Studies in the Out-Lying Fields of Psychic Science Part 14

Saving souls, not the life here, but that which is to come, has been the blight and curse of mankind. The doctrine of "one world at a time," and the present supreme, is a reaction against this essentially vicious dogma. Neither extreme may be true; for the truth is the "golden mean,"

which makes the future life a continuity of this, carrying forward all its ideals to full realization, and making the spiritual realm held in abeyance to as fixed and unchangeable laws as the material world.

By knowledge, man has been led out of the fogs to the highlands of free thought, and aroused from the nightmare of theology, which for ages held him in thraldom. Those were the ages when G.o.d and Christ were inwrought into the Const.i.tution of the State, and the Holy Bible was the foundation of the law. Those were the ages of St. Bartholomew ma.s.sacres, of autos-da-fe, of the rack and the f.a.got. Those were the ages when the day was darkened by the smoke of burning cities, and the fair fields gleamed white with the bones of the slain. Those were the ages when the whole Christian world engaged itself in saving souls!

A Jesus may suffer on the cross; not only one, but ten thousand may die, admirable in self-sacrifice and examples of firm adhesion to their sense of duty; but, for saving souls, their sacrifice is lost; for they suffer for a misconception of the plan of the world. Man has never been lost, and can not be lost, and hence can not be saved by the blood of one or ten thousand sacrifices.

If the future life is a continuity of this, then the perfection of religion is the making of this life perfect. Not by crucifixion of the body, not by suffering or disappointment, but by complete and harmonious culture, can this be accomplished.

THE NEW METHOD.--To solve the problem of immortality by the methods of Science, to bring it up from the marshlands of conjecture to the region of absolute knowledge, belongs to the present age and generation. It is a task they can and must accomplish. It has for so many ages been the fertile field of superst.i.tion, that it seems impossible to disentangle it from its unsatisfactory wrappings. The investigation must commence with the physical man as the basis of the spiritual, as through and by means of the body he is related to the physical world. He is the superlative being; the last, greatest and yet incomplete effort of creative energy. All departments of science gather around him as a center, and to have perfect knowledge of him is to comprehend the universe.

In the earliest ages; in the very childhood of the race, the momentous question was asked: What am I? The solution was felt to be fraught with momentous consequences not only in this life but the interminable future which was vaguely shadowed in the mind of savage man. The answers given became the foundations of the great religious systems of the world. The conjecture of untutored minds was received as the true system of causation, and growing h.o.a.ry with age arrogated to itself infallible authority, and required implicit faith, and the exercise of reason, only, in making palatable the requirements of that faith. Conceived in an age when nature was an unknown realm, when science opened her mysteries to the understanding, and one by one, dogmas claiming infallibility were shown to be false, there of necessity was antagonism and conflict. I do not propose to enlarge on the theological aspect of this subject more than incidentally. That treatment has grown "stale, flat and unprofitable," for every drop of vital juice it contained has been extracted long ago. The interminable sects, wrangling over the dogmatic solution of this vital question of man's origin and destiny, arriving at nothing determinate, wrangling with each other and themselves, are not incentives to beguile the earnest truth-seeker to follow their paths. If metaphysical theology contained the germ of a truthful solution, satisfaction would have resulted ages ago, and the mind, reposing contented with the answer, would have employed its energies in other directions. Instead, there is restlessness, turmoil, conflict and indecision, and never has been an answer so broad and deep in Catholicity of truth as to meet the demand. If science fails also, it can not retrieve its failure by a.s.sumed infallibility. Its teachings are ever tentative and prophecies of final triumph, as the grandest study of mankind is man, the crowning work of science is the solution of this vexed question.

PHYSICAL MAN.--First, as most tangible and obvious in this investigation, is the physical man, the body, the temple of the psyche.

The student, even when imbued with the doctrine of materialism, arises from the study of the physical machine with wonder and surprise akin to awe, declaring man to be fearfully and wonderfully made.

It is not surprising that we die, but that we live. The rupture of a nerve fiber, the obstruction of a valve, the momentary cessation of breath, the introduction of a mote at some vital point, brings this most complex structure to eternal rest. By what constant oversight, by what persistency of reparation is it preserved from ruin!

