Spiritualism
by Joseph Crehan,
S.J.
CTS
No R174 (1979)
Note: This pamphlet is based on a previous one entitled 'Spiritualism',
written by Herbert Thurston S.J. in the CTS Studies in Comparative Religion
series.
It has been completely revised for this new edition (1979).
I. THE SPIRITUALIST RELIGION
No one who will take the trouble to glance at the advertisement columns
of any Spiritualist journal can long remain in doubt that for the most
part the adherents of the movement regard it as a kind of religion. It
is true that the leading organizations in this country are content with
such names as 'The Spiritualists' National Union', 'The Marylebone
Spiritualist Association', 'The London Spiritualist Mission', 'The
International Federation of Spiritualists', etc.; and there is, of
course, no religious suggestion in the wording of these titles. They
were probably chosen expressly to avoid any semblance of pronouncing
upon a question which provokes agitating differences of opinion among
their members. On the other hand we also find that there are twenty-two
Spiritualist churches in the Greater London area currently (January,
1979) advertising their services in the Psychic News each week. There are
other places calling themselves temples of light or healing
sanctuaries, but 'church' seems the favourite designation. By itself
the term 'churches' would seem to be a little ambiguous. Does it stand
for the groups of people who meet together, or the buildings which
house them? In any case we must not think of stately edifices such as
the Christian Scientists have erected in Boston, in New York, and all
over London. The Spiritualist churches are for the most part little
reunions assembling in some inconspicuous meeting house, often only
hired for the purpose. But they have services at which prayers are
offered and hymns are sung, while the addresses, delivered under trance
or otherwise, most commonly have something of the quality of sermons.
In June, 1966 TV cameras for the first time filmed a Spiritualist
service. One can buy a Spiritualist hymn book containing 418 hymns, and
its publishers boast that it 'can be used with the music of the
Methodist Hymn Tune book.'
There can in any case be no question that the religious bearings of the
alleged communications from beyond the veil are a matter of
considerable interest to the vast majority of those who identify
themselves with the movement.
But the endless divergences of view which have characterized the cult
from its earliest days begin precisely here. Many Spiritualists contend
that their tenets do not constitute an independent religion, but are
consistent with existing forms of Christianity, while others not less
vehemently deny this. On April 13th, 1934, there occurred what was
described as the 'first occasion on which a representative Spiritualist
has been given an opportunity of telling listeners (on the wireless)
what Spiritualism is and what it is not.' Mr E. W. Oaten, at that time
Editor of The Two Worlds,
and President of the International Federation of Spiritualists, was the
speaker, but his presentment of Spiritualism as a religion in
competition with existing Christianity was adversely criticized in more
than one quarter by his fellow believers. Mr Oaten had declared that
Spiritualism was a religion. 'It is my religion,' he said, 'my only
religion.' This attitude, so the Editor of Light protested, was regrettable,
'because many Spiritualists do not agree with Mr Oaten in regarding
Spiritualism as a religion, but look upon it rather as a set of
scientifically ascertained facts, which provide the preamble for all
the great religions and set up standards by which the truth of
religious dogma and doctrine may be judged." [Light, May 18th, 1934, p. 304.]
What this comes to fundamentally is that some Spiritualists, perhaps
the majority, still retain a lingering belief in traditional
Christianity, while others do not. The divergence in opinion upon this
point has been the snag upon which for so many years past every effort
to organize the cult and to frame some declaration of principles and
purposes has come to grief. As the Editor of the Spiritual Magazine pointed out as
far back as September, 1873, 'hitherto all attempts at national
organization, whether in America or England, have met with little or no
success, generally indeed leading to a more complete disorganization by
bringing out more conspicuously the wide and fundamental differences on
important subjects which divide Spiritualists, and which vitally affect
their conception of Spiritualism.' [The
Spiritual Magazine, 1873, p. 385.] These differences have not in
any way grown less during the century which has elapsed since this was
written. Both in America and England they have tended rather to become
more pronounced. A scholar who has paid much attention to the subject
in the United States speaks as follows, and nearly all that he says
applies with equal force to the situation in Great Britain:
"The Spiritualist organization, regarded in its world-wide aspect, is
poorly centralized. There is no ecclesiastical head or heads, no
equivalent of a Pope, Archbishop, Bishop, or other dignitaries and
officials of the orthodox faiths. Nor is there a leader and prophet,
such as Mrs Eddy for Christian Science, or Mme Blavatsky, Miss
Katherine Tingley, or Mrs Besant for Theosophy.
"In Spiritualism no one individual, no one group or faction, is
all-powerful, in any executive or legislative way. There is no single
leader or prophet who is the germinal principal or guide of the
movement, nor is there any single body or council to which
Spiritualists, whether m this country (i.e. the U.S.A.) or all over the
world, may go as a court of last appeal.
"They also lack a written word or testament, a holy book which is
universally regarded as the source of authority. There is no
Spiritualist equivalent of the Holy Bible, the Talmud, the Koran, or Science and Health." *
[* George Lawton, The Drama of Life
after Death; a study of the Spiritualist Religion, p. 137. This
substantial volume of 700 pages, though published in London by
Constable (1933), was printed in America and submitted in partial
fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy,
in the faculty of Philosophy, Columbia University.]
In the United States an International General Assembly of Spiritualists
(based on Buffalo, N.Y.) has since 1936 attempted to co-ordinate the
activities of devotees; it claimed in 1956 (the last year for which
official statistics are available) some 164,072 adherents (all in
U.S.A.?) in 209 churches with 221 clergy. In addition there is a
National Spiritualist Alliance dating from 1913, with but 3,208
adherents (in 1962) and 51 clergy, and also a Nationalist Spiritualist
Association of Churches. This last had (in 1962) 5,721 members (in
contrast with 41,233 in 1926) while the number of churches (178)
suggests that congregations are very small. It is this last body which
claims that its members believe that 'Spiritualism is a science,
philosophy and religion based upon the demonstrated facts of
communication between this world and the next'. Its decline in numbers
implies that a more strictly defined belief in Spiritualism as a
religion is not so popular as the more vague allegiance to what is
little more than a variety of Unitarian belief, with some psychic
novelty thrown in. These figures have to be set alongside the totals
for the main religions of the United States: twelve million Methodists,
three million Episcopalians and forty-nine million Catholics.
Spiritualist churches in England claimed (1971) no more than 15,657
members. In U.S.A. the 1975 total for Unitarians, Spiritualists,
Ethical churches and other non-Christian groups was 371,799.
Mr J. Arthur Findlay (a Glasgow businessman who was won over to
Spiritualism by experiences with a medium named Sloan) tells in his
autobiography how he financed the Psychic
News from its first appearance in 1931 for many years before it
showed a profit. In 1946 it had reached a circulation of 27,600 copies
a week, while the older periodicals, Light
and Two Worlds, changed from
weekly to monthly publication. In that cautionary tale about two
officers who faked spiritualist happenings to win their way to freedom
from a Turkish prison in 1917, the author spoke frankly about the
appeal of Spiritualism to those who had lost husbands or sons in the
war:
"I know well that conversations with the dear dead are the everyday
stock-in-trade of the average medium. It makes mediumship so much
easier. Besides, for all I know, the medium may be genuine. And far be
it from me to decry the efforts of eminent scientists to forge their
links with the world beyond by any means they choose. They want to
break through the partition. In their efforts they have perhaps every
right to circularize the widows and mothers of those whose names adorn
the Roll of Honour. To the scientist a widow or a mother is only a unit
for the purpose of experiment and percentage. To the professional
medium she represents so much bread and butter." [The Road to En-Dor, by Lieut. E. H.
Jones (1920), p. 43.]
