CHAPTER XVIII

SPIRITUAL MEDIUMSHIP—REASONABLE VIEWS OF MEDIUMSHIP CONTRASTED WITH POPULAR FALLACIES CONCERNING IT

MANY readers of current literature dealing with psychic questions in general must be very much confused on account of the bewilderingly divergent views expressed by different writers who attempt to deal with the intricate question of human sensitiveness by recourse to a single strained hypothesis. These discording hypotheses of different theorists are often gravely set forth as final and authoritative, in consequence whereof many superficial readers, who are easily captivated by pretentious claims, commit themselves without any first-hand investigation to whatever theory is set forth by some author whose opinions they chance to favor. Since the publication of Hudson's "Law of Psychic Phenomena" a number of writers and lecturers have arisen who on the basis of Hudson's famous theory of "Two minds" have undertaken to explain away all spiritualistic evidences by calling upon the "subjective mind" to account for everything that could not be explained by trickery. Given a theory which admits of no limitation, and a resolute determination to explain everything by means of it, the way is at once clear for the demolition of every evidence which may be in conflict with it. Hudson has written many good things and his contribution to the literature of modern psychology is decidedly valuable, but his views on Spiritualism often border upon the absurd and they are certainly not endorsed by any truly scientific men who have conducted independent investigations. Hudson’s most ridiculous conclusions, which are certainly not warranted by his original premises, are endorsed by Henry Frank and many other popular speakers who make statements with great enthusiasm in public addresses and through the press which when submitted to impartial examination are found to be so utterly one-sided as to possess very little if any, philosophic value. Suppose we now accept as true the hypothesis of a dual mind, which is by no means unreasonable, even if we use Hudson’s terminology and insist upon “objective” and “subjective” as terms to be universally employed, there is still no solid ground whatever for denying spirit-communion or for speaking adversely concerning mediumship. Hudson’s second popular book in his series of five, is entitled “A Scientific Demonstration of the Future Life.” In that volume he has endeavored to prove that the “subjective mind” is the seat of the telepathic faculty and that its chief field of functioning is in the life beyond death. Accepting this statement at its full value it can lend no support to any denial of spirit-communion for no author has vouched for the facts of telepathy more valiantly than Hudson. Granting that two “subjective minds” are so en rapport that one can communicate intelligibly with the other while both are still associated with “objective minds” prior to physical dissolution, there is no reason for supposing that the same “subjective” communion cannot continue after the “objective mind” in the case of one of the communicating parties has passed away with the demise of the physical body.

