F.A.S. Ph.D. James Coates

“ It is a fancy religion for the intellectual, without a personal God or a personal soul. Its circles are masonic lodges for the rich. In no sense is it a religion to meet the wants of man as man, like that founded on the life and death of Jesus Christ. I do not pretend to explain Theosophy, for the task is beyond me. It is a religion intended for those who realise they are divine sparks of the Rootless Root, and not for the common people, who are incapable of understanding a system of morals thus veiled in allegory, and illustrated by signs and symbols. ”

“ We all leave our mark in a thousand subtle ways. No material microscope or telescope can detect, nevertheless our mark can be discovered by the powers of the human soul. From our cradle to the grave—does it stop there?—every thought, emotion, movement, and action have left their subtle traces, so that our whole life can be traced out by the psychometric expert. ”

“ The most delicate work is done by her in the night.... Her power of clairvoyance, or second sight, is marvellously developed. Distance imposes no barriers, without the slightest error she dictates the contents of sealed letters which have never been in her hands. She discriminates in darkness the most delicate shades of colour. ”

“ There are many persons so organised, that when they come in contact with Spiritualism, (not knowing anything about clairvoyance, psychometry, thought-transference, thought-reading, etc.) are so convinced by what they hear and see for the first time—so much out of the ordinary run of their experience—the only way they can account for the phenomena is, “that they must be the work of spirits, for no human being could tell what they knew, or what they wanted, [121] save a spirit who could read their thoughts.” ”

“ From the roughest to the finest, from matter to spirit, from hypnosis to the psychic state, we find enough to arrest attention and give a high degree of seriousness and earnestness to our investigation. We stand on the threshold of soul, and the place where we stand is holy ground. We find, as is the physical, mental, and spiritual characteristics of the operator, plus those of the sensitive or sensitives, so will be the nature of the phenomena evolved. ”

“ If we admit that it is possible for a disembodied spirit to communicate with us in dream, vision, or, as in the case of Miss Howett, have our hands influenced to write, or that we see and converse with spirits, as in the case of Mary Reynolds, we then admit, and accept in the main, the essential features of what is known as Spiritualism. The subject is not only interesting, but of vital importance; therefore, I think, the fear of being called a “Spiritualist,” or any other name, should not prevent us sounding to the depths, the psychic possibilities of our human nature. ”

“ As it has been exercised naturally, and without any such aid, the exhibition of clairvoyance—in itself—is no evidence of disembodied spirit-presence or control. Equally, the seeing of, and the describing of, spirits by a clairvoyant—even if the descriptions are apparently accurate—may present no evidence of the real presence of such spirits. I do not deny that clairvoyants can see spirits, but the mere fact of being able to see and describe spirits, is not sufficient evidence—the seer is controlled by spirit-power to see, or that the spirits described are actually bona-fide spirits. ”

“ Psychoscopy, or soul sight, would, perhaps, be the better term. I propose to use the old term—clairvoyance—as it signifies, in popular usage, the power of seeing beyond the range of physical vision, as we know it.
That certain persons are endowed with this faculty of clear seeing—in some of its various phases—is a matter settled beyond dispute. What special name to call this faculty, or what are the true causes of its existence; why it should be possessed by some persons and not by others; why it should be so frail and fugitive in the presence of some people, and strong and vivid before others ”

“ Loomis, by passes, threw his wife into a mesmeric state, as he often does, and an intelligence, which claimed to be the spirit of her mother, spoke through her lips. Until this moment I had said nothing to any living soul about the nature of my contemplated experiment, but I then asked the unseen intelligence if it could then and there go to the house of Mrs. Macdougall Gregory, 21 Green Street, Grosvenor Square, London, and move a heavy physical object in her presence. ”

“ It has been established on the clearest evidence that thought-transference and reception between two nearly harmonised or sympathetic human beings, or embodied human spirits, are possible, and this without intermediate sense or physical agencies. If, then, between mind and mind on earth, distance or space being no obstacle, matter no hindrance, why not between mind disincarnate—if we can conceive of mind apart from the human brain and organism—and mind incarnate? ”

“ Clairvoyance is soul-sight—the power of the soul to see. It is the state of refined psychic perception. This state increases in lucidity—clearness and power of penetration—in proportion as the activity of the physical senses are reduced below normal action. It is observed to be most effective in the trance state—natural or induced—as in the mesmeric and psychic states. I conclude, then, clairvoyance depends upon the unfolding of the spirit’s perception, and is increased in power as the ascendency of the spirit arises above the activities of the spirit’s corporeal envelope—the body. ”

“ This newly recognised sense, “the sixth sense,” not only answers the purpose of sight and hearing, but transcends all senses in vividness and power. Materialists, no longer able to ignore the phenomena of somnambulism and trance, and compelled to admit man’s avenues of knowledge in this life were not confined to the recognised five senses, are good enough to give him a “sixth sense,” even while they deny him a soul. In the same way, no longer able to deny the existence of mesmerism, they now admit it to consideration—re-baptised [17] as hypnotism. ”

“ Myers, by which he accounts for the phenomena of genius, is but another way of expressing the concept of an “identity underlying all consciousness,” the psyche, the real “I, me,” “the superior power which directs and controls our better nature,” the “double who is wiser and better than we,” the reality of which is so much hidden from our ordinary experience, because our soul-life is so much buried out of sight by the débris of the “things of this life,” which, fortunately or otherwise, pre-occupy so much of our attention. ”

“ There is a distinction between thought-transference and thought-reading. It is no mere fanciful distinction either. Thought-transference occurs when the ideas, thoughts, and emotions of one mind are projected by intense action and received by the sensitive and impressionable mind of another—awake or asleep is immaterial—so long as it occurs without pre-arrangement and contact.
Telepathy is a more vivid form of sudden and unexpected thought-transference, in which the intense thoughts and wishes of one person, more or less in sympathy, are suddenly transferred to the consciousness of another. ”

