J LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.! .... } I *&%*// mm I t — * : .! STATES OF AMERICA.! . NQN SPIEITITS. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPIRITUALISM BT Eev. THOMAS MITCHELL, ft ' Ol -A.IL.B^IN'Y, 3S\ Y. AUTHOR OF 44 The Philosophy of God and the World;" "The Old Paths; " " Voices from Paradise," a Poem. PRINTED BY WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, Albany, N. Y. 1872. &* Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-two, By Rev. THOMAS MITCHELL, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. WEED, PARS0N8 AND COMPANY, 1' ULSTERS AND STEREOTYPERS, ALBANY, N. Y. PEEFACE. Since the close of the late debate held at Martin Hall, during the three successive evenings, between Dr. Dunn, of Chicago, and myself, I have been re- quested by so many friends, and others with whom I was previously unacquainted, but who attended the discussion, to publish my views in a book upon this subject, and who gave it as their opinion that, not only enough would be immediately sold to meet the expense incurred, but who would also to this extent personally interest themselves, and, therefore, the book is before the public. Indeed, I have been astonished at the intensity of the interest our citizens have manifested in the subject by sim- ply this one effort in meeting the defenders of spiritualism in public debate ; and if I had under- stood this before I would have arranged for six nights instead of three, and doubt not but that Dr. Dunn would have been glad to have consented, as he was purposely led to believe that he would obtain an easy victory over his antagonist. It is not to be wondered at that so many of our people have become affected with the mania of spiritualism to that degree that many of them have left the Christian church. They have honestly s PREFACE. asked those from whom they might have reason- ably hoped for that information which would en- able them to solve these strange manifestations, but without success. Here are facts, say they, which cannot be disputed, and if it is not the work of spirits, what is it? — receiving no satisfactory response, indeed, often denial and denunciation, and so they have turned away, as strange as it may appear, to the spirits of the dead for light, " seek- ing for the living among the dead." CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE. The subtlety of the subject; its importance; we have not been pre- mature; never been impartially considered; involves the highest Shilosophy; the spirit regions; spiritualism purely scientific; the lible invites investigation; revealed and natural truth harmonize; these phenomena not the work of trick ; mundane locality of knowl- edge must first be exhausted; the standard of truth not to be low- ered ; man " fearfully and wonderfully made ; " natural causes for all physical phenomena 1-15 CHAPTER II. Approximate elucidation, all that reason requires; first argument, cause and effect; philosophy of matter; electricity matter; specific gravity; an objection answered; no medium between matter and immateriality; law of physical motion; the law of physical impres- sion; electricity the agent of mind; spirits cannot move tables; they cannot come back ; human capacity must be known ; a task imposed ; present knowledge of mental philosophy imperfect; absurd attitude of spiritualism; Judge Edmonds investigates its philosophy; learns from a medium that it is by natural law ; odic force ; he dismisses the subject and flies to spirits 15-34 CHAPTER III. Connection of brain and mind ; objection answered; cerebellum source of vital motion ; cerebrum source of voluntary motion ; electricity the mind's agency; objection answered; higher connecting links of intelligence; electricity in the human system and nature the same; volition of one man passes to another; tables moved by vacuum; the electric law applies to all minds; objection; it is working mira- cles; mediums and their development 34-54 CHAPTER IV. Diogenes and Alexander; these spirits cannot be happy: reasons why they do not progress; kept in perpetual locomotion; the philosophy of a vacuum; electricity pervades all nature; why houses are haunted ; how to cure the evil ; English and American witchcraft explained 54-64 CHAPTER V. Characteristics of truth; mediums mesmeric subjects; degree of its susceptibility; strange effects; writing mediums ; relation of medi- ums to those in their presence; reason of their mistakes; their composition; Dr. Bell's experiments; why the subject should be investigated 64-73 CHAPTER VI. A clergyman experiments; the spirits confused; reason why; sophis- try of spiritualists exposed; spirits know what the questioner knows; compositions of the dead; course of Dr. Bell and Judge Edmonds contrasted; friends of the Bible must take thetield; hu- man intelligence comes through the physical organs of sense 73-62 CHAPTER VII. Illustration of this principle ; blind mediums ; all natural attributes essential to make man what he is; sound; mental communication by mere act of will; motion of intervening elements. 82-88 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. P ^ 0K - This principle natural and controlled by the will; our own experi- ments- mind reading; intelligent impressions conveyed; that it was by spirits proved erroneous: the power of mind; reading tested; remarkable instance ; its philosophy; a new mode of telegraphing; value of the discovery; the art illustrated; mental impressions physical; illustrated by memory ; objection met 88-101 CHAPTER IX. Nothing is forgotten ; popular warfare against truth and new discov- eries • the present age culpable ; honorable exceptions ; independent investigation; the wonders of the human mind; permanent im- pressions illustrated; Daguerre's art described; corresponds with the human eye and brain; receivability of the mind; electricity contains the coloring matter of all nature 101-110 CHAPTER X. Mental structure superior ; velocity of thought ; motion of the brain in mental exercise ; how to test it; essential to life; the science of optics; inversion of objects struck on the brain; the philosophy of camera obscura of the artist explains 110-115 CHAPTER XL Comparison between the artist's machine and mind ; why the mind is superior; negative and positive in electrics explains mind-reading; the distance in communicating ; an instance ; negative and positive ditfer in quantity and quality 115-118 CHAPTER XII. Witch of Endor ; ancient spiritualism superior ; suppressed by divine statutes; Saul goes by night; bring me up Samuel the prophet; effect upon Saul; magnetic impression explains it; the Chaldean king skeptical; the name not necessary to be known; Saul's extrem- ity; his mind easy to be read; Saul's first circle ; Saul not a medium ; the spiritualist confirms Saul's anticipations ; reads them from his brain ; he commits suicide to fulfill the witch prediction 118-124 CHAPTER XIII. Ancient and modern spiritualism the same; why called familiar ; that it supersedes further use for the Bible ; why the spirits of Payne, Voltaire and Volney should oppose it; civilization and the Bible; spirit rappings and the savage; why infidels embrace it; who are its standard writers; the theory forbids association in the other state. . 124-133 CHAPTER XIV. Ideas of a future world corruptions of revelation; its elements of a future world ; Christ degraded by the spiritualists ; its doctrines those of heathenism; more degrading ; offers no restraints to human pas- sion 133-141 CHAPTER XV. The moral law of Jesus; modern spiritualism subject of prediction; why it spreads so fast; absurdity of letting it alone; the remedy; their views of a future state: that which dies is dead forever; denies the resurrection; the foundation truth of Christianity; Christ not dead; lie is the Almighty; objection met 141-161 CHAPTER XVI. Thll Blngularjpower natural; why once prohibited; the principle of cur.-; miracles illustrated; philosophy of colds; all diseases thus may result ; why? how this art cures diseases: inflammation; palsy; examination ol diseases by mediums; the principle; easier than to re. id the brain; the people want light 161-168 CHAPTEE I. MAN; THE UNREAD VOLUME. It is no small degree of timidity we have had to over- come in consenting, in this public manner, to consider a subject so marvelously strange and incomparably wonder- ful as that tacitly called spiritualism. This arises from the fact that the investigation is necessarily confined to those philosophic principles of nature's works character- ized by the most delicate and subtle profundity of all her magnificent arrangement, and nothing but a superlative regard for humanity, civilization and the eternal interests of the revealed religion of the Bible , has induced us to make the present effort, all of which are being stripped of their vitalizing power by the untenable theories attempted to be vindicated by the mysterious exhibitions of spiritual- ism. Entertaining, therefore, such views, it would be un- reasonable to suppose that the subject does not assume (at least in our own estimation) an importance commensurate with its complexibility. With whatever else we may be charged by those with whom the views we have to present in this book must necessarily bring us in contact, that of being premature we shall certainly escape. The egotistical challenge of the spiritualists to meet them in discussion has been borne on the wings of every wind, and characterized, too, by as much confidence as though there was but one side sus- ceptible of vindication to the questions which are here in- volved, and that, that these phenomena find no other ade- quate causes, as their origin, but the intervention of the spirits of the departed dead. 8 We have looked with no small degree of solicitude, ever since the memorable period of the first Rochester rap, for some one to give this subject an impartial investigation, and thus be prepared to furnish the world with a philo- sophical and tangible solution of the questions involved in these phenomena, but in vain. It is true, that some scat- tered fragments of such a theory have made their appear- ance in the form of newspaper items, and some volumes have also been published, purporting to contain the desira- ble information; but so far have all these come from accomplishing this object, that it is no marvel the spirit- ualists should still consider themselves masters of the field. In this discussion, we shall endeavor to avoid, as far as possible, in a subject of such a nature, the introduc- tion of abstruse metaphysical deductions and abstract ex- tenuations, the tendency of which being only to confuse and mystify any subject whatever, and especially one like that under consideration, whose very existence depends upon those philosophical laws and principles of organic nature which occupy the transition point between vitality and dead matter, — motion and inertia, animal life and intelligence, — in a word, between mind and gross matter. Confined in this investigation, therefore, to this highest department of nature's wonderful works, if we succeed, to* the satisfaction of ordinary minds, in exposing the sophis- try and false philosophy which the advocates of spiritual- ism have thrown around it, and reduce the phenomena here involved from their metaphysical altitude to that compressible level, so that its truths may be appreciated, we say, that if we thus succeed, the achievement will be of the most gratifying character, of any thing allied with the present state of things, and we flatter ourselves that such will be the case, to no inconsiderable extent, and that, too, with those minds possessing such proclivities which seem to almost impel them to stand eagerly on the alert for the transportation or development of things strange and marvelous, and which forever inclines them to pass rapidly and superficially over facts and principles, and to delve us egregiously into the unfathomable abyss of mys- ticism and incomprehensibility. In this discussion we have endeavored, how successfully our readers must judge, to hold our opponents, although spirit-winged, to the rational of nature's works, and to avoid being con- ducted by them into the giddy regions of etherialization ; feeling that, within her laws and principles alone, human discussionists are responsible for their assumptions and utterances. As we consider this subject one purely of philosophy, and therefore looking exclusively to the laws- of natural science for its proofs and illustrations entirely- disconnected with theology, we have therefore avoided its introduction as a principle in this discussion, and we shall only present one argument at the close of the volume, to prove that the theory of a future state held by familiar spiritualism is so antagonistic to that of Christianity, that by receiving the one, the other must be abandoned. Not, however, that we entertain the least fear for that system of revealed religion contained in the Bible by such a con- tact, for, after having devoted years of impartial study to the investigation of its principles, we have been driven to the conclusion that that book justly claims the same author as He, who, from chaotic night and elementary confusion, formed the grand superstructure of universal nature, both of which reveal the priority of His existence,, the illimitableness of His perfections, and the almighty- power of His attributes, and we therefore have no hesita- tion in asserting that there is not one truth within the vast profundity of the works of nature which is suscepti- ble of demonstration, but which is also in the most beauti- ful harmony with that truth, if it is made a subject of revelation; indeed, we may say that the combination of these two sources of truth form but its melodious har- mony which forever chime to their immortal Author's 10 praise, without one discordant note to mar the melody or hush the eternal song. That these phenomena are to be attributed to the jug- glering work of adroit tricksters in the art of legerdemain, in our opinion, is too absurd to merit even a passing remark, and we ask no share in the encomiums, either morally or intellectually, which will be awarded him who said, " wherever there was a rap, there was also a rogue," by those men of veracity and intellect, who have impartially investigated them, and afterward declared, both publicly and privately, that they exist where trick is an impossi- bility ; such sayings only serve to expose the mental weak- ness of those who give them utterance, though we are aware that this is often done upon the principle, and for the same reason, that others pursue in assigning these manifestations to the spirits of the departed dead, namely, ignorance of their true origin. The position which we assume, and which we propose to defend in this discussion, is, that the phenomena of spiritualism are produced by the minds of those individu- als who are supposed to be mediums, in connection with the minds of others sympathetically associated with them, acting reciprocally through the physical laws of human and organic intelligence. Before entering immediately on the discussion of this position, we wish to make "a few remarks ; and first, it is indispensably necessary, in order to ascertain the capabilities of the human mind, intellectu- ally, morally and physically, that a philosophic and scien- tific knowledge of these several departments of its nature, should be in the possession of any mind, or order of minds, to endow it or them with such a qualification. That any fragment of mortality should suppose he had arrived at Buch a summit, and had accomplished this transcendent achievement, none but the most giddy egotist or superficial Bpeculator would have the presumption to maintain. In- deed, there is no principle which the really intelligent are 11 more ready to concede than that no class of beings, how- ever high they may be ranked in its scale, or however rapid has been their progressive ascent in the acquisition of knowledge, than that there are none who are fully com- petent to comprehend, in all its relationship, possession, adaptation and manifestation, the phenomena exemplified in their own individual nature. If, therefore, contempla- tive minds, after having devoted their lives to such pro- found investigations, and, after all, have been constrained to make this concession, how arrogant and unenviable must those appear who assume to set the most circum- scribed limits to the natural powers and capabilities of the God-like mind, which the spiritualists do, by ascribing any extraordinary manifestation, with which it is operatively connected, to the agency of supernatural existences, such as angels — devils — and the spirits of the departed dead. But we hold it to be at least superfluous to attempt to fol- low these ethereal adventurers into the unexplored scenes of futurity, and choose rather to confine ourselves to the substantial laws entering into the structure of this mundane locality of ours, within whose vast circumference, and pro- found depth, human reason, in its most lofty aspirations, may forever revel in its highest flights of capability with- out having drained but the fewest drops from its limitless ocean, or collected so many pebbles from the number which forms its mighty shore. If we succeed in pursuing this course, we shall not be very likely of falling into the too common error, especially in regard to subjects like that under consideration, of first becoming bewildered our- selves, and then, as? a natural consequence, confuse and befog the minds of those who may attempt to follow our devious pathway. We are aware that this subject will be comparatively uninteresting to many, but this is insepara- ble from the philosophic treatment of the subject itself. We venture the remark, that those whom we oppose would more intensely interest the multitude, inasmuch as our 12 appeals will be directed to the reason, instead of being aimed at those strong proclivities for the marvelous, gen- erally possessed by mankind. We are also aware that some may suppose we have dwelt longer on some points than was requisite, in order to make them clear and tangi- ble ; but such should recollect that all do not perceive the force and applicability of an argument with that aptitude which characterize the minds of some, and therefore should be as patient as possible. From the manner in which we propose to present our ideas of this subject, we presume none will be offended, but those whose minds are always so well stored with precessions and uninvestigated theories, which to them are equivalent to the changeless principles of truth, and who, if pleased at all, must be by lowering down its lofty standard, and by making compro- mises with fictitious and erroneous conjectures of a charac- ter derogatory to the purity and divine origin of truth ; we hope, however, that even these may be induced to weigh our arguments with impartiality. It is a well-settled prin- ciple of philosophy, that the mind, in its present organic state of being, is endowed with a physical or animal na- ture, hence its developments are phrenologically classified into groups, denominated the organs of the mind, and we wish to have it distinctly understood that it is with this department of the mind we have exclusively to do in the investigation of the supposed spirit manifestations, and that its arrangement of human organism involves resources fully adequate to accomplish all the wonders spiritualism furnishes for human contemplation, and which is, indeed, but a higher insight into the wonderful physicology of man, who is " fearfully and wonderfully made." Another reason why we make this statement, at this early period in the discussion, is, that no misapprehension may hereafter be entertained, relative to the arguments advanced, affecting the doctrine of the Bible, touching the higher nature of man, in his immortal adaptations andaspi- 13 rations in a future state of being. And it is proper her© also to remark that, should we be compelled by the force of any fact or principle, contained in the mysterious mani- festations of spiritualism, to cut loose from the shores of time, and with its advocates embark into the unseen state, it would involve an admission, which fair reasoning would require to be made, to all our objections, against its most fanciful and extravagant conclusion ; for instance, suppose there can be produced the smallest and most insignificant physical effect by the supposed spirits, for which there is absolutely no physical or philosophical cause in nature, as its adequate antecedent, then, indeed, might the champions of spiritualism triumph. 