Jonnob/the-spiritualist-enriched huggingface dataset:
that it was beyond the power of any human creature to make such strange and various noises. “ As to your questions, I will answer them particu larly: but withal, I desire my answers may satisfy none but yourself; for I would not have the matter imparted to any. We had both man and maid new this last Martinmas, yet I do not believe either of them occasioned the disturbance, both for the reason above mentioned, and because they were more affrighted than anybody else. Besides, we have often heard the noises when they were in the room by us; and the maid par ticularly was in such a panic that she was almost in capable of all business, nor durst ever go from one room to another, or stay by herself a minute, after it began to be dark. “ The man, Robert Brown, whom you well know was most visited by it, lying in the garret, and has been often frighted down barefoot, and almost naked, not daring to stay alone to put on his clothes; nor do I think, if he had power, he would be guilty of such vil lany. When the walking was heard in the garret, Robert was in bed in the next room, in a sleep so sound. that he never heard your father and me walk up and down, though we walked not softly I am sure. All the family has heard it together, in the same room, at the same time, particularly at family prayers. It always seemed to all present in the same place at the same time; though often before any could say, It is here it would remove to another place. All the family, as well as Robin, were asleep when your father and I went down stairs, nor did they wake in the nursery when we held the candle close by them only we observed that Hetty trembled exceedingly in her sleep, as she always did, before the noise awaked her. It commonly was nearer her than the rest, which she took notice of; and was much frightened, because she thought it had a particular spite at her. I could multiply partieular instanccs, but I forbear. I believe your father will write to you about it shortly. What ever may be the design of Providence in permitting these things, I cannot say. Secret things belong to God. But I entirely agree with you, that it is our wisdom and duty to prepare seriously for all events “ S. WESLEY."
A LECTURE BY MRS. HARDINGE. THE following is a slightly abbreviated report of a lecture delivered by Mrs. Emma Hardinge, a few Sun days ago, in the Music Hall, Boston, United States, and published in the Banner of Light of the first of this month: “ Entering upon a fresh scene of inquiry to-day, we advance one step further, and question, Who am I? A single identity amid the vast masses of humanity, who on every side of me present structures as grand, micro cosms as complete, powers as mighty as mine; in the midst of a multitude all fashioned with equal wisdom beneficence and care—Who am I? Whether I place myself on the lowest round of the ladder amid the out easts of the city streets, or picture myself achieving the highest conditions of human greatness, still there are minds—many higher, some lower than my own. Let me once more turn my thoughts inward, and through my own special identity strive to solve the question: Who am I? I will remove myself in imagination from amid the surrounding masses, and stand alone in the wilderness, far from the throng of my fellow-men, with none to rival me in power or beauty, save the blooming flowers, the sighing wind, and the waving grass, living isolated and unmatched. Here will I question of my self, Who am I? As a mere external being I stand possessed of all the powers which constitute the gran deur of humanity; but I stand alone beneath the cold blast of winter, or the scorching heat of summer, with no one to construct me a shelter, none to fashion my garments ; my feeble hand unaided cannot execute these duties. I have neither the architect’s skill, nor the weaver’s craft. I can neither build nor clothe me in the fabrics which the hands of so many artisans must help to complete. My unaided power cannot accumulate the implements of use, nor get together all those condi ments for which the whole civilized globe is taxed to spread the table of luxury. I cannot reproduce the forms of beauty which the painter imprints upon the canvas, nor hew out the marble into the living glory of the sculptor’s art. I stand a poor solitary unit, and what am I alone? As the snows of winter silver my head, and I bend beneath the infirmities of age, where are the kind hands of youth and strength to uphold m fading powers? Where the loving lips that shall whisper consolation in mine ears? Where the friendly eyes that shall look on me with assurances of undying love, when I tread the silent valley that leads me to the unknown land of souls? Living alone, dying alone, Who am I? I must be one amongst my kind—and hence I must hie me back to the multitudes who absorb me—and amongst them endeavour to find my identity and my place, though it should be one of the least that make up the sum of humanity. “ Now I return, and now once more resume my in quiries. I place myself on the lowest round of the ladder of civilized existence. I behold myself plodding
the vast confines of the eternal world those uses are never lost. If I have played well the part—however small or large—which He has given me, I shall surely reap my harvest in eternity; and not only so, but I shall continue the uses commenced on earth, and rise to others of which earth is but the corner stone. Since bright spirits have opened up the view of the land beyond, I have learned that nothing on earth is lost in the heavens eternal—for pain and toil and grief there is compensation, glory for the thorns of martyrdom and a crown for every cross. I will return to my life of effort, and never more may the voice of questioning murmur pass my lips. I live for ever; I shall be an immortal spirit ; and though here none may know like my Heavenly Father who I am, in the thought that I live for ever all my destiny here and hereafter is accom plished."
