THE
MESSAGE OF PSYCHIC SCIENCE
WORKS BY
MARY EVEREST BOOLE.
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THE MESSAGE OF
PSYCHIC SCIENCE
TO THE WORLD
BY
MARY EVEREST BOOLE
LONDON
C. W. DANIEL.
11 CURSITOR STREET, E.C.
1908.
Dedication.
To those
Whose names are "wrapped in silence."
The Fellowship of the Dead.
Fellowship of spirits bright,
Crowned with laurel, clad with light,
From what labours are ye sped,
By what common impulse led,
With what deep remembrance bound,
'Mid the mighty concourse round,
That ye thus together stand,
An inseparable band?
Mortal! well hast thou divined
What the chains that strongest bind;
For the free unfettered soul
Bows to no enforced control;
Sympathy of feelings shared,
Deeds achieved, and perils dared,
These to spirits are—beyond
Time and place—the noblest bond.
All who felt the sacred flame
Rising at oppression's name,
All who toiled for equal laws,
All who loved the righteous cause,
All whose world-embracing span
Bound them to each brother man
Are upon the spirit-coast
An indissoluble host.
All who with a pure intent
Were on Nature's knowledge bent,
Watched the comet's wheeling flight,
Traced the subtle web of light,
And the wide dominion saw
Of the universal law,
In this land of souls agree
With a deep-felt sympathy.
All that to the love of truth
Gave the fervour of their youth,
Then for others spread the store
Of their rich and studious lore,
Bringing starry wisdom down
To the peasant and the clown,
Are with us in spirit-land,
An inseparable band.
Whether they were known to fame,
Whether silence wrapt their name,
Whether dwellers in the strife
Or the still and cloistered life;
If with pure and humble thought
For the good alone they wrought,
When the earthly life is done,
In the heavenly they are one.
And their souls together twine
In a fellowship divine,
And they see the ages roll
Onward to their destined goal,
Dark with shadows of the past,
Till the morning come at last,
And an Eden bloom again
For the weary sons of men.
Preface.
The history of this book may interest some readers at the present day more than its contents.
My father, T. R. Everest, was a learned occultist in days when occultists were few. He did everything in his power to call attention to the dangerous reaction which must come if the clerical and medical professions persisted in ignoring the phenomena of Mesmerism, Trance and Clairvoyance.
Frederick Maurice was a fanatical opponent of all investigation of such phenomena from the experimental or scientific side. Can any good come except from Nazareth?
But Maurice believed that the Church of England system made possible an indefinite expansion of liberality.
Messrs. Macmillan started a movement and a journal for the purpose of unifying Religion and Science under the ægis of Maurice. They invited me to join the movement and contribute to the magazine. I had given lectures on psychology to a few Churchwomen.
As a test of Maurice's sincerity I asked him to read the MS. of these lectures and tell me what he wished me to do with it. His verdict was emphatic; it was to this effect:—
"I cannot advise the publication of a book which I do not understand. If you have any doubts, it is safest to delay. But if you see your way, let nothing stop you."
The MS. was then given to Messrs. Macmillan, who accepted it. The first chapter was put in type.
But Maurice's friends could not consent to the publication of a book which, if much read, would have convinced the public that the grand old Leader had inadvertently misled the whole party into committing themselves to publishing nonsense about a topic as to which they were profoundly ignorant. Pressure which Messrs. Macmillan considered irresistible was put on them to suppress the book. A lady member of the Macmillan family afterwards asked me to preserve the letter which finally determined the action of the firm; it will not be published during the life time of persons who knew and loved the writer of it. The "Message" was returned to me, along with a printed copy of the first chapter, annotated with clerical comments.
My way was thenceforth not difficult to see:—If they reject you in one clique flee to another. I became secretary to James Hinton, a man liberal as to doctrines but a fanatical opponent of the Established Church. I contributed the chapter on Mental Hygiene in Sickness to a series which he was editing in the People's Journal. After his death I got into connection with the Jewish penny weekly press, a world-wide instrument for the culture and elevation of the masses, probably the most potent in existence ; a lever, all the more efficacious at that time as an instrument for the elevation of Jews, because it was the fashion for non-Jews to despise it, and, as far as possible, to ignore its existence.