14 CHAPTER IL THE WONDEKFUL MECHANISM OF THE HUMAN BODY. We would not, however, be understood as assuming our willingness to predicate the truthfulness of the spirit theory, at least at this early stage of the investigation of the scientific principles it involves, upon the ground that we claim to be able to present a perfect solution of the most complicated and wonderful manifestation produced by its ancient or modern devotees, nevertheless we are persuaded that an approximate elucidation upon natural principles toward this achievement may be accomplished, involving the same moving and governing principles, upon which all its wonders depend, for their power of manifest- ation, and which will furnish all honest and unprejudiced minds with a substantial key, independent of supernatural spirits, to its most marvelous phenomena, showing conclu- sively that their origin are referable, simply to the phys- ical department of human organization. — The first argu- ment we shall bring forward to vindicate the hypothesis assumed is the well-established principle of cause and effect. The principle of inseparable connection between cause and effect is unexceptionably admitted in the moral as well as in the physical world ; to assume, therefore, that an effect may be produced in the absence of a cause of the same texture or nature as its adequate antecedent would be in direct conflict with one of the most obvious laws of natural science, having its exemplification in the reciprocal connection and interdependence of all the works of nature, and we can but charge the advocates of spiritualism with having assumed precisely this position: for instance, in that department of these phenomena, known as table-moving, physical effects are manifested, which are 15 claimed to be the product of spirits, or anti-physical exist- ences, for such is their nature, but, in order to demonstrate the absurdity of such a hypothesis, it is necessary to take a somewhat extended view of the philosophy of matter, and which will also assist us in our future reasoning upon the subject. The common definition of the term "matter" is, that it describes any simple or compound body of sub- stance, containing size and density, and therefore occupy- ing space. Admitting, therefore, the correctness of this definition, it is perfectly immaterial whether the particles or atoms composing any such body are large or small, heavy or light, it in no degree affects their nature, the fact that they are matter, whether they compose the most subtle ether, and that in its most expanded and sublimated state, or forms the lofty crag, whose erect brow has bid defiance to the storms of time, remains unaffected. Indeed the im- aginary divisibility of its particles may be extended as far as the mathematical reach of infinity, and yet not the most distant approximation toward immateriality or pure spirit has been accomplished, neither is the argument affected by the principle of imponderability, the nature of these min- ute particles are as unchanged and are as really matter as though they were collected, and condensed in sufficient quantities to outweigh the Andes and the towering Alps. Indeed, no process of reasoning can be more hopeless and unphilosophical than the attempt to thus arrive at the nature of spirits. That there are finer states and condi- tions of matter, which, according to the common significa- tion of the term " imponderable," are supposed to be of an opposite nature, we are fully aware, but it must be consid- ered that, when these terms are used, it is only tacitly or in a conventional and accommodating sense, in order to clas- sify substances of a different texture, and which describes specifically those forms, states, and conditions of matter, which occupy the highest position in the ascending scale of etherialization, and which have no appreciable weight or 16 specific gravity, such, for instance, as that of electricity, and hence presents no real objection to our argument, but only suggests the deficiency of scientific knowledge, and chemical skill, requisite to the execution of the task of collecting and confining a sufficient quantity of this most etherialized substance to compel the balance to preponder- ate. Having introduced electricity, and claiming, as we do, that to its agency, in some ot its susceptible modifications, all the results of spiritualism are to be attributed, it is of importance that we should examine a little more minutely its substantial nature, and we remark that the claim that this substance is unsusceptible of atomization, or division, which is the same thing, for if we may divide any thing, we may also subdivide it, and by continuing the process, we must arrive at its units or smallest particles ; we Bay that this claim involves the absurd idea that electricity bears the impress of God-like indivisibility, we say this is an absurdity, because it is in contra- riety to all the well-known facts of its nature, some of which are that it exists in all conceivable quanti- ties, and separated from each other, in all directions and distances, and is, therefore, composed of atoms. This ob- jection against the gravity, or materiality, of electricity rests simply on the minutim of its particles, but such a hypothesis is as manifestly unphilosophical as that small bodies and insects lose their identity and individual exist- ence simply because of their littleness, but, if the principle of adequate cause and effect be admitted, then are we no longer left to uncertain conjecture in regard to this idea, but are furnished with the most demonstrable evidence in defense of our position, namely : that this substance is composed of real, solid atoms of matter, although, as we have said before, it is the highest in the ascending scale of etherialization, at least within the grasp of human con- ception. This evidence is contained in the physical effects produced by its movements through universal nature, if 17 we listen to its voice or follow its awful tread, when loosed from the dark storm cloud of heaven, we are horrified at the sound, and startled at beholding the open trench at our feet ; the tall oak of the forest, scathed by its cutting wing ; the shattered temple and demolished tower, which have attempted to arrest its victorious march, while seek- ing its equilibrium. To deny (we say) the material endow- ment of this substance is to contradict, in the most obvious manner, this law of cause and effect, which is tantamount to the claim, that these stupendous results might have* been produced by coming in contact with its direct and eternal opposite, which is immateriality, or the nature of spirits, and what exhibits the absurdity of this idea more? fully is the fact that between these two principles there? exists no possible medium, or transition point, as a line of demarkation, passing which, matter ceases to be such and becomes immateriality, or unmixed spiritual nature. From these considerations we think the following conclusions logical, namely : that any real, tangible effect, produced upon whatever body of matter, whether simple or organi- cal, so as to leave its impress, or produce its motion, is the result of a physical cause, or combination of such causes, either as first or secondary, in the great chain of the phys- ical vitalization of our globe. The application of this argument to the spirit theory demonstrates the fact that its results and manifestations must be referred to some other cause, or class of causes, and agencies, than to the magical feats of supernatural, personal invisibilities, or the ghosts of the departed dead ; nor can it be claimed that these supernatural existences produce such results as the overturning of a dining table by a mental effort, setting in. motion an electrical agent adapted to such a purpose, be- cause not organized according to the laws of animal life, is itself inert, and, therefore, disqualified to accomplish, not only such feats of power as spiritualism manifests, but as small an effect upon any body of matter whatever, as 2 18 a flutter of a leaf in the forest, or the motion of one cubic inch of common air. But in addition to this, there is also the indispensable prerequisites necessarily involved in the production of physical impressions or the motion of substantial bodies which more fully illustrates and establishes this position ; these constitute what we denominate a three-fold law; there is, in the first place, a material and sentient organ- ization, possessing the power of volition, or self-emotion, and secondly, a material agent, as the medium of commu- nication, and of a nature susceptible of being put into mo- tion, by a decision of the mind ; and in the third place, an effect produced of the same tangible character ; these three elements, as interdepending principles, must be actively en- gaged, in order that the least conceivable physical result may be manifested, the conclusion to which we arrive, in view of this natural law, is, that the disembodied spirits of the departed dead are utterly incapable of the power to put forth a mental effort adequate to the task of dispatch- ing an agent of a nature which is indispensable to the pro- duction of phenomena, such as distinguish the spirit the- ory, and we can see no way to avoid this argument only by the adoption of the Pythagorical doctrine of metempsycho- sis, which teaches that the spirits of the dead, as they take their exit from the body, pass into other living ani- mals of a lower order, through whose organism they thence- forward manifest themselves, as long as they live, and when they die, into others of their own choosing, and so on, continue an eternal round of transmigration, and thus intelligently manifest themselves ; but as they have not adopted this idea, they are without even such a fabulous chimera as it presents in defense of their spirit notions. If we would, therefore, hope to succeed in the detection of the original causes involved in the production of these phenomena, we are under the necessity of searching else- where than to spiritual existences, and, besides this, to 19 suppose that there exists such power of communication between the spirits of the departed dead and living mor- tality, is not only in direct conflict with revelation, which declares that there is fixed an impassable gulf, so that those who would pass from the supernatural state, to again mingle in human society, cannot, which it can hardly be supposed, these ideal star-gazers, and ghost-consultors, are able to bridge ; but that is equally at variance with every other department of the works of the great architect of the universe. If we contemplate the delineations drawn by the inspired writers, relative to the employment of the inhab- itants of the upper world, we can but discover a striking correspondence of laws and principles by which they are actuated in their holy association, and which seems to be in the widest contrast to those governing this mundane locality of mankind ; those applied to that state are purely spiritual ; God himself originates their devotional aspira- tions ; His spirit communicates the inspiring impulses, and the spiritual beings, in consequence, swell the eternal hal- lelujahs which vibrate on the soft and ambient wings of heaven's gentle breezes, filling the golden city with songs of ceaseless melody, thus exhibiting no incongruous or ab- rupt principle — not a note of discordance is heard among all the divine compositions of heaven's musical sonnants. But it is useless to classify or particularize among the de- partments of Jehovah's works, this harmony of principle and consistency of elements, free from abrupt breaks or incongruous chasms, which everywhere manifest them- selves to the delight of all intelligent minds. But spiritualism presents, as its fundamental principle, a sentiment in the widest contrast to all this, and one which is without a parallel or similitude within the wide realm of human contemplation i What an absurd link in the chain of social intercommunication does the idea present that moral and intellectual intercourse between the high- est departments of sentient beings is continued, while that 20 of the physical is broken off, when and subsequent to the death of human kind, is it not fair to suppose that if the Deity had considered it necessary to have the advice of the departed dead continued indefinitely, that he would have kept them alive for this purpose ? But that this is not his arrangement, is clearly taught in the answer Abraham gave to the rich man to his request that he would send some sainted spirit to warn his five brethren lest they should come to his place of torment ; they (said he) would believe if one went unto them from the dead ; but the answer was, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither would they believe though one rose from the dead, let them hear them, silenced the conjurations of the lost Dives, no, God had constructed an impassable gulf be- tween heaven, hell and earth, over which no spirit's transit was possible ; and if these spirits can come back to hold converse with the living, why did the rich man do it ? But leaving this idea which contains enough, of itself, of argument, to constitute an everlasting refutation to the spiritual presumptions, we pass to remark that, before tiie demands to believe their theory can reasonably be com- plied with, they should first be required to furnish man kind with a philosophical chart, setting forth in lucid delineation and scientific precision, all the laws, powers, and principles, morally, physically and intellectually, with which the human mind is endowed, and from which they would be qualified to demonstrate its incapability of originating and consummating these phenomena ; their own position indispensably imposes this task upon them, for with what reason or propriety can it be assumed, that these phenomena are not to be attributed to the natural action of human minds reciprocally on each other, through the medium of those physical attributes with which they are endowed, in the present state of being. This chart should contain a minute description of all the wonderfully constructed, and complicated mental organism, together 21 with the exact amount and kind of influence, or force, which each individual organ or class of them are capable of exerting extrinsically, or on each other, as well as the degree and kind of power any combination of them are thus susceptible of producing. It should also set forth the principle upon which the mind affects the power of human vitality, manifested in producing death, by a mere mental impression, and that also of locomotion, connected with which there should be a mathematical calculation made of the precise amount and kinds of power, if there be more than one, the mind is capable of producing by a decision of the will ; this chart should also contain a satis- factory solution of the question whether in the production of human thought there exists a real, mechanical motion of the phrenological developments of the brain, as the organs of the mind, and if so, from whence does it originate. In suggesting such a requisition to our spiritual friends, it would not be considered strange if we should be charged with trifling ; but in all seriousness is not this task the legitimate and indispensable result of their position, that such a requirement thus imposed and the duties it involves, instead of being extravagant, is only the result of that proper reflection which the universal mind naturally feels while contemplating the great subject of mental philoso- phy, and which achievement it as instantly acknowledges itself utterly disqualified to accomplish ; but it must be remembered that in specifying the above requirement we have not included the most astonishing phases of mental phenomena, such, for instance, as the principle upon which, the mind acts in communicating intelligent impressions by a mere mental effort, or act of the will, independent of the five senses. Neither have we required them to tell us whether, in the reception of thought, there is a real physical impres- sion produced upon the brain, as the mental organs, and if not, upon what other principle is the mind capable of 22 retaining or remembering the respective images of descrip- tions and objects with which it has come in contact ; but if we should have included these and added a great many more, it would not be rendering the task at all too high to meet the reasonable demand of all intelligent minds, and to the accomplishment of which the spiritualists should imme- diately betake themselves, instead of spending useless time in the consultation of the ghosts of the departed dead ; and until it is achieved we can but affirm that not the least possible respect should be paid to the theory of the connection of spirits with these phenomena. That this theory is making unreasonable and unjust demands on the credulity of mankind is evidently argued from the existing ignorance of the nature and laws of the human mind, not only as it regards its sentient department, but almost equally those physical attributes through whose organical arrangement the intellect makes itself manifest. In order to prove more conclusively that this knowledge of the mind is of this superficial character, and that, too, even among the learned, let us suppose that it extends only to one of the mental functions, powers or laws, with its necessary paraphernalia of physical arrangement, into its dynamical nature and uncovered relationship no human insight has ever penetrated, let this, we say, be admitted, and we arrive in the most direct manner at a conclusion fatal to the whole spirit theory, and around whose bright blaze their delusive parhelion appears clad in the rayless robes of sable night, utterly incapable of reflecting the shadow of its own existence. Here, then, we have a department of the mind of which nothing is known, and consequently no intelligent estimate can be made of its capability, and hence the attitude of the spiritualists must be to prove the incapacity of this power of the mind to be susceptible of exerting a force sufficiently powerful and efficient to accomplish all the physical effects and intel- lectual phenomena which distinguishes spiritualism and, 23 indeed, of developing things still more wonderful and marvelous than any which characterizes the modern ghost consultations, but nevertheless in the most perfect accord- ance with the great laws of intellectuality, and simply the results of those physical principles inseparably connected with the sublime and god-like nature of the human mind. But when it is considered that ignorance prevails not simply in regard to a single mental organ or class of them, but on the contrary it is universally admitted that the real philosophy of mental phenomena entertained even in this age of science and progress is of the most superficial character, and which is inconsistent with a perfect com- prehension of its nature, attributes and capacities, the manifestations of which are power and intelligence. Now, if these reflections are truthful, then how ex- tremely disqualified are men of ordinary minds, with lim- ited attainments of knowledge, and especially those ethe- realized metaphysicians, who superciliously leap over the boundaries of their reasoning faculties, and giving loose wings to those proclivities they possess for the marvelous, soar giddily into the mystic, bottomless and shoreless ocean of fanciful speculation and extravagant illusion; how exceedingly disqualified are such, of all others, to ar- rogantly set limits of the most circumscribed character to the natural resources and capabilities of the mind of man, and which the spiritualists do, by attributing these phe- nomena to the unseen action of the spirits of dead men, women and children. What an absurdity does such con- duct exhibit, that while thus ignorant of the living mind they should assume a better acquaintance with the de- parted dead, whom they see, hear, touch, taste and handle not, than with living mortality, with whom they mingle and are daily conversant. In view of such reflections it can hardly be considered an expression of rudeness, or even unkindness, if we extend an invitation to these ethereal adventurers, to fold up their airy wings, at least until they 24 had made more proficiency in mastering the problem sug- gested by the philosophic poet, "know then thyself," to return and immediately apply themselves to its substantial investigation. That the most intelligent of the spiritual- ists have been guilty of pursuing this course, the following extract from Judge Edmonds fully proves: We quote from "Spiritualism," by Judge Edmonds and Dr. T. Dexter, vol. 4, p. 38, and onward. Says the Judge, * An artist in a neighboring city lately wrote me that he, from being one who had thrown this matter aside as ' a barefaced imposture, and who had spared no words in denouncing the whole affair as a stupendous fraud on the weak-minded and credulous/ had become an impressible medium, and had had scenes presented to his vision, which, lie says, are ' impressed upon his mind with extreme dis- tinctness more so than any picture he ever saw,' and they cannot be his own imaginings, the manner of their presen- tation precludes that idea." In regard to this man, says the judge, "If my readers knew him as well as I do, and w T ere acquainted with the sim- plicity and uprightness of his character, they would rely firmly upon his integrity and intelligence. For my own part I have never doubted the ^truthfulness of his state- ments." Judge Edmonds asked and got the following answers by this medium : Is that which I am witnessing the operation of some hitherto unknown but pre-existing cause, now for the first manifesting itself? The answer I got was : It is the result of human progress, it is in execu- tion, not a suspension of nature's laws, and it is not now for the first time manifesting itself, but in all ages of the world has at times been displayed. I was given to under- stand that this power was used in these manifestations, but how or in what manner I have not learned. I was also made to know that electricity and magnetism had something to do with them." The judge says, " I rea- soned thus, if it is by a law of nature it must be universal 25 In its application, and it may be discovered and understood by man, and I asked if I might understand it. I was told, however, that my knowledge of nature was too imperfect to enable me to understand it as yet. I asked what I might read to assist me to the required knowledge, and I was referred by one present to Von Reichenback's Dynamics of Magnetism. I read it, and there I found that he had discovered a hitherto unknown power in nature. He named it Odic force, and described it as an exceeding subtle fluid existing with magnetism and electricity, found in fire and heat, and produced in the human body by the chemical action of respiration, digestion and decom- position, and issuing from the body in the shape of a pale flame, with sparks and smoke, and was material in its nature, though so much sublimated as to be visible only to persons of a peculiar vision. In my experiments the judge says, ' I have myself once or twice seen it' (it must be remembered that the judge was himself a medium and therefore had this peculiar vision) but have met with those who could see it as readily as those through whom that German philosopher conducted his examinations.'-' The judge further says, Appendix, p. 421 : " I have read this book myself to enable me to understand these laws. The writer proves conclusively that this element pervades not only the human system, but the material world and the whole universe. Late English writers of high repute consider the existence of the Odic force as well established as that of magnetism and electricity." This, says the judge, is as far as I have been able to advance in answer to this question ; my attention was soon drawn to other matters, namely, to the moral character of the teachings, and I was compelled to leave the inquiry to others. I have related all I know on that subject, in the earnest hope that some one may pursue the investigation until we Bhall be able to understand it as well as we now do the 26 steam-engine or the magnetic telegraph, for surely it must be that the knowledge is equally attainable by man." Now what can be more evident from this knowledge, obtained by the judge, from such reliable and unquestion- able sources, than the fact that his strong proclivity for the marvelous and love for the moral teachings of spiritualism led him to abandon this philosophic investigation so quick- ly and easily as he did. He saw the existence of this fluid in the human system and supposed the physical manifesta- tions, as the movement of tables, etc., was produced by it, and was told by this medium, in whom he reposed perfect reliance, that the whole phenomena, including the intelli- gence spiritualism manifests, was to be attributed to the agency of this fluid through the physical laws of living men, if these laws were understood, and that they would be understood. Indeed, there was but one other idea necessary for him to see, in order to account for the intel- ligence it manifests through these laws, and he would and must have abandoned all thought of spirits being con- nected with them, and which we have demonstrated by our own experiments, and that is, that any of those im- pressible persons, called mediums, are able to read the minds of others with whom they are in sympathy, and thus obtain the knowledge which is returned to those whose minds are thus read, in the shape of revelations from the spirits of the dead ; and we may say here that if mankind do not now and never will be able to understand every phase of this philosophy, yet the facts with which we are familiar furnishes positive proof of its existence. We wish it to be distinctly remembered that the German philosopher above referred to investigated the existence of this electric fluid in the human system, and that it was by the aid of persons susceptible of being thrown into this peculiar magnetic state, which endows them with a pecu- liar power of vision, enabling them to positively see the brain and all its impressions, as well as all the vital organs ; 27 and thus are they able to discover this fluid. Judge Edmonds here acknowledges that he has seen it himself in a few instances. I have myself conducted experiments, to which reference will be made in this book, and also by the aid of such subjects who were able to see and describe the existence, color and offices of this fluid in carrying on the operations of life, and motion, and of volition and intelli- gence. Lest it should still be supposed that the degree of igno- rance to which we have alluded does not obtain, at least among the literary men of the world, in relation to the nature of the mind, and the laws by which it is itself gov- erned, let us endeavor to establish it by introducing a sim- ple illustration : It is fair to presume that those best ac- quainted with the physical laws of the human mind, and it is with this lowest department of its nature with which we have especially to do in this discussion, are that class of men who constitute the medical faculty. From