The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1920-11-20
EXPOSURE OF SPIRITUALISMf
of what has occurred-oftentimes two
entirely different things.

OF what has Observation-Disclosures two
entirely different things.
/ Let me quote here the words of that
i champion trickster and most shrewd
woman Madame Blavatsky. She
says: Il have not met more than two
! or three men who knew how to OBJ
serve and see and remark on what
was going on around them. 1t is sim.
ply amazing. At least nine out of
every ten people are entirely devoid of
the capacity of observation and of the
power of remembering accurately
what took place even a few hours be-
FORE Modern Priestess of Isis, p.
1869 And she surely knew her bust
| ness.
! How careful the Church is in this
respect. She most gladly admits and
asserts the existence of miracles, and
yet she insists on years and years of
most careful investigation before she
will accept any of the wonderful
| facts as miracles. ,--.... .-
Scientific Backing Limited.
But some say eve have the author
| ity of scientists to attest the genuine
character of the phenomena" Please
tell me who are those scientific men
| The names of twenty or twenty-five
scientific Investigators of psychism
are repeated in every Catholic and
non-Catholic book ~ad nauseam. Be.
cause Conan Doyle, novelist, or Sir
Oliver Lodge, a physicist, Or Hyslop,
a retired professor of philosophy, or
Crooks, the chemist-all anti-Catho-
lics-tell us that the phenomena exist
and are wrought by the souls, we
| Catholics seem to be bound to admit
their testimony to be up-to-date.
Go to Harvard, go to Yale, to Co
| lumbia or Stanford, and if you ask
real scientists whether the bulk of
scientists admit spiritism, they will
laugh at the very question.
What genuine phenomena exist, are
not produced at so cents, five nights
a week, in the back streets of our one
hundred largest cities. And yet this
is the brand of spiritism experienced
by 95- per cent of it's enthusiasts. To
write or talk of such spiritism as au.
thentic, coming from the devil or from
and mountebanks who make living
selling fake spiritgrams; to take seri-
ously the nonsense emanating from
''the other side,' all this certainly pro.
duces worse effects among our Cath.
Ollie people than if we do not talk on
the subject at all. We advertise spir.
itism too much.
Realizing this, thought it. would be
a great lesson for our Catholic com
munities to see how easily the So
called phenomena of spiritism could
be reproduced by a priest who is GER
tainly not in collision with the devil
Audiences are mystifed. They wit
ness the phenomena produced much
better than by the ordinary mediums
| they cannot detect nor explain the
method, and yet they are sure that ii
is all deception. AS consequence
they laugh at spiritism, they laugh al
their own gullibility, and they laugh
heartily, too, at the Spirits" What
fools we mortals be-" they say goins
out from the lectures. "No more spir
itism for. me-
And it seems to me that this con
clusion is much better than the con
clusion they draw from some other
lectures and books. Maybe it is the
devil" they say, "but in that case why
could Our Lord not allow the souls oil
the dead also to produce the same Ell
fects?" I have been asked this ques
ton many times, and to the best OF
my knowledge there is no apodictical
reason why Our Lord could not per
NIT the souls as well as the devils tc
produce them, especially if we con
slider the case of genuine spiritisn
mentioned in the Holy Scriptures
(Cf. l Kings xviii 1920 Il.
Witch of Endor) 49,.
/ . Real Purpose Of Lectures.
My conclusion then was this: Show
the Catholics (perhaps also the bona
fide .spiritists later on, how easily
they can be deceived Duplicate the
|spiritistic phenomena and they will
laugh at spiritism and have nothing
to do with it in the future. This is
the real purpose of my lectures.
do not consider spiritism from the re
ligious or moral point of view, bui
! take it rather on it's ridiculous side
leaving the serious work of investiga
ton not to the masses, but to honest
/ religious, common sense theologians te
whom that task really belongs. We
do not publish moral theology in the
vernacular, but in Latin, to limit sucl
knowledge to those men who have te
know it. To give such treatises to the
! common people would do more harm
than good.
i Finally, in my lectures, do not per
form tricks, but reproduce one by one
all the psychical phenomena produced
by the greatest mediums on earth
from the raps of the Fox Sisters te
the levitation of Daniel Douglas
Home. If in so doing I seem to be
4 merely performing tricks, that is no
my fault, but because l am faithfully
reproducing what they do, foolish
though it may seem to one unac
quainted with the whims of the "spir
it's