The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1882-04-22
postal CARD NO 4.

MY DEAR Son There are yet some OBJ
stacles to be removed before l can proceed to
answer your questions, or you can be qualified
to accept my theory Of life which, however
actual to me, can not become so, nor even per-
haps be made to appear so to any other mind.
The life must be lived to be known. This is
an organic principle in Man, without which
the Author of Life could not have constituted
him being to be governed exclusively by
his own will, and answerable only to himself
for what he does or is. Every man is absolute
sovereign in his own dominions by divine
right, and his royalty and attributes must in
here.
Then it is of the very nature of the sem
suous world that there can be no possibility
of our knowing snything excepting through
the agency of our senses. This is an organic
principle underlying Creation, so to speak,
without which its divine Author could not have
saved his worlds from the danger of getting
mixed, and falling into. endless confusion. As
the world has been recently filled with Spirit
ualistic revelations in opposition to those Of
the Bible it is necessary that should guard
you against all such. which, whether true or
not, can not be known to be SO. What
spirilualist tells you he saw at a Seance So
called he cannot possibly know he saw what
ever conditions prevailed.
That the physical senses are not to be re-
lied on you once had, yourself, proof OF on an
occasion which you will readily recall. When
you wefe>about 10 years of age, you attended
with me psychological entertainment given
by professor, whose name has escaped my
memory, calling himself Lecturer and Biolo-
gst. You will readily recall its incidents,
which were SO dverting that the audience at
times screamed with delight. But the val
liable part of ii consisted in its being made
clear by experiment that all the functions Of
the senses may be suspended and the indi-
vidual owner deprived of their use by any
more positive mind with which he can be
brought, as the French say, EN- RAPPORT or
into sympathy. His method of obtaining sub
jects was this: He used cane with glitter
ing baube in the head, with which he took a
position in front of a portion of his audience
and desired them to keep their eyes for a few
moments steadily on the trinket. The pur-
pose Of this was simply, by preventing their
minds from being diverted to other objects,
to reader them more passive, or subjective.
Such of these minds as he had power to infu-
ence he thus got under control, and by the
mere exercise of his will governed-complete-
ly suspending the operation of their own
senses as you saw, and will easily recall if you
give moments attention to my description.
When he returned from the audience to his
stage he babe his subjects follow him,
probably not knowing which, or how many,
they were. About half dozen did o,-un-
consciously and Involuntary, because COM
pletely subject to his will. While seating
them upon chairs he talked to them of OBJ
jects which they saw only because he
fashioned them in his own mind-they had no
other existence. He said to them, The heat
is very oppressive. And although it was a
cold wintry night they began to unbutton vests,
to fan themselves with their hats, and in every
imaginable way TO endeavor to get relief from
the oppressive heat. Hesaid to them, Would
you like glass of iced champagne, or other
wine, to cool you'll so tell me what wine you
prefer. He said, Now am going to open
this champagne, look out for the cork, and the
heads bobbed necessarily, as he exclaimed
Wait! Now! Pshaw! There now look out,
That's all right, what a noise it makes! Dur
ing all this the audience was convulsed with
laughter. And as he pretended to pour the
wine, he said to daintily dressed youth, Look
out for the foam, it is spilling over on your