Some Theological And Philosophical Aspects Of Spiritism
The physical and moral phenomena of Spiritism have been much before the public of late. From the ample Reports of the Society for Psychical Research, and from the works of such expert authorities as Meyer, Podmore, and Raupert, the prodigies of the secret séance and the marvels wrought by individual intercommunication with the unseen world have floated out through the press into the open; so that there is no reading man or woman today who is not familiar with the facts of levitation, automatic materialization, phantasms of the dead, writing, and other such things uncanny and ghostlike. Perhaps the more theological and philosophical aspects of Spiritism are less familiar to the average reader, and to these aspects this paper will be restricted. No apology need be offered for discussing such a subject here and now. The immense growth of Spiritism in recent times is enough to arrest the serious attention of the clergy, and to make pertinent an inquiry into the principles that actuate an organized movement, which has gained so strong a hold on the American people.
Some of our writers of several generations ago used to boast that Americans possessed a calculating shrewdness, which put the majority of them on guard against novelties that could not stand the test of analysis. This trait of character, if indeed it ever existed, has disappeared and left no trace of its influence. And today there is scarcely a country in the world, where dangerous novelties of different kinds find a readier acceptance. In proof of this assertion one has but to consider the history of Mormonism, Christian Science, Theosophy, and Spiritism. Not so many years since, these were barely more than names that represented little or nothing to the average mind, whilst at present they all stand for religious or philosophical movements of wide extent and great influence. And of these four, Spiritism is by no means the least. Its vitality and growth have been remarkable. It has not been affected for the worse, either by the ridicule of laymen who thought to laugh it out of existence, or by the investigation of well-known scientists who from sneering at its pretensions came to confess that they were baffled by its phenomena. Year by year it has spread over the United States, until now it has to its account a national association, forty-two camp-meeting associations, one college, 120 churches, 300,000 adherents, 370 ministers, 1,500 public mediums, 10,000 private mediums, 1,500,000 investigators, and $2,000,000 worth of property.1 Moreover its missionaries are at work throughout the whole country. It has a complete ritual2 with an ordination service,3 at least four newspapers4 and a well-organized system5 for the distribution of free literature. These facts are all the more remarkable in view of the circumstance that Spiritism has absolutely nothing of its own to offer that is either consoling or uplifting. This becomes clear from a simple statement of the doctrines found in the writings of Spiritists themselves. Their creed, if such it can be called, is so extravagant that detailed analysis and criticism are quite unnecessary; a plain exposition of it will serve our purpose to the full.
For the sake of clearness, we will attribute to Spiritism four aspects, a moral, a phenomenal, a theological, and a philosophical aspect. For the present the phenomenal and moral aspects must be left untouched, in order that we may do some justice to the last two and at the same time not exceed the limits of our space. The task of treating these topics is rendered extremely difficult by the vagueness and inconsistencies that characterize most of the statements concerning them. For the Spiritists's proudest but not their truest boast is that they have done away with dogmas and creeds of all kinds. Out of the necessity of the case, they all agree in admitting a soul, a future life, and communion of spirits with persons on earth; but beyond this, they insist on no set doctrine. Hence there is a lack of uniformity in their teaching that is bewildering. However on many subjects, such as God, Christ, religion, the Bible, sin, heaven, hell, and the nature of the soul, a fair consensus of opinion can be had.
Their belief concerning God bears about it traces of Theosophy, Pantheism, and Agnosticism. He is a spirit, a life, a presence, a thought, an impulse, an energy, infinite and impersonal in nature and beyond human comprehension.6 And though "diffused and differentiated throughout nature" and attached portion for portion to every human soul, yet no one on earth has ever attained to Him. There are no means of doing so. He may be felt by some peculiar soul-instinct or inward experience; but otherwise He must remain unknown. Attributes he has, but their precise nature is a mystery. His office and work are those of an overpowering influence, toward which spirits7 evolve themselves little by little by means of some inherent force. The activity is apparently all theirs, not His. Dr. Fuller, President of the Massachusetts State Spiritistic Association, gives expression to most of these views in the following manner: "But yet beyond all these gods . . . we get the idea of one spirit, one life, one presence, one thought, one impulse, one energy, that pervades all nature. We get that idea from all ages. Likewise it runs through the entire Bible. . . The idea or conception of the great something beyond man; the idea or conception of a power that moves in all nature; that dwells in all her varied forms (sic). This thought of God impersonal in its nature, is beyond our human comprehension . . . While we may never be able through our philosophy to understand the Infinite, yet we may sense from within that energy that moves in and through all, ruling the destiny of worlds and likewise of all humanity. . . We may ask, concerning the Infinite, a number of questions, but the old inquiry of Job: 'Canst thou by searching find out God?' still confronts us and baffles the ingenuity of the mind. This power must be felt deep down in the depths of the human soul and no one can feel it unless he rises to the higher attributes of spiritual development."8 The distinguished Spiritist, Prof. Wallace, is equally clear in asserting the inability of creatures to obtain a satisfactory knowledge of God. He tells us that: "Our modern religious writers maintain that they know a great deal about God; they define minutely and critically His various attributes, . . . and they declare that after death we shall be with Him and shall see and know Him. In the teaching of spirits there is not a word of all this. They tell us that they commune with higher intelligences than themselves, but of God they really know no more than we do. They say that above these higher intelligences are others higher and higher in apparently endless gradation but, as far as they know, no absolute knowledge of the Deity Himself is claimed by any of them." 9
