With High Spirits
With High Spirits is an article written by Chapman Cohen published in The Freethinker on 25 march 1928.
Chapman Cohen (1868-1954) was the President of the N.S.S. (National Secular Society).
With High Spirits
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has just published, at the price of sixpence, a twenty page pamphlet with the title of A Word of Warning. It is a solemn, but not very impressive, warning that unless the world alters its way something terrible is certain to happen. We have had many such prophecies before. The Old and New Testaments are full of them, and there is hardly a decade since the New Testament has come into existence that some such grave utterance has not been forthcoming. And were we not solemnly yarned by our Prime Minister only a week or so ago, that if the British Empire is seriously interfered with the whole fabric of the universe will be shaken? To learn that the light of the sun may be darkened, that the stars may cease to shine, planets may be disrupted, and the very atoms fly asunder if the British Empire comes to an end, is surely the very and the very gravest word in the matter of prophetic forecast. And yet, somehow or other, this jolly old world manages to steer clear of these catastrophic dangers. It even got past the greatest and the most authoritative prophecy of all — that of the year 1000, when the Church solemnly assured its followers that the end of the period would see end of the world. It did see the end of the possessions of a great many people, for large numbers made their property and possessions over to the Church in the hopes of securing safety when the winding-up order was enforced. But nothing serious happened. So it may even be that a change of government will not seriously disturb the structure of the universe, and that though an unbelieving generation pays small heed to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, things may work out all right in the end.
Revelation and Logic.
Sir Arthur writes with "a strong sense of responsibility"; one might almost say that he writes under compulsion, for the impulse to write as he does comes from the world of spirits. And although he knows that what lie says "are not easy things to say," yet he says them. One applauds the courage, even while reserving the right to question the wisdom displayed. It appears that for over six years he has been receiving messages "which profess to be, and have every internal sign of being, from a high spiritual source." He has refrained from publishing the whole of these messages, lest a "detailed and verbatim account would . . . cause panic," and he contents himself with "indicating the general tenor" of these messages "from a high spiritual source."
Our minds being prepared for this dread warning, we go on to learn with fear and trembling something of the general message, and in the hopes that no one with a weak heart or shaky nerves, or with any inclination to commit suicide under the influence of terror will read it, I hand on this "word of warning." The message was
- that the world had failed to learn the lesson of the Great War; that only by such tragic visitations could it be chastened and humbled into a more spiritual state of mind, and that accordingly, unless there was some sweeping change of heart, a second trial was coming, which would surely accomplish what the first had failed to do. The date of the crisis would be soon, it would take the form of political and natural convulsions, and its effect would be absolutely shattering.
Such, in a nutshell, is the warning as we have received it. Logic is not usually a strong point with returning spirits, and this message is not likely to remove that impression. For example, it appears that it is only by "tragic visitations" that we can get into "a more spiritual state of mind," and unless we get into this spiritual state without a tragic visitation we shall get another one. But if we cannot get it without one of these visitations, how on earth are we to avert it? And if the second visitation would do what the first has failed to do, that is, to bring about this spiritual state of mind, what on earth have we to worry about? Or if the desired spiritual states are brought about by these visitations, what is meant by making our blood curdle with the information that the visitation will be absolutely shattering? It should be altogether to the good, and the sooner it comes the better. The early Christians and prophet Baxter did this kind of thing much better. They said there would be a great visitation, but they said it would be all to the good when it arrived, and all we had to do was to prepare for it and welcome its coming. I wonder whether it is possible that Sir Arthur has mistaken the message, or was it the vision from the spheres pulling his knightly leg? Anyway, the message seems a trifle mixed.
Be Warned in Time.
These messages, says Sir Arthur, have come unsought, they were outside the medium's range of thought, and "in many ways run counter to our own opinions." The messages have been corroborated by the trend of events, "both in international affairs, and in seismic activity." I am really astonished — astonished at the marvellous intelligence emanating from a "high spiritual source" which could announce the unique message, that unless the nations of Europe altered their policies we were heading for another war, further international unrest, and general world trouble! Readers will observe the originality of the message, and will also wonder that they ran counter to Sir Arthur's own opinions, and were outside the mentality of the medium employed. They will also marvel at the fact of seismic disturbances — earthquakes and similar terrestrial irregularities — being occasioned by our not having experienced a change of heart, and their absence in the future if the change takes place. The theory is not a new one. Theosophists many years ago gave similar explanation of the cause of the disappearance of the legendary Atlantis, but it is certainly one that the inhabitants of earthquake areas should be made acquainted with.
