englische_Beitraege_19

Dieser Text fasst zusammen und beurteilt Jung. So passt er zu den bereits publizierten Dokumenten und bildet einen Angelpunkt zu den Beziehungenin den englischen Sprachraum und den dortigen Stillingsfreuden: Der Teilnachdruck 1863 in „From Matter to Spirit“ gibt die sich interessierende Gruppe an..

From Matter to Spirit. The result of ten year’s experience in spirit manifestations. Intended as a guide to enquirers. By C. D. with a preface by A. B. [grch. Mott] London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green 1863.

Jung-Stilling S. 100 ff. S. 102 wird aus der Theorie der Geisterkunde § 182 zitiert nach HOWITT: History (s. unten).

Autoren: A. B. = August De Morgan (geb. Madura, Madras, Indien 27.06.1806, gest. London 18.03.1871), Professor für Mathematik an der University of London; ehel. 1837 Sophia Elizabeth Frend (geb. 1809-11-10, gest. 1892-01-05) = C. D.

1863 Es erscheint

William Howitt: The History of the Supernatural in all ages and nations, and in all churches, Christian and pagan: Demonstrating a universal faith. In two volumes. Volume the first. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green 1863.

…

17 ff.: “Chapter II. Spiritualists before the American Development.”
19:

Pre-eminent amongst these spiritualists were Jung- Stilling, Kerner, Lavater, Eschenmayer, Zschokke, Schubert, Werner, Kant; the German portion of France had Oberlin, &c. England, at a little earlier period, had its John Wesley and his disciples, who had full faith in these phenomena, and Sweden its Swedenborg, perhaps the greatest spirit-medium that ever appeared, passing in and out of the spirit-world and holding converse with its inhabitants almost at his pleasure. But leaving Wesley and Swedenborg for another notice, I shall now devote my attention to the spiritualists of Germany and Switzerland who flourished from the middle of the eighteenth century, to within less than twenty years of the spiritual outbreak in America, and one of whose most distinguished members, Dr. Kerner, was, indeed, still living at the time of commencing this work. I shall notice this group of spiritualists here, otherwise out of their course, simply because they will at once deprive the American dispensation of much of its novelty, and clear away thus the gross error of making America within the last ten years the original mother of spiritualism.

JOHANN JUNG-STILLING.

The life and character of this eminent spiritualist has been made familiar to the English reader through the translation of Mr. Samuel Jackson, who has also introduced to us his 'Pneumatology' and some other portions of his writings. The story of his early life as written by himself, under the title of 'Heinrich Stilling's Childhood, Youthful Years, and Wanderings,' is one of the most charming specimens of

embellished biography in any language. It is what Goethe has named in his own case 'Wahrheit und Dichtung,' or truth and fiction. The events of the life, he tells us, are real, with some poetic embellishments intended to make a reality appear like a work of imagination. The scenery and the personages which figure in it are delightful. We are conducted into a village of Westphalia, where old Eberhard Stilling, a charcoal- burner, lives with his wife Margaret, and his family. This village, which he calls Tiefenbach, or Deepbrook, stands on each side of such a stream, at the feet of hills covered with beech forests; and old Eberhard spends every week in the neighbouring hills, burning charcoal, and goes home every Saturday, to return to the woods on Monday morning. Eberhard is a pious old patriarch; he has two sons, one of whom is of a mathematical turn, and becomes the steward of a neighbouring gentleman: the other, Wilhelm, is lame in his feet, and is a tutor. Wilhelm is the father of Heinrich, whose mother is the delicate daughter of an old ejected preacher of the name of Moritz. The mother dies early, and leaves Heinrich a poetical temperament. The boy is very fond of going with his grandfather into the woods, and staying with him in his woodman's hut covered with sods, watching the old man's labours, and listening to his talk. On one occasion the boy asks him to tell him about his ancestors, for he has heard of heroes, and they all had their ancestors, and were often descended from some great prince. Father Stilling smiled, and replied, ' It would be hard to prove t] we were descended from a prince; but that is all the same to me, nor must thou wish it. Thy forefathers were all honest and pious people; there are few princes that can say that. Let this be thy greatest honour in the world, that thy grandfather, great grandfather, and their fathers, were all men who, though they had nothing under their command out of their house, were, notwithstanding, beloved and honoured by all men. None of them married in a dishonourable manner, or transgressed with any female ; none of them ever coveted that which was not his, and all died honourably

at a very old age.' Heinrich rejoiced, and said, ' I shall then find all my forefathers in heaven.' ' Yes,' replied his grandfather, ' that thou wilt; our family will there bloom and flourish. Heinrich, remember this evening as long as thou livest. In the world to come, we shall be of high nobility j do not lose this privilege. Our blessing will rest upon thee as long as thou art pious; but if thou become wicked, and despise thy parents, we shall not know thee in the next world.' Heinrich began to weep, and said, ' Do not fear that, grandfather ! I will be religious, and rejoice that my name is Stilling.'

