There have often been sensational reports circulated claiming to be "exposures" of materialization, but when traced to their origin they have generally been found to be unreliable, and never the result of careful study or scientific investigation. The ungentlemanly and in some instances brutal conduct of the parties engaged in the "exposures" has been such as to discredit their statements, and in no case have they produced evidence that would be considered valid in any court.

If it be true that the garments used to clothe the forms are materialized and dematerialized in the cabinet, any sudden disturbance of the magnetic conditions of the circle might arrest the process of dematerialization, leaving the draperies intact. Persons not understanding this would naturally charge fraud upon the medium, on rushing into the cabinet and finding them there. This has led some mediums to submit to a thorough examination of their clothes before entering the cabinet, going so far, at times, as to allow themselves to be dressed entirely in dark clothing, without a particle of white upon them, and giving every opportunity to prove that there were no concealed draperies in the room. These arrangements, while taking up valuable time that otherwise would have been devoted to the seance, have never interfered with the manifestations.

The most serious and perhaps the most generally believed charges made against these seances is that confederates are used to personate the forms. Pa.s.sing by the many knotty questions which cannot possibly be explained on the theory of confederates, and considering it in a business point of view, there are difficulties connected with such an arrangement that might in the end prove disastrous.

A employs B to personate, at one dollar a seance. B finds that A is making money, and, being rascally enough to engage in such work, would have no scruples in demanding, under threats of exposure, the lion's share of the proceeds.

A is completely in his power, and has no alternative but to submit.

This, and the outside pressure which would be likely to be brought to bear upon B to make public the fraud, would render it almost impossible to carry on the deception for any great length of time.

Again, there are often from fifty to sixty distinct individual forms appearing at each seance, requiring as many confederates to represent them. As the circle is rarely composed of more than twenty-five persons, would it pay to keep so many actors for so small an audience? If people who listen to these accusations would reflect for a moment, they would see that the theory of confederates is not a very plausible one, and it might do much toward relieving mediums from the unjust suspicions to which, through lack of understanding on the part of the public, they are more or less obliged to submit.

All honest mediums will cheerfully do all they can to satisfy the public that there is no deception, and that the cabinet and its surroundings are such as to preclude the possibility of confederates. Any other arrangements are unnecessary, and, to say the least, suspicious. These things are new and strange to most people, and they very naturally expect strong evidence; and they are right, provided their desire is expressed in a kindly and gentlemanly manner.

Any one at all familiar with these seances cannot help seeing that there are some mediums and their controls who are largely responsible for the feeling of distrust more or less manifested toward the subject. When the question of a confederate is fairly settled (and no one can be certain of his position until it is done), and two forms appear at the same time; or when you can be taken into the cabinet by a form, and shown the entranced medium, it is self-evident that one of them is a materialized form, and not a personation by the medium. It needs no argument to settle this, no matter how much it may conflict with pre-conceived notions.

I have quoted from Chief Justice Jacolliot's work on Occult Science in India, to prove that there is no connection between these manifestations and what is called sleight-of-hand.

There is, however, a more important fact conveyed in his statements, corroborated by other writers upon this subject, showing the perfect fairness with which these mediums, or Fakirs, submit to tests, courting the most thorough and exhaustive investigation, even trusting themselves, while in a trance, without any protection, to the honor and good faith of those around them, repeating at request the experiments, again and again, to satisfy that there is no deception about them.

This is strangely in contrast with our mediums, who as a rule shrink from anything of the kind, and are disposed to regard any request of that nature as a direct imputation upon their honesty.

If materialization means anything besides dollars and cents--if it has a mission to perform--it is to enlighten and educate the people upon one of the most important subjects that has ever engrossed the mind.

The lack of openness and confidence on the part of many of the mediums, or their managers, creates a feeling of distrust which sometimes finds an expression in rudeness on the part of skeptics, and leads those who are confident of the genuineness of a part of the seance to be impressed with the idea that there are things connected with it that are dishonest.

There is no difficulty in tracing the source of this feeling. Everywhere like begets like, and as long as this state of feeling exists there will be a lack of harmony in the circle, with more or less disturbance.