But with a full sense of the courage required, and of the strength needed to put the truth before the public, our faults are set forth. Here is a faithful summary—
Mankind must learn that religion has nothing to do with theological beliefs. The irrational observances of the Church prejudice man against religion. The best service that can be done to the real Christ is to make him reasonable. Why select the Virgin Mary as the ideal of womanhood? Why not Mary the hard-working partner of a carpenter? We must reject the doctrine of the Sacrament, the belief that "we eat, drink (and presumably digest) the actual flesh and blood of God"; we must get rid of the supernatural character of confession, and also of Baptism, which is obviously absurd, and along with these the doctrine of the Trinity, the fall, and the atonement. We must also use our reason in reading the New Testament, and recognize that it is not historically dependable. Finally, from the same high spiritual source, he has been given the economic message that "some are too rich and some are too poor," and there should be an "assurance of nutritous food, nature, love, music, literature, games, cleanly orderly houses." So ends the message which, if it is ignored, will result in wars, upheavals, etc., to say nothing of earthquakes, inundations, and other cosmical disasters.
Commonplace Spirits.
Now it is not for me to say that high and mighty spirits have not visited Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and poured out their message to his receptive soul. They have not visited me, and so I am compelled to take them at second hand. But I do think it is a pity that these spirits appear never to read a newspaper, or to be in the least degree conversant with the most ordinary thinking that is done on earth. Sir Arthur was probably too polite to remind them that the proper reply to these things being given him as products of highly developed wisdom and profound research into the tendencies of human society, to say nothing of the occurrence of earth tremors — the proper and fitting reply would be the very vulgar "Rats." For ever since the war came to an end, every paper has been saying that we ought to learn the lesson of the war, or there would be more trouble in the future. Books
by the score have been written on the same topic. It can hardly be that Sir Arthur has not come across them. Perhaps he was too polite to tell the spirit that the news was stale, the prophecies old, and just listened to them with the assumed interest that one gives to the fifty-first hearing of a humorous story. And the religious reforms! They make one wonder still more. I need not remind Sir Arthur that all this could have been obtained from the Freethinker at any time during its nearly fifty years of existence; but there are scores and scores of parsons in the country who will attack many of the Church's doctrines that he attacks, and they will also make the quite foolish distinction between religion and theology — as though there ever existed a religion without a theology, or a theology without a religion! And, certainly, the spirit touched the high water mark of heavenly inanity when it said that some were too rich and sonic were too poor, and all ought to have food and clothing and lead comfortable lives. For that is being said by everyone, rich and poor, and has been said for many a year. That is why I call it heavenly inanity; it has no use on earth — for the earthly question is how to organize society so as to end poverty. And here the spirits seem quite helpless. But one cannot expect spirits to enter into controversial subjects. It would weaken the spirit of bovine expectancy on which the security of spiritual communications rest.
The Euthasia of the Spiritual.
Sir Arthur's pamphlet is interesting, but it is so for a reason that is not very flattering to its author. One cannot say that his "Word of Warning" is unnecessary, but it is terribly familiar, almost commonplace. If Sir Arthur had been approached by a mere human being, who had told him that unless the world altered its ways another war was inevitable, that belief in transubstantiation, or in confession, or in a Virgin mother, is very stupid, or that society should be so organized as to give to all men the possibility of a clean and happy life, he would in all probability have replied, "All true enough, but there is nothing strikingly new about what you say. These things have been commonplaces among reformers for several generations." But when they come to him in the brain-bemusing atmosphere of a seance room, and from the mouth of a visitor from "a high spiritual source," they are received with all the open-mouthed wonder of a primitive savage witnessing a chemical experiment. Bring in the "spiritual" and man reverts, mentally, to a lower stage of culture. He receives a "message" which he could get from almost any daily paper — or from — if one may dare to mention it in the company of angels — the Freethinker, as a communication which must be delivered to the world at all costs. Newton pro-pounding his theory of universal gravitation, Darwin enunciating natural selection, or Cortez standing silent upon a peak in Darien, could not have experienced a greater thrill than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in receiving from "a high spiritual source" these commonplaces of the ordinary press. It is a splendid example of the brain-deadening consequences of superstition.
CHAPMAN COHEN.
