SPIRITUALISM
by Herbert Thurston, S.J.
FOR those who approach the question of Spiritualism from the
standpoint of the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and other enthusiastic
believers in the New Revelation, it must be a little difficult to
explain why any effective intervention of the spirit world in human
affairs should have been so long delayed. We are told that many of
these intelligences who passed on thousands of years ago are
supremely wise, that it is their main concern to guide and uplift
mankind, and that only through this channel can the people be rescued
from the dogmatic fictions of the churches on the one hand and the
blank hopelessness of materialism on the other.
Yet it was not until 1848 that intercourse with the realm of shades
was opened up. For all practical purposes before that time the
oracles were dumb. The delay was not due to the lack of suitable
communicators. "Pheneas," the special control of Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle's family, claims to have died "thousands of years ago" and to
have lived at Ur before the time of Abraham. "Imperator," the
dominant partner of the Stainton Moses band, declared himself to be
identical with the prophet Malachi (c. 460 B.C.).
We have then to suppose that these and a crowd of other beneficent
spirits were in effect impotent to convey any message to mankind
until two uneducated little girls in the hamlet of Hydesville,
U.S.A., showed them the way to a solution by imitating the strange
knockings which were heard in the haunted house their parents
occupied. By these knockings a means of communication was first
established just a hundred years ago. It is difficult to reconcile
the idea of exalted spirits remaining, for untold centuries,
powerless to make their influence felt, with the claim that to these
same spirits we must look for any guidance which can contribute to
the world's regeneration. Still, Conan Doyle, J. Arthur Findlay, and
a crowd of others too numerous to catalogue here are satisfied that
there is no hope for the religious future of the race outside the
practice of Spiritualism.
Be this as it may, no one can dispute the fact that modern
Spiritualism only dates from the year 1848. Both in America and in
England the anniversary from time to time has been commemorated with
great solemnity. On one such occasion, at the Queen's Hall, London
(March 31, 1920), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle told a crowded audience that
they were there that evening "to celebrate the seventy-second
anniversary of what Spiritualists considered to be the greatest event
which had occurred in the world for two thousand years." In America
the frame house in which the Fox family lived has been taken down and
built up elsewhere. It now bears the inscription: "Spiritualism
originated in this house, March 31, 1848."
There is no satisfactory evidence to prove that the two child
mediums, Maggie and Katie Fox, through whom the communication with
the spirit world by means of rappings first took its rise, were
either vicious or fraudulent at the beginning of their career. On the
contrary, many men of high character who were interested in the
phenomena--it may be sufficient to name the statesman Horace
Greeley, and the Catholic publicist Orestes A. Brownson--spoke of them
during those early years with sincere regard and sympathy. There
seems no adequate ground for charging them with any imposture. The
knockings and the table movements which soon came to be produced
through other mediums as well, all over the country, cannot all be
explained by mere trickery. Investigators like Father C. M. de
Heredia, S.J., in recent years who, following in the track of Houdini
the conjuror, began by denouncing all the manifestations as
fraudulent, have found themselves compelled to modify their view.
But while, as I hold, we may admit that the Fox sisters were genuine
mediums and that very remarkable and inexplicable phenomena were wont
to occur in their presence, there can be no possible question that
these two wonder-workers, who for thirty years and more were
acclaimed as the founders of Spiritualism, both came to a very sad
end. It is on record that the first message of guidance which they
received from the spirits in 1848 was to the following effect:
"Dear Friends,
"You must proclaim these truths to the world. This is the dawning of
a new era, and you must not try to conceal it any longer. When you do
you. duty, God will protect you and good spirits will watch over
you."
Maggie and Katie Fox did not fail to devote their energies to the
propagation of Spiritualism, but the promise of protection was
illusory; at any rate it led to no result. On October 21, 1888, the
two sisters, who some time previously had contracted habits of
intemperance, were persuaded--it may be were bribed, though I know no
direct evidence of this--to attend an anti-Spiritualist meeting in one
of the large halls in New York. There Maggie, in the presence of her
sister, read aloud a short statement, in the course of which she
declared: "I am here tonight as one of the founders of Spiritualism
to denounce it as absolute falsehood . . . the most wicked blasphemy
known to the world." This was followed by what purported to be a
demonstration that the medium by cracking her toe or anklejoints was
able to produce raps which could be heard all over the room.
