Blind Tom – a natural musicianWe read in the Spiritual Magazine of London:
“The celebrity of Tom, the Blind, that recently appeared in London, had already spread here, and a few years ago an article in the newspaper All year round, described his remarkable abilities and the sensation they had produced in America. The way in which these faculties developed in this black, slave and blind, ignorant and totally illiterate; how, as a child still, one day surprised by the sounds of music in his master's house, he unceremoniously ran to take his place at the piano, reproducing note by note what had just been played, laughing and contorting with joy, by seeing the new world of pleasures he had just discovered; it has all been said so many times that I think it unnecessary to mention it again; but a significant and interesting fact was said to me by a friend that was the first witness and appreciator of Tom's faculty. One day a work by Handel was played to him. Tom immediately played it again, correctly, and when he was done, he rubbed his hands with an expression of indefinable joy, exclaiming: “I see him, he's an old man with a big wig; he played first and I did after.” It is indisputable that Tom had seen Handel and heard him play.
Tom has performed in public several times, and the way he performs the most difficult pieces would almost cast doubt on his disease. He repeats on the piano, without mistake, and necessarily from memory, everything that is played to him, whether old classical sonatas or modern fantasies; well, we would like to see the one who could learn Thalberg's variations in this way, with their eyes closed, as he did. This surprising fact of a blind, ignorant, uneducated man, showing a talent which others are unable to acquire with all the advantages of study, will probably be explained by many in the ordinary way of considering these things, saying: “he is a genius and an exceptional organization”, but it is only Spiritism that can give the key to this phenomenon, in a comprehensible and rational way.”
The reflections we made, about the little girl from Toulon, naturally apply to the blind Tom. Tom must have been a great musician, that only needs to hear to remember what he knew. What makes the phenomenon more extraordinary is that it is presented in a black, slave and blind, a triple cause that was opposed to the cultivation of his native aptitudes, and despite which they manifested themselves at the first favorable opportunity, like a seed that germinates in the rays of sun.
Now, as the black race in general, and especially in a state of slavery, does not shine through the culture of arts, it must be concluded that the Spirit of Tom does not belong to that race; but that he will have incarnated there either as atonement, or as a providential means of rehabilitation of this race in public opinion, by showing what it is capable of. Much has been said and written against slavery and the prejudice of color; everything that has been said is just and moral; but it was only a philosophical thesis. The law of the plurality of existences, and of reincarnation, adds to it the irrefutable sanction of a law of nature, that consecrates the brotherhood of all men. Tom the slave, born and acclaimed in America, is a living protest against the prejudices that still reign in that country. (See the Spiritist Review, April 1862: Perfectibility of the black race. Spiritualist phrenology).
