The Spiritualist newspaper > No.155, August 13th 1875

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LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 13th, 1875.
Established in 1869.
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“THE SPIRITUALIST” NEWSPAPER:
A Record of the Science and Ethics of Spiritualism.
PUBLISHED WEEKLY, PRICE TWOPENCE.
ESTABLISHED IN 1869.
HE SPIRITUALIST, published weekly, is the oldest
Newspaper connected with the movement in the United Kingdom,
and is the recognised organ of educated Spiritualists in all the English-
speaking countries throughout the Globe; it also has an influential body of
readers on the Continent of Europe.
The Contributors to its pages comprise most of the leading and more
experienced Spiritualists, including many eminent in the ranks of Litera¬
ture, Art, Science, and the Peerage. Among those who have published
their names in connection with their communications in its columns are
Mr. O. F. Varley, O.E., F.R.S.,; Mr. William Crookes, F.R.S., Editor of the
Quarterly Journal of Science (who admits the reality of the phenomena, but
has, up to this date, November, 1874, expressed no opinion as to their
cause); Mr. Alfred R. Wallace, the Naturalist; Prince Emile de Sayn Witt¬
genstein (Wiesbaden); The Countess of Caithness; Mr. H. G. Atkinson,
F.G.S.; Lord Lindsay; the Hon. Robert Dale Owen (New York); Mr. Epes
Sargent (Boston, U.S.); Sir Charles Isham, Bart.; Mrs. Ross-Church,
(Florence Marryat); Mrs. Makdougall Gregory; the Hon. Alexander
Aksakof, Russian Imperial Councillor, and Chevalier of the Order of St.
Stanislas (St. Petersburgh); the Baroness Adelma Vay (Austria); Mr. H
M. Dunphy, Barrister-at-Law; Mr. Stanhope Templeman Speer, M.D.
(Edin.) ; Mr. J. C. Luxmoore; Mr. John E. Purdon, M.B. (India); Mrs.
Honywood; Mr. Benjamin Coleman; Mr. Charles Blackburn; Mr. St.
George W. Stock, B. A. (Oxon); Mr. James Wason: Mr. N. Fabyan Dawe;
Herr Christian Reimers; Mr. Wm. White (author of the Life of Swedenborg);
Mr. J. M. Gully, M.D.; the Rev. C. Maurice Davies, D.D., Author of Unor¬
thodox London-, Mr. S. C. Hall, F.S.A.; Mr. H. D. Jencken, M.R.I., Barris
ter-at-Law; Mr. Algernon Joy; Mr. D. H. Wilson, M.A., LLM.; Mr. C.
Constant (Smyrna); Mrs. F. A. Nosworthy; Mr. William Oxley; Miss
Kislingbury; Miss A. Blackwell (Paris); Mrs. F. Showers; Mr. J. N. T.
Martheze; Mr. J. M. Peebles (United States); Mr. W. Lindesay Richardson,
M D. (Australia); and many other ladies and gentlemen.
The Best Book for Enquirers. 3rd Edition, with Appendix.
HERE ARE THE DEAD ? or, SPIRITUALISM
EXPLAINED. By Fredk. A. Binney. Price 3s.
London Simpkin, Marshall & Co.
THE RELIGIOUS ASPECTS OF SPIRITUALISM.
The religious aspects of Spiritualism may be viewed
by those within the movement from' two different points.
In the first place, there are those who look upon
Spiritualism as a new revelation from on high, who
consider that it opens the gates of the eternal world
so that they can gaze into the land beyond, and who
believe that it establishes free communication with the
spirits of those whom they have loved and lost—as they
once thought—for ever. Those who thus believe are
raised spiritually in consequence of their adoption of
this view, because the hold upon their minds of some of
the more irrational orthodox dogmas is loosened, free¬
dom of thought is encouraged, and altogether they are
the better for the change which Spiritualism has wrought
in their inner nature. The other point of view is that
which may be taken by more trained and critical
minds, who inquire into the subject with a desire that
the views of their more easy thinking brethren may
prove to be correct, but who see that those views do
not meet all cases. Remembering that it is a fact
that several new discoveries in the realms of physical
nature made by men in their normal condition are
brought up every Thursday evening at the Royal
Society, and that every now and then one of these
new discoveries of the laws of God is of such an im¬
portant nature that the whole world is benefited by it
within a very few years, one cannot but be struck by
the circumstance that although professed revelations
from spirits about the physical realms of nature are
often given through unconscious trance mediums, the
statements are frequently not only inaccurate, but the
reverse of truthful. The fact remains that no new dis¬
coveries in physics have been made either by trance or
clairvoyance from the first day that modern Spiritualism
dawned upon the world, whilst three or four discoveries
in the realms of nature are brought up every Thursday
evening at one scientific society alone. The alleged
clairvoyant discovery of Neptune by A. J. Davis will
not bear critical examination, as already proved in the
columns of The Spiritualist. Spiritualism could not
help presenting its own physical phenomena to the
world, but does not unravel the philosophy even of
these to any great extent.
Although in certain instances, as in Mr. Livermore’s
seances with Kate Fox, the personal identity of departed
spirits has been proved in the most convincing manner,
yet good tests of spirit identity, as all experienced
Spiritualists know, are few and far between, especially
those which are attested by reliable and recognised
observers. - In this manner the argument might be
continued and other illustrations drawn from other
branches of Spiritualism, but enough has been said to
prove the point sought to be established by the preseut
argument, namely, that a proportion of unreliability
in spirit-messages is clearly visible to trained minds.
Now remains the question, What religious influence
does Spiritualism exert on the latter order of mind. In