SPIRITUALISM.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 November 1919, Page 3

SPIRITUALISM.

CAN IT HELP US! ADDRESS-AT WHITELEY CHUECH. On the above subject, "Can Spiritualism Help Us?" the Eev. J. Napier Milne addressed a large audience last night, at fcie Whiteley Memorial Church. A special feature of the service was the singing, a large choir and orchestra leading the praise. Mozart's "Gloria," and Jackson's "Te Deum" were admirably rendered, while the male members of the choir sang effectively, "When Storms Around Are Sweeping," and Messrs. W. Okey and R. L. Cooper sang "Watchman! What of the Night?" The speaker defined spiritualism as the great and varied series of weird and abnormal things supposed to be caused by departed spirits, together with the belief 'thence arising of intercommunion with those spirits. Having referred to the attitude to spiritualism 25 years ago, he proceeded: "It is very different now. It numbers amongst its patrons, and advocates eminent scientists, popular novelists, even famous preachers. None feel its appeal tjore strongly than those who have loved and lost, who yearn for 'the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still.' The sorrow and death resulting from the war have given to spiritualism its opportunity, and it stands at mis hour in some sense as a substitute for and a rival to the Christian faith." The speaker declared that he was most anxious to be scrupulously fair. He was no admirer of the controversialist whose method was to ignore the favorable things that could be advancecd for the theory to which he was opposed. "I believe," he said, "that there is something behind the psychic phenomena on which spiritualism is based. What that something is I cannot pretend to say, because I do not know. A great deal can be explained by telepathy, the communication of facts or feelings or impressions between persons at a distance from each other, a truth in which we all believe today.

Scientists, however, may be able to «>me forward to-morrow and tell us that a fuller knowledge of man's physical and mental powers have convinced them that it is otherwise; that what we thought was due to a supernormal agency is simply the result of a more complete interchange of consciousness between living persons than they were once aware of. The speaker went on to speak of those who had been helped byspiritualism. "If a man has never really believed, or has only half believed, the truth of immortality, it must br a great experience to receive what he regards as convincing evidence that ..is friends and loved ones ■who have gone on are standing up in all the power of their personality on the other side of the grave. "But I am here to ask how far the ordinary individual is likely to be benefited by attending the seance and inviting communications from the unseen." Then came reasons to show that spiritualism could not help in any deep, true sense, and might even prove harmful. Spiritualism claimed to be anew revelation, something that was going to take the place of Christianity, or at least wa* going to correct or modify it. "What is there in spiritually at its verv best over and above what any earnest "spiritual man can find in the Christianity, of Jesus Christ? Nothing, and less than nothing.' The predictions of spiritualism were frequently mistaken; its revelations were not unseldom contmdictorv } s grammar was sometimes atroiW- its results were often sordid and trivial Ihese points were all dwelt upon at length. • '

| in the loftiness, of its moral stanjdards; m the comfort which it is capable of imparting to stricken hearts; in its whole outlook on death and the Great Beyond, Christianity appears immeasurably grand and digniiied as compared with spiritualism. To surrender the Divine Revelation of Jesus Christ for the socalled new revelation of spiritualism is to leave the Light of the World for the OTll-o-the-wisp, or is to forsake the limpid dep lis of the Evcr-full Fountain for the shallow, germ-infested waters of the muddy pool."

_ The speaker then proceeded to emphasise the danger with which the practise of the cult was fraught. "Whatever mav be said in favor of scientific psychical research, there can be no doubt that such research is not only not helpful; it is positively harmful to the multitude. Ihere are people who have become mental and moral wrecks through dabblimand experimenting with occult forces" the spiritualists themselves admit frankly that in the seance-room you [must face the possibility of evil spirits rushing to the threshold when the door is opened. Bad influences are present as well as good. <W e have unhappily/ says Conal Doyle, 'to deal with abso-lute,-cold-blooded lying on the part of wicked or mischievous intelligences.' And both he and Sir Oliver Lodge'counsel spiritualists to be moderate in their demands."