the days of Hypocrates, who is considered the founder of medical science, they have been favored, as no other class of men, with not only the general facilities of learning, but more especially with those which relate to the mind in all its phases of manifestation ; but, notwith- standing this, what do we behold when we see even the most learned among them called to administer to a patient who is suffering under hallucination or mental aberration, produced by a diseased and consequently deranged condi- tion of the posterior portion of the brain which constitutes the organs of intellectual power; do they proceed as in other cases of acute, or even of chronic diseases ? on the contrary, do they not stand back, almost appalled, at the spectacle claiming the skillful application of their art, and deeply impressed with a sense of their inability even to make an attempt at the regulation and re-adjustment of the deranged mentality. How overwhelmingly do they now feel the inadequacy of their best and most reliable spe- 28 cifics to meet such an emergency, and who are more willing than they to acknowledge, that for aught they can do to the contrary, the reason of the unfortunate sufferer must continue to reel upon her throne. From these considera- tions, is it not obvious that such conduct can only be attrib- uted, as its legitimate cause, to their utter incomprehen- sion of the nature and moving principles involved in this grandest display of divine mechanism. Let us suppose a mechanic to have a perfect comprehension of all the prin- ciples entering into the construction and movements of an ordinary machine, say a steam engine, which by some casualty has become so far deranged that it is incapable of accomplishing the purposes for which it was designed, and that this mechanic should be then called to repair the injury and put it again in motion, so that it wou]d be cap- able of performing its natural functions. Now, is it not evident that, after he had made a careful and thorough examination of the whole machine, he would be able not only to detect the cause of the derangement, but with equal ease and promptitude to make the application of that remedy which would eventuate in its restoration to practical usefulness. Is it not evident that this mechanic's ability to thus nroceed and to accomplish this task arose simply from the fact that he was in possession of a perfect knowledge of all the mechanical principles entering into the construction and government of its movements. And is it not as evident that if physicians were in possession of as perfect a comprebension of merely the physical laws and organical attributes entering into the formation and government of the human mind, that they would be equally prepared to attack and as skillfully restore the diseased and deranged organs so that it would be again capable of resuming its natural functions of thought and intelligence, and of again bringing the voluntary powers of the system under the control of the will. 29 In view of these reflections, who can conceive the degree of reckless absurdity, manifested by the spiritualists, that in their zealous blunderings they should have evacuated the shores of the world, without having collected a single pebble on its limitless shore, and to delve frantically into the invisible scenes, — passing the separating veil of human penetration from whence nought but unsubstantial fabrics, such as dreams are made of, can be gathered, adapted to no other purpose but the satiaty of visionary appetites, or the development of that peculiarity of mental temperament which can only be satisfied with the marvelous and incom- prehensible ; but while mankind are able to comprehend the mechanism of a human machine, none but him, whose handiwork the god-like mind manifests, is fully able to comprehend those powers and natural capabilities which it exhibits, mentally considered, man, although in ruins, still bears the living expression of the Deity, from whose omnific hand he came forth originally stamped with the divine similitude, and bearing the inscription of supe- riority over all earth's creatures, and in the scale of being but a little lower than the angels; while all other living animals find within the present resources of the world that sphere most congenial to meet the highest demands of their nature, the aspirations of man compels him to look and hope for a future state of being in the widest contrast to that which the present resources of the world, with its most congenial elements, afford to meet the moral and intellectual capacities and demands of his being; man stands forth among his fellows as the unread volume — the most profound enigma for human contemplation ; so far as the world is concerned, the masterpiece of divine mech- anism, the great insolvable problem which leaves all our soaring thoughts behind. Oppressed with the grandeur of the human mind, how beautiful and true are those inimi- table lines of Dr. Young, introduced to illustrate the wis- dom of the Creator : 30 How wonderful is man, how passing "Wonder He who made him such ; Who centered in our natures such strange Extremes from different natures marvelously, Mixed connection exquisite of distant "Worlds ; distinguished link in beings ; Endless chain, midway from nothing To the Deity, a beam ethereal sullied and Absorbed, though sullied and dishonored, Still divine, dim miniature of greatness, Absolute ; an heir of glory, a frail child Of dust, helpless, immortal, a worm ; A God, I tremble at myself ; and in Myself am lost, at home a stranger. Thought wanders up and down surprised, Aghast, and wondering at her own. How reason reels ! Oh ! what a miracle To man is man, triumphantly distressed ; "What joy ! what dread ! alternately Transported and alarmed. What Can preserve my life, or what destroy? An angel's arm can't snatch me From the grave ; legions of angels Can't confine me there. On the supposition, therefore, that there is but a single law of mind, comprehending the secret springs of intel- lectual phenomena, manifesting itself through physical organism, that to its action may we reasonably refer all the supposed spirit manifestations, and who are prepared to show that these marvelous exhibitions are not evolved from its uncovered ability. Is it not fair, therefore, to assume that the spiritualists should first be required to master the poet's proposition, "know then thyself," in its fullest extent, before the least justification can be shown for their attempts to lift up the curtains of the ethereal scenes, and of exploring its imaginary spheres, should be tolerated? And is there not here involved a field so vast for human research, that no fragment of mortality can ever rationally hope to make a full exploration or master the sublime problem? If the principle be correct that no 31 being is fully capable of comprehending the creative mechanism interwoven in his own organism, no matter what link in the chain of created beings he who makes the attempt may occupy, and this includes man himself, for he is no more capable of accomplishing this task in regard to an ephemeral insect, or the smallest animalcule that swarms in every rain drop, than that of his own exist- ence ; we say, if this be correct, then is not the above inference legitimate ? If man is, therefore, so fearfully and wonderfully made, and that, too, simply as it regards him as the head of the animal creation without reference to his moral and intellectual nature ? And if the most profound philosophers and metaphysicians have freely ac- knowledged that they only occupied a marginal position in relation to this department of the works of the Deity, while the vast ocean laid before them unexplored, how unenviable and absurd is the attitude of those who ascribe these phenomena to the supernatural agency of the ghosts of dead men, women and children ? It would be surpris- ing that men of intellectual power and perfectly rational on all other subjects, should have adopted such opinions, were we ignorant of the assiduity with which some minds are inclined to grasp the marvelous and in comprehensible. Without regard to their intellectual attainment, this pro- clivity seems to be inherent with many. Hence the ghostly lectures delivered to the spirit believers, and the publica- tion of such theories as those which so copiously flow from the pen of Judge Edmonds, such as that the spirits of the dead leap quickly from hell or heaven, as the highest and lowest sphere, or from some midway locality, in obedience to the conjurations of these modern wizards and familiar spiritualists, to perform the august antic of causing a dining-table to hop along the floor, or, on speediest wing, to cause them to fly from their progressive spheres, to tap on the head-board of a bed occupied by a venerable judge. But it is proper here to remark, that, in view of the wide- 32 spread incomprehension of the human mind, and as it is within this range of investigation, we are here necessarily confined, that it would be unreasonable to demand more than a plausible solution of the causes involved in the production of these phenomena, having already proved the natural incapability of disembodied spirits to such achievements ; this will appear more evident, if it is con- sidered that the human mind is but just emerging from the dismal labyrinth of bigotry, superstition and intoler- ance, within whose gloomy prison-house its powers have been fettered for centuries, utterly incapacitated for that natural expansion of which it is susceptible. Indeed, the idea is but just beginning to be entertained, that the great system of revealed and scientific truth has nothing to lose, but every thing to gain, by submission to impartial investi- gation, but from having received our moral and mental im- pressibility from such an ancestry, is it to be wondered at that men of the present generation should manifest an aver- sion at the rationality of such subjects as spiritualism, and should rather imitate the example of their ancient fraternity of witches and wizards, and their conjuring consulters, by attributing these manifestations to intangible and super- natural agencies, within whose incorporal fields there would not be the least possibility, by any process of reasoning, of testing the correctness of their conclusions? The rapidity with which the spirit theory has spread, since the Roches- ter knockings, demonstrates the fact that these ancestral proclivities for the marvelous not only exist, but are prom- inent characteristics of the present age. We repeat that, in view of such facts, all that can be required at our hand is that a solution be given to these phenomena, sufficiently tangible and conclusive to furnish a key to its almost in- scrutable source, and one which will be sufficiently obvious to afford a defensive shield to those who have not become affected by its strange hallucinations, and which may also add something toward delivering this transcendent depart- 33 ment of nature from that pulverulence in which it is in- volved, by this modern system of astrological incantation. In connection with the proposition already assumed we here make four others : First, that the existence of human intelligence depends upon the brain proper, as its indispen- sable instruments of manifestation ; secondly, that the human mind is capable of putting in motion an extrane- ous substance, as its agent, by a mere decision of the will,, and which is adapted to physically impress and move a foreign body of matter, without contact by any of the vol- untary organs of the system ; thirdly, that the mind is endowed with the faculty of conveying an impression to the mind of another, without regard to intervening dis- tance; and, fourthly, that the individual receiving it, if possessed of a certain magnetic condition of nerves and brain, is capable of returning and of reading the thoughts and impressions of that mind, perfectly independent of outward signs, such as words and motions. It will be per- ceived that these propositions cover the whole ground of spiritualism, and, if successfully vindicated, settles the question as to the nature of their origin. CHAPTER IK THE RELATION OF ELECTRICITY, NERVES AND BRAIN. In this connection we wish to briefly introduce a few physiological facts, so that the arguments about to be in- troduced may be better appreciated. The first of these to which we refer is, that there exists such an intimate connection between the organic structure of the human brain (proper) and the mind, that, whenever the former becomes affected by disease, or otherwise, the latter becomes correspondingly affected, manifesting itself in aberration or irrational hallucination. It is also found that idiocy is the invariable result of a mere deficiency of brain, located in the frontal region of the cranium, phrenologically denominated the intellectual organs. We are aware that there are facts which may be produced to show this portion of the brain or parts of it to have been removed by casuality and disease without impairing, to any considerable degree the intellectual fac- ulties ; and in order to give these their full weight against our position, we will introduce a few of the most striking cases of which we have any information. These are con- tained in a work entitled " Dr. Abercrombie's Inquiries on the Intellectual Powers/' After having shown that, in general, the reason is affected in proportion to this depart- ment of the brain, on page 132 he introduces some cases (as supposed), exceptions, and remarks, that while we thus review the manner in which the manifestations of mind are affected in certain cases by disease, and injuries of the brain, it is necessary that we should refer briefly to the remarkable instances in which the brain has been seriously diseased, without the phenomena of mind being, to any considerable degree, impaired; this holds true both in 35 regard to each individual part of the brain, and likewise to the extent to which the cerebral mass may be diseased or destroyed. In another work (says the Dr.) I have mentioned various cases which illustrate, in a very striking manner, this fact, particularly the case of a lady, in whom one-half of the brain was reduced to a mass of disease, but who retained all her faculties to the last, except that there was an im- perfection of vision, — and who had been enjoying herself at a convivial party a few hours before her death. Another is a case mentioned by Dr. Ferriar, who died of an affection of the brain, and who retained all his faculties to the very moment of his death, which was sudden. On examining his head, the whole right hemisphere — that is, one-half of his brain, was found to be destroyed by suppu- ration. In a similar case recorded by Demerbrok, half a pound of matter was found in the brain, and in one recorded by Dr. Heberdon there was found a half pound of water. A man mentioned by Mr. Halioran, suffered such an injury of the head that a large portion of the bone was removed from the right side, and an extensive suppuration having taken place, there was discharged at each dressing through the opening an immense quantity of matter, mixed with large masses of the substance of the brain. This contin- ued for seventeen days in succession, and it appears that nearly one-half of the brain mixed with matter was thrown out ; and yet the man retained all his intellectual faculties to the very moment of his dissolution, and through the whole course of the disease, his mind main- tained uniform tranquillity." It is unnecessary to multiply instances of this nature, inasmuch as these are justly classified among those of the most remarkable, and by a man, too, whose qualifications for forming correct opinions in any direction, within the scope of medical science, is unsurpassed, we may safely 36 assume, that if they afford no well-grounded doubt or ob- jectionable argument against our position that such in- stances cannot be produced. In order to do this successfully, it is indispensable that a case be furnished of an individual whose entire brain, including both hemispheres of the cerebral mass, should have been so completely destroyed by disease or casualty, and carried off by suppuration, that nothing was left in the frontal region of the head but an empty cranium, without affecting the intellectual powers, in any of its faculties, before we shall be compelled to abandon our position, namely, that one hemisphere of the brain proper must exist and to any considerable extent unimpaired or ob- structed by disease or otherwise, in order to endow its pos- sessor with the phenomena of intelligence. In all the instances introduced by Dr. Abercrombie, it will be ob- served that the disease and destruction of the cerebral matter was confined exclusively to one hemisphere of the brain, and hence they are in harmony with our theory. In addition to this, it must be remembered that man is con- structed double, especially in regard to his brain, the re- sult of which is, that one of its hemispheres may be held in a spasm, producing paralysis of the opposite side of the individual thus affected, but leaving one side in a perfect state of health. This paralysis may be so entire that the senses of hearing, seeing, and that of touch may be com- pletely destroyed, as well as all power of volition, on the one side of the individual, while all these senses and the instruments of motion on the other side, remain in a state of perfect health and subjection to the will. This fact proves that man is endowed with two sets of external or- gans of sense, as well as of those of voluntary motion, and therefore proving him also to be endowed with two dis- tinct hemispheres of cerebral matter, as sources from whence their intelligent functions originate, from which, we logically conclude that one portion of this matter may 37 he entirely destroyed by disease and carried off by suppu- ration and yet leaving the intellect unimpaired, because, acting through the undiseased aad consequently unob- structed hemisphere of brain, constituting the material instruments of intellectual power. Having now disposed of this objection, and established the position that the existence of the cerebrum is indis- pensable to human intelligence, we proceed to the consider- ation of another physiological fact connected with this subject, which is, that the nerves of the human system are so many conductors of a fine sublimated fluid, from the cerebellum to the vital organs of the system, and from the cerebrum to its instruments of volition, under the gov- ernment and direction of the will. In order to establish this truth in its relation to the cerebellum, it is only necessary to introduce the results of some of those peculiar electro-physiological experiments which have been produced repeatedly by eminent physi- cians and electricians, and which we believe furnish demonstrative evidence in defense of the position that the organs of life and vitality are depending on the nervous force which they receive from the brain for the power requisite to enable them to perform their respective func- tions, the result of which is animal life. The first of these to which we refer is, that the nerves emanating from the spinal column which is perpetually communicated from the brain as the vitalizing principle of animal life, and connecting with the organs of digestion have been cut loose from their spinal roots, and the consequence was that the operation of digestion was immediately sus- pended; a galvanic battery was then procured, and its negative and positive poles applied to the roots of the nerves which were left at the spinal column, restoring the galvanic circle between the artificial battery and the organs of digestion, answering the place of the natural magnetic circle, between them and the brain, and the 38 result was, that these organs immediately commenced to perform their functions as natural as life. This experiment not only proves that there is a fluid substance forced from the brain, by its natural action through the spinal marrow and from thence conducted by nerves to all the organs of life, to impel their motion, but that this substance is identical with electricity. This ex- periment has also been tried with equal success upon all the vital organs. As the composition and structure of the voluntary nerves of the system are identical with those of its involuntary department, it would be reasonable to infer, in the absence of all other proof, that their office was also that of conductors, receiving from that department of the brain, constituting the organs of the mind, the electric force which is dispatched by the decision of the will, when any act of volition is to be performed, and carried along the voluntary nerves to those organs which are to be brought into requisition for any such purpose', but we are not left to mere inference in the establishment of this truth, for it has also been submitted to experiment the result of which is as follows : A principal nerve of motion leading to a finger in the hand has been severed in the arm above, and the result was that the finger could not be moved by the will; the ends of the nerve thus parted were then connected by the application of a piece of metallic wire, and which so perfectly supplied the place of the lacking nerve that the finger was again under the con- trol of the mind, and obeyed the decision of the will, as though the nerve had not been cut asunder. This experiment, therefore, demonstrates the fact that there is a substance put in motion by the decision of the will, or in conformity to its decision, and also that this substance is electricity, because adapted to contract the muscles as though they were in contact with a galvanic battery, and thereby giving rise to the phenomena of loco- motion, and all other voluntary movements of the physical 39 system. Indeed, the galvanic power has been so success- fully applied to the bodies of dead men, compelling them to exhibit the phenomena of life so true to nature that those who were engaged in making the experiments be- came terrified at the horrid gesticulations and contortions exhibited by the dead, and actually supposed them coming again to life. There are some points of resemblance be- tween the nervous force and galvanism or electricity, both of which are but different modifications of the same com- mon substance, which is proper here to notice, and which shows it to be most exquisitely adapted to, as the physical agent of the mind. One of the most prominent of these is that of its power of velocity. It has been truly said that its speed knows no time. With its metallic fingers it transmits telegraphic dispatches from city to city and from continent to continent, in the twinkling of an eye. This is also one of the characteristics of the lightning of the mind. So rapid are its motions that we seem to degrade them by an attempted description. The mind, for instance, receives an impression that the hand is in contact with burning metal, or any thing else which produces pain, through a nerve of sensation, when, as quick as the elec- tric flash, a sufficient quantity of its fluid messenger is dispatched by the will, which contracts the muscles of the arm as though the hand had suddenly touched a charged galvanic pile and received its charge, and the muscles, be- ing attached to the bones by their respective tendons, the hand is immediately removed from the seat of danger. Again, the image of some object with which the eye has come in contact is struck upon its retina, and from thence conveyed, by the vibration of the optic nerve, to the mind for its decision, which motion has also been produced by the imagery reflection of the object thus in contact with it. Under these circumstances the mind is aroused to a degree of activity corresponding with the importance of the suggestions associated with this specific object, what- 40 ever it may be. If it is one calculated to produce intense excitement, the