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ESSAYS 
 
 IN 
 
 OCCULTISM. SPIRITISM. AND 
 DEMONOLOGY 
 
 BY 
 
 DEAN W. R. HARRIS 
 
 Author of "'Days and Nights in the Tropics," 
 
 "By Path and Trail," "Pioneers of the 
 
 Cross in Canada," etc. 
 
 B. HERDER BOOK CO, 
 17 South Broadway, St. Louis, Mo. 
 
 AND 
 
 68, Great Russell St., London, W. C. 
 1919 
 
2V/fl/L OBSTAT 
 
 8ti. Ludovici, die 29, Sept. 1918. 
 
 F. O. Holweck, 
 
 Censor Librorum 
 
 IMPRIMATUR 
 
 Sti. Ludovici, die SO, Sept. 1918. 
 
 <i>Joannes J. Olewnon, 
 Archiepiscopus 
 
 Sti. Ludovici 
 
 Copyright, 1919, 
 
 by 
 
 Joseph Oummersbach 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Printed in V. 8. A. 
 
TO 
 
 VERY REV. ROBERT McBRADY, C.S.B. 
 
 As a slight mark of gratitude for hia 
 
 kindness and of admiration for 
 
 his character and ability 
 
"These Hindoos of Malabar, when asked if, in their land, 
 there were apparitions or phantoms, replied: 'Yes, but we look 
 upon them as evil spirits. We believe them to be the souls of 
 those who committed suicide, or perished by a violent death. 
 Night is their favorite time for appearing. They seduce the 
 weak-minded and the curious and tempt others in a thousand 
 different ways. They aim to do all the injury they can to 
 human beings.' " 
 
 J. Gorres, "La Mystique," Vol. HI, p. 63. 
 
PEEFACE 
 
 As far back as history goes, at all times, in 
 all lands, and among all peoples materializations 
 of spirits have occurred. The spirit manifesta- 
 tions to-day are but a repetition of those which 
 took place in pre-Christian times. 
 
 The war and the publications of Sir Arthur 
 Conan Doyle, Sir Oliver Lodge, W. J. Craw- 
 ford, and Emile Boirac have given to Spiritism 
 a popular vogue and impetus. By a singular 
 coincidence books on Spiritism, published in 
 Germany, France, and Italy have appeared al- 
 most simultaneously with English and Ameri- 
 can publications on this weird subject. Many 
 of these have given a quasi-scientific endorsa- 
 tion to Spiritism, and have contributed ofiScial 
 support to the current belief in the reality of 
 Spiritistic phenomena. 
 
 Catholic students of these phenomena have 
 never doubted their reality. While admitting 
 
 1 
 
Ji PREFACE 
 
 and conceding the impositions, frauds, trickery 
 and deceptions of many professional mediums. 
 Catholic psychologists and theologians, who 
 for nearly two thousand years have investigated 
 the subject, hold that materializations have al- 
 ways taken place and are occurring to-day, and 
 that no theory of fiaud or delusion can account 
 for them. 
 
 Planchette and Ouija board answers and 
 automatic writing are facts of every-day experi- 
 ence, but that these responses, materializations, 
 spirit communications and the like, are mes- 
 sages from the dead, Catholic psychology de- 
 nies. 
 
 Applying the methods of physics to psychic 
 phenomena, Professor Crawford, in his latest 
 work, "The Reality of Psychic Phenomena," 
 believes he has demonstrated not only the 
 actuality and truth of these phenomena, but also 
 the existence of a hitherto unknown manner of 
 manifestation of psychic or spirit energy. 
 
 Conan Doyle, in his book, ' ' The New Revela- 
 tion," asserts that these spirit communications 
 establish a new religion, a "New Revelation," 
 
PREFACE JiJ 
 
 a re-birth of the Christian religion, while Emile 
 Boirac informs us in his "Psychology of the 
 Future" that these phenomena lay the founda- 
 tions of a new psychology, dealing with the ob- 
 scure forces latent in the nature of man. 
 
 These three well-known writers are firm be- 
 lievers in Spiritism and in the possibility of 
 communicating with the souls of the dead. 
 
 Professor Crawford in his brief preface says 
 that he is "personally satisfied that the spirits 
 are the souls of human beings who have passed 
 into the beyond." 
 
 But Catholic psychologists, and many dis- 
 tinguished non-Catholic writers who have 
 studied Spiritism, state that no evidence which 
 would be accepted in any court of law has been 
 given to prove that the spirits responding to 
 human summons are the souls of men and 
 women who at one time lived upon the earth. 
 They contend that the phenomena are produced 
 and controlled by fallen angels, spirits of evil, 
 and that so far from being communications from 
 the dead, they are actually malign manifesta- 
 tions of diabolic force. They also contend that 
 
iy PREFACE 
 
 these phenomena are manifestations of de- 
 moniac spirits with whom the Catholic Church 
 forbids all those who listen to her voice to hold 
 intercourse. 
 
 Mr, J. Godfrey Raupert, who has devoted 
 many years to the study of psychic phenomena, 
 asks in his book, "The Supreme Problem": 
 ' ' Can we reasonably believe that the heretofore 
 relations and friends will avail themselves of 
 means so repulsive and so disastrous as are 
 the spiritistic methods in order to furnish evi- 
 dence to the living that they still survive?" 
 
 The distinguished British scientist Sir "Wil- 
 liam Barrett, writing on Spiritism, says : ' ' For 
 my own part, it seems not improbable that the 
 bulk, if not the whole of the physical mani- 
 festations witnessed in a spiritual seance, are 
 the product of human-like, but not really human, 
 intelligence — good or bad, daimonia they may 
 be — ^which congregate around the medium, as a 
 rule drawn from that particular plane of 
 mental and moral development in the un- 
 seen which corresponds to the mental and 
 moral development of the medium. More- 
 over, if there is any truth in the view suggested 
 
PREFACE Y 
 
 above of a possible source of the purely physical 
 manifestations, it seems to me that the Apostle 
 Paul, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, points to 
 a race of spiritual creatures, similar to those 
 I have described, but of a malignant type, when 
 he speaks of beings not made of flesh and blood 
 inhabiting the air around us and able injuri- 
 ously to affect mankind. Good as well as mis- 
 chievous agencies doubtless exist in the unseen ; 
 this, of course, is equally true if the phenomena 
 are due to those who once lived upon the earth. 
 In any case, granting the existence of a spirit- 
 ual world, it is necessary to be on our guard 
 against the invasion of our will by a lower order 
 of intelligence and morality." 
 
 In harmony with the will and the orders of 
 Almighty God, the Catholic Church not only 
 denounces Spiritism, but also commands her 
 children to abstain from all intercourse and 
 communication with spirits, whether they be of 
 the dead or demoniacal. She condemns also 
 spirit communications because of the frightful 
 results which inevitably follow all sustained 
 Spiritistic practices. And in her denunciations 
 she is supported by influential members of the 
 
Yi PREFACE 
 
 Church of England, clergymen and eminent sci- 
 entists. Members of the Spiritistic cult may 
 protest against the severe condemnation pro- 
 nounced on Spiritism by the Catholic Church; 
 but, with Dr. Raupert we ask them to "Please 
 examine the evidence. Putting theology aside, 
 examine, with an unbiased mind the Spiritistic 
 phenomena. You will quickly become convinced 
 that a transcendental intelligence is certainly 
 manifesting itself through these phenomena, 
 and you will also find that this intelligence is a 
 powerfully evil force." 
 
 Centuries of experience have taught Catholic 
 psychologists and doctors that devotion to Spir- 
 itism has worked ravages upon the minds of 
 weak-willed and impressionable people, and has 
 driven many to suicide and insane asylums. 
 
 Whether these statements and the Catholic 
 view of Spiritism are accepted or rejected, the 
 frightful consequences resulting from communi- 
 cation with transcendental spirits should be 
 plainly understood, and all thoughtful Chris- 
 tians should unite in denouncing the cult of 
 Spiritism and spirit manifestations. 
 
 The Authoe. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAFTEB PAGE 
 
 I Peeliminaey Discoukse 1 
 
 n The Sixth Sense 19 
 
 in The Sense of Orientation 29 
 
 rV Wonders op Bilocation 47 
 
 V BlOORPOREITT 69 
 
 VI Dual Personality 77 
 
 VJ-L Spiritism, Ancient and Modern .... 91 
 
 Vin Spiritism— What Is It? 103 
 
 IX Apparitions 115 
 
 X Demoniacal Possession 135 
 
 XI What op the Dead ? 149 
 
 Xn Spirits op Another World 169 
 
"There are more things, Horatio, in heaven and on 
 earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 
 
 — Hamlet. 
 
 Among the occult sciences I include the cult of 
 Spiritism, and I do not deny that associated with it 
 are fraud, deception and trickery, but can any one 
 believe that scholars like de Mirville and Des Mous- 
 seaux and scientists like Lodge, Flammarion, Barret, 
 Eichet, Wallace, and James, who, after many years of 
 experience with mediums, after patient examination 
 of the cult, and intelligent study of the subject, aban- 
 doned materialism for Spiritism — ^were deceived. 
 
 They have all confessed their absolute belief in the 
 objective reality of spirit phenomena. 
 
 The only ground of dispute between these eminent 
 men and Catholic and Anglican investigators of the 
 cult is the nature of the beings or intelligences which 
 produce the phenomena. 
 
ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM, 
 SPIRITISM, AND DEMONOLOGY 
 
 PKELIMINARY DISCOURSE 
 
 Modem Miracles — Miracles of the Bible — ^Man Sur- 
 rounded by Mysteries — Science and the Grain of Sand — 
 Attraction — ^Luminous Ether — ^Effects of Adam's Fall — 
 Tendency to Torget God — Sphere of the Angels — The 
 "Great Apostasy" — ^Angelie Beings — Statement of Pro- 
 fessor Groves — Professor Tyndall and Sound — Miracles — 
 Saint Paul and Agrippa — ^Defect of Our Spiritual Vision 
 — The Incarnation. 
 
 Before entering upon any disquisition or 
 explanation of miracles or phenomena of the 
 occult sciences, it is well to bear in mind that 
 the wonders and miracles recorded in the lives 
 of the saints and in the annals of ecclesiastical 
 history are not in the same class with, nor so 
 faith-compelling as are the miracles of the New 
 Testament, which serve to confirm our faith in 
 
 1 
 
^ ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 the divinity of Jesus Christ and in the holiness 
 and perpetuity of the religion He established. 
 Apart from the fact that these testamentary 
 signs and miracles are recorded in books writ- 
 ten under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and 
 confirmed by the voice of the Church, it must be 
 remembered that they are included in the de- 
 posit of faith and may only be denied under 
 penalty of incurring the guilt of heresy and 
 committing an act of manifest impiety. All 
 other miracles, no matter how well authenti- 
 cated, rest upon what is termed legal evidence, 
 and the Church leaves us free to accept or re- 
 ject them. This is not saying that, if a miracle 
 is substantiated and approved by rightly con- 
 stituted ecclesiastical authority and we refuse 
 to credit it, we are not incurring a note of rash- 
 ness and mental arrogance. But let us bear in 
 mind this truth. We must believe with the 
 Apostles and the Fathers that the Holy Spirit 
 is the soul of the Church and that, while the 
 Third Person of the Adorable Trinity dwells 
 in and animates the Church, miracles will, 
 for all time, occur as manifestations of the in- 
 
PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE O 
 
 dwelling of the Holy Ghost in the Kingdom 
 on earth of Jesus Christ, and as testimonies of 
 God's love for his children. Let me predicate 
 however that, without faith in God, miracles, 
 signs, wonders and certain "psychic phen- 
 nomena" are impossible of solution, and that, 
 without belief in the inspiration of the Bible, 
 they are difficult to explain. 
 
 We are surrounded by mysteries — ^by mir- 
 acles, by prodigies, by the incomprehensible. 
 In the purely material world the smallest grain 
 of sand defies the powers of the human mind. 
 For six thousand years science has examined 
 it, has turned it to the light, placed it under 
 the microscope, divided and subdivided it; she 
 has tormented it with experiments, wearied it 
 with interminable questions to extract from it 
 some answer touching its intimate composition ; 
 she has asked it with a curiosity that is never 
 satisfied: "Whence came you? After I have 
 divided you, can I divide you again? And will 
 there be stiU something yet to divide when time 
 shall be no more?" So on the rim of the in- 
 finite, science hesitates, stumbles, is bewildered, 
 
4 ESSAYS IN QCCULTISM 
 
 is seized with vertigo, and at last exclaims : "I 
 am as one groping in the dark." So with at- 
 traction, that mysterious and wonderful power 
 of a primal, elemental law or force that no man 
 has ever seen, touched or heard, and which in 
 its silent and mysterious influence surpasses 
 all other known powers. And what do we 
 know of that substance of infinite tenuity, yet of 
 immense elasticity, which permeates all space 
 and every other substance, which cannot be seen 
 or felt or weighed, and whose composition is un- 
 known? So far as we know, it offers no resist- 
 ance to the motion of planetary bodies, yet its 
 existence is made manifest by its property of 
 transmitting chemical rays, light, radiant heat, 
 electricity, and probably some more recondite 
 forms of energy, at fabulous velocity from the 
 remotest parts of the universe, and by means of 
 vibrations, the nature of which, with their 
 astounding frequency and pitch, has been de- 
 termined by mathematicians. The unscientific 
 mind may be disposed to regard its existence 
 as a myth or at most as an abstract conception 
 of the human mind, and yet that great scien- 
 
PRELIMINAKY DISCOURSE O 
 
 tist, Lord Kelvin, has declared that not only 
 does it exist, but it is "the only substance we 
 are confident of in dynamics and that the one 
 thing we are sure of, is the reality and sub- 
 stantiality of this luminous ether." 
 
 How do these myriad bodies of the universe, 
 these silent, insensible bodies, unconsciously 
 sustain that reciprocity of action and reaction 
 which holds them in marvelous equilibrium, and 
 in accord with one another? 
 
 The visible creation is a veil behind which 
 the invisible Creator "worketh hitherto"; a 
 veil which conceals Him from the unbelieving, 
 the impure, the self-sufficient and the proud, 
 and through which the pure of heart alone may 
 see, and even they only as St. Paul saw, "in a 
 glass darkly," though with a promise of a 
 revelation "face to face" when "the day 
 breaks and the shadows fly away." 
 
 The Church explains this darkness of the 
 intellect and weakness of perception when she 
 teUs us that the sin of Adam, our first parent, 
 visited upon the human race "the wound of 
 ignorance by which the intellect has been weak- 
 
6 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 ened, so that it has a difficulty in discerning 
 truth, easily falls into error, and iaclines more 
 to things curious and temporal than to things 
 eternal." The mind of man to-day, as in the 
 time of the Apostles, is "tossed about by every 
 wind of doctrine," so that we are witnesses to 
 the unseemly exhibition of Darwin, Maudsley, 
 Tyndall, and Huxley denying the existence of 
 another world, and Sir Oliver Lodge, Conan 
 Doyle, and Emile Boirac communing with spir- 
 its and proclaiming aloud the immortality of the 
 soul and the right of man to evoke the dead. 
 
 If God has willed, and now wills, to bestow 
 His gifts and mercies in a certain way and on 
 certain persons, have we the right to reject 
 His manifestations and insist, with Naaman 
 the leper, "that He shall come out and put His 
 hand on the place," and reveal to us how it is 
 done? 
 
 There is in fallen human nature a tendency, 
 more or less strong, but present in every in- 
 dividual of our race, to forget God. Man is 
 prone to be the slave of the material and the 
 sensual. He finds it hard to realise his de- 
 
PRELIMINAEY BISCOtTESE I 
 
 pendence, from hour to hour, on the sustain- 
 ing power and loving care of an unseen Father. 
 Underneath him are the Everlasting Arms, but 
 as they are not of flesh and blood, it demands the 
 possession of supernatural faith to perceive 
 them. Faith is not knowledge, it is not a pro- 
 duction of the laboratory, but a supernatural 
 gift which enables us to believe in and, in a 
 sense, to see what is not visible. It is a faculty 
 of the soul which demands constant exercise, 
 else it wiU grow weak and, in time, incapable 
 of seeing even "as in a glass darkly," through 
 a veil of unsubstantial phenomena, into the 
 spiritual kingdom of "Angels, Powers, Prin- 
 cipalities, and Thrones." 
 
 In order, then, to quicken our faith, and to 
 help us to understand that God hath dominion 
 over the living and the dead, to feel our de- 
 pendence on Him for our daily bread, our health 
 and life. He visits us, as in the days of David, 
 with sorrow and affiction, famines, wars, and 
 plagues. Again He maies his presence known 
 through His Angels, or "by the spirits of the 
 just made perfect," or in benignity and tender- 
 
8 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 ness as in apparitions like those of Paray-le- 
 Monial and Lourdes. 
 
 Man in relation to animals, to the spheres of 
 beings which are placed below him, occupies a 
 distinct and, to them, a supernatural position, 
 and to these creatures his actions are miracu- 
 lous, in so far as they cannot understand them. 
 
 Now, have we any authority for believing 
 that there is a sphere, state, or place different 
 from ours, occupied by beings of a subtler es- 
 sence and a higher intelligence than belong to 
 members of the human race? That is to say, 
 that as we on this earth recognize the existence 
 of the three kingdoms — animal, vegetable, and 
 mineral — with their divisions and subdivisions, 
 may there not be, and are there not, in the un- 
 seen world beings of an order superior to ours, 
 endowed with or possessed of attributes, powers 
 and faculties altogether unlike and superior to 
 the endowments of our nature? If this be so, 
 the powers of such beings would be as superior, 
 from our point of vision, and their actions as 
 miraculous, as are our actions from the stand- 
 point of animals or of lower intelligences. 
 
PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE if 
 
 According to revelation, we are surrounded 
 by beings of a supernatural or preternatural 
 order. We are told of the * ' Prince of the power 
 of the air," of "principalities and powers in 
 high places j" that is, in the air above us. We 
 are warned that "our wrestling is not against 
 flesh and blood, but against principalities and 
 powers, against the rulers of the darkness of 
 this world," that is to say, against Satan and 
 his rebel spirits, who are in conspiracy to ruin 
 the human race and to frustrate the purposes 
 of God towards mankind. 
 
 No mind which accepts the inspiration of the 
 Bible may deny the existence and malign in- 
 fluence on human beings of these rebel 
 angels. 
 
 That wonderful Apostle, St. John the divine, 
 informs us by authority of the Holy Ghost that 
 in the "great apostasy" of the angels two-thirds 
 of the heavenly host remained loyal to their 
 Creator and kept their principality. Many of 
 these angelic beings are mentioned in Holy Writ 
 as messengers of God,, obeying His divine will, 
 and are represented as the friends of all human 
 
10 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 beings who do God's will here on earth as they 
 do ia Heaven. 
 
 To these pure spirits are ascribed many of 
 the wonders and operations of nature: — ^the 
 therapeutic or curative effects of certain waters, 
 as in the pool of Bethsaida and the waters of 
 the Jordan when Naaman washed himself in 
 them; the eruption of volcanic fires, as in the 
 devastation of Sodom and the cities of the 
 Plains; the control of thunder and lightning, 
 as on Mount Sinai; the ruling of the winds, as 
 mentioned in the Apocalypse ; the producing of 
 earthquakes, as at the Crucifixion and Resur- 
 rection; the origin, direction, and cessation of 
 pestilential diseases, as in the punishment of 
 David; as messengers of God's mercy, as in 
 the Passover. 
 
 That these angelic beings can make them- 
 selves visible to man we know from the experi- 
 ence of the young Tobias, and need only now 
 refer to Abraham and his spiritual guests, to 
 the angels of the Annunciation, to the liberation 
 of St. Peter from prison and to other innum- 
 erable examples recorded in Holy Writ. The 
 
PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE 11 
 
 control of the elements, and superhuman 
 powers, are attributed in the Old and New 
 Testaments to the ministry of angels. Just as 
 man, withia a limited sphere, can control the 
 elements, and draw the electric fluid from the 
 clouds, or make it the peaceful and instantane- 
 ous medium of conversation with his feUowmen 
 in any part of the earth, so the Angels are rep- 
 resented to us as holding in their hands the 
 secrets of the powers of nature, ready to com- 
 bine and direct them according to the will of 
 ffim whose ministers they are: — now "passing 
 over" the houses of the captive Hebrews and 
 "smiting all the first born of Egypt;" now 
 causing a malarial wind to destroy the hosts of 
 Sennacherib; now "restraining" the plague as 
 it threatened Jerusalem, or unlocking the gyves 
 on the wrists of St. Peter and opening the door 
 of his prison. 
 
 Nor does Science oppose itself to the possi- 
 bility of these occurrences. Science — physical 
 science — does not and cannot prove the existence 
 of angelic beings, for these are outside of and 
 beyond its domain, but it admits the possibility 
 
12 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 of their existence and the actuality of their 
 presence. It concedes that the air around us 
 may be musical with the melody of unearthly 
 voices or the whisperings of evil spirits. Thus 
 the late Dr. Funk tells us: **It is a terribly 
 dangerous mistake to think there are no evil 
 spirits. There are great hosts of them. They 
 come at times without formal invitation of the 
 medium or of the circle and control to the hurt 
 of the members of the circle." And that em- 
 inent scientist, Professor Groves, says in his 
 ' ' Correlation of Physical Forces " : " Myriads 
 of organized beings may exist imperceptible to 
 our vision, even if we were in the midst of 
 them." So with regard to sound. Notes 
 above and below a certain ascertainable pitch 
 are inaudible to the human ear. Professor Tyn- 
 dall in his interesting book on the "Glaciers of 
 the Alps" writes: "Once as I crossed a Swiss 
 mountain in company with a friend, I heard dis- 
 tinctly and for a long time the shrill chirping of 
 innumerable insects, which thronged the adja- 
 cent grass. My friend heard nothing of this: 
 it lay quite beyond his range of hearing. ' ' This 
 
PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE 13 
 
 statement may help us to understand how it is 
 possible for a person like Bemadette of Lourdes 
 to be surrounded by sights and sounds unseen 
 and unheard by others. 
 
 The eyes of the Prophet's servant had to be 
 supernaturally opened before he could see the 
 angels guarding his master, and the vision 
 which was vouchsafed to St. Stephen before his 
 martyrdom was unseen by those around him. 
 In like manner the angelic hymn which broke 
 the silence of the midnight air of our Saviour's 
 nativity was heard only by the shepherds watch- 
 ing their flocks. So the voice which spoke from 
 the clouds at the Baptism of our Lord was 
 heard only by Him and John the Baptist. 
 Though the travelling companions of St. Paul, 
 when on his way to Damascus, heard the sound 
 of the voice which converted him, yet they could 
 distinguish no articulate words. 
 
 Assuming, then, as a hypothesis which science 
 admits to be possible, and which the Church ex- 
 alts into an article of faith, that there exist 
 hosts of angelic creatures, good and evil, there 
 is no violence done to the human mind when it 
 
14 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 is asked to believe that such beings are able 
 to accomplish things and perform acts which 
 to us, with our limited powers, are prodigies 
 or miracles. 
 
