IS MEDIUMSHIP SPONTANEOUS?

 

Eminent lecturers claim all mediumship is apparently developed at once, and that one need not make a study of it or devote any time to it; while others advise sitting in a circle and making, a thorough study of it by cultivation. There is the same direct conflict here as there is on the old dogma of re-incarnation and pre-existence, which are brought out of the dust-heap of the past with so much unction.

 

Is mediumship a gift, bestowed on a few only? Are we to take for granted that there is a spiritually-ordained priesthood of mediumship; mediums being born and not developed? It is to be hoped that it will be a long time before Spiritualists accept this doctrine. It is a fundamental proposition that sensitiveness, or the capability of mediumship, is a faculty common to mankind, differing in degree—as hearing and sight are common heritage, but keener in some individuals than others, or, under certain conditions, they may disappear.

 

There are instances of persons becoming mediums at their first sitting, or rather discovering that they were: others sit for a year or more and slowly become sensitive, to at last expand this faculty in full measure.

 

I know of a medium whose hand after several seances began to write an irregular scrawl. After a time words were written, but not till after a year's practice were connected messages given. This is not an exceptional case.

 

As for the use of instruments, as the planchette, it has never been claimed that they would create mediumship. By concentrating and holding the attention, they assist, and furnish a ready means of receiving messages.

 

Beginners and all others must weigh all claims in the balance of reason, whatever be their purporting source.

 

One thing is certain, and that is that Spiritualism does not advocate a high priesthood of mediums, born to the office, to the exclusion of all less favored. Its distinctive feature is its broad catholicity, and the breaking away from the belief in a tribe of Levites nearer to God than other men.

 

ANTAGONISM EXPLAINED.

 

In their messages spirits speak of being "permitted" to come, and when they describe their world, they conflict in their statements. Some have not seen Jesus or the, angels, others were led by him through the gates of heaven. To those clinging to the old ideas of spirit, such communications are irreconcilable.

 

The new views of spirit and the spirit world are so radically different from the old that the latter must be completely swept from the mind before clear views can be gained. The same difficulty is experienced by spirits, who, educated in the belief that God directly orders affairs, and spiritual beings are especially under his orders, do not soon outgrow their superstition. They speak of being "permitted" and of being allowed to perform certain mission@, whereas the plain fact is that spiritual beings enjoy greater freedom than while in physical life.

 

To say Jesus met and led them through the gates of heaven, would be the phraseology a zealous church believer would use, while the spirit entering the next life free from such beliefs, would recognize in the bright beings who conducted him, his dear friends.

 

Such diversity and contradictions are not stumbling-blocks in the way of those who take the new view of spiritual life. They are to be expected, just as we would expect people here to differ, some telling the truth and others lies, some intelligent, others ignorant. Nor are we to conclude that the spirits communicating falsely, willfully do so. If one should ask an Esquimau to describe the earth, he would say it was covered with ice, and the sun was on the horizon the greater part of the year. If one should ask a native of Africa, he would say the sun blazed from the zenith, and the heat was excessive. Both would speak the truth. Then if one was asked, who had traveled around the world and become widely acquainted with its diverse climates, an entirely different description would be given, and truthful.

 

Ask a Trinitarian about God, and he will tell you that he is three; ask a Unitarian, he will tell you God is one. As spirits they would answer exactly the same, until they had outgrown their superstition, and that would be after an indefinite time.

 

OF WHAT USE ARE UNRELIABLE COMMUNICATIONS?

 

Impatiently it is asked: Is there no dependence to be placed on what spirits tell us? Do they not know what their life is, or do they willfully misrepresent it? If spirits have intelligence to tell us anything that we can rely on concerning the beyond, why not also the details of their life and its surroundings? Unless these communications are reliable our theory is baseless. Is it impossible after fifty years of spirit communication to tell what statement of spirits can be believed or not?

 

Such questions and doubts arise in the minds of investigators, because they have not divested themselves of the old belief that spiritual beings are necessarily infallible sources of intelligence. Such divestment is the first and important step. Then consider that the only difference between spirits and mortal men and women is that one is connected with the physical body and the other is not, consequently when we converse with spirits we are talking with beings of limitations like ourselves, and, most important, through conditions which render the correct enunciation of messages exceedingly difficult.

 

We are conversing with an order of beings like ourselves, more refined and exalted perhaps; perhaps below us in culture and ability, but with surroundings so different that language framed to describe one fails to convey true conceptions of the other. The spirits are of the same order, but their senses are intensified. The physical eye is imperfect and takes in only a narrow range of colors, and on either side of the spectrum lie zones of light wholly unrecognizable by that organ. The ear takes in a narrow range of sounds, above and below which it cannot hear. If the spiritual senses are expanded beyond these confines, then the landscape glows with colors before unseen, and the ear is sensible to sounds before unheard. The landscape would become transformed, and quite indescribable by words applied to earthly scenes.

