The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1880-09-30

/ accept the letter but reject the spirit of super
sensuous manifestations through which alone
there is any hope of proving the fact of immortal
ity upon scientific basis that will appeal to the
senses of the living investigator with proof
irrefutable the mathematical computations
which determine the distances of the planets from
their solar center. The writer is firmly con-
WINGED, after candid fearless and patient invest-
CATION which no longer permits her to doubt, that
the wailng cries of Job and jeremiah, which are
yet echoed by bereaved and despairing Christians
the world over, are capable of as positive and
affirmative answer by demonstration as any other
fact in the catalogue of physical things That
there are persons who possess psychic force that
the writer cannot command and who through
that natural gift are able to become the instru-
ments of a higher power, through which, by
super-sensuous telegraphy which the human mind
is not Yet able to explain, it is possible for the So
called dead to answer humanity's hitherto un-
avaiing cry is a fact that any person may dem
onstrate. The writer testilies to that which she
has seen when she makes this declaration Yet
of all the ishas that seem above all others most
absurd the latest sectaran demonstration, which,
SUCH few purblind zealots mistake for the
be-all and end-all of the harmonial or natural
philosophy of the spheres and which is known as
Modern Spiritualsm, takes the lead The inquir-
ing bat blindly believing soul that realizes the
truths of the spiritual philosophy, and has always
been accustomed to accepting theology through
the medium OF his imagination, as handed down
To him through the creeds, sees the fact that his
walling cry "lf man die, shall he live again ?'
can be tangibly and affirmativey answered
/ through super-sensuous phenomena; and then,
with the sectarian harness of his early training
strong upon him, he goes forth to promuleate
new ism, to which he expects every other person
TO bow unquestioningly. Such persons are ntol-
eraby ntolerant, and consequently are fanatically
Jealous and proscriptively superstitious. They
usually live in sparsely settled country places and
being honest themselves, fail TO comprehend the
willy motive that prompts the impecunious and
sleek-tongued orator from abroad who comes
among them to take advantage of their creduIity
by the exercise of a volubility of utterance and
prepOnderance of persistency that they do not
fathom. And when the sublimey impudent ad-
venturer, who learned AN Indian dialect in his
youth which none of them can understand shuts
his eyes and gabbles it off by the half-hour, they
are overawed that they forget % test the reality
Of his assumed spiritual utterancc- 10y the least
grain Of honest skepticism, and unfortunately
bring themselves into ridicue, and inspire the
cool-headed looker-on, "a well as the independent
scientific investigator, with contempt for their
wholesale gullibility. 1t is all i'm vain that YOU
preach the fact to the unbelieving multitude that
there is nothing genuine that somebody does not
try to counterfeit and that the very fact that a
counterfeit is aoat suggests the existence of the
genuine. And it is also all in vain that the clear
headed believer i'm the genuine spirit phenomena
through which alone ne is able TO prove the reality
of future state of existence strives to apply the
tests of an honest doubt to the fanaticism Of the
blind believers credulity. The same spirit of ia
naticism that led their forefathers TO accept un-
questioned the dogma of infant damnation and
burn at the stake the Ann Lee or the Michael Ser
vetus for attempting to prove that they were be-
ing deceived by false doctrines, leads them to ac-
cept unquestioned and without test of its genuine
ness, the glib-tongued impudence of an impecuni-
Gus mountebank, who comes to them demanding
their money and under the cloak of departed
spirits, with whom he claims to be controlled
working upon their sympathy and their preiu-
dces til for the time being they are led to prefer
the counterfeit to the genuine. Spirit communion
is fact, ministering angels are a necessity, and
through them the important question of the ages
as to mans destiny can be satisfactorily answered
Through the crucial tests of careful investigation
there are many honest psychics, called media
through whose magnetic aura these demonstra-
tions come; but they do not 90 about the country
engaged in making intelligent mortals incredulous
10y their mistakes nor do they stir up strife and
discord among honest bigots by misrepresentation
and tyranny
When superstition shall be shorn of its strength,
and in its stead the power of knowledge shall
answer back to every waiting soul the sef-evident
truth that the chemical change called death is but
the birth of the spirit into the invisible life so
beautifully described by the Savior of men, who
compared it to the wind that bloweth where it
listeth, which we all know exists and can feel and
hear, though we cannot solve the mystery of its
abiding place origin, then the counterfeit per-
sonatorof genuine spirit phenomena will no longer
be able, under Of his pretensions of honesty
to deceive the good people into accepting his
clever volubility as "Thus saith the spirit" The
question of the ages will gradually answer itself