 But what is a miracle? A miracle is an effect 
 without a visible or, in the human order, a 
 known, cause. When we know and understand 
 the cause, we no longer regard the effect as a 
 miracle. When we call a miracle a suspension 
 of the law or laws of nature, the expression 
 must be understood, not in its absolute sense, 
 but only as it relates to ourselves. The fire of 
 Nebuchadnezzar's furnace departed not from 
 the common law of burning because it did not 
 consume the three young men, for it destroyed 
 those feeding the fires : the youths were simply 
 placed within the sphere of another law — a 
 law unknown to the spectators and which 
 shielded them against the natural law of com- 
 bustion. 
 
 We also give the name of miracle to a result 
 produced without the intervention of a second- 
 ary cause. For example, the conversion of 
 water into wine by our Blessed Lord at Cana 
 
PRELIMINAEY DISCOXHISE 15 
 
 we call a miracle, but we do not apply the word 
 to wine produced from the grape. In point of 
 fact, however, the one is as much a miracle as 
 the other. He who, at the marriage feast of 
 Cana, converted water into wine, performs as 
 great a miracle yearly before our very eyes, 
 though by a more gradual process. It is only 
 our familiarity with it which prevents us from 
 recognizing its miraculous character. 
 
 The miracles of grace are reflected in the 
 miracles of nature. God is the author of both, 
 and as He is daily performing miracles within 
 the sphere of man's rebellious will, so He is 
 also working them in the passive realm of nat- 
 ural powers, either directly, or through the min- 
 istership of His angels. Day after day He 
 changes water into wine, wine into blood, blood 
 into milk. Surely, then, it is perilous pre- 
 sumption of us, with our meager and frag- 
 mentary knowledge of the laws of nature, and 
 standing as we are in the presence of a thousand 
 miracles, to prescribe limits to the omnipo- 
 tence of our Creator, or to say He cannot cure 
 a helpless paralytic or "command the clouds 
 
16 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 that they rain no rain" without violating a law 
 of nature. "Why should it be thought a thing 
 incredible with you, King, that God should 
 raise the dead?" asked St. Paul of Agrippa. 
 And the Church asks of the Agrippas of our 
 time: "Why should it be thought a thing in- 
 credible that an angel should appear and speak 
 to a soul shrined in an earthly tabernacle, or that 
 God should impart to the waters of — Lourdes, 
 for instance, — medicinal properties, as He did 
 to the pool of Bethsaida?" 
 
 While we here on earth are tabernacled in 
 our bodies, we are altogether in a different 
 sphere and state from angelic or demoniacal 
 beings. When, in God's good time, we are lib- 
 erated from the prison of the body, we shall no 
 longer see "as in a glass darkly." And let me 
 here observe that whatever difiBculties prodi- 
 gies or miracles may present to speculative rea- 
 son, they offer none to the practical faith of a 
 Christian. He knows in whom he believes ; his 
 own experience and the history of the human 
 race enable him to scatter to the winds the 
 theories and suppositions of those much over- 
 
PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE 17 
 
 rated scientists who are forever contradicting 
 themselves. 
 
 In the Incarnation of the Son of God the 
 Christian has a clearer revelation than Science 
 can give him of the ways of onr Heavenly- 
 Father with human souls. With a touch or 
 with a word He commands the forces and laws 
 of nature, and they obey. The blind man by 
 the wayside, the paralytic on his bed, the woman 
 of an accursed race, whose daughter was "griev- 
 ously vexed with a devil," the disciples in jeop- 
 ardy on a stormy sea, the widow weeping by the 
 bier of her only son, the risen Lazarus, will for 
 all time proclaim the omnipotent power of God 
 and His love for and oversight of His children, 
 "yesterday, to-day, and forever." 
 
"Are there not In every community individuals 
 who possess a mysterious power, concerning whose 
 origin, mode of action and limits, we and they are 
 alike in the dark ? I refer to such organic forces as 
 are summed up under the words clairvoyance, sec- 
 ond sight, telepathy and the like. Rational medicine 
 recognizes their existence and while she attributes 
 them to morbid and exceptional influences, confesses 
 her want of more exact knowledge, and refrains from 
 barren theorizing." — "Myths of the New World." — 
 Brinton. 
 
n 
 
 THE SIXTH SENSE 
 
 An Evening with Clever People — The Photograph — The 
 Touch of an Armless Hand and a Spirit Call — Man's 
 Faculties and Senses — Cause of Structural Changes — Ex- 
 amples from Animal Life — Cave Creatures — Birds that 
 Cannot Fly — Rudimentary Organs — Statement of St. 
 Francis Xavier — Decay of Certain Organs. 
 
 When wintering in Mexico, in 1912, I was in- 
 duced to be one of six or eight ladies and gentle- 
 men invited to partake of the hospitality of an 
 Italian gentleman who, with his wife and daugh- 
 ter was staying for the winter in Mexico City. 
 After dinner we all adjourned to the reception 
 room. For nearly two hours we conversed 
 about various matters — second sight, true and 
 false miracles, and the sixth sense. 
 
 They asked me about my visit to Chiapas and 
 my interview with Colomache, the Maya seeress. 
 We began to talk of that Egyptian witchcraft 
 by which the photograph or likeness of a friend 
 
 19 
 
20 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 appears on the palm of a child's hand on the 
 demand of the sorcerer. A lady present in the 
 room observed that an acquaintance of hers, 
 
 Senor , had, when in Cairo, purchased the 
 
 secret of reproduction and had been able to do 
 the thing, but having afterward become a prac- 
 tical Christian, he no longer practiced it. 
 
 A French gentleman, M. Dupotet, who was 
 present with his daughter, a beautiful young 
 girl of seventeen or eighteen, told of a strange 
 experience which happened to him at Teguci- 
 galpa, Honduras, where he went, accompanied 
 by his daughter, to open an agency for a hard- 
 ware firm of which he was senior partner. 
 "My daughter," he said, "occupied at the 
 fonda (hotel) a room which opened into mine. 
 About midnight I awoke suddenly, felt a 
 touch upon my shoulder and heard the words: 
 'Man pere, viens, viens vite — Father come, 
 come quick.' Thinking my child called me, I 
 lighted my lamp and entered her room. 
 She was sleeping soundly, but to my horror, 
 crawling on the sheet that covered her was a 
 hideous white scorpion, the most deadly of its 
 
THE SIXTH SENSE 21 
 
 kind in Central America. Quickly lifting a rug 
 from the floor, I fell upon and smothered it. 
 Unless the voice I heard was the voice of her 
 guardian angel, I can in no way explain the 
 mystery." 
 
 The father of our host remarked in the hear- 
 ing of us all : "I can well believe this happened, 
 for we are surrounded with beings that we know 
 not. A sense is wanting to us, and if but a 
 veil dropped, we might see this room filled with 
 beings who look on us. Besides mysteries of 
 this kind are continually happening, and I be- 
 lieve it from what occurred to myself." He 
 then told of an experience he had when on a 
 himting expedition in the Sierra Madre Moun- 
 tains, with a man and woman who were what 
 he called prevoyants, or "second sight" per- 
 sons who possessed a power of orientation or 
 a sixth sense. From what he told us and from 
 what I heard from others that evening, I am 
 satisfied that the average man, apart from his 
 understanding, has many faculties which place 
 him in intimate relation with his f ellowmen and 
 with beings of another world. He has an in- 
 
22 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 tellect, which, as a rule, is the faculty of know- 
 ing things. He is a creature of sensations, of 
 emotions, and sentiments. He has imagination 
 or a faculty of reproducing in his mind the 
 images of things seen or learned hy any of his 
 senses. He has external sensibility, which is 
 acted upon by his five senses — touch, smell, taste 
 sight, and hearing, — ^which place him in com- 
 munication with the material world. 
 
 The more^ intimately we study animated na- 
 ture, and, in particular, human nature, the more 
 we are persuaded that not only men, but all 
 other creatures have, by force of circumstances, 
 by changes in food, climate, environment, and 
 other conditions experienced in the course of 
 ages many structural alterations. While inher- 
 iting, by a slow process, powers of adaptation, 
 they have lost, through disuse, organs and facul- 
 ties which in the remote past were integral and 
 necessary parts of their being. 
 
 It is of common knowledge that in the dark 
 recesses of underground caves and rivers, 
 where eternal darkness reigns, many wonder- 
 ful creatures exist and perpetuate themselves. 
 
THE SIXTH SENSE 
 
 23 
 
 One of the greatest subterranean vaults in the 
 world is the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. It 
 has been penetrated for thirty miles and is not 
 yet fully explored. Through this cave the Styx 
 Eiver flows in profound darkness, and, in places 
 whose depths cannot be sounded, swims a very 
 peculiar fish, the Cyprinodon, which is blind. 
 It has eyes that see not ; it has lost the sense of 
 sight, but the eyes and sight are not absolutely 
 dead, for the Cyprinodon, when placed in an 
 aquarium and in a mild light, recovers after two 
 generations its power of distinguishing ob- 
 jects. 
 
 In the subterranean rivers flowing through 
 the cavernous Alps of Carniola live strange 
 fish and singular creatures entirely blind. 
 Among these is the Proteus, a peculiar lizard- 
 shaped creature provided with lungs and gills, 
 which seems to combine all the attributes of an 
 amphibious animal. In some of the crabs the 
 eye sockets remain, though the eyes are gone. 
 It is as if the tripod-stand of a transit was 
 found with the transit missing. As it is diflScult 
 to understand that eyes, though useless, could 
 
24 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 be of any assistance to fish, bird, or insect liv- 
 ing in perpetual darkness, the loss of sight must 
 be attributed to disuse. The cave-rat captured 
 by Professor Silman in Guiana, was totally 
 blind, but after living for a month in graduated 
 light, it acquired a dim perception of objects. 
 
 There is no greater anomaly in nature than 
 a bird that cannot fly, yet there are many such, 
 e. g., the logger-headed duck of Venezuela, the 
 Emu and the ostrich. In time the domestic 
 hen, goose, and duck will no doubt entirely lose 
 the power of flying. Long disuse will weaken 
 their pinions. "None of our domestic animals 
 can be named," writes Geoffroy Hilaire in his 
 "Laws of Variations," "but has suffered a di- 
 minution of hearing, seeing, and. smelling, and 
 this is due to these animals being seldom much 
 alarmed." 
 
 Structurally, men and animals have not 
 changed in four thousand years. The men and 
 animals embalmed or figured on the monuments 
 of ancient Egypt, are identical with those now 
 living. But the rudimentary organs now be- 
 longing to both orders, and which in remote ages 
 
THE SIXTH SENSE 25 
 
 were developed and served a useful purpose, 
 imply that in prehistoric times animals, and 
 possibly men, were anatomically different from 
 their existing descendants. The structural 
 changes wrought by time are due largely to 
 altered cUmatic conditions, to change of food, 
 and to the disuse of the organs themselves. 
 
 Darwin, in his "Origin of Species," assures 
 us that the boa constrictor retains rudimentary 
 marks of a pelvis and of hind legs, and that 
 the manatee (sea-cow) has rudimentary nails. 
 
 It would be difficult to name one of the higher 
 animals in which some organ is not in a rudi- 
 mentary condition. "What can be more curious 
 than teeth in foetal whales, which, when grown 
 up, have not a tooth in their heads. Again, in 
 nearly all mammalia, the males have rudi- 
 mentary mammaB (teats). Eudimentary or- 
 gans in some males still retain their potential- 
 ity. This occasionally happens with the 
 breasts and mammae of male animals which 
 are well developed and secrete milk, as in the 
 examples recorded by Von Humboldt and St. 
 Francis Xavier, and may account for the origin 
 
26 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 of the Couvade among certain primitive tribes 
 in China, Brazil, Guiana, and Madras.^ 
 
 Von HiHnboldt, in the third volume of his 
 "Voyage aux Regions Equinoxiales du Nouveau 
 Continent," says he saw, and verified his seeing 
 by contact, a man in the Indian village of Par- 
 ana, Columbia, S. A., suckling a three-months' 
 old baby. In a letter written by St. Francis 
 Xavier in October, 1547, to the members of his 
 Society at Rome, he states: "In this Island 
 of Amboyna (Malay Archipelago) I have seen 
 what no one would believe, and what has been 
 unheard of till now ; so perhaps it will be worth 
 while to tell you. I saw a he-goat giving suck 
 to his kids with his own milk. He had but one 
 breast, which gave every day as much milk as 
 would fill a basin. I saw it with my own eyes, 
 for I would not believe it without seeing it. " ^ 
 
 iWhen a man's wife was confined for the first time, he 
 went to bed for three weeks. His only food during these 
 weeks was a small allowance of water and cassava. When his 
 fast and lying-in was completed, his breast and back were 
 scarred with the teeth of the accouri. This practice among 
 the Arowaks and Caribs of Venezuela deceived the early 
 Spanish adventurers, who reported in Madrid that in the dis- 
 covered countries the men, and not the women, were confined. 
 
 2 Coleridge's " Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier." Vol. 
 I, p. 382. 
 
THE SIXTH SENSE 
 
 27 
 
 In the udder of a cow there are four developed 
 and two rudimentary teats, but the latter in 
 some of our domestic cows become well devel- 
 oped and give milk. How may we account for 
 the sterility of these teats in nearly all cows 
 except through disuse? Without doubt disuse 
 has been the main agent in rendering organs 
 rudimentary. These atrophied organs are wit- 
 nesses to what the animal, or individual, was in 
 other ages. They may be compared with let- 
 ters which are retained in the spelling of a word, 
 and, though of no use in pronunciation, they 
 give us a clue to the derivation of the word it- 
 self. 
 
 Since there can be no doubt that in animals 
 certain organs have been atrophied through 
 disuse, may there not be in animals and men 
 latent spiritual, psychic, or atavistic powers 
 which have, through disuse or under altered 
 conditions of life, almost disappeared? We 
 know that the sense of fear or caution has al- 
 most disappeared in our domestic animals and 
 that all of their physical senses have become im- 
 paired. 
 
On the day of our rescue there was something very 
 strange about the dog, which possibly students of 
 animal psychology may be able to explain. He always 
 used to share the bed of one of the men, and would 
 remain quiet until the usual hour of rising. But on 
 this particular morning, quite contrary to custom, he 
 became so restless at about six o'clock that the cook, 
 already at work, could not keep him indoors, but had 
 to let him out. Lying awake, I heard the cook ex- 
 claim: "What the dickens is the matter with the 
 dog?" "Beef" was running about on the sands ap- 
 parently mad with joy, barking and playing in a most 
 unusual manner. 
 
 Now, this question arises: Had the dog any pre- 
 sentiment of the coming event of the day ? Is it pos- 
 sible the dog's instinct was so sensitive that he could 
 hear, feel, or smell the approach of the steamer, which 
 did not reach the island till one o'clock? We are all 
 willing to admit, I dare say, that nature has still 
 many secrets hidden from us, so although the be- 
 haviour of the dog may only be a strange coincidence, 
 I simply relate the fact, leaving the explanation to 
 others. — H. T. Bull, captain of the shipwrecked Cath- 
 arine. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE SENSE OF ORIENTATION 
 
 Animals and Their Senses — Do Animals and Insects Pos- 
 sess a Sixth Sense? — Experiments of Professor Tabre 
 — The Wasps and Cylinders — The Striped Seal — Journey 
 of a Cat — The Muskrat — Wisdom of Rodents — Opinion of 
 Von Hartmann — Intuition — Goethe's Statement — Opinion 
 of Professor Wallace — ^Unsolved Problems — Declarations of 
 Dr. Johnson — ^And of Ferdinand Verre — Clairvoyance of 
 the Shaman — Possible Solution. 
 
 Man, in the order of creation, represents the 
 completion and perfection of the animal king- 
 dom. At an early period in his existence his 
 five senses were possibly more highly devel- 
 oped than those of animals. In addition to the 
 possession of these senses he was endowed with 
 other faculties which to-day belong to mem- 
 bers of the lower animal kingdom. As certain 
 wild animals can foresee and make provision 
 for changes in weather, coming storms, and 
 
 29 
 
30 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 severe winters, and moreover have a sense df 
 orientation, may not man also, in early ages, 
 have been dowered with similar faculties which 
 have become atrophied through disuse? If 
 animals, even to-day, possess a sense of direc- 
 tion or orientation, may it not be assumed! that 
 primitive man also was gifted with this sense? 
 In order to satisfy himself that insects and 
 animals possess a sixth sense or a sense of 
 orientation, which directs them to find their 
 way home after being transported to great dis- 
 tances. Professor Fabre, the French naturalist, 
 captured a dozen wasps and painted their ab- 
 domens white. He then put each of them in a 
 separate cylinder and placed aU the cylinders in 
 a sealed box which he carried to a forest two 
 and a half miles away from the nest. Here he 
 liberated them and walked back to the nest. In 
 five hours, he informs us, they all returned. 
 They could not possibly find their way home by 
 sight or any known physical sense; so Fabre 
 contends that wasps possess a sixth sense, 
 which naturalists term sense of direction or 
 orientation. 
 
THE SENSE OF ORIENTATION 31 
 
 To verify his conclusion, Fabre continued his 
 experiments. He captured six other wasps, 
 painted and carried them in sealed cylinders 
 four miles into the heart of a populous city, 
 and liberated them. They flew upwards, above 
 the highest buildings, paused for a time and 
 disappeared. Next day, Fabre visited the nest 
 and found five of the six marked wasps he had 
 carried away. 
 
 Take as another example the case of the 
 striped seal recorded by Amundsen. This seal 
 dives under a great floe and swims for miles 
 until she is satisfied she is near a place shel- 
 tered from sea and wind. She now breaks the 
 ice, and under the snow builds a vaulted 
 chamber, where her young are born and re- 
 main till they are old enough to take to the 
 water. The striped seal swims away every 
 morning to fish in the open sea. She has abso- 
 lutely no mark to guide her on the return voy- 
 age. It is pitch-dark iji the water and un- 
 der the ice, yet every night she returns home 
 as if her way through the dark waters were il- 
 lumined by a thousand lights. She swims 
 
32 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 straight and true for the exact spot where the 
 hole was made, rises and feeds her young. 
 
 Take as another illustration this example, re- 
 corded by the "London Standard," May 16, 
 1917. Towards the end of April, a cat, owned 
 by Squire Love, of Wycombe, was missing. 
 The Squire thought that his cat had been stolen 
 or killed. Two weeks after the cat's disap- 
 pearance Mr. Love received a letter informing 
 him that the cat had returned to its first home 
 in St. Neats, Huntingdonshire, where it had 
 been raised and lived for two years. The dis- 
 tance travelled by the cat was ninety-nine miles, 
 and as it had been brought in a bag to Wycombe 
 in a closed car, how did it, through woods and 
 plains and across streams, know the direction by 
 which to travel? No one will concede to ani- 
 mals a power of foreseeing changes in the 
 weather, months before these changes occur, 
 by means of inferences formed from a series 
 of observations. By what faculty then is the 
 beaver governed when he builds his house at 
 a much higher level in anticipation of a flood 
 that would sweep away his old dwelluig, or 
 
THE SENSE OF ORIENTATION 33 
 
 whence comes the forekaowledge of the field 
 mouse that, days before an inundation, leaves 
 his home for higher and safer quarters? 
 
 During September and October, the squirrel, 
 the musk-rat, and other rodents lay up for 
 themselves enough food for a long or a short 
 winter. How can the squirrel know, as he 
 enters his first autumn, when the winter will 
 set in, and in the absence of experience, how 
 does he sense the duration, the mildness or 
 severity of the winter and measure the quantity 
 of food he must bring to his nest? 
 
 The power of forecasting the weather seems 
 to be part of a sixth sense or an unconscious 
 clairvoyance, of which the wild goose, when it 
 wings for the South much earlier than usual, 
 knows no more than the moose when, before an 
 exceptionally cold winter, he grows a heavier 
 pelt and thicker fur than is his wont. 
 
 What is the intermediate link between the 
 unconscious cerebration of these animals and 
 their acts? Is this prescience an unconscious 
 memory or an attribute of their being, which 
 is neither given directly to them through sense 
 
34 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 perception nor deduced inferentially through 
 their understanding? Have animals, then, a 
 sixth sense, and are they controlled by intui- 
 tion, or by some faculty which may not inaptly 
 be called a sixth sense? 
 
 Dr. Edward von Hartmann, in his profound 
 work, "The Philosophy of The Unconscious," 
 says that "all animals and some men possess 
 unconscious knowledge which is not acquired 
 through the senses, but which will be found to be 
 in their possession, though obtained without 
 the instrumentality of the senses, by experience 
 or by exercise." 
 
 This * ' unconscious knowledge ' ' von Hartmann 
 calls clairvoyance ; I would term it a psychic or 
 sixth sense. It is not an "iUative sense," 
 which Cardinal Newman defines to be "a rea- 
 soning faculty exercised by gifted and highly 
 educated minds," nor the phronesis of Aris- 
 totle, which, in his Nichomachean Ethics, he 
 calls "human forethought." It is not external 
 prevision, nor instinct, which is a natural im- 
 pulse impelling animals to do certain acts lead- 
 ing to their own welfare. Its nearest faculty 
 
THE SENSE OF ORIENTATION 35 
 
 is intuition, which is that which presents itself 
 spontaneously to the mind without the assist- 
 ance of reasoning or reflection. We know so 
 little of this sixth sense, and the subject is so 
 obscure and so mysterious, that it is extremely 
 difficult to formulate any theory, lay down any 
 principle, or advance any explanation. 
 
 Its highest development is what is known in 
 Scotland and in Scandinavia as "second sight." 
 
 This "sixth sense" is much more in evidence 
 in certain countries than is generally supposed. 
 An important argument in its favor is to be 
 found in the testimony of eye-witnesses and 
 statements of travelers bearing evidential 
 value. 
 
 In close affinity with this sense of orientation 
 is the power of "second sight," which enables 
 certain individuals to see what is occurring in 
 distant places. Von Hartmann and Sir Bern- 
 ard Burke (in his "Vicissitudes of Great 
 Families") give many examples of "second 
 sight," and Goethe records an instance of clair- 
 voyance which fell within his own experience 
 and which he confirmed down to the minutest 
 
36 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 detail. He calls second sight "a condition of 
 the unconscious mind, an automatic action of 
 the human organism." 
 
 Facts connected with this class of phenomena 
 are often ignored because they cannot be ex- 
 plained from a materialistic side, are not in 
 harmony with human experience, and cannot be 
 proved by the inductive or experimental method, 
 as though the last contention is not equally im- 
 possible when applied to morals, social science, 
 and politics. 
 
