The Spiritualist newspaper > No.186, March 17th 1876

tl fiji tl nub tl
VojLUjviE Eiqht. Kumber Eleye^.
LONDON, FRIDAY,
VARYING CHARACTERISTICS OF SPIRIT INFLUENCE.
The aggregate experience of Spiritualists of long standing
tends more and more to prove that the higher the moral and
intellectual nature of the departed spirit, the less mechanical
power has he over matter, hence healing and high-class
inspirational mediumship are rarely found allied to strong
physical manifestations. Dr. Newton, Mr. Ashman, Mrs.
Tappan, Mrs. Hardinge, Mr. Morse, Mr. A. J. Davis, and
Mr. T. L. Harris are not noted as physical mediums, though
some of them have a very little power in that direction. As
the power and influence of the teacher and reformer depart,
so do the wonderful and most useful phenomena of physical
mediumship step in, combined, however, with not a little
untruth and deception, coming chiefly from the spirits them¬
selves, and more rarely from the sensitives under their rule.
Perhaps it is wise and good, in the economy of nature,
that this should be the case, despite the temporary troubles
incidental to the gathering of experience, which it will fling
upon the Spiritual movement in its early stages. If mate¬
rialists, inside as well as outside the movement, demand that
spirits shall do the animal work of dragging solid objects to
and fro, is it not well that spirits of a more animal nature
than the rest shall have most power to do such work, and
that the shades of departed savages or of the lowest types
of humanity, shall find a useful sphere of operation in the
establishment of communication between this world and the
next ? The subsequent moral effect is good both upon the
spirit and upon the inquirer. The latter, satisfied that the
facts are unquestionable, gradually becomes dissatisfied with
the untruth and deception so largely connected with the
marvels; he learns that “ miracles,” as they have been
erroneously called, will not reform the heart of man, offer
nothing to satisfy the religious requirements of his nature;
the physical facts, therefore, have done their work with him;
they have given him palpable and scientific proof of the
reality of a world beyond the grave: this point being at¬
tained, he has to leave them in search of something higher.
The spirits are likewise benefited. Their former friend, who
received their manifestations with so much delight, gradually
becomes cool to them ; as they like popularity, and to please
their friends, this change is not at all to their taste; and,
seeing that it is produced by their own low moral and religious
state, they are obliged to begin to think seriously over their
own shortcomings, and to begin, in some cases, perhaps,
the slow and arduous work of self-improvement.
SPIRITUALISM IN THE UNITED STATES.
In the course of a letter recently received by us, Mr. Epes
Sargent, of Boston, says:—
We have every reason to be satisfied with the marked
progress which Spiritualism has made at the opening of the
year 1876. The hostile newspapers begin to find that the
cries of exultation which followed the retractation by Mr.
Owen of his enthusiastic endorsement of the Katie King
phenomena through Mrs. Holmes were premature. The
materialisation phenomena have multiplied, and the con¬
firmation of their genuineness is becoming too strong for
science to resist it much longer. Two Boston mediums—
Mrs. Seaver and Mrs. Boothby—frequently denounced as
impostors, are keeping the even tenor of their way, and
giving such proofs of genuine materialisation phenomena
that a strong reaction in public opinion respecting them has
already set in. The rifle test in St. Louis has not yet been
explained away, nor has its force been diminished ; and on
C/hristmas-day, at Cincinnati, there was such a confirmation
of the reality of spirit photography as will long be memor¬
able in our annals. For some months Mr. Jay J. Hartman
MARCH 17th, 1876.
i has been practising as a spirit photographer, and there has
i been the usual amount of denunciation from sceptics, and of
! serious testimony in his favour from investigators who have
I tested his powers. A few weeks since a neighbour of mine
! (Mr. A. E. Giles) a retired lawyer, and an experienced student
i of the phenomena, called on me and exhibited a photograph
j of a deceased son of his which he had got through Hartman.
11 Mr. Giles, a total stranger, visited the photographer, and,
i | under most satisfactory conditions, got this remarkable pic-
11 ture. He showed me a photograph taken some years since,
) | of his living boy, and the resemblance to the spirit photo-
y graph was such as to justify him fully in his belief that it
< i was, indeed, his son who had manifested himself.
j! THE MESMERIC INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUALS.
I The Bev. Thomas Colley, Curate of Portsmouth, in a
; I recent sermon, enunciated the following advanced and philo-
I! sophical views
| j When the dust returns to the earth as it was, when our
* j last suit of clothes is worn out, and nature will not replenish
I i our wardrobe, and the spirit is out at elbows,—when, gap-
II toothed, wrinkled, lean, and threadbare, the body has out-
11 lived the fashions of the rejuvenescing soul; then, when the
11 dust returns to the earth as it was, the spirit shall return to
I God who gave it. It came from God, and therefore partakes
j | of His nature. For no gift can be received but that we take
11 part of the giver therewith; and no gift can we give, but
(j that we part with somewhat of ourselves. Your aura, vital
ll force, or what not,—the waste matter you constantly evolve
| from your ever-changing physical structure,—is incessantly
(| writing your history, leaving a record of you on everything
11 you touch. For, like the track of a falling star or fiery
i | meteor, the path of your influence may be traced wherever
] | you go ; and seen is this agent imponderable, fluid intan-
| gible, element transcendental, in whatever you handle, own,
) I or possess. A spider’s film of gossamer couples us to a
| i myriad points of contact with the world. Hence, wherever
| j you have been, or whatever you have laid hands on, or seen,
II is wired to your soul-consciousness, and memory can flash a
(j telegram along these fibres of experience, this meshing net-
| work of nerve-influence, the brain; and the mind, in
) | retrospect, thus lives o’er its old sensations once again.
11 You lose part of yourself as you walk; you lose part of
11 yourself as you talk; you give part of yourself as you give,
j or pass the gifts of another to your neighbour. You offer
11 the stranger sitting next to you a hymn-book; part of
11 yourself goes with it; a potent subtle “ something ” that
11 the higher mathematics of superior beings might build their
s | problems on; a viewless, volatile something that the chemistry
11 of the higher life might analyse, gauge, weigh, and bottle
II up in Leyden jars for lecture-room experiments with the
|| youth of celestial spheres. A “ something,” for we know
III not what it is, that the old masters had perception of when
jlj they painted the nimbus, or glory, round the heads of
||| Christ and His Apostles. A something which is part of
I (\ yourself, and which, for the want of better terms, we call
|; i your influence (which is the Latin veil that hides the recon-
jlj dite truth expressed in native Saxon as your outflowing
m aura, or sphere-surrounding of spirit), which quickens with
|| | your life, and endues with your nature, for a time, whatever
I v I you come in contact with or touch. This is the philosophy
If| of episcopal ordination, confirmation, benediction, and the
[| ancient laying on of hands. ’Tis part of yourself you part
ijj with in these symbolic actions, and the social courtesies of
I I life, and the hearty grip of hand to hand in friends long
| | absent greeting. ’Tis part of yourself you lose ; for you lose
11] yourself ever, continually, every day, every hour, every