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Freethought Review, Volume II, Issue 13, 1 October 1884, Page 1

The Rev. T. Le Men ant Des Chesnais recently gave a lecture in the Theatre Royal, Wellington, on " Animal Magnetism and Spirit Mediums," which furnishes a striking example of the survival of modes of thought among even educated theologians, long ago abandoned by the laity. After giving a sketch of Mesmer's career and theories, the rev. gentleman said " it was absurd to compare the effects of magnetism, " whether real or apparent, with the miracles of the " New Testament, or of those of the old saints. " When," he asked, " did spirit mediums restore " sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, or raise the " dead to life." Allowing for mere trickery and the effects of imagination, he declared that " in respect to " Spiritualism, it was undeniable, from history and " sacred writings, that the spirits of the dead could be " evoked." Admitting the reality of the " marvellous " phenomena heard of so frequently," which " it would " be unwise to deny," he expressed his opinion that " spirit mediums were evidently as much under the " influence of the demon (as represented by fallen " angels) as the ancient Pagan priests and the " ministers of Buddah and Brahma." No doubt just as much, that is just as little. " For that the evoca- " tion of spirits was an effect of magic produced by " the demon no one could deny." "In conclusion," said the lecturer, " I boldly say, from sincere con- " viction and scientific investigation, that Spiritism " is one of the most dangerous engines of the demon to " ruin Christianity and morality, bringing back in a "new form idolatry or demon worship." Some of the hearers of this marvellous discourse must have been reminded of the times of Apuleius, and have thought for a moment that the second and the nineteenth century had somehow got mixed. In " the Golden "Ass" Lucius was by magical arts changed into a donkey. Was the romance of Apuleius typical of the ultimate fate of dogmatic theology ?

The lecture alluded to above gave rise to quite a lively correspondence in the columns of the ' N. Z. 4 Times.' Mr. Chantrey Harris, its proprietor, argues, with considerable force, that when the Rev. M. Des Chesnais' " finding himself face to face with the un- " accountable, evokes Satanic aid " to account for spiritualistic phenomena, he argues " precisely as did " the Scribes and Pharisees to account for the " phenomena produced by Jesus Christ. 'He hath "'a devil,' was the cry; 'he is mad.' So with the " Apostles. ' Paul, Paul, much learning hath made "'thee mad.' To this summary mode of dealing with the subject Mr. Harris, as a leading Spiritualist, naturally objects. He says : —" We Spiritualists are " not mad, or, in other words, under demoniac control, " but speak the words of truth and soberness, inspired " from the highest and purest natural sources. We " have quite discarded the supernatural as a theo- " logical fiction." This last sentence quite accounts

for the antagonism of the Catholic Church, only it implies a very wide extension of the meaning of the term natural; and another writer, signing himself " Investi- " gator," seems to admit the truth of most of the supernatural elements in the Bible. Practically, the Spiritualists have taken possession of the Biblical fort and turned its guns against the churches. To outsiders the whole proceeding is very funny. Because certain residual physiological and psychological phenomena cannot at present be explained, those Spiritualists who "discard the supernatural" attribute them to spirits, and those who accept the supernatural, to demons, neither party having any good ground for knowing what either spirits or demons are, their laws of action, &c, their very existence being purely hypothetical. Thus they explain facts of which they know little by fictions of which they know less. In this respect the ancient Jews and the modern Spiritualists are very much alike.

