"We may further add in this connection that the trance mediums for spirit intercourse are equally irresponsible. Many of them are totally unable to resist the powers which come to them from the invisible and unknown realms."
Dr. Randolph ("Dealings with the Dead," p. 150) shows the dangers of mediumship, as follows:-
"I saw that one great cause of the moral looseness of thousands of sensitive-nerved people on earth, resulted from the infernal possessions and obsessions of their persons by delegations from those realms of darkness and (to all but themselves) unmitigated horror. A sensitive man or woman-no matter how virtuously inclined-may, unless by constant prayer and watchfulness they prevent it and keep the will active and the sphere entire, be led into the most abominable practices and habits."
This same writer, in the same work, pp. 108, 109, says:-
"Those ill-meaning ones who live just beyond the threshold, often obtain their ends by subtly infusing a semi-sense of volitional power into the minds of their intended victims, so that at last they come to believe themselves to be self-acting, when in fact they are the merest shuttlec.o.c.ks bandied about between the battledores of knavish devils on one side, and devilish knaves upon the other, and between the two the poor fallen wretches are nearly heart-reft and destroyed."
A work by A. J. Davis called "The Diakka, and their Earthly Victims,"
mentions the nature of these denizens of the spirit world, and their wonderful location. The country (to speak after the manner of men) which they inhabit, is so large that it would require not less than 1,803,026 diameters of the earth to span its longitudinal extent. This he had from a spirit he calls James Victor Wilson, a profound mathematician! This s.p.a.ce is occupied by spirits who have pa.s.sed from earth, who are "morally deficient, and affectionally unclean."-_Page_ 7. The same spirit, Wilson, describes the diakka as those "who take insane delight in playing parts, in juggling tricks, in personating opposite characters to whom prayers and profane utterances are of equi-value; surcharged with a pa.s.sion for lyrical narrations; one whose every att.i.tude is instinct with the schemes of specious reasoning, sophistry, pride, pleasure, wit, subtle convivialities; a boundless disbeliever, one who thinks that all private life will end in the all-consuming self-love of G.o.d."-_Page 13._ On page 13 he says further of them, that they are "never resting, never satisfied with life, often amusing themselves with jugglery and tricky witticisms, invariably victimizing others; secretly tormenting mediums, causing them to exaggerate in speech, and to falsify in acts; unlocking and unbolting the street doors of your bosom and memory; pointing your feet into wrong paths, and far more."
What this "far more" is, we are left to conjecture. The advertis.e.m.e.nt of this book says that it is "an explanation of much that is false and repulsive in Spiritualism." W. F. Jamieson, in a Spiritualist paper, called these diakka "a troop of devils," and quoted Judge Carter as saying: "There is one thing clear, that these diakka, or fantastic or mixed spirits, are very numerous and abundant, and take any and every opportunity of obtruding themselves."
Hudson Tuttle, author of "Life in Two Spheres" and other Spiritualistic works, speaks of "a communication, through a noted medium, to Gerald Ma.s.sey from his "dog Pip," the said Pip "licking the slate and writing with a good degree of intelligence." " He adds, "Mr. Davis would say that "Pip" was a "diakka," and to-morrow he will communicate as George Washington, Theodore Parker, or Balaam"s a.s.s. This diakka is flesh, fish, or fowl, as you may desire."