And such examples and conversations as these seem to have sunk deep into the lad's heart, and Stilling became a steady champion for Christianity, and a firm believer in spiritual guidance, and not only in a general but a particular Providence. He struggled his way up from the tailor's shop- board, and the obscurity of village life, through the various grades of schoolmaster, merchant's clerk, family tutor, to the university, where he went with only one dollar in his pocket, and without any further visible means of passing an academical career, and taking his medical degree. ' But,' says Goethe, who was his fellow-student at Strasburg, and became strongly attached to him, ' the element of his energy was an impregnable faith in God, and in an assistance immediately proceeding from him, which obviously justified itself in an uninterrupted provision, and an infallible deliverance from every distress and every evil. Jung had experienced various instances of this kind in his life, and they had recently been frequently repeated; so that though he led a frugal life, yet it was without care, and with the greatest cheerfulness: and he applied himself most diligently to his studies, although he could not reckon upon any certain subsistence from one quarter of a year to another. I urged him to write his life, and he promised to do so.'- Wahrheit und Dichtung.

In urging Jung-Stilling to write his life, Goethe rendered a igreat service to the cause of vital genuine Christianity. Not that of mere theory, which has none but a

vague metaphysical faith, but which accepts the Gospel in all its simplicity and power; accepts it as based on the promises which it contains, that its author will be with His disciples to the end of the world, and that, if they thoroughly rely on Him, they shall not only receive whatever they ask rightly and reasonably, but it shall be prepared for them even before they ask, because their Heavenly Father knoweth what they need. Stilling had accepted the Gospel in this bona fide substantial fashion. He did not exactly say, as Luther was wont in his daring way to say to God,' This, O God, thou hast most positively promised, and if Thou dost not fulfil it, I will not believe thee again;' but he had an inward unshakable assurance that God was leading him towards the work which He meant him to do in the world, and he must leave all the means of carrying out his plans to Himself. But it was not exactly what Goethe imagined ; he was not ' without care,' and his cheerfulness was not without an understratum of mental anxiety. On the contrary, his faith was often tried to the uttermost; he was often left to the very last moment without the slightest sign of rescue from the deepest perplexity, and fear of disgrace from breach of money engagements. For years he was left to struggle through frightful poverty, and to be scorned, and buffeted, and persecuted by those around him. Without this his faith would have been of little value, his trust in God's promises would have been too cheaply purchased. It was in the depth of excruciating trials that he was taught to feel the eternal arm beneath him; it was when he was about to sink, and the waters of affliction were up to his very lips, that he was saved again and again, and made to understand that his fears were vain; his faith, and not his helper, had been weak. He was never once forsaken, and his life is one of the most remarkable and triumphant examples of ' living by faith.' From a poor tailor's son he rose to be not only a professor of the Universities of Marburg and Heidelberg, but a most successful operator for the cure of cataract, and a very popular writer in defence of Christianity. The

Grand Duke of Baden became personally attached to him, delighted to have him near him, and gave him a handsome stipend to devote himself to this class of literature, and to tie cure of cataract gratuitously. By these means Stilling not only restored to sight many hundreds of the blind, but spread over all Germany, and into many foreign lands, the radiance and joy of his own faith.

Mr. Jackson, Stilling's translator, says, 'Untutored in academic divinity, which had proved insufficient to stem the torrent of increasing infidelity, his expanded mind, after being well established in fundamental truth, was led to the contemplation of subjects which were still much involved in obscurity, and which enabled him to present the realities of the invisible world in a new and striking manner to the reader's eye.' He became, in truth, a spiritualist on a wide and varied scale. He not only lived close to the Divine Spirit, and was thus a spiritualist in the highest sense, but he, like Sweden- borg, was led into the invisible world, and in his 'Scenen aus der Geister Welt,' made revelations there, and gave pictures there, which every real spiritualist at once recognises as genuine. In this respect he evidently inherited this faculty of open vision from his grandfather, the venerable old Eberhard Stilling. He describes a scene in which the old grandfather, his daughter Maria, and himself went into the forest to collect firewood. Arrived there, they sat awhile by a beautiful spring, and after awhile old Eberhard bade him remain there, and he would go and collect fallen wood. After a time he returned, looked cheerful and pleasant, as if he had found something, smiled also occasionally, stood, shook his head, looked fixedly at one particular spot, folded his hands and smiled again. Maria and Heinrich looked at him with astonishment, yet they did not venture to ask him about it, for he often did as though he laughed to himself. Stilling's heart was, however, too full; he sat down by them and related as follows, his eyes being full of tears. Maria and Heinrich saw it, and their tears already overflowed: –

On leaving you to go into the wood, I saw at a distance

before me a light, just as when the sun rises in the morning. I was much surprised. What is that ? thought I; the sun is already standing in the heavens,—is it a new sun? It must be something strange; I will go and see it. I went towards it; as I approached, there was before me a large plain, the extent of which I could not overlook. I had never seen anything so glorious in all my life ! Such a fine perfume and such a cool air proceeded from it as I cannot express. The whole region was white with the light,—the day with the sun is night compared to it. There stood many thousand castles, one near another. Castles! I cannot describe them to you; they were as if made of silver. There were also gardens, bushes, brooks. O God, how beautiful! Not far from me stood a great and glorious mansion.' Here the tears flowed abundantly down the good Stilling's cheeks, as well as those of Maria and Heinrich. ' Some one came towards me out of the door of this mansion, like a virgin. Ah ! a glorious angel! When she was close to me, O God I I saw it was our dear departed Dora!' All three now sobbed, none of them could speak, except Heinrich, who wept and exclaimed, ' O my mother! my dear mother!' ' She said to me,' continued Stilling, ' with such a friendly manner, with the very look which formerly so often stole my heart, " Father, yonder is our eternal habitation, you will soon come to us." I looked, but all was forest before me ; the glorious vision had departed. Children, I shall die soon; how glad I am at the thought!' Heinrich could not cease asking how his mother had looked, what she had on, and such like. All three pursued their labour during the day, and spoke continually of this occurrence. But old Stilling was from that time like one who is in a strange land, and not at home. The old man was right. The vision was shortly followed by his death. This event was also indicated to a neighbour by a sign, and she warned them of it.

