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THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 
 
 OP 
 
 HEALTH AID HEALING; 
 
 CONSIDERED IN 
 
 TWELVE LECTURES, 
 
 DELIVERED INSPIKATIONALLY, 
 
 BY 
 
 W. J. COLVILLE, 
 
 IN SAN FRANCISCO AND BOSTON, DURING 1886, AND PUBLISHED BY 
 URGENT REQUEST. 
 
 CHICAGO: 
 
 GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 1887. 
 
*KZ 4-6 
 
 1/ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 
 
 1887, 
 
 By DR. M. E. CONGAR. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 Printed and bound by Donohue & Henneberry, Chicago. 
 
PKEFACE. 
 
 THIS little work has been prepared in great haste, 
 amid a multitude of pressing duties. A selection 
 has been made not quite at random from an immense 
 mass of manuscript which has been steadily accumu- 
 lating for more than a year under the reporter's hands. 
 As the best reporters are not usually quite accurate 
 and as extemporaneous speeches, even though delivered 
 under inspiration, often contain some sentences which 
 have too local, immediate and personal a bearing to 
 render them valuable for permanent preservation, it 
 has been found necessary to review the whole of the 
 matter at first selected for this book with the utmost 
 care, so as to eliminate as far as possible the less impor- 
 tant and include the more important material. With 
 a view to covering as much ground as possible in the 
 fewest number of words, large portions of some lec- 
 tures have been entirely omitted, and parts of others 
 have been introduced wherever consecutiveness of ideas 
 would permit. In a few instances a lecture appears 
 almost word for word as it was delivered, but for rea- 
 sons already stated, about twenty lectures have been 
 employed in the formation of the twelve here pre- 
 sented. The publisher cannot hope to have succeeded 
 to any great extent in making a very valuable book for 
 study and reference, still without in any degree overes- 
 timating the value of its contents, it is only true to 
 declare that the essential sum and substance of the 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 teachings given in the classes will be found in the fol- 
 lowing pages. Those whose minds are fertile as well 
 as receptive, those to whom one idea suggests another 
 and who have the gift of tracing conclusions to their 
 sources, and following thought further than its out- 
 ward dress can convey it, will doubtless be able to suc- 
 cessfully treat themselves and others, if they carefully 
 read and meditate upon the contents of this volume, as 
 a perfect system of treatment is definitely outlined in 
 its pages. The main object of the work is, however, 
 to stimulate inquiry, awaken earnest thought, and 
 remove prejudice and misconception. To the liberal, 
 fair-minded and aspiring elements in the world's popu- 
 lation, this little work is earnestly and lovingly dedi- 
 cated and addressed. The prayer of the publisher is, 
 that it may stimulate in some degree the noblest 
 aspirations of men, women and children, to help each 
 other and assist in some slight measure in turning the 
 thoughts of old and young alike from the perishable 
 unrealities of sense to the true realities of spirit. As 
 the author is not a dogmatist, claims no right, and has 
 no wish to force others to his conclusions, the hope is 
 not expressed that his words shall be regarded as a cri- 
 terion for the efforts of others. 
 
 The reader's sincere friend, 
 
 W. J. Colville. 
 January, 1887. 
 
PERSONAL SKETCH 
 
 OF 
 
 W. J. COLVILLE'S LIFE AND LABOR. 
 
 COMPILED FROM A NARRATIVE BY CHARLES BLACKIE MOXCRIEFF. 
 
 W. 
 
 J. COLYILLE, whose name has long been a 
 household word on two continents, was born 
 on the ocean between Europe and America, in the early 
 morning of the 5th of September, 1859. His father 
 was an Italian, his mother a Frenchwoman, connected 
 with one of the oldest and most influential families of 
 France. Her maiden name was Marie Lavinia De 
 Mordaunt. Though born of parents of foreign race, 
 his early life being spent almost entirely in England, 
 W. J. Colville bears no very conspicuous trace of his 
 descent, though on close acquaintance with him. no one 
 can fail to detect traces of his origin, not so much in 
 manner or accent as in character and disposition. In 
 personal appearance, W. J. Colville is not singular, he 
 is of average height, well framed but rather slightly 
 built, with fair hair, blue eyes and a clear fresh com- 
 plexion, though not apparently of a robust constitution. 
 His temperament is wiry and elastic in the extreme ; 
 he enjoys excellent health and has amazing powers of 
 endurance. His early life was comparatively unevent- 
 
 5 
 
6 PEESONAL SKETCH. 
 
 f ul ; his mother passed to spirit life when he was an 
 infant, his father, when he was only eight years of age. 
 His childhood w r as spent chiefly in London and in 
 Brighton, England, among persons of decidedly slender 
 intellectual attainments and members of the Anglican 
 State Church. From them he received no bias what- 
 ever toward spiritualism or any progressive school of 
 thought, but, without apparently any assistance from 
 visible surroundings, his innate mediumistic powers 
 showed themselves in a most remarkable manner when 
 he was only five years old. At that tender age he used 
 to see and converse with his mother, whom he could 
 not have remembered physically, as she passed to spirit 
 life when he was only a few weeks old, at most. Not 
 understanding anything of spirit communion, and a 
 beautiful lady appearing to him who told him she was 
 his mother, looking perfectly natural to his vision, he 
 believed the story of her death and burial to be a false 
 report and imagined her to be yet living on earth. Not 
 quite understanding how she came and left the house 
 without observation, he spoke to his guardian about the 
 matter, who being both an incredulous and superstitious 
 woman, denied the possibility of the vision with one 
 breath and expressed genuine fear with the next, for 
 the child described his mother so perfectly that no one 
 who had ever seen her could doubt that the picture 
 was taken from life or some mysterious experience with 
 the departed. These visions came and went for about 
 a year and were then discontinued for no apparent rea- 
 son and with no apparent cause. During the interval 
 between iive and fifteen years of age, W. J. Colville 
 was sent to school very irregularly, and received in a 
 preparatory academy a rudimentary training in what 
 
PEES0NAL SEETCH. I 
 
 are universally considered the necessary branches of 
 education. Though possessed of much natural quick- 
 ness of perception he was not a very apt scholar, as 
 the routine of the schoolroom and the presence of a 
 number of children exerted a deterrent influence on 
 his intellectual development ; moreover, during those 
 years he was not in the best of health and was fre- 
 quently kept away from school for various reasons. 
 Spiritualism was first brought to his notice May 21th, 
 1874, by a placard announcing that Mrs. Cora L. V. 
 Richmond (then Mrs. Tappan) would deliver an oration 
 and poem under the influence of her spirit guides. He 
 was attracted to the hall out of curiosity simply, but 
 Avhile there became so vividly conscious of a spiritual 
 influence working upon himself as well as upon the 
 speaker, and coupled therewith, an intense desire to 
 become an inspired lecturer and poet himself, that im- 
 mediately on his return home after the meeting, he 
 was influenced to recite poetry on topics suggested by 
 persons gathered round the supper table, during 
 which recitation he felt himself lifted out of his body 
 into the air, though his physical frame remained so 
 stationary that his feet seemed almost as though they 
 were glued to the floor. From that day till the autumn 
 of 1876 he exercised his mediumship in private, creat- 
 ing much interest in the highest circles of society, for 
 it was a truly amazing thing for an almost uneducated 
 boy of sixteen to discourse off-hand on the profoundest 
 themes presented to him by critical and specially in- 
 vited audiences ; no matter what the subject might be, 
 he handled it fearlessly and eloquently, and displayed 
 such amazing knowledge on rare and intricate topics as 
 to call forth the admiring wonder of all assembled. In 
 
PERSONAL SKETCH. 
 
 February, 1877, lie was introduced to the publisher of 
 the Medium and Daybreak, James Burns, of 15 South- 
 ampton Row, Holburn. Mr. Burns called a meeting in 
 the lecture room at the above address and published 
 an account of it in the next issue of his paper, and also 
 engaged W. J. Colville to deliver public addresses in a 
 large hall on Sunday evenings, which addresses called 
 together large and deeply interested audiences, and be- 
 ing published sufficed to create so much interest in the 
 youthful speaker that letters came from all parts of 
 England making him offers to occupy the platform in 
 almost every center where enterprising spiritualists 
 were to be found. His career in England for a year 
 and a half was a phenomenal success. Wherever he 
 went he won laurels even from the opposition, and it 
 was with many sad farewells and prayers for his speedy 
 return that his many friends in England saw him de- 
 part for America in October, 1878. Landing in Bos- 
 ton October 31, he was met by representatives of the 
 society of spiritualists assembling in Parker Memorial 
 Hall, and was by them informed that his reputation 
 had preceded him so as to win for him an engagement 
 in that splendid edifice for four Sunday afternoons. 
 His first public appearance in America was in that hall, 
 on the 1st of November, 1878, before an immense audi- 
 ence. From the moment he opened his lips his success 
 was assured. The Banner of Light published glowing 
 accounts of the proceedings and gave lengthy reports 
 of his lectures from week to week. Engagements 
 poured in from all parts of the country, and though 
 Boston has been his headquarters ever since, and he 
 has in that city a large constituency of regular listen- 
 ers, who are unwilling to spare him for a single Sun- 
 
PERSONAL SKETCH. \) 
 
 day, except during the summer vacation, he has trav- 
 eled very extensively over this continent, speaking 
 many times in nearly all the large cities and in many 
 of the smaller cities, towns, and villages throughout 
 the east and west. He has twice revisited England 
 during the past few years, and has also paid several 
 visits to Paris. Wherever he goes he draws the most 
 thoughtful and enlightened elements in the communi- 
 ties, never failing to arouse and sustain the deepest in- 
 terest in the work he is so ably inspired to carry for- 
 ward. 
 
 Perhaps the most noticeable of all his triumphs was 
 his reception in California, last summer. The Gold* n 
 Gate, published in San Francisco, and the Carrier 
 Dove, published in Oakland, paid him the highest of 
 high compliments, while the San Francisco Chronicle 
 and other leading daily papers gave long and compli- 
 mentary notices of himself and his work. One of the 
 most astonishing features connected with his speaking 
 is his utter insensibility to fatigue in the discharge of 
 his arduous and multiple duties. While in California 
 he frequently spoke thirteen times a week and grew 
 strong upon it. It is almost impossible for any person 
 attending a very few of his lectures to form a just idea 
 of his style and manner on the platform. He has no 
 fixed style, but vividly portrays the individuality of 
 the inspiring influence at the time. On some oc- 
 casions he remains almost motionless, at another 
 time he speaks with great fire and energy and in- 
 dulges in rapid and intrepid movements on the stage. 
 Sometimes his accent is the purest English, at other 
 times it is decidedly French or German. From this 
 cause alone have arisen the most divergent accounts 
 
10 PERSONAL SKETCH. 
 
 of his appearance and manner while speaking, all of 
 which were founded on some particle of fact. It is this 
 amazing versatility in style and the almost unlimited 
 range of subjects with which he deals, that causes those 
 who know him best to compare him to an inexhaust- 
 ible fountain of ideas and language. To question the 
 fact of inspiration in his case is to present to the world 
 an unsolved problem, for the solution of which no 
 known rule exists, or at least none can be found. His 
 prominence as a teacher of metaphysical healing leads 
 us to enquire how he became so able and influential an 
 exponent of Mental and Spiritual science as applied 
 to health. The facts are very simple and easily 
 told. When a child his constitution was delicate, and 
 he was often in the doctor's hands, but never under 
 any circumstances can he remember deriving the slight- 
 est benefit from any material remedy. Whenever 
 notice was taken of his ailments he grew rapidly worse, 
 but when left to himself an influence would come to 
 him and restore him, but he must be left entirely 
 by himself, unmolested by the thoughts as well as 
 the bodily presence of others, to reap the full advan- 
 tage of the subtle ministrations of this unseen power. 
 Sometimes a strange person would heal him without 
 knowing it; and often he would be led to certain 
 places and people by an instinct similar to that which 
 leads a cat to search for catnip when feeling Undis- 
 posed. When about sixteen years of age, he became 
 closely connected with a young gentleman who had 
 studied Theosophy and whose natural healing gifts were 
 truly marvelous, and at that time he gained a pretty 
 thorough initiation into various occult systems of 
 medicine. Noting, however, that mesmerism is a dan- 
 
PERSONAL SKETCH. 11 
 
 gerous power, his mind reverted to what is now called 
 Metaphysical healing, and though he does not accept 
 all the theories of the Christian Scientists, and posi- 
 tively opposes Mrs. Eddy's views on spiritualism, as set 
 forth in her remarkable work, Science and Health, he 
 found so much in the metaphysical theory in harmony 
 with his own intuitive knowledge and actual experi- 
 ence, that yielding to the earnest solicitation of many 
 friends, and the strong pressure of a spiritual influence, 
 he undertook the work of instructing classes of 
 students in Spiritual science, giving them thorough 
 practical information and suggestions and always on 
 moderate and generous terms. Though fully alive to 
 the advantages of a good social position and the 
 wherewithal to carry on necessary work in this world, 
 and possessed of great business ability in many direc- 
 tions, W. J. Colville cannot be called mercenary by 
 any one who knows him. He never demands extor- 
 tionate prices for his services, and is always ready to 
 welcome those who cannot pay to all his meetings 
 without money and without price. In private life he 
 is many-sided. He has great conversational powers, 
 and can make himself very agreeable, but frequently 
 he does not try to entertain. This may be largely 
 accounted for by an instant's consideration of his man- 
 ifold public and other duties. His sphere is public life 
 and literary labor, and he really has little if any time 
 for social gossip. Not withstanding this feature of his 
 character, few people have more warm personal friends 
 than he, and as he enjoys the society of cheerful per- 
 sons of both sexes and all ages, goes to places of amuse- 
 ment whenever he has time and opportunity, he can- 
 not be said to be anything .of a recluse. In appear- 
 
12 PERSONAL SKETCH. 
 
 ance and manner lie is decidedly French, and has all 
 the quickness and vivacity of that nation. As a writer 
 he is fully as effective as a speaker, and writes as 
 rapidly as he can talk, ideas pouring in faster than a 
 pencil can write them. The above may be taken as a 
 very meagre pen picture of one of the most remarka- 
 ble public speakers of the age, one who has doubtless a 
 great future before him, for though he has been before 
 the public a considerable number of years, and has 
 won a world wide reputation, he is still in the bouy- 
 ancy of youth, and looks so juvenile on the platform 
 that many persons find it difficult to believe he is as 
 old as the years since his birth have made him. His 
 greatest virtue in the eyes of many is the whole-souled 
 interest he takes in the work of others, and his utter 
 absence of jealousy or rivalrous ambition, but then, 
 those who stand at the head in any line of effort, have 
 small incentives to envy their brothers or sisters. 
 
LECTIJEE I. 
 
 MIND CURE : ITS FACTS AND FALLACIES. INCLUDING A 
 FRIENDLY REVIEW OF A LECTURE BY DR. STEBBINS, 
 PASTOR OF FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH, SAN FRANCISCO, 
 UPON THE SUBJECT. DELIVERED IN ASSEMBLY HALL, 
 SAN FRANCISCO, SUNDAY, SEPT. 26, 1886, BEFORE AN 
 IMMENSE AUDIENCE OF REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS. 
 
 THE very title of our lecture should be sufficient to 
 prove to all strangers who may be here that we 
 do not endorse all the vagaries of the Mind Cure sys- 
 tem, and that we do not stand pledged to declare that 
 Mind Cure, as it has been ordinarily interpreted and 
 expounded, is the universal panacea, or that all the ills 
 to which human nature is or can be subject can be dis- 
 posed of by a few simple applications of what Dr. 
 Evans has called mental medicine. Mind Cure always 
 appears to us a very inadequate expression. We use 
 the term Spiritual Science, as being far more express- 
 ive, or even Mental Science, if you like the word 
 "mental" better than "spiritual," though it positively 
 expresses less. The word " mental " literally signifies 
 intellectual, while the word "spiritual" goes deeper 
 into the soul of man, and treats upon the purely moral 
 and affectional qualities of the spirit : the word " men- 
 tal " being confined to what you may term the mind or 
 intellect, signifies something different from what we 
 term the spirit, which expresses the moral intuition 
 
 13 
 
14 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 rather than the intellectual elements in human life. 
 Spiritual Science relates to the whole of life and will : 
 to narrow it down to Mental Science is to lower it, as 
 Spiritual Science is a much ampler term, while Mental 
 Science is much more than simply Mind Cure. Mind 
 Cure gives a great many people the idea that you 
 undertake to cure insanity and nothing else ; and 
 while it is true in a certain sense that all diseased 
 people are insane — because sanity is health and insan- 
 ity is the absence or reverse of health — and while 
 those who heal by mental methods ought to make a 
 specialty of healing those whose disorders are avowedly 
 mental, and whose ailments have baffled the skill of 
 physicians and shown themselves invulnerable to all 
 the attacks made upon them by Materia Medica, at 
 the same time it appears to us that Mind Cure suggests 
 the idea that there is no science about it and that there 
 are no scientific qualifications for healing required on 
 the part of those who pose before the world as mental 
 healers. Now, nothing can be farther from the truth ; 
 for if true Mental and Spiritual Science is to take the 
 place of the old medical systems, if instead of a Materia 
 Medica we are to have spiritual remedies, those who 
 are to be the successors of the old-school physicians 
 will not be ignorant and unenlightened people, who, by 
 some peculiar form of incantation, can perform won- 
 ders, but rather do we need the- most learned men and 
 women, the wisest, the most level-headed, the most 
 generous, pure-minded and spiritually-unfolded, to em- 
 bark in the great enterprise of the physical, mental 
 and moral redemption of humanity. 
 
 There are some people who suppose what is popu- 
 larly termed Mind Cure is something that anybody and 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 15 
 
 everybody can learn in a few lessons ; and while a 
 medical student has to go to college and study for 
 years and pass difficult examinations before the faculty 
 will award him a diploma, it is supposed by many that 
 any ignorant person, any charlatan or imposter, can 
 pose successfully in the role of a mental healer, and 
 that those indeed who are genuine healers, so far as 
 there can be any mental healing at all, are illiterate 
 persons, the popular impression being that illiteracy is 
 no disqualification for mental healing. 
 
 Now we do not for a moment deny that an illiterate 
 person, a person who has never passed through college, 
 or a person who has never had what may be called a 
 good liberal education, if well disposed, generous, kind- 
 hearted, sympathetic, and spiritually-minded, can do 
 a very large amount of good. But such a person is 
 highly cultured in the spiritual faculties. A person who 
 is highly moral, very generous, sympathetic, and in 
 love with humanity, one who will work at any sacrifice 
 to himself for the good of the world, is one who has 
 an education or an unfoldment far beyond any educa- 
 tion that can be gained by merely attending school or 
 college. There are many learned men with their 
 degrees and diplomas who are lacking altogether in 
 the finer sensibilities of human nature. There are 
 manv doctors who go forth from the colleges full of 
 nothing but pride and conceit. They have, it is true, 
 a smattering of medical information, but are anything 
 but moral and anything but spiritual, and are the very 
 people whom you would not like to introduce into the 
 bosom of your families if you really knew them. 
 There are many people everywhere who have been 
 highly educated, who have graduated with honors from 
 
16 LECTUKE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 the most renowned universities in the world, who 
 instead of being spiritually-minded, are carnally-minded 
 to a remarkable degree .; and as it requires a spiritual 
 person, one who is noble-minded, one w T ho has some- 
 thing to commend him to humanity far in advance of 
 outward attainments, to touch the deepest springs of 
 human nature, we should decide that even an illiterate 
 pauper might be in a very true sense educated or un- 
 folded far more than a literary man who was lacking 
 in all that is finest and noblest in human development. 
 Therefore do not understand us to say that an illiter- 
 ate person cannot be a successful healer. But while 
 many illiterate persons are successful healers, those 
 illiterate people are people who have a great deal of 
 character, a great deal in them which is truly admirable 
 on account of their unusual moral and spiritual quali- 
 fications ; and this spiritual education, which raises one 
 above the literati of wordly renown, must be regarded 
 in an especial sense as a revelation of God to the world. 
 But leaving this matter of literacy and illiteracy, 
 in the scholastic sense, and proceeding to the question 
 of w 7 hat the necessary qualifications really are for a 
 good moral or spiritual scientist, we should say that no 
 education can be too rich and varied, no knowledge 
 can be too profound, no intellectual culture and no 
 experience can be too great to duly qualify one to 
 enter into what may be termed the metaphysical pro- 
 fession. We consider it a very great ^mistake when 
 people suppose that in the far East and in Palestine, 
 in the days of Buddha and of Jesus, that the greatest 
 healers and teachers of the period were unlearned peo- 
 ple. It is true they may have gained their knowledge 
 intuitively rather than through collegiate courses ; it 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 17 
 
 is true they may have been enlightened by a purely 
 spiritual development of their intellectual understand- 
 ing, and may have had, therefore, an illumination 
 rather than an external education, but it is emphatic- 
 ally stated in the New Testament that it was a great 
 surprise to all the people round about that Jesus was 
 eminently literary. They inquired, "Whence hath 
 this man letters, seeing he has never learned \ " What 
 does it mean to have letters, but to be well up in all 
 literary matters, to be an authority on literary subjects, 
 to display literary, even scientific knowledge? 
 
 You are told that when Jesus was twelve years of 
 age, he entered into the temple and disputed with 
 learned doctors of the law who constituted the Sanhe 
 drim, the very highest council in Israel, and made an 
 impression of the profound est nature by answering 
 the wise men's questions, and also asking them ques- 
 tions in return. Their wonder and astonishment was 
 that his erudition was so perfect, his knowledge so 
 profound. You are told plainly in the records that 
 Jesus, that great and wonderful man, who, between 
 thirty and thirty-three years of age, performed those 
 wonderful cures that defied duplication by his content 
 poraries, though he had possibly never studied in the 
 colleges of the world, was nevertheless highly edu- 
 cated. He had gained his education somewhere and 
 somehow, for it was the surprise of the learned men of 
 the day that he knew so much ; the marvel of the peo- 
 ple at large was that he was so literary, being only the 
 son of a village carpenter. 
 
 We are told in Edwin Arnold's "Light of Asia," 
 that when Gautama Buddha, who afterwards became 
 the Savior of Asia, was brought before the most 
 
IS LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 learned men in his father's kingdom, though only eight 
 years old, he knew more of science, of mathematics, of 
 history, more of the deepest subjects which the learned 
 were wont to discourse upon, than his preceptors; the 
 sign and seal, the credential of his divine mission was, 
 that he knew more than any one else in the kingdom. 
 No premium whatever has been placed upon ignorance 
 in the Jewish or Christian Bible, nor in the great rec- 
 ords of the far Orient ; but on the other hand, those 
 who have been called and have shown themselves able 
 to respond to the call to teach and to heal have either 
 through ordinary avenues of instruction received infor- 
 mation of a literary and scientific kind, or in some mys- 
 terious manner, commonly styled marvelous or mirac- 
 ulous, through the opening of their spiritual under- 
 standing, have come to a knowledge of the truth in all 
 its ramifications and applications. Therefore we main- 
 tain in this age that we do not endorse a company of 
 ignoramuses who pose in the role of teachers and heal- 
 ers ; we do not desire that superstition and quackery 
 should prevail over reason and common sense. We do 
 not endorse those movements that decry learning and 
 extol ignorance, but on the other hand we declare that 
 in the future, when the world becomes more spiritual- 
 ized its universities will teach far more than they teach 
 now, professors will know vastly more than they know 
 now, the successors of the modern clergymen and doc- 
 tors will be far more learned men than any who have 
 yet occupied pulpits or adorned the medical profession ; 
 and as the word doctor really means a teacher (it is 
 simply a Latin word meaning a teacher), the original in- 
 tention was that the doctor should educate his patients 
 instead of treating them in some mysterious manner 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 19 
 
 with minerals and drugs. The very fact that doctors 
 of medicine were spoken of, as well as doctors of divin- 
 ity, proves that the word doctor was intended to con- 
 vey the idea that patients were to get well through 
 their own understanding of truth, by their acquain- 
 tance with the laws of being, not by continual dosing 
 and experimentation. 
 
 If, therefore, the true position of the modern doc- 
 tor is understood, and any man or woman is entitled to 
 write M.D. after his or her name, they should be teach- 
 ers of medicine — not administerers of drugs, but teach- 
 ers of the people in the science of health. We are told 
 of an Oriental monarch who kept continually by his 
 side a celebrated physician whose work it was always 
 to keep the king in health, and who would be decapita- 
 ted if the king fell ill, but had large revenues as long as 
 the king remained in good health. While the penalty 
 of decapitation we should not advise for infliction upon 
 the doctor who allowed his patient to become ill, we 
 can see far more reason why a doctor should be paid 
 for keeping persons well than permitted to run up long 
 bills, the longer the illness lasts, the longer and the 
 more the patient surfers, the longer time it takes the 
 remedies to work. Doctors nowadays are very fre- 
 quently paid lor killing patients, or, at all events, for 
 not prolonging their lives or even ministering to their 
 comfort. Among the funeral expenses the doctor's bill 
 is generally a very large item, and many a poor widow 
 left with children dependent upon her, unless she has to 
 do with a very benevolent physician, has found it very 
 hard work to satisfy the claims of the doctor and the 
 undertaker, who are usually very closely allied in their 
 business — so closely that an outsider might almost sup- 
 
20 LECTUEE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 pose they were partners. The doctor's bill and the un- 
 dertaker's bill are often sent in together ; and as the 
 doctors of all countries have grown rich upon the ail- 
 ments of the public, as they have grown rich by keep- 
 ing people always in their hands, as the family physician 
 has been often only the family doser, the family exper- 
 imentalist upon the lives of its members, a panderer to 
 the family hysteria, there can be no doubt whatever 
 that in the light of modern civilization, which educates 
 every boy and girl in the country, that professors of 
 the science of health, teachers of the science of being, 
 those who might well be called Ontologists, will soon 
 take the place of the Physicians and Druggists of past 
 days. Wherever civilization spreads the druggists begin 
 to make their living out of Soda Water rather than drugs. 
 Many Apothecaries have already learned that in a 
 healthy and intelligent population they must depend 
 very largely upon their soda water fountain for their 
 revenue, and there are many of the best druggists in 
 the country who make much of their profit upon the 
 fancy articles they sell, such as toothbrushes, soap, 
 sponges and other things people continually need, and 
 which metaphysics has not attempted to do away with. 
 Wherever persons become enlightened they take less 
 and less medicine. One of the most influential and 
 learned men in America and a great ornament to the 
 medical profession, Oliver Wendell Holmes, made a 
 statement almost equivalent to the following : That if 
 all medicines had been thrown into the sea it might be 
 good for man but bad for the poor fishes. There are a 
 great many doctors who by diligent study have come 
 to the conclusion, and have openly made the statement, 
 that the less medicine taken the better. Such doctors 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 21 
 
 are of course in no sense quacks or impostors. Those 
 honorable and scientific gentlemen who adorn their 
 profession are those who instruct their patients how to 
 keep well a great deal more than they advocate dosing 
 or taking medicine. If you take a really learned doc- 
 tor's advice it will often prove well worth a great many 
 times his fee. If you observe those rational laws which 
 the doctor lays down for you concerning diet, exercise, 
 fresh air and proper moral conduct, it may have been 
 a very good thing for yourself and your family that 
 you called in an intelligent, scientific man when you or 
 any one else felt indisposed. If a doctor is really quali- 
 fied, if he is what the term "doctor" implies, he is a 
 teacher of health and a teacher of morals ; such a doc- 
 tor, though he be ever so wealthy, though the revenue 
 he draw from his profession be ever so great, must be 
 numbered among the instructors of the rising genera- 
 tion and the benefactors of the less well informed. 
 
 We therefore utter no words of contempt or abuse 
 when we speak of wise and noble men who abound, 
 we are happy to say, in the various schools of medical 
 practice, in all of which we have found the most intel- 
 ligent and liberal-minded persons of our acquaintance. 
 But those fussy and superstitious doctors who are 
 always dosing their patients are a nuisance to society, 
 and even though they have a diploma they are the 
 greatest quacks of all. 
 
 We affirm that Mind Cure in and of itself means 
 simply that the mind must cure whatever is wrong both 
 in mind and in body, and that the universal specific is 
 mental and not physical. " Who shall minister to a 
 mind diseased ? " is the question continually asked by 
 sufferers. How long will physicians continue to treat 
 
22 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 ailments which are purely mental as though they were 
 bodily ? is a question that comes up in all our popular 
 literature. "We need greater sagacity and a much 
 wider sweep of intelligence to reach the mind than 
 merely to reach the body; the endeavor to tinker up 
 the flesh while the mind is ill at ease is of no use what- 
 ever. The endeavor to cure people of dyspepsia when 
 it is not their food that disagrees with their stomach, 
 which is not out of order except as an after conse- 
 quence, for their ailment proceeds from mental unrest, 
 from grief, disappointment and unhappiness, from 
 something that weighs upon the mind, a heavy load 
 upon the heart, a sting of conscience rebuking them 
 for an error, is all in vain when you rely on pills, pow- 
 ders and balsam. If you could get at the reason why 
 people suffer from dyspepsia, if you could get at the 
 reason why good food makes them sick, or remains 
 undigested, if you could get at the reason why they are 
 unhappy and unable to obtain relief, you would then 
 be able by dealing with and removing the cause of the 
 unhappiness to heal them. If you could not remove 
 the thorn from the mind, which afterwards produced 
 the semblance of a thorn rankling in the flesh, you 
 would at least be able to do what a spiritual teacher 
 was able to accomplish in his own case — help them to 
 receive from heaven grace sufficient to bear it. 
 
 If you could reach the innermost springs of human 
 nature, find out why people are miserable and touch 
 their mental and their moral condition, it would be 
 surprising to see how many wasting lungs would cease 
 to waste, how many pallid cheeks would begin to glow 
 again with the bloom of health, how many dull, sad 
 eyes would be lighted with the iires of youth, happi- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 23 
 
 ness and peace, how many poor, miserable dyspeptics 
 would enjoy their food, and find that anything that 
 was fit for man's consumption agreed with them. 
 
 If we can touch the springs of action, and go di- 
 rectly to the sources of trouble and annoyance, by 
 reaching the realm of causation instead of forever deal- 
 ing with effects, we are able to change the condition 
 of a person because we change the source whence that 
 condition flows. 
 
 Mind Cure, even in its humblest forms, even in its 
 seemingly unscientific application, has, without doubt, 
 produced results far beyond any that could be pro- 
 duced by any form of drug medication or mineral 
 administration. Not only is this fact claimed for 
 Mind Cure by those who are its acknowledged advo- 
 cates and defenders, but in Dr. Stebbins' recent lecture 
 be made no attempt to deny it, while a recent writer 
 in one of the popular magazines, Dr. Buckley (in 
 The Century, June, 18S6), who is a Christian minister, 
 declared that cures which were performed either by 
 faith, by prayer, by spiritual mediums, or through 
 visits paid to the shrines of Romish saints, were all of 
 them in many instances well-authenticated cases of re- 
 covery. 
 
 There is no doubt either in the scientific or religious 
 world today that what is called Mind Cure is a great 
 fact, and where Dr. Stebbins seems to us to have made 
 a misstatement is, in supposing that this wave of mental 
 healing is a mere transitory appearance, and that while 
 it is here today it may not be here tomorrow. Dr. 
 Stebbins and all other ministers and (to use his own 
 language) all doctors may make up their minds that it 
 has come to stay. It has always been in the world, 
 
24 LECTUBE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 but in ages of religious darkness and superstition it has 
 been shrouded, and never until quite recently taught 
 as a science to the world in general. 
 
 All the charm said to attach to the relics of saints 
 and to objects blest by ecclesiastical dignitaries, all the 
 charms said to attach to certain holy places, holy wells 
 for instance, answered very well as an evidence of 
 supernaturalism to those closely wedded to the theo- 
 logical beliefs of the mediaeval centuries ; and until 
 public school education was offered to every child in 
 this republic, until people demanded the why and 
 wherefore of everything, until miracles were chal- 
 lenged and the realm of the supernatural was fearlessly 
 invaded by the scientists of this generation, a weird 
 and fantastic garment of mystery was naturally woven 
 around all cures that were performed without the aid of 
 ordinary material assistance. But now that all these 
 facts, gathered up from the East and West, the North and 
 South, from recent times and from remote ages, are 
 brought to bear upon the great law of the universe, and 
 people ask, " What is the reason for this ? " we know 
 there cannot be an effect without a cause, there must 
 be a way of reducing all these facts to a science, there 
 must be a law that lies behind them all. People no 
 longer credulous as they formerly were, no longer blind 
 believers in the church as they have been until recently, 
 no 'longer prepared to believe that God acts spasmodi- 
 cally and intermittently, as though the universe were 
 run by machinery which God put into it at first, and 
 wound up, and with which he occasionally interferes ; 
 no longer ready to believe there is a peculiar sanctity 
 attached to certain externals : the world today says it 
 must know the law which governs all these phenomena, 
 
LECTUBE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 25 
 
 the intelligence of today says there must be a reason 
 for this, and there is just as truly a law governing 
 spiritual or mental action which operates in answer to 
 prayer, resulting in a faith cure, or in a cure which is 
 the result of drinking the water of a holy well or 
 touching a cup that has been blessed either by the 
 Pope or any other ecclesiastical dignitary, as there is a 
 law which causes an unsupported body to fall to the 
 ground. * 
 
 It is today admitted in the scientific world that 
 prayers are answered ; that there is a result following 
 upon earnest faith ; but as yet jihysical science has 
 been the only science taught in the Academies, while 
 theology, instead of being a divine science, as the word 
 signifies, has been relegated to the realm of the un- 
 knowable, the mysterious, the mythological and super- 
 natural. 
 
 We believe in prayers and we know they are 
 answered; but God answers prayer as much in har- 
 mony with his divine and immutable law, as He causes 
 the grass to spring up and the fields to be covered 
 with ripened grain in obedience to an immutable law. 
 We know there is a result which follows earnest faith, 
 as much in harmony with the constitution of the uni- 
 verse and in accordance with fixed laws of being, as 
 the phenomenon of sunrise or of sunset. We know 
 those events take place. The mind has in all ages 
 asserted its sovereignty over sense, but naturally rather 
 than supernaturally. 
 
 We are now beginning as a people to see that there 
 must be a reason why for everything, that God is not 
 an occasional interferer with the regular course of 
 natural events, but is the very life, inspiration and soul 
 
26/ LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 of all law and of all universal government. True 
 spiritual or mental science (science meaning knowledge 
 upon this subject of the power of the mind over mat- 
 ter) will lead in years to come to the practical under- 
 standing, not of physics, but of metaphysics, to the 
 erection of colleges in which spiritual science will be 
 taught, and the relation of the soul to the body 
 explained, as today you are taught the relation of one 
 part of the physical organism to another in anatomi- 
 cal and physiological classes. The time is coming 
 when mental and spiritual science will be taught every- 
 where, when physical research committees will be com- 
 posed of men and women whose qualifications have 
 made them peculiarly adapted for the Psychological 
 Professor's Chair. There will be Psychological chairs 
 in all the world's universities ere long ; professors of 
 Psychology, which means the science of the soul or 
 spirit of man, will become as common in every hall of 
 learning, as a professor of chemistry is now well nigh 
 universal. 
 
 If any one imagines that this mental cure move- 
 ment, vague and chaotic though it may be as yet, is 
 going to die out as the blue glass movement did, refer- 
 ring again to Dr. Stebbins's similes, we tell them 
 there is no analogy between Blue Glass and mental 
 science, as true Mind Cure acknowledges the whole of 
 the mind of man, not merely one-third of it. If you 
 are going to advocate a light and color system of cure, 
 you certainly cannot see it perfected if you believe in 
 blue glass only ; you must have red glass and yellow 
 glass as well as blue, for one primary color is not likely 
 to do all the good which can be accomplished by the 
 three primary colors acting in concert. We may have 
 
LLCTUKE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 27 
 
 a light and color cure, such as Dr. Babbitt so learnedly 
 elucidates in his " Principles of Light and Color,*' a 
 most interesting illustrative work, but to attain it we 
 must employ all the colors when w T e apply color to 
 healing of disease. If we employ music, as some 
 French scientists have done with considerable success, 
 we should never consider we were justified in applying 
 one-third of the octave and leaving two-thirds of the 
 scale entirely out of our calculations. 
 
 The Blue Glass movement may be called a " craze," 
 because it recognized one of the primal colors and 
 ignored the other two ; and while blue no doubt has a 
 quieting effect upon the nerves, and blue, being the 
 color of the sky above you is symbolical of constancy 
 and truth, and is most eloquent in the language of 
 colors, whether it be the blue of the turquoise, which 
 has always s} x mbolized fidelity, or the blue of the for- 
 get-me-not in the floral kingdom, w T hich has always 
 been regarded as a token of constancy to one's friends, 
 blue cannot and does not meet more than one-third of 
 the necessities of human nature. Thus the " blue glass 
 cure," passed away ; it was not possible for it to act 
 alone without its comrades of the prism. 
 
 If pure white light is administered, and is allowed 
 to flow through all channels of communication with 
 the mind ; if the influence of all colors and all sounds 
 upon the human mind and nervous system is under- 
 stood — and we all know that both sounds and colors 
 have immense effect upon both men and animals, and 
 even upon the growth of plants — we have no hesi- 
 tancy in saying that a scientific system can be built 
 upon a recognition of the curative and sanative influ- 
 ences of fight, sound and color. But to take one por- 
 
28 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 tion of sound or one portion of color and say that 
 fragment will cure everything, is to be a crank and 
 ride a hobby, for every one is a crank and rides a 
 hobby who believes that what he chooses to take 
 up with will do all the work of healing, while he leaves 
 more agencies untouched and disregarded than he 
 acknowledges or advocates. 
 
 In Mind Cure as well as in physical science we must 
 learn to be m-clusive rather than ^-elusive. Bigotry 
 and narrow-mindedness will never succeed in doing 
 more than making ripples upon the surface of human 
 thought ; but those who go deeply into spiritual science 
 will find at length the philosopher's stone and the elixir 
 of life, which the Rosi crucians and other mystics in 
 Europe were so eagerly hunting for in the seventeenth 
 century. It will never be found in the mineral world, 
 nor yet in the vegetable or animal kingdom; but 
 humanity will discover it in the spiritual nature of 
 man ; they will find it cradled deep in the soul which 
 is immortal. When you are told in the first book of 
 the Pentateuch that God said unto the human beings 
 whom he had formed in his own image : " Subdue the 
 earth ; I have given every green thing and every living 
 creature into your charge," does not the author of the 
 narrative really put this sentence into the mouth of 
 the Eternal : " I have given you a body which contains 
 all there is in the three kingdoms of nature ; I have 
 given you a complex organism to control, and if you 
 can control that perfectly, you will be the acknowl- 
 edged lord and sovereign of nature in the physical 
 domain." 
 
 And so in every age it has been found that those 
 who have had power over wild beasts, who have 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 29 
 
 charmed the deadly serpent, have been those in whom 
 the lower nature was held in abject submission to the 
 higher ; but the moment a man loses control over him- ' 
 self, immediately he lets the lower passions rule, then * 
 the lion can devour him and the serpent can sting him 
 to death. There is no safety for man, no immunity in 
 the midst of danger, until he arrives at that point 
 where he is able to command and control everything 
 beneath what is divine in himself by his own divine \ 
 strength. Such is an epitome of the teaching of all 
 sages. 
 
 So we say perfect health and perfect happiness are 
 always results of spiritual culture, and that as the spirit 
 rises superior to the flesh, as the divine nature in man 
 asserts its sovereignty over the animal propensities, as 
 man says in his higher nature to the brute within him, 
 " Lie down and obey me," as he compels every mortal 
 passion to yield to the supremacy of mind, to that 
 extent and no farther will he be exempt from all danger 
 and from all suffering. 
 
 You are told in the olden days that Elijah raised 
 to life one who was apparently dead ; that when he 
 stretched himself upon the widow's son, who appeared 
 dead, and looked up earnestly to heaven, calling upon 
 the Eternal Being, the spirit came back into the body 
 of the child, and he restored the boy to his mother. 
 There is, perhaps, no adequate reason for believing 
 the boy to have been really dead ; the final link which 
 bound the spirit to the flesh may not have been snapped ; 
 the probabilities are that the boy was in a deep trance 
 and past all ordinary methods of restoration; those 
 who gathered round him, including his poor, heart- 
 broken mother, believed him to be really dead, and he 
 
30 LECTUEE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 would soon have been dead in reality if it had not been 
 for the prophet's touch and divine power. Elijah was 
 a man of like passions with humanity indeed, but one 
 who controlled those passions ; a man who could stand 
 alone on the top of Mount Carmel challenging eight 
 hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and of the Groves, 
 and compel them to behold the sovereignty of divine 
 truth in the midst of an idolatrous and licentious com- 
 pany. If he was thus able to stand alone in the inter- 
 ests of eternal truth, daunted by no superstition and no 
 danger, such a man could surely perform a wonder 
 others were unable to attempt. 
 
 When we are told of the self-denying life of Jesus, 
 of his long fasting in the wilderness, of his encountering 
 and overcoming temptations in their most subtle and 
 attractive form ; putting every carnal appetite under 
 his feet, together with all vain-glorious desires and 
 selfish ambitions, refusing to use magical power to 
 minister to sense, refusing to make a spectacle of him- 
 self by performing an ostentatious miracle, refusing to 
 make compromises with the powers of darkness and 
 thereby try to serve God with only half his heart, 
 and the world, the flesh and the devil with the other 
 half — it is no wonder to us that, having reached those 
 spiritual heights on the summit of which he declared 
 that his kingdom was not of this world, refusing all 
 solicitations to head an army and figure in the role of 
 a persona], warlike Messiah, that he not only spoke 
 about putting all lower things beneath his feet and 
 standing erect in true, spiritual manhood, but proved 
 that he had gained a complete victory over him- 
 self and thoroughly tamed his own passions by con_ 
 trolling those of others. It takes a greater than 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 31 
 
 an Alexander or a Cagsar to bid temptation and disease 
 depart, and even to raise to life again those who are 
 apparently dead. So when the disciples of Jesus, 
 unable to come up to his standard in the performance 
 of noble works, asked their Master, " Why cannot we 
 do what you have done and what you have told us we 
 also can accomplish ? " He rebukes them not only for 
 want of faith, but tells them of the necessity of prayer 
 and fasting, i.e., of continual aspiration toward heaven 
 and perpetual reining in of the lower instincts as 
 necessary prerequisites to the exercise of such highly 
 spiritual powers. 
 
 If we take notice we shall observe that all through 
 the New Testament record those who could perform 
 such wonderful works were men who would dare every- 
 thing in the interests of a righteous cause. It was no 
 light thing to be followers of the persecuted Jesus in 
 the first century; it was no fashionable and conven- 
 tional move to join one's self to a Christian society 
 then ; it rendered one liable to be persecuted on all 
 hands, to be relentlessly pursued by foes even to the 
 death; the primitive Christians would fight for their 
 religion and for their conscience at any sacrifice, and 
 by the spiritual victory which they gained over pride, 
 self-interest and worldly ambition, they developed the 
 power which made them in a special degree healers and 
 teachers of mankind. 
 
 There is no other road to equalling the wonders of 
 past ages except by treading in the pathway of self- 
 sacrifice in which the prophets, Jesus and the disciples 
 trod. 
 
 When the quetions is asked, What then are the 
 qualifications for real work in a metaphysical direc- 
 
32 LECTURE BY W, J. C0LVILLE. 
 
 tion, what are the qualifications for real healing \ wo 
 answer: You must heal yourself of pride, of selfish- 
 ness, of carnality, put all Mammon worship beneath 
 your feet, in place of the death of sin rise to a life of 
 righteousness; overcome all desire for personal ag- 
 grandizement, and cultivate a supreme wish to benefit 
 all mankind. Before you can be truly a healer in the 
 highest sense of the word, the understanding of truth 
 and the living a life in harmony with it, knowledge of 
 truth and the love of it are both necessary. The true 
 metaphysician, whose works follow him and prove the 
 divinity of the science which he professes, is one 
 who has first healed himself of all inordinate love of 
 self, for then only can he go forward and heal his 
 brethren. 
 
 The power to teach is the result of the understand- 
 ing of truth ; the power to heal is the result of the 
 fervent love of truth coupled with love to all humanity. 
 You may teach others, and yet yourself be a cast- 
 away, as Paul expresses it ; you may address the intel- 
 lect, you may expound spiritual verities and may help 
 others to understand truth, but you will never be a 
 successful healer until you are a spiritually-minded 
 person. 
 
 So long as people go into the work of healing for the 
 sole object of making money, so long as they desire 
 the gift merely as a means of livelihood, so long as 
 there are any Avho take up mental healing simply for 
 the sake of -tiding over a difficult crisis in their financial 
 career, but would willingly lay down the work as soon 
 as they have piled up money enough to live without try- 
 ing to help their fellow-creatures, there will always be 
 some Avho make metaphysical healing appear ludicrous, 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLYILLE. 66 
 
 as such persons will be noted for their failures rather 
 than for their successes. But all persons who go into 
 the work with a sincere and honest desire to bless man- 
 kind, and while they do not refuse to be compensated 
 for their time and services by people who are well able 
 to pay, would never turn a poor patient from their 
 doors because he had not the fee in his hand to pay for 
 a treatment, must succeed. A true healer never refuses 
 to give instructions gratuitously to those who are un- 
 able to pay, for true spiritual workers, while they ac- 
 knowledge that the laborer is worthy of his hire, when- 
 ever they confer blessings upon others only allow them- 
 selves to be compensated by people who can afford to 
 pay, and then only for the purpose of meeting neces- 
 sary expenses. All true workers would go on working 
 and working quite as fervently if they came into the 
 possession of immense wealth, as those who love their 
 work, however they may be circumstanced financially, 
 do it for the love of it ; willing workers, and these only, 
 are true mental healers or true spiritual scientists in this 
 or any age, in this or any country. 
 
 We hear it continually said that mental healers are 
 mercenary, that people go into the work only to make 
 dollars and cents. JSTow, while a great deal is exagger- 
 ated and a great deal is only unkind comment on the 
 part of those who are more mercenary themselves than 
 the mental healers whom they accuse, still there is no 
 question that the very large prices charged for teaching 
 and the very heavy fees exacted for treatment, and the 
 attitude w r hich many have taken toward the poor and 
 needy, has brought an immense amount of reproach, 
 some of it merited, upon what has been termed mental 
 science, mind cure or metaphysical healing ; but mental 
 
34 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 healers as a body are certainly not an especially mon- 
 ey-grubbing section of the community. 
 
 The use of the term Christian Science by Mrs. Ed- 
 dy and her followers has naturally led people to sup- 
 pose that the power to heal is a secret confided to some 
 woman who gives particular interpretations of Christ- 
 ianity — a secret, moreover, to be obtained by pay- 
 ment of three hundred dollars for an ordinary course 
 of instructions, and two hundred dollars more for a 
 supplementary course, before people can exercise genu- 
 ine healing power. Mrs. Eddy styles herself the dis- 
 coverer of metaphysical healing. She is in truth no 
 more so than is any person who has discovered meta- 
 physical healing, which is only the discovery that mind is 
 sovereign, and that the body can be made completely 
 subservient to it. Mrs. Eddy no doubt w T as cured in 
 the way she states in her book. She no doubt did find 
 that all the methods of material science were unavail- 
 ing in her case, and then a spiritual revelation came to 
 her, and Divine power healed her as she was reading 
 her Bible. She no doubt has received spiritual illum- 
 inations which have opened her understanding to see 
 the nothingness of the vain show of matter, and the ex- 
 clusive reality of spirit. But for any persons to imag- 
 ine that they must make pilgrimages to Boston and sit 
 at the feet of Mrs. Eddy in order to understand spir- 
 itual healing, is to be lamentably deluded. Any per- 
 son who imagines there is any Mecca or Jerusalem 
 upon the earth, or any one teacher who has in her 
 keeping a special secret from God which she can sell at 
 a large figure to those to whom she chooses to impart 
 it, is the victim of a pernicious form of superstition. 
 
 When you are sitting in your own private room, 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 35 
 
 waiting for the spirit, the spirit can come to your attic 
 or to your cellar as well as into Mrs. Eddy's class-room, 
 though if you feel you are not so intuitive as to be able 
 to receive the truth direct from the source of all life, 
 that your relations with the spirit world from various 
 causes are not so intimate as the relations of some 
 others, then as it is God's will that we should help 
 each other, by joining classes and sitting at the feet 
 of teachers and holding communion with those in 
 the higher life who have graduated beyond this 
 earthly school, you can obtain very great assistance 
 and help both from those who have cast off the 
 material form and those who are yet subject to 
 earthly limitations. It is an absolute fact that those 
 whose clairvoyance is undoubted, and who have given 
 the most satisfactory tests of their power, have seen 
 spiritual helpers by the side of those who were engaged 
 in a work of benevolence. Your " departed friends " 
 do assist you, whatever may be said to the contrary. 
 We do not say that all who derive assistance from their 
 spirit friends know it; but when some who do know it 
 hide a truth simply for the sake of satisfying the de- 
 mands of what they think to be the influential part of 
 society, the really influential, whether in the Christian 
 church or anywhere else, will never approve of coward- 
 ice or hypocrisy. If you believe in Spiritualism and 
 pretend you do not, there is not an honorable member 
 of any Christian church who will respect you when 
 he finds it out; but if you go before the world and 
 state your convictions and say frankly, "I believe 
 this, I feel so and so," letting the public know that you 
 have the courage of your convictions, there may be 
 people who will say, " I do not agree with the opinion 
 
36 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 of such and such persons," but all honest persons will 
 add, " I respect their honesty and admire their straight- 
 forwardness." We would far rather have our opinions 
 contested and be considered in the wrong theoretically 
 than be considered either cowardly or dishonest, as we 
 must be if we cloak honest convictions. In the present 
 state of the world's attitude toward all psychological 
 subjects, to draw a veil of mystery over any work in 
 which you may engage, to hold back facts with which 
 you may be acquainted, may answer very well for those 
 who seek only to sway the uneducated, but it will 
 never take with enlightened people who have as much 
 intellect as yourselves and as much power to under- 
 stand and appreciate spiritual truths as you have. 
 
 Wherever metaphysicians endeavor to hold them- 
 selves aloof from others, organizing themselves into 
 sects, and try to make out that all the power they have 
 is locked up in some little narrow combination, they 
 will find that truth will be like the wind, to which 
 Jesus likened the Holy Spirit, when he said, the wind 
 bloweth wherever it listeth, and you cannot tell whence 
 it cometh or whither it goeth, so is every one who is 
 born of the Spirit. 
 
