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Benson, Robert Hugh, 1871-1914

"The Necromancers"

They take advantage, he
says, of any weak spot anywhere.
"Now one of the easiest ways of all is through spiritualism.
Spiritualism is wrong--we know that well enough; it is wrong because
it's trying to live a life and find out things that are beyond us at
present. It's 'wrong' on the very lowest estimate, because it's
outraging our human nature. Yes, Mabel, that's his phrase. Good
intentions, therefore, don't protect us in the least. To go to
_seances_ with good intentions is like ... like ... holding a
smoking-concert in a powder-magazine on behalf of an orphan asylum.
It's not the least protection--I'm not being profane, my dear--it's
not the least protection to open the concert with prayer. We've got no
business there at all. So we're blown up just the same.
"The danger...? Oh! the danger's this, Mr. Cathcart says. At
_seances_, if they're genuine, and with automatic handwriting and all
the rest, you deliberately approach those powers in a friendly way,
and by the sort of passivity which you've got to get yourself into,
you open yourself as widely as possible to their entrance. Very often
they can't get in; and then you're only bothered. But sometimes they
can, and then you're done.


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