The aftermath of the Second World War was distinguished by no such wave
of popularity for Spiritualism as had followed the First. There had
intervened much patient research into the possibilities of telepathy
between the living, as a merely natural happening which gifted
individuals may experience. The conviction of Mrs Duncan, a well-known
medium, for fraud in 1944 was widely marked, and though in 1951 the
Witchcraft Act of 1735 was repealed (along with the relevant portions
of the Vagrancy Act of 1824), it was replaced by the Fraudulent Mediums
Act (22 June 1951). This imposed penalties up to £500 fine or two
years' imprisonment on those who for gain 'fraudulently purported to
act as mediums or to exercise powers of telepathy, clairvoyance or
other similar powers.' The promoter of the Bill claimed to be acting
for some 50,000 Spiritualists in Britain in putting their house in
order. Speaking in the Lords second reading debate (3 May 1951) the
Earl of Perth said that Catholics would wish Spiritualists to have the
same measure of toleration as other religious bodies. He hoped that the
leaders of ecclesiastical Spiritualism would guard against the spread
of fraudulent practices; it was in their interest to do so.
A good many people, no doubt, are ready to believe that communication
with the other world is possible, but their faith is not so robust as
to lead them to make pecuniary sacrifices for the cause. The crowds
which flocked to hear Mrs Meurig Morris or Mrs Estelle Roberts were no
indication of any strength of conviction. In a great city like London,
with a population of eight millions, a famous and well-advertised
trance-speaker or clairvoyant will be sure to attract packed audiences.
But so also does any other celebrity, and almost any religious
demonstration. Witness the vogue of healers like Coue or Harry Edwards,
or of evangelists like Billy Graham or Sun Myung Moon. A crowded
attendance in London tells us practically nothing regarding the real
forces involved. As to the ordinary meetings of the Spiritualist
'churches', I cannot discover that any great keenness is manifested. In
America, Mr Lawton, who speaks without prejudice and from personal
observation, notes that most services are attended by not more than
twenty to twenty-five persons, and he adds, 'the audience consists
nearly entirely of women. Women predominate at most religious services,
but at Spiritualist services the preponderance is overwhelming; there
will be found perhaps five and often more women to every man.' [Lawton,
p. 203] We may also learn from him that 'Spiritualism has more
"transients", at least at "Message Services", than almost any other
faith. For any given Spiritualist to attend the services of a
particular church, week after week and year after year, as is the
custom in other faiths, would be an unheard-of phenomenon.' [Lawton, p.
204]
That there are probably many more people nowadays interested in
psychical phenomena, and prepared to credit the reality of such
manifestations, than was the case in the Victorian era, is largely due
to a loss of faith in Christian revelation. It is at best a groping in
the direction of psychical research, and psychical research is not
Spiritualism, though the two are often confused in the popular mind.
Moreover, where the Spiritualistic attitude properly so called is
predominant, the tendency is not towards uniformity of teaching, but
altogether in the contrary sense. There is not in truth one
Spiritualist religion, but rather fifty, or we might equally well say,
five hundred religions, each depending upon the teaching of the
'control' who purports to communicate through his own special medium.
Upon the fact of survival, these controls are agreed, and also
necessarily upon the possibility of intercourse between those who have
passed on and men who still live upon earth, but with regard to almost
every other matter there is an endless divergence of view.
In certain organizations of the cult, notably in the Spiritualists'
National Union, much is made of what are called the Seven Principles of
Spiritualism. To the belief in survival after death, which, of course,
is held in common with every Christian sect, these Principles add
little which is not found in the Gospels. The Principles do however
take something away from Christianity. The Lyceum Manual denies Redemption
through Christ, directing the faithful to call Jesus brother, but not
Redeemer. The Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the duty of
doing to others as we should wish others to do unto us, assurance of a
future life, the circumstances of which are conditioned by man's
conduct for good or evil during his earthly existence - these are the
commonplaces of every Christian creed. When Mr J. Arthur Findlay, and
other anti-Church Spiritualists of the same aggressive type, declare
that these teachings are to be accepted because 'they are given from
the Etheric world to all who make contact with it,' and because 'they
are drawn from the information which comes to us from those who have
passed on to the larger life,' * we can only marvel at the extravagance
of such a pose.
[* See Findlay, The Rock of Truth,
p. 185, and compare the comments of Mrs St Clair Stobart in Light, October 6th, 1933, p. 630.
The anti-Catholic tone of some Spiritualist writing is very marked. In
1946 an editor of the Psychic News replied to Fr H. V. O'Neill's book
on Spiritualism (Spiritualism
1944) with a work of almost the same length entitled Keep the Rome fires burning, full
of old-fashioned Protestant controversy which would have endeared its
author to the 'Ultras' of Belfast or Portadown. Mr Findlay in his
autobiography confesses that as a child he used to pray that the Roman
Catholics might not rise from their beds. Inconsistently, he boasted
elsewhere in the same work that in 1934, when he lectured on
Spiritualism in Rome, a Cardinal (unnamed) told him that séances
were held at the Vatican, but that Pope Pius XI was a bad sitter and
that much better results were obtain when he was not present. He may
not have expected to find humour in a Cardinal.]
We can only marvel at the extravagance of such a pose. As if
Spiritualism alone had realized the brotherhood of men and the need of
charity! What has any Spiritualist ever done for his fellows to compare
with the examples set by St Vincent de Paul, St Peter Claver, St John
of God, and a thousand others, centuries before 'contact with the
Etheric' was dreamed of. Two only of these seven Principles affirm
anything which can be regarded as a religious novelty. The one assumes
that intercourse with the world of spirits is a normal source of
guidance, the other declares that 'the path of progress is never
closed,' that is to say that the accident of death is no bar to further
advance. These teachings we are asked to accept upon the word of such
purporting communicators as 'Red Cloud', 'White Feather', 'lmperator',
'Nona', 'Johannes', 'Moonstone', and a crowd of others, for whose
existence in this world or the next not a shadow of evidence is
forthcoming beyond the fact that these are the fantastic names which
they have chosen to give themselves.
It is particularly noteworthy that in the Seven Principles no reference
is made to the question of Reincarnation. As almost everyone knows, and
as the periodicals of the cult for the past century continually bear
witness, this is a matter upon which Spiritualists are everywhere
divided and are apt to hold violent opinions. At the same time it is
easy to see that no piece of knowledge can be more fundamentally
important in the scheme of future existence which they set before us.
What is the use of affirming survival and the identity of the
individual after death if the continuity of memory is liable to be
completely broken? Supposing that the spirit which has been released
from its fleshy integuments is destined in course of time to return to
earth again, and is to be united to a new body, losing all recollection
of a previous existence, what becomes of the glowing pictures of the
peaceful 'summerland' which play so large a part in the Spiritualist
propaganda? The Seven Principles affirm that 'the path of progress is
never closed,' but that must be a strange progress which brings man
back to the helplessness of infancy, without a vestige of the knowledge
and experience he had gained when he previously lived on earth.
Nevertheless nearly all the Spiritualists of France and Southern Europe
are committed to the religion spirite
which was founded by Allan Kardec, and which is completely identified
with the teaching of Reincarnation. * [* See further the CTS pamphlet Reincarnation (1978) by the present
writer, Joseph Crehan, (Do 498).]
At the Fifth International Congress of Spiritualists, held at Barcelona
in 1934, we are told by Mr Maurice Barbanell, the editor of Psychic News, that 'A vigorous
attempt was made by delegates from the Latin countries to commit the
Congress to this belief (Reincarnation). This caused violent
discussions, which lasted, at one evening session, until one o'clock in
the morning! Even when the delegates left the hall, private talks
continued until 2.30 in the morning.' *
[* Quaintly enough the failure of the Congress is laid by Mr Barbanell
at the door of the Spanish Inquisition, which was finally suppressed in
1820. 'There appear to be few, if any, mediums in Spain,' he says. 'The
Spanish Inquisition stamped out mediumship. They called it witchcraft.
They tortured, burnt, and had the "witches" put to death.' Mr Barbanell
does not seem to know that there were more witches put to death in
England during the single reign of Elizabeth than suffered in Spain
during the three centuries the Spanish Inquisition lasted.]
