THE SPIRITS CANNOT BE IDENTIFIED.
By Editor
If this assertion can be established, if it can be shown that Spiritualists themselves, after long and carefully testing the matter, acknowledge that spirits cannot be identified—that they will personate and deceive so as to defy all efforts at detection—then their unreliability is fully shown. No better evidence than this is needed of the danger of the system, because deception cannot certainly be detected in any instance, therefore the deception may be permanent—never exposed till the deceived and bewildered soul is ruined. In arguing this and other points, we produce as evidence the testimony of Spiritualists, and such as have been Spiritualists; we will introduce their evidence, with a few interesting remarks from Pres. Mahan:— "Certain experiments have been made, in order to determine whether spirits are present. Individuals go in as inquirers, and get definite answers—in the first place, from departed spirits of persons yet living; in the second place, from departed spirits of persons who never existed here or anywhere else; in the third place from departed spirits of brute beasts. Now, it will not be denied that answers are obtained from these, but it is said the communications come from spirits in a dishonest state of mind. But they will answer all the test questions that any other spirits can do. You cannot get a test applied in any question, cannot form or establish a test, that will not be as perfectly fulfilled in these cases as in any other. Now, if lying spirits can read our inmost thoughts, what evidence have you that any but lying spirits ever did communicate? How do you know but that when you were communicating, the father of lies was present, and shaped his lies for the very purpose of deception?"—Discussion at Cleveland with Tiffany and Rehn, page 13. Had the President followed up the last idea presented above, instead of trying to account for all the phenomena on natural principles, he would doubtless have more nearly met the arguments of his opponents. Again, he says:— "I venture to affirm that the testimony of no individual would be received in a court of justice which varied according to the persons with whom he conversed. Now I say that you cannot bring a solitary spirit that will not do this identical thing. A spirit will come into an orthodox circle, and affirm absolutely all the articles of the orthodox creed. You may in the same spot change the character of the circle and he will deny all he has said before. You may change the third time, and he will deny all he has said before, and assert an entirely new theory. Now I will appeal to any judge of any court, if he would receive the testimony of such a person. Again, they contradict each other in things that spirits cannot be ignorant of. They have attempted to tell us the location of the spheres, the distance between the surface of the earth and the spheres; and I do not believe that you can bring two spirits from the vasty deep that will agree in such a simple fact as that—that will agree with regard to any essential condition with reference to the spirits there, who is there, and what is their condition. "Judge Edmonds has drawn a picture of what he has seen, that made one of his hearers say, 'Why, Judge Edmonds, that is worse than a Presbyterian Hell!' He says that he has seen spirits which have been there 18,000 years, that look like monkeys, and that he has seen those who have horns, just as he has seen in pictures. I take the books, and then the testimony of all that have witnessed these circles, of whom I have inquired, and I have never yet met an individual who would honestly tell me that he believed that the testimony of the spirits was reliable."—Ib., page 37. In a discussion of this subject in the summer of 1856, one who claimed to have been the first Spiritualist in the State of Michigan (a Mr. Hobart of St. Joseph County), made the following remark:— "The spirit sometimes assumes the name of an individual belonging to the same church, to induce them to hear. This is necessary with some who are so bigoted they would not believe unless a name was assumed which they respected." This was an admission which we did not then suppose an intelligent Spiritualist would make. Any such assumption by a lying spirit would avail nothing if the person spoken to believed what the Bible says, that "the dead know not anything." Eccl. 9:5. That they do deceive those who seek to them is beyond all doubt; and to ward off the force of this fact, the flimsy covering of doing evil that good may come, is thrown over them. They are good, but it is our weakness and bigotry that causes them to profess to be what they are not! They are obliged to deceive us for our benefit, and to lie us into the truth! We did not know till that time that Spiritualists had so little confidence in these communications; but investigation proves the fact. Yet it is obvious that all Spiritualists have changed in their faith and lives under the influence of the spirits. This is a point worthy of careful consideration, that they are continually being molded and fashioned by an influence in which they dare not publicly avow the least confidence. "Persons have supposed that when they get correct answers they get tests. But when we come to understand that the spirit can come into rapport with the mind in the circle, we then discover that he can perceive his thoughts and get the answer as well as the question from his mind, and then being in communication with the medium can answer all his questions, and give him perfect answers, as to identity, at the same time that he is a far different spirit from what he purports to be."