CHAPTER XV

ANCIENT JEWISH AND EARLY CHRISTIAN IDEAS OF THE SOUL AND OF SPIRIT-COMMUNION

Without some knowledge of Jewish beliefs and practices, it must always prove extremely difficult for the average enquirer into primitive Christian doctrines and ceremonies to understand at all clearly what many of them signify or from what sources they have been derived. Far from being opposed to spirit-communion of an elevated type, a very large percentage of orthodox Jews have always affirmed it, though often only to a limited extent, and only in the case of very notable individuals. The much-disputed Bible story of the appearance of Samuel to Saul, which the fine American actor Wright Lorimer has deftly interwoven with the plot of his famous play “The Shepherd King,” serves as a good illustration of very ancient Jewish tradition, and the modern playwright who makes the woman of En-dor declare that the apparition is through no art of hers, has interpreted aright the prophetic teaching concerning communion with departed friends and teachers. Jewish seers and sages always protested vehemently against necromantic arts and witchcraft. They condemned every form of sorcery, but this did not effect direct communion with the spirit-world apart from the practice of rites or incantations forbidden in the Law. The much-perverted picture of the soulless witch whom Saul consults, is taken, so far as stage-setting is concerned, far more from Shakespeare's “Macbeth” and from mediæval fancy than from any words contained in the Bible record of Saul and his ultimate downfall. The woman at En-dor told no falsehood and behaved in no unseemly manner, and it is absurd to blacken her reputation, as many preachers have frequently done, in order to force into a narrative statements it does not contain in order to read them forth again as alleged divine warnings against Spiritualism. Such pulling cover over half-opened eyes is a dishonest trick, and has brought into deserved contempt the unfair attitude taken towards Spiritualism by sensational declaimers, notorious rather than famous, who have made capital among the unthinking and the too-easily influenced among their hearers, out of garbled and distorted versions of obscure ancient Biblical incidents. Samuel could not rescue Saul from the inevitable results of his own misdoing; it was therefore useless for the rebellious king to "trouble" the departed prophet when it was already too late to profit by that prophet's warning. But, far from Samuel condemning Saul to everlasting perdition in consequence of his earthly crimes and follies, he contents himself with predicting that both Saul and Jonathan would "be with him" on the following day. No other reference can fairly be gathered from the story, if it be credited at all, than that Samuel in spirit-life could see a little further ahead than could those still on earth, and he knew and did not hesitate to reveal, that David was already appointed Saul's successor, and it would be vain at that late hour to make any attempt to keep the crown on the head of a monarch literally, when it had already fallen psychically.

Two of the most notable instances of undying belief in spirit-communion among Jews who have not relinquished the traditions of their ancestors is the belief that Elijah presides at circumcisions, and a seat is kept vacant at a festive board for Abraham on the first night of Succoth, the feast of Tabernacles or Booths. It is declared that, though unseen by mortal eye, the patriarch is spiritually present in the booth, or wherever the Succoth feast is spread, and if a stranger appears on that occasion he is regarded as sent by Abraham to represent him at the board, a stranger on such an occasion is therefore treated with extraordinary hospitality and his presence is regarded as an omen of good to the family of whose bounty he partakes; Elijah is also believed to spiritually preside at the Seder service on the first and second evening of the feast of Passover. Should modern criticism dispose to a large degree of the personal Abraham or Elijah of pious tradition, the spiritual sense of a guiding presence need be in no degree disturbed, and it is indeed far easier to grasp the thought of many spiritual beings presiding at different festive boards in different parts of the world than to think of but one highly influential spirit presiding at the same time at so many banquets. But, should the personality of Abraham and of Elijah be rigidly adhered to in the most strictly orthodox sense, we are then only called upon to believe that spiritual radiations from a master-mind can be sent forth far and wide, and such is no doubt the case when we are successful in our oft-attempted demonstrations of mental telegraphy or telepathy.

Prayers for the departed enter into every Jewish liturgy and form part of every regular Jewish service, and though the time-honored “Mourner's Kaddish” does little more than express faith in God and offer prayer for blessing on all Israel, it proves convincingly that the departed are not forgotten. “Only the body perishes” is a familiar phrase from a popular introduction to the Kaddish, found in the Union Prayer-book employed by a very large number of congregations in America.

