Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 Volume 1, Number 7

Excerpt

Creation’s Mysteries

Dr. B. Cyriax, editor of the , published at Liepsic, Ger., has given in the issue of March 31st the following communications from Dr. Hahnemann and Dr. Spurzheim, delivered through a trance medium. They are valuable essays, whatever may be their source, and the reader will not fail to observe their general coincidence with the doctrine presented by myself in the May number of the in the article on the “Genesis of the Brain.”

Wishing to have a psychometric test, I placed in the hands of Mrs. Buchanan a portion of the manuscript of Spurzheim, who died fifty-five years ago, to see if her conception of his thought would coincide with the report from the trance medium. Her nervous system being somewhat disturbed at the time, she was unable to go as far as I wished, but she gave the following impressions:

“This has been written sixty or seventy years ago, written by a person of very broad, elevated mind, progressive, a teacher or writer—perhaps both. He had a great deal of will power, strong, and decisive, was very independent, not afraid to give his views, but had a great deal of opposition to his sentiments. He was of a scientific cast of mind, was acquainted with medical science, and was more interested in the brain than anything else. He would talk, lecture, and write about the brain, and had very correct views in advance of others. He is in spirit life now. There is a warmth and nearness in the impression as though he would be attracted to the science you are engaged in. His mind broadens out into different lines of thought in spirit life—things appertaining to what he was interested in here, and kindred subjects. He thinks you are developing in the right direction. I think he has communicated with you. I think he has an overshadowing approval of your work. He feels that you are in an original line of thought, not dominated by any other minds. There seems an overshadowing influence that stimulates you.”

As to his having communicated with me, it is true that over thirty years ago I received some remarkable communications from him, through a rapping medium, the messages being spelled out by the alphabet, and his suggestions entirely in consonance with my teachings.

I then asked, “What views does he have of the process of creation and development of life on the globe?” Which was answered “His views are such as have been expressed by the believers in evolution, from the lower to the higher orders of creation. I feel a pressure of intellectual conceptions, but my nervous system is not in a state to express it.”

I then read through the statement of Spurzheim’s views (his name being still unknown to Mrs. B.), and asked how they coincided with the sentiments she perceived in the person she described. She replied, “I think he accepts or approves it generally. He would certainly sanction such ideas. I think he has communicated, and that he would, in control of a medium, express such ideas.”

The messages of Hahnemann and Spurzheim have been so well translated by a correspondent of the , that I reproduce them as given in that journal, as follows:

“If you consider the high development of the Caucasian race, it is repulsive to your sentiments to believe that man belongs to the animal kingdom as its highest link, and springs from this kingdom....