THE HISTORY OF THE SUPERNATURAL. 27 such as are generally termed "supernatural events," are no violations of natural laws; but only effects of the working of higher spiritual laws, which overrule and modify the former, just as the laws of life pertaining to the soul overrule and modify the physical laws of matter, gravita tion, &c., in the body that soul inhabits; and we believe Mr. Howitt to be justified in the view he takes, that the state of the world, or the church, in which these spiritual laws do not freely and actively manifest themselves, controlling and vivifying natural laws, is a state of comparative deadness, such as that of a paralysed limb which can no longer be moved in obedience to the brain and will which should wield it. The laws of nature, or more strictly speaking, the laws of this sensuous universe, are but as a body, in and through which spiritual laws are designed to work for the behoof of man. Man being as he is, a spirit, dwelling in a sensuous body and a sensuous world, must not the laws of spirit govern and transcend the laws of sense as the spirit transcends the flesh, as the soul, the body? To assert that the laws of sense preclude the operation of spiritual laws, would simply be to assert them a failure, a mere insult to our faith in the goodness and wisdom of the Divine Creator and Lawgiver. That, at different eras and phases of the world's progress, the activity of these spiritual laws and agencies is very variously manifested, admits of no question; but their sway is equally manifest in the dearth as in the frequency of their recognised operation. The law of that manifestation being, that the spiritual should clothe itself in and work upon and through the natural, the dearth of spiritual life is correspondentially seen, in the dearth of such occurrences in the natural world as betoken and evince the sway of spirit over nature. The mountains do not move when there is no faith in the soul to move them. Then as (whatever the cause) the mountains do not move, follows a phase of mind in which it is disbelieved that any power exists which could move mountains, and an age of scepticism-for the world or the individual supervenes. Such a phase the educated European world has been passing through for the last century or century and a half; and the nineteenth century is only now awaking to the desire to shake off from its understanding the deadly fetters of materialism inherited from its predecessor. But though this spirit of disbelief, in aught beyond the realm of the senses, springs undoubtedly from evil, from that indomitable pride and self-love which as Mr. Howitt quoting Seneca expresses it (vol. 1, p. 352), would fain "deny God's freedom in His own universe "-for what else is it when men assert that the laws of nature, God-made, preclude the 28 THE HISTORY OF THE SUPERNATURAL. possibility of miracles, God-worked?-we may do well to bear in mind, that its result and concomitant, the corresponding cessation of manifest spiritual action on the world of sense, is tempered by Divine Providence, if not into an instrument of good, at least into a shield against deeper evil. When the human mind has, through the practice of evil and the love of falsehood, become thus sensualised and comparatively dead, the spheres of spirit-life with which man through such evil has most closely associated himself, are so prevailingly evil, so subtle and direful, that but for this disbelief in their presence and agency, their influx would overpower the weak remains of spiritual life and affection, and render reformation and repentance impossible. But this disbelief shuts as it were a door of protection between the debased human soul and its more debased spirit-associates, and affords in the limitation of their influence, a field for the operation of better influences which work none the less powerfully for being unperceived. For the difference between good and evil spirit-influences, or divine and heavenly influences on the one hand, and infernal influences on the other, is this: the Lord and all angels or good spirits who serve Him, seek to influence man for his own good, not for the sake of rule or dominion; and seek to work silently and unobtrusively so as neither to force the freedom of his will, nor on the other hand to rouse it to antagonism by too great urgency. But evil spirits seek to sway man from the lust of rule and the love of that falsehood which sets up each Self as the God of each, and would fain have all others to serve and worship it. It is however a law of spirit-influx, unfolded by Swedenborg, that when human consciousness does not respond, and there is thus no reactive plane formed, the spirits in association with a man have themselves no consciousness of the influx of thought and affection passing from them; no knowledge even of the spiritual proximity of those with whom a similarity of affection and thought associates them; and thus their lust of sway remains unexcited in that direction. When therefore, in the decline and decay of a church, the spheres of evil and falsehood which are hastening its end become so powerful as to threaten the spiritual freedom of those who, with their weakened faith and worn-out shibboleths, are exposed to them, Divine Providence allows the very spirit of disbelief which corruptions of truth have naturally engendered to drop as a veil between the two worlds of spirit and nature, and the influx of evil spheres is shut out from human consciousness as by a wall of adamant. What power can bring to a man's consciousness that which he persists in disbelieving, and will deny or explain away by any solution, possible or impossible, rather than admit? The sceptic indeed may sneer at spiritual agencies which require faith for the manifestation of their powers, but the law rests none the less on high authority. Even of the Lord it is recorded on one occasion that He could do no mighty works because of unbelief. The Divine life is indeed no less actively operative, but the human subject is rendered unreceptive by disbelief,-not by mere intellectual scepticism as to things not yet known or proved; but by that disbelief which comes from the heart, when man wills not to believe what opposes his ruling love; and to overcome which by compelling evidence, would be to violate free-will, which Divine Providence ever preserves inviolate. On the other hand the sceptic has thus much to plead, that much of fraud and deception has doubtless at all times mingled with and counterfeited the real manifestations of supernatural agency. Mr. Howitt, in the book before us, has not attempted to sift or discriminate in the abundance of recorded instances of supernatural events brought forward, which may have been genuine and which spurious, nor was this perhaps necessary for the purpose he had in view; the demonstration, namely, that belief in the supernatural is ineradicable in the human soul; and the inevitable inference that such universal belief implies a corresponding truth, whatever perversions, profanations or counterfeits may have grown up around