The Oct Undergrad Gap 04 by hme Webb ie mare fpf tint my pe annie nny byty infomation sone sed tel oem elke! sete wag ‘om the Peo Prt i the Ute Ss of Amen pen Coat Pblaing Ca, LSet 6501 i, James, 1046, Tie a rand, pepe teeth bm on fort Tfyhed Seg slog E Ocak eee Po Preface Insroduction The Flight From Reaton Chapter 1 ‘The Necromancers Chapter 2 Babel Contents 5 aChapter 8 ‘The Masters and The Messiah Chapter 4 ‘The Lord's Anointed Chapter 5 Visions of Heaven and Hell Chapter 6 Secret Traditions Chepter 7 ‘An Anatomy of Souls Chapter 8 ‘The Spictal in Politics Chapter 9 ‘The Two Realities Index us ot a § 2 List OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1 The Cate of Spl (Mansell Coleton). age 2 Andrew Jachon Davis (Radio Ties Halla Pctre Library ate and Margret Fox Page 3 Abdul Babs (Cambridge Univerty Pes Swan Viehanaads {Ramakrishna Vea Soret) Se Ramalrina (Rarkrsing Vedanta Society) The Pulament of Reizons Page 4 “The yung Annie Besant (Mansell Callestion: CW. Leadbeater (Raia Times Helton Pitre Library). Madre Blavtshy {Joe Symonds. Annie Bera in fd ge mith, Kashani {Radio Times Hilton Petare Library) ‘The Croto at Lowder (Mansell Collection). Father gpa of Lsothony (Mansel Colleton) Carte of the Abbe Beall (roses of the Bris Museum) Ege Vines (Testes ofthe Bash Mascue) Page 6 Jospin Pads, ax Asthete and Sar Adan Mickiewicz (The Polish Library) A, HoeneWrosk (The Polish Libey) Andrei Towns (Tne Polish bray). ase 7 lps él Troster of the British Museum). The Pati Shen Tate ofthe Bais Mossom) Saint Yee # abeyde {astees of the British Museum). Prince Hardt Shan Trases the Bets lune). Pages ilar Sharp (Radio Tine Hulton Pitue Libary). W.B, Yeats (Afar Calton). Coonge Ruse (Radi Ties Halton Pure Luby) Thomas Dovdion. Kart Win Naor (Rado Tacs Talon Petre Libra) Charles Fourie (Radio Times Halton etre Liar) Aa Kingston ‘The author and publishers wld Ike to thonk the owner erga ate or pent edie tl aPreface Tr is protabe thst the mater sveyd in ths bok Bee ignore bens of ential unespeciy The oct ha a feoned prof the ove concert of member ef the {codon try Any nthe abject the closed courte ros tee of beng Urnded pa so Sold be salman set ay Cath ts qulonatrlstte tas hs ete upata iw of ison htt gore te os rev of he ih ‘otro ignore rg se of der inlet2 The Occult Underground development, and that the proper understanding of the workings ofthe occult mind explains much which has been puzzling commentators on the history ofthe lst fi as well. In particular such an understanding can make easier the journey into the “mind-set” employed by the romantic revolutionaries of today-—the hippies, commu nity-dwellers, the Movement, the, Undergcound. ‘The reader will discover the terms “Underground” and “Establishment” used throughout this book to describe cultural groupings very much eafier than those of the 20th century. Tt seems to me amazing that no historian has so far extended the terminology of the self-proclaimed Under tground back in time to discover whether a historical con- Lnuly exists 1 did not start inthis fashion; but was drawn to using the terms through tsying to answer a question now discussed in Chapter Four of the second volume, The O- Cult Establishment. The dichotomy of Underground and Extablishment is one of the most important concepts to have emerged from recent social changes. ‘Now, it would be perfectly possible to write a history of ideas taking asthe riterion of final importance some totally ignored standard such as the wearing of odd socks—that is, Supposing the information to be avaiable, In this way, an ‘unknown if eccentric parish priest might be made to appear the center ofan entire school of “add-socks wearers.” But at any given time there is a measure of consensus as to what are the more interesting or admirable activities of mankind ‘This comprises a ential Establishment, itself an interesting index to otherwise largely unimaginable “climates of opinion.” The oceult has be excluded from the Establish: iment consensus of what is finally "relevant," and relegated to the Niflheim of odd-socks wearers. But itis the very nature ofthe occult that it cannot exist except in opposition to-and interrelation with that eritical Establishment. It has therefore been part of my task to maintain thatthe occult is ;portant” and "relevant" to the aspirations of mankind; further, that itis worth study in its own right. AS 10 the question of “significance” in the history of Ideas: a thinker may be significant in a numberof ways. He Prefoce 8 may be a man of his time, an expert receiver and transmitter of « hypothetical Zettgeist. He may himself be ‘an original thinker, whose ideas are immediately relevant to ‘current problems. He may also exercise an influence over an extended period of time—elther his ideas stimulate dthers to produce ideas of their own, or themselves meet a fortunate tide in affairs and are horne along on its crest. There is also another thinker of significance, neither a ‘man of his time nor an iafluence on minds or society. This is the individual whose concerns seem suddenly relevant to the problems of « later age, although in his own time he may have been ignored and subsequently forgotten. The hneglected genius is a familar figure of mythology: but there are alko neglected lunaties who are worthy of study Thus, we might now discover—had history moved in that dicection—that the wearer of odd socks had been practicing Some “significant” form of social rebellion. Even on these ‘grounds the occult should have received better treatment than it has so far encountered, The faet that occultsts are ‘often delightfully eccentrie should not blind the enquirer to the existence of the occasional great man: the dedication ‘even of camp-followers has never been examined. This Study isan attempt to repair some of these omissions. 1 owe thanks tothe Mbrarians an staffs ofthe University Libre, Cambridge: the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Brits Museum: the National Library of Sealand: the Tonidon Library: the Warburg inaitate, University of Lon din and to Ml Weseneaft ofthe Harty Price Library. th Senate Howse, Univenity of London "To the Master of St. Benes Hall, Oxford, Mgr, Alfred Cibey. Prnee Tomah of Mikasa, John Patten, Wiliam find David Allen, and Robert Bailey-Kiog tam indebted for inspite, encouragement and suggestions “The expert koowledge of Miss Kathleen Raine on matters of Traditional thought has here. been as unavoidably Simplified and distorted as it was freely given, Wo the eatraordinary knowledge and generous tempers: snent of Franels King 1am very much in deb his detailed‘ ‘The Occult Underground equalntanceship with matters occult was placed urtint ingly at my service. ‘Without the continued encouragement, hospitality, and readiness to part with hard-won information shown by Ele Howe this book would never have been stitten; or written in o partial a form that it could make no claim to survey those neglected areas of 19th-century thought known so well to Mr. Howe, It need hardly be said that none of those who have so willingly proffered help is tesponsible for any errors or aberrations of my own. Bibliographical Note ‘There would be litle point in listing every book used in the wet Ing ofthis study: and two reasons make it difficult to provide = short clasied bibliography following noemal practice, The fist isthat consider the most useful eategories to be already defined by my chapter-headings; ad the second, thatthe estremes of ‘bas which are a common feature of occult liteature make general recommendations unwise. Therefore, to print a Tst of books on "Rosirueanism’” or “alchemy” would not only duplicate what ha aleady been done—see, in particular, A Le Calle, Manuel blographtque des sconces poyehiques Paris, 3 vals, 1912)—but run the risk of seaming to support erioncous, tnd sometime lutatie, opinion. The notes which fellow ate thes ‘combination of bibliography and referonce: Bearing in mind the dangers inherent fn dealing with ocult sourcemateril, reference to a book jin no way meant to endorse ts opinions oF Indeed any part of the work other than thet specially indicated, Introduction The Flight from Reason A rren te age of Reson came the Age ofthe Irtional. tha et tobe tapped tceted and pronounced pon, The fact tht I ew haere and now is daily announced by the pundits; but no one bas bothered to anatomize the beast historically. The label, like all historical labels—and all tags hung round the necks of apocalyptic Beasts—bas enly a limited use. If it serves to indicate that the period has been in certain aspeets one of reaction against the logical consequences of too much loge,6 The Occult Underground users pre el so ch wth Ago Ho whic ta he Ae ian. os le ae es oe sige t sean se ac ch vay egos meer ol mn he ene a meer fete pe ea rs pe Gia untangle mer cen ral ee emt of seems he brn of Ht Word ar Me meres ule, Tyree of he sigs itn Ra be rd rg of te peat iyumecttuer tacoma Bre amen capa an ee. race sta ie fam Fes Pe ears, isc ete ale wat rc cer rat ct ai an Maidens ede Rene secapoan eg ene satu oclin tas ofSuu ad t tion over the Physical world put i man advanced to relationship with the universe. His society, his awareness, hhis methods of thought, and most importantly the con: clusions he reached, were all changing round him. What is more, they could be seen to be changing and this was frighten The chief agents of the, metamorphosis have all been described as “revolutions.” The development of an in dustrial technology; the application of analytical method to the natural world the threatened changes in forms of Introduction government and the rising clamor of the poor; even the Sifdramatizing attitude known as Romantica al te cen a revolutionary changes Add to these factor the increasing contact of Europeans wth the peoples of Asia andi cer thot Weatora mas estnation of hime and iis place in the world required some dri revision. The Industrial Revolution reconstructed the Eropean econo: ty: Maat nan woe eed he ition population changed: communications improve o that nets became not merely of proc ners; andthe very feographial barter to spoedy travel began to dappest. $f clentfic method resulted in Darwin's theory of evolu tion and the application of eit standards to accepted notions of history and religion, by people like Ernest Renan nd David Strauss Ever since 10 the thet of social reveotion ba teed the quite eonsceners of Europe In the short but significant upheavals of 1848 over Blty Mlolent attempts took place to. topple «established ovenments, The Romane attude placed 4 sight of Signfieance on the individual which. not everyone wan prepared to accept, What was happening was the final Eollapse ofthe okd worktorder which had fist been fudely assaulted during the Rensticance and the Reforms tion Th the ear period ideas of duty to God and King bad sven way toa recognition of secular standards ad the pr Eni of polit During the 18¢h century thecegeadally Aeveloped an attitude of mind which enabled man to pre Sue ith more success his worldly activites. Int extreme fom ths becune Rationalism, andthe Age of Reason was Characterized not by a devotion to the tings of tis sword, any rate by @ neglect of things belonging to Inothen, ‘The Industnal, Sov, Scientific and Romantic Fevolitons were al, none way ar anaes, the outcome of Tisconcentration. But just when the Age of Reaon