The First Public Lecture on Spiritualism
Samuel Byron Brittan, “The Rostrum. Advent Voices of the Great Spiritual Movement. The First Public Lecture ever given on the subject of Modern Spiritualism.” Two Worlds (London), November 18 and 25, 1887.
The parenthetical material at the beginning is by the editor of the Two Worlds, Emma Hardinge Britten, explaining how she came into possession of the manuscript.—JBPart I.
[The first lecture explanatory of the spiritual philosophy, and especially of the marvellous circumstances which heralded in the spiritual dispensation of the nineteenth century, was delivered at the Stuyvesant Institute, Broadway, New York City, in November, 1850, by the Rev. S. B. Britain, better known in the American Spiritual ranks as Professor Britain.
The MS. of this lecture was given some years ago to Mrs. Emma Hardinge, by Professor Britain, as a contribution to the History of Modern American Spiritualism, but is now published for the first time. On the earliest occasion, when the celebrated Fox Sisters, of Rochester, appeared in public and demonstrated the power of spirits by rappings and other signals, to telegraph to morals, they were accompanied by Mr. E. W. Capron, of Auburn, the Rev. R. P. Ambler, or some friend who would introduce the poor young mediums to the audience, and narrate well-attested accounts of the marvellous phenomena produced in their presence, but the following lecture may be justly claimed as the first attempt to represent spiritualism to the world in its philosophic aspects, and to connect the much-despised manifestation of spiritual rappings and movements with the science of immortality.
As this address, therefore, may be regarded as the inaugural work of the Spiritual Rostrum, so it has been selected as eminently fitting to occupy the same position in the opening number of “The Two Worlds.”]
PROFESSOR BRITAIN commenced his address to a thronged and deeply interested audience as follows:—
Ladies and Gentleman—It is scarcely possible that any of the intelligent persons assembled here this night can be ignorant of the fact that this city has been recently visited by a lady and her three daughters, two of them mere children, for whom has been advanced the astonishing claim that the spirits of the so-called dead can and do produce, through some unknown force resident in their organisms, but totally unconnected with their volition—sounds and movements by which telegraphic messages can be spelled out and test facts rendered to prove that the operators, though invisible, are the living and active spirits of those the world has believed to be sleeping in the grave and waiting the trump of the Resurrection Angel to recall to life and being millions of years hence. When we consider that this has been the view of the Christian world concerning the mystery of death, and that, beyond vague surmises or the terrorism awakened by tales of the supernatural, mankind has been left in total ignorance in respect to the state beyond the grave for the last thousand years, I confess I should not dare to come before you with such statements or opinions as might be adverse to this universal belief, were I not in a position to refer you to the proofs of spirit communion which some of you have doubtless witnessed during the past few weeks, in the presence of the Fox Sisters, or those which, as it now appears, are being unfolded in the persons of many other mediums who are arising on every side of us, and through whom we learn that the same power exists as a latent gift, in great numbers of human organisms, and can ultimately be developed in every family that patiently seeks to cultivate it. In view of these remarkable statements and their realization in the rapid development of mediumistic power which we see going on around us, it seems to me that a new era in the history of humanity has actually commenced, and that those tremendous and unexplained mysteries that we have called in the earliest ages “Magic,” in the Biblical dispensation “Miracle,” and in the Middle Ages “Witchcraft,” are now coming to the front as the work of human spirits, ever aiming to communicate with the earth-friends they have left behind, and ever striving to impart that knowledge of spiritual life and possibilities, of which mankind has been so lamentably ignorant. I say candidly, I cannot, I dare not predicate whither these stupendous new powers may lead us. I know they are good, for they bring us nothing but good. They prove to us the fact of immortality; they one and all assure us that the good or evil we have done will determine our happiness or misery hereafter, and, therefore, they bring us the only consolation we ever can derive in the agonizing bereavements of death, and the best motor power we can receive for leading good lives and abandoning evil courses. As for the future of this great wonder, what the telegraph may become, or the means of intercommunion between the two worlds may develop, I confess I cannot even speculate upon. The present is our own, and in that we have indeed good cause for congratulation; but beyond our own immediate day and hour who can venture to prophesy the probable future of what we call “Modern Spiritualism”? But I will leave the hypothetical part of my subject, and proceed to show that “advent voices” have not been wanting to herald in this great movement, and some of these I am so peculiarly qualified to speak of, that I have been induced on the faith of my own experiences to appear before you this night to narrate them. The first spiritual episode which I have to describe occurred in my own person, and some two or three years antecedent to the period of the famous “Rochester