Spiritualism and the New Psychology: An Explanation of Spiritualist Phenomena and Beliefs in Terms of Modern Knowledge — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Spiritualism and the New Psychology: An Explanation of Spiritualist Phenomena and Beliefs in Terms of Modern Knowledge
John Stuart Mill · en
The man broke a forked twig from a bush, and, holding it in the way
described later, was directed down a path leading to a tennis-court.
Along this path no water was known to exist, but the twig rose twice.
Beneath the tennis-court ran a water-pipe which had burst during the
previous winter, and of which the position was known to six at least of
those present. This pipe was located by the man, and he demonstrated it
again and again by walking across it, the twig rising each time. It rose
again when he was directed past a cook-house. Next he was sent along a
path leading from the cook-house to the main building, and the twig rose
several times. He said, 'There is water all along here', and was told
that there was a pipe running along the path. Here I intervened and
asked him to try across one edge of the path, which was about six feet
wide. The twig rose, and, just as on the tennis-court, he walked again
and again across the indicated line, the twig rising every time, though
as a fact the pipe lay on the other side of the path. He explained to us
that God gave 'the gift' to Moses, and that now only one man in ten
thousand received the gift.
When he left I took a twig and showed that I had the gift, or, at least,
that the twig performed in my hands exactly as it had done in his.
'But', said my friends, 'he found the pipe on the tennis-court.' It
mattered nothing that he had found water twice within a few yards where
none was known, or that at least six of the bystanders knew of the
existence of the water-pipe and were ready to show their anticipation as
he approached it and their delight when he located it, nor that he
located the other pipe on the wrong side of the path. The movements of
the twig might be a fraud, his other finds might be failures or guesses,
but his one success was enough for them. Even the Padre, when I said
that the man had the face typical of a mystic, was moved to ask, 'But
may not a mystic have powers of which we know nothing?'
In short, the rising of the twig was produced by the man himself, and
his findings were guesses, aided by ordinary knowledge as to where
water-pipes are to be expected, and more especially aided by the
attitude and expression of the bystanders.
Yet by his manner he showed that he plainly believed in his own powers:
otherwise his reference to the gift of God was simple blasphemy, and he
seemed an earnest man.
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