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THE MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
THE MENACE OF 
 SPIRITUALISM 
 
 BY 
 
 ELLIOT O'DONNELL 
 
 Author of "Ghostly Phenomena," "The Haunted 
 
 Man," "Twenty Years* Experience as 
 
 a Ghost Hunter," etc. 
 
 WITH A FOREWORD BY 
 Father Bernard Vaughan, S.J. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 

 #y 
 
 
 Copyright, 1920, by 
 Frederick A. Stokes Company 
 
 A 11 Bights Reserved 
 
 m -9 1320 
 
 ©CI.A565509 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 BY PERMISSION TO 
 
 His Grace 
 
 THE 
 
 DUKE OF NEWCASTLE 
 
NOTE 
 
 In presenting this volume to the public I 
 desire it to be perfectly clear that the views 
 in it apply to Spiritualism only (not to Psy- 
 chical Research, which, inasmuch as it touches 
 on the investigation of spontaneous manifes- 
 tations in haunted houses, etc., is, in my opin- 
 ion, justifiable), and do not detract in any 
 way from the attitude I have hitherto adopted 
 in my writings towards spontaneous ghostly 
 phenomena. 
 
 ELLIOT 0' BONN ELL. 
 
FOREWOKD 
 
 Although I do not subscribe to all the 
 doctrine and teachings expressed between 
 the covers of this brochure, yet do I gladly 
 recommend it to the public as an exposition 
 of the menace of Spiritualism in our midst. 
 y The public has plenty of temptations to en- 
 counter on the road of life without its being 
 enticed and drawn into these sideshows 
 where freaks, frauds, and fiends may rob 
 them not only of their money, but, perhaps, 
 even leave them stripped of their physical 
 » outfit and of their moral attributes. 
 
 Naturally I do not place all under the same 
 damnation because I can but judge of the 
 ruin wrought through Spiritualism by the 
 cases that have come under my own obser- 
 vation. But you may depend upon it that 
 the Catholic Church would not forbid her 
 children to have anything at all to do with 
 this insidious form of necromancy unless she 
 was satisfied that harm only and no good 
 
 comes out of it. Her experience of Spirit- 
 ix 
 
x FOREWORD 
 
 ualism covers nearly two thousand years, and 
 she seems to regard it, not as a means of get- 
 ting into communion with saints, but as a 
 snare trapping you into communion with 
 devils. 
 
 I have, on not a few occasions, been 
 brought into contact with both men and 
 women who have been caught, like moths in a 
 candle-flame, by these false flashlights, and 
 lured on to quicksands from which there was 
 no saving them. When lost they shout out 
 that they are saved. 
 
 It looks as if the penalty of trying to force 
 the hand of God, and of lifting the veil to 
 communicate with the Great Beyond was 
 total loss of that childlike and clinging faith 
 which is the priceless inheritance of the sons 
 of God — " Unless you become as a little 
 child," 
 
 Up to date in rare cases only have I been 
 able to persuade necromancers to shake off 
 Spiritistic practices and to return once more 
 to the Church of their childhood. They tell 
 you that they have actually seen, and that it 
 is more blessed to have seen than to believe. 
 When their choice lies between Christianity 
 and Necromancy they choose the latter. 
 
FOREWORD xi 
 
 To some of us who have studied Spirit- 
 ualism in many of its phases, the wonder is 
 that any persons, with common sense and ap- 
 preciation of life's values, can allow them- 
 selves to be sucked into such a vortex. 
 
 Firstly, let me remind you that no one at- 
 tending a seance in which spirits from the 
 vast deep make themselves heard or seen 
 can prove that their spirit visitants are the 
 creatures they claim to be. How can any one 
 disprove them to be satanic spirits? You 
 may be sure that evil spirits can quite as 
 cleverly personate the dead as music-hall ar- 
 tists do the living. 
 
 Secondly, let me ask you, what have spirits, 
 after thousands of years practice, revealed 
 to mankind calculated to be of any practical 
 service to humanity? As yet they have not 
 even solved the problem as to what is a sar- 
 dine, or what a new-laid egg. 
 
 There is a great deal to say against 
 Spiritism, but not much that I know of for 
 it. But I shall be reminded that it has dis- 
 proved the doctrine for materialism and 
 proved the immortality of man. Not so; it 
 may have only proved the immortality of de- 
 mons. It is a queer blend of immortality and 
 
xii FOREWORD 
 
 infidelity. If the spirits, who speak through 
 mediums, live, on the other side, the lives 
 they describe, then the other side ought to 
 be the soul's probation for this — not this for 
 that. 
 
 My advice to all readers of this spirited ex- 
 posure of Spiritualism is to shun it as they 
 would cocaine. In neither drug is to be dis- 
 covered the Will of God, which is man's end 
 in life, but in both may be found ruin of 
 body and loss of soul. This very morn- 
 ing I heard of a girl, who, being told in a 
 seance by her deceased lover that he would 
 not live on the other side without her, 
 drowned herself to join him, not, I fancy, in 
 heaven — "Notum fac mihi, Domine, finem 
 meum." 
 
 Bernard Vaughan, S.J. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Foreword ix 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I "Spiritualism" — What is It? . . . 1 
 
 II How Spiritualism Tries to Distort the 
 
 Old Testament 13 
 
 III Spiritualism and the New Testament . 33 
 
 IV Spiritualism and the Churches ... 58 
 
 V The Phenomenal Side of Spiritualism 
 
 and Its Effect on the Health . . 99 
 
 VI The Danger of Fraud of All Kinds at 
 
 Seances . 137 
 
THE MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
THE MENACE OF 
 SPIRITUALISM 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 "SPIRITUALISM" — WHAT IS IT? 
 
 Spiritualism ! What does it all mean? 
 Can it do us any good? Has it really come 
 to stay? 
 
 These are the questions the ordinary man 
 and woman, and the British public in general, 
 are now beginning to ask in downright earn- 
 est. For a long time what is known as Spirit- 
 ualism nourished in comparative obscurity. 
 Apart from its own particular adherents, 
 and those who, existent in every age, make a 
 point of inquiring into all kinds of cults and 
 philosophies, there were few who took even 
 the remotest interest in it. The vast major- 
 ity, perhaps, had never even heard of it ; and 
 to the bulk, at least, of the middle classes, like 
 Psychical Research, it was either a mere 
 
2 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 term, or it was classified in the same category 
 as ghosts and hobgoblins, and meant nothing 
 to them. Then came the Great War, and 
 once again the air filled with the cries and 
 lamentations of the bereaved ; the cries of 
 mothers mourning for their sons, the cries of 
 wives sorrowing for their husbands. It was 
 merely a repetition of the same old story, 
 slaughter and desolation, and, in the words 
 of the prophet, "Rachel weeping for her 
 children, because they were not ' ' ; but it was 
 a repetition which has proved that the world, 
 despite its boastful pretensions to an en- 
 lightened Christianity and civilization, has 
 not advanced very far along the path of 
 gentleness and toleration; has not, as yet, 
 set its foot upon the one and only path of 
 real progress. And, as in all times of exces- 
 sive sorrow and bereavement, so now, 
 "Rachel weeping for her children, refused to 
 be comforted," those who were hit hard and 
 felt acutely the pangs of the empty chair and 
 missing form at the family table, turned to 
 channels other than mere human agency for 
 consolation. Some, indeed, there were who, 
 not entirely ruled and regulated by the rush, 
 and tear, and helter-skelter of passing events, 
 
"SPIRITUALISM"— WHAT IS IT? 3 
 
 found what they sought in prayer, in the quiet 
 old-time faith that had sufficed their fore- 
 fathers; but the remainder, those whose 
 minds responded to the twentieth century's 
 predominating cry for constantly increasing 
 speed, and whose thoughts were tuned to 
 keep pace with telephones and wireless, de- 
 manded instant demonstration. All the 
 Church could do was to tell them to wait, to 
 wait and hope, that Christ 's promise was one 
 of revelation; but of a revelation they must 
 not precipitate, must not expect till the hour 
 of their own dissolution was at hand. But 
 neither waiting nor watching appeals to the 
 pioneers and supporters of twentieth-century 
 hurry and dispatch. Life may be long; to 
 the young an eternity, and no one can be ex- 
 pected to wait that length of time for an as- 
 surance on a question that concerns him in- 
 timately. Is there another life or not? 
 There must be no dallying, no equivocating. 
 Something quick and decisive is asked for; 
 something quick and decisive must be given. 
 Proof — positive, immediate, unequivocal 
 proof. 
 
 That was the cry of this section of the dis- 
 tressed, a section in the main composed of 
 
4 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 the upper and middle classes; those who are 
 known as the quite common people shouldered 
 their burdens more stoically. The toiling 
 poor are accustomed to dallying — waiting 
 and hoping form part of their daily curric- 
 ulum. However, the cry found response. 
 Just as the wailing of the infant or the neigh- 
 ing of the horse on the steppes so often sum- 
 mons wolves, and the lowing of the oxen in 
 the jungle apparently calls into being jackals 
 and tigers, so the frantic demands of these 
 unhappy parents and widows conjured up 
 those styling themselves mediums — spiritual- 
 ists who, for fees (in most cases consider- 
 able ones), declared their ability to provide 
 instantaneous and definite proofs of another 
 life, by evoking and conversing with the 
 spirits of the dead. 
 
 Their offers were hungrily accepted. 
 Crowds flocked to their doors, and all the 
 more readily and eagerly, since their methods 
 were obviously in accordance with the views 
 of such men as Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir W. F. 
 Barrett and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who 
 through their writing chiefly, had given the 
 cause of Spiritualism, as a whole, an immense 
 impetus. 
 
"SPIRITUALISM"— WHAT IS IT? 5 
 
 Soon, going to a medium, like consulting 
 the oracles of old, became a fashion; it af- 
 forded novelty and excitement, and appealed 
 especially to the upper and middle classes, 
 because it was too costly a form of entertain- 
 ment ever to be shared by their poorer 
 brethren. Those who had not lost relatives 
 in the war, as well as the bereaved, became 
 bitten with the craze for Spiritualism; the 
 papers took it up ; the magazines encouraged 
 it ; and now, bidding fair to rival some of the 
 periodical madnesses of old, it has swept, 
 with an epidemic-like force throughout the 
 length and breadth of Great Britain. 
 
 Yet it has apparently given satisfaction 
 only to the few; the masses are still hope- 
 lessly in the cold, still hopelessly unconvinced, 
 still hopelessly inquiring. 
 
 Spiritualism! What does it all mean? 
 Can it do us any real good? Has it actually 
 come to stay? 
 
 Now, it is not very easy to affix any specific 
 creed to Spiritualism, since it throws open its 
 doors to people of varying and divergent 
 ideas and beliefs, and has no very distinct 
 dogmas of its own. However, it professes 
 absolute confidence in the ability of living 
 
6 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 man to bring, at will, the spirit world within 
 the close range of his senses, and to get into 
 actual and immediate contact with it; and it 
 is on this belief alone that the whole fabric 
 of Spiritualism appears to be based. To 
 substantiate this statement I need only quote 
 at random from the definitions of Spiritual- 
 ism by avowed disciples of the creed. 
 
 Dr. J. M. Peebles in his work "What is 
 Spiritualism, ' ' published 1903, says (p. 5), 
 "Spiritualism is the philosophy of life and 
 the direct antithesis of materialization. 
 Spiritualism does not create truth, but it is a 
 living witness to the truth of a future exist- 
 ence. It reveals it ; it demonstrates, describ- 
 ing its inhabitants, their occupations, etc." 
 
 Whilst Leon Denis in his book "Christi- 
 anity and Spiritualism,' ' translated from the 
 French by Helen Draper Speakman (pub- 
 lished by Eider & Sons), says on page 28: 
 "We shall thus arrive at the conclusion that 
 His (referring to Christ's) doctrine and that 
 of the spirits are identical, that Spiritualism 
 is simply the return to primitive Christian- 
 ity under more definite form, and we shall do 
 so with an imposing train of experimental 
 proofs which will render impossible the re- ' 
 
"SPIRITUALISM"— WHAT IS IT? 7 
 
 newed misrepresentation of the ideas of 
 Christ." 
 
 These " experimental proofs" can, I ven- 
 ture to think, only refer to experiments with 
 spirits, presumably those of the dead, and 
 since reference to this same source of con- 
 viction will be found in most, if not, indeed, 
 all the definitions of Spiritualism by Spirit- 
 ualists, I can only again emphasize my state- 
 ment that the real basis of Spiritualism, the 
 stone on which the whole structure pivots, is 
 a positive confidence in the ability of man, 
 living, breathing man — man on and belong- 
 ing to this material plane, to conjure up the 
 denizens of the spiritual world, to see, to 
 touch, to converse with them at will, and to 
 keep them actively employed at his beck and 
 call, preparing all kinds of phenomena for the 
 gratification of his own peculiar whims and 
 pleasures. Once prove this belief to be based 
 on a no more substantial foundation than in- 
 flated fancy, hallucinations, delusions, gross 
 exaggeration and barefaced trickery, and the 
 whole edifice of Spiritualism would at once 
 break in pieces and crumble away into mere 
 nothingness. So far, however, in spite of the 
 countless and more than partially successful 
 
8 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 efforts that are continually being made to ob- 
 tain this proof, something every now and 
 then crops np to which skepticism and ma- 
 terialism can offer no very convincing ex- 
 planation ; and this something has invariably 
 succeeded in not merely keeping Spiritualism 
 from being snuffed out altogether, but oc- 
 casionally — as is happening at the present 
 moment — in imparting to it a life and a luster 
 that arouses grave apprehensions in the 
 minds of the more thoughtful and rational of 
 us, and that would arouse even graver ones, 
 did we not, deriving our inspirations from 
 similar happenings in the past, believe such 
 an outburst to be merely spasmodic. 
 
 But more of this anon. To revert to the def- 
 inition of Spiritualism. I have endeavored 
 to show that Spiritualism as a creed — if one 
 may so designate it — relies mainly on one 
 distinguishing principle, and that, apart 
 from this single outstanding feature, it de- 
 rives its coloring, chiefly, from the country in 
 which it happens to be located. In India, for 
 example, its teachings are a reflection of The- 
 osophy and confused Paganism; whilst in 
 England and America the tenets it advances 
 largely take their color from a contorted and 
 
"SPIRITUALISM"— WHAT IS IT? 9 
 
 perverted rendering of the Old and New 
 Testaments. It is this infusion of so many 
 diverse views and credulities into Spiritual- 
 ism that has led some people to attribute to 
 it a much larger individual doctrine and 
 literature than that to which it is really en- 
 titled; and to regard it as having two dis- 
 tinct branches, namely the doctrinal and the 
 phenomena, though the two are, in reality, so 
 closely related to one another that any ab- 
 solute separation is impossible'. However, 
 for the purpose of criticism, I think it is well 
 to deal with these two so-called branches 
 separately. 
 
 In the space allotted me I can do little 
 more than merely allude to Spiritualism in 
 its relation to Theosophy and other oriental 
 schools of religious philosophy. I believe 
 there is nothing in the teachings of Theos- 
 ophy, which is about as heterogeneous a 
 jumble of tenets and ideas as it is possible 
 to conceive, i. e., a jumble of gnosticism, 
 taken from three distinct schools, Neopla- 
 tonism, Hermeticism, Eosicrucianism, Brah- 
 manism, Zoroastrianism, Soman, Greek 
 and Egyptian mythology, and countless 
 other mythologies — to contradict the main 
 
10 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 principle of Spiritualism; on the contrary, 
 as the majority of those professing Theoso- 
 phy most certainly countenance, in a more 
 or less restricted sense, and, under somewhat 
 elastic conditions, practice Spiritualism, one 
 may reasonably conclude that it is not only 
 reconcilable with Theosophy, but that it may 
 even be said to come within its tenets and, 
 possibly, to have been in the beginning merely 
 an offshoot from it. At the same time I be- 
 lieve I am right in saying that there is a 
 certain phase of Spiritualism to which a 
 large number of Theosophists object, a phase 
 which is termed Spiritism, and which signifies 
 the resorting of the Spiritual-phenomena 
 side of Spiritualism for merely idle and 
 speculative purposes. 
 
 Before passing on to the main subject of 
 my criticism — Spiritualism in England — I 
 should like to remark that it was rather un- 
 fortunate for the cause of Spiritualism and 
 Theosophy alike, that one of the founders 
 of the Modern School of Theosophy in the 
 East, Helen Petrovna Blavatsky, better 
 known as H. P. B., after laying claim to such 
 an extraordinary development of the so-called 
 psychic faculty that she was brought into 
 
"SPIRITUALISM"— WHAT IS IT? 11 
 
 touch and, one might say, was on terms of 
 actual intimacy with entities on the very high- 
 est spiritual planes (she is still regarded by 
 the theosophical sages as an initiated disci- 
 ple of the Mahatma, known as Morya, and 
 included by them in the same category as 
 Plato, Pythagoras, and other great moral 
 expounders of the past), should eventually 
 have been detected in an act or acts of 
 common or garden fraud whilst producing 
 some of her alleged spiritual phenomena. 
 Had H. P. B. been a person of less exalted 
 position her misdeeds might not have given 
 rise to quite so much criticism; but being 
 almost akin to a Mahatma her exposure not 
 unnaturally led cynics to suggest that a cult 
 founded by a person whose practices were 
 far from being of a godlike nature, could 
 be neither very sound nor very desirable. 
 Besides, these cynics argued, the psychic 
 properties to which the majority of her 
 followers laid claim, since they obviously 
 did not enable their owners to see beneath 
 the surface, were of little practical use 
 to them; and spirit guides, if they cannot 
 warn us of danger and put us on our guard 
 against people likely to abuse our confidence, 
 
12 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 cannot be reckoned of any great worth or 
 value. 
 
 Furthermore, the exposure of H. P. B. led 
 outsiders to wonder whether the same in- 
 fluences, spiritual or otherwise, to which she 
 was subject, might not, also, be inspiring 
 some of her adherents; whether, indeed, in 
 the ranks of the more prominent and arro- 
 gant members of the cults of Theosophy and 
 Spiritualism — for both came under her wing 
 — there might not be others equally daring, 
 equally plausible and equally unscrupulous, 
 who, taking advantage of the more ignorant, 
 trustful and gullible members of the frater- 
 nities, were laughing up their sleeves and, 
 at the same time, fattening. As, however, 
 I am reserving my comments on Spirit- 
 ualism in India for another occasion, I will 
 pass on now to the doctrinal branch of 
 Spiritualism in England. 
 
CHAPTEE n 
 
 HOW SPIKITUALISM TEIES TO DISTORT THE 
 OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 The center of Spiritualism, as is the case 
 with the centers of most creeds and cults 
 in this country, is in London, and the bulk 
 of the Spiritualists in London profess an 
 adulterated type of Christianity. 
 
 "Spiritualists, like the Primitive 
 Churches,' ' says Dr. J. M. Peebles, " believe 
 in God the Father, ' ' 1 and he goes on to say : 
 "Spiritualism is of God," adding that "the 
 corner stone, the foundation pillar of Spirit- 
 ualism, is spirit, and God is Spirit." 2 He 
 seems to forget, however, that there are vari- 
 ous kinds of spirits, that all are not of 
 necessity good, and that the spirit that has 
 inspired Spiritualism may belong to a very 
 
 i"What is Spiritualism?" (p. 9). By J. M. Peebles, 
 M.D., M.A. Published by Peebles Institute. Printed 1903. 
 2 Same work, pp. 10-11. 
 
 13 
 
14 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 different category from that which constitutes 
 God. 
 
 Indeed, if one might form an opinion as 
 to what constitutes the corner stone of 
 Spiritualism, from the type of Spiritualists 
 one meets at seances, one might affirm that 
 if spirit at all, that spirit is astonishingly 
 worldly, to a large extent commercial, dis- 
 tinctly grotesque and bizarre, and conse- 
 quently not at all in accordance with any- 
 thing the more thoughtful of us outside the 
 ranks of Spiritualism would ascribe to the 
 highest Spiritual Plane, least of all to a be- 
 ing of such infinite wisdom and virtue as 
 God. However, to continue, one need not 
 be surprised, perhaps, that the propounders 
 of Spiritualism — since it owes, in no small 
 measure, its existence to an atmosphere of 
 mysticism the ages have built round it — 
 should profess to see in the Scriptures mys- 
 teries and occult evidences far too profound 
 to catch the eye of the more vulgar and less 
 initiated materialist. 
 
 Mr. John Page Hopps, in a pamphlet en- 
 titled "Spiritualism in the Old Testament," 
 goes so far as to describe the whole of the 
 
DISTORTS THE OLD TESTAMENT 15 
 
 Old Testament as "a sealed book/' full of 
 spirit appearances, spirit lights, spirit 
 sounds, trance speaking and symbolism, at 
 the same time he assures us that all such 
 happenings are perfectly familiar to the 
 modern Spiritualist. This same writer, like 
 most Spiritualists, pitches upon the book of 
 Ezekiel as being specially psychic, and sub- 
 jects not only the prophet, but the Holy 
 Spirit to whom the prophet attributes his 
 powers, to a severe criticism. We are told, 
 for example, that although Ezekiel was a 
 medium, possessing the faculties both of 
 clairvoyance and clairaudience, he was open 
 to all kinds of spirit influences, good, bad 
 and indifferent, and that it is simply foolish 
 to consider all his inspirations as emanating 
 from God. Mr. Hopps even suggests that 
 it is very doubtful, according to the true 
 (i. e., the psychic) interpretation of Ezekiel, 
 if the Jehovah, who is alluded to as "the 
 Lord," was, in reality, God Almighty; in 
 fact he infers that the Jehovah of the Jews 
 was merely a finite spirit — or band of spirits 
 — of very varying power, who had taken the 
 Hebrew race under his or their guardian- 
 
16 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 ship and found them very much of a hand- 
 ful. In this latter respect, perhaps, some 
 of us will agree with him. 
 
 Mr. Hopps, like most so-called author- 
 ities on Spiritualism and Psychism, is 
 arrogant, and, as I shall endeavor to show 
 later, highly fanciful and imaginative. 
 That Ezekiel possessed very peculiar spirit- 
 ual powers is, of course, clearly apparent; 
 had he not possessed them he would not have 
 been able to prophesy and predict; but it is 
 equally apparent that he was no medium in 
 the ordinary sense of the word, since, judg- 
 ing from the glimpses we get of his character 
 and mentality in the Scriptures, he must have 
 been a man of no mean intellectual and states- 
 manlike qualities, and, consequently, the very 
 antithesis of the present-day medium, who 
 is, as a rule, not only unintellectual and ill- 
 informed, but occasionally both sensuous 
 and sordid. Moreover, Ezekiel 's visions, 
 inasmuch as they possessed unquestionable 
 significance for his contemporaries — espe- 
 cially for his countrymen to whom, in all prob- 
 ability, they were by no means wholly enig- 
 matical, might be said to have been of great 
 national importance and interest. Can any 
 
DISTORTS THE OLD TESTAMENT 17 
 
 one say the same of the visions and messages 
 purporting to come through Spiritualistic 
 mediums to-day? Far from being either 
 grand, or ennobling, or even instructive, 
 these messages are, without exception, tri- 
 fling, unedifying, and footling, 1 and if, as Mr. 
 Hopps suggests, not all of Ezekiel's visions 
 emanated from the highest spiritual plane, 
 though in this I disagree with him, it is per- 
 fectly certain that very few of the visions of 
 a modern medium emanate from any plane 
 save the lowest. But to proceed, no matter 
 whether he possesses the psychic faculty or 
 not, the ordinary Spiritualist invariably ex- 
 hibits a tendency to imagine and invent. 
 Mr. Hopps, for instance, after again trying 
 to convince us that Ezekiel held regular 
 seances after the nature of those held by 
 Spiritualists to-day, tries to establish his 
 case by asserting that the phrase, "I sat in 
 mine house and the elders of Judah sat be- 
 fore me" (Ezekiel viii. 1), refers to an or- 
 dinary Spiritualistic seance, something in the 
 nature of modern table-turning or trance 
 
 iNo better instance of this can be afforded than the so- 
 called spirit communications recorded in Sir Oliver Lodge's 
 "Raymond" (published by Methuen & Co., 1916). 
 
18 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 mediumsliip ; and he subsequently states 
 that the whole book of Ezekiel consists of 
 a collection of records of similar sittings. 
 He forgets, however, to add that whereas 
 Ezekiel was never, as far as these verses 
 show, convicted of falsehood and barefaced 
 trickery, the majority of present-day medi- 
 ums have been proved guilty of both; so 
 that between Ezekiel and those whom Mr. 
 Hopps designates his successors, there is, 
 after all, a very remarkable difference, a 
 difference upon which I will expatiate later 
 on. 
 
 As one would suppose, Ezekiel is by no 
 means the only prophet or patriarch whose 
 dignity is assailed by Spiritualists. Isaiah 
 is similarly likened to a modern clairvoyant, 
 while the phrase "and it shall come to pass, 
 as soon as I am gone from thee, that the 
 Spirit of the Lord shall carry thee whither 
 I know not" (1 Kings xviii. 12), is by some 
 miraculous system of distortion, worthy of 
 the most ingenious species of rack ever in- 
 vented, made to suggest levitation, i. e., that 
 Elijah was to be lifted off the ground after 
 the manner of a table at a twentieth-century 
 Spiritualistic seance. Now I have seen many 
 
DISTORTS THE OLD TESTAMENT 19 
 
 tables slightly raised from the floor at 
 seances, and it has always appeared to me 
 — as well as to others present — that such 
 levitation was not altogether incompatible 
 with very materialistic trickery, which might 
 very well have been performed by one of the 
 sitters without any spirit intervention what- 
 soever. Indeed, I feel quite certain that 
 there is nothing in this kind of levitation 
 that could not be easily enacted by a con- 
 juror, not necessarily as skillful as Messrs. 
 Maskelyne and Devant. 
 
 I have, however, never yet seen, at any 
 seance or elsewhere, a case of complete 
 spiriting away, such as Obadiah prophesied 
 would happen to Elijah, and which event- 
 ually did happen. (2 Kings ii. 11.) Per- 
 haps some of our Spiritualistic friends will 
 affirm such feats have actually come within 
 their experience, and will be able to name 
 the mediums who have accomplished them. 
 Indeed, they should be able to do so, since 
 they declare Elijah was simply a highly de- 
 veloped psychic, like the Fox Sisters, 
 H. P. B., or Eusapia Palladino (whose exits 
 from this material plane were not, I believe, 
 accomplished in celestial chariots, an omis- 
 
20 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 sion on the part of Jehovah for which be- 
 lievers in these notorious mediums will no 
 doubt be able to proffer some kind of apology 
 or explanation). Spiritualism, of course, 
 claims Abraham, also, as one of its disciples, 
 and his converse with angels is reckoned in 
 the same category as the ' ' spirit materializa- 
 tions" which are taking place to-day. 
 
 "Patriarchs, prophets and seers in Abra- 
 ham's and Isaiah's time conversed with 
 spirits and angels according to the Scrip- 
 tures,' ' Dr. Peebles writes, 1 "and why 
 should not we? Neither God nor His laws 
 have changed." Very possibly not, Dr. 
 Peebles, but man apparently has, for seldom 
 do we see nowadays in any class or profes- 
 sion the dignity and grandeur of character 
 that we find in Moses, Samuel, Isaiah and 
 other of the Hebrew leaders and prophets, 
 and we do not hesitate to say that great in- 
 deed would be our disappointment were we 
 to hope to find men possessing these char- 
 acteristics in the ranks of modern medium- 
 ship. 
 
 Another point to bear in mind, when con- 
 
 i"What is Spiritualism?" (pp. 5-6). J. M. Peebles, 
 M.D., M.A. 
 
DISTORTS THE OLD TESTAMENT 21 
 
 fronted with these impious comparisons, is 
 that the Divine visitations and manifesta- 
 tions in the Old Testament were never re- 
 sorted to, saving on very particular and 
 momentous occasions, and for some very 
 specific and rational purpose, as, for exam- 
 ple, when God spoke to the child Samuel to 
 warn him of the impending fate of Eli's 
 house, and to Moses, from the burning bush, 
 to command him to deliver the children of 
 Israel out of the hands of the Egyptians. 
 It is obviously quite otherwise with regard 
 to modern mediumship, which is resorted to 
 on every possible occasion, and often on the 
 most trivial and ridiculous pretext. Hence, 
 perhaps, it is small wonder that the revela- 
 tions made by " spirit guides" or " controls' ' 
 are invariably silly, and occasionally obscene 
 and even blasphemous; and small wonder, 
 too, that these spirits, far from telling us 
 anything new, or instructive, or elevating, 
 merely convey the impression that the spirit 
 world from which they hail must be a strange 
 mixture of a public elementary schoolroom, 
 a pot-house bar and a lunatic asylum, and 
 that we should be well advised to cling to this 
 material life for as long a time as possible. 
 
