ASTOUNDING RECANTATION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3501, 26 September 1882, Page 4

ASTOUNDING RECANTATION.

Our readers will not have forgotten the sensation created a short time ago by Mr Thomas Walker, who professed to be an advanced spiratualistic medium, and the extravagant claims made on his behalf by those who were deluded by his pretentions. The mask has apparently been dropped, and the following extract from the Melbourne Southern Cross will, no doubt, be read with interest :—Mr Thomas Walker has been elected President of the Australian Secularists, and he celebrated his accession to office by formally purging himself, last Sunday evening, of all belief in Spiritism. A.' stool of repentance' seems to be part of the furniture of the new society, and its president sat on it coram publico, while he read his recantation and gave an elaborate explanation of his late exploits as a Spiritist. A correspondent gives this account of MiThomas Walker's address:—' Mr Walker commenced by sundry statements of his indebtedness to Spiritualists, and told us that he owed nearly his all to their kindness, that no doubt it would seem ungrateful on his part, now that he had been raised by the Spiritist's ladder, that he should kick ifc away. He was well aware of the charges which he laid hims_lf open to by his confessions that evening ; but he must be true to himself. . . . T\ hen he was here a few years ago he believed himself to be under the influence of the spirits. If he had stopped to inquire how much of the feeling was excitement, love of applause, or of popularity, lie might have had other views. . . . He was excited ; he found that he could speak without preparation, and could command large audiences. Ho wanted this to be spirits. There was a little heart truth, bufc much exaggeration. The Spiritualists might blame him, but he was not alone to blame. They put on the gloss. They were in the same boat. They gave out to the world that, when not in a trance, he was ignorant and incompetent, and that his ability was only when he was in a trance and under the controlling spirits. Although he said it, as a child he was precocious. At 16 he lectured at Liverpool, and to his mind he believed that he was under spirited control. He was told that it was so, and that around him they could see these spirits. One gentleman came to him lasb week and told him that when lie (Mr Walker) was lecturing he could see sixteen scientific spirits gathered around him there on the platform controlling his deliverances ! This question arises: If he were not under the control of the spirits, what becomes of the statements of all the mediums throughout the world ? No newspaper, no seance, no friend, no Spiritist ever said that he was not controlled, therefore tlteg are responsible. Had the spirits given him a true analysis of his position and mind he might have been able to believe in them. When a boy he had a strong tendency to do things which pleased people. If his audience only knew how mediums are flattered they would be surprised that there are not more. He had been told of the eloquence of his lectures, and now how different the} are. The Spiritists helped in the delusion, and they had put a premium on dishonesty. The fault was as much theirs as his. Mediums, fostered thus with flattery, are bound to spring up as weeds in the garden. The qualifications of a medium are : Ist. Excessive desire to please. 2nd. Love of notoriety. 3rd. More or less mental ability ; but very little of ability is required. The bpiritist's desire to have them so made them so. When he was here before, delivering his trance lectures, he commenced to read move, and he soon found that he was not what is given out by the Spiritists. But how was he to get out of ifc ? Look afc his position. You say that ho ought to have been honest. Many had been the nights when his pillow had been wefc with tears because of his painful position. He knew that he was not what he was represented ; he therefore went to England to get out of his position. The change had to be brought about gradually ; he therefore went to England and still gave out that his lectures were inspired. He felt that by so doing he was more true to himself (!). But in his lectures, from the force of habit, he could not keep hia eyes open ; after speaking for a short time he would close them. He therefore obtained a pair of green spectacles, and used them until he could address an audience with his eyes open without embarrassment. His great crime, according to the Spiritists, was not in changing his views, but in confessing it. If ho were a fraud, then they had only found it out by his telling. Where are tho incentives to honesty ? You wonder why men are not more honest; they cannot be when you calumniate thoso who will speak out. Then, with melodramatic

emphasis, Mr "Walker cried, 'Judge me by the future. Judge me by the future. The past has been a youthful past. I have been unfortunate. I am sorry for those who have trusted in me. Never believe without fruitful evidence.' Mr Walker then during the remainder of his lecture, gave evidences of the fraudulent character of Spiritism, dealing principally witfi mind-reading, materialisation, and spirit photographs. Certain transactions now going on among his former spiritualistic friend in Eussellstreet he described as fraudulent, and give the audience his proofs. All Spiritism, according to Mr Walker, is fraudulent; the only qualification he made was that some mediums were unconscious frauds, and their so-called facts, there is no doubt, arise from their own desire to believe them. 'Let us be true,' was Mr Walker's peroration. ' We cannot be so at once (!), but let us strive after it. Let us be true by constant and steady growth into it,' mediums, especially, being exhorted to free themselves of their trammels as he had done.'