seemed to be bearing Fruit in the Loth century, there wae an tne pected reaction agaist the very method which had bought ‘iccess a wld veturntoarchae forms of belie, and amongs The Occult Underground the intelligentsia a sinister concentration on superstitions ‘which had been thought buried. So it might have appeared (oa dheartoned Ratoni If eis true that to welte a history proves thatthe subject of lscusson has become prety ile, Reason ed Sometime before 1965. In that year William Lecky publish td his History of Rationaliom, « compendivr of enlight- ned Vietoriana concerned largely with the elimination of “supertition” and the growth of humanitarian, ideas Witches are no longer bummed, the slaves are emancipated, rejoices Lecky, and invites his readers to join him In celebrating the “progress” of the Western world. Although ‘ationalism had fed to other things than the victory of humanitarian prineiples, to a certain extent Lecky was able to distinguish a mode of thinking for what it was. This argues a clear perception of what went belore: but also a recognition of the dangers of the present. Lecky knew all to ell the dfs of persading others to asep te truths of sweet reason ‘The immense majority ether never examine the opinions they hhave inherited, or examine them so completely under the dominating influence of the principle of education. that whatever may have been the doctrines they have been taught, they conclude that they aze so wnguestionably true, that nothing but a judicial Blindness can cause their rejection. Of the few who have obtained « glimpse of higher things, «large proportion cannot endure a conlit to which old associations and, above all, the eld doctrine ofthe guilt of eror lend such peculiar bitterness: they stifle the voice of reason, they turn ‘vay from the path of knowledge, they purchase peace at the ‘expense of trith, This i, indeed, in our day the rion fatal of| fobitacles to enquiry." This stifling of the voice of reason could lead to # straightforward return to old ways of thought and old methods of doing things. But such escapism became in- creasingly difficult. In 1859 Darwin's Origin of Species was published, and the great battle broke out between the ‘evolutionists and those who still asserted the literal truth of Irtroductn ° the scoount of Creation given in Genesis. Meanwhile, the historians were doing their best to destroy the notion ofthe New Testament as unchallengeable narrative. Renan’s Life of Jesus appeared two years before Lecky's History Nothing previously held as sacred and immune from tampering could escape the citicism of the scientific rthod. Ths, for the more thoughtful a simple return to the comforts of Christianity was unsatisfactory—although such a return was widespread, For religion saw the new science as an enemy. It was? To Christianity as understood in the early 19th century the new theories about man and the universe spelled total disaster if not contained within set limits. To some doubters such conflict brought a dark night ofthe soul in whieh the freedom of man from divine orde ing seemed a true and very terible thing itis often stated that the influence of Darvin and the new scientists had litte effect on the fith of ordinary pe ple, In time, however, the new ideas were assimilated and Aiffused. Anyway it has been observed that all the elements necessary to the evolutionary theory were present before Darwin's flash of intuition that placed each component in the right slot. The Origin of Species was a codification and the focus of dispute, but “many had obscurely fell” what Darwin stated openly.® And it was not only the efforts of Darwin and a few intellectuals that threatened to take away from man his few illusions of security. Much more potent, because practically observable, were the effects of the In- dustial Revolution and social agitation. Ifthe findings of the scientists meant forthe thinking classes the destruction of intellectual securities, alterations in the means of produc. tion and consumption were establishing a new form of society altogether, one in which the bases of wealth and security were not known from experience and which was therefore threatening, Among the classes deprived of the mean of politely reglting their own destiny, the cam- ign for a say in the government of their countries fathered momentum wit the demand fom the worst-off for a more just distribution of the world’s goods. Security,wo The Occult Underground mental, physical, financial, and spiritual, seemed menaced on every side. In order to live a tolerable life, some form of mental adjustment had to be made. This book is often con- cemed with those who failed to make the transition, Buti iss well to note that the forces of socal “progress” were by no means immune from the widespread anxiety about the ture of man. The condition was aggravated—particularly for the liste and literary worlds—by the attitudes instilled by Romanticism. The word “Romantic” has been so defined and redefined that I do not propose to enter into the game, But two characteristics of Romanticism are important from the point of view of this book: one @ popular, the other a scholarly definition.“ Romantic” in everyday speech means ‘unveal, pleasant, and dramatic. One charac- teristic of the movement known by academies as Roman- ticism is concentration on the self. The popular idea of something Romantic as pleasurable form of escapism results from this concentration on the self. By and large the opinion ofthe Age of Reason was thatthe universe revolved round man. Atany rate man was the perceptible center of things, and. an extremely important part of creation Therefore, all his acts, his passions, his minutest doings must be invested with an awesome significance, as the dramatic activities of the lord of the world. This reasoni was all very well, but it placed on the individual an enor mous burden in exchange for his privileged position at the center of things. Man was let to himself. He had only his own kind to tur to. From this “homoeentrie” vision of the universe resulted the idea ofthe Romantic as a dreamer, an Untealist. The overloaded personality might break down under the strain ofits own existence: pure escapism might be the result, at best a heightened and hysterical insistence on the overwhelming importance of one's every action In the middle of the 19th century it happened that the consciousness of changes in society combined with intellee- tual and artistic positions to produce a widespread flight Inmaduction ” from reason, whose findings appeared intolerable to the dignity of man, and insupportable to his knowledge af himself. This | have called the “crisis of consciousness.” ive was not petulance with humanity's perhaps in significant place in the cosmos, but simple fear. A sense of insecurity was made worse by the need to accept personal responsibility in the society which was evolving. Under God, oF ina hierarchically-structured society, the individual had been spared the necessity of making decisions in the frightening knowledge of the limitless degree of freedom which he possessed. OF course, there were always practical restrictions on what could and what could not be done. But the knowledge that one isthe atbiter of one’s own destiny is always a frightening discovery: and during the 19th century ‘whole peoples began to realize the extent ofthat fea. Eich Fromm has described some of the symptoms of such ‘withdrawal from the prospect of freedom: ut it scems as though historians have neglected the theories of the psy chologsts as being outside their province ‘Tn circumstances of ansiety and uncertainty, superstition is likely to make « prominent showing. This is seen as perhaps a regeession to infantile attitudes, or to beliefs ac- {quired early in life and afterwards suppressed: or perhaps as means of obtaining, some sort of illusory control over @ frightening situation. During the 19th-century crisis of consciousness ths sort of situation was the order ofthe day; fnd superstition flourished. ‘The most interesting facet of the flight from reason is the revival ofthe oceult. Under this widely misunderstood heading are grouped an astonishing collection of subjets: hypnotism, magic, astrology, water- divining, “secret” societies, and a multitude of similar topics of doubtful intellectual respectability. The discovery af the real nature of the occult makes posible a view of Kistory and society which Ibelieve is new. But this book is neither a complete history of the occult revival nor an attempt to compile anintellectual history ofthe last century and a half Both would be superhuman tasks Ii rather an2 The Occult Underground attempt to show how the oceult revival can be used as a key to erisis which we still have not resolved, and how the oc- cult relates to the better-lit regions of socety To understand this, one thing should be noted about the expression of ideas. In ters of man’s vision of himeelf snl his place in the world, «real fre-thinker is always a very rare bird. In the mid-i9th century one was for Revolution or Reaction, Progress or Order. Likewise, there was an over limited conceptual vorabulary to allow of great sophistica- tion in most people's way of looking atthe world. The terms with which man was most familiar—and probably the terms with which he is still most st home—to describe his thoughts about his relationship with the universe were religious or directly anti-religious, Thus it should not be surprising to hear the prophet of a socialist paradise ex- press himself in nearly religious fashion; particularly if the boiling of social discontents is borne in mind as a constant background to the evsis and its development. On the one hnand, the furnace of the revolution; on the other, the blackness of the void. God was dying, but Nietzsche had not yet officially erected his tombstone. 1848 was the year of revolutions in Europe; it also represents the beginning of Spiritualism in Ameciea, We shall find that the religious and the political, the aecult and the revolationary, run in the same paths, employ exch other's language. Western society was disoriented and dismayed in the midst ofits riches. Corporately it behaved rather like the iresolute Rationalist deseribed in Lecky's fulsome prose: There is a peviod in the history of the enquirer when old cpinions have been shaken or destroyed, and new opinions have not yet been formed a peried of doubt. of terror, and of darkness, when the voice of the dogimatist has not last ils power, ad the phantoms ofthe past stil hover over the min, 2 peried when every landmark is ost to sight, and every stars ‘elled, and the soul scoms daifting helpless and rudders: before the destoying blast It's inthis seaon of transition that the temptations to sill reason posses a fearful power" Introdeton ry 1. WEH, Lecky, History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism im Europe (London, 1870), vol, Ath eae tion, pp 945. 