The Spiritualist > No.17, January 15th 1871

A F^ECOF^D Of THE PROQREff Of THE fCIEjMCE /ND ETHICS OF fPIfITU/EIfM.
No. 17.—Vol. I.
LONDON: JANUARY 15, 1871. M^Pr^TwJence!"617
THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF SPIRITUALISM IN
ENGLAND.
Last Monday night, at one of the ordinary weekly
Spiritualistic meetings at the Beethoven Rooms, Harley-
street, Cavendish-square, Mr. Benjamin Coleman, the
President, read a paper on Spiritualism in England.
The hall was filled with an overflowing audience, in¬
cluding many literary gentlemen of high standing, and
a fair proportion of scientific men belonging chiefly to
the medical profession. The following is the paper
read by the President:—
THE LITERATURE OE SPIRITUALISM.
I am about to claim your attention to a succinct his¬
tory of “ The Rise and Progress of Spiritualism in
England, with an Account of some of my Personal-Ex¬
periences in the Investigation of the Subject.”
Eirst as to the literature—including the periodical
publications and the books which have been written
and published in England—and then as to the mediums
who have come amongst us from time to time, with a
truthful and unexaggerated account of some of the mani¬
festations which I have witnessed. I shall not hesitate
to give the names of every one known to me who took
part in any of the seances to which I shall refer, trust¬
ing that those who have dealt fairly with the facts
demonstrated, will absolve me from further reticence,
and not caring what those, persons think who have not
dealt honestly with the facts which have come under
their notice.
As I am aware that I am addressing myself to an
audience which includes men of high professional and
scientific attainments, I may as well say that I lay no
claim to either. I am a man who has been accustomed
to commercial pursuits, and am therefore not the best
qualified to stand here to enlighten men who are far
my superiors in a literary and scientific point of view.
But I hope I may juitly lay claim to the possession of
plain, practical, common sense, without fanatical bias
of any kind, to a rigid love of truth, and a boldness to
declare my convictions in the face of the world, hqw-
ever unpopular they may be; and as I have made
many converts during the last fifteen years, to these
qualities may be attributed whatever success may have
attended my advocacy of the great truth of Spiri¬
tualism.
The Yorkshire Spiritual Telegraph was the first
monthly, which shortly after changed its name to The
British Spiritual Telegraph, edited by W. B. Morrell, of
Keighley, Yorkshire, and was continued from 1857—for
two years—to 1859.
The Spiritual Herald was the second monthly. This
was ably edited by the late Mr. James Smith, brother
to Dr. Angus Smith, the well-known chemist. The
Herald was also commenced 1857, and ended after an
existence of six months only.
The Spiritual Magazine was started in 1860. It
has been from the first under the able guidance of Mr.
William M. Wilkinson and Mr. Thomas Shorter. The
Spiritual Magazine proclaims its views in the following
motto:—
“Spiritualism is based on the cardinal fact of spirit com¬
munion and influx ; it is the effort to discover all truth relating
to man’s Spiritual nature, capacities, relations, duties, wel¬
fare, and destiny; and its application to a regenerate life.
It recognises a continuous Divine inspiration in man ; it aims
through a careful reverent study of facts, at a knowledge of
the laws and principles which govern the occult forces of the
universe ; of the relations of spirit to matter, and of man to
God and the Spiritual world. It is thus catholic and progres¬
sive, leading to true religion as at one with the highest
philosophy.”
The Spiritual Times, a weekly, was started in
London in 1864, and ceased in 1866. It was edited by
Mr. J. H. Powell. Daybreak, also a weekly, was first
published in Manchester, 1867, and edited by the
Rev. Page Hopps. It subsequently changed hands and
'title. It is now published and edited by Mr. James
Burns, under the title of The Medium and Daybreak.
Human Nature, a monthly, commenced in 1867, and is
now entering upon its fifth year. This is also edited
by Mr. James Burns. The Spiritualist, published on
the 15th of each month, very carefully edited by Mr.
W. H. Harrison, was started in 1869, and promises to
ibe in every way worthy of the cause. Mr. Harrison
has also commenced a smaller paper, published on the
1st of each month, called The Spiritual News; and
lastly, the Rev. E. Rowland Young, an able Dissenting
minister, has just published the first number of a
monthly, entitled The Christian Spiritualist.
