CHAPTER II

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF ANCIENT AND MODERN SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY

To the searcher of ancient records who endeavors to diligently compare the views entertained by philosophers of remote antiquity with those of the present time, the truth of the famous saying, “There is nothing new under the sun,” is forced home with remarkable force of demonstration, for notwithstanding the claims for novelty and the boasts of originality which meet a student at every turn, whenever we candidly compare the newest theories with the oldest, we soon discover that the new are very old and the old are very new.

This discovery, far from disheartening, should greatly encourage our endeavors to find a common basis for philosophy rooted deeply in the essential constitution of humanity, therefore capable of subsisting through all ages and reappearing on the surface of human thought periodically, as wave after wave of spiritual excitement testifies to the working of a cyclic law in the history of human progress.

Spiritual philosophy is truly Spiritualism as properly distinguished from Materialism and Agnosticism, its only two serious competitors. Spiritual philosophers base all their conclusions upon certain fundamental premises, first among which is the cardinal postulate of SPIRIT. Whether INFINITE INTELLIGENCE or any other specific term be now employed to designate the ABSOLUTE REALITY, the fundamental premise must always be an acknowledgment of INFINITE ETERNAL LIFE, supreme consciousness, beyond all comprehension, yet surely apprehended by human intuition and revealed in measure to human understanding.

It is idle to speculate concerning the UNCONDITIONED ABSOLUTE, as we are living in realms of relativity and can only deal with finite concepts and limited experiences, yet are we compelled to predicate the illimitable, no matter whether we name the Infinite or leave the Infinite unnamed.

Herbert Spencer, who is always ranked as a foremost agnostic, did not hesitate to say that philosophers had always been divided into schools of Materialists and Spiritualists, some interpreting universal phenomena in terms of Spirit, others in terms of Matter.

It is not the object of the writer of these pages to enter upon any labored endeavor to refute materialistic statements seriatim, but rather to present in consecutive order, as far as possible, some reasons for faith in the spiritual nature of the universe which render invalid all denial or negation of human immortality. And even should it be contended that no philosophy explains all facts or solves all problems, granting that such an assertion be correct, the acceptance of its verity by no means necessitates our acceptance of a philosophy which accounts for fewer instead of embracing one which explains satisfactorily a much larger number of the facts with which we are all compelled to wrestle, if we seek to solve the problem of existence with the aid of any working hypothesis.

We find ourselves in an objective world, but in a subjective region also. We experience much through our five external senses which, however, we can by no means limit, therefore such terms as clairvoyance, clairsentience, psychometry, and other words coined to express our consciousness of enlarged perceptions and experiences, are quite as much a part of a legitimate vocabulary as the much commoner words, sight, hearing, feeling and other terms universally employed to designate experiences of which all average human beings in normal condition are unmistakably conscious.

Nothing can be more self-evident than that our range of observation is practically limitless, for no one can decide how much wider or narrower may be another's range of observation than his own. We speak glibly enough of five senses, and talk of sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell, and unless some of us are abnormally deficient in common faculties we all understand well enough what is meant by the terms we so familiarly employ. But when asked how much do we see, hear, taste, touch or smell, an amazing difference is found to exist among seemingly normal individuals, so much so that anything like an average extent of knowledge obtainable through the five universally acknowledged avenues seems almost impossible to reach.

Once let this admission, which is actually self-evident, be estimated at something like its adequate worth, and we shall cease to cavil and demur when told of seers and seeresses who see, or otherwise become conscious of, far more subtle phenomena than meet the ordinary gaze of the average man, woman or child.

To the average human being of to-day, living in a state of so-called civilization, and engaged in ordinary secular employments, a spiritual realm seems an unknown if not an unknowable region. And it cannot be truthfully asserted that the rank and file of religious teachers are much more open to conscious acquaintance with the realm of Spirit, than is the bulk of the laity whom clergy seek to instruct in spiritual mysteries.

A very large proportion of religious leaders rest all their vaunted knowledge of a spiritual universe and a spiritual revelation upon doubtful historic evidences, many of which are now seriously discredited in scientific circles. Though modern biblical criticism is often unreasonably iconoclastic, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that it does certainly seem reasonable to deny that events of a highly mysterious character ever occurred in the past if such are never duplicated in the present. And it cannot be denied that a large section of the Christian Church has resolutely contended against all claims to a present-day revelation, while insisting upon the verbal accuracy of every biblical record of spiritual manifestations which occurred 1,800 or considerably more years ago.