That the scene occurred as described may be learnt from all the
contemporary newspapers of New York and is perforce admitted by the
most zealous advocates of the cult. They urge, however, that a year
later Maggie, in the presence of witnesses, formally retracted all
that she had said. This also is indisputable, but such contradictory
declarations are equally worthless as evidence. The sisters at that
time were so far the victims of the craving for drink that all sense
of moral responsibility was lost. Within a few years both were dead.
When Maggie, the last survivor, was nearing her end, an American
newspaper described her as "an object of charity, a mental and
physical wreck, whose appetite is only for intoxicating liquors" and
added: "The lips that utter little else now than profanity once
promulgated the doctrine of a new religion which still numbers its
tens of thousands of enthusiastic believers."
A few weeks later we find the editor of a leading English
Spiritualist journal improving the occasion in such terms as these:
"Here we have a wonderful twofold spiritual spectacle--we have a woman
giving spiritual manifestations to others, while within herself she
is spiritually lost and misdirected. All moral sense and control of
mind and desire were gone.... But when the medium makes a trade of it
and puffs the thing up as a commodity for sale, then farewell to all
that might elevate or instruct in the subject.... Under such
circumstances, and with drunkenness, sensuality, and moral abasement
of all kinds added, is it any wonder that this kind of thing has
covered the cause with scandals and left a heap of festering corpses
along the course of these forty-five years?"
When a responsible representative of the movement used such language,
can we fail to ask ourselves whether that contact with the spirit
world which is alleged to have come about through the agency of the
two Fox children has been for good or rather for evil?
It is no part of the contention of this essay that the phenomena
commonly associated with Spiritualism must, when genuine, be
necessarily of diabolic origin. The problem presented by these
manifestations is extremely complicated, and in my judgment
investigation will have to be carried on for many years--it may be for
centuries--before it will be possible to pronounce confidently upon
the nature of the strange occurrences of which we have
incontrovertible evidence. But the tragic history of the Fox sisters
must surely cast the gravest suspicion upon the wisdom, the
beneficent purpose, and the promises of those supposed intelligences,
whatever they may be, which purport to communicate from the other
side.
Already in 1852 the Rev. Adin Ballou, a man of very sober judgment,
was assured, as he believed, by his dead son that by Spiritualism the
world was about to be transformed into a new Eden. "Father," the boy
urged, "be patient, watch, and wait. Another century cannot commence
before this great change will be wrought." No one, again, can be
blind to the impression conveyed by Sir Oliver Lodge's book <Raymond>
that a stupendous effect is to be produced in the world by
Spiritualism--and that very soon. Thus, to take one instance, on March
3, 1916, Raymond, communicating at a Mrs. Leonard's seance, told his
father: "Mr. Myers [i.e., the famous F. W. H. Myers, the psychic
researcher who died in 1901] says that in ten years from now the
world will be a different place. He says that about fifty percent of
the civilized portion of the globe will be either Spiritualists or
coming into it." The ten years spoken of are now long past, but the
change predicted has not taken place. The "New Revelation" has not
justified itself except as a new revelation of the readiness with
which men are deceived and are carried about by every wind of
doctrine. How can we expect guidance or the regeneration of mankind
from powers that have shown themselves both blind to foresee the
future and impotent to protect their own chosen instruments, even
those who are honored as the founders of the new cult, from the most
ignoble ruin?
Dangers of spiritualism
The Catholic Church has always condemned any attempt to hold
communication of set purpose with the spirits of the dead. The Old
Testament speaks in terms which cannot be mistaken (see, for example,
Deut. 18:1012), and the very striking incident in the Acts of the
Apostles (ch. 16), concerning "the girl with the pythonical spirit
who brought to her masters much gain by divining," teaches us that
the attitude of strict moralists had not changed since the coming of
our Lord. Though the girl had spoken no falsehood of Paul and Silas,
but rather had seemed to further their work by proclaiming that
"these men are the servants of the most high God," Paul took it amiss
and commanded the spirit to go out of her.