In England and in America this belief in Reincarnation at first found
little favour; D. D. Home in particular attacked it strenuously; but
later it was put forward and taken for granted in dozens of books
embodying spirit messages and automatic scripts. *
[* See, for example, Claude's Book,
by Mrs Kelway Bamber, or The Witness,
by Jessie Platts. In this last we may find 'Tiny' addressing his mother
from beyond the veil: 'It is awfully funny to think I haven't been an
Englishman always, but I don't mind that. I wonder if you have ever
been a man . . Well, mother, you needn't feel so shocked. It does
happen; and I don't mind knowing that I was once a woman,' p. 49.
Curiously enough, The Witness
is a book highly commended in Conan Doyle's Pheneas Speaks, p. 83. A
correspondent in Psychic News for Oct. 26th, 1946, deplores the
'increasing tendency to mix Spiritualism with the highly speculative
theories of Theosophy.']
Dr Fielding Ould, the President of the London Spiritualist Alliance,
argued in favour of Reincarnation in a public discussion, and 'Power',
the control of Mrs Meurig Morris, is said to have pronounced in the
same sense. On the other hand, in America the National Spiritualist
Association, meeting at Detroit in October, 1930, passed a resolution
to the effect that 'acceptance of the doctrine of Reincarnation as a
principle of Spiritualism subverts the chief premise of our teaching,
which is that of continuity of life, recognition of departed friends,
and reunion.' To ordinary common sense this conclusion seems
incontrovertible, but for all that Reincarnation theories are
continually being advocated in the English Spiritualist journals, even
in those which formerly were firm in their opposition to such teaching.
* [ * The medium Ena Twigg in her Autobiography
(1973) professes belief in Reincarnation, against the belief of many.]
The one thing which may be asserted with absolute confidence regarding
the Spiritualist religion is that the powers which claim to instruct
and to guide from the other side differ as much, or even more, in their
views than do religious teachers here on earth. There is chaos and not
order in the supposed etheric world. There is ignorance, sometimes
openly confessed, even upon so vital a point as the question whether
men who are born upon this planet have one human existence or many. *
[* For example, Mr F. W. FitzSimons, F.Z.S. in his book, Opening the Psychic Door (1933),
claims to be in contact with a band of controls of exceptional wisdom
and of an integrity beyond suspicion. The most prominent of these, 'Dr
Morgan', questioned regarding Reincarnation, replies, 'No one over here
with whom I have talked appears to know whether it is true or not' (p.
119, and cf. pp. 123 and 145-6).]
II. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE MOVEMENT
1) For those who approach the question of Spiritualism from the
standpoint of the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and other enthusiastic
believers in the New Revelation, it must be a little difficult to
explain why any effective intervention of the spirit world in human
affairs should have been so long delayed. We are told that many of
these intelligences who passed on thousands of years ago are supremely
wise, that it is their main concern to guide and uplift mankind, and
that only through this channel can the people be rescued from the
dogmatic fictions of the Churches on the one hand and the blank
hopelessness of materialism on the other. Yet it was not until 1848
that intercourse with the realm of shades was opened up. For all
practical purposes before that time the oracles were dumb. The delay
was not due to the lack of suitable communicators. 'Pheneas', the
special control of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's family, claims to have died
'thousands of years ago' and to have lived at Ur before the time of
Abraham. 'Imperator', the dominant partner of the Stainton Moses band,
declared himself to be identical with the prophet Malachi (c. 460
B.C.). We have then to suppose that these and a crowd of other
beneficent spirits were in effect impotent to convey any message to
mankind until two uneducated little girls in the hamlet of Hydesville,
U.S.A., showed them the way to a solution by imitating the strange
knockings which were heard in the haunted house their parents occupied.
By these knockings a means of communication was first established just
over a hundred years ago.
2) No one can dispute the fact that modern Spiritualism only dates from
the year 1848. Both in America and in England the anniversary from time
to time has been commemorated with great solemnity. The centenary of
the event was celebrated in London on 31st March, 1948, but so quietly
that it failed to be noticed. There was no report in The Times of its happening; people
were more preoccupied with rationing and the Berlin airlift. In America
the frame-house in which the Fox family lived has been taken down and
built up elsewhere. It now bears the inscription: 'Spiritualism
originated in this house, March 31st, 1848.'
3) There is no satisfactory evidence to prove that the two child
mediums, Maggie and Katie Fox, through whom the intercourse with the
spirit world by means of rappings first took its rise, were either
vicious or fraudulent at the beginning of their career. *
[* In an essay of this size, it is impossible to discuss the evidence
with the fullness which is necessary to provide any convincing
demonstration of the reality of Spiritualistic phenomena. I must refer
the reader to chapters viii and ix of The Church and Spiritualism by H.
Thurston, S.J. (The Bruce Co., Milwaukee), pp. 143-223. The President
and Founder of the Magicians Club, Mr Will Goldston, a man who has
exposed many fraudulent mediums, is nevertheless a convinced believer
in the genuineness of certain remarkable manifestations of mediumistic
powers. See his book, Secrets of
Famous Illusionists (1933), pp. 115-132.]
4) But while, as I hold, we may admit that the Fox sisters were genuine
mediums and that very remarkable and inexplicable phenomena were wont
to occur in their presence, there can be no possible question that
these two wonder-workers, who for thirty years and more were acclaimed
as the founders of Spiritualism, both came to a very sad end. It is on
record that the first message of guidance which they received from the
spirits in 1848 was to the following effect:
Dear Friends,
You must proclaim these truths to the world. This is the dawning of a
new era; and you must not try to conceal it any longer. When you do
your duty, God will protect you and good spirits will watch over you. *
[* 'Leah Underhill (nee Fox), The
Missing Link (New York, 1885), pp. 48-49. Mrs Underhill was an
elder sister of Maggie and Katie Fox, and herself a medium.]
5) Maggie and Katie Fox did not fail to devote their energies to the
propagation of Spiritualism, but the promise of protection was
illusory, at any rate it led to no result. On October 21st, 1888, the
two sisters, who some time previously had contracted habits of
intemperance, were persuaded - it may be were bribed, though I know no
direct evidence of this - to attend an anti- Spiritualist meeting in
one of the large halls in New York. There Maggie, in the presence of
her sister, read aloud a short statement, in the course of which she
declared: 'I am here tonight as one of the founders of Spiritualism to
denounce it as absolute falsehood ... the most wicked blasphemy known
to the world.' This was followed by what purported to be a
demonstration that the medium by cracking her toe- or ankle-joints was
able to produce raps which could be heard all over the room. * [ * A
more detailed account of this momentous incident can be found in
(Thurston) The Church and
Spiritualism, pp. 19-44; see also R. B. Davenport, The Deathblow to Spiritualism, New
York, 1888.]
6) That the scene occurred as described may be learnt from all the
contemporary newspapers of New York, and is perforce admitted by the
most zealous advocates of the cult. * [* See, for example, Conan Doyle
in Psychic Science, October,
1922, pp. 212-237.]
7) They urge, however, that a year later Maggie, in the presence of
witnesses, formally retracted all that she had said. This also is
indisputable, but such contradictory declarations are equally worthless
as evidence. The sisters at that time were so far the victims of the
craving for drink that all sense of moral responsibility was lost.
Within a few years both were dead. When Maggie, the last survivor, was
nearing her end, an American newspaper described her as 'an object of
charity, a mental and physical wreck, whose appetite is only for
intoxicating liquors;' and added: 'the lips that utter little else now
than profanity once promulgated the doctrine of a new religion which
still numbers its tens of thousands of enthusiastic believers.' * [* The Washington Daily Star, March
7th, 1893, quoted in The Medium and
Daybreak, a London Spiritualist newspaper, April 7th, 1893.]
