The Salem witchcraft, The planchette mystery, and Modern spiritualism Part 9

THE MORAL AND RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY.

_I._ I am constrained to say, my mysterious friend, that the novelty and ingenuity of your ideas surprise me greatly, and I do, in all candor, acknowledge that you have skillfully disposed of my objections to the spiritual theory of these phenomena on _rational_ grounds, and explained the philosophy of this thing, in a manner which I am at present unable to gainsay. I must still hesitate, however, to enroll myself among the converts to the spiritual theory unless you can remove another serious objection, which rests on _moral and religious grounds_. From so important and startling a development as general open communications from spirits, it seems to me that we would have a right to expect some conspicuous _good_ to mankind; yet, although this thing has been before the world now over twenty years, I am unable to see the evidence that it has wrought any improvement in the moral and social condition of the converts to its claims. Pray, how do you account for that fact?

_P._ My friend, that question should be addressed to the Spiritualists, not to me. I will say, however, that this whole subject, long as it has been before the world, is still in a chaotic state, its laws have been very little understood, and even its essential objects and uses have been very much misconceived. I may add that, from its very nature, its real practical fruits as well as its true philosophy must necessarily be the growth of a considerable period of time.

_I._ I will not, then, press the objection in that form. When we look, however, at the _Religious_ tendencies of the thing, I do not think we find much promise of the "practical fruits" which you here intimate may yet come of it. I lay it down as a proposition which all history proves, that Infidelity, in all its forms, is an enemy to the human race, and that it never has done or can do anybody any good, but always has done and must do harm. But it is notorious that the spirits, if they be such, with their mediums and disciples, have _generally_ (though not universally, I grant) a.s.sumed an att.i.tude at least of _apparent_ hostility to almost every thing peculiar to the Christian religion, and most essential to it, and are constantly reiterating the almost identical ribaldry and sophistry of the infidels of the last century.

How shall a good and Christian person who knows and has felt the truth of the vital principles of Christianity become a Spiritualist while Spiritualism thus denies and scoffs at doctrines which he _feels_ and _knows_ to be true?

_P._ The point you thus make is apparently a very strong one. But let me ask, Can you not conceive that there may be a difference between the mere word-teaching of Spiritualists and even spirits themselves, and the _real_ teaching of Spiritualism as such? that is to say, between mere verbal utterances and phenomenal demonstrations? For ill.u.s.tration, suppose a man a.s.serts at noonday that there is no sun, does he teach you there is no sun? or does he teach you that he is blind?

_I._ That he is blind, of course.

_P._ So, then, when a spirit comes to you and a.s.serts that there is no G.o.d--it is seldom that they a.s.sert that, but we will take an extreme case--does he teach you that there is no G.o.d, or does he teach you that he himself is a fool?

_I._ Well, I should say he would teach the latter; but what use would the knowledge that he is such a fool be to us?

_P._ It is one of the important providential designs of these manifestations to teach mankind that spirits in general maintain the characters that they formed to themselves during their earthly life--that, indeed, they are the identical persons they were while dwelling in the flesh--hence, that while there are just, truthful, wise, and Christian spirits, there are also spirits addicted to lying, profanity, obscenity, mischief, and violence, and spirits who deny G.o.d and religion, just as they did while in your world. It has become very necessary for mankind to know all this; it certainly could in no other way be so effectually made known as by an actual manifestation of it; and it is just as necessary that you should see the _dark_ side as the _bright_ side of the picture.

_I._ Yet a person already adopting, or predisposed to adopt, any false doctrine a.s.serted by a spirit, would, it seems to me, be in danger of receiving the spirit-a.s.sertion as _verbally_ true.