Primitive Christianity owed its origin very largely to the intrepid zeal of Saul of Tarsus, who, as Paul the Apostle, is more widely quoted by doctrinal preachers than are even the Words of Jesus as recorded by the four evangelists, and it is from Paul’s epistles that nearly every dogma of the Christian belief has been gradually upbuilt. The two Letters to the Corinthians set forth in general outline the doctrine and practice of those early Christian congregations which,—during the formative period of Christianity being composed as they were partly of Jews and partly of Gentiles,—were often disunited internally and needed a strong disciplinary bond to organize and federate them and prevent their being destroyed by schisms. Paul was unquestionably a strong leader, a man of indomitable perseverance and of decidedly a fiery temper, capable of sustaining enormous burdens, even though handicapped (probably), by a physical constitution far from robust. His was one of those phenomenal careers which serve to demonstrate to a highly exceptional degree, the power of spirit over matter; for, though seemingly weak in frame and afflicted with defective sight (so nearly all traditions tell us) despite his “thorn in the flesh” which he described as “a messenger of the adversary which buffeted him,” he performed heroic work of many kinds and in most trying circumstances through that indomitable spiritual energy which he styled “the power of an endless life.” No one can read the Paulinian epistles with any sort of penetration without seeing at a glance that their author was an uncompromising Spiritualist and a thoroughgoing Universalist. “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,” is a text containing quite enough in itself to prove distinctly where the writer stood who penned such bold and definitely affirmative statements. To the mind of Paul the whole creation was safe in the keeping of the Almighty, and he certainly knew nothing of the nightmares of a false theology which, in later centuries, wrested the teaching in the Epistle to the Romans to the upbuilding of a doctrine of election and reprobation which no Jew would ever have invented, and Paul never forswore Judaism: he merely added to it a Christian supplement. Beginning as an extremely orthodox Pharisee, an ultra-ritualist, this wonderful man went on to a point where he left all matters of ceremonial to the conscience and judgment of individuals. “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind” was Paul’s doctrine; but let him never seek to thrust his personal convictions upon his neighbors.

The story of Saul's conversion, as recorded in the “Acts” is a thrilling spiritualistic narrative. Journeying between Jerusalem and Damascus, he undergoes a spiritual experience which changes the entire current of his thought and life. Some radiant spiritual presence appears to him and asks him why he persecutes the innocent at the instigation of the priests and magistrates. Like many highly emotional sensitives, he is completely overwhelmed with this amazing and altogether unexpected manifestation, and for three days is without sight and in a very precarious condition. On his recovery he is a changed man, and becomes the warm friend and ardent supporter of those whom he aforetime had relentlessly persecuted.

It should always be remembered that Paul was the chief exponent of the resurrection of Jesus, and he never claimed to have seen any risen flesh, but only to have held communion with the Master in a purely spiritual manner. Those highly intelligent English clergymen who are now outspoken in their advocacy of a purely spiritual view of the resurrection are not “heretics”; they are simply reiterating what the New Testament declares, for neither the gospels nor the epistles contain a fragment of evidence sufficient to prove that the primitive Christian church held any carnal doctrine of resuscitation, such as was forced upon it at a later date by those belligerent creed-makers who out-voted the more spiritually-minded in certain famous ecclesiastical councils and foisted upon the church a repulsive and irrational dogma entirely at variance with the earliest Christian faith.

We submit the following propositions to the discomfiture of all who insist upon a carnal instead of a spiritual view of the resurrection. 1st, the gospels tell us that the reappearance of Jesus after his crucifixion occurred within about forty hours after his physical decease, and that the very watchers at the cross who remained to the end on Friday afternoon, did not recognize him in any physical manner when he showed himself to them, near the sepulchre in which his remains had been placed, at daybreak the following Sunday morning, and, moreover, when two disciples walked with him to Emmaus on the same evening, a distance of several miles, they did not recognize him by any physical test, but only as did the women in the morning, by purely subjective or internal evidences; or when he specially made himself known to them by some essentially characteristic word or act.

2d. The solidification of the apparition to Thomas the skeptic was clearly an instance of what, in these days, is termed materialization, and the language of the gospel which records it is such as to prove abundantly to every unprejudiced reader that there was a distinct difference between the grosser nature of that demonstration and the more ethereal character of the appearances vouchsafed to the other disciples whose spiritual perceptions were more open than were those of Didymus.

