St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-12-05
England's Poet Laureate Is a
Spiritualist and His Own
Medium.
In an Autograph Letter He
Admits Possession of a
Peculiar Power.
lie Can Transfer Conscious
ness From the Body Into
Spirit.
a New Light Upon a Noted
Poetic Production Of
His Pen.

CHICAGO, Dec. 1.-The following is
published here: To-day it is well
known that among the higher scientific
circles of England spiritualism made,
a few years ago, rapid and remarkable
progress. Wallace, the co-discoverer
with Darwin of the principles of nat
ural selection; Prof. Crookes, the emf
Nent chemist, on whom the French
academic DIES sciences conferred gold
medal with an honorarium of 5000
francs tor his discoveries in molecular
physics; SERGEANT Cox. the noted
psyehist, and Prof. Huxley, him.
self a skeptic of skeptics. were
concerned in q series of experiments,
chiefly with the medium Home, which
attracted wide attentinn at the time.
None of the scientists could explain the
phenomena produced by the medium,
and the report made by Prof. Crookes
is held by the professors of the spirit
ualiStic belief an overwhelming testi-
mOny to its genuineness. The name of
the poet TennySOn has never before
been connected with spiritualism. A
letter written by him has come into the
possession Of the Tribune. which shows
that he holds the conviction that con-
seriousness may pass from the body and
hold
COMMUNION WITH TIE DEAD.
This is essentially spiritualism, but in
TennySon'S case, at least so far as the
letter indicates, he is his own medium.
The statement he makes is curious.
The letter is in the poets handwriting.
1t is dated Farringford, Freshwater,
dsie of Wight, May, z, 1874. 1t was
written to a gentleman who cOmmuni-
Gated to him certain strange expert
ences he had when passing from under
the effect of an@StheticS. Tennyson
writes: 81 have never had any reyela-
lions through an8sthetics. but kind of
waking trance this for lack of a better
nance l have frequently had, quite up
from boyhood, when l have been all
alone. This has often come upon me
through repeating my own name to my
self, silently, till, at once, as it were,
out Of the consciousness Of Individual
ity, the individuality itself seemed to
dissolve and fade away into boundless
being; and this not confused state,
but the clearest of the clearest, the
sureSt Of the surest, utterly beyond
words, where death was an almost
aaughable impossibility, the loss of per-
Sonality Of so it Were) seeming 40 eX-
tlnction, but
THE ONLY TRUE LIFE"
AS if conscious of the Incredible sig
niticance of the statement just COM
pleted, he adds: Il am ashamed of
my feeble description. Have L not
said the state was utterly beyond
words" This is not a vulgar table
tipping spiritualiSm. 1t is the most
emphatic declaration that the spirit of
The writer is capable of transferring it.
self into another existence; it is not
only real, clear, simple, but that it is
infinite in vision and eternal in duration.
For he continues that when he returns
to sanity" he is ready to fight for the
truth" of his experience and that he
holds 1.-THE spirit, whose separate ex-
istence he thus repeatedly tests-"will
last for icons and eons." 1t is pointed
out by Prof. Thomas Davidson, who has
seen the letter, that the same convic-
ton, If not the same experience, only
Withanother. is described in ''In Mem
Oriam," XCV. The StanZaS are gen
orally passed over as referring to a mere
poetic frenzy of grief But reading
them in the light of the calmly penned
prose puts an entirely different aspect
Oh the incident contained in the lines:
: s. And in the house light after light
Went. out and was all alone.
A hunger seized my heart; read
OF that glad year which once had been
In those falln leaves which kept their
green,
The noble letters of the dead.
And strangely on the silence broke
The silent-speaking words. and strange
Was Lore's dumb cry defying change
To te: t his worth, and strangely spoke
The faith, the vigor. bold to dwell
On doubts that drive the coward back:
And keen through wOrdy snares to track
Suggestion to her Utmost cell;
So word by word and line by line
The dead man touched me from the past;
And all at once, it seemed, at last
His living soul was flashed on mine.
And mine III his was bound and whirled
About empyreal heights OF thought
And came on that which is and caught
The deep puIsations Of the world.
.H1onian music measuring out
The steps of time-the shocks of chance
The blows Of death g
The idea of the actuality of the un-
seen is conveyed in the letter in terms
which correspond nearly to those in the
Thythmic expression. That (which isl
is certainly a confirmation of the state
t'sureSt of the surest,' and the lasting
for Icons upon icons" finds its counter
part in ''feOnian music" AS TennySon
has never been connected in any way
with psychic science or spiritualism, the
latter, not to mention the now clearer
reading OF the poem, will create not a
ion