ight: A Journal of Psychical, Occult, and Mystical Research.
'LIGHT! l\foRE LIGHT!'-Gocthe, 'WHATSOEvER DOTH MAK111 MANIFEST IS LIGHT.'-Paul.
No. 1,586.-VOL. XXXI. [Registered as] SATURDAY, JUNE 3, 1911. [a Newspaper.] PRICE TWOPENCE.
CONTENTS. . think that, may be, after all, the whole thing is a fraud. . Notes by tbe Way ...... 258 Life in This and Other Worltts. Must t.his go on for ever 7 • Dagmar' ...... - ...... 254 An Adclress by Mr. E. 1'}. L. S.A. N otlces •••.••••••..•• : ... 255 Fournier cl' Albe ...... 259 Heaven forefend ! For our own part, ·however, we The Hypotheses of 'Bilocat1on' Spiritualism : Its Message to Humnnity ...... 261 believe that even going round in a circle is better than Con~idered • . • ...... 255 A S)liritual A wakening . . . . . 262 Mrs. Wriedtlnlondon .. ;··:····256 Spiritm~list Congrt ss at Copen- standing still. And, after all, the circle ultimately leads on •LIGHT• and Reincamat1omsts 256 hagen: ...... 262 The Unceasing Spiritual Out- Mr. Hereward Canington and to the spiral, and we get progression ! pouring ...... 258 the Bangs Sisters ...... 263 Dr. J. M. Peebles contributes a long and inspiring NOTES BY THE WAY. message to the 'Banner of Life ' of April 29th last. The difficulty of affording 'proof ' of spirit presence to 'Marching on ; or Evening Musings while Crossing the others is clearly stated by Dr. A. J. Mel vor Tyndall, when Chasm of Eighty-nine Years and Looking to the Ninetieth · he says: 'I could present what I regard as proofs of the Milestone.,' is its exuberant title. It is a veritable continued individual existence of the soul after bodily 'Pilgrim's Song of Hope,' and so extensive in its range as death ad libit1tm. But just as no one can live another's to suggest the commingled inspirations of Walt Whitman, life, so no one can make his own proofs of this kind of Blake and Meleager. The Greek poet, indeed, is strongly knowledge answer the blindness of another.' He also gives reflected in the apostrophe to the 'spirit dove ' :- us the following incident, the authenticity of which, he Your white breast I festooned with rose buds and buttercups, ivy aud everlasting ; and upon your head I plac~d a crown. of says, was vouched for by the late Dr. Hodgson :- olive leaves. To your tiny feet I festooned•the v10let, the daisy A lady was walking down the darkened corridor of a hotel and the myrtle, arid under your snowy wings I folded geranium toward the elevator. She was unable to distinguish in the dim sprigs and flowering forget-me-nots. light the exact location of the shaft, and was startled to find her Noah's dove, truly, with·its single olive branch, could progress impeded by the figure of a man, with his arms extended across the space reserved for the elevator doorway. As the not brook comparison with such a bird ! We quote the elevator came up the shaft, an The April number of the 'Message of Life' (New being friends of the person to whom the inquiry referred. Zealand) contains a pregnant little article l1y 'C. N. R.' The answer was significant, 'Ob, they are only friendly entitled, ' Is Spiritualism in Danger 1' The writer deals when they are drinking together.' reassuringly with some anxious inquiries as to whether But the psychical laws of association will in the end the 'swirling eddies' of the time may not overwhelm prove too strong to be affected by such artificial solvents. Spiritualism, and expresses complete confidence in the future of the movement :- To my thinking all these disturbing influences are but 1 DUGMAR.' pointers to a crucial stage of mental and spiritual evolution which is near at hand. Emerson says : ' Our faith comes in moments ; our vice is habitual.' Hence when men's minds are This is the name of the heroine of an ancient Egyptian quickened their vices show out more glaringly. This is the story which was written automatically by a pencil held explanation of the present exceptional unrest in the social,· very loosely in the hand of the medium, Mrs. Colson. This political, commercial, military and religions spheres. It also shows why the present-day crimes are so numerous and so lady is Scotch, and declares her complete ignorance of all shockingly cruel. Abnormal conditions of human life always Egyptian lore ; she is also unacquainted with history in precede great onward movements. That such a movement is general ; she has never been able to read much, being very now approaching I am convinced. This is why I have no fear short-sighted, and ont of the world of literature altogether. for the future of Spiritualism. She lives at Mexico, where 'Dugmar' was published by This is well put, for it takes account of the fact that it the Mexican Occult Society in 1908. She has lived in is the growth of the moral consciousness of the race that Florida and Singapore. throws present-day evils into such high relief. What have During the past fourteen years the book has been been pithily termed the 'growing pains ' of humanity are written out seven times, as the narrative was too chaotic noticeably acute just now, and the fact is significant and crude for publication at first, but no changes have been of much. allowed, except under the direction of the spirit author, and these have consisted solely of taking out superfluous 'Thinking for Results' is one of the latest of the many words and sometimes slightly changing the construction of books devoted to the subject of thought as a means of a sentence. attaining ' health, power and prosperity.' It is from the When I first read the story it struck me that the pen of Mr. Christian D. Larson (L. N. Fowler & Co., names given were of a very ancient Egyptian type, namely, London). There is a force, clearness and precision of those of the Old Kingdom, and some that survived into style about the little work which we find extremely the Middle Kingdom. The long theophorous names of the captivating. The following is an admirable statement of New Kingdom are entirely absent; I mean those of the the true attitude of non-resistance :- type of Joseph's Egyptian name in the Bible, which is of the seventh century n.c. only. Also the consonants-such The strong, positiYe mind may at times go beyond its own domain, and may sometimes act in realms where it has no legal as j, x, &c.-found in the English language, whicb are not right, but this can be prevented through the attitude of non found in hieroglyphs, are conspicuously absent in 'Dagmar.' resistance, another most important attitude in the art of con Out of thirty-six names mentioned, about a third can be structive thinking. verified (or their variants), mostly from .the stelre, or The attitude of resistance is always destructive, and there fore interferes with the real purpose of right thinking. But it tombstones (preserved in museums), of obscure private is not necessary to resist anything. That which is inferior will individuals, whose names are practically unknown to nearly disappear when we produce the superior, and not until then. all Egyptologists, and never penetrate into a popular It is, therefore, a waste of time and energy to try to remove magazine or into a newspaper. Some thousands of these wrong through resistance. The proper course to pursue is to lmild up the right, and the wrong will disappear of itself. obscure names have been catalogued by the Norwegian Egyptologist, Lieblein. The work would have been improved by the presence The ancient Egyptians were careless about the spelling of chapter headings and an index. of proper names, and often on the same coffin the owner's name is spelt with variations. The Egyptians also used contractions of names and nicknames. It has been urged by certain social reformers that That Egyptian names caught orally by the untrained poverty is one of the main causes of drunkenness. The ear of a Scotchwoman should be exactly correct is hardly poor, it is argued, drink to drown their consciousness of to be expected; for, besides the difficulty of translating the poverty. Mr. Herbert E. Clarke, in the 'Lyceum Banner' sounds of one language into the writing of another, and of for May, makes an effective rejoinder to this argument :- an Eastern into a Western language, there were no inscrip If it were a fact that poverty is a powerful factor in pro tions to copy from, to keep the sounds more accurate ; ducing drunkenness, we ought to find ruost money passing into therefore an approximation would be all that could be the publicans' hands when trade is suffering deprbssion, while the public houses should prove least attractive when employ hoped for. ment is good and trade booming. The facts are just the If I were to attempt a story about a Hausa or opposite. Esquimaux lady, and were to give thirty-six names in the In our view-and it is an opinion shared by many who course of the story, not knowing a word of the Hausa or of the Esquimaux language, the chances would be dead have made a study of the question-the taste for strong against my getting even one proper name right, as the drink has a peculiarly psychical significance. Men who sounds of the language would be utterly unknown to me. could not ordinarily associate harmoniously with each The following are the thirty-six names given in other find that alcohol has a mellowing and socialising ' Dugmar ' :- effect. It softens differences of temperament, and blends natures sharply divided by degrees of moral and spiritual Men: *Dobolon, *Hophta, Hatontu, Hophrata, *Harpat, development. But always-and here is the deep and Lovatchi, Lobra, Lovard, Menon, Onon, *Obon, Oyona, insidious danger-it subdues the higher to the°: lower level Psammasta, Ramera, Ramon, *Rama, Ramsa, Rastar, Rolbot, . when the boundary line is once passed. ' How is it that a *Senbol, Sethos, *Soth, *Snefru, Sothastru. man of such a· refined nature as -- can consort with Women: Dugmar, *Arda, *Arasta, Dost, Hasta, Hopheta1 those vulgar boors 1' inquired one man of another, both Hatusti, Halu, Hophetua, *Katru, *Munta1 Romba, , ' : t :.>, H l J.] L'I.. G HT. 255 Of the foregoing I have been able to verify, or partially LONDON SPIRITUALIST ALLIANCE, LTD. verify, the following narr.es which I have starred in the DRAWINGS OF THE PSYCHIC AURA AND DIAGNOSIS OF DISEASE. list:- -On Wednesday ne:x:t, June 7th, and succeeding Wednesdays, JJobolor&. This very peculiar name is nearly puralleled from 12 noon to 5 p.m., at 110, St. Martin's-lane, W.C., Mr. Percy R. Street will give personal delineations by means of the by a name of the Old Kingdom, ~ j ~ rMNV\, JJ-li'llrb-li-n, colours of the psychic aura of sitters, and will diagnose disease under spirit control Fee 5s. to a guinea. Appointments Lepsius, JJrmlcmaler, II, 35, 37 [vowels mostly omitted in desirable. See advertisement supplement. hieroglyphs]. That the " h" should be misspelt "1 " is not surprising, as the sounds would be very similar. There MR. W. J, COLVILLE'S LECTURES. is no " o" in Egyptian. " 0 " is generally left out, or translated by "u" or "ua," as the "o" of Ptolemy, A Series of Lectures will be delivered by Mr. W. J. Colville at the Rooms of the London Spiritualist Alliance, 110, St. ~ fl ~ ~ ~ r. (This is, of course, of very late ~te, Martin's-lane, W.C., on the following TU88daty and Th11Jil'Bda1/ afternoons, commenoip,g at Admission ls. but the practice may have been handed down through tlvrse o'clock. the ages.) StLLABUS. Hopkta (ph = £). This name is found written out Tuesday, June 6-' Healing E:Hlcact of Light and Colour.' Thursday, Jtme 8-'Telepathy and Premonitions.' fTI ~ ~, H1ta; see Davies, JJeir el-Gebrawi (from Index Tuesdiwy, June 13-'Seership and Prophecy.' of 'lll1lm88 antl titles of tM Old Kingdom, by M., A. Murray, Thursday, June 15~' Spiritual 11nfoldment: Is Intuition Educable 1' 1908). H011pai. This name might very well be a contraction of The Council of the London Spiritualist Alliance and :Mr. W. J. Colville jointly invite :Mmt:BERS of the AllianpoT. ~r· - CONSIDERED. Ob 4 Museum (Lieblein). It exactly represents "Obon." It Aa a second criterion of proof I submit the foilowing-'that means " shining." on most occasions when a subject sees his double he finds himsell :&lrin,a. 0 I .c::::i .,? .....1 ~ occurs on an Apia stale in in a condition of total or partial analBthesia, and of a.na.lgesi&j the Louvre (Lieblein). which in this special case would imply the probable existence of a phenomenon corresponding to the exterior.isation of sensibility, SM&bol. The first "part of this name, rT' s.M, is and, therefore, the possibilities of the real formation of an odic very common on scarabs of officials of the Middle Kingdom. phantom in which sensibility would be concentrated. It is no "S-nb" is also a common Old Kingdom name. · longer possible to neglect this possioility after the well·known experiences of Colonel De Rochas, Dr. Luys, Dr~ Joire, and r jj ~' 8-'l&bbu, occurs in hieroglyphs. de Durville. Dr. Sollier has quoted very precisely the existence of anresthesia during the extrinsication of phenomena of autos• Both,. ::o Ji, 8-thrt, as a feminine form, with the copy. Here ~ one of the cases reported by him :- "t," o, is found on a stale of the Xlllth-XIVth dynasty. Case 3. A young woman, twenty-one years of age, was in (Men's and women's names are not unfrequently similar, the habit of taking opium in large doses. During the process of cure she presented, as frequently happens, hysterical or even exactly the same.) phenomena to which formerly she had not been subject. During the night she appeared to fall asleep, but in reality she was in a Sri,efru. r i· ~ ~· This pyramid-king's name state of light catalepsy, as was ascertained by moving her limbs. occurs in "Dugmar," but not as a king's name. Suddenly she cried out and attempted to repulse somebody. She then stated that che had beside her a person who was exactly Arda. n-<£>. n, Arta. } There are numerous vari- like herself, lying down as she was, and that it was necessary ~ o ~ ants of these names, that she should move to give this person her place. ' It is a Arasta. n n A which are women's nuisance,1 said she, 'to be doubled like that.' It occurred to me, as she was always insensible, to blow lightly on her eyes, telling - cenesthesis ; but it does not at all follow that the former are 'LIGHT' AND REINCARNATIONISTS. objective hallucinations determined by the latter. To solve the problem Dr. Sollier should have been careful to find ont I honour your paper for printing the letter asking 'LIGHT ' whether the state of anaBthesia of the invalid did not corresp:md not to 'sneer at reincarnation.' As one who firmly believes in with the phenomenon of the exteriorisation of local sensibility. seers, prophets, and communion with the departed--who have proved identity in their re-coming, individuality in their teach at the moment when the invalid saw her double. In th!Lt case ings, and progress in their own spirit lives-I would point out the hypothesis would have scarcely been sufficient to fit the that all teachings of the spirit are spiritual, and are ' hidden facts, since the disorders in the cenesthesis, instead of being the wisdom ' expounded. Theosophy postulates this term, but we prime cause of the phenomenon of autoscopic hallucination, might as easily be called Bibleists, or New Testamentists, or would have been reduced to symptoms supporting the hypo Christists, since the Bible teaches all who wish to be illumined thesis of absence of sensibility in the organism, i.e., would the whole truths of spirit return and 'miracles' that are now scientific facts. I think Mrs. Besant writes wiLh have been favourable witneS.ses of the existence of some olijec auLhority, knowing that in that extraordinary book, ' The tivity in autoscopic phenomena. Secret ])octrine,' as also in Paracelsus, the discoveries of Case 4. In this case the subject him.oelf sees his own double ether, vibration, sound, and world systems, although somewhat at a distance and affirms that his sellSihility had been transferrecl mystically interpreted, are presented with scientific accuracy. I do to the rlouble. The ca~e is reported to us by Dr. Lemaitre and not think the study of planets, systems, and evolution, in which I quote it from M. Delaune, p. 388. the Theosophist revels, does much good, except in enlarging the powers of thinking and concentration. We have no evidence, A college student, whom we will call Boru, intelligent, not most of us, that the world is round (unless we study it, we just at, all neurotic, neither in himself nor in his family, had at the accept it), and it will go on just the same if it is called square ! age of eighteen years, while preparing for examination in Quite impartially, I think both Theosophists and Spiritualists in French literature, an autoscopy of great precision. It was on the past rai.her fonght for leading by high and mighty ones, but the evening of January 22nd, 1901, while he was engaged in no one can have a 'corner' in 'Masters,' nor a sole privile7e in working out a parallelism between the characters of the two 'great ministering spirits.' When we can all say in unity, The works of Corneille, ' Polyeucte ' and ' Le Cid.' He says ; Di vine Spirit leadeth all men and women alike by adversity into 'Needing to verify a reference, I gut up and went into another unity,' then pllrsonal opinions and controversies die away. room to get a volume where I expected to find it. What FLORA AlllES. happened ? Quite preoccupied with this detail, I found myself at the door of my bedroom facing the head of my bed, holding I hope I am not conceited enough to expect Lo convert any the book in one hand and the door-knob with the other. I was in this position when quite suddenly I saw myself at my table Reincarnationist. But there are probably some who may be writing the sentence which was running in my mind. I do somewhat harassed about this question, to whom I offer the not know how long this lasted, but there was lacking from this following remarks. vision no single detail-neither the lamp with its green shade, nor Mr. Gerald Balfour remarked some short time since that if the small bookshelf above my head, nor the exercise books, nor he were told that he was to be reincarnated as the Emperor of the inkstand, &c. Curiously enough, I was perfectly conscious China, it would mean to him that he (Mr. Balfour) would cease of standing upright by the door, and could feel the cold metal to exist and another individual would come into existence as the of the knob which I held, whilst at the same time I had the Emperor of China. As far as I know, I believe I am right in sensation. of sitting ou a chair and pressing with my fingers on saying that this appear1;1 to be precisely what Gautan,1a Buddha, my pen in such a way as to write. I saw Boru sitting. More as an agnostic, if not practically a materialist and atheist, than that, I saw and read the sentence which he wrote, and he would have meant, vi:!., that the result of the acts and life of was distant from the door from six to nine feet. Then I went one person (A) would, according to the doctrine of ' Karma,' take effect in the future in the life of some other person (B). towards my·double, and the double disappeared. Boru No. 1 and No. 2 had perhaps coalesced.' Here, I think, lay th11 germ of the entire vast structure of various forms of Reincarnationist belief, which afterwards There will be seen later, at the end of the enumeration of leaked back, as it were, into Hinduism, which was previously this group of cases, the induction by which we can group wholly innocent of any such doctrine. analogous facts to those just stated, where consciousness remains Among other developments there appears to have risen, in the actual body while sensibility seems to have emigrated perhaps as a desperate expedient, tbe idea that after a sufficient int.o the phantom for the moment. I note that cases of this kind number of reincarnations, the Ego (of which Gautama denied the existence) enters into recollection of all its previous are difficult to express by the very simple hypothesis of doubling reincarnations. in the cenesthesis as put forward by Dr. Sollier. So much for the general statement of Oriental beliefs. In (To be continued). the West arose the idea of a material resurrection (possibly among the Jews about the time of the Maccabees) to take place at some distant period, the original body-particles being rebuilt MRS. WRIEDT IN LONDON. in some mysterious manner into another physical body. May it not be lawful to consider that both these errors (if either or By arrangement with Mr. W. T. Stead, Mrs. Wriedt, of De both are errors) arose from a materialistic failure to comprehend troit, U.S.A., whose mediumship has recently been descriLed in the 'spiritual body '-as mentioned, e.g., hy St. Paul-as the onr columns by Vice-Admiral Moore, is now in London on a . expression of the spirit itself 1 And of the existence of this 'spiritual body' are not many of us convinced that there is short visit ; and last Thursday, in response to an invitation, a actual proof, as strong, for example, as that of the ether which i·epresentative of 'LIGHT' attended a sitting given by her to a scientists are bound to postulate 1 small company of ladies and gentlemen at ,Julia's circle at Wim French Spiritists, as a rule, are believers in reincarnation, bledon. The seance took place in the dark. At one entl of the and their' spirits' often state that they have just been, or are room was a cabinet, in front of which the sitters were arranged just abot1t to be, reincarnated, and it is the divergency here-the in a semi-circle, the meditm1 occupying one of the end chairs. strong divergency-between French Spiritism on the one hand, and that of the Anglo-Saxon races on the other, which seems to No materialisations took place, the manifestations being confined have prevented Dr. Joseph Maxwell, when he wrote' Metapsychic tu voices and the occasional appearance of lights. Phenomena,' from placing any sort of confidence in the 'spirit The messages, with one exception, came through a trumpet hypothesis.' which, prior to the sitting, had been placed on the floor in front I do not wish to go into this discussion here, but for the of the medium-the exception being in the case of the medium's benefit of those to whom the reincarnation theory offers no sort guide, 'Dr. Sharp,' whose voice was remarkably loud and clear of attraction or satisfaction, I offer the above remarks. The late C. C. Massey appears to have held some sort of and unmistakably masculine in quality. Among the intelligences limited reincarnation doctrine, as applying to those who are not who purported to communicate were Cardinal Newman, who ripened sufficiently for any high sphere of spirit life. Bt1t there uttered a Latin invocation, Dean Swift, and M. Berteaux, the late are very many, I venture to say, to whom a wearisome round of :French Minister for War. In one case some striking evidences of inevitable future reincarnatiollS would take away all interest in identity were gi\'en which qnite Aatisfied the sitter to whom they the fact of any futt1re life at all. Moreover, what becomes of were addressed, thongl1 he was mrnble to r.;cognise the voice. any hope of renewing our actual loves and friendships in earth life which is offered us by unadulterated Spiritualism? We are informed that. pers01rn desiring to sit with Mrs. Wriedt To how many, also, would even the perio.l offered in should apply to Mr. W. T. Stead, Bank-bt1ildings, Kingsway, ' Devachan' in Mr. Sinuett's 'Esoteric Bt1ddhism,' afford any 'IV.C., through whom all arrangements are bdng made. real satisfaction ? This idea, moreover, looks to me like another June 3, 1911.] LIGHT. 251 'desperate expedient' derived from some prolYlematical monks In the preface to the fifth edition we leam that the great from Thibet, and giving us the fcmciecl presence in that Adept who supplied the information bad signified that the book 'Devachan' of persons who are not there at all f With all is a sound and trustworthy statement of the scheme of Nature apologies to Mr. Sinnett, it seems to· me that we al'e here as understood by the Initiates, and that the teaching wil1 neve'l" landed in a maze of wild speculations, and treading on ground have to be remodelled or apologised for. It h1ay therefore be that is decidedly' treacherous. looked upon as canonical. In saying that the interval between I have no quarrel with theosophy as such-to some extent we incarnations can hardly ever be less than fifteen hundred years, are probably all, in a sense, 'Theosophists '-but I believe I am Mr. Sinnett makes certain exceptions, such as infants, idiots, stating an honest t.ruth in saying that although· it. is nominally Adepts, and perhaps young children. not oblig-dtory, one is a fish out of water in any ' Theosophist l\1r. Leadbeater's aecount (as quoted on p. 223 of' LIGHT') is Society' if one does not believe more or less fully iu reincarna very different-namely, that middle-class folk come back in two tion as a future which none but an iutinitesimal fraction of us hundred to three hundred years, skilled workmen in one now here present in the flesh can escape. hundred or two hundred years, and savages in forty to one To myself the entire conception appears tu he routed in hundred years. It is a fair inference that the working classes materialism as nrncb, at least, as the old Western Lelief in the generally will come in between the savages and the skilled 'i·esurrection of the flesh.' labourers. So, according to this, the vast majority in a civilised 'Spiritualism ' is, no doubt, as pointed out on p. 229 of country will come back within one bm1dred to three hundred 'LIGHT ' of May 20th, a very wide word indeed, although, owing yeare. Mr. W edg\vood winds up by referring inquirers to the to the paucity of the nature of all language, it is necessarily literature of theosophy ; but as I understand that both the often used in more or less restrictive senses. My plea is that writers quoted are leading exponents of theosophy, there is a 'Spiritualism,' used in the a Love wide sense, and Reincarnationiarn large difference to explain. D. M. D. (I object to the use of the word 'theosophy' here) are mutually incompatible. I am fully aware, I believe, of all the stock arguments in favour of reincarnation, as to which it would be impossible to treat even shortly in this letter, which is probably In an earnest search after truth and a solid basis on too long already. which tu build the best kind of life I am capable of at this stage I cordially endorse the letter of 'J. W. Mahony' on page 252. of development, also for an answer to some of the bitter prob· Guy HEATON. lems of life which oppress me, I have lately attended many New Thought and Theosophic lectures. While gratefully I have been nmch'interested in 'D. R. F.'a' thougl1tful letter acknowledging the splendid truths which I begin dimly to see on' The Law of Karma.' I have never discussed the question in the teachings of both, I have wondered, a little wearily with any student of the subject, but it seems tu me there is a sometimes, whether the Theosophist, while reducing life to such good deal about it that appears inconsistent. As ' D. R. F. ' an exact science as he appears to do, is not robbing it of some aptly remarks, ' What about happiness being a reward for of the bloom of that great and glorious thing, the true love of well-doing 1' If we suffer for our former misdeeds, surely we man and woman for each other, and the crowning wonder of ought to be rewarded for our good ones. How do 'Karmists ' parenthood. As he has inserted it in the always sacred precincts explain the many instances of people who are burn beautiful and of bis own magazine, l\Ir. Leadbeater, of course, considers the wealthy, and have everything that can conduce to happiness, and account of his ' vision ' good reading for the mothers and future yet who possess anything but charming characters 1 Then we mothers of hfs movement. Now, as I know that Spiritualism is see the reverse cunstantly-Leautiful characters allied to de sometimes adversely, though quite kindly, discussed in public by Theosophists, they are, I am sure, the last people to deny us a formed, diseased bodies, or the victims of every kind of misfor 1 tune. According to the' Law of Karma,' the worst characteri! similar freedom in LIGH'l',' and this 'vision' appears to me to ought t-0 .have the worst fates, and vice-versa, but it is Ly no come under the head of the appallingly fantast~c. For, think means the case, rather the reverse. It may 'be a convenient of it ! Not 'this i$ our tiny wonderful baby-come straight theory for some people to hold ; but nfter all, even then it from God's fairyland-for us,' but ''l'his is Mr. -- who bas cannot get you out of the initiul difficulty. If not in this life, chosen us for his parents, having karmic ties with us both, then in some far-back won of time we ·must all have had au which, forsooth, he wishes to work off.' equal beginning somewhere and somehow, and if so, how was it The life of the ordinary individual on this planet has that some advanced and others did not 1 By the very 'Law of owing, no doubt, to a large extent, to our mistakes-so little of Karma,' I presume all must have had equal chances at first. glory and wonder, that I would be glad to know how such E. P. 'visions' which may be considered by many, for aught I know, to be in~pired, can possibly be held to uplift 1 T.H.S. Being interested in the theosopl1ical doctrine of reincamatiuu, Mr. Wedgwood's remarks in your issue of May 20th attracted my attention. As my criticism gave rise to your article on page 223, and to Some years ago I took some trouble to gain a general view of the letters that have appeared in 'LIGHT,' permit !Ile to say. a theosophy in order to ascertain what it is, and pn what evidence few words further on this subject. Reincarnatio~ and its it rests. For this purpose I read works Ly l\fr. Sinnett, Mr. concomitant belief in Karma appear to lJe a stumb~mg .block Leadbeater, Mrs. Besant, and other1:1, which I found very interest tu 'D. R. F.' I own I am at a loss to understand hIB pomt of ing, and although I have not accepted theosophy as a whole, I view. Surely the first thing we demand from our earthly feel indebted to it for many new lights on various subjects. For parents is justice. Love without jtIBtice often produces more reincarnation I have not yet met with any convincing evidence. harm than good. Any spoilt child is a proof of. th~t ~or~l. The information appears to come from the ' Adepts,' ' Masters,' or This leads us to expect from our Heavenly ~atber. Justice m its 'Mahatmas,' as they are variously called, but so far as we purest form, not caprice or infl~ctiun ~f suffenng without ~ good Westerners are concerned, we shall have tu know a great deal and sufficient reason. We believers m Karma fully realise .the more about these mysterious personages before we accept any· benefit of suffering, but we hold that it must come to all alike, thing on their ipse dixit. Apart from this, it is stated that mauy not that a few should drink deep of every sorrow and that m~ny people relliember their previous incarnations, and thi1:1 hi the line should escape such discipline. We know that eac~ ~oul, h~e of inve8tigation which appeals to the ·westem mind. I have, the ' 1111111 of sorrows,' must be perfected throitgh sufl'enng as it however, Leen hitherto unsuccessful · in finding any good climbs upward on the ladder. God does nut set us here to collection of well-authenticated instances, and if ~Ir. Wedgwood escape His laws, but to leam them and to co1!1orm to the~. can indicate where such evidence can be found he would gratify In this plan there is no favouritism, all must chmb, ~nd all. m the writer of this letter, and probably many other inquirers, who the end attain ; but the child who loves and obeys 1s a qmck adhere to the apostolic and also scientific maxim : ' Prove all learner, and climbs fast. 'I who saw Power, see now Love perfect things, hold fa.st that which is good.' With regard to tl1e particular point which has called forth too.' . . l\Ir. Wedgwood's letter, it certainly seems as if the reincarnation 'Agnostic ' 8ltms up om· beliefs in the fi~st .. p~rt1~n of hlB doctrine is becoming very plastic in the hands of Mrs. Besant, letter · but need he take such a dark and pes1:11n11stic view as he 'l\Ir. Leadbeater, and other8. In Mr. Siunett'll 'E1:1oteric does at the end 1 It i~ always difficult to judge the whole from Buddhism' I find the following statement (p. 148) on the a part and let him take comfort from the fact that the subject of the intervals between incamations :- lowest 'kind of savages are dying out, as there are no souls now sufficiently undeveloped to incamate in that type. D.egenerates ' Certainly these intervening periods are of Vt\ry variaLle may increase, but on the other hand the general tr~n? is UJ?war~. lengths, but they can hardly ever contract to anything less The tide of evolution may appear to ebb when it is flowmg, m than fifteen hundred years . and fifteen hundred years, inch by inch-' and slow and sme comes up the Golden Year. if not an irnpos.oibly short, would he a very brief interval B. lJetween two re-births.' Southsea. c. 258 LIGHT. [June 3, HHl. OFFICE OF 'LIGHT,' 110, SI'. MARTIN'S LANE, That this gift of tongues was riot an exceptional pheno LONDON, W.C. menon is proved by its frequent recurrence among the early SATURDAY, JUNE 3BIJ, 1911. Christians. In his illuminating fourteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul is at great pains to light: explain that speaking in an unknown tongue, although A Journal of Psychical, Occult, and Mystical Research. interesting as a phenomenon, is of little value as compared with the inspiration that enables the prophet (or medium) PRICE TWOPSNOE WEEKLY. to sp~ak ' unto men to edification, and exhortation, and COMMUNICATIONS intended to be printed should be addressed to the Editor, Office of 'LIGHT,' 110, St. Martin's Lane. London, W.C. comfort.' And here assuredly we can all agree with him. Business communications should in all cases be addressed to Mr. F. W. South, Office of 'LIGHT,' to whom Cheques and Postal Further, he wisely adds : ' Wherefore tongues are for a Orders should be made payable. sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not.' Even then they should be discreetly presented so as Subscription Rates.-'LIGHT' may be had free by post on the following terms :-Twelve months, 10s. lOd; six months, 5s. 5d. Payments not to call forth condemnation ; otherwise, as he shrewdly to be made in advance, To United States, 2Clol. 70c. To France, observes: 'If the whole Church be come together into one Italy, &c., 13 francs' 86 ceo.times. To Germany, 11 marks 25 pfg. Wholesale Agents : Measrd. Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those Co., Ltd., 23, Paternoster-row, London, E.C., and 'LIGHT' can be that. are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ordered through all Newsagents and Booksellers. ye are mad 1' APPLICATIONS bJ7 Members and Associatea of the Lonc1.. 'r Spirit It is evident, therefore, that the early Christians were ualist Alliance, Ltd., for the loan of books from thbt, Alliance Library should be addressed to the Librarian, Mr. B. D. Godfrey, primitive Spiritualists. That their meetings frequently Office of the Alliance, 110, St. M!i.rtin's-lane, W.C. resembled the unguided ' developing circles' that have sometimes been held in modern times is clearly shown in THE UNCEASING SPIRITUAL OUTPOURING. the apostle's rebuke : ' How is it, then, brethren~ When ye come together; every one of you hath a psalm, hath a It is a tradition in the Church that Whit Sunday doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an inter commemorates the spiritual outpouring on the Day of pretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.' To this Pentecost, and that its name Whit, or White, Sunday refers end he suggests that an interpreter, should be present, 'but either to the white garments worn by those who came for if there be no interpreter,' the man who speaks in an baptism or to the bright spirit light which was seen to rest unknown tongue should 'keep silence in the church' ; 'let on the disciples and which was described as appearing like him speak to himself, and to God'-awise and kindlyhint. cloven tongues as of fire. It might equally well refer to the we shall do well to remember that 'the manifestation white wealth of bloom, exceptionally abundant and of the spirit is given to every man to profit withal,' and beautiful this year, with which Nature regales us at this that, as Paul said, ' Though I speak with the tongue of delightful season of resurrection of life and promise of men and of angels and have not love, it profiteth me plenteous harvest. Be that as it may, those who accept nothing.' Surely this is the true test of the value of all the record respecting the scene at Jerusalem on that inspiration-not the wonder of it, not the source of it, but memorable day must all agree that it was a vivid manifes its spiritual profitableness. tation of spirit presence and power, however they may At the Jerusalem seance the disciples spoke 'as the differ on points of interpretation. spirit gave them utterance,' and the listeners, from all the On the Day of Pentecost, so the record runs, the spirit nations round about, heard the good news of .'life and world broke in upon the world of sense and sent the immortality brought to light ' proclaimed in their own apostles forth to proclaim the truth of spirit return, and the tongue. This was unquestionably a manifestation of the high moral and spiritual principles of their Master. Let presence of excarnate human beings, and we know of no us· consider the circumstances. The disciples 'with one earthly or heavenly' reason why those of us 'who seek to accord in OiIJ,e place' gave favourable conditions for the maintain the fine thought that the presence and power of manifestations. There came the sound 'as of a rushing unseen beings are abiding and vital realities, not only in the mighty wind,' then 'there appeared unto them cloven church but in the world,' should not make the utmost use tongues like as of fire,' and ' they were all filled by the of it. We heartily agree with a well-known writer who Holy [good] Ghosb [spirit influence) and began to speak says:- with other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance.' He has nothing to glory in who has lost the sense of the This narrative presents the facts in so simple and nearness and reality of the spirit world and who has ceased to straightforward a· fashion that Spiritualists, who, as the believe in an inspiring God, or who only believes in a God who result of their own experiences, can readily understand the cea.~ed to inspire eighteen hundred years ago. Believers in God incident, cannot but feel that the writer is attesting an have a right to assume that His Spirit is still an inspiration and a power, and that, in a very vivid sense, tongues of fire come actual experience. Rationalists endeavour to explain it now to prepared and willing souls. In London as in Jerusalem, away, and ordinary believers regard it as a miracle and let the witnesses say that these things can I be, and we must be it go at that-since, in their view, miracles are inexplicable, emancipated from the narrowing thought that inspiration was a fact only in the past, and that what God once did He could save as divine interpositions-but the story loses its value not, or would not, do again. · unless it is humanly interpreted. Let no one call him 'superstitious' who is happily able to It is made abundantly clear, we think, that the disciples take the story as it stands, to classify it with similar records in were mediums and that they spoke under the inspirational ancient and modern times; and to hold it as true that (in God's great order) the unseen beings may and do break in upon the influence of human spirits who succeeded in making them seen. . . We have a great danger to avoid-the danger selves understood by their compatriots, for the listeners, ll.SSOciated with the natural but misleading thought that the who were of many different nationalities, were all amazed, early days of the Christian Church were necessarily its best. That delusion has worked immense mischief, especially in in and exclaimed, 'Are not all these whieh speak Galileans~ ducing so many of us to hold back our own judgments and And how hear we every man in his own tongue, wherein consciences in the desire to make the early Christians the sole we were born 1' Peter's explanation of the phenomenon authority in regard to faith and practice. was followed by his triumphant declaration that the That is true. It is time that we all recognised it and marbyred Jesus had survived bodily death-that he had acted as if we believed that inspiration is a perennial fact: been 'raised up, whereof we are all witnesse•,' I that God has never left Himself without a witness. June 3, 1911.] LIGHT. 259 LIFE IN THIS AND OTHER WORLDS. 