she was out of the cabinet, and 
 did not lose sight of her for one minute. The tying and seal- 
 ing were repeated before the second part of the seance, and 
 on each occasion of the medium leaving the cabinet, the 
 knots and seals and tape were duly examined by all the sit- 
 ters, and were found intact. The medium was tied and seal- 
 ed by Mr. Luxmoore, whose signet ring was used." 
 
 In a separate communication Mr. Luxmoore writes : 
 
 " I carefully examined every part of the cabinet while Miss 
 Cook was being searched by Mrs. and Miss Corner. Nothing 
 could possibly have been concealed there without my discov- 
 ering it. I should also mention, that, soon after one of the 
 photographs had been taken, Katie pulled back the curtain, 
 or rather rug, which hangs in front, and requested us to look 
 at her, when she appeared to have lost all her body. She had 
 a most curious appearance ; she seemed to be resting on noth- 
 ing but her neck, her head being close to the floor. Her white 
 robe was under her." 
 
 Phenomena like these, as Dr. Wm. Hitch man aptly re- 
 marks, present a question "not to be settled at all by leading 
 articles, but by positive experimental testimony." In this 
 case such testimony has been given in abundance. 
 
 Previous to Prof. Crookes's taking the case in hand, Dr. 
 Gully, Mr. Blackburn, Mr. Luxmoore, Mr. W. H. Harrison, 
 and many other competent investigators had, at numerous 
 seances, satisfied themselves fully that Katie and Miss Cook 
 were distinct personalities. 
 
 "All who attende'd these seances," says Dr. Gully, "are 
 aware with what anxious care arrangements were always 
 made by which th^ smallest movements by the medium with- 
 in were rendered detectable by the sitters outside, by means 
 of tapes attached to the medium's body, and extended along 
 
100 THE ELECTRICAL TEST. 
 
 the floor, and held by some one present ; and, on one or two 
 occasions, by the extension of the medium's own dark hair, 
 not to mention the precise tying and sealing of the wrists. . . . 
 These tests have abundantly satisfied me that the form which 
 appears is not Miss Cook, but has a totally separate exist- 
 ence." 
 
 Notwithstanding these well-founded convictions there was 
 a natural wish among Spiritualists that assurance should be 
 made doubly sure, and in this wish no one joined more readi- 
 ly than Dr. Gully. 
 
 To determine the question whether Miss Cook was lying at 
 rest inside the cabinet while Katie in her flowing robes was 
 outside, Mr. C. F. Yarley, F. R. S., the electrician of the At- 
 lantic Cable, noted for his skill in testing broken cables, con- 
 ceived the idea of passing a weak electrical current through 
 the body of the medium all the time the manifestations were 
 going on. He did this by means of a galvanic battery and 
 cable-testing apparatus, which was so delicate that any move- 
 ment whatever, on the part of Miss Cook, would be instantly 
 indicated, while it would be impossible for her to dress and 
 play the part of the spirit without breaking the circuit and 
 being instantly detected. 
 
 Yet under these conditions the spirit-form did appear as 
 usual, exhibited its arms, spoke, wrote, and touched several 
 persons ; and this happened, be it remembered, not in the me- 
 dium's own house, but in that of Mr. Luxmoore, at the West 
 end of London. For nearly an hour the circuit was never 
 broken, and at the conclusion Miss Cook was found in a 
 trance. Thus it was clearly proved that Miss Cook was not 
 only in the cabinet, but perfectly quiescent, while Katie was 
 visible and moving about outside. 
 
 Similar tests were soon repeated by Mr. Crookes in his own 
 house with equally satisfactory results. Early in March he 
 reported : " As far as the experiments go, they prove conclu- 
 sively that Miss Cook is inside while Katie is outside the cabi- 
 net," and he further testified to Miss Cook's perfect honesty, 
 truthfulness, and willingness to submit to the severest testg 
 that he could approve of. 
 
MR. CROOKES'S TESTIMONY. 101 
 
 But the crowning proof was yet to come. On the 12th of 
 March, 1874, during a seance at his own house, Katie came tG 
 the cm tain, and called him to her, saying, " Come into the 
 room and lift my medium's head up ; she has slipped down." 
 Katie was then standing before him, clothed in her usual 
 white robes and turban head-dress. He walked into the libra- 
 ry up to Miss Cook, Katie stepping aside to allow him to pass. 
 He found that Miss Cook had slipped partially off the sofa, 
 and that her head was hanging in a very awkward position. 
 He lifted her on to the sofa, and in so doing had satisfactory 
 evidence, in spite of the darkness, that Miss Cook was not 
 attired in the Katie costume, but had on her ordinary black 
 velvet dress, and was in a deep trance. 
 
 On the 29th of March, at a seance at Hackney, Katie told 
 Mr. Crookes that she thought she should be able to show her- 
 self and Miss Cook together. Turning the gas out, he enter- 
 ed the room used as a cabinet, bearing a phosphorus lamp. 
 This consisted of a six or eight ounce bottle, containing a 
 little phosphorized oil, and tightly corked. 
 
 It being dark, he felt about for Miss Cook. He found her 
 crouching on the floor. Kneeling down, he let air enter the 
 lamp, and by its light saw the young lady, dressed in black 
 velvet, as she had been in the early part of the evening, and 
 to all appearance senseless. She did not move when he took 
 her hand and held the light close to her face, but continued 
 quietly breathing. 
 
 The remainder of the narrative I give in Mr. Crookes's own 
 words : 
 
 "Raising the lamp, I looked around and saw Katie stand- 
 ing close behind Miss Cook. She was robed in flowing white 
 drapery, as we had seen her previously during the seance. 
 Holding one of Miss Cook's hands in mine, and still kneeling, 
 I passed the lamp up and down, so as to illuminate Katie's 
 whole figure, and satisfy myself thoroughly that I was really 
 looking at the veritable Katie, whom I had clasped in my 
 arms a few moments before, and not at the phantasm of a dis- 
 ordered brain. 
 
 "She did not speak, but moved her head, and smiled in 
 recognition. Three separate times did I carefully examine 
 Miss Cook, crouching before me, to be sure that the hand I 
 held was that of a living woman, and three separate times did 
 
102 SPIRIT DRAPERY. 
 
 I turn the lamp to Katie, and examine her with steadfaet 
 scrutiny, until I had no doubt whatever of her objective 
 reality." 
 
 Of the points of difference between the two, Mr. Crookes 
 
 says : 
 
 " Katie's height varies; in my house I have seen her six 
 inches taller than Miss Cook Last night, with bare feet and 
 not tip-toeing, she was four and a half inches taller than Miss 
 Cook. Katie's neck was bare last night ; the skin was per- 
 fectly smooth, both to touch and sight, whilst on Miss Cook's 
 neck is a large blister, which under similar circumstances is 
 distinctly visible, and rough to the touch. Katie's ears are 
 unpierced, whilst Miss Cook habitually wears ear-rings. 
 Katie's complexion is very fair, while that of Miss Cook is 
 very dark. Katie's fingers* are much longer than Miss Cook's, 
 and her face is also larger. In manners and ways of expres- 
 sion there are also many decided differences." 
 
 The exceeding whiteness of the drapery with which Katie 
 came clothed was always noticeable ; reminding the Scriptu- 
 ral reader of that passage in Mark: " His raiment became 
 shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth 
 can white them." The dress would vary in shape nearly 
 every evening. 
 
 The fabric felt material enough. It did not melt away and 
 disappear like the spirit fabrics felt by Mr. Livermore and 
 Dr. Gray in the presence of Kate Fox. Miss Douglas took 
 a specimen of the cloth to Messrs. Howell and James's, Lon- 
 don, and asked them to match it ; they said that they could 
 not, and that they believed it to be of Chinese manufacture. 
 
 Whence came this white drapery ? As we proceed in our 
 narrative, it will be seen that Mr. Crookes satisfied himself 
 thoroughly that it could not have been brought into his house 
 and used by the medium. 
 
 Katie had announced, on several occasions, that her materi- 
 alizations through Miss Cook would cease the 21st of May, 
 1874. At one of her farewell seances, my friend, Mr. Cole- 
 man, whom I had some years before introduced to certain 
 phenomena m Boston, was present. He took from his pock- 
 et a photograph ; Katie received it from his hands, and 
 exclaimed, " This is Dr. Gully and my likeness. What do 
 you want me to do with it?" " Write," said Mr. Coleman 
 
CUT PLACES MADE WHOLE. 103 
 
 " your name, and any message you have to give me, on the 
 back of it, that I may keep it in remembrance of this even* 
 ing." Borrowing his pencil she wrote: "Annie Morgan, 
 usually known as Katie King. To her dear friend, Mr. Ben. 
 May 9th, 1874. " When it was read aloud some one said, 
 "That is too familiar, " and she was reminded that there 
 were others of the same name known to her ; upon which 
 she asked for the card to be returned, and wrote : " Mr. Ben is 
 B. Coleman, Esq." 
 
 " During the evening," writes Mr. Coleman, " she frequent- 
 ly went behind the curtain to look after her me^inm, and 
 once whilst she was there, Mr. Crookes raised the curtain, 
 and he and I, and four others who sat by me, saw, at one and 
 the same time, the figure of Katie, clad in her white dress, 
 bending over the sleeping form of the medium, whose dress 
 was blue, with a red shawl over her head." This exhibition 
 was then repeated, and Mr. Coleman was fully satisfied that 
 he saw both the living form of Miss Cook, and the material- 
 ized spirit-form of Katie. 
 
 The following remarkable incident, which Mr. W. H, Har- 
 rison and Mrs. Ross-Church (Florence Marryat) both con- 
 firmed in subsequent narratives, indicates the thaumatur- 
 gic power that was at work: " Taking up her skirt in a 
 double fold, Mr. Crookes having lent her his scissors, Katie 
 cut two pieces out of the front part, leaving the holes visible, 
 one about an inch and the other two or three inches in cir- 
 cumference, and then, as if by magic, but without the conju- 
 rer's double boxes, or any attempt at concealment, she held 
 that portion of the dress in her closed hand for a minute or 
 two, and showed that the holes had disappeared, and that the 
 dress was again entire. The pieces, a portion of which I 
 have, are apparently strong ordinary white calico." 
 
 Of the repetition of this marvel at a subsequent seance, 
 Mr. W. H. Harrison writes : " After she had thus cut several 
 great holes in her dress, as she sat between Mr. Crookes and 
 Mr. Tapp, she was asked if she could mend it, as she had 
 done on other occasions ; she then held up the dilapidated 
 
104 THE FAREWELL SEANCE. 
 
 portion in a good light, gave it one flap, and it was instantly 
 as perfect as at first. Those near the door of the cabinet ex- 
 amined and handled it immediately, with her permission, and 
 testified there was no hole, seam or joint of any kind, 
 where a moment before had been large holes, several inches 
 in diameter. " 
 
 Mrs. Ross-Church (Florence Marryat), a daughter of my 
 old acquaintance, Captain Marryat, author of " Peter Simple," 
 &c , was a witness of the same incident, and mentions it in 
 an account of her experiences, which I shall soon quote. 
 
 The following is Mr. W. H. Harrison's account of the farewell 
 seance, May 21st, 1874, in London, at which Katie appeared. 
 There were present Mr. Crookes, Mrs. Corner, Mrs. Ross- 
 Church, Mr. W. H. Harrison, Mr. G. R. Tapp, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Cook and family, and the servant Mary : 
 
 "Mr. Crookes, 7.25 p. m., conducted Miss Cook into the 
 dark room used as a cabinet, where she laid herself down up- 
 on the floor, with her head resting on a pillow ; at 7.28 Katie 
 first spoke, and at 7.30 came outside the curtain in full form. 
 She was dressed in pure white, with low neck and short 
 sleeves. She had long hair, of a light auburn or golden color, 
 which hung in ringlets down her back, and each side of her 
 head, reaching nearly to her waist. She wore a long white 
 veil, but tins was only drawn over her face once or twice dur- 
 ing the seance. 
 
 " The medium was dressed in a high gown of light blue me- 
 rino. During nearly the whole of the seance, while Katie was 
 before us, the curtain was drawn back and all could clearly 
 see the sleeping medium, who did not stir from her original 
 position, but lay quite still, her face being covered with a red 
 shawl to keep light from it. There was a good light during 
 the entire seance. 
 
 "Katie talked about her approaching departure, and ac- 
 cepted a bouquet which Mr. Tapp brought her, also some 
 bunches of lilies from Mr. Crookes. 
 
 "All the sitters in the circle clustered closely round her. 
 Katie asked Mr. Tapp to take the bouquet to pieces, and lay 
 the flowers out before her on the floor ; she then sat down, 
 Eastern fashion, and asked all to draw around her, which was 
 done, most of those present sitting on the floor at her feet. 
 She then divided the flowers into bunches for each, tying 
 them up with blue ribbon. She also wrote parting notes to 
 some of her friends, signed ' Annie Owen Morgan/ which she 
 stated was her real name when in earth-life. She wrote a 
 note for her medium, and selected a fine rosebud for her as a 
 parting gift. 
 
 " Katie then took a pair of scissors and cut off a quantity of 
 
TESTIMONY OF MRS. ROSS-CHURCH. 105 
 
 her hair, giving everybody present a liberal portion. She 
 then took the arm of Mr Crookes and walked all round the 
 room, shaking hands with each. She again sat down and dis- 
 tributed some of her hair ; and also cut off and presented sev- 
 eral pieces of her robe and veil. . . . 
 
 "She then appeared tired, and said reluctantly that she 
 must go, as the power was failing, and bade farewell in the 
 most affectionate way. The sitters all wished her God speed, 
 and thanked her for the wonderful manifestations she had 
 given. Looking once more earnestly at her friends she let 
 the curtain fall and she was seen no more. She was heard to 
 wake up the medium, who tearfully entrpated her to stay a 
 little longer, but Katie said, ' My dear, I can't. My work is 
 done. God bless you,* and we heard the sound of her parting 
 kiss. The medium then came out among us, looking much 
 exhausted and deeply troubled. 
 
 " Katie said that she should never be able to speak or show 
 her face again ; that she had had a weary and sad three years' 
 life ' working off her sins ' in producing these physical mani- 
 festations, and that she was about to rise higher in spirit- life. 
 At long intervals she might be able to communicate with her 
 medium by writing, but at any time her medium might be en- 
 abled to see her clairvoyantly t>y being mesmerized." 
 
 Mrs. Ross-Church (Florence Marryat), who had been pres- 
 ent at three of Katie's last seances, on the 9th, 13th and 21st 
 of May, 1874, in a letter to the London Spiritualist, wrote as 
 follows : 
 
 11 1 will not recapitulate what so many have told of the ap- 
 pearance of the spirit * Katie King,' nor of the means taken to 
 prevent any imposition on the part of her medium. This has 
 all been repeated again and again, and as often disbelieved. 
 But I find Serjeant Cox, in his late letter on the subject of 
 Miss Showers's mediumship, saying that could such an end 
 be attained as a simultaneous sight of the apparition outside 
 the curtain and the medium within, 'the most wonderful fact 
 the world has ever witnessed would be established beyond 
 controversy.' Perhaps Serjeant Cox would consider a sight 
 of both medium and spirit in the same room and at the same 
 time as convincing a proof of stern truth, I have seen that 
 sight. 
 
 "On the evening of the 9th of May, Katie King led me, at 
 my own request, into the room with her beyond the curtain, 
 which was not so dark but that 1 could distinguish surround- 
 ing objects, and then made me kneel down by Miss Cook's 
 prostrate form, and feel her hands and face and head of curls, 
 whilst she (the spirit) held my other hand in hers, and leaned 
 against my shoulder, with one arm around my neck. 
 
 "I have not the slightest doubt that upon that occasion 
 there were present with me two living, breathing intelli- 
 gences, perfectly distinct from each other, so far at least as 
 their bodies were concerned. If my senses deceived me ; if I 
 was misled by imagination or mesmeric influence into belie v- 
 
106 TESTIMONY OF MRS. BOSS CHURCH. 
 
 ing that I touched and felt two bodies, instead of one ; if 
 'Katie King,' who grasped, and embraced, and spoke to 
 me, is a projection of thought only — a will-power — an in- 
 stance of unknown force — then it will be no longer pos- 
 sible to know 'Who 's who, in 1874,' and we shall hesitate to 
 turn up the gas incautiously, lest half our friends should 
 be but projections of thought, and melt away beneath its 
 glare. 
 
 "Whatever Katie King was on the evening of the 9th of 
 May, she was not Miss Cook. To that fact I am ready to 
 take my most solemn oath. She repeated the same experi- 
 ment with me on the 13th, and on that occasion we had the 
 benefit of mutual sight also, as the whole company were in- 
 vited to crowd around the door whilst the curtain was with- 
 drawn and the gas turned up to the full, in order that we 
 might see the medium, in her blue dress and scarlet shawl, 
 lying in a trance on the floor, whilst the white-robed spirit 
 stood beside her. 
 
 "On the 21st, however, the occasion of Katie's last appear- 
 ance amongst us, she was good enough to give me what I con- 
 sider a still more infallible proof (if one could be needed) of 
 the distinction of her identity from that of her medium. 
 When she. summoned me in my turn to say a few words to 
 her behind the curtain, I again saw and touched the warm, 
 breathing body of Floience Cook lying on the floor, and then 
 stood upright by the side of Katie, who desired me to place 
 my hands inside the loose single garment which she wore, and 
 feel her nude body. I did so, thoroughly. 
 
 "I felt her heart beating rapidly beneath my hand ; and 
 passed my fingers through her long hair to satisfy myself that 
 it grew from her head, and can testify that if she be ' of psy- 
 chic force,' psychic force is very like* a woman. 
 
 "Katie was very busy that evening. To each of her friends 
 assembled to say good by, she gave a bouquet of flowers tied 
 up with ribbon, 'a piece of her dress and veil, and a lock of her 
 hair, and a note which she wrote with her pencil before us. 
 Mine was as follows! 'From Annie Owen de Morgan {alias 
 Katie King) to her friend, Florence Marry at Ross- Church, 
 with love. Pensez a moi. May 21st, 1874.' I must not forget 
 to relate what appeared to me to be one of the most convinc- 
 ing i^roofs of Katie's more than natural power, namely, that 
 when she had cut, before our eyes, twelve or fifteen different 
 pieces of cloth from the front of her white tunic, as souvenirs 
 for her friends, there was not a hole to be seen in it, examine 
 it which way you would. It was the same with her veil, and 
 I have seen her do the same thing several times. 
 
 "1 think if in the face of all this testimony that has been 
 brought before them, the faithless and unbelieving still credit 
 Miss Cook with the superhuman agility required to leap from 
 the spirit's dress into her own like a flash of lightning, they 
 will hardly suppose her capable of re- weaving the material of 
 her clothing in the same space of time. If they can believe 
 that, they will not find the spiritualistic doctrine so hard a nut 
 to crack afterwards. But I did not take up my pen to argue 
 this point, but simply to relate what occurred to myself." 
 
PHOTOGRAPHS OF KATIE. 107 
 
 During the week before Katie took her departure, she gave 
 seances at Mr. Crookes's house almost nightly, to enable him 
 to photograph her by artificial light. In a letter dated July 
 21st, 1874, and enclosing two photographs, he writes me : 
 " You may be interested in seeing one of my photographs of 
 Katie, as she stood holding my arm ; also one in which she is 
 standing by herself." In the former of these the person of 
 Katie, nearly to her ankles, dressed in her white robe, is 
 taken ; in the other, not quite so much of the figure is seen. 
 In both photographs, the drapery is gracefully disposed ; the 
 countenance is placid, and the features finely formed, though 
 it might not require much imagination to discover in tbeir gen- 
 eral expression a spectral look ; the figure has all the distinct- 
 ness of a veritable human being, there being nothing shadowy 
 in the outlines. 
 
 Taken in his own laboratory, and under conditions the 
 most satisfactory and unquestionable, these and some forty 
 other photographs which he took, some inferior, some indif- 
 ferent, and some excellent, confirmed all the previous tests 
 which Mr. Crookes had got of the genuineness of the phe- 
 nomenon. Frequently, at his own house, he would follow 
 Katie into the cabinet, and would sometimes see her and her 
 medium together, though generally he would find nobody but 
 the entranced medium lying on the floor, Katie and her white 
 robes having instantaneously disappeared. 
 
 During a period of six months Miss Cook was a frequent 
 visitor at Mr. Crookes's house, remaining there sometimes a 
 week at a time. She would bring nothing but a little hand- 
 bag, not locked. During the day she would be constantly in 
 the presence of Mrs. or Mr. Crookes, or some other member 
 of his family ; and, not sleeping by herself, there was no con- 
 ceivable opportunity for any fraudulent preparation. 
 
 " It was a common thing," says Mr. Crookes, "for the 
 seven or eight of us in the laboratory to see Miss Cook and 
 Katie at the same time under the full blaze of the electric 
 light. We did not on these occasions actually see th e face of 
 the medium, because of the shawl (which had been thrown 
 
108 MR. CROOKES'S TESTIMONY. 
 
 over to prevent the light from falling on the face), but we 
 saw her hands and feet, we saw her move uneasily under the 
 influence of the intense light, and we heard her moan occa- 
 sionally. I have one photograph of the two together, but 
 Katie is seated in front of Miss Cook's head." 
 
 On one occasion Mr. Crookes was photographed with Katie, 
 she having her bare foot on a particular part of the floor ; 
 their relative height was ascertained. Mr. Crookes was then 
 photographed with Miss Cook under precisely similar condi- 
 tions, and while the two photographs of himself coincide ex- 
 actly in stature, etc., Miss Cook's figure is found to be half a 
 head shorter than Katie's, and looks small in comparison. 
 
 " Photography," adds Mr. Crookes, " is as inadequate to 
 depict the perfect beauty of Katie's face, as words are power- 
 less to describe her charms of manner. Photography may, 
 indeed, give a map of her countenance ; but how can it re- 
 produce the brilliant purity of her complexion, or the ever- 
 varying expression of her most mobile features, now overshad- 
 owed with sadness when relating some of the bitter experi- 
 ences of her past life, now smiling with all the innocence of 
 happy girlhood when she had collected my children around 
 her, and was amusing them by recounting anecdotes of her 
 adventures in India." 
 
 The following particulars given by Mr. Crookes, as to the 
 differences between Katie and the medium, will be found of 
 interest : 
 
 " Having seen so much of Katie lately, when she has been 
 illuminated by the electric light, I am enabled to add to the 
 points of difference between her and her medium which I 
 mentioned in a former article. I have the most absolute cer- 
 tainty that Miss Cook and Katie are two separate individuals 
 as far as their bodies are concerned. Several little marks or 
 Miss Cook's face are absent on Katie's. Miss Cook's hair is 
 so dark a brown as almost to appear black ; a lock of Katie's 
 which is now before me, which she allowed me to cut from 
 her luxuriant tresses, having first traced it up to the scalp 
 and satisfied myself that it actually grew there, is a rich 
 golden auburn. 
 
 " On one evening I timed Katie's pulse. It beat steadily at 
 75, while Miss Cook's pulse, a little time after, was going at 
 its usual rate of 90. On applying my ear to Katie's chest I 
 could hear a heart beating rhythmically inside, and pulsating 
 
MR. CROOKES'S TESTIMONY. 109 
 
 even more steadily than did Miss Cook's heart when she al- 
 lowed me to try a similar experiment after the seance. Test- 
 ed in the same way, Katie's lungs were found to be sounder 
 than her medium's, for at the time I tried my experiment 
 Miss Cook was under medical treatment for a severe cough." 
 
 Of the final parting of Miss Cook and Katie, Mr. Crookes 
 
 "Having concluded her directions, Katie invited me into 
 the cabinet with her, and allowed me to remain there to the 
 end. After closing the curtain she conversed with me for 
 some time, and then walked across the room to where Miss 
 Cook was lying senseless on the floor. Stooping over her, 
 Katie touched her and said, ' Wake up, Florrie, wake up ! I 
 must leave you now.' Miss Cook then woke and tearfully 
 entreated Katie to stay a little time longer. ' My dear, I can't ; 
 my work is done. God bless you !' replied Katie, and then 
 continued speaking to Miss Cook. For several minutes the 
 two were conversing with each other, till at last Miss Cook's 
 tears prevented* her speaking. Following Katie's instruc- 
 tions, I then came forward to support Miss Cook, who was 
 falling on to the floor, sobbing hysterically. 1 looked around, 
 but the white-robed Katie had gone. As soon as Miss Cook 
 was sufficiently calmed a light was procured and I led her out 
 of the cabinet." 
 
 Thus ended this extraordinary series of seances, verifying 
 the stupendous fact of the power of spirits to manifest them- 
 selves in a temporarily materialized human form. To Miss 
 Cook's honesty and good faith Mr. Crookes bears witness in 
 the strongest terms. Every test he proposed she readily sub- 
 mitted to ; she was open and straightforward in speech, and 
 never did he see in her conduct anything approaching the 
 slightest symptom of a wish to deceive. 
 
 " To imagine," he says, " that a school-girl of fifteen should 
 be able to conceive and then successfully carry out for three 
 years so gigantic an imposture as this, and in that time should 
 submit to any tests which might be imposed upon her, should 
 bear the strictest scrutiny, should be willing to be searched 
 at any time, either before or after a seance, and should meet 
 with even better success in my own house than at that of her 
 parents, knowing that she visited me with the express object 
 of submitting to strict scientific tests— to imagine, I say, the 
 * Katie King ' of the last three years to be the result of im- 
 posture—does more violence to one's reason and common 
 sense than to believe her to be what she herself affirms." 
 
110 IMMORTALITY. 
 
 When to these considerations is added the fact that the 
 phenomena through Miss Cook have been recently paralleled 
 and even surpassed by numerous similar well-attested phe- 
 nomena, not only in England, but in America, what escape 
 is there from the conclusion that they are wholly inexplicable 
 under any theory of imposture or delusion ? 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 By immortality I mean that exemption from death, of which 
 we have the assurance in the spiritual body as a ground of 
 continuous life. The spiritual organism is demonstrated not 
 merely in the proof palpable, presented in the appearance of 
 spirits in the human form, and by the attestations of spirits 
 and mediums, but in the facts of clairvoyance, showing pow- 
 ers in the human being independent of the corresponding 
 physical organs and requiring other and supersensual organs.* 
 
 Proofs of a future existence do not necessarily involve 
 proofs of a perpetual existence. A discussion of the latter is 
 not pertinent to my present purpose. But I may here remark 
 that faith in our own everlastingness must depend largely on 
 faith in the eternity of a supreme benign intelligence whence 
 comes "the order of the universe. 
 
 If we are at the mercy of blind, unconscious cosmic forces, 
 of a mere "orrery," in the working of which neither mind 
 nor love is active, we may feel, in the next stage of being as 
 well as in this, that life is no assured possession. But to this 
 subject I hope to return before I close. 
 
 The phenomena being admitted as actual and genuine, is it 
 consistent with the laws of science to seek their cause ? 
 
 "Of the efficient causes of phenomena," says J. S. Mill, 
 
 * For an abundance of facts proving: clairvoyance, prevision, and many 
 other supersensual phenomena, see • k Planchette, the Despair of Science, ' • 
 by Epes Sargent. Boston: Roberts Brothers. It has not been thought 
 necessary to repeat these facts in the present work. 
 
PHENOMENON AND CAUSE. Ill 
 
 "or whether any such causes exist, I am not called upon to 
 give an opinion." 
 
 Mr. Mill acknowledges empirical causes only. 
 
 Well : the phenomena of Spiritualism force upon us the ques- 
 tion of empirical causes ; of causes fairly within the domain of 
 science and experiment. When a solid figure in the human 
 form, clothed and manifesting life and intelligence, melts 
 away and disappears, and subsequently re-forms, before our 
 sight, surely the phenomenon is one, the consideration of the 
 cause of which is a legitimate inquiry of science. The philos- 
 ophy of experience is the last which should deny this declara- 
 tion ; for to refuse to admit that there may be an empirical 
 cause for the phenomenon in this case is purely an a priori as- 
 sumption, to fall back on which is to abandon the whole 
 philosophy of experience. 
 
 As the testimony in support of this amazing phenomenon 
 cannot be too complete, I will quote, in addition to what I 
 have already given, a description of their experiences by two 
 highly competent witnesses. The first, Mr. A. B. Crosby, of 
 Gold Hill, North Carolina, is, as I learn from my friend and 
 neighbor John Wetherbee, a man scientifically educated, a 
 graduate of Waterville College, and a careful observer. He 
 writes to Mr. W., under date of August 7th, 1874, the follow- 
 ing very clear and concise description of the phenomenon : 
 
 "I stopped on my way, at Philadelphia, and while there I 
 saw the ' Katie King ' manifestation, at No. 50 North Ninth 
 street. There were about thirty persons present at the se- 
 ance. The cabinet was a wooden partition across one corner 
 of the room, the carpet of which extended to the extreme cor- 
 ner. There was a door in the partition and two apertures. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, the mediums, sat outside the cabinet, 
 and next to it, and were both in sight all the time. It is ne- 
 cessary for you to remember that, and also that the room was 
 light enough all the time to see distinctly the persons present 
 — about thirty. They sat in the form of a horse shoe, at each 
 end of which sat a medium, which would be at each side 
 of the cabinet. After some music and singing— about twenty 
 minutes — we saw two delicate hands appear at the aperture 
 over the door, then a face, rather dim, at the other aperture. 
 After a short time, devoted to gathering strength from the 
 circle, the door of the cabinet opened and a beautiful young 
 lady, dressed in white, with a dark girdle and slippers, walked 
 out into the centre of this circle. She had in her hands bou- 
 
112 MORE TESTIMONY 
 
 quets of flowers, which she held to the noses of many of the 
 audience. She spoke to several in a weak voice. She went 
 into and out of the cabinet several times ; finally, she retired 
 to the door of the cabinet and disappeared, gradually, until only 
 a bright spot could be seen on the carpet. In less tlian a minute 
 she began to reappear, and in a short time walked out into the 
 room apparently a veritable living person, as palpable as you 
 or I ; I think, for the time we saw her, that she was flesh, like 
 us. I thought her person had a slight phosphorescent glow, 
 because the shadows of the folds of her dress were very feeble, 
 more of the character of a diffused light. I cannot conceive 
 of what I saw being any trick ; I know it was not, and you 
 know what that means when 1 say it, and I am now a Spirit- 
 ualist." 
 
 Dr. Raue, of Philadelphia, a physician of the highest stand- 
 ing, was present at the seance of August 9th, 1874. He as- 
 sured himself by a close examination that there was no inlet or 
 outlet to the cabinet. The two mediums remained outside 
 among the spectators. After some music the curtains of the 
 holes in the partition were raised, and several hands became 
 visible. Soon a whole arm appeared, and as in salutation was 
 waved to and fro in a graceful manner. Katie shook hands 
 from the window with those who went up to it. She talked, 
 too, repeatedly ; for instance, she answered the question of 
 " How do you like the present company?" by "I '11 tell you 
 after awhile ;" and, later, " I love you all." At another time 
 she said, " I feel now as natural as when I was in earth-life." 
 Her voice was mild and somewhat whispering. Of her issu- 
 ing from the cabinet in a full materialized form, Dr. R. says : 
 
 "The door opened and Katie appeared, slowly moving her 
 hands, as though saluting or declaiming, and clad in a taste- 
 ful white robe, and a mantilla of gauze or lace. Her waist 
 was encircled by a belt, fastened with a gold clasp or 
 buckle. At her throat appeared a gold cross, or similar orna- 
 ment. Afterwards she emerged entirely from the closet, sat 
 down upon a chair next to Mrs. Holmes, rose and receded 
 slowly into the closet again. 
 
 " The question was then put to her whether she could not 
 show us how she materialized herself, and was again answer- 
 ed by * I will try/ After awhile the door of the closet open- 
 ed once more, and we saw, in the right corner of it, a kind of 
 gray mist, or cloud, from which, within a short time, Katie's 
 whole figure was developed in a wonderful manner. Her dis- 
 appearance was similar : it was a gradual fading and dissolv- 
 ing. The white figure teas not illumined by external light, but 
 had a peculiar blueish-white and brilliant splendor, that seemed 
 to come from within. I do not believe that any mixture ol 
 
THE PROOF PALPABLE. 113 
 
 earthly colors would be able to produce the same effect The 
 gold of the belt-buckle and the necklace appeared more gold- 
 en than the finest gold." 
 
 Here was a proof palpable— but of what ? Surely of im- 
 mortal spirit, whether we call it psychic force, or independ- 
 ent spirit power. Admitting that there was no delusion — 
 and the reader who has carefully weighed the testimony I 
 have adduced will hardly adopt so insufficient a theory as 
 that of fraud or deception — what can it be but an intelligence 
 and a will, exercising, throtigh some centripetal and centrifu- 
 gal use of the invisible constituents of matter, the astonishing 
 power of materializing and de-materializing a human form 
 with its appropriate clothing ? 
 
 An intelligence and a will ! And this intelligence pro- 
 claims itself a spirit! And this will proves the claim by 
 causing an animated body in human shape to vanish and re- 
 appear ! If such a power does not answer the full significa- 
 tion which men in all ages have attached to the word spirit, 
 as representative of the life of a man after the dissolution of 
 his earth-body, I am at a loss to know what further evidence 
 can be given under the present limitations of our human fac- 
 ulties. 
 
 But this spirit, we are told, is very unspiritual, and does 
 not always speak the truth. 
 
 If a man having the Caucasian features and form, and 
 speaking our language, were cast upon our shores from the 
 sea, we should readily take his word for it that he was an es- 
 caped English or American mariner. He might prove in 
 many other things untruthful and inconsistent, but we should 
 have little doubt that he was a man, and of a certain nation- 
 ality. 
 
 So when a man in the human form presents himself as a 
 materialized spirit, and proves it, not only by the intelligence 
 of his conversation and acts, but by dissolving and re-con- 
 creting his corporeal envelope before our eyes, and by mani- 
 festing his powers, in other ways, as invisible force and intel- 
 ligence, surely we have here a proof palpable, which no mis- 
 representations or mistakes, on his part, in regard to other 
 8 
 
114 MR. OWEN'S TESTIMONY. 
 
 questions, could impair, that he is what he claims to be, 
 namely, what we understand by a spirit. 
 
 Skepticism, it is true, can find room for cavil even here, but 
 so it can find room to cavil at the reality of our own terres- 
 trial existence ; and yet we go on, and eat, drink, sleep, 
 think, and enjoy ourselves, in spite of all the subtleties by 
 which it would prove that we are under a mistake. 
 
 That the phenomena have a cause, must be conceded as a 
 postulate of human reason. The theories of imposture and 
 delusion being dismissed, what sufficient cause can be assign- 
 ed but that which the spirits themselves bear witness to, and 
 that which human experience, in all ages of the world and 
 among all tribes and nations, has accepted? 
 
 Although in December, 1874, charges of fraud were brought 
 against Mr. and Mrs. Holmes, in consequence of which Mr. 
 Owen and Dr. Child withdrew their confidence, the phe- 
 nomena through Mrs. Holmes were satisfactorily tested 
 throughout the year 1875, not only by Messrs. Lippitt and 
 Olcott, but by Mr. J. M. Roberts, all gentlemen personally 
 known to me. A Mrs. White, instigated, it is believed, by 
 persons wishing to throw discredit on the phenomena, de- 
 clared that she had been engaged by Mr. Holmes to play the 
 part of Katie King. That she stood for a photograph of 
 the spirit was true. Certain letters in Mr. Holmes's hand- 
 writing, which were not at first satisfactorily explained, gave 
 color to her other claims. But it was in the end conclusively 
 proved : first, that Mrs. White's word was entitled to no 
 credit ; secondly, that the manifestations could be produced 
 without her or any other confederate ; and thirdly, that the 
 evidences of fraud were incomplete. For these reasons, and 
 because the testimony of Mr. Crosby and Dr. Raue has not 
 been retracted, I have allowed it to stand as it appeared in 
 the first edition of this work. Even Mr. Owen, after with- 
 drawing the testimony he had given in behalf of the phe- 
 nomena, declared that "the Holmes case, instead of disprov- 
 ing or casting doubt upon the phenomenon of materialization, 
 does prove it conclusively." 
 
ME. KELSO'S TESTIMONY. 115 
 
 The Holmes case made a great noise at the time, and was 
 looked upon by the larger part of the uninformed public as 
 invalidating all the phenomena ; but it owed its importance 
 to the reputation of Mr. Owen as a public man of tried in- 
 tegrity and an author of note. He had testified so earnestly 
 to the facts that, although he remained as firm a believer as 
 ever in the truth involved, the hostile newspapers, when he re- 
 pudiated the manifestations in this single case, were jubilant 
 over the event, and it was regarded as conclusive even against 
 Spiritualism itself. Subsequent developments have shown 
 how unwarrantable and exaggerated was the importance 
 given to the affair. The materialization phenomena have so 
 multiplied, have grown to be so complex and common, that 
 the detection in fraud of any one medium, however conspicu- 
 ous, cannot invalidate the general fact. 
 
 As our experience in dealing with these novel phenomena 
 increases, moreover, we begin to learn that susceptible me- 
 diums, through sinister mesmeric influences exerted upon 
 them either by operating spirits or by persons in a circle, may 
 automatically do things which unskilled investigators at once 
 set down as frauds sufficient to invalidate all proofs, however 
 ample, of previous genuine phenomena. 
 
 These considerations may explain why it is that there are 
 so few mediums who have not, at some time in their career, 
 been charged with imposture. 
 
 Under date of Terre Haute, Ind., Oct. 27th, and Nov. 10th, 
 1875, Mr. Isaac Kelso, a well-known Unitarian clergyman, 
 and an experienced student of the phenomena, gives an ac- 
 count of a sitting, at which Mrs. Anna Stewart was the me- 
 dium. He says : 
 
 " The light is turned down, but not so far as to make it pos- 
 sible lor any confederate to enter the cabinet without being 
 seen. By and- by one wing of the cabinet door slowly opens, 
 and out steps a slight but beautiful figure, robed in pure white 
 garments, looking a giilof about seventeen ; not quite so tall 
 as the medium, but with a step more elastic. Pausing an in- 
 stant near the threshold, she says, 'Good evening,' in the 
 softest imaginable tones, then, turning round, throws open 
 the other wing of the cabinet door, showing us the medium 
 sitting in a chair, apparently asleep, and deadly pale." 
 
