RECENT EXPERIENCES OF SPIRITUALISM.

Thames Star, Volume IIII, Issue 1718, 6 July 1874, Page 2

RECENT EXPERIENCES OF SPIRITUALISM.

Credulity is the invariable companion . of superstition, but superstitions ate not all alike. Froude has pointed out in a noble passage, the greatest men of Ihe Elizabethan age had their superstitions springing out of the intense eagerness of their convictions, and their realisation of the mystery and powar underlying ' and governing the material and' spiritual phenomena of the universe, , They-, would have regarded' the sd-caltad -spiritual phenomena of this age, -however,; with.- . contempt, as utterly at variance with and unworthy of the grand conception^ «v which their superstitions were,based. '£et our readers p/erus^the^recent^'experjeiices of spiritualism recorded in the'FdrthigTitly and New Quarterly, Magazine, for* the j narratives are well calculated to dispel all illusions about the mystery or 'pdwer of the forces manifested in the phenomena of our modern spiritualism. The Socrates of the spirit world, 1 according to one medium, had a straight Grecian n<sde, among his other characteristics. As Home doubt existed as to. identity, .Viscount Amberley suggested that he should ai-ore it by speaking; in Greek,' which had the effect of immediately stopping'th'o mouth of that otherwise loquacious philosopher Another medium, gifted with intuitive powers of discovering and healing maladies found distinct evidences of a disease that the Viscount had never had,- and of an operation he had never suffered. On the extraordinary credulity of .the spiritualists, and that of the mediums, so well pointed out by Viscount Amberley wo need not dwell. Mr. William Hipp has also recounted in the Echo his experience of a seance with the celebrated Miss Cook as a medium. Among other manifestations the time arrived "for^ the spirits to sprinkle the guests withVater, a tumbler having been placed on the table for that purpose. ' The room was darkened and expectation was on tiptoe, but the sceptical Mr. Hipp grasped the tumbler, and in a few seconds clutched th© hand that was dipped into it. .As he had caught a spirit a light was procured and a striking tableaux pregented itself. .\ The spirit hand had an arm" of- fleab. which formed part of Miss Cook's body. The censure and ignominy, he adds, that he brought 1 on himself, were only counterbalanced by the satisfaction he felt in having at last caught a spirit.. Scientific men are invited to investigate the phenomena of spiritualism,' and their - refusal to do so is regarded as the result of a narrow-minded prejudice; but we agree with-the editor of the New Quarterly Magazine when ho says that the existence of delusion,',and the manner of it, being once explainedi the subject ceases to posess any interest for "educated and intelligent people. Discussion i of such topics affords neither instruction nor entertainment. But this mysterious craving to peer into the unknown has other aspects which should not be en* tirely disregarded. Speaking of the social epidemics and vulgar superitftions that from time to time rise, culminate,' and decline, giving away in their tura'to others equally startling and emphemeraL the late' Professor Perrierdeclared, " These, however, are not to be set down —at least so it is to be hoped—among tk« moral and catholic superstitions incident to humanity."They are? worse thantb* - worst forms of the doctrins of materiality. Our natural superstitions are bad «nough, but thus to make a systematic businegg of tutunty, imposture, and prjbfanity, and to imagine all the while that we are treading on the precincts of* God's, spiritjoal kingdom is exseedingly shocking."— Lancet. • - , ' ■, ..•