Glimpses Of The Next State.Pdf - Spiritualists' National Union

11the passive means of bringing consolation to a mourning house, of comforting the bereaved,would be bestowed only upon those who had qualified for it by leading a good life. Nothing of thesort takes place. There are many mediums of good character, but some are rogues. I rememberone excellent American medium who gave me (a perfect stranger to him) some very neat tests, buthe was a rogue. I know a good clairvoyant in this country who cannot speak the whole truth, inher normal state, about anything. Once she was a witness in court, and the Judge said of her: “Asto that Mrs. ------, I do not believe a single word she has said”; and he was right. In the course ofmy investigations I have witnessed most convincing mental and physical manifestations throughpsychics of bad moral character. We find all this in the Bible. Look at the case of Balaam, whowas probably the most celebrated medium in Syria. Called upon to curse Israel, he tried to fraudand could not: the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he blessed them instead. Poetry is adivine gift, yet look at the character of some of the poets. When we go to a telegraph office to senda message, we do not ask the character of the operator or the keyboard. Why, then, expect themediums we make use of for communication with the unseen world should all be instruments ofirreproachable moral character.At present we have not yet discovered what constitutes the medium. We can only say forcertain that it is solely in the presence and near proximity of certain people that phenomena takesplace. These people are usually abnormal, and able to put themselves at will into such a conditionof passivity as to be highly sensitive to any impressions made upon them by spirits incarnate anddiscarnate. There are, of course, many different phases of mediumship; but all I feel sure, willsome day be proved to be subject to the same law. But what is this law? It seems to me that thefollowing may be found to be a working hypothesis until we get a better. Man has two bodies – anatural and a spiritual- well described by that eminent psychic the Apostle Paul: “If there is anatural body, there is also a spiritual body” (1 Cor.xv.44). Both of these bodies he has here now.It is not unreasonable to suppose that, in some people, the spirit body may be loosely connectedwith the natural, and be more free to exercise its functions than in others. Clairvoyance,clairaudience, and clairsentience are functions of the spirit body, and, by training these gifts may bebrought to the front. In the case of the ordinary man or woman the two bodies appear to me to bevery closely bound up together, so to speak; and the ever-present demands of the natural body arealways to the front, the spirit body never. It is ascertained now beyond doubt that a man’s spiritbody can be released from the natural even in life, travel long distances and be seen by mortals.The phenomenon of materialisation, the sudden birth of a simulacrum of the human body and itssudden disappearance, can only be accounted for by supposing that the form we see in the séanceroomderives its materiality from the medium, sitters and constituents of the atmosphere, but thatthe nucleus is the spirit or astral body of the medium, the whole being fashioned to meet thenecessities of the spirit who wishes to occupy it. The spirit body, according to information given tome, is an extract counterpart of the natural, and is the connecting link between us and the nextstate. At physical death it departs to its new home.The spirit body is not necessarily ‘spiritual’ in the religious sense; indeed, very often thecontrary. A medium is simply the most efficient vehicle the spirit can find. Sometimes theattraction is a great supply of animal magnetism, from which the unseen operators draw forstrength to perform their remarkable manifestations. Long since I came to the conclusion thatgenuine and fraudulent phenomena were frequently mixed at a séance, especially promiscuousséances. We may be sure of this: it is easier not to cheat, and false methods are not resorted tountil power fails.Promiscuous séances are a mistake. The circle is generally composed of a number of peoplewho do not know one another. Some come from curiosity; some to try and detect fraud; some, nodoubt, from pure motives. But their vibrations do not mix harmoniously, and the result is a strainupon the medium. The best sitting everywhere have been obtained when five or seven sitters, wellknown to one another, sit with the same psychic once or twice a week for a long time. The cure forfraud is the formation of, say, thirty men and women, bound together by a common desire to learnthe truth. They should engage a medium for their meetings only, and he should receive a fixedsalary. Strangers to the society should not be introduced. It is difficult, I know, to prevent amedium from giving séances outside; but his instant dismissal would be the forfeit. One condition