Part 6

Spiritualists of to-day reject entirely the notion that the phenomena associated with Stainton Moses were produced by fraud, but as Mr. Hill says, “Whether they were due to spirits is another question, not to be finally settled until we know the extent of our subliminal self’s hidden powers.”

If doubts are felt by Spiritualists themselves with regard to the origin of such a standard work as “Spirit Teachings,” can we wonder that all but the most credulous reject great masses of ordinary automatic writing and concentrate their attention on a possibly valuable “residuum”? As Sir William Barrett recognises, the automatist, even when absolutely above suspicion, may unconsciously guide the pencil or the indicator of the “ouija board.” May not the explanation of surprising communications, when such occur, be found in “thought-transference from those who are sitting with the medium, or telepathy from other living persons who may know some of the facts that are automatically written?”

Sir William Barrett asks the question, though he does not consider that an affirmative answer covers the facts. Honest-minded Spiritualists are groping after a natural explanation of the phenomena. The best of them, we are sure, would agree with Dr. Barnes that automatic writing, taken as a whole, has no evidential value in favour of the theory that it is possible to communicate with the dead. As the “table phenomena” point to dimly realised extensions of man’s physical powers, so the unexplained facts of automatic writing find their probable explanation in thought-transference, or in that mysterious realm where experts talk of “the dissociation of the personality.”

Mr. Gerald Balfour, whose writings on Psychical Research deserve the closest and most attentive study, discussed in the Hibbert Journal ten years ago the problem of dissociation, “whereby an element of the normal self may be supposed to become in a lesser or greater degree divided off from that self, and to acquire, for the time being, a certain measure of independence.”

“It would appear to be with this secondary self (or selves, if there be more than one of them) that we have to reckon in dealing with the facts of automatism rather than with the normal self: a deduction drawn from the consciousness or unconsciousness of the latter may be altogether inapplicable to the former. How ready these second selves are to act a part, and how cleverly they often do so, the experience of hypnotism is there to show.”

III

“Nearly every woman,” writes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in “The New Revelation,” “is an undeveloped medium. Let her try her own powers of automatic writing.” Doctors have cried out against this dangerous advice given by one of the medical fraternity, and we have not found it supported by any leading authority in the ranks of Spiritualism. We are able to state, on excellent authority, that the late Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace strongly deprecated any similar attempts by amateurs. In private conversation he used to tell of a man who, having practised automatic writing, became absolutely incapable of writing the simplest note without his hand being used by other agencies. He was not able to hinder this by his own will, and in order to effect a cure he was obliged to abstain for years from using a pencil at all. Dr. Russel Wallace had a strong belief in the existence and activity of malignant low-grade spirits who seek to gain control over men.

Sir William Barrett, in a very grave passage, discourages “young persons and those who have little to interest their time and thoughts” from “making any experiments in this perplexing region.” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has never known “a blasphemous, an unkind, or an obscene message” to be transmitted ostensibly from the other side. Sir W. F. Barrett has been less fortunate in his experience. “It not infrequently happens,” writes this great authority, “as some friends of mine found, that after some interesting and veridical messages and answers to questions had been given, mischievous and deceptive communications took place, interspersed with profane and occasionally obscene language. How far the sitters’ subliminal self is responsible for this, it is difficult to say; they were naturally disquieted and alarmed, as the ideas and words were wholly foreign to their thoughts, and they threw up the whole matter in disgust.”

Sir Oliver Lodge, in “Raymond” (p. 225), warns his readers against the misapplication of psychic power. His paragraph headed “Warning” gleams like a sea-light over sunken rocks. It was with a deep sense of responsibility, we may be sure, and with a consciousness of surrounding danger, that the world-famed scientist wrote these words: “Self-control is more important than any other form of control, and whoever possesses the power of receiving communications in any form should see to it that he remains master of the situation. To give up your own judgment and depend solely on adventitious aid is a grave blunder, and may in the long run have disastrous consequences. Moderation and common sense are required in those who try to utilise powers which neither they nor any fully understand, and a dominating occupation in mundane affairs is a wholesome safeguard.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, we believe, stands alone among leading Spiritualistic teachers in his advice that all and sundry should practise planchette-writing. “Such practices,” as Dr. Barnes remarks, “do little harm to men and women whose minds are healthy; but there is a danger that through them persons whose minds are unstable may develop fixed illusions.”

FOOTNOTES:

“On the Threshold of the Unseen,” pp. 162, 163.

“On the Threshold of the Unseen,” p. 322.

“Spiritualism and the Christian Faith,” p. 47.

Chapter VII

IS THERE DANGER FROM THE OTHER SIDE?