Knockings,” effected through the Fox family, who have recently visited this city. I should not presume to press these, my personal experience, on your attention, did not I feel that they formed a part of that divine link in the chain of events by which many and varied agencies are called to the work which the new spiritual dispensation demands of mankind. Some few years ago I was—as I then believed—permanently located in Albany, New York, and engaged in the congenial occupation of pastor to a Universalist congregation. At length I was overtaken by a serious illness, and to all appearance passed into the power of the mystic Angel of Death. Happily for me, an attendant friend, who was summoned by my mourning family to assist in what was termed “the last sad rites,” perceived some of the ordinary symptoms of complete dissolution wanting, and on calling in medical advice, the conclusion was arrived at that the deep sleep which had fallen upon the unconscious form was not “the sleep that knows no waking,” but simply a condition of entrancement from which I should eventually awake to renewed life. These monitions proved correct, for after a period of unconsciousness, closely resembling the immobility of death, which lasted for twelve days, I awoke to the dim realisation that I was still an inhabitant of this earth. It was, however, twenty-one days before any material sustenance could pass my lips, or any direct communion be exchanged between me and the afflicted watchers who surrounded me. And if you should ask, friends, under what conditions I passed those long hours, shut out from human experience and companionship, how shall I answer you? All that I can say is, with Paul of old, that “I heard words which it is not lawful to utter,” and beheld scenes which mortal language can never fully depict. I was attended, almost constantly, by a glorious and majestic being, an angel in superhuman loveliness, benevolence and wisdom—in a word, this blessed companion was all that we have ever dreamed of archangelic perfection, save the fabled wings and the no less fabled distance between poor humanity and celestial love. Under the protection of this divine guide, I traversed realms, endless alike in their vastness and variety. Some of these far and wide regions were unspeakably glorious, bright and full of radiant and happy spirit people; others were dark, barren, and hideous, beyond the power of mortal to describe. I traversed, with the speed of the winged lightning, millions of lands all teeming with soul inhabitants, ranging from a bliss and brightness, exceeding our vague ideas of the Seraphim and Cherubim, to spheres which might have appalled the stoutest heart, and realised the darkest descriptions of crime and woe. And all these, I learned—aye, and knew—as I went, were the homes of the enfranchised souls of humanity. I learned that every one of these millions of varied states were apportioned to humanity according to the good or evil they had done on earth, and I should have deemed the joys of the heavenly spheres all too dearly purchased in the misery of contemplating the awful realms of crime and sorrow, had I not realised that divine love and mercy permeated even the lowest depths and invited, assisted, nay compelled, even the most fallen and guilty souls, to tread those paths of good and progress, which would ultimately lead them to become purified and bright, as the highest angels of heaven. I saw the many spheres which, like gradual steps, were leading millions of souls up the steeps of progress. I saw many whom I had known on earth in different stages of progression, and with some of these I conversed, and learned that all were on their upward way according to the strength of individual purpose by which they endeavoured to tread the path of good and reform. Let me add, as the last and most solemn revelation that I brought with me from this land of the hereafter, that though I saw thousands of Christ-like spirits teaching, comforting, and aiding the souls of the guilty to reform and come up higher, I never discovered throughout that universe of sphere life any Saviour in the Christian sense of redemption, or any vicarious means of atoning for sin; I saw none, in short, but angels of love and mercy, teaching and inspiring guilty-stained souls to forsake the criminal tendencies they had acquired on earth, and SAVE THEMSELVES by penitence and a purer and better life. And yet, whilst I tell you, friends, of these mere fragments of revealment, there remains enough unsaid both of glory and of shame imprinted on my memory, to fill volumes; and I feel and believe the day is now at hand when thousands of mortals will receive similar revelations and that with even fuller means of expressing them than I can command. Perhaps mankind will become familiarised with them, and feel far less deeply impressed with their awful importance than I did when I first awoke to find myself once more a denizen of this cold, matter-of-fact and to me then, common-place earth. Suffice it to say that I had discovered by an experience that no time can efface, that most of the theological teachings in which I had been educated were false, mere human opinions based on imperfect conceptions of ancient writings; that Death was only a change of outer garments; that heaven and hell were states born of good or evil within the soul itself; that finality after death was a sham and the invention of men, but that progress was eternal, and God’s love for the lowest and meanest of his creatures infinite and unending. Upon my return to convalescence, I narrated to many of my friends and members of my congregation, my sublime and wonderful spiritual experiences.
