At the height of their confidence and
wealth something curious happened to the Victorians. Spiritualism suddenly became
a popular a craze that swept both England and America. One late 19th
century critic described the outbreak of spiritualism as a ‘monstrous folly’.
Folly or not, it had all the hallmarks of a similar outbreak in the mid-20th
century: the New Age movement beginning with the popular use of psychedelic
drugs and the pursuit of mystical insights and other worlds. The Victorian Spiritualist
may not have practiced nudity and free love, but their séances had a moral
subversiveness and occasionally a naughty slant to them. They, like their later
psychedelic compatriots were searching for something.
These Victorian New Agers ‘tried everything -
they attended séances, visited mediums, collected and researched hundreds of
ghost stories. When members of the group started to die, they tried to contact
each other from beyond the grave.’1 The ideas of spiritualism affected all
ranks of society. The lower classes didn’t go in for fancy parlour séances, but
they gaped at music hall performances of mediums like Daniel Douglas Holm, who
demonstrated moving tables with ‘spirit hands’, musical instruments playing in
mid-air, and body levitation. Many from the upper classes were converted to
Spiritualism by the amazing experiences they had in their parlour séances led
by mediums, usually large impressive women in flowing robes – experiences where
they contacted their dear newly departed. And Madam Blavatsky and her Secret
Doctrine was at the height of her theosophical influence.
From our vantage point, looking back,
it’s easy for us to see that the Victorians were psychologically deprived by
their buttoned-up style of society. But, of course, they couldn’t see it. They were in
it. And that’s true of all real deprivation – it’s invisible to those who are
in it. They feel it, but can’t identify it, so they go out on all kinds of
tangents to fill the hole. Often the search is quite desperate. You can see how
whole families and their descendants are psychologically deprived by a style of
life that is endemic in the family tradition, handed on from one generation to
the next like an inherited but invisible disease. Emotional attitudes are
remarkably persistent across generations. A person brought up in a strong
religious background may have drifted away from the church, but retain the same
driven intensity toward another quite different area.
The search for something more can
take on many different guises. A few years ago there was an amusing cartoon in
the New Yorker. It pictured two
meditating Zen monks – just sitting. The master is saying to the novice, ‘What
do you mean “what’s next” – this is it’.
I think one of the most terrifying
philosophical questions is: ‘Is this all
there is?’ It speaks of a invisible vacuum. That question is the engine that drives one of the most stubborn
and intrepid of human desires – the need for something more. It can kick in the
spiritual search which, if ever it reaches its goal, ossifies into belief. But
mostly, with spiritual seekers, the search goes on forever. Nothing quite fills
the hole because the real deprivation has not been identified.
Did you know there is a Shopaholics Anonymous, besides an Overeaters and Alcoholics Anonymous and all the other Anonymouses - all trying to deal with the terrible drive for
something more.
It makes you wonder what is the
quality of ‘enough’. As he was dying of
cancer Aldous Huxley’s wife administered a dose of LSD by his request. When he
was nearly gone she put a rose under his nose. After a few moments she said:
‘Is that enough?’
He whispered, ‘It is never enough’.
Not a bad remark as a checkout to
this life.
contact:
stanrich@vodafone.co.nz
(03)
981 2264
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