This physical man is an animal, amenable to the laws of animal growth.

His body is the type of which theirs are imperfect copies. From two or three mineral substances his bones are crystalized, and articulated as the bones of all vertebrate animals, and over them the muscles are extended. From the _amphioxus_, too low in the scale of being to be called a fish; a being without organs, without a brain; little more than an elongated sack of gelatinous substance, through which a white line marks the position of the spinal cord and the future spinal axis; there is a slow and steady evolution to the perfected skeleton of man. His osseous structure is the type of all. The fin of the fish, the huge paddle of the whale, the cruel paw of the tiger, the hoof of the horse, the wing of the bird, and the wonderfully flexible hand of man, so exquisite in adaptations to be taken as an unqualified evidence of design, are all fas.h.i.+oned out of the same elementary bones, after one model. The change of form to meet the wants of their possessors, results from the relative enlargement or atrophy of one or more of these elements. When the fleshy envelope is stripped away, it is astonis.h.i.+ng how alike these apparently divergent forms really are. In the whale the flesh unites the huge bones of the fingers and produces a broad, oar-like fin; in the tiger the nails become retractile talons; in the bird some of the fingers are atrophied, while others are elongated to support the feathers which are to offer resistance to the air in flight; in the horse the bones of the fingers are consolidated, and the united nails appear in the hoof.

If there exists such perfect similarity in the bony structure of man to the animal world, the muscular system for which it furnishes support offers the same likeness. Trace any muscle in the human body from its origin to its termination, mark the points where it seizes the bones, the function it performs, and then dissect the most obscure or disreputable member of the vertebrate kingdom, and you will find the same muscle performing the same function. The talons of the tiger are extended and flexed by muscles, similar to those which give flexibility to the human hand, and the same elements are traceable in the ponderous paddle of the whale.

More vital than the bony framework, or the muscles to which it gives support, is the nervous system, seemingly not only the central source of vital power, but the means of union and sympathetic relation of every cell and fiber of the entire body.

The brain has been aptly compared to a central telegraphic office, and the nerves to the extended wires, which hold in communication and direct relation all the organs, and from which the functions of each are directed.

The nervous system is the bridge which spans the chasm between matter and spirit, and the battle between Materialism and Spiritualism must be fought not only with brain, but in the province of brain. However we may regard the spiritual being as an independent ent.i.ty, when we study this subject from the physical side, we are compelled to accept the intricate blending of the influence of the brain on the expression of that being, during its connection therewith. The issue directly stated is this: Does the brain yield mind as a result of organic changes in its cells and fibers, or is mind a manifestation through and by means of the brain of something beyond and superior?

It is admitted by profound thinkers that the brain and its functions is an unfathomed mystery, and that investigators must be content with what may be called secondary causes and effects. Phosphorus and sulphur may be essential for the activity of brain tissue, yet it is absurd to claim that a super-abundance of these elements wrote an Iliad, or solved the problem of gravitation. It is not phosphorus, or carbon, or nitrogen, however vigorously oxidized, which pulsates in the emotions of friends.h.i.+p or love; that feels and thinks and knows; that recollects the past, antic.i.p.ates the future, and reaches out in infinite aspirations for perfection.

The actions of thought on the brain, the effort compelling the body to serve the bidding of the spirit, may consume this element and many others, as the movement of an engine consumes the coal and wastes the steam; but the coal and the steam are only the means whereby mind impresses itself on matter.

The physicist studies the brain as one wholly unacquainted with an engine would study that machine, and mistaking it for a living being, might be supposed to do. He would observe its motion, and, weighing the coal consumed and the products of combustion, would say that they appeared in steam, which after propelling the piston was waste. The design of the engine, the effect of these combinations and this waste, this observer would claim to be the guiding intelligence. And he would further argue that so much coal in the grate, so much water in the boiler and there appears an equivalent of intelligence, and the waste may be predetermined by chemical formulae.

Until the threshold of the functional activity of the brain and the nervous system have been pa.s.sed, conclusions should be modestly expressed.