2 Despite the asertons to the contrary of s9 many clerics, For a good example of the believed dichotomy see Andvew D. Whites A'Hisiory of the Warfare of Scence and Theology 1 Christendom (Landon, 1875, reprinted 1955). Time and com promise have proved that there it perhaps nothing inherently i fampatile in Christianity and, say, evolutionary theory: and its ‘also true that not every abserver i the 18th century sew the op: Position ofthe new scence and the old religion in terms of lack tnd white—see C.C. Gillispie, Genesis and Geology (Cambridge, Mate, 1951)-but# csnnot be disputed that the challenge pesed by empirical investigation to revealed troth maintained in dogmatic form was ofthe severe kind ‘3. Gerteude, Himmelfrk, Darwin and the Deroinian Revolution, (London, 1959), 37: of also Herbert Butterfield, Origine of Moder Science (London, 1957), p. 283 ‘4 Exich Fromm, Fear of Freedom (London, paperback reprint, 1960, of original 1942 edition). 5." Gustav Jahoda, The Psychology of Superstition (Lon: don, 1969), p16. 16. Leeky, Rational, vol I, pp. 956,Chapter 1 The Necromancers Tae gas cae down o earth again on St Mach 188; The sof Watespenrance sally at potas fut ule sui the ‘ivan pact dn. Iwate sal wooden Gaze oe reac nr Now or Te otase ses Se oun sores sd llr Selon Sein aden! pings ofthe Spt eveton wri6 ‘The Oceut Undergroend Before such a gale of feminine conviction, one can but bow sgracefully and investigate the grounds for belief. At the time the spits appeared, the house had been tenanted for three and a half months by a family named Fox. During the whole of the last fortnight in March, 50 they afterwards testified, they had been troubled by a mysterious rapping which shook tables and chairs. This is the evidence of Mrs, Margaret Fox: We went tobe cal, because we ad been broken so much of cur eet that Las amon sick My husband had just gone to bed when we fist head the ose this evening had js lad Gowan when i commenced ss sual Tine it from al Me oer noes ha ever herd nthe House. The gis, who sept inthe the bed nthe room, head the nese ad ied Yo eke snl noe by shaping elt lingers The youngest lis about twelve years i Sh the ane who made her hand go fast ashe made enor ber hands o flogers, the sound followed up inthe oom ed sot sind det ht ant et sane ner ot raps the gis cid. Whea she topped the suns woud se fora short time: The other gt sho In er hitecnth yea then spoke in sport and said" Row do just af do Count one, two thre, fur ee, the same tine sting ene ha the other ‘he blows which she made were repeated as before. It speared to answer her by repeating every How she made: She ely dit once She then began tobe vated nla the ite, “Count ten” andi ade ten sokes omnis Them | tsked the ages of my diferent chen sccsshy, tn {806 the numberof raps eoespanding to the age of each of my eden The Necromancer ” {then asked it if was 2 human being making the nolse, and If so, to manifest it by the same noise, There was no noise. 1 then asked ff was a sprt?—if lt was, to manifest it by two sounds, [heard tvo sounds as son asthe words were spoken Such the “aa” rate of how exmmencaton ee ee Re eee) tbls ten he sai wean eet ning tgs te homely rans of Mi erat caer’ uchconmiion ny we hat be, eee ets ths memento aed we pete a een ck Ree ae oe seapratprre awry poor cham ater et tat the Sal wes ante Bo caching Sony ig the ital iden, Mage Tos Sin dBat rece hehtarhan ess se and at se Auburn, A ot hs See eae aat fae eimacd sae aspen ced ft te ae ee ee a ee me ipso pec incarde wiretencet Caan te bea Thee: eee ee mach stents ho Re wir eter Wat ese wor pope odo wt he mi ate Me Wt ge tht it er he Commit foe tlt lee ‘he aged sent shed the pon There nah t ae so te i te te Se ie ort tan Fee ie ae aoa ama Be Reb deaget telat te en ae6 The Occult Underground cated’ AS early asthe winter of 1850, a certain Dr. Pots, stile lecturing to terry onthe stage of the Gorntan Hal, Roehester scene of the Spit ft ‘rumphal meting had delighted is aence by caching Wir tee to prove that he fo coll praduce rapnges I Apa 891," Mes "Noman Culver sued statement aterwards published the New York Merl, thatthe Fo: ech ied oerthat Nyfl poed the ae by raking that fortes nally, in 1988 Maggie broke down and confessed, Ske gave sances” ob stage before large audiences, shoving fw the rappngs had been produced. Her incredulous sister wrote, "hey made $150,000 cle”* More, Tt Seemed, coud be made out of esponure than ott of the ‘ances themuelver The tricks of two uecovous children fad got completly oot of hand nd had not Ameri been fled with people beegng ora evelation which wa scien Utealy demonstrable the deception. would have. been Bere dnl hoe ge. The st win hd Criginaly contacted tne gi vas supposed to have been that of « murdree poder whese gravely unde the ox house. ‘Excavations produced some teeth and. bones Albiowsly haman" ‘To a leat one of those in the sere, the moral af the proceedings had become dreafaly misled. Fish Kent Kine, the Arte explorer, became fofatuated with Magste Fon, whom he marieds short while before his death, Gace fe wrote to her ‘When 1 think of you, dear darling, wasting your time, youth and conscience for few paltry dolls, and think ofthe crowds ‘ho come nightly to hear the wil stoves of the frigid North, 1 Sometimes feel that we ate-not so fer removed after all My brain and your body are esch the sources of attraction, and 1 confers that there is got so much diference." Kane was not far wrong. His tales of Arctic adventure filled a need for escapist fantasy; in a way. so did the bogus stances. ‘The far-away world of the polar iee-eap was no nearer the audiences to whom Kane lectured in New York The Necromancer » than the “Summer-Land” of the spirits. In one aspect, Spiritualism can be seen as pure wish-fulfillment, for despite confessions and exposures the faith ofthe converts hheld secure, The tenacity with which the early Spiritualists guarded their dream is well Illustrated by the attitude adopted by Light, the London Spiritualist paper, on first receiving the news of the Fox confession. “Mrs. Jencken’ (Kate Fox), it wrote, “has for a long time been vietim to a deplorable habit which has apparently destroyed her moral consciousness, and rendered anything she may say or do un ‘worthy of attention.” Even more incredible is the state iment by Algernon Joy, Secretary of the British National Union of Spiritualists, concerning the notorious exposés of séanoe-faking given by the conjurors Maskelyne anc! Cook, at the Egyptian Hall in Londoa. He declared that the per. formers had developed into the finest mediums inthe world “for strong physical manifestations." Spiritualist phenomena soon progressed beyond mer table-rapping. The most famous of all mediums, Daniel Dunglas Home, who displayed his talents before the Tsar (he svas expelled from Rome on the orders of the Vatican, but eventually died a Catholic) was observed by Lord ‘Adare, the Master of Lindsay, and a gentleman called Charles Wynn, to float out of thirdloor window at 5 Buckingham Gate, and back in through another seven feet away." On another oceasion, weote Lord Adare: Partially covering himself with the window curtains, but holding the las with the brandy in it above his head, between ‘us and the window so that we could se he was lifted off the {oor aboat four or five fet. While inthe aie, we saw 2 bright Tight in the glass; presently he came down and showed us that the glass was empty, by turning it upside down; he alo came to lus fumed fe upside down upon our hands then going back to the windove he hel the glass up and we heard the lguid drop Into It. He began talking about the brary, and sai, Tes un der certain ersurmstances a demon, eal devil but if property ‘ised itis most beneficial” Ashe sald this the light became ‘sie in the glass, and he was again eased In the ale "But0 ‘The Occult Underground he said, “if impropecy sed i bevomes 10 (the light die sppeared) “and drags you down, down, lower and lower" and he spoke he sank gradually down til he touched the floor withthe glass. He again rlsed the glass above his head, and the liguor el over and through my fingers into the glass, rope ping fom the ai above mes." No conjuror would have difficulty in recognizing a nice line in patter—the slow descent of Home symbolizing the fall into drunkenness; and under the ions, most of these feats could be duplicated. Alter the spectacular stage performances of the Davenport Brothers® "Ghost Shows became very popular as a branch of conjuring, and ‘much attention has been devoted to duplicating the phenomena of the séance-room." Ja 1891 a repentent “medium” published his Revelations, which contain among. ‘other secrets a method for performing one of Home's other feats that of handling ht cols and bathing his fae fn the TEs fae to say thet if Home was a conjuror, he wasa very good one. Most of his competitors did litie better then arrange for guitars and candlesticks to fly about in a totally darkened room. The raps, of course, continued to be heard, From the very early days spirits had. "materialized themselves, forming a visible body from the mysterious substance, “ectoplasm,” produced by the medium. The “direct voice” séance, at which the medium went into a trance and purported to speak with the voice ofa dead per= son, was another innovation, But few professional medims hhave escaped without at least one exposure for cheating Home himself was convicted in the courts of having used ‘spirit voices” to cozen some £24,000 from a Ms. Lyon." ‘The argument of the Spiritualists thet one exposure does ot invalidate one hundred cases of evidence of survival transmitted through mediums is unanswerable, But the crucial fact is this—that with all the evidence to the con trary, with scoffers on every hand, people believed implicit- Iy in the Spiritualist revelation. It is elatively simple to decide what motives influenced the fraudulent mediums. The almost unanimous reply of The Necromances a the early critics was “money.” This probably only half the story. Like the Foxes, the Davenports sprang from humble ‘origins, For those whose social position was not quite what they could wish; for those who were unsure of making their way according to the standards of conventional society; oF for those who felt in any way insecure, the spiritualist movement formed a closed circle within which they could demonstrate their essential worthiness. Any cult performs for its members the function of status giving, or "making them feel important,”= How much more so Spieitualism, if the devotee ‘'discovers” himself to have mediumistic powers It is simply unrealistic to play the moralist in these ‘matters: forthe line between self-deception and deliberate fraud is so delicately drawn as almost to seem invisible Sincere or fraudulent, however, the early mediums found the terrain well prepared. Their success would never have attained its remarkable proportions but for the efforts of three men: a Swedish engineer turned prophet, an Austrian physician branded unacceptable by the world of learning, land a young American good-for-nothing who took to seeing, ‘The prophet was Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). His conversations with angels and spirits led him to publish the weighty Arcana Coelestia in London, in 1749. 