 

Different spirits in describing their home would widely differ and might well heed the wisdom of St. Paul, who, when be returned from the spirit realm, or, as he calls it, heaven, which he visited in trance, said he saw things unlawful to utter; that is, impossible and impolitic to describe.

 

My own experience, and I think, of everyone who has been clairvoyant, confirms this view, and if the spirit world is described at all, it must be done with words having new meaning, and when this is done, the description becomes too material. The spirits know what their life is; they may not intend to misrepresent, but mediumship—the channel—and the words they are compelled to use distort their meaning.

 

They should not be taken as infallible guides, and that they are does not prove the spiritual theory baseless; rather it confirms a cardinal doctrine. Reason must in all cases be used, as we would in the discrimination of things in our earth-lives, and knowing how few mortals there are capable of guiding in this life, we should beware of the volunteer guidance of beings in the next.

 

Should one send out circulars to an hundred persons, taken at random, asking them for a description of the earth life, he would receive as conflicting and puzzling answers as ever came from spiritual beings in regard to their home. Yet he would not therefrom conclude that there were no people in the world, and that it had no existence.

 

Judge Edmonds attempted to describe the spirit world, and Dr. Eugene Crowell wrote an interesting book on the subject. The spirits with whom they communicated seem to have spoken in parables or transposed descriptions of earthly scenes, without making distinction, which one who regarded the earth-life as a part of spirit life might unintentionally do. Their descriptions were so material that they have called out a great deal of criticism and provoked ridicule. A. J. Davis perhaps erred in the other extreme of idealizing. St. John in Revelations, illustrates the most ambitious attempt to clothe spiritual realities with mortal words.

 

"But," it is asked, "are we not to have any assurances that we converse with the spirit friends who purport to come to us?" We surely are, and that assurance must come from judging every communication by its own merit, and test of identification, as we do all other things presented to us. If a spirit comes to us and in his answers shows a knowledge of things known to him in this life, we should infer that be was communicating. And as the conversation continued we should strengthen our conclusion by internal evidence of its genuineness. But if we should now ask him questions on subjects he did not understand, as, say, astronomy, or the Sanskrit language, and we received vague and meaningless answers, or none at all, we should not infer that we had been deceived, or that a false spirit had come. If the answers showed a perfect knowledge of such subjects it would be absolute proof that they did not come from the source claimed for them.

 

Let us enter this path with careful footsteps, for it passes through fields which give entirely new views of nature and the limitations and possibilities of spirits, and every vestige of superstition and educational bias must be eliminated from our minds before we can reach correct conclusions.

 

We have no infallible book, oracle, or guide. We cannot say "thus saith the spirits," for "thus saith the Lord!" There is no reliable book to take the place of the Bible, and we should rejoice that such is the fact.

 

We should rejoice that no power on earth or heaven can put Reason in "leading-strings."

 

It is not so much the object of Spiritualism to paint the alluring beauty of the next life as to impress the importance of right living in this.

 

OBSESSION.

 

By obsession is usually understood that condition wherein a spirit takes possession of the body of the subject, by dispossessing his spirit, and then is able to act through it independently. This theory is as old as the story of the devils that were sent out of the man into a herd of swine, and is as erroneous as ancient. The body and spirit are so bound together during earthly life, that they are one and inseparable. The spirit retains its hold on the body as its garment with which no other can be clothed, and its going out precludes return, which means death.

 

The more tenable explanation is that the obsessing spirit acts through and by means of the spirit of the subject in the same manner a hypnotist or mesmerist does through his, and hence it is simply spirit control in varying degree.

 

Admitting this identity, the character of the spirit controlling has been made the test. Thus the influence of evil or ignorant spirits is called obsession, a supposition also descending from the past, and opposed to observed facts.

 

Perhaps no other subject has awakened more interest, or brought greater disaster than this of obsession and "evil spirits." In the dark ages of the past, when the functions of the brain were not understood, insanity was believed to be obsession by evil spirits, and the poor unfortunate victims were, as possessed by devils, cast from society, thrown into loathsome dungeons, mercilessly tortured to drive out the demons. Their incoherent words were regarded as the voice of Satan or his friends. Now with the advent of science, the demented are regarded as the most unfortunate objects of pity, and receive the tenderest treatment. Now that science has solved this question by tracing mental aberrations to organic changes in the brain; its congestion, or atrophy, or reflex action of conditions of the body, we may smile at the childish beliefs of the past and give it full measure of charity.

The marvelous changes in character produced by trance and spirit control, and the similarity of the manifestations with those often observed in the insane, has led to wild conclusions, and some Spiritualists have returned to the ancient ways of explaining dementia, substituting spirits for demons. This belief becomes a mantle of charity covering a multitude of sins when applied to mediums, said to be controlled or obsessed. If led astray, they are shielded from blame, and not responsible, because of the evil spirits that influenced them.

