DISCOURSES GIVEN  PRIOR TO PUBLISHING IN 1878

CORA IN  1875

 DISCOURSE 

IS MATERIALIZATION TRUE ?

IF SO, ITS PHILOSOPHY.

Through The  Mediumship

By   Mrs. Cora L. V. RICHMOND

DELIVERED IN CHICAGO 

 FIRST  OF  Twelve And  Eleven Other Lectures Of Interest 
    [ Shown Separately-- One Discourse Per Web Page ]

CONTENTS:
1     Is MATERIALIZATION TRUE?  IF SO, ITS PHILOSOPHY   THIS PAGE
2     MATERIALIZING  POSSIBILITIES
3     THE FRATERNITIES OF DISEMBODIED SOULS 
4     JOHN WESLEY'S SEARCH FOR HEAVEN 
5     JOHN WESLEY'S FAREWELL TO EARTH 
6   *BENJAMIN FRANKLIN* THE OCCUPATION, CAPABILITIES AND POSSIBILTIES OF DISEMBODIED SPIRITS
7     LECTURE BY SPIRIT ROBERT DALE OWEN 
8     THE NEW NATION 
9     THE TREE OF LIFE--ITS SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE
10   A SERMON FOR THE NEW YEAR 
11   IF EVIL AS WELL AS GOOD IS PART OF THE SCHEME OF INFINITE WISDOM, THEN WHAT IS SIN, AND WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG?
12   CHRIST'S SUCCESSOR: HIS MISSION ON EARTH, AND TIME AND MANNER OF MANIFESTING HIS PRESENCE TO MANKIND 

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IS MATERIALIZATION TRUE?  IF SO, ITS 

 PHILOSOPHY

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The word "materialization," as you are aware., has special reference, doubtless, in this question to a certain class of manifestations that have taken place within the last few years in connection with Modern Spiritualism. 

Undoubtedly these manifestations are not new, but they have now for the first time attracted the attention of philosophers, and are considered as legitimate subjects for scientific investigation. Heretofore all apparitions or appearances of that kind have been considered to emanate from one of two sources: either from a confused and diseased imagination, which the materialist employs as a reason to account for nearly every spiritual manifestation, or from the real representation of spiritual forms or images to the mind (through the visual organs). 

Undoubtedly the German philosophers were correct In supposing there were three phases or appearances of things which presented themselves to the human mind: one, the conception of a thing which may have its birth in the mind without any external form; another, the appearance or imitation of a thing which may have existence really but not be the thing represented; and the third is the actual appearance or form (the thing itself).  All of these phases constitute the usual appearances of life, and they so interblend that without actual science it were difficult sometimes to tell which are conceptions of the mind, which are appearances of things, and which are real things; and we are not certain that even science is accurate upon this subject. She is so arbitrary and dogmatic in her terms, and assumes things to be real which undoubtedly are not so, and disputes realities which she does not comprehend, that it is not safe even to suppose that science can fully determine what things are real and what are unreal. But it is generally admitted that all usual appearances of earth and sky, all forms that are familiar to the eyes and senses of man, the usual human existences and such other things as come within the analytical scope of scientific knowledge, are real. But there is a vast other region of investigation just as real that lies beyond the present region of scientific investigation, and which gradually is obtruding itself upon science. That other region is the existence of just as tangible forces, governed by just as real laws, and acted upon by just as spontaneous and natural impulses as the external world, which, however, is not governed by the laws controlling the material world, but by other laws that are just as tangible and capable of solution. And this, of course, brings us to the legitimate sphere of inquiry involved in this question. 

That materialization is true is attested by the usual testimony of science, by the suppositions of scientific deduction and analogy, and by the testimony of those who have Investigated occult forces through clairvoyance and spiritual power. The only basis for external science is the testimony of external scientists, and that has been adduced and given in published testimonials by at least a score of living scientific minds, to say nothing of the added testimoiay of thousands of witnesses who are not scientific yet who are capable of observing material facts. This, of course, leaves no room for the doubting of the reality of materialization. The philosophy of its science has not yet claimed to solve, and there are only a few scientific men that have the inclination or the leisure to devote to the investigation of this subject. Among those the familiar names of Messrs. Crookes, Wallace and Varley, and the Scientific Investigating Committee of St. Petersburg, are familiar; but at the same time they have not professed, nor are they ready to state any philosophy concerning the fact. The facts alone are stated by them and the deductions must be drawn by the scientific world, or a philosophy must be unfolded which shall explain measurably the process of this form of manifestation. 

Everything In nature is materialized from an invisible and impalpable source. The germ which contains the oak is not visible in its possibilities save by chemical and microscopic analysis; yet you are perfectly well aware that under favorable and correct conditions the germ will develop into a forest tree, and that all the properties which will constitute the tree are held in solution in the earth or in the air. This process that goes on before your very senses is invisible to you; you do not see the circulation of the sap, the quickening of the germ, the weaving of the various rays of sunlight into the fibre and trunk of the tree; you see nothing save that a miracle of life is performed slowly and gradually before you, and that at last the forest tree is there. Yet, if you had never been accustomed to its growth, if once, for the first time in your life, you had seen a shrub or tree unfold, it were then a miracle; you would not have any philosophy to account for it, and the whole research of all other sciences would be void to explain that one sublime mystery of the unfolding of a flower or a tree. Consequently, that is always mysterious to which you are unaccustomed and have not a ready solution either of the daily contact of life, or of a science which finally penetrates into the process of life in the forest tree. 

The only difference between the usual functions of natural life as manifested in the unfoldment of any organic form and materializations by spirit power, is that every organic form in Nature uiafolds by a process of generation or germination ; and science has failed to discover any spontaneous generation In the universe-we mean, any creation of form without a 

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