Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

894 OP MATTER, MIND, AND SPIRIT.tions arc to be attributed. I .sliould think that no person who shall haveread the communications which I have introduced into this work, as comingfrom my spirit friends, can ascribe those communications to the medium andmyself. They must cither suppose that there is a wilful manufacture ofthe wonderful and interestinginformation therein contained, setting asidethe test conditions, through which they are sanctioned, as unreliable ; orthey must ascribe a wonderful fertility to the minds of the media and myself,through whom they have been obtained.1915. So far from the ideas being obtained from my mind, which proceedfrom my spirit father, that he and I cannot come to one opinion onsome points after much discussion. My father and sister have, by reiteratedcommunication, as well established a conviction on my mind of theirbeing that which they allege themselves to be, as if a correspondence hadbeen carried on with them for the same space of time, say eighteen months,while they should be residing in another part of the country.1916. But the whole superstructure built up by the most confidentamong the recent assailants of Spiritualism, Mahan, rests on the erroralready exposed in the case of itscommission by Dr. Bell.1917. It is assumed that spirits can never tell any ideas which do notexist in the minds of some persons present. Who was present when myspirit messenger conveyed to Mrs. Gourlay the request to send her husbandto bank to inquire when a note would be due ? Again, when cards wereselected without the denomination having been seen by any mortal present,how could the denomination of the cards be spelt out upon the alphabeticdisk?1918. In his work, Mr. Mahan assumes that the odic force is identicalwith that which is the immediate cause of the spirit manifestations.Agreeably to the considerations above presented, no imponderable materialprinciple, such as the ether of the undulation theory issupposed to be, canbe a force. The only part which it can perform is that of being a medium offorce. The fluid of electricity was never assumed to be a moving power,neither according to the Franklinian hypothesis of one fluid, nor that oftwo fluids, according to Dufay. Without chemical or mechanical disturbance,they would be as still as the water in a pond during a perfectcalm.1919. There is evidently, however, in nature, an imponderable cause ofmotion, and of other changes, more complicate than simple motion, and, Ibelieve, only one such cause, and that is mind.No one who attributes thecreation to the mind of the Creator, but must admit that the mind of theCreator and Ruler of the universe is the moving power of the universe.It must also be admitted that the mind of man, as a moving power, is veryminute in comparison with that of its Author, or Source, but still resemblingit so far as it reasons, and obeys the dictates of that reason, and causesmatter to move in consequence of its designs, desires, wishes, or emotions.