SHADOWS:' A FAMILIAR PRESENTATION THOUGHTS AND EXPERIENCES SPIRITUAL MATTEES, WITH ILLUSTRATIVE NARRATIONS. BY JOHN WETHERBEE. " Concerning those spiritual beings which ' Walk the earth Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.' Are there, indeed, such beings ? Is this space between us and the Deity fllled up by innumerable orders of spiritual beings ?" W. Irving. BOSTON: COLBY & RICH, PUBLISHERS, Corner Bosworth and Province Sts. 1885. COPYRIGHTED BY JOHN WETHERBEB, 1885. DEDICATION. Jo J^OUISE, The wife of my youth, who is also my wife and inspirer now in my matu- rity. How much during the past two or three decades have wo together thought over these once strange, bat now, by long association, familiar realities? When our first-born passed into the world of silence, where she is now, the unseen but not an uuperceived member of our otherwise unbroken family, how sweet to have found the "Gates Ajar," so that we both realized that, though invisible, she was not absent, when with fear, but hopefully, we wrote, inspired by our grief : Oh, philosophy ! destroy not the charm That cheers thus our hours of sadness ; Dissolve not the spell, if 't is but a dream, That changes our sorrow to gladness. These little soft raps we now and then hear I feel are the voice of my daughter; They seem to be saying: " Dear mother, I 'm here," Though they sound like the dropping of water. Our two little boys when they hear these raps, Too young, like us, to have missed her, Look up with a smile, and say: " Do you hear The voice of our dear little sister? " Neither philosophy nor experience has disturbed the current of our happy belief; and while our loved little one has grown into womanhood in the land of souls, the inspiring fact has strengthened in us with our years. I have felt like saying this much, and to say also that this book is due to you, for I doubt if I would have put my thoughts into this form but for your persuasion from appreciation of my written words and of me; so to you, my beloved, the w ell -preserved mother of our Hattie, at an age when sentiment is apt to have gone into eclipse, happily not in our case, I dedicate these "SHADOWS" to you, feeling assured that in the alembic of your own mind and heart they will show up both as summer and sun- Rhine. J. W. PREFACE. T HAVE been rather arbitrary in calling these pages - "SHADOWS," for there is nothing particularly shadowy in them, except that the subject in many minds is suggestive of the shadowy. The following colloquy, which lately occurred, as given below, will explain its title as well as in any other way, if an explanation is of any consequence : Mr. Shadows was seated, pen in hand, at his writing table, when his friend, Mr. Boulder Scratches, entered the room, and, seeing the situation, said : " Well, Shadows, what are you at now ?" "I have a book inside of me," said he, or the matter of one, and I have made up my mind to make it manifest in the form." " On what subject ? " said Scratches ; or, I need not ask that, but what is the special point in Spiritualism to be treated, or what is the name or title of the book to be ? " "I do not know myself yet," said Shadows ; there is time enough for a name before it will be ready for the printer." Scratches said : " When I write anything, I start with a title." " I never do," said Shadows ; but now you have spoken of it, and are not a novice in book-making, I think a name would help me some. I wish I had one cut and dried, and adapted to my thought." " Why do n't you name it after yourself," said he ; your name and Spiritual- 6 PREFACE. ism seem to be suggestive of each other. ' Come like shadows^ so depart,' " he said, quoting from Macbeth, the low or deep voice in which he spoke it struck him favorably, and he said : " I think I will ; my name or your name, ' Shadows, or ' Scratches,' I do n't know but I like ' Scratches ' the better, but as you may wish some day to use ' Scratches,' I guess I will christen mine ' SHADOWS.' " The endeavor has been in these chapters, or, as now called, Shadows, fast, that each one should be a finished one of itself, using the word finish in rather a liberal sense, that is, that each chapter should be a readable one, without any special connection with the other, and aiming at no logical or consecutive order, so that in reading them one can skip about without any confusion. The endeavor has also been, in the matter presented, to make the chapters in their wholeness give the reason, with- out particularly saying so, why I am a Spiritualist, not that it is of any consequence to the public what I am, or in what I believe, but being rather a man of the world and of busi- ness, one who has touched current life actively, if not broadly, and who is not constitutionally a dreamer or a sentimentalist. In my retired or private social circle I am not thought to be one whose tendencies would be either religious or spiritual, but being, I trust, both, the chapters, or shadows, that com- pose this book, will explain the reason why, if it be a mat- ter of interest to anyone. The endeavor has also been to make this book a familiar presentation of the subject of modern Spiritualism to those whom it may concern, both among its exponents and among PREFACE. 7 that wider world who feel interested in the subject, and wish it were true, and who, like myself, want the "bottom facts." In what I have said I have aimed at simplicity, and I know I have been truthful. If I have used the personal pronoun too much for good taste, no one is more aware of it than I am, but it could not very well be avoided with what I had in contemplation. My apology then is my desire, by this familiar, confidential way of expressing myself, to be persuasive, or, at least, to command the attention of the thoughtful reader. J. W. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Giving in a familiar way the Genesis and the Exodus of these chapters, which the author has somewhat arbitrarily called "Shadows" 13 CHAPTER II. ITS RAISON D'ETRE. A substitute for faith. The Bible a sealed book without it. With it, a rational one 27 CHAPTER III. THE GATES AJAR. Explaining why the writer is a Spiritualist, and obliged to be one 35 CHAPTER IV. FIRST INTERVIEW WITH SPIRITS. Its permanent entry into the writer's mental life. Details of the interview 47 CHAPTER V. LIFE'S AFTERNOON. The "Dawning Light" seems to be a boon or consolation to advancing years. An extension-claim . . . .57 CHAPTER VI. INDEPENDENT SLATE-WRITING. An elaborate description of an experience under the most rigid conditions G9 CHAPTER VII. PHENOMENA WITH COLCHESTER. Thoughts on sensuous phenomena, and illustrations from experience 83 CHAPTER VIII. PHANTOMATIC TABLE-TALK. Being an article illustrative of the subject in general . . 95 CONTENTS. 9 CHAPTER IX. EPES SARGENT. Some description of him, and experiences he and the writer have had together. Joseph Cook 104 CHAPTER X. ON LEANNESS OP THOUGHT. The deficiency is made up by the sensuous proof of a spirit- ual source 117 CHAPTER XI. PEG-SPIRITUALISM. An article written for, and published in, The Radical . . 125 CHAPTER XII. HOME MANIFESTATIONS. Giving a brief account of phenomena which are both "bot- tom facts" and " startling facts " 138 CHAPTER XIII. SEERSHIP OR CLAIRVOYANCE. Giving an account of phenomena with an intelligent and sometimes a prophetic basis 147 CHAPTER XIV. SUBJECTIVE APPARITIONS. A visit of consolation where the consoler got consoled . 154 CHAPTER XV. EMELINE'S APPARITION. Other " white ladies " besides the one of Avenel, related by Sir Walter Scott 160 CHAPTER XVI. IDENTIFICATION OF SPIRITS. The Sage of Galveston returns according to promise . . 169 CHAPTER XVII. UNKNOWN QUANTITIES. Prime factors. Philosophical musings on human happi- ness 182 CHAPTER XVIII. ALLEN DOLE. A reliable family tradition that amounts almost to a personal experience 189 10 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIX. INDIAN-SPIRIT INFLUENCES. What the subject suggests, aud a supplement of poetry. Astronomical 197 CHAPTER XX. A WAYSIDE SKETCH. An entertaining sketch that will till up some deficiencies hi the course of these " Shadows" 207 CHAPTER XXI. MATTER AND SPIRIT. Of intercourse with spirits. Some conditions worth know- ing. Illustrations. Sealed letters .... 219 CHAPTER XXII. A PENUMBRAL SKETCH. An afternoon with the spirits. - A departed friend returns from over the river, and owns up 229 CHAPTER XXIII. MATERIALIZATION. Affirmations. Critical comments. Illustrative Experi- ences 238 CHAPTER XXIV. CUI BONO ? What is the good of it all, even admitting it to be true ? The answer self-evident 254 CHAPTER XXV. PREVISION. Containing some thoughts on prophecy, critical aud illus- trative 259 CHAPTER XXVI. DETACHED THOUGHTS. Conclusions on several interesting and important points . 2G7 CHAPTER XXVII. THE BOSTON OUTLOOK. Thoughts that the locality suggests to a Spiritualist . . 278 Theodore Parker 288 " A few years since I had a long conversation with a bishop, who is held in deservedly high reputation by the orthodox body of Christians to which he belongs. He introduced the subject of modern Spiritualism, and I asked him how he regarded its phenomena. He answered frankly and satisfactorily. He said that evidences of infidelity were multiplying among us ; he lately heard a professor of Harvard College say that three-fourths of the scientific men of our day are unbelievers, and skepticism is beginning to intrude among the clergy. He told me that he himself, a few weeks before, had visited the death-bed of an aged brother in the ministry, a man who had devoted a long life with rare faithfulness to the duties of his profession. As they spoke of the evidences of Christianity, a shade of sadness passed over the dying man's face. ' Ah, bishop,' said he, ' the proof, the proof! If we only had it ! ' " B. D. Owen, in "Debatable Land." 11 I. INTRODUCTORY. Giving in a familiar way the Gf-enesis and the Exodus of these chapters, which the author has somewhat arbitrarily called "Shadows." The writer trusts that what he may say in the way of introduction will be as much a part of the main argument of the book as if he had written it under some more definite heading. His intention or object can be better set forth in this way than in the sev- eral chapters that follow, saving superfluity, enabling him to better present the subject in its many points with simplicity and brevity. If one writes, or rather publishes, a book, he should have something to say, and a motive for say- ing it. The writer thinks he has something to say on what he considers the most important subject for human consideration; and most thoughtful people will agree with him on that point, very likely, how- ever, qualifying this superlative expression with an "{/V' saying, if there were anything definitely known about it. If the writer, by his long experience and investigation under great advantages, did not con- sider the qualifying if a superfluity, and that he 18 14 INTRODUCTORY. knew with about as much certainty the truth of this somewhat transcendental subject as he did of things in general that are considered by thoughtful, schol- arly people as true and worthy of attention, he would show his wisdom by remaining silent. Whether he has anything to say, therefore, the production must speak for itself. As for the motive he has for writ- ing the book, he has many ; the principal one is, he has been persuaded that what he has to say is really wanted, and deserves a hearing. In this connection, by way of explanation, the following circumstance will not be out of place : He will now more familiarly address the reader ; thinks he can come closer, and express himself bet- ter in a change from the third to the first person, even at the expense of apparent egotism, for which he asks pardon. A very venerable minister, residing in the State of New York, attracted by the fascinating subject of a future life, began a correspondence with me. He was much nearer his ninetieth than to his eightieth year ; had had a long, successful, and useful career ; had been for many years the settled minister over a church of the liberal, or Unitarian, order. He had, of course, in that capacity, performed the marriage and the funeral services of his people and neighbor- hood during all that time. He had consoled the mourners in their bereavement when death had drafted from their midst the old or the young faces of the family circles in his parish or town. I do not know at what period these ministerial consolations INTRODUCTORY. 15 had become merely a form, his faith in a future life having gone into eclipse, and agnostic ideas had taken possession of his mind ; but when he began his correspondence with me he had doubts of the future or continued existence of man after the death of the body, and on that account he had retired from his pulpit into a private, scholarly, thoughtful life. Somebody had sent him an article that I had writ- ten, in which I had narrated an experience which, he said, "if true to the letter, would settle the ques- x tion affirmatively in his mind," and he began the cor- respondence of which I have spoken, and which grew interesting to both of us. I found him so penetrat- ing, acute, and mentally vigorous that I never dreamed of his being so old a man, as later I learned he was. Now I will take the liberty of digressing just for a minute, following my impression, and, doing so, will be in keeping with my statement that, though this is an " Introduction," it is also something more than one. Thinking of this thoughtful old man leads me to say, in this episodical way, that mental activity in the line of hopeful thought is a great lengthenerof human life, occupation of one's mind on high mutters, whether on the scientific plane or in the religious or the spiritual direction, so long as the pabulum is mentally nutritious, that is truthful, or seemingly so. I hope the reader will understand me when I say rational thought, for a man may be very earnest, very fluent, and very full of moral and religious ideas, based on what, in his own mind, he 16 INTRODUCTORY. does not consider reasonable or true-, no matter how sure he pretends to be of his premises, having scrip- tural endorsement and the whole army of Bible be- lievers to sustain him, that kind of truth which may in a man's heart seem untrue, I do not offer as nutritious food or life-prolonging. A sure and happy future life, after the mortal one has ended, in one's mind, based on sensuous proof, or even on intuition, if it amounts to proof, is a lengthener of life in this world, and, all other things being equal both in a man's Genesis and his Exodus, it adds youthfulness also to his longevity. Let no one now quote the many exceptional instances to this bold statement, and mention, perhaps, Theodore Parker, who was really eighty when he was only fifty, and who on thiii theory was entitled to duration ; nor many a poor, thoughtless, hard-working, and very ignorant person who outstays his threescore-and-ten a decade or two, for these are the exceptions. Statistics show that the studious and scholarly class outlast the laboring class in longevity. With the sensuous, proof that a man not only has a future beyond the dark valley, but one that is an extension of this life into the domain of the spiritual, as it becomes a matter of general acceptance, will add to human longevity. Many things have already extended the average length cf human life from what it was a hundred years ago, sanitary attention, wisdom in living, better ventilation, and the principle of the survival of the fittest, carrying its momentum with it, have effected this improvement, which is a matter of fact, INTRODUCTORY. 17 now add to these important factors not only the hope but the demonstration of the survival of the man beyond the death of the body, then, when its belief is as general as is the belief in the Copernican sys- tem, or as it is to those who constitute the body politic of Spiritualism, it will add still more to the years of human duration, and to its usefulness also, for the face behind the mask is not supposed to be a wrinkled one. Returning now from this episode to our venerable e:r-minister, with whom, as has been stated, I have had much correspondence, whose earnest, vigorous words have impressed me both with his command of language, his logic, and his sincerity. I liked very much his interrogatories, his incisive thrusts into my statements, his desire for the "bottom facts." I think he did me good, whether I relieved him from his doubts or not. I really made no effort to convert him. I never do to anyone; am making none now in writing this book. To make converts, or the con- version of anyone, is to me a matter of indifference. I sometimes think the doctrine of election shows itself in this matter, as it does in many others, as a constitutional quality, so that the old orthodox point may after all have had some natural basis of truth. I simply gave this correspondent what, from my point of view, appeared to be the truth regarding modern Spiritualism, illustrating it from my experi- ence. I want it to be understood by all that I am a Spiritualist from experience. I do not think I could 18 INTRODUCTORY. believe as I do on anyone's testimony. People are differently constituted; some believe more readily than others ; some people are helped by their intui- tions. Theodore Parker once said to me, speaking of "spiritual manifestations," that he needed no proofs of another life ; if he had any doubts, it was of this life, whether this world was a reality, none at all of the other. Blessed are these men who are such born believers. They are the ones who in all ages have kept the sacred fire of hope alive and burn- ing. The mass of mankind, particularly in this materialistic age, lack this inspiring intuition, and so need sensuous proof, and, without it, are without faith. Our venerable minister says, in one of his letters, that if he had my experience, and knew that it was so, he would be a believer, and be happy. Some- times he is afraid, he says, I am beguiled by others, or, perhaps, by my own desires. It is possible I am; I am only human, but I hardly think so ; if I in any degree thought so, I would at once lay down my pen. I am as sure of my facts, in this line of thought, as I am of them in any other department of knowledge. As I propose in the following chapters to give some of my experiences as well as some of my infer- ences and deductions, I am taking some liberty in this introductory chapter to impress upon the reader, as I did upon this minister, that I am dealing with positive facts, and not suppositions. I am sure there is a power, impulse, or force in nature not recognized as yet by science, or as something outside of the rec- INTRODUCTORY. 19 ognized domain of science ; the best exoteric defini- tion of it is Psychic Force. This power, or force, is certainly intelligent, even if ultra human. It claims to be a voice from " over the river " from departed spirits ; it claims to be from the loved and lost, from those whose bodies are moldering in the grave, assuring us mortals that they still live. This intelli- gent "psychic force " has never claimed to be any- thing else but a departed human being, in a single instance, from the rirst manifestation in 1848 to the present time. It probably never will. It looks to me as if it was going, as the saying is, " to laugh last," or best. With the evidence I have, some of which I pro- pose to present, I am obliged to take this "Psj'chic Force's " word, and believe in dealing with it I am dealing, not with the dead, but with those whose mortal forms only are tenants of the world's sepul- chers, but who are still living entities; I am obliged to respect that claim, for I would stultify my under- standing if I did not. I am aware that outside of this mysterious source of information, this " spiritual environment," that the subject suggests, is not proved; so, in a sense, to assume it, is begging the question ; but if it be admitted as a verity, as the Bible, and as poetry in general is authority for, " that we are surrounded by a countless multitude of witnesses," or, in the words of the poet, that "The spiritual world Lies all about us, and its avenues Are open to the unseen feet of phantoms 20 INTRODUCTORY. That come and go, and we perceive them not, Save by their influence." That is, make the scriptural or sentimental idea a matter of fact, then one must explain the phenomena of modern Spiritualism as being what it claims to be, the spirits of the departed, as poetically expressed in the following lines : " There is a world of spirits fair All around us and unseen; And those whom we call 'dead' are there With all that erst on earth hath been." As I believe in this spiritual environment, I be- lieve the claim that in every case this "Psychic Force " makes, which it made eighteen hundred years ago, and which in the modern form it makes today. Perhaps the older affirmation will express the idea as well as any other, so I will quote that, where John the Revelator, in the presence of the angel, which it seems was only a departed spirit, said (Rev. xix:10): "And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not : I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the tes- timony of Jesus : worship God." I do not know anything in the whole realm of physics, or what are called real things, more surely than I know that there is this spiritual surrounding which is taught in the Bible, and taught by modern Spiritualism. The human intellect, as Ernest Renan says, is infi- del ; it asks questions, and so it should ; but the INTRODUCTORY. 21 heart is the true believer ; hence poetry bubbles out of it full of nutritious sentiment that ought to be true, and what the sensuous proof, through modern Spiritualism, makes literal and true. Here is one of its expressions ; what a dreary world this would be if it were not a hope and a possibility : " Oh ! Heaven is nearer than mortals think, When they look with a trembling dread At the misty future that stretches on From the silent home of the dead." In corresponding with this aged but strong-minded man, I found myself drawn to him, and though he was at that period of life that demonstration of this matter was soon to be in the order of nature, I felt moved to be very open and frank with him, am astonished sometimes that I made the effort I did to justify my belief and to defend my perspicuity. Per- haps I was influenced to do so ; knowing what I do, I am obliged to believe that there is this influence, or watchful supervision of the world of spirits on or over the affairs of every-day life. At any rate, writ- ing, as I generally do, to be printed rather than for autographical correspondence, it was singular that I wrote this man so extensively as I did, and which, I trust, as I have said, has benefited both of us. When I received his last letter, which only ante- dates this chapter a few days, it seemed to call for this, may I say, " diffusion of knowledge." If what I had written to him in this fugitive way seemed to him valuable enough to say, rather urgingly, that I 22 INTRODUCTORY. ought to print it, and knowing his sincerity when he says in the last letter, to which I have referred : " I ain not well, and so cannot answer your last, but my main object in this is to make a suggestion, and it is this : that you gather what you have written to me on this subject, including some of your experiences from which you so freely draft, into a book, which would be of a very interesting and readable charac- ter, and just what thoughtful people want to read. Is not this a suggestion worthy of your serious thought? I have not less than fourteen articles from you that, of themselves, would make an attractive volume. Your letters to me on the subject are very valuable, and are worthy of a more extended peru- sal." It would seem, then, by a person competent to judge, that some of my thoughts, experiences, and hurried reflections have a value. I have had other similar suggestions from various sources. A letter from Alabama, just received, written in a very per- suasive manner, " to put some of my thoughts into a book form on this subject, in which we are all so in- terested, and know so little about, and I feel, when- ever I read anything of yours, I am getting an honest and intelligent view of the subject from your standpoint." These letters, coming so together, seemed to say to me that I had better venture to do so. Perhaps the intimation to do so dates higher than the State of New York, or of Alabama, or other mundane localities. We do not always know the sources of our inspiration. I am inclined to think INTRODUCTORY. 