Some idea of how the spirits sometimes torment the mediums, as hinted at above, may be gained from the following instance. In "Astounding Facts from the Spirit World," pp. 253, 254, Dr. Gridley describes the case of a medium sixty years of age, living near him in Southampton, Ma.s.s. The sufferings inflicted upon him "in two months at the hands of evil spirits would fill a volume of five hundred pages." Of these sufferings, the following are specimens:-
"They forbade his eating, to the very point of starvation. He was a perfect skeleton; they compelled him to walk day and night, with intermissions, to be sure, as their avowed object was to torment him as much and as long as possible. They swore by everything sacred and profane, that they would knock his brains out, always accompanying their threats with blows on the forehead or temples, like that of a mallet in the hands of a powerful man, with this difference, however; the latter would have made him unconscious, while in full consciousness he now endured the indescribable agony of those heavy and oft-repeated blows; they declared they would skin him alive; that he must go to New York and be dissected by inches, all of which he fully believed. They declared that they would bore holes into his brain, when he instantly felt the action suited to the word, as though a dozen augers were being turned at once into his very skull; this done, they would fill his brain with bugs and worms to eat it out, when their gnawing would instantly commence. These spirits would pinch and pound him, twitch him up and throw him down, yell and blaspheme, and use the most obscene language that mortals can conceive; they would declare that they were Christ in one breath, and devils in the next; they would tie him head to foot for a long time together in a most excruciating posture; declare they would wring his neck off because he doubted or refused obedience."
Who can doubt that such spirits are the angels of the evil one himself?
Dr. Gridley in the same work, p. 19, gives the experience of another medium, for the truthfulness of which he offers the fullest proof:-
"We have seen the medium evidently possessed by Irishmen and Dutchmen of the lowest grade-heard him repeat Joshua"s drunken prayers [Joshua was a strong but brutish man he had known in life], exactly like the original,-imitate his drunkenness in word and deed-try to repeat, or rather act over his most brutal deeds (from which for decency"s sake, he was instantly restrained by extraordinary exertion and severe rebuke)-snap and grate his teeth most furiously, strike and swear, while his eyes flashed like the fires of an orthodox perdition. We have heard him hiss, and seen him writhe his body like the serpent when crawling, and dart out his tongue, and play it exactly like that reptile. These exhibitions were intermingled with the most wrangling and horrible convulsions."
These descriptions, it would seem, ought to be enough to strike terror to any heart at the thought of being a medium. But there is yet another phase of the subject that should not be pa.s.sed by. These fallen spirits who are engineering the work of Spiritualism, to maintain their "a.s.sumed characters," and "play their parts" like the aforesaid diakka, represent that disembodied spirits "just over the threshold," still retain the characteristics they bore in life, such as a disposition to sensuality and licentiousness, love of rum, tobacco, and other vices, and that they can, by causing the medium to plunge excessively into these things, thereby still gratify their own propensities to indulge in them. The following sketch by Hudson Tuttle, a very popular author among Spiritualists, is somewhat lengthy, but the idea could not better be presented than by giving it entire. In "Life in Two Spheres," pp. 35-37, he says:-
"Reader, have you ever entered the respectable saloon? Have you ever watched the stupid stare of the inebriate when the eye grew less and less l.u.s.trous, slowly closing, the muscles relaxing, and the victim of appet.i.te sinking over on the floor in beastly drunkenness? Oh, how dense the fumes of mingled tobacco and alcohol! Oh, what misery confined in those walls! If you have witnessed such scenes, then we need describe no further. If you have not, then you had not better hear the tale of woe. Imagine to yourselves a bar-room with all its sots, and their number multiplied indefinitely, while conscience-seared and bloated fiends stand behind the bar, from whence they deal out death and d.a.m.nation, and the picture is complete. _One has just arrived from earth._ He is yet uninitiated in the mysteries and miseries of those which, like hungry lions, await him. He died while intoxicated-was frozen while lying in the gutter, and consequently is attracted toward this society. He possessed a good intellect, but it was shattered beyond repair by his debauches.
" "Ye ar" a fresh one, aint ye?" coa.r.s.ely queried a sot, just then particularly communicative.
" "Why, yes, I have just died, as they call it, and "taint so bad a change after all; only I suppose there"ll be dry times here for the want of something stimulant."
" "Not so dry; lots of that all the time, and jolly times too."
" "Drink! Can you drink, then?"
" "Yes, we just can, and feel as nice as you please. But all can"t, not unless they find one on earth just like them. You go to earth, and mix with your chums; and when you find one whose thoughts you can read, he"s your man. Form a connection with him, and when he gets to feeling _good_, you"ll feel so too.-There, do you understand me? I always tell all fresh ones the glorious news, for how they would suffer if it wasn"t for this blessed thing."
