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London Dialectical Society

In 1869 an important enquiry into the phenomena of spiritualism was undertaken by the London Dialectical Society. A committee of more than thirty members-including Alfred Russel Wallace, Sergeant Cox, Charles Bradlaugh, H. G. Atkinson, and Dr. James Edmunds-was formed, and resolved itself into six subcommittees. During the eighteen months over which their labours extended, the committee received a large quantity of evidence from believers in the phenomena, but very little from those antagonistic to the spirit hypothesis. In "The Dialectical Society's Report on Spiritualism," published by the Society, particulars are given both of the members' own experiences and of testimonies from witnesses whose character and position made their evidence valuable. Practically every form of manifestation, both physical and automatic, is covered in the report, which concluded thus : "In presenting their report, your Committee, taking into consideration the high character and great intelligence of many of the witnesses to the more extraordinary facts, the extent to which their testimony is supported by the reports of the sub-committees, and the absence of any proof of imposture or delusion as regards a large portion of the phenomena ; and further, having regard to the exceptional character of the phenomena, and the large number of persons of every grade of society and over the whole civilised world who are more or less influenced by a belief in their supernatural origin, and to the fact that no philosophical explanation of them has yet been arrived at, deem it incumbent upon them to state their conviction that the subject is worthy of more serious attention and careful investigation than it has hitherto received."

The Dialectical Society's investigations are noteworthy as the first organised attempt to elucidate the problem of spiritualistic phenomena.

Lopez, Senor Manoel : (See Spain.) Lopoukine, Chevalier : A Russian theologian to whom is attributed a tract, said to be translated from the Russian and entitled Characteristics of the Interior Church (1801). His teaching is similar to that of Eckhartshausen whose work has elsewhere been briefly described it is a kind of Christian transcendentalism and in its tenour, resembles the higher literature of the Graal.

Lords of the Flame or Children of the Fire Mist, are, according to theosophists, adepts sent from the planet Venus to aid terrestrial evolution. It is necessary to explain that, in the evolution of the Solar System (q.v.) Venus is considerably in advance of the Earth, but by the efforts of these adepts directed towards intellectual development-the inhabitants of the earth are now really farther advanced than in ordinary course they would be. These adepts are not permanently inhabitants of the Earth, and, while a few yet remain, most of them have returned whence they came, the time of crisis at which they assisted having now passed. (See Theosophy, Evolution, Chains.)