23 our thoughts and acts, great and small, are the result of influences from the world of spirits, so near and yet so remote. It seems to be asking the reader to take it for granted that the claim is proved before I begin my story, so I will close this preliminary chap- ter, it having done its work by embodying the rea- sons for issuing the book. Whether there are any occult or mystic influences mixed up with the reasons mentioned can be better told after it is finished than now in its preliminary pages. I am inclined to indorse most heartily, from close observation of the matter, the affirmation of the quaint Thoreau, some- times called the Walden hermit : " We should con- sider that the flow of thought is more like a tidal wave than a prone river, and is the result of a celes- tial influence, not of any declivity in its channel." Where are now the fabled beings that peopled space, That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain, Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, Or chasm, or wat'ry depths? All these have vanished ; Tiiey live no longer in the faith of reason ! But still the heart doth need a language ; still Doth the old instinct bring back the old names, And to yon starry world they now are gone ; Spirits, or gods, that used to share this earth With man as with their friends. Oh, never more will I blame his faith, In the might of stars and angels This visible nature and this common world Is all too narrow." Cokridgc. II. ITS EAISON D ETKE. A substitute for faith. The Bible a sealed book without it. With it, a rational one. Modern Spiritualism is not so much a matter of argument as it is a matter of experience ; still some may like to know a little of the experience that has made me (who am something of a worldly man, or one who has touched the world rather broadly) one of its adherents. Its truth, or foundation in fact, came to me in such a perfectly satisfactory manner over a quarter of a century ago that it established it- self in my mind, and has been my religion ever since. No one can foretell with certainty how the future may find him, but I think it one of the certain things in my future career that I will not backslide or fall from its grace ; that it has come to me to stay, and, as it is my religion now, so will it continue to be. It certainly ought to be true. If death ended all, and there was no future conscious life to departed human beings, that when a man died that was the end of him, certainly to most people this life would be a failure. A continuation of a man's career 27 28 SHADOWS. beyond the grave, from a human standpoint, is demanded on the score of justice. The Christian, or civilized world, sees that everywhere, and rests its hope on Divine revelation, or (-rod's word, for assur- ance. If the Bible were God's word, that would be an assurance. That holy and very valuable old book has, however, a very human flavor. God may speak in it, or through it, but certainly not in any real or literal manner. He speaks through it only as the Great First Cause speaks in and through everything in the world around us, and in the heavens above us. Men in old times, as now, may have been inspired, and uttered or written wise thoughts even beyond their own normal powers, many of them worthy of high sources, but certainly no one in this age will consider the Bible as God's word literally in any sense, even admitting it to be the most valuable book extant. My experience in spiritual manifestations has enhanced its value to me, because I see permeat- ing that book, from Genesis to Revelations, evidences of an intelligent spiritual environment, interested in and influencing mankind, and that, also, is the teach- ing of modern Spiritualism today. Expressed by a modern poet thus : " The spirit world, around this world of sense, Rests like an atmosphere, and everywhere Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense, A vital breath of more ethereal air." In an age when this world was the center of the universe, and the sun a ball of molten iron about the ITS BAISON D'ETRE. 29 size of the territory of Greece, these influences, or " strange visitants r ' from this environment, were mis- understood, intentionally or otherwise. In one case, it will be remembered, a correction was made by the angel, or divine messenger, or departed spirit, by his saying to the saintly apostle : " I am one of thy breth- ren of the prophets." At last we are learning to take the spirit of that book and not its letter, but that does not make the basis of a future life any better, or any more certain, for the definition of the spirit of it will vary in differently constituted minds; in the last analysis it becomes nothing but human testimony, and of no authority. In fact, the Bible is a sealed book without modern Spiritualism. Interpreted by it, there is proof that man survives death, but that makes one a Spiritualist. Outside of modern Spirit- ualism there is no proof that the man survives the death of his body. Helped by this later light, many things in the Bible, and outside of it, become point- ers, or proofs, of man's survival, but that aid is the property of and belongs to modern Spiritualism. To make a future conscious life certain one must return from the dead, or a message must come from one who has ended his mortal career, and it must be unmistakable. "Ah! blow me the scent of one lily, to tell That it grew outside of the world at most ; Ah ! show me a plume to touch, or a shell That whispers of some unearthly coast," is what the hungry human heart says, and has a right to say, and that is what modern Spiritualism claims 30 SHADOWS. to do, and what it certainly has done to me. It is the object of these chapters, which I have called "Shadows," to try to establish that claim. I hardly expect to do it, for the reason already stated, that the subject is more a matter of experience than of argument ; but we will do the best we can, and we will certainly be truthful, " and give to our airy 'something ' A local habitation and a name." Intuitive souls all over the world, and all through the ages, have felt their immortality, and the earth itself is ominous with the idea. The poet interviews it with his soul, and utters his thought in verse, speaking wiser than he knows, and thus often breath- ing the spirit of man's post-mortem life ; hungry humanity reads the sentiment, and wishes it was real, as well as poetic. One message from the world of spirits, one soul returning after having passed through death, would change poetry into truth, and bring the heart's intuitions into the domain of the positive. Until that message comes, or that " departed " one returns, the woman of Endor may raise Samuel, Moses and Elias be transfigured before Peter, James and John and the Revelator bow before the angel, and Hamlet may see the ghost of the royal Dane armed, cap-a-pie, and Longfellow may tell in his pensive, almost truthful, way that " Through the open doors The harmless phantoms on their errands glide With feet that make no noise upon the floors. ITS RAISON D'ETRE. 31 We meet them at the door-way, on the stair, Along the passages they come and go, Impalpable impressions on the air, A sense of something moving to and fro ; " .and nervous women may see sainted shadows pass the open doors of darkened rooms that even prove sometimes to be premonitions ; but they are all " such stuff as dreams are made of," whether records of revelation or drafts of imagination bodying forth the forms of things unseen for the poet's pen to mold into shape ; they are punctured bubbles, van- ishing in the light of reason and common sense, and are at best but what the following agnostic lines ex- press : " The hollow sea-shell, which for years hath stood On dusty shelves, when held against the ear Proclaims its stormy parent, and we hear The faint, far murmur of the distant flood. We hear the sea. The sea? It is the blood In our own veins, impetuous and near, And pulses keeping pace with hope and fear. So in my heart I hear, as in a shell, Distinct, distinct, though faint and far it be. Thou fool ! this echo is a cheat as well, The hum of earthly instincts ; and we crave A world unreal as the shell-heard sea." If modern Spiritualism has any basis, any raison d'etre in its claim, that there are messages from the loved and lost, that the spirit world can, and does, more or less intelligently, communicate with the inhab- itants of earth ; and if this is true, the ideal world be- comes more or less a real one, many a fascinating fable becomes a reality, and it puts a torch behind the cur- 32 SHADOWS. tain in the picture of human life, making it a trans- parency of light and warmth, as well as beauty. And we can feel it to be really so when the poet says : " That ever near us, though unseen, The dear immortals tread ; For all the boundless universe Is life, there are no dead." "Can it bo true, this wondrous story old, Of fair green pastures where the waters flow In sweetest music over golden sands, Where we shall meet again the lost of earth? Can such a country be As this of which our hopeful spirits dream. For which we yearn, and hope, and trust, and pray Such prayers to Him, the Being Infinite? Oh ! can it be that we shall grasp again The cold white hands which here we fold to rest Upon the breast, thrilling with life anew? And feel again upon our lips and brow The kisses of the lips that have grown cold While kissing us? And is the grave Only a narrow gate, through which we pass To peace and rest and calm? " Anonymous. III. THE GATES AJAR. Explaining why the writer is a Spiritualist, and why obliged to be one. When death entered my family, we had three young children ; the oldest was a girl. She was six years old when death took her. I had a religious experience in my early life, was a church-member for a decade. At the period of this grief I was, and had been for many years, a materialist. When this little girl's light went out, leaving us in the dark, I felt that that was the end of her. The mother took the loss naturally harder than I did. I was, and am, of a philosophical turn of mind, and considered this the fate and the end of all ; but it had come early to this bright flower in the garden of our home. As there was no help for it, it must be submitted to. This was our grief. The mother, it may have been provi- dential, and, from later experiences, I think it was, came accidentally in contact with some of those who were interested in the new light of modern Spiritual- ism, and seeing a medium was suggested to her. As the drowning man catches at a straw, she caught at 33 36 SHADOWS. this. Afterwards, when hearing her report of what she had heard and seen in her contact with the sub- ject from time to time, it seemed silly business, and made no impression upon me ; but I saw no harm in it, as it occupied her mind, and gave her something to think of. My wife was not reconciled to the loss of our child, and looking into this matter might be a harmless benefit to her, but otherwise I saw no sense in it, and certainly none in the phenomena, as she related to me from time to time what took place. I could not see anything sensible in supposing spirits made raps, or of the tipping of tables, or any percep- tion of clairvoyant images of little girls that nobody could see but the medium, or woman who called her- self a seeress. I think it grieved my wife that I did not interest myself more, and it seemed to partake a little of cold-heartedness on my part. She was wrong there, for I was all feeling, but felt, as the majority feel today, that the subject was beneath the notice or ittention of sensible people. My wife having confi- , and she, without stopping, began to fill another, and so on, filling four pages, signing the last one "Erneline Clap." I was very much interested both in the fact 100 SHADOWS. and the contents, as I read the communications as she wrote them, as I took up the sheets one after another. The young lady knew nothing of the con- tents of the communication, as the reader will here- after see from the nature of it ; and she kept saying while she was writing : " Is not this strange, uncle, that my hand is writing so, and I don't do it?" When she had finished, the pencil flew out of her hands with a jerk, and I said to her: "Do you know who Emeline Clap is ? " " No," said she ; " but do n't you know, as the name is Clap?" (our ancestral name). I said to her very impressively, as I was rather astonished at the contents: "She is your moth- er's and my aunt, who died long before you were born, and when your mother was a little girl. Hold- ing the sheets in my hand, I then read the message aloud. Here is a copy : "My dear Mary, I have come to warn you, and to give you good advice. The course you are pursuing is wrong. You are having you think a pleasant time ; but you are doing yourself an injury, and are injuring Mr. Chick. He is nothing to you, and never will be. He in time will return home, and forget you ; and in the course of time you will be married, but not to Mr. Chick. Owing to the time and thought he devotes to you, he is not making the progress that he otherwise would ; and you are hurting yourself, and wouldjgrieve your parents if they knew you were thus inter- ested. Now, Mary, go to your mother, and make her your confidant, or stop just where you are. I take this unex- pected way of reaching you, through the eyes of your uncle, for your good. I am Emeline Clap." EMELESTE'S APPARITION. 1G7 When 1 read this letter to my niece, who had writ- ten it without knowing what she had written, she listened to it somewhat dazed at the unexpected reve- lations of the contents, they being the secrets of her own heart, unknown to others. It seems the matter was a pleasant flirtation, a sweet secret between two hearts, for the time being beating as one, and no eye watching them. There was an eye it seems, but it was invisible. It was not God's, but it saw in the night as well as in the day. It was the eye of a super- vising or guardian spirit. It was evident from the circumstances that she, though its amanuensis, was so interested in the man- ner of its production that she was wholly ignorant of what she had written, or the message would not have found a passage through from the land of light and beauty to the eyes of this shadowy writer. I did not realize myself that the message, so defin- itely stated, was founded on fact. Noticing the young lady's embarrassment, I said: "Is there anything to this, Mary? Is there a Mr. Chick?" "Yes," said she, "he is a fine young man, I think everything of him." "Well," said I, "who is he?" She said: " He is a sophomore." It is hardly necessary to write on this point further; it tells its own story. I will add here that my niece lived in Providence, and in the neighborhood of Brown University. I had never heard of Mr. Chick ; the message to me was a revelation. I was as certain as day that Mary was not the author of the communication. What can it be then in the nature of things but what 168 SHADOWS. it purports to be ? Emeline Clap, whose body had been dead and buried a score or two of years, but whose spirit was alive and moving among the dear ones of earth, an interested observer, stepping into the current affairs of life and setting right, so to speak, a misplaced switch that possibly might have led to disaster. This interposition was effectual, the source of it more potent, perhaps, in working the cure than any earthly advice would have been. I would like to understand this matter as anyone else would. I know where it is from as certain as I know where sunlight is from ; but the why ? Why this manifest interposition in this instance and not in the thousand other cases of as much and perhaps of more moment, that seem to have no supervising, viewless aunts ? In this case was it accidental, the " Gates Ajar " of both worlds coincidently ? It is of no use to speculate. There is the fact as it is and the circumstances, and seems to me it is clearly an intelligent spirit interposition. This, with more or less definiteness, seems to warrant me in feeling, as I have before said, that this " radiant maiden " who appeared to my sister at her earthly life's exit is the " white lady " of our house. May her shadow never be less, even if mine is ; and now as a finish and a finis to this sketch, I will add the following anony- mous lines, after thus proving them, I think, to be literally true : " The living are the only dead; The dead live never more to die; And often when we think them fled, They never were so nigh." XVI. IDENTIFICATION OP SPIRITS. The Sage of Gralveston returns according to promise. The positive identification of a spirit is one of the things seldom accomplished even by those who think they are getting tests. One of the prominent con- versions to modern Spiritualism was made through, perhaps, an innocent deception on the part of a spirit, if deception, in any sense, can be innocent. The fact was this : the spirit of a brother, who lived and died in Europe, manifested through a medium to his sister, who was visiting this country, giving his name and some family circumstances wholly unknown to anyone here, not even known that she had a brother. It was an agreeable sur- prise, and was the means of making a Spiritualist of her, and a very prominent one. Later in her experi- ence she learned directly that the spirit of her brother had never communicated, and that the spirit coii- trolling the medium had read her mind, and fed her with what would be very naturally considered tests. They were tests of spirits, but not tests of identifica- tion. Good was done by even this deception. A 168 170 SHADOWS. valuable convert was made to the cause, and she is now one of the conspicuous speakers on its platform. I merely mention this to show how difficult it is to get unmistakable identifications, not to justify or qualify any deceptions, no matter the motive. I have had a few, as the reader of these "Shadows" will have seen, but not many that are unquestionable. I do not think identification of spirits the important thing in modern Spiritualism. It is very easy to get positive manifestations of spirits, and the fact that any spirit of a departed human being can come, good or bad, settles the fact, law, or principle ; and if one spirit survives the death of his body, the law holds good for all. I think it better that identifications should be difficult and seldom, otherwise we would depend too much upon the departed for aid and counsel, which would certainly retard human progress. I think no one who is zealously and honestly seeking for truth in this direction but will find now and then an iden- tification of a spirit, but not often enough to make him perfectly happy, but often enough for his human good. That identifications are possible is an unmis- takable fact. I think I will not enlarge upon the subject further in this chapter, the rationale of the matter not now being my principal object; but, with what I have said, I will relate a remarkable case of identification, where my friend, the "Sage of Gal- veston," as I used to familiarly call him, returned to me, according to promise, unmistakably. I wrote an account of it, and printed it at the IDENTIFICATION OF SPIRITS. 171 time. The statement seems to express all the points very clearly, so I will now print that instead of rewriting it, and, perhaps, condensing it. It was written as a fugitive article, and not with as much literary care as I would have done if intended for book-form, but I trust any superfluous rhetoric will not be a blemish. It was necessary to be very par- ticular and minute on the points in order to have the whole matter understood. I consider the circum- stance a very important one, and worthy of careful perusal. The article referred to is as follows : "Now came still evening on, and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad." Such was the fact to the world and to me on the closing in of a pleasantly and busily occupied Sunday in May (this was in the year 1881). I had laid down my pen, and folded my notes arid papers, and, seeing a copy of " Paradise Lost " handy on the table, I laid the book on them to keep them intact during my absence, which was to attend a circle. The book in question may have invited the draft of the above quotation to begin with, or the man behind the book ; it is difficult to tell the exact factors of inspiration, and I do not know, in this connection, as it is of any consequence. After a pleasant and somewhat thoughtful walk of about half an hour, in which I took no note of time, not even of its loss, I found myself at the medium's door. This was Miss Shelhamer's home-circle even- ing, not for visitors, except on invitation, and I was 172 SHADOWS. one of the privileged. It proved, indeed, a privilege, and enables me to corroborate the return of a friend whose name heads this article, and to say, also, it is one of the most perfect identifications of an individ- ual spirit I ever had or ever heard of; and the cir- cumstances in connection forbid any such explanation as mind-reading, or unconscious cerebration, as is often suggested, at least by those who strain at a gnat, in the spiritual manifestations, and swallow camels in other matters. Such perfect tests of iden- tification as the one of which I am speaking are very rare, comparatively, among experiences, not as tests of spirits, but tests or proofs of identification, and, there- fore, it is worthy of elaborate record ; and that is my apology for the space I occupy. I do not know as it is wise or sensible to begin as I have in this somewhat poetical manner; but it expresses the state of my feelings, and, may be, an impression ; I do not say it is, but it reminds me of "Junius." Speaking of the eagle, he says: "The feather that adorns the royal bird sustains his flight ; strip him of his plumage, and you pin him to the earth." I trust, then, the "plumage" of this arti- cle, if there should be any, will be forgiven. How much my occupation during the day had to do with the sentimentality of the hour, or how much it had to do with the fact that made this occasion a privi- lege, I will not undertake to say. I think we some- times accidentally make conditions that are not always at our command on call ; that is my apology now for being so minute. IDENTIFICATION OF SPIRITS. 173 The day had been wholly spent in ray study, my books, papers, pigeon-hole contents, and corre- spondence around me, and, to some extent, in me; it had been a sort of "washing-day" in my lit- erary life. Our thoughts, you know, have queer ways of reaching us ; autographic suggestions not only carry memories with them, but they carry presences also. How much, then, of my da} T 's thoughtful occupation had to do with the connection made with my Texan friend I do not know ; per- haps my condition was not in any sense a factor ; but I feel impressed to begin in this way, and even to call to my aid, in the way, perhaps, of superfluous "plumage," the sweet, orphic lines of Emerson, in suggestion of connections that exist, that are not always prima facie, where the poet says : "And on his miml at dawn of day Soft shadows of the evening lay; For the prevision is allied Unto the thing so signified. Or say, the foresight that awaits Is the same genius that creates." Before giving the circumstances in connection with the communication that has inspired this article, I will first briefly speak of the man and his association with me, and our correspondential intimacy. J. S. Thrasher, whose initials were autographically and typographically and indelibly during my life im- pressed on my mind as /. S. Thrasher, was a rare man, and, I think, had a toning influence on my style of expression. The initials of which I have 174 SHADOWS. spoken are an important item in this statement, and I shall refer to them again when I reach the proper place. I always called Mr. Thrasher, in my corre- spondence, the " Sage of Galveston," beginning my letters : " My Dear Sage," and, in return, I suppose, he always began his letters to me : " My Dear Philos- opher." I became very much attached to him, and the attachment was mutual. It began in this way: Something I had written had attracted his attention, and he wrote to me inquir- ingly, and the reply opened a correspondence which has not ended, it now seems, with his life in the form. I have a box it is now before me of about a cubic foot in dimensions, full of his letters to me. There are more bright thoughts, wise words, good advice, and common sense in them than can be found in any package of letters that I know of with an equal number of words. Our pen-acquaintance began in 1874. My attachment to him was not because he appreciated my articles, for he was much more of a critic than a patron. I used to think oftener of what he would say, when I was writing an article, than what the reading public would say ; there was where lie toned me up, and I have no doubt he is now say- ing: "Condense, John, condense," and 1 am going to after this ; but, for reasons already stated, I want the privilege of superfluity now, for I feel that I am writing on an important matter. The "Sage of Galveston," as I still like to call him, was a man of wide experience, and had led an active life, commercial, political, and literary. Some IDENTIFICATION OF SPIRITS. 175 twenty odd years ago he was on the editorial staff of the New York Herald, occupying the position several years. He was born in New England, but left it when a young man. He lived at the South the latter part of his life, beginning his residence there before the late war ; and when he came across my pathway, as I have said, some six or seven years ago, he was and had been long a resident of Galveston. He was then a Spiritualist, had lost by death his wife and children, so his home, in the ordinary sense, was desolate. His aged mother lived with him, and she seemed to be the only connecting link with this life. He was singularly modest and retiring for so full a man, and was very happy in his belief in Spiritual- ism. He had very thoroughly investigated it, and, being satisfied, he stayed satisfied, living the life that Spiritualism teaches, at least teaches theoretically. I trust that some day, as our truth gets incorporated into humanity more generally, there will be more Thrashers living practical lives than now, so that it will be less of a theory and more of a life. The "Sage" had great practical common sense in Spiritualism, as in everything else. He seemed to know where he was going, when this life closed in, more intelligently than most men that I have met, and he has gone there ; and now tells me, as his "message" will show, that "he is quite comfort- able." How natural was that easy way of saying it ; so like him, as the general tenor of that box of letters will show. He put himself in the shape to take life easy. Having made up his mind, in his lonely 176 SHADOWS. domestic state, that commerce and enterprise would allure him no more, or disturb his mind, he invested his available means in an annuity that supported him generously, so that he could live to his liking, and have something for charity, and be hospitable, as many travelling Spiritualists can testify. He often sent for mediums to visit him ; they became residents at his house for longer or shorter periods, and great was the comfort he took in the manifestations at his own home and elsewhere. Even the account of them gladdened my heart. His expe- riences and wise conclusions have helped the stability of my own sensuous experiences. I do not mean that I needed his evidences to indorse mine, but it is so pleasant to find bright, scholarly, cultured minds in accord with one's own. He lived with the spirits ; he seemed to fully realize that he had invisible com- pany. As I have said, commerce and business, which once allured him, had no attractions for him, and, when he died, the competency he had died with him. I do not know as that was a wise investment, but I think it was wise for him. At any rate, when he died he was not weighted with the ballast of wealth that anchors so many spirits to earth after their bodies are dead and buried. It was, of course, a mis- fortune to have been left alone, death taking his family, but he felt always near them, and on many important occasions they were vividly manifest. He visited the East once a year during the last three years of his life, and we were much together during these three visits. When last here, in the IDENTIFICATION OF SPIRITS. 