116 THE PEOOF PALPABLE. 
 
 A stranger suggested to Mr. Kelso that it was a deception; 
 whereupon the entranced medium lifted her arm and waved 
 a white handkerchief. "Ah, the thing is a machine, moved 
 by wires," persisted the skeptic in an undertone. Going at 
 once to the medium the figure in white raised her to her feet, 
 brought her out of the cabinet, and stood side by side with 
 her. After describing a second apparition, that of a tall male 
 figure, Mr. Kelso resumes : 
 
 "Finally the figure in white came out again. I requested 
 her to give us the best proof she could that she was not a 
 mortal like ourselves. Alter expressing a willingness to try, 
 she called for a pair of scissors, which, being furnished, she 
 handed to me ; then kneeling down before me, requested that 
 I should cut a lock of hair from her head. . . . The ap- 
 parition threw her long raven tresses forward, allowing me to 
 make my own selection. Cutting off a large lock, close to 
 the scalp', I drew it carelully through my hand, then passed it 
 to others ; it was handed round ; perhaps a dozen persons ex- 
 amined it ; alter this it was returned to the apparition, who 
 remained in her kneeling posture close by me. Taking the 
 hair into her hands, she stretched it out, laid it on a white 
 handkerchief right under my eyes, and in full view of all the 
 company, theniolded the handkerchief over it. Having done 
 this, she retired within the cabinet and closed the door, which 
 placed her at the distance of at least nine feet from the hair. 
 
 4i While the door was yet closed the handkerchief deliber- 
 ately unfolded as if lifted by invisible fingers, and the hair 
 began to move. I now placed the fingers of my right hand 
 upon the carpet, slowly and carefully sweeping them entirely 
 round the handkerchief, thus making it doubly sure that no 
 fine thread or wire connected the hair in any way with the 
 being from whose head I had clipped it. Very soon the lock 
 of hair bounded from the handkerchief on to the carpet, and 
 began moving toward the cabinet. Before it reached the 
 threshold the apparition opened the door and came out. The 
 hair leaped upon her white skirt, and slowly climbed to her 
 shoulder ; thence it sprang to her crown, and seemed to plant 
 itself upon the very spot from which it had been taken.' ' 
 
 A lady of my acquaintance, Mrs. H. B. Webster, a daugh- 
 ter of Croly, the poet, author of "Catiline," &c, after de- 
 scribing some phenomena that took place in Florence, Italy 
 (July, 1874), through the mediumship of Mr. D. D. Home, 
 remarks as follows : 
 
 " One asks one's self, of what nature can be the eyes and 
 ears and the flesh and blood of the individual who can see 
 eight or ten hands come out from under his own dining- 
 cloth, while the hands of every visible individual present are 
 staring him in the face, and can feel the living pressure of 
 
CKEDULITY OF SKEPTICISM. 117 
 
 the flexible human fingers clasping him, and question for a 
 single instant what they are? True it is that there are per- 
 sons, clever and intelligent in all other respects, who, when 
 their prejudices or preconceived ideas are thwarted, seem to 
 have the faculty of shutting their eyes to all facts, and their 
 minds to all logic, no matter how palpable. Thus a very dis- 
 tinguished and gifted Englishman told me the other evening, 
 in the presence of several others, that at a seance with Mr. 
 Home a hand and arm projecting from a white cloud de- 
 scended from above in the full view of seven or eight per- 
 sons, and first touching Mr. Home's head, then touched him- 
 self on the forehead. 'But/ said the gentleman in con- 
 clusion, ' What does that prove? The hand might have been 
 & force. Who assures me it came from a spirit?' To argu- 
 ing of this description there is no answer possible, except, 
 perhaps, that of Mr. Home himself, who remarked that in 
 such a case we may all be, ourselves, nothing but forces also!' 1 
 
 Home's reply is apt and sufficient. To suppose that a mere 
 force, independent of the will or knowledge of the medium 
 exercising it, announcing itself as a distinct individuality 
 and conducting like one, and yet nothing all the while but an 
 emanation from the medium, can go forth from the latter, in- 
 carnate itself partially or wholly, clothe itself appropriately 
 and instantaneously in garments woven apparently out of 
 nothingness, converse, argue, sing, walk, dance, write, play 
 on instruments, and then suddenly vanish, while the medi- 
 um, in the possession of all his faculties, is looking on and 
 believing it a separate personality— is obviously to suppose 
 something far more miraculous and incredible than a direct 
 manifestation by a returning spirit. 
 
 It may be asked : " Under the theory of a spiritual body co- 
 existent with the natural, may not the spirit of a person still 
 in the earth-life manifest itself thus objectively?" That it can 
 do so we have good reason to believe ; but if it can thus separate 
 itself from the living earth-body, why should the dissolution 
 of the latter limit the spirit's power of manifestation ? Ought 
 not its power to be increased rather than diminished by the 
 severing of a tie which must be more a limitation than a 
 help? 
 
 The proof palpable of immortality is the culmination of 
 other cognate proofs, in themselves a sufficient assurance of 
 the existence in man of a supersensual, spiritual nature. 
 
118 PHENOMENAL PROOFS. 
 
 Death is not disorganization, but change. The caterpilla* 
 does not lose himself in passing to the butterfly, neither does 
 man lose himself in leaving a physical organism for a spirit- 
 ual. 
 
 There is undoubtedly a force, call it psychic, odic, or spirit- 
 ual, which is a property of man's duplicate organism. It 
 may be manifested in various ways during the earth-life of 
 the individual ; it may be the agent in many phenomena not 
 explicable by the agency of the normal powers of terrestrial 
 man; but there is a large class of phenomena which are 
 more rationally explained by the intervention of spirits that 
 have parted from their mortal bodies. 
 
 The testimony of the spirits themselves and of entranced 
 and clairvoyant mediums, from whose organisms they bor- 
 row a certain power facilitating manifestation, must carry 
 some weight ; nor is the fact that both spirits and mediums 
 are fallible and often deceptive, sufficient to impair wholly 
 the value of such assurance. 
 
 But apart from this testimony, we have all the proof that 
 our senses can give, and in addition, the proofs of an intelli- 
 gence and a power that cannot be credited to our known and 
 normal faculties. 
 
 Mrs. Louisa Andrews, from whose testimony in regard to the 
 materialization phenomena I have already quoted, records the 
 following incident : "At a late sitting in Moravia, where 
 there were many in the circle anxiously hoping to see friends 
 and relatives, a young man appeared whom no one knew. 
 After showing himself for a moment, he spoke, giving his 
 name as Freeman Kelly. No one recognized the name or the 
 face. He then spoke again with apparent effort, saying, ' I 
 passed away in Ithaca ;' and he added, in a low but very im- 
 pressive voice, 'Let all men know that this is true' 
 
 "On my return to Ithaca, I found, on inquiry, that a man 
 bearing this name, and described as resembling the spirit we 
 had seen, died last spring (1872). He had promised some 
 friends living in this place that if he should go first, and if 
 spirit returns were possible, he would come and testify to the 
 
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL PROOFS. 119 
 
 fact. These friends were not present when he redeemed his 
 promise, but received his communication through the lips of 
 those who heard it." 
 
 Dr. Edwin Lee, in his " Report upon the Phenomena of 
 Clairvoyance" (London, 1843), mentions the case of the pre- 
 diction of the death of the King of Wurtemberg by two differ- 
 ent somnambulists; the one having foretold the event four 
 years beforehand ; the other, in the spring of the same year 
 having mentioned the exact day, in the month of October, as 
 also the disease (apoplexy). "The exact coincidence," says 
 Dr. Lee, " of the event with the predictions, is not doubted at 
 Stuttgard ; and a fortnight ago Dr. Klein, who is now in Eng- 
 land, accompanying the Crown Prince of Wurtemberg, hav- 
 ing been introduced to me, I took the opportunity of asking 
 him about the circumstance, which he acknowledged was as 
 has been stated, saying, moreover, that his father was physi- 
 cian to the King, who, on the morning of the day on wnich 
 the attack occurred, was in very good health and spirits." 
 
 Mr. Clark Irvine, a respectable lawyer of Oregon, Holt 
 County, Missouri, of whose visit to Dr. Slade I have already 
 spoken, in the third chapter of this work, writes me some 
 particulars of this and other experiences, which include some 
 noteworthy facts. He was wholly unknown to Dr. Slade, the 
 medium, and came upon him unprepared. While he sat in a 
 chair in the light and Dr. Slade sat at some distance from him, 
 Mr. Irvine felt an invisible spirit hand which he grasped. He 
 held on to it tightly, and the hand, after pulling violently, 
 gave a few spasmodic jerks and then seemed to melt away, his 
 fingers gradually closing together as though holding some dis- 
 solving substance. 
 
 While himself holding a slate close up under and against 
 the top of a small table, Mr. Irvine got "almost immediately, 
 with more than mortal speed, in writing," a communication 
 signed " Tour grandmother, Tabitha M. Irvine." If he had 
 ever known that she had an M in her name, he had surely for- 
 gotten it ; but on reference, some days after, to an old family 
 Bible he learnt that the M was correctly inserted. Bear in 
 
120 PHENOMENAL PROOFS. 
 
 mind that all the while the writing was going on, Slade was 
 sitting at some distance and did not even know the name of 
 his sitter. 
 
 While Mr. Irvine held an accordion, in broad daylight, in 
 such a way that he could look closely on the keys, the side of 
 the instrument opposite his hand began to be violently pulled 
 out and pushed back with great rapidity, the keys rose and 
 fell, and the tune of " Home, Sweet Home " was played. Mr. 
 1. could not himself play the instrument, nor could he have 
 even started the tune. Slade sat some distance opposite with 
 his hands clasped behind his head as a spectator. Mr. I. then 
 requested, mentally, that the tune should be changed to " Hail 
 Columbia," and this was done without a word having been 
 uttered. 
 
 " From the most positive disbelief in a future state/' writes 
 Mr. Irvine, " I was converted by the overwhelming tests I re- 
 ceived on this occasion . 
 
 " On the evening of the same day I visited Mr. Charles Fos- 
 ter. At his request, while he was in another room transact- 
 ing some business, I wrote down about twenty names of vari- 
 ous persons dead and alive, but among the names four of dear 
 friends deceased and much thought of, and folded the paper 
 closely up. I had given Foster my name on entering the 
 room. He placed his hand on the paper, and exclaimed, ' The 
 spirit of Leonard Bartlette is standing there. He says he is 
 an uncle of yours.' This was in truth one of the names I had 
 written, though why I should have done so was singular, as I 
 had not in many years thought of it. ' What was the cause of 
 his death?' 'He says he fell from his wagon.' ' That was 
 not so.' ' How then ?' ' ne was killed by a saw log rolling 
 down on to him as he was walking along a bank.' Foster 
 laughed. ■ What do you laugh at ?' ' Why, this spirit says he 
 himself was on the ground and knows all about it, and you 
 were nnt. Are you quite sure you are right?' ' Yes, as sure 
 as a man can be of things he gets from the report of friends.' 
 Some acquaintance of Foster's had entered during the seance ; 
 and this man now exclaimed : ' Charley, you old humbug, you 
 are caught this time, and I am glad of it.' Foster looked 
 serious and said: 'I can't h< Ip it; mistakes are made, and 
 lies are told, but ' And then brightening up, and speak- 
 ing with renewed confidence, he said: 'See here; this spirit 
 knows what he is about ; he is truthful ; you are wrong, and 
 he is right.' He then described the man's appearance accu- 
 rately, and asked me to learn if I were not in error. 
 
 "On returning to Missouri, I stopped in Ohio, and asked 
 my mother the cause of her brother Leonard's death. She re- 
 
MATERIALIZATIONS. 121 
 
 plied : ' Why, he fell from his wagon of course V After full 
 investigation it appeared that I had never heard a true ac- 
 count of the accident. It took place some twenty years ago, 
 when I was in Louisiana ; a friend wrote me there that my 
 uncle had been killed by a saw log, and this statement I had 
 never thought to question." 
 
 Whence, under the circumstances, could Foster, ignorant as 
 he was, have got his information if not from the spirit whose 
 appearance he accurately described ? 
 
 The Rev. Samuel Watson, of Tennessee, a well-known cler- 
 gyman and author, says (1874) : "In full daylight, at three 
 o'clock in the afternoon, I have seen the materialized spirit 
 forms of my former wife, with whom I had lived twenty-six 
 years ; and the father of my present wife, who had been a 
 Methodist preacher f and I saw a number of other spirits, 
 some of whom were also recognized as friends. I insist upon 
 the reality of these facts, and upon their value as indicating 
 the communion of the departed with those still on earth." 
 
 I have just had an interview (Sept. 2d, 1874) with the Rev. 
 R. S. Pope, of Hyannis, Mass., one. who in his very aspect and 
 presence brings the credentials of a man of ample intelligence 
 and perfect truthfulness He tells me that he was at Moravia 
 with his wife, both of them strangers to all the persons there, 
 and their very names unknown. They saw his mother and 
 his two sons, all deceased. The last two came night after 
 night every evening for a week. They spoke to him, they 
 proved their identity to the complete satisfaction of himself 
 and his wife. " I saw them," says Mr. Pope, " face to face as 
 distinctly as I see you now. They were visible to all the spec- 
 tators. There could be no delusion. It was a reality. My 
 mother, who came first, proclaimed to the company my name 
 (till then unknown to all) ; and my son Milton said, ' Preach 
 this truth when you go home '—thus revealing my profession. 
 My mother had on her head a cap of a luminous whiteness. 
 Solid light will best express its appearance." Mr. Pope was 
 a total disbeliever in Spiritualism when he went to Moravia. 
 He came home thoroughly convinced of its fundamental truth, 
 and he proclaimed his experiences publicly to his people. 
 Previous to sitting for the phenomena he had satisfied himself 
 
122 SENTIMENT AND FACT. 
 
 thoroughly, by examining the room and the cabinet, that no 
 human contrivance could produce the manifestations. In the 
 course of his. conversation with me, Mr. Pope said: <( As I 
 could not believe these things on any man's testimony, so I do 
 not ask you to believe them on mine." Three of his parishion- 
 ers, he told me, had been to Moravia and satisfied themselves 
 by similar objective phenomena of the survival of deceased 
 friends and relatives. 
 
 Facts like these, combining the proof palpable of immortal- 
 ity with these inductive proofs derived from the exhibition of 
 mental and physical powers wholly transcending all that is 
 known to belong to mortal man, must be considered in con- 
 nection with a vast collection of similar facts, attested by 
 many thousands of sincere, intelligent persons in all parts of 
 the world, not only at the present time especially, but in all 
 past times. 
 
 When so considered they lead irresistibly to the conviction 
 that the dissolution of the earth-body leaves a man unimpair- 
 ed in all those essential qualities and characteristics which 
 constitute his identity and his individuality. 
 
 If this view contradicts some of the exalted ideas we may 
 have formed of the spiritual state, let us not therefore shrink 
 from the facts. Mere sentiment will soon reconcile itself to 
 the actual. 
 
 " Suppose I do find the unseen to be the haunt of ungram- 
 matical ghosts," says Mr. St. George Stock, " what then? It 
 has its high life, I suppose, as well as its low. This world it- 
 self is vulgar or practical according to the light in which we 
 look at it. Do not reject well-attested narratives merely be- 
 cause they sound grotesque. He is not a faithful lover of 
 truth who would not go through dirt to meet her. ■ One vision 
 of her snowy feet is worth the labor of a life.' " 
 
 " True fortitude of understanding," says Paley, "consists 
 in not suffering what we know to be disturbed by what we do 
 not know. The uncertainty of one thing does not necessarily 
 affect the certainty of another thing. Our ignorance of many 
 points need not suspend our assurance of a few." 
 
EOBERT CHAMBERS'S THEORY. 123 
 
 This advice cannot be too closely pondered by Spiritualists. 
 The one great fact that they know must not be disturbed by 
 the innumerable questions which even a child's skepticism 
 can raise, and satisfactory answers to which cannot be readily 
 given. Remember that this is a rudimental stage of being, and 
 that we have all the future before us in which to think, study 
 and work. We have reached the sublime summit from which 
 we can surely see that man survives the corporeal dissolution. 
 Let that immense and ever- fertile truth enter into our convic- 
 tions, and possess them thoroughly, and help to shape our 
 every act, thought and affection, and we may well be content 
 to postpone all minor problems. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The late Robert Chambers, the well-known Scottish pub- 
 lisher and author, was a thoughtful investigator of the spirit- 
 ual phenomena. During his last visit to America, I introduced 
 him to the seances for physical manifestations, given by Miss 
 Jenny Lord,* and he was thoroughly satisfied as to their re- 
 markable and genuine character. 
 
 In his introduction to the autobiography of Mr, D. D. 
 
 * Now Mrs. J. "L. Webb, and resident in Cbicago. Sbe gives remark- 
 able tests of spirit power and identity. I have mvself received some 
 through her quite recently. Mr. S. S. Jones, of the Religio- Philosophical 
 Journal, relates the fo lowing: 'vOn the evening of June 13th, 1874, we 
 with others attended one of Mrs. Webb's seances. Through her medium- 
 ship a spirit wi I materialize a hand, and write byut visibly. During the 
 seance a spirit by our side wrote a communication on pap-^r, folded it np 
 and placed it in our hand. Immediately, another spirit controlling Mrs. 
 Webb's organs of speech, addressed us by name, saying, ' There is a spirit 
 standing behind you; he looks as i p he was seventy or eighty years old when 
 he died. Re was a large man and a mesmerizer. He it was who wrote 
 and placed the communication in your hand just now. ' We held it until 
 the gas was lighted, and then, to our jov, found it was from our old and 
 esteemed friend, Dr. Underbill " (with whom Mr. Jones had had some 
 slight differences of opinion, resulting in one or t.vo unkind letters and a 
 coldness, abe-ut a year before the doctor's decease). " It read as follows; 
 'Good evening, Mr. Jones. You will pard< n a few errors in the past. 
 You remember. Success to you. Samuel Uxderhill/ The commu- 
 nication was given under absolute tesn conditions, such as would admi t of 
 no fraud or collusion on the part of any person present, and not only that, 
 but no one present knew of any letters of unpleasantness having been re- 
 ceived from Dr. U. by us. " 
 
124 FACTS FOR INDUCTION. 
 
 Home, the well-known medium, Mr. Chambers has the fol« 
 lowing pregnant and suggestive remarks : u The idea is now 
 arising that the cause of the undiminished darkness overhang- 
 ing all that relates to a state of existence after this life, may 
 be, that the right track has never yet been entered on ; that the 
 facts really affording in this direction materials for induction 
 have hitherto been disregarded ; that they nevertheless abound ; 
 and that a higher enlightenment will cause attention to be 
 turned to them and reveal their profound significance." 
 
 How true is all this ! In ancient times, before the positive 
 and inductive sciences, which the nineteenth century has de- 
 veloped, had opened new realms of thought and discovery, 
 men hardly discriminated between the ordinary phenomena 
 of Nature and those which indicate a direct spirit origin. 
 Both classes of phenomena being equally mysterious to the 
 ignorant, a misleading superstition, fatal to all scientific pro- 
 gress, drew men away from the rational exploration and 
 study of occurrences indicating spirit power and prevision. 
 We must except such great thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Cice- 
 ro and Plutarch ; but the general scientific culture was not 
 sufficient to make their explanations level to the popular un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 In mediaeval times, when witchcraft was rampant, men 
 were no better off. A narrow but imperious theology, and a 
 state-craft, bound in priestly fetters, made it dangerous for a 
 man to prosecute researches into the "ill-famed land of the 
 marvelous." 
 
 If even in our own day so enlightened a man as Professor 
 Tyndall* is yet so besotted with prejudice as to attempt to warn 
 off investigators by denouncing Spiritualism as " degrading" 
 (as if the knowledge of any fact of God's universe were de- 
 grading /), how can we wonder at the persecution which 
 checked all rational inquiry into spiritual phenomena two 
 centuries ago ! 
 
 * " The overbearing minister of Nature," says the late Prof. DeMor. 
 
 ?;an. "who snaps you with unphilosophical 1 ' ' unscientific ! degradi- 
 ng ! "as the clergyman once frightened you with Infidel, is ^till a recog- 
 nized member of society, wants taming, and will get. it. He wears the 
 priest -8 cast-off garb, dyed to escape detection. ' ■ 
 
SCIENCE AND MEDIUMSHIP. 125 
 
 There truly has not been a time in the world's history till 
 now when it was wholly safe for a man to investigate the 
 facts, really affording, as Robert Chambers remarks, mate* 
 rials for induction in relation to a state of existence after this 
 life. 
 
 Bear in mind, and learn humility from the fact, ye scien- 
 tists of the year 1975, that, even in our day, the four leading 
 professors of Harvard University tried to put a stop to all in- 
 vestigation into these astounding and now established phe- 
 nomena by denouncing " any connection with spiritualistic 
 circles, so-called " as corrupting the morals and degrading the 
 intellect; as tending "to lessen the truth of man and the 
 purity of woman;" that Professor John Tyndall, as late as 
 1874, spoke of Spiritualism, (a veritable science, by the testi- 
 mony of such men as Wallace, Fichte, Flammarion, Yarley, 
 and Hare,) as " degrading ;" and that Professor T. H. Hux- 
 ley, as late as 1869, wrote a letter to the Dialectical Society, 
 in which he says : " Supposing the phenomena to be genuine, 
 they do not interest me." 
 
 If learned professors, in the full blaze of the science of the 
 iatter half of the nineteenth century can be so befogged by 
 their petty prejudices and preconceptions, as to try to blot out 
 the facts of Spiritualism, surely it will be easy for us to find 
 charity in our hearts for the clerical and legal authorities who 
 advocated the slaughter of witches, but little more than a cen- 
 tury ago ! 
 
 Before concluding the testimony of our day as to the materi- 
 alization phenomena, I must not omit an account of the Eddy 
 family. Some ten years ago I satisfied myself by personal 
 investigation of the genuineness of their mediumship, and my 
 convictions were not impaired by subsequent reports that two 
 of them had turned against Spiritualism, and were professing 
 to make antagonistic exposures. 
 
 It appears that in some Western town, finding themselves 
 utterly destitute of money and of the means of raising it, 
 friendless and longing for home, they were tempted by some 
 unscrupulous adviser to give exhibitions for the " exposure " 
 
L26 THE EDDY FAMILY. 
 
 of the phenomena of Spiritualism. This they did, and they 
 got audiences and funds from the foes of Spiritualism, which 
 they could not get from the friends. But the poor mediums 
 were as helpless as was the ancient heathen medium, Balaam, 
 when called upon to curse : "How shall I curse whom God 
 hath not cursed, or how shall I defy whom the Lord hath not 
 defied ?" 
 
 No one of the marvels wrought by spirits could be exposed 
 or explained by any practical exhibition of trick or skill on the 
 part of the two Eddys ; and those persons who had hoped to 
 see Spiritualism finally shown up and exploded, went home in 
 a sadder but wiser mood. 
 
 We must exercise the largest charity for the moral weak- 
 ness that led to such an attempt by the mediums. Only he 
 who has experienced the suffering of extreme destitution is 
 qualified to estimate their temptation. 
 
 In a letter to the N. Y. Sun, dated Chittenden, Vermont, 
 the village where the Eddy family reside, Sept. 2, 1874, Col. 
 Henry S. Olcott, a well-known journalist of New York, gives 
 an account which carries internal evidence of sincerity, com- 
 petency, and careful observation of the phenomena. The 
 diagram on the following page will give an idea of the room 
 where most of the occurrences which he relates took place. 
 
 The apartment is forty-eight by sixteen feet, with three 
 windows on each side. At the west end is a raised platform 
 the width of the room, about two feet high by four broad, 
 reached by three steps of about ten inches rise. Between the 
 kitchen chimney, which is in the middle, and the right hand 
 wall is a small cupboard or closet, lathed and plastered, with 
 a very narrow door, six feet and one inch high, opening from 
 the platform, and a single window for purposes of ventila- 
 tion. This closet is the cabinet in which the medium sits. A 
 light hand-rail runs from side to side of the room at the edge 
 of the platform. 
 
 The Eddy family, originally twelve in number, are now 
 reduced by marriage and death to five — three sons and two 
 daughters. The great-grandmother on the female side was 
 
COL. OLCOTTS STATEMENT. 
 
 127 
 
 
 condemned to death in Salem in 1692, for witchcraft. She es- 
 caped the gallows, however, by being rescued from the jail 
 by her friends. 
 
 I> 
 
 c 
 
 E 
 
 HI 
 
 IK 
 
 K 
 
 Kl | 
 
 B 
 
 I IK 
 
 A— Entrance door; B B B— Windows; C— Platform; D— Chimney; 
 E— Cabinet; F— Window; G— Chair where medium sits; H— Chair out- 
 side cabinet; I— Table; J— St ps; K K— Chairs; L L— Two benches; 
 M— Small stand on which a kerosene lamp stands. 
 
 Chittenden, where the Eddys reside, is seven miles north 
 from Kutland, and they live in a gloomy farm-house a cen- 
 tury old, shaded by trees whose dense foilage makes the dark 
 brown structure appear more sombre and inhospitable. 
 
 " There is nothing about the Eddys or their surroun dings," 
 says Col. Olcott, " to inspire confidence on first acquaintance. 
 The brothers Horatio and William, who are the present medi- 
 ums, are sensitive, distant, and curt to strangers, look more 
 like hard-working, rough farmers than prophets or priests of 
 a new dispensation, have dark complexions, black hair and 
 eyes, stiff joints, a clumsy carriage, shrink from advances, and 
 make new-comers feel ill at ease and unwelcome. The house 
 is dark, rough, and uninviting, the appurtenances of the 
 
128 THE EDDY FAMILY. 
 
 rudest, the astounding stories of what the Eddys do excite 
 suspicion and invite distrust, and it would not be strange if a 
 majority of persons attending only one seance should leave, 
 as did a gentleman who came here with me, persuaded that it 
 was a colossal humbug. 
 
 " I thought about as much myself at first, and it was not until 
 a second and third opportunity had been afforded me to enter 
 the circle room, to inspect the cabinet before and after the 
 performances, and I had informed myself from perfectly 
 trustworthy sources as to their antecedents, that I became 
 willing to put my name to this tale and say that, whatever 
 the source of the marvels may be, it is certainly not the chi- 
 canery or legerdermain of a pair of expert thaumaturgists. 
 It suffices to leave each to form his own doctrine and join with 
 Cicero, who in describing the different kinds of magic says : 
 1 What we have to do with is the facts, since of the cause we 
 know little. Neither are we to repudiate these phenomena, 
 because we sometimes find them imperfect.' " 
 
 Col. Olcott says : 
 
 ci The Eddys can get no servants to live in the house, and 
 so have to do all the housework— cooking, washing, and every- 
 thing—themselves, and as they charge nothing for seances, 
 and but $8 per week for board, there is small profit and much 
 work in taking boarders. They are at feud with some of 
 their neighbors, and as a rule not liked either in Rutland or 
 Chittenden. I am now satisfied, after a very careful sifting 
 of the matter, that this hostility and the ugly stories told about 
 them are the result of their repellant manners and the ill 
 name that their ghost-room has amoug a simple-minded, preju- 
 diced people, and not to any moral turpitude on the part of 
 the mediums. They are in fact under the ban of a public 
 opinion that is not prepared or desirous to study the phe- 
 nomena as either scientific marvels or revelations from an- 
 other world. 
 
 11 Many points noted in my memorandum book as throwing 
 suspicion upon the Eddys Iobmit, because upon sifting them 
 I found there was an easy explanation, and I cheerfully ad- 
 mit that my impressions of the brothers, as to their honesty 
 in the matter of the manifestations, as well as their personal 
 worth, have steadily improved sinee the first day. I am satis- 
 fied, moreover, that they have not the ability to produce them 
 if they should try, whicli they do not, nor the wardrobe nor pro- 
 perties requisite to clothe the multitude of forms (estimated at 
 over 2,000) that during the twelvemonth last past have 
 emerged from the cabinet and stalked the narrow platform. 
 
COL. OLCOTT'S STATEMENT. 129 
 
 " After some singing and dancing, the persons present at 
 the seance are invited to seat themselves on the benches, and 
 William Eddy hangs a thick shawl over the door of the cabi- 
 net, which he enters, and sits on the chair (Jr. The lamp is 
 turned down until only a dim light remains ; the sitters in 
 front join hands, and a violinist, placed at the extreme right 
 of the row and nearest the platform, plays on his instrument. 
 All is then anxious expectation. Presently the curtain stirs, 
 is pushed aside, and a form steps out and faces the audience. 
 
 "Seen in the obscurity, silent and motionless, appearing 5 n 
 the character of a visitor from beyond the grave, it is calcu- 
 lated to arouse the most intense feelings of awe and terror in 
 the minds of the timid ; but happily the idea is so incompre- 
 hensible, the supposition so unwarrantable, even absurd, that 
 at first most people choose to curiously inspect the thing as a 
 masquerading pleasantry on the part of the man they saw a 
 moment before enter the cabinet. That the window of his 
 closet is twenty feet from the ground ; that no ladder can be 
 found about the premises ; that there is no nook nor corner of 
 the house where a large wardrobe can be stored without de- 
 tection ; that the medium totally differs in every material par- 
 ticular from the majority of the phantoms evoked ; that the 
 family are barely rich enough to provide themsel.ves with the 
 necessaries of life, let alone a multitude of costly theatrical 
 properties, avails nothing, although everybody can satisfy 
 himself upon these points as I did. 
 
 "The first impression is that there is some trickery ; for to 
 think otherwise is to do violence to the world's traditions 
 from the beginning until now ; besides which the feeling of 
 terror is lessened by the apparition being seen by each person 
 in company with numerous other mortals like himself, and 
 the locked hands and touching shoulders on each side soon 
 beget confidence. If the shape is recognized it bows and re- 
 tires, sometimes after addressing words in an audible whis- 
 per or a natural voice, as the case may be, to its friends, 
 sometimes not. 
 
 "After an interval of two or three minutes the curtain is 
 again lifted, and another form, quite different in sex, gait, 
 costume, complexion, length and arrangement of hair, height 
 and breadth of body, and apparent age, comes forth, to be 
 followed in turn by others and others, until after an hour or 
 so the session is brought to a close, and the medium reappears 
 with haggard eyes and apparently much exhausted. 
 
 "In the three seances I have attended I have seen shapes 
 of Indian men* and women and white persons, old and 
 young, each in a different dress, to the number of thirty- two ; 
 and I am told by respectable persons who have been here a 
 long while that the number averages about twelve a night. 
 The Eddys have sat continuously for nearly a year, and'are 
 
 * ■' Quite a number of Indian spirits, " says Dr. Gr. E. Ditson, fc 'mate- 
 terialize themselves every night at the Eddys 1 : for Mrs. Eddy was, it is 
 said, a noble, generous-hearted woman, who cherished the most friendly 
 intercourse with these red men when in the flesh, and one severe winter 
 kept in her house a whole family of them that might otherwise ha-ve per- 
 ished ■ ■ m 
 9 
 
130 THE EDDY PHENOMENA. 
 
 wearied in body and mind by the incessant drain upon their 
 vital force, which is said to be inevitable in these phenomena. 
 "For want of a better explanation I may as well state that 
 they claim that the manifestations are produced by a band of 
 spirits, organized with a special director, mistress of ceremo- 
 nies, chemist, assistant chemist, and dark and light circle op- 
 erators." 
 
 Col. Olcott describes these spirits, and of one of them, an 
 
 Indian girl, he says : 
 
 "Honto is about five feet five inches high, a well-made, 
 buxom girl, of dark copper complexion, and with long black 
 hair. She is very agile and springy in gait, graceful in move- 
 ment, and evidently a superior person of her class. At my 
 second seance, she in my presence reached up to the bare 
 white wall and pulled out a piece of gauzy fabric about four 
 yards long, which parted from the plastering with a click, as 
 if the end" had been glued to it. fche hung it over the railing 
 to show us its texture, and then threw it into the cabinet. At 
 either end of the platlorm she plucked, as if from the air 
 itself, knitted shawls, which she opened and shook, and 
 passed bt hind the curtain. Then descending the steps to the 
 floor of the room, she pulled another from under Horatio Ed- 
 dy's chair, where I had seen nothing but the bare floor a 
 moment before. Then returning to the platform, she danced 
 to the accompaniment of the violin, after which she reentered 
 the cabinet and was gone. Let it be noticed that this creature 
 had the shoulders, bust and hips of a woman, a woman's hair 
 and feminine ways, and that she was at least four inches 
 shorter than William Eddy, who measures five feet nine 
 inches, and weighs one hundred and seventy-four pounds." 
 
 Col. Olcott here quotes what was certified to by Mrs. Cleve- 
 land, an old lady of the neighborhood ; but as there has been 
 a misunderstanding about money between her and the Eddys, 
 and she has since spoken equivocally in regard to her experi- 
 ences, I have ruled out her testimony as of no importance 
 either way, though her original declarations were probably 
 true, as any one may learn on close inquiry. 
 
 The testimony of Mr. E. V. Pritchard of Albany is of a 
 very different weight. For months he pursued his investiga- 
 tions at Chittenden. Kepeatedly, day after day, the mate- 
 rialized figure of his deceased mother, an aged woman, would 
 come out, put her arms about his neck, kiss him audibly, and 
 lead him to a seat. Mr. Pritchard testifies that he could see 
 every wrinkle of her face, the color of her eyes, and all the 
 details of her dress, to the very ribbon in her old-fashioned 
 cap. Once, as she receded toward the curtate, she began to 
 
THE EDDY PHENOMENA. 131 
 
 sink to the floor just as "a piece of butter would melt clown 
 on a hot plate," and her figure dwarfed till it was not above 
 eighteen inches in height. Mr. P. had seen the same thing 
 happen once to Honto. 
 
 Since his long-continued experiences Mr. Pritchard has had 
 no cause to have any misgiving as to the genuineness of the 
 phenomena. To satisfy myself of this, I requested Dr, G. L. 
 Ditson of Albany to call on him and learn what he could. 
 Under date of Jan. 18th, 1876, Dr. Ditson writes me : 
 
 "Neither Mr. Pritchard nor his sister, Mrs. Packard, has 
 had any misgivings in respect to the genuineness of the Wil- 
 liam Eddy manifestations. Lately Mr. Pritchard has been to 
 * Cascade,' Mrs. Andrews's home, and has had his faith con- 
 firmed—his faith in the actuality of the materialization of his 
 spirit-friends ; ior his mother appeared there exactly as she had 
 at Chittenden, wearing the same cap and ribbon, and the same 
 dress in which she had so often showed herself at the Eddys'. 
 Mr. P. staid about a month at Mrs. Andrews's. In the 
 circle he was only about five or six feet from his mother's 
 apparition, and, as the light was good (much better than at 
 Chittenden), he could see her quite distinctly. She bowed to 
 him also, and when he was quite satisfied that it was his 
 mother, he said, ' Is that you, mother ?' She replied in a loud 
 whisper, 'Yes, my son.' Neither Mr. P. nor Mrs. Packard, 
 who lived in the Eddy house for mouths, lay any stress on 
 the reports from Mrs. Cleveland. They saw nothing that 
 looked like fraud, and their opportunities were unequalled." 
 
 Col. Oicott resumes his narrative : 
 
 "Of the thirty-two spirit forms I have seen, more than 
 three-fourths were recognized by persons present as near rela- 
 tives. The first evening, my eyes not being accustomed to 
 the light, nor my powers of observation trained to watch de- 
 tails, the spectral shapes came and went in a confusing man- 
 ner ; but the second and third seances found me prepared to 
 scrutinize the phenomena with deliberation. 
 
 " The reader will please remember that owing to my inhos- 
 pitable reception, the suspicions excited by the place" and its 
 surroundings, and the astounding claims put forth by the 
 spiritual press as to the Eddy manifestations, I was on the 
 alert to detect fraud and expose it. As each phantom came 
 into view I observed its height against the door jamb, its 
 probable weight, its movements, apparent age, style of wear- 
 ing the hair, and beard if a man, the nature and elaborate- 
 ness of its costume, and the external marks of sex, as regards 
 form— all the while having in mind the square, Dutch build 
 and heavy movements of William Eddy. 1 saw men, women 
 and children come one after another before me, and in no one 
 instance detected the slightest evidence of trickery. 
 
 "Among the remarkable tests of identity coming under my 
 notice was the appearance of a young soldier of about twenty 
 years of age, the son of Judge Bacon of St. Johnsbury, Vt. f 
 
132 THE EDDY FAMILY. 
 
 whose death occurred under painful circumstances in the 
 army, and whose name or existence even had not been men- 
 tioned by his father to any person about the place. The 
 spirit was clothed in a dressing-gown, light trousers, and a 
 white shirt with turn-down collar. lie was instantly recog- 
 nized. The night that Mr. Pritchard was sitting on the chair 
 H, two of his nephews, dressed differently, wearing their 
 beards in different ways, differing in height and appearance 
 in a marked degree, stepped forth and shook hands with him. 
 I sat within five yards of them, and saw them with entire dis- 
 tinctness. 
 
 11 The gentleman of whom mention has been previously 
 made, Mr. E. V. Pritchard,* of Albany, is a retired merchant, 
 whose credibility must be well known in that city at least. 
 He came to the Eddys' in May, expecting to remain only a 
 few days, but his experiences have been so satisfactory that 
 he is still here. He first saw the spirit of his brother's son, 
 who was killed in the army, and afterward his mother, his 
 sister's husband, two of her sons and one son-in law, and his 
 brother's son. He has seen four or five female spirits carry- 
 ing children in their arms, and, setting them on the floor, 
 lead them about by the hand. He has seen the children in 
 some cases clasp their arms about their mothers' necks. Once 
 an Indian woman brought in her papoose, swaddled in the 
 Indian fashion, and he heard it cry. An Indian girl brought 
 in a robin perched on her finger, which hopped and chirped 
 as naturally as life. 
 
