SPIRITUALISM

Hokitika Guardian, 16 June 1921, Page 4

SPIRITUALISM

TS IT TRUE? ASKS REV. WYNI)HAM HEATHOOTE.

THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY

WELLINGTON, June 13. Speaking at the Unitarian Church on Sunday on the above subject, the Rev. Wyndham Heathcote said that Spiritualism had now to lie taken seriously—that for pood or evil, it was up for trial by the modern mind. This was parth due to the fact that many intellects of the highest order in England. Europe and America had accepted it. and partly to the emotional effects of the war. 'l'lie Rationalist Press Association of London was quite awake to the position, and was devoting much of its energy no longer in attacking orthodox Christianity, which it considered to bo as dead as the dodo, hut to stemming the rising torrent of Spiritualism. Unfortunately. the mentality of the ordinary spiritualistic meeting was very low. and most spiritualists lacked the <•*•’’

rid faculty ; moreover, Spiritualism lent itself readily to fraud and deceit. Whenever a demand is made for charlatanism. thou the supply is immediate, varied and full. Fools always create the knaves. Still there is much to be said on behalf of Spiritualism as offering a rational and scientific philosophy of life THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY.

It was much easier to accept Spiritualism under the new psychology than it was under the old psychology, which regarded the ordinary consciousness as co-extensive with the entire consciousness of man. Again, the theory of evolution had greatly assisted the acceptance of Spiritualism. It was easier to accept Spiritualism in view of the evolutionary hypothesis than under the doctrine of special creation with its arbitrary and artificial cosmogony. When the human mind in any small degree grasps the wonderful evolutionary process from the fire mist to protoplasm, and from protoplasm to man, it was a .little difficult to think that the undertaker calls a halt. On the contrary, it is suggested that a process which began before and apart from this planet’s individual existence, will continue off and beyond its individual existence.

Most Spiritualists who think at al' are evolutionists, and some are materialists. This seemed a contradiction in terms, but was not so. for under ;■ strictly monistic philosophy, spirit and matter would lie one. SPIRITUALISTIC PHILOSOPHY.

Tn his delightful volume, “The New Lucian,” Traill, who was himself an agnostic, made it clear that he understood the Spiritualistic philosophy in an imaginary conversation which he placed in mouths of Paley, Lucretins, and Darwin in the other world. Tt is ns follows:—Dnnvin to Lucretius: “ f J would detain you, Lucretius, to question you further upon your doctrine of atoms.” Paley: “And I to learn from yon how you reconcile your presence here with your theory of the materiality of the soul.” Darwin: “Nay, Dr Paley, it is surely rather for us to reconcile these'powers of speech which we are now exercising, with the theory of the immateriality of the soul. So long as we retain such powers, we must certainly account our nature to be in some sort material; for all we speak of ourselves as disembodied spirits, our life in the shades can only be a continuance under physical, though highly cfherealised conditions of our life on earth.” This passage makes clear that Traill understood the die trine of spiritualism, namely that when we “shuffle off this mortal coil” we still have an etherie coil. FALSE PEEMTSES

The materialistic argument that spirits cannot exist because we cannot become aware of them by our normal sienses broke down on analysis. Our senses are neither reliable, nor adequate to give complete information about the universe. Mr Arthur Palfour says, in his whimsical way: “Our senses are not only sometimes misleading, but are habitually mendacious.” Our senses are only capable of responding to a certain number of sounds and colours. Science assured us that there were many more vibrations which our senses cannot deal

with. Moreover, science had now reduced matters to electrical energy, which was super-sensible. If spirits did not exist because they were supersensible, then ether did not exist; the argument is tantamount to a denial of the existence of the universe. ACCEPTED BY SCIENTISTS. Tie submitted that anyone to-day would he justified in accepting the philosophy of Spiritualism, in view of the fact that so many great scientists, who had spent years in examining the phenomena, had accepted it, just as people accept the evolutionary hypothesis on the authority of science, although thev themselves have not observed the facts upon which that hypothesis is based. Still, no one could become convinced about Spiritualism without personal experience, but when such experiences have been undergone, then such people know, in the same way as they know any other phenomena which have entered into consciousness. The speaker concluded by relating some remarkable experiences which he himself had undergone, and which ho found hintsclf unable to explain under any other hypothesis than that ofFercd by Spiritualism.