The classic of spiritism

Contents

CHAPTER

Foreword .....

I Psychic Waves ....

Foreword

This book is addressed to all persons interested in the history of the development of spiritualism, particularly to the professed believers in the Bible who have shut their eyes and ears to its deeper teachings, and opposed with asperity those who dare use their higher senses.

It does not seem illogical for that great institutional Church which keeps so much lore locked in its temples, and which feeds the multitude on legends, reserving the Holy Book for the favoured few, to keep the crowd in the outer courts, or it in the temple, to pull the curtains of the sanctuary close about the mystery. Though it seems strange that this powerful organization which has preserved the wisdom of the past to such a degree, and has had in its ranks hosts of saints and martyrs who have borne witness to the truth that communication with the >pirit world is possible and right, should oppose the great psychic wave now spreading over all this earth.

Not all the saints or souls who have had celestial vision have been of the hierarchy. Many have come from the peasant class, entirely uneducated in learning of this world. Joan of Arc and Bernadette of Lourdes are shining examples of the fact that the Lord sometimes gives great gifts to those whom the world adjudges poor and also that celestial visitors do not belong to a past generation. To-day the poor peasant girl, Joan of Arc, is a saint, and Lourdes is visited by thouvi FOREWORD

sands of pilgrims every year who believe that Bernadette found the wonderful spring through direct communication from the Blessed Virgin. Ann-Catherine Emmerich, another poor peasant girl, is now on the calendar of the saints. How many know that she was a great trance medium of the 19th century? Her messages from the Spheres were faithfully recorded by her priest, and her life is most interesting and convincing.

But if it is logical for the " Mother Church " to hide the truth of intercommunion from her babes, of whom she has millions, probably not ready for strong food, it is certainly illogical and more than strange that those Churches that base their belief upon the Bible, the classic of spiritism, that consider it the Word of God, and even cling to the theory of " verbal inspiration " (some even insisting on the inerrancy of the Scripture), should shut their eyes and ears and juggle with their reason and read with the curtain drawn so tightly over their brains, that they are like trees walking. If the Master were on earth to-day might he not say : Oh blind and perserve generation ?

If all those who call themselves Christians; if all those who seek light would but read the Bible without prejudice, but digest the words of Jesus, they would soon see that God has not left his children in ignorance of the way to communicate with him through his holy angels; they would soon learn that his Ministers of Light now, as in times of old, are leading, helping, teaching those who ask their aid.

If we only believe that with God all things are possible, then follow the teachings of the Master, we surely shall not only know the doctrine, but be able to do great things. Jesus of Nazareth is not only the Saviour of the world, the great example for mankind to follow, but he is the greatest psychic ever on this plane of existence, and the greatest spiritistic teacher. He not only shows the way, he demonstrates that inter-communication with those gone Before is right. Did he

FOREWORD vii

not take three of his chosen disciples to the Mount and let them see and hear him talk with Moses and Elijah. (Matt. 17, 1-3; Mark 9, 2-13; Luke 9, 28-36.) Although the teachings of Jesus have been hedged about with dogmas and theological treatises, and the theologians have raised a mighty wall about the Garden of God, so that many of his dear loving children do not as yet see the far country, yet, as the walls of Jericho fell, when the trumpets blew and the people shouted, so now, when many sorrowing souls are crying aloud for help, the walls of prejudice that hide the sanctuary shall fall. The curtains that veil the sacred ark shall be rent, as was the veil of the temple centuries ago, for the Lord's arm is not shortened, and many on this side and on that are making ready to tear away the veil.

I

THE PSYCHIC WAVES

For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. Isaiah, xi., 9.

Just as art after long burials has had its renaissances, so spiritism has had its recurrent resurrections, and always with added force. There has been no time since man came to dwell upon this planet, as least within historic survey, that there have not been seers and seeresses. Though just as night and day, and summer and winter alternate, so there have been periods when the light has been bright and the voice clear, and then ag 1 the dark predominated, when

the heavenly visitants were not seen, and the angel choirs were not heard.

The times of cessation of oracles are usually those where man has turned all his forces to the material ; where greed and rapine seem to rule the world — then come great wars. But just as after a heavy storm, where dark clouds overshadow the earth, and lightning destroys, comes a gentle rain and the atmosphere clears, and the sun shines forth brighter than before, so after these dark days of earth life, wherein man kills his brother man, forgetful of his Creator, there suddenly coim ^ r ht light shining through the clouds.

This was so in the early days of the world; it is so now.