 " Mr. P. saw a mother spirit walk to the front of the plat- 
 form and hold her babe over the railing toward the audience, 
 so that they could see it kick its little legs, move its arms and 
 hear it crow. Again, on another evening, three little girls, 
 apparently four, six and eight years' of age respectively, stood 
 side by side in the door of the cabinet, and the eldest'calling 
 to her^mother in the audience, spoke her own name, ' Min- 
 nie.' No William Eddy in this instance, surely. Mr. Pritch- 
 ard has heard the spectres speak in all voices, from the faint- 
 est whisper to a full, natural voice. As regards costumes, he 
 has seen the forms clothed in what appeared to be silk, cot- 
 ton, merino, and tarletan, soldiers in uniform, one navy cap- 
 tain in full uniform, and wearing his side arms, women in 
 plain robes and richly embroidered, Indian warriors in a 
 great variety of costumes, some barefoot and others shod in 
 moccasins. Once a pipe was lighted and handed to Honto, 
 who walked about smoking it, and at each whiff her bronze 
 face was illuminated so that every lineament was shown. 
 She came and smoked in his very face to give him a perfect 
 view of her own. 
 
 " Out of the mass of testimony I have noted in my memo- 
 randum I will only quote in addition what Mr. Bacon says, as 
 this, added to what has preceded, should suffice to at least 
 
 *Dr. G-. L. Ditson. of Albany, the well-known writer and Spiritualist, 
 says of Mr. Pritchard. in whose company he witnessed the phenomena at 
 the Eddys' : lk His veracity and good judgment no one will question whc 
 knows him. "— E. S. 
 
WORDS FROM A SEER. 133 
 
 clear William Eddy from the suspicion of producing: the phan- 
 tom shapes by changes of voice and dress. John Bacon 2d of 
 St. Johnsbury, Vt., is an associate Justice of the county court 
 of Caledonia county. He came here August 22d, 1874, to see 
 the phenomena. Thefiist evening he saw the spirit of his 
 father, who died forty-eight years ago. Recognized him by 
 his shape. The form was dressed in dark clothes, with a 
 standing shirt cellar and wUixe shirt. He was bare-headed. 
 Standing erect he towered to the height of six feet one inch, 
 and called his son by his Christian name, speaking in his fa- 
 miliar tones. His breathing was distinctly perceived in the 
 act of speaking. Besides him the Judge has seen one sister, 
 fifty-three years of age at the time of her decease, and anoth- 
 er of only three years ; his wife's father and mother (the lat- 
 ter wore a light dress and a white cap ; she is a very short 
 woman, not above five feet in height); and finally his own 
 son, whose death has elsewhere been alluded to. By actual 
 count kei.t he has seen sixty-six different spirits to date (Sept. 
 2d, 1874)." 
 
 According to Col. Olcott he had an interview with Andrew 
 Jackson Davis before going to Chittenden, and in reply to 
 Col. Olcott's question how he could account for the imparta- 
 tion of life to these temporary organisms, so that the heart 
 can be felt to beat and the other physical operations be car- 
 ried on, Mr. Davis said he had no explanation to offer, and 
 left the riddle for the disciples of Comte and Tyndall to solve. 
 He said that Yarley, the English electrician, wrote to him re- 
 cently to ask where was the connecting link between matter 
 and spirit. He replied that it was just upon the plane of 
 these materializations, where spirit descended toward matter, 
 and matter ascended toward spirit, the point of contact would 
 be found. There are : 1, solids ; 2, fluids ; 3, atmospheres ; 4, 
 ethers ; 5, essences (the imponderable distilled out of the 
 whole universe of matter). Matter is at its climax of progress 
 there. Then takes place the alliance of spirit, and at this 
 sensitive place occur all these apparitions. The spirit lifts 
 matter up to this point, and by reducing its temperature and 
 motion he evolves the apparition. The reversal of this action 
 produces the vanishment of the shape. All forms and poten- 
 cies exist in the atmosphere, and by the action of spirit upon 
 them all these and any other desired results are attained. 
 
 Mr. Davis is disposed to regard all these materialization phe- 
 nomena as " feats of jugglery by expert spirits, numbers of 
 
134 SEERS AND SPIRITS. 
 
 whom are deeply versed in chemistry and the other natural 
 sciences/ ' The phenomena, he thinks, are " necessary to 
 convince nine-tenths of the world's people, that death does not 
 kill a man" He considers Katie King and the Eddy ghosts 
 as of no importance as individual identifications ; they are 
 simply important as establishing the general doctrine of im- 
 mortality. 
 
 But Mr. Davis does not regard himself or any other seer as 
 infallible. His opinions must be taken with the qualifications 
 he himself suggests. There are many intelligent witnesses 
 who wholly dissent from the notion that there are no " indi- 
 vidual identifications " in these materialization phenomena. 
 They see no reason why the proofs of identification are not as 
 strong in the case of materialized spirits as in the case of those 
 spirits who manifest themselves only to the clairvoyant vision. 
 The question of identification is equally difficult in all its 
 phases. 
 
 " Yain is it," says Dr. John P. Gray, "to rely on the integ- 
 rity and childlike honesty of the seer's outer-life character 
 as a protection against illusion on this topic of identification ; 
 the world's history is full to overflowing of the recorded con- 
 tradictions of seers." 
 
 There is still a long distance, it would seem, between the 
 highest spirits and the Infinite Intelligence ; and it is time 
 that we were made to realize this important truth. In ex- 
 posing the error of the common notion as to the infallibility 
 of men when they have passed out of their earthly surround- 
 ings, Spiritualism is doing a service next to that of proving 
 immortality. The hiatus caused by passing from the mortal 
 to the spiritual state is not so serious as is generally supposed. 
 
 "You complain," says Shorter, "that the spiritual com- 
 munications you receive are not to be implicitly trusted. 
 Well, perhaps that is the very lesson they are chiefly designed 
 to teach you. " No one has done more than Mr. Davis to guard 
 us from too hasty a confidence ; and his cautions as to the ma- 
 terialization phenomena should be carefully heeded. 
 
THE SPIKIT-BODY 135 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 In this chapter I propose to consider the spirit-body ; the 
 testimony which seers and others offer on the subject, and 
 which the phenomena of Spiritualism seem to confirm. 
 
 But some preliminary observations in regard to the weight 
 to be attached to the revelations of seers are here in place. 
 
 Experience in Spiritualism soon teaches us to regard no 
 spirit, seer, or revelator as infallible. There have been great 
 mediums who have believed themselves the direct vehicles of 
 the highest divine inspiration ; but it would seem to be a di- 
 vine law that human reason must be left free. The seer who 
 plays the theosophist, and claims infallibility, is often blind- 
 est when he thinks himself most illumined. Humility is 
 ever the best ground for our high researches. To get a sight 
 of the stars by daylight we must go to the bottom of a well. 
 
 Swedenborg (1689-1772) was a great medium and seer ; but 
 I cannot believe he wholly escaped the influence of some of 
 the deluding spirits, against whom he warns us. When he 
 describes Quakers and Moravians as lingering in infernal 
 wretchedness in the other world, merely on account of certain 
 speculative beliefs held in this, I can see only inconsistency 
 with those teachings which he gives us in his humbler yet 
 higher moods. 
 
 But Swedenborg's testimony, when it accords with reason 
 and with facts, must not be regarded as weakened, because 
 he sometimes seems to err and give way to fantasies the most 
 revolting. Though not infallible, he is oftentimes a divine 
 teacher. It is when he claims infallibility, and threatens 
 those who discredit him with some nameless spiritual injury, 
 insanity, or loss, that we must question his illumination. 
 
 The imperfection of all individual revelations, through 
 Messiahs and seers, is well explained by the Rev. James E. 
 
136 NO PERFECT REVELATION. 
 
 Smith* (1854), who says: "Though the works of God are 
 perfect, in universals, they are not so in particulars. This 
 glorious truth contains the very seed of wisdom. The super- 
 ficial opinion is, that every individual, or particular divine 
 production, must be perfect, in the common sense of the 
 word ; and what is not perfect, men ascribe equivocally to 
 Nature, or any other cause but God— a habit of mind which, 
 logically developed, leads a man to its natural ultimate, prac- 
 tical and theoretical atheism ; for, seeing nothing around him 
 that is absolutely perfect, or free from defect, he seeks for 
 the cause in an imperfect agent, and goes no further when he 
 has found it. 
 
 "Were God's particular works all and alike perfect, there 
 would be neither learning nor progress, no improvement, no 
 amendment, no desire to improve or amend, and therefore no 
 industry, no activity, no motive whatever even for action. 
 God's works are a graduated scale of better and worse. Per- 
 fection belongs to the whole collectively ; never to any of the 
 parts. 
 
 " No individual revelation whatever can be 'perfect, any more 
 than any other individual or particular work of God. There 
 never was an age without prophets. They exist now, as real 
 and genuine, though not as eminent and authoritative as ever. 
 Prophets abounded in Israel. Prophecy then ceased, or rath- 
 er they ceased to compile prophecies. Not understanding the 
 nature of the mystic phenomena, they established a creed y 
 which prevails to this day, that revelation has ceased, and that 
 modern pretenders to inspiration are either madmen or im- 
 postors—the only intelligible mode of avoidiDg the difficulties 
 which presented themselves to their minds— a mode still re- 
 sorted to by Jews, Christians, Philosophers, Deists and Athe- 
 ists, to account for all spiritual visitations, such as the mis- 
 sion of Mahomet or Swedenborg, which they cannot under- 
 stand for the reason above given their belief being that even 
 
 * Born in Glasgow, 1801, died in 1857. He was a Spiritualist long be- 
 fore 1S4S; and subsequently satisfied himself of the genuineness of the 
 phenomena, through Mrs. Hayden, the excellent American medium. He 
 wrote "The Divine Drama of Civilization, '" and edited »he Family Her- 
 ald, i 
 
THE SPIEIT-BODY. 137 
 
 a particular and local revelation from God can never be char- 
 acterized by any imperfection or any contradiction." 
 
 "Some persons ask," says Kardec, "Of what use are the 
 teachings of the spirits if they offer to us no greater certain- 
 ty than human teachings? The answer is easy: As we do 
 not accept the teachings of all men with equal confidence, nei- 
 ther must we the teachings of all spirits. God has given us rea- 
 son and discrimination to judge of spirits as well as of men. 
 Surely the fact of our meeting in the world with bad men is 
 not a reason for withdrawing ourselves from society. There 
 are spirits of all degrees of goodness and of malice, of knowl- 
 edge and of ignorance, all subject to the law of progress." 
 
 We must judge of their communications precisely as we 
 would of those that come through channels mortal and terres- 
 trial. We must learn to separate the wheat from the chaff, 
 the spirit from the letter, the essentially divine from the en- 
 veloping finite. To ask why men were not created perfect, 
 is equivalent to asking why they were created at all. 
 
 Among the truths to which Sweclenborg, in company with 
 all great seers, bears witness, is that of the spirit body. He 
 tells us that thought implies a thinking substance, as much as 
 sight or hearing implies a seeing and hearing substance ; that 
 it is as absurd to contemplate thought as something independ- 
 ent of the substance of the soul or spirit, as it is to contem- 
 plate sight or hearing independent of the substance of the eye 
 or ear. 
 
 It .is remarkable with what unanimity mediums everywhere 
 and at all times have insisted on describing spirits as in the 
 human form, and in representing man, in all the stages of his 
 existence, as an organized being. This doctrine of a spirit 
 body seems to be inseparable from all forms of Spiritualism. 
 The oldest Magi, the wise men of Persia, believed in it. 
 Hesiod and Homer teach it. Surely the attributes of mind 
 will not be lessened in dignity by being indissolubly connect- 
 ed with an organism. 
 
 A spirit body, composed of elements imponderable and in- 
 visible in reference to our physical senses, is, as we have seen, 
 
138 THE SPIRIT-BODY. 
 
 in the second chapter of this work, a legitimate scientific con- 
 ception, involving no chemical difficulty. Even all the con- 
 stituents of our present earth-body may be held in solution, 
 in a state invisible and impalpable, in the atmosphere ; and 
 how far matter may gain new properties or part with old ones 
 by differentiations and transformations, ruled by spirit power, 
 we are yet to learn. 
 
 "Let us distrust, " says Chaseray, "our imperfect senses, 
 since there are so many substances which we can neither feel 
 nor see. Let us not be precipitate in denying the duality of 
 the human being because the scalpel of the anatomist cannot 
 reveal to our sight a principle eminently subtle. Man is not 
 driven to annihilation even under the hypothesis of material- 
 ity." Chaseray thinks that the spirit body may some day be 
 proved by science. 
 
 Even Cabanis (1757-1807), the great physiologist of France, 
 who sees nothing but organism, who regards the brain as "an 
 organ specially designed for the production of thought as the 
 stomach and intestines are for digestion, and the liver for the 
 filtration of the bile," and from whom Carl Yogt has borrowed 
 some of his own rash expressions in opposition to the immor- 
 tality of the soul— even Cabanis concludes by admitting that 
 "a principle or vivifying faculty" is needed to account for 
 the phenomena. He elsewhere tells us that for those who 
 would establish the persistence of this principle or "cause," 
 after the destruction of the living body, it may suffice to know 
 that "the contrary opinion cannot be demonstrated by any 
 positive arguments." 
 
 Spiritualism proves that the "contrary opinion" is wholly 
 untenable ; that there is a somewhat, not explicable by the 
 known qualities of matter, which is the antecedent of the 
 organization ; that there can be no such thing as a gradual 
 transition from known matter to thought, seeing that life is 
 in every case prior to organization. 
 
 The notion of certain Spiritualists that the spirit body is 
 evolved out of the physical is therefore a reversal of the order 
 of things. " To make A the offspring of B, when the very 
 
THE SOUL. 139 
 
 existence of B as B presupposes the existence of A, is prepos- 
 terous in the literal sense of the word, and a consummate in- 
 stance of thft hysteron proteron in logic."* 
 
 It is due to the memory of Cabanis to add, that in a posthu 
 mous letter, published by Dr. Berard, he abandons his mate- 
 rialistic opinions and recognizes formally the necessity of a 
 spiritual or immaterial! principle. 
 
 Dr. Georget. another celebrated French materialist, author 
 of the " Physiology of the Nervous System " (1821), was led 
 by the phenomena of clairvoyance and somnambulism, to re- 
 verse his whole philosophy and to proclaim, in his will, that 
 he had arrived at a " profound conviction, founded upon in- 
 contestable facts," that there exists " an intelligent principle, 
 altogether different from material existences ; in a word, the 
 soul and God." 
 
 The examples of Professor Hare, Dr. Elliotson, and many 
 others, converted by the phenomena of Spiritualism from a 
 life-long adherence to materialism, are further illustrations 
 of the power of facts. 
 
 To name the great men, ancient and modern, who have en- 
 tertained a belief in a corporeal principle surviving the physi- 
 cal body, would be an interesting bat an endless task. Plato, 
 in strict conformity with Modern Spiritualism, declares that 
 " the apparitions of the dead are not mere groundless imagina- 
 tions, but proceed from souls themselves, surviving in luci- 
 form bodies." 
 
 We have already seen that the Christian Fathers were di- 
 vided in opinion in respect to the soul ; some, who were Pla- 
 tonists, maintaining that it is an immaterial principle, devoid 
 of all concretion, but invariably associated with a thin, flexi- 
 ble, and sensitive body, visible to the eye ; while others, 
 among whom Tertullian may be regarded as the chief, main« 
 
 * Coleridge's Biographia Literaria. 
 
 + One of Henry More's antagonists (1659) tells him that the word imma- 
 terial signifies nothing but a negation. More replies: kk A negative par- 
 ticle, in composition with a word that denotes imperfection, implies posi- 
 tiveness and perfection, as in infinite, immortal, and the like; these 
 remove the imperfections in finiteness and mortality, and imply some- 
 thing positive of a better nature. And so does immaterial remove the 
 imperfections of discerpibility and impenetrability, and implies the con* 
 trary. ' 
 
140 THE SPIRIT-BODY. 
 
 tained that the soul is simply a second body. This they did 
 to serve their theological notions in regard to the future pun- 
 ishment of the unregenerate. The abler writers, including 
 Clement and Origen, taught the Platonic doctrine. Both par- 
 ties, however, concurred in the fact of the spirit body. 
 
 "Even here in this life/' says Cudworth, "our body is, as 
 it were, twofold, interior and exterior ; we having, besides 
 the grossly tangible bulk of our outward body, another inte- 
 rior spiritual body, which latter is not put into the grave with 
 the other." 
 
 "The primitive belief,' , says Herbert Spencer, "is that 
 every dead man becomes a demon (spirit), who remains some- 
 where at hand, may at any moment return, may give aid or 
 do mischief, and is continually propitiated. Hence among 
 other agents whose approbation or reprobation is contem- 
 plated by the savage as a consequence of hfe own conduct, 
 are the spirits of his ancestors." / ^ 
 
 This was meant as a reproach to Modern^^pjjjftualism ! I 
 accept it as a confirmation that its fundamental fact is well 
 known to men in a savage as well as to those in a civilized 
 state. 
 
 In #is "Physical Theory of Another Life," Isaac Taylor 
 says: "What the Christian Scriptures specifically affirm is 
 the simple physiological fact of two species of corporeity for 
 man : the first that of our present animal and dissoluble or- 
 ganization ; the second, a future spiritual structure, imper- 
 ishable, and adorned with higher powers and many desirable 
 prerogatives." 
 
 Thus the pneumatology of the New Testament as well as of 
 the Old teaches the fact of a future spirit-body, and I may 
 acid that in many passages it assumes that the spirit-body is a 
 present fact ; as when the damsel Ehoda (Acts, xii.) told how 
 Ptter stood before the gate, and her hearers would not be- 
 lieve it, but replied, "It is his angel"; and as when Paul 
 says, " There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body " 
 •—is now, not shall be. 
 
 The heathenish doctrine of the resurrection of the natural 
 
THE SPIRIT-BODY. 141 
 
 body, so long an excrescence on rational Christianity, is now 
 rarely preached except in a qualified sense that makes it less 
 repulsive to scientific thought. 
 
 ''The soul," says Lavater, "on leaving its earthly frame is 
 immediately clothed in a spiritual frame withdrawn from the 
 material. The soul itself, during its earth-life, perfects the 
 faculties of the spiritual body, by means of which it will ap- 
 prehend, feel, and act in its new existence." 
 
 It is not improbable that matter, as its elements become 
 more subtile, is more suited for high organic forms. The 
 body which is unfolded by natural processes from an egg 
 contains in itself, even before the shell is broken, chemi- 
 cal substances which no test can discover in the egg or in the 
 air. May there not be in man's constitution an anterior germ 
 of spiritual vitality, from which, cotemporaneous with the 
 growth of the physical, a spirit-body is developed ? 
 
 "By the facts of somnambulism," says A. J. Davis, "the 
 double nature of man is proved to a demonstration. From 
 the universal exhibitions of a system of duality or twofold 
 organization, it is but common sense to infer that the outer 
 organs of vision, like all the other senses, are but the external 
 form of interior correspondential principles, as words are the 
 forms of thought." 
 
 The true and genuine body must be that which retains and 
 preserves its organical identity amid the changes and the flux 
 of matter, which the physical frame is constantly undergoing. 
 The power which connects the gases, earths, metals, and 
 salt into one whole, which penetrating them keeps them to- 
 gether, or dismisses some and attracts others, must be that 
 divine and forming principle, the soul, binding the seeming 
 duality of physical body and spiritual body in the strictest 
 unity, so far as the exterior which changes, decays, and pass- 
 es, can be bound to the interior which abides as the continent 
 of man's individuality for the next stage of being. 
 
 But why not a duality of beast and plant, as well as of 
 man ? What of the lower animals ? Do theyh&ve this inner, 
 invisible body, the abiding principle of their external frames? 
 
142 THE SPIRIT-BODY. 
 
 Yes, the psychical principle is that which controls all organic 
 forms. But as to what becomes of the psychical individuali- 
 zation when organisms lower than the human are dissolved, 
 we have only speculation and analogy for our guide. Seers 
 and spirits are at variance on this inscrutable question. Ac- 
 cording to some the psychical element is permanently indi- 
 vidualized only in man. As unripe seeds do not germinate, 
 so the inferior forms of intelligence render up the psychical 
 element at death to return to that source from which it was 
 separated in organization. 
 
 But the higher Spiritualism teaches, that the psychical ele- 
 ment of all animals, if not of all plants, is imperishable in its 
 individualization. It is not necessary to suppose that the 
 lower animals will have, in their remote future states, the 
 same forms they had here. They may rise to higher forms of 
 being, and, in some mysterious way, there may be a progress 
 for them having some analogy with our own. 
 
 There is surely room enough for all, since the capacities of 
 God's universe are limited only by his own infinity. Even 
 for the innumerable germs that seem to perish, and of whose 
 apparent waste atheistic Skepticism* has so much to say, 
 there may be a provision by which all that is essential in them 
 is not wasted, but returned with improved power to ^Nature's 
 measureless receptacles. 
 
 Sir J. E. Smith (1759-1828), the distinguished botanist, was 
 of opinion that in the vital principle we have a glimpse of 
 the immediate agency of the Deity. He says : "I can no 
 more explain the physiology of vegetables, than of animals, 
 without the hypothesis of a living principle in both." What 
 can this principle be but that one deific force, to which uni- 
 versal science is conducting us ? 
 
 Charles Bonnet (1720-1793), the great Swiss naturalist, 
 says : " The common opinion which would consign to an eter- 
 nal death all organized beings, man alone excepted, would 
 
 * ' ; See, ' ' says Strauss, ' ' the small app'es and pears fallen ere they were 
 yet ripe; know that if the spawn of fi°>h invariably attained full growth, 
 all the rivers and seas would not suffice for them I 1 ' But does it follow 
 thnt because Strauss does not see how such apparent waste is compensated, 
 that there therefore is no compensation in the laboratories of Nature ? 
 
THE SPIRIT-BODY. 143 
 
 impoverish the universe. It would precipitate forever into 
 the abyss of nothingness an innumerable multitude of sen- 
 tient creatures, capable of a considerable increase of happi- 
 ness, and which in repeopling and embellishing new earths, 
 would exalt the adorable beneficence of the Creator." 
 
 This, I am disposed to think, is the general sentiment of 
 Spiritualists, as it was of Leibnitz, Bishop Butler and Agas- 
 siz, on the subject of a future for the lower animals. 
 
 Bonnet believed further, that man's future body exists al- 
 ready with the body visible ; and he believed that science would 
 some day have instruments which would enable it to detect 
 this body, formed as it probably is of the elements of ether or 
 of light. Is not his prediction partially verified in the power 
 of the photographer's apparatus to catch the impression of 
 spiritual forms which our normal vision cannot detect ? 
 
 This spirit-body, according to Bonnet, will not require 
 those daily reparations which the animal body exacts, but 
 will subsist undoubtedly by the simple energy of its princi- 
 ples and its mechanism. It will be superior to those laws of 
 gravitation which limit grosser bodies. It will obey with ease 
 and astonishing promptitude the slightest behests of the soul, 
 and will transport us from world to world with a facility and 
 a speed equal to that of light. By its superior powers we 
 shall exercise without fatigue all our faculties, because the 
 new organs through which the soul will unfold its motive 
 force will be better proportioned to the energy of that force, 
 and will not be subject to the influence of those disturbing 
 causes which continually conspire to check and impede our 
 activity in our present physical bodies. Our attention will 
 seize at once and with equal clearness a very great number of 
 objects, more or less complicate ; it will penetrate them inti- 
 mately, separate partial impressions from a general knowl- 
 edge, and discover without effort resemblances the most deli- 
 cate. Our genius will then be proportioned to our attention, 
 for attention is the mother of genius. 
 
 But the development of these enlarged powers will proba- 
 bly be very gradual ; it will be in proportion to our own ef- 
 
144 THE SPIEIT-BODY. 
 
 forts, our own aspirations and attainments. If we have led ft 
 sluggish, sensual life on earth, we must not hope that the 
 spirit-body will at once make up for our delinquencies or 
 convert a sinner into a saint, a blockhead into a Kepler or a 
 Newton. 
 
 The student of spiritual phenomena is continually aston- 
 ished by the vast amount of testimony, past and contempora- 
 neous, in confirmation of them. The testimony of the past 
 has a new interest and significance now that it is confirmed 
 by marvels of daily occurrence. 
 
 In his remarkable account of "Spirit-rapping, healing, mu- 
 sic, drawing, and other manifestations in Sunderland, Eng- 
 land, in 1840, through Mary Jobson,"* my friend W. M. Wil- 
 kinson observes : " Enough there is to prove that all natural 
 objects exist only by reason of a spiritual creative force, 
 which projects and sustains them in the realm of matter, 
 wnich we call the world, and that to have a manifestation of 
 this spiritual force, it is only necessary that some conjoint 
 conditions of mind and body should be so arranged as to be 
 favorable to that end. The person in whom this occurs is 
 called a medium. " 
 
 Melancthon f says : " I have myself seen spirits, and I know 
 many trustworthy persons who affirm that they have not only 
 seen them, but carried on conversations with them." Luther 
 bears testimony equally strong to the existence of the depart- 
 ed in spiritual forms ; so do Calvin, Knox, Wesley, Oberlin. 
 St. Augustine mentions saints by whom he was visited, and 
 states that he himself had appeared to two persons who had 
 known him only by reputation. At another time he appeared 
 to a famous teacher of eloquence in Carthage, and explained 
 to him several most difficult passages in Cicero's writings. 
 
 * See the London Spiritual Magazine, September, 1874. 
 
 t "De Anima Recogn., 1 '' Wittenberg, 1595. p. 317. Melancthon relates 
 that Luther was visited by a spirit who announced his coining by "■ a rap- 
 ping at the door." 1 Richard Baxter (Saints 1 Everlasting Rest, Chap 7) 
 says: "Yea, goodly, sober Melancthon affirms that he had seen i uch 
 sights or apparitions himself. 11 Baxter adtls: "1 have received un- 
 doubted testimony of the truth of such apparitions. 11 For Wesley's 
 experiences, see tk Planchette, T1 p. 31; for Oberiiirs, ib., p 2o9. Oberlin, 
 innis Memoirs, declares that for nine years he had constant interviews 
 with his deceased wife. Luther's works passim show the entirenessof 
 his belief in apparitions. 
 
THE SPIRIT-BODY. 145 
 
 Thus Augustine's testimony is in support of the theory that 
 the spirit-body can be separated from the physical, even dur- 
 ing the earthly lifetime of the individual. 
 
 Accounts, like the following, of the action of spirits in in- 
 terposing to influence mortals at critical times, are very nu- 
 merous. A famous German jurist, Counsellor Hellfeld in 
 Jena, an hour before midnight was on the point of signing 
 the death-warrant of a cavalry officer. His clerk was present. 
 All at once they both heard heavy blows fall on the window 
 as if the panes were struck with a cavalry whip. The judge 
 delayed his action in consequence, and substituted a minor 
 punishment; and before the year closed a criminal was 
 caught who volunteered the confession that he was the per- 
 petrator of the crime for which the innocent cavalry officer 
 had been punished, and had been near to being executed. 
 
 It is not true that the intelligence exhibited by the supposed 
 spirit is always measured by that of the medium. The in- 
 stances to the contrary are innumerable. Witness the case of 
 Mrs. Fox-Jencken's infant boy, less than six months old. 
 Among the Camisard prophets (1686-1707) were many in- 
 fant trance-mediums, who spoke in language altogether above 
 their capacities. We hear of a boy fifteen months old who 
 spoke in good French, u as though God were speaking through 
 his mouth.' ' Jacques Dubois says he has seen more than 
 sixty children between three and twelve years of age, who 
 exhibited similar powers. "I knew at Tyes," says Pierre 
 Charman, "a man whose little boy, only five years old, 
 prophesied, predicted disturbance in the church, exhorted to 
 repentance, and always spoke in good French." The annals 
 of witchcraft are crowded with similar phenomena, perfectly 
 well authenticated. 
 
 Mr. E. B. Tylor, in his "Primitive Culture," shows how 
 ancient are the phenomena of the instantaneous untying of 
 complicate knots by spirit skill. This preternatural unbind- 
 ing is vouched for by no less a personage than the crafty 
 Ulysses himself on board the ship of the Thesprotians : 
 10 
 
146 THE SPIRIT-BODY. 
 
 "Me on the well-benched vessel, strongly bound, 
 They leave, and snatch their meal upon the beach. 
 But to my help the gods themselves unwound 
 My cords with ease, though firmly twisted round. " 
 
 In his " Theory of a Nervous Ether" (1873), Dr. B. W 
 Richardson suggests that there exists, in addition to a nervous 
 fluid, a gas or vapor, pervading the whole nervous organism, 
 surrounding as an enveloping atmosphere each molecule of 
 nervous structure, and forming the medium of the influences 
 transmitted from a nerve-centre to the periphery, and from 
 the periphery to a nerve-centre. 
 
 Here we are brought by the latest inductive science close 
 upon the confines of the spirit-body. Every investigator 
 whose prejudices do not incapacitate him from looking into 
 the facts, begins to see that some higher series of causes, 
 hitherto denied by modern science, must be conceded in order 
 to account for those phenomena of Spiritualism, inexplicable 
 on any known principles. 
 
 "I have come to the conclusion," says J. H. Von Fichte 
 (Stuttgardt, 1871), "that it is absolutely impossible to account 
 for these (the spiritual) phenomena, save by assuming the ac- 
 tion of a superhuman influence." 
 
 "The spirit- body," says a spirit communicating through 
 M. A. (Oxon.), "is the real individual ; and though for a 
 time it is clothed with fluctuating atoms, its identity is abso- 
 lutely the same when those atoms are dispensed with It is 
 preserved after the death of the earth-body in precisely simi- 
 lar sort as it exists now, veiled in grosser matter." But these 
 changing atoms, which the spirit-body attracts to itself, are 
 according to this authority, no real part of the personality. 
 
 Spiritualism makes us realize that we are under the scrutiny 
 of any spirit who, from curiosity or affection, may desire to 
 know our deeds and our thoughts. In this tremendous fact, 
 is there no incentive to right thinking and right doing ? 
 
 "There is a wonderful world of spirit," says Leif child, 
 "and there are hierarchies of ministering spirits. Surely 
 they form a great cloud of witnesses, who, though they sit 
 
KARDEC ON THE SPIRIT-BODY. 147 
 
 aloof, intently watch our earthly course, and encourage us by 
 their unseen but not always unf elt presence. With the speed 
 of thought they interfuse their holiness into our thoughts. 
 They shine into our earthly homes like morning beams, and 
 they beautify our departure in death with the heavenly splen- 
 dor of an evening Alp-glow. 
 
 " Blessed and blessing hierarchies! Not one of your in- 
 numerable cohorts can be subject to annihilation. You mul- 
 tiply by human death, you increase by spiritual selection, 
 you obtain liberty through the grave, you gain light by look- 
 ing on the countenance of the Divine. Not one single act of 
 your beneficent ministry to man is altogether lost ; every one 
 is a celestial force. You have been often misapprehended 
 and not seldom vulgarized. Distorted Science has denied 
 you, scornful Naturalism has derided you, foolish Supersti- 
 tion has degraded you. Nevertheless you live, and you live 
 for us. Were our eyes duly purged, we should behold you 
 daily ; were our ears rightly attuned we should listen to you 
 hourly." 
 
 In Kardec's system the spirit-body is a fluidic vaporous en- 
 velope which he calls the perisprit. This, he says, he has 
 neither invented nor supposed in order to explain phenomena; 
 its existence has been revealed to him by spirits, and obser- 
 vation has confirmed it. It is supported, moreover , by a study 
 of the sensations among spirits, and above all by the phenome- 
 non of tangible apparitions, which would imply, according to 
 the contrary opinion (that, namely, of the identification of 
 the spirit-body with the spiru or soul), the solidification and 
 disintegration of the constituent parts of the soul, and conse- 
 quently its disorganization. It would be necessary, besides, 
 to admit that this matter which can fall under the scrutiny 
 of the senses is itself the intelligent principle ; which is no 
 more rational than to confound the body with the soul, or the 
 clothing with the body. As to the intimate nature of the 
 soul, it is unknown to us. 
 
 " When we call it immaterial," saysKardec, "we must un- 
 derstand the word in the relative and not in the absolute 
 
148 BACON ON THE SPIRIT-BODY. 
 
 sense, for absolute immateriality would be nothingness ; now 
 the spirit is surely something, one might say that its essence 
 is so superior that it has no analogy with what we call matter, 
 and that for us it is immaterial. ,, 
 
 Bacon's theory of the soul is like that of nearly all the 
 great seers and mediums. [Seepage 86.] He, too, regards 
 man as a trinity of earth-body, spirit-body, and spirit. As is 
 God, so also, according to Bacon, is the spirit (spiraculum), 
 which God has breathed into man, scientifically incognizable ; 
 only the physical soul, which is a thin, warm, material sub- 
 stance, is an object of scientific knowledge. 
 
 "Two different emanations of souls," says Bacon, "are 
 manifest in the first creation, the one proceeding from the 
 breath of God, the other from the elements." No knowledge 
 of the rational soul (the spirit) can be had from philosophy ; 
 but in the doctrine of the sensitive, or produced soul (the 
 spiritual body), even its substance, says Bacon, may be justly 
 inquired into. " The sensitive soul must be allowed a corpo- 
 real substance, attenuated by heat and rendered invisible, as 
 a subtle breath, or aura, of a flamy and airy nature, and dif- 
 fused through the whole body." 
 
 Thoroughly acquainted with the spiritual phenomena of 
 his day, and of antecedent times, Bacon teaches unequivocal- 
 ly the doctrine of the spiritual body and of the three-fold na- 
 ture of terrestrial man. He says: "But how the compres- 
 sions, dilatations and agitations of the spirit, which, doubt- 
 less, is the spring of motion, should guide and rule the corpo- 
 real and gross mass of the parts, has not yet been diligently 
 searched into and treated." 
 
 "And no wonder," he adds, "since the sensitive soul it- 
 self," by which he means the spirit body, "has been hitherto 
 taken for a principle of motion, and a function, rather than a 
 substance. But as it is now known to be material, it becomes 
 necessary to inquire by what efforts so subtile and minute a 
 breath can put such gross and solid bodies in motion." 
 
 "This spirit of which we speak," continues Bacon, "is 
 plainly a body, rare and invisible, quantitative, real, not 
 withstanding it is circumscribed by space." 
 
PLUTAKCH ON MEDIUMSHIP. 14< 
 
 Bacon admits the facts of clairvoyance, or divination, and 
 distinguishes between that proceeding from the internal pow- 
 er of the soul, as "in sleep, ecstasies, and the near approach 
 of death," and that which comes from influx through " a sec- 
 ondary illumination, from the foreknowledge of God and 
 spirits." 
 
 Never was I more impressed by Bacon's greatness as a sa- 
 gacious interpreter of natural facts, than when I found him 
 thus anticipating the highest conclusions of Modern Spirit- 
 ualism, both on the subject of the spiritual body and on the 
 distinction between the knowledge that is explicable by a 
 theory of psychic force, and that knowledge which must 
 come from "the illumination of God and spirits." 
 
 The questions raised by Dr. Eogers, Count Gasparin. Ser- 
 jeant Cox and others, as to whether odic force or psychic 
 force may not explain all the phenomena of Spiritualism, are 
 here, with the discrimination of one who had studied all the 
 facts of divination, and who speaks with unquestionable au- 
 thority, decided in conformity with the views of Spiritual- 
 ists. 
 
 It is true that Bacon adopts or reannounces opinions on this 
 subject that may be found in Plutarch ; but this does not de- 
 tract from his merit as an original observer. He had verified 
 the facts which Plutarch knew. In regard to mediumship, 
 Plutarch explains how the violent ecstasy of inspiration re- 
 sults from the contest of two opposite emotions, the higher 
 divine or spiritual emotion communicated to the medium, and 
 the natural one proper to the medium himself ; just as an un- 
 easy struggle between the natural and the communicated motion 
 is produced in bodies to which, while by their nature they gravi- 
 tate to the earth, a gyratory movement has been communicated. 
 
 "Everything pertaining to the Deity," says Plutarch, "in 
 and by itself, is beyond our power of perception, and when it 
 reveals itself to us through some other agent (or medium), it 
 mixes itself up with the proper nature of that medium." 
 
 Here we have it explained why Swedenborg, Harris, Davis, 
 and all other mediums, as well as inferior spirits, mix up 
 
150 THE CREATION OUT OF NOTHING. 
 
 errors with their communications of truth. Were it other* 
 wise (could we accept any teacher as really infallible), 
 would not our mental freedom be impaired, and much intel- 
 lectual effort paralyzed? 
 
 Kardec's spirits merely repeat the teachings of Bacon as to 
 the nature of the perisprit, or spiritual body. It constitutes 
 for the spirit a fluidic, vaporous envelope, which, though in- 
 visible to us in its normal state, and in our normal state, does 
 not the less possess some of the properties of matter. A spirit, 
 then, is not a point, an abstraction, but a being, limited and 
 circumscribed, to whom are wanting only the properties of 
 visibility and palpability to resemble human beings. Why, 
 then, can it not act on n.atter? Does not imponderable light 
 exercise a chemical action on ponderable matter ? 
 
 Newton tells us that the effluvium of a magnet can be so 
 rare and subtle as to pass, without any resistance or any 
 diminution of its force, through a plate of glass, and yet be so 
 potent as to turn a magnetic needle beyond the glass. Why, 
 then, may not the will-power of a spirit suffice to produce (as 
 we know that it does) the most amazing effects upon matter? 
 
 We can now realize the profound meaning in that remark 
 of Joubert : " To create the universe an atom of matter sufficed." 
 
 Nothing is made out of nothing ; but the sovereign power 
 of God is not nothing : it is the source of matter as well as of 
 spirit. 
 
 Even so orthodox an authority as the Catholic World (New 
 York, 1874,) says : "Nothingness is to be considered, under 
 God's hand, as a negative potency of something real" 
 
 And if an equally high Protestant authority were needed, 
 I might quote Christlieb (1874), who says: "Although God 
 is spirit, he has, nevertheless, a nature which we may term 
 substantial. It is designated as light and fire." 
 
 The creation out of nothing is virtually abandoned by ad- 
 missions like these ; and they render some form of Panthe- 
 ism inevitable. It must be a form involved in that of The- 
 ism, as the less is in the greater. Bruno, the martyr philoso- 
 pher, who was burnt at the stake in 1600, tells us truly : "If 
 
THE SPIRIT-BQHY. 151 
 
 you think aright you will find a divine essence in all things." 
 But he adds that, though it is impossible to conceive Nature 
 separated from God, we can conceive God separated from Na- 
 ture. God, he tells us, is super essentialis, supersubstantialis. 
 Though He caused the universe, He is not limited by it. In 
 this conception lies the truth which must reconcile the pan- 
 theistic demand of science and the theistic demand of theol- 
 ogy and faith. 
 
