Hours with the Ghosts or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft: Illustrated Investigations into the Phenomena of Spiritualism and TheosophyEvans, Henry Ridgely
Religion
Hours with the Ghosts or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft: Illustrated Investigations into the Phenomena of Spiritualism and Theosophy
Evans, Henry Ridgely
Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna), 1831-1891; Spiritualism; Theosophy
T. J. Hudson, in his work entitled "A scientific demonstration of the
future life", says: * * "When a psychic transmits a message to his client
containing information which is in his (the psychic's) possession, it can
not reasonably be attributed to the agency of disembodied spirits. * *
When the message contains facts known to some one in his immediate
presence and with whom he is _en rapport_, the agency of spirits of the
dead cannot be presumed. Every investigator will doubtless admit that
sub-conscious memory may enter as a factor in the case, and that the
sub-conscious intelligence--or, to use the favorite terminology employed
by Mr. Myers to designate the subjective mind, the 'sublimal
consciousness'--of the psychic or that of his client may retain and use
facts which the conscious, or objective mind may have entirely forgotten."
But suppose the medium relates facts that were never in the possession of
the sitter, what are we to say then? Considerable controversy has been
waged over this question, and the hypothesis of telepathy is scouted.
Minot J. Savage has come to the conclusion that such cases stretch the
telepathic theory too far; there can be but one plausible explanation--a
communication from a disembodied spirit, operating through the mind of the
medium. For the sake of lucidity, let us take an example: A has a relative
B who dies in a foreign land under peculiar circumstances, _unknown to A_.
A attends a séance of a psychic, C, and the latter relates the
circumstances of B's death. A afterwards investigates the statements of
the medium, and finds them correct. Can telepathy account for C's
knowledge? I think it can. The telepathic communication was recorded in
A's sub-conscious mind, he being _en rapport_ with B. A unconsciously
yields the points recorded in his sub-conscious mind to the psychic, C,
who by reason of his peculiar powers raises them to the level of conscious
thought, and gives them back in the form of a message from the dead.
Case B.
On another occasion, I went with my friend Mr. S. C., of Virginia, to
visit Miss Gaule. Mr. S. C. had a young son who had recently passed the
examination for admission to the U. S. Naval Academy, and the boy had
accompanied his father to Baltimore to interview the military tailors on
the subject of uniforms, etc. Miss Gaule in her semi-trance state made the
following statement: "I see a young man busy with books and papers. He has
successfully passed an examination, and says something about a uniform.
Perhaps he is going to a military college."
Here again we have excellent evidence of the proof of telepathy.
The spelling of names is one of the surprising things in these
experiments. On one occasion my wife had a sitting with Miss Gaule, and
the psychic correctly spelled out the names of Mrs. Evans' brothers--John,
Robert, and Dudley, the latter a family name and rather unusual, and
described the family as living in the West.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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