Quoting Hugo Lj. Odhner on spiritism:
towards the middle of the nineteenth century, there sprang up a new
movement towards its revival in a more respectable garb and in more
"scientific" form: a movement which goes under the name of Modern
Spiritualism. This was supposedly a research into occult phenomena by
empirical methods.
Although claiming continuity with the work of seers, prophets and mystics
of all previous ages and denying any kinship to sorcerers and magi, the
partisans of this movement date its practical beginning with the "Rochester
spirit-rappings" in 1848, when the Fox family heard knocks and noises which
they ascribed to spirits who answered their questions according to a
pre-arranged code. Children at that time, the Fox sisters later toured this
country and England to display their peculiar spirit-telegraphy. And although
one of them publicly disavowed her own part in these phenomena as so much
fake, the movement had gathered too great momentum to be stopped. People were
eager to believe the marvelous, and many soon discovered themselves also to be
"sensitives"; found that they could serve as "mediums" for spirits who then
"controlled" them. Once established as mediums, they could draw profitable
audiences of ardent believers; and from time to time for the next fifty years
the free publicity given these mediums was tremendous. In 1884 unsubstantiated
claims were made of many million "adherents" in America. It was claimed by
spiritists that the world of the departed had long been seeking for this means
of coming into contact with mortals, and that now spirits were crowding the
air and descending to inaugurate a new era in which unbelief would be wiped
out.
The particular accomplishments which spirits learned to perform included
the power to give messages about dead friends, through the voice or pen of the
medium; to write on covered slates; to lift bouquets of flowers from room to
room, blow trumpets and beat tambourines without human aid; to suspend the
laws of gravity, lifting people or chairs or tables into the air; and finally
- but more rarely - to materialize themselves in a substance ("ectoplasm")
which perspired from the body of the medium so that they could become tangible
and visible, and even be kissed and photographed and engaged in conversation.
The spirits (or the mediums) were unwilling to participate in most of these
phenomena except amidst small groups of affirmative friends, and an
extra-ordinary preference was shown for dark rooms and closed cabinets. Yet
several prominent scientists, like Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, W.
F. Barrett and Charles Richet, were converted to a belief in the genuineness
of some of the phenomena. In many lands some society for psychical research
now gathers and sifts the evidence presented by alleged mediums and others,
and so far as is possible, some of their learned investigators have imposed
almost fool-proof conditions upon their experiments. One fact, however, is
universally admitted: that almost every "physical" medium has been proved at
some time to have cheated by producing the desired phenomena by clever
trickery. This is variously explained by spiritualists: first of all they
admit that the spirits who use the medium are quite apt to encourage
deception, since they retain human failings; secondly, they concede that a
medium whose powers are exhausted and abused, will naturally be reluctant to
admit it; and thirdly, the genuine adherents disown all responsibility for
professional exhibitionists.
The societies and laboratories established for psychical research and
"parapsychology" make it their task to investigate all proffered claims to
extra-sensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance,
psycho-kinesis, etc., as well as alleged occurrences of "materializations" and
poltergeists. Most of such studies are conducted quite apart from any
religious inferences. Within the small group of learned people who confess
themselves baffled by some of the experiments, many are inclined to explain
their results as due to physical and mental powers within man, hitherto not
understood. Certain psychologists have indeed suggested that some echo of a
person might survive death, not as an individual but as a part of an
interpersonal psychic field perhaps capable of contact with the living.[29a]
But the hope of spiritualists to convince the world of the survival of the
dead has not been fulfilled. To most people, the clever accomplishments of the
mediums are a nine-days wonder soon dismissed. And the vapid messages of cheer
from the other world which the séances produced have been so ambiguous and
valueless that they spoke poorly for the intelligence of the departed.
Confused pratings that suggest marvelous revelations to come - but which never
come - hold the attention of the devotee. People soon recognized that an
atmosphere of unbounded credulity was basic to the spiritistic movement. Its
organized cults have dwindled in membership, although it has uncounted
adherents and sympathizers among the laity and even the clergy of various
denominations, and its beliefs and practices are shared by several strange
sects that dabble in occultism.