“ So I venture to illustrate clairvoyance by certain facts in connection with ordinary human vision. Although some children see better than others, the power to see, with the ability to understand the relative positions and uses of the things seen, is a matter of development. In psychic vision, we also see growth or development, with increasing power to use and understand the faculty. Some children are blind from birth, and others, seeing, lose the power of sight. Many are blind, although they have physical sight, they see not with the educated eye. ”

“ FAR AND DIRECT CLAIRVOYANCE is possibly the highest and purest combination. The sensitive is able to state facts not within the range of the knowledge of those present. Thus when Swedenborg described to the Queen and her friends, when at a distance of several hundred miles from the conflagration, the burning of her palace at Christiania, no one present could possibly know of the fire or the incidents connected therewith. Hence no thought-reading, brain-picking, much less guess-work or coincidence, could account for the exactness of details given by the seer. ”

“ Hence, psychometry signifies not merely the measuring of souls and soul capacities, or qualities by our own psychic capacities, but the measurement and judgment of all things conceivable by the human mind; and psychometry means practically measuring by the soul, or grasping and estimating all things which are within the range of human intelligence. ”

“ Convey the same thoughts by illustrations and experiments, and the child’s mind at once grasps the ideas we desire to convey.
Thoughts are living entities (how poor are words!) which our own souls have given birth to, or created in the intensity of our love, wisdom, or passion. One Eastern adept has taught, “A good thought is perpetuated as an active, beneficent power, an evil one as a malignant demon. ”

“ After carefully eliminating all the possibilities of self-deception—auto-trance, discreet degrees of consciousness, of natural and acquired clairvoyance, of thought-transference and mind-reading, and lastly, the puerile performances of conjurors and the simulated phenomena of tricksters—there remains evidence of disembodied or disincarnate spirit, and of such control influencing and directing the actions of men, just as one man in this life influences and directs the actions of another. ”

“ The soul is so far liberated from the body as to act independently of the ordinary sensuous conditions of the body, and sees by the perception and light of the inner or spiritual world, as distinct from the perception and light of this external or physical world. Elevated, or rather, liberated into this new condition, the clairvoyant loses connection with the thrums and threads of the physical organism, and is unable, or forgets for a time, how to speak of things as they are, or as they would appear to the physical vision of another. ”

“ Automatic writing is a phase of phenomenal Spiritualism most difficult to prove. In the majority of cases we are reduced to the awkward position of accepting or rejecting the assertions of the persons who declare that the writing done by them is automatic—that is, written without thought and volition on their part. A close examination of this claim may lead to the conclusion that automatic writing is not impossible. Whether the controlling agent is “the spirit within us,” or a disembodied spirit, or both, is not a matter of much importance, if it is established, the writing is automatic. ”

“ It may be esteemed reprehensible to “seek communion with the dead;” but to know ourselves, to fathom this invisible physiology, whose principles, effects, and laws are of such importance to understand, I hold to be not only legitimate but perfectly laudable. How can we serve God, whom we have not seen, if we do not understand ourselves, whom we think we have seen, or the laws which govern our being, as created by him? ”

“ Not only do our friends depart and never return, and many have promised to do so. How far are we certain when spirits have returned? We may have been deceived by our own impulsiveness, anxiety, and desire to feel and to know that “they are not lost but gone before.” Again, admitting the genuineness of physical phenomena, and conceding that all the communications are really made by disembodied spirits or intelligent beings like unto ourselves, what proof do we possess that they are really what they represent themselves to be, or what they appear to be in spirit circles? ”

“ Trance and inspirational addresses, however, do not, in my opinion, furnish much evidence of the reality of spirit control. We are interested in the phenomena—taking for granted that these trance and inspirational states are genuine—although the evidence of external spirit control presented is often nil. The controls may or may not be veritable realities to their own mediums—professional or otherwise—but this is of little value, as evidence, to the public. I have known mediumistic and otherwise sensitive persons to be controlled—i.e., taken possession of by their reading. ”

“ We have seen that much which has been attributed to the agency of disembodied spirits is due, in many instances, to the action of man’s own psychic [109] states, “the double, who is wiser than we,” and to the fact that, as often as not, trance states, automatic and planchette writing, are self-induced conditions. Equally so, clairvoyance, thought-transference, and psychometry do not require the “agency of spirit” to account for their existence as “gifts,” qualities or powers. ”

“ The writer writes as his soul moves him, and the writing expresses his aims and hopes as they appear to his external consciousness. While writing, his soul draws his image on the paper, and pictures out thereon his real thoughts; and when the sensitive gets hold of the letter, outstands the image of the writer and the imagery of his thoughts. The psychic consciousness of the psychometer grasps the details and describes them.
“The strange new science of psychometry” is of profound interest to all. Psychometers are to be found in every household. ”

“ It is not the vibrating ether—it is not the external eye—that sees. It is the soul using the eye as an instrument, and light as a condition. Prove once that sight can exist without the use of light, sensation, or any physical organ of vision, and you prove an abnormal, supersensual, spiritual faculty—a proof which puts an end to the theory of materialism, and which, through its affinity with analogous or corresponding facts, justifies its introduction as part of a scientific basis for the spiritual theory. ”

“ While the conjurer or juggler, at all moments in the day and before all spectators, will invariably succeed, the somnambulist, endowed with the marvellous power of clairvoyance, will not be lucid with all interviewers and at all moments of the day; for the faculty of lucidity being a crisis painful and abnormal, there may be atmospheric influences or invincible antipathies at work opposing its production, and which seem to paralyse all supersensual manifestation. ”