mind measures off long trains of intelli- gent thought with a speed nothing less than that of tele- graphic velocity. From these facts it is evident that the principle of vitality, and the mental agency by which we are enabled to make involuntary motion, is not only iden- tical, but that it is also identical with electricity or galvan- ism, and that the' office of the whole nervous system is that of conductors of this electric force, for which they have a strong affinity. In these experiments, such as the motion of the finger, to which we have referred, there is also mani- fested the active existence of the three-fold law, indispen- sable to the production of all such physical effects. There is, first, the decision of the mind, acting through the organ- ical brain and nerves of volition; secondly, the electric agent, moved by the will, and held steady to its purpose by the conducting nerves emanating from the brain, their source ; and, in the third place, the effect, which is the in- telligent motion of the finger, in obedience to the mental mandate. We are aware that an objection may be raised to this process of reasoning, from the supposition that it leads to the materialistic view of the human mind, for if it be ad- mitted that no physical substance, such as this electric agency of the mind is known to be, can be put in motion by any other than a physical power beyond itself, and as the mind is endowed with this qualification, it is, there- fore, of a physical or material nature ; but, in answer to this objection, we would remark that its author has ad- vanced one step beyond the sphere of man's capability and power of comprehension. It assumes the position which we have already anticipated, by clearly exposing its un- tenability. Those who make this objection proceed on the presumption that, in the present state of being, men are capable of comprehending all the exquisitely arranged and wonderfully complicated mechanism interwoven in 41 this grandest display of creative skill and energy ; of man it has been truly said, that he is a universe epitomized, containing in his physical organization the chemical prop- erties of the great globe he inhabits, and with a mind, though in ruins, yet bearing the characteristic marks of the Divinity. To set up the pretension, therefore, of ability to solve this mighty problem, is the very consum- mation of folly, they should recollect that any individual mind is no more capable of comprehending his own exist ence than a machine which his own hands has produced is thus capable. From our low, mundane stand-point of observation, is it to be considered an unreasonable conjec- ture, that there may exist even many connecting links in the chain from whence originates the stupendous phe- nomena of human intelligence, before it approximates that sphere of its manifestation where scientific research begins its discovery, above and beyond which, so far as mortals are concerned, all is mere anti-physical specula- tion, scarcely worthy of being denominated abstractions, because at so great a remove from any tangible argument, and any attempt to deduce therefrom any theoretic hy- pothesis whatever concerning the manifestations of man, mentally, morally, or physically, evinces an extravagant flight of fancy, as unsubstantial as the fictitious fabric of a dream, and utterly unworthy the respect or serious con- sideration of intelligent minds ; such visionary soarings come not within the scale by which human capacity is to be estimated, the legitimate sphere of which commences at precisely that point where the known laws of nature have their application, and which are found to be neces- sary to the development of those inherent sources of power which constitute the great mental sensorium. Science and philosophy, properly so called, afford not one ray of light to direct the ethereal adventurer beyond its truths, of which Deity himself is the author. Indeed, we might go still further, and claim that were he to have made the 42 attempt to furnish mankind with a perfect picture, reveal- ing the entire nature of human thought and intelligence, setting forth all the profound and majestic principles in- volved in its phenomena, in all their degrees of minutiae, he would, nevertheless, continue to be as ignorant of its higher phases, as though no such attempt had been made, and that, too, simply because of his incapacity to compre- hend its delineations. The power of the most capacious minds, in their highest state of cultivation, are only equal to the task of searching out the laws and principles which seem to be involved in the composition of intelligent exer- cise ; and even this reasoning must be confined to the rela- tion of cause and effect,. and vice versa, through the analogy of circumstances and things, drawing a strict boundary line at that point where this relation and law of similarity ceases its application ; and an attempt, as we said before, to explore the field beyond, exhibits as great a degree of folly and presumption, as to deny that beyond its confines there exists beings and things vastly superior to those of which the present race of man is cognizant. With these views before us, are we not justified in demanding of the spiritualists that they should remain on the mortal side of this ethereal boundary-line, in their researches after truth, if they would hope to succeed in its detection ; and we would ask if they have not utterly failed by the above objection to invalidate the force and truthfulness of our argument, and equally to have driven us to the assumption of the materialistic theory of mind, leaving us philosophically the right to maintain the revealed doctrine of scripture in relation to the future existence of man, and which is in perfect consistency with the fact, that, in his present state of being, he is only capable of manifesting the phenomena of intelligence through the organic arrangement of brain and nerves, and the fluid agencies with which they are allied, including the five external senses. Having now succeeded in pre- 43 senting what we believe to be the philosophy of human volition and mental power, we are prepared to advance one step further in the vindication of the position that the mind is capable of putting in motion an extrinsic sub- stance as its agent, for the accomplishment of its various purposes. The principle, however, upon which the argu- ment we are about to advance is based, is one which we have already endeavored to establish, and it only requires its legitimate extension, in order to show that that part of the spiritual phenomena called table-moving is to be attributed to its agency. As the magnetic force of the human system is demonstrated to be identical with galvan- ism and electricity, it follows that it is not only governed by the same laws, but that it also depends upon the exist- ence of similar circumstances and conditions of things, in order that its subtle nature may be able to develop itself. One of the natural characteristics of this substance, in all its modifications, although susceptible of a rapidity of flight far beyond the power of mathematical computation, is that of inertia, the motion of which, therefore, depends upon the action of the galvanic battery, or those laws of nature with which its artificial principles correspond. This peculiarity is exhibited by the passage of the lightning from a positive to a negative cloud in a storm, when they are driven by the wind within the striking distance of each other, the positive cloud, or that containing the great- est quantity, creating an impulsive force, while that con- taining the lesser quantity, a negative or attractive force, the electricity is therefore compelled to leave the one and enter the other cloud, in a sufficient quantity to restore the equilibrium between them, when it again assumes its rest of inertia. This fact is also witnessed by the opera- tion of the magnetic telegraph, the electric force having been thrown out of balance by the application of a positive and negative pole of a battery at either' extremity of the metallic wire, over which the electric lightning immedi- 44 ately speeds its rapid flight again in search of its equili- brium, and, when found, assumes its rest of inertia. Corresponding to this natural and artificial arrangement, upon which this fluid depends for power of motion, is the human brain, whose vibratory action, in compelling the organs of life to perform their various functions, may be distinctly heard by any two individuals putting one of each of their ears closely together, and then shutting off the air from those which are not thus in contact. They may also be heard, but with less distinctness, by simply pressing our hands against our own ears. We are furnished with an- other fact, embraced in magnetic science, in relation to the nature of conductors, which is of great importance in its bearing upon this subject. Although metallic wire forms excellent magnetic conductors, and is, therefore, generally used, yet there has no substance or body of matter been dis- covered which is of a perfectly non-conductoral nature, and it is equally true that all fluids are good electric conductors. This phenomenon is exhibited in certain localities in Eng- land, where such a damp, heavy atmosphere exists, at times, that it renders telegraphic intercommunication im- possible, even by the use of the most powerful batteries, the fluid becoming so far absorbed, while prosecuting its journey, that it fails to convey the message to the place of destination. It is also true that any state of the atmos- phere, composed as it is of fluid gases, is possessed of this qualification; as proof of this, the needle, when placed within a given distance to a charged or permanent magnet, suddenly connects itself with it, the intervening air acting as the medium of communication. And indeed the passage of the lightning, to which we have already referred, ex- hibits precisely this principle, using the air as its conduct- ing wire. From these facts, we conclude that when the electric fluid is put in motion by the principle of the bat- tery, whether in external nature, the artificial battery itself, or by the human brain, it is not dependent upon any 45 particular medium of communication, and more especially that atmospheric air is endowed with this peculiarity. The application of this argument to the phenomena of table-moving is conclusive, exhibiting clearly the principle upon which it is accomplished. Let us suppose that there are assembled a number of individuals for the purpose, as a whole, of producing and witnessing these manifestations ; after the necessary preparations are made, the attention of the company becomes concentrated upon the medium and the table, which is the object to be moved, or if there is no- known medium present, then upon the object to be moved. No sooner is this done than the electric agencies of all these minds become agitated and put in motion, some by the di- rect power of the will, and others simply by expectation; this entire force, however, being thus dispatched by the will from the brain, and from thence being conducted through the nerves of the arm to the finger ends, and if these are in contact with the table, the communication is unbroken, and is readily moved in the direction the circle either wishes or expects ; but if the table is not thus touched, the intervening air acts as the conducting medium of the mental force. There is, also, in connection with this department of spiritualism, the striking fact that the most astonishing manifestations are witnessed (other things being equal) when there are the greatest number present on the occasion, who have either been magnetized or are susceptible of this influence, or if not in the greatest num- ber, those who are thus susceptible to the greatest degree. Here the question suggests itself, why is the presence of persons possessed of this peculiar magnetic temperament necessary in order to the successful manifestation of these phenomena ? to suppose that, because they are susceptible of the sleepy condition, they are selected by the spirits of the departed dead, through whose organism to thus mani- fest themselves, to our mind, is the extreme of the ridicu- lous, and if the advocates of spiritualism are capable of 46 showing it to be otherwise, why not do so, and thus, at least in one point, prove it to be something different from what we have shown it to be. The prominent fact connected with these experiments, and which contains the natural answer to the above in- quiries, is, that the mind and will of one individual is held under the most perfect control by the mind and will of another, so that, by a word or sign, as well as by a mere mental effort, the one class loses most completely, not only all power of volition, but also that of rationality, while the other class has had this power strangely transferred to themselves, so that they are operated upon like a mere machine, and that, too, without physical contact. If a man may be thus controlled and moved by the mind and will of another, why not a table upon the same principle ? Now let us recur to the illustration above introduced. Here, then, we have present some of those individuals who are thus impressible, called mediums ; and whatever other ideas may be attached to the qualifications of such, it is conceded on all hands, that with their presence such freaks as the moving of tables and other objects may be expected. Those persons present, who are not susceptible of the magnetic sleep, or of such wakeful impressibility as we shall hereafter show, and who have but little faith in these phenomena, assist, although unintentionally, in their production, but whose capacity is that of operators, their minds acting irresistibly on those of the mediums, producing on them the undivided impression that the object sought will] be accomplished, and, as they believe, so is their active power in the premises ; although there is an utter absence of evidence upon which to base such belief, never having witnessed any of the spirit manifes- tations, or who may never even have heard of their exist- ence, these are, of course, new mediums, possessing, how- ever, the only necessary prerequisite, mesmeric impressi- bility. By the governing power of the minds of those 47 operators, whether they act by design or inadvertently, the entire mental power of all the mediums present is col- lected, concentrated and conveyed to the table, the motion of which is thus effected, the atmosphere above and around which becoming so far electrified that its pressure is neutralized, or balanced, and the specific gravity of the table being thus counteracted, requires, consequently, but the slightest degree of power to suspend and move it in any desired direction, which principle may be illustrated on only a more magnificent scale by the motion of the planetary system, whose orbits are laid through this subli- mated or electrical substance, and hence, after having been once put in motion by the fiat of the almighty mind, con- tinues the same velocity with undeviating uniformity, held by the agency of the same substance, whose centripital and centrifugal forces compels their circles, and recipro- cally holds the sun itself immovably fixed in space. To illustrate the movement of tables or other objects by ihe formation of a vacuum, and by this concentration of the mental electric force, we must remember that, on every square inch of the table to be moved, there is an atmospheric pressure of fifteen pounds to each square inch of its surface, and that, too, in every direction. We will suppose the table now to be moved is a very small one, having but one square inch of surface, it has, therefore, fifteen pounds pressure from beneath as well as above it, and we will, also, suppose its specific gravity, or weight, is only one ounce. Now, suppose the force thrown upon it from the minds of those present, and it must, also, be un- derstood that a square inch of this force is millions of times lighter than a square inch of air, has charged the atmosphere on it so that it weighs two ounces less, and we have now fourteen pounds and fourteen ounces of air rest- ing on the table, while the fifteen pounds from beneath remains the same. Now, do we not perceive that this vacuum is sufficient to enable the fifteen pounds beneath 48 the table to move it upward, just as fourteen pounds and fourteen ounces in one scale will be moved up by fifteen pounds in the other scale of the balance ; and do we not, also, see that if this mental force is concentrated on any side of the table, that the result will be that it will move in the direction of that vacuum thus produced ; and do we not also see, that, as the mind of a magnetic subject is under the mental control of some one present, and its force, there- fore, thus concentrated to any point, or upon any subject, without their having any power to resist it, and held there, that the object will be thus moved, and as the table moves the vacuum moves with it, and that, too, simply by displac- ing the air to this limited extent ? It is a fact, that tables are not only made thus to per- form simple movements, but, also, to move so that they will write names of individuals intelligibly. The move- ment of the planchette, which almost every one has wit- nessed, is thus produced, and this proves that the vacuum moves with the table, and in the direction it is expected, too, by the mental force thus communicated to it. Now, if this is a law of mind, it applies to all orders of minds, and is, consequently, the principle upon which the Deity sets worlds in motion, and the great law he has applied to them to perpetuate their motions, and, indeed, this is only another name for that of " universal gravity." It is this principle upon which Christ walked upon the water, and which Peter failing to do, was rescued from drowning by the hand of Him who was the creator of nature's laws ; all that was necessary for Him to do was to remove the atmospheric pressure, so as to form a vacuum above His head, which would render the air above Him of less specific gravity than the density of the water beneath His feet, and He could as well walk upon it as on solid rock ; and when He ascended into heaven, with his resur- rection body immortalized, of flesh and bones, all that was necessary for Him to do was, by an act of His will, to 49 form an air vacuum above His head, and the fifteen pounds pressure to the square inch from beneath would cause Him to rise, as He did, majestically into the heavens. That electrical vacuums are almost continually being formed by the displacement of the heavier gases of the atmosphere is everywhere witnessed, and sometimes only to a degree that to equalize produces no report, as seen in what is commonly called " heat lightning." Dense clouds of vapor so absorb electricity that, to restore its equili- brium or fill the vacuums thus produced, the lightning's* flash and thunder's roar, is witnessed and necessary. It is also well known that a damp, heavy atmosphere often so absorbs the electric force from the wires that tele- graphic communication is impossible for the time being. But it may be said that if men can thus move objects by a mere mental effort, and accomplish such wonders, it is working miracles, but the objector should remember that every mind can produce effects according to its greatness. Christ could cure the palsy, and raise to life the dead, and this in every instance, but man can only cure the palsy, and that too under peculiar circumstances, and cannot raise the dead at all, unless the power equal to the act to be done is directly given by him, and that too for the pur- pose. But here is a natural power which man is known now to possess, by which he may heal his fellow man without medicine, as we shall show more largely hereafter, and as we shall also show such healing is, to say the least, as philosophical as that medicine cures. But we will sup- pose a man has the power, and uses it, to cast out devils, and do every thing Christ did while on earth, would Christ object to that if he were here? Indeed, this is but an ex- tension of the same philosophic principle upon which the fingers of the human hand are intelligently moved by the will and guided by the intellect for the performance of any act whatever, the air acting as the conductor of the force dispatched by the will, after it leaves the nerves at 4 50 the finger ends. The fingers have no power even to move themselves, much less to move intelligently, and are only moved by the electric agency of the mind, dispatched by the will, and guided in their action by the intellect. Now, as the nerves of motion are only conductors of this force from the brain to the finger ends, and as the air is also a good conductor of the electric force, it becomes the medium from that point to the table, or any other object to be moved, and that its motion can thus be produced, and still guided by the intellect, it is made not only to move, but to move as intelligently, writing names, etc., as the fingers themselves. The conclusions to which we now arrive in relation to the spirit power may be stated as follows : First, the de- gree of the development of mediums is in proportion to that of their mesmeric susceptibility. Second, the power to dispatch the mental force is in proportion to the suscepti- bility of receiving and acting under erroneous and absurd impressions. Third, the power to concentrate the mental . force depends upon the faith possessed by a medium of his ability to act in this capacity in the art of table-moving, etc. Fourth, the strength of this faith depends upon the depth of the impression produced upon the mind at the time. Fifth, this impression may have been unconsciously communicated from some other mind, or circumstance, or by the design of another, and in the same manner received. Sixth, the power to move tables, etc., may be the result of an individual's own experience, who may not be susceptible of mesmerism, which, of course, applies to all persons in- discriminately, the only condition being a self-relying con- fidence in their ability to thus operate, regardless of the source from whence this faith originates. For instance, let an individual commence and persevere until the smallest conceivable result is effected, such as the motion of the most insignificant body of matter, the motion of the planchette which every one can do and in this way, with- 51 out communicating any other physical force than that thrown upon it by the will, and he is furnished, although to a very limited extent, with the knowledge of his ability in this direction. After having become thus initiated, and supposing the individual to be familiar with the more astonishing exhibitions of others, greater things are attempted and successfully accomplished ; thus it is evi- dent that the degree of faith steadily increases, and as- sumes a degree of strength in exact proportion to the im- portance of the results thus produced, enabling the opera- tor to bring into requisition an increased amount of the mental force, which, upon the same principle, may be con- centrated and dispatched for the achievement of spirit manifestations ; thus it is evident that any individual may become a successful and powerful medium in the direction of thus moving objects. Here we are furnished with the philosophy of development. That all men are endowed to a limited extent with this power is evident from what has been accomplished in the performance of those simple tricks which from time immemorial have been produced by young people, supposing them to decide matrimonial destinies. Let us notice one or two of these as examples, and, first, let any two individuals sit down, facing each other, and then take a common door key and fasten the end of it opposite to the eye firmly between the leaves of an ordinary sized book, and then suspend the book between them, by letting the eye of the key rest