And so I went on, always linking my work with whatever source of force I found most ignored, most despised, or most execrated by the party who seemed to be exerting the most influence at the time,—the old Magicians' Master Method for economising one's own vitality by utilising Nature's re-active energy,—until, in 1901, officials of the English government asked me why methods of study, useful for the training of electrical engineers, were in use abroad and unknown in England. The Magic Cycle was completed and the spell was at work.
A selection of my contributions to various Jewish weeklies has been published by Messrs. Daniel under the title "Logic Taught by Love." Non-Jew readers find the book difficult to understand, because of the many references to the phraseology and imagery of the Synagogue; and have asked me to translate it into a form more intelligible to the general public. But it seems simpler and better to give to the public the original work suppressed by Maurice's friend, as a fair sample of the kind of knowledge which, half a century ago, was being driven out of England in deference to the whims of an Ecclesiastical Trades Union.
We think that we have progressed since that day. Instead of not believing in ghosts and mediums, we believe in them perhaps rather too much ; we perhaps attach too little weight to the special experience of the parochial clergy. But are we outgrowing our slavery to the tyranny of / cliques ? Are we not in some danger of sacrificing much that is valuable to the general intellectual Trades Unionism of the Middle Classes, who decree that what they know not is not knowledge ; that nothing can be of any use except what they can see the use of without taking any trouble to in- vestigate ? Sacrificing some things that might be of use in future to the serene conviction of nearly everyone who has anyhow caught the ear of the public for the time being, that what he knows not is not knowledge? Mary Everest Boole.
October, 1908. Preface to Private Edition.
In 1883 a small edition of the book was published, but not advertised. Very few copies of it were ever sold. The preface to that edition was as follows:—
More than twenty years ago a few ladies, alarmed at the tempest of discussion about all things human and divine which threatened to sweep them from their accustomed anchorage, asked me to help them to find out whether anything was left which we might still venture to believe without finding ourselves in antagonism with something else which seemed to have equal claims to be considered true. The then almost new theory of Evolution on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the marvellous tales which were being told of spirits appearing at stances, seemed to be considered by the critics of the day so contrary, both to each other and to all that had hitherto been considered sacred or reasonable, that these ladies almost felt as though the thought-world were reverting to chaos. In answer to their appeal the following lectures in their original form were written.
Since they were first delivered, I have had assistance in rendering them more complete. Medical men of all the different "pathies" have been kindly willing to help me in calming the minds of perplexed women by leading them to see that the most important part of any new truth is not always that which at first excites the most discussion ; that a force which was spiritual when we were ignorant of the laws of its operation does not become unspiritual because we have discovered a few of those laws ; and that knowledge which was divine when it. was vague and partial is not necessarily made "Satanic" by an effort being made to render it more complete and accurate. It would be pleasant to express my gratitude to those who have assisted me ; but as I prefer that the faults of my compilation should be attributed to myself alone, 1 will content myself with tendering the thanks of myself and my hearers to all who have aided us in our inquiry.
The Evolution controversy, so far as the unscientific are concerned with it, is practically at an end. No one now supposes that any serious moral issues depend on our being able to define with precision the difference between "varieties" and "true species." But the difficulty which we felt so keenly twenty years ago is not at an end; truths are still manifold ; and it is still hard to keep up our faith in the principle that Truth is One.
A society has lately been formed, called the Society for Psychical Research, which announces itself as willing to receive and examine, and as far as possible to classify, evidence on such subjects as thought-reading, clairvoyance, apparitions, and haunted houses. It is not difficult to foresee that the future history af this new movement will in mahy respects repeat the experience of the past. The leaders, many of whom are men of unquestioned ability, will pursue their course in a spirit of calm and patient inquiry, equally unmoved by the satire and antagonism, and by the over-excited curiosity and too ready belief, which will seethe around them. They will combine and utilise the work of isolated observers ; and in due time the world at large will profit greatly by their labours. But meanwhile a terrible amount of quite needless suffering will be caused to those who take no part in the movement, by the mere unsettling of their ordinary habits of thought. And the occasion may perhaps not be inopportune to remind young women who have not the leisure or the aptitude for systematic investigation, of the same principles which were so much forgotten by unscientific readers in the first shock of surprise caused by the publication of the "Origin of Species."
Contents.
| I. | 1 |
| II. | 33 |
| III. | 63 |
| IV. | 117 |
| V. | 131 |
| VI. | 157 |
| VII. | 219 |
| 253 |
| 263 |
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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