Modern spiritism; its science and religion - SpiritArchive.org

PHENOMENA OF MODERN SPIRITISM 51
It is
not long before the whole current of the life
becomes a little changed, and the character alters
for the worse.
The Wreck of
the Ill-balanced
In sound, well-balanced characters matters may
not proceed further. Indeed, at such a stage, as
with a clever friend of mine, the network may be
broken and the victim freed.
But, alas! in weak and ill-balanced natures,
easily influenced, the spell has often become too
strong; and the simple table-turning or planchette
writing has in these much to answer for in a wrecked
life.
This picture is not overdrawn, and not so uncommon
as the ignorant may suppose. The Great War
has, alas! from causes we can only regard with
reverence and sympathy, brought many into the
toils of Spiritism. Let me again say that it is very
difficult to refuse any source of comfort to a distressed
heart, and so easy to believe that the subjective
is indeed objective, and that the loving messages
received, and perhaps visions which are seen, are
proofs of the presence of the loved and mourned
one "on the other side," that it seems the height of
cruelty to interpose with one's scientific knowledge
and wise counsels. And yet I have had to do it, in
all gentleness, and with firm decision point out the
real source of the phenomena in the unconscious
mind and its newly-discovered powers, and the
significant fact that it must be for some very wise
and necessary reason that communication with the
dead is so strongly forbidden in the Old Testament,
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