I rejoice to remember that no one ever doubted me, and that I was entreated with the most affectionate solicitude to remain in my former pastorate, and still continue to minister to my kind associates. For a very brief period I yielded to these entreaties, but I soon found it impossible to continue in the fetters of any ecclesiastical organisation. Voices from the higher life were perpetually calling me forth, and urging me to labour in the broader fields of unenlightened humanity. Visions of wonderful beauty and significance were shown me, all tending to impress me with the solemn duty of joining the armies of angelic reform that I knew were preparing to traverse the earth and usher in the day of a universal spiritual outpouring. I could neither discern the form nor manner of the mighty changes that I felt impending, yet I knew that I had been called and permitted to behold the mustering of the heavenly forces that were so inevitably to revolutionize the world on the questions of life here and hereafter. Had I been called in vain? Should I become recreant to the divine messengers that had opened up to my entranced eyes the mysteries of eternity? My final resignation of my pastorate in Albany was my answer, but even then, though I felt as if I had cast myself on the wide ocean of troublous life without pilot or compass, I found myself borne up in the hands of ministering angels, and very soon I began to discover that I was being led into a still more unprecedented and unlooked-for realm of wonderland.
Part II.
The wonderful spiritual awakening which followed upon my twelve days’ trance, and led me, as a matter of conscience and duty, to sever my connection with the Albany Universalist Society, of which I had long been the pastor, opened up far wider views to my mental perception than those even which had impressed me with the errors of existing theological systems. I began to realise that spiritual influence, watchfulness, and inspiration had unquestionably been instrumental in shaping my destiny, and led me through a series of rough and stormy life-passages by a way I knew not of, and which our purblind mortal perceptions would never have dictated. The many paths of effort which my restless feet had trodden, in no one of which I was permitted to linger beyond the period when they could impart to me a certain amount of experience; the singular and unlooked for way in which I had drifted towards the faith of Universalism, and (contrary to all the plans of life chalked out for me by my relatives) become an ordained minister of the Universalist Church; the long course of frail health and bodily suffering which, whilst it oppressed me like a living death, ultimately culminated in my long trance; and the crowning marvel of my existence—my twelve days’ wanderings through the spheres of immortality—all this now appears to me in retrospect to have constituted a series of links in the chain of destiny, forged by the hands of ministering angels, and designed to act as a cable which should lift me up from the pursuits of earth and earthly common-places—to become an agent in the work by which a connecting bridge should be builded between the mortal and immortal worlds, and a telegraph set in motion through which the ascended souls of earth should enlighten humanity on the actual conditions of the life hereafter. But even this astonishing view of a destiny which I never could have dreamed of in my wildest imaginings was not the all of what I began to realise. I found the clue to an experience common enough in past history, yet in every case wholly inexplicable. This was in reference to a well-proven instance of supernatural haunting, occurring in my own family. Shortly after I had entered upon my ministerial career—now some ten years ago—a dearly-loved sister, the youngest of my father’s family, was removed by death from her mourning relatives.
Immediately after her decease, my own residence at Red Bank [New Jersey] became the scene of the most astounding and unaccountable phenomena. Heavy poundings were heard, and footsteps sounded on the stairs, passages, the floors of rooms that were locked, and when searched, found to be empty. These terrifying and unaccountable manifestations assumed much stronger proportions at night, and took the form of human voices, sobbings, sighings and on some few occasions, of agonising cries, as if proceeding from some one in a mortal struggle for life. When at length the tidings reached us that my brother Whitney had perished by the hand of an assassin in Texas, my wife, who had always steadfastly insisted that these supermundane monitions boded calamity, confirmed me in her own oft-reiterated opinions. From this time also I became frequently impressed with a knowledge of what was transpiring at a distance, and in numerous instances of future events. Most commonly these presages came to me in the form of what I should now call visions. At the time of their occurrence they were as harassing and repulsive as the hauntings of which I have spoken, but after the marvellous opening of my inner sight which I experienced during the outward unconsciousness of the twelve days’ trance, those glances and glimpses of the unseen universe that surrounds us, seemed to become resolved into natural order, and I could then perceive that we ourselves are spirits inhabiting a spiritual realm of being, surrounded on every side by the dwellers of a spirit country; separated only from them by the thick veil of mortality in which we are incarnated, and that, for the purposes of growth and the acquisition of fundamental material knowledge. I perceived that I was one of those exceptional natures whose organisms at times permit the soul to transcend the boundary lines of matter, and apprehend the realities of our spiritual surroundings.