on one of each of their forefingers, then let either of them will that the book shall revolve to right or left, as they please, and it will invariably obey such will until it swings so far around that it will fall from between their fingers. Another of these is performed thus : Let a finger-ring be suspended by a hair in the inside of a glass tumbler, the end of which must be held firmly between the thumb and finger, while the arm is resting in a position so that the hand can be held motionless, after which let the individual will, that 52 the ring shall vibrate back and forth, and it will do so until it strikes against the wall of the tumbler. In order to ap- preciate more fully the nature of the contact in this experi- ment between the object thus moved and the agency of the mind which caused its motion, it must be remembered that glass and hair, the external instruments employed in this experiment, are two of the most perfect non-conductors of electricity known. To illustrate this fact, in relation to hair, take a black cat into a dark room and rub your hand quickly over its back, and it will produce visible explosions of the electri- cal fluid, which is to be attributed to the resisting quality of the hair to electricity, which, being excited by the fric- tion thus produced, and unable to penetrate into the ani- mal, because of the thickness of its hair, therefore explodes on the surface. A corresponding experiment to this, and one which, in addition to proving the non-conductoral na- ture of hair, also proves the identity of electricity with this singular agency of the human mind, is as follows : Let an individual, while standing on an insulated stool, and after being highly charged from a galvanic battery, be examined, and what are commonly called goose pim- ples will be found to have arisen on the entire surface of his body, and on the top of which will be seen standing perpendicularly an isolated hair. The cause of this phe- nomenon is, that the individual becoming so highly charged with electricity, and which, while endeavoring to make its escape from the surface of the body, which, being so thickly dotted with little hairs, resists its passage, and thus forces the flesh on which each of them is located to thus rise. That this same result is produced by the mental agency is manifested under paroxysms of fear suddenly produced, the electrical substance under the control of the mind, which is thus alarmed, is called suddenly to the brain, its fountain, ready to be dispatched by the will to meet emergencies thus occasioned, which, being charged, 53 and even surcharged, so highly that a rush is made to escape through the cranium, but being resisted by the hair of the head, which, however, is itself electrified, and hence, assumes a perpendicular attitude. In covering the head so densely with hair, whose composition being of this character, affording the best possible protection to the brain, offering not only an external barrier to its escape, but also a defensive palladium from the attack of the electric fluid, as it flies during storms in every direction through the heavens, and which, when thus loosed, always seeks the best conductors through which to pass when in pursuit of its equilibrium, and hence avoids contact with the human head. But to prove conclusively that this phenomenon is produced by the direct and electric agent of the mind, and that it is also the same substance which emanates from a galvanic machine, let an dividual un- cover his arm, and lay it on a table so that it will rest easily ; let him then repeat audibly some sublime passage of prose or poetry which is calculated to deeply agitate his mind, producing in it that state denominated pathos, and at that moment he will discover that these little pyra- midal turrets have prominently risen on his arm, and on the top of each of which will also be visible an electrified hair. We are aware -that these are simple experiments ; but it must be remembered that the greatest discoveries of nature's laws, allied with her universal movements, have resulted from insignificant circumstances and events. The fall of an apple from a tree led to the discovery of universal gravity ; the bursting of a tea-kettle to the dis- covery of steam power ; and the flying of Franklin's kite led to the art of collecting and confining, within a Leyden jar, the "fearful lightning's" awful element, and which has finally resulted in bringing it so completely under the control of the mind, that it is chained to conducting-wires, and with its fiery-tinged fingers compelled to write its thoughts between city and city, continent and continent, in timeless velocity. 54 CHAPTER IV. WHY AKE SOME MAGNETICALLY IMPRESSIBLE. Now, if these stupendous achievements have resulted from such insignificant incidents, and if the mind has thus been compelled to climb the ascent of progress, from the smallest to the greatest, in the investigation of the works of inanimate nature, how much greater is this necessity when prosecuting an investigation into that grandest dis- play of Divine architecture — the mind of man ? In view of the arguments we have advanced, the most of which we have demon? :ated, by submission to experiment, we are willing to sul nit the question to any rational mind whether we have not succeeded in presenting clear and tangible principles, isolated or in combination, exhibiting the phil- osophic laws upon which the human mind acts in the pro- duction of that department of the spirit phenomena known as table-moving, and whether there is not here involved the key by which we may be prepared to open up and ex- pose to the light of day the most mysterious manifestation and profound secret embraced in the theory of spiritual- ism, plainly showing them all to have their origin in the laws of nature, and confined strictly within the limits of mental and natural science, or physiological power. Those who have taken the trouble to acquaint them- selves with the exhibitions of spiritualism must have dis- covered that their successful operations depended upon that condition of circumstances and things which are known to be indispensable to the successful performance of mesmeric and psychologic experiments, and if but very imperfect electricians, must have also discovered their con- nection and similarity with those requisite to the success- ful experiments with the galvanic machine. There is, for 55 instance, the formation of the spirit circle around a dining- table, which is sometimes produced by joining hands, and, at others, by mere sympathy. The principle of a circle, in the science of electrics, is one of its fundamental laws, in the absence of which all attempts at experiment must for- ever fail. In the performance of the spiritualists it is also true that opposing influences affect very materially, and sometimes render all manifestations impossible, such as the presence of incredulous persons and opposing wills. As proof of this, while we were, according to invitation, attending a spirit circle a few years since, in the city of Boston, we first endeavored to hold, by a decision of the will, the whole circle, determining that there should be no more raps, as answers to the questions propounded. We succeeded in this so far as to render them faint, irregular and confused, although on the same occasion, and up to that moment, they had been marked for distinctness and intelligence. But, as the raps were not entirely silenced, we changed the effort and fixed our will directly on the questioner, determined that there should be no more re- sponses to their interrogations, which perfectly succeeded, to the astonishment of the whole circle, each of whom made desperate efforts to obtain answers, but in vain. This was accomplished without intimating our design to the circle, which, if done, would have greatly added to our advantage, by distracting the concentration of their minds by the doubts thus suggested. The spirits often exhibit a donkey stubbornness, or at least are so peculiarly sensitive that, notwithstanding the earnest efforts of their mortal friends, they resolutely refuse to manifest themselves, unless the conjurers speedily eject such persons and wills from the room. Let an equal number of individuals, on any occasion, mingle with the spirit circle, who do not believe this to be the work of spirits, and do nothing more than simply express their opinions in regard to the phenomena, and 56 then fix their minds determinedly upon the questioners of the circle, willing that there shall be no manifestations on the occasion, and such will be the result, and according to the principle that that which has the power to hinder is also capable of producing under a reverse of circumstances, proves these phenomena to emanate, not from the spirits of the departed dead, but from those minds composing these circles. This is also true of the mesmeric and psychologic manifestations, which shuts us up again to the conclusion that they are phases of the same depart- ment of the mysterious science, as yet but very superfici- ally understood. One of the principal elements in the claims of the spiritualists is that they progress very rapidly in the spirit spheres; the ignorant become enlightened, the vi- cious virtuous, the low and vulgar-minded exalted and refined, and those who while on earth were captivated by the trio of wordly possessions, honors, pleasures and riches, now look upon these objects as unworthy even the pursuit of mortals. In regard to this claim, we would ask how it comports with that fretful, peevish, sensitive and stubborn disposition manifested to a greater or less degree by these returned spirits while mingling with their mortal friends in their nocturnal conclaves, which is true of them all, without regard to the elevation of the spherical locality from whence they have descended. Before evacuating the shows of the world, they had, perhaps, to some con- siderable degree, acquired these cardinal virtues of patience and forbearance with human weakness and frailty, so frequently manifested by coming in contact with circumstances not calculated to please. But now mark the change. Here we will suppose a little ignorant girl is acting as conjurer for the spirit circle, who have taken their places. She now sends her solemn summons to some exalted sphere, high up among the ethereal spheres, after some one from among the wise of antiquity 57 who lias thus ascended through a school of progressive discipline. The appeal is immediately heard among the starsome assembly of the -august personages, and about as quick as thought, among them is manifested by slight raps (which, by the way, exhibits a pusillanimous weak- ness in the widest contrast to the power of thundering Jove) a Plato, Socrates or Seneca, who, while living upon earth, ranked high among the ancient philosophers, and who had prided themselves, while human beings, in hav- ing attained to an elevation of stoical indifference to the trifling circumstances which deeply interested the mass of minds. But by the aid of these silly raps it is under- stood who from among the spherical fraternity thus mani- fests his presence. No sooner is this accomplished, and the whole company delighted with the anticipation of being favored with a communication from some one of these distinguished worthies, than the spirit manifests by raps its utter indisposition to make any revelations on the occasion, because, forsooth, there happens to be an indi- vidual present who has still succeeded in maintaining his rational equilibrium, or who does not believe these to be spirit noises. Efforts are made to overcome this nervous spleen of the aged spirit, but all to no purpose. Its vener- ableness becomes deeply interested in the expulsion from the room of the only individual who has not become bewitched by this spirit familiarity, and must be indulged, the circle must obey the demand, or else suffer the abrupt departure of the impatient Plato, peevish Socrates, or childish Seneca. From such facts as these, are we not furnished with conclusive evidence to refute the above claim of the spirit- ualists, showing, that instead of these ancient examples of philosophic learning having made progress since they be- came inhabitants of the ethereal spheres, that it were more proper to exclaim of them, " How have the mighty fallen ?" The philosopher Diogenes, of ancient renown, had, while 58 living, made such rapid progress in the contemplation of the works of nature and the great first cause, that he looked with a stoic dissatisfaction upon the honors, riches and pleasures of the world, well nigh that of contempt. To such a degree had his mind become elevated above all the splendor and pomp of the world, that a visit paid him by the man who had subjugated the known nations of the world to his sceptre, not only failed to excite the least sur- prise, but also to extort an admission of the superiority of his guest. " I am Alexander the Great," said the monarch ; " and I am Diogenes the Cynic," replied the philosopher, and then requested the monarch to " move from his sun- shine/' Alexander, being so impressed with the dignity and disinterestedness of the reply, is said to have ex- claimed : " Were I not Alexander, I would be Diogenes." But now behold the philosopher, after having been schooled in the spirit spheres for more than two thousand years, his attention is suddenly arrested, perhaps by an invocation sent up by a little girl, and bidding a hasty adieu to his fellow supernals, flies rapidly down from his ethereal sphere, and becomes intensely engaged, by the use of the rapping alphabet, in communicating the remarkable piece of information of the precise age of the questioner's grand- mother, and the date when the old lady died ; or, perhaps, lends an assisting hand to the other weaker spirits present to lift the legs of a dining-table over the sill of a doorway^ which had attempted to impede its motion from one room to another. Now, we submit whether, on the supposition that this is the real spirit of the philosopher Diogenes en- gaged in such trifling nonsense as this, if it would not be more just and appropriate to designate the spheres through which he had passed since his entrance there, by the use of such terms as retrogression and degeneracy, instead of progress and development ? And if happiness is not the result of weakness and degeneracy, then such spirits can- not be happy ; and does it not prove that the idea of the 59 spiritualists, that the body is only a carcass, and clog to mortal progress, that exactly the opposite is the truth ? But if this reflection is deemed too severe on the spirits, their modern apologists may offer, as a reason why they have not made more advancement in the cultivation of such virtues, the fact that ever since the advent of the Rochester knockings, they have been unable to take the least repose, having been kept forever on the wing, their conjurers having increased to such a prodigious host that nothing short of millions could be used in their enumera- tion ; like Noah's dove they were found hovering near the mortal shores, so that, having been dismissed from one circle, and not having time to reach the threshold of their home sphere, they might be ready to attend to the next solemn invocation for their immediate return. It is wonderful that these old spirits, thus doomed to perpetual locomotion, should not have made, long ere this, if they have not done so, an arrangement for changing their location, for the sake of convenience, to the mansion of Judge Edmonds, and others of like congeniality, where they would make more progress than they had done while climbing the trackless waste of etherealization. But we come now to the question, upon what principle of nature are spirit-raps produced? We have already shown that electricity, in its animal adaptation, commonly called animal magnetism, was the real philosophical me- dium, or mental agency, by which these phenomena were effected ; but to render this important point still more clear and conclusive, let us consider the philosophy of a vacuum, as an illustration. In order to form a scientific idea of a vacuum, it is necessary to take into consideration, at least, partially, the relative density of different fluid substances. A vacuum is simply the result of the displacement of a denser fluid by one of a more sublimated texture. ' When this occurs, to a certain degree, by an artificial apparatus, and the 60 vacuity thus formed is suddenly exposed to the free in- gress of the atmosphere, the result is a report, occasioned by the concussion of those elements again coming together while seeking the restoration of their natural equilibrium. According to this principle, it is evident that the volume or intensity of the report thus occasioned must be in pro- portion to the relative solidity of those substances by which the vacuum was produced, in connection with the degree of the velocity which they travel. For instance, if common air is displaced by one of its constituent gases to a very limited degree the equilibrium may be restored without producing a report sufficiently loud so as to be heard, but if the entire volume is thus removed, by an air pump, from a vessel, leaving nothing but electricity, which is of a nature so subtle that it cannot be thus excluded, which is proved by the fact that the needle will answer at its walls, but when the vacuum is thus formed, and the ves- sel itself made of such material that its walls are unable to resist the external pressure of the atmosphere, which is fifteen pounds to the square inch, will, consequently, yield to it, and the report will be as loud as the discharge of a musket. This same phenomenon is witnessed, only on a more magnificent scale, during a thunder-storm, two clouds are driven by the wind until they come within what is called striking distance of each other, which distance de- pends upon the relative degree of positive and negative they sustain, but when they thus approximate, the great law of equilibrium, which applies equally to all the ele- ments of nature, requires that the electric discharge shall take place, which is accordingly done, the fluid passing from the positive to the negative cloud, cutting asunder the atmosphere through which it passes, thus producing a vacuum, the closing of which sends forth the explosive report, shaking the ethereal empyrean with its awful voice. As electricity in all of its modifications, whether in its 61 highest form of sublimation as pure electricity, or entering into minerals or other compound bodies of inanimate nature, as galvanism, or as coursing through the physico- logical formation of animal life, as animal magnetism is nevertheless the same common substance, manifesting like characteristics and governed by the same laws, and as all substances are susceptible of a degree of motion in propor- tion to that of their density, its motion therefore being the most rapid creates the most perfect vacuum in its gambols through the universe, and by the closing of which the most terrific reports are produced, and hence it is necessary that but a very small quantity of this fluid is required to be thrown from the brain of an individual or a spirit circle by an act of the will upon any object, provided it be a hard one, such as a table, in order to produce a vacuum, the closing of which must also produce a report, and hence are we furnished with the philosophy of the Rochester knock- ings, or spirit raps, According to this principle, it will be perceived, that the greater the number of mediums com- posing a circle, other things being equal, or the greater degree of impressibility of which they are susceptible, the louder in proportion will be the raps, because the vacuum thus formed will be the more perfect. For the informa- tion of those who may never have attended the spirit circle we would say, that the raps should be called ticks, and are far from being what may be called noisy ; indeed, we have never heard one of them which seemed as loud as the tick of common house-clocks ; they usually resemble the sound produced by the feet of a very small bird while walking on the roof of a house, as heard in the garret below. The principle of these noises most perfectly illustrate the phenomena of haunted houses. It is a notorious fact, in relation to those houses which are supposed to be haunt- ed by the spirits of the departed dead, that all persons, indiscriminately, do not hear them when alone, while others of unquestionable veracity and discrimination declare that 62 they, not only hear those noises, but are sometimes terri- fied at beholding the ghostly apparitions themselves. The solution of this mystery is found in the fact that all per- sons do not succeed equally in producing the spirit mani- festations, or are not mediums. The fact is that it is as necessary that a mesmeric subject should be present, in order to enable the supposed ghosts in the haunted man- sions to produce their noises and make themselves mani- fest to the sight, as that persons possessed of this peculiar magnetic temperament should be present and mingle with the spirit circle, in order to produce the spirit phenomena, and for the same reason. Hence we are able to account for the fact that one family may reside for years in such houses and never see or hear any thing of an unusual character, while other families, through this source of annoyance, are induced to vacate them, and often to sell them at a great sacrifice. The philosophy of this mystery must, therefore, be of importance to such house-holders. If they hear such noises, it is because some members of the household are susceptible of the mesmeric influence, or are mediums, and, as a remedy, we would suggest that such individuals should be magnetized to sound sleep, and while in this condition their minds be impressed by the magnetizer that these noises will no more be heard in that house, which can be done by his declaring to them posi- tively that such will be the case, and the difficulty, so far as that family is concerned, will forever cease. In this philosophy we also are furnished with the clue to witchcraft, and had it been understood prior to that terrible period which raged for more than two centuries in England and America, the history of the world would never have been stained by the murderous tragedies of the dark and bloody annals of witchcraft. Innocent men and women, and even small children, were made witches, by being charged positively, either maliciously or igno- rantly, with this crime, their minds being susceptible of 63 that magnetic impressibleness that they immediately sup- posed themselves thus guilty, and on their own confession were taken to the gallows, or stake, and there executed, nothing having been proven against them. Such indi- viduals were simply the natural mediums of that age, or those who were susceptible of mesmerism, the least effort being all that is requisite in order to induce it, and which is often accomplished by the sympathy of other minds, without the least design on their part. 64 CHAPTER V. THE SPIRITS ONLY KNOW WHAT THE QUESTIONER KNOWS. Here we behold one of the distinguishing characteristics of truth, whether of science or revelation, that when a true principle or doctrine is discovered, its natural associations are found clustering thick around, as so many witnesses, anxious to give in confirmatory testimony, and not only suggests new truths for our contemplation, but opens up whole trains of thought, before whose glowing effulgence mysticism and fictitious theories vanish like the twinkling stars before the rising sun of the morning. Having now succeeded in presenting what we understand to be the philosophy of the spirit raps, we pass to examine the method of spirit communication, through what are called writing mediums. These, it is supposed, are under the especial and absolute control of foreign spirits. The appearance of these persons, while engaged in writing, is