As a religion, spiritualism is of course founded on a sifting out of
certain common elements within the contradictory "revelations" of the mediums
and the "automatic writers." This means that they honor the Lord, but usually
only as a great medium and a lofty spirit; they place the Bible among a number
of other messages from above; they picture the spiritual world as a realm of
unending progress, with redemption possible for evil spirits also - who, they
say, are merely "undeveloped"; and they reject the idea of any resurrection of
the material body. One organization encourages belief in astrology, palmistry,
prophecy, and the interpretation of dreams. Another believes in elemental
spirits, and has chosen as its emblem the pond lily which shoots up from the
mud "through putrid waters," yet evolves beauty and purity. But all encourage
the seeking of sensual proofs of the soul's survival.
The opposition to Spiritualism comes mainly from the Roman Catholic Church,
from many literalistic sects, from some of the clergy of more conservative
churches, from most scientists and from skeptics everywhere. Each group has
reasons of its own, either doctrinal or pragmatic, for resisting the movement.
But as is usual in such opposition, each - in denouncing the spiritistic
movement - also rejects the fundamental truths which that movement has misused
and perverted. An instance of this is seen in the attitude of some physicians
who from their studies of the psychopathic wards have contracted the habit of
regarding all extraordinary human states as abnormal and due to mental
disorder. Such people are not content to condemn the practice of spirits
because of its ill effects on the nervous system of its victims; they also
regard all claims to spiritual interaction as the result of a disordered mind
and would classify even the visions of the prophets and disciples as sensory
hallucinations due to paranoia, paraphrenia, or other forms of disease. Such
an attitude, born from a preconceived denial of the existence of a spiritual
world, precludes all further understanding of the distinctions between the
orderly means by which, in the Lord's providence and according to His
protecting laws, the spiritual world could at times of need be opened to allow
prophets and seers to serve as instruments of a Divine revelation, and the
disorderly enterprises by which people seek to pry into the unseen world and
by which spirits seek to dominate and obsess human minds when these are
diseased or voluntarily submissive.
Swedenborg and Modern Spiritualism
In several works on the history of modern spiritualism, considerable space
is given to Emanuel Swedenborg, who has been labeled as "the foremost mystic
and seer of modern times" or as "the father of our new knowledge of supernal
matters." "When the first rays of the rising sun of spiritual knowledge fell
upon the earth they illumined the greatest and highest human mind before they
shed their light on lesser people. That mountain peak of mentality was this
great reformer and clairvoyant medium, as little understood by his own
followers as ever the Christ has been.... In order fully to understand
Swedenborg one would need to have a Swedenborg brain, and that is not met with
once in a century." So writes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, lately the leading
champion and biographer of the movement. His words are flattering to
Swedenborg; but not to the New Church, which - he says - "has allowed itself
to become a backwater instead of keeping its rightful place as the original
source of psychic knowledge."[30]
It would seem that Conan Doyle, delving into clues for the solution of the
final mystery, himself lacked the Swedenborg brain. For the theology of the
New Church and the disclosure of the correspondential sense of the Word, which were
the net result of Swedenborg's revelations, are not of any comfort to the
spiritistic movement. But in spite of this side of Swedenborg's work, Doyle
hails "the immense store of information which," he says, "God sent to the
world through Swedenborg. Again and again they have been repeated by the
mouths and the pens of our own Spiritualistic illuminates."[30]
To the eyes of New Church readers this admission unwittingly reveals more
than was intended. For when spirits do speak to people, it is spirits who are
of their own religion or who adopt their ideas; they can only "confirm
whatever the person has made a part of their religion; thus enthusiastic
spirits confirm in a person all that pertains to their enthusiasm; Quaker
spirits all things of Quakerism; Moravian spirits all things of Moravianism,
and so on." This is said to show that it is untrue "that a person might be
more enlightened... if they had direct revelation through speech with spirits
and angels."[31] Spirits who speak with a person speak only from their
affections and according to their thoughts and knowledge. This provision is
made to preserve a person’s freedom even when they try to squander it by
offering themselves as the dupe of evil spirits.
The only real information that has been given to people since known history
began comes, of course, from the Word and now especially from the Writings of
Swedenborg. And some of this knowledge, mixed with all manner of superstition,
contorted by Christian traditions and modified by wishful thinking and hoax,
has found a fruitful soil in the imagination of many a spiritist. At the
séance, this welter of information is present in the mind either of the medium
or the questioner. So far as there is any clarity in the supposed answer, it
comes indirectly from the Writings. Nothing new - nothing which in the
slightest adds to the comprehension of the life and order of the spiritual
world - has ever been furnished by the "wizards that peep and mutter." The
futility of seeking open interaction with spirits is abundantly clear from the
paucity of the results.
Possibility of the Interaction of Spirits and People Here
There are many powers latent within a person that are not well understood.