'rate of living' is greatly reduced. In the germinating seed, on the other hand, it is immensely accelerated, so much so that, BY MR. E. E. FouRNIER n'ALBE, B.Sc. (LoND.). from the biological point of view, a human being passes through the greater portion of his organic life before he is born. An Address delivered to the Members and Associates of the These considerations are of value inasmuch as they liberate London Spiritualist Alliance on Thursday evening, May 11th, us from f;he shackles of time. When we can crowd a lifetime in the Salon of the Royal Society of British Artists, Mr. H. into a moment, or expand it so as to cover a geological age, the Withall, the vice-president, occupying the chair. possibilities of existence are enormously enhanced. We who (aontinued from :page 248.) have, all of us, spent a lifetime in the infra-world before we trod the crust of this globe, we are in direct touch with that Let us see, now, how far our three conditions of food, magic which makes a thousand years as a day. It has some education, and work will carry us in the wider world of living times seemed to me as if we might conceivably undergo a beings. further time-transformation at some period after death, and I think we shall find it to \ipld good with>; absohlte reckon our tim~ in geologic ages or Julian periods, living such a generality. All organisms, down to -the monera, require food life as the earth itself lives at the present day. · Do not some of or its equivalent, access to a source of energy. They also require us, many of us perhaps, believe that the earth has a life and faculties for utilising the energy and directing it into the proper soul of its own, a life whose pulse-beat is a year and whose channels. And, lastly, they require facilities for exercising nerve-impulse a day ? Are we not as cells in the body of the those faculties. But in this 18.dt respect a certain reservation earth, highly specialised cells such as those of the cortex of the must be made. The faculties may remain dormant for very · brain, with perhaps a similarly exalted function 1 considerable periods. I refer not only to habits of hibernating Such an outlook gives a fine sweep to our panorama of life. animals, or to the winter sleep of plants and trees, but more But we need not have recourse to it as yet. The outlook is especially to the enormous periods during which seeds can promising enough in any case. For we have yet far to travel retain their vitality, and hence also their inherited ancestral before we reach the limits of life. Where are, indeed, those memory. In those periods the pulse of life slackens down. limits 1 Energy-why, the whole world abounds with it, the Time stops, so to speak. The faculties are there, but they earth is bursting with it, the air is full of it, and the sun are asleep. Nor do they decay for lack of exercise, for warmth blazes it down upon us at the rate of six million horse-power per and moisture release them from their lethargy, whereupon they . sqwtre mile of the earth's surface. Faculties, inherited memories come forward in full strength, and perhaps refresl1ed and in -have we not the whole vast recesses of the immemorial past vigorated. This we must carefully bear in mind when search to draw upon 1 Work, exercise, society-is there not the whole ing after vital essentials. And furthermore, faculties may, even visible universe before us, wherein every creature can find some in the working state, be in abeyance for great lengths of time work to do, some place where it may leave its mark 1 and yet . remain unimpaired, although this does not apply No, there is no limit to life. Even Haeckel asserts that equally to all faculties. Thus, a person may learn to skate on there is no line of demarcation between aniniate and inanimate ice, and may be able to skate with perfect skill on returning nature. It is a matter of degree, of gradual transition, of north alter apending half a lifetime in the tropics. On the higher or lower specialisation or organisation. And here we other hand, he may entirely forget a foreign language he spoke come again upon the great fact which we previously en in early. childhood. Yet it is certain that he will re-acquire countered when. following quite a different iine of thought and speak that language with far greater facility and accuracy that life is the one great reality, a reality of which we have than he would do had he never spoken it before. immediate cognition, whereas lifelessness, 'dead matter,' and When animals hibernate, or when they pass through a stage death itself are the unknowns, and must, in the nature of things, of transformation requiring complete rest, they take care to remain for ever beyond our ken. surround themselves with an impervious skin, membrane, or. We cannot assign any limits to life, since it is the only wall, through which the ordinary stimuli and time-pulse.a ultimate reality. It has no limits, and therefore no conditions, cannot reach them. Time, to them, does stand still, almost essential or otherwise. Life in some form is possible in all literally, much more so than it does in our sleep. For we retain conditions and under all circumstances. Our inquiry thus a cert.ain link with time-marking events, the result of long becomes meaningless when we consider life in general. It only standing habits and biological requirements, and somnambu has a meaning when we consider any given. form of life duly lists possess, as we know, a very remarkable power of timing specified. We can inquire into the conditions of human life, future actions in accordance with suggestions made to them. animal life, plant life, the life of atoms or of planets, or other Could we enter into the consciousness of a sleeping tree, a forms of life hitherto undiscovered and unknown, and to such hibernating animal, or a seed kept a way from moisture, we should inquiries we must limit om·selves. probably find that their period of sleep or quiescence appeared And then our question assumes a somewhat different form. to them exceedingly short. A night spent in sound, refreshing It becomes this: What conditions must be fulfilled in order sleep never appears to us so long as a wakeful niiht. Our time that the lifo characteristic of a human being may be continued 1 scale is lengthened out, and thus our time record is reduced. Here we meet with another difficulty : What kind of life is We reckon in hours instead of minutes, and the number thus ' characteristic' of a human being 1 Remember that we li \"e, all obtained is sixty times smaller than before. But our faculty of of us, not only a double life, but a whole multitude of lives. changing our time-worltl is limited during normal terrestrial There is our physical life, our domestic life, our public life, our life. Whether we enlarge or reduce our time-rate_ of existence emotional and intellectual life, our dream life, not to speak of after death is a question which has tc;> be carefully considered. th!lt strenuous organic life of our pre-natal days. Which of May I venture to remind you' of my remarks on pre-existence these lllany.forllls of vital activity are to be continued 1 made on the last occasion on which I had the privilege of The answer is not far to seek. It has been given by addressing yon 1 I pointed out, I think, that since our earliest thoughtful minds and profound philosophers ever since man terrestrial existence took the form of a microscopic germ, our began to think of his ultimate fate. T~ · tife must be a earliest time-scale may have been ~maller in the same propor preparation for the next. There must be a thread of continuity. tion, so that there is room, not only for a long pre-existence, There must be nu gulf fixed between what we are now and but for an infinite series of pre-existences dating back 'asymptoti what we shall be. If there were an absolute break of con cally,' as a geometrician would say, to the moµi.ent of our tinuity we should no longer be ourselves. We should be some conception. thing else, something new, a new ' creation out of nothing.' Thus we arrive at a rational view of the apparent suspension Aud that would be against all natural law. For we have of vital actions. The vital action continues unimpaired and evolved from an infilli.te chain of continuities. We are to uninterrupted ; all that is changed \s the time-scale of vital some definite extent, our paren.ts and our grandparents and' our events, which is changed in the same proportion as the expendi more remote aucestors. We have built on an hereditary founda• ture of energy. In a hibernating animal 01· a stored seed the tion. Some have built magnificently on their own account1 260 LIGHT. [June 3, 1911. others have failed to utilise to an adequate extent the foun You may have heard of those modern torpedoes which are dations provided by heredity. But though there may be new controlled by wireless waves. They are capable of receiving a and unheard-of developments, the thread of continuity is never message from the land station and acting upon it. They have, lacking. A son may succeed where his father failed, but it is, so to speak, a sense organ attuned to the voice of the controlling in a very definite sense, the father who succeeds in the person electrician, and a motfre system capable of tran~lating his of his son, and paternal pride is one of the most justifiable of instructions into accomplished facts. This is one instance of a human emotions. facultyi however coarse and rudimentary, of responding to When, therefore, we are 'born again' into the kingdom of invisible and intangible stimuli. You may have seen those Heaven we :;hall be essentially ourselves, essentially what we wonderful vacuum tubes which glow with a steady and gentle have grown to be in this our preparatory stage of earth-life. light as soon a:; they are introduced into a rapidly altemating The faculties which we develop here will form the foundation electric field. There ag-ain you have a case of a body, in this for the faculties we shall exerci:;e on our future scene of action. case a gaseous body, absorbing energy from the ambient medium Some faculties which are rudimentary here will come into full and responding to vibrations of a certain range of frequency. action hereafter. Some others, which, like the gills of the tadpole, Now I believe that a great many supernormal and medium are only adapteJ to the preparatory stage, will become atrophied i::1tic faculties are rudimentary faculties which will find their and finally drop into disuse. But there· will be no sudden full development in the after-life. Telresthesia, telekinesis, transition, uo ahmpt cessation or starting of activities. The and generally all externalisations of the human soul during life we shall live then we are living now, if only in our dreams. earth-life appear to me to be anticipations of the greater flexi I have no doubt whatever that the caterpillar often dreams of bility and mobility which will characterise our after-life flying. It is, in fact, impossible for a student of Nature to constitution. believe otherwise. For the caterpillar inherits the organic We know that under such supernormal conditions sensation memory of a countless series of butterfly ancestors, and it is and perception are not confined to the ordinary channels. incredible that this memory should not sometimes emerge into Sensitiveness seems to become generally diffused throughout the t.he consciousness of the caterpillar. organism. If that is so we have a remarkable parallelism to Thus we may be sure that the future life will not surprise most plants and all protozoa, in which there is no differentiation us uy its strangeness. It will, if anything, appear strangely of sense organs, hut a sensitiveness diffused over the entire familiar, like what we have dreamt of in our happiest and surface of the organism. In an aerial type of being the sensi healthiest momen:ts, those moments when the tide of life was at tiveness might well be diffused, not merely over the whole its fullest, and we felt calmly conscious of a grand and glorious surface, but throughout the interior, so that the response would destiny. (Applause.) be instantaneous and simultaneous in the whole being. And now may I &:1k you to follow me in one of those This, you might say, is a retrogression, a reversion to a very excursions into the unknown, which have all the combined primitive type. But then remember two things. In the first fascinations of adventure and of philosophic speculation 1 You place we have to deal with a medium which was never inhabited are probably acquainted with the view of the next life which by any of our long line of ancestors. For if geological evi has always appealed to me most strongly, the view which dence can be relied upon, we have evolved primarily from the regards it as an org-a.nic existence in a realm with which we are ocean, and have only gradually acquired the faculties necessary now in daily contact, a realm which is, in fact, all about us, a for dwelling on land. And thus, being once more iunne1·sed fitting abode for.•the loving souls of our departed. in a three-dimensional ocean instead of being confined to a two If, after walking the solid crust of the globe for th1:ee dimensional surface, it is quite reasonable that ~e should revert :;core years and ten, more or less, we shall inhabit the more to the original simple type of ocean-born life not only in sim mobile and subtle element which surrounds us, in what regards plicity of structure, but in the general diffusion of sensibility. may we expect the conditions of life to be essentially altered 1 Remember, also, that our earliest pre-natal stages are a And firstly, as regards food, or access to a source of energy. recapitulation of our long ancestral evolution. What more Will there be any need for the combined boiler, engine and reasonable than that our birth into the next world should be machinery which we find in the human frame 1 Remember that another recapitulation of the long-forgotten history of our we are incapable of directly absorbing the energy of sunlight, earliest ancestors, and that the special organs and faculties whereas plants are capable of absorbing it. Every animal is, adapted to an aerial existence should be only gradually evolved as a noted biologist puts it, essentially an alimentary canal with out of such rudimentary faculties as we possess at the time of subsidiary organs attached to it. I should, of course, put it the our transition! If, therefore, the soul-body of the recently otl1er way about, and say that every animal is essentially a departed should tum out to be a comparatively embryonic and living individual, provided with the necessary machinery for formless structure, incapable of assuming a tangibl':l shape terrestrial nutrition. except by absorbing material temporarily lrom a terrestrial A gaseous or aeriform constitution such as creature:; of the medium, that is exactly the state of things which we may air would necessarily po:;:;ess would have many advantages, one describe as warranted by the evolution of om· race and our own of which was pointed out in another connection by -IlO less a pre-natal development. person than the late James Clerk Maxwell, the renowned (To be continued.) electrician of Cambridge. Perpetual motion, in the sense of creating energy out of nothing, is proved to be irupossible. But a ' demon ' (that is Max TO CORRESPONDENTS. well's .word) who could sort the slow molecules of a gas from the rapidly moving ones might derive an almost unlimited amount of energy from the ambient air, by the simple expedient of bring J. P ARTRIDUE.-Thank you for your 'dream experience,' bttt ing about whatever difference of temperature he pleased, without we are unable to use it in ' LIUHT.' expending any appreciable energy himself. I think that in 'M. T.'-You could not do better than read.' Man's Survival After Death,' by the Rev. C. L. Tweedale. The author deals genious conception of Maxwell's is more than a conundrum of with the Scriptural aspect of the subject very folly and physical science. It is probably the solution of the first vital helpfully. question of our post-nwrte11b existence. It entirely solves the 'J. A. H.'-Judging from past experience, we arc able tu question of driving power, without contradicting any known agree with .YOU that public debates seldom do much good. law of Nature. The energy inherent in the air is, of com·se, Spiritualism is a subject for calm and dispassionate investigation. ultimately derived from the sun, but that is simply another W. A. BAYsT.-We are pleased to learn that there is some instance of that. continuity which we are so anxiously endeavour likelihood of the Crystal Palace becoming the corporate property ing to presene. of the Empire. Next comes the question of faculties, their evolution and A number of communications on 'Light and Reincar nationists' ha\'e reached· ns, for which we are unable to find education. Do we possess any faculties which will enable us to space. Correspondents will do well to remember that short master the conditions of an aerial existence 1 letters are much more likely to be printed than long ones. .Tune 3, 1911.] LIGHT. 261 SPIRITUALISM: ITS MESSA,GE TO HUMANITY. of life. Our experien'.ce of spiritual revelation has. taught W! that the influence it exercises, when rightly interpreted, is of an AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY MR. PERCY R. STREET AT THE upward nature. Therefore, if due attention be not paid to the UNION OF LONDON SPIRITUALISTS' MASS MEETING ON lessons to be gathered from the experiences of those who now THURsi>AY, MAY 18TH, AT SOUTH ·PLACE INSTITUTE, associat.e with us from the beyo1,1d, and if our actions one to FINSBURY, LONDON, E.C. another be not characterised by that higher morality naturally sequential on such revelations, it is obvious that we have failed The Spirittmlist, as the visible representative of the spirit to realise their import, and the knowledge we possess of the world, is the bearer of a message to humanity of such a nature reality of a future life and spirit communion is robbed of its that its value is difficult to estimate. It is an a11.Swer to the true value. If the revelatioll.S of the spirit world and the ex soul's deepest questionings, a solution of life's greatest problem periences we have gained have not made us better men and -death. women, then, as far as we are con!lerned, the evidential message From time immemorial men have yeamed for immortality. of Spiritualism is practically useless, for knowledge and experi It matters not what r~e or period we may examine, a life for ence are without value if there is no improvement in growth. the dead stands prominently forth as a fundamental principle in (Applause.) religion and philosophy. In this great search, Nature has been The message of Spiritualism is absolutely moral, and the questioned and tradition examined with the minutest scrutiny. life of the true Spiritualist is hall-marked by his strict Sage, seer and philosopl1er have all contributed their quota. adherence to the principles of justice and equity. That some Kings would have gladly laid aside their kingly pomp if, in exist who outrage all good taste and feeling by their flagrant exchange, they could have received indubitable proof that man breaches of morality does not invalidate the message in the lived beyond the tomb, that death was not the cessation of life's slightest degree; it merely shows that,in spite.of revelation and activities : yet it must be recorded as a melancholy fact that, in experience, these people have either been unable to discem or spite of all efforts, men remain, in the majority of cases, as much have failed to express its import. The majority of the messages in the dark as ever concerning the true nature of death. To we are p!'ivileged to receive from the world of spirits bear one such disappointed seekers Spiritualism comes with her message, important teaching-' the necessity of right living and obedience a final answer, to &weep away the hoary accretions of error and to law.' Nothing could be more significant 01• striking than the to illumine the darkness of ignorance. constant reiteration of the statement that each deed brings in its Spiritualism is no mere matter of belief, nor is it the train retribution or reward, and all spirits appear to declare with formulation of any fresh creed, bristling with man-made ritual tmJUistakable emphasis that we pay the penalty to the utmost and doctrine ; but a science and a philosophy supported by evi farthing for all our collisions with the laws of our being. I can dence that is authenticated by every necessary attestation. And not conceive of a more powerful deterrent, where there is an its message may be divided into three parts : evid~ntial, moral inclination or tendency to ·wrong-doing, than the moral message and spiritual. of Spiritualism. The greates~ fallacy extant concerning Spiritualism is that it Although from our communion with the spirit world we are is compo&ed wholly of phenomena, without any moral or spirit1ml led into the paths of truth and right conduct, Spiritualism has import. That many outside our ranks believe this is due, in no not exhausted its sphere of influenee ; in its spiritual message it Small measure, to the influence of some so-called Spiritualists, provides a still greater inlpetus tO seek the higher life. who have utterly failed to grasp the import of the facts, and We JUay realise that the spirit world exi!!ts ; we may enjoy hence are not likely t.o steer their life's course from its directions. the delight of soul communion with those we love who have The evidential message of Spiritualism is its foundation, and journeyed on ; we may spend pleasant hours in the company of will always be necessary in order to maintain the proper rigidity those from the spirit side who walk with us on our earthly way, of the structure. Those who would relegate phenomena into linked by bonds of undying affinity ; aye, we may hourly the background of oblivion are wreckers in the guise of friends receive fresh revelation concerning the truths of life, and yet, -(applause)-for without its phenomenal evidence Spiritualism even as all this comes consciously upon us, we realise the meagre could not stand. Without its facts Spiritualism is merely a ness of our understanding. Before us stretch the illimitable philosophical speculation and must take its place in the ranks of possibilities of infinitude, wondrous stores of priceless knowledge such, instead of standing- clear and distinct, as is now the case. that may yet be ours. The spiritual message of Spiritualism We do not entertain the slightest doubt regarding the reality of can be only apprehended by those who have cultivate1l by purity the message. The evidence supporting the claim of a life for and prayer the di vine spirit of aspiration. To such, life is one the departed and the possibilities of post-mortem communion continual revelation of spiritual truth : more and more fully do .has been received, weighed, and collated by all classes of they realise the harmony of the universe and their relationship investigators, extending from workers in the humblest spheres to it. Their lives are sweetened !J.nd enriched as each day some to those who occupy the loftiest pinnacles of distinction in science new aspect of the Cosmos is unfolded to their comprehension, and letters. It is certain that modern thought in all depart and they recognise their unity 'vith the whole. They are drawn ments is g1·adually moving toward.3 us ; our facts and philosophy into the contemplation of the divine essence and source of life are being keenly scrutinised by those who have hitherto held the great First Cause, and thus they fulfil their destiny and con aloof from us. Therefore, it is more essential than ever that we summate the divine plan of existence-the evolution of a sustain the honour of our cause by presenting the -evidential spiritual intelligence, capable not alone of surviving the shock of message, upon which so much depends, with dignity and com death, but of divine and celestial contemplation. pleteness, leaving no room whatever for the intrusion of t.hat This is my interpretation of the message that Spiritualism uneasy doubt so often observed. This, I make bold to say, can has for humanity, and as Spirit).llJl\sts we are directly responsible only be accomplished by the proper and systematic culture of for its delivery. The spirit wopld can do but little of itself, and all the planes ol our being, extending from the physical to the though there waits a throng of ~liining ones seeking to flood the spiritual. Right living, right thinking, and right-mindedness earth with the tidings of life, it remains for us to fit ourselves to will ensure sound functioning for those who have been enabled become their co-workers in spirit. All cannot manifest the same to hring the psychic plane of their being into co11.Scious and con powers in a like degree, yet no one need be idle ; there is a work tinual activity, and will be the means of attracting. from the for each one of us, according to his ability and to the degree with . world of spirits those whose spiritual associateship can only bring which he opens himself to the inflow of the spirit power. We increased purity and power. The message of the spirit world is often deplore our inability to use our psychic powers. The complete ; it only remaill.S for us to fit ourselves for its reception world ofttimes inhibitl3 our developing these qualities as we and expres.c;ion in order to convince humanity of it.'! truth. would desire ; yet there remains the grandest of all the manifesta The moral message of Spiritualism is no less important, tions of tlie spirit for each t.o express in order to convince since it reveals to man the effect of those moral and spiritnnl humanity of the t.rnth of our gospel-the ordering and conduct laws upon the observance of which his elevation and true happi ing of the life in accordance with the message we have received ! ness depend, thus constituting a complete guide to the conduct Let each of us do this, and the cry of ''!'here goes a Spirit- 262 LIGHT. [June 3, 1911. ualist ! ' will. be synonymous with ' There go truth, love, and, SPIRITUALIST CONGRES_S AT COPENHAGEN. purity ! ' Thus humanity shall learn that the message of Spiritualism alone can lead it from darkness to light, from the Mr. A. V. Peters, writing from Copenhagen, reports that the ignorance of the past into the glorious realisation of unbounded first Congress of Scandinavian Spiritualists has been a great suc knowledge. (Loud applause.) cess. He says : On the night of Thursday, May 11th, the delegates -who included representatives from Norway, Sweden, Finland, A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. and Denmark-were the guests of the Copenhagen friends at' a very enjoyable informal . ctmversazione held at the City Cafe. In the preface to one of his books, Babu Shishir Kumar, the Friday morning broke bright and warm-a brilliant day, on noble Indian Spiritualist and reformer who recently 1' passed which all Nature seemed to rejoice. The Cong1·ess having been on,' relates that in his early life he, like other Brahmos of the day, opened with an invocation and a hearty welcome to the visitors, prayed and heard 01· delivered sermons in an artificial way ; but we listened to a beautiful cantata composed expressly for the one day he was the unintentional witness of an incident which occasion by Mr. Aage N ording, the libretto being the work of made an indelible impression upon him :- his gifted m9ther, Mrs. Anna Nording, who has also translated 1 heard my eldest brother (B~nta Kumar) singing a song Mr. Stead's.' Letters from Julia' into Danish. The choir were alone in a solitary place. It was his own composition, and was non-Spiritualists, who kindly gave their services. The presi to· this effect : ' My Lord, how botmdless must be Thy love. I dent, Mr. Lyngs, editor of the Danish ' Truthseeker,' next see it when I am awake ; I dreani. it when I am asleep I ' I approached him, to find he was bathed in tea1'8. I was amazed, explained why the Congress had been called into being. He said the sight was so fascinating ! I falteringly inquired of my that after twenty-five years of hard work and investigation he brother why he was weeping. His reply was : 'A few years thought it time that the whole of the Northern countries should later, when you are a little older, you will understand it all.' be brought together and the links that united them made closer and Shishir Kumar, however, did understand. The idea shot stronger. He also referred appreciatively to the .altered tone of the into his mind that it was not only possible to sing the glory and Danish Press towards Spiritualism. Letters were then read from love of God, but to realise them so vividly as to shed tears of various societies and the delegates from variouscoiwtries addressed joy over them. Basanta's time on this earth-plane was nearly the meeting, and I gave the message which Mr. Withall asked up: he was soon to be called by his heavenly Father to another me to deliver from the London Spiritualist Alliance. Major sphere of duty. Shishir, on the other hand, was destined to Busch spoke for Sweden, and Herr Torstersen for Norway. Mrs. live long to carry out his own mission for the good of humanity. Nording represented the Universal Congress of Spiritualists and The study of Spiritualism greatly strengthened his faith in the. afterwards, in response to a special request, I gave a few clair goodness of God, for what more is needed to enable w to voyant descriptions, Mr. J. S. Jensen very kindly translating believe in that goodness if we know for certain that we shall for me. It was a gathering of Spiritualists in and out of the survive death and meet again those for whom our hearts weep 1 flesh, and great power was in our midst. In the afternoon papers It was this firm conviction of God's goodness that sustained him were read on 'Why we Suffer,' and ' How to get the Best Condi when he lost his brother Basanta, who had been almost a part tions for Seances.' Lively discussions followed. and parcel of his life. Later came the action brought against On Saturday, the 13th, a paper was read on 'The Living his paper, the ' Arnrita Bazar Patrika,' for criminal defamation Electricity in Humanity and Nature,' by .Mr. von · Huth, -an action which, though a European Deputy Magist1'8.te was who has suffered imprisonment for his work of magnetising. the nominal prosecutor, was practically started and conducte.d Other papers were reeil during Saturday and Sunday on 'The by the State, and whi9h resulted in Shishir's financial ruin. Double,' ' Seance Control,' &c. The Swedish medium, Mr. Carl Picture the scene on the last day of the trial : The ca.se has Soderling, gave a lecture under spirit control, the sentiments dragged its length along for over a week Shishir Kumar is of which were noble and uplifting. On Sunday the Congress on heavy bail. He must appear before the judge in an hour's was favoured with a visit from Madame d'Esptlrance, who re· time or forfeit the amount of his security and make himself ceived a hearty welcome. During a discussion that followed a liable to be prosecuted on a fresh charge of contempt of co11rt. paper read by Mr. L-fngs, Madame d'Esperance said that so He has not yet taken his bath and breakfast. Just then an called exposures of mediums did much harm. Her friends had inspiration seizes him. With a piece of charcoal he writes the taken great care of her, and she thought that all mediums ought first couplet of a sonnet on the wall before him. He turns, takes to be well looked after. She compared a medium to a glass that a few steps, co111es back and writes the next couplet. He walks should always be kept bright and clean, to enable the divine to and fro several times, finishes a poem of rare beauty ; sets it light to shine through. The Congress closed on Sunday with a to music, bathes and breakfasts, and attends the court just in speech by Mr. Lyngs, who said that they had experienced a time ! What is the burden of the song 1 Freely translated, it spiritual baptism. Despite the various opinions that had been stands:- expressed, the great cause of Spiritualism had been well repre God, I l1ave at last realised Thee. Thou art my Father and sented, and it had been shown that the divine light was over all. I am Thy son. What ineffable joy this discovery brings to me ! The Congress closed with a feeling that much good had been No longer do I care for the ills of the world ! My only desire done, and that the power of the spirit world had been brought. now is to end my days in worshipping Thee and singing Thy glory. to bear to help Spiritualists to understand each other better. Wilt Thou lash me, Father 1 I am not troubled ; for Thy Many friends have been brought together who never met lashing carries no pain, but only sweetness with it. Thy stern before, and many who have lived isolated lives have felt cheered, eyes frighten me not. Why 1 Because I am Thy son. Nay, uplifted, and encouraged. It is worthy of note that whereas at beneath those stern eyes I detect only an ocean of love I one time the whole of the Press of Denmark seemed to be When a mother· punishes her child, the child weeps, but against us, the newspapers have devoted considerable space to nestles into his mother's ,bosom for consolation. Punish me, fair and unbiassed reports of the Congress. In addition, Father, as much as Thou canst ; bµt afterwa,rds Thou wilt have to cover me with inmunerable kisses I the ' Politiken,' the ·leading Danish newspaper, publishes (Abridged from ' The Hindu Spiritual Magazine.')° an interview which its representative has had with our friend Madame d'Esperance. Imagine the effect that would SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY. be produced if, during the May meetings, a paper in the front rank of London journalism interviewed one of our On Thursday evening, May 25th, Mrs. Mary Seaton, ol' W&!!h mediums and published her portrait above a column and a ington, U.S.A., delivered a thoughtful and eloquent address on half of clear and well-written description, and you will under ' Spiritualism and Theosophy : Their Similarities and Dissinµ• stand the sensation this article has produced in the minds of the laritics,' to the Members and Associates ol' the London Spiritualist Danish people, especially as the ' Politiken' has always opposed Alliance in the Salon of the Royal Society of British Artists. anything spiritualistic. The writer pays Madame d'Esperance Mr. W. J. Colville made a brief and interesting speech on the the compliment of describing her as no fanatic, but a woman same subject. A. full report of these acj.dresses will appear in who understands the world. She confided to him that this was .eady issues of 'LIGHT., ~ the first interview she had granted to any newspaper since 1893. ;, June 3, 1911.] LIGHT, 263. In relating her experiences she stated that all through her child Mr. C. Bailey, the Australian Medium, in London. hood she had seen spirits, but at that time she had kept the fact Srn,-Last week I was one of the sitters at the first seance to herself. She had seen them so plainly that she was aule to given by Mr. Charles Bailey since his return to this country. The paint them, and her friends recognised the portraits. She went meeting was very interesting, inasmuch as Mr. Bailey's guides gave some edifying advice, but as a demonstration of on to describe how she became a medium. The first sitting in that phase of mediumship with which his name is associated, which she took part was when she was seventeen years of age. vi;&., the bringing of objects from a distance and 'the passage When she heard raps and saw the table move slrn thought that of matter through matter,' it was not convincing. There was there was a hypnotist at work, and that it was her duty to an entire absence of what we speak of as 'test conditions,' expose the fraud. However, she altered her opinion when she although the guides deliberately asked me to search the medium, found, during the seance, that her hand was moved to write which I did. The results, though somewhat .startling, were not at all of an evidential value. Under the control ofan Indian against her will. As she had always up till then looked upon who spoke broken English, and during a short period of com mediums as humbugs and swindlers, the discovery that she her plete darkness, a mass of wet earth of ahout four inches in self wns a medium came as an unwelcome surprise. She then diameter-said to have been brought from France-was placed described the development of her powers as a materialising on the table, and on examination immediately afterwards was medium, incident.~ of which are so vividly narrated· in her ])ook found to contain four palreolithic flint instruments. One of 'Shadow land.' AU this is set forth by the interviewer without these was given to me by the guide, and I have had it examined by one of the best authorities in London, who considered it to a single sneer or stupid attempt at explanation. This welcome be a good example of a flint from Dordogne, in France, where change of attitude is mainly due to the persistent labour of Mr. these prehistoric flints are found, but they can be procured in J. S. Jensen, who has shown to the Danish people that London. .Spiritualism is a reasonable philosophy and that mediums are How much more satisfactory it would have been if such a not fools and frauds. result had been obtained by a carefully selected and sympathetic A. VouT PETERS. committee, with the medium in a cabinet like that at the office of 'LIGHT.' I hope the Loudon Spiritualist Alliance will invite Mr. Bailey to sit under fair test conditions, especially in their cabinet, and give him opportunities of demonstrating his LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. mediumistic powers, which I understand he has frequently done in Australia. I am willing to contribute to a fund for this purpose, and I The Editor is not ~·esponsible for the opinions expressed by correspon am certain that there are many connected with the movement dents, and sometimes publishes what he does not agree with for who would help to secure Mr. Bailey's services.-Yours, &c., the purpose of presenting views which may elicit discussion. London. A. WALLACE, M.D. May 18th, 1911. Mr. Hereward Carrington and the Bangs Sisters. 'Think on these Things.' Srn,-While in no manner interested in the question of the Srn,-While conversing with a good orthodox woman (who Bangs Sisters' pictures, I resent, as must everyone who has the hnd a daughter dying of decline), I asked, 'Does she suffer privilege of knowing Mr. Hereward Carrington, Vice-Admiral much ? ' 'Oh, yes,' was the reply, 'but the heavier the cro3S Moore's attitude towards him, as manifested in a letter, dated the brighter the crown.' I pondered, 'Is this true 1' Surely it May 13th, 1911, published in 'LIGHT.' To me it seems unworthy is not the suffering that adds to the lustre of the crown, unless of a man of the Admiral's intelligence to impute to one who the character passed through the crucible comes out refined gold. differs in opinion a lack of good faith. I have for years past I know a man whl) suffers from an incurable disease that neces watched Mr. Carrington's efforts to distinguish the true from the sitates the application of hot fomentations. His wife says that false, not only in psychic researches, hut also in other fields of he swears terrifically. Swearing may be a good safety-valve,· scientific inquiry, and I have done this with the enviable but it is hardly a heavenly qualification. It is strange that advantage of a great many discussions with him. Sometimes we sufferers from their own ignorance and wilfulness glory in self differed, sometimes agreed, but I have yet to meet a man here martyrdom, calling it 'the will of God.' Passing through a or in America of a more fearless, just, and truth-seeking mind. churchyard, I saw on a tombstone these words :- Before this young man lies a great and useful future, and I 'Rest, why rest 1 would be sorry to think that the attack of Vice-Admiral Moore, There's all eternity to rest in,' who, I am sure, would take as much pride in his friendship as I and beneath was the grave of an earnest citizt!n and worker. do, were the two men to meet and become personally acquainted, What a mockery to sit with folded hand ' for all eternity' ! might have the effect of making one reader of 'LIGHT' lessen his Satan is s11id to do better than that, for he finds 'some mischief faith in the ability or perfeat sincerity of a man of unusually still for idle hands to do.' Surely the inconsistencies of human high character and of very probable service of no small import nature need the enlightening touch of spiritual philosophy.- ance to science.-Yours, &c., Yours, &c., E. P. PRENTICE. MAURICE V. SAMUELS. Sutton. American Universities Club of London. Illumination and Understanding. [We have received a long letter from Mr. W. Marriott, who states that the trick known as 'Dr. Wilmar's Spirit Paint Srn,-The thought has been with me for a long time that ings' was invented by him and that no correct solution of there is a great truth which we cannot try too hard to realise, it has been forthcoming. Mr. Marriott disputes the accuracy vi?!., that in the .highest state, the divine in the human will of Admiral Ushorne Moore's statement that the conditions become merged in the Whole Reality--'-Divine Spirit. As we under which the Wilmar paintings are produced 'no more progress in spirituality even here, we reach out and draw closer resemble the Bangs' conditions than a locomotive boiler does and closer to God, the Source. Not the least factor in this a tea-pot,' and, denying that the picture comes on the progression is the everlasting quest for the perfect, the satisfy wrong canvas, states that 'it can be made to appear on ing, in the human. If we live rightly we truly realise that either as we wish.' In conclusion, he says : 'A psychic there is only one unfailing love. Slowly and through much cause should not be claimed for an occurrence until it has heart and soul hunger, comes this illumination-and with bowed been proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that a human head and reverent spirit we receive the crown of understanding, cause was out of the question. This has not been done yet. and rejoice in our at-one-ment with God.-Yours, &c., Communication between those on either side of the great RUTH SCHWARTZ. divide is surely far too stupendous a fact to require such puny bolst.ering. If it is possible, and no one can say thnt The ' Peace Resolution' at the May Convention. it may not be, let" that fact he proved, but let it be done in Srn,-With reference to the report appearing in 'LIGHT' a way that sane and thinking men can accept, and let it be of May 27th, of the passing of the 'Peace resolution' at the shorn once for all of everything in the least way doubtfnl.' May Convention, will you permit me to say, lest my words on The readers of ' LIGHT' are indebted to Admiral Moore for that occasion be misunderstood and taken as implying other than his valuable records of the phenomena witnessed by him, was intended, that my experiences of the horrible nature of but as discussion respecting the bona jides of other inves an armed conflict are connected with my career as a photographer tigators cannot be fruitful of good, and may easily do harm, and not as a soldier. What I witnessed will for ever place me we cannot print further letters on this subject, unless Mr. in active opposition to those who advocate war as a favourable Carrington, who is entitled to do so, deems it lieCessar;r to nie~hod Qf settling disputes.-Yours, &c., l!~n Edward Capern, the Poet, and a Coincidence. SOCIETY WORK ON SUNDAY, MAY 28th, &c. Srn,-Wl1ether the following be regarded as a 'coincidence' of the mechanical order, or as something fraught with a deeper MARYLEBONE SPIRITUALIST .AssoCIATION, 51, ?tfoRTIMER significance, the circumstances will doubtless be thougfit of STREET, W.-Oavendiih Rooms.-Mrs. Place-Veat"Ygave successful interest. The facts are these. Some years ago, while editing a clairvoyant descriptions. l\Ir. A. J. Watts presided.-15, Service journal,' The Post,' I wrote a short sketch of the life and Mo1·Hmer-street, TV.-On the 22nd ult. l\Ii11~ Florence Morse gave work of a little-known poet, Edward Capem, 'the postman poet,' clairvoyant descriptions, many of which were recognised. ?tfr. of Bideford. It was, I tl1ink, some little while before his pas.'l Leigh Hunt presided. Sunday next, see advt.-D. N. ing on at an advanced age. Not till several years afterwards SPIRITUAL MISSION : 22, Princis-street.-Mr. Percy E. Beard (when I secured them quite by accident) did I have the oppor gave an address on' The Coming Light.' Solos by Miss Jeannie tunity of reading bis two volumes of poems, and then, owing to Bateman, R.A.M., and Mr. W. Basbam.-67, George-street, W. pressure of work, I devoted little attention to them. I think Morning, Mrs. Miles 01-d gave an inspirational address on ' The they must have lain in my bookcase some eight or nine years till Dawn.' See advt.-E. C. W. the day before yesterday, when I at last decided to read them CLAPHAM CoMMON.-14, THE PAVEMENT.-Marlame French thoroughly. This I did with much appreciation, marking the spoke on the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, and gave sweet spiritual beauty which :pervades his ly1·ics. This morning, good clairvoy.ant descriptions and 11elpful messages. Sunday after reading, I replaced tl1e two volumes in . their: accustomed next, at 7 p.m., address and clairvoyance.-J. R. place, and th!m selected another smaller volume of poems written KINGsTolii'~oN-THAMES._.:.AssEMBLY ltooMs, HAMPTON W1cK. by Cine, perhaps, e\•en less k1l~Wll to the wo1·lcl than Edward -Mr. F. Fletcher gave an address on 'The Power of Thought.' Capern. Beyond a cursory glance througl1 its pages, I had never Sunday next, Mr. G. R. Symons, of Ealing, will give an found time to familiarise myself with the second book. There inspirational arldress. · was no particular reason why I should 11ave cl1osen that one CROYDON.-ELMWOOD HALL, ELMWOOD-ROAD, BROAD-GREEN, above all others. The book is a little collection of verses by --Mr. E.W. Wallis gave splendid addresses, and Mrs. Cannock 'Claud Vincent,' published in 1884, and in his first poem, the clairvoyant descriptions. Sunday next, at 11.15 a.m. and poet, speaking of himself, suggests ~hat he may have been a 7 p.111., Mrs. Jamrach, addresses and clairvoyance. Spiritualist, when he says:- STRATFORD.-WoRKMEN"s HALL, 27, RoiilFORD-ROAD, E. Mr. J. Gamhril Nicholson's interesting address on 'Transforma Not from earth's departed ' learned ' tion' was much appreciated. Mr. E. P. Noall presided. Sun Are his treatises obtained, day next, Mr. and Mrs. Graham, address and clairvoyance. But by ghostly intuition BRIXTON.-8, MAYALL-ROAD.-Mrs. Boddington gave an AU his tl1eo'fie.s are sust.ained. address and clairvoyant descriptions. Sunday next, at 7, Mrs. Led away by secret tutors Maunder (vice-president) and members of ladies' circle will Who have left the world behind, occupy the platform. Other meetings aa usual.-G. T. W. Who to scholars 11w1·e tlian em·thly BRIGHTON.-0LD TowN HALL, Hon:, I, BRUNSWICK-STREET, Teach the science of the mind. -Three excellent lectures were given by Mr. W. J. Colville, It appealed to me, but I still had Capern in my mind. I who also spoke on May 30th. Sunday next, at 11.15 a.m. and turned to the next poen1, wherein' Woodlands' was mentioned. 7 p.m., also Monday, at 8 p.m., Mr. Horace Leaf. Wednesday, 'Woodlands,' I remembered, was the title of one of Capern's at 3, Mrs. Curry. Thursrlay, 8.15 p.m., public circle.-A. C. most exquisite lyrie& Then, to my great surprise, I read :- BRIXTON. - KosMON HALL, 73, WILTSHIRE-ROAD. - Mr. But familiar friends . • F. T. A. Davies gave an address, which was followed by clair Of white Bideford's sweet singer, voyant descriptions. Sunday next, at 7 p.m., address and clair They who love the sunny Capern voyance by Mr. George Morley. Wednesday, at 8.15,publicservice. Know it fully , • HACKNEY.-240A, AMHURsT-ROAD, N.-Mr. W. Underwood Tl10 next poem was entirely devoted toEdwardCapern and his gave a stirring and thoughtful address on 'The Spiritual 'Woodlands.' Probably this. is the only book of poems among Vision,' and. clairv.;>yant descriptjons. Sunday n11."Ct, at 7 p.m., the many thousands published since bis time that makes any Mrs. Podmore, short address and clairvoyant· descriptions. allusion to him. That I should possess such a book at all is Friday, May 2nd, 8.30 p.m., Mr. Hawes' healing class.-H. B. strange, but stranger still that that should be the very next one HIGHGATE.-GROVEDALE HALL, GROVEDALE-ROAD.-Morn selected for study after laying down the writings of the singer ing, Mr. J, Abraball spoke on 'Spirit Helpers.' Miss Jose gave who so impressed me.-Yours, &c., good psychometric readings. Evening, Mr. R. Boddington gave H. G. SWIFT. an address on ' Spiritualism,' and answered questions. On the 24th Nurse Graham gave well-recognised clairvoyant descrip tions. Sunday next, see advt.