Theosophy and the Higher Life, Or, Spiritual Dynamics and the Divine and Miraculous Man (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880. Excerpt: ... IV.--MAN AS A SPIRIT; AND SPIRITUAL PHENOMENA AS PRODUCED BY THE SPIRITS OF THE LIVING. We are often told that in Spiritualism our great first duty is to accumulate facts. So indeed it is; but in this paper I shall, being thoroughly satisfied of the reality of the facts, take them for granted, and attempt to maintain a theory as to their nature. Briefly stated my theory is this. Man is a spirit; therefore, if the phenomena we call Spiritual are produced by spirits, there is no reason why the operating spirits should not be those of the living beings present. I wish it to be distinctly kept in mind that I do not say that all the phenomena we are acquainted with are so produced; I simply say and believe that all the phenomena we have yet obtained might be produced by the spirits of the living. Secondly, I say that inasmuch as we, as spirits, know we are present, but have no absolute proof that spirits of the departed are present, the presumption is that our spirits, known to be present, are the operators. Thirdly, The presence of a medium is almost always necessary to the production of the phenomena, --there Bead before the British Association of Spiritualists, 38 Great Bussell Street, December 10th, 1877. fore the presumption is that the spirit of the medium is the chief operator. One day, in the year 1853,1 met an old artistic and mesmeric friend, Mr. Collin, who knowing me to be interested in psychological phenomena, asked me if I had seen Mr. Home, the wonderful American medium, who had just arrived in London. I replied that I had not, when he said, " Then lose no time in making his acquaintance, for you will find that Spiritualism is a fact, and that it beats mesmerism into fits." He then narrated to me what he had seen and felt, namely, the production...