It may be that these things are inseparable from the newness of the manifestations among us, and will disappear when mediums are more freely developed in our homes, and the seances a.s.sume less of a commercial character.

While no apology should be made for fraud in these seances, we have no right to make charges that cannot be sustained. Every medium is bound, in justice to the audience, to see that the cabinet and its surroundings are so arranged that the appearance of fraud is, as far as possible, avoided.

Lack of experience, want of perception, or ignorance of a subject, gives no authority to a.s.sume that it is a fraud. The eagerness with which the press circulates reports of imposture finds its excuse, not in a manly defence of the truth, but in a morbid disposition to cater to the whims and caprices of the public. Those who accept such statements without investigation may possibly become victims of a worse delusion than that which they fancy they are condemning in others--a delusion born of ignorance and self-conceit.

CHAPTER III.

PUBLIC SeANCES.

No comparison can justly be made between different mediums. All are excellent in their way. The preference that is given to one over others is mainly due to personal feeling, to likes and dislikes, which must always find an expression among individuals of different tastes.

In some seances the strength of the manifestations is largely exhausted in the production of forms. In others, the social and affectionate element predominates. Where there are from fifty to sixty materialized forms appearing at a sitting, it is hardly to be expected that much time can be given to the interchange of thought or the expression of feeling. Such seances are, as a rule, mere touch-and-go occasions.

The strength of the circle is often exhausted in combating the ignorance and prejudice of the audience, and the higher and more delicate phase of materialization is lost sight of.

Many condemn public seances on account of the mixed audience and the conflicting elements that surround the medium. These things are, at present, a necessity, being the only means of educating the ma.s.ses.

The time has not yet come when, through a more general acceptance of the truth of materialization, it can be transferred to the domestic circle, where it properly belongs, and where its best results will be obtained.

Not until the flush of excitement necessarily arising from the strangeness of the phenomena has subsided, and the investigator has settled in his mind the facts of materialization, is he capable of forming an intelligent opinion on the subject.

Thousands of persons, through their experience, have reached that point.

Whether they advance beyond this will depend upon the character of the seance, the strength of the manifestations, and the purely affectional bearing toward these beings.

Seances should be cla.s.sified: the first, for primary education, for facts and evidence to convince skeptics; the second, for the more advanced investigator. Into this latter cla.s.s no skeptic should be admitted. Such an arrangement could not interfere with the patronage of mediums, but on the contrary would enhance it, for there comes a period in the progress of the investigator when, finding that he cannot advance, he will retreat or seek some other field for investigation. The public seance, as now const.i.tuted, must, from the nature of its surroundings, remain more or less stationary.

There are seances that are pitched on so low a key that when the investigator pa.s.ses from a state of doubt into a full knowledge of the truth of materialization, he will instinctively leave them for a more genial atmosphere; for it is in vain to expect that coa.r.s.e, mercenary, untruthful mediums can avoid impressing more or less of their natures upon the spirits who come through their organisms, or that mainly spirits like themselves will be attracted to them. The more intelligent investigators are beginning to realize this, and those mediums who have lost the sense of their high calling, and degraded the seance to a mere show, will, under the inevitable law of progress, find themselves supplanted by a better element. Mediums are being developed everywhere, and in the near future there will be no lack of n.o.ble men and women who will gladly come to the front with their divine gifts.

If we accept the idea that pa.s.sing to the other life does not essentially change the character of the man, that his peculiarities remain the same, we can account for many things in the seance-room that appear to be simply acting,--performances which have no other object than to attract the audience, to show what power the spirits can acquire under conditions which seem impossible to us.

Considering the state of feeling with which many persons enter the seance-room, it is not singular that they are sometimes treated to what seems to be deception. The spirits, perceiving the condition of the minds around them, act very much as they would if they were still on this side of life. Thoughts are things, which appear to them very much as solid substances do to us. If, instead of attempting to remove them, they can accomplish their object by going round them, they feel themselves justified in doing so. They act very much, at times, as children would under similar circ.u.mstances; and, until they obtain complete control over the form that encases them, they cannot express themselves with much force. They are as children learning to walk, to think, and talk through a medium that is new to them.

