Spiritualism, its history phenomena and doctrine

Front matter

y o >

Mm »

* v, v

Preface

THIS book has been written in response to a suggestion that I should prepare a volume giving a comprehensive answer to the question: "What is Spiritualism?" A large literature of the subject exists, the library of the London Spiritualist Alliance containing about 3,000 volumes; but the aspects are many, the ramifications extensive, and there is no single work that presents a review of the whole, except Mr. Podmore's "Modern Spiritualism" (2 vols., 1902), which, besides being too bulky for any but a determined student, is now regarded by most investigators as being too negative. The progress of psychical research in the last sixteen years has raised into new credibility many narratives which, in those earlier days, a cautious mind could not even provisionally accept.

Here it is necessary or desirable that I should indicate my own position, in order that the reader may know how to discount my opinions. In debatable matters, we naturally want to know exactly where a writer stands, before we can decide how far to rely on what he says ; for, though he may be perfectly honest, he may involuntarily be very unfair if he happens to have strong preferences.

I was never a materialist, for I happened to read Berkeley at an unusually early age; but I was unable to believe in an angry God who would punish for ever vi PREFACE

— not for wicked acts towards one's fellow-creatures, but for holding incorrect theological opinions during our short span of a few years — and consequently our saintly old minister did the opposite of what he intended; instead of making me a Christian according to his definition, he made me a Huxleyan.

A rather close reading of evolutionary literature, plus some years of laboratory work which taught me scientific method, plus a fair amount of philosophybrowsing and a careful reading of Carlyle, Emerson, Tennyson, etc. — I had not then grown up to Browning — landed me safely in the "reverent agnosticism" which was to be expected; and there I stayed, with perhaps a slight tendency away from the fighting temper of Huxley towards the milder mood of Emerson, until I was over thirty. Then I became acquainted with a certain medium whose queer powers puzzled me. Previously I had, of course, scoffed at the whole thing, even when intimate friends of mine described their own inexplicable experiences. But I was soon compelled to admit that there was "something in it". I began to read spiritualistic literature, but it did not impress me. The writers were mostly unknown, their experiments were not described with sufficient fulness or exactness, and they often seemed ready to believe anything. Then I joined the Society for Psychical Research, and found what I wanted. Here was real evidence, set out in detail by men like Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, Professor Sidgwick, and others, whose work I knew and could rely on in other departments. I read all the S.P.R. publications, and was greatly impressed ; in fact, convinced so far as the logic

PREFACE vii

of the thing went — i.e. I felt that the evidence was sufficient to justify belief in the happenings and even in a spiritistic explanation of some of them. But personal experience is necessary before real conviction of new truth can be attained, when one has remained in ignorance until over thirty; so I set myself to investigation. I sat with many mediums, professional and private, and the result was that I was gradually driven to admit that phenomena certainly happen which orthodox science does not explain or even recognise, that some of them may be due to not understood subliminal activities of living people, or to still more unknown causes, but that some others point to the agency of discarnate human beings.

I described some of these experiences in my book, "Psychical Investigations," and in earlier volumes; but the printed records are incomplete, much evidential private matter having had to be excluded because it involved other living people who would object to publicity. If we investigators could publish everything, our case would be much stronger.

In short, then, I believe that the survival of human beings past death, and the possibility of occasional communication, is a legitimate inference from the facts. I do not believe that communication is as free or as frequent as most spiritualists seem to think. I am not convinced that the regular trance-controls are spirits at all ; they may be parts of the medium's subliminal, acting as channels for communications from beyond. And there are some phases of mediumship — apports, for instance — which I have never witnessed, the phenomena being rare. As to such unwitnessed things, my attitude is one viii PREFACE

of suspense of judgment. I neither believe nor disbelieve. Those who have had convincing experiences in these departments may think that I dismiss them too lightly. I can only ask their indulgence. I must see and hear for myself, before I can really believe. I have tried to obtain as much personal experience as possible, but opportunities in some directions have been lacking.