 Nature everywhere is full of mysteries. Pro- 
 fessor A. E. Wallace and other scientific ob- 
 servers furnish in their writings interesting 
 examples of correlation of colors with consti- 
 tutional peculiarities among certain animals. 
 No one has been able to explain why all male 
 cats with blue eyes and white color are deaf, or 
 why female cats with tortoise shell markings 
 are unable to hear. Equally remarkable and 
 impossible of explanation is that the young of 
 white, pale-blue, yellow-tinted, or dun pigeons 
 of all breeds are born naked, while the young of 
 all other colors are covered with down. This 
 
THE SEXSE OF ORIESTATION 
 
 37 
 
 is a case, as Professor Wallace remarks, where 
 color seems of more physiological importance 
 than all the structural differences between the 
 varieties and breeds of pigeons. 
 
 Xor can anyone give a reason why the ele- 
 ment in yeUow phosphorus is an active poison, 
 while the same element in red is harmless. 
 Again, Professor Tidy declares that peperine 
 is the poison of all poisons to keep us awake, 
 while morphine induces sleep, though to the 
 chemist and analyst these two poisons are of 
 identical composition. 
 
 Dr. Johnson tells us in his book, "The Dis- 
 eases of Tropical Climates," that in Virginia 
 there is a plant locally known as the "paint- 
 root," which, when eaten by any other than 
 black pigs, colors their bones pink and rots the 
 hoofs, and that black pigs alone can thrive 
 where the root grows. In the Tarentina, a re- 
 gion in Spain, white sheep die if they eat the 
 Hypericum Crispum — a species of St. John's 
 wort, — ^while black sheep are immune to its ef- 
 fects. That we cannot understand nor explain 
 some phenomena of animal, or human life, is 
 
38 ESSAYS IN OCCtn.TIBM 
 
 not an adequate reason for rejecting them as im- 
 possibilities. 
 
 * # * 
 
 We have seen that animals are endowed with 
 a highly developed sense of direction. It is 
 now in order to inquire if man at any time in 
 his history possessed this sense. That savages 
 have some power of orientation in common with 
 animals is admitted by Stanley, Burton, Bruce, 
 Speake, and Grant. In civilized man this fac- 
 ulty is only just traceable. The power de- 
 clined as his self-conscious mind assumed con- 
 trol, and is no longer essential. 
 
 The African savage and the Australian bush- 
 man, in common with animals, are stiU pos- 
 sessed of an intuition or a sixth sense which in 
 civilized man has, through disuse, been atro- 
 phied. Ferdinand Verne, in his "African 
 Wanderings," says that among the Bashutos 
 he met several men who were gifted with sec- 
 ond sight and a sense of orientation. Apol- 
 lonius Dyscolus, the Alexandrian rhetorician, 
 states that, to his own knowledge, when a com- 
 pany of Roman soldiers, in the reign of Adrian 
 
THE SENSE OF ORIENTATION 39 
 
 (170 A. D.), were lost and perishing of thirst in 
 the Libyan desert, a party of camel riders came 
 to their rescue. The riders declared they were 
 sent from their camp, thirty-five miles to the 
 north, by the Cadi who in a trance saw and de- 
 scribed the region and the perishing soldiers. 
 
 Certain it is that to-day, as in past times, 
 there are individuals who by sympathy, aflBnity, 
 or other unknown quality, are able instantane- 
 ously to commune with intimate friends in other 
 places, and this is practised by persons said 
 to be en rapport, the one with the other. The 
 limit to this we do not know, but it is not unlikely 
 that telepathy, clairvoyance, orientation, and 
 second sight are affinities. 
 
 In his "Travels in North America," Carver, 
 a practical and experienced Englishman, says 
 that, when he was with the Kilistinons — a Cree 
 tribe — in 1767, famine threatened them unless 
 some traders, whom they expected, came to 
 their relief. A shaman or medicine chief, leav- 
 ing his tent, called the people together and an- 
 nounced that at a specified hour, the next day, 
 a canoe would arrive and report the coming of 
 
40 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 the traders. Carver and the band were on the 
 beach the following morning, and at the hour 
 foretold by the shaman, a canoe appeared in 
 the distance, and, after beaching, its paddlers 
 announced to the people the coming of the flo- 
 tilla. 
 
 Sagard and the Jesuit historian and travel- 
 ler, Charlevoix, record in their works equally 
 singular instances. 
 
 The Atlantic Monthly, July, 1866, published 
 an article written by General J. M. Brown, who 
 vouches for the accuracy of every detail of 
 the narrative. In 1855, General, then Captain 
 Brown, was commissioned to find a band of In- 
 dians supposed to be hunting in the regions be- 
 tween the Mackenzie and Copper-mine rivers. 
 He was accompanied by a detail of voyageurs, 
 many of whom through hunger, sickness, and 
 fatigue abandoned the expedition. The Cap- 
 tain was seriously thinking of giving up the 
 search when, unexpectedly, he met three hunters 
 of the very band he was seeking. The warriors 
 told him that they were sent out the day before 
 to meet him by their medicine chief, who told 
 
THE SENSE OF ORIENTATION 41 
 
 them what route they should follow, the number 
 of men in the party — and described their arms, 
 dress, and personal appearance. When the 
 Captain and his men were conducted to the vil- 
 lage of the Indians, he asked to see the shaman 
 who had despatched the messengers. The 
 shaman — an intelligent middle-aged man — ap- 
 peared, and when asked how he knew of the 
 coming of the white men, answered: "I shut 
 my eyes, my spirit told me to look ; I saw a place 
 and four white men standing." He could or 
 would offer no other explanation. 
 
 However much these examples of a sixth 
 sense may tax our credulity, there are, in all 
 literature, very many instances of a similar 
 kind. 
 
 Now, what is the explanation of these phe- 
 nomena? Are they caused by the subliminal or 
 subconscious mind of the operator? Psycholo- 
 gists tell us that there are certain undefined 
 functions of the mind which act independently 
 of our senses and are outside our ordinary con- 
 sciousness. Father Maher, in his "Psy- 
 chology," says : "It ought not to be forgotten 
 
42 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 that besides the mental operations which re- 
 veal themselves in consciousness, there is much 
 evidence to establish the existence of vital ac- 
 tivities of which we are not at times aware. 
 . . . There is considerable dispute as to their 
 exact nature and how their relation to the mind 
 should be conceived. It is sufficient to caU at- 
 tention to their reality and to admit that, al- 
 though unsusceptible of introspective observa- 
 tion, some of these activities are intimately con- 
 nected with our conscious life." 
 
 There is apparently beneath our conscious 
 mind a secondary and mysterious process of 
 mind action, distinct from and independent of 
 our primary self, as if there were two minds, 
 a conscious and subconscious mind, each per- 
 forming its own distinctive function. In or- 
 dinary terms the difference between the two 
 may be stated as follows : The one or objective 
 mind takes cognizance of the visible or objec- 
 tive world. It acts through the five senses, and 
 its highest function is that of reasoning. The 
 subjective or subliminal mind perceives things 
 or persons, as do clairvoyants, independently of 
 
THE SENSE OF ORIENTATION 43 
 
 the senses. It experiences as if by intuition. 
 It sees without the eyes, the natural organs of 
 vision, and, on occasions, apparently at least, 
 leaves the body, travels to distant places, and, 
 returning, records whom and what it has seen. 
 This brings us to the phenomenon of bilocation, 
 with which we will presently deal. 
 
 There are so many well authenticated attesta- 
 tions to the existence of this psychic power or 
 sense that they cannot be disregarded by impar- 
 tial minds. 
 
 The man possessed of a sixth sense sees not 
 only the direction in which he should travel, 
 but the objective itself, his village, his house 
 and its surroundings. The many examples re- 
 corded in Enemoser's "History of Magic," and 
 in Smedley's "Occult Sciences," of the reality 
 of this sense, are persuasive if not convincing 
 evidence of its existence. 
 
 It is much easier to deny the possibility of the 
 acts than to account for them, but examples such 
 as those mentioned are too numerous and too 
 strongly attested by honest and impartial wit- 
 nesses to be consistently denied. It is more 
 
44 
 
 ESSAYS IN OOCtJLTISM 
 
 rational to accept the facts than to conclude 
 in spite of overwhelming testimony that those 
 who have seen and testify to the occurrences are 
 enthusiasts who were deceived, or are deceiving 
 others. 
 
 There is such an intimate connection between 
 clairvoyance, second sight, and orientation that 
 it becomes difficult to draw lines of separation. 
 Possibly, however, savage man and wild ani- 
 mals have the five senses so highly developed 
 and perfected that in the very long time de- 
 manded for that development the psychic facul- 
 ties or sense perceptions may have also ac- 
 quired a development resulting in clairvoyance, 
 conscious or subconscious. In attackiag this 
 hypothesis as simply a connected chain of 
 opinions, those who undertake to destroy a link 
 of the chain should supply its place by a 
 stronger link. Now that comparative psy- 
 chology is reaching the dignity of a science, 
 there ought not to be insuperable obstacles in 
 the path leading to a solution of the problem. 
 It is time that a consistent theory should be 
 propounded regarding the subject, if only on 
 
THE SENSE OF ORIEOT?ATION 45 
 
 the foundation of the old adage that even a 
 faulty hypothesis is better than none at all and 
 that all progress must have a point from which 
 it moves forward. When confronted with the 
 problems of clairvoyance and orientation we 
 are tempted to exclaim with Eenan, "On est pris 
 de vertige — one's head is seized Avith dizziness. " 
 
"And while they were beholding him going up to 
 heaven, behold two men stood by them in white gar- 
 ments, who also said: Ye men of Galilee, why 
 stand ye looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is 
 taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, as you 
 have seen him goiag into heaven." — Acts I, 10 sq. 
 
IV 
 
 WONDERS OF BILOCATION 
 
 Villasenor's Report — The Spanish Nun — Case of Biloea- 
 tion — An "Ecstatica" — Was She Transported to America? 
 —The Indian Tribe Visited by Her— The "Demon Priests" 
 — Benavide's Experience — His Statements — Declaration of 
 the Nun — Signs and Wonders — Meaning of the Word 
 Bilocation — ^Examples from Holy Writ — Angelic Appari- 
 tions. 
 
 The late Professor Cooke Taylor, in his work 
 on "Occult Power," contends that there are 
 many examples in the history of occultism in 
 favor of the belief which was held by many of 
 the early Spanish missionaries to America, and 
 by learned men at Madrid, that the white and 
 bearded patriarch deified by the aborigines of 
 Mexico as the "Fair God" who preached Chris- 
 tianity to the natives in pre-Columbian times, 
 was Saint Thomas the Apostle. From a tradi- 
 tion coming down from the ages and still linger- 
 
 47 
 
48 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 ing with the Latin races, the description and ap- 
 pearance of Saint Thomas corresponded with 
 the outward form and personality of the ''Fair 
 God" of the Mexicans. And did not the Sa- 
 viour include this land when, after He rose fronj 
 the tomb, He said to His Apostles : "You shall 
 be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all 
 Judea and Samaria and even to the uttermost 
 parts of the earth"? Moreover, Saint Thomas 
 was a twin, and, in the Nahual language, the 
 last syllable in the name of the "Fair God" 
 meant one of two born of the same mother and 
 at the same time. Again the sixteenth cen- 
 tury was closing the long period known as the 
 * ' Ages of Faith, ' ' when alchemy, miracles, prod- 
 igies, and legends yet held their own with the 
 march of the human intellect. Nor from the 
 authenticated cases with which theologians and 
 students of occult subjects were, in those days, 
 familiar, oases of bilocation, bicorporeity, and 
 aerial transportation, was there anything in- 
 credible in the living body being apparently in 
 two places at the same time. They were fa- 
 miliar with the eighth chapter of the "Acts of 
 
BILOCATION 49 
 
 the Apostles," telling of the aerial transporta- 
 tion of Philip frona the road to Gaza to Azotus, 
 and with the fourteenth chapter of Daniel re- 
 cording the aerial and instantaneous flight of 
 the prophet Habacuc from Judea to Babylon 
 and from Babylon to Judea. 
 
 "But how," you may ask, "was it possible 
 for these men of learning and common sense to 
 believe an absurdity, even an impossibility?" 
 
 But is bilocation — that is, the same person, 
 at the same instant of time, appearing in two 
 places, no matter how near or how remote — ab- 
 surd, contradictory, and impossible? Well, let 
 Tis appeal to history and then each one of us 
 may form his own opinion. 
 
 A word as to the historian. I know of no 
 man who, in his day, stood higher in America 
 for historical research, accuracy of citations, 
 and incorruptible honesty than John Gilmary 
 Shea. Dr. Shea's many and varied accom- 
 plishments, his knowledge of languages, both 
 ancient and modern, his diligence in prosecuting 
 his investigations, his antiquarian lore, his care- 
 ful discrimination in arranging and collecting 
 
50 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 the results of his investigations, his power of 
 analysis and marvelous ability to enter upon the 
 right path and thread his way through laby- 
 rinths of confused statements and separate 
 truth from falsehood, were recognized by Euro- 
 pean and American scholars long before his 
 death, in 1892. Now, when a man of his scholar- 
 ship and historical honesty, after the most care- 
 ful examination, lends his name to the support 
 of that which appears to be incredible, this 
 fact, to use the words of one of Shakespeare's 
 characters, at least "must give us pause." In 
 Shea's "History of Catholic Missions Among 
 the Indian Tribes of the United States" (Dun- 
 igan, Ed. 1854) there is a very interesting chap- 
 ter on the labors of the early Spanish mission- 
 ary fathers in Arizona and New Mexico. Writ- 
 ing of the wonderful labors and success of the 
 missionaries with the tribes of New Mexico, 
 Dr. Shea says: "Among those who con- 
 tributed to bring about so happy a result are 
 included the names of Fathers Benavides, Lo- 
 pez and Salas at Tumanas, Father Ortego, and, 
 we may add, the venerable Maria de Jesus 
 
BILOCATION 51 
 
 d'Agreda (Spain), whose mysterious connec- 
 tion with the New Mexican mission, whether now 
 believed or not, certainly drew great attention 
 to it at the time, and gave it an extraordinary 
 impetus. Benavides met a tribe which no mis- 
 sionary had as yet reached, and found them to 
 his amazement instructed in the doctrines of 
 Christianity. On inquiring, he learned that they 
 had been taught by a lady whose form and dress 
 they described. This account he (Benavides) 
 gave in his work published in 1630. Subse- 
 quently, Father Bemardine de Siena told him 
 that the nun Maria d'Agreda had, eight years 
 before, related to him apparitions of a similar 
 character. Benavides then (on his return to 
 Spain) visited her and was at once struck with 
 her resemblance to the lady described by the 
 Indians, and still more so by her account of 
 the country and the labors of the missionaries, 
 of which she related many remarkable inci- 
 dents." 
 
 The full history of this extraordinary case of 
 bilocation is given by the scholarly Benedictine, 
 Dom Gueranger. I deem the subject of such 
 
52 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCClTLnSM 
 
 importance in association with the possibility 
 of St. Thomas or St. Brendan teaching Chris- 
 tianity to the Maya tribes of pre-Columbian Yu- 
 catan, that I will condense it from the French 
 work. 
 
 Eemember, however, that I do not adopt the 
 opinion that St. Thomas, the Apostle, did visit 
 America; I merely contend that the Spanish 
 friars and Spanish writers had plausible rea- 
 sons, supported by the sworn testimony of un- 
 impeachable witnesses in analogous cases, for 
 believing that Quetzalcoatle, the "Fair God," 
 was the Apostle, St. Thomas. 
 
 I opened this chapter with St. Luke's account 
 of the Ascension of our Lord in order to show 
 that human bodies and a human language were 
 given by Grod to the Angels who "stood by them 
 (the Apostles) in white garments." This ex- 
 ample will be interesting when I come to treat 
 of the singular case of Maria d'Agreda, the 
 Franciscan nun. 
 
 "When Frederico Villasenor returned from his 
 expedition, in 1748, he included in his "Teatro 
 Americano" a brief but illuminating report of 
 
BILOCATION 53 
 
 the Indians then living in New Mexico. "The 
 natives," he tells us, "are comfortably clothed 
 in garments woven by themselves; they are 
 an industrious and contented people. The 
 churches, built under the direction of the Fran- 
 ciscan Fathers, are as fine and imposing as 
 those in the rural districts of Southern Europe, 
 and the services for the Indians as grand and as 
 scrupulously carried out as in Spain. There 
 are twenty-seven parishes established, averag- 
 ing one hundred families to a mission." 
 
 Included among the names of the zealous mis- 
 sionaries who accomplished these results is, 
 strange to say, that of a Spanish nun, whom the 
 Fathers had never seen. She was known in her 
 community as Maria de Jesus, and was one of 
 that privileged class of souls in whom the effects 
 of original sin or the first transgression seemed 
 to be almost effaced, and who are admitted, 
 while stiU in the flesh, to that intimate union with 
 God which the elect enjoy only in the beatific 
 state. 
 
 In the lives of the Saints we perceive that 
 each one of them, when he or she was, by sublim- 
 
54 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 ity and intensity of prayer and meditation, ad- 
 mitted into privileged union with God, was 
 distinguished for what is called by ascetical 
 writers a "particular devotion." Maria de 
 Jesus, or, as she is at times referred to by her 
 contemporaries, Maria d'Agreda, was, during 
 the waning years of her conventual life, offering 
 to God her pr.ayers, mortifications, and suffer- 
 ings for the conversion of the American tribes. 
 The conversion of the Indians of New Mexico 
 was a particular object of her private devotions. 
 One morning, while in intimate union with her 
 Saviour, she received a revelation that God 
 would soon confer upon the missionaries and 
 Indians of New Mexico a special favor. Then 
 it was that this holy nun experienced for the 
 first time in her pious life these visitations, or, 
 as Dom Gueranger writes, "phenomena of 
 grace," which entitle her to be ranked among 
 the apostles of these idolatrous lands. She be- 
 came an "Ecstatica" and, while under miracu- 
 lous influence, experienced sensations like 
 unto one carried on an aerial journey to 
 
BILOCATION 55 
 
 unkown and distant regions. The climate of 
 the country to which she was transported was 
 not unlike that of her own Castile, but she was 
 surrounded by men, women, and children the 
 like of whom she had never looked upon. The 
 vegetation was unfamiliar, and there were no 
 cities, towns, great buildings or bridges. Im- 
 pelled by a mysterious inner voice or influence, 
 she began to teach the strange people the doc- 
 trines of Christianity, and though she ex- 
 pounded the mysteries of religion in Spanish, 
 her audience listened attentively and seemed to 
 understand her speech. Many times she re- 
 lapsed into the ecstatic state, and on each occa- 
 sion was transported across a great waste of 
 water into a region where dwelt the people to 
 whom she was commissioned to preach. She, 
 at last, succeeded in winning to Christianity 
 all the members of the tribe, including the chiefs 
 and shamans or "demon priests," as she called 
 them. While among these Indians she saw, 
 afar off, the Franciscan missionaries reaping 
 a harvest of souls like unto those she was in- 
 
56 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 structing. She counseled her converts to dis- 
 patch messengers to these missionaries and ask 
 for a priest to return with them. 
 
 It was in the year 1622 that Maria de Jesus, 
 in ecstasy, experienced the sensations of aerial 
 transportation and in the same year instructed 
 the tribe. "Before this time," writes Dom 
 Gueranger, "the Franciscans laboring among 
 the Indians of New Mexico had not reaped a 
 harvest of souls commensurate with their zeal 
 and their expectations." One morning, as one 
 of the Fathers, on the mission of San Augustin 
 de Isleta, was coming out Of his adobe church, 
 he was met by five Indians whom he had never 
 before seen. Their speech was that of his own 
 mission tribe, with dialectic variations. They 
 claimed to have come from beyond the Eio Pe- 
 cos, said they came as messengers sent by their 
 chief who asked for a priest to live among 
 them, and concluded by requesting to be bap- 
 tised. The missionary inquired the name of 
 their tribe, in what direction their country lay 
 and what river flowed through it. He added he 
 could not accede to their request for baptism 
 
BILOCATION 57 
 
 until they were instructed in the faith. They 
 replied that they and the members of their 
 tribe were already instructed; that a woman 
 strangely dressed had visited their people and 
 made known to them the life and doctrines of 
 Jesus Christ; that her visits to them were 
 many, and that it was she who had told them 
 to come to the missionaries. Where she lived 
 and how she came they did not know. 
 
 The missionary — Father Alonzo de Bena- 
 vides — examined the messengers in the doc- 
 trines of Christianity and found them well in- 
 structed. He pressed them for a description 
 of the mysterious woman, but the Indians after 
 describing her dress and appearance, could 
 only repeat that they had never seen any one 
 like her. Benavides, with a companion, started 
 that afternoon with the Indians for their dis- 
 tant village. When, after three days' travel, 
 he entered their village, he was received with the 
 most lively manifestations of joy and, to his 
 amazement, found that all the adult members of 
 the tribe were well instructed in Christian doc- 
 trines. 
 
58 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 "But,*' I almost hear you exclaim, ''this is in- 
 credible if not absurd." Well, read on. Fa- 
 ther Alonzo de Benavides was satisfied from the 
 description he received that the lady was a Span- 
 ish nun. In 1630 he was in Seville on business 
 of his community in New Mexico, and took ad- 
 vantage of his visit to discover, if possible, the 
 personality and the dwelling of the mysterious 
 woman. He made known to the Superior Gen- 
 eral of the Franciscan Order in Spain — the 
 Very Eev. Bernadine de Sienna — the history of 
 the miraculous conversion of the Indians and 
 his desire to trace the identity of the nun. The 
 Superior had already made the acquaintance of 
 Maria de Jesus and had heard of her ecstasies. 
 It occurred to him that, possibly, this saintly 
 nun might be the privileged soul referred to by 
 Father Benavides. He furnished him with let- 
 ters to the superior of the convent and to Maria 
 de Jesus herself, in which he begged her to give 
 to the missionary any information in her pos- 
 session bearing on the subject of his quest. 
 
 Soon after Benavides entered the city of 
 Agreda he obtained an interview with the 
 
BILOCATION 59 
 
 "Ecstatica." As she was a member of a clois- 
 tered community, lie was granted this privilege 
 through the influence of the Provincial of the 
 Franciscans, Sebastian Marzilla, and of Francis 
 de la Torre, confessor to the nun. When Bena- 
 vides was ushered into the presence of Maria, 
 he handed her a letter from the Superior Gen- 
 eral of her order, commanding her by her vow 
 of obedience to answer Benavides' questions, 
 and to reveal what she knew having any bear- 
 ing on the purport of his visit. 
 
 The example, or fact, which I am now about 
 to record is of, apparently, the double presence 
 of one personality; that is, the same person ap- 
 pearing in different places at the same time, as 
 in the instances recorded in the lives of Saints 
 Francis Xavier and Alphonsus Liguori. This 
 phenomenon carries us at one stride into the sub- 
 ject of bilocation or bicorporeity. "But is not 
 this an absurdity, an impossibility?" I an- 
 swer: "Undoubtedly it is, if the word be ac- 
 cepted in its narrowest and rigorous sense. 
 But bending the meaning of the word a little, 
 bilocation takes its place with admissible pos- 
 
60 ESSAVS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 sibilities and, leaving the regions of the absurd, 
 enters the exalted circle of thaumaturgy or the 
 sphere of the marvelous. 
 