 According to Swedenborg, that which underlies matter and 
 is its substance, flows forth from the Divine substance. But 
 mind causes, or rather cooperates to cause, the form, inci- 
 dents, and appearance, under which we give to this substance 
 the name of Matter. This is not a false appearance ; it is a 
 reality, but of it we can know nothing, save from the action 
 of mind on the impressions made by this substance on the 
 mind through and by means of the senses. The importance 
 of this truth lies in the rational belief it permits us of a body, 
 a home, and a world, when we leave this world. If material 
 substance is but the effluence from and of the Divine sub- 
 stance, caused to affect us in a certain way in this world, the 
 same effluence may provide for us a spiritual body and a 
 spiritual world.* 
 
 The matter of the spirit-body is flexible and expansible ; it 
 changes at the will of the spirit, who can give himself such or 
 such an appearance at his pleasure. It is because of this 
 property of his fluidic envelope that the spirit who wishes to 
 be recognized by friends on the earth can present the exact 
 appearance he had when living ; re-producing even the bodily 
 scars or malformations by which he was marked. 
 Spirits, says Milton, 
 
 w l in what shape they please, 
 
 Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure, 
 
 Can execute their airy purposes, 
 
 And works of love or enmity fulfill. ' ' 
 "It is an extravagant conjecture of mine," says Locke, 
 that spirits can assume to themselves bodies of different bulk, 
 figure, and conformation of parts." 
 * See '•'The Infinite and the Finite," by Theophilas Parsons; p. 15. 
 
152 THE SPIRIT-BODY. 
 
 Spirit hands may be the visible and tangible parts of an in- 
 visible intangible being ; but sometimes they are tangible 
 without being visible, and sometimes visible without being 
 tangible. The instantaneous disappearance of materialized 
 bodies or parts of the bodies, proves that the matter of which 
 they are composed is eminently subtle, bearing some resem- 
 blance, perhaps, to those substances that can pass alternately 
 from the solid to the fluid, or gaseous state, and vice versa. 
 Here a new order of facts is introduced, and science may 
 some day discover anew law for their explanation. 
 
 "Is it not in the most rarefied gas, in the most imponder- 
 able fluids,' ■ asks Kardec, "that industry finds its most 
 powerful motors ?" What is there, then, strange in admitting 
 that a spirit, by the aid of his spirit-body, can raise a table ? 
 
 "Being able to take all appearances," says Kardec, "the 
 spirit presents himself under that by which he would be most 
 readily recognized, if such is his desire. ^Esop, for example, 
 as a spirit is not deformed ; but if he is evoked as iEsop, he 
 will appear ugly and humpbacked, with the traditional cos- 
 tume. . . . If the simply visual apparition might be attributed 
 to illusion, the doubt is not permitted when you can grasp it, 
 handle it, when it seizes you and holds you fast. However 
 extraordinary these phenomena may be, all the marvelous 
 disappears when we learn that far from being contrary to 
 Nature's laws, they are only a new application of them." 
 
 By its nature and in its normal state, the spirit-body is in- 
 visible, and it has that property in common with many fluids 
 which we know exist, and yet which we have never seen ; but 
 it can also, the same as other fluids, undergo modifications 
 that render it perceptible to the sight, whether by a sort of 
 condensation or by a change in the molecular disposition ; it 
 then appears to us under a vaporous form. 
 
 By further condensation the spirit-body may acquire the 
 properties of solidity and tangibility ; but it can instantane- 
 ously resume its ethereal and invisible state. 
 
 We can understand this state by comparing it with that of 
 invisible vapor, which can pass to a state of visible fog, then 
 
SPIRIT ACTION ON MATTER. 153 
 
 become liquid, then solid, and vice versa. These different 
 states of the spirit-body are the result of the will of the spirit, 
 and not an exterior physical cause, as in our gases. 
 
 According to Kardec, when the spirit appears to us he puts 
 the spirit-body into the state necessary to render him visible. 
 In order to do this, his will is ordinarily insufficient ; for the 
 modification of the spirit-body is effected by its combination 
 with the fluid of the medium ; but this combination is not al- 
 ways possible, which explains why the visibility of spirits is not 
 general. It is not enough that the spirit desires to be seen ; 
 it is not enough that a person desires to see him ; it is neces- 
 sary that the two fluids should combine, and that the medium's 
 supply should be sufficient ; perhaps, also, that there should 
 be other conditions to us unknown at present.* 
 
 Another property of the spirit-body and which pertains to 
 its ethereal nature, is penetrability. Matter is no obstacle to 
 its passage through everything, even as the light passes 
 through transparent bodies. This is why no closing can shut 
 out spirits ; they visit the prisoner in his cell as easily as they 
 do the man in the open fields. 
 
 In regard to the materialization of articles of clothing, or- 
 naments, flowers, &c, Kardec questioned the spirits closely, 
 and here is the result : The spirit acts on matter ; he draws 
 from the universal cosmic matter the elements necessary to 
 form, at his will, objects having the appearance of various 
 bodies which exist on the earth. He can also by his will 
 effect an intimate transformation of elementary matter, and 
 impart to it certain properties. This faculty is inherent in 
 the nature of the spirit, who often, when necessary, exercises 
 it without thinking, as an instinctive act. The objects formed 
 by the spirit have a temporary existence ; he can make and 
 unmake them at will. These objects may become visible and 
 tangible to earthly persons ; and could be made to have a 
 character of permanence and stability ; but this, according 
 to Kardec's informant, is contrary to order, and is not done. 
 
 * See ll The Book on Mediums, by Allan Kardec ; " an excellent trans- 
 lation of which into English by Emma A. Wood has been published Of 
 Oolby & Rich, Boston, Mass. 1 have been indebted to it in these qu»** 
 tions from Kardec. 
 
154 THE UNITY OF FORCES. 
 
 It was done, however, in the experiments at which Profess- 
 or Crookes, Mr. Harrison, and many others were present ; 
 and some of the cloth which Katie cut from her tunic still re- 
 mains materialized. It was said by the spirit, however, that 
 a special effort was needed to give the cloth this character of 
 stability. 
 
 From the facts here brought together, it may be inferred 
 that the spirit-body is not a mere hypothesis ; it is proved by 
 the phenomena and the inductions of Spiritualism ; by the 
 objective appearance of spirits themselves in bodies ; by the 
 testimony of clairvoyants who oan see spirits in the human 
 form ; by the phenomena of somnambulism and clairvoyance, 
 indicating supersensual powers, requiring organs other than 
 those of the physical body ; by all the analogies which reason 
 and experience supply ; and by the belief of men in all ages 
 and climes, a belief founded on the actual reappearance 
 after death of deceased relatives and friends. 
 
 Add to these considerations the facts of double conscious- 
 ness, pointing to a double organism ; also the marvels of 
 memory, in which faculty impressions inhere and persist 
 which are inexplicable under the theory of materialism, in- 
 volving a constant flux and removal of the molecules of the 
 organs of thought. Only the existence of a spiritual body 
 can account for these things. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The existence of a single elementary substance or force, 
 from which, by differentiation, transformation, and the ad- 
 justment of proportions, all the varieties and properties of 
 matter are produced, is an hypothesis to which the whole 
 drift of contemporary science is bringing us nearer with 
 every fresh accession of knowledge. 
 
 We know that a very slight change in the arrangement of 
 
ORIGIN OF FORCE. 155 
 
 elemental particles converts wholesome food into poison. Two 
 harmless substances, combined in certain proportions, can 
 produce a deleterious one. Without changing the propor- 
 tions, a slight change in the molecular arrangement changes 
 properties ; makes the opaque transparent ; the palatable, un- 
 savory. 
 
 " Since the spirit/ ' says Kardec, " has by his simple will so 
 powerful an action on elementary matter, it may be conceived 
 that he cannot only form substances, but can denaturalize 
 their properties, will having herein the effect of a re-agent." 
 
 If, as Liebig, Dumas, and other chemists have asserted, all 
 plants and animals are solidified air, why may not all matter 
 be the product of solidified forces, having their origin in the 
 essence and ultimate reason of things— in that force and ne- 
 cessity which derive all their virtue from the Divine Idea ? 
 This is no fanciful inquiry ; its practical interest and impor- 
 tance are brought nearer to us every day by the advance of 
 science. 
 
 The phenomena here recorded show that matter is not al- 
 together the stuff which our senses would make it appear. 
 " The force which every being is possessed of," says Yera, 
 "as well as the form or law according to which it acts and 
 displays its powers, lies in its very nature, i. e., in its idea. 
 The difference of forces is owing to the difference of ideas. 
 Matter is a force, and the soul is a force, and, as forces, 
 they are the product of one and the same idea, and both pro- 
 duce similar effects ; for instance, the soul moves the body, 
 and a body moves another body. Their difference is to be 
 found in their specific elements, or in what constitutes their 
 special idea ; for instance, space, and time, extent, attraction 
 and repulsion, &c, for matter ; imagination, will, thought, 
 &c, for the soul."* 
 
 As idea is force, and the source of all forces, so if there be 
 no diminution in the quantity of force, it is because its princi- 
 ple, its idea, suffers no deterioration. 
 
 * Bee A. Vera on * ■ Ideas as Essence and Force, ■ ' in the St. Louis Jour- 
 nal of Speculative Philosophy for July, 1874. 
 
156 SPIRIT PRIOR TO MATTER. 
 
 If a materialized spirit— by which I mean a spirit animat* 
 ing a visible, tangible body— can make the matter thus em- 
 bodied dissolve and then at once reappear by an effort of the 
 will, it is not difficult to conceive that the universe itself may 
 be a concretion of forces, the trunk-force of which is in the 
 Divine Idea. 
 
 While Spiritualism is in harmony with many of the facts on 
 which the Darwinian theory is based, it supplies a new order 
 of facts from which we infer that the idea must ever precede 
 the organism ; and that the attempt to prove that this idea is 
 developed through immense periods of time by purely physi- 
 cal means and processes is a fallacy. " Living beings/ ' says 
 Stirling, " do exist in a mighty chain from the moss to the 
 man ; but that chain, far from founding, is founded in the 
 idea, and is not the result of any mere natural growth into 
 this or that. That chain is itself the most brilliant stamp and 
 sign-manual of design.' ' 
 
 " Even granting," says Vera, "that the germ be endowed 
 with an inexhaustible power of begetting similar individuals, 
 or that it should contain, like some infinitesimal quantity, an 
 infinite number of germs, such hypotheses will explain neither 
 the initial germ, nor the unity of the species, nor even the 
 grown-up and complete individual. . . . The idea must 
 constitute the common stock, and the ultimate principle to 
 which the individual, the species, and the genus, owe their 
 origin and existence.' ' 
 
 " Thought is a motion of matter," says Moleschott. But 
 this is no more of an explanation than it would be to try to 
 account for the sentiment and the charm in a melody of Mo- 
 zart's by saying, " It is a motion of matter." All that science 
 can fairly hypothecate is, that Thought is accompanied by a 
 motion of matter ; for, were the head and brain so transparent 
 that this motion could be seen, the mystery of thought would 
 be as far as ever from being solved. 
 
 " JVo thought without phosphorus," says Moleschott* He 
 
 * Locke must have had a presentiment of the appearance of a Moleschott 
 on our planet, for he says: "' A chemist shall reduce Divinity to the max- 
 ims of his laboratory, explain morality by sal, sulphur and mercury. Let 
 
TYKDALL ON ATOMS. 157 
 
 might as reasonably have said, No thought without rhubarb. 
 Spiritualism proves that there can be thought without any 
 brain which a mortal chemist can analyze. Liebig's sarcasm 
 is perfectly just when he says, that the bones should produce 
 more thought than the brain, if Moleschott's asseveration is 
 true. ' " The honor of the discovery that phosphorus exists in 
 the brain," says Liebig, " belongs not to me, but to Dr. Mole- 
 schott ; and in my Chemical Letters I have declared it to be a 
 mistaken idea, not based on a single fact." 
 
 To Liebig's remark, ''We know nothing of the origin of an 
 idea," Biichner's reply is, that "None but a mind prejudiced 
 in favor of a superstition " could make such an assertion ; and 
 yet ali the light which Buchner himself can throw on the ori- 
 gin of an idea is to repeat Moleschott's assertion, that thought 
 is a motion of matter ; an assertion which, whether true or 
 false, could never be proved, even if we were to exclude those 
 spiritual facts which disprove it utterly. 
 
 "We do not know," says Materialism, "all the powers of 
 matter, its magical and spiritual nature, and its life eternal." 
 
 Then if we do not know them, how can any one say that 
 they are not what is meant by spirit ? The physiologist of 
 mind, who would trace it to simple brain motion, is compared 
 by Ferrier to the uuheeding woodman who severs the bough 
 on which he stands; for " being cannot be meaningless; its 
 essence must be conscious intelligence." 
 
 Mr. Tyndall would trace all the phenomena of mind and 
 matter to the potencies of atoms. He allows Theism, how- 
 ever, to entertain its little hypothesis, and leaves it an open 
 question whether atoms may not have had a Divine Creator. 
 
 " Abandoning all disguise," he says, "the confession I feel 
 bound to make before you is, that I prolong the vision back- 
 ward across the boundaiy or the experimental evidence, and 
 discern in that matter which we, in our ignorance, and not- 
 
 a man be given to the contemplation of one sort of knowledge, and that 
 will become everything.' 1 With the sanguine positiveness of a youthful 
 scientist, JMoleschott (1802) says: "It is not reflection, but obstinacy, not 
 science, but faith, which supports the idea of a personal continuance after 
 death.'" Why not be consistent, and call this obstinacy a defect of phos- 
 phorus in the brain ? 
 
158 CAN MATTEK EVOLVE MIND. 
 
 withstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have 
 hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of 
 every form and quality of life."* 
 
 I agree with Mr. Tyndall that there is nothing very alarm- 
 ing in the mild and contradictory materialism that would not 
 exclude the postulate of a Creator behind and beyond mat- 
 ter. His " confession' ' is not a startling one, either to the 
 Materialist or the Spiritualist ; for it is an attempt to sit at 
 the same time on the stools of both ; nor is it striking for its 
 novelty. 
 
 Spiritualism casts no "opprobrium" on matter, since it 
 holds that individualized mind must, in the next stage of be- 
 ing, continue to manifest itself through an organism, and 
 this organism must be something. 
 
 If Mr. Tyndall means merely to repeat Locke, and say that 
 all that he would suggest is, that matter may be divinely im- 
 pressed, with the power of generating mind, then he at once 
 spiritualizes matter, and lowers the flag of materialism. 
 
 But this is not what he means. When he tells us that 
 matter may contain "the promise and potency of every 
 form and quality of life, " what he means, obviously, is 
 that, among other qualities of life which mere matter may 
 evolve, is that of mind. Now this idea has been often put 
 forth, long before Mr. Tyndall's day, and as often answered. 
 By no one has it been answered better than by Schelliug 
 (1775-1854), who said of the attempts, in his day, to make 
 matter account for all the phenomena of life : "To explain 
 thinking as a material phenomenon, is possible only in this 
 way : that we reduce Matter itself to a spectre— to the mere 
 modification of an Intelligence whose common functions are 
 thinking and matter." 
 
 Coleridge, who was accustomed to borrow from Schelling, 
 expresses the same idea thus, and his words fully answer all 
 that Mr. Tyndall has to say about matter : "As soon as ma- 
 
 * On reconsideration Professor Tyndall modified this expression. The 
 revised form of it is as follows : ^ By an intellectual necess ry I cross tho 
 boundary of experimental evidence, and discern in that matter which we, 
 in our ignorance of irs latent powers . . . have hitherto covered wilt 
 opprobrium, the promise and potency of all terrestrial life. ' ■ 
 
ATIIEiSM UNSCIENTIFIC. 159 
 
 terialism becomes intelligible, it ceases to be materialism. In 
 order to explain thinking as a material phenomenon, it is ne- 
 cessary to refine matter into a mere modification of intelli- 
 gence, with the two-fold function of appearing and perceiv- 
 ing. Even so did Priestley, in his controversy with Price. ,, 
 (Even so would Tyndall do now !) " He stripped matter of 
 all its material properties ; substituted spiritual powers ; and 
 when we expected to find a body, behold ! we had nothing 
 but its ghost — the apparition of a defunct substance I" 
 
 "To say that matter is the principle of all things, ,, re- 
 marks Paul Janet, "is simply equivalent to saying, We do 
 not know what is the principle of all things— a very luminous 
 science indeed ! Even in its claim that matter is eternal, Ma- 
 terialism has to beg its premises, and to proceed wholly on a 
 metaphysical, a priori assumption. If Materialism does not 
 explain matter, much less does it explain mind and thought." 
 
 The ignorance which philosophical science is always com- 
 pelled to avow, in regard to first causes, makes dogmatic 
 atheism impossible for the truly scientific mind. The skepti- 
 cal attitude is legitimate ; the coarse confidence which de- 
 nounces all belief in a Supreme Being, is the prod aimer of 
 its own insufficiency and charlatanry. Mr. Tyndall is far 
 from this.* If he chooses to call by the name of Matter 
 the unknown something that produces Mind, he is at perfect 
 liberty to do so. Others may prefer to call it by the name of 
 Spirit. In the "prolongation of his vision backward" he has 
 got as far as atoms. But we have seen that the Materialism 
 which stops at atoms is false and imperfect, since it would 
 localize, in them, properties for which atoms supply no 
 cause. If atoms are the ultimate reality, the one real sub- 
 
 *Since this was written, Prof. Tyndall has disclaimed atheistic inten- 
 tioi^s. He says: t,, Were the religious views of many of my assailants 
 the only alternative ones, 1 do not know how strong the claims of thedoe- 
 trine of material U-Zt<u ^thcix™ upon my allegiance might be. Probably 
 they would be very strong. But, as it is, I have noticed, during years of 
 self-observation, that it is not in hours of clearness and vigor that this 
 doctrine commends itself to my mind; that in the presence of stronger 
 and healthier ti ought.it ever dissolves and disappears, as offering no solu- 
 tion of the mystery in which we dwell, and of which we form a part.'" 
 Let us hope th it Prof. Tyndall will, even in this life, outgrow his bigoted 
 opposition to the facts of Spiritualism. In those 1 ' hours of clearness and 
 vigor," of which he speaks, does he never feel a little shaky in the arro- 
 gant position he has assumed toward the testimony of such men as Wal- 
 lace and Crookes ? 
 
160 THE UNITY OF FORCES. 
 
 stance, then there is no place for spirit, no future for man ; an 
 assumption wholly disproved by the facts of this volume. 
 
 In the fullness of time Modern Spiritualism has come forth 
 to demonstrate that the atomic theory must be supplemented 
 by the spiritual fact. That same Spiritualism which Mr. 
 Tyndall, in his unscientific spleen, dismisses as " degrading,'* 
 shows by its phenomenal evidences, as here recorded and au- 
 thenticated^ that there is a power using these atoms at its 
 pleasure, ruling them, instead of being ruled by them. 
 
 Mr. Tyndall refers to certain "rash and ill-informed per- 
 sons'' as " being ready to hurl themselves against every new 
 scientific revelation." Alas! Is he himself one of these 
 rash, ill-informed persons ? So it would seem ; for, chafe as 
 he may, and sneer as he may, the facts of Spiritualism are 
 now facts of Science; and he is so "ill-informed" as not to 
 have found it out, and so "rash" as to put himself on the rec- 
 ord against them. 
 
 He conducts us as far back as atoms, and there sets up his 
 board, labeled, No Thoroughfare. But Spiritual Science dis- 
 regards his warning and passes on ; whither i the next chap- 
 ter may show. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Modern Science, including, as it does, Modern Spiritualism, 
 helps us to a conception of a force behind and beyond atoms.* 
 
 The unity of all phenomena was the dream of ancient phi- 
 losophy. T£ reduce all this multiplicity of things to a single 
 principle has*been, and continues to be, the ever-recurring 
 problem. Water, air, fire, the primary elements, were sever- 
 
 * For the facts and some of the language of this chapter, see the untrans- 
 lated works of Emile Barnouf, especially hi^ "■ La Science des Religions; " 
 the "TJnHy of Natural Phenomena" of Emile Saigey ; the ""Constitu- 
 tion of Matter " of Fernand PapiHon; and the papers on "-Matter, Ether, 
 and Spirit, ,1 hy the late Israel Dille, which have appeared in Brittan^ 
 Quarterly Journal of Spiritual Science. My principal indebtedness is tt 
 Barnouf. 
 

 CHEMISTRY TENDS TO UNITY. 161 
 
 ally and collectively imagined, by the great thinkers of anti 
 quity, as the original factor. 
 
 To the question of a unity of substance, Greek science re- 
 peatedly applied itself. 
 
 The innumerable varieties informs, qualities, and habits, in 
 both the vegetable and animal kingdonr ~\iggest the exist- 
 ence of forces adequate to the production of all the differ- 
 entiations in nature. Hence to mount to the scientifie con- 
 ception of a single force as the originator and regulator of 
 alKhese minor forces is the legitimate effort of all profound 
 thought on the subject. 
 
 It was this craving for unity, which led the white men of 
 Asia, the ancient Aryan race, to the conception of God as the 
 one substance, immanent in the universe. At first they were 
 polytheists, but with the progress of thought their number of 
 gods diminished, and the authors of the Yeda at last arrived 
 at the conception of a unity of forces, of a Divine Power as 
 the ultimate substratum of things. They regarded the beings 
 of the world as, in effect, composed of two elements : the one 
 real and of a nature permanent and absolute, and the other 
 relative, flowing, variable, and phenomenal ; the one spirit, 
 the other matter, but both proceeding from an inseparable 
 unity, a single substance. 
 
 The unity of physical forces is the point on which Science 
 has its eyes now fixed. Materialism is not more eager than 
 Spiritualism for the proof. Already has it been demonstrated 
 that heat, electricity, light, magnetism, chemical attraction, 
 muscular energy, and mechanical work, are exhibitions of 
 one and the same power acting through matter. That all 
 these forces may be transformed into motion, and by motion 
 reproduced, is now something more than an hypothesis. . 
 Hence the deduction that all physical phenomena have one and 
 the same primordial agent as their original generator. 
 
 Chemistry, by its theory of equivalents, is tending to unity. 
 Few intelligent chemists now regard the elements ranked as 
 simple as being simple any further than the present imper- 
 fection of our instruments compels us to class them as such 
 11 
 
162 THE UNITY OF FORCES. 
 
 The employment of the balance has demonstrated that in the 
 chemical transformations of bodies, nothing is created, noth- 
 ing is lost. 
 
 Hence the sum of the material elements is constant, and, 
 as it is impossible to conceive a limit to the universe, this 
 sum is infinite ; and thus the aspects so various which matter 
 presents consist only in the forms it successively takes on ac- 
 cording to the combinations of its chemical elements. 
 
 But the substance of things evades all chemical testing ; 
 and so the simple bodies of chemistry are themselves only 
 forms, more or less elementary, the agglomeration of which 
 produces compounds. 
 
 If by the theory of equivalents these forms should be some 
 day reduced to unity, chemistry will be entitled to infer, with 
 some reason, the substantial unity of the universe. 
 
 Neither the primitive cell, regarded as an elementary form 
 of life, nor any principle known to science, suffices to explain 
 life itself, or that power of action which is in the living being 
 at all the epochs of its existence, and consequently in the 
 cell. In addition, therefore, to the material and sensible ele- 
 ments, there must be in it a principle inaccessible to observa- 
 tion ; and it is this principle which is the agent of life, the 
 impelling cause of vital motion and of all differentiations. 
 
 But the reduction of all living forms to unity, that is, to the 
 cell, is an indication that the vital agent is itself a form of 
 the one primitive force, and thus physiology tends to unity 
 by the way of morphology ; and this reduction of organs to 
 unity may be proved for plants as well as for animals. 
 
 The unity of the principle of life and thought is another 
 conclusion, to which science is tending in the department of 
 physiology. Every primary germ owes its evolution to the 
 spirit or idea involved. If the cell is the most elementary 
 form of the living being, the principle of life which it en- 
 closes cannot be developed except in so far as the form at 
 which it ought to an ive resides in it already in the state of 
 idea. This idea expands with the life, ramifies with it, accom- 
 modates itself to the means and conditions which the general 
 
SPIRITUALISM SUGGESTS UNITY. 165 
 
 order of the universe imposes ; and thus the study of the psy- 
 chical nature of man points also in the direction of unity. 
 Spiritualism, through all its facts, is suggestive of unity. 
 
 The embryo is preserved by intelligent processes of which 
 neither itself nor its parent knows anything. This intelli- 
 gence is a property of the life by which they live. 
 
 This life, what is it but the pervading efflux of the deific 
 love and life vivifying all nature and sustaining the animal 
 ana vegetable world as well as the world ot mind? 
 
 Should it be objected that this proves too much ; that it in- 
 volves the identity of the vital principle of animals and veg- 
 etables, let us not shrink from the conclusion. The essential 
 unity of all spirit and all life with this exuberant life from 
 God is a truth from which we need not recoil, even though it 
 bring all animal and vegetable forms within the sweep of im- 
 mortality. 
 
 The universe is not dead. Think you this earth of ours is a 
 lifeless, unsentient bulk, while the worm on her surface is in 
 the enjoyment of life ? To an inquiry whether the soul is im- 
 mortal, Apollonius, one of the greatest of the ancient medi- 
 ums, replied, " Yes, immortal — but like everything." 
 
 These suns, systems, planets and satellites are not mere 
 mechanisms. The pulsations of a divine life throb in them 
 all, and make them rich in the sense that they too are parts 
 of the divine cosmos. Dissolution, disintegration and change 
 are not death while an immortal principle survives. 
 
 " Science," says the Duke of Argyll, "in the modern doc- 
 trine of the conservation of energy and the convertibility of 
 forces, is already getting a firm hold of the idea, that all kinds 
 of force are but forms of manifestations of one central force 
 issuing from some one fountain head of power. Sir John Iler- 
 schel has not hesitated to say, that ' it is but reasonable to re- 
 gard the force of gravitation as the direct or indirect result of a 
 consciousness or a will existing somewhere.' " 
 
 In support of the identity of life and spirit, the Spiritualist 
 will find some unexpected allies. Even so orthodox a teacher 
 as President Noah Porter comes up to the vindication of the 
 
164: THE UNITY OF FORCES. 
 
 grand truth, and in vindicating it he has to lend his support 
 to the inevitable doctrine of a spiritual body. 
 
 11 The soul," he says, "beginning to exist as the principle 
 of life, may have the power to create other bodies than the physi- 
 cal for itself, or it may already have formed another medium 
 or body in the germ, and may hold it ready for occupation and 
 use as soon as it sloughs off the one which connects it with the 
 earth. . . . The evidence of observation and of facts is de- 
 cisive that the soul begins its existence as a vital agency, and 
 emerges by a gradual waking into the conscious activities of 
 its higher nature." 
 
 The soul which has had enough divine intelligence to pre- 
 pare for itself a body in this world may be trusted to have, 
 ready a fitting substitute when death loosens the physical tie. 
 If from a little microscopic cell, by successive differentiations, 
 it may evolve man's complex organism, surely it may, from 
 its higher point of being, evolve future organisms suited to its 
 more advanced states. 
 
 But it is not merely Protestant theology that concurs in this 
 view of the soul as the vivifying principle, active not only in 
 the formation and functional processes of the body, but in 
 the exercise of man's conscious activities. The highest Cath- 
 olic authority teaches the identity of the vital and the pi y- 
 chical principle. By a brief dated April 30th, 1860, the Pope 
 declares that the doctrine of the substantial unity of the prin- 
 ciple of life and that of thought is according to faith, and he 
 condemns any contrary opinion as inconsistent with Catholic 
 teaching. 
 
 Both Plato and Aristotle had taught this doctrine. They 
 tell us that the life comes from the soul ; from that which 
 feels and thinks, " No," says Descartes; "the soul is that 
 which thinks ; consequently we must not attribute to it vital 
 phenomena of which it has no consciousness." To this objec- 
 tion Leibnitz replies that we certainly do have confused, in- 
 distinct perceptions of which we are not conscious at the time. 
 Leibnitz plainly refers to what in our day Dr. Carpenter calls 
 unconscious cerebration. 
 
REASON SUGGESTS UNITY. 165 
 
 G. E. Stahl (1660-1734,) going somewhat further than Leib- 
 nitz, and anticipating the doctrine of unconscious cerebra- 
 tion, shows that there are mental operations independent of 
 consciousness. He teaches that the true principle of life is 
 the soul. Were this soul blind and unintelligent, it would 
 do no rnore and no better than matter itself ; but if it is capa 
 ble of directing the movements of the body towards an end, 
 it is because it is intelligent ; in what then does it differ from 
 the rational soul or spirit ? True, in our normal state, it 
 may not have a consciousness of all its acts ; but from this it 
 does not at all follow that it may not perform them. 
 
 The facts of double consciousness, apparent in the phe- 
 nomena of somnambulism, mesmerism, and Spiritualism, con- 
 firm these views. They show that the nature of the soul is 
 complex ; that this complexity may include the vital processes; 
 and that both intelligence and life may be the resultants of a 
 single force. 
 
 " No proof of the soul's immortality," says Papillon, "is 
 so strong as that we draw from the necessary simplicity and 
 eternity of all the principles of force. Nothing bears witness 
 so powerfully to the majestic reality of a God as the spectacle 
 of those diversities, all harmonious, which rule the infinite 
 range of forces, and bind in unity the ordered pulses of the 
 world." 
 
 There is a principle of moral and intellectual unity, and we 
 call it reason. Were all the facts of observation established 
 as absolute truths, admitted by science, discussion would 
 cease and there would be no more diversity of opinion. Now 
 psychology demonstrates that the two or three general formu- 
 las or principles of reason are but the analytical development 
 of one single idea, to which we may give what name we see 
 fit, but which religion and philosophy almost unanimously 
 call the idea of God. 
 
 "This idea," says' Burnouf, "constitutes the basis of 
 thought in all its degrees. In man it leads to the highest re- 
 gions of speculation ; to all animals it gives the means of 
 motion, of alimentation, of reproduction ; to every living 
 
166 THE UNITY OF FORCES. 
 
 thing it gives the general form of life. It resides in the cell i 
 it gives unity to the infinite movements and to the innumera* 
 ble shapes of the universe.' ' 
 
 "All existence," says Oersted, " is a dominion of Reason. 
 The laws of Nature are laws of reason, and all together form 
 an endless unity of reason, one and the same throughout the 
 universe." 
 
 Thus in physical science, in astronomy and chemistry, for 
 the inorganic world, and in physiology and psychology for 
 the world of living beings, the tendency at this moment is 
 toward unity, and all the analyses of science, physical and 
 psychical, converge in this direction. 
 
 "What do we know of an atom, apart from force?" asks 
 Faraday. "You conceive a nucleus, which may be called a, 
 and you surround it with forces, which may be called m ; to 
 my mind, your a, or nucleus, vanishes, and substance con- 
 sists in the energy of m. In fact, what notion can we form 
 of a nucleus, independent of its energy?" 
 
 Thus is scientific thought forever shadowing forth the hy- 
 pothesis that matter, in its last analysis, must be resolved 
 into force ; and thus we find it is no chimerical dream to sup- 
 pose that the deific idea constitutes at once the essential form 
 and the substance of things. 
 
 If the prospect is that in this all-embracing unity matter 
 and spirit will be made to appear as phenomenal manifesta- 
 tions of one divine substance, let us not be alarmed. Pan- 
 theism is true as far as it goes, but it must be supplemented 
 by Theism before the whole truth can be apprehended ; nor 
 is there contradiction in this. The notion of a creation out 
 of nothing is now so modified by the most advanced, Chris- 
 tian theologians, that it is virtually abandoned. At once 
 intramundane and supramundane, immanent and transcend- 
 ent, God appears, more and more to the modern conception, 
 as both automatic Nature and absolute Spirit. 
 
 " The difficulties of thought," says Picton, "the silence of 
 the heavens, the actual breathing, deathless beauty of crea- 
 tion, command us, with an inspiration which the age will not 
 
SPIRITUALISM AND THEISM. 167 
 
 resist, to see God not so much as the meditative Designer who 
 makes, but rather as the Eternal Power which constitutes 
 and is the All in All." 
 
 As we draw nearer to a principle of unity, we draw nearer 
 to a conception of God. What relations has Spiritualism to 
 this conception ? The answer was given when we found that 
 Spiritualism, like every other science, teaches the unity of all 
 forces and all phenomena. But the question shall have a fur- 
 ther consideration. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The thinking spirit being itself of a divine, an immortal na- 
 ture, the search after God seems inseparable from the devel- 
 opment of our moral and intellectual faculties. Having, at 
 least in our lower and normal state of consciousness, no ex- 
 planation within ourselves of our existence, we rise to the con- 
 ception of an infinite, uncaused, intelligent Power, having his 
 reason for being within himself, and from whom the principle 
 of our limited being is mysteriously derived. 
 
 What bearing do the facts of Modern Spiritualism have on 
 this theistic conception ? 
 
 D'Holbach (1723-1789) , author of " LaSysteme de la Nature," 
 and still perhaps the most famous of all atheistic writers, says : 
 " It is necessary to fall back on the doctrine, so little probable, 
 of a future life and of the immortality of the soul, in order to 
 justify a belief in Divinity." 
 
 Even in D'Holbach's view, the one belief necessarily involved 
 the other. He could not well see how a Spiritualist could be 
 an atheist. But he did not make allowance for all the incon- 
 sistencies of human thought. 
 
 "That we are to live hereafter," says Bishop Butler, "is 
 just as reconcilable with the scheme of atheism, and as well 
 to be accounted for by it, as that we are now alive is : and 
 
168 BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 therefore nothing can be more absurd than to argue from that 
 scheme that there can be no future state.' ' 
 
 Bishop Butler is right. Strange as it may seem, there are 
 atheistic seers and atheistic spirits. 
 
 At the first glance a belief in spirits would seem to facilitate 
 belief in a Supreme Spirit, author and ruler of all ; and so it 
 does. For one of the principal arguments of speculative athe- 
 ism is annihilated by the very fact of the existence of a spirit, 
 exercising clairvoyant powers, and independent of the mate- 
 rial impediments of space and time. But history shows that 
 a sincere belief in spirits and a future life may exist independ- 
 ently of any belief in a God. The old polytheism was large- 
 ly a belief in mere spirits ; and the uncivilized tribes who be- 
 lieve fully in spirits are often found without a notion of any 
 other deities than their departed ancestors and great men. 
 
 Man, however, as he advances in culture, is forced to strug- 
 gle with the theistic idea. That such a problem as the exist- 
 ence of a God is placed before him is itself an earnest of 
 his immortality ; a promise written in the very texture of 
 his being that his profound questionings shall some day be 
 answered. 
 
 " Great," says Aime-Martin, "is the creature to whom it 
 is allowed to imagine questions to which a God only can 
 reply." 
 
 So stupendous seems the question of a God in its propor- 
 tions to our faculties as normally limited, that it is not sur- 
 prising so many reverent minds should shrink from it alto- 
 gether. "It is when we acknowledge that we do not know 
 God, that we know him best," says St. Denis, the areopagite. 
 "That which I conceive," says Fichte, "becomes finite 
 through my very conception of it ; and this can never, even by 
 endless exaltation, rise into the Infinite." 
 
 But broader views of man's complex nature lead us to real- 
 ize that the unfathomable exists in the human sou] as well as 
 in the nature of God ; that we do not see the whole of man in 
 his normal and material limitations ; that he has powers and 
 a hidden intelligence, altogether unexplained by any experi- 
 
FINITE AND INFINITE. 169 
 
 ence-tbeory, or any theory of hereditary transmission, or of 
 knowledge got through the physical senses ; and we begin to 
 have glimpses of actual relations of the finite to the Infinite. 
 We learn, upon reflection, that it is not less difficult to com- 
 prehend how a finite, derived and dependent being can exist, 
 than to form a conception of an absolute, omnipotent and om- 
 niscient God. 
 
 To say that we bring God down to some measure of anthro- 
 pomorphism by the very conception of him, is simply to beg 
 the whole question, and to deny the inference which the phe- 
 nomena of clairvoyance and Spiritualism abundantly author- 
 ize—the inference, namely, that man has in himself an ele- 
 ment relating him to the Infinite. 
 
 The same motive that would keep us from studying the 
 infinite, ought to deter us from studying the finite, since the in- 
 finite is everywhere involved in it, and both are, in themselves, 
 inscrutable. In every bud there is a mystery. Nothing, in 
 its essence, can be known. The growth of a blade of grass 
 is as unintelligible to us as the existence of a Supreme Being. 
 
 From our own imperfections we are led to ask, Does not 
 the finite and dependent require the infinite and absolute ? 
 Does not derivative being require the conception of the Un- 
 derived ? Does not an effect require a cause ; and, in the 
 regress of causes, must we not stop at the uncaused Cause, 
 the one Being who has within himself his reason of exist- 
 3nce? 
 
 In the eloquent words of Descartes: "We are the imper- 
 fect ; we are the finite ; we are the caused. There must be 
 One who is the complement of our being, the infinity of our 
 finitude, the perfection of our imperfection ; a mind which 
 gives us that which we have not from ourselves.' * 
 
 The late Emile Saisset has given so beautiful a paraphrase 
 of these ideas, that I cannot resist the temptation of trans- 
 lating it here from the French : 
 
 "I turn my thoughts in upon myself, and I say, Whence 
 comes it that I cannot help thinking on God ? I exist, 1 live, 
 I love to exist and to live ; I find around me thousands of ob- 
 
170 BELIEF 1ST GOD. 
 
 jects capable of pleasing and of interesting me ; what need 1 
 more for satisfying my soul, and why do I search for some- 
 thing beyond? 
 