-J. F. Batters~a Relief Fund. PECKHAM.-LAUSANNE HALL, LAUSANNE-ROAD.-Morning, Srn,-We tender our sincere thanks to the friends who have helpful messages and healing were given through Mr. Abcthel. forwarded the following donations to assist the Batterseo. Society : Evening, Mr. D. J, Davis delivered a telling and forceful address Mrs. Hylda Ball, as.; Miss Beckett, l;s.; Mrs. Yarnold, as. ; on·' The True Purpose of Life.' Sunday next, at 11.30 a.m., lier two sons, 10s. ; Mr. and Mrs. Scott, 10s. ; Miss Cameron, public circle; at 7 p.m., Mr. J. Macbeth Bain. Thursday, June 10s. ; Ml's. Gordon, as. ; Mrs. Puckle, as. ; Mr. Hansburgh, 8th, public circle. June lltb, at 7, Mrs. Podmore. July 2nd, 3s. 6d.; Mr. J. Waite, as.; Mrs. Petz, 2s. 6d.; Mrs. Fielder, anniversary.-A. C. S. 2s. 6d. ------'------~ We feel sure there must be many who, having received the BRIXTON.-84, STOCKWELL p ARK- ROAD.-Miss Morris gave glad tidings at Battersea, would like to support the cause there. an able discourse on' The Power of Thought.'-A. B. -Yours, &c., ANNIE BoDDINGTON, EXETER.-MARLBOROUGH HALL.-Mr. Elvin Frankisb gave Ho11. Treasurer. addresses, and Mrs. Letberen clairvoyant descriptions.-E. F. 17, Asbmere-grove, Acre-lane, CLAPHAM.-HoWARD-sTREET,NEW-ROAD.-Mrs. Neville spoke Brixton, S. W. on ' Peace, Pi.1rity, Power, and Prayer,' and gave psychometric delineatiollS.-C. C. SoUTHAM:PTON.-VICTORIA RooM8, PoBTLAND-STREET.-Mr. Pre-existence and Reincarnation. J. Watts gave an address on 'Spiritualism: The always P1·esent Srn,--Many persons fail to discriminate between pre-existence Faith,' the Rev. W. Garwood, M.A., presiding.-M. L. C. and preYious incamation. Origen's doctrine of the pre-existence SouTHsEA.-LEsSER VICTORIA HALL.-Mrs. F. Roberts, of of souls before birth into this world as humans, like that of Philo Leicester, gave interesting addresse~ and excellent clairvoyant J udoous and other Pharisees of t11e days of Jesus and of Paul, was descriptions.-J. W. M. a doctrine of the pre-existence of souls in a pure and inexperi BATTERSEA PARK-ROAD.-HENLEY-sTREET. - Mrs. Roberts enced state, and not a doctrine of previous incarnation. The gave an address on' The Spheres,' and Mr. Roberts clairvoyant Patristic allusions to John the Baptist, frequently quoted by descriptions.-N. S. reincamationists, so far from being due to belief in reincarnation, LINCOLN.-PROGREssnrE HALL, CoULTHAM-sTREET.-On were admittedly made by Fathers of the Church who held that both Sunday and Mondaylfrs. Nowell gave addresses and clair Elijah, yet not John the Baptist, was seen with Moses on the voyant descriptions.-C. R. Mount of Transfiguration. READING.-NEW HALL, BLAGRAVE - sTREET.-Mr. P. R. It is doubtful if there ever was a ' Christian ' doctrine of Street lectured on 'The Path of Development' and 'A Statement of pre-existence, but quite certain that there never was a 'Christian' Principles,' and Mrs. Street gave clairvoyant descriptions. 22nd, doctrine of reincarnation. Theosophists ignore the fact that address, underinfluence, by Mr. Street.-M. L. these two tl1ings are not necessarily one and the same.-Yours, PoRTSMOUTH.-M1zPAH HALL.-Mrs. L. Harvey gave ad &c., dresses, clairvoyant descriptions, and auric readings to large .J, DENHAM :r i\RSONS. audiences. 25th, Mrs. W. D. Freer gave addfeBl!eB and psycho 581 Ongar-road1 West llrom:pton1 S.W, _metl'ic deline!\tions.-W. P. f, igltt: A Journal of Psgohioa/, Oooult and Mgstioa/ Research . 'LIGHT! MORE LIGHT !'-Gaetke, • WHATSOEVER DOTH llfAKll: MANIFEST IS LIGHT.'-Paul. No. 1,587.-VOL. XXXI. [Registered as] SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 1911. [a Newspaper.] PRICE TWOPENCE. CONTENTS. Notes by the Wa.y •••• - •••••••. 265 The Chastenin~ of Matter •••••• 270 One of the particular teachings of our modern spiritual L.S.A. Notices ...... 266 Universal Spiritual Relilrlon .... 271 Remarkable Phenomena a.t a Life in This and Other Worlds, philosophy was well summarised by the sage when some Vicarage ...... 267 An Address by Mr. E. E; perturbed inquirer asked, 'What if a robber come and find An Echo of Medlmvalism • • . . . 267 Fournier d'Albe _ •.••••••••. 271 Interesting Phenomena in Den· A Successful Educational Ex· me alone and slay me i' 'Fool ! ' was the reply, ' not mark .•..••..•••••••••••••••. 268 periment ...... :. •. 278 •LIGHT ' and Reincarnation . • • 268 ANota.ble Sermon ...... 273 thee, but thy body. Thou art soul bearing up a corpse.' Evening Thoughts ••.••••••••••. 269 Rev. J. Page Hopps on Splrltnal- Hearers of Spiritual Voices ••••. 269 ism •••••••• ...... 274 It is strange to reflect that so great a thinker as ' Dngmar' •••••••••••••• _ •••••. 269 Consciousness in Living Matter 274 Epictetus should have been a slave. But time has avenged his memory, for we know very much more of the NOTES BY THE WAY. slave than of his master. We are between two fires. Some of our enthusiastic friends reproachfully declare that we do not attach suffi Life to-day is so full of interest, charm, change, novelty cient importance to the phenomenal aspect of Spiritualism and incident, and so many doors ate opening into realms and charge us with being too critical. On the other side of possible discovery and achievement that we could almost we are told by friendly critics that we think too much wish to stay here just to watch developments and see what about the phenomena and not enough about the religious life on earth will be like in two or three hundred years. and spiritual aspects of our subject. Sometimes we are Indeed, seeing that we must soon ' pass on ' we could assured that we go to the spirits far too frequently, and almost wish that we might be permitted to return to appraise their counsel at too high a valuation. At other life on this earth, provided that on re-awakening we times we are informed that we do not trust them enough. should be able to recollect our present experiences and Or, again, we are told that Spiritualism tends to weaken compare the people, their customs, environments and and unbalance the mind, and that we ought to trust the habits with those which exist to-day. But if one returned divine inner powers that we possess and think for our to earth, after the lapse· of a couple of centuries, minus all selves ; while other friendly counsellors tell us that we are conscious remembrance of identity and of a former visit too positive, too rationalistic, and too cautious. All of here (with all its interests, pursuits, habits, hopes, accom which we regard as a splendid testimonial to the success of plishments and companionships) there would be no s.ense our efforts to keep the medium course and hold the of continuity, no point of contact, no means of comparison balance evenly. or comprehension. To all intents and purposes, therefore, it would be another individual, not the same, who would To 'The Hindu Spiritual Magazine' for April Dr. then exist. It seems as if we shall have to be content to Peebles contributes a glowing tribute to the memory of watch developments here from the spirit world. As on Babu Shishir Kumar Ghose, the distinguished Hindu lookers proverbially 'see most of the game ' that may be reformer and journalist, who was also a devoted Spirit an advantage-especially as we may be able to telepathi ualist, and founder and editor of 'The Hindu Spiritual cally inspire and encourage those who will carry on the Magazine.' At the public demonstration in honour of the work. departed leader, which is reported in the same issue, the. Maharajah Bahadur of Durbhanga, K.C.I.E., who presided, A New York publication, 'The Christian Work anci said:- Eva~gelist,' wrestles with the urgent question whether The object of 'The Spiritual Magazine,' which he edited in Christendom is Christian. The result appears to be a his later years, was to dispel materialism and to convince drawn battle, but the negative gets in some sturdy blows. agnostics that there was an active life beyond the grave. As an advocate of a purely spiritual religion, he succeeded in gaining How can we be Christians, it asks, when we let thousands the friendship of such men as Professor Crookes and Mr. W. T. of children toil and starve while 'one man spends a Stead, and many others who wrote to him in warm appreciation hundred thousand dollars for a dinner-set to use three of his good work in the religious realm. or four times a year, in his gorgeous home, to entertain We of ' LIGHT ' cordially concur in the expression. of already overfed people 1' or while thousands of professed admiration and regret evoked by the passing on of our Christians squander more money on a few balls and Hindu fellow-worker, and wish all success to the magazine ' sports ' than would suffice to run a good business that which he founded and which is a worthy exponent of our would give employment for a whole year 1 subject. As a writer in 'The Swastika' points out, Epictetus, 'The word "Mystic,"' says 'K.W.H.' in' The Christian the Greek philosopher of the first century, uttered things Commonwealth,' is deriYed from "Muesis," which means that deprive some of our modern ideas of any appearance the closing of the eyes.' ·Possibly, we should imagine, of newness. Some of the doctrines of Mental and Christian because the early mystics were mediums, who were more Science, for example, are foreshadowed in the following :- or less entranced. 'K.W.H.,' however, asserts that:- It is not things, but the opinions about things, that trouble There is a natural mysticism ; the response of t11e per mankind. Thus, death is not terrible. If it were so, it would sonality, acting as a whole, to the Great Circumstance within so have appeared to Socrates, but the opinion we have about which it stands. The soul is not a separable and distinguishable q(lath, that is terrible-that js where the terror ltes, part wit}iin the man, the SOl1l is the 1\f1m 11s It W)lole, 266 LIGHT. [.Tune 10, 1911. The mystical faculty, which 'K.W.H.' defines as being Turning over the pages of that bright little book ' the immediate and direct apprehension of spiritual entitled 'Thinking for Results,' hy Christian D. Larson reality,' is, he says, latent in us all, and he concludes :- (The Progress Company, Chicago), already noticed on This natural mysticism is the great dynamic of all healthy, page 254, we came across some shrewd remarks relating vibrant, courageous life alike in the individual and in the com to a mode of thinking which takes the form by morbid munity. It is the vision for lack of which a people perishes. It sympathy. Mr. Larson says :- is an expe1·imental interior knowledge of God, apart from which The law that governs sympathy is this, that yon enter into no people can be 'strong and do exploits.' mental unity in a measure with everything with which yon sympathise, and that wlmtever you enter into mental unity with yon tend to imitate and produce in yourself. 'Vhen you A writer in 'The Open Road ' suggestively observes sympathise with a person who is in trouble do not think of the that it is not only things that matter, but also ' the rela trouble or the weakness, but think of that something within him that is superior to all trouble in existence. The man who is tions between things.' In illustration of his point he sick and in trouble does not want more tears. He has had remarks:- enough of them. · What he wants and what he needs is that We may put two boughs together and make nothing but a sympathy that can banish all tears and that can reveal the way faggot, or we may bring them together so as to form a graft, and to emancipation, power and joy. This being true, we must try produce a new tree, differing in q\iality from both the old oneR, to banish completely every form of morbid sympathy. It hurt.~ having, perhaps, the strengt.h of the stock and the flavour of the everybody. It perpetuates weakness and keeps the mind in other tree. . bondage. In applying this higher form of sympathy do not tell A person may give one hour to one subject of study and the. unfortunate that you are sorry. Tell them how to get rid one hour to some other subject, and the two groups of facts learned of their sorrow. Then do something substantial to speed them may stay separate in the mind, remaining isolated, unfruitful, fixed ou their way. T11is is sympathy that is worthy of the name. or diminishing in quantity. Another will let the two branches of knowledge come together in his mind, will see what light they Mrs. Mary T. Longley, writing in 'The Progressive throw on each other ; his knowledge of one subject will grow and widen even during hours when he is learning something else. Thinker,' in answer to the question, 'Of what earthly u11e are funeral sermons 1' very sensibly says :- This is well put, and it bears out the idea of a modern While it is pleasant for the relatives and friends of the school of thinkers that all things are either positive or deceased to hear good words spoken of the life and works of negative-even thoughts-and may be sterile or fertile the latter-and while it may eyen be encouraging to the accordingly as they are properly related to their opposites. ascended spirit thus to realise he was well thought of and re membered, yet this is not the practical value of the sermon or address, hut rather is ·it from the good it may do in causing 11earers to pause in the search for material things to consider Nature, as we construe her purpose, fa her dealings with the promptings of the spiritual side, the. immutability of law in man has something in view other than the evolution of a relation to death as well as to life, and the value of right living splendid animal. But the rickety baby, the sickly stunted all along the way. The true spiritual and uplifting funeral dis course will speak gently, hut not fulsomely, of the ascended one ; youth, the neurotic man or woman, are even wider of her . it will appeal to the finer sentiments. of the hearers, will point purpose. them· to the blessing of spiritual needs and graces, and urge their Disease and inffrmity are not attractive spectacles, but cultivation, no~ by neglecting earthly duties, but by ennobling so far they have been repellent mainly from the physical t.hem with the light of patience, the quality of courage, the power of perseverance, and the right liglit of unselfish aspiration stai1dpoint. The old-time savage with his natural bias in and effort to do that which is right. At funerals, most people favour of lusty animal vigour had his own barbarous are in a spiritual and receptive mocid, when they can bear to methods of dealing with the sick and feeble of his tribe. hear the truth, and it has a better chance of making an impression than it might have at any other time. The words that can give Even when the evolution of a moral sense brought about consolation to mourning hearts, comfort to the sad, information the establishment of the hospital and the infirmary, disease to the questioning, enlightenment to the ignorant, are of both was looked upon as purely physical in its repulsiveness. earthly and spiritual good. With the refining of human perceptions the spectacle of disease will afflict not only the physical and moral sense, LONDON SPIRITUALIST ALLIANCE, LTD. but also the resthetic sense. So long as the man remains DRAWINGS OF THE PSYCHIC AURA AND DIAGNOSIS OF DISEASE. unrefined he will tolerate many offensive and incongruous -On Wednesday next, June 14th, and succeeding Wednesdays, things if they do not appear _to menace his physical welf!\re. · from 12 noon to 5 p.m., at 110, St. Martin's-lane, W.C., Mr. When he grows more sensitive-as we know he is growing Percy R. Street will give personal delineations by means of the colours of the psychic aura of sitters, and will diagnose disease all the time-they will hurt him, just as a crude picture under spirit control. Fee 5s. to a guinea. Appointments or a discordant jangle of sounds pains the artist or the desirable. See advertisement supplement. musician. And then he will set to work to remove what he will have realised to be an evil of which the remedy is MR. W. J. COLVILLE'S LECTURES. in his own hands. A Series of Lectures will be delivered by Mr. W. J. Colville at the Rooms of the London Spiritualist Alliance, llO, St. Martin's-lane, W.C., on the following Tuesday and Thursday Many 'mental' and other 'scientists' set great store afternoons, commencing at three o'clock. Admission ls. by the power of thought, but behind, or beyond, all mental Tuesday, June 13-' Seership and Prophecy.' processes lies a realm of consciousness variously labelled Thursday, Jnne 15-' Spiritual Unfoldment: Is Intuition instinctive, intuitive, or religious. Whatever we may call Educable 1' it, the fact remains that we often feel more than we know, The Council of the London Spiritualist Alliance and Mr. and yet we know that we feel, and feeling is, after all, a W. J. Colville jointly invite MEMBERS of the Alliance to attend these meetings free of charge. kind oi knowing; and, as the Rev. F. A. Wiggin points out:- A RIGHTEOUS JuDGMENT.-The 'Glasgow Citizen' of l\Iay One has truly said,' History.is not made by the intellect, but 24th reported that 'the action in Paris to annul the will of by the emotions.' We cannot trust to the intellect for the in Mdme. Niolet, who left a fortune of sixteen thousand pounds, on auguration of reform movements, though it may wisely direct the ground that she was addicted to Spirittialism, has failed. such movements to ends of righteousness. It is the emotions, The French tribunal which decided the case has declared that the rising into expression of the hidden love-nature of human " The practice of occult sciences and Spiritualism should not in life which will do this. This is the soul or psychic force, in itself be considered sufficient to establish the insanity of the mankind, which radiates a powerful influence, setting into action person possessing such beliefs." The litigation has excited con tpe mental machinery, which tl1rns the wheels of correct act.ion. siderable inteNst.,' June 10, 1911.) LlGHT. 267 REMARKABLE PHENOMENA AT A VICARAGE. AN ECHO OF MEDIJEVALISM. On several occasions already we have given accounts of some Goethe, the German Shakespeare, once told our forefathers a remarkable happenings at a vicarage in this country, but for good story. It ran thus : A jovial company, sitting on an various reasons, which can readily be ttnderstood, we have been evening in a Leipzig hm, drinking beer and singing songs, unable to be more explicit as to the locality, and those reasons found among their number a gentleman of fine physique and still preclude our mentioning the name of the writer, Lut we splendid attire, who had apparently just arrived from Spain. may state that he is personally known to us and that we are He joined in their gaiety, mockingly sa11g• them a song about confident he is careful to ttnderstate rather than to exaggerate the unuatural love of a King for an insect, and, as their liquor the facts that h.e records. Our correspondent Writes :~ did uot approach in quality the beverage he was used to drink, Mother has removed, and there has been a marked lull in the literally drew them ' wine from the wood.> Any brand and any phenomena since her departure, though they have not ceased, quantity flowed from wherever Mephistopheles chose to bore and they are apparently beginning strongly again. We had the innkeeper's gimlet. The affair ended in a pyrotechnical dis· an investigator connected with a London society here for three play. They did not drink the devil's wine without spilling it, weeks, and though it was after mother's departure, still we got and what was spilled turned to fire I 11everal st1 iking manifestations. It was quite an ordinary congregation which met at a certain On April 9th my wife, servant, and little girl were all London Congregational Chapel a week or so ago. No one could together in the kitchen, when suddenly a figure of a woman have predicted there would be any supernatural display, and no appeared bearing a huge coffin in her hands. She had to turn one saw Mephistopheles enter the porch. Yet it was jnst this sideways to get it in at the door. She held it out to the terrified service rather than any other at which his Satanic Majesty spectators for a moment and then tumed it sideways again and might have been announced to attend. One of the greatest of passed up the passage and up the front stairs, followed by the spiritual truths was to be treated of, to wit : · 'Satan, the three witnesses, then down the back stairs. Again up the front Adversary and a Son of God!' No doubt the prince of the stairs and down the back st11irs the figure went, and finally dis power of the air thought that at la.st he was coming into his own ; appeared through the panels of the drawing-room door. When at last people were beginning to see he was really not so bad a.g the investigator, to whom I have already referred, came here from time immemorial he had been represented, nor so black as three days afterwards he examined all the witnesses on oath. he hacl been painted. Strange doctrines have of late been taught On Sunday, April 23rd, my wife, self, and the investigator in several London churches, which contra.st most severely with went to church ; my wifo and the investigator left the house the resolution of the Apostles of the Gentiles, ' I determine not at 5.45. I had set out earlier. On returning together we were to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him informed· by the servant and the little girl that during our crucified.' Nowadays our epiritual leail.ers aspire to teach absence they had heard singing proceeding from the grey room, us a theory of the universe which explains all things They said that they bnth went up to the top of the landing to and all relations existing or capable of being dreamed listen ; they were unable to distinguish the words, which of. Certainly our religious teachers fearlessly wander sounded as though hummed, but the tune was ' Peace, where even angels dread to tread. The sermon on Perfect Peace,' and the singing was very beautiful. It was this occasion was one of the usual intellectual feasts doled out followed by two 1-0ud crashes, and they ran downstairs very to this elect West-end congregation. It was rich in thought, much frightened. ilaving heard the girls' story, we three ran splendidly expressed both in language and delivery, and equal up to the room, and on opening the door found the wardrobe in spiritual insight to anything to be heard at the London thrown over on its face, two chairs thrown over, and the frame ethical and theosophical societ,ies, or even at the City Temple. of the wash-hand stand twisted. The girls said this happened lt was a heart-to-heart talk from the pastor to his flock, reveal about half au hour after my wife and the investigator had left ; ing to these spiritual babes wisdom long hidden from the wise this would be about 6.15 p.m. and prudent. He said the existence of evil was no less a pro Two days later, April 25th, we got a letter (posted· on the blem to the ancient Jews than it is to thinking men of the pre evening of Ap11.l 24th) saying tl1at my aunt had passed away on sent day. There had been a development in belief in the Sunday at 6.15 p.m. ! I did not know:that she was even ill, nor per3onal existence of the spirit of evil, particularly bet.ween the did any person in the house. On April 26th I went to the writing of the books of Samuel and Chronicles. Higher critics funeral, and was then informed that aunt had been a great singer state that the former were written about 700 B.C., and the in her youth, much in request at <;oncerts and oratorios, and that latter at approximately 350 B.C. The editor of the Chronicles for weeks past she had sung ' Peace, Perfect Peace ' as she lay 01i stated that it was Satan who provoked David to sin against God. her sick bed, and had done so up to a short time before her Apparently he could not believe that it was the Lord who tempted death ! When too feeble to pronounce the words she had David, as the earlier book states. In early times the hummed it or crooned it over. I got signed statements from Jews in their monotheism could not allow the idea of Satan those who attended her. It is one more marvel added to the existing as a rival with Jehovah, and the preacher saw more long series we have experienced, tl!ese last six months especially. trnth in this position than in the later one which savours of The investigator examined the witnesses on oath concerning Persian dualism. He proceeded: If we believe that evil is tlie marvellous happenings here, also the various servants we have utterly antagonistic to the divine plan, we at once introduce had in our employ for a considerable time past. A careful and chaos into the moral order I Modern dualistic thought repre systematic cross-examination by means of schedules, &c., was sents evil spirits as seeking admission into the sou.Ls of men to conducted, and ·the witnesses were found to substantiate one possess them and thereby to accomplish their evil designs. This another. I was informed by the investigator that he was con lowers the dignity of human personality in that it makes the vinced of the integrity of the witnesses. central ethical question not 'What· can I attain unto 1' but ' Whom can I manage to keep out 1' threatening also the seriour, impoverishment, if not even the very freedom, of the soul. MADAME S'l'. LEONARD desires to call the attention of her Rather should we adopt the view dramatically set before us by friends to the fact that she has taken rooms at 48, Conduit street, Bond-street, W. Edward Carpenter in one of his fine poems. Satan, the THE UNION OF LONDON SPIRI'fUALIB'l'S.-Conferences will adversary, like the prophet Zechariah saw him, stands defiant be held with the Tottenham Society at tlrn Chestnuts, 684, and invites the soul to war. They close. The soul is High-road, on Sunday next, June 11th. An open-air meeting at slain. Yet, lo ! phwnix-like, the soul rises, clothed anew 3 o'clock, addresses by l\Iessrs. G. T. Brown, F. ·Dawson, and in a stronger vehicle, and the fight continues till Satan G. F. Tilby. Evening meeting at 7-speakers, .l\Iessrs. G. T. is agaiu victorious, and he flings his opponent mortally Gwinn, Brown, and G. F. Tilby. On Sunday, June 18th, at wounded from him. Again and again the phcenix soul returns Kingston Assembly Rooms, at 3 o'clock, Mr. G. T. Brown will read a paper, to be followed by discussion. At 7 p.m. to battle, each time with reuewed energy and increased vitality, speakers, Messrs. R. Boddington, G. T. Brown, and 1\I. Clegg. It till at last it conquers ! Its eyes are opened, and it beholds in is hoped that there will he large audiences at these conferences. the adversn,ry n, very Archangel of God, a Ben-Elohim, who calls 268 LIGHT. [June 10, 1911. him 'Friend ! ' and passionately exclaims, ' I love thee ! ' This, ' LIGHT' AND REINCARNATION. the preacher contended, is the true view of evil. Each con quered temptation gives its strength to the victor. Things can What a grand heading the above makes. It is in itself an not be divided into good and evil ; all are good as soon as they answer to the question 'Is reincarnation true 1' and it is the are brought into subjection. The mastery of the lower over true key which unlocks the ' puzzle-box.' It is 'The Light' the higher is unnatural. It was never meant -to be, and can which reincarnates, and not, Mr. Editor, the personal Bruno never permanently be. Temptation resisted is a means of Hypatia who becomes the Mrs. Besant, nor the Mary Magdalene spiritual evolution, and the secret heart of everything, even of Anne Boleyn who becomes the Anna Kingsford. I know of Satan, is love I three alleged reincarnations of ' Jesus Christ' ; two are in the As the sermon progressed, one certainly felt, a:;i Browning asylum because they say 'I am Jesus Christ,' the other is at large declared, ' God's in His Heaven ; all's right with the world.' because he is 'cute enough to say 'I was Jesus Christ.' The What report would have gone forth had it been preached a difference of the tense of the verb to be saved him. Now, if thousand years ago, cannot be imagined. For behold, it had these worthy theosophical friends of ours were to cease teaching the same pyrotechnical ending as Goethe's story I Hardly had the reincarnation of the personal (the phenomep.al), and to teach that the impersonal (the nou1nenon) throws up in its evolution he last word escaped the preacher's lips than sheets of light· differentiations of itself which return to itself by its own in riing shot forth, and harmlessly but terrifyingly played about his volution, thereby dropping all personalities, attributes, shapes, very desk where that precious manuscript had lain. This con forms; and names ; then, Mr. Editor, we 'mere Spiritualists.' tinued for several seconds. The superstitious of a bygone age might say 'you have realised Deity; we admit that light would have ignored the fact that something had gone wrong with reincarnates; we have known it for years '-the actuality behind the preacher's reading-lamp, and would stoutly have affirmed the illusion of the personality. that God was greatly displeased with the pastor for whitewash Being used to pain and mental agony, I have learned to love those sweet ministering angels : sorrow, sickness, solitude, and ing the devil. The twentieth-century congregation certainly death ; and not for worlds would I 'come back' in order to thought Satan was equally displeased for having thus been have 'a happy life as a reward.' I am rewarded now, beyond ignominiously deprived of his horns, hoofs, and claws. all 'next incarnation' hopes, in having, through a dark and G. W. BucKTHOUGHT. lonely valley, found the light which incarnates. As a psychic I have demonstrated all the clairvoyant faculties necessary to prove that I have facts at my back.* Such facts as have not INTERESTING PHENOMENA IN DENMARK. been demonstrated (to outsiders and investigators) by those who write books, and speak, as one of them has done, of 'a Spiritualism is spreading in a quiet but forcible manner in Spiritualist of the most _pronounced type given to black magic' some of the smaller towns and villages in Denmark. In the town of a gratuitous insult, as childish and as ignorant as are the Papal Hoblaek there has been formed a small circle of four persons, curses which are hurled at the Spiritualism which "has made who have obtained wonderful physical manifestations. The Theosophy a possibility and Christianity, in its less materialistic medium is a young man named Larsen, who belongs to the working aspect, an acceptable belief to the man of science. Meanwhile, I would like to ask for the production of one single well-evidenced class, and the seances are held at the house of Mr. Jorgensen. At clairvoyant demonstration by ' the trained' seers of Theosophy. first Mr. Jorgensen's dining-table, weighing eighty pounds, was True, Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater went astrally to the North used, but the manifestations were so rough that the legs got Pole and found 'an island beautiful and spring-like.' Unfor· damaged. Then a deal table was made which weighed about tunately a common explorer went there in his physical body and sixty pounds, and so strongly put together that there was no found solid chunks of frozen H20 and an. unfathomable ocean beneath. Mara, the one inhabited planet according to science, chance of breaking it ; rubber heels were put on the legs to is the uninhabited one according to Theosophy's trained seers. lessen the noise when the table is banged on the floor. The Venus is Theosophy's inhabited planet and science's non-in· usual table movements take place, and messages are spelt out habited one. Theosophy teaches that the moon is approaching by means of raps. The sittings are held in partial darkness, the earth and vampiring(!) her. Science teaches that the moon and at times the table is lifted entirely off the floor (with the is receding from the earth, and is gradually losing her pull upon legs quite clear of any contact). At such times the sitters have the earth's tides I been permitted to switch on a little electric lamp, and see the Let us be granted the spectrum, and we can easily produce a book upon the colours in the human aura. If we knew (some of phenomena. Messages have been spelt out by the table, giving us) that the colour of the poppy is not in the flower, but in the facts which were not known to any of the sitters, and which have mind of the person who sees the poppy (note, colour-blind people been verified afterwards. For example, a spirit came who said see blue poppies), we might have 'trained seers' admitting that that his name was Severin Hausen, that he died at South the colour is not in the human aura, but in the psychic eye Dacota, U.S., and his parents were living in a town in Denmark, which sees the human emanations, and some of llil might realise giving the address. A letter sent to the address in question that the psychic eye often sees what it has been cons-' trained' to see (by hypnotism or suggestion). brought a reply from the father stating that the information was quite correct. The name of 'Zampa' was also given, which 'No-BonY.' the father could not understand. At the last seance the spirit explained that ' Zampa ' was the name of a dog. This statement, It seems to me that belief, or non-belief, in reincar· however,ha,s not yet been verified. The medium also has the power nation is entirely a personal matter, and that it is more than of clairvoyance at times, and has been. able to get test messages in probable that many who accept it are in every respect quite as writing. For instance, on one occasion he wrote in English the reasonable beings as the best class ol those who do not. Be it words 'little girl.' Now, he knows nothing of our language, true or not, by our life here on the physical plane we are pre· and the Danish for ' little girl ' bears no resemblance to the paring ourselves for the next stage, and as we sow, so must we English. Another time a spirit was controlling, who said he reap ; or in other words, the position we shalli'occupy arid the came from Schleswig-Holstein, and a certain set of words was work we shall be given to do, when we pass to the next stage of given which are only used in that part of the country, and not life, will be the position we have prepared for ourselves and the known in Zeeland, the part of Denmark where the sittings are work for which we have qualified. Let those who consider they held. Sometimes the table is made so heavy that it is impos have sufficient reasons for believing in reincarnation do so, and sible to lift it. All these phenomena are taking place in a let those who think differently do so, without on either part dog little quiet town away from any great centre, and the friends matising. Surely the main point for each one is so to live this are receiving proof of spirit action that cannot be disputed. life as to secure the best results. Then, if reincarnation be true, ALFRED VouT PETERS. we shall all the sooner be freed from the necessity of coming back to earth to learn more of its lessons. If not, we shall have 'HOLIDAYS ABROAD' is the title of a pretty little illustrated made good progress and have helped many others to do so, and booklet which gives particulars of a series of tours in leas shall find the harvest well worth all the work we have done and known di'!tricts of Holland, North Germany, the 11ide valleys the pain and'trouble it may have cost us. of the Rhine, the Belgian Ardennes, and the Tyrol, easily and WELL-WISHER. inexpensively reached by the Great Eastern Railway Company's * Our correspondent has certainly afforded many convincing proofs Harwich route to the Continent. It can be obtained free by that he possesses clairvoyant and other psychic powers, having given sending postcard to the Continental manager, G.E.R., Liverpool• manf recognised descriptions of spirit v.:iople, accompanied by messages street Station, London, E.C. provmg their identity.-[En. 'LIGHT.] Jiune 10, 1911.] LIGHT, 269 EVENING THOUGHTS. In place of doubt, and fear, and dread, comes.in that calm and confident repose of soul no pen may show to him who ha.s • Oh that I might come even to His seat ! I would order my ca.use before Him.' not faced himself the raging storm and felt the stifling dark· Jon xxiii., 3, 4. ness. And this the most o'erwhelming thought of all a.a I look back upon the time of strain-Before I called, e'en while the How great a change in so short space of time ! A few brief bitter thoughts had filled my mind, He answered. Praised be moments since, and this spot seemed the very threshold of His ~I ~~a wondrous throne-room. Yonder, where lingers still the after· glow reluctant to give place to night's advance, His glistening throne was set. And on the throne I even seemed to see the HEARERS OF SPIRITUAL VOICES. very form of the Unseeable-so bright its dazzling glory; while o'er the glistering silver pathway, laid across the azure floor e'en 'The Walking Parson' (A. N. Cooper), writing from :Rouen to this very spot directly from God's throne, innumerable spark· to the London 'Daily Chronicle,' contributed, on :May 30th, an lets showed ,there feet of angels trod in eager haste to do His interesting article on 'Joan of Arc and the Supernatural.' After hests Whose ·nallie is Love. referring to her remarkable life and martyrdom, he shrewdly But now, the throne has gone; the silver carpet's rolled; and retorts on those who regard her as a victim of hallucinations by bright-robed spirits of the Light give place to Night's uncheerful asking : ' Was France able, in the hour of her national distress in crowd. Nearer the deepening shadows hold their chilling 1871, to find a victim of hallucination ready to take the head course, changing the sea's rich azure to lugubrious gray in sad of her armies, to restore victory to her banllers, and to bring agreement with the darkening skies. Alike the dancing wavelet back to her maternal bosom the two fair provinces of Alsace and on the deep below and fleecy cloudlet of the deep above feel Lorraine, which the enemy had seized 1 ' dontimu11g, he says :~ their chill breath, and languish. Deep sighs to deep in heavy Joan's own account certainly explains things. The heavenly condolence, and all the air is filled with sighs in place of songs, powers called her, taught her, aided her, put words into her What is that mystic something in the spell of eventide that mouth and thoughts into her mind which would never have so transforms, with startling suddenness, the erstwhile happy been there but for them. With her latest breath J oah declared music of the rippling swell upon a pebbly shore into a long· that the Voices she had heard had not deceived her. The wise men to whom we are most inclined to liste11 to,day drawn, sobbing sigh of dourest melancholy, and makes the deep. are ever telling us the world has never been different from what toned song of ocean seem one endless, hopeless moan 1 How it is now. The same forces are at work as ever :~ great a change, indeed ! For now no bee sings her sweet song amongst the heather bells ; no soaring lark pipes her glad hymn Where rolls the deep, there grew the tree1 0 Earth, what changes thou hal!t seen l of praise.; no twittering sparrow flits across the gorse. Instead, There, where the long street roars, hath beetl from out the darksome wrinkles of the cliff's stern brow The stillness of the central sea. creeps forth t~e loathsome bat, to wheel his magic circl~ round my head, squ:eaking his hateful incantations. And the eerie If so, where are the voices of Joan 1 It is obvious that it i5 as necessary there should be ears to hear as well as voices that owl darts stealthily by with no more noise, nor less velocity, than speak. Kossuth said of J oah that she was the only entirely well-aimed arrow speeds intent on death. Amongst the gorse unselfish person in profane history. No vestige of self-seeking and bracken roams the fox, whose course is marked by hapless can be found in any word or deed of herl!. Provided there are victims' cries of pain and terror. Nearer and nearer still those people like Joan, are these voices still speaking 1 shadows creep, colder and colder yet Night's ntttnbiug breath, When, some two years ago, Mr. Asquith made the sensational denser the awful veil betwixt my sottl and my soul's Father. appointment of Dr. Lang to the See of York, naturally inquirieg were made into his past. It was known he had not been in• No helpful influence near that can consort with that of God within, tended for the Church. After gaining a fellowship at All Souls' and cheer the gloom. Alas ! thil! creeping gloom l How does College, Oxford, young Lan~ read for the Bar. He kept his it shut out Heaven and Hope, and all on which the higher self terms and ate his dinners down to the very eve of his call, and depends. Just now 't'Yas good to be-but now life presses on that evening a telegram was received at Lincoln's Inn cancel· wearily: and all the ills that have been, are, and will be, seem ling all engagements, giving up the Bar, and stating that he was about to enter Holy Orders. What had brought about the concentrated in the eBSence of these shadows that on every side change 1 A family living, or parental pressure 1 Neither, he creep, so relentless, nearer. In telTified dismay my head sinks heard a voice calling him, like Joan, to an unselfish renuncia· wearied into my trembling hands, and tny whole being, body and tion of all he held dear. sphit, quakes beneath the crushing load. Oh that the good God Last year, in a Yorkshire church, there took place a marriage -if there be such God-would raise this gloom and show Him under circumstances some called romantic and others providen· self my friend l Ah ! show Himself, that's it! Could I but see tial. A young man, who was making his way in a mercantile house in India, was engaged to a girl in England, who was a Him, then would I plead my cause with all the eloquence of governess. One day the young man went to his superior and desperation, show Him the ills and wrongs of life, and beg an told him he must return at once to England. His chief remon answer to its fearsome riddles that so perplex and sadden, strated, told him his leave was not yet due, and pointed out sapping my life of all its sweetness, and but, leaving me the that it would seriously interfere with his prospects if he went. bitter dregs of dark despair. He does not know ! Or worse, Home the young man came, need it be said what house he made He does not care ! That vision of the sunset was but an idle for, and found his fiancee about to be turned almost penniless from the door. No telegram or letter had been sent, warning fancy. Angels do not walk the earth, and God is not the Father him of the approaching dismissal ; he had heard a voice, that we have thought Him. was all. And thus from bad to worse my thoughts ran on, till what Everything has now been done to rehabilitate Joan in public dark ditch of horrid blasphemy would be their final goal I estimation. It is now taken for granted throughout France know not: for their course was stayed by a soft whisper, that the highest possible honour awaits her name, and that she rather felt than heard, borne subtly on a waft of perfume from soon will be canonised as a saint. · the golden gorse-' 'Tis false, for God is good, and Earth is full of Heaven.' Like him of old who in the Spirit mused, I started 'DUGMAR.' up to see the Voice that spake-and lo ! the dreaded shadows had but ushered in another world of beauty, softer, holier than The interesting article entitled 'Dugtnar,' which appeared the first. No longer bound to that thin line of light, God's on p. 254 in ot1r last issue, was gpecially written for 'LIGHT' by angels filled the gpacious vault of Heaven, a countless host of Mrs. Alice Grenfell, who is deeply interested both in Spiritualism.. shining witnesses ; and all the world below their presence felt, and Egyptology. We much regret that by a strange mischance fitly responding. . , the name of the author did not accompany the article in ques• I wake, as from a frightful nightmare freed. Those wither· tion, but we are sure that MrP. Grenfell will be pleased to know ing shadows, though they closed around and threatened, yet that it has been much appreciated by many readers, to whom it have been restrained by some benignant Power that said~ has afforded a good illustration of the fact that in these modern ' Thus far, no farther, shall ye come I ' days the 'Gift of Tongues' is not ·confined to the spoken word. 270 LIGHT. [June 10, 1911. OFFiCE OF 'LtGii'r,; ito, ST. MARTIN'S LANF., us, alas, need not to be told of it-we have our knowledge LONDON, W.C. at first hand ! The arena in which is being fought out the SATURDAY, JUNE lOrn, 1911. stern struggle for existence is being gradually transferred from the physical to the mental realm and the 'wear and iight: tear' of it, while it often means worry, anxiety and A Journal of Psychical, Occult, and Mystical Research. disquiet, means also a constant attenuation of the grosser PRICE TWOPENOE WEEKLY. animal elements, so that little by little the psychical forces are enabled to assert themselves. In short, a process of COMMUNICATIONS intended to. be printed should be addressP.d to the Editor, Office of 'LIGHT,' 110, St. Martin's Lane, London, W.C. refinement is at work, painful and troublous, indeed, because Business communications should in all cases be addressed to Mr. :!!'