8) A few weeks later we find the editor of a leading English
Spiritualist journal (Mr James Burns) improving the occasion in such
terms as these:
"Here we have a wonderful two-fold spiritual spectacle; we have a woman
giving spiritual manifestations to others, while within herself she is
spiritually lost and misdirected. All moral sense and control of mind
and desire were gone ... But when the medium makes a trade of it and
puffs the thing up as a commodity for sale, then farewell to all that
might elevate or instruct in the subject ... Under such circumstances,
and with drunkenness, sensuality, and moral abasement of all kinds
added, is it any wonder that this kind of thing has covered the cause
with scandals and left a heap of festering corpses along the course of
these forty-five years?" [The Medium
and Daybreak, April 28th, 1893, p. 258.]
9) When a responsible representative of the movement used such
language, can we fail to ask ourselves whether that contact with the
spirit world which is alleged to have come about through the agency of
the two Fox children has been for good or rather for evil?
10) It is no part of the contention of this essay that the phenomena
commonly associated with Spiritualism must, when genuine, be
necessarily of diabolic origin. The problem presented by these
manifestations is extremely complicated, and in my judgement
investigation will have to be carried on for many years - it may be for
centuries - before it will be possible to pronounce confidently upon
the nature of the strange occurrences of which we have incontrovertible
evidence. But the tragic history of the Fox sisters must surely cast
the gravest suspicion upon the wisdom, the beneficent purpose, and the
promises of those supposed intelligences, whatever they may be, which
purport to communicate from the other side. Already in 1852 the Rev.
Adin Ballou, a man of very sober judgement, was assured, as he
believed, by his dead son that by Spiritualism the world was about to
be transformed into a new Eden. 'Father', the boy urged, 'be patient,
watch and wait. Another century cannot commence before this great
change; will be wrought.' * [* Ballou, Spirit Manifestations (Boston,
1852), pp. 228, 230, 236-7. This was the earliest reasoned treatise on
Spiritualism.]
11) No one, again, can be blind to the impression conveyed by Sir
Oliver Lodge's book, Raymond,
that a stupendous effect is to be produced in the world by Spiritualism
- and that very soon. Thus, to take one instance, on March 3rd, 1916,
Raymond, communicating at a Mrs Leonard séance, told his father:
'Mr Myers (i.e. the famous F. W. H. Myers, the psychic researcher who
died in 1901) says that in ten years from now the world will be a
different place. He says that about fifty per cent of the civilized
portion of the globe will be either Spiritualists or coming into it. '
* [* Lodge, Raymond, 6th
Edition, p. 249, cf. pp. 133-4, 234-5, etc., all glowing with
prophecies of the future.]
12) The ten years spoken of are now long past, but the change predicted
has not taken place. The 'New Revelation' has not justified itself
except as a new revelation of the readiness with which men are deceived
and are carried about by every wind of doctrine. How can we expect
guidance or the regeneration of mankind from powers that have shown
themselves both blind to foresee the future, and impotent to protect
their own chosen instruments, even those who are honoured as the
founders of the new cult, from the most ignoble ruin?
III. THE DANGERS OF SPIRITUALISM
The Catholic Church has always condemned any attempt to hold
intercourse of set purpose with the spirits of the dead. The Old
Testament speaks in terms which cannot be mistaken (see, for example,
Deut 18: 10-12), and the very striking incident in the Acts of the
Apostles (ch. 16), concerning the 'girl who had a spirit of divination
and brought her owners much gain by sooth-saying,' teaches us that the
attitude of strict moralists had not changed since the coming of our
Lord. Though the girl had spoken no falsehood of Paul and Silas, but
rather had seemed to further their work by proclaiming that 'these men
are the servants of the most high God,' St Paul took it amiss and
commanded the spirit to go out of her. *
[* Those who, like Conan Doyle and J. Arthur Findlay, believe that our
Lord and his disciples were not only mediums but propagandists of
Spiritualism, must find this attitude of St Paul, as early as 52 A.D.,
a little difficult to explain! Yet Doyle says 'the early Christian
Church was saturated with Spiritualism, and they seem to have paid no
attention to the Old Testament prohibitions' (The New Revelation, p. 80). Doyle
and others appeal to the 'speaking with tongues' of 1 Cor 14, but St
Paul makes it clear that the phenomenon, whatever it was, had to be
kept under control: 'If there is no one to interpret, let each of them
keep silence in church and speak to himself and to God.']
The language used in Acts 16 seems to imply that the control which
spoke through the lips of this divineress or medium was an evil spirit.
Whether these biblical precedents were responsible or not, it is
certain that most Christian teachers throughout the intervening
centuries have been disposed to treat all occult powers which savoured
of necromancy as diabolic in their origin. It is only of recent years,
since hypnotism and its strange manifestations have become familiar,
that theologians have realized that such faculties as telepathy and
clairvoyance may possibly be natural gifts, abnormal and hitherto
unrecognized because until lately no serious attention was ever paid to
them.
On the other hand, it must in fairness be admitted that both earlier
and recent accounts of what purport to be hauntings or obsessions
originating in the spirit world provide plenty of excuse for believing
that the agencies concerned are often malicious, deceptive, and
altogether evil. Even if we hesitate to accept the descriptions penned
early in the last (19th) century by the Catholic statesman Gorres, or
the Lutheran physician Justin Kerner, * [* See J. J. Gorres, Die christliche Mystik, 1842, vols.
iii and iv, and J. Kerner, Die
Seherin von Prevorst, 4th edition, 1846.] such modern psychic
researchers as Mrs Travers Smith (Hester Dowden) and Mr Hereward
Carrington make it clear that unpleasant and even horrible experiences
are apt to be encountered not only by the rash and heedless, but also
by practised investigators. ** [ ** There is no space here for details
in any fullness, but some illustrations have been quoted in (Thurston) The Church and Spiritualism, pp.
86-106, 124-130; and many similar cases might be added.]
To take one instance, Mrs Osborne Leonard, who figures so prominently
in Raymond, bears the
highest reputation as a medium, both for her personal character and for
the reliability of her spirit messages. But she has made no secret of
an alarming episode which occurred on one occasion when she took part
with two friends in an attempt to obtain materialization at an
impromptu seance. In a room which was not perfectly dark she saw an arm
covered with hair stretched out towards the throat of her companion,
Nelly. Mrs Leonard was trying to frame a word of warning in such terms
as not to startle her, when the girl 'jumped up with a piercing shriek,
knocked over her chair and rushed blindly for the door, which she shook
violently, forgetting in her terror that it was locked.' She had felt
the grasp upon her throat which a rent in the blind had enabled the
friend beside her to discern visually. * [* Gladys Osborne Leonard, My Life in Two Worlds, with a
Foreword by Sir Oliver Lodge (1931), p. 35.]
Even if we explain the incident as no more than a case of overwrought
nerves, the possibility of such experiences goes far to illustrate the
reasonableness of the biblical veto on dabbling in the occult.
But though many Catholics incline to the belief that all the genuine
phenomena of Spiritualism are the work of demons, it cannot be
maintained that this is a part of the Church's official teaching. The
distinguished Dominican Pere Mainage pointed out that the attitude of
ecclesiastical authority in these matters may be summed up in three
directive principles. [* Pere Th. Mainage, La Religion Spirite (1921), p. 176.]
1. The Church has not pronounced upon the essential nature
of Spiritualistic phenomena.
2. The Church forbids the general body of the faithful to
take any part in Spiritualistic practices.
3. In the manifestations which occur the Church suspects
that diabolic agencies may per
accidens intervene.
Although the decree of the Holy Office in 1898 explicitly forbade the
practice of automatic writing in which the psychic allows his hand to
be guided to take down messages the content of which is independent of
his volition; * and although a similar decree in 1917 condemned any
participation in Spiritualistic seances, even though such participation
was limited to mere presence as an onlooker, still it would be too much
to say that the Church had set her face against all such investigations
of phenomena as are commonly included under the term psychic research.
[* This prohibition must also be held to ban the use of planchette, the
ouija board, and any other similar apparatus.]