Far above our conscious thought there is an interior memory in which all that
we have experienced resides in perfect detail, although beyond our ability to
recollect. In known cases, as for instance in hypnotic sleep, the astonishing
contents of this memory may be divulged or become active as "subconscious
intellection," as "automatic writing," or as somnambulency. That spirits can
operate this memory of a person is clear from our dreams and may lie behind
the emergence of a "split personality."
There is also a possibility that people who are united in bonds of kinship
or affection may at times convey their thoughts or fears to each other at a
distance by what is called "telepathy." There is attested evidence that in
rare cases visual ideas may similarly be communicated by "clairvoyance." It is
told of Swedenborg that when at Gothenburg he was able to report on the
progress of a fire raging near his house in Stockholm (Docu. 273). Seemingly
the prophet Elisha was clairvoyant when he told the king of Israel the plans
of the Syrians (2 Kings 6: 12). That such unusual occurrences are caused by
the communication existing between associated spirits is not unlikely.
But it is also well to note that many of the claims of modern mediums go
directly counter to what is taught us in the Writings. There is indeed an
influx of the spiritual world into the natural, and it is by this influx that
all organic growth, vegetable and animal, takes place. Destructive organisms,
such as noxious pests, are - we are taught - creations that received their
contorted forms from the influx of the hells into corresponding substances on
earth.[32] But this influx is not any materialization of the evil spirits; it
is merely an activity of the spheres of the hells. There is no conjunction of
the two worlds except by the mediation of man, that is, by a person’s
mind.[33] We find no ground in the Writings for a belief that spirits can move
the objects of earth or sky without the agency of the human body, or that they
can materialize, whether through a person or separately. Since biblical times,
Jews and Christians have thought that angels appeared by suddenly assuming
material bodies when they were seen by prophets or apostles. Before his full
enlightenment, Swedenborg also endeavored to reconcile such a belief with his
conception of the nature of the soul, suggesting that by the omnipotence of
God a spirit might be clothed with a temporary embodiment from materials
present in the atmospheres.[34] But in the inspired Writings we read this
disavowal: "It is believed in the Christian world that angels have assumed
human bodies and have thus appeared to people; but they did not assume them,
but the eyes of the person’s spirit were opened, and so they were seen."[35]
The explanation is simple and reasonable. For a person is created with
correspondential senses as well as with natural senses. They possess a body of matter
held together by physical forces - by electromagnetic and gravitational fields
of force. But these fields of force are ruled, unified, disposed and directed
by a soul or spirit, and thus by a spiritual purpose and a superconscious
wisdom which is far above our comprehension. In fact, the spirit is the real
person, and is organized far more intricately than the body. It is indeed a
spiritual body[36] which is endowed with correspondential senses and thus with the
power to perceive knowledge - to see spiritual objects, "see" truths, civil,
moral and spiritual, and to feel and recognize mental states and sense the
relations of all the things which compose their spiritual environment. These
things are seen by the understanding more clearly than physical objects are
seen by the bodily eyes. But ordinarily they are sensed by us only as
abstractions, as thoughts, imaginations and logical relations. Yet if "the
eyes of a person's spirit were opened," they would see beyond the contents of
their own memory. They would see the spirits and angels immediately present
with him, and see these in their own spiritual and mental environment which in
every detail would be descriptive of their character and state. All people are
thus equipped for actual vision into the spiritual world.[37] And if people
were in the perfect state of the celestials, as Providence had intended,
angels and people could openly dwell together without harm.[38]
Swedenborg distinctly claimed that such interaction as his own with spirits
was not miraculous. "These revelations," he wrote, "are not miracles, since
everyone as to their spirit is in the spiritual world without separation from
their body in the natural world; but I with a certain separation, but only as
to the intellectual part of my mind.... "[39] He claimed no uniqueness in
being able to converse with spirits, but noted that the type and the marvelous
extent of these revelations surpassed even the visions of the people of the
Golden Age; for they remained in natural light while Swedenborg was granted to
be in spiritual light and in natural light at the same time. Such interaction
had never before been known in history, and - taken in connection with the
manifestation of the Lord in person to Swedenborg and the revelation of the
correspondential sense of the Word - was "superior to any miracles."[40] In the Most
Ancient Church, direct or immediate revelations were given through open
interaction with angels, and there was no need for a written Word.[41] This is
indeed the mode of revelation on other earths also, because of the genius of
their inhabitants.[42] But when our race, through the eating of the fruit of
knowledge came into its peculiar external and scientific genius, this way of
communicating with heaven was closed. Instead, the Word of God was given
through appointed prophets whose correspondential senses were opened;[43] and by
means of this Word, written and preserved for all ages, people could be
reformed through rational things of doctrine. Indeed, the Writings abound in
statements to the effect that no one is reformed by visions and by speech with
the dead, because such things compel.[44]
Visions
Something should here be added concerning the visions which were permitted
to the prophets and others whose correspondential senses were opened so that they
could perceive events which occurred in the spiritual world.