. W. South, Office of 'LIGHT,' to whom Cheques and Postal man has not yet found that 'more excellent way'-har Orders should be made payable. · mouious co-operation with 'the Power that makes for righteohsness.' 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With APPLICATIONS by Members and Associates of the London Spirit each advance in mentality the area of purely physical life ue.list Alliance, Ltd., for the loan of. books from the Albe.nee Library should be addressed to the Librarian, Mr. B. D. Godfrey, shrinks. There is no going back. And with the wearing Office of the Alliance, 110, St. Martin's-lane, W.C. down of the grosser fabric of life comes, as we have said, in creased activity on the part of the psychical forces. And THE CHASTENING OF MATTER. here, we think, is one explanation of that growing respon siveness to the vibrations of the higher world refelTed to There is a great truth underlying the old idea of by Mrs. Besant in the last address which she delivered on 'mortifying the flesh '-a great truth crudely apprehended the platform of the London Spiritualist Alliance. Alludi1ig and often expressed in a repellent and distorted way. The to the increasing sensitiveness of humanity to the more ascetics and devotees who sought and who still seek (for subtile forces, she remarked, 'How many are conscious now their race has not yet died out), by macerating their of what is called premonition-receiving a warning, per bodies, to attain spiritual victories are not without some haps, of the illness of some distant friend who ,is much measure of justification. In a dim fashion they have felt beloved! How many have known of the death of a fr.end that matter is somehow a barrier, something to be broken long before the telegraph or the post has .· brought the down before the spirit can obtain full expression. In news ! We find an increasing number of cases in which Europe thA cult of (physical) self-torture and (physical) there is a definite communication with that world, irregular self-neglect attained its height in the Middle Ages-days of and spasmodic though it be,' " intellectual darkness, perhaps, but days in which men were prepared to do and suffer greatly for their religious Those acute observations of Mrs. Besa1~t were, arid are, amply corroborated by the experience of all Spiritualists ideals. To the man who desired to consecrate him self to the religious life the world was either a desert who watch the signs of the times. There is undoubtedly or a place of sham and specious delights, and the body an a great development at work, ultimating. in the evolution incubus. Even that winsome soul, the gentle St. Francis of those finer senses that will still more closely relate the of Assisi, friend of all living things, came under the influ human race to that higher world tow;ards which its attitude ence of the idea, and in his quaint way spoke of his body has so long been one of doubt, terror or vague speculation. as ' Brother Ass.' But mild disdain was not sufficient for From the physical to the mental, from the mental to the the austere pietists of those days, and they flogged, starved psychical, and from the psychical to the spiritual. Such is the route of the human pilgrimage. · and tortured their physical frames for their soul's health, as they said. Nevertheless, on this question of what we have called We have come to think differently to.day. We have ' the chastening of matter,' let it be clearly understood that learned that matter has a dignity of its own, and that the we are far from acquiescing in what is quite rightly regarded body has its legitimate place in the scheme of things. In as a deplorable evil, we mean physical decadence. By all fact, at one time the strong reaction from medireval doc and every means let us have sound bodies, alert, active and trines threatened to carry us to the other extreme in which responsive to the needs of the indwelling spirit. matter would entirely eclipse spirit. We spoke in a recent article of 'The Supremacy of the And yet, as we have said, there was a truth underlying Soul,' and it is here especially that the soul will display its this old idea of the need of subjugating matter in order conquering energy. Matter must be chastened and subdued that the soul shall have more complete expression. In one that it may be the soul's fit and wor.thy instrument. The aspect that truth relates to the necessity of subduing the House of Life must be made 'pure and beautilul for its purely aniruitl appetites. But it connects also, we think, divine tenant. And in this work Spiritualists-and we with perceptions of an even larger fact-the chastening of include in that term all schools of thought whose work matter by the spiritual forces of Evolution. relates understandingly to the spiritual nature of man-are In the dim beginning of things matter was gross and taking a leading part. To them is assigned the task of intractable. Fire and earthquake wrouglit and moulded it, making the path straight, by recording and tabuiating the and all the giant upheavals and catastrophes of the early evidences of man's spiritual origin and by providing the world were needed to render it malleable to the more means whereby the unseen powers may demonstrate their subtile forces that were to deal with it later. And in existence, however imperfectly. Now and again some one form or another the stern disciplining continues. avenue of communication seems to close-we have seen it, We see the process still going on, but its chief activities fo1· example, in the c;isc of that curious cessation of physical now are concerned with mankind .. On every hand we hear phenomena which has so gre;ttly exercised many earnest; of the strain of- existence, the tension 011 brain, nerve and souls. The thing, at first sight, appears inconsistent with body .imposed by the conditions of modern life. Most of the idea of a breaking down of the barriers, a thinning of June 10, 1911.) LIGHT. 271 the veil between the two worlds. The eclipse, of course, LIFE IN THIS AND OTHER WO.RLDS; may be purely temporary-we are dealing with highly BY MR. E. E. FOURNIER n'ALBE, B.Sc. (LoNn.). subtile laws whose working we are scarcely, as yet, even beginning to understand. Or it may be that those wondrous An Address delivered to the Members and Associates of. the manipulations of. the .grosser matter of this world were London Spiritualist Alliance on Thmsday evening, May 11th, sporadic and will not recur, at any rate to the same extent. in the Salon of the Royal Society of British Artists, Mr. H. The old order changeth, yielding place to new, Withall, the vice-president, occupying the chair. A.nd God fulfils Himself in many ways. (Continued froni page 260.) However it be, we may cherish the thought that the light is· coming thi·ough other windows. Might we not even put I am, In bringing this address to a close I am vividly conscious of vegetables estimated to be worth £500. To the community the having but touched the fringe of an illimitable expanse. 'The experiment has been of value, not only from the moral point of conditions of life '~why, life is superior to all conditions. It view, but financially. A district, noted for its sickliness, is now alone exists, nothing else does. All we can do is to inquire one of the healthiest in the city, while property has been into the special conditions attached to certain familiar types of enhanced in value many thousands of dollars. To the children, life which we happen to be acquainted with. I think our the benefits, physical, mental, and moral, have been inestimable. inquiry has, on the whole, given us ample material for joy and They learn, too, the virtues of self-government, making their consolation, and I am one of those who believe that our racial own laws and enforcing them. There are now two garden cities over-soul has implanted in us a wholesome dread of death lest in Worcester, and by means of Electoral Committees they have .the light shine upon us too brightly from beyond, and lure us appointed a Governor to preside over their joint destinies. Each away before our earthly task is done. (Loud applause.) city is organised with a Mayor, City Council of seven members, Garden Commissioner, Street Commissioner, Water Commis In reply to questions the lecturer deprecated as unnecessary sioner, Tool Commissioner, and forty police officers, who protect any atteIV;p,~. to connect life with electricity. We knew practi the gardens and enforce law and order. This is surely a step in the cally nothing of electricity, and it was a dangerous thing to right direction, and one that is capable of wide application and explain one thing in terms of another, unless that other was the extension. It is often said that children are little savages more familiar. .As te whether he thought the future life would until they are properly trained ; and, just as with 'children be a physical one, he said that there must be no abrupt break of an older growth,' these youngsters have been educated by of continuity. We had no direct means of establishing any being given something to do, by being trusted and held respon relation between this life and a transcendental life. To trust sible. The moral will apply equally well in national affairs. to the latter alone was a measure of despair. It left the whole field to the enemy. It was better to take the world as it was A NOTABLE SERMON. and build on that. The meeting closed with a hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Judging from the striking sermon he preached on the even Fournier d.' A.lbe for his instructive and thought-provoking ing of Easter Sunday (rep01·ted in the 'Natal Witness' for April lecture. 29th) the Rev. A. G. Bridges, Congregational minister of Natal, must be a man after the Rev. Arthur Chambers' own heart. Indeed, THE WONDERS OF THE BODY. he reminds us strongly of our friend the Vicar of Brockenhurst in the fearlessness with which he expresees advanced ideas. He The Berlin correspondent of the ' Sketch ' reports that began his sermon by protesting against a morbid view of death, Dr. A. Caan, of the Heidelberg Cancer Institute, announces that reminding his hearers that Jesus came back from the other world parts of dissected human bodies which could not possibly have a little more than a day after death, and his first words were' All come into contact with isolated radium, showed all the qualities Hail ! ' rejoice I 'Be glad ! ' Death ought not, Mr. Bridges associated with radium, like which element, they have the power thought, to be the gloomy thing it was to most of us, after that of turning air passed over them into a good conductor of electri ' All Hail ! ' With regard to the idea of prayer for the dead, he city, the air losing most of its isolating power :- had no hesitation in saying that it was a very beautiful one, Parts of the body affect actinically a photographic plate, so ' that it was. far better that people should pray for the dead ·, t"hat man, toK·some extent, could photograph himself in than that they should not pray at all,' and he could not give up his own light. Dr. Borness announces that the brain substance is radio-active, and under certain conditions irradiates a faint the idea that they pray for us. He said :- glow. 'Science,' he says, 'has always derided the idea of the For forty years I know that my own father prayed for us halo or nimbus, but now science comes to confirm the religious his children, every day. I don't suppose he ever missed. He legend. The nimbus is a fact invisible, indeed, to the ordinary died three years ago this Easter, and I know that he is nearer eye, but perhaps visible in another age and under abnormal to God now than then, and that he knows more about our needs conditions of the body and mind.' now than he did then. I don't believe he has perfect knowledge or light yet, but I think it is growing, and is probably gradual. . . I can't conceive that the one of whom I am A SUCCESSFUL EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENT. thinking has ceased to speak to God about me, now that he has not the same kind of body as mine. I am bound to think that A large part of the May number of that lively little American the dead pray for the Iiving. We, too, his children, prayed for magazine, 'The Nautilus,' is devoted to articles descriptive of a him ; why should we stop the day he died 1 Dr. George Mac remarkable experiment in social betterment, which with very donald, in 'Robert Falconer,' describes the perplexity of a poor little expenditure 11as had marvellous results. This is nothing old body who did not know whether her son was living or dead. less than a children's 'garden city.' The city described, which She thought it would be a sin to pray for the dead, but she consists of over seven hundred gardens, was inaugurated at wanted to pray for him, and natural affection was the stronger. She went on praying. Worcester, Mass., four years ago, in a district inhabited by twent"y-two nationalities, and containing twenty thousand .As to the New Testament teaching about resurrection, children. Poverty and intemperance were much in evidence, Mr. Bridges pointed out that though there are passages in the and offences against property prevailed to an alarming extent. Epistles that represent the dead as in their graves waiting for The commandment 'Thou shalt not steal' was regarded as a the last trump, Jesus himself clearly taught us to believe in good joke by the youngsters. Talk was of little use. It was a resurrection that is immediate :- felt that the best plan was to give them some property of their Death disconnects the spirit, that is the person, from a own to develop the feeling of ownership, and thus lead to a perishable body, which is dropped off and left behind for ever. There's no further use for it. It is refuse. We love even the respect for property. So a five acre lot, a breeding place for dead body, but we should soon loathe it. I can't conceive the malaria and mosquitos, known as 'Dead Cat Dump,' was secured. long wait that the creeds have spoken about. The perish This was cleared by the children ; the hollows were fillet.I up with able body no sooner drops away than the spirit is clothed upon. street sweepings and material from newly dug cellars, and the 'There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.' Don't ground was then staked off into gardens, divided from one another feel that you have seen the last of, or spoken the last to, your by little streets, which were named after the children making the dead. We shall not have these bodies, but we shall not be phantoms. We shall be clothed upon, as Paul put it. Possibly, best record in good conduct and good service. There were over if we have only known each other by our bodies, and not by the seven hundred gardens cultivated by eight hundred children, to self that is at the back of them, we shall not recognise each other, whom, on payment of 2!-d. each, packets of seed, and, in or want to ; there would be nothing to recognise. We may have most cases, tools were distributed l)y the Worcester Social to say to some people, ' Sorry I have forgotten you,' but where Settlement Association, to whose head, the Rev. R. J. Floody, there ha.~ been genuine love and regard I believe, without know t.he scheme owed its inauguration. Prizes were offered for the ing why I believe it, tliat the recognition will be more immediate than that with which the mother in the oft-told story best gardens, with good conduct and faithful service to be in recognises in the weather-beaten, bearded wanderer who knocks cluded in the marking. The result of this encouragement was at her door for a 11ight's shelter, the smootl1-faced !Joy who ran that the young gardeners raised on their little farms a crop of away to sea so many years earlier. 274 LIGHT. [June 10, 1911. REV. J, PAGE HOPPS AND SPIRITUALISM. brain was also an instrument of forgetfulness as much as one of remembrance, were we not led to suppose that the effort con The following characteristic confession concerning Spirit tinued beyond, and that in the passage of consciousness through ualism was found among the papers of our deceased friend, the matter consciousness was tempet·ed like steel and tested itself, by Rev. John Page Hopps. It has a peculiar value now that the clearly constituting personalities, and preparing them, by the very effort which each was called upon to make, for a higher bright and keen mind that i·ecorded it has passed to the spirit form of existence. Agreeing that in man consciousness no world of which he wrote so confidently. 1\Ir. Hopps said :- longer remained imprisoned, there was no repugnance in admit· I am often asked what I am, what I believe, what I know, ting that in man, though perhaps in his alone, consciousness pttr and what I advise concerning wl1at is called 'Spiritualism.' It sued its path beyond this earthly life. will save trouble if the following brief statement be accepted 'till further notice ' : MENTAL THERAPEUTICS. I. What I mn.-l think I am sane. I believe I am tolerably honest. I do not think I am a coward. I am not over anxious to be 'thought well of.' I know I am seeking the trnth. Under the presidency of Dr. Rohert Bell, Mr. Arthur Hallam, II. What I beliere.-l believe that there is no such thing as hon. secretary of the Psycho-Therapeutic Society and editor of dcath-tbat wl1at people call death is only an act of 'transition' 'The Health Record,' lectured recently at the Caxton Hall, -the passing out of the real being from its temporary dwelling Westminster, on 'Mental Therapeutics.' He said that mental place ; that the real things are all in the spirit world, or, to use influence played a very significant part in connection with the words of Paul, that 'the things which are seen are temporal, general well-being, but if consciously applied in the acquisition but the things which are not seen are eternal' ; that, when the and maintenance of perfect health, it was even more remarkable. real immortal creature passes out of the body it finds itself in Fear, worry, excitement or agitation all reacted upon bodily the world of etemal and essential forces, a world infinitely more functious, causing a negative condition of mind and body ; indeed, real than this which serYes for and is in harmony with the limited no diseases, not even the common cold or iniluent.a, were caught powers of the organs of the flesh. by persons physically and mentally fit. Anything acting III. TV/tat I know.-l know that singular phenomena occur prejudicially on the mind and body lowered the vitality and wliich I am utterly unable to explain, except on the hypothesis rendered one an easy victim to unhealthy influences. Arii:1iug that there are unseen intelligent human beings at work, con from the harmful, negative attitude of mind also came trolling forces which the material eye cannot perceiYe. I know introspection and self-analysis, followed by fixed ideas, that these phenomena occur in the light of day and in the homes neurosis, and often melancholia. Mental disturbances led of some of the brightest and best people I have ever known. I to disorder of the ner\•ous system, with consequent diminu know that the theory of 'impo&ture' is absurd, as a theory which tion of local nutrition, thereby leading to organic disease. covers any appreciahle part of the ground, and that the explana If we knew the symptoms of disease, it was an easy matter to tion of 'delusion' or 'the devil' is simply the refuge of the think ourselves into them, and especially was this the case with destitute. nervous diseases. It was equally tme that health and strength IV. TY/tat I atfo.ise.-l advise rational people to refrain from depended on mental control, but few persons realised how the assumption that this or that is 'impossiule' or that they the mental factor could be consciously utilised in the prevention know everything-to call nothing ' common ·'or unclean' that and treatment of disease. We should be sntli.ciently positive is tme-to seek after tmth and to be in downright earnest and well-balanced to refuse to be influenced by injurious about finding it. To this end, I advise them to avoid lazy impressions froni. without. If our spontaneous cheerfulness scepticism, to take trouble, to deruand evidence, to sift everything were lost, we should act and speak as if cheerfulness were to the bottom, to believe nothing t.hat repels scmtiny, or that already there. If such conduct did not make us soon feel refuses tests-to go steadily on, careless of what the world says, cheerful nothing else would. The power of thought was of what the newspapers say, of what the 'men of science' and enormous, and enforced thoughts of happiness and well heir gallipots say ; to believe there may be a God even thought being, even when trouble and ill-health were upon us, ]lad Professor Brown cannot take Him to pieces, that there may be an etrect the beneficial character of which could hardly be exaggerated. How much brighter and happier life would be if an immortal spirit even tl1ough Dr. Jones cannot catch it ; that people could be induced pe1·sistently to maintain a buoyant and there may be a future life for real men, women and children, even though Sir J. Robinson cannot see it ; and that God's cheerful mental attitude, to resolve steadfastly to preserve their angels may be near us even though the vast majority ot mental equilibrium under all circumstances, anrl not, as now, allow themselves to be swayed and ruflied by eve1-y trivial worry. Christians, who talk as though they believed it, are shocked when It did not make us any better to advertise our miseries, and it we say it is really tme. Finally, I advise the superior people made other people worse. There could be no reason for telling who are free from superstition and delusion to leave a little our troubles except that we desired to be pitied ; and no one room for discovery, to avoid the bigotry of unbelief which is who desired pity was in a constrnctive frame of mind. The ?ften little Letter and not much wiser than the bigotry of sympathy habit, o~e formed, was hard to break. The desire to tell our t1·oubles and recefve commiseration grew almost irre · orthodoxy,' and to be patient with all seekers in this direction sistible if we indulged it ; and yet the practice produced only if they can. The world before now has been greatly indebted evil results, · to its ' impostors,' its ' idiots,' its 'dreamers ' and its ' fools,' and The great trouhle and error of to-day was that,as soon as any it is just possible that it is destined to be indebted to them organ was a little oYertaxed or strained, its possessor was apt to again. think of it as weakened and diseased, and to dwell on such weak . ness. In this he was too often assisted by others, and' there was a whole army of medical men anxiously waiting to diagnose him CONSCIOUSNESS IN LIVING MATTER. as physically weak, and treat him with physical remedies, all of which tended only to confirm and emphasise his own imaginings. Professor Henri Bergson, the distinguished French philoso Hence it was, indeed, a miracle if actual physical disease did not pher, lectured at Birmingham University, on May 29th, on 'The eventually supervene. But the man who had leamed to realise Helation of Consciousness to Life.' The ' Glasgow Evening his inner powers, and was conscious of the danger of uncontrolled thought, naturally stemmed the flow of morbid ideas; he remem Citizen,' of May 30th, states that he said :- bered that physical and mental disorders usually sprang from . It.seeme~ ~robable that consciousness was present in prin excess, or the attempted violation of natural law in some form ciple m all hvmg matter, including yegetation and that lowest or other. Consequently, instead of dwelling upon and magnify form of protoplasmic organism, the amwba, but 'that it was dor ing his symptoms, he recognised that they were Nature's warning, ma!1t. or atrophied wherever such matter i·enounced spontaneous and, a hint to the wise being sufficient, he took care not to offend activity. On the other hand, it became more intense, more com against Nature in future. Meanwhile, he resisted in mind all plex, and more complet,e where living matt.er tended most in that gave him pain and discomfort, and e''ery thought so put I.lie direction of mo,·ement and activity. . . fortI1 was as real a resisting force as that which laid in the ~eeing that consciousness, whilst being at once creation and muscles of t.he arm to wrestle with a burglar or a madman. choice, was alRo memory, and that one of its es.~ential functions A full i·eport of l\Ir. Hallam's Address appears in ' The was to accumulate and preserve the past, whilst probauly the Health Record' for June. Jnne 10, 1911.) LIGHT. 275 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. wild beasts or cou81111ied by lire. Let his chilurcn l.1ccomc orplmns, his wife a widow. The Edit01· is not responsible for the opinions expressed by correspon "'I command you, tlcvil, auu all your imps, that even as dents, and sometimes publishes what he does not agree with for I now blow out these torches, you do immediately extinguish the purpose of presenting views which may elicit discussion. the light from his eyes. So be it. So be it. Amen. Amen.." 'So speaking, the curser was wont to blow out two waxen Letter from Madame E. d'Esperance. torches which he 11eld in his hands, and with this practical Srn,-Having just returned after a six months' absence from illustration the anathema was complete.' home, restored in health and spirits, I am reminded of a promise And these were the forerunners of the people who dare to I gave to send you a little report of the first Scandina\•ian say that the holy cause of spirit communion is of the devil l- Spiritualists' Congress held in Copenhagen on May 12th to 14th. Yonrs, &c., A. K. VENNING. As I was returning from Sweden, I journeyed vi11 Copen hagen, and was able to attend some of the meetings. I found Los Angeles, Cal., U.SA. them of more than ordinary interest, delegates from Sweden, Finland, and various parts of Denmark taking part in the proceedings. The Law of Karma. The Congress was opened with a cantata, written and compos.ed Srn,-Permit me to point ont that the opening sentence in for the occasion, and the. excellently~rendered music excited no the letter by 'D. R. F.' in ' LIGHT' of May 20th, 'Believers in little enth1i~iasm. There were three meetings on each of t1ie the doctrine of Karma cannot imagine any explanation for first two days, and two on the 14t.11, after which there was a life's misfortunes and deprivations, save t,hat they are all the in picnic in the glorious beach woods of Klampenhorg and an evitable ontcomes of some broken law or laws,' hetrays the nn elegant.ly sen'ed 'high tea' at the hotel overlooking the sen. familiarity of the writer with theosophical teaching on this The day was exceedingly warm and the cool woodland shades subject. With regard to both pain and pleasure, theosophy very delightful. The guests who had taken part in the business teaches that they are means to secure a certain end, i.e., the of the Congress enjoyed both the meetings and the picnic, and evolution of man. Neither pleasure nor pain is, a.~ parted from their entertainers with regret. Speaking for 'D. R. F. ' says, an end in itself. The function of pain is to myself, I may say that my stay among the Danish Spil'it arouse the human self to activity ; to promote the organisa nalists gave me much pleasure. I certainly had not expected tion of man's vehicles, pl1ysical and super-physical alike ; to to finu so much of interest or that they had so intimate pnrify, for we naturally try to get rid of that which causes no a knowledge of scientific and religions Spiritualism. It pain ; to teach and edncat.e ns, and to make 11S strong. As astonished me also to learn of the great number of Spirit Edward Carpenter teaches, 'And the pains which I endured ualists in Copenhagen. I do not remember to have heard in one body were powers which I wielded in the next' the number, but there are several societies, and there is (' Towards Democracy'). Pleasure brings almut a harmonion~ also a ~piritualists' temple-a fine building fronted by six condition of man's bodies, which enables the spirit of man to splendid Corinthian columns. I was told that there were nine manifest hi& powers, his nature, through the lower vehicles. hundred paying members, and that seats were provided for those Hence the rapture, the ecstasy of the mystic, his sense who wished to attend the sen·ices, hut were too poor to become of Divine union being accompanied hy joy. Theosophy members of the Temple Society. There are two services held teaches that inrlividuals are oft.en placed in what weekly, at each of which the building is crowded, the speaker seem to the world painful or tronhlesome environments being a lady trance medium. on purpose to develop strength, endnrance and patience, A Herr Carl Soderling, a Swedish trance medium, gave an sympathy and nnderstanding. For only Ly similar snffering can address on the second evening of the Congress. It was above a man know another'!! pains. As the proverb runs, 'A fellow the average standard of excellence, and was followed by messages feeling makes.us wondrous kind.' Pain and pleasure are God's to various persons in the audience. · ways of edneating His children, and the law of Karma-the law Mr. Petei's is a great favourite with our Danish confreres, who that we reap what we have so11·n·-is one method of His working, cannot understand how it is English Spiritualists let him leave the law of growth for His children. With regard to' Agnostic's' their midst. difficulty, the making of degenerates will, it appears to me, be Myers' ' Human Personality' is about to be issued in Danish. minimised as the knowledge of the twin doctrines of reincarna This work is translated by Mr. Severin Lauritzen, who has also tfon and Karma is spread. For if we accept these doctrines and translated 'Does Telepathy Explain?' by the Rev. Minot J. act on our knolvledge, our treatment of criminals, which too often Savage, which has just been published. results in the artificial production of 'degenerates,' will be altered Ou the whole, my impression of the Danish Spiritualists who to more reasonable and humane methods, awl each 'younger took part iu the Congress is that they are thoroughgoing, earnest, soul' among us, which in reality is what the 'degenerate' often and progressive, decidedly above the average as regards brain is, will he trained, guided and edttcated, instead of being power and intellectuality. They are quite up to date in all brutalised or crushed. As the more advanced souls accept the matters concerning modem Spiritualism. doctrine of reincarnation and realise the importance of self There arE one or two Spiritualistic publications, and another control, particularly in sexual matters-self-control in thought as is, I believe, to make its appearance this summer. The prin well as in act-the mental and en1otiona1 atmosphere will be cipal one, 'Sandhedssi.igeren' (the 'Truth-Seeker'), is edited by purified, relieved of that overwhelming force of emotional the president of the Society of Spiritualists, Herr Christian stimulus, which is an unseen though potent agency in the pro Lyngs. It is a well-got-up and interesting magazine.-Yoms, duction of degenerates. A more universa1ly diffused physiological &c., E. n'EsPERANCF.. training and education of the young would also materially 1·elieve the sit,uation. While we confound 'ignorance' with 'innocence' the making of degenerates, in all classes of society, is not likely A Priestly Curse : The Devil as Co-worker. to decrease.-Yonrs, &c., Srn,-Perhaps Mr. Raupert and others who believe in his London. ELIZABETH SEVERS. Satanic Majesty may be interested in the fol1owing extract from .T. Lothrop Motley's 'Rise of the Dutch Republic' :- 'In the twelfth century, whenever hand or voice was raised The Problem of Test Conditions. against cl~ical encroachment, the priests held ever in readiness Srn,-Having had a long and varied experience with materi a deadly weapon of defence-a blasting anathema was thundered alising and other physical mediums, .I consider it my duty to against their antagonist, and smote him into submission. The express my ·views 011 the problem of test conditions. As was disciples of Him who ordered His followers to bless their perse said in 'LIGHT' of April 1st, the fact that genuine materialisa cutors aud love their enemies, invented such Christian formulas tions and physical phenomena occur has been fully proved by as these : " In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, scientific investigators and serious truthseekers all over the wodd, the blessed Virgin Mary, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul, and and anyone who at present rlenies the possibility of such pheno all other saints in Heaven, do we cnrse and cut off from our mena only sho\vs his own ignorance or prejudice, whether he be communion him who has thus rebelled against us. May the curse a scientist or not. On the other hand, experience proves not strike him in his house, ham, Led, field, path, city, castle. May only that t11ere are false mediums, but also that false phe he be cursed in battle, accursed in praying, in speaking, in nomena sometimes occur. in seances, even when the medium is silence, in eating, in drinking, in sleeping. May he be absolutely genuine and trnthful. accursed in his taste, hearing, smell, and all ·his senses, May Concerning the false mediums there is not much to say. the curse blast his eyes, head, and his body from the crown That such would come forward might naturally be expected, a.~ to the soles of his feet. there are imitations atid frauds in aU branches of science and '"I conjure you, devil, and all your imps, that you take industry, but my experience has convinced me that the false no rest until you have brought him to eternal shame, tiU he is mediums are not. nearly so numerous as they are considered to destroyed hy drowning 01' 1vmging, ti11 he is torn to vieces hy he, anrl that. most, of t,he so-citlled exposnres of nwdiiin1s are 276 LIGHT. [June 10, 1911. only due to the ignorance or biassed mind of the sitters. nature as to prove themselves, and the circle will feel the joy Mediums for physical phenomena, and especially materialising and the blessing of undoubted and uplifting spirit manifestations. mediums, often become passive instruments for other wills, good Materialisation seances should be reserved for sitters of this and bad, and, according to the quality of spirits attracted by the latter kind, these phenomena being of too astonishing a nature assistants or according to the influence exercised by the sitters' to be grasped by unprepared minds, and requiring too delicate own thoughts, the results will he good 01· bad, genuine and con conditions to be successful in promiscuous circles, and where test vincing or doubtful and apparently false. There can be no methods are insisted on. I do not mean to say that only con doubt also, among those who have had experience with material vinced Spiritualists should be admitted; on the contrary, I have ising mediums, that the latter, unless very strong-willed and often noticed that many Spiritualists-or so-called Spiritualistci highly-developed morally, can, to a certain extent, be controlled -are more ignorant concerning psychic conditions, and also, by exterior influences even before the seances or outside the alas! more ready to jump to unkind conclusions with regard to seance room, and that much can thus he done by them for which their mediums and other fellow creatures than many honest, but they are not really responsible. perhaps sceptical, truthseekers that do not style themselves This is a great psychological problem that is not sufficiently Spiritualists, but who are anxious to become convinced of the studied, eit.her by scientific investigators or by Spiritualists, great realities of the after-life. Only, no one should be admitted to and as long as we do not take more care to protect mediums a materialising seance, whether Spiritualist or not, without hav against bad influences, false or doubtful phenomena will neces ing previously assisted at other seances, thus satisfying himself sarily occur. If good and wise spirits can use the medium as an of the possibility of the phenomena, and without having taken instrument to manifest truth, bad and ill-intentioned entities serious pains to study the subject and to initiate himself into the can, if the conditions of the circle give them the necessary power, conditions.-Yours, &c., use the same instrument to oppose truth, producing phenomena Paris. ELLEN S. LETORT. that appear to be faked, and thus ruining the poor medium. If spirits can bring flowers to the seances, they also can bring masks, and if they can materialise full forms, they can also mate SOCIETY WORK ON SUNDAY, JUNE 4th, &c. rialise or 'apport' drapery, throw it round the entranced medium, Pro.~pective Notices, not exceeding twenty-four word,s, may be added and take him out of the cabinet as a materialisation. to reports if accompanied 'by stamps to the value of sixpence. Of course, the medium's guides do their utmost to protect him, and generally succeed in preventing abuses of this kind ; MARYLEBONE SPIRITUALIST ASSOCIATION, 51, MORTIMER but if the mental and moral conditions of the sitters attract a STREET, W.-Gavendish Rooms.-Mr. W. E. Long's address on majority of opposing and materially strong spirits, the control of 'Telepathy : the Mystic Sense,' was greatly appreciated. Mrs. the circle may be transferred from its legitimate conductors to Beaurepaire kindly sang a solo. Mr. W. T. Cooper presided. the invisible enemies. -15, Mortimer-street, W.-On May 29th Mrs. Place-Yeary gave With regard to purely physical mediumship, there are many successful psychometric readings. Mr. Leigh Hunt presided. causes that may force even a quite honest sensitive to 'help' his Sunday next, see advt.-D. N. phenomena. It would take too long to go into these causes SPIRITUAL MISSION: 67, George-street, W.-At 11 a.m. Mr. here, or to speak of the dishonest way in which mediums E. W. Beard gave an able addreS:l on 'Man's. Destiny,' and at are treated by certain arrogant sitters who take upon themselves 7 p.m. Mr. W. J, Colville delivered an eloquent address.-E. W. to judge and condemn them. BRIXTON. - KOSMON HALL, 73, WILTSHIRE-ROAD.-After Serious, unbiassed sitters may be divided into two great Mr. George Morley's address on ' The Descent of Spirit,' many classes-those who wish to study the phenomena from a clairvoyant descriptions were given. Sunday next, at 7 p.m., scientific point of view, regardless of their origin, and those address and clairvoyance. Wednesday, at 8~15, public service. (convinced Spiritualists or not) whose aim it is to get into con SHEPHERD'S BusH.-73, BECKLOW-ROAD.-Mr. and Mrs. tact with the spirit world and to obtain proofs, advice, or A. W. Jones rendered excellent ·service. Slmday-next, the well spiritual help from the departed ones. The former, in order to known speaker, Mr. T. A. Williams, of Bristol, at 7 p.m. satisfy themselves that the phenomena are not due to fraud, con CROYDON.-ELMWOOD-liALL, ELMWOOD-RO.AD, BRO.AD-GRJ)EN. scious or unconscious, will in ruost cases require test conditions, -Mrs Jamrach's addresses and clairvoyant descriptions were and I should say that it is in the medium's own interest, with appreciated. Sunday next--morning, circle at 11.15. Evening- such investigators, only to give seances under conditions that at 7, address by Mr. R. Boddington. ·. preclude all possibility of fraud. Such sitters are, as a rule, BRIGHTON.-MANCHESTER-STREET (OPPOSITE AQU.ARIUM). very sceptical, and not sufficiently initiated in psychic conditions Mrs. A. Boddington gave good practical addresses and con to respect the medium's passivity. They will insist on this or vincing clairvoyant descriptions. Sunday next, Mr. E.W. Wallis, that phenomenon, to be produced in this or that way, and so, if at 11.15 a.m., on 'Summerland,' and at 7 p.m. on 'Truth for the medium is in half-trance and left free in his movements, the Authority.' Tuesday, at 8, and Wednesday at 3, Mrs. Clark, suggestions will act upon him in an almost inesistible manner, clairvoyant descriptions. On Thursday, at 8, members' circle. and he may be forced to bring about t,he phenomena with his BRIGHTON.-0LD TOWN HALL, HOVE, 1, BRUNSWICK-STREET own hands. This is in accordance with a natural law, his bodily WEsT.-Excellent addresses and clairvoyant descriptions were members being automatically used to follow out the impulses given by 1\fr. Horace Leaf. Suuday next, at 11.15, circle; at given by the brain. Thus it is well known that Eusapia Pala 7 p.m., Mrs. Curry. Monday at 3 and 8, also Wednesday at 3, dino generally asks the sitters who control her never to let go her clairvoyant descriptions by Mrs. Curry. Thursday, at 8.15, hands, as she cannot in such case be responsible for what she circle.-A. C. may do. Consequently it is advisable that test conditions should HIGHGATE.-GROVEDALE HALL, GROVEDALE-ROAD.-Morn be secured at seances of this kind ; but I would here like to make ing and evening Mrs. Mary Davies gave addresses and clair the following restrictions :- voyant descriptions, and named an infant. May 31st, Madame Maria Scott gave good clairvoyant descriptions. Sunday next, 1. The test conditions should be of such a nature as never to hurt the medium, a question to be very carefully studied. at 11.15 a.m., Mr. H. Cobley; at 7 p.m., Madame Marie Zaidia. 2. They should be· sufficiently thorough to exclude absolutely Wednesday, Mrs. Mary Davies. 18th, opening of Lyceum Sunday School.-J. F. all kinds of fraud, because experience proves that a half test leaving some possibility for the phenomena to be prod need by the medium, is worse than no test, and if it is found after the seance NOTTINGHAM.-MECHANICS' HALL.-Mr. John f'obb ad that fraud has been possible, investigators of this kind generally dressed a large audience on ' Ghosts and Their Missfon.' think that fraud has been perpetra.ted. WINCHESTER.-0DDFELLows' HALL.-Mrs. L. Harvey, of Sout.hampton, gave an address and clairvoyant descriptions.-F. Test conditions should only be applied in seances for purely BRIXTON.~84, STOCKWELL PARK-ROAD.-Mr. Rogers de physical phenomena, such as those that occur with Eusapia, when livered a good address on 'Manifestations.'-A. B. she sits with scientists, and when no proofs of spirit return are PoRTSMOUTH.-MIZPAH HALL.-Mr. Tayler Gwinn gave demanded. splendid addresses to large audiences. June 1st, address by Mr. With regard to seances in which the sitters are anxious to ob McPherson, and psychometry.-W. D. F. tiµn a demonstration of spirit return, 'fraud-proof conditions' KENTISH TowN.-17, PRINCE OF WALES'·CRESCENT, N.W. should not be asked for. These always impress the sensitive Mrs. Vander gave an address, and Miss Jose psychometric painfully and deprive him of the passivity that is necessary to readings.-A. J. G. enable the spirit agents to manifest successfully. What is needed ExETER.-MARLBOROUGH HALL.-Mr. George Tilby, of here is sympathy, harmony, and love-intelligent, spiritually London (secretary of the London Spiritualist Union), gave rninded sitters who, with a sound, discriminating judgment, but addresses and Mrs. Letheren clairvoyant descriptions.-E. F. without arrogance, can observe what occurs, always humbly SouTHEND-ON-SEA.-MILTON-STREET.-Mr. T. 0. Todd, of bearing in mind how very little we know of the complex laws London, gave the first of his course of four lectures on 'Spiritual that govern these extraordinary phenomena. If right conditions Teaching l : his able discourse Oil ' The Temple µot. made with iire given by th11 11SSistants, the phenomena will 'be of si1ch a Hands ' bein~ much appreciate 'LIGHT I MORE LIGHT !'-Goethe, 'WHATSOEVER DOTH MAKE MANIFEST IS ~IGHT.'-Paul. No. 1,588.-VoL. XXXI. [Registered as] SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1911. [a Newspaper.] PRICE TWOPENCE. CONTENTS. etheric parts during physical life is unwholesome; it [the Notes by tbe Wa.1 •••• - ...... 277 To Believe or Not to Believe •••• 283 L.S.A. Noticies •• ; •••••• ; ...... 278 Mediums not 'Fortune-Tellers'. 288 etheric-or ' spirit ' bodyJ is torn out by anresthetics, and SP!rltua.llsm and Theosophy : A The Origin of Kings. By H. Leaf 284 Oc>~on a.nd a. Contrast, The Fellowship of Souls ...... 