"LIGHT," NOVEMBER 17, 1933. ~OJ._,,......,.._,__,.~>-<l><l><!><!>~..,,......0-<!><,,......,>-<!><l><!><!>.....,,........... .,,...,..~!><!>4.><!><!>~~<!><!>-~!>-<>-<l,...,.....,,..,.......,.<!><!>-.........,,,._,,_,_~~ , I t a 31 ournal of ~spcbical, @ccult, anb ,fMpstical l\tstarcb Editor: FOUNDED GEORGE H. LETHEM. Past Editors : IN Assistant Editor : Rev. W. STAJNTON MOSES, (M.A. Oxon.) E.W. WALLIS. 1881 Dr. NANDOR FODOR. EDMUND DAWSON ROGERS. DAVID GOW. ~ .....~,......,....-<>-<i><i>-0-0-<!><li><i>-<l><i> .....,,.....,....-4>-<l><!><!><l>-4>-<l><l><!><3>'¢>-0~!><1>'¢>-$~...... .,,..,,...,...,..,...,,..,,-<»-<~ ...... <S><l,...,...!><I>~><!><!>-¢>~....,..~ o10-s>"'i><O...,,..,...,,..,_..,_..,...,...,,....,...,,.............,...,_._,...,............,..._~_..,>-<t><i>-<><o-<s><....-,,..........,......... .,,....._,...,......~~,..,,.._..,>-<><i><'><....- ......0><>-~.....,,...,............,~~- oo No. 2758. VOL. LIU. (Registered as FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1933. a Newspaper) PRICE TWOPENCE Entered as Second Class Matter, March 12, 1929, at the Post Office, at Boston, M lss., under the Act of March 9, 1879, (Sec. 327, P.L. and R.) PRINCIPAL CONTENTS Miracles and Spiritualism. By H. F. Prevost John Myers Undergoes Rigid Photographic Test Battersby. 729-81 (with illustration) 737-8 Further Evidence of Survival. By J. Arthur Hill. 732 Albert Hall Photographic Experiment. By Mrs. Brett Durrant 738 Some of a Communicator's Difficulties. By "The Great Days of Ephesus'', Miss Geraldine W. S. Montgomery Smith 788 Cummins' new book 789 Royal Albert Hall Armistice Service 734 Scots Armistice Services 742 MIRACLES AND SPIRITUALISM NEW TESTAMENT INCIDENTS MADE CREDIBLE BY PSYCHIC KNOWLEDGE " There has been much talk lately of the relationship of Spiritualism to Christianity, and of the damage being done to it by our views of the Hereafter. "We have been accused of trying to upset people's faith. I think we may retort that, in the matter of miracles, we are doing our best to re-establish it. "We are anxious to persuade Christians, despite the scepticism of their own clerics, that it is possible to believe the Bible." THIS striking declaration was made by Mr. H. F. has lately pointed out, onl.y ceased to be effective when the Prevost Battersby at the close of a lecture on " The Church had banned all Communion with Spirits. Bishops, the Spiritualist and the Bible " delivered by "Even Christ's miracles are emasculated, and explained him at the L.S.A., South Kensington. He explained that his as the inevitable decoration accorded to a great man after remarks were provoked by the discovery that in a certain his death ; but I am sure that a simple person reading the Commentary on the Scriptures-which included a Bishop Gospels would come to an opposite conclusion. and twenty-two Doctors of Divinity among its contri­ " Listen to this ! Christ has just emerged, unknown, butors, and was the text book in an important Theological unheralded, from his carpentering : llege-11: determined effort was being-matte· to-tliscredtt the miracles in the Bible. ' And Jesus went about all Galilee . healing all manner Renan once surmised that " if ever the worship of of sickness, and all manner of disease among the people. Jesus loses its hold upon mankind, it will be precisely on 'And his fame went throughout all Syria ; and they account of those acts which originally inspired belief in brought unto him all sick people that were taken with him," and these leaders of Church thought, in apparent divers diseases and torments, and those which were agreement with him, and worried by the cold discourage­ possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, ment of Science, seemed determined to pull down that and those that had the palsy, and he healed them. part of the structure on which Ecclesiastical Christianity 'And there followed him great multitudes of people.' has been built before it toppled down on their heads. After giving various instances from the Old Testament " Of course they followed him I Do you think that of this reduction of marvel to myth, the lecturer turned great multitudes of Jews would have gone out into the to the area more seriously affected by Renan's pronounce­ desert country to listen to the Sermon on the Mount, ment. or even-though being abused does appeal to some people "The Commentators," he said," are obviously miracle­ -to be told they were a generation of vipers? No! shy, and that is really rather amusing ; because, stimulated it's quite true that wonders are added to the great man either by Spiritualism or Christian Science, they are after his death, but it is the wonders which have made beginning after some fifteen hundred years to revive the his reputation for greatness. miracles they used to work in the shape of Spiritual " It was miracle that won Christ a hearing ; it was · !foaling ; miracles wbicb1 as the Master of th(,! Tempi~ mii:~de that btw1ght him to the Cross beca~se it wa$ 730 LIGHT .NOVEMBER 17, 1933 "Really there is no excuse for this ignorance about SPIRITUALISM AND MIRACLES· levitation. Its methods are acquired in Tibet to-day (Continued from previous paae> by a course of ordinary psychic training, and initiates in miracle that stamped him as a possible Messiah. The the end ' are able to sit on an ear of barley without Chief Priests and Elders would never have worried about bending its stalk, or to stand on the top of a heap of grain a man who had only congratulations to offer to the without displacing any of it.' reviled and persecuted. "On :Mount Hermon Christ proved how egregiously the "And what were these miracles? Mostly of healing. Mosaic prohibition of black magic had been misunderstood And what do we know of healing? Precious little. by producing a materialisation of two great Jewish Christ knew a lot. He knew what enables an old lady characters, Moses and Elias. The obvious intent of the to jump a six foot hedge when she is chased by a bull. Transfiguration was to knock into the disciples' rather Do we ? You say-fear. Yes, but what does the fear dense heads that there was a spirit world, and that while get hold of in her ? Christ could lay hold of the dynamic some of them were still alive, they would see 'the Kingdom spiritual quality that lies dormant in us all, and make it of God come with power,' out of this very spirit world, turn out tht' disease or the devil from its fleshly tenement. as it did at Pentecost. " There was nothing supernat1Jral about it : there is PENTECOST nothing supernatural ; our very use of the word is a "It is in dealing with Pentecost," said Mr. Battersby, sheer conceit. We talk glibly of the Book of Nature, "that the Commentators reach an almost incredible but we have not yet cut half the leaves. He had 1 He fatuity. That was, after the Resurrection morning, the :::ouid read them all. most significant date in the Christian year, because on it " Then this question of devils. The Jews of the Old the promise on Hermon was fulfilled, the gap between Testament did not believe in the great big Devil which heaven and earth was bridged, and the kingdom of God has so dominated Christianity; b'?t they did believe in a_ came with power. lot of little ones; and in Christ's time there was a big "Power in very sooth it was, turning that little group business done by the Exorcists in getting rid of them. of frightened artisans into the fiery denouncers of the "To-day, of course, it is so unfashionable to be possessed authorities from whom they had been hiding ; and who, by a devil, that the Church, which has no idea how to despite scourgings, torture, imprisonment and dea~h, get rid of them, explains that Christ only had to deal with were to be described, after only a few years, as having epileptics and so forth, and that his acceptance of them ' turned the world upside down.' as devils, was .. .. 'a gracious accommodation to the views "Well, what did it? This is the account:- of the age' which seems to me only a polite way of ' They were all with one accord in one place. And calling him a humbug, and neither explains the psychic suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a development of the devils ... nor their obvious terror of rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where being turned out into the cold. ' This kind,' said Christ, they were sitting. And there appeared unto them explaining the failure of his disciples to expel a foul cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of spirit, ' can come forth by nothing but by prayer and them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost fasting.' and began to speak with other tongues as the spirit "Well, we have a prayer book, and an abundance of gave them utterance.' prayers ; but we do not expect from them the spiritual ' And there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, mastery which would cast out devils ; and what fasting devout men, out of every nation under heaven. And we do is directed rather to improve our figures than our they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to faith. another : Behold are not all these which speak Galileans? " Then to take some other miracles-the feeding of How hear we them speak in our own tongues the the five thousand. • The nature of the miracle altogether wonderful works of God ? ' baffles the imagination,' says the Commentator. ' In no " Now this is the Commentator's explanation. other miracle of the Lord is it so impossible to picture ' ' It has been suggested,' he says; ' that the wind what took place.' Among other conjectures the miracle was the wind which always rises with the dawn, and the has been explained as mass hypnotism.