IS SPIRITUALISM' TRUE?

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18411, 29 May 1923, Page 8

IS SPIRITUALISM' TRUE?

DEBATE ON THE QUESTION.

A debate on the question " Is Spiritualism True?" was held in the Town Hall concert chamber last evening. Mr. P. Hickey presided over a large audience, which displayed considerable interest in the 'arguments advanced by the two speakers, the Rev. Wyndham Heathcote, of the Unitarian Church, Wellington, and Mr. H. Scott Bennett, lecturer for the Rationalist Association. Opening the debate in the affirmative Mr. Heathcote stated that though a good deal of fraud was connected with the phenomena of some mediums, below it was pure gold, and no conjuring trick, however clever, could dispose of. the phenomena, of spiritualism. From his own experience he was convinced that humans lived after death, and that man could recognise their voices, characters, and dispositions. Evolution, which' all intelligent men accepted in some form or other, made it easier to accept spiritualism, for evolution showed that we were in a scheme of things which led inevitably onward. Supporting the negative "side of the question, Mr. Scott Bennett declared emphatically that there was not a medium of any prominence who had not been detected in fraud. . The very mediums who had convinced Sir Cdnan Doyle, Sir 'William Crookes, and Sir Oliver Lodge had been detected over and over again. He further maintained that there was not a single materialisation which Maskelyne, the famous conjuror, could not produce under test conditions. He was not denying that men might be immortal beings, but that did not necessarily prove spiritualism. He challenged anyone to show him- a spirit message j from a scientist or anybody else that had been of the slightest value to the human race. , In reply. Mr. Heathcote narrated a number of his ,own personal experiences to prove his contentions. "You will think I am talking nonsense," he said, " but I knew the result of the prohibition campaign days before it came about." (Loud laughter.) He was told by a medium in London—a complete stranger to him— that his eldest brother was his special guardian angel. He denied that his I eldest brother was dead, but subsequently learned what he had never known before, j that the first child in the family died at j birth. He challenged an answer to this j inexplicable insight. At. the close of the debate the usual I votesof thanks were passed without the question being put to the audience.