If it be claimed that man is a natural being, originated and sustained by natural laws, that he came without miracle, then do we unite the margins of the human and animal kingdoms, and are satisfied with placing man at the head of the animal world? An interminable and unbroken series of beings extends in a gradual gradation downwards, until the organs by which the phenomena of life are manifested are lost one by one, the senses disappear, until we arrive at what has been aptly termed "protoplasm," not an organized form, but simply _organizable_ matter, or matter from which organic forms can be produced.

If, in reviewing this chain of beings, slowly arising by constant evolution, we closely examine several of its consecutive links, we shall find that while each ascending link is apparently complete, yet it is only the germ out of which the next is evolved in superior forms. Each link is prophecy of future superiority. The fulfillment of one age can be traced until man appears as the last term in the physical series.

They who teach this doctrine of evolution, which is to life what the law of gravitation is to worlds, also teach that united with the doctrine of "conservation of force," the hope of immortality becomes a dream.

What a sham they make of creation! What a turmoil for no result!

Infinite ages of progress and evolution, during which elemental matter, by force of inherent laws, sought to individualize itself and incarnate its forces in living beings; ages of struggle upwards from low to high, from sensitive to sentient, from sentient to intellectual, from zoophyte to man! And now, having accomplished this, and given man exquisite susceptibility of thought, of love, of affection; making him the last factor in the series, he is doomed to peris.h.!.+ What is gained by this travail of the ages? Would it not have been as well had the series stopped with the huge saurians of the primeval slime, or the mastodon and mammoth of the pre-historic times, as with the man. As each factor in the series prophecies future forms, so does man read in the same light, prophecy-forms beyond. They can not be in the line of greater physical perfection, for in the days of Greece and Rome, man was as perfect physically, as is seen by their sculptures, as to-day. Ages ago, this exceeding beauty was attained. It cannot be in the evolution of a being superior to man, for as in each lower animal imperfect organs or structures, or partially employed functions, are improvable and perfected by succeeding forms, in man the archetype is complete, and no partially developed organ indicates the possibility of future change.

Progress having arrived at its limits with the body, changes its direction, and appears in the advancement of mind. Death closes the career of individuality, and we live only in thoughts--our selfhood is absorbed in the ocean of being. Mankind perfects as a whole, and the sighed-for millenium is coming bye-and-bye.

Of what avail is it to us if future generations are wise and n.o.ble, if we pa.s.s into nonent.i.ty? Of what avail to them to be wise and n.o.ble, if life is only the fleeting hour? Not yet can we believe Nature to be such a sham--such a cruel failure. The spirit rebels against the supposition of its mortality. The body is its habiliment. Shall the coat be claimed to be the entire man? Shall the garments ignore the wearer?

This is the animal side of man. Physically composed of the same elements, and having pa.s.sed through these innumerable changes, he is an epitome of the universe. As man was foreshadowed in remotest ages as the crowning type in the series of organic life, so man foreshadows superior excellence. Springing out of his physical perfectibility, arises a new world of spiritual wants and aspirations, unanswered and unanswerable in mortal life.

MAN A DUAL BEING.--While Theology, Brahminical, Buddhistical or Christian, teaches that man is an incarnate spirit, independent of the physical body, created by miracle, supported by a succession of miracles, and saved by a miracle from eternal death, material science, as at present taught by its leading exponents, wholly ignores his spiritual life, and declares him to be a physical being only. It is not my purpose to reconcile these conflicting views. Truths never require reconciliation. They never conflict; and if the results of two different methods of investigation are at variance, one or the other is in error, or both, perchance, and the only reconciliation is the elimination of that error. The egotisms of theology and the pride of science array their votaries in opposition, while the truth remains unquestioned in the unexplored middle ground. Man is neither a spirit nor a body; he is the intimate union of both. In and through his physical being, the spiritual nature is evolved from the forces of the elements and is expressed. There is somewhat more enduring than the resultants of chemical unions, action and reactions in his physical body. Beneath this organic construction is that which remains, to which it is the scaffolding which a.s.sists, while it conceals the development of the real edifice.