The language used seems to imply that the control which spoke through
the lips of this divineress or medium was an evil spirit. Whether
these biblical precedents were responsible or not, it is certain that
most Christian teachers throughout the intervening centuries have
been disposed to treat all occult powers which savored of necromancy
as diabolic in their origin. It is only of recent years, since
hypnotism and its strange manifestations have become familiar, that
theologians have realized that such faculties as telepathy and
clairvoyance may possibly be natural gifts, abnormal and hitherto
unrecognized because until lately no serious attention was ever paid
to them.
On the other hand, it must in fairness be admitted that both earlier
and recent accounts of what purport to be hauntings or obsessions
originating in the spirit world provide plenty of excuse for
believing that the agencies concerned are often malicious, deceptive,
and altogether evil. Even if we hesitate to accept the descriptions
penned early in the last century by the Catholic statesman Gorres, or
the Lutheran physician Justin Kerner, such modern psychic researchers
as Mrs. Travers Smith (Hester Dowden) and Mr. Hereward Carrington
make it clear that unpleasant and even horrible experiences are apt
to be encountered not only by the rash and heedless, but also by
practiced investigators. To take one instance, Mrs. Osborne Leonard,
who figures so prominently in Raymond, bears the highest reputation
as a medium, both for her personal character and for the reliability
of her spirit messages. But she has made no secret of an alarming
episode which occurred on one occasion when she took part with two
friends in an attempt to obtain materializations at an impromptu
seance. In a room which was not perfectly dark she saw an arm covered
with hair stretched out towards the throat of her companion, Nelly.
Mrs. Leonard was trying to frame a word of warning in such terms as
not to startle her, when the girl "jumped up with a piercing shriek,
knocked over her chair and rushed blindly for the door, which she
shook violently, forgetting in her terror that it was locked." She
had felt the grasp upon her throat which a rent in the blind had
enabled the friend beside her to discern visually. Even if we explain
the incident as no more than a case of overwrought nerves, the
possibility of such experiences goes far to illustrate the
reasonableness of the biblical veto on dabbling in the occult.
But though many Catholics incline to the belief that all the genuine
phenomena of Spiritualism are the work of demons, it cannot be
maintained that this is a part of the Church's official teaching. The
distinguished Dominican Pere Mainage, a Professor of the Institut
Catholique de Paris, has pointed out that up to the present the
attitude of ecclesiastical authority in these matters may be summed
up in three directive principles: (1) the Church has not pronounced
upon the essential nature of Spiritualistic phenomena; (2) the Church
forbids the general body of the faithful to take any part in
Spiritualistic practices; and (3) in the manifestations which occur
the Church suspects that diabolic agencies may <per accidens>
intervene.
Although a decree of the Holy Office in 1898 explicitly forbade the
practice of automatic writing in which the psychic allows his hand to
be guided to take down messages, the content of which is independent
of his volition, and although a similar decree in 1917 condemned any
participation in Spiritualistic seances, even though such
participation was limited to mere presence as an onlooker, still it
would be too much to say that the Church had set her face against all
such investigations of phenomena as are commonly included under the
term psychic research.
To genuine students who are well grounded in theological principles
and sufficiently versed in psychology to deal with these
manifestations in a scientific spirit, permission may be accorded to
experiment with a medium and attend seances. The attitude of Catholic
authority in the matter is based upon the matured conviction that for
the ill- instructed, the idly curious, and the emotional, who are for
the most part the very people upon whom the occult exercises the
strongest attraction, any contact with the intelligences which
purport to communicate from the other world can only be disquieting
and morally, if not physically, dangerous.
Even Spiritualists of the more sober type readily admit the need of
great caution on the part of the inexperienced. Mr. W. Stainton
Moses, at first a beneficed clergyman of the Church of England and
afterwards a member of the teaching staff of University College,
London, wrote several works which have more than once been reprinted
by the London Spiritualist Alliance as classical handbooks for the
guidance of believers. He was the first editor of <Light>, and was a
powerful medium for physical phenomena as well as an automatist.