Spiritualists among the clergy, like Archdeacon Colley and others who have made an earnest investigation of psychic phenomena for several decades of years, emphatically testify to the reality of spirit-materialization as well as all other phases of spirit-manifestation described in the New Testament; and though such men are "thorns in the side" of those literalistic theologians who can see nothing in the scriptural doctrine of resurrection deeper or more spiritual than physical revivification, their influence is continually spreading and that influence is becoming too great to be effectually offset by any endeavors on the part of bishops or any other dignitaries to lead the people back to outworn superstitions. Quite a sensation was created in London during the summer of 1904 by the action of the bishop of the diocese, who refused to permit a clergyman to preside at a lecture delivered by Mrs. Besant on "REINCARNATION," which is the oldest form of the doctrine of resurrection of the flesh, and the only form in which it can reasonably be accepted by thoughtful minds. We can possibly believe that in order to work out a cycle of experiences we may need to take on successive bodies until at length a perfect structure is upreared. This was one of the doctrines preached by some primitive Christians, though there appears never to have been a time when the entire Christian church was unanimous in this regard.

This doctrine, strenuously advocated by modern Theosophists, is at least thinkable and to many minds is highly credible; but the attempted enforcement of an unthinkable dogma of physical resuscitation can only meet with total rejection at the hands of thinking clergymen as well as laymen. Nothing can be more disastrous to the cause of true religion than any endeavor to bolster up incredible assertions in religion’s name, and this the wiser among church people are now beginning to see quite clearly. Even if the physical resurrection of Jesus was completely proved, it would throw no light whatever on the question of the raising of ordinary human bodies at the “last great day,” and that for two very significant reasons: 1st,—that Jesus is reported to have been in the tomb only forty hours and his body did not see corruption—this is insisted upon by orthodox Christian theologians; 2d—that it is expressly taught by the same expositors that he was not born in the ordinary way; therefore so exceptional a body raised under such exceptional circumstances could offer no proof of the resurrection of ordinary bodies which have already seen corruption.

Physiologists of the old school are wont to claim that the physique changes completely every seven years, and the celebrated French astronomer Camille Flammarion said long ago in his well known treatise “Dieu dans la Nature” that a physical organism can be completely reconstructed by natural physiological processes in less than one year, some parts of the structure changing within thirty days and other portions at different intervals, never extending to much over eleven months. If Marie Corelli's statements in “A Romance of Two Worlds” are to be credited, there is an electric germ at the centre of every organism around which the body is formed and which escapes at the time of physical dissolution, though it never dies. This “germ” may be identical with the “permanent atom” vouched for by many Theosophists who are reincarnationists; and this may be the nucleus of the new body which is to rise at the close of a cycle. The writer heard a very similar idea broached by English clergymen many years ago who, when seeking to expound the creedal phrase “I believe in the resurrection of the body,” said that there is undoubtedly some germ at the centre of the organism which never dies and which constitutes the foundation of the “resurrection body.” With such doctrines we have no dispute, but they bear no resemblance to the crude fancies of the poet Young, who, when describing the resurrection, uses such grotesque expressions that much of his poetry is often looked upon as satire by thoughtful readers. Take the glowing imagery of Ezekiel 37 in which we can easily detect the prophetic view of the resurrection entertained in ancient Israel. A vision is described, in which description glowing metaphor is introduced. The whole House of Israel is represented under the figure of dry bones in a valley, to which the prophet effectually appeals, urging them in the name of the Most High to come forth “out of their graves,”—a purely symbolical expression, the significance of which is transparent, for the vision is interpreted in the very chapter in which it is described.

It would be quite as reasonable to interpret Peter's vision described in Acts 10 literally as to insist that people blind and stupid enough to see nothing grander in Peter's vision at Joppa than permission to eat pork and shellfish and other table "delicacies" forbidden by the Mosaic Law. Peter's vision, however, is explained and applied in the chapter which narrates it, wherein it is shown to teach a valuable and still greatly-needed lesson in universal brotherhood.

The terms death and dead, as well as raised and resurrection, are used frequently in Paul's epistles in a mystical or esoteric, and at the same time truly practical, sense. For example, people are described as "dead unto sin" and "raised to righteousness." Paul himself "dies" daily, and exhortations are given to those who are already "risen with Christ" to walk worthy of the high vocation to which they have been called.

Much salutary spiritual and ethical teaching can be gathered from all such expressions, and we are fully justified in making use of them, but they teach a far different doctrine than the irrational and carnal views which have been foisted upon the world by a secularized church in periods of degeneracy.

As to communion with the spirit-world there seems no doubt on one point, viz., that it was on no other basis than that of conscious spirit-communion that the Christian Church was originally based. Not hearsay evidence, but actual living proof of intercourse with at least one who had actually passed through death and demonstrated immortality. "Because I live ye shall live also"; "I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive forevermore." These and many other passages of similar import may be cited to show that individual immortality conclusively demonstrated was the corner-stone of early Christianity.