 Every discussion about any subject will best 
 proceed from an examination of its name or of 
 that by which it is generally known. In the 
 name we have the true declaration of the inner- 
 most nature of anything ; we have a witness to 
 that which the universal sense of men, finding 
 expression in language, has ever felt to lie at its 
 heart. If we would learn to know anything in- 
 timately, we must begin by finding the name 
 which it bears. Thus, what we commonly term 
 miracles, are in Sacred Scripture called "won- 
 ders," sometimes "signs," often "powers," or 
 simply "works," or "mighty works." An ex- 
 ample drawn from one of our Divine Lord's 
 acts of kindness may help to illustrate how a 
 "miracle" may at once include all the above 
 terms. The healing of the man "sick of the 
 palsy" (Mark I, 3), for example, was a wonder, 
 for they who beheld it "were all amazed"; it 
 was a "power," for the man, hearing the words 
 of Christ, "arose, took up his bed and went his 
 
BILOCATION 61 
 
 way in the sight of them all"; it was a "sign," 
 for it proved that One greater than men thought 
 him to be, was among them ; it stood in connec- 
 tion with a higher personality, of whom the 
 "sign," and the seal, and the cure was wrought 
 that those who witnessed it might "know that 
 the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive 
 sins." 
 
 Now, the meaning of the word bilocation, ac- 
 cording to masters of ascetic theology, is that 
 an apparition, which is visible to one or to many 
 individuals, of a person known to be living 
 hundreds of miles distant from where the ap- 
 parition appears, is that of a good or evil angel 
 which assumes a body like unto that of the liv- 
 ing person and clothes the same as those worn 
 by that person. 
 
 Bilocation, then, may mean the same body 
 apparently occupying two spaces; or it may 
 mean two bodies identically the same, which is 
 called bi-corporeity; or, again, the same body, 
 as in the case of the prophet Ezekiel (XI, 24; 
 XXVII, 1; XL, 1, 2) and of Habacuc (Dan. 
 XTV, 32), may be transported with such intense 
 
62 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 velocity from place to place as to lead to a con- 
 viction of a "replicatio corporis" or a double 
 body. If at any time you have read Charles F. 
 Lummis' book, "In the Land of Poco Tiempo," 
 or the "Occult World," by E. T. Sennett, or, 
 better still, "Les Hauts Phenomenes," by 
 Gougnet Des Mousseaux, you must be familiar 
 with authenticated examples of aerial trans- 
 portation. 
 
 And now having, in a measure, "blazed the 
 trail," let us give ear to the wonderful narra- 
 tive from the lips of Maria de Jesus. 
 
 "With becoming difiSdence, yet with the ut- 
 most candor, the nun unfolded the story of her 
 ecstasies, beginning with the first visitation she 
 experienced and recording, as she advanced, a 
 remarkable series of ecstatic experiences. 
 She frankly confessed that she was unable to 
 explain the process — "el modo" — by which her 
 spirit appeared and was able to exert influence 
 at so great a distance. 
 
 After having been privileged with her con- 
 fidence Benavides began to question her in de- 
 tail on the distant regions of New Mexico, — with 
 
BILOCATION 63 
 
 which he was intimately familiar. He exam- 
 ined her on the topography of the country, the 
 landmarks of the locality she claimed to have 
 visited, the dress and habits of the tribe she 
 converted and on minute particulars of the land 
 and its people, with which only one who had 
 lived for some time in the country could be at 
 all familiar. To his astonishment he found 
 her as well acquainted as himself with every- 
 thing concerning the particular village and its 
 people. She was not only familiar with the 
 topography of the country, but told him the 
 names of the Indian tribes and the names of the 
 towns and rivers which could only be known to 
 one who had lived with the tribes. She stated, 
 moreover, that she had many times seen the 
 priest and his companions, corroborating her 
 statements by furnishing the names of places 
 he had visited on certain days, and supplying 
 minute details of the missionary's life. 
 
 Benavides, intending to reduce to writing not 
 only the strange history of the miraculously con- 
 verted tribe, but also his interview with Maria 
 d'Agreda, ventured to question her critically 
 
64 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 on the means — "el modo" — by which she was 
 able to visit the Indians. He put a straight 
 question to her by asking if she was there phy- 
 sically or in person. In answer to this inquiry 
 she showed apparent diflBdence and reserve, but 
 later in a declaration which she made and wrote 
 out she expressed her opinion in the words of 
 St. Paul when recounting for the Corinthians 
 his wonderful experience: "I know a man in 
 Christ, whether in the body, I know not, or out 
 of the body, I know not. . . . caught up into 
 Paradise, and heard secret words, which it is 
 not granted to man to utter." (2 Cor., XII, 2- 
 4). She concluded her statement as foUows : 
 
 "That which appears to me to be more cer- 
 tain as regards the manner by which these oc- 
 currences took place, is that an angel from 
 heaven appeared among these people under 
 my figure, preached to and instructed them and 
 that I saw here, while in the ecstatic state, all 
 that there happened in the country so far 
 away." 
 
 I deem this remarkable case of such import- 
 ance in association with the Mexican tradition 
 
BILOCATION 65 
 
 of the "Fair God," or white patriarch, who, 
 in pre-Columbian times preached Christianity 
 in Mexico and Yucatan, that I feel warranted in 
 introducing additional authorities in support of 
 the contentions of Gilmary Shea and Dom 
 Gueranger. In the life of that beloved Fran- 
 ciscan priest, Junipero Serra, the Apostle of 
 California, by Palacio, there is published a let- 
 ter of Benavides recording the miraculous eon- 
 version and also a letter from Maria d'Agreda. 
 Benavides' "Memorial" was printed in Madrid, 
 1630. The whole history of the case is told in 
 "La Mistica Ciudad de Dios." The title of 
 Dom Gueranger 's book is: "Maria d'Agreda 
 et la Cite Mystique de Dieu." 
 
 When Benavides' Memorial appeared, several 
 eminent writers attacked, whereas others de- 
 fended the reality of the apparition. The dis- 
 cussion filled many volumes, but Rome has given 
 no decision, and we are free to believe or not be- 
 lieve the history, just as we are the writiugs of 
 Plutarch or the younger Pliny. To me it ap- 
 pears to be an established case of clairvoyant 
 trance, and in a process of canonization would 
 not, I am of the opinion, have a place with the 
 
66 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 "dona supernaturalia," nor among proved 
 miracles. 
 
 The possibility of an angel appearing in hu- 
 man form and instructing the tribe is not open 
 to contradiction. The Scriptures record many 
 instances of such angelic apparitions. We have 
 a notable example in the case of the angel who 
 accompanied young Tobias to Eages, the City 
 of the Medes. 
 
These Hindoos of Malabar, when asked if, in their 
 land, there were apparitions or phantoms, replied: 
 "Yes, but we look upon them as evil spirits. We be- 
 lieve them to be the sptUs of those who comnvitted sui- 
 cide, or perished by a violent death. Night is their 
 favorite time for appearing. They seduce the weak 
 minded and the curious and tempt others in a thou- 
 sand different ways. They aim to do all the injury 
 they can to human beings." 
 
 J. Gorres, "La Mystique," Vol. III3 p. 63. 
 
BICORPOREITY 
 
 Classification of Phenomena — Rita of Cascia — Gorres — 
 His History of her Aerial Transportation — Case of the 
 Blessed Lidwine — Example from the Life of St. John of 
 Copertino — The Apparition at the Bedside — Wonderful Ex- 
 ample of Bieorporeity Recounted by Count des Mousseaux 
 — Double Appearance of a Living Man — Opinion of St. 
 Thomas. 
 
 The phenomena of bilocation, bieorporeity and 
 aerial tremsportation may be classified into 
 separate groups, having an intimate afiSnity or 
 relationship to one another. 
 
 For example, a person may be carried with 
 incredible velocity to a distant place and then 
 the systeme moteur or moving agent acts in an 
 especial manner in producing wonders of this 
 order. Perhaps the most voluminous and ac- 
 credited writer on Christian Mysticism, as con- 
 trasted with naturalism and rationalism, was 
 Joseph von Gorres, who wrote "Die Christliche 
 
 69 
 
70 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 Mystik." He was a teacher at the University 
 of Munich, a writer of marked distiaction, and 
 one of the most scholarly men of his time, say 
 from 1798 to 1848. 
 
 Dealing with the authenticated case of the 
 Blessed Eita of Cascia, he writes in his "Mys- 
 tik": "We record as an example of aerial 
 transportation the flight of Rita of Cascia, who 
 enjoyed the privilege of passing through closed 
 doors." This holy woman desiring, after the 
 death of her husband, to become an Augustinian 
 nun, was refused admission to the community. 
 She then appealed to God in prayer, and while 
 she prayed, was transported through the air, 
 carried into a convent and deposited in the midst 
 of cloistered nuns. Great was the amazement 
 of the nuns when she appeared, for they knew 
 all entrances to the building were barred. 
 When she made known who she was, how she 
 had been transported, and her wish to dedicate 
 herself to the service of God in prayer and 
 adoration, she was admitted to the privileges of 
 the community. 
 
 Another example is that of St. Peter Eogala, 
 
BICORPOREITY 71 
 
 who, in sight of a multitude of people, was for 
 three hours suspended in the air, and sur- 
 rounded by such a luminous halo of glory, that 
 those who paw him thought his body was on 
 fire. 
 
 Facts of the second class: The person con- 
 fined to a certain locality, is in spirit carried 
 to another place and in that place accomplishes 
 the will of God as did Ezekiel and Habacuc. A 
 touching and beautiful example of this second 
 order of phenomena are the mystic voyages of 
 the Blessed Lidwine, who in her aerial flights 
 was often accompanied by her guardian angel. 
 One day, while her spirit was passing from 
 church to church in the City of Rome, she suf- 
 fered as if thorns had entered her hand, though 
 her body remained in her own room and did 
 not accompany her in her flight. The next day, 
 returning to her natural self, her finger pained 
 her greatly and, iu her finger, the prick of the 
 thorn was quite visible. 
 
 Facts of the third order: Among the ex- 
 periences of the third class are those of actual 
 bilocation. Here we find the individual is in a 
 
72 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 particular place and is seen and spoken to by 
 others and, at the same time, is seen elsewhere 
 and acts as if he was really and substantially 
 present. This, for instance, was the experi- 
 ence of St. John of Copertino, who lived in the 
 village of Assisi, Italy. When his mother lay 
 at death's door, in Copertino, she bewailed the 
 absence of her son, and in the intensity of her 
 yearning for him cried aloud: "Oh, my son, 
 my son! Shall I never again meet you on 
 earth ? " At once the room in which she was dy- 
 ing blazed with exceptional illumination, and the 
 mother beholding her son coming through the 
 flaming light to her bed, extended her arms and 
 exclaimed in the hearing of those present: 
 ' ' Joseph ! my son ! ' ' Now on this same day 
 and at the same hour there were those in Assisi 
 who saw Joseph leave his house hurriedly and 
 enter the church, ostensibly to pray. Alarmed 
 at his excited appearance and haste, one of 
 the men followed and asked him: "Is there 
 anything the matter?" "Yes, yes," he an- 
 swered, "my poor mother is dying." The 
 neighbor went out, leaving him with God. 
 
BICORPOREITY 73 
 
 This apparition of the living man by Ms 
 mother's side at Copertino was confirmed by 
 letters which, soon after the death of the mother, 
 were received in Assisi, and the fact was after- 
 wards proved by the sworn testimony of 
 those who saw the saintly man at the bedside of 
 his mother. 
 
 Let it, however, be understood that, according 
 to the decision of the learned Pope Benedict 
 XrV, and the statements of eminent theolo- 
 gians, these prodigies, and others mentioned in 
 ecclesiastical histories and biographies and in 
 the "Lives of the Saints" are not to be. classed 
 with the miracles so intimately associated in the 
 New Testament with the foundation and expan- 
 sion of Christianity. 
 
 We may or may not accept them. But if 
 the evidence in their favor carries legal weight, 
 if the witnesses testifying to what they claimed 
 to have seen and heard are known to be hon- 
 est men of good, common sense, are reputed 
 among their neighbors to be respectable and 
 trustworthy, and can have no reason for misrep- 
 resenting what they witnessed and heard, then 
 
74 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 a jury of their countrymen -will believe them. 
 
 Take, for instance, the case critically exam- 
 ined and scrupulously gone into by Count Des 
 Mousseaux in his extraordinary book, "Las 
 Hants Phenomenes," and accepted by him as 
 an actual occurrence which happened in his own 
 lifetime. 
 
 "Early in 1864," writes the Count, "I met 
 in Paris the Reverend Father Palgrave, form- 
 erly a cavalry oflBcer in the French service, who 
 resigned his command and became a Jesuit mis- 
 sionary in India. Among the passengers who 
 sailed on the same ship with Father Palgrave, 
 when he was returning from India in 1857, was 
 an English officer, who was sailing for England 
 on furlough or military leave of absence. After 
 they had been at sea some fifteen days, the of- 
 ficer said to the captain in the hearing of Pere 
 Palgrave : 
 
 " 'Captain, who is this stranger whom you 
 are hiding from us?' 
 
 " 'You're joking,' answered the captain. 
 
 " 'No, on my honor, I saw him yesterday for 
 the first time, but he hasn't appeared today.' 
 
BICORPOREITY 75 
 
 " 'Why, what do you mean, are you serious? 
 If so, explain yourself.' " 
 
 " '"Well, be it so,' spoke the officer; 'last night, 
 •when I was thinking of turning in, I saw a 
 strange man make the rounds of the ship, open 
 doors and close them, and shake his head, as if 
 to say, 'what I am looking for is not here. ' He 
 then approached me, looked me over and re- 
 tired with an apologetic air. ' 
 
 " 'And what,' asked the Captain, smiling, 
 'might be the appearance, the dress and the age 
 of this man?' 
 
 "The officer described the stranger even to 
 the minutest detail." 
 
 ' ' ' Good God, ' exclaimed the Captain, ' if what 
 you say be true, then that man is my father, he 
 cannot be another.' — 
 
 "When the ship arrived in Liverpool, the 
 Captain learned that his father was dead, and 
 that it was after the apparition was seen that he 
 had died; but that on the evening when the 
 French officer saw him, he was for a time de- 
 lirious and then became unconscious. Regain- 
 ing his senses, he said to those by his bedside : 
 
76 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 " 'Where do you think I have been since I 
 fell asleep ? I crossed over a great part of the 
 sea, visited my son's ship, searched high and low 
 for him, but didn't see him.' " 
 
 Assuming the truth of this relation, we nat- 
 urally ask ourselves, "Did the soul of the dying 
 man leave his body?" 
 
 St. Thomas, the "Angel of the Schools," 
 would answer: "No. The will to act which 
 belongs to the soul is shut up in the body, to 
 which the soul is united. Where the body is at 
 one time, the will is with it." 
 
 I can only repeat with the Psalmist that "We 
 are fearfully and wonderfully made." 
 
VI 
 
 DUAL PERSONALITY 
 
 Does Bilocation Involve a Contradiction? — The Voice of 
 History — Apparition of Ananias — Saul of Tarsus — Case of 
 St. Alphonsus Lignori — His Double Presence — Authorities 
 Supporting its Reality — Statement of Eliphas Levi, the 
 Spiritist — ^Acts of the Canonization of Saints — ^Extract 
 from the Eoman Breviary — St. Francis Xavier — ^A "Won- 
 derful Case of Bilocation — Testimony of Eye-Witnesses — 
 Bemarks. 
 
 That bilocation contradicts all the properties 
 of matter, so far as our understanding has 
 reached, and is physically impossible, is the 
 unanimous conclusion of all scientific material- 
 ists. Whether or not it is absolutely, or meta- 
 physically impossible (and by this I mean 
 whether it involves an intrinsic contradiction, so 
 that by no exercise of power, even omnipotent 
 power, could the same body be, at the same in- 
 stant of time, in two places) is a subject too 
 abstruse to be discussed in these pages. 
 
 77 
 
78 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 The distinguished philosophic -writer, Father 
 Dalgairns, in his treatise on "Holy Commun- 
 ion," where he deals with the extension of mat- 
 ter, contends for the possibility of absolute bilo- 
 cation and, if you take an interest in. the subject, 
 I advise you to read his book. Just now*, how- 
 ever, it will be of more interest for us to con- 
 sult history for authentic examples of the phe- 
 nomenon, leaving the philosophy of the mysteri- 
 ous and occult for theologians and metaphysi- 
 cians. 
 
 I regard the apparition of Ananias recorded 
 in the ninth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles 
 as a very remarkable instance in the history of 
 bilooation and the first of its kind to be found 
 in Holy Writ. 
 
 Saul of Tarsus, — canonized as St. Paul, the 
 Apostle, — retired by the command of the "Lord 
 Jesus who appeared to me on the way," to 
 the house of a disciple named Judas in the 
 "street that is called Strait." While alone in 
 his room, Saul "saw a man named Ananias 
 coming in and laying his hands upon him that he 
 might receive his sight. " Saul, after our Lord 
 
DUAL PEESONALITY 79 
 
 Jesus Christ appeared and spoke to him on the 
 way, "rose from the ground and, his eyes being 
 open, he saw nothing," that is to say, he was 
 blind. Now at the time when this occurred 
 Ananias was in another part of the city and 
 did not for three days after Saul saw him "com- 
 ing and laying his hands upon him," actually in 
 person enter the room and say to Saul : ' ' Saul, 
 brother, the Lord Jesus hath sent me . . . that 
 thou mayest receive thy sight and be filled with 
 the Holy Ghost." 
 
 This scriptural case I regard as a true ex- 
 ample of bilocation, that is a living man filling 
 space in a certain place and his simulacrum or 
 other self actually appearing, at the same time, 
 in another. Now let us take an instance or two 
 from the lives of the Saints. 
 
 Early one morning St. Alphonsus Liguori, 
 bishop and founder of the Eedemptorists, or, to 
 be precise, the "Congregation of the Most Holy 
 Eedeemer," entered his chapel, as was his daily 
 wont, to say mass. Suddenly, as he was pre- 
 paring to vest for the Holy Sacrifice, he was 
 overcome with weakness and his face took on a 
 
80 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 look of sadness and wonder. In silence he 
 walked to his chair and sat down. At once his 
 head fell forward and rested on his breast. 
 There was no movement of the lips in prayer, 
 there was no rising or falling of the bosom ; the 
 eyes of the venerable man closed as if in sleep, 
 and the diverse functions of life were, to all 
 outward seeming, suspended. 
 
 He remained in this state of immobility for 
 hours, and no one ventured to trouble his re- 
 pose. When he regained consciousness, he rang 
 his chair bell and rose to robe for mass. When 
 the brother who usually served his mass en- 
 tered the chapel he told Alphonsus he was too 
 ill to offer up the Sacrifice. At once the chapel 
 was filled with the priests and domestics of the 
 house, who had watched with anxiety the end 
 of the cataleptic sleep. When Alphonsus, in 
 surprise, asked a reason for their presence, he 
 was told that for many hours he was as a 
 dead man. "Ah! yes indeed," he answered, 
 "but I have come from the bedside of the Pope, 
 who is now dead." Those who heard him 
 deemed this to be the hallucination of a sick 
 
DUAL PERSONALITY 81 
 
 man; but when the report of the death of Pope 
 Clement came to the bishop 's city of St. Agatha, 
 it corresponded exactly with the day and the 
 hour, September 22, 1774, when Alphonsus had 
 returned to himself. 
 
 Novaes,jin his "History of the Popes," re- 
 cording this phenomenon, writes: "Clement 
 XIV expired on September 22 at the thirteenth 
 hour (7 A. M.). There were present at his 
 death the superiors general of the Augustinians, 
 Dominicans, Observantines and Conventuals; 
 and with them, in their midst, was the saintly 
 Alphonsus de' Liguori, who, though his body 
 was elsewhere, was miraculously in the chamber 
 of death. The presence of Alphonsus was cited 
 at the judicial process for his canonization and 
 was accepted and approved by the Holy Congre- 
 gation of Kites" (St. Liguori, Vererdier, 1833, 
 p. 318). 
 
 To the weight of the authority of the Congre- 
 gation of Rites allow me to add this declaration 
 of the spiritist, Eliphas Levi, who apostatized 
 from the Church and entered the ranks of her 
 enemies: "There is no fact of history," he 
 
82 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 writes, "more incontestable or more effectually 
 proved than the fact of the real and visible 
 presence of Father Alphonsus de' Liguori at the 
 bedside of the Pope when in his last agony, 
 while the same Alphonsus was in ecstasy and 
 in prayer in a remote district of Italy. " ( ' * Rit- 
 ual of Spiritism," Vol. I, p. 206.) 
 
 I am here this morning in the Mexican town 
 of Tlaxcala. It is exactly 9 :15 A. m., July 8. 
 Let us suppose for the sake of elucidation that 
 at precisely the same hour and day I entered 
 your oflSce, sat down, and spoke to you, then dis- 
 appeared bidding you good-bye. Would you 
 not be ready to testify on oath that at 9 :15, July 
 8, 1 was in your office and that you held conver- 
 sation with me ? But the proprietor of the little 
 fonda where I now am, will swear that at that 
 hour, day, and date I was in his hostelry. To 
 be in a given place at a particular time and an 
 exact duplicate or simulacrum of the same per- 
 son to be in another place many miles away at 
 exactly the same time ; to be not only the double 
 of the same person, but the identification to be 
 made by many persons and the apparition to be 
 
DUAL PERSONALITY 
 
 83 
 
 distinctly and sensibly present, this is what ap- 
 pears to me is what is meant by bilocation in 
 its rigorous sense. It is, as it were, the ghost 
 of a living person seen abroad while the same 
 person is in his own house. 
 
 In those rigorously accurate and severe com- 
 pilations known under the title of "Acts of the 
 Canonization of Saints," are found incontro- 
 vertible examples of bilocation. The great and 
 imperishable Catholic Church is wisdom itself, 
 visible to us under a sensible form, and here 
 are her words addressed to us in the Eoman 
 Breviary for the Feast of St. Francis Xavier: 
 "He had the gift of bilocation, he wrought won- 
 derful miracles while living, and in death his 
 body triumphed over putrefaction." 
 
 The fact I am now about to record is to be 
 found in the "Vie de Saint Frangois Xavier," 
 by Pere Bouhours (Avignon, 1817, Vol. II). Let 
 me introduce this wonderful example of biloca- 
 tion by a statement made by the author in his 
 preface to this very readable volume. He 
 writes : "No miracles were ever examined with 
 greater care, or were subjected to a more crucial 
 
84 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 test, than those presented for the canonization 
 of Saint Francis." 
 
