Part 35

Perhaps, and probably, the direst and most disastrous of all deluding misconceptions by our forefathers--the one which engendered, nurtured, and intensified the greatest evils of witchcraft--was, that neither their huge devil, nor any subordinate fiendish spirit, could get access to external nature and human bodies through any other avenue than some man, woman, or child, who had already _voluntarily made an explicit agreement with him or his to be his obedient and faithful servant, in consideration of helps and favors which the devil promised to bestow in requital_. When such a covenant had been ratified by signature in the devil's book, written with the blood of the mortal party, then forthwith the devil and his hosts thereby became subject to his new servant's call, and the servant to the devil's summons, so that either could command the powers of both for co-operation in the execution of any malice or deviltry whatsoever, and upon any designated individual. The assumed fact that the devil could use the faculties and properties of no human being who had not expressly covenanted with him, conjoined with belief that he must have the voluntary help of some human being whenever he molested men, was the specially murderous ingredient of faith which impelled good and humane men on to copious shedding of innocent blood. The making of that covenant, and thereby opening an aperture for the devil's entrance through nature's barrier, and thus admitting a wolf into the Christian fold, who otherwise could not possibly have entered, constituted the essence of the crime of witchcraft. That covenanting act made the covenanting man or woman a wizard or a witch; and God had said, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

THE DEVIL'S DEFENSE.

The custom is humane and equitable which permits the accused to be heard in their own behalf. It is a common saying, that even the prisoner now at our bar is always entitled to his due and we cheerfully grant him opportunity to defend himself. Under his alias, Satan, and using a cultured Englishman as his amanuensis, he has recently favored the world with his autobiography; in which he says,--

"I am a power. I am a power under God, and as such I perform a task which, however unlovely and however painful, is destined to put forward God's wise and benignant purposes for the good of man.... I am an image of the evil that is in man, arising from his divinely-given liberty of moral choice. That evil I discipline and correct, as well as represent; and so I am also a divine school-master to bring the world to God. My origin is human, my sphere of action earthly, my final end dissolution. Evil must cease when good is universal. While, then, I cannot boast of a heavenly birth, I disown fiendish dispositions. Worse than the worst man I cannot be. I am indeed a sort of mongrel, born, bred, reared, and nurtured of human fancy, folly, and fraud. As such I possess a sort of quasi omnipresence and a quasi omniscience, for I exist wherever man exists, and, dwelling in human hearts, know all that men think, feel, and do. Hence I have power to tempt and mislead; and that power, when in my worst moods, I am pleased to exercise.... I am a personification of the dark side of humanity and the universe.... I exist in every land, and occupy a corner in every human heart.... I am the child of human speculation: I came into existence on the first day that man asked himself, 'Whence this world in which I live and of which I am a part?'"[1]

[1] The Autobiography of Satan, edited by John R. Beard, D. D., London, 1872.

The frankness, perspicuity, definiteness, and point, taken in connection with the calm, earnest tone, and gentle, candid spirit in which his then placid Majesty dictated that account of himself to his Reverend scribe, win our credence, and induce us to believe he utters only the simple truth when he describes himself as "a personification of the dark side of humanity and the universe,"--as one who "cannot boast of a heavenly birth," but was "born, bred, and nurtured of human fancy, folly, and fraud,"--as possessing "a sort of quasi omnipresence and a quasi omniscience," existing "wherever man exists, ... dwelling in human hearts," knowing "all that men think, feel, and do," having power "to tempt and mislead," and, in his "worst moods, is pleased to exercise" that power. Such a Satan, or devil, no doubt exists. But, though we admit that he was a mighty impersonal power in the midst of witchcraft scenes, he was vastly different from the heaven-born "Archangel fallen," whom the good people of New England believed in, feared, and supposed themselves to be fighting against.

A personification of the principle of evil, or "of the dark side of humanity and the universe," is the only devil who is simultaneously present with the whole human race. But hosts of unseen personalities--earth-born, expanded, wily, malignant, and powerful--may act upon man, and bands of such may be subservient to some abler ones of their kind, who reign over them as princes of the dark powers of the air. Malignant departed mortals are the only disembodied personal devils who molest mankind. We believe in _many_ devils, but not in Christendom's witchcraft chief _One_.

The devil of our fathers, though but a fiction, was chief cause of witchcraft's woes, and therefore merits attention first, in any attempt to subject that matter to new analysis.

DEMONOLOGY AND NECROMANCY.

Demonology--intercourse with demons--implies dealings with spiritual personalities; but these may be either good or bad, and may consist wholly, or only in part, of departed human beings, provided there be any other grade of spirits residing in, or able to enter, earth's spirit spheres: probably there are not.

