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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 3a

Great Minds on a Great Theme

Great Minds on a Great Theme.

For the information of those who have not hitherto devoted any attention to this profoundly interesting subject, and whose only knowledge of it is derived from the police court prosecutions of charlatans and imposters—who hold a similiar relationship to Spiritualism as hypocrites do to the Church—it may be as well to explain that Spiritualism is not a thing of yesterday. It is, on the other hand, as old as mankind itself, and its teachings are hoary with antiquity. Thousands of years ago it pervaded the religions of Greece and Rome, of Assyria, Phoenicia, Persia, India, Egypt and China; both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures abound in its phenomena, and in every savage race we find the prevailing belief in the survival and return of the spirit to earth.

Zoroaster, the Persian seer and one of the great reformers of Asiatic religion, proclaimed the existence, of good and evil spirits who, occasionally, he said, revealed themselves to human beings; the Hebrews evoked spirits with the aid of certain formulae, of which the principles were consecrated by the Talmud; all the Prophets possessed mediumistic gifts and were known as Seers; Porphyry, a Greek Philosopher of the Neo-Platonic School says that "spirits are invisible; nevertheless they reveal themselves sometimes in visible form;" Plato taught the same thing; Socrates, being clairvoyant and clairaudient—spiritual senses which are to-day Scientifically acknowledged—both saw and heard his guardian spirit; whilst Pindar, Plutareh, Plotinous and Philo the Jew, were avowedly of a similar belief; the Romans believed that every human being is accompanied by a guardian spirit from the moment of his birth, and Cicero declared the air to be "full of immortal spirits, "adding that "they knew and taught many things unknown to mortals."

In the New Testament we find St. Paul enumerating the "gifts of the Spirit," and amongst these he mentions the "discerning of spirits." What did he mean by that? To "discern" is to "see." To discern spirits is therefore to see spirits. And if they are to be seen they must be here. To say that they are not here is tantamount to saying that Paul did not know what he was talking about. But Paul did know. He, had, doubtless, seen them and, therefore, he was able to declare—"We are encompassed about by a great cloud of witnesses." He, moreover, understood their mission. It was page 63 not Satanic—for he exclaims, "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation."

I do not, however, think that this statement is literally correct. Paul may not be responsible for that. They are not all ministering spirits in the sense in which Paul meant. Many of them are malign in nature and intent. They have carried forward their evil tendencies and, consequently, are unclean and deceivers still. Hence St. John wisely issues the warning—"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God?" Every level-headed investigator tries, or tests, the communicating intelligence in order to establish his identity, and that is what Sir Oliver Lodge and Professor Hyslop have been doing with such remarkably successful results.

During the dark interval of the Middle Ages spirituality was almost crushed out of existence; the most hideous religious wars supervened, and all the mediums were sent to the stake as "witches" or "wizards." The movement, therefore, received a tremendous set-back, but in later years it recovered by spasmodic outbursts, and in the year 1848 Modern Spiritualism came into active life in an obscure township in the State of New York. It spread like wild-fire throughout the country and during the succeeding 50 years made marvellous progress in every nation in Europe. To-day it commands the attention of the intellect of the world and seems destined to eventually cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

Those who are keeping abreast of recent developments can easily perceive that the subject will soon be the dominating thought in the minds of men and that the time is drawing near when the man who is ignorant of its mentally-illumining influence will be considered sadly deficient in intellectual culture.

It was well-known in certain inner circles that the late Queen Victoria was anything but a stranger to this ancient belief, and it will not surprise a few to learn that the late Mr. Gladstone was an Honorary Member of the English Psychical Research Society, and that, in writing to its Secretary, he stated—"The work in which you are engaged is the most important that can possibly occupy the human mind—by far the most important"

John Wesley, the honored Founder of Methodism, was likewise personally familiar with many of the phases of psychic phenomena. Read what he has to say about the mysterious happenings in his father's house, and when you find the excitement is growing too intense, take up, as a sort of sedative, his delightful sermon on "Good Angels," from which it will be found that, as he page 64 expresses it,—"If our eyes were opened we would see—

A convoy attends,

A ministering host of invisible friends."

He, moreover, brings these "ministering friends" down to earth and makes them work. Some discharge the functions of doctors, others are nurses, and others, again, defend us from assaults in body and soul.