22 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 Spiritualists will of course assert that what 
 I have just alluded to is Spiritism, and not 
 Spiritualism, that Spiritism naturally puts 
 one in touch with the denizens of the lowest 
 spirit planes, but that Spiritualism enables 
 its followers to see visions and witness 
 manifestations of the same nature as were 
 seen and witnessed by Moses, Isaiah, and 
 other Biblical characters of the same degree 
 of piety. My reply to this is that it is really 
 a distinction with very little difference, that 
 the seance of the Spiritualist generally owes 
 its origin to much the same motives as the 
 seance of the Spiritist, and that, at all events, 
 there is nothing in the characters of even 
 the best of the Spiritualists and Spiritists, 
 any more than there is in the characters of 
 any of us mere laymen and outsiders — to 
 warrant visitations and — if one likes to call 
 them so — phenomena — from such celestial 
 sources as those specified in Holy Writ. 
 As I have already stated, Abrahams and 
 Isaiahs no longer exist, and, in comparison, 
 the best of us to-day are very ordinary, very 
 mediocre. 
 
 Another point that appeals to me in the 
 argument that the phenomena claimed by 
 
DISTORTS THE OLD TESTAMENT 23 
 
 Spiritualists as emanating from the same 
 spirit sources as those mentioned in the 
 Bible, cannot be genuine, is that those who 
 witness the phenomena do not experience 
 even the slightest sensation of fear. Now 
 most of us, I think, believe in spirits that 
 appear spontaneously, that is to say, with- 
 out the connivance of a medium or the assist- 
 ance of the trumpet or table (indeed, the 
 evidence relating to such phenomena is so 
 accumulative and corroborative that few 
 would attempt to question it), and those of 
 us who have had any actual experience with 
 these spontaneous apparitions, popularly 
 designated ghosts, know only too well the 
 awe and terror they inspire in humans and 
 animals alike. 
 
 It was the same in Biblical days. When 
 confronted with the angel of the Lord 
 Balaam's ass falls down, whilst its rider 
 bows his head to shut the vision out 
 (Numbers xxii. 27-31) ; and Moses, when the 
 Lord calls to him from the burning bush, 
 hides his face, for he is afraid to look upon 
 God (Exodus iii. 6). How different is this 
 behavior from that of the mediums of to- 
 day, who are acclaimed by Spiritualists as 
 
M MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 the successors of Moses, Balaam, and other 
 prophets of the Scriptures. These Spirit- 
 ualistic mediums profess to see spirit after 
 spirit with the utmost sang-froid. They 
 have only to receive a fee, or the promise of 
 one, and spirits of all sorts come with the 
 regularity of an automaton, whilst they — 
 the mediums— do not even turn a hair. 
 Besides, I have never heard of a dog that 
 has been present on any such occasion — 
 and those of us who have tested dogs in 
 haunted houses know how susceptible they 
 are to fear — being in the least degree 
 terrified. 
 
 Can it be that these mediums and Spirit- 
 ualists are holier than Moses? If they are 
 not, how else can they account for their total 
 unconcern, and for the complete absence of 
 either awe, fear, or astonishment at any of 
 their exhibitions? 
 
 Just to show to what an extent this craze 
 for the so-called psychic faculty has " caught 
 on," I cannot refrain from referring to a 
 little book sent me the other day, entitled 
 "The Ministry of Angels." 1 "We are pre- 
 
 i By Mrs. Joy Snell (published 1919, by G. Bell & Sons, 
 Ltd). 
 
DISTORTS THE OLD TESTAMENT 25 
 
 pared for something wonderful from the 
 following passage in the preface : 
 
 "It (the book) has been written because angels have 
 told her (the authoress) that rare psychic powers have 
 been bestowed on her, and she has been permitted to see 
 what is hidden from the vast majority of mankind until 
 after death." 
 
 But forewarned as we are, we are certainly 
 not ready for what follows. It shocks us 
 immeasurably. 
 
 The authoress states that when a child 
 she awoke one night to find the room flooded 
 with sunlight, and she goes on to describe 
 two figures that suddenly appeared to her 
 (pp. 11-12): 
 
 "One was that of a man," she says, "the other that of 
 a woman. They were clad in shining, white robes. 
 Around the head of each was a bright halo. The man 
 stretched forth his hand and said: 'Be not dismayed; 
 blessed shalt thou be/ Then the woman spoke and said : 
 'Behold the Saviour ! And I am His mother/ " 
 
 The authoress does not seem to have been 
 seized with any of that fear that came upon 
 the prophets of old, when in the presence of 
 God or His angels, or that the disciples felt 
 
26 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 at the Transfiguration (St. Matthew xvii. 6), 
 or when our Lord appeared to them after 
 the Crucifixion (St. Luke xxiv. 37), but to 
 have taken the most glorious and awe-in- 
 spiring of all possible visions simply as a 
 prognostication of her own death. It never 
 seems to have occurred to her — as it most 
 certainly would have occurred to most people 
 — how very extraordinary it was that she 
 should have been singled out from among 
 all other earthly beings for such a visitation 
 — a visitation of a nature that — as far as 
 one knows — has certainly never taken place 
 since the days of our Lord. 
 
 Does the authoress imagine she possesses 
 a character and qualities not only far — but 
 immeasurably far superior to those of any 
 of the countless human beings that have 
 existed since the time of the Crucifixion, or 
 does she attribute the phenomena to a de- 
 velopment of psychic propensities which can 
 certainly have no parallel? 
 
 The more rational and reflective among 
 us will, I think, incline to the belief that 
 such a visitation was actually subjective, 
 and hallucinatory, and prompted by nothing 
 more than colossal self-estimation, an opin- 
 
DISTORTS THE OLD TESTAMENT 27 
 
 ion which is more than justified by a further 
 perusal — if patience permits — of the work. 
 At any rate such testimony, since it is in no 
 way corroborated, furnishes no proof what- 
 ever either of so-called spirit mediumship 
 or of a psychic faculty, but merely serves 
 to illustrate, as I have said before, to what 
 a pitch of abandonment and lack of self- 
 restraint this mad craze for Spiritualism, 
 and the notoriety it sometimes brings with 
 it, has been carried. 
 
 In accordance with this mad craze every 
 reference to God and His angels appearing 
 to, or communicating with man, to be met 
 with in the Old Testament, is converted by 
 Spiritualists into signifying the Almighty's 
 approval and sanctioning of mediumship. 
 In their attempt to force the Scriptures into 
 reconciliation with the practices of their 
 cult, they willfully blind themselves and 
 those they seek to pervert, to this point — 
 that it was one thing for God and His angels 
 to demonstrate themselves spontaneously to 
 man, and quite another thing for man to 
 attempt, after 1 the fashion of the modern 
 medium, to call up spirits, indiscriminately, 
 from the tomb and elsewhere. There is 
 
28 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 certainly nothing whatever in anything God 
 and His angels either said or did to warrant 
 the assumption that they would sanction 
 such proceedings. On the contrary, al- 
 though there is an abundance of evidence 
 in the Old Testament to show that God and 
 the men he selected as His prophets and con- 
 fidants fully recognized the fact that there 
 were people (necromancers, sorcerers, 
 witches, etc.) who knew, and were capable 
 of putting into practice, the art of calling 
 up genuine spirits, good and bad, and people 
 who were able to perform all kinds of 
 phenomena, sometimes through bond fide 
 spirit agency, as, for example, Pharaoh's 
 sorcerers (Exodus vii. 11-12), and sometimes 
 through merely clever jugglery, it was 
 against these people and their practices that 
 God and His chosen representatives most 
 sternly and uncompromisingly set their 
 faces. If there is any doubt at all as to this, 
 one has only to refer to the following: — 
 Leviticus xx. 6, Leviticus xix. 31, Deuter- 
 onomy xviii. 10-12, 1 Samuel xxviii. 3 and 9, 
 2 Kings xxi. 6, Isaiah viii. 19, Exodus xxii. 
 18. 
 The mediumship of to-day, call it Spirit- 
 
DISTORTS THE OLD TESTAMENT 29 
 
 ualism, Spiritism or what you will, is simply 
 an attempt — albeit a feeble and in most 
 cases abortive one — at imitation of the nec- 
 romancy, sorcery, and spirit trafficking 
 alluded to in the above texts, the so-called 
 guides and controls — Joey Kings, Fedoras 
 and other spirit entities — bearing a remark- 
 able resemblance to what were once known 
 as witches' familiars. 
 
 Then — in those far-off Biblical times, 
 when Chaldean and Egyptian magic had, 
 without doubt, been developed to a very 
 great degree, and man was in far closer 
 touch with the primary elements in Nature 
 than he finds it possible to be to-day, the nec- 
 romancers, witches and the like were in all 
 probability really able to conjure up spirits 
 with comparative ease. But when these 
 races gradually disappeared, their art seems 
 — to a very large extent at least — to have 
 perished with them. Other nations, the 
 Greeks and Eomans, for instance, and, later 
 still, the Moors and Arabs all made desperate 
 attempts to get into touch with the dead, 
 and in their day, too, apparently worked 
 all sorts of phenomena and miracles; but it 
 is very doubtful if success very often came 
 
30 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 to them, and it is more than likely that most 
 of the wonders that were alleged to take 
 place were manipulated through the assist- 
 ance of an advanced knowledge of alchemy 
 and jugglery, in which the Eastern nations, 
 especially, in all times seem to have been 
 past masters. The same sort of thing, the 
 wild craving to pry into every forbidden mys- 
 tery, the mad desire for power and notoriety, 
 to be something quite distinct and differ- 
 ent from anybody else, and the more sordid 
 yet ever increasing love of riches, came 
 steadily down through the centuries, con- 
 taminating other races and nations, and in- 
 ducing them, too, to try and force open the 
 door connecting this and the other world or 
 worlds. Italy, Austria, France, England, all 
 in their turn, became infected — all witnessed 
 the same grim and secret nocturnal meetings 
 in closed chambers, the same frantic en- 
 deavors to obtain satanic and other spirit 
 aid by mystic symbolism, spells and incanta- 
 tion, the same practice of resorting at mid- 
 night to cross roads and other desolate 
 places for the alleged purpose of holding 
 witches' Sabbaths. 
 
 Our records of those times, however, 
 
DISTORTS THE OLD TESTAMENT 31 
 
 suggest very strongly that if the super- 
 natural did occasionally respond to the in- 
 cessant clamorings for it, most of the mani- 
 festations were simply due to charlatanism 
 and trickery. And so it is to-day. The 
 methods that were employed by the Babylo- 
 nian and Assyrian necromancers in the days 
 of Moses and other of those old-world proph- 
 ets still remain in obscurity. Every now and 
 then, perhaps, something rather inexplic- 
 able does occur at a seance, which makes one 
 for a moment wonder if another key to fit 
 the lock has at last been discovered, and in- 
 tercourse with the spirit world, as practiced 
 by the ancients, has at length been obtained ; 
 but apprehensions on this score speedily 
 vanish, for that something does not respond 
 again, and one is assured that the occurrence 
 was purely incidental and as unlooked-for on 
 the part of the medium, as on the part of any 
 one else present. But that does not alter 
 the fact that by the Almighty, the God of 
 the Bible, which we in this country, at any 
 rate, have been taught to honor and respect, 
 any attempt at trafficking with denizens of 
 the spirit world, good or bad (for the former 
 see 1 Samuel xxviii. 15, 2 Samuel xii. 23, 1 
 
S2 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 Chronicles x. 13), no matter whether the 
 attempt is successful or not, is denounced 
 and forbidden. There must be no compro- 
 mising, no equivocating with God, and if 
 only, inasmuch as Spiritualism, citing Scrip- 
 ture for its own purpose, would seek to win 
 converts by giving them a fallacious and en- 
 tirely wrong interpretation of the Jehovah 
 of the Jews' views on these matters, it is 
 baneful and dangerous, and instead of being 
 encouraged, as the more thoughtless and 
 ignorant among us are inclined to do, it 
 should be ruthlessly exposed and banned. 
 
CHAPTER in 
 
 SPIBITUALISM AND THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 When we go on to consider the Spiritual- 
 ists ? views with regard to the New Testa- 
 ment, we find just the same barefaced at- 
 tempts at contortion and perversion. The 
 Christian belief that Jesus Christ was, and 
 is God Incarnate is almost universally 
 denied. Borrowing their terminology from 
 Theosophy, many of the Spiritualists, even 
 in this country, allude to our Lord as a great 
 master, and by the majority, if not indeed 
 by all of them, He is regarded as no more 
 saintly, no more celestial than a medium, a 
 few degrees, perhaps, more psychic and 
 spirit-inspired than any present-day medium, 
 but still one of precisely the same stock, and 
 more or less — if not, indeed, quite — in the 
 same category. 
 
 Dr. J. M. Peebles, for instance, in refer- 
 ring to our Lord, says : 
 
 33 
 
34 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 "When that highly inspired man of Nazareth 
 preached His radical doctrines in Palestine and per- 
 formed His astonishing mediumistic works, etc." (vide 
 "What is Spiritualism," pp. 5-6), 
 
 and again, 
 
 "Spiritualists, if intelligent, don't deny the existence 
 of God — nor of Jesus of Nazareth, the mediumistic 
 man" (same work, p. 10) ; 
 
 whilst Leon Denis again in ' l Christianity and 
 Spiritualism" says: 
 
 "Jesus came, a powerful spirit and Divine missionary, 
 an inspired medium" (p. 22). 
 
 And these views will be found to tally with 
 those of practically all Spiritualists who cite 
 the New Testament in their cause. 
 
 Christ, Whose spotless life and gentle and 
 humane disposition made Him not merely 
 stand out as quite distinct from any of the 
 men and women of His time, but as equally 
 distinct from any of His predecessors or 
 successors, is fetched from off the pedestal, 
 on which the love and more than justifiable 
 adoration of centuries has placed Him, and 
 dragged through the mire. One cannot, in- 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT 35 
 
 deed, speak strongly enough on the subject. 
 One can only say this, that any attempt to 
 classify one of such infinite and unparal- 
 leled grace, mental beauty, and moral perf ec : 
 tions as our Blessed Lord, with those who, 
 more often than not, prove to be of sordid 
 nature, inferior intellect, and highly question- 
 able morals, namely mediums, is both blas- 
 phemous in the extreme and absurd, and one 
 can only conclude that those who are capable 
 of such a classification are either hopeless 
 lunatics (more dangerous than many of those 
 imprisoned in asylums), or else that they 
 owe their inspirations to the most malignant 
 and mischievous type of spirit, the only type 
 which, in my opinion, is likely to respond to 
 the beck and call of human beings. 
 
 After such profanity one is not surprised 
 at anything a Spiritualist asserts. There- 
 fore the following quotation (vide p. 27 of 
 " Christianity, Ohurchianity or Spiritual- 
 ism,' ' by J. M. Peebles, M.D.) "true 
 Spiritualism and true Christianity are es- 
 sentially one" does not give us the shock it 
 otherwise might have done. The mind that 
 is capable of such a grotesquely fallacious 
 representation of Jesus Christ as that pre- 
 
36 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 sented by Dr. Peebles is capable of any out- 
 rageous fallacy, and it is only in keeping with 
 his unconquerable habit of perversion, that 
 he should persuade himself and try to per- 
 suade others that the inimitable creed of 
 Christianity is merely another name for his 
 own unwholesome, illogical and ephemeral 
 cult of Spiritualism. 
 
 Christ's teaching, as gleaned from the 
 mere text of the New Testament, strikes 
 most readers as the essence of directness 
 and simplicity, quite in harmony with His 
 character; but Spiritualism, the true Spirit- 
 ualism Dr. Peebles and others boast about, 
 invests everything Christ said or did with 
 an air of profound mystery and subtle 
 meaning. The parables that perfectly well 
 explain themselves to readers of any age 
 and with any intelligence at all, are declared 
 to be only interpretable to psychics and ini- 
 tiates in the innermost mysteries of Higher 
 Thought, and the texts usually quoted in sup- 
 port of these assertions (namely St. Matthew 
 xiii. 10-11 and St. Mark iv. 11-12), are also 
 fondly believed to prove conclusively that 
 Christ in selecting the Apostles, chose them 
 solely for their alleged mediumistic powers. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT 37 
 
 Spiritualists cannot, or will not, realize that 
 this act of selection marked a most unique 
 and momentous occasion, and that the 
 Apostles, after the call, owed their increased 
 wisdom and power to perform miracles, not 
 to any such sordid, unequivocally denounced 
 agency as necromancy, or, to use the modern 
 term, mediumship, but wholly to Divine — as 
 utterly distinct from ordinary spirit — influ- 
 ence. Christ obviously chose His Apostles 
 for their characters — they were the type of 
 men most likely to make sound and capable 
 preachers, and to carry on His mission of 
 love and moral reformation ; men possessing 
 attributes of a nature very different from 
 that characterizing the so-called psychist 
 and medium of to-day. But, if any further 
 proof of this be needed, one has only to com- 
 pare the miracles Christ and His disciples 
 wrought with the trumpery phenomena pro- 
 duced by these mediums. Christ not only 
 healed the blind, the halt, the maimed and 
 those suffering from such incurable diseases 
 as leprosy, but He brought back the dead to 
 life, and made the tossing, roaring sea lie 
 still and silent. Could any of the present- 
 day professional mediums, with all their 
 
38 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 boasted super-normal and highly developed 
 spiritual faculties, do the same? No, they 
 could not. Far from doing what Christ and 
 His Apostles did, for the good of mankind, 
 mediums never, through their alleged spirit 
 phenomena and spirit influence, perform any- 
 thing really useful, or beneficial or even ex- 
 ceptionally wonderful. Far from restoring 
 the blind, or raising the dead, they cannot 
 even cure, on the spot, an ordinary cold in 
 the head, make the hair grow again on the 
 head of a middle-aged or long bald old per- 
 son, or cause a fresh natural tooth to sud- 
 denly usurp the place of one that is badly de- 
 cayed. They cannot even with a word or 
 wave of their hand stop a bird in full flight 
 in the air, or bring to a halt, by a mere glance, 
 an earwig or a black beetle. To give them 
 their due, however, they do not attempt to do 
 the really marvelous — perhaps they are not 
 quite sure of the capacities of their friends 
 on the other side, who obviously have not 
 much in common with St. Peter nor St. John 
 — but content themselves with trying to 
 make trumpets speak, tambourines dance, 
 tables and chairs rise and walk, and flowers 
 and sometimes fish — even eels — appear ap- 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT 39 
 
 parently from nowhere ; occasionally varying 
 their program with materializations, 
 which "phenomena," in reality, are very 
 feeble, unconvincing and not at all alarming 
 spirit impersonations, usually by "controls" 
 and other professed denizens from the spirit 
 world. But whereas Christ and His Apostles 
 were always successful in their undoubted 
 miracles, "mediums" are not infrequently 
 detected in the most puerile and vulgar acts 
 of deception and trickery. 
 
 There is really no similarity whatever 
 between Christ and His Apostles and the 
 modern medium and Spiritualist ; indeed, the 
 gulf of differences separating them is so 
 wide that it could not be bridged. 
 
 Christ's doctrine of repentance is tacitly 
 accepted as a possible modifier in the chain 
 of reincarnation (reincarnation being a 
 theory in which the majority, at least, of 
 Spiritualists, even those who profess what 
 they term "true" Christianity, believe), but 
 His equally essential teachings with regard 
 to forgiveness are discountenanced and 
 ignored. Spiritualists apparently are much 
 divided as to what happens to the soul after 
 death. Some, as may be gathered from cer- 
 
40 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 tain passages in Sir Oliver Lodge's "Bay- 
 mond, ,, believe that man goes on in his im- 
 material state from very much the same place 
 as he left off in his physical body, that the 
 spirit world is merely an ethereal counter- 
 part of this, containing houses like ours, 
 though made only of a sort of emanation 
 from this earth, and places — presumably 
 shops and public-houses — where clothes 
 made from a species of decayed worsted, 
 cigars composed of ethers, gases and es- 
 sences, and, of course, whiskies-and-sodas 
 (without the last-named, according to the 
 great majority of mediums, no life, spiritual 
 or otherwise, would seem to be complete) 
 could be procured. Such a view of another 
 life — so utterly contradictory to the teach- 
 ings of Jesus Christ — appears to me very 
 wild and extravagant, but, as a correspondent 
 of the Sunday Times in the issue for 30th 
 September, 1917, remarks, "we must not take 
 Sir Oliver Lodge too seriously"; still it finds 
 not a few supporters, and these may be found 
 chiefly in the ranks of those Spiritualists and 
 Psychical Eesearchers, who, having an un- 
 reasoning respect for titles, blindly accept 
 anything a man possessing one may happen 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT 41 
 
 to say, no matter bow irrational and footling 
 his remarks may appear to saner and less 
 easily influenced people. Another view, and 
 the one generally adopted by those Spirit- 
 ualists in this country, who profess to be 
 what they are pleased to term "true" 
 Christians, is that the soul, on parting with 
 the material body at physical dissolution, 
 enters the lowest spiritual planes, i.e., those 
 in closest contact to this world, where it re- 
 mains for just as long as its passions and 
 earthly cravings and tendencies remain with 
 it. This view, to some extent at least, tallies 
 with many Churchmen's opinions with re- 
 gard to a Purgatory or intermediate state, 
 and finds much support in Christ's actual 
 teachings ; but, as might be expected by any 
 one who knows them, the Spiritualists who 
 embrace it soon fly off to something wildly 
 improbable, and uncorroborated, saving by 
 their own mad, freakish fancies, and ignorant, 
 if not willful, Biblical misrepresentations and 
 distortions. The doctrine of a heaven is ac- 
 cepted under the theosophical camouflage of 
 "the highest spiritual planes," whilst that 
 of a hell is wholly discredited, the vilest and 
 most earth-tied of spirits, though confined to 
 
42 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 the lowest spiritual planes, being believed to 
 have the power to wander there ad libitum, 
 indulging themselves to excess in all their 
 old passions, and perfectly able, when the 
 mood seizes them, or some one invokes them, 
 to get into immediate touch with the material 
 world, whose inhabitants they can tempt and 
 annoy at will. 
 
 Those of us who believe in hauntings and 
 in disturbances in houses and localities by 
 spirits, which apparently come there spon- 
 taneously, must accept the theory that there 
 is a spirit world — perhaps more than one — 
 very close to this world, but there is no actual 
 proof that its denizens were ever of our flesh 
 and blood, or anything to discountenance the 
 possibility, if not, indeed probability, either 
 that they be demons such as are referred to 
 in more than one passage of the New Testa- 
 ment (St. Matthew xii. 27, Acts xix. 13-14), 
 or that they belong to one or other of the 
 types of spirit recorded in Isaiah xiii. 21. 
 But the doctrine — taught and practiced by 
 all Spiritualists — to which Christians and, 
 especially, Catholics, take the very greatest 
 exception, is that of the invoked intercourse 
 between the dead and the living. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT 43 
 
 Taking advantage of the fact that many 
 Christians and Churchmen believe that we 
 who are here on earth should pray for spirits 
 in the intermediate state, i.e., those capable 
 of rising to a higher sphere, and on the other 
 hand that spirits who have passed over should 
 pray for those left behind in the physical 
 world, Spiritualists have construed such a 
 momentous happening as the Transfiguration 
 and such passages as those contained in 1 
 Peter iii. 19, 1 Peter iv. 6, and Revelations 
 vi. 10, into signifying full license to mediums 
 and others of their ilk, to get in touch with 
 spirits of the dead whenever the mood (or 
 prospect of money) seizes them. Now the 
 Bible does not deny the possibility of the 
 dead returning on rare occasions and for 
 some very specific reason, but nothing save 
 the wildest and most perverted stretch of the 
 imagination could metamorphose the Trans- 
 figuration, or any of the texts I have men- 
 tioned, or any other passages in the Bible, 
 into signifying sanction for such inter- 
 course with the dead as is alleged to be prac- 
 ticed by the present-day medium. 
 
 Mediums, however much they may pre- 
 tend to the contrary, and be backed up in 
 
44 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 their pretensions by such would-be authori- 
 ties on occult matters as Blavatsky and cer- 
 tain titled scientists who are posing as Psy- 
 chical Researchers, know absolutely nothing 
 as to what govern conditions on the other 
 side. Samuel, when called up by the witch 
 of Endor, sternly rebuked Saul for bringing 
 him back, hence it is quite conceivable that 
 the efforts made by mediums to forcibly com- 
 municate with the spirits of the dead, and 
 through their agency to perform all kinds 
 of phenomena, may, even though unsuccess- 
 ful (which, I believe, is almost invariably the 
 case) entail a very considerable amount of 
 suffering on those who are invoked. 
 
 Surely this is a probability meriting our 
 very gravest consideration. In any case the 
 mere thought of those we love and respect 
 being forced to respond to the call of mere 
 strangers, people out to gratify their curi- 
 osity and fill their purses, is revolting in the 
 extreme, and for this reason, chiefly, per- 
 haps, the Catholic Church, and, indeed, all 
 Christian Churches, as well as all really hu- 
 mane and thoughtful people strongly con- 
 demn seances, both public and private ones 
 alike. 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT 45 
 
 But there is another danger in connection 
 with the practice of Spiritualism, which I 
 may as well deal with here, when specializ- 
 ing on the religious and moral aspects of the 
 question, and that is the effects of these at- 
 tempts at spirit intercourse on the charac- 
 ters of the living people who partake in 
 them. 
 
 The unreliable and often mischievous na- 
 ture of the messages obtained at sittings 
 clearly demonstrates that such messages do 
 not emanate either from intelligent or holy 
 sources, and that if they come from bond 
 fide spirits, these spirits can only be on a 
 very low plane, and are therefore in no way 
 calculated to improve either the mind or the 
 morals. 
 
 It is, I believe, a fact that can be well sub- 
 stantiated, that the majority of mediums at 
 all events — people who have been persuaded 
 to develop their so-called psychic faculties 
 and devote the bulk of their time to going 
 into trances (i.e., yielding up their minds to 
 whatever controlling spirit cares to come 
 along), to automatic writing, crystal gazing, 
 and table turning-r-speedily degenerate, and 
 in the end become absolutely demoralized and 
 
46 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 untrustworthy. That is a fact, I repeat, 
 which I have reasons for believing can be 
 thoroughly well confirmed, as can also the 
 fact that many of the people who continually 
 attend seances, develop manias which event- 
 ually spoil their lives and not infrequently 
 lead to suicide. Can, I ask, such happenings 
 be due to any agency that is beneficial or de- 
 sirable, whether spirit or otherwise ? It must 
 be remembered that there were Spiritualists 
 in the days of the New Testament — a set of 
 people quite distinct from the disciples and 
 followers of Christ, with regard to whom 
 both our Lord and His Apostles uttered 
 many grave warnings (see St. Matthew xii. 
 27, St. Matthew xxiv. 24-26, Acts xix. 13-14, 
 Galatians i. 8-9, Revelations xxii. 18-19), and 
 it is in these Spiritualists or necromancers, 
 rather than in any of the miracle workers of 
 the Old Testament, that the present-day 
 mediums and their supporters find their coun- 
 terparts. There is, indeed, a similarity be- 
 tween them that is most marked and clearly 
 perceptible to any but the hopelessly stupid 
 or willfully blind. 
 
 It will doubtless be protested again by cer- 
 tain Spiritualists, those who, claiming to have 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT 4*7 
 
 got beyond the stage of seeking for mere 
 physical demonstrations, assert that they are 
 quite distinct from Spiritists, as they some- 
 what superciliously designate them, that the 
 visions they see and the messages they re- 
 ceive are of a very superior order, almost, 
 indeed, if not quite, identical with those seen 
 and received by the Apostles. Certain of this 
 fraternity have gone so far as to tell me 
 that they have visited, whilst in trances, the 
 most consecrated and zealously exclusive 
 parts of Heaven, and frequently conversed 
 with saints and some of the very holiest of 
 the great teachers and thinkers of the past — 
 privileges, they assured me, that were 
 strictly confined to devotees of Spiritualism 
 and initiates in all its innermost mysteries. 
 In order to give an air of authority to these 
 pretensions they resort again to the Scrip- 
 tures, this time to the New Testament, and 
 pointing to St. Peter, St. John and other of 
 the Apostles, assume that in them there are 
 evidences of their own ability to come in 
 touch with the Divine side of the spirit world. 
 What the Apostles did, they argue, we can 
 do; their authority is ours; for they only 
 possessed psychic faculties similar to ours. 
 
48 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 They forget, however, as I have already en- 
 deavored to explain, that the Apostles lived 
 in a time of the greatest moment in the 
 world's history; that they belonged to a race 
 specially selected and watched over by God; 
 that the gifts bestowed on them were only 
 apparent after their call — there is nothing to 
 prove they had the so-called psychic faculty 
 prior to this event — that though it is true they 
 saw visions, and heard voices, and spoke in 
 strange tongues, etc., it is also equally true 
 they performed miracles of the greatest pos- 
 sible benefit to their fellow-creatures (which 
 is certainly not the case with any of the pres- 
 ent-day Spiritualists) ; and that they were 
 all men — with the exception of Judas, who 
 owed his downfall to a national weakness 
 taken advantage of by the devil — of the most 
 exceptional moral character, which, as I have 
 pointed out before, cannot possibly be said 
 of the modern Spiritualists ; so that the lat- 
 ter, whether initiates of the very highest 
 order or not, have really no warrant what- 
 ever for the spiritual privileges to which 
 they lay claim, and consequently there is little 
 reason, if any, for assigning them to a differ- 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT 49 
 
 ent and separate category from that of the 
 ordinary Spiritist. 
 