To genuine students who are well grounded in theological principles and
sufficiently versed in psychology to deal with these manifestations in
a scientific spirit, permission may be accorded to experiment with a
medium and attend seances. * [* To take only one instance among many
that might be appealed to, Fr Alois Gatterer S.J., Professor in the
University of Innsbruck, took part in seances with Rudi Schneider and
Frau M. Silbert before publishing, in 1927, his book, Der Wissenschaftliche Okkultismus.
In this, it may be noted, he commits himself to a defence of the
reality of the physical phenomena he witnessed.]
The attitude of Catholic authority in the matter is based upon the
matured conviction that for the ill-instructed, the idly curious, and
the emotional, who are for the most part the very people upon whom the
occult exercises the strongest attraction, any contact with the
intelligences which purport to communicate from the other world can
only be disquieting, and morally, if not physically, dangerous.
Even Spiritualists of the more sober type readily admit the need of
great caution on the part of the inexperienced. Mr W. Stainton Moses,
at first a beneficed clergyman of the Church of England, and afterwards
a member of the teaching staff of University College, London, wrote
several works which have more than once been reprinted by the London
Spiritualist Alliance as classical handbooks for the guidance of
believers. He was the first Editor of Light,
and was a powerful medium for physical phenomena as well as an
automatist. But Stainton Moses was haunted by the dread of personation
on the part of the spirits who purported to communicate. He seems never
to have been entirely satisfied that he could trust even the chosen
'Imperator' band of controls. [See, for example, Trethewy, The Controls of Stainton Moses, pp.
73-74, 189-191, and passim.]
Over and over again he reminds his readers that 'the foes of God and
man, enemies of goodness, ministers of evil,' are striving to get into
contact with those who are living on earth. He does not call these evil
beings devils, because in his view they are the souls of men once on
earth that have been 'low in taste and impure in habit,' souls which
are 'not changed save in the accident of being freed from the body,'
but which have 'banded themselves together under the leadership of
intelligence still more evil.' He urges that, 'unfortunately for us,
the spirits which are least progressive, least developed, least
spiritual, and most material and earthly, hover round the confines' and
are most eager to seek communication. [See Stainton Moses, Spirit Teachings, pp. 13, 230, 243,
etc., Spirit Identity, pp.
16, 21, etc.]
Such language from a recognized adept of high authority in the cult
goes far to justify the attitude of the Holy See and the Catholic
clergy. And there is much to confirm it in what we find written fifty
years later by ardent Spiritualists of our own day. Let us take, almost
at random, a passage from the book of F. W. FitzSimons (1933). In this
'a very advanced spirit' with 'a beautiful aura,' controlling the
medium, delivers himself thus:
"The manner in which most seances are conducted is appalling. Every
opportunity seems to be given to tricky, mischievous, and ignorant
spirit people to manifest; it is therefore no matter for wonder that
Spiritualism is so mixed up with fraud, vulgarity, contradiction and
humbug."
The same control, when asked a little further on whether fictitious
names are given by the spirits who purport to manifest, answers:
"Yes, in badly conducted circles where the sitters are uneducated,
small-minded, and credulous; the common herd living on the astral plane
pander to the vanity of the sitters, by giving high-sounding names,
claiming to be those who were well-known and prominent when on earth.
These earthbound and lower spirit people flatter and fool the sitters
in every manner of way." *
[* FitzSimons, Opening the Psychic
Door (1933), pp. 189 and 191. See also T. Purchas, The Spiritual Adventures of a Business Man,
1929. Mr Purchas is an earnest Spiritualist, but he admits (p. 196)
that 'the bad and frivolous spirits, who are liable to be in the
majority if the circle is not careful, are even more actively keen than
the good to get into communication with the earth.']
It seems obvious that these very frank admissions, which might be
multiplied indefinitely, demand, even on Spiritualist principles, an
attitude of extreme caution. *
[* Mr Walter Earrey in his monthly London
Spiritualist has conducted a polemic against the Spiritualist
National Union to clean up Spiritualism. In 1978 he procured a
benefactor who offered £10,000 to any medium who would produce a
materialization under test conditions. Earrey complained: 'Anybody can
set up shop anywhere, say he or she is a medium, get people coming
along to them and charge them for nothing more than a chit-chat.']
No doubt such writers are always confident that in their own
well-conducted circles no misgiving need be felt as to the
trustworthiness of the messages received, but seeing that such messages
are full of mutual contradictions - the question of Reincarnation,
already touched upon, supplies a conspicuous example - an independent
test of reliability is needed, and no such test is forthcoming. The
State finds it desirable in this country to protect weak human nature
against is own depraved propensities by strictly controlling the sale
of dangerous drugs such as opium, morphine, and cocaine, by prohibiting
the publication of obscene literature, by restricting the hours at
which intoxicating liquor may be sold, and in many other ways.
Spiritualists can hardly be surprised that the Catholic Church, having
good reason to believe that the evocation of the spirits of the dead
throughout the ages has produced nothing but evil, refuses resolutely
to countenance any attempt at communication with the other world.
Miss Geraldine Cummins in her autobiography (Unseen Adventures, 1951, p. 140)
claimed to have the blessing of Pius XII for her Spiritualism, while
admitting that this had not been given by the Pope in letter or
personal audience; apparently she thought that the Pope would be
intellectually dishonest if he refused his blessing to those who were
trying to follow the example of Christ (who raised up Moses and Elias
for the benefit of three Apostles). The guidance of Miss Cummins's
automatic writing was much sought by the Canadian prime minister,
Mackenzie King. *
[* His Diary, now accessible,
shows the depth of his credulity. He even saw shapes in the lather
while he shaved. "During shaving, I looked at the lather and saw an
extraordinary likeness to two dogs." Later he saw "the most perfect
head of my mother, again with two dogs." Polonius could not have done
better.]
Miss Cummins in an appendix to her book mentions some of the sessions
at the Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane, but does not give the name of her
sitter. Since the Canadian's death political historians in Canada have
claimed that, while he began with personal matters about his own
family, Mackenzie King later consulted automatic writings about public
policy, e.g. in trying to keep Canada out of the Korea War Commission.
Professor Raynor Johnson states (The
Light and the Gate, p. 141) that a dead friend, Ambrose Pratt,
writing to him through Miss Cummins, declared that her 'control' (named
Astor) 'is both a secondary personality of Miss Cummins and an
individual who once lived on earth.' It is plain from this that the
provenance of messages thus received must be most uncertain. Miss
Cummins is a person of the utmost integrity, but one cannot help asking
if she is used by powers beyond her ken. In the summer of 1939 her
'controls' were telling her that there would be no war in Europe (see
H. Thurston, 'Spiritualists and the War', in The Month. Oct. 1939). Most
Spiritualists claimed guidance in the same sense, and Psychic News had to say in
September 1939 that they were now facing the blackest week of their
lives, though Ena Twigg claims in her autobiography that her guides all said there would be
a European war.
It being admitted that the lowest types of spirits are the most eager
to make contact with the earth, and that the idle people who are
particularly curious about the occult are also the most credulous and
uncritical, the Church is thoroughly justified in forbidding her own
subjects to put themselves needlessly in harm's way. Her sweeping
prohibition may entail some hardship upon genuine students, but the
good of the greater number of the faithful has the first title to her
consideration. She does not act with precipitation. Spiritualism had
existed for half a century, and full proof had been given of its
harmful results, before the first explicit decree condemning automatic
writing was published by the Holy See in 1898.
What is more, no student of the Spiritualistic movement can fail to
observe that there has been for many years a steady trend in a
direction hostile to Christianity and contemptuous of every form of
religious dogma. This was perceptible even in the days of Judge Edmonds
and Robert Dale Owen, at a time when no overt disparagement of the
Bible or the Creeds was tolerated by public opinion. But the antagonism
to revelation and the Churches has been greatly intensified during
recent years. Mr J. Arthur Findlay's book, The Rock of Truth (1933), as the
pages of Light and other
journals bear witness, seriously shocked a considerable section of his
fellow believers. This writer (Findlay) is an avowed disciple of the
late J. M. Robertson, author of Pagan
Christs and other similar works, and he treats all such
doctrines as the Trinity, the Fall of Man, the Atonement, everlasting
punishment etc., as patent absurdities which can only be a subject for
ridicule. *
[* Mr Findlay's house, Stansted Hall, became in 1966 a college for
Spiritualists. The anti-Christian tone of the Psychic News is still maintained.