" Father Des Chesnais in explanation " is the heading of another letter to the ' N. Z. Times,'in which the Rev. Father replies to " Investigator " in the best theological style, heaping up authorities against him which he is pleased to call scientific, such as " Dupo- " tet's Mysteries of Magic Unveiled" (large edition, pp. 50-153), Lecanu's " History of Satan," Brownson's " Spirit Rapper," Gougenot des Mousseaux, Phenomena of Magic, and Ancient Spiritism, the Mediums of Magic, the Ways and Manners of Demons in the Nineteenth Century, and J. E. Mirville, one of the greatest authorities on this subject, in his " Flueidic Manifestations, Profane and Sacred " Manifestations, Apparitions, &c." (Paris, Wattlier and Co., 6 vols. 4to, 1863) ; " The History of the Devil, Ancient and Modern," &c, &c. "If 'lnvestigator' " had read these works," concludes the good Father triumphantly, " he would not have affirmed, as he did, " that my opinion was unique, unscriptural, and not " in accordance with facts," and he then proceeds to batter him with citations from Scripture and logical deductions from certain texts. The controversy is wound up by a letter from " Investigator," inserted as as advertisement, which, if a harsh, was also a prudent act on the part of the editor, as there is no reason why a corresponnence of this sort should not run on for ever. The world is full of books, which, from those of the Shoolmen to the latest production of a medium under " control," or the last essay of an " Earth " Flattener," can be made to furnish authorities and a show of reason for any absurdity, and even the direct interrogation of nature, if undertaken "in a prayerful " spirit," as " Investigator" recommends, may lead to equally fallacious results. The scientific spirit, which aims at exact truth and draws a sharp distinction between a fact and an inference, is not yet sufficiently diffused to make the researches of untrained amateurs of much value when they form " harmonious circles "

to investigate obscure phenomena in which they have an intense personal interest. Even a doctor often thinks it is unwise to prescribe for himself.

If we are not mistaken in the identity of " Asmodeus," the writer of those notes on social and other matters headed " Round the Corners," in the paper quoted from above, there is a cause for his dislike to Freethinkers who do not happen to be Spiritualists. " Enjoying the fullest liberty," he says, " those stupid " Freethought people are degenerating into license. " But the other day they shrieked and clamoured for " the right of private judgment, and to be permitted to " entertain particular views. Now, having secured " these privileges, they turn round and, kicking up " their heels at all and sundry, disclose the cloven hoof " of the severest dogmatism and intolerance, and openly " sneer at and deride all who do not think exactly as " themselves. They don't consider other people's feel- " ings, not they, but deliberately say nasty things in " advertisements, and wilfully, and of malice afore- " thought, outrage some of the holiest feelings of their " fellow creatures." Any manifestation of malignity, bigotry, or intolerance ot feeling, is undoubtedly wrong, and does far more harm to the cause advocated than to that of its opponents. Considering the example set by orthodoxy in all its forms, it is little to be wondered at, however much it may be regretted, if those who dissent from received opinions occasionally fall into a similar error. It does not follow, however, that all modes of expression, or courses of conduct, which happen to hurt some people's feelings, are wrong. The very existence of Freethinkers must hurt a great many persons' feelings, and if no feelings must be hurt no reforms can be effected. Certainly, Christianity has never shown the slightest tenderness to opponents in this respect. The " churlish priest," at the grave of Ophelia, expresses the attitude always taken by the church and its adherents with regard to human feeling. The rule clearly is that no needless pain shall be inflicted, but those who suffer from it are not always the best judges how much is required to produce the desired effect.

Sydney Smith remarks : — " We are a good deal " amused, indeed, with the extreme disrelish which Mr. " John Styles exhibits to the humour and pleasantry " with which he admits the Methodists to have been " attacked ; but Mr. John Styles should remember that " it is not the practice with the destroyers of vermin to " allow the little victims a veto upon the weapons used "against them." Perhaps the "stupid Freethought "people " have in some cases come to regard " Asmo- " deus " and his likes among the Spiritualists, much as Sydney Smith regarded the Methodists, and " arecon- " vinced a little laughter will do them more harm than " all the arguments in the world. The " nest of " sanctimonious cobblers " routed out by Sydney Smith have their parallel in the gentlemen who form " harmonious circles," and receive the revelations of chairs and tables in a " prayerful spirit," and on the strength of utterances lightly assumed to be those of disembodied spirits for even admitting the facts, there are dozens of more rational explanations of them • —accept so much of the teaching of the Bible as accords with them, and are in fact quite prepared to discard the teachings of science and common sense in avour of worn-out superstitions patched up with new

fanaticism. A text and a table seem of equal authority, and a future state of gibbering idiots affords them the " consolations of religion." Any attempt to examine the question dispassionately is discountenanced, in view of the importance of re-establishing the discredited doctrine of immortality. The oddest part of the whole affair is that the history of spiritism seems almost forgotten, and its modern dupes have gained nothing from past experience. An article in the ' Westminster Review ' for July and October, 1857, on " Spirits and Spirit-rapping," might be read by " Asmodeus" and his credulous friends with considerable advantage.