 Early in November, 1551, the ship on which 
 the saintly missionary was sailing from Japan 
 to India entered the Straits of Korea. Early 
 one morning the vessel rode into one of those 
 fierce and prolonged storms which carry fear 
 to the hearts of seasoned mariners. A hurri- 
 cane swept the decks, carried away the sails, 
 tore out the masts, and threatened destruction 
 to the ship and all on board. Then Francis 
 fell upon his knees in prayer, when presently the 
 sea went down and the ship, water-logged, 
 floated helplessly. The crew got out the boat 
 and began to tow the ship to the nearest land. 
 While they were rowing the storm again rose, 
 the tow-line was snapped and the oarsmen and 
 their boat swept out to sea. The tempest grew 
 to a tornado, when the holy man Francis retired 
 to his room and invoking the Holy Name, be- 
 sought Jesus Christ by the five wounds in- 
 flicted on Him when nailed to the cross to save 
 them. As he prayed, the storm passed beyond 
 them. The sailors on the ship were now over- 
 
DUAL PERSONALITY 85 
 
 whelmed with sorrow for the fate of their com- 
 panions driven out to sea. Then Francis said 
 to them: "Be of good cheer, my friends, for 
 before the expiration of the third day the daugh- 
 ter that is lost will return to her mother." 
 
 Their water-logged wreck rose and sank with 
 the waves, and yet no boat returned. In vain 
 they scanned the horizon and saw no sign of a 
 boat. They were giving up all hope, when 
 again Francis cheered their drooping spirits: 
 "Have courage, my children," he pleaded, "I 
 tell you they are returning to us." Then he 
 retired to his berth and, once again, fell upon 
 his knees in prayer. Presently the "lookout" 
 shouted, ' ' They are coming, ' ' and every eye took 
 in the rowing men. A cry of joy greeted the 
 saved men, who, reaching the side of the ship, 
 mounted and were embraced by their compan- 
 ions. When the hand-shakings and congratula- 
 tions were over, the quartermaster gave orders 
 to have the returned boat brought on deck. 
 "Wait, wait," cried one of the rescued men, 
 "Father Francis, where is he? He has not 
 come aboard." The sailors who remained on 
 
86 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 the ship, hearing the man and his companions 
 thus express themselves, said one to the other: 
 "The poor fellows are out of their minds from 
 long suffering and starvation." But in vain 
 they tried to disabuse the minds of the returned 
 men by pointing to the empty boat, and by assur- 
 ing them that Father Francis was now on board 
 and had, at no time, left the ship. To the 
 amazement of every one the saved men persisted 
 in asserting that from morning till night and 
 from night till morning, Francis was with them 
 for three days. "No, No," they exclaimed, 
 "we had no fear of being lost or of perishing, 
 for the holy man was with us and told us we 
 would be saved." 
 
 This is the case as recorded in the Life of St. 
 Francis Xavier by Pere Bouhours, — and in the 
 Lives of the Saint by Massei and the learned 
 English Jesuit, Henry James Coleridge. It 
 was proved by the sworn declarations of the 
 captain and crew of the vessel and the rescued 
 men, and was accepted as a fact in the process 
 for the canonization of Francis Xavier. 
 
DUAL PERSONAMTY 87 
 
 After proving that bilocation was miraculous 
 the "Belatio" of canonization goes on to say: 
 "Many of the witnesses say that Xavier ap- 
 peared to those who were in the boat tossed 
 about by the waves, and that when they were 
 taken up into the ship Xavier had been all the 
 time with them in the boat, and that they were 
 filled with astonishment when they found that 
 at the same time he had been on the ship." 
 
 It remains now to reconcile this incontestable 
 fact with our reason and with human experi- 
 ence. And we do so by acknowledging that, as 
 in the case of Ananias, an angel from heaven, 
 for three days, assumed the voice, form, and 
 dress of Francis, and so complete and perfect 
 was the personification that it was impossible 
 for human eye or ear to distinguish between 
 the Saint and the spirit. Francis, by whose 
 holiness of life and fervent prayer the miracle 
 was accomplished, was not at the same time on 
 the ship and on the long boat. It is possible 
 that when in his first ecstatic prayer in his 
 cabin on the ship, he saw elairvoyantly the angel 
 
88 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 (his duplicated self) on the boat among the 
 drifting men, and was assured by an inward 
 voice that the men would be saved. When he 
 went on deck he carried with him the divine as- 
 surance that all would be well, and with this cer- 
 titude he fearlessly announced to the ship's crew 
 their own safety and the return of those they 
 thought lost. 
 
 Allow me, even though I may weary you, to 
 enlarge somewhat on the phenomenon of bilo- 
 cation. I know that for those unfamiliar with 
 mystic literature, prodigies of this order are 
 as opposed to their established opinions and as 
 puzzling to the mind as are the intricacies of 
 differential calculus to the uneducated, or the 
 action of electric forces, the instantaneous 
 change wrought on certain liquids by the infu- 
 sion of a reactive, the Plutonian theory of the 
 imperceptible rising of mountains, or the in- 
 candescence of the globe to the undeveloped 
 mind of the sheep-herder. 
 
 I am convinced that in this age when Satanism 
 assumes a most alluring and seductive guise, it 
 is well for those who have the time, the means. 
 
DUAL PERSONALITY 89 
 
 and the opportunity to devote some study to 
 the strange manifestations of occult science as 
 presented to us early in the morning of the 
 twentieth century. 
 
"Man, by his transgression, allowed himself to be 
 overcome by the evil spirit. Now, St. Peter informs 
 us that 'by whom man is overcome, of the same also 
 is he the slave. ' This dominion consists in the power 
 of demons to tempt us by obsessing our bodies, by 
 obsession to molest and vex man in divers ways, £ind 
 by possession violently and despotically to turn his 
 victim into a tool or instrument, through which he 
 produces very strange and startling effects." — J. God- 
 frey Eaupert, "The Supreme Problem." 
 
vn 
 
 SPIRITISM, ANCIENT AND MODERN 
 
 Spiritism and Immortality — The Cvlt does not Prove 
 Immortality for the Soul of Man — Seeking Tinith from the 
 Dead — St. Paul's Statement — Spiritists Cannot Prove that 
 the Dead Appear or Answer Questions — Statements of Mr. 
 James H. Hyslop — Spiritists on the Divinity of Jesus 
 Christ — Spiritism Condemned by the Judaic and Catholic 
 Churches — The Old and New Testaments and Evocation 
 of Spirits — The Wonders of Spiritism — Spiritism and 
 Christianity. 
 
 Many modem writers on Spiritism, amongst 
 them scientific men of high standing, maintain 
 that Spiritism proves, by experimentation with 
 the dead, the immortality of the soul. 
 
 Believers in the dangerous and occult heresy 
 of Spiritism have been insisting on this immor- 
 tality argument or proof since Eobert Dale 
 O^v^en wrote his "Footfalls on the Boundary of 
 Another World." Even the orthodox reviewer 
 
 91 
 
92 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 who, a few years ago, reviewed for the "Cath- 
 olic World" Father Searle's treatise on "Spirit 
 Phenomena," leaned to the opinions of Owen 
 and the scientists mentioned. 
 
 This immortality plea was also Daniel Homes' 
 defense when accused of holding communica- 
 tion with the devil, and is to-day repeated, iter- 
 ated and reiterated by Spiritists in their litera- 
 ture, lectures, and conversations. 
 
 Until it be proved that the spirits which an- 
 swer the call and hold converse with human 
 beings are souls of men or women who once 
 lived in the flesh, and are not companions of 
 those who said to our Blessed Lord: "What 
 have we to do with thee, Jesus, Son of God!" 
 this immortality claim of Spiritists does not 
 convince minds well informed on the history of 
 necromancy or evocation of the dead. If the 
 immortality of the soul rested on no better au- 
 thority than the statements of those whom St. 
 Paul denounced as "lying spirits," the belief 
 in its reality would long ago have disappeared 
 from the minds of all peoples. 
 
 Strange, is it not, that thousands who pro- 
 
SPIRITISM 93 
 
 fess to believe in the immortality of the soul, 
 on the testimony of what they call "disem- 
 bodied spirits," refuse to accept the resurrec- 
 tion of Jesus Christ on the testimony of men 
 who were eye-witnesses to the Crucifixion of 
 the Son of God, who spoke with Him after He 
 had risen from the tomb, and were so positive 
 and convinced that it was the same Christ whom 
 they saw hanging on the cross that they suf- 
 fered martyrdom rather than deny His resur- 
 rection. Faith in the divinity of our Lord 
 and His doctrines is dead in the brain and 
 hearts of men and women who abandon them- 
 selves to "seeking the truth from the dead." 
 They are the legitimate descendants of the 
 apostates from the Church of Ephesus, of 
 whom St. Paul said: "They have departed 
 from the faith and are now giving heed to spirits 
 of error and to doctrines of devils." 
 
 Conceding the phenomena and spirit com- 
 munications alleged by Spiritists in favor of 
 their cult, there is absolutely no proof that the 
 spirits which respond to the questions of the 
 mediums or others, or who materialize and ap- 
 
94 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 pear at the seances, are the souls of deceased 
 persons. Spiritism, then, contrary to the pre- 
 tensions of its votaries, proves neither that the 
 dead live again nor that the soul survives the 
 body. It does not even prove that there is in 
 man a soul distinct from the body. I call 
 particular attention to this statement, which 
 merits more consideration than it has hitherto 
 received. 
 
 We need no ghost from hell or elsewhere to 
 convince us that the immortality of the soul fol- 
 lows necessarily from the immateriality of the 
 soul, for that is demonstrable from reason, and 
 was so understood by nearly all heathen philos- 
 ophers. What was not believed by the heathen, 
 and is not provable from reason, is the Chris- 
 tian doctrine of the resurrection of our bodies. 
 This, the supernatural life, and the Incarnation, 
 the spirits and the Spiritists do not teach and 
 do not pretend to teach. We are on fairly inti- 
 mate terms with Italian, French, and English 
 literature dealing with the three broad divisions 
 of Occultism and Spiritism, but we have no- 
 where found in that literature a statement of 
 
SPIRITISM 95 
 
 belief in the Incarnation of the Second Person 
 of the Trinity, in the "resurrection of the 
 body," or in the ''life everlasting" of the 
 Apostles' Creed. 
 
 A few years ago, James H. Hyslop, formerly 
 a member of the faculty of Columbia University 
 and, after his resignation, secretary of the 
 American Society for Psychical Research, gave 
 the public his views on Occultism. Mr. Hyslop 
 is a Spiritist, and the society of which he is the 
 secretary, is experimenting with occult science 
 and with the world beyond the grave. Lom- 
 broso. Stead, Miles Grant, and an army of 
 French, English, Italian, and G-erman experi- 
 menters have anticipated Mr. Hyslop by many 
 years. He and his society can tell us nothing 
 new, or advance any theory bearing upon the 
 spirit world that was not known to Jews and 
 Christians before the redemption of the Anglo- 
 Saxons from barbarism. 
 
 The substance of Mr. Hyslop 's statements, 
 framed in secular English, is that : 
 
 1. Heaven and Hell are only states of the 
 mind. 
 
96 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 2. The members of the American Society of 
 Psychical Eesearch are Spiritisms, not Spiritual- 
 ists, who are fakers. 
 
 3. Ghosts, in many instances, are simply 
 phantoms or creatures of the imagination. 
 
 4. Communications between disembodied 
 souls and human beings of this earth are estab- 
 lished facts. 
 
 5. Spirits or disembodied souls have all the 
 physical organs which were theirs when on 
 earth, but these organs in the spirit sphere are 
 now etherealized. 
 
 Except the substitution of the correct word 
 Spiritism for Spiritualism Mr. Hy slop's pres- 
 entation of the Society's views suggests noth- 
 ing new or indeed interesting. For the man 
 who professes to believe in the Divinity of Jesus 
 Christ, that is in the accepted Christian sense, 
 which Spiritists do not, the position and line of 
 action of such a man, face to face with the 
 awful mystery of the unseen world, and with 
 necromancy or evocation of the dead, is settled 
 for all time. For those of us who are members 
 of the Judaic or of the imperishable Catholic 
 
SPIEITISM 97 
 
 Church, the grave question of Spiritism is for- 
 ever answered and our attitude clear and in- 
 telligible. The Judaic and Catholic Churches 
 have oflScially and authoritatively declared that 
 the belief in, and practice of, Spiritism, consult- 
 ing spirits and entering into communication 
 with them, evocation or calling up the dead — 
 necromancy — are unlawful and against the com- 
 mand of God. The Catholic and Judaic 
 Churches condemn Spiritism and everything ia- 
 timately or remotely associated with it, and this 
 condemnation is extended to planchette and 
 ouija board. And these ever ancient and ever 
 new churches know what they are doing, for 
 they have in their keeping the knowledge and 
 experience of the human race back to the days 
 of Abraham. 
 
 The Jew or Catholic who mixes himself up 
 with Spiritism is a fool, and though he may not 
 now admit his folly, he will do so before he is 
 through with the spirits. We know of no more 
 fruitful cause of insanity and immorality than 
 necromancy and promiscuous intercourse with 
 those whom St. John calls "spirits of devils." 
 
98 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 Moses, by command of God, entreated the Is- 
 raelites — the Jewish people — to abstain from 
 all intercourse with spirits or fallen angels. 
 Bead this extract from Deuteronomy, Chap. 
 XVII : * ' Neither let there be found among you 
 anyone that consulteth spirits, or that seeketh 
 the truth from the dead." This warning was 
 delivered about three thousand six hundred 
 years ago to human beings like ourselves, who, 
 "professing themselves to be wise, became 
 fools." 
 
 Once again let us consult the word of God: 
 "And when Jesus was come to the other side 
 of the water, into the country of the Gerasens, 
 there met him two men possessed of devils, 
 . . . and behold they cried out saying, 'What 
 have we to do with thee, Jesus, Son of God?' " 
 (Matt. VIII). Who told the spirits who pos- 
 sessed these men that Jesus was the Son of 
 God, and why did they openly declare that they 
 were not on His side? 
 
 Notwithstanding the claims put forward by 
 Spiritists that their cult has opened to the un- 
 derstanding and knowledge of man a mine of 
 
SPIRITISM 99 
 
 information about himself, his latent and hith- 
 erto undeveloped faculties, the state of disem- 
 bodied souls and man's control over the dead, 
 we are not persuaded that they have added any- 
 thing to the sum of information already held by 
 men familiar with the history of the human 
 race. 
 
 The apparition of spirits, clairvoyance or 
 illumination of mental sight, mechanical phe- 
 nomena such as the production of light, heat 
 and sound, aerial transportation, oracleism or 
 the disclosure of the future, table lifting, levita- 
 tion, suspension of vital functions, acceleration 
 of respiration and of the circulation of the 
 blood, clairaudience, automatic writing, speaking 
 unknown and foreign languages, forming human 
 faces, himaan limbs, or entire bodies, alteration 
 in weight of bodies, and all the other phenomena 
 of modem Spiritism were known to the Chal- 
 deans and Egyptians in the time of the 
 Pharaos. 
 
 Spirit manifestations and spirit wonders are 
 not more frequent now than they have been in 
 past ages. They are not peculiar to our times. 
 
100 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 They were more common among the polished 
 Oreeks and all-conquering Romans than they 
 are in any American and European nation to- 
 day. Tertullian, Origen, and many of the ante- 
 Nicene Fathers warned Christians not to be de- 
 ceived by them. If we may credit the state- 
 ments of Mr. J. P. Siimet, the theosophist, in 
 his "Occult "World," the Thibetan mystics and 
 Mahatmas of India claim to inherit from im- 
 memorial times extraordinary psychic powers 
 and an intimate acquaintance with transmun- 
 dane spirits. The Catholic Church has in every 
 age, since the Redemption, encountered them, 
 and she has uniformly associated them with 
 Satan and his angels. 
 
 Spiritism is a heresy with which the members 
 of Christianity have nothing in common. And 
 yet men and women of high aim, sincere and 
 honest, if not always of avowedly Christian be- 
 lief, are every day enmeshed in the subtleties 
 of this pernicious deception. For Catholics, 
 and indeed for all Christians, the Catholic 
 Church answers satisfactorily and conclusively 
 every appeal of the soul over our present life 
 
SPIRITISM 
 
 101 
 
 and our future destiny. Away from her side 
 there is nothing positive, nothing dogmatic, 
 nothing trustworthy in any of our notions as 
 to whence we came or whither we go when the 
 light of human existence dies out in us. Away 
 from her there is darkness, confusion, and de- 
 spair of the future. 
 
"It seems to me that the Apostle Paul, in the 
 Epistle to the Bphesians, points to a race of spiritual 
 creatures, similar to that I have described, but of a 
 malignant type, when he speaks of beings not made 
 of flesh and blood inhabiting the air around us 
 and able injuriously to affect mankind. . . . These 
 practices [of consulting spirits] were condemned in 
 unmeasured terms by the Hebrew prophets. They 
 were prohibited not only because they were the prac- 
 tice of the pagan nations, but mainly because they 
 tended to obscure the divine idea and to weaken the 
 supreme faith in the reverent worship of the One 
 Omnipotent Being." — Sir William Barrett, "Necro- 
 mancy ard Modem Magic." 
 
vin 
 
 SPIRITISM— WHAT IS IT? 
 
 Opinion of Sir William Barrett — Possibility of Spirit 
 Communication — Sir Oliver Lodge — Swing of the Pendu- 
 lum of the Mind — Spiritism in the Days of Moses — Iden- 
 tically the Same To-day — Its Universality Among Pagan 
 Nations — Sins of the Apostate Jews — The "Fallen An- 
 gels" — Prayer of the Church — No Satan, no Christ — ^Past 
 Conditions and Practices Reproduced in Modem Times — 
 Warning — ^Vast Experience of the Church with Spirits. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Campbell, when recently ad- 
 dressing a great congregation in the London 
 Tabernacle, declared that he had read with deep 
 interest Sir Oliver Lodge's "Conversations with 
 his Dead Son," and that he was amazed and 
 mystified. Why should he have been "amazed 
 and mystified ' ' ? Did not Saul see and converse 
 with the dead prophet Samuel, or with a spirit 
 personifying him? Is not the Bible, from cover 
 to cover, filled with examples of the living orally 
 communing with the spirits of the dead or 
 
 103 
 
104 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 spirits speaking for the dead? In fact, is not 
 all literature, all history — sacred and profane — 
 Plutarch, Homer, the Lives of the Saints, all ha- 
 giology, punctuated with instances of the living 
 communicating with the dead? 
 
 The experience of Sir Oliver Lodge is noth- 
 ing new. Holding converse with the dead is 
 the daily experience of thousands liviag in Eu- 
 rope, Asia, and America, and is a cult or prac- 
 tice almost coeval with the human race. 
 
 The idea of the possibility of spirit communi- 
 cation is, of itself, in no way opposed to rea- 
 sonable belief, but is a matter altogether de- 
 pendent on the testimony of witnesses, whose 
 evidence is legally entitled to belief. It has 
 already been decided by rigid examination. 
 
 Seventy years ago, when Darwin and Huxley 
 thought they had pushed back the frontiers of 
 the unknowable to the farthest point attain- 
 able, that is to a negation of God, the stiU but 
 impressive voice of the scientist, Alfred Eus- 
 sel Wallace, was heard, crying in a wilderness 
 of scoffs and jeers. To-day Sir Oliver Lodge 
 has swung the pendulum back to where it was 
 
SPIRITISM 105 
 
 two hundred years ago. And all the while the 
 natural and the supernatural maintain their in- 
 alterable laws, while only the minds of the sci- 
 entists are vacillating. 
 
 It is a melancholy reflection upon our proc- 
 esses of thought that, after emerging from 
 what scientists are pleased to call "supersti- 
 tion," and establishing elaborate cosmogonies 
 and theories seemingly fixed and unalterable, 
 the human mind should be driven back upon the 
 old traditions and the old practices. 
 
 Is it not deplorable that, when the intellect of 
 man has lost the truths made known by God 
 from the beginning, he is driven to take refuge 
 in pure negation of all revelation or indulge 
 himself with evocation of the dead, as Sir Oliver 
 Lodge is now doing, or seek for information on 
 the sotd's destiny from those whom St. Mark 
 calls "spirits of evil" and "unclean spirits"? 
 
 Spiritism, or the practice of necromancy, is 
 to-day, as it was in the time of Moses, an evi- 
 dence of moral decadence. As in the days of 
 old, it has grown into a cult with which thou- 
 sands are obsessed. It has a copious litera- 
 
106 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 ture punctuated by such, startling terms as 
 "telopsis," "telepathy," "teloteropathy," 
 "zoo-magnetic force," "telekensis," and many 
 other fine words invented by the Psychical Re- 
 searchers. 
 
 Spiritism is a development of paganism, an 
 outgrowth of heathenism in every age of his- 
 tory, and is found with pitiable forms of devil- 
 worship among nations that are most deeply 
 sunk in idolatry. Its permanency, then, among 
 Japhetic races in modern times is an alarming 
 mark of the degeneracy of our boasted civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 Three thousand four hundred years ago the 
 pagan world was so steeped in Spiritism that 
 God, under pain of death, prohibited its prac- 
 tice to the Israelites: "Neither let there be 
 found among you any one that . . . consulteth 
 spirits, or . . . that seeketh the truth from the 
 dead." (Dent. XVIII, 11.) 
 
 So that Spiritism, or communing with spirits 
 and summoning the souls of the dead to hold 
 converse with the living, goes back very far in 
 the annals of the human race. It was prohibited 
 
SPIRITISM 107 
 
 to the Jews by command of God in the time of 
 Aaron. The prohibition was renewed by Saul, 
 under pain of death, and before his time Moses, 
 the "friend of God," publicly proclaimed that 
 "the Lord abhorreth these things and those 
 who do them." Necromancy and Spiritism in- 
 voked the doom of the Gentile nations, who 
 abandoned themselves to the worship of demons 
 and to the frightful impurities and abominations 
 which brought down upon them the anger of 
 God and racial annihilation. 
 
 The worship of Priapus, the divine rites paid 
 to the Phallus in the days of Asa, the Judaean, 
 by the apostate Jews, and mercilessly repro- 
 bated by Ezekiel, the prophet of God, what 
 were they but the deification of lust and the wor- 
 ship of the devil, — the god of promiscuous sex- 
 ual intercourse? 
 
 There is not in all history, sacred and pro- 
 fane, anything to be compared to the awful in- 
 dictment framed by Ezekiel, in his sixteenth and 
 seventeenth chapters, against the apostate Is- 
 raelites who intermarried with the idolatrous 
 Ammonites and Moabites, the "worshippers of 
 
108 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 devils who brought shameful abominations to 
 their sons and daughters." All through the 
 Old and New Testaments there runs, as dis- 
 tinctly visible as a black thread woven into 
 white silk, the malign influence, not of disem- 
 bodied souls, but of spirits lost in hopeless 
 despair. There is no fact of history more 
 strongly attested than this. 
 
 Submitting our obedience to the records and 
 revelations of divinely inspired writers and to 
 the doctriaal teaching of the imperishable 
 Church of Grod, we hold that the spirits that 
 appear, or make their presence known, to the 
 necromancers and accredited "mediums" of the 
 cult of Spiritism, are demons or, according to 
 St. Peter and St. Jude, "angels who kept not 
 their principality, angels that sinned." We 
 know that the souls of the dead do not return 
 to amuse the living or to satisfy their curiosity, 
 and we also know that pernicous intermeddling 
 with the unseen world of evil spirits is, sooner 
 or later, sure to end disastrously. 
 
