Part 6

If you seek for a meaning or a purpose you will find none. What you call design is only the harmony of fluctuating chances produced by countless failures.

PHILOSOPHY.--Invoke philosophy with her robes of snow, pretending to a knowledge of the world and its infinite destiny; it will tell you of the cycle of being; the succession of generations; that life and death complement each other, and that all you may hope for is change. Unceasing change is the abiding law, and he who grasps to hold, will find but shadows in his grasp.

RELIGION.--Religion may teach us a pessimistic view of the world, and to bow like cringing slaves unquestioningly to the rod. We may accept that all is for the best whether we understand it or not, as the unalterable decree of fate, yet as rational beings we recoil from this bondage, and the questions are ever present, of the purpose of this life and the evidences of that future of which the most doubting dream.

Religion, resting as it does on the immortality of the spirit, should answer us so plainly and absolutely that there could be no doubt. That there is weeping and broken hearts shows that it does not, or else that it makes that existence so terrible that the dread of it is more than that of annihilation. The fear of Hell, which has driven the world to madness, is now cast into the lumber room with other errors, outgrown, and in the free atmosphere one can not understand the terrors it once awakened. The arbitrary heaven is also passing away, and a more natural conception of the future life is gaining precedent. Yet the words of teachers of religion are cold and soulless, and even the poets, touched by the finger of a decaying faith, voice the incredulity of the age in lines which speak only in despair. Oh! poet of immortal song, how chilling to the heart the words that yet too often find response in its doubts and fears:

"And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But oh! for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still.

"Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead, Will never come back to me."

There is little consolation to be found in these directions. Let us turn back to first principles; let us for a time forget the claims of scientists and take up the book of nature at her plain alphabet and ascertain whether these claims of material science have a sure foundation.

What is the Sensitive State?

A RACE WITHOUT SIGHT.--If the human race were born without organs of vision, man could form no idea of the beautiful and splendid phenomena revealed to the eye. The normal state would be blindness. Day and night would be marked by intervals of repose and activity, but the cloudy midnight and the radiance of the sun, the glories of morning, the splendors of sunset, the star-gemmed canopy of the cloudless night, the infinite changes, the phantasmagoria of heaven and earth, would be unknown. The flowers might bloom in beauty, their fragrance would delight, but their form and color would be unrecognized. The mind, deprived of the infinite series of sensations which flow into it through the sense of vision, would have none of the conceptions thereby engendered. If a being who could see should attempt to reveal to the sightless race the beauties of the world as seen by the eye in the light, they would treat him as an impostor relating an idle tale, to them incomprehensible.

A RACE WITHOUT HEARING.--If to the deprivation of sight were added the loss of hearing, the vital powers would not be impaired; the organic functions would continue the same, but all sounds would cease and perfect silence reign. The mind could form no conception of music, the songs of birds, the sighing of the wind, the roar of the storm, or the soft modulations of the human voice. As nature would be voiceless, so man would be dumb. The gift of speech would be lost with the power of receiving the sounds of words. The soul, in silence and darkness, unable to communicate its thoughts with others, would be bereft of all the sensations, emotions, and conceptions which arise from seeing and hearing, nor could it be taught these by those who possessed these senses, for no conceptions could be formed of sights never seen, or sounds never heard.

SENSITIVENESS.--In like manner, the sensitive condition reveals a universe which is unknown to the senses, and of which man is as profoundly ignorant as those born blind are of light. It is the heritage of all, yet manifested only at rare intervals in favored individuals. It is as it would be with the sense of sight, were thousands blind, while a few saw imperfectly, and only one with distinctness. The sight of that one would indicate what all might attain under favorable circumstances, as the perception of those who are sensitive shows what is possible in this direction. It is through this gateway that we are able to penetrate the arcana of a higher existence, and it is our purpose to go by easy steps along the pathway that leads into the vista stretching beyond this portal, into unexplored regions, of which scarcely a conception has yet been formed.

We have consciousness of spiritual realities, of an infinite after-life, and aspirations which it alone can satisfy, and for which this mortal sphere furnishes no provision. Shall we regard these aspirations as idle longings, and this consciousness as a baseless fancy? Or have we spiritual energies which have called this spiritual nature into being?

The eye is created in conformity to the laws of light, to receive the rays and allow their impingement on the optic nerves. It is proof of the existence of light. In the same manner, spiritual perception is evidence of the existence of spiritual energies. It would be quite as difficult for the mind to comprehend spiritual being, if without this consciousness, as for the blind to understand the beauties of light.

