Part 36

"I do not see why this view should not be accepted. It is in harmony with facts as far as we know them. The experiments through which my friend Dr. Brown-Sequard has satisfied himself that the subtle mechanism of the human frame, about which we know so little in its connection with mental processes, is sometimes acted upon by a power outside of us as familiar with that organization as we are ignorant of it, are no less acute than they are curious and interesting."

Many persons, including the author of these pages, more than twenty years ago found among "phenomena called spiritual," many which seemed imperatively to demand a broadening of the base of any mental philosophy which the world at large had presented to their notice, and apprehended that light was dawning amid the dark work of spirits, which might reveal to man more knowledge than he had ever obtained both of his own mysterious structure, and of his relations to and possible intercourse with his predecessors on earth. Many, perceiving this, have held on prosecuting such observations, and drawing such conclusions as their opportunities and powers permitted, undeterred by sneers and cold shoulders; and such now spontaneously hail with joy the arrival of the world's most advanced scientists at "_a new philosophy of mental powers_;" such a philosophy, too, as manifestations well scrutinized have long been indicating would some day be based on the firm foundation of proved facts, and become a blessing to our race. Both spiritualism and science, by distinct routes, have reached a common point, and each testifies to the other's discovery of a new world _in_ man.

"The subtle mechanism of the human frame, about which we know so little in its connection with mental processes, _is sometimes acted upon by a power outside of us as familiar with that organism as we are ignorant of it, ...

## acting through us without conscious action of our own, though susceptible

of training or elevation_." Such is the conclusion of Dr. Brown-Sequard, which is indorsed by Agassiz. Backed by such authority, one may very courageously move forward in efforts to show that the very structure of man through all ages may have permitted certain human forms to have been controlled and used by intelligent powers outside of themselves, and without conscious action of their own, that is, without consciousness on the part of the individual minds to which those bodies naturally pertained. Such facts are guide-boards designating pathways along which producers of prophetic, witchcraft, and spiritualistic phenomena can reach standing-points for speech and action perceptible by men's external senses; these facts are keys, too, that will unlock many chambers of mystery, and we have used them in searches among the records of witchcraft.

Those eminent savants do not state, and therefore we shall not maintain, that the outside power they refer to is spirits of former occupants of human bodies; but since that power "is as familiar with the human organism as we are ignorant of it," the language surely implies reference to _some intelligent_ power, for its familiarity with the organism is that of _knowledge_, the acquisition of which is contrasted with our _ignorance_. To whom can they refer, if not to spirits of some grade?

The nature of things contains provision for temporary reincarnations of some departed spirits in the physical forms of some peculiarly organized and endowed human beings. This fact is important, and should be borne in mind during a perusal of the present work.

MARVEL AND SPIRITUALISM.

We are reluctant to use the word "miracle" because of its liability to be construed as designating not only an act performed directly by an Almighty One, but also that, in performing it, He acts "contrary to the established constitution and course of things;" which course we believe was never adopted. Therefore we shall use "marvel," to designate all works which have seemed to require more than human power, and have been understood to be "more than natural."

Such A MARVEL _is a result from application of powerful occult forces which man neither comprehends nor can manage_.

SPIRITUALISM is phenomena resulting from use of occult forces and processes by invisible, departed human spirits.

Most genuine spiritual phenomena are marvels; but there may be, and may have been in witchcraft-scenes, marvels which spirits did not produce. We left out from the definition of marvel, necessity for an _intelligent_ operator. Impersonal influxes to many mediums may at times produce many things which are often ascribed to personal spirits.

Our broad definition lets the word marvel cover all supernal revelations and inspirations from any god, spirit, or the impersonal spirit realms,--all angel or spirit presence ever perceived by man,--all mighty works, signs, and wonders ever wrought through prophets, apostles, magicians, sorcerers, and the like,--all promptings, helps, and works by spirits called "familiar,"--all necromancies, witchcrafts, &c., &c. As a natural philosophy, our subject embraces all these. Its moral or religious aspects do not come under special consideration in the course of inquiry which is pursued by us. Spiritualism--as evolvements by finite unseen intelligences, using none other than natural forces, however occult,

## acting in subserviency to natural laws and nice conditions--has its

rightful place with whatever has come forth from action of intra-mundane or supra-mundane forces and agents.

Hidden intelligences in all ages and lands have had credit for performing in man's presence many "mighty works," and for making revelations from the world unseen. Over the whole earth formerly, and over the larger part of it now, such intelligences have been and are deemed to be of all characters and grades, from very unfolded, pure, and benevolent beings, down to the ignorant, corrupt, and malignant. But our Puritan ancestry on this continent had inherited and brought hither with them a firm, unqualified belief that no other spirits but evil ones could, or at least that none but such would, operate among the Christian dwellers on New England soil. The mysterious workers and their doings were here excessively diabolized by the monstrous creed previously described, which prevailed all through Christendom during the seventeenth and some prior centuries, so that signs, wonders, and mighty works among our ancestors assumed forms, characters, and horrors which were never known among Jews, Christians, or heathen of old, and do not revive in our own times. There was then lacking here any conjecture that the same laws which in Job's time permitted Satan to mingle in company with the sons of God, might permit a son of God--a good spirit--to traverse the paths along which the sons of the devil--bad spirits--made approaches to the children of men. Moses, Elias, Samuel, and John's brother prophet were forgotten. We apprehend that facts of history teach beyond all successful refutation that spirits of some quality acted upon and through many persons in the American colonies during the latter half of the seventeenth century. Our fathers were not mistaken as to that fact; but their inhospitable and fierce slamming of doors in the faces of these visitants provoked terrible retaliations. One leading object of this work is to refute the position of intervening historians, that no disembodied spirits whatsoever had any hand in producing American witchcraft.