Mr. Joseph Symes in an able article in the ' Liberator' on " The Originality of Jesus " quotes from a lecture of the Bishop of Melbourne the following passage which he says " may very well be taken to describe the posi- " tion of himself and the churches in antagonism with " Freethinkers." In reading it substitute clergy for " scribes," and an Athestic lecturer for the Galilean

peasant : " and thought themselves honoured by ' dusting them- " selves with the dust of their feet.' Conceive, then, " the startled amazement, the ineffable scorn, of such a " learned clique as this when it found a young Galilean " peasant, without its own learning, seizing in his hand " of might, rending away and scattering that sacred " hedge which with ages of toil they had succeeded in " building, and which kept the way of the tree of life. "It was intolerable insult to them. It implied that all " their learning was useless, and all their pride " contemptible. The scorn and fury of the classical " scholar of the last century, when we heard some " audacious scientist call his making and capping of " verses useless trifling, would be as nothing to the rage "of the Jewish scribe. For the learning of the scribe "was not only his wisdom, but also his religion. It " was the key with which he opened or shut the king- " dom of heaven, the authority by which he bound on " men's consciences or unloosed those obligations which " regulated all Jewish thought and life. To deride that " learning, to set it at nought, to cast it out as useless " lumber, yea, as god-dishonouring falsehood, was to " confound thought, to break up society, to let in " heathenism, to bring on the reign of chaos and " ancient night. They had nourished a serpent in " their bosom. Whence had he got his impious " thoughts, his desolating enthusiasm ? He must be a " madman, a demoniac. He must either be silenced "or destroyed. The more clearly we see that to be the " feeling of the Scribes and Pharisees, the more readily " we shall adopt the merciful judgment of St. Peter, in " his second sermon after Pentecost :—' I wot that " through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers.' "

When for Paley's simple idea that the New Testament furnishes us with the testimony of the "original " witnesses of the Christian miracles who required much the same amount of evidence as most men would require to prove the truth of a miracle in the present day, we substitute the proved historical fact, that like the old, the canon of the New Testament was a gradual growth, it is at once apparent that we are not dealing with direct testimony at all, but with heresay evidence, only taking such definite form as we have in the four Gospels towards the end of the second century. Considering the nature of Jewish tradition, the learned ignorance and gross superstition which prevailed at the

time, mingled as it was with the distorted reflection of Greek philosophy, we may be certain that myth and fable form a large portion of what Christians regard as facts too sacred to be questioned. Such facts usually turn out to be fictions.

In the characteristic reply to the criticism of the

Duke of Argyle, by Henry George, in the July number of the ' Nineteenth Century,' after instancing a number of heartless cases of evictions and cruelties perpetrated upon the Highland cottars and crofters, he says : " No one can read of the atrocities perpetrated upon " the Scottish people during what is called the im- " provement of the Highlands, without teeling some- " thing like utter contempt for men who, lions abroad, " were such sheep at home that they suffered these

" outrages without striking a blow, even if an in-

" effectual one The reason of the

" tame submission of the Highland people to outrages " which should have nerved the most timid, is to be " found in the prostitution of their religion. The " Highland people are a deeply religious people, and " during these evictions their preachers preached to " them that their trials were the visitations of the " Almighty, and must be submitted to under the " penalty of eternal damnation." This indictment is the heavier, coming from so orthodox a writer as

Henry George.

However, it seems to us that Henry George, in'attacking what he calls " the prostitution of their re- " ligion," is acting as illogically as the man who expects to find " a grape on thorns " ; or who should curse a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season ; for surely this, what he calls contemptible non-resistance to outrage and wrong, should be the natural result of teaching, founded on the divine command that ye resist not " evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right " cheek, turn to him the other also." No, no, Mr. George ! the " prostitution of religion " does not lie in the non-resistance of evil (or shall we say the emancipation from the Christian religion), but in the exercise of the self-reliant virtues and manliness which conduce to true progress and civilisation.

