I have carefully examined it, and find that the results arrived at (in
the Buddhist doctrine) do not differ much from the conclusions of our
Aryan philosophy, though our mode of stating the arguments may differ in
form. I shall now discuss the question from my own standpoint, though,
following, for facility of comparison and convenience of discussion, the
sequence of classification of the sevenfold entities or principles
constituting man which is adopted in the "Fragments." The questions
raised for discussion are (1) whether the disembodied spirits of human
beings (as they are called by Spiritualists) appear in the seance-rooms
and elsewhere; and (2) whether the manifestations taking place are
produced wholly or partly through their agency.
It is hardly possible to answer these two questions satisfactorily
unless the meaning intended to be conveyed by the expression
"disembodied spirits of human beings" be accurately defined. The words
spiritualism and spirit are very misleading. Unless English writers in
general, and Spiritualists in particular, first ascertain clearly the
connotation they mean to assign to the word spirit, there will be no end
of confusion, and the real nature of these so-called spiritualistic
phenomena and their modus occurrendi can never be clearly defined.
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