When he was grown up, Stilling, whilst walking one Sunday, felt himself suddenly seized by an unknown power, which penetrated his whole soul; he felt inwardly happy,

but his whole body trembled, and he could scarcely keep himself from sinking to the ground. From that time he felt an invincible inclination to live and die entirely to the glory of God and the good of his fellow men. His love to God and man was intense; and on the spot he made a firm and irrevocable covenant with God to resign himself henceforth to His guidance. This is what has been so often ridiculed as sudden conversion; but Stilling simply adds, ' This circumstance is a real truth. I leave it to men of genius, philosophers, and psychologists to make what they please of it; I am well aware of what it is that converts a man and so entirely changes him.'

As we have said, Stilling felt himself inwardly drawn to become a physician. Through the same inward impulse he had betrothed himself to a pious but consumptive young woman, whom he might find dead on his return from the University. But how to get there ! For his course of study a thousand six-dollars were necessary, and he did not know where in the whole world to raise a hundred. Neither his own friends nor his intended wife's could help him. The worldly prudent would have pronounced the scheme insane, and have bade him stick to his needle and shears. But Stilling had a firm persuasion that he was divinely led, and he started for Strasburg with a surgeon named Troost, who was going to refresh his knowledge by a new course of study. By the time they had reached and were about to qxiit Frankfort, he had only one single rix-dollar left; but there he met an acquaintance, whom he calls Leibmann, [Liebmann] who asked him where he got his money for his studies. He replied, from God; on which Leibmann said, ' I am one of God's stewards,' and handed him over thirty-three rix-dollars. When these were spent at Strasburg, Mr. Troost, who had travelled with him, said to him one day, ' Stilling, I believe you have no money. I will lend you six Carolines—about five pounds—till your remittance comes.' No sooner was that gone, and he was wondering where the next was to come from, when Leibmann sent him three hundred rix-

dollars, from which sum he paid Troost and got through the winter.

In the following April, as he sat at study in his room, he was suddenly seized with a terrible panic and a desperate inclination to set off at once. He struggled against the feeling, as a fit of hypochondria, but could not get rid of it; the urgency to hasten home remained violently. Whilst in this condition, he received a letter informing him of the illness and apparently approaching end of his betrothed. This explained his dreadful presentiment, and he set off instantly. He found his betrothed, as it seemed, at the point of death; but she wonderfully recovered, and, supplied with a fresh sum of money by his intended father-in-law, he returned to Strasburg. By this time this gentleman was enabled to help him through, and thus he finished his course of studies, obtained his diploma, returned, married, and settled at Elber- feld. He began his married and professional life with five rix-dollars only! He had a hard fight for it. He was not much estimated in that manufacturing town; but at Strasburg he had made the acquaintance of Goethe, Herder, and others of the rising lights of Germany. In one of his most difficult moments, Goethe sold his first part of the Life of Jung-Stilling for a hundred and fifteen rix-dollars, which lifted him out of a sharp strait, and at once made him famous. He was appointed Professor of Agriculture, Technology, etc., at Rittersburg, but he owed in Elberfeld eight hundred rix- dollars, and did not know how he should get away; but on taking leave of some of the chief merchants, several of them made him parting presents, and on counting them up, both he and his wife were astonished to find them amount exactly to the required eight hundred rix-dollars, neither more nor less ! After this he was appointed professor, at Marburg, of the Economical, Financial Sciences, with a fixed salary of 1,200 rix- dollars not 200 l.—but with a provision for his wife in case of his death.

His debts, incurred through deficiency of salary in his earlier career as professor, pressed heavily upon him, for he

tad a considerable family; but he was sent for to perform operations for cataract in Switzerland, and he received there exactly the amount of all his debts, namely, precisely one thousand six hundred and fifty gulden—137Z. 10s. But the expenses of the journey were not provided for by this amount. These were six hundred gulden; and exactly this amount was paid him before he reached home. These instances may suffice; the whole of Stilling's life abounded in them. In fact, he defrayed at one time or other debts to the amount of many thousand gulden by the 'funds of Providence,' his timely, and unfailing supplies, as Goethe observed, fully justifying his reliance on that Providence. Well might Uz, lyric poet of Anspach, call him ' the man whom Providence so remarkably leads, and who so boldly confesses and courageously defends the religion of Jesus.'