In view of their general assertion that "soul perception" is the only means 10 whereby we know God, it should not surprise us to learn that Spiritists place a very low estimate on the Bible. In their estimation, it is not a whit better than any other book that contains "conceptions of right and justice." It is good; so are the sacred books of the Brahmins; so are all books that reveal the higher promptings of the soul. Indeed, there is no reason for any special reverence for it since as much truth can be found on the pages of profane history. These or similar ideas are impressed upon Spiritists by more than one of their leaders; but nowhere can they be found more clearly expressed than in this passage from an address by Dr. Fuller:
We must rid our minds of the thought that any book coming down to us from the past is more to be honored for its conceptions of right and justice than a thousand other books that might be selected out of the libraries of antiquity. We must rid our minds of the thought that one book stands preeminently above all the other sacred books that have come down to us from past time. . . Therefore, you will understand that we are not to accept the sacred books of the Christian, the sacred books of the Brahmin, or the sacred books of any race itself, simply because these books have been selected from the great number of books that have been written in the world, and style them divine books. All books that contain the higher promptings of the human soul; all books that contain a spiritual insight into nature are sacred and divine books, and all men, and all women likewise, who have climbed with aching and bleeding feet up the Calvaries of the past. . . have been inspired men and women. . . Therefore we may find in the pages of profane history as much truth as we can possibly find in those of sacred history.11
This is frankly rationalistic or worse; but bad as it is, it can hardly equal in irreverence the supposed revelations of "Imperator," a great spirit intelligence. In his opinion the Old Testament has made God an "angry, jealous, human tyrant,"12 and as a consequence, Spiritism is in open opposition to it. It would be a real pleasure not to be able to record anything worse than this; but if downright ridicule of the sacred text is more malicious than other forms of disrespect, then worse must be written. For judging from the title of a book that is catchingly advertised in the Progressive Thinker, an official organ of the sect, Spiritists are not adverse to a little mirth at the expense of the Bible. In the issue of this paper for 27 October, 1906, we read: "New Testament Stories Comically Illustrated. Drawings by Watson Heston. With Critical and Humorous Comments upon the Texts. Heston's Drawings are incomparable and excruciatingly funny." And yet despite all this, some spiritistic writers see no impropriety in trying to further their purpose by the use of this discredited book. The art of blowing hot and cold in the same breath has apparently been mastered at last. Mr. Hudson Tuttle, an intellectual chief in the new movement, has written an essay13 with the aforesaid purpose. Scarcely anything can be imagined more naively simple than his method of arriving at conclusions. The cardinal point that should be established is, that the supernormal phenomena described in the Scriptures are due to the departed souls of men. The author recognizes the difficulty of the case only to dismiss it in these words: "Though angels are understood to be special creations, and spirits to have ascended through mortal bodies, the words are used by the writers of the Bible as interchangeable." His argument, if drawn out, would ultimately reduce itself to this: angels are spirits; but spirits are departed souls; therefore wherever the Bible mentions either, it means the souls of men. Is it any wonder that in the view of this man, Spiritism "furnishes the key whereby the mysteries of the Bible and its miracles are explained with a clearness commentators have not been able to attain for want of the knowledge it furnishes?" But we will give the author a chance to illustrate his method by following him literally for a while, even at the cost of sequence of thought and expression. In order to appreciate his efforts to the full, it is necessary to bear in mind that his purpose obliges him to establish the identity between angels and "spirits that have ascended through mortal bodies," in other words, souls. Here is how he does it. We quote literally:
"'Yea while I was speaking in prayer, even the man, Gabriel whom I had seen in a vision.' Dan. 9:21. He previously says that this spirit, 'stood before me as the appearance of a man.' Dan. 8:15. 'He maketh His angels spirits.' Psalms, 104:4. Luke places departed spirits on a level with angels, 20: 36. ' Neither can they die any more, for they arc equal to the angels,' etc. The terms are indiscriminately used: 'And as Peter knocked at the gate, a damsel came to hearken, — then said they, it is his angel' (spirit), Acts 12:13, 15. 'I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for, ever more.' Rev. 1:18. 'The soul of man separated from his body.' Math. 14:26; Luke 24: 37."