The foregoing necessarily egoistic account may enable the reader to discount my statements in such way as he may think fit. Perhaps I had better add that on the emotional side I have little or no desire for personal survival, having been accustomed for many years (in consequence of early hell-teaching) to hope that it was not a fact; for, though not accepting that terrible doctrine, my mind was inevitably influenced more or less by exposure to such insistent dogmatism in my defenceless childhood, and obviously annihilation was preferable to hell. Later, perceiving that the material universe seems essentially indestructible, I inclined to a similar conservation of spirit though not a continuance of present personalities. The body ceases to exist though its elements continue but are redistributed, and the soul may similarly disintegrate into lower compounds or psychic elements. But the evidence told against that theory and in favour of greater integration and advance.

So far, then, as introspection goes, I seem to myself to be an impartial witness. Mr. G. B. Shaw, however, says that in debatable questions it is best not to listen to the fool who imagines himself impartial, but to have the case argued out with reckless bias on both sides.

PREFACE ix

Well, those who wish to read the reckless arguings of both sides will be able to do so by obtaining the various books mentioned in the following pages, and the opinions of the fool who quotes them may be disregarded.

In this matter of books quoted, my indebtedness is obvious and inevitable. I have endeavoured, indeed, to supply not only an outline of the whole subject, but also to indicate, by quotations and references, how that outline may be filled in by readers who find themselves sufficiently interested. In furnishing this guidance, which would have been useful to me at the beginning of my own studies, I must ask the indulgence of the many readers who — being already familiar with the literature — will not need it.

One book there is, and one man's work, which I have perhaps not made adequately prominent, though quoting it in places. Emerson says somewhere : "Of Plato I hesitate to speak, lest there should be no end"; and the psychical researcher feels somewhat thus about F. W. H. Myers. Without him, the S.P.R. would never have been what it is, many active investigators would never have taken up the subject, and many books would never have been written. Our debt to him is quite beyond computation. Let the earnest student read his great work, "Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death", preferably in the unabridged two-volume edition, and he will find incomparably the most systematic and extensive presentation of psychical research up to the year 1900, when Myers died. It embodies the results of the investigation and reflection of a man of first-rate ability, who gave his life to pioneerx PREFACE

ing in scientifically unsurveyed regions, well knowing that he thereby sacrificed place and fame during his lifetime. And, in addition to its systematic scientific presentment, it is a literary masterpiece of the first order. It has been well said that Myers's prose is equal to Ruskin's at its best ; it was not surpassed, in its kind, by any writer of his century.

If, then, I seem to have said too little in the text about the leader to whom we owe so much, it is because anything I could say would be so hopelessly inadequate. Students must read him for themselves, and they will understand.

Chapter X of Part I appeared as an article, in slightly different form, in the Occult Review for August, 1917, and Chapter VI of Part II appeared in the Hibbert Journal for October, 1916. The remainder of the volume is new.

J. A. H.

Contents

PAGE

Introduction by Sir A. Conan Doyle

Part I Chapter

I. Antecedents of Modern Spiritualism . . 1

Fundamental conception of Survival and Communication not new — Communion of Saints — Rise of Science and Critical method — Moral revolt against Hell — Disbelief in Survival resulted from these two causes — Spiritualism restored Belief, on basis of facts as in Early Christianity — Providential wisdom shown in delay of Psychical Science until after establishment of Physical Science — Biblical Spiritualism — Greek Oracles — Plutarch — Virgil, Eneas' Vision, Dido's Dream — Pliny — Neo-Platonism — Chinese Spiritualism — Jews and Teraphim — Nuns of Cevennes — St. MSdard — Irvingites

II. SWEDENBORG 17

Birth (1688) and Education — Assessor — Scientific genius — Illumination in 1743 — "Arcana Ccelestia" — The Stockholm fire — The Herteville case of Hidden Receipt — Kant's opinion — Swedenborg's sanity — Details about Next State — Recognition by friends — Continuity of character — Children grow up — Heavens and Hells — Houses, cities — All Angels first human beings — Swedenborg to be regarded as Prophet but not infallible

III. Confluence of Swedenborgianism and Mesmerism in America 30

Swedenborg not unique — Other Trance-seers — Mesmer's patients — Jung-Stilling — Mesmerism in New England — Crank communities — O. W. Holmes — Emerson — A. J. Davis — Clairvoyance — His first book, 1847 — Teaching — Spheres — Hudson Tuttle's doctrine as to the Spheres — Professor Hare, Epes Sargent, Judge Edmunds

xi xii CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

IV. The Hydesville Knockings 40

Fox family of Hydesville — Raps, 1848 — Supposed murder, not well evidenced — Controversy concerning the raps — the Buffalo doctors — No certainty now attainable — Dr. Phelp's Poltergeist — A. J. Davis's opinion — Judge Edmunds's