Let us now notice some of the phases of Stilling's spiritual developement. He became what is now termed a great writing medium. He not only wrote boldly in defence of Christianity, when infidelism from France inundated Germany, but he wrote under an influence which astonished himself. As George Fox would say, he was ' led and guided' in his writing. Two of Stilling's most remarkable works are his ' Scenes in the Invisible World,' and his ' Nostalgia.' He was merely proposing to himself to write imaginary scenes in the invisible world, as Lucian had done in the Mythologic Olympus, and in the ' Nostalgia' to write in imitation of ' Tristram Shandy ;' but his pen was guided to write what astonished himself and the -public. He wrote the ' Scenes in the Invisible World' wholly as if it were a work of imagination; nor does he in that work or the 'Nostalgia' represent them as anything else; but then I read the ' Scenes' I was instantly certain that these were not the product of imagination, but of spiritual dictation. No one who has known what that is' could doubt this for a moment. These compositions bear all the marks and proofs of such writing. A physician can no more mistake the character of a disease from its diagnosis than a spiritualist can

mistake the features of such writing. Turning then to the 'Lebensgeschichte' of Stilling, I was by no means surprised to read the following statements: -

The state of mind which Stilling experienced whilst labouring at this work, which consists of four large octavo Volumes, is utterly indescribable. His spirit was as if elevated into ethereal regions; a feeling of serenity and peace pervaded him, and he enjoyed a felicity which words cannot express. When he began to work, ideas glistened past his soul, which animated him so much that he could scarcely write so rapidly as the flow of thought required. This was also the reason why the whole work took quite another form, and the composition quite another tendency, to that which he had proposed at the commencement.' In his account of writing the ' Nostalgia' we have the explanation of the extraordinary scenery of both that and the ' Scenen:'—' There was, besides, another singular phenomenon. In the state between sleeping and waking, the most beautiful, and, as it were, heavenly imagery, presented itself to his inward sense. He attempted to delineate it, but found it impossible; with the imagery there was always a feeling connected, compared with which all the joys of sense are as nothing; it was a blissful season ! This state of mind lasted exactly as long as Stilling was engaged in writing the ' Nostalgia;' that is, from August 1793 to December 1794 - consequently a full year and a quarter.'

The book was received with enthusiasm by the pious both at home and abroad. From all parts and ranks in Germany it brought letters and made friends; it converted many sceptics, and was welcomed in America, Asia, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, as far as Astracan. But the wide spread approbation of these works was not the most extraordinary thing. Stilling found that when he had supposed that he was writing fiction, even as it regarded this world, he had been writing actual facts. One morning, a handsome young man, evidently of distinction, and whom, he says, was the remarkable , but does not name, entered

his apartment. This gentleman saluted him as his secret superior, kissing his hand and weeping; but Stilling replied that he was no man's secret superior, nor was in any secret connection whatever. The stranger was astonished, and could not credit this, saying,' I thought you knew me already.' But as Stilling positively denied any knowledge of what he meant, he asked him then how he had so accurately described ' the great and venerable connection in the East, and had so minutely pointed out their rendezvous in Egypt, in Mount Sinai, in the Monastery of Canobin, and under the Temple in Jerusalem ?'

Stilling assured him that it was all fable and fiction, which he had merely written down as it presented itself to his imagination. ' Pardon me,' replied the stranger, ' the matter is in truth and reality as you have described it; it cannot have come by chance ;' and he related, to the equal astonishment of Stilling, the real particulars of the association. He soon heard from a certain great prince, asking him how he had learned the real particulars of the association as he had described them in the ' Nostalgia.' Stilling had been a spirit medium without knowing it. On other occasions he became actually prophetic. The most remarkable instance of it was his announcing the tragic fate of Lavater ten weeks and some days before it took place. Writing to Antistes Hess of Zurich, on July 13, 1799, he told him that, whilst writing, he felt a sudden and deep impression that Lavater would die a bloody death, that of a martyr. He begged Hess to communicate this to Lavater, which he understood was done. On October 14, his son-in-law, Schwarz, came running to inform him that Lavater had been shot at and severely wounded. Stilling cried out in horror, and in astonishment at the fulfilment of the prediction.

The manner of Lavater's death was this. The revolutionary French under Massena had stormed Zürich, and Lavater heard two of their soldiers making a disturbance at a house near his parsonage, inhabited by two females only

They were demanding bread and wine, and as they did not get it, Lavater took them a bottle of wine and some bread. One of them, a grenadier, a Swiss by birth, of the Canton de Vaud, was particularly grateful, and called him ' Bruder Herz'—a dear fellow, in German. Lavater went back to his. house, but at his own door was fiercely assaulted by another soldier, and called out to ask the friendly soldier for protection against him. But now he was totally changed, answered him in a rage, and shot him. He had probably learned from some people of Zürich that it was the celebrated Lavater, who boldly opposed French principles, in government, and still more in religion, and who had addressed letters of protest both to the French Director Reubel, and to the Directory itself, remonstrating against the infamous conduct of the French in Switzerland. He therefore instantly forgot his kindness, and shot him as an enemy to the revolutionary and infidel principles of France. Thus Lavater died not only a bloody but a martyr's death, as Stilling had foretold. He did not, however, die at once, but lingered on in much agony till January 2, 1801, something more than a year.

