Chapter 847

[←838]

The Occultists have been accused of worshipping Gods or Devils! We deny this. Among the numberless hosts of Spirits—entities that have been or that will be men—there are some immeasurably superior to the human race, higher and holier than the highest saint on Earth, and wiser than any mortal without exception. And there are those again who are no better than we are, and some also who are far worse and inferior to the lowest savage. It is these last that command the readiest communication with our Earth, who perceive and sense us, as the clairvoyants perceive and sense them. The close proximity of our respective abodes and planes of perception are, unfortunately, in favour of such inter-communication, as they are ever ready to interfere with our affairs for weal or woe. If we are asked how it is that none but sensitive hysterical natures, neuro-and psycho-pathic persons, see—and occasionally talk with—”spirits,” we answer the question by several other queries. We ask: Do you know the nature of hallucination, and can you define its psychic process? How can you tell that all such visions are due merely to physical hallucinations? What makes you feel so sure that mental and nervous diseases, while drawing a veil over our normal senses (so-called), do not reveal at the same time vistas unknown to the healthy man, by throwing open doors usually closed against your scientific (?) perceptions; or that a psycho-spiritual faculty does not forthwith replace the loss, or the temporary atrophy, of a purely physical sense? It is disease or the exuberance of nervous fluid which produces mediumship and visions—hallucinations, as you call them. But what does Science know even of mediumship? Truly were the modern Charcots to pay attention to the delirium of their patients from a more psychic standpoint, Science—Physiology especially—might be more benefited than it is now, and truth have a wider field of fact in its knowledge.