V. Early Days in England 44

Mrs. Hayden and Mrs. Roberts — D. D. Home — Browning's suggestion of fraud unfounded — Mrs. Lyon — Notable sitters with Home — His travels — Sir William Crookes's investigations — Automatic Writing and Drawing by the Howitts and others — Angel Gabriel — But good done in spite of extravagances — Secularists converted — Spiritual Telegraph at Keighley — Davenport Brothers — Mrs. Everitt — David Duguid — Eglinton — Evidence for Materialisation inconclusive — The Dialectical Society's Report

VI. William Stainton Moses 60

Birth (1839) and Education — Curacies — Mastership at University College School — Death in 1892 — His phenomena — Serjeant Cox's description of incidents — The Speer sittings — Musician-spirits— Imperator — Main aim the broadening of Mr. Moses' theology — Evidential details — Steam-roller — Blanche Abercromby — Abraham Florentine — Testimony to Mr. Moses' high character — His books

VII. The Society for Psychical Research . . 70

Founding by Cox of "Psychological Society," 1875 — Dissolved in 1879 — S. P. R. founded, 1882 — Objects — Methods — No creed — Critics — Mrs. Piper — Integrity — Phinuit regime — George Pelham — "Imperator" band — Classical matter unknown to the medium — Manner of the trance — Now ceased — Other mediums, non-professional — Mrs. Thompson — Reports by Dr. van Eeden and Mrs. Verrall — Cross-correspondences — Classical allusions in scripts of non-classical Automatists — General mind-stuff theory — Sir Oliver Lodge's "Raymond" — Sir William Barrett's "On the Threshold of the Unseen"

VIII. Physical Phenomena 94

Line rather arbitrary, but Physical Phenomena mostly meaning demonstrably Supernormal movement or Behaviour of Matter — The Wesley haunt — Worksop and

CONTENTS xiii

CHAPTER PAGB

Folkestone poltergeists — Eusapia Palladino — Raps — Dr. Joseph Maxwell — Dr. Crawford and the Goligher circle — Direct Voice, Admiral Usborne Moore's investigations — Spirit Photography

IX. Confirmatory Phenomena in India . . . 109

Wide distribution of phenomena — Jacollist's book — Vasemovements — Raps — Table made heavy — Harmoniflute playing untouched — Materialisation — Identity-evidence — Jacollist's Sceptical attitude — The Brahmanic scheme very like that of A. T. Davis

X. Ghosts 116

Facts in nature, though exceptional ones, like globular lightning — Definition — " Hallucination " — " Proceedings," S. P. R., vol x — "Phantasms of the Living" — Mr. Walker-Anderson's case — Projection of Phantasm by Mr. S. H. Beard — Possible subjectivity — Local Ghosts — Lytton and eidola, ghost being only a partial manifestation of the total self — "Induced" Ghost seeing: normal Clairvoyance — Illustrations of Mr. Wilkinson's mediumship — Evidence that deceased people come to meet their dying friends

XI. On Evidence, Proof and Belief .... 126

Survival accepted even by sceptical wing of S. P. R. — Mrs. Sidgwick — Difference between Psychical Researchers and Spiritualists — Subliminal Memory — Coleridge's story of the polyglossal servant-girl — Hypnotic experiments — Multiple personality — Blanche Poynings — But evidence goes beyond Subliminal Memory — Nature of Trance-Controls — Standards of proof — Critic's low standard — Must be cumulative — Coercive proof not possible — Psychology of belief — Personal history in reaching convictions

Part II

I. Spiritualism as a Religion 143

Cause of Spiritualistic Secession from other sects — Not antagonistic to any except those holding crude beliefs mainly as to Eschatology — Seven Principles of Spiritualism — More Christian than some modern forms of Christianity — Organisation — Number of Societies — Democratic, as Christianity was at first — Specimen service, with Clairvoyance — Sunday Schools or Lyceums — Their methods xiv CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

