The Barrow Herald and Furness Advertiser. — 1883-03-06 (Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England)

NAYLOR.  SPIRITUALISM. Sir,—ln your journal of March 3rd there appears what. I presume, is a manifesto, obtained in the interests of Spiritualism, from Dr. Hitchman, of Liverpool. In many respects it is a remarkable epistle. It presumes to reply to my lecture on the basis of a report in the Herald. That was unfair to begin with, because the report was inaccurate in many particulars, perhaps from your reporter not fully understanding what I said. In the next place the letter is almost wholly taken up in describing what the writer has done, where he has been, and what he has seen, read, and heard—as if we cared to know. Whether he wished us to infer that he is Spiritualism, "The perfect flower and effervescence, Of all the knowledge man can ask ;" or that Spiritualism, because it is advocated by one who, according to his own testimonial, is such an illustrious personage, must be the very essence of Truth, purged of all deceit, trickery, falsity, and frippery, is not apparent; but at the first blush, and I assure you, sir, I did blush for the man who could be guilty of such fervid self-adoration, it seemed the latter. The people of Barrow, however, lam certain, will not be hoodwinked by your correspondent's pretensions, although he is "constantly in the habit of writing in British and foreign journals of literature, science and philosophy, and knows something of the interior of learned societies or distinguished academies" (a haberdasher might say the same), and who has "given over live hundred lectures upon it" Pada! such fulsome egotism is sickening, and would be sufficient to blight any propaganda, even if rational. I once heard of a man, possessed of various degrees and accomplishments, who gravely asserted that the moon was made of green cheese, and of another who said he was a teapot. But people did not believe him because he was a graduate, and learned, and all the rest of it. No; they pat him in a lunatic asylum. So that however distinguished your correspondent may be, and have we not his own word that he is so? that in itself is no proof of the great truths of Spiritualism. Dr. Tuke, the highest authority on insanity in our language says, "We approach in the following instances the borderland of insanity, but in such cases the opinions of an ndividual, apart from disease, must be taken into account." And the first instance he gives is that of a Spiritualist who believes that he sees his guardian angel." This, in itself, is no proof, of insanity. Jerome Carden, the physician, and Eshard, both believed that they were attended by a supernatural personage. This was no proof of insanity, only a very eccentric delusion. But there are other cases of insanity, of whom, he says, " we know a case in which the patient believes he can at any time communicate with an absent relative. Often when asked a question he appeals to this individual, before replying, and receives, as he imagines, a distinct answer by which he is entirely guided." Is not this exactly analogous to what many Spiritualists believe? Of Mine the Spiritualists assert that these poor people are unjustly confined in asylums, and yet a may become dangerous if at liberty. Many of them under the command of imaginary spirit voices have committed murder and suicide. 'There was one man who was a most "inveterate scribbler" who kept up conversations with imaginary individuals, and wrote them out in volumes. The intense egotism of many of these poor patients, especially in incipient general paralysis of the insane, is a special feature. Now the only moral I desire to point from these examples is this, that in insane patients we find all the phenomena presented to our minds by Spiritualists themselves; and therefore we must be ever on our guard against accepting their e`l`xlient% without corroboration. Your correspondent's remarks about " Trance " rather amuse me ; there is such an evident intention in them to strike the popular mind by a concatenation of high-flown and bombastic Spiritualistic verbiage. He says, "I may say [i.e„ I, Dr. Hitchman, as if he was the only one that knew anything about itj that it (Trance) is sometimes a state of total suspension of the intellect tiled powers, and voluntary motion . . . with loss of speech, &c." This, of course, is what I said in my lecture, and therefore when a medium pretends to throw himself into a trance to give a trance lecture, he is an impostor. But your Dr. Hitchman, professor of spiritualism, witchcraft, angelic physic and. psychology, &c., must add to this definiton of trance one of his own to suit his opinions, viz., "in other cases there is incomplete consciousness . . . in which there is a human instrument . . . controlled to speak and act from transmission of . . power by vibratory motions of ethereal particles, or otherwise, lying between two kindred worlds. In short, there is correlation of physical and psychical forces between mechanico psychic conditions or systems, of molecular and ethereal motion &c."—Sir, we are not children in mental stature like the audiences your correspondent usually appeals to, so this grand sentence is estimated at its true value. It is just precisely the style and strain of the professional trance medium, and means, simply, an endeavour to impose a lot of inane meaningless verbiage upon the minds of people who have not studied their dictionaries with the object of picking out all the polysyllabic words they could find. But we are not to be thus overwhelmed. Dr. Hitchman's . description of his second class of trance cases, is not trance at all, but the mesmeric state, which is something entirely different from the disease called Trance." He is therefore wrong in his definition when he tries to amend mine. We cannot allow Spiritualists, who have no authority in the world of letters, or science, or philosophy, to make definitions of terms to suit their own peculiar opinions. It occurs to me I have seen the source whence your correspondent delivered his definition, or the words for it, in a lecture or so-called trance address, given by Mrs. Tappan, in Liverpool, June 12th, 1875, at which he was chairman. In this lecture the words" correlation", " mechanica psychic," " psycho-dynamie," "systems of molecular vibration," and all the rest of the empty jingling jargon occur. I like true British clearness and perspicacity and honesty, and detest their opposites. Unfortunately for Dr. Hitchman, and Ins fellow-spiritualists, their opinions are still and will ever remain, of no value in the world of science—and he knows it; and scientific men would sooner accept doctrines of demonology from demoniac lunatics, than their knowledge of mental philosophy from imperfectly read spiritualists. The facts I maintained in my lecture were—lst, that such phenomena astable-turning. thought reading, spirit-rapping, were the results of PhYslcal causes; 2nd, that for the rest, such as mate.