The Spiritualist newspaper > No.312, August 16th 1878

Aug. 16, 1878.
THE SPIRITUALIST.
81
“ Onward—onward rushed his comrades
"With a wild, defiant cry,
As they charged upon the foeman,
Leaving him alone to die.
Faint he murmured, ‘ O my mother!
Angel mother! art thou near ?’
And he caught the whispered answer,
‘ Darling Willie, I am here!
“ (0 my loved one ! my true-hearted!
Soon your anguish will be o’er,
Then, in heaven’s eternal sunshine,
We shall dwell for evermore.’
Swiftly o’er his pallid features
Gleams of heavenly brightness passed,
And my Willie’s noble spirit
Met me face to face at last.
“In a soldier’s grave they laid him
Underneath the sheltering pines,
Where the breezes made sweet music
Through the gently swaying vines.
Now in heaven our souls united
All their aspirations blend,
And my spirit’s holy mission
Thus hath found a joyful end.”
Through our lives’ mysterious changes,
Through the sorrow-haunted years.
Runs a law of Compensation
For our sufferings and our tears;
And the soul which reasons rightly
All its sad complaining stills,
Till it gains that calm condition
Where it wishes not, nor wills.
THE LINES OF DEMARCATION BETWEEN OCCULTISM
AND SPIRITUALISM.
BY EMMA HABDISTOE BEITTEN.
At what exact point of time in this onward rushing age of ours the
word “ Occultism ” first began to be bruited about by the tongue of
rumour, I am unable to say. To what particular circumstance, place,
or person, the word in question owes its widespread notoriety, I am
equally at a loss to determine. All I do know is, that it is used as a
weapon of offence by one class of Spiritualists against another, and
certain ill-defined meanings have been attached to it by the attacking
party, the sum of which implies that Occultism is the foe of Spirit¬
ualism, and that the chief end and aim of the Occultist’s faith is to
level deadly blows against that of the Spiritualist. Having been
classified—by a certain portion of the belligerent Spiritualists—amongst
the enemy’s ranks, and deeming it rather hard to spend my lifetime
and all I am and have in the defence of a cause which seems to rejoice
in no line of conduct more than the suicidal act of slaying its best
friends, I shall take advantage of the discussions which I am told are
being carried on in the columns of the English Spiritualist, to offer a
few remarks on the position of Occultism and Occultists, as I under¬
stand these terms. Being so far away from the great desideratum of a
regular and frequent mail delivery, and the immense pressure upon my
time being now, as heretofore, too great to permit of my studying
mail matter en masse, I can only touch upon the salient points at issue
from the reports rendered me by others. From these I learn that some
of the English Spiritualists, like many of their compeers in America,
greatly misunderstand the terms they denounce, and fail to realise that
Occultism can only be legitimately rendered, as the science of that
which is hidden—whilst the Occultist is neither more nor less than a
student of hidden things. If there were no mysteries in the universe
yet to be solved, and Spiritualism really covered the whole ground of
the occult or hidden in nature, then would the term Occultism be
meaningless, and the studies it points to be supererogatory. But after
having sat at the feet of my spiritual pastors and masters for twenty
years, and been as patient, faithful, and earnest a student of Spirit¬
ualism as its resources for instruction would allow, I find I have only
just gained that standpoint of knowledge which assures me that the
soul of man lives beyond the grave, and can and does communicate
with mortals, through certain telegraphic signs and signals. As to the
how spirits come, from whence the soul originated, its relations with
matter, its powers, potencies, past, present, and future—all these are
still points of occult knowledge, which I and others humbly crave per¬
mission to investigate, with a little more attention than Spiritualists
are always willing to accord to such very occult subjects ; and for this
purpose I do not confess myself guilty of any want of loyalty to
Spiritualism when I venture to question the opinions of the “ grand old
ancients,” explore the realms of magical art, peer into the crucible of
the alchemist, take a seat now and then on the tripod of the Pythia,
listen to the histories of trolls, dwarfs, fairies, undines, brownies, &c.,
and wonder whether they were any better or worse accredited than the
stories of Katie King and all their family relations ; in a word, I take
the liberty—although I am a Spiritualist—to ask for a little more light
on every subject to-day than I had yesterday, and determine that the
all of spiritual knowledge and light that man has ever enjoyed is no
more to be obtained through the communicants who have as yet mani¬
fested to us in this modern dispensation than it is to be found bound
up between the covers of the Bible. To me the most remarkable
phenomenon in Spiritualism is that Spiritualist who would limit the
sphere of investigation from the bands of Orion to the cabinet of the
Davenport Brothers.