Canon Barnes, in his excellent pamphlet, “Spiritualism and the Christian Faith,” warns the clergy against a line of opposing argument which would commit them to an acceptance of the mediæval system of demonology. We can confirm the testimony of Dr. Barnes that it is not uncommon to hear in Christian pulpits an admission that the medium can receive communications from another world, and to find this admission coupled with the suggestion that these communications are sent by evil spirits. We entirely agree with Dr. Barnes that the worst way of attacking Spiritualism is to admit its fundamental claim that communication with “spirits” can be set up, and then to assert that the “spirits” with whom intercourse is established are evil. “Such teaching attempts to combat Spiritualism by a revived belief in demonology.” The “danger from the other side” is of a different and more subtle nature. “No one at the present day,” writes Mr. Arthur E. Waite, “would desire to submit that a Spiritualist who receives at a séance that which, so far as his knowledge extends, is satisfactory evidence that he is holding some kind of communication with, let us suppose, a departed relative, is in reality being imposed upon by any satanic intelligence according to the conventional view; but it remains that he is assuming throughout the good faith of the other side of life, and that it is incapable of utilising particular means of knowledge in an unscrupulous way.” Trustworthy teachers of Spiritualism do not, in their own investigations, “assume the good faith of the other side of life.” The most serious warnings as to possible dangers to the inquirer come from men of high character and responsible position, who accept the tenets of Spiritualism.

The Church has taught in every age that man’s soul is engaged in warfare with unseen powers. St. Paul’s words in Ephesians vi. 11, 12, are impressively rendered by Dr. Moffatt: “Put on God’s armour so as to be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil. For we have to struggle not with blood and flesh, but with the Angelic Rulers, the Angelic Authorities, the potentates of the dark present, the spirit-forces of evil in the heavenly sphere.”

There is no stranger, more disputed, passage in Dante’s “Purgatorio” than that in which the poet represents the evil serpent seeking to gain access to the penitents on the lower slopes of the Mount. Sinless they are, but they have not reached the terraces of suffering; they are waiting, pale and humble, for permission to move upward at daybreak, and they sing the compline hymn.

Guardian angels come at once to the defence of those whose rest in the flowery dell is disturbed by thoughts of the adversary. These angels, as Maria Rossetti says, are “green-winged and robed for hope, golden-haired and radiant-visaged for glory, with fiery swords against the lurking serpent, with blunted swords towards the reposing elect, falcons to watch, falcons to fly, moved swifter than seen to move.”

Those penitents of Dante’s “Dell of Princes” would have echoed the words with which John Bunyan closed the first part of the “Pilgrim’s Progress”: “I saw that there was a way to hell even from the gates of heaven, as well as from the city of destruction.” Would they not, as the dawn-light guided them upward to St. Peter’s gate, have warned Christian souls on earth against any tampering with “spirit-forces of evil”?

“Principalities and powers, Mustering their unseen array, Wait for thy unguarded hours; Watch and pray.”

Mental and moral wreckage may be the fate of those who surrender the will in a vain attempt to lift the curtain of unseen realms. It was an ancient belief that evil spirits could not obtain a footing in any house unless the inmate gave them a deliberate invitation to enter. “Reverend father,” says Magdalen in “The Abbot,” “hast thou never heard that there are spirits powerful to rend the walls of a castle asunder when once admitted, which yet cannot enter the house unless they are invited, nay, dragged, over the threshold?” We remember how Coleridge uses the same superstition in the mysterious fragment, “Christabel”:

“The lady sank, belike thro’ pain. And Christabel with might and main Lifted her up, a weary weight, Over the threshold of the gate; Then the lady rose again, And moved as she were not in pain.”

“It is prudent,” says Camille Flammarion, “not to give oneself exclusively to occult subjects, for one might soon lose the independence of mind necessary to form an impartial judgment.”

III

Impressive warnings as to possible dangers from the other side have come from leading spiritualists who have not separated themselves from the Christian faith. It will not be the fault of Sir William Barrett if foolish and credulous séance-haunters get into deep waters. In the latest edition of his standard book he reprints, with slight modification, an often cited passage which he wrote more than ten years ago.

“Certainly,” he says, “the Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, points to a race of spiritual creatures, not made of flesh and blood, inhabiting the air around us, and able injuriously to affect mankind. Good as well as mischievous agencies doubtless exist in the unseen; this, of course, is equally true if the phenomena are due to those who have once lived on the earth. ‘There are as great fools in the spirit world as there ever were in this,’ as Henry More said over 200 years ago. In any case, granting the existence of a spiritual world, it is necessary to be on our guard against the invasion of our will by a lower order of intelligence and morality.”