Paul, the most profound thinker of all the founders of Christianity, very forcibly and clearly expresses this duality when he makes the distinction between "the celestial body" and the "terrestrial." In mortal life these are united, and death is simply their separation. His disciples have grossly misunderstood and mistaught his explanation. The terrestrial body cannot inherit eternal life, which is the birthright of the celestial. Death is the severance of the cord which unites these bodies in the seemingly indivisible web of earth-life. The terrestrial returns to the elements from which it came; the celestial remains individualized. It is unusual for writers on science at the present day to quote the Bible in support of their theories; but no author before Paul's time or since has given a more complete philosophy of life, and a key wherewith to unlock the secrets of the grave.

DEFINITIONS.--The comparison of terms has led to the strangest processes of reasoning, and the cla.s.sifications in which some writers delight, have served as a means of intellectual gymnastics, rather than data for clear reasoning. In the threefold division of body, soul and spirit, by using the two last terms, at times as meaning something essentially distinct, and at others, as synonymous with intelligence, and each other; and again making soul and body the same, a most admirable means for the jugglery of disputation is furnished, which has not been left unused, and by which the discussion of this subject has been befogged.

There is the physical body, and the spirit to which the manifestations of mind belong. The term soul has no meaning, except as synonymous with body or spirit, and hence is discarded in this discussion.

PRE-EXISTENCE.--It has been taught that the ego, the immortal part, is from G.o.d, and at death returns to G.o.d who gave it. The eternal existence in the past of spirits, is presupposed, and that they await the development of bodies for them to enter, and earth-life, therefore, to them is a probationary state. The history of this theory is of profound interest, as it is wrought into the tissue of received theology, and its beginning traced to the conjectures of primitive man. It ignores the rule of law, and makes the birth of every child a miracle. The ancient doctrine of re-incarnation, lately revived, meets the same objection. A spirit, perfect in its individuality, through a germ becomes clad in flesh. It does not do this because the mortal state is preferable; for the spirit constantly desires to escape from its thraldom. It is compelled by a direct mandate of G.o.d to undergo this metamorphosis as a punishment, and means of atonement. According to this view, the development of man becomes entirely different from that of animals.

There is no law, order or unity of organic forms. Creation is an ever-enacting miracle. When this scheme is referred to fixed laws in the spirit realm, the known causes acting in the physical world are but transferred to the spiritual, where they at once pa.s.s beyond recognition.

It is needless to say that with such speculations, an explanation having any claim to scientific accuracy has nothing in common.

ORIGIN OF SPIRIT.--If there is an immortal spirit, whether its duration be eternal or measured by time, as we can not go beyond the realm of law--by which we mean the fixed order of causation--it must date its beginning with that of the body. The history of the development of the germ is a correspondence of that of the spirit. If the parents have immortal spirits as well as mortal bodies, then while their physical bodies support the corporeal being, their spiritual natures must in an equal measure support the spirit of the fetus, and the growth of its dual nature be similar, both receiving nourishment from the mother. The two forms mature together; one pervading and being the exact copy of the other.

OBJECTIONS.--As the processes of life and that lower order of intelligence known as instinct, are manifested in animals, identically the same as they are in man, and by the wonderful interrelations.h.i.+p existing between all the members of the animal world, from protozoa to man, what is true of one must be true of all, it follows that if it is necessary to evoke the aid of the spirit for the explanation of the phenomena connected with man, it is equally necessary in the case of animals. Granting this, the next step is to show the absurdity of the idea that all the infinitude of beings, from microbes to leviathans, have a life beyond the evening of their brief day. The issue is fairly stated, but the claim regarded as absurd is not made. All may have spirits, from the lowest to the highest, holding the same relations to the body in which it is gestated as the spirit of man holds to his physical form. That such should be the case is a necessity of the position taken by this work. It is not, however, held, nor is it necessary that it should be, that the spirit of animals is immortal, or exist after the death of the body. They have not attained the requisite development, which has been likened to an arch which requires the finish, by putting in place of the keystone before the staging on which it rests can be removed, leaving the arch permanent. If this staging is removed before the keystone is put in place, the entire structure falls in ruins. In man, the arch is completed. Yet, as the animal merges into man through intermediate forms--and the infant knows less than the perfect animal--the line of demarkation is drawn with difficulty. It is like the boundary between the hill and its valley: both meet somewhere; but no one can say where the valley begins and the hill ends. A certain degree of development is essential, below which spirit cannot exist independently of the physical body, and above which this is possible.