The fact that those who are infirm in mind and indulge much in fancies are
apt to become subject to hallucinations does not mean that genuine visions
have never been granted. Pathological symptoms - such as manic-depressive
delusions and schizophrenia and hallucinations - are only perversions of a
person’s normal faculties and are due to "spirits who by means of fantasies
induce appearances which seem to be real." People with visionary tendencies
may thus - like credulous children - see monsters behind the trees of the
forest or convert shadows into ghosts.[45]
But genuine visions are the actual seeing of "such things in the other life
as have real existence."[46] They are seen by the eyes of the spirit, either
by day or night.[47] Such were the visions of the prophets who saw not only
various representatives shown in the spiritual world and containing Divine
arcana, but saw the spirits themselves and heard their speech.
The people of the Most Ancient Church were instructed by such heavenly
visions, for they were given to know their inner meaning.[48] The Hebrew
prophets, and John at Patmos, had such real or Divine visions significant of
the thoughts and affections of angels, but understood them not.[49] Some of
the prophets were actually possessed by spirits, like Saul, who spoke and
acted in a state of trances.[50] Others exercised their own discretion, and
spirits spoke to their inner hearing.[51] When in "vision" the prophets were
not in the body, but "in the spirit."[52] As was foretold in Daniel, prophetic
visions of whatever kind were discontinued after the Christian dispensation
had begun.[53]
The Divine visions which the Lord from childhood had in His Human on earth
were most perfect, because "He had a perception of all things in the world of
spirits and in the heavens, and had an immediate communication with
Jehovah.[54]
Swedenborg also experienced certain visions. But his normal state, he tells
us, was not one of vision as usually understood or one of "trance." But what
he saw, heard and felt in the spiritual world was experienced in full
wakefulness of body.[55] And like the "Divine visions" seen by the prophets,
Swedenborg's explorations in the other world were for the sake of his being
instructed by the Lord. The Scriptures were not revealed in a state of vision,
but were "dictated by the Lord to the prophets by a living voice."[56] In the
case of Swedenborg, the Lord instructed him through spiritual sight, but the
Heavenly Doctrine and the internal sense of the Word were given him by a
dictation into the interiors of his rational mind, with varying degrees of
perception, while he read the Word.[57]
A type of diabolical visions can be induced by "enthusiastic spirits." This
is produced by the "magic" of hell, and it distorts the truth, as was the case
with the lying prophets mentioned in the book of Kings.[58] The spirits who
cause such visions are now separated and restrained in their hells.[59]
The Writings have now made unnecessary any private revelations or visions.
Divine or prophetic visions are no longer provided and would not be understood
if they were. Diabolical visions are severely restricted by spiritual laws.
And there remain now only fantastic visions, which are "mere delusions of an
abstracted mind."[60]
Warnings against Seeking Speech with Spirits
"Nevertheless, conversation with spirits is possible, though rarely with
the angels of heaven; and this has been granted to many for ages back."[61]
And human nature is such that those who have only had fantastic visions are
inclined to boast about them and exaggerate them to gain the ear of an
audience.[62] Speech with spirits "is rarely permitted, because it is
perilous.... Some who lead a solitary life occasionally hear spirits speaking
to them, and without danger." A spirit may thus come to a person and
communicate some words; but still it is not permitted the person to speak with
them mouth to mouth, lest the spirit should come to realize that they are with
a person.[63] Therefore a spirit who addresses a person is permitted to speak
"only a few words; and they who speak by the Lord's permission never say
anything that takes away the freedom of reason, nor do they teach. For the
Lord alone teaches man, but mediately by the Word in a state of
illustration.... "[64]
A person who is in enlightenment from the Lord through a love of the truths
of the Word may sometimes hear the speech of spirits, but he or she is never
taught by them, but "led" with every precaution for their freedom.[65] This
speech may be perceived by such people as a kind of "response by vivid
perception in their thought or by a tacit speech therein, and rarely by open
speech; and it is to the effect that they should think and act as they will
and as they are able, and that they who act wisely is wise and they who act
foolishly are foolish; but they are never instructed what to believe and what
to do.... They who are taught by influx what to believe or what to do are not
taught by the Lord nor by any angel of heaven, but by some enthusiastic
spirit... who leads them astray."[66]
Those who desire to be instructed by spirits "do not realize that it is
conjoined with peril to their Soul!"[67] Only evil spirits come to the summons
of man"
"When spirits begin to speak with a person person ought to take heed lest
they should believe anything whatever from the spirits; for those spirits say
almost anything! They fabricate things and lie.... If they were permitted to
describe what heaven is... they would tell so many lies - and this with solemn
affirmations - that a person would be amazed. Therefore when spirits are
speaking, I have not been permitted to have faith in the things they related.
