Salem Witchcraft, the Planchette Mystery, and Modern Spiritualism — Salem Witchcraft: Importance of the Subject

IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT.

It is needless to dwell on the objection made to the rising hopefulness in regard to the study of Man, and the mysteries of his nature.

Between the multitude who have still no notion of any alternative supposition to that of possession or inspiration by spirits, or, at least, intercourse with such beings, and others who fear "Materialism" if too close an attention is paid to the interaction of the mind and the nerves, and those who always shrink from new notions in matters so interesting, and those who fear that religion may be implicated in any slight shown to angel or devil, and those who will not see or hear any evidence whatever which lies in a direction opposite to their prejudices, we are not likely to get on too fast.

But neither can the injury lapse under neglect.

The spectacle presented now is of the same three sorts of people that appear in all satires, in all literatures, since the pursuit of truth in any mode or direction became a recognized object anywhere and under any conditions.

Leaving out of view the multitude who are irrelevant to the case, from having no knowledge, and being therefore incapable of an opinion, there is the large company of the superficial and light-minded, who are always injuring the honor and beauty of truth by the levity, the impertinence, the absurdity of the enthusiasm they pretend, and the nonsense they talk about "some new thing."

No period of society has been more familiar with that class and its mischief-making than our own.

There is the other large class of the cotemporaries of any discovery or special advance, who, when they can absent themselves from the scene no longer, look and listen, and bend all their efforts to hold their ground of life-long opinion, usually succeeding so far as to escape any direct admission that more is known than when they were born.

These are no ultimate hindrance.

When Harvey died, no physician in Europe above the age of forty believed in the circulation of the blood;

but the truth was perfectly safe; and so it will be with the case of the psychological relations of the nervous system when the present course of investigation has sustained a clearer verification and further advance.

On this point we have the sayings of two truth-seekers, wise in quality of intellect, impartial and dispassionate in temper, and fearless in the pursuit of their aims.

The late Prince Consort is vividly remembered for the characteristic saying which spread rapidly over the country, that he could not understand the conduct of the medical profession in England in leaving the phenomena of mesmerism to the observation of unqualified persons, instead of undertaking an inquiry which was certainly their proper business, in proportion as they professed to pursue _science_.

The other authority we refer to is the late Mr. Hallam.

A letter of his lies before us from which we quote a passage, familiar in its substance, doubtless, to his personal friends, to whom he always avowed the view which it presents, and well worthy of note to such readers as may not be aware of the observation and thought he devoted to the phenomena of mesmerism during the last quarter-century of his long life.

"It appears to me probable that the various phenomena of mesmerism, together with others, independent of mesmerism properly so called, which have lately [the date is 1844] been brought to light, are fragments of some general law of nature which we are not yet able to deduce from them, merely because they are destitute of visible connection--the links being hitherto wanting which are to display the entire harmony of effects proceeding from a single cause."

[Persons curious to know what has been developed in this class of studies may find the same in a work published at this office, entitled THE LIBRARY OF MESMERISM AND PSYCHOLOGY--comprising the Philosophy of Mesmerism, Clairvoyance, and Mental Electricity; Fascination, or the Power of Charming; The Macrocosm, or the World of Sense; Electrical Psychology, or the Doctrine of Impressions; The Science of the Soul, treated Physiologically and Philosophically.

Complete in one illustrated volume.

Price, . ] What room is there not for hopefulness when we compare such an observation as this with Mr. Parris' dogmatical exposition of Satan's dealings with men!

or when we contrast the calm and cheerful tone of the philosopher with the stubborn wrath of Chief Justice Stoughton, and with the penitential laments of Judge Sewall!

We might contrast it also with the wild exultation of those of the Spiritualists of our own day who can form no conception of the modesty and patience requisite for the sincere search for truth, and who, once finding themselves surrounded by facts and appearances new and strange, assume that they have discovered a bridge over the bottomless "gulf beyond which lies the spirit-land," and wander henceforth in a fools' paradise, despising and pitying all who are less rash, ignorant, and presumptuous than themselves.