In Stilling's second volume of ' Scenes in the Invisible World' he unconsciously introduced facts as operations merely of the imagination—facts which had not yet come to his knowledge. Amongst them were these. In ' The Glorification of Lavater,' a poem appended to the volume, he made Felix Hess and Pfenninger, two friends of Lavater, in the form of angels, fetch Lavater's spirit after his death to the New Jerusalem. About half a year after the publication of this poem, Breidenstein, the reformed preacher at Marburg, came to visit Stilling, and in conversation said, ' It is surprising how beautifully you have made use of the late Felix Hess's promise.' ' How so ? ' inquired Stilling ; ' what promise ?' Breidenstein replied, ' Upwards of twenty years ago Lavater stood by the side of Felix Hess's dying bed, wept, and said, " Now thou wilt not stand at my bed-side when I die ! " Hess answered, " But I will come and fetch thee."' Stilling rejoined, ' Really, I never heard a word of

it; it is, however, something strange. Where is it ? I must read it myself!' ' That you shall,' said Breidenstein ; ' it is indeed very strange!' The next day he sent Lavater's Miscellaneous Works, in which there is a short biography of Felix Hess, and this conversation appears just as Breidenstein related it.

Stilling also introduced a still more dear friend of Lavater's, Heinrich Hess, as bringing Lavater to the Virgin Mary, and Mary relates to him the Lord's character, as exemplified in His earthly life. Long after, Stilling, reading the ' Jesus Messias' of Lavater, which he had never seen before, found, to his astonishment, that Lavater consoled himself with the hope that, in his entrance into heaven, the Virgin Mary would relate to him the character which her son bore in His earthly life. These instances would be easily explained if we could suppose that Stilling had read these things, and had forgotten the circumstance, though retaining the events; but we may rely on the assertion of Stilling, that he never had seen those works or read those passages. Stilling's presentiments of evil were sometimes very strong, and as unerring as they were strong. Whilst on a journey to Gottingen, Cassell, and other places, in 1801, he was seized with a strange fear and melancholy, which eventually became so violent, that he said to his wife, ' If the torment of the damned in hell is not greater than mine, it is still great 'enough.' At length the carriage in which they travelled was run away with at full speed by four spirited horses, was dashed to pieces, and Stilling left crushed and severely wounded on the place, a rib being fractured and his thigh injured. From this accident he suffered much in after years; but the moment it had taken place his terror and mental agony were gone. The evil had come, and he was at peace.

Besides Stilling's habit of living in direct communication with the Divine Spirit, he believed in the active operation of numerous subordinate spirits in the concerns of men. He distinctly states this in his ' Retrospect of his Life.' The

first men were created by God in a state of perfection ; but tbey sinned by disobedience against God, and by tins means lost the equilibrium between the sensual and moral impulses. The sensual became more and more predominant, and therefore, with respect to all their posterity, the thoughts and imaginations of the heart of man are evil from his youth up, and that continually. '

Previous to this a class of higher and more spiritual beings had fallen away from God, and became evil; the prince of these beings had seduced the first man to disobedience. These evil spirits then can work upon the spiritual heart of man when he gives them the opportunity of doing so. But there are also good spirits which are about a man, and likewise influence him when circumstances require it.' This is precisely the theory of Swedenborg.

Stilling was of opinion that men or women are not in a normal, or, indeed, in a healthy state, when they become cognizant by sight or sound of these spiritual beings, and he held that it was not orderly or innocuous to encourage such intercourse. No doubt, that intercourse which Stilling and all holy men have cultivated with the Divine Spirit, the Creator and Lord of all Spirits, is the very highest and holiest; and they who enjoy that may well dispense with all other. But all men are not so highly developed as Stilling, and though by prayer they may enjoy the influence of the Divine Spirit, there are many souls to whom the ministry of subordinate spirits is helpful and beneficial. Their ministrations are more adapted to the condition of such souls, and their discovered presence may greatly strengthen their faith, and raise them above the dark abyss of utter disbelief. The spirits of God are all 'ministering spirits' sent to men of many different grades of mind and degrees of developement; and their ministrations are, no doubt, as various as the conditions of men. Communion with evil spirits, of course, is sorcery, pernicious, prohibited, and unblessed.

In his ' Pneumatology' Stilling has collected a great number of such manifestations: and he has given the narra-

tives of some remarkable apparitions derived from persons well known to him, and in his estimation thoroughly trustworthy. Amongst these one of the most curious is the story of the Sack-bearer. Stilling received the account from an eye-witness, and one who, being in the haunted house, took most active and courageous means to learn all about the gliost from itself. Stilling says that he ascertained from other sources that the account was quite true. He does not tell us the name of the town where it occurred, a matter to be regretted, but a deficiency so often occurring from the over-sensitiveness of the parties concerned. The narrator says that he went to work as a journeyman with a tradesman who lived in the upper part of an old house which had been a monastery of Capuchins: on the ground-floor lived a baker. At the time when Stilling received this account, he says the narrator was become ' a pious and intelligent citizen.' It was in 1800 when he went to live with the master weaver*in the old monastery.