Thus its editor notes (13 Jan. 1979) that while interest in
Spiritualism continues to increase, the Nonconformist churches decline.]
On the other hand, Mr Findlay was an influential member of a number of
Spiritualistic organizations, and he was so firm a believer in the
spirit messages that in this same book he assured his readers that our
earth is encircled by just seven spheres or etheric worlds, in which
the spirits dwell.
Much of the violent abuse of the teaching of the Churches purports to
have been communicated by exalted spirits in the etheric world. It was,
for example, the Doyle control, Pheneas, who railed against
'theological egotism and power and pride,' and who proclaimed that
'Christ's guiding hand to happiness has been twisted by priestcraft
till it pointed to Hell. The Church which prates of him thus is his
worst enemy.' * [* Doyle, Pheneas
Speaks, pp. 153-154.]
If these attacks were based upon a discussion of the historical
evidence the mischief would be less serious, but they purport to be the
utterances of supremely wise beings in the world beyond who, having
long been emancipated from the conventions and superstitions of earth
life, speak with a serenity and breadth of view unattainable by any
living teacher. Such communications are apt to be taken at their own
valuation, because they do at times exhibit a strange supernormal
knowledge of trivial facts which can be verified. On the other hand,
there is nearly always a considerable amount of incorrect information
associated with the true, though these aberrations are forgotten in the
wonder that something unknown has been revealed seemingly from the
skies. As Bacon says, 'Men mark when they hit, but never mark when they
miss.' The Church has every reason to protect her subjects from
pseudo-revelations of this kind, which offer no guarantee of truth and
which, for the most part, openly attack the deposit of faith of which
she is the appointed custodian.
It should also be noted that many intelligent people who are quite
satisfied of the reality of mediumistic faculty and who, on the other
hand, are not influenced by any religious scruples, are by no means
disposed to encourage communications with the spirit world. Horace
Greeley, and Lloyd Garrison, the Editor of The Liberator, both of whom in
early days had much to do with the Fox sisters, were of this class.
The late Lord Dunraven, who, as Lord Adare, had had unrivalled
opportunities of studying the subject, living as he did for a year or
more in almost daily companionship with the great medium D. D. Home,
gave up the pursuit because he found it led him nowhere. He was not
satisfied as to the identity of those who purported to communicate from
the other side and, moreover, he adds: 'I observed that some devotees
were inclined to dangerous extremes and became so much possessed by the
idea of spiritual guidance in the everyday affairs of life as to
undermine their self-dependence and to weaken their will power.' [
Dunraven, Past-times and Pastimes
(1922), i, p. 11.]
Sir H. Rider Haggard, the novelist, after relating his personal
experience with a medium for physical phenomena, which he could only
attribute to some unknown force, concludes with the words: 'Whatever
may be the true explanation, on one point I am quite sure, namely, that
the whole business is mischievous and to be discouraged. Bearing in
mind its effect upon my own nerves, never would I allow any young
person over whom I had control to attend a seance.' [Sir H. Rider
Haggard, The Days of My Life
(1926), i, pp. 39-40.]
Haggard was not a recluse or a crank. A considerable part of his life
was spent travelling about in South Africa and in many other parts of
the world.
All these, and others who cannot here be quoted, speak from personal
experience; but one testimony deserves to be cited more at length,
because it comes from a psychic who met with remarkable successes in
her mediumship and who, for reasons that may easily be conjectured by
those who know something of her history, continued, after twenty years
of automatism, to exercise her gift. In her book, Voices from the Void, Mrs Travers
Smith (Hester Dowden, the daughter of Professor Dowden and the niece of
the Scottish Episcopalian Bishop Dowden of Edinburgh) refers many times
to the disappointments and unpleasant experiences encountered by those
who invite communications from the spirit world. One passage must
suffice here. She writes:
"If I may venture to advise persons who long to speak once more with
those whom they have loved who have vanished in darkness, I should say
it is wise and sane not to make the attempt. The chances against
genuine communication are ten to one; the disappointments and doubts
connected with the experiment are great. Personally, I would not make
any attempt to speak to the beloved dead through automatic writings or
the ouija board. The evidence they offer of their identity is too
ephemeral and unsatisfactory; and as I would not undertake these
experiments for myself, I would not willingly help others to risk them.
I fear the observations I have just made may be very distasteful to
many who approach the subject from the spiritualist point of view. I
cannot offer these people any apology for my attitude." [Voices from the Void, p. 138.]
The proof of Mrs Travers Smith's psychic power does not rest upon her
own testimony. Sir William Barrett investigated more than one
remarkable case with which she was connected. [See, for example, 'the
tie pin' case in Barrett, On the
Threshold of the Unseen; and also the incidents following the
death of Sir Hugh Lane.]
But in spite of her successes, we find her writing in another
collection of essays: 'Psychic investigation is for the few, not for
the masses. The unlettered public should be discouraged from pursuing
this subject, more especially when excitement and emotion, religious or
otherwise, is involved.' And again she says: 'In my opinion most of the
cases (of communication) put forward in proof of human survival are
entirely unconvincing to any reasonable person, and further most
unsatisfying.' [In Huntly Carter, Spiritualism,
its present-day Meaning (1920), p. 172. ]
If Mrs Travers Smith had been a Catholic, which is not the case, and
had written in defence of the papal decrees, she could hardly have
spoken more appositely.
IV. THE FRAUDULENT SIDE OF SPIRITUALISM
To discuss this aspect of the subject at any length would serve no good
purpose, but it certainly cannot be passed over in silence. When Mr
James Burns, in 1893, wrote (as quoted above, Section II, paragraph 8)
that the moral depravity of mediums had 'covered the cause with
scandals and left a heap of festering corpses along the course of these
forty-five years.' he was not using stronger language than that
employed by Dr Sexton, Mr Andrew Leighton, the medium Home, Mr S.
Carter Hall, and many other representative Spiritualists. [For fuller
details, see H. Thurston, S.J., Modern
Spiritualism (Sheed and Ward), 1928, pp. 30-34.]
With the exception of Home, there is hardly a prominent medium for
psychical manifestations against whom a good case has not been made out
that he or she, at least on certain occasions, had recourse to
unscrupulous trickery. There is no room for doubt that the famous
Eusapia Palladino in many instances faked her phenomena. 'Dr' Monck,
Slade, Eglington, the Holmeses, and a score of others were caught
red-handed.
More recently we have had the remarkable case of Mrs Duncan, who
unquestionably enjoyed a great reputation in many Spiritualistic
circles. This last example is interesting both from the completeness of
the exposure and the nature of the fraud itself. Mrs Duncan at these
seances used to appear, in a relatively good light, covered to her feet
with what seemed to be a flowing sheet of white material. The onlookers
saw it, as they thought, extruded from the mouth or other facial
orifices. This was supposed to be ectoplasm, and it sometimes showed a
little face (a picture) embedded in its texture. Investigation however
proved beyond doubt that this enveloping sheet was nothing but a roll
of very thin cheese-cloth or butter-muslin, which had been swallowed by
the medium and regurgitated. *
[* See Mr Harry Price's full demonstration in Bulletin of the National Laboratory of
Psychic Research (1931) and a summary in The Month, December 1931, pp.
529-534. Mrs Duncan was convicted of fraud in Edinburgh in 1933, and in
1944 convicted at the Old Bailey of 'common fraud' and 'plain
dishonesty' and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. Yet her
certificate was renewed by the Spiritualists' National Union. See Proceedings of the Society for
Psychical Research, vol. xlviii (1946), pp. 32-64.]