A simple, childlike bearing, blended with the warmest affection, is the only element that enables them to progress and meet us upon the highest plane of thought.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ATt.i.tUDE OF SCIENTISTS.

The world is indebted to scientists for their clear arrangement of and deductions from what others have discovered; for, as a rule, they are not inventive. Hasty in condemning everything new, their timidity and lack of generous bearing toward what seems to conflict with their materialistic theories are conspicuous.

Nothing can be more unscientific than the att.i.tude of most of them toward this subject. Obliged in the past to antagonize the despotism of the old Theology, they have themselves become despotic. Condemning dogmatism, they a.s.sume a dogmatic bearing toward everything that does not square with their pre-conceived notions. Walking with faces toward the ground, they refuse to look up, or admit the existence of anything beyond matter; denying the possibility of spirit, and claiming that the earth contains within itself the "promise and potency" of everything that is or has been.

Against this sweeping claim may be opposed the fact that, in the light of a purely scientific a.n.a.lysis, the earth gives no promise of the living beings that cover its surface; that it creates nothing, furnishes nothing except the environments or clothing of the beings that for the time find their abiding-place here.

When scientists are confronted with materialization, they deny it without investigation, or refuse to examine it unless they can dictate their own conditions, and yet no cla.s.s of men understand better than they do the necessity of adhering closely to the laws governing any operation in nature, if it is to be fairly studied. The course that has been and is now being pursued by the two scientific bodies supposed to be investigating this subject must necessarily lead to failure.

Individual members may be more or less impressed with the reality of the phenomena, but no report worthy of the subject will ever be made by either society. The ridiculous farce enacted by the French Academy of Science in their report on Mesmerism, will probably be repeated here.

It has been charged upon me that I am not a scientist, and that my methods are not scientific,--all of which, if their implied definition of science is correct, I admit. I have had the fairness, notwithstanding my skepticism, to lay aside my prejudices and study this subject purely in relation to itself, and not in connection with pre-conceived ideas.

The facts which I have presented have been attested by competent witnesses; and until scientists have made themselves familiar with them, their allegations amount to nothing. The course which I have pursued in studying this subject is far more sensible and scientific than a denial without investigation.

The editor of one of the ablest scientific journals has well said, "Science having no methods by which it can experimentally determine that man has a spiritual nature distinct from the material, it follows that it must be incompetent to throw light upon the nature of that which is unrecognized or unknown."

The testimony of scientists in such matters cannot be considered of any more value than that of any other careful investigator; and if we take into consideration their materialistic views, it is dealing liberally with them to concede that much.

Science accepts the theory of molecules and atoms, and declares matter to be indestructible. These little molecules set in motion produce the phenomena of life. When they get tired and refuse to climb one above another, like acrobats in a circus, then there is death. It is all very simple, and any one can understand it,--a little alkali thrown into some acid,--a rapid effervescence,--the atoms are disturbed and seek to hurriedly arrange themselves into a different position,--they have performed the fantastical dance of life, and all is over!

Upon this theory scientists have endeavored to account for the creation of everything. If they have found anything else they have not declared it. The trinity of Molecules, Atoms, and Motion is the keystone of the whole structure which for centuries they have been trying to build up.

As science takes nothing for granted, it would be interesting to learn when and where they found these little atoms, which no microscope, however powerful, has ever revealed. Before scientists insist upon the denial of the existence of that spiritual force which organizes and individualizes all forms of life, it might be as well for them to settle the question, What is matter?

I do not a.s.sert positively that these beings are spirits; for it may be said, in a scientific point of view, I have no right to do so; but I do a.s.sert that the facts warrant beyond a question the conclusion that they do not belong to what we call the earth-side of life,--that they are not automatons, lay figures, or effigies, but are living, breathing, intelligent beings, with thoughts, feelings, and pa.s.sions strictly human; that they come out of invisible s.p.a.ce, and depart in the same way. In the language of Professor Crookes, "Nothing is more certain than the reality of these facts. I do not say that they are possible, but I say that they _are_."