These, I believe, comprise the whole of the periodical
journals which have been published in England to
advocate the cause of Spiritualism.
The works, which have been written by English men
and women, and published in London, are much more
numerous.
The first—and I think before the advent of Spiritual¬
ism in America, twenty-two years ago—were The Night
Side of Nature, and a translation of Dr. Kerner’s
Seeress of Prevorst, by Mrs. Catherine Crowe, both of
remarkable merit, and highly interesting; and in 1859
Mrs. Crowe, after full conviction of the reality and
spiritual origin of the modern manifestations, wrote a
clever little book, entitled Spiritualism, and the Age we
Live in, in which she thus addresses Lhe scientific
world:—
‘ ‘ While I assert these things, I have no' expectation of being
believed; because if I were I should be the first person that
ever received such a distinction as to be believed when he de¬
clared he had seen or heard a fact not recognised by science ;
science being an irresponsible power that absolutely re¬
jects all evidence not according with her own views and
experience. I am aware that science is generally right; but
she is not infallible. She has made mistakes in her lifetime ;
and she may rely on it she never made one more signal, nor
more fatal, to her pre-eminence, than that she has made in i
denying, instead of investigating, the phenomena called Spiri¬
tual manifestations. She knows it too; there are those 11
could name who earnestly wish they had not been so hasty in
committing themselves, and who see, too late, that there was
a great glory to be won by an early and courageous' adoption,
when they had nothing to retract. Now, it is not so easy ;
nevertheless, it must be done, sooner or later; and the glory
be to him who has the courage and the honesty first to avow
his conversion and conviction.”
lu 1853 Mr. Andrew Leigbton re-published an ex¬
cellent little work, The Modern Spirit Manifestations,
by the Rev. Adin Ballou, one of the earliest converts,
and most intelligent of the American advocates of the
truth of Spiritualism, to which Mr. Leighton wrote an
elaborate and highly interesting preface, reciting his
experiences with a member of his own family.
In 1855-6, Mr. Newton Crosland published A New
Theory of Apparitions; and Mrs. Crosland (Camilla
Toulmin) The Light of the Valley.
Mr. John Rymer, a great sceptic long after his family
were convinced (at whose house Mr. Home staid for
some months), published his experiences through the
mediumship of Mr. Home, which were of a very mar¬
vellous character.
There was published about this time Sights and
Sounds, a very interesting volume, by Mr. Henry Spicer,
a friend, I believe, of Charles Dickens, and a contributor
to Household Words.
The Natural and Supernatural, by Mr. John Jones,
and Christian Spiritualism, by Mr. Wm. Bertolacci,
were also amongst the earliest publications in England.
Then followed several most important contributions
to the book-literature of Spiritualism; namely, The
History of the Supernatural, by Mr. William Howitt,
which clearly proves that phenomena similar to that
which it is so difficult for the learned men of the present
day to believe in, were witnessed and accepted by some
of the most learned men of all past ages.
In his preface Mr. Howitt says—
“ The author of this work intends by the supernatural the
operation of those higher and more recondite laws of God, with
which, being as yet but most imperfectly acquainted, we
either denominate their effects miraculous, or shutting our
eyes firmly, deny their existence altogether. So far from
holding that what are called miracles are interruptions or
violations of the course of nature, he regards them only as the
results of Spiritual laws, which in their occasional action
subdue, suspend, or neutralise the less powerful physical laws,
just as a stronger chemical affinity subdues a weaker one, pro¬
ducing new combinations, but combinations strictly in accord¬
ance with the collective laws of the universe, whether under¬
stood or not yet understood by us. At a time when so many
objections are raised to portions of the Scripture narrative,
which unsettle men’s minds and haunt them with miserable
forebodings, the author has thought it of the highest import¬
ance to bring into a comprehensive view the statements of the
most eminent historians and philosophers of all ages and
nations on the manifestations of those Spiritual agencies
amongst them, which we, for want of further knowledge,
term supernatural.
“So great is the assembled mass of evidence from every age
and people, that we are reduced to this dilemma! either to
reject this universal evidence, by which we inevitably reduce
all history to a gigantic fiction, and destroy every appeal to
its decision on any question whatever, or to accept it, in
which case we find ourselves standing face to face with a
principle of the most authoritative character for the solution
of Spiritual enigmas, and the stemming of the fatal progress
of infidelity.”