In earlier ages, these demons were often deemed to be intermediate messengers and links facilitating intercourse between mortals on earth and most eminent gods above. That idea, somewhat qualified, is having revival now in the minds of those who are receiving from their departed friends instructions and influences which allure humans heavenward. In the olden faith, demon was used to designate a spirit who might be good; and demonology, then, far from being branded as DIABOLISM, or dealings with one great Devil and his special devotees, was generally deemed not only innocent, but helpful;--as much so as man's communings to-day with either his disembodied kindred and friends, or with benighted, forlorn, and anguished souls who seek needed encouragement and solace, which they can obtain from none other than an earthly source, are deemed helpful by those loving and philanthropic men and women who take active part in similar demonological interviews now. Bad as demonology seems at this day, when the word has come to suggest dealings with bad and demoralizing spirits alone, time was, when both it and necromancy, or intercourse with the dead, could be legitimately applied to such interviews as Jesus had with Moses and Elias on the Mount of Transfiguration; and therefore then might have imported communings that would spiritualize and elevate whoever experienced its operations. Strictly, there are no dead. Moses and Elias were living personages when seen by Jesus. Socrates, and many another ancient and wise teacher, drew much profound wisdom and inspiration from out the vailed recesses of demonology and necromancy, and the example of such wise and good men of old has practical imitation by the spiritually-minded and philanthropic disciples of modern communicators living in supernal spheres.

BIBLICAL WITCH AND WITCHCRAFT.

Very great difference existed between the witchcraft of Bible times and that of Christendom fifteen hundred years after John recorded the Revelation. The difference was almost as marked as that between the devils of those two periods.

The word witch seems primarily to mean, "a _knowing_ one," and perhaps has always hinted at knowledge or power acquired by some mysterious method. Witch has generally meant, not only a _knowing one_, but also any person who gets knowledge or help by processes which are mysterious. Witch_craft_ has been the utterance of knowledge, or the application of power, thus obtained. But neither all such utterance, nor all such application of force, was, in biblical times, called witchcraft. Far, very far different from that. Daniel, Ezekiel, and John the Revelator, all obtained knowledge mysteriously from the lips of departed men; their promulgation of it, however, was not called _witchcraft_, but the _word of God_.

Neither do the Scriptures speak of the woman of Endor as a witch or practicer of witchcraft, though she had both a familiar spirit, and such clairvoyant powers that at her call Samuel rendered himself visible by her; and he either used her organs of speech, or impressed her to use them, in utterance of rebukes to Saul and prediction of his coming fate. This was not biblical _witchcraft_; though, departing from biblical precedent, the modern world has fallen into the habit of calling the woman of Endor a _witch_, while that epithet is not applied to her in the Bible.

His lawgiver said to Moses, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live;" but if that teacher furnished any very clear definition of either witch or witchcraft, it has not come down to us. Tempting to _spiritual whoredom_, so far as we can determine, constituted the crime of witchcraft among the Jews. The people of Israel were regarded as being _wedded_ to the God of Abraham; therefore persons who by _signs_, by marvelous utterances and acts, tempted Jews to be false to their marriage relations with their God, were witches. The crime of witchcraft was not involved in simply putting forth knowledge, signs, and wonders by the help of familiar spirits, because prophets and apostles often did that when they put forth "the word of God." Witchcraft was application of supernal knowledge and powers for the special purpose of seducing and tempting people to worship Moloch, or some other god of the heathen. (See Lev. xx. 5, 6.) Bible witchcraft was _use of mysterious acquisitions in teaching_ HERESY.

PROTESTANT CHRISTENDOM'S WITCH AND WITCHCRAFT.

In the seventeenth century, much of the biblical import of witch and witchcraft, as well as of demon, had been either perverted or dropped, and belief was prevalent, especially outside of the Catholic Church, that none but _evil_ spirits could come to men; and also that "the days of miracles, or special manifestation directly from the Almighty, had ceased." Then, too, a personal devil, heaven-born but apostate, and perhaps also myriads of other heaven-born but rebellious and banished angels, could, and only such base spirits could, get access to our external world; and they could effect entrance only through human beings who voluntarily consented and agreed to co-operate with them. It will be apparent on future pages, that any spirit then seen by clairvoyant eyes, whatever the sex, form, features, complexion, or aspect, was either the devil himself, or some apparition formed and presented by him or his, and he was held responsible for its presentation. Our fathers attained to and held firm conviction that all channels for inspirations and mighty works, available since the days of Jesus and his apostles, were avenues for the influx of none but poisonous waters. This was a sad mistake; for, could they have perceived the groundlessness of their faith that supernal springs of truth, purity, and benevolence had been dammed against the emission of good waters earthward,--groundlessness of their belief that the possibility and feasibility of such works and inspirations as they called miracles had ever been restricted by anything but natural conditions,--that perception would have rendered it apparent to themselves that they ought to make wizards of Abraham and Lot, of Moses and Samuel, of Daniel, Ezekiel, and John the Revelator, since each one of those communed with spirits.