 The historic Catholic Church teaches now, 
 and for two thousand years has uniformly 
 
SPIRITISM 109 
 
 taught, the existence of Satan, of lost spirits, 
 their unquenchable hatred for the human race 
 and their sinister influence upon persons who 
 abandon themselves to intercourse with them. 
 If there be no devil or evil spirits, what is the 
 meaning of the exorcisms in Baptism, of the 
 appeals to God in the Church's Missal, ritual, 
 and public prayers, to save us from the evil in- 
 fluence and enmity of Satan and the angels 
 "who sinned"! To this end she commands her 
 priests, after they have offered up the Sacrifice 
 of the Mass, to say aloud this suggestive and 
 doctrinal prayer : * ' May God rebuke Satan, we 
 humbly pray, and do thou, Michael, Prince of 
 the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, drive 
 back into hell all the evil spirits who wander 
 through the world seeking the ruin of souls. " 
 
 If there be no Satan and no evil spirits there 
 can be no Saviour, for, from whom does the 
 Saviour save us? There can be no Eedeemer, 
 for, from what are we rescued, and if there be 
 no Saviour and no Eedeemer, can there be Chris- 
 tianity? Now, why did Jesus Christ, the Son 
 of God, our Redeemer and Saviour, become 
 
110 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 man? St. John removes all doubt from our 
 minds when, in language emphatic and convinc- 
 ing, he tells us in his first Epistle : ' ' The Son 
 of God appeared upon earth that he might de- 
 stroy the works of the devil. ' ' 
 
 All the ribald laughter of scoffers, all the 
 ridicule of sceptics, all the sophisms of infidels, 
 and the incredulity of those "wise in their own 
 conceits," cannot alter facts. The existence of 
 evil spirits and their malign influence over the 
 souls of men and women are not alone facts of 
 history, sacred and profane, they are facts in 
 the life and experience of the human race. 
 
 Clairvoyants and mediums represent as defin- 
 ite a profession among us to-day as did python- 
 esses, necromancers, and soothsayers among 
 the Eomans and earlier races. Seances and con- 
 versations with spirits of the dead — ^in reality 
 with powers of darkness — are entered upon 
 without fear and spoken of without abhorrence. 
 
 Nor do we believe with some learned theolo- 
 gians that the unchangeable enmity of the devil 
 and the malevolent operations of evil spirits 
 on human souls are less now than before the 
 
SPIRITISM 111 
 
 Redemption. The Christian, by prayer and 
 sacramental grace, while not immune to attack, 
 is stronger and better armed. That the mani- 
 festations of the "powers of darkness" are less 
 visibly pronounced than in former times is pat- 
 ent to every student of diabolic agency, but 
 that their hatred for man or their evil influ- 
 ence upon those whose lives are corrupt, is 
 weakened or weakening, we are not, from what 
 we have seen and read, disposed to admit. 
 The monstrous crimes which to-day disgrace 
 our race, the appalling number of suicides, the 
 unnatural lusts, the lawlessness, that is, the con- 
 tempt for law, human and divine, and the atro- 
 cious destruction of pre-natal, infant, and adult 
 life, belong not to man as God made him. These 
 inhuman and unnatural violations of the dignity 
 of man — ^made just lower than the angels — must 
 be charged to agencies outside of human ex- 
 istence and with which our nature ought not to 
 have anything in common. 
 
 The Church of God warns her children to 
 have nothing to do with mediums, seances, or 
 with Spiritism in any form, which often lead to 
 
112 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 insanity and to utter moral depravity. She 
 commands her adherents to have nothing to do 
 with anything or any person mediately or im- 
 mediately associated with diabolism and spirits 
 of evil. She has behind her the experience 
 of two thousand years and, when she speaks, 
 she speaks with authority and with a knowledge 
 that covers the religious and social history of 
 the human race. 
 
"I do not know of any belief that has so universally 
 prevailed among members of the human race, at all 
 times and in aU lands, as the belief in the influence of 
 demons and good angels on human beings, and an un- 
 alterable faith in the appearance and visits of the souls 
 of the dead to the living." — Gougenot Des Mous- 
 seaux, "La Magie." 
 
IX 
 
 APPARITIONS 
 
 When a Soul Appears to the Living, Does it Appear in 
 its Own Body? — Can it be Proved that the Dead Con- 
 verse with the Living? — Case Recorded by Sir Robert 
 Bruce — The Apparition — The Writing on the Slate — The 
 Rescue — Verification — ^Reflections — Apparitions of the Liv- 
 ing — Clairvoyance — ^Levitation — Angelic or Demoniacal 
 Spirits — Warning of an Apostle. 
 
 No one may deny, for it is self-evident, that 
 where the living body is, there also must be 
 the soul. If with the Platonists we could believe 
 in a triple soul, that is the rational, the appeti- 
 tive, and the passionate soul, or with the Gre- 
 cians in a pneuma or spirit and a psyche or 
 soul, both dwelling in the same body, an appari- 
 tion of the living would be a problem presenting 
 no insuperable difficulties. 
 
 When the soul leaves the home given to it by 
 God, decomposition begins. But, in the case 
 of the Captain's father, mentioned in a previous 
 
 lis 
 
116 FSSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 chapter, did the soul bring its body with it? 
 No, certainly not, for when the English officer 
 on board the homeward bound ship saw the ap- 
 parition of the living man, the Captain's father, 
 the sick man, was in his bed hundreds of miles 
 away, and at no time was he left alone. 
 
 "How then," you ask, "account for the 
 'double' on board the ship?" 
 
 Well, before we enter upon this problem, let 
 us make reasonably sure that these apparitions 
 occur ; in fact, let us be convincingly sure, and 
 then we can penetrate with a contented mind 
 into the arcana — the secrets — of the very heart 
 of these wonderful facts, 
 
 Eobert Bruce, originally descended from some 
 branch of the Scottish family of that name, was 
 born, in humble circumstances, about the close 
 of the last century, at Torbay, in the south of 
 England, and there bred up to a seafaring 
 life. When about thirty years of age, in the 
 year 1828, he was first mate on a bark trading 
 between Liverpool and St. John's, New Bruns- 
 wick. On one of her voyages bound westward, 
 being then some five or six weeks out and having 
 
APPARITIONS 
 
 117 
 
 neared the eastern part of the Banks of New- 
 foundland, the captain and mate had been on 
 deck at noon, taking an observation of the sun ; 
 after which they both returned to the cabin to 
 compound reckonings. The cabin, a small one, 
 was immediately at the stem of the vessel, and 
 the short stairway descending to it ran athwart- 
 ships. Immediately opposite to this stairway, 
 just beyond a small square landing, was the 
 mate's state-room; and from that landing there 
 were two doors, close to each other, the one 
 opening aft into the cabin, the other, fronting the 
 stairway, into the state-room. The desk in the 
 state-room was in the forward part of it, close 
 to the door; so that any one sitting at it and 
 looking over his shoulder could see into the 
 cabin. 
 
 The mate, absorbed in his calculation, which 
 did not result as he expected, varying consid- 
 erably from the dead-reckoning, had not noticed 
 the captain's absence. "When he had completed 
 his calculations, he called out, without looking 
 round, "I make our latitude and longitude so 
 and so. Can that be right! How is yours?" 
 
118 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 Eeceiving no reply, he repeated his question, 
 glancing over his shoulder and perceiving, as 
 he thought, the captain busy writing on his 
 slate. Still no answer. Thereupon he rose; 
 and, as he fronted the cabin-door, the figure he 
 had mistaken for the captain raised its head and 
 disclosed to the astonished mate the features 
 of an entire stranger. 
 
 Bruce was no coward; but, as he met that 
 fixed gaze looking directly at him in grave si- 
 lence, and became assured that it was no one 
 whom he had ever seen before, it was too much 
 for him ; and, instead of stopping to question the 
 seeming intruder, he rushed upon deck in such 
 evident alarm that it instantly attracted the 
 captain's attention. "Why, Mr. Bruce," said 
 the latter, "what in the world is the matter with 
 youl" 
 
 "The matter, Sir! Who is that man at your 
 desk?" 
 
 "No one that I know of." 
 
 "But there is, Sir: there's a stranger there." 
 
 ' ' A stranger ! Why, man, you must be dream- 
 ing. You must have seen the steward there, or 
 
APPAEITIONS 119 
 
 the second mate. Who else would venture 
 down without orders?" 
 
 "But, Sir, he was sitting in your arm-chair, 
 fronting the door, writing on your slate. Then 
 he looked up full in my face ; and, if ever I saw 
 a man plainly and distinctly in this world, I saw 
 him." 
 
 "Him! "Whom?" 
 
 "God knows. Sir: I don't. I saw a man, and 
 a man I had never seen in my life before." 
 
 "You must be going crazy, Mr. Bruce. A 
 stranger, and we nearly six weeks out!" 
 
 "I know. Sir; but then I saw him." 
 
 "Go down and see who it is." 
 
 Bruce hesitated. "I never was a believer in 
 ghosts," he said, "but, if the truth must be told, 
 Sir, I'd rather not face it alone." 
 
 "Come, come, man. Go down at once, and 
 don't make a fool of yourself before the crew." 
 
 "I hope you've always found me willing to do 
 what's reasonable," Bruce replied, changing 
 color, "but if it's all the same to you. Sir, I'd 
 rather we should both go down together." 
 
 The captain descended the stairs, and the mate 
 
120 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 followed him. Nobody in the cabin! They 
 examined the state-rooms. Not a soul to be 
 found ! 
 
 "Well, Mr. Bruce," said the captain, "did 
 not I tell you you had been dreaming?" 
 
 "It's all very well to say so. Sir; but if I 
 didn't see that man writing on your slate, may 
 I never see my home and family again 1" 
 
 " Ah I writing on the slate 1 Then it should be 
 there still. " And the captain took it up, 
 
 "By God," he exclaimed, "here's something, 
 sure enough 1 Is that your writing, Mr. 
 Bruce?" 
 
 The mate took the slate ; and there, in plain, 
 legible characters, stood the words, "Steer to 
 
 THE NOR 'west." 
 
 "Have you been trifling with me. Sir?" 
 added the captain, in a stern manner. 
 
 "On my word as a man and as a sailor, Sir," 
 replied Bruce, "I know no more of this matter 
 than you do. I have told you the exact truth." 
 
 The captain sat down at his desk, the slate 
 before him, in deep thought. At last, turning 
 the slate over and pushing it toward Bruce, he 
 
APPARITIONS 
 
 121 
 
 said, "Write down, 'Steer to the nor Vest.' " 
 
 The mate complied; and the captain, after 
 narrowly comparing the two handwritings, said, 
 "Mr. Bruce, go and tell the second mate to come 
 down here." 
 
 He came ; and, at the captain's request, he also 
 wrote the same words. So did the steward. 
 So, in succession, did every man of the crew who 
 could write at all. But not one of the various 
 hands resembled, in any degree, the mysterious 
 writing. 
 
 When the crew retired, the captain sat in 
 deep thought. "Could any one have been 
 stowed away ? " at last he said. * ' The ship must 
 be searched; and if I don't find the fellow, he 
 must be a good hand at hide-and-seek. Order 
 up all hands. ' ' 
 
 Every nook and comer of the vessel, from 
 stem to stem, was thoroughly searched, and 
 that with all the eagerness of excited curiosity, 
 — for the report had gone out that a stranger 
 had shown himself on board; but not a living 
 soul beyond the crew and the officers was found. 
 
 Returning to the cabin after their fruitless 
 
122 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 search, "Mr. Bruce," said the captain, "what 
 the devil do you make of all this 1 ' ' 
 
 "Can't tell, Sir. I saw the man write; you 
 see the writing. There must be something in 
 it." 
 
 "Well, it would seem so. We have the wind 
 free, and I have a great mind to keep her away 
 and see what will come of it." 
 
 "I surely would. Sir, if I were in your place. 
 It's only a few hours lost, at the worst." 
 
 "Well, we'll see. Go on deck and give the 
 course nor 'west. And, Mr. Bruce," he added, 
 as the mate rose to go, "have a look-out aloft, 
 and let it be a hand you can depend on. ' ' 
 
 His orders were obeyed. About three o 'clock 
 the look-out reported an iceberg nearly ahead, 
 and, shortly after, what he thought was a vessel 
 of some kind close to it. 
 
 As they approached, the captain's glass dis- 
 closed the fact that it was a dismantled ship, 
 apparently frozen to the ice, and with a good 
 many human beings on it. Shortly after, they 
 hove to, and sent out the boats to the relief of 
 the sufferers. 
 
APPAKITIONS 123 
 
 It proved to be a vessel from Quebec, bound 
 to Liverpool, with passengers on board. She 
 had got entangled in the ice, and finally frozen 
 fast, and had passed several weeks in a most 
 critical situation. She was stove badly, her 
 decks swept, — ^in fact, a mere wreck ; all her.pro- 
 visions and almost all her water gone. Her 
 crew and passengers had lost all hope of being 
 saved, and their gratitude for the unexpected 
 rescue was proportionately great. 
 
 As one of the men who had been brought away 
 in the third boat that had reached the wreck was 
 ascending the ship's side, the mate, catching a 
 glimpse of his face, started back in consterna- 
 tion. It was the very face be had seen, three or 
 four hours before, looking up at him from the 
 captain's desk. 
 
 At first he tried to persuade himself it might 
 be but a fancy; but the more he examined the 
 man the more sure he became that he was right. 
 Not only the face, but the person and the dress, 
 exactly corresponded. 
 
 As soon as the exhausted crew and famished 
 passengers were cared for, and the bark was on 
 
124 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 her course again, the mate called the captain 
 aside. "It seems that was not a ghost I saw 
 to-day, Sir: the man's alive." 
 
 ' * What do you mean ? Who 's alive 1 ' ' 
 
 "Why, Sir, one of the passengers we have just 
 saved is the same man I saw writLng on your 
 slate at noon. I would swear to it in a court 
 of justice." 
 
 "Upon my word, Mr. Bruce," replied the 
 captain, "this gets more and more singular. 
 Let us go and see this man." 
 
 They found him in conversation with the cap- 
 tain of the rescued ship. They both came for- 
 ward, and expressed, in the warmest terms, 
 their gratitude for deliverance from a horrible 
 fate, — slow-coming death by exposure and 
 starvation. 
 
 The captain replied that he had but done what 
 he was certain they would have done for him 
 under the same circumstances, and asked them 
 both to step down into the cabin. Then, turn- 
 ing to the passenger, he said, "I hope. Sir, you 
 will not think I am trifling with you ; but I would 
 be much obliged to you if you would write a 
 
APPARITIONS 125 
 
 few words on this slate." And he handed him 
 the slate, with that side up on which the mysteri- 
 ous writing was not. "I will do anything you 
 ask," replied the passenger; "but what shall I 
 write?" 
 
 "A few words are all I want. Suppose you 
 write, 'Steer to the nor 'west.' " 
 
 The passenger, evidently puzzled to make out 
 the motive for such a request, complied, how- 
 ever, with a smile. The captain took up the 
 slate and examined it closely; then, stepping 
 aside so as to conceal the slate from the pas- 
 senger, he turned it over, and gave it to him 
 again with the other side up. 
 
 "You say that is your handwriting?" said 
 he. 
 
 "I need not say so," rejoiaed the other, look- 
 ing at it, ' ' for you saw me write it. ' ' 
 
 "And this?" said the captain, turning the 
 slate over. 
 
 The man looked first at one writing, then at 
 the other, quite confounded. At last, "What 
 is the meaning of this ? ' ' said he. "I only wrote 
 one of these. Who wrote the other?" 
 
126 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 "That's more than I can tell you, Sir. My 
 mate here says you wrote it, sitting at this desk, 
 at noon to-day." 
 
 The captain of the wreck and the passenger 
 looked at each other, exchanging glances of in- 
 telligence and surprise; and the former asked 
 the latter, "Did you dream that you wrote on 
 this slate?" 
 
 "No, sir, not that I remember." 
 
 "You speak of dreaming," said the captain of 
 the bark. "What was this gentleman about 
 at noon to-day?" 
 
 "Captain," rejoined the other, "the whole 
 thing is most mysterious and extraordinary; 
 and I had intended to speak to you about it as 
 soon as we got a little quiet. This gentleman 
 (pointing to the passenger), being much ex- 
 hausted, fell into a heavy sleep, or what seemed 
 such, some time before noon. After an hour or 
 more, he awoke, and said to me, 'Captain, we 
 shall be relieved this very day. ' When I asked 
 him what reason he had for saying so, he replied 
 that he had dreamed that he was on board a 
 bark, and that she was coming to our rescue. 
 
APPARITIONS 127 
 
 He described her appearance and rig; and, to 
 our utter astonishment, when your vessel hove in 
 sight she corresponded exactly to his descrip- 
 tion of her. We had not put much faith in what 
 he said j yet still we hoped there might be some- 
 thing in it, for drowning men, you know, will 
 catch at straws. As it has turned out, I cannot 
 but think that it was all arranged, in some in- 
 comprehensible way, by an overruling Provi- 
 dence, so that we might be saved. To Him be 
 aU thanks for His goodness to us." 
 
 "There is not a doubt," rejoined the other 
 captain, "that the writing on the slate, let it have 
 come from whom it may, saved all your lives. I 
 was steering at the time considerably south of 
 west, and I altered my course to nor 'west, and 
 had a look-out aloft, to see what would come of 
 it. But you say," he added, turning to the 
 passenger, "that you did not dream of writing 
 on a slate?" 
 
 "No, sir. I have no recollection whatever of 
 doing so. I got the impression that the bark I 
 saw in my dream was coming to rescue us ; but 
 how that impression came I cannot tell. There 
 
128 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 is another very strange thing about it," he 
 added. "Everything here on board seems to 
 me quite familiar; yet I am very sure I never 
 was in your vessel before. It is all a puzzle to 
 me. What did your mate see?" 
 
 Thereupon Mr. Bruce related to them all the 
 circumstances above detailed. The conclusion 
 they finally arrived at was, that it was a special 
 interposition of Providence to save them from 
 what seemed a hopeless fate. 
 
 The above narrative was communicated to me 
 by Capt. J. S. Clarke, of the schooner Julia Hal- 
 loch, who had it directly from Mr. Bruce himself. 
 They sailed together for seventeen months, in 
 the years 1836 and '37; so that Captain Clarke 
 had the story from the mate about eight years 
 after the occurrence. He has since lost sight of 
 him, and does not know whether he is yet alive. 
 All he has heard of him since they were ship- 
 mates is, that he continued to trade to New 
 Brunswick, that be became the master of the 
 brig Comet, and that she was lost. 
 
 I asked Captain Clarke if he knew Bruce well, 
 and what sort of man he was. 
 
APPARITIONS 129 
 
 "As truthful and straightforward a man," 
 he replied, "as ever I met in all my life. We 
 were as intimate as brothers ; and two men can't 
 be together, shut up for seventeen months in 
 the same ship, without getting to know whether 
 they can trust one another's word or not. He 
 always spoke of the circumstance in terms of 
 reverence, as of an incident that seemed to bring 
 him nearer to God and to another world. I'd 
 stake my life upon it that he told me no lie. " 
 
 This singular example of the apparition of a 
 Irving man is copied from the "Memoirs of Sir 
 Robert Bruce," by Robert Dale Owens in his 
 book, "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another 
 World." It was critically examined by M. 
 Pierart in "La Revue Spirite," by Gougenot 
 Des Mousseaux in his * * La Magie, ' ' and by many 
 other eminent searchers into the secrets of pneu- 
 matology, and accepted by them as a possibility. 
 
 The reader will, of course, understand that, 
 for the sake of brevity, I omit many interesting 
 details in the examples of bilocation I am now 
 citing. We do not yet know the properties of 
 
130 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 matter. Perhaps, if we knew them, we should 
 discover secrets by which we should be able to 
 explain the phenomenon of bilocation. But, ad- 
 mitting the experience of Bruce to be a fact, 
 we are confronted with a few questions meriting 
 serious attention. We have already been told 
 by St. Thomas, whose prodigious intellect ap- 
 proached, in its power of analysis, angelic 
 subtlety, that: "The soul cannot leave its 
 body either in natural ecstasy or in divine ec- 
 stasy, unless it be certain that by divine per- 
 mission and by the will of God the soul leaves 
 the body again to return to it." 
 
 The body from which the soul has departed 
 is dead. Can the soul come back again to re- 
 animate it? Of itself it has no power to do so. 
 Such a phenomenon or miracle, if it occurred, 
 would be at once a resurrection. To leave the 
 body and enter it again, as one goes out of a 
 house and comes back, would be a miracle like 
 unto that which our Divine Lord in His omnipo- 
 tence wrought on that ever memorable and por- 
 tentous occasion when He came out victorious 
 from the tomb. 
 
APPARITIONS 
 
 131 
 
 Can the soul in answering the impulses of its 
 proper faculties, or by any power inherent in 
 it, see into the future and act at great distances? 
 It cannot. Can the fluid substances of the body 
 elongate themselves, as it were, and carry some 
 of the faculties of the soul with them? No. 
 Can the soul extend itself like a ribbon of rub- 
 ber and recoil to its first place? It cannot. 
 
 How, then, explain apparitions of living men, 
 clairvoyance, levitation, or the lifting of great 
 weights by invisible hands, bilocation, aerial 
 transportation and similar prodigies, proved 
 beyond the possibility of doubt? I answer that 
 aU these objective and psychic phenomena are 
 produced by ultra-mundane agencies. St. John, 
 the divine, refers to these unseen forces when 
 he warns us "not to believe every spirit, but 
 try the spirits whether they be of God." Of 
 course, we all know that there are good and 
 evil spirits, but what their powers and limita- 
 tions are is known only to God. St. Paul re- 
 minded the Ephesians that they had to contend 
 not only against the acts and tongues of repro- 
 bate men, but also against the "rulers of the 
 
IH'^ ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 ■world of darkness, against the spirits of wicked- 
 ness in high places," that is to say, "spirits in 
 the air." The inspired Psalmist also tells us 
 that God visited the Egyptians with His wrath 
 and indignation, "which He sent by evil 
 angels." 
 
"As to being different from ourselves — what their 
 nature may be, of this we cannot form any idea. 
 Souls of the dead? This is far from being demon- 
 strated. The innumerable observations which I have 
 collected during more than forty years, all prove to 
 me the contrary. No satisfactory identification has 
 been made." — Camille Flammarion, "La Revue des 
 Deux Mondes." 
 
DEMONIACAL POSSESSION 
 
 Sir OKver Lodge — His Plaint — The Judaic and Catholic 
 Churches — Their Doctrines on Spirits — On Demonology — 
 Practice and Universality of Necromancy in Mosaic Times 
 — Their Evocators or Mediums — Condemnation of Me- 
 diums by Moses — ^Possession in the Time of Our Saviour 
 — His Command and Power over Demons — ^Apostolic and 
 Early Christian Times — Means of Detecting Spirit Pres- 
 ence — Prayer of the Christian Church — "Mountain 
 Meadows Massacre" —John D. Lee — His Extraordinary 
 Statement. 
 