In these days, when the belief in a personal devil and a natural hell is fast being relegated to the mythological or Jack the Giant Killer age, it is refreshing to find an Anglican clergyman bold enough to warn his hearers, in no measured terms, to beware of the wiles and cunning of the horned, hoofed, and oxtailed gentleman. This was lately done by the Rev. Mr. Copinger, when conducting a kind of revival or hysterical movement in the Anglican Church at Marton, a small town about thirty miles from Wanganui. That such hell fire denunciations should be made by the ignorant and fanatical soldiers of the Salvation Army is scarcely to be wondered at; but when such a respectable and apathetic body as the Anglican Church reverts to first principles, we begin to wonder if the millennium is at hand, or that second coming of Christ, so confidently predicted by St. Paul and other mistaken enthusiasts, and founders of the Christian faith. That there is a great evolution in belief now going on in the Protestant Churches, cannot be denied ; and the ignoring by the more cultured of these gross and cruel beliefs held by the early writers of the New Testament, is one of the most striking proofs. However, we cannot but think that the clergyman of whatever Christian sect is the

more honest and orthodox man, who day and night, presents to his hearers in unmistakeable language, the horrors of the eternally damned !

That these vivid pictures of hell are believed in by some few poor wretches, is instanced by the cases, happily rare, of religious madness and murder. For should the conviction be borne upon the mind, in all its naked horror, that a man's own children will in all probability be burned eternally, what we say is more commendable than taking the lives of these children before they are old enough to commit a responsible sin. Such a case as this did actually happen in America a few years ago, and the church held up its saintly hands in pious horror, and denounced the murderer. We hold that the Christian churches are in many cases responsible for such atrocities, and that they are rare is only because—thanks to the spread of Freethought and sceptism—few people now believe that their God is a demon.

The organ of the Catholic Church in this colony has given reasons (see article quoted in another column) for " making the education question the most important "of all." The Emperor Napoleon's words are repeated: " My duty is to hinder the morality of my people from " being poisoned, for Atheism is the destroyer of all " morality, if not in individuals, at least among nations." On these words the ' Tablet' comments as follows : " With Atheism ruling among them, therefore, the " nation who will in the future inhabit New Zealand, " will be an immoral nation, and no people can be " great or prosperous without morality." The conclusion logically follows from the premises, no doubt, but as the proposition, that " Atheism is the destroyer of " all morality," is not admitted, the conclusion must be postponed. More especially does the proposition appear a groundless assumption, when one atheistic nation cannot be pointed to to supply the experience wanted to support it. On the other hand there is ample experience to prove that very religous nations have been grossly immoral—it might be maintained that the more religious the more immoral. The- city of Rome is an illustration of the fact that a great army of priests, and a great many prayers, do not make the people less leud, less depraved, than in the most sceptical city of Europe.

The authority selected is charming. Napoleon's admission that there might be a doubt about " indi- " viduals " destroys any force there may be in his assertion. For as the aggregate of individuals constitute the nation, the aggregate of moral persons would give us a moral state. But we cannot accept the dictum of such an authority as of any value. His idea of what was moral and immoral was so curiously exemplified in his life and actions, that we should be inclined to think his opinions on the subject are things of which the advocates of Christianity, should be ashamed. Napoleon, had he lived in an earlier period of the world's history, would have set himself up as a God, and established a worship of himself, like so many great conquerers. There are many traces of this incipient worship, and we will give one. In one of his letters to his wife, Josephine, this egotist and moralist says :—" I have a right to answer all your complaints " by an eternal I. I am a person apart ; I will not be " dictated to by anyone." Now an " Eternal I " appropriately enough denounces Atheism, for Atheism

denounces the worship of every " Eternal I," and is consequently eternally opposed to every usurpation. It is a very high tribute to the morality of Atheism to find that it does not receive the sanction of an " Eternal I." There is another " Eternal I " situated in the " Eternal City," who demands something of the nature of worship in absolute obedience, and it is the glory of Atheism that it wages eternal war on this eternal representative. Atheism in religion is republicanism in politics. Napoleon, who violated his oath to the nation, has no moral claim to speak with authority on either subject. And all " Eternal IV are usurpers.