The last two citations in this singularly incoherent passage refer respectively to the miracle of our Lord walking on the water and to His appearance to the Apostles after the Resurrection. Now, though not a single citation has any connexion with the proposition in hand, the last two are so utterly unfit for the purpose intended that it is impossible to understand why they were suggested as proofs. Perhaps the explanation lies in the fact that the American Revised Edition of the Bible translated the words of the Apostles in the first instance by "It is a ghost;" while in the second it says that "they (the Apostles) were affrighted and supposed that they beheld a spirit." As can be imagined, all now becomes easy for the writer. Every phenomenon attributed by Spiritists to souls is triumphantly vindicated by a series of texts.14 Physical manifestations are foreshadowed by the action of the angel who loosed Peter from chains; and in the same connexion the author remarks quite enthusiastically that "a fine physical manifestation is recorded in Exodus 14:24 where the Lord took off the chariot wheels of the Egyptian;" to which he adds Exodus 14:19: "An angel" went before them in a pillar of fire. To this, in turn, he appends the most amusing example of all, expressed in these words: "The moving of a table now is represented by an angel rolling back the stone from the door of the Sepulchre, Matt. 38:2." We read on a little further and discover that the so-called inspiration of mediums is supported by I Cor. 7:8: "For to one is given by the spirit, the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same spirit;" and by Job 26:4, "To whom hast thou uttered words and whose spirit came from thee?" Then too there are passages that approve of speaking in unknown tongues. Such, for instance, is Acts 11:4, which the author suits to his purpose by interpreting in this way: "And they were filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues, as the spirit [which controlled them] gave them utterance." Nor are materialization and clairvoyant appearances neglected. They are everywhere in Scripture: "An angel appears to Hagar,"15 Gen. XVI.; two came to Abraham so perfectly materialized that "they did eat," Gen. 18; an angel wrestled with Jacob, 32; Balaam met an angel, Judges 11; an angel came and sat under an oak and talked to Gideon, Judges 6; a materialized book was shown, Eze. 11:9; Joshua saw and conversed with a spirit who held a drawn sword; — and in Amos it is said the 'Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumb line, with a plumb in his hand.'" At this point the writer stops long enough to explain that "the line as well as the sword, must have been materialized, or they could not have been visible." He then proceeds with his examples of materialization and clairvoyant appearances, which include, strangely enough, the feeding of the multitude on five loaves and two fishes, the miracle of Cana, and Christ's appearances after the Resurrection. The trace of the mediums and spirit-rapping are next in order. The former has its counterpart in St. Paul's rapture to heaven; the latter, in the writing on the walls of Baltasar's castle. Levitation follows, instanced by the case of Philip, "who was caught away from the eunuch by the Spirit of the Lord;" by Elisha's act of making "iron swim," and by Christ's miracle of walking upon the water; and besides, did not Ezechiel say: "And he put forth the form of an hand and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem?" (8:3.)
Clairvoyance offers no difficulty at all. Elisha was clairvoyant, we are told; so was St. Stephen, who saw "the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right-hand of God;" so also were St. Paul and Christ. "Come, see a man who told me all things, I ever did. Is this not the Christ?" Clairaudience is no less certain. For Saul heard the Lord's voice and "the Apostles heard the voice of Moses and Elias on the mount." Finally dreams and visions are traced to Scripture. For these, reference after reference is given, and the whole is concluded by the amazing statement that the entire Book of Revelations, "is professedly the utterance of one in a trance." Thus by misapplication and distortions, unintentional perhaps, but nonetheless real for all that, every phenomenon that takes place in spiritistic séances is referred back to Scripture.
Table-moving, pretended appearances of souls in visible form, the horrid trance of the mediums, spirit-writing, the floating of heavy, solid objects in the air, the revelation of secret thoughts, are all vindicated. What matter that in the séances these are supposed to be the work of excarnate souls, while in Scripture the events narrated are the works of Christ or of the Holy Ghost, or of angels or saints who were God's instruments: "Omnis homo pro domo sua." Cicero's musical friend thought his own soul music. Spiritists find souls everywhere. Indeed, if we are to believe one of them, "even the gods of the pagans" were merely the spirits of men who once inhabited physical bodies;" so that when we speak of Apollo, when we speak of Zeus, when we speak of Jehovah, we are speaking of men who once inhabited physical bodies."16
If we turn now from the Bible to Christ, we shall find even less that is to our taste. It is laid down as a first principle that the Christian conception of Jesus is all wrong. His character and work have been obscured by useless theological speculation. Qualities have been attributed to Him, which He never knew or claimed. This estimate, which sounds like a paragraph from the book of a German rationalist, is certainly destructive enough. But in this case, Spiritists do not rest content with destructive criticism; they reconstruct the character of Jesus according to their ideals. The result is interesting. Christ was a good man, yes, a great and holy man with a message for His time; and, though He taught absolutely nothing new,17 His place is among the greatest religious seers of the world. He may be ranked with Zoroaster, Moses, and Buddha — all of them interpreters of truth to the ages in which they lived.18 His was an heroic figure; that of a medium of exalted powers and intelligence who had learned the secrets of nature and could make matter obey His will. But great as was His power, it must not be considered unique, for He did nothing that any medium of similar attainments cannot hope to accomplish by dint of patient effort. But more of this later on.