 Sir Oliver Lodge, who, in his book, "Ray- 
 mond," records some singular psychic phe- 
 nomena, wishes to know why the Church does 
 not take a deeper interest in what he terms 
 ultra-mundane life. In an article published 
 lately in The Nineteenth Century, he contends 
 that Dogma should be generous enough to ex- 
 amine the facts confirming inter-communication 
 between the living and the dead or between souls 
 of this world and spirits of the world beyond 
 
 135 
 
136 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 the grave. As Sir Oliver does not inform us 
 what he means by "church" or "dogma," we 
 are free to put our own interpretation on the 
 terms. But if he includes in his appeal the 
 Judaic and Catholic Churches, then the eminent 
 scientist is not as familiar with the Scriptures, 
 the Talmud and the literature of the Catholic 
 Church and her provincial and synodical decrees 
 as we should expect from one of his enviable rep- 
 utation. There is hardly one of the great doc- 
 tors of the Church, or one of the ante-Nicene Fa- 
 thers, not a single theologian of repute, from St. 
 Augustine to Bellarmine and Suarez, that has 
 not dealt, and dealt exhaustively, with inter- 
 communication between this world and the spirit 
 world. And they all, without an exception, as- 
 sure us that the spirits who answer the call of 
 mediums, evocators, and necromancers are not 
 souls of the dead, but demons or "angels that 
 sinned and forsook their own habitation." 
 
 The very great number of mediums or py- 
 thonesses among the Gentile nations, and among 
 some of the Hebrew tribes, in the time of Moses, 
 and the universality and frequency of this prac- 
 
DEMOMACAL POSSESSION 
 
 137 
 
 tice of consulting the spirits believed to be the 
 souls of the dead, led the great lawgiver to pro- 
 hibit, by order of God, the presence of mediums 
 among the "chosen people." Here is what we 
 read in Deuteronomy, Chap. XVIII : "Neither 
 let there be found among you any one that . . . 
 consulteth soothsayers ... or pythonic spirits, 
 or fortune tellers, or that seeketh the truth from 
 the dead. For the Lord abhorreth all these 
 things, and for these abominations he will de- 
 stroy them." 
 
 In obedience to the advice of Samuel, the 
 prophet, Saul, King of Israel, renewed the 
 prohibition of Moses and "drove out of the land 
 aU necromancers and sorcerers." 
 
 And what inference are we to draw from 
 the many examples of demoniacal possession 
 and the evil influence of lost spirits upon man 
 recorded in the New Testament? Listen to 
 this : "And when Jesus was come on the other 
 side of the water, into the country of the Ger- 
 asens, there met him two that were possessed 
 with devils. . . . And behold they cried out, say- 
 ing: What have we to do with thee, Jesus, 
 
138 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 8011 of God? Art thou come hither to torment 
 us before the time?" 
 
 Does not the appeal of these unhappy spirits, 
 lost in endless woe, to our Saviour not to send 
 them into the abyss, but to permit them to enter 
 the herd of swine, hint that these evil spirits 
 found some relief of pain in being permitted to 
 remain on earth? The fear of torment before 
 the time intimates that the time of their extreme 
 punishment was not yet come (Luke VIII, 31). 
 
 If you say our credulity has been imposed 
 upon by what is termed fictitious possessions 
 produced by diseases of the mind, by hallucina- 
 tions, by the distempered imagination of those 
 who thought themselves possessed, or that 
 feigned to be so for a purpose; and that there 
 never was and is not now any case of demoniac 
 possession, we reply that if there was and is 
 no real possession, Christ and His Apostles 
 and the Christian Church are in error and must 
 wilfully involve all true believers in error, by 
 speaking, acting, and praying as if these cases 
 were a reality and not a figment of our imagina- 
 tion. Our Saviour spoke to and commanded 
 
DEMONIACAL POSSESSION 139 
 
 these demoniac spirits who dwelt in human be- 
 ings, and the spirits answered and obeyed, and 
 gave proofs of their presence by tormenting the 
 wretched men or women they were forced to 
 depart from. They cast these men into violent 
 convulsions, threw them on the ground, left 
 them for dead, entered into hogs and rushed 
 these animals into the sea. Was aU this a de- 
 lusion? 
 
 Our Divine Lord tells the Jews, in proof of 
 His mission, that devils are cast out by Him, 
 and promised the Apostles the same power that 
 He Himself possessed over these fallen spirits. 
 Can all this be nothing but a figure of speech? 
 
 Let it be conceded that there are counterfeit 
 demoniacs who use the actions, words, motions, 
 contortions, cries, bowlings and convulsions of 
 one possessed, and that some acts which seem 
 to be supernatural, may be produced by an 
 overheated imagination, by sleight-of-hand, by 
 contrivance and trick, — still there are insur- 
 mountable difficulties in the way. If a person, 
 all at once, speaks and understands languages he 
 never learned, talks informationally on pro- 
 
140 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 found and sublime subjects he never studied 
 and of which an hour before he was densely 
 ignorant, or discovers the unspoken and secret 
 thoughts of another ; if he is lifted into the air 
 without visible assistance, and all this be done 
 without any personal motive, interest or pas- 
 sion, what conclusion must we come to? 
 
 If it be said that speaking foreign languages 
 by one who can only express himself normally 
 in his mother tongue, or that floating in the air 
 by a man without visible help, are an impossi- 
 bility, then those hierophants of Spiritism — 
 "Weir, Home, Eeggazoni, Dupotet, Owens, and 
 others are deceiving us. But supposing them 
 to be parties to a conspiracy of lies, what are 
 we to say of the Bible, of the Jewish Talmud, 
 the Hebrew Mishna and Gemora, all of which 
 emphatically tell us of demoniac possession, of 
 the speaking of foreign tongues and of levi- 
 tation? And how can we explain away the 
 statements of St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Bos- 
 suet, de Merville, and above all and over all the 
 prayer of the historic Catholic Church in her 
 Exorcism of the Possessed? 
 
DEMONIACAL POSSESSION 141 
 
 It may be asked, "How can God, our Creator, 
 allow these 'sons of malediction' to possess 
 our souls or obsess our bodies?" We reply, 
 "Does not God permit the lustful man to ruin 
 the innocent girl?" An evil spirit out of the 
 human body, and an evil soul within it, can in- 
 jure only those who consort with them and sur- 
 render their will to their baneful influence. 
 God, through His own mysterious-'ways, gov- 
 erns the universe and all who dwell within it 
 tiU the Judgment of the Great Day, when 
 justice shall be meted to all with rigorous im- 
 partiality. On that day unrepenting evil men 
 and unrepenting rebellious angels will alike hear 
 and suffer the "Depart, ye cursed, into ever- 
 lasting fire which was prepared for the devil 
 and his angels" (Matt. XXV, 41). 
 
 The Sacred Scriptures, the Catholic Church, 
 her theologians, her great doctors and her early 
 Fathers, all teach that rebel angels, — called, to- 
 day, spirits by the Spiritists, — are unclean, pro- 
 moters of spiritual darkness and spiritual wick- 
 edness. They are called "angels of darkness" 
 by St, Paul, who also says that they sometimes 
 
142 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 transform themselves into angels of light, in 
 order that they may the more easily seduce men, 
 and that they suffer grief, despair and rage in 
 their state of irrevocable damnation. 
 
 Among early Christian writers there per- 
 haps was none who had a more intimate ac- 
 quaintance with the spiritual phenomena of his 
 age (second century), than TertuUian. In his 
 "Apologeticum" (Chap. XXII) he says: "The 
 subtility of the substance of these spirits gives 
 to them a marvelous aptitude for penetrating 
 the double substance of man. The body and the 
 soul can be tainted and vitiated by their sinister 
 influence and their impure contact. And when 
 these necromancers (mediums) evoke the dead, 
 and spirits answer, it is by the aid and help of 
 demons." 
 
 Down the avenue of time all history is punctu- 
 ated with multitudinous and pitiable examples 
 of demoniac possession. And so well authen- 
 ticated and thoroughly verified are these cases 
 of human possession that we cannot refuse to 
 accept them as facts without using methods of 
 
DEMONIACAL POSSESSION 143 
 
 criticism which would destroy the credibility of 
 all history. 
 
 And not only have individuals fallen under 
 the baneful influence of these malign creatures, 
 but masses of human beings have been driven 
 by them to the perpetration of atrocious acts 
 of brutality and cruelty outside the nature of 
 man. That profound reasoner, Orestes A. 
 Brownson, rose from the study of the phe- 
 nomena of the French Revolution, convinced 
 that masses of the people were demonized. He 
 states that many of those who participated in 
 atrocious deeds of inhumanity afterwards 
 acknowledged that they could not help doing 
 what they did, that another will than their own 
 controlled them, whirling them and tossing 
 them, as a wind the leaves, and forcing them 
 to obey. 
 
 You have perhaps heard of the "Mountain 
 Meadows Massacre," when, on the 20th of Sep- 
 tember, 1857, one hundred and thirty emigrants 
 — ^men, women, and children — on their way 
 through Utah to the Pacific Coast, were ruth- 
 
144 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 lessly slaughtered. A man named John. D. Lee 
 was the leader of the murderers. That we may 
 realize the value of his statement when about 
 to he executed, twenty years after the whole- 
 sale murder, I insert this extract taken from a 
 sketch of his life by Mr. Josiah F. Gibbs, au- 
 thor of "Lights and Shadows of Mormonism": 
 
 "In stature John D. Lee was about five feet 
 eight inches, of powerful buUd, tireless energy 
 and unchallenged courage. He was also a man 
 of more than average intelligence, of deep re- 
 ligious convictions, love for his family and 
 friends, and loyal to his duty as he saw it. ' ' 
 
 On the morning of the 23rd of March, 1876, 
 Lee, after his trial and conviction, was executed 
 for his part in the awful slaughter. Standing 
 near his coflBn he made a brief farewell address, 
 in which he denied any intent to do wrong: 
 "There are," he said, "thousands of people in 
 this church (Mormon) that are honorable and 
 good-hearted friends. But there is a kind of 
 living, magnetic influence that has come over 
 us, and I cannot compare it to anything than 
 the reptUe that enamors his prey, till it cap- 
 
DEMONIACAL POSSESSION 145 
 
 tivates it, paralyzes it, and rushes it into the 
 jaws of death. I cannot compare this influence 
 to anything else. It is so, I am satisfied of it. 
 I know it." 
 
 And read this from the N. Y. Times, Feb. 14th, 
 1918: 
 
 ' ' The National Association for the Advance- 
 ment of Colored People sent this telegram last 
 night to President Wilson: 'Speaking on be- 
 half of millions of Americans, we respectfully 
 call your attention to the horrible crime at Es- 
 tiU Springs, Tenn., where a fellow-American, 
 accused of murder, was first tortured by hot 
 irons and then slowly burned to death by a mob, 
 the second burning recently of this kind.' " 
 
 Is it possible to believe that man, made in 
 the image and likeness of God, civilized man, 
 church-going man, could of his own volition 
 be so atrociously cruel? If it be, where, then, 
 is the difference between these men and the 
 demons of hell? The Times, moreover, did not 
 tell all, for present by invitation at this unbe- 
 lievable act of savagery, were women, young 
 maidens and little children. Are we not con- 
 
146 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 strained to admit with the illustrious M. Ratis- 
 bonne that: "There are many evil men and 
 women in our midst who are possessed with evil 
 spirits and, like the Magdalene, are not con- 
 scious of it." 
 
"If the disembodied soul cannot in any way move 
 the elements of matter, what are we to say respecting 
 the phenomenon taking place at spiristic seances f 
 Can that transfer of objects from one place to an- 
 other, those mysterious noises emanating from chairs 
 and tables and musical instruments, that spontaneous 
 opening of doors and windows and the many other oft- 
 reported and now so well-attested phenomena be at- 
 tributed to the agency of departed souls? We reply 
 that this is wholly impossible, since such effects are 
 altogether beyond the natural powers of the separated 
 soul, although they are, of course, possible to angelic 
 beings." — ^Lepicier, "The Unseen World." 
 
XI 
 
 WHAT OF THE DEAD? 
 
 Evocation of the Dead — Was probably practised before 
 the Deluge — Statement of M. de MirviLle — Evocation ap- 
 peals to the Curiosity of People — Preparing for Initiation 
 into Spiritism — Planchette and Ouija Board — The Trance- 
 Medium — Sincerity of Spiritists — Souls of the Dead do not 
 come back to Earth — Evocation condemned by Moses and 
 by .Saul — Wonderful Examples. 
 
 The practice of "calling up the dead" and 
 conversing with them, which is opposed to the 
 teaching of the Catholic Chnrch and to the in- 
 stinct and reason of man, obtained probably ia 
 ante-dilnvian times. We know from the pages 
 of Holy Writ that in the days of the patriarchs 
 and prophets the custom was universal and 
 tended largely to a physical and moral de- 
 generacy which belongs, even to-day, to all ori- 
 ental races. 
 
 We do not altogether agree with M. de Mir- 
 ville in his statement that: "Among the civil- 
 
 149 
 
150 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 ized races of Europe and America the cult of 
 Evocation or Spiritism is confined to persons 
 of weak mentality and of a low order of intelli- 
 gence. ' ' We are of the opinion that among the 
 believers in the cult are many men and women 
 of good and trained intellects who believe what 
 they believe because they have not studied Spir- 
 itism and its development from the pages of 
 the Sacred Scriptures, from the writings of the 
 early Christian Fathers, theologians, and doc- 
 tors of the Church, from the decrees of provin- 
 cial councils and from the briefs, or prohibitions 
 of many Popes, notably Benedict XIV and Leo 
 XI. 
 
 The methods of the Spiritism of to-day ap- 
 peal urgently to innate curiosity and to an in- 
 satiable craving in many persons for the new 
 and the untried. 
 
 In nearly all initial experiments the novice 
 experiences sensations like unto those which 
 the hypnotised feels when surrendering his will 
 to the hypnotiser. After additional experi- 
 ences, his curiosity, the books he reads, or the 
 promptings of a Spiritist acquaintance induce 
 
WHAT OF THE DEAD? 151 
 
 him to attend "sittmgs" where experiments are 
 conducted with plnnchette or the ouija board. 
 After this, he frequents seances, is placed en 
 rapport (in communication) with the dead — 
 with spirits — ^who make their presence known 
 by rappings, by slate-writing, whisperings in 
 his ear, by personal contact or by divers other 
 acts. After these experiences he falls under 
 the influence of the trance-medium and comes 
 into intimate and familiar association with ma- 
 lign spirits masquerading as the souls of men 
 or women who at one time lived upon our earth. 
 Henceforth, and in every instance, the answers 
 he receives to his questions purport to come 
 from dead human beings. These communica- 
 tions have a particular charm for him, he feels 
 honored by the confidence the dead repose in 
 bim and elated with the privilege by which he is 
 permitted to converse with them. From now on 
 he is a confirmed Spiritist, prepared to defend 
 his cult and, if necessary, like Robert Dale 
 Owen, to die for it. 
 
 Now does he actually enter into communion 
 with the souls of the dead, or is he, as were 
 
152 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 those living in Apostolic times, ' * giving heed to 
 seducing spirits and doctrines of devils"? (1 
 Timothy IV, 1.) 
 
 Is it permitted for man by sacrilegious in- 
 cantations, from curiosity, whim or caprice or 
 for any motive to disturb the repose of the 
 tomb? 
 
 The souls of the dead — saved or lost — do not 
 respond to the evocations of man. This is the 
 teaching of the Old and New Testaments, of 
 the Catholic Church, and of the Fathers and 
 Doctors of the Church. "The souls of the just 
 are in the hands of God and the torment of 
 death shall not touch them." (Wisdom III, 1.) 
 
 When we read in Deut. (XVIII, 11) : "Neither 
 let there be found among you any one that . . . 
 consulteth pythonic spirits, or . . . seeketh the 
 truth from the dead," — are we to believe that 
 the souls of the dead, like obedient servants, 
 will come at the sound of our voice and give 
 answer to our questions ? Certainly not. The 
 language of the Sacred Text simply conforms to 
 the prevailing belief of the time. When we 
 read in Genesis: "Remember, man, thou art 
 
WHAT OF THE DEAJ>? 153 
 
 but dust, and into dust thou shalt return," we 
 know that the prophecy refers only to the body 
 of man. The same form of expression obtains 
 when the evil spirits adored by the heathen are 
 called gods, in the verse, "the gods of the Gen- 
 tiles are demons." 
 
 It is not in the power of man, certainly not 
 in that of a medium, to summon the dead, 
 trouble their repose, or disturb their hallowed 
 rest. But under very exceptional circum- 
 stances, or for a very special reason, does God 
 ever permit a departed soul to return to earth 
 by request of the living? It may happen, for 
 confronted with the narrative in the first Book 
 of Kings recording the appearance of the dead 
 prophet, Samuel, we cannot deny the possibility 
 of human apparitions. Our difficulty consists 
 in determining whether these apparitions are 
 the absolute personalities themselves or good or 
 bad angels representing them. If the souls of 
 the just ever return to this earth, it can only 
 happen by an act of their own pure wills, and 
 by divine permission. The eternally lost soul 
 cannot come back to earth. The patriarch Job 
 
154 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 informs us that: "As a cloud is dissipated 
 and passeth away ; so he that has gone down to 
 hell shall not come up. Nor shall he return any 
 more into his house, neither shall his place know 
 him again" (Job VII, 9 sq.). 
 
 If Dives, the selfish and proud rich man who 
 "was buried in hell," could return to earth, he 
 would not have begged of Abraham to send some 
 one to his five brothers on earth to warn them 
 to lead better lives, "lest they also come into 
 this place of torments" (Luke XVI, 28). 
 
 That the dead do not return to earth, except 
 by the permission of God and for a special rea- 
 son, is a truth of Scripture and of Catholic 
 theology. 
 
 Neither does Holy Writ, or theology, — ^which 
 is the science that treats of divine things and of 
 the relations of man with God, and is inti- 
 mately acquainted with and contrasts and com- 
 pares the texts and verses of the Sacred Books, 
 — raise an eternal and unscalable rampart be- 
 tween our eyes and the vision of departed souls. 
 
 Theologians are of the opinion that there 
 have been occasions and times when redeemed 
 
WHAT OF THE DEAD? 155 
 
 souls were permitted to return to the earth, 
 and appear to one or many persons, and deliver 
 a message or a warning. In corroboration of 
 this here is what the Oxford scholar, Thomas 
 W. Allies, relates in his "Journal" of a tour 
 through Europe in the years 1845-48. The 
 learned Abbe Theodore Ratisbonne, who saw 
 and spoke to the apparition, was one of the most 
 distinguished and upright men of his day. 
 
 "At four we went to a Benediction at Abbe 
 Eatisbonne's house. We then adjourned to 
 
 the parlor, with M. Ratisbonne, Lady , 
 
 and Mr. , a Scotch minister. Here we con- 
 versed about various matters. . . . They 
 asked me about my visit to the Tyrolese stig- 
 
 matisees. Lady told of the apparition, 
 
 soon after his death — of a gentleman to Lord 
 
 in fulfilment of a promise he had, six 
 
 months before, made to him. M. Ratisbonne re- 
 marked that appearances of this kind often hap- 
 pened, adding: 'I believe it from what occurred 
 to myself. ' * Occurred to you ! ' I said. ' What do 
 you mean ? ' * I had been called in, ' he answered, 
 *onee at Strasburg, to administer extreme unc- 
 
156 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 tion to a young married lady. I found her in 
 the agony of death, screaming fearfully; her 
 husband was supporting her in his arms on 
 the bed. I administered the last unction to her ; 
 and an effect followed which I have often ob- 
 served: she became calm, and died in the ut- 
 most peace. Some days afterwards I was in 
 my room about noon, looking out on the garden. 
 Suddenly I saw her within two steps of me, the 
 same exactly as when living, but with a great 
 brightness all around her. She made a motion 
 to me of inexpressible sweetness and happiness, 
 as if thanking me for a great service, and dis- 
 appeared. At the first moment I felt a thrill 
 like an electric shock ; but this passed. I men- 
 tioned this vision afterwards to a friend, and 
 to her husband. I had known but little of her. ' 
 — I asked if he was quite sure this was not an 
 illusion, but he had no doubt about it. Of the 
 many stories of this kind one has heard this is 
 the first told me by the person to whom it hap- 
 pened." 
 
 It seems to be, however, the prevailing 
 opinion among theologians that a disembodied, 
 
WHAT OF THE DEAD? 
 
 157 
 
 or, more correctly, a separated soul, whether 
 lost or saved, never appears in person. They 
 do not deny that God may confer on disem- 
 bodied souls a power possessed by good and bad 
 angels over matter, but contend that this power 
 would mean an intrinsic change in the proper- 
 ties and nature of the soul. But if this opinion 
 be accepted as a judgment and a finality, how 
 are we to explain the presence of Moses and 
 Elias at the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor? 
 For in the seventeenth chapter of St. Matthew 
 it is mentioned without any equivocation that 
 Moses and Elias were actually present. More- 
 over, the apparition of Lourdes would not be 
 that of the Blessed Virgin, but, possibly, of an 
 angel representing her. The great St. Au- 
 gustine hesitated to commit himself to a positive 
 answer to the question of the possibility of de- 
 parted souls returning to earth. He writes: 
 "Some of the dead can be transported among 
 the living; not that the act is accomplished by 
 virtue of their own nature, for it can only occur 
 by consent and effect of divine power; but, 
 when these things happen, is the presence of 
 
158 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 the dead positive and real, or is it that llhey 
 are represented by a spirit, clothed in their 
 garb and resembling them? This is what I can- 
 not determine." {De Cur a pro Mortuis, Cjiap. 
 XV). More than once since the death. A, D. 
 430, of the illustrious Bishop of Hippo has [this 
 question troubled thoughtful minds. "Is it, 
 then, the real soul itself," asks the orthodox 
 Count de Mirville, "or a good or bad angel, 
 which deceives our eyes when we believe we 
 have seen and spoken with a departed soul?" 
 While the prevailing opinion of the masters 
 of the science of theology, and of St. Thomas, 
 surnamed the "Angel of the Schools," is that 
 an angel, good or bad, appears in the place of 
 the soul, we have nowhere read that the appari- 
 tion of the soul itself is impossible. Lord 
 Byron, — poet, sceptic, and philosopher, — posi- 
 tively asserted that he saw the ghost of his 
 friend Shelley soon after he was drowned. 
 And he is just as positive when he states that 
 "with his own eyes" he saw the phantom monk 
 who haunted Newstead Abbey, a spoliation 
 which Byron's ancestors received as a gift from 
 
WHAT OF THE DEAD? 
 
 159 
 
 Henry VIII. Now, what object could a spirit 
 have in representing Shelley or the monk who 
 disturbed the repose of Byron's household? 
 