Reports of Meetings [When reports of the speeches of spirits are printed in this Journal, non Spiritualists should understand that spirits out of the body are wise or foolish, truthful or untruthful, just the same as spirits in the body. More over, they are but individuals, so do not know everything. The statements of a spirit are but the assertions of an individual; but by comparing the state ments of many spirits, it may in time be possible to discover in what points they agree, and to sift out the unreliable communications. Many spirit cannot see each other, any more than we can see them, and as some of them are thus in different states of life, it does not follow that contradictor messages are therefore untruthful. Spirits are of different religions, conse sequently their teachings do not altogether agree; there is no more uniformity in the next world than in this one. It is the business of this journal to report facts, so we are in no way responsible for the religions, scientific, or any other teachings given by individual spirits.]
worlds and spheres ; those who have a knowledge of the causes know them to be simple as the simple fact I have given you this evening. I cannot at present show you the sustaining causes of this system of universes, for you are not yet prepared for it, and it would occupy too much time now. The causes of existence and of the sustaining power of existence in your worlds and spheres as described by your modern seer,* are capable of being analysed, in fact they have been analysed and found to be sound. One day you shall know the results of our researches; till then we must crave your patience. Time with you is measured by periods, and with us by events your time is unkuown to us. Another division of your time will soon be numbered with eternity. Truth such as I have told you, you have. Commence the new division with new efforts to get the truth from all mediums, and when you get the truth by careful investigation, hide it not, but give to thy brother lest he faint by the wayside for want of spiritual water. By patience you may dcvelope your physical mani festations. It will require patience, but I will see that too much of your evening is not occupied by your patience. You have the means, and it rests with you whether they shall be used; you are each and every one to act as a free agent there is no compulsion. Farewell, peace be with you. ON Friday evening, January 7th, at the ordinary weekly séance, much of the time of those present was again wasted in witnessing a few feeble physical manifestations, and in receiving some inaccurate communications, through the mediumship of Master Selwood. He will be a capital medium in time, but the mistake on the part of the manage ment of taking up the time of a large company in witnessing the unsatisfactory results of partly-developed mediumship, will assuredly lead to the breaking up of the weekly meetings, if the plan be persisted in. Next came some communications through Mr. J. J. Morse but the control was very weak. In answer to questions, his guardian spirit said that there is great difficulty in getting proper names through the brain and mouth of a trance medium. In the case of Mr. Morse probably one in three of the names and addresses are given with absolute freedom from error, but nearly all of them are sufficiently accurate to serve for the identification of the communicating spirit. He closed by controlling Mr. Morse as a writing medium, and by this method stated that he had been requested to say that the name Mary Willett given at a former séance, should have been Harriet Tillot, and that the name of the doctor who attended her was “Fulcher.“ He said that when the names given through his medium are not accurate, they will be found to much resemble the real ones in sound. Mr. J. M. Peebles, who was present, said that there are three ways of controlling mediums, namely, “mechanically, psychologically, and inspirationally;” the control of Mr. Morse seemed to be a mixture of the psychological and the inspirational, in which case it is difficult to give proper names. †
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To Correspondents. All letters should be brief and to the point, as the amount of space available for correspondence is at present small. Communications intended for the Editor should be by letter only, addressed to the care of the Publisher, Mr. E. W. ALLEN, Ave Maria-lane, St. Pauls Church-yard, London. E.C. Until the Spiritual movement in England, together with this journal, have both grown considerably, time cannot be spared for personal interviews on subjects connected with the literary work of THE SPIRITUALIST, but all letters will meet with careful consideration. THE SPIRIRUALIST is a periodical intended to give great freedom of expression to all the different shades of opinion to be found among Spiritualists. There will therefore be very little uniformity in the ideas promulgated in this journal more especially in the correspondence columns. Under these circumstances every reader will find occasionally something in THE SPIRITUALIST which he or she does not like, but the right of reply remains. This freedom of thought given to others, the Editor claims for himself, and those who do not like the contents of leading articles, can write against them in the correspondence columns. This plan is thought better than that of reducing the contents of the journal to a pale weak mediocrity, by inserting only those contribution. which please everybody. The preceding remarks are not intended to imply that those who have crotchets which they cannot get printed anywhere else, can find an outlet for them here, for none but those letters which are considered worth publication will be inserted. Notices of Public Meetings in connection with Spiritualism should be sent to the office several days in advance.