_P._ That is to say, a person already in, or inclined to adopt, the same error that a spirit is in, would be in danger of being confirmed, for the time being, in that error, by listening to the spirit's a.s.severation. This, I admit, is just the effect produced for a time by the infidel word-teaching of some spirits upon those _already_ embracing, or inclined to embrace, infidel sentiments. But if you will look beyond this superficial aspect of the subject at its great phenomenal and rational teachings, I think you will see that its deeper, stronger, and more permanent tendency is, not to promote infidelity, but ultimately to destroy it for ever. I have said before, that the real object of this development has been very much misconceived; I tell you now that the great object is to purge the Church itself of its latent infidelity; to renovate the Christian faith; and to bring theology and religion up to that high standard which will be equal to the wants of this age, as it certainly now is not.

_I._ Planchette, you are now touching upon a delicate subject. You should know that we are inclined to be somewhat tenacious of our theological and religious sentiments, and not to look with favor on any innovations. Nevertheless, I am curious to know how you justify yourself in this disparaging remark on the theology and religion of the day?

_P._ I do not mean to be understood that there is not much that is true and good in it. There is; and I would not by a single harsh word wound the loving hearts of those who have a spark of real religious life in them. I would bind up the bruised reed, rather than break it; I would fan the smoking flax into a flame, rather than quench it. This is the sentiment of all _good_ spirits, of whom I trust I am one. But let me say most emphatically, that you want a public religion that will tower high above all other influences whatsoever; that will predominate over all, and ask favors of none; that will unite mankind in charity and brotherly love, and not divide them into hostile sects, and that will infuse its spirit into, and thus give direction to, all social and political movements. Such a religion the world must have, or from this hour degenerate.

_I._ Why might not the religion of the existing churches accomplish these results, provided its professors would manifest the requisite zeal and energy?

_P._ It is doing much good, and might, on the conditions you specify, do much more. Yet the public religion has become negative to other influences, instead of positive, as it should be, from which false position it can not be reclaimed without such great and vital improvements as would almost seem to amount to a renewal _ab ovo_.

_I._ On what ground do you a.s.sert that the religion of the day stands in a position "negative" to other influences?

_P._ I will answer by asking: Is it not patent to you and all other intelligent persons, that for the last hundred years the Christian Church and theology have been standing mainly on the defensive against the a.s.saults of materialism and the encroachments of science? Has it not, without adequate examination, poured contempt on Mesmerism, denounced Phrenology, endeavored to explain away the facts of Geology and some of the higher branches of Astronomy? Has it not looked with a jealous eye upon the progress of science generally? and has it not been at infinite labor in merely defending the _history_ of the life, miracles, death, and resurrection of Christ, against the negations of materialists, which labor might, in a great measure, have been saved if an adequate proof could have been given of the power and omnipotent working of a _present_ Christ? And what is the course it has taken with reference to the present spiritual manifestations, the claims of which it can no more overthrow than it can drag the sun from the firmament?

Now a true church--a church to which is given the power to cast out devils, and take up serpents, or drink any deadly thing, without being harmed--will always be able to stand on the aggressive against its _real_ spiritual foes more than on the mere defensive, and in no case will it ever turn its back to a fact in science. Its power will be the power of the Holy Spirit, and not the power of worldly wealth and fashion. When it reasons of righteousness, temperance, and judgment, Felix will tremble, but it will never tremble before Felix, lest he withdraw his patronage from it.

_I._ I admit that the facts you state about the Church's warfare in these latter days have not the most favorable aspect; but how the needed elements of theology and religion are to be supplied by demonstrations afforded by these latter-day phenomena, I do not yet quite see.

_P._ If religious teachers will but study these facts, simply _as_ facts, in all the different aspects which they have presented, from their first appearance up to this time--study them in the same spirit in which the chemist studies affinities, equivalents, and isomeric compounds--in the same spirit in which the astronomer observes planets, suns, and nebulae--in the same spirit in which the microscopist studies monads, blood-discs, and protoplasm--always hospitable to a new fact, always willing to give up an old error for the sake of a new truth; never receiving the mere _dicta_ either of spirits or men as absolute authority, but always trusting the guidance of right reason wherever she may lead--if, I say, they will but study these great latter-day signs, providential warnings and monitions, in this spirit, I promise them that they shall soon find a _rational_ and _scientific_ ground on which to rest every real Christian doctrine, from the Incarnation to the crown of glory--miracles, the regeneration, the resurrection, and all, with the great advantage of having the doctrine of immortality taken out of the sphere of _faith_ and made a _fixed fact_. Furthermore, I promise them, on those conditions, that they shall hereafter be able to _lead_ science rather than be dragged along unwillingly in its trail; and then science will be forever enrolled in the service of G.o.d's religion, and no longer in that of the world's materialism and infidelity.