 Then take this instance recorded by Mrs. Hall 
 in her first volume of "The Night, Side of Na- 
 ture": "Mr. Kidd said to me: 'One beauti- 
 ful night I awoke in my hammock feeling a 
 heavy weight upon my chest. I opened my 
 eyes and saw the form of my brother stretched 
 across the hammock. I tried to persuade my- 
 self that I was dreaming and closed my eyes to ' 
 sleep again. But the same weight pressed 
 upon me and, looking, I saw my brother as be- 
 fore. I stretched out my hand and touched 
 his uniform: It was wet! Some one entered 
 the room when I cried out, then the body van- 
 ished. I afterwards learned that on that very 
 night my brother was drowned in the Indian 
 Ocean.' " 
 
 Now, why should a spirit, in this case, simu- 
 late the brother of Mr. Kidd, unless we assume 
 that in the other world the spirit was asked by 
 the drowned man to do so? 
 
 And in this awful example taken from Robert 
 
160 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 Dale Owen*s "Footfalls on the Boundary of 
 Another World," why should a spirit haunt a 
 man who had in no way injured it? I give the 
 history, writes Mr. Owen, as extracted from 
 Mrs. Hall's letter to me, dated London, March 
 31, 1859. The circumstances occurred in l^on- 
 don. 
 
 "All young girls have friendships one with 
 another ; and when I was seventeen my friend, 
 
 above all others, was Kate L . She was a 
 
 ■young Irish lady, my senior by three years, — 
 a gentle, affectionate, pretty creature, much de- 
 voted to her old mother, and exercising constant 
 forbearance toward a disagreeable brother who 
 would persist in playing the flute, though he 
 played both out of time and tune. This brother 
 was my bete noire; and whenever I complained 
 of his bad playing, Kate would say, *Ah, wait 
 till Eobert comes home ; he plays and sings like 
 an angel, and is so handsome!' This Eobert 
 had been with his regiment for some years in 
 Canada; and his coming home was to be the 
 happiness of mother and daughter. For three 
 months before his return nothing else was 
 
WHAT OF THE DEAD? 161 
 
 talked of. If I had had any talent for falling 
 in love, I should have done so, in anticipation, 
 with Eobert L ; but that was not my weak- 
 ness; and I was much amused with my friend's 
 speculations as to whether Robert would fall 
 in love with me, or I with him, first. 
 
 "When we met, there was, happily, no danger 
 to either. He told Kate that her friend was 
 always laughing; and I thought I had never 
 looked on a face so beautiful in outline and yet 
 so haggard and painful. His large blue eyes 
 were deeply set, but always seemed looking 
 for something they could not find. To look at 
 Mm made me uncomfortable. But this was not 
 so strange as the change which, after a time, 
 was evident in Kate. She had become, in less 
 than a week, cold and constrained. I was to 
 have spent the day with her ; but she made some 
 apology, and, in doing so, burst into tears. 
 Something was evidently wrong, which I felt 
 satisfied time must disclose. In about a week 
 more she came to see me by myself, looking ten 
 years older. She closed the door of my room, 
 and then said she desired to tell me something 
 
162 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 which she felt I could hardly believe, but that, 
 if I was not afraid, I might come and judge for 
 myself. After Robert's return, she said, for a 
 week or so they had been delightfully happy. 
 But very soon — she thought about the tenth 
 day, or rather night — they were alarmed by 
 loud raps and knocks in Robert's room. It was 
 the back room on the same floor on which Mrs. 
 
 L and her daughter slept together in a 
 
 large front bed-chamber. They heard him 
 swearing at the noise, as if it had been his 
 servant ; but the man did not sleep in the house. 
 At last he threw his boots at it ; and the more 
 violent he became, the more violent seemed to 
 grow the disturbance. At last his mother ven- 
 tured to knock at his door and ask what was the 
 matter. He told her to come in. She brought 
 a lighted candle and set it on the table. As she 
 entered, her son's favorite pointer rushed out 
 of the room. 'So,' he said, 'the dog's gone! I 
 have not been able to keep a dog in my room 
 at night for years ; but under your roof, mother, 
 I fancied, I hoped, I might escape a persecu- 
 tion that I see now pursues me even here. I 
 
WHAT OF THE DEAD? 
 
 163 
 
 am sorry for Kate's canary-bird that hung be- 
 hind the curtain. I heard it fluttering after the 
 first round. Of course it is dead!' The old 
 lady got up, all trembling, to look at poor Kate's 
 bird. It was dead, at the bottom of the cage, — 
 all its feathers ruflfled. 
 
 '* 'Is there no Bible in the room?' she in- 
 quired. 'Yes,' — he drew one from under his 
 pillow: 'that, I think, protects me from blows.' 
 He looked so dreadfully exhausted that his 
 mother wished to leave the room, to get him 
 some wine. 'No: stay here: do not leave me!' 
 he entreated. Hardly had he ceased speaking, 
 when some huge, heavy substance seemed roll- 
 ing down the chimney and flopped on the hearth ; 
 but Mrs. L saw nothing. The next mo- 
 ment, as from a strong wind, the light was ex- 
 tinguished, while knocks and raps and a rush- 
 ing sound passed round the apartment. Eob- 
 
 ert L alternately prayed and swore; and 
 
 the old lady, usually remarkable for her self- 
 possession, had great difficulty in preventing 
 herself from fainting. The noise continued, 
 sometimes seeming like violent thumps, some- 
 
164 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 times the sounds appearing to trickle around 
 the room. At last her other son, roused by the 
 disturbance, came in, and found his mother on 
 her knees, praying. That night she slept in 
 her son's room, or rather attempted to do so; 
 for sleep was impossible, though her bed was 
 not touched or shaken. Kate remained outside 
 the open door. It was impossible to see, be- 
 cause, immediately after the first plunge down 
 the chimney, the lights were extinguished. 
 The next morning, Eobert told his family that 
 for more than ten years he had been the victim 
 of this spirit-persecution. If he lay in his tent, 
 it was there, disturbing his brother officers, 
 who gradually shunned the society of 'the 
 haunted man,' as they called him, — one who 
 'must have done something to draw down such 
 pimishment. ' When on leave of absence, he was 
 generally free from the visitation for three or 
 four nights ; then it found him out again. He 
 never was suffered to remain in a lodging; be- 
 ing regularly 'warned out' by the house- 
 holders, who would not endure the noise. 
 "After breakfast, the next-door neighbors 
 
WHAT OF THE DEAD? 165 
 
 sent in to complain of the noises of the pre- 
 ceding night. On the succeeding nights, sev- 
 eral friends (two or three of whom I knew) 
 sat up with Mrs. L , and sought to investi- 
 gate, according to human means, the cause. In 
 vain! They verified the fact; the cause re- 
 mained hidden in mystery. 
 
 "Kate wished me to hear for myself; but I 
 had not courage to do so, nor would my dear 
 mother have permitted it. 
 
 "No inducement could prevail on the pointer 
 to return to his master's room, by day or night. 
 He was a recent purchase, and, until the first 
 noise in London came, had appreciated Eobert's 
 kindness. After that, he evidently disliked his 
 master. 'It is the old story over again,' said 
 Eobert. 'I could never keep a dog. I thought 
 I would try again; but I shall never have any 
 thing to love, and nothing will ever be permit- 
 ted to love me.' The animal soon after got 
 out; and they supposed it ran away, or was 
 stolen. 
 
 * ' The young man, seeing his mother and sister 
 fading away under anxiety and want of rest, 
 
166 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 told them he could bear his affliction better by 
 himself, and would therefore go to Ireland, his 
 native country, and reside in some detached 
 country cottage, where he could fish and shoot. 
 
 "He went. Before his departure I once 
 heard the poor fellow say, 'It is hard to be so 
 punished ; but perhaps I have deserved it. ' 
 
 "I learned, afterward, that there was more 
 than a suspicion that he had abandoned an un- 
 fortunate girl who 'loved not wisely, but too 
 well.' " 
 
 If lost souls can by anticipation revenge 
 themselves on their betrayers and victims, may 
 we not, without an excess of temerity, apply 
 to them the words of the patriarch to the Lord : 
 "For thou scourgest and thou S'avest: thou 
 leadest down to hell and bringest up again : and 
 there is none that can escape thy hand." 
 
 Now it may be asked: "Notwithstanding 
 the denials seriously expressed by many the- 
 ologians of the possibility of a departed soul 
 returning to earth, is not the belief in the real 
 and actual appearances of dead persons re- 
 turning, an incontestable fact going back to a 
 
WHAT or THE DEAD? 167 
 
 remote antiquity?" It is; and we hesitate to 
 deny the possibility of a soul reappearing when 
 we re-read the history of the apparition of 
 Samuel, and are confronted with the positive 
 language of the Evangelist, who, without any 
 equivocation, or the use of any precaution in 
 his language, relates a triple and an exception- 
 ally remarkable miracle enclosed in one and the 
 same phenomenon. 
 
 When a supernatural change took place in 
 the personal appearance of our Divine Lord on 
 the Mount, by his side stood Elias, whom death 
 had not robbed of his mortal body, and the great 
 prophet Moses, whose soul and body had been 
 parted for many centuries. Nothing seems to 
 more clearly establish and justify a belief in 
 a direct and real apparition than the words of 
 the sacred text. Peter, James, and John be- 
 held Elias and Moses talking with Jesus. 
 
"Those who deny the reality of these facts, those 
 who treat the whole problem as a joke, regard planch- 
 ette as a toy, and deny the reality of powers and in- 
 fluences which work unseen, should observe the effects 
 of some of the Spiritualistic manifestations. They 
 would no longer, I imagine, scoff at that investigation 
 and be tempted to call aU mediums frauds, but would 
 be inclined to admit that there is a true terror of the 
 dark, and that there are 'principalities and powers' 
 with which we, in our ignorance, toy, without knowing 
 and realizing the frightful consequences which may 
 result from this tampering with the unseen world." — 
 Hereward Carrington, "Psychology." 
 
XII 
 
 SPIRITS OF ANOTHER WORLD 
 
 Prevalence of Materialism before the War — Denial of the 
 Supernatural — Swing of the Pendulum to Spiritism — Sir 
 Oliver Lodge — Conan Doyle — St. Francis of Sales — St. 
 Hilary— The "Eagle of Meaux"— St. Patd— H. Carrington 
 — Stainton Moses — Godfrey J. Baupert — The Nine Articles 
 of Spiritism. 
 
 Before the war Materialism was, among men 
 who professed to be wise, the accepted scientific 
 philosophy of Europe and America. It de- 
 manded high courage on the part of any man 
 who dared to oppose himself to this Material- 
 istic philosophy. 
 
 The immortality of the soul, rewards and pun- 
 ishments in another world, man's responsibility 
 to, and dependence on, God, and even the ex- 
 istence of God, were denounced as the remains 
 and wreckage of the flood of superstition 
 which deluged the dark and unscientific ages of 
 the past. The believers in the Materialistic 
 
 109 
 
170 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 philosophy of Maudsley, Spencer, Huxley, Dar- 
 win, and Clifford relegated to the ash-heap all 
 trust in the supernatural and all belief in a here- 
 after. 
 
 To the student of the history of human 
 thought and of natural philosophy there is 
 nothing new in the pendulum of the Material- 
 istic mind swinging now to the other extreme 
 and resting in the very antithesis of Material- 
 ism, — in gross Spiritism. That the sons of the 
 men who denied and scoffed at the possibility of 
 a life beyond the grave, should now reject the 
 crude denials of their fathers and embrace a 
 Spiritistic philosophy of life, is one of those 
 strange anomalies with which all history is 
 filled. The fathers "changed the truth of God 
 into a lie ; they have eaten sour grapes and their 
 children's teeth are on edge." Now, as in 
 ApostoKo times, these men "are ever learning 
 and never attaining to the knowledge of the 
 truth." 
 
 The lectures, reviews, and especially the book, 
 "Raymond," of Sir Oliver Lodge, now passing 
 through its 20th edition, have set the heather of 
 
SPIRITS OF ANOTHER WORLD 171 
 
 England and America afire. From a "hard- 
 shell" scientist of the Materialist school, Sir 
 Oliver, by a marvelous feat of mental gymnas- 
 tics, has turned a double somersault and landed 
 upright at the feet of a medium. He states, 
 "without any equivocation, that he has repeat- 
 edly spoken with the soul of his son Eaymond, 
 who was killed in the war. He is supported 
 in his contention by Sir Conan Doyle, who in- 
 forms us that "much — notice he doesn't say all 
 — ^which the spirits tell us is true." 
 
 Sir Conan prophesies that, when the war is 
 over, religion, which is now undergoing a pro- 
 cess of change, will be recast in the mould of 
 Spiritism. By the way, did not Sir Oliver and 
 Sir Conan, some twelve years ago, reject the 
 existence of a world of spirits? Did they not 
 scorn to argue the reality of Spiritism by con- 
 tending that it was an absurdity? Then, 
 "deeming themselves wise they became fools," 
 and now they profess to know it all. 
 
 "Well, let us see how much wiser they are now 
 than they were twelve years ago. We have 
 seen that the dead do not and cannot respond 
 
172 
 
 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 to the call of a medium or of any man. Who, 
 then, are they who come from the spirit world 
 at our bidding and say and do such extraordi- 
 nary things? "They are," writes St. Francis 
 of Sales, "evil spirits who, since the sin of 
 Adam, are in communication with man {en rap- 
 port avec I'homme), at one time seducing him 
 to evil acts to the injury of his soul, and at an- 
 other time, when God permits it — and that God 
 does often permit the Sacred Scriptures and 
 all history attest — tormenting his body, speak- 
 ing and acting with his organs, as if for the 
 time these evil spirits were absolutely his mas- 
 ters. "^ 
 
 "Spirits are so numerous and so powerful," 
 writes St. Hilary, one of the greatest and most 
 learned men of his century, "that without the 
 help of God and that of his holy angels safe- 
 guarding and protecting our weakness, we 
 could not resist their conspiracy of trickery and 
 hatred."^ 
 
 Nor must we assume that the opinions of 
 
 1 Vie de Saint Frwngoia de Sales, by M. I'Abbe bamoiij 
 Paris, Vol. I, p. 241. 
 
 2 Com. in Psalm., cicxxir. 
 
SPIRITS OF ANOTHER WORLD 173 
 
 men of great learning and genius have changed 
 with the advance of civilization and the progress 
 of time. 
 
 Those familiar with the writings and sermons 
 of Bossuet, "the Eagle of Meaux," will con- 
 cede that no greater mind or personality ever 
 entered upon the world of lofty thought than 
 the mind and personality of the great French 
 prelate. In the eighth volume of his works, 
 published at Paris in 1845, is found his Premier 
 Sermon sur les Demons. In that great sermon 
 he tells us that: "If God did not limit the 
 power to act of these evil angels, they would 
 destroy us all. And that these malicious 
 (malfaisants) spirits, known of old as demons, 
 exist, is a truth so luminously clear in the 
 Divine "Writings, so certified to by the universal 
 consent of all nations and peoples, that it is 
 not open to controversy. God forbid that I 
 should so far forget the dignity belonging to 
 this sacred tribune as to advance reasons or 
 extraneous proofs in support of that which is 
 so openly taught by the Sacred Word of God 
 and by ecclesiastical tradition." 
 
174 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 There is nothing in Sir Oliver Lodge's book 
 or Conan Doyle's articles that has not been 
 known from immemorial time or that is not 
 familiar to all dispassionate students of demon- 
 ology. Their experiences are but repetitions 
 of those recorded by Home, Dupotet, Eegaz- 
 zoni, and others, on whom the same spirits, 
 claiming to be departed souls, imposed their 
 pernicious negations and false philosophy. 
 
 And here we may, not inaptly, reproduce the 
 statement of Sir William Barrett, President of 
 the English Society for Psychical Kesearch. 
 In his book on "Necromancy and Modern 
 Magic" he says: 
 
 "It seems to me that the Apostle Paul, in 
 his Epistle to the Ephesians, points to a race 
 of spiritual creatures, similar to those I have 
 described, hut of a malignant type, when he 
 speaks of beings not made of flesh and blood, 
 inhabiting the air around us and able injuri- 
 ously to affect mankind." Alluding to the 
 dangers attending seances and consulting spir- 
 its he writes: "Of course, it is true now, as 
 then, that these practices are dangerous in 
 
SPIRITS OF ANOTHER WORLD 175 
 
 proportion as they lead us to surrender rea- 
 son, or our will, to the dictates of an invisible 
 and oftentimes masquerading spirit which 
 tempts us to forsake the sure but arduous path- 
 way of knowledge and of progress for an en- 
 ticing maze which lures us round and round." 
 
 Now read what that great researcher into 
 psychic phenomena, Hereward Carrington, 
 says in his ' ' Psychology ' ' : 
 
 "When I wrote my book 'The Coming Sci- 
 ence,' some years ago, I contended (pp. 59-78) 
 that there was really no good first-hand evidence 
 that Spiritistic practices induced abnormal and 
 morbid states and conditions to the extent usu- 
 ally supposed. Further experience has caused 
 me to change that opinion. I now believe that 
 the danger of Spiritistic practices is very great, 
 and that this aspect of the problem is one that 
 should be more widely discussed and more at- 
 tention should be given to it by members of the 
 Society for Psychical Research. The recent 
 writings of VioUet and Mr. J. Godfrey Eaupert 
 should be more widely known. But it is prob- 
 able that all these books would not have influ- 
 
176 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 enced me had I not seen several examples of 
 such detrimental influence myself — cases of de- 
 lusion, insanity and all the horrors of obsession. 
 Those who deny the reality of these facts, those 
 who treat the whole problem as a joke, regard 
 planchette as a toy, and deny the reality of 
 powers and influences which work unseen, should 
 observe the effects of some of the Spiritistic 
 manifestations. They would no longer, I 
 imagine, scoff at that investigation and be 
 tempted to call all mediums frauds, but would 
 be inclined to admit that there is a true terror 
 of the dark, and there are 'principalities and 
 powers' with which we,' in our ignorance, toy, 
 without knowing and realizing the frightful con- 
 sequences which may result from this tamper- 
 ing with the unseen world. ' ' 
 
 We have already mentioned that these spirits 
 who respond to the summons of the medium, 
 are not the souls of the dead. Camille Flam- 
 marion, the widely known French astronomer, 
 who devoted many hours of his long life to the 
 study of Spiritism and spirit phenomena, 
 writes : 
 
SPIRITS OF ANOTHER WORLD 177. 
 
 "Souls of the dead? This is far from being 
 demonstrated. My observations of forty years 
 prove the contrary. No satisfactory identi- 
 fication has been made by me." 
 
 This is also the opinion of Mr. Stainton 
 Moses, of University College, London, and a 
 member of the London Dialectical Society. "I 
 could not get rid," he wrote, "of the idea that 
 the faith of Christendom was practically upset 
 by their [the spirit-teachings'] issue. I be- 
 lieved that, however it might be disguised, such 
 would be their outcome in the end. The cen- 
 tral dogmas seemed especially attacked, and it 
 was this that startled me. . . . Then came the 
 doubt as to how far all might be the work of 
 Satan, 'transformed into an angel of light,' 
 laboring for the subversion of the faith." 
 
 So far back as 1871, a member of a Committee 
 of the London Dialectical Society, which had 
 been formed for the purpose of investigating 
 and reporting upon the much disputed phe- 
 nomena, made the following emphatic state- 
 ment: "My opinion of these phenomena is 
 that the intelligence which is put in communica- 
 
178 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 tion with us, is a fallen one. It is of the devil, 
 tha prince of the power of the air. I believe 
 that we commit the crime of necromancy when 
 we take part in these spiritistic seances." 
 
 No man in modern times has given more 
 thought and intelligent study to psychic and 
 spirit phenomena, or has written so luminously, 
 dispassionately, and calmly on Spiritism than 
 Mr. J. Godfrey Eaupert. In his work, "Mod- 
 em Spiritism," he summarises the profession 
 of faith of modern Spiritism in these nine ar- 
 ticles of denial : 
 
 "1. That Christianity cannot be regarded 
 as a revelation of an unique and specific char- 
 acter, foreshadowed in the Jewish ordinances, 
 foretold by prophet and seer, and completed 
 and consummated on Calvary and on the day of 
 Pentecost; but that it is one of many forms of 
 high spirit-manifestation designed to enforce 
 upon man the binding obligations of the moral 
 law inherent in his nature, and to remind him 
 of the true character of his high origin and 
 destiny. 
 
 "2. That Christ is not divine in the sense in 
 
SPIRITS OF ANOTHER WORLD 179 
 
 which the Church throughout all ages has un- 
 derstood that term and has believed and taught 
 Him to be divine. That He is, on the contrary, 
 a human being like ourselves — at best perhaps 
 a spirit of a high order and possessed of re- 
 markable gifts and powers, who, descending 
 from the higher spheres and assuming a hu- 
 man body, was content to lay down His life as 
 a testimony to the truth of the doctrines which 
 He taught. 
 
 "3. That the teaching of the Catholic Church 
 respecting His character and person and the 
 aim and purpose of His death, is based upon 
 a misconception, due to human error and weak- 
 ness, and to subsequent philosophical thought 
 and speculation. 
 
 "4. That there is no priesthood specially set 
 apart and ordained by Christ with a view to 
 perpetuating His work and to forming the link 
 between the sphere of the human and the 
 divine. 
 
 "5. That the Church, with its sacramental in- 
 stitutions for the effectual carrying out of this 
 work, and for the raising of the human soul to 
 
180 ESSAYS IN OCCULTISM 
 
 a supernatural life, for the impartiBg to it of 
 supernatural gifts and graces, is a vain thing 
 fondly invented, and at best an institution of 
 mere human origin and doing a purely human 
 work. 
 
 "6. That the scriptural notion of retribution 
 after death and of punishment for sin committed 
 in the flesh is a misreading and misrepresenta- 
 tion of the words of Christ and of those feelings 
 of failure and of loss which necessarily attend 
 the slow process of human evolution, retribu- 
 tion only taking place in the sense that suffer- 
 ing must follow upon wrong, wilfully or igno- 
 rantly done, in order that thus the way to right 
 doing and to right conduct may be found. 
 
 "7. That man is daily and hourly, by his own 
 deeds and misdeeds, and by the general mould- 
 ing and shaping of his character, preparing for 
 himself his own heaven or his own hell; that 
 these are, however, far other than those which 
 theology holds and inculcates. 
 
 "8. That physical death does not in any sense 
 determine the destiny of the human spirit ; but 
 that, irrespective of personal beliefs or dis- or 
 
SPIRITS OF ANOTHER WORLD 
 
 181 
 
 misbeUefs, its training and education are con- 
 tinued and indefinitely prolonged in the spirit- 
 spheres. 
 
 "9. That man is in fact, in the truest sense 
 of the word, his own Saviour." 
 
 It will be noticed by the thoughtful reader 
 that the end aimed at by both Spiritists and 
 Materialists is the same — destruction of Chris- 
 tianity. The reader will also notice that at 
 no time in the history of the human race have 
 the spirits, or has Spiritism, contributed any- 
 thing to the advancement of knowledge or the 
 progress of civilization. 
 
 THE END