177 summer of 1879, he spent a few months in the west- ern part of the State for his health, which was poor. Pie was then alone in the world, his aged mother having a few months before passed on, near four- score-and-ten, and he seemed ready to go himself, and felt, and so did I, that he was near the end of the road ; and when I bade him good-bye in the fall of that year, as he left for the South, he said, as he had said many times before, "Au revoir" meaning that he would manifest at the earliest opportunity, and report how he found things. He has now done so, at least in a measure, and to me, who have his letters, that tally with the tenor of his message, the report is ample and satisfactory, and I am glad he has been, and is to be, near me ; I knew it before he said so. I am glad he proposes to communicate again, and perhaps continue, and thus, though the " river " divides us, we are not divided. In getting the " true inwardness " of this identifi- cation the reader must permit me to refer again to his initials. He signed his name on his two or three hundred letters as I. S. Thrasher. Capital I's and J's in writing are often written alike, but in addressing his letters to me the J in John was a J, and came below the line, while the I or J in his signature did not, but was written exactly as he wrote the per- sonal pronoun I, and I always superscribed my let- ters to him I. S. Thrasher. After a pen-acquaintance of about a year, I noticed his name printed in a list of small contributions in a newspaper, "I. S. Thrasher, Galvestou, $3.00," and I became as perfectly satisfied 178 SHADOWS. that his initial letter was an I as I am that mine is a J. There was no occasion for settling the point, for in all our correspondence he spoke of me as the Phil- osopher, and I addressed him as the Sage : " My Dear Philosopher;" "My Dear Sage." The dis- covery that the initial letter was a J, as this article is headed, is due to the fact that the spirit knew his own name better than I did. I have written a pretty long introduction or episode, after leaving the reader at the door of Miss Shelha- mer's house on that Sunday evening in May; but the many words since written will enable me to be both brief and intelligent in finishing up the corroboration. I do not propose to present a record of that circle, only that which bears on this subject. In the course of the evening I had had an interesting and charac- teristic letter from the spirit of Ralph Huntington ; the control had also said that my daughter Ilattie and sister Adeline, my brother, father and father-in- law were present; therefore, I had six friends among the invisibles. The control afterwards said, address- ing me: "There is a spirit who comes to you and wants to be recognized; he died a good way off and many months ago." I said: "Who is he? what is his name?" " I will see if I can get it," said the control; and after some hesitation said something that sounded like F rasher, and John or James; but as I knew no James, and no Frasher, I said: "Cannot some of my spirit friends tell me his name?" The spirit said he had tried hard to manifest, and had promised me that he would, and the control said IDENTIFICATION OF SPIRITS. 170 he seemed disappointed and persevering. I said: "Tell the spirit to come to the Banner circle, and try to manifest there " ; and the control said he would if he could. A little while after this, "Lotela" con- trolled the medium. She is an Indian spirit of a lively turn of mind, and she said: " Wetherbee chief, that spirit that knows you is here still, and wants to be recognized." I said I wanted the recognition as much as he did, and I was sorry I was so stupid. She then said: "I see four large letters right over him and you S-A-G E." "Oh," said I, "the 'Sage of Galveston,' my friend Thrasher. He died some months ago, and promised to manifest to me when he went over, if he could." The spirit was delighted to be thus recognized, and I still more so, for it was so impossible for our acquaintance to have been known by the medium, and the cognomen of "Sage" was wholly correspond- eutial and private. This was an extremely interest- ing affair to me ; but the climax was the message that came from him shortly after at the Banner circle. I went to the circle. I do not go often; have not the time; was detained down town one afternoon to meet a friend late, and so went to the circle to pass the time, and the message published in the last Ban- ner of Light was given. Very few people not more than one or two in this city knew Mr. Thrasher, or of our close correspondential relations, and I do not believe a living soul in the world knows that he was in the habit of addressing me as "My Dear Philos- opher," and that makes it a test. He refers to me, as 180 SHADOWS. will be seen by his message, as his friend and philos- opher, and I can show over two hundred letters from him, beginning "My Dear Philosopher," or referring to me as his philosopher and friend, which is a feat- ure in that message. The general contents, also, are such as to be unmistakably his to anyone who knew the tenor of our intercourse. Above and beyond this internal evidence is what I shall hereafter say of his message which frees the communication from any suspicion of mind-reading on the part of the spirit that would have made him, possibly, an alias. Oh, how my heart died within me when he closed the message thus : " You may say it is from J. S. Thrasher, of Galveston, Texas, to his philosopher friend, John Wetherbee, of Boston." The J broke my heart. Everything else was perfect. I don't know what I would have given to have had that spoken an I, in giving his name, instead of a J. I felt and knew it came from my Galveston friend, but why spirits so often get twisted on some trifle that the man himself never would mistake if he were in the form, but a spirit often does, is one of the uiiac- countables. There was no mistaking the message and the cir- cumstances as being from my friend, the "Sage," but the J coming, intead of an I, led me into a careful investigation, and I spent three evenings carefully reading his letters, and, to my great joy, I found two of them out of the lot signed with a J. That settled all the other I's to be J's, and in one letter, where he was quoting something of mine, and putting his own IDENTIFICATION OF SPIRITS. 181 version also, he put at the end of mine as author, J. W., and at the end of his, J. S. T. Before I had dis- covered the fact, I wrote South to a friend for infor- mation, and have received a reply that his initial letter was J, as his friend writes me in reply to mine, that his name was John S. Thrasher. So it seems the spirit was right, and I was wrong. If, on the evening that I spent at Miss Shelhamer's circle, I had known this that his initial letter was a J I would probably have made my connection with him more readily ; and when the spirit was saying John and James, and approximating to a Thrasher by saying Frasher, I would not have had to wait for the " Sage" suggestion before I recognized him ; but in the end it was all for the best. I may not have succeeded in making this as clear as I could wish, as there is so much esoteric in its nature not convertible into exoteric without an unwarranted elaboration, but to me it covers the whole ground, and I must ask the reader to take the unspoken and unspeakable minutiie on my say-so, and believe my ipse dixit when I say it is conclusive. XVII. UNKNOWN QUANTITIES. Prime factors. Philosophical musings on human happiness. Modern Spiritualism, teaching as it does great duration to human existence, even conscious person- ality in perpetuity, it should teach us also how to insure the best conditions for such an existance, having an eye to happiness. As " one man's meat " so the proverb says "is another man's poison," so, in a sense, one man's happiness may be another man's misery. So I do not propose to write an essay on happiness, or on the conditions to insure it ; but, being in a musing frame of mind, I will jot down a few thoughts that the subject seems to suggest. I have had my happy hours and my sad hours. I suppose most everyone can say the same, but that need not hinder my saying it. Considering that my health through life has been remarkably good, I ought to score it on the side of happiness as a whole, and so I do. Human happiness, it seems to me, is mainly a constitutional quality. " Men," says Emer- son, " are what their mothers made them ; " that is, 182 UNKNOWN QUANTITIES. 183 when a man is born the gate of gifts is closed. Pine may harden with care, or outward application, but it never can become oak, nor the latter, by any process, become pine. There is the same inherent differences in human nature. We can grow advantageously or disadvantageously by conditions, more or less at our command, but pine is always pine, and oak oak. I know of a family of four children ; they are adults or dead now ; but, with my ideas, they are living, two in the form, and two as spirits ; but I will use all four as an illustration, as I know them well, and they seem to fit my case. The oldest was born of a happy mother, whose years of grief had not arrived, and he manifested cheerfulness all his days, even under adverse circumstances. Misfortune came upon this family, and the second child, gestating under home sadness, was sad and pensive all her life ; very fascinating, but soberly beautiful even in her adolescent years, she was not a diffuser of joy or sunshine, but was the product of her mother's con- dition. The sun came out of the cloud again in that fam- ily, and the home was radient with light and joy, and the third child, born in that sunshine, was sparkling and bright, a joy in the house all her days, shedding happiness wherever she went. Then came trouble and misfortune to that family, and a broken household, and the fourth baby was a child of grief all his days. There were rises and falls in their sev- eral thermometers of happiness, but the tenor of their lives show correctly their ante-natal conditions. They 184 SHADOWS. all lived until at least the high noon of adult life, and two of them, as we have said, are still in the form, as elderly people. This episode will explain, with- out a long dissertation, what I mean when I say human happiness is more of a constitutional than an acquired quality. With the foregoing remarks as an introduction, I will go on and say it takes a combination of quali- ties to make happiness, we might say qualities innumerable. They can, however, be reduced to a few. We will call them "prime factors." People are very differently constituted ; one often wanting what another possesses ; but, we think, no one would make an entire change with another, our personality has such a perpetual interest in our being. We will let the poet express our thought instead of doing it ourselves, by quoting from Pope : " Whate'er the passion, knowledge, fame, or pelf, No one will change his neighbor with himself, The learned is happy nature to explore; The fool is happy that he knows no more; The rich is happy in the plenty given ; The poor contents him with the care of heaven." This quotation is poetry, but I do not indorse it as even approximately true, but it is suggestive of truth. While none are perfectly happy, and, of course, some are happier than others, we think it would be found, if there was any way of finding it out, that happiness is more equally divided than anything else in the distribution of gifts in human life ; cer- tainly more than in the great essentials, such as UNKNOWN QUANTITIES. 185 health, wealth, genius, or position. It will be a rather arbitrary supposition ; but suppose we fix the number of "prime factors" of human happiness at ten. This, however, is no more arbitrary than the use of x for an unknown quantity, though I hardly expect to find its value, like a sum in algebra, for human nature is not a branch of mathematics as yet. Though fixing the " prime factors " of human hap- piness at ten and definite, they necessarily blend, run into each other, like the primary colors of a ray of light. Disintegrated by the prism, these " prime factors," just like colors, are often, and, necessarily, complementary. The solar spectrum is a good analo- gous illustration of our point, human happiness being the ray of white light. Apply the mental prism to the ray of happiness, and the rainbow of life stratifies into the supposed ten primaries, or "prime factors ; " or that is our scale or spectrum, for the sake of lucidity, perhaps, as we have said, somewhat arbitrary. We would designate them thus : 1. Goodness. 6. Contentment. 2. Health. 7. Success. 3. Hope. 8. Popularity. 4. Home. 9. Social Position. 5. Industry. 10. Wealth. Perhaps a little consecutive elaboration may be of advantage here. What we mean by G-oodness, not religion, for a man may be religious without being good ; not virtue, but it includes that. It means living for others as well as for one's self. 186 SHADOWS. Many of the other factors of happiness are born of this one. Health. Parent of virtue. Without it all the ten spokes of the wheel of happiness rattle in their revolution. While one man with many gifts is lower in the scale of happiness, and another, with the same or less, is higher, the fact is due often to one's health. A man can afford to be marked low on many of the factors of happiness if health can be marked high thereby. Hope is one of the great essentials of happiness. Hope without success (material or otherwise) is bet- ter than success without hope, just as a rich poor man is happier than a poor rich man. Cheerfulness is one of the children of hope. Too much hope leads often to disappointment ; but there is the compensa- tion ; it saves a soul from despair, and hides a multi- tude of sorrows. A man had better lose everything than hope. "jHorae, sweet home, there is no place like home ! " when goodness, cheerfulness, and harmony abound. Blessed are they who have it. Money, popularity, or position is no substitute for it. Industry. Occupation, something to do, a disin- clination to be idle. If success in the pursuits of life leads to rest or idleness, better remain poor and industrious, or die. Most men require the stimulus of active business or trade to keep them employed. With success they would be without occupation ; an afternoon of rest is a life of unhappiness. It is bet- ter to be on a tread-mill than to rust. UNKNOWN QUANTITIES. 187 Contentment is better than wealth. It is a consti- tutional rather than an acquired quality. To be satisfied is great gain. Happy are they who can look out of humble homes and cheap joys on palaces and equipage, and heave no sighs. Success. This word has no necessary relation to money or trade in this connection. A man may be a success without being a millionaire. Henry D. Thoreau was a success, though he died poor ; so was Publicola; but Croesus was not, nor many modern ones that could be named, though they had wealth. Who would not prefer to be Agassiz, without wealth, than Jim Fisk with ? Popularity. Most people like to stand well with their fellows. Few are indifferent to approbation. One of the accented motives for gaining wealth is to impress others ; to be in their eyes of some conse- quence. The popularity born of goodness and cheer- fulness is more to be desired than that born of wealth. The former has a heavenly flavor, the latter an earthly one. Social Position. " A man 's a man for a' that, and a' that." Worth makes the man, and not posi- tion. Still, hereditary competency, the refinements and comforts of genteel (not snobbish) life, are by no means small matters to be born into, or grow into. Patrician and plebeian have a recognized dis- tinction : money will not buy the one, or the want of it impose the other. Wealth is the grandest servant in life to a wise man. It is often a hard master, and keeps one 188 SHADOWS. awake nights. The ninety out of the hundred have to be happy without it ; the ten who have it are not always happy thereby. The problem is solved that the most happiness, as far as this factor is concerned, lies in the mean between poverty and wealth. Robert Burns hints at the true idea when he says : " Not for to hide it in a hedge, Nor for a train attendant ; But for the glorious privilege Of being independent." It is my opinion, as the truth of modern Spiritual- ism becomes incorporated in the mind of mankind, in the same way as some of the other laws of nature have, not looking forward to a future life simply as a matter of sentiment, but as a matter of fact, it will lead to a fairer distribution of what are called the essentials in this life ; mankind will tend to lay up more enduring treasures than they do now, those that they can carry with them into the land of souls. That certainly is the logic of the thought ; the prac- tical short-coming is the measure of a man's doubt or belief. XVIIT. ALLEN DOLE. A reliable family tradition that amounts almost to a personal experience. The following incident may be of interest enough to relate ; at any rate it will not take long to do it. In my very early childhood there was an old relative of mine, whom I will call Allen Dole. I am not fully sure whether I remember him, or only think I do, having heard so much of him traditionally from the old members of our family. At any rate, he died when I was very young, and what I have to say of him would be traditional, whether I can recollect him, or whether the stories had been told so often that they had taken the form in me of experiences. It makes no difference, however, as what I am going to say is perfectly reliable, and told to me and spoken of before me, and continued to be spoken of by several of the old familiar faces of those days, even until I had almost reached manhood, so I relate it with all the confidence I would if it were my own experience, or if I had been one of those old folks myself. As I have already written this circumstance out, 169 190 SHADOWS. and printed it in an article on " Dormitory Thoughts" as one of the illustrations of the subject, I will copy it as therein written, instead of recomposing it. The article referred to is as follows : " Who would have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun ! or who could find, While fly, and leaf, and insect are revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind ! Why do we then shun death with anxious strife ? If Light could thus deceive, wherefore not Life ? " Coleridge thought these lines the best in the Eng- lish language. They may be; that is a matter of taste ; but the thought conveyed in them is certainly both hopeful and suggestive, and so is a good intro- duction to what I have to say in this dormitory effort. I think it will not be a digression if I relate an incident that has always interested me, and is not irrational by the view I take of sleep-life in these articles. A relative of mine, whom I will call Allen Dole, who died quite an old man when I was a youth, had, during his adult life, periodical spells of inebria- tion lasting a day or two, then followed months of creditable sobriety. Except for this one failing he was a very estimable man. When this irresistible thirst came on he had to have his spree, if it could be called one, for he knew when it was coming on, and deliberately prepared for it, passing the dark season quietly all by himself in his own room; hence his weakness was not generally known to the outside world. ALLEN DOLE. 191 On one occasion, coming among us after one of these retirements, he said he had had a very singular dream, which lasted a good while. " It was more than^a dream," said he ; "there was something unusu- ally real about it." His brother knowing his habit, said : " Oh, you were only balmy, perhaps out of your head." Allen, finding a more hospitable disposition in the rest of us, related it, saying he felt then under its influence, as if he had just returned from a long journey. That was natural enough, we all thought, though we did not say so, but listened attentively to the narration of it, which was about as follows: " A person of angelic appearance came and awoke me and said; 'Allen, I want you to go with me.' I did not feel much surprised, and prepared to go as a matter of course. I was rather attracted to this vis- itant from the land of souls. I say this from what followed. I found myself moving along with this messenger, without any mechanical effort I seemed to be gliding along, as it were, in his company. This movement seemed to excite in me no surprise nor expectation. I paid no attention to any surround- ings ; but as I call the vision now to rny mind, I seemed to be in a misty or cloudy envelope, my com- panion, not my progress, being my attraction. "After moving along in this way for some time, the misty surroundings having grown into a more beau- tiful light, my companion said to me: 'Here we are, Allen.' I don't know when our locomotion changed ; but at this time we were walking quickly over the soft, velvet-like, grassy turf, and it seemed to be now 192 SHADOWS. the auroral splendor of a new and magnificent morn- ing, and all the landscape was in harmony with it. It seemed to be the most beautiful place I was ever in, and, while feasting my eyes on the natural attrac- tions of the locality, I found I was in the midst of a large gathering of very happy people. It seemed to be a festival. I felt and breathed pleasure in the happy atmosphere that environed me. I felt at home, that is, I did not feel like a stranger, nor did these happy people seem to consider me one, or as a new- comer. The situation, as I now think of it, seems strange to me, but it did not then. " One thing was very singular, but even that excited no surprise ; the faces of all these people were the faces of the departed, the vanished lights of human life, the still living forms of the loved and lost. Some of them had died before I was born ; but I knew who they were just as well as I did those who had been the remembered faces of by-gone days, and many of them were those whom I had followed to the grave; but they were all alive, as much so as I was then, myself. But what surprises me now is that, finding all these dead faces alive, it did not surprise me then. There was Lucinda (who had died about a year before), not the emaciated young woman that con- sumption had had so long in its grasp, but the picture of health and youthful activity. In the words of the poet : " It did not seem irrational, or queer, To thus confabulate in common speech With this old friend who had been dead a year, Strange things these dreams, and sometimes wisdom teach." ALLEN DOLE. 193 " Not one of my living friends was there ; not one of you" (addressing us). "If I had met any living faces there, I do not think they would have seemed strange to me any more than it did to be there myself; but if I had, and remembered the fact now, as I do the vision, or dreamy experience, I should consider it ominous, or prophetic of dissolution. I would feel now that that person was soon to be called home." This is enough to relate of Allen's account. There were other details of no general interest, so I will only add that after Allen had been there what seemed quite a long time, his mother, who, with others, was very near him, said it was time to go ; but Allen was reluctant; said he preferred to stay. She said : " No, you must go now ; but in fifteen years you will come again, and then stay all the time, like the rest of us." I will add that Allen died in about fifteen years. It was always said by aunt Fales, whose memory was good on superstitious matters, that he died exactly fifteen years from the date of that vision. If that was the case, or even if only an approximation, there was prevision, as well as method, in the circumstances of that somewhat singular dream, which, as Allen said, was something more than a dream. I do not know as this traditional family incident has any general bearing on the subject of this book of "Shadows," unless to make it more in keeping with its title; yet a matter whether dream or vision occurring near a century ago, and fifty years almost before the advent of modern Spiritualism, and giving a picture of the future life so different from the 194 SHADOWS. notion prevalent at that time, and so in keeping with the teachings of modem Spiritualism, that it at least is a pointer, even if the prophetical part of it may have been a little strained. The circumstance so believed in by the old people of our house, who have long since passed beyond the vale, made quite an impression upon me, as one of the facts in my early life. I think, also, modern Spiritualism has somehow tended to keep the old familiar faces of by-gone days in more close remembrance than if I had believed that dead people were dead when they had " shuffled off the mortal coil." With some such ideas as I am expressing now, I put the foregoing incident into simple verse a long time ago, which I will add for the sake of making this chapter of a respectable length, although it is a repetition of what has been already told in the foregoing account : Here in this churchyard's melancholy shade Sepulchral stones stand thickly planted round ; My wandering footsteps hitherward have strayed To read the names of tenants under ground. The dove there perched on yonder slab oblique, Swerved from its line by many a frosty year, Seems sensing sentiment it fain would speak, And accents well the thought to wanderers here. On that same slab was chiseled "Allen Dole;" The year he died, his death also, and age : The grass was pulled aside to read the whole, But nothing found of his illumined page. Tliat was not written on this old grave-stone, Where crawling ivy covers it from sight, ALLEN DOLE. 195 But told in solemn words to me alone How Allen saw the world of spirits bright. Now day is closing for the coming night, And memories sad, like phantoms, come and go; The dove has flown ; the fire-flies show their light, With thoughts of people whom we used to know. With evening, shadows come of actions done In hours when sunlight leaves no passing trace; But retrospection calls back one by one, And gives in sober thought to each its place. In dim forgetfulness, how apt to hide The selfishness that marks most all our acts ! But in this evening hour their shadows glide Unbidden to the mind, the naked facts. But Allen flanked this thoughtful evening school : A glass of rum in him made evening day; So all the morning hours he'd play the fool, Driving reflection's warning voice away. But Allen's cares increased as time unrolled : His early life grew indistinct with years, And manhood's record blurred as he grew old, He found the world at last a vale of tears. Then hearken well ! The hour will come to all, When time, so fleeting, whispers "sands are low!" Few may forecast, and anxious wait the call, As Allen did, who, smiling, said " I go." But Allen grieved not as he neared fourscore, Though friends were few, and end of days so near; For he had been upon that other shore, And talked with angels in their happy spliere. Once Allen saw his body sound asleep I Perhaps 't was rum that dualized his sight? He saw the angels who their vigils keep While others led him to that world of light. 