 " Wby ? It is, too well I see, because I am imperfect, and 
 surrounded by imperfection. When I consider my being, 1 
 see it flow on like a rapid wave ; my ideas, my sensations, my 
 desires all change from hour to hour, and around me I find no 
 being that does not pass from movement to repose, from pro- 
 gress to decline, from life to death. Amid these vicissitudes, 
 even as one wave is pushed on by other waves, I roll onward 
 in the immense torrent which is sweeping all things to un- 
 known shores. Change, unceasing change, is the universal 
 law, and such is my condition. 
 
 "And the more I reflect, the more I see that this condition 
 attaches to the very nature of things. Within me and with- 
 out, all being is changing because it is limited. Here am I, 
 shut up in a corner of space and time ; in vain do I stretch 
 all the springs of my frail corporeal machine ; I can take in 
 only the small number of objects which are proportioned and 
 near to me. I think ; but among the innumerable truths of 
 which I catch a glimpse, I can seize only a few, and even 
 those on condition of concentrating my thought in a narrow 
 circle, outside of which I see confusedly, or see not at all. I 
 love, but my power of loving, which goes forth easily toward 
 everything suggestive of some perfection, open or secret, can 
 attach itself only to objects fragile, changing and perishable, 
 none of which give me what they had promised. Every- 
 where is limitation. Within me is an indefinite power of de- 
 velopment which aspires to display itself in a thousand dif- 
 ferent senses, and which, encountering everywhere limita- 
 tions, sometimes strives vehemently to overleap them, and 
 sometimes falls back weary, sinking and discouraged. This 
 is why I change unceasingly, and why everything around me 
 changes : it is because we are all — guests of this world, great 
 or small, thinking atoms, or blades of grass, or grains of sand 
 — we are all, in different degrees, and under forms infinitely 
 
MAN A RELATIVE BEING. 171 
 
 variable, incomplete beings, striving for completion, and ap- 
 proaching it only partially and imperfectly. 
 
 " But why am I incomplete, and why under such a form, 
 to such a degree, in such a time, in such a place? Why, in- 
 deed, do I exist, instead of not existing? I am ignorant. 
 And this proves to me invincibly that I have not within myself 
 my reason of existence ; that my being is not the primal and 
 absolute being, but a being relative and borrowed. 
 
 "Now, every time that I regard my being as radically in- 
 complete and incapable of existing by itself, I see dawning 
 upon my soul the idea of the perfect one. I conceive of him 
 as accomplished in all the infinite powers of his being. While 
 I strive to reassemble, in this brief, fleeting span of time, the 
 dispersed fragments of my life, and to develop some of my 
 faculties, he, concentred in an immutable Present, enjoys the 
 absolute plenitude of his being eternally unfolded. Every- 
 where I meet limits, whether in the beings who surround and 
 press upon me, or in the number, form and degree of my own 
 faculties. But he is the being without limitations, the being 
 unique and above all, the being to whom nothing can be 
 wanting. All the potencies of life are in him— not only those 
 of which I know something, but the infinite number of which 
 I know nothing. Unequal and bounded in incomplete beings, 
 they are there, the prey to struggle, to negation and to dis- 
 accord. In him, all is infinite, positive, full, equal, unique, 
 harmonious. This plenitude, this harmony, this unity of all 
 the potencies of being— this is the good supreme, the first, the 
 absolutely fair, the being of beings, God. 
 
 " This idea of the perfect being commands my admiration. 
 How vast it is— how"sublime ! But is it not too far from me ? 
 Not at all. It is intimately near. Plunged in the movement 
 of things that pass, 1 yield for an instant to the seduction of 
 their attractions. In the spirit of pride and self-reliance, I 
 may at times be dazzled and misled by the sentiment of my 
 energy, of my knowledge and my powers ; but this is when I 
 regard only the surface. As soon as I enter into and examine 
 myself intimately, I am dismayed at my utter feeblness, my 
 
172 BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 inconsistency, the incurable fragility of my being ; and I feel 
 that it would vanish away, had it not its support in the one 
 veritable being. There is in this no effort of mind, no circuit 
 of thought, no reasoning ; it is a sudden, spontaneous, irre- 
 sistible sense of my imperfect soul, referring itself to its eter- 
 nal principle, feeling itself to live and to be through him. 
 
 " When I come to reflect and to reason upon these two ob- 
 jects of my thought, the being imperfect that I am, and the 
 being perfect by whom I exist, I see that to suppress either 
 one of these two terms would be an insensate enterprise. 1 
 find them at the end of all my analyses, at the beginning of 
 all my reasonings. They form, in their indissoluble union, 
 the permanent ground of my consciousness. 
 
 " Can I think of the duration that is flowing, always pre- 
 ceded and always followed by another duration, without con- 
 ceiving of eternity? Can I represent to myself a certain 
 space, enveloping a smaller space, and enveloped by a larger, 
 without conceiving of immensity? Can I contemplate the 
 finite being, the mobile, the developing, without conceiving 
 of the infinite, the immutable, the accomplished ? These two 
 ideas suggest, the one the other, and are enchained by a ne- 
 cessary relation. Prior to the being imperfect, there is the 
 being perfect ; prior to that which exists only in a manner 
 temporary, local, relative, there is that which exists fully and 
 absolutely. Behold that which is simple, clear, evident ; it 
 is a natural axiom, the first of axioms ; it is the supreme law 
 of my reason. Shall I attempt to destroy by an artifice of 
 my reason what Nature has so profoundly graved in my con- 
 sciousness ? 
 
 "No! Man without God is an enigma, an inexplicable 
 chimera. He has no longer a mission on this earth, nor a 
 hope in worlds beyond. In losing his divine ideal, in essaying 
 to take himself for his ideal, he falls below himself, and in 
 having wished to make himself God, he ceases to be man." 
 
 But all theistic speculation is dismissed as unscientific and 
 unprofitable by the experience-philosophy of J. S. Mill, Her- 
 bert Spencer, G. H. Lewes, and others. They tell us that 
 
THE EXPERIENCE-PHILOSOPHY. 17? 
 
 science deals only with observed phenomena ; that cause, in 
 the scientific sense, is the name given to the required condi- 
 tions that antedate phenomenal changes ; and that the human 
 mind has no right to reason about real cause and final pur- 
 pose in the universe. 
 
 But the experience- philosophy is shattered, from turret to 
 foundation-stone, by the facts of clairvoyance and of Spirit- 
 ualism ; for the experience-philosophy rests on the assump- 
 tion that we have no ideas independent of experience ; whereas 
 the facts of this volume demonstrate at every step * that we 
 have ideas that come to us through no gate of the senses, 
 through no experience, and through no "inheritance from 
 preceding organisms." 
 
 In regard to this last expression, it should be borne in mind 
 that in the philosophy of both Mr. Spencer and Mr. Lewes, 
 the innateness of ideas that are seemingly independent of ex- 
 perience, is explained by the doctrine of inherited forms of 
 thought, shaped by the accumulated experience of preceding 
 organisms. Spiritualism accepts this as a partial, but not as 
 an entire truth. 
 
 Innumerable well-authenticated instances of prevision and 
 clairvoyance have been cited, in which a knowledge trans- 
 cending all that mere experience could supply is clearly 
 manifested. Spiritualism opens to us a new world of observed 
 phenomena, indicating supersensual powers ; phenomena 
 that have been scientifically tested and proved by thousands 
 
 * Phenomena of daily occurrence prove my position. Hardly was the ink 
 dry on the above sentence, when I received a letter from a sister in Daven- 
 port, Iowa, in whif-h she writes (Sept. 28th, 18;4), — "Jiishop Lee died on 
 the 26th inst. Some two months ago he got up in the night, and took a 
 bath. In returning to his room he stepped off a long flight of stairs, and 
 landed at the foot with a tremendous crash, as he was very heavy. He 
 was slightly bruised, and his right hand a little lamed. Mr. H. and my- 
 self called on him two clay s after, and while telling us of the fall, the bish- 
 op mentioned this coincidence. He had a letter in his hand, just received 
 from his son Henry, living at Kansas City (several hundred miles distant). 
 Henry wrote : k Are you well V For last night I had a dream that troubles 
 me. I heard a crash, and standing up said to my wife, Did you hear that 
 crash/ I dreamed that father had a fall and was dead. I got up and 
 looked at my watch, and it was tico o'clock;! could not sleep again, so 
 vivid was the dream.' The b shop remarked that the dream must have 
 occurred at the very hour of the same night of the accident, for his own 
 watch showed quarter past two, making it at the same moment, allow- 
 ing for difference of time. The fall finally caused the bishop's death. 
 His hand became intensely painful, and gangrene set in, which, after two 
 weeks of suffering, terminated his life. ' ' Will Mr. Lewes please explain, 
 by his experience-philosophy, how Henry Lee was made aware of the ac« 
 cident to his father ? 
 
174 - THE SUPREME QUESTION. 
 
 of competent witnesses. The sphere -of Causation must be 
 enlarged to take in these new facts, or rather these old facts 
 confirmed in the light of moderm science. 
 
 So inevitable is this conclusion, so astounding is the pros- 
 pect of the introduction of a body of phenomena which must 
 revolutionize philosophy, and awaken many self-complacent 
 scientists to a mortifying sense of their stubborn ignorance, 
 that the Tyndalls, Huxley s, and Carpenters of our day can 
 undervalue our facts only by denying them outright ; a 
 mode of warfare which may serve our assailants for a time, 
 but which must terminate in their utter discomfiture at some 
 not distant day. Through Dr. Biichner of Germany, the 
 Materialism claiming to be scientific tells us that " the phe- 
 nomena of clairvoyance are now proved to be idle fancies ; M 
 that " the perception of external objects without the aid of 
 the physical senses is an impossibility," and that " all that 
 we know comes through those senses.' ' 
 
 Thus one of the leading representatives of the atheistic 
 Materialism of our day bases his theory largely on the denial 
 of facts which all Spiritualists know to be true, and which 
 are already in the keeping of experimental science ! 
 
 The limits, then, which are set up by that system of phi- 
 losophy that has regard solely to experience and to associa- 
 tions got through the physical senses, are found to be arbi- 
 trary, and contrary to known facts. Spiritualism, by its in- 
 ductions, leads us to realize that the visible universe is not 
 all ; that the unseen must vastly exceed the seen. 
 
 But does Spiritualism prove a God? 
 
 Spiritualism is science, though science of a unique and 
 transcendent character; and '* Science, " says Chevreul, 
 "can neither prove nor disprove a God ; though the reason- 
 ing by which it would prove a God is more in conformity 
 with its own experimental methods than that by which it 
 would disprove a God." 
 
 Since God has in himself alone the reason and necessity of 
 his own being— since he is the one absolute substance — he 
 cannot be proved, for the proof of a thing must be in some- 
 
BELIEF IN GOD. 175 
 
 thing higher than itself. "If the existence of God could be 
 proved," says Jacobi, "then God would be derived from a 
 ground before and above him." 
 
 We must accept Him, then, as a postulate of the reason 
 and of the heart ; of the reason, because of the intelligence 
 in Nature and in the mind of man, and because the produc- 
 ing Cause of the Universe must be higher than any of its 
 manifestations ; of the heart, because of the love which 
 mounts from the endeared finite objects on whom it is tender- 
 ly fixed, to One in whom those objects have their reason of 
 being and their only earnest of unending life. How many, 
 after a great bereavement, can say, "Never was faith in 
 Providence, never was the hope of another and a higher life 
 so clear a certainty, so intense a reality as it has become since 
 sorrow made it, to me, a spiritual necessity ! I want no argu- 
 ment now !" 
 
 A knowledge of immortality cannot be barren in its rela- 
 tion to the question of the divine existence. " It is an error," 
 says Fichte, "to say that it is doubtful whether or not there 
 is a God. It is not doubtful, but the most certain of all cer- 
 tainties, the one absolutely valid objective truth, that there is 
 a moral order in the world.* * 
 
 "A single aspiration of the soul," says Hemsterhuis, 
 " after the future, the better, the perfect, is a demonstration 
 more than geometric of Divinity." 
 
 " To tell me that I do not and cannot know what substance 
 is, that I never can know anything but phenomena, neither 
 convinces me of illusion, nor drives the thought of ultimate 
 eternal reality from my mind. My ignorance is precisely of 
 that kind which asserts its own incomprehensible object. . . 
 We cannot mark phenomena without thinking of substance. 
 We cannot feel the world's heart beat in the ceaseless energy 
 of living things without adoring an all-pervading Life."* 
 
 "The unity which we seek behind the diversities of the 
 visible world cannot be physical, because out of merely phys- 
 
 *J. Allanson Picton, author of ''The Mystery of Matter"; London: 
 Macmillan & Co., 1873. 
 
176 THE SUPREME QUESTION. 
 
 ical unity the diversity of things could not have been evolved. 
 There must have been a primary differentiation, not involved 
 in the laws of matter as such. Simple, naked, materialistic 
 Atheism— that is to say, the system which would resolve all 
 into the laws of mere matter — is thus shown to be scientifically 
 false; and this from data afforded by the sciences of matter 
 alone, without referring to those of life and mind. The ulti- 
 mate unity must be spiritual, in the sense, at least, of not 
 being material."* 
 
 "Before one can assert," says Christlieb, " that the world is 
 without a God, one must first have become thoroughly con- 
 versant with the entire universe. One must have searched 
 through all the systems of suns and stars, as well as through 
 the history of all ages ; he must have wandered through the 
 whole realm of space and time, in order to be able to assert 
 with sincerity, ' Nowhere has a trace of God been found!' 
 He must be acquainted with every force in the whole uni- 
 verse ; for should one escape him, that very one might be 
 God. He must be able to count up with certainty all the 
 causes of existence ; for were there one that he did not 
 know, that one might be God. He must be in absolute pos- 
 session of all the elements of truth, which form the whole 
 body of our knowledge ; for else the one factor that he did 
 not possess might be just the very truth that there is a God. 
 
 " In short, to be able to affirm authoritatively that no God 
 exists, a man must be omniscient and omnipresent, that is, he 
 himself must be God ; and then, after all, there would be 
 one. Atheism, much more than Theism, depends on faith, 
 that is, on assumptions which cannot be proved." 
 
 A scientific philosophy of ignorance thus proves that dog- 
 matic atheism has no basis in logic or in science. 
 
 By inductive science we are brought to the conclusion that 
 the universe and the race of man had their beginning in time. 
 The history of the universe is a history of the aggregation of 
 matter. Geology tells us there was a time when man did not 
 
 *From "The Scientific Bases of Faith,' ' by J. J. Murphy. London: 
 1873. 
 
MATEBIALISM EXPLAINS NOTHING. 177 
 
 exist on our planet. How did he get there ? Materialism re- 
 plies that he was evolved from the forces of matter. Spirit- 
 ualism says, then those forces must be spiritual, for mind 
 must come from mind ; to which Materialism retorts, that a 
 God uncaused, and existing from eternity, is fully as incom- 
 prehensible as Matter uncaused, and existing from eternity. 
 And to this the conclusive reply is, But you make your Mat- 
 ter a God, if you make it the generator of mind and con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 If we use the a priori argument, and say that " Whatever 
 begins to be, must have a cause, 5 ' we are met by the reply, 
 "No, this notion of causation is a mere generalization from 
 contingent experiences, and not a necessary truth. The laws 
 of Nature cannot account for their origin.' ' 
 
 But the idea of cause is irrepressible, and no logic can bar 
 it out. " It cannot be abolished/ ' says Herbert Spencer, "ex- 
 cept by the abolition of thought itself." 
 
 Materialism would still be confronted by the same prob- 
 lem, even if it were to discover a law that would explain the 
 universe. For the law itself and the law-maker would have 
 to be explained in their turn. Natural evolution through pe- 
 riods of time not to be reckoned requires an intelligent Force 
 to account for it, just as much as would an instantaneous act 
 of creation. Admit the facts of Spiritualism, and the Dar- 
 winian scheme affords no ground for atheistic conclusions. 
 The argument from design, based on analogies with the 
 works of human artificers, is not needed. We must learn to 
 look for Divine perfection, not in the particular and frag- 
 mentary things of time, but in the universals of eternity ; 
 since here, conditioned as we are, there can be, in the very 
 nature of things, no light without darkness, no good without 
 evil, no truth without error, no progress without imperfection. 
 The wise man says, " Trust and wait." The man not wise 
 says, "Since 1 can see no sign that God has acted as I would 
 have acted in his place, there can be no God V* 
 
 We have seen that spiritual and all other facts of science 
 are tending to resolve our conception of matter into that of 
 12 
 
178 THE SUPREME QUESTION. 
 
 force. Spiritualism proclaims through its phenomena that 
 this force must be spiritual in its origin. Only by the analogy 
 of our own mental activity can we arrive at a conception of 
 causative force. Even Professor Huxley admits thus much ; 
 he says : "Undoubtedly, active force is inconceivable, except 
 as a state of consciousness, . . . except as something com- 
 parable to volition." 
 
 The domain of science is bounded by the region of second 
 causes. ; and therefore the idea of a first cause, of God, can 
 never -be scientifically excluded or repressed. "If," says Pro- 
 fessor Le Conte, " in tracing the chain of causes upward, we 
 stop at any cause, or force, or principle, that force or princi- 
 ple becomes for us God, since it is an efficient agent control- 
 ling the universe." 
 
 The claim that Spiritualism is atheistic, has no authority 
 either in philosophy or science. " In order to be something 
 more than mere Skepticism, and to offer a consistent theory of 
 the universe, atheism must abandon its negative form, for a 
 positive ; and it cannot do this except by merging itself in the 
 materialistic theory." Thus it cannot logically claim Spiritu- 
 alism as its ally, since in becoming positive, it repudiates the 
 spiritual fact. 
 
 We assume that something or other unmade and without 
 beginning has existed from all eternity ; for whatever exists 
 must have its sufficient cause either in itself or out of itself, 
 since nothing can come from nothing, whatever Skepticism 
 may say to the contrary. 
 
 This self-existent something, is it unorganized matter, or is 
 it undirected force, or is it a combination of the two ? 
 
 It is impossible to conceive of mind as issuing from unor- 
 ganized matter ; and organized matter presupposes an Organ- 
 izer. Explanation of the higher by the lower, of thought by 
 matter, must therefore be rejected as contrary to reason ; and 
 equally to be rejected is the explanation by undirected, unin- 
 telligent force. 
 
 But what of matter and force combined ? Dr. Buchner has 
 written a book to teach us that there is no matter without 
 
MATERIALISM ON CAUSATION. 179 
 
 force, and no force without matter, and that this unity in du- 
 ality can do anything. He postulates them to account for mo- 
 tion, and then he asks us to concede that matter, force, and 
 motion are adequate to the production of mind and all the 
 other phenomena of life. But if matter needs force in order 
 to be moved, and if force needs matter in order to produce 
 motion, it is difficult to see how in their combination they can 
 produce the efficiency required, and emerge into an intelligent 
 cause. 
 
 Nevertheless, if they do this, if matter and force, eternally 
 inseparable and self- existent, are sufficient in their union to 
 produce mind, then they are an intelligent cause—then they 
 are God ; and thus the materialistic theory must be rejected 
 as failing to meet the demands of a scientific analysis. 
 
 When it aspires to reach the last analysis of things, and to 
 throw light on Causation, Materialism has no advantage over 
 the metaphysician whom it would deride. We have seen that 
 should the hypothesis of an evolution of high organisms from 
 inferior types be proved, it would bring us no nearer to a so- 
 lution of the infinite problem of the origin of things. Nay, 
 should Science do what Strauss wildly supposes it may yet 
 do, achieve the creation of a man, it would still be utterly im- 
 potent to explain the origin and nature of mind and matter, 
 and to answer the questions, Why and Whence ? 
 
 The Materialism on which positive atheism would rely, tells 
 us that the universe is the product of two factors, the atom 
 and motion ; that these two factors explain all ; that as for 
 the laws of the universe, they are simply the necessary re- 
 lations between forces, the expression of the necessity of 
 things ; that hence it may be inferred how anti-scientific it is 
 to regard the government of the universe as regulated in ad- 
 vance by a spirit reconciling itself to immutable laws ; be- 
 cause if the divine will governs, the laws are superfluous ; 
 but if the laws govern, they exclude all foreign intervention. 
 << Science, ,, says Comte, "would now re-conduct God to the 
 frontiers, thanking him for his provisional services. ,, 
 
 But instead of inferring, as Materialism does, that these 
 
180 THE SUPREME QUESTION. 
 
 immutable laws suffice to render an account of themselves, 
 Spiritualism declares that the order which they reveal, sup- 
 poses a Supreme Ordainer.* 
 
 Here are two contrary interpretations of the same fact. 
 Which is the more reasonable one ? No experimental verifi- 
 cation can throw light on the problem ; and what it is the 
 business of the Materialism, on which atheism relies, to de- 
 monstrate, is the absolute incompatibility between the idea 
 of an Intelligent Cause and the order of the world which 
 maintains itself by the fixity of its laws. This demonstration 
 cannot be had. 
 
 Of what use, asks the atheist, is an idle God, of whom it 
 maybe said, as of a constitutional king, "He reigns, but it 
 is the laws which govern" ? I can best answer the question 
 in the words of the Rev. John Caird, in his Sermon on Spirit- 
 ual Influence. He says: "A human mechanist may leave 
 the machine he has constructed to work without his further 
 personal superintendence, because when he leaves it God's 
 laws take it up, and by their aid the materials of which the 
 machine is made retain their solidity, the steel continues 
 elastic, the vapor keeps its expansive power. But when God 
 has constructed His machine of the universe, He cannot so 
 learn it, or any the minutest part of it, in its immensity and 
 intricacy of movement, to itself; for, if He retire, there is no 
 second God to take care of this machine. Not from a single 
 atom of matter can He who made it for a moment withdraw 
 His superintendence and support. Each successive moment, 
 all over the world, the act of creation must be repeated." 
 
 Upon what positive, demonstrable facts can Materialism 
 maintain, at the same time with the negation of God, the 
 thesis of the eternity of matter and its power of producing 
 and transforming all things ?f 
 
 If the universe had a commencement, this commencement, 
 
 *For this and several of the succeeding arguments T am indebted to 
 "Le Materialismeet la Science, by EmileCaro 11 — an excellent little treat- 
 ise which merits a translation into English. In ic the best thought of 
 the philosophical Spiritualism of France seems to be summed up. 
 
 + For the substance of this argument see Emile Caro's "Le Materialism* 
 etlabcience." 
 
MATERIALISM TESTED. 181 
 
 by the very conditions of the case, had an Intelligent Cause ; 
 for the laws of Nature cannot render an account of their 
 origin. 
 
 True, one can suppose that the order of material phenomena 
 and their laws never commenced, and it is this supposition 
 which constitutes dogmatic Materialism. But what experi- 
 mental verification can it claim ? None whatever ! And 
 Theism replies to it by another hypothesis which neutralizes 
 it : Theism supposes that the universe had a commencement, 
 which amounts to saying that the actual order of things has 
 not always existed. 
 
 How can the Materialists prove the contrary ? 
 
 By the examination of the laws of Nature ? But these laws 
 can render only an account of that which is, not an account 
 of what, by hypothesis, has preceded that which is. They may 
 explain the actual form of the universe, not the mode of its 
 formation, if we suppose that there was formation. 
 
 "It will not avail to reply, that if there is a question of origin 
 to posit, all experimental explication is powerless to resolve 
 it : you must admit that no experience can demonstrate that 
 there is not a question of origin to posit. 
 
 "Atheistic Materialism would explain all things by the 
 properties of matter, and in this it goes beyond experience 
 and becomes a system. It indulges in mere speculation. 
 Positive science has no other data than those afforded in the 
 world which exists : experience can give us only that which 
 is ; no one can know experimentally that which was before 
 that which is." 
 
 "Nay," replies Materialism, "our facts may not suffice to 
 resolve these questions positively, but they are more than 
 sufficient to resolve them negatively." 
 
 " But is it not to resolve these questions very positively to 
 resolve them thus? If you maintain that there is not even 
 place to posit the question of a God, cfo you not affirm that the 
 world exists by itself, and is not this a solution very positive? 
 
 " Until Materialism can get out of this vicious circle which 
 Logic traces around its fundamental conception, it cannot 
 
182 BELIEF IN" GOD. 
 
 make one step in advance towards affording to atheism any 
 scientific comfort or support. It may reason, after its fashion, 
 upon the impossibility of conceiving a commencement to the 
 system of things ; to the existence of matter and its proper- 
 ties ; but it will prove nothing experimentally; and, according 
 to its own principles, that is the only way of proving any- 
 thing. It will speculate, but that is very humiliating for the 
 disdainers of all speculation ; it will venture on the meta- 
 physical, but that is the last disgrace to these adversaries of 
 all metaphysics.' ■ 
 
 So in order to arrive at a dogmatic atheism, one must not 
 only discard science and fall back on a priori assumptions, 
 but must set aside those facts of Spiritualism which prove the 
 priority of spirit over matter. If an atheism based on Mate- 
 rialism has no scientific validity, the atheism that would seek 
 support in Spiritualism must be sanguine indeed. 
 
 " The doctrine of final causes," it is objected, " implies con- 
 trivance and therefore a limitation of the divine energy." 
 When it is admitted that God may be ^/-limited in his mani- 
 festations on this ultimate material plane, atheism puts forth 
 its most determined effort against the marks of design in the 
 universe. 
 
 It tells us that Nature is blind, immoral, irrational ; that she . 
 often gives birth to productions the most absurd, if we judge 
 them as controllable by a rational will ; that she allows loath- 
 some parasites to torture the nobler organisms ; that we often 
 find her powerless to vanquish the least obstacle in her way, 
 and reaching the contrary of that which she ought logically 
 to reach. How can a cause which acts in a manner so me- 
 chanical and blind, so contrary to benevolence and paternal 
 goodness, be a Will, a Reason, an Omnipotent Being? 
 
 1 'As for the much- vaunted design in Nature," says Profes- 
 sor Haeckel, "it is a reality only for those whose views of 
 animal and vegetable life are to the last degree superficial." 
 
 All this simply amounts to saying that in an infinite num- 
 ber of cases we cannot comprehend the ends which Nature 
 pursues : a conclusion that is not to be disputed. But what 
 
PROOFS OF DESIGN. 183 
 
 experimental proof can be given that these ends which evade 
 our comprehension do not exist ? 
 
 " We admit that they may be above and beyond our intelli- 
 gence ; but this only tells against human reason, not against 
 divine science, of which our reason surely is not to be taken 
 as the exact measure. The inexplicable abounds in the uni- 
 verse ; it is everywhere, under our eyes, within reach of our 
 hands ; we meet it at every step. If the atheist would have 
 God exist solely on condition of acting just as a man would 
 act in God's place, we are not of those who would conceive of 
 God thus." 
 
 We have no disposition to press the argument from design ; 
 to bring down any of the divine manifestations in Nature to 
 an analogy with the handiwork of a human mechanician. 
 But it should be borne in mind that negative facts pertaining 
 to this question of final causes do not betray the absence of 
 God, since, experimentally considered, they merely signify 
 our own ignorance, the limits of our own intelligence. 
 
 " A positive fact has a wholly different value. It reveals 
 to us an Intelligent Cause by a natural analogy which is a law 
 of our reason. A fact like organism places finality beyond a 
 doubt. Now if finality exists in only one case, induction 
 would lead us to conclude that it exists elsewhere, even where 
 we are incapable of detecting it." 
 
 To say that matter can account for these more obvious phe- 
 nomena of finality, that the gases of phosphorus can culmi- 
 nate in consciousness, and that the vibrations of molecules 
 can produce thought, is, as we have seen, merely to spiritual- 
 ize and deify matter and not at all to dispense with spirit or 
 with deity. 
 
 The theistic argument from design is not needed by Spirit- 
 ualism ; but it should be observed that the proposition which 
 would exclude finality from our consideration has no virtue 
 except by condition of its being absolute. This it is not, and 
 this it can never be. It is relative to certain parts of the world, 
 and it ceases to be applicable to other parts. " But if there is 
 anywhere, in one single point of the world, sensible traces of 
 
184 BELIEF IN GOD. 
 
 finality, all leads us to believe that there are ends elsewhere, 
 even in those places where they do not reveal themselves to 
 our limited means of investigation." 
 
 In opposition to the Divine Personality, Spiritualism has no 
 word of authority to offer. 
 
 Self-consciousness must be an attribute of that two-fold ex- 
 istence of God, at once supra-mundane and intra mundane, 
 which combines the theistic and the pantheistic conception of 
 his nature. How can personality proceed from an impersonal 
 principle? Can God create forms of existence which tran- 
 scend his own ? 
 
 To Strauss's objection, that the more perfect the personality 
 the greater the limitation, Froshammer replies : " The essen- 
 tial elements of personality are existence, consciousness of 
 that existence, and control over it. Distinction from and 
 therefore limitation by others is not an essential element of 
 personality, but an accidental sign of relative personality. 
 An absolute personality cannot therefore be said to be im- 
 possible, for it may find in itself the distinctions necessary for 
 personal consciousness. It may be said that God is super-per- 
 sonal. He is the supreme, the only real personality, since he 
 is the only absolute, self-existent being. If Strauss's notion 
 were true, then a man, brought up in ignorance of the exist- 
 ence of any being but himself, would not be a person !" 
 
 Atheism is a charge often too hastily brought against rev- 
 erent minds, discontented with all prevailing forms of Theism, 
 and reaching out for wider truths. Let such minds not be 
 confounded with those which would preach atheism dogmat- 
 ically, as if it had any ground of science on which to rest. 
 
 We all of us, I suppose, have our atheistic moods ; moods 
 when we venture on the thought that a beneficent, intelligent 
 AVill ought to manage the things of this world better, and 
 help us and our friends to have a better time of it. With 
 some this mood is persistent, as with Schopenhauer, Hart- 
 maun, Yogt, and Strauss, who cry out at the bad things of 
 life like peevish, fractious children bewailing their stomach- 
 aches and short allowance of taffy. 
 
VEILS AND CLOUDS. 185 
 
 "If God," says Hartmann, " previous to the creation had 
 been aware what he was doing, creation would have been an 
 inexpiable crime. ,, 
 
 " The cosmos is something which had much better not have 
 existed," says Schopenhauer. 
 
 "Like children crying in the night, 
 Like children crying for a light, 
 And with no language hut a cry, »' 
 
 are these philosophers in their fretful whinings. They tell us 
 of the earthquakes, tornados, volcanic eruptions, and mean- 
 ingless plagues that afflict humanity— of the malformations, 
 excrescences, venomous reptiles and monstrous diseases ; and 
 they ask, Are all these things divine gifts ? 
 
 They are truly the clouds and darkness which are about 
 his throne ; the mysteries by which he is veiled from the in- 
 quisitive understanding. But they are mere temporary ne- 
 gations or obscurities, and do not counterbalance the positive 
 proofs of his eternal existence which we find in the universe, 
 in Spiritualism, and in the soul of man. 
 
 When we hear Spiritualists joining in these outcries against 
 God, the question occurs : "If, as you say, death is the path- 
 way to a higher life, how do you know that all these calami- 
 ties which destroy or abbreviate human life or health, and 
 which you affect to deplore so profoundly, and to use as an 
 argument against divine beneficence, are not meant in mercy 
 and in love ? If to die is gain, as Spiritualism teaches, why 
 find fault with the natural causes that seem to accelerate our 
 departure?" 
 
 No anthropomorphic argument from design is needed when 
 the Pantheistic conception is made supplementary to the 
 Theistic. " Analogies," says Picton, " which would turn our 
 unspeakable worship of the Infinite One into the familiar ad- 
 miration felt for the inventor of a new machine, are increas- 
 ingly felt, in these times, to be two-edged weapons, with 
 which Faith does ill to play. For only by the recognition 
 that adaptation of means to an end, in order of time, belongs 
 to temporal and fragmentary life— not to eternal Being— do 
 
186 BELIEF Itf GOD. 
 
 we preserve the attitude of soul which is unassailable by the 
 bewilderments of false analogy or materialistic despair.' ' 
 
 Thus we feel that we are surrounded, both on the material 
 plane of being and on the spiritual, "by an omnipresent, im- 
 mutable Power, for whom nothing is too great, nothing too 
 insignificant, but which equally regulates the orbits of worlds 
 and the position of an atom, and in whose Divine order there 
 is nothing common or unclean, but its fitting place is found 
 for the lowest as well as the highest in the palpitating life of 
 the Universe."* 
 
 The great teacher of scientific induction, Bacon, says : " So 
 far are physical causes from drawing men off from God and 
 Providence that, on the contrary, the philosophers employed 
 in discovering them can find no rest but by flying to God or 
 Providence at last." 
 
 "At last." There is a significance in these words; for 
 Bacon does not deny that science and philosophy, failing in 
 extent and comprehensiveness, may incline to atheism. Our 
 modern scientists leave out of their reckoning those facts of 
 Spiritualism which Bacon knew, and which guarded him from 
 limiting his faith in Deity to deductions from second causes. 
 
 The science that rejects the alliance which Modern Spirit- 
 ualism offers is superficial and incomplete, and must continue 
 to grope in darkness whenever it would approach those ques- 
 tions which relate to a future life and the divine spirituality 
 of the cosmic principle. A reconsideration of dogmas con- 
 cerning the Divine Existence may seem a rash attempt, but 
 their relations to the phenomena of this volume are a ques- 
 tion full of interest. 
 
 "The heart of man," says Picton, "recoils and always 
 will recoil from that ghastly sense of universal death, which 
 comes with the momentary imagination of a Godless world ; 
 but the mind of man is equally intolerant of obviously un- 
 tenable propositions, maintained on grounds of supposed ex- 
 pediency.' ' 
 
 * Author of ' ■ Supernatural Religion. ' ■ London : Longmans, 1874. 
 
THE DIVINE NATITKE. 187 
 
 11 There is no resting-place for a religion of the reason," 
 says Mansell, "but Pantheism or Atheism." 
 
 And yet for a religion that is not of the reason who can feel 
 respect, and what certainty of enduring influence can be 
 hoped for it ? 
 
 As atheism must be reversed, and lost in that higher Pan- 
 theism which regards the whole universe as instinct with di- 
 vine life and intelligence, so must this higher Pantheism be 
 encircled by the still higher Theism which, while it regards 
 God as in Nature, regards him at the same time as beyond Na- 
 ture—at once the God in whom we live and move and have 
 our being, the God of the material and spiritual universe, 
 and the God transcendent, absolute, and infinite, the incom- 
 prehensible Unity. 
 
 How shall we approach the august problem ? How recon- 
 cile these seeming contradictions ? 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 In the facts and analogies of Spiritualism no congruity has 
 thus far been found with that form of Pantheism which de- 
 nies personality to God and a conscious immortality to man. 
 
 In the lower Pantheistic view, God is the universe itself ; 
 beyond and outside the world he does not exist, but only in 
 the world ; he is the soul, the reason, and the spirit of the 
 world, and all Nature is his body ; he is everything, and be- 
 side him there is nothing. 
 
 But there is a higher, an idealistic Pantheism, which makes 
 the universe all spirit, and regards matter as a mere thought, 
 or congeries of thoughts, so adapted to our sensations as to 
 make us feel it real, at the same time that it is no independ- 
 ent entity in itself. Of these two orders of Pantheism, the 
 one is without a real God, and the other without a real world. 
 
 In the same mind we often see the Theistic and the Panthe- 
 
188 THREE IK ONE. 
 
 » 
 
 istic idea asserting itself almost simultaneously. Christianity 
 is nearly as full of Pantheism as it is of Theism ; for if it re- 
 cognizes God as our heavenly Father, it regards him also as 
 the one Life in which we live and move and have our being. 
 Devotion cannot go far without running into language capa- 
 ble only of a Pantheistic construction. 
 
 Through our finite and fallible faculties we may not hope to 
 comprehend God ; yet Science may lead us to ever higher and 
 more rational conceptions of his possible nature. The Coper- 
 nican system has enlarged those conceptions, and Modern 
 Spiritualism may enlarge them still more. It may help us to 
 find truth both in the Theistic and the Pantheistic idea, and 
 thus to reconcile what may at first seem too antagonistic to 
 be entertained together. 
 
 In his "Principles of Mental Physiology," even Dr. Wm. 
 B. Carpenter would seem to aim at such a reconciliation. He 
 says : " Although if God be outside the Physical Universe, 
 those extended ideas of its vastness which modern Science 
 opens to us, remove Him further and further from us, yet if 
 He be embodied in it, every such extension enlarges our notion 
 of His being." What good Pantheist could ask more than is 
 admitted in the words embodied in it? They contain the very 
 pith of Pantheism. 
 
 Spiritualism proves that the visible mortal body is not the 
 whole of man, and hence lifts us to the conception that the 
 Universe, as defined by Science, is not the whole of God. 
 Thus Pantheism, pure and simple, is lacking in that import- 
 ant part of the idea of God which recognizes his transcend- 
 ent infinity, his independent spirituality, and his supreme 
 personality ; while Theism fails to recognize his immanence in 
 Nature, his universality, and his multiplicity in unity. God 
 impersonal and circumscribed by the world, and God personal 
 and unlimited by the world, are but parts of the ineffable 
 truth that combines the two conceptions. 
 
 " The universe," says John Scotus Erigena (810-877), "has 
 no existence independent of God's existence ; it is therefore 
 God, but not the whole of God. He is more than the universe, 
 
THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 189 
 
 yet the Divine Nature is truly and properly in all things." 
 We have seen (Chap. XII.) that these were also the views of 
 Giordano Bruno. 
 
 ''All Nature," says William Law, (1686-1761,) "is itself a 
 birth from God. Creation out of nothing is a fiction of mod- 
 ern theology. So far is Nature from being out of nothing, 
 that it is the manifestation of that in God which before was 
 not manifest, and as Nature is the manifestation of God, so 
 are all creatures the manifestation of the powers of Nature. 
 . . . Properly and strictly speaking, nothing can begin to 
 be. The beginning of everything is nothing more than its 
 beginning to be in a new state." 
 
 " As the spokes in the nave," says an Oriental Spiritualist, 
 "so all worlds and souls are fastened in the One Soul." 
 
