G. B. THOMPSON by G. B. THOMPSON

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 24, 1908

G. B. THOMPSON

By G. B. THOMPSON

Beyond the Border-Line of Life — No. 3

G. B. THOMPSON

WHILE scientific investigation has not discovered the real power operating in Spiritualism, the fact has been established that there is a more than human power at work. Trained scientists, skeptical concerning the reported miraculous working of mediums in the séance, have conducted rigid investigations, under circumstances which they claim preclude the possibility of deception. The following extracts from Mr. Gustavus Myers's article in the October number of Van Norden's Magazine give some of the results of their investigation of these phenomena:—

“Cases of automatic writing and talking are numerous enough to fill volumes. William T. Stead, the noted English journalist, asserts that he wrote that remarkable work, ‘Letters from Julia,’ automatically, and produces evidence to prove his claim. As for automatic talking, one of the most remarkable of the many modern examples is that of Laura Edmunds, a daughter of J. W. Edmunds, of New York City, who was for many years on the Supreme Court Bench. Judge Edmunds vouched for the fact that the only language she knew besides English was a school smattering of French. Yet when in a trance state, under the influence of her ‘controls,’ she spoke thirteen languages fluently, including Greek, Polish, Italian, and Indian. ‘This happened,’ says Judge Edmunds, ‘in the presence of eight or ten persons, all educated, intelligent, reasonable, and all as capable as any one of distinguishing between illusion and real fact.’”

“What Lodge and his circle of fellow distinguished scientists regard as a final, incontestable proof of the survival of the life principle and the human personality after death, is the fact publicly announced by him that they have succeeded in communicating with the spirits of Myers, Hodgson, and Edmund Gurney, and that these late terrestrial dwellers have supplied a repeated conclusive proof of their identity. Before he passed away, Myers left a sealed package in the hands of his associates. To eliminate all possibility of fraud on any question of telepathy, it was arranged that this message was to be transmitted in two parts through two mediums. It was to be done in such a manner that, while detached, they would not constitute an intelligible, coherent communication, yet, when joined together, they would form an explicit written message identical with that in the original manuscript. Lodge recently informed the British Society of Psychical Research that this has been accomplished through the mediums, Mrs. Verrall and Mrs. Piper.”

“In his notable work, ‘Miracles and Modern Spiritualism,’ Alfred Russell Wallace deals with various authenticated cases of apparitions. Three persons, driving along an English roadway, saw a woman's figure in white floating above a hedge. If it was a hallucination or a subjective vision on their part, Wallace asks, how was it that the horse suddenly stopped and shook with fright? Dogs have often been known to cower in a state of pitiable terror when apparently no cause existed. Wallace narrates a number of instances.”

“On one occasion, after Home had passed into a trance, Crookes tells, ‘a beautifully formed hand rose up from an opening in the dining-table and gave me a flower. . . . This occurred in the light of my own room while I was holding the medium's hands and feet.’ Crookes frequently saw phantom hands, and sometimes forms and faces. At times these materializations were solid and life-like; at other times they had the appearance of nebulous clouds condensed into corporeal forms.”

“Morselli groups the manifestations of materialization witnessed by him and his colleagues during thirty separate sittings into nine classes and thirty-nine varieties. At these séances, he says touching, feeling, and grasping by invisible hands form very common phenomena; the appearances are seen either in the dark, in a faint light, or a red light. “‘They are really human hands,’ he goes on, ‘which touch, press, grasp, pull, push, pat lightly, strike, pull the sitters’ beards or hair, take off their spectacles, etc.’ Heads, arms, shoulders, and faces were frequently seen. This, it should be noted, is precisely the same set of phenomena noted long before by Wallace, Lodge, Crookes, and Zollner. Referring to the phantom hands, Morselli says: ‘On grasping them we felt the impression

of hands dissolving away, as if composed of semifluid substance.’”

“Appearances of forms were very numerous. ‘These forms,’ Morselli relates, ‘advance toward the sitters, touch and feel them, embrace, grasp, draw them nearer or push them away, caress and kiss them, with all the movements of living and real persons.’”

“One of the most amazing of the phenomena was the levitation of Eusapia Paladino together with her chair. The combined report of the assembled scientists says: ‘Suddenly Professors Morselli and Porro perceived that Eusapia had been raised along with her chair, and carried up to a level above that of the surface of the table, upon which she descended in such a way that her feet and the two front legs of the chair rested on the surface of the table, which was partially broken. Meanwhile the medium moaned as if intensely frightened, and asked to be put back with her chair on the floor. But almost instantly she was carried up again with the chair, and this levitation lasted for some seconds, so that M. de Albertis and Professor Porro, without preconcerted arrangement and with completely simultaneous thought, succeeded in passing their hands under the feet of the medium and of the chair. Shortly afterward, Eusapia, still seated, redescended onto the table; she was held by those to right and left of her; the chair was pushed or thrown down backward on the floor, and the medium, seized by several of those present, while still moaning, was carried to the floor and seated again in her place.’”

The spread of this great deception which is to gather the whole world into the vortex of ruin, was described by the servant of the Lord many years ago in the following words:—

“I saw the rapidity with which this delusion was spreading. A train of cars was shown me, going with the speed of lightning. The angel bade me look carefully. I fixed my eyes upon the train. It seemed that the whole world was on board. Then he showed me the conductor, a fair, stately person, whom all the passengers looked up to and reverenced. I was perplexed, and asked my attending angel who it was. Said he, ‘It is Satan. He is the conductor in the form of an angel of light. He has taken the world captive. They are given over to strong delusions, to believe a lie, that they may be damned. His agent, the highest in order next to him, is the engineer, and other of his agents are employed in different offices as he may need them, and they are all going with lightning speed to perdition.’”

It is time that the truth concerning the nature of man and his hope of immortality as revealed in the Word of God be everywhere made known, that they may be saved from this satanic deception.

Takoma Park, D. C.