"And who can hurt us," he joyfully continues, "while we have armies of angels and the God of angels on our side ? . . Does He frequently deliver us by means of men from the violence and subtlety of our enemies ? Many times He works the same deliverance by these invisible agents. These shut the mouths of the human lions so that they have no power to hurt us. And frequently they join with their human friends (although neither they nor we are sensible of it) giving them wisdom courage or strength, without which all their labour for us would be unsucessful. Thus do they secretly minister, in numberless instances, to the heirs of Salvation, while we hear only the voices of men and see none but men around us. . . In the meantime, though we may not worship them (worship is due only to our common Creator) yet we may esteem them very highly in love for their works' sake."

The whole sermon, in fact, is a Spriritualistic discourse from beginning to end, and to still further emphasise his views on the reality of Spiritual phenomena the following extract may be quoted from his Letters:—

"What pretense have I to deny well-attested facts because I cannot comprehend them ? It is true that most men of learning in Europe have given up all accounts of apparitions as mere old wives' fables. I am sorry for it and I willingly take this opportunity of entering my solemn protest against the violent compliment which so many that believe in the Bible pay to those who do not believe it. I owe them no such service. They well know (whether Christians know it or not) that the giving up of these apparitions is, in effect, giving up the Bible, and they know, on the other hand, that if but one account of the intercourse of men with spirits is admitted, their whole castle in the air (Deism, Atheism, and Materialism) falls to the ground."

Dr. Adam Clarke, the celebrated Wesleyan Minister and distinguished Commentator, was evidently of a similar opinion to his illustrious chief and pronounces thus—"I believe there is a supernatural and spiritual world, in which human spirits, both good and evil, live in a state of consciousness. I believe that any of these spirits may, according to the order of God, in the laws of their place of residence, have intercourse with this world and become visible to mortals"

Canon Wilberforce takes a most inspiring view. He says:—"It is a strengthening, calming consideration that we are in page 65 the midst of an invisible world of energetic and glorious life, a world of spiritual beings than whom we have been made for a little while lower. Blessed be God for the knowledge of a world like this. It is evidently that region or condition of space in which the departed find themselves immediately after death; probably it is nearer than we imagine, for St Paul speaks of our being surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. There, it seems to me, they are waiting for us."

The Dean of Rochester (Dr. Reynolds Hole) writing to a friend in grief, in November, 1877, said:—"The 'dead' are, I believe, more with us and can do more for us than the living. In a very short time you will know this."

Ven. Arehdeacon Colley, Rector of Stockton, War-wickshire, and who insists on writing after his name the words, "And a Spiritualist," says:—"Spiritualism comes as a real God-send to save men from the Sadducean Materialism that looks for no hereafter beyond the grave." And he further declares—"If the Church ignores the testimony of Modern Spiritualism, or speaks of it as necessarily evil, or Satanic, it will indubitably grow beyond the Church to guide it Christianly."

Arehdeacon Wilberforce, speaking at Newcastleon-Tyne in 1881, remarked:—"The strength of Spiritualism lies in the knowledge, partial and imperfect though it be, of the future life, while the weakness of the Churches, as opposed to the strength of Modern Spiritualism, is in the ignorance of that life, and in the misapprehension of Scripture concerning it"

Rev. Dr. J. P. Newman, of Madison Avenue Congregational Church, New York, observes:—"In Bible times the two worlds met and there was communication between them as there is now between New York and London, though not so frequently of course. . . But do communications between the two worlds continue to this day ? Let us rise to the sublimity and purity of this great Bible truth and console our hearts therewith."

Rev. Arthur Chambers, M.A., Associate of King's College, London, and Vicar of Brockenhurst, Hants, in his delightful work—"Thoughts of the Spiritual," referring to the antagonistic attitude assumed by many professing Christians towards the phenomena of Spiritualism, says—"No doubt these good people would be terribly shocked by the suggestion that had they been living when Jesus manifested Himself after death they would, in all probability, no more have believed the fact than did the ecclesiastical authorities who put Him to death. As far as testimony is concerned, the fact of the post mortem appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ is not so well or so universally attested as are the spiritual phenomena of the present day. The Christian folk who profess to believe the one and scout as absurd the other, do well to remember this. Let them be consistent. . . Thus we regard these manifestations of Spirit life as an ordering of God."