 

There has been so much confusion of thought on this subject that a clear explanation is essential. The spiritual theory accounts for all cases of hallucination, illusions and mental aberrations, but not entirely by the control of spirits. It draws a clear line of distinction—between great classes of psychic phenomena, the mistaken interpretation of which has brought upon it obloquy and impeded its advancement.

 

The fear which distresses the mind of the insane of an enemy, which becomes by some suggestion personified; or their belief that they are God, Christ, or one of the Apostles, is not to be accepted as fact that they are obsessed by these or any other personages. The mind is distorted by a diseased brain. It is not a psychic question, but one of pathology.

 

Similar and parallel is the claim often set up by a so-called medium, that he is obsessed by some Indian chief and prompted to immoral and disgraceful actions to gratify the spirit's lower nature. It may be possible, for the diverse spirits, awaiting opportunity, eagerly to enter every open door, but does this fact exonerate those who open the door admitting only "the spirits of evil?" Really the excuse for moral aberration, that the subject was controlled or obsessed, is least admissible of any other, for according to well known psychic laws, a spirit having most perfect control—obsession—of a subject, cannot make that subject do, or think anything not latent in his character. In other words, the subject becomes what he really would be if all barriers and sense of responsibility were removed. To admit the contrary would oblige us to apologize and condone the most disgraceful manifestations.

 

I do not desire to be understood that there are no cases of obsession which are mistaken even by expert alienists for insanity. On the contrary I well know by direct observation that there are many. The really insane are negative to mesmeric treatment, while those suffering from obsession are susceptible.

 

Because crime may be instigated by impressions, this is not the cause of all crimes. It is a possible factor, but the great number of crimes come from the minds of the criminals themselves.

 

We earnestly desire to feel the influence of angelic forces, but we must ever control the forces brought to bear on us, or at least make selection. As it would be dangerous for a subject to submit to mesmeric control of an operator of immoral character, or to one diseased, such are avoided, and the same may be repeated in the choice of spirit control.

 

It must not be concluded that every imperfect communication, or error, is indicative of evil spirits, or contortion or movement of the hand of their control. There are conditions of the brain productive of involuntary motion, and the gabbling of words which leave no impression on the memory. One insane, believing himself to be Daniel Webster, may orate by the hour, and perhaps under the intense excitement rise in flights of oratory, yet no one will agree with him in his being inspired by the great statesman. Why? Because his talk has not the inherent evidence of the source he claims for it. On the contrary its incoherence, however fine passages there may be, proves it from an unbalanced mind.

 

In most cases of so-called obsession, this evidence may be applied. The subject said to be obsessed by an Indian chief, does not speak like an Indian, or think like one. He speaks as he has an idea an Indian would, a bastard jargon of English.

 

We may desire earnestly for the control of friends and those near us in thought and aspiration, and we are assured that however absolute their influence, it would be exerted for our good. We do not desire obsession by those who have no honor or truthfulness. The prevention is in ourselves.

 

As we are ourselves, so will be those attracted to us. Those who desire the truth will receive nothing but the truth. If they begin to doubt, and think evil spirits are deceiving them, they open the door for their entrance.

 

Nor should every peculiarity be charged to obsession, or even spirit control. Because the hand has spasmodic activity, may not indicate control, but disturbed nervous action.

 

The mind is subject to illusions and hallucinations, caused by disease of the body, reflected on the nervous system, or by organic changes in the brain. Volumes of instances might be compiled, and books on pathology furnish numberless cases. There is no difference in the cause between a man fancying that he is made of glass and liable to break if roughly touched, than one who imagines he is guided in all his movements by a sixteen-thousand-year-old "Atlantian," or a "big chief." Only this, it is impossible for one to be made of glass and while it is possible for some spirit to control the other, the idea that there is such a control may be quite as much a creation of the imagination. Incipient clairvoyance is usually accompanied with brilliant lights like floating clouds, but because a person sees such lights may not prove that he will become clairvoyant, for diseased optic nerves, or changes in the eyes produce the same effect.

 

To one unacquainted with the manifestations, a sensitive would be pronounced insane, and to one versed in the science of spirit, the manifestations of so-called insanity would be at once taken for impressibility. A visit to an asylum convinced me of this fact, and that injustice was being done to many patients whose mental disturbance was the result of imperfectly received impressions, or were under the control of untruthful or selfish spirits.

 

The Watseka case of obsession was probably more intelligently observed than any other on record. The medium was under control and without consciousness for a year. The spirit had an object in coining in such close relations which having fulfilled, at the end of the appointed time the medium was restored to consciousness. It presents a beautiful illustration of spiritual laws and had a happy ending; but we are appalled at the consequences which this instance shows as possible for a selfish and brutal spirit to gain equally perfect control when the conditions are furnished. It further shows the necessity of understanding the laws and conditions of sensitiveness and control, that the dangers may be guarded against.