_I._ Planchette, your communication has, upon the whole, been of a most startling character; tell me, I pray you, what do you call all this thing, and what is to come of it?

WHAT THIS MODERN DEVELOPMENT IS, AND WHAT IS TO COME OF IT.

_P._ Can you, then, bear an announcement still more startling than any I have yet made?

_I._ I really know not; I will try; let us have it.

_P._ Well, then, I call it a Fourth Great Divine Epiphany or Manifestation; or what you will perhaps better understand as one of the developments characterizing the beginning of a Fourth Great Divine Dispensation. What is to come of it, you will be able to judge as well as I when you understand its nature.

_I._ What! so great an event heralded by so questionable an instrumentality as the rapping and table tipping spirits?

_P._ Be calm, and at the same time be humble. Remember that it is not unusual for G.o.d to employ the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and that when He comes to visit His people, He almost always comes in disguises, and sometimes even "as a thief in the night."

Besides the spirits of which you speak are only the rough but very useful pioneers to open a highway through which the King is coming with innumerable hosts of angels, who, indeed, are already near you, though you see them not. It is, indeed, an hour of temptation that has come upon all the world; but be watchful and true, prayerful and faithful, and fear not.

_I._ Please tell us then, if you can, something of the nature and objects of this new Divine Epiphany which you announce; and as you say it is a _Fourth_, please tell us, in brief, what were the preceding _Three_, the times of their occurrence, and how they are all distinguished from each other.

_P._ The _First_ appealed only to the affections and the inner sense of the soul, and was the Dispensation of the most ancient Church, when G.o.d walked with man in the midst of the garden of his own interior delights, and when "Enoch walked with G.o.d and was not, for G.o.d took him." But as this sense of the indwelling presence of G.o.d was little more than a mere _emotion_, for which, in that period of humanity's childhood, there was no adequate, rational, and directive intelligence, men, in process of time, began to mistake _every_ delight as being divine and holy; thus they justified themselves in their _evil_ delights, or in the gratification of their l.u.s.ts and pa.s.sions, considering even these as all divine. [The "sons of G.o.d" marrying the "daughters of men."--_Gen._ vi. 2-4.] And as they possessed no adequate reasoning faculty to which appeals might be made for the correction of these tendencies, and thus no ground of reformation, the race gradually grew to such a towering height of wickedness that it had to be almost entirely destroyed. The _Second_ age or Dispensation, commencing with Noah, was distinctively characterized by the more special manifestation of G.o.d in outward types and shadows, in the _adyta_ of temples and other consecrated places and things, from which, as representative seats of the Divine Presence, and through inspired men, were issued _laws_ to which terrible penalties were annexed, as is exemplified by the law issued from Mount Sinai.

The evil pa.s.sions of men were thus put under restraint, and a rational faculty of discriminating between right and wrong--that is to say, a _Conscience_--was at the same time developed. But the sophistical use of these types and shadows (of which all ancient mythology is an outgrowth), and the accompanying perversion of the general conscience of mankind, gradually generated _Idolatry_ and _Magic_ with all their complicated evils, against which the Jewish Church, though belonging to the same general Dispensation, was specially inst.i.tuted to react.