We shall now turn to the consideration of the Spiritists' opinion concerning religion. Their attitude toward it is most revolutionary. There is hardly a Christian doctrine or practice that is not attacked by them with great violence. As a prelude to the treatment of this topic we shall cite some items from the Progressive Thinker for 27 October, 1906. We read: "When all the streams of superstition run dry, religion will be found dead between their withered banks, (Truth Seeker)." Again: "In wonder all philosophy [say religion] began, in wonder it ends and admiration fills up the interspace; but the first wonder is the offspring of ignorance, the last is the parent of adoration. (Coleridge)." The following are some of the advertisements of books: "Religious and Theological Works of Thomas Paine; contains his celebrated 'Age of Reason' and a number of letters and discourses on religion and theological subjects." "Prayer; Its Uselessness and Unscientific Assumption." "How the Bible was Invented — The attention of preachers and theological students and all church members should be called to the wonderful story of the invention of the Holy Bible which this lecture tells." "Jesus Christ, a Myth. — This book examines the evidence for the historical existence of Jesus and finds it quite insufficient to prove that such a man as Jesus ever lived. It is a most important contribution to modern thought." — "Six Historic Americans. Page after page of the most radical free thought sentiments are culled from the correspondence and other writings of Franklin and Jefferson, which shows that these men were as pronounced in their rejection of Christianity as Paine and Ingersoll. That Washington was not a Christian, nor a believer in Christianity. In support of Lincoln's infidelity, he [the author] has collected the testimony of more than a hundred witnesses;" "The Infidelity of Ecclesiasticism; A menace to American civilization. The entire hierarchy of ecclesiasticism arraigned as infidels for subverting the scientific demonstrations of universities and colleges, by substituting the immoral phantom of the Mosaic hypothesis." All this should logically lead Spiritists to the conclusion that religion is a monstrous evil, which should be banished from the face of the earth. But they have a rare knack of accepting premises and rejecting conclusions. And so they unhesitatingly cherish one religion, spiritism, at the risk of having an official newspaper consider it the detritus of superstition, the offspring of ignorance. And of course, as is to be expected, theirs is the most perfect religion that the world has ever known. "This new religion of spiritualism," says Dr. Fuller, "has gathered up the fragments that have been scattered by the wayside and, connecting them together, presents to us a finer conception, a broader idea of the truth than any one age of the world ever possessed, simply because it has gathered these fragments from each and all. It has selected out from all inspirations the most uplifting thoughts; and the inspiration of the present hour stands in advance of the inspirations of the past only because man has advanced physically, intellectually, and morally; and as he advances physically, intellectually, and morally, he must likewise advance spiritually and reach out to higher and ever higher attitudes of inspiration."19
There has been therefore an inevitable religious evolution culminating in Spiritism that has a sublime mission of perfecting advanced souls, which "have freed themselves from the shackles of creeds."20 On one point Spiritists dwell first, last, and forever, to wit, the absurdity of creeds. Their religion is the emancipator from the "serfdom of creeds," cursed things that act as a great prison-house which shuts out the light of heaven from millions of incarcerated human souls and thus retards the progress of all humanity.21 And the writer from whom we have just quoted, warns his clientele against the danger of dogma in these emphatic words: "If we ever allow spiritualism to crystallize into an unchangeable creed or to become too respectable, it will damn all humanity."
Utterly unconscious that these forcible denunciations of creed are in themselves dogmas, Spiritists single out for similar attacks many special practices and articles of faith. Thus, for example, the observance of Sunday is denounced as a priestly project inaugurated in order that the clergy might have an opportunity to exploit their creeds.22
The Christian doctrine of the atonement is not only false; it is pagan in conception. There was no need of any propitiation, much less of a bloody vicarious sacrifice, for sin. Christ, it is true, was our Saviour, but only "in the same though in a higher sense that all regenerators of men have been saviours and yielded up their bodily existence in devotion to an overmastering idea." His death therefore was quite unnecessary and no part of God's plan.
Original sin is done away with in the same easy way. It is declared that man did not fall from a state of grace. He was never there to fall. On the contrary, he began low down in the spiritual scale and evolved or unfolded himself to higher planes by long laborious efforts.
