Modern spiritism; its science and religion - SpiritArchive.org

SPIRITISM AND THE DEAD
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It is natural we should discover that if we will not
accept revealed truth, and live by faith in this as
one does in lesser matters, the only other path is
that of experience.
The Fact of Another World
The first point to establish is the fact of another
world, and the second, that it is inhabited by intelligences.
These two points Spiritism claims to
have established.
But it is not till this has been done that further
questions arise. What are these intelligences?
Can we identify them with our dead? And then,
before the days of tests and telepathy, and when all
was accepted as true, came the theory, naturally
enough, that all spirits in the other world were those
of the dead.
But we have got on since those days, and the
more we advance the less certain does it appear to
be that Spiritists really are in touch with disembodied
spirits; more and more are ordinary communications
explained by telepathy, and the
freakish, inconsequent, and purposeless and
meaningless ones that are left are in all probability
from the spirit world, but not, I suggest,
from the departed dead.
Anything Better than Nothing
It is not quite easy to understand why Spiritists,
who have beloved departed ones, should be so anxious
to prove chat the unworthy, conventional, and trite
or foolish and mystic messages proceed from their
dear friends.