But Stainton Moses was haunted by the dread of personation on the
part of the spirits who purported to communicate. He seems never to
have been entirely satisfied that he could trust even the chosen
"Imperator" band of controls. Over and over again he reminds his
readers that "the foes of God and man, enemies of goodness, ministers
of evil," are striving to get into contact with those who are living
on earth. He does not call these evil beings devils, because in his
view they are the souls of men once on earth that have been "low in
taste and impure in habit," souls which are "not changed save in the
accident of being freed from the body," but which have "banded
themselves together under the leadership of intelligence still more
evil."
He urges that, "unfortunately for us, the spirits which are least
progressive, least developed, least spiritual, and most material and
earthly, hover round the confines" and are most eager to seek
communication. Such language from a recognized adept of high
authority in the cult goes far to justify the attitude of the Holy
See and the Catholic clergy. Spiritualists can hardly be surprised
that the Catholic Church, having good reason to believe that the
evocation of the spirits of the dead throughout the ages has produced
nothing but evil, refuses resolutely to countenance any attempt at
communication with the other world. The psychic movement in our day
includes, no doubt, a certain proportion of honest and serious
inquirers after truth, but the majority of those who crowd to the
trance addresses of mediums like Mrs. Meurig Morris, who attend
"message services" and organize domestic seance circles, and not
least of all those who are thrilled by the numberless printed volumes
of conversations with the dead taken down in automatic writing, are
unbalanced, gullible. and badly in need of protection.
It being admitted that the lowest types of spirits are the most eager
to make contact with the earth and that the idle people who are
particularly curious about the occult are also the most credulous and
uncritical, the Church is thoroughly justified in forbidding her own
subjects to put themselves needlessly in harm's way. Her sweeping
prohibition may entail some hardship upon genuine students, but the
good of the greater number of the faithful has the first title to her
consideration. She does not act with precipitation. Spiritualism had
existed for half a century, and full proof had been given of its
harmful results, before the first explicit decree condemning
automatic writing was published by the Holy See in 1898.
What is more, no student of the Spiritualistic movement can fail to
observe that there has been for many years a steady trend in a
direction hostile to Christianity and contemptuous of every form of
religious dogma. The antagonism to revelation and the churches has
been greatly intensified during recent years. It comes out strongly
in the various writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and in such a
Spiritualist newspaper as <The Two Worlds>, published in Manchester.
But it has recently reached a climax in Mr. J. Arthur Findlay's book,
<The Rock of Truth> (1933) which, as the pages of <Light> and other
journals bear witness, has seriously shocked a considerable section
of his fellow believers. Suffice it to say that this writer is an
avowed disciple of the late J. M. Robertson, author of <Pagan
Christs> and other similar works, and that he treats all such
doctrines as the Trinity, the Fall of man, the Atonement, everlasting
punishment, etc., as patent absurdities which can only be a subject
for ridicule. While the later and constructive section of the volume
is very involved and makes heavy reading, the earlier portion with
its sensational attack on the clergy and its unscrupulous travesty of
Christian history is much more likely to hold the attention of the
not very erudite public who take Mr. Findlay for an oracle.
Much of the abuse of the teaching of the churches purports to have
been communicated by exalted spirits in the etheric world. It is, for
example, the Doyle control, Pheneas, who rails against "theological
egotism and power and pride" and who proclaims that "Christ's guiding
hand to happiness has been twisted by priestcraft till it pointed to
hell. The Church which prates of him thus is his worst enemy." If
these attacks were based upon a discussion of the historical evidence
the mischief would be less serious, but they purport to be the
utterances of supremely wise beings in the world beyond who, having
long been emancipated from the conventions and superstitions of earth
life, speak with a serenity and breadth of view unattainable by any
living teacher.
Such communications are apt to be taken at their own valuation
because they do at times exhibit a strange supernormal knowledge of
trivial facts which can be verified. On the other hand, there is
nearly always a considerable amount of incorrect information
associated with the true, though these aberrations are forgotten in
the wonder that something unknown has been revealed, seemingly from
the skies. As Bacon says, "Men mark when they hit, but never mark
when they miss." The Church has every reason to protect her subjects
from pseudo-revelations of this kind, which offer no guarantee of
truth and which, for the most part, openly attack the deposit of
faith of which she is the appointed custodian.
