Thomson Jay Hudson

“ To seek to cast a shade of doubt upon the verity of his teachings, to intimate a want of harmony between his practice and his precepts, is to attempt to rob him of the glory and honor due to one who was able to divine the fundamental laws of our being, nineteen hundred years before his teachings could be verified by the inductive process of science, and to destroy the force of the strongest internal evidence of the truth of sacred history. ”

“ There is, indeed, an ineffable and indescribable something which overspreads the countenance of the virtuous woman while she is in the hypnotic state, which disarms passion, and affects the beholder with a feeling that he has something seen of heaven. He knows that the physical senses are asleep, and he feels that the soul is shining forth in all its majesty and purity, untainted by any thought that is gross, any emotion that is impure. ”

“ Indeed, no man can become a true artist whose subjective mind is not cultivated to a high degree of activity. One may become a good draughtsman, or learn to delineate a figure with accuracy, or to draw a landscape with photographic fidelity to objective nature, and in faultless perspective, by the cultivation of the objective faculties alone; but his work will lack that subtle something, that name-less charm, which causes a canvas to glow with beauty, and each particular figure to become instinct with life and action. ”

“ Instead of assuming control of the power, he allows it to control him. As a matter of course, he is ignorant of the laws pertaining to it. He is ignorant of the fact that the force which controls him resides within himself, and is not a superior being commissioned from Heaven to convey a message from the Source of all knowledge. He is dazed by its wonderful exhibitions of superior intelligence, is captivated by its eloquence, and awed by its assumption of authority. In short, he knows nothing of its source, or the limitations of its powers of reasoning. ”

“ I am aware that those who have hitherto regarded the soul as possessing all the intellectual powers, as well as all the moral attributes, will be shocked when they realize that the object of their admiration is hedged about with any limitations whatever. The first question they will ask is, "Why is it that God has given to man a soul possessing such transcendent powers in certain directions, and yet under the absolute control, in all its ideas and intellectual functions, of a finite, perishable intelligence?" The broad and comprehensive answer is, To constitute man a free moral agent. ”

“ Would Arago the astronomer, or any other sensible man, wrap himself in the mantle of offended dignity and treat us with silent contempt, or remind us of "the rules of good-breeding"? Certainly not, especially if the object of his existence was to make the communication, not only for our individual benefit, but for the purpose of giving to all mankind that direct and positive assurance, that tangible evidence, for which all humanity has sought in vain since the dawn of creation. ”

“ Even human justice would revolt against, and human laws would prevent, the infliction of the penalty for a capital crime, if it were clearly proved that the criminal had so far lost his mind as to have no recollection of the events of his past life, or, in other words, had lost conscious identity. Besides, it must not be forgotten that the soul is the seat of the emotions, as well as the storehouse of memory. It is obvious that it is only through the emotions and the memory that rewards can be conferred, or punishments inflicted, upon the immaterial soul. ”

“ It is obvious, therefore, that the universal law of suggestion operates upon the subjective mind of a medium with the same force and certainty as upon all others. He is in the subjective, or hypnotic, condition. The suggestion that he is about to be controlled by the spirits of the dead is ever present to his mind, and is all potent. It is a part of his education. It is his religious belief. No other explanation of the mysterious phenomena is known to him. He knows only that he is moved by a power, an intelligence, over which he exerts no conscious control. ”

“ If the ultimate object of chemical science were to demonstrate the existence of the atom, or to seize it and harness it to the uses of mankind, it might be worth while to set the chemical fraternity right by demonstrating its non-existence. If the practice of chemistry on the basis of the theory were defective in its practical results, or failed in universal application, it would then be the duty of scientists to discard it entirely, and to seek a better working hypothesis. ”

“ They decline as the body weakens. They become deranged and useless as the brain becomes disorganized from physical causes. Its distinctive functions pertain solely to physical existence. It has the power of independent inductive reasoning to compensate for its total want of power to perceive by intuition. But, as I have already pointed out, inductive reasoning is merely a laborious method of inquiry, and pertains wholly to our physical existence. It would be as useless to the spirit in an existence where all truth is perceived by intuition, as a tallow-dip in the full blaze of a noonday sun. ”

“ But the two great laws—duality of mind and suggestion—clear away the greatest stumbling-block in the way of scientific investigation of this, the greatest problem of the ages. It is now no longer necessary to deny the phenomena, since they can all be accounted for on scientific principles, outside the domain of the supernatural. It is no longer necessary to consider the spiritual medium either a fool or an impostor, since the phenomena are genuine, and their explanation on scientific principles is impossible, except in the light of very recent discoveries in psychic science. ”

“ From the centres of civilization the Church has sent its missionaries, its representatives of the Master, among all peoples, civilized and savage, preaching the gospel of immortality to all mankind. Its influence is not confined to those who believe in the tenets of the Christian Church, nor even to those who have heard the name of Christ. It has spread, through some subtle, unseen power and potency, until it permeates every fibre of human society, and constitutes the promise of every religion, the hope of all humanity. ”

“ It may, therefore, be true that the progress of a soul is through reincarnation from the lower animal life to the higher, until it reaches the human; and that it may still go on in the lower grades of human organisms until it reaches the dignity of a conscious human soul. Having reached that point, the law of progress will expend its force in carrying it forward to its ultimate destiny. Considered as the process of the soul's evolution, the necessity for further reincarnation apparently no longer exists after the soul has attained the power and potency of a conscious, self-existent entity. ”