Though the word “mediumship” is placed under the ban and treated by many authors who indulge in sweeping assertions as allied with insanity and all manner of pathological and even criminal conditions, a sane consideration of its true nature and real import will enable every rational student of psychology to discriminate without much difficulty between healthy and unhealthy symptoms. We will admit that highly sensitive persons are usually of highstrung nervous temperament and if subjected to unpleasant and unwholesome surroundings they are apt to be afflicted with distempers common to their type, but such an admission only counsels to caution, it never logically leads to condemnation of mediumship in its entirety. If we can sift out the kernels of wheat from the mass of chaff and eliminate the wholesome grain from the enormous growth of tare or cockel which we find in such books as "The Great Psychological Crime," which Henry Frank pronounced authoritative (Banner of Light, Boston, January 13, 1906) we shall find that the basis of all outcry against mediumship is that it exposes the medium to control and coercion from an unseen, and often from an unknown source, and that such submission of one will to another is detrimental to health and character. That there is some degree of reason in such a statement no reasonable person will deny, but we are prepared to entirely refute the insinuation that mediumship is necessarily anything other than a voluntary sensitiveness enabling two or more friends to enjoy communion with each other. Accepting the phenomena of telepathy as legitimate, and neither Hudson nor his followers ever seem to condemn it, it logically follows that simple mediumship involves no more than the practice of telepathy extended into the post-mortem state which, if Hudson's theory be correct, is only the survival of a function of the “subjective mind” which is always involved in every telepathic transaction. It seems impossible for some people to get anything like a clear idea of what the so-called “next” or “future” state of man can be, and because a crude theory is invented, which has no foundation in fact or reason, that some marvelous and inconceivable change occurs at the instant of physical transition, we are either told that it is extremely dangerous or positively wrong to commune with our friends who have left their earthly bodies or else that it is impossible for us to do so. Neither F. W. H. Myers in his monumental work “Human Personality, its Survival of Bodily Death,” Minot J. Savage in his “Life Beyond Death” and “Can Telepathy Explain?” or Professor Hyslop in his “Science and a Future Life” have fallen into any such error, and we advise a careful perusal of the books mentioned on the part of all who desire to read the sober utterances of unprejudiced men of high intellectual ability who have not allowed prejudice to warp their judgment. That a word of caution should be given to excitable and unreflecting dabblers in psychic experimentation we fully admit, but words of caution need to be cautiously uttered and they must be voiced without prejudice if they are to prove salutary. Mediumship intelligently viewed presents two distant phases or aspects which are, in a sense, diametrically opposed, and we suppose it must be with only one of these that opponents of mediumship are acquainted. The objectionable or undesirable aspect of the question borders upon what Dr. J. M. Peebles and many other influential Spiritualists designate “obsession,” which means that one mind is so far under the dominion of another, and that other a very crude or distorted one, that individual mental liberty is impossible until the “obsessing” influence has been removed. Miscellaneous public circles, in which people gather with all sorts of mixed motives and all varieties of moral, mental, and physical conditions, are sources of grave danger to highly sensitive people who are of weak and yielding disposition and have not developed around them a protective aura. We can also conscientiously inveigh against all attempts to exercise any psychic gift or faculty for any other than a noble purpose, and were condemnations of mediumship or mediumistic practices directed solely against pernicious customs we should heartily endorse even an anathema directed against perversions. But we must not permit ourselves to confound the innocent with the vicious, or the helpful with the harmful, though that is exactly what is done by sensational declaimers against mediumship at large. Very much good is often accomplished through clairvoyance and very much more good by means of clairsentience, and oftentimes a spirit-message conveyed through an entranced medium brings comfort to the sorrow-stricken and needed instruction to the perplexed. Home circles properly conducted in a pure atmosphere and where aspirations are noble are productive of excellent results, and it is abundantly shown that mediumship exercised in such surroundings conduces to enlarged health and increased mental and ethical development. The claim has been made that Indian spirits always manifest themselves during early stages of mediumistic development and that this is an evidence that the “subjective mind” is remanifesting some ancestral states, the remains of which are contained with it, and it is further said that this proves retrogression or reversion to some primitive condition. In reply to that stupid and almost foundationless allegation we have but to call attention to the fact that nowhere except in America do Indian spirits usually manifest, unless some American medium travels to another country and introduces her unseen escorts to a foreign audience, and further let it be remembered that a very large percentage of people of American birth are not descended from North American Indians any more than are natives of European countries who rarely, if ever, unearth Indian spirits from their subconsciousness during incipient stages of mediumistic development. Whence then the proof of Atavism? The real distinction which should always be emphasized between a sort of sensitiveness which may be a kind of relic of the past, and a totally different variety which foreglimmers a higher condition for the future, is that the former is always involuntary or sub-volitional, though not invariably harmful, while the latter is always voluntary or volitional. Sensitiveness needs to be regulated and controlled, we should never permit ourselves to be governed by it. It is high time that intelligent Spiritualists take a firm stand on this question, and in view of the immense amount of controversy still waging around the pros and cons of mediumships it ought to be feasible to publish some moderately tempered manual setting forth what is and what is not desirable along the path of mediumship and its development. It seems difficult to reach a happy middle path between two extremes, as most people are influenced by emotion rather than by logic, the work however needs to be done and we must bring to the task of doing it no other spirit than that of utterly impartial open-mindedness. Wherever we witness signs of disease and degeneracy accompanying the exercise of mediumship we should search fearlessly for the cause, but not blindly fling a sweeping accusation against mediumship in its simplicity or entirety because certain aberrant accompaniments are sometimes found attending it.

Had we, as a people at large, less disposition to yield to fashions and submit to customs and conventionalities, no matter how foolish or harmful such may be, we should soon behold a soul-cheering diminution of those abnormalities which do indeed sometimes accompany mediumship, but are in no true sense its legitimate or necessary offspring. Control or coercion may well be warned against, but willing susceptibility to communion with spirit friends and helpers is no sign of degeneracy and constitutes no step in the direction of insanity. Though notes of reasonable warning need often to be raised, warnings must be directed against abuses only; they are senseless and must ever miss their mark when they take the form of wholesale denunciation. Mediumship is good, only its abuse is evil. To the impartial student of the literature of modern Spiritualism, which began to accumulate almost immediately the "Rochester Knockings" created a world-wide sensation in 1845, it must appear that never in any previous period of this planet's history has there been fuller evidence established than was collected and authenticated during the nineteenth century to convince, even the most sceptical among enquirers, that physical dissolution is not the end of our conscious individuality.