It should also be noted that many intelligent people who are quite
satisfied of the reality of mediumistic faculty and who, on the other
hand, are not influenced by any religious scruples, are by no means
disposed to encourage communications with the spirit world. Horace
Greeley and Lloyd Garrison, the editor of <The Liberator>, both of
whom in early days had much to do with the Fox sisters, were of this
class.
The late Lord Dunraven, who, as Lord Adare, had had unrivaled
opportunities of studying the subject, living as he did for a year or
more in almost daily companionship with the great medium D. D. Home,
gave up the pursuit because he found it led him nowhere. He was not
satisfied as to the identity of those who purported to communicate
from the other side and moreover, he adds: "I observed that some
devotees were inclined to dangerous extremes and became so much
possessed by the idea of spiritual guidance in the everyday affairs
of life as to undermine their self dependence and to weaken their
will power."
Sir H. Rider Haggard, the novelist, after relating his personal
experience with a medium for physical phenomena, which he could only
attribute to some unknown force, concludes with the words: "Whatever
may be the true explanation, on one point I am quite sure, that the
whole business is mischievous and to be discouraged. Bearing in mind
its effect upon my own nerves, never would I allow any young person
over whom I had control to attend a seance." Haggard was not a
recluse or a crank. A considerable part of his life was spent
knocking about in South Africa and in many other parts of the world.
The fraudulent side
To discuss this aspect of the subject at any length would serve no
good purpose, but it certainly cannot be passed over in silence. When
Mr. James Burns, in 1893, wrote that the moral depravity of mediums
had "covered the cause with scandals and left a heap of festering
corpses along the course of these forty-five years," he was not using
stronger language than that employed by Dr. Sexton, Mr. Andrew
Leighton, the medium Home, Mr. S. Carter Hall, and many other
representative Spiritualists. With the exception of Home there is
hardly a prominent medium for psychical manifestations against whom a
good case has not been made out that he or she, at least on certain
occasions, had recourse to unscrupulous trickery. There is no room
for doubt that the famous Eusapia Palladino in many instances faked
her phenomena. "Dr." Monck, Slade, Eglinton, the Holmeses, and a
score of others were caught red-handed.
More recently we have had the remarkable case of Mrs. Duncan, who
unquestionably enjoyed a great reputation in many Spiritualistic
circles. This last example is interesting both from the completeness
of the exposure and the nature of the fraud itself. Mrs. Duncan at
these seances used to appear, in a relatively good light, covered to
her feet with what seemed to be a flowing sheet of white material.
The onlookers saw it, as they thought, extruded from the mouth or
other facial orifices. This was supposed to be ectoplasm, and it
sometimes showed a little face (a picture) embedded in its texture.
Investigation however proved beyond doubt that this enveloping sheet
was nothing but a roll of very thin cheese-cloth or butter-muslin,
which had been swallowed by the medium and regurgitated.
So again the medium Valiantine, whose supernormal exploits have been
glorified beyond measure by Mr. H. Dennis Bradley in his widely read
books <Towards the Stars> and <The Wisdom of the Gods>, was later on
caught out by Mr. Bradley himself in a flagrant piece of imposture.
Valiantine had professed to produce an imprint of the thumb of Lord
Dewar, then (February, 1931) recently deceased. In the course of a
dark seance the imprint was made, sure enough, upon the smoked paper
prepared for the purpose, but it proved to be an impression, not of
Lord Dewar's thumb, but of Valiantine's big toe. The identity was
established with certainty by finger-print experts, whose credit
cannot be disputed.
In the matter of psychic photography which has occasioned so much
controversy, and which, for over 70 years, has been brought forward
again and again as supplying tangible proof of an agency which could
not be of this world, there has been a hardly less surprising
exposure and retractation. Of all the mediums for photographic
"extras," the most famous in recent times was the late Mr. W. Hope,
of Crewe. Dozens of books appeal to the negatives of spirit faces
obtained in his presence as completely decisive, and in particular
Conan Doyle, in his <Case for Spirit Photography>, stakes everything
on Hope's results. Many expert photographers vouched for their
genuineness and, in particular, Mr. Fred Barlow, the Secretary of the
Society for the Study of Supernormal Pictures, contributed both a
preface and an important chapter to Doyle's volume.