Furthermore, as the mere restraints of penal law necessarily imply the existence in man of latent evils upon which the restraint is imposed, it is manifest that such a dispensation alone could not bring human nature to a state of perfection; and so a _Third_ was inst.i.tuted, in which _G.o.d was manifested in the flesh_. That is to say, He became incarnate in one man who was so const.i.tuted as to embody in himself the qualitative totality of Human Nature, that through this one Man as the Head of the Body of which other men were the subordinate organs, He might become united with all others--so that by the spontaneous movings of the living Christ within, and thus in perfect freedom, they might live the divine life in their very fleshly nature, previously the source of all sinful l.u.s.ts, but now, together with the inner man, wholly regenerated and made anew. Here, then, is a _Trinity_ of Divine manifestations, to the corresponding triune degrees of the nature of man--the inner or affectional degree, the intermediate, rational, or conscience degree, and the external, or sensuous degree.

But while this was all that was necessary as a ground for the perfect union of man with G.o.d, in the graduated triune degrees here mentioned, and thus all that was necessary for his personal salvation in a sphere of being beyond and above the earthy, it was _not_ all that was necessary to perfect his relations to the great and mysterious realm of forms, materials, and forces which const.i.tute the theater of his earthly struggles; nor was it quite all that was necessary to project and carry into execution the plan of that true and divine structure, order and government of human society which might be appropriately termed "the kingdom of heaven upon earth; wherefore you have now, according to a divine promise frequently repeated in the New Testament, a _Fourth_ Great Divine Manifestation, which proves to be a manifestation of G.o.d in _universal science_.

_I._ But that "_Fourth_ Manifestation" (or "_second_ coming," as we are in the habit of calling it), which was promised in the New Testament, was to be attended with imposing phenomena, of which we have as yet seen nothing. It was to be a coming of Christ "in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory," and the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, etc., were to occur at the same time?

_P._ Certainly; but you would not, of course, insist upon putting a strictly literal interpretation upon this language, and thus turning it into utter and senseless absurdity. The _real "heaven"_ is not that boundary of your vision in upper s.p.a.ce which you call the sky, but the interior and living reality of things. The "_clouds_" that are meant are not those sheets of condensed aqueous vapor which float above your head, but the material coatings which have hitherto obscured interior realities, and through which the Divine _Logos_, the "Sun of Righteousness," is now breaking with a "power" which moves dead matter without visible hands, and with a "great glory," or light, which reveals a spiritual world within the natural. The "_Resurrection_" is not the opening of the literal graves, and re-a.s.sembling of the identical flesh, blood, and bones of dead men and nations which, during hundreds and even thousands of years, have been combining and re-combining with the universal elements; but it is the re-establishment of the long-suspended relations of spirits with the earthly sphere of being, by which they are enabled to freely manifest themselves again to their friends in the earthly life, and often to receive great benefits in return; and if you do not yet see, as accompanying and growing out of all this, the beginning of an ordeal that is to try souls, inst.i.tutions, creeds, churches, and nations, as by fire, you had better wait awhile for a more full exposition of the "_last judgment_." People should learn that the kingdom of G.o.d comes not to _outward_ but to _inward_ observation, and that as for the prophetic words which have been spoken on this subject, "they are spirit, and they are life."

_I._ And what of the changed aspects of science that is to grow out of this alleged peculiar Divine manifestation?

_P._ To answer that question fully would require volumes. Be content, then, for the present, with the following brief words: Hitherto science has been almost wholly materialistic in its tendencies, having nothing to do with spiritual things, but ignoring and casting doubts upon them; while _spiritual_ matters, on the other hand, have been regarded by the Church wholly as matters of faith with which science has nothing to do. But through these modern manifestations, G.o.d is providentially furnishing to the world all the elements of a spiritual science which, when established and recognized, will be the stand-point from which all physical science will be viewed. It will then be more distinctly known that all external and visible forms and motions originate from invisible, spiritual, and ultimately divine causes; that between cause and effect there is always a necessary and intimate _correspondence_; and hence that the whole outer universe is but the symbol and sure index of an invisible and _vastly more real_ universe within. From this unitary basis of thought the different sciences as now correctly understood may be co-related in harmonic order as One Grand Science, the _known_ of which, by the rule of correspondence, will lead by easy clews to the _unknown_. The true structure and government of human society will be clearly hinted by the structure and laws of the universe, and especially by that _microcosm_, or little universe, the human organization. All the great stirring questions of the day, including the questions of suffrage, woman's rights, the relations between labor and capital, and the questions of general political reform, will be put into the way of an easy and speedy solution; and mankind will be ushered into the light of a brighter day, socially, politically, and religiously, than has ever yet dawned upon the world.