Our American predecessors in the seventeenth century believed it impossible that good spirits could come to man from bright abodes,--doubted perhaps, perhaps disbelieved, that departed men and women ever did return to earth, excepting "by the immediate agency of the Almighty;" and their writings and actions justify us in saying, that with them, _witchcraft was injection of occult forces and teachings upon man, through consenting mortals, for malicious purposes solely, and by invisible intelligences_.

SPIRIT, SOUL, AND MENTAL POWERS.

Perplexing diversity prevails among users of English language in their application of the terms spirit and soul. Some regard spirit as only a fine, invisible robe of the essential man; while others speak of soul as the robe and spirit as the man who wears it. Our own custom has been to regard soul as _the man_, and spirit as his under-garment during earth-life, and his outer one, if he shall have more than one, when he shall put off his present outer. This view is not novel. The sometimes clairvoyant Paul stated that there is a natural or outer, and a spiritual or inner body--yes, _body_. Opened inner eyes to-day often see spirit-forms pervading the outer forms of people around them. Their observations are in harmony with the apostle's declaration.

The essential nature of spirit is all unknown by us. Whether matter, spirit, and soul are but different combinations and conditions of like primal elements, we are utterly incompetent to determine. Practically we accept, what is probably a common notion, that matter and soul differ fundamentally; and, having done that, we are unable to identify spirit with either of them elementally. Therefore, without any definite conceptions as to its inherent alliances, we speak of it as possibly something between the other two--_a tertium quid_. Thought regards it as the substance of worlds unspeakably finer than material planets. Spirit, in mass, is not a living, conscious entity, any more than matter is; but is a finer than gossamer substance, capable, like matter, of becoming organized, and growing into a living enrobement of the soul--enrobement of that which constitutes the on-living man through all changes of vestiture. Such is our present conjecture.

We apprehend that a world whose elemental substance is spirit both pervades and surrounds this material one--a world, we will say for the purpose of indicating our thought, composed of spirit matter. The invisibility and impalpability of such spirit substance are no conclusive refutation of its existence in and around us perpetually. Who sees electricity, magnetism, gravitation, attraction, cohesion, repulsion? Who sees either mind, or the force by which an aching toe reports to the brain and excites the sympathy of the whole organism? Many things are about us, and yet known only in their perceptible phenomena. Spirit substance may be all about us; the spirit world may be in, through, upon, and around the material one. Many manifestations hint at the existence of an all-permeating something, which--since the word is shorter than atmosphere, and not so liable perhaps to be suggestive of palpable matter--we will call _aura_, that contains and furnishes the elements out of which spirit _bodies_ are formed, elements of the solid globe on which spirits live, and also is the medium of sight, sound, touch, and all sensation to man's spiritual or inner organism even now and here. A soul, encased within a body elaborated from and within that aura, may, when and where conditions favor, live, move freely, and be happy, whether near the fireside of its former earthly mansion, in earth's atmosphere above and around us, in the earth below our feet, under and in the waters of ocean, in the heavens over us, or _wherever thought can go_. It gives body to thought itself. Brick walls and granite mountains may be no hindrances to its movements, or its freedom and power to see, act, and enjoy. All such powers and privileges probably pertain to us as spirits, even while residents in these outer forms, provided only we can effect temporary disentanglements from the outer, as is often done by or for the highly mediumistic. And yet, so long as the two bodies of a human being retain their ordinary conjunction, something not yet well understood, generally either keeps the spirit senses from cognizable contact with what is conceived to be their native aura, and therefore holds them seemingly embryonic, or it keeps the exterior consciousness of most persons from perceptions of many things which inner senses may be latently experiencing.

A broad survey of mediumistic phenomena raises the question, whether the inner powers of mediums--now in this life, and daily--see, hear, and learn any more of spiritual things than do the inner powers of others, or whether the chief difference between the mediumistic and others is that the inner faculties of mediums are enabled, in consequence of some peculiarity in relative strength between the outer and inner or in the attachments between the two sets of organs, to report to the outer consciousness, and thus let their outer faculties perceive and report what the inner have cognized, while in the mass of mankind such process is not cognized.

The young servant of Elisha (2 Kings vi. 17) was unable to see spirit hosts upon the hills about Dothan, which were visible to his master; but "Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and, behold, the mountain was full of horses, and chariots of fire round about Elisha." The prophet did not ask that his young man should be endowed with any new organs of vision, but only for the opening of such as he already possessed. As soon as those visual organs in him, which could be reached and illumined by spirit aura, came into action of which he became conscious, the young man beheld spiritual beings; which beings, since the prophet had been seeing them all the time, were obviously as near and as visible before as after the prayer. Some spirit perhaps ejected spirit force upon the young man in such way as helped internal perceptions to impress themselves on his external consciousness. Spirits frequently throw some invisible aura with perceptible force upon the external eyes of modern mediums, when these sensitives are being brought into condition for conscious discernment of spirits. Whether the object be to awaken new vision, or simply to impress existing internal vision upon the outer consciousness, is yet an unanswered question. Perhaps each in different cases.