196 SHADOWS. O beauteous sky and ralnbowed atmosphere I The grass was soft and frescoed bright with flowers ; The air so balmy, music soft and clear Mingled with all. Oh, happy, joyful hours ! He saw that face who watched his infant years, And other loved ones, buried long ago; Brightly transfigured everyone appears ; Frail Susan, also, whom he used to know. They moved a slide, and let him have one sight Of that dread place called "spirit-quarantine," Where sinners stay whole ages, dark as night, To expurgate the beast from man divine. They told him then that he must homeward go ; But Allen felt inclined to linger there : To save the quarantine, they let him know, T were better to deodorize elsewhere. They said to Allen, who was fifty-five, That fifteen years would fill his earthly score; His seventieth year would find him just alive, The hungry graveyard knocking at his door. Why should this man be blest with such a sight While saints go mourning all their days of earth? We cannot judge. God doeth all things right; Perhaps old Allen's thirst was heritage from birth. Then draw the veil, should profanation seek To read the list of Allen's reckless days ; But let his later living record speak How spirit-quarantine reformed his ways. Now thoughtfully our footfalls homeward bound, And homeward, also, to eternal light; While here night's mantle overshades the ground, We wait expectant for a world that 's bright. XIX. INDIAN-SPIRIT INFLUENCES. What the subject suggests, and a supplement of poetry. Astronomical. One of the noticeable features in the phenomena of modern Spiritualism is the prominence it gives to the departed Indian race. There is hardly a medium in this whole Endoric class that is not more or less guided by, controlled by, or indebted to the departed Oseolas, Black Hawks, Red Jackets, Violets, or Blueflowers of that singular aboriginal people that once covered, in their wild and natural way, this North American Con- tinent. I have sometimes thought, as this spiritual movement, in its modern aspect, is of American genesis, that one of the prime factors, perhaps the accented one that has made this modern connection with mortals in the form, was the influence and power of the Indian element in its departed, invisi- ble, but still living form. I am aware that history indicates that, if these phenomena be the influence of the spirits of departed human beings, though called modern, they are quite an ancient affair; but, in its uninterpreted state, was 107 198 SHADOWS. kept in the domain of either superstition or revela- tion, but only in this age has it been recognized as intelligent sensuous phenomena. I am inclined to think, as I have said, that we are very much indebted to the Indian element in the spirit world for the light that was intelligently revealed to us in 1848. Perhaps owing to the natu- ral way they lived when in the form, it gave them a strength or power that a more artificial life would not, so that even in spirit life one can say that "it is an ill wind that blows no one any good," and thus we are the gainers. If the conditions had been right, and man had been hospitable to its advent, the witchcraft of two or three centuries ago, abounding so much in Europe and in this country, might have staid and been mod- ern Spiritualism long ago, instead of waiting for our day. But the reception of it was such that the influ- ences paused, and the light (or darkness, if you choose to call it so) was withdrawn. I am no par- ticular lover of the Indian in the form, or in the raw material, so to speak, but I am ashamed of my race for treating it as it has, and I find a growing admira- tion for that fast-departing race, especially in its spiritual life, for the loving and forgiving disposition it has manifested in its invisible dealings with us. I am not attempting any elaboration of this Indian feature of our z'sm, but am only too glad to recognize its importance in this matter in general, and their individual importance as guides, body-guards, or con- INDIAN-SPIRIT INFLUENCES. 199 trols of the mediums that figure so largely in this modern movement. I was once asked by a well-known medium a doctress to write her a poem for her to read at her anniversary, soon to take place. She said Saucy Jack, one of her controls, wanted me to. I make no pretensions in the poetical direction, but wishing to do both her and the invisible Indian a favor, I said I would try to do so. "Oh, you will do it," says she ; "Saucy Jack says so." I soon after tried to write something, and succeeded in slowly working out some fifty lines. It was rather hard work, but I thought it would answer. I met the lady accidentally a few days after, and asked her when she wanted the poetry, and to let me know in season, so that I could find time to write it, and have it ready for her. She spoke right up, and said : " Chief, what do you say that for, when you have already written it, and you have got it now in your pocket ? " Well, such was the fact ; it was, certainly, a pretty good guess. I think myself, the fact of her saying that the Indian control said I would write it, had some effect in stimulating me, as I always want the influences to be right when possible. I called it THE INDIAN PEACE-WHOOP. Wand'ring in dreams, in mazy rev'rie lost, A feeling strange came o'er me. Tempest tossed, Then calm, and then a light upon me broke. I heard a voice ! And thus the spirit spoke : "Knowledge is power!" we hear the white man say; And, lo ! he proves it. We the tribute pay 200 SHADOWS. Of home, of life, of race. Slowly we yield, And leave the white man master of the field. No more the wigwam, squaw, or brave is seen, Though streams still run, and hills aud vales are green. O'er this broad land the white race rules supreme ; It is his hour. But Red Man is our theme. Has pale chief all the knowledge, all the power? All nature's secrets, animal and flower? We are big med'cinc braves ; we have our sense, Aud still are with you, although driven hence. Our hunting-ground, invisible to you, is near; Some hear our whispers, indistinct, or clear. Having the power, through simple modes of life, We reach you, white man, forgiving ancient strife; Would do you good, would cure the aches and pain That flesh is heir to, thus good health obtain. The red man in the form, with iustinct blind, Oft sensed a truth that culture failed to find. As close to earth the Indian puts his ear To sense the footfalls too far off to hear, Or tread of game, or tiud perhaps the trail, Gaining knowledge where higher outlooks fail, Deep lessons iuexpressible iu speech, And thus a royal road to knowledge reach. "Knowledge is power," in whispers soft and low Say we, and prove it, as our records show. We reached humanity in your grandsire's day, Aided by spirits bright; they showed the way; We had the strength. Then mortals were possessed, As witches burned, and other ways distressed. Liking our sensitives, we soon retired, And waited till our service was desired. Thus came a solstice to this " Dawniug Light." Again we come, conditions being right, To manifest to you this glorious truth : That death is life, and age immortal youth. We, red-skinned souls, to nature fondly drawn, Are doing work as spirits of the morn; And mediums all are strengthened by our aid, INDIAN-SPIRIT INFLUENCES. 201 And better manifestations now are made. Blest be the form, when aided by our race, That made it possible in this age to trace Intelligent connection in spirit life With lover, brother, sister, friend, or wife, Whom you thought dead, and thus have found That no man ever moldered under ground. Then o'er the wide earth let the "Peace- Whoop " sound, The spirits have triumphed ! the lost are found ! Feeling as I do, and have said, that the Indian element is an important factor in the Genesis as well as the Exodus or going forth of modern Spiritualism, the fact has associated them in my mind with the advent of what has been poetically and appro- priately called the " Dawning Light." As the anni- versaries of this event come round every thirty-first day of March, the Indian seems to be a figure in the picture, though not always brought into the fore- ground. I have therefore thought it might not be out of good taste, while running thus a little into poetry, to add one at the close of this Indian chap- ter that was written for one of these anniversaries. I will print it as I find it in the report of the pro- ceedings of March 31, 1882, as follows : The chairman then introduced to the people, John Wetherbee, of Boston, who spoke as follows : FRIENDS, Expecting to be asked to say a few words on this occasion, I have come prepared with a short poem. I am no improviser, and I am no poet; but I thought I would follow my impression, and take the consequences. I have put together a few fragmentary thoughts 202 SHADOWS. suggested by the " Dawning Light " of 1848. I might call them " Night Thoughts," for their genesis was in the night. " Star Thoughts," perhaps, would be better, for when one thinks of the auroral hour of our Light, his thoughts are apt to have a heavenly or celestial twist in them, and we wander among the constellations, at least I do. This is my preface, as well as my apology for what follows : The "Dawning Light" of eighteen forty-eight The saints of earth have met to celebrate; Or some of them to thus commemorate This great prevision of our future state, That man was not beneath the sod to wait, In a dead or decomposed state, But pass at once through the celestial gate, Into the " Beyond," or " Evergreen Shore," The " Sweet By-and-Bye," to die no more, Finding our departed friends awaiting, With outstretched arms, congratulating Us on our arrival from this world of sorrow Into the " Summer-Land" of death's tomorrow. This, then, was the telephonic story That made the " Dawning Light" a day of glory. Under the inspiration of this thought, So hopeful, and with such a future fraught, A feeling strange came o'er me, on my pen ; My thoughts were more on angels than on men. Well, let it be so, 't is their sacred hour ; They did the work, they had the mystic power. While being thus celestially inclined, My eyes were skyward turned, as well as mind ; This globe of earth seemed like a palace-car; More than that, I was riding on a star. Is the earth a palace-car ? Are we riding on a star ? INDIAN-SPIRIT INFLUENCES. 20* Ask the man on Venus bright : Watchman, tell us of the night! Who with wonder gazes high, Sees our planet iu his sky, Bright as Venus at its best ; We shall need no other test; We arc riding fast and far, We are trav'ling on a star. Thou incandescent orb ! Most glorious sun ! Holding this star, our world, fast in its course, As one will sometimes swing with a string A ball round and round, centripetally tied ; The tension, resisting gravitation, Is the force centrifugal. Thus balanced Has this old star rolled on through space ; no pause Nor change since the stars sang their morning song. Thus earth's relation to the god of day. This line, holding the earth steady in place, Though invisible, immaterial force, Is firm and enduring, iu length counting Almost a hundred million miles, the sweep Circumferential six hundred million. Thy daily task, old star, then counts in miles A million, yes, plus half a million more, Before thy daily work is done; then day By day th same to make the year complete; And we are riding on this star sublime. Thou bright, planetary neighbor! tethered Like a dory to our ship, silver-faced moon, Wert thou full six times further off than now, Our star would span the distance in a day. Where now beheld coquetting with the clouds, In four short hours our speed would reach tlie spot. Thirty miles an hour would steam-car travel Continuously a year to do this four hours' work. Thus hast thou sped, old earth, since time begau. Thy genesis with its misty morning 204 SHADOWS. No man can date, but thy swift exodus He can compute, and in more than fancy Knows that he is traveling on a star. Is the earth a palace car? Are we riding on a star? Ask the man on Venus bright : Watchman, tell us of the night? Who with wonder gazes high, Sees our planet in his sky, Bright as Venus at its best ; We shall need no other test ; We are riding fast and far, We are traveling on a star. This star, our earth, so quickly flying, Carrying its more than billion passengers, Or precious freight of human beings, jumps Never its track. No misplaced switch ever Leads our star parabolically astray, Nor telescoped by swifter-speeding orbs, Never collision with inward-bound stars. So steady and even has been the speed, Though moving in its track two thousand miles While quickest locomotive travels one, That mankind at ease seems standing still, Yet all the time is riding on a star. Thus would we realize in solemn words That we are moving with electric speed, Yet slow compared with light, which moves Ten thousand times as fast ; and thought beats light, And spirits travel on the wings of thought. While our star, the earth, through space is moving Thus its thousand miles and more a minute, Other bodies are traveling also, each with Its own right of way on their several tracks. There are also wandering, harmless systems, Streams of granulated, cosmic matter, In revolutions sweeping round the sun. INDIAN-SPIRIT INFLUENCES. 205 At times old earth, the star on which we ride, Goes through these cosmic systems with a rush. The atmospheric clothing of our globe Protects us, but the friction from its speed Makes incandescent the granulations, And they fall in harmless dust, and blazing Meteors irradiate the midnight sky, "While we are riding on this star sublime. An impression came to the star-eyed sage As he reached this line on his written page, Where many an hour he had wasted ink To strike an idea that would make men think, And during the time had traveled so far Without being joggled, though riding a star, That there might be zones in the realms of space That vitalized thought in the human race, The contact afflicting humanity's dream Something like sailing through the old Gulf Stream, Where water is warm to one's physical sense ; But these zones warm soul with their influence. Thus ages of light, or revivals of thought, Have dawned on the world as history has taught; For mankind's movements seem in waves to flow, Some mountains high, and some are leveled low, More like influence from an outside source, That wakes stagnation into active force, Perihelions, perhaps, in a spiritual sense, Where influence divine is more intense. Thus while riding on a star, Traveling very fast and far, Old earth entered somewhat so, Four and thirty years ago, The zone of the " Dawning Light," That made the conditions right, And enabled angels bright To make their presence felt; Messages from raps were spelt, 206 SHADOWS. Which, interpreted and read, Broke the silence of the dead, Thinned the curtain of our fate, Forecasted our future state. Man need not have traveled far To have found the "gates ajar," For the spirit world was near, Our departed still were here. But the transit through this " zone" Made the earth a telephone, Made sensitive the inward ear, And silent voices vocal, clear ; Peopling the circumambient air With living beauty everywhere. Thus we celebrate the date, March thirty-first, 'forty-eight, As the genesis of our Thought, That has golden luster brought And marked the age with glory. Is it out of place to say (While moving through the Milky Way, Or Galaxy of stellar light, That spans so visibly at night The great concave overhead) Again the words already said, Is not earth a palace car? See us riding on a star. Ask the man on Venus bright : Watchman, tell us of the night? Who with wonder gazes high, Sees our planet in his sky, Sees it traveling fast and far, While we are riding on the star. XX. A WAYSIDE SKETCH. An entertaining sketch that will fill up some deficiencies in the course of these " Shadows." Sometimes I think the dear public of skeptical people are often more deceived, their credulity taxed, than are the body politic of spiritualistic believers. The credulity is on the side of the opposition rather than with us. I am sure I have been astute, eye- opened, and expert in the 'investigation of this subject. I have seen, of course, attempts to cheat by at least supplementing their powers by more or less imposi- tion; not always meaning to do anything very wrong, but, perhaps, to give more for the fee received than the spirits can do through them. It has always been my wish, and so has it been the wish of Spiritualists generally, that mediums would have no manifestations rather than to have fictions, give it up as a failure, want of proper conditions, or whatever the cause may be ; but never to allow one's mediumistic elasticity to stretch into anything of their own doing ; in the long run, people who do gen- erally come to grief. 207 208 SHADOWS. There are a great many people who are in the show department of this business, often having more or less mediumistic power, who find it more profitable to cater for the opposition rather than the spiritualistic public. It is a matter of dollars and cents with them. I could name a man who is a good medium for phys- ical manifestations, but likes the popularity and the remuneration that he gets from the skeptical world better than poverty with truth. I have proved his mediumship when incog., under crucial test condi- tions, and I have said to him, after making myself known : " Why do you go about exposing it, or mix- ing fiction extravagantly with fact, and call them spiritual manifestations?" He said in reply : "It is wholly a matter of dollars. If I should go into a village and do honest work as a spiritual medium, I could not get enough to pay my expenses ; but if I plan for the opposition, the religious class, the Chris- tian Association, or the fashionable, to expose or bring discredit on it, I can get a full hall, and go awa}' with money in my pocket." I have been many times to see these paying exhi- bitions, and have seen many of the religious, literary, and official lights of the community sold, as the say- ing is, more than ever I saw a spiritual gathering sold, and I have been both amused and grieved to see a large audience of respectable and intelligent people humbugged into supposing they were witness- ing the spiritual manifestations that have converted people to the cause. I have felt sorry, being a Spirit- ualist, to find that so many people were ready to think A WAYSIDE SKETCH. 209 that that is the pabulum or sensuous phenomena that has attracted and retained me as one of the believers. I was once traveling in the far, far West, and on the western slope of the Rocky mountains, and hap- pened to be stopping in a mining town, where one of these shows of big spiritual advertisements had been going on; an interesting colloquy or circumstance occurred, which was quite amusing. 1 wrote an account of it over the signature of " Shadows," and that account I will add to what I have already said, as a finish to this chapter. If some part of it has been already recorded in this book, in the form now presented, it will hardly be a repetition. Pebbles, you know, become jewels by an appropriate setting ; but the " repetition," or fact mentioned, is a jewel, setting or no setting; so, if it gets a new hearing, the reader will be all the better for it. The article is as follows : A traveler, very early in the morning, stopped at the tavern in Nevada City. He had come during the night in the branch railroad from Colfax, and reg- istered his name. It was an hour or two before the guests were stirring. Those who looked at the reg- ister afterwards, as people are apt to, particularly in a suburban town, read the name of " Shadows," Col- fax. As soon as breakfast was ready, this new comer, " Shadows," of Colfax, was more than ready, after an all-night ride, and immediately began sipping his hot coffee; and, before the guests had begun to gather much around the table, he had finished his meal, and was again comfortably sitting by the stove. 210 SHADOWS. This stove was in the center of what might be called the office, as the bar was in the side room on the left, and the dining room was on the right, some conveniences in the rear, and this office seemed to be the general lounging room. This room was quite large. On one side was the clerk's counter and desk, and large piles of trunks on the other side; but they did not crowd it any. It was roomy, dirty, and com- fortable. This stranger, seated by the stove, seemed to be in a brown study, taking no notice of anything or anybody. Not so the guests, as they came one after another out of the dining room, some to stop, others in passing gave a look at the stranger, and wondered who he was ; the register gave his name. They who looked read " Shadows," the place where he hailed from, "Colfax" ; but that was no definition. Many, as usual on a cool morning, took seats around this stove. Of the eight or ten who occupied that position, some were young, some middle aged, some were old, not very old nor very young. In a pro- vincial place or mining town, as this was, a man of GO looks easily 70, because the metropolitan style was lacking, and slouches more in order than stiff hats ; and white shirts, though possib'y in a majority, were not unanimous. It was a place where dress did not make the man, nor want of it the fellow. Old and young among the sitters looked more or less at the stranger, and all showed inquiring minds or faces, as if they wanted to ask him who he was, and what he was there for, and seemingly knowing no one. The stranger, however, gave no signs of explaining A WAYSIDE SKETCH. 211 himself, seemed perfectly at ease, and busy with his own thoughts. Soon, however, the companions of the stove began to be sociable, still with an eye now and then on the stranger, to see, perhaps, if he thawed out any. They soon came to the conclusion that their talking or looking was quite indifferent to him. In the course of the general talk it seemed that some persons had created quite a sensation the Sunday evening before, filling the largest hall in the town to witness their wonderfully advertised spiritual manifestations. The parties were Eva Fay and a Mr. Bidden, I think. No Spiritualist who reads the newspapers would take any stock in them. In listening to this general talk, and their several comments, pro and con, one could have got a tolera- bly fair account of what occurred at that entertain- ment, and, as it will be seen, this stranger did; but he gave no signs of interest ; and whether he was lis- tening or riot, the strangers did not know. He cer- tainly appeared to be deep in thought, living in u different world from them. One of the younger members of the group, and one who talked more than his share, and might be described as a "bar-room boss," summed it all up by saying "it was a big humbug;" and I guess he was right, only he intended his "big humbug" to cover I ho whole subject from beginning to end, there and elsewhere. An old man (who used a crutch, having fallen from a rock), taking his pipe out of his mouth, said: "I do not think so; some of it may have 212 SHADOWS. been, but some of the things were really honestly done." " I do n't think Prof. Crosby took any stock in them, and he is a Spiritualist," said another. At the name of Crosby, the stranger looked at the party, but, in an instant, he was indifferent again. Some had noticed the look, and brought Prof. Crosby's name more to the front in this connection, but it had lost its charm, and the conversation subsided again into the subject of spiritual manifestations generally. The young man, who we said seemed to sum it all up as a big humbug, said then, in a very positive way, that "Spirits have nothing to do with this folderol. All the things we read of as being done all over the country, and called spiritual manifestations, are all frauds." "Oh, that cannot be," said another. But the "boss," who seemed to know it all, and had seen it all nothing more for him to learn said: " I admit some of it to be true ; but no spirits ; it is electricity and mesmerism and mind-reading. All the rope-tying, rings put onto connected arms, slate- writing, tipping of tables, bell-ringing, are all decep- tion, sleight-of-hand, or adroitness. Do you not see, said he, "how large their wrists are, and hands small?" This young man was very positive; spoke as if used to carrying his point in that crowd, as if those listeners were in the habit of being convinced by his saying so. All the argument need not be expressed in this wayside account. The reader will get about the situation from what has been related, this young " boss " of words being particularly happy A WAYSIDE SKETCH. 