II. Spiritualism as a Religion (continued) . . 171

Internal friction and fission in Societies — Lack of Reverence in services — Longwindedness of speakers — Some "mediums" not mediumistic but only cases of Multiple Personality — Necessity of evidence of Supernormality — Private circles — Questionably good — Dark sittings — But notwithstanding crudities, Spiritualists have the root of the matter — They have forced the facts into prominence — Spiritualism in America, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, South America, Russia, Australia, New Zealand — Agitation at home for repeal of Witchcraft Laws — Case for and against

III. Materialistic and Other Objections . . 180

A priori negations — The things do not happen — Professor Miinsterberg, Mr. Frederic Harrison, Tyndall — Huxley's wiser attitude — Mr. Edward Clodd — Sir E. Ray Lankester — No experimental demonstration of Volcanic eruptions, Earthquakes, or even Thunderstorms possible

IV. Roman Catholic and Mystical Objections . 191

The things happen, but are the work of Devils — Lord Alfred Douglas — Prohibition wise for many people — But conservatism may be overdone — High moral teaching — Father Bernard Vaughan — Mystical objections — Some force in them, and valid for some people — But Reason is a Divine Gift, as well as Intuition — Civilisation a good thing — But each must decide for himself — All extremes to be avoided, but no directions banned

V. Some Protestant Objections 200

Misunderstanding that spirits can be "called up" — The Christian and Joyful News — Allegations of insanity caused — Probably more insanity caused by Hell-belief — Specific answers to the charge — "Triviality" of Messages — But small things are often the best evidence — And A. J. Davis wrote thirty volumes of serious matter, non-evidential — Leviticus — But do its quoters observe its other prohibitions as well? — Bishop of Oxford — A weighty objection — Belief in Survival more wholesomely based on faith in God than on phenomena — But the Early Christians based their belief on Phenomena (Christ's Resurrection) — And for many people a Phenomena-based Belief seems the only way back to Religion

CONTENTS xv

CHAPTER PAGE

VI. Fechner's Theory of Life after Death . 212

The World-Soul — Human Personality perhaps a part of it — Inorganic Matter not unconscious — Saturated with Mind — But Selves do not merge after bodily Death — Individuality continues to grow — The post-mortem Body — Material results of Earth-Actions and Thoughts — Rapport-objects — Links up with Myers's Subliminal — Recognition after Death — Deeper sleep, wider memory, till Death restores all, forgotten things having preceded us — Scientific nature of Fechner's system

VII. Spiritualistic Conceptions of After-Death

Conditions 228

Swedenborgian in asserting Similarity to Earth-life, but more optimistic — Universal Salvation — Spheres — Jews and Plurality of Heavens — Paul's "Third Heaven" — Summerland — Tuttle, McKenzie, Wilson — The Theosophical scheme — A compromise scheme suggested, including elements of Origen and Fechner — Best Spiritualistic opinion wisely restrained as to Definite Spheres — Stead's "After Death" — Excessive Mourning wrong — Love the chief thing — Experiences at Death — Stainton Moses, information from spirit about conditions over there — Reality of the life

VIII. Conclusion 244

Summing up — Belief in Survival became moribund in early nineteenth century — Spiritualism revived it by finding and emphasising same sort of Phenomena as those on which Christianity was based — Swedenborg had prepared the way — S. P. R. work — But Spiritualism is more than belief in Survival and Communication, it is a Religion — Includes Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man — Is nearer the Christianity of the first three centuries than is the Christian Orthodoxy of to-day — Opposition based mainly on ignorance — Nature of future life — Spiritualistic opinion regarding Christ — The seven articles repeated

Introduction

IF I were asked to recommend a course of reading for an intelligent agnostic who knew nothing about psychic science, I should be inclined to begin it bychoosing the five successive books in which Mr. J. Arthur Hill has exhibited the unfolding of his own mind. Such reading has the advantage that the inquiring agnostic and Mr. Hill start at scratch together. Mr. Hill's unhappy experience of this world had by no means predisposed him towards any desire for a continuance of existence beyond the grave, and his critical tendency of thought had led him to negative rather than positive results. Yet his attention had been arrested by the growing and persistent claims of the survivalists, and he felt an intellectual compulsion to examine the question whatever his own prepossessions might be. The first results are to be seen in "Religion and Modern Psychology," where his active mind reaches out into the vague but fascinating country before it. In another book of the same year, "New Evidence in Psychical Research," you see these exploring tentacles taking their grip on this or that which seemed solid, and tugging at it to see if it would indeed stand a strain. In the third, "Psychical Investigations," the solid points are numerous and stronger. He can tug as he will and he cannot shake them. His fourth book, "Man in a Spirit," is indirect, dealing less with his