For they have a passion for inventing; and whenever a subject comes up in
conversation they think they know it and give their opinions - one after
another - one in one way and another in another, quite as if they knew! And if
a person then listens and believes, they press on and deceive and seduce in
diverse ways. For example, if they were permitted to talk about things to
come...."[68]
And they can impersonate others so that they even deceive themselves that
they are someone else! "Let those who speak with spirits beware, therefore,
lest they be deceived when the spirits say that they are those whom they have
known and who have died. For... when like things are called up in the memory
of a person and so are represented to them, they think that they are the same
persons."[69] "These things make evident the danger in which a person is who
speaks with spirits or who manifestly feels their operation."[70]
Such warnings against seeking sensual proof for the existence of spirits
should suffice for any New Church person. Yet from the beginning, the
temptation to explore the other world, as Swedenborg did, or to call upon its
powers of influx illicitly, has threatened the New Church. A few instances may
be cited.[71] In 1786, a French society of "Illuminati" was formed by Abbé
Pernety, which mixed New Church doctrine with spiritism and Freemasonry.
Similar ideas, in milder forms, such as the practice of "animal magnetism" and
the healing of the sick by exorcising spirits, brought an early end to a
genuine New Church movement in Stockholm about 1790. In 1817, James Johnston,
a simple-minded working person belonging to the Salford New Church in England,
began to receive visions in which Abraham and other "arch-angels" dictated
nonsense which has been published in his spiritual "Diary." In 1846, Ludwig
Hofaker, who had edited and translated some of the Writings, died of insanity
after harming the New Church in Germany by advocating spiritistic theories and
practices. In 1844, Mr. Silas Jones, with the sanction of a leading New Church
minister, conducted a spiritistic circle in Brooklyn, profanely mixing sorcery
and astrology with New Church rites. In 1859, Thomas Lake Harris, who had
ostensibly embraced the New Church after megalomaniac adventures with
spiritism on this continent, visited England and almost succeeded in turning
the Swedenborg Society there into an agency for spiritistic propaganda,
converting, with his strange charm and marvelous eloquence, William White, the
Swedenborg biographer, and Dr. J. J. Garth Wilkinson, a most profound student
of the Writings; causing the latter to descend into the Hades of Harrisism for
an interval of some years during which he produced verses by spirit-dictation.
Harris's career ended in scandal and disgrace.
But it is not enough to say that the New Church, like many other worthy
movements, must have its "lunatic fringe." For throughout the years the
recurrent defense of spiritistic practices in several New Church journals has
shown that the temptation to find a sensual approach to the spiritual world is
likely to come wherever the faithful study of the Heavenly Doctrine is
neglected, or where a secret or open desire is harbored to abandon the arduous
way of redemption which the Lord offers to those who are of the spiritual
church. This appointed way is reformation through doctrine and reason, through
the discipline of self-compulsion and loyalty to the truth. It is a difficult
road, but one which is necessary for our race and genius, that is, for all
those whose hearts must confess to being subject to hereditary and actual
evils.
The temptation is to think that we do not need to walk that road, to think
that we have attained to a celestial state and may ignore the discipline of
doctrine and can rely on our own power to withstand the onslaughts of the
hells and on our instinctive discernment to know an evil spirit when we meet
him. But let us humbly recognize that "the Lord enters into a person through
no other than an internal way, which is through the Word and doctrine and
preachings from the Word."[72] This way does not lead downward to a dependence
on the senses and its innumerable fallacies, but up to the rational mind where
alone a person is free to see the spiritual things of heaven in their own
light. (Odhner, Spirits in Human Life, see
Reading List).