Though Spiritists frequently use the word sin, they attach to it a meaning entirely different from that to which we are accustomed. This we can easily perceive from Mr. Tuttle's definition of its contradictory, virtue. "Righteousness," he says, "is the compliance with the laws and conditions of the material world in the direction of the furtherance of spiritual perfection."23 Now to a Spiritist, spiritual perfection is synonymous with the refinement of the material particles of which they say the soul is composed. Whence it follows that sin is the violation of the laws and conditions of the material world to the detriment of spiritual perfection, that is, to the detriment of the refinement of the material particles of the soul. In other words sin is an act with a material effect upon a material soul. Whether in their estimation evil is entirely of the body or not, is hard to decide. George Pelham, a spirit intelligence, asserts that it is. In one of his materializations he said to Professor Newbold: "It is only the body that sins, not the soul." At first sight Spirit John Pierpont seems to contradict this by saying that "it is folly to say that all sin belongs to the flesh, for scientific researchers know that when the body ceases to breathe, when the various organs cease to express their function, no sin can be committed by the prostrate form. Scientific men may declare that the sin has been committed and is done, that there is no further activity for that which was once consciousness expressed through the mortal frame, but they will also declare that it was the developed or undeveloped mind that forced the individual to commit the sin, whatever it may have been, and that when thought ceased to vibrate through the mortal frame no sin could be performed."24 Despite this obscure protest, which appears to place all sin in the intellect, this spirit's conception of moral evil is no less materialistic than that which obtains among the great majority of Spiritists. He expresses himself differently, but in the final analysis he reaches the same conclusion. With him righteousness and unrighteousness, both in this life and the next, depend on material vibrations. He says "that the various rates of vibration of human beings on earth determine quite largely their spiritual condition, and on the other side the spiritual states of unfoldment may perhaps have much to do with the ratio of vibration; therefore, an individual who is ignorant, coarse, and brutish in instincts . . . usually vibrates in ratio and harmony with the physical forms of earth."25 Sometimes these vibrations become so violent that they emanate from the sinners and then "other human beings may be obsessed, saturated, controlled by these very forces and influences, all of which are being thrown off by human beings who dwell in warfare and strife, who seek to satisfy carnal appetites, who frequent dive, brothel, and saloon, where the brawl is frequently going on, where the emanations, the vibrations, and all the conditions of a subtle character are floating forth through house and street and land and alley to fill the atmosphere with foulness that cannot be described."26
Sin in the next world seems to be a matter of necessity. We are told "that if we realize that the individual may be so enmeshed in the network of its own creation of physical elements and forces, made up from the activities of human passions, carnal desires, and selfish purposes, that he cannot become free from it and is entangled close to earth, vibrated, swayed, and tormented by the very forces of which he is a part and in which he is engulfed, we can easily believe that if opportunity and conditions are presented to such an entity, he may easily do that which we know to be wrong or commit that which is called crime."27
In such a creed as this, there is no room for rewards or punishments meted out by one in authority over the soul. Repentance it admits, but only such a sorrow as a person might feel over lost opportunities of improving self. Death, judgment, heaven, and hell, in the Christian sense are anathematized. Death is not a punishment for the primal sin. It is a natural and inevitable step forward in the ceaseless progress which man is making toward some far-off divine something or somebody. There will come a moment when each man will slough off his body and thus untrammeled continue his onward, upward journey in obedience to a law of his nature. There will be no judgment, save that which each soul executes in itself; and no fixed state of happiness or misery, for such is impossible.28 All is endless evolution, with now and then, as it would appear, some retrogression by a particularly vicious soul. For good souls this progress, though natural, is difficult enough, but for wicked souls it is the sorest kind of a trial. For it must be understood that our souls carry both their virtues and their base passions29 into the next world. As a consequence the good spirit immediately takes its place on a high plane and moves on cycle after cycle in endless progression; while the bad spirit, on the other hand, begins its struggling excarnate existence low down near the earth and carries within itself its own hell. The soul of the drunkard is parched by tormenting thirst, and that of the libertine burns with a devouring lust. These afflicted spirits hover near dens of vice30 and at the first opportunity obsess31 people in order to be able to satisfy their own passions.32 What happens after this is perhaps best described in the words of Spirit John Pierpont. "The obsessing spirit, having performed its purpose, has also gained an experience, has been brought under the direction of higher laws 33 and set to work to generate a better and more spiritual, a more refined and ethereal magnetic "aura" that shall go to benefit him spiritually, mentally and morally. As his vibrations are set to work along higher lines and through the arousing of pure thought and desire in his heart, there will be an elimination of the coarser, more crude elements of his spirit-body, and an absorption of more refined and ethereal forces and atoms which will enable him to loosen his hold upon the moral plane and to gradually rise to higher states and purer localities."34 Comment is surely uncalled-for here; and this topic can now give way to another, — the spiritist's idea of the nature of miracles.