 We do not use the term Christian Science ourselves. 
 Why? Because there are many of our Jewish friends 
 who have not the slightest intention of giving up the 
 grand old religion of Israel, who are today performing 
 cures metaphysically, and doing fully as much good as 
 anybody who has taken a course in Christian Science 
 either from Mrs. Eddy or any one else. Many of our 
 friends, who have been in our meetings regularly, are 
 Jews, and intend to remain so, and these have found 
 nothing whatever in metaphysics which has shaken 
 
LECTURE BY VV. J. COLVILLE. 37 
 
 their faith in the religion of Israel. There are also 
 many who are members of Christian churches, and who 
 intend to keep up all their church associations, who 
 have found nothing whatever in metaphysics out of 
 harmony with the teachings of Jesus and his apostles. 
 If we use such expressions as spiritual science, spiritual 
 knowledge, mental science, mental knowledge, we shall 
 express the true idea, viz., that the unfoldment of 
 spiritual and mental powers, not the learning of a form, 
 not the ability to repeat off in a parrot-like manner a 
 number of formulas, constitutes ability to heal, which 
 is a result of one's spiritual and mental culture, allying 
 one with the higher powers of the spiritual universe. 
 We need to know that the true metaphysician is one 
 whose own mind, whose own spiritual and intellectual 
 nature is in the ascendant, for we have power to help 
 others into the higher chambers of being only when we 
 ourselves have risen. Spiritual and mental science 
 means nothing more than spiritual and mental culture. 
 People calling themselves Christian Scientists, declaring 
 that it is almost a sacrilegious act, almost idolatrous, 
 to advocate even fresh air and proper attention to 
 dietary laws, are simply absurd. Jesus said to sev- 
 eral whom he healed, " Go wash and be clean ; " and 
 while the spiritual significance of those words is 
 undoubtedly far deeper than the letter, and referred 
 to the washing of all impurity from the mind, not 
 merely to taking a bath, yet we all know the cleanli- 
 ness enjoyed by the Mosaic law contributed very 
 largely to the health of the Israelites, in the midst 
 of nations suffering from dreadful diseases, and such 
 is always the case where sanitary laws are observed. 
 But we must always remember that results on the 
 
38 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 external plane are the natural outcome of our mental 
 and spiritual state ; that as we become more and more 
 allied to spiritual realities, more and more mental, 
 moral conquerors over sense, we become more and 
 more scrupulous in all that appertains to health, even 
 on the material plane. Instead of the body being ne- 
 glected, and mental science meaning that you should 
 ignore the body and all demands of the body, what is 
 meant by pure metaphysics is that mind should be 
 assigned its rightful place over sense ; mind must be 
 supreme and matter its servant ; the body is the instru- 
 ment of the soul, but the soul must be the exclusive 
 performer upon the instrument. 
 
 We have nothing to say in reply to Dr. Stebbins' 
 lecture, only that to our way of thinking he did not 
 go far enough into the science and philosophy of the 
 subject ; he does not appear to have thoroughly 
 grasped the great spiritual principle which underlies 
 Mind Cure, and we do not wonder if he and many 
 others have not, for it is very rarely that mental heal- 
 ing is so presented to the world that it can gain ac- 
 ceptance at the hands of the thousands who have been 
 educated in the prevailing materialistic (even though 
 religious) modes of thought. 
 
 When the New Testament is interpreted in har- 
 mony with reason and the higher intuitions of man we 
 shall regard perfect health as the reward of perfect 
 purity; and when we thoroughly understand meta- 
 physical healing we shall know that we must pay close 
 attention to our every thought, and that only by moral 
 purity can we advance to the perfection of external 
 blessedness ; we shall know that we must cure the 
 mind of jealousy, pride and carnality, finding an outlet 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 39 
 
 for error and an inlet for truth. To get people into 
 such a way of thinking and acting that they think 
 more of the welfare of their fellow -beings than they do 
 of their own private interests, will be to bring nearer 
 the glorious time when health, happiness and virtue 
 will be forever united upon the eartht 
 
 True metaphysical science is the basis of all reform. 
 The true metaphysician is found in the Kindergarten 
 and in the Moral Educational Society ; the true meta- 
 physician is found attending to the culture of good 
 habits in those whom he treats and educates ; but 
 instead of whitewashing the sepulchre or making clean 
 the outside of the cup and platter, patching up the 
 body while the mind is yet in error and the morals are 
 yet debased, the true mental healer affirms the spiritual 
 to be the realm of causation, the realm whence all 
 words and actions spring: " as man thinketh, so he is." 
 As long as we entertain pride, vain-gloriousness, 
 selfishness and sensualit}^, so long shall we be the vic- 
 tims of suffering and death ; but so soon as we think 
 only of righteous and humane thoughts, and get our- 
 selves into true and loving relation with God, the 
 Infinite Being, shall we rise superior to all lower 
 things, ride safety over the tempestuous billows of the 
 outer world into those calm havens of perpetual peace 
 and rest, where beatified spirits, their earthly pil- 
 grimage safely ended, work in the enjoyment of a rest 
 that is forever active, in a state of being where there is 
 no fatigue, no sickness, no decay and no death, through- 
 out the boundless ages of eternity. 
 
LECTUEE II. 
 
 WHAT IS METAPHYSICS, AND WHAT IS MEANT BY METAPHYSI- 
 CAL HEALING? 
 
 THE public is frequently told by professors of meta- 
 physical healing that it is necessary for. students 
 to join private classes for instruction in the science; 
 and to the end of supplying such instruction many 
 teachers are constantly forming classes, admission to 
 which can be obtained usually on payment of a fee 
 ranging from a few to a few hundred dollars. Mrs. 
 Eddy, the well-known leader of the Christian Science 
 Movement, president of the Metaphysical College in 
 this city and pastor of a religious society, claims to 
 have discovered metaphysical healing, and consequent- 
 ly many persons suppose it necessary to go to her or 
 one of her certificated students to obtain the •needful 
 instruction in the event of their desiring to become con- 
 versant with the theory and practice of the science. 
 In Science and Health, a large volume written by Mrs. 
 Eddy, and in the Journal of Christian Science, a 
 monthly magazine enjoying a considerable circulation, 
 the ground is taken that this particular lady is the 
 originator of the metaphysical movement in this 
 country, and the almost, if not altogether infallible ex- 
 ponent of metaphysical science. This position is, of 
 course, fiercely antagonized by many who claim to pos- 
 sess fullv as much power as Mrs. Eddy or any of her 
 
 40 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 41 
 
 students in the direction indicated, and who have not 
 taken a lesson of her or any of her students, or read a 
 line in her book, or seen a copy of the official organ of 
 the college over which she presides. As we are con- 
 tinually besieged with questions as to our position with 
 regard to Christian Science, not being ready to adopt 
 the title Christian Scientists ourselves, we deem it ad- 
 visable in this preliminary or introductory lecture to 
 give once for all our plain, unvarnished views and state 
 clearly our position in this matter. Your present 
 speaker, in common with many another naturally sen- 
 sitive and impressible individual, has from earliest 
 childhood been the subject of intuitive guidance, and 
 when at the tender age of five years he became con- 
 scious of realities not discernible by external sense, a 
 revelation came to him instinctively that ailments of 
 every kind were aggravated by dwelling upon them, 
 and were in most instances speedily overcome by for- 
 getting their existence, and directing thought else- 
 where. At that early age, then, a child grasped the 
 first principle of metaphysical healing, and that with- 
 out books, teachers, or the slightest assistance from the 
 conversation or opinions of the persons with whom he 
 lived, all of whom were destitute of any such percep- 
 tions or beliefs. Mrs. Eddy says a light broke in upon 
 her mind after a very severe illness, while she was yet 
 almost at death's door, and that the New Testament 
 narrative was the source whence her mind received its 
 first bent in the direction of Christian Science. This 
 we can readily believe, and can also easily understand 
 how peculiarly susceptible a religiously disposed mind 
 is to receive as literally true the New Testament anec- 
 dotes at a time when ordinary physical means have 
 
42 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 been tried and found utterly wanting in a time of 
 direst need. So far we go heart and soul with Mrs. 
 Eddy; but our proposition is to dilate upon the univer- 
 sality of experiences and powers similar to hers. We 
 propose therefore to take a leaf from her bound book 
 of counsels and acknowledge principle rather than 
 person in all that appertains to true spiritual science. 
 Mrs. Eddy is one out of many who have been blessed 
 with remarkable spiritual experiences, but it is not to 
 her or to any other individual who now lives on earth or 
 who ever has dwelt on this planet that we must turn 
 for infallible light and guidance. Men and wo- 
 men are but windows, through which the light 
 of immortal spirit shines, and the less restrictive 
 our opinions are concerning that part played by single 
 individuals in the accomplishment of human happiness 
 and welfare the nearer we grow to spiritual truth and 
 mental liberty. Having said thus much on the score 
 of the source from which metaphysical science is de- 
 rived, let us now proceed to give our reasons for pub- 
 lishing this present series of discourses. We have 
 already alluded to the prevalent statement of teachers 
 that they must organize private classes for instruction. 
 We will add that we do so ourselves, and for the fol- 
 lowing reasons. 
 
 On the public platform and through the agency of 
 the printing press we can give a fair general outline of 
 what we teach in private; but the special advantage of 
 private classes is that they afford opportunities for 
 elaborate discussion of the views advanced by means 
 of questions and answers. These cannot be embodied 
 satisfactorily in a printed address, because no two 
 minds need exactly the same explanations, and there- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 43 
 
 fore in the classes no two persons ask precisely the 
 same questions. The subject is infinite, and touches 
 upon every conceivable topic of interest to mankind ; 
 and were the readers of these pages present in a private 
 class composed of smart, intelligent, inquiring minds, 
 they could not fail to be impressed with the great ad- 
 vantages to be gained in the class-room, almost unpro- 
 curable outside of its precincts : for the class instructs 
 itself ; one member enlightens another, and there can 
 be no true class unless it be made up of men and 
 women, yea, and children also (for children are the 
 aptest scholars), who come together not simply to 
 listen to a lecture, but for mutual edification. The 
 lecture-hall and the class-room are not rivals, and one 
 can never do the work of the other. The lecture-hall 
 is for the multitude, the class-room for the few, i.e., for 
 the few at a given time, though for all at some time ; 
 as the science of being, ontology, as it is sometimes 
 termed, is a science for all mankind, it is a gospel, good 
 news for all people. The term Metaphysics is very 
 old, and has been much used by scholars to define a 
 system of reasoning prevalent among the ablest Ger- 
 man thinkers, and powerfully proclaimed by the re- 
 nowned Bishop Berkeley, an Englishman in the last 
 century. 
 
 Though much mystery has been attached to the 
 word by controversialists, it is itself a very simple and 
 innocent expression, literally signifying mind over mat- 
 ter ; and just here now that we have arrived at a lucid 
 definition of the word, let us proceed to our task of 
 further explanation by considering frankly and fairly 
 the relative positions of the two great schools of think- 
 ers into which the world which realty thinks at all is 
 
44 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 divided. There are really only two prominent and 
 distinctive schools of philosophy extant, the metaphysi- 
 cal and the physical, the materialistic and the spiritual- 
 istic. The metaphysical school properly includes all 
 who believe spirit to be the dominant force in the uni- 
 verse, all who believe in the sovereignty of mind and 
 the subserviency of matter ; thus all consistent Theists 
 are metaphysicians, in that they attribute all material 
 effects to spiritual causes. Swedenborg states the 
 metaphysical position tersely and accurately when he 
 declares that the world of spirit is the realm of causa- 
 tion and the material world the region of effects. The 
 great question of the day among students is whether 
 does matter evolve or generate spirit, or mind beget 
 matter. There may be many great and almost insupera- 
 ble difficulties attendant upon such an inquiry ; we do 
 not propose in this address to bewilder our hearers or 
 readers with an incomprehensible succession of argu- 
 ments and counter arguments on this knotty point ; we 
 will content ourselves with calling your attention to a 
 few prominent facts which throw light upon the in- 
 quiry and tend to simplify the elucidation of the vexed 
 problem. Let us begin with the old adage or axiom, 
 " Out of nothing, nothing comes." We do not wonder 
 at the contempt and ridicule poured upon certain as- 
 sumptions of narrow-minded theologians by modern 
 skeptics, for theology has been so debased in many 
 quarters as to give utterance to the absurd statement 
 that the world and all that is in it was made of nothing. 
 To say the world was created by God is not ridiculous, 
 for by God is meant Infinite Spirit, Eternal Mind, 
 Supreme Intelligence ; but to say God made 
 it out of nothing is- to speak so foolishly as 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 45 
 
 to bring Theism into ridicule and contempt. Were 
 theologians consistently to affirm that God made 
 all worlds out of his own idea, and thus return to the 
 wisdom religion of antiquity from which the doctrine 
 of emanation sprang, theological utterances would be 
 intelligent and credible, and happily a move is now 
 being made in that direction, especially by the liberal 
 clergy of all denominations. The homogeneity of the 
 substance of the universe is a doctrine very generally 
 proclaimed by science ; the atomic theory, now put 
 forward with much vigor by some of the most brilliant 
 intellects on the planet, leads to the conclusion that 
 there must be a condition of being absolutely homo- 
 geneous ; all heterogeneity is therefore simply phenom- 
 enal and transitory, while the true essential substance 
 of being is self-existent, eternal, immutable. The 
 theory of atoms is very well so far as it goes and may 
 commend itself forcibly to the intellect ; but we beg of 
 you to ponder well this startling truth in connection 
 with it, viz., that the existence of atoms is purely hy- 
 pothetical and conjectural; they are reached only 
 through mental processes of inference and deduction ; 
 as they make no appeal to any one of man's five bodily 
 senses, no believer in their existence ever professing to 
 have encountered one in any of his physical researches, 
 they are mentally apprehended, certainly not physi- 
 cally comprehended ; they have no relation to sight, 
 hearing, touch, taste or smell ; they exist therefore in 
 the minds of professors, and so far as the schools have 
 any knowledge — nowhere else. 
 
 This consideration leads us to make the following 
 declaration as a basis for our metaphysical temple: 
 Atoms are known only to mind ; therefore they are 
 
46 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 mind and in mind, and being mind they have become 
 known to mind, mind taking cognizance of mental en- 
 tities which the physical senses fail to perceive. Let 
 us see where this proposition lands us. Atoms are 
 conscious, intelligent ; they think, feel, love ; they are, 
 in a word spiritual ideas, living, moving thoughts ; and 
 being such, when their motions are witnessed through 
 their subordinates the oft-mentioned molecules, they 
 display powers of choice, preference, selection, etc. Let 
 the proposition be once admitted that behind the mov- 
 ing, shifting scenes of matter mind is operative, ac- 
 knowledge mind as primal and causal, and you will no 
 longer be bewildered as you watch the evident intelli : 
 gence and sagacity displayed by the individual monads 
 as they evince selective appreciation and in their mar- 
 velous movements show attractions and antipathies 
 similar to the emotions which sway humanity. 
 
 Let us try to think of God as the Eternal Infinite, 
 the grand and glorious sum of all life and intelligence, 
 the infinite ocean of uncreated Being in which we live 
 and move and have our being. A personal or anthro- 
 pomorphic idea of Deity is foreign to metaphysics and 
 also foreign to pure Theism, unless the personal idea 
 have reference to the microcosm ic revelation to the 
 human mind of the macrocosmic infinitude of Being. 
 
 We, as individual souls, live in the Infinite Soul; 
 we are within the embrace of infinitude. God's life 
 embraces, encircles us ; it is the only life there is, and 
 our life is included in the infinite whole. We are then 
 in the Eternal, and can never get outside the Infinite ; 
 there is no time outside of eternity; there is no space 
 outside of universal substance. Infinite substance, in- 
 finite being, not infinite space, is the metaphysical 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 47 
 
 idea; for what is space but the imaginary distance be- 
 tween two points, two objects or two ideas? The idea 
 of space is itself a conception born of impotence and 
 ignorance ; for there is no space, there is neither void 
 nor vacuum, anywhere. Spirit is omnipresent, and 
 where the senses fail to discern anything, and the 
 human intellect fails to realize anything, the nothing- 
 ness supposed to exist in the universe is the meas- 
 ure and limit of man's mortal and finite thought of 
 being. 
 
 How ridiculous it is when we think of it to try and 
 conceive of empty space, unoccupied distance. How far 
 more rational to dwell upon the omnipresence of spir- 
 itual reality. You will doubtless have observed ere this 
 that in speaking of Deity and the soul we have used the 
 word "being," but not "existence;" the two words to 
 us convey totally different meanings: to be is greater 
 than to exist ; that which is, is greater than what exists, 
 for to exist is to stand out apart, away from something 
 else. Being is spiritual, existence is eternal; being can 
 never be destroyed or lessened, existences come and go ; 
 they are here today and gone tomorrow; therefore 
 there is a subtle means of reconciling creation out of 
 nothing with metaphysical truth, but in order to do so 
 } r ou must make two words out of one, and nothing 
 must stand no thing. Things may be brought into 
 existence out of what is superior to all things, if by 
 things you mean objective existences palpable to ex- 
 ternal sense. A thing is generally considered neuter; 
 chairs and tables are things, but it would be an insult 
 to call a human being a thing, as a human being is in- 
 finitely superior to a thing, and it is always an insult 
 to compare an individual to what is inferior to him or 
 
48 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 herself; using the word "thing" then for an inani- 
 mate, outward, perishable object, a something modeled 
 from mind, but only mind's expression on the lowest 
 plane of its operations ; things are produced out of no 
 things but out of a power, force, energy, impulse, will, 
 which can create and destroy things by remodeling as 
 it pleases the something which for want of a better 
 term is commonly called the force of nature. That 
 something is self -existent is an axiom ; the puerile in- 
 quiry, if God made everything, who made God, is un- 
 answerable ; for the word " God,'- meaning Infinite 
 Goodness, the Good One, stands in the English lan- 
 guage for eternal and self -existent Spirit. Power is 
 Eternal and Infinite, and Power in its last analysis is 
 Deity. 
 
 Now let us proceed to a definition of the individual 
 human spirit. Every human soul is a manifestation 
 of Deity, a living thought of God, a divine idea ; the 
 divine soul or essential ego called by Oriental mystics 
 the atma, is the divine of man, the immortal entity 
 which never changes, and can never lose its individu- 
 ality. This divine spark of the infinite fire of 
 life is all there is of man in the image of God. 
 The divine soul is the center round which all else 
 revolves, and thus we are justified in speaking of the 
 absolute deathlessness or immortality of the soul only 
 as we regard each separate spiritual unit or essential 
 atom of life distinct from its external relations and 
 environments. Immortal mind is the consciousness of 
 the soul, its understanding of itself and of its relation 
 to eternity. Mortal mind is an anachronism, as all 
 mind is immortal ; it is, however, employed by some 
 as a convenient figure of speech ; to be more definite 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 49 
 
 and explanatory it is necessary to use an ampler 
 phrase, such as mortal state or condition of mind. 
 
 You often speak of changing your mind, and by so 
 doing you only change your opinion of your method of 
 thought. This is changeable and changes constantly, 
 while the mind or seat of thought lives forever. In 
 the use of language we cannot be too careful, as care- 
 less speaking creates more ill-feeling and entanglement 
 than all besides ; but a difficulty unfortunately, and we 
 may add improperly, inheres in words themselves, 
 scarcely two lexicographers agreeing perfectly as to 
 their exact meaning, and all dictionary-makers giving 
 several often diverse interpretations of the same word. 
 From this source alone innumerable misunderstandings 
 have arisen among professed metaphysicians as well as 
 with the outside public; almost all metaphysical treat- 
 ises need to be supplemented by a glossary, and as 
 glossaries differ, obscurity to the mind of the general 
 reader is almost inevitable. 
 
 In this series of lectures we shall endeavor as far as 
 possible to simplify and popularize metaphysical termi- 
 nology, not so much by the almost futile attempt 
 made by some to exclude all unusual and difficult words 
 as by an endeavor to trace their derivations and ex- 
 plain them, so as to make them familiar and self-evi- 
 dently expressive throughout this course of instruction 
 at least; whether others will be ready to adopt our 
 interpretations or not remains to be seen. Our princi- 
 pal object is to make our own utterances plain 
 enough to give those hearers and readers who may 
 have hitherto been unfamiliar to a lar°;e degree 
 with metaphysical phraseology a practical introduc- 
 tion to the many words constantly in use, and 
 
50 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 yet vaguely misunderstood by a large percentage of 
 students of metaphysics. Let us say once and finally 
 we are no one's followers. We commit ourselves to 
 indorse no one's theories, and we do not even pause to 
 inquire whether we agree with Mrs. Eddy, Dr. Evans, 
 or any other accepted authority on matters meta- 
 physical. We are uncompromising advocates of free 
 speech and a free press, an<l pity the wretched syco- 
 phancy, we might almost say idolatry, of those who 
 make worshipful heroes, almost divinities, of certain 
 men and women whose conspicuous position before the 
 public, while it naturally and justly brings them celeb- 
 rity, is no guarantee whatever that they are in any 
 special manner divinely illuminated or inspired. The 
 first step to be taken by all students of spiritual or 
 mental science is to achieve mental or spiritual inde- 
 pendence. Thus the oft-repeated cry of metaphysic- 
 ians, "Let go of all earthly props and lean only on 
 God," is never too loudly shouted. The question, of 
 course, naturally arises, how can we lean on God? 
 The first commandment of the decalogue, Thou shaft 
 have no God beside the Eternal One, is susceptible of 
 a variety of interpretations. Consequently, while the 
 mass of Christians as well as Jews the world over are 
 willing to join in the fervent ejaculation of Israel scat- 
 tered all over the earth, "Hear, O Israel! the Lord 
 our God is one Lord!" and, while they are willing to 
 unite further in the sublime words of the Old and 
 New Testaments, "And thou shalt love the Lord with 
 all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, 
 and with all thy strength," the question of the manner 
 in which divine revelations reach mankind is always a 
 matter of dispute. 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 51 
 
 Conservatism alleges that God miraculously, super- 
 naturally, revealed himself to patriarchs and prophets 
 who lived several thousand years ago; and Chris- 
 tianit} 7 sums up all ancient revelations by affirming 
 that in the historical Jesus of nearly two thousand 
 years ago divine revelation was finally completed. 
 Liberal thought, on the other hand, is never tired of 
 affirming that God's revelation is incessant, uninter- 
 mittent, that God speaks as well as spoke, writes as 
 well as wrote, and reveals as well as revealed his will 
 to mankind. The translation of the idea of revelation 
 out of the past into the present tense is the great 
 triumph of true liberalism over conservatism. This 
 liberal view of revelation is the corner-stone of meta- 
 physical healing, as the true metaphysician depends 
 solely upon divine, omnipresent help in all times of 
 trouble, and relies exclusively upon divine strength, 
 not as doled out professedly by narrow and- exclusive 
 schools of theology and medicine, but as imparted by 
 way of celestial influx lighting up the entire nature of 
 man and teaching him to consider himself as in daily 
 and hourly communion with the Infinite Parent of all 
 spirits. This idea does not, as some suppose, and that 
 most erroneously, do away with the intervention of 
 kindly human beings ; it does not separate us one from 
 the other as regards our existence on earth or in any 
 other part of the universe, but it teaches us to bow 
 before the shrine of truth only, and it makes individual 
 conviction of right the standard for each human being. 
 It recognizes no infallible or semi-infallible book, 
 church, creed, or man ; the essential ego, the at ma 
 within, is the final court of appeal: so every man 
 becomes his own king and priest, as the chart whereby 
 
52 LECTURE BY W. J. OOLVILLE. 
 
 he must steer his vessel safely into the port of endless 
 felicity is not an ancient parchment scroll, neither is it 
 the fleshly tablet of the heart ; it is the spiritual table 
 of stone, or rock of ages, the divine nature in man, 
 which lies at the very root of man's being and will 
 forever constitute him a self-reliant entity and yet a 
 continual pensioner on the divine bounty ; as Sweden- 
 borg says, "All life is an influx from the Divine 
 Mind." In that sense all are dependents and recipi- 
 ents, and none of us have anything which we have not 
 received, though in another sense we are self-depend- 
 ent, as we do not need that any finite being should 
 stand between us and the Infinite Fountain of all life. 
 Metaphysical healing, which is healing by the power 
 of mind over matter, acknowledges the Infinite Mind 
 as not only very near to but positively the essential 
 life of every finite intelligence, and it is to arouse that 
 thought and feeling within the human mind, to enable 
 it to lay hold of this great truth, that constitutes the 
 true art of healing. 
 
 No one can have read the New Testament narra- 
 tives without being forcibly struck with the constant 
 allusions therein to a power resident in the patients 
 themselves, called faith. This faith must have been 
 vastly more than simple belief in a man or a doctrine, 
 or it could never have been the instrument whereby 
 they were made whole. Faith literally means fidelity ; 
 its Latin equivalent is fides, from w r hich the English 
 word fidelity springs ; now fidelity or faithfulness 
 means honor displayed in conduct, or honorable 
 motive. Acting with an honorable motive is neces- 
 sary to faithful work. Now, if faith makes whole, 
 faitli must be equivalent to spiritual health, wholeness 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 53 
 
 or soundness ; faith has no fraternity with hypocrisy 
 or simulation. Faith is honor, integrity, pure and 
 simple. It shrinks not from persecution or opposition ; 
 though it does not hazardously court oppression, it has 
 no fear of man-made law ; it scorns Mrs. Grundy, and 
 is ready to take its stand on the simple rock of convic- 
 tion, smiling at the angry breakers as they dash in 
 blind fury and impotent rage against the solid terra 
 firma on which the spirit conscious of rectitude takes 
 its stand. This is, in brief, saving faith ; it is loyalty, 
 and loyalty must ever be assigned the highest place in 
 morals. 
 
 We have no intention whatever in this course of 
 lectures of indulging in historical controversy on the 
 New Testament ; that is not our aim and object, but as 
 this book will doubtless fall into the hands of a large 
 number who have been brought up in the Christian 
 faith, and who still revere the New Testament as a 
 heaven-inspired volume, we will leave it to theologians 
 and historians to settle the external points of contro- 
 versy always raging and address ourselves to the 
 spiritual teaching beneath the cover of the letter. 
 Divine laws and methods never change. It is a matter 
 of utter indifference to us whether names, dates and 
 localities can be depended upon or not. We have a 
 record in existence highly prized by millions of civilized 
 men and women, which is literally crowded with cases 
 of the marvelous restoration to health by unusual 
 means, means not endorsed by the conservative medi- 
 cal colleges, at least, when every device of medicine 
 was useless, and had been abandoned in despair, and 
 what lends added emphasis to the New Testament 
 story is that it is not altogether unique. Other his- 
 
54 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 tories perhaps more venerable still are replete with 
 similar narratives. Egyptian aud Hindoo priests in 
 the long, long ago healed men and women in ways so 
 similar to the methods of Jesus and his disciples that 
 one may be easily pardoned for thinking that possibly 
 the Christian scriptures were in large measure tran- 
 scripts of older Bibles. Be this as it may, the greater 
 the antiquity and the more numerous the instances of 
 such kinds of healing, the more testimony in its favor. 
 If spiritual healing were something new, born in this 
 century of novelties and sensations, it might be a craze, 
 a nine days' wonder, a bubble on the surface of thought, 
 here today and gone tomorrow ; but as it has stood the 
 test of thousands of years, and constituted the great 
 secret of Oriental theosophy long before A. D. 1, there 
 can be no chance of its exploding now ; it has lived too 
 long and conquered too many obstacles to be silenced 
 by persecution or ridicule, but like the hardy forest 
 oak of centuries' growth, it grows hardier with every 
 storm, and promises ere long to become the supreme, 
 masterful giant among the trees, in comparison with 
 which all other forest growths will fade into impressive 
 insignificance. Idiosyncrasies like parasites will come 
 and go; for a time they may so cover the stately 
 trunk of the tree round which they wind their poison- 
 ous arms thajt they are by superficial observers mis- 
 taken for the tree itself ; but one by one they perish 
 and are looped away, while the tree whose life they 
 threatened, being a tree of life immortal, shows its 
 vigor in no way so powerfully as by its repeated vic- 
 tories over what may be termed the enemies in its own 
 household. 
 
 Metaphysical healing, or more explicitly, healing by 
 
LECTUKE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 00 
 
 spiritual power is the only absolute method of healing. 
 Spiritual science like mathematics is absolutely exact, 
 while all beneath it is valuable just in so far as it is 
 related to it and no further. 
 
 We do not, in our teachings, deny that cures are 
 performed apparently by outward remedies. We do 
 not deny that many reputed cures through the agency 
 of faith and prayer are unreal, and are followed quick- 
 ly by relapses ; we shall not strive to evade an issue or 
 shirk a difficulty arising from such, to many most un- 
 welcome facts ; we shall, however, make a sincere and 
 earnest effort to help all who study with us to meet 
 these difficulties bravely, until at length we hope they 
 completely overcome them. All we can do either in 
 lectures or classes and all healers can do in their prac- 
 tice is to help all whom we and the} T come in contact 
 with to rise to such heights of spiritual attainment 
 that, like climbers to the summit of some lofty moun- 
 tain they find themselves above the tempest, while the 
 dwellers in the valleys are drenched with rain and 
 alarmed with sonorous peals of thunder and flashes of 
 blinding lightning. Those who have made the steep 
 and toilsome ascent of a o-reat elevation, standing at its 
 top can look up only to clear blue skies and shining 
 sunbeams, beneath their feet the clouds and tempests 
 hold their carnival. In brief, metaphysical studies are 
 intended to help you all to ascend the mountain of 
 health, on the summit of which you are free from, be- 
 cause above the reach of, drenching rains, furious 
 storms and sombre clouds which hide all heavenly 
 landscapes. 
 
 To qualify one's self for healing others needs that 
 all the work of self-healing through spiritual growth 
 
56 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 be accomplished first, and before you can yourselves be 
 free from disease and suffering you must be free from 
 that dwelling-in-the- valley condition of mind which, in 
 spite of all the boasted culture of these closing years of 
 the nineteenth century, is unhappily the average state 
 of the average member of polite society. Let no one 
 imagine there is a royal road to health other than the 
 king's highway of constant and soulful effort to attain 
 what lies before and on high ; none can dispense with 
 the initiatory work of spiritual culture, which is not 
 always easy at first, but is on the contrary like the lit- 
 tle book said in an ancient allegory to have been eaten 
 by a prophet, bitter to the taste, difficult to swallow, 
 but sweet as honey when once it had passed the ali- 
 mentary canal. To correct a vulgar misapprehension 
 in the minds of many, it is a duty we owe ourselves as 
 well as the public, to say that simple denial of the ex- 
 istence of disease will never effect radical cure in diffi- 
 cult cases, however much it may charm away the minor 
 hysterical difficulties of hyper-sensitive people. The 
 utter disregard of all so-called laws of health advocated 
 by extremists is to a large extent a fallacy based upon 
 sciolistic assumption, and certainly not upon a spiritual 
 understanding of the true science of being. " Say it's 
 not there, and it's not there," is not a formula which 
 will be found to answer in serious cases of derange- 
 ment ; magic may be very attractive to the marvel-lov- 
 ing and the superstitious, and it is impossible to affix 
 limits to the power of human imagination ; but stum- 
 bling along in the dark of nescience is not walking in 
 the light of science, and if we are to teach a science 
 and expound a philosophy we are surely called upon to 
 insist that a race must be run and a battle fought by 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 57 
 
 every separate student before a prize is secured or a 
 crown is won. To indicate the line of march to be fol- 
 lowed by every soldier in the regiment is the work of 
 the teacher, and to struggle to discipline every passion, 
 appetite and desire so that every inclination which 
 wars against the soul may be curbed and reined in, is 
 the work of every student. Let us then accept this 
 great twofold truth at the outset of our studies. " My 
 Father worketh hitherto, and I work." The Father 
 cooperates with the child ; the human mind must do 
 its part, the human will learn its lesson and throw its 
 influence on the side of truth, and then in rightful rela- 
 tions between the Creator and the creature we can dis- 
 cern the advent of a glorious state in which sickness 
 will be unknown, and error and ignorance be dead, 
 crushed by the all-victorious heel of the sun-clothed 
 woman, or the affections illumined with divine wisdom. 
 No more beautiful hymn was ever written than the one 
 by Bowring, found in almost every collection, every 
 verse of which ends with the glorious sentence, " God 
 is wisdom, God is love." Here we have the sphere of 
 truth, not a single hemisphere. "We must be wise as 
 well as loving, intelligent as well as sympathetic, 
 rational as well as emotional, before we can scale the 
 pyramid and reach the apex of successful humanitarian 
 endeavor. 
 
LECTUKE III. 
 
 WHAT IS DISEASE, AND HOW DOES SPIRITUAL SCIENCE 
 PROPOSE TO OVERCOME IT? 
 
 IN our last lecture we hope we denned with sufficient 
 clearness our reasons for adopting the phrase 
 " Spiritual Science." It appears to us the most lucid 
 and comprehensive title or name we can possibly apply 
 to the system we are trying to expound. Remember, 
 we lay no claim to invention, discovery, or originality ; 
 exposition and explanation constitute our only forte. 
 Mrs. Eddy and her followers use the term " Christian 
 Science," and call themselves Christian Scientists. 
 For several reasons we refuse to accept that label ; 
 because of its exclusiveness, and by reason of its dis- 
 tastefulness to many minds, we consider it should be 
 surpassed by those who do not claim to be Christian in 
 the narrower sense of the term, which is after all, an 
 ecclesiastical and to some extent a sectarian one. The 
 words "Christ," u Christian, and "Christianity" are 
 not pleasant to the ears of our Jewish friends, neither 
 are they at all acceptable to a large number of Spir- 
 itualists, Theists, and Free Eeligionists, all of whom 
 can study and practice mental and spiritual science. 
 That the power to heal does not belong exclusively to 
 a set of persons belonging to an exclusive sect or 
 party is self-evident, and no publication of recent times 
 has done more to enforce this fact than an article in 
 
 58 
 
LECTUKE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 59 
 
 the Century Magazine, June, 1886, in which an em- 
 inently Christian man, a Christian apologist and parti- 
 san, we may say, points with unexpected candor and 
 liberality to the equal benefits flowing from the prac- 
 tice of persons of widely different schools of thought 
 and phases of religious belief. Roman Catholics and 
 Protestants, Faith and Prayer Healers, Spiritualists 
 and Buddhists, all point to the miraculous cures effected 
 by them in accordance with their own peculiar and 
 distinctive methods of operation ; and it cannot be 
 denied that Allopathy, Homoeopathy, Hydropathy, 
 Magnetism, Electricity and Eclecticism, besides an 
 immense number of minor s} r stems, can all point to 
 their laurels and bring forward marvelous cases of 
 cures performed to substantiate their claim that their 
 particular system or mode of treatment is the only 
 really efficacious one. Not only miracles, but miracles 
 of healing, i.e., wonderful or astonishing, and therefore 
 truly marvelous cases, are continually brought before 
 us. Statuvolence and vitapathy are numbering up 
 their jewels and sending out accounts of the wonders 
 performed through some mysterious agent hard to 
 define, but evidently potential and curative in its influ- 
 ence, while Light and Color cure is so much the rage 
 in some quarters that the disciples of the sun's rays 
 refracted through the prism and admitted to rooms 
 and baths through various colored panes of glass 
 triumphantly point to the refulgent orb of day, and 
 declare that when any are sick among them they have 
 only to call upon old King Sol to restore them to 
 health. 
 
 The tendency of the present day is toward eclecticism 
 in everything ; but unfortunately the so-called eclectic is 
 
60* LECTUUE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 as much creed-bound very often as the most rigid allo- 
 path. His creed itself is perhaps a more liberal one, but 
 he is often a rigid dogmatist nevertheless. True eclec- 
 ticism in spirit rather than in name never denies the 
 good accomplished by any person or any system ; and 
 when a metaphysician is intelligently and inclusively 
 eclectic in his theory he never refuses to accept grate- 
 fully the blessings conferred by those who do not sail 
 under the metaphysical flag or avowedly practice in 
 harmony with metaphysical formulas. Disease, as the 
 word itself implies, is the want of ease, the opposite of 
 ease. Health is harmony, disease is discord ; and while 
 an old- school doctor may attribute illness to a mince- 
 pie, while a mental healer will argue that functional 
 derangements have their rise in disturbances of the 
 mind, diverse though their opinions and methods may 
 be, both may succeed, or possibly in some instances the 
 disciple of Esculapius may succeed where the mental 
 healer does not, in removing at least the symptoms of 
 the malady. That medicine is not an exact bat only 
 an experimental science is everywhere conceded, and 
 the simplest common sense is surely enough to con- 
 vince a most ordinary thinker that to experiment with 
 poisonous drugs and dangerous minerals is a pretty 
 risky affair. We advocate a system which employs 
 nothing deadly and permits the use of nothing at vari- 
 ance with man's highest ideal of correct and harmo- 
 nious living. We place spirituality and morality in 
 the foreground and teach a theology rather than ma- 
 teria medica. By a theology we mean a spiritual sci- 
 ence, just as truly a science as geology is a science. 
 You notice the termination of the two words is the 
 same; the distinguishing Greek noun in the one case is 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 01 
 
 theos, and in the other geos: Theos means God and all 
 divine things, geos the earth and all terrestrial things ; 
 therefore theology should be as much a science of the 
 heavenly world as geology is a science of the earthly 
 state. 
 
 Anthropology, or the science of man, can never be 
 truly taught unless we consider man as a spiritual be- 
 ing ; the gross materialism of medical colleges brutal- 
 izes instead of elevates the students. They are taught 
 to ignore if not to deride all things spiritual, and in 
 their learned ignorance tap their foreheads and declare 
 all their intelligence is boxed up in a physical brain in 
 the interior of their heads, whereas the simplest rea- 
 soning ought to convince them that such cannot be the 
 case, as the human brain changes as constantly and as 
 radically as all other portions of the body, while the 
 four great spiritual powers possessed and manifested 
 by humanity, Memory, Understanding, Affection and 
 Will, live on long after the molecules forming the brain 
 have changed so entirely that probabh T not one of these 
 original minute particles of matter remains. " The brain 
 secretes thought as the liver secretes bile," is the utter- 
 ance of many a college-bred young man, and medical 
 colleges are educating women in these days to the same 
 height or rather depth of sciolism. Life is a spiritual 
 power, man is a spiritual being, the basis of life is spir- 
 itual. " Dust thou art, and to dust returnest," was not 
 spoken of the soul, but only of the frail changing ten- 
 ement called the physical body. These and many 
 other aphorisms and truisms stand at the very thresh- 
 old of metaphysical discoveries. The basis of our 
 philosophy must be spiritual, and when we have found 
 the spirit we have found the key to all the mysteries of 
 
62 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 human existence. "Who can minister to minds dis- 
 eased ? is the question ever recurring among invalids. 
 Popular novelists put into the mouths of their heroes 
 and heroines the plaint, " Oh ! how much longer will 
 doctors try to discover in the body the cause and seat 
 of these ailments which we know only too well can be 
 found only in our sad and discontented minds ? " Dys- 
 pepsia, neuralgia, consumption, liver and kidney diffi- 
 culties, and a host of other distressing maladies appear 
 in the body reflected in a mirror as it were, only after 
 they have found a lodgment and taken their origin in 
 a discordant mental state. Many metaphysicians say 
 there is no body and therefore it cannot suffer. Such 
 reasoning may be considered thorough and logical by 
 some minds, but to the mass of humanity it does not 
 and cannot appeal with the force of truth. We do not 
 deny the existence of the body, though we regard it 
 only as an effect, certainly not as a cause. Even the 
 spiritual body, which is the real imperishable structure 
 in which the spirit dwells or which it forms by the ex- 
 ercise of its volition as an instrument of expression, is 
 only an effect of the essential life principle, without 
 which there could be no body, which is but an instru- 
 ment, the body holding the same relation to the spirit 
 the organ holds to the organ-builder. 
 
 We can conceive of the possibility of there being in 
 the world men who could build organs if they tried, 
 but have never built any as yet. We can conceive of 
 slumbering talent, sleeping causational power, if we may 
 use such an expression ; latent genius, dormant energy 
 we meet with on every hand, but an organ without a 
 mind to bring it into existence is an impossibility. To 
 try and think of one is to endeavor to realize the im- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 63 
 
 possible. We can conceive of spirit entirely separate 
 from matter, dwelling in a realm of pure mind with no 
 organ of expression, and so we can think of spiritual 
 beings who have never had any earthly experience, but 
 a body without a spirit is as impossible as a house with- 
 out a builder. The New Testament informs us of two 
 distinct bodies, one natural, the other spiritual. The 
 word "natural" in that connection of course means 
 physical or material, or, when applied to mental things, 
 to that state of condition of mentality which man shares 
 in common with the lower animals ; there is then an 
 animal body and also a spiritual body. You must take 
 notice not only in reading the Bible, but also the works 
 of Swedenborg and other spiritual philosophers and 
 seers, that the word natural, whether rightfully or 
 wrongfully we will not now discuss, has been used only 
 in its lower sense, and signifies animal material, or 
 physical, therefore it is said the natural (animal) man 
 (or part of human nature) does not comprehend the 
 things of the Spirit, of God. They are indeed, as Paul 
 says, foolishness not only to the physical senses, but 
 also to that worldly mind and proud intellect, which, 
 though capable of amassing many important facts con- 
 cerning physical existence, has no means whatever at 
 hand for discerning spiritual truth or demonstrating 
 immortality. It is to the spiritual body our attention 
 is turned when we utter the oft-repeated truth, " Man 
 never dies." The human body never dies, for the spir- 
 itual organism does not see corruption. It is not dust, 
 from dust it did not spring, and unto dust it can never 
 turn. It may improve, and grow more and more beau^ 
 teous as ages move, but death and decay can never 
 effectually assail it. 
 
64 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 It is a noteworthy fact that in all ages when angels 
 or spiritual messengers, ministering spirits, have ap- 
 peared to men they have shown themselves as perfectly 
 human in their form, and always in the enjoyment of 
 perennial youth. The angels never grow old ; they are 
 young always, and these angels, ministering spirits or 
 messengers, are your own brethren, members of the 
 race to which you belong, human beings more fully de- 
 veloped than yourselves ; as men are more fully devel- 
 oped than boys, and women than girls, so angels are 
 more fully developed than men and women, and that is 
 all the real difference there is between the angels and 
 you, who are a little lower than they. The spiritual 
 body cannot wear out or decay, and there is no reason 
 why the physical body should ; and here we are stating 
 a novel and startling proposition, not new to students 
 of the occult, not new to those who have peered deeply 
 into Rosicrucian and other mysteries, but diametrically 
 opposed to the prevailing belief of Christendom and all 
 the rest of the w r orld. We ask you to lay aside all your 
 prejudices and preconceptions, and lend us not only 
 your ears but your most earnest attention while we 
 reason with you on this matter, for remember we are 
 no dogmatists. We ask no one to agree with us, but 
 we fully agree with the author of Proverbs in this at 
 least, that it is a shame and folly to answer a matter 
 before we have heard it ; we must all be ready to wel- 
 come revolutionary truths, and not let the popular idols 
 of misbelief and ignorant superstition bar for us the 
 Golden Gates which open into the temple of heavenly 
 wisdom. 
 
 The body is frequently compared to a machine, and 
 a machine wears out : therefore say those who compare 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 65 
 
 things which differ, and a machine differs widely from 
 a human body, " the human body must wear out too." 
 
 " Constant use wears out my piano," says a 
 musician, " and constant use wears out my body too, 
 for my spirit's fleshly tabernacle is an instrument which 
 wears out by constant use just as truly as a musical 
 instrument grows old and useless by continued service." 
 ]STow let us see whether there is really any true analogy 
 or not between the piano and the human body. In 
 the first place, the body is animate and the piano inan- 
 imate ; that is a wide difference to start with. In the 
 second place, the wood, wire, ivory, and all the other 
 materials which go to make up a piano are just so 
 much inert matter put together by mechanical skill, 
 but endowed with no recognizable power of recupera- 
 tion or increase. Can a piano lose several pounds of 
 its weight and then recover them? If a piece is 
 knocked off from the piano it is gone, it never replaces 
 itself; if the bulk of the instrument is lessened it never 
 recuperates ; but man does. Man's body is not made 
 in any sense after the fashion of a neuter machine. 
 The physical body of man is an ever fluctuating con- 
 course of molecules ; the particles composing the human 
 body change every moment. Thus the structure is 
 being incessantly renewed, and this perpetual renewal 
 of the fabric is an antidote to all destruction and decay. 
 
 The elixir of life so long sought for by the mystics 
 could never be discovered in any powerful medicine or 
 potent spell administered by sense, and those who 
 become to any degree versed in the esoteric doctrine of 
 magic know that the utmost claim made by the wise 
 and learned initiates of secret spiritual orders was that 
 by a life of rigid and long-continued self-discipline 
 
66 LECTURE BY W. J. COLYILLE. 
 
 they could arrive at so high a point in spiritual devel- 
 opment as to be able to look from thence with sublime 
 indifference on all material things. They claimed, as 
 Jesus claimed, that the highest condition of man was 
 when he had reached a stage m his unfoldment where 
 he could say with truth, " I have power to lay down 
 my life and take it again, power to destroy the body, 
 the living temple, and build it again." This power is 
 not the exclusive right or possession of one here and 
 there, but is common to universal humanity, and the 
 secret of the unlimited prolongation of life in the 
 body is the simple but all-comprehensive secret 
 of so disciplining the lower to the higher nature, 
 that the spirit can command the body instead of the 
 lower passions controlling the spiritual aspirations and 
 desires. 
 
 We' do not say that physical immortality is ever 
 desirable, but we do say that the happiest, purest, 
 easiest, and most natural way for the spirit to quit the 
 body is for it to withdraw from its sensuous envelope 
 in response to a more powerful drawing toward the 
 spiritual realm of being. 
 
 There is a vast difference between the thought of 
 always dwelling in a material form and the thought of 
 being able to do so if one desired. We do not believe 
 the most perfect race of beings the planet will ever 
 sustain upon its surface will become physically immor- 
 tal, but we do believe the reason why they will not 
 always remain on earth is because they will not wish 
 to. Is there not a vast difference between voluntarily 
 leaving a tenement and being rudely evicted from it? 
 Is it not far sweeter and more reasonable to contem- 
 plate death as the voluntary severance by the spirit of 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 67 
 
 the chord which binds it to the flesh than to think of 
 death as an accident or a something dreadful and 
 inevitable to which we must all reluctantly submit? 
 In death robbed of its terror, regarded as a welcome 
 change, a happy release, there is nothing to be feared ; 
 but in death as the result of accident, the effect of dis- 
 sipation, or the last stage in a long, painful illness, 
 there is indeed much to be feared and avoided if pos- 
 sible, and judging by all accounts received from com- 
 municating spirits who have passed through death 
 summarily or prematurely, their condition beyond the 
 grave is anything but an enviable one. They seem 
 in many instances to be like poor victims of a sad 
 catastrophe, driven from their homes, their dwellings 
 swept away by fire and flood, while they, homeless, 
 helpless, hungry and naked, wander as wretched men- 
 dicants around the haunts which once they called 
 after their own names. Disease is most certainly 
 unnatural, and so is unwelcome transition to the spirit 
 world ; the dear good old man or woman who de- 
 parts in peace, having fulfilled every duty on earth, 
 passes away, not reluctantly, but joyously ; in such 
 cases the spirit makes no effort to retain the bod\^, but 
 rather gladly lets it go. In many instances those who 
 attained power to preserve their earthly forms as long 
 as they wished, according to mystic writers, preferred 
 to pass from the realm of mortal sense to lingering any 
 longer here, and as Hargrave Jennings, an eminent 
 writer on the Rosicrucian Mysteries declares, that those 
 very men who had power to make gold by magical 
 means no longer cared for it, as no mind bound b}^ the 
 love or mortal things is sufficiently emancipated from 
 worldly desires to have attained to that sublime spir- 
 
08 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 itual altitude which must be reached before one can 
 exercise the true magician's wand. 
 
 Disease should not be nor will it be the reason for 
 man's passing to spirit life in the new generation. Dis- 
 ease is a something so repulsive, so hateful, that for- 
 tunes are spent every year in the endeavor to over- 
 come it. The numberless doctors in every city, almost 
 in every village — there are swarms of medical men, 
 and most of them have a fair, some a very large prac- 
 tice — amply testify to the natural hatred of sickness 
 which in every part of the world naturally fills the 
 human breast. The greatest men of the East, the most 
 celebrated in all history, are those who have destroyed 
 and conquered disease and established health in its 
 stead ; but though there are a great many excellent 
 men, ornaments to society, in the medical profession, it 
 cannot be denied that diseases multiply, and the death 
 rate increases in the very heart of the pretentious and 
 highly cultured civilization of the present day. Why 
 is it, we enquire, that while doctors multiply, so do dis- 
 eases ? Why is it that almost eveiy new medical work 
 contains a description of some new disease and how to 
 treat it? Theological quackery has always taken for 
 granted that children came into the world already 
 ruined and lost. Schemes of salvation have been in- 
 vented to save men from the inherited curse, and chil- 
 dren's minds have been blighted in the bud by the in- 
 culcation of doctrines, upon which every conceivable 
 abase has fattened. Medical quackery has taken it for 
 granted that children come into the world physically 
 damned ; but the medical man, unlike the priest, does 
 not offer a full and free salvation from all the physical 
 effects of Adam's fall, while the church does hold out 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 69 
 
 hopes of unending felicity and more than a return to 
 the bliss of Eden for those who take her spiritual nos- 
 trums in the forms of belief and sacraments. 
 
 Children should never be taught to look upon dis- 
 ease as anything but unnatural and foreign to their 
 original constitution. Health, not disease, should be 
 held up before them as in accordance with nature's 
 laws. Disease, the want of ease and its opposite, is no 
 more natural and necessary than discords are in music. 
 The science of melody, not of an unmelodious noise, is 
 taught in our academies and conservatories. Truly, 
 disease is a state of imperfection, but it is more and 
 worse than imperfection. It is a state of inversion of 
 good, a perverted condition, disorderly and utterly 
 foreign to the law of growth ; it is a mistake, an error, 
 a something never to be expected, petted, fondled or 
 condoned with. Diseases and vices are all alike tares 
 which truth must bind in bundles for the burning in 
 the unquenchable tire of purity and divine understand- 
 ing. We must make no concessions to disease, no com- 
 promises with it. It must be attacked root as well as 
 branch, eradicated from the system by its prior eradi- 
 cation from the mind, and it is this work of eradicating 
 disease which spiritual methods are alone capable of 
 accomplishing. Causes, not symptoms, must be at- 
 tacked, for if we fail to find the source of error, no 
 matter how often we may lop off its branches, its root 
 remaining, it will continue to put forth new wood, new 
 leaves, new flowers, new fruit. A razor can never do 
 the work of a depilatory, scissors can never take the 
 place of tweezers. External methods of treatment 
 temporarily destroy appearances ; they remove outward 
 indications, but instead of destroying the root of the 
 
70 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 malady they essay to cure, they throw fresh strength 
 and vigor to its already robust root. 
 