Hearing extraordinary noises in the attic, he enquired the cause, and was told it was the Sack-bearer; that is, an apparition bearing that name, from the fact that he continually seemed to let fall something on the upper floors like a heavily-filled sack ; and made strange groans and- noises as if in attempting to raise it again. On one occasion he had been met in his Capuchin dress by the baker below, bearing such a sack along the lobby, before day-break, which so horrified the baker that he ran off and let all his bread burn. The landlord, the weaver, had also seen him carrying his sack, and he informed the narrator that it was on account of this haunting that his grandfather bought the house very cheap. Learning this, and being often awoke in the night by the sound of the falling sack, which seemed to shake the whole story of the house on which he lay, he was at great pains to get a sight of the apparition, and stole up to the upper room repeatedly when the spirit was letting the sack fall one time after another with the greatest concussions, but it was only on one occasion that he caught a glimpse of,

retreating into a corner. He rushed into that corner, but found nothing. On occasion of a person dying in the house, his noises were almost incessant. Stilling wrote to a friend of his at this time, a physician, who learned from the proprietor that the Sack-bearer still made his visits, and predicted to the inhabitants of the house events about to occur. By the latest intelligence which he obtained, it appeared that the spirit had learned to make himself understood, and was able to converse with the people, who had ceased to fear him. It was supposed from some circumstances that the monk had committed some fraud in grain or other commodity with which he had been entrusted, and this was his penance.

Another very remarkable case of apparition is related by him, which he introduces with this remark of such extensive application:—' This subject is generally treated as something superstitious and degrading. It belongs to good-breeding and refinement to smile at ghost-stories, and to deny the truth of them; and yet it is curious that people are so fond of hearing them told, and that besides this, the incredulous narrator commonly seeks to make them as probable as possible.'1 Everyone must have been struck with this fact. People will tell you a ghost-story, premising, ' I do n't believe a word of it, understand, and yet the incidents all occurred.' And if you will proceed to throw discredit on the narrative, you will find that these incredulous people will grow indignant at the doubt cast on their statement. So amusing is this popular characteristic, and so common, that a man of much repute writing to me the other day, said, ' You may convict the world of belief in spiritualism by an overwhelming mass of evidence, but the world will not even then admit that it is convinced: the fact being that every human soul believes it in its soul, and simply because it is a soul, in inseparable relationship to the world of souls, which will not let spirit, however incarnated, cease to feel the spirit world in which it lives.'

At Marburg one of the students who attended Stilling's class, and whom he continued to know in after-life as a most

excellent man, brought him a printed account of a strange occurrence which happened to his father when a young man, and to his grandfather. The latter had written down the whole narration, and printed it for circulation only amongst his friends. It is very large, being given in complete detail, with the conversation betwixt the grandfather and the spirit. The spirit described himself to have been one of their ancestors a hundred and twenty years before, and identified himself by their genealogical table. He appeared sometimes three or four times a day as a little man, dressed in a blue coat and brown waistcoat, with a whip hanging at his girdle, and knocked audibly at the door before entering. He was extremely importunate that the son should go to a certain tree in a certain meadow, under which by digging he would find a deposit of money. This money seemed to have chained him to the spot all these years, during which he had not found a medium in the family to whom he could make himself apparent. But he appeared also to have a deed of blood on his soul, for he ' took down the son's Bible from a shelf, to which was attached a small hymn book, and pointed out with his finger the hymn beginning " Have mercy, gracious God," and the third verse of which had the words " From guilt of blood deliver me,"' &c. The spirit continued its importunities from January 1 to April 30,1755. Neither father nor son would listen to him, considering him as a tempter; but this the spirit denied, and to convince them, joined with them in singing hymns, calling on the name of Jesus, and declared that he was glad always to hear the Word of God. He joined them in the reading of the Scriptures, and on coming to the words in the 8th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, ' We are saved by hope,' &c., he clapped his hands, and exclaimed, ' O yes, yes, saved by ho'pe!' He declared that he was going through a course of purification sent from God.

Yet there were circumstances which made the father and son believe that he was far from this purification, for fire streamed from every finger when he became angry at their

resistance to his wishes. Still more, when he touched the Bible it smoked, and the marks of his thumb and finger shrivelled up the leather of the binding where he held it, and also the paper where he pointed out the place in the hymn, ' From guilt of blood deliver me,' was black and singed. The Bible with these marks is ' preserved in the family, and many creditable persons have seen it, and may still see it.' Still further, on one occasion wishing the son to shake hands with him, he recommended him first to lay his handkerchief over his hand. This was done, and the handkerchief was found ' with the five fingers of a hand burnt in, so that the first and middle fingers were, in part, burnt entirely through; but the thumb and two other fingers were burnt black and singed. This handkerchief was sent round amongst friends and acquaintances, who assured Stilling of the truth of the whole, and then these singular relics were laid up for the inspection of all respectable visitors, and for posterity. The whole account was signed and attested by the father and son, and the clerk of the peace, the Imperial Commissioner of Liquidation, and the schoolmaster of the place, on May 16, 1755.

The fiery touch of the spirit which induced the father and son to believe it a bad one, modern spiritualists can testify to belong to many spirits. How often have we seen fire streaming even from the finger of a medium ? How often have spirits, before shaking hands with you, desired you, at Mr. Home's, to lay your handkerchief over your hand first ? How often have you felt the touch of spirit fingers prick as from the sparks of electricity ?