_I._ My invisible friend, the wonderful nature of your communication excites my curiosity to know your name ere we part. Will you have the kindness to gratify me in this particular?

_P._ That I may not do. My name is of no consequence in any respect.

Besides, if I should give it, you might, unconsciously to yourself, be influenced to attach to it the weight of a personal authority, which is specially to be avoided in communications of this kind. There is nothing to prevent deceiving spirits from a.s.suming great names, and you have no way of holding them responsible for their statements. With thinkers--minds that are developed to a vigorous maturity--the truth itself should be its only and sufficient authority. If what I have told you appears intrinsically rational, logical, scientific, in harmony with known facts, and appeals to your convictions with the force of truth, accept it; if not, reject it; but I advise you not to reject it before giving it a candid and careful examination. I may tell you more at some future time, but for the present, farewell.

CONCLUSION.

Here the interview ended. It was a part of my original plan, after reviewing various theories on this mysterious subject, to propound one of my own; but this interview with Planchette has changed my mind.

I confess I am amazed and confounded, and have nothing to say. The commendable motive which the invisible intelligence, whatever it may be, a.s.signed in the last paragraph for refusing to give its name, also prompts me to withhold my own name from this publication for the present, and likewise to abstain from the explanation I intended to give of certain particulars as to the manner and circ.u.mstances of this communication. On its own intrinsic merits alone it should be permitted to rest; and as I certainly feel that my own conceptions have been greatly enlarged, not to say that I have been greatly instructed, I give it forth in the hope that it may have the same effect upon my readers.

HOW TO WORK PLANCHETTE.

We have received letters from different persons who have tried Planchette, but failed to make her work. Our correspondents wish to know the reason of the failure, and what conditions must be complied with on their part to remedy the difficulty. We reply by the insertion of the following rules, which should be read in connection with the descriptive paragraph near the commencement of this pamphlet:

=RULES TO BE OBSERVED IN USING PLANCHETTE.=

For some persons (strong magnetizers), "Planchette" moves at once, and for one such person it moves rapidly and writes distinctly. With such a person it is not necessary for another to put their hands on; it will operate alone for them, and better than with two persons.

It has been noticed that one pair of male and one pair of female hands form a more perfect Battery to work "Planchette" than two males or two females would do.

It has also been noticed that one light and one dark complexioned person are better than two light or two dark persons would be together; also, that two females, with their hands on together, are better than the hands of two males would be.

If, after observing these rules, "Planchette" should refuse to write, or move, different persons must try until the necessary Battery is formed to make it operate. (It is here remarked that the average number of persons able to work "Planchette" is about five to eight; but it is still possible, but improbable, to have an a.s.semblage of eight persons and not any be able to make "Planchette"

go.) After it is ascertained who are the proper persons to move "Planchette," no end of fun, amus.e.m.e.nt, and possibly instruction, will be afforded.

According to the experience of the present writer, the proportional number of those for whom Planchette will work promptly, and from the first, is not quite so great as here given. But by perseverance through repeated trials, under the right mental and physical conditions, most persons may at length obtain responsive movements, more or less satisfactory. Planchette, however (or the intelligence which moves her), likes to be treated with a decent respect, and has a repugnance to confusion. Ask her, therefore, none but respectful questions, and _only one of these at a time_; and when there are several persons in the company anxious to obtain responses, while one is consulting let all the others keep _perfectly quiet_, and each patiently await his turn.