 A writer* who accepts Pantheism in its spiritual sense, at- 
 tempts to show that faith in the Divine personality is not 
 necessarily lost in the Pantheistic idea. He says: "God is 
 neither personal nor impersonal : lie is both. He is personal 
 because our highest conception of being is a person. Only to 
 the personal can we ascribe reason, consciousness, freedom of 
 action. And here our idea of God emerges as that of the 
 highest personality. But He is more than personal, and in 
 this sense impersonal (super-personal?). Spiritual existence 
 is spiritual, individual personality. . . . He who has 
 grasped this great truth of the impersonality of God, and yet 
 recognizes the Divine personality, has risen to that transcend- 
 ental region where truth has its origin, and yet he has a foot- 
 ing on the terrene where truth is known only under the lim- 
 itations of things finite, conceived through the medium of hu- 
 man analogies and spoken of in the language of the sen- 
 suous." 
 
 "We may deny him will, and yet he wills. He is not in- 
 telligent ; he is intelligence itself, ne has no designs, for the 
 idea of infinite wisdom excludes that of design ; and yet to us 
 He is the vast Designer. He is not hoary with time, for eter- 
 nity is ever young, and yet He is the Ancient of Days." 
 
 * The Rev. John Hunt. See his • ' Essay on Pantheism ; London : 1866. " ■ 
 
190 THEEE IN ONE. 
 
 The secret things of God are past rinding out, because, re- 
 vise our conceptions of Him as we may, there still remains in 
 his nature the infinite and the unfathomable. Without ir- 
 reverence and with perfect humility, therefore, may the 
 speculative faculty exercise itself in attaining to a conception 
 in which reason and the heart's religious aspirations may 
 draw nearer to a union. 
 
 Nature is an organism through which the Divine life is for- 
 ever streaming, and imparting itself to all organic forms ; but 
 this organism is only a temporary objective manifestation of 
 God, and other universes may have preceded the present. 
 Nature is subject to change, to the limitations of space and 
 time, and to consequent imperfection. For in his manifesta- 
 tions on this material plane of being, God is limited by his 
 own " self-denying energy " just as a spirit is limited by di- 
 vine laws on coming within the earth-sphere. Therefore the 
 divine life, with which the whole universe throbs, is, in a 
 manner, automatic in its developments ; and Nature, though 
 full of signs of intelligence, seems often to be acting blindly, 
 and as if good and evil were indifferent to her ; an appear- 
 ance which results from the self-imposed limitations by which 
 the divine action is subjected to unyielding law in expressing 
 itself through matter in these its ultimate evolutions. Thus 
 God in Nature becomes Relative to God the Absolute, as ex- 
 isting in the highest of his three states. 
 
 "To ask," says the late J. W. Jackson,* " why God did 
 not make a perfect creation is equivalent to asking that God 
 in ultimates, on the plane of time and space, where he is to 
 our perceptions necessarily conditioned by the sequences of 
 duration and the limitations of extension, shall be identical 
 with God in first principles as the eternal and infinite." 
 
 To attempt to authenticate this conception of God by any 
 reference to human analogies may seem contrary to that ten- 
 dency of science which would discredit as presumptuous all 
 such comparisons. But it is not to limit Omnipotence by any 
 
 * An experienced mesmerist and phvsiologist, and an eloquent writer. 
 Shortly before his deai h in London in 1872, he became fully convinced of 
 the phenomena of Spiritualism. 
 
DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. 191 
 
 human standard, to confess to that amount of anthropomor- 
 phism which is inseparable from the conviction that man, in 
 a certain sense, bears the image of God. " Man/' says St. 
 Martin, "is a type which must have a prototype, and that 
 prototype is God. The body of man has a necessary relation 
 to everything visible, and his spirit is the type of every- 
 thing invisible.' ' One may believe this without irreverence, 
 just as he may believe that the same law which moves the 
 universe may move an atom. 
 
 In man we find unmistakably the phenomenon of double 
 consciousness. Even Professor Huxley, in his Address, Aug. 
 25th, 1874, before the British Association at Belfast, describes 
 a case in which two separate lives, a normal and abnormal 
 one, seemed to be lived at intervals by the same individual ; 
 and Dr. Carpenter, though his experience does not take in 
 many important facts now known to be true, admits the sepa- 
 rate states of consciousness manifested so wonderfully in 
 Somnambulism.* He instances, in the case of Mozart, the 
 proofs of the automatic action of the brain, as shown in the 
 composition of the overture to the opera of " Don Giovanni." 
 Mozart was probably a musical medium. His aptitude is in- 
 explicable except on the spiritual hypothesis. He himself 
 has said of his musical ideas, " Whence and how they come, I 
 know not, nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me 
 I retain in my memory." 
 
 We have seen that man is described by the principal seers 
 as a trinity of earth-body, spirit-body, and spiritual principle. 
 The facts of somnambulism all tend to confirm this view, and 
 
 * I once kept a sensitive patient in a state of mesmeric or induced som- 
 nambulism for a whole fortnight, during which she did not once return 
 to the state of normal consciousness. When she was at last restored to it, 
 the occurrences of the fortnight were an entire clank to her. Not the 
 least consciousness did she have of the interval that had elapsed. She 
 supposed she might bave been asleep an hour. The ground was heavily 
 covered with snow, when she passed into tbe abnormal state; when sbe 
 awoke there was no snow to be seen. "What w as a rose-bud on one of the 
 bushes in her room bad become a full-blown rose. Tbese apparently sud- 
 den transformations agitated her so, tbat, by a strenuous effort of will, I 
 had to throw her bsck into tbe somnambulic state in order to prepare her 
 mind gradually for the cbanges she wasdestined to see wben awake. This 
 somnambulic state was always a higher, brighter, more rational state 
 than her ordinary one: and when somnambulic sbe would speak with a 
 sort of pity of some of the errors and misconceptions by which she was in- 
 fluenced when awake. 
 
192 THREE IN ONE. 
 
 exhibit man in three states or degrees of consciousness : first, 
 in his normal waking state ; secondly, in the state represented 
 in lucid somnambulism,, where the mind is active and elevated, 
 and the faculty of sight is vividlv exercised without the aid 
 of the physical eyes ; thirdly, in the high state of ecstasy 
 when the subject seems to be surrounded by spiritual realities 
 and is anxious to quit the body. These three states of con- 
 sciousness are often entirely distinct, as experienced mesmer- 
 izers are well aware. I have frequently witnessed the two 
 higher states, and satisfied myself of their reality. 
 
 Swedenborg also teaches that there are three natures, or de- 
 grees of life, in man : the natural, the spiritual, and the celes- 
 tial ; and that in the celestial, men do not reason about the 
 truth ; they see it, because it is a possession. 
 
 A corresponding truth may be at the basis of the conception 
 of God as a trinity in his manifestations or modes of exist- 
 ence ; a conception of which Schelling says : ' ' The philosophy 
 of mythology proves that a Trinity of Divine Potentialities 
 is the root from which have grown the religious ideas of all 
 nations of any importance that are known to us." 
 
 We may conceive of the Supreme Being, first, as God in 
 first principles, the Absolute, the incomprehensible Unity, 
 supremely personal and conscious, because possessing all con- 
 ceivable perfections in their potency and all life in its essence ; 
 the impulse of whose developments and self-limitations is an 
 act of will ; secondly, as God in his relations to the universe 
 of derived spirit and mind, and self-limited according to the 
 measure of those relations ; thirdly, as God in ultimates, im- 
 manent or intra-mundane, and still further limited by his 
 descent into the environments of matter and his identification 
 with the soul of universal Nature. 
 
 Thus God, in his highest hypostasis, is the Absolute One, 
 having within himself, in idea and in essence, all the poten- 
 cies of being, whether ultimating in what we call spirit or in 
 matter ; in his intermediate hypostasis he becomes limited by 
 relations to the world of derived spirit and mind; in his third 
 or lowest hypostasis he is the soul, the life, and the essence of 
 
NATURALISM AND THEISM. 193 
 
 physical Nature with all her material limitations, her seeming 
 inconsistencies, immoralities and cruelties ; all which, how- 
 ever, are in harmony with his beneficent purposes, one of 
 which is that of educating intelligent beings to comprehend 
 and enjoy what he has in store for them ; in harmony, too, 
 with his own absolute independence of all evil, that being 
 simply privation, negation and imperfection, without which, 
 however, man could not be a progressive being. 
 
 In his " True Christian Religion " (33 and 47, V I.), Sweden- 
 borg says : "The common idea is, that, because what is 
 finite does not comprehend what is infinite, finite things can- 
 not be receptacles of the infinite. But, from those things 
 which are said in my works concerning the creation, it is evi- 
 dent that God first made his infinity finite by substances emitted 
 from himself, from which exists his proximate encompassing 
 sphere, which makes the sun of the spiritual world ; and that 
 afterwards, by means of that sun, he perfected other encom- 
 passing spheres, even to the last, which consists of things 
 quiescent ; and that thus, by means of degrees, he made the 
 world finite more and more, . . . The universe is a work 
 continent of divine love, divine wisdom and uses, and thus 
 altogether a work coherent from firsts to lasts." 
 
 If it be said that a tri-unity of being is inconceivable in 
 God, I might reply that it is equally inconceivable in man, 
 and yet facts and phenomena make us realize that it exists. 
 
 " The three fundamental colors, red, yellow and blue," says 
 Christlieb, "dissolve into the unity of white light— so that 
 this may well be called a trinity in unity. But they coalesce 
 in such a manner that each of the three rays preserves its 
 distinctive attribute. Red is the caloric, yellow the luminous, 
 blue the chemical (actinic) ray. God is light ; and, verily, 
 natural light, the first of his creatures, bears the immediate 
 impress of his triune being." 
 
 Hegel calls the idea of the trinity " the pivot of the world." 
 According to Schelling, God is the perfect spirit in three forms, 
 and the true idea of God is a union of naturalism and theism. 
 
 "Naturalism," he says, "seeks to conceive of God as 
 13 
 
194 THREE IN O^E. 
 
 ground of the world (immanent), while Theism would view 
 him as the world's cause (transcendent) ; the true course is to 
 unite both determinations. God is at the same time ground 
 and cause. 
 
 " It no way contradicts the conception of God to affirm that, 
 so far as he reveals himself, he develops himself from himself, 
 advancing from the imperfect to the perfect; the imperfect is 
 in fact the perfect itself, only in a state of becoming. It is 
 necessary that this becoming should be by stages, in order 
 that the fullness of the perfect may appear on all sides. If 
 there were no obscure ground, no nature, no negative prin- 
 ciple in God, we could not speak of a consciousness of God. 
 
 "So long as the God of modern theism remains the simple 
 essence which ought to be purely essential, but which in fact 
 is without essence, so long as an actual twofoldness is not 
 recognized in God, and a limiting and denying energy (a na- 
 ture, a negative principle) is not placed in opposition to the 
 extending and affirming energy in God, so long will science 
 be entitled to make its denial of a personal God. It is univer- 
 sally and essentially impossible to conceive of a being with 
 consciousness, which has not been brought into limit by 
 some denying energy within himself— as universally and es- 
 sentially impossible as to conceive of a circle without a centre. 
 
 11 The fullness of God's being cannot be contained in an ab- 
 stract unity, and yet his absolute personality must have unity 
 for its fundamental attribute. The conception of the triune 
 God furnishes us with the sole bridge that can fill up the breach 
 between God and the world." 
 
 11 If we separate," says Vera, " substantially and absolute- 
 ly, God and the world, we do not only impair and curtail the 
 being of the world but that of God also. We curtail the being 
 of the world by separating it from its principle ; we curtail 
 the being of God by admitting that the substance of the world 
 is independent of God, and consequently by admitting two 
 absolute substances. And the creatio ex nihilo could not fill 
 up the gap, as the creatio ex nihilo could not affect the prin- 
 ciples and essences of things which, under any supposition, 
 must be coeternal with God. 
 
GEOUND AND CAUSE. 195 
 
 " God is all things in their idea, and as a whole, and in the 
 unity of their existence ; but he is not all things individually, 
 or in their particular and fragmentary existence. He is not 
 what the thing is, of which he is the principle. God is the 
 thought, the idea, the essence of the universe. The thought 
 of God, for the very reason that it is the essence, is the Provi- 
 dence of each being particularly. The Providence of the 
 plant is its idea, according to which it is born, it ^ows and 
 dies. And so it is with everything." 
 
 The conception of God as brought into relativity by an ob- 
 jective universe, but at the same time existing in higher and 
 discrete degrees of being, in the highest of which he is the ab- 
 solute and perfect God, is, as I have attempted to show, not 
 inconsistent with what we know of the nature of man. It 
 would be no irrational speculation to hold that the divine rela- 
 tivity to the finite may, in its expression, vary with the char- 
 acter of the different earths or planets fitted for intelligent 
 beings while passing through the discipline of a material en- 
 vironment ; that every planet with its climates and products 
 is adapted to the state of its rational inhabitants ; that what 
 we regard as the defects or evils of Nature as manifesting her- 
 self through our planet, are merely the emblematic reflection 
 of our own defects or evils ; and so that, as the race of man 
 improves, the earth itself will improve. 
 
 The idea that God, as the life and intelligence of Nature, is 
 self-circumscribed and reduced to relativity by his own " self- 
 denying energy," leads to a view of the cosmos, in which all 
 the objections of atheism are swallowed up. God is seen no 
 longer as the provisional or constitutional monarch whose 
 laws can rule the universe without his aid, his functions be- 
 ing merely honorary. At once ground and cause, his life be- 
 comes the fountain of our life, and all Nature is transfigured 
 with divine possibilities ; man, derived and dependent as he 
 is, becomes a free co-worker with God ; evil becomes a merely 
 negative thing, having no real being or life ; all imperfec- 
 tions become transitional, a necessary phase of good in the 
 making ; Humanity, with all its selfishness, its meanness, and 
 
196 THKEE IN ONE. 
 
 its arrogance, becomes ennobled when looked at from the 
 side of its possibilities rather than its limitations and perver- 
 sions, and takes on more and more the Divine Expression. 
 We are helped to judge of mankind by its martyrs and saints 
 rather than by its tyrants and criminals. We feel that God is 
 not aloof from us but working in us, the very soul of this di- 
 vine Nature by which we live, and without the light and life 
 of whose sun we could not exist a moment. 
 
 Nor let it be said that God's circumscription as the life and 
 soul of Nature removes God in the Highest from sympathy 
 with our weaknesses and our wants. To sympathize with 
 us fully, to be Love and Providence, as well as Law and Wis- 
 dom, he must be implicitly the Nature he subordinates, be- 
 sides a Power independent of it. It may be objected : God 
 cannot be perfection, if, in his self -limitation as the sub- 
 stance of Nature, he is also imperfection ; but to this it may 
 be replied that the experience of imperfection may be essen- 
 tial to the very fullness of the Divine perfection ; that in or- 
 der to be the perfect he must exist in a self-subordinated 
 state as the imperfect also. 
 
 Kemember, moreover, that if God is a trinity, he is in that 
 but the prototype of man, who, in each grade of his nature, 
 is related to God in a corresponding hypostasis. The tri- 
 unity of earth -body, spirit-body, and spiritual principle, is 
 paralleled in the three-fold nature of God ; and man, in each 
 degree, and in all together, has God as ' his Providence, his 
 spiritual Ideal, and his Infinite Father. The God of his 
 childhood's trust and wonder is restored to him ; the God of 
 his prayers is an ever-present listener ; if God is unyielding 
 law, he is also maternal tenderness and love ; if he is the life 
 of our life, he is also the moral order of the universe ; and 
 faith is thus unchecked by science, while reason is reconciled 
 with faith. 
 
 To many profound and to many superficial thinkers, all 
 theistic speculation is repulsive. They would say with 
 Hooker: "Our safest eloquence concerning Him is our si- 
 lence"; or with Sir William Hamilton, "The highest react 
 
PANTHEISTIC THEISM. 197 
 
 of human science is the scientific recognition of human igno- 
 rance.'* But the heart and the intellect continue, neverthe- 
 less, to cry, " Oh ! that I knew where I might find Him I" 
 
 As on the nature of man new and important light contin- 
 ues to be shed by the facts of somnambulism, thought read- 
 ing, and Modern Spiritualism, may we not hope that human 
 thought will be helped to conceptions of Deity less at vari- 
 ance with science, and that the atheistic objections which 
 now oppress many sincere minds and devout hearts, will be 
 gradually but surely lost in the dawning light? 
 
 The elements of this attempt to combine the Theistic with 
 the Pantheistic conception may be found in all the great phi- 
 losophies and theologies, not omitting those of Oriental 
 origin. Plato distinctly teaches that the Soul of the World 
 is a third subordinate nature, compounded of intelligence 
 and matter. 
 
 The eminent French eclectic, Cousin, (1792-1867) in sum- 
 ming up his views of the Divine nature, includes much that 
 is in harmony with the outline I have feebly sketched. He 
 says: "The universe itself is so far from exhausting God, 
 that many of the attributes of God are there covered with an 
 obscurity almost impenetrable, and are discovered only in 
 the soul of man. God is at once substance and cause, at the 
 summit of being, and at its humblest degree, infinite and finite 
 together, triple, in fine ; that is, at once God, Nature, and hu- 
 manity. To say that the world is God, is to admit only the 
 world, and to deny God. However immense it may be, this 
 world is fiuite 7 compared to God, who is infinite ; and from 
 his inexhaustible infinitude He is able to draw, without 
 limit, new worlds, new beings, new manifestations. Invisi- 
 ble and present, revealed and withdrawn in himself, in the 
 world and out of the world, communicating himself without 
 cessation, and remaining incommunicable, He is at once the 
 living God and the God concealed." 
 
198 MORALS OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 What relation has Spiritualism to natural morality ? 
 
 The mere knowledge of a future life may have no moral effi- 
 cacy in a mind that does not see the grandeur of the possibili- 
 ties involved in the fact. The knowledge must be spiritual- 
 ized by meditation and by emotion before it can assume its 
 rightful authority in shaping the moral life and constitution. 
 
 Being a demonstration of the continuous life of man through 
 the association of a spirit-body, perfect in all its parts, with 
 the material body, Spiritualism has manifestly as intimate a 
 relation as any fact of our mortal existence can have, to natu- 
 ral morality ; for it is as much related to the present as man- 
 hood is related to youth, or old age to manhood. It illustrates 
 the laws that govern the relations of human life, because it 
 explains innumerable occult facts in human history, throws 
 a flood of light on psychological questions, and has a most di- 
 rect practical bearing on our habits of thought, our affections, 
 and our hopes. A moral science, in no wise based on spiritu- 
 al facts, would be as imperfect as a science of physiology that 
 did not recognize the brain and the nervous system. 
 
 " The essential teaching of Spiritualism," says Mr. A. R. 
 Wallace, " is, that we are, all of us, in every act and thought, 
 helping to build up a mental fabric which will be and consti- 
 tute ourselves, more completely after the death of the body 
 than it does now. Just as this fabric is well or ill built, so 
 will our progress and happiness be aided or retarded. ,, 
 
 Every mental affection we experience, as it helps to mold 
 the spirit-body, thus leaves its impress on our inmost charac- 
 ter ; every thought we think, and every desire we feel is in- 
 delibly registered in the very constituents of our being, and 
 becomes an integrant part of our individuality : what is once 
 in the memory is there forever ; it may be concealed from 
 
SCIENCE THE AUTHORITY. 199 
 
 consciousness for awhile, but annihilated never. Thus well- 
 ordered thoughts and a well- ordered life iiisue in correspond- 
 ing endowments of the spirit-body. 
 
 These facts have a most direct and unequivocal bearing on 
 natural morality, They make us severally the authors and 
 shapers of our own characters and destinies. They teach us 
 that our thoughts and our deeds, good or bad, have an imper- 
 ishable element which incorporates itself with our very or- 
 ganisms, and these become the expression of our actual inte- 
 rior states. We gravitate where our affections carry us. 
 " Whate'er thou lovest, man, that too become thou must, 
 God if thou lovest God, dust if thou lovest dust. ' ' 
 
 Spiritualism must exercise an unfailing influence for good 
 through the affections. Let a man or a child be thoroughly 
 convinced that the deceased mother or father he reverently 
 loves is living a more intense life than ever, and can read his 
 every thought and scan his every act, and such a conviction 
 must have a restraining influence upon him, when tempted to 
 evil ; an encouragement for him, when incited to some act of 
 self-sacrifice or generous daring. The knowledge that we 
 think and act in the presence of a cloud of witnesses, to whom 
 our very thoughts are as legible as our deeds, must have an 
 influence upon us for good. 
 
 "We should live," says Seneca, " as if we were living in the 
 sight of all men ; we should think as though some one could 
 and can gaze into our inmost breast.' ' Spiritualism makes us 
 realize these as conditions literally existing. 
 
 With the eclecticism which must accompany all genuine 
 science, Spiritualism accepts and assimilates, from all codes, 
 creeds ana QJ etems, whatever they may have of moral and re- 
 ligious truth. It reduces all morality to its scientific valua- 
 tion, and asks for no other authority than the fact itself ; re- 
 garding a revelation as in no wise true because authoritative, 
 but authoritative only in so far as it is true ; because, as Mil- 
 ton bravely says, " If a man believes things only because his 
 pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without having 
 other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he 
 holds becomes his heresy/' 
 
200 MORALS OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 And this shows why the dictation of all seers and all spirits 
 must be resented as an insult to the understanding. 
 
 Every thought leaves its trace, every sowing has its proper 
 harvest, and every act its fitting reward. If we look for other 
 salvation than that whose fruit is goodness, purity, love, and 
 spiritual growth, we are groping unprofitably. He who has 
 these is saved already. Belief in salvation through another's 
 merits or sufferings is merely hope in a magical impossibility. 
 
 " Here heaven is not," you say, "but yonder it shall be." 
 To this, Spiritualism replies in the words of the elder Fichte : 
 "Nay, what then is tliat which can be different yonder from 
 what it is here ? Obviously, only the objective constitution of 
 the world as the environment of our existence." 
 
 But, by a law of our being, our objective environments in 
 the spirit- world are the reflex of our spiritual states ; and this 
 shows how grossly those persons misrepresent Spiritualism, 
 who object to it that it promises every one a good time in the 
 "Summer-Land," with charming habitations and delightful 
 scenery ; as if such things could constitute a heaven, inde- 
 pendent of the dominant affections and the ruling passions ! 
 
 Morality is action according to the laws of science and of 
 enlightened reason ; and only those laws have an absolute in- 
 terior authority which are in accordance with our sense of 
 what is true, and right, and of divine validity. 
 
 Religion is faith in the moral order of the universe ; it is 
 particularly the reverent assumption, in thought and feeling, 
 of the existence of an Intelligent Power beyond and above us, 
 that can influence us for good, avert evil, and listen to prayer. 
 But religion, in the high sense, is not superstition ; it is not a 
 cowardly dread of a mysterious Being who can harm or help 
 us ; it is not a greed for the satisfying things of our external 
 life, having no correlation with the pure and generous affec- 
 tions ; it is not a craving for any selfish and exclusive salva>- 
 tion ; it seeks a salvation from spiritual error, impurity, and 
 blindness. Everything which we feel and know aright is re- 
 ligious. 
 
 Religion, having in it an emotional element, may be lack- 
 
BASIS OF MORALITY. 201 
 
 ing in a person otherwise richly endowed ; just as a sense of 
 the beautiful in art may be lacking. And so there may be 
 morality without religion, though there can be no rational re- 
 ligion without morality. 
 
 We find in spiritual science the elements of all morality and 
 all religion ; and the task which the thinkers and moral pio- 
 neers of the race have before them is to place on a scientific 
 basis the great deductions of an absolute morality, that shall 
 strike with axiomatic force every healthy, unprejudiced mind, 
 and illumine all the intricate questions in social philosophy. 
 And as these deductions cannot have their full sanction till 
 we believe in a divine Moral Order and an invisible world, 
 there must be a religion broad enough to gather all humanity 
 within its fold, and having for its simple evangel the procla- 
 mation of a heavenly Father, an immortal life, and a conse- 
 quent morality. 
 
 Morality being thus based on the facts of science, the laws 
 of the human soul, and the proofs of a divine moral order, it 
 follows that much in conventional and social morality, that 
 may seem authoritative to the unthinking many, becomes im- 
 moral in the sight of those who are resolved, first of all, to be 
 loyal to what they esteem the laws of divine order inscribed 
 in their very nature, and to be superseded by no human code. 
 
 For the class-morality founded on class-interests, on mere 
 social fictions, or on assumed religious authority, and wholly 
 unconfirmed by facts, spiritual science has therefore little 
 respect. It distinguishes between what J. S. Mill refers to 
 as mala prohibita and mala in se ; proportioning its uncom- 
 promising denunciation of the latter to its liberal charity and 
 its reserved opinions in regard to the former. 
 
 For while the latter (mala in se) give evidence of intrinsic 
 badness in feeling and character, and are wrongs which no 
 sane person questions, the former {mala prohibita) may be 
 violations of conventional order, in regard to the right of 
 which good men may differ in opinion ; violations made im- 
 perative often by a reason known only to the individual, who 
 all the while may be a person in every respect honorable and 
 
202 MORALS OF SPIRITUALISM:. 
 
 conscientious, and actuated by a positive regard to tLose 
 higher moral sanctions, the force of which no Pharisaic clamor 
 can make less binding on the courageous heart. 
 
 Socrates teaches that knowledge is essential to virtue ; thai 
 no man is knowingly vicious. This is in accord with the 
 whole tone of Oriental wisdom, which assumes that whoso 
 really sees vices must shun them ; that moral evil is from mis- 
 conception, and to be cured by the pure vision of truth. So 
 Spiritualism tells us that violations of moral purity and right 
 leave their marks on the spirit-body just as sins against the 
 laws of health injure the physical body ; and a sane man, 
 knowing the one fact, would be as solicitous to escape spirit- 
 ual deformity as a sane man knowing that a certain diet 
 would harm him physically would be anxious to shun it. 
 
 Thus all violations of divine law carry their penalties with 
 them, and persistence in sin, when its dire consequences are 
 made known, is simple insanity ; but God's processes toward 
 the whole intelligent creation being remedial and never vin- 
 dictive, the insanities of men and spirits must have an end. 
 Knowledge, in its highest sense, is, therefore, virtue, and 
 Socrates is right. "Satan's true name is ignorance." All 
 evil punishes itself, and thus tends to abolish itself. 
 
 And thus, in the light of Spiritualism, the moral law is not 
 an arbitrary code, imposed by an omnipotent law-giver; 
 rather is it a series of beneficent provisions which are simply 
 " a formulated expression of the law of our well-being. " Sin 
 is that abuse of our moral nature which injures and retards 
 spiritual growth. An intelligent spirit can at once read, in 
 what we are, all that we have been ; for our whole moral life 
 is revealed in our physiognomy. We cannot wrong another 
 without first wronging ourselves : 
 
 44 He that wrongs his friend 
 Wrongs himself more, and ever hears ahout 
 A silent court of justice in his breast. ■ ' 
 
 His Nemesis attends him like his shadow, becomes a part of 
 his very nature, never to be wholly separated from him, and 
 to be silenced only when the necessity for rebuke is super- 
 

 MAN'S DUAL NATUEE. 203 
 
 seded by the penitence that is made manifest in reparation 
 and reform. 
 
 It was the conclusion of that saintly man and deadly foe 
 of witches, Kichard Baxter, as he advanced in life, that the 
 good are not as good, nor the bad as bad as we are apt to sup- 
 pose. " Nearer approach and fuller trial," he says, "doth 
 mate i^e best appear more weak and faulty than their ad- 
 mirers at a distance think. And I find that few are so bad as 
 censorious professors do imagine. In some, indeed, I find 
 that human nature is corrupted into a greater likeness to 
 devils than I once thought any on earth had been. But even 
 in the wicked usually there is more for grace to take advan- 
 tage of, and more to testify for God and holiness, than I once 
 believed there had been." 
 
 Spiritualism enforces upon us this divine lesson of charity. 
 That part of a man's nature which we encounter on this nor- 
 mal plane of terrestrial life is not the whole of his being. 
 The soul is threefold in its manifestations ; and conscious- 
 ness is not limited by that horizon within which it seems en- 
 closed in our common waking state. 
 
 In that high interior state manifest in lucid somnambulism, 
 the intuitions that are ordinarily latent become often so active 
 that the individual seems to reverse his modes of thinking on 
 many subjects ; his affections are wakened and touched, and 
 his whole character is elevated. I have known a somnambule 
 in whom this difference between the two states was very 
 marked. In her case conventional habits of thought would 
 seem lost in the impulses of an enthusiasm that looked on all 
 created things as divine, and regarded nothing in its place as 
 common or unclean. Caterpillars, insects, and even reptiles, 
 from which she would shrink alarmed when awake, would 
 rouse in her, when somnambulic, the tenderest sympathy and 
 regard. She would take them in her hands without the slight- 
 est repugnance. Persons, who were objects of antipathy to 
 her in her normal condition, would excite very different emo- 
 tions in her when she was placed en rapport with them, and 
 could scan them with her spiritual vision. Everywhere, even 
 
204 MORALS OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 in the sinful and depraved, she would seem to detect some 
 sanctifying ray of the divine splendor. 
 
 In his "Facts in Mesmerism" Townshend relates a similar 
 experience. His somnambulic patient, E. A., a French youth 
 of fifteen, was, from early associations in Paris, a thorough 
 materialist, rejecting all belief in God and a future life. But 
 in his state of lucid somnambulism all this was changed ; nor 
 must it be supposed that he here merely reflected the views of 
 his mesmerizer, for there was ample evidence to the contrary. 
 
 "Utterly unsentimental in his natural state," says Towns- 
 hend, "he seemed always, when somnambulic, to take pleas- 
 ure in losing himself in imaginations of another world. All 
 the hard incredulity which characterized him when awake 
 was gone. His willfulness was become submission ; his pride, 
 humility ; and, in proportion as he seemed to know more, he 
 appeared to esteem himself less. Often would he regret the 
 errors of his waking hours, and speak of his natural state as 
 of an existence apart. Often would he exclaim, ' now I wish 
 I could always see things as I do now !' There is not a per- 
 son who saw him in the mesmeric state but remarked the 
 change for the better his physiognomy underwent. His af- 
 fections, also, were enlarged. Egotistical in general, and dis- 
 playing but little sensibility, he, in the mesmeric state, show- 
 ed all the warmth of a kind-hearted nature." 
 
 The state of lucid somnambulism must not be confounded 
 with those imperfect developments in which some of the 
 moral faculties seem paralyzed or perverted. Thus we hear 
 of persons who, conscientious in their waking state, have, 
 when somnambulic, been guilty of theft or murder. These 
 are simply states of insanity, either produced by the obses- 
 sion of malignant spirits, or by the predominance of the ani- 
 mal nature during the abnormal lethargy of faculties that 
 might exercise a restraining influence. 
 
 The teachings of Spiritualism thus lead us to regard sin as 
 spiritual disease, to be remedied only by an entire reforma- 
 tion of the will, the affections, and the habits ; and not as that 
 mystic irreparable offence against an Infinite Being, which 
 
SIN PUNISHES ITSELF. 205 
 
 only an infinite vicarious expiation can atone for and remove. 
 On the contrary, sin is an offence against the sinner himself, 
 and his punishment will be to realize the fact in all its hide- 
 ousness ; and, as memory is everlasting, so, in a certain sense, 
 his sin and its punishment have in them an element of im- 
 mortality, however purified he may become by penitence and 
 good deeds. What more fearful punishment for the evil doer, 
 can be imagined ? 
 
 Many of the early Christian Fathers took a view of sin not 
 very different from this. According to Origen, evil is the only 
 thing which has the foundation of its being in itself and not 
 in God, and which is, therefore, founded in no being, but is 
 nothing else than an estrangement from the true Being, and 
 has only a subjective and no objective existence at all, and is 
 in itself nothing. 
 
 " It has been asked," says St. Thomas Aquinas, " If there 
 is a God, whence comes evil? We should rather conclude 
 thus : If there is evil, there is a God, for evil would have no 
 existence without order in the good, the privation of which is 
 evil." 
 
 Such were also the views of Spinoza, in whose system God 
 is not a judge who inflicts punishment. The sin or crime 
 punishes itself. Sin is privation, and privation is nothing 
 positive, and is entitled evil in reference to our human un- 
 derstanding only, not to the understanding of God. This, too, 
 is the Buddhist notion of sin, according to which every act, 
 word, or thought has its consequence, which will appear 
 sooner or later in the present or some future state. Beward 
 or punishment is simply the inevitable effect of Kara (fate or 
 consequence), which works out its own results. 
 
 The facts of materialization show that after he quits this 
 terrestrial sphere man retains his triune nature; that he has 
 still a faculty relating him to matter and to earth ; a spiritual 
 body ; and an inscrutable spiritual principle. 
 
 The spirit-man, when brought within the material sphere, 
 does not represent the spirit in the fullness of its faculties • 
 he i6 under the law of limitations ; in the lowest of his three 
 
206 MORALS OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 states. This may explain why there is so much that is unsat- 
 isfying in the conversation of materialized or partially mate- 
 rialized spirits. The more they descend into the environments 
 of matter the more do their higher faculties become closed. 
 Thus the descriptions they give us of the spirit- world are often 
 conflicting and confused ; they mistake fantasies for reminis- 
 cences, and even their recollections of their life on earth be- 
 come mixed and inaccurate. 
 
 Swedenborg tells us that "such spirits are adjoined to man 
 as he himself is as to affection or love." He cautions us, 
 and with reason, against the arts and deceptions practiced by 
 the malignant and impure. I have heard of a powerful me- 
 dium for physical manifestations through whom impure 
 spirits, partially materialized, have come, and indicated their 
 character by their acts. This shows that the repeated warn- 
 ings of Swedenborg and other seers against low and unscru- 
 pulous spirits should be carefully heeded. Purity of heart 
 and purpose and an inflexible resolve to resist all promptings 
 to evil, constitute the only state in which the prosecution of 
 spiritual investigations through mediumship should be ven- 
 tured on. Safety is to be found, not in ignoring the subject 
 and refusing to investigate, but in studying it under the 
 right conditions and with a clean heart and will. 
 
 As a general rule, like attracts like ; but evil spirits may 
 try to control a rightly disposed medium, and, in order to do 
 this, may affect a purity which is foreign to their nature. 
 The utmost caution should be practiced in all our dealings 
 with these still fallible and imperfect beings. We should test 
 them very much as we would strangers in the flesh, who come 
 to us without satisfactory credentials. The best mediums, it 
 should be remembered, are sensitives, subject to impressions 
 from both good and evil influences. That the evil sometimes 
 prevail is not to be wondered at ; and we should be prepared 
 accordingly for fraudulent manifestations, mingled with the 
 genuine. 
 
 In the triune principle is the key to much that may seem 
 incomprehensible both in the microcosm of man and in the 
 
FINITE AND INFINITE. 207 
 
 macrocosm of God. We have seen that for a spirit to mani- 
 fest himself in the earth-sphere there must be conditions ; 
 there must be a conditioned medium, and the spirit himself 
 must undoubtedly come within limitations that make him 
 different from what he is in his normal state, and these limi- 
 tations may be adapted to the character and state of the me- 
 dium. This triune principle extends through all degrees of 
 being till it brings the Supreme himself into relations to his 
 created universe, and these constitute his state of limitation 
 as expressed in Nature. 
 
 In this principle man has his assurance of an unending ex- 
 istence. He has been brought into being by a power beyond 
 himself, and that power must be the universal power of Na- 
 ture, of which he is a part ; and the very essence and life of 
 this Nature is the triune God himself in his self limited and 
 relative state ; and since out of God's life no life can utterly 
 fall, or be flung "as rubbish to the void/' what we call 
 dissolution is change and progress, and there is no actual 
 death. 
 
 Recently at a meeting of the British Association, Dr. Hook- 
 er exhibited a plant which captured and digested flies. Re- 
 ferring to this, a well-known secular leader, who prides him- 
 self on his outspoken atheism, remarks: "The intelligent 
 power which planned vegetable traps to catch insects, and 
 stew them to death, would hardly be worth worshiping.' ' 
 Here there is a double begging of the question : first, we are 
 called upon to admit that there is a regular design or plan 
 after the manner of human contrivers ; and secondly, that 
 death is a calamity to the insects, instead of being what it may 
 be for all that we know to the contrary, namely, the means of 
 a rise in being. 
 
 The higher Pantheism is universal life, the life of God ; but 
 to say that the universe is God is to admit the universe and 
 to deny God. God is something more than the universe, even 
 %2 man is something more than his mortal body. 
 
 Spiritualism fixes no creed, but from all creeds adopts what- 
 ever truth is reconcilable to the reason. Among the new re- 
 
208 MOEALS OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 ligious sects of Germany is one bearing the name of " Ccnfes* 
 sors of the Message of Truth, Liberty and Love." Spiritual- 
 ism would, I think, have little to find fault with in their creed 
 (as far as it goes), which is as follows : 
 
 "1. We acknowledge the world to be a unity of infinite space 
 and time, the creative energy of which we call World-Spirit. 
 2. We acknowledge that humanity is one of the innumerable 
 forms in which the World-Spirit manifests himself in the 
 series of his developments ; that humanity is progressing in 
 all ways, and that it should be every man's task to assist in 
 this improvement with all his powers. 3 We acknowledge 
 the indestructibility of Essence in all the phenomena of the 
 World Spirit, and, consequently, also in men, and we there- 
 fore consider death to be only the transition into a new form 
 of temporal existpnce. 4. We acknowledge that there must be 
 a retribution for all actions, but that this is only of a temporal 
 nature. 5. We acknowledge that all those actions are good 
 which are in harmony with the principle of the Essence, 
 equality of all men, and which tend to the progress of hu- 
 manity'; and that all actions not in accordance with this are 
 objectionable. 6. We acknowledge the notion of God, as the 
 idea of absolute perfection, to be a postulate of thehuuan 
 reason. 
 
 " The ethics deduced from this are : 1. The commands of 
 Liberty : Be moderate, be true, be clean, be industrious, be 
 economical, be free. 2. The commands of Justice : Offend 
 not, ill-treat not, betray not, malign not, kill not, cheat not, 
 steal not. 3. The commands of Love : Be courteous to all ; 
 be charitable ; cultivate the good affections ; be forgiving ; be 
 compassionate with the unhappy ; be cheerful with the hap- 
 py ; assist the poor ; tend the sick ; protect the weak." 
 