And Stilling soon came to understand this. He says, ' Light, electricity, magnetism, galvanic matter, and ether, appear to be all one and the same body under different modifications. This light or ether is the element which connects soul and body, and the spiritual and material world together.'

In these words Stilling, above half a century before Reichenbach's experiments on the Odyle force, announced

that force as a modification of electricity, magnetism, &c.; which Reichenbach confirms. The spirit eventually, notwithstanding its fire, was accompanied by another radiant little spirit, and finally appeared white and radiant itself, full of joy, announcing its deliverance from the probationary state; knelt with the son, and uttered a beautiful prayer and thanksgiving to God, which Stilling gives; and then took his leave, saying they would see him no more, which proved true.

As regards the touch of spirits, it yet appears true, that according to their state, the sensation they occasion is more or less agreeable. Stilling says:—' When a departed spirit is tranquil in its mind, its touch is felt to be like the softness of a cool air, exactly as when the electric fluid is poured upon any part of the body.' And how fully can this be confirmed by spiritualists. How frequently is the approach of spirits at seances perceived by the cool atmosphere which precedes them. In fact, there is scarcely a characteristic of spirit with which Stilling does not show himself familiar. He notices the wonderful creative and representative power which all spirits possess, so that they can not only appear to us in the exact likeness and the exact costume of the earth life, but can project the most varied scenes at their will, as we see a similar power exercised in dreams. ' I knew of a spirit,' says Stilling, ' on whom the little brass buckles were perfectly cognisable.' And in the case just stated the spirit did not forget his horsewhip. ' Departed souls,' he says, ' have a creative power, which, during the present state, and in this rude and material world, can only be exercised with trouble and expense, and in a very imperfect manner; but after death the will of the soul is really able to produce that which the imagination conceives.'

Stilling knew, too, the truth of spirit being present where it wishes to be. ' When the soul is separated from the body, it is wherever it thinks to be ; for as space is only its mode of thinking, that does not exist except in its idea.' Every doctrine which Swedenborg asserts of spirits, is asserted

Stilling. The soul awakes from death immediately in Hades, and Is drawn to good or evil spirits according to its own moral condition. If it be of the earth, earthy, it still hangs about the earth. Spirits need no language, their thoughts are all visible to each other: and hence the evil avoid the good spirits because all their evil is visible to them. He asserts the doctrine of guardian angels. ' Every man has one or more guardian spirits about him; these are good angels, and perhaps the departed souls of pious men. Children are attended solely by good spirits, but as the individual gradually inclines to evil, evil spirits approach him,' On the other hand, as he turns from evil to good, the good angels again draw near ; and the more he inclines one way or the other, the more the wicked spirits enslave, or the good ones strengthen him. The good angels never, however, forsake him, till he is become thoroughly hardened in sin. ' Materialists,' Stilling says,' have positively seen spirits, so that they were convinced that they were the souls of their deceased acquaintances, and yet they continued to doubt of their own immortality and self-consciousness. My God ! what incredulity !' The phenomena of rapping and knocking he frequently notices as modes of spirits announcing themselves.

He was convinced of the soul possessing a spiritual body, a truth always asserted by Swedenborgians, and now universally admitted by spiritualists. ' Animal magnetism,' he says, ' and an extensive medical experience have taught and incontrovertibly convinced me that the animated spirit, the divine spark in man, is inseparably united with an ethereal or luminous body; that this human soul, which is destined to be a citizen of the world of spirits, is, as it were, exiled into this earthly life and animal body, to which it is fettered by means of the nerves, and must be thus fettered to it for the purposes of its ennoblement and perfection.'

He was a defender of the sober sanity and truthfulness of Swedenborg, though he thought that he was in error in supposing that he entered the spiritual world by any other than the same means by which clairvoyants and mediums in

general enter it. He maintained that it was by a species of magnetism that Swedenborg became conscious of the spiritual world, and he held that this phenomenon resulted from something abnormal in the constitution of the person thus affected, amounting sometimes to a species of disease. He held that people ought not to seek such intercourse, and that it was prejudicial to the health of the persons so seeking it. Now in this there lies a certain truth. Whatever in. any degree loosens the spirit from the bonds of the body, in the same degree admits it to the consciousness of the spiritual world; and, therefore, many persons, especially women of weakly constitutions or of peculiarly nervous temperament, are found to be mediums, or, as Reichenbach calls them, sensitives. Now, there is no doubt, but that much practice of mediumship is to such persons debilitating. The spirits which manifest themselves through them of necessity seize on their spiritual atmosphere, as their means of coming into palpable contact witli incarnated spirits, and thus draw from them a portion of their vital power. But this is not always the case, neither is it wrong to derive information in this mariner. The proof of this is found in the result, which is good, and therefore justified by the Divine law—' By their fruits ye shall know them.' Whatever person becomes intelligent of inward things and of coming events is a medium, though he often does not know it.