213 in clinching his argument with electricity, mesmer- ism, and mind-reading. The stranger turned his eye on this positive and fluent talker, and said in a bright, cheerful, but very deliberate manner : " My friend, will you define elec- tricity ? What is it ? " The suddenness of the ques- tion embarrassed the young man a little, and he made, at first, no reply. All the listeners were as much interested in the stranger's breaking silence as in the question. The young speaker seemed to be aware that it was very easy to say it was electricity, but not so easy to tell what electricity was. The party all looked at the stranger, who, at last, had opened his mouth, and, after the pause mentioned, said to the young man : u You need not try to answer the question. The best that can be done by anyone is to say it is a mode of motion. Farraday once said, in reply to a question put to him : ' I suppose I know as much about electricity as anyone, and I am unable to say what it is, or define it.' If Farraday was dumb, it is no discredit to you to be dumb on the subject also. The spiritual manifestations may be electricity, as you say ; but, to say so, is no explanation." The young man, not wishing to lose any of his prestige in his own field, said to the stranger he had more in his mind mesmerism than electricity. The stranger at once said : '"Well, my friend, what is mesmerism ? " He replied : "The influence one mind has upon or over another, sometimes controlling it." " That is correct," said the stranger ; " and added : " Is it the mind or the body that mesmerizes or con- 214 SHADOWS. trols the subject?" The young man said, rather hesitatingly : " The mind." " Of course," said the stranger, " for a body without a mind, or a corpse, would have no mesmeric power. I think," con- tinued the stranger, "that Spiritualism is mesmer- ism." The young man began to feel as though he had an ally. The stranger then said : " As the body cannot, of itself, mesmerize without a mind, is it not probable that mind can without a body ? " "I never saw one, or ever heard of one," said the young man ; and the sitters around the stove were interested and amused. "Well," said the stranger, "there are a great many things that exist that we cannot see, or intelligently perceive. We cannot see electricity or mesmerism. We know them only by their effects. We do not see minds or spirits ; we know them by their effects. You have taken, my young friend, an electric shock, or seen one taken, and so you know electricity exists ; some day, if you are lucky, you will have a spiritual shock ; then you will have evidence of the other." The young man said, in reply to the stranger: "A man may exist, after his death, with thinking powers, but I do not believe it. I am willing," said he, " to be convinced ; I would like a spiritual shock here and now." "Well," said the stranger, "if I were a ' machine,' and conditions were right, I would give you one ; but, as I am not, I will tell you of one I had myself. I have had a great many. This that I now refer to is so perfectly unmistakable that, if you A WAYSIDE SKETCH. 215 believe me, you will have to be convince*!. I do not expect, however, you will be convinced ; the subject is a matter of experience rather than of argument." The stove-surroundings seemed desirous for an ac- count of the stranger's first shock, so he gave it sub- stantially as follows : "A niece of mine, a young lady of sixteen, said to me during a visit at my house : 'Uncle, are you still a Spiritualist?' I replied: Yes. She then related something rather strange that had occurred in her presence. I said : Molly, you must be a medium ; come and sit with me at this table. She did so, and we tried for raps, or tips, but did not succeed. I then put a pencil in her hand to hold, and, seeing a motion, I put a sheet of paper under it, and her hand made up and down motions, dotting the paper, but no writing. The movement was strange to her, as it was wholly involuntary. I then put the end of my index-finger on the wrist of the hand that held the pencil, nothing more, and her hand began to write line after line, she saying : ' How queer, uncle ; I do n't do that ; why, see, it goes of itself, and my hand wont stop.' In this way she filled the page, which I took, and she went right on writing the next while I was reading the first, and it was the begin- ning of a wise, intelligent letter. "While writing in this way, she was all the time talking excitedly to me, often saying: 'Only see it, uncle, and I am not doing it ' (and the young man smiled, as if he was thinking to himself: * How she was fooling the old man '). She ended the eoinmu 216 SHADOWS. nication by signing the name of an old aunt of mine who had died nearly fifty years ago, when my sister, the mother of this young lady, was a child, and this niece had never heard of such a person. So far, knowing that this young lady was honest, it was tolerable proof of the action of a spirit." The young man said : " That is the way with all you folks. That would not suit me ; that may have been all pretence. I do not say it was, Mr. Shadows, but it was possible; and, certainly, if there is any way of accounting for a thing naturally, no one will suggest the supernatural." " But, listen to me," said the stranger ; " what do you think this letter was ? It was from an invisible and watchful intelli- gence, who wrote in this way: 'You' (this young lady) 'are doing yourself and the young man an injury ; the flirtation that you are now carrying on with that young college student, Mr. Chick, is highly improper, and will do an injury to both of you ; it will amount to nothing. Both of you are too young, and you will both in time find your proper mates. Your mother would not like it, if she knew it; and now as I' (this invisible relative) 'am watch- ing over you, I feel it my duty, as I love you, Molly, to have trifling ended. You must end it, or go to your mother and confide in her, who now knows nothing of it. I take this way of reaching you, and it shows you have friends watching you, whether you wake or whether you sleep.' ' The stranger said he told this from memory, and it was the substance of a long letter written auto- A WAYSIDE SKETCH. 217 matically, in the way described, by this young lady. The nature of it is proof of its abnormal character. I knew what she was writing before she did, other- wise she never would have allowed me to see it. The young lady burst into tears from mortification to see her inmost thoughts thus exposed. I said : "Who is this Mr. Chick? Is there any such per- son? She said: 'He is a nice young man, who is in college in our neighborhood, and I love him very much.' Suffice it to say," said the stranger, "the young lady learned a wise lesson that she has never forgotten. There are eyes that see us and watch us, and the knowledge of that fact, I may as well add, is what the world needs more than it needs anything else/' The young man had to own up that this was a re- markable case, as the stranger had stated it. " But I have had," said he, " no such experience myself, and I cannot believe it. I might have been saved from much trouble if anybody's aunt had written a letter to me. You are a stranger," said the young man ; "you tell a good story. I do n't want to doubt you, sir, but it smells to me fishy. Perhaps I would think otherwise if I knew you ; but I would have to have the experience myself. This may be a 'spiritual shock' to you, but it has not shocked me a bit; and, if I had been present, I feel pretty sure it would not have struck me." At this moment in walked Prof. Crosby from the dining-room. The stranger's back was towards him. He had heard a few of the last words of the confab, 218 SHADOWS. and the stranger turning to see who had entered, the professor rushed towards him, saying : " Good God, John, where did you come from ? " and he intro- duced the stranger to the persons around him as his friend " Shadows,'' of Boston. It only remains for me to say that I wanted to surprise my friend, and, finding myself within a few hours' ride from him, thought I would make him a visit. I have no doubt, also, I instructed as well as entertained the members of the tavern office in that colloquy, and I think it was a fortunate circumstance that the " stranger " happened to be present. I think that Miss Fay is a medium, but I do not think her shows are any credit to Spiritualism. But the cause was not hurt any by the light that the "stranger," now known as "Shadows," cast upon the subject. XXT. MATTER AND SPIRIT. Of intercourse with spirits. Some conditions worth knowing. Illustrations Sealed letters. It is the opinion of many able writers, including the late Robert Dale Owen (who had wide experi- ence in dealing with the spirits, and did so very advantageously), that spirits do not see material objects, or hear material sounds, as we mortals do. From my own experiences, I agree with him and them that it requires material organs to see material objects and hear material or external sounds. In one sense, sounds may not be strictly ^material ; for instance, the human voice, that is, an external expression of the human spirit, but it is material in its manifestation from its impulse to its expression. It is air vibrations, and air is material. It requires the auricular organ to hear a sound ; by and through that organ it reaches the sensorium, and becomes a matter of consciousness. So, also, it requires the optical organ to see a material object, and through it the object reaches the sensorium, and becomes a matter of consciousness or perception. 219 220 SHADOWS. This seems very simple talk on very common, simple things. Optical and auricular organs are so common, born with us, and are in practical use from infancy to age with no effort on our part. The operation is so simple that, as a matter of course, the modus oper- andi, and the philosophy of the phenomena of per- ception is rarely thought of. Yet, simple and com- mon as it is, no one, no matter the extent of his knowledge, however much of a scientist or student in these things he may be, is able to explain how the object which is material becomes a matter of con- sciousness, which is spiritual. Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the most intuitional of men, who seems to sense a truth and then embody it in living language so pleasant to remember that it makes his every thought a treasure, said : " It is so wonderful to our neurologists that a man should see without eyes ; but it does not occur to them that it is just as wonderful that he should see with them." Simple as the quoted fact seems, it is both wonderful and inexplicable that with eyes we should be able to see and make material objects manifest to our spirits. It is not our purpose to write an essay on percep- tion, which I seem to be doing, but only to philoso- phize a little in this way to smooth the abruptness of the statement, that our spirit friends do not see us objectively or materially in the sense that we mortals see each other. It is, however, no difficult thing for any of all spirits to see in this objective or external way, if they so desire, or for any purpose. It must MATTER AND SPIRIT. 221 be remembered that we are spirits now as well as materialized beings, and probably we are as well known in our spiritual aspects, by our friends in the spirit world, as we are ourselves by the memory or sight of us as encased in the mortal form. I said it required material organs to see material things ; they are easily found by spirits ; the world is full of them. All the time there is a billion and almost a half at the service of the spirits. Spirits have only to come en rapport with the possessor of material optics or auricular ones in place, to thus see the world of nature or materiality as we mortals see it. So easy and so general is this that the spirits, through mediums, will often say they see us as we see each other ; but I am sure for them to do so, which is very common, they do it in the way sug- gested, which is one slight remove from the direct objective way. The spirit has only to be conscious of the consciousness of the person by whose aid or with whose organs the said spirit sees to see objects as he does. In one sense, as I have said, the object in normal human seeing is a foreign tiling to the seer, a dis- crete separation, for spirits cannot see, hear, or touch matter; only the image or sensation of it reaches the human sensorium. For instance, illustrating the point from an optical point of view, the image or picture of an object reaches the retina and is pic- tured on it, and that image or picture reaches the consciousness of the person who is looking at it; then it may be said to be the pictorial property of the 222 SHADOWS. spirit, and may be by the same source the property or consciousness of the spirit that is then en rapport. Some consideration of this point, which is really a matter strictly in the domain of science, is important in grasping the subject of the spiritual manifesta- tions, or the dynamics of this more or less occult subject. In corroboration of what has been said herein, I will quote from the writings of Eugene Crowell, where he writes on this subject, as follows : " It may here be proper to say something respect- ing the power of spirits to hear our conversation, as there are erroneous views prevalent even among Spiritualists upon this question. I have devoted considerable time and attention to this subject, and, as the result, I find that most spirits, unless on low planes, cannot distinctly hear us converse ; they more generally perceive our thoughts ; while, on the con- trary, spirits on the lower planes cannot read our thoughts, but can more readily hear our conversa- tion. "Old John and Big Bear (two spirits) say their ability to hear mortal voices (when not in control) varies in every house they visit? In my house they can understand our conversation best when a certain member of my family is present, and they elsewhere can hear best when some person present is medium- istic. In the presence of their medium they can always hear distinctly what is said by others. Through other reliable mediums, what is here stated has been confirmed, and it was only after thorough investiga- MATTER AND SPIRIT. 223 tion that I accepted the assertion as hurtful, it being at variance with my preconceived opinions." With the foregoing statement and quotation, the following experience will be illustrative and inter- esting, and will not only explain it, but will explain many of the utterances from the spirit world. One of the most reliable mediums I have ever known, and one who has given me demonstrative evidence of his genuine power, whose phase is the answering of sealed letters, and is entitled to his claim of keeping a spirit post-office. After receiving many answers through him from various spirits, one from my sister disturbed me. It was technically correct, and had never been opened, but it did not seem, in its extended answer to my query, to be the warm- hearted letter that my sister would have written : and if that was her now heavenly, platonic, dignified way, I felt that she must be so changed in the undress of the spirit that I had really lost my sister even if I had found her. Seeking after the truth, and trying, as is my cus- tom, to get at the facts of the case, I wrote a letter to my father, John Wetherbee, adding to the address inside, "or any of my spirit friends," asking fo in- definite questions. My father was then alive, living in New York, but I wrote the letter as if it was for a spirit. I had sealed it up so that it could not be opened without my knowing it. I put no address on the envelope; that was entirely blank ; no one but I knew for whom it was for. I went with it to this medium, found him sitting 224 SHADOWS. at his writing-table, took my seat opposite to him, and handed him the letter. He said he was tired, and so he would keep it till the next day, and laid it on the shelf with other letters. After a little general con- versation upon other matters, as I knew him very well, he suddenly stopped, reached for the letter that he had placed on the shelf, and said the spirit was here, and he would answer it then. Please bear in mind that the letter had not been out of my sight. With the letter unaddressed and unopened before him, the ringers of his left hand resting on it, but not covering it, with his right hand he wrote, I looking on and reading as he wrote, as follows : " My dear son and namesake," and copied the questions literally in their order, and intelligently and elaborately answered each, as anyone could have done who had read the questions, and then he ended by saying, or rather writing : " Your once earthly but now spirit father, John Wetherbee." The medium was very much surprised, when I opened and read the questions and name to him, that I was not satisfied. " What," said he, " do you expect?" I said: "The truth." My father was alive, and that lying spirit says : " Your once earthly and now spirit father." I Avas very much set back by this outcome, not understanding it then. One thing I was sure of, the perfect honesty of the me- dium, for I saw the production was honestly done before my eyes, only the spirit assumed to be my father when he was not. I soon got at the rationale of this, and lost my interest in such communications MATTER AND SPIRIT. 225 as identifications, but proved them to be spiritual beyond a doubt, and that was a great point settled, even if one was not sure who he was corresponding with. The remarks I have made on seeing and hearing by the spirits explain how this mistake on the part of the spirits happened. Some spirits read the mind of the sitter. The spirits controlling the medium, his band as they call it, do the autographic work, reading probably clairvoyantly the letter which is unopened. They ought to be able to read the mind of the sitter or the writer of the letter. To do that, according to the ideas of Robert Dale Owen and Eugene Crowell, the executing spirit must be of a higher grade than the writer or sitter. It is hard to understand what higher or lower grade in spiritual parlance means, probably spiritually rather than intel- lectually ; at any rate, it is on a different system from the expression " higher and lower " in this world's matters. It was very evident the spirits on that occasion, besides not being my father or my departed friends, could not read my mind, which then and all the time was intensely charged with the thought. I was full of it, expecting some spirit would say: "You can reach your father by the mail terrestrial, but I will answer your questions." It almost seems, on the principle of mind-reading, that that might have been the result. Intense as the thought was in my mind, the spirits controlling this medium had no access to me, even if they had in a clairvoyant way to the 226 SHADOWS. sealed letter. I think, if I have been lucid in my statement, one will see where and how the mistake was made on the part of the spirits. The band con- trolling this medium, and friendly to him, did the work as best it could ; not having access to my mind, they did not know my father was alive. I am glad they did not, for they then might have made a test of it for me when it would not have been one. I have many times, since this paternal one, had sealed letters answered quite satisfactorily, and once or twice where the identity was quite complete, at least I would be straining harder if I undertook to prove it a fiction than I would to consider it what it claimed to be. As I did not relate the circum- stances of the letter or show its questionable genesis, but as an illustration of the subject treated, as well as to show the difficulties attending the identification of spirits generally, I will add in closing an account of one, that at least approximates to identification. I had a reason for writing a letter to a certain spirit friend, to ask his opinion and advice, and, in the course of a few days I received an answer from that spirit, containing also the letter I had sent unopened. I put the missive in my pocket to read at leisure, and forgot all about it. On my way home, I stopped at Mrs. Mary Hardy's, the well-known medium, by appointment, and found a friend waiting there for me. We were going to have a sitting together. During the sitting, the spirit came that I had written to, and my friend said to the spirit: " Did you receive the letter that John wrote you the MATTER AND SPIRIT. 227 other day?" "Yes," said the spirit, "and I have answered it, and he has got it now in his pocket." That reminded me of the fact which I had forgot- ten, and I said to my friend in his surprise : " That is so ; I got it this morning and forgot all about it," and taking it out of my pocket, I said to him: " There it is." I do not see very easily how that could be any- thing else than a spirit's reply, and it seems to ine it would be straining some not to admit it to have been actually, under the circumstances, from the very spirit to whom I had written. The clair- voyant eyes of the spirit could have seen possibly the message in my pocket, and thus got his information, but I am inclined to think it was from the identical spirit who knew the fact legitimately. I have no question of the ability of reaching spirits and getting intelligent answers by writing in this way, but there is apt to be an uncertainly as to the identification, as was the case when I wrote to my living father in the form, as if he was a spirit, and got a reply from an alias, who assumed to be my "once earthly and now spirit father." I have pretty clear ideas how this is done, and why it is done by the spirits in the interest or benefit of the medium, and the fact of the work being done by spirits settles the important part of the question, for if one spirit can come, even a tricky one, so can a right and true one by the same law, if the conditions are right. If that spirit who wrote the answer to me, assum- ing to be my once earthly father, had been Theodore Parker, or any high-toned spirit, on the principle 228 SHADOWS. suggested by Robert Dale Owen and Eugene Crowell, to whom I have referred, he could have read the strong desire already then formulated in my mind, and get the bottom facts in the case, and he would not have assumed to have been my father. I can con- ceive how such a spirit might have given me a per- fect identification. I can conceive, also, how such a spirit might not have fancied my deception, and paid me in kind. That was the way the medium explained this affair. It was not satisfactory to me, for I know my motive was good, and that I was honestly seeking after truth. One can see there is great difficulty in knowing who the invisible really is that responds to you. it was a great pleasure to me to know beyond a question that the spirit was a bogus father, and to know, also, that the medium was honest clear through. It is a pleasure, also, to know that I have had some communications, of which I have spoken, through the same amanuensis that were in every way authentic. The object of stating this point so minutely is for the guide of others, for one to see there are disabili- ties to encounter, and not be unnecessarily suspicious of the medium, for the deficiencies may be farther in. XXII. A PENTJMBRAL SKETCH. An afternoon with the spirits. A departed friend returns from over the river, and owns up. The following article I copy almost verbatim from one I wrote and had published in the Banner of Light. It embodies some interesting matters that made a deep impression on me, as being unquestion- ably spiritual. The incidents that make the article interesting to me come under the head of trifles in a worldly sense, if anything is trilling that has the luster of a spiritual source on it. I will, however, present the article without much preface, letting it speak for itself, which is as follows : "Full oft my feelings make me start, Like footprints on some desert shore, As if the chambers of my heart Had heard their shadowy steps before." I begin with these lines very much as we sing the "Sweet Uy-and-Bye " at a seance, for the sake of the proper conditions, and, at the same time, the weird thought that the verse suggests expresses the state of my mind at the present moment, having been 230 SHADOWS. thinking of a late experience, and also while having the experience. It seems to be a proper state of mind in which to relate it. The experience was exceedingly interesting to me. Whether I can make it so to the reader remains to be seen. Now, do not expect too much after this shadowy beginning, and thus be disappointed, but remember that sometimes the simplicities are in order, and very often with me, and, doubtless, with many others, some trifling incident among the manifestations will answer the earnest, hungrv call in the following lines o / o affirmatively (it is necessary to print them in this article, though quoted before in one of the chapters of this book, as the reader will see) when some wonderful manifestation might not, the waters of Jordan, you remember, cured the royal leper when the larger rivers of his own country would not. "Ah, blow me the scent of one lily to tell That it grew outside of the world at most ; Ah, show me a plume to touch, or a shell, That whispers of some unearthly coast." Two of my friends from Providence called on me the other afternoon. One of them was a Spiritualist in a mild, quiet way, not conspicuously identitied with the subject, but was a very firm believer, had had evidences of its basic truth in his own home. The other was a legal gentleman of some repute, not a Spiritualist, I was going to say, but it is hard to tell who is and who is not, this thought has so pene- trated the general mind. It seems he had been at A PENUMBBAL SKETCH. 231 some sittings at some earlier date, and thought there was something in it besides delusion and humbug- gery, but had never been at a spiritual meeting ; so neither was known in the city. These two men, whom I will call Daniel and Ezekiel, because these two names popped into my mind, though in no sense suggestive of my friends, who are neither prophets, or the sons of prophets, both being men of the world, and of business. "Well," said they, after the civilities were over, " what is there going on this afternoon ? Where can we go and see something?" meaning spiritual manifestations. We looked over the list ; there were five or six interesting chances, but we could take in but one, and as there was not much time before they would begin, and, possibly, then the one selected would be full ; but, like Luath, the dog of which Burns speaks, "His honest, sonsie, baws'nt face, Aye gat him friends iu ilka place." So they had no fears on that score, but took their chances, and went to see the "Berry sisters," who are materializing mediums, as well as for other phys- ical manifestations, and we moved in their direction. Though it did not happen to be a materialization seance, when we got there, as we expected, it was one of the occasions when none of us were disappointed. As I have said, Daniel and Ezekiel were entire strangers to the medium, and were not introduced for obvious reasons, and they were unknown also to 232 SHADOWS. all the persons present. This happened to be Miss Ellen Berry's dark circle. Daniel did not seem to get much during this seance (some people somehow always seem to get more than others). With Ezekiel it was otherwise. The medium, who was seated at some distance from the latter (Daniel sitting at one end of a twelve-foot table, and Ezekiel side of me at the other end), she being seated about in the center, said she heard the name of Ezekiel H ; that was the full name of my friend ; and later, when the medium was sitting nearer to him, the same name came, and also one or two of his relatives* names were mentioned ; they also wrote some mes- sages. They were from two or three different spirits, and were remarkably good tests. I was presuming Ezekiel H was the name of my friend, but it seems it was an uncle of the same name, and the message showed the fact, besides his information in reply to a question from me, as I did not know he had an uncle who was a namesake. I always am interested in tests; but I generally have to get them by observation, as in this case, for personally my spirit friends are apt to be known to the mediums, for my pen is such a tell-tale. On this occasion, however, 1 not only realized my friend's tests, which were unmistakably so to him, and there- fore to me, but I had them directly, also, and this is what I referred to when I began this article. It is unnecessary to speak of Albert and Hattie, or the spirits of Amory and Huntington, who manifested to me for reasons mentioned; they would hardly be A PENUMBRAL SKETCH. 