—Discussion with Mahan, page 52. The following remarks from Dr. Hare, made in the N. Y. Investigation Class, show that he also believed there was danger of being deceived:— "There was a difficulty, undoubtedly, in knowing precisely how it is, even upon the testimony of spirits, because spirits there occupying different spheres and immensely differing in their degrees of development, accordingly give discrepant accounts of the matter. We must first identify the spirit and determine his trustworthiness before we could accredit his testimony. We must observe the same rules of evidence, apply the same tests, and have the same care in ascertaining their identity and veracity as we do in like matters here." What folly, to talk of applying the same tests of identity to spirits that we do to persons here! The Doctor knew better, as every one does. But he admits that we cannot trust them, unless we can identify them, and the most experienced Spiritualists say that that is impossible. He seemed to consider himself safe from deception, as will appear by the following remark:— "He thought it impossible that he could have been deceived. It was not likely that any spirit would, in such a convocation, where Washington, Franklin, his father and mother, and others were present, assume a false character and name to deceive him any more than it was possible for any individual to assume to be and speak as some one else at a town meeting, without being detected." But Dr. Hare assumed that "Washington, Franklin, his father and mother," were present, for he could have no evidence of it whatever. We have attended many town meetings in years gone by, but we never yet knew any man to speak in such meetings in the name of his neighbor; but such things often take place in "circles," according to the testimony of Spiritualists. Judge Edmonds, in "Spiritual Tracts," No. 7, page 4, says:— "One day while I was at West Roxbury, there came to me, through Laura as the medium, the spirit of one with whom I had been well acquainted, but from whom I had been separated some fifteen years. His was a very peculiar character—one unlike that of any other man whom I ever knew, and so strongly marked that it was not easy to mistake his identity. "I had not seen him in several years; he was not at all in my mind at the time, and he was unknown to the medium. Yet he identified himself unmistakably, not only by his peculiar characteristics, but by referring to matters known only to him and me. "I took it for granted he was dead, and was surprised afterward to learn that he was not. He is yet living. "I cannot, on this occasion, go into all the particulars of an interview which lasted more than an hour. I was certain there was no delusion about it, and as certain that it was just as much of a spirit-manifestation as any I ever witnessed or heard of." But the credulity of Spiritualists knows no bounds. With all the evidence before him, and the well-known admissions of Spiritualists that lying spirits personate our friends so well as to defy detection, the Judge yet thought it was the spirit of his living friend! The following experience of a circle of "six ladies and gentlemen," is taken from the Boston Bee. The spirit of a dog first identified itself; the paper states:— "Several satisfactory answers were given relative to its name, that of its late master, time of its decease, etc. . . . The next spirit was that of a cat, who revealed the secret that it had been drowned while at a very tender age, in a cistern, by a young lady who was present. The answers in this instance were correct and satisfactory. "After this, a gentleman (who was a medium) asked if the spirit of a favorite horse was present. The raps were in the affirmative. The raps then gave the name of the horse by the alphabet, its age, the number of years it had been dead, the name of the place where it had been struck by lightning," etc. [Copied from Prof. Mattison.] In these instances the most satisfactory "tests of identity" were given. Who has ever known any better to be given by any spirits? Dr. Hare became satisfied that he was conversing with Christ, but Woodman says:— "For our part, we do not believe that Jesus Christ has communicated through any medium directly during the present century, though we do not pretend to know. If he should come to communicate, how would he be known? No living person would know him by his form, his voice, or his writing. No person could be induced to recollect by the relation of unpublished facts in his life, or by any peculiar marks of idiosyncrasies of character, for all these are unknown. So far as we could see, there could be nothing to identify his person. If the communication should be in any respect impure or immoral in its tendency, it would stand self-condemned. If it should be found in perfect harmony with the divine law, still it might come from some other intervening spirit."—Reply to Dwight, page 65. These remarks would apply to any other as well as unto Christ. And if the professed Christ should communicate "in perfect harmony with the divine law," Mr. Woodman would be inclined to regard it as some intervening spirit—and lying spirit, of course, professing to be what it was not. But suppose it professed to be one who had lived in the present century, with whose form, voice, writing, character, etc., we were acquainted, could we identify him with any greater certainty? A. J. Davis, in the Herald of Progress, Feb. 1, 1862, in answer to a question concerning the appearance of spirits, says:— "These appearances are intended merely as reminders and as tests of identity. All intelligent spirits are great artists. They can psychologize a medium to see them, and to describe them, in the style which would produce the greatest impression on the receiver. . . . They can easily represent themselves as being old or young, as in worldly dress or in flowing robes, as is deemed best suited to accomplish the ends of the visitation. They substitute pantomime and appearance for oral explanations."