So again the medium Valiantine, whose supernormal exploits have been
glorified beyond measure by Mr H. Dennis Bradley in his widely-read
books Towards the Stars and The Wisdom of the Gods, was later
on caught out by Mr Bradley himself in a flagrant piece of imposture.
Valiantine had professed to produce an imprint of the thumb of Lord
Dewar, then (February, 1933) recently deceased. In the course of a dark
seance the imprint was made, sure enough, upon the smoked paper
prepared for the purpose, but it proved to be an impression, not of
Lord Dewar's thumb, but of Valiantine's big toe. The identity was
established with certainty by finger-print experts, whose credit cannot
be disputed. *
[* The evidence, with photographs, is given in full by Mr Bradley in
his book '-and After' (1931).
See also The Month, November
1931, pp. 435-7.]
In 1978 the President of the Spiritualist National Union, Gordon
Higginson, was put on trial for fraud before a private court (two
solicitors and an official from another Spiritualist society). At
Bristol in February 1976 in his clairvoyance he gave out names and
addresses and invited a response from his audience. The accusation was
that names were available from library lists, a healing book and other
material in the church, and that Higginson had been left alone in the
church for an hour before the performance. The court was not satisfied
that all the names were available in the documents and held that there
was no direct evidence to contradict the defence account of what
happened. Higginson was then acquitted. This development whereby a
private tribunal was set up may lead to higher professional standards
among Spiritualists.
In the matter of psychic photography which has occasioned so much
controversy, and which, for over 70 years, has been brought forward
again and again as supplying tangible proof of an agency which could
not be of this world, there has been a hardly less surprising exposure
and retraction. Of all the mediums for photographic 'extras', the most
famous in recent times was the late Mr W. Hope, of Crewe. Dozens of
books appeal to the negatives of spirit faces obtained in his presence
as completely decisive and in particular, Conan Doyle, in his Case for Spirit Photography, stakes
everything on Hope's results. Many expert photographers vouched for
their genuineness and, in particular, Mr Fred Barlow, the Secretary of
the 'Society for the Study of Supernormal Pictures', contributed both a
preface and an important chapter to Doyle's volume. This was in 1922.
Some years later, however, Mr Barlow, who as a practical expert always
retained a keen interest in the problem, was led, owing to the
discoveries made and the confession of fraud obtained in the case of
another psychic photographer, to conceive suspicions regarding Hope
himself. After following up the clue and applying in conjunction with
Major Rampling Rose, certain rigorous tests, he came to the conclusion
that his earlier belief in the integrity of the Crewe circle had been
unwarranted. In a paper contributed to the Proceedings of the Society for
Psychical Research the whole case against Hope is set out in detail. It
is conclusive, but based on too many converging lines of proof to be
summarized here. It would seem that most of the 'extras' must have been
obtained by a tiny picture attached to a small flash light which Hope
kept in his pocket, or secreted in the hollow of his hand. [See Proceedings of the S.P.R., vol. xli
(1933), pp. 121-138, and cf. The
Month, June 1933, pp. 532-536. The 'spirit photography' stunt
continues.]
Altogether it is impossible to doubt that an enormous amount of
trickery and fraud has been mixed up with Spiritualism from the very
beginning. [The 'debunking' by Trevor Hall of the Florence Cook
materializations on the ground that at the relevant time she was the
mistress of Sir William Crookes has angered Spiritualists. The evidence
is not quite decisive,]
Even Doyle, in the volume of essays published a week or two before his
death, owns that, in America particularly, things were worse than he
had previously thought possible. Though nothing but ignorance, he
remarks, can suppose that there are no real mediums, 'at the same time
the States, and in a lesser degree our own people, do need stern
supervision.' 'I admit,' he adds, 'that I underrated the corruption in
the States. [Doyle, The Edge of the
Unknown, p. 7.]
It is then, perhaps, not unnatural that many intelligent people, whose
normal attitude to the marvellous is one of healthy scepticism, should,
from the universal prevalence of trickery, be led to infer that nothing
is genuine in the phenomena of Spiritualism. This view has found
acceptance among many earnest Catholics, both clergy and laity,
especially in the United States. To the present writer the objections
to this 'nothing but trickery' hypothesis seem even more serious than
those which beset what Mr J. Arthur Hill has called 'the wholesale
devil theory', espoused by the late Mr Godfrey Raupert, Father
Blackmore, and the majority of Continental ecclesiastics. The limits of
this essay unfortunately preclude a fuller discussion of a question
which turns entirely on evidence and cannot be briefly stated [See
(Thurston) chapters viii to xii of The
Church and Spiritualism.]
It must suffice here to quote a passage from. the excellent little
tractate of Pere Mainage, O.P., entitled La Religion Spirite. Those who,
like this experienced Dominican Father, have come into close contact
with such psychical happenings are apt to form an impression of the
subject very different from that of the normal professor of theology.
Anyway, Pere Mainage writes:
"Is it possible without falling into an absurd extreme of
hypercriticism to refuse credence to the confidences made by word of
mouth of people whose mental balance, good faith, and high level of
intelligence are beyond all question? To myself, as priest and
religious, it has happened -if I may for once be pardoned the
introduction of my own modest testimony - to come into contact with
such witnesses; and I admit, very simply and without waiting for the
final word of science, I admit that I believe in the objectivity of
spiritualistic phenomena. There are tables which turn and which talk.
Mediumistic script is not the figment of a crazy imagination.
Apparitions are not all of them the result of unreal hallucinations,
and the partial materialization obtained by Dr Geeley are not a pure
chimera." [La Religion Spirite,
p. 87.]
It is often taken for granted that a medium who has once been detected
in imposture may be assumed to produce all his phenomena fraudulently.
This is an extreme view which seems to be contradicted by evidence that
cannot be lightly dismissed. The well-known Eusapia Palladino is said
to have habitually taken advantage of any carelessness on the part of
those who controlled her limbs in order with a free hand or foot to
play any childish trick which would cause a sensation in the dim light
of the seance room. Nevertheless the testimony of dozens of experienced
investigators, the flash-light photographs revealing levitated objects
in contact with no human support, and above all the detailed report of
the Naples sittings with Messrs Fielding, Carrington, and Baggally
demonstrated 'that Eusapia undoubtedly did an occasion exhibit
extraordinary powers. It is even possible that the medium who tricks is
not always consciously fraudulent. He, or she, is often entranced, and
in that hypnotic condition may be peculiarly susceptible to the
suggestion latent in the minds of the sitters that some particular
deception is about to be attempted. Their minds are intent on this
thought, and the battery of suggestion becomes so strong that the
medium, in spite of herself, does the very thing which they have
mentally pictured her doing.
Again, we know nothing about the nature or dispositions of the
'spirits' who are supposed to be the agents of these phenomena. Certain
records would even suggest that they may deliberately prompt some
fraudulent device which results in the undoing of the medium. There is
nothing to forbid our thinking that among them are evil spirits
animated by a malicious purpose, though, on the other hand, some of the
communicating intelligences appear truthful and kindly. A suggestion
has been made that they may be souls of the unbaptized, who died in
infancy or without any sufficient knowledge of God, and whom Catholics
believe to enjoy some sort of natural beatitude in 'Limbo'.
The first medium who went into a trance before the TV cameras (Ursula
Roberts, for Tyne-Tees in 1960) had offered to produce three physical
effects, to light up a neon tube with spirit-electricity, to start a
metronome ticking and to register a change of radiation on a Geiger
counter. All three experiments failed. She spoke in trance for an
Indian spirit-guide, but in doing so she fell into Malapropisms of
speech of the same character as she had shown when speaking
communications some years before which purported to come from Mrs Eddy.
Her two professional defenders on the panel which discussed her TV
performance were unable to account for this save on the hypothesis that
her own subconscious was coming through.
But the fact is that we know nothing about the agencies who purport to
communicate. The subconsciousness of the medium is no doubt responsible
for by far the larger part of the messages received, but there is a
residue which it is very hard to account for except as coming from some
intelligence which is external to the world in which we live.
