Mystic London, Charles Maurice Davies [best novels of all time TXT] 📗

in those papers there are a great many ancient authors referred to. Mrs. Everitt has never read or seen a single book of any of these authors, and, with a few exceptions, their names had never been heard by her before, much less did she know the age they lived in, the country they belonged to, the works they had written, or the arguments made use of for the defence of their doctrines and teachings. Besides the above reasons there are physical and mental difficulties which preclude the possibility of their being produced by the medium. The physical impossibility is the marvellous rapidity of their production, as many as 936 words having been written in six seconds. The mental difficulty is that the medium has not a logical mind. Like most females, she takes a short cut by jumping to conclusions. She does not, indeed cannot, argue out any proposition by the ordinary rules of logic. Now the papers referred to show that the author or authors are not only well acquainted with ancient lore and the classics, but also possessed very high ability as logicians. For the above reasons we conclude that the medium, from sheer incapacity, both mentally and physically, could not have written these papers, nor any other human being under the same circumstances. We are therefore absolutely driven, after looking at the subject from every conceivable point of view, to conclude respecting their production that they came from a supernatural source, and were produced by supernatural means."

In the afternoon of this day a clergyman, whose name it would be highly indecorous in me to mention, descanted on the aspect of Spiritualism from his point of view in the Church of England. I understood the purport of the paper to be (1) that he claimed the right of members of the Church of England to investigate the phenomena; (2) that, if convinced of their spiritual origin, such conviction need not shake the investigator's previous faith. If the clergyman in question really said no more than the printed reports of the Conference represent him to have done, he rather reversed the conduct of Balaam, and cursed those he came to bless. This is the curt résumé that went forth:—

"The Rev. —— read a paper, in which he defined his position with regard to Spiritualism as that of a mere inquirer, adding that even if he became convinced of its truth, he saw no reason why he should alter the opinions he at present held as a clergyman of the Church of England. After eighteen months' inquiry into the subject, however, he was, perhaps, more of a sceptic than before." If that was all the clergyman in question had to say for the Association, they must rather regret they ever "organized" him, and might well pray to be saved from their friends; but I heard it whispered—presumably by a spirit voice—that there had been a passage at arms between the lady secretary and the clergyman in question, and that Miss—but no, I must not mention names—the fair official punished the delinquent that most awful penalty—silence.

Friday finished the Conference with a trance paper—I did not know there were such things—dictated to Mrs. Cora Tappan by invisible guides, and was read by Miss—I mean by the fair incognita above-mentioned. Not a manifestation—literally not the ghost of one—only this very glowing peroration:—"But it is in a larger sense of social, mental, political, and even religious renovation, that Spiritualism is destined to work its chief results. The abrogation of the primal terror of mankind, the most ancient spectre in the world of thought, grim and shadowy Death, is, in itself, so vital a change that it constitutes a revolution in the world of mind. Chemistry has already revealed the wonderful fact that no ultimate atom can perish. The subtle chemistry of Spiritualism steps in where science ceases, gathering up the ultimate atoms of thought into a spiritual entity and proving them imperishable. Already has this thought pervaded the popular mind, tinged the decaying forms of theology and external science with its glow, and made the life of man a heritage of immortal glory. More than this, taking spirit as the primal basis of life, each individual, and all members of society and humanity in the aggregate, must for ever strive to express its highest life (i.e. the life of the spirit). The child will be taught from within, external methods being employed only as aids, but never as dictators of thought. Society will be the flowing out of spiritual truths, taking shape and substance as the expression of the soul. Governments will be the protecting power of a parent over loving children, instead of the dictates of force or tyranny. Religion will wear its native garb of simplicity and truth, the offspring of the love and faith that gave it birth. Modern Spiritualism is as great a solvent of creeds, dogmas, codes, scientific sophisms, as is the sunlight of the substances contained in earth and air, revealing by the stages of intermediate life, from man, through spirits, angels, archangels, seraphim, and cherubim, to God, the glorious destiny of every soul. There is a vine growing in the islands of the tropic seas that thrives best upon the ancient ruins or crumbling walls of some edifice built by man; yet ever as it thrives, the tiny tendrils penetrate between the fibres of the stone, cutting and cutting till the whole fabric disappears, leaving only the verdant mass of the foliage of the living vine. Spiritualism is to the future humanity what this vine is to the ancient ruin."