The Spiritualist FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 1870. THE SPIRITUALiST will from and after this date be published monthly instead of fortnightly. It will be issued on the 15th day of every month, and the next number will come out on Tuesday the 15th of February. For a new paper THE SPIRITUALIST has been very favourably received, and it finds its way regularly to all parts of the three kingdoms. But the advertising public know comparatively little about Spiritualism, regarding it as a delusion or something worse, hence a journal on this subject stands on a worse commercial footing than ordinary newspapers do with the same circulation. Experience shows that it is unreasonable to continue this as a fortnightly journal at present, but THE SPIRIRUTALIST is progressing steadily, and we hope to again supply news at short intervals at no very distant date. Much mutual friendliness has sprung up between this journal and some of its leading sup porters, and, as will be seen in a short article in an-
Many modern philosophers think that in the vibra ting atom and the ether-wave, they have reached the boundaries of creation, just as the Jews and their prophets believed that the earth was a flat plain, with a crystal vault confining the waters above the firmament, and that the sun and moon were small lights hung up for the benefit of the flat plain and the chosen people. That organised beings like spirits can be moving in the interstellar ether, complicates the theories of modern philosophers as much as the discovery of the rotation of the earth upset the astronomical notions of the Jews and their successors. In all directions in creation there is probably nothing but infinity, but man sets up tem porary boundaries of his own here and there, as fixed points on which to rest for a time his aching mind.
A FEATURE OF TRANCE-MEDIUMSHIP. IN the philosophical examination of any new and perplexing phenomena, the only safe plan is to have no preconceived ideas at all, to note accurately all the facts, and then examine the collected facts in scarch of principles. This plan has been followed in this journal, and now we have one golden little bit of clear know ledge revealed in the mass of evidence. On Thursday, December 9th, Mr. Avery, a well known American Spiritualist, now resident in London, made a speech at the St. John’s Association of Spiritua lists, in Clerkenwell, and said that when his little daughter first came back to speak to him through a New York medium, the spirit and the medium both felt the pains of the sickness which afflicted the daughter on her death-bed. We called attention at the time to the circum stance that Mrs. John Olive, trance medium, of 1, Gib son-place, Warrington-crescent, W., also feels the pain of those spirits who had not easy beds of “ death; in fact, if memory does not err, we think that on one occasion spots came temporarily out on her face, after a spirit had been speaking through her who died of small pox. Next, on the 17th December, Mr. Clegg, of York, who suffered from rheumatism in earth life, gave Mr. Morse, the medium, some bad symptoms of the complaint at a public séance at 15, Southampton-row. Lastly, in this number of the SPIRITUALIST is a narra tive showing how the spirit of William Young, on the 8th November last, caused Mrs. Conant, the medium of Boston, U. S., to feel his death pains. Or rather the spirits feel the pains while in the mediums, and the latter feel them temporarily when they wake up after the manifestations are over. All these various instances, collected from widely separated sources, have unexpectedly come together among the facts in these pages, so that it is now pretty clearly established that one feature running through the whole range of trance-mediumship, is the fact that the media very commonly feel symptoms of the death pains of the communicating spirits. Also, that the spirits feel these pains while en rapport with each medium, so are not themselves quite in their normal state whilst delivering their messages. Daylight also is beginning to shine upon another feature of trance-mediumship, namely, the difficulty of getting proper names accurately through the me diums, and before long it is hoped that sufficient evidence will be collected to disrobe this branch of the subject of all its present mystery. There are those who do not like the publication of the details of séances, on the ground that non-Spiritua lists will leamn much of the difficulties of the subject. and how great are the cobwebs of ignorance at present enshrouding the nature of spiritual manifestations. The systematic search after truth is not to be fettered by any sensitiveness to the sayings and doings of uninformed outsiders, nor by deference to publie opinion, which in the present state of national education is worth little and is often manufactured by keen heads for the pur pose of duping the populace.