In an elaborate work by Crowell, "The Identity of Primitive Christianity with Modern Spiritualism," an enormous array of proofs are marshaled to sustain this proposition; and similar facts are arrayed in an equally conclusive manner in the writings of S. C. Hall and many other cultivated and brilliant writers of the nineteenth century, who did not hesitate to show that only a spiritualistic view of the New Testament explained its reasonableness.

The many instances of spiritual manifestations recorded in the gospels cannot reasonably be explained away unless we are prepared to deny that the so-called "miracles," and many other phenomena, have any other than a purely figurative or subjective meaning; and though such a view may prove acceptable to rationalistic Unitarians, it will always be met with determined opposition by all who seek to uphold traditional Christianity.

Mrs. Besant, in her "Esoteric Christianity," in which she discusses the "Lesser Mysteries," deals largely, but not exclusively, with the symbolic aspects of gospel narratives, and to such a volume many people are now turning who are eager to escape the unsatisfactory alternative which has often been presented, either to endorse the crudest orthodox literalism or else to deny in toto the marvelous tales with which the gospel narratives abound. When Strauss published the first edition of his "Life of Jesus" while a very young man, he satisfied some of his skeptical colleagues, and gave much delight to many people outside of Germany as well as within its borders, by insisting upon an altogether mythical view of the alleged miraculous, but so feeble an interpretation of the origin of several "myths" as Strauss attempted, served to cast serious discredit upon his conclusions, at least among inquiring people who are never likely to rest content with mere dismissal of a difficult problem in an extremely commonplace manner. No better illustration of the defect of Strauss’ method can be given than its attempted explanation of the tradition that Jesus walked on the water by deciding that he simply walked on the seashore and from that trivial circumstance,— which could have excited no reasonable wonder, seeing that to walk by the sea is a familiar every-day occurrence,— there arose the legend that Jesus was seen by his disciples walking on the waves. Credulity is heavily taxed to accept so far-fetched a solution, because it is well known that mythical stories are built upon unusual and surprising events which appeal strongly to imagination and for which no scientific explanation has yet been offered; and so simple a fact as a man walking by the sea is utterly inadequate to set a wonderful story floating, as the circumstance is so common that no one would think twice about it seeing that there is no mystery connected with it requiring any explanation whatever.

Far easier is it to credit the romantic theory of Renan than the skeptical theory of Strauss, though Renan’s portrait of Jesus is at times so weak as to fall far below the necessary heroic standard. That Jesus stands at least for a Master, and was so regarded at the beginning of the Christian era is a fact beyond reasonable dispute, despite the fact that Dupuis, Gerald Massey, and many other distinguished authors, in their determined endeavors to prove Christianity identical with a far older Solar Cultus, have sought to disprove utterly all historical foundation for the gospels. The three gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark and Luke, commonly styled Synoptic, undoubtedly record historic incidents, so does the mystical Fourth Gospel, though in less pronounced degree; for, unlike its predecessors in the Canon, it commences with a Gnostic dissertation concerning the Logos which Theosophists declare "ensouls" the universe.

In John 14 we have a striking illustration of the continuity of earlier teachings, when the Master says to his disciples "In my Father's house are many mansions (abiding places), if it were not so I would have told you." Such language seems perfectly to confirm an already accepted truth but does not serve to enunciate a new doctrine. "Whither I go ye know and the way ye know" may also be fairly taken as another proof of the complete agreement which subsisted between the primitive Christian gnostic teaching and the more ancient teachings with which primitive Christianity was in complete accord, and of which its distinctive doctrine was a continuation.

Many strange allusions to "baptism for the dead" and other ancient rites, found in the epistles of Paul, show to every student that early Christian practices were in many respects identical with pre-Christian customs which had been long established and which were intended to confer advantages alike upon those yet on earth and their departed brethren. In the Apostle's Creed, Jesus is said to have "descended into hell," which is often translated Hades,— the general abode of departed spirits. Here is an unmistakable evidence that when that early creed was compiled no such ideas as a hell of endless torment had entered the Christian mind, for no Saviour would minister among the irrevocably lost.

The early Christian assemblies were meetings of devout and fraternal persons who exercised their various spiritual gifts one by one in open conference, and it was only after some of these meetings had become disorderly and sober discipline had been relaxed, that it was necessary for Paul, as overseer of many federated congregations, to rebuke disorderly practices and insist that all things be conducted “decently and in order.” “The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets” is a clear reference to the orderly exercise of spiritual gifts in an assembly, and surely not even one who seeks, in these days, to attribute all spirit-communion to “evil” influences will be found ready to concede that the faithful, self-denying early Christians who jeopardized their earthly all by fidelity to their convictions and stood ready to shed their blood, if need arose, for the Christian cause, were possessed with devils. Only the rational view of spirit-communion, which we are taking, explains phenomena recorded in the New Testament, and if it come to comparison between ancient and modern marvels and mysteries little difference can be discerned between the two. Wherever we turn for confirmation we find that orderly and disorderly conditions contemporaneously prevail, and it ever has been and still is intensely necessary that we should uphold the former and not let the latter go unreproved.