so identical with those while in the mesmeric state, that it clearly shows them to be one and the same thing ; they exhibit rigidity of muscle, and sometimes frightful contortions of feature, convulsing the whole frame ; when these excitable paroxysms are upon them, they seize a pen or pencil, and write sentences for the edi- fication of the conjuring circle. Whoever have witnessed mesmeric and psychologic experiments are familiar with the fact, that persons while under this influence are sub- ject to the most absolute control of other minds ; they could see, hear, smell, taste, and feel only according to the will and suggestions of those individuals who had thus im- pressed them ; their instruments of volition could move only as they were permitted ; not a step could be taken, 65 an arm raised, or a finger moved, unless the operator thus willed or suggested. How much more astonishing that the volition of a man should be thus destroyed and then controlled just like a machine, by the mere will of another, without contact — that is, without touching him directly or indirectly, than that a table should be thus moved, which had no power of resist- ance. There seems to be two classes of persons thus suscepti- ble. The one can be controlled only by suggestions made in an audible voice ; the other can be thus controlled sim- ply by an act of the will, without an effort or motion, or a word being spoken. The latter class are those who have been mesmerized to sleep, or who are thus very suscepti- ble, while the former have not been thus affected, and, per- haps, are not very susceptible ; such do not make writing mediums. In the performance of these experiments it must also have been discovered that the most ridiculous and absurd impressions were produced upon the minds of such individuals, and which to them seemed all reality, proved by the corresponding action to which they applied themselves while under this hallucination. They were made to believe themselves locomotives, and while thus impressed, would endeavor to put themselves into the shape of that machine. In these experiments we have seen individuals, the government of whose minds and of whose voluntary organizations had passed from them- selves to the minds of others so completely, that not a thought could be entertained or a muscle moved, except at the dictation, or according to the will and volition of another. They could see, hear, taste, smell and feel only such objects as he who had impressed them permitted, and even then having no power of accurately distinguishing between them, confounding water for wine and wine for water, etc. Another fact in relation to individuals thus susceptible, is, that, after. having been habitually subjected 5 66 to these experiments, they acquire such a degree of this sympathetic impressibility that they go into this state by a mere word or look of another ; and we have known per- sons thus susceptible to such a degree that they were un. able to resist the magnetic sleep in the presence of those who had been in the habit of thus affecting them ; and we have also known those who could induce this state in themselves, by a mere decision to do so, and who would, even then, appear perfectly awake. These are the highest developed mediums. To illustrate : Here is a writing me- dium, who has taken her seat at the table, for the purpose of communicating, or of being the medium of spirit com- munication. An individual present is desirous of having a communication, in writing, in relation to a subject which lies alone concealed in his own mind. The medium is im- mediately thrown into a state of magnetic sympathy with his mind, evinced by the rigidity and contortions of the muscles, the common indications of the magnetic condi- tion. Not a word is spoken, nor an intelligent sign made, by which it would be possible for even the shrewdest mind to give even a garbled answer to what the anxious inquirer desires to be made known ; but, notwithstanding this, the medium grasps a pen and writes the very sentence or sen- tences containing the precise information the individual desired to be revealed. In view of these facts, can any thing be more conclusive than that these achievements of the writing mediums are simply those of mesmeric or psy- chologic phenomena, whose origin is therefore to be traced to the same common source ? What reason can there be assigned for ascribing the impulse under which these me- diums act to the intervening agency of some supernal inhabitant of the unseen state, or to any other power than that of simple animal magnetism, and that it is thus adapted demonstrates it to be the only medium, or agency employed in producing these effects ? This medium, after having consented to be the organ 67 of communication on the occasion, stands in the same rela- tion to the mind of the inquirer as the mesmerized subject does to the mind of him who is experimenting upon him, the manifestations of both being perfectly analogous, as it respects the voluntary and involuntary movements of each, as well as the common characteristics of intelligence mani- fested by the mesmerized subjects and the writing medi- ums. Indeed, we may go still further, and say that the medium, while thus writing, sustains the same relation to the mind of the individual who is impressing or question- ing them, which is the same thing, while in this medium condition, as the pen does to the mind of him who holds it in his own hand, and no more perfectly obeys the decisions of his will, in transcribing his own thoughts to paper, than does the mind, and, consequently, the hand and pen in it, of the medium, thus obey. This handwriting of the medi- um will also be a good imitation of that of the individual whose thoughts are being thus transcribed. But there is an important feature connected with the spirit writing, unless taken into consideration, the uniformity of the re- sults would seem to be really contradictory, which is that they do not always write about that precise subject or imitate the handwriting desired by any number or of any member of the circle present on the occasion, though they should not only desire but will that this should be done (which feature, by the way, is one also of mesmerism). But this apparent discrepancy is to be attributed to that well-known law of the mind, which provides that an indi- vidual may be acting under the decision of his own will, while at the same time his mind may be engaged with other thoughts and subjects, entirely disconnected with such action. To illustrate, let us refer to our own loco- motion, which may be compared to the running of a time- piece, which, being wound up, continues its motion until the impulse thus communicated to it becomes exhausted. We will suppose an individual commences and intends to 68 walk one mile distant: at the outset his feet are set in motion by the will, communicating to them a sufficient quantity of the nervous force to enable them to transport his body the given distance, after which it is unnecessary to pay the least attention to his own locomotion, but his mind may be intently occupied by the contemplation of other matters, and yet every step is under the control of the will, and is therefore voluntary action. From this principle of the philosophy of mind, it is evi- dent that the medium may be writing or acting, on one occasion by an impulse communicated or impressed upon his mind, on some former one, and even by an individual who has been long absent or even dead, the impression being called into vivid remembrance by some similar thought or circumstance suggested on the occasion, and being of greater strength than any of those thus produced, the medium therefore writes about it, and the hand- writing will also resemble that of the party who produced the impression. In order to account for the confusion which sometimes occurs by these written communications and rapping responses, it must be remembered that two or more individuals may be impressing the mind of the medium at the same time ; but with these apparent excep- tions thus accounted for, these written communications correspond with the thoughts and handwriting of that individual who had produced the strongest impression on the mind of the medium at the moment when the writing was being executed. According to this principle, it is also evident that me- diums may thus write a much better hand and produce a more elevated style of composition than they would be able to do in their natural state of mind. This, however, would depend entirely upon whether the handwriting and composing qualifications of the individual who had pro- duced the impression, under whose impulse the writing was executed, was superior to his own. These persons 69 having thus lost the entire control over their own mind, and consequently over that of their limbs, act under the necessity of other minds, it follows that, if but a single individual was in communication with a medium at one time, the handwriting and substance of the communica- tion would be a perfect duplicate of those of that individ- ual, and the thoughts which were most prominent in his mind would be thus revealed ; this result, however, would be changed if this individual's mind was occupied at that particular moment with the handwriting and historic facts of another individual with which he had been acquainted, although now absent or dead. It is evident, also, according to this principle, that good mediums would be able to write sentences of languages of which they had no knowledge, and they might also understand their meaning ; this, however, would depend upon whether such meaning was understood by the indi- vidual from whose mind the medium had caught these sentences. What can be more conclusive, from these facts and principles, than that the supposed spirit-manifestations are comprehended within the magnetic laws of the minds of living, human beings, reciprocally acting on each other ? But, in addition to all this, we here present some extracts from a paper read by Dr. Bell as the report of a committee before the superintendents of the insane hospital of the city of Boston, which was published some few years since in the American Journal of Insanity. Dr. Bell commenced by expressed surprise at finding that, although the previous year so large a number of per- sons whose lives were spent in investigating the reciprocal influences of mind and body, scarcely a single member had bestowed a moment's attention on a topic directly in their way, which, whether regarded as an epidemic, mental delusion, or as a new psychologic science, w r as producing such momentous effects upon the world, — w r hose adherents are now said to number over two millions, with an ex- 70 tended literature, a talented periodical press in many forms, and which had taken hold of many minds of sound- ness and power. I am well, said he, aware that many were disposed to cast ridicule on those who were engaged in inves- tigating the spiritual phenomena, and especially when it was being prosecuted seriously by hospital directors, but if there were any class of men who had duties in this direc- tion it was ourselves. Our reports contain the record of many cases of insanity said to have been produced by it ; it was important, therefore, whether true or false, or mixed with both, that its precise length, breadth and nature should be studied, as it is well known that mystery always loses its terrific character when boldly met and exposed to the light of day. The Doctor remarked to his associates that, on returning from Washington, I had a peculiar wish to verify my previous observations on witnessing what are technically known as the physical manifestations of the new science ; I could not, however, doubt my former per- sonal observations, addressed to my senses of sight, hear- ing and touch, and separated, as I believe, from any possi- bility of error or collusion, and yet the offer made by Prof. Henry of a large sum of money to any person who would make one of his tables in the Smithsonian Institute move, and the obvious incredulity of many of the brothers, had produced an ardent desire to witness a full and unequiv- ocal experiment of this character. An opportunity was not long wanting : On the occasion of a well-known gen- tleman, long connected with the insane, who had never witnessed any of these phenomena, whom I invited to accompany me to a family where a medium of considerable power was visiting. This family was one of the most res- pectable in the vicinity, the head of it being a gentleman with whom was intrusted millions of dollars of other peopled money, as the financial manager of a large bank- ing institution, who, with his wife, had been for years per- I 71 fectly convinced of the spiritual character of these mani- festations. The medium was a young lady of about eighteen years, of a very slight figure, and weighing between eighty and ninety pounds, and who had discovered herself to be a medium while visiting these distant relatives. A family of such a character and position in society was beyond sus- picion or any thing like irregularity, collusion or fraud. We were so fortunate as to find the medium at home, and the circle was composed of the Hye individuals named. The ordinary manifestations of raps, beating of musical instruments, and responses to mental and spoken questions were remarkable on this occasion, as well as the movements of the table under the contact of mere finger-ends ; finding circumstances so favorable for an exhibition of more aston- ishing things, I proposed to try the great experimentum- cruses of the physical manifestations, which is the moving of the table without human contact, that is, without touching it directly or indirectly. I arranged things to suit myself, beginning by opening the table wider than common, and inserting two movable leaves, increasing its length to about ten feet. This gave me an opportunity to clearly discover any wires or machinery which might have been attached to it, as well as to enable me to answer positively as to their non-existence. The table was a solid structure of black walnut, with six carved legs and castors attached to them, and of such a great weight that I could but just move it by a full grasp of the thumb and finger of both hands. The persons stood three on one side and two on the other, with a space, between them and the table, about eighteen inches. Being tall, I had no difficulty in seeing between the table and all the persons present. At a request, the table commenced its motion with a moderate speed, occasionally halting and then gliding along a foot or two at once. It seemed to me that its mo- tion would have been continuous if the hands above it had 72 followed it in the same position which they occupied at the first, in reaching the iron rod on which the folding- doors traversed, which projected a half or three-fourths of an inch from the level of the carpet, it raised at once over it, entering the other parlor, through which it passed, until it came near a pier glass which stood at the opposite side of the room ; at a request, the motion was reversed and it returned until it again reached the iron rod. Here, how- ever, it stuck, although it hove and creaked and struggled ; but all in vain, it could not surmount the difficulty. The medium wa3 then impressed by the spirits to write, and, seizing a pencil, hastily wrote that if the fore legs were lifted over the bar, they (the spirits) thought they could push the others over, which was accordingly done and the motion continued. Once or twice during the movement of the table, I requested the whole circle to withdraw a little further from it, in order to see how far the influence would extend, and it was found that, when a greater dis- tance was reached (say two feet), the movement ceased, and a delay of three or four minutes occurred before it recommenced, conveying the idea that, if broken off, a cer- tain re-accumulation of force was necessary in order to put it again in motion. The table finally reached the upper end of the parlor from which it started, about four feet from the meridian line of the room. I expressed my gratitude to the company for the very complete exhibition with which we had been favored, but remarked that it would be enhanced if the spirits would move the table about four feet at right angles, so that the chairs would come right again for their late occupants, which was im- mediately done. The performance was so perfect and satisfactory that nothing more was asked on the occasion. This (remarked Dr. Bell) was the sixth time I have seen tables move without human contact, and all under circum- stances apparently as free from suspicion as that just described. I might have stated that the table traveled on this occasion over fifty feet. 73 CHAPTEE VI. THE PHILOSOPHY OP THOUGHT. A clergyman of extraordinary sagacious perceptions took this medium home with him, where she had never been before, and, in the presence of his family alone, one of his own tables was made to go through the fullest locomotion, without human contact. Dr. Bell then passed to consider the topic of responses to verbal and mental questions, and gave several long narrations, coming from what purported to be the spirits of persons long since dead, in which every question which he could devise, relating to matters known only to himself, were put and answered correctly ; some of which were put mentally (or without speaking) had a half-dozen replies, all of which were correct, forbidding the idea that they depended on the doctrine of coincidence, chance, or contingency. These mental questions also nega- tive the explanation of previous knowledge on the part of the medium ; to give a general idea of their character, Dr. Bell gave a brief extract of one of them. I had frequently remarked to my spiritual friends, that if any medium could reproduce the essential features of a final interview between myself and a deceased brother, which occurred in 1826, I should be almost compelled to admit it came from his spirit. A few weeks after one of these requests, I attended a circle, and what purported to be the spirit of that brother narrated all these particulars, which were of a character so peculiar, that it was impossible to confound them with generalities. Early, however, while I was prosecut- ing these investigations, I found that, however correct the spiritual responses were, the truth of which was unknown to myself, uniform failure was the consequence ; 74 and sometimes, when I believed at the time the answers were correct, subsequent information showed I had been mistaken, the facts being directly otherwise than I had supposed. Pursuing this train of inquiry, I also found that, although the spirits averred they could see me dis- tinctly face to face, yet they could never read the signa- tures taken from an old file and unfolded without any one having seen them on the occasion ; nevertheless, as soon as I had cast my eyes upon those signatures, without allowing any one else to see them, they were promptly and correctly reproduced by the alphabetical rappings. I had also made repeated arrangements with my family to the effect that certain things were to be done by them, myself not know ing what, after my departure from the house, at intervals of fifteen minutes, at which particular intervals I was to inquire of the spirits what was done by my family, and the result was also uniform failure. I also proved that the theory of the spiritualists, when called to meet such difficulties, was untenable, namely, that evil or trifling spirits interposed at their end of the telegraph, by the fact that responses immediately before and after these gross failures had been eminently and wonderfully correct, and the same spirits had not only declared that they saw with perfect clearness all that was going on at my house during these movements of things, but they also denied as emphatically that there had been any interference or inter- ruption of such things there, all of which was contrary to the facts in the case. I further exposed this theory by putting test-questions, involving replies designedly intermixed with the known and the unknown, and the invariable result was that the known questions, however curious or remote, were per- fectly accurate, while the responses to the unknown were nothing but a set of wild and blundering errors, often be- ing formed out of the phraseology of the questions pro- posed, something like a school-boy guessing for a reply. 