It was after Abram had slain the kings in the Valley of Shaveh that Melchizedeck blessed him, and that the word of the Lord came to him in a vision. It was after Joseph had been sold by his brethren and had been in prison that he was brought before Pharaoh and made ruler of the land of Egypt. It was after long years of suffering in bondage in Egypt that a man of marvellous psychic power came to free his people and lead them towards the Land of Promise. It was after Daniel had been in the lion's den that Darius wrote:

Unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth : Peace be multiplied unto you.

As in art, so in psychism there are waves and then waves. There is an ebb and flow of all the life forces which are continually coming to us on the interstellar ether. In Egypt, in Chaldea, in Babylon, in Syria, in India, in China, in Japan and Greece and Rome there have been times of darkness and times of light. Although in the darkest days a single prophet or seer may arise, just as a shooting star on a winter's night, yet only in the bright eras do many inspired men arise, and in each succeeding age of light there are more who know from whence they came — more made ready to receive the word — then in many places teachers and prophets are born.

The wave of psychism now spreading over the world will rise higher, and spread over more places, than any such wave heretofore ; yes, cover more space even than the great wave of the first century, which brought in the New Dispensation.

There is a march of progress in spiritual unfolding, and the progress is always there, though it sometimes seems to be gone, for the ebb is so great that we lo^e sight of the wave for a time. When an engine is going down grade it is progressing as surely as when it is climbing up grade. The law of light seems to be the same ; it climbs down and it climbs up as it comes to us in waves, but there is never retrograde, for, since God's fiat that the light should come forth from the dark, it has been unceasingly progressing. Clouds often

THE PSYCHIC WAVES 3

obscure the light of day, so opinions and prejudices, in the mind of man, render him unfit to* receive the light of intellectual perception.

As the physical form of man is first fashioned in the dark womb, so the spiritual body comes forth only after many dark nights. St. John of the Cross wrote most fully on the subject of this dark night wherein the soul is gestated, and made ready for its high mission. St. Therese often felt this deep dark cloud and the pains of spiritual birth; she was prone to refer all of her temptations to the devil, not remembering that God, in His Holy Word, has said :

I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil : I, the Lord, do all these things. Isa. xlv., 7.

and that the Master bids us ask the Father to lead us not into temptation but to deliver us from evil; yet the Holy One was tempted and grew strong, for,

Temptation to the human soul Is what the wind is to the trees.

All down the ages in sacred and secular history we see that the great, strong, spiritual men and women have been subjected to waves of doubt before vision, to waves of depression before the joy of perception, to sorrow and grief, oftentimes to physical pain and mental anguish before the realisation of light in the soul, that light that lighteth every man when he has dispelled the clouds of night enough to see the rising sun, when he has slain the pythons within his chamber walls and emerged into the clear light of day. In St. Dunstan's life this dark night is allegorically spoken of as a beautiful woman. Luther and Bunyan and Fox all had their combat with what to them seemed the evil one. Each human spirit has a fight to make, an enemy in the garrison of the soul to slay, a load to lift, a grief to bear, a prejudice to lay aside, not only once in a lifetime, but over and over again.

In the climbing of the mountain of life therfe are always depressions and then again depressions. As each higher level is reached the view grows plainer, the light brighter; but as night follows day, and as there are years of famine as well as years of plenty, and ages of devastation and destruction preceding ages of upbuilding and preservation, so ever the microcosm follows the pattern of the macrocosm, and each child of God has his hour, his day, his years, wherein, by means of the dark nights of his soul, he is helped in his progress toward the summit of the mountain of God. And just as flowers need to be bruised ere they give forth their rarest perfume, so man needs sorrow and suffering to bring out the spiritual gifts. And the races of the earth must be pounded and torn, and earth itself ploughed and harrowed before the light can percolate the clay.

In these days, when many brave souls have laid down their lives for liberty, when the earth has been ploughed with cannon balls and her fields wetted with her children's blood, can we doubt, after the dark night wherein there has been such a violent storm, where sorrow has thrown her black veil over so many homes and the sword has pierced so many hearts, that, as thn morning breaks, more of God's children than ever before will raise the curtains to see the light, will pray by the open window, as Daniel did of old, pray not only with faith in the strong arm of the Father, but without fear, knowing that a time is soon coming when the lion and the lamb shall lie down together, trusting that the one God who opened the heavens for rain, who is daily opening the hearts of men to help their brothers, will lighten their minds so that the giants of ignorance and self-aggrandizement will be slain, and over their graves be placed the words, "Light and Love." For is it not written :

All the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. Num. xiv., 21.