 All that is true in this, Spiritualism would supplement and 
 render more positive and distinct. It would teach that in the 
 transition through death we carry our human memories and 
 affections and all the knowledge that we have gained in the 
 earth-life ; that the departed spirit has the power and the 
 privilege, under certain conditions, of revisiting earth, seeing 
 those it left behind, and communicating with them, directly 
 in their higher, or indirectly in their lower states of conscious- 
 ness ; that we gravitate to what we find congenial ; that we 
 mold our spirit-bodies by every thought, act and affection of 
 the earth-life ; that there is a principle in our very nature 
 which punishes all violations of divine order, and, sooner or 
 later, in this world or in another, works reformation without 
 other compulsion than that of experience and knowledge ; 
 
A NEW REVELATION. 209 
 
 that all the truths and all the good examples and all the reli- 
 gions of the past are our heritage, from which we may select 
 and assimilate what we need for our spiritual growth ; that 
 good or bad influences may be attracted by the state of the 
 will and the affections ; that earnest prayer is no mere shout- 
 ing into a void, answerless and echoless, but the expression of 
 a true spiritual instinct, the very life-principle of religion, and 
 having an efficacy proportioned to the right spiritual condi- 
 tions under which it is exercised ; that the highest wisdom is 
 to trust rationally in God and to worship him especially by 
 doing his will, as indicated in the laws of Nature and the hu- 
 man soul, and by laboring for the universal good. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 11 Do we want a new revelation ?" it is often objected ; and 
 to this some one aptly replies : " Yes ; what you want is a 
 revelation that the supreme fact of your old revelation, the 
 fact of immortality, is an actual living truth. ,, A knowledge 
 of this is what Spiritualism offers. It is very near to every 
 one of us, and yet we overlook it ; for, in the words of Schil- 
 ler : 
 
 1 4 That is the truly secret which lies ever open before us, 
 
 And the least seen is that which the eye constantly sees." 
 How much of discontent and of neglect of life's grand op- 
 portunities is traceable to unbelief in a future state ! There 
 are some persons so happily constituted that they " do not 
 need the smart of gur l t to make them virtuous, nor the re- 
 gret of folly to make them wise ;" persons who seem as if 
 they needed not the spur of belief to induce them to cultivate 
 their moral and intellectual natures ; who appear to inherit 
 their morality as they do their gentle manners, and to shrink 
 from vice as naturally as they would from vulgarity. But 
 these are exceptional natures. 
 14 
 
210 NOTIONS OF A FUTURE LIFE. 
 
 "lam always very much attached to this life," writes 
 Alexander Humboldt to Varnhagen, " having learned from 
 you that, according to Kant's doctrine, there is not much to 
 boast of after our dissolution/'* And yet, with a strange in- 
 consistency, this man, as he lay on his death- bed, while the 
 sun's rays streamed in at the window, could say: "How 
 grand these rays ! they seem to beckon Earth to Heaven !" 
 The heart was too strong for the speculative intellect ; and 
 the great naturalist's last utterance was a realization of the 
 idea of immortality. 
 
 William Humboldt, different in many respects from his bro- 
 ther Alexander, accepted the philosophy of Spinoza, and did 
 not believe in the continuance of our individuality into an- 
 other life. "I must avow it frankly," said he, "that, right 
 or wrong, I do not hold much to the hope of another life. I 
 would not make for myself another existence out of my hu- 
 man ideas, aud yet it is impossible for me to make it out of 
 any other. I regard death with absolute calmness, but with- 
 out desire or enthusiasm. " 
 
 How soon a man's opinions get to be his loves ! A man 
 argues in favor of annihilation till at last he gets to hope for 
 it, to court it ! Pride of opinion and other subtle forces help 
 on the consummation. What powers of acclimation in the 
 human soul when it can thus learn to prefer the air of the 
 charnel-house to the breeze on the living hills bathed in God's 
 sunshine ! 
 
 Francis W. Newman, author of "Theism, Doctrinal and 
 Practical," and many other estimable works, writes (1873), 
 in regard to a future life, that his desire is " here very feeble;" 
 and he thinks that " either poetical fancy, or moral specula- 
 tion, or both together, originated the conception alike among 
 barbarians and civilized men !" 
 
 * Although Kant in his philosophy narrows down the grounds of belief 
 In immortality to the fact of amoral element in man, he seems, in his 
 higher moods, to have had a vision of the truth; for he says: "Perhaps it 
 will be proved yet that the human soul, even in this life, is, by an insolu- 
 ble communion, connected with all the immaterial natures of the spirit- 
 world, acting upon these and receiving; impressions from them. " lam 
 indebted for this quotation to Dr. G. Bloede, of Brooklyn, N. Y.. a most 
 intelligent Spiritualist, whose comment on Kant's words is: "The true 
 philosopher as well as the true poet is a seer!" 
 
INDIFFERENCE TO LIFE. 211 
 
 But Spiritualism shows that no explanation of the belief in 
 immortality could be further than this from the practical 
 truth. 
 
 David F. Strauss, author of fl The Old Faith and the New," 
 tells us that the prospect of the " eternal persistence of life " 
 would fill him "with dismay.'* Innocent and interesting 
 timidity ! As if this good Mother Nature could not be trust- 
 ed ! As if she will not proportion our future horizons to our 
 future capacities and needs—taking care that, as our day, 
 our strength shall be ! 
 
 Mr. Leon Case, in an extraordinary communication to the 
 Springfield (Mass.) Republican of Oct. 30th, 1874, in which, 
 after an eight days' examination of the phenomena through 
 the Eddy family at Chittenden, Vt., he expresses his belief 
 confidently in the genuineness of the manifestations, remarks: 
 11 1 cannot awaken in myself a single pulse of desire for im- 
 mortality, however blest." But he has naively admitted, 
 just before : "I attribute the fact of my lacking desire there, 
 to my long conviction that death is the dissolution of all indi- 
 viduality." He had held the opinion, and argued for it till it 
 became his love, and it was a serious disappointment to him 
 to receive confirmatory and palpable evidence of a life be- 
 yond the present. Wisely does Solomon warn us : "Keep 
 thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of 
 life." As we think, we are. Habits of thought in a certain 
 direction will make even ghastly death appear more lovely to 
 us than immortal life. 
 
 Indifference to life, present or future, is always an excep- 
 tional, an artificial, a morbid state of mind. Often it may 
 spring from the absence of those affections which play so im- 
 portant a part in making a reunion with beloved objects an 
 irrepiessible craving of the heart. Often it is a growth of 
 forces and of habits, among which intellectual pride and a 
 wish to differ from the common herd of men are prominent. 
 
 Thomas Buckle (1822-1862), eminent as a thinker and 
 author, and very near to being a Spiritualist when he died,* 
 
 •See the London Spiritual Magazine for March, 1873. 
 
212 MESSAGE OF SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 rests the evidence of immortality mainly upon the universali- 
 ty of the affections ; upon the yearning of every mind to care 
 for something out of itself. For him, as for most men, the af- 
 fections cry out for a future life, and he says, in words which 
 every sound heart that knows what it is to love profoundly 
 will be likely to respond to— " The doctrine of immortality is 
 the doctrine of doctrines ; a truth compared with which it is 
 indifferent whether anything else be true. It is a belief 
 which, if eradicated, would drive most of us to despair." 
 
 Spiritualism, while it founds the fact of immortality main- 
 ly on phenomenal proofs, shows that the affections and the 
 moral nature are prescient in their yearnings, and justifies all 
 their demands. 
 
 11 If there is no life beyond the present/* says Edward La- 
 boujaye, " then is this one a lie and a mockery. Immortality 
 is something more than a recompense ; it is the fulfillment, the 
 justification of life." 
 
 "We must be immortal," says Berthold Auerbach, " or it 
 were a cruelty to let us men alone know that we must die. 
 The moth does not know that he must die : he thinks the 
 burning light is a gay and brilliant flower, and he dies in the 
 flowery flame." 
 
 ' 'The message with which Spiritualism purports to be 
 charged," says Mr. St. George Stock, "is simply this— The 
 dead are still alive. Thus it addresses itself to the social affec- 
 tions ; and turning to the self-regarding element in human 
 nature, it says : 'As you make yourself, so shall you be, here 
 and hereafter. There is no magic of water, or faith, or an- 
 other's righteousness to save you from the effects of your own 
 conduct.' The belief in a future life Spiritualism professes to 
 establish by the only method which can carry conviction, 
 namely, by offering positive evidence." 
 
 To refuse to look into the strange and incredible is to neg- 
 lect oftentimes the most precious opportunities of discovery. 
 Hypotheses that have been jeered at as wild and monstrous 
 by practical men have been a clew to the grandest results. It 
 has frequently needed a large amount of credulity to persist 
 
MESMEEIC PRECURSORS. 213 
 
 in experiments which, in their success, have contributed 
 largely to human welfare. 
 
 Seven years before the occurrence of the spiritual phenome- 
 na at Hydesville, I had been introduced to many cognate factg 
 and phenomena through a sensitive in whom I had induced 
 the state of mesmeric somnambulism. In her highest state of 
 lucidity she would frequently profess to see and converse 
 with spirits. But though I had the amplest reason to believe 
 in her intelligence and good faith, I was not sufficiently pos- 
 sessed by the spiritual hypothesis to devote myself to follow- 
 ing the phenomenal vein out to satisfactory results. Had 1 
 done so, I now see that I might have anticipated many of the 
 facts, at which I have since laboriously arrived. 
 
 In 1778 Anton Mesmer made his appearance in Paris, and 
 the phenomena by means of the mesmeric passes became 
 known. In 1784 the Marquis de Puysegur showed that a 
 state of somnambulic clairvoyance could be induced by mes- 
 merism ; and many experimenters, both in Germany and 
 France, caught glimpses of those further marvels which Mod- 
 ern Spiritualism has since made common. 
 
 From a correspondence between two French mesmerizers, 
 Billot and Deleuze, published in 1836, it appears that they 
 were well aware of nearly all the most extraordinary phe- 
 nomena that have been repeated in our day. Billot writes 
 that he has both seen and felt the spirits ; he and his co-secre- 
 taries have seen and felt them, and he calls God to witness 
 the truth of the declaration. Deleuze replies that the im- 
 mortality of the soul and the possibility of communicating 
 with spirits have been proved to him ; he has not personally 
 witnessed facts equal to those cited by Billot, but persons 
 worthy of all confidence have made to him the like reports. 
 He mentions the experience of a distinguished physician 
 who has clairvoyants who "cause material objects to present 
 themselves." In regard to this, Deleuze says : "I cannot con- 
 ceive how spiritual beings are able to carry material objects." 
 Billot aptly replies, that "the question of Spiritualism is not 
 one of opinions, but of facts : these are the things that lead 
 
214 THE SEERESS OF PREVORST. 
 
 to the truth." Obviously, to separate our facts from our con- 
 jectures is our duty in this investigation. 
 
 Bertrand, D'Hunin, Puysegur, Seguin, and other magnet- 
 izers, who had stood on the very threshold of Spiritualism, 
 drew back in awe and alarm from further investigation. De- 
 leuze fears that the prosecution of inquiry may "trouble 
 human reason and lead to dangerous consequences. " " Magic 
 is rediscovered," said Dupotet, who now (1874), at an ad- 
 vanced age, accepts the spiritual phenomena as the culmina- 
 tion of his mesmeric researches. " The magnetic forces can- 
 not be explained," said Puysegur. "We have no organs," 
 said Morin, "for discovering spiritual beings." "The real 
 causes of apparitions, of objects displaced, of suspensions, 
 and of a great portion of the marvelous," said D'Hunin and 
 Bertrand, "are inscrutable." Seguin reports that "wisdom 
 commands him to stop on the edge of an abyss which no man 
 can pass with impunity." 
 
 How far the religum of theological teachings may have in- 
 fluenced these affrighted investigators would be a curious 
 subject of inquiry. Obviously they were on the verge of the 
 great proclamation of the facts of Modern Spiritualism, but 
 they recoiled and left the further probing of the facts to the 
 courage of a little girl nine years old, Miss Kate Fox, of 
 Hydesville, New York. 
 
 It would be unjust, however, did I not pause here to recall 
 the fact that Dr. Justinus Kerner, chief physician at Weins- 
 berg, in Germany, and who died in 1859, has left in his " Life 
 of Frederica Hauffe, the Seeress of Prevorst," a record of in- 
 dubitable spiritual phenomena occurring as early as 1826, and 
 fully accepted by him. They include nearly all the most im- 
 portant that have been developed up to the present time : 
 rappings, movements of objects, levitations, apparitions, 
 direct speech of spirits, thought-reading and clairvoyance. 
 
 Kerner was of course ridiculed for what was looked upon as 
 his "credulity." The editors and the savants decided, as 
 usual, on these phenomena, without taking the slightest 
 trouble to investigate them ; but they found in Kerner a keen 
 
COMMON OBJECTIONS. 215 
 
 and intrepid champion of the truth, who in literary skill was 
 their superior, and in science was not lacking. Time has vin- 
 dicated his sagacity and his truthfulness. 
 
 There is a class of opponents of Spiritualism, who, having 
 been forced to admit the phenomena, attempt to depreciate 
 and undervalue them. Their objections are summed up in 
 the question Cui bono ? For what good ? What is the use of 
 it all ? As if we were bound to answer the question when a 
 fact or phenomenon of Nature is presented ! As if the skeptic 
 could not make precisely the same objection to the universe 
 itself, and prove the nothingness of things by his Cui bono! 
 He who would set facts aside with a sneer may live to find 
 them irrepressible. 
 
 One person, styling himself a medical professor, asserts that 
 " there is no connection whatever between the phenomena of 
 Spiritualism and the theory of Spiritualism ;" which is about 
 as logical as it would be to say that there is no connection be- 
 tween our solar system and the Copernican theory. And yet 
 platitudes like this, uttered in the loud, confident tone of a 
 professor, often impose on the timid and unthinking. 
 
 The contradictory character of the communications from 
 spirits is a stumbling-block to many. " Why do spirits talk 
 commonplace and tell fibs ?" we are asked ; and the reply is : 
 " Perhaps to show us that they carry with them their mortal 
 traits, and that the transition to a spiritual state leaves their 
 individuality intact.' ' 
 
 To the just and reverent thinker the current objections to 
 the facts of Spiritualism must appear as superficial as they are 
 arrogant and rash. A fact of Nature can seem trivial only 
 when our ignorance places it in wrong relations or overlooks 
 its real significance. Nature does not equivocate, though she 
 may seem to do so. The disposition to slight these phenom- 
 ena, to malign or misinterpret them, is merely a proof of our 
 impotence to read and master them. 
 
 As for those persons who admit the facts, but pronounce 
 them diabolical, and would drive us back from investigation 
 
216 FEAK OF SPIRITS. 
 
 by the cries of " danger !" " degradation !" all such opponents 
 transcend the domain of science and enter that of mere theol- 
 ogy, where I cannot follow them at""present. The purpose of 
 this exposition is to deal with the facts that have led to the 
 spiritual hypothesis, and not to discuss the question how far 
 the spirits manifesting themselves in these days are good or 
 evil, harmless or dangerous, moral or immoral. Surely it is 
 something if we can prove to our modern Sadducees that 
 spirits of any kind may exist. Even a " degraded " spirit may 
 be a suggestive fact. 
 
 Meanwhile all advocates of the Satanic theory will do well 
 to ponder Locke's advice to those who, in his day, would 
 frighten him from the pursuit of truth by this cry of devil. 
 "It is very becoming," he says, "that men's zeal for truth 
 should go as far as their proofs, but not go for proofs them- 
 selves. Talking with a supposition and insinuation that truth 
 and knowledge, nay, and religion, too, stand and fall with 
 their systems, is at best but an imperious way of begging the 
 question, and assuming to themselves, under the pretence of 
 zeal for the cause of- God, a title to infallibility." 
 
 The late Baron Guldenstubbe, a friend too early lost to 
 Spiritualism, in his treatise "La Realite des Esprits," re- 
 marks : " The absurd fear of demons, prevalent especially 
 during the middle ages, is precisely the principal cause of the 
 unfrequency of supersensual phenomena, the spirits neither 
 wishing nor being able to manifest themselves to people who 
 take them for unclean spectres. Surely there is nothing more 
 fitted to alienate spirits as well as men and animals, than this 
 invincible repugnance, this shrinking horror, this utter Jack 
 of sympathy." 
 
 " The only true remedy," says James Martineau, " for the 
 dark infidelity and cold materialism that threaten the utter 
 destruction of the religious life in a large portion of the peo- 
 ple, is to give them a living faith,— true to the conscience, true 
 to the intellect, true to the realized science of the age. The 
 Spiritualist is professedly struggling for the realization of 
 
LOGIC OF FACTS. 21? 
 
 this object, amidst the taunts of Orthodoxy and the execra- 
 tions of Fanaticism."* 
 
 Dr. Wm. B. Carpenter, in his Mental Physiology (page 
 627), is ready to admit all the phenomena that have come 
 under the measuring-rod of his own experience. He can be- 
 lieve that a table may move from unconscious muscular press- 
 ure. But if it moves when nobody is touching it, then the 
 spectators, who think they see it move, are simply biologized. 
 They are " oblivious of the difference between external and 
 internal evidence ; between the testimony of our senses and 
 that of our sense." 
 
 In other words, if we see a table rise from the floor to the 
 ceiling, then, rather than believe our own senses and those of 
 any number of sane witnesses, we must accept Dr. Carpen- 
 ter's a priori assumption that there can be no such thing as a 
 spiritual -force able to move a material object, and that con- 
 sequently we must be deceived. 
 
 Now which, in the light of that common sense to which he 
 appeals, would be the more reasonable of these two conclu- 
 sions ? 
 
 I am sorry to see so erudite an Aristotelian as Mr. Thomas 
 Davidson falling into Dr. Carpenter's word- trap for super- 4 
 ficial thinkers, and charging Mr. A. R. Wallace with having 
 "come to be a believer in Spiritualism on grounds entirely 
 illogical"— the lack of logic being in Mr. Wallace's trusting 
 the report of his own senses and those of a million other wit- 
 nesses, rather than shaping his belief to fit Dr. Carpenter's 
 a priori notion of what Nature ought not to permit ! 
 
 If philosophy cannot bring more force than this against 
 that logic of facts which makes men Spiritualists, it had bet- 
 ter keep mute. Let it ponder what Lord Bacon says of such 
 rash experiments before it tries to overleap stubborn facts 
 from the spring-board of purely a priori assumptions. 
 
 Another class of malcontents, looking at the phenomena of 
 
 *This remark was intended for the philosophical Spiritualists, but it will 
 apply equally well to the Spiritualists who have become such through their 
 acquaintance with phenomenal facts. 
 
218 ESTHETIC OBJECTIONS. 
 
 Spiritualism from an esthetic point of view, find them "in 
 bad taste." The coarse, hard, unmannerly facts violate all 
 their preconceptions of what the spirit- world ought to be ; 
 shock all their notions of spiritual propriety, and contradict 
 all the theories they may have inherited or formed of spirits 
 as refined disembodied essences, freed from material sur- 
 roundings and too pure to be brought in contact with them 
 ever again. 
 
 But Nature evidently does not consult the dilletanti in her 
 operations. She does many things "in bad taste ;" and a 
 man, oppressed with a sense of his dignity, has to submit to 
 many mortifying checks and natural limitations. The very 
 processes of birth and death, alimentation and elimination, 
 are, esthetically considered, offensive. But, as Dryden says : 
 *• "Reaching above our nature does no good, 
 We must sink back into our own flesh and blood. ' ' 
 
 An English clergyman of the radical school finds "much 
 that is repulsive in the so called revelations of Spiritualism, ,, 
 and is led "to hope most earnestly that it may not be true." 
 He says : " Spiritualists appeal to a vast portion of mankind 
 who prefer seeing to believing, who are ever hankering after 
 signs and wonders, and whose materialistic notions of God 
 and soul and heaven compel them to seek satisfaction in visi- 
 ble proofs. We come into the field with very different weap- 
 ons. 'The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. ■ And if 
 we cannot hold our ground with these, we refuse to adopt an 
 inferior mode of warfare, or pander to what seems to us a 
 morbid craving for hidden mysteries. ,, 
 
 Hidden mysteries I So were many of the wonders of sci- 
 ence at one time "hidden mysteries ;" and the vulgar often 
 thought that chemists and geologists were seeking after hid- 
 den and forbidden mysteries. Is Superstition now driven 
 from the hovel to the pulpit ? 
 
 But what relevancy is there in this lofty talk of "carnal 
 weapons " and "morbid cravings " ? The question is simply 
 one of facts, not of processes of belief, nor of esthetic sympa- 
 thies, nor of theological speculations, nor of "warfare" of 
 
SENTIMENTAL OBJECTIONS. 219 
 
 any kind. As well might we accuse Euclid of " carnality" 
 in proving his propositions, as charge it on Spiritualists in es- 
 tablishing theirs. And if, as this writer says, Spiritualists 
 appeal to those " who prefer seeing to believing," what is 
 this but a proof that they are profoundly sincere in their 
 knowledge, and that they are dealing, not with hazy abstrac- 
 tions but with things that may be tested and verified ? 
 
 As to the imputation that they "pander to what seems a 
 morbid craving for hidden mysteries," what is this loose 
 phrase but the easy refuge of one too apathetic, too timid, or 
 too preoccupied to face and investigate these extraordinary 
 phenomena? Is the geologist actuated by a " morbid crav- 
 ing," when he pries under slabs of sandstone and earthy lay- 
 ers for the evidences of his science? Or shall the marvels 
 that have relation to the existence of an immortal soul in 
 man, be accounted as less legitimate and important objects of 
 study than the discovery of the fossil remains of extinct varie- 
 ties of animals ? 
 
 Mr. St. George Stock has well replied to this class of cen- 
 sors. He says : " Another a priori objection against Spiritual- 
 ism rests on our ideas of a future state. But if the facts alleged 
 are found to be facts, so much the worse for our ideas. Hon- 
 est old Whately could not bear the phrase, ' I should be sorry 
 to think.' Let truth first be established, and sentiment will 
 soon adapt itself to it." 
 
 "Spiritualism, morally considered," says Hudson Tuttle, "is 
 the highest scientific conception of man's relations to himself, 
 to his fellow men, to the spiritual world, and to the divine or- 
 der of things. It is the essence of philosophy. It asks noth- 
 ing without giving a reason, teaches nothing without giving 
 a cause. It urges the individual to become just and pure, be- 
 cause no other being in the universe will receive as great a 
 reward for his right doing as the individual, and because 
 every being in the universe will be better for that right do- 
 ing." 
 
220 THE PROOF PALPABLE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 One of the most common of the phenomena of Modern 
 Spiritualism has been the appearance of hands, believed to 
 be materialized by spirit power, and therefore called spirit- 
 hands. Every experienced investigator has been convinced 
 of the reality of this manifestation. 
 
 On the eleventh of January, 1876, I was present at a seance, 
 where two spirit-hands were molded in paraffine, Mrs. Mary 
 M. Hardy, of Boston, Mass., being the medium, and the con- 
 ditions being satisfactory to those who sat near, as I did. 
 This experiment had been several times performed in the 
 presence of Prof. William Denton, by whom it was first sug- 
 gested ; and we may hope it will eventually be produced 
 under conditions that will satisfy the most skeptical of its 
 genuineness. Molds of spirit- faces have been got through 
 Mrs. Hardy's mediumship. 
 
 The experiment is a step in the same direction with spirit- 
 photography, of the reality of which we have ample proofs. 
 Some of these will be found clearly stated in Mr. Alfred R. 
 Wallace's " Defence of Modern Spiritualism." Other and 
 later proofs have been given by my correspondent, the Rev. 
 William Stainton-Moses, himself a medium, a scholar, and a 
 careful investigator, in the record of his investigatons in " Hu- 
 man Nature," a London publication. Mr. Beattie, William 
 Howitt, Benjamin Coleman, M. Leymarie, M. de Yeh, Prince 
 Wittgenstein, Lady Caithness, and many others in Europe, 
 and Prof. Gunning, Mr. Gurney, Mr. Livermore, Mr. Luther 
 Colby, and thousands of careful investigators in America, 
 have placed the fact of spirit- photography beyond a question. 
 
 On the 25th of December, 1875, Mr. Jay J. Hartman, a 
 spirit-photographer at the gallery No. 100 West Fourth street, 
 Cincinnati, stood the test of a free public investigation of 
 his powers and of the reality of the phenomenon. Many per- 
 
SPIRIT-PHOTOGRAPHS. 221 
 
 sons had got through him unquestionable likenesses of de- 
 ceased relatives and friends ; still the skeptics denounced him 
 as an impostor. But the result of this examination corrobo- 
 rated all the evidences we had previously had of the fact of 
 this form of mediumship. After three unsuccessful trials, at 
 the time fixed, and in a gallery which he had never before 
 entered, there was a fourth trial, at which Mr. Hartman did 
 not touch the plate or enter the dark room, and this trial was 
 successful. Messrs. J. Slatter, C. H. Muhrman, V. Cutter, 
 J. P. Weckman, F. T. Moreland, and T. Teeple, all of them 
 practical photographers, and two of them claiming to be ex- 
 perts in detecting frauds, signed the following certificate : 
 
 "We, the undersigned, having taken part in the public 
 investigation of 'Spirit-Photography,' given by Mr. Jay J. 
 Hartman, hereby certify that we have closely examined and 
 watched the manipulations of our own marked plates through 
 all the various workings in and out of the dark room, and 
 have been unable to discover any sign of fraud or trickery on 
 the part of Mr. Jay J. Hartman ; and we further certify that 
 during the last sitting, when the result was obtained, Mr. Jay 
 J. Hartman did not handle the plate nor enter the dark room 
 at any time.' ' 
 
 In the second edition of "Planchette" I expressed a doubt 
 of the genuineness of the spirit- photographs got through Mr. 
 Mumler, of Boston. My doubt was founded on words of his 
 own, reported to me by hearers whose good faith I could not 
 question. When taunted with trickery he had replied with- 
 out resentment in language that left the impression that he 
 was not guiltless. I am now convinced that the impression 
 did him injustice. He knew that serious denial would be of 
 no avail, and so he parried the chaffing of skepties with words 
 that were misinterpreted. 
 
 Having satisfied myself by abundant testimony that Mr. 
 Mumler had been instrumental in producing genuine spirit- 
 photographs, I stated the fact, and in a third edition of 
 " Planchette " withdrew the charge of fraud. Renewed in- 
 vestigation has satisfied me that many genuine spirit-photo- 
 graphs have been produced through his mediumship ; and I 
 am happy to have my opinion confirmed by Mr. Gurney, the 
 experienced photographer of New York. In a conversation 
 
222 PEOOFS PALPABLE. 
 
 with Dr. Eugene Crowell,* Mr. Gurney said that he had full 
 faith in the genuineness of the photographs ; that he visited 
 Mumler's gallery for the purpose of investigation ; that he 
 told Muuiler the object of his visit, his name and profession ; 
 to all which Muuiler replied that he was welcome to investi- 
 gate the process in any way he chose. Dr. Crowell says : 
 
 "Mr. Gurney then took clean plates and examined them 
 with the closest scrutiny, and prepared them for the camera. 
 The camera itself he took apart, examining the interior, the 
 object-glass, etc., and when all was prepared for taking the 
 picture— a friend of Mr. Gurney's being in the chair— Mr. 
 Mumler placed his hand upon the camera, the lens was un- 
 covered, and in a minute or two the photograph was taken. 
 Upon proving the negative a spirit-form was visible upon the 
 plate beside the likeness of the sitter. The process was re- 
 peated with like results ; Mr. Gurney managing everything 
 from beginning to end ; Mr Mumler not touching an article, 
 excepting when he placed his hand upon the camera at the 
 moment of taking the picture. 
 
 "Mr. Gurney sometime afterward, providing himself with 
 plates and chemicals of Ids own, visited Boston again, and 
 calling at Mr. Mumler's rooms again, went through the pro- 
 cess, using only his own materials, with similar results. He 
 spent some hours in scrutinizing everything about the room, 
 and everything pertaining to the process, and he was perfect- 
 ly satisfied there was no deception. 
 
 " I then inquired if he— Mr. Gurney— could produce simi- 
 lar pictures. He replied: 'Yes, nearly similar; but it 
 would require some days to effect the purpose, while Mumler 
 produces them in three minutes.' " 
 
 Dr. Crowell testifies in the most explicit manner to the 
 facts of materialization. He says : 
 
 "Innumerable are the proofs that have been furnished of 
 the identity of my spirit friends. Sometimes, when request- 
 ed, they have given their names, and at others have unex- 
 pectedly announced them. Many have presented themselves 
 to me visibly at Moravia, and at Dr. Slade's, some of them 
 while visible conversing with me; and two of them I have 
 seen apart from any medium. I have in hundreds of in- 
 stances been touched by spirits ; have been lovingly patted 
 by their hands, and have felt and heard the rustling of their 
 robes. Many times I have heard music from material instru- 
 ments, produced by spirit touches, and once have heard it as 
 clearly and distinctly when no material instrument v*as in the 
 room. ,, 
 
 •Author of "The Identity of Primitive Christianity and Modern Spirit- 
 ualism, 11 perhaps * he most thorough exposition of the subject that has 
 yet been made. Dr. Crowtll is entitled to the gratitude of all those who 
 prize truth above authority. 
 
MOEE TESTIMONY. 223 
 
 Whilst I am bringing this volume to a conclusion, the testi- 
 mony in regard to the materialization phenomena crowds on 
 me so fast, and from so many trustworthy parties, that ] 
 should be embarrassed in my choice did I deem that furthei 
 facts were needed. Col. Olcott has prosecuted his investiga- 
 tions at Chittenden, Vt., in the most thorough manner, test- 
 ing the Eddy phenomena in various ways, and satisfying 
 himself fully that they are genuine. In this he is supported 
 by numerous competent witnesses, whose names are published 
 in the New York Graphic. Mr. Max Lenzberg, of Hartford, 
 Conn., in a letter to the Daily Times of that city, gives an 
 account of his and his family's experiences at Chittenden. He 
 describes the battery test applied to Honto, the Indian spirit- 
 maiden, by Dr. Beard, a skeptic. The full power of the bat- 
 tery was let on, and Honto received it without flinching. No 
 mortal could have stood it. 
 
 Mr. Lenzberg states that the spirit-form of his wife's brother, 
 Abraham, who died seventeen years ago in Texas, appeared 
 on the stage at Chittenden in his shirt-sleeves ; and he adds : 
 
 "My wife recognized him at once, and said to him, 'Let 
 me introduce you to my husband.' I spoke to him in German ; 
 he answered, • Ja, ich bin es ; ich freuse mich sehr ' — ( ' Yes, it 
 is I ; I am much delighted.') It was a very distinct appari- 
 tion ; there could be no mistake as to the reality of the figure, 
 and iny viife said there was none as to identity. 
 
 "Another night he came again, and spoke to us in the pecu- 
 liar idiom of that German dialect which belongs to Westphalia ; 
 I detected the idiomatic peculiarity and recognized the words 
 as those unmistakably of a person from that region where my 
 wife came from ; the word 'morgen* especially — the German 
 for i moming y y when he was saying 'to-morrow morning; ' — 
 was beyond any mistake as to the part of Germany the speaker 
 had lived in. " 
 
 Mr. Lenzberg further saw the apparition of a little daugh- 
 ter he had lost from earth when she was less than a year old. 
 She was led in by the spirit of his wife's mother, and "ap- 
 peared as a child of two years, but preserved her own look." 
 He says : 
 
 " I went to the railing and spoke to her close by—' Oh, my 
 darling angel Sophie, I can see you ! ' She smiled, and danced 
 to show her joy at the recognition. My daughter Lena had 
 also come to the railing, and said, ■ Do you see me ? do you 
 
224 FACT AGAINST THEORY. 
 
 know me?' and the little child, laughing, rapped yes on the 
 railing with her fingers. Her mother sat as if spell-bound ; 
 Bhe recognized her child." 
 
 Mrs. H. P. Blavatsky, a Eussian lady, resident at 124 East 
 Sixteenth street, New York City, having seen in the newspa- 
 pers a letter from Dr. George M. Beard, who had given less 
 than two days to the investigation of the Eddy phenomena, 
 declaring that the brothers are " frauds who cannot do even 
 good trickery," generously replied to the attack by stating her 
 own most conclusive experiences in a letter to the public, 
 dated October 27th, 1874. She says : 
 
 " I remained fourteen days at the Eddys'. In that short 
 period of time I saw and recognized fully out of one hundred 
 and nineteen apparition* &even spirits. I admit that I was 
 the only one to recognize them, the rest of the audience not 
 havinofbeen with me in my numerous travels throughout the 
 East, but their various dresses and costumes were plainly 
 seen and closely examined by all. 
 
 "The first was a Georgian boy, dressed in the historical 
 Caucasian attire. I recognized and questioned him in Geor- 
 gian upon circumstances known only to myself. I was un- 
 derstood and answered. Requested by me in his mother 
 tongue (upon the whispered suggestion of Colonel Olcott) to 
 play the * Lezguinka,' a Circassian dance, he did so immedi- 
 ately upon the guitar. 
 
 " Second — A little old man appears. He is dressed as Per- 
 sian merchants generally are. His dress is perfect as a na- 
 tional costume. Everything is in its right place, down to the 
 'babouches ' that are off his feet, he stepping out in his stock- 
 ings. He speaks his name in a loud whisper. It is * Hassan 
 Aga,' an old man whom I and my family have known for 
 twenty years at Tirlis. He says, half in Georgian and half in 
 Persian, that he has got a ' big secret to tell me,' and comes at 
 three different times, vainly seeking to finish his sentence. 
 
 " Third— A. man of gigantic stature emerges forth, dressed 
 in the picturesque attire of the warriors of Kurdistan. He 
 does not speak, but bows in the Oriental fashion, and lifts up 
 his spear ornamented with bright-colored feathers, shaking it 
 in token of welcome. I recognize him immediately as Saffar 
 Ali Bek, a young chief of a tribe of Kurds, who used to ac- 
 company me in my trips around Ararat in Amenia on horse- 
 back, and who on one occasion saved my life. More, he 
 bends to the ground as though picking up a handful of mould 
 and scattering it around, presses his hand to his bosom— a 
 gesture familiar only to the tribes of the Kurdistan. 
 
 " Fourth— A Circassian comes out. I can imagine myself 
 at Tirlis, so perfect is his costume of ' nouker ' (a man who 
 either runs before or behind one on horseback). This one 
 speaks. More, he corrects his name, which I pronounced 
 wrong on recognizing him, and when I repeat it he bows, 
 
MRS. EDDY APPEARS. 225 
 
 smiling, and says in the purest guttural Tartar, which sounds 
 so familiar to my ear, * Tchoch yachtchi ' (all right), and 
 goes away. 
 
 " Fifth— An old woman appears with a Russian headgear. 
 She comes out and addresses me in Russian, calling me by an 
 endearing term that she used in my childhood. I recognize 
 an old servant of my family, a nurse of my sister. 
 
 II Sixth — A large, powerful necjro next appears on the plat- 
 form. His head is ornamented with a wonderful coiffure, 
 something like horns wound about with white and gold. His 
 looks are "familiar to me, but I do not at first recollect where 
 I have seen him. Very soon he begins to make some viva- 
 cious gestures, and his mimicry helps me to recognize him at 
 a glance. It is a conjurer from Central Africa. He grins and 
 disappears. 
 
 " Seventh and last— A. large, gray-haired gentleman comes 
 out attired in the conventional suit of black. The Russian 
 decoration of St. Ann hangs suspended by a large red moire 
 ribbon with two black stripes— a ribbon, as every Russian will 
 know, belonging to said decoration. This ribbon is worn 
 around his neck. I feel faint, for I think of recognizing my 
 father. But the latter was a great deal taller. In my excite- 
 ment I address him in English, and ask him : ' Are you my 
 father ?' He shakes his head in the negative, and answers as 
 plainly as any mortal man can speak, and in Russian, ' Xo ; I 
 am your uncle.' The word ' diadia ' has been heard and re- 
 membered by all the audience. It means ' uncle.' " 
 
 ■ Among the materialized spirit-forms that appear at Chit- 
 tenden is that of the mother of the mediums. Of her appear- 
 ance Col. Olcott says : 
 
 II I know the full value of words, and I mean to say une- 
 quivocally that a woman— a breathing, walking, palpable wo- 
 man, as palpable as any other woman in the room, recognized 
 not only by her sons and daughters, but also by neighbors 
 present, as' Mrs. Zephaniah Eddy, deceased December 29th, 
 1872— on the evening of October 2d, 1871, walked out of a 
 cabinet where there was only one mortal, and where, under 
 ascertained circumstances, only this one man could have been 
 at the time, and spoke to me personally in audible voice ! And 
 nineteen other persons saw her at the same time and heard 
 her discourse." 
 
 Mr. Leon Case, a lawyer of Hartford, Conn., of whose ex- 
 periences at Chittenden I have already spoken, gives the fol- 
 lowing description of the same apparition : 
 
 "One night there came upon the platform, stepping vig- 
 orously forth, a woman of apparently middle age. At once 
 Mr. and Mrs. Brown (an Eddy) and Horatio exclaimed, 
 'Mother!' and others present hailed her as 'Mrs. Eddy.' 
 She was dressed in white skirt with dark colored sack, etc. 
 She appeared very character-full. Her face was not very 
 15 
 
226 WEIGHING A SPIRIT-FOKM. 
 
 distinct to my eyes, save in profile, but it was to others. She 
 bowed and answered her children's salutation pleasantly but 
 rather curtly, as if she had something else on her mind, and 
 raising her hands and slightly throwing back her head she 
 proceeded to utter, in full, strong voice, one of the most co- 
 gent, earnest and beautiful prayers I ever heard, addressed to 
 'Father of my Spirit' — which words, and no other individual 
 appellation, she repeated three or four times during the 
 prayer, and then withdrew behind the veil, but quickly turn- 
 ed around, so quickly that the clumsy veil had not had time to 
 fairly fall into place behind her, came out, and posing herself 
 like an accustomed platform speaker addressed us in a voice 
 too loud to be in good taste before a limited audience, but evi- 
 dently at much expense of will force. Her gesticulation was 
 vigorous and appropriate. Her remarks related to the 'new 
 life ' principally, and she said some things tenderly of her 
 children— their present works, etc. I think she might have 
 been heard distinctly throughout a common size country 
 meeting-house. Her ^language was well chosen, indeed ele- 
 gant, and without grammatical error — save one— the misuse 
 of the verb Mays' for 'lies;' as 'lays along your path.' I 
 was struck with the singularly forceful character and perti- 
 nence of the utterances of this woman ; because she was the 
 mother of that brood of illiterate ' mediums,' of whom I had 
 heard so much, not having suspected that she possessed the 
 graces she manifested." 
 