Rev. John Page Hopps, well-known in England for his robust and inspired preaching, says:—"What you say about the interest now excited by things psychical is, I imagine, true the page 66 world over. Everywhere the interest increases both in width and depth. Believers in our spiritual happenings are eager: unbelievers are modifying their scorn or are becoming antagonists who believe in the happenings but excitedly trace them to the Devil or to demons. Scientists, novelists, poets, newspaper scribes and scribblers are all busy, and flutter about the subject at various rates of excitement; and meanwhile, the evidence in confirmation of our testimony is becoming overwhelming"

Rev. R. Heber Newton, D.D., of New York, one of the ablest thinkers amongst the Broad Churchmen of the American Episcopal denomination, declares himself thus:—"If one mind on earth can thus communicate, without physical media, with another mind, it is no difficult thing to believe that unseen intelligences can thus communicate."

Bishop Mercer, the well-known and popular Anglican prelate of Tasmania, says:—"Taking the human being as the telephone, the transmission of spiritual messages would depend largely for their clearness on the maintenance of the connection and the condition of the instrument."

Dean Parkyn, of Ballarat, when speaking at the graveside at Hamilton in September last, said :—"My brethren, these things (referring to several deaths that had recently taken place) are happening constantly all around us, and I say that man is foolish beyond the power of speech to express who lives only for the seen and forgets that which is unseen. I know you cannot see the other world. But it is all around us, and I believe at this very moment we are encircled by a cloud of invisible intelligences."

These are only a few of the Church authorities from whose utterances I might quote. But they will suffice. Now let us pass on to the realms of Literature, Philosophy, and Art.

Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, F.R.S., F.G.S., says :—"Up to the time when I first became acquainted with the facts of Spiritualism, I was a confirmed philosophical sceptic, rejoicing in the works of Voltaire, Strauss, and Carl Vogt, and an ardent admirer—as I am still—of Herbert Spencer. I was so thorough and confirmed a Materialist that I could not at that time find a place in my mind for the conception of Spiritual existence, or for any other agencies in the universe than matter and force. Facts, however, are stubborn things. . . The facts beat me."

Sir William Crookes, F.R.S., replying to some of his critics:—"It was taken for granted by the writers that the results of my experiments would be in accordance with their pre-conceptions. What they really desired was not the truth, but an additional witness in favour of their own foregone conclusions. When they found that the facts which those investigations established could not be made to fit those opinions, why—'so much the worse for the facts.' . . I have observed some circumstances which seem conclusively to point to the agency of an outside intelligence, not belonging to any human being in the room."

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Professor Lombroso, the great Italian Scientist, writing to Professor Falcomer, of Venice, in 1896, said—"I am, in Spiritualism, like a pebble swept along by a current. At present I lie upon the bank, but every fresh wavelet carries me further onward, and I believe that I shall end by swallowing it all, even the astrality—yes, I shall finish by accepting it completely." Since this was written Lombroso has, indeed, "swallowed it all," and now tells us that he has "conversed with and embraced his deceased mother."

Professor Flournoy, of the University of Geneva, writes—"The question of immortality, and the intervention of Spirits, maintains its Scientific importance, and deserves to be discussed with the calm serenity, with the independence and with the analytical rigour which are proper to the experimental method."

M. Camille Flammarion, the great French Astronomer, says—"Although Spiritualism is not a Religion, but a Science, yet the day may come when Religion and Science will be reunited in one single synthesis."

M. Theirs, Ex-President of France, declares emphatically—"I am a Spiritualist, and an impassioned one, and I am anxious to confound Materialism in the name of Science and good sense."

John Ruskin affords a notable instance of what Spiritualism is capable of doing in the regeneration of men. Holman Hunt the celebrated artist, whose impressive picture, "The Light of the World," was recently exhibited in Australia, had a conversation with Ruskin on the question of the Immortality of the Soul, which the great writer and philosopher once denied. Reminded of his former disbelief Ruskin brightened up and replied—"Yes, I remember it very well. That which revived this belief in my mind was, more than anything else, the undeniable proofs of it offered by Spiritualism. I am not unacquainted with the mass of fraud and follies which are mixed up with this doctrine, but it contains sufficient truth to convince me of the evidence of a life independent of the body and it is this which I find so interesting in Spiritualism."

Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe was a medium and a Spiritualist. She says—"I did not write Uncle Tom's Cabin; it was given to me; it passed before me. And in her "Key" she explains how she obtained the material for her immortal work.