V. A FEW CONCLUSIONS
If Spiritualism has the merit of upholding the belief that man is not
purely material, and that a future life awaits him the conditions of
which are in a measure dependent upon his conduct here upon earth, it
must be confessed that there is very little else to set to its credit.
Catholic teaching recognizes one divine revelation which it is the
appointed office of the Church, in dependence upon the living voice of
the Supreme Pontiff, to maintain inviolate. For this Spiritualism
substitutes as many revelations as there are mediums, or rather
controls, all these communications being open to suspicion and, as the
briefest examination shows, abounding in contradictions about matter
most vital. Largely as a consequence of the disagreements in the
guidance thus received, hardly any two Spiritualists hold the same
views, and, from its earliest beginnings down to the present time, the
movement has entirely lacked cohesion. [In Psychic News for November 2nd,
1946, a correspondent wonders how unity can be achieved in view of the
divergent conceptions of our Lord entertained by Spiritualists.]
Such energizing force as it possesses seems to be due, partly to that
curiosity about the occult which leads people to consult palmists and
to purchase Old Moore's Almanack, partly to a pathetic desire of the
bereaved to obtain tidings of those who are dear to them, the tragedies
of the War having clearly exercised a great stimulus in promoting the
vogue of this form of relief.
Unfortunately the comfort which Spiritualism offers in such cases is
entirely dependent upon one indispensable condition, viz., the
possibility of identification. But those who believe that they have got
into contact with their dear ones, that they have received messages
from them, or have even heard their voices and recognized their
features, are building on very insecure foundations. It is admitted
that personation is constantly attempted. We know little of the
agencies which purport to communicate, but we do know that for some
freakish purpose or other they constantly pretend to be what they are
not. It is also a generally received tenet among Spiritualists that the
departed are free to return to earth, to witness, though invisible
themselves, anything which is being done even in the utmost secrecy.
There is, on this supposition, no trivial incident in our past lives
which may not be known and published abroad in that spirit world of
which Conan Doyle and the automatists profess to tell us so much. It is
impossible, therefore, for any spirit to give any convincing proof of
his identity. Incidents which on earth were known to him alone may be
public property on the other side.
The tones of the voice or tricks of expression which are reproduced in
a 'direct-voice' sitting cannot proceed from the larynx which has long
since crumbled to dust. However effected, the voice is a counterfeit,
and who will say that it is only the spirit of the departed which can
build up the vocal chords so as to yield a perfect imitation? Similarly
when Conan Doyle assures us that at a seance he has seen his son as
clearly as he ever saw him in life, we may be sure that the features he
beheld were not the features as they then lay buried beneath the soil.
So here again we are led to ask how the simulacrum which he recognized
afforded any proof that the poor lad who had perished stood there
himself beside him.
In recent years Spiritualism has been very much allied with
faith-healing. Three-quarters of the Spiritualist centres in London
offer healing services weekly. In July, 1966 a 'psychic surgeon' from
Brazil gave a demonstration in London. According to Psychic News, 'one
patient showed no improvement; the second died within the time-limit
given him by a hospital.' One Spiritualist advertises 'a free healing
service for young Mongol babies,' others offer 'absent healing for
animals (send the name of your pet).' Dissension broke out in December,
1966 in the National Federation of Spiritual Healers.
Finally the whole atmosphere of the seance room is repellent, and even
the process of automatic writing, with its frequent inanities and
platitudes and obvious fictions, characterizes such communications as
mainly the product of subconscious, and often morbid, auto-suggestion.
'There is very little that is spiritual in Spiritualism,' wrote
Friedrich von Hugel, and as G. K. Chesterton happily remarks, 'you do
not expect to hear the voice of God calling from a coal cellar.' Mr
Findlay, Mr Oaten, and their followers who have made short work of the
Trinity, do at the same time profess to hold that 'the Universe is
governed by Mind, commonly called God.' [Findlay, The Rock of Truth, p. 185.]
What sort of 'Mind' is it, one wonders, which has planned that a
handful of men, sitting for hours in the dark, playing gramophone
records or making discordant attempts at song in order to 'stimulate
vibrations', shall be privileged to evoke those momentous
communications from the etheric world which will uplift the whole human
race to a moral eminence never attained before. *
[* Lord Hailsham relates in his Autobiography that he attended some
Spiritualist services as a young man. "Neither the information
vouchsafed through the medium nor the gradual steps by which the
information became available seemed to me to be convincing. If it had a
supernatural source . . . , the triviality of the information supplied
was such that I could only assume that the loved ones concerned were
either unusually stupid in their lives or had undergone a serious
degeneration after they had crossed over."]
Spiritualism, so far, has certainly not been associated with progress.
No new fact has come to light through this source which has added to
the world's knowledge or has led it to seek higher ideals. Its history
reminds us, on the contrary, of what St Paul wrote to Timothy: 'But the
Spirit plainly says that in after times some will fall away from the
faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and the teachings of demons,
through the impostures of those who speak falsely, men seared in their
own conscience.' [1 Tim 4: 1 and 2 (Westminster Version).]
________________________________
BIBLIOGRAPHY
With regard to most of the questions touched upon in this essay there
is no difference of opinion among Catholic writers. No one disputes
that Spiritualism claims to be a source of religious guidance in
opposition to the teaching of the Church, nor that it is morally and
even physically dangerous to those who give themselves up to it, nor
that its mediums are to a very great extent fraudulent, and its
revelations full of contradictions. All again are agreed that in these
practices there is danger of the intervention of evil spirits, and that
no one can ever have certainty as to the identity of the agencies who
purport to communicate. There is, however, some divergence of views as
to the phenomena of Spiritualism.
Among the writers who incline to the belief that, apart from telepathy
or some other such natural faculty, practically all the manifestations
are due to conscious trickery, may be named:
C. M. de Heredia, S.J., Spiritism
and Common Sense, 1922.
J. J. Walsh, M.D., Spiritualism
a Fake, 1925.
D. J. Gearon, O.C.C., Spiritism, its
Failure, 1931.
The more noteworthy books which assign the leading part in the practice
of Spiritualism to diabolic intervention are:
L. Roure, S.J., Article Spiritisme
in Dict. theol. cath., xiv,
2507-2522 (1940).
S. A. Blackmore, S.J., Spiritism,
Facts, and Frauds, 1924.
H. V. O'Neill, Spiritualism,
1944.
J. Godfrey Raupert, Modern Spiritism,
1904;
The New Black
Magic, 1919.
Finally, there are those who, while admitting the existence of an
immense amount of trickery, maintain the reality of many surprising
mediumistic phenomena without attributing them of necessity to diabolic
agency.
This is the attitude of Pere Th. Mainage, O.P., in his La Religion Spirite, 1921,
and also G. de Ninno in Enciclopedia
cattolica (1953) s.v. Spiritismo.
See further in The Month,
September and October, 1934, 'Spiritualism To-day', and 'Spiritualism
for the Masses'.
This third view is also upheld by Fr Humphrey Johnson in a series of
articles in The Clergy Review (xxxii,
pp. 1, 156, and 299; xxxiii, p. 145) during 1949 and 1950.
Consult also:
H. Thurston, The Physical Phenomena
of Mysticism, ed. Crehan, 1952.
Trevor C. Hall, The Spiritualists
(1962) and
New Light
on old Ghosts by the same (1965).
Rosalind Heywood, The Sixth Sense
(1959)
and Renee Haynes, The Hidden
Springs (1961) deal admirably with extra-sensory perception
.
J. A. Findlay, Looking Back
(1955)
and G. D. Cummins, Unseen Adventures
(1951) add personal matters.
A valuable monograph by Alan .1. A. Eliiott on Chinese Spirit Medium-cults (1955)
was published by the Anthropological Department of the London School of
Economics; it shows how the other half of the world is not so
different, after all.
B. Inglis, Natural and Supernatural
(1977) tells the story of the rise of Spiritualism until 1914.
See also Celia Green and Charles McCreery, Apparitions (1975).