xvii xviii INTRODUCTION

own experiences and more with those of others, but all bearing upon the same thesis. And now in this, the last of the series, he goes over the whole ground, shows the gradual development from small things to greater which marks all true progress, and tells how orthodox science, with a few brilliant exceptions, broke every rule of science when faced with an entirely new proposition, while orthodox religion, with the same reservation, failed to recognise the true root of religion from which it had itself grown in the far-off days when it was green and full of life. This is the subject of Mr. Hill's present book, and no more vital one could possibly engage his pen.

We must admit that the phenomena which first, in modern times, gave rise to this line of thought and investigation, were insignificant in their nature and squalid in their environment. They were trivial, inconsequential, absurd, lending themselves readily to imitative fraud upon one side and to practical joking upon the other, while the credulity of many believers sustained the incredulity of their opponents. But thoughtful men from the beginning saw that there was more behind the movement than could possibly be laughed or explained away. The fact that phenomena were simulated, and rascals were convicted in the police courts as the impostors that they were, did not really touch the heart of the question. Such incidents might prevent superficial or prejudiced thinkers from going farther, and give them some excuse for their mental inertia; but an investigator who devoted even a little earnest attention to the matter was bound to admit that, making every allowance for fraud, there was

INTRODUCTION xix

a great residuum which could not possibly be explained in such a way. Thus, those who came to scoff remained continually to pray. So it was with Professor Hare, of Philadelphia, in the earliest days. So also with the Dialectical Society of London, who were hostile, or at the best neutral, at the outset, and yet presented a unanimous report endorsing the physical phenomena. So also with Dr. A. Russel Wallace, General Drayson, and many other investigators, who began, as Mr. Arthur Hill did, and, if I may say so, as I myself have done, with a marked bias against the whole idea of survival. In spite of the doubts of the scientific world and the anathema of the creedbound churches, there always remained, however, a considerable body of simple, earnest folk who took things at their face value, were content to admit the existence of fraud if they were convinced that the basis was truth, and continued in this belief in spite of all criticism. Time has justified them. What their own intuitions endorsed has been vindicated by a more enlightened science. Here, as once before, the humble folk were right, and "the wisdom of this world was as foolishness before God". All civilised nations have contributed to the sinking of these foundations. It is a pure chance that Hydesville was the seat of the original phenomena which caught the public attention, for very similar ones broke out within a year or two at Cideville in France, and there had been many outbreaks of the same sort in England, the most typical being that in John Wesley's house at Epworth. What marked an epoch in America was when the young Fox girl, clapping her hands, challenged the unseen presence to do the same. Its instant xx INTRODUCTION

response introduced the idea of intelligence into what had previously been a mere chaos of noises and movements. The American mind is open to new impressions, and probably the cult spread more rapidly there than it could have done elsewhere. But the biggest brain which turned itself upon this new subject and drew others behind it, was not American but French. Allan Kardec, with his spiritualist philosophy, differed in some details from the Americans, but founded his conclusions upon the same phenomena. When the whole story comes to be told, however, there is no doubt that it is to England that the new branch of science owes most, and, indeed, that it is due to England that it can be called a science at all. Cambridge University will always be the Mecca of systematic psychic investigation, which is the avenue that nearly always leads eventually to complete acceptance of the spiritual hypothesis. There have seldom, if ever, been a more brilliant set of minds than those which engaged themselves upon this subject. Frederic Myers and Gurney, Oliver Lodge and Hodgson, Sidgwick, Butcher, Roden Noel, the two Verralls, Gerald Balfour, Andrew Lang, William Barrett; these are some of the keen intellects, not all of Cambridge, but all forming a circle round the Cambridge nucleus. From this circle was born the Society for Psychical Research, and from this again such a mass of evidence as has seldom been gathered upon any one subject before. An American Psychical Research Society is doing good work upon the English model ; but it is always in the latter and in the great work of Frederic Myers that psychic science will find its firmest root. People call aloud for evi-

INTRODUCTION xxi

dence who have been too indolent to examine the evidence already in existence ; but any one who reads even a portion of the voluminous reports of the Society, should find as much as the most exacting mind could require.

