Carus, Paul

Hallock, Charles

Larkin, Edgar L.

Stetson, H. L.

OpenSIUC

MISCELLANEOUS. 253audience did not consist of Latin scholars, they naturally corrupted the words intoa formula that was easier pronounced.The verb "to hocus-pocus" thus acquires the meaning "to transform, tometamorphose," or "to disguise a change. 'That the formula itself became the name of the man who pronounced it, is achange in the meaning of words that occurs frequently. Even as early as 1655Ady in his Candle in Dark (29) speaks of a man"That went about in King James his time. . . .who called himself, The KingsMajesties most excellent Hocus Pocus, and so was called, because that at the play-ing of every Trick, he used to say, ' /focus focus, tontus talonlits, vade celiterjiibco,' a dark composure of words, to blinde the eyes of the beholders, to makehis Trick pass the more currantly without discovery."ELECTRICITY AND THE BODY OF RESURRECTION,Mr. Charles Hallock's proposition made in the November number of 77ieOfen Court has produced quite a stir in certain circles. Letters on the subjectwere received both at the editorial office of The Open Court, and by the author,and we publish here some of the correspondence that has reference to the subject,together with a few editorial comments.A LETIER FROM A COLLEGE PROFESSOR.To the Editor of The Open Court:I have read with great interest the article by Mr. Hallock, on ' ' The Body ofthe Future : Is It Electrical? " and also the editorial comments, in the Novemberissue of The Open Court . Permit me to ask why Mr. Hallock's theory in its mainfeatures may not be eminently reasonable, if the new view of the electrical natureof matter be true ?Authorities in physics like Sir Oliver Lodge, and Professor Fison, and othersequally as eminent, have said within a few months that the "so-called atom,"which has played such an important part in modern science, " is now displacedfrom its fundamental place of indivisibility." It has been divided and shown to becomposed of electricity. Very recent investigations point to the conclusion, whichthese scientists are announcing as true, that " the fundamental ingredient of which. . ..the whole of matter is made up, is nothing more nor less than electricity, inthe form of an equal number of positive and negative charges." This is the doc-trine toward which the best modern scientific research surely points. It will be atonce seen that it secures that ' ' unification of matter such as has through all theages been sought ; it goes much farther than had been hoped, for the substratum isnot an unknown and hypothetical protyle, but the familiar electric charge."If, as these authorities in physics, are beginning to say, the essence of matteris electricity, why may not Mr. Hallock's main position that there will be a futurebody and that it will be electrical be reasonable ? The electrical nature of matteris likely to lead to a radical change in some modern scientific views, and amongthem the conception of death and the existence of the body after death.My main point is this : on the supposition that the New Testament statementsabout a body after death, or the resurrection body, are true, why may not the elec-trical theory of the nature of matter give us some idea of the nature of that bodyand make credible some passages in the New Testament that have hitherto beenregarded as inconsistent with what has been supposed to be true of matter ?254 "^H^- OPEN COURT.It is announced that experiments conducted very lately in England show thatone form of matter, one so-called original element, has been actually changed intoanother element. Some very eminent scientists, it is reported, declare that theyhave accomplished this result. This would be in harmony with the electrical na-ture of matter and would also have an important bearing on the subject under con-sideration.It seems to me that recent discoveries in physics require us to develop a verydifferent philosophy from that formulated years ago under erroneous ideas of thenature of matter. Not a little dogmatic science of other days will have to be aban-doned, it seems to me. H. L. Stetson.Kalamazoo, Mich.A LETTER FROM AN ASTRONOMER.Mr. Hallock received the following interesting communication from Mr. EdgarL. Larkin, Director of the Lowe Observatory, a man "who constantly looksheavenward " :" Dear Sir :"I read your article with interest. I have been writing for months in thepapers that nothing exists but electricity. It is matter and may assume proteanforms. Of course our spiritul bodies are merely one phase of electricity, souls,minds, spirit also—every entity in existence. Thousands of verses not only in theHebrew but in many other Oriental scriptures are cleared up by this cardinal fact.Many mystical facts in ' spiritualism ' are also explained by electrical hypothesis.I allude to ' refined ' matter in my book Radia7it Energy.Edgar L. Larkin."A LETTER TO THE EDITOR FROM MR. CHARLES HALLOCK.To the Editor of The 0^e7i Coui-t:I told Professor Larkin that electricity is not matter. It is a substance, anelement, capable of being changed into another element, as has been demonstratedby eminent English scientists. It pervades the whole system of created things, theair, the sea, the land, objects organic and inorganic, animate and inanimate, ani-mals, plants, marine forms, insects and all the rest, manifesting itself transcend-ently in the lightning and in the aurora borealis, and extending beyond the confinesof the universe into the unknown realm of the infinite. Matter rots, decays, per-ishes, but electricity is imperishable.Hitherto the Creator has manifested Himself to mankind through material ob-jects, because man is "of the earth earthy" and perceives with his physical senses.In his spiritual existence his faculties will be different, and he will see marvellousphenomena which are not perceptible now. Christ has promised this. Electricityis the connecting link between the material and the immaterial. It is the mostpotent, subtile, and mysterious of all palpable and impalpable media. Our carnalbodies are already charged with it : then why may not or spiritual bodies or soul-envelopes be composed of it entirely ? "As the lightning cometh out of the Eastand shineth unto the West, even so shall the coming of the Son of Man be." (Matt,xxiv. 23.)Electrical phenomena are constantly occurring which point toward the fina'consummation and explain the problem of the immortal body. Suggestions to thisend are ever present ; but our mortal comprehensions are so obtuse that we fail toperceive their significance. These phenomena, both in nature and in invention, areMISCELLANEOUS. 