75 The result to which Dr. Bell and his friends — for several gentlemen of eminently befitting talents assisted him in prosecuting these investigations — came, was briefly that what the questioner knows the spirits know, and what he does not know the spirits are entirely ignorant of, and that there are no superhuman agencies involved in these phenomena, or connection with another state of existence ; but that it bears strong analogies to clairvoyance, in that mysterious science of animal magnetism, a knowledge of which has been advancing and receding for the last hun- dred years. He also thought that there was reason to be- lieve that the matter reproduced might not only come from the mind of the questioner himself, but that it might also be evolved from that of any member of a circle. He made some observations upon the evidences of the spirit existence, drawn from the character of the compositions communicated by the mediums while in the state of im- pression ; of course the quality of such composition is more or less a mere matter of taste ; much of it is elevated, indicating a high intellectual and moral capacity of the minds of those from whom it originated ; much more of it is, however, purely absurd and disgusting, infinitely be- low the grade' of the human productions of the same minds from whence they profess to have emanated. Indeed, the spiritual revelations has given us nothing yet of such extraordinary value or novelty as to stamp it in the judg- ment of unprejudiced minds as being of supermundane production. Dr. Bell alluded to a treatise which an earnest spiritualist had put into his hands, purporting to be the work of Thos. Paine, the author of the Age of Reason, and which was supposed to be calculated to carry conviction to any mind of its spirit origin. The book professed to contain a full explanation of the formation and changes of the earth. The truth, however, being that whether it originated in a mind celestial or terrestrial, it was, nevertheless, grossly 76 ignorant of the very first rudiments of chemical philoso- phy ; on every page appeared the most ridiculous blun- ders in regard to matters as demonstrable as mathematics, and to which of course the answer could not be made that they were revelations too high for the comprehension of ordinary minds. He remarked that the most elevated specimens of the spiritual literature would be from Swe- denborg and Lord Bacon, and whoever would compare those contained in the first and second volumes of Judge Edmonds and Dr. Dexter, with the elegant and powerful preliminary treatises of these men while living, would probably be convinced that, although Swedenborg and Bacon had been inhabitants of the spirit spheres severally for one and two centuries, they had not equaled their un- pretending amanuensis while in the vale of tears. He closed the report by expressing his firm conviction that while faith in spirits must be abandoned as connected with these phenomena, yet, whether the topic be regarded as a delusion or a physical novelty, it was worthy the fullest examination, because it is a fact which cannot be denied that it was cutting its way deeply into the religious prin- ciples of our people. These great, novel and interesting facts have not been treated as respectfully and fairly as they should have been, the effect of which was that the community, knowing of their existence, if human senses could be trusted, turned from those who should have thrown light on these mysteries, but who could or would not, to those who gave some explanation, even though it was one which uprooted all our previous forms of relig- ious faith. He regarded the question as to the existence of spirits with these phenomena, as of so much more im- portance than any other connected with them, that he had purposely omitted many curious and interesting facts in order to its solution. How does this course of Dr. Bell and his friends, in in- vestigating this subject, contrast with that pursued by 77 Judge Edmonds while engaged in the same pursuit ? Had he pursued this investigation as patiently and laboriously as he did that of the supposed spirit origin of these phe- nomena, he could never have become a spiritualist, and surely there are startling truths manifested by the clair- voyant, and animal magnetic influence of mind acting on mind, which comes within the natural laws of mental power, where his mind, and any other of our common race, might have spent their strength without having succeeded in bringing out of its vast profundity the entire philosophy here involved. Nothing can be more evident, from Judge Edmonds' own account of his investigations, than that he exhibited strong proclivities to the idea of the connection of spirits with these phenomena, and which predisposed him to believe its most marvelous suggestion, although furnished with no more magnificent and strange manifes- tations than was Dr. Bell and thousands of others of equal sagacity and penetrating powers of mind, and, we may add, as fearless champions of truth, and as willing to make sacrifices for its development and diffusion among men as that professed by Edmonds. How marked was his patience and perseverance in his researches among the spirit circles in comparison with that superficiality which characterized his researches among the natural laws of mind, developed in the electric phenomena of the mag- netic sleep, and yet intelligently wakeful, and the latter discovery of psychological mystery, until their sources of knowledge were exhausted, which could only be done by a perfect comprehension of all the laws of the organized mind of human beings. How vain and absurd to set up the claim of spirit interference in any phase of intellect- ual intercourse and manifestation of physical power. In the absence of this knowledge, as well might it be said of steam, prior to the discovery of its power, that it was incapable and inadapted to produce the wonderments which now have ceased to astonish the world ; and more so of the 78 incapability of electricity to communicate intelligent mes- sages from city to city in the " twinkling of an eye," be- fore this discovery by Morse. But it is a consoling thought that, though all the present devotees of spiritualism con- tinue to pay their devotions at the incomprehensible shrine of spiritualism, yet there are others, to say the least, as well qualified to expose the sophistry and false reasoning of the spirit theory. Here is opened a field of intense interest and inconceiv- able importance to the well-being of human society, where impartial investigation not only invites but also imposes duty, especially on the friends of the Bible. Let these first discovered rays of scientific light which are thought to be at variance with its sacred claim to divine origin be met with this powerful weapon, in connection with true philosophy, in opposition and exposition of the unfounded claims of the spiritualists and its abominations of spirit familiarity ; let the invitations to attend the spirit-circles be answered by the words of Scripture : " When they shall say unto you* seek unto them that hath familiar spirits and unto wizards that peep and that mutter, and that seek for the living among the dead," " To the law and to the testimony ; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Although we have already alluded to the philosophy of human intelligence, and briefly to those natural laws by which it is communicated between mind and mind, yet it becomes necessary, in order to account for the intellectual- ity of spiritualism, to examine somewhat more extensively the physical organism involved it its manifestation. When we speak of human intelligence, it is not to be con- sidered in the light of an abstract thing or personality, but simply as comprehending those thoughts and ideas which have resulted from mental exercise, involving the interdependence of organic brain, external channels of communication, and objects or circumstances with which 79 the mind comes in contact, and which convey their respect- ive impressions through these organs to the mental sen- sorium. As these limits are sufficiently extensive to com- prehend all the intelligence spiritualism manifests, it would be at least superfluous to indulge in any specula- tion in regard to the manner of its existence beyond the sphere of humanity. It is, therefore, entirely foreign to the discussion whether the soul pre-existed, as some of the ancients taught, in an intellectual capacity, or whether in such a state it survives the dissolution of the body. But what we shall attempt to prove is, that in its present organized nature the mind as absolutely depends on phys- ical organs for the development of its functions of thought and intelligence as the body derives its vitality from a corresponding arrangement of organs of life and nutri- ment; we are, therefore, unwilling to take one step beyond those laws through which the sentient mind mani- fests itself and by which it becomes itself intelligent. Neither are we obliged or willing to assume the position that intelligent beings cannot exist unless organized out of the same gross materials as those which enter into the form- ation of the present race of mankind, or that it is indispens- able to such existence that they should be under the control and government of the same or similar physical laws, which are essential to human nature. The idea for which we con- tend is simply that all the knowledge possessed, by what- ever member of our common race, has been acquired through the medium of certain fixed and invariable laws, which laws themselves constitute an inherent and insepar- able department of the nature of man himself, constitut- ing him an intelligent being. The remark is often made in regard to certain individuals that they possess great nat- ural abilities or natural talents, and similar expressions, by which it would seem that the idea intended to be con- veyed is that the knowledge of such persons is natural or intuitive ; but if any thing more is designed by such ex- 80 pressions than that they exhibit a remarkable readiness to acquire and reduce to practice useful knowledge, distin- guishing them from the generality of men, then their pro- priety, and even truthfulness, is to be questioned. This is evident from the fact that the simplest phase of human knowledge is only obtained through external objects or circumstantial impressions, resulting in conclusions or thoughts evolved from what is properly termed the exer- cise of the mind, but each of which must have been pre- viously submitted to the reasoning powers ; or, the exercise of the phrenological laws of intellect, such, for instance, as individuality, causality and comparison, all of which are the essential antecedents to the conception of the most unimportant idea. It is true there are often impressions injected into the mind which add nothing to the intelligence of their recip- ient ; this, however, is owing to the fact, if we may so speak, that they are never finished, and hence are not, properly speaking, thoughts ; such are dismissed from the mind, after having been revolved over for a time by the intellectual powers. This may be for the want of sufficient evidence to confirm them, if such is required, or for the lack of the association of similarities requisite to illustrate their nature ; or perhaps for the mental inability of the individual to comprehend their signification. It is true such thoughts, if we may so designate them, may be held by the mind for a time in suspense, but eventually be en- tirely obliterated from the domain of intellect, leaving no inscription of their transient visit. That this is a correct principle of mental philosophy is evident from the fact that it requires a conclusion in regard to any matter what- ever, in order that an impression sufficiently intense may be produced on the mind, so as to imprint it firmly and per- manently upon its living tablets. It is obvious, therefore, that, by the endowment of phrenological organs and the five senses with which they are actively connected, man is 81 Bimply a sentient being, but in no degree possessed of knowledge or intelligence. But let us examine with more perspicuity those pre- requisites to the acquisition of human knowledge, in regard to which we remark that the possession of at least one of the five senses is indispensable to this end. The five or- ganic senses are so many distinct and independent chan- nels of communication through which the mind receives the respective images of objects, descriptions of objects, and things with which it comes in contact, and on whose physical tablets they are correspondingly and indelibly transcribed. The fact that the senses are distinct and act independently of each other involves the conclusion that any number of them may exist in an active and healthy condition in the absence of any other number in the same state ; for instance, an individual may be deprived of the senses of seeing, hearing, smelling and tasting, and if that of touch or feeling remains and is active, he would never- theless be intelligent — we mean, of course, if such had always been his condition; but while this must be con- ceded, it is also true that it would be impossible for such an individual to acquire that degree of knowledge of which he would have been capable if he had not suffered this deprivation. 82 CHAPTER VII. RELATION OF PHYSICAL ORGANS TO THOUGHT. To illustrate, let us suppose him to have been born blind, the consequence of which would have forever de- prived him of all that class of ideas which are derived alone through the medium of color ; in nowise would he be able to appreciate the splendor of heaven's starry canopy, or comprehend the indescribable beauty of the hues, tints, and shades of nature's expansive scenery. And so, also, if he were deprived in like manner of the sense of hear- ing, he could never have had the least idea of all that class of impressions which reach the mind only through the medium of sound ; the melody of artistic music, or the artless notes of the warblers of the field and forest would never have woke his almost dormant mind to their exist- ence. And so, also, if he were born without the sense of smell, "The odoriferous breeze That scents the balmy air, And murmurs o'er the leas, Scattering perfumes there," would never have sent into the dark chambers of his mind one suggestion of their existence, and, therefore, he could have no knowledge as derived from this source. Now, if we proceed one step farther and deprive the individual of the last or remaining organ of sense, that of touch, we have presented for our contemplation a most perfect speci- men of idiocy, and which, as we have seen, is only the necessary result of being deprived of the active existence of the five organic senses, rendered inoperative simply by physical derangement. Hence the correctness of the posi- tion that the healthy possession of all the external organs 83 of sense are indispensable prerequisites to the possession and development of the largest degree of intellectuality, and also the necessary possession of at least one of those senses in an active and healthy condition in order to render its possessor in any degree intelligent. Having now considered the ordinary laws of mind, by which the rudiments of knowledge, as well as its highest degree of perfection, is received, we pass to the investiga- tion of that principle of intelligent intercommunication between mind and mind, by a mere act of the will, and the power to read the thoughts of others, independent of the exercise of the senses. Although this principle is higher than the one we have been considering, because depending upon laws of a more refined and exalted character, yet, in a certain important sense, it is subordinate to it, because its action is confined exclusively to those who have, or have had, the organs of sense, or some of them, unim- paired by physical derangement. For instance, an indi- vidual who had always been blind could never become a medium for communicating ideas respecting color ; and so, if they were thus deprived of any of the other senses, they would be unsusceptible of the medium spirit state to communicate intelligence as derived through such senses. Here is presented a fact which irrefutably exposes as false the supposition that they are intelligent spirits from ethereal spheres, which, through the medium, thus mani- fest themselves. If this were true, then why not make their knowledge, say of color, as exhibited in nature and art, known through blind mediums, which they cannot do ? The only apology the blind medium could offer for not revealing the colors and shades of a landscape or painting would be that the spirit which was speaking through him was also blind. As we have already seen that the active existence of physical laws was essential to the reception and development of the phenomena of intelligence, as ex- 84 hibited in the action of the senses, it also follows that the active presence of such laws are as essential to the inter- change of thought by a mere act of the will. As the re- ception of thought in both cases is physical, or the effect is such, it follows that the causes which produce it are also essentially physical, at least they cannot be so dissimilar in their nature as material and immateriality. For in- stance, as the effect or impression of any object on the mind is physical, from whatever source it has been com- municated, those received by the mediums are also of this nature, proved from the fact they can remember them afterward, as we shall see more particularly hereafter ; but, from these premises, it follows that either the spirits are corporeal and material creatures, or they are naturally disqualified to produce an intelligent impression on a mor- tal mind, as material or physical effects like these can only be dispatched from a physical being, and communicated through the medium of a physical agent. Disembodied spirits may, indeed, communicate between themselves, through spiritual and anti-physical laws, but of which we know nothing. If sentient beings were capable of com- municating intelligently with each other, without the aid of motions or sounds, as signs of ideas, would it not argue the superfluous endowment of man with organic faculties and substantial fluid principles as agencies of motion for such a purpose ; but that no such reflection attaches itself to the Creator is proved by the fact that mankind are thus endowed. He considered all the attributes of which man is possessed essential to constitute him what he is. " God's works display his wondrous skill, All nature's voice proclaim ; Their harmonies creation thrill, And magnify His name." In considering the manner of communicating intelligent impressions, and the various distances at which the respect- 85 ive mental agencies or mediums are susceptible of such communication, we propose to notice that of sound, sign or gesture, and will. The medium of conveying intelligent im- pressions by sound is atmospheric air ; this has been proved by such experiments as the following : A bell suspended in a vacuum cannot be made to convey its sound ; the concus- sions produced by its motions cannot be heard on the out- side of the vessel from which the air has been exhausted, and also that the intensity of the sound is in proportion to the perfection of the vacuum, diminishing as the air becomes exhausted, and proportionally increasing as the ingress of air fills the vacuity. The presence, therefore, of air, unobstructed by a vacuum, is essential to convey words articulated by one individual so that another may be able to hear them. The air, in speaking, is thrown into motion by a sudden effort of the lungs, and while passing through and from the mouth becomes formed, by the mechanical action of the organs of speech, into the precise image represented conventionally by a certain combina- tion of letters or words ; the air thus formed and moved by the lungs communicates an impulse to the external air with which the individual speaking is surrounded, and which throws this air into corresponding undulations or waves, compelling them to convey the picture of the object thus represented, until reaching the individual for whom it was intended; these undulations striking the drum of the ear, cause the auditory nerves to vibrate, and as these have their source in the convolutions of the brain, communicates to them also a corresponding motion, the result of which is an intelligent impression of that particular object upon the mind by the sounds or words representing it. It is proper in this connection to refer to the fact that the more gross the element, or any combina- tion of them, constituting a medium of mental intercom- munication, the greater amount of force is requisite to put them in motion, and according to their specific gravity 86 will be their inclination to cease that motion, — hence sound travels slow. Here we behold a beautiful adaptation existing between this physical medium and those organs brought in con- tact with, and moved by its power, while they are not those of the most delicately formed of the system, neither are they the grossest it possesses, this atmospheric medium receiving its first impulsive touch by the action of the lungs and its finishing one by that of the organs of speech. " Sound," says a French philosopher, " is represented by electricity," and suggests as proof the following experi- ment : Take a piece of glass and cover it with sand thinly sprinkled, then let it be moved by the vibration of a violin produced by drawing the bow across the strings, after which take a microscope and examine the forms into which the sand has been thrown simply by these vibra- tory sounds, and they will be found to be symmetrical, like the forms of snow-drops as they fall on a winter's day ; they will also be found to resemble the beautiful shapes of the kaleidoscope mysteries. Thus is sound, through the agency of electricity, subject to the mathematical laws of motion ; this result is to be at- tributed to the combination of the atmospheric and elec- trical mediums, the latter being excited and put in motion by the friction of drawing the bow across the strings of the instrument, and the former or atmosphere being moved by the vibratory action of the strings themselves. The second medium of mental intercommunication which we proposed to examine being that of sign or gesture, and as it is so similar to that of sound, differing only in the organ of reception — the eye instead of the ear — we pass to consider the third medium of this nature, namely, that principle of the mind requiring only an act of the will in order to convey an intelligent idea or image of an object to another mind. That this is, as we have already said, a superior phase 87 of mental communication, is evident from the fact that as it is necessary through any of the ordinary channels of sense, in order to convey an intelligent idea or impression from one mind to another, that certain words, as signs of ideas and objects, must be agreed upon by the parties thus communicating, in order to reach this result, but which is entirely superseded by that principle which we are con- sidering in accomplishing this object. For the mind to ac- complish this result it is necessary that whatever elements are moved by the will, whether as pure electricity or com- bined with the higher gases of the atmosphere (by this term we mean those of a more rarified texture), are thrown into the precise shape, embracing all the features, colors and shades of the object which is being conveyed from one mind to another, its identical image being pre- served perfectly through the whole volume of the inter- vening atmosphere existing between the minds thus in contact, so that were it possible to construct a metallic plate or any other substance of that precise chemical na- ture and surface of which the human brain is composed, and place it anywhere between the individuals thus com- municating, the precise image, with all its characteristics of feature and color, would be struck permanently on it, and as visible as a daguerreotype picture. 88 CHAPTER VIII. OUR OWN EXPERIMENTS. Although this principle of mental communication is accomplished without signs or muscular efforts, and is, therefore, of a superior character to all others known, it does not follow that its phenomena are not as absolutely under the government and control of natural laws, and that these are as really physical, as those which constitute the five animal senses. The fact alone that the impression of an object received on the brain is physical, and which can only be the result of a sentient mind originating and transmuting it through a physical agency, demonstrates the position that the whole operation is controlled by natural laws. But, in order to establish the fact that in- telligent impressions may be communicated by a mere act of the will, it is only necessary to refer again to those strange experiments of the mesmeric phenomena with which almost every one is familiar ; in doing this we pro- pose to introduce a few of these as examples, which are the result of our own investigations and tests to which we have submitted these wonderful agencies. A few years since, while we were engaged in delivering a course of lectures in the city of Bangor, Me., on the reciprocal influences of human minds on each other, the position was assumed that the image of an object was susceptible of being communicated from one mind to another by a mere act of the will, in order to vindicate which, the following experiment was tried in the presence of a large audience : We requested a young man of that city, about twenty years of age, who had but a short time previous been found to be susceptible of this impressibility, to subject himself to a few experiments for the purpose above mentioned, to 89 which he consented. He took his position at one end of a large platform, while I stood upon the other, about twenty feet distant. All that was requisite in order to prepare him for the experiment was simply to touch with my finger the polar organ, or, as it is technically called, that of firmness, which did not require more than five seconds. Every thing being now ready, I requested any gentleman in the room to come forward, or send by writing what ob- ject they wished thus communicated. After a short pause a gentleman came forward and handed me a slip of paper with the word " rabbit" written on it ; of course, as this was a familiar animal, it was only necessary to see the name in order to have the image of a rabbit produced upon my own mind. I then turned my whole attention, or so much of it as I was able to concentrate, on the mind of him to whom I wished to communicate the picture or image of a rabbit, at the same time making an effort of the will, so that he should see the animal itself ; a short pause then succeeded of about ten seconds, until it was evident from the fixed attention of this man to a certain point, that he saw something which somewhat astonished him. I inquired in an audible voice : " what do you see ? " to which he immediately responded in a loud and distinct voice : " a rabbit." The gentleman, at my request, rose and said that was the animal whose name he had written on the paper. Another similar request was then made, when a gentle- man came forward, and, in a low whisper, which it was impossible for any one but myself to hear, said, " make him see a lion." No sooner had the animal been suggested and my mind fixed as before, but without being conscious of making the least mental effort to communicate its image to the mind of the other, nevertheless he instantly fled in terror from the place where he stood, seized a chair and put himself in an attitude of defense.