“JOHN KING." BY THE EDITOR. AT different times some of the periodicals devoted to Spiritualism, have expressed doubts as to the genuine character of the voices obtained through the medium ship of Mr. and Mrs. Marshall. A very intelligent Spiritualist one evening attended a dark séance at 13 Bristol-gardens, Paddington, W., and afterwards printed in Daybreak a statement to the effect that the voice purporting to belong to the spirit “ John King,” was Mr. Marshall’s voice, which statement, as I shall now prove, was not true. Also, there are three or four Spiritualists, who often relate in the most circumstantial way, how they detected Mr. and Mrs. Marshall “ doing the voices,” but who have not published their detection of the imposture, therefore have made themselves ac complices if imposture it be, by sitting down quietly with the belief that scores of people are constantly being duped, who would not be duped did the detec tives put in print what they assert in private. Soon after I first witnesed Spiritual manifestations,
Poetry. THE LAST SCENE OF LIFE THE blush that made her beautiful Came back—but faint and weak, For seventy summers had gone by Since first it bloom'd her cheek; The light that used to make her eye Shed heaven about her brow, Returned to gleam a little while In timid lustre now. They placed her, at her soft request Beside a cabinet: They saw the fringes of her eyes With quiet tears were wet; They saw her all-transparent hand Move tremblingly to lift A little locket from a drawer Perhaps ’twas love's first gift. They stood—Who stood? Alas, a few Who knew her but of late; For time had taken one by one Each friend of earlier date; And nothing but her heart—her mind, Which death alone could blast, Kept these kind spirits round her then To watch her to the last. “Behold," she cried, “this temple, where My heart's hoard long hath slept; Here, all that love, fame, friendship gave, With gratitude l’ve kept. No line that left a loving hand I ever have effaced; But fondly, in its fitting place, With tears the token placed. Praise that onee made my young heart glad, And vows which made it warm, Have lain within this cabinet, A hoard, my heart to balm. Now, cast them for me on the fire, And let me see the flame! First, here are all the offerings Whieh fed my hopes of fame: Among them notes from fleeting friends, The shooting stars that threw A passing light upon my path  Unfixed, but not untrue. I will not leave it to the world, To mock with dull disdain These little meteors of the minds That flash and fade again. “Here, here are words of holier weight, From friends most fond they came! Oh, they make balm about the room! Behold how bright their flame! "Your hands, kind friends, for I would rise, Oh, not thus felt each limb, When first the pulses of my heart Awakened unto him." She had a packet in her hand; She slowly reached the fire; She strewed it on the rising flame; She saw it blaze—expire “Tis over," then she murmured low, “This locket, on my breast, When in the coffin lies my clay, Consent to let it rest. My bones and that will long defy The demons of decay: My spirit, and my love’s, my friends Great Power ," she passed away. And soon the greensward covered her, And memory, pity, fame, Preserved alone, of all the past, A little while—a name.
WAS SARAH JACOBS STARVED TO DEATH SIR,—On New Year’s-eve, for the second time my wife saw a spirit purporting to be that of Sarah Jacobs. She appeared to be between ten and eleven years old, and was dressed as she used to be when on earth—viz., in a brown stuff frock, with low neck and short-puffed slecves. She said she was not starved to death ; that she had on several occasions gone some weeks without the slightest particle of food or nourishment, and accounted for her living so long a time without the usual necessaries of life, through being incessantly mesmerised by spirits, of which there were half-a-dozen, who relieved each other when exhausted. What is there improbable in the above cxplanation coupled with the evidence given at the inquest, showing that the body did not present all the usual signs of death being caused throngh starvation? Is it not a fact that a band of or even one powerful mesmerist, could keep a sensitive some considerable time without food and without causing in the slightest degree any of the usual tokens of starvation? Again, is it not a fact well-known to every medical practi tioner that numbers of persons on beds of sickness, have lived out not the starvation period of eight days, but twiee, three times, and I believe in some cases, four times that period, with a supply of nourishment that would starve a rat in a quarter of the time? In such cases as these, when worn-down with disease, will our infallible medical savans inform us what keeps them alive? Whether it is the stimulants we moisten their lips with? Is the elixir of life in the medical com pounds we force down their throats ? Or are their lives really kept and nourished by the divine, powerful, and unseen help of our ever present guardian spirits, till the period arrives to leave this world for a purer and holier one above? G. B. 12, Forrest-road, Dalston.
THE “BANNER OF LIGHT” CIRCLE. THE following communication from a spirit who gave the name of William Young, was received through the medium ship of Mrs. J. H. Conant, at 158, Washington-street, Boston, U.S., on Nov. 8th last. It was published in the Banner of Light of the first of this month: “Taking full possession of the body and of the senses of a medium is quite different from spelling out what you wish to say through two or three, perhaps four or five mediums on our side. We then get clear of feeling any of the bad feelings which we are very apt to have, they say, on taking full con trol. We are very apt to think of how we felt just before we died, and that makes us feel just about the same. I didn’t know anything about it till after I had got into what they told me was rapport with this medium. I began to feel sick, and said so, and then they told me that I should experience pro bably all the bad feelings I had just before I died. Sure enough, here I am feeling pretty bad. But I have got a work to do, and must do it. I have come here, where I am not at all acquainted—away from all the circumstances of life that I am familiar with, that I may accomplish what I believe in the end will be a great good. I am from Axebridge, England. I