Professor Wallace puts their doctrine in a nutshell when he says that, "spiritualism affords the only sure foundation for a true philosophy and a pure religion. It abolishes the terms 'supernatural' and 'miracle' by an extension of the sphere of law and realm of nature."35 There is the whole thing in a few words. There are no miracles. But it may be interesting to investigate the reasons for such a judgment. They may be had from the pen of Thomas Gales Forster who writes:
Spiritualism declares that a miracle, in the theological sense, is scientifically, philosophically, and morally impossible; and that if it were possible that a miracle could take place in that sense, it would not only destroy the divinity of the Bible, but it would destroy divinity itself — and why? Thus: No one will deny that God is infinite in His attributes, and that natural law is the effect of the perfection and divinity of those attributes, and that, consequently, all things have been arranged upon the wisest and best plan for the wisest and best purpose. Any deviation, therefore, from this plan must be a detraction, because there can be no change in what is perfect, except for the worse. To base a system of religion, as is done in the orthodox world, upon the performance of miracles, with the theological interpretation of the word, is to base that system upon the in-harmony of the divine attributes: and in doing so, you necessarily deprive Deity of that which alone makes Him infinite.
The spiritual school, therefore, is entirely justified in declaring that a miracle, so interpreted, is utterly impossible. The legitimate corollary, therefore, is, that all the various phenomena of the past, as recorded in the Old and New Testaments, together with the analogous manifestations of the present day, were and are in accordance with the harmonious action of natural law; and that none of the powers that were exercised in the past through any of the prophets, patriarchs or seers, through Jesus or His Apostles, were drawn from without the domain of Nature.36
We wonder if the writer ever gave thought to the fact that He who in eternity could decree to establish a law could also in eternity decree to suspend its execution at a fixed time, for a good reason? Certainly such an act would argue no change either in the law or in the lawgiver. But it is much to be feared that the difficulties of Spiritists are not precisely intellectual. They must be sought for in places other than the intellect. These men seem to have a blind, overmastering prejudice against the doctrines that the Christian Church holds dear. Indeed one of them in his estimate of men who have been active one way or other in shaping belief, has words of praise for those only who have revolted against doctrine and authority. Luther, Wesley, Channing, Parker, and Emerson, are his heroes. He exalts some who have assailed even God Himself. Here are his words: "Another class of individuals is now presented to us, who have labored outside of the church, who predicted this glorious day of freedom we all enjoy. Those brave men who have contributed so much toward laying the foundations of the broad church of the future must not be forgotten. Let us not forget at this hour, to honor and respect the name of . . . Voltaire . . . and Paine."37 Another significant fact in this relation is had from the report of the president of the National Association of Spiritists, for the year ending 13 October, 1906. He relates that by a unanimous vote of the delegates to the convention of 1905, he was instructed to negotiate for affiliation with liberal religious bodies in America, including the Secular Union and Free Thought Federation. He met with success and received most helpful suggestions from the president of the American Secular Union and Free Thought Federation. This gentleman and "nearly all the progressive minds connected with his organization looked with favor upon the proposition." Likewise did the "Universalists, Unitarians, Swedenborgians, Metaphysicians, New Thoughtists, Universal Religionists, and other progressive people."
It is time now to say a few words on two other important vagaries of Spiritism. We have already spoken of immortality in connexion with sanction for sin. And perhaps it would be well to consider immediately the teaching concerning the origin and nature of the soul. We cannot do this better than by allowing Spiritists to explain themselves. "Every human body," says Dr. Babbitt,38 "is dual in nature, consisting of the ordinary coarse material form and a similar interior form, which is also material,39 but so refined as to elude the outer vision. This interior body is sometimes called the spiritual body or the psychic body, or the astral body. Scores of cases can be cited in which persons in the psychic body have been able to look down upon their coarser form and move about in all directions, with only a magnetic cord connecting the two. The greatest power inheres in fineness and the psychic body, when unimpeded, is far swifter, clearer in intellect, and more potent in action, than the outer body. This body combined with a portion of Infinite Spirit40 constitutes what in this life is termed the soul, or when its cord is sundered, it becomes a spirit and goes forth into a more ethereal life." Our soul therefore is matter joined to a portion of Infinite Spirit. But what now of its origin? This is a vexed question among Spiritists. Some assert that it is evolved out of the body, by the body. Thus Hudson Tuttle41 says: "The spirit is evolved by and out of a physical body,42 having corresponding form and development." This too is the idea we gather from Spirit Pierpont. He states that "atoms and auras" go forth from the "ego" to form the spirit body. If a man vibrates in harmony with the force of the spirit world, he will have a fine ethereal soul; if not, he will generate a crass, gross soul of coarse material that will have great difficulty in rising above "the earth plane" after death. However, despite this, some Spiritists seem to lean to a doctrine of transmigration that postulates the eternal existence of the soul. In the Progressive Thinker already referred to there is a cautious non-committal article on the subject, in which the writer says that "such a belief has been" one of the most important phases in the religions of the world . . . there was scarcely a nation, savage or civilized, of which we have any account, where a belief in transmigration did not prevail. The Egyptians held to this belief. The Brahmins accepted it, as did the Buddhists. The Jews seem to have accepted the transmigration theory. They believed the soul of Adam reappeared in David, and would again animate their expected Messiah; that the soul of Japhet would reanimate Simeon, and that the soul of Terah entered Job. The early Christians seem to have been transmigrationists.43 The Manicheans, an early Christian sect, openly taught it, as did Origen. Jerome said it was a secret faith, which was only taught to a select few. "The spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Jesus," at the time of his alleged baptism by John the Baptist, betrays this transformation belief of him who wrote (Matt. 3:16). This, though highly interesting as a historical and exegetical curiosity, is too indefinite for safe conclusions.