Possibly an actual discernment of earth-emancipated intelligences by our inner organs, especially in our hours of sleep, occurs frequently with most human beings; that is, the "inward man," or inner consciousness, of each mortal may be well acquainted now with many spirits and spirit scenes, so that, upon liberation from the flesh, emerging spirits may find themselves among acquaintances and at home. With some individuals--especially with prophetic and otherwise mediumistic ones--their knowledge, gained through sensations experienced by the inner faculties, is sometimes brought to and impresses itself upon the outer consciousness, and becomes to palpably operative that those individuals are deemed inspired, for they speak as never _man_--that is, as the outward man--spake.

Either physical peculiarities, or peculiar relations between the outer or natural and the inner or spiritual bodies, more than the quantum of either mental or moral developments, seem to be the requisites for facile mediumship. That view is often set forth in statements made by spirits, and is rendered probable by observation of many facts. Mediumistic proclivities run much in families, about as much as musical ones do; and the capabilities for either mediumistic or musical performances are measurably constitutional and transmissible. Moses, Aaron, and their sister Miriam, all prophesied, or were mediums of communications from the realm of spirits. In our antecedent pages it appears that four children of John Goodwin,--that three noble, adult, and married sisters, Nurse, Easty, and Cloyse, living apart from each other, whose mother had been called a witch,--that Sarah Good and her little daughter Dorcas, five years old,--that Mrs. Ann Putnam and her daughter Ann, and that Martha Carrier and four of her children, were mediumistic. We can add to the list seven sons of Seva, and four daughters of Philip, in apostolic times. Constitutional properties, combinations, or endowments, differing from such as are most common in the make-up of man, pertain to such persons as are or can be the most plastic mediums. In many people, the organized properties of their physical or mental structures, or of both these, and the relations of such properties to each other, and their mutual action, become, at times, so modified by severe sickness, proximate drownings, protracted fastings, sudden frights, intense griefs, by use of anaesthetics, narcotics, and stimulants, and from many other causes, that those to whom the properties belong become temporarily mediumistic, though they be not observably or consciously such in their more normal states. The most common, and the more mildly acting agents or instrumentalities of such change, and those which produce the more abiding effects, are magnetic emanations and psychological influences from the positively mediumistic acting upon relatively negative systems. Such emanations may be seed originating new, or fertilizers quickening and expanding existing, inward growths.

Emanuel Swedenborg was, prior to and independently of his marked spiritual illumination late in life, one of the most erudite and illustrious scientists of the last century, and, being a truthful, conscientious, devout man, trained to accuracy of observation and statement, he was admirably fitted for a reporter to the external world, of facts which came under his observation as an observer in spirit realms; and we take from his works the following short extracts, which have some bearing upon the topic just presented.

"Man loses nothing by death, but is still a man in all respects.... Many are bewildered after death by finding themselves in a body, in garments, and in houses, ... some had believed that men after death would be as ghosts, specters of which they had heard."

"The will and understanding ... are two _organic_ forms, ... forms organized from the purest substances. It is no objection that their organization is not manifest to the eye, being interior to sight.... How can love and wisdom act upon what is not a substantial existence? How else can thought inhere?"

TWO SETS OF MENTAL POWERS.

Teachers unseen, speaking back to the world they have gone from, often say that, when here, they possessed two _bodies_--one of which is entombed below, while in the other they went forth and still abide; they say also that they possessed two mental systems and a double consciousness, one only of which survives. Quite recently, science, pressing forward in explorations, obtained perceptions of this latter fact. In his eighth lecture on the "Method of Creation," given May 1, 1873, and reported in the New York Tribune, the eminent Agassiz spoke as follows:--

"Are all mental faculties one? Is there only one kind of mental power throughout the whole animal kingdom, differing only in intensity and range of manifestation? In a series of admirable lectures, given recently in Boston by Dr. Brown-Sequard, he laid before his audience _a new philosophy of mental powers_. Through physiological experiments, combined with a careful study and comparison of pathological cases, he has come to the conclusion that there are _two sets_, or a double set, of mental powers in the human organism, or acting through the human organism, essentially different from each other. The one may be designated as our ordinary conscious intelligence; the other as a superior power which controls our better nature, solves, sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly, nay, even in sleep, our problems and perplexities, suggests the right thing at the right time, acting through us without conscious action of our own, though susceptible of training and elevation. Or perhaps I should rather say, our own organism may be trained to be a more plastic instrument through which this power acts in us.