This was in 1922. Some years later, however, Mr. Barlow, who as a
practical expert always retained a keen interest in the problem, was
led, owing to the discoveries made and the confession of fraud
obtained in the case of another psychic photographer, to conceive
suspicions regarding Hope himself. After following up the clue and
applying, in conjunction with Major Rampling Rose, certain rigorous
tests, he came to the conclusion that his earlier belief in the
integrity of the Crewe circle had been unwarranted. In a paper
contributed to the <Proceedings> of the Society for Psychical
Research the whole case against Hope is set out in detail. It is
conclusive, but based on too many converging lines of proof to be
summarized here. It would seem that most of the "extras" must have
been obtained by a tiny picture attached to a small flash light which
Hope kept in his pocket or secreted in the hollow of his hand.
Altogether it is impossible to doubt that an enormous amount of
trickery and fraud has been mixed up with Spiritualism from the very
beginning. Even Doyle, in the volume of essays published a week or
two before his death, owns that, in America particularly, things were
worse than he had previously thought possible. Though nothing but
ignorance, he remarks, can suppose that there are no real mediums,
"at the same time the States, and in a lesser degree our own people,
do need stern supervision." "I admit," he adds, "that I underrated
the corruption in the States." It is then, perhaps, not unnatural
that many intelligent people, whose normal attitude to the marvelous
is one of healthy skepticism, should from the universal prevalence of
trickery be led to infer that nothing is genuine in the phenomena of
Spiritualism. This view has found acceptance among many earnest
Catholics, both clergy and laity, especially in the United States. To
the present writer the objections to this "nothing but trickery"
hypothesis seem even more serious than those which beset what Mr. J.
Arthur Hill has called "the wholesale devil theory," espoused by the
late Mr. Godfrey Raupert, Father Blackmore, and the majority of
Continental ecclesiastics.
It is often taken for granted that a medium who has once been
detected in imposture may be assumed to produce all his phenomena
fraudulently. This is an extreme view which seems to be contradicted
by evidence that cannot be lightly dismissed. The well- known Eusapia
Palladino is said to have habitually taken advantage of any
carelessness on the part of those who controlled her limbs in order
with a free hand or foot to play any childish trick which would cause
a sensation in the dim light of the seance room.
Nevertheless the testimony of dozens of experienced investigators,
the flash-light photographs revealing levitated objects in contact
with no human support, and above all the detailed report of the
Naples sittings with Messrs. Feilding, Carrington, and Baggally
demonstrated that Eusapia undoubtedly did on occasion exhibit
extraordinary powers. It is even possible that the medium who tricks
is not always consciously fraudulent. He or she is often entranced
and in that hypnotic condition may be peculiarly susceptible to the
suggestion latent in the minds of the sitters that some particular
deception is about to be attempted. Their minds are intent on this
thought, and the battery of suggestion becomes so strong that the
medium, in spite of herself, does the very thing which they have
mentally pictured her doing.
Again, we know nothing about the nature or dispositions of the
"spirits" who are supposed to be the agents of these phenomena.
Certain records would even suggest that they may deliberately prompt
some fraudulent device which results in the undoing of the medium.
There is nothing to forbid our thinking that among them are evil
spirits animated by a malicious purpose, though, on the other hand,
some of the communicating intelligences appear truthful and kindly. A
suggestion has been made that they may be souls of the unbaptized,
who died in infancy or without any sufficient knowledge of God, and
whom Catholics believe to enjoy some sort of natural beatitude in
"limbo."
It is certainly curious that so large a proportion of those controls
who seem somewhat more trustworthy than the rest profess to be
Indians, calling themselves by such names as "Red Cloud," "White
Feather," etc. There is not much likelihood that the beings who bore
these names ever received baptism. But the fact is that we know
nothing about the agencies who purport to communicate. The
subconsciousness of the medium is no doubt responsible for by far the
larger part of the messages received, but there is a residue which it
is very hard to account for except as coming from some intelligence
which is external to the world in which we live.