 We cannot for a moment doubt the evident sin- 
 cerity and deep conscientious feeling of many who 
 parade the vices of society before the world, and espe- 
 cially before the young, but while giving them credit 
 for the goodness of their motives we are compelled to 
 differ from them entirely in their method of operation 
 Private lectures to young men only or to young women 
 only are not necessarily evil, and when of a strictly 
 anatomical and physiological character may fairly be 
 said to constitute a legitimate fraction of collegiate 
 education ; but our deep- seated conviction is that co- 
 education, or the equal training of both sexes in mixed 
 schools and universities will soon completely supersede 
 the one-sided training still so much in vogue. It seems to 
 us for this and other yet more important reasons a mis- 
 chievous concession to old fogyism for modern reform- 
 ers to speak to one sex in the absence of the other on 
 any matter in which both sexes are equally interested ; 
 and as nothing can possibly affect man without also 
 affecting woman, and vice versa, so that system of 
 training which seeks publicly and privately to educate 
 men and women, girls and boys together, in all that 
 pertains to their genuine welfare is the nearest ap- 
 proach to the ideal in education. 
 
 But the most important question before the world 
 is what to teach and how to teach it. The recent 
 celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth an- 
 niversary of the founding of Harvard University, 
 one of the most celebrated and influential col- 
 leges in the world, has opened afresh the ques- 
 tion of the true basis and best methods of human 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 71 
 
 culture, everywhere. Newspapers are crowded with 
 glowing accounts of anniversary exercises, reports of 
 brilliant speeches by eminent educators, and learned 
 essays by worthy men and women on educational 
 topics fill the pages of the leading magazines, while the 
 pulpit takes as a text, "Add to your faith knowledge," 
 and straightway discourses upon education. Educa- 
 tion is unfoldment, not cramming ; it is a healthy, nat- 
 ural exercise which ought to be positively delightful 
 to all who engage in it. Instead of being regarded as 
 an irksome task or unpleasant duty it should be unal- 
 loyed pleasure, and it is wherever the true meaning of 
 the word is upheld in the methods employed. The 
 trouble is that a great part of many people's time is 
 spent in learning what they have to unlearn after- 
 wards. Children and adults are all taught many 
 things it can do them no good to know. The less one 
 knows of vice the better, for knowledge of evil benefits 
 no one. It is only the knowledge of good we require ; 
 there is infinite meaning, which does not, however, lie 
 upon the surface in the old allegory in Genesis, of the 
 tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The knowl- 
 edge of good is enough, to learn evil is both a mischiev- 
 ous and superfluous study. Time is fleeting, and the 
 conservation of both time and energy is the object in 
 view in all sound ethical and economical instruction. 
 Many persons talk ridiculously of young people seeing 
 the world and sowing their wild oats. A popular de- 
 lusion seems to have inebriated the minds of many to 
 the effect that contact with sin is positively beneficial; 
 thus young persons ought to see death (miserable life) 
 in all its hideous foulness, not always indeed in the 
 naked ugliness which is so repellant to all sensitive 
 
72 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 persons, but masked in brilliant salons, in aristocratic 
 brothels and polite gambling bells; the cesspools of 
 iniquity in which many young men are not only per- 
 mitted, but encouraged by their elders to roam, are the 
 plague-spots of society, the festering sores on the social 
 body which should never be recognized except by those 
 who recognize them only to remove them. 
 
 When we were lecturing in San Diego, in Southern 
 California, we were questioned as to the good or harm 
 being done by a certain Ben Ilogan, who was drawing 
 crowds nightly to a Methodist church and regaling his 
 audience upon the sweetmeats and spices which he had 
 carefully culled from the gaming table, the habits of 
 confidence men and other disreputable individuals — 
 the newspapers publishing column after column of in- 
 structions in the art of cheating. All this, remember, 
 from the lips of a "converted" man posing in the 
 role of evangelist, or revival preacher. Again we say 
 we do not impute unworthy motives to the man in 
 question or others who follow courses similar to his. 
 We do, however, most vehemently denounce the modus 
 operandi of any such revival work, for if it revives any- 
 thing it can revive nothing but prurient curiosity and a 
 distorted inventive genius which will in many instances 
 set to work and endeavor to improve upon the models 
 presented from the sensational pulpit. It is useless to 
 say the lecture is delivered in the interests of morality, 
 and the lecturer never finishes without sermonizing 
 upon the wickedness and terrible consequences of such 
 dastardly acts. The bulk of the young people in his 
 audience who have been attracted merely for amuse- 
 ment are in too many instances like children who eat 
 the middle out of a tart and leave the crust ; to such 
 
LECTUUE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 73 
 
 the glowing- accounts of vice are the jam or mincemeat, 
 while the moral teachings between which the sensational 
 body of the discourse is sandwiched is the forsaken and 
 unpalatable crust and as the crust of a strictly orthodox 
 pie is often nearly as unwholesome as the center, it may 
 not be altogether a mistake to refuse it, for revivalists 
 instead of dilating upon the natural and inevitable 
 consequences of misdeeds, picture on the one hand a 
 hell utterly at variance with all ennobling sentiment 
 for the finally impenitent, and instant salvation, and, 
 in the event of the body's dissolution, glorification, for 
 all who believe then and there that Jesus is their 
 Saviour and the atonement made on Calvary the pro- 
 pitiation for all their sins, past, present and to come. 
 
 We cannot be too urgent in our protest against 
 bringing young people especially, face to face with 
 evil; necessarily such befouling contact with pitch only 
 blackens the one who handles it, and never does it give 
 the slightest resisting power to those besmeared. The 
 work of true science is to enlighten youth in true 
 knowledge and virtue. There is no science of evil; 
 evil is unscientific, irrational ; it is opposed to all truth 
 and right and it can never assist any one to the right 
 knowledge of anything to be shown a picture of some- 
 thing maimed, hideous, distorted ; such a mental image 
 should never be allowed to pass before the mirror of 
 the youthful mind. Plenty of evil will be brought 
 before young people in their contact with societ} r as at 
 present organized in any case without teachers of 
 morals stirring up foulness and causing their listeners 
 to inhale the stench of error. 
 
 Just as it is with moral obliquity so is it with 
 physical disease ; to study disease or pathology, the 
 
74 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 so-called science of disease (literally a treatise upon 
 disease, or a word about it), is to make a lament- 
 able mistake, as it introduces a highly objectionable, 
 an exceedingly pernicious element into a curriculum. 
 We do not want to know anything about disease 
 except in this sense : to know what health is, and 
 therefore to understand that whatever is opposed to 
 it must be disease. Take, for example, a teacher of 
 art : he needs to show the students whom he is instruct- 
 ing how to draw or paint correctly, he must show them 
 how the lines and colors should look, how they should 
 blend ; his incessant and untiring endeavor is to place 
 the true model, the correct ideal, before them ; in their 
 ignorance and inexperience, and too often through 
 carelessness, they will do a good deal of bad work, 
 they will disfigure paper and canvas by crooked lines 
 and discordant combinations of color; but it is not for 
 the teacher to imitate their errors and discords, wasting 
 time, energy and material in multiplying incorrectness. 
 He must be in all things faithful to his highest ideal of 
 right and perfection. If the lesson is only how to 
 draw a line, the teacher must draw the line correctly 
 and never any other way than correctly.. The student 
 must become familiar with the perfect line, see it be- 
 fore his mind's eye, and by constantly gazing at it and 
 dwelling upon it he will at length be able to duplicate 
 it. Now, nothing is so necessary in a college of health 
 as to get the minds of students and invalids onto 
 health and away from disease. Everything in the 
 house should be harmonious, colors should blend, 
 forms should be true to nature, sounds should be 
 melodious, everything grating and jarring should be 
 rigorously excluded, and, above all, patients should 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLYILLE. 75 
 
 never be encouraged to talk about their ailments. 
 Disease is not a proper subject for conversation. It 
 is well enough to mention it confidentially to an 
 experienced friend, or one to whom you apply for 
 relief, but to make it a topic of discussion on ordinary 
 occasions is both poisonous and disgusting, as many 
 persons are so pitiably sensitive to the feelings of 
 others, and many have such vivid imaginations, that 
 they are at once made unwell themselves by hearing of 
 the sicknesses of others. A hospital for this reason is 
 often a nursery for disease ; dormitories filled with 
 ailing and complaining patients, moaning and sighing, 
 turning restlessly from side to side on their uneasy 
 couches, prevent recovery among sensitive people, 
 despite all the care and kindness of doctors, nurses and 
 attendants. The same is true of lunatic asylums, pris- 
 ons and penitentiaries. In all such institutions, no 
 matter how good the management and efficient the 
 officials, the inmates corrupt each other as one breathes 
 disease and insanity from the atmosphere impregnated 
 with noxious emanations. A vitiated room from which 
 air and sunlight are excluded is a chamber of death, but 
 when poisonous gases breathed from the patients add 
 to the unwholsomeness of the in any case " sick cham- 
 ber," the combination of horrors is fearful to contem- 
 plate. 
 
 Thanks to the progressive spirit of the present, san- 
 itation is being made a study ; ventilation is receiving 
 attention, sunshine is being welcomed, and forms of 
 treatment are surely if slowly becoming less barbaric, 
 but the institutional fever shows little signs of abate- 
 ment even yet ; to mass sufferers, lunatics and criminals 
 together is still the prevailing custom and idea, and 
 
76 LECTUKE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 until such ideas and practices are fully eliminated 
 from society disease will increase, crime will multiply, 
 and organic efforts to check it will prove ineffectual. 
 In short, metaphysical methods, though in perfect har- 
 mony with sanitaiy and dietetic, measures, though in 
 full sympathy with every effort to put virtue and 
 cleanliness to the front in place of vice and dirt, are 
 at deadly variance with all those antiquated hospital 
 and asylum theories which still hold sway in popular 
 belief. Overcome evil with good, is the adage of all 
 true metaphysicians. This good is health versus dis- 
 ease, sanity versus insanity, virtue versus vice. To 
 isolate the sick and then surround them with the 
 healthy, to isolate the insane and give them thoroughly 
 sane companions, to isolate the vicious and put them 
 in the society of the positively virtuous, is the key to 
 complete reformation in medicine and reform. When- 
 ever possible, patients should be treated in their own 
 homes, and every true healer must teach his patient the 
 science of health, thereby making him strong to resist 
 disease in future. 
 
LECTUKE IV. 
 
 PRAYER AS A HEALING AGENT. 
 
 FEOM the earliest times, prayer has been assigned 
 a prominent place in therapeutics, not indeed bj 
 the hard-headed scholars and materialistic philosophers 
 who pride themselves on what is now popularly re- 
 garded as scientific agnosticism, but by the great mass 
 of mankind, and we can never overlook the fact that 
 the majority of men and women are not and never 
 have been great thinkers. Emotion sways a far larger 
 multitude than can be influenced by cold logic. Thus 
 the logician may have a select, but usually only a 
 small assembly to address, while the emotional en- 
 thusiast, no matter how illogical or even irrational 
 his conclusions, usually finds himself when on the 
 platform face to face with a numerous auditory. 
 It is just so with literature. The books most widely 
 read are never those which appeal to the profoundest 
 depth of human intellect. They are sensational and ro- 
 mantic treatises dealing with the affections rather than 
 the reason. Love stories flood the book-market, and 
 they always find a sale, while purely scientific works 
 have only a very limited circulation. It cannot be 
 denied that mankind in general is far more emotional 
 than rational. They are far more religiously than 
 scientifically disposed ; for if today scientists may be 
 
 77 
 
78 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 counted by millions, religionists number hundreds of 
 millions. . 
 
 Keligious belief is natural to the race. It cannot 
 be eradicated; all endeavors to eliminate it must en- 
 tirely prove futile, ■ for it is an essential product of 
 human nature; but like all other tendencies, it does 
 mischief when allowed to run wild ; it needs training, 
 disciplining and hedging round with reasonable walls 
 or fences of intellectual restraint. The emotions, senti- 
 ments, feelings, all need to be assigned to their proper 
 places ; their functions need to be studied, and their 
 culture and exercise made a matter of the most careful 
 consideration. Emotion is essential to love, for love is 
 itself an emotion, or at any rate it is the source of 
 emotion. Hate and dislike are only inversions or per- 
 versions of its expression. Religion is truly founded in 
 love ; thus the two greatest commandments of religion 
 are, Thou shalt love God and thou shalt love thy neigh- 
 bor. All religious sentiments, duties and obligations 
 take their rise and find their fulfillment in love. God 
 is love ; love is the supreme good ; Avithout it there can 
 be no virtue worthy the name either in theory or prac- 
 tice. Even the old Roman idea of virtue, as synony- 
 mous with valor, courage, bravery, had its source in 
 love. Men love their country, their homes, their fami- 
 lies, their co-patriots ; therefore they are ready to fight 
 for them. They even shed the last drop of their heart's 
 blood for winat they love the best. Whatever is be- 
 loved has its valiant defenders and, if need be, its mar- 
 tyrs, but whatever calls forth no affection inspires no 
 heroism, no ardor, no devotion. We all know how 
 potent is the spell of affection ; it is stronger than all 
 beside ; it is the absolutely unconquerable element in 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 79 
 
 man's constitution which links him to deity- and im- 
 mortality. Love inspires prayer, and true prayer is 
 nothing more nor less than love in exercise. Prayer 
 must be regarded as affection struggling to accomplish 
 wonders on behalf of a beloved object. As love laughs 
 at bolts and bars and undertakes to effect an escape 
 from prison which reason could never pronounce feas- 
 ible, so love lays hold upon infinite benevolence, allies 
 itself with faith, forms allegiances with hope, and con- 
 trols both faith and hope, using them as servants to do 
 its bidding. Love is mightier than either faith or hope, 
 mightier than both combined, but employs these sister 
 graces in the accomplishment of its end. It takes 
 them indeed into partnership with itself; but they are 
 juniors, it is ever the senior and the director of the 
 firm. 
 
 Prayer is spoken of as foolish by many who do not 
 understand it and cannot comprehend its relation to 
 eternal and unchanging law. From their standpoint 
 it is folly to pray ; prayer to them is idle breath, and 
 were they to attempt to pray in their present frame of 
 mind, unless the attempt to put prayer to a fair test 
 changed their position and personality, they would 
 utterly fail to gain answer to their petitions because 
 in reality though seeming to pray they would not 
 and could not pray at all. Prayer is the outgoing 
 of spiritual energy ; prayer is no rival of work, no sub- 
 stitute for earnest and practical effort. It is work, 
 only it is not work of any ostensible kind. It is not 
 physical employment, but it is the putting forward of 
 the most earnest effort of the spirit. It is sometimes 
 hard, even painful, agonizing work. It uses every nerve 
 of the spirit, it strains every fibre of the mental being; 
 
80 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 thus many persons are exhausted through the fervor of 
 their supplications ; the} 7 are positively worn out men- 
 tally and physically, through the hard work some 
 earnest prayer has been to them. True prayer, how- 
 ever, does not of necessity involve difficult and trying 
 labor. On the other hand, quite the opposite ; for when 
 rightly understood and intelligently made use of, the 
 agency of prayer is the exercise of the sweetest, calm- 
 est and most tranquilizing of all the powers and activi- 
 ties of our being. Let us consider prayer under several 
 distinct heads. 
 
 First, does prayer, or does it not, presuppose fickle- 
 ness on the part of Deity, or mutability in the law gov- 
 erning the universe? We answer unequivocally, with- 
 out an instant's hesitancy, true prayer acknowledges 
 first and last the unchangeableness of Deity and uni- 
 versal law. How then does prayer accomplish any- 
 thing if God and law are immutable ? Precisely in 
 the way that all work is rewarded and industry 
 crowned. We must understand what the universal, 
 immutable law is before we undertake to say what can 
 and what cannot transpire beneath its sovereignty. 
 On the question of universality and immutability of 
 law in the universe most thinkers are agreed, but on 
 the question, what is the source and character of this 
 all-pervading and all-prevailing law T ? philosophers dif- 
 fer widely. Theism postulates law as the manifesta- 
 tion of intelligence ; it conceives of Infinite Mind as 
 the original inspiration of law, but atheism considers 
 law to be supreme over intelligence and the cause of it. 
 To use a favorite expression, and adopt a favorite 
 method of those calling themselves agnostics or materi- 
 alists, reasoning from the known to the unknown, 
 
LECTURE BY AV. J. COLVILLE. 81 
 
 from the seen to the unseen, from the physical to the 
 spiritual, from effect to cause, let us see where we will 
 be landed. Will it be in the arms of cold, unfeeling 
 force, or in those of warm, conscious and loving intelli- 
 gence ? There can be in the earthly state no law with- 
 out pre-directing mind. Laws are not the creators of 
 will; the laws of a country or a state do not pre-exist 
 and then slowly evolve will in the persons whom they 
 govern; but will is in every case the source of the 
 being, and the only means of the enforcement of law. 
 If we then have to do in universal nature with an 
 Infinite Intelligence, an all-directing mind, and if we 
 ourselves are recipients of the Divine nature, may 
 there not be infinite truth in the Scripture passage, 
 "God worketh in us both to will and to do of His good 
 pleasure ? " God works in us, God prays to us. We 
 hear the supplicatory voice of the spirit of the Eternal 
 in our own souls whenever conscience speaks, for con- 
 science is not as some vainly imagine — a mere product 
 of earthlv training to be altered and modified bv 
 changing beliefs and circumstances. Conscience is col- 
 lective knowledge, universal knowledge, concrete infor- 
 mation, truth heard and known to some extent by -all 
 humanity. 
 
 Dr. Solomon Schindler, in a very excellent discourse 
 delivered in the Columbus Avenue Jewish temple, point- 
 ed out to his audience one of the most striking illustra- 
 tions of the fact of the Divine indwelling, when he 
 showed how human ideas of wrong always remained, but 
 they grew keener and more vivid as a brighter light of 
 truth and knowledge illumined man's understanding. 
 We think more things wrong today than we formerly 
 did, because we have keener perceptions of right as a 
 
82 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. * 
 
 people than the Israelites had in the da}^s of David and 
 Solomon. But we never call that good which our 
 ancestors regarded as evil, while we do consider many 
 things evil they in their ignorance at least tolerated as 
 allowable. Every one of the ten commandments con- 
 stituting the Decalogue still remains at the foundation 
 of all enlightened jurisprudence the world over. To 
 acknowledge one only God, to refrain from evil speech, 
 to observe one clay out of every seven for rest, to do no 
 murder, to commit no adultery, to deal honestly and 
 bear only true witness, and to covet naught, all these 
 are commands engraven on the heart of society. Truth 
 when once apprehended is never lost sight of by the 
 world. Truth never becomes falsehood, wrong never 
 becomes right. We do not all hear the voice of truth 
 with equal distinctness ; we do not all enjoy an equally 
 abundant moral revelation, but so far as it expresses 
 itself at all, the moral sense is the same in every 
 human being the wide world over. We must never 
 let go of the proposition, there is an absolute right and 
 au eternal distinction between right and wrong in the 
 very nature of things. Sophistry alone endeavors to 
 rob us of our moral heritage and becloud the clear vis- 
 ion of the immortal soul. 
 
 It is natural to man to ally himself with celestial 
 power, to seek divine help and heavenly aid in every time 
 of doubt, difficulty and trouble. The very act of prayer 
 is a conscious and effective effort put forth by man in 
 reasonable hope of achieving by means of it a definite 
 and desired result. Half-way fatalism, with its mani- 
 fold errors and inconsistencies, is always ready to step 
 in and declare prayer to be foolish and valueless, 
 because prayer as a spiritual power cannot be measured 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 83 
 
 and detected by earthly standards. The thorough- 
 going fatalist, if there is such a person living, must 
 deny the possibility of changing any conceivable con- 
 dition in any part of the universe by any conceivable 
 kind of effort on the part of man. Therefore, all 
 action is either inevitable or useless. We must either 
 consider ourselves entirely incompetent to accomplish 
 anything by any sort of endeavor, or we must allow 
 that all our endeavors are foreordained and part of an 
 infinite plan we have no hand in altering. If fatalistic 
 argument is sound, even fatalism itself does not neces- 
 sarily offer any objection to the efficacy of prayer ; it 
 merely compels us to consider ourselves in the light of 
 machines, and our prayers as a part of the inevitable 
 working of the clock-work arrangement of our being. 
 Prayers are answered at all events ; to say the least, 
 they appear to be. answered. They are not in vain, for 
 many and many a sufferer who has vainly sought relief 
 in all other directions has found relief in prayer. Let 
 scoffers say it is fancied or imaginary relief, let them 
 in their supercilious contempt for all things spiritual 
 declare prayer to be consummate folly, an exercise 
 unworthy of rational beings ; their vulgar jibes and 
 sneers can never alter facts, which indeed are stubborn 
 things. The efficacy of prayer is a demonstrated fact 
 in this world in the nineteenth century, and if imagi- 
 nation and fancy can be induced by prayer, and these 
 are such powerful therapeutic agents that can relieve 
 suffering and cure distressed maladies, if they can turn 
 despair into hope, misery into joy, complaint into 
 thanksgiving, then let us thank God for having so 
 constituted us that we are amenable to the blessed 
 curative influences of fancy and imagination. 
 
84 LECTUEE BY W. J. CoLVILLE. 
 
 But what are fancy and imagination \ can skepti- 
 cism decide ? Are they not mysteries, well nigh 
 insoluble factors in human economy ? The word " im- 
 agination " leads us to suppose that, when we imagine 
 anything, something is imagined upon our brain or 
 some state of our consciousness ; to imagine is to reflect 
 an image ; something impresses the brain and imprints 
 thereon a likeness of itself which we see with the mind's 
 eye, independent of the physical organs of vision. 
 Imagination should not be repudiated or laughed to 
 scorn as it too often is, but carefully and scientifically 
 recognized and cultivated ; imagination and fancy need 
 careful training and discipline it is true, not repression, 
 they are spiritual and mental powers of great impor- 
 tance and interest to us all and can be so utilized as to 
 render unspeakable benefit to their possessors and cul- 
 tivators. 
 
 A great many answers to prayer,, so-called, are sim- 
 ply results of stimulated fancy or quickened imagina- 
 tion ; but the peculiar state of activity into which 
 these powers have been brought by the effort of prayer 
 has proved itself therapeutically indispensable under 
 the existing circumstances. When some years ago 
 Prof. Tyndall proposed his " prayer test," which ex- 
 cited so much controversy and feeling both in scientific 
 and religious circles, he entirely failed to comprehend 
 the true nature of prayer and showed himself totally 
 destitute of knowledge on spiritual subjects. If prayer 
 were an outward, formal, mechanical act consisting in 
 the repetition of certain formulated phrases, it would 
 be easy enough to employ prayer in one hospital, but 
 nc ', in another ; but as true prayer is entirely distinct 
 f> fa ritual observance and is an emotion of the spirit, 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 85 
 
 an inspiration of the mind, not the parrot-like repetition 
 of stereotyped words, Prof. Tyndall could have no pos- 
 sible means of knowing where prayer was offered and 
 where it was not ; he could only tell where an outward 
 form of words was employed, and the employment of a 
 set form of words or the introduction of the element of 
 outward speech into prayer is not regarded as essential 
 by any true believer in the efficacy of prayer. 
 
 In the New Testament prayer is permitted orally 
 and possibly recommended in the adoption of the 
 paternoster as a model form of prayer ; but Jesus laid 
 by far the greater stress on silent, secret prayer, the 
 prayer of the retired chamber, the prayer of the 
 earnest soul, pouring out its petitions at the throne of 
 heaven, when no earthly e} T e or ear could see or hear. 
 In a hospital oral prayer might be peremptorily for- 
 bidden, an intolerant board of directors might refuse 
 to sanction any kind of religious service on the prem- 
 ises, but no managers could force the souls of the 
 inmates to be silent ; watchers might be stationed at 
 every bedside, to prevent the slightest semblance to a 
 prayer escaping from the lips of any person in the 
 building, but all the while that prayer was forcibly 
 interdicted the most earnestly heartfelt, the effectual, 
 fervent prayer of the righteous, which availeth much, 
 might be ascending like fragrant incense to spiritual 
 realms and obtaining from thence responses so marvel- 
 ous that the materialists who had forbidden prayer 
 could only attribute signal cases of unexpected recov- 
 ery in their wards to the inexplicable action of unde- 
 fined laws and forces of nature. 
 
 Prayer is not confined to locality. It matters not 
 how far away the one may be who prays for a sufferer. 
 
86 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 A prayer offered in India is as effective for an invalid 
 in London as though offered in the British metropolis 
 at the patient's bedside. It is, therefore, impossible to 
 interdict prayer, which is a lifting up of the spiritual 
 nature in confident expectancy of winning a suit in a 
 heavenly court. Prayer, moreover, does not depend 
 for its efficacy upon the correctness of the suppliant's 
 creed; prayers are offered to the Eternal under the 
 greatest variety of names. Jehovah, Brahma, Allah, 
 Jesus, are all names frequently used in prayer to desig- 
 nate the Supreme Being. From the point of view of 
 controversial theology they cannot possibly be all cor- 
 rect, as they do not all represent the same idea of 
 Deity. Jehovah is a distinctly Jewish conception of 
 the Infinite Being. Indeed, there are two distinct and 
 widely divergent ideas embodied in this mysterious 
 name. Jehovah, or Yahveh, represents the Eternal 
 Being, infinite in power and majesty to the most 
 advanced and illumined seers and sages of the house 
 of Israel; but to the ordinary undeveloped Hebrew 
 mind Jehovah is a local and titular being, the unseen 
 head or president of the Jewish clan, a tribal divinity, 
 who takes up arms for Israel against all its oppressors. 
 Etymologically speaking, the name legitimately repre- 
 sents the Infinite, as it signifies the always-enduring, 
 the ever-living; but no matter what the word itself 
 may mean to scholars, when used in prayer its value 
 depends solely upon the idea associated with it in the 
 mind of the worshiper. Thus we can readily see how 
 very wide apart in thought and feeling many Jews may 
 be while they all address Jehovah in their prayers. 
 One addresses the Infinite Being, boundless, ineffable. 
 He endeavors to affix no limits to the being and love 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 87 
 
 of God. He views the Supreme Intelligence as an 
 infinite fountain of matchless justice, love, truth and 
 wisdom, utterly incapable of an emotion of fanaticism 
 or partiality toward any race or individual, while 
 another, using the same outward form of prayer, pic- 
 tures before his mental vision a capricious Deity, who 
 fights for one race under all circumstances against all 
 others for the sole reason that he has elected Jacob's 
 descendants to share in his covenant of mercy. The 
 prayers arising from the minds of two such widely 
 different classes of religionists (though sheltered under 
 the cover of a common family name, the poles asunder 
 in belief and sentiment) would necessarily induce 
 totally different results in the suppliants who offered 
 them, and draw responses from widely separated 
 planes of spiritual existence. 
 
 Take now the name of Jesus as a very common 
 example of similar diversity of thought and object; 
 no two minds conceive of Jesus in exactly the same 
 way, while different bodies of professing Christians 
 have persecuted each other even to death on account 
 of diversity of view regarding Jesus. Calvin and Ser- 
 vetus w T ere both Christians; both called on Jesus to 
 deliver them in their hour of need, but one called 
 Jesus " God the Son," the other called him the " Son 
 of God," and for this difference in expression one be- 
 lieved the other to be in danger of everlasting condem- 
 nation. There can be little question of the sincerity of 
 either the apostle of Geneva or the celebrated Socinian 
 whose death he instigated. Such a terrible result of 
 verbal and creedal bigotry is only valuable as a most 
 powerful incentive against attaching too much impor- 
 tance to creeds, dogmas and expressions, while the real 
 
88 LECTUJJE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 worth of religion, its spiritual element, is ignored and 
 well nigh forgotten. We cannot, however, if we study 
 spiritual laws and principles fail to see to what an im- 
 mense extent our motive or intention in prayer deter- 
 mines the result. The Eoman Catholic Church has 
 always laid great stress on direction of intention. The 
 same prayers, almost invariably the Paternoster and 
 Ave Maria, are repeated, whether the object be one of 
 universal or private and personal import. Masses are 
 said in the same words for widely different intentions, 
 and it is always claimed that masses and prayers bring 
 about the special ends for which they were offered. 
 The spiritual truth veiled in this practice does not lie 
 near the surface : we have to dig deep into the wells of 
 mind to find an adequate reason for this belief. If 
 prayers were answered according to the letter of a 
 petition, then it would matter very little what the state 
 of mind might be so long as the correct words were 
 uttered. 
 
 Such a foolish belief appears to hold sway not only 
 among those pagans who use praying machines, which 
 grind out prayers as a hand-organ grinds out music, 
 but among many whose so-called Christian education 
 ought to have instilled far more enlightened ideas into 
 their minds. What is really no prayer at all is often 
 confounded with prayer, and prayer is therefore 
 brought into disrepute, insulted and ridiculed, because 
 the common sense of the country cannot see the utility 
 of a pretender masquerading as a genuine spiritual 
 power. In many houses of worship prayer is brought 
 into disrepute more than in any infidel lecture hall or 
 atheistic publication ; the stale jokes and supercilious 
 jibes of the worst kind of atheistic attack on spiritual 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 89 
 
 truth are furnished by the ridiculous mummeries of 
 professedly religious people ; the very persons who are 
 most punctilious in their outward observances of re- 
 ligion are frequently religion's worst enemies, not of 
 course intentionally, and not always hypocritically, as 
 many persons who are no hypocrites are simply thought- 
 less conformists to an ancient habit, and go along with 
 prescribed "devotions," because their ancestors Avere 
 accustomed to say the prayers they repeat daily. 
 
 Reform in religious worship today shows itself no- 
 where so advantageously as in the changes made in old 
 liturgies. Take the orthodox Jewish service for ex- 
 ample. Not only is it tedious in the extreme on the 
 mornings of all fasts and festivals, and a considerable 
 tax on the ordinary attendant at a synagogue at the 
 usual Sabbath morning service, not only does it contain 
 no end of phrases utterly out of keeping with the best 
 sentiment of the age and entirely foreign to the con- 
 dition of all civilized communities, but on account of 
 its extreme length and extraordinary complexion it is 
 usually gabbled through with by the reader, while 
 many of the congregation talk to each other in their 
 seats, and scarcely make a show of giving it any atten- 
 tion. Then we may ask, why do the} r attend the syn- 
 agogue regularly; are we to censoriously condemn 
 them and uncharitably number them among that worst 
 element in the sect of the Pharisees which receives 
 such scathing denunciation in the New Testament? 
 Are we to conclude that they are sharks and Shylocks, 
 men without mercy, pretenders to religion for the sake 
 of gain ? By no means. They are simply superstitious, 
 modern Kabalists of the unenlightened type ; shrewd 
 men of business they often are, but frequently honest 
 
90 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 in their transactions, kind and merciful to the poor and 
 the distressed, good husbands, fathers, brothers, citi- 
 zens and friends ; they are simply in matters of religion 
 creatures of habit ; they believe in some vague, myste- 
 rious way that a peculiar value attaches to certain old 
 forms of words muttered over in certain supposed holy 
 places at holy times; they have borrowed from an- 
 tiquity the customs of Oriental Kabalists without 
 understanding, as the uninitiated never did understand, 
 the inner significance of Kabalistic incantations. 
 
 The enlightened spirit of today wants no Kabala, or 
 if retaining one at least proposes to translate and under- 
 stand it, and if employing it at all use it with the intel- 
 lect, not ignorantly, as a savage employs a talisman. 
 In the Episcopal Church of England and America, 
 as well as in the Greek and Roman churches, we 
 find many vestiges of Kabalism, though the ordinary 
 English country squire does not look much like an 
 Oriental advocate of mysticism. The principle, how- 
 ever, is the same; you must go to church, you must 
 read or say your prayers. As to praying, that is quite 
 another thing, even an extemporaneous form of words 
 is discountenanced by extreme liturgists; not even a 
 clergyman is expected to pray except from memory or 
 from a book ; the living thought and living word are 
 checked in favor of stereotyped formularies, yet many 
 attendants on Episcopal churches say they have every- 
 thing they need in their prayer-book. They may have 
 a " sound form of words," but soul cannot be printed, 
 published and sold at every bookstand. 
 
 We do not for a moment say that the Church of 
 England service is not a beautiful compilation, and we 
 do not deny that many a clergyman so reads the service 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 91 
 
 that we can feel a real spiritual force emanating from 
 the reader and inspiring us to lift up our hearts to God ; 
 but too often the prayers are read off mechanically 
 without awakening any responsive feelings in the 
 hearts of the auditors, who ought to be, and pro- 
 fessedly are, worshipers. Not only in churches where 
 liturgies are employed, but in many denominations 
 where they are frowned upon, prayers are studied 
 beforehand, fixed up to look nice, committed to mem- 
 ory until they look like dudes and dandies aping a 
 clerical costume ; they sound like ripples of soft music 
 on the cultured ear ; they are refined, scholarly, taste- 
 ful, gentlemanly, ladylike, artistic, poetical prayers; 
 but how often are they true prayers, how often are 
 they prayers at all ? When the Angel of Prayer trav- 
 els over the earth, according to a beautiful Eastern 
 legend, to gather the prayers of humanity and bear 
 them aloft to the throne of God, how much incense do 
 you think he receives from the prayers of those who 
 are renowned for the exquisite loveliness in which 
 is couched their anything but heartfelt petitions? 
 Nothing to us is more repellant than something not a 
 prayer, trying to appear such ! We do not, we beg of 
 you to remember, bring a charge of insincerity against 
 'any sect of persons, neither do we urge the discontin- 
 uance of any liturgy and litany any of you may find 
 helpful in your own lives, but we do ask you to con- 
 sider that you may teach children to say their prayers 
 day and night, yet never teach them to pray. Indeed, 
 it is hardly necessary to teach, or to try to teach them 
 to pray. True prayer is spontaneous, ejaculatory ; it is 
 involuntary, as natural as breath. It w T ould require an 
 effort to keep it back ; to repress it would be to stran- 
 
92 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 gle, to suffocate spirituality. Just as where there is 
 tire there is always smoke as a consequence, so where 
 there is true devotion in the spirit, prayer results as a 
 necessary consequence. What then about public pray- 
 ers offered audibly in the midst of public assemblies by 
 a person appointed to conduct or take part in a relig- 
 ious service % All we can say is that if a real prayer is 
 forthcoming in such a place at such a time, no matter 
 whether the words are extemporized, read or given off 
 from memory, the necessary conditions to make a 
 prayer is that the soul dictates and speaks through the 
 utterance. When that is the case every one in the 
 rDom feels a spiritual presence and acknowledges the 
 kindling of a supernal lire. Some advanced minds of 
 today use the word aspiration instead of prayer. Per- 
 haps it is on such occasions very often the fitter Avord 
 of the two. To aspire is to pray ; it is to desire, to 
 mentally ask, and therefore, physically, to place one's 
 self in a receptive attitude to receive present bless- 
 ings. Our own idea of true prayer is exceedingly 
 simple; any child can understand it; and whenever 
 we have been asked to address young people on 
 prayer, we have found most of them catch the idea 
 immediately. By prayer we no more undertake to 
 change any law or reverse any established rule in 
 nature than we do by opening a window, insert- 
 ing a ventilator in a wall, ploughing the earth, irri- 
 gating the soil, pruning the fruit trees, taking exercise, 
 food, sleep, or a bath, or, in a word, doing any- 
 thing to change outward conditions in ourselves or our 
 surroundings, by intelligent compliance with natural 
 demands, and by sagacious and industrious coopera- 
 tion with nature's laws and provisions. Now, one of 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLYILLE. D3 
 
 the most formidable objections against pra\ T er is, we 
 can neither change God nor nature. Certainly we can- 
 not, and we do not attempt to. But there is no law of 
 God or nature which, when we understand it, does not 
 make provision for some exertion on our part, for some 
 exercise of our free agency. To revert to the fatalistic 
 objection, all our reply to the fatalist is, if everything 
 is ordained, our prayers are ordained. We cannot, in 
 that case, help praying, if we pray, and thus prayer be- 
 comes a part of the universal plan, and must be recog- 
 nized as a divinely appointed agent in bringing about a 
 predetermined result. Many physicians and fatalists 
 scoff at prayer ; they tell us all spiritual aid is sought 
 in vain, but at the same time they give you powerful 
 material remedies and tell vou that you are violating 
 all reason and common sense if you do not swallow 
 their nostrums. Now, on the plane of physical sense, 
 called by some metaphysicians the substratum of the 
 mortal mind, material agents doubtless have a certain 
 value ; certainly that value must have been originally 
 imparted to them by mind and can at any time be aug- 
 mented or decreased and in many instances created, or 
 removed in toto, by mental action. We say to all such 
 objecting doctors, if you can believe in the potency of 
 your drugs, minerals and manipulations, surely if you 
 have the slightest apprehensions of spiritual relations 
 at all ; you can conceive of prayer being effectual in 
 healing the sick, if only by an excitation of those feel- 
 ings and affections which in all cases must be aroused, 
 or recovery is impossible. Prayer is a voluntary act of 
 the mind, undertaken with a direct and specific object. 
 Some special desire is uppermost in the mind, and by 
 mental effort a sufferer, or a friend of a sufferer on his 
 
94 LECTURE BY W. J. C0LVILLE. 
 
 behalf, offers up a petition to the highest power he can 
 spiritually or mentally apprehend, and in doing so he 
 opens a window in his spiritual being through which 
 healing sunshine and air can enter. The mind totally 
 engrossed in worldly affairs, wholly occupied with mor- 
 tal beliefs and pursuits, fails to realize the spiritual 
 help which is ever ready to the hands of all who 
 stretch out their hands to take it. You may suffocate 
 on a windy day in a close room, no matter how much 
 light or air there may be outside, if your windows are 
 closed, your curtains drawn, every crevice hermetically 
 sealed against approaches and influences from without. 
 It is all in vain, so far as you are concerned, that the 
 day is fine, the sun shining brightly, balmy breezes 
 blowing and birds sweetly singing, if you are impris- 
 oned in a cellar which you need not live in by any pro- 
 vision of nature ; either by your own or another's 
 wrong and foolish act you are doomed to unnatural in- 
 carceration, into your chamber of death life-giving in- 
 fluences, freely dispensed abroad for the good of all, 
 cannot enter. Change all that, remove all those bar- 
 riers which keep you from the enjoyment of universal 
 benefactions, and without the slightest change having 
 taken place in the order of nature, or any of God's ap- 
 pointments, your condition is in an instant reversed. 
 Prayer is the stretching out of a spiritual hand to unbar 
 a door, to unlock a window, to open a ventilator in the 
 chamber of the mind. Prayer is answered, and the 
 posture of the mind is of the utmost importance. We 
 may open our windows to the north, and invite the 
 cold, bleak breezes from the pole, or we may open them 
 to the south and welcome the warm breezes from the 
 tropics ; we can make our rooms front to the east and 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. $5 
 
 thereby enjoy the morning sun, or we can face the west 
 and see only its setting glories ; or we can have rooms 
 so constructed that there are windows all round, and 
 then from all points of the compass we can derive the 
 invigoration and blessing nature so freely bestows on 
 all who ask for a share in her bounties. Let us be very 
 wary of praying unadvisedly to God for what only a 
 power of darkness could grant ; let us be extremely 
 careful, ever on our guard, lest selfishness, jealousy, 
 and fear, or any unjust rivalries or unduly emulous 
 feeling should dictate our prayer, and thus bring us 
 into relation with the very elements and agents we 
 most desire and need to shun. Above all things, let 
 us never consent to pray for anything we do not con- 
 scientiously feel it would be for the best interests of 
 humanity for us to have, for wherever self and self- 
 love are uppermost in our hearts, wherever our affec- 
 tions are inordinately set on private advantage, wher- 
 ever our own personal welfare or that of some indi- 
 vidual we elect to unduly favor, dictates petition, we 
 do not pray in truth or for truth, we do not pray in 
 the spirit of universal love or wisdom, and therefore 
 do not enter into true relations with any beneficent 
 source whence divine inspiration can proceed. In our 
 next address we will indulge in further explanations 
 and specific illustrations, and take up the latest theo- 
 sophical deliverance on this question, with a view 
 to aiding you to put prayer to as much good use as 
 possible. 
 
LECTUKE V. 
 
 PRAYER AS A HEALING AGENT. PART II. 
 
 PRAYER TO GOD AND TO INDIVIDUAL SPIRITS. HOW, WHY, 
 
 AND UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES IS IT ANSWERED ? 
 
 IN our last address we - laid what we intended to be, 
 and we hope will prove, a solid and reasonable foun- 
 dation for what is now to follow on the all-absorbing 
 question of the nature and efficacy of prayer, especially 
 as applied to the healing of the sick. It may strike 
 some of our hearers and readers, that we do not confine 
 ourselves very closely to the simple fact of healing ; 
 we do not attempt or desire to do so in any restricted 
 sense, as we do not regard the power to heal the sick 
 as a solitary gift or endowment, but rather as a result 
 of a combination of powers and developments in the 
 successful practitioner. That there is such a gift as the 
 gift of healing, or that there are such gifts as the gifts 
 of healing, as Paul start es in his epistle to the Corin- 
 thians, we freely admit, and all such gifts we gladly 
 recognize whenever our attention is called to their 
 spontaneous outburst. But then there are an immense 
 variety of gifts, all of which are so closely allied to 
 acquirements that it is almost impossible to separate 
 one from the other, fully. Take music as an illustra- 
 tion, and Mozart as a sample of natural genius. It is 
 perfectly true that the gift of music, the fire of natural 
 
 96 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 97 
 
 genius very conspicuously manifested itself in him 
 while he was yet a little boy, still, no one who is in the 
 slightest degree acquainted with the history of his sub- 
 sequent career can ever fail to admire his earnest and 
 persistent endeavor to utilize that gift to its very 
 utmost. "When he composed his greatest works he was 
 both a gifted and an educated musician. 
 
 We think it is a grave error to preach a doctrine of 
 human irresponsibility in the presence of divine and 
 natural gifts ; for, though we are not responsible for 
 our natural and unsolicited abilities, and we are not de- 
 serving either of praise or blame for what seems thrust 
 upon us by a power which acts independently of our 
 volition, we are without question very deeply respon- 
 sible for the use we make of the gifts bestowed, and we 
 think if you study the matter carefully you will all arrive 
 at the conclusion that in many instances gifts are re- 
 wards, and genius is the outgrowth of applied energy. 
 Many persons who believe in and advocate what is 
 called the " prayer cure," use a spiritual power which 
 they do not understand, almost at random. Their in- 
 tentions are excellent, their motives sincere, their dis- 
 positions benevolent, and, as a consequence of their 
 real desire to help humanity through their intercession 
 with the Almight} 7 , they are instrumental in many 
 cases in raising up those who are seemingly on the 
 brink of the grave. But they give offence to many 
 equally well disposed people whose minds take a more 
 scientific turn as their methods seem to such to savor 
 of fanaticism and superstition, while scientists of every 
 name appear almost blasphemous to the simple-minded 
 enthusiasts who recognize God as a Supreme Sovereign 
 over all natural law with which, according to their 
 
98 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 theory, He interferes on their behalf in answer to their 
 cry. 
 
 Now two facts have to be taken into consideration 
 and carefully met in these present days; truths can 
 never antagonize, facts can never be opposed to each 
 other, however much they may appear to disagree. If 
 we cannot reconcile truth with truth, and fact with 
 fact, it is no argument against the perfect friendliness 
 of all truths and facts to each other ; it simply shows 
 to us how limited are our powers and how small our 
 knowledge. 
 
 Nothing seems more incontestable than the propo- 
 sition that there is only one law of the universe which 
 can never be reversed or set aside from its regular 
 course under any circumstances whatever ; with this 
 law no Deity ever seems to interfere. The further we 
 advance in scientific studies, the more deeply we inves- 
 tigate the mysteries of being, the more certain do we 
 feel that there is an eternal, immutable, irreversible law 
 which never varies. On the other hand the burden of 
 proof on the side of the reality of what are called mir- 
 acles (now occurring) is so overwhelming that we are 
 forced, no matter how unwillingly on the part of some 
 of us, to what at first sight looks like a counterconclu- 
 sion, viz., that there is some power in the universe, and 
 moreover, a power somewhat subject to .the will and 
 prayer of man, which does set aside what are common- 
 ly regarded as the fixed laws of nature. Out of the 
 first part of our statement Atheists derive all their sup- 
 port, and out of the second portion of it believers in 
 miracles derive their argument. 
 
 Now we think it only requires a little diligent study 
 of nature, law and miracles to reveal to us the fallacy 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 99 
 
 of Atheism and the equal fallacy of what is often des- 
 ignated supernaturalism. The truth lies between these 
 two extremes or poles of thought. Granting an im- 
 mutable law is not necessarily granting anything more 
 than an immutable Deity. If God is immutable and if 
 the law of nature is His law, why should it not be or 
 how can it not be immutable like its author. The mu- 
 tability of earthly laws springs from the mutability of 
 their framers and enforcers. The immutability of di- 
 vine law (and natural law is divine) springs from the 
 fact that God never changes, and therefore his mode of 
 action never changes. Universal law is, correctly speak- 
 ing, neither more nor less than the unvarying habit of 
 the Infinite Being. But to grant the immutability of 
 law is only to grant one of its characteristics. An im- 
 mutable law may be kind, cruel, wise, foolish, just, un- 
 just, and still immutable. It may make infinite room 
 for human freedom or no room for it at all, and yet be 
 immutable. The single attribute of immutability cov- 
 ers relatively very little of the ground we desire to go 
 over, and we shall never understand our subject if we 
 confine ourselves to a cold, sterile belief in immutable 
 law or even in an unchanging God, unless we go further 
 into an examination of what the law is we agree in 
 calling immutable. 
 
 It is an immutable law, so far as any one can dis- 
 cover, that an egg requires just so much heat to hatch 
 the bird out of it. Nature left to herself provides 
 the heat in the body of the mother bird, but does 
 not refuse to allow you to invent an artificial incu- 
 bator. A certain amount of heat is imperatively 
 demanded, that must be supplied or the chicken will 
 not be hatched, but nature does not seem to lay clown 
 
100 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 any arbitrary law as to where the heat comes from or 
 how it shall be generated. A law stares us in the face 
 which we cannot get over, we cannot hatch the chicken 
 without heat ; but if you can devise unusual means for 
 generating and supplying that heat, nature allows the 
 result you desire to follow just as though the ordinary 
 measures had been adopted. 
 
 The most surprising wonders of the Orient, accord- 
 ing to those who have most carefully studied them, 
 are just as amenable to a fixed and universal law as are 
 the most common occurrences of every day life. If a 
 mango tree blossoms in a few minutes from the seed of 
 a gourd, nature's processes are simply accelerated by 
 unwonted aid, and what is known as forcing is car- 
 ried on to an extent so surprising as to suggest to the 
 uninitiated the idea of a suspension of natural law. 
 Now when we pray do we or do we not put forward 
 some energy which brings about a result ? Is there or 
 is there not something going from the suppliant to the 
 one who is eventually healed, or in the case of prayer 
 for one's own recovery, is there or is there not some- 
 thing used by the patient to heal himself ? "We believe 
 that whenever a person uses prayer and succeeds in 
 healing himself by means of it he uses a spiritual force 
 within himself which is just as much, yea, far more a 
 remedial agent than any physician's prescription can be. 
 "When he prays for another and that other is healed 
 apparently in direct answer to prayer, as no other rea- 
 son can be assigned for his unexpected recovery, a 
 force is communicated to the sufferer, from the one 
 who offers prayer that he may get well ; the cure is 
 therefore performed in what is really a perfectly 
 natural way, albeit in a manner usually called super- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 101 
 
 natural by those who limit nature to the narrow 
 domain of their own personal acquaintance with it. 
 We know many people will step up just here and tell 
 us we are ruling God out of all our calculations, ignor- 
 ing divine aid and substituting for it some magical vir- 
 tue inherent in human nature. We are doing nothing 
 of the kind, though we are acknowledging the opera- 
 tion of divine power in its own way and through its 
 own appointed channels. It is an unmistakable fact in 
 nature that we must all sow in order to reap, or even 
 if we apparently reap what others have sown, the very 
 act of reaping implies effort ; we get nothing for 
 nothing, whatever we obtain we have got hold of hv 
 the putting forward of some energy physical or mental ; 
 it does not then appear that God chooses to work for 
 us independently of us, and if we can be sure of one 
 thing more than another, we can feel most abundantly 
 certain that God insists upon it that we shall work for 
 one another and be his agents and ministers in dispens- 
 ing his blessings among our fellow beings. Christian 
 Scientists, as they call themselves, are very apt to 
 speak in ignorance disparagingly of the assistance 
 rendered b} T spirit friends to their kindred on earth, 
 but whenever they do so they resort to worn-out plati- 
 tudes concerning the privilege we enjoy of going 
 directly to God and thereby avoiding the necessity of 
 relying in any sense on human or angelic instrumen- 
 tality. Their aguments usually fall worthless to the 
 ground by reason of their perpetual misstatement of 
 views they undertake to denounce. JVTen of straw are 
 built up with much elaborateness and then with great 
 energy demolished. More than once we have been 
 told that we were guilty of a species of idolatry if we 
 
102 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 imagined we could do anything to assist God. As we 
 never imagined we could assist the Infinite the arrow 
 was pointless and hit nowhere ; but if we gratefully 
 acknowledge the Infinite Goodness in working by us 
 and through us to accomplish his beneficent designs 
 while we confessedly owe everything to God, we do not 
 refuse to acknowledge the modes of divine operation 
 chosen by the Infinite Mind. If you give a treatment 
 and that treatment is successful, no matter how you 
 give it, you employ energy in giving it ; if it is only a 
 lesson in truth, you must so present the truth that it 
 will be accepted or the lesson is not received. To bring 
 the truth home with power to the mind of your 
 patient is the one thing needful ; to do so you must ex- 
 ercise your own spiritual nature in harmony with the 
 divine intent. Prayer seems to us nothing more than 
 spiritual effort ; incantations are vain, mere words are 
 valueless in themselves, formulas are dead letters unless 
 a living spirit breathes through them ; but when what 
 Montgomery calls " the soul's sincere desire unuttered 
 or expressed, the motion of a hidden fire which trem- 
 bles in the breast," is brought into active exercise with 
 beneficent intent, work is being done, the soul is en- 
 gaged in profitable industry, and the answer to prayer 
 comes through the'working of that universal law which 
 compensates the toiler for his effort. Now let us look 
 at some of the aspects of this question of prayer which 
 call for especial review at the present time. All over 
 Christian Europe, Jesus and his mother are said to have 
 appeared in certain places, performed miracles there 
 and ordained that pilgrims who visit consecrated 
 shrines should be made whole, no matter what disorder 
 they may be laboring under. These shrines have been 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 103 
 
 and still are sources of immense benefit in a financial 
 sense to the Koman Catholic Church. Witness the 
 magnificent church at Lourdes erected through the 
 offerings of pilgrims, see the crutches hanging up in 
 many of the churches, see the medals reaching from 
 floor to ceiling in many a lofty chapel, and then inquire 
 into the likelihood of the apparitions which gave birth 
 to such singular devotion. Easily enough you may 
 dismiss the whole subject with a sneer, and having con- 
 temptuously hissed out "nothing but superstition, 1 ' 
 refuse to bestow any further thought on the matter. 
 The question then arises, is not superstition a therapeu- 
 tic agent of great value ? and if people are by nature 
 superstitious let superstition be cultivated by all means 
 if it produces such benign results ; but we cannot dis- 
 miss the subject in any such summary manner, — there 
 is something far more real than superstition at the bot- 
 tom of these " miracles of healing," as they are called. 
 An undoubted spiritual power is at work in all those 
 places, and to find out what that power is and how it 
 works is one of the most interesting and useful psycho- 
 logical studies of. the day. No further away than 
 Hoboken Monastery, in New York, and the Portuguese 
 Church in North Bennett Street, Boston, have persons 
 been cured of long-standing and distressful maladies 
 when brought face to face with " holy relics " at 
 Hoboken, and water from a " holy well " in Boston. 
 Then among Protestants we have the striking case of 
 Dr. Cullis' work at the Consumptives' Home, Eoxbury, 
 where nothing but simple prayer is relied on. Patients 
 do recover ; though some do not, the fact that any 
 respectable percentage get well is enough to commend 
 the mode of cure to enlightened study. A very perti- 
 
101 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 nent query sometimes indeed often raised is, do not the 
 patients carry enough faith with them to cure them 
 any way, and is not the simple fact of the mental tran- 
 quillity and hopefulness consequent upon that faith a 
 sufficient reason for their cure ? We have to answer in 
 the light of facts, in a few instances yes, but in the 
 majority of cases no ; for the surprising feature of the 
 subject is that some who have faith are not cured, and 
 those who have no faith to start with get well the 
 soonest. Usually a positive, determined mind is influ- 
 enced by its own beliefs and unbeliefs far more than a 
 susceptible, pliant individual who easily yields, often 
 without knowing it, to the beliefs of those around 
 him. Belief seems a somewhat positive attitude of 
 the mind. If one believes anything it seems as 
 though he has thought about it and come to some 
 kind of a conclusion regarding it; but when a per- 
 son is totally ignorant of the theory or method of 
 practice, and is carried helpless into an institution, 
 expecting perhaps to die in a few clays or weeks 
 at the most, if he is cured under any kind of treat- 
 ment his own mind can have very Jittle to do with 
 the result attained. Of course an invisible and 
 unsuspected power may work silently and secretly 
 upon his mind and bear fruit afterwards in his recov- 
 ery, but that power belonged outside of himself, it 
 came fr;>m outside influences, not from any original 
 belief or expectation of his own. Many prayers 
 exercise a mesmeric influence over a patient; they 
 lull him to sleep, soothe away his pain as they lull 
 him into the arms of prayerfulness ; they play the 
 part of anaesthetics and render the entranced sub- 
 ject, while in a singularly negative condition, pecu- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 105 
 
 liarly susceptible to the beliefs and wishes of those 
 around him. 
 