To understand at all clearly the attitude of the earliest Christian church towards spirit-communion we must never allow ourselves to forget that the first impetus given to the Christian movement was its claim to have demonstrated human immortality in an age and in countries where faith therein had well nigh expired or where doubt was gaining so great a foothold that the path to the hereafter was so deeply veiled in shadow as to make the hour of dissolution one of impenetrable gloom. Jesus brought life and immortality “to light”—such was the early Christian claim, and this he could not have done unless he had willingly surrendered himself to crucifixion when his opponents desired to crucify him. “Have no fear of those who can kill the body, for that is all that they can do” is a text which announces spiritual, not fleshly, immortality in terms of unmistakable lucidity. It was not a physical but a spiritual body which arose and appeared to many and ultimately ceased to manifest on earth except in such rare instances as that of the appearance to Saul of Tarsus at the time of his conversion.

It is absurd to argue that Jesus did not sanction spiritual communion because he told Thomas that it was more blessed to be endowed with spiritual perception than to be dependent upon tangible external demonstrations, for such it ever must be.

The men and women of nineteen centuries ago who were led to embrace Christianity in its pristine period were human beings like ourselves, with deep affections and yearning aspirations such as we are conscious of. Neither in the established Judaism or Paganism of their day did they find the evidences or the consolation which they sought, any more than people find either to-day in a hard institutionalized ecclesiasticism or in a scientific agnosticism which is always its close companion, though seemingly its direct antagonist.

No amount of bewildering speculation can ever satisfy the cravings of human love, for in hours of bereavement people are not seeking to know whether by some vaguely defined alchemistic process they can eventually “cheat the undertaker,” they are striving to receive proof that their beloved friends who have departed are still alive and loving and capable of communing with them still. To the early Christians, who were in constant peril of losing their earthly all, all material things (fleshly bodies included) appeared of very little value. They were in constant danger of underrating rather than of overvaluing the material world and all that it contains. While we cannot find ourselves entirely in accord with all primitive Christian views and practices, any more than we can sympathize entirely with the beliefs and ways of modern Spiritualists, we do affirm that the early Christian religion was founded upon demonstrated individual immortality, and that it taught a progressive continuous life for every human being after dropping the external organism. Mourning for the departed received no sanction in the early Christian church; white robes, not black, were worn on occasions of transition, and at the service of holy communion it was generally believed not only that commemoration of the departed should be made and prayers for their continued progress offered, but also that they were often truly present with their fellow communicants and still took part in the blessings of the united spiritual feast.

Slowly, but surely, is modern Christendom returning to the ancient esoteric faith; one by one clergymen, now branded as heretics by their materialistic and ritualistic confreres, are coming to the front with outspoken declarations which strike the less spiritually-minded but professedly "orthodox" among their brethren with indignation and alarm; but the old fallacy of a fleshly resurrection has to die and it is surely dying, and not slowly, that in its place may rise a spiritual conception of immortality in which science and religion can unite their wedded hands. The following utterance from a distinguished English clergyman is amply sufficient to show the drift of modern religious thought, back to primitive spiritual conceptions and forward to new and nobler definitions of life and its endless continuity. We offer no comment, we agree so perfectly with the quoted words that we prefer to leave them without addition of our own to make their salutary influence felt upon every attentive reader’s mind. The author of the following quotation is the Rev. Forbes Phillips, vicar of Gorleston, who has dramatized Guy Thorne’s popular book, “When it was Dark.”

“For my own part I declare plainly as a high church clergyman, who indeed wears vestments and lights candles on the altar, that I do not consider it an article of Christian faith that his body did rise from the tomb. On the contrary, I believe it did not. I believe if we were to make careful exploration in Palestine to-day we might actually come across the sacred tomb and discover within it the precious body of our Lord; or, at all events, dim remains of it as it was hidden away by Joseph of Arimathea.

“Christ rose in spirit. It was the spirit that appeared to the disciples so constantly after the crucifixion. It was a spirit that ascended into heaven, and it is a glorious spirit that appears and has appeared during the long centuries to thousands of wearied Christians here on earth.”