STANFORD LIBRAR REVIEW. THE modern "Spiritual Manifestations" claim investigation, first, as to their ORIGIN; and second, their CHARACTER hypotheses remain : I. PNEUMATIC; Natural Law with Spirits. II. APNEUMATIC; Natural Law without Spirits. The facts which constitute the pneumatic argument arrange themselves in four classes : Class 1. Mysterious intelligent sounds and movements. Class 2. Involuntary polyglott speaking and writings. 1* Odyle.-Demonstranda-A universal medium. Class 4: Doctrines, revelations, poems, prophecies and medical prescriptions, all delivered through the above instrumentalities. The apneumatic argument responds, that these may the effects of automatic cerebral, or of automatic mental action, through Odyle. To show this, two things require proof, first, that Odyle exists, and second, that through it, automatic cerebral or mental action is adequate to the effects alleged. The existence of a universal medium was suspected by the ancients. It was the puois of Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Galen; the anima (as opposed to animus) of the Romans; and the Sephiroth of the Jewish Cabala. From this "soul of the world" of the prePlatonic orientals all souls are emanations. The "demons" of the Greeks, from Plato down to Jamblichus, were nothing but this. By this the magicians of the Nile, and the jugglers of the Ganges, wrought their wonders. This was the true Python, source of all divination, magic, and witchcraft, in annals sacred & Philosophy of Mysterious Agents, human and mundane: by E. C. Rogers. Boston, J. P. Jewett & Co. 1852. b"To Daimonion," by Traverse Oldfield. Boston, Gould and Lincoln. c Od, or Odyle, the name given by Baron Reichenbach of Vienna, to a new agent identified with animal magnetism. d "To Daimonion," pp. 17, 18. e Ib. p. 61. f Ib. pp. 66, 67, 91, 92. g Ib. Letters. ix. x. Modern discoveries.-Properties of Odyle. and profane. This the true secret of the Protean wonders of Rhabdomancy, Clairvoyance, and Animal Magnetism. What the ancients suspected, the moderns have demonstrated. In every chemic, or vital function of the body, with electricity, another imponderable, diverse from electricity, is evolved." Three independent courses of experiment, by Matteucci, Thilorier and Lafontaine, and Reichenbach, coincided with the report of Arago on Angelique Cottin, in establishing the discovery. Transmissible through electric non-conductors, capable of accumulation in unisolated bodies, possessing polarity, residing in the magnet with, but distinct from, magnetism, visible in darkness to sensitive organs, energising from the organism upon nature, and reacting from nature upon the organism, it pervades the earth and heavenly bodies, is diffused through space, and is the agent of the phenomena of clairvoyance.c Producing when discharged, as in Angelique Cottin, by the sub-cerebral centres, unintelligent effects on heavy bodies, equal to any of the "manifestations," it simulates, when directed by the brain itself, all the characteristics of intelligence. d Tested by Ashburner, endorsed by Gregory of a "To Daimonion," pp. 77, 101, 105, &c. b Rogers, §§ 226, 290. c Reich. Dyn. Mag. d Ib. pref. p. v. Good nomenclature.-Chapter II. Edinburgh, Hitchcock of Amherst, and others of scientific note, the discovery has at least supplied a desideratum, by affording a nomenclature of singular appropriateness for almost all the anomalies that have ever afflicted science. CHAPTER II. AUTOMATON BRAIN. It remains to consider the adequacy of automatic cerebral, or mental action. Instrumental representative of mind, the brain is capable of spontaneous action, without mind. Such spontaneous action will be indistinguishable from mental operations proper.b Musicians perform automatically. Printers set type mechanically. In revery, all manner of things are done unconsciously. A servant-maid, delirious with fever, recited passages of Hebrew heard many years before. A somnambulic girl, before exhibition, rose by night and a Religion of Geology, p. 423-425. "The inquiry seems to have been conducted with great fairness and scientific skill, and the author has the confidence of several of the most distinguished scientific men in Europe." b Rogers, §§ 423, 443. c Ib. § 359. Somnambulism.-Mrs. Hauffe.-Inaccurate spelling. painted at her trial piece with surpassing skill.A somnambulic chess-player, defeated while asleep those who beat him when awake." Every operation, from the highest rational to the lowest sensational, which brain performs, with mind as irritant, it can reproduce, without mind, under specific external irritants, not even excluding fictitious conscious personal identity.b Add the power of rapping and tipping at a distance, and one class of the manifestations is accounted for. Now Dr. Kerner, chief physician at Weinsberg in Germany, states that Mrs. Frederica Hauffe, when in the magnetic sleep, could rap at a distance, producing a hollow, yet clear sound, soft, but distinct. Binns mentions a gentleman, who, in a dream, pushed against a door in a distant house, so that those in the room were scarce able to resist the pressure. d And Dr. Of course, if brain without mind can rap, and move bodies at a distance, it can so do it as to represent its own impressions in the shape of spelled communications. In confirmation, the spelling follows the cerebral habit of the medium, being correct or incorrect as the medium is educated or illiterate. Thus any impression, even though long dormant, or never consciously a Rogers, § 439. c Seeress of Prevorst, p. 35; comp. Rogers, § 562. b Rogers, comp. § 433 and § 442. Rogers, § 584. |