"When the chains of ecclesiastical despotism fell from the neck of
the human soul, as we opened the gates of immortality at the summons
of the first rapping spirit of the nineteenth century, we immediately
enlarged our edition of the Bible—from King James’s version to that
written by the King of kings on the pages of the Universe. And
shall any petty spiritual autocrat denounce me because I turn from the
communications of the immortal “John” and “Katie,” to those of
Plotinus and Pythagoras ? Because I believe, nay know, that my
soul shall survive the shock of death, may I not try to find out where
that soul came from ? Because the spirits of earth are all around me,
and their homes are made manifest, and their spheres have become
palpable, and the demonstrations of their presence peoples the very
air I breathe with a living aura, and makes the atmosphere of my
silent chamber alive with the heart-throbs of an innumerable cloud
of living witnesses, must I thenceforward conclude that there are no
other spirits in the universe than those of humanity ? No other
spheres than those of this “ little dew-drop in space ” earth ? no
existences but those who have once been incarnated in the ever-
changing elements of our materiality? When my all-wise spiritualistic
friends can find the ultimate point of divisibility in the atom, I will
believe human spiritual existence is the ultimate point of density on
the one hand, and attenuation on the other, in the realms of elemental
being.
When they can prove that matter and spirit as we see it combined
in the human structure is all that the realms of atmosphere hold in
solution, I will cease to search below or above man for the origin and
ultimate of his soul’s career. The real truth to my apprehension is
this. Spiritualism is one phase, and one only, of Occultism.
Occultism, as the science of the unseen universe, is only demonstrated
in a very limited degree by Spiritualism. Even as far as we have
proceeded in that glorious and most welcome revelation, the solution
of one mystery only introduces us to the threshold of another, and
upon, aye, and over these thresholds I shall presume to step, in never-
ending search for those more profound solutions to life’s never-ending
problems, that will require the whole realm of existence to solve, the
experiences of every age to illustrate, and the entire areas of space to
explore thoroughly.
As to any present standpoints of belief, which would justify critics
in passing judgment upon us as Occultists, I protest against such pre¬
sumption. I should as soon venture to set up my religious opinions
as a standpoint for the faith of French Reincarnationists, Italian
Catholics, English Trinitarians, American Nothingarians, Hindoo
Buddhists, Chinese Llamaists, &c., &c., all of whom can, and do,
believe in spirit communion, as to allow any journalist to represent the
opinions of Madame Blavatsky, Colonel Olcott, or Emma Hardinge
Britten, as authoritative standards of faith in Occultism. Whatever we
may all and each believe, we make no profession of knowledge
beyond what we can absolutely demonstrate; and as I have ever held
that position, with all due allowance from my spiritualistic associates,
I shall take leave to carry it with me into those broader fields
of investigation which enlarge the borders of Spiritualism into
Occultism.
Occultism then is the all of spiritual things, as modern Spiritualism
proper is a part. Occultists are fearless explorers into the entire
realm of the Occult, instead of being contented to drink only from
such fountains of knowledge as the spirits of our own sphere can open
up to us. Occultism has as yet no standards of knowledge, but very
broad areas of opinion; and I should no more subscribe to the ipse dixit
of an Occultist, unless he could prove his positions upon unim¬
peachable grounds of proof, than I should acknowledge a right from
any Spiritualist to say to my soul, “Thus far shalt thou investi¬
gate, and no farther, and hitherto shall the waves of thy thought be
stayed.”
For my own part, I strongly recommend all Spiritualists to become
Occultists ; that is, to leave the idle and senseless platitudes in which
so many while away a leisure hour, converting Spiritualism into a
mere vehicle of an evening’s entertainment, and seriously set them¬
selves to work to discover the links of causation from which effects
spring ; to trace each spirit up through, as well as from matter, and up
through space into ultimates, as well as into the pleasantries of the
spirit circle.
Where such vast fields of knowledge are to be traversed as spiritual
existence opens up to our gaze, past, present, and future are the only
boundary lines which should limit our field of observation. Where
belief can stretch away to such illimitable heights and depths without
finding any horizon save man’s ignorance, it is an unpardonable sin to
sit cracking jokes with materialised spirits and “ run a-muck” against
every student who attempts to find out from what manufactories the
materialisers derive their materials. ‘ * Wide as the universe ” should
be the field of our research; free as the air our right to speculate and
draw deductions ; based on eternal principles our enunciation of
doctrinal opinions ; founded on the cornerstone of demonstrable facts
our claims to knowledge.
Courteously exchanging opinions with one another, instead of
belabouring those that differ from us with the old weapons of pre¬
judice and ignorance, this should be our method of research and our
means of growth ; and if we add, standing shoulder to shoulder with
each other in the new field of spiritual research against the legions of
conservatism and materiality, I think I have laid down a better plan
of operations for the advancement of our glorious cause than the idle
and wasteful battle of terms which has so long been going on between
the so-called ranks of Spiritualism and Occultism.—JSarbinger of Light
(Melbourne).