It would be impossible to describe to you, my friends, how completely the world in which I lived seemed to have become illuminated with glorious angelic presences; how the problems of the past came into the light of eternal spiritual verities, and the dimness of an unknown futurity glowed with the dawning sunbeams of the heavenly goal, with its boundless realms of enfranchised spirits, to which I knew the nations of earth were advancing. Truly and reverently I may say I stood with the apostles of old on the Mount of Transfiguration, and “Mine eyes beheld the glory of the coming of the Lord.” But all these personal experiences, though they were wonderful enough to make me a changed man, and the earth glow with wise and Deific purposes of which mortals had never dreamed, were completely cast into the shade by what I was yet to witness in the persons of others. It was in the year 1846 that, happening to be in New York City with a literary friend, I was invited to accompany him to a house in Greene Street, where we entered a very small and meanly furnished apartment; in fact, the whole place indicated the abode of persons in the humblest ranks of life. At a common wooden table, strewed with writing materials, sat a broad-browed, amiable-looking gentleman, whom I at once knew to be a minister of the Universalist Church, and an accomplished scholar. Two or three other gentlemen were present, each of whom, as I afterwards found, occupied good professional positions, and were distinguished for their literary acquirements. The central figure in the group was a tall and slender youth, ungainly in appearance, awkward in gesture, clothed in such attire as indicated his belonging to some humble mechanical employment; with a pale, thin visage, and long unkempt black hair, all of which combined to present a most unprepossessing appearance.
After a brief introduction to this person, I found, by his answers to the queries addressed to him concerning the arrangements for a séance about to be held, that he was not only entirely uneducated, but ignorant alike of the most ordinary subjects of conversation, or general methods of expression. To my looks of amazement, as I witnessed the deference with which he was treated by his gentlemanly associates, one of them attempted to enlighten me by whispering in my ear, “He is only a poor shoemaker’s lad, and I believe has never had any schooling in his life.” “He cannot even read or write,” said another whisperer. “Oh yes, he can do a little at that,” said my first informant, “but only in awful spelling and worse grammar; however, you shall judge for yourself.” By this time I found that the minister who was to act as scribe had bound a handkerchief around the boy’s eyes, to exclude, as he said, the glare of the dim lamp burning on the table. This done, the query was propounded, “Now Jackson, are you ready?” In a voice deep, firm, but exquisitely modulated, and in accents as pure, noble, and high toned as those of the most accomplished orator, the now transfigured rustic replied:—“To the great centre of intelligence; to the positive sphere of thought; to that Focus of life, light, and being, from which proceeds, and to which returns, all knowledge and power; to the spiritual Sun of the Universe I go to receive my instructions.” And then followed a lecture in which, with the same high and commanding tone, and the most sublime form of imaginative language, I heard this boy describe the creation, the origin of all things, the nature of matter, force, and spirit; the order of the heavens; the stellar firmaments, known and unknown, that fill the universe; the relations of the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, their chains of mutual interdependence and progressive conditions of growth and ascent—in a word, my friends, I listened that night for the first time to the now famous “Poughkeepsie Seer,” Andrew Jackson Davis; was present that night for the first time at those unparalleled lectures of his, now thrilling the world with amazement and new thought, under the title of “Nature’s Divine Revelations.”
Why should I say more or trespass longer on your time and patience in the vain attempt to describe the transformation which the powers of heaven alone could have effected?—converting the most unlettered, ignorant, and unprepossessing boy, into a preacher, whose sermons compassed infinity; whose grasp of ideality unveiled the beginnings and stretched away to the ultimates of all things, and formed a bridge which spanned the two eternities of past and future! Those who are now privileged with the acquaintance of our young friend, Mr. Davis, will scarcely recognise in the fluent writer, brilliant lecturer, and amiable gentleman, the poor shoemaker’s boy. I first met him in an obscure New York boarding-house some years ago. Question him, friends, and in his own simple candid way he will assure you that my brief descriptions have far understated, rather than exaggerated, the transformation effected in this wonder of all ages by the Divine powers of angelic inspiration. But I can pause no longer on the advent voices which have ushered in the messianic vision of the open portals, by which the mystery of mysteries, death, is shown to be only the entrance to a higher life and the second step on the ladder of eternal progression. Passing by the sphere of spiritual ideality, opened up to the world in the publication of the Univercoelum, I must now notice the solution which we have been privileged to receive to all our spiritual problems in the famous “Rochester Knockings,” or first spiritual telegraph, worked through the instrumentality of the renowned Fox Sisters, who have so recently visited our city.
