EXTRAORDINARY SPIRITUAL PHENOMENA.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 679, 2 July 1870, Page 2

EXTRAORDINARY SPIRITUAL PHENOMENA.

We learn from an article in the Queen that the Earl of Dunraven and Lord Adare have printed for private circulation a volume of considerable size, containing fifty-bix carefully prepared reports of as many sittings with Mr Home, the celebrated medium. The Earl of Dunraven introduces these reports with a preface, in which he states that he went to the investigation completely sceptical, and left it completely convinced The investigations were made at Dunraven Castle, and at Lord Dunraven's mansion in London They were thus made where only such an examination would be of any value—in the house of the examiner, where he may be positively secured against the possibility of imposture by pre-arrangeisent of mechanism. Their reports are said to be very remarkable. Both attest to having seen Mr Home raised from the floor and carried round the room more than once, in their own saloons, with no one present but a few personal friends, and therefore making collusion impossible, and precluding the common explanation of delusion by the presence of six witnesses to the same fact at the same moment. They certify to not merely having seen, but to having measured, an expansion of Mr Home's body by six inches in height. They have seen him carry live coals in his hand and on his head, his skin being uuburnt and his hair unsinged, though themselves could not touch the coal without a burn. These are alleged to be material facts about which there can be no mistake. But the noble lords describe more, which is not capable of demonstrative proof, because it may be a subjective and not an objective operation; that is to say, the image may bo in the mind only, and not actually existing without. But howsoever to be explaiued, both assort that they have repeatedly seen spirit forms in their room. They describe them as being extremely shadowy, rather outlines than shapes, and therefore the psychologist may be excused for setting them to the account of " the mind's eye " instead of the body's eye. This observes the writer of the article ro ferred to, is a common and a very probable result of the adoption of the Spiritualist view of the phenomena that undoubtedly occur ; seeing unaccountable motions, and hearing inexplicable sounds that do communicate something that is intelligible, though not always intelligent, the majority of spectators, unable to find a ready solution in physiology, at once set them to the account of spirits—which is a convenient solution, for it will account

for anything. Profoundly convinced that all is the work of spirits, it is not surprising that they should expect to catch some glimpses of the invisible beings whom they believe to be moving about them. They strain their eyes to see. The wish is father to the thought. By an every-day tendency of the mind to think it sees what it expects to see, images really formed in the mind and existing only there, are readily supposed to be, and to the individual really appear to be external objects ; and thus, as ghosts are seen by those who believe and fear, so spirits are seen by those who, firmly believing them to be there, in fact hope, and perhaps expect to see them there; and when supposed to be seen, the description always given of a dim outline or shadow, somewhat indistinct, betrays at once the true nature of the vision ; it is within, and not without. But all of this conjoint production of Lords Dunraven and Adare should be read, if only as psychical curiosities, and as demonstrating that it is not altogether an imposture or a delusion, and that there is some substantial truth at the bottom of a great superstructure of imagination, which it behoves the scientific world, and above all the physiologist, to investigate for himself.