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58 INTERIOR VISION.
The Emperor Basil, of Macedonia, inconsolable at the loss of his son, went to Theodore Santabaron, celebrated for his miracles, who exhibited to him the image of his beloved son, magnificently dressed, and mounted upon a superb charger. The youth rushed toward his father, threw himself into his arms and — disappeared! This aerial image was no trick, for even now optics cannot do anything of the sort; butit unquestionably was produced in, or by, and through, a magic mirror. The plea in this case, of imposture, is absurd.
Mr. Roscoe, in his life of Benvenuto Cellini, gives a thrilling account of that famous artist’s adventure with spectres raised by magical means, and, what is more to the purpose, neither Roscoe, Brewster, or Smith, pretend to claim that they, the spectres, were mere figments of fancy. On the contrary, all three admit the thing was reai/ True, they attempt to stave off the supernatural conclusion; but do it very lamely indeed, for it is pretended by them that the magic lantern, playing upon volumes of smoke, accounts for the whole terrific affair, totally forgetful of the fact that Cellini’s experience took place in the middle of the sixteenth century, whereas Kircher did not invent that instrument till a hundred years later] The paragraph in italics on page 154, of Smith’s edition of ‘ Brewster’s Magic,” is too puerile and contemptible to merit notice. Such hard-headed people would fain make us believe that all ghostly appearances are phasmas —even that of Jesus after his death; and that all that’s knowable they know; when, aside from the multitudinous impostures, there are enough real spiritual visitations and visions to base the hopes of a million worlds upon. In no case, whether the objects viewed are physical or mental — as in dreams, ete., is it the eye which sees, but the faculty of consciousness within the eye, brain, soul, of the observer; and as manis a spiritual being, it follows that he has a series of inner senses underlying and subtending his external ones, and which series of internal senses are adapted to his natural-born spiritual nature; and all that he requires is a bridge to help him span the thick matter and reach the spiritual ether. This the mirror enables many, though not all, to do.
The condition of death is mental activity and physical quiescence. If the activity can be had without the quiescence of death, our greatest aim — a new avenue or means of knowing — is attained. This is all the mesmerist and the mirrorist claim to achieve; and both have proved and made good that claim in numberless instances.
The spiritual, therefore the substantial reality of all being, is above and beyond the other senses, and it is only either by his rising to it, through the floors of the outer world beneath which he sinks, or by its descent to him, that he can cognize the actualities of that superior world. In either case, if his motive be good, he ascends toward God. If evil, then his account must be rendered for his act.
When a man, his organs of perception, his intelligent principle, is suspended from its matter-bounded exercise; he can enter the domain of the
The Emperor Basil, of Macedonia, inconsolable at the loss of his son, went to Theodore Santabaron, celebrated for his miracles, who exhibited to him the image of his beloved son, magnificently dressed, and mounted upon a superb charger. The youth rushed toward his father, threw himself into his arms and — disappeared! This aerial image was no trick, for even now optics cannot do anything of the sort; butit unquestionably was produced in, or by, and through, a magic mirror. The plea in this case, of imposture, is absurd.
Mr. Roscoe, in his life of Benvenuto Cellini, gives a thrilling account of that famous artist’s adventure with spectres raised by magical means, and, what is more to the purpose, neither Roscoe, Brewster, or Smith, pretend to claim that they, the spectres, were mere figments of fancy. On the contrary, all three admit the thing was reai/ True, they attempt to stave off the supernatural conclusion; but do it very lamely indeed, for it is pretended by them that the magic lantern, playing upon volumes of smoke, accounts for the whole terrific affair, totally forgetful of the fact that Cellini’s experience took place in the middle of the sixteenth century, whereas Kircher did not invent that instrument till a hundred years later] The paragraph in italics on page 154, of Smith’s edition of ‘ Brewster’s Magic,” is too puerile and contemptible to merit notice. Such hard-headed people would fain make us believe that all ghostly appearances are phasmas —even that of Jesus after his death; and that all that’s knowable they know; when, aside from the multitudinous impostures, there are enough real spiritual visitations and visions to base the hopes of a million worlds upon. In no case, whether the objects viewed are physical or mental — as in dreams, ete., is it the eye which sees, but the faculty of consciousness within the eye, brain, soul, of the observer; and as manis a spiritual being, it follows that he has a series of inner senses underlying and subtending his external ones, and which series of internal senses are adapted to his natural-born spiritual nature; and all that he requires is a bridge to help him span the thick matter and reach the spiritual ether. This the mirror enables many, though not all, to do.
The condition of death is mental activity and physical quiescence. If the activity can be had without the quiescence of death, our greatest aim — a new avenue or means of knowing — is attained. This is all the mesmerist and the mirrorist claim to achieve; and both have proved and made good that claim in numberless instances.
The spiritual, therefore the substantial reality of all being, is above and beyond the other senses, and it is only either by his rising to it, through the floors of the outer world beneath which he sinks, or by its descent to him, that he can cognize the actualities of that superior world. In either case, if his motive be good, he ascends toward God. If evil, then his account must be rendered for his act.
When a man, his organs of perception, his intelligent principle, is suspended from its matter-bounded exercise; he can enter the domain of the
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