 Cures are performed by mesmerism; this we know, 
 and can prove by many thoroughly well-authenticated 
 instances ; but a question arises, are they permanent ? 
 often we confess they are not. The question now 
 arises, so long as really healed, does, it matter how 
 they are healed? Is not one method of cure as good 
 as another, and if all kinds of prayers addressed to 
 all kinds of divinities are available what matters it 
 whether we profess a true religion or a false \ Eight 
 here in the use of the word religion comes the answer. 
 True religion is a matter of principle, of right feeling, 
 of noble emotion, of inspiring sentiment, rather than 
 of rigidly defined intellectual admissions. Religion is 
 a question of love, of purity, of magnanimity, of fer- 
 vent aspiration. It centers in the love of all good and 
 of humanity ; it is good and seeks to do good ; it pro- 
 ceeds from the soul rather than from the intellect, and 
 thus is far more a matter of the heart than of the 
 head. If people were truly pious in their lives because 
 they held certain doctrines and approached God in 
 certain forms of words while all others were impious, 
 we should then be compelled to look upon intellectual 
 exactitude as necessary to salvation ; but when we find 
 the most excellent and truly religious people holding 
 diametrically opposite views on all questions which 
 can be submitted to the intellect, we are compelled to 
 look deeper than opinion to find the secret of spiritual 
 life and growth without which all ceremonies and in- 
 vocations are empty forms and hollow mockeries. 
 Whenever prayer is sincere it is an uplifting of the 
 spirit to a plane of being which the spirit in its hour 
 
106 LECTU.EE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 of need recognizes as real and present, or at all events 
 near enough to be communicated with. 
 
 We hear much nowadays of mind-reading and 
 thought transference; Ave hear and read much of 
 curious experiments tending to prove the palpability 
 of thought and the possibility of one mind communi- 
 cating with another without any kind of contact be- 
 tween bodies; and while there is of course much 
 difference of opinion among the learned as to the 
 nature of the force which is employed in the trans- 
 mission of ideas from one mind to another, the general 
 impression seems to be that there is a subtle force 
 within us and around us, subtler by far than elec- 
 tricity, which does a work in mind in the transmission 
 of intelligence analogous to that performed by the 
 electric fluid on the sensuous plane of communion. In 
 every instance of thought transference we hear of cer- 
 tain conditions being necessary to success, the experi- 
 ments being successful only when some subtle and 
 mysterious requirements are fulfilled, these require- 
 ments oftentimes being of so unknown a character 
 that the phenomena are noted more for their erraticity 
 and incomprehensibility than for anything else. Just 
 as it is necessary to employ machinery and apparatus 
 in the conduct of electrical experiments, just as the 
 telegraphic wires cannot be dispensed with in the 
 transmission of intelligence from point to point, so 
 in the subtler realm of mental interaction something 
 analogous must be established to bring two minds 
 en rapport with each other. Prayer seems in one at 
 least of its phases to be the sending forth of a subtle 
 force from within ourselves which grasps some power 
 beyond us with which we desire to ally ourselves, no 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 107 
 
 matter to whom we pray. The personage addressed, 
 though a fancied historical character, may be after all 
 only a myth, still we do lay hold of something and 
 some one, we do get a response somehow from some- 
 where, and it is a response which in many instances 
 answers perfectly to our idea of the being we ad- 
 dressed in our prayer. ISTow it seems to us incredible 
 that an impossible or a non-existent character should 
 ever have found its way into human thought or litera- 
 ture. 
 
 Novels we have in abundance; so-called works of 
 fiction are plenteous as daisies in spring, but are works 
 of fiction, works of fiction in the strict sense after all I 
 "Where do the characters come from ? Are there no actual 
 patterns after which the writer copies ? Are not novels 
 very often simple biographies more or less distorted, 
 names, dates and places changed, personages consider- 
 ably mixed, but still the whole tale made up from real 
 life ? It is an open secret that popular novelists put people 
 of their acquaintance into their books and often travel 
 and seek society for the purpose of collecting material 
 for fresh romance. Supposing the myriad personages 
 involved in prayer by the various bodies of worshipers 
 the world over were for the most part fictional ideals, 
 still they would have their counterparts in real life, 
 each one would stand out distinct from all others as the 
 embodiment of some especial quality, and an invocation 
 to an imaginary being possessed of such quality would 
 bring the mind of the suppliant into relation with some 
 real being in whom that particular characteristic was 
 peculiarly prominent. Suppose now, for the sake of 
 argument, Jesus of Nazareth never existed. Historical 
 evidence of his existence is extremely slender and many 
 
108 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 modern critics assume that he was merely a mythical or 
 an ideal personage. If that be so are we forced to con- 
 clude that all the prayers ever offered to him are fruit- 
 less, that they represent just so much wasted energy 
 and idle breath ? Such a conclusion would be too piti- 
 ably cruel for us to entertain for a single instant. The 
 value of prayer is in its spiritual fervor and intensity, 
 and if one prays to Jesus with an ideal before him and 
 with the sole object of conforming his life nearer to 
 the standard of that ideal, if he invokes that to help 
 him to become more like itself, such petitions instead of 
 being valueless are ladders to living spheres of spiritual 
 being, and it matters not whether there ever was on 
 earth a human personality who lived out that ideal in 
 mortal form. The ideal in the human mind is a reflec- 
 tion caught from the realm of spirit ; it is exceedingly 
 probable that history more or less clearly proves the 
 outward manifestation of the ideal; but if history does 
 not, prophecy assuredly does, and the future condition 
 of mankind on earth is a condition already reached in 
 spiritual being somewhere and reflected upon the con- 
 sciousness of those yet dwelling amid the shadows of 
 materiality. 
 
 Now take away from the character of Jesus all that 
 savors of' what is commonly termed the miraculous and 
 supernatural, draw aside the curtains of mythology and 
 let the human personality stand out in all its spiritual 
 and natural loveliness ; forget all theories of a miracu- 
 lous conception, throw to the winds all thought of any- 
 thing other than a pure and perfect manhood, think of 
 Jesus only as an elder brother, in a word take the view 
 of him which Theodore Parker took, and what have 
 you to contemplate but a human being who has reached 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 109 
 
 a nobler height of holiness and devotion to truth than 
 the rest of mankind. As Moses was the greatest law- 
 giver mentioned in Jewish history, as Phidias was the 
 greatest sculptor known to Greece, as Confucius was 
 the greatest ethical teacher and reformer known to the 
 Chinese, so Jesus was the greatest spiritual light known 
 to Christendom. But some will say, and with great 
 showing of truth, there is no evidence that any one 
 man ever lived in whom all moral excellences met; 
 have not historians borrowed from many and many a 
 person, many and many a clime, and decked their 
 chosen hero in many borrowed garments which were 
 not rightfully his own ? Such may be the case, but 
 even if it is, it does not alter the fact that there are 
 human beings, if not a solitarv human being, in whom 
 these excellences have met ; the whole glory may not 
 belong to one alone, it may be the joint possession of a 
 great multitude, but the hope of relating one's self to 
 those realms of intelligence and virtue in which such 
 moral beauties are outwrought in beneficent conduct 
 is not a baseless dream, it is a well-grounded con- 
 fidence. 
 
 Surely there are no skeptics who will not admit 
 as much as this. Nothing can be in the world's his- 
 tory which transcends the attainment of the human 
 mind. If Shakespeare was not the author of the plays 
 which bear 'his name. Lord Bacon or somebody else 
 wrote them, they did not write themselves. They 
 are written and some mind or minds must have lived 
 adequate to the task of producing them. So with 
 Homer ; if such a man as Homer is generally supposed 
 to have been never lived, the Illiad and Odyssey being 
 in existence were brought into existence by an intelli- 
 
110 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 gence adequate to the task of their production ; and so 
 with the ethical teachings of Jesus, they have been given 
 to the world some where, by some one, at some time. 
 
 Beyond that point where the baldest skepticism 
 may possibly stop, we as gnostics rather than agnostics 
 necessarily go, knowing that no life perishes, that no 
 mind fades away : that all intelligence enjoys a career 
 immortal. We confidently proclaim our unfaltering 
 conviction that if you in sincerity of purpose fervently 
 address a plane of being called by you by any name 
 you please, or by no name at all if you cannot give it 
 a name, you enter into living relation with that very 
 degree of mind which made the teachings and products 
 you most admire possible on earth. You may then 
 have an erroneous idea of personality, you may address 
 the name of a myth, but you address the real spirit 
 which you are endeavoring to find and commune with 
 it beyond the myth which partially obscures your 
 mental horizon. No doubt many divinities invoked by 
 many nations are mythical creations, so far as their 
 literal history is concerned, and we can none of us 
 doubt that many "saints " have been canonized because 
 of services they rendered and offerings they made to 
 the church, while their characters up to the very last 
 were anything but saintly, their death bed repentances 
 and conversions being unreal, as they were only in- 
 duced by fear and in the hope of escaping deserved 
 punishment and winning unmerited reward after 
 the death of the body. These " saints " are, no 
 doubt, at this moment, many of them, in a very 
 dark and unprogressed condition in spirit-life, and 
 utterly beyond the reach of the adorations of those 
 who invoke them. 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. Ill 
 
 Still the suppliant has before him a mental image 
 of true sanctity, he invokes an ideal in his own mind, 
 and when he does so he forms a connecting link be- 
 tween himself and some being or beings who really do 
 represent the ideal height he desires to reach, and from 
 which he is laboring to win a response. 
 
 Paganism and Romanism alike acknowledge an im- 
 mense number of lesser divinities somewhat corres- 
 ponding to the Elohim or Dcmiuryos of the Kabala. 
 One of these divinities is supposed to protect the one 
 who seeks his or her patronage from drowning, another 
 shields from land accidents, another from fire, another 
 helps his charge to the acquisition of wealth, another 
 finds and restores stolen property, while others whose 
 missions are more spiritual assist those who invoke 
 them to the acquisition of graces and the development 
 of their higher nature generally. If there were no such 
 thing as communion with departed spirits at all these 
 prayers would not be in vain, as the very desire to en- 
 ter into relation with a certain type of mind would in- 
 troduce the petitioner into the sphere of other indi- 
 viduals on earth whose mental exhalations fill the air 
 and affect us more or less powerfully as we become re- 
 ceptive or non-receptive, according to the bent of our 
 desire. 
 
 We come now to an intensely practical part of our 
 subject, viz.: the means whereby and the reasons why 
 persons affect each other so powerfully under some con- 
 ditions, and scarcely at all under others. Spiritual 
 science teaches you before all things the paramount 
 necessity of properly directing your thought and 
 wisely using your will. A true spiritual scientist is 
 never a mesmeric dupe, never a victim of an} x and 
 
112 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 every influence which may be floating by. We must 
 try the spirits in the fullest sense, i.e., put every influ- 
 ence which approaches us to the test of reason and 
 conscience, and never allow ourselves to be blindly led 
 by the passing breeze in whatever direction it may be 
 blowing. 
 
 An incalculable amount of danger may be avoided 
 and misery averted if persons will only act by intuition 
 and by reason, not by blind impulse. Untold misery 
 is occasioned by that prevalent externalism abounding 
 everywhere which teaches the child from his earliest 
 breath to bow to authority and bend to custom. We 
 must set rather than follow fashion ; though ever ready 
 to take advice, we can never be too careful in hesitat- 
 ing to follow an impression because it is an impression. 
 An impression is not an intuition, as an intuition is an 
 impulse of the soul, while an impression is only an im- 
 press made upon our mind by some effluence of an- 
 other's mind which is at the moment in our vicinage. 
 
 When we have settled the point that thought is a 
 substance, when we realize with sufficient vividity that 
 we are constantly praying to others while others are 
 praying to us, that every thought, desire, wish, and 
 certainly every effort of will is a prayer, we shall see 
 that we are both praying and answering prayers con- 
 tinually. Prayer is aspiration, desire, will, request ; so 
 when an apostle said, "Pray without ceasing," and 
 coupled with that injunction, " Watch and pray," aspi- 
 ration and vigilance were estimated at their true val- 
 ues and placed in their rightful relations. We must 
 not only watch as well as pray, but we must watch, 
 and that carefully, ere we pray. We must not allow 
 ourselves to pray for anything and everything ; it is a 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. C0LVILLE. 113 
 
 mischievous fallacy to suppose that because God can- 
 not answer a prayer for what is evil, and no good an- 
 gel can reply to it either, that therefore it goes unan- 
 swered ; it is most assuredly responded to from that 
 state of mind toward which it gravitates and with 
 which it is in sympathy. We have known children as 
 well as brigands to steal, and pray that they might not 
 be found out. We have known people to deliberately 
 set out upon an evil course, and before they undertook 
 to plunder their fellow- creatures, offer up a prayer for 
 success in their nefarious undertaking. Now are such 
 prayers harmless, do they amount to nothing? Are 
 they mere wasted breath ? We might wish they were, 
 but as it is they are causes of the direst misery, as they 
 link those who offer them with the powers of dark- 
 ness, and these powers of darkness which inhabit the 
 air are none other than other minds similarly inten- 
 tioned who clasp hold of all who invoke any myste- 
 rious or unknown power to aid them in a work of evil. 
 If prayers for evil ends are answered are we not then 
 in continual danger? Yes, but only when we do not 
 curb our lower instincts ; only when we encourage, or 
 at least allow the baser proclivities of our nature to 
 assert themselves. 
 
 Obsession is doubtless a fact, but it is occasioned by 
 low and evil thoughts and desires, by those very 
 thoughts which necessarily lead to vicious practices 
 whenever indulged in. Metaphysical healing makes a 
 dead set against errors in mind ; it utters its protests 
 with clarion voice against all secret thoughts of evil ; 
 it does not and cannot stop where physiology and san- 
 itary legislation are compelled to stop, at the making 
 clean of the outside of the cup and platter. 
 
114 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 Metaphysicians frequently say very little about 
 outward practices, why? but because they know the 
 truth of the adage, "Out of the abundance of the 
 heart the mouth speaketh." It would indeed be a 
 blessed thing for the world if prohibitory legislation 
 could put down evil, but does it ? Alas, no ! In a re- 
 public prohibitory legislation is impossible if the peo- 
 ple are not sufficiently well disposed to desire it, as laws 
 can only be made by the people, and they will never 
 make better laws than they desire, and they will only 
 desire good ones when they are morally and mentally 
 enlightened. And then again, if a prohibitory law is 
 passed and enforced where people are too vicious to 
 appreciate wise legislation, they resort to every con- 
 ceivable artifice to evade it, and their moral progress is 
 therefore retarded rather than advanced by pressure 
 brought to bear from the outside. Education and 
 Moral Suasion are the only two possible means of 
 bringing about reform ; force is impossible, utterly im- 
 practicable, unless you are dealing with serfs and sav- 
 ages, and even then it only leads in the long run to 
 mutiny and revolt and an exhibition of the most fla- 
 grant vices possible to humanity. Some Socialists, we 
 know, laugh at moral suasion, others distrust its 
 power; almost all believe in improved legislation and 
 state interference as the sovereign remedy for existing 
 ills, but how are they to get improved legislation, how 
 are they to get a well-organized state, without educa- 
 tion and moral suasion ? If some like the word educa- 
 tion, and do not favor the words moral suasion, how, 
 we should like to know, are they going to separate the 
 two unless they rob education of all its moral elements 
 and thus reduce it to an artificial and utterly ineffect- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 115 
 
 ual attempt to accomplish the impossibility of raising 
 mankind to a higher level without appealing to the 
 only lever which can lift society, viz., the moral sense. 
 
 Intellectual and physical culture alone are misera- 
 bly inadequate to evolve a perfect state. Greece, 
 Rome, Babylonia, Chaldea, and multitudes of ancient 
 names stand eloquently forth in history, vetoing any 
 such absurd attempt. The nations which fell away 
 most completely from virtue and at length from mate- 
 rial prosperity also, those which have been utterly 
 destroyed, and whose ruins alone remain to tell the 
 tale of their once glory have fallen when culture was 
 at its height and schools were crowded with learners. 
 
 The one thing needful in education was unhappily 
 left out, and that was moral and spiritual culture. 
 Healing by spiritual power means healing the mind of 
 evil thoughts, exorcising the demons of impure wishes ; 
 and as every physician and sanitarian knows disease 
 and vice, health and virtue are intimate associates, the 
 true spiritual healer must minister to a mind diseased, 
 to affections depraved, and by inducing first the love 
 of virtue and begetting in the patient's mind the under- 
 standing of it will soon find that as all growth proceeds 
 from the center outwards, not from the circumference 
 inwards, so it is impossible to change fruit without 
 changing the condition of the root from which it 
 springs. Just as the use of cosmetics can never purify 
 the blood or impart the natural glow of health to the 
 cheek, as all the beauty of skin stimulated by rouge, 
 pearl powder and other vain and injurious compounds, 
 products of an age of insincerity and sham is indeed 
 less than skin deep and tends to increase rather than 
 lessen the pallor caused by sickness, as such prepara- 
 
110) LECTURE EY W. J. C0LVILLE. 
 
 tions clog the pores and prevent that natural action of 
 the skin which is indispensable to health, so all 
 attempts at glossing over defects and making persons 
 act and speak well without any motive power from 
 within impelling them to do so can only intensify 
 instead of relieving the moral maladies under which 
 society groans. 
 
 We must devise some more radical means of 
 improving the morals of the rising generation than 
 plrysiological text-books 'will supply. When well 
 written they are good as far as they go, but they lack 
 all power of appeal to the spiritual nature. Boys and 
 girls are told if they indulge in sexual excesses they 
 will suffer from nervous debility, that as they grow 
 older diseases will overtake them when they least 
 expect it ; they will lose health, strength and powers 
 of enjoyment by contracting vicious habits. All this 
 is true enough, no one can dispute it ; but we fail to 
 see how an address to selfishness, or at the best an appeal 
 to the animal instinct of self-preservation as conspicu- 
 ous in rats as it is in man, hoAV an appeal to fear of 
 consequences falling upon lawless indulgences can do 
 much to stimulate that moral and mental force without 
 which it is extremely difficult, almost impossible to 
 restrain the passions. 
 
 A spiritual treatment succeeds where the physio- 
 logical argument fails, because the former induces the 
 dormant spiritual energy in the one treated to come 
 forth, assert its power, and hold the lower impulses in 
 check. Spiritual healing is the victory of spirit over 
 sense, of mind over matter, and true prayer addressed 
 in all sincerity to infinite purity cannot fail to arouse 
 in the one who prays thus, that very moral vigor 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 117 
 
 which is more than a match for all the wiles and seduc- 
 tions of the lower nature. When we pray for another 
 we should never desire or expect more than this, to 
 enter into some blessed fellowship with the powers of 
 light in such a manner as to assist in the awakening 
 of the divine light within the sufferer or sinner in 
 whom it a while lies dormant. Prayer is spiritual 
 effort, the truest, noblest and most earnest work in 
 which we can possibly engage. 
 
LECTUKE VI. 
 
 MIND-READING, THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE AND KINDRED PHE- 
 NOMENA. WHAT IS THEIR SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION? 
 
 THE columns of the daily and weekly newspapers 
 being at the present time almost filled with ac- 
 counts of more or less successful experiments in what 
 is properly termed Mind Keading, we have chosen as 
 the topic of our discourse tonight some of the more 
 familiar phases and aspects of this singular and inter- 
 esting phenomenon, feeling sure our hearers and readers 
 (for this discourse is being reported in extenso) will be 
 interested in hearing what we have to offer on an 
 always attractive but just at present peculiarly 
 seasonable topic. You are doubtless all of you 
 pretty thoroughly familiar with the now widely ac- 
 cepted theory of animal magnetism. You all have 
 heard and read and perhaps experienced something 
 of its alleged marvelous potency, and while many 
 of you are willing to lay it aside for what you feel 
 to be a higher revelation of truth, you cannot but 
 admit that the theory of its existence on the sensuous 
 plane of thought is both tenable and logical. The 
 magnetic theory, as we understand it, is practically 
 this : The human body is an aggregation of molecules 
 or minute particles of matter kept in a constant state 
 of frictional motion by means of that subtle power we 
 call life. As long as life operates upon these molecules 
 
 118 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 119 
 
 their activities are continuous, but when life retires 
 their wonted movements are instantly and finally sus- 
 pended so far as their remaining part of a particular 
 body is concerned. The constant friction of atoms must 
 necessarily produce an energy, or force, an emanation 
 or effluence, hard to define, perhaps, but nevertheless to 
 be palpably felt, and under certain conditions suscep- 
 tible of analysis. That heat and moisture are con- 
 stantly being thrown off from the human body no one 
 can deny, and no one, we should think, could accord to 
 heat and moisture no properties. 
 
 On the plane of physical existence animal magnet- 
 ism operates as all material forces operate ; this subtle 
 fluid emanation is without doubt communicable from 
 one person to another, with or without contact con- 
 sciously or unconsciously on the part of both the donor 
 and recipient. K*ow in mind-reading, or thought trans- 
 ference, animal magnetism plays a very subordinate 
 part, as ideas are what we have to deal with rather 
 than physical sensations. Animal magnetism, if it 
 ever acts as a therapeutic agent, if it ever aids in the 
 relief of pain or the cure of organic disease, can only 
 act as food or any physical remedy can act ; it cannot 
 convey ideas or act as a self -intelligent agent in the 
 conveyance of mental impressions ; but when we turn 
 our thoughts from the bod} 7 to the spirit, from matter 
 to mind, we can readily see how closely analogous 
 magnetism on the physical plane may be to thought on 
 the mental. 
 
 Thought is without doubt a substance, a something 
 real, tangible, objective to the senses of the spiritual 
 body, and we must never forget that man on earth is a 
 spiritual being, the possessor of a spiritual body which 
 
120 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 he will continue to inhabit when the mortal form has 
 crumbled into dust. Man, then, on earth has latent 
 within him all the potencies and capabilities of so-called 
 departed spirits. Death does not revolutionize charac- 
 ter, neither does it necessarily produce any immediate 
 change in the moral and mental status of an individual. 
 Departed spirits, as those are usually called who, to use 
 Shakespeare's language, " have shuffled off this mortal 
 coil," are not necessarily either more or less advanced 
 than you, and our most decided conviction is that with- 
 out a solitary exception, if you were every one of you 
 to pass out of earthly existence at this moment, you 
 would each one commence your progress in the unseen 
 world at that precise point in your development which 
 you had reached the instant prior to experiencing the 
 change called death. If this inference be correct, 
 and both Spiritualism and reason endorse it, we can 
 surely see our way towards an amicable settlement of 
 many differences of opinion between Spiritualists and 
 others which occasion much unpleasant controversy 
 and the manifestation of much hard feeling on both 
 sides. 
 
 Metaphysicians, Theosophists and Spiritualists are 
 for the most part all laboring to the same end, and 
 frequently they are only calling the same thing by 
 three different names, and thus their dispute is rather 
 over the name by which the flower shall be called than 
 over the rose itself, whose fragrance is not affected by 
 any name which may be given to it, — to allude again 
 to Shakespeare and borrow from him an illustration. 
 The experiments with Irving Bishop which have formed 
 the subject of so much discussion of late are extremely 
 simple and can very easily be explained by an intelli- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 121 
 
 gent student of spiritual science. Such experiments 
 are valuable more on account of their bringing meta- 
 physical and spiritual matters before a class of the 
 community often hard to reach by less sensational 
 methods than on account of any great inherent virtue 
 they may possess, as they constitute only the alphabet 
 of Spiritualism, and explain only the very first princi- 
 ples of metaphysics or theosophy. 
 
 What is thought? is a question ever recurring. 
 How is thought generated? does the brain secrete it? 
 Is it dependent upon an organized brain for its exist- 
 ence, or is it rather an independent reality which man- 
 ifests itself outwardly through the brain, using the 
 brain as the vehicle of its expression, while the brain 
 has no power to produce it but only to make it out- 
 wardly manifest ? These and hundreds of allied ques- 
 tions are being raised continually in the present state 
 of psychological controversy, and it is our object in this 
 address to make an attempt to discuss and if possible 
 to answer a few of them. 
 
 Now in the first place it always strikes us that the 
 great fundamental error in materialism is that the ma- 
 terialist reverses the natural order, and while of course 
 recognizing both cause and effect, declares cause to be 
 effect, and effect to be cause, falling therefore into the 
 precise error called in a homely proverb, " putting the 
 cart before the horse." A few simple axioms or tru- 
 isms which no one can successfully dispute seem to us 
 to thoroughly confute materialistic reasoning. Take, 
 for instance, the following which we believe are almost 
 universally admitted to be unanswerable : " Out of 
 nothing, nothing comes ; " " A cause must be equal to 
 the effect produced from it ; " " A stream cannot rise 
 
122 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 higher than its source ; " these and many others too 
 numerous to mention, all in the same strain and abso- 
 lutely irrefutable, answer finally the assumption of the 
 materialist, that matter produces mind. 
 
 Nothing can be evolved which is not previously 
 involved; involution is the key to evolution and the 
 only intelligent and adequate explanation of its phe- 
 nomena. We often have occasion to refer to what are 
 commonly called the physical sciences ; we never speak 
 disparagingly of them, but we insist that there are 
 spiritual sciences which explain them and without a 
 knowledge of which they are both misleading and 
 inexplicable. Take phrenology and physiognomy as 
 instances, it is beyond dispute that character can be 
 read by the organs of the brain and also by facial 
 expression. Even hand- writing portrays character, 
 character is depicted moreover in every line of the 
 hand and in every movement of the body ; but because 
 we admit all this and do not refuse to be guided by 
 these outward indices, if we have no better and more 
 interior methods of judgment at our disposal, are we 
 compelled to commit ourselves to the self-evident fal- 
 lacy proposed by some, that the character is the result, 
 the outcome, the effect of these externals ; are not 
 these externals the results, the outcome, the effects of 
 character? Outward experiences do not influence 
 mind or limit intelligence, but mind and intelligence 
 certainly do occasion and regulate all outward indica- 
 tions. A thermometer has no effect upon temperature, 
 it cannot heat or cool a room in which it hangs, but it 
 certainly can indicate the temperature which it has no 
 possible power to modulate. A barometer has not an 
 iota of influence upon the weather, still the quicksilver 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 123 
 
 in it can warn you of the rains, winds, or tempests it 
 has no hand whatever in inducing or preventing ; we 
 do not refuse to acknowledge the value and usefulness 
 of these indicators because we are not foolish enough 
 to believe them to be weather-makers ; just in this pro- 
 portion do we acknowledge and utilize phrenology, 
 physiognomy and kindred sciences. 
 
 If a child is brought to us whose development is 
 very meagre in certain respects, if the conformation of 
 the head proves him to be very unevenly developed, we 
 do not tell the parent that he is stamped for life with 
 certain littlenesses and infirmities. Eather do we 
 endeavor to spur on the parent to exert himself to the 
 uttermost in overcoming these defects and annihilating 
 these limitations. The brain has nothing to do with 
 the intellect, any more than the barometer has to do 
 with the weather ; it may indicate how far the intellect 
 is expanded, but that is all. How often we observe 
 coarse, brutal expressions marring the faces of unkind 
 people ; a change of mind, or a change of heart as 
 Christians often say, completely revolutionizes a per- 
 son's appearance. Kind thoughts lead to genial smiles 
 and pleasant lines in the face, while disagreeable 
 thoughts, even when kept to one's self and never trans- 
 lated into speech, pucker up the countenance and give 
 it a sour and repellant aspect. Far too much stress is 
 commonly laid upon externals ; the majority of man- 
 kind are altogether too superficial and conventional ; 
 formal etiquette receives far more attention than it 
 deserves, and thus a whitewashing of sepulchres full of 
 corruption within, and a cleansing of the outside of a 
 cup and platter filthy within, is as much in vogue 
 today as it probably was when condemnation of such 
 
124 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 hypocritical pretense found its way into the New 
 Testament. 
 
 Thought is not only a substance or reality ; it is a 
 far greater reality, a far more important and influential 
 substance than either word or action. Thus we need 
 the Arabic as well as the Christian statement of the 
 Golden Kule. Combine them and the rule is perfect : 
 " Thou shalt feel and do towards thy neighbor as thou 
 desirest thy neighbor to feel and do unto thee. ' If we 
 recognize thought as more powerful than anything 
 visible, audible, tangible, or otherwise perceptible to 
 man's outward or bodily senses, we harmonize per- 
 fectly with chemistry and other physical sciences in 
 declaring the invisible to be vastly more potential than 
 the visible. Chemistry positively demonstrates the 
 invisible forces of nature to be far the more potent of 
 the two. • No mechanical engineer needs to be told 
 this truth ; he knows well enough the superiority of 
 invisible steam to visible vapor. Every chemist knows 
 of the superiority of ether to matter ; all matter can 
 be converted into ether, but all ether cannot be con- 
 verted into matter, for when the conversion is at- 
 tempted a residuum always remains on the side of 
 ether. Of course we may be found fault with for sug- 
 gesting that ether and matter are distinct ; many 
 scientists say ether is only refined, rarified, ethereal- 
 ized matter. We maintain that that is a wrong state- 
 ment of the case. The truer statement is that matter 
 is a lower form of ether, as experiments go to prove 
 that there is something in ether there is not in matter, 
 while there is nothing in matter there is not in ether; 
 ether may therefore be the parent cause of matter, but 
 matter cannot be the parent cause of ether, as matter 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 125 
 
 cannot produce what is greater than itself, while ether 
 .may produce what is less than itself. Consciousness is 
 surely greater than unconsciousness. The conscious is 
 surely greater than the unconscious. Thus matter may 
 be a product of mind, but mind cannot be a product of 
 matter. When organization is spoken of as necessary 
 to mind, truth is inverted, turned topsy turvy. The 
 fact of the case is the direct opposite of the statement. 
 There can be no organization without mind ; mind is 
 the organizer. It is the inevitable habit of mind to 
 organize, therefore if it should be true that wherever 
 mind is there is organization also, the organization or 
 organism is not the creator of mind, but its creature, 
 not its cause, but the effect of it. 
 
 If you will follow this process of reasoning 
 to its ultimate } T ou will quickly see where the 
 fallacy of materialism lies, viz., in confounding 
 cause and effect, reversing them, mistaking one 
 for the other. Now to apply this reasoning to 
 the curious and exciting phenomena under discus- 
 sion, a pin or some larger object is hidden away 
 somewhere out of sight of a " mind-reader ;" the mind- 
 reader usually insists upon it that some one who knows 
 where the object is hidden shall concentrate his mind 
 upon it, and then either with or without physical 
 contact with the person who knows where the 
 article is concealed, the mind-reader finds it and pro- 
 duces it, much to the amazement of the spectators, who 
 greet his success with acclamation, without attempting 
 to solve the mystery or tell how the thing is done. Mr. 
 Bishop is a notorious example of a power lying dormant 
 to a greater or lesser degree in every one, and he him- 
 self admits it can be cultivated by those who pursue it 
 
126 LECTUEE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 with perseverance and assiduity. It of course involves 
 an effort and exhausts the performer much as any other 
 kind of work does which involves taxation of the men- 
 tal energies. The experiments which have been con- 
 ducted both publicly and privately in many places in 
 the presence of many distinguished men of science and 
 representative clergymen can only be explained in one 
 of two ways; they maybe adduced as evidences of 
 spirit control, or they may be brought forward simply 
 as samples of the wonderful power resident in the hu- 
 man mind while yet associated with an earthly body. 
 We will take the latter view into consideration first, as 
 it leads up to the former ; a due consideration of what 
 is commonly called mental phenomena paves the way 
 in the popular mind for what is always designated 
 spiritual phenomena, for though the use of the words 
 " mental" and " spiritual " in that connection and with 
 such implied limitations may be open to criticism, we 
 all know that such use of them is very common, and 
 therefore needs to be taken into account in presenting 
 an explanation to the general public. 
 
 The mind of man here and now is assuredly the same 
 typically that it will be after it has severed its connec- 
 tion with flesh. Death cannot materially alter the 
 condition of the mind ; it may liberate it and afford it 
 wider scope than it previously had for the exercise 
 of its powers, but substantially the condition of 
 yourselves and your so-called departed friends is 
 the same, with the single difference of outside organi- 
 zation. Now if we are all spiritual beings here 
 and now and forever, if we can generate and transmit 
 thought by reason of our being spiritual entities, why 
 can we not communicate with each other, and that 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLYILLE. 127 
 
 perfectly, without bringing into requisition the physi- 
 cal senses at all \ 
 
 Probably no one is entirely destitute of interesting 
 psychic experiences ; it is really extraordinary to note 
 Iioav many peculiar events have taken place within the 
 knowledge of almost everybody, events which have 
 been dismissed as inexplicable until the present deep and 
 growing interest in the spiritual side of nature calls them 
 up from the recesses of memory where they have long- 
 lain stowed away, and offers a reasonable explanation 
 of them in harmony with a hitherto unknown law. 
 When you shall have accustomed yourselves to depend 
 more on spiritual means of communion with each other 
 and less on external avenues of intercourse, you will 
 find yourselves receiving impressions conveying news 
 of distant friends to such an extent as to enable you at 
 length to dispense with outward means of converse 
 almost entirely. 
 
 No power unless specially sought after or unusually 
 prominent makes itself manifest under ordinary circum- 
 stances except in case of necessity. There is no reason 
 whatever why people should not write with their left 
 hand as easily as with their right, the only reason why 
 they do not is because they have not been educated to 
 do so, and have never felt the necessity of trying to 
 accomplish what they have not been taught. But let 
 an affliction deprive one of his right hand, the necessity 
 of writing with the left frequently gives power to use 
 it, or at all events it affords an incentive to an exercise 
 which, if faithfully persevered in, is invariably crowned 
 with success. Even the toes have been made to hold 
 a pen where both hands have been lost, and the 
 caligraphy of the toe- writer has been quite intelli- 
 
128 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 gible. Just as children have only been taught to use 
 one hand and no toes in writing, and have, therefore, 
 only developed the power of using one hand in pen- 
 manship, so they have been taught to rely exclus- 
 ively on their physical senses for all communion with 
 one another, but let a sensitive, impressionable child 
 be educated from the cradle to respond to thought 
 without the use of language or anything outward, and 
 that child will grow up a natural seer. Seership can 
 be cultivated or repressed as well as any other power 
 indigenous to the minds of the human family. When 
 Mr. Bishop conducts his experiments he always tells 
 some one who assists in the exhibition to keep his 
 mind firmly fixed on the hidden object to the exclu- 
 sion of all other thoughts for the time being ; he there- 
 fore succeeds much better with one person than with 
 another, though all who constitute a committee may 
 be equally friendly and desirous of seeing the experi- 
 ments a success ; still one has more concentrativeness 
 than another, and the person who can rivet his atten- 
 tion on one object to the exclusion of all others for the 
 longest time and with the most fidelity is always the 
 one whose mind the mind-reader can read most freely. 
 We knew two ladies at one time, one an English- 
 woman, the other a Spaniard ; the one could not speak 
 or understand anything of the other's language, yet 
 they conversed with each other in mind so perfectly 
 that the one was a perfect companion to the other. 
 We will give you two or three illustrations of the 
 manner in which they communicated, as it was a 
 singular and deeply interesting, also a most instructive, 
 case to the student of psychism. We will say, before 
 proceeding with the narrative, that the ladies con- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 129 
 
 ceived a strong attachment for each other at the time 
 of their first meeting, thereby manifesting an intense 
 natural sympathy which always greatly facilitates 
 thought transference. They were accidentally left 
 alone together in a large London house late one 
 evening in a thoroughly and exclusively English- 
 speaking neighborhood, when the Spanish lady was 
 suddenly taken with a fit of indisposition ; this greatly 
 affrighted the English lady and also deeply discon- 
 certed the Spaniard, but only for a moment, for no 
 sooner did the sufferer express a wish for hot water 
 than her English companion brought it to her; no 
 sooner did she desire a window closed or opened than 
 the English lady opened or closed it, of course at the 
 time being acting automatically, scarcely knowing 
 what she was about or why she acted as she did, as 
 her companion's words conveyed to her no meaning 
 whatever. Erom that day forward they were the 
 most intimate and confidential of friends, and, though 
 they had neither of them learned anything of any 
 phase of mental or spiritual science from any book or 
 person, they acted out a spiritual play perfect in all its 
 parts. Of course, the question may be raised legiti- 
 mately, how far was the English lady a medium ? how 
 far was she influenced by spirit friends? but, without 
 endeavoring to finally decide that point, let us look 
 over the ground a little and see what warrant we have 
 for indorsing such a conclusion. 
 
 Clear proof of spirit intervention must necessarily 
 transcend the abilities of those present in the flesh. 
 We are not justified in recklessly attributing every- 
 thing to departed spirits without adequate reason for 
 belie vino; in their intervention. Over-credulitv anions 
 
130 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 Spiritualists does quite as much to retard an intelligent 
 understanding of spiritual operations as does any 
 amount of skepticism or even opposition on the part of 
 those avowedly hostile to the theory of the Spiritualist. 
 Whenever Ave have proof of spirit intervention we 
 stand confronted with a fact not logically referable to 
 the action of our own unassisted minds; for instance, 
 if the lady whom we have brought forward as an 
 example of the working of mental telegraphy, did 
 nothing more than she was mentally requested to do 
 by her Spanish friend, the Spanish lady stood in the 
 position of spirit guide and the English lady served as 
 her medium. If at other times their relation was re- 
 versed, as it often was, the English lady was the 
 directing intelligence and the Spanish lady the subject 
 sensitive ; but if information was obtained foreign to 
 the knowledge of either of the ladies, if either of them 
 acted beyond her own and her companion's thought 
 and knowledge, then we conclude there must have 
 been a third party to the result and that party an 
 unseen spirit. 
 
 In frequent instances a mesmeric subject is taken 
 entirely out of the hands of an operator and made to 
 obey another will, there comes in the action of the un- 
 seen spirit disconnected from the body; but even in 
 such cases there is not always absolute proof that the 
 influencing mind is not still on earth. Our theory, 
 however, while it may at first sight appear to cut the 
 ground from under Spiritualism, in reality makes it 
 stronger, as our science is anthropological and we can- 
 not study man as he is and where he is without gain- 
 ing new light on his probable powers and conditions 
 in another state of existence. We may say that we 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. C0LVILLE. 131 
 
 know that many of the instances recorded by the 
 Theosophists are unquestionably genuine cases of 
 thought transference, but they do not support an an- 
 tagonism to Spiritualism when they are rightfully ex- 
 plained, they rather cut the earth from under the op- 
 position. If while here on earth, environed in matter, 
 limited at every point by the senses, we can still exer- 
 cise our spiritual powers to the extent of conversing 
 with one another across miles of land and sea as well 
 as when near each other in bodily presence, what must 
 be the powers of those liberated minds who, no longer 
 hedged in with mortal surroundings, no longer impeded 
 with earthly exactions, can use their divine resources 
 to an unlimited degree. Mrs. Eddy, in her celebrated 
 book, " Science and Health," gives no adequate reason 
 whatever for her militant attitude toward Spiritualism ; 
 she says she knows spirits cannot communicate with 
 their friends on earth, while she dilates at great length 
 upon the power of one mind to affect another in this 
 world mesmerically when not metaphysically. Mrs. 
 Eddy's ven r argument in favor of spirit being the only 
 reality, and the physical man virtually a nonentity, are 
 just so many practical contradictions of the anti-spirit- 
 ualistic statements she makes elsewhere. 
 
 Many Mind Headers, Mental Healers and others 
 seemed possessed with the delusion that a belief in 
 spirit communion or a recognition of it as a fact must 
 be given up if mind reading or metaphysics can be 
 proved true, whereas the exact reverse is true, for all 
 phases of mental and spiritual phenomena strengthen 
 one another, and direct spirit communion entirely inde- 
 pendent of physical accessions is only the apex and 
 crown of all lesser demonstrations of what is in all in- 
 
132 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 stances virtually the same power. There are indeed 
 diversities of gifts and operations, but the same spirit 
 worketh all and in all ; the Spirit of God indeed is the 
 primal fount of all intelligence, but the spirit of man 
 also is the appointed medium of the Infinite. It is 
 surely the will of God that we should help each other, 
 gregarious instincts are evidences of the divine intent 
 that we should perpetually serve one another ; in no 
 other way than by mutual service can we rise to celes- 
 tial altitudes ; thus, instead of ignoring the ministry of 
 angels in our work, let us thankfully recognize it, but 
 at the same time never fail to credit ourselves with 
 what is duly ours, as no truth needs borrowed plumes 
 or is ever enhanced by the addition of anything not 
 strictly in accordance with veracity. Our practical ap- 
 plication of these thoughts is this, we cannot always 
 say to a fellow-being, give up such and such a habit ; 
 our position in life, the circumstances in which we are 
 placed often erect formidable, almost impassable bar- 
 riers on the plane of mortal sense between us and 
 those we most desire to reach and help, but no barrier 
 of caste or prejudice can clip the eagle wings of 
 thought, no law can forbid our thinking; where we 
 cannot go in body there let us go in mind. If we can- 
 not say drop that cigar, drink no more liquor, frequent 
 no more that evil haunt, indulge no more in that vice, 
 we can think our message, we can direct our thought 
 earnestly, prayerfully, confidently; we can sow good 
 seed in mind, we can give silent treatment where all 
 outward attempts would be rebutted scornfully as un- 
 warrantable interference. If we will recognize the 
 power of thought more and rely on outward operations 
 less, we shall be both surprised and delighted to find 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 133 
 
 ourselves running a mental telegraph, not for the pur- 
 pose of filling our pockets with golden ore through 
 ministering to the love of the sensational and the curi- 
 ous in the minds of those who are always searching for 
 attractive novelties, but with the blessed intent of 
 relieving, not primary and chiefly bodily suffering and 
 sensuous distress, but the fruitful cause of it in depraved 
 thoughts which lead inevitably to words of blasphemy 
 and cruelty and acts of crime. 
 
 In so doing, whether we know it or not, the hosts 
 of heaven will work in union with us, and as we afford 
 the only really necessary condition for true affiliation 
 with pure and holy beings, our work will be one with 
 that of angels and we shall in our turn become angels, 
 ministering spirits, helpers of our brethren, whose sole 
 delight and ambition is to consecrate our every power 
 to the furtherance of the best interests of humanity. 
 
LECTURE VII. 
 
 THE LAW OF LOVE. LOVE AS A HEALING AGENT, AND ITS 
 
 APPLICATION TO SINNERS AND SUFFERERS ACCORDING TO 
 THE METHODS OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE. 
 
 IT has often been stated, as we think very falsely, that 
 the law of love was first enunciated to the world 
 by Jesus of Nazareth, whose name is always coupled 
 by Christians of all denominations with every pure and 
 ennobling precept found in history or romance. We 
 hear constantly of Christian graces and virtues, as 
 though there was no excellence in the.world before the 
 Christian era, while the truth is that Jesus was simply 
 the teacher of ethics and revelator of spiritual truth, 
 to whom Christians have ascribed the origination of 
 every beautiful maxim that he indorsed. 
 
 The real Jesus was unquestionably a very different 
 personage from the exacting and self-asserting God to 
 whom Orthodox Christendom superstitiously and idol- 
 atrously bends the adoring knee. Out of the only 
 four gospels which are called canonical, only one, the 
 fourth, even seemingly favors the deification of the 
 Nazarene. Matthew, Mark and Luke present to us 
 a very natural and intensely human character, in 
 which the grace of humility is conspicuously present, 
 while the Gnostic author of the fourth evangel mysti- 
 fies readers by his blending of the personal Jesus with 
 
 134 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. C0LVILLE. 135 
 
 the Logos of philosophy, which is nothing other than 
 the divine wisdom in its life-giving operations, made 
 mention of in the Book of Proverbs, where, in Chapter 
 YIII, wisdom is personified, and made to speak as the 
 divine maternity, who co-existed with the divine pater- 
 nity from all eternity. " I was with him in the begin- 
 ning," says Wisdom, when speaking through Solomon 
 of her part in the formation of worlds. This divine 
 wisdom in the divine nature forever exists and acts in 
 perfect conjunction with divine love ; and when this 
 love and wisdom are combined and operating in pre- 
 cisely equal measure, then and there, and then and 
 there only, can be found that perfect sum of all perfec- 
 tions whose name is Eternal Justice. Justice is the 
 true governor, savior and redeemer of the race, and 
 justice is equally wise and loving. Justice is the per- 
 fect sphere; love is one hemisphere, wisdom is the 
 other. Love may be compared, for instance, to land, 
 and wisdom to water. Could there be a perfect globe 
 if there were water only, or only land upon its surface ? 
 There was once a time, far back in the history of 
 earth, when the waters covered all the land, and at 
 their subsidence in sections of the globe dry land ap- 
 peared. As the earth is surely and steadily advancing 
 toward perfection, the land is gaining on the water; 
 about two-thirds of the earth are now under water, and 
 there must be a perfectly equal, divison of empire 
 between these elements ere the earth attains the zenith 
 of its perfection. The outer earth, as it becomes con- 
 stantly more and more perfectly dual in the front it 
 presents to space, registers outwardly in the equaliza- 
 tion of its elements the unfoldment of the life of 
 nature, which is dual in its essence, but not in its 
 
136 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 expressions, until such time as it has gained an equilib- 
 rium in the realm of manifestation. ' 
 
 This great and most important and essential truth 
 was shadowed forth in monuments and Kabalistic 
 writings long ago in Egypt and all over the Orient, 
 and in various parts of the pre-historic world. The 
 grim old Sphynx on the banks of the Nile, with 
 woman's head and lion's body, propounding its ques- 
 tion to every passer-by, is not a riddle to the student 
 who is conversant with the hidden meaning of ancient 
 imagery. The head of woman means the reign of love ; 
 the lion's body means the subserviency and at the same 
 time the cooperation and coordination of reason. Rea- 
 son is wise but not loving when alone ; Jove is not wise 
 when disassociated from reason. The perfect blending 
 of reason and affection, or love and wisdom, produces 
 justice, and to arrive at a perfect understanding and 
 administration of justice is to solve the problem of all 
 the ages, and make strife, discord, unhappiness, blood- 
 shed and tyranny henceforth impossible. The reign of 
 justice is the reign of the Prince of Peace, whose scep- 
 tre is righteousness. Without equity, strict impartial- 
 ity, there can be no safety and no freedom. Liberty 
 can only dwell in safety beneath the roof of justice. 
 The slightest deviation from the strictest rule of jus- 
 tice is unkindness and unwisdom. To spare the rod 
 is to spoil the child ; but to lash the child in anger is 
 not to be just. 
 
 Among the beautiful precepts laid down for the 
 guidance of man, in Deuteronomy, we find many so 
 essentially rational and so exquisitely humane, that it 
 matters not who reads them with unprejudiced mind, 
 he must agree to them. Take, for instance, the com- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 137 
 
 mandments referring to the taking of a pledge, to the 
 reaping of the fields, to the paying of all just debts. No 
 one but a fool can dissent from the wisdom there 
 enunciated. Modern critics may deny inspiration if 
 they please ; they may treat dramatic and sensational 
 stories of burning bushes, quaking mountains and mys- 
 terious voices and thunders as old wives' fables, if they 
 will, but surely he is utterly bereft of reason, of hu- 
 manity, of the simplest sense of justice, who fails to 
 recognize both the nobility and utility of the major 
 portion of the Jewish law, which is not only a moral 
 but a sanitary and hygienic law ; a law, moreover, 
 which so well agrees with the necessities of human na- 
 ture that multitudes are sick, suffering, dying today 
 because they disregard it. 
 