Any theory which of necessity advocates the immortal life of animals as well as of man, fails by maintaining that which may readily be proved an absurdity. For if the intelligent dog or elephant have existence in the future, so may the fish, the mollusk, the monad, and even the speck of protoplasm, which loses itself in unorganic matter. This was put forth as an unanswerable objection to the immortality of the human spirit, for it was said one or the other horn of the dilemma must be taken; for as there is no break in the chain of beings, between man and animals, even to the monad, if a future life belongs to him, equally is it an inheritance of theirs; and if it be denied them, so must it be lost to him. In mental and spiritual attainment there is a gulf between man and the animal world, vastly broader and more profound than is required to give him the inheritance of immortality which is also theirs.

In time this gulf is as wide as from the present to several millions of years previous to the glacial period. Prof. Wallace is so astonished at the difference between the brain of the most savage man and the highest animal, that he declares the theory of evolution, which he was first to promulgate, while it accounts for all the forms of life, here fails, and that man stands alone, the creature of another creation. While he says that man "May even have lived in the miocene or eocene period, when not a single mammal was identical in form with any existing species," yet he does not place the origin of man at a sufficiently remote era in those receding aeons of time.

In the primitive human being, thought began its conquest of the world, and the man of to-day represents the acc.u.mulation of all experiences since his ancestors fought with cunning craft the huge megatherium, and disputed for supremacy of the tertiary forests with palaeotherium, and other monsters of that age.

In time, the gulf between him and the animal world is thus widened, and in size of brain, which measures as a psychic metre, the growth of the superior life, he is equally distant. It has been remarked that the brain of the savage was so much larger than the exigencies of his life demanded, that it was comparable to giving the wing of an eagle to a hedge sparrow, or the arm of a tiger to a mouse. Rightly read, this proves the vast duration of time during the differentiation of man from the animals below him. Psychic growth is marked by enlargement of brain, and as long ago as the earliest preserved geological traces of humanity are found, that organ had attained a size and form about equal to that of the present. Its attainments have become so great that it is difficult at present to compare its intelligent manifestations with the instinctive desires of animals. The brains of all the lower types in certain essentials of organic life are alike, but in the great lobes which, superimposed, mark the degrees of psychic life, the human being stand alone, and is human because of the mental qualities these lobes indicate.

A SPIRIT NOT NECESSARILY IMMORTAL.--It has been said by a writer whose sensitive mind had received supernatural light: "Supposing the laws governing our spiritual natures operate similarly to those governing our physical, we must naturally infer that the spiritual forms of all parts of life, may be by those laws interpreted. If the spirit of an animal has not intelligence to obey, and the spirit of man wilfully disobeys, will not the law eventually destroy such spirits? The sentient notion that all ignorant and vile spirits, without aspirations for anything that is good, who glory in wickedness and persist in the violation of law, will become perfected I regard as false, for such must go on in a career which ends in annihilation." This writer errs in the cause he a.s.signs for the continuous individuality of spiritual beings. He places it on moral grounds, making it dependent on moral aspirations, character and desires. Rather is it dependent on development as an entirety. The human being, after a certain stage of mental growth, receives a charter to eternal life which it can not annul, bearing with it all its infinite consequences and responsibilities.

In the "Arcana," Vol. II., 1864, this subject is thus treated:

"A spirit is not necessarily immortal, but can become gradually extinguished, like a lamp burning for an indefinite time and then going out. Such is the condition of the lowest races of mankind. They exist after death; but with them there is no progress, no desire for the immortal state, and slowly, atom by atom, they are absorbed into the bosom of the universal spirit-essence as the spirit of the animal is immediately after death."

If it be asked at what age the spirit of man retains its ident.i.ty, it may be said in reply, that no certain date can be given, for that varies with the development of the parents. Is the idiot immortal? The answer depends on the circ.u.mstances, the degree and cause of the idiocy. If the idiot is dest.i.tute of a ray of intelligence; if it is only a voiceless, thoughtless being, the inference is not cheering, and the possibilities are largely in favor of its absorption into the bosom of the universal spirit-substance.