Some small compendium of the evidence such as is presented in this volume is the more needful as the general Press is so exceedingly ignorant upon the point. The result is that it always approaches each fresh manifestation de novo, as if no such thing had ever been heard of before. For example, Sir Oliver Lodge's "Raymond" has been continually reviewed as if this were some new opinion which he had put forward, instead of being a restatement in his own case of what had already been urged by a thousand before him. The same holds good of particular phenomena. Each new outbreak is criticised with no reference to the last, and no admission of the cumulative weight which successive instances must afford. If, for example, an okapi had only once been shot in Africa, its existence on the evidence of a single sportsman might reasonably be doubted. If ten men agreed that they had shot such a creature, the evidence would be strong. If fifty had done so, it would become convincing. This is common sense. Thus it is with such a phenomenon as a noisy poltergeist, two cases of which are at the present moment under my own observation. Each case, like the recent one at Cheriton, is treated in the Press as an isolated phenomenon. A wider knowledge of the subject would teach the critic that there are very many upon record, some of them most carefully observed, and that all of them agree in certain general characteristics.

xxii INTRODUCTION

Thus, as in the case of the okapi, numbers give assurance, and it is not possible to treat as a delusion that for which there are so many witnesses. The overpowering strength of the case for survival is not appreciated because the evidence has not been in a sufficiently readable and condensed form. Such works as this, or as Sir William Barrett's excellent "Threshold of the Unseen," help to supply the want.

I have alluded, in an earlier paragraph of these notes, to Mr. Arthur HilPs unhappy experience of this life. On a recent visit to Bradford I had an opportunity of calling upon him, and of realising his remarkable personality and the extraordinary conditions under which he produces his work. A strong and athletic young man, he was suddenly reduced to absolute helplessness by a heart-wrench sustained while cycling up a hill, and has now spent many years stretched upon his back in bed with such physical disabilities that he cannot even write as most invalids would write, but has to hold the paper up at an angle with one hand while he writes with the other. That, in these circumstances, he has carried out the course of reading which his tasks necessitate, has done so much laborious investigation, himself taking verbatim shorthand notes, and has been able within a few years to write considerable books, besides being the protagonist in many arguments and correspondences in the Press, is a most remarkable example of human perseverance and adaptability. To those who, like myself, take the gravest possible view of this movement, and regard it as being a fresh-departure in religious thought and experience such as we have not had for two thousand years, it seems more than

INTRODUCTION xxiii

chance that a man who had such qualifications for the work, but who was engrossed in other things, should have had all else rent so violently from him with the result of concentrating him entirely upon the all-important task. If these few lines of mine are of any use to him, or to the cause which he represents, I shall be proud to think that I have been of assistance.

Arthur Conan Doyle.

PART I

ITS HISTORY, PHENOMENA AND DOCTRINE

Chapter I Antecedents Of Modern Spiritualism

THE fundamental principle of spiritualism is that human beings survive bodily death, and that occasionally, under conditions not yet fully understood, we can communicate with those who have gone before. This belief is not new, but it has been obscured, and needs to be re-emphasised if it is true. Religion, in the West at least, has always included the doctrine of personal survival, and has been friendly or tolerant towards communication of a sort — e.g. prayers to saints and help from them, and the popular belief in angels, ghosts, and what not; but, latterly in particular, official Religion has not put any after-death teaching in the forefront of its scheme.

This is comprehensible enough, for the orthodox scheme had become incredible. From the intellectual side, science had undermined it at two places : first, by its establishment of continuity and gradation in nature, suggesting similar continuity and gradation in supernature, instead of a sudden jump to everlasting bliss or a sudden plunge to everlasting woe; second, by its application — in that determined truth-search which is itself religious — of higher standards of evidence, more rigorous tests, to historical records. And the result of this latter process was, that the miraculous element in the Bible, not being supported by things generally observed to happen now, fell into discredit. Even the oldest Gospel was not written until many years after the events described, and we have none of the originals, our oldest MSS. dating from several centuries later. Consequently, according to modern standards, the evidence for Christ's appearances after His death — and if Christ be not risen, then is Christian faith vain — was seen to be far from coercive. Indeed, some writers denied even the "historicity" of Jesus; though this school can hardly be said to have included any first-class name. But doubt as to the reality of the after-death appearances and other miracles became widespread.