 Utilitarianism and expediency may altogether fail 
 to see a truth in divine interpositions in human affairs, 
 but let the utilitarian den}^ inspiration or revelation as 
 he will, if he be but a student of human nature, as an 
 anthropologist and advocate of pure ethics, he must 
 perforce admit the divinity of the useful, the safe, the 
 humane; in a word, of all that conduces to consolida- 
 tion and to liberty. Liberty can never mean license. 
 No one can ever be justly free to injure his brother in 
 order to please himself. The interests of the race form 
 a unit, and if one member of the race suffers all suffer ; 
 if one is uplifted all derive a benefit. In purely private, 
 personal matters people may have an unlimited right 
 to please themselves, but whenever self -gratification 
 produces a state of being which affects one's surround- 
 ings, then that portion of society which is affected has 
 a right to complain and interfere, and the constituted 
 officers of any government are simply doing their duty 
 
138 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 when they step in to prevent all fanatical actions which 
 imperil the safety of the commonwealth. 
 
 We are not today dealing with a semi-civilized peo- 
 ple, journeying through a desert, and therefore are not 
 called upon to make our own in every minor detail the 
 customs and observances of three thousand years ago ; 
 we can only follow truly the leadership of truly great 
 men when we emerge from bondage, cut loose from old 
 limitations and strike out for ourselves in a new and 
 broader pathway than the broadest in which our ances- 
 tors could see to walk. The more liberal, radical and 
 progressive you become, the more truly conservative of 
 all that is truthful and ennobling you will become. 
 Any child can pluck a flower to pieces, or destroy an 
 exquisite vase which no money can replace ; the ability 
 to break down is a power the iconoclast shares with 
 every baby and idiot the world has ever produced. 
 There is nothing sublime or instructive in making fun 
 of other people, ridiculing them, deriding their belief 
 and speaking contemptuously of their organizations. 
 The true reformer builds far more than he pulls down ; 
 he knows that if the soil be rank, and he uproot weeds 
 ever so often, they will grow again ; he knows that 
 there must be an improvement in the quality and con- 
 dition of the soil, or no harvest of delicious fruit and 
 nutritious grain will result from clearing earth. To 
 improve the earth itself, to remove the means of groAvth 
 from under the roots of weeds, to substitute a normal, 
 healthy, vigorous constitution for an enfeebled one, to 
 cast out the twin demons of vice and disease by intro- 
 ducing into the system a powerful active force which 
 makes for health and righteousness, may not be a sim- 
 ple or an easy task ; it may need much labor, strength. 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 139 
 
 patience and knowledge to perform it ; the new seeds 
 may take a long time in sprouting, the new temple 
 may take many years in building, but good must ulti- 
 mately triumph over evil, love must eventually conquer 
 hate, truth at length must vanquish error, even as the 
 power of sunshine alone can dissipate the darkness of 
 night and the mists of early morning. Of what use 
 would it be to light the mists, or seek to drive them 
 away unless something came with superior force ready 
 to supplant them ; nothing, no matter how unlovely or 
 obnoxious it may be, will go away to make room for 
 nothing. If you have darkness and wish to get rid of 
 it, you must introduce light ; and light being stronger 
 than darkness, takes up the room the darkness formerly 
 occupied. If you are stifling in a dense, oppressive at- 
 mosphere, how do you get rid of it ? Surely, by admit- 
 ting the fresh, pure air, which drives away the dense 
 and obnoxious vapors from your room. 
 
 The strong man of sin, error, death, darkness, igno- 
 rance, misery or disease, will retain possession of all 
 parts of the earth and man, until the stronger man of 
 virtue, truth, life, light, knowledge, happiness and 
 health, comes into the world and into man, to cast the 
 evil genii out. Giant Despair will keep possession of 
 his castle until an invader stronger than he comes to 
 evict him; and were one giant turned out, and his 
 castle demolished, others would soon arise, unless a new 
 dynasty were established, and the land fell into the 
 hands of other rulers and occupiers. 
 
 In so far as the Mosaic laws are simply prohibitions, 
 in so far as men are simply told what not to do, the 
 Christian has right to claim superiority for the affirma- 
 tive commands of Christ. But where the Christian griev- 
 
140 LECTUKE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 ously errs is in his statement, oft reiterated in Orthodox 
 pulpits and through the press by men who ought to be 
 better informed concerning the contents of the Bible, 
 certainly, as many of them have graduated from col- 
 leges where it has been their daily study for years, that 
 Christianity, or Christ, first brought before man's con- 
 sideration the affirmatory command to love. All 
 through the Old Testament, yea, and to be fair to 
 other nations beside the Jewish, we are in honor bound 
 to admit all through the sacred books of India, Persia, 
 China, and many other lands, teachings identical with 
 those of Jesus of Nazareth may be found. 
 
 He whose boast it was that he fulfilled the law, he 
 who never claimed it in his mission to discard it, has 
 been grossly insulted, shamelessly misrepresented, cru- 
 cified afresh and put to an open shame by those who 
 have taken his name as the label for a system which has 
 persistently dishonored him by lip-service coupled with 
 alienation. The name of Jesus has been associated with 
 absurdities and immoralities so detestable that it is 
 hateful in the ears of many modern reformers who en- 
 dorse almost the whole of his teaching. To bring 
 Christians into oneness with their own historic Christ 
 would indeed be to accomplish a miracle of reformation, 
 and for endeavoring to do this, hundreds of liberal and 
 conscientious ministers and laymen have been branded 
 infidels, and refused admission even into the pulpits of 
 the avowed liberal and progressive Unitarian as well as 
 Trinitarian churches of Christendom. Theodore Par- 
 ker's crime was his imitation of Christ. In his life he 
 illustrated the great and glorious precepts laid down in 
 the Gospels of all climes and centuries. He was a man 
 who knew he would never feel happy in heaven while 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 141 
 
 his brethren were suffering in hell. He was too broad, 
 too lovable too loving himself, to worship a carica- 
 ture of Diety which made Omnipotence a fiend, and 
 substituted vengeance and tyranny for justice ; and be- 
 cause of this, only two pulpits in Boston and its su- 
 burbs were open to him, and prayer-meetings were the 
 scenes of blasphemous petitions that his lips might be 
 closed and he never allowed to return to his place in that 
 city. Boston today reveres Theodore Parker as one of 
 the greatest of its teachers. His name is now heralded 
 forth from East to West, and far o'er the seas, as one 
 of the noble army of prophets, martyrs and confessors 
 who have died in harness, and even cut short their 
 earthly career by their intense devotion to the cause of 
 truth and human liberation ; while the churches that 
 opposed him have either so far remodeled their theol- 
 ogy that it almost resembles his, or have lived a cold, 
 narrow, stinted life, regarding with chagrin the liberal- 
 ization of thought around them, finding themselves 
 growing Aveaker and smaller every year, until in the 
 dim distance the} r see only annihilation staring them in 
 the face, unless a miracle be worked to rekindle the 
 dying embers of the old, awful faith in endless hell and 
 relentless devils, which has now so nearly left all the 
 cultured part of the earth that Calvin's and Edwards' 
 theologies are little more than names for systems as 
 practically defunct as the Ptolemaic theory of astron- 
 omy. 
 
 Religion, however, lives ; no foolish tirades on the 
 foolishness of prayer can destroy the practical life-giving 
 power it wields today ; no coupling of the terms relig- 
 ion and folly in an announcement of a meeting in a 
 public newspaper can destroy the power of true rehg- 
 
142 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 ion to reform, uplift, console and bless mankind. 
 Religion is as far removed from the puerilities of a 
 blind Materialism as it is from the narrow dogmatism 
 of those who consider a band concert on a Sunday a 
 nuisance which the strong arm of the law should sup- 
 press. Infidelity is the natural outcome of supersti- 
 tion. Idolatry and bigotry have made infidels, and all 
 the folly we perceive in rampant atheism is to us trace- 
 able to that unnatural, and certainly unbeautiful and 
 ungodly slavishness, that blind devotion to a capricious 
 letter, which makes the form of religion a matter of 
 infinitely more concern than the power of godliness 
 made manifest in whatsoever conduces most to the 
 present and future welfare of the human race, individu- 
 ally and collectively. An old proverb says that none 
 are so blind as those who will not see, and it seems to 
 us pretty often as though some persons will not make 
 a distinction which can be made most easily by any 
 person of even ordinary intelligence who reflects at all 
 upon the subject, between the unchanging intention 
 and the constantly fluctuating application of wise and 
 humane law. 
 
 Recently the- Sabbath question has been agitated 
 afresh here and elsewhere, and though quite a number 
 of very liberal sermons have been 'preached, and arti- 
 cles written full of good sound sense, the voice of intol- 
 erance, more adapted to the days of Cromwell or the 
 Puritan forefathers than to the closing years of this 
 nineteenth century has not been silent. No enlight- 
 ened physiologist will deny that one day out of seven 
 is needed by man and beast alike for rest and recrea- 
 tion, and no one can fail to see physical, degeneration 
 among all who neglect to conform to salutar}^ disci- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 143 
 
 pline, and obey wise and loving laws formed for their 
 guidance under the highest intelligence expressed on 
 earth in this or a bygone age ; but the very words of 
 the fourth commandment show how utterly irreconcila- 
 ble is its spirit Avith the narrow prejudice and inter- 
 ference with public liberty which often masquerade as 
 concern for the religious welfare of the whole commu- 
 nity. *If Saturday or Sunday is to be a day devoted 
 entirely to religious observances of the puritanic type, 
 no provision would have been made securing rest to 
 the ox and the ass, as well as to son and daughter, man- 
 servant, maid-servant and stranger. Oxen and asses 
 have no souls which puritanism recognizes. They are 
 under no obligation of serving God on one day of each 
 week in any especial manner, but their bodies, yea, 
 and their minds also, for animals have minds, and are 
 capable of intellectual exertion, need rest on the Sab- 
 bath as well as yourselves, and none of you are keep- 
 ing holy the Sabbath day in the sense in which it needs 
 to be kept holy, unless you so employ the day that 
 Avhen you rise on the following morning you feel 
 refreshed and strengthened for all the duties that lie 
 before you through the week. 
 
 We do not say that incessant attendance at balls 
 and parties or constant frequenting of the theater is 
 calculated to unfold the nature of man and qualif} r him 
 for his daily work under ordinary circumstances. We 
 do not believe that popular excursions on crowded 
 boats or trains, where the day is often wearisomely 
 spent in seeking pleasure and finding only fatigue, are 
 adapted to the real needs of the populace, or that they 
 tend in any considerable degree to point out the true 
 and natural mode of Sabbath observance. We believe, 
 
144 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 morever, in the need of satisfying the spiritual or relig- 
 ious side of nature, and regard that mind as dwarfed, 
 and that life as crippled which has not fully unfolded 
 the organs seated in the coronal region of the 
 brain. The front brain and the top brain must be cul- 
 tivated as well as the middle brain and the back brain ; 
 and the great defect in the present system of education, 
 despite its many advantages, is, that the moral and 
 spiritual organs have too little attention paid to them. 
 We hear a great deal about morality, but in practice it 
 is often reduced to mere conventionality. A simple 
 outward respectability, which is aped by many because 
 it admits them into society into which they could not 
 go if they did not bear a good moral reputation, is too 
 much sought after, while character is too little esti- 
 mated and far too little stress laid upon real worth. 
 
 But, some will say, how utterly impossible it is for 
 us to scrutinize each other's motives. How can we 
 know when to excuse and when to condemn? The 
 sermon on the Mount comes at once to the rescue and 
 affords an answer to all such inquiries. Judge not. 
 You cannot judge correctly oftentimes, and when you 
 can you are not called upon to pass sentence upon an- 
 other's life. Cast the beam out of thine own eye ; make 
 thine own life pure, and then shalt thou see clearly to 
 cast the mote out of thy brother's eye. But does not 
 this look as though we ought to take action in con- 
 demning others as soon as we are no longer flagrantly 
 sinful ourselves? By no means; the conduct of Jesus 
 with the woman taken in adultery forever decides the 
 question of judgment for all true followers of the spirit 
 of the Nazarene ; and that spirit which we are told 
 animated his breast is the identical spirit whose pres- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. C0LVILLE. 145 
 
 ence and constant activity made truly great all the 
 really successful moral reformers the world has ever 
 seen. To cast out the mote from your brother's eye 
 after you have expelled the beam from your own, does 
 not imply that a censorious, pharisaical or condemna- 
 tory impulse should actuate you. 
 
 How can you best reform another ? How can you 
 best help a fallen brother or sister to sin no more? 
 "Go and sin no more," if said earnestly and prac- 
 tically, surely cannot mean simply that you utter a 
 trite phrase and then dismiss a penitent without pro- 
 viding him or her with the means of subsistence or 
 opening the doors of any home or workshop where the 
 once culprit may retrieve his forfeited honor by works 
 of usefulness henceforth. It is plainly the duty of all 
 interested in the welfare of society to set their faces 
 like flints against every form of crime and immoral 
 practice, by making it as difficult as possible for people 
 to do wrong, and as easy as it can be made for them to 
 do right, but this does not in any sense or way neces- 
 sitate your speaking, acting or thinking unkindly to- 
 ward any one. No matter how lowly fallen a human 
 being may be, he is a child of the Great Universal 
 Parent and a brother of yourself ; and as a brother it 
 is for you, if you are wiser and stronger than he, to 
 hedge in the road which is to him beset with so many 
 difficulties and temptations. A weak and erring child 
 should not be allowed full libert} r if he uses that liberty, 
 or, rather, misuses it so that it degenerates into un- 
 hallowed and dangerous license which imperils the 
 safety of all around. Penalties must be administered ; 
 houses of correction must exist; administrators of jus- 
 tice must do their work until lawlessness is dead, and 
 
14:6 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 every one so acts that he is a comfort and blessing, not 
 a shame or terror to his fellows. 
 
 But we must learn to treat sin as an infirmity ; crime 
 must be regarded as a disease, an infectious ailment, a 
 contagious blight ; and hospitals be provided for crim- 
 inals, as insane asj^ums are provided for those bereft 
 of reason, and the best surgical and medical skill, ac- 
 companied by the best of nursing, is provided for those 
 who are bodily diseased or ailing, even though the suf- 
 ferer should have brought his ailments upon himself by 
 his own sins, follies and indiscretions. If you find a 
 poor, broken-down wreck, humanity prompts you to 
 take him in and do for him. No matter. though he has 
 been a drunkard or a libertine, his case is urgent, his 
 necessities pressing, and society is endangered if with 
 an infectious malady he is allowed to roam at large ; 
 so you have fever hospitals and cancer hospitals, and in- 
 stitutions of every kind and name, for the cure of suf- 
 ferers and as safeguards to society. 
 
 Now as we do not deprecate the hospital, but 
 regard it -as a necessity today, even though we may 
 include it in a catalogue of necessary evils, we are ho 
 opponents of a prison system, provided it be a humane 
 and enlightened one, and widely different from that 
 now in vogue both in America and abroad. No doubt 
 American prisons are almost palaces in comparison 
 with some Siberian dungeons; no doubt the govern- 
 ments of Europe devise means of torture unheard of in 
 the United States today, and you have much to con- 
 gratulate yourselves upon in the humanity of your 
 prison discipline compared with what it was a century 
 ago, and what it still is in many parts of the world 
 claiming to be civilized ; but revelations made not long 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 147 
 
 since excuse the impetuous enthusiast for saying that 
 all places where human beings are deprived of light 
 and liberty are abominations. So they are in compar- 
 ison with the institutions of a perfect world. 
 
 Sewers and heaps of rubbish; dust and dirt and 
 poisonous insects ; stagnant pools and slimy bogs are 
 all abominations, and will eventually be swept away ; 
 huge cities with their hundreds of tenement houses, 
 where human beings are crowded together without 
 sufficient air and comfort to properly expand any side 
 of their being, are abominable, and will give place to 
 widely different centres of industry and dwellings ere 
 long. But reform cannot be fully accomplished all at 
 once. All nature's processes are gradual ; it is ever 
 here a little and there a little, line upon line and pre- 
 cept upon precept, that truth and right gain the 
 victory over falsehood and wrong. A celestial con- 
 dition on earth is not possible until the whole human 
 race has fully outgrown every thought of evil, and 
 each unclean, unkind and unwise disposition. But 
 progress can never be made unless continuous effort is 
 made to progress. . Your best actions yesterday may 
 be culpable mistakes today, because the discipline of 
 yesterday should have prepared you to live a higher 
 life today. So methods of correction, tolerable and 
 possibly necessary in olden times to carry out the true 
 spirit of legislation, may be iniquitous and utterly un- 
 justifiable at present. There can be no excuse for 
 punishment in any case until all mild measures have 
 been tried and prove ineffectual. Then and only then 
 are you morally justified in resorting to harsh treat- 
 ment ; and when you are obliged to resort to asperity 
 and coercion, you should blame yourselves fully as much 
 
148 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 as those to whom you have literally to administer the 
 rod of correction ; for not only their obtuseness and 
 incorrigibilitjr, but your own deficiency in the higher 
 qualities of the spiritual nature, have compelled you to 
 resort to a semi-brutal mode of correction. 
 
 Some people are great advocates of the whipping- 
 post, and of the gallows even ; they cannot understand 
 any one being benefitted or societ} r being protected by 
 mild and persuasive measures; they take delight in 
 shaming and humiliating others, and even in taking 
 awa} 7 life, as they say, for the good of the majority, 
 whereas in a mode of castigation which only degrades 
 the chastized one in the eyes of others, no appeal is 
 generally made to the higher nature. We have known 
 many brave, high-spirited boys who w T ould have been 
 noble, courageous, generous and just, had they been 
 properly trained, almost transformed into brutes by 
 the absurd and inhuman floggings to which they have 
 been needlessly subjected. No parent, teacher or 
 guardian of the young, and no custodian of public 
 morals, will ever succeed in doing real good to those 
 under his charge, unless he inspires their confidence ; 
 and when or how can brutality and fierce anger inspire 
 confidence ? No one ever has a right to strike a blow 
 in anger, and this has even been recognized to some 
 extent among duelists, who have usually fixed the hour 
 of meeting early in the morning, and under the most 
 dispiriting circumstances. Before you strike a blow 
 you should remain by yourself long enough to carefully 
 analyze your grievance ; and when you rise the next 
 morning to meet the one who has wronged you, the 
 chances are that in nine cases out of ten you would 
 feel it a degradation to yourself to deal the blow, as 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 1-19 
 
 the offence does not merit so deadly a means of ex- 
 piation. 
 
 The law of love is based upon justice, and that 
 strange command, strange at least in the ears of many, 
 " Love your enemies," by no means implies that we are 
 to associate on equally intimate terms with everybody, 
 for natural preferences are not only legitimate, but 
 positively of divine appointment. Neither does it 
 signify that we should allow the burglar to escape only 
 to commit depredations elsewhere, when he has been 
 let off after having attempted theft, and possibly mur- 
 der, on the premises of the man who has been weakly 
 good-natured enough to throw him out upon society, 
 chuckling over his easy escape from the clutches of the 
 law. The law of love, however, enforces such action 
 in all cases as will leave no reason for personal spite 
 and angry retaliation. No law has ever been regarded 
 as juster than that which ordains trial by jury, because 
 twelve unprejudiced men are supposed to be found who 
 have no personal feelings in the matter, and can feel 
 no individual interest in the condemnation or acquittal 
 of the prisoner at the bar, while the persons whom he 
 has wronged directly can scarcely be expected to feel 
 no resentment or bias against him. 
 
 The law of love does not command us to wink at 
 calumny, slander and detraction ; neither does it com- 
 pel us to be silent in our defense when enemies are black- 
 ening our names and spreading reports damaging to 
 our standing and usefulness in society ; because, as no 
 one can seek to injure another without really harming 
 himself, and as no one can possibly indulge in habits of 
 gossip without bringing himself into a state of mind in 
 which he becomes the prey of evil-disposed men and 
 
150 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 spirits, there can be no fulfillment of the law of kind- 
 ness in allowing another to persist in a course of action 
 which, while injurious to ourselves, is doubly harmful 
 to the one who is indulging in it. It becomes, there- 
 fore, an imperative duty devolving upon the teacher of 
 morals to show plainly the difference between an exhi- 
 bition of hatred, revenge and spite, and a proper con- 
 cern for the safety of society, by means of the just 
 punishment of evil-doers. 
 
 But here comes in the most important question of 
 all: what kinds of punishment are really just, and 
 what measures can be wisely and safely adopted to 
 elevate the sinner and protect society ? In this con- 
 nection allow us to express our unqualified disgust with 
 the present system of prison discipline, both in America 
 and elsewhere. Probably the prisons of America to- 
 day are almost palaces compared with European dun- 
 geons in the middle ages. Even Newgate in London 
 was, in the time of Elizabeth Fry, a reeking cesspool of 
 the vilest abominations, black as the hole of Calcutta, 
 a disgrace to civilization, and a blot on the escutcheon 
 of Christianity, which it will take centuries to efface. 
 Bastard systems of religion which have been fathered 
 upon primitive Christianity are, however, in no sense 
 attributable to the spirit of Christian^ itself, as the 
 horrors perpetrated avowedly in the honor of Allah 
 are in no sense natural outgrowths of the religion of 
 Islam. It is vain and foolish in the extreme for icon- 
 oclasts, in their rabid onslaughts upon systems of re- 
 ligion, to denounce the system for all the evils com- 
 mitted in its name, or presumably in defense of its 
 honor, or to extend its conquests. If allegiance to any 
 particular form of religion ' made people necessarily 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 151 
 
 good or bad, we should of course find good people all 
 grouped together around one common standard of 
 faith or profession, and evil-minded people gathered 
 around an opposite centre. If Roman Catholicism or 
 Church of Englandism made people of necessity 
 bigoted and cruel, we should find bigotry and cruelty 
 largely confined within the territory covered by those 
 religious systems ; but though both Catholic and Prot- 
 estant have burned heretics, and the fires and dun- 
 geons of the inquisition have been apparently out- 
 growths of an aggressive ecclesiastical hierarchy, we 
 cannot shut our eyes to the treatment accorded to Soc- 
 rates by the Athenians, nor to the diabolical fanaticism 
 of the French Communists, nor the atrocities of the 
 modern Russian Nihilists, while highway robbers and 
 scoundrels of every name are, in many instances, utter 
 unbelievers. Still Ave should be most unjust in father- 
 ing upon modern skepticism, or an avowed system of 
 intellectual infidelity, the crimes and misdemeanors 
 of the present century. 
 
 The truth is, neither sacraments nor ordinances, 
 neither faith in dogmas nor belief in "nature," can 
 change the stony heart to one of flesh, or hold in rein 
 the turbulent passions of undeveloped humanity. Spir- 
 itual growth, moral development alone can do this ; 
 and so we find in the same church the saint and the sin- 
 ner, the one loving, humane, generous, self denying, 
 just, the other proud, hard, lascivious, dishonest, dan- 
 gerous. Often such contrasts have been baptized at 
 the same font and received the eucharist together at the 
 steps of the same altar ; but the one receives from the 
 sunshine what warms into life all that is beauteous, the 
 other onlv an added incentive to evil. Religious cere- 
 
152 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 monies and beliefs make some people better and others 
 worse. Even a knowledge of spiritual truth itself, if 
 unaccompanied by heart devotion to goodness, will but 
 give added power to men to work mischief. So in this 
 day we see illustrated all around us the four kinds of 
 magic admitted by Orientals. Some attain to the red 
 magician's supernal power of subordinating flesh ut- 
 terly to spirit, and, being infilled with divine life, find 
 in every outward faculty and grace a means for pro- 
 moting the highest welfare of mankind. Some, as 
 white magicians, though not as yet fully and finally 
 victorious over sense, are on the road to complete and 
 ultimate conquest over pride, passion and infirmity ; 
 and these employ every means of spiritual development 
 as a stepping-stone to a higher life. Many there are 
 who are quite contented with the gray magician's 
 compound of good and evil ; an admixture of purity 
 and foulness seems best to suit their taste, and, while 
 they use some gifts aright, they befoul their lives by 
 the misuse of some portion of their power. Others 
 again, as black magicians, prostitute, desecrate every 
 pure, holy and useful thing to purposes of wrong and 
 for the advancement of criminally selfish or malicious 
 ends. 
 
 The same philosophy, the same science, the same 
 outward knowledge, the same visible practices may 
 lead these four classes of persons to such diametrically 
 opposite results, and do we not see an analogy to all 
 this in physical nature ? Behold the sunshine stream- 
 ing down in golden beauty upon a rose-bush and a 
 neighboring dunghill. That light and warmth which 
 makes the roses blossom and causes them to emit so 
 sweet a fragrance on the surrounding air, makes the 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLYILLE. 153 
 
 dunghill hot and putrid, sending forth a poisonous 
 stench all around. Without the heat and light of the 
 sun, neither the rose-bush nor the dunghill would have 
 displayed its latent possibilities. Spiritual influx, the 
 light of knowledge, the means for arriving at the high- 
 est standard of moral excellence, by perverse and sel- 
 fish persons can be so inverted that the very light is 
 the cause of their deeds of darkness. See that the 
 light within you be not darkness, or the greatness of 
 that darkness will be such that, enveloping your soul 
 in its plutonic shades, it will shut you out for ages from 
 all sense of true happiness and all companionship with 
 wisdom and its followers. 
 
 We have introduced these observations neither dis 
 cursively nor irrelevantly, as they were needed to rebut 
 an unjust attack which is often made upon whole 
 societies and classes of men by those who attribute to 
 belief or opinion that which springs from indwelling 
 pride, lust and selfishness. Change the opinions and 
 faiths of the world a million times, and with all your 
 success in helping men to arrive at correct views of 
 truth intellectually, you will fail utterly in reforming 
 society unless you reach their inner being, and cause 
 the spiritual nature to break its bonds, free itself from 
 its entangling chains, and stand erect and liberated in 
 the glory of a royal independence which only those 
 can know who are honest not because a penalty is 
 attached to stealing ; who are pure not because exter- 
 nal chastity may be advantageous in a worldly sense ; 
 who keep all the commandments not because the law 
 will punish those who break them; but because the 
 ways of virtue, of true wisdom, have been found to be 
 indeed ways of pleasantness and paths of peace, and 
 
15 4: LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 the spirit that has yielded to the charms of virtue can 
 see no longer a beauty or delight in vice. 
 
 We say, once for all, that in the dealing of Jesus 
 with the woman taken in the act of adultery we have a 
 setting forth of the highest of all examples of reforma- 
 tion. She out of whom the Christ cast seven devils, 
 tradition says, was Mary Magdalene, the penitent, the 
 faithful follower, who counted no sacrifice too costly 
 for him she loved, and who stood last by the cross and 
 first at the sepulchre. These stories of the overcoming 
 of evil with good are no mythologic fables, or if they 
 be such in the eyes of any, then to those we would 
 point out the hidden teachings of mythology, and un- 
 veil the important truths the ancients hid in allegoric 
 guise. " Go and sin no more," one short, simple sen- 
 tence of only five words may do more today to render 
 society safe, as well as to accomplish the restoration of 
 the fallen, than all prisons and penitentiaries the world 
 has ever seen. 
 
 But of what avail are words without action ? Of 
 what use is it to say to the hungry and the thirsty and 
 the naked and the shivering, be warm and clothed and 
 fed and thirst no more, when your coal-bins are full, 
 your pantries crowded with food, your wells running 
 over with water and your warehouses overstocked with 
 apparel, if you hug these treasures to yourselves and 
 do nothing to dispense them to the famishing? Of 
 what use is it for you to pray verbally the pater noster, 
 and then do nothing whatever to save others from 
 temptation or deliver them from evil ? Good resolu- 
 tions may pave the infernel realms if not carried into 
 effect in life. Prayers can be but mockeries in the 
 sight of heaven if the spirit of every prayer be not a 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 155 
 
 desire to become yourselves instrumental in furnishing 
 answers to the prayer you pray for others' welfare. 
 The true life of a reformer is not one of indolent inac- 
 tion, of prayer that is a substitute for work. His 
 prayers are rather his soul's sincere desires, accom- 
 panied by his life's most earnest efforts to call out all 
 that is divine and true in his own and every human 
 breast. 
 
 In conclusion — and we must conclude this address, 
 though we have but lightly touched the hem of our 
 subject's garment — we would urge upon you to con- 
 sider how more than necessary it is that you should let 
 every weak and erring mortal know that you believe 
 sincerely and devoutly in the latent goodness which 
 smoulders within every life. ~No matter how depraved, 
 let education, the unfoldment of the spiritual being, be 
 your manifest object in every administration of 
 reproof. We may safely have pictures, pianos, flowers 
 and good living in our prisons, provided we teach every 
 prisoner how to work, and see that he never eats the 
 bread of idleness. The utter elimination of barbarity 
 from modes of correction is the spiritual ideal, and as 
 idleness is one of the most prolific parents of all evils, 
 if we make our captives work for an honest living, and 
 then reward them for their toil, we shall not only be 
 rendering good for evil and overcoming evil with good 
 in obedience to Gospel precepts, endorsed, by seer on 
 earth and angel in heaven, but we shall be effectually 
 protecting society by cutting off the supply of ma- 
 rauders and disturbers of the peace, as, through our 
 instrumentality, the once criminal becomes a useful 
 being on the road to angelhood. 
 
LECTUKE VIII. 
 
 SPIRITUAL SCIENCE AS RELATED TO MESMERISM AND MAG- 
 NETISM. 
 
 NUMEROUS are the enquiries from all points of 
 the compass as to the attitude to be assumed on 
 the part of Spiritual Scientists toward Mesmerism and 
 Magnetism, especially as to the use to which these sys- 
 tems are put in the relief of pain and alleged healing of 
 the sick. To treat these systems fairly and intelli- 
 gently it is necessary that we should know something 
 of their origin and history ; we shall, therefore, occupy 
 a short portion of the time alloted to this discourse in 
 tracing the sources whence these systems spring, and 
 then dilate upon the work which their supporters and 
 exponents are actually performing. The word Mesmer- 
 ism, you scarcely need to be told, is sectarian, i. e., the 
 word is derived from the name of a man who was as 
 much the founder of a sect as any man ever was. An- 
 ton Mesmer stands in logical and historical relation to a 
 system properly called Mesmerism, as Luther stands to 
 Lutheranism, Calvin to Calvinism, the Wesleys to Wes- 
 leyanism, Swedenborg to Swedenborgianism, Moham- 
 med to Mohammedanism, and so on, ad libitum. Mes- 
 mer himself was a medical student at Vienna, where 
 he took the degree of doctor of medicine, in 1766. A 
 few years later he began to study the curative powers 
 of the magnet, and was led to adopt the opinion that 
 
 156 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 157 
 
 there exists a power similar to magnetism which exer- 
 cises an extraordinary influence on the human body. 
 This power he designated Animal Magnetism ; he soon 
 began to publish accounts of his discoveries of the med- 
 icinal value of this newly found therapeutic agent. 
 Honors were conferred on him in Germany, where his 
 researches were warmly endorsed by many persons of 
 influence in scientific circles. In Paris he also attracted 
 much attention. His system commended itself to many 
 distinguished lights in the medical profession and to in- 
 telligent and educated communities at large. He seems 
 to have regarded his knowledge as a personal secret, as 
 he refused a considerable sum of money which was of- 
 fered him if he would reveal the secret ; his refusal to 
 accept about four thousand dollars as an annual pen- 
 sion for making the desired disclosure gave rise to sus- 
 picions and provoked much antagonism, which led to 
 the appointment of a commission by the government 
 composed of plrysicians and naturalists to investigate 
 his claims as thoroughly as possible ; as the report of 
 the commission was unfavorable to Mesmer he soon 
 began to lose his former popularity. Having fallen 
 into disrepute he left France for England, where he 
 made no great stir ; he then retired into complete ob- 
 scurity. 
 
 Such is in brief the history of the founder of the 
 modern system called Mesmerism, or animal magnet- 
 ism ; let us now look at the system itself, and turn our 
 glance toward ,some of the other notable characters 
 who figured prominently in its history at the close of 
 the last and during the present century. 
 
 Animal magnetism is alwa}^s closely associated in 
 theory with a subtle mental force, a power of thought 
 
158 LECTURE BY W. J. COLYILLE. 
 
 or will which, emanating from one person can strange- 
 ly affect others. The claim is not made by magnetists 
 of the mesmeric school that bodily emanations suffice 
 to induce the magnetic or mesmeric sleep, or the som- 
 nambulic condition : on the contrary, all professors of 
 the art or science claim that will is a powerful opera- 
 tive agent ; thus mesmeric and magnetic treatments 
 border upon mind cure, as they pre-suppose the exer- 
 cise of a purely mental force in addition to all that pro- 
 ceeds from body to body in the act of manipulation. 
 The theory of animal magnetism is not by any means 
 ridiculous, and it is vain for metaphysicians to argue 
 there is no efficacy whatever in magnetic treatments ; 
 simple animal magnetism exuding through the pores 
 of the physical organism has properties and produces 
 results on the plane of mortal sense, just as food nour- 
 ishes the external body, and other outward agents play 
 a part in sustaining the outward frame. 
 
 Animal magnetism is largely animal heat ; heat is 
 generated as we all know by friction ; thus the rapid 
 and sometimes violent movements of magnetizers serve 
 to evolve a vast amount of animal energy, which by 
 means of the respiratory system can be easily commu- 
 nicated from one body to another. A person taking a 
 magnetic treatment believes and admits that somebody 
 else's vitality enters his body through the pores ; he 
 therefore acknowledges dependence upon the physical 
 force generated in another system than his own. 
 
 Mesmer supposed animal magnetism had some re- 
 lation to the magnetism of the loadstone. The method 
 of inducing the magnetic state employed by Mesmer 
 involved the use of quite extensive apparatus ; iron 
 rods, etc., were employed, but the more popular phase 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. C0LVILLE. 159 
 
 of treatment has always been the use of passes made 
 by the hands of the magnetizer from the head of the 
 subject or patient downward, sometimes to the feet ; in 
 many instances, however, passes have been dispensed 
 with and the subject has been commanded to fix his 
 eyes upon the operator, under which circumstance some 
 of the most remarkable psychological or biological re- 
 sults have been obtained. When passing into the sleep, 
 the subject usually feels a curious creeping sensation 
 come over him, he seems to lose all power of voluntary 
 thought or action, which sensation is occasioned by the 
 will of the operator directing the patient's subjugated 
 mind wheresoever he (the operator) desires. Various 
 estimates are given by different authorities as to the 
 average percentage of mesmeric sensitives in an aver- 
 age community ; some fix the average at one in ten, 
 others at one in seven, again others say that probably 
 thirty-three and one-third per cent of the entire popu- 
 lation are amenable to magnetic influence. It appears, 
 however, on closer inspection that the average varies 
 considerably in different countries ; climate, personal 
 temperament, education, average of intelligence and 
 many other causes too numerous to mention, tend to 
 immeasurably modify the susceptibility of persons to 
 the will of others, and while, as said before, simply 
 animal emanations have an effect on the animal plane, 
 no Mesmerist is simply a Magnetist of the physical 
 order. 
 
 Mesmer was no rubber of the illiterate type; he 
 was a man of will, power, and decision, who when he 
 set out to accomplish a result had great force of intel- 
 lect and dominant purpose of mind to back him. Ac- 
 cording to the Mesmeric theory the nervous energy of 
 
160 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 the operator has overpowered that of the subject, and 
 while the word nervous may convey to some only a 
 physical idea we think it would be difficult to find a 
 sane individual anywhere who does not recognize to a 
 greater or less degree the direct action of mind in all 
 nervous conditions. Many of the best scientists, in- 
 cluding members of the French government commis- 
 sion appointed to investigate the source and secret of 
 Mesmer's power, or at least the efficacy of the system 
 he originated, have arrived at the conclusion that it is 
 a delusion to attribute the power which entrances the 
 human subject to an influence emanating from any 
 physical object. The effects, whatever they are, said 
 these men of science, must have their origin elsewhere. 
 As early as 1785, when the report of the commission- 
 ers was handed in (one of the commissioners was no 
 less a man than Franklin, who was appointed by the 
 king of France to investigate the subject), they had 
 arrived at conclusions almost identical with those 
 which find favor among mental scientists today, for 
 though at that time the reflex action of the mind upon 
 the body had not been studied as extensively as it has 
 been since they pronounced the phenomena the result 
 of imagination. 
 
 The word " imagination " needs careful and elab- 
 orate definition and explanation to render it a really 
 appropriate one for use in such connection ; but 
 understanding imagination to be simply an image 
 or reflection produced upon the mind by some thought 
 or object influencing it in ways not ordinarily under- 
 stood, imagination is a good and expressive word. 
 Imagination is a power, gift or faculty natural to 
 man ; it needs proper cultivation, but should never be 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 161 
 
 decried as useless or injurious, as it only becomes a 
 snare when allowed to run riot, as all faculties do 
 when not properly disciplined. In many instances per- 
 sons have been most powerfully affected when nothing 
 whatever was done to them, but when they thought 
 something was being done; there is such a thing as 
 self mesmerism, though what is usually called such is 
 generally brought on in the first place by the operation 
 of some outside influence. Among the early believers 
 in the magnetic theory who had not extricated them- 
 selves from the meshes of too much dependence on 
 assistance derived from inanimate things was the justly 
 celebrated Baron von Reichenbach, a German natural- 
 ist, who in the earlier days of his manhood became 
 involved in serious political struggles resulting in his 
 imprisonment. On his release from prison he seems 
 to have given up to a large extent his political am- 
 bitions, and devoted himself almost entirely to the 
 natural sciences and their application to industrial arts. 
 He was a man of great force of character and power of 
 mind, capable of engineering vast undertakings and 
 managing large estates. He was, therefore, of that 
 peculiar temperament of mind necessary to success in 
 all enterprises where the subjection of one will to an- 
 other is involved. He it was who thought while study- 
 ing animal magnetism he had discovered a new force 
 in nature. This force soon took the name of Odyle or 
 Odylic force, to the operation of which many of you 
 may remember the spiritual manifestations of thirty- 
 five or forty years ago were attributed by many. This 
 Odyle, sometimes called Od (supposed to mean all-per- 
 vading), Reichenbach declared pervades all nature just 
 as Vril does according to Bulwer Lytton. Vril in Lyt- 
 
1(52 LECTUJRE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 ton's mind was probabty a higher manifestation of the 
 Od conceived of by Reichenbach ; it manifests itself, 
 according to him, as a flickering flame or luminous 
 appearance at the poles of magnets and crystals, and 
 wherever chemical action is going on. This force was 
 said to account for the luminous appearances sometimes 
 seen at graves which have given rise to terrible frights 
 and no end of weird superstitions. 
 
 Od force is said to have, like magnetism, its positive 
 and negative poles. The human body, according to 
 this theory, is positive on the left side, and negative on 
 the right. Eeichenbach claimed to have demonstrated 
 as a positive fact in his own experience that sensitive 
 people positively see the odic radiation like a luminous 
 vapor in the dark, and can feel it by the touch like a 
 breath. As the meeting of like odic poles causes an 
 unpleasant sensation, while the pairing of opposite poles 
 produces an agreeable result, a reason is assigned for 
 those remarkable attractions and antipathies which can 
 never be logically accounted for unless some such 
 theory, or a still better and more explicit one, is given 
 for their explanation. 
 
 You have probably all come in contact with some 
 of those apparently fastidious persons, whose extreme 
 sensitiveness makes them keenly and often painfully 
 alive to influences unfelt by the majority, at least to 
 any appreciable degree. We often come across per- 
 sons who say they cannot sleep in certain positions, and 
 according to Reichenbach and his theory of Od there 
 is a scientific ground for their peculiarity. Some sen- 
 sitive persons declare they cannot sleep when in the 
 northern hemisphere on their left side, because the 
 north pole of the earth, which is od — negative, affects 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 163 
 
 unpleasantly a person's right side which is also od — 
 negative. 
 
 As all motion generates Od, this force is said to 
 account for many singular phenomena usually attrib- 
 uted to a mysterious but unknown power, such as the 
 use of a divining rod for the finding of water under 
 the ground. Why, it is asked, may not a stream run- 
 ning underground affect a sensitive water-finder so that 
 the divining rod in his hand shall move without any 
 conscious effort of will ? 
 
 Reichenbach ascribes all mesmeric phenomena to 
 the working of this Od, but not being a sensitive him- 
 self, he never claimed to have had first-hand sensuous 
 proof of its existence. His conclusions rest entirely 
 upon the experiences of the many sensitives upon whom 
 he operated and by means of whom he conducted his 
 interesting experiments. 
 
 Comparatively few scientific men of renown have 
 given much credence to this theory in its physical 
 aspects, and it appears to us the time has now come for 
 a reconsideration of its claims, rather with a view to 
 discovering a mental cause for mesmeric phenomena 
 than with the hope of establishing a physical basis on 
 which they may scientifically repose. 
 
 Kindred phenomena to those attributed by Reich- 
 enbach to Od have been explained by the light of 
 what is termed Hypnotism by Dr. Braid, of Man- 
 chester, England, who published some very interesting- 
 papers on the subject in an English journal of Medical 
 Science in 1853. The word hypnotism, as some of you 
 are doubtless aware, is derived from the Greek hypnos, 
 signifying sleep. The hypnotic state, according to Dr. 
 Braid, proceeded rather from the physical and ps} r chical 
 
164 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 condition of the patient himself than from any outside 
 influence. 
 
 Directions given for inducing the hypnotic state 
 which some persons have followed with considerable 
 success are substantially as follows : Take a silver 
 lancet-case or other bright object and hold it between 
 the fingers of the left hand about a foot from the eyes 
 of the person on whom you desire to experiment, in 
 such a position above the forehead as to produce the 
 greatest strain on the eyes compatible with a steady 
 fixed stare at the bright object. The subject must be 
 directed to rivet his mind on the object at which he is 
 gazing. The symptoms are, first, a contraction of the 
 pupils of the eye ; then they will dilate considerably ; 
 then after they are widely dilated the operator should 
 extend the first and second fingers of the left hand, 
 keeping them slightly separated from the bright object, 
 toward the subject's eyes. The eyelids wil] probably 
 close with a vibratory motion. After ten or fifteen 
 seconds have elapsed, the patient can be made to keep 
 his arms or legs fixed in any position in which the 
 operator places them. 
 
 It will usually be observed that all the senses except 
 sight become highly exalted ; the special senses are the 
 first to exhibit this exaltation ; the muscular sense and 
 sensibility to temperature become remarkably keen; 
 but this exaltation of function is followed by depression 
 or torpor, placing the body in a condition far below the 
 state of natural sleep. Only when in that torpid con- 
 dition is a person thoroughly hypnotized. 
 
 This rigidity of the muscles and extreme torpidity 
 of the nervous system can and ought to be instantly 
 removed. An opposite condition can be induced by 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 165 
 
 directing a current of air against those limbs or muscles 
 the operator wishes to render limber, or against an 
 organ he wishes to excite to action ; by mere repose 
 the sensitive will return to his normal condition. If 
 a current of air directed against the face is not enough 
 to arouse the sleeper, pressure and friction should be 
 applied to the eyelids and the arm or leg sharply 
 struck with the palm of the operator's hand. Dr. 
 Braid, after a careful analysis of a large number of ex- 
 periments, came to the conclusion that by a continual 
 fixation of the mental as well as of the bodily eye upon 
 an object, with absolute repose of body and general 
 quietude, a feeling of stupor supervenes which renders 
 a subject liable to be affected in the manner recited 
 above. Such experiments are found to succeed with 
 blind persons, thereby proving the action of mental 
 rather than visual action and concentration on the part 
 of the one affected ; the effects then cannot be pro- 
 duced through the agency of the optic nerve of the 
 body, but must be rather due to impressions made upon 
 the sentient, motor and sympathetic nerves, and 
 above all upon the mind. 
 
 Many surgical operations have been performed 
 painlessly upon hypnotized patients, and hypnotism 
 has frequently been employed with much success in 
 various forms of disease, especially in cases where nerv- 
 ous derangement was the explanation of the disorder 
 concurred in by the faculty. Now that mind-reading 
 and thought transference are agitating the popular 
 mind so violently as to render mind-reading one of the 
 most popular topics of the day, it behooves all students 
 of Spiritual Science and all mental healers to address 
 themselves to the task of finding the true explanation 
 
166 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 of these phenomena in mind, not in matter, and from 
 what has been quoted and advanced in this discourse 
 you will see that the general drift of thought in the 
 scientific world even among physicians and physicists 
 has been to refer mesmeric, magnetic, biologic, and 
 hyponotic phenomena to a mental and not to a phys- 
 ical cause. 
 
 We will now proceed to state as tersely as possible 
 wherein metaphysics must of necessity be far in ad- 
 vance of mesmerism, animal magnetism, biology, hyp- 
 notism and all other phases of semi-mental phenomena 
 which favor the employment of physical assistance, 
 and start with the assumption that one human will is 
 stronger than another, and then proceed to argue and 
 act as though it were a divine appointment that 
 stronger wills should control the weaker. Up to a 
 certain point these quasi-mental systems are pure and 
 lawful, but in no case are they the equals of the true 
 metaphysical system we endeavor to advocate and 
 explain. Now what is the essential contrast between 
 Metaphysics and Mesmerism? Surely in this all-im- 
 portant fact that metaphysical treatment aims at lib- 
 erating a patient's mind and will, and mesmerism aims 
 at controlling or enthralling it. Disguise the fact as 
 one may, mesmerism, according to its accepted ex- 
 ponents, is a system of mental bondage, a system 
 which boasts of the ability of one mind to hold another 
 in subjection ; it is then a system which upholds mental 
 slavery, and no slaveholding system can harmonize with 
 the advanced views of liberty now everywhere pro- 
 claimed as essential to the highest civilization. Given 
 all the credit it can possibly merit, mesmeric methods 
 are only suited to the infancy of human development ; 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 167 
 
 as children are held in obedience to the minds of others 
 until they are able to walk alone and act independently, 
 so persons who are in an extremely weak and suffering 
 condition and also powerfully influenced by other 
 minds in error, whose influence over them retains them 
 in sickness, may be reached beneficially at first by the 
 mesmeric power of a really well-disposed, healthier and 
 more enlightened person than those whose mental out- 
 goings exercise so baneful an influence on the invalid. 
 In such a case as this we may compare the mesmeric 
 treatment to the transfer of a slave from a bad master 
 to a good. 
 
 In the days of negro slavery many of the negroes 
 in the South fared so well with kind masters, they did 
 not desire freedom. Many women today who have 
 good husbands and happy homes, put the greatest 
 obstacles in the way of the Woman Suffragists, by 
 maintaining that women have all the rights they need 
 to demand, citing themselves as examples of woman's 
 happy lot, with which say they all women should be 
 satisfied. No one denies that many negroes were well 
 treated while yet they were slaves, and no one ques- 
 tions the fact that many women without the ballot are 
 in a comfortable condition, but in discussing the ques- 
 tion of slavery and the question of suffrage, principle 
 must be taken into consideration, not immediate com- 
 fort or discomfort of certain individuals. Is the system 
 right or wrong? not, are certain persons happy and 
 contented under it ? is the question of the hour when- 
 ever a reform is called for. In grave national contests 
 the arena of battle is principle at stake ; under a des- 
 potic sway people may live very happily and be very 
 kindly treated, as they often are, by humane rulers. 
 
168 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 A sultan, a czar or emperor may be an excellent, truly 
 kind-hearted and justice-loving man, during his reign 
 all may go well and the people have no cause for com- 
 plaint ; but rebellion against despotism in theory is im- 
 peratively called for by reason of the fact that at any 
 moment the removal of a single individual from office 
 may deprive a whole nation of all their rights and lib- 
 erties and land the entire population in the arms of 
 cruelty and all its hideous results. ISTow the case of a 
 mesmerized sensitive is about parallel with the case of 
 a slave dependent on the good nature of his master, a 
 woman dependent on the caprice of her husband and a 
 nation dependent on the personal character of a solitary 
 head ; at any moment the mesmeric influence may be 
 withdrawn, at any moment the kind and wise mesmer- 
 ist may remove his protecting arm; and as human 
 nature is not yet infallible and unchangeable in all its 
 operations on the external plane, a mesmerist formerly 
 wise and kind, may, under the influence of some strong 
 temptation or other powerful incentive, begin misusing 
 his power so as to bring the sensitive under a most 
 baneful sway. 
 
 To be the creature of another's will is to be in 
 slavery, and even though the will may be kindly and 
 mercifully directed we should all strive to obey the 
 command, " Thou shalt worship the Eternal thy God, 
 and him only shalt thou serve," which translated into 
 plain, everyday language practically means no more 
 and no less than that we should under no circumstances 
 allow ourselves to be blindly led by any kind of influ- 
 ence, but in all our dealings with forces seen and 
 unseen employ our conscience and our reason, and only 
 yield to truth and goodness because our interior sense 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 169 
 
 points out to us that what we are asked to obey is a 
 divine monition. 
 
 The writer of these pages has had personal experi- 
 ence in mesmerism, so far enlightening him as to its 
 nature and effects as to impel him, in duty to those 
 who may not have had the same experience, to speak 
 decidedly on this matter. The writer will now devote a 
 brief space to personal illustrative reminiscence, by way 
 of enforcing the lesson here intended to be conveyed. 
 When about sixteen years of age, and at that time very 
 impressible to all such influence as that commonly 
 called mesmeric, he made the acquaintance of a young 
 man whose mesmeric ability was unusually great and 
 who exerted over him the most complete sovereignty 
 for more than twenty-seven months. During that 
 period a great number of deeply interesting and at the 
 same time highly instructive experiments were tried, 
 proving conclusively the absolute surrender of the sub- 
 ject's to the operator's mind.. As the operator in this 
 case did not abuse his power to any serious extent 
 or in any important direction, no harm sprang from 
 their association, but a sample of the experiments suc- 
 cessfully conducted will convey to the mind of every 
 reader a faint idea at least of the absolute sovereignty 
 of the one mind over the other. 
 
 In the year 1876, in a London drawing-room, in the 
 presence of a numerous compan}^ of distinguished and 
 influential ladies and gentlemen, including doctors, 
 lawyers, clergymen and others high in their respective 
 professions, the subject was engaged in close conversa- 
 tion with one of the gentlemen, while the operator was 
 taken by another into a room up-stairs and there shown 
 some curious old prints at the bottom of a trunk ; he 
 
170 LECTUKE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 took a definite and complete mental photograph of 
 them and then willed the subject down-stairs to tell 
 the assembled company what he (the operator) was 
 looking at overhead. 
 
 Instantly the subject commenced to describe the 
 trunk, pictures, dates and other writing on them, the 
 precise arrangement of a number of articles which had 
 been removed from the trunk and lay in confusion on 
 the floor, with all the exactitude of a closely observing 
 eye-witness. Immediately the description had been 
 given, most of the company hurried up-stairs, and 
 there found everything precisely as the subject had 
 described it. 
 
 In many instances he would be made to do the 
 most extraordinary things without rhyme or reason, 
 and that so suddenly and impetuously as to cause the 
 greatest wonder and merriment among all his compan- 
 ions. Not only were similar phenomena of frequent 
 occurrence, but so great was the influence upon him of 
 this gentleman's mind that he liked everything and 
 everybody his operator liked, and detested everything 
 and everybody the operator disliked. He could, more- 
 over, at any moment and at any distance from the 
 operator be thrown into an unconscious state, and 
 made to say and do whatever the operator desired. 
 