 For instances of the many disastrous ef- 
 fects Spiritualism — albeit the higher branch 
 of the cnlt — has on character, and to show 
 to what an extent human egotism, vanity 
 and self-importance are fostered by it, I can- 
 not do better than refer to a work entitled 
 ' 'Talks with the Dead." It is edited — and, 
 from what the context suggests, presumably 
 written— by John Lobb, F.R.G.S., F.R.Hist. 
 S., and published by a firm called after his 
 name. The book is well garnished with texts, 
 as, per example, on the title page we find 
 "And there appeared unto them Elias with 
 Moses; and they were talking with Jesus " 
 (St. Mark ix. 4), and on the page opposite the 
 title page, under a photograph purporting 
 to be that of "one of the editor's band of 
 spirit ministers" we get, "Are they not all 
 ministering spirits sent forth to minister?" 
 (Hebrews i. 14), and everywhere one is met 
 with attempts to compare the mediumship 
 of to-day with the Divine inspiration and 
 highest spiritual agency of Old and New 
 Testament days. See, for example, page 86, 
 
50 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 where we read these remarkable lines : ' ' The 
 second chapter (i.e. of Acts) contains an ac- 
 count of the first seance held by the disciples 
 after Christ's Ascension"; needless to say, 
 one looks for it in vain ; page 85, where we find 
 that the angel that appeared unto Moses in 
 a flame of fire (Exodus iii. 2), and the grant- 
 ing to Abraham of a sign from God in the 
 form of a smoking furnace, are likened to 
 the trumpery performances of the so-called 
 spirit control "John King," and scattered 
 throughout the book other equally nonsensi- 
 cal and profane comparisons, too numerous 
 to mention. Text after text, too, is mutilated 
 and contorted to suit the editor or author's 
 purpose, but one would have credited him 
 with rather more caution and astuteness than 
 to give away his cause so abruptly and com- 
 pletely as he does on page 88, where, after 
 quoting Daniel v. 5 (which narrates the inci- 
 dent of the writing on the wall) he goes on 
 to say : 
 
 "Many sitters will attest that hands frequently take 
 hold of theirs, pat their face, and allow them to hold 
 them. Scores of times I have held the materialized 
 hands of spirits. They have taken from the pockets of 
 those present sweets and placed them in my mouth. . . . 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT 51 
 
 A small musical box out of order has often by spirit 
 hands been taken to pieces and set going, etc." 
 
 Precisely, Mr. Lobb; it is just those vulgar 
 and foolish antics you speak about that place 
 the phenomena contrived by the present-day 
 medium on an entirely different footing from 
 that of the miracles performed by God's 
 select, either in the Old or New Testament; 
 and which makes one positively certain that 
 if due to spirit agency, at all, that agency 
 can only emanate from the lowest possible 
 planes. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to add, perhaps, 
 that, after little gambols of this kind, Mr. 
 Lobb and his friends should be visited by the 
 spirits of all kinds of eminents. On page 
 133, for instance, he says: 
 
 "At the close of my services in London and the Prov- 
 inces clairvoyants present often remain to let me know 
 the number and names of spirits present on the plat- 
 form and in the building. They name them one after 
 another — C. H. Spurgeon, Hugh Price Hughes, W. E. 
 Gladstone, Geo. Muller, etc."; 
 
 whilst in other parts of the book references 
 are made to the return of Mrs. Catherine 
 Booth, Sir Edwin Arnold, Charles Dickens, 
 
52 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 John Wesley, John Bunyan, John Dryden, 
 and, of course, William Shakespeare (no 
 Spiritualistic seance is complete without 
 either Shakespeare or Dickens, who would 
 appear to have many "egos" and to be cap- 
 able of much division, for they are often al- 
 leged to be present in more circles than one 
 at the same time). That there can be found 
 people ready to believe that the spirits of 
 such of our great departed as Shakespeare 
 and Dickens should leave all the solemnities 
 of the tomb to attend meetings and seances 
 presided over by men of no greater mental 
 capacity than John Lobb and other present- 
 day Spiritualists, is almost inconceivable. 
 It can, in fact, only be accounted for by one 
 or other of the following assumptions : either 
 that the people who swallow such absurdities 
 are naturally weak-minded — were born so — 
 or that constant attendance at such circles 
 has brought about a mental degeneracy which 
 is, very possibly, really due to spirit influence, 
 the influence of that type of spirit most likely 
 to respond to evocation on such occasions, 
 namely, impersonating demons, or to use a 
 Spiritualistic expression "elementals." 
 My reference to Mr. Lobb and his work 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT 53 
 
 thus serves a dual purpose — it demonstrates 
 the extent to which human vanity as well as 
 human credulity can be carried, when in- 
 fluenced by Spiritualism; and, sad to say, 
 the air of extreme self-satisfaction and smug- 
 ness so apparent in every page of the volume, 
 is but characteristic of the generality of all 
 so-called exponents of the cult. 
 
 To continue. I have referred to two of 
 the theories entertained by Spiritualists with 
 regard to the fate of the spirit on leaving the 
 material body, I now come to a third — that of 
 reincarnation. 
 
 In brief, reincarnation is a travesty of the 
 sequence of cause and effect. According to 
 its doctrine action, whether physical or men- 
 tal, leaves its inevitable traces, and these 
 traces, whatever the Bible may say to the 
 contrary, cannot be wiped out in a moment. 
 On them and them only rests our future — 
 there can be no intervening agency. There 
 is, in fact, no such thing as a sudden change 
 of heart ; sudden conversion and the realiza- 
 tion of forgiveness are only fancies; they 
 have no existence apart from our imagina- 
 tion ; and the highest planes of spiritual per- 
 fection can only be obtained by a drastic sys- 
 
54 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 tern of purification which may last through- 
 out centuries. "To-day thou shalt be with 
 me in Paradise" is a delusion and a snare. 
 Man, himself, must blot out his sins, and, in 
 order to do this, he must keep on coming back 
 to this physical world in a fresh body till he 
 leads a life absolutely free from any vestige 
 of vice. Even as man fashioned his present 
 fate in the past, so he is fashioning his fu- 
 ture fate in the immediate present — and what 
 is done cannot be undone. It is a cold, com- 
 fortless and really hopeless creed, for it 
 would seem to be quite impossible to rid our- 
 selves of all vice, especially if we regard 
 vice — as we ought to do — as something more 
 than the mere indulgence of our cravings for 
 sexual intercourse or such acts as are punish- 
 able by the law. Greed, selfishness, and 
 scandal-mongering are all strictly speaking 
 vices, and what man or woman is there, who, 
 looking back upon his or her life, can honestly 
 say that it is absolutely free from all three 
 of them? Hence, it follows that although 
 the world is, according to geologists, many 
 millions of years old, no one alive now — or 
 within living man's memory — is within 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT 55 
 
 measurable distance of getting to the highest 
 spiritual planes. 
 
 It will thus be seen that the principles of 
 reincarnation are at total variance with the 
 Atonement and the very fundamentals of 
 Christ's teachings, so much so that one won- 
 ders how Spiritualists embracing such prin- 
 ciples can possibly call themselves Chris- 
 tians. But there are many who do, many 
 who, regarding our Lord as a mere spirit-in- 
 spired man and medium, cite the following 
 passages from the Gospels (notably St. John 
 iii. 3-11, and St. Matthew xviii. 3) in sup- 
 port of their theory that Christ Himself was 
 an expounder of the doctrine of reincarna- 
 tion. 
 
 To ordinary and rational minds the mean- 
 ing in these texts will appear quite simple 
 and direct ; our Lord points out to Nicodemus 
 and the disciples the necessity of becoming 
 simple and trustful as children, in order to 
 gain admittance to Heaven ; and it would be 
 difficult to realize how any one could read an- 
 other meaning in these texts, had one not 
 learnt from a personal knowledge of Spirit- 
 ualists that their imagination is only equaled 
 
56 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 by their astounding self-esteem. Believing, 
 or pretending to believe, that the spirits of 
 Shakespeare and Dryden attend seances 
 given by comparative nonentities, and make 
 tables and other articles jump about the 
 room, Spiritualists stick at nothing, and we 
 find them attributing to our Lord's sayings 
 cabalistic secrets that were in total variance 
 with His character, and which He would 
 never even have conceived. 
 
 Needless to say, our Lord's promise to the 
 penitent thief on the Cross that he should 
 be with Him that day in Paradise, rules out 
 any right on the part of the Spiritualists to 
 claim Christ as a reincarnationist. Indeed, 
 there is not a tittle of evidence to show that 
 the doctrine of reincarnation is in any way 
 alluded to in the Scriptures ; and, in all prob- 
 ability, it owes its foundation to nothing more 
 substantial than sheer craving for novelty; 
 anyhow, it is such an outrage on common 
 sense, in its utter disregard of such impor- 
 tant factors as heredity and the increase of 
 population, that no one would dream of tak- 
 ing it seriously, were it not unhappily true 
 that there are a great many people — weak- 
 kneed Christians of little sound judgment or 
 
THE NEW TESTAMENT 57 
 
 logic — who are easily influenced by the shal- 
 low, persuasive oratory characteristic of so 
 many of the leading Spiritualists and Theoso- 
 phists, and that the latter without scruple 
 try to destroy faith in Christianity, which is 
 by far the noblest and most consoling creed 
 the world has ever known, and offer in its 
 stead their fanciful and high-falutin' hotch- 
 potch known as Spiritualism and Theosophy. 
 It is, in fact, on behalf of these more gullible 
 and unstable followers of Christ — no matter 
 to what actual denomination they belong — 
 that a crusade against Spiritualism and 
 Theosophy is now so urgently needed. 
 
 It is not the Cross that is in danger, it 
 will never be in danger so long as the race 
 embraces men and women possessing high 
 ideals coupled with sound judgment and com- 
 mon sense, but only this one section of so- 
 ciety, and it is to save both their souls and 
 bodies that this challenge to their Spiritual- 
 istic seducers has gone forth. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SPIRITUALISM AND THE CHURCHES 
 
 Camouflaged, as the sinister attitude of 
 Spiritualists is towards the Old and New 
 Testaments, under apparent attempts to 
 merely reconcile the tenets of Spiritualism 
 with those of the Bible, there is no effort 
 whatever made to disguise the malicious in- 
 tentions of Spiritualists towards the 
 Churches, which they never miss an oppor- 
 tunity of attacking. No worse offender in 
 this respect could be found than Dr. Peebles. 
 After describing — in a pamphlet entitled 
 "Christianity, Churchianity or Spiritualism ,, 
 (p. 18) — a seance he attended, at which a cer- 
 tain Mr. Withal made the remarkable but not 
 very modest statement that he had come into 
 psychic relations with "a very exalted' ' 
 spirit who lived bodily at the same time as 
 Jesus of Nazareth, and after expressing his 
 admiration at the said Mr. Withal 's calm and 
 dignified style (people who make such 
 
 58 
 
THE CHURCHES 59 
 
 astounding assertions as Mr. Withal need a 
 little calmness to carry them through), Dr. 
 Peebles proceeds — in a manner that shows he 
 himself is wanting in that very quality he 
 apparently admires so much in others, 
 namely, dignity — to launch into a most violent 
 unrestrained attack on the Churches. He be- 
 gins by telling us that, under the Churchian- 
 ity of Eoman Constantine and his bishops, 
 etc., blood, due to persecution, began to flow 
 "in crimson currents," and proceeds to 
 comment on the "two millions" of human 
 lives lost in the Crusades, the massacre of St. 
 Bartholomew's Day, and the Edict of Feb- 
 ruary 15th, 1568, whereby, he alleges, the 
 Holy Office of Eomanism condemned all the 
 inhabitants of The Netherlands to be put to 
 death as heretics. It is not only the Catho- 
 lics, however, who come in for his denuncia- 
 tion, for on page 20 he says ", . . at later 
 date John Calvin, Beza, and other sectarian 
 bigots wrote books and pamphlets defending 
 the right and lawfulness of religious perse- 
 cutions," and (on same page) "John Knox 
 of Scotland, appealing to the Word of God, 
 declared that * Those guilty of idolatry and 
 heresy should be put to death.' " Further 
 
60 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 on lie graciously allows that Eoman Catholics 
 and Protestants, "alternating in power,' ' 
 slaughter each other. 
 
 After haranguing what he is pleased to 
 term Churchianity in this rather crude and 
 elementary fashion, apparently oblivious of 
 the fact that butchery was by no means con- 
 fined to Christian countries, but was going 
 on — as it is periodically now, in spite of 
 united Christian effort — all over the world, 
 quite as much, if not more, among races who 
 had no orthodox denominational creeds, as 
 among those who had, Dr. Peebles blossoms 
 out into verse. For example, on page 21, we 
 find this couplet: 
 
 "Praise God from Whom all blessings flow 
 Three thousand Frenchmen sent below/'' 
 
 which he informs us was sung in Berlin — 
 presumably in 1870 — after a victory over the 
 French by united bands of "Catholic and 
 Protestant' ' citizens parading the streets. 
 After the late Great War one cannot, of 
 course, be surprised at anything Huns may 
 have done, but one wonders whether in the 
 ranks of those united bands of citizens Dr. 
 Peebles refers to there may not have been a 
 
THE CHURCHES 61 
 
 few German Spiritualists. How can he 
 vouch for the fact that they consisted entirely 
 of Catholics and Protestants? 
 
 Dr. Peebles, however, allows his animus 
 against the Churches to carry him from bad 
 to worse, for after informing us that all the 
 persecutions and bloody wars (I presume he 
 would say the same of the late greatest of 
 all wars) he has specified were the legitimate 
 outcome of orthodox theology, he concludes 
 with the scathing declaration that "The 
 orthodox theology of salvation through blood, 
 the blood of our ancient Jew, is still preached 
 in our orthodox pulpits." 
 
 In order, perhaps to preserve some 
 semblance of artistic balance, the author, 
 after such a thick laying on of blackness, 
 thinks it necessary to afford us some relief, 
 and, consequently, proceeds to discuss the 
 merits of Spiritualism, which he valiantly en- 
 deavors to show is superior in every way to 
 " Churchianity. ' ' Crudely and unusually 
 spiteful, however, as these attacks of Dr. 
 Peebles on the Churches must seem to most 
 impartial people, they are, as I have said, 
 merely samples of the methods employed by 
 many other Spiritualists. Mr. John Lobb in 
 
62 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 his " Talks with the Dead" tells us that the 
 spirit of the late Eev. William Rogers, or 
 "Hang Theology Rogers," as Mr. Lobb 
 terms him (p. 113), comes back on purpose to 
 let us all know that "Creeds and dogmas find 
 no favor on the other side, ' ' whilst in a para- 
 graph headed "The Christian Church To- 
 day" the same author remarks, "The Chris- 
 tian Church to-day fails to arrest the atten- 
 tion or command the respect of the world to 
 whom they preach: their words fall dead 
 without the proof of works"; and a few lines 
 further on, ' ' The power of the Spirit has for- 
 saken the Church of to-day." These obser- 
 vations not unnaturally lead one to inquire 
 whether the author considers the power of 
 the Spirit has forsaken the Churches for 
 Spiritualism, and whether he honestly be- 
 lieves the latter commands the respect of the 
 world, because, if so, he could surely have 
 afforded us better instances in support of his 
 views than those of spirits returning to this 
 earth merely for the purpose of playing such 
 foolish tricks as putting sweets in peopled 
 mouths, thumping on tables, and dropping 
 fish from the ceiling. Such phenomena 
 surely must refute the idea that the "Power 
 
THE CHURCHES 63 
 
 of the Spirit ' 1 is to be found in Spiritualism, 
 or that Spiritualism commands the respect 
 of anything like so large a portion of hu- 
 manity as the world. 
 
 Indeed, all Mr. Lobb's intended biting 
 criticism of the Churches could be responded 
 to — were it worth while — with, perhaps, 
 greater vigor and certainly far more truth. 
 
 Mr. Leon Denis in "Christianity and 
 Spiritualism" is condescending enough to 
 admit (pp. 27-28) that the thoughts of Christ 
 still live in the teachings of the Church, but 
 that they are dished up in a very adulterated 
 form, owing to the desire of such ecclesiastics 
 as Popes, etc., "to fortify and render ab- 
 solute the authority of the Church.' y 
 
 To this, of course, the natural reply is — if 
 the teachings of the Churches is, possibly, a 
 combination of Divine tenets and accessories 
 introduced by theologians, what about Spirit- 
 ualism which is, unquestionably, a medley of 
 Babylonian Paganism, diluted Chaldean and 
 other kinds of necromancy, gnosticism, Eosi- 
 crucianism, Buddhism, Theosophy, Unitar- 
 ianism, and a dozen and one other isms, which 
 help to make it a most unsavory and indi- 
 gestible mess. Spiritualists should be re- 
 
64 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 minded very strongly that before throwing 
 dirty water at other people, they should first 
 look to their own house. After speaking thus 
 sneeringly of Theologians, Mr. Leon Denis 
 continues (p. 28) in this strain: 
 
 "It is by the aid of the light of this new revelation, 
 both scientific and philosophical, which has already 
 spread throughout the whole world, under the name of 
 modern Spiritualism, that we will seek to free the doc- 
 trine of Jesus from the obscurity in which the work 
 of centuries has enveloped it." 
 
 Having thus excited our curiosity and raised 
 our expectations mountains high to know 
 how Spiritualism purposes to achieve a task, 
 in which Mr. Denis delicately suggests the 
 Churches have failed, he proceeds to let us 
 down badly by stating that the method 
 Spiritualism intends to employ is that of "an 
 imposing train of experimental proofs," 
 which will furthermore prove that Spirit- 
 ualism and primitive Christianity are identi- 
 cal. 
 
 Now the experimental proofs which Mr. 
 Leon Denis would use for this purpose must 
 be the phenomena produced by such mediums 
 as Eglington, H.P.B., Eusapia Palladino, 
 
THE CHURCHES 65 
 
 and present-day birds of the same feather — 
 there are no other — therefore it is obviously 
 by these phenomena, proved to be fallacious, 
 that the wonderful scientific and philosophic 
 cult of Spiritualism seeks to eclipse the 
 Church; to demonstrate, beyond the shadow 
 of a doubt, that Christ was simply an ordi- 
 nary medium, that the hidden meaning which 
 they — and they only — attribute to His Gos- 
 pels, are mere common or garden secrets of 
 Spiritualism (secrets with which all the initi- 
 ates of that creed are familiar), and that 
 Spritualism and the earliest form of Chris- 
 tianity — Christ's Christianity, as distinct 
 from the Church's Christianity — are identi- 
 cal. Unfortunately for Spiritualism, how- 
 ever, despite the patronage of a few such em- 
 inent scientists as Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir 
 W. F. Barrett, the late Sir William Crookes 
 (this patronage, I suppose, accounts for the 
 dubbing of the cult — scientific), the bubble of 
 mediumship has been too mercilessly pricked 
 for the common-sense man-in-the-street to 
 place much confidence in what is left, and it 
 will take something far more subtle and con- 
 vincing than any of the spirit phenomena, or 
 to give them their more appropriate name, 
 
66 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 "spirit stunts,' ' that we have lately seen to 
 induce the main body of Churchmen to dis- 
 card their old faith in a sanctified Christ and 
 adopt the mere caricature of Divinity Spirit- 
 ualists proffer in its stead. 
 
 Spiritualists mockingly remark that the 
 Church has failed, but do they honestly think 
 that Spiritualism either has succeeded, or can 
 succeed, in the future. Its phenomenal side 
 — the side on which it so largely depends — is 
 at the present moment more debatable than 
 ever. Professional medium after medium 
 has been exposed, and many of those who 
 have escaped so far may not unreasonably 
 be deemed to owe their present security to 
 the West End patronage they have been lucky 
 enough to secure. Still their turn may come, 
 and further striking demonstrations of the 
 hyper-credulity of certain of the most emi- 
 nent scientists, to whose recommendation they 
 owe so much, may, even yet, be forthcoming. 
 Despite its boasts to the contrary, the 
 foundations of Spiritualism are unstable in 
 the extreme, and, in my opinion, a slight 
 breeze — let alone a searching wind — would 
 bring the whole fabric to the ground. 
 
 To revert to its claims of success. We 
 
THE CHURCHES 67 
 
 have seen, I think, that they cannot possibly 
 be said to rest on its alleged spiritual phe- 
 nomena; hence, I suppose, it is to the doc- 
 trinal side of the cult that we must look for 
 them. But what do we find here 1 Long dis- 
 sertations on love and brotherhood. Spirit- 
 ualism is declared to be a kind of free- 
 masonry that knits together not only the 
 hearts of men, but their souls, a freemasonry 
 consisting of a much more poignant and dur- 
 able bond of love than that advocated and 
 practiced by other creeds. It is also de- 
 clared to be a bond of love and brotherhood 
 which is not confined to this material plane; 
 on the contrary, in accordance with the prin- 
 ciple of progress and evolution (evolution is 
 apparently one of the fundamentals of the 
 doctrine of Spiritualism), its practices are 
 carried on in the spiritual world, where 
 marriages are said to take place as they do 
 on earth. 
 
 In this connection it would be as well, per- 
 haps, to remind Spiritualists that words 
 only do not make character, any more than 
 mere tenets, of necessity, lead to practice. 
 It is doubtless very pleasant to be able to 
 imagine oneself transported to the very 
 
68 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 highest spiritual planes — planes from which 
 so many — perhaps all — of your friends are 
 hopelessly barred; and extremely gratifying 
 to be able to assure those who flock in hun- 
 dreds to listen to your alleged psychic ex- 
 ploits, that you have been to far-off realms 
 and seen celestial visions, which are not for 
 the rank and file, but reserved for the great- 
 est and wisest of the initiates of Spiritual- 
 ism only. Perhaps it is this mood that Mr. 
 Leon Denis has in mind when he refers to 
 the philosophic side of Spiritualism. But 
 it is a mood hardly in keeping with that spirit 
 of love and fraternity breathed out so often 
 from Spiritualistic pulpits, and referred to 
 so constantly in Spiritualistic pamphlets; 
 and it is not altogether in harmony with the 
 doctrine of humility preached in the Sermon 
 on the Mount, which Spiritualists are so fond 
 of holding up as a much-needed example to 
 theologians and churchgoers. However, as 
 it is undoubtedly the spirit blatantly observ- 
 able in about ninety-nine per cent of Spirit- 
 ualists, it makes one wonder if, after all, they 
 are the big success they believe themselves to 
 be. Surely the success of a creed is — or 
 should be — gauged by the effect it has on 
 
THE CHURCHES 69 
 
 moral character. Now I can call to mind no 
 instance of Spiritualism having produced 
 any particularly great moralist or philan- 
 thropist. I have from time to time come 
 across many people professing this creed, 
 but so far, not one of them has exhibited 
 any very lovable quality or any very special 
 virtue. On the contrary, by far the major- 
 ity of those Spiritualists with whom I have 
 come in contact, have been indisputably 
 egotistical, self-opinionated, arrogant, con- 
 ceited, absolutely self-satisfied and extremely 
 dogmatic. All the failings, in fact, that they 
 so generously attribute to churchgoers they 
 themselves possess — and possess in an al- 
 most unlimited degree. Nor am I alone in 
 this opinion. My verdict is only that of 
 numbers of others — outsiders one may say 
 (I, myself, am an undenominational Chris- 
 tian), but then you must remember that it is 
 the outsider who sees most of the game, and 
 consequently it is the outsider who is best 
 able to judge. Inasmuch then as Spiritual- 
 ism cannot possibly be said to have an elevat- 
 ing effect on character, and may very justly 
 be said to have the reverse, I fail to see how 
 it can be described as anything whatever in 
 
70 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 the nature of a success, unless it be a success 
 for the Powers inimical to the genuine ad- 
 vancement and moral welfare of the human 
 race. 
 
 On the other hand, the Churches are not al- 
 together undeserving of criticism. The ac- 
 cusation of narrow-mindedness and lack of 
 sympathy that (Spiritualists and others have 
 leveled against them is not wholly without 
 substance. They — especially those that have 
 temporarily wielded the most power — have 
 been autocratic and dictatorial, paying too 
 little heed to the great example set them by 
 the gentle, Divine Being they have all made 
 pretense of imitating. Assuredly the great- 
 est worth of Christianity lies in the heed it 
 bestows on spiritual and moral progress, and 
 the greatest care should always be taken to 
 see that candidates offering themselves for 
 Holy Orders have the moral and spiritual 
 progress of mankind at heart. Very ob- 
 viously this has not always been the case, and 
 incalculable harm has been inflicted on the 
 cause of the Churches — of all Christian de- 
 nominations — because in a matter like this 
 the careless public does not differentiate — 
 through men taking Holy Orders solely for 
 
THE CHURCHES 71 
 
 the sake of bettering their social position; 
 or — as so often happens — leading a slack life 
 on a comparatively large stipend in some 
 quiet country village ; where, in such counties 
 as Northamptonshire, Leicestershire and 
 Devon, hunting forms an additional attrac- 
 tion. Hunting parsons are often jocularly 
 referred to as good "sports," but the person 
 who speaks thus lightly of a priest or min- 
 ister, if he ever thinks at all, does not think 
 of the welfare of the Christian Churches. It 
 ill befits a pledged disciple of Jesus of 
 Nazareth, who was the quintessence of all 
 that was kindly and decorous, to be seen, in- 
 spired by cruel motives, and often three- 
 quarters drunk, careering madly on bareback 
 across fields in pursuit of a small and defense- 
 less animal. 
 
 The Church of Christ is not for such men 
 as these, their proper vocation in life is to 
 serve behind the pot-house bar, or as a 
 marker in a billiard saloon, where their 
 coarse jest and often blasphemous jokes 
 would fall on no shocked ears. 
 
 Certainly the Churches need reforming, 
 and no one knows this better than the priest- 
 hood themselves, but the powers that be 
 
72 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 move slowly, and many years may elapse be- 
 fore such a purging and purification, as alone 
 can be of any real benefit to the cause of 
 Christ, can be effected. Let us hope it will 
 be sooner than I, for one, anticipate. On the 
 other hand, if the Churches have seemed, at 
 times, merely a cloak for black sheep, it is 
 also equally true that they have been the gen- 
 erating instrument of many of the greatest 
 moralists and public benefactors the world 
 has ever produced. With all their faults the 
 Christian Churches have been proved to pos- 
 sess many virtues ; and it has been shown that 
 they have exercised a restraining and enno- 
 bling influence on the masses, such as has 
 certainly never been exercised by any other 
 creed, and which neither Spiritualism nor 
 Theosophy have ever given the slightest 
 sign of emulating. 
 
 We have now seen — in brief — the attitude 
 of Spiritualism towards the Churches. Let 
 us now review — also in brief — the attitude of 
 the Churches towards Spiritualism. 
 
 Whilst all the Churches are, perhaps, 
 equally emphatic in their disapproval of 
 Spiritualism as a whole, they differ some- 
 what in their views regarding its various 
 
THE CHURCHES 73 
 
 tenets. Most Protestants, for example, do 
 not admit even the possibility of spirits of 
 any kind, no matter whether of the dead or 
 of those that have never been in the flesh, 
 responding to the call of living beings and 
 perpetrating the phenomena attributed to 
 them. They declare — and I think with 
 reason — that it is time enongh to talk of 
 spirit influence being present at seances, 
 when we have first of all eliminated all possi- 
 bility of fraud and other natural— though, 
 perhaps, at present unknown — physical 
 causes. 
 
 With regard to this same question, 
 Catholics, on the other hand, do not commit 
 themselves to any very decided statements. 
 While admitting the possibility of the return 
 of the dead under very rare occasions and 
 with some very specific reason, as, for in- 
 stance, in the case of Samuel and the witch 
 of Endor, they do not consider it at all likely 
 that the blessed dead would come back for 
 the trivial purpose of manifesting at a 
 seance. They believe that other spirits 
 might respond to the invitation of mediums, 
 but that all such spirits would be evil and of 
 the same type as the demons in the Bible. 
 
74 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 They express, however, no definite judg- 
 ment as to the nature of the phenomena, or 
 whether they are produced through physical 
 or super-physical agency, but both they and 
 the Protestant Churches roundly condemn 
 Spiritualism as being in total opposition to 
 the Divine Will. The Roman Catholic 
 Church of the two is, perhaps, the more in- 
 clined to confine its condemnation of Spirit- 
 ualism to theological grounds. It not un- 
 naturally unites with all other denominations 
 in desiring to protect its followers from 
 fraud and charlatanism, which it considers 
 may possibly take place at seances, but it 
 views the matter more seriously from the 
 religious standpoint. First of all, the Catho- 
 lic Church regards any attempt whatever at 
 communication with the spirit world, in 
 other than the form of prayer set down in 
 her liturgy and based on the precepts of the 
 New Testament, as in direct opposition to the 
 Divine "Will, and thinks it Her right to warn 
 Her children strongly against such practices. 
 She has a strong basis for her objections in 
 certain passages in the Bible to which I have 
 already referred. She is fully aware that 
 Spiritualists triumphantly point to the fact 
 
THE CHURCHES 75 
 
 that many of the saints had visions, but she 
 wishes to emphasize the point that the 
 visions of the saints came to them quite spon- 
 taneously, i. e., without being sought, and, for 
 that reason, cannot in any way be placed in 
 the same category with the trances of the so- 
 called mediums. 
 
 The Churches, one and all of course, utterly 
 condemn the attempts made by the Spirit- 
 ualists to liken our Lord and His Apostles, 
 as well as the chosen of God in the Old Testa- 
 ment, to present-day mediums — their line of 
 argument being, I believe, very much the 
 same as that which I adopted when dealing 
 with the question in a previous chapter. 
 