It must of necessity be extremely difficult to verify facts many of which are said to be 2,000, 3,000, and even more years old, particularly when we are told that nothing like them can take place to-day. But no sooner is such an insane position abandoned and a reasonable doctrine of the persistent continuity of spiritual revelation substituted, than the chief objections vanish and the greatest difficulties are dispelled. Not one Bible only, but many Bibles must be searched and studied side by side before we can fairly claim to be acquainted, even in barest outline, with the bulk of testimony which long ages have afforded to substantiate the primal claim of all Spiritualists, that we as human beings are not mere mortal existences, but immortal entities clad a while in mortal garb.

Our first enquiry must be into the nature of humanity itself, then let us proceed to points of variation which serve to distinguish individuals and races from each other. Every human being, so far as we have opportunity to judge, is endowed with affection, desire to live, and many other distinctly universal attributes which humanity does not, however, exclusively possess, as the entire animal kingdom gives evidences of sharing these emotions.

Evolutionists of the materialistic school, headed by Prof. Ernst Haeckel of Germany, lay much stress upon the fact that many animals (dogs especially) display qualities which we are accustomed to call moral, and if we claim immortal life for human beings, we must be prepared to concede some future existence for the higher animals as well as for ourselves.

With such a proposition, thus mildly stated, we are prepared to take no issue, and were that doctrine the summing up of Haeckel’s teachings, we should offer no protest against conclusions reached in “The Riddle of the Universe.” But its author emphatically denies that there is a true human entity or a persistent soul surviving physical dissolution, either in man or animal. It is not with any affirmative declaration concerning animals, but with negative statements concerning humanity that we take decisive issue.

If certain animals are conscious of yearnings after continued life, and are capable of sharing and enjoying it, they will certainly have their portion in a state beyond the grave; but to grant continued existence for certain animals is in no sense to deny, or even to call in question, human immortality.

With the purely philosophic view of immortality, beginningless and endless individual life as proclaimed by Socrates, according to Plato, comparatively few modern Spiritualists attempt to deal, although there are some who declare with the world-renowned Cora L. V. Richmond, that inspiring intelligences of great experience and profound wisdom affirm that the soul is an "eternal finite entity." Be this as it may, we can none of us deny that the doctrine of preëxistence as well as future existence has been taught by illustrious seers and sages in almost every age and clime. And this fact is vouched for by Dr. J. M. Peebles and other veteran Spiritualists who belong to a school which opposes the doctrine of repeated embodiments of the soul, and does not hesitate to attack vigorously the views of many prominent Theosophists.

On all points of speculative philosophy, both as concerns man's past and future, it appears that there is as much difference in the spirit-world as there is on earth, if we may credit the testimony which the ages have brought concerning teachings received from the other side of the mortal veil which hangs between the earth and spheres of existence capable of manifesting individual life through other than physical vehicles. But on one point all spiritual testimony seems agreed, viz.: that life on the inner side of the mystic veil is subject to the same great universal law which regulates the course of individual existence on the outer earth.

Human nature is not changed by death, for death only removes an outer covering (the most external sheath of personality) leaving the entity and its psychic vehicle entirely unmolested. Shakespeare's expression "When we have shuffled off this mortal coil" has never been improved. As centuries roll on and testimonies accumulate concerning spiritual existence, we can still revert to Hamlet and ponder over the marvelous insight displayed in that immortal tragedy.

The description of Hamlet's father clad in armor is one of those unmistakable evidences of world-wide belief in the actual objectivity of the psychic realm which crops out wherever any attempt is made to vividly portray a condition beyond death; and though there are, to some minds, grave difficulties connected with this dominant and everlastingly persistent faith, it is, when closely analyzed, found to be entirely rational and in complete accordance with all that we have a right to expect.

In Shakespeare's day belief in purgatory was undoubtedly strongly ingrained in the mind of the British nation, even though the Protestant reformers had vigorously inveighed against it, and the thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England distinctly repudiates what it styles the "Romish" form of the doctrine.

But theological disputes aside, the idea of suffering for purposes of spiritual purification beyond the grave is common to all religious and philosophical systems at their base, though there have often been times when a reactionary movement has set in against a reasonable doctrine, in consequence of perversions and abuses such as the "sale of indulgences," which at one time gave great scandal in many parts of Europe. But protest as we may against accretions which may be fairly termed excrescent, we are not justified in casting any slur upon the essentials of a doctrine which is at root reasonable and moral in the extreme.