10 bad a dis ‘coutaging reception: only two copies were sold in the first two months” But gradually Swedenborg acquired a reputation which, although at first limited, was ten years after bis death consolidated in a church. Starting from its, chapel in Esst Cheap, the Church of the New Jerusalem ex- tended its influence into Europe and—most importantly from the point of view of Spiritualism—Into the United States. By 1828, the tenth General Convention of the ‘American New Church reported eighty places where the tye doctrine was taught, as opposed to the bare forty-nine congregations claimed next year for Britain, where the gospel had first seen the light, Since 1796 Swedenborg had experienced mystical states: supernatural flashes of light and other manifestations assaulted bis inner eye. His bent for mystical literature in-2 ‘The Occult Underground clged im to altach ome importance to thes oourences tnd his scletie taining encouraged him to fame, his Mision ats system. Cradally he dae ito an increasing iy "spistual™ frame of mind, in which he saw the uth symbole dreamy whose siglficance was hard t inter: pret Bot soon his elations with the heavenly Kingdoms Brew more diet and he hell conversions with angel ind pits He decribed the process follows" hen angels speak for a man they torn themveves to hip and on thertlves with hin; and thi conjonstion of angel ‘ith man exoses both tobe in ike thought.” The angels appeared to speak i his own language, but convertion with them wat rarty, becatse the slate of tan had eee so changed that “tis commerce is no longer ith anges, but with spits who arena a heaven,” Even thi tor of contact had become uncommon, however, because it was dangerous Now hese was a man who claimed ia the ost matter fact way, to have been in daly cota withthe spin wer, and described the types of ereatre he encountered, such a those who fe had hen “entirely concerned about Suratons”* mich In the manner In which the adv rtural sents were beginning to clay rocks tnd other objects of thir legitimate interest. Moscone, the Satine essed by he Cush the New Jen wal ited the contemporary mad of apocalypee, Soden Tong had tat that there fad lead been two great judgments which ad fallen on mankind, and both had Signalled the end ofa established Church, he Flood had meant the end of a hypothetical Most Ancient Chur; and ‘the Caveifiion that of the Ancient Representative Church. Swedenborg ad conduded that the Third. Age, that ‘of the Chistian Church wae due in its turn to be overthrown. This tid jodgment had been prophesied by Christ and foretold a Revelations testo ths tat thatthe Chur of the New Jerusalem sought toinaugurte the New Age. Robert Hindmarch, one ofthe leading lights of the early "New Church" withthe hope ofthe new dis The Necromancer 2 sation firmly upon him, flt—in common with almost very mystic in Waope-that the Holy” Alliance would fulfil every prophecy of the Millenium. Accordingly. he Aispatched letters tothe thee signatory monarchs, together Sri parcels of books from the New Jerusalera Temple, Salford, Monchestor ‘There was consteration in Salford tvnen ederik Willian of Passa ately bothered to r= ply. in an envelope emblazoned with the arms of bis Flose” The incident, unimportant i isl, is symptomatic OF the tenor of thought prevaling smong the devotees of the New fensalem: It wes in this manner that the thought of Swedenborg was transmitted outside the studies ofthe intelligentsia "To the prehistory of Spiritualism, Franz Anton M {c. 17341815) conteibuted two things, amoverem, and the Popularizing of the idea of tance. From the Mesmeric ovement other cults than Splitsisn were to take thie Inspiration, But Spiritualism alone came to depend on the notion of trance; fort was in trance thatthe spits spoke through the medium and pave messages from the departed ‘Te high points in Mesmer's career ace easily charted. In 1765 he pursed bie medical examinations with honors Bat the title Of his thesis harked back to the medicine ofa. cen- tury before: De influ planetaium in corpus humanun the influence of the planets on the human bod)—this betrayed his preoccupation with the theories of Paracelsus tnd con earlier medical speculators Iwas in this diseria- tion that he fist broached his idea tat the influence ofthe Stas n the body might be exeresed by means af "subtle Tad" physical means of transfersiog foree™ Tor some years these ideas lay Tallow, but in 1774 Mester was again inspired by the teaching of Paracel In that year he heard of the astonishing succes ofthe Jesuit Father Mavian Hell one’ of Mera Thea curt astologersin curing hs patent with magnets This was @ Farscelsian, prescrption for tansterting the supposedly beneficial “subtle figs” into the patient’ body, Mesmer ‘ow began to improve upon hismaster’s theories, for afte a™ The Occult Underground period of experimentation he became convinced that the tures which he also was obtaining were effected by the ‘means, not of his magnets, but of his own bodily ine fluence.* His ideas became more elaborate, until in Paris he drew up a Memorandum on bis discovery of this new force, which he called “Animal Magnetison.” , Propositions A responsive influence exits between the heavenly bodies, the earth, and al animated bodies, 3A fluid universally difused, so continuous as to admit no vacuum, incomparably subtle, and natorally swsoeptible oF Feceiving, spreading, ard communicting. all motor ctor Dances, the means ofthis influence ‘This eesiprocal action is subject to mechanlcal lows with which we are not yet familar” From these relatively tentative conchisions all sorts of $Ktange gospels were to are. "The most immediately obvious application of “Animal Magnetism” was in medicine. The inital practlioners of magnetic" cures were sometimes bizarre a thelr choice of method. In 1192 2 French commission, which included Benjamin Fracklin and that indefatigable sifernvnlikely places, the astronomer Baily, reported on the cure as prac- thoed by Mester’ fiend and disiple, D'Eslon. The hapless patients stood round a tub filed with bottles covered with ‘water. From this tu led iron rod, which they could place on the alilcted parts of their anatomy. Sometimes they ittd ands, to form a circle; sometimes singing took place, sooner a str the magnetic st ucts 7 convulsions, vomiting, hysteria, and. the spiting of eae ic amusing the pet cole commission could find no evidence of the magnetic The the magnet The cian of ana cme, homesr ws the mesmerie sleep" In this miraculous slate the magnetizer could persuade his subject that his lines as usury. na tmore sophisticated version, the operator merely mesmer- ined the subject, and while he was asleep eared out a The Necromancer 2% Gperation by orthodox surgical means. Significantly forthe Evelopmentof Spiritualism, was in the Engish-specking orld thatthe use of mesmerism in medicine obtained is fet serious hearing, ln 1898 John Elioton as forced {o rege his Profenorship at Univentty College Hospital, Lontion, cause of his use of eimal magnetism. Five Years Tater he started the Zot to publre his views, ad heen ations performed under mesmeieInivence began nd A Sc, Janes sd, earied out the st sch operation in 1845 at Hooghly, India: and in esponse qo his sucess» Mesmerie Hospital was setup at Caleta, The'movement found its fist theoretician in James Braid who, in 1948, published his Newrynology,or The Rationale of Neroous Sleep. Butt never established sell within the ttadl of Establishment medicine. The rasons Tor this, and the real significance ofthis rejection will be housed late ut atthe moment it sufficient to observe that Elitson's unorthodox views didnot stop at animal Inagnetisn, but included the practice of phrenology—the At of reading charactor fom the bumps an the head—and that in 1824 he had founded the Phrenologieal Sacety of ndon* We should not be surprised discover further rinority movements combining n this fashion during the Course of the ocelt revival loton, however, was the holder of Chai: this could not be sald ofthe majo of howe in Ameria who afected to prectice mesmerie medi, pheenology, and general hreall under the ites of Doctor" ot “Profesor” The twos primitive superstitions Became elevated tothe status di the new scenes, to the "magia! element already ine Terentia the mesmere cure was added anather, noes dis turbing. While subjects had boon inthis state of trance Notes ad spoken though them, purporting tobe those of Ulead people, Frank Pocmore ces two interesting case: the fat Tom a early as 1787, when the spiis.were hestionad in Sweden through the mooth ofa gardeners Sle The second was brought to the notice of the bliin January, 18%8. when the furnitrerestorer, Alphonse26 The Occult Underground Cahasnet, published an account of his lengthy observations of Adele Maginet, who produced in the tance state visions ‘of dead people very much lke those that mealsins claim to obtain today. Similarly, the German experimenter, Jung Stiling, had called attention to the apparent communien. tion through those fn trance with the spirit world “Thus, when the rappings at Hydesvile reached « more than parochial publi, when tables began to tr, twist, and levitate from New York State lo St Petersburg, the material was at hand forthe scholaely and the pilsophical to on taive of ita system. Mesmerie thought was not tobe eile to the domain of quack medicine” for slong time yet. The experiments ofthe Mesmeris were pat of the revolution in scienifie-thought which as everywhere apparent Man's knowledge. it seemed, had lon been confined within «small dark box af man's ova making twas not at all unlikely that on breaking out from this constition the Kingdom of Heaven might alo be found on the other side. Tt was the mesmerie movement in its form as popular superstition that gave birth to Andeew Jackson Davis, the Seer af Pheri who was 0 Bese the fit the. coretisian of the Spiritualist mavement.> Davis-and what Ser or poet does not do so?deserbes his childhood ‘misunderstood. and senskive. For his son's nightimares, father Davis prescribed brimstone and tieacles for the daydreams and fantasies which were later taken as evidence ofa supernatural vocation, the diagnosis was "worms. In 1843, when Andrew Jackson Davis was seventeen, there appeared in Poughkeepsie » Professor Grimes who held the Chair of Medical Jurisprudence at Castletown Medicel Gollege, aud was something of a theoretician of rmesmerism. He was a firm believer in the "subtle fluid, ‘which he alled the "Ethetium” and he proposed to demonstrate is theories 0 the gavning inhabitants of Poughkeepsie by mesmerizing several fst subjects, among swhom war Andrew Jackson Davis, With Davi, the attempt {tmesmerism wat a fallare; but after the professor's depar- The Necromancers a ture, a tailor named Levingston decided to ty his own PeDavie went into trance, he was afterwards to relat, with the greatest reluctance. He felt asf he was dying Horrid thoughts of disorgantaation continued to distress me. [aught but an eteroal midnight clothed my tender spirit, and 1 ‘was filled with terror. The darhness became more dark and ap palling. And now 1 war sized with an unearthly shudder, fnd-—terable to relate—1 found myself revolving in th blackened glootn with an inconceivable veloc! I seemed to bee revolving in sical path, with an orbit, wide at fist and every revolution on iy descending light contracted my move- ‘ent Bown, dows, { sank, til mmersed in that mighty ocean ‘where conflicting elements were swallowed by a meubtaln Weave of darknes, which grasped me within is mighty folds, tind Tsank to the lowest depth of forgetfulnes. Davis's own explanations for these unpleasant sensations beara remarkable resemblance to te ncenunts given by thove who have tsken mescaline or LSD. They were, he thowght in great measure attributable tothe gloomy vews of death Sd St posh subsequent tonto, sted tof mind aroun