From the first report of this marvellous phenomenon I have been a persistent and careful observer. I have conversed with those who were present at the Corinthian Hall investigations two years ago, when committees of the best citizens of Rochester were appointed to test the manifestations by day and report to the public in great mass meetings each night. I positively know that all these committees were composed of men antagonistic to the spiritual hypothesis, yet every one of them each night—and that in defiance of howling mobs—resolutely declared that they had received, through the rappings each day, names, dates, and intelligence, which could be known only to the buried dead. I have conversed with the gentlemen who have introduced these mediums to the public, and I learn from the most indisputable testimony that the Fox Sisters have been tested, and their truth, and honesty proved, by every conceivable means. They have been searched by committees of ladies, and their clothing to the last under garment changed. Still the raps have come, and the same intelligence rendered. They have been placed upon glass supports, and pillows; dressed in silk, and at the last Rochester public meeting tied hands and feet, and thrown on the platform like bales of goods. And whilst pitch and tar was burning in the street outside the hall, and a savage mob waiting to lynch the mediums and the committee appointed to investigate them, should they still persist in the spiritual hypothesis, that committee DID PERSIST in reporting that the intelligence rendered during the day could have come from none others than spirits, and even then through those mediums on the platform, bound hand and foot, pale, trembling, and threatened with instant outrage and lynching, loud raps, confirmatory of the committee’s reports, were heard from end to end of the vast hall. These mediums have been to New York. I have seen them, heard their manifestations, and received through their telegraphic rappings tidings from all the friends I have ever known that have vanished through the gates of death.
I have seen some of our best and most capable thinkers in New York—such men as Horace Greeley, Charles Partridge, Drs. Robert Hallock, Gray, and hosts of others—endorse them, and declare nothing less than the spiritual hypothesis could account for the sounds and the intelligence rendered. And now, although shame, loss of friends, fortune, and standing, await all who dare to avow themselves believers in this great wonder, I see those believers multiplying on every hand. I could mention nine families, well known to me, amongst whom these same rappings, tippings, trance mediumship, and other forms of spiritual telegraphy have arisen; and I am in possession of evidence to show that in the City of Cincinnati, where the Fox Sisters have never been, The Cincinnati Times reports that at least one thousand circles are held nightly, hundreds of persons have become mediums, and these are not merely professionals, but include judges, lawyers, doctors, ladies, young children, and even infants in arms.
I have taken much pains to verify these statements, and ever find that, instead of being obliged to discredit them as exaggerated, they are growing upon me with such an overwhelming mass of testimony that I am myself lost in amazement and compelled to believe that the earth is flooded with these spiritual forces, and that no mere mortal power can either quench them, drive them hence, or predicate what result will accrue from such a supermundane outpouring.
All I can myself say, in summing up, is that we are in a position to affirm that the immortality of the soul is proved; that direct, nay, open, communion between the mortal and immortal worlds is now established; that revelations of the most convincing character may take the place of doubts, fears, hopes, and theological beliefs concerning the life hereafter; and that a vast and ever-expanding future seems to be opening up before the gaze of humanity, the goal of which no mortal can discern. What we do know, is that we are in the morning of a new day such as the world has never seen the like of; that we are entering upon a new dispensation, the revealments of which must revolutionise the status of science, reform, and, above all, theological opinions.
We may object to accept of all these new ideas, but they move on to their resistless triumphs, and never heed us. We may cling desperately to the planks of human opinion that we have set up, but we see them struck out of the path by viewless hands, the owners of which never wait to ask our leave, or seek room for their work. We may piteously cry, “Whither are we drifting?” but our only answer is now, as in the days of Martin Luther—“God lives and reigns;” and in his strength, assured love, wisdom, and power we can afford to trust. Even now through the voices of his ministering angels we hear the words of Divine assurance, “Be still and know that I am God,” and in the certainty that “God is a spirit” we may assure ourselves that this outpouring of spiritual power is but the commencement and the upbuilding of “a new earth and a new heaven.”
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