 This is no singular or isolated instance; it is a 
 common experience wherever mesmerism is practiced. 
 If Professors Carpenter, Cadwell and others about 
 whom we hear so much in New England, and whose 
 exhibitions are truly marvelous, can so influence their 
 subjects as to make them think ice is hot, and burning 
 coals are cold, if they can give to lemonade the flavor 
 of brandy, and cause tea or coffee to taste like whisky 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 171 
 
 to the palate of the entranced or semi-entranced sensi- 
 tives with whom they exhibit, and if this power is not 
 confined to place or time, but can be exerted from any 
 distance when once a subject is completely brought 
 into subjection to the operator's will, in what danger 
 are persons placed who yield blindly and unthinkingly 
 to every influence which strives to excite or lull them 
 to submission. 
 
 Eternal vigilance is indeed the price of individual 
 . mental liberty, and while we do not tell you to yield to 
 no influence whatsoever and under no condition, we 
 do tell you that state of mental passivity which 
 makes you the mere creature of another's will is hazard- 
 ous in the extreme, and ill befits any one who believes 
 in human equality and in the right of individual human 
 beings. 
 
 Mesmerism can be used to allay pain and also to 
 impart vitality. Yital force can be, and often is con- 
 veyed from mind to mind while animal magnetism 
 passes from body to body by the mesmeric process. 
 But Spiritual Science, telling you to depend on God 
 and draw your supplies of strength from universal 
 mind, not from personal beings whose caprices may at 
 any time land you in sickness, crime or disaster, urges 
 you to so cultivate your own spiritual being that any- 
 where, at any time you can obtain from the fount of 
 all life the health and aid of which you stand in need. 
 
 Mesmerism subjugates, it enforces submission, it 
 controls ; while metaphysics teaches, argues with the 
 patient, and instead of endeavoring to reduce him to 
 the level of another's creature, brings him to see his 
 own true position as a child of God and invites him to 
 listen to the voice of God in his own soul, not recogniz- 
 
172 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 ing the intermediation of any priest or Mesmerist 
 claiming authority to dominate the will of another 
 being. In our next lecture, which will treat on Medi- 
 umship, we shall pursue this subject into the arena of 
 Spiritualism, to which Mesmerism always serves as a 
 gateway and introduction. 
 
LECTUEE IX. 
 
 METAPHYSICS AND ITS RELATION TO MEDIUMSHIP. 
 
 IN our last address we spoke very pointedly on the 
 subject of Mesmerism, or animal magnetism, and 
 took decisive ground against that blind submission to 
 another's will which is the leading element of success 
 in mesmeric operation. Some persons, indeed many, 
 seem to be so unhappily constituted as to be unable 
 to steer clear of extremes ; either they must accept 
 another mind as their superior and master, almost as 
 their God, or else repudiate its influence altogether. 
 
 Though metaphysics is old enough in India, and lies 
 at the very foundation of the ancient Erahmanical 
 religion, which is a purely, indeed an abstractly meta- 
 physical system, in this country and in Europe, meta- 
 physical ideas are so comparatively new to the mass of 
 mankind at le'ast, that any amount of error and mis- 
 conception prevails among the populace as to what is 
 really taught by metaphysical science. Some meta- 
 physicians, indeed many, claim that spiritualism is a 
 gigantic delusion, and style all mediumship error of 
 the mortal mind ; others again endeavor to unite the 
 two, and in some instances manage to employ both 
 most advantageously. The oft-repeated quotations, 
 " You cannot mix oil and water," " there can be no 
 fellowship between truth and error, light and darkness, 
 Christ and Belial," do not apply in this connection, for 
 
 173 
 
174 LECTUKE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 mediumship rightly understood and intelligently 
 employed is one of the greatest blessings which can 
 possibly come to humanity. 
 
 If we are to consider this subject fairly we must first 
 define what we consider to be the true metaphysical 
 view of death. Poets affirm " there is no death." At the 
 Spiritualists' Camp Meeting in Oakland, California, 
 where our teachings were received with so much kindly 
 favor during June, 1886, these words were inscribed 
 over the platform. Such an inscription of course 
 excited much attention and provoked much comment ; 
 people were for the most part familiar with the quota- 
 tion ; it is to be found in Tennyson's " In Memoriam," 
 in some poem of Longfellow's, and doubtless in the 
 compositions of other poets also, but no matter how 
 familiar the ear may be with certain words, no matter 
 how often they may be heard in poetical readings or 
 recitations, poetical license is always allowed for, and 
 it is only when they come to be written up in plain 
 blank prose as though they were as self-evident as the 
 favorite motto, " Honesty is the best policy," and other 
 equally sober and well-worn proverbs, that the public 
 mind begins to challenge their truthfulness or really 
 bestow much if any serious thought upon their import. 
 Many Spiritualists and many who are not Spiritualists 
 also take these familiar words and accept them as con- 
 veying a great truth ; they find no fault with the 
 phraseology and yet they make all kinds of fun and 
 ridicule out of the assertion of metaphysicians, " There 
 is no disease," a kindred statement ; if one can be sup- 
 ported the other can, if one falls to the ground the 
 other falls with it. Do those people who write over 
 their platform, " There is no death," mean that there 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 175 
 
 is no death in appearance ? certainly they teach noth- 
 ing of the kind, but very wisely draw a distinction 
 between appearance and reality ; while they affirm 
 most positively there is no death, man never dies, they 
 inter the body in the earth and acknowledge that it 
 crumbles into dust, they are simply wise enough not to 
 confound an appearance with a reality, they know 
 the physical body is not man but only his fleeting gar- 
 ment. 
 
 When we affirm there is no disease we do not mean 
 there is no appearance of disorder on the surface of the 
 flesh, neither do we mean to deny that there may be 
 disorders to clairvoyant vision in the interior of the 
 physical frame, but we deny that man's body is him- 
 self just as we deny that man's clothing is his body. 
 Science denies sunrise and sunset, but all experience 
 acknowledges the rising and setting of the sun every 
 day as appearances, nevertheless sunrise and sunset are 
 illusions ; the sun neither rises nor sets from the point of 
 view of scientific vision, it only appears to ; from the 
 standpoint of science there is no sunrise, there is no 
 sunset. Just as science disposes of appearances and 
 illusions by revealing facts and truths otherwise un- 
 known, concerning the constitution of the external 
 universe, so spiritual science, which is the highest 
 degree of all science, makes known the truth of Spirit- 
 ual being in direct contradiction of every mortal and 
 erring belief and appearance. Death is an appearance, 
 an illusion, a belief of mortal mind and nothing more, 
 and judging from the testimony of Swedenborg as well 
 as from that of any number of modern seers and 
 mediums, man does not know he has died unless he has 
 himself passed through the belief of death in his own 
 
176 LECTUKE BY W. J. C0LVILLE. 
 
 mortal mind. Swedenborg tells us he encountered 
 spirits who had left their bodies fully fifty years and 
 still did not know they were separated from them ; 
 again and again are we told by persons who claim to 
 be in daily communion with so-called departed spirits, 
 that there are myriads of spirits who do not know they 
 are out of their earthly bodies, they cannot realize 
 death unless they pass through the belief of death, 
 while they have died to the belief of their companions 
 on earth who have laid away their bodies in the ground, 
 satisfied their mortal minds and memories that such 
 and such persons are dead and gone, therefore, they see 
 and hear from them no more unless some extraordinary 
 phenomena occur in their presence which lead them to 
 create another belief stronger than the belief that they 
 are dead ; this other belief, the belief in spirit return 
 or in clairvoyant vision, is in such cases the stronger 
 man turning out the strong ; a stronger belief always 
 overcomes a weaker one, a belief in spirit communion 
 or in clairvoyance often suffices to neutralize the effects 
 of the previous belief that some friend is really dead, 
 has actually perished, or else has gone far, far away to 
 some mysterious bourne from which no traveler 
 returns, and whither no message from earth can reach 
 or from whence no answer can be returned even should 
 the message reach its destination. 
 
 Mortal belief establishes the idea of death, it then 
 requires physical phenomena, test mediumship, clair- 
 voyance, clairaudiance, etc, to break down this misbe- 
 lief. The greater part of the work done by many 
 Spiritualists and in many circles is an iconoclastic 
 work, a work of pulling down, rooting up, image 
 breaking, etc.; this work is in many instances positively 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 177 
 
 necessary, and were it not done spiritual truth could 
 not find an entrance to the mind of man on earth in its 
 present average condition. Sites have to be cleared, 
 rickety buildings must be torn down and carted away 
 before new wholesome edifices can be erected on the 
 land where once the shanties stood. The farmer 
 knows well how necessary it is for some one to clear 
 the ground of stones, kill the snakes and in various 
 ways make ready for the sowing of the good seed which 
 when planted in the cleared earth will in due time 
 yield luxuriant harvests. 
 
 We must not condemn, neither must we undervalue, 
 the hard iconoclastic exertions of the sturdy pioneers, 
 who during the past nearly forty years have stampeded 
 through this country proclaiming that man lives after 
 the death of the physical body, and that those yet in 
 mortal form can hold communion with those who have 
 laid aside the mortal tenement. Many of these rugged 
 teachers who have dealt sledge-hammer blows at error, 
 may, like Cromwell's soldiers, when they entered the 
 English cathedrals and parish churches, have broken 
 down much that was beautiful and much that later on 
 will be restored, but if like an army pursuing in hot 
 haste the foe, trampling down gardens and cornfields 
 on their way to victory over tyranny, injustice and op- 
 pression, these sturdy men and women, with little rev- 
 erence for old beliefs, have overthrown some beautiful 
 works of art in their endeavor to destroy only hideous 
 idols, if they have sometimes been too reckless and 
 have not fought with the most spiritual of weapons, 
 we must remember that storms clear the air, and there 
 is a perfect correspondence in the realm of mind to the 
 facts of external nature, or rather, to state the idea the 
 
178 LECTURE Bi' W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 other way and more correctly, as the spiritual realm is 
 the seat of cause, the physical universe being only the 
 region of effects, there is a perfect reflex action in the 
 external sphere corresponding to the events transpiring 
 in the unseen realm of mind ; storms, hurricanes, earth- 
 quakes, volcanic eruptions, in a word every physical 
 disturbance encountered by man on earth, corresponds 
 to and results- from some prior agitation in the kingdom 
 of thought. We shall always observe, if we watch the 
 signs of any times, that periods of great mental excite- 
 ment and upheaval are marked physically as seasons of 
 violent storms, and dread convulsions of external 
 nature. It is now commonly admitted that the phys- 
 ical atmosphere of this globe is very considerably 
 affected by human conduct, it being an almost undis- 
 puted fact that storms accompany and follow battles, 
 and even large and brilliant pyrotechnic displays. If 
 the inventions of man can create thunder and lightning 
 and bring rain from the cloudsj then surely as these in- 
 ventions proceed from mind and are carried out by 
 means of mind, no one need doubt that mind unassisted 
 or rather unhampered by material things, can and does 
 produce the greatest conceivable modifications in ex- 
 ternal temperature. The weather cannot be controlled 
 by any one solitary mind, but when a concentrated 
 mental effort is made, climate certainly is modified, 
 storms are warded off, or rain is caused to descend. 
 
 In praying for rain two difficulties have to be met. 
 First, all persons are not agreed as to the weather they 
 desire, thus their power of will or influence of thought 
 discords, one mind helping to bring about what an- 
 other assists in warding off, and secondly many per- 
 sons who employ a form of words have no real faith in 
 
LECTTJEE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 179 
 
 the efficacy of what they are doing. Union and faith 
 are both necessary to a result ; where one is absent, 
 and more still where both are absent, prayer and work 
 are rendered ineffectual as means toward the accom- 
 plishment, of any desired object. All miracles and 
 wonderful occurrences which have taken place since the 
 world began are just so many demonstrations of the 
 power of mind over matter, nothing more or less. 
 They are not, strictly speaking, supernatural, and they 
 will not always be styled miracles, as miraculous cor- 
 rectly speaking is wonderful, and things no longer 
 inspire wonder when the law governing them is under- 
 stood. 
 
 Spiritual manifestations, and those in whose pres- 
 ence and seemingly through whose instrumentality they 
 were produced, were in olden days supposed to be the 
 favored few, the specially chosen of heaven to demon- 
 strate the being and will of Godfyo men on earth. To- 
 day, as phenomena multiply and all sorts of trivial 
 things are attributed to the action of " departed spirits," 
 it becomes highly necessary for some one to so deal 
 with the marvels of the present day, nineteenth century 
 miracles as they are sometimes called, as to make of 
 them a means for enforcing great universal truths not 
 very well apprehended by the majority of those who 
 pay to witness them and enthusiastically uphold them. 
 
 Now once for all let it be stated that metaphysicians 
 cannot afford to ignore or taboo spiritualism. It is for 
 them to recognize its claims and throw light upon its 
 phenomena; to attribute all phenomena to illusion or 
 delusion will not do. It satisfies no profound thinker, 
 and least of all will it weaken the hold Spiritualism has 
 gained on the minds of the people. . 
 
180 LECTTJKE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 We must all admit that, making all due allowance 
 for imposture and exaggeration, alleged phenomena do 
 occur, and these phenomena are indubitable demonstra- 
 tions of the transcendent power of mind over matter in 
 many instances. No matter what interpretations may 
 be put upon old-time wonders ; no matter by what pro- 
 cesses of subtle reasoning and the invalidation of history 
 and testimony Rationalists may seek to explain away 
 the miracles of the old and new testament and those of 
 the ancient books of India, China, Persia, Egypt and 
 other distant climes, these " miracles " are being dupli- 
 cated in our midst today ; we see the cheap jugglery of 
 the mendicant fakir of India imitated by many "medi- 
 ums of the new dispensation," and however we may 
 dislike so low a phase of mental action, it is vain and 
 absurd to try and defend the hypothesis of fraud, which 
 is no explanation whatever of either the oriental or the 
 occidental medium's performances. 
 
 We have, however, ample evidences of far higher 
 manifestations of spirit power than those which can 
 possibly come under the head of jugglery, even when 
 the word is used as applicable to much that is really 
 genuine in India, though on a low intellectual and 
 moral plane. Unmistakable evidences of a higher order 
 of intelligence accompanying the phenomena are multi- 
 plying on every hand, and surely no one can read 
 Crookes, Wallace, Zollner, and many another celebrated 
 writer in defense of phenomenal Spiritualism without 
 seeing that men of unquestioned scientific standing and 
 ability are compelled to consider spiritualistic phe- 
 nomena as worthy the closest scientific scrutiny and 
 most persistent investigation. Professor Huxley and 
 other learned men who have spoken derisively of Spirit- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 1S1 
 
 ualism have by such actions done far more to demean 
 themselves in the eyes of the fair-minded than they 
 have injured the cause they have treated with disdain. 
 
 No subject bordering on the question of human 
 immortality can ever be regarded by the really serious 
 and studious as other than of the deepest interest and 
 utmost importance. All attempts therefore to belittle 
 so grave a theme can only expose the shallow-mmded- 
 ness of those who treat it with flippant contempt. Un- 
 fortunately, many Spiritualists play into the hands of 
 their detractors by approaching a subject of the most 
 serious importance in a spirit of levity and idle curi- 
 osity. From the traitors within the camp far more 
 than from avowed enemies on the outside Spiritualism 
 receives its deadliest attacks. But the movement itself 
 is vital and prolific enough to successfully resist all 
 opposition both from within and without, and though 
 many Spiritualists are nervously afraid lest the enemy 
 should prevail when the phenomena are submitted to 
 the searching analysis of reason, such apprehensions 
 must, in the nature of things, be groundless unless those 
 who entertain them have secret doubts of their own as 
 to the real genuineness of what before others they 
 enthusiastically maintain. 
 
 True metaphysicians, instead of denouncing Spirit- 
 ualism and decrying mediumship, in order to be true 
 to their own standards and to act in defense of their 
 avowed principles, must be the interpreters and expo- 
 nents of the truths of Spiritualism, though at all times 
 and under all circumstances they must not be backward 
 in exposing fallacies and correcting prevailing errors. 
 To rightly understand the nature of men we must 
 consider man not as a compound of matter and spirit, 
 
182 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 but as spirit only. We have bodies as we own cloth- 
 ing and dwelling, but we are spirit. Man is altogether 
 a spiritual being, and therefore the whole of man, not 
 only a part of him, lives after the death of the body. 
 The very first step in the direction of a right compre- 
 hension of spiritual science is for the mind to arrive at 
 a point in its perception of truth where it can intelli- 
 gently asseverate its full conviction that man is only 
 and altogether spirit ; man being entirely spiritual, not 
 partly spiritual and partly material, it stands to reason 
 that man's prerogatives and powers are not necessarily 
 affected to any appreciable degree by his retaining or 
 losing the outward structure called the body. If man 
 is not wholly spiritual, if it takes spirit and matter, 
 two opposite and distinct elements to make man, then 
 throughout eternity you will all of you be something 
 less than perfect human beings, unless you are re- 
 embodied in a physical structure lasting eternally. 
 
 No end of vagaries have arisen from a belief that 
 the duality of human nature is a duality of spirit and 
 matter, which it is not. The true duality of man is 
 the duality of love and wisdom, of intellect and affec- 
 tion, of man and woman, but the masculine and femi- 
 nine principles which constitute the perfect dual are 
 equally and immortally spiritual and spiritual only. 
 It certainly seems high time, after nearly forty years 
 of spiritualistic advocacy in this country, that Spirit- 
 ualists at least should have long since abandoned the 
 false beliefs which have led to a carnal doctrine of the 
 resurrection of the physical body on a future day of 
 judgment, a doctrine indeed which Spiritualists most 
 emphatically deny, but one which they must neverthe- 
 less ultimately accept if they share the radical error 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 183 
 
 which originally gave birth to it, viz., a belief that 
 man is a compound of mind and matter. 
 
 Does it not appear evident to every one of you that 
 if it takes mind and matter both to make man, that 
 those who are minus matter, having left their material 
 bodies in the ground, must either at some future time 
 be rehabilitated in matter and have matter secured to 
 them forever, or else be eternally minus something 
 necessary to their completeness as human entities ? 
 
 We know there are many of the school of Kardec 
 who advocate what Kardec calls re-incarnation, and 
 that the same doctrine in slightly altered form is now 
 extensively advocated in Spiritualistic circles under the 
 name of re-embodiment ; we know also that Theoso- 
 phists, as a rule, accept this doctrine in yet another 
 modification, but the tendency of all re-incarnationist 
 teaching is to the effect that the wearing of a mortal 
 body indicates a somewhat imperfect and unprogressed 
 condition of the spirit. All desire to see the time 
 when they will be embodied in mortal forms no longer, 
 while all who are to any extent familiar with Buddhis- 
 tic teachings know that the Buddhists make many 
 sacrifices of earthly pleasure that they may shorten 
 the term and lessen the number of their earthly em- 
 bodiments. 
 
 It will be seen then that not only is it not taught 
 even by believers in the necessity of several successive 
 earthly embodiments for the human spirit that the 
 body is necessary to the existence of the spirit, but the 
 case is put very much more strongly ; the only logical 
 inference from such teaching being that whenever the 
 spirit arrives at a condition of maturity or perfection 
 it will have done with matter forever. The reverse 
 
184 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 doctrine, that matter is necessary to the perfect human 
 being, is taught by orthodox Christians whose views 
 on the resurrection and eternal duration of the physical 
 body are borrowed from the crudest and most external 
 views entertained long, long ago by the Egyptians, 
 whose scriptures were evidently familiar to many of 
 the Christian teachers of the first century. Paul in his 
 epistle to the Corinthians had evidently been reading 
 the Egyptian scriptures : he refers to them and not to 
 the Hebrew writings, which contain no such doctrine, 
 when he argues against the prevailing ideas concerning 
 the resurrection entertained at Corinth in his day ; he 
 accuses those of folly who entertain the materialistic 
 fallacy he undertakes to answer and demolish, and 
 while he teaches of a body which is indestructible, and 
 incorruptible, he vehemently protests against the belief 
 that the resurrection-body is the physical frame. 
 
 Though a long chapter giving Paul's views on this 
 subject in detail forms part of the burial service of the 
 Episcopal church, that church, in common with the 
 Roman and Greek Catholic churches and all orthodox 
 Protestant sects, maintains the resurrection and death - 
 lessness of the physical organism, and while no one can 
 possibly reasonably accept such a dogma, it is accepted 
 by ail strictly orthodox Christians as a matter of faith, 
 tacitly though blindly assented to and usually included 
 in a catalogue of insoluble mysteries, which on closer 
 investigation can never be vindicated when judged at 
 the bar of reasonable religion. 
 
 The Christadelphians, Second Adventists and some 
 other singular modern sects, have gone so far as to pro- 
 claim the inseparability of consciousness from the 
 physical frame. Man, say they, is his body and his 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 185 
 
 body is himself. Man is mortal only according to their 
 theory, he actually dies, he has no immortal soul, he 
 goes down into the grave and knows not anything until 
 the shrill blast of Gabriel's trumpet shall re-awaken him 
 on the resurrection morn. 
 
 This latest expression of folly is the ligitimate off- 
 spring of a belief in the physical body of man as a nec- 
 essary portion of himself. Endow matter with sensa- 
 tion, let yourself believe that the physical body can feel 
 and suffer, admit the theory of a sensorium in the 
 physical brain, and it is only a step to the reductio ad 
 ahsurdtim of the Christodelphians, for they, seeing the 
 folly of believing that man is made up of two diamet- 
 rically opposite elements, both of which are necessary 
 to his real being, discard the idea of spirit altogether, 
 and make the flesh everything. 
 
 Again and again have we said to our students and 
 audiences, " Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. 
 Matter or Spirit, which ? Materialism or Spiritualism, 
 which?" One or the other you may accept, but logic- 
 ally you cannot accept them both. They are like two 
 horses hitched together in a team, when the one horse 
 insists upon pulling in an opposite direction to the 
 other. A comic picture full of the keenest and wittiest 
 satire, published some years ago, exactly illustrates the 
 "matter and spirit " theorv of human nature advocated 
 by so many. Two lawyers were pulling at a cow ; 
 they seemed both about equally strong men. The one 
 tugged vigorously at the cow's head and tried to pull 
 her forward ; the other with equal force tugged at the 
 tail with the intention of dragging her backwards. 
 The result was, the animal remained stationary. 
 
 Progress in thought is impossible, it is hopeless to 
 
186 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 arrive at any intelligent result in investigation, if we 
 have one theory possessing our minds perpetually neu- 
 tralizing the influence of an opposite ; as you lean more 
 to spirit than to matter, so far you succeed in demon- 
 strating truth, and in reaping such advantages as accrue 
 from faith in truth ; but in so far as you lean to the 
 idea of the reality of matter and regard your physical 
 organism as a necessary part of yourself, the partner of 
 your spiritual nature, as a kingdom divided against it- 
 self is brought to desolation and no man can serve two 
 masters, so you fail utterly in arriving at any logical 
 result in your reasonings, and continue impotent to 
 conquer the ravages of disease because your mind is 
 held in the thraldom of mortal misbelief in which you 
 are children of darkness and slaves of error, not know- 
 ing the freedom of the spirit which alone is liberty. 
 
 But it may be asked, if the physical bod}^ is not 
 even a part of a real human being, what is it then ? is 
 it a mere illusion of . mortal sense, having no kind of 
 real existence whatsoever ? We know many metaph}^- 
 sicians take that extreme ground, and sometimes appear 
 to render their position defensible by elaborate argu- 
 ments ; but for all practical purposes we do not need 
 to go further than to deny to matter when organized 
 into a physical body any more power than it possesses 
 when in the form of an article of wearing apparal 
 which we may wear and constantly be seen in, but 
 which is in no sense a part of ourselves. A poet speaks 
 the truth and nothing but the truth when he says of 
 the discarded form lying on the bier about to be in- 
 terred in the earth, " it was mine, it was not I." 
 
 When we speak of mortal bodies in the possessive 
 case we can recognize their existence in the same man- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 18 < 
 
 ner as that in which we recognize the existence of our 
 clothing, and you none of you believe there is any sen- 
 sation in }^our coats and dresses. You can witness the 
 destruction of your wearing apparel on your person 
 and yet feel no pain ; the fabric cannot feel and you 
 do not imagine that it can, but if the flame or rent 
 passes from the clothing to the body, you then under 
 ordinary circumstances, begin to suffer pain; meta- 
 physics, however, takes you further than, the outward 
 shell, and tells you you feel no pain in the physical 
 structure any more than in the dress, but in your mor- 
 tal mind which is reached through your body just as 
 your body is reached through your dress. When anaes- 
 thetics are given to dull pain, doses of mortal mind 
 belief are administered, the mortal mind consciousness 
 of the patient is benumbed ; if completely so, then 
 there is no pain w r hatever during the performance of 
 the most difficult surgical operation of the longest du- 
 ration. If the mortal mind is only confused or par- 
 tially stupefied then the patient suffers from experi- 
 ences which may be likened to bad dreams and dis- 
 tressing nightmare. When mesmeric treatment is 
 given, if the operator be a person of intelligence and 
 good-will, far less danger is incurred by the patient 
 than by the use of ether, chloroform, nitrous oxide, 
 gas, cocaine, or any of the other deadly drugs and 
 gases usually resorted to by plrvsicians and dentists. 
 When a very mecliumistic person comes under the in- 
 fluence of a spirit friend who entrances him, and 
 thereby removes his thought entirely from the outer 
 plane of consciousness, the mesmeric method is still 
 employed, only in such cases the operator has passed 
 through the change called death. 
 
1S8 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 Dr. Baker Fahnestock in his work on Statuvolence, 
 which is a species of self -mesmerism, relates many in- 
 teresting anecdotes of persons who have thrown them- 
 selves into what he calls the statuvolic condition, and 
 while in that state have remained quite impervious to 
 sensations conveyed from without. 
 
 We do not wish in any degree to derogate from the 
 purely metaphysical position we have taken in these 
 lectures, and which we know is the only really logical 
 and tenable one ; still there is such a thing as "render- 
 ing to all their dues," " rendering to Caesar the things 
 which are Caesar's," etc., and with a view to not neg- 
 lecting this duty, we give all due credit to those lower 
 agencies which, as secondary causes, necessarily oper- 
 ate on their own plane with outward and visible results, 
 sufficient to lead to the avowedly scientific theory that 
 material remedies have a power and virtue resident in 
 them, whereas Mesmerism alone is adequate to demon- 
 strate that mortal mind operating upon simple matter 
 can apotheosise it to such an extent as t<5 convert it 
 into wine, beer, ardent spirit, tea, coffee, lemonade or 
 anything else the operator may choose to will it to be- 
 come to the perception of the sensitive who drinks it. 
 Mesmerism deals in hallucinations, it purposely halluci- 
 nates, and by so doing demonstrates what we are teach- 
 ing, that mortal mind endows matter with such proper- 
 ties as it may choose to impart to it. 
 
 Man's creations are unreal, God being the only true 
 Creator; the witness of mortal sense is incoherent, so 
 that when a question is raised as to what are the prop- 
 erties of a simple glass of water, one mesmerized sen- 
 sitive describes brandy, another lager beer, another 
 whiskey, another coffee ; to the audience, which is 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 189 
 
 usually in a state of the utmost hilarity, all the sub- 
 jects on the stage are acting most comically and un- 
 reasonably ; the professor makes his living by repeat- 
 ing these experiments night after night before crowds 
 of excited, often enthusiastic spectators ; but what is 
 the outcome of it all? Has the simple fact that mor- 
 tal mind endows matter with such attributes as it 
 evolves from itself been utilized as a rule among mes- 
 merists and their followers in the elucidation of the 
 greatest problem of the ages ? Here and there there 
 have been and there still are men who devote themselves 
 to the practical and humanitarian work of making 
 such experiments serve to teach the community many 
 a useful lesson, but who can deny that in the majority 
 of instances curiosity, sight-seeing, love of sensation 
 and mystery constitute the stock in trade of those who 
 throng the halls where mesmeric entertainments are 
 given ? Now how is it with Spiritualists and mediums ? 
 Is there on the whole a much higher tone in the spirit- 
 ualistic than in the mesmeric community ? Are spirit- 
 ualist meetings and seances at large devoted to much 
 more than the gratification of curiosity ? If we utter 
 something of a Jeremiad against the present wide- 
 spread apathy among Spiritualists toward the higher 
 phases of Spiritualism and the almost insane demand 
 for tests everywhere, we shall only be echoing the 
 voice of the spiritualistic press all over the country and 
 abroad. 
 
 Take Boston as an example ; Eoston has long been 
 celebrated as spiritualistic headquarters, the Banner of 
 Light, the oldest newspaper in the world devoted to 
 the advocacy- of modern Spiritualism, has floated on 
 the Boston breeze for many and many a year ; public 
 
190 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 meetings and private seances have been held continu- 
 ously with many fluctuations in their number and im- 
 portance for a period of well nigh forty years, and yet 
 today a large percentage of the oldest spiritualists 
 are crying as with the voice of the horse-leech, give us 
 more, more. More what ? science ? philosophy 7 ? No, 
 alas ! no, tests. The same old, old tests over and over 
 again, without even a break in their monotony; the 
 same faces may be seen year in and year out at meet- 
 ings and seances, demanding these everlasting tests 
 which must long since have lost the least approach to 
 novelties. This insatiable greed for tests is as bad as 
 any other depraved appetite, it is like a taste for liquor, 
 opium or tobacco, it grows upon the persons who in- 
 dulge -in it, and what under heaven can be more farci- 
 cal than to see a company of people, many of them 
 gray-haired grandsires and grandmothers, demanding 
 the same old tests of every old and new medium, and 
 then shrieking themselves hoarse whenever they plati- 
 tudinize on "progress" and "advance." Such is of 
 course not a faithful portrait of all Spiritualists by any 
 means, but unfortunately it does no injustice to a 
 numerically powerful section of them. 
 
 Now what influence do such people exert on medi- 
 ums? How far do they influence the communica- 
 tions? We reply unhesitatingly that in the case of 
 susceptible and partially developed sensitives it reacts 
 upon their mental sphere like a fog to obscure the sun- 
 light, it rears impassable barriers between them and 
 the higher spheres of intelligence, it checks their aspira- 
 tions and keeps them perpetually on the lowest round 
 of the ladder of intellectual and spiritual culture. 
 Mediums are constantly blamed for the delinquencies 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. C0LVILLE. 191 
 
 of their clients ; their over susceptibility is the cause of 
 their reflecting to the extent thev do the desires of 
 those around them, and so depressing is this incessant 
 demand for the most inferior kind of tests that many 
 a medium confines himself or herself to this incessant 
 ministration to the lowest condition of mortal mind 
 curiosity, for the sake of a living for self and family. 
 Demand regulates supply in every market ; if articles 
 are never called for tradespeople soon cease to keep 
 them, but let an article be asked for with any degree 
 of persistency and it is soon procurable almost every- 
 where. 
 
 We must in every particular strive to conform our- 
 selves to the truth embodied in those often quoted 
 words, "Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, 
 knock and it shall be opened, for every one who 
 asketh receiveth, he that seeketh findeth, and to 
 him that knocketh it shall be opened." The paltry 
 twaddle and the hateful recrimination continually 
 passing from lip to lip, against mediums and me- 
 diumship, the sanctimonious attitude of the " unco 
 guid," who stand aside with an air of " I am holier 
 than thou," can no more raise the tone of mediumship 
 and stem the torrent of misleading information con- 
 veyed through mediumistic channels, than streets can 
 be cleaned by people exaggerating their foul condition, 
 but never raising a hand or taking a single step in the 
 direction of cleanliness. To remove evils, not to be- 
 moan them, is the work of the true reformer ; to stand 
 still and rail at evils while all the while you accept 
 them as inevitable, is the worst kind of folly ; when we 
 see an error we must set to work to overcome it. 
 M You must take people as you find them," "You must 
 
192 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 make the best of things as they are," and similar 
 speeches so constantly heard are the most effectual 
 barriers imaginable to true progress, and here we come 
 to a point in our address where we must explain the 
 difference between clairvoyant and intuitive diagnosis 
 and prophecy. 
 
 Ordinary clairvoyance, which is rarely genuine 
 clairvoyance (clear-seeing) at all, looks at disease, evil, 
 misery, and after describing the condition of a patient 
 at the time of examination as pitiable in the extreme, 
 sometimes goes on to depict future hopelessness. Such 
 delineations are vile and false in the extreme they are 
 worse than useless ; not only do they do no good, they 
 lead to the most distressing results, as they fill the 
 patient and his nearest friends with the gloomiest fore- 
 bodings of impending disaster, thereby robbing the 
 patient and his attendants and sympathizers of the 
 bright rays of hope they might bask in, were it not for 
 the influence exerted upon their minds by the prophetic 
 utterances of one who by reason of some singular gift 
 of thought-reading has impressed them as an almost 
 infallible discerner of their actual condition and des- 
 tiny. Astrology, clairvoyance and a whole batch of 
 kindred mixtures of truth and error, science and super- 
 stition, need considerable revision, expurgation and 
 elucidation before they can be of much real service and 
 do no harm to communities at large. "A little learn- 
 ing is a dangerous thing," "A little knowledge in- 
 clineth man to atheism," no wiser sentences than these 
 culled from the poet Pope and the philosopher Bacon, 
 have ever fallen from human lips, but we know how 
 studiously both those geniuses pursued the fair goddess 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLYILLE. 193 
 
 Knowledge into her secret hiding-place that they might 
 wrest from her her most hidden secrets. 
 
 A superficial smattering of information on occult 
 subjects is often dangerous and misleading ; the student 
 of the occult needs a well-disciplined mind and must be 
 prepared to make some hard and consecutive effort to 
 reach the deep still waters of safety beneath the rush- 
 ing, treacherous breakers on the shore. An astrologer 
 in Boston handed out some horoscopes the other day 
 with this inscription : " The wise man rules his stars, 
 the fool obeys them," and this audacious acknowledge- 
 ment of human free agency he declared harmonized 
 perfectly with the conclusions of the best astrologers 
 of ancient time. If this be so, then astrology is no 
 more objectionable and quite as serviceable as meteor- 
 ology. If clairvoyants can take the stand and proclaim 
 the wise man conquers fate, the foolish submit to it, 
 clairvoyance may be utilized as a means for the pre- 
 vention of catastrophes instead of, as it is too often, 
 alas, misused as a means of fixing error ineradicably in 
 the human mind. Clairvoyant delineations of disease 
 may be and often are superficially true, but in many 
 instances they are not even that ; often a reputed clair- 
 voyant becomes morbidly sensitive to the latent fears 
 of a patient and to the fears of those w r ho fear for him 
 also, and in an abnormal condition proceeds to locate 
 imaginar} r diseases in all parts of the body. The dan- 
 ger you incur if you permit such diagnosis to affect 
 your belief, is that nervous affections, notably hysteria, 
 which is the most extreme form of nervous excitement, 
 in many instances lead to the creation and external 
 manifestation of the very disorders which a person 
 dreads and believes he alreadv has or soon will have. 
 
104 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 To see an evil is not necessarily to be able to cure 
 it ; genuine clairvoyance, or rather intuitive perception, 
 finds the cause of the evil, discovers why you have 
 anything the matter with you at all, and by ferreting 
 out the primal cause of your being in any way disor- 
 dered or diseased, sets to work to overcome the effect 
 flowing from the first cause of the malady by meeting 
 that cause courageously and helping you to vanquish 
 its hold upon your mind. Jesus, we are told in his 
 conversation with the woman of Samaria at Jacob's 
 well, exercised what might now be called clairvoyance ; 
 he read her past life and told her all about her marital 
 relations, past and present, but instead of giving her to 
 understand that she must always remain burdened by 
 her misdeeds and the consequences of them, he used 
 his gift of seership only as a prelude to a glorious ora- 
 tion on the all-potency of the living water which every 
 human spirit can find within itself, the panacea for 
 every ill, the right divine which conquers every wrong. 
 
 Many mediumistic persons are really influenced by 
 minds who have not yet outgrown their earthly errors ; 
 they are therefore led to prescribe the same abomina- 
 ble medicines they used on earth, and to predict the 
 doom of patients after the method of ignorant medical 
 prognosis. All such proffered information and advice 
 should be attributed to the source whence it really 
 emanates, viz, mortal mind in error, and as the dissolu- 
 tion of the outward frame does not guarantee such 
 spiritual illumination as will enable one to become 
 immediately infallible, as earthly errors are often 
 slowly laid aside one by one, we must assume precisely 
 the same attitude to " spirits " as to " mortals," know- 
 ing that error will continue to manifest until overcome 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 195 
 
 by spiritual growth, not by the dropping of the mortal 
 robe of flesh which no more changes the condition of 
 the spirit than the dress changes that of the body. 
 Let mediumistic powers be estimated at their true 
 worth, cultivated and utilized accordingly ; but a blind 
 idolatry which has for its watchword " Thus saith the 
 spirits," is a return to the errors of barbaric ages, and 
 accords only with a slavish subjection of one's own 
 mentality diametrically opposed to every enlightened 
 conception of individual liberty. 
 
LECTIJEE X. 
 
 PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDENTS COMMENCING PRAC- 
 TICE. 
 
 THE preceding nine lectures in this course, as you 
 must all have observed, have been devoted largely 
 to laying a foundation on which to build a consistent 
 method of practice in accordance with such new light 
 as the world is now receiving on the science of life 
 immortal. It is said of Jesus that his mission to the 
 world was to bring life and immortality to light, in 
 other words, to reveal to man the nature of his own 
 being, to help the human race to discover and to rec- 
 ognize its own latent possibilities. 
 
 The new birth so constantly preached upon from 
 Christian pulpits is nothing other in its esoteric sense 
 than the unfolding of man's spiritual nature so that he 
 discovers what he really is. " Man, know thyself," the 
 celebrated motto written over the great Athenian 
 Academy of old, is the command of Spiritual Science 
 to all the world today. " The proper study of man- 
 kind is man," does not surely mean that anthropology 
 must be confined to the study of man's outermost vest- 
 ure, the mere shell which for a brief span apparently 
 encircles and encloses the kernel of immortal man. 
 Spiritual Science, or Theosophy, is, properly speaking, 
 comprehensive anthropology, and it is at the same 
 time pure theology, for theology is as much a science as 
 
 196 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 197 
 
 geology ; but as we do not look down into the earth to 
 find the stars, neither do we gaze toward the heavens 
 to discover fossils, so we cannot investigate spiritual 
 truths by means of simply physical research. 
 
 With what exists on the plane of mortal sense, and 
 with all the bewildering and utterly discordant beliefs 
 of mortal mind spiritual truth has no other dealing than 
 the sun has with darkness, mist and fog, truth drives 
 away error as light banishes darkness. What is error? 
 what is darkness? nothing, a simple negation. It 
 is, therefore, incontestable logic to affirm there is no 
 disease as there is no darkness, which means that dis- 
 ease and darkness are both on a level, they are nothing, 
 they are simple negations of the intellect, and as nega- 
 tions only must they be fought and overcome. Dark- 
 ness occasions fear, it engenders every form of horrible 
 dread ; weird and awful superstitions are born and 
 cradled in ignorance which is spiritual and mental 
 darkness ; dispel the illusion produced by ignorance or 
 darkness and fear flies away with the approach of 
 dawn. The first step for the healer to take is to affirm 
 the nothingness of error ; you must in your practice 
 make it nothing to your own mind and nothing to 
 your patient's thought also, for as long as either of 
 you regard it as something you will fear it, and fearing 
 it, it Avill have power over you as it will receive power 
 from above, i. <?., from your mind endowing it with the 
 semblance of reality. 
 
 Some practitioners fail to demonstrate truth in 
 many instances because of their failure to comprehend 
 the true principles of the science of which' they are the 
 professed exponents. Take the case of many well- 
 meaning but poorly-informed aspirants to metaphysi- 
 
198 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 cal knowledge ; they evidently have no clear idea in 
 their own minds, and therefore cannot impart any 
 clear thought to their patients when they employ cer- 
 tain formulas which they suppose are endowed with 
 some talismanic value ; such Kabalistic incantations 
 often mystify and mislead, as they savor far more of 
 blind mysticism than of intelligent appreciation of 
 truth. You have no cancer, no tumor, no fever, etc., 
 etc., conveys to many a mind no truth whatever, but 
 rather it instils error and fails to break the hold of 
 mortal mischief upon the patient's mind, as the patient 
 hearing such an utterance or receiving such an impres- 
 sion mentally, while understanding nothing of spiritual 
 science, reasons thus with himself : Some people are 
 afflicted thus with disorders it is true, but I am happily 
 not one of that number. I have been misled by false 
 diagnosis into a belief that I have a disease with which 
 some of my fellow beings are afflicted but from which 
 I am free. Such a conclusion is false in many cases, as 
 the process of reasoning which leads to such a conclu- 
 sion is utterly erroneous ; that person has that disease 
 whatever it may be, as much as it is possible for any 
 one to have it. There has been no mistake whatever in 
 diagnosis, the diagnosis has been absolutely correct on 
 the plane of mortal sense ; the condition and appear- 
 ance of the flesh is just as the doctor stated, and it is 
 not any part of the work of a metaphysician to deny 
 that there is such an appearance in the flesh as the one 
 indicated. The metaphysician must turn from flesh to 
 spirit, transfer the glance of his mind from mortal 
 error to immortal truth, look away from the outward 
 garment, tattered and disfigured as it may be, to the 
 perfect spiritual form in health and harmony. You 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 199 
 
 may be ill in body, you may suffer in mortal mind, but 
 what matters it if you do ? you must look away from 
 sense to spirit and start right in your treatment or you 
 can never hope to arrive at satisfactory results. Bad 
 beginnings can never lead to good endings, for as 
 surely as the flower and fruit will correspond in type 
 and species to the nature of the sown seed from which 
 it has sprung, so certainly will dire results of harm and 
 failure follow upon all attempts at treating mentally, 
 starting from false premises. 
 
 Every practitioner should regard himself or herself 
 as a teacher rather than as a healer in the ordinary 
 sense, for as spiritual science recognizes neither mag- 
 netism, Mesmerism nor any external force or aid what- 
 soever in method of treatment, the spiritual doctor 
 (Latin equivalent of teacher) must never undertake to 
 tolerate the assumption that he is to heal another by 
 virtue of imparting his life-essence into another frame ; 
 vampirism is possible but detestable, and must be 
 sternly discountenanced in all its phases. Likewise we 
 must boldly denounce the hateful and obnoxious error 
 that supposes it neccessary for a healer to take on a pa- 
 tient's disease in the process of removing such disorder. 
 You surely do not consider it necessary to take on peo- 
 ple's immoralities in order to cure them of theft, lying, 
 or impurity ; you cannot cleanse the moral atmosphere 
 around you by becoming befouled by its corruptions, 
 neither can you help to raise the sick to health any 
 more than you can raise the fallen to virtue by de- 
 scending onto the plane of error and becoming your- 
 self a victim of disease. 
 
 We will here introduce a few remarks upon some 
 of the most salient difficulties with which young stu- 
 40 
 
200 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 dents have usually to contend. The first great obstacle 
 in the way of accomplishing the healing of a patient is 
 your own as well as other's belief in hereditary sin or 
 transmitted disease. Now how are Ave to meet and 
 vanquish the prevailing belief in heredity, apparently 
 so well grounded in exact knowledge. The sins of the 
 parents, we are told, are visited upon the children unto 
 the third and fourth generations: daily experiences 
 seem to prove the truth of these declarations of the 
 Jewish scriptures. Adam's sin transmitted, even if 
 not imputed, is said to be the fruitful source of human 
 suffering, and in some form or other hereditary vice 
 and suffering are acknowledged by all classes of 
 thinkers. We freely admit the truth of the theory of 
 heredity up to a certain point, but under no circum- 
 stances do we deem it advisable to dwell upon trans- 
 mitted evil and let our belief in it tie our hands and 
 cripple our confidence when we can all go back to the 
 sublime opening words of the Pentateuch and exclaim, 
 "In the beginning, God," — God is the beginning of 
 every life, the foundation principle of all being, and to 
 God (infinite goodness) we must all trace our origin. 
 If God be for us, who or what can prevail against us? 
 if we are partakers of God's infinite nature, how can 
 we be subject to any finite power? we must direct our 
 thought immediately to the supreme fountain of all 
 life and make God the all in all of being in our 
 thought. We must look at each other in spirit as in 
 God, as all alike partakers of the divine nature; we 
 must forget all save the atma, the absolutely pure and 
 only really immortal part of our being. Gazing at a 
 patient in spirit and not in sense, with the clear vision 
 of the soul, we see the soul in another, all phantasms 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 201 
 
 of mortal sense are blotted out, all the will-o'-the-wisps 
 of earthly fancy and illusion fade away, and, standing 
 face to face with man in truth, with man as Son of 
 God in heaven, we see the Father in the Son, recogniz- 
 ing the Eternal Parent in his offspring. 
 
 The fourth gospel teaches this glorious truth esoter- 
 ically; exoteric interpreters claim all the utterances 
 ascribed to Jesus as pertaining to a solitary embodi- 
 ment of divinity in Palestine nearly two thousand 
 years ago, but spiritual discernment troubles not itself 
 with history ; it recognizes as ever present the life of 
 God in man, and thus, overlooking all ancestral taint 
 as derived from the first man, Adam, it acknowledges 
 only the second Adam, the Christ, the Lord from 
 heaven. Paul the Gnostic undoubtedly labored hard 
 to impress these esoteric verities upon the minds of the 
 Christians of the first century ; he never talked to 
 them of Christ as a personality but as a living principle 
 of truth within them. Christ in them the hope of 
 glory meant the soul, the discovery of which assured 
 those who found it of endless and fadeless glory. 
 Paul's attitude toward bodily dissolution appears to 
 have been one of utter indifference coupled with per- 
 fect submission and resignation to Divine Will. He 
 speaks at times as though debating the question with 
 himself, as to whether it is more desirable to prolong 
 existence on the mortal plane, or to quit the earthly 
 tabernacle ; but one way or the other, let God's will 
 be done, says the devoted apostle. 
 
 A considerable amount of misapprehension seems 
 to prevail among many as to what the mortal body 
 really is and what earthly discipline is designed for; 
 the strangest theories are promulgated in some quar- 
 
202 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 ters which by reason of manifest inconsistency demand 
 rebuke and refutation. A prevalent idea among some 
 metaphysicians seems to be that the physical universe 
 is an unreality, a dream, a phantom, a shadow ; in one 
 sense it is just that and nothing more, but shadows are 
 cast by substances ; if there be a subjective there must 
 also be an objective state ; reflections are produced by 
 what is more than a reflection ; so the physical uni- 
 verse is the reflection of the spiritual ; matter is only a 
 shadow, spirit is the only substance; everything is 
 spiritual, and indestructible, and being so is infinitely 
 greater than mortal belief makes it 
 
 Diseases are inverted mental images, misapprehen- 
 sions of the truth of being, the sorriest and most mis- 
 erable illusions, unworthy of an instant's countenance. 
 Spiritual man in health is God's reflection of himself, 
 physical man in health is man's reflection of himself. 
 A perfect reflection is neither an evil nor error, it oc- 
 casions no pain, sorrow or distress, it is beautiful to 
 gaze upon, lovely to the view. Physical man in health 
 is truth's reflection, wisdom's mirror, not indeed a 
 reality in the sense that spirit is reality, but the beau- 
 tiful product of a beautiful reality, like unto a lovely 
 landscape depicted in clear waters, or a charming pic- 
 ture depicted on a screen. Physical man is created 
 perfect by spirit, and while not destined forever to re- 
 main as a separate and apparently self- existent entity, 
 is nevertheless produced as mind appears to mind, seek- 
 ing expression. 
 
 Generation is a spiritual, not a physical act; mind 
 wishes to reflect its image, mind desires communion 
 with mind, and in the attempt made by God's ideas to 
 communicate and manifest themselves intelligently, the 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. C0LV1LLE. 203 
 
 one to the other, the physical universe, including physi- 
 cal man, is brought into existence. The mortal mind 
 is thus created, it is man's creation, and originally im- 
 perfect though not sinful; sin commences when the 
 creature turns away from the creator and desires a life 
 apart from the fountain of all good. 
 
 A question constantly raised by students is, to 
 what extent is faith necessary on the part of the pa- 
 tient ? Some appear to teach the absolute necessity of 
 faith prior to healing, in a manner calculated to render 
 it impossible for a large percentage of earnest seekers 
 after health to receive it. To assist such enquirers as 
 far as possible has been one of our principal aims in 
 preparing these addresses for the press. There are 
 without doubt several kinds of faith mentioned in the 
 Bible as there are several kinds of wine mentioned in 
 its pages. True, vital, saving faith, faith necessary to 
 salvation as it is often called, is not simple belief, it is 
 a result of spiritual unfoldment, it is the natural and 
 inevitable effect of the spirit ualization of the believer. 
 This faith James defines as inseparable from good 
 works ; in his epistle which Luthur did not understand 
 and therefore rejected, he contrasts two opposite kinds 
 of faith as unlike each other as are the two kinds of 
 wine mentioned in different parts of the Bible, the one 
 being held up to execration and the other cordially 
 recommended to the attention of all who wished to 
 preserve their health and vigor. As unlike as the pure, 
 unfermented juice of the grape is to the abominable 
 health and morality destroying stimulant, the sale and 
 consumption of which is the deepest degradation of 
 civilized communities and the blackest spot on Amer- 
 ica's as well as on England's escutcheon, so unlike are 
 
204: LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 false and true faith, the one like alcohol leads to bitter 
 persecution, hatred, revenge and murder in the name of 
 religion, while the other brings forth only the peacea- 
 ble fruits of righteousness. 
 
 Faith rests on evidence, mortal belief too often re- 
 lies solely on fanatical prejudice and superstition. True 
 faith is only one degree less than absolute spiritual 
 knowledge or divine understanding; mortal belief is 
 founded in most instances on nothing more credible 
 than idle tales invented by ignorance and malice to win 
 the unwary into the embrace of a dominant autocracy in 
 which the rights of the individual are crushed beneath 
 the relentless wheels of a tyrant Juggernaut. Aristoc- 
 racy engenders mortal belief, democracy encourages the 
 individual to place himself on a level with all other 
 human beings; and instead of telling him to bend in 
 abject submission to another finite mind, fallible and 
 liable to error as his own, it directs him to the central 
 sun of being, to the immortal luminary, even his own 
 immortal soul. God is in me and I am in God, says 
 the one who has discovered his own soul; have you 
 found your soul? not are you in danger of losing it ? is 
 the question asked by the true spiritual director, who 
 is not a prelate or a master, but simply a guide to the 
 less experienced along the lengthy journey which most 
 at least must take from the city of destruction into 
 which they were born to the celestial city whither the 
 road of earthly discipline, no matter how long and 
 weary it may be, is ever tending. 
 