255marvellous and inexplicable, unless my theory be accepted ; but they forecast theexistence which is to come. They are " mighty in operation."The word "body" implies something visible and tangible, and electricity istranscendently palpable when applied.If spirit or soul exist here, or anywhere, expressing itself through body or sub-stance (other than matter), then individuality and personal recognition may con-tinue for eternity, otherwise recognition would not be possible. Immortality isconceivable with electricity in esse as a factor.Charles Hallock.EDITORIAL COMMENTS.It is true that all the facts of physics go far to suggest (perhaps even to sup-port) the theory that matter is condensed ether, and we may add, it is also quiteprobable that electricity, which, barring light, is the most important phenomenonof ether in motion known to us, will be found to play a more prominent part innature than could be anticipated in former times. But all these theories are farfrom substantiating the assumption that the body of the resurrection is electrical,or, to go further still, that there is any body of resurrection at all in the sense oftraditional religious conceptions. On the contrary, if these theories concerningmatter and ether be true, it would only indicate that our present world-system builtup of atoms might finally be dissolved again into its primordial ether. The atomhas so far resisted analysis and it is likely that all the methods at the disposal ofscientists will fail to resolve it, but if the atom be a compound we may be surethat in the long run of world cycles, it will finally be dissolved again into its ele-ments. All compound bodies within the reach of our experience, even the eternalrocks, so called, break up into their ingredients, and there is no reason to doubtthe universality of the law (so energetically enunciated in Buddhist metaphysics),that all compounds are subject to disintegration.Professor Dubois-Reymond proved that electrical phenomena play some im-portant part in muscle-activity, and Prof. Augustus Waller of London has broughtto light further interesting facts. He proves that electric fluctuations take place solong as a substance (be it animal or vegetable) is still alive, and the absence ofelectricity indicates absence of vitality. But all this does not prove that electricityalone without any bodily substratum may constitute a person, that such a personafter death should retain the shape of the material body, and that his electricalbody should float about after the manner of the ghosts of folk-lore.Mr. Hallock succeeded in proving the presence of folklore in the Bible, but noamount of Biblical quotations will prove that the folklore view is tenable beforethe tribunal of science.I will not venture here to state the reasons that prevent me from accepting thetheory of an electrical body of resurrection, for that would lead me too far and it isdifficult to say why a thing is not. I will limit myself only to the positive statementthat the monistic drift of modern science, especially our revised notions of etherand electricity, contain not the slightest argument in favor of proving that the soulshould be possessed of an electrical resurrection-body. We might as well assumethat a dynamo which has been built to change molar motion into electricity would,if broken to pieces, continue as a purely ethereal dynamo, and that it would thusform a superior kind of machine, a maakheru dynamo.The theory of a transfigured body, maakheru as the Egyptians called it, is sonatural a fabrication of human fancy that it originated among all nationalities256 THE OPEN COURT.finding expression in the folk-lore tales of ghosts. It embodies in a mythologicalform the truth of man's immortality, and gives it a concrete and tangible shapeYet after all, the theory that ghosts, spirits, or whatever you may call the disem-bodied souls, may be electrical phenomena, is a bold assumption which appears tome only a modern expression of a very ancient, not to say antiquated, belief, basedupon a wrong conception of the soul.The most remarkable attempt at verifying the belief in ghosts has been madein recent times by F. W. H. Myers, in his posthumous book Human Personalityand Its Survival of Bodily Death. It is a stupendous work written with greatearnestness and quoting many strange events and psychic experiences. And yetwe cannot say that Mr. Myers has succeeded. p. c.NOTES.Mrs. T. R. Foster of Honolulu has donated one thousand dollars to the edu-cational enterprise of the Anagarika Dharmapala, and Mr. Charles Viggars hasgone to India to take charge of the school.A memorial of Dr. Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska has been published by theNew England Hospital for Women and Children, Boston, Mass., and is to be hadin paper for 20 cents, cloth 40 cents, at the hospital, Dimock Street, Roxbury. Dr.Zakrzewska was the pioneer of woman physicians, and her death, together withher last message which was read by a friend at the funeral, was published sometime ago in The Open Cotirt.Modern theology is so little known outside of academic circles that publicationsof theologians of scientific standing are commonly regarded as rank "freethought"and as "bold attacks upon the most sacred tenets of the Christian faith." One in-stance will suffice. An article written on the origin of Christmas and published inWilliam Smith's Dictio7iary of Christian Ayitiguities, (pp. 357-358,) was reprintedin The Open Court. The author, a theologian of good standing, quotes the sermonof Ambrose, Pope Leo the Great's letter on the subject, a homily of ancient dateattributed to Chrysostom, etc., which prove that the birth of Christ was celebratedon the day of the birth of Mithras, and that the choice was done deliberately be-cause it was most appropriate for the purpose. The collection of these historicalfacts, made by a representative Christian scholar, is commented upon in The DailyPicayune a.s "an assault on the principal mystery of the Christian faith," and com-ments of this kind are not uncommon. While among European theologians thegod-conception of the editor of The Open Court is commented upon in a friendlyway, there are circles among the laity (of course not among academical theologians)in which his work is considered as decidedly irreligious.Among the theological scholars there are many who have adopted the scien-tific world-conception ; among the clergy there are a few, but the laity, and amongthe laity those elements which predominate in the vestry, are a brake on the wheelof progress. The fact is stated not to blame them, but as a fact that is not alwaysclearly understood.

Electricity and the Body of Resurrection.

http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1742&context=ocj

Electricity and the Body of Resurrection.

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

OpenSIUC