 Furthermore, the Catholic Church, besides 
 looking upon the mere holding of Spiritual- 
 istic seances as quite contrary to Christ's 
 teachings, also regards all such seances as 
 a source of the utmost peril to those who par- 
 take in them. She believes that both medi- 
 ums and sitters, in courting intercourse with 
 the other world, open a door to spiritual 
 forces of a nature that is totally unknown to 
 them, and which, in all probability, would be 
 of an entirely evil origin ; but no matter from 
 what source these forces emanate, inasmuch 
 
 s 
 
76 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 as " evocation' ' is in direct opposition to 
 Divine Will, the Catholic Church believes no 
 response can be productive of any good, but 
 may very easily lead to a degeneration of the 
 morals and faith in Christianity of those 
 who participate in the proceedings. 
 
 Lastly, the teachings of the Catholic 
 Church are utterly antagonistic to the idea 
 of any spirit being so much at the mercy of 
 a human being as to have to — for that is 
 what it practically amounts to — repeatedly 
 respond to their beck and call. 
 
 These, I think, are the main objections 
 from the religious standpoint that the Catho- 
 lic Church entertains towards Spiritualism. 
 There are others, I believe, of a purely theo- 
 logical nature, but, rather too technical to 
 be dealt with here. Most of them, including 
 those I have already touched upon, seem to 
 be logical and moderate, and will, I think, 
 find favor with many who, like myself, are 
 merely undenominational Christians. 
 
 Indeed, the Churches on the whole would 
 seem to have acted with great restraint and 
 to have shown surprisingly little animus 
 against a body of people (i. e., the Spiritual- 
 ists) who have been doing their best to un- 
 
THE CHURCHES 77 
 
 dermine faith in the Divine nature of the 
 Gospels, and to thin the ranks of all denom- 
 inational congregations. 
 
 It may not be without interest to quote 
 the opinions of a variety of Church writers 
 on the subject, picked from men of all denom- 
 inations, and selected chiefly on account of 
 their outspokenness, the majority of such 
 writers being more or less guarded and re- 
 served. 
 
 In a pamphlet called " Spiritualism' ' that 
 appears in a work entitled "Lectures on the 
 History of Religions," Vol. V. (published 
 by the Catholic Truth Society), the Rev. 
 R. H. Benson says: "Spiritualism, or Necro- 
 mancy, or the dealing with ' familiar ' spirits, 
 has always been regarded by the other great 
 world religions as a bastard, rather than a 
 competitor with a dignity comparable with 
 their own." And in another place in the 
 same work he remarks, "For every man that 
 is converted by Spiritualism to believe in the 
 immortality of his soul, there are probably 
 a hundred who are led by it to relinquish the 
 beliefs and practices of Christianity. ' ' And 
 in still a third place, "So far as Spiritualism 
 has produced a coherent creed at all, it 
 
78 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 directly traverses even such fundamental 
 doctrines as that of the Incarnation. ' ' It 
 takes little deduction from these lines to 
 arrive at the inevitable conclusion that the 
 late Monsignor Benson was wholly opposed 
 to Spiritualism. 
 
 Equally emphatic is the Bev. Winfrid 0. 
 Burrows, M.A., Vicar of Holy Trinity, 
 Leeds, who in a pamphlet entitled "The 
 Churchman's Attitude towards the Spirit- 
 ualists" (published by the Society for 
 Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1900) says: 
 "The Christian who believes in our Lord, 
 and uses his Bible as his guide, will feel that 
 he cannot neglect the Church of Christ for 
 Spiritualist Meetings"; and again: "The 
 strange freaks of the Spiritualists seem, with 
 rare exceptions, to have no moral meaning, 
 and to be mere marvels intended to rouse 
 curiosity and attract attention. Such dis- 
 plays as these our Lord always refused to 
 work." And still again— "It (Spiritualism) 
 has no message of hope. It contains no word 
 about repentance or conversion, regeneration, 
 or renewal. It leaves the victim of carnal 
 passions without hope, except after 'ashes 
 of remorse.' " Quoting from a letter he re- 
 
THE CHURCHES 79 
 
 ceived from the Eev. J. E. Illingworth, Mr. 
 Burrows writes: "It is called Spiritualism, 
 but it is in fact materialism — an attempt to 
 return to what St. Paul calls carnal, and 
 keeps us back, if anything, from securing 
 true union with our blessed dead, by really 
 spiritual means, viz., complete life in God." 
 Written rather long ago, but still fully ap- 
 plicable to these times, for neither Spirit- 
 ualism nor the Churches' attitude towards 
 it have changed to any very appreciable ex- 
 tent, is a pamphlet called "Spiritualism. 
 Tested by Scripture,' ' written by the Eev. 
 A. E. Fausset, M.A., in 1885, and published 
 by the Church of England Book Society. 
 In it the author says: "Since Spiritualism 
 opposes many of the fundamental doctrines 
 of the written Word of God, it cannot be 
 from God"; and further on, "It is contrary 
 to all probability that holy angels would 
 stoop from Heaven to such low, trivial and 
 even blasphemous manifestations, or that 
 saved souls with Christ should come for such 
 calls; or the lost be allowed to leave their 
 prison to gratify man's forbidden curiosity.' ' 
 And, after quoting Ecclesiastes ix. 6, in 
 support of such views, he continues — 
 
80 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 "The spirit manifestations can only emanate 
 from the Prince of the powers of the air, 
 the spirit which ruleth in the children of dis- 
 obedience." On another page he remarks, 
 "Simultaneously, the doctrine of evolution 
 and the science of comparative religion are 
 undermining the exclusive authority of the 
 Bible, as the only infallible revelation from 
 God." Elsewhere in the same work (p. 15) 
 we read: "Consulters of the dead are sorcer- 
 ers," and "sorcery and necromancy are 
 among the foretold signs of the last days," 
 1 Timothy iv. 1; and again (p. 13), "Spirit- 
 ualism accords with the old Babylonian 
 pagan doctrine of seven spheres." 
 
 The same author gives the following ex- 
 tract from a letter sent him by a minister of 
 the Presbyterian Church in Auckland, New 
 Zealand. "Manifestations have often been 
 counterfeited," the minister says, "from 
 mercenary and other unworthy motives, but 
 there are real manifestations," and he 
 goes on to state, "I have abandoned the 
 practice of holding intercourse with these un- 
 known agencies, which I have been led to con- 
 clude are demoniacal. Besides the unreli- 
 ability of the communications, I have found 
 
THE CHURCHES 81 
 
 them sometimes shockingly blasphemous and 
 vulgar in the extreme. Spiritualism has ex- 
 cited a painful effect on even ministers known 
 to me," and Mr. Fausset goes on to explain 
 that in numerous cases the result of Spirit- 
 ualistic dealings has been insanity. 
 
 Nor is the above case the only one I can 
 quote of ministers who have dabbled in 
 Spiritualism finally awaking to the fact that 
 it is really very dangerous. The Brooklyn 
 Eagle some years ago contained a report of 
 a lecture delivered by the Eev. W. H. Clagett, 
 President of the Board of Trustees of the 
 Texas Presbyterian University, in the Asso- 
 ciation Hall of Brooklyn, N. Y. Dr. Clagett 
 was once a Spiritualist, but the following 
 extracts from his speech will show to what 
 an extent his opinions on the subject changed, 
 and what a revulsion of feeling he experi- 
 enced in connection with it. 
 
 "I was a firm believer in it (Spiritual- 
 ism)," he says, "for years, often acting as a 
 medium in private seances. There is a 
 deeper interest in this question than many 
 Christians think. Spiritualism is one of the 
 greatest powers for evil in the world." 
 And again — "I believe there is such a thing 
 
82 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 as communication between men and spirits. 
 Satan, in the form of Spiritualism, offers to 
 bring the loved one back again so that we can 
 hear his voice and actually see his face. . . . 
 By attacking the soul in this subtle and 
 plausible manner it is not strange that Satan 
 in the form of Spiritualism leads many 
 astray.' ' But though Dr. Clagett expresses 
 his belief in the possibility of spirits — evil 
 spirits — being present at seances, he also be- 
 lieves in the extreme probability of fraud. 
 "To think,' ' he observes, "of a wife or 
 mother, even if she could communicate with 
 us on earth, going to a woman whom she 
 never knew and with whom she would not 
 have associated if she had, and telling her the 
 most sacred things — the idea is degrading 
 and a dishonor. Spiritualism is a fraud, 
 two-thirds of it being devil at second-hand, 
 and the rest of it devil at first hand. ' ' These 
 remarks of Dr. Clagett should, I think, ap- 
 peal to all lovers of common sense. I, for 
 one, am quite certain that neither my mother 
 nor father, who have both passed over, no 
 matter how fond of me, would ever dream 
 of trying to deliver a message to me through 
 the medium of a professional Spiritualist 
 
THE CHURCHES 83 
 
 and in the presence of complete strangers, 
 even though these strangers were eminent 
 members of the Psychical Research Society, 
 out, as they profess to be, solely in the inter- 
 est of science. No, if it were possible to com- 
 municate at all, I am quite sure they would 
 communicate direct, and not through the 
 agency of any other living person, least of 
 all one with whom they would have had abso- 
 lutely nothing in common when alive. The 
 plea that it is only so-called mediums who 
 possess the psychic faculties requisite for 
 such communications is undoubtedly open to 
 question, for it is quite certain that spirits 
 that manifest themselves spontaneously, 
 often do so to people having no claim what- 
 ever to these alleged special properties, and 
 I am inclined — after many years ' experience, 
 too — to agree with Dr. Clagett that Spirit- 
 ualism is a fraud, the bulk of the so-called 
 phenomena being merely due to trickery on 
 the part of mediums, and the rest either 
 to some subtler, comparatively unknown 
 natural causes, or to a spirit agency entirely 
 different from that which it usually purports 
 to be. The fact that the messages or visions 
 are sometimes of an apparently celestial na- 
 
84 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 ture is no proof whatever that their origin — 
 supposing they really do come from the spirit 
 world — is Divine. The fairest flower to look 
 at not infrequently contains the deadliest 
 poison, and drugs that smell and taste the 
 sweetest are often the most injurious to the 
 system. That which is the most harmful to 
 man can assume any guise. 
 
 In a book entitled "The Powers of the 
 Air," the author, who was once a medium, 
 declares he once came under the control of 
 a spirit which professed to be the Almighty 
 and actually hoodwinked him into believing 
 that he — the medium — was specially ordained 
 to redeem the world. To use the author's 
 own language : ' ' The spirit then went on to 
 say, 'I have chosen you to be my second 
 Christ; I have appointed Jesus, my son, to 
 instruct you and make you wise in all things 
 — to do my will in the great work of man's 
 salvation.' " The author, so he relates, con- 
 tinued obeying the devil's instructions, firmly 
 believing in the Divinity it professed, until 
 foretold events so frequently turned out in 
 direct opposition to prophecy, and he met 
 with such constant failure and disappoint- 
 
THE CHURCHES 85 
 
 ment, that his suspicions were aroused and 
 he finally came to the conclusion that this 
 spirit, far from being what it purported to 
 be, was something very evil. He then 
 struggled hard against it, and eventually — 
 though not without desperate efforts — for 
 when once you really attract spirit influence, 
 it is extremely reluctant to leave you — com- 
 pletely banished it. Before it took its final 
 departure, however, the author extracted 
 from it a very remarkable confession which 
 he narrates in detail. Here, for example, 
 are some of the questions he put to it and its 
 replies : 
 
 Question: "Are not the doctrines taught 
 generally by Spiritualists denominated in the 
 Scripture the doctrine of devils or demons 1 ' ' 
 
 Answer: "Yes, they are, in very deed, the 
 doctrines of devils or demons, because they 
 generally reject the teachings of Jesus Christ 
 and His Apostles and followers." 
 
 Question: "How do the inhabitants of 
 your world mostly spend their time?" 
 
 Answer: "We spend the time, mostly, 
 since the discovery of the mediumistic com- 
 
86 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 munications, in developing mediums, in 
 making psychological experiments with them 
 and in communicating through them." 
 
 Question: "Do you not think that good 
 spirits develop mediums, and communicate 
 through them as well as yourselves?" 
 
 Answer: "I think not: we think we are 
 warranted in the conclusion that no pious 
 dead, nor the spirits of great men made per- 
 fect, nor angels, have anything to do with 
 controlling mediums at the present day. ' ' 
 
 Further questions put to it elicited the in- 
 formation that evil spirits "have the power 
 to produce lifelike images in the minds of 
 impressible mediums," which are often mis- 
 interpreted by the latter into being actual 
 sights of real objects — or, in other words, 
 the controlling spirit influence makes the 
 medium mistake the purely subjective for the 
 objective, a mistake which, in my opinion, 
 almost invaribly occurs. 
 
 The author goes on to explain from the in- 
 formation afforded him by his conquered 
 "control" that spirits, when once invited, 
 "have the power of using the human body, 
 with all its organs and faculties," and can, 
 
THE CHURCHES 87 
 
 in addition, and with the assistance of 
 countless other spirits, move the weightiest 
 of tables and chairs. The author further- 
 more tells us that he received practical dem- 
 onstrations from his " ex-control ' ' and some 
 of its associate spirits of their power to 
 imitate voices, and thus trick people into be- 
 lieving they were actually conversing with 
 departed friends and relatives; and he sums 
 up all his experiences with this type of 
 seance and controlling spirit thus: "They 
 delight in evil as their object, and especially 
 that branch of evil called deception. If any 
 one thing pleases them more than any other, 
 it is to make those in the earth life believe 
 the most monstrous and absurd theories.' ' 
 
 The International Bible Students' Associ- 
 ation, which has important branches in 
 Brooklyn, London, Melbourne, and many 
 other large cities, published a very bitter and 
 vindictive little booklet against Spiritual- 
 ism in 1897. It is entitled "Spiritism — 
 Proofs that it is Demonish" — and may be 
 said to represent the views of many 
 thousands of orthodox Christians on Spirit- 
 ualism and such kindred subjects as Theos- 
 ophy and Christian Science, some twenty 
 
88 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 years ago. In this work (p. 81) we find the 
 following extracts from a somewhat interest- 
 ing article by the Rev. A. B. Simpson: "The 
 healing of diseases is also said to follow the 
 practices of Spiritualism and Animal Magnet- 
 ism, Clairvoyancy, etc. We will not deny 
 that while some of the manifestations of 
 Spiritualism are undoubted frauds, there are 
 many that are unquestionably supernatural, 
 and are produced by forces for which physical 
 science has no explanation. It is no use to 
 try to meet this terrific monster of Spiritual- 
 ism, in which, as Joseph Cook says, is, per- 
 haps, the great 'if y of our immediate future 
 in England and America, with the hasty and 
 shallow denial of the facts, or their explana- 
 tion as tricks of legerdemain. They are 
 often undoubtedly real and superhuman. 
 They are the revived forces of the Egyptian 
 magicians, the Grecian oracles, the Roman 
 haruspices, the Indian medicine men." 
 
 I have already alluded to the fact that 
 many Spiritualists constantly refer to God 
 as the Spirit of Love, and never seem to tire 
 of emphasizing the fact that we should all 
 dwell together like brothers and sisters, and 
 love one another. The love they thus fre- 
 
THE CHURCHES 89 
 
 quently advocate, however, is not the love 
 advocated in the Bible, but rather the kind of 
 love the Bible strongly condemns. It is the 
 love that recognizes no confines or restric- 
 tions; that is purely unconventional and 
 takes into no account marriage laws, or the 
 ban society has so rightly placed on un- 
 natural friendship. It is free lance, an- 
 archical love that, if once permitted and en- 
 couraged, would soon lead to utter social 
 chaos, and eventually to the hopeless, whole- 
 sale destruction of the race. And there are 
 grave signs in England to-day that this kind 
 of love is on the increase and is no longer 
 solely confined to one sex. Indeed, I have 
 reason to believe there are clubs and res- 
 taurants in London at the present time, whose 
 membership and clientele is solely confined to 
 women, who meet there as lovers rather than 
 friends. These women all profess to be men- 
 haters and certainly never miss an opportu- 
 nity of abusing men and doing everything they 
 possibly can to damage their reputation and 
 chances in life. Wives are set against and 
 estranged from their husbands, sisters 
 poisoned against their brothers, and I even 
 know instances of mothers having been won 
 
90 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 over and set against their sons. The 
 weapons generally employed are the usual 
 gags of the advocates of women's suffrage, 
 i.e., the unfairness of the marriage laws and 
 of paying men better than women for the 
 same amount of work done, and the many al- 
 leged privileges enjoyed by men that are de- 
 nied to women; to which are added various 
 other grievances, some, no doubt, more or 
 less real, and others wholly imaginary, but 
 all, nevertheless, very highly colored. This 
 anti-men campaign was most conspicuous 
 during the Parliamentary Election of the 
 winter of 1919, and is being pushed most em- 
 phatically all over England at the present 
 moment. Though, no doubt, it owes its 
 origin to some extent, at least, to jealousy and 
 unsatisfied cravings for motherhood, as well 
 as to other more or less natural causes, it also 
 receives much inspiration and obtains con- 
 siderable impetus from Spiritualism and 
 Spiritualism's kindred cults — Theosophy 
 and Christian Science. 
 
 It is a fact that cannot be got away from 
 that a not inconsiderable percentage of 
 women Spiritualists, Theosophists and 
 Christian Scientists are pronounced anti- 
 
THE CHURCHES 91 
 
 menites. "We were told," a lady Spiritual- 
 ist observed to me some months ago, "at a 
 seance held in our club, not to have anything 
 to do with men, that men are all beasts and 
 tyrants, and that we must oppose them in 
 every possible way, and try and oust them 
 from all their present positions of power and 
 prominence. We were further told that 
 man's love is a very poor thing compared 
 with woman's, and that women should only 
 select friends and confidants from among 
 their own sex. ' ' The lady went on to inform 
 me that the same spirit "control" had as- 
 sured both her and her clubmates that the 
 Creator was a woman and not a male, as one 
 had always been led to suppose from the 
 Scriptures, and that the Divine feminine 
 mind, which controlled everything, was 
 strongly opposed to the male sex, which it 
 regarded as the source of all the wrongs for 
 which mankind in general had suffered. Now 
 one would be inclined to regard all this 
 lightly were it but an isolated example, but 
 unfortunately it is not. This same doc- 
 trine of the omnipotence of the female 
 element in the super-physical world and of its 
 unqualified antipathy to the male sex finds 
 
92 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 many women supporters, who are firm in 
 their conviction that it emanates from bond 
 fide spiritual sources and, consequently, re- 
 gard it with a certain veneration. 
 
 Women mediums — who are, in my opinion, 
 not infrequently bribed — are constantly pro- 
 fessing to receive messages confirming it, 
 and it is propagated not only throughout the 
 length and breadth of England, but in Amer- 
 ica and even India. At present the damage 
 it is doing is mainly confined to the home-life, 
 where it separates husband from wife and 
 splits up the family circle, and, of course, to 
 established religion, to which its tenets are 
 wholly opposed. It will soon, however, work 
 far wider havoc; the population question, 
 especially of the upper and middle classes, 
 will be seriously affected by it, and it may 
 actually lead to a sex war involving the whole- 
 sale and final destruction of the British, as 
 well as other races. As I have already sug- 
 gested, the doctrine of free-love, in a specific 
 sex sense, is to no small degree closely affili- 
 ated with this doctrine of women's right to 
 predominate, and of man's iniquities. 
 
 Let us now see what the Bible Students' 
 Association has to say with regard to Free 
 
THE CHURCHES 93 
 
 Love in their booklet. Turning to page 38, 
 we find: "The strongly marked tendency of 
 Spiritism towards free-love-ism served to 
 bring it into general disrepute among the 
 pure-minded, who concluded that, if the in- 
 fluence of the dead was properly represented 
 in some living advocates of Spiritism, then 
 the social conditions beyond the vale of death 
 must be much worse, much more impure, than 
 they are in the present life, instead of much 
 better, as these demon spirits claim. It 
 denies the Atonement and the Lordship of 
 Christ, while it claims that He was a spirit 
 medium of low degree; and, furthermore, 
 abundant testimony could be quoted from 
 prominent Spiritists proving that the tend- 
 encies of Spiritism are extremely demoraliz- 
 ing." 
 
 With this idea of the free-love evil obvi- 
 ously still in mind the author of this same 
 pamphlet goes on to quote the testimony of 
 Mr. J. F. Whitney, Editor of the Pathfinder 
 (N.Y.) and once an advocate of Spiritualism. 
 "Now after a long and constant watchful- 
 ness/ 9 he writes (p. 29), "seeing for months 
 and years its progress and its practical work- 
 ings upon its devotees, its believers and its 
 
94 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 mediums, we are compelled to speak our 
 honest conviction, which is that the manifes- 
 tations coming through the acknowledged 
 mediums, who are designated as rapping, tip- 
 ping, writing and entrance mediums, have a 
 baneful influence upon believers, and create 
 discord and confusion ; that the generality of 
 these teachings inculcate false ideas, approve 
 of selfish individual acts, and endorse theories 
 and principles which, when carried out, de- 
 base and make man little better than the 
 brute. Seeing, as we have, ' ? this writer adds, 
 "the gradual progress it makes with its be- 
 lievers, particularly its mediums, from lives 
 of morality to those of sensuality and im- 
 morality, gradually and cautiously under- 
 mining the foundation of good principles, we 
 look back with amazement to the radical 
 change which a few months will bring about 
 in individuals ; for its tendency is to approve 
 and endorse each individual act and charac- 
 ter, however good or bad these acts may be." 
 The bad influence of the mediums to which Mr. 
 Whitney refers is, without the shadow of a 
 doubt, chiefly relegated in the channels to 
 which I have referred ; and in the same pam- 
 phlet we read: "So bold and outspokenly 
 
THE CHURCHES 95 
 
 immoral did some of the prominent represen- 
 tatives of Spiritism become, especially the fe- 
 male mediums (and most of its mediums are 
 female) that the moral sense of civilization 
 was shocked." Also an instance is given 
 (see p. 41) of a woman who was induced by 
 Spiritualism to enter into such unnatural ex- 
 cesses that the very thought of them event- 
 ually drove her mad and she had to be con- 
 fined in an asylum. "A gentleman who had 
 occasionally attended on preaching, ' ' he says, 
 " asked that an interview be granted his sis- 
 ter whom he would bring from Cleveland for 
 the purpose. She was, he said, laboring un- 
 der the delusion that she had committed the 
 unpardonable sin and he hoped we could dis- 
 abuse her mind of the thought which some- 
 times made her wild. We consented, and she 
 came. She told us how she had met in Cali- 
 fornia a man who had a familiar spirit and 
 occult powers. At first disbelieving, she aft- 
 erwards became his co-worker in ' mysteries ' 
 resembling witchcraft, and had finally in- 
 veigled and injured a 'dear female friend.' 
 Since then remorse had seized her, and she 
 had been tortured and at times frenzied, and 
 hope had forever fled." The end, as I have 
 
96 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 said, was lunacy, and I have no doubt what- 
 ever there are dozens of similar cases in our 
 asylums to-day. I think a thorough analysis 
 of Chelsea and the West End might prove the 
 truth of this assertion, but the result of such 
 an analysis cannot be made public, since 
 Spiritualism has now become a fashion, and 
 whenever an attempt is made to clean out a 
 quagmire containing names of any special 
 political or social note, it is instantly quashed. 
 
 I have, however, no desire to enter more 
 deeply into this question of "free love with- 
 out men'' in this volume. It is sufficient for 
 me to hint that it exists in far greater force 
 than the average person thinks, that it finds 
 its recruits almost solely among the ranks of 
 the more bitter adherents of the cause of 
 women's rights, and that Spiritualism, by 
 aiding and abetting it, is helping to bring 
 about what will — unless soon checked — prove 
 to be the biggest calamity that has ever be- 
 fallen the world — far bigger, even, than the 
 late Great War. 
 
 As I think I have now produced sufficient 
 evidence to show how strongly not only one 
 but all orthodox Christian denominations 
 are opposed to Spiritualism and everything 
 
THE CHURCHES 97 
 
 that is akin to it, I will conclude with a few 
 very brief extracts from the long correspon- 
 dence on the subject in the Sunday Times of 
 1917. In the issue of that paper for 16th 
 September, Mr. Alfred Bruce Douglas 
 writes: 
 
 "As a Catholic I am forbidden to take part in a 
 Spiritual seance under pain of mortal sin, nor have I 
 the least temptation to do so. But before I became a 
 Catholic I occasionally dabbled in Spiritualism, and my 
 own experiences were quite enough to convince me that 
 the phenomena are sometimes perfectly genuine and per- 
 fectly unaccountable except on a supernatural basis. 
 . . . The phenomena of Spiritualism are, the Church 
 teaches, produced by devils and evil spirits. Their ob- 
 ject is to betray and deceive the human race. Con- 
 tinued indulgence in Spiritualism leads to madness, 
 folly and despair, and loss of real faith." 
 
 Again, in a letter to the same paper, pub- 
 lished 2nd September, 1917, Mr. Samuel 
 George says: 
 
 "I began as a would-be believer in Spiritualism. I 
 am now an unbeliever because I know both sides. . . . 
 The psychists complain about the bad doctrines of the 
 Churches and despise those who adopt them. They 
 justify their own existence as psychists as a result of 
 this defect, yet at the same time provide for mental con- 
 sumption worse doctrines than the Churches teach." 
 
98 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 And, lastly, in a letter published in the 
 same paper on 23rd September, 1917, M. J. 
 L. Bissley, a member of the Church of Eng- 
 land and a Catholic, says : 
 
 "Spiritualism is a culture which it is folly to deny, 
 but a greater one to cultivate. It has never yet saved 
 a soul; it has ruined many, as it is meant to do." 
 
 The words of this gentleman are tanta- 
 mount to saying Spiritualism is a vice. He 
 is correct. Spiritualism is a vice, a vice that 
 begets countless other vices, and as such it 
 should be stamped out, and stamped out 
 quickly. 
 
CHAPTEB V 
 
 THE PHENOMENAL SIDE OF SPIRITUALISM AND 
 ITS EFFECT ON THE HEALTH 
 
 I have now come to what may, perhaps, be 
 more correctly termed the phenomenal side 
 of Spiritualism, though it is, as I have said 
 before, so closely interwoven with the doc- 
 trinal branch that it is almost impossible to 
 disassociate the one from the other. 
 
 At most Spiritualistic gatherings, where 
 anything in the nature of doctrine is 
 preached, phenomena of some description or 
 other are also called into requisition. 
 
 If one wishes for a practical demonstration 
 of the effect of Spiritualism on health, one 
 need not go far afield ; one has only to attend 
 a Spiritualistic meeting, or seance, or even 
 partake of afternoon tea at any Spiritualistic 
 club, and one sees abundant evidence of it. 
 The devotees of Spiritualism are almost uni- 
 versally people of the same type — men and 
 women — mostly the latter — with pale, rest- 
 
 99 
 
100 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 less eyes and ill-balanced faces. Here and 
 there one sees a massive and seemingly well- 
 proportioned head, but there is usually some 
 tell-tale characteristic — either a wild, far- 
 away look in the eyes, or an expression of 
 childish credulity and simplicity spread over 
 the whole countenance, but particularly no- 
 ticeable in the mouth. 
 
 Most Spiritualists are elderly, and not a 
 few in their dotage, for Spiritualism is a 
 cult that, saving in the case of the abnormal, 
 and weak-minded, rarely appeals to youth. 
 I think, too, one would not be far wrong in 
 saying that no small percentage of its de- 
 votees are epileptics. Here and there, it is 
 true, at a Spiritualistic gathering, one comes 
 across more or less normal types, but these, 
 it will be found, are generally either strangers 
 who have gone there out of mere curiosity; 
 or women who are there to make use of other 
 women, either for political or merely vicious 
 purposes, sometimes for both ; or harpies, in 
 the now fashionable guise of professional 
 psychics, and these you can generally tell by 
 the watchful expression in their hard, mean 
 eyes, their smug smiles, and their general air 
 of shrewd observation and furtiveness. 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 101 
 
 The people in this assembly whose whole 
 appearance and atmosphere strike you as be- 
 ing furthest removed from the spirit of the 
 real Christ and His saints, are, in all prob- 
 ability, those self-designated, professional 
 psychists, who proclaim that they are conver- 
 sant with denizens of the highest spiritual 
 planes; and as for the rest — the neurotics 
 and anaemics, who drink in so eagerly every 
 word of the grandiloquent clap-trap that falls 
 from the lips of the lecturers or speakers, and 
 who watch so greedily for any kind of psy- 
 chical phenomena however trivial and ab- 
 surd — one has only to exchange a few words 
 with them to perceive how thoroughly un- 
 stable and unbalanced their minds have be- 
 come. They attribute everything — even the 
 most trifling details of their daily lives — to 
 spirit influence, and see, in the most natural 
 and commonplace happenings, the work of 
 some mysterious visitor from the super-phys- 
 ical world. 
 
 I know of one old gentleman, for example, 
 a confirmed Spiritualist, who never puts on 
 his hat, or eats a crumb of bread without ask- 
 ing permission of his spirit guide, and a cor- 
 respondent wrote to me from Birmingham 
 
102 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 to the effect that he had been suffering lately 
 from excessive constipation through a band 
 of spirits (whom he named individually) 
 never permitting him to take any remedy or 
 obtain relief. 
 