 It is all in vain to teach a philosophy of negation 
 and label it spiritual science ; science is knowledge, not 
 ignorance, neither nescience nor sciolism nor psuedo- 
 science can heal ihe sick and cast out devils ; only the 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 205 
 
 bright light of truth dawning upon the soul can melt 
 the icy barriers of prejudice and error which hold it 
 away from salvation, and what is salvation but extri- 
 cation from mortal misbelief According to the theor- 
 izing of those who draw no clear line of distinction 
 between saving faith and mere belief, theory and prac- 
 tice are so confounded that the former is supposed to 
 include the latter. Salvation through belief in truth 
 is impossible unless belief leads to action, and no fur- 
 ther than belief does lead to action on the part of the 
 believer. 
 
 What is sensible, rational belief? and remember 
 there is such a thing as rational belief, and while belief 
 is no substitute for knowledge it is the next thine? to 
 it ; it is far less than knowledge oftentimes, it can 
 never at its very best be quite equal to knowledge, but 
 it may be on the road to knowledge, it may even be 
 termed a lesser degree of knowledge, and is so accepted 
 practically in every court of justice in the world, and 
 in every daily transaction in business circles. Judge 
 and jury sum up evidence and pronounce accordingly ; 
 they have not seen a crime committed, it is true, but 
 they have examined and cross-examined evidence, wit- 
 nesses have been called repeatedly to the stand and 
 questioned with a view to extracting from them the 
 utmost they know bearing on the case in hand. No 
 sensible person could be guilty of the manifest absurd- 
 ity of accepting testimony against his own positive 
 knowledge as an eye-witness, but as decisions have to 
 be arrived at in many instances where testimom^ is all 
 that judge and jury have to go upon, so in almost 
 every instance in daily life, faith, in its lower meaning 
 of belief in the credibility of testimonv Avhich does not 
 
206 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 fail when submitted to the closest reasoning, has to be 
 relied on. 
 
 You may marvel at some people's obtuseness and 
 incredulousness, but no honest skepticism can ever be 
 sinful. The fact that it is honest is enough to prove it 
 honorable and upright. Agnosticism, a merely nega- 
 tive condition of mind, may not be so conducive to a 
 quick response to spiritual action as a more enlightened 
 condition ; but as an agnostic may be a thoroughly 
 honest person and have the sincerest desire to learn, be 
 in continual and aspiring readiness to accept truth im- 
 mediately it appeals to him, agnosticism or skepticism, 
 in other words ignorance and doubt, are no insur- 
 mountable barriers for either healer or patient to con- 
 front. Belief rests on evidence. How can I believe 
 without evidence ? and I have had no evidence sufficient 
 to convince me. I would believe if I could, I don't 
 want to be an unbeliever, but I cannot believe without 
 more light than I ever expect to receive in this world 
 at least. Such are the expressions we are constantly 
 hearing from the lips of those invalids who cannot 
 understand how they are going to reach the Jordan, or 
 find the pool of Siloam, in whose healing tide they may 
 lose their sickness and their pain. 
 
 The true spiritual scientist takes such people as he 
 finds them and trusts to the active aggressive action of 
 positive spiritual light to dispel the darkness of ignor- 
 ance which yet enshrouds their minds. 
 
 Do I believe in sunshine ? Is not the question 
 rather, Do I feel the warm kisses of the sunbeams on 
 my cheek? Do I believe the winds are blowing, the 
 birds singing, the waters rushing, the insects humming, 
 nay, do I realize these sights and sounds of nature ? I 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLTILLE. 207 
 
 may indeed, if I am blind or deaf, accept the word of 
 truthful witnesses and feel convinced they are not 
 deceived when they tell me of what I cannot individ- 
 ually apprehend ; but before I can enjoy any certainty 
 on these matters I must come in relation with them for 
 myself through the awakenment of powers heretofore 
 dormant in my being. 
 
 To demand belief as a prerequisite to healing, with- 
 out defining; how faith comes about is unreasonable in 
 the extreme. But it will be argued, does not the New 
 Testament tell us that Jesus said to many whom he 
 was instrumental in healing, "Thy faith hath made 
 thee whole," and are we not told of many instances 
 where he spoke approvingly of the great faith mani- 
 fested by some who had not as yet been the recipients 
 of any special blessing? The faith thus commended 
 seems to have sprung from two sources, sometimes 
 from one, sometimes from the other, and possibly in 
 some cases from a combination of both. There can be 
 no doubt that many in the surrounding country had 
 heard the story of the wonderful cures performed by 
 Jesus on those who were considered hopelessly sick, in- 
 sane, or even dead, and having investigated some of 
 the alleged cases of recovery and found them evidently 
 genuine, they naturall} T were inclined to believe on the 
 testimony of those whom they knew were relating 
 positive fact when they described the manner in which 
 they were healed. 
 
 Many of those whom Jesus helped appeared to be 
 in some doubt as to the manner in which they were 
 helped. In the case of a young man who received his 
 sight the writer of the story implies that he knew little 
 or nothing about his case except that he was formerly 
 
208 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 blind, but after having received a treatment from Jesus 
 his sight came to him. 
 
 Not in all instances, not in the majority even, does 
 it appear that patients really knew how they were 
 healed, but then how many people are there today who 
 really know how the sunlight invigorates them, or how 
 the air and food nourish and sustain their bodies ? The 
 great bulk of mankind stand in the relation of passive, 
 unthinking, unknowing recipients of daily blessings. 
 They have instinct or reason enough to place them- 
 selves within the reach of light and air ; they know 
 enough to eat food, and instinct, if not reason, teaches 
 them how to select it ; so is it in ninety -nine cases out 
 of every hundred with those who place themselves in 
 the hands of a doctor or healer. It sh Duld not be so ; 
 persons ought to be better informed, acting less in the 
 dark than they usually do. Still so ready is God 
 through Nature to bless us all that unless we actually 
 turn away from what is needful for our sustenance we 
 are sustained. 
 
 The understanding of truth is indeed necessary as a 
 protection against the manifold errors and seductions 
 with which all are constantly surrounded. Intelligent 
 faith is a result of the partial understanding of truth 
 at least ; faith may be eventually lost in sight as the 
 twilight of morning is lost m the fuller brightness of 
 noonday ; but to confound mere unsustained belief 
 with any spiritual power capable of restoring the sick 
 to health is to so confound truth and error as to make 
 them almost synonymous. If you as a healer go to a 
 patient suffering in darkness and foul air, and you open 
 the windows and let in the sunbeams and fresh currents 
 of wholesome atmosphere, you do not demand of the 
 
LECTURE EY W. J. C0LVILLE. 209 
 
 sufferer that he shall believe in your power to do so be- 
 fore you have demonstrated your ability. The only 
 attitude which places a barrier in the healer's way is a 
 dominant, obstinate, aggressive error in a patient's 
 mind, which causes him to wilfully spurn or reject the 
 overtures of healing strength in a spirit of obstinate 
 perversity, contempt and scorn. The proper attitude 
 for a person to assume who knows nothing of spiritual 
 science is a calm, quiet, negative attitude of receptivity 
 to evidence if it be presented. 
 
 The truly scientific spirit is the only desirable one 
 to cultivate. A scientist is supposed to have no 
 opinion on a subject of which he knows nothing. He 
 is, however, prepared to witness phenomena dispas- 
 sionately and carefully and impartially weigh all 
 evidence presented. Now let us see wherein faith, 
 confidence, indeed absolute knowledge is required 
 on the part of the healer, while the patient, on the 
 occasion of a first introduction to metaphysics, should 
 hold a calm position of agnosticism. If you advertise 
 as a healer and undertake to treat the sick m mind and 
 body, society has a right to expect that you have had 
 some practical and indeed incontestable evidence of the 
 value of a mode of treatment you eulogize and prac- 
 tice ; you are expected not only to have some theoret- 
 ical knowledge of metaphysics enabling you to talk 
 well on the subject, you must ere you attempt to heal 
 publicly or professionally have obtained some evidence 
 not only that spiritual science is demonstrable some- 
 where and by some people, but that you yourself can 
 demonstrate it, and indeed have done so. 
 
 Never rashly precipitate yourself into a position 
 you may find through maturer experience you are unfit 
 
210 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 to fill. The qualifications for teaching classes are dis- 
 tinct from those necessar}^ for individual practice. In 
 class teaching you only need to be able to argue the 
 matter well, you have only to appeal to the intellect of 
 your students, while in healing you have to individu- 
 ally apply your mind to the work of demonstrating 
 what you teach by reducing theory to practice. A 
 teacher does his work if he enlightens the minds of his 
 students and aids them to reduce the theories into 
 practice ; but the healer, though it is well for him to 
 be an eloquent speaker, one able to teach classes, or at 
 least converse in private with ease and fluency, may, 
 though he cannot talk well, heal wonderfully, while 
 those who can teach admirably are not always in the 
 right mental condition to heal. A public, busy life, 
 crowded with miscellaneous cares, presses very hard 
 upon a healer, while one who is simply a teacher can 
 usually withstand the wear and tear of active life on 
 the material plane very well. A healer ought to have 
 many opportunities for privacy, should devote much 
 time and thought in solitude to spiritual things, should 
 live a contemplative, studious, secluded life as far as 
 possible, and whenever practical should live in a quiet 
 house in a not very noisy neighborhood. Teachers 
 have to live more publicly, they must mingle with the 
 outside world more extensively ; but in the case of 
 healers we would add, seclusion in the ordinary sense 
 of the word, is not always necessary or even desirable. 
 A quiet, contented, easy frame of mind, an unruffled 
 disposition superior to the storms of prevailing misbe- 
 lief, ability to defy the ordinary cares of the world 
 and live unmoved by the worries and vexations which 
 torment ordinary persons, — all this is imperatively 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 211 
 
 necessary, and apart from this mental serenity on the 
 part of the healer we really do not see how under 
 usual circumstances cases can be successfully con- 
 ducted. 
 
 If your own mind is uneasy and perplexed, if you 
 cannot rise above the breakers and bid the tempest of 
 your own condition to be still, if you cannot quiet the 
 heavings of your own agitated breast or keep your 
 own passions and appetites in subjection, how is it 
 likely you should be able to do all this for others? 
 Physician, heal, tranquilize, compose thyself, and en- 
 deavor not to bid peace be still to the tumultuous 
 waves of another's fears if your own feet are not 
 firmly planted on the rock of ages. Living epistles 
 are always more influential than written ones. Many 
 an earnest seeker after truth has said he would gladty 
 go many a mile to see a sermon put in practice, while 
 he would scarcely cross the street to hear an excellent 
 discourse delivered. 
 
 To practice upon one's self is the important part of 
 all practice, for when a sufferer comes to you seeking 
 relief he generally gets from you through some subtle 
 psychical contact an impression from your sphere, a re- 
 flection of your condition. Thus some healers agitate 
 and others quiet their patients, some make them worse 
 while honestly desiring to better their condition ; for 
 to sit still and think towards any one a thought of 
 trouble, disquietude or doubt is to think into them far 
 more mental poison than healing truth. The patient, 
 if he succeeds in feeling a treatment at all, al- 
 ways takes on the condition of the healer's mind to 
 a greater or less degree. Thought is a substance ; 
 thoughts travel in the air and are carried by means 
 
212 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVTLLE. 
 
 of atmospheric vibration from one mind to another ; 
 thoughts are the finer, words the coarser vibrations 
 with which we all are constantly coming in collis- 
 ion. Frequently a patient entertains a belief that he 
 is the victim of some deadly malady. Medical or clair- 
 voyant examination has implanted in his mind a fixed 
 conviction that he is seriously ill, possibly dying. 
 This impression comes often to a healer, as thought can 
 be heard often far more distinctly than words. If any 
 of you when endeavoring to practice have such impres- 
 sions enter your minds you may tell the sufferer that 
 such thoughts have been suggested to you, but place no 
 credence in their truthfulness. Never acknowledge 
 they are correct ; rather cast them forth as reflected 
 errors of mortal mind, and explain to the patient that 
 they are only floating mental impressions wafted from 
 the sphere of his opinions or fears. 
 
 Jesus told the woman of Samaria that she had had 
 five husbands and was then living with a man who was 
 not her husband. In one sense then he appeared in the 
 role of clairvoyant and test medium, but did he not at 
 once proceed to tell her only of the living water, by 
 means of which all impurities might be swept away. 
 
 Treat diseases and crimes as one and the same. 
 Show no more sympathy for one set of errors than for 
 another ; give no more place in your thought to neural- 
 gia, sciatica, or rheumatism than you would feel justi- 
 fied in giving to theft, drunkenness or bestiality. Take 
 the bull by the horns, as the old proverb expresses it ; 
 deny what you see in the spirit of bidding it as an 
 impious falsehood to depart and let your patient know 
 instantly that you fear no disease, and do not recog- 
 nize the possibility of any human being remaining a 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 213 
 
 moment longer the slave of error than the length of 
 time it takes him to turn mentally from error to truth. 
 No special number of treatments need be given, no 
 specified length of time occupied in treating, and no 
 arbitrarily prescribed formulas be used either mentally 
 or verbally. 
 
 Spiritual Science is not Kabalism. Words, empty 
 words have no saving power ; stereotyped sentences 
 are often but meaningless and valueless repetitions, and 
 as no man or woman living has any right to legislate 
 for others as to how they should heal, beyond discoun- 
 tenancing all methods opposed to a recognition of one 
 sole Deity, and inconsistent with the rightful freedom 
 of the indi vicinal, it must always rest with the healer 
 to use or not to use any stated words set down in any 
 book of instructions. 
 
 Many Christians believe Jesus to ha^e given his dis- 
 ciples the pater noster only as a model of prayer, and 
 consequently the} r rarely if ever use it word for word ; 
 and if that almost matchless composition of Hillel's 
 which Jesus extracted from the Jewish service of his 
 day was only a model or plan, a guide as to the nature 
 of true petitions, we must surely recognize in this day, 
 when we have no one person so far above his or her 
 fellows as Jesus was above his contemporaries if his- 
 tory be not false, the great necessity of granting the 
 utmost latitude to individual workers in the spiritual 
 vineyard at this hour. If you are to arouse faith in 
 your patient you must carry with you a faith-arousing 
 energy, you must be mentally brimming over with 
 what inspires confidence or you cannot awaken it ; and 
 just as a flower makes every one who enters the gar- 
 den or conservatory acknowledge its fragrance by 
 
214 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 breathing sweetness on the air, so must you who aspire 
 to awaken confidence in spiritual healing in others 
 carry into their presence an odor of spiritual power 
 which their spiritual nostrils cannot fail to detect. 
 
 "When Jesus expressed surprise at the incredulity of 
 some who could not or would not accept his offers of 
 goodness he appears to have attributed their failure to 
 derive assistance to an obstinate rejection of proffered 
 aid, not to a simple inability to apply or to compre- 
 hend truth. 
 
 Such expressions as quenching *or grieving the 
 spirit, or blaspheming against the spirit of truth, can- 
 not by any stretch of the imagination be applied to 
 any state of mind other than a culpable one. To close 
 the eye, to stop the ear, to resemble the deaf adder 
 who will not hear is sinful and foolish in the extreme. 
 To choose death and darkness when light and life are 
 offered is the only sin of unbelief of which the Bible 
 properly interpreted makes any mention ; and as met- 
 aphysical healing must be taught on a purely theologi- 
 cal basis, understanding theology to be as much the 
 science of divine truth as geology is the science of the 
 earth you must ever remember you are not responsible 
 for failure resulting from the turpitude of those who 
 want to be saved in their sins and not from them. 
 Such a desire as the wish to have strength to do more 
 evil can only bring disastrous failure to those who 
 desire health and strength only that they may pervert 
 these blessings to unholy ends. 
 
 Perfect health and happiness are rewards of virtue. 
 They are never concomitants of crime. You cannot 
 cure an ailment if sin is the cause of it unless you can 
 succeed in inducing your patient to renounce iniquity. 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 215 
 
 Allow us here a case in point by way of illustration. \ 
 A man is ill from the effects of debauchery, drunken- J 
 ness and licentiousness have laid him low, doctors or j 
 magnetists may be able to tinker up his body suffi- 
 ciently to enable him to go out on another drunken 
 spree ; they may help to raise him from his bed only 
 to give him the license, misnamed liberty, he craves of 
 again frequenting some abominable haunt of evil where 
 he will spend the time and money he ought to devote 
 to the proper maintenance of home and the payment 
 of just debts ; is that a cure which helps a man to com- 
 mit more sin, to do more mischief ? A thousand times, 
 no ! In that state of mind he is better ill, if illness 
 incapacitates from further prodigality. As long- as he 
 only desires strength to pervert it, you can no more 
 give him what he asks and treat in accordance with 
 truth than you can give a person a draught of poison 
 because he calls out for it and offers to compensate 
 you handsomely if you become his abettor in doing 
 wrong. Morality first, bodily health afterward. Spir- 
 itual miracles in the shape of moral transformations 
 first, and then a sound healthy body, and the full 
 enjoyment of all innocent earthly pleasures. 
 
 Metaphysicians must deal deadly blows at sin, they 
 must be purifiers of society on a moral plane, not imi- 
 tators of those quacks in theology or medicine who 
 endeavor to save people, not from the love and prac- 
 tice of evd, but from the disagreeable consequences 
 ensuing from its commission. As long as error is 
 hugged to the mental bosom, as long as desires and 
 thoughts are impure, so long must pain, the voice of 
 the alarmist be heard. Pain calls attention to error; 
 suffering is itself both the effect and remover of wrong. 
 41 
 
216 LECTUKE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 Thus all endeavors to heal the body while the mind is 
 yet in error and morals are depraved is not only fool- 
 ish and impossible, but all such attempts are to be 
 classed as malpractice ; they are malpractitioners and 
 nothing else who do not make bodily health subserv- 
 ient to morality. 
 
 Just as the world is safer when criminals and luna- 
 tics are confined and not allowed to roam at large, 
 though no one is the safer for any criminal or insane 
 person being punished instead of reformed or cured, so 
 it is better for all concerned that those who are so 
 fixed in the love of evil that they only crave strength 
 and opportunity to misuse it should remain physically 
 incapable until the angel of moral healing opens the 
 prison doors of their captive minds, and setting them 
 free from moral and intellectual darkness, invites them 
 out into the green pastures and beside the still waters 
 of outward health and comfort corresponding to and 
 resulting from spiritual liberation. 
 
LECTUEE XI 
 
 HOW CAN WE TRACE DISEASES TO THEIR SOURCE, AND 
 ERADICATE THEIR CAUSE, WHEN THEY ARE PRESUMA- 
 
 BLY THE RESULT OF HEREDITARY INFLUENCE 
 
 IN this the eleventh lecture in our present course we 
 shall endeavor to give yet more explicit directions 
 to our students and readers on the subject of hereditary 
 influence than Ave have yet attempted, and we will 
 here remark that we have chosen for the topic of our 
 present lecture the question, "How can we trace dis- 
 eases to their source, and eradicate their cause, when 
 they are presumably the result of hereditary influ- 
 ence?" at the earnest request of many who in com- 
 mencing practice or in the endeavor to comprehend 
 metaphysical instructions have found themselves 
 baffled at the outset by the thought that if diseases can 
 be transmitted from parent to child, from one genera- 
 tion to another even through a succession of centuries, 
 it must be a hopeless task to endeavor to eradicate by 
 a few simple mental treatments what inheres in the 
 very constitution and temperament of the individual 
 we are endeavoring to treat. In our written instruc- 
 tions, originally intended for private reference only, 
 but afterwards sold publicly at a nominal price, the 
 words occur, "Deny hereditary disease." As those 
 instructions are somewhat too condensed for those who 
 
 217 
 
218 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 have not pretty thoroughly absorbed a general outline 
 of metaphysical principles, we have found it necessary 
 to explain on many occasions that these instructions 
 were simply a condensed recapitulation in very concise 
 form, introducing the fewest number of words possible, 
 designed for the use of those who wanted to keep by 
 them a general digest of the plan of action recom- 
 mended by us in our classes. As such words as 
 " deny " and " denial " in their metaphysical sense are 
 interpreted and the interpretation elaborated by ques- 
 tions and answers in our classes, it may seem strange 
 to those who are not familiar with the exact meaning 
 of these words in their metaphysical significance to be 
 told to deny hereditary disease. Let us explain some- 
 thing on this score in this lecture. We must admit 
 certainly that in measure on the external plane of 
 thought and feeling all children take after their 
 parents, and often after remote ancestors, while in 
 physical appearance and general outward bearing fam- 
 ily as well as racial peculiarities are often distinctly 
 marked ; but as the immortal spirit of man, the essen- 
 tial soul or essence of life, is not begotten through 
 proccesses of physical generation, in the highest sense 
 of this most paradoxical phrase you never had a 
 parent, and you were never born. Such an astounding 
 declaration, unfamiliar though it be to ordinary ears, 
 is as familiar to diligent students of Greek phil- 
 osophy, to say nothing of those who have penetrated 
 into the inner sense of the sacred literature of the 
 East, the Jewish and Christian Scriptures included, as 
 any words w T hich can fall from the lips of the most 
 commonplace conversationalist on every -day topics of 
 interest related to the mundane sphere. 
 
LECTUKE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 219 
 
 You were never born, but what are you ? You in 
 truth, you in reality, are an immortal spiritual entity, 
 an outbirth from the Eternal Spirit. You are a spark 
 of the infinite fire which burns at the heart of the 
 universe, through the countless ages of eternity ; you 
 are not a creature of dust and clay, neither are you a 
 creation of mortal mind ; you had not your origin in 
 protoplasm, you did not spring from animalcules and 
 gradually wend your way up from matter to immortal 
 spirit. You are an ultimate atom, an essential primary 
 in the realm of immortal being, and what you are as a 
 child of God, an immortal soul, is all we have to con- 
 sider in the higher metaphysics. 
 
 Plato taught the Greek academicians centuries 
 before the commencement of the Christian Era this 
 great truth of man's eternal essence and absolutely 
 immortal constitution. From whence did Plato gain 
 such transcendent knowledge ? how did such a thought 
 ever enter the mind of man ? from what supernal state 
 of spiritual understanding did a knowledge of the es- 
 sential ego descend onto the plane of man's outer con- 
 sciousness so that it could be spoken and written about, 
 discussed in the schools, accepted by the truly wise 
 and laughed to scorn by the materialist ? Did such a 
 truth as this come from heaven, direct from the throne 
 of the Almighty as a distinct and definite revelation of 
 truth which God gave in the exercise of his right of 
 simple sovereignty to his specially elect? No. No 
 such view of revelation or spiritual discovery is neces- 
 sary to account for man's comprehension of himself in 
 truth. God is no more willing to reveal himself to one 
 than to another ; there are no special providences in 
 the old orthodox sense. God has no favorites. He is 
 
220 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 no respecter of persons, and therefore he is as willing 
 one should know the truth as that it should be im- 
 parted to another ; but a law inheres in the very nature 
 of being that knowledge can be only attained through 
 effort, and the requisite effort can only be made by the 
 living of a specially pure and aspiring life. The entire 
 thought must be directed to the spiritual truths of 
 being ; no desire which conflicts with the monitions- of 
 the highest principle within us or which appeals to us 
 must be encouraged, the lower self must be forgotten 
 in the higher. The old man of mortal mind and sense 
 must be crucified with all its affections and lusts that 
 the new man of truth and purity may be revealed to 
 the outer understanding, over which it casts a halo of 
 immortal glory and which it purifies and uses as a 
 means for expressing on the external plane of mental 
 demonstration the ever-living truth of absolute spiritual 
 being. 
 
 The Gnostic author of the Fourth Gospel, common- 
 ly called John's, relating a conversation on the new 
 birth between Jesus and JNTicodemus, puts these words 
 into the lips of the great enlightener : " Except a man 
 be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
 Why does he not say, "You cannot enter the king- 
 dom ? " Surely because the notion of going to heaven 
 is altogether erroneous ; " the kingdom of heaven is 
 within " you ; it is already within you, but most of you 
 fail to discern it. Can ye discern the signs of the times ? 
 some of you can more than others; signs there are in 
 the heavens above and in the earth beneath, but can 
 you interpret them ? How much have you discovered 
 concerning the nature which lies all around you? how 
 much do you know of yourselves? These are the ques- 
 
LECTUKE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 221 
 
 tions asked by a truly spiritual catechist. Look within, 
 is the command of spiritual teachers, not to some ex- 
 ternal light. Hug not to yourselves the vain delusion 
 that you can go to heaven after the death of your 
 body, and on making a journey or taking an aerial 
 flight through space reach some other* world where you 
 will know what you cannot discover here. Look 
 within your own spirit and there discover the ever- 
 burning light of the divine presence, the shekinah 
 illumining the holy of holies, the ever-burning lamp 
 revealing the altar of God in the soul of man. 
 
 " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
 God," can be interpreted in no anthropomorphic sense. 
 God is everywhere, and superior to every outward 
 form ; with external sight no man has ever seen or will 
 ever see the Eternal Being, but as man is not his ex- 
 ternal shell, but a kernel of immortality disguised 
 rather than revealed by an outer covering, it becomes 
 necessary to rend the veil in the midst of the human 
 temple, and that is accomplished when the son of man 
 dies in you individually, that the Son of God may rise 
 triumphant from the tomb. The whole story of the 
 life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus is a 
 spiritual allegory, and has in its highest interpretation 
 no reference to time and place; the events recorded 
 in the Gospels are not in their inner meaning mor- 
 sels of external history at all; they are spiritual 
 truths concealed in the guise of historical incidents, 
 and while the crude and sensuous view of the Gos- 
 pels taken by those who consider them as portions 
 of the literature of Solar Mythology can never be 
 accepted as their final interpretation by the spiritually 
 minded, even that view can be pressed into the service 
 
222 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 of spiritual revelation, as solar myths themselves were 
 not simply astronomical creations ; they were figurative 
 characters designed to express spiritual truths veiled 
 pictorially in a fanciful history of the journey ings of 
 the constellations. 
 
 In the ancient world, in very remote times, even in 
 buried continents and islands, as we have endeavored 
 to show in our historical and scientific lectures on the 
 ante-diluv T ian world, there were not a few sages who 
 were so highly illumined with interior knowledge that 
 they discovered facts and solved problems with regard 
 to man's spiritual constitution utterly insoluble in the 
 light of ordinary scientific attainment. 
 
 All spiritual questions are the x in algebra to stu- 
 dents of nature merely on its physical side. There is 
 far more truth than poetry in the assertion, man has 
 seven senses; five senses can never enable their pos- 
 sesor to penetrate into the spiritual arcana. A sixth 
 sense is necessary to constitute one a clairvoyant, a 
 clairaudiant, or a psychometer, while a seventh sense 
 is required for one to discern the innermost truths of 
 spiritual being. The French academicians, when they 
 investigated what has been^commonly called intuition, 
 were many of them in favor of pronouncing it a sixth 
 sense, and what they styled intuition can be thus cor- 
 rectly defined; but true intuition, which far surpasses 
 all clairvoyant, clairaudiant, or psychometric ability is 
 a seventh sense, and for that reason beyond even the 
 scope of the researches of all who confine themselves 
 to ordinary phases of mediumship, perception and oc- 
 cultism. The senses of mankind through long ages 
 have gradually developed, not all at once, but one by 
 one, and it is a noticeable fact that when one sense is 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 223 
 
 dormant or absent another sense is usually almost pre- 
 ternaturally keen. Blind people are often, on the 
 whole, quite as intelligent as those who can see, for 
 what they lack in one direction they more than make 
 up in others; the blind frequently have unusually keen 
 hearing, taste, smell and touch ; their hearing and touch 
 are apt to be phenomenally keen by reason of their 
 depending on those senses to compensate them for lack 
 of sight. Deaf and dumb persons are often possessed 
 of unusually quick eyesight, and their senses of smell 
 and touch are also in frequent instances of unusual 
 power. Now why is this ? What are senses from a 
 metaphysical point of view, as there can be neither 
 life, intelligence, nor sensation in matter? How can 
 we talk of bodily senses ? Senses are merely avenues 
 of perception; they are the result of the endeavor of 
 the spirit to express itself in definite directions. 
 
 Senses are in no sense products of the material 
 organism; they are, on the contrary, what Bunyan 
 called them in his " Holy War," " Gates of Mansoul." 
 The spirit itself possesses power of vision ; it creates 
 by its own volition an outward frame through which 
 to express itself, and, as it desires to exert its power of 
 seeing through that form which it has fashioned, its 
 action upon the embryo creates an eye, but in order to 
 create a visual organ on the external plane it needs to 
 cooperate with that radiation of spiritual force which 
 in its expression we call light ; thus the desire to ex- 
 press the power to see, through a fleshly organism, and 
 the action of light upon the embryonic form in the 
 maternal womb is necessary to the production of a 
 perfect bodily e} 7 e. 
 
 It is the same with all the other functions of the 
 
224: LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 body ; they are merely appliances in the organic struct- 
 ure which the spirit creates, created for the express 
 purpose of giving expression to preexistent powers in 
 spirit which seek expression in external form; thus, 
 the power to touch, to taste, to smell, and to hear, are 
 all necessary to the formation of organs through which 
 faculties can be manifested, and, as a power must have 
 something to exert itself upon to make itself manifest, 
 odors, flavors, sounds and substances are necessary to 
 the development of the four above-mentioned organs 
 of appreciation. When the child is in its mother's 
 womb, it receives every impression through her con- 
 sciousness ; whatever affects a pregnant woman affects 
 her offspring, and we do not believe any child was ever 
 born whose condition did not register and reflect that 
 of the maternal parent during the term of her preg- 
 nancy. 
 
 Life is present at the moment of conception ; if life 
 did not inhere in the original form there could be no 
 life manifested afterward, for evolution can only unroll 
 what involution has previously rolled up. In the essen- 
 tial germ of life every potency exists wiiich can by any 
 possible contingency be expanded during the period of 
 gestation. There is no such thing as spontaneous gene- 
 ration, all life proceeds from prior life, and the suppo- 
 sition that intelligence commences at a certain stage of 
 embryonic development is a self-evident fallacy in the 
 eyes of all who have conquered the first principles of 
 true science ; a reverse view of the matter is not only 
 scientifically absurd, but encourages abortion and other 
 disgraceful crimes too infamous to mention; judged by 
 its fruits of flagrant immorality, materialistic sciolism 
 stands judged, convicted and condemned. 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 225 
 
 Truth never countenances immoral conduct ; error, 
 on the contrary, always palliates and makes excuse 
 for crime. Materialistic views of ante-natal life 
 have done more to sanction and encourage abortion 
 than all other causes put together. Remember, oh, all 
 ye women everywhere, that you are parents from the 
 moment of conception, you are mothers of living chil- 
 dren directly impregnation has taken place, and you 
 can no more destroy the life in your womb before its 
 birth than you can commit infanticide without being 
 guilty of murder. Whenever a woman knows she has 
 conceived a child let her take upon herself courageously 
 a mother's duties, and no matter what her earthly lot 
 may be, trust in God to give her strength to bear a 
 mother's part in truth and purity. From the first 
 instant of ante-natal life, the forming mind of the child 
 (for remember the mind is formed from the spirit 
 during its efforts to express itself outwardly) derives 
 all its impressions from the mind of the mother ; what- 
 ever she desires creates a desire in her child ; whatever 
 she loves creates an affection in her offspring ; whatever 
 she hates produces an aversion, and so on through the 
 w r hole catalogue of human desires, attractions and dis- 
 likes. 
 
 The father's mind influences the child but very 
 slightly in any direct sense, but as in mam r instances a 
 wife is under the mental jurisdiction of her husband to 
 a very great extent, his thoughts are communicated to 
 the children in a very pronounced degree. It ir ob- 
 served on all hands by those who make a study of 
 heredity, that when a woman is very much under the 
 influence of her husband's mind, her children are liable 
 to take strongly after their father, while, when a mother 
 
220 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 has been in a self-poised attitude during the gestative 
 period, and her husband has had little control over her 
 thoughts and feelings, the children resemble their 
 mother in the most pronounced manner. 
 
 As every influence which tends to fashion tempera- 
 ment and disposition proceeds from mind and appeals 
 to mind, close physical contact with any person does 
 not itself affect offspring to any considerable degree. 
 A woman may live with her child's father on the most 
 intimate terms and scarcely spend an hour day or night 
 away from him during the whole nine months, and yet 
 her child may be as unlike him as possible. She may 
 on the other hand be thousands of miles removed from 
 him in body, yet if her thought continually goes out to 
 him, earthly distance being no barrier to the flight of 
 mind, the child may be what people would call the very 
 image of an absent father. 
 
 This conclusion, which Ave have seen verified in num- 
 berless instances, leads us to pursue the thought still 
 further and see how easy it is for children to grow up 
 like people who have gained an ascendancy in thought 
 over a mother's mind, while physically they have never 
 had the slightest connection even to a hand-shake. 
 
 Sometimes a woman will feel herself strongly 
 drawn to some man or woman with whom she is not 
 acquainted ; they are never introduced, they never pass 
 a word with each other; the one who unconsciously 
 affects the other has no notion that the one whom 
 he is influencing exists ; although the other party 
 has been strongly drawn to him, he has never even 
 noticed her so far as to bestow a passing glance upon 
 her in a crowd ; still having been powerfully attracted 
 to him, she by means of the law of elective affinity, 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 227 
 
 and that strange and subtle power of selection which 
 all creatures and even inanimate things seem to pos- 
 sess, she perpetually absorbs the emanations with which 
 he charges universal mental atmosphere, and we must 
 not allow ourselves to forget that spiritual science 
 demonstrates the substantial nature of thought ; 
 thoughts are things, they vibrate upon the unseen atmos- 
 phere and can be attracted by mental volition or un- 
 willingly absorbed through fear. We have hinted at 
 this fact in our lecture on Mind-Reading, Thought 
 Transference and Kindred Phenomena, but it would 
 take many a bulky volume were we to pursue this sub- 
 ject to any depth or at any length ; we must leave you 
 to amplify our meagre suggestions through } T our own 
 study and at your private leisure ; all we can now do 
 is to emphasize a law generally unrecognized except by 
 special students of spiritual and occult science. The 
 law is 'that every human mind gives off vital emanations 
 with which the atmosphere of the globe is perpetually 
 filled ; these emanations are spirits or powers of the 
 air, the}^ have form and can be seen by those endowed 
 with clairvoyant vision ; " mind readers " are more sensi- 
 tive to them than other people, but all persons are sub- 
 ject to their influence unless they have risen so high in 
 spirituality that they are proof against all mortal mind 
 exhalations, for these forces in the atmosphere are just 
 as real and influential in the realm of thought as are 
 sounds and odors on the plane of sense. 
 
 We must here endeavor to clear up a difficulty 
 which often arises with reference to unconscious mind; 
 strictly speaking, all mind is conscious, all mind has 
 the attribute of consciousness, but all human minds are 
 not so fully conscious of their relations to their entire 
 
228 LECTUBE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 surroundings as to be able to determine what it is that 
 affects them when they feel affected by something. 
 Science alone can enable you to trace effects back to 
 causes. On the material plane you are often affected 
 powerfully by you know not what ; you enter a room 
 and feel exhilarated or depressed, an agreeable or a 
 nauseating sensation comes over you and no matter 
 whether you are improved in health or made unwell 
 by this something which influences you, what it is that 
 influences you remains a mystery until perchance some 
 day you recollect your sensations at a given time, and 
 while reading a scientific work receive light on the 
 reason of such (at the time) incomprehensible sensa- 
 tions, or in talking with a friend you may relate a 
 strange experience, whereupon he informs you of a 
 similar one of his own and proceeds forthwith to en- 
 lighten you as to some experiments which have thrown 
 light upon the cause of it. Your sensations, you may 
 discover, were due to the presence of some flower you 
 did not notice or to which you attached no importance, 
 or to some condition of atmosphere or degree of tem- 
 perature, and as you have all doubtless had many such 
 experiences and can readily follow us thus far, we must 
 now ask your most thoughtful attention as we cross 
 the border and invite your attention to similar ex- 
 periences on a less external plane. 
 
 Just as you experience physical sensations involun- 
 tarily, and these reach you from inanimate life, such 
 as flowers, etc., there can be no doubt but the majority 
 of persons suffer excessively from the influence of 
 mental causes entirely unknown to them and purposely 
 directed to them. Thus the unconscious mind of one 
 person influences the unconscious mind of another. 
 
LECTUEE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 229 
 
 To illustrate still further and break down all diffi- 
 culty in the way of comprehending this subject, we 
 will ask you to note your sensations on first entering a 
 room or taking up a letter ; you may be a perfect 
 stranger in some hotel or restaurant, no one has ob- 
 served your entrance or bestowed the least thought 
 upon you, but you are conscious immediately of agree- 
 able or disagreeable sensations overtaking you, and 
 these certainly do not arise from visible causes, for 
 often you feel happiest in the crudest surroundings, 
 and most uncomfortable in the most luxurious; not 
 only do places affect you, but you are also conscious of a 
 strange influence either attractive or repellant brought 
 to bear upon you from persons who bestow no 
 thought on you and have not even noticed your pres- 
 ence. Human minds exhale such psychic influence 
 just as flowers emit perfume ; the scent of a flower is a 
 result of its organization and condition, its odor may 
 be pleasant to one person and disagreeable to another ; 
 take lilacs as an example — the perfume of lilac is most 
 grateful to some nostrils, other persons feel sick if there 
 is a bunch of lilacs in their room. 
 
 V^Our psychic emanations are always true to our con- 
 dition; they are usually quite involuntary, as com- 
 paratively few people deliberately set to work to 
 psychologize others, but so susceptible to involuntary 
 psychology are most persons, that unless they have 
 made especial effort to rise above the ordinary level of 
 mankind they are subject to everything, good, bad, or 
 indifferent, they are like barometers and thermometers 
 affected by every change in the atmosphere which 
 approaches them. Deliberate psychologizing takes 
 place undoubtedly in many instances, and whenever 
 
230 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 one person wills another to do an} 7 thing or even 
 strongly desires it, he is seeking to psychologize that 
 other, no matter how little he may know of the art of 
 psychology ; but man's usual impressibility is the result 
 of his negative condition to psychic forces as his physi- 
 cally negative state makes him amenable to the in- 
 fluence of all physical exhalations, and we may rest 
 assured, both the outer and inner atmosphere of this 
 planet are crowded with exhalations from every sort 
 of mind and from every sort of body. 
 
 Psychometry reveals a great fact when it teaches 
 you by means of exact experiments to read character 
 and incidents in the life of persons with whom you are 
 brought en rapport, by touching some article they have 
 worn or a piece of paper on which they may have writ- 
 ten something. Ordinary psychometric experiments, 
 however, often fail because of their not being properly 
 conducted; if a crowd of handkerchiefs, gloves and 
 other articles are forced upon a person of unusual sensi- 
 bilities on a public platform, defmiteness is rendered 
 extremely improbable, as when a crowd of minds are 
 pressing upon you all at once and you are trying to 
 satisfy a mixed multitude, you are in great danger of 
 satisfying no one and greatly injuring yourself, as when 
 you deliberately render yourself negative to every- 
 body's emanations, you are liable at any moment to 
 take on both their vices and their diseases. 
 
 Spiritual science teaches you to read psychometric- 
 ally from a height of superior vision ; it teaches you 
 to throw yourself into a superior condition in which 
 you can see what there is round about you without 
 being influenced by it ; you are never safe as long as 
 you strive to get down on a patient's or sitter's plane 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. C0LV1LLE. 231 
 
 and merge your own identity in bis aura, for by so 
 doing you become immersed in tbe waves of bis mental 
 and physical emanations which in tbe present average 
 state of society are too often disgustingly impure. 
 Diseases are contracted far less by physical contact 
 thari most people imagine, though on a low plane of 
 human development diseases are thus taken on ; but as 
 close physical proximity usually induces a less earnest 
 and active desire for another's sympathy and co- 
 operation than ensues when friends are separated un- 
 willingly in body by physical distance, we are all the 
 recipients and also the givers of absent treatments to a 
 far greater extent than perhaps any imagine. 
 
 The nine months before birth are more important 
 in shaping the disposition of a child than the seven 
 years immediately following birth, which are usually 
 acknowledged as those in which the most permanent 
 impressions are received. Unborn children respond to 
 every impulse of the mother's mind far more than they 
 ever can after birth, as no association can ever be so 
 intimate as that which precedes birth. 
 
 Next to ante-natal influence, the influence exerted 
 before the child is weaned is, of course, the most 
 powerful and protracted in its results ; and here let 
 us say that those mothers who can nurse their children 
 and do not are guilty of a shameful neglect of duty, as 
 no mother has a right to shirk her natural responsibil- 
 ties by paying another woman to give her life to her 
 offspring. However, if a mother is very ill or in a 
 frightfully disturbed condition, most of all if she be a 
 woman of immoral habits, the services of a conscien- 
 tious, healthy wet nurse may advantageously be secured, 
 for remember, it is not the milk which nourishes the 
 
232 LECTURE BY W. J. C0LV1LLE. 
 
 body half so much as the psychic force which builds 
 the mind which is of consequence in shaping character ; 
 however, it is impossible for any true spiritual scientist 
 to so far disconnect bodily conditions from mental 
 states as to venture the assertion that by any possibil- 
 ity any physical condition can exist which is not a cor- 
 respondence to a similar state previously attained in 
 mind. 
 
 Woman suffrage, though not apparently a distinctly 
 metaphysical question, bears so closely upon our sub- 
 ject that we must say in passing that all true metaphy- 
 sicians must be woman suffragists, they must be on the 
 side of that movement which acknowledges the equal- 
 ity in truth of man and woman, and though we make 
 no distinction between the two, and do not try to insti- 
 tute invidious comparisons between men and women, 
 we must take the side of those who claim that woman's 
 freedom is more important than man's, and if one sex 
 must rule the other, woman had better rule man than 
 man govern woman ; not only because woman is usually 
 more intuitive than man, but because if a man is not 
 free his influence upon the rising generation can never 
 be so powerful for evil as that of a woman who is held 
 in slavery, for the simple reason that man cannot be 
 a mother and therefore can only indirectly through his 
 influence with woman affect the rising generation to 
 any very great extent. Women, love, cherish and 
 honor your husbands, but do not attempt to obey them 
 any further than mutual obedience is desirable and 
 consistent with equality and true spiritual harmony. 
 
 No metaphysician can be married at any altar 
 where a vow of obedience is required of her which is 
 not asked of her husband. In the first chapter of 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. CULVILLE. 233 
 
 Genesis, where an account is given of the creation of 
 mankind in truth, we read, God created males and 
 females in his own image, he created them together, 
 not one after the other; in the beginning they were 
 divinely equal, and so they must be regarded the 
 world over in every state of life if truth is to triumph 
 over error. Man in truth may excel in reason, woman 
 in intuitive perception ; man may be adapted to the 
 rougher work of life oftentimes, while the tenderer 
 and more sacred functions of maternity are reserved 
 for woman only ; but as today women are as a rule 
 purer than men, as they usually are less addicted to 
 vice and have fewer bad habits, as society demands of 
 them more spirituality than it asks for in the male sex, 
 women must never for a single instant allow their bet- 
 ter natures to be crushed beneath the iron heel of man's 
 alleged superiority. All vaunted power and dignity 
 on the part of man claiming to control woman, and all 
 namby pamby sentiment expressing itself in caresses 
 such as a child bestows upon a doll or a pet animal, all 
 prattle about woman as a tender plant to be nurtured 
 and loved but never to be taken into partnership as 
 man's companion in the sober, earnest work of life, is 
 just so much maudlin sentiment invented to cover 
 tyranny in roses and drape manacles in silk. 
 
 Let every woman rise to her true dignity as wife 
 and mother if she be a married woman, and if she 
 remain single let her support herself by fruitful and 
 practical industry. Let every married woman regard 
 marriage as a partnership of interests. Let woman's 
 work be regarded as in all things the equal of man's ; 
 husband and wife are joint bread-winners when prop- 
 erly united; no honorable, self-respecting man will 
 
234 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 talk of supporting a woman as the creature of his 
 bounty, and we are sure no right-minded woman will 
 tolerate the thought of marriage as a stepping-stone to 
 a home where she may eat the bread of idleness earned 
 by the sweat of her husband's brow. Marriage in 
 truth is the condition of angelic life reflected on earth, 
 and those women only can be true to their divine mis- 
 sion who resemble the sun-crowned woman in the 
 twelth chapter of the Book of Kevelation, whose head 
 is adorned with twelve bright stars, and whose foot 
 rests upon the changing moon. "When the true princi- 
 ples of heredity are understood, it will be easy to see 
 how directly a child is influenced by every thought 
 which passes through the father's mind if the mother 
 is either subjected in will to him, or if through fear 
 or apprehension or aversion she holds him continually 
 before her in the thought of error. 
 
 Kleptomania is a disease of frequent occurrence 
 even in the children of the wealthy. The most influ- 
 ential and wealthy persons have often been its victims. 
 Why should ladies of position, possessed of ample 
 means, steal from the counters of the' shops at which 
 they deal ? why should they take what does not belong 
 to them clandestinely when they have ample means to 
 purchase all they require, and are so shocked at their 
 own dishonesty afterwards that they almost immedi- 
 ately return the purloined articles to their rightful 
 owners? An explanation can be found in ante-natal 
 influence only. A wealthy mother is often denied 
 what she most craves, some secret desire and longing 
 in her breast remains unsatisfied to such an extent that 
 her offspring is imbued with a desire to grasp at any 
 hazard and in any manner what cannot be obtained by 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. C0LVILLE. 235 
 
 lawful purchase, and in cases of kleptomania such as 
 those just alluded to. we can trace the working out of 
 tendencies created by mothers using artifice and deceit 
 to accomplish ends they are afraid of venturing to 
 bring about openly. Pregnant women who frequent 
 honorable places of instruction during their husband's 
 absence from home, because they are afraid he should 
 know of their going to places of which he ignorantly 
 and bigot edly disapproves, are sowing seeds of dissen- 
 sion, dishonesty and misery untold in future genera- 
 tions. From the fear of man which bringeth a snare 
 you may all well pray to be delivered ; as long as you 
 let your husbands frighten you into unwilling submis- 
 sion to their tyranny, or into clandestine rebellion 
 against it, you are on perilous ground; you may at 
 any moment succumb or see your children succumb to 
 the most terrible vices and diseases. If men can go to 
 their clubs without their wives' approval, surely women 
 can go to respectable meetings where they meet re- 
 fined and honorable women without standing in jeop- 
 ardy of a husband's anger. 
 
 Let all girls be educated from their tenderest years 
 to shun tyrannical men as husbands. Before marriage 
 a young woman should prove herself so rightfully in- 
 dependent, so loyally principle-asserting, that her in- 
 tended husband will know he can never intimidate her 
 into making unwarrantable concessions to his arbitrary 
 dictation after marriage. 
 
 Women's Rights and female education are at the 
 very foundation of all reform ; woman in bondage en- 
 slaves man, woman in freedom is his only elevator. 
 
 TThen you are called upon to treat hereditary ail- 
 ments, weaknesses, or tendences, to speak more cor- 
 
236 LECTURE BY W, J. COLVILLE. 
 
 rectly, call upon the immortal spirit of your patient to 
 arise and assert its true power, place before a victim of 
 dishonor a picture of himself in moral health, make 
 him regard himself in the light of a conqueror, strong 
 to resist and vanquish error, and never consider your 
 work accomplished until you have convinced him that 
 all error is of the earth, earthy, a false creation of 
 mortal mind, a reflection of error, the likeness of a lie, 
 no more real than any phantom, no more to be dreaded 
 than the hobgoblins of childish fancy. 
 
 All theories of hereditary evil and of obsession 
 have to be boldly met by the affirmation of the abso- 
 lute power of truth and good. Mortal mind creations 
 are unreal as mortal mind itself. Children of unreality 
 are unreal, like their progenitors. Jesus called disease 
 an error collectively and inclusively a liar from the 
 beginning ; when truth was demonstrated in the heal- 
 ing of the sick he saw Satan like lightning fall from 
 heaven. 
 
 Mortal error strives to usurp the throne of immortal 
 truth. It vaunts its own empty nothingness into the 
 throne of God, and there as Beast and False Prophet 
 it demands the worship of mankind. It claims to be 
 God and exacts homage under the name of Nature, 
 Natural Law, Necessity, or something else which 
 tickles the perverted understanding of the worldly 
 wise. How can error prevail ? How can inherited evil 
 triumph when God is the sole Creator and every soul is 
 God's offspring? Truth says to the foul brood of the 
 serpent error, You are nothing, you are shadows, you 
 are mists, you are shadows flung against the light, and 
 as rapidly as daylight dismisses and annihilates the 
 darkling shades of night, truth crushes error, effect- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 237 
 
 ually, once for all, by virtue of its own positive and 
 active moral strength. Darkness and disease are alike 
 appearances, illusions, negations. Thus inherited evil 
 in its last analysis is inherited darkness, inherited nega- 
 tion. Can darkness contend successively with light ? 
 Can negation contend successfully with industructible 
 reality ? You cannot destroy a reality ; yen cannot 
 annihilate an atom, or extinguish that which rests on 
 a fundamental principle of being. To say disease is 
 something, a real condition, as much so as health, 
 as ignorant pathologists declare, is to announce 
 in so many words the utter impossibility of its de- 
 struction ; if disease were a reality as health is a 
 reality, no one could ever cure it or destroy it ; all 
 remedies would be useless, as it is impossible to destroy 
 a single particle of the substance of the universe ; but 
 if disease is only a phantasm, an unreal state, no more 
 real than the ignis fatuus which lures a traveler to 
 destruction, and yet apparent to sense just as the ignis 
 fatuus appears real, we can then see clearly that truth 
 and understanding, virtue in its own almightiness, can 
 bid disease and devils alike to fly, for both are errors of 
 mortal imagination, lies and the children of lies, and 
 thus the only devil in the universe. 
 
 In all your practice you must insist upon the phan- 
 tasmagoric character of all disorders. You must never 
 for a solitary instant allow yourselves to believe in dis- 
 ease as anything more than the fabulous creation of 
 mortal mind, for if it once gains possession of your 
 thought- and you fear it either for yourself or for 
 another, you descend onto the level of weekness and 
 susceptibility which causes illness to appear in you, 
 who when acting on false premises become the victim 
 
238 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 of a patient's disorder instead of its overcomer. Hered- 
 itary ailments are no more difficult to reach than those 
 recently acquired. Chronic cases are no harder than 
 acute ones to deal with except by reason of the greater 
 tenacity with which mortal mind clings to errors of 
 long" standing than to those of recent date. There is 
 but one infallible rule which works in every case, and 
 is as undeviating as the rule in mathematics. Pro- 
 nounce all disease a myth, a phantasy. Trust only in 
 God, and fear no evil. 
 
LECTUEE XII. 
 