233 tests ; and yet in Hattie's manifestation there was something worth mentioning. She kissed me on the forehead and whispered her name, and in doing so she was so near I felt her hair as it touched my head and face, and the medium being seated closely by my side, and I holding her hand, I know she did not and could not move, and the circle being unbroken I know that it was some unearthly head and hair that whispered and came in contact with mine; and I hope the writer of that verse who wanted a shell "that whispered of some unearthly coast," or anybody else who is hungry in that direction, will take my word that if an " unearthly head " will answer as well as a "shell," or "the scent of a lily," that it has been my experience. I seem to be spinning this out ; but I have not yet reached the circumstance that has inspired my pen. My friend, Seth E. Brown, I will be excused in using names, I am sure he will not object to it, and I am something like Junius, who wrote the letters, who liked to deal with persons, not with shadows; yet I am not like him, for I do and am dealing with "shad- ows " in this book; but now, iu dealing with Brown, I am dealing with a person who now may pass for a "shadow." But it pleases me to feel that the most substantial things in the universe are spirits ; they are the real, we are the fleeting. " We," as Emerson says, "are only the (lux of matter over the wires of thought." My friend Brown died very suddenly about five or six weeks ago (May, 1884), and who until a year ago 234 SHADOWS. was a joint tenant with me in the business office I occupied, and we had been together in this way for several years. We were very intimate in a business way, and many an hour have we chatted on these spiritual matters. He was not a Spiritualist, but was very hospitable to the subject; probably like many others he believed more than he had the courage to admit. He thought I had had great evidence, and wished that he had. He often said: "We will all know some day whether it is true ; " in fact, after any long colloquy on the subject, that was his stereotyped ending, meaning by it that when we died we should know then whether we were still alive. He generally said, also, or did sometimes, that if he died before I did he would come and let me know if it was true. " So do," I replied, and said ditto. It was not many weeks before he died that I had one of these chats with him, which was ended with that usual remark. While at this seance of which I have been speak- ing, with Daniel and Ezekiel, and during the manifes- tations that were then going on, I had some very vigorous pounds on the top of my head, and I said mentally, as that was the usual way, "Is that ?" (mentioning the name of a spirit friend, but not speaking it vocally), and got one smart touch by the spirit on my head which means "No" as the response. I continued then in the same way to ask the names of my departed friends, and the response was " No" every time, and then Brown's name popped into my mind, and almost before I got it mentally formulated, as if the spirit knew it as quickly as I did, the " Yes" A PENUMBRAL SKETCH. 235 came quite vigorously, and I said: "L? that really you, Seth?" only I did not say "Seth" vocally, but thought it. Besides the three pounds on my head, I got quite a number on my back, and I have no doubt it was the spirit of my friend. It was almost as if he had said : " Did I not tell you, John, that I would come?" The medium later, and sitting at another part of the table farther from me, said, addressing me : " That friend of yours is still with you ; he seems very glad ; his name is Seth, I cannot get the rest of his name." That was right, but the medium did not know it, for his name had not. then been mentioned. I had been very particular. When the room was lighted again, I found I had some messages written by the spirits the same way that my friend Ezekiel had, of which I have spoken. I will mention here that when the messages were written to me and to Ezekiel, I held the medium's hand, and know that she did not do the writing, and with that company it is absurd to talk of confederates. I am cutting this short, and leaving out many of the points of this seance for the sake of brevity, and confine myself as much as possi- ble to the Brown complexion of this experience. Among the messages from Albert, Hattie, and oth- ers was this one from Brown: "JbAw, / believe it now. Seth" This was a very short message ; but it seemed very appropriate, and what I ought to have expected from him, if it was he. The medium never knew Mr. Brown, or my connection with him. I was not expecting him nor thinking of him, and I began 236 SHADOWS. to exhaust the names of my departed friends when his name occurred to me. I really think it was he, and his message though short was full of meaning, multum in parvo, "I believe it now." It certainly made an intelligent connection with our antecedent talks to which I have referred, and wholly unknown to the medium and anyone else in the room but me. At the close of this seance my friends, as well as myself, felt as if the two hours we had spent with Miss Berry as being the " gates ajar," and among the departed, had not been time wasted. We all three talked over the matter by ourselves. Ezekiel had oral and other tests, and many remarkable messages, which were what might have been expected from the spirits communicating. One message from a distin- guished, but departed, lawyer of his city was very satisfactory. I knew the man by reputation, but did not know him as in any way connected with Ezekiel, but it seems he was on quite intimate terms, and the message was in keeping with it, and he went home pretty strong in the faith. In fact, we all three can be counted on as Spiritualists, if there were any doubts before. I began this penumbral sketch with a verse of poetry, and perhaps it will be as well for symmetry to end with one. I sometimes think a verse, with a sublime and fitting thought in it, is more suggestive and ornamental than a peroration, so I draft on the following : A PENUMBRAL SKETCH. 237 " I feel their touch upon my hair, Upon my cheek and on my brow ; I know that they are everywhere, That they are with me even now." XXIII. MATERIALIZATION. Affirmations. Critical comments. Illustrative Experiences. I will begin a chapter on this subject by saying the materialization of human forms, or what is called by that name, is a fact, that is, human forms are produced, extemporized so to speak, into visible, tangible, or sensuous apparitions. I firmly believe this, both theoretically and practically, have had the evidence that makes me sure of what I so posi- tively state. Speaking of it theoretically, I have had, as the reader of this book will know, in my own house, and under the most favorable conditions, sensuous, tangi- ble, and intelligent evidence of the materialization of a seemingly human hand that I could grasp, and have had that evidence hundreds of times. I have had also the handling and close ocular inspection of hands of apparent flesh and bones, in fact, real human hands, that were not attached to human bodies, but were as alive and pliable and sensitive as my own. Now, therefore, giving us a hand materialized, the MATERIALIZATION. 281) production of the whole form is possible aliio. These experiences of mine were long before the advent of the full-form manifestations ; this, then, is my ground for believing in the phase theoretically. I have had experience with about all of the medi- ums for materialization who have been in this vicin- ity, and have had some ocular proof that these forms are, sometimes at least, what they claim to be ; not to the extent I wish, but added to the fact that, with the majority of mediums for this phase, I have had perfect proof that personating, acting a part, or con- federacy, is not the modus operandi of their produc- tion. This, then, is my ground for believing in the phase practically. I must, also, with my experience, add that, to me, as a whole, it is not the most interesting phase of the spiritual phenomena. I cau say, with Leigli Hunt : " How sweet it were if, without feeble fright, Or dying of the dreadful beauteous sight, An angel came to us, and we could bear To see it issue from the silent air At evening in our room " because the evidence through the sense of sight, as an eminent savant has said, is stronger testimony than evidence through the senses of hearing and touch. I am hardly prepared to admit that, it depends so much on what we are testing, and our intellectual make-up, as connected with our several senses. Hut, referring to the poetic suggestion, the manifestations of spirit forms have never come " at evening in our room" in a way that would respond to Leigh Hunt's 240 SHADOWS. "sweet" possibility, as suggested by the quotation, and, in fact, has been the dream or fancy, bordering almost upon expectation of the poets generally, as memory and records will show. So, as I have said, believing in the fact both theoretically and practi- cally, I am not fascinated with the materialized return of departed spirits as I would be if they came in a less questionable manner. I hardly know how to express what I want to say; but I trust in the elaboration of my thought I will make my ideas manifest and manifestly friendly to the phase, before I get through the chapter. In spiritual manifestations, as in scientific research, we must make the most of the best conditions we can get. One cannot always command his conditions, whether spiritual or scientific. We are obliged in astronomy to look at the sun or stars through forty miles or more of atmosphere ; it is possible, if we could command an independent standpoint, we might have to modify some of our conclusions. Now, it seems darkness is a requisite condition for the pro- duction of materialized spirit forms ; not total dark- ness, but a very few degrees above it, and that, cer- tainly, is one of the disabilities, especially in this particular phase, as recognition is the attractive point; and, therefore, the spirits may as well not come for that purpose, unless there can be light enough to be unmistakable. I am not finding any fault, for I am only too glad for their apparition any way. I am very hospitable to the spiritual manifesta- MATERIALIZATION. 241 tions generally, especially to materializations, hoping the latter will improve, as they have, to a great degree, already, and that I yet may be as fascinated with them as I am with many of the simpler, yet intelligent, phenomena; but all this wishing and hoping need not prevent the expression of my thoughts or views on the subject, even as it appears to me, and to say, though in one instance, I can say I recognized a spirit, and this fact of a positive recognition threw a luster on the phase generally, by making it possible that some others that I ought have, but could not recognize, may have been the persons they claimed to be. As the remembrance of that satisfactory one, with its accompanying luster, recedes into the distant past, I sometimes wonder myself if it was really so, and I seem to need repe- titions to keep me firm in the rut of that one special experience. As I read my recorded story of it now, which I know I wrote truthfully, and as I felt the reading of it, and the memory of it, among so many less impres- sively true ones since, have detracted some of the vividness of that one, and I find myself asking in my own mind if that was really so, paled a little, like a, neglected photograph taken years .ago, and yet from my habits of making records I know it was so. Now for illustration of the subject generally. I can remember very distinctly my dark-eyed sister. I can remember her as plainly as if she now sat before me; and if she should appear at one of these seances as plainly as I now see her in my mind, how readily I 242 SHADOWS. could recognize her. But this spirit has never appeared so ; she has come, so the form has said, but in such questionable shape I never could have known her ; and, if she is around me now, she knows I could not recognize a young woman of dark curly hair, and large, bright, black eyes, dressed flowingly in white, her head-dress flowing, and white, also, not a speck of dark hair in sight, and no speculation in her eye. These phantasms no, not phantasms, they are too human and muscular for that do not attract me as the actual presence of my spirit friends, or even as being the personal presence of spirits. This was my experience in ocular recognitions until my friend Albert appeared, and it was so like him, though almost speechless, with his manifest, quiet manner, the whole phase rose higher in my estimation, and I have the faith that it will go on improving, and these disabilities grow less and less. It seemed to me, before the time of which I am speaking, and so it has since that in observing others' recognitions, that they came to their conclusions quicker than I could. It is possible there is a differ- ence in people's eyes, some seeing better in the dark than others. I have sometimes wondered if people had not intuitive help, perhaps some clairvoyant power supplementing the ocular. I am only making these observations to show the state of my own mind, not for any special information or instruction, or I would write an essay on the subject, which this cer- tainly is not. The most interesting feature to me in these materi- MATERIALIZATION. 243 alizations, and which I considei spiritual manifesta- tions, is not in the personalities of the apparitions, but in the fact that they are spirit manifestations. When I have satisfied myself that a woman, passing from us and going behind a curtain into the triangular space in the corner of a room, and the woman by measurement is under five feet in stature, and there is no way for a confederate to go into that enclosure without my seeing him or her enter, and then there comes out of that triangular space into the room a man six feet high, and I shake hands with him, and know he is alive and not on stilts, but standing or walking firmly and naturally on the iloor, I know then there is no possible metamorphosis from the medium into that spirit. It is of no consequence whether the apparition is John Brown or General Burnside or my uncle, that is not the point. There is a human-looking form that I know is not the medium, and is not a confederate, and being then an extemporized one it must be spiritual, because it is an intelligent act, and an intelligent apparition, and there is no intelligence that is not connected with either a mortal or a spirit. That, then, of itself is an interesting fact, and a wonderful one. If this fact or apparition claims to be some departed friend of mine, that I would know if I saw lam or her, and yet do not know the apparition, that does not add to the interest of the manifestation ; it detracts, if any- thing. The spirit had better remain a "beauty and a mystery" than assume to be some special personal friend that is unrecognizable. 244 SHADOWS. I cannot think of a departed friend, male or female, that I could not recognize in a light even below the reading point, if they came looking as they did when I knew them or last saw them. If they are in any disguise by unusual drapery or growth, so that we can only take their word for it, having necessarily our doubts, and deficient as they all are in loquacity or fluency or loudness of speech, they might as well remain incog. The interest centering in form mani- festations at present to me is much more in the fact than in the recognitions. I make a great distinction between intellectual and optical recognitions, and I shall say a word further on that distinction. Now I will relate a few experiences of the many I have had that have interested me. I will begin with this one. I went into a cabinet at the commencement of a seance with the medium, at her request. She was clothed as ordinarily in a dark slate-colored dress. She sat in a chair facing the opening, and quite near as it was a shallow one. I stood front of her, back to the opening, holding each of her hands in one of mine. There was a purpose in it as the reader will see. When she said " That will do," I then dropped her hands, and turned to go out. I did not move a step forward as the cabinet was shallow, as I have said ; but parting the curtain I was visible to persons in the circle who began to notice me, holding up their hands or saying : " See, see it I " I thought to myself they were taking me for a spirit. On turning a little 1 saw what they had noticed ; it was a female spirit close behind me clothed in white, arms extended; MATERIALIZATION. 245 the spirit was taller than I was, as I had to look up a little at her face, while the medium was shorter. The principal thing to notice here was the impos- sibility for a woman, dressed darkly, sitting in a chair whose contiguity I had not left, to appear instantly as a taller person, clothed in white. I am as sure there were, on this occasion, two personalities the medium and the spirit, and no confederate assistance as I am that I am now writing on paper. I may be different from many others, but how com- paratively insignificant is the more or less doubtful recognition of some departed friend by the side of this perfect evidence of an extemporized human form ? On one occasion, when attending a very satisfac- tory seance, where the cabinet was a curtained, shal- low alcove, with no entrance to it but from the room where we were sitting, and in sight of us, I am as positive there was but one person in the jnclosure that being the medium as I am that earth is attended with but one moon. Many recognitions were made of the spirits appearing from time to time by some of the persons in the circle; they were not very convincing to me as recognitions, but that was no concern of mine. The fact of their being appari- tions at all is what interested me, and of that I have no doubt. At last, a female spirit appeared at the parted curtain, and signified by a nod, after parties had severally said " Is it for me ? " that it was for me, and I went up to the cabinet. I presumed it or her to be one of my friends that I could not recog- 246 SHADOWS. nize. As usual, this form was voiceless. I felt that if I had said : " Is it Hannah or Emeline or Adeline ? " she would have nodded affirmatively, but I asked no such leading question. I said in a hospitable voice that I was glad to see her, whoever she was ; hoped she was well and happy, and having a good time generally ; to which she, in her mute way, assented. I shook hands with her, and got such a good, solid grip of an apparently muscular hand that, in my mind, I concluded to keep it, and did so, by no means to pull her out into exhibition, but simply " to hold the fort." In a second or two the spirit, as might have been expected, intimated a withdrawal of her hand, and I advanced closer, saying : " Do you want me to enter?" She signified "Yes," and I went into the pitch-dark enclosure, her hand firmly in mine, I hav- ing, as I said, a good grip with my right hand. With my left hand I felt of the medium, who was sitting down, so I had perfect evidence it was not a dummy, but the medium, I still holding the hand of the spirit. When conscious of there being two pres- ences, I found nothing in my hand, only my closed hand which had never relaxed ; the spirit hand that I had held was not, withdrawn ; it had dissolved into nothing, dematerialized, as it is called, and I had, as I have said, an empty hand. The medium, at that point, came out of the trance. I parted the curtain, and we two came out into the room. I am sure, so were all, that a few moments before there were three presences in that cabinet, the MATERIALIZATION. 247 spirit, the medium, and this scribe ; there were now only two, the extemporized form, apparently as human and substantial as the remaining two, had dissolved again into the invisible air. This, then, is an evidence of the production of a form, visible and tangible to the senses ; to me it is incomparably a more satisfactory evidence than what have been recognitions in my presence, because the fact itself is demonstrated. The impression that I am trying to give in this dissertation is that the value of the fact is of more consequence than any claimed person- ality, whether historical characters or from our sev- eral tribal or social circles. From what I have seen, and am sure of, in this department of Spiritualism, I have faith that it will continue to improve. I see already a difference in the conditions on different occasions in the make-up of the circle, affecting the quality of the manifesta- tions and the degree of light permitted. I have been in carefully-selected circles where the presentations or productions were great improvements, even by the same medium, over those in the presence of promiscuous gatherings. I am not without faith that this phase of the phenomena has come to sta}% and to improve; and the apparitions improve ; and, exhibited under a brighter light, the recognitions will be more apparently genuine and unmistakaable; for, say what you will, these forms, as a general thing, are rather stupid-looking; they lack bright- ness and intelligence much more than they do mus- cular and physical vigor. 248 SHADOWS. J have said but little about frauds. I am not unmindful of them, and their liability. The condi- tions of darkness, cabinets, side rooms, and credulity permit them. I am presuming, however, that the reader will understand that I have been open-eyed in all directions, and when I speak as positively as I do, and have done in these several "shadows," it will be understood that I have taken into considera- tion the many disabilities connected with, at least, this phase of the manifestations. It seems hardly worth while for me to write out the details of detec- tion ; the reader must presume I am not a fool, and if he cannot presume so, what 1 say any way will be of no account, and I am not writing for his benefit. There is no question that there are disadvantages enough in this phase of the materialization of forms to make it peculiarly liable to fraud, notwithstanding the sacredness of the subject, particularly in its com- mercial or business aspect. There are frauds, also, where the medium is not to blame ; it may be on the part of the spirits, and in the fine magnetic lines of attractive and repulsive influences; the audience may be, and unquestionably is, a factor in the mani- festation, both in drawing around like-minded spirits, and also in furnishing "raw material," so to speak, to help in the materialization. It is no use, however, to excuse the medium for the overt act if caught personating a spirit, or with the paraphernalia of decoration ; she must take the consequences, whether audiences or spirits are to blame or not, though it is possible for such an act to MATERIALIZATION. 249 be perpetrated, and the medium to be perfectly inno- cent. I never make this as an argument to anyone. I would expect to be laughed at if I did; but those who know something of the dynamics of this subject know I am right. I can hardly understand the motive on the part of spirits for deception ; the fact, however, is unques- tionable. I have known the personation of a spirit by the medium, where the latter was innocent and wholly unconscious, and the form was allowed by the spirit controlling to be accepted as a materializa- tion. I think a fraud out of order always, whether by spirit or mortal. A transfiguration is as wonder- ful a manifestation as a materialization. Why the spirits permit a form of that kind to come forward and be received as an extemporized presence, or a materialization, is very strange, to say the least, and I think the less of them for it. I feel myself that, when I am a spirit, if I should be attracted to this business of extemporizing forms, which is very doubt- ful, they would be what they claimed to be, or there would be no apparitions. I think I have now said about enough, if I have been lucid, for anyone who cares to know where to place me, which is as a firm believer in the fact of materialization with the same difficulty of identifica- tion as in the other phases of the manifestations, and that the fact of identification in all phases of the manifestations is a subordinate one to the main issue, which is of answering Job's question affirmatively, " If a man die, shall he live again ? " 250 SHADOWS. If the "Sage of Galveston" were alive, he would ay here is a good place to stop. Why should I say "if alive," wheii the chapter on his return proves him so ? Well, it is only a figure of speech. The " Sage " thought, however, may have been a whisper, and if this were a newspaper article here would have been my period in response. Writing now in a more permanent form, I will say to my invisible friend that I think I had better add an affirmative illustration or two just for a finish, and will do so. A daughter of mine, whom the reader will remem- ber as Hattie, has come to me in materialized form several times. Of course I could not recognize a lady of thirty who passed out of sight a child of six. This spirit once came, called me " Father," and gave her name as "Hattie," softly but audibly. She made a sign with her hands, indicating her hight when she died, or when I last saw her ; this certainly was pretty good evidence. A few days after I was accidentally at a sitting with a test medium, who did not know that I had been at a materialization, and Hattie came through or controlled her; said she showed herself to me at the dark circle the other evening. Both experiences made what I would call an intellectual recognition, and the fact was a very interesting one. Some year or two after that, and not very long ago, she came again ; this time Miss Berry was thefaedium. As I sat in the circle, the lady sitting next to me, whom I did not know, but who was a medium, said to me : *' Have you a Hattie, a young lady in the spirit world ? " I said " Yes." " She is your daughter, MATERIALIZATION. 