A sensitive gave his testimony on this subject as it came under his observation while in a trance. Its value depends on the credence we give to the revelations received from that state. He said that while in the unconscious trance, or clairvoyant state, the dying animal and dying human being were both presented to him, and he saw the same processes go forward in both. The spirit of the animal floated above the dying body like a thin cloud; and while he was expecting it to take form and ident.i.ty, it dissolved and disappeared, just as a cloud would do in a summer sky. The spirit of a human being arose like a cloud in the same manner, took form and ident.i.ty, and became a counterpart of the body it had left. This is not a speculative belief, but demonstrative by the revelations of trance.

MUST NOT IMMORTALITY REACH INTO THE PAST AS WELL AS INTO THE FUTURE?--A far more potent objection is made by the Metaphysician. To him the preceding arguments that the spirit can not have existed prior to birth, and has a common, a cotemporary origin with the physical body, is fatal to its existence after death. He says: Whatever has a beginning must have an end; therefore, when it is a.s.serted that the spirit of man is immortal, it follows that it must have always pre-existed; had an endless past. This is a startling objection and held to be unanswerable, except by the hypothesis of pre-existence and re-incarnation, which maintain that the spirit is an indestructible ent.i.ty, constantly rehabilitating itself in forms of flesh; but this hypothesis is only a supposition made in the childhood of the race to meet a doubt and objection. In an age of accurate thought it seems an anachronism. If we accept the doctrine of evolution--and, as the immediate explanation of the phenomena of living beings, it is the only, and a complete explanation--then we must also receive as true the corollary that instinct and intelligence are evolved out of the transformations of living beings, and that individualized spirit, if there be such an ent.i.ty, must be the last link in the vast organic series from which it has sprung into being. In other words, with an indeterminable future it has had a determinable past. If the spirit has existed for infinite time before its incarnation in this life, it has had infinite opportunity for progress, and, logically, should have attained perfection. Not only _should_, but must have become perfect. It is readily observed that the fact of its imperfection necessitates a beginning, and the degree of its imperfection shows the nearness or remoteness of its starting point. If it be held that this apparent imperfection is the resultant of the spirit's connection with matter, it must be remembered that the theory of pre-existence has for its object to account for the evils of this life, and perfected spiritual beings, such as all must be after an infinite past, would have no need of incarnation to attain purity or excellence already theirs; and should they enter physical bodies, as spirits, according to this doctrine, they would not be contaminated or degraded by their contact with earth and earth-life, but would glorify it.

With the physical form given to offspring by their parents is also given spiritual ent.i.ty which lives after the decay of that body, an independent being, the center of mult.i.tudinous forces.

Is this visionary? Lately an eminent physician has claimed that under proper conditions physical life might be indefinitely prolonged, and man be able to live in the body forever. All that is essential is the preservation of the equilibrium between the forces of renovation and decay. If this could be maintained, life would be prolonged, perhaps to the end of time, and an immortal oak or lion be as possible as an immortal man; but with the gross forms of matter this can not be maintained. The forces of growth and renovation are in excess until the full tide of maturity is reached, and then decay is in excess. There is not enough material furnished to replace the waste of the body, and it wears out, when death must follow. It is then that a new ent.i.ty becomes recognizable. The material has become spiritual. Such an immortality at best would be not only undesirable, but unendurable amidst the changing scenes and vicissitudes of material life. Only within the refined spiritual realm can we expect to find the perfection we seek. It is a new province, subject to new conditions and new laws. There is seemingly an impa.s.sable gulf between matter and spirit, yet we shall find it possible to throw an arch across. Nature loves such blank s.p.a.ces; she loves the black bars in the spectrum as well as the light. Between the tadpole and the frog there is a chasm which, unless the change had been observed, would be deemed impossible. Between the caterpillar and the b.u.t.terfly; the worm eating rough herbage and the gaudy winged creature floating like a wind-blown leaf from flower to flower, the contrast is even greater.