 HOW TO APPLY THE PRINCIPLES OF SPIRITUAL SCIENCE IN 
 PRACTICAL TREATMENT. 
 
 MANY persons are heard to exclaim after listening 
 to lectures and reading books on Metaphysics 
 that while everything sounds reasonable enough and 
 the arguments appear plausible there seems no way to 
 reduce the theory to practice, except perhaps in the 
 case of a very few specially qualified individuals. All 
 students of tkeosophy must have been struck by the 
 statement constantly reiterated in theosophical publi- 
 cations that only in two possible ways can the wonder- 
 ful works be done which the neophyte desires to 
 accomplish. One must either be a " natural born 
 magician," the equivalent of what Spiritualists call a 
 " good natural medium," or he must have labored, 
 studied, and practiced the most rigorous self-denial, 
 eventuating in that absolute control of mind over sense 
 whereby alone an adept can perform what are termed 
 by the world at large " stupendous miracles." As the 
 word "miracle" is derived from the Latin verb mirari, 
 which signifies to be astonished or to marvel, marvel- 
 ous works, as we have often informed } t ou, are no more 
 supernatural than the germination of a seed. 
 
 Nothing is given by nature to those who do not 
 work for it; nature has her rewards for all toilers, but 
 she sends away empty-handed those who put forward 
 
 239 
 
240 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 no energy to attain to honor. In every department of 
 science, indefatigable ardor, unflagging industry is 
 demanded of all aspirants either to fame or knowl- 
 edge ; and is it reasonable to infer that when the geol- 
 ogist, the chemist, the astronomer, the mathematician, 
 yea, and the musician, the sculptor and the painter, 
 have all to work long and earnestly ere they can rise 
 to heights of attainment in their respective fields of 
 operation, that by payment of a little money and the 
 taking of a- short course of metaphysical instructions, 
 anybody and everybody can become qualified in a 
 month or so to " heal the sick and cast out devils " ? 
 We have no intention of entering into a controversial 
 argument on the authenticity of the Gospels, nor do 
 we care to enquire how much or how little probability 
 there is of Jesus ever having uttered the sentence, but 
 the words themselves, " this kind cometh not forth but 
 by prayer and fasting,'' embody the whole essence of 
 necessary teaching for those who aspire to heal the 
 sick and dispossess the minds of men of disturbing 
 passions, evil tempers, unclean spirits. What is prayer 
 but aspiration? what is fasting but abstinence from 
 self-indulgence ? To alter the phraseology somewhat, 
 no one can ever be a qualified healer of others unless 
 lie has first cured himself of worldly ambitions and 
 carnal lusts. 
 
 The highest achievements in spiritual science are 
 only possible to those who have successfully resisted 
 every lower impulse ; we do not mean to say the low T er 
 impulses must necessarily be annihilated, but they 
 certainly must be held in absolute subjection. Rigid 
 asceticism recommended by many schools is valuable 
 only as means to an end ; if the end can be reached 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 241 
 
 without asceticism it may well be dispensed with. As 
 questions are constantly recurring with regard to 
 animal food and other hygienic and dietetic matters, it 
 may be well for us to offer a word or two on these 
 matters, although in the opinion of some they relate 
 only to unimportant material conditions. Some meta- 
 physicians affirm they can eat anything, as nothing 
 hurts them ; they are therefore totally regardless of all 
 the laws of health, to use a common expression ; these 
 laws of health are said to be nothing but laws of mor- 
 tal mind from which we need to be free, but we think 
 a little closer inspection of the matter will point to a 
 somewhat different conclusion. Mrs. Eddy says the 
 desire for all stimulants and narcotics, including tea 
 and coffee, should be regarded as a depraved taste, and 
 that remark of hers opens up a wide and fertile field of 
 thought and inquiry. Now, if it is of no moment 
 whatever, as some sa} r , whether we eat fish, flesh or 
 fowl, or subsist entirely upon a vegetarian diet, why 
 lay stress, as Mrs. Eddy does in many portions of her 
 book, Science and Health, on the simple table meta- 
 physicians usually sit at ; why make any distinction 
 Avhatever between water and whiskey, lemonade and 
 brandy, or sugar and opium ? If all material things are 
 simply nothing, why make any fuss about them ? The 
 answer to such questions seems inevitably to be that 
 even though we accept the statement, "all is mind, 
 there is no matter," we are bound to consider things 
 as mental if not plrysical, and that is all the difference 
 between the position of a metaphysician and a physi- 
 cist with regard to the external universe. 
 
 If everything is mind, as all our perceptions are 
 mental then all we eat and drink and wear is in mind ; 
 
242 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 all our habits then are mental, our tastes and proclivi- 
 ties, our likes and dislikes are mental states, and our 
 outward behavior is therefore clue to a pre-existing 
 mental condition. Being asked constantly for our 
 opinion on outward modes of life and ever-recurring 
 practices, we have perpetually insisted upon the para- 
 mount importance of cultivating such thoughts and 
 inducing such mental states as lead to purity of con- 
 duct. Kind words naturally flow from kind thoughts, 
 as unkind thoughts inevitably result in a soured visage. 
 Mental changes regulate the appearance of the head 
 and face, not only of human beings but of animals. I 
 Thus we can learn the disposition of persons and ani- 
 mals by examining their crania, not because the cranial 
 evidences are the causes of mental conditions, but be- 
 cause these indications are brought about by mental 
 conditions. A person or an animal does not appear 
 kind or cruel, loveable or hateful because of some 
 accident of physical organization, but the organization 
 does most decidedly indicate the temperament and tem- 
 per of the being who owns it. 
 
 You cannot take advantage of phrenology and 
 physiognomy by endeavoring to change externals. 
 You can only bring about external modifications by 
 appealing to the mind of the person or animal whom 
 you are endeavoring to improve. The marked im- 
 provements constantly appearing in animals are due to 
 their constant association with enlightened men and 
 women ; psychically far more than physically does man 
 rule the lower creation and lift it nearer and ever 
 nearer to his own higher level. There can be no 
 abiding health, happiness, beauty or symmetry of any 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 243 
 
 kind where beautiful thoughts do not precede outward 
 expression. 
 
 There will never be any marked improvement in 
 human manners and customs until a spiritual influence 
 works at the centre of man's being to set outward 
 things straight ; from within to without, riot from 
 without to within, is nature's order of development. 
 You cannot improve the centre by decorating the cir- 
 cumference ; all attempts at making the exterior fair 
 while the interior is sterile is no more genuine healing 
 or reformation than it would be a genuine improvement 
 in the actual condition of a tree for some one to fasten 
 fruit onto barren boughs ; though you might possibly 
 deceive some ignorant spectators by attaching fruit by 
 means of wire to barren boughs while the root was still, 
 withered and the branches unprolific. 
 
 •Under no circumstances should a healer endeavor to 
 change outward appearances as such. What would a 
 physician say of some one who tried to check the man- 
 ifestation of humor on the surface of the skin by 
 thrusting it back into the blood through denying it 
 outward expression? Quackery often seems to cure 
 because it represses, but instead of benefitting the 
 patient it makes him suffer far more in future ; a momen- 
 tary relief may be gained, and doubtless often is, at the 
 expense of years of anguish. The blood is poisoned, 
 the vitals diseased, as the pimples and blotches are re- 
 moved from the surface of the body. Proper medical 
 treatment, electric or magnetic treatment if judiciously 
 administered, would assist in bringing the humors to 
 the front and then getting rid of them, which can only 
 be done by strengthen in £ the svstem and giving general 
 tone to the constitution. 
 
244 LECTUBE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 All matters of speech and etiquette must follow upon 
 purer modes of thinking, as a man thinketh so he in- 
 variably becomes, outwardly. We have never met a 
 solitary individual whose thoughts were refined whose 
 conduct was vulgar ; vulgarity is not due to outward 
 circumstances ; it is not brought on by surroundings ; 
 many persons are so naturally refined, nothing vulgar- 
 izes them, they manifest their innate gentility, as some 
 would call it, wherever they go, no matter what com- 
 pany they may be forced to keep ; this gentility is 
 not an assumed mask like the good behavior people 
 put on in company to attract others and belie 
 their real state of feeling. Keal refinement is impos- 
 sible of acquirement through simple attendance at pol- 
 ished seminaries or through reading fashionable 
 treatises on the manners of well-bred people. Only 
 when the mind is free from evil, impure, or vulgar 
 thoughts, will conduct be really polite ; only when ill 
 tempers are banished from thought, will pleasant words 
 flow naturally from the tongue, and kindly actions 
 characterize the individual. 
 
 Superficial treatment for all manner of ailments has 
 prevailed far too long ; we must change the base of 
 operations if we are really to succeed in banishing suf- 
 fering and distress from the midst of humanity. In 
 treating a case, then, say of the opium habit, of tobacco 
 chewing, of drinking, of frequenting some evil haunt, 
 or any other vicious desire displayed in conduct, place 
 no thought, lay no stress upon the action, endeavor by 
 every means in your power to disgust your patient with 
 wrong by cultivating within him the love of right. Do 
 not take away medicine, tobacco, wine, or anything 
 else a patient craves, but treat mentally, arguing with 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 245 
 
 your patient the utter undesirability of relying on such 
 material props for strength or comfort. Divert your 
 patient's thought from all such means of sensuous 
 gratification by creating a taste for other and purer 
 enjoyments. Give your patient no books to read treat- 
 ing upon vice, and enter into no conversation on topics 
 which are always avoided in decent society. 
 
 Truth compels us to say that a vast amount of mis- 
 chief is done by writing and discoursing on social 
 vices ; boys and girls do not require to be instructed in 
 bad habits, nor to have their attention called to their 
 lower propensities, and all reading and conversation 
 which makes the lower passions a subject of considera- 
 tion tends to inflame them. Children who are brought 
 up to take a constant and active interest in useful pur- 
 suits with which their minds are filled to the exclusion 
 of objectionable ideas, have very little trouble in mas- 
 tering their lower desires, while those who have no 
 useful and interesting work to engage their minds 
 easily fall victims to every lust. The most virtuous 
 lives are lived by those actively emplo} T ed in something 
 of sufficient importance and interest to keep their 
 minds active in the coronal region of the brain. So 
 work as to direct the bulk of your energy to the front 
 of your head and you will have little difficult} 7 with 
 back-brain propensities. The true spiritual healer so 
 works upon the mind as to divert the thought and 
 resultantly the vital fluids from the base to the front 
 of the head and thereby diminishes the pressure upon 
 the lower organs by stimulating the higher. 
 
 You only think about and desire to gratify certain 
 propensities when your thought, not being centered 
 where it should be is free to roam into forbidden chan- 
 
246 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 nels. Under no circumstances paint pictures of dis- 
 ease, conjure up no horrible pictures of despair and 
 death ; do nothing to arouse fear, on the contrary 
 work to quell it if aroused already ; for remember, 
 those who abstain from evil courses outwardly through 
 fear of consequences are not reformed, but continuing 
 to love evil are still under its dominion in thought and, 
 being so, may at any moment break out into some 
 ebulition on the surface. If you are called upon to 
 treat a young man for such habits as drinking, smok- 
 ing, or gambling, if he is causing distress to his parents 
 by riotous living, and you are anxious of inducing him 
 to reform, commence right by setting an excellent 
 example in your own conduct ; your own life must be 
 inviolate; you must make no concession to error by 
 allowing yourself even for an instant to take a single 
 glass of wine or even one cigar or cigarette ; no end of 
 harm is done by patronizing evil on a small scale and 
 then condemning it wholesale. Life is made up of 
 little things, and you can never afford to do a little 
 harm and excuse yourself because it is a little, for that 
 little is not only enough to prevent you from rescuing 
 its victim, it is also sufficient to drag you down to a 
 lower level. Having set your example of righteous- 
 ness and continuing to set it, you may, if questioned 
 on the matter of drinking or any other vice, express 
 your own views very decisively ; let there be no mis- 
 take as to the attitude taken by yourself on such mat- 
 ters, but if you are not questioned work in silent 
 thought to convince your patient that his conduct is 
 erroneous ; think toward him what you could not say 
 without being thought unpleasant or fanatical ; many 
 persons will not hear a truth in so many words without 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 247 
 
 defying it, while if you convey a thought to them they 
 are at once conscious of an impression conveyed, to 
 their mind, and the thought coming to them in such a 
 form that they cannot distinguish it from an impres- 
 sion or suggestion of their own ; they are ready to 
 think about it, submit it to reason and often will 
 embrace it, as it satisfies them when submitted to their 
 judgment that it is worthy to be followed. 
 
 We have known many instances where silent men- 
 tal treatment has cured intemperance and many an- 
 other vile and disgusting habit ; one case which came 
 prominently before us a short time ago we will here 
 introduce as a typical instance. A young man a little 
 over twenty years of age had fallen in with bad com- 
 panions, and being easily led was soon made a victim 
 of drink and other vices, occasioning much pain to his 
 mother, who unfortunately bemoaned his vices without 
 being able to help him to abandon them. A happy 
 thought struck her ; a gentleman about forty years of 
 age, of the most exemplary habits, a handsome man, 
 of pleasing manners and generally a favorite with 
 younger people, was coming to the city where she and 
 her son were living, and as he was seeking accommo- 
 dations in a private family where he might have pri- 
 vacy and quiet for important studies and literary 
 work, she invited him to her home and made a special 
 request to him to accept her hospitality, telling him 
 her painful situation and expressing both a hope and 
 a conviction that he would help her son to give up his 
 evil courses and begin a new life. The gentleman ac- 
 cepted the invitation, but very decidedly declined to 
 say anything to his hostess 1 son on the subject of intem- 
 perance or any form of dissipation; his own conduct 
 
248 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 at the table and everywhere else on all occasions was 
 of course exemplary in the highest degree ; but the 
 young man's mother was afraid mere example would 
 not convert her son, and after two or three days, when 
 she had had, as she thought, time to observe that no 
 change for the better was taking place in his habits, 
 she communicated her feelings very plainly in a private 
 conversation with her guest; to her disappointment 
 all the answer he made to her heart-rending entreaties 
 that he would step in and save her boy, was an offer to 
 take the culprit to the theater or any other respectable 
 place of amusement whenever the young gentleman 
 felt disposed to accept his company. From that day 
 forth, however, matters began to take a decided turn ; 
 the young man accompanied his older friend to the 
 theater one night, to a concert another, and so on, re- 
 turning every evening at a respectable hour, having 
 had nothing stronger than water or a cup of choc- 
 olate to drink ; he began to appear regularly at break- 
 fast, with no unhealthy flush or pallor on his counte- 
 nance, no suspicious redness about the eyes, and no 
 distracted manner of any kind. So far his mind and 
 time had been pleasantly occupied in business during 
 the day and innocent amusement at night. 
 
 After about a week of this better mode of living 
 the crisis arrived; one evening the gentleman with 
 whom he had been passing his evenings so respectably 
 was unable to accompany him anywhere, as very im- 
 portant business of a peremptory and private nature 
 commanded his attention; with many misgivings the 
 mother saw her son prepare to go out alone, as he had 
 done for so long previous to the preceding week and 
 usually with such disastrous consequences. During the 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 240 
 
 whole of the evening up till midnight, the anxious 
 mother worried over her son and conjured up the most 
 distressful mental visions of his probable whereabouts. 
 Just as she was on the point of retiring to her room 
 for the night, her guest returned and astonished her 
 by uttering in an abrupt and almost domineering tone 
 the following sentence : " Duty compels me to inform 
 you, madam, that if you persist in holding your son in 
 error, he can never be reformed ; go to bed and leave 
 him in charge of the Almighty." Without another 
 word except a courteous "good night," her visitor left 
 her to her somewhat startled meditations, and retired 
 to his own chamber. The lady could not sleep ; she 
 partly undressed, and then feeling terribly uneasy, at- 
 tired herself in a thick wrapper and tried to read. 
 Either the book was dull or her nerves too unsteady to 
 permit of reading ; the words addressed to her by her 
 guest continued to ring in her ears. But what does he 
 mean by "holding my son in error?" if he were in 
 my place, if he had an only son of his own, ruining 
 himself by evil courses, I venture to assume he would 
 be almost as distressed as I am, unless beneath all his 
 religious and moral exterior he has a heart of stone, 
 callously indifferent to the welfare of all beside himself, 
 ruminated the unhappy woman. 
 
 Presently a singular, feeling of mingled hope and 
 calm stole over her, she "went to bed and soon fell 
 asleep, and throughout her slumbers a vision seemed 
 ever before her of an unseen hand supporting her son 
 in some dangerous place, and at last causing him to 
 dash a glass of liquor untasted from his lips. At 
 breakfast next morning, her son met her with a smil- 
 ing countenance and gave her indeed a joyful piece of 
 
250 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 news. " Mother," he said, " last night about twelve 
 o'clock, after visiting a theater with one of my old 
 companions, he urged me as he always does to take a 
 drink; we went into a fashionable saloon and called 
 for iced champagne ; he drank freely of it and seemed 
 to think ^t excellent ; what I tasted I thought was bad, 
 whereupon I drank a sip from my friend's glass and lie 
 took a sip from mine ; strange to say, both tasted 
 equally good to him and equally bad to me ; thinking 
 my stomach might be a little out of order I let it go, 
 and not feeling particularly well I refused his invita- 
 tion to go elsewhere with him and wended my way 
 homeward. On my way home, just for the sake of 
 experiment, I went into another saloon and called for 
 a glass of ale ; that tasted even worse than the cham- 
 pagne, and as I asked myself whatever could be the 
 matter with me, I heard a voice, whether in my ear or 
 only in my fancy, I could not make out, saying dis- 
 tinctly, 'You never liked liquor, you never will, you 
 never can ; be a man and never degrade yourself by 
 pretending you like what you hate anymore.' Just 
 about that time I thought of you, mother, you came 
 up vividly before me, I seemed to hear and see you and 
 
 Mr. together, you were talking excitedly and I 
 
 caught the sentence, ' You must not hold your son in 
 error' ; directly I got home, I went to bed and to 
 sleep; this morning I woke up feeling completely 
 cured of all my taste for liquor, and do you know, 
 mother, with G-od's help I feel certain I shall never 
 drink again." 
 
 The young man began at once to live up to his 
 good resolution, and there is no need to suppose that 
 he has had any return to his old evil habits. 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 251 
 
 We have given this little anecdote a place in this 
 lecture, not on account of its singularity, for many 
 and many a similar instance might be quoted, but be- 
 cause it seems to us to embody the entire principle 
 of spiritual healing, and to arouse the very questions 
 we need to answer before we take our leave of each 
 other. Please to observe the method of silent treat- 
 ment adopted by the metaphysician ; he studiously re- 
 frained from all allusion in conversation to the silent 
 work he was doing so effectually, and here we have a 
 lesson for all teachers which most of them sadly need 
 to learn ; you cannot always tell persons of their faults 
 or remonstrate with them on their doings without 
 being noted as a bore and a nuisance ; you arouse hos- 
 tility immediately you assume the role of censor, J)ut 
 what you cannot say you can assuredly think', the 
 great advantage of thinking good advice instead of 
 speaking it is that by the former course you appeal di- 
 rect to your pupil's sense of right, and by the latter 
 you awaken opposition, and encourage or at least chal- 
 lenge controversy 
 
 Metaphysical treatments are not mesmeric for they 
 are not subjugatory ; you do not will another person 
 to do as you desire, you do not tell him to obey you, 
 neither do you seek to influence him to follow a blind 
 instinct or impression ; you acknowledge in him a rea- 
 soning principle, a faculty of understanding, a moral 
 principle to which truth can appeal, and in addressing 
 that principle you do not ask him to agree with you, 
 to take you as an authority ; you succeed in showing 
 him the error of his ways by holding up a mirror to 
 him in mind in which he can see the image of truth 
 reflected; he instantly contrasts this picture of truth 
 
252 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 with his usual course of error, to the advantage of the 
 former and the disadvantage of the latter. 
 
 Every one has enough moral principle and enough 
 good judgment to guide him if it is only appealed to, 
 just as the occupants of a theater gallery can always be 
 touched by the portrayal of noble sentiment on the 
 stage ; and all good actors know how powerfully they 
 can appeal to the noblest sentiments of humanity by 
 letting goodness make its own way to the hearts of the 
 "rabble" So every true healer who is a sound teacher 
 of morals must understand how to reach the inmost 
 convictions of his pupil and lead him thereby to desist 
 from evil courses, as his own inmost self tells him to 
 sin no more, and shows him how to live righteously in 
 future. 
 
 Observe the simplicity in mode of treatment 
 adopted by the hero of our anecdote, — he was on no 
 occasion anything other than an agreeable friend ; his 
 influence was exerted entirely in silence ; and in these 
 days of mind-reading experiments it should not seem 
 incredible to an enlightened public that a strong, de- 
 cisive, persistent thought is far more potent and elo- 
 quent than any words. Words are addressed to the 
 outermost degree of human consciousness, and there- 
 fore appeal directly to the mortal mind which at once 
 raises objections to the truth-; this mortal mind is car- 
 nal and at enmity with God, it is the serpent of temp- 
 tation with which all have to contend. Mortal mind 
 uses words and brings forth sophistry wherewith to 
 confound truth; it is the adversary within, the foe 
 in the household, the traitor in the camp with which 
 perpetual warfare must be waged. 
 
 To conquer this mortal mind immortal spirit must 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 253 
 
 be appealed to, and this can be far more readily done 
 in silence than by conversation, as talking gives oppor- 
 tunity for mortal mind to assert its claims in a dusty 
 cloud of words which it raises to obscure truth and 
 befog the mind of the one who is proclaiming it. As 
 the cuttle-fish throws around it a stream of ink, black- 
 ening the waters all about, and in that ' inky torrent 
 conceals itself and its own designs, so does the sophis- 
 tical intellect of man endeavor to hide its fallacies and 
 gloss over its false reasonings by specious sophistry in 
 word. To answer back in thought is far more difficult, 
 as thought without a conversational envelope has to 
 make an impression, if it be a thought of truth, upon 
 a purer and more abiding principle in man than the 
 shifting, mortal intellect. Whenever a person like the 
 gentleman we have introduced to y our notice as our 
 illustration desires earnestly to reform an erring intel- 
 lect and lead one who is hastening to ruin back from 
 the brink of destruction to paths of safety and honor, 
 he necessarily feels his only way is to appeal to that 
 side of his companion's nature which can and will 
 respond to the call of truth and genuine reason. 
 
 While it is true enough that the carnal appetite of 
 man craves sensuous indulgence, it is far more true, as 
 it will remain true in the case of every human soul 
 forever, that the immortal spirit of man loves right- 
 eousness and hates iniquity ; to appeal to that within 
 man himself which loves goodness is the only success- 
 ful plan of reformation. The reason why so many 
 well- written works on physiology, hygiene, etc., often 
 fail to accomplish the good designed by their authors 
 is because of their absolute externalism; they appeal 
 to human selfishness, and selfishness is in and of itself 
 
254 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 an error of mortal mind, one indeed of the first magni- 
 tude. No creature wants to suffer; rats always leave 
 a sinking vessel ; but where is the nobility, where the 
 high moral purpose in a mere animal instinct of self- 
 preservation, from which proceeds such maxims as 
 "every one for himself," and "look out for number 
 one"? Such aphorisms are the inevitable outgrowth 
 of self-love; they spring from a development of the 
 instinct of self-preservation without any corresponding 
 development of the moral faculties, and as the moral 
 faculties are the only ones whose development can give 
 to their possessor power to effectually resist and over- 
 come temptation, "hell is paved w r ith good resolu- 
 tions" arising out of a selfish desire to live purely for 
 no other reason than because a penalty attaches to 
 immorality and folly. To resist the encroachments of 
 the sensual nature, to be strong to resist temptation, 
 comes from an unfoldment of the inner principle of 
 virtue within the life of man ; and we care not who 
 differs from us or what opposition our statement may 
 prov r oke from materialistic minds, we affirm unequivo- 
 cally, without fear of successful reply from any quarter, 
 no one can live an outwardly virtuous life in all par- 
 ticulars unless guided by some strong moral impulse. 
 
 As long as evil desires are allowed to remain in 
 mind, so long will they struggle to express themselves 
 outwardly in word and deed; but reach the seat of the 
 malady, destroy the root of the poisonous plant, and 
 then, without taking the trouble to interfere with the 
 ] eaves and branches, they will one by one dry up and 
 drop away ; as long as there is vigor in the root of a 
 tree it will press its way up and out spite of all obsta- 
 cles, as trees have been known after they were cut 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 255 
 
 down to force their way through floors and ceilings 
 and destroy property built over their supposed dead 
 roots. Let any evil propensity remain unchecked in 
 thought, let any carnal desire linger in the mind, let 
 the affections continue to cling ever so slightly to an 
 olden error, and you are never safe from yielding to 
 any temptation which may present itself from without. 
 
 It is not the saloon but the love of strong drink in 
 man which occasions intemperance. We hate saloons, 
 and are in favor of prohibitory legislation. We look 
 with disgust upon any law which sanctions and legal- 
 izes vice, still most certain are we that outward legisla- 
 tion can never abolish an evil. We rely solely on 
 intellectual and moral suasion as our weapons of de- 
 fense against legalized iniquity. How come the infa- 
 mous laws to be laws? How come those men into 
 power who can be bought and sold by saloonkeepers ? 
 how comes it that the saloon can buy up the votes of 
 loafers? How comes it that the ballot in many a hand 
 is a curse rather than a blessing? Surely the answer 
 is plain. There is a devil in man, or an outside 
 tempter would have no power at all. To fear the devil 
 is to acknowledge the devil within you. Cast out the 
 unclean spirit, the evil tempter within, and Ave care not 
 how strong nor how numerous the hosts of darkness 
 may be, when any tempter approaches you from with- 
 out, if there is nothing in you to respond to his appeal 
 he has to retire balked and discomfited. 
 
 Demoniacal possession in olden times and obsession 
 in the present clay must be exploded as a fallacy in all 
 other senses than the one just indicated. Why should 
 you be subject to the dominion of "evil spirits"? is 
 there not an Infinite Deity? are there not legions of 
 
256 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 angels perpetually encompassing us ? is not evil merely 
 a transitory shadow, while good is an eternal reality ? 
 If everything that has ever been said by theologians 
 and magicians concerning evil spirits is less than the 
 truth, if the hosts of darkness are more numerous than 
 the stars in the firmament or the sand grains on the 
 seashore, even then we need not fear, for greater, infi- 
 nitely greater, must be the power of light than that of 
 darkness, infinitely more numerous the hosts of good 
 than those of evil. 
 
 In its old esoteric sense the Garden of Eden legend, 
 introducing the talking serpent as the tempter and 
 seducer of Eve and Adam, only tells the tale of how 
 man is by his own desires enticed. The serpent at 
 Corinth in the days of Paul was the same old wily 
 snake which first led man to transgress the commands 
 of the Most High; nothing in either case but man's 
 lower nature struggling for ascendency over the 
 higher, nothing but inverted love and then perverted 
 intellect led woman and man from pure happiness to 
 misery, from the tranquil joys and restful work of 
 Paradise to the thorny, barrier-bestrewn earth where 
 through constant conflict alone they can reach the 
 haven of safety and repose. 
 
 Nirvana, the kingdom of heaven, and all other 
 names and- titles signifying a realm of perfect bliss, 
 apply to states rather than to places ; we must conquer 
 the desire for sin and then no enemy can hurt us; we 
 must thrust from our affections anger, jealousy and all 
 impurity, and then with nothing to attract whatever 
 evil there may be around us, we shall be untouched by 
 harm in the midst of a million pestilences, and like 
 the three holy children of old, or Daniel in the den of 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. C0LV1LLE. 257 
 
 lions, remain secure, no matter how the beasts may 
 rage or the flames mount high around us. As a life- 
 boat breasts the ocean storm, while vessels sink around 
 it, as a cork floats peacefully on the bosom of troubled 
 waters while lead immediately sinks to the bottom of 
 the ocean, so does a soul emancipated from the heavy 
 alloy of mortal passion pass safely through every form 
 of tribulation and disease, fearing neither bacteria nor 
 moral evil. Metaphysicians are often grossly misrep- 
 resented by those who have never taken the trouble to 
 study metaphysics, because the mortal mind in error 
 cannot comprehend the truth of spirit. The principles 
 of spiritual science are pearls which neither dogs nor 
 swine can appreciate, and to such creatures they should 
 not be offered. The "dog" is the mortal mind of man, 
 not necessarily evil, but spiritually unenlightened, that 
 state of human consciousness which apprehends sensu- 
 ous things only, and can form no thought of spirit. 
 The " dog " element in man is materialistic, agnostic, 
 unspi ritual, and therefore it is but waste of time to 
 present spiritual ideas to that aspect of human nature ; 
 argument is often utterly unavailing because addressed 
 to the mortal mind only ; however sound it may be, it 
 is like the sun beating against the solid walls of a 
 building, while the spiritual perception is the only win- 
 dow through which it can be admitted. The " swine " 
 represent a much lower condition still, even a state of 
 deliberate opposition to the truth, a hatred of right- 
 eousness, and whenever a healer comes across the 
 "swine" in his patients he can do nothing for them 
 unless he can oust them from their sanctuary and 
 drown them in the waters of endless oblivion. 
 
 To drop metaphors and speak so plainly that no 
 
258 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 child need misunderstand or fail to comprehend our 
 meaning, we forcibly insist upon this one fact as essen- 
 tial to all comprehension of spiritual science, viz., the 
 utter impossibility of healing any in truth, unless you 
 can so touch the divine within them that they them- 
 selves arise out of their graves of error, and casting 
 away the love of evil, work out their own salvation. 
 
 God is man's ever-present Savior, but God is not 
 confined to any portion of the universe ; you come to 
 God when you find your own soul, for the logos within 
 you, the divine nature which you all possess, is the 
 medium of communication between man and the Infi- 
 nite Spirit. We are often asked if we should advise 
 our patients to discontinue the use of medicines stimu- 
 lants, crutches, and other foibles resorted to when mor- 
 tal mind, turning away from spirit to sense, endeavors 
 to find in matter the life which dwells only in spirit. 
 Our reply is, you can only err if you forcibly remove 
 from your patients a prop or leading string before he 
 is ready to walk without it. If you feel your patients 
 are doing wrong in resorting to material assistance, 
 and you wish to break them off entirely from material 
 aids, you must work in mind to induce them to see a 
 just reason for giving up the props on which they have 
 been accustomed to lean. Yery often persons return 
 to old errors, taking up again with material remedies 
 because never having lost their faith in their efficacy, 
 though temporarily they discontinued their use to 
 please the healer, they still feel they would be bet- 
 ter off with than without them. Never take away 
 liquor, tobacco, bromides, chloral, or any detestable 
 weed, drug, or medicine, but work rather to convince 
 your patient its employment is a degradation. In treat- 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 259 
 
 ing for the belief in the stimulating virtues of alco- 
 hol, you must argue down the theory that alcohol is a 
 tonic ; give your patients to understand that the exhil- 
 arating influence he feels is due to mental excitation 
 and not to the liquor. This exhilarated feeling you 
 can mentally produce ; you may give him colored 
 water and let him think it is a powerful medicine just 
 once, but no more, for the sake of a demonstra- 
 tion. When once he perceives that mind, not alcohol, 
 revived him and gave him a feeling of renewed health 
 and youthful buoyancy, the belief in ardent spirit as a 
 builder-up of wasted nerve force is crushed forever. 
 
 In treating for the love of tobacco and for belief in 
 its narcotic virtues, let your patient see that when you 
 exert your mind upon him you can produce in him all 
 the feelings he formerly attributed to the weed. This 
 demonstration ought to suffice to prove that virtue lies 
 in mind, and not in a plant. When anaesthetics are in 
 constant use to provoke sleep, when hyperdermic in- 
 jections are resorted to to relieve pain, you may admin- 
 ister simple water, and the effect will be the same. 
 The hold of morphine, laudanum, or any other drug 
 over the mind will thus be broken and the truth be 
 vindicated that belief, mental action, not matter occa- 
 sioned the results desired. 
 
 When a surgical operation is performed, the meta- 
 physician should be in close attendance to direct the 
 thought of the patient to immortal spirit away from 
 mortal flesh ; if ether, cocaine, or nitrous oxide gas 
 can deaden sensibility and thus release from pain, 
 mind can do vastly more than any drug, and if at first 
 you resort to what may seem the subterfuge of pre- 
 senting a counterfeit anaesthetic to the patient, it will 
 
2G0 LECTURE BY W. J. C0LVILLE. 
 
 be only for the sake of demonstrating truth that you 
 ever condescended to simulate the practices of mortal 
 error. Bread pills are not honest if constantly sold at 
 an apothecary's, for the only use they are in any case 
 is to prove that when taken in the belief that they are 
 strongly medicated, they produce medical results. 
 
 Having once proved the truth that mind alone pro- 
 duces sensation and gives fancied potency ' to matter, 
 you should never condescend to play tricks with your 
 patient in the futile endeavor to demonstrate truth by 
 acting a lie. If a person gives medicine conscientiously 
 in the belief that it will do good, he is no imposter, and 
 throws out no bad influence. Honest doctors of all 
 schools do some good, but the cunning trickster, who 
 gives his patient bread pills and colored water year m 
 and year out, keeping him always on his hands, instead 
 of being an approximation to a true metaphysician, is 
 a mental malpractitioner, using so-called remedies to 
 gull others, while he knows himself that mind, not 
 matter, is the source w r hence their reputed etiicacy 
 proceeds. If you reveal to your patient the truth of 
 being gradually, as he is able to bear it, making no rash 
 disclosures, shocking no prejudices violently, but work- 
 ing constancy to undermine the foundations of error, 
 you will find that he begins to ask you questions, evi- 
 dently prompted by the silent treatment you have 
 given. Argue all cases silently at first, and then con- 
 verse as soon as your patient's mind shows a disposi- 
 tion to talk on spiritual science. 
 
 In treating a child or any one who is under strong 
 mesmeric influence, you must treat the mother, or 
 whoever is the keeper of the child's mind, at the same 
 time, working earnestly to unfold the child's individual 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLV1LLE. 201 
 
 intelligence ; in the case of one who is mesmerized, if 
 you can reach the operator, command him to deliver 
 up his prey ; if one is injuring another, hold before 
 them the truth that liberty is the prerogative of all 
 God's children, so as to shame them out of practicing 
 the infamy of mental slaveholding. 
 
 In the case of an idiot, idiocy being only arrested 
 mental development, work to dispel fear and belief in 
 mental unsoundness in the minds of all who surround 
 the idiot. Idiots, no matter how many years they may 
 have lived, are only grown-up children, like a charac- 
 ter in Dickens, who, though twenty-eight years of age, 
 imagining herself only ten, acted as though she were 
 no older. Begin with an idiot or imbecile person as 
 though you were instructing a child ; forget the age of 
 your patient altogether and conscientiously impart 
 instruction as to an infant. With one violently mad, 
 remember violent insanity is brought on by indulgence 
 of the passions, furious temper, and perhaps most of 
 all by the perpetual belief of those around, holding the 
 sufferer in fear and dread. 
 
 Whenever you are asked to take a case in any hos- 
 pital or lunatic asylum, make friends with the officials 
 if you possibly can, do your utmost to secure a bright, 
 hopeful attendant for your patient, and wherever cir- 
 cumstances permit, have the sufferer removed to quiet 
 quarters. Change of air and scene, so constantly rec- 
 ommended by physicians, means only change of men- 
 tal atmosphere, for if travel produces no distraction 
 for the mind, no benefit can be derived from circum- 
 navigating the globe. When a metaphysician is so sit- 
 uated as to be able to do so, let him take one or two 
 patients in his own house, that they may enjoy the 
 
262 LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 benefits to be derived from living in a sphere of 
 thought which is not loaded with fears and beliefs of 
 disease. When you go out to treat, it is well to treat 
 in your patient's own room, which should always be a 
 quiet, though a cheerful one, not necessarily pervaded 
 by a death-like stillness, which is often anything but 
 beneficial, but removed as far as possible from all 
 discordant noises. Cheerful conversation, agreeable 
 occupation, anything to divert the mind from disease, 
 is good, and everyone who carries brightness into a 
 sick chamber helps to make it well. Nervous people 
 who sympathize with error must never be admited to a 
 patient's room, and nurses above all people must be 
 chosen on account of their cheerful disposition and 
 good moral character. Hospital training is no qualifi- 
 cation, for in many instances it either produces careless 
 indifference or else a spirit of predicting evil. 
 
 As life is now and ever, in spirit, and as we must all 
 of us wake up some day from our dream of mortal il- 
 lusions and acknowledge understandingly the simple 
 truth of spirit, death should never be feared or recog- 
 nized, for we must all drop the mortal body sooner or 
 later, and whenever its work is done let it go pain- 
 lessly, while the immortal spirit is freed from limita- 
 tion. God is well and so are we, is an ever-present 
 truth. Truth prophecies no recovery, it deals in no fu- 
 tures, it proclaims to all mankind, You are well, even 
 if you do not know it. The soul is never sick, never 
 sins and never suffers, and we shall be all spiritual 
 throughout eternity, having dropped the mortal mind 
 with all its painful memories. 
 
 Whatever is truly good and enjoyable is eternal, 
 whatever conduces to real happiness lives forever. All 
 
LECTURE BY W. J. COLVILLE. 2G3 
 
 true unselfish affection is immortal, but whatever is of 
 the shadow and darkness of mortal misjudgment can 
 endure no longer than till the light of truth illumines 
 the understanding, and forever puts to flight the shades 
 of error. Truth is mighty and must prevail. Be this 
 our motto; no perhaps about it, absolute certainty of 
 victory, unswerving confidence in the almightiness of 
 truth is the only armor which can protect us in our en- 
 counters with evil. If the battle seems long and pa- 
 tience is sorely tried, if relapses occur and the good 
 work seems to make but little progress, we should at- 
 tribute seeming failure only to our own weakness, and 
 with redoubled energy press on to certain victory. 
 "With malice toward none and good will to all man- 
 kind, as champions of truth equipped in the love 
 and understanding of it, we may all treat successfully 
 first ourselves and then others ; but self-treatment 
 when successful is never selfish, so we must seek first 
 to bless others, and in blessing them we shall assuredly 
 be blest ourselves, 
 
INVOCATION. 
 
 ETERNAL and Infinite Spirit, Life, Light, Wisdom, 
 Love, Truth, Justice ! Thou Soul of the Universe, 
 Creator, Sustainer, and Enlightener of Mankind, we do 
 not pray to thee because we think that our petitions can 
 improve thy laws or alter thy designs ; Ave do not ask 
 thee to ward off from us any trial, suffering or tempta- 
 tion which in thy wisdom thou seest to be best for us. 
 We would not ask thee to exalt us above our fellows, or 
 make the lands we love the best, the fairest and most 
 prosperous beneath the sun. But Ave will implore thee 
 to stir up within us all generous resolves and virtuous 
 inclinations ; we will unfold the petals of our souls to 
 catch the sunshine, and open the windows of our minds 
 as best we may to let in those airs from heaven Avhich 
 stir us sometimes like mighty hurricanes, and again 
 like gentle zephyrs avoo us into neAAmess of life and 
 fuller conformity with thy divine behest. We would 
 welcome the storm clouds of adversity equally with the 
 soft rains of summer days and the gentle dews of sum- 
 mer nights ; Ave would praise thee for the 
 lightning and the thunder, the roar of the ocean and 
 the strife Avhich causes men's hearts to quake with fear, 
 as Avell as for the sweet singing of the nightingales and 
 the loveliness and perfume of the choicest floAvers ; for 
 Ave can trace thee in lire and Hood as well as in pros- 
 perity and calm, and rejoice to confine ourselves and all 
 whom we love unreservedly into thine all-gracious 
 
 264 
 
invocation. 265 
 
 keeping, feeling sure that in birth or death, in joy or 
 sorrow, in commotion or repose, thou art working for 
 the best good of all thy creatures, and cans't leave one 
 to perish or mourn eternally, away from the knowl- 
 edge of thy truth and the realization of thy love. We 
 are but frail and erring, and thou art infinitely just and 
 pure. Our perfection can never be like thine, an infi- 
 nite perfection, but as each separate blossom in the 
 garden or the field may be perfect after its kind and yet 
 resemble nothing but its own species, so may we, each 
 and all, learn so to live that in our spheres and degrees 
 we ma} T be as perfect as all our strength and all our 
 opportunity will permit. May we ever keep before us 
 the noblest models, cherish the loftiest ideas, pursue 
 the heavenliest goals ; and may we be content with noth- 
 ing short of that justice which is as wise as it is loving, 
 and compassionate as it is wise ; may we learn to recon- 
 cile mercy with justice to our own understandings, and 
 know that to thee they are in eternal agreement. So 
 may our influence upon all with whom we mingle, and 
 whose lives we in any wa} T effect, be an influence for 
 good only, in this and in every stage of our existence, 
 now and in eternity. We ask for every blessing for the 
 sake of that humanity in whose welfare we would find 
 the highest glory. 
 
THE MOKNING NOON AND EVENING OF LIFE. 
 
 IMPROMPTU POEM. 
 Subject Chosen by Audience in Oakland, Cal. 
 
 Morning, when the day grows bright, 
 When awakes the glorious light, 
 When the shadows pass away, 
 When the world awakes to day. 
 
 Morning, beautiful and fair, 
 Your sweet splendors everywhere 
 Fill us with ecstatic hope ; 
 Thou the chain of night hast broke. 
 
 Thou art sweet and passing fair, 
 Morning beam and frosty air, 
 Thou dost drive the darksome night 
 Far away by thy bright light. 
 
 Morning, o'er the distant hill, 
 We behold thy waking rill, 
 And we know that noon will come, 
 But thou first must win thy home. 
 
 On the mountain top so high, 
 Morning breaks o'er all the sky, 
 And the prophets standing there, 
 Gazing through the cold, clear air, 
 See the rising of ihe sun, — 
 Day already hath begun. 
 
 Those who early wake and toil 
 Up the mountain, on that soil 
 Far above the valleys low, 
 See the day begin to glow. 
 266 
 
IMPROMPTU POEM. 267 
 
 While those in a lower place 
 Turn their eyes toward the face 
 Of the east where day is born, 
 But see not the breaking morn. 
 
 So those holy souls aflame 
 
 With the light of love — who claim 
 
 To be pioneers of right, 
 
 Who stand foremost in the fight, 
 
 Those can tell of coming day, 
 
 Rolling night's dark cloud away. 
 
 They upon the mountain stand, 
 And across a darkened land 
 They behold in purple east 
 Morning's rich and glorious feast. 
 
 So, if any soul shall say, 
 I behold the breaking day, 
 The glad morning of the truth. 
 The new coming of love's youth, — 
 
 Those who see it first must be 
 Up, alive, and actively 
 Climb where'er the truth doth lead, 
 To the point where o'er the mead 
 They can see the coming day 
 Break in glory o'er the way. 
 
 Lovely morning all so bright ! 
 Breezes soft and day's young light ! 
 Morn is childhood, passing dear, 
 Morn is youth, exempt from fear. 
 
 Morn brings hope, a sweet young grace ; 
 Knowledge comes — it then gives place 
 To a brighter, nobler hour — 
 Noonday shines in fuller power. 
 
 Come to morning's hill apace, — 
 Day grows brighter, new-born grace, 
 Added light and added love, 
 Stream from fount of truth above. 
 
2G8 IMPROMPTU POEM. 
 
 Noonday splendor, when thou'rt here 
 All the shadows disappear ; 
 Noonday splendor, thou art love, 
 Truth divine from spheres above. 
 
 Thou fruition's glorious hour, 
 Thou midsummer with thy bower 
 Filled with flowers and beauteous things, 
 With the stir of radiant wings. 
 
 But in distant sky, behold, 
 After all the glorious gold, 
 After all the many flowers, 
 After all the charmed bowers, 
 After all the light of day, 
 Evening follows, cold and gray. 
 
 For the night again must come, 
 All the birds be gathered home, 
 All the flowers must shut their eyes — 
 Night again with dull surprise 
 Follows with a sleep profound, 
 Hushing Nature's loveliest sound. 
 
 Has the daylight been in vain ? 
 
 Has the turmoil and the pain, 
 
 Has the light and heat been naught ? 
 
 Has the sun its battle fought, 
 
 Only to retire at length, 
 
 Shorn of all its heat and strength ? 
 
 Night has come indeed ; but we 
 In the night-time clearly see 
 Million worlds in yonder sky, 
 Beaming bright, benign, and high. 
 
 If the evening ne'er should come, 
 If the day should ne'er go home, 
 And the sun retire to rest ; 
 Sinking in the purple west, 
 Then you would not see the stars 
 Shining through the empyrean bars. 
 
IMPROMPTU POEM. 269 
 
 So when night falls over man, 
 
 So when God's mysterious plan 
 
 Doth ordain that flowers shall fade, 
 
 And your lives in darksome shade 
 
 Of bereavement for a while 
 
 Rest where day no more doth smile, — 
 
 Then the many stars in heaven 
 For the night-time all are given ; 
 And the sorrow and the shade 
 Show the heavens with light arrayed. 
 
 And the many stars of love, 
 In their glorious home above, 
 Shine upon you through the night, 
 Turning darkness into light. 
 
 Then when you've the lesson learned 
 Which so many hearts have spurned, 
 When the night-time all is o'er, 
 Then the morning breaks once more. 
 
 You have seen the stars at night, 
 Then when shines the new-born light, 
 'Tis the new light far above 
 Earthly death, and therein love, 
 Glad new morning, bright new day, 
 Breaks in light across your way. 
 Lo ! th' experience of the night 
 Doth prepare for morning light. 
 
 So 'twill ever be on earth, 
 Alternating death and birth. 
 So with morning, noon and eve, 
 Songs of pleasure we will weave. 
 Treasured wheresoe'er they go, 
 Life's deep river thus must flow. 
 Onward, forward to the sea, 
 To the great Eternity. 
 
270 IMPROMPTU POEM. 
 
 Morning, noon and night will lead 
 Over briars and flowery mead 
 To the glorious land at last 
 Where the day is never past ; 
 Where the sun and all the stars 
 You can see ; where all the bars 
 Of your senses, darkness here, 
 For all ages disappear. 
 
 Glorious morning ne'er to die ! 
 Glorious fount of ecstacy ! 
 Beatific vision blest 
 In that world of perfect rest 
 And divinest work — where man 
 At the last, by God's good plan, 
 Shall he perfect ; unto thee 
 All our eyes turn lovingly. 
 With the red of love divine, 
 Wisdom's golden light shall shine 
 And the blue of truth will blend 
 With the white, which ne'er can end. 
 Purity, this is the whole, 
 This reveals th' eternal soul. 
 
 Blue of truth, upon life's flag, 
 Red of love must never lag ; 
 But one color yet } t ou need, — 
 Wisdom's golden light to lead 
 To the perfect white divine 
 Of pure light ; in deepest mine 
 Of affection for the truth. 
 Wisdom, love with ageless youth, 
 All our souls must turn to thee, 
 Eternal One, eternally. 
 
THE EDUCATOR, 
 
 CAUSE AND CURE OF ALL DISEASE. 
 
 A work of over 700 pages, just issued. 
 
 By Rosa Cadman Congar, M.H., and Dr. M. E. Congar. 
 
 This work is made up of Twenty-four Chapters, Second Part or 
 Supplement. 
 
 Chapter I. — Introductory, by Dr. Congar. 
 
 Chapter II. — Causes : Ignorance and neglect. 
 
 Chapter III. — Remedies: Innumerable and simple; should be as 
 varied in application as are the faces of the human family. 
 
 Chapter IV. — Lungs, Stomach and Circulation: These vital 
 organs and their functions duly considered. 
 
 Chapter V. — Heart and Liver: Their importance as vital organs 
 considered. 
 
 Chapter VI. — Constipation and Piles : This one chapter is worth 
 the price of the book to every family. 
 
 Chapter VII. — Baths, Gymnastics and Ventilation : The les- 
 sons taught in this division are all vital and important. 
 
 Chapter VIII. — Hygienic Food: If you desire perfect health, 
 you must make a careful study and live the teachings of this 
 chapter. 
 
 Chapter IX. — Physiology of Marriage: Advice and counsel that 
 parents should not ignore. 
 
 Chapter X. — Fevers and Inflammations: Only signals of dis- 
 tress; friends, and not enemies. 
 
 Chapter XI. — Bowels, Kidneys and Bladder: If diseased, be- 
 cause of bad treatment. 
 
 Chapter XII. — Sunshine and Shadow: Important, very im- 
 portant health requisites. 
 
 Chapter XIII. — Dress : The subject dressed as only woman can 
 dress it. 
 
 Chapter XIV. — Colds, Catarrh, Consumption, Bronchitis, 
 Asthma and Indigestion: Causes shown, and simple remedies 
 prescribed which have never failed. 
 
 Chapter XV. — Useful Recipes: Condensed items; necessities in 
 every household. 
 
Chapter XVI. — Health Crystals : Illustrates the power of poetry 
 and gems of thought, to heal and uplift the sick and depressed. 
 
 Chapter XVII. — Pregnancy: Parturition without pain considered. 
 The subject treated by a mother, having had large sxperience 
 and observation. 
 
 Chapter XVIII. — Children, their Care at Birth r.nd During 
 Childhood : Thirty pages devoted to this important subject. 
 
 Chapter XIX. — Diseases of Women and Children : Women are 
 everywhere suffering from ignorance of the laws of their being. 
 A careful study will be of great advantage to both mother and 
 child. 
 
 Chapter XX. — Testimony of Fifty Eminent M.D's., Profes- 
 sors and Chemists : We ask all who think they are safe in rely- 
 ing upon medicines when sick, to read this chapter, of the 
 " Educator " before any other. 
 
 Chapter XXI. — Tobacco and Alcoholic Liquors: We only ask a 
 candid, unprejudiced perusal of this division of the work. 
 
 Chapter XXII. — Health Hash: A hundred or more brief hints 
 hashed up for the good of all. 
 
 Chapter XXIII. — Menstruation and Change of Life: Important 
 facts for old and young. 
 
 Chapter XXIV. — Miscellaneous Diseases, Remedies and Sug- 
 gestions : The suggestions will uplift and strengthen your lives. 
 Read every word of w this closing chapter. 
 
 SUPPLEMENT OR PART II. 
 
 TWELVE CLASS LECTURES 
 
 BY THE EMINENT TEACHER OF BOSTON, 
 
 W. J. COLVILLE. 
 
 SUBJECT : 
 
 METAPHYSICAL HEALING. 
 
 No advanced student of science can ignore these teachings. 
 Believer or doubter will be well paid for a careful perusal of the 
 Supplement. 
 
 The Educator is just what every practical metaphysician should 
 study. 
 
 TERMS TO AGENTS. 
 
 Unusual inducements are offered agents, both men and women, 
 in every State, County, City and Township in the United States. 
 
 GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO, 
 
 Lock Box 620, Ciiicaoo, III. 
 
 H 244 83 
 
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