251 is she not?" "Yes," said I; then she said: "She has been standing by you, and leaning on you all the evening." In about half an hour after that, the lady not hav- ing moved or spoken to anyone, so this episode was private, the manager of the circle said : " Ilattie Wetherbee is here, and says she will try to show her- self to her father." I went up to the cabinet, and very soon the spirit of a young lady appeared and embraced me, and retired. I say spirit because that is the custom; but these forms have more of a material than a spiritual aspect, all of them ; hence I suppose the designation, materialization. In a little while she opened the curtain again, and. putting her head close to mine, whispered to me saying : " Father, I have been with you all the evening," pointing to my seat, and adding: "You knew it, loo, for 1 gut her to tell you." I think this, also, was a circum- stantial or intellectual recognition, and I consider it an interesting circumstance. I will add, however, that the two " forms" of what claimed to be Ilattie at those two different times were very far from being duplicates. They were not out of keeping, however, to what my daughter might have been at her maturity ; but one was six or eight inches taller, and every way larger than the other, so that dissimilarity is a draw- back to identification, unless spirit forms are elastic, which is not unsupposable ; but as spiritual manifes- tations, with the circumstances, it seems to me they were perfect. One more circumstance I think will be all that 252 SHADOWS. *' the invisible Sage " will allow me to add to this chapter. This was a very interesting occasion, and also was at the Berry sisters'. The circle was select and special, small and for a purpose. I will not give a full description of it ; I will copy from my record book the circumstance that specially interested me. Among the forms that appeared was the apparition of a relative. I did not recognize her, so I asked her name. The spirit replied : " I am Mary Smith." Mary Smith was my mother's cousin, who had been dead forty years, and was a maiden lady of sixty when she passed away. I remember her as she looked then as well as I remember my mother. She appeared on this occasion as " a radiant maiden " well preserved of middle life, yet she was then a century old. That somewhat contradicted the poet's affirma- tion where he says : " Little of all we value here, Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year, Without both looking and feeling queer." Not so contradictory however upon a second read- ing. She looked, as we trust all old people do, in the spirit world, a sort of youthful maturity. Of course, I could not see anything in this fine- looking, well-arrayed person to remind me of cousin Mary. In her life, she was an educated lady of refinement. Her sister was the wife of the venerable poet, Kichard H. Dana, who died, aged ninety, a few years ago. I mention this to show that her social surroundings were of a high order, and it may have MATERIALIZATION. 253 had something to do with her rather extra-radiance on this occasion, so that I was rather proud to renew her acquaintance and relationship in her well-pre- served condition. For fear the reader will think I am straining to hold on to this relationship, I will say that after announcing her name in a small, sweet, low-toned, but distinct voice, she said : " Adeline and Hattie are here with me, and so is Albert," and a little more that need not be repeated. No one pres- ent knew the relative connection of these names and circumstances, which seem to have been added for the sake of identification, and that gave me another tolerably good intellectual recognition. Well, I think I had better stop here, even if abruptly, and to take the edge off of such may be Sage abruptness, I will add the following poetic thought, or semi- information : " Ghosts of happy, fond illusions, Flitting over land and sea, Through my heart your viewless footsteps Come and go eternally." XXIV. What is the good of it all, even admitting it to be true ? The answer self-evident. Cut bono, what is the good of it? some say; and it is generally by worldly and unthinking people, and, perhaps, after listening to testimony that they cannot deny or explain. It is a question I rarely answer. It does not seem to me worthy of an answer. If the answer to it is not at once self-evi- dent to the questioner to answer it, or by argument to make it appear of value, seems to me like casting pearls before swine. The remark of James Russell Lowell seems to be applicable, where he says : " The only way to argue with an east wind is to put on your overcoat." When that thoughtful, scholarly writer, Ernest Renan says : " If we could each of us be sure, once a year, of exchanging two words only with the loved and lost, death would be no more death," he stated a truth, and I do not think anyone will doubt it. Is not, then, that silly or thoughtless question answered? When Henry Thomas Buckle, that profound student, 254 GUI BONO? 255 and who was not one of the believers in a future life, or, more properly, was an agnostic in his views of the matter, said that, "If mankind was deprived of its belief in immortality, lean and unsatisfactory as it is, it would be insane from despair," did he not answer the cut bono? Is not, then, the sensuous proof of a life beyond the grave, of itself, a boon to mankind ? Both of these affirmations show that the human heart is hungry for this light. Is there not a reply to the question cui bono? in food for the hungry, and is it not as essential or important to feed the spirit of a man as to feed his body? One who spoke with authority said: "Man cannot live by bread alone." Anyone who says cui bono ? at what Spiritualism proposes, or what it practically is, says in plain language that man can live by bread alone, and there are many that do live so, and, verily, they will have their reward. If the man says cui bono? because he knows there is no future life beyond this, or that it appears so to him, and that we are knocking where there is no door, then it is a waste of time, and cui bono? is the proper question to ask ; but that has no bearing on the subject. Modern Spiritualism makes a positive state- ment. It says there are intelligent phenomena that claim to be the voice of the departed ; and when it cannot be denied or accounted for by the party, and he says cui bono? the question is an absurd one, for if there is no such future, of course there is no good to come from it. The asking of the question, then, is begging it negatively. 256 SHADOWS. Modern Spiritualism, in its basic fact, is either true or it is false. If true, as we have said, the bare fact answers the question of cui bono ? If it is false, the question is superfluous. There is something in human life that is of essen- tial value besides "bread and butter," that is, besides health, wealth, popularity, or position. Prof. Tyndall deals with values, and in a scientific man- ner. He says : " The circle of human nature, then, is not complete without the arc of feeling and emo- tion. The lilies of the field have a value for us beyond their botanical ones, a certain lightening of the heart accompanies the declaration that 'Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.' The sound of the village bell which comes mellowed from the valley to the traveler upon the hill has a value beyond its acoustical one. The starry heavens, as you know, had for Immanuel Kant a value beyond their astronomical one. Round about the intellect sweeps the horizon of the emotions from which all our noblest impulses are derived. I think it very desirable to keep this horizon open ; not to permit either priest or philosopher to draw down his shutters between you and it." Anyone who asks the question : "What is the good of it? " in reference to the claim of modern Spiritual- ism, has his shutters so thoroughly drawn down that he does not know what light is ; he is an eyeless fish in the Mammoth Cave f ^ materialism. The editor of the Scientific American, who does not believe at all in modern Spiritualism, but, on the cm BONO? 257 contrary opposes it, does not say cui lono? he pays this tribute to it, with an "if." "If it be true," he says, "such words as vast, profound, tremendous would have to be strengthened a thousand-fold to be fitted to express its importance. If true, it will become the one great event in the world's history. It will give an imperishable luster of glory to the nineteenth century." These are my sentiments also, without any "if." Here we all are in this world, faith gone into eclipse, revelation weakening in its foundations, the intui- tions of the soul following faith into its eclipse, because the records of holy writ do not rest on the bed rock, doubt and agnosticism intruding into the human mind. Now comes some intelligent phe- nomena into the world of human thought that, if true, throws a luster of truth on the ancient records, or at least proves a spiritual source for what is called revelation, and reproduces the fore- world of confi- dence again; and, if it does so, who asks the question, cui bono? certainly no one but a thoughtless igno- ramus. Epes Sargent, speaking of matters bearing on this point, says: "This universe, you may be sure, is not an infinite contrivance for the production and swift extinction of sentient, loving, intelligent life. It is not a stupendous vestibule to a charnel house, where affection, friendship, science, and art find congenial and progressive recipients for a few fleeting moments, and man is admitted to a glimpse of a possible hap- piness and growth, and then plunged into the black- 258 SHADOWS. ness of annihilation, a world where life and mind are given only to be withdrawn, as if in mockery, and truth and goodness are as evanescent as falsehood and evil." Is not the "fact" an important one, if it settles affirmatively that death and the grave is not the end of a man's life ; that the man survives death, and has a continued or perpetual conscious life beyond it? Does anyone question the value or cui bono? of that fact because, in his estimation, it is not yet proved or provable? It does not alter the fact of the claim that it makes. Can anything be conceived that is of more value to the people of this world, and more conducive to their well-being and moral worth than to know beyond a peradventure that our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, friends, who are the lost stars in our several social circles, are still alive, con- scious of our in-comings and our out-goings, and, as of old, having a real though invisible supervision over us? If anyone does not see the matter in this light, then cui bono? is their proper query, to which I make no reply except to say, in the language of Scripture, that I have no pearls to cast away. XXV. PREVISION. Containing some thoughts on prophecy, critical and illustrative. The following article was written for and printed in a magazine ; the inspiring motive was the words : "Will he enlighten us? " Some one, somewhere, had criticised me on my ideas on the subject of prophecy. The only memorandum I have now to refresh my memory reads thus : "Why should Brother Wether- bee not hope for the time to come when a more intel- ligent method obtains of forecasting future events? He sees wisdom in our ignorance of events to occur in the future; we do not. Will he enlighten us?" This memorandum does not bring into my mind the circumstances that called for this question, and led me to write the article referred to. Reading it over lately, I thought it, or at least some of it, was worth preservation ; so, it being short, I will copy it, as follows : As the four words, "Will he enlighten us ? " linger in my mind as an inspiring impulse, the lines of Emerson arise in my memory. It is an orphic but 260 260 SHADOWS. characteristic expression of a rather weird flavor. There is no remarkable definiteness in the thought, and yet it seems to carry a suggestive undertone which hints at a connection between prevision and " the thing so signified." I hardly think any words of mine will bring the poet's idea into more bold relief, and the best thing I can do is to quote it, and then leave it : "Delicate omens traced in air To the lone bard true witness bear; Birds with auguries on their wings Chanted undeceiving things Him to beckon, him to warn; Well might then the poet scorn To learn of scribe or courier Hints writ in vaster character; And on his mind, at dawn of day, Soft shadows of the evening lay ; For the prevision is allied Unto the thing so signified : Or say, the foresight that awaits Is the same genius that creates." The simple presentation of these lines will serve the purpose of concentrating my thought, and I hope they will the reader's also ; if not, read the quota- tion slowly and thoughtfully over again ; it will bear study. It is possible the time may corne when the pedes- tal of prophecy will be a firm and reliable one, when prevision may become an exact science like astron- omy, a matter of mathematics to which I added in my communication, " I hope not ; I have no welcome for it." I still think there is wisdom in letting PREVISION. 261 future suns shine on future clays without anticipat- ing future sunshine or cloud by any system of dis- count. Still, I have a hospitable, or open eye, for truth and knowledge. I follow wherever truth leads. 1 presume I have the same feeling regarding the sub- ject of prevision, should it become a matter of scien- tific or mathematical exactness, like the calculation of an eclipse, or the transit of a planet across the sun's disk, that, perhaps, Jesus may have had when he said : " Father, let this cup pass from me ; never- theless, not my will but thine be done," feeling sure it will be done any way. Quoting this remark from the Bible leads me to think that Jesus may have been a mind-reader as well as intuitive and prophetic, and, perhaps, sensed the future feeling in this way ; he may, perhaps, have sensed the collective and unspoken thought or senti- ment of the multitude, and may thus have known something of his painful and mortifying exit, or that it was to be inevitable, and so said to himself in his grief: "I hope not; I have no desire for it;" or, what amounts to the same thing, the letter of the record, "let this cup pass from me." A distinguished doctor and scientific man said in my hearing once that " If mankind knew each one the date when their own individual life was to end, that is, his exit, as definite in the future as the coming of one's birthday, or of Christmas, more than half of mankind would go crazy." It was the matter of death that I had in my mind in what I said in the article to which I referred. Hence the knowl- 262 SHADOWS. edge would not be wisdom, even if it should ever be truth. It seems to me the spirit world sees it in that light ; and though I do not think it has established itself very solidly on its prophetic power, but seeing a disposition on the part of mortals who believe in spirit messages to place some confidence in their pre- dictions, the spirits hesitate in expressing their opin- ion on the mortuary point. Renan, who wrote the " Life of Christ," who had some belief in the conscious existence of the departed, said: "If each of us could once a year be permitted to exchange but two words with the loved and the lost, death would be no more death " I find that the waves of new truth which are ever rolling in, and forever will be, come into current knowledge about the time the race is ready for them. If what Renan, the French scholar says, is true, and what modern Spiritualism is beginning to make a fact, and is certainly softening down death's terrors from a grim messenger to an angelic one, the pre- vision of life's exit may not alwa} r s be as unwelcome as it is now to the average of mankind. When it will not be the fact, as that doctor said, that half of mankind would go crazy if they knew as definitely to a day and hour their demise, as they know the day and hour of some coming birthday or anniversary, there may be such a change that people will rejoice at such a prevision, if the event was near, as they would to an appointment to some desirable foreign mission, or a promotion. This will, perhaps, explain my remarks on the PKEVISION. 2G3 possible future better or more scientific method than now obtains. I was and am speaking of the matter in the light of today, and, although I had human life mainly in my mind, the unwisdom of which I then spoke, applies to future events generally. I think, however, there is a psychic power or intel- ligence of an emotional or intuitive character mani- fested even in the flux of human and current affairs that seems to sense the future. Occasionally that knowledge leaks into mundane minds definitely. It comes sometimes in such a detailed manner that we know it is not accidental, or coincident, or in any sense a guess, that it is actually a prevision (instances in proof of this fact will be found in some of the chapters of this book, so need not be repeated here). Among many instances in proof of what 1 say, I will relate one. My mother's older sister, who died a spinster a few years ago at the age of 85, was a very singular woman, very mediumistic, sensitive^ and nervous. A history of her singularities would be quite illustrative of this subject, only her premoni- tions often lacked the dignity and sublimity that celestial influences ought to carry ; but, letting all that rest, she came down stairs one morning in a very pensive state of mind, noticeably so ; but seemed disinclined to tell her grief. She was at this time a woman of about half a cen- tury old, and in tolerably good health, as her length of life afterwards indicated. Being alone with her during a part of the day, and manifesting some curi- osity, she explained her sadness. She said she had 264 SHADOWS. had a singular dream. She was looking out of the front window; and, instead of seeing Hancock Street, as she ought to, she saw nothing but an extensive grave-yard, stones, monuments, here and there and everywhere. On some were dead people's names written, and on some living people's names. Every name she saw was a relative or an ancestor, or some friend with whom she was acquainted. The greater number of these names seemed to be of those still living. On each stone, under the name, was the year 1806, or 1820, or 1860, or 1875, or whatever it might be (this dream occurred between 1830 and 1840 ; I think about 1833). She saw quite distinctly twelve grave-stones in a row, with the names of her eleven brothers and sisters, and her own, on them, arranged in the order of their birth, and the year of their death on each. This was the conspicuous feature of this cemetery, which, when observed, became a matter of interest, and the other part of the dreamy tableau began to grow dim, and recede, and soon formed no part of the picture, only the twelve stones with her brothers' and sisters' names remaining, and they seemed quite conspicuous and near. Soon that part vanished, and she awoke, but she was able to remember the years only of five of them, two brothers and a sister, who had died, and two living sisters ; and the two sisters did die in the years that were on the stones named for them in the dream. The inference is that if she could have remembered the years of death mentioned on the other seven PREVISION. 265 grave-stones, she would have had a prevision of the year of death of all the members of her family. For some wise purpose, the veil of forgetf ulness was drawn over them. Certainly, in that dream there was proved that somehow or somewhere there is the principle of prophecy. With this, and other instances in my own, as well as the world's, history, it shows what is possible, and yet I want none of it. I feel that I am happier without it. I do not want to discount the future joy or sorrow, no objection to the joy, but as prevision includes both, I prefer the curtain to remain unlifted. I do not think spirits are prophets any more than men are prophets ; but as there is a great difference in the latter in reference to prevision, so there are differences in the former. The outlook of the former may be and is better than ours, and so may be, per- haps, approximately prophetic. I have the idea that all prevision is mathematical. The future is the product of the past. Given the factors, the unknown quantity can be made manifest, and thus the future is solved. I do not mean that the future is figured out literally ; but that the prin- ciple of prevision is mathematical. There have been geniuses who, on giving them an intricate sum, requir- ing in the solution necessarily a great complication of figures, yet the sum total or the answer is ready on the instant. The observer, a man of figures, goes through the operation, and with much calculation finds the genius's instantaneous answer correct every 266 SHADOWS. time, proving a royal road to exist, but which cannot be converted into a thoroughfare. By some such road as this the future may be known to angelic minds, or minds in the supernal ; and, as I have said, sometimes this prophetic knowledge finds expression through human souls ; but as yet prophecy or, prevision is not a thoroughfare even for spirits generally; at least so it seems to me, and I think it best that it is so. There may be spirits of a high order with pro- phetic insight, and to whom coming events are ever present ; and thus the world and its environment, with its inhabitants, spirits, and mortals, is run on an intelligent basis; and though most of the previsions that leak into this mundane sphere are through dreams, premonitions, nightmares, epileptic or shat- tered organisms, they at least show that there is pres- cient and prophetic power in the universe, botli beyond mortal and ordinary spiritual reach. Does not the Concord philosopher, from whom we have quoted, give us an inkling of the idea in the lines herein quoted, arid also where he says : " There is a crack in everything that God has made, and the light of heaven shines through the crevice"? I feel somewhat indebted to these "cracks" in human nature, and yet it is a blessed thing to be whole. XXVI. DETACHED THOUGHTS. Conclusions on several interesting and important points. I. There is no question of the fact with me that we have invisibly around us an environment composed of spirits, who have once been mortals on earth, and that they are still interested in us. I hardly need to say this onty as a summing-up, for the reader, if he has got as far as this, will have inferred as much from the foregoing fragments of my experience. I know of no intelligence, and can conceive of none, that does not proceed from a human organization. I do not mean the materialistic idea, that the mind is the result of the human organization, for I have learned to look upon the human organization, in a logical sense, as the product of the human spirit ; but that, in a worldly point of view, the genesis of intelligence is human. The Great First Cause is not intelligent in the sense we usually define the idea, and that any oral or written intelligence is human and not divine in its origin. In a word, that Moses or some ancient wise man, 207 268 SHADOWS. or the departed spirit of some man, wrote the Deca- logue, and it was not by the finger of God, directly or indirectly, so that the work was not superhuman in any sense, unless one considers a spirit super- human, which I do not ; neither did the angel whom St. John was going to worship consider himself superhuman, for he said so, as recorded in the book of Revelations. The phenomena of modern Spirit- ualism suggests how this might have been done, and Moses have been honest ; and in the suggestion how in that age there might have been good reasons for crediting it to Divinity to add to its authority. I think it possible that the Decalogue was written by a spirit, and, if so, this invisible intelligence was human, for spirits are human beings once mortal, now called^ immortals. My conclusion is supplemented by the fact that the testimony of this invisible intelligence itself is that it is human. In every instance, from 1848 to date, no matter what the nature or character of the demonstration, comes the positive assurance that " I am thy brother man, and once a dweller like you upon the earth." This bottom fact, the basis of modern Spiritualism, as a statement, is as certain as the fact that there is such an ism current in the world. Identification of a spirit is difficult, and often a questionable matter, not so the fact that the invisible communicator is a spirit. II. The estimate put by the great and good spirits on accumulated wealth, which is such an item DETACHED THOUGHTS. 269 of desire here, is a low-grade one. The most disap- pointed man who passes over the river of death is the man of wealth, starting from this side as a man of consequence, and becoming at once a nobody in the new relation. This is not always so, and need not be the case, but such is the general fact. I do not expect, by saying this, to reduce the value or the desire, or the love of, or the acquisition of, wealth. I do not even expect to reform myself. I only know there is danger in it that the many do not escape. Escape, possibly, may be my compensation for the lack of it. I know, also, when not an idol, it is one of the most useful adjuncts to a man's condition ; or, as Burns says : " Not for to hide it in a hedge, Nor for a train attendant ; But for the glorious privilege Of being independent ! " I am aware that but for wealth Washington would never have been the Father of his Country, nor Theo- dore Parker have been the iconoclast he was if pen- ury " had chilled the genial current of his soul," or Wendell Phillips have had the self-denial to dodge ambition for truth's sake but for his bank account; still the words of Pollock fit most human cases, only substitute the word wealth for gold in the passage quoted : "Gold, many hunted, sweat, and bled for gold; Waked all the night and labored all the day. And what was this allurement, dost thou ask? 270 SHADOWS. A dust dug from the bowels of the earth, Which, being cast into the fire, came out A shining thing that fools admired, and called A god ; and in devout and humble plight Before it kneeled, the greater to the less ; And at its altar sacrificed ease, peace, Truth, faith, integrity, good conscience, friends, Love, charity, benevolence, and all The sweet and tender sympathies of life." Wealth, I am aware, is a great means of civiliza- tion. The love of it, and the pursuit of it, has dis- tanced missionary work as a civHizer. A nation must have accumulated wealth before it can have culture, and, for efficiency, it must be concentrated in a minority, not diffused. We can say of it as the ancients said of offences: "It must needs be that wealth comes, but woe unto him by whom it comes." I do not mean that elevation of soul, heart, love, and sympathy abound with the poor, and all the sel- fishness with the rich. There is as much meanness, often more, in the idolatry of wealth as in its posses- sion. There are too many exceptions to the rule for the wealthy class to have the monopoly of selfishness, yet selfishness is one of the prime factors in its pro- duction ; still, it may almost be said that the posses- sion as well as the love of wealth is the root of all evil, that is, it is dangerous to the spirit; and mod- ern Spiritualism, by its prevision of the next life, will yet teach mankind to a practical point that fact, so that men will not die mere money-bags ; they will grow under its teachings centrifugal and diffusive, DETACHED THOUGHTS. 