 There is also amongst my acquaintances 
 a confirmed Spiritualist and Theosophist in 
 London, who can never converse with you for 
 long without saying: "It must be so, because 
 the White Order have testified to it." The 
 White Order, I learned on inquiry, is the 
 source of certain revelations made period- 
 ically to the old gentleman by a notorious 
 medium, who declares that he frequently 
 visits the angels in the highest celestial 
 spheres and is by them initiated into the fu- 
 ture happenings on this earth. 
 
 Spiritualism acts on some people like a 
 drug — it intoxicates them. The more they 
 taste of it, the more they want, until they 
 eventually arrive at such a pitch that they 
 feel they cannot possibly do without it. They 
 are either always being told something by 
 spirit voices, or automatic writing, or raps; 
 or else they are continually fancying they 
 see angels (the angel craze has very much 
 increased since the war, and it no doubt re- 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 103 
 
 oeived an additional impetus from the 
 episode known as "The Angel of Mons"). 
 
 Of course, it is the excitement of the 
 seance that produces this intoxication. The 
 type of neurotic I have specified has always, 
 perhaps, craved for excitement and sensation 
 (both are recognized symptoms of his 
 malady), and he finds these cravings best pro- 
 vided for in the menu of the Spiritualists. 
 He goes to a seance where he sits in semi- 
 darkness, momentarily expecting something 
 to happen, and this state of chronic expect- 
 ancy is like nectar to him. When he gets 
 home he tries a little table-turning or crystal- 
 gazing in his bedroom, and then, after a fitful 
 night's sleep, in which his dreams are well 
 garnished with visions of angels, spirits of 
 the dead, creaking tables and flying tam- 
 bourines, he awakens, all hurry for the day 
 to pass quickly and for it to be time again for 
 him to attend another seance. In the end he 
 becomes a constant attendant at such proceed- 
 ings and clings to them for just as long as his 
 fast-decaying mentality will permit him. 
 The kind of excitement one gets at seance is, 
 moreover, not only bad for the mind, but it 
 affects other organs as well; from the con- 
 
104 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 stant straining of the ears to catch the sound 
 of creakings, taps and spirit voices, those or- 
 gans gradually become impaired, whilst the 
 sight suffers equally through the strain of try- 
 ing to make out spirit forms and ordinary ma- 
 terial objects in the whole or semi-darkness. 
 
 Excitement, too, of any sort, is bad for the 
 heart, and the constant thrills one gets upon 
 hearing even the most usual noises — for 
 darkness apparently intensifies sound — can 
 only have the most weakening and injurious 
 effect — an effect that might very well be fatal 
 in the case of any one suffering from actual 
 heart disease. Besides, unnatural excite- 
 ment of this description often encourages, if 
 it does not actually produce, either locomotor 
 ataxia or cerebral paralysis. 
 
 Also, I have heard that the excitement oc- 
 casioned by seeing a table suddenly rise and 
 tilt has brought on fits — apoplectic as well as 
 epileptic. 
 
 But one of the commonest results of con- 
 tinually going to seances, and constantly con- 
 sulting so-called professional psychists — no 
 matter what their modus operandi, or 
 whether their alleged spirit communications 
 be celestial or otherwise — is insanity. I 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 105 
 
 myself have come across many people who 
 have succumbed to the craze for attending 
 seances, and have eventually gone mad. 
 
 One case, for instance, was recorded in the 
 daily papers not so very long ago, and will, 
 I dare say, be recalled by those who happen 
 to have read it. 
 
 A young lady, well known in society, was 
 induced to become a Spiritualist through the 
 prospects held out to her of being able to 
 penetrate into the deepest mysteries — or, in 
 Spiritualistic parlance, get initiated into the 
 innermost secrets concerning another life. 
 She consulted mediums and attended seances, 
 and, in the end, fancied she heard spirit 
 voices continually telling her to join her 
 friends and affinity on the other side. At last, 
 unable to bear the strain of hearing these in- 
 cessant voices any longer, she went to stay in 
 the country, and, in the gray hours of the 
 morning, the time when she had been led to be- 
 lieve her spirit friends were appealing most 
 strongly for her advent amongst them, she 
 committed suicide. 
 
 Another case of a victim who was well 
 known to me — at least by repute — is that of 
 a man, the son of a Northamptonshire vicar, 
 
106 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 who was intimately acquainted with certain 
 of my oldest friends. Falling under the 
 spell of Spiritualism he, too, soon became 
 convinced that spirit voices, which he had 
 first heard at seances, followed him every- 
 where, and kept on appealing to him to take 
 the plunge and see what it was like behind the 
 veil. Consequently, one evening, when he 
 was having supper with my friends, he sud- 
 denly sprang up, and, declaring that he could 
 hear the voices whispering in his ears and 
 telling him he was wanted — wanted badly — 
 he hastened out of the room, into the dark- 
 ness of the night. The following morning he 
 was found on the railway line — run over, and 
 there is little doubt that, obeying the injunc- 
 tions of the real or imaginary spirit voices, 
 he had placed himself there for that purpose. 
 Anyhow, a verdict of suicide whilst in a state 
 of unsound mind was returned. 
 
 I can also quote, from personal knowledge, 
 a third case, i.e., that of a retired army officer 
 who, from continually attending table-tilting 
 seances presided over by professional medi- 
 ums, took to hearing rappings in his own 
 house. They came to him at all hours, but 
 most frequently in the night, until he was sel- 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 107 
 
 dom free from them, and, consequently, had 
 a very severe nervous breakdown. However, 
 acting on his doctor's advice, he gave up 
 Spiritualism, and was eventually restored to 
 health. 
 
 From these examples I conclude that no 
 person who has made a habit of continually 
 attending seances for any length of time can 
 hope to escape from all the ill effects to 
 which they have thereby subjected their mind 
 and body, and if they do not in the end be- 
 come absolutely demented, they certainly de- 
 generate and become very far from either 
 sound or normal. Hitherto, whenever this 
 question of Spiritualism causing insanity has 
 been dealt with, it has at once been suggested 
 that, in all probability, those Spiritualists 
 who have gone mad would have done so in 
 any case — that is to say, they would have 
 gone mad, had they never heard of a seance 
 or seen a medium. Very possibly, but, on 
 the other hand, there is no doubt whatever 
 that Spiritualism has precipitated their in- 
 sanity; and if the spirits that demonstrate 
 themselves at seances and private sittings 
 come from the high and celestial planes they 
 profess to come from, how is it that they 
 
108 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 have such an injurious effect on the mind? 
 If they really are angels, or the spirits of 
 good people, would they not invariably exer- 
 cise a soothing and healing effect on the 
 brain, instead of irritating and inflaming it? 
 
 No, Spiritualists cannot get away from the 
 fact that, despite all their boasted intimacy 
 — which generally amounts to revolting 
 familiarity — with angels and spirits of the 
 dead — entities which, when of flesh and blood, 
 possessed quite out of the ordinary intelli- 
 gence and moral qualities, and were only too 
 anxious to do anything that would benefit 
 mankind — no information that has in the 
 slightest degree aided medical research has 
 been obtained. 
 
 Furthermore, Spiritualism can point to no 
 really authenticated case of malignant disease 
 being cured through mediumship, or to any 
 one who could be pronounced by a quite im- 
 partial medical man to be the better in health 
 for his constant attendance at seances, and 
 his habit of imbibing Spiritualistic literature. 
 It seems to me to make little material differ- 
 ence to my argument that Spiritualism in- 
 duces insanity, whether the people that have 
 become insane through attending seances 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 109 
 
 were naturally weak-minded or not. In 
 either case the spirit influence at seances is 
 thus proved to be the reverse of beneficial, 
 and any attempt to camouflage these spirits 
 under the guise of angels or equally well-dis- 
 posed super-physical entities is useless. It 
 will be argued, of course, that the enrollment 
 of such men as Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir 
 Arthur Conan Doyle in the ranks of Spirit- 
 ualists must, at any rate, modify my destruc- 
 tive criticism. I do not think so. On the 
 contrary, I rather think it strengthens it. 
 
 Both Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir A. C. Doyle 
 are geniuses in their legitimate callings, and 
 with regard to genius I cannot do better than 
 suggest that the reader should refer to an 
 article by Mr. James Sully, author of "The 
 Human Mind" and " Illusions,' ' that ap- 
 peared in The Nineteenth Century, June, 
 1885. The following extracts from it may, 
 however, serve to illustrate my purpose : 
 
 (1) "Genius must be looked upon as the most signal 
 and impressive manifestation of that tendency of Na- 
 ture to variation and individuation in her organic forma- 
 tions which modern science is compelled to retain among 
 its unexplained facts." 
 
 (2) "Our conclusion is that the possession of genius 
 
110 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 carries with it special liabilities to the action of the 
 disintegrating forces which environ us all. It involves 
 a state of delicate equipoise, of unstable equilibrium, 
 in the psycho-physical organization. Paradoxical as it 
 may seem, one may venture to affirm that great original 
 power of mind is incompatible with nice adjustment 
 to surroundings, and so with perfect well-being." 
 
 From these two quotations I think there 
 can be little doubt that in the author 's opinion 
 geniuses are always more or less abnormals, 
 and, being such, have a natural fascination 
 for abnormal subjects. Hence, it is not at 
 all strange to find both Sir Oliver Lodge and 
 Sir A. C. Doyle have become infatuated with 
 Spiritualism. 
 
 But to revert to the injurious effect Spirit- 
 ualism has on health. I think I cannot do 
 better in support of this theory than to quote 
 the views and opinions of certain people — 
 chiefly medicals — who are specially qualified 
 to speak on the subject. 
 
 I will, then, refer first of all to John M. 
 Maccormac, M.D., L.R.C.P., and S.Ed., Phy- 
 sician to the Victoria Hospital for diseases 
 of the nervous system, Belfast, who, in a 
 work entitled " Abnormal Ideas and Nervous 
 Super-excitability" (published by William 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 111 
 
 Mullan & Song, Belfast, 1899) says on page 
 19 : " The next point for our consideration is 
 that which relates to the troubles of the ner- 
 vous system which arise from or are asso- 
 ciated with the teaching of mysticism." On 
 page 20 he gives the following definition of 
 mysticism: "The common character of the 
 chief aspects of mysticism is an immense 
 longing for happiness, coupled with a pro- 
 found contempt for sensuous things. Ee- 
 garding the joys of this world as ever-chang- 
 ing and inseparable from pain, the mystic 
 seeks to realize at once the joys of an eternal 
 bliss,' ' and this definition will be seen to ap- 
 ply very accurately to a large class of Spirit- 
 ualists at all events, who, scorning the attrac- 
 tions offered by the inhabitants and scenery 
 of this world, seek to obtain immediate en- 
 trance to, or intercourse with, the so-called 
 highest spiritual planes through the instru- 
 mentality of a medium or personal experi- 
 ments with crystals, etc. 
 
 Dr. Maccormac goes on to define the two 
 classes into which he divides mystics, the 
 one — that of the people who "despise the 
 body with all its wondrous organisms and 
 capabilities, that they may seek to attain to 
 
112 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 a mysterious union with or absorption into 
 some divine essence,' ' and the other, those 
 who " yield themselves to a certain elevation 
 of the spirit, supposed to be the outcome of 
 some direct spiritual manifestation. ' ' In 
 both cases, as he points out, the results of 
 such beliefs and practices are equally in- 
 jurious to the nervous system. 
 
 Dr. Maccormac's booklet is quite short, 
 only thirty-one pages, but it would be well 
 worth the while of any one who is contemplat- 
 ing taking up spiritualism to read it, before 
 embarking on such an extremely perilous un- 
 dertaking. 
 
 In another work, entitled " Types of In- 
 sanity: an Illustrated Guide in the Physical 
 Diagnosis of Mental Disease,' ' by Allan Mc- 
 Lane Hamilton, M.D., one of the consulting 
 physicians to the Insane Asylums of New 
 York City, and the Hudson Eiver State Hos- 
 pital for the Insane, etc. (published by Wil- 
 liam Wood '&■ Co., New York, 1883), the au- 
 thor describes many interesting cases of in- 
 sane people who labor under the delusion 
 they hear and see things, or in other words 
 are perpetually clairaudient and clairvoyant. 
 
 For example, opposite Plate V. and under 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 113 
 
 the heading of "Subacute Mania,' ' we have 
 "E. E., aged twenty-eight, duration of in- 
 sanity six years, auditory hallucinations. 
 She has communications with divine person- 
 ages and delusions of grandeur." ('Com- 
 pare this with the claims made by certain 
 Spiritualists to hear angels ' voices and to be 
 on talking terms with the spirits of such 
 eminents as Milton, Shakespeare, Charles 
 Dickens, etc.) 
 
 Again, opposite Plate III. and under head- 
 ing of "Melancholia Attonita," we have "C. 
 C, aged thirty-seven, auditory hallucinations. 
 She hears voices commanding her not to eat." 
 (Compare with certain of the alleged spirit 
 commands of a similar nature, to which I 
 have already referred.) Again, opposite 
 Plate VII. and under heading of ' ' Dementia, ' ' 
 we read "A. W., aged forty-four. She has 
 had visual hallucinations, and has heard 
 voices which told her to destroy herself. ' ' 
 (Compare with some of the cases of suicide 
 I have quoted as coming within my own cog- 
 nizance.) The author does not say any of 
 the trio were Spiritualists or lost their rea- 
 son through attending seances, but it is a 
 significant fact that the hallucinations of 
 
114 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 which they were the victims tally exactly with 
 certain of the phenomena Spiritualists claim 
 as hailing from the spirit world. 
 
 That my remarks are based on a very 
 solid foundation will, I think, appear per- 
 fectly evident when I quote the views of 
 Thomas Massie, M.B., as expressed in a let- 
 ter published by the Sunday Times, 9th Sep- 
 tember, 1917. After stating that for twenty 
 years he has been engaged in the task of ' ' in- 
 vestigating the mental condition of some two 
 thousand lave hundred alleged lunatics," he 
 goes on to say that from such people he has 
 heard many statements assuring him of the 
 presence of spirit forms, such as were de- 
 scribed by a lady, styling herself ' ' an investi- 
 gator of Spiritualism, ' ' and claiming to pos- 
 sess the powers both of clairvoyance and 
 clairaudience, in the Sunday Times for 2nd 
 September, 1917. "I have never had," he 
 continues, "any hesitation in certifying such 
 persons as fit for asylum treatment. Neither 
 the Superintendent of the Asylums nor the 
 Commissioners on Lunacy have ever ques- 
 tioned my certificates, and in my experience 
 the justices have never had any hesitation in 
 signing reception orders for such persons." 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 115 
 
 Dr. Massie received substantial corrobora- 
 tion of what he wrote in a letter published 
 in the Sunday Times on 30th September, 
 1917, in which the correspondent, Mr. G. 
 Stuart Ogilvie, said: "Mr. Massie deals 
 with the evidence very effectively, and as a 
 county magistrate with over a quarter of a 
 century's experience in certifying patients 
 for our public lunatic asylums, I can endorse 
 the truth of every word this professional 
 gentleman writes." He goes on to remark 
 further on in the same letter, "The basic 
 facts remain that Spiritualism is as old as 
 humanity, and that credulity is the converse 
 of faith. The effect upon the weak-minded 
 and the neuropathetic — especially in times of 
 great mental and physical strain — has in- 
 variably been the same in all periods. The 
 cult revives, impostors flourish, insanity in- 
 creases, and the sum-total of the national 
 will-power is, pro tanto, decreased." 
 
 Still another medical opinion taken from 
 the same source. In a letter published in the 
 Sunday Times on 4th November, 1917, L. A. 
 Weatherby, M.D., wrote: "Can Sir Oliver 
 Lodge or any one who declares that conversa- 
 tions have taken place between the dead and 
 
116 MENACE OE SPIRITUALISM 
 
 themselves inform me of a single instance in 
 which any real and important communica- 
 tions have been made % . . . Has, in fact, any 
 single instance of some important informa- 
 tion ever been made from that other world!" 
 And continuing, he observes, "Have these be- 
 lievers in Spiritualistic manifestations ever 
 visited institutions for the insane, and 
 watched those afflicted with hallucinations of 
 hearing and sight, heard their remarkable 
 conversation with these unseen speakers, and 
 noticed the effect some of these insane sense 
 deceptions have given rise to?" 
 
 I will now quote from a work entitled 
 "On Unsoundness of Mind in its Legal and 
 Medical Considerations, ' ' written by J. W. 
 Hume Williams, of the Middle Temple, Bar- 
 rister- at-Law (published in 1890 by William 
 Clowes & Sons, Fleet Street, London). On 
 page 56, for example, the author observes — 
 "A phase of mental disturbance, as evinced 
 in public credulity, has within the last thirty 
 years become more particularly developed. 
 6 Spiritualism ' has had crowds of converts; 
 professors of its art and mystery thriving on 
 the ignorant susceptibilities of the multitude, 
 to the great disquiet of weak-minded be- 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 117 
 
 lievers in the supernatural. The action and 
 reaction of psychic force evoking nervous 
 sympathies in excitable temperaments, has, 
 in many, produced hysterical cataleptic re- 
 sults, appreciable by the physician, but to the 
 uninformed full of mystery." 
 
 The hysterical condition thus brought 
 about is then, according to Mr. Hume, the true 
 explanation of the majority, at least, of so- 
 called Spiritualistic trances. Far from be- 
 ing under the control of any exterior spirit 
 force the trance medium is merely the victim 
 of abnormal condition of the mind, a condi- 
 tion into which she has unconsciously worked 
 herself. 
 
 This type of mediumship is, in fact, wholly 
 self -induced, wholly dependent on a supreme 
 straining and irritation of the entire nervous 
 system, which results in a temporary com- 
 plete suspension of the locomotor faculties. 
 I refer, of course, only to the mediumship in 
 connection with which there is no deliberate 
 fraud on the part of the medium, who, when 
 honest, no doubt does think she is handing 
 over her body to the control of some attend- 
 ing spirit. Mr. Hume obviously agrees with 
 me that the generality of people attracted by 
 
118 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 Spiritualism are either abnormal or weak- 
 minded, or that they eventually become so, 
 onee having adopted that cult. 
 
 A point that is made much of by Spirit- 
 ualists in dealing with this question of trance 
 mediumship is that of the alleged talking in 
 strange voices and unknown tongues. "It's 
 all very well," they exclaim, "for Mr. Hume 
 to try to explain trances by declaring them to 
 be the result of hysterical catalepsy ; but how 
 could he or any one else possibly account for 
 a trance in which the subject suddenly begins 
 to talk in a very different voice from his 
 natural voice, and often in a language that 
 we are certain is unknown to him when he 
 is not under control? How can you explain 
 this, saving by some outside spirit influence V y 
 Well, I believe there is the possibility of ob- 
 session, i.e., of some contaminating spirit in- 
 fluence getting temporary control over peo- 
 ple and utilizing them for evil purposes. I 
 think that such a phenomenon might happen, 
 but that it is very exceptional, simply because 
 I do not believe present-day mediums are in 
 possession of such secrets as were, in all prob- 
 ability, known to the necromancers and 
 witches of olden times. I believe most of 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 119 
 
 the so-called spirit trances of to-day are 
 either wholly fakes, or else can be explained 
 by some such natural causes as Mr. Hume 
 suggests. It must be remembered that most 
 of the people who visit mediums are not alto- 
 gether normal or well-balanced (because, as 
 I have already said, mysticism has peculiar 
 attractions for such people), and that they 
 go to seances with minds so prejudiced in 
 favor of believing, and anxious to believe, 
 that it has only to be suggested to them that 
 the voices they hear are those of their dead 
 friends, when they will at once fall in with 
 the idea and actually identify the voices. 
 Some one suggests, too, that the medium is 
 speaking in some foreign tongue — a tongue 
 that is declared to be quite unknown to the 
 medium when the latter is not under control 
 (though no one is in a position to vouch for 
 the truth of this but the medium herself), and 
 those present will at once concur and declare 
 the language to be Arabic, Chinese, or what 
 not, there being no one at hand sufficiently 
 expert (or bold enough) to refute their state- 
 ment. It also happens sometimes, I believe, 
 that the medium, having worked herself into 
 a cataleptic condition, is quite silent, but is 
 
120 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 by those present declared still to be speaking. 
 Indeed, there is no limit to the part sugges- 
 tion and imagination play on such occasions, 
 as any one who has been present at a table- 
 turning seance and heard the very slight 
 creaks at once exaggerated into "loud raps" 
 will know. 
 
 In a book I have before me,, and which is 
 entitled "Text Book on Mental Diseases," 1 
 the author, Theodore H. Kellog, A.M., M.D., 
 late medical superintendent of Willard State 
 Hospital and former physican-in-chief of 
 New York City Asylum for the Insane, writes 
 at great length on hallucinations, both audi- 
 tory and visual, and although he does not 
 actually allude to them in connection with 
 Spiritualism, I cannot help remarking upon 
 the very great similarity between the phenom- 
 ena he attributes to patients, suffering from 
 mental aberration, and the phenomena 
 claimed by Spiritualists. 
 
 Let me quote a few extracts from his work 
 by way of illustration. On page 154 we find 
 these lines: 
 
 "Auditory hallucinations may simulate the voices of 
 i Published in London, 1897, by J. and A. Churchill, 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 121 
 
 friends of strangers, and they may speak in foreign 
 tongues, and may also issue from animate and inanimate 
 things, and represent every conceivable sound known to 
 the patient, or even new strange combinations of 
 sounds"; 
 
 and such observations will appear all the 
 more significant, if one recalls the many oc- 
 casions upon which Spiritualists at a seance 
 declare they hear voices, and the voices are 
 heard by no one else. In the case of spon- 
 taneous spirit appearances in haunted houses, 
 I believe the phenomena, whether auditory or 
 visual, are frequently witnessed by a number 
 of people assembled together (though, in 
 some cases, it is true, they are witnessed only 
 by individuals separately) ; whereas the phe- 
 nomena alleged to be seen or heard at seances 
 are usually experienced only by the medium, 
 or, at the most, by one or two of the sitters, 
 and those who see the same phenomenon sel- 
 dom give the same description of it. Many 
 times I have heard, at a seance, one person 
 declare that he heard rappings, or spirit 
 voices, or that he saw blue lights, when no 
 one else could hear or see anything ; and, on 
 remonstrating, I have been told that I was 
 not psychic. This has amused me vastly, 
 
122 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 since I have had more corroborated experi- 
 ences with spontaneous phenomena in houses 
 well known to be haunted than most people. 
 
 But to continue. Let us see what Dr. Kel- 
 log has to say with regard to suggestion, 
 which, as I have stated, figures so largely at 
 all seances. 
 
 "Sensitive hallucinatory patients," he observes, "are 
 influenced by their reading and by conversation, and it 
 is possible in this way to have hallucinations by direct 
 suggestion." 
 
 Now it is direct suggestion, I believe — 
 when there is no actual fraud — that certain 
 people are persuaded at seances that they 
 see and hear phenomena. The medium pro- 
 fesses to see some luminous figure (or figures, 
 for she usually sees dozens of them) hover- 
 ing behind some one 's chair, and immediately 
 one or other of the sitters cries out that they 
 see a flame, or a hand, or an ethereal some- 
 thing. At the same time they exhibit none 
 of the terror one would naturally expect 
 them to experience, were they really con- 
 fronted by a genuine phantasm. 
 
 Let us now revert to what Dr. Kellog has 
 to say further on the subject of visual hal- 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 123 
 
 lucinations, and apply his remarks to such 
 phenomena as those Spiritualists who call 
 themselves clairvoyants claim to experience 
 at Spiritualistic meetings in alleged trances 
 and in crystals. 
 
 "Visual hallucinations," he states, "may have definite 
 or indefinite proportions; they may seem as on a flat 
 surface or solid and rounded; they may have changing 
 or fixed outlines, and advance or recede, or move across 
 the field of vision ; they may be colorless or have various 
 prismatic tints; they may be larger or smaller than life; 
 they may be single or multiple; and they may even be 
 of panoramic character." 
 
 In short, they may cover an immense range, 
 and embrace every kind of object or scene 
 that Spiritualists declare are purely spiritual. 
 Those suffering from medically attested hal- 
 lucinations are just as emphatically sure that 
 they actually see the celestial visions they 
 think they see, as are Spiritualists, the only 
 difference being that the latter superciliously 
 claim their visions to be the result of the so- 
 called psychic faculty, whereas the latter — 
 the certified lunatics — do not claim anything 
 of the kind, but regard them naturally, with- 
 out any conceit or affection whatsoever. Dr. 
 Kellog's remarks are singularly applicable 
 
124 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 to the spirit faces, stated to be seen at seances 
 where materialization is alleged to take place, 
 though it must be borne in mind that these 
 faces have not infrequently been proved to 
 be a fake on the part of the medium or an 
 accomplice. 
 
 "The mask-like hallucination, ' ' Dr. Kellog 
 says (p. 157), "is very real and leads pa- 
 tients to believe that their acquaintances 
 change their features frequently. ' ' How 
 often have trance mediums been declared to 
 have had their countenances suddenly meta- 
 morphosed into the faces of those whose mes- 
 sages they profess to deliver. 
 
 Let us go on to see what further Dr. Kel- 
 log has to say with regard to the same sub- 
 ject. On page 157 we read, "Visual halluci- 
 nations are common in the acute stages of 
 mental disorder, and in general paresis, and 
 they are more frequent during the vital re- 
 duction of the night season than in the day- 
 time. ' ' 
 
 It will be noticed that most seances are held 
 in the dark, and that darkness is declared by 
 Spiritualists — particularly mediums — to be 
 essential for spirit materialization (this, by 
 the way, is not at all the case with spontane- 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 125 
 
 ons ghostly phenomena in haunted houses, 
 which can manifest themselves at all times). 
 Darkness, according to Dr. Kellog and other 
 medical experts, also specially favors visual 
 hallucination, so that I think we can safely as- 
 sume that many of the so-called spirit phenom- 
 ena declared to be seen at seances are, in 
 reality, nothing more nor less than visual hal- 
 lucinations experienced by people with some 
 rapidly developing mental or physical de- 
 fect. For instance, Dr. Kellog informs us 
 (p. 157) that visual hallucinations are not 
 uncommon in eye diseases. Might it not, 
 therefore, be perfectly feasible that a certain 
 percentage of those people who see these so- 
 called spirit manifestations, to order, have 
 some peculiar optical deficiency or disease, 
 such as is frequently to be met with in peo- 
 ple who are quite out of the normal — and 
 it is these abnormal persons, I repeat, whom 
 Spiritualism particularly attracts and caters 
 for. Another form of visual hallucination, 
 this brain specialist tells us (p. 157), is "the 
 aura of the epileptic." Epileptics see auras, 
 so do other people who claim to be clairvoy- 
 ants — no one else does. Now as I have pre- 
 viously remarked — a statement that I fancy 
 
126 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 there would be little difficulty in corroborat- 
 ing — people attending seances have not in- 
 frequently been seized with epileptic fits, so 
 that the excitement of anticipating phenom- 
 ena either generated epilepsy, or else the 
 victims had been subject to the seizures pre- 
 viously; in either case, there can be no ques- 
 tion that the effect of attendance at such ex- 
 hibitions was very injurious, which would 
 hardly be the case if the spirits alleged to be 
 present were good ones. 
 
 One more reference to Dr. Kellog, and then 
 I will pass on to some other authority. On 
 page 173 (I quote from the same work), he 
 says, "Hysterical and hypochondriacal pa- 
 tients indulge in fantastic reveries, and 
 paranoiacs have a sort of a dream-life for 
 months together, and the outcome in chronic 
 mania is a steady play of fantasy, and the 
 senile dement reverts to childish action of 
 fantasy." Let us compare this with the 
 statements of psychics, who tell us that they 
 have often visited the highest spiritual planes 
 and wandered through lovely, sunny mea- 
 dows in company with angels, and that they 
 have been shown panoramic views of such 
 dazzling beauty and radiance as no mortal 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 127 
 
 eyes ever looked upon before. Such vaunt- 
 ings are very common, and are usually found 
 to emanate from the older ranks of Spiritual- 
 ists — people almost, if not quite, in their dot- 
 age, We may, therefore, put two and two 
 together. 
 
 Another work I have at hand is one by 
 Bernard Hart, M.D. (London), entitled 
 "The Psychology of Insanity/ ' and pub- 
 lished by the Cambridge University Press, 
 1912. 
 
 In this work Dr. Hart makes some very 
 interesting remarks on the subject of auto- 
 matic writing, to which many Spiritualists 
 — especially those who are also members of 
 the Psychical Eesearch Society — attach so 
 much importance. 
 
 Now I am quite ready to believe that cer- 
 tain of the communications one does receive 
 in writing of this description are due to spirit 
 agency, but I think when that happens the 
 writing comes to us more or less spontane- 
 ously; I do not consider it at all probable 
 that it can be forced, or made to respond to 
 the invitation of people who are out purely 
 for sordid motives, as is the case with pro- 
 fessional mediums. I think that when one 
 
128 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 sits constantly and forces the mind into that 
 state of blank Spiritualists deem necessary 
 in order to obtain results, one renders oneself 
 liable to at least two very serions dangers. 
 First of all, there is the off-chance of some 
 genuine inhabitant of a very undesirable 
 spirit world coming along and obtaining an 
 influence over us, that would certainly not be 
 to our moral advantage ; and, secondly, there 
 is the extreme probability of our minds 
 gradually becoming weaker, and our whole 
 health suffering in consequence. 
 