INDIAN WORSHIP.

The historian Hutchinson said, "the Indians were supposed to be worshipers of the devil, and their powows to be wizards." Such supposition by the mind of Christendom intensified fears and ruthless acts on American soil more than elsewhere, whenever suspicion of witchcraft was engendered. America was then understood to be peculiarly the domain of the Evil One, and all its pagan inhabitants were regarded as his devoted adherents. Thence his followers here were deemed to be more numerous and formidable than elsewhere, and therefore his invasion was more to be dreaded on this than on the other side of the Atlantic.

We must impute a considerable portion of witchcraft horrors to such narrow and cramping religious views and feelings among our fathers, as made all men everywhere seem to them not only outcasts from God, but also associates with Satan, who did not possess their special creed, and worship by their processes. They practically forgot that all men, of all nations and tribes, are the offspring of the Unknown God, whom Paul declared to the Athenians; and also that his paternal beneficence extends to his children everywhere, and draws them toward him by methods suited to their circumstances, capacities, and needs, and consequently that all religious creeds and all modes and forms of worship may be helpful to those who possess and use them.

History, literature, and public belief, pertaining to the religious practices of North American Indians, so far as we remember, have very uniformly ascribed to them something closely resembling communings and consultations with invisible intelligences. Such religious services are, and ever have been, rendered in all those primitive tribes the world over concerning whom we have attained to anything like accurate knowledge. (See Primitive Culture, by Edward B. Tylor.) Ethnology proves that belief in the presence of spirits--and, generally, belief in the access of ancestral spirits--exists among man everywhere in the nations lowest of all in culture, and survives in them as they rise in development. Dr. Bentley declared that "the agency of invisible beings, if not a part of every religion, is not contrary to any one." Hutchinson, as quoted above, says, "The Indians were supposed to be worshipers of _The Devil_, and their powows to be wizards."

No question is raised that such a supposition pertaining to Indian worship was prevalent in the New England mind down to the close of the seventeenth century. Nor can we doubt that untruthfully the Puritans charged the aborigines with worshiping the one great Devil of Puritan Diabolism, because of our conviction that the red men were in fact communing with their ancestral and numerous other friendly spirits. The white man's erroneous conception that his devil was the red man's god, had no small influence upon public action in witchcraft times. The idea that their devil had for backers all the aborigines of the continent, made him a more formidable foe than he otherwise would have been, and intensified the ruthlessness of the whites in their persecutions of those of their own complexion and households who were believed to have made a compact to serve the Evil One. Perhaps a modern instance may exhibit with much clearness the real nature of Indian worship in former ages.

We quote from the Washington Chronicle, early in the year 1873, what is there ascribed to General O. O. Howard, who is often called the _Christian Soldier_. He, as commissioner from the American government, had, unarmed and with but two attendants, penetrated the fastnesses of the mountains, made his way to the home of the Appache Indians and to the presence of their fierce chief, Cochise. After council with the Appaches, "they had," as General Howard writes, "an Appache prayer-meeting, ... one Indian after another would pray or speak.... Cochise's talks were apparently the most authoritative;... I could hear him name Stagalito, meaning Red Beard. I knew from this that our whole case was being considered in their way _in the Divine Presence_ either of the God of the earth, or of His spirits; and surely these were solemn moments, ... fortunately the spirits were on our side." These words indicate very clearly the nature of that devil whom modern Indian powows worship: they make him on one occasion neither more nor less than the ascended chief Stagalito, associated with other spirits of the same nature. Can there be a doubt that Hutchinson misrepresented the fact, if he meant to call the Indian communings with spirits a worshiping of that monstrous being whom the word "_Devil_," uttered through clerical lips, or recorded by intelligent pens, in early colonial times, was intended and understood to describe? We think not. There was neither truth nor justice in the supposition that the red men were devil-worshipers at the times when they were consulting departed spirits; nor in the presumption that their mediums--their powows--were wizards. False epithets do not convert any sincere worship, performed even by the rudest of the rude, into a bad act. Those Indians of two centuries ago, as judged by us now, had truer conceptions and better knowledge of spirit intercourse with mortals, and of the fit methods of obtaining useful incentives and help from spirit realms, than had their Christian neighbors, who misunderstood and blindly maligned the devotions offered to the Great Spirit by his children in the forests. The Indians, to the best of their ability, worshiped Him who is the common Father of all men of every hue and condition. They sought access to the Great Spirit, our God as well as theirs, through communings with their ancestral and other spirits. But the supposition that they worshiped such a being as the devil of Christendom, is obviously incorrect.

Cotton Mather said that "the Indians generally acknowledged and worshiped _many_ GODS; therefore greatly esteemed and reveres their _priests_, powows or wizards, who were esteemed as having immediate converse with the gods." Rev. Mr. Higginson, of Salem, said the Indians in that vicinity "do worship two gods--a good and an evil." Mather and Higginson are better authority on this point than Hutchinson. Those denizens of the impressive forests were nature-taught spiritualists communing with their ancestral spirits, and through them were lured and helped on to worship the Great Spirit of Nature--the Omnipresent God.