285 slips out, undriven, in some peculiar organisations, gener Address by Mrs; Kary SeatQn 279 Hindu Doctrine of Metempsy. A Spirit Message Verified •••• 280 chosis. By Mrs. A. Simpson 286 ally termed "mediumistic " ; apart from its denser comrade The Hypothesis of Bilocation Mrs. Besant Prophesies Great Considered ...... ,. :281 Changes ...... 286 it is helpless and unconscious . . and subject to manipu Growth of Spiritualism in New Items oflnterest ...... 287 Zealand ...... ::.. 281 l\Ir. C. 1 Bailey, Australian lations from outside entities, who can use it as a matrix Coronation ...... - ...... 282 Medium, in London ...... 287 for materialisation.' Apparently, then, those who consciA>usly come into touch with the ' dead' are people of the advanced NOTES BY THE WAY. races-but those who are mediiunistic endure the 'unwhole Perhaps Spiritualists need to be specially warned some ' experience of having their helpless and unconscious against over-explaining and over-theorising. The bare etheric part manipulated by outside entities ! There may facts, at present, are enough. Sufficient unto the day is be some truth in isolated instances in both these claims the explanation thereof. Perhaps, too, it is desirable for but they are equally untrue as generalisations covering us to incline a \itt\e to a sober but alert agnosticism in both classes of experience. Many persons who are psy relation to any final explanation of our facts, or, indeed, of chically developed are both consciously unfolded and any facts, or even of life itself. That which is behind and mediumistic, and enjoy the advantages of both phases of within we see not, know not, understand not. Very wisely spiritual relationship, without any unwholesome results. did Herbert Spencer say :- The man of science sees llimself in the midst of perpetual In his lecture to the London Spiritualist Alliance, in changes, of which he can discover neither the beginning nor the end. He realise;;, with a special vividness, the utter incompre February last, on 'The Spiritual Progress of Man,' Mr. hensibleness of the simplest fact considered in itself. He, more James I. Wedgwood referred to the necessity, when waking than any other, knows that in its ultimate essence nothing can in the morning, of resolutely shaking off the grip of the be known. lower consciousness which tends to hold the body in a This does not suggest any abating of ·interest in our languid, drowsy state. A writer in the May 'Nautilus' inquiry or any damping_ of hope respecting it. In fact, it expresses the same idea in a different was :- widens the field, enlarges the horizon, and frees us from the It was when I was labouring under nervous prostration that bonds of theory, to prosecute our journey up and on. I discovered the fallacy of waking up by degrees. . . One day it struck me that I could wake right up and be just as \vide awake in two minutes as in two hours if I would only make my The June ' Literary Guide and Rationalist Review ' mind up to it. So I decided that every morning as soon as I contains the old, stale and tiresome sneer at D. D. Home, became conscious of being awake, I would rise straight up and who is described as a charlatan and the ' most romantic of stand in the middle of the floor and act as if I were awake and healthy and happy. I did this persistently, not allowing humbugs.' We have ceased to grow indignant at these myself a single lapse. And from that very time I began to get. attacks on the character of poor, simple, kindly Home-we well. are only sorrowful. We could wish, however, that some That is a piece of valuable testimony. It shows that of his critics would take the trouble to acquaint themselves the control of the body by the higher consciousness, even with the true facts of his career. Then any adverse in this matter of rising in the morning, can produce physical criticism would come with more dignity and weight, though as well as moral benefits. it would, of course, lose in point and pungency. Cheap invective does not belong to considered judgments. In an interesting article, ' Informal Magic,' in 'The Occult Review' for June, Dr. Charles J. Whitby discusses · Mrs. Besant, in her newest work, entitled 'The Riddle the question of personal charm-that occult power of of Life and How Theosophy Answers It' (price 6d.), gives influencing and attracting others which some people possess. us a lucid and able exposition of the special doctrines to He cites a notable instance in the case of Walt Whitman, which she has devoted her energies since she became con of whom Dr. Bucke (who visited the poet in 1877) relates nected with the Theosoplical movement. This little book that 'he was almost amazed by the beauty and majesty of will be useful as 11, nection we 11ave read with deep interest and pleasure an partly in those of the Gilani, Mr. Ca1·pe11ter sets forth the artfole by Canon Holland in 'The Commonwealt,h' for gist of t.he doctrine held by the Indian Gurus or Adepts:- May. With penetrating insight the Cnnon flhows that What. the Gnani seek~ and obtains is a new order of con Competitive Competition is really 'building up an ever sdousne.cis-t.o which, for want. of a better, we may give the olosei• and subtler and more complete system of Co-opera· name itniversal or cosmic consciousness in contradistinction to the individual or special bodily consciousness with which we are all tion':~ familiar. . . The individual consciousness is specially related Therefore, when the period of our stress on competition iii° to the body. The organs of the body are in some degree its ovel', an.d we have once again learned to appreciate the part organs. But the il'lwle body is only as one organ of the cosmic played by co-operation, we have not got to take a competitfre consciousness. To attain this latter one must have the power of society to pieces and reconstl'Uct it on co-operative lines. All knowing one's self separate from the body, of passing into a state that is needed is that we should emphasise again and release into of ec.~tasy, in fact. Without this the cosmic consciousness cannot full play the co-operative powers which are already and always be experienced. . . It is interesting at this juncture to find in action. that modern Western science, which has hitherto-without much result-been occupying itself with me~hanical theories of the That is encouragiug indeed. The whole argument, in universe, is approaching from its side this idea of the· existence fact, is a piece of deeply-reasoned optimism. of another form of consciousness. The extraordinary phenomena of hypnotism . . . are forcing Western scientists to assume the existence of the so-called secondary consciousness in the body. The UniOn of Ethical Societies has sent us for notice a little volume which, under the title 'The Ethical Move ment : Its Principles and Aims,' forms an exposition of the Mr. Carpenter reviews the various methods by which tenets of that movement. Messrs. Horace J. Bridges, this consciousness is attained, including the mastery over Stanton Coit, G. E. O'Dell, and Harry Snell are the joint the intemal processes of the body, and the subjection of authors of the work, which ably and lucidly sets forth the Thought and Desire. Of the ·suhjection of Thought he attitude of Ethicism to life. Religion has somewhere been says:- defined as 'morality touched with emotion., ; and if we That a man should be a prey to any thought that chances to take possession of his mind is commonly among us assumed accept that definition we can at once dismiss the Ethical as unavoidable. It may be a matter of regret that he should be Movement from the category of religions. There is morality kept awake all night from anxiety as to the issue of a lawsuit but no emotion in the Ethical faith. As a matter of fact, on the morrow, but that he should have the power of deter it stands rather as a science-a science of morality, which mining whether he be kept awake or not seems an extravagant demand. . . Yet this is an absurd position for man, the disreg-.irds the question of immortality :- heir of all the ages, to be in: hag-ridden by the flimsy creatures of There is no E>thical need of demonstrating that man sur his own brain. . . It is one of the most prominent doctrines of vivee the dissolution of his mortal body. We do not deny the the Gnanis that the power of expelJing thoughts, or, if need be, existence of the soul after death ; we protest only ag-ainst the of killing them dead on the spot ni11.st be attained. This power desire, the longing for such a life. not only frees a man from mental torment (which is .nine-tenths at least of the torment of life), but it gives him a concentrated Thus the authors, and it is needless to say that we join power of handling mental work unknown to him before. The issue with them on precisely that point. We feel that this two things are correlative to each other. While at work your question of the immortality of the human soul is bound up thought is to be absolutely concentrated on it, utidistraeted by with the true dignity of man in the Universe. And the anything whatever irrelevant to the matter in hand. Then when the work is finished it must stop equally absolutely-stop attitude of Nature herself on the point is demonstrated by ent.irely-no icoi-ryfog-and the man must retire into that region the fact of the survival of the human personality after death. of consciousness where his true self dwells. 'Ve often hear of the extent to which modern theology We have long regarded Giuseppe Mazzini as one of the is being permeated by the later spiritual revelation. Here world's inspired teachers, and have wondered at the neglect is a passage in point (from ' The Trial of Faith,' by Dr. into which his writings seem to have fallen. It is with Hodgkin), quoted with approval by 'The Modern Church pleasure, therefore, that we note an article, ' The Religion man':- of Mazzini and Garibaldi,' in the May number of 'The - The dialetic propositions of the Athanasian Creed sound like Theosophist.' ·we take, as especially appropriate to our a jangle of words. I know not whether they be true or false subject, the following excerpts from a letter written by but I can well believe that they are about as near to truth as th; Mazzini to Signora Elisa Ferrari :- guesses of a four-year-old child at the contents of the books in I do not believe in death. I believe in liie, potent affirma it.s f~ther's library. Still, I look towards the most holy place, and m thought I seem to see one issue therefrom, whom I know tion of a force that proceeds from God. I have gathered to be my spirit's rightful King. He says to me, ' Dost thou that we are immortal; that the law of life is One; that the pro believe on the Son of God 1' ' Who is He, Lord, that I might gress felt before.hand and carried out by humanity collectively, believe on Him 1' the soul of man makes answer. ' Thou hast from generation to generation, is also unfolded by humanity both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee.' ' Lo1·d I individually, from transformation to transformation, froin exist believe,' let us all say with thankful' hearts, and let, us wol'sl~ip ence to existence ; that this unfolding of progress implies the Him. consciousness of that progress ; and that consciou.911ei111 of prog1·ess a~mplished and 11uinw111 are identical words ; that we, therefore, Here truly is 'the letter' giving place to 'the spirit.' keep throughout these transformation;; the consciousness and An admission of direct revelation, however coloured by memory of our identity. . . I have gathered that love is a theological prepossessions, is always welcome. promise to lle fulfilled Elsewhere, hope a fruit in bud, the l)ier a cradle of new life. Mazzini was a seer indeed. · ' A Visit to a Giiani, or Wise Man of the East ' is a reprint from Mr. Edward Carpenter's book of travels, 'From Adam's Peak to Elephanta,' of those pages which deal with LONDON SPIRITUALIST ALLIANCE, LTD. the acquaintance he formed at Ceylon some twenty years DRAWINGS OF THE PSYCHIC AURA AND DIAGNOSIS OF DISEASE. ago with one of the esoteric teachers of the ancient -On Wednesday next, June 21st, and succeeding Wednesdays, religious mysteries. Mr. Carpenter was deeply impressed from 12 noon to 5 p.m., at llO, St. Martin's-lane, W.C., Mr. not only by the strongly marked personality of the man, Percy R. Street will give personal delineations by means of the colours of the psychic aura of sitters, and will diagnose disease but by his dignity, his perfect simplicity of manner, and under spirit control. Fee 5s. to a guinea. Appointments ab!lence of self-col}scicmsness, Partly in his own words ancl desirllble. See iidvertisement s11pplement. Ju.ne 17, 1911.] LIGHT. 279 SPIRITUALISM AND THEOSOPHY: A our abilities in those directions. Have you ever stopped to think COMPARISON AND A CONTRAST. for a moment why your inclinations run in a specific directiou why Spiritualism seems to you the most important phase of this AN ADDRESS BY MRS. MARY SEATOY. universal t.ruth 1 I have myself paused to consider why I find On Thursday evening, May 25th, at the Salon of the Royal certain kinds of ideas those which are most in accord with Society of British .Artists, l\Irs. Mary Seaton (of Washington, my tastes. I have suddenly wakened up to realise that my own U.S.A.), delivered au address, the full title of which was mind was of the order of the philosopher and psychologist, and 'Spiritualism and Theosophy : their Similarities and Dis that the study of philosophy and psychol~gy was the thing most similarities-from an Onlooker's Standpoint,' to the Members easy for me to undertake, I suddenly found in myself the desire and .Associates of the London Spiritualist Alliance, Mr. H. to heal, after I myself had been healed. There are many people Withall, the vice-president, occupying the chair. who are cured by these new-old methods, who have, neverthe less, no desire awakened in them to pursue tlic subject. Why THE CHAIRMAN, in introducing the lecturer, said that there did I experience this desire 1 Becau~e the Great Creator, who was a good custom in commercial circles of every year ' taking is still creating, is making each centre of life to express some stock,' and it would be an excellent thing for the Alliance and the tl1ing of Himself in a particular direction. There is a drama individuals who belonged to it, on this, the last meeting of tl1e Ses of life-a distinct design being outworked, and each soul must sion, to 'take stock' of the ideas they possessed. We all inherited further that design. Therefore we find in ourselYes certain certaii1 tendencies and certain ideas. In our early years we were inclinations, certain tendencies, and we uatnrally act in accord taught certain things which we learned, hut without exercising with those to.stes and tendencies. There is a great variety of our reason upon them. We became so accustomed to these ideas expression in this Universal Spirit, and it does not express that we hardly knew why we retained them, and it was, there through each soul all of truth in the same proportion and fore, a good practice j;o overhaul these mental possessions and degree. In the process of inspiring individual souls to carcy re-value them, particularly as reg.i.rded our political and religious out His plan, the Creator has given them certain tastes and views. We could follow this practice with considerable profit. inclinations which they can follow if they choose ; for we are To-night (continued the chairman) our lecturer is going to help not puppets-we have a conscious part to play, and we can us in this direction. She is going to compare Spiritualism and express it or let it go. This is true of each· of us. If we all Theosophy, and to do this without any bias whatever. It bas liked the same things the work of the world could not be been her life-work to try and make those with whom she is asso carried on ; therefore you see the necessity of each soul doing ciated realise their own spiritual powers. These spiritual powers, it.s specific part in this great plan. But while we may be she has told us, are so great that if we do but realise that we 'specialists' in certain directions, we must recognise that possess them, we can do anything, attain anything, enjoy perfect each one is carrying out a certain phase of truth health and perfect success in everything. . Mrs. Seaton shows which he must expr~s in liis own way. And this applies that, in respect of herself, it is absolutely correct. At one time not only to individuals but to associations of individuals she was a great invalid, for fifteen years defying the skill of by whom varying expressions of the one universal truth medical men in .America, France, and England, until .she met are· given to the world. someone who made her realise something of this power within. About sixty years ago, in the United States-my home She studied the question, and it appealed to her reasoning powers, simultaneously in different parts of it, manifestations of wl1at is for indeed, if you reflect that you are children of God, you must called Spiritualism came to different persons who were mediums recognise that you possess potentially a measure of the powers of to express these manifestations. But it is not for me to give God. T11e question then arises how best to realise th.ese powers, how yon the history of Spiritualism. You know it, and you know to make them manifest, how to gain control over our own bodies, tliat the work has gone on progressively ever since. I know Mrs. Seaton has made this her life-work, and in this work she something of Spiritualism from its inception. I have watched 118.'3 been brought into contact with Spiritualists, Theosophists, it-not, perhaps, so closely as I might have done-but I under• Christian Scientists, and all those who i·ealise that man is a stand it., and, standing outside a movement, a sympathiser very spiritual being. She is going to compare Spiritualism frequently can see the whole activity of a movement better than and Theosophy, and we may :find that some belief which one who is inside it. · we have not accepted because of our ignorance of it is per Proceeding to review the three ll}'stems, Spiritualism, Theo• haps the best belief for us. It does not, however, matter sophy, and Chl'istian Science, Mrs. Seaton said that Spiritualism whether you are a Spiritualist or a Theosophist, if you had three different aspects-the i:eligions, the philosophical, and realise that you can put yourself into harmony with that Power the phenomenal. As t\) the first aspect, sotne Splritualist8 which will make you useful to your fellow creatures, and so denied that it was a religion, some maintained the contrary, helpful to the world that when you leave it your absence will while others went so far as to claim that it was not only a religionj be regretted because of the good you have done. but a new religion. But the religiotts side of Spiritnalism was Mas. MaRY SEATON then addressed the meeting. She said : not the side that was accentuated most-it was not the religious It is a great p1easure to me to be asked to address yon who call phase upon which the greatest emphasis was put. As to the yourselves Spiritualists. It simply· means that one more door philosophical aspect, a great deal of philosophical teaching was· is open to those who do not call themselves by any name. I being constantly given ont to the members of the Spiritualist; cannot call myself a Spiritualist, a Theosophist, a Christian body ; but this aspect, again, was not the one most emphasised' Scientist, or by any other name, because I belong to you all ; I by Spiritualists as a whole. The philosophical side of any: am an onlooker, but I am not an outsider. I am a student of movement was the study of the way in whioh the Creator iii: life, and, as a student of life, I see the meaning of all these working in the nniverl:le, but while the Spil'ituali1:1ts were l:ltudy. associations. I try to find out the particular phase of ing the way hi. which the Deity was working on the next plane' tiiuth that each of these associations is here to emphasise of existence, they were not studying to any great extent ·the' and to develop ; for each association represents and past history Oil this planet of the human race and its many and specialises in some particular phase of truth. The diffi varied activities, nor had they gone deeply into the study of culty is for the human being to put himself, so to speak, science. outside of himself, and for the association to sec itself in Individual Spiritualists certainly had done so-individual" its proper relationship to other associations. W c arc apt to Spiritualists were deeply religious, deeply philosophical, but think om· particular phase of truth is the most important in the amongst Spiritualists, as a community, the emphasis was not. world, Lut we must leam to see that wc have not the whole of put on the religious or philosophical aspects, but on the the truth-that others are equally emphasising certain particular phenomenal. Spiritualists had a work to do for humanity, and phases which they consider the most important. When following it was needed that they should lay stress on the phenomenal side•. the natnml bent of OU!' own minus, we find in uursel vc~ certain The Creator hud astiigned to Spiritualists the task of holding inclinations, certain tastes, and if the way opens iu the external this great fact in front of humanity, and keeping it there : that for us to follow out those tendencies and express them, we test those who have left the body are still living, and can, in many 280 LIGHT. [June 17, 1911. cases, communicate w1Gh those still in the physical form. It was They were here to do a work on the psychic plane which we due to Spiritualists that the scientific world had in l'ecent years lesser lights did on the lower planes ; they were seeking to taken up the study of psychical phenomena. In the last five further the progress of humanity. Theosophy was one of the years, twenty-five leading scientists, iL was stated, had accepted greatest, most useful, and most intellectual movements of the day, the facts of Spiritualism. (Applat1se.) Those facts, however, and that was why one found so many men in it, because men were not yet accepted by the world at large, and therefore their for ages had done their own thinking. Men had the oppor work was not finished. · tunity of going out into the world, and that had broadened their ' But,' continued Mrs. Seaton, 'there is a weak spot in Spirit views, given them experience, and developed their mental facul ualism, and I could not be a friend to Spiritualists if I did not ties, whereas women had been largely shut away from the outer tell you of it. Spiritualists depend too much upon the help world, and compelled to occupy themselves with the smaller which they obtain from the other world. (Applause.) It issues of existence. As a result, woman's emotional nature had matte1·s not whether the soul is embodied or disembodied-the been developed at the cost of her intellect, and she had conse child would never learn to walk if it always leaned on its quently been more inclined to faith than to reason. Men had mother's hand. We have within us powers and forces sufficient largely emancipated themselves from dogmas, and in some cases for our daily life-powers and forces which you are asking those had gone to the other extreme by becoming atheist.s and souls who have passed out of the body to give you. It is good agnostics. But Spiritualism and Theosophy have given men not for us to communicate with those· we love in the conditions be only a new faith, but new facts ; they had gained truths which satisfied their intellects as well as their emotions, and thus both yond this world. It is right ; it is legitimate ; but to go to them sides of their nature could be satisfied, and that was why one always, no matter what our need may be, to lean on them ex found many men as well as women in these movements. clusively is to do that by which our souls are weakened. Com (To be continued). municate ? Yes, as you would with your friends liere, but learn to unfold the powers within yourself, If you want power, you A SPIRIT MESSAGE VERIFIED. are one now with the unlimited source of it ; you can get it to day and open the door to it as truly as you can open the door to At a seance held at the residence of Mrs. Bentley, 1, Broad· those w~~ have gone before. There is that other door in way-avenue, West Croydon, on March 15th; 1911, a personality your soul which you can open and gain the help which manifested through the mediumship of Mrs. Bentley, and you are seeking. And after all, your friends iu the next world affirmed as follows :- can only help you to a certain point. They have knowledge: My name was the Rev. John Robinson, died on Stmday, yes, but anything which comes through the human January 16th, 1876, at Pinner, Middlesex, in my seventy-eighth and they are human as well as we-must necessarily have its year. Laid to rest the following lfriday at Kensal Green Ceme limitations, because until the human has reached the universal tery, followed by hundreds of those who had assisted me in my plane, has opened entirely to the spirit ~ithin, that knowledge work. I was for thirty years with the --- (Society) -- whose helpers numbered one hundred when I joined; when I must be limited, the power to help must be limited. So that died there were four hundred and fifty. although our friends in the world beyond have been progressing, as they tell you, t.hey have still their powers to unfold and to We, the undersigned sitters, hereby affirm that the above express more and more what is within themselves; and while statements were recorded in writing at the dictation of the you rely upon them you will not try to unfold your own possi manifesting intelligence, and attest the accuracy of the record. (Signed) W. R. Harding, A. Aldous, A. Bentley, G. Tickner. bilities and learn to lean on the power in your own souls.' Passing next to the subject of Theosophy, Mrs. Seaton found The facts given in the above message have all been fully verified. Inquiry at Kensal Green Cemetery led the dis a similar weak spot in that movement. Theosophists were given to to rely on those great souls who had passed out of the body and covery of the gravestone, bearing the name of the Rev. John Robinson, and the date of his death (January 16th, 1876), aged attained exalted places in the other spheres of existence they took their teachings from these highly developed seventy-seven years, and the fact that for many years he was souls, on whose authority they relied. Nevertheless, Theosophy connected with a religious society in London. His wife's name was one of the great movements designed to present an is also given, and the fact that she was of Pinner, Middlesex:. This· left the following statements to be tested-viz., that aspect of spiritual truth to the world. Like Spiritualism, it · had a religious, a philosophical, .and a phenomenal side, and to January 16th, 1876, fell on a Sunday, that he was interred on that extent it was identical with Spiritualism. But it was the the following Friday, that hundreds of his fellow-workers . philosophical more than the religious or phenomenal side that attended the funeral, that he was thirty years with the society, was most emphasised in Theosophy. Theosophists tried to deal and that the helpers were increased from one hundred to four with life in all its phases ; . they were unifiers and tried to bring hundred and fifty. together all religions-the Christian, the Buddhist, the Confu January 16th, 1876, was a Sunday ; the· date of the inter cian, and other faiths. They had gone deeply into the study of ment was ascertained at the inquiry office, it was the 21st; and .science, sociology, and ethics. They aspired to be universal in the particulars regarding the society, the increase in the staff of their knowledge, and sought to synthesise religion, science, art, helpe1·s, and the number of a.sSistants attending the funeral, were, and all expressions of the Universal Spirit. But although on inquiry, fully confirmed by an official of the said society, who many Theosophist.a were deeply religious, deeply humanitarian, assisted to carry the remains to the grave. as well as highly psychic, theirs was mainly a philosophical The only discrepancy appears to be that he was actually con movement. Two ·of the 9ardinal doctrines of Theosophy nected with the society for thirty-one years, not thirty. were Reincarnation and Karma. One could join the The mi,Ues of the medium and the sitters may be published, Theosophical Society without binding oneself to these two but 'the society' object to their name or that of their representa ideas, but Theosophists as a whole accepted them, There was tive, who so kindly helped in the veriffoation, being published. no 'body of doctrine' which one was obliged to accept, and [We are indebted to Mr. W. R. Moores, president of the Croydon this was true likewise of Spiritualism. One could be a Spirit Spiritualists' Society, for the ahove report, whieh was accompanied Ly a declaration, signed by all the persons who ualist hy simply believing that spirits could communicate with were present at the seance, including the medium, that they those on earth, and there was no real essential in Theosophy have 'no kuowledge of having previously heard or read of but that belief in the 'God-wisdom' and the Brotl1erhood of the existence of the late Rev. John Robinson, nor of the Man which we all held. Theosophists believed that we could statement given, which has been made the subject of investi never touch 'the flame which is universal,' that man could only gation.' This declaration. adds to the value of the record of gain his knowledge from exalted spirits-perhaps the Spirit of the particulars of this test-message.-ED. 'LIGHT.'] tJiis planet, as they expressed it-for they held that man could e\'Olve until he could come into close relationship with that MRS. MARY Sli1ATON, part of whose recent lecture before the London Spiritpaliait Alliance appears in the present issue, is Spirit. As to the l\fahatmas, they claimed that these Mahatmas forming classes for illStruction in the subject of healing on the were not necessarily in the spirit world ; some of them dwelt lines indicated by her after her address. Particulars will be amongst humanity, living the ordinary life of the individual. found in our advertising columns. June 17, 1911.) LIGHT. 281 THE HYPOTHESES OF 'BI LOCATION' an appeal, a warning. Such a state of mind would make them CONSIDERED. more prepared, stronger, and more resigned. But what do we know about it 1 On ·the contrary, we know that a super BY ERNESTQ BozzANO. Translated from ' Annales des normal manifestation which would reveal a death to those inter Sciences Psychiques.' ested, explicitly and precisely, would be rarely beneficial and almost always as pitiless as the sentence of a human judge. I (Continued friJm page 256.) ought to finish here my conjectures by merely stating them. I see arise, on the other hand, other formidable questions which Case 5. As a last example, I give a more curious case, in it would be foolhardy to tackle. It remains then only to which two people, psychologically normal, saw their doubles at repeat with Owen that it is not necessary to deny the reality of the same time as twelve other persons. The case was rigor such phenomena because the science of to-day cannot explain ously investigated by Robert Dale Owen, who was personally them. It will be incumbent upon our children to clear up the acquainted with two of the principal witnesses. The pheno mystery. nienoii 'occurred at Hamilton County, Ohio, U.S.A., at the home (To be continued.) of Mr. Cary, the father of Alice and Phcebe Cary, who were at one time both well know:ri'in li_terary circles in America. GROWTH OF SPIRITUALISM IN NEW ZEALAND. Mr. Cary had built a new residence some sixty yards away Spiritualism is spreading in New Zealand, as it is in other from the old one, into which he was about to move. The family lands. The Fifth Annual Convention of the National Associa was composed at that time of father, mother, an uncle, and tion of Spiritualists, held at Dunedin on Good Friday last, was nine children. Here is a summary of the story, which was deemed worthy of a leading article in the Otago 'Daily Times,' quoted from the 'Arena' in 'LIGHT' of February 18th, 1893 :- from which we quote the following :-· The new house was finished, but they had not moved into it. There had been a violent shower ; the father had come home · There is no gainsaying the fact that the Spiritualists of the from the field, and everybody had .come in out of the rain. Dominion are an ever-increasing, conscientious, hard-working It was about four in the afternoon when the storm ceased and body, and that they meet in conference with the very best the sun shone out. The new house stood on the edge of a intentions. Many in our midst may not agree with the tenets ravine, and the sun was shining full upon it, when the they hold, the principal of which is that it is within the law to mother called out and asked how Rhoda and Lucy came prove all things a~d hold fast that which is good, even to the to be over in the new house and the door open. Upon this all exte~t. of proving that death is ~o longer death, but merely the family rushed to the front door, and there, across the ravine, transit10n. If they can do this, it may be claimed not vainly they saw Rhoda, with Lucy in her arms, sitting in a rocking on their behalf that they are doing much to lighten the burdens chair. Someone said, 'She must have come from the sugar of many who to-day remain uncertain and in doubt; and we camp, and has taken shelter there with Lucy from the rain.' know not to what extent those who have to live after us may be Upon this another called out' Rhoda!' but she did not answer. indebted to them. In the past, history has again and again While they were gazing, and .talking, and calling, the mother given us instances of reform having met with nothing but brought the two children downstairs, and the family stood and opposition-in fact, being ridiculed one day only to be found .saw, in the full blaze of the sun, the form with the child in of great value the next. This may be given as one reason why her arms slowly sink, sink, sink into the ground, until she in this age of broadened view and enlightened understanding: disappeared from sight as the father approached them. Then a the members of the association, while sitting in conference in great silence fell upon all. In their hearts all believed it to be our city, should be received in broad and tolerant Christian a warriing ofsori·o'w-bf what, no one knew. When Rhoda and spirit, worthy of a Christian people, who join with them in the Lucy both died, then they understood. Rhoda died the next hope that they might be vouchsafed further light upon the road autumn, November 11th. Lucy a month later, December 10th, they so persistently follow. 1833. The father went over to the house and out into the road, The ' Message of Life,' which is published by Mr. W. C. but no human :being, and not even a track, could be seen. Nation at Levin, and is the only Spiritualist paper in the I will supplement the statement of Dale Owen by some ad Dominion, says with reference to this article :- ditional observations. First, as regards his reasoning on the Words like these, coming from one of the leading papers of improbabilities of the hypothesis of hallucination, I will add the Dominion, were like the grip of a friendly hand to the dele· that we ought to take notice of the disappearance of the gates, and they did not forget to pass a resolution of thanks to the Dunedin press for the fair way in which they had been phantoms at the moment when one of the witnesses is on the treated. The newspaper press generally is giving up its hostility point of joining them, which agrees with what modern research to Spiritualism. Notwithstanding the frauds which have has found always to occur in the same cfrcu111stances ; true fastened on to it, the philosophy is founded upon facts, which phantoms never allow themselves to be approached, and dis have been demonstrated all over the world. appear when anyone goes to meet them, which indicates in them Mr. Nation, who is the able president of the New Zealand a power of thought. The witnesses could not know theae cir National Association of Spiritualists, is the subject of an inte cumstances, and therefore could not project the idea by auto resting sketch, illu~trated with a good portrait, in 'The suggestion collectively in such a way as to cause the disappear Harbinger of Light ' for May, from which we quote the ance of the hallucination. On the subject of the presumptive following particulars :- nature of tl~e.phantoms, I agree with Dale Owen that it could In 1883 :11is young family sp~ang suddenly into notoriety. not be revealed by the hypothesis of fl.uidic doublement, Bertha, a child of ten years, was mfl.uenced to move chairs and especially as there is no trace of psycho-sensorial disorders in the tables with just the pressure of a finger ; no two men could keep people doubled, or of any other symptom which could be used the articles of furniture under control. Then messages were as a criterion.of proof. We are, therefore, obliged to recognise written, and names of old 'departed' friends given one after anothe!" .. The child could add up colulDlls of figures blindfold, with. Owen that, in the facts of metapsychics, experience teache~ and give correct answers, could also copy while blindfold us that phenomena apparently identical are often due to dif passages from books. Then the other children were influenced ferent causes. The most probable hypothesis in this case would one daughter, Eva, being able to hurl a large table to and fr~ be that proposed by Owen, by which the two phantoms should with almost violence. Four of the children would stand be considered as a kind of picture or representation {what behind chairs, and put the tips of their fingers on the backs and Myers would call a psychic invasion, extrinsic to the witnesses), the chairs would then go through the figures of a quadrille correctly, though the children knew nothing about dancing. "bearing relation to the death of the two children ; in other words, The. who~e town. b;came w~ldly excited with the strange hap t;he phantoms should be considered as a warning manifestation. pemngs. at Nat10i; s house, and such proofs. of spirit identity However, there arised this formidable question. 'To what end is were given that m a few months a Society for Psychical all this 1' Alas, it is not given to us to penetrate the mystery. I Research ' was formed. merely conjecture that we might know other similar cases, from which would arise the idea that this kind of apparition, THE UNION OF LONDON SPIRITUALISTS' CONFERENCE.-On which is inconclusive and enigmatic, might, for example, predis Sunday, June 18th, at Kingston Assembly Rooms at 3 o'clock Mr. G. T. Brown will read a paper, to be followed by discussion'. pose the minds of the witnesses towards a death, by producing At 7 p.m.-spe.akers, Measrs. R. Boddington, G. T. Brown, and in them a state of apprehension, a sad presentiment, almost as M. Clegg. It is hoped that there will be a large audience. 282 LIGHT.· [June 17, 1911. OFFICE OF 'LIGH'J.'.' 110, ST. MA.R'l'IN'S LANF., . world,' and, even so,. any national act must be shared in by . LONDON, W.C. all that represents the nation. 'Ve remember that in the SATURDAY, JUNE 17TH, l!Jll. case of some previous great regal ceremonies thoughtful observers deplored the fact that in the forefront was always 1J);ight: the soldier-the philosopher, the poet, priest, artist and A Journal of Psychical, Occult, and Mystical Research. philanthropist falling more or less into the background. PBICE TWOPENCE WEEKLY. We saw the point acutely .and sympathised with the regret COMMUNICATIONS intended to be printed should be addressed to expressed, comforting ourselves, however, with the reflec the Editor Office of 'LIGHT,' 110, St 1\fartin's Lane. London, ,V.C. tion that the anomaly was more apparent than real. Every Business ~ommunications should in all cases he addressed to Mr. F. \V. South, Office of 'LIGHT,' to whom Cheques and Postal great puhlic rite must appeal to the eye, must have an Orders should be made payable. impressive spectacular interest. 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From a cluster of exquisitely-shaped leaves the king The Coronation, then, comprehensively regarded, has a cup sends up a long slender stem topped with a little meaning and a purpose that lies closely to the inner side of globular bud. Under the showers and sunshine of Spring things. The crest of a great \vave of national life, it means the stem rises, and the' bud gradually expands until, n~t only the turbulence of dark waters but flashing rainbow at fast, amid the myriad spears of the grass, there is a hues caught from the sun and the sky. For a time the dull pastoral coronation-the kingcup as:mmes the 'round and and often sordid routine of the nation's everyday life is top of sovereignty,' a golden crown. We have purposely stayed; there is an interval of light· and colour, of antique chosen a homely illustration, first, because Nature is often ceremonies that link us with .an immemorial past, aud a most royal in her simplicities, and, secoi1d, because there is brief opportunity, for those who choose to use it, of what something very significant about that name ' kingcup.' It we may term national self-realis11tion. For a time i)arty suggests that our ancestors saw something regal about its strife is stilled, and the national heart has an opportunity shining yellow corona lifted ·so high in the pageantry of of expansion,, \\'hether ip patriotic pride, fe~tivi_~, oharity, Spring. But commonplace as is our insta11ee-if anything or fraternal feeling. . . in Nature can truly be called commonplace-it symbolises There is amongst our modern ' intellectuals ' a super for us, as well as anything in the purely natural world, cilious type of mind which is apt to regard with di~qain the true meaning of coronation. Everywhere it marks the anythino- that makes 1111 especial impress on the- mind of the stage of culmination and achievement, so that the word populac:. But even amongst observers of this type the ' crown ' in our common speech has come to denote the last Coronation ranks as 'a magnificent gesture '-the pose, as tciuch of completion, the final perfecting process. 'The end it were, of a people drawing itself proudly to its full height, crowns the work' is an ancient proverb in point. as it thinks of its ancient descent and its historic past. To The term is nearly always symbolical in one as1>ect or the spiritually-minded spectator, howevar, the event _will be another, for just as the unlettered tradesman in Molicre's full of human interest. He will think of the imn:\ and amusing play, 'I,e Bourgeois Gentilhomme,' found that he pathos of poor humanity, crowned rather with thorns than had been speaking prose all his life without knowing it, so roses of the miser with his heavy, irksome crown of gold does our matter-of-fact ra()e use, often unknowingly, the (symbolical of nothing in the spiritual order of things), of language of symbolism. We are engaged just now in the many crowns of tinsel and i1aste worn proudly by those celebrating an event of world-wide importance, and all eyes who are yet too undeveloped to aspire to aught but false are turned on the magnificent pageantry of a Coronation. and petty dignities. But he will think, too, of the crowns Here, it might qe argued, we are free from anything in of glory, invisible and intangible to the material sense, woQ the nature pf parable. There is an actual, literal crown, and 'vorn by many a humble, patient soul that h_;1,s devoted and it is literally and actually placed on a human head; its life here to the service of itS kind. And he_ will True, but here the symbolism has been transferred from remember with joy and gratitude, being a spiritually the term to the thing itself, and the ceremonial has a enlightened observer, how there is laid up for eac~ one spiritual as well as a temporal significance. It is not merely here, from the highest King to the lowliest peasant, a that the ascent of a prince to kingship is confirmed and Crown of Life. That crown, indeed, has been conferred ratified by a gorgeous rite. It is the re·affirmation by the already, and we await only the coronation day ?f ~he Spirit nation of its belief in the ancient. principle of monarchy, to know that it is assuredly ours-the final mt1fymg touch and, as such, is a 'critical point' in its career, when all the of Death. And; in contrast with this, the crowns and forces of national power and dignity culminate for a moment coronets of earth seem but of smidl account. They are but and re-assert themselves. In that aspect, then, the Corona perishable stuff, unsatisfying even when (as rarely happens) tion is a very great event indeed. To some of us, perhaps, they really symbolise some spiritual sovereignty; Only of the strong note of militarism which marks the occasion that incorruptible diitdem can it l>e said,- the 'pomp and circumstance' of battalions and battleships --may seem to accord ill with an e\•ent \Vhich, interiorly at How sweet. a thing it i~ to wear a crown, Within whose chcnlt is Elysium! all events, is spiritual in its nature. But, as the homely saw reminds us, 'It takes all kinds of people to mal~e a But a tmcc to moralising ! The true philosopher lives June ~7, 19q.] .LTGHT. mainly in t}ie present. Ther.e are bands and. baµuers. in Surveying _this .fjeld of . conflic~, we .Q.ubiously. a~k, the street, and revelry is in the air. \Ve are not hernnts, What is the meaning of all this clashing and contrad1ct10n but citizens of no mean city. Let us hang out our flags of opinion 1 , It seems chaotic, hut there must be some and lanterns with the· rest. meaning in it. It ·is useless to ask, What end does ~od intend it to answer 1 We must look elsewhere for an explanation ; and that explanation may p:rhaps be foun~ TO BELIEVE OR NO~ TO BELIEVE. in the hypothesis that this mental and spmtual struggl~ is n part of the struggle of life in the process of evolution. 