 To such of us who are in full possession 
 of our mental and bodily vigor such constant 
 practices would be distinctly injurious, but 
 to those of us who are naturally of rather 
 weak intellect, hysterical, or in any way ab- 
 normal, the gravest results might readily en- 
 sue. Let us now see what Dr. Hart has to 
 say on this subject. 
 
 In "The Psychology of Insanity'' (p. 43), 
 we find, "Let us take for example the phe- 
 nomenon of automatic writing. This curious 
 condition, although occasionally exhibited by 
 comparatively normal people, attains its most 
 perfect development in the form of mental 
 disorder known as hysteria." Dr. Hart goQs 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 129 
 
 on to say that "if we engage an hysterical 
 patient in conversation, and while his mind 
 is apparently wholly occupied talking to us, 
 slip a pencil into his hand, he will, if some 
 third person begins to whisper questions in his 
 ear, write answers to them, being at the same 
 time totally ignorant of what his hand is do- 
 ing, and of the events he is describing. " Oc- 
 casionally, Dr. Hart says, these events nar- 
 rate past episodes in the patient's life, 
 which he has long forgotten. Here, then, 
 is surely a quite feasible explanation for peo- 
 ple suddenly developing some alleged new 
 faculty, such as drawing, painting, or playing 
 on the piano under assumed spirit control. 
 A suggestion has been made, possibly in con- 
 versation or in some sound (some one has 
 sung a certain air, or played a certain strain), 
 or possibly the suggestion may have been con- 
 veyed in a peculiar scent, or in some atmos- 
 pheric condition; at all events, it has come, 
 and the recipient's memory is at once 
 awakened ; maybe they are taken back years, 
 and a faculty long allowed to lie dormant is 
 suddenly resuscitated. Such an occurrence 
 would be all the more likely if the subject 
 were addicted to hysteria. Dr. Hart thinks 
 
130 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 this a positive explanation for automatic 
 writing, at least, for on the next page (of the 
 same work) he remarks : 
 
 "Automatic writing has played a large part in the 
 history of Spiritualism, and has been attributed by sup- 
 porters of that doctrine to the activity of some spirit- 
 ual being who avails himself of the patient's hand in 
 order to manifest to the world his desires and opinions. 
 There is no need, however, to resort to fantastic hypothe- 
 ses of this type, and the explanation of the phenomenon 
 is comparatively simple." 
 
 He then proceeds to give a very detailed 
 but lucid description of the mental process 
 which brings about the phenomenon, and it 
 is thus perfectly well accounted for on nat- 
 ural grounds. Before quitting this subject 
 of hysteria, I should like to draw attention to 
 certain statements which appear in a work 
 (p. 538-9) entitled "Nervous and Mental 
 Diseases,' ' by Archibald Church, M.D., and 
 Frederick Peterson, M.D. (published in Lon- 
 don, 1899, by the Eebman Publishing Co., 
 Ltd.). They are: "It (hysteria) was often 
 at the bottom of the demoniacal l possessions ' 
 of the Middle Ages, and furnished some of 
 the martyrs of witchcraft and religious 
 fanaticism.". . . "The studies of Charcot 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 131 
 
 and his students have placed hysteria upon 
 a firm clinical basis, and enabled nearly all 
 its manifestations to be traced to disturb- 
 ances in the psychic sphere or in its sub- 
 strata," — and referring again to hysteria 
 "Heredity plays an important part." 
 
 These statements merely confirm what I 
 have already suggested, namely, that a cer- 
 tain proportion, at least, of trance medium- 
 ship and cases in which the medium actually 
 speaks (either making use of some tongue 
 declared by those present to be unknown to 
 her, when in possession of her customary 
 faculties, or when she adopts a voice at once 
 assumed to come from another world) can be 
 accounted for by hysteria, a theory that will 
 be seen to be still further strengthened by 
 the fact that so-called mediumship is often 
 said to run in families. 
 
 Another work from which I should like to 
 quote is that entitled, "Spiritism and In- 
 sanity," by Dr. Marcel Viollet, Physician to 
 the Lunatic Asylums, Paris (published, 1910, 
 by Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London). 
 
 "Spontaneous somnambulism," Dr. Viol- 
 let writes (p. 11), "is particularly easily 
 brought on with certain neuropathic pa- 
 
132 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 tients. Because of this these persons fill an 
 important role in Spiritistic drawing-rooms 
 where hypnotism is practiced., They be- 
 come subjects in the hands of the mediums, 
 realizing experiments analogous to those of 
 extra-lucid somnambulists; or they reveal 
 themselves spontaneously as writing, or 
 speaking, or table-telling mediums. ' ' In this 
 statement Dr. Viollet bears out my theory 
 that hypnotism plays a far more subtle and 
 important role in seances than is generally 
 imagined. I am quite of the opinion that a 
 very fair percentage of the phenomena 
 credited to mediums are, in reality, due to 
 hypnotism, to the fancies of neuropathic peo- 
 ple who are experimented upon by mediums 
 possessing the power to hypnotize. Dr. 
 Viollet continuing, says, "The predisposition 
 to neuropathic accidents, commonly called 
 ' hysteria/ manifests itself during the 
 seance, and the organizers of Spiritistic 
 seances know well these attacks, so much do 
 they fear them. ' ' ( See ' t La Survie, ' ' by Mme. 
 Noeggerath, Librarie Spirite, 42 Rue St. 
 Jacques, Paris.) And again, "Further, 
 these neuropathic persons have a particular 
 character made up of a certain instability in 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 133 
 
 thoughts, opinions, projects, the itch of lying, 
 and the desire, sometimes conscious but more 
 often unconscious, of drawing attention to 
 themselves.' • "In addition to these rather 
 aggressive and militant neuropathies we have 
 at seances/ ' so Dr. Viollet informs us, "the 
 'paranoiacs' rarely consenting to drop their 
 incognito which their pride considers a pedes- 
 tal and their susceptibility a shield"; also 
 "the feeble, armed with implicit faith, fol- 
 lowing the movement like sheep ever ready 
 to follow their leader," and again we read 
 (p. 12-13), "hidden in the shadows, sit the 
 sad, the timid, the scrupulous, motionless and 
 dumb, with morbid melancholia at their el- 
 bows, or crouching behind them, ever ready 
 to pounce upon them. . . . Here they are, 
 these predisposed, over whom dark-browed 
 insanity has cast its tentacle; they are here 
 in the rooms of Spiritism — come here to in- 
 toxicate themselves with mystery as with a 
 poison. ' ' 
 
 These views are quite in keeping with the 
 impressions I myself have received at 
 seances and other Spiritualistic meetings, 
 and, though not flattering, they appear to be, 
 at all events, honest. Eef erring to the same 
 
134* MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 performances, Dr. Viollet says, ' ' Some bring 
 their progressive insanity, others their senile 
 intellectual decay. (N.B. — I have said that 
 Spiritualism usually attracts the old, seldom 
 the young.) The Spiritistic idea takes quick 
 root in this sickly soil, where delirium is 
 crouching low, delirium which will be swayed 
 by Spiritistic pre-occupations. " He be- 
 comes even less guarded as he goes on, and 
 speaks with a candor, which, though some- 
 what unconventional, is quite excusable in a 
 foreigner, as foreigners, particularly French- 
 men, do not see the necessity of being delicate 
 when referring to glaring evils. "Others," 
 Dr. Viollet observes, still referring to the 
 habitues of seances, "intoxicated by various 
 causes, alcohol, morphine, hashish, cocaine, 
 ether, will, through their favorite poison, 
 have their attack of delirium, but as they are 
 convinced Spiritists, their ravings will take 
 their color from Spiritism, theywill be hunted 
 down and persecuted by the imaginary dis- 
 incarnated. ' ' 
 
 From these extracts one can, I think, form 
 a fairly correct idea of Dr. Viollet *s opinions 
 with regard to seances. I can only add that 
 should any one still lack the conviction that 
 
ITS EFFECT ON HEALTH 135 
 
 Dr. Viollet has sufficient grounds for these 
 opinions, his doubts would be immediately 
 dispelled were he to read Dr. Viollet 's book. 
 I have now, with one exception, exhausted 
 the quotations I intended making use of for 
 the purpose of illustrating "The Dangers of 
 Spiritualism" from the health point of view, 
 but I think enough has been said to make it 
 evident to all but the extremely partial and 
 prejudiced, firstly, that Spiritualism, with 
 all it comprehends, namely, continually sit- 
 ting in the dark or semi-dark, in a state of 
 nervous tension, and straining the sight, 
 hearing, and heart almost to bursting-point 
 — constantly trying to force on an unnatural 
 condition of trance — peering for hours at a 
 time into a crystal, and always fancying one 
 is hearing spirit sounds or seeing spiritual 
 phenomena — is not only injurious to the 
 health of the strongest, but absolutely fatal 
 to the health of that class of people it 
 especially caters for, and invariably en- 
 tangles in its meshes, i.e., the abnormal, 
 epileptic, hysterical, and weak-minded; and, 
 secondly, that the majority, at all events, of 
 the phenomena Spiritualists declare to be due 
 to super-physical agency can be shown by 
 
136 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 medical men to be due chiefly to hysteria, and 
 epilepsy, as well as to other physical and 
 mental diseases of a similar nature. 
 
 The following quotation I have held over 
 until now, as it makes, I think, a fitting con- 
 clusion to this chapter. It is taken from the 
 oft-times referred to Eeport of Dr. G. M. 
 Robertson, Superintendent of the Royal 
 Asylum of Morningside, Edinburgh. 
 
 "I feel it necessary at this time, as the result of several 
 eases that have come under my care, to utter a note of 
 warning to those who are seeking consolation in their 
 sorrows by practical experiments in the domain of 
 Spiritualism. ... I would remind inquirers into the 
 subject that if they would meet those who are hear- 
 ing messages from spirits every hour of the day, who 
 are seeing forms, angelic and human, surrounding them, 
 that are invisible to ordinary persons, and who are re- 
 ceiving other manifestations of an equally occult nature, 
 they only require to go to a mental hospital to find 
 them. ... I desire to warn those who may possibly 
 inherit a latent tending to nervous disorders to have 
 nothing to do with practical inquiries of a Spiritualistic 
 nature, lest they should awaken this dormant proclivity 
 to hallucinations within their brains." 
 
CHAPTEE VI 
 
 THE DANGER OF FRAUD OF ALL KINDS AT SEANCES 
 
 I now come to another danger which faces 
 those who adopt the cnlt of Spiritualism and 
 take up seances at every turn, and that is the 
 danger of being tricked. I believe that for 
 one medium who does at times conscien- 
 tiously endeavor to get in touch with bond 
 fide spirits of the dead, there are ninety-nine 
 who never make such an attempt, but wholly 
 rely on their powers of deception, in order to 
 rake in the shekels, which is the goal of all 
 mediumship. I will deal with the table-tilt- 
 ing medium first. Now I am neither a con- 
 juror nor a scientist, so that I must regard 
 the question purely from the view-point of 
 the looker-on, the person possessed with the 
 average amount, perhaps, of observation and 
 common sense. To begin with, I have been 
 to innumerable seances, some of them con- 
 ducted by mediums, who have lately acquired 
 considerable notoriety through the " back- 
 ing' '. of several eminent professors of phy- 
 
 137 
 
138 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 sics, and I have never yet been convinced that 
 anything that has taken place when any of 
 these scientific psychics have been present 
 has in any way been due to bond fide spirit 
 intervention. It is so easy to make a table, 
 of the weight and dimensions of those usually 
 used on such occasions, tilt. Try it for your- 
 self, and you will find that a very little down- 
 ward pressure with the tips of your fingers 
 will cause the side opposite you to rise. I 
 have frequently watched the fingers, arms, 
 and mouth (the mouth is a very sure indica- 
 tor) of mediums when they have been at the 
 table, and I have often seen unmistakable 
 signs there of pressure being used, a pressure 
 which can, as a rule, be exerted with impu- 
 nity, since mediums generally prefer to hold 
 their seances in the dark, pretending that 
 such a condition is very helpful, if not ac- 
 tually essential to spirit communication. 
 Neither they nor their patrons, the Spiritual- 
 istic chemists, however, can explain why it is 
 that spirits, when they materialize spontane- 
 ously in haunted localities, do so very fre- 
 quently in broad daylight. The legs of 
 mediums should be watched, too, for I have 
 heard of instances, when so-called spirit 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 139 
 
 knocks have been produced by very material 
 toes and knees. Tapping can very easily be 
 manipulated by pressing on the table in such 
 a manner that it gives little creaking noises 
 that the medium knows well will at once be 
 exaggerated by some of the sitters into taps 
 or raps. As for the table running round 
 the room, there is no doubt whatever that 
 w r hen the medium, or, perhaps, an accomplice, 
 has once given an impetus to the table, cer- 
 tain of the sitters become so excited that they 
 unconsciously assist in the movement, their 
 exertions passing unoticed in the general 
 hubbub and excitement. I believe it is some- 
 times claimed that tables have occasionally 
 risen right off the ground, but I have never 
 been present at such an occasion; all the 
 same, I have seen equally apparently inex- 
 plicable feats accomplished by professional 
 conjurors, and believe that Mr. Nevil Maske- 
 lyne, or any other expert who is well versed 
 in the theory of magic, could very easily ac- 
 count for the so-called phenomena on per- 
 fectly natural grounds. 
 
 I would here once again remark how 
 utterly footling it is for Spiritualists to at- 
 tempt to bolster up the phenomenal side of 
 
140 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 their cause, by asserting that the demon- 
 strations given by such and such a medium 
 must be genuine because Sir Oliver Lodge, 
 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, or Sir Somebody 
 else — please note well it is nearly always a 
 sir — no one gauges the snobbishness of the 
 average B. P. better than these Spiritual- 
 ists — guarantee that they are genuine. 
 Why should Sir Oliver Lodge or Sir A. C. 
 Doyle be better able to tell whether a medium 
 tricks or not, than any ordinarily observant 
 bank manager, butcher or bootblack? The 
 chemical laboratory is a poor training school 
 for the study of human nature and common 
 or garden trickery, and the writings of and 
 recent addresses given by Sir A. C. Doyle 
 suggest very strongly that he has always 
 been prejudiced in favor of Spiritualism, 
 and extremely partial to its devotees. No, 
 the people most capable of judging the per- 
 formances of mediums are professional ex- 
 perts in conjuring, and absolutely unbiased 
 men and women of the world, who have 
 continually rubbed shoulders with all kinds 
 and conditions, and know something about 
 humanity when it is very subtle and plausi- 
 ble, and desperately anxious to make money. 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 141 
 
 To revert to the table. When the room is 
 dark, anything of course may happen, for 
 you can never trust any one. The temptation 
 to make something happen — just a creak, or 
 a tilt, or any little movement — anything to 
 relieve the monotony, and make the pulses 
 throb a trifle faster, is too great to be resisted, 
 especially if there are women present. My 
 experience points to the fact that women are 
 far more unscrupulous in these matters than 
 men. N # ow, with regard to the messages. I 
 cannot say that anything I read in the much- 
 advertised " Raymond " impressed me in the 
 slightest. Indeed, it left me astonishingly 
 cold, since from the many allusions I had 
 heard in private and seen published in the 
 newspapers, to what Sir Oliver Lodge was 
 supposed to have discovered concerning an- 
 other life, I had certainly been led to expect 
 something, to say the least of it, very much 
 more to the point. 
 
 Of course every professional medium in 
 London knows all about Sir Oliver Lodge; 
 they make a point of knowing the private 
 history of all those who will, in all prob- 
 ability, one day visit them. That is part of 
 their stock-in-trade, and can be very easily 
 
142 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 accomplished. Club mates, friends, servants 
 can always be got at in some manner or 
 another. Clever women can ferret out any- 
 thing (they make excellent detectives), so 
 that it is not at all surprising that when Sir 
 O. Lodge attends a table seance, messages at 
 once come through for him and allude to 
 something he fondly imagines is known only 
 to his family circle. Flukes, too, go a long 
 way. Sir Oliver is apparently immensely 
 impressed because a medium occasionally 
 tells him something quite true ; one would like 
 to know how many times the mediums in 
 whom he obviously places implicit trust miss 
 the mark altogether. We hear much of their 
 successes but very little of their failures, and 
 I know from my own and other people's ex- 
 periences that the failures of mediums very 
 far outnumber their so-called successes. In 
 my opinion, when they do happen to strike 
 a winner, it is almost invariably either by 
 chance, or by an inference relating to some 
 little piece of information they have suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining beforehand. I can see 
 nothing in " Raymond" to convince me to the 
 contrary, and my opinion is strengthened by 
 the piffling nature of certain of the messages 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 143 
 
 which are scandalously attributed to a spirit 
 of the dead. Death is a serious ordeal ; there 
 can be no doubt whatsoever on that score. 
 No one who has ever beheld a sane person 
 dying has seen him give way to flippancy 
 and laughter at the moment of passing away. 
 They have never died regarding death as a 
 mere matter for jest, and this being so, pro- 
 vided there is such a thing as memory in the 
 other world, it is more than likely that the 
 spirit mind would have been so deeply 
 affected by all it had gone through, that far 
 from being hilarious, it would undoubtedly 
 be most solemn and reflective. I can recol- 
 lect no instance — and my experience, as I can 
 very easily prove, has been a fairly large one 
 — of any spirit that has returned spontane- 
 ously, i. e., without the intervention of a 
 medium, ever appearing in the least degree 
 mirthful, or inspiring any one with feelings 
 other than of fear, awe, or veneration; nor 
 has there ever been, in such visitations, any- 
 thing to indicate that the other world is in 
 any degree frivolous or the least bit like that 
 described in Sir Oliver Lodge 's book. 
 
 In my opinion, the future life which Sir 
 Oliver Lodge portrays in "Eaymond" — a 
 
144 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 life of cigarettes, whiskies-and-sodas, and ab- 
 surdly constituted garments — is not only an 
 utter contradiction to that depicted in the 
 Bible and sacred literature of all established 
 old-world religions; it is also a complete re- 
 pudiation of an idea of life beyond the grave 
 as conveyed to us by the whole history of 
 ghostdom. Sir Oliver Lodge attributes this 
 description to the spirit of one who was very 
 precious to him, but, in my opinion again, 
 such a description could only have emanated 
 from some mischievous, impersonating spirit 
 that was never of our flesh and blood, or 
 could only have awed its origin (a theory 
 which, I think, is far more probable) to the 
 imagination of an enterprising and quick- 
 witted medium. Have you noticed at table 
 seances where you are thoroughly satisfied 
 that the medium cannot really know anything 
 whatsoever about the sitters, that you never 
 get anything quite distinctive, anything, for 
 example, that might not apply equally well 
 to every one else in the room. For example, 
 a message comes through for "K. B.," and 
 the medium at once asks if there is a "K. B," 
 present, or if any one present knows or once 
 knew a "K. B." Now the initials "K. B." 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 145 
 
 are fairly common; most of us have met, at 
 some time or other, a Katie Brown, or some 
 other Katie B., since there are dozens of sur- 
 names beginning with B. The medium is 
 thus on fairly safe ground; nor do her sur- 
 mises fail, for some one, perhaps more than 
 one person present, at once claims knowledge 
 of a K. B. who, they state, passed over some 
 years ago. All is now, of course, compar- 
 atively plain sailing, and a message is at once 
 tilted out of the usual non-committal order, 
 as, for instance, "K. B." says she is very 
 happy, and is particularly anxious no one 
 still alive should continue to mourn for her; 
 or "K. B." wants to warn you. (Warnings 
 are a great stunt, they have just that air of 
 mystery about them that is particularly fas- 
 cinating. We do so like to be important — to 
 feel that we are of so much account that we 
 can incur some one's bitter animosity or jeal- 
 ousy. Life, as mediums know only too well, 
 would not be worth living were it not for 
 these vile yet elusive snakes in the grass who 
 are eternally plotting our downfall.) Hence, 
 when "K. B." announces her desire to warn, 
 every one is at once thrilled, and the lucky in- 
 dividual for whom the message is intended 
 
146 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 feels a hero or heroine, as the case may be, 
 on the spot. "Do yon know any one likely to 
 wish yon ill ? ? ' asks the medium. There is a 
 momentary pause, and then a slow and very 
 emphatic "yes." "A woman!" the medium 
 continues knowingly. Again a slow "yes." 
 (Who doesn't know a woman who wishes 
 them ill? Most of us know a good many.) 
 "Then," the medium says, with the most 
 impressive air of conviction, "mark my 
 words, it is about that woman the table 
 wishes to warn you. Is it not so!" and to 
 every one's unfeigned satisfaction the table 
 tilts out "yes." The recipient then wants to 
 know who the woman is, and the reply that 
 comes is either, "A fair lady," or, "A middle- 
 aged lady," or, "M. H.," or some other 
 equally ordinary initials, but never anything 
 very specific. ' ' Can 't you give the surname, ' ' 
 the recipient inquires, but the table only re- 
 sponds with Mary or Molly. "Don't you 
 know a Mary or Molly H.?" the medium 
 asks, and the recipient says, "Yes, several" 
 (for of course all of us have at one time or 
 another met a Mary Harrison or a Molly 
 Hill). "Then you may depend it's one of 
 them 'K. B.' wishes to warn you against," 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 147 
 
 the medium observes ; and after a little more 
 conversation the person for whom the mes- 
 sages profess to come, lets out that she or he 
 certainly does know a Molly Hill with whom 
 they are not on very friendly terms. "Is it 
 Molly Hill ! ' 9 the medium at once asks of the 
 table, and the reply, of course, is "yes." 
 
 i i rpi iere now? ? » tn e medium exclaims trium- 
 phantly, "I knew 'K. B.' had something very 
 important to communicate to you. I felt it 
 all along. It was to put you on your guard 
 against Molly Hill." Then, turning to the 
 table, she inquires, "Is there anything 
 further you wish to say?" and the table very 
 conveniently tilts out "no," and some other 
 spirit shortly afterwards declares itself to be 
 present. And so on and on ad infinitum — 
 always the same "fit-easy" type of questions 
 and always the same fit-easy type of answers 
 —answers that are invariably aided by in- 
 formation the medium manages to extract 
 adroitly from one or other of the sitters. 
 It is a significant fact that, despite the 
 numbers of very clever people who have 
 passed over, and who would, according to the 
 Spiritualistic theory of evolution and pro- 
 gression, still go on endeavoring to improve 
 
148 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 their minds, no information that has been of 
 the slightest value to scientific or medical re- 
 search has ever been obtained, either through 
 the table or through any other mediumistic 
 agency. All the messages so far have been 
 either trite, vulgar, blasphemous, libelous, 
 or silly and sentimental. Far from evolving 
 mentally, the spirits of even the greatest of 
 those who have passed over would appear to 
 have hopelessly degenerated. As a matter 
 of fact, however, I think that most of the so- 
 called spirit messages delivered by the table 
 are purely subjective, that is to say, they 
 originate in the medium's own mind. Con- 
 stant practice soon makes her expert in 
 summing-up her clients from their personal 
 appearance. Face and dress reveal many 
 things ; they are very sure givers-away. 
 
 A very few tactful and apparently quite in- 
 nocent, lucky questions, answered unsuspect- 
 ingly and naturally, give the medium just 
 the amount of information she requires for 
 a start ; for the rest she trusts to chance, and 
 to any inspiration she may obtain through 
 covert glances at her client, and from further 
 scraps of conversation. Moreover, the war 
 has made people so anxious to glean tidings 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 149 
 
 of another world that they will jump at any- 
 thing, however remote and trivial, that in 
 any way suggests a possibility of the super- 
 physical ; and of this mediums are thoroughly 
 well aware. They know they have only to 
 weave even the barest semblance of truth 
 into one of their messages, and their poor, 
 half-demented clients will joyfully accept all 
 that follows, convinced that it is of spirit 
 origin. 
 
 Besides, as I have said before, we always 
 hear of a medium's successes, but we are 
 never told of his failures; and though our 
 attention is invariably demanded whenever 
 the hammer succeeds in hitting the nail on 
 the head, we are left in blissful ignorance 
 of the many times the hammer descends and 
 misses the mark altogether. Some Spirit- 
 ualists fancy they see a way out of this 
 dilemna by suggesting that one must expect 
 certain discrepancies in spirit messages, 
 since there are unreliable, as well as truth- 
 ful spirits, just as there are unreliable, as 
 well as truthful people. It may be so, I 
 admit, but I think most persons will agree 
 that a much more feasible explanation is that 
 there are inventive and lying mediums, and 
 
150 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 that the untruths, far from originating in an- 
 other, emanate wholly from this world. 
 
 However, no matter whether the fact is due 
 to lying spirits or to lying mediums, by far 
 the greater number of the messages tilted 
 out at seances are wholly untrustworthy; 
 and, of these, many are calculated to do a 
 great deal of harm. Apart from the shock 
 occasioned by an abrupt announcement that 
 some very near relative is either seriously 
 ill or dead, mischief of another kind is not in- 
 frequently perpetuated; for instance, the 
 most abominable scandals are occasionally set 
 in circulation, jealousy and suspicion is 
 created, friendships and engagements are 
 broken off, and wives are set against their 
 husbands. Regarding the latter, I know that 
 such attempts at breaking-up households 
 have been repeatedly, and deliberately made. 
 As I have stated elsewhere, this attack on 
 men is the latest stunt in mediumship, and, 
 in my opinion again, it owes its origin to a 
 very large extent to the more militant section 
 of the Women's Rights Movement. 
 
 Finally, seeing how often seances are used 
 for sinister purposes, how little they can 
 ever really benefit mankind, and, on the con- 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 151 
 
 trary, what an immeasurable amount of 
 harm they can do, I cannot conceive how any 
 really thoughtful and rational person can 
 recommend them to their friends, or to any 
 one for whom they have the slightest con- 
 sideration or esteem. In fact, I think we 
 cannot censure too strongly the various em- 
 inent scientists and authors who, at the pres- 
 ent moment, are making use of the Press as a 
 medium for propagating their belief in such 
 a pernicious and dangerous cult as that of 
 Spiritualism. But to revert to the origin of 
 the messages received through the table. I 
 think what is often accredited to spirits 
 (besides being accounted for by conscious or 
 unconscious trickery) might well be due to 
 thought-reading, suggestion, or animal mag- 
 netism; and should there, by any chance, 
 be a bond fide spirit present, it is far more 
 likely to belong to a mischievous or evil class 
 of spirit — akin to the demons in the Bible — 
 a class that has never been of our flesh and 
 blood — than to be the spirit of any human 
 being that has passed over. I do think it 
 is possible that a spirit of the dead may, on 
 some rare occasion, be present at a seance, 
 but, I believe, when such a spirit does come, 
 
152 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 it comes quite spontaneously, as it would in 
 a house that is haunted, and quite irrespec- 
 tive of the call of any professional medium, 
 who is, by-the-bye, far more likely to keep 
 this type of spirit away than to attract it. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be of interest to note here 
 what Professor Faraday had to say on the 
 question of table-turning, which at about the 
 time he wrote (1853), was greatly occupying 
 the public mind. A number of explanations 
 were then volunteered as to the phenomena, 
 which were popularly credited with taking 
 place, among them being electricity, magnet- 
 ism, some unknown and hitherto unrecog- 
 nized physical power which affects inanimate 
 bodies, the revolution of the earth, and dia- 
 bolical supernatural agency. Professor Far- 
 aday had an idea that a quasi-involuntary 
 muscular action was the real cause of the 
 table tilting and moving round, and he made 
 an experiment to see if his surmises were 
 correct. What followed is best explained by 
 my referring to page 172 of a work entitled 
 "Popular Errors," by John Timbs, F. S. A. 
 (published 1880, by Crosby, Lockwood & Co., 
 London). The following is the extract: 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 153 
 
 "For this purpose, he (Professor Faraday) provided 
 an apparatus with index attached; it consisted of two 
 small, flat pieces of wood held together by indiarubber 
 springs, and separated by small rollers that allowed the 
 pieces of wood to move freely over each other. The 
 movement of the upper one was shown by an index that 
 pointed to the right, or to the left, according to the di- 
 rection of the motion. This little apparatus, when 
 placed under the hands of a practiced table-turner, had 
 the curious effect of paralyzing his power when he 
 looked at the index, and thus became conscious of the 
 real movement of his hands; but when the index was 
 concealed from view the table began to turn as briskly 
 as if the apparatus did not intervene. This proved that 
 the movement of the table was effected by the direct ac- 
 tion of the muscles exerted involuntarily. Again, Pro- 
 fessor Faraday observes: 'The most valuable effect of 
 this test apparatus is the corrective power it possesses 
 over the mind of the table-turner. As soon as the index 
 is placed before the most earnest, and they perceive — as 
 in my presence they have always done — that it tells 
 whether they are pressing downwards only, or obliquely, 
 then all effects of table-turning cease, even though the 
 parties persevere, earnestly desiring motion, till they be- 
 come weary and worn out. No prompting or checking 
 the hand is needed, the power is gone; and this only be- 
 cause the parties are made conscious of what they are 
 really doing mechanically, and so are unable unwittingly 
 to deceive themselves.' n 
 
 Of course, Professor Faraday takes a 
 
154 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 wholly materialistic view of the subject, 
 which is possibly a little out of date, but, at 
 the same time, I cannot help thinking that 
 his test might prove effectual, were it applied 
 to the majority of tiltings and turnings of 
 the table at present-day seances, especially 
 those presided over by professional mediums. 
 In the same work we find some interesting 
 remarks by Arago in "Meteorological 
 Essays," to show that the same force utilized 
 in moving tables can be imparted to other 
 objects as well, and need have nothing to 
 do with the super-physical. On page 173 we 
 find Arago quoting from "The Philosophical 
 Transactions ' ' Mr. Ellicot's experiments 
 upon two pendulum clocks, enclosed in sepa- 
 rate cases, suspended from a wooden plank 
 affixed to the same wall, and at a distance of 
 twenty- three and a half English inches from 
 each other. "At first only one of these two 
 clocks was going, the second clock was at 
 rest. After a certain time this second clock 
 was found to have been set going by the im- 
 perceptible vibrations transmitted to its 
 pendulum from the pendulum of the first 
 clock through the medium of the intervening 
 solid bodies. A very singular circumstance 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 155 
 
 is that after a certain time longer, while the 
 pendulum of the second clock (the one which 
 had just been at rest) vibrated in the largest 
 arc which the construction of the clock would 
 permit, the pendulum of the first clock, the 
 one which at first was the only one go- 
 ing, had arrived at a state of entire rest." 
 Arago's object was to show that there al- 
 ready existed in science instances of com- 
 munication analogous to those which have 
 been recently presented through turning 
 tables, and of which the explanation does not 
 require any of those mysterious influences 
 to which recourse has been had in the case 
 of the tables. Hence it will be seen from the 
 testimony of another authority how proba»ble 
 it is that the physical is really responsible 
 for the marvels that take place at table- 
 turning, and how thoroughly unwise and even 
 dangerous it is for people to place any con- 
 fidence in the messages received through 
 tables, messages which mediums and others 
 declare come from another world. 
 