It is this company of fanatics--the first of the three classes we spoke of--which is partly answerable for the backwardness of the second; but the blame does not rest exclusively in one quarter.

There is an indolence in the medical class which is the commonest reproach against them in every age of scientific activity, and which has recently been heroically avowed and denounced in a public address by no less a member of the profession than Sir Thomas Watson.

[1] There is a conservative reluctance to change of view or of procedure.

There is also a lack of moral courage, by no means surprising in an order of men whose lives are spent in charming away troubles, and easing pains and cares, and "making things pleasant"--by no means surprising, we admit, but exceedingly unfavorable to the acknowledgment of phenomena that are strange and facts that are unintelligible.

[1] Address on the Present State of Therapeutics.

Delivered at the opening meeting of the Clinical Society of London, January 10, 1868. By Sir Thomas Watson, Bart.

, M.

D.

This brings us to the third class--the very small number of persons who are, in the matter of human progress, the salt of the earth; the few who can endure to see without understanding, to hear without immediately believing or disbelieving, to learn what they can, without any consideration of what figure they themselves shall make in the transaction; and even to be unable to reconcile the new phenomena with their own prior experience or conceptions.

There is no need to describe how rare this class must necessarily be, for every one who has eyes sees how near the passions and the prejudices of the human being lie to each other.

These are the few who unite the two great virtues of earnestly studying the facts, and keeping their temper, composure and cheerfulness through whatever perplexity their inquiry may involve.

It is remarkable that while the world is echoing all round and incessantly with the praise of the life of the man spent in following truth wherever it may lead, the world is always resounding also with the angry passions of men who resent all opinions which are not their own, and denounce with fury or with malice any countenance given to mere proposals to inquire in certain directions which they think proper to reprobate.

Not only was it horrible blasphemy in Galileo to think as he did of the motion of the earth, but in his friends to look through his glass at the stars.

This Salem story is indeed shocking in every view--to our pride as rational beings, to our sympathy as human beings, to our faith as Christians, to our complacency as children of the Reformation.

It is so shocking that some of us may regret that the details have been revived with such an abundance of evidence.

But this is no matter of regret, but rather of congratulation, if we have not outgrown the need of admonition from the past.

How does that consideration stand?

At the end of nearly three centuries we find ourselves relieved of a heavy burden of fear and care about the perpetual and unbounded malice of Satan and his agents.

Witchcraft has ceased to be one of the gravest curses of the human lot.

We have parted with one after another of the fetish or conjectural persuasions about our relations with the world of spirit or mind, regarded as in direct opposition to the world of matter.

By a succession of discoveries we have been led to an essentially different view of life and thought from any dreamed of before the new birth of science; and at this day, and in our own metropolis, we have Sir Henry Holland telling us how certain treatment of this or that department of the nervous system will generate this or that state of belief and experience, as well as sensation.

We have Dr. Carpenter disclosing facts of incalculable significance about brain-action without consciousness, and other vital mysteries.

We have Dr. Maudsley showing, in the cells of the lunatic asylum, not only the very realm of Satan, as our fathers would have thought, but the discovery that it is not Satan, after all, that makes the havoc, but our own ignorance which has seduced us into a blasphemous superstition, instead of inciting us to the study of ourselves.

And these are not all our teachers.

Amid the conflict of phenomena of the human mind and body, we have arrived now at the express controversy of Psychology against Physiology.

Beyond the mere statement of the fact we have scarcely advanced a step.

The first can not be, with any accuracy, called a science at all, and the other is in little more than a rudimentary state; but it is no small gain to have arrived at some conception of the nature of the problem set before us, and at some liberty of hypothesis as to its conditions.

In brief, and in the plainest terms, while there is still a multitude deluding and disporting itself with a false hypothesis about certain mysteries of the human mind, and claiming to have explained the marvels of Spiritualism by making an objective world of their own subjective experience, the scientific physiologists [those especially who are true phrenologists] are proceeding, by observation and experiment, to penetrate more and more secrets of our intellectual and moral life.

THE PLANCHETTE MYSTERY.