Stilling lived in a perpetual state of mediumship, and had his presentiments, his warnings, his visions and revelations, as of the death of Lavater, and yet lived to a good old age. The highest form of spiritual agency is the direct one of the Divine Spirit. But God has surrounded us by His ministering spirits, and acts greatly through them. Although we are told in the Old Testament that the Lord descended on Mount Sinai and delivered the law to Moses written by His own finger; we are told in the New Testament that even there it was by an ' angel which spoke to him in the Mount Sinai,' Acts vii. 38. And again, in words addressed to the Jews in the same chapter, verse 53, ' who have

law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.' So that it is difficult for us to say where God speaks to us mediately or immediately. Stilling, having told us that such intercourse is wrong, goes on to give us abundant instances of the good effects of such mediumship. In fact, every case which he adduces of preternatural appearance or warning is for good and not for evil. He introduces Swedenborg satisfying the spiritual doubts of the Queen of Sweden, or a merchant of Elberfeld, a friend of Stilling's, and preventing a widow paying a sum twice over, by bringing the information from her husband in the spiritual world of where the receipt would be found. Professor Boehm of Giesen is mysteriously drawn from a social circle to his own lodgings, where he is led to draw his bed from one side of the room to the other, and then return to his company, wondering at the foolish thing he had done; but at midnight the beam in the ceiling falls upon the place where the bed had stood, and the Professor sees then the hand of God, through his good angels most probably. He cites the case of the father of Madame de Beaumont, who was going on a river party of pleasure at Rouen, and was prevented by the distress of a deaf and dumb aunt, and thus saved from drowning, the fate of most of the party. The wife of a common mechanic, he tells us, had this spiritual gift, to whom spirits came to entreat for her prayers, and received much benefit from them. She could call a distant friend to her bedside when she was ill by this power; she consoled persons in distress by assuring them of the safety of their absent friends; she foretold the horrors of the French Revolution; and saw Admiral Coligny in a bloody shirt. She saw Cagliostro, and perceived that he had spiritual power, but used it as a necromancer. Yet Stilling himself assures us that this Mrs. W was a pious and benevolent Christian, and lived to the age of sixtythree. And how happened it that she could be all this and yet be practising what was wrong? She did it, he tells us, by ' incessant watch and prayer.' Precisely so ! It is the spirit in which spiritual intercourse is maintained that makes it

good or ill. Spiritualism is orderly or disorderly; in other words, good or bad. It is a Divine gift which may, unfortunately, like all our other gifts, be by prayer sanctified, by neglect of it—desecrated and demonised. There is a remarkable passage in ' The Shepherd of Hernias,' a book written in the first century, and then read in the Christian churches as canonical, which accords so exactly with the experience of myself and my family, that I here recommend it to the especial attention of spiritualists: –

‘There is a lying prophet that destroys the minds of the servants of God; that is, of those that are doubtful, not those that fully trust in the Lord. Now those doubtful persons come to him as to a Divine spirit, and enquire of him what shall befall them. And this lying prophet, having no power in him of the Divine spirit, answers them according to their demands, and fills their souls with promises according to their desire. Howbeit that prophet is vain, and answers vain things to those who are themselves vain. And whatsoever is asked of him by vain men, he answers them vainly. Nevertheless, he speaketh something truly.

‘Whosoever, therefore, are strong in the faith of the Lord, and have put on the truth, are not joined to such spirits, but depart from them. But they that are doubtful and often repenting, like the heathen, consult them, and heap to themselves great sin, serving idols. For every spirit that is given from God needs not to be asked, but having the power of the divinity, speaks all things of itself, because he comes from above, from the power of the Spirit of God. But he that being asked, speaks according to man's desires, and concerning many of the affairs of this present world, understands not the things which relate unto God. For these spirits are darkened through such affairs, and corrupted and broken. But they that have the fear of the Lord, and search out the truth concerning God, having all their thoughts towards the Lord, apprehend whatsoever is said to them, and forthwith understand it, because they have the fear of the Lord in them. For where the Spirit of the

Lord dwells, there is also much understanding added. Wherefore join thyself unto the Lord, and thou shalt understand all things. '

There is a trying of the spirits. " He showed me certain men sitting upon benches, and one man sitting in a chair; and he said unto me, ' Seest thou those that sit upon the benches ? They are the faithful, and he who sits in the chair is an earthy spirit. For he cometh not into the assembly of the faithful, but avoids it, and joins himself to the doubtful and empty; and prophesies unto them in corners and hidden places, and pleases them by speaking unto them according to all the desires of their hearts. ' Try the man who hath the Spirit of God; because the spirit which is from above is humble and quiet; and departs from all the wickedness and from the vain desires of the present world. He makes himself more humble than all men, and answers to none when he is asked, for the Spirit of God doth not sjwak to a, man when he will, but when God pleases.''"

This has been our experience. Ask questions at seances, and you will have plenty of idle spirits rushing in to answer you according to your wishes: wait in prayer for what may be given you from the spirit of truth, and you will have truth. For spiritualism is for spiritual truth, not for worldly affairs, which are the business of our natural faculties. The Shepherd of Hermas, therefore, says of preaching:—'When, therefore, a man who hath the Spirit of God shall come into the church of the righteous, who have the faith of God, and they pray unto the Lord, then the holy angel of God fills that man with the blessed spirit, and he speaks in the congregation as he is moved of God.'

We have now shown sufficient of Jung Stilling, and refer the reader to the ' Pneumatology' for many other extraordinary cases of spirit intervention. There have been few spiritualists in any age who more clearly understood the mysteries of spiritual economy, or who more faithfully and conspicuously obeyed its highest monitions—those coming from the Divine Spirit itself.