A few conclusions
If Spiritualism has the merit of upholding the belief that man is not
purely material and that a future life awaits him, the conditions of
which are in a measure dependent upon his conduct here upon earth, it
must be confessed that there is very little else to set to its
credit. Catholic teaching recognizes one divine revelation which it
is the appointed office of the Church, in dependence upon the living
voice of the Supreme Pontiff, to maintain inviolate. For this
Spiritualism substitutes as many revelations as there are mediums or
rather controls, all these communications being open to suspicion
and, as the briefest examination shows, abounding in contradictions
about matters most vital.
Largely as a consequence of the disagreements in the guidance thus
received, hardly any two Spiritualists hold the same views, and, from
its earliest beginnings down to the present time, the movement has
entirely lacked cohesion. Such energizing force as it possesses seems
to be due partly to that curiosity about the occult which leads
people to consult palmists and to purchase <Old Moore's Almanack>,
partly to a pathetic desire of the bereaved to obtain tidings of
those who are dear to them, the tragedies of the War having clearly
exercised a great stimulus in promoting the vogue of this form of
relief.
Unfortunately the comfort which Spiritualism offers in such cases is
entirely dependent upon one indispensable condition, the possibility
of identification. But those who believe that they have got into
contact with their dear ones, that they have received messages from
them or have even heard their voice and recognized their features,
are building on very insecure foundations. It is admitted that
personation is constantly attempted. We know little of the agencies
which purport to communicate, but we do know that for some freakish
purpose or other they constantly pretend to be what they are not. It
is also a generally received tenet among Spiritualists that the
departed are free to return to earth, to witness, though invisible
themselves, anything which is being done even in the utmost secrecy.
There is, on this supposition, no trivial incident in our past lives
which may not be known and published abroad in that spirit world of
which Conan Doyle and the automatists profess to tell us so much.
It is impossible, therefore, for any spirit to give any convincing
proof of his identity. Incidents which on earth were known to him
alone may be public property on the other side. The tones of the
voice or tricks of expression which are reproduced in a "direct-
voice" sitting cannot proceed from the larynx which has long since
crumbled to dust. However effected, the voice is a counterfeit, and
who will say that it is only the spirit of the departed which can
build up the vocal chords so as to yield a perfect imitation?
Similarly when Conan Doyle assures us that at a seance he has seen
his son as clearly as he ever saw him in life, we may be sure that
the features he beheld were not the features as they then lay buried
beneath the soil. So here again we are led to ask how the
<simulacrum> which he recognized afforded any proof that the poor lad
who had perished stood there himself beside him. Finally the whole
atmosphere of the seance room is repellent, and even the process of
automatic writing, with its frequent inanities and platitudes and
obvious fictions, characterizes such communications as mainly the
product of subconscious, and often morbid auto-suggestion.
"There is very little that is spiritual in Spiritualism," wrote
Friedrich von Hugel, and as G. K. Chesterton happily remarks "you do
not expect to hear the voice of God calling from a coal cellar." Mr.
Findlay, Mr. Oaten, and their followers who have made short work of
the Trinity do at the same time profess to hold that "the Universe is
governed by Mind, commonly called God." What sort of "Mind" is it,
one wonders, which has planned that a handful of men, sitting for
hours in the dark, playing gramophone records or making discordant
attempts at song in order to "stimulate vibrations," shall be
privileged to evoke those momentous communications from the etheric
world which will uplift the whole human race to a moral eminence
never attained before? Spiritualism, so far, has certainly not been
associated with progress. No new fact has come to light through this
source which has added to the world's knowledge or has led it to seek
higher ideals. Its history reminds us, on the contrary, of what Paul
wrote to Timothy: "But the Spirit plainly saith that in after times
some will fall away from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits
and the teachings of demons, through the impostures of those who
speak falsely, men seared in their own conscience" (1 Tim. 4:1- 2). +
Herbert Thurston, S. J. (1856-1939) was considered by many the
epitome of a Jesuit scholar. Three of his books were on psychical
phenomena. This essay is extracted from an introductory booklet
titled Spiritualism.
This article was taken from the March 1995 issue of "This Rock,"
published by Catholic Answers, P.O. Box 17490, San Diego, CA 92177,
(619) 541-1131, $24.00 per year.
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