271 gradually investing their surplus money, not for its semi-annual dividends, but for its value in the next world. Invested here, but becoming " Summer-Lund Securities " there. III. I set a high value on phenomenal Spiritual- ism, or the spiritual manifestations. They ma}' be trifles in themselves, but not trifles in their con- nection with unseen intelligences. They are the accented features of the subject. Practically, phe- nomenal Spiritualism is the whole of modern Spiritu- alism, or its only distinguishing feature. Modern Spir- itualism denned means sensuous proof that man survives death and communicates with his fellow-men who are still living in the form. Other isms claim a faith in a future life, more or less vague, as a sentiment, a hope, or a belief. Some have the idea intuitively ; but most people rest on Bible revelation, or the education growing out of it. I think that both the intuitional and the vague idea have been greatly strengthened even into rational thought in church teachings by the spreading of modern Spiritualism, and without recognizing the source of the rationalizing influence. This is more noticeable at funeral ceremonies than anywhere else. It is wholly the phenomena that make the senti- ment, or hope, or belief a matter of fact. Intuitive and hopeful people take comfort, or try to in an emer- gency, in the expressions of holy writ, such as these, for instance: "Iain the resurrection and the life ;" " Because I live, ye shall live also," and other similar 272 SHADOWS. hopeful affirmations. Practical, or matter-of-fact men, which class includes most men of this age, say or feel otherwise, and point to " Rachel, mourning for her children, and refusing to be comforted because they are not," and say there is the fact ; no glittering gen- eralities can dry those tears, and everybody outside of Spiritualism knows that it is true. There are some who consider phenomenal Spirit- ualism as light and trivial, and would consign it to a back seat, and make more prominent the ethical teachings of the subject. I am not one of such. I have been more deeply moved by a few ultra mortal raps than by any incarnated eloquence ever uttered. Not that I love education and progress less, far from that, but I like the phenomena more, because they, and they alone, to me have extended life and progress beyond the grave by their sensuous evidence. Shut the door on the phenomena, and the " gates " are not " ajar," shut that door, and you shut out the light of modern Spiritualism. If you make the subject, as it would be then, wholly ethical, it would be but one ism more, and be hardly a modification or an improve- ment upon current liberal religious thought ; it would lack even the culture that has grown up in and around the earlier established orders of religious belief. I am not forgetting inspiration, nor the influences that have almost suggested a royal road to eloquent knowledge. Without the phenomena these high- toned moments could hardly be claimed as spiritual ministrations in the modern sense; but the phenomena, DETACHED THOUGHTS. 273 admitted and recognized, then these inspirational efforts become a part of the general whole as one of the phases of the spiritual manifestations. Such inspirations and iniluences are as often seen in the walks of religious life as they are in the walks of Spiritualism. The Spiritualist knows from his expe- rience that a law exists for it, and the light shines through the thin places or cracks in the curtain between the two worlds whether the thin places or the cracks know it or not. IV. Spirits, I think, have a way of reaching us directly. 1 think the influences of our own spirit friends are more reliably from them when they come directly to us than when they come through a third party. I am getting to think that one's own impres- sions are as liable to be spiritual impressions as to be our own impressions. I have no doubt that spirits near us by love, relationship, or affinity reach our sensorium as readily as we do ourselves in our nor- mal genesis of thought. Science, as Dr. Storrs says, has not bridged the chasm between molecular action and human thought, and neither have we ourselves, nor even individually for ourselves, bridged it. We know, if our attention has been called to it, and have noticed the process that our emotions of affection and our intuitions seem to have a -deeper root in our consciousness or our being than our intellect has. We examine our thoughts, the product of our mind, as a something a little outside of ourselves, as it were, semi-objectively, 274 SHADOWS. not so our emotions or intuitions. I have an idea that spirits en rapport with us have their avenue of communication in that deeper department of our being, and with us know and read our train or flow of thought that we call our intellectual life. We do not know the source of sudden thoughts or ideas that seem to bolt into our minds ; they may be self-induced, they ma}'- sprout into consciousness spontaneously, and they may be the influences or silent whisperings of the spirits. It is difficult to tell in the mental dynamics of our being what is our own, and what is from the " divinity that shapes our ends" or our own thoughts. This is a very apt expression for what is now known as " spiritual influ- ences," and leads us to think that Shakespeare was a medium, and very sensitive to the influences of the spirit world. Certainly Shakespeare, the man, and Shakespeare, the genius, were very different people, and impressed people differently, or we would today have known as much of him as we do of his contem- porary, Francis Bacon. V. A bright young spirit, very mature, however, in wisdom, gave a message, it may have been alle- gorical, probably was. I will try and put it briefly into an intelligible form, thus : " I love my medium, and she wants some dollars for her uses, and I want some dollars, too, for myself." He got the dollars, no matter how; here is what he, the spirit, says: "I tried various ways for the possession of what I wanted ; I offered my dollars in exchange, but no spirit wanted DETACHED THOUGHTS. 275 them. They wanted love^ truth, sympathy, wisdom, and for any of these they had returns to make of what I wanted ; but dollars nobody wanted, and, as you mortals would say, I have, in these dollars, an elephant on my hands, and I do not know what to do with it or them." This interview was quite inter- esting; I have tried to give the substance of it in these few words. It suggested some ideas on the subject of wealth from a spirit's standpoint. I will try to present my ideas, using that abridged message as an influence. Many people struggling under difficulties, and against odds, wonder why the spirits who loved them, and aided them when in the form, do not do so now when out of the form. It certainly would be an easier thing to do, it would seem, than it is to materi- alize a form, as they often do. Spirits certainly take an interest in us, and would naturally, one would think, be happy or unhappy, as we are happy or unhappy. They must be very much changed, funda- mentally, if they are not. 1 am very sure, did they not see some " glorious beaming star too far over yon mountain's hight " for mortal vision, they would be. It is very evident that the soft and wealthy con- ditions of this life do not come to the most deserv- ing ; rather the reverse, it would seem to me. Strip from the wealthy their accumulations, they would hardly hold their own by the side of those more or less stripped by the chances and circumstances of life, as lovable, sympathetic people. When they are thus stripped, as all will be in the undress of the 276 SHADOWS. spirit, when this " mortal coil is shuffled off," there will be a regrading of souls, and very different from the current one of earthly life. It will not be sur- prising then if many of the first will be last, and many of the last will be first, many a millionaire be a street-sweeper, and many a man of mean estate here will be clothed in purple and fine linen there. I think in a world where wealth is goodness, spirit- uality, thought, wisdom, and the like, that the deni- zens of it in reaching their friends, who are still in the form, have lost their estimate of our wealth that is so appreciated here on earth, and of no value there. We who are adults have seen children play with marbles with all the earnestness of business life, as if marbles for the time being was their all in all, happy in possession, quarreling even for their accumula- tion ; and we looking on can hardly realize the value of what they are aiming at and making such a fuss about, except by remembering we were all children once, and had marbles ourselves. It seems to me that spirits have about the same idea of wealth as we adults have of the marbles and foibles of our youth ; we have got past them. Thus the Goulds, Vanderbilts, Astors, Sages, Fields, etc., are simply children who have great accumulations of marbles through luck and skill, and we, or rather the spirits, can simply wonder what they will do with them when they are done playing. I am not forgetting the influence and bearing that wealth may have on one's soul or mental being. I am not forgetting the independence of thought that DETACHED THOUGHTS. 277 affluence sometimes gives its possessor. I know many men who have been brave in expression beyond their fellows, who would not have been thus leaders of thought but for their inherited or acquired wealth. True, there are exceptions; let not the "money- bags " of life flatter themselves that these exceptions are the rule; for, as a whole, wealth narrows most men, or else the quality of narrowness, caution, cold-bloodedness, selfishness, are combined more or less with the luck or parsimony which have been the factors of such accumulation. It is better to have hope without wealth than to have wealth without hope ; better still to have both. There is much truth in the orphic saying of Emerson: "A man takes from his soul what he puts into his money-chest." XXVII. THE BOSTON OUTLOOK. Thoughts that the locality suggests to a Spiritualist. I think the Spiritualists who live in, especially if they are natives of, Boston have good reasons for being proud of their locality. I do not mean that it is of the " burning bush " order, a place to put off one's shoes, because of its being holy ground, for a good deal of its terra firma is artificial ; but I do not count that as in any sense unholy, for that has been a decided improvement upon the original first out- line of it as nature made it, or God, if one likes that expression better. Part of this artificial addition, a very small part, to be sure, has been selected by a liberal Spiritualist and dedicated to the spirit world, and a spiritual temple erected thereon, and yet, with that creditable event in my mind, I am not proud of Boston for any special holiness, and so what I am going to say I do so with my "shoes " on, uninfluenced by the Horebic injunction. I was saying, we Spiritualists who live in Boston have many reasons to be proud of it. It is a bright and respectable old place for a new country, 278 THE BOSTON OUTLOOK. 279 or new to Caucassian life, as America is. In one of Plutarch's records of "Ancient Lives," a man says: "I thank the gods that I am a man and not a woman, a freeman and not a slave, a Greek and not a barba- rian." Never having been a woman, I cannot say as the Grecian did ; one, also, is not very sure how free he is or how enslaved, and so, also, would I be care- ful how I look down upon the barbarian, for such are as liable to be in our very midst as on, or beyond, the frontiers ; still the Grecian's remark is an analo- gous one to my expression of pride in being a Bos- toman. I am aware Boston would have been Boston with- out my aid, or the aid of three or four ancestral gen- erations who may have been an atom or two in it from its earlier days. I am aware, also, that all over this broad land are the sons and daughters of this "Hub," as it is sometimes called, who have as much inherent right to be proud of it as I have ; so, while I express my pride in being thus generically con- nected with the locality, I do not put on any airs, or prevent any distant ones from having their pride in this or any other place on the world's map. I have something to say about Boston, and I may get it said after awhile. By Boston I do not mean the little peninsular on the coast of the Bay State of two or three square miles of land, which the Indians called Shawrnut, nor it with the accretions of terri- tory, of which I have spoken, by the "removal of mountains " in the neighborhood and casting them into the sea, thus doubling or trebling its area ; nor 280 SHADOWS. it with the supplements of contiguous cities and towns by annexation, so that now, geographically speaking, it has a territory over ten times what it had when it first became a figure in history. I include its vicinity, or the general indefinite local- ity which goes to make up the intellectual atmos- phere of this still small, but may I not say rather brilliant, spot in the world of letters and of thought. To having any claim of fanciful fitness to being the "Hub of the Universe," we have got to include Concord, with its past and living lights, and Har- vard College, and other objects, going by other names ; and then we must remember the universe includes some undiscovered country outside of earth, and, any way, it is an awful strain to call it the "Hub," and yet who does not know what is meant when the "Hub" is spoken of? But with all these qualifications and reductions, it seems to me to be more of a " Hub " than any spot of which I can think. So, though I do not consider it a " Hub," or call it one, I always consider the appellation compli- mentary, whether intended so or not. Historically, politically, religiously, learnedly, finan- cially, socially, this Boston, in its enlarged sense, has much to its credit, and, of course, some to its debit or discredit, but the balance is very large on its credit side, its enemies, if it has any, will admit that. Of course, many people, people that are not only proud of this city, but people that this city is proud of, and who, by their learning and their reputation or influence have helped to make it the THE BOSTON OUTLOOK. 281 conspicuity it is, and who will agree to all I have said as yet, but will not go with me now in saying that one of the things that helps make me proud of this locality, that enhances its value to me, is the reception it gives to modern Spiritualism. How many pleasant or intelligent faces will fall a shade or two on such an intimation as this; without any basis of truth such will of course think, and are happy in knowing, that it is not true, and, if it was, it would be retrogression and a stain rather than the source of pride to anyone. They might be charitable, perhaps, to the writer, and suppose him to be living in his little world and meeting Spiritualists only, and if meeting others not counting them, he has mistaken the extent, strabismus is in his eye, and he thinks the world squints, as our aunt Nancy, at the North End, once said, whose husband was a Millerite, and I was laughing at her for such notions, when she replied : " Only think of it, how many do believe it. I hardly see a person who does not believe it, and is not preparing for it." Well, I suppose we all do see things pretty much as we wish to, or as our interest dictates. Still, it pleases me to feel that I am right, and proud of even being proud of the fact as something of a feature of the locality at the present time. Modern Spiritualism started, as we all know, in a small way, in the western part of the State of New York, less than two score years ago, and has spread now all over the world ; at least, in every part of the civilized and the uncivilized world, also, are found its 282 SHADOWS. adherents, and the practical working of the law that is fundamental in its teachings, and its believers, now running into the millions, and has already become one of the large sects of the world (using " sects " as a general term of division in religious thought), haring a literature also of no mean pretension, and publications, magazines, and newspapers in a dozen different languages. In thus spreading itself more or less all over the world, it seems to me to have found a congenial atmosphere in this vicinity. I am aware there is no place anywhere that can be called its special center. But where is there more of it concentrated thau is the case here? which seems to make it almost a duty to notice the fact before finishing this book, and which I am now doing. Look at the meetings for spiritualistic teachings that this locality sustains. See the number of mediums that dispense the idea in sittings or seances, in tests, messages, healing, and other ways, and by other names sometimes ; and with regard to the more sensuous phenomena there seems to be in this city about all the time a dozen mediums for materialization, to say nothing about other phys- ical phenomena. The manifestations for teachings and for tests also, in a private way, are enjoyed in all parts of the city, even in the higher walks of social life that the world knows but little about. This, to some extent, is so everywhere both in this country and England and on the continent, but it is remarkably so in this vicinity of which I am now speaking. THE BOSTON OUTLOOK. 283 Speakers and believers all over the country look fondly to this city for the rising thought, as if it were the home of this "Dawning Light," and the prestige of this locality often endorses the utterances of unknown persons. Thoughts acceptable here are apt from that fact to be acceptable elsewhere, and thus the push or the Boston momentum is felt at a great distance, and almost everywhere. The fact that the first spiritual temple, of which we have before spoken, is blossoming out here in its fine architectural proportions, is but one of the point- ers that show in thus owning up of my pride in this locality that I am not drawing on my imagination for my facts. I once heard the Rev. Nehemiah Adams, as he had just returned from the death-bed scene of a very pious member of his church, relate the circumstance at a large meeting then being held in Tremont Tem- ple. It is too long a story to relate here ; but it was about the seeing of a spirit that he, the dying man, knew when a mortal ; and the circumstances were such, and the prophecy that had been suggested by the manifestation was of such a character, that it proved there was no decay of mentality as the life of that man was closing in. But to Mr. Adams, his pastor, instead of this being a natural fact, it was looked upon and spoken of as a divine one, an angel had manifested to this brother on account of his great and manifested piety. The reverend gentleman remarked after narrating the circumstances: "The curtain between the two 284 SHADOWS. worlds was thinner than it once was." I have no doubt of that fact myself; but where was his authority, outside of modern Spiritualism, for saying so? The thought suggested to me by the remark was whether there were not, and always had been "thin places" on this earth, places more open to spiritual influ- ences than other parts of the earth's surface. As in the human organization there are ganglionic centers or spots, or sensitive places, which are not universal in the human system, so there may be, so to speak, ganglionic spots or centers on the earth's surface. Of course it is likely to be as much or more in the race living on the spot as in the location ; but may be that is not so certain. It would seem as if Palestine, Greece, Rome and Egypt, and, later, Brit- ain and many other places, suggest such an idea which has had so much to do with human history. Palestine, for instance, only about as large, and as unattractive as Wales, has left its mark deeply on the human race, giving the civilized world its religion, and Phoenicia, almost a part of it, the alphabet. Why did it happen so on that circumscribed and unattractive spot, when there were so many superior ones in every respect ? It is said that Frederick II. was sent to Syria against his will ; the church perse- cuted him, and one of the charges was his saying that, " If God had ever seen Naples, he never would have selected Palestine for his chosen people." I quote this circumstance to show it is not the attrac- tive features of a locality that make it one of these ganglionic or " thin places." Neither dare I say that THE BOSTON OUTLOOK. 285 Boston is any more ganglionic, or thin, or sensitive, or magnetic than many other spots in the American domain; only I have uttered a thought indigenous, one may say, to a " Hubite," and I must try to make it reasonable. I do not seem to have any inclination to write on an ethnological subject, and I do not know as I am capable of doing so in an interesting manner if I had ; only in this closing chapter, as this city in its elastic or enlarged sense seems to be open- ing itself to our thought, the fact pleases me, and I felt like saying so, wondering also why it has rela- tively grown into such a marked locality for modern Spiritualism. The careful reader of the preceding chapters of this book will have very easily got the author's rationale of the fact just stated, that it is such a marked local- ity, and that naturally is his belief in the basic truth that modern Spiritualism teaches, viz., that there is an intelligent spiritual environment, which means practically both a general and a special supervision of the affairs of mundane life by the spirit world. That such supervising spirits saw a tendency, or, using spiritualistic parlance, finding conditions right, have influenced one to the point which by these remarks seems to have been reached in the present modern spiritual aspect in this vicinity. I hope there will be no solstice or retrogression in the movement, and the, so to speak, Horebic charac- ter of this locality be permanent, now having been ornamented or marked by the erection of the first sphitual temple of attractive magnitude, and dedi- 286 SHADOWS. cated to the spirits, as it should be, it having been inspired from that source; so, having said I was proud of being a Bostonian, and giving at length my reasons for being so, I hope the feeling will be per- manent and enduring, and the time come, as its teachings become more and more understood, when all the people will be like-minded, proud of this local- ity for its sake, and rejoice in the spread of this light which has begun to shine in the world, and brightens as it continues. The city of Boston has quite a his- tory for a spot not yet three centuries old ; has been the mother also of many other places, and, as we have said, is quite a conspicuity, far larger, in an ideal or transcendental sense, than are thousands of places of greater geographical extent. It seems, then, to be a fitting place for Spiritualism to have got a decided impetus, as it manifestly has, and if celebrated already for many things, it will be even more so for this dawning light when its truth has got implanted in the general mind, as will certainly be the case if it be a truth. I am writing as if it was, because I have solid reasons for knowing it to be so. Seems to me if any modern "Jacob" should have a dream, here would be his pillar or bethel, where he would see the ladder reaching Heaven with the angels ascending and descending thereon, except that the Bible, and modern Spiritualism especially, teaches that not in this mountain nor in Jerusalem, nor even in Boston, is there any deific or angelic exclusiveness ; but the first round of that ladder rests wherever there is a truth-loving human being. THE BOSTON OUTLOOK. 287 Coleridge, translating the poetry of Schiller, makes it read thus, it is not a literal truth, but seems to be a suggestive one, so I use it as a terminus to this chapter : " The spirits' ladder, That from this gross and visible world of dust, Even to the starry world with thousand rounds, Builds itself up, on which the unseen powers Move up and down on heavenly ministries, These see the glance, the unsealed eye, Of Jupiter's glad children born iu luster." 288 SHADOWS. THEODOKE PARKER. The earth is marked in many places With rocky scratches and furrows deep ; Boulders huge have left their traces, As diamond-pointed icebergs slowly creep. Records, or scriptures, writ on stone, Humanity is fast translating, Reads wisdom from the Great Unknown, And grows religious speculating. So the moral world has " boulder scratches," Made by heroic souls in passing through it; Prophets and poets, " bearers of despatch es,"- Lights in a world that hardly knew it. History, rich in storied names now dead, None brighter shine than that great teacher; Today is brighter for the light he shed, The world still needs just such a preacher. The " boulder scratch " of Theodore Parker, Oh, who would now that mark efface? Put out his light, and make it darker, Whose transit was a blessing to the race? His life, in years, how short It seems? How long in manly work for human good ! Religion in him was life, not dreams ; Mute are his foes ; his mission understood. The voice of bigotry now is hushed That called him heretic, though sent of God ; Full many a sham by him lies crushed, And others safely walk where he in peril trod. I Shi ^bc THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW.