Reports of Meetings. ST. JOHN'S ASSOCIATION OF SPIRITUALISTS. ON Thursday, November 4th, a lecture on Spiritualism was delivered in connection with the St. John’s Association of Spiritualists, at the St. John’s Temperance Hall, 7, Corpora tion-row, Clerkenwell, by Mr. John Jones, of Enmore-park South Norwood. Mr. Jones is a retired City merchant, and a well-known friend of Spiritualism. The admission was free, and the room was completely filled with an audience who listened to the lecturer with respectful attention through out. The lecture was illustrated by a series of dissolving views, painted and thrown on the screen by Mr. Henry Biel field. Mr. JONES said that his lecture was probably but the first of a series of the same description, which it is intended to deliver in all parts of London during the coming winter. At one time the public when speaking of a Spiritualist would tap their foreheads with the finger, and say, "Ah! poor Now, all that fellow ! There’s something wrong here!" feeling is dying out, and one of deep and absorbing interest in Spiritualism is taking its place. Many now wish to under stand it, which it is not so easy to do ; the supernatural can not be understood because it is so high above our own powers of mind and body. On the preceding evening he had been present at a meeting of the Dialectical Society—a body of materialists, who look upon themselves as something like grasshoppers, having a brief existence here, and then going off somewhere, they are not sure where, but they believe neither in devils nor in angels. In a reply which he (Mr. Jones) read on the preceding evening at the Dialectical Society, in answer to some attacks on Spiritualism, he ven tured to give definitions of his opinion of the natural and supernatural. In one sense there is nothing super natural, for all universal nature seen or unseen is natural, whether organic or inorganic. He stated that there were two classes of intelligent beings in nature, some of them in a body of flesh, and the others outside of it. All movements which man can make, whether physical or chemi cal, he defined to be natural. All movements which spirits can make by means of the visible or invisible forces of nature which man cannot make, he defined as supernatural. Spiritual ideas are difficult of acceptance to thorough ma terialists. If one fish told another that there were strange beings in another atmosphere, who did not use fins for loco motion, but who walked on two legs, other fishes, materialists, would laugh at the statement. In like manner spirits are in a different state to man, and they think and act differently from us. People often say in a conceited way, “ Well, if there are spirits in our midst, why don’t they do so and so ?"—ex pecting beings in a higher state of existence to be at the beck and call of anybody who makes idle suggestions. Even though spirits be but human beings out of the flesh, the stand upon a higher plane of existence. To go into some of the details of the subject, he would state that there are essences or forces emanating from all substances, which pro duce effects on matter visible to the eye. He might, for illustration, quote the fact that if a plate of bright easily oxidisable metal was suspended for a moderate length of time over a manure heap, its surface would become tar nished by the simple chemical action of the gases emanat ing below, but there are also emanations of a more subtle nature from all substances. God had given him (Mr. Jones) thirteen children, five of whom are now alive, and as he was a man who never sought publicity or public honours of an description, his delight had always been to spend his evenings with his children at home trying experiments of a somewhat strange nature. He had thus found out many curious facts as to the action of the emanations from shells and minerals upon clairvoyant sensitives, and when he first heard of Spiritualism he came to the conclusion that it was all caused by the action upon clairvoyants of the forces emanating from surrounding material objects, but the sight of a few of the simplest of the phenomena of Spiritualism soon convinced him of his error. His experiments with shells and mincrals were conducted in a room absolutely and perfectly dark. One of his best clair voyant patients was a lady, and in her presence he one by one took some English and foreign shells out of the paper in which they were wrapped, and placed them on the top of the piano. The sensitive, who saw luminous emanations from the shells, would say of one shell, “ That’s blue,” and of another, “That’s pink.” From some she saw long lambent flames and smoke arising, which sometimes reached as high as the ceil ing; some shells looked dark like pewter, and had a painful influence upon the clairvoyant. After being in the dark roon some time she said she could see him and everything in it quite distinctly. His hearers might say, “ How did he know Well, he tested that by that he was not duped by the girl?" means of a fresh lot of perhaps two dozen shells, bringing each of them for a short time within range of her eyes in the dark room, and then taking it into the light, and writing down what she said about each shell. The clairvoyant never saw them in the light at all. He then placed them on the top of the piano, and told the clairvoyant to write out in the pitch dark room a description of the emanations from each shell, and place the description on the shell itself. This was done, and when lights were admitted he found that the two descriptions of each shell agreed exactly, in every case but one. Lately he had been regretting that he did not think at the time to break up that one sbell, and give her the pieces to examine separately, to see whether there was much difference in the emanations from the different parts. The aura from the shells is disturbed by the motion of the air, and sensitives are sometimes made very ill by shells containing traces of putrefying matter. The lecturer then spoke of the aura fron magnets, as seen in the experiments of Reichenbach and others, and pointed out how iron filings or Taranaki iron sand may be sifted over a table, and the particles made to arrange themselves in the lines of magnetic force, when a magnet is placed at some little distance beneath. Here, then, is an invisible force proceeding right through a wooden table, and moving solid matter on the other side. Give a spirit the necessary conditions, and it can also throw invisible power to make solid objects move. A mesmeric aura, seen by sensi tives, proceeds from every human being, and influences the actions of people more than most of them are aware. As combustion of the elements of food goes on in the body, this aura is thrown out, and by the exercise of the will-power it can be sent in any desired direction. This aura often has health-giving properties, so that certain individuals have the power to a large extent of curing the sick by mesmeric influ ence. Many may doubt the reality of these emanations because they themselves cannot see them, still that is no proof that they do not exist. Sunlight is built up of many colours, which nobody can see in the light itself, but the