There was another paper coming on "Compound Consciousness," but the title did not attract me. After my four days' patient waiting for ghosts who never came and spirits that would not manifest, I felt, perhaps, a little impatient, put on my hat and left abruptly—the fair secretary, of whom I shall evermore stand in supreme awe, scowling at me when I did so. As I passed into Gower Street—sweet, serene Gower Street, sacred from the wheels of profane cabmen, I was almost surprised to see the "materialized" forms around me; and it really was not until I got well within sound—and smell—of the Underground Railway that I quite realized my abased position, or got out of the spheres whither the lofty periods of Mrs. Tappan's paper, so mellifluously delivered, had wafted me!

CHAPTER XXXVIII. AN EVENING'S DIABLERIE.

Mr. Spurgeon a short time since oracularly placed it on record that, having hitherto deemed Spiritualism humbug, he now believes it to be the devil. This sudden conversion is, of course, final; and I proceed to narrate a somewhat exceptional endorsement of the opinion which has recently occurred within my own experience. There was a time, how long ago it boots not to say, when I considered Spiritualism humbug; and a good deal came in my way which might have led me to the same conclusion as Mr. Spurgeon, if I had been disposed—which I am not—to go with a hop, skip, and jump.

The investigator who first presented the "diabolical" theory to my notice was a French Roman Catholic priest, who had broken discipline so far as to enter the married state, but retained all the doctrines of his former faith intact. He had, in fact, anticipated to some extent the position of Père Hyacinthe; for it was several years ago I first became acquainted with him. Individually as well as nationally this gentleman, too, was prone to jump at conclusions. He lost a dear friend, and immediately proceeded to communicate with the departed by means of table-turning and rapping. For a few days he was quite convinced of the identity of the communicating spirit; but then, and all within the compass of a single week, he pronounced the exorcism of the Catholic Church on the intelligence, I suppose experimentally in the first instance; found his challenge not satisfactorily answered, and immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was the foul fiend himself. I sat very frequently with this gentleman afterwards, prior to the experience I am about to narrate; and certainly the intelligence always gave itself out to be the spirit unmentionable to ears polite, whose presence my friend had taken for granted.

I once went with this gentleman to the Marshalls, when they were at their zenith. We arranged previously that he should not sit at the table, but on one side, and give me a secret signal when he was silently pronouncing the exorcism. He did so; and certainly all manifestations at once ceased, though we had been in full converse with the invisibles a moment before. Old Mrs. M. had to announce with much chagrin, "The sperrits is gone!"

My other partner in diablerie was a barrister whom I must not mention by name, but who possessed considerable power as a writing medium. The presiding intelligence in his case was, however, of a low character, and given to very bad language. He avowed himself to have been a bargee in the earth-plane—should one say the water-plane?—and certainly swore like one.

As for myself, I am destitute of all "medium-power," whatever that may be, though enthusiastic spirituelle ladies tell me I am "mediumistic"—a qualification which is still more occult to me. I own to being greatly interested in spiritualistic inquiries, except as regards dark séances, which have a tendency to send me to sleep; and I believe that my presence does not "stop manifestations:" so that I suppose I am not a hopeless sceptic.

On the occasion of which I am about to speak we met in my study, where I am in the habit of rearing a few pet snakes. I had just got a fine new specimen; and having no proper habitation for it, had turned my waste-basket upside-down on a small chess table, and left him to tabernacle under it for the night. This was the table we generally used for séances; and my legal friend, who was writing, immediately began to use most foul language, on the subject of the snake, exhorting me to "put him anywhere, put him in the cupboard, old boy." Such was the edifying style of communication we always got through this worthy limb of the law, but it was so much worse than usual on the present occasion as to fairly make us roar at its insane abuse. The gentleman himself, I ought to add, is by no means prone to profane swearing. My priestly friend was making a wide-awake hat reply by tilts; and still got his old reply that his Satanic Majesty was personally present. I did not in the least credit this assertion, any more than I accepted as proven the identity of the bargee, though I hold the impersonation in either case to be a strange psychological fact. That I did not do so is best evidenced by the circumstance that I said, "This spirit asserts himself to be his Satanic Majesty. Have you either of you any objection to communicate with him supposing such to be the case?"

Neither one nor the other had the slightest. My Catholic friend, I knew, always carried a bottle of holy water in his pocket, and at my entreaty forbore for the moment to exorcise. The legal gentleman, though a "writer" himself, was not at all convinced about the phenomena, as was perhaps natural, seeing the exceedingly bad company to which it professed to relegate him. As for me, my scepticism was to me robur et æs triplex. I disposed of the snake, put out the gas; and down we three sat, amid profound darkness, like three male witches in "Macbeth," having previously locked the door to prevent any one disturbing our hocus-pocus.

Any one who has sat at an ordinary dark séance will recollect the number of false starts the table makes, the exclamations, "Was that a