it. Nay, we may take broader ground, and urge, that the existence of such fraudulent counterfeits or impostures, proves a reality to be counterfeited. Had there been no real diamonds, should we ever have had paste imitations? And would it not be quite as philosophical to deny the former on account of the detected existence of the latter, as to deny the truth of apparitions and other supernatural occurrences, because some alleged instances of the kind have probably been the fruits of fraud or ignorant misconception? And when all justifiable deduction on the score of delusion or imposture has been made, we believe that ample evidence remains to warrant the belief held by Mr. Howitt in common with many, that we live in an age when the tendency to overt spiritual action and manifestation is in process of revival around us. This revival can be no matter of surprise to any who believe in the opening of the spiritual world and the spiritual sense of the Word which heralded and inaugurated the second Christian dispensation; but inasmuch as in man's mixed state the influx of new spiritual life is inseparable from a renewed influx from evil spirit-spheres, involving temptation and danger, we feel that this subject of spiritual manifestation is one that calls for grave investigation and serious discrimination in all cases; instead of either sneers, ridicule, and blind denial on the one hand, or headlong enthusiasm and almost equally blind, indiscriminating acceptance and welcome on the other. And though Mr. Howitt recognises, in more than one place, this truth that spiritual agencies are of a two-fold nature, heavenly and infernal, we could wish that he appeared more fully to apprehend the fact, that spirit manifestations and communications, are not necessarily spiritual; and that a belief in these has not necessarily anything to do with true spiritualism, or a spiritual state of mind. Many spirits, all evil spirits, are less spiritual, more sensual and gross than men on earth; and it appears to us an inevitable conclusion, that of this class must be those spirits who seek to communicate with man by means of raps and other manifestations addressed to the senses, instead of by influx into the mind or spirit, exercised in obedience to, and governed by, the Lord,— which is, as we may gather from all Scripture examples, the orderly mode of spirit-communication. As George Macdonald in his "David Elginbrod" has so happily remarked, such spirits are the "canaille" of the other world; and though we well believe that even their gross communications and influences are (like all finite evils) overruled for good, especially as combating that deepest, we should perhaps say, that shallowest, infidelity which would deny any life beyond or after this sensuous bodily life, we must guard against the idea that such communications and the practice of intercourse with such spirits are, or can be, anything but abnormal and disorderly, and above all most unspiritual. Spiritualism aim perpetually to raise man, and fit him to become the inhabitant of a spiritual world, instead of dragging down the inhabitants of that world to grovel again in the dust and mire of this, from which death was designed to set them free. Moreover we hold that the seeking of intercourse with spirits is always and undoubtedly unlawful; forbidden by the light of reason as well as by Scripture. If open spiritual intercourse be desirable for any one, the Lord will undoubtedly send it, as in all recorded cases in the Word, to prophets, seers, or apostles, without its being sought for or aspired to by the subject of it. The very ambition to become the subject of such influences from curiosity, or less excusable motives, predisposes the mind to the influx of evil spirits; and if guidance, help, or instruction be innocently desired, it is from the Lord in His Holy Word, and by prayer, that we are taught to seek it. The guidance of His Holy Spirit is promised to all who desire and seek it, and faith in and receptivity of that Holy Spirit is alone true spiritualism. The Lord may send this guidance indeed through various channels as He sees fit-through angels, spirits, men on earth, the outward events or scenes of life; but from one source and one only, are we justified in seeking it; namely, from the Lord Himself. And though Mr. Howitt propounds that spirit communications should not be sought, his idea of what seeking means, appears to us extremely confused; inasmuch as he implies, if we understand him rightly, that there is no objection to attending the so called spirit-séances, provided one asks no questions, but "waits in prayer" for what the spirits may volunteer. That in any circumstances of danger and temptation prayer is a safeguard we cannot too faithfully employ, no Christian will dispute; but to us it also seems to admit of no dispute, that whatever danger may be involved in the prohibited seeking for spirit intercourse, is incurred by the act of going to the séances where such communications are expected, just as much as by the utterance of a word invoking them. Most earnestly, too, must we protest against Mr. Howitt's interpretation and application of the narrative of our Lord's Transfiguration (vol. 1, pp. 196, 197); which appears to us a most glaring instance of the extent to which an intelligent mind may be warped by the determination to find authority in the Word for that which it has prejudged to be right and justifiable. It appears to us an argument devoid of the slightest foundation, that the Lord's being seen in vision talking with Moses and Elias can have in any way repealed the prohibition against seeking intercourse with the dead, as may appear from the reason of the prohibition; which is to guard man against injury from evil spirits, on account of the evil in himself which renders him liable to their assaults and contamination. In this respect there can be no parallel therefore between the Lord and man; and Mr. Howitt's mode of dealing with this incident, moreover, is so flimsy and transparently fallacious, as quite to surprise us in a writer of his ability. In order to prove namely, that the Lord "broke the law" (an expression painful in itself to our sense of reverence) against "seeking the dead," he adduces, that instead of commanding Moses to come to Him, He went to Moses on the mount. But how does Mr. Howitt happen to know that Moses was on that mount for the Lord to go to him there? and that the Lord did not rather command him to come to Him there after Himself ascending it? which indeed is far more in accordance with the literal bearing of the narrative, if we are to deal with it in so merely literal a manner. But a moment's reflection from a spiritual point of view, might have shown Mr. Howitt, that Moses and Elias could never come under the category of "spirits of the dead," being emphatically, in every sense, not of the dead but the living, of whom our Lord is the God. The one fault, in short, of this in many respects able and remarkable book, is that of viewing spiritual things from too materialistic or external |