Hamlet's father had been a good king, a faithful ruler beloved and honored by his subjects, and it seems at the first glance not quite fair that he should be a sufferer in the unseen world, because it was only Hamlet's mother and uncle who had committed grievous wrong. It takes but a very little psychic insight, however, to perceive that Shakespeare was teaching forcibly the all-important truth that no spiritual rest or bliss is possible while thirst for vengeance vitiates the heart.

Hamlet's father was seeking, so the tragedy declares, to force his son to be revenged upon his wife and brother, but though those individuals had proved guilty of atrocious crimes, there could be no peace for the spirit which haunted earth with such an object in view as that of working bitter, even though not unjust, retaliation.

Recompense is meted out to all by infinite equity, and it is sound doctrine that assures us that we are rewarded by our virtues and afflicted by our vices. But let the mills of destiny do their own most perfect grinding, it is not for us to interfere, and we cannot seek to interfere, without wrecking our own happiness, with the outworking of the changeless plan which causes every word, deed, and even secret thought, to be its own rewarder or avenger.

The armor worn on the psychic plane by the spirit who is still in will a warrior, describes with glowing accuracy a fundamental proposition of universal Spiritual philosophy, a truth attested by every seer and sage who has spoken definitely on the mighty subject of the relation of subjective causes to exterior effects.

When the old English poet, Spencer, in his “Faerie Queen,” tells us

“The soul is form, and doth the body make,
For of the soul the body form doth take,”

that bard of olden days, with keen spiritual discernment such as poets frequently make manifest, found himself far more knowing in the realm of deep philosophy than his illustrious nineteenth century namesake, the philosophic Spencer, who found a mighty obstacle in the world’s perpetual belief in what he called “the immortality of clothing.”

The plastic substance of the psychic plane, which is matter of a less gross grade than that of the external earth, lends itself far more readily than does the grosser sort to every psychical emotion. Therefore have the seers of all ages informed us that the state of conscious existence which survives physical embodiment, and is the next state following immediately upon the present, does not differ very radically from the earthly plane in any important particular.

The concensus of statement among seers and sages may be summed up in a single sentence used by Dr. Lyman Abbott many years ago, "We do not die and live again, we simply go on living." And long after that phrase had become familiar, as an expression in harmony with what was at one time called "new progressive orthodoxy" came the monumental work of Prof. Frederick W. H. Myers, bearing the title "Human Personality, its survival of bodily death." In the course of two massive volumes extending to 1,360 pages, that able, conscientious, tireless worker in the field of "psychical research" gave to the world as a most valuable legacy, a carefully kept record of experiences extending over from twenty to thirty years, during which long period Prof. Myers was a co-investigator with Sir Wm. Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, and many other illustrious men of brilliant scientific attainments who never hesitated to bend their best energies to an enquiry into the mysteries of what the gifted journalist and author Wm. Stead calls "Borderland."

And it is along the border line between two planes of conscious activity, often called two worlds, that most modern investigations in the psychic field are industriously conducted. Beyond the border, few seek, or dare, or even know how to venture. The typical Spiritualist who prizes phenomena and delights in “tests,” no matter how conscientious and upright he or she may be, seeks and finds only the fringe of the border of that immeasurable spiritual universe which stretches to infinity.

With all becoming modesty, therefore, scientific explorers claim to be agnostic regarding what lies very far ahead of immediate conditions directly connected with ordinary life on earth. Beautiful and blessed are the consolations, and valuable indeed the lessons which borderland experiences can teach, but there are adventurers, bold enquirers, intrepid souls who falter not because of difficulty or of danger, who have in all ages (and their race is not extinct to-day), crossed the mystic bar, transcended the occult threshold, and sailed forth upon the unfathomed ocean of transcendentally spiritual existence.

Such are the Illuminati, the master-spirits to whom we are assuredly indebted for the highest instruction to be found in the world’s many bibles whose arcane significance remains unguessed by the teeming multitudes who con the letter but seek not to crack the shells of spiritual nuts, for they dream not of the delicious and nutritious meat within. As we trace the history of spirit-communion through the ages, we shall catch occasional glimpses of a dazzlingly fair transcendent realm beyond, though very often our eyes will be directed only to the border and what lies just beyond our present physical existence.