'To believe er not to believe 1' 'that is the question.' The more thought the more controversy j and the mqre The minds of many arc perplexed, and the conventional controve!'sy the more thought. 'I leave my peace with Ueligionist is ever ready with bis, ' He that believ.et~ ~~t you,' said Jesus. Ah; ln1t he also said, ' My coming wil) shall be damned.' On the other hand, the N egat10mst Is bring, not peace, but a s_\vord ' : and both sayings w~re tru~. quite .!ls ready \vith, 'He tha~ believeth is a fool.: The Here and there the promised peace has nestled ,in gentle Rel.igio~i11t bemoans 'the hardne&s . of the he~rt. The and receptfre souls: but, iii" the 1world at large, in. the Negationist ·smnes at the softness of the bram. Th,cy arena of strife, there is always the sword. never come to a concli.t'sion worth a thought, How can · But .suppose ·Religionist and Negationist both disap. they 1 They are qoth, from opposite points of view, th~ peared, ·and the calm· of indifference settled down. on .11s slaves of a philosophy of sense. Priestley was a m~ter1- all, with no belief in God, and no thought of a future hfe., alist, as much so as B1·adlaugh :·but, while the one believed would that. be an improvement 7 Surely, in such an event, in the resurrection of the body, the other believed only life would dwindle into a poor farce, or a sordid t1':&gedy. in a body that did not rise. An age that lived, or tried to live, without God :and w_ith On that subject there has arrived, however, a ~··eat out the hope of a future life would have to live for the change. Very few Religionists, even of the conventional thinas of earth and time. And what are they 1 As soon order now believe in the resurrection of the body. Many as clutch them they are gone, like the apples on the persons,.in it.as an atrocity, and find '~e devo~t f~ct, rega~d Dead Sea shore, crumbling at a touch. a deliahtful modern meanina in Paul's averment that there 0 0 . b Still, it may be open to us to dream of a better, is a .natural body cind a spiritual body. · It is true t a,t happier, and altogether sweeter world than this, and of a there is 110 destruction of .matter, in the sense of anm manhood far higher than anything we have known. But, hilation; but the .body is not our identity. If it were, in the absence of belief in God and a future life, there ' without doubt,' though not. in the Athanasian sense,_ ' we would be misery in that; for, in proportion _as .we mak~ should pe1:ish everlastingly.' It must be admitted that human life more desirable,, and human nature more noble, the Bible teaches the restlfrec~io11 of the body, but wh1Jit the greater must be the sorrow at the thought of anni then 1 It also teaches what is inconsistent with that: or hilation. It is the misery of life that t.akes the sting from what inakes:it. qv,ite unnecessary. · death; and wings the soul fodlight to regions beyond this The outright Spiritualist, though the best aflirmer of ' vale of tears.' ·But, if there were nothing beyond, afl God and Imfuortafity, iS often,· strangely ei1ougb, called human ad\•anoea. and all accessions of joy would only add 'an infidel': -and it is true. tbat·,·he is· infidel 111ftO the con roaso~~·fo~ ·~orrow: in the contemplation of the ·dreaded end. ventional Devil and Hell. He has not ·the shadow of a The appeal to _the Bible is not of much avail. It i~ n~t belief that Evil can overcome Good. · He sees that Evil is consistent, and it cannot be final. The appeal to Christ Is the negation qf Good, or oi1ly a low form of it; and. he is better, if we can accept Gerald Massey'_s illuminating not agitated by the names with which he is assailed. A thouaht that the true Christ is the abiding. and unfolding truly ·devout soul 'has the \vitness in He can himself.~ Chri;t-side of Humanity. The Kingdom of Heave_n is say, 'When I do my be_st, I have an intimation of E~erni~y. within us: and by the exercise of true faith, that is, by On the condition that I retain my hold of the Providential the use of reason THE ORIGIN OF KINGS. often extend trading transactions to the other world, lending money in this life to be repaid with interest in the next ; whilst, BY HORACE LEAF. in some tribes, no greater punishment can be inflicted upon a man than to accuse him before the spirits of his ancestors. It Now t.hat the country is celebrating the Coronation of King is interesting to note that the conditions of spirit control among George the Fifth, it may not be out of place to consider the them coincide with those familiar to Spiritualists : tremblings, origin of the office of Kingship. yawning, unpremeditateq action, trance, and conscious The most obvious theory, derived from speculation, is that inspiration. it is a development of the office of Chieftainship that existed The following instance of spirit control may be, with when savage tribes were constantly at war one with another, various inconsequential modifications, applied widespread to and when t11e man selected for this office was necessarily the primitive races: The Kangars, of Upper India, worship the bravest and most \varlikc. But speculation of this kind is often spirit of Mana, who was once a man and lived on earth. A wide of the mark, for theory and practice may be as far as the great unconquered chief and model fighter, he was also a wise poles asunder. artificer and guide of his people. At the close of the ceremony Useful information regarding the early period of a nation attached to the tribe's worship of him, there ·is held a general may often be derived from the works of contemporary writers feast, in which most get drunk. Just before the drunken stage of more advanced nations, but the best method appears to be is reached a man, who has abstained from drinking wine and that of analysing the conditions prevailing among modern races eating flesh, of which the others have partaken, comes forward who are probably passing through stages of development that asserting that he is filled with the Divine presence, and remains correspond with those passed through by the forefathers of the standing before a tree with his eyes closed, as if in a trance.· If developed nation. he is seized by a fit of trembling he is believed to be possessed There is upon this planet to-day a practically unbroken line by the spirit of Mana, and as long as the inspiration lasts he of lrnman beings in various stages of mental and moral develop may be consulted by any man or woman in the assembly who ment, ranging upward from almost the lowest type conceivable, needs assistance or ad vice. to the most highly developed races. Some of the Australian Owing to the lack of social organisation which prevails aliorigines are among the least develciped ; their stage of culture among the lowest races, there is no class distinction and no corresponding with that of the long-passed Stone Age of chief. When some form of co-ordination exists there may be a Europe. These people know nothing of the use of metals, Council of Elders composed of the most aged men, whose duty it making their various implements of wood and stone, and is to see that the tribal customs are observed, but who receive dwelling in caves. • no special privileges for their services. A well-known traveller gives a graphic picture of a bushman Their experience and wisdom being mainly gained through of Central Africa, a member of a race almost as low as the tribal association, they are regarded, in consequence, a.s in duty aborigines of Australia. These people, when untouched by civilisa bound to assist the tribe by exercising them freely on behalf tion, have no sense of private property, social organisation of all. religion, marriage rites, or family ties ; they dwell in caves and In such young societies each family may worship its own holes, and their language is so poor as to be characterised by ancestral spirits, at its own family shrine, no unity of worship 'click,' so that it resembles 'the cackling of geese.' This de beyond this simple form existing. One of the first steps to the scription will convey some idea of the general limitations of ·formatien of ·a distinct class is.- when:.. :a person : kno.wnj:tO• :be th~e primitive races:- · ' specially qualified for spirit communion and believed to be able What gives the more verity to such a comparison [with the by spirit aid to work magic, is raised to the rank of sorcerer and ape] was the vivacity of his eyes, and the flexibility of his eye b1·owl:!, which he worked up and down with every change of released from the necessity of working for his liveliliood, on countenance. Even his nostrils and the corners of his mouth, condition that he uses his gifts on behalf of the tribe. This nay, his very ears, moved involuntarily, expressing his hasty decision arises mainly from economic considerations, his main transition from eager desire to watchful distrust. . . When duties being to assure good weather and a plentiful supply of a piece of meat was given him, and half rising he stretched food, by invoking the aid of the gods. out a distrustful arm to take it, he snatched it hastily, and stuck The evolution from sorcerer to chief is observable. In it immediately into the fire, peering round with his little keen eyes, as if fearing that someone would take it away again. All many tribes the functions of magician and chief are combined, this was done with such looks and gestures that anyone must as in British New Guinea, where, whilst chiefs have not have been ready to swear he had taken the example of them necessarily magical powers, sorcerers are rega_rded as chiefs. entirely from the ape. Among other tribes, such as those of the New Hebrides, Among such people, and for a considerable range above the office of chieftainship does not descend to the son of them, is to be found practically no monotheistic conception of the ruler unless he possesses psychic powers. For some Deity such as prevails among more advanced races ; so exalted reason the faith of some of the inhabitants of the Melane an idea being dependent upon considerable mental and moral sian Islands in the spirits with which their chiefs had intercourse, development. and from whom they derived supernatural powers, has weakened, The gods of these simple folk are the spirits of the dead, and in consequence the office of chieftainship Iias tended to ancestor worship being the prevailing religious belief. This become obscure. ', form of worship is characteristic of such comparatively advanced Such qomparatively advanced races as the Matabeles of South ·races as the Egyptians, Chinese, Japanese, and many races of Africa couple the office of chieftain with that of high priest or .'11\dia, and is entertained in modified forms by large sections of head sorcerer, with its 1nagical duties and power. Here can be :still higher races. seen the origin of the idea of the dh:inity of kings with its con In every known primitive race the sorcerer or medicine comitant divine rights. man is found. The sorcerer is a person who, by virtue of his Naturally the entities who control the chief sorcerer are gene peculiar psychic nature, is regarded as the channel through rally those of his own ancestors. The belief of many Spiritualists whom the gods or spirits work in their relations with the tribe ; that a strongly psychical person upon 'passing away' is specially and as, in the absence of knowledge of natural law, tl1ese people qualified to communicate with earth from the spirit world, is attribute the control of the elements to their gods, the sorcerer acknowledged by primitive people. Powerful sorcerers and chiefs is a person of great importance, for upon him practically rests are regarded at death as being equally powerful gods, and are the tribal welfare. Other persons beside recognised sorcerers accordingly apotheosised. may be subject to like inspiration from the spirits, but not In the event of a powerful chief being succeeded by his son, to such a degree, nor with such effect. he may become the supreme controlling god, and the son in the So fh-mly established among these people is the belief in the performance of his priestly and magical functions may call upon nfluence of the dead and in the exi~tence of the spirit world the spirit of his father to assist him ; or, in the case of an offer which is conceived to be hased upon much the same principle ing to the gods, he may ask his deceased parent to invite the as this world, and life in it not greatly different-that they will spirits of his ancestors, and those of the entire irilJe, to accept it June 17, 1911.] "LIGHT. 285 'on behalf of the whole community ; for whilst the many are not has not loved someone and felt that tenderness \vhich asks only forgotten, the tendency, as amongst .the ancient Hebrews, is that it may give. The someone whom we love may love us in always to exalt some particular spirit as supreme amongst them. response and be filled with the desire to save and to shield us In one of the villages of the Toradjas of Central Celebes, cere from all pain and suffering, to give us only joy and happiness ; monies and prayers are offered and appeals made to the spirit of a but, however great that desire may be, it cannot be realised, for famous chief, the grandfather of the present ruler, who is be though no outer influences or circumstances may come to mar lieved to be able greatly to help the people. our own personal happiness, if the individual who loves us and The gods of the Matabeles are the forefathers of the reigning whom we love should personally and individually suffer; we monarch, who on occasions propitiates them on behalf of the must and should suffer too. So close is the union of spirit, tribe. It is said that .Lobengula, the great Matabele chief who that the pain of those we love must be our win, their joy must caused considerable trouble a few years ago until suppressed by be our joy. . We may be outwardly separated by differing cfr the British, owed much of his powerful influence to his .supposed cumstances and environment, but love has broken down the magical pGWers. His tutelary gods were the spirits of his father physical barrier between us. Spirit has touched spirit. ·· . and· grandfather, to whom he offered expensive :sacrifices, and What we thus feel for one individual 've shall some day prayed thus :- r~alise and feel towards all ! Some of us have had glimpses of 0 great spirits of my father and grandfather, I thank you that unutterable joy which stirs our beings when we have for having granted last year to my people more wheat than to realised, if only dimly and for a moment, that feeling of at-one our enemies. . • This year, in gratitude for the twelve black ment with, of perfect tenderness towards, all humanity, when oxen which I am about to dedicate to you, make us to be the the soul is flooded with love and sympathy, when the sacrifice of best fed and the strongest people in the world. · self, if only we could be assured that it would bring peace and It is generally among the less developed races that the office happiness to all those to whom we are bound for ever in the of chieftain is not hereditary, but held according to qualification, closest, intensest fellowship of souls, would cease to be a sacrifice the tendency being, however, in the course of tribal develop and become the greatest possible joy. ment, for the office to be retained in certain families ; at first Some people have been foolish enough to imagine that to not passing from father to eldest son, any member being selected love many is to weaken our love for individuals. n is not so. who is considered most capable of performing the duties. In Love is unlimited and infinite, it can include all, and yet give to time it tends from various causes to descend by hereditary each overflowing measure. The perfect man, the Christos, loves succession. At this stage, th~ sense of sanctity which has always all men, enemies and friends, and such love is perfect in its self- been the accompaniment of spirit association, ripens into that abnegation and its comprehension. · fixed form of divine right which attaches itself so strongly to Even in our own limited human capabilities we can see how early forms of kingship, and which is of such long life. it is possible to love, better than ourselves, 'an infinite number With the growth of the tribe by the process of conquest and of people, and yet never to forget anyone, or to diminish the otherwise, the combined civil and religious duties become too love given to one by the love we give to anOther. That is a great to be centred in one man; their separation naturally fol spiritual impossibility. The mystery of personality, which we lows. The chief may select for himself either temporal or at present so little understand, makes it so ; for ·love in its spiritual power, vesting the unselected office in some other per essence is infinite, and all and each are necessary to make up the son.· From this time forth the two offices grow gradually more perfect mosaic of.fellowship. · , , . and. more apart, although for a long period of time the chief .or True, some are more necessary to our happiness th\Ln other.a ; king, whilst undisputed head of the civil, may also be regarded our greater love for them makes them so. But some day we as virtual head of the priestly powers or church. But in due shall love all as greatly as we now love them, and then the story coltrse complete separation appears to be inevitable, as in the of the Cross will no longer seem an example impossible for case of the highest civilised races. humanity to attain to, but a great and fundamental reality-the perfect and completed expression of love which is the joy of the THE FELLOWSHIP OF SOULS. spirit, and which, as yet, passeth man's under~tanding to realise and is the consummation of the soul's pilgrimage. BY M. DE VERE. As we think, so we bind others to us, and our thoughts go 'No man liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself,' for out into the great spiritual universe around us, and affect not each one of us is, indeed, his bi·other's keeper. All r~ligions only ourselves, but all humanity. For as we think, so we have taught this beautiful and awe-inspiring· tmth of universal attract like thoughts and like influences to us ; and as others fellowship and interdependency and its necessary corollary, think, so they attract our thoughts, whether good, bad, or in individual responsibility. But fully to realise its great meaning, different. Therefore it is our bounden·duty, when we realise· we must recognise ·and acknowledge the paramount importance this truth and its accompanying responsibility, to purify and of the spiritual, and the immortality of the divine self in each gtmrd our thoughts in order that the influence .we exert may be ltuman ego. The physical, which at first sight seems to be the for good, and for good alone, not only on tho8e whom we love living bond that connects us as human beings together, is in now, and whom, therefore, we desire to guard and cherish, but reality the greatest caUBe of our apparently individual separate also on those others whom we shall some day love, and to whom nes8. Through love we come into closest contact with others, even now we are bound by the great spiritual bond, the fellow because love, being in its essence · purely spiritual, enl!-bles the ship of souls. Not only those whom we ~rm alive, but those spirit to pierce through the physical man, which .is. obscuring whom we term dead, are bound to us and \Ve to them by this the real, spiritual self. True uriion can only come through soul great bond and the power of thought. For. the sheath of our coqtact, · and the physical P.erpetually battles and Mlinits our immortality is builded up by. thoughts, 111Id by them do we capacity for such unions. make our Karma or ·destiny, leaving man a free ··agent Death, generally looked upon as the great divider, is in reality in his choice of either good or evil. the great binder of souls ; it breaks down the barrier of our By thinking thoughts of love, compassion, and of joy, we physical selves and their ·accompanying limitations, and gives are helping not only ourselves by attracting such thoughts and the perfect communion of spirit ;vith spirit. Through individual their accompanying influences to us, but we are strengthening loves we get a realisation of the univer!al love that binds us to our those powers for good anq for happiness in others ; thus making fellows. That tenderness which separates from within 'the iron our responsibility as individuals unlimited in its capabilities bondage of separateness,' and which ordinary humanity only and its effects, either for good or evil, on humanity as a whole. feels towards those to whom it is individually attracted, is Surely this realisation of the fellowship of all men and our what the Christ nature feels towards all humanity, and what mutual dependence on each other as individuals should tend the Christ-self in each of 11s will some day realise in all its per to hreak down the hal'l'iers.of malice, envy, hatred and contempt, fect joy and intensity. and to llring in the reign of that Obrist-love, which in losing self saves the whole world-that love which is the harbinger of There is surely no man who has not had some glimmer of joy, of peace, and of the ultimate perfection of love's fellowship, what this fellowship means. Surely no soul has lived that in the ki11ship of souls. LI 0- HT •. [June l'(,~1911, HINDU DOCTRINE OF METEMPSYCHOSIS. things in his own soul, h_e att(tins to Br~huia,' the final goal. That Brahma is infinite, eternal, unending :- BY l\1Rs. ALICIA SrnPso~. It is within all the worlds. Nothing withill the worlds exists without it. Were one to speed for ever with the celerity of an In no systems of philosophy or reli~ion is the universal hope arrow shot from the bow, yea, if one were to travel with the quickness of thought, yet one could, never attain the end of t1ie of something 1Jeyond this present life more clearly manifest than great Cause of all things. . . He is smaller than the smallest, in those of India. l\Ietempsycbosis, the coi1tinual passing of the greater thau the greatest, the gerni of all that lives, impercep soul through one body after another, till in the end, by many tihle though existent, unchangeable yet changing. . . The deYious and difficult stages, it reaches the purity of the eternal wise man who att11,ins to that supreme diYinity escapes for ever Brahma and itself is merged in the Di vine, is the cardinal tenet both life and birth. · of Hhiduism, a doctrine which has imbued all Hindu literature This emancipation, the final end which shall release man from the time of the Upanishads down to the present day. Now from t11e whirling wheel of lfres, is not ex:tmction-neither is it when Theosophists are bringing this theory prominently before an existence that can be conceived by mortal mind. But as in the public, it might not be amiss to examine into the nature of the human frame the mind is conscious of three conditious ~ome of the oldest teacl1ing concerning it, and see from what pleasure, pain, and the absence of pleasure or pain-so in that source they derh-e some of their statements. The other day a glodfied life, when the soul through renunciation shall have contemporary journal stated that there are two Hindu youths now cast aside all earthly striving, the absence of desire and the in London, under the care of l\Irs. Annie Besant, who are asserted mergence of the individual soul in the great Universal Soul bring to have had no less tlian thirty-one lnunan exiStences. One boy is with them infinite satisfaction, perfect peace, a larger life than claimed as the reincarnation of a disciple of the Lord Buddha, and human intellect can fathom. As the brook is merged in the l1is lives in various lands have been traced back through tlie dim river, and the river is lost in the ocean, so the soul, mingling ages of the past. l\fany more existences are supposed to lie with the Supreme Soul, loses itself in the infinite Brahma. Yet behind him, the Yestiges of which have disappea1·ed in the mists not to annihilation, for of time, and he and his brother are held to he no strange excep that one ripple on the boundless deep tions, since all men are considered to have had similar experi Peels that the deep is boundless, and itself ences, of which most, however, have lost the memory. A theory For ever changing form, but e\·ermore One with the boundless motion of the deep. wl1ich is no mere modem fad, hut which has engaged tl1inking minds in India, China, Egypt, Europe, and has attracted in the In that higher existence, which, like the final stages of past snch intellectual giants as Pythagoras, Plat.o, Goetlm, every religion, is so hard to realise, there will be Lessing, Herder, Hume, and Schopenhauer, must at least be no shade of doubt, wortl1y of a hearing. It is easy to trace in the Mahabharata, But utter clearness, and thro' loss of self The gain of such large life as match'd with ours that great storchotLse of ancient wisdom, the origin of tl1c Were sun to spark-unshadowable in words, Theosophist's theory of reincarnation. .l\frs. Annie Besant's 'l'hemselves hut shadows of a shadow world. interpretation· of the wisdom of the ancients is naturally based Such, imperfectly, is the ideal to which, after many wander 011 the Benares school of Hindu thought. I do not know ings through divers phases of creations, in varying human forms, whcthe1· she has had the time to compare those views with the· perchance as stones, plante, lower animals, perchance even in teaching of the :Xavadwipa school of Bengal, and I shall be glad different spheres to ours, the ancient Hindus believed all men if auyone can point out to me cases in which the two schools would at length attain. Their doctrine of metempsychosis ex differ in their interpretation. Says Bhl'igt;, in the 'Sauti plains their whole attitude to life, and seemed to them to make Parva' :- clear the lmrd problems of sin and pain and inequality of· No Ii ving creature e\·er dies, nor do om· gifts, nor auy of our wealth, of fate and freewill, and even that difficult question of deeds. That wl1ich perishes passes into another form. Only heredity, which, many centuries before the Christian era, was the body dies, but that which is living within it, the soul, incnrs plainly perceived by them and brought under discussion. no dissolution when the body perishes. As fire vanishes when the wood is consumed, so does the soul leave the body invisibly and mingle with space. Those who lack knowledge say MRS. BESANT PROPHESIES GREAT CHANGES. that the soul dies, wl1ich is not t.rue. The living essence does lJUt pass from one body to unother. The, so-called death is hut On Sunday last, at the Queen's Hall, 1\lrs. Besant delivered the destruction of the body. The soul, encased in various forms, au eloquent address on 'Impending Physical Changes.' The passes from form to form, in vh:1ihle to man. 'Daily Chronicle,' in a descriptive report, said:- Should a man's life he marred with siu, then he is constrained The most important physical change in which this wonde1·ful tu Ii ve in realms of pain. The sinful return again and yet ago.i,iu and eloq neut woman seems to place hc1· faith is the uprising of to bfrth amid sorrow, dread, famine, and death. The virtuOLts, a new continent of volcanic origin in the Pacific. That, she who are master of desire, are born amid happy surroundings, and declared, will be the future home of mankind, and in the con lead lives of 1Jlessed comfort. The consequences of past cluding passages of her address she expressed the view that the deeds pursue the doer, no matter how he stmggle to escape. nations were drawing closer together and the laud. was· being Like a shadow they follow liim, sleeping or waking, stay where huilded for the future nation that would absorb the others. lie stays, advance as he advances, act when he acts. . . The While this was going on t4e mighty Empire oi 'the fifth race'· deeds of pre-existences are followed by their results as surely as was arising. If the .human race would liave it so, they must flowers and fruits ap1Jear in their season. learn that it meant responsibility, duty, and righteousness ; if This is au awe-inspiring doctrine, and at first sight one in. they would be part of an Eu1pil'e that would last, they must' which there would seem to he no ray of hope for.· the sinner. grow into a freedom which was self-controlled. 1 Y ct it is not so; for this Karma, the sum totftl of a man's' Mrs.· Besant made a strong plea f-0r India :- thoughts and acts, t:an become exhausted, and then those acts We eallllot, leave India out of the Empire which we 'arc cease to bear their fruits. 'They who repent may, by obserYing building up, and that is where the Colonies are making a great mistake. · There is no land which the Indian cannot enter easily penances, attain infinite happiness.' By devotion to duty, by except the Colonies and under the British flag. This is under-. renunciation of desire, by steady performance of the tasks that mining our Empil"~ in India, for the Indian resents being. treated lie before him, a man may so hlot out the record of past offences as an outcast under the flag whid he was taught to respect, and against the law that in the end, rising step by step in the plane for which he has fought and died. Indians have been struggling of righteousness, he may at l~ugth attain the divinity of the for better treatment, and they have been t>erved shamefully in eternal Brahma himself. Such a one 'who is possessed of know S()nth Africa. ledge regards alike all lfring creatures, a holy Bmhman, a cow, Continuing, :;he said that :- England and India would be the centre of mighty Empire, an elephant, a dog, and a Chandala,' for such a man beholds n buttressed on one side by America and on the other side by Ger t.hronghouf. all )[atum tl11' universal essence of <~ivinity tliat many. America was approaching us to-day. Would not Ger dwells in 1111 things. To him, tfo~refore, the clod of earth, the many do so as well 1 And, wit.h these three linked together, who lump of gold, the trees, the fl.owers, mankind itself are all as sbonld dare to break the peace, which had been proclaimed on one. ' When a man beholds ltis own soul in all th in gs, and all . earth, and speak of w11r wlien such a power spoke for peace ? •T nne 17.1 1911;] LIGHT . 287 ITEMS OF INTEREST. oay " There is nothiug uurea8ouable in believing iha.t persons iu a state of spiritual tension may be cognisant of sights and Those Spiritualists who have not had the pleasme of hear sounds which make no impression, or only a vague impression; ing the 'direct voice ' manifestations, such as occurred through on the multitude." Teaching such as this is largely held by us the mediumship of Mrs. Everitt for so many years, and who are Anglican clergy. Since I wrote to you last, many friends and interested in such phenomena, woultl do well to take advantage acquaintances, not to say parishioners, have passed into the spirit of .the presence of Mrs. Wriedt, the lady medium from Detroit, world, and for my own consolation and . for the consolation of U.S.A., who is now staying for a short time at Julia's home at others I am grateful to know what I do know ; and there are Wimbledon; All applications for permission to attend her few to whom people more readily apply when they wish to know seances must be sent to ~Ir. W. T. Stead, ··Bank-buildings, something of those facts which sorrow enforces them to think Kingsway, W.C'. about, and it is a pleasure to he able to gh'e them something more than platitudes in their troubles. Like St. Paul, onr 'The Spiritual Journal,' of Boston, Mass, U.S.A., quotes the motto must be 81001(00-I press on -not weary in well doing.' following suggestive parable, hy Bolton Hall, respecting 'The Spirit and the Flesh' : 'A clock had inward strfrings. Said the µ18.inspring: "This pendulum is too physical. It limits my LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. soul; I must subdue the flesh." So it loosened its coil. Said the pendulum : "How the upward straining of this spring dis The Editor is not responsible for the opiniom expressed by correspon turbs my peace ! I shall deny that it exists and go my own way." dents, and sometilmes publishes what he does not agree ivith for So it swung with studied irregularity against the ease. But the the pmpose of presenting views which may elicit discussion. clock that had these inward strivings stopped.' Mr. C. Bailey, the Australian Medium, in London. Speaking of 'True Healing' in 'The Spiritual Journal,' Miss Sm,-I have read with interest the letter by Dr. A. Wallace Susie C. Clark says : 'The healer fills much the same office as in' LIGHT' of tl1e 3rd inst., on p. 263. As representing Mr. Bailey, the tuner of n musical instrument (though with less effort), who permit me, in reply, to say tliat, wl1ile I fully appreciate the raises the llattened tones to concert pitch, restores harmony from doctor's attit11de, in that he asks for test conditions of greater jangling discord. Even the length of the treatment given, the evidential value, he, being one of the gentlemen who searched time devoted to it, is decided for him, is quite beyond his con and afterwards sat opposite the medium, was, with the other trol. It is as if he were a telephone through which connection ·gentleman, practically responsible to safegua1·d conditions, and is made with a certain number. The current through this all present were as special police, and responsible for each other. 'phone continues until he is detached from the patient's number. :Ur. Bailey does not lfre at this place, and comes alone to the He could not sever it prematurely, or prolong it after he is re circles. He is alw11ys seare.hed from head to foot, beaten fairly leased. The highest aspiration of ernry healer should he to he hard nllout the l1ody, and isolated from contact with the sitters. come a worthy instrument to he used.' Yet on this Pftl'ticular occa&on a lump of wet clay containing genuine palreolithic .flint spear-heads was produced. This the doctor frankly. admits was 'somewhat startling.' Professor T. L. Vaswani, who recently visited London, says: Since the meeting referred to above, we ham held three There are ·converging signs that the religion of the spirit is others, all with remarkable results. In one the medium was destined to overcome the 'religions of authority' in the West. enclosed in a hag which was securely tied round his neck ; in 'Modernism,' though condemned by the Pope, as 'the synthesis another he was, after being thoroughly searched, &c., as usual, of all heresies,' grows from more to more. Dr. Harnack--the placed in a cabinet which was securely locked and sealed ; yet distinguished theologian of Germnny-hai:i declared over and we ha1'e received living foreign birds,. a lump of wet clay over again that the church must be delivered from dogmatic studded with ancient Roman coins, a Central African woman's Qhristianity. The scientific, ethical, and humanitarian instincts 'mouchee' dress, nests with fresh eggs (which have been just of tl1e age demand a new synthesis, a new gospel bringing to a as mysteriously removed ;igain), and a lot of sand containing point the purpose immanent in the Protestant Reformation, in uncut gems (Indian rubies). These facts, which can he \"erified Methodism, and the Oxford Movement of the last century. hy the many ladies and gentlemen present, are surely of evidential value, those gentlemen undertaking to search the medium being An earnest contributor to our Manchester contemporary, in all cases strangers to him, and careful investigators. . 'The Two Worlds,' makes the following sensible remarks con I note, in conclusion, that Dr. A. Wallace has kindly sug ceming Spiritualism : 'It is in truth inclusive, taking count of gested that 'a carefully-selected and sympathetic committee' he not one world only, but two; not of one sphere of activit.y only, appointed in order that l\fr. Bailey may have 'opportunities of hut of many ; it sympathises with all truthseekers, with all demonstrating his mediumistic powers' still more thoroughly, workers in the vineyard of progress, of enlightenment and of and that he also offers to contribute towards a fund for that pur the betterment of humanity, believing that "to labour is to pray," pose. , It would, therefore, be an easy matter for those interested that in worshipping the Giver of all and in working for the good in this wouf!erful phase of psychic power to settle, once for all, of His children-our fellows-we are doing His will, advancing e\·ery doubt regarding its reality. His purpose, and are working in conjunction with, and helping It is my desire, sir, and also the wish of :l\Irs. Foster-Turner, forward, His great plan of humanity's advancement and salvation.' who is responsible for Mr. Bailey's visit to London, that this im- 1mrtant service slrnuld be rendered to the cause here, and we l\Ir. Newmarch P. Smith, writing in 'The Banner of Life,' welcome such investigations, and are quite prepared to do all of Boston, Mass., U.S.A., says: 'The Spiritualists of the United in om· poll'er to adrnnce them.-Yours, &c., States. according to the late religious census; outnumber that ALBERT J. AnnoTT, l\I.R.PH.S. fine body of believers, the Unitarian Church, three to one. We have colleges, costly temples, churches, chartered institutions Srn,-I was present at lfr. Charles Bailey's seance on June and incorporated societies, and large properties, and hereafter 1st, during which he sat in a new cage, made of light laths and :we are to demand the respect we are entitled to under the Con gauze. When we were called into the seance-room I was snr stitution and the Bill of Rights. Medimnship is not fortune prised to find Mr. Bailey already seated inside the cage and partly telling, or palmistry. It is different from both, in that it does under control. Any careful examination of the cage, clmir, and not make its chief end material gain and mercenary purposes, floor was therefore impossible, nor was it attempted. The but rather seeks to comfort the bereaved and to demonstrate medium was searched ·and pummelled by two gentlemen, hl1t the continuity of life. Genuine mediumship is of the spirit, quite superficially. The cabinet or cage was locked by a spec and has no flaw in its armour. The Rev. Dr. Abbot is l"eported tator who kept the key. During a short dark interval a bird, in ''Harper's Bazaar" as saying he believes in spirit return. which subsequently proved to be a small finch, was heard flut~ Certainly his orthodoxy cannot he questioned. He also says : tering inside, It was caught .and placed in a birdcage. 'fhe "I am well satisfied that since my mother's death I liaYe been holder of the key introduced a dish into the cahinet, which, controlled by my mother's presence.'" . during a second dark interYal, was filled with red sand. . This seance was interesting but not convincing,.as I consider A kindly correspondent writes : ' I was reading Canon that ·before t'he medium enters the cabinet both he and the MacColl's "Reformation Settlement" awhil.e ago, and I was cabinet shnuld he thoroughly examined by trustworthy sitters, much struck by the words, " If we are to believe the Bible the and that the seance-roQm should be empty of furniture, save for spiritual world is not a region far away in space but close to us ; the chairs and cabinet, and liave an. uncarpeted lloor.. I-was and we do not see its sights or hear its sounds simply. because struck by the fact that. the hird was obviously a tame one. It our present organs are too dull to apprehend them. We are showed no alarm, and aft.et· the seance was sitting calmly on its thus in the condition of a man bom deaf and blind into t.hfa perch. Any wild bil'd would 11ave been in the greatest teri·or. world of sense: he is in the midst of two worlds of which, how If it came from India the controls mnst luwe taken it from a ever, lie knows next to nothing." He afterwards passes on to rngr, hut. t.hi>i tlrny deny, 288 LIGHT. [June 17, 1911. A far better test would be to have a marked object placed true.' However, on inquiry at home she found everything as outside th.e cage, to be transported by the controls to the inside. stated by the control,. and the sister's startled inquiry, 'Who A sheet of paper with the names of the sitters would suffice.- has been telling you ? I was· going to keep it from you alto Yours, &c., l\I. S. gether,' clearly Pl'oved how serious the affair had been. When the sister read the message from her spirit mother it made a ·The ' Mentone Phenomena.' great impression upon 1ier mind, aJ1d she naively asked : 'Is Srn,-The interesting article on the •Passage of ,Matter mother satisfied with the way I am looking after the children ? ' . through Matter' in 'LIGHT ' of May 27th reminds me of a -Yours, &c., THos. BROWN. curious incident which happened to me about two months ago, Kingston, S. W. and which I have hitherto refrained from recording as it seemed so incredible. It occurred during the phenomena of the switch ing on and off of the electric lights by some unseen and in Mrs. Wriedt's Sittings for the Direct Voice. explicable agency in my room, which were recorded in ' LIGHT ' Srn,-To save me some unnecessary correspondence, permit under the heading of the ' Mentone Phenomena.' me to intimate t.hrough ' LIGHT' that all applications for a One evening I had occasion to place some money, which I sitting with Mrs. Wriedt must be accompanied by a fee of did not w,ish to carry on my p!)rson, in my trunk in my room in 10s. 6d. for the evening general circle, which is limited to eight the hotel. Having folded it up in an envelope I placed the or ten, oi· one guinea per person when a private sitting is desired.· packet in a corner of the trunk in a secure hiding place, and The motiey will be returned in case the sitting cannot be given. then locked the trunk. About ten minutes later I looked up Early application is desirable, as the stay of Mrs. Wriedt in this from some. writing I was engaged in and noticed something country is brief.-Yours, &c., · white lying on the floor at the other side of the room. · Curious w. T. STEAD. to know what it WB.!!, I arose and picked it up, and found to my Bank Buildings, Kingsway; amazement that it was the packet of money I had hidden in my trunk. I was dtunbfounderl and could hardly realise the evidence of SOCIETY WORK. my senses. I thought the 1i1Rttcr over carefully, and was con vinced that I had really put the packet in my trunk, but to , SPECIAL NOTICE TO SECRETARIES. make sure I searched the place to see whether I had absent mindedly placed another packet there and somehow dropped As the .,ext number of 'Light' must be printed on Monday, the money packet on the floor, but the most careful examination the f9th inst., in consequence of the Coronation Holidays, disclosed nothing there. I remember very well having a final look we shall be unable to insert any reports from societies at the money before closing the trunk and saying to myself : ' It in that issue. will be quite safe there.' How is one to account for the disappear ance of the packet from the trtmk and its appearance on the MARYLEBONE SPIRITUALIST ASSOCIATION, 51, MORTDIER floor, where there certainly had been nothing before or I should STREET, W.-O(JJIJendish Rooms.-Mrs. Mary Davies gave an address, have noticed it? I never heard a sound. That looks like a followed by clairvoyant descriptions. Mr. Leigh Hunt presided. case of passage of matter through matter, and was probably SPIRITUAL MissION : 22, Prince's-street, Oxford-atreet.-Mr. done by the same unseen intelligence that was operating on Frederic Fletcher delivered an ·address on ' The Coming Race.' the electric lights, a~ting from the Fourth Dimension sphere and -67, George-street, W.-Mr. Frederic Fletcher answered written under the occult laws which appertain thereto. questions.-E. C. W. Referring to the ':Mentone Phenomena ' again, I may state SHEPHERD'S BusH.