eel theolgiad teachings These sensations were not fxptencd on subnequcnty entering te ate In other words, his bad trip resulted from the fear of bell- fire. Davis began to give demonstrations of his clairvoyance in the mesmerie state. These seem to have been little better than simple conjuring. For example, he would read a newspaper blindfolded. But, according to his own account, his powers developed rapidiy, and he soon found himseli boully transported around the countryside. Once he was taken forty miles away into the Catskill Mountains, where hye met a mysterious stranger with a curious silver cane, This opened up, and proved to contain all the secrets of ‘medicine, in the shape of spall blocks, with the name of theeo The Ovoule Underground disease onthe outside, and a drug to cure it within, Davis ‘vas not allowed to koep the silver cane, but nonetheles set bout practicing mesmerie medicine and. opened two Suecessul “lairoyant clinics where he diagnosed the ness of « patient while himself mesmerized. Throughout his career ‘he continued to. practice. various forms of rnedicine: but it was not until 1886 that he obtained a recognized medical degree, and his presriptions strike the Teader as belonging to a much elder word than that of Inesmorin that a ght and goblins andthe ee, For a poisoned finger, frog’s skin wes to be applied; for dloatness rats skins behind the eat, or ol from the legs of weasels. His most orthodox cures contained an element of the folksy" for example, prt of the remedy for” Pin in the Neck of Housekeepers” was to "Squeeze your throat ‘whenever itis threatened with soreness, and gargle with qed-pepper. Chew a few chamomile flowers before break fast Tes precisely this element of nature wizardry inthe early cateer of Andrew Jackson Davis that should be emphasized, Decause Davis himself was always insistent that he was a ‘man of the people. Of the fact there can be na doubt; but the Seer datnazed his cae with oversmuch protesting. He ‘was food of repeating that he had only read one book in is life, and that a romantic novel This statement i aly con- tradicted by the familiarity shown by Davis withthe works ‘of Swedenborg and the socialist Charles Fourier—the ater ‘riginally though a book called The Social Destiny of Man. ‘ecording to one of Davis's esrly supporters, the Rew George Bush, Professor of Hebrew at the Univenity of New York, Davis was able before 1545 to quote passages from the Arcana Coclestia with the exact references. The date Is auite important, because it was in 1845 that Davis et" im- pressed to begin dictating in trance the work that made his potton The icles of Nt. yo th come pendium of poor philosophy and ecstatic langage reveals fn acquaintanoe wth Swedenborg which is more than The Necromancer 2 superficial; and Davis, at least, was far from illiterate, oc- ‘casionally rising to a moving pitch of visionary exaltation. "" In the beginning, the Univercoelum was one boundless, definable and unimaginable cean of LIQUID FINE, The Inont vigorous aad ambitious imagination is not capable of Torming am adequate. conception of the height, and depth, land length, and breadth thereol. "There was one vast expanse ‘of liquid substance. It was without forms; for it was but ome Form. It had no mations; but it was an eternity of Motion. It twas without pats frit wae a Whole. Pails didnot exist bat the Whole was as one Particle. There were no suns, but it'was one Bteral Sun." We are either forced to disbelieve the Seer of Poughkeep- sie of to have recourse to the concept of “clairvoyance of printed matter,” which has been put forward by his sup porters. As regards the conditions in which The Principles of Nature were dictated by the entranced Davis to his mesmerizer, Dr, Lyon, and amanuensis, the Rev. William Fishbaugh, there is litle to suggest the presence of an organized fraud; and we must suspend judgment." Dic- tated by spirits, Davis's conscious or subconscious mind, filtered through editors or not, The Principles of Nature is a remarkable production, built by or around a village lad with his head stuffed full of Swedenborg and second-hand social theories, who became a prophet because he suited the mood of the time. The book itself is a good index to that very mood. “The mood was frankly revolutionary. His English publisher, John Chapman, felt it necessary to introduce Davis with a disclaimer which would absolve him from a farge of subversive activites, The year, afterall, was 1847, and all kinds of apocalypse were at hand, “But those readers who ace aoquainted with the general character of my publications will not suspect me of being swayed by such considerations .. "No, but they might well and jus Iy suspect Davis. Iti the second volume which is from this point of view the most interesting: the first containing0 ‘The Occult Undergoand Davis's hyperbolic if gorgeous cosmology. The sequels en- lied A Vote to Mankind, a ttle placing it squarely within the polemical fashion of the day, andi tract ofthe mst rabid socialism There are three clases of sci: The poor, ignorant, enslaved, oppressed and working classes. Them welhy, ered exten, pres and iting The ich, imtligent, enslaving, eppresing, and idle Society exploits the poor who, because they are un- educated, are more easily enslaved by superstition and sup- pressed by legal codes. The poor are nonetheless the basis of society. ‘The poor are the sustaners, because they are the industrious They ate the producers of wealth a of all the blessings that clzcalate through other and higher societies; and yet they are the forgotten, the despised, andthe nnedvostedl™ Society is constituted so as to preserve the status quo: the professional clases are united with this end in view. But of all professions “none is absolutely more anenviable and more corrupting then that sustained by CLERGYMEN.”" ‘The constant fulminations of Davis against the clergy are in direct contrast to his earliest recorded writings, dating from his mesmerie period, the Lectures on Clairmativeness. There salvation is taught to lie in Chest alone, here the ecclesiastics are denounced as keoping the people in subjec- tion. Podmore has conjectured that the early work was sp- pressed; and if his isso, it would seem that a case could be ‘made out for Davis changing his views tomeet the demands of the moment ‘The human race, thinks the Seer, is diseased. Men ae ll ‘organs ofthe great human body. In tis, certainly, there isa divinely-ordered hierarchy of ability through dividuals can progeess, but the fundamental law is the law of association. This is drawn directly from Fourier. "There isa constitutional and mutual affection manifested between ‘The Necromancers at ‘every particle and compound in Being. This isthe lew of ‘ssociation.” ‘The solution to society sills Davis finds in the formation of caoperatives, and an equitable division of labor. Over the whole derived theory is laid the goss of the Millennium. He prophesies the Golden Age, visualized before him by David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, Malachi, Confucius, Zoroaster, Brahma, Jest, Mohammed, and Fourier. In this remaskable time—"In ‘every continent, nations converse through the medium of the electric fire,” The New Age was imminent—it was ‘coming—now! “The tide of intelligence is rising, and is flowing to and overall nations, even as an ocean of truth and knowledge... 17 EbBS NOT AGAIN!” “This was the man who became the leading theorist ofthe itualist movement. But it scems just as likely from The Principles of Nature that he could have become a political agitator, a Utopian socialist, of an itinerant mesmerist of the backwoods. His association with the Spiritualist cause was probably more « matter of chance than choice. The year after his great work was published saw the political up heavals in Europe, but also the spiritual bouleversement neater home. Davis, and the group gathered round him and his paper, the Univercoclum, were acknowledged authorities on the supernatural, and it was from this group, which included Thomas Lake Harris, that most of the Teaders of the Spiritualist movement came.” Davis himself ‘went from stcength to strength. He developed the power to pass into the clairvoyant state without the need for a Iagnetizer; he was called in to examine epidemics of rap ping for the presence of spirits; and the most important, he txercised his new faculty in plating the geography of tl ‘Summer-Land,” from which the spirits communicated with those stil on earth, Chiefly on the basis of recent ‘astronomical investigation into the rings of Saturn, he argued the possibility of the real, physical existence of this cea in the Milky Way: but spirits ascending upwards through the six spheres to the Godhead soon lost all ‘material basis.” This is not the place to discuss his sources;2 ‘The Occult Undergrad {or the Spirals futon ont the Surmer-Land, and legions of sic afterwards made it their own. But the Seer of Poughkeepsie never lost his character as a social reformer: and it is unsurprising to find that a resolution moved by him and his wife Mary, at a Spiritualist Congress ‘of September 1856, was concerned not with the problems of ‘other-world geography, but with a greater degree of ema ‘ation for marred women." "Andrew Jackson Davis was not the only prominent Spirituclist to have a bent for social reform. At the age of cighty-three Robert Owen was converted by’ sittings with the American medium, Mrs. Hayden. In his. Rational Quarterly Review he made a formal profesion of faith, and the next year (1854) brought out the fist part of The New Existence of Man upon Earth declaring thatthe revelation of the spirits heralded the Millennium. Owen seems, in fact, only to have been interested inthe spirits as heralds of his new order. At his séances he would ask whether various Heads of State were the "proper persons” to inaugurate the New Dispensation. At a convention on 14 May 1856, called “The First Meeting of the Congress ofthe Reformers ofthe World,” there were introduced, under bis auspices but emanating from « mediumistie source, detailed plans for “Homes of Harmony,” of «strange new arcbitecture tis ‘nat Owen's influence on the Spiritualist movement whi Jmportent. but the mere fact that he could have seen spirits as the precursors of his long-awaited Millennium, Movements which to us seem far spart could to contem= poraries appear to run parallel it is not really surprising, because they responded to the same conditions. The same ‘rss of consciousness was forced on socialist and prititive mystic alike ‘The areas in which pita is are and obtained a real hold were, acording, to a recent survey, those of the highest educational standards and the lowest rate of literacy. Tn this connection is noted the Lyceum moveme for adult education in the United States, which had its hey- day in the 1820s and 1880s. By 1834 some three thousand The Necromancee 3 Lyceums existed under State Boards Now it is worth noting that the emphasis is placed on adult education: that isto say, that there i a certain degree of self-education in~ volved. Tt was not necessarily in the areas of the highest standards at the upper extreme of the seale in which Spiritualism took root. It is noteworthy that Andrew Jackson Davis bettays his chagrin at his own lack of orthodox schooling all through A Voice to Mankind: the poor are uneducated, society i designed to keep them so His public insistence on his lack of skill at reading can only be reconciled with bis establishment of a “Children's Lyceum” or “Spiritualist Sunday School,” if we assume that the image he desired to project was that ofthe deprv- ced child making sure that others would have the benefits he had lacked, There is unfortunately no evidence to prove the connection between Spiritualism and the man anxious “to better himself"; but it might be a profitable line of enquiry. In Britain, Spiritualism was almost purely an urban religion. Agein, it appeal was not confined to the working. class, But itis doubtful whether this statement holds out side London, for in 1878 one London Spiritualist was recorded as saying that the bulk of Spiritualist support in the North came from people whom he deseribed as “utterly illiterate to an astounding degree." There is not enough evidence to allow of anything but speculation as to exactly ‘what sort of person joined the ranks of the new religion. All that can be said is that Spiritualism gained converts from every section of society, that the reasons for conversion ‘were most likely to be individual and personal; but that there is a definite connection between the new Millennium of the spirits, and that ofthe social reformers, made chiefly in the writings of Andrew Jackson Davis. tall events, the movement spread. In France, Davis's “Summer-Land” found a rival theology in that of “Allen Kardec.’ Kerdec had no pretensions fo seership, but had discovered what seemed to him to be a "perfectly coherent picture of the universe” through the mediumship of two {young girls, This dectrine perhaps owed something to the4 The Occult Underground contemporary interest in the Orient, for the Iynch-pin was reincarnation. Relneamation took place in other worlds as well as this, and at the end of the process the travelling soul became pute spirit This process was not, however, incom- patible with Christianity. Here Kardee follows Sweden- borg: for he saw Spiritualism as the new revelation com- plementing and supplanting those of Moses and Christ Imperial Courts were not immune to the new concern. I Russia the postion ofthe Tsar with regaed to the Orthodox Church, and still more with regard to the censo regulations, did not permit Imperial opinion on the spirits to be disclosed. But ardent Spiritualists fondly supposed that, given the opportunity, the Romanovs would declare for the new dispensation. Meauwhile they had to content themselves with the knowledge that a Captain Perbikov of the Imperial Navy was permitted to issue w periodical of Spiritualist complexion, while the redoubtable Count Alex- ander Aksakov—who ‘was much too intellectual ever to hhave had a wide public—was foreed to publish from Leip- zig.” Archduke Johann became alarmed of Spiritualism. He noted that this modem superstition flourishes not ony among the ‘weavers ofthe Baunuer county, or among the workmen and peasants in Reichenberg, but it has also fixed its abode in umetous palaces ard rskleners of our nobility, s0 that in ‘ites of the monarchy, and especially in Vienna and Buaa-Pesth, ene spiituaistic seit exist, carrying on thee ‘obscure nusanoe without any interference, He approached Baron Hellenbach, the most eminent Austrian Spiritualist, and arranged a series of sittings in the archducal palace with the Amesiean materializing medium, Harry Bastian. Three highly unsatisfying demonstrations followed, culminating in the capture by the Archduke of Bastian disguised asa spirit, “hall Roman, half knight, with bare head, draped in white, perfect in every way, and refulgent.” ‘The Necromancer 3 In Berlin the Kaiser attended a séance inthe home of the von Moltke family, and was greatly discomfitted when the young medium began to prophesy great ill-fortune to the feigning house. As a result he forbade any public mention. bf psychic matters" As for Britain, the Spiritualists began as early as 1864" to claim Queen Vietoria as a convert. The ‘Queen's seclusion after the death of Albert, and her morbid concern with the afterlife in general, gave credence to the Inost extravagant of rumors. Of the several stores linking the Queen's name with the supernatural, the most tenacious is the theary that John Brown acted as medium in séances. in. which the spit of Prince Albert made its appearance. Tt is the most tenacious because of lack of tvidence to disprove ity the Spiritualists claim that the records of the séances were destroyed. in. the bonfire Organized after the Queen's death by Sir Henry Ponsonby land the Dean of Windsor, In default of evidence the o rion of Vietora’s biographer must be respected that the theory is extremely unlikely. Tinteresting as is the evidence of exalted contact with Spiritualism, in showing how the new religion caught the attention of even the most unlikely quarters, the attitude of the earned worl of hein nd ofthe new bred of rational scientific investigator is of far more significance It is of peculiar interest that the rationalist. approach sometimes did not hold up under fire, that “scientific in vestigators” found themselves catapulted into faith, For the inquisitive temper of the age could not suffer for long reports of marvels unexplained. If in America the attempt to'set up an investigating commission ha failed, in London in 1868, the Dialectical Society appointed a committee to Took into the phenomena of Spiritualism, which included the reformer Charles Bradlaugh among its members. The Society had the temerity to invite T. H. Huxley to take part. The retort was stinging Inthe first place, I have no time for such an enquiry, which Wwould involve much trouble, and (unless it were ulike en” The Occult Underground fuires of that Kind 1 have Known) much annoyance. In the tecond place, I take no interest Inthe subject. The only case of ‘Spiritualism’ T have had the eppertunity of examining for rnyself was as gross a imposture as ever came under my notice. [But sipposing the phenomena tobe genine—they do notin terest me. It anybody would endow me with the faculty of Tstening tothe chatter of old women and curates in the nearest cathedral town, I should decine the privilege, having beter things to 4 ‘And ifthe folk inthe spiritual world do not talk moce wisely and sensibly than thee feds report them to do, I put them in the same category" It isa lamentable fact that Huxley's deseription of spit conversations seems apt; and if other members of his profession had possessed a little more of Huxley's testines, the Spiritualist movement in particular—and the occult revival as a whole—would have Tot tuch of Hs intl fn 1889 the Society for Paychical Research was founded. In effect it was a combination of those groups already work: ing independently in the investigation of spiritualist and ‘other psychie phenomena (telepathy, clairvoyance, etc.) OF these the most important was that centered round Henry Sidgwick, Frederie Myers and Edmund Gurney, all Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, and deriving its inspiration from the Cambridge University Ghost Society, founded by no less a person than Edward White Benson, the future Archbishop of Canterbury. As A. C. Benson wrote in bi biography of his father, the Archbishop was always more in- terested in psychic phenomena than he cared toadmit. Two members of the Ghost Club became Bishops, and one Professor of Divinity.“ OF the Benson family more will be heard later; it is with Sidgwick, himself a close relation of the Bensons, and his SPR that we are now concerned ‘The Society was set up with the loosest of terms of reference. It was to examine “that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as mesmeri, psy- hical, and spirtuilisti.”® Its investigations, a befitted a ‘The Necrmancert a body of essentially academic origins, which isued—and still isues—a Journal and Proceedings bound and printed as learned publications, were to be of a strictly sciontifie character. Among the famous names whieh appear in the fecord of the activites of the Society for Psychieal Research, are William Crookes, Oliver Lodge, Andeew Lang, Conan Doyle, and Arthur and Gerald Bellows. The honor of the alfours remains unimpugned, but whether there is a significance in the inchision in the roll of honor of two tellers of tales, the reader must judge for himself, For the moment, it will suffice to weight the case slighty ‘against the Society. That a layge number of experiments into the most diverse phenomena were carried out in the best of faith remains undoubted. That no corporate body cean ever be responsible for the vagaries of ils several members is an axiom which scarcely needs recalling, But the original members of the SPR could no more escape the I9th-century preoceupation with the irational than could any of their contemporaries ‘William Crookes, afterwards knighted and President of the Royal Society, was President of the SPR in 1896-9. The investigation which tarnished his reputation was the case of Florence Cook, a medium who produced materalizations, chiefly of a spinit called “Katie King.” Trevor Hell, who Seents to have made it his mission to explode certain Vie~ torian balloons of righteousness, has convincingly sug- ested that Florence Cook, whom Crookes pronounced to be genuine, was a fraudulent medium as well as sexually rapacious; and that Crookes's investigation of 1874 became the cover for an affair" His, contemporaries evidently thought Crookes's integrity to be in question; for despite his undoubted eminence in his own field, the photographs ‘which were taken of him arm in arm with his materialized ‘angel” nearly cost him his merabership of the Royal So- ciety Hal's verdict on the circumstances surrounding the death of Edmund Gumey is equally depressing. Gumey ‘vas found dead with a bottle of chloroform beside him inaos ‘The Ooeult Underground Brighton hotel on 25 June 1888, There seems to be little oubt that he died by his own hand. The diary of Alice James, sister of William and Henry, speaks of Gurney's Suicide as a matter of common gossip.” The reasons which made this. speculation likely were Gueney’s depressive temperament, and the recent eellapse of his life's work Gurney, from existing pleasantly on a private income, hid first tried to make his mark on music, then turned to medicine, afterwards to law. No career was successl Eventually he threw himself into psyelic research with all the force of his undoubted talents. With Myers and Pod more he wrote Phantasms of the Living, a. laboriously detailed work of over 1,500 pages, mast of which he himself prepared. He then, argues Hall, discovered that much of the evidence on which he relied was false, based asit was om experiments with 2 pair of telepathists who seemed to unin volved observers tobe obvious trcksters The case is that Gurney’s integrity was such that he eould not go on living with the knowledge that he had published false evidence, and took an overdose. Its only fair to add that competent futhorities have disagreed with this presentation of the fevidence,” and that ‘Trevor Hall's view of the founding. fathers of psychic research is hotly disputed, Certain factors should be borne in mind when assessing the controversy The firs isthe concentration of early SPR research on the problems of Spiritualism and survival after death. Itwas not tntil the 1990s that psychic