Sensitiveness is a faculty pertaining to the spiritual nature, and is acute in proportion as that spiritual nature dominates the physical senses. It is possessed by all, and by a few in a remarkable degree. It is variable in the same individual, is often the result of drugs, of fatigue, of sleep, and may be induced or intensified by hypnotism or mesmerism. It may manifest itself suddenly and at long intervals, once only in a lifetime, or be a steadfast quality. It may have all degrees of acuteness, from impressibility scarcely distinguishable from the individual's own thoughts, to the purest independent clairvoyance.

CONDITIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF SENSITIVENESS.--For one mind to influence another, the two must be in harmony, at least in certain points. The thought vibrations in one will not otherwise awake like vibrations in the other. Take for illustration two musical strings, one with fixed attachments, and the other with a moveable bridge or stop. Now if the first be set in vibration, the other, being on a different key, will not respond in unison, but the stop will slightly move; and if the vibrations continue, the stop will move forward until the exact length of chord is attained, and then both strings will vibrate in harmony, one repeating the notes of the other.

If an hundred musical instruments were placed in a room, only two of which were tuned alike, if one of these were touched, its mate would respond, but the others would remain silent.

These thought vibrations may be received suddenly like a flash, as in the case of premonitions and warnings of danger, the sensitive state lasting but a brief time; or it may be cultivated and become permanent with the individual. The hypnotic, or somnambulic subject, may be more or less affected at first, and slowly fall under the influence, until the continuous condition is the same as that in which a premonition is received.

As an illustration of the method by which this is accomplished, whether the operator be a spirit clad in a physical or in a celestial body, the improvements by age and use of the violin may be taken.

This instrument, the most perfect of all in its capacity for expressing the delicate feelings of the soul, gains its soft sweetness and rich perfection by use and age. The cremona, worth its weight in gold, may once have been harsh, with dissonant tones, rasping to the ear. The Tyrolese maker selects the smoothest wood his mountain affords, clear of grain, and free from flaw or blemish. He carves the parts with sedulous care and exhaustless patience; swell and curve and hollow are wrought, polished, and cemented together so as to make them as one. Then the delicate strings are drawn over the bridge, and the instrument tested. It may squeak or jar, and refuse, even in a master's hands, to express his desire. But with every vibration of the strings it improves. Every movement changes its fibers, and forces them into harmonious accord. After a time they will all be in unison. The playing of a single tune may not produce this result; a score or a thousand may not. It may pass from hand to hand, and generation after generation may grow old and die, as each successive master touches its strings, before all its deepest qualities are expressed. Then its tones melt in voluptuous harmony; wail with the broken hearted; fill the soul with the gladness of delight; revive the murmur of the sombre pines; the song of the birds in the forest; the laughing of falling waters; the hoarse voice of the tempest with hail and lightning flash, rush of winds and burst of clouds. Nature speaks through the instrument, and vibrates the heart with every emotion, passion, and aspiration.

In the same manner, if a being independent of, and detached from the physical body, should attempt to impress its thoughts on a sensitive, it might no more than partially succeed after many trials. Each effort, however, would be more successful, for thought vibrations constantly tend to efface the causes of discord, and if the Intelligence is patient, and the sensitive submissive, the thoughts of the former would at last flow uninterruptedly into or through the mind of the latter.

And what is thus possible for a sensitive, in regard to an individual intelligence, is possible to acquire in relation to the thought atmosphere of the universe, or psychic-ether. If this be possible, if a being may become thus exquisitively sensitive, and receive the waves of thought as they traverse this ether, as the eye catches vibrations of light, that being would be a focus to receive the intelligence of all thinking beings in the universe.

The sensitive state, then, is the outcropping in mortal life, in apparently abnormal form, of that which is normal to the spirit of life. We thus conclude that its most astonishing development, as revealed, is immeasurably below its normal capabilities when freed from the limitation of the body. The permanent condition of a spiritual being after separation from the physical form must be that of the most perfect and delicately sensitive. What we see here in partial or total eclipse, is there in the glory of full light.

THOUGHTS NOT WORDS IMPRESSED.--While Max Müller ardently supports his theory that thought itself depends upon the words which express it, we constantly meet with facts which indicate that the idea is conveyed from one mind to another, and there is clothed in words according to the culture of the receiving mind. The vividness with which the idea is impressed insures the use of similar verbal clothing. An instance is reported by Dapson, in Deleuze, where a sealed letter was given a very susceptible magnetic subject. It reads:

"No other than the eye of Omnipotence can read this sentence in this envelope.

Troy, New York, Aug. 1837."

The subject read it:

"No other than the eye of Omnipotence can read this in this envelope. ---------- 1837."

He omitted "sentence," and all the date but the year. It is to be observed that in all instances of thought transference or sensitiveness, the reproduction of names, dates, etc., expressed by arbitrary words, are the most difficult and unreliable, and this has been a source of doubt, and an argument against the truthfulness of the magnetic subject.