" "I"ll try, no mistake."
" "Here"s a covey," spoke an ulcerous-looking being; "he"s of our stripe. Tim, did you hear what an infernal sc.r.a.pe I got into last night? No, you didn"t. Well, I went to our friend Fred"s; he didn"t want to drink when I found him; his dimes looked so extremely large. Well, I _destroyed that feeling_, and made him think he was dry. He drank, and drank, more than I wanted him to, until I was so drunk that I could not break my connection with him, or control his mind. He undertook to go home, fell into the snow, and came near freezing to death. I suffered awfully, ten times as much as when I died."... Reader, we draw the curtain over scenes like these, such as are daily occurring in this society."
In these cases the whole evil of the indulgences of course falls upon the mediums; and who would wish to a.s.sume personal relation with such a world, and be forced to bear in their own bodies the evils of the unhallowed indulgences of unseen spirits, against their will?
Other scenes represented as taking place in the spirit land, are most grotesque and silly and would be taken as a burlesque upon Spiritualism, were they not put forth in all gravity by the friends and advocates of that so-called new revelation. Thus Judge Edmunds, giving an account of what he had seen in the spirit world, mentions the case of an old woman busy churning, who promised him, if he would call again, a drink of b.u.t.termilk; he speaks of men fighting, of courtezans trying to continue their lewd conduct; of a mischievous boy who split a dog"s tail open, and put a stick in it, just to witness its misery; of the owner of the dog, who, attracted by its cries, discovered the cause, and beat the boy, who fled, but was pursued and beaten and kicked far up the road. See Edmund"s "Spiritualism," Vol. II, pp. 135-144, 181, 182, 186, 189. Surely here are the diakka playing their pranks in all their glory.
Miscellaneous Teaching.
On the leading points of faith as held by Christians generally, quotations have been given to show sufficiently what the spirits teach, and the object they are trying to effect. But the reader will be interested to learn what they teach on some other points which incidentally appear in their communications.
Spiritualists object most strenuously to the idea of unconsciousness in death, or to the Bible declaration, "The dead know not anything." But the spirits themselves teach this very thing. Thus Judge Edmunds, Vol. II, Appendix B, p. 524, quotes the confession of a spirit that he was totally unconscious for a time, he could not tell how long, and awoke to consciousness gradually; and that the state of unconsciousness differs with different persons, depending on circ.u.mstances. A. J. Davis admits that Professor Webster was eight days and a half unconscious.-_"__Death and the After Life,__"__ pp. 18, 19._
Through Mrs. Conant, medium, in _Banner of Light_, June 3, 1865, we have this information: "It is said that some spirits require a thousand years to awake to consciousness. Is this true?-Yes, this is true." In "Automatic Writing," p. 93, the spirits teach the same thing to-day. If others deny such statements, it only shows that their testimony is contradictory and therefore unreliable.
Again, the Bible doctrine that the incorrigibly wicked must cease from conscious existence, is denounced by Spiritualists; but on this point the spirits confess also:-
"_Ques._-Do I understand you to say that a diakka is one who believes in ultimate annihilation?
"_Ans._-Only yesterday one said to a lady medium, signing himself "Swedenborg," this: "Whatsoever is, has been, will be, or may be, _that_ I AM, and private life is but the aggregative phantasms of thinking throblets rushing in their rising onward to the central heart of eternal death."-_"__Diakka__"__ p. 11._
"_Q._-Does every human being continue life on higher planes?
"_A._-Shall not all who are abortions die?"
"_Q._-Do you mean that some born on this plane may spiritually die from lack of force to persist?
"_A._-Yes-both women and men are born into the divine humanity who must necessarily perish, because they have not sufficient soul strength to persist."-_"__Automatic Writing,__"__ pp. 101, 102._
There is, it seems, a purgatory in the spirit world. In answer to a question, a spirit replied:-