 Mr. Case tells us that on one occasion Col. Olcott weighed 
 the Indian spirit, Honto, on one of Fairbanks's platform 
 scales. She was found to weigh eighty-eight pounds. She 
 went behind the veil, reappeared, and was weighed again, 
 this time weighing fifty-eight pounds. At another time she 
 was found to weigh sixty-five pounds. Her bulk at these 
 several weighings was apparently unchanged. Honto is 
 five feet three inches in height, according to measures which 
 Col. Olcott placed on either side of the closet door, and which 
 all could distinctly see. William Eddy, the medium, is five 
 feet nine and a half inches high, and weighs one hundred and 
 seventy-nine pounds. 
 
 A highly intelligent investigator, Mrs. A. A. Andrews, of 
 Springfield, Mass., from whose account of her experiences at 
 Dr. Slade's I have already quoted (Chapter III), has, at my 
 request, kindly supplied the following description of what 
 she saw at Chittenden, through the Eddys, during the au- 
 tumn of 1874 : 
 
 "During the five evenings that I was present at the se- 
 
INDIAN SPIKITS. 227 
 
 ances, I saw a great number of materialized forms. Santum, 
 an Indian chief, six feet and three inches tall, five or six 
 inches taller than the medium, of fine proportions, and dress- 
 ed in full national costume, presented himself; also the 
 Indian girl Honto, graceful, lithe, and with that peculiar 
 ease of motion which we see in savages whose muscles have 
 never been fettered by an unnatural dress. She made her 
 appearance every evening, walking rapidly, with noiseless 
 steps, across the platform, and often drawing from the floor, 
 the bare walls, or from the person of a gentleman or a lady 
 called up from the circle to sit or stand upon the platform, 
 large shawls of different colors and textures, which shawls 
 she threw over the railing enclosing the platform, or held 
 up, in .her outstretched hands, so that all might see them, 
 and atfcerwards threw into the cabinet, lifting the curtain 
 hung before it for this purpose. I also saw her give a lock 
 of her long black hair to a gentleman who had lately come 
 on from Philadelphia to witness the manifestations. On one 
 occasion she took a pipe from a gentleman present, lighted 
 it with a match, and smoked for some minutes with much 
 apparent relish. 
 
 " This form often dances with a lady (Mrs. Cleveland), who 
 is a neighbor of the Eddys, and who told me that in taking 
 hold of the arm of the spirit it had sometimes seemed to crush 
 up in her fingers, it not being fully materialized. 
 
 " The first evening that I was present I complained of the 
 darkness of the room, saying that I could not see the spirits 
 distinctly. The next night the spirit of an old woman, call- 
 ing herself the 'Witch of the Mountains/ said, in a distinct 
 voice, ' One of the ladies here complained last time that she 
 could not see distinctly the faces of the spirits ; if she will 
 come up to the platform she may see me, and take hold of my 
 hair.' I went up, as desired, looked into her face, which 
 was utterly unlike that of the medium, though pronounced 
 and rather coarse in feature, and having that peculiar pallor 
 so often observable in materialized forms. She raised one 
 hand, and drawing out a lock of gray hair from under a ker- 
 
228 MAGICAL PHENOMENA. 
 
 chief which partially covered her head, held it out to me. I 
 took hold of it and pulled it, assuring myself that it grew up- 
 on the scalp. It was harsh, dry and coarse, like that of one 
 much exposed to the weather, and whose hair has not been 
 taken care of. This old woman often spoke with us for ten 
 or fifteen minutes at a time, alluding to her past life, and 
 giving good moral advice. 
 
 " On one evening she brought with her from the cabinet a 
 slight twig or wand, which I at first took to be the shaft of 
 a small arrow. As she seated herself upon a chair placed for 
 her upon the platform, she drew this wand back and forth 
 through her hands, talking to us meanwhile as usual. I ob- 
 served that, as she handled it, it gradually increased in size 
 until it became, after a few minutes, a stout staff upon which 
 she leaned in rising from her seat, and in returning to the 
 cabinet. 
 
 ' 'One of the female spirits, I think the one they called 
 'Grandmother Eaton,' spoke painfully of the trials endured 
 in the earth-life. I failed to catch all her words, but, while 
 thus speaking, she opened her dress upon the breast, and, as 
 if from within it, there arose fluctuating flames, reminding 
 me of some Catholic pictures which one sees of Jesus 
 where the heart is represented as burning with flame. It 
 was to me a most weird and painfully thrilling sight, made 
 more so by the dreary voice and sad words which were uttered 
 at the time. 
 
 " I saw the mother of Mr. Pritchard of Albany, or a spirit- 
 form which he declared to be that of his mother, put her arms 
 about his neck and embrace him ; I also heard her talk with 
 him for some time in a low voice. This recognition of forms 
 and faces goes to prove that there can be no deception, since 
 strangers, going there unbelieving, could hardly be deceived 
 in such a matter. The dress, little peculiar ways and modes 
 of expression, the calling of sons and daughters in the circle 
 by pet names, were spoken of by several as proving to them 
 beyond a doubt the identity of those claiming to be relatives. 
 I saw some six or eight spirit-forms that were recognized by 
 
PHENOMENA THROUGH MR. MOTT. 229 
 
 persons in the circle who came there quite skeptical, and left 
 convinced of the genuineness of the manifestations by this 
 recognition of friends and relatives. 
 
 "I was entirely convinced, before leaving Chittenden, that 
 the Eddy brothers were honest as mediums, and indeed utterly 
 incapable of such a fraud as their manifestations would be if 
 not genuine. Such a deception would require great skill, in- 
 deed a most remarkable talent, the possession of a theatrical 
 wardrobe, and the aid of confederates, none of which, as any 
 one staying a week in the house can satisfy himself, do these 
 mediums have. They are simple and ignorant, their medium- 
 ship having interfered sadly with their education, and their 
 house is bare of all means and appliances needful for the pro- 
 duction of artificial phenomena of this kind. Having remained 
 only five days with them, I cannot give an adequate idea of 
 the wonderful manifestations to be witnessed, both during 
 the light and dark circles, in this old farm-house ; but I saw 
 enough to feel assured that Col. Olcott's very interesting 
 record of the phenomena, as published in the New York 
 Graphic, is unexaggerated and every way reliable." 
 
 Accounts of new mediums for the materialization phe- 
 nomena reach me from many quarters as I draw this work to 
 a conclusion.* Skeptics in regard to the manifestations 
 
 "Among others I have received through Dr. Henry S. Chase of St. Louis 
 a remarkable account, from the pen of the Rev. Isaac Kelso of Alton, III., 
 of materia izations through Mr. Mott of Memphis, Tenn., and of inde- 
 pendent spirit slate-writing through his daughter, three years old. One 
 of the best authentic ited proof s of spirit identity I have ever met with is 
 one given by Mr. Kelso in a letter to the St. Louis Democrat of Nov. 16th, 
 18 4. The parties and facts are known to Dr. Chase, and vouched for in 
 his letter to me. (See page 36 of this volume. ) 
 
 At one of. Mr. Mott's seances, Oct. 25th, 1874, the apparition of a man of 
 for y, wearing spectacles, called for a young lady present, Miss Kate 
 Dwire of Canton, IP. She started forward, exclaimed t;, Tis my 
 father !" grew agitated, and stopped, confessing she was afraid; at which 
 the apparition Wept, and being asked why, said, "Oh ! it hurts me to 
 think my own dear daughter is afraid of me,' 1 Miss D. then went up, 
 and ta'ked wiih the spirit several minutes, but was greatly overcome. A 
 white-robed female apparition rushed with open rrms toward Mr. Kelso, 
 touched him, an 1 said she was his morher. A flash of lightning illumined 
 the room, mnking her snowy garments glisten and her features g'ow. 
 The recognition was not wholly satisfactory. The lightning seemed to 
 weaken the materialization. As the form staggered backward it sank to 
 the floor like a melting snow-drift, became a cloud of white vapor, and 
 thus floated back into the cabinet. Mr. Kelso got a letter from his two 
 sisters, wriiten by some or-cult power under test conditions on a clean 
 slate, the medium being Essie Mott, three years old and ignorant even of 
 the alphabet. The writing was good and correct, the communication 
 * fc thrilling. ' ' Was it the child' s k w psychic force ' ' tha t did it all ? 
 
230 THE PHENOMENA PROVED. 
 
 abound not only among the opponents of Spiritualism, but 
 among Spiritualists themselves, and stories of fraud and im- 
 posture are rife. I have endeavored to confine myself to nar- 
 rations of those phenomena of the reality of which abundant 
 confirmatory proof has been offered in spite of all opposition 
 and dispute. 
 
 Kef erring to the " badgering and tormenting of mediums, 
 the nailing them to the floor, or sewing them up in sacks, 01 
 binding their hands, feet, neck and limbs tightly with cords, in 
 order to keep them from cheating," Thos. R. Hazard remarks : 
 
 " It seems to me that enough has been conceded by spiritual 
 mediums in the way of permitting investigators of tbe phe- 
 nomena to prescribe conditions under which our spirit friends 
 shall manilest their presence. It has been tried long enough 
 to prove by its results that the gospel of Spiritualism, like 
 that practiced and preached by Jesus of Nazareth, is not 
 adapted to minds so full of conceit and fancied knowledge 
 that there is not room for anything new to enter them. As a 
 class, the most learned in the sciences and what is called di- 
 vinity are the furthest off from what relates to spiritual 
 truths than ail others. The most stolidly ignorant are in ad- 
 vance of such, for, as the thoughtful Helvetius wisely says, 
 * Ignorance is the middle point between true and false learn- 
 ing. The ignorant man is as much above the falsely learned 
 as he is below him of real science ; ' and again, * He who is 
 falsely learned and has lost his reason when he thought to 
 improve it, has purchased his stupidity at too dear a rate ever 
 to renounce it.' Exactly so ; and this is just the ground that 
 most of the learned (so-called) in the sciences, divinity and 
 medicine occupy in our day. investigators from classes who 
 have devoted years to studies conducted on a backward track 
 from truth, and acquired imperfect, not to say false notions 
 of what relates to the spiritual side of man, scorn to surren- 
 der the scholastic theories they have imbibed at so great cost 
 of time, money and labor to the dictation or unlettered me- 
 diums, whether inspired by devil or angel. Jesus showed his 
 great wisdom in wasting no time on such as these, for the 
 simple reason that he knew it would be of no avail. ' Who- 
 soever (said he) shall not receive the kingdom of God as a 
 little child shall in no wise enter therein. ' " 
 
 That there are frauds and self-delusions in Spiritualism 
 
 every careful investigator knows ; but that there is a residuum 
 
 of proved facts of the most wonderful kind, explicable by no 
 
 theory of deception and deserving the attention of all earnest 
 
 thinkers, is equally true. These facts can no longer be evaded 
 
 or slighted by those who dare to face the truth however it 
 
 may reverse their opinions. 
 
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 231 
 
 The Springfield (Mass.) Republican, of Oct. 30th, 1874, 
 publishes a long account of the Eddy phenomena, and char- 
 acterizes them as " the most mysterious facts that have been 
 thus far recorded in the history of Spiritualism. " But while 
 thus accepting the phenomena as proven, it concludes as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " The information the apparitions vouchsafe is as valueless 
 as all such information has been. One of them lectures 
 vaguely, one improvises songs, one dances and weaves spirit- 
 ual cloth for other ' spirits ' not so capable as herself, one 
 merely nods and smiles. None of them have told us yet about 
 the new life ; we are no wiser than o£ old. The manifesta- 
 tions in the Eddy homestead, thus far, remarkable as they 
 are, have simply added a deeper mystery to the strange thing 
 called Spiritualism. We know it is not all imposture, we 
 know it is not all illusion ; where and what the truth is, we 
 yet wait to see." 
 
 To all which the sufficient reply is simple enough : In the 
 nature of things what fact could any spirit possibly communi- 
 cate to be compared in magnitude with the Proof Palpable 
 of its own existence f 
 
 The wonderful fact of a future life is, at the present time, 
 either practically ignored, or but faintly entertained, or else 
 ridiculed and rejected by more than three- fourths of the 
 people of Christendom ; an atheistic Science lifts its voice and 
 proclaims annihilation as the only consistent creed for a sa- 
 vant; the prayer even of believers is, "Help thou my unbe- 
 lief !" and now, when spirits come and reveal themselves pal- 
 pably to our senses, and claim recognition, and get it, and de- 
 clare to us that death has not destroyed them, or changed 
 their affections, the stupendous demonstration, instead of 
 being welcomed with exultation, is met with the complaint, 
 "None of them have told us yet about the new life ; we are 
 no wiser than of old I" 
 
 "No wiser?" Does the fact itself leave us actually no 
 wiser ? Can any one who laments the loved one gone before, 
 and longs foi a reunion, say that the information which the 
 apparitions vouchsafe is " valueless "? Valueless ? And the 
 information they vouchsafe is, that the departed still live ? 
 
 Hear the testimony of one who has seen and heard and 
 
232 DESCRIPTIONS OF SPIRIT-LIFE. 
 
 touched. I have already (page 121) related my own inter- 
 view with the Rev. Mr. Pope, who went with his wife to see 
 the manifestations at Moravia, N. Y. He writes to Dr. Crow- 
 ell, Feb. 28th, 1873 : " We went there almost totally unbeliev- 
 ing as to the possibility of seeing our spirit- friends, but our 
 doubts and unbelief were soon swept away. We went there 
 oppressed with a great sorrow ; we saw those we mourned, 
 as alive from the dead ; we looked into their faces as in other 
 days ; we received messages from their spirit lips ; we felt 
 their celestial hands touching us, and we went away sorrow- 
 less, our hearts singing for joy. All things now seem 
 changed ; the world wears a brighter aspect ; and I tell people 
 I am one of the happiest men on earth. I always believed 
 and preached that the departed are alive, and near us, but be- 
 lieving and seeing are widely different tlmigs, and I thank God 
 for the ocular demonstration, and for the joy it gives." 
 
 It is not quite correct to say that spirits tell us nothing 
 " about the new life." Their accounts of it are as various as 
 their characters. As the objective environments of a spirit 
 are supposed to correspond with his moral and mental state, 
 it is quite consistent that the descriptions of their " new life " 
 by these revenants should differ greatly. 
 
 It is a question, moreover, whether it would not require the 
 development of a new sense in ourselves before we could fully 
 comprehend the descriptions we might get of life in the spirit- 
 world. Even if we got something new— some truthful and 
 extraordinary account of the "new life"— what would it 
 amount to unless we had the faculty of accepting the truth 
 when it was offered, and appreciating it accordingly ? 
 
 We are told that through Spiritualism " we are no wiser 
 than of old." Truly, that depends. A mere fact adds noth- 
 ing to our wisdom until the fact is accepted for what it is 
 worth. All the information which the highest archangel 
 could impart in regard to the "new life" would profit us 
 nothing unless there were the proper conditions of mind and 
 heart, or the opening of a latent sense, for its reception. 
 
 Spirits and seers, ancient and modern, have given full and 
 
OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 233 
 
 various descriptions of the "new life"; descriptions which 
 may be true, false, or mixed ; but obviously they are nothing 
 to us until we have the data and the faculties for testing theii 
 accuracy. Mrs. A. A. Andrews says she has seen autograph 
 letters, enough to fill a volume, written by spirits, under 
 strictest test conditions, upon paper untouched by the me- 
 dium, and containing descriptions of daily life in the other 
 world, which gave as vivid a conception of existence there as 
 it seems possible for those still in the flesh to form. 
 
 To attempt to throw discredit on the significance of spirit 
 materializations simply because something new, beyond the 
 amazing fact itself, is not added, is obviously unwise. l£ 
 ourselves, and not in the fact, must the requisite condition be 
 presented before anything new in regard to the future life 
 can enter our minds. A mere assertion takes no root in an 
 unreceptive understanding. 
 
 Suppose that a true account of the occupations in spirit-life 
 of Plato, Shakspeare or Columbus were written out and pub- 
 lished : what impression would it make unless we had been 
 prepared, by thought, sympathy and prescience, to recognize 
 the verisimilitude of the description ? 
 
 The objection, therefore, that spirits "tell us nothing about 
 the new life," does not hold ; they tell us a good deal, but 
 what they tell us is valueless indeed so long as we are unqual- 
 ified to form an opinion of its truth. The prophecies of Cas- 
 sandra were none the less true because they were not be- 
 lieved. 
 
 As for the objection, so often raised, " Why do not spirits 
 forewarn us of many accidents, public or private, which 
 their premonitions might avert?" the Spiritualist is not 
 bound to give any other reply than this : "I do not know." 
 Any person who will take the trouble to investigate may 
 learn that, in many individual cases, premonitions are given, 
 and calamities are averted by spirit interposition. Why this* 
 is not done oftener, or in a manner to impress the public at 
 large more forcibly, is a matter on which we may speculate 
 but cannot speak with confidence. 
 
234 THE PEOOF PALPABLE. 
 
 Objections may be multiplied, but they cannot invalidate 
 the one great fact which must suffice. Proofs palpable, giv- 
 en in the reappearance, in temporarily materialized forms, 
 of deceased persons, are now so numerous and so fully at- 
 tested, that no incredulity or opposition can impair their 
 force. The phenomena are admitted by all who have quali- 
 fied themselves by patient and unprejudiced investigation to 
 pronounce an opinion. 
 
 Since the phenomena of Modern Spiritualism cannot be ex- 
 plained by known natural laws, and seem frequently to occur 
 in violation of those laws, " there remain only for their ex- 
 planation either the magic forces of the mediums, or of for- 
 eign spirits.' ' Such, as I learn from Dr. Bloede, is the con- 
 clusion of Dr. Maximilian Perty, Professor of Natural Science 
 at the University at Berne, Switzerland, author of " The Mys- 
 tical Phenomena of Human Nature;" who further admits 
 that there are many undeniable facts which can hardly or 
 not at all be explained by the forces of a medium or his sur- 
 roundings, and must be attributed to spiritual beings. 
 
 Thus to the spiritual theory all persevering investigators 
 are brought at last, sooner or later, according to the extent 
 and thoroughness of their experiences and studies. To the 
 proofs mental and supersensual we have now added the proof 
 palpable of immortality ; and the result of our examination 
 is that no theory, other than the spiritual, is ample enough 
 to include all the facts, and to offer for them a rational solu- 
 tion. 
 
 THE END. 
 
ALPHABETICAL INDEX. 
 
 JEsop, Spirit of, 151. 
 
 Affections, The, 199, 212. 
 
 Agassiz, 143. 
 
 Aime-Martin, 168. 
 
 Andrews, Mrs. A. A., 40, 45, 118,226. 
 
 Andrews, Mrs. Mary, 32-40. 
 
 Animals, Immortality of, 143, 163. 
 
 Apollonius, 163. 
 
 Apparitions, 12, 22, 24, 59, 73, 139. 
 
 Arffvll, Duke of, 163. 
 
 Aristotle, 124, 164. 
 
 Aryan belief, 161. 
 
 Atheism, 89, 159, 167,168, 176,184,187. 
 
 Atomism, 89, 160. 
 
 Auerbaeh, 212. 
 
 Augustine, St., 74, 75, 144. 
 
 Aurignac, Cave of, 27. 
 
 Bacon, John, 133. 
 
 Ba^on, Lord, lis, 149, 150, 186. 
 
 Bain, Alex.. 72,83. 
 
 Barnard, H.,4l. 
 
 Barnes, Albert, 29. 
 
 Bastian and Tavlor, 56. 
 
 Baxter. Richard, 144, 203. 
 
 Beattie, John, 80, 89. 
 
 Belshazzar, 12. 
 
 Bertrand, 213. 
 
 Bible Spirits, 73. 
 
 Bigelow, L. A., 36. 
 
 Billot, 213. 
 
 Blackburn, C, 52, 64, 99. 
 
 Blavatskv, Mrs., 224. 
 
 Bloede, Dr., 210, 234. 
 
 Blyton, T., 52. 
 
 Bonaparte, Hortense, 27. 
 
 Bonnet, Charles, 142, 143. 
 
 Brittan's Quarterly, 160. 
 
 Broussais, 45. 
 
 Broun, John, 38. 
 
 Bruno, G., t9. 150, 189. 
 
 Buchanan, J. R., 93. 
 
 Buchner. Dr., 27, 29, 157, 174, 178. 
 
 Buckle, Thos., 211. 
 
 Busruet, 81. 
 
 Burnouf, 160, 165. 
 
 Burns, Jas., 48. 
 
 Burns, Mrs. Jas., 48. 
 
 Cabanis, 138, 139. 
 Caird, Rev. J., 180. 
 
 Calvin, 144. 
 
 Cambridge Professors, 76, 125. 
 
 Camisard Prophets, 145. 
 
 Caro, E., 24, 180. 
 
 Carpenter, W. B., 164, 174, 188, 191« 
 
 Case, Leon, 211, 225, 226. 
 
 Catholic AYorld, 150, 164. 
 
 Causation, 174, 179. 
 
 Chambers, R., 123. 
 
 Chaseray, 13S. 
 
 Chavee, 22. 
 
 Chemistry, 161. 
 
 Chevreul," 174. 
 
 Child, Dr. H., 43, 78, 114, 116, 229. 
 
 Chinnery, Mr., 48. 
 
 Chittenden, Vt., 127. 
 
 Christ's resurrection, 24. 
 
 Christianity, 188. 
 
 Christian Fathers, 74, 86, 139,205. 
 
 Christlieb, 150, 176, 193. 
 
 Cicero, 73, '24, 144. 
 
 Clairvoyance, 11, 24, 85, 91, 92, 119, 
 
 149, 154, 173, 174. 
 Clement, 86, 140. 
 Cleveland, Mrs., 130. 
 Colburn, Z., 10, 91. 
 Colby, L., 221. 
 
 Coleman, B., 9, 56, 64, 71, 102, 220. 
 Coleridge, 75, 139, 158. 
 Comte, 179. 
 Conant, Mrs., 86. 
 
 Consciousness, Double, 154, 165, 192. 
 Cook, Miss, 9, 10, 47-71, 94-110. 
 Copernican System, 188. 
 Cousin, 197. 
 
 Cox, Sergeant, 48, 69, 105, 149. 
 Creatio ex NihUo, 150, 166, 189, 193. 
 Creed, 208. 
 Crookes, Wm., 9, 60, 64-68, 81, 99- 
 
 109, 154, 159. 
 Crosbv, A. B., 111. 
 Crowell, Dr., 222,231. 
 Cudworth, 140. 
 Cut bono, 214. 
 Cut Places made whole, 79, 103, 106, 
 
 154. 
 
 Darwinism, 156. 
 Daumer, Prof., 22. 
 Davenport Brothers, 13, 47. 
 Davies, Dr., 80. 
 
236 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Davis, A. J., 86, 133, 141. 
 Death. 114, 163. 
 Deleuze, 213. 
 Descartes, 75, 164, 169. 
 Design, 182, 183. 
 D'Holbach. 167. 
 D'Huniu, 213. 
 Dialectical Society, 68, 125. 
 Pi lie, Israel, 160. 
 Disappearances, 79, 112, 115, 151. 
 Ditson, G. L., 59, 120, 132. 
 Doppelganger, 64, 117, 145. 
 Douglas, Miss, 102. 
 Dryden, John, 218. 
 Dualism, 75, 118, 141. 
 Dumas, Chemist, 155. 
 Dunphv, H. M., 64, 93. 
 Dupotet, 214. 
 
 Earth not dead, 163. 
 
 Ecstasy, 192. 
 
 Eddy Family, 125-134, 211, 223-229. 
 
 Edmonds, J. VT., 57, 87. 
 
 Electrical Test, 100. 
 
 Elliotson, Dr.. 139. 
 
 Emerson, R. W., 25, 26, 28. 
 
 Erigena, J. Scotus, 188. 
 
 Everitt, Thos., 79. 
 
 Evil, Nature of, 195, 204, 205. 
 
 Faraday, 166. 
 Favre, Leon, 23. 
 Ferrier, J. F., 92, 157. 
 Feuerbach, 27, 29. 
 Fichte, J. G., 108, 175,200. 
 Fichte, J. H., 125, 146. 
 Fire-test, 82. 
 First Causes, 94. 
 Flammarion, 125. 
 Force, Intelligent, 88. 
 Foster, Charles, 120. 
 Fox, Kate, 10, 13, 14, 69, 214. 
 Franklin, Dr., 17. 
 Fraud, Suspicion of, 38. 
 Froshammer, 184. 
 
 Gasparin, Count, 149. 
 
 Geology, 176. 
 
 Georact, Dr., 139. 
 
 Glanville, Rev. J., 14. 
 
 God, Nature of, 85, 94, 110, 136, 151, 
 
 159, 165, 168-197. 
 Gravitation, 88, 89. 
 Gray, Dr. J. F„ 13, 17, 20, 56, 102, 134. 
 Gregory of Nyssa, 74. 
 Guldenstubbe, 217. 
 Gully, J. M., 9, 54, 99, 100. 
 Gunning, Prof., 221. 
 Guppy, Mrs., 47, 79,80. 
 Gurney, Mr., 221, 222. 
 
 Haeckel, 29, 182. 
 Hale, D. H ,42. 
 Hall, S. C, 82. 
 Hallain, 75. 
 
 Hamilton, Sir W., 78, 196. 
 
 Hardy. Mrs. Mary, 56. 
 
 Hare, Prof., 68, 125, 139. 
 
 Harris, T. L., 149. 
 
 Harrison, W. H., 49, 51, 80, S2, 94- 
 
 99, 103, 104, 151. 
 Hartlev, 85. 
 Hartmann, 184, 185. 
 Harvard University, 125. 
 Hay den, Mrs., 136. 
 Hay ward, Dr. A. S., 40. 
 Hayward, John, 37. 
 Hazard, T. H., 32-35, 45. 
 Heirel, 90, 193. 
 Hellfeld, Counsellor, 145. 
 Helmholtz, 78. 
 Hemsterhuis, 175. 
 Heme, medium, 47, 49, 80. 
 Herschel, Sir J., 163. 
 Hesiod, 137. 
 Hitchman, W., 90, 99. 
 Hollis, Mrs. E. J., 41. 
 Holmes, Mr. and 'Mrs., 43, 78, 111, 
 
 114, 229. 
 Home, D. D., 13, 56, 62, 69, 80, 82, 
 
 116, 124. 
 Homer, 137, 146. 
 
 Honto, a spirit, 131, 132, 223, 226. 
 Hooker, Dr., 207. 
 Hooker. Richard, 196. 
 Ho witt, Win., 220. 
 Hudson, photographer, 220. 
 Humboldt, Alex., 128, 210. 
 Humboldt, Wm., 210. 
 Hunt, Rev. J., 189. 
 Huxley, Prof., 125, 174, 178, 191. 
 Hydesville Phenomena, 13, 14, 213. 
 
 Idea as Force, 155. 
 Idealism, 77, 193. 
 Identity, 44, 45, 113, 116. 
 Immateriality, 73. 
 Immort.lity, 25-30, 110, 209-212. 
 Indian Spirits, 131. 
 Infinite and finite, 169. 
 Irvine, Clarke, 41, 119. 
 Isidore, 32. 
 
 Jackson, J. W., 190. 
 
 Jacobi, 175. 
 
 Janet, Paul, 159. 
 
 Jencken, H. D., 15, 16. (See Fox.) 
 
 Jencken, his infant son, 16, 145. 
 
 Jevons, 88. 
 
 Job on Spirits, 73. 
 
 Jobson, Mary, 144. 
 
 Johnson, Rev. S., 28. 
 
 Jones, S. S., 123. 
 
 Joubert, 15u. 
 
 Kant, 25, 28, 78, 83, 210. 
 Kardec, 86, 147, 150, 151, 153, 155. 
 Katie King, 43, 44, 47, 50-67, 82, 94- 
 
 110. 
 Katie King photographed, 107, 108. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 237 
 
 Katie King in Philadelphia, 78, 111, 
 
 116, 230. 
 Kelso, Rev. Isaac, 36, 229. 
 Kepler, 144. 
 Kerner, Justinus, 214. 
 King, John, 45, 47. 
 Kirkup, Baron, 81, 82. 
 Kislingbury, Miss, 96. 
 Knot-tying by Spirits, 145. 
 Knox, John, 144. 
 Koons, Jonathan, 13, 47. 
 
 Labonlaye, E., 212. 
 
 Lavater, 141. 
 
 Law, William, 189. 
 
 Le Conte, Prof., 178. 
 
 Lee, Bishop, 173. 
 
 Leibnitz, 83,89, 143, 164. 
 
 Lei fch i Id, 14G. 
 
 Lenzberg, Max, 223. 
 
 Letter borne by Spirits, 81. 
 
 Levitations, 73, 80, 82, 115. 
 
 Lewes, G. H., 91, 172, 173. 
 
 Leymnrie, M., 220. 
 
 Life, Principle of, 102, 164. 
 
 Light, a Trinity, 193. 
 
 Livermore, C. F., 13, 16-21, 102,221. 
 
 Locke, John, 24, 151, 156, 158, 217. 
 
 Lord, Mrs. Maud, 5(5. 
 
 Luther, 144. 
 
 Luxmoore, J. C, 53, 60-62, 79, 98, 99. 
 
 Lyell, Sir Charles, 27. 
 
 M. A. (OxonJ, 146, 220. 
 
 McCosh, 30. 
 
 Mansell, 187. 
 
 Marryat, Capt., 103. 
 
 Martineau, J., 217. 
 
 Materialism, 6, 9, 77, 86, 157, 159, 
 
 177-180. 
 Materialization, 16-21, 45, 48, 65, 83, 
 
 133, 205, 233. 
 Matter, Grades of, 133. 
 
 Mystery of, 78, 83. 
 
 Passage through, 79, 80, 103, 
 153. 
 
 Power over, 113, 153, 155. 
 
 Tyndall on, 157-159. 
 May, Rev. Jos., 26. 
 Mediums, Fallible, 135, 149. 
 Sensations of, 11. 
 Melancthon, 144. 
 Memory, 154. 
 Mesmer, Anton, 213. 
 Mesmeric Incident, 189, 204. 
 Mill, J. S.,83, 111, 172, 201. 
 Milton, 8?, 151, 199. 
 Mind and Matter, 92, 159. 
 Moleschott, 27, 29, 156, 157. 
 Morals of Spiritualism, 198, 201. 
 Moravia, Phenomena, 27,29, 156,157. 
 Morgan, Annie, 104, 106. 
 Morgan, Prof. De, 124. 
 Moses, 73. 
 Mott, Mr., medium, 229. 
 
 Mozart, 10, 191. 
 Mumler, 220, 221. 
 Murphy, J. J., 176. 
 
 Naturalism, 193. 
 
 Nature, 151, 182, 190, 192, 211. 
 
 Nervous Ether, 146. 
 
 Newman, F. W., 210. 
 
 New Testament, 140. 
 
 Newton, 144, 150. 
 
 Nichol, Miss. (See Guppy.) 
 
 Nichols, J. R., 68. 
 
 Noyes, T. H., 11. 
 
 Oberlin, 144. 
 
 Odic Force, 149. 
 
 Oersted, 166. 
 
 Olcott, H. S., 126, 133, 223, 225, 226, 
 
 229. 
 Old Testament, 73. 
 Organicism, 74. 
 Origen, 86, 140, 205. 
 Owen, R. D., 14, 43, 78, 114, 116, 230. 
 
 Packard, Mrs. C, 38, 39. 
 
 Paley, 122. 
 
 Pantheism, 72, 150, 166, 187, 189, 207. 
 
 Papillon, F., 89, 16J, 165. 
 
 Parker, T., 34. 
 
 Parsons, Theoph., 84, 151. 
 
 Pascal, 86. 
 
 Paul, St., 25, 91, 140. 
 
 Perisprit, 150. 
 
 Personal, 84, 123, 173, 191, 203, 213. 
 
 Perty, Max, 234. 
 
 Phenomena, 16-21, 33, 83, 88, 111, 
 
 114, 124, 155. 
 Phosphorus, 157. 
 Photography, Spirit, 53-56, 80-89, 
 
 97-99, 107, 108, 220. 
 Physiology, 162. 
 Picton, J. A., 166, 175, 185, 186. 
 Planchette, by Epes Sargent, 110, 
 
 144, 221. 
 Plato, 78, 86, 89, 124, 139, 164. 
 Plimpton, F. B., 43. 
 Plotinus, 78, 89. 
 Plutarch, 116, 124, 149. 
 Polytheism, 168. 
 Pope, Rev. R. S., 121, 231. 
 Pope, The, 164. 
 Porter, Noah, 163. 
 Previsions, 15, 38, 85, 119, 149, 173. 
 Priestley, 159. 
 Pritchard, E. V., 132, 228. 
 Psychic Force, 38, 70, 90, 118, 142, 
 
 149, 163, 165. 
 Puysegur, 213. 
 
 Rane, Dr. C, 112. 
 Realism, 77. 
 Reason, Unity of, 165. 
 Religion, 200. 
 Remusat, De, 83. 
 Resurrection of body, 140. 
 
238 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Richardson, B. W., 146. 
 Robertson, Rev. F. W., 44. 
 Rogers, Dr. E. C, 149. 
 Ross-Church, Mrs., 22, 64, 103-106, 
 
 130. 
 Russell, H. E., 70. 
 
 Sadducees, 25. 
 Safford, Prof., 10. 
 Saigey, Emile, 160. 
 Saint Denis, 168. 
 
 St. Martin, 191. 
 
 St. Thomas, 205. 
 
 Satan, 45, 202, 217. 
 
 Schelling, 158, 192, 193. 
 
 Schiller, 25, 209. 
 
 Schopenhauer, 1S4, 185. 
 
 Seguin, 213. 
 
 Seneca, 199. 
 
 Senses, Fallibility of the, 84, 85. 
 
 Sensitives, or Mediums, 10. 
 
 Sexton, Dr. Geo., 60. 
 
 Shakspeare, 95. 
 
 Shorter, Thomas, 134. 
 
 Showers, Miss, 79. 
 
 Sin, 204, 205. 
 
 Skepticism, 87, 114, 116, 178. 
 
 Slade, Dr. H., 40, 119, 222, 226. 
 
 Smith, Rev. J. E., 136. 
 
 Smith, Sir J. E., 142. 
 
 Socrates, 30, 202. 
 
 Somnambulism, 85, 165, 191, 203, 204, 
 
 213. 
 Soul, The, 73, 74, 139, 164-168, 203. 
 Space and Time, 83. 
 Spencer, Herbert, 72, 77, 78, 83, 140, 
 
 172, 173. 
 Spinoza, 75-77, 205, 210. 
 Spirit and Matter, 72-84, 92-94. 
 Spirit body, 22-24, 74-91, 110, 136- 
 154, 164, 198. 
 flowers, 17, 18, 79, 82. 
 garments, 17, 18, 49, 52, 58, 
 
 79, 102, 112, 132. 
 hands. 18, 73, 119. 151. 
 lights, 82. 
 
 music, 80, 82, 97, 120. 
 photographs, 53-56, 80-89, 97- 
 
 99, 107, 108, 220. 
 speech, 37, 47, 54, 62, 73, 96, 
 
 112, 118, 132. 
 writing, 17, 40, 58, 60. 61, 73, 
 79, 83, 96, 103, 106. 
 Spirits, disappearance of, 115. 
 fallibility of, 118, 134. 
 try them, 46. 
 seizure of, 64. 
 visibility of, 153. 
 Spiritualism a science, 166. 
 
 morals of, 198-209. 
 not atheistic, 178. 
 objections to, 214-217. 
 
 Spiritualism, relations to theism, 
 167. 
 teaches unity, 167. 
 Spiritualists denounced, 92, 124. 
 Springfield (Mass.) Republican, 230. 
 Staats, Mrs., 34. 
 Stahl, G. E., 165. 
 Stirling, J. H., 156. 
 Stock, St. Geo., 122, 212, 219. 
 Stoics, The, 25. 
 
 Strauss, D. F., 27, 179, 184, 211. 
 Substance defined, 71, 151. 
 Supreme Question, 180. 
 Swedenborg, 10, 83, 87 ', 135, 136, 149, 
 151, 192, 193. 
 
 Taine, H., 27. 
 
 Tapp, G. H., 65, 104. 
 
 Tatian, 86. 
 
 Taylor, Isaac, 140. 
 
 Tennyson quoted, 185, 202. 
 
 Tertullian, 73, 75. 
 
 Theism, 72, 150, 157, 166, 187. 
 
 Thought and Matter, 156. 
 
 Townshend, Rev. C. H., 204. 
 
 Trance, State of, 100, 118. 
 
 Trinity, human and divine, 86, 191, 
 
 192-196, 205, 206. 
 Tuttle, Hudson, 219. 
 Tylor, E. B., 27, 74, 145. 
 Tyndall, Prof., 124, 125, 157, 174. 
 
 Ulysses, 145. 
 Unbelief, 29, 210, 211, 231. 
 Unity of Forces, 154, 160-167. 
 Universe, 151, 163, 197. 
 
 Varley, C. F., 9, 100, 125, 133. 
 
 Veda, The, 161. 
 
 Vera, A., 155, 156, 193. 
 
 Virgil, 73. 
 
 Vogt, Carl, 27, 29, 13S, 184. 
 
 Volckman, Mr., 64. 
 
 Voysey, Rev. Mr., 218. 
 
 Wallace, A. R., 10, 69, 79, 80, 87 
 
 125, 159, 198, 220. 
 Warburton, 73. 
 Ward, Rosanna C, 30. 
 Wason, J., 16. 
 Watson, Rev. S., 121. 
 Webb, Mrs. J. L., 56, 123. 
 Webster, Mrs. H. B., 116. 
 Wesley Family, 14, 144. 
 Wetherbee, John, 111. 
 Wilkinson. W. M., 144J 
 Williams, Chas. E., 47, '48, 71, 80. 
 Witchcraft, 124, 125. 
 Wittgenstein, Prince, 48, 68. 
 Wolfe, N. B., 41. 
 Wood, Emma A., 153. 
 
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