“ To convince them of the fact would be to destroy their faith in the power of God. Jesus taught them all that they could understand,—all that it would benefit the world to know in that era of civilization. He was working, not only for the people of his own time, but for all future generations. He laid his foundations broad and deep, and with the most consummate wisdom. He not only conferred the benefits of his power upon the people of his own race and country, but he left indubitable evidences of the truth of his history and of his doctrines for all future generations. ”

“ If the Great Healer thus acknowledged a limitation of his powers, how can we, his humble followers, hope to transcend the immutable law by which he was governed?
"Why is it that our belief has anything to do with the exercise of the healing power?" is a question often asked. To this the obvious and only reply is that the healing power, being a mental, or psychic, force, is necessarily governed by mental conditions. Just why faith is the necessary mental attitude of the patient can never be answered until we are able to fathom the ultimate cause of all things. ”

“ It seems to me that there is abundant evidence in phenomena observable in this life to demonstrate, as far as such a proposition is demonstrable, that the soul does retain its identity in a more pronounced degree, if possible, than we can retain it in this objective existence. In what does identity consist, or, more properly speaking, how is it retained? The answer is, through our consciousness and memory. It is obvious that if either is lost, identity is lost. ”

“ Whether this mental action creates or develops a fluid akin to magnetism, is a question which may never be solved. Nor is it deemed important that it should be; and it may be as well to class it at once among the many things unknowable, as to waste valuable time in a vain effort to wrest the secret from Nature. Electricity is known as a great force in physical nature; and it is harnessed and made to perform many services to mankind. Like all the great forces of nature, it is invisible, except through its effects, and it defies analysis. ”

“ The Oriental philosophy, in particular, is so symmetrical, so pervaded by grand and noble conceptions, so permeated with lofty precepts of morality, humanity, and religion, that we are wont to lose sight of the fact that the whole structure is built up by a process of deductive reasoning from premises that have no better foundation than the dreams of ecstatics. But we are told that it has stood the test of thousands of years of thought and investigation, and that no fact in physical science can be adduced to disprove its fundamental principles. ”

“ It will be understood from the foregoing that my theory is that ghosts, or phantasms of the dead, are produced exactly as phantasms of the living are produced; that is, they are creations of the subjective entity. How they are created is of course a question that may never be answered in terms comprehensible by the objective intelligence of man. It is as far beyond our finite comprehension as are the processes by which the Infinite Mind has brought the universe into being. All that we can know is the fact that phantasms are created by some power inherent in the subjective personality of man. ”

“ Subjective intelligence, be it remembered, is capable of exercising but one form of reasoning,—the deductive. But it will reason deductively from any premise imparted to it, by any form of suggestion, with great acumen; and it never arrives at a conclusion inconsistent with the premise,—that is, the suggestion. All the facts known to the individual's objective experience which are inconsistent with that premise stand for nought in presence of the one ever-present idea. ”

“ The lapse of time has enabled the system to be evolved by the gradual but constant accretions of human thought, from generation to generation, until it has grown, from the first vague hope of the human soul for a life beyond the grave, to its present stupendous proportions. ”

“ In point of fact, that which, for convenience, I have chosen to designate as the subjective mind, appears to be a separate and distinct entity; and the real distinctive difference between the two minds seems to consist in the fact that the "objective mind" is merely the function of the physical brain, while the "subjective mind" is a distinct entity, possessing independent powers and functions, having a mental organization of its own, and being capable of sustaining an existence independently of the body. In other words, it is the soul. ”

“ Indeed, it is difficult to understand how any one who recognizes the law of suggestion, and its universal application to psychological phenomena, can believe for one moment that hypnotism can be made the instrument of crime. Yet we find disciples of the Nancy school who seem to imagine that to hold that it cannot be so employed is equivalent to an admission that the law of suggestion is not of universal application. The fact is that just the contrary is true. It is one of the strongest demonstrations of the universality of the law that hypnotism cannot be so employed. ”

“ Yet this is the condition in which we find the science of hypnotism after more than a century of research by some of the ablest scientists of the world. They are divided into schools, to-day, as they were in the infancy of the science. Indeed, the science is still in its infancy. Facts have accumulated, it is true; and they will be found to be of infinite advantage to some future investigator whose mind is capable of rising above the prejudices which characterize the different schools, and of assimilating and harmonizing their demonstrated facts into one comprehensive system. ”

“ Music belongs to the realm of the subjective; it is a passion of the human soul, and it may be safely affirmed that all really good music is the direct product of the subjective mind. It is true that there is much so-called music to be heard which is the product of the objective intelligence. But no one can fail to recognize its origin, from its hard, mechanical, soulless character and quality. ”

“ When this test of universality is applied, when no known fact remains that is unexplained by it, the world is justified in assuming it to be true, and in deducing from it even the most momentous conclusions. If, on the contrary, there is one fact pertaining to the subject-matter under investigation which remains outside the domain of the hypothesis, or which is unexplained by it, it is indubitable evidence that the hypothesis is unsafe, untrue, and consequently worthless for all practical purposes of sound reasoning. ”

“ The obvious reason is that no two persons have had exactly the same experience, or have observed exactly the same phenomena. In the absence of a working hypothesis applicable to all the infinite variety of facts observed, it follows that each investigator must draw his own conclusions from the limited field of his own experience. And when we take into consideration the important rôle which passion and prejudice ever play in the minds of men when the solution of an undemonstrable problem is attempted, it is easy to see that a bewildering hodge-podge of heterogeneous opinions is inevitable. ”