researchers began to turn their attention to the more respectable pursuts—from the point list seience—of laboratory measurement bearing on of view of mat fof phenomena that did not have so direct ‘man’s conception of his status inthe universe, of the early researchers with the possibilities of immortality was by no means exclusive, and in view of the current fascination with the claims of Spiritualism was perfectly natural. However, itis difficult to escape the conclusion that in certain cases the SPR fulilled the function of Spiritualist church for intellectuals. Even the funetion of providing social status was part ofits appeal. Frank Pod: The Neeromancers @ more, who was found drowned ia 1910 in a pool near Malvern, seems to have been pressingly ambitious to rise in the Society." and Ada Goodrich Freer, who had charge of the SPR enquiry into second sight in the Highlands of Scotland, was obviously an incurable social climber" These remarks are made to show that despite the admirable inten= tions of the Society, it eannat completely claim exemptio from considerations which would apply to the study of a religious eult proper. The immense quantity of energy and ‘enthusiasm with which the pioneer researchers set out to belabor the unknown with the big stick of the scientific siethod is atleast partly vitiated by the positions of several tmembers who were concerned with Psychieal Research because they wanted to believe. ‘OF none fs this more true than of Frederie Myers. The almost despairing shout of joy—if there can be such a thing —which he gives at the end of his Human Personal ty and its Survival of Bodily Death is most revealing. He believes that he has proved the existence of a universal telepathic link connecting all mankind, We are not alone, hie shouts, we need no longer be afraid of the terors of the weasurable universe. "The true security isthe telepathic Jaw “There i little tobe gained by laboring the point that psy: chical researchers have been as gullible as the rest of ‘mankind. The Society for Psychieal Research sprang from its time, was inspired by the same criss as were specifically religious groups, and castied with it the burden of contem- porary sdientiie dogma, In doing so it made at least one fatal error, which is admirably categorized by the President of the Anglican Fellowship for Psychic Studies No wonder that jn 1882 the founders ofthe SPR lake with diiraton on the scenic method. No wonder that, quite Zgity they sought to apply othe fvetigation ofthe pepe ite sane metho as had been appiod to the material But] sometimes wonder, whether in Jong so factor has not been ietoutof acount The mate scenes are concerned with At can be measured and weighed. Pychle Reva on0 The Occult Underground cemed with what cannot be measured or weighed... We Should surely ecognze that we oien eed toa ferent fo less. dee method of meting” Elect canto! be teased like beer plat pot= The SPR was a peculiar hybrid of Spiritualist cult and dedicated rationalom: sx such it defer easifiation, ‘The Spiritualist faith spread and held ts ground. By 1827—adittdly these figures are swolen by the effects of the First World War—the- International. Spintualss Federation was to claim’ branches in. almost every developed country inthe work" Everywhere the bereaved flocked to be eomforted, the frightened to obtain avec reassurance of thelr immortality. In darkened! rooms, tne Struments would pay, Flowers, and even fh would land ‘on the laps of thse present; and best of ll, from a trance, the medium would speak withthe voice of spirit from the Summer-Land, About the sate of medivmise trance Ite is known, although teances have a place in religious ceremonies all over the world, Stewart Wavell desribes@ ceremony in, Malaya ear Datu Pahat where. dancers mounted on hobbyrhores ide" for hours in an ecstasy shih is supposedly spire by the ant, or spirit of dead horses—there are no horses in Malaya, and the men "ride remarkably well When a mystic believes he is achieving “Union with God” o the “Timeless Moment,” orwhatever he Likes to eal the fasion of the One andthe Many. he also may be in trance: The entranced person tay thus be the possessed or ina sense the posestor; but the Spinal fens, the medium is aways supposed to bein the former state “ances come in several kinds, The Japanese distinguish four—Much, ecstasy or rapture; Shishi, Konsut- Joel ¢ coma; Satmin:jota, a hypnotic state; and’ Mugen no Kyo, “the state of mind when the woul leaves the body and cous about in the world of mystery.” All four sors of trance have been in evidence im the history of the Sprott movement. There ae certain correspondences between the The Necromancee “ sensations of mediums and of poople who claim to be able to free theie souls from their bodies Recent experiments with an clecto-encephalogeaph have proved indefinite” Investigators have also been concerned {ofind out whether the trance of the spirit medium Is in reality srt ofsell-hypnenis: and thee ia certain amount of evidence for the view that the personalities sho speak through the mouth of the medium tre parts of his own con- Frederle Myers once quoted an interesting case of what he called pseudo posession,"A Frenchman, Achille, was morbid and! md, but happily marced. On his retura from 1 busines trp in L800 he became morose and taitur, said oodbye to his family, and for two whole days stretched Fimself out on his bed. After Iying motionless for this con ferable peti, he sat up and burst into a terrible laugh, *"VTugubrious, stanie laugh which went on for more tha two hours” ‘To every question he answered, "There's nothing to be done! Let's have some more champagne! Eventually he fancied himeel! posessed by devil and made several attempts at suicide. Under hypnosis it was dis- Covered that he had been unfaithful to his wife The pressure of gull to which he had been subjected had ap- parently brought about bis “possession “The most famous case of “pseudo-possesson” is that of the Swiss medium, Hélene Smith, who claimed to have ex- isted tn atleast three previous incarmations: one at Marie “Antoinette, one as an Indian princess and another on the planet Mars” While in tance, Helene, whose good faith hever seems to have been in doubt, would reveal details of ber former lives ts possible that she had been influenced by the theories of Allan Kardec. The Martian incarnation vras the mont intriguing, for not only did the picture of Mars told tegethor with remarkable consistency. but the story was buttressed. by-a logically decipherable Martian language. Thomas Flournoy, who made an ethaustive in: vestigation of the case, concluded of Heléne’s Mare ‘The Osclt Underground Wise ite imagination often or twelve years ld would have Aeerved it quite drll an osgial to make people up there fat on square plates witha furrow for gravy.” Whoever twas responsible for Héline' Martian stories was not tn terested in questions which would have concerned adults interested in'« Martian civilization, Hélone's Mars was con sistent, but (twas completely derived from earthly perienes, and over everything bung an aura of the sham Oriental Therefore, concluded Flournoy, the. Mat episodes were concacted by an infanile section of Heine's personality wbich was otherwise repressed” PTs concn re cone by at anf the artion lngunge. Although perfectly logical, only French roots had been used Sample:” fede hé hed ond chandéne {ése ane tonto” Flournoy’ translation: Mere, qo sont dlices,ces moments prés de tot” As she grew Helone had had German lessons, and it was only th she would only have sel French components i an skier self had manufactured “Martian.” This seemed to clinch the matter Myers wrote: "For Héléne'sone-in-a-honred mind substitute the ono-n-amlion mind of (Robert) Leu Stevenson; let him dream—not Helene’s Insp tale of Esvenale’ (a Martian), bute. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” and cone ses at ence the advantage of relegating voluntary ends to automatic execution Ay well a being. an ine teresting coment on the processes of poste Inspr 15's convenlent summary of one possible explanation ol some mediumistc. tances, But thi does, not relly enlighten the enquirer as to why there should suddenly Ihave aien a lrge numberof trance medivms at» etn point in time “Two sggestions may be affered, Either the mediums arose to supply the demand, o a certain proportion ofthe interest in Spiritualist phenomena was simulated by an Astounding erop of mediums Ifthe fist theory is true, Simple oi the rapid access of trance medians into of Spiritualism as a respome to the crisis of Western thought. Ifthe seco fs true, and there really was an un ‘The Necromancer: 6 paralleled increase in trance mediumship, despite the perpetual attempts of Spiritualists to prove, that th Inirgcles had an antediluvian pedigree, enough has been Said about the possibilities of “pseudo-possession” to suggest that this increase represented 0 subconscious recognition of that very erisis—that “the fear of freedom in fact produced schizophrenia on a large scale—and that it took the rather specialized form of mediumship because of the social circumstances of the day and the particular bents ‘of those afflicted. Attractive though this is, we are led rogrettably back to the first conchision. "The function of trance is much clearer. Among the Akawaio Indians of Guyana, the tribal shaman goes into a trance and functions both as doctor and law-court, Through him the spirits can examine everyone concerned in a dis pute."A good séance provides an opportunity for bringing Into the open all the troubles and problems of the group, the petty disputes and offenses as well asthe major causes of disruption.” With the advantage of impersonality—the Spirits ate responsible for all awkward questions, and the séance is conducted in a darkness which conceals the reac ions of those taking part—the séance is an admirable form of safely regulating Society. In an industrial society, such “primitive” means can sill work wel, in thatthe medium is not the lawgiver—though he may still be a “psychic healer” —but is able to use his privileged position much as the shaman does. In this way the séance works today, and T have been present on an occasion when the medium, who was not in trance, made little pretense of clairvoyantly attending to the spirits, but merely sorted out the very tangled lives of two of the sitters. Spiritualism is at once the most primitive and the most compreliensible of responses to the crisis of consciousness. As the tide of rationalism and the new science rose higher, as the sense of collective insecurity waxed, men turned (0 the ulkimate consolation of the immortality of souls. They could shout inthe face ofthe bogey Darwin that they knew they were more than the outcome of a biological process,“ The Occult Undesround that they too had “scientific proof"—and that theirs was of the reality of the afterlife. Death, the shadow at the backs of every generation, had in the 19th century to be met by many people face to face. Small blame if they met him with primitive methods. The terror was an ancient terror and was banished by an- cient means. The idea, if not the eeaity of possession, is oll as the hills. But the primitive reaction gathered round itself a number of alien elements. To a large extent it grew out of the Mesmerie movement, and the motley collection