It occurs to us at this juncture that a word about the material nature of the Spiritist's heaven might be fittingly introduced here. Where do they place excarnate souls: spirits, some of which are so gross "that it follows from the law of specific gravitation and of attraction," says Spirit Pierpont, "that they must remain in contact with the world of which they are a part?" Such a question would prove a "crux" to an ordinary person: not so, however, to the Spiritists. At least they have a hypothesis, which has been put on paper and sent broadcast by the National Association in order, "to supply the demand for scientific arguments." We will transcribe enough of the pamphlet to give a just appreciation of the author's original ideas. It runs as follows:
We often hear people say that there is no such thing as time and space in the spirit world. Now, it seems to me that when a person utters that statement he or she fails to comprehend the stupendous question involved; fails to comprehend the momentousness of that statement. Let us examine that point logically. "No time nor space in the spirit world." What is time? What is space? Time is distance between events. Time of itself is nothing, but it is a measure of distance between events. What is space? Space of itself is nothing, but it is a measure of distance between objects. Now, if there are any objects in the spirit world, if there are any events taking place there, there must be both space and time. (Applause.) Get away from that logic if you can; I can't. (Applause.) If there is no time and no space in the spirit world, then there is nothing; there are no events and no objects, and you can't get away from the logic to save you. Therefore, I say that the spirit world is a real world, a natural world, far more substantial than this world; that it has both time and space, and also that it has location. . .
Now, I am going to offer what some of you may think is a rather novel theory. But first, let me say, there is no such thing in the universe as empty space. Matter in some form fills all space. There was a time when it was supposed that outside of the atmosphere of the earth and the other planets there existed an absolute vacuum. Now it is conceded by all scientists that a very attenuated and sublimated form of matter or substance fills all space between the heavenly bodies. For want of a more specific term, it has been designated as "ether." . . .
I am going to tell you that it is spirit substance. . . Now, can anybody believe for a moment that that matter, filling all space with its sublimated essence, is lifeless? that it is unoccupied? that it is a mere barren waste unoccupied by intelligence? unoccupied by living, intelligent beings? Why, it would be folly to so conclude.
Andrew Jackson Davis, the grandest seer of the nineteenth century, and many other clairvoyants, have seen and described to us the wonderful scenes over there. Mountains, valleys, rivers, lakes, forests, and plains, are as real and as tangible to the spirit senses as earthly things are to the mortal senses. Is there any good reason why that should not be true? Shall we doubt that the active forces operating upon that abundant refined matter may develop scenes of beauty far eclipsing anything known on earth? Cascades and fountains, whose silvery spray would dim the brightest diamond; forests and plains, trees and shrubs, fruits and flowers, fairer even than the poet's dream. Indeed, a veritable fairyland which, by virtue of its greater diversity, is so much grander, lovelier, and more enjoyable, than this.
Now, a drop of water is a very small thing to us, but it may contain a world of life all unknown until the microscope reveals it. What myriads of forms of life are all about us today, which the most powerful glass cannot discover? And so with this celestial ether, the realms of space. Our dim vision cannot discover life there, it cannot be cognized by our physical senses, yet our failure to do so does not prove that it does not exist there. And right here science, materialistic science, comes in to support our assertions — comes right in here to support our statements — by declaring that this ether of space which seems to us so attenuated is really more solid and substantial than any known form of matter on this earth. . .
Can anybody accept that and then deny our proposition that all space is full of life and filled with intelligent beings? Why, to deny one and accept the other is simply to strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. . .