Mr. Wm. M. Wilkinson, wbo bas a high professional
standing in this metropolis as a lawyer, and who was
amongst the earliest to proclaim his conviction of the
truth of Spiritualism, published a work called Spirit
Drawings, in which he gives the history of Mrs. Wil¬
kinson’s development as a drawing medium, when—
under direct spirit guidance and control, and without
the least knowledge of the art—she produced a large
series of very beautiful symbolic drawings in water
colours. Mr. Wilkinson is also the author of another
book, entitled The Revival, considered in its Physical,
Psychical, and Religious Aspects. Both books are pro¬
nounced by competent authority as ably and philosophi¬
cally written.
Mr. Wilkinson says—
‘ ‘ Incredulity of a fact, I take it, is that wide-spread weak¬
ness of the human mind, which is observed in men who have
perfected their opinions, and have no room for learning any¬
thing more. A new fact to them is just one above the num¬
ber that is convenient or necessary for them, and had they the
power of creating, or of preventing creation, the inconvenient
fact should not have existed.
“Indeed, if admitted into their completed system, “the
little stranger ” would destroy it altogether, by acting as a
chemical solvent of the fabric.
“ But this is not the mode of the searcher after truth ; and
in determining the important question, which it is intended to
submit for consideration, I would rather forget much that I
have been taught, or find it all unsound, than I would reject
one single circumstance which I know and recognise as a
truth.”
Mr. Thomas Shorter, than whom there has been no
more intelligent and active worker in the cause of
L Spiritualism, brought out first The Confessions of a
Truth Seeker, and subsequently a larger volume
entitled The Two Worlds, which in its advocacy of the
truth of Spiritualism takes its stand upon the Bible;
and containing as it does a mass of most useful infor¬
mation, covers the whole ground, and forms a most
valuable book of reference.' Its tone may be gathered
from the following remarks in the author’s preface :—
“ Christians now-a-days are ashamed, or as they think, too
enlightened, to appeal to the direct evidence of a future life
which the facts of Spiritual manifestations supply ; although
their Bible is the greatest storehouse of Spiritual facts, and
the Christian and every other form of religion are cradled in
them. But though this course is now respectable and fashion¬
able, it should be borne in mind that it is only a fashion—that
general scepticism on this point in the Christian world is of
very recent day, and that it has advanced steadily, and in
parallel line with it has been the advance of material philo¬
sophies, the denial of revelation and of a Spiritual world,
and the gravitation of faith to a vanishing point; until at
length, in the bosom of the Established Church of this
country, we find the attempt made by some of its recognised
and eminent teachers to get rid (as divines and professors
have been doing in Germany) of the supernatural element
altogether. Were the effort successful, we might say with
Law, ‘ Behold! the kingdom of God shut up, and only a
kingdom of Scribes and Pharisees come instead of it.’ Nor
need this state of things surprise us; it is a consistent logical
result of the denial of existent Spiritual agencies.”
Einally, in this category, there is a very clever book.
Prom Matter to Spirit, by Mrs. De Morgan, with an
admirable preface from the able pen of Professor De
Morgan, the eminent mathematician. He says—
“ 1 will not stand committed either for or against the con¬
clusions of this book. I am satisfied by the evidence of some
of the facts narrated ; of some others I have evidence as good
as testimony can give. I am perfectly convinced that I have
both seen and heard in a manner which should make unbelief
impossible, things called Spiritual which cannot be taken by a
rational being to be capable of explanation by imposture,
coincidence, or mistake. So far I feel the ground firm under
me. But when it comes to what is the cause of these pheno¬
mena, Lfind I cannot adopt any explanation which has yet
been suggested. If I were bound to choose among things
which I can conceive, I should say that there is some sort of
action of some combination of will, intellect, and physical
power, which is not that of any of the human beings present.
“But thinking it very likely that the universe may contain
a few agencies, say half-a-million, about which no man knows
anything, I cannot but suspect that a small proportion of these
agencies, say 5,000, may be severally competent to the pro¬
duction of all the phenomena, or may be quite up to the task
among them.
“ The physical explanations which I have seen are easy,
but miserably insufficient; the Spiritual hypothesis is suffi¬
cient, but ponderously difficult.”