SPIRITUALISM

Hokitika Guardian, 15 December 1920, Page 1

SPIRITUALISM

CLERGY’S REPLY TO SIR A CONAN DOYLE.

AUCKLAND, Doc 13.

Spiritualism and Sir Conan Doyle’s lectures came in for considerable attention in the Auckland churches last oven ing. Preaching at St. Mary’s Cathedral, the Anglican Uishop (Dr Averill) said tho Lambeth Conference, in dealing with the revival of so-called Spiritualism, for it was nothing new, had dealt oently with the movement, because it had realised that it wiis a recoil from soul-deadening materialism and the exaggeration of some 'aspects of truth which the science of pyscliology would reveal in due time. “The Conference realised,” ho said, “that the present movement was to some extent the outcome of the Church’s failure to teach clearly and authoritatively the full meaning and comfort of the doctrine of tho Communion of Saints, which assures us of our continual fellowship with the departed, and of the fact that death is the gate 0 f fuller life.” The Conference recognised the honesty of the Psychical Research Society and its endeavours to winnow the chaff from tho wheat, hut strongly deprecated the modern tendency to mako a cult or religion of Spiritualism, for Spiritualism is purely in the experimental stage” declared the Bishop, “and it is worse than folly to accept its pronouncements as established facts, and when the science of mind, and especially the effects of self hypnotism and mental suggestion are ■ move clearly understood, It seems almost certain that •they will explain all the phenomena which Spiritualism claims from the Spirit world. Tho Conference says such scientific researches have confessedly not reached an advanced stage, and we are supported by the best psychologists in warning our people against accepting as final theories which further knowledge may disprove, and still more against the indiscriminate and undisciplined exercise-of psychic powers and the habit of recourse to seances, seers, and mediums. One of the most interesting attacks upon Spiritualism came from the Rev ,T. AV. Shaw. Concluding his remarks at tho Mount Eden Presbyterian Church, he said: “When you remember that the alleged spirits tell us nothing about tho life they now lead, but only of earthly tilings; that the mediums who are tile high priests and priestesses of the cult almost suffer moral degeneration as they exercise their sacred office ; that even the strongest minds dose their balance (ns witness Sir Conan Doyle’s idea that we have in our spiritual being a series of skins like an onion, and shed one at every great emotional crisis, the' skin becoming a ghost); when you remember that to the average mind dabbling in Spiritualism produces a wild unrest that all too often ends in the lunatic asylum, you will consult your own interests, and the interests of your friends, host by not ! worrying your mind over the business. Our dead are safe with Christ. Could you believe in a universe controlled by the Cod Jesus revealed, in which our dead are always striving to get into touch witli us and cannot except through some medium?”