-118, UXBRIDGE-ROAD, CAXTON-ROAD. that I have clairvo;antly seen the spirit operator in those mani Miss Chapin gave an address and 1Jlairvoyant descriptions. S~m festations, and clairaudiently obtained the name he was known day next, dedication of new hall ; addresses by Miss Chapin, by in earth life. Mr. Burton, and others.-E. L. W. This spirit was a Frenchman, named 'Rene Fontaine '-a BATTERSEA p ARlt-ROM>.-HENLEY•STREET.-Address by }Jj,ss dark handsome man of about thfrty-five years of age. He has Morris. _ Sunday, June 18th, 11.15, public circle; at 7 p.m., ~r. coal-black hair, dark pointed beard and moustaches, dark Snowdon Hall, address ; Mrs. Annie Boddington, clairvoyance. huninous eyes with. a penetrating gaze, and a pale complexion Thursday, 22nd, Mrs. Jamrach.-D. G. the pallor associated with keen intellectuality rather than ill STRATFORD.-WORKMEN1S HALL, 27, ROMFORD·ROAD, E. health. The face is that of a thinker and scientist, but the Mrs. E. Neville gave an uplifting address on ' Seek and· Ye hands are those of a mechanic. I gather that he lived in Pa1is, Shall Find,' and convincing psychometric readings. Mr. E. P. was deeply intere&ted in electricity and mechanics, and was Noall presided. Sunday next, at 7 p.m., speaker, Miss Violet tl'ying t& perfect an invention when he died. He paid Mentone Burton.-W. H. S. a visit for his health and died later in Paris. Further par BRIXTON.-8, MAYALL-ROAD.-Mr. Horace Leaf gave an ticulars I have been unable to get. He and some others of a address and clairvoyant descriptions. Sunday next, at 7 p.m., scientific turn of mind are now trying to solve the problem of Mrs. Mary Gordon; at 3 p.m., Lyceum. Circles: Mond~J, forming a bridge between the two worlds of spirit and matter at 7.30, ladies'; Tuesday, at 8.15, members'; Thursday, at t'id electl'icity, the modus operandi being to amalgamate and 8.15, public. Wednesday, at 7, Lyceum.-G. T. W. join the finer electric and etheric forces of the spirit world with K1NGSToN-oN-THAMEs.-AssEMBLY Rooxs, HAMPTON W10K. the grosser electric currents of the earth spl1ere, and thus set up -Mrs. Wesley Adams gave an inspiring address on 'Saviotws a permanent means· of communication which will be as relialJle of Men ' and successful clairvoyant descriptions. Stmday next, and natt1ral as Marconi's wireless telegraphy.-Yours, &c., London Union Conference-afternoon, at 3 p.m., and at 7 p.m. REGINALD B. SPAN. Speakers: Messrs. R. Boddington, G. T. Brown, and M. Clegg. Cap Martin, South France. BRIGHTON.-MANOHESTER-STREET (OPPOSITE AQUARIUM). l\Iay 30th, 1911. lfr. E. W. Wallis's uplifting addresses and solo were much appreciated. Sunday next, at 11.15 a.m. and 7 p.m., Mr. P. R. Street, addresses and auric readings, and on Monday at 8, A Good Test of Spirit Watchfulness. Tuesday, at 8, and Wednesday, at 3, Mrs. Clarke, · clairvoyante. Sm,-Kµowiµg that inany per~ns believe that Spiritualists Thursday, at 8, circle.-A. M. S. · never i·eceive anytbiiig from mediums that is not known either BRIGHTON.-OLD TOWN HALL, HovE, I, BRUNSWICK-STREET bf.. the mediubi o~ the sitters, perhaps the . following incident WEsT.-Good addresses and clairvoyant descriptions were given. will be regarded as worthy of being recorded in 'LIGHT.' Suuday next, at 11.15, circle; at 7 p.m., Mrs. Curry. Monday At our Private home circle the medium (the servant girl, at 3 and 8, and Wednesday at 3, clairvoyance by Mrs. Curry. nineteen y~ars of a~) was controlled by a spil'it 'vhose agitation Thursdat, at 8.15, public circle.-A. C. and anxiety were obvious to all. The spirit said she was the PEOKHAM.-LAUSANNE HALL, LAUSANNE-ROAD.-Eveniug, medium's mother, and earnestly im~lorcd us to tell· her di!.rtghter Mrs. Podmore gave an address and successful clairvoyant descrip that a most unfortunate quarrel had occurred at lier home, and tions. Circles were held morning and evening. The healing that cel:tain accusations had been made of a damaging character. circle continues to meet on Tuesdays at 8.15 p. m. Sunday next, I They, ar~ not true ! ' I They arc false ! ' said 'the 'control . moming and evening, Mrs. A. Webb. 22nd, at 8.15, cfrcle. . 'J ii~ed 110~. go ftirther into details of the message, which I 25th, at 7 p.m., experience meeting. July 2nd, anniversary; 1vrote down ·for the girl's perusal. The point is, that when the speaker, Mr. E. W. Beard.-A. C. S. 1n~ium ·be!ljl.me normal I ,asked her what had been taking place HAQltNEY.-240A1 AlmuRST-ROAD, N.-Nurse Graham gave 11-tl1ome; but I. sqon ·foµµg tl}at the girl knew absolutely nothing an address, excellent clairvoyant descriptions, and many com of: the affair, as sµe had not been horiie for ten days and the fracas forting· messages. Sunday next, at 7 p.m., Mrs. Mary Davies, qci:urred ohly three . d.!!-YS before the circle-in fact, I had great address and clairvoyant descriptions. Monday, at 8 p.m., circle. qjfliculty in persuafilng her to refer to the message when she Tuesday, at 8 p.m., astrology !Jl.!i,sS. friday, 8.301 Mr. H~we~' P:eJ~ WeJlt home, fof llhe ·said1 'l sh!lH loo~ fooUsh jf i~ js J!.Ot 4ealin!f circle.-~',~. · · · · ight: A Journal of Psgohioal Oooult, and Mgstiaa/ Research. 'LIGHT! MORE LIGHT!'-Goctke, 'WHATSOEVER DOTH MAKE MANIFEST IS LIGHT.'-Paul. No. 1,589.-VoL. XXXI. [Registered a.a] SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 1911. [a N ewspa.per. J PRICE TwOPENOE. CONTENTSI. fact that a study of the ultra-violet rays and their NotesbytheWay .... - ...... 289 A Free Lance ofthe Spirit ...... 294 L.S.A. Notices . • ••••••••••••••• 290 Science and Spiritualism ...... 295 destructive action on living germs tends to refute this Splrltaallam and Theosophy : A !\Ira. Mary Danes at Cil.vendish theory. 'It would apparently be impossible for germs or Com~on and a Contrast. Rooms ...... 296 AddreBB by Mrs. Mary Sea.ton 291 Comforting Ppirltual Commun!< n 296 living cells to approach the earth without being destroyed A Sixteenth Centuey: H~aler ' ••. 292 D.eamDifficultie~ ...... •. 298 The Problem of Minda.ud Matter292 Common-Sense Book on Healing 299 hy ultra-violet radiation from the sun.' On the other hand, The Hypothesis of ' Bilocatlon • Pre-exit tence and Reincarnation 299 Considered . .. .. • . . • • . ... 293 '·Think on These Things• ••..•••. 299 he alludes to the strong vitality of germs and spores kept Ra.ved from. Suici£1e by a Spirit 293 Mr. Charles Bailey's Seances •. 300 in a vacuum and at low temperatures-the actual condition& of interplanetary space-and suggests the consequent NOTES BY THE WAY. possibility of their survival on their journey to earth. It is rt curious commentary on certain schools of science We occasionally hear it said that Spiritualism and that they should be reduced to such expedients to explain spiritual experiments are dangerous to novices. So are the presence of life on our planet. Without being able to horse-riding, swimming, and the use of the. razor. We define life or to state ita origin in terms of modern science, believe a. great deal too much has been said about 'the peril we can find in the principles of Nature a more reasonable of dabbling in Spiritualism.' This is usually said by people explanation of its presence than js furnished by this who have been disappointed or frightened, oP by people extremely far-fetched and bizarre theory. who are unfriendly to it. What Blanco White said about the proverb, ' A little learning is a dangerous thing,' is 'M.A. (Oxon)' once spoke suggestively of the great applicable here. 'A little learning,' said he, 'is not a difference between the microcosm and the macrocosm. We dangerous thing to one who does not mistake it for a great were reminded of his comment by reading some remarkable deal.' That is what is usually the matter. What the verses in a recent book of poems (' Rose of the Wind and investigator into Spiritualism needs, next to a calm and other Poems,' by Anna Hempstead Branch). We would patient but resolute spirit, is to guard against supposing like to quote the whole of it, but haye only space for a few that a part is the whole. stanzas:- For what is large and what is small Judging from an apparently verbatim report of a lecture To spiritual eyee ? by Mr. Raupert at Ilford, we think that gentleman might The great Lord careth not at all fitly be awarded a specially ardent vote of thanks hy the For the dream that men call size. London Spiritualist Alliance. The lecture was almost en But what thou dost, that art thou. Lo, tirely devoted to a demonstration of t:Jie genuineness of the The atoms that rehearse Their orbits in the stone are vast phenomena on which we rely, and we are not surprised .As an eoned universe. that the report of it is freely sprinkled with ['sensation '], And, dealing with a pebble, the poetess continues : as Mr. Raupert described what actually happens at thA Its molecules weave in and out, best seances. Mr. Raupert's only criticisms were that the They leap, they plunge, they dive; spirits personate and that they are not orthodox-which Up from dark gulfs they whirl about nobody denies. .Aa though they were alive. They live, they dance, they burn, they die, A friend, who has long been a quiet student of 'the Their Judgment Days draw on apace; Between their smallest atoms lie occult,' confessed himself to be occasionally bewildered by Oceans of darkest space ! the fantastic nature of ·some of the 'revelations 'and experi ences that fall to the lot of those who pursue such inquiries. .A world within your world doth lie, And, in truth, there is a good deal that baffles and Hidden from mortal men. bewilders. The fact is that much that reaches us from the .Another world in t.hat is furled other world is distorted and refracted by the mental spheres .And a thousand worlds again. of the persons concerned. Theological prepossessions, intellectual vanity, inexperience and educational crudity Professor W. E. Ritter, in 'Science' (New York),_ con have much to answer for in this matter. Viewing the tends that materialism and vitalism are both outworn ideas erratic course of some of these spiritual 'Will-o'-the-Wisps,' as theories of life, and he includes in one sweeping con we are reminde~ of Shelley's lines :- demnation those who· hold that life is the outcome ~f If Jack a Lantem organised material elements and those who· pin their faith Shows you bis way, although you miss your own, to an immaterial life principle of some kind. 'What does You ought not to be too exact with him ! it mean 1' the bewildered observer may ask. ' Surely one of the theories must be correct.' But we think the In 'La Nature' (Paris) M. Matout, of the Paris Professor is in a sense right, although his claim that the Museum, has been writing on the theory (originated, we mystery of life is 'all pervasive and unending' is, perhaps, think, by Lord Kelvin) that life on our earth was trans a little too absolute. We cannot, of course, expect to solve the whole question, but we ~et sopie little war on tbejourner 'mittcd. froµi sonie other planet.. ;M. ).\fatout refers to th!.l 290 LIGHT. [June 24, 1911. by recognising that, truth being dual, neither materialism 'The Soul of the Moor' is the title of what is described nor vitalism contains the whole of it. They simply as 'a Romance of the Occult,' written by Stratford D. Jolly represent two halves, which need uniting. Only by recog and pnbli1Shed by W. Rider and Son (2s. net). Apparently nising that matter and spirit are both needed to the we are to have a deluge of 'shockers ' based on the real or complete expression of life can we make true progress in supposed hypnotic powers of occultists. This book is one our thought on the question. of .this class. It may amuse those who know, because of its extravagant statements, and may inspire those who do Many of us nowadays are inclined to question the not know with a more or less wholesome dread of hypno advantages of modern industrialism so far as human health tism and of 'the occult' generally. We are glad to observe and happiness are concerned. 'The Vineyard ' for June that although the word ' Spiritism ' is introduced there is contains an article which deals outspokenly with the nothing that we recognise as such in this improbable story. problem, claiming- Of two of the characters who are married to each other That man himself for whose good, presumably, industrialism we read : 'Our souls have met and been together for many has come to pass, now lies, through it, on a bed of sorrow ; he hundreds of years. In almost every stage of their exist is suffering-as he never suffered in olden days from feudalism, ence they have found each other '-yet, over one of these, wars, epidemics, or slavery-a physical and moral degeneration the woman, the Moor is said to exert an amazing power of that sweeps like a plague from the cities over the countryside. fascination. He employs his enormous will force to As Emerson pithily expressed it, 'Things are in the compel her to leave her husband and go to him. When saddle and ride mankind.' But we doubt not that the under her husband's hypnotic influence she is clairvoyant, evil is a transient one, and that in due time the mechanical and explains to him that the Moor instantaneously recog side of life will fall into its right place-a less exalted one nised her when first he saw her, and regarded her as 'his than it at present occupies. • other self.' She says, 'In some way he has always known I was in the world and he has expected to meet me.' There We always welcome with respect and hope Mr. is a sense of unreality about the whole yarn. It never F. J. Gould's little books of Moral Instruction. Another appeals to us as being true to Nature, and its most thrilling of them recently reached us, 'Youth's Noble Path' (Lon~ episodes leave us unmoved. The mechanism is too apparent, don, Bombay, Calcutta, and New York : Longmans, Green the atmos]1tiere too strained and artificial. The moral, if & Co.). It was suggested by and has been compiled there be one, is clearly this : Occultism, if this be such, is primarily for the needs of Indian schools, but wise teachers one of those things that had better be left entirely alone. A at home will find it useful. The book contains sixty-two healthy, normal life is infinitely preferable to the morbid Lessons on the common graces and moralities of life, with and sensational existence of the persons represented by luminous little stories and crisp suggestions : the object the author of this romance. being rather to direct the teacher's thoughts than to pro vide him with· matter to save him the trouble of thinking and speaking for himself. LONDON SPIRITUALIST ALLIANCE, LTD. As we have intimated, the book has chiefly India in view, hence the special point and value of Lesson forty DRAWINGS OF THE PSYCHIC AURA AND DIAGNOSIS OF DISEASE. one, 'The Voice of India,' a really magnificent bit of -On Wednesday next, June 28th, and succeeding Wednesdays, from 12 noon to 5 p.m., at llO, St. Martin's-lane, W.C., Mr. work, gloriously thought out and expressed, in which Percy R. Street will give personal delineations by means of the India, personified, speaks to her children. Would that colours of the psychic aura of sitters, and will diagnose disease these four pages could be read and heard throughout that under spirit control. Fee 5s. to a guinea. Appointments land of glory and sorrow and hope ! desirable. See advertisement supplement. MR. W. J. COLVILLE will lecture at llO, St. Martin's-lane, 'We Young Men,' by Hans Wegener (London: 7, W.C., on Tuesday, June 27th, at 3 p.m., on 'Atlantis and Imperial Arcade, E.C.), is described as 'The Sexual Lemuria: Ancient Civilisation and its Influence on our Life To-day,' and on Thursday, June 29th, at 3 p.m., on 'Education Problem of an Educated Young Man before Marriage : from a Spiritual Viewpoint.' Purity, Strength, Love.' An Introduction announces that In both these lectures special reference will be made to the this book, by a German, bas reached a circulation of one recently translated works of Dr. Rudolf Steiner on the same hundred thousand copies in that country. An advertise subjects. Admission ls. ment announces this as the only authorised translation, and says that it is, 'A square talk ~ace to face with young FULL reports of Mrs. Annie Besant's Queen's Hall lectures men on the sexual problem-no scolding, no preaching, no are appearing in the 'Christian Commonwealth.' exhortation. Things are called by their right names; Mr. A. V. PETERS.--His many friends will be pleased to natural things are spoken of in a natural way. It is a know that Mr. A. V. Peters has returned to England after his welcome companion for the modern young man who aspires recent successful visit to Copenhagen and Berlin. to the rewards that come only as the result of clean living.' TRANSITION.-Aiter a long and painful illness Mrs. Doyle the wife of a respected member of the Council of the Maryle bone Spiritualist Association, passed to the higher life on Sun Another of 'Rider's Mind and Body Handbooks' has day, the 4th inst. In deep sympathy with one who had borne appeared. This one, by James Allen, is on 'Man, King of her trial so valiantly and so cheerfully, many relatives and friends assembled at Golder's Green Crematorium on the 8th Mind, Body and Circumstance.' The subject sufficiently inst. to pay their last respects to the earthly body from which indicates the teaching of this wholesome little work. We the loved one had departed to that life of the reality of which she do not appear to get much forwarder, but over and over was so fully aware. The service was conducted by Mr. E. W. Wallis, and the beautiful thoughts expressed, together with the again may be necessary, for the pupils are many and, as words Qf sweet sympathy and hope, conveyed to the sorrowing Mr. Allen says, ' Humanity at present is in the painful husband and son and all present a truly sustaining and uplifting stage of " learning.'' It is confronted with the difficulties power, which bore eloquent testimony to the blessedness and of its own ignorance.' It is perfectly true-as true and as comfort which a knowledge of Spiritualism bringa to the bereaved. There were many beautiful floral tributes from obvious as everythin~ else in this pleasantly- prefiented little relatives and friends. We extend our hearty sympathy tq l;>ook, ~fr. w. s. Dorie a~1dJamilr.--L. 1'!: · · · · June 24, 1911.] LIGHT. 291 SP I R I T·U A LI S M AND THEOSOPHY: A necessity existed for these various phases of thought, and that COMPARISON AND A CONTRAST. helped towards a better understanding and greater harmony between Spiritualism and the other movements. BY MRS. MARY SEATON. MR. W. J. COLVILLE said that as regarded Spiritualism, Theosophy, Christian Science, and other movements more or An address delivered to the Members and Associates of the less connected with them, they must agree with the lecturer London Spiritualist Alliance on Thursday evening, May 25th, that it was very largely a matter of individual temperament in the Salon of the Royal Society of British Artists, Mr. whether we identified ourselves with one or the other. Different H. Withall, the vice-president, occupying the chair. faiths were only varying expressions of one universal Wisdom (Continued from :page 280.) Religion. Referring to the fact that there were differences of opinion amongst Spiritualists themselves, Mr. Colville remarked Continuing, Mrs. Seaton said : 'While I say this of Theosophy that there were none the less fundamental agreements-there was and Spiritualism, and while I recognise the great work they are indeed an irreducible minimum of agreement. Spiritualists all doing, I must not leave out of consideration the achievements of admitted that man was a spiritual entity here and now ; that other movements. While neither Spiritualism nor Theosophy em• he went on living after physical dissolution, the same individual phasises the religious side of things, there are among the new as before. When we communicated with those who had pa.ssed associations some which do accentuate this aspect, even some to the other world we should remember that we were avowedly times at the expense of the philosophical. I speak especially of holding communication with our friends and neighbours-we that movement known as Christian Science. Many of you do were not necessarily communicating With Mahatmas. As the not understand that other great movement, and I speak ad lecturer had said, these spirit friends of ours had their limita~ visedly when I say that it is doing an excellent work-but it is tions, being human like ourselves. We might comm11nicate With a religion and not a philosophy. Its philosophy, indeed, is them, but should never blindly follow them. We should, expressed by the one word-nothing. To its followers there is indeed, never blindly follow any intelligences. We found ~od nothing but spirit, and they are teaching the people the mean revealed in the soul~in the inmost being. One soul could not ing of true thoughts and how they can gain access to the infinite find God for another. Each individual had to make his own reservoir of power; and they have done for many people in discovery. There was no knowledge of Deity except that which their way what Theosophists and Spiritualists have done for was communicated by spiritual influx. The revelation of the people in otb.el: ways. Christian Scientists have made their soul was everlasting unity with the Divine, and as true religion truth prominent, not only in America, but all over the world. had been mentioned in connection With philosophy -and science, They hold that the body can be healed withot1t recourse to drugs, it might be said that the vahte of true religion Was that it Now I believe in medicines and doctors-I believe in all the lower bound us together in one holy communion and fellowship, in means of healing that came to the race before man found the the one religion that must stand for ever and ever as the Onity higher way. The tendency is, when man perceives the higher of Deity and the Onity of Humanity. way, for him to decry the lower.' MRs. SElATOlit said that all present seemed to be or one These lower means (Mrs. Seaton proceeded to explain) had accord, and she only wanted to put her own position a little their legitimate place and use in lower developments, and there more clearly. Although she had spoken to them of Christian fore it was not wise 0 rule them out of consideration, .. Eu~ to~day Science, she was not a Christian Scientist. She wa.S a studeltt the ti~e w~ ~ip~ for the world at large to know that there was of life and she desired to emphasise the use of the mental and a higher way, and that all the power which man needs was within spiritt~l forces, using the word ' spiritual ' in the broadest him. He did not have to wait to leave his body. He could sense, and to some extent she had been able to find out and to call on the unlimited power now. But although Christian use both the mental and spiritual foroes in healing not only her Scientists had gone to extremes, they had, nevertheless, forced self, but others also. ' I have been able,' said Mrs. Seaton, ' to people to recognise that healing could be done without use these mental and spiritual forces enough to kn0w that the medicine. The swing of the pendulum, however, was illus• things I am teaching can be carried out in the daily life in trated in this matter. People had abused drugs, gone getting not only healed of bodily sickness, but gradually getting to extremes in drug-taking, and (especially in America) the complete mastery of that self which stands between us and the asylums were full of those who had succumbed mentally real self-the divinity which we are all seeking. Now, I was to the drug habit. This movement, then, was largely the re cured by a physician~a graduate of one of our great Universi• action from the abuse of drugs, although it might be said also ties-and he taught me how to give this mental treatment to that the time was ripe for the Great Spirit to teach man that he others as well as how to use it for myself. Christian Science1 had within himself all the power he needed, and that helped to New Thought, and all these new schools of thought which have bring into existence an association of people prepared to empha arisen lately are all using these universal mental and spiritual sise the phase of truth which was seeking expression. forces. IL matters not what the method is called. Christian From this standpoint, Mrs. Seaton pleaded for a larger out Scientists have no monopoly of it. These great forces belong look-that members of the various bodies of thought and doc to you as well as to me, and only to the extent to which we trine should seek to understand something of their fellow-move can put them into practice are they ours. But they belong to ments, and the various phases or aspects of the one truth which us all. Healing has been done all through history, irrespective they existed to represent. of race or creed, and the curative force in all these schools is In conclusion, Mrs. Seaton said:- identical. They have added certain beliefs, but that does not ' To use the power of the spirit means living the life of the give them the monopoly.' spirit here and now. It means every time you think and feel Spiritualists had long practised the art of healing, but they and speak of good, living in accordance with the highest good used it largely by making themselves mediums for those who you know-going to the Source of good for everything you need, were healers outside of the body to work throt1gh. It was not living on the circumference, but at the centre and keeping better, however, that we should learn to use the powers within close to the God within the soul ; and to the degree we do so, the us to heal others and ourselves as well. And although it was door opens ; it opens wide, indeed, to the soul that goes there, good to communicate with those in the other world and to re· leans there and trusts there.' (Great applause.) ceive their help, it was only good if we tried at the same time to help ourselves. THE CHAIRMAN said that when he asked Mrs. Seaton to In response to an invitation from the lecturer a lady in the compare Spiritualism and Theqsophy he gave her a free hand. audience then went upon the platform to receive healing treat· She had full liberty to tell Spiritualists of their faults. She ment by way of demonstrating the method employed. Before had told them of one in a very kindly way, and he thought commencing the treatment, Mrs. Seaton explained that under that they might endeavour to overcome it. [She had also intro the system she used the healing could be given silently or sent duced into the question a comparison with Chl'istian Science, to absent patients by telepathy, or it could be given orally and by which was of great value to them. She had shown that a' contact-the method adopted in the present instance. In aper- 292 L 1 G HT. [Jun 24, 1911. ating she directed her attention to that patL of the mind which THE PROBLEM OF MATTER AND MIND. governed the diseased condition. That mind, however, was not 'I find it very difficult to conceive of mind as existing apart the reasonillg mind, Which had nothing to do ordinarily with the from any kind of matter.' - Mr. E. E. Fournier d'AlLe in control of the bodily ftmctions. It was the subconscious mind 'LIGHT' p. 217. which she aimed to influence-that mind which was influenced by the conscious mind. In the case of self-healing the soul's Yes, it is difficult to conceive, but is it altogether inconceivable 1 intense emotion for good was often concerned, and the effect We know nothing directly apart from matter, it is true, and was gradually to underlnine t.11e diseased conditions and build being able only to express ourselves through matter suggests, t1p a condition of power and strength. Aud if somebody else perhaps naturally, that there can be no other means for expreg. 'vho was not affected by the patient's doubts or infiue11ced by his sion. J3ut that lands us in this difficulty, that either the httman thoughts gave a powerful suggestion to that part of the mind being ends when, or where, matter ends, or Ulatter is eternal. which had charge of the body, a helieflcial qffect was at once tf matter ls eternal and spirit is eternal We have then another produced. That had ]Jeen proved and accepted by some of the difficulty.:...... We have two 'things' of eqttal vahte at the heart of leading psychologists. Anybody could lear11 to Use the power, the uni verse1 and 1 do not think We are willing to grant that as hut some cotild al ways do certain things Letter than others. a possibility even. 1£ mind did not exist befote matter, then l\irs. Seato11 thcll gave her de111011stmtio11 by placing her matter caused mind, or matter must have made mind possible. hands on the patient's head, stating as she did so that the true If either of thege assertions are probabilities, then matter must hcalet• could do a great deal more than merely heal bodily i11- be the dominant partner, which is again unthinkable. firmities-co11ld help the moml faculties to unfold and strengthen To-day we realise that matter is no longer crude and simple1 the will. She then addreSl:led the patient, using a number of as believed by our primitive progenitors, but is most subtle and phrases affirmative of hea1Ll1, as, for instance, 'You are restored, complex. Why 1 M11tter has not changed. It is simply because both mind and body, to health,' 'Your whole body is increasing the brain through which the human mind expresses itself has in health and force and vigour,' 'You know that you can master become more developed by use, and therefore the ability to ex· your body,' 'Yonr sleep becomes more normal, you a wake press through it knowledge of greater complexity has increased. refreshed and filled with the conviction that the power within But again we are faced with the possibility that in spite of the you is sufficient for all your needs,' ' You are losing the sense of seeming great complexity of matter, it has probably a simple !leparation, and unfolding the consciousneas of God's presence ' origm. .And it may be that when man has Leen further evolved ' You get mcreased. control of every thought and feeling, enabling' here and ' over there,' his brain Lecoming more and more de· mind and body to do their work perfectly.' veloped, will at last also, Ly the sheer weight of its complexity, A hearty vote of thanks was then passed to Mrs. Seaton for arrive at a simple and non-complex stage where, independent of her address and the demonstration she had given of her methods all aids, the mind will express itself simply and directly, because of healing. The proceedings terminated with some remarks by it is. This, of course, may seem to suggest that mind may arrive the chairman, who said that this was their last meeting of the at a disembodied state and remain active, but I do not know session, and he hoped that all those present would attend the what disembodiment or activity may mean on an advanced spirit• meetings of the next session. In the meantime he appealed to ual plane. them to interest their friends in the suLject, so that they might I willingly grant that there is not much to Le gained by ha vc still larger gatherings. discussing subjects in the infants' school which are only :fit for advanced scholars in the university. We have plenty to do to be assnred and to get ready for the next class, and to satisfy our A SIXTEENTH CENTURY HEALER. neighbours that there is one. For after all, our duty is to our neighbour, and simple facts concerning the next move upwards As l\ir. Percy R. Street reminded us in his recent address and reasonable explanations of these facts, are what he wan~ before the London Spiritualist Alliance, the healing gift is no And besides, being only where we are-limited in experience new discovery or endowment. In that interesting sixteenth to this plane of existence and being unable to get real personal experience of other planes till we get to them-naturally our century book, the Rev. Richard Ward's ' Life ' of his friend the conceptions of the mental condition on these future planes must poet and mystic, Dr. Henry More, which has just been re~ub be equally limited. St. Paul said, when he tried to explain lished by the Theosophical .Publishing Society, 161, New Bond spiritual things and failed : 'Eye hath not seen, ear hath not street, we find a passing reference by the editor to a noted healer heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive ' of that day, who, Mr. Ward said, 'according to the Character and it needs must be so while man has no language by which that is given of him, was really a very Pious and Extraordinary he can express spiritual things. That all matter may be essentially alive does not seem to me Person.' The occasion of his employment was the illness of to identify mind and matter. Because the human body is one Dr. More's friend, Lady Conway :- mass of living cells, surely that does not compel the conclusion In 1665 her headaches were so acute that Dr. More and that the intelligence of the human being is simply the sum of Dr. George, Dean of Drumore, recommended that she should Le the intelligences of these living cells : if it does, then it follow1:1 treated by Valenti~e THE HYPOTHESES OF 'BILOCATION' have suffered ampu£atio1i, becaiise the iatter presei·ve entirei:f CONSIDERED. the peripheric nerve centres and Lhe ce1iesthesic sense, we can; not say the same of those strnck with hemip'hlegia, wllose nerve' BY ERNESTO BozzANO. Translated from ' Annales cles centres corresponding to the paralysed side are deatroyed, an'd Sciences Psychiques.' in whom the cenesthesic sense is proportionately enfeelJlecl It is not, then, permissible to speak, in such a case, of sensations ci (Continued from page 281.) doubling produced by peripheric excitations transmitted td centres which do not exist, just as it would be a contradiction to To return to the phenomena of doubling properly so-called, speak of an exaggerated cenesthesic sense in order to provoke it is necessary to call attention to another fact apparently of a an objective hallucination when this same sense is enfeebled on different class, and scientifically explicable by appropriate and account of the central traumatic lesions and not on account of rational theories, but which can in certain ways be compared functional disorders (which would be different). On the con with those now under consideration. I speak of ·the sensation trary, there would be no contradiction, and the facts would even of wholeness which frequently happens after the amputation of agree .with the theory,· if, basing our conclusion on modern a limb. Dr. Pelletier says : 'Sometimes the limb is felt in its researches into the phenomena of the exteriorisation of sensi· entirety ; the sick person perceives its shape, size, temperature, bility, we sustain the hypothesis of doubling in the case of position, the mobility which it had before. Often, however, hemiphlegia by observing that by the effect of the paralysis the the perception is much less complete. But on one point all bonds which link the fl.uidic double with the organism have such sufferers are unanimous, the reality of the sensations which been relaxed and a partial separation of the former from the they undergo. ' I speak only the truth,' said one person after latter has taken place. declaring that he was surer of the limb which he had lost than In fac.t, examples are known of sensitives who, when they of that which he had retained. 'It is necessary for me to think,' met people who had suffered amputation, declared spontane• said another, ' before I can take account of the unreality of my ously that they perceived the missing limb in the fluidic form. sensations.' Certain people can move in imagination their Kerner tells the following about the celebrated Seeress of phantom limb ; others, on the contrary, cannot. The sensa Prevorst (p. 4 7) : 'Whenever she meets a person who has lost tions of the phantom limb last sometimes for many years, but a limb, she sees the limb as still attached to the body, in several cases its disappearance has been noted. The latter i.e., she sees the shape of the limb produced by the projection of happens sometimes suddenly; at other times it is progressive: the nervous fluid in the same way as she sees the fluidic form of little by little the phantom limb decreases in volume, and in the the dead. This interesting phenomenon possibly permits us to end it seems that the limb has disappeared into the scar.' (Dr explain the sensations of those people who still feel a limb which Pelletier, 'Bulletin de l'Institut General Psychologiqne,' 1905, has been amputated. The invisible fluidic form of the limb is page 210.) still in connection with the visible body, and this proves that As I have said, the explanation of this matter given by the after the destruction of the visible envelope the form is pre· physiologists seems legitimate and rational Bernstein speaks of served by the nervous fluid.' this as follows : 'In the remnant of an amputated limb there Here, in order not to be misunderstoodi I restate my method are cut nerves which used to supply the nerves of the whole of considering the problem: If contemporary research into the limb, and in the liealed scar there frequently exist causes of phenomena of the exteriorisation of thought had not existed, irritation for these nerves, and this nervous exciLation i!I pro no one wottld have thought of opposing any doubt to the induc• jected to the brain which produces a sensation and re-awakens tious of the physiologist on the genesis of the subjective sensa• Ly haLit the image of that part of the body where the nerves · tion of those who have lost a limb or are paralysed, inductions used naturally to end. The brain transports then, by habit, this which would regain their lost value if, in face of more complete sensation to the limb of the body from which these nerves start, researches, the hypothesis of a fluidic double capable of exteri• even when the limb exists no longer.' I suggest Lhat this ex· orisation should be proved false. But if, on the contrary, future planation seems appropriate and rational. If, however, we con· research confirms the present indltction, then the sensations of sider t.hese cases from the point of view of the new researches those who have lost a limb and the impressions of the paralysed into the phenomena of exteriorisation of sensibility, we can ought to be considered from a different point of view, which but remain perplexed, observing, on the one hand, certain would b11 that of their evident connection With the phenomena peculiarities whfoh cannot be easily reconciled with the peripheric of fluidic doubling, and if we agree to the identity of their' hypothesis, and, on the other, facts tending to prove the real modes of extrinsication, they ought to be classed with the other existence of the phantom limL. By the peripheric hypothesis phenomena of this group, and, secondly, it will be necessary to we must think that there are frequently exii;ting caltl:!es of . abandon the hypotheses formulated by the physiologists. Such irritation for the nerves of the healed scar. It is not stated is my view of the matter, which cannot, if so stated, be arbitrary that these exist permanently, and, therefore, they cannot explain or unscientific. how so many people permanently perceive the existence of the (To be continued.) absent limb. We can cite also certain cases where sensations are felt \vhich can only with difficulty be reconciled with this hypo SAVED FROM SUICIDE BY A SPIRIT, thesis and which, on the contrary, are easily explicable by the hypothesis of the real existence of a phantom limb. For example, Writing· in ' The American Register and Anglo - Colonial Dr. Pitres speaks of a person who felt sensations of cold in his World' of Jime 4th, 'Cheiro,' the well·known palmist, gives an illustration of how Spiritualism frequently brings peace and phantom limb when the artificial limb was soaked with water comfort to those who sorely need it. The sLory is well worth (loc.-cit., p. 284). It is clear that there cannot be, in this cai;e1 reading. The essential fact is that a New York doctor, a mate• peripheric irritation, since it was not the stump which was in rialist who had waited i:early twenty years to marry the one contact with the water but only a piece of wood. The peri woma~ he had ever car~d for, was at last able to wed this pheric hypothesis becomes more and more problematical if we woman, only to lose her, ten days after, by death from double compare the sensations of those who have suffered amputation pneumonia. The heart-broken doctor decided to commit suicide. One evening he and 'Cheiro' were walking in New with the similar sensations endured by a person struck with York City, when the latter, as they were passing the rooms of hemiphlegia, who, indeed, often sees and feels all round him, a private medium known to him, suggested to the doctor that and especially on the side paralysed, another person whom he they should go in and get a sitting. Tllis they did, and sb.ortly defines as the exact reproduction of himself, and who, he afterwards ' the doctor was holding a clear and distinct conver thinks, enjoys the wholeness which he lacks. Dr. Sollier, who sation with his wife.' He recognised the tones of her voice, and speaks of these facts (' Bulletin de l'InstiLut General Psycho the medium's face became like hers, even to a peculiar droop in the left side of the upper lip. She told him he must not logique,' 1902, p. 45 ; 1904, p. 539), explains them by recourse commit suicide, it would retard their meeting still more, and she to a variation of the peripheric hypothesis, i.e., by considering pleaded with him to use his life in work for others until death them as hallucinatory projections of cenesthesic origin. How would release him naturally. For ten years afterwards many ever, if both hypotheses are legitimate as regards those who hundreds of perscms received the 1Je11efit of his labours. 294 LI-GH T. [June 24, JDll. OFFIOE OF 'LIG:e;T,' 110, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, that at that time our -Ow'n spiritual dispensa~ion had hardly - -- . LONDON, W.O. dawned. SATURDA".