Genuine Mediumship; or, The Invisible Powers - Atkinson William Walker

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advanced against this conception by sceptical critics are as follows: "(1) The mental vibratory motion, or vibratory waves, are not known to science, nor recorded on scientific instruments such as the galvanometer. What is the rate of such vibrations, and what is their general character? (2) Granted the existence of such vibratory energy, or thought-waves, how and by means of what channel does the second person receive them from the first person? How are they registered or recorded?" These objections are capable of being met in a scientific manner, to the satisfaction of any fair-minded critic or investigator. We shall now give you, briefly, the gist of the answer of science to the aforesaid objections.

      The World of Vibrations

      It is true that the scientific instruments of the laboratory, such as the galvanometer, do not record thought vibrations. This, because such instruments are capable of registering and recording on certain rates and modes of vibratory energy. Thought vibrations are registered only by their appropriate instruments, namely, the Chitta of Mind substance of living persons. As to the "general character and rate of vibration" of these waves of mental force, we can only say that their general character is that of "mental force" as opposed to "physical force."

      As to their rate of vibration, we can only say that this is not precisely known, not having as yet been definitely ascertained; but it should be added that there is plenty room for these vibrations in the great field of vibratory energy. Read the following paragraphs, and decide this last matter for yourself.

      Uncharted Seas of Vibration

      The following quotations from eminent scientists will serve to give the student a general idea of the views of science upon the question of the possibility of the existence and presence of vibratory energy of kinds and characters as yet unknown to science:

      The first scientist says: "There is much food for speculation in the thought that there exists sound waves that no human ear can hear, and color waves that no eye can see. The long, dark, soundless space between 40,000 and 400,000,000,000,000 vibrations per second, and the infinity of range beyond 700,000,000,000,000 vibrations per second, where light ceases, in the universe of motion, makes it possible to indulge in speculation." The second scientist says: "There is no gradation between the most rapid undulations or tremblings that produce our sensation of sound, and the lowest of those which give rise to our sensations of gentlest warmth. There is a huge gap between them, wide enough to include another world of motion, all lying between our world of sound and our world of heat and light. And there is no good reason whatever for supposing that matter is incapable of such intermediate activity, or that such activity may not give rise to intermediate sensations, provided that there are organs for taking up and sensifying these movements."

      The third scientist says: "The knowledge we gain by experiment brings home to us what a miserably imperfect piece of mechanism our bodies are. The ear can detect the slow-footed sound vibrations that come to us at the rate of between 40 and 40,000 a second. But the whole of space may be quivering and palpitating with waves at all sorts of varying speeds, and our senses will tell us nothing of them until we get them coming to us at the inconceivable speed of 400,000,000,000,000 a second, when again we respond to them and appreciate them in the form of light."

      The fourth scientist says: "The first indications of warmth come to us when the vibrations reach the rate of 35,000,000,000,000 per second. When the vibrations reach 450,000,000,000,000 the lowest visible light rays manifest. Then come the orange rays, the golden yellow, the pure yellow, the greenish yellow, the pure green, the greenish blue, the ocean blue, the cyanic blue, the indigo, and finally the violet, the highest degree of light which the human eye can register, and which occurs when the vibrations reach the rate of 750,000,000,000 per second. Then come the ultra-violet rays, invisible to human sight but registered by chemical media. In this ultra-violet region lie the X-Rays, and the other recently discovered high degree rays; also the actinic rays which, while invisible to the eye, register on the photographic plate, sunburn one's face, blister one's nose, and even cause violent explosions in chemical substances exposed to them, as well as act upon the green leaves of plants, causing the chemical transformation of carbonic acid and water into sugar and starches. These forms of 'dark light,' that is, light too high in degree to be perceived by the human eye, are but faint indications of the existence of still higher and still finer vibrations of substance and energy."

      The Human Wireless Telegraph Instrument

      Having seen that the first question of the sceptical critics is capable of being answered in the scientific spirit, and by ideas based upon scientific investigation, we now turn to the second question of the same critics, viz.: "Granted the existence of such vibratory energy, or thought-waves, how and by means of what channel does the second person receive these from the first person? How are they registered or recorded?" This same question is also implied in the concluding sentence of one of the scientists above quoted, viz.: "There is no good reason whatever for supposing that matter is incapable of such intermediate activity, or that such activity may not give rise to intermediate sensations, provided that there are organs for taking up and sensifying these movements." Let us see what science has to tell us regarding the provision of Nature for the reception and "sensing" of this class of vibratory energy. And the easiest way to ascertain the report of science regarding this important matter is to consider carefully what representative leading scientists have said concerning the same in their writings or public addresses. We call your attention to the following quotations from such sources.

      A Great Scientist's Theory

      Let us begin with that great master of modern science, Sir William Crookes, the inventor of the celebrated "Crookes' Tubes," without which the discovery of the X-Ray and Radio-Activity would have been impossible. Several years ago, this eminent scientist, addressing the Royal Society, at Bristol, England,—a gathering made up of distinguished scientists from all over the world, most of the members being extremely sceptical concerning occult phenomena—said to the brilliant gathering: "Were I now introducing for the first time these inquiries in the world of science, I should choose a starting point different from that of old (where we formerly began). It would be well to begin with Telepathy; with that fundamental law, as I believe it to be, that thoughts and images may be transferred from one mind to another without the agency of the recognized organs of sense—that knowledge may enter the human mind without being communicated in any hitherto known or recognized ways. * * * If Telepathy takes place we have two physical facts, viz., (a) the physical change in the brain of A, the transmitter, and the analogous physical change in the brain of B, the recipient of the transmitted impression. Between these two physical events there must exist a train of physical causes. * * * It is unscientific to call in the aid of mysterious agencies, when with every fresh advance in knowledge it is shown that ether vibrations have powers and attributes abundantly able to meet any demand—even the transmission of thought.

      "It is supposed by some physiologists that the essential cells of nerves do not actually touch, but are separated by a narrow gap which widens in sleep while it narrows almost to extinction during mental activity. This condition is so singularly like a Branly or Lodge coherer [a device which led to the discovery of wireless telegraphy] as to suggest a further analogy. The structure of brain and nerve being similar, it is conceivable that there may be present masses of such nerve coherers in the brain, whose special function it may be to receive impulses brought from without, through the connecting sequence of ether waves of appropriate order of magnitude. Roentgen has familiarized us with an order of vibrations of extreme minuteness as compared with the smallest waves with which we have hitherto been acquainted; and there is no reason to suppose that we have here reached the limit of frequency. It is known that the action of thought is accompanied by certain molecular movements in the brain, and here we have physical vibrations capable from their extreme minuteness of acting direct upon individual molecules, while their rapidity approaches that of internal and external movements of the atoms themselves. A formidable range of phenomena must be scientifically sifted before we effectually grasp a faculty so strange, so bewildering, and for ages so inscrutable, as the direct action of mind upon mind."

      Human Electro-Magnetism

      Professor Bain, another eminent authority, tells us: "The structure of the nervous substances, and the experiments

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