 I now pass on to the subject of professional 
 clairvoyancy. I once went to a seance in a 
 room within a mile or so of Piccadilly Circus. 
 There must have been about sixty people 
 
156 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 present, and it is no exaggeration to say that 
 the medium, according to her statements, saw 
 quite as many spirits as there were people. 
 Apparently she saw one behind each chair, 
 and she rattled off descriptions of them with 
 as much esase and nonchalance as if she had 
 been counting chickens, or checking off 
 figures in an accountant's office. Surely, 
 spirits of the dead must, of necessity, be awe- 
 some, at least such is the opinion of most 
 people who have had the misfortune to en- 
 counter them in haunted houses — but the 
 spirits of the dead, present on this occasion, 
 seem to have been regarded by the medium 
 with neither fear nor respect, for she dis- 
 posed of them one after another with rather 
 less ceremony than one disposes of old 
 clothes. 
 
 This is the- sort of thing that happened. 
 The medium standing on the platform and 
 pointing energetically at a rather stout 
 gentleman sitting in the center of the second 
 row: "I see a spirit standing behind you, sir. 
 No, not you, but the gentleman with the red 
 tie. The spirit is of medium height, not too 
 fat, nor yet too thin, but just comfortable. 
 It is of medium coloring, neither very fair, 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 157 
 
 nor yet very dark ; its hair is beginning to go 
 gray. It has a mustache, and answers to 
 the name of George. Do you know any one 
 of that name, sir?" 
 
 Rathek Stout Gentleman: "Dozens, and 
 your description might suit any one of them." 
 
 Medium (rather angrily) : "Well it's one 
 of them, sir, and he is looking at you very 
 earnestly, as if he were anxious to tell you 
 something. ' ' 
 
 Rather Stout Gentleman : ' ' Then it must 
 be George Hammond. I believe I once 
 borrowed half-a-crown from him and he 
 wants to remind me of it, I suppose. ' ? 
 
 There is a slight laughter, and the medium 
 at once points at some one else. 
 
 "The lady over there in the third row with 
 the green ribbon on her hat. There is a very 
 old lady standing behind you. She is resting 
 one hand on your chair, and is eyeing you 
 very affectionately. She is of moderate 
 height — neither very tall nor very short. 
 Rather pale, with gray hair. She answers 
 to the name of Mary. Have you ever known 
 any old lady of that name, madam!" 
 
 Lady With Green Hat: "Several. My 
 grandmother was called Mary, and two of 
 
158 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 my aunts also, and I have known several 
 elderly ladies who were Marys. Can't you 
 tell me something more definite? What is 
 her surname V 
 
 Medium: "She says she can't say, 
 madam, that something is calling her away, 
 but that she will visit you again later. ' ' 
 
 Lady With Green Hat: "But her sur- 
 name V 9 
 
 The medium, taking no notice, turns to 
 some one else and at once begins to describe 
 another spirit, this time — answering to the 
 name of William. And so the fiasco con- 
 tinues. Sometimes there is an emphatic 
 denial. The person behind whom a spirit is 
 alleged to stand declares he or she has never 
 known any one with such a name, whereupon 
 the medium, who is doubtless well prepared 
 for such an emergency, at once announces 
 that it (the spirit) is meant for some one else 
 and has mistaken the chair. 
 
 Who can believe that such rubbish as this 
 could possibly have anything to do with the 
 spirit world? 
 
 And yet seances of this type are far from 
 uncommon; you can often see them adver- 
 tised. Most mediums prefer, however, to 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 159 
 
 give their clients a private sitting, for a two- 
 fold reason. Firstly, because there is more 
 money in it — the charges for private sittings 
 often run into pounds ; and secondly, because 
 there is less chance of interruption. The 
 modus operandi is more or less the same. 
 Generally several spirits are seen, and their 
 description is so vague that it is bound to fit 
 in with some one. Moreover, the medium can 
 always count on receiving no inconsiderable 
 amount of help from the client. She has 
 only to give the broad outlines of a face for 
 her client to< fill in the features. The tall, 
 thin man in khaki, pressing a handkerchief or 
 photo to his heart, is at once metamorphosed 
 by the agonized young widow client into the 
 most accurate description of her dead hus- 
 band, though goodness alone knows how 
 many other sons and husbands the same de- 
 scription — which became a very common 
 stock-in-trade with the mediums during the 
 war — has previously furnished. Spirits 
 seen on these occasions generally have some 
 message to give, though how it is conveyed 
 to the medium without any one else being 
 aware of it is one of the many mysteries con- 
 nected with the business of mediumship for 
 
160 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 business it undoubtedly is — that Spiritual- 
 ists do not attempt to explain. 
 
 The kind of message the medium professes 
 to receive is again of the "fit-e f asy" type, in 
 full accordance with the description of the 
 donor. It not infrequently takes this 
 form : — 
 
 Medium: "He (the spirit) says you are to 
 look in the pockets of his clothes — or else in 
 the chest of drawers, he isn 't quite sure which 
 — for a letter he received shortly before he 
 left home." 
 
 Client: "A letter! How very extraor- 
 dinary! Why, I came across several. I 
 wonder which of them he means. Was it 
 from a lady 1 Ask him. ' ' 
 
 Medium: "Yes, he says it is that one. He 
 wishes you to burn it. ' ' 
 
 Client: "Burn it! Why, I wonder? It 
 was from his sister Pat, asking him to do 
 something for her in the city. ' ' 
 
 Medium: "Pat! There, that's the name 
 he has been struggling so hard to say. I 
 knew it began with a P, but I could not catch 
 the letters that followed. 
 
 Client: How very extraordinary! Tell 
 him I will do as he wishes directly I get 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 161 
 
 home. Has lie anything further to say!" 
 But the spirit has gone, and the client, deeply 
 impressed, takes her departure too, and in- 
 forms all her friends what a very marvelous 
 medium Madam So-and-So is. 
 
 The photo stunt is another of the regu- 
 lar stock-in-hand. All mediums, of course, 
 know that during the war soldiers in France 
 and at other of the Fronts were frequently 
 having their photos taken, so that one of the 
 safest possible messages to give is one relat- 
 ing to a photograph. 
 
 For example, medium to a war widow who 
 has come with express desire to get into 
 touch with her dead husband: "I see some- 
 thing forming just behind you. (Here 
 follows vague description of khaki figure that 
 is at once identified by desperate client.) He 
 says he has something he very much wishes 
 you to have. ' ' 
 
 Client: "I wonder what it can be! I 
 thought I had everything. ' ' 
 
 Medium: "It is something he thinks would 
 please you — something he had taken shortly 
 before he passed away." 
 
 Client: "Ah! I know now! It is the 
 photograph, of course. Taken a week or so 
 
162 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 before he was killed. I received it quite 
 safely with the rest of his things. Please 
 tell him so." And the poor young widow 
 comes away fully convinced that the spirit of 
 her dead husband has actually come to her, 
 and that the medium is truly marvelous. 
 She little knows that precisely the same mes- 
 sage has been offered by that same medium 
 to dozens of other war widows, though not 
 always, perhaps, with the same success, and 
 it would undoubtedly be hard to convince her 
 that not one of the messages delivered by 
 these clairvoyants but could be accounted for 
 on natural grounds and in the manner I have 
 described. 
 
 A possible solution for the phenomena pro- 
 fessed to be seen by mediums, and which no 
 doubt are, at times, seen by really earnest 
 Spiritualists, who practice concentration in 
 private, is in projection and the apparent 
 materialization of thought forms. From my 
 own experience and that of other people I 
 have met, I believe it is quite possible, by 
 intense concentration (which usually occurs 
 when the subject is asleep or is wholly un- 
 conscious of what he is doing) to bring about 
 a separation of the material from the imma- 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 163 
 
 . terial body, and for the latter to travel con- 
 siderable distances and to be seen or heard, 
 sometimes both, either individually or collec- 
 tively; bnt I am certain this cannot be done 
 to order, any more than can the materializa- 
 tion of any thought form; so that, as far as 
 public or private seances are concerned, I 
 think one may rule out this solution alto- 
 gether, and attribute anything the clients 
 profess to see, either to pure hallucination, 
 often largely aided by suggestion on the part 
 of some one present, usually the medium or 
 an accomplice, or to faking, which, without 
 doubt, frequently takes place. If men such 
 as the late F. W. H. Myers, Edmund Grurney, 
 and Frank Podmore, who had won a world- 
 wide reputation as psychical researchers, 
 could be hoaxed in the manner described by 
 Mr. Douglas Blackburn in a letter to the 
 Sunday Times of 16th September, 1917, how 
 much more easily can those Spiritualists and 
 others, who seek phenomena for the express 
 purpose of believing in them, be deceived. 
 No one, however eminent, is absolute proof 
 against trickery. Robberies ere now have 
 actually taken place under the noses of chief 
 constables. 
 
164* MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 Now with regard to the aura medium. 
 People may have auras or they may not ; the 
 matter is at present purely speculative. No 
 proof one way or the other has, or, as far ^as 
 I can see, can be afforded. But the moment 
 one person declared he could see an aura, 
 and it was ascertained that there was money 
 in it, dozens followed suit, until aura-seers 
 are as common now as psychometrists or 
 table-tilters. Of course it is very easy to 
 pretend one sees colors. One has only to 
 be something of an actor, we can then see any 
 color, and no one can disprove it. Only, you 
 must never see the wrong colors. If some 
 obviously coarse, vulgar, ignorant, flashily 
 dressed woman comes to consult you about 
 her aura, you must not tell her what you or 
 any other rational and ordinarily observant 
 person would think, you must be both psychic 
 and subtle; the two terms, by-the-bye, would 
 seem to be pretty well synonymous. You 
 must half -close your eyes, and, looking at her 
 with a dreamy, far-away expression, say, in 
 slow and very measured tones: "I see pale 
 blue, yellow, and orange ; they are emanating 
 from all over you"; and when she asks what 
 they signify, you must take care to reply, 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 165 
 
 "Love, love in its highest and most mysteri- 
 ous sense; and intellect (always tell a woman 
 she is clever, and she will become your client 
 for evermore), and wisdom, not merely or- 
 dinary wisdom, but psychic wisdom — wisdom 
 that comes from the very soul (this is sure 
 to score heavily, because women of the type 
 I have described are flattered beyond meas- 
 ure at being thought to possess soul) ; and 
 power — power to fascinate, and to command 
 attention. You might then add, "You are 
 quite unlike any one else, you have a strong 
 and arrestive personality," and the thing is 
 done. 
 
 If you see an aura like this (and most 
 aura-seers do) you are certain to succeed, 
 and will eventually become known as one of 
 the most famous psychists in existence; and, 
 after all, the harm you do — if you do any 
 harm at all, beyond ridding the wealthier 
 classes of a little of their superfluous cash 
 and pandering to their eternal craving for 
 flattery— is small in comparison to the harm 
 done by the majority of mediums in the other 
 lines I have indicated. 
 
 I was once told how an aura-teller was 
 somewhat neatly caught. A lady journalist 
 
166 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 went to one, and was so pleased with what 
 he professed to see around her that- she 
 thought she would go to him again. Now, 
 it so happened that, just about the time, she 
 was invited to a fancy dress ball at Chelsea, 
 and, having had her hair cut quite close to 
 her head, she decided to go as a boy. Before 
 the event took place, however, the impulse 
 seized her to try the effect of her costume 
 first, so she put it on and went to the aura- 
 seer in it. He obviously did not recognize 
 her, and, greatly to her disappointment, the 
 aura he now declared he saw differed very 
 essentially from the one he had described on 
 the occasion of her first visit. 
 
 Trumpet mediums are now very much in 
 vogue, and from what I have been told, I 
 should say they must be making an extremely 
 good thing of it. Their fees, I believe, vary 
 from half a sovereign to a sovereign, and 
 even more if the sitting is private. The same 
 sort of thing takes place at their exhibitions 
 as happens at the table and clairvoyant 
 seances. Spirits come, whenever the me- 
 dium so wills it, and notify their presence by 
 talking or singing through a species of 
 trumpet. The voices sometimes sound very 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 167 
 
 hollow and mechanical, and sometimes bear 
 a certain curious resemblance to the voices 
 of the mediums themselves. Invariably, 
 there are people at these seances who are 
 only too ready to identify one or other of the 
 voices with the voice of the dead relative, the 
 identification being very materially aided by 
 suggestion, either on the part of the medium 
 or some one else present. These clients would 
 not be quite so eager to claim acquaintance 
 with the voices, perhaps, if they did but know 
 that, at previous seances given by the same 
 medium, voices exactly like them had been 
 claimed by countless other clients. 
 
 You ask, how are the voices produced? 
 Well, that, perhaps, is not for me to say. 
 However, I cannot believe they are the voices 
 they pretend to be. Can any sane person 
 really think the spirits of their dead relatives 
 would come at the bidding of a stranger — 
 usually one who is none too edifying — in 
 order, with their permission, to speak through 
 a trumpet! If they possessed the power to 
 return thus promiscuously — I believe they do 
 possess the power to return at times, but 
 only on rare occasions, when they appear to 
 us quite spontaneously — they would as- 
 
168 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 suredly acquaint us of their presence in a 
 rather more dignified manner. . No, if the 
 voices proceed from spirits at all, they can 
 only proceed from those of a very mis- 
 chievous and vulgar class, that specialize in 
 imitating the voices of their superiors, and 
 in deceiving the poor anxious bereaved ones 
 on this earth, who are only too ready to clutch 
 at any straw that will bring them the com- 
 forting conviction that those who have passed 
 away are not utterly annihilated. I do not, 
 however, think the spirit explanation is at all 
 feasible in this case; I think it far more 
 probable that the voices are either produced 
 by ventriloquism — and it is a significant fact 
 that most trumpet mediums are of the same 
 physical type and have the same peculiarities 
 with regard to the development of throat and 
 chest as professional ventriloquists — or else 
 they are due to some mechanical contrivance, 
 such as I have no doubt any skilled conjuror 
 could manipulate. The messages purporting 
 to be delivered by the spirit voices are, in- 
 variably, I believe, of the same vague and 
 worthless nature as those "spirit" messages 
 to which I have already alluded. 
 I now come to the question of automatic 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 169 
 
 writing. Here, again, although I am of the 
 opinion that messages from a bond fide spirit 
 world may come at times, I believe that 
 where such is the case the spirits communi- 
 cate quite spontaneously. I do not believe 
 that any attempt on our part to attract spirits 
 of the dead for the purpose of communication 
 through writing, saving when they are al- 
 ready present, for some such specific purpose 
 as haunting, is at all likely to succeed; al- 
 though I think that if we sat long enough, 
 pencil in hand, concentrating on some denizen 
 of the other world coming to our side, some 
 very undesirable type of spirit — perhaps of 
 the nature of the demons in the Bible — might 
 eventually accept our invitation, and that, 
 once having come, it would be very loath to 
 leave us. I am firmly persuaded, also, that 
 this is the only class of spirit at all likely to 
 respond to the invitation of professional au- 
 tomatic writers, who can never point to any 
 but the most trite and worthless messages 
 received, and whose intellectual capacities 
 and moral characters are seldom — if ever — 
 of an order in the least degree likely to at- 
 tract the spirits of the really clever or the 
 really good. 
 
170 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 There are very few specimens of automatic 
 writing that have ever impressed me as being 
 in the least degree remarkable, or that could 
 not be accounted for by suggestion, invention, 
 auto-hypnotism, hysteria, or some other such 
 natural cause. As has been already sug- 
 gested in a previous chapter the human mind 
 is very complex, and it seems to me an ab- 
 solute certainty that what is known as the 
 subconscious self is responsible for much that 
 is at present attributed to the super-physical. 
 Then, again, is it not more than likely that 
 the temptation to make the hand write some- 
 thing, just to break the awful monotony of 
 waiting, would be altogether too strong for 
 most people to resist — especially if money 
 were attached to it? Until we exhaust all 
 possibility of natural agency playing the 
 title-role in automatic writing seances, which, 
 despite the claims to the contrary made by 
 certain eminent Spiritualists, we certainly 
 have not done as yet, I do not think we are 
 at all justified in assuming that the so-called 
 automatic writing has anything whatever to 
 do with spirits of the dead. I am quite sure 
 I am just as psychic as any Spiritualist, and 
 I am equally sure certain of my relatives who 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 171 
 
 have passed away are as dear to me as any 
 Spiritualists ' relatives are dear to them, yet 
 I have never received any communication 
 through a professional medium from even 
 one of those I love, indeed, from any one of 
 the many whom I know, who are now in the 
 other world. 
 
 It is true professional automatic writers 
 have given me messages which they have de- 
 clared came from spirit friends of mine, but 
 since these messages have always been elastic 
 enough to fit any one, and identified only with 
 some such name as Dick, or Jack, or Mary, I 
 could never see in them any proof whatever 
 of spirit intercourse. It is disappointing 
 that after all we have been led to expect from 
 the alleged wonderful communications the 
 American medium, Mrs. Piper, and various 
 other mediums, equally well known in this 
 country, were supposed to be receiving from 
 the spirit of the late F. W. H. Myers, the mat- 
 ter somehow seems to have been allowed to 
 drop. At all events the result was, as far as 
 I am aware, never made known in the news- 
 papers or any other organ that the public 
 could easily get at. That Sir Oliver Lodge 
 had a very great respect for Mrs. Piper r s 
 
172 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 powers is very apparent from certain state- 
 ments (see p. Ill) in his work "The Survival 
 of Man." (Methuen & Co.) "Mrs. Piper's 
 trance personality, ' ' he writes, "is un- 
 doubtedly aware of much to which she has no 
 kind of ordinarily recognized clue, and of 
 which in her ordinary state she knows noth- 
 ing." 
 
 Despite this exalted view of her, however, 
 and the trumpeting both she and others of 
 her ilk, engaged in the same alleged cor- 
 respondence with the dead, get from Sir 
 Oliver Lodge, nothing seems to have come 
 of it all, and those outside the inner circle, 
 who are seeking information, are still left 
 wondering. 
 
 Now it is hardly fair, and hardly prob- 
 able, I think, that a matter of such vital 
 importance as a definite proof of another life 
 (which is what countless people would give 
 everything they possess to receive) should 
 be the monopoly of a select few. Yet, from 
 the hints given in "The Survival of Man," 
 and other utterances of Sir Oliver Lodge, one 
 cannot but conclude that such a proof has 
 been obtained. At the same time I have pe- 
 rused various accounts of the Piper, Thomp- 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 173 
 
 son, Verrall, and Holland so-called spirit 
 communications, and, so far, looked for this 
 proof in vain. 
 
 The sort of things that happens in these 
 cross-correspondences is that Mrs. A. in 
 America, for example, and Mrs. B. in Eng- 
 land both sit down, pretty well simultane- 
 ously, to write. Mrs. A. begins a sentence, 
 perhaps, in Latin; Mrs. B. ends it, and the 
 sentence is declared to be a quotation that 
 was constantly used by Mr. C, who is dead. 
 Now as both Mrs. A. and Mrs. B. vow and de- 
 clare they do not know Latin, and are totally 
 unacquainted with any of the late Mr. C.'s 
 pet phrases, it is concluded by the great ex- 
 perts in psychical research that the spirit of 
 Mr. C. had been communicating with both 
 these ladies. 
 
 That is, possibly, the proof we are seeking, 
 but can any sane person accept it? Ob- 
 viously the integrity of the ladies concerned 
 has never been called into question, because 
 Sir Oliver Lodge and certain other of the 
 more Spiritualistic members of the S.P.R. 
 have perfect confidence in them. But this 
 kind of proof will never do for the man of 
 common sense — the man in the street. He 
 
174 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 wants some much more substantial guarantee 
 as to the integrity of mediums than the mere 
 opinions of a psychical life, before he satis- 
 fies himself that the knowledge displayed in 
 their alleged cross-correspondences is derived 
 through the agency of the dead. He wants 
 absolute proof — proof without any loophole 
 whatever, that the mediums engaged in the 
 work were not in collusion, did not derive 
 their knowledge from information obtained 
 beforehand, or that what they wrote was not 
 due to pure coincidence, and so far, in my 
 opinion at least, no such proof has been forth- 
 coming. If it had, all the world would be- 
 lieve, and all the world is very far from doing 
 that. 
 
 Sir Oliver Lodge seems particularly anx- 
 ious to convince his readers with regard to 
 the psychic powers of Mrs. Verrall. In 
 "The Survival of Man," for example, we 
 read (p. 335), "The fame of Mrs. Piper has 
 spread into all lands, and I should think the 
 fame of Mrs. Verrall also. In these recent 
 cases of automatism the Society has been 
 singularly fortunate, for in the one we have 
 a medium who has been under strict super- 
 vision and competent management for the 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 175 
 
 greater part of her psychical life (psychical 
 life indeed!) ; and in the other we have one 
 of the sanest and acutest (I certainly believe 
 in the acuteness, though it is rather doubt- 
 ful if the author of ' Raymond ' is much of a 
 judge on sanity) of our own investigators, 
 fortunately endowed with some power herself 
 — some power of acting as translator or in- 
 terpreter between the psychic and the phy- 
 sical worlds.' ' 
 
 We are given some idea of the nature and 
 quality of Mrs. VerralFs power in "The 
 Survival of Man" (see pp. 155 and 300). 
 It is quite in keeping with the power that is 
 responsible for the messages concerning the 
 whiskies-and-sodas in " Raymond,' ' and, in 
 my opinion, just about as psychic. The re- 
 marks I recently made in connection with a 
 certain correspondence are equally applicable 
 to the case in hand; before Mrs. Verrall 
 credits herself with being psychic she must 
 eliminate all possibility of fluke and all pos- 
 sibility of any knowledge displayed in her 
 alleged spirit-inspired writings being derived 
 by her beforehand, and retained in her sub- 
 conscious mind; and until she has done that 
 she is not, in my opinion, at all justified in 
 
176 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 claiming that she is in the remotest degree 
 psychic. At present we have her word, I 
 take it, that no such knowledge as that ex- 
 hibited was previously acquired by her. 
 Sir Oliver Lodge is apparently content to 
 accept it ; I am not, because the testimony of 
 one single person is no evidence. That, I 
 was always given to understand, was one of 
 the maxims of the S.P.R. 
 
 In reference to these cases Mrs. Verrall 
 may, perhaps, possess absolute integrity; on 
 the other hand she may not. Who can 
 judge? Obviously, no one but Mrs. Verrall 
 herself. No one else, and least of all Sir 
 Oliver Lodge, who, in "Raymond," as well 
 as in "The Survival of Man," shows that 
 where the other sex are concerned -he is the 
 very acme of credulity. I might add that 
 my statements concerning Mrs. Verrall will 
 apply in an equal degree to Mrs. Thompson 
 and Mrs. Holland, other mediums mentioned 
 in the above works, and in whom also Sir 
 Oliver Lodge would appear to place the very 
 greatest confidence. With regard to these 
 two works (i.e., "The Survival of Man" and 
 "Raymond"), their whole tone, in my 
 opinion, is one of extreme arbitrariness and 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 177 
 
 self-importance, quite in keeping with the 
 character of Spiritualists in general. 
 
 The same spirit is, I think, displayed by 
 Sir A. C. Doyle, when discussing the subject 
 of Spiritualism in the Sunday Times (see 
 correspondence, 1917) and The Nation 
 (1919) ; and when one reflects that the accu- 
 sation brought against the Churches by 
 Spiritualists, more frequently than any other, 
 is that they are autocratic and intolerant, it 
 is not very easy to repress a smile. In my 
 opinion a desperate attempt is now being 
 made to firmly plant Spiritualism on the na- 
 tion, and to thrust it in the place of the pres- 
 ent State Church. I can quite well see in 
 my mind's eye a new archbishop in the person 
 of Sir Oliver Lodge, bishops in the persons of 
 Sir W. F. Barrett, Sir A. C. Doyle, and, per- 
 haps, Mr. J. A. Hill, and vicars innumerable 
 in the persons of known and unknown me- 
 diums. A school or institute for training 
 psychics is already in the mind, and doubt- 
 less such schools or institutes will, in time, 
 supplant the present theological colleges. 
 This idea of religious revolution may seem 
 baseless and visionary, but I verily believe a 
 colossal effort on the part of Spiritualists 
 
178 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 will be made to bring it about, and I am quite 
 certain, if it is accomplished, the State Spirit- 
 ualistic Church (if such you could designate 
 it) would be ten thousand times more dog- 
 matic, arrogant, and bigoted than any State 
 Church we have hitherto known. 
 
 But to revert again to so-called cross-cor- 
 respondences. There is another point that 
 has to be considered when dealing with them, 
 and that is the question of identity. Suppos- 
 ing the communications were actually due to 
 spirit agency, what proof have we that that 
 agency is what it professes to be? Surely 
 it would not be difficult for a mischievous, 
 clever, and cunning spirit to impersonate the 
 spirit of F. W. H. Myers, Edmund Gurney, 
 or Professor Hodgson. Being behind the 
 scenes, so to speak, it would surely have some 
 means of ascertaining at least one or two of 
 the characteristics and idiosyncrasies of any 
 one of those three gentlemen when they lived 
 on this material plane — and who could de- 
 tect the difference? No living being, be- 
 cause — despite all that has been proffered by 
 mediums as information hailing from the 
 other world — we know absolutely nothing 
 about spirits — we cannot say of what they 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 179 
 
 are -composed, or in any way define or limit 
 their capabilities. They are, so far at all 
 events, completely outside our ken. 
 
 Moreover, it is but feasible to suppose that 
 some of this cross-correspondence would be 
 due to impersonation, since such trickery 
 would only coincide with the silly phenomena 
 claimed by Spiritualists as taking place at 
 table-tilting and trumpet-speaking seances. 
 In all probability, the spirits that derive 
 amusement from tilting tables, banging 
 tambourines, and putting sweets in people's 
 mouths, are only too ready, for the sake of 
 variety, to seize the opportunity of imperson- 
 ating their superiors. 
 
 Before passing on to another branch of 
 mediumistic display, let me refer briefly to 
 a matter of no little importance, namely, the 
 training of psychics. It will be remembered 
 that in speaking of Mrs. Piper I quoted cer- 
 tain extracts from Sir Oliver Lodge, one of 
 which contained the words, "who has been 
 under strict supervision and competent man- 
 agement.' ' This, of course, can only mean 
 that Mrs. Piper was undergoing a process of 
 so-called development. Of what that process 
 consists I neither know nor can conceive, nor 
 
180 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 can I imagine who the competent trainers 
 could be, since, considering the fact that the 
 forces constituting the other world are at 
 present wholly unknown to us, it is quite in- 
 conceivable that any one should lay claim to 
 any competency whatever concerning them. 
 In order to train a pupil you must have some 
 knowledge, at all events, of the subject in 
 which you intend training him. And who is 
 there that can claim to be an authority on 
 such a debatable subject as the psychic 
 faculty? Sir Oliver Lodge cannot, nor can 
 Sir W. F. Barrett, nor Mrs. Thompson, nor 
 Mrs. Verrall, for, as far as I can see, they 
 have not given the slightest proof that they 
 possess any power whatever to get in touch 
 or to communicate with another world, and 
 it is that power, I take it, that the so-called 
 psychic faculty is supposed to represent. 
 