If there is another world, another sphere of existence, where is it located if not in the boundless realm of space? . . . And that is where it is. Out in that mighty expanse; that wondrous realm stretching from star to star and sun to sun; that mighty expanse into which the escaping forces of the material worlds have gone, developing and revealing scenes of beauty far eclipsing even a poet's dream. Indeed, a veritable fairyland, which, as I said before, by virtue of its vast differentiation, is so much grander and more beautiful than this. A land of perpetual sunshine, a land where the emancipated spirit will wander with its chosen companions, reveling in joys of which we have not the remotest conception in this life.44
Such then is the Spiritists' heaven, a material place for a material soul. And thus we see illustrated once again, not only by this particular description, but by all the doctrines of Spiritism, the cynical aphorism of Prince Metternich, that most "isms" go by contraries. Surely Spiritism does; for it is a crude materialism that sets up a God who is no God, a Redeemer who is no Redeemer, a soul which is no soul, virtue which is no virtue, sin which is no sin, repentance which is no repentance, immortality which is no immortality, and a heaven which is no heaven. It presents one of the saddest chapters in the history of modern religious thought, and on reading it, one cannot but recall the solemn words of the beloved Cardinal Newman to the effect that "Man teaches himself or is taught by his neighbor, falsehoods, if he is not taught from above; he makes to himself idols, if he knows not of the eternal God and His saints."45
Richard H. Tierney, S.J.
Woodstock College, MD.
Notes
1 Official figures of the National Association.
2 Progressive Thinker, 27 Oct., 1906.
3 Report of Harrison D. Barrett for the year ending 15 Oct., 1906, p. 9.
4 Report of President Barrett at the 13th Annual Convention N. S. A., p. 11.
5 Ibid., p. 10.
6 The Living World, Dr. Geo. H. Fuller, p. 6.
7 In the Spiritistic vocabulary a spirit is an excarnate soul.
8 The Living World, Fuller.
9 Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, p. 116.
10 In Presentation of Spiritualism, a paper prepared for the World's Parliament of Religions, " a recognition of the divine message by inspiration from higher realms of spirits and angelic beings" is admitted by insinuation at least. This view, however, is not general amongst Spiritists.
11 Living World.
12 Raupert, Modern Spiritism, p. 211. Stainton-Moses speaks with al- most equal disrespect of the New Testament.
13 Spiritualism of the Bible: Hudson Tuttle.
14 From this on, not all the texts quoted by Mr. Tuttle will be cited.
15 The spelling of the Scriptural names quoted is left as found in the author.
16 The Living World.
17 The Living World.
18 Presentation of Spiritualism.
19 The Living World.
20 This idea is contained in many of the revelations given by spirits to their friends. The "spirits" which communicated with Stainton-Moses insisted on it.
21 The Living World. .
22 Progressive Thinker, 27 October, 1906.
23 What is Spiritualism?
24 "Obsession. An Address by Spirit John Pierpont, through the Mediumship of Mrs. Mary Longley."
25 Ibid., p. 10.
26 Ibid., p. 8.
27 Ibid., p. 6.
28 Presentation of Spiritualism, p. 3.
29 This is the general opinion among Spiritists. Stainton-Moses, as a medium, taught that "the material passions" "accompany" the soul after death. As a spirit, he retracted this, claiming that in life he had been deceived by the spirits. "Imperator" — and in fact most Spiritists of note — teach that the soul is actually possessed of lower passions, i.e., lust, etc., in the next life.
30 Stainton-Moses, quoted by Raupert.
31 Spiritists recognize two kinds of obsession: one is had when an evil spirit enters the "aura" (i.e., the environment made up of emanations from sinners); the other is had when the spirit really enters into a person. See "Obsession" by Spirit John Pierpont.
32 Ibid.
33 It would be interesting to know whether the spirit really means that indulgence of brutal passions brings the soul under the direction of higher laws and arouses pure thought and desire in the heart.
34 "Obsession."
35 Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, p. 221.
36 What is Spiritualism?, Thomas Gales Forster.
37 The Living World. Volney, Spinoza, and Bruno are also found in this list.
38 Encyclopedia Americana, "Spiritualism," by E. D. Babbitt.
39 In this Spiritists but adopt the Epicurean doctrine so carefully elaborated by Lucretius in De Rerum Natura.
40 Just here we have a modification of an error of the Priscillianists, who taught that the soul is either a part of God or the substance of God. In fact, Spiritism is a "farrago" of cast-off errors, to which nearly every heresy has contributed its quota. Not even all the physical manifestations in which Spiritists take so much pride are new. St. Thomas, in his Summa Contra Gentes, Lib. III, cap. civ, mentions some of them in connexion with "magic." It will not be out of place to remark that St. Thomas (cap. cvi) also mentions in connexion with magic and magicians those very vices, which Mr. Raupert tells us are widespread amongst Spiritists. A comparative study of "Black Art" and Spiritism might bring interesting results.
41 What is Spiritualism? Hudson Tuttle.
42 We wonder if this may not be another form of the worn-out hypothesis of the Traducianists.
43 Apropos of this, it might be remarked that in some points there is a striking resemblance between Theosophy and Spiritism. Sometimes even the expressions used by writers of the two different "schools" are identical.
44 The Spirit World: Prof. W. F. Peck, pastor First Church of Spiritual Unity of St. Louis. Not long since a prominent minister embodied whole sections of this speech in a lecture, which was thought worthy of distribution by the National Association of Spiritists.
45 Saintliness the Standard of Christian Principle.
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