°, JUNE 24TII, 1911. In 1851 he published a remarkable book, 'The Human Body an<~ its C~nnection with· Man,' regarding which he wrote to Mr. Henry James (who, by the way, was the A Journal of Psychical, Occult, and Mystical Research. father of Professor William James and of Mr. Henry James, both famous writers) :- -PBIOB TWOP.BNOE WEEKLY. When I- look at 'the disconnection in .science between man COMMUNICATIONS intended to be printed should be add~ to the Editor Office of 'LIGHT,' 110, St. Martin's La.ne, -London, W.C. and his own body, I cease to wonder at the difficulty the great Business ~mmunica.tions should in a.ll ca.ses be addressed to Mr. Emerson has in thinking of an incarna~e God.. Why, the philo F. W. South, Office of 'LIGHT,' to whom Cheques il.nd Posta.1 sophers have never yet got to thiiik of man himself a.S incarnate. Orders should be made pa.ya.hle. . - They_ admit either the flesh without ~the spirit, or tll;e spi~it without the flesh. The thought· has yet to come which will Subscription Ra.te We see, therefore, that scientific men have not always COMFORTING SPIRITUAL COMMUNION. been the pioneers in great discoveries ; they have, how '· ever, one great merit, and all who desire to progress in STRIKING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES IN SPIRITUALl81\f, knowledge should strive to imitate them in this-they have exercised unlimited patience in their researches. Had t.hey From the journal of a professional man we offer our readers not done so mankind would be far less advanced than at a series of extmcts, descriptive of psychical experiences with present; it has been due to their persistence, not only that mediums in America, mostly in private circles, which led him on, discoveries have been acknowledged, but that they have through years of patient investigation, from materialism followed been rendered practically useful to humanity. We cannot by agnosticism, to an absolute certainty of conviction in regard to too highly praise the indomitable patience and perseverance an after life-a conviction not only of the survival of human which they have displayed. identity, after the incident of so-called death, but of the possi Anyone who investigates Spiritualism will have need bility of inter-communion now with our loved ones who have of qualities such as these. He must expect discourage reached the Beyond. ments, and must not allow himself to be deterred if the Some of the communications being essentially per~onal, and evidence he seeks is long delayed. The reverent will to therefore, sacred in the eyes of the writer, it is imperative that understand better the hidden mysteries of life and death the incognito of himself and the living relations of the persons involved should be preserved, as they are prominent in their own should not be frustrated either by the charlatanism which dogs · country, and publicity of this nature would be distasteful and the steps of truth, or by the frivolity and egotism which detrimental. The true names of localities as well as of indi too often seek to use great gifts for private and unworthy viduals must therefore be disguised. ends. In the town of B., in America, lived, less than half a cen We must be strong and steady in our work, knowing tury ago, two families, equal in social position, wealth, and that we are labouring, not so much for any immediate public consideration, who had been prominent there for several result as for the future ages. In the words of the Psalmist generations. One of these families had been decimated by death we may pray : 'Show Thy servants Thy work and their until its members were reduced to two, a widow and her only children Thy glory.' H, A. D. daughter, Adela ; the other was blessed with several sons, among them one named Paul. Both families were Roman Catholics. MRS. MARY DAVIES AT CAVENDISH ROOMS. Adela and her mother were devoted to each other to an extraordinary degree, and were seldom seen apart. Besides being A remarkably interesting account of personal experiences in of a most affectionate disposition, Adela was bright, gay, clever clairvoyance, clairaudience, and materialisation was given by beyond her years-a talented singer and musician, &c. Paul's l\Irs. l\Iary Davies at Cavendish Rooms 011 Sunday evening, admiration for this gifted girl soon ripened into love, a love June 11th. We may refer brietly to two of the iucidents which he describes as being for her soul, even more than narrated. for its outward expression and embodiment. On her part While resident in Southsea, Mrs. Davies and her family were she seemed in a timid way to appreciate and recipl'ocate disturbed at night by loud knocks on the floor of oue of the bed Iiis sentiments. Soon Paul had to leave for abroad to complete l'ooms. Investigation subsequently revealed the fact that the his college education, and consequently he was only able to cause of the distm]Jance was a former tenant-an old, lied see Adela at long intervals. No correspondence between the ridden lady, who was accustomed to rap on the floor with a young couple was permitted by the girl's watchful parent, who, walking stick when she required attention, and who, after her at this period, had developed religious sentiments of an intense decease, and unaware of the change, continued this pleasant type ; she had always been a fervent Roman Catholic, she now habit. Awakened by Mrs. Davies and friends to a knowledge surrounded herself with priests and nuns. The influence of of her changed condition, the old lady was released from her their teaching took strong hold of Adela's sel18itive nature, spiritual bondage, and the disturbance thereupon ceased. She until finally her religious enthusiasm "impelled her to give up returued eventually to express her gratitude for her deliverance, her mother, her lover, and her worldly prospects for self-immo lJut she was still not quite at ease. Would Mrs. Davies (she lation within the walls of a cloistered nunnery. She selected asked) have the lawn dug up and the things bmied under it the most severe order in a foreign country, far from her native destroyed'! Excavations were accordiugly made in the lawn home. Paul, who had been made aware of this determination, near the house, revealing the fact that the bedding and clothes vainly endeavoured to change it. To his intense mental distress of the old lady and her husband had been, after their death, he had to see his loved one voluntarily commit herself to a interred there by their family. living death. The privations and austerities of the monastic Still more remarkable wa!:l an instance of spirit interposition life soon became manifest on a constitution accustomed to the to save the life of a child. Mrs. Davies was awakened one ease and luxuries of a wealthy home. Adela's health gave way, night by a spirit woman in great distress of mind, who begged and in less than a year she passed to the life beyond. hl:!r to rise at once and proceed to a house opposite where a child Her image has never faded from Paul's memory, and uever (the little daughter of the visitant) was in imminent danger of will ; a faint, indefinite hope of seeing her again one day at being bumcd · to death. Throwing on a few articles of attire, times buoyed his desponding heart, to be succeeded by blank l\Ir:;. Davies hurried across the road to the house indicated, the despair. Many years had passed when Spiritualism renewed his residence of a doctor. With some difficulty he was made to hopes. He approached its study with deep professional preju understand the poi:.ition, and proceeded to burst open the door dices and misgivings; the first mediums whom he visited were of a bedroom (which ·had been locked on the inside) in which imperfectly developed and disappointing. Discouraging incon the child and her nurse lay asleep. A caudle at the bedside sistencies were often cropping up, yet he found a sufficient liad fallen, setting fire to the curtain and bed-clothes, and the residuum of evidential fact to justify a continuance of his investi doctor was just in time to rescue the child from the flames. gations. At last, after seven years of transition or spiritual G. development, the following entry is found in his journal. (This experience occurred while he was on a visit to the town of AFTER quoting the circular convening the prayer n}eeting in L.):- the Queen's Hall, the day before the Coronation, Mr. Stead, in ' The Review of Reviews,' says : 'lt is odd how completely the November 1st, 1900.-A blessed day! I met a casual Other "World is ignored even by good men who believe in prayer. acquaintance whom I knew to be interested in Spiritualism. He The tap-root of all the evils of which they complain is the said, 'Do join our small circle to-night, we shall be five only. spread of the opinion chat there is no next world, or that if Mr. C., a local insurance agent, is developing fast as a medium. there is it is either l>lasphemy or .~uperstition to communicate We have been sitting once a week for three months. We get wit,h it. But of this the c01weners of the meetiug say nothing. the audible voice of his control, and see etherealised fOl'ms. And with good reason. The Other World is tacitly ignored in I feel certain that our circle and Mr. C. will welcome yon.' I most of the clrnrches which they represent.' gladly accepted. June 24, 1911.) LIGHT. 297 A REMARKABLE SEANCE• of teaching me this lesson. With assurance of my devotion and We met at a little before 8 p. m. We were six: sitters-three love for you, I alll, as ever, yours eternally,-ADELA - -' ladies and)hree gentlemen-plus the medium, in a small sitting• Who, in the presence of such experiences, could further room about fifteen by fifteen feet. The medium sat in an easy doubt the reality of spirit communion, that we enter spirit life chair close to a large bookcase. An invocation to the Almighty with our individuality intact, that our memories, our affections, was recited, and the lights were extinguished. It was soon our predilections become chastened and intensified as the soul manifest that the medium had passed into a trance condition. progresses 'I Also that those who on earth were linked by a He breathed heavily ; at the same time whitish semi-luminous love pme and chaste may .count on a reunion and blessed com vapours floated high in front of the bookcase, soon gathering into munion in an existence of joy without end 1 ten or perhaps twelve globular centres, the size of human heads, I am born this day to a new life of joy and now live in the with indistinct features. A strange voice, that of a man, proceed· assmauce of great happiness to come. I shall live this life ing from the upper parts of the room, informed us that these patiently and with great gratitude to the Father of all for the were etherealised spirit faces of friends of the sitters ; they were ineft'able blessing just received. too hidistinct to be recognised. Some vanished sooner than others. When they had finally disappeared, a white substance, of the Neatly eight months later, Paul, having occasion to retum size of a sofa cushion, gathered at our feet ; it soon grew up to L. on official duty, arranged with Mr. C. for a slatecwriting into a pillar of between five and six feet in height-luminous, seance. He took 'vith him three local friends, a Mr. H. and his transparent, permitting the books and shelving of the book daughter, and a 1\fiss C., daughter of a Cabinet Minister. They case to be faintly seen through it. It assumed a human form, were not Spiritualists, but had become interested in the subject and by a vibratory motion the folds of white drapery were, as it were, shaken out. As many as three forms of various ages and and were anxious to investigate. Paul's notes on this seance are sizes appeared together, and some singly. Some were recognised as follows :- by sitters as friends or relations, although the features appeared June 20th, 1901.-At 2 p.m., we four sat around a small to me to be most indistinct. None spoke. The voice previously table on which was a pile of slates. We made sure that they mentioned gave names and short meeaages purporting to proceed were quite new and absolutely clean. The medium gave us each from the manifesting spirits. three slips of white paper, requesting tts to write the name of a A female form now appeared, clothed in pale violet drapery, departed person on each, and then to fold the paper tightly so spangled with small, brightly luminous spots or flowers. My that the name could not be read without unfolding it. This fellow sitters exclaimed, 'What a beautiful form I ' The figure reqnest having been complied with, the twelve papers were raised her arms and at the same time inclined her head twice or placed in a hat on the table beside us. We were requested to thrice towards me. The voice announced, 'This is Paul's friend.' take two slates out of the pile at random, tie them closely ' Thank yo\\, sweet spirit,' I said, ' for this precious visit. I hope together with a pocket-handkerchief, and all hold them over the that on a future occasion I may be able to recognise your fea· centre of the table with our right hands. The medium took a tures.' Suddenly she vanished, but the voice had hardly time paper out of the hat and, without unfolding it, pressed it against to say 'She will try again,' when she reappeared, this time his forehead, all the while pacing the room up and down. In a clothed in a white shroud. I repeated my thanks, but as her few moments we felt and heard faint scribbling within the slates, features were still indistinct I owned that I was not yet able to then three distinct raps. The medium said, 'Replace the under recognise her. Once more she vanished, once more the voice slate by another.' We did so. The same scratching noise re announced 'She will try again.' The third attempt, however, curred, with the result that the second slate was replaced by a was attended by ·no better success than were the two former, and third, and that by a fourth one as soon as the signal, three raps, I regretfully stated the fact. Hardly were the words uttered was heard. At this moment the medium said, •My control when all th~ lower part of the diaphanous form was apparently asks that gold be placed on the slates.' As gold coins are drawn up intu the bust and head, and the face suddenly came not in general circulation in America, Miss H. asked if her within six inches of my own. The features were now completely heavy gold bracelet would do 1 'Yes,' replied the medium. formed ; the eyes, bright and natural, gazed intently into mine, It was accordingly placed on the slates. No writing was heard, the lips moved to form words but uttered none, the expression but after a few minutes of expectation three raps on the slates seemed to say, 'Do you not know me now 1' I said, •Yes, dearest ! were heard and felt as before. On examination, the upper half I am deeply grateful, I am convinced.' of the slate was found covered with a message w~itten in gold I forgot to mention that on entering the seance room I had from Adela to me. This was followed by a message from one of brought, at the suggestion of the friend who had introduced me, my controls, signed with his initials G. A. B., written with a few white carnations, which I placed in front of the circle as ordh1ary slate pencil, and this again by a few words written with an oft'ering to· Adela, in the hope that she might he able to de· red pencil signed by a relative of mine, Sir J. D., who had materialise them ; they could not be found in the room after passed over about twelve months ago, desiring me to give greet the seance. (These white flowers are frequently referred to in ings to his widow, Lady D, (He has since, I am told, fre later communications from this spirit.) quently communicated with her directly.) Soon afterwards Mr. C. came out of hi::! trance and the light The two first slates written upon were found to contain was turned up. On a small table in the seance room were several messages from spirits whose names had been written by Mr. H. slates. Mr. C. was walking up and down the room while we and Miss C. They were very pointed, that for Mr. H. express were discussing the recent happenings, when he suddenly ex ing the writer's deep regrets and apologies for having quarrelled claimed, ' It is very annoying ! I had given positive orders to with him during life. They had been neighbours and not at have these slates cleaned, and here is one covered with writing.' all on friendly terms. He took the slate up and said, 'This is strange. Can anyone present understand what this writing means 1 ' All pleaded It is worthy of note that the test conditions at this seance ignorance until my turn came to see the writing, when, to my were unexceptionable. First, it was full daylight. Second, intense amazement, I found that it was a message from Adela, three of the sitters were non-Spiritualists, all on the look-out signed with her three names in full, referring to occurrences of for any circumstance which might paint to fraud or legerdemain. which I alone, within a radius of six hundred miles, could pos Third, no one of the four sitters could possibly know what names sibly have any inkling. No one but myself knew her name. I may add that at that time my never-to-he-forgotten friend had were written on the papers by the other three, nor could the been dead twenty-seven years ! The message ran as follows :- medium know what was written on any of them, as they had all been separately and carefully folded. Fourth, the only 'My Dear Friend,-Many thanks for the flowers. I assure you I fully appreciate your thoughtful kindness. Language contact the medium had with the papers was when he took up fails to express my gratitude for all you have done for me. Your one at random and pressed it unopened against his forehead. earnestness in seeking to solve the problems of life has very Fifth, he never came nearer to the slates than three or four materially assisted me in escaping from the bonds which bound paces, while all the time we held them each with one hand. me to religious fanaticism. I can now see my former intolerance, Sixth, no pencil or substance of any sort was placed between for, while my motives were good, I can now understand in what a labyrinth of darkness my mind was ensluonded. Your kind the slates. Seventh, in the case of the third slate, partly ness and research have given me broader conceptions of life, written on with gold ink, the inference is that the necessary and were my past to be recalled I should not seek the nar:row metal was taken by spirit power from J\liss C.'s bracelet, placed confines of the cloister, but should live for humanity. 1\fy dis by req nest on top of the slates. This slate is in the pmisessiou appointment upon my entrance into spirit life was so great that of Paul. When examined wit,h a magnifier the particles of I cannot express it. All my prayers to the Saints availed me gold seem to have been made adherent to the slate surface nothing, hut your kindneRB aml loving thought~~ enabled me to cast off old conditions and arise to the new life. Hence my hy memrn of a glntinons llnid which must have dried devotion to you aud your interests. I now know what I luwe instantly, for it was firmly adherent when first examined to live for. I realise that constant activity is essential to our by the sitters. Eighth, where did the pencilling come from progress and happiness, and not faith. You have been the means and the red pigment for the red writing 1 Some claim 298 LIGHT. June 24, 1911 that the pigments or colouring matter used by spirit power for and working up for and expecting a consecration, who is it grins similar manifestations, drawings of landscapes, flowers, &c., and squeaks a penny whistle in his face 1 when none are specially provided at spirit request, are selected Here is a specimen from Mr. Ellis's book :- and extracted from coloured fabrics in the room or near by. Mrs. F. and Miss R. had called to see me, and I was sitting Ninth, the message written in gold referred in part to a seance in my room talking to them, when a knock came at the door, Paul had been present at three months before in Washing and I found there a poor woman belonging to the neighbourhood, ton, D.C. (seven hundred miles away), explaining statements but who also combined in my dream the page-boy at a dear friend's house. From this friend, whom I had not heard from made there by the communicating spirit-a circumstance utterly for some time, the woman bore a large letter. She tore it open lmknown to any of the sitters present. in my presence, saying, ' It says that the l)earer is to open this,' (To be continued.) and produced from it another letter-a large document of a legal character, in my friend's handwriting. When the woman began to open the second letter I remonstrated ; I was sure that DREAM DIFFICULTIES. there was some mistake, that that letter was private, and that no one else ought to see it. The woman, however, firmly Mr. Havelock Ellis's work, 'The ·world of Dreams' insisted that she must carry out her instructions, so we had a (London : Constable & Co.), already noticed on p. 205, has in long discussion. After a time I called Mrs. F. and appealed to it the sum and substance of much thought and investigation, her. She agreed with me that the instructions lllUSt only mean though we cannot say that ii carries us very much nearer home that the bearer was to open the outer envelope, not the inner to the heart of the mystery. But he goes about and about the letter. At last I took out five shillings and gave it to the subject in a scientific way and with a keen scent for a solution. woman, telling her that I would assume all the responsibility for opening the letter myself. With this she went away well His chapter-titles are piquant, such as ' The Logic of Dreams,' satisfied, saying (as she would in real life), 'All right, Mrs.--, 'The Senses in Dreams,' 'Emotion in Dreams,' 'Aviation in you're a lady, and you know. All right, my dear.' Then at Dreams' (a very taking one), and 'Memory in Dreams.' last I was able to tear open my letter and read these words, . We, of course, have the oltl familiar causes and controllers 'Always use Sunlight Soap.' My vexation was extreme. of dreams revived-as the persistence of day thoughts and the Mr. Ellis speculates concerning the subconscious intelligence persistence of supper subsrances, both sufficiently influential in ' playing a game with conscious intelligence,' and concerning 'The World of Dreams' ; but Mr. Ellis's ingenuity enables him 'God or Nature playing with man, compelling him to join in a to go much farther afield. His chapter on 'The Senses in game of hide-and-seek.' But does it not seem at least as feasible Dreams' is particularly rich in suggestion as to the physical that certain spirit people are responsible for that 'game' 1 Mr. causes of dreams-the dream often having the slightest possible Ellis would not be likely to entertain that guess, and yet, in a resemblance to the cause of it, starting wildly off on its own passage at the close of his book, which does not seem to quite account, as it were, like a spirited hOl'se on realising that it harmonise with the tone of tb,e rest of it, he remarks that was free to bolt. All the senses are, apparently, liable to be 'dreaming is one of our roads into the infinite.' ' The infinite,' stimulated in sleep, with the. result that the imagination, un he says, ' can only be that which stretches far beyond the regulated by the commonplace reason, takes advantage of its boundaries of our own personality. It is the charm of dreams freedom to get up privaie theatricals on its own account. that they introduce us into a new infinity.' Would it not be a The odd thing is that it has to be granted that a sort of greater charm if they introduced us into a new company of reasoning faculty may be wide awake in dreams-wide awake, dream confederatesl? In dreams, says Mr. Ellis, time and space that is to say, so far as activity is concemed. 'In some respects,' are annihilated, gravity is suspended, and we are joyfully borne says Mr. Ellis, ' we can accomplish in sleep what is beyond our up in the air, as it were in the arms of angels (that comes very reach awake.' He even asserts that it sometimes happens we near us, Mr. Ellis I) : we are brought into a deeper communion can reason better in sleep than when awake, even to the dis with N ~ture, and in dreams a man listens to the arguments of covery of things we had, as we say, 'forgotten.' But it is still his dog with as little surprise as Balaam heard the reproaches more odd that while the reasoning power is active in dreams, of his ass. and, while it sometimes makes astonishingly good shots, it is, as From one point of view, our conscious life is narrowed a rule, preposterously silly ; confident and alert enough, but during sleep : from another, it is enlarged. ' From that simply idiotic, both as to memory and co-ordination of facts and narrowed and broken-up consciousness, the outlook becomes ideas. Something which we may call the respectable discrimin vaster and more mysterious, full ol' strange and unsuspected ating mind, whatever that is, nearly always seems to be away fascination, and the possibilities of new experiences' : and the from home, or possibly asleep 'vith the body itself, while the very breaking up of the orderly mental routine, with the dis conscious personality, whatever that is, is at the mercy of the missal of the conventional mind, may really open the door for tumbling in of chunks of scenery, surprises of sensation and new arrivals of thought, imagination and inspirations. It is flashes of imagination, with no responsible housekeeper to sort just at this point that we may see how mental enlargements may occur in sleep. In the waking hour, the iuind is under them, tidy them and take care of them. If this is a fairly conventional restraints or custolllary orders, with regulation workable account of what happens, with part of our mental lines of reasoning, adjusted values of experience, and well equipment awake and part of it asleep, a very large portion of behaved limits of imagination. In sleep, eccentricity has an the dream-surface may be covered and accounted for. innings, irresponsibility kicks over the traces, and unfamiliar, Mr. Ellis cites the suggestion that possibly dreams enable or possibly higher-grade, insights have a chance. Such things certain repressed or as yet undeveloped personal moral charac have been. For all we know, indeed, the time may come when dreaming will be regulated, when, with knowledge of what we teristics to creep out for an airing. It is possible, hut the writer are about,. doors may be opened in sleep, when Jacob's ladder of this review is a singularly sympathetic and kindly person, as may be scientifically used, and when, in sleep, we shall 'enter unlikely to be guilty of murder as anyone, and yet, more than tain angels' not 'unawares.' once, he has found himself an himate of the condemned cell, and does not specially remember that he was innocent. THE ' Review of Reviews' for June says : ' In the "Woman Mr. Ellis evidently shrinks from any spiritual (what we call at Home" Annie S. Swan tells of her visit to one of Cecil spiritual) connection with dreams. All is physical. In his Husk's materialising seances. She admits that she heard her concluding pages, he touches for an instant Tennyson's reference dead son's voice addressing her quite plainly by name, and offering a message of affection, comfort, and of hope. She heard to his semi-waking trances, of which he said that they suggested the singing of ·a choir so beautiful that it lingers in her memory that the extinction of personaliiy Ly death would not involve still, and saw shadowy forms which bore resemblance to loved loss of life but rather a fuller life. ' We are so easily convinced ones who had passed over. Nevertheless she says it left her in these matters,' is Mr. Ellis's only and ~hilly remark. quite cold, for it told her nothing that we-cannot find set out . For onr own part, we are inclined to think that certain kinds with greater convincingness in the Bible! To Anuie S. Swan of dreams do really hint at the action, at all events, of jesting it appears unimportant to verify the statements of Scripture by the audible voice of a son who has passed over into the unseen, spirit people : for instance, the kind of dream that steadily and and the singing of a heavenly choir leaves her quite cold. seriously leads up to a grave ending and then suddenly ends in Well, I suppose she is made that way and it cannot be helped ; ~ suap of sharp fun. If the dreamer is weaving his aliar cloth, the mare's the pity.' June 24, 1911.] LIGHT, 299 A COMMON-SENSE BOOK ON HEALING. until the whole universe of intelligences will return to their primitive pure state. This return to the original good state is ' Facts, Frauds, and Fallacies in the Art of Healing ' is the the greater •world-close,' which concludes, not an reon merely, alliterative title of a book by Dr. Wm. H. Davis, of California but the reon of reons, the 'ages of ages.' Origen taught that {cloth, 5s. net, Simpkin, Marshall & Co.). In it the author dis such a 'world-close' was relatively near. - Only so far does misses the merits and demerits of Allopathy, Homccopathy, Origen appear to support Mr. Denham Parsons' contention that Hydropathy, and every other kind of 'pathy,' and aims 'to give the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls in a good state debars the doctrine of previous incarnation. Origen claimed that this credit where credit is due, whether it be to patent medicines, immense process cannot be supposed to be an isolat~d occ~trrenc.e, Christian Science, vegetarianism, the food and exercise faddists, happening once for all. He taught that change Wl~ se.t m again or the regular registered practitioner.' He does not regard any through freewill, and the problem be resolved ag~m m gene~al special method as perfect, and advises the reader to 'avoid ex on the same principles, involving future incarnations, but with tremes, use simple, harmless, "old women's remedies" if you interminable variety of detail. No doubt many will be found, after they have again fallen away from their 'pure and inexperi wish, but exclude poisonous drugs, and live as near as possible enced state,' to claim that they were never previously incarnated. to Nature.' Referring to vaccination, the writer says:- The logical inference is that this immense process has ever The conscientious objector who protests against the unneces been going on, and ever will go on. For it is only logical to sary contamination of his innocent babe certainly has my sym suppose that every event wh~ch the forces of Natm:e could pathy. If there is wisdom in vaccinating babes when there is possibly bring about would, smce they have been actmg from no small-pox prevalent, why not extend the absurdity by inocu eternity have been brought about long ago. 'And thus,' to lating them with Koch's lymph to prevent consumption, with quote Herbert Spencer(' First Principles,' p. 183), 'there is sug- - anti-toxin to guard against diphtheria, scarlet fever, typhoid, gested to us the conception of a past during which there have and measles, with Pasteur's serum for hydrophobia, and bring been successive evolutions ['world-ages' and 'world-closes'] them up on Browne Sequard's elixir for the prevention of senile analogous to that which is now going on, and a future during decay? which successive other such evolutions may go on-ever the same in principle, but never the same in concrete result.'- The doctor's psychic experiences narrated at the end of the Yours, &c., · H. BLOODWORTH, book will be of interest to many readers. He states that many 34, Eccles-road, Lavender-hill, S. W. chronic invalids who had been given up by others ·as incurable owe their perfect health to-day to the mysterious influence which impyessed his brain during sleep with the means of cure, 'Think on these Things.' Altogether tllli! is an instructive as well as entertaining volume. Sm -Under the heading' Think on these Things,' on p. 263, E. P. Prentice asks, ' Surely it is not the suffering which adds to the lustre of the crown ~ ' I do not know anything about LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 'crowns' or 'rewards,' or 'happy reincarnations,' neither do I desire them. I do not mean to be irreverent to the God·con The Editor is not responsible for the opinions expressed by correspon ception of those wl10 hold the beautiful belief 'of a loving dents, and sometilmes publishes what he does not agree with for Father Who rewards those who have suffered' ; but if, after death, the purpose of presenting views which may elicit discussion. 'He' were to say to me, 'You have suffered and you have tried Pre-existence and Reincarnation. to be as good as you could be, therefore you can have the throne you have earned,' I should reply, ' I thank you very much, and Srn,-The fact that 'the Fathers of the Church held that as the throne is now mine, I will give it to some poor soul who Elijah, yet not John the Baptist, was seen with Moses on the has not had the glorious opportunities afforded by suffering Mount of Transfiguration' is of little value as an argument which I have had of earning a reward. All I ask is permission against the doctrine of reincarnation. It only proves that the to go either to hell or back to earth, in order to earn some more aforesaid Fathers overlooked the fact that Elijah could, and did, 'rewards ' so that by continually repeating the process through detach a 'double portion' of his spirit, apparently, by a process out eter~ity I can empty hell. Then if you will kindly write of 'fission,' and cause it to 'rest upon' anoi;her (2 Kings, ii. 9, 15 ). on my tomb "He was a man who loved humanity," that will be Having overlooked so plain a declaration, they could not be ex enough for me.' '· pected to be 'able to receive' even the plain statement of their I hope this will not be misjudged as a boastful letter. I Master, to the effect th2.t John the Baptist was a reincarnated write it in the hope that my sister may see that there are two. 'portion' of the spirit of Elijah. The Fathers of the Church sides to every question. Reward, in any shape or form, is the apparently failed to see that it would be as natural for the least important thing in life, and ' the hope of attaining reward ' reincarnated 'portion' of the spirit of Elijah to return, when the greatest drawback to the reward itself. The angels that we John the Baptist was executed, to the source from whence it was name 'Sorrow,' 'Sickness,' 'Solitude,' and 'Death,' are, in my projected, as it was for the 'double portion ' of the same spirit, opinion the most glorious angels of which we have any know which 'rested upon' Elisha, to return to Elijah when Elisha ledge-~ngels, in the beatings of whoae wings we hear the grand died. It will, of course, be remembered that John the Baptist celestial harmony, ' Love for the child, Divine Humanity,' the was beheaded before the episode on the Mount of Transfigura song which brings heaven within the breast of all those who hear tion took place, thus allowing of a full manifestation of Elijah it. ' Get good, be good, give good,' I consider to be the truest on that occasion. religion, if it be lived without the desire of reward other. than This ' fission ' and reincarnation of a 'portion ' of the that of benefiting humanity. human spirit seems, at first sight, 'a hard thing '-to quote the I regret to see that at. the orders of a great Christian Church words of Elijah ; but though a difficult feat to accomplish, it is there is an organised commission ont on the warpath lecturing not, apparently, an impossible one. Mr. E. E. Fournier d'.Albe, against the Spiritualism which has enalJled me to travel 'The B.Sc. (Lond.) (on page 260), throws a new light upon this point, Dark Valley' and to find its correct name to be 'The Gold-Lit indirectly, it is true, when he says : 'If, therefore, the soul-body Garden.' It is pathetic that members of the Christian churches of the recently departed should turn out to be a comparatively should call our spirit teachers 'devils sent to mislead the soul' ; embryonic and formless structure, incapable of assuming a for while these devils teach us to love our sufferings, as the tangible shape except by absorbing material temporarily from a foundations upon which will yet be built a wall of immunity terrestrial medium, that. is exactly the state of things which we round the humanity we love as we love our own children, the may describe as warranted by the evolution of our race and our Church teaches us to pray to God to ask Hirn to 'remove' our own pre-natal development.' If, then, birth into the next world. troubles-an implication that He does not know best and that is 'a recapitulation of the long-forgotten history of our earliest we are able to advise Him how the universe should be managed ancestors,' what more reasonable than that Elijah should utilise in order to banish sorrow and sickness. I rather think that many the power of 'fission '-one of the few accomplishments 'our persons, if they will take the trouble to come from behind ' the earliest ancestors'-of 'formless structure '-were capable of ! Tapestry,' where the threads look coarse and ugly, and go to the That Elijah was able, centuries l~ter, to accomplish something front will see, for certain, that it is the most glorious work of analogous to this in connection with the birth of John the art ever made manifest. Even Mr. Raupert, and others, might Baptist proves that he could still control this power at will. see that 'the puerilities of a tilting table' may be, in actuality, Origen's doctrine of ' the pre-existence of souls before birth a throne enabling him who sits thereon to see God ' face to into this world as humans' (mentioned by Mr. J. Denham face.' As this letter appears to me as being rathe_r conceited, Parsons on page 264, June 3rd) was, it is true, 'a doctrine of although I, from my heart, only intend that it should be a ray the pre-existence of souls in a pure state,' but, so far as I can of hope, however faint, to those who ' suffer,' permit me to gather, it did not preclude the doctrine of reincarnation. adopt anonymity and, like Ingersoll the immortal, sign myself, Origen's whole process of reons, of 'world-ages' and 'world -Yours1 &c. 1 closes1' is mea,nt to recll,lim the fq.llen (into IIJB,teriq.l e~istence) 1 ------. --~ --- 300 ,LIGHT [June 24; 1911. Mr. Charles Bailey's Seances. people who were sitting at small tahles beneath the verandah, Sm,-I have read the letter by 'M. S.' on the subjeet of tlw 11avi11g refreshments, seemed rather astonished. I was in a medium, l\Ir. Charles Bailey, with great interest. I' also was huny at the time and could not stay more than a few minutes present quite l'ecently at a seance with l\Ir. Bailey, and I may t.o watch the proceedings. ·whether there was 'something say that I did not regard the conditions as satisfacLory or as ' test' wrong at the power house ' I am unable to say, hut it struck me conditions. The preliminary inspection was not ' searching' at as being rather extraordinary that all the lights were not all, but consisted of patting, thumping, and passing the hands affected in the same way if there was some defect in the over the body of the medium, who had merely removed his coat generator, or in the cmrent, considering that the lights are on · and in view of the fact that this was· conducted in the presenc~ the same wire. of the lady sitters, and was therefore necessarily of an incom I have been wondering since whether my unseen friend plete character, it cannot be regarded seriously. (Monsieur Rene Fontaine) has been enlarging his field of In common with many oLhers, I consider the searching of the operations and trying new experiments. If he can operate on medium as degrading and unsatisfactory at the best ·and if the the electric lights in one place he could, no doubt, do so in proper. conditions are insisted upon, quite unnecess~ry, a~d I do another-providing the conditions were favourable.-Yours, &c., not tlunk any very great ingenuity will have to be exercised to REGINALD B. SPAN. provide a way for Mr. Bailey out of Lhe difficulty. Cap Martin, S. France. l\Ir. Bailey, as most of your readers are by this time aware, June 9th. is seated in a large cage, which is constmcted in a manner which I think most sitters would regard as satisfactory. Why how- P.S.---:Yesternoon, after posting my letter to yon I retnrned to . ever, _instead of sitting in.~icle the cage and prodncing dpports my room and was sitting reading, when I suddenly became con therem, should not Mr. Bailey sit outside with the rest of the scious of someone beingp1·esent,and then sawclairvoyantlythethin circle and produce the apport within the previously inspected pale face of Monsieur Rene. He looked as if anxious to tell me cage? Or, better still, if it is contended that the immediate per something, but after remaining for a minute or two, went away sonal magnetism of the medium is necessary, wl1y should not a without my being able to obtain any communication. That smaller ~age be proYided, made of the same fabric as the larger evening, aft.er a walk through the pine woods, I returned to.my cnge, wluch smaller cage could be screwed together in front of the room at about 10.30, and turning on the electric light prepared circle, the heads of tl1e holding' screws sealed up, and the cage to retire. After 11 few minutes I noticed tliat the light was get placed on l\fr. Bailey's lap, or in his hands? The production of ting dimmer and dimmer till at last the room was quite dark, a bird in a cage which required the practical destruction of the only the red wire in the globe being visible. I was searching cage to remove . tlie bird would go a long way to prove Mr. for matches and candle when the light began very gradually to Bailey's claims, and at the same time any previous searching come back, until it reached its normal condition. Then after a wottld be unnecessary. Or a bird of Mr. Bailey's owp. providing minute or two it suddenly went out and instantly reappeared, should be securely ~crewed up in the smaller cage I 11ave already then again went out and remained out, and I was obliged to suggested, and such smaller cage placed on the top of Mr. light a candle. However, after a short time the light came back Bailey's cage. One would ask that the bird might be trans again and was turned on and oft' rapidly. I went into an ad ported from the one cage into the other. To move a bird some joining room, which was empty, and turned on the light there. six inches would surely be easier than to transport the same It burned quite steadily whilst the light in my room was being hird from Africa to London in a few seconds !-Yours, &c., switched on and off, which would not have been the case had W. KENRETT STYLES. there been anything wrong with the lighting apparatus. I then asked, 'If it is Monsieur Rene who is doing this, will he please give me a sign by turning the light down three times and then More ' Mentone Phenomena.' stopping 1' This was done, and afterwards the light remained in its stationary condition as usual. Srn,-Your readers may be interested to know that I have I may liere state that I have been in this house (the Villa recently met a French lady who claims that the spirit that I Frisia) over four weeks, and this is the first time the light in my mentioned in my letter in the last issue of 'LIGHT,' whom I saw room has been thus affected. What occurred last night was clairvoyantly as being the chief operator in the Mentone phe exactly the same as what happened at the other two houses in nomena, was a friend of hers in Paris many years ago. She says which I stayed. I have now no doubt whatever that the cause my description tallies in every particular with that of her friend, of the strange movements of the electric lights in the road and who was 11 handsome, striking-looking man, and was Professor of outside the restaurant, as recorded in my letter of yesterday, Literature in a Paris University. The extreme pallor of his was due to the same unseen agency, though yestermorn I had my complexion was in striking contrast to his coal-black hair and doubts about it. It seems that my spirit friend was determined eyes. He was very clever and was interested in scientific pur to dispel those doubts. I am curious to see wliat else will occur. suits, though she cannot remember that he had much to do with To me it is most interesting. electricity, but thinks it very probable, and is not aware whether June 10th. he had invented some mechanical apparatus. His name was Rene ]\Hot, not Rene Fontaine, and she cannot understand why I should have got the name of Fontaine (unless it was the name of a place he was staying at). He hfl.d visited NEW PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. Mentone for his health and returned to Palis, where he died. Though the phenomena of the lights ceased several weeks 'The Soul of the Moor.' By STRATFORD D. JOLLY. Cloth, 2s. ago, I think it is worth while mentioning that two even net. Wm. Rider, Ltd., 164, Aldersgate-street, E.C. ings ago, about 9 p.m., I was walking back to Cap 1\Iartin 'Le Livre de La Veine.' Par RENE ScHWAEilLE. 2 fr. 50, from Mentone along a lonely road, with the sea on one Paris : H. Daragon, 96-98, Rue Blanche. side and high walls enclosing orange and lemon groves and the 'Societe d'Etudes Psychiques de Gencve : Rapports pour gardens of deserted villas on the other. For nearly a mile t.his !'Exercise de 1910.' 50 cents. Geneve: Imprimerie Wyss road is lighted by electric lights suspended from telegraph poles. et Duchene, rue Verdaine. As I reached the first of these lights. it suddenly went out and 'Atlantis and Lemuria,' cloth, 3s. 6d. net, and 'The Education all the lights down the road for about half a mile followed snit, of Children,' cloth, ls. net. Both by RUDOLF STEINER. the road being left in darkness. An instant later they all Theosophical Publishing Society, 161, New Bond-street, W. reappeared, then again went out. This went on for fully fifteen 'Thirteenth Annual Report of the "British Union for the minutes. Sometimes the lights were rapidly switched on and Abolition of Vivisection for the year ending l\fay, 1911.' oft: I slowly walked down the road and watched this uncommon sight. At the end of the road-where the last of these lights 32, Charing Cross, S.W. is stationed-I met some French working-men, who were lookinl! ' Personal Magnetism,' and ' Magnetic Healing.' 25 cents each. at the antics of the lights in some astonishment, and I remarked By P. BRAUN, Ph.D. 1,409, No. 20th-street, Omaha, that the way the electric lights were being turned on and off was Nebr., U.S.A. rather strange, to which they replied that it cerLainly was very MAGAZINES.-' The Theosophist,' ls., 161, New Bond-street, W.; extrAordinary, \mt no doubt something had gone wrong at the 'The Vineyard,' 6d. net, A. C. Fifield, 13, Clifford's Inn, electric power-house (natmally the only explanation they could E.C. ; 'Healthward Ho ! ' 3d, 40, Chando.~-street, W.C. ; give). I thought that perhaps that was the cause, and tool( no 'The Open Road,' 3d., 3, Amen-corner, E.C. ; 'The Herald more heed. · of Health,' 2d., 11, Southampton-row, W.C. ; 'Hindu The next el'ening (last night) I was in Mentone, and on Spiritual Magazine' (May), 19, Bagbazar-street, Calcutta; pas.~ing a restaurant wl1ere I often have my evening meal, the India; 'Current Literature,' 25 cents, 134, West 29th electric lights suspended on the verandah outside suddenly went street, New York, U.S.A.;' The Nautilus,' 10 cents, Holyoke, out, then came back and went out again. Then two of these Mass., U.S.A. ; 'The Commonwealth,' 3d., 19, Stroud lights kept going out and reappearing alternately, whilst the Green-road, N. ; 'Lyceum Banner,' ld., 17, Bromley-road1 light on the bnUdings on either side rem!lined stationary, Some Hanging Heaton 1 Dewshury. . ,.,