P. 45: There are great and fundamental laws pertaining to mind, well established in both Europe and America, which more fully explain and show to us the awful danger of one mind being held in subjection to another, whether the controlling mind be in or out of the external form. By following out these laws we shall find the key to unlock the mysteries of the immense amount of evil among Spiritualists, which now so shocks and disgraces the world. I do not intend to be severe but only to relate facts which are the legitimate result of conditions not understood why mediums become so perverse both in theory and practice.
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P. 46: Psychology has well established the fact, that one mind may be held in perfect vassalage or subjugation to another--speaking their thoughts and echoing their emotions. In other words, there is some force exerted, directly or indirectly, by a human being, which flows in or is received and yielded to by another. In virtue of this law, the wildest hallucinations and most insane ideas may be made to appear as realities to the subjugated mind. The magnetiser, even at the midnight hour, may inform his subject that before him is a beautiful variegated rainbow, and upon the centre of its arch is perched an eagle; or that his cravat is a coiling anaconda, ready to strangulate him, and to him they become realities. No human testimony, outside of the will of the operator, can dissuade him of the reality of the hallucinaiton. He simply knows that he is correct, and all testimony which does not come from the magnetiser utterly fails to reach his understanding.
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I deem this to be an important point, and crave the indulgence of the reader while I give two or three instances in illustration of this idea. 1st. While I was a student in a Medical College in Cincinnati, I attended a course of psychological lectures. In the audience was a Methodist minister, who was most bitterly and enthusiastically opposed to the doctrine of Universalism. He proved to be a psychological subject, and by the will of the operator was brought upon the stand. He not only renounced Methodism, and caricatured it in the most severe manner, but advocated Universalism as the only doctrine of the Bible. When relieved, he became very indignant with the man who had placed him in such an awkward position.
2d. Soon after marriage to my present wife, one day she was entranced, in the presence of myself, Dr. Knapp and lady, at that time residents of this city; a ring was placed upon her finger by the [P. 47] entrancing power, accompanied by the pledge that she should not externally know of its existence. She wore the ring for seven days, and while apparently perfectly normal in all other things, she had no abililty to discover the presence of that ring, even when her attention was directed to it; and it was only by the united testimony of her husband and friends, that she was induced to believe that it had ever been in contact with her finger. She would readily, and conscientiously sworn before any magistrate that she never saw said ring.
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I have entered the arena as a champion against the iniquities which are so universal in disorderly spiritualism . . . . I cannot write the whole truth without laying myself liable to prosecution for publishing obscene articles; and aside from this objection, I could not so offend public taste; therefore, the reader must only expect some of the milder forms of the heinous realities which here prevail. . . . On marriage the Spiritualists are peculiarly eloquent and emphatic. . . . They are divided into several classes upon this subject.
1st. Those who believe in the oneness of marriage--that there is somewhere in God's universe a true conjugal partner for each individual, which whom they are to live forever. That with this partner, even notwithstanding all the imperfections of human nature, there would be unalloyed bliss. If any discord, or any lack of their [P. 48] highest idea of love creeps into the domestic relation, it becomes evident that they are not truly married, and are living in adulterous relations with another individual's partner. Upon this basis it becomes expedient that this relation should be absolved, and a new one formed with some fortunate "affinity" which some officious spirit-guide has had the wisdom to designate. Discord again creeps in, and they soon conclude that both they and the spirits have made another mistake, and, not in the least discouraged, they try again, and so on until their moral and social condition becomes offensive to every honorable and virtuous member of society.
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P. 49: The ratio of domestic discord and unhappiness is as the freedom and ease of procuring divorce. I, therefore, question whether any high-minded and discreet person can desire any greater leniency in our laws regulating marriage in this country than now exists. Let Indians, which in this respect must ever stand as a reproach to our nation, receive all the profligate and renegade men and women who desire to absolve their nuptial relations for their own wrongs and offences, but let New York maintain her dignity.
2d. There is another class of Spiritualists who believe that every faculty of the human mind, being implanted by Deity, is capable of direct inspiration form Him; therefore, that every inherent desire should be gratified in the way of its promptings. This, to them, is rendering obedience to the promptings of the Divinity within them, and thus becomes a religious duty. they aver that the ultimate of love is promiscuous, and is curtailed only by arbitrary and unwholesome regulation of society. To usurp their freedom, to them becomes a moral obligation. . . .The most of this class claim to act upon the principle of policy, and refrain from publicly promulgating their sentiments and practices, as they believe that the world is not yet sufficiently advanced to receive their doctrines. Some aver that all true love seeks the happiness of the loved, and is unselfish in its nature; therefore, if the husband or wife can find pleasure in the arms of another, it becomes their pleasure to have them do so.
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P. 50: Go where we will among the Spiritualists, and we find conjugal harmony and fidelity the exceptions, and not the rule. There are mediums who possess all the education and charms of highly accomplished ladies, who believe it to be their [P. 51] God-appointed mission to break up the conjugal relation, and for this purpose they pass from house to house, and claim the husband as their "affinity," until the ruin of the family is accomplished, and then pass on to another.
Profane and intemperate men, libertines, adulterers and adulteresses, are openly upheld and encouraged by the Spiritualist societies all over the country, as their public teachers in their sacrilegious worship. Women, thirty or forty years of age, with children growing up around them, and who have abandoned their husbands, of whom they were not worthy, and who are living in adultery with their paramours, produce abortion, and arise from their guilty couches and stand before large audiences as the medium for angels. It is freely acknowledged in their public journals that moral character is no test of qualification for a public teacher. Private circles form no small share of this evil and delusion; these are formed by placing a man by the side of each woman, and all joining hands. The affectional and emotional feelings are actively exercised, and the magnetic force of the entire circle becomes concentrated upon the most beautiful and susceptible female members, and the result may easily be conjectured. The magnetism and lust of the circle upon the susceptible members, are taken to be the control and dictation of spirits, and, therefore, rendering submission becomes a religious duty. There are, also, those who are called "Developing Mediums," claiming that they are the appointed agents through whom the Divine inflatus flows for the development of "passional attraction" in females--that all functions are rendered healthy and vigorous only throughexercise; and that the fastidiousness which prevails among those ladies who do not believe in promiscuous concubinage, arises from a lack of physical and spiritual development.
The healing mediums come in for their share of the plunder, and resort to every species of fraud and deception to accomplish their hellish purpose. The horrors which here exist are too outrageous for utterance, and I must pass them over in silence, farther than to say that their new method of imparting their spiritual magnetic force has, in nine months afterwards, given fearful "cries" of its efficacy. The internal plan of conjugal love, of most mediums of both sexes, becomes perverted, and it appears impossible for them to maintain more than a sense-union in their nuptial relations, and there is a perpetual tendency to form extra-marital and libidinous associations. The brutalization of many of them become so great that virtue and truthfulness, as a real fact in moral consciousness, become nearly unknown. Their lust rules in the centre of their will, and their bodies become energized as they become the seats of enormous appetites of demons.
. . . Rape is rare, as it implies an unwillingness in one party. But bigamy, abandonment, adultery, fornication, [P. 52] thefts, perjury, unmitigated falsehoods and slander, and direct efforts to break up family relations, and to destroy the marriage institution are everywhere among them. Sodomy, with parties conniving in the crime, and then "black mailing," was recently perpetrated by one of the most prominent mediums, and then hustled out of town by other prominent Spiritualists to escape the penalty of the crime.
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My task is ended. I dedicate to the world my observations, of a portion of the results of that Spiritualism, which I can most truly say has been the bane of my life. I hope that, in the providence of God, I shall be permitted to retire from any further action in this cause. . . .