Charles Dickens, the novelist, was also a mediumistic soul, and in a letter to his friend Forster, he wrote—"When in the midst of this trouble and pain I sit down to my books, some benificent power shows it all to me and tempts me to be interested, and I don't invent—really I do not—but see it and write it down."

M. Leon Faure, Consul-General of France, declares emphatically "I have long, carefully and conscientiously studied spiritual phenomena. Not only am I convinced of their irrefutable reality, but I have also a profound assurance that they are produced by the spirits of those who have left the earth; and, further, that they only could produce them."

J. Herman Fichte, German Philosopher, says—"It is page 68 absolutely impossible to account for these phenomena, save by assuming the action of superhuman influences, or unseen spirit intelligences."

M. Victorien Sardou, the eminent French dramatist, has produced a play, entitled "Spiritualism," and has announced that—"He has had frequent interviews with the spirits of friends who are 'dead," and that he has received messages, spirits guiding his hand to write them as they were communicated to him. He is convinced of the objective reality of the spirit world and of its desire and power to enter into relations with humanity."

Professor W. F. Barrett, F.R.S., Professor of Experimental Physics and Dean of the Faculty of the Royal College of Sciences, Ireland, states—"The impressive fact of the phenomena is the intelligence behind them and the evidence of an unseen individuality as distinct as our own."

Professor Herbert Mayo, Professor of Anatomy and Physiology, King's College, London, avers—"That the phenomena occur there is overwhelming evidence, and it is too late now to deny their existence."

Professor Challis, Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy, Cambridge University, asserts—"The testimony has been so abundant and consentaneous that either the facts must be admitted to be such as reputed or the possibility of certifying facts by human testimony must be given up."

Professor Robert Hare, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry in the University of Pennsylvania, and inventor of improvements in the Oxy-hydrogen blow-pipe, says—"Far from abating my confidence in the inference respecting the agencies of the spirits of deceased mortals, I have had even more striking evidences of that agency than those given in the work I have published."

W. M. Thackeray, author and novelist, delivers himself thus—"It is all very well for you, who have probably never seen any spiritual manifestations, to talk as you do; but if you had seen what I have witnessed, you would hold a different opinion."

H. W. Longfellow, poet, and a thorough-going Spiritualist, says:—"The spiritual world lies all about us, and its avenues are open to the unseen feet of phantoms that come and go and we perceive them not save by their influence, or when at times a mysterious Providence permits them to manifest themselves to mortal eyes."

Sir Edwin Arnold, author of "The Light of Asia," speaks in this strain—"All I can say is this: that I regard many of the manifestations as genuine and undeniable, and inexplicable by any known law, or collusion, arrangement, or deception of the senses; and that I conceive it to be the duty and interest of men of Science and sense, to examine and prosecute the enquiry as one that has fairly passed from the regions of ridicule."

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To this batch of illustrious names might be added those, past and present, of Professors A. de Mingen, W. James (Harvard University), Butlerow, Hoffman, Wagner, Ochorowitz, Pertz, Schiebner, Mapes, Falcomer and upwards of a score of others; Lords Brougham, Adare, Dunraven, the first Lord Lytton, Lindsay, Lyndhurst and Radnor; the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, Sir Charles Isham, Arehbishop Whately, Rev. H. R. Haweis, M.A., Rev. W. E. Channing, and a great number of American clergy; the late Countess of Caithness; Shakespeare, Mrs. Oliphant, Theodore Parker, Washington Irving, Charlotte Bronte, Horace Greeley, Victor Hugo, Alex. Dumas the elder, Abraham Lincoln, William Howitt, S. C. Hall, W. Blake, the poet-painter, Flaxman, the sculptor, Alexander von Humboldt, R. S. Wyld, the astronomer, Mrs. Browning, the late Robert Chambers, a number of eminent members of the medical faculty in all parts of Europe, and many others celebrated in Literature and Art, whilst Mr. W. T. Stead, in an "In Memoriam" article on the late Sir Henry Campbell-Banner-man, Prime Minister of Great Britain, in the "Review of Reviews" of July of this year, says that in his last days the dying statesman "was heard speaking from time to time as of old to the life-long companion of all his joys and sorrows, his beloved wife, graciously permitted to return from the other side to cheer and comfort with her visible presence the husband who was so soon to rejoin her in the land of endless life."

So from the world of Spirits there descends
A bridge of light connecting it with this.