THE DANGER OF YIELDING SELFHOOD
TO COMMUNICATIONS
In Macbeth, Shakespeare in a most
remarkable manner represents the fatal consequences of reliance on and
unreasoningly yielding to the dictates of occult knowledge, and the
process by which prophecy leads to its own fulfillment.
Macbeth's career is more tragic and
criminal than that of the host who have, with equal folly, relied on
mediumistic utterances, and, from the egotism, engendered by supposing
themselves special messengers of exalted spiritual beings, rushed on
nameless missions; but its commencement and course is the same. A
commander in the army of Duncan, his king, he defeats the rebel leader,
the Thane of Cawdor, and the allied army of Norway. Soon after, while
crossing a heath, he meets a
company of witches who salute him not only by his title of Glamis, but
by that of the vanquished
rebel, and then as king. Immediately afterwards, messengers arrive and
greet him as Thane of Cawdor! This seeming fulfillment of what he at
first considered an idle tale fires an allconsuming ambition, and the
humble Thane of yesterday aspires to sovereignty. The knowledge creates
a fierce flame in the heart of Lady
Macbeth, and from that moment both
plot against their sovereign's life. At
once the opportunity offers. Duncan
tests the hospitality of his newlycreated peer, and by him is
assassinated in his sleep. The deed is dexterously referred to Duncan's
own sons, who fly, leaving the crown on the brow of Macbeth. Then follow
a fearful series of crimes to maintain
his position, until they accumulate
and recoil on his own head. Had he not
met the witches, and listened to
their prophecy, he would have been more than satisfied with his
promotion to the Thaneship of Cawdor; listening, that gift only became
evidence of greater things in store.
The prophecy changed the whole course of his thoughts and current of his
life. He fulfilled it to the letter,
and amid ruin and unutterable misery
was himself ruined and destroyed.
Say what we will of the fallibility
of such communications, there is that,
be it superstition or educational
bias, which endows the unseen realm of spirits with supernatural insight
and power; and although it is constantly
reiterated that no influence, beyond
the dictates of reason, should be given preference, too often reason is
silenced by the voice of delusion.
From this cause, circles and mediums
imperfectly controlled by uncultured spirits have been productive of
most deplorable results. The circle is not the means of amusement for an
idle hour, nor mediumship a toy to engage the curious. Both are
surrounded by dangers. Too often the ignorant accept the vague utterance
received from a moving table, or of a trance medium, as infallible
authority, and allow the current of their lives to be changed thereby.
They are filled with the vain conceit that they are specially ordained
for missions; they ventilate their inanities from the rostrum. They
flood the press with their driveling vagaries; they put their
conceit into their lives, and become
unbearable nuisances.
Unless the spirit realm can be
approached with unbiased judgment and uncompromising reason, it becomes
dangerous ground. Over its quaking surface will-o'-the-wisps shed
fantastic light and mock the guiding stars. Here fanaticism grows apace,
and flaunts its folly in the face of wisdom. "Thus saith the Lord,"
becomes "thus saith the spirits;" with even more disastrous results.
Responsible reason yields place to an irresponsible spirit intelligence
that impels its blind devotees, not in the course of right, but in the
opposite direction. Hence flows the flood of communications from the
great departed which would disgrace a schoolboy as compositions. Their
bad grammar and rude style might be referred to imperfect control, but
they have such a dearth of ideas, the skeptic pertinently inquires if
Washington, Webster, Clay and Parker have become driveling idiots.
That such communications can be written
and signed with the names of
the departed adds a horror to the thought of death!
Not for a moment are such
communications to be accepted as genuine,
and the giving of such great names of
itself should awaken suspicion.
The higher order of spirits withhold
answers that would be detrimental to the inquirer; but usually, whatever
questions are asked are freely answered, and the future, wisely concealed
from mortal gaze, because man lives by necessity for to-day and not
to-morrow, is truly or falsely
prophesied. There is no end of the follies thus engendered. The wish in
the questioner's mind is echoed
from the table or lips entranced, and is received as the voice of Fate,
and the feet run swift to its fulfilling. Reason, judgment, common-sense
are cast aside in a race where credulity follows the pretending leadership
of inanity.
The irresponsible control breathes with
poisonous breath on the most sacred relations of the family, and in a
moment, as with a "thus saith the spirit," the accumulated joys of a
lifetime wither. Or it sends its willing dupes on missions of reform, to
which Don Quixotic performances are serious history.
The morality flowing from such source
cannot be otherwise than an echo of desires. It is the carnival of
individual license, and from it come
fanatics of lust, advocating their
doctrines with unblushing impudence.
All great movements have their dangers,
and the brighter the light, the deeper the contrasting darkness. If the
finger of the world's scorn be pointed at manifestations—which are
mushrooms growing in the heated
air of ignorance, sensuality and
selfishness, and not in the substance of the
movement to which they are
superficially referred—the world is most just in its condemnation.
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