 The training of psychics then means that 
 an attempt is being made to develop the 
 psychic faculty in those who are supposed to 
 possess it, but who, in all probability, do not 
 possess it, by people who know no more of 
 what the super-physical embraces than do 
 those whom they are professing to instruct. 
 But what these self-styled professors of psy- 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD - 181 
 
 chism can help to develop is hysteria, and 
 that they are doing daily. They develop 
 hysteria in some -of their pupils and unwit- 
 tingly encourage trickery in others, so that 
 the work they are doing is without doubt both 
 injurious and demoralizing. One would like 
 to know how many of these trained mediums 
 have ended in becoming hopeless degenerates 
 o-r confirmed tricksters. The records of 
 mediumship will reveal much. 
 
 I now come to the question of psychometry. 
 This, in my opinion, is almost invariably done 
 either by pure trickery or else by mere in- 
 ference from the client's personal appear- 
 ance. At meetings where a number of 
 articles are collected and put into a box, the 
 box is quickly changed by an accomplice and 
 an empty one substituted in its place. This 
 can easily be done under cover of conversa- 
 tion — the psychometrists are generally wind- 
 bags — or some sudden little noise or disturb- 
 ance, just sufficient to divert the audience's 
 attention from the box. An accomplice then 
 communicates to the medium, generally by a 
 code of signals made with the face, hands, 
 feet, or tappings under the floor, or, if the 
 medium wears a mask, by a telephone, the 
 
182 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 wire of which can be very easily and effect- 
 ually hidden from the audience, a description 
 of the articles and any initials or other marks 
 on them. The medium at once makes use of 
 this information in the manner, practice has 
 taught her, will most impress the audience. 
 On these occasions anything, however slightly 
 true, is sure to be proclaimed wonderful ; the 
 audience have come there wanting to believe, 
 and are more than half convinced before the 
 performance begins. 
 
 There is nothing that a professional psy- 
 chometrist does, either at a public or a pri- 
 vate sitting, that could not be done by any 
 fairly competent professional conjuror, and 
 probably done better. All that the psychom- 
 etrist requires who sees her clients pri- 
 vately (ostensibly on the grounds that one 
 seldom gets the right psychic conditions in 
 public places), and thereby avoids all danger 
 of such exposure, as once overtook the slate 
 medium, Dr. "Slade, ,? is a shrewd knowledge 
 of human nature, some power to draw infer- 
 ences from physiognomy, an ability to play 
 the part of detective and acquire information 
 by prying into and ferreting out family 
 secrets, and an unlimited amount of assur- 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 183 
 
 ance (the two last-named requisites coming 
 readily and naturally to many women). The 
 rest is merely a matter of practice. Hun- 
 dreds are at it, and there will be hundreds 
 more, so long as society women continue to 
 hunt around for novelty and sensation and 
 their husbands are silly enough to allow them 
 money to spend on such tomfoolery. If 
 there were no money in psychometry, there 
 would be no psychometrists. It is astonish- 
 ing to find how much the so-called psy- 
 chic faculty is regulated by the money 
 market. Before the war, when Society 
 spent most of its money abroad, Lon- 
 don had comparatively few professional me- 
 diums; but as soon as the war came, and 
 mothers and widows were ready to pay any- 
 thing to get in touch with their relatives, 
 hundreds of people suddenly found out that 
 they were psychics, and immediately styled 
 themselves " professional clairvoyants, ' ' 
 "psychometrists," or " trance mediums"; 
 black magic, too, sprang up, and may now 
 be said to have a by no means small clientele. 
 At a fantastical exhibition of " black magic" 
 in Chelsea, to which I had gone with a party 
 of friends, after being led to expect that the 
 
184 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 room would suddenly fill with all kinds of 
 ethereal demons, the only thing any of us 
 saw, in the least degree like our preconceived 
 notion of a devil, was the magician himself. 
 At the same time I think it quite possible that 
 if one continually invites the intercourse of 
 hellish spirits, offering them, so to say, a free 
 passage and free field, one might succeed in 
 getting in touch with them, and that — with- 
 out the aid of any of those particular mystical 
 words and symbols experimenters in the black 
 art tell me are indispensable. 
 
 I do not propose to deal here with the dif- 
 ferent kinds of black magic now in vogue — 
 they are all the result of this present mad 
 craze for Spiritualism — but, I might say that 
 from what I can gather, hypnotism and sug- 
 gestion, as in Spiritualism, probably play an 
 important role in most of them, whilst in a 
 few there is unquestionably something very 
 filthy and disgusting. Of course many of the 
 mediums who profess to be exponents of 
 black magic are pure fakers, and, perhaps, 
 beyond mere trickery would stoop to nothing 
 worse, but there are some, I am convinced, 
 who make so-called initiation an excuse for 
 the perpetration of acts only likely to attract 
 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 185 
 
 the very lowest and foulest type of spirit; 
 and I would most solemnly warn all those, at 
 least, who have no desire to lose money and 
 self-respect too, to shun this subject and give 
 it the very widest berth possible. 
 
 Spiritualism (excluding black magic, of 
 course) numbers among its advocates 
 scientists like Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir W. F. 
 Barrett, Sir William Crookes, Professors 
 Janet, Bernheim, Lombroso, Flammarion, 
 and others. Equally clever and prominent 
 men, however, are opposed to it, and I now 
 intend quoting a few extracts from the writ- 
 ings and letters of the latter. First of all, 
 I will refer to Sir Ray Lankester, K.C.B., 
 F.R.S., whose writings are singularly free 
 from any of that egotism and bumptious 
 fanaticism that is so characteristic of the 
 writings of Spiritualists, such as Sir Oliver 
 Lodge, Sir A. C. Doyle, and others. 
 
 In the January number of Bedrock (1913), 
 Sir Ray Lankester writes, apropos of Sir 
 Oliver and telepathy, "Sir Oliver Lodge, 
 when president of the Psychical Research 
 Society, some years ago, actually went so 
 far as to assert that the society had achieved 
 a great result; it had, he said, ' discovered' 
 
186 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 telepathy. We all know what the word ' dis- 
 covery ' means in the statement of a profes- 
 sional man of science. It means not that a 
 guess or fancy has been pnt forward, but that 
 the thing said to be l discovered ' has been 
 demonstrated to exist by evidence which 
 bears the test of strict examination as to its 
 truth — evidence which can be produced and 
 subjected again and again to searching criti- 
 cism." Just such a test as I have suggested 
 should be applied by the outside public to 
 Mrs. Verrall and other of the mediums Sir 
 Oliver Lodge and his confreres have so per- 
 sistently bolstered up. "At the time I chal- 
 lenged,' ' (in a letter to the Press) Sir Ray 
 Lankester continues, "Sir Oliver Lodge's 
 statement that telepathy had been ' dis- 
 covered/ I asked for the demonstration nec- 
 essary to justify the assertion that telepathy 
 had been * discovered/ I professed my will- 
 ingness to investigate this phenomenon stated 
 to occur in our midst and its asserted dis- 
 covery. No opportunity of investigating it 
 has ever been offered to me by those who de- 
 clare that it exists. I was definitely refused 
 the opportunity of examining the asserted 
 phenomenon for which I applied to the So- 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 187 
 
 ciety for Psychical Research. No evidence 
 establishing experimentally the existence of 
 ' telepathy ' has been published by Sir Oliver 
 Lodge or by his associates.' J And so it is 
 with regard to the wonderful proofs alleged 
 to have been obtained through cross-cor- 
 respondence and at the table. There has 
 been a marvelous lot of trumpeting by the 
 same gentleman and his associates, but when 
 a proof has been demanded for the general 
 public, it has been ominously withheld. 
 
 Now let us hear what the same author — 
 a scientist every whit as eminent in his own 
 line as Sir Oliver Lodge is in his — has to say 
 with regard to spirit presences at seances. 
 In the new and revised edition of "The 
 Kingdom of Man" (Watts & Co., London, 
 1912), we read (p. 36), "Modern biologists 
 (I am glad to be able to affirm) do not accept 
 the hypothesis of * telepathy' advocated by 
 Sir Oliver Lodge, nor that of the intrusions 
 of disembodied spirits pressed upon them 
 by others of the same school. We biolo- 
 gists take no stock in these mysterious en- 
 tities." 
 
 Next, let us refer to an article by Ivor 
 Tuckett, M.A., M.D., entitled "The Illogical 
 
188 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 Position of Some Psychical Kesearchers," 
 also in the January, 1913, number of Bedrock. 
 In a passage relating to Mrs. Verrall and 
 Mrs. Piper, Dr. Ivor Tuckett "writes, "Then 
 again, it is sometimes triumphantly asked, 
 how do you explain certain cases of cross- 
 correspondence or the best of Mrs. Piper's 
 trance utterances and writings f The answer 
 to this is that on the data supplied a normal 
 explanation may not be possible, but that the 
 first point to decide is whether the witnesses 
 and reporters of the case can be regarded as 
 competent; and that if in their other writ- 
 ings they have not shown a high standard of 
 evidence, or if the will to believe is at all 
 noticeable, then, in view of the fact that the 
 observations cannot be repeated, an agnostic 
 attitude is essentially scientific." The wit- 
 nesses and reporters of the phenomena are, 
 invariably, pronounced Spiritualists of the 
 order of Sir Oliver Lodge and Mr. J. A. Hill ; 
 but the mere fact that the writing might be 
 at one time compatible with the truth and at 
 another time not, renders it worthless, and, 
 consequently (no matter whether it be spirits 
 who lie or the mediums, the result is the 
 same), since we are never sure that we can 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 189 
 
 depend on it, we cannot regard it as of any 
 practical use whatever. 
 
 Referring to Mrs. Verrall, Dr. Tuckett ob- 
 serves, "On a series of automatic writings, 
 where she records the results of three hun- 
 dred and twenty-two experiments on herself, 
 and where telepathic experiments, with the 
 avowed object of determining whether in- 
 formation unknown to the writer could be 
 conveyed by automatic writing, were practi- 
 cally unsuccessful. Indeed, these experi- 
 ments very strongly suggest, if they do not 
 establish, the fact that automatic writing is 
 concerned with the reproduction of past ex- 
 periences or of fabrications founded on these 
 experiences. The conclusion, then, of this 
 rejoinder is that no phenomena requiring a 
 supernormal explanation, have yet been re- 
 corded under conditions sufficiently free from 
 the possibility of error as to satisfy a scien- 
 tific standard of research.' ' Which is pre- 
 cisely what I have said. 
 
 Again, with regard, to Sir Oliver Lodge 
 and other of his Spiritualistic associates of 
 the S.P.R., Dr. Tuckett remarks, "When Sir 
 Oliver Lodge ends his article with the as- 
 sertion that the S.P.R. was founded in ex- 
 
190 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 plicit accord with Huxley's dictum about the 
 importance of 'the resolution to take noth- 
 ing for truth without clear knowledge that it 
 is such/ he forgets to state that from the 
 start some of its most prominent members 
 have taken the hypotheses of 'psychic force/ 
 'telepathy/ and 'Spiritistic interference ' for 
 truth without any clear knowledge they are 
 such." This substantiates my assertion that 
 one can really place very little reliance on the 
 testimony of men who, like Sir Oliver Lodge, 
 enter the arena of Psychical Eesearch en- 
 tirely biased in favor of believing, who are, 
 in fact, out to believe, in spite of any and 
 every obstacle. 
 
 Dr. Tuckett soon dismisses Sir Oliver 
 Lodge 's shadow, Mr. J. A. Hill. After refer- 
 ring to certain passages (p. 80) in Mr. Hill's 
 work, "New Evidences in Psychical Re- 
 search" (a work which bears the hall-mark 
 of Spiritualism, namely, a super-abundance 
 of high-falutin expressions and would-be 
 scientific terms), Dr. Tuckett proceeds: "In 
 fact the evidence which has driven him (Mr. 
 Hill) to believe in psychometry consists of 
 the uncritical stories of a few friends and of 
 his own unverified experience on one or per- 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 191 
 
 haps two occasions." And, again, "Mr. 
 Hill, as revealed in his writings, is really 
 rather an interesting psychological study 
 because he clearly recognizes the need of 
 ' careful observation and experiment, scru- 
 pulously accurate recording, and cautious in- 
 ferring' ('New Evidences in Psychical Re- 
 search,' p. 212. Rider, London, 1911), and 
 at the same time shows that he has had no 
 practical training in exercising these quali- 
 ties," — remarks that might surely be applied 
 to all who attempt to bolster up Spiritualism 
 and mediums. 
 
 I will now turn to an article entitled 
 "Science and Spiritualism," by Sir Bryan 
 Donkin, M.D., F.R.C.P., also in the January, 
 1913, number of Bedrock. In it we read, 
 "The present writer has had considerable ex- 
 perience in the past of spiritualistic seances 
 of many kinds, both public and private (in 
 a footnote it is stated that he attended 
 seances held by Corner (nee F. Cook), Annie 
 Eva Fay, Williams, Hearne, Hush, and 
 Eglington — all well-known mediums of their 
 time), including manifestations of 'thought 
 transference,' and also of what is now called 
 'automatic writing' with and without the aid 
 
192 MENACE OE SPIRITUALISM 
 
 of the ingenious instrument known as plan- 
 cliette; and he has found, as many others 
 have found (myself amongst the number) 
 that difficulty or impossibility of applying 
 crucial tests of the occurrence of phenomena 
 as alleged has always coincided with the 
 existence of certain preliminary conditions 
 postulated as necessary for the manifesta- 
 tions.' ' The pretext of mediums that it is 
 very harmful and injurious to spirits to be 
 touched, or experimented upon in any way 
 during the so-called materialization, is, of 
 course, all buncombe. Spirits that manifest 
 themselves spontaneously in haunted houses 
 experience no harm when chairs are thrown 
 at them, so why should those at seances. The 
 conclusion is obvious. 
 
 But to continue the quotation from Sir 
 Bryan's article: "Without further illustrat- 
 ing here from his own experience this quasi- 
 pathological study of ' Psychics' and their 
 prophets and disciples, or quoting the numer- 
 ous cases where appropriate tests were ap- 
 plied and the manifestations declined or dis- 
 appeared as the crucial test was approached 
 or attained; or where the results either 
 demonstrated or directly indicated a well- 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAtTD 193 
 
 known agency in the production of the phe- 
 nomena; or where mistaken observations, or 
 illusions, or statements and actions which 
 were confessedly fraudulent, were revealed; 
 he maintains, on the grounds set forth above, 
 that science is more than fully justified in 
 leaving the jewels of Psychical Research to 
 be plowed by those who please.' ' This is 
 a pretty sure guide to what Sir Bryan really 
 thinks on this subject. 
 
 Further on he says, "The more frequently 
 instances of some classes of ' occult' phenom- 
 ena have been confessedly proved to be due 
 to misconception or to manifest trickery" — 
 (this referring to the movements of pieces of 
 furniture, materialization and tangibility of 
 spirit-forms) — "the more such classes are 
 neglected or ignored, essential though they, 
 were to the Spiritualistic propaganda of the 
 not far distant past" — (many Spiritualists 
 still believe in them) — "and the more stress 
 is laid on other kinds of alleged phenomena' ' 
 — (automatic writing, for instance)— "that 
 have been less often actually and severally 
 demonstrated to be due to similar origins." 
 
 Sir Bryan goes on to add that it is often 
 announced from the pulpit (I suppose he 
 
194 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 means the Spiritualistic pulpit) and plat- 
 form that "the materialistic science" of the 
 last century has given way to the scientific 
 philosophy of such present-day teachers as 
 Professor Bergson, and that the prophets of 
 Psychical Research are now clamoring to be 
 recognized as " scientific' ' students of the 
 "super-normal." "But," Sir Bryan re- 
 marks, "those who recognize no scientific 
 revolution, nor any victory over the accepted 
 methods of scientific research by any philoso- 
 phies whatever, regard all such attempts at 
 reconciliation as mere logomachy, and say of 
 such as, in the name of Science, would abro- 
 gate scientific method, 'they make a Desert, 
 and call it Peace.' " Spiritualists would do 
 well to ponder over this when boasting their 
 cause is advocated by the scientific world. 
 
 Lastly, Sir Bryan issues a warning which, 
 I think, should have special significance for 
 all those dabbling in Spiritualism. ' ' Much, ' " 
 he says, "might be said of the multiform 
 harm resulting from the advocacy of 'Psy- 
 chical Research' (in its current and peculiar 
 sense). But, in order to avoid any possible 
 confusion of the issue, the writer has pur- 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 195 
 
 posely omitted all reference to this from his 
 argument." 
 
 I now come to a work by Lionel A. 
 Weatherly, M.D., and J. N. Maskelyne. It is 
 called "The Supernatural' ' (published by 
 J. W. Arrowsmith, Bristol). On the title 
 page confronting a dedication to Daniel Hack 
 Tuke, M.D., we find these very appropriate 
 lines by Dr. Maudsley: "If all visions, in- 
 tuitions, and other modes of communication 
 with the supernatural, accredited now or at 
 any time, have been no more than phenomena 
 of psychology — instances, that is, of sub-nor- 
 mal, supra-normal, or abnormal mental func- 
 tion — and if all existing supernatural beliefs 
 are survivals of a state of thought befitting 
 lower stages of human development, the con- 
 tinuance of such beliefs cannot be helpful, it 
 must be hurtful to human progress." 
 
 In this work the mediumistic side of 
 Spiritualism is summed up very neatly by 
 Mr. J. N. Maskelyne. "The doctrine of so- 
 called Spiritualism," he says (see p. 183), 
 "embodies an abstract principle and a con- 
 crete fact — the principle being 'that those 
 who have plenty of money and no brains were 
 
196 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 made for those who have plenty of brains 
 and no money'; and the fact is that the ranks 
 of the Spiritualists have ever been largely 
 recrnited from these two classes." 
 
 Beferring to the notorious American 
 mediums, the Fox sisters, the same author 
 remarks (p. 187): "Speaking of the Fox 
 girls, the Professors of the Medical College, 
 Buffalo, said that these loosely constructed 
 girls got their raps by snapping their toe 
 and knee joints." On the same page, again, 
 is the following quotation, which refers to 
 the confession made by Mrs. Norman Culver, 
 a relation of the Fox family: ". . . but 
 something I (Mrs. Culver) saw when I was 
 visiting the girls at Eochester made me sus- 
 pect they were deceiving. I resolved to 
 satisfy myself in some way, and some time 
 afterwards I made a proposition to Catherine 
 to assist her in producing the manifestations. 
 . . . After I had helped her in this way for 
 some time, she revealed to me the secrets. 
 The raps are produced by the toes. All the 
 toes are used. After a week's practice with 
 Catherine showing me how, I could produce 
 them perfectly myself." And no doubt this 
 is how many of the rappings are done by 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 197 
 
 mediums at table-turning seances to-day. It 
 is significant to note that all New York State 
 went mad over these supposed great psychics, 
 just as London is going mad over other 
 supposed great psychics at the present 
 moment. 
 
 In connection with the famous medium, 
 Daniel Douglas Hume, who, to quote Mr. 
 Maskelyne's words (p. 189), "wound his way 
 into the best society, always despising filthy 
 lucre, but never refusing a diamond worth 
 ten times the amount he would have received 
 in cash," we are told he got involved in a 
 law-suit by pretending to get such messages 
 from the spirit of a dead man, as induced the 
 latter 's widow to give him thirty thousand 
 pounds. The suit went against him — as even 
 his confreres were forced to admit, very 
 justly — and, like a good many mediums have 
 done since, he fizzled out. 
 
 With regard to Miss Annie Eva Fay, an- 
 other American medium who duped thou- 
 sands of people in this country, Mr. Maske- 
 lyne writes, "Her seance was the most trans- 
 parent trickery all through ; so simple, indeed, 
 that in a few days I taught my colleague the 
 whole of her tricks, and he performed them 
 
198 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 at the Egyptian Hall, whilst Miss Fay was 
 holding seances at the Hanover Square 
 Eooms. The result of this was that Miss 
 Fay made a very short stay in London. ' ' 
 
 Apropos of Dr. Slade, the slate-writing 
 medium, Mr. Maskelyne remarks, "How- 
 ever, from the reports of my deputies and 
 others, the secrets were in my possession 
 within a few weeks, and I was planning a 
 grand exposure, when Professor Lancaster 
 and the late Dr. Donkin caught the gentle- 
 man red-handed, and prosecuted him and his 
 manager. ' ' 
 
 Mr. Maskelyne deals with so-called 
 materializations, table-turning, thought- 
 reading, and spirit photography in the same 
 work, and what he thinks of them all he 
 suggests in a nutshell, when referring (see 
 p. 205) to the report of a certain commission 
 of inquiry into these several branches of 
 professional mediumship. "Of genuine 
 manifestations," he writes, "they found ab- 
 solutely none — not one single indication of 
 anything that could not be accounted for by 
 the most puerile trickery"; and with these 
 observations we will leave him. I can only 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 199 
 
 add that the work of which he and Dr. 
 Weatherly are the joint authors should be 
 read by all persons who are contemplating at- 
 tending a seance. 
 
 Other works that I would strongly recom- 
 mend these same people should read (in addi- 
 tion to most of those from which I have al- 
 ready quoted) are Dr. Charles Mercier's 
 "Spiritualism and Sir Oliver Lodge/ ' and 
 Mr. J. Godfrey Baupert's "The Dangers of 
 Spiritualism' ' (Kegan Paul, Trench, Triib- 
 ner&Co., 1906). 
 
 In the latter work (p. 143) we find the fol- 
 lowing: "The exercise of mediumship is al- 
 most always attended by physical exhaustion, 
 very frequently by complete mental prostra- 
 tion, producing a kind, of moral paralysis and 
 inertia of the will. Sometimes there are 
 cataleptic seizures, contortions of the 
 muscles of the face which are terrible to wit- 
 ness, and which are, all of them, conditions 
 awakening disgust in all healthy and nor- 
 mally constituted minds. ' ' And again (see p. 
 145), "Whatever the scientific explanation of 
 these physical accompaniments may be, is 
 it likely, considering the debasing effect they 
 
200 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 have on most minds, that Providence would 
 employ such ignoble and unworthy means 
 with a view to the higher moral advancement 
 of mankind V 9 
 
 Regarding the question of identity, Mr. 
 Raupert apparently shares my views. He 
 says (p. 115), "The absolute futility of any 
 attempt at identifying spirits is another dis- 
 couraging or unsatisfactory circumstance. 
 It is no proof that the spirit communicating 
 is A. B. if he tells me of words or circum- 
 stances (supposed to be) known only to A. B. 
 and myself. Who knows how many spirits 
 are more or less eavesdropping in every time 
 and place ! [ 9 
 
 A somewhat unusual view of the subject 
 was taken by the late George Macdonald. 
 In his work, "The Miracles of Our Lord," 
 he says, for instance (p. 160), "There seems 
 to me nothing unreasonable in the supposi- 
 tion of the existence of spirits who, having 
 once had such bodies as ours, and having 
 abused the privileges of embodiment, are 
 condemned for a season to roam about bodi- 
 less, ever mourning the loss of their capacity 
 for the only pleasure they care for, and crav- 
 ing after them in their imagination. Such, 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 201 
 
 either in selfish hate of those who have what 
 they have lost, or from eagerness to come 
 as near the possession of a corporeal form as 
 they may, might well seek to ' enter into a 
 man.' " 
 
 Another author from whom I will quote 
 briefly is Mr. Edward Clodd, and the fol- 
 lowing extracts from his letter to the Sunday 
 Times (7th October, 1917) will, I think, very 
 well serve to indicate his attitude towards 
 Spiritualism and some of those who practice 
 it. 
 
 "The corrective to any tendency to believe 
 in the delusion," he writes, "is supplied by 
 a study of animistic ideas, such as is given in 
 Tylor's 'Primitive Culture.' Therein is 
 clearly set forth the origin and growth of 
 early man's conception of a soul and a fu- 
 ture life, upon which no further light has 
 been thrown by this pretentious Spiritualism. 
 It is only the old animism writ large." And 
 again, "Instead of 'about it and about,' with 
 which Spiritualists are filling your columns, 
 why do they not urge their leaders to bring 
 the phenomena before the Court of Science, 
 where mere personal authority has no value, 
 and where, on the principle of setting a con- 
 
202 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 jurer to catch a conjurer, Mr. Devant should 
 be subpoenaed. ' ' 
 
 Mr. F. H. Hayward (D.Lit, B.S., Lon- 
 don) also has something interesting to say in 
 this controversy on Spiritualism going on in 
 the Sunday Times, and the following extract 
 is from his letter to that paper, published on 
 14th October, 1917: 
 
 "What exactly,' ' he asks, "has Sir Oliver 
 Lodge discovered? What revelations have 
 come to him through the mediums, untrust- 
 worthy or otherwise, whom he has consulted? 
 Is the whole mass of such revelations, even 
 if true, worth a schoolboy's consideration V f 
 And further on: "Your readers will note the 
 evidence of a future life would not be neces- 
 sary for people who believed in the Kesur- 
 rection of Jesus. Like most scientists, Sir 
 Oliver Lodge and Sir A. C. Doyle evidently 
 do not believe — or did not believe — in that, 
 otherwise they would not have gone fishing 
 for other proof s." 
 
 And, lastly, I refer to some remarks by 
 Mr. Nevil Maskelyne, also made in the Sun- 
 day Times, but in a letter published on 28th 
 October, 1917. Eeferring to the question of 
 investigating supposed spiritual phenomena, 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 203 
 
 Mr. N. Maskelyne observes, ". . . tlie only 
 people who are really competent to undertake 
 an investigation are, necessarily, those who 
 have a knowledge of, at least, the modern 
 magic. Professed scientists, as a rule, have 
 no such knowledge. I very much doubt if 
 Sir Oliver Lodge, for example, even knows 
 there is such a thing as the theory of magic.' ' 
 And he adds, " During the past thirty years 
 I have, from time to time, been associated 
 with my father, the late J. N. Maskelyne, in 
 investigations concerning alleged Spiritual- 
 istic phenomena. And in all those years I 
 have never discovered anything that even 
 tends to lend color to the Spiritualistic 
 hypothesis." 
 
 From these extracts and quotations I trust 
 it may be gathered (since they have been 
 given partly to show) that despite the puff- 
 ing up that Spiritualism — particularly the 
 mediumistic side of Spiritualism — is receiv- 
 ing at the hands of a clique of well-known 
 scientists and authors, there is still a strong 
 consensus of opinion, equally expert, against 
 it. I hope I have made it quite clear, for 
 example, that the orthodox Churches are 
 unanimous in condemning Spiritualism on 
 
204 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 the grounds that it is dangerous to faith and 
 morality alike; that the medical profession, 
 with little exception, oppose it on the grounds 
 that it is thoroughly injurious to health; 
 whilst many of the most eminent scientists — 
 by far the greater number, in fact — regard it 
 as a sham, maintaining that its phenomena 
 are wholly explainable by natural causes, 
 and, more often than not, by trickery. To 
 the ordinary average man who is neither 
 very religious nor very eminent, but who has 
 plenty of common sense, Spiritualism can 
 only appear as a hotch-potch of imbecility, 
 gullibility, and roguery — a hotch-potch that 
 has been of benefit to no one, saving those 
 that have filled their pockets out of it. To 
 me one of the worst results of this popular 
 side of Spiritualism is that it has led — and 
 still is leading — to such bitter deception and 
 disappointment. Of the legions of widows 
 and other bereaved ones who have been in- 
 duced to visit mediums through seeing them 
 advertised in books, magazines, and news- 
 papers, none, perhaps, have been wholly 
 satisfied, and the majority have come away 
 with the ache in their heart increased 
 rather than diminished. 
 
THE DANGER OF FRAUD 205 
 
 It may possibly be said of me that all this 
 is inconsistent with the views I have hitherto 
 expressed in my writings. Let me observe 
 that it is nothing of the kind. It is true that 
 I have stated my implicit belief in what are 
 termed ghosts; and in ghosts — in hannted 
 houses, and at the time of, or immediately 
 subsequent to, death — I have always believed 
 and still most emphatically do believe; but 
 these ghosts, I would remind you, are of a 
 different nature from the type of thing we 
 are taught to associate with the spirit world 
 at seances. It is with regard to the latter — 
 the latter only — that I am very, very skepti- 
 cal, and I repeat once again that I do not 
 think it at all probable that any of the psy- 
 chics of to-day possess the power of evoking 
 or getting in touch at will with spirits of the 
 dead; though I think it just possible that 
 they may on rare occasions and quite by 
 chance succeed in attracting spirits of an- 
 other kind. 
 
 The so-called manifestations we see and 
 hear at seances command neither awe nor 
 respect, but are merely treated either with 
 vulgar familiarity or with open derision. 
 They are a bad, very bad imitation of the 
 
206 MENACE OF SPIRITUALISM 
 
 genuine visitant from another world, and 
 they would certainly never take in any one 
 who had ever had any experience whatever 
 of a bond fide ghost. 
 
 Lastly, if we must have a change — must 
 have something different in the place of our 
 present orthodox Churches, and in the place 
 of Christianity — for goodness ' sake let us 
 look around for something that will be both 
 edifying and regenerating; for something 
 that, unlike Spiritualism, will make us less 
 selfish, less snobbish, less greedy, less arro- 
 gant, and less hopelessly self-satisfied; in 
 short, let us look for something that will de- 
 velop what few virtues we may happen to 
 possess, and not tend — as Spiritualism most 
 certainly does tend — to accentuate all our 
 old vices and, what is undoubtedly more 
 serious, to create new ones. 
 
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