SPIRITUALISM AND MESMERISM.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1533, 17 July 1886, Page 2

SPIRITUALISM AND MESMERISM.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—By your kind permission I would like to say a few words on the above sub* ject. The Chairman in his opening remarks said that the subjects dealt with at seances were of too trivial a nature for N spirits to be the cause of the phenomena, and that it required a round table to get them to come, but it is quite evident the Chairman had no knowledge of the subjeer, as in the majority o! circlet the table is not used after the medium gets developed. I would not take any notice of his remarks bat for the position he holds. People look up to him to throw light upon any subject that he may condescend to speak upon, and I would advise him in future to get posted up on any subject he may be going to address Ibo public on. His knowledge of mesmerism is about on a par with that of spirituflism, therefore it would be only waste of paper to criticise it. When we coma to deal with the lecturer, the Rev. Mr Cecil, the case is very different. Taking spiritualism first, he seems to be very well posted up in it, having witnessed a good deal of the phenomena among his friends, wbichhc describes in a very dear and pleasing manner, but I think his friends and he were too easily frightened. When be comes to deal with the effect spiritualism has on its adherents, and the deductions he draws from its teachings, I must emphatically deny the correctness of (ham. In one part of his lecture he said spuitualbts made use of the spirits to ascertain the winning horse at races, and were often correct. All I have to say is that if that is the rev. gentleman’s personal experience he must have mixed in very bad company. Spiritualism is no more responsible for the faults of its > members than Christianity is, and would be equally as just in me to blamy': Presbyterianism for the disgraceful conduct of the head of its church in Christchurch a short time ago. The rev, gentleman then goes on to say that spiritualists put Cod far away, and do not think he interferes io our every day lives. Nothing could be further from the truth, as we see God in everything around us. He then brings what he calls the most fatal objection to it, that is, that it is condemned by the Bibta The texts which he quoted, and which he thinks binding on us because they are in the Jewish laws, are quite correct as fat as they go ; but if Mr Cecil imagines that we hero in New Zealand in 1886 uo living under the Jewish laws, I am bound to add to his trouble by bringing to his knowledge a number of other breaches of it. For if we are to be Jews and not Christians we must take the Jewish law altogether. It is not a law which allows of picking, choosing, and cutting a cudgel out of its wood to break our neighbor’s head, and leaving another because it would break our own. One of the most striking characteristics of this law is that it demands the total acceptance of It and obedience to it. Here I quote for the benefit of Mr Cecil, *ll such ardent Israelites, the concluding words of Moses himself, after having recapitulated the entire provisions of thia code : —“ Cursed be he who confirmeth not all the words of thia law to do them, > —(Deut. xxvii., 26.) Now 1 will suppose that Mr Cecil is a married man, having a tioop of active lads and a number of man and maid servants. I will P oin * out to him what he has to do to show ua that he is honest tnd in earnest, an “i * n short, how he must net to get rid of his sorrows for breaches of the Jewish I*^

And in doing tins he must excuse using very plain words, because as bp j zealous a stickler for the Jewish law, and therefore, undoubtedly, has it read daily in bis family, this phraseology must be very familiar to him, and by no means offensive to his ears polite. Well, then, what he has to do is to send at once for

the family surgeon, and have himself, his

boys, and all his man servants subjected to the greatest of Jewish rites, flte is perfectly indespensible under the Jewish law, both in Jews and in Gentiles,

Every servant and stranger within the gates is bound to submit to it. Let Mr Cecil turn for proofs of this to Genesis

xvii., 10, and to the rent of the chapter.

As soon as he has recovered from the

effects of this rite, Mr Cecil will, of

courge, desire to see himself inferiqr □one of the patriarchs in all Hebrew pus ;

toms, and he will therefore have to look

out for three or four additional wives for

himself and bring them home, snd as many fair handmaids for concubines.

For the propriety of this he may consult the history of fhe patriarchs generally. But having now made a very good ... and most exemplary patriarch, of himself, * he will unfortunately find that he hag not brought by any means the whole of the exacting law into operation. Lerh ticus xvii., 10-J4 wiM start up and inform him that every man who lias eaten f}e»h „ with the blood in it rapst hs opt off froip

his people, and as in this un-Israelitish nation no man can have reached mani

hood, nor even boyhood, without eating

black-puddings, fowls that have had tl)eip necks wrung instead of having their throats out, and hares strangled in nooses

by poachers instead of being shot, Mr Mr Cecil will have nothing for it but to muster all the sturdy clowns of the district, and make them haul away his sons and his men servants to the village green, arid there cat them off from their people by the Mosaic mode of stoning them to death. Bat he, as the vindicate r of the Mosaic law, cannot stop here. This law is equally decisive against all who have gathered sticks on a Saturday—the Jewish Sabbath. (Numbers xv., 32-36). He will, therefore, have to assemble all the old women who have been guilty of the deadly sin of gathering slicks on a Saturday. Ha will have no possible escape from this, forthe texts referred to are most peremptory on the subject, and relate the summary infliction of » sentence on a man caught in the fact. Having dispatched all the old women and a good many •hildron of the district for gathering ■ticks, he will have then to deal with the presumptuous persons there. (Numbers xt., 30.) “The soul that doeth aught presumptuously (whether he be born in the land or * Ft--" ger) the same reproacheth the Lord, <* t that sou! shall be cut off from.among h.a people.” The next verse says he shall be utterly cot off. Bythe time he has despatched (he presumptuous —and I am afraid he will find the number great, unless bis district he much more humble-minded than districts in general—be would have the blasphemers and careers on his hands, and they must all be put to death. (Lev. xiv., 11-16.) All these being added to the gory stony heap, the disobedient to parents, and those whose patents said they were gluttons and drunkards, will have to be stoned too. (Deut. 2xi., 18, 20, 21.) By this time be will have brought his family and his district to a tolerably pretty mess in carrying out the Mosaic law, nay, if he Insists on its orderly execution, I doubt he will not have left a single soul—man, woman, or child—alive ; for the stiffnecked and uncircumcised generation, the eaters of black-puddings, of strangled hares, of hens and pullets with their twisted necks, the gatherers of sticks on a Saturday, the carsers and disobedient, the drunkards aod gluttons, make such a formidable portion of ordinary population that the man who escapes Mr Cecil’s zeal for the Mosaic law must be more than mortal. But long before the consummation of this catastrophe—(he result of an attempt to inaugurate the Jewish code in this Gentile country—he wou'd himself be arrested, tried, and condemned for manifold capital offences against English law, and would he on the way to the gallows. No doubt the good chaplain would inform him of another book beside the Old Testament, a book called the New Testament, a new and very different law, which he does not seem to take into account when he says that the Scriptures forbid ipritualiam. I am prepared to show, if you will grant me space in another issue, that spirit intercourse is sanctioned by Scripture, and that the teachings of spiritualism are in harmony with the , teachings of Christ. 1 will finish this letter by giving you a prayer that w*s written through an entranced medium in my own house about two weeks ago, just to show you that he is not such a bad fallow as my clerical friend would have you believe. The prayer attbo finish of the seance was—“ Part in peace, and may the Father of Light go with you wherever you dwell, may the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter, abide with you, giving you that wisdom and knowledge that to-day the world cannot receive nor take away. May you follow in the path of all bright pioneers of truth and love, leaving behind you footprints on the sands of time, that, like the flowers, may shed their fragrance when you shall be called higher. May this meeting to-night bring some spiritual comfort to all of you. Amen.— N. Tattebshall.” Apologising for trespassing so far on your valuable space, —I am, etc., Andrew Gibson. Burnside, Teranka, July 15th, 1886.