of ideas which had fastened themselves to Mesmer were drawn along in the baggage. It was also connected closely with the nillenarian expectations of the mid-century, both in social and religious terms. This legacy Spiritualism inherited from its time and its place of origin, Like the almost contem porary American adventist movements, Spiritualism briginated in the “burned-over” district" ‘This term com: prises the areas of New York State which had been as it Wwore ethausted by the religious revivals of the early 19th tury. It was also direetly on the route West of im- migrants from Europe: it had in fact recently been frontier territory itself. In the “burned-over” district, successive waves of disoriented immigrants joined those sho hed felt the impact of the Revivaist preachers to ereate a confusion ‘of doubt and belief. In this area was a concentration of the problems which beset the Western weld. Spiritualism and the other cults which theived here found a ready public. As Frank Podmore noted, Spiritualism was started by to naughty children; and its appeal sto the child in man, who is perpetually whistling in the dack, And. as & primitive reaction to uncertainty, the widespread acceptance of Spiritualism helped to prepare minds in Europe and America for more sophisticated revelations. From mere amused hospitality. to the miraculous, many strange and exotie fruits might grow. The Necromancer 6 1. For a description of thecotage, see A. Lesh Underil The Musing Link in Moder Splitualsm (New York, 1855) 9 a6 2 Emme York, 18701 p. 547 ‘3. EW. Capron, Modem Spiritulism, in facts and fanatiisms (Boston, 1853), p. 0. ‘4 Frank Podmore, Medem Spittualism (London, 1902), Vol pp. 182-3. Pedmore’sis the standard work on the growth of Spistualism; but to the modern reader the way in which he assumes the connection of Mermesnm and Spintvalim might Seem unclear, Inevitably, Ihave drawn heavily on his analysis ‘5. Quoted Capron, Spiritualism, pp. S678. Weller was Senator for California 16. Pedinere, Modem Spirtuatism, vo. 1, pp. 1845. 7 Capron, Spiritualism. p. 303. 8. Podmore, Modern Sphritaliom, vol 1, p. 185 8. Light (Landon, 15 December 1888), 618. 10, Podmore, Moers Spistualsm, pp. 181-2 A, Printed in RB. ‘Davenport, The Desth-Blow to Spiritualism (New York, 1888), p. 317 12" Light (3 November 1885), p. 583. 13, The Spintualit (15. ay" 1873), quoted by J. N. Maskelyne, Modem Spirituakim (London), . 67 ML.” Viscount Adare, Experiences ts Spirtuaisn with Mr. D. D. Home (London, 1870), pp. 82-3. The distance was seven Feet four inches, and the date, 16 December 1868, Tyevor H. Hall, Now Ligh! on Old Chosts (Londen, 1965, pp. 86 f), has east Aoubt upon almost every aspeet of Adaros account, hoginning ‘with the addres at which the séanee took place. However, Leite ‘Adate’s aarative, in order to show the posible extent of belie in Spiritualist phenomena IS. Adare. Experiences in Spirtualiom, pp. 77-8 16. ‘The Davengors, William an Ira, were born i Buffalo Jn 1880 and) 1841. They came to England in 1864, four years before Home's phenomena recrded above. In Liverpool the Davenports were exposed by a." Hers Dobler, a on)uror WT. See, eg, The Ghost, published as late as 1998 by Dr. Edward MeGlyna of New York. The July number ofthat year contained instrtions for mateallang “ectopleso” linge, Modern American Spiitualsn (New“6 The Occult Underground 18. Harry Price and E. J. Dingwall (eds), Revelations of e ‘Spirit Medium (Londen, 1939). The book was fist published In St Paul, Minnesota in 1891, when all the copes were bought wp bby medias: t was probably waltten by a certain Donovan. See editors introduction pp. sew. 19. Maskelyne, Sprtualiom, pp. 82 . CE. Daniel Dunglas Home, Incident tr’ my Life (2nd series, London, 1872), pp. 197 ST, for Home's version of the case 30." CL Bryan Wilson, Religion in a Secular Sctety (Lon: don, paperback edition, 1969), p-211-12, BIC. Odhmer Slgstdt, The Swedenborg Epic (New York, 1952), pp, 252+ 22."Rober Hindmarsh, Rise and Progress of the New Jerusalem Church (London, 1881), pp. 482. 25.."For this proces, see Odhmer Sigte, Swedenborg, pp 178.50 and 189 21, “Emanuel Swodenborg, Heaven ond its Wonders and ell (London, 1988), pp. 11618, Suedenborg, p. 117-118. 25. "For these, see Emanuel Swedenborg, The Spitual Diary (tr. Bush and J. HL Smithson, Landon, 1888), val Ip. 25, It is interesting to compare Swedenborg’s attitude to his spiritual workd with tha of Gilbeet White tothe natoral wold 26. And while in France, had made some’ apposite and ‘aust notes on the corruption of the Catholic clergy. See ‘Swedenborg, p. 248 BT. Hindzsarsh, New Jerusalem Church, pp. 281-2. 28 Margaret Goldsmith, Frans Anton’ Mesmer (London, 1900), pp. 468 28. "Goldamith, Mesmer, pp. 55-6 50. Quoted, Goldsmith, Mesmer, pp. 108-10, 31. Podmore, Modem Spirtualiom, vol pp. 545. 52 J. Milne Bramwell, Hypnotism (Londop, 1921), pp. + 28, 83. Podmore, Modem Spirtualim, vol, p. 12 5k Podmore, Moders Spirtiualism, po. 767. Strictly speak lng, Feu Lindgust was somnambule a nateral seepsalker ‘Thisstate was thought tobe analagous to that of mesmeric trance 535. Tam indebted to Mr France King for drawing my atten tion tothe importance of Ande Jackson Davis as sctal erties well as Spiritualist propagandist, 136. G. Bateden Butt "Andeew Jackson Davis,” in The Oc cule Review (February 1925), p82 The Neeromances a ST. Butt, "Davis" pp 8-4. Fdmore, Modem Spintuation, vol I, pp 1545. ‘8, "Andrew Jackson Davis, The Great Hermanta (Beton and New York 1982) vl I pp. SL-2 and note. Ct. Aldous Hux: Tieaoen nd Hel (London, paperback eon, 1963), p 110, ‘Negative emotions—the fear which i the absence o con fidence, the hatred, anger or malice which exchde love—ate the uarnice thatthe visonary experience if and when i comes, Bal be spline 0. Bute" Devs” p, 94 Davis (The Great Hermon) vol 11, pp, 538 But: Davis” pp. 99d 90, Andre Jacson Bais, ‘The Harbinger of Health (New York, 1862), 272 4 'See" butt, “Davis p. 96; Podmore, Modern situation, vol 1p. 18h, note 4 st Davy The Piet of Nutr, Her Dine Revelation, (London, 1847) sl 1 pL “a. "Podmore, Mederm Spritualam, vol Lp. 130. $S. Joka Chipman, Preface to Disis, The Principles of Noture bo “Al” Dave, The Principles of Nate, vol I, p- 6. {Saute Principles of Nau, p60. GE Dav The Principles of Nature. p20 $t_Polmre, Moder Spiral, vol 1 p. 18, note 9, and. 16 note L : 1B. "Divi The Pciples of Nature, vol. I, pp. 74H, 78+ 48. Podmore, Modern spitualim, vol M, pp. S505; ct voli, pp. 31078 36, ee Dai, A Stellar Key othe Summers Lend, art One (New York 1868) SL Podmore, Modem Spirtuatsm, vol, pp 29-4 52. Podmore, Mader Spntuton, pp. 183 58, G.K. Nelson, Spiialsm and Society (London, 1960) obits agieatpty that his book doesnot appl he isight of Tosti) ins more nse fashion: on most pots the engi nue return to Podmore 3 Neto, Spiral, p. 288 55. Real name Léoo-Déaiarth-Hippolye Rival 58. Sec allan Kade The Spris' Book. Anna Blackwell, London, 187) This translation of he revised etn of 1857 Which eeame the standard test for Spirals ofthe Kardee ‘shook“ ‘The Occult Underground 57. Allan Kardeo, Imitation def Eeangle selon le spirteme, (Pais, 1883) 55, Ems Hardinge Britto, Nineteenth-Century Miracles, (Manchester 1854 pp. 50°51, p. 35, 58. The Imperial Archduke Jobana of Austela,Intght into Spiritual t.fom Sth German edition by NO, 1885), pp 9 38 60, Am accountof the epspde is tobe found on pp, 108-10 of From an Eastern Embassy (London, 1920). ‘The anonymous aurthoress of these memoirs was maria to a Frenchman in the Turkish diplomatic xerice, who war tioned in Bedin a the time when the since took place. Despite the total lack of dating in the narrative, there seem litle rsson to doubt that the episode actually ocurred. review ofthe book nthe Daily Mail ff 20 March 1920 gives the date uf the seance as “over twenty Five years ago.” 1. In The Spintualse Megenin. See Elizabeth Longford, Victoria, 1 (Landon, 1963), pp. 836-7. 82." Longford, Victoria, RL, pp. 454, Shost work is made of other rumors of Victoria's dealings with mediums and claie- voyants: see pp. 3348. 183." Report ofthe Commitee on Spetualism ofthe London Dialectic! Scciety (London, 1871, . 228 64. W. H. Salter, The Society for PuycNcal Research, en Outi of ts History (London, 1940), pp. 5-6 183. Salter, Society for Poychioal Revearch, p19. 66. ‘Trevor H. Hall, The Spirtualists (London, 1962), ep. 99.108 67 Hall in John L. Carapbell and Trevor H. Hall, Strnge Things (London, 1988), p. 126, note 65. “Hall, The Stronge Case of Edmund Gurney (Landon, 1960), pp. 104-24, 89. "Eg, Alan Gould, The Founders of Paychical Research (London, 1858), p. 82. 70. "Hal, The Strange Case of Edmund Gurney, p. 107 71. Hall'n Strange Things, passim, but esp. pp. 98-100, 72. Frederic Myers, Human Peronalty and ts Sureeal of Bodily Death (London, 1908), vol. I p. 281. Meyers apestro- Dhized the material prosperity and security of iste, con fling,” this very security. this very prosperity, do but being fut in stronger tlic tho underlying Welt Sehmers, the decline of ‘The Necromancers ° any real boi in the dignity, the meaning, the endlessness of Ite""(p. 279). 1 would be hard to find « more telling case of 2 supposedly “scleatfic” researcher possessing preconceptions likelyto influence the findings of his research. The bewallng of the Human enndton, and the fight fom Reason, are very sila to the attitude of Arthur Symons, The Symbolist Movement in Literature (London, 1888). But while Symons conscled himself ‘with the matical philosophy he believed quite righty to be n= ‘derlying Symbelit poetry, Myers tok refuge in his “telepathic lew" Despite the existential ers, there was hope ‘Nay, inthe infinite Universe man may now feel, forthe fist time, at home The worst fear Is over, the tue socuity is won, The wort fesr wa the fear of spistual extinction or sprtul folitude; the true security i in the telepathic lw” (p. 281) ‘Without further justification, Myer takes the hope he sees i this link between the disparate units of humanity and inflates it into teligion, The massive Human Personality ond ss Surccal of Bodily Death wads with « Provisional Sketch of @ Religious Synthesis: Such a synthesis, Myers believed tobe in sight. In thi hope he wat at one with the divines of the 1698 Parlament of Religions (see Chapter 2, below Even more significents. the ‘model he proposes unde the name ofthe Religion ofthe Ancient Sage differs ony in points of personal preference from countless ‘other synertisms formed from occult Tradition (see Chapter 6 tnd following chapters; Myers, Human Personality, pp. 268 fi) 7B. E. Garth Moore, Survival reconsideration, SPR Myers Memorial Lesture (London, 1968), p11 74. Wiliam C. Haremenn, Hartmann's Who's Who in Oc ‘ult, Payehtc and Spiritual Realms (New York, 1827), Provides the aly comprehensive survey ofthe tenor: 75. Steward Wavel in Trances, by Wavell, Audvey Bult, snd Nina Epton (London, 1966), p. 38 76." Epton in Trance, p- 296 Th SpeC. C. Evans aod Pdward Osborne, “Experiment in the electroencephalography of Medhumistie Trance,” in Journal of the Socety jor Prychical Research, vel. XXXVI, n0. 659) (tarch-Apil 1952), pp. 388-06. "78. F- W. H. Myers,“ Pueudo-Possession,” in Proceedings ofthe Society for Payhical Research, XV-XXXVIII (Supplement . 300. On possession in genera, se T. K. Ostereich, Posesion| ‘London, 1690) Fora descrpten through an entrsnced medium