* As soon as I was able to inquire what he saw, he exclaimed, in a fearful 90 tone of voice, " a lion ! a lion ! " These experiments were continued until the audience, although skeptical at first of the correctness of the principle proposed to be thus estab- lished, were abundantly convinced that, under similar oir- cumstances, such results were of invariable uniformity. There are but two conceivable principles upon which to account for these results : the one of which is that my own spirit vacated my physical frame and actually passed into the mental realm of the individual who received these intelligent impressions, and there, with its ethereal fingers, sketched these animals in all their natural delineation ; the other is that for which we contend, namely, that a sub- stantial agent, unorganized, according to the laws of animal life, and senseless of itself, was dispatched from my mind by a decision of the will, and thus communicated the images of a rabbit, lion, etc., to the mind of him who re- ceived them as such. In answer to the first of these sup- positions we have two objections to offer, both of which are founded on the commonly received opinions of the nature of the human spirit. The first is that the spirit is the intelligent and knowing principle of human kind ; the spirit, therefore, being thus essential to the existence of thought, reason and intelli- gence, it follows of necessity that were it to vacate its seat, wherever that may be in a human being, that that being must immediately cease to be conscious, and must thus remain until its return to its natural residence ; and if my spirit, on the occasion of the performance of these ex- periments, did leave its residence to communicate these sever al impressions, I must of course have been left in a state of perfect unconsciousness ; but as this was not the fact, I not being in the slightest degree aware of its de- parture, therefore the theory is false. The other objection we suggest to this theory is that the spirit is the animating principle or the vitalizing power of human nature ; admit- ting this to be true, it follows as a necessary consequence f 91 that were the spirit voluntarily to vacate the animal or- ganism, or be compelled to do so for any imaginable pur- pose, it would instantaneously cease its motions — the lungs to breathe, the heart to beat, the stomach to digest its food, the blood to circulate, and the various secreting and ex- creting organs to perform their respective functions — in a word, death would immediately ensue. To take the short way to refute this erroneous supposition we suggest the fact that, as this calamity was not the result of communi- cating the above impressions, therefore the theory is as false as it is absurd. Such experiments, as every one knows who is acquainted with the phenomena of mes- merism, are its common manifestations. As a test of this power to read the mind of another, the following experiment was also produced upon the same individual. On one occasion two men came hastily into our rooms at a public house in Old Town, Me., and stated that they had made a wager with each other to a certain effect, which, of course, was a secret with themselves, and the revelation of which would furnish an opportunity of testing the ability to thus read the mind. We all stood together on the floor, and Mr. Frost, for that was the name of the individual who could thus read, requested the two men to join hands, which they accordingly did, he himself taking one of them by the hand. A moment's pause ensued, when, addressing the individual third from himself, said, " You bet him (the one he held by the hand) that you could touch me while in the magnetic state and I not feel it," and then added, " I did not read it from your mind, but from yours " (the third one from himself), the one whose mind was on the subject, the matter of dispute, while the mind of the other was at that moment occupied with other subjects. These men immediately acknowl- edged that he had decided correctly. The reason why a touch was made the subject of wager was the fact that if any individual touched him, either inadvertently or by 92 design, while in this condition, no matter how slightly, it would communicate as powerful a shock as though receiv- ing a full charge from a galvanic battery. One of these individuals, being skeptical in regard to this fact, wished to test its truthfulness, supposing he could touch him so slightly that no shock would be the result, but which was found to be as impossible as to join the cir- cle of a galvanic battery in operation and not receive a shock. A remarkable instance of this mind-reading was that of a Parisian, who had been so often magnetized by a brother-in-law that the latter would take a newspaper fresh from the press and read it mentally, that is, without the use of the organs of speech, and the impressible sub- ject, although occupying another room in the house, with closed doors between them, would read audibly the same words in as quick succession as they were seen by the eye of him who held the paper in his hands. This Mr. Frost would also, by taking any individual by the hand, read and describe every peculiarity of their disposition with much greater accurateness and philosophical nicety of descrip- tion and delineation, although unacquainted with the science of phrenology, than any practical phrenologist is capable of doing. There is one point relating to this mental intercommuni- cation upon which it is necessary to be a little more ex- plicit, which is, that the intelligence passing from one mind to another is the result of mind reading exclusively. De- nominating the two individuals who are qualified to hold such communication the positive and the negative, for con- venience, and indeed such is the fact in regard to them, aa we have shown elsewhere, we remark that all the positive mind can do is to send, by an act of his will, an electric shock to the negative mind. This simply arrests the mind of the latter, just as the call of a telegraph operator is sent along the wires to prepare the way for his message and which thus arrests the attention of the negative and 93 fixes it on the positive, who has sent it. No sooner is this done than the electric agency of the latter, following back the course of the dispatch received, enters the mind of the former and there sees and reads from his impressed brain the information which the positive desired to communicate, and of course is able to write or tell it to those around him. If this be true, it will readily be perceived that here is discovered another mode of telegraphic communication, and how far it will come into practical use remains to be Been ; but, from what we have accomplished by experi- menting in this direction, we have no doubt but that such communications may be positively relied on. The distance to which such dispatches may be sent and received is yet to be demonstrated, and the interrupting influences dis- covered and overcome, and which would have been ac- complished long since (for we have known it for the space of twenty-five years) had not the ignorance and su- perstition of the age attributed these phenomena to the foolish and inadequate intervention of the spirits of the dead ; and, by thus degrading it, scientific and philosophic investigation has been prevented. I have myself, by the aid of a good negative, prosecuted this mental telegraphing until it was found to be correct, uniform, and therefore reliable. It is true I never have tried to see how far these dispatches could be thus com- municated ; but as this is the true theory, instead of that of spirits, it shuts us up to the conclusion that to as great a dis- tance as any of these supposed spirit communications have been received, and which is thousands of miles, to so great a distance is this electric mental telegraphing practical, this being the philosophical principle upon which such intercommunication is prosecuted, and all between living minds, or, what we mean is, living men in a mental state acting through natural laws and endowments. Now, if this great discovery is the result of the supposed spirit 94 phenomena, the world can well have afforded to wade, as it has done, through the superstitious credulit7 and marvel- ous pretensions of spiritualism. It may not be out of place here simply to state the fact that I can take individuals who are of this magnetic, impressible nature, and place one of them in one end of any hall in the city and send any dispatch which I am desired to, while I occupy the other end, and that, too, in a moment of time he will report it to those around him as correctly as though it had been sent to him by a regular telegraph ; and all that is necessary for me to do, in order to prepare him to receive such dispatch, is to touch certain nerves, which requires but a moment, and after taking our respective positions a hundred feet distant, simply to read the dispatch mentally, when he will read it audibly to those around him. It is, however, absolutely necessary that I should cast my eyes upon it, or have it distinctly on my mind, or the negative individual can in no case receive it. This may be carried on during the whole evening with- out the least injury to the negative individual. Of course, as in telegraphy, the stronger the battery the greater dis- tance the dispatch can be sent, other things being equal ; so in this mental telegraphing, the more perfect the positive and negative are to each other, other things being equal, the greater distance the animal magnetic dispatch can be sent. To perfect this method of telegraphy it requires four persons, a negative and positive at each extremity of the distance between which it is proposed to communicate. In order to illustrate this operation, we will station two of these at Albany and the other two at New York. The positive at Albany receives a business dispatch which is to be sent to New York, which he reads and then fixes his attention and will on the New York negative, with no idea, however, of sending the dispatch to him directly, which 95 he cannot do, but simply to so arrest his attention that he will think of him (the positive), which this electric shock will do, and now as quick as this thought from the nega- tive to the positive travels, will the mental magnetic com- munication be established between the two, and that, too, according to the well-known law of electrics, that the negative and positive come together and neutralize each other, and now the dispatch is being read from the brain of the positive by the negative, who repeats it to his associate in New York. This positive now writes down the answer, or has it distinctly in his mind, for this is all that is necessary, and sends it in like manner to his negative in Albany, and so the transaction is accomplished. We are aware that this may seem incredible ; but does it any more so than our ordinary telegraph did when we first heard it announced. Indeed, there is not an objection which can be brought against it which cannot be physio- logically and philosophically answered — we mean, taking the higher range of physiology, comprehending its elec- tric forces and physical laws of impression, which will one day find their way into the books. We repeat that these can be answered, even if this system of telegraphy was all theory ; but this is not the fact, for we have our- selves, more than twenty-five years ago, by the aid of these negatives, done this very thing to limited distances, but as far as they were tried to be sent, and were successful too ; that was not done in a corner and in the dark, but before large audiences, and of course who took a lively interest in the exhibition. We were, however, perfectly unconscious of the magni- tude, utility and practicability of this discovery at that time, and was only thus engaged to exhibit the fact that the spirits of the dead had nothing to do in producing these phenomena. We are aware that an objection to this system of telegraphy may be raised to the effect that it is 96 necessary that the positive and negative must come in direct contact with each other, in order to obtain the ner- vous communication before thus taking their stations re- spectfully at Albany and New York. In answer to this objection we will simply say here (and in confirmation of which we could give scores of facts), that an hour may be understood by the parties of each day when these nega- tives should go into this impressible state by the will of their positive associates at any other place or distance, and it would be accomplished ; of course the nerve-force is sent by the positive to the negative, as we have already explained, in order to effect this, and indeed, after re- peated experiments made through this magnetic power between any negative and positive, it requires but an effort of the will by the positive to throw the negative into this impressible state. And this is all our space will permit us to say upon this part of the subject. Indeed, to write out all we know of this one feature of this human, physical, magnetic tele- graphy, would require a large volume of itself, and we therefore proceed to the general subject, and which will furnish additional proof and illustration of this feature and operation of it. In order that we may be better prepared to appre- ciate the philosophy of this phase of mental inter- communication, we propose to introduce some addi- tional arguments in vindication of the position that, with whatever object the mind comes in contact so as to occupy its attention, there is produced on its physical tablets a perfect and permanent image of itself. In doing this, we propose to consider in the first place an argument in- volved in that attribute of the mind called memory. We are not to suppose that this faculty of the mind occupies a particular location as a mental organ, such as that of comparison, individuality, etc., but, on the contrary, mem ory is found to be allied with each and every distinct 97 faculty of the mental powers, so that when any of them becomes excited to action the result is the production of a permanent impression thereon. If, in connection with this idea, we take into considera- tion the fact that the organs of the mind vary in size and activity in different individuals, and also that the intensity of their impressions (other things being equal) depends upon and corresponds with this variety of development, we are furnished with a philosophical solution of the fact that the power of memory, in the same direction, varies essentially among men. For instance, one individual may be in possession of a remarkably good memory in relation to all passing circumstances and events in any way con- nected with momentary speculations, while those organs in the mind of the same individual, which give the incentive to divine worship, by long neglect are so depressed and inactive, that scarcely an impulse is ever felt in this direc- tion, and when it is, it is so very feeble that it is easily forgotten. Such individuals are often heard to complain of a bad memory, when religious topics are being dis- cussed ; but projects concerning money, having become his study by day and the theme of his dreams in the night, are never thus forgotten, but are memorized, to the exclu- sion of all other subjects within the realm of his intellect. The fact is, we remember those things which most inter- est us because these make the most powerful impression on our minds. But, as it regards the scientific principle of memory, we can conceive of no other upon which its exist- ence is susceptible of being established, only that which claims that real physical impressions are produced upon the human brain, corresponding with all the features of all the objects which the mind has ever contemplated. Indeed, we regard this as the fundamental principle of human memory. We are aware that an objection may here be raised, to the effect that the multiplicity of im- pressions which an individual receives during a long life 7 98 •would mar, confuse and disfigure each other so as to effect- ually destroy their identity. In answer to this we remark, the objector should be reminded of the fact that one of the most distinguished features of the mind is, the more its faculties are taxed and exercised, the more in proportion are they developed and the sphere of their capability en- larged, so that, unlike other created things, labor renders it powerful instead of enervating its energies, and which law would continue to operate, in this progressive ratio, on the mental powers of the most aged sons of earth were it not for the decline and failure of the physical vitality of the human system, whose vigorous action is necessary, in order to sustain a strong and highly developed intel- lect. This objection would hold good against any material surface prepared by the ingenuity of man for the reception of the pictures of objects ; the last one received would necessarily disfigure and destroy the identity of that which preceded it ; but are we to infer from this that the great architect of creation is incapable of constructing a surface not thus defective, and in connection with what other department of his work would we be so likely to find its existence as that of the human brain ? On this 3ublime arrangement, therefore, we conclude that beautiful tran- scriptions of all objects and descriptions of objects with which the mind has ever been occupied, stand pictured without confusion or irregularity. This objection appears still more unfounded and absurd when it is considered that man alone of all the works of Deity was created in His own image and after His likeness, and as an intelligent being, although in ruins, still bears some of the character- istic marks of his great original. That this is the true idea of memory is also argued from the philosophy of the asso ciation of thought. Let it be supposed that no such physical impressions are thus produced upon the brain, as the plastic tablets of the mind, and how would it be possible for it to recall past events and images of objects, together with the various scenes of nature and human occurrences through which individuals pass, and which have become familiarly asso- ciated with individual history? For instance, a person comes in contact with an object, some of whose features are perceived to bear a striking resemblance to those of some other object which has been seen at a former period. What other reason conceivable can be assigned for the possession of this qualification only that the mind com- pares the characteristics of the object now being witnessed with those of the image of the former object, which stands indelibly pictured on the brain, and hence the features of similarity between the two are recognized. The only objection which has a show of argument against this principle is, that the respective images of objects, embracing, of course, all those which have now passed from before the organs of vision and beyond the reach of the other senses are, nevertheless, retained, or held in the thinking powers of the mind. That this objec- tion is without force is evident from the fact that the thinking powers are not always in active operation, which would be necessary on the above supposition. This is the case with the operation of the mind in a state of sound sleep, in which the intellect is not only partially but entirely dormant and inactive, and consequently every object is dismissed from the realm of thought, and is therefore perfectly incapable, not only of thus retaining the images of all passed objects which have occupied the attention, but equally is it so in relation to a single one through this intellectual cessation. And how weak does this objection appear when we remember that the thinking powers can only be conceived, in their relation to the ac- quisition of knowledge, as tools in the hand of the mechanic or artist, by the use of which human skill is manifested. Hence we perceive the indispensable necessity 100 for permanent impressions to be made on the physical organs of the mind; but this objection is also irrecon- cilable with that law of the mind which renders it capable of being only occupied with a single object at once, and in conformity with which the five senses are constructed, each of which are endowed with powers only of communi- cating the image of a single object to the empire of reason at once. It is true that almost any number of the images of objects with which the eye, for instance, comes in contact may be struck upon the retina at once ; but it is also true that the mind can absolutely see but a single one of such images at once, neither does it matter whether these objects are placed in close proximity or more remote, or whether they are similar or dissimilar. And this peculiar- ity is also true of all the other organic senses, each of which is capable of conveying but a single image of an object to the realm of reason at once, although they are all distinct and act independently of each other, and not only so, but the mind itself is so perfectly individualized that if its powers are engaged in the investigation of an object whose image has been received through the organ of sight, it cannot taste or smell, and is also deaf and dumb to all other objects unless they are of more startling importance than that which is being revolved in the mind, and even then an independent effort is made to dismiss it, or suspend action upon its character without being dis- posed of, before anv thing else can command its attention. 101 CHAPTER IX. THE RECEPTION OF THOUGHT ILLUSTRATED. We therefore perceive the futility of the position, that the thinking faculties of the mind hold all the images of the objects with which it has ever been interested, which, if true, would demand continual mental exercise, but with which state natural sleep would be incompatible. From these facts and philosophical principles which they involve, is not the position demonstrated that the whole history of an individual, embracing all the variety of subjects which has ever occupied his attention, is traced on the men- tal organism, in intelligible, tangible and unconfused imagery, whose indelibility runs commensurate with mortal and immortal existence ; not an image, even the most unimportant event, is ever forgotten, bat is suscep- tible of being called into vivid recollection by the trans- piration of some similar circumstance, or the witnessing of an object possessed of similar features of identity. Here are we furnished with the true philosophy of human memory and also with a key to the solution of the principle upon which the mind of one person is read by another, and the qualification thus acquired to make revelations of what they contain, perfectly independent of supernatural agencies. The entire philosophy of this mysterious inter- course we do not pretend to understand, but, nevertheless, we can but presume that the arguments here presented are of sufficient force to establish the position that intelligent impressions are susceptible of being communicated from one mind to another by a mere effort of the will, and the ability to thus read the mind acting upon natural prin- ciples, and also that under certain circumstances, inde- pendent of the ordinary senses, one mind is capable of 102 reading the imaged impressions of another. We are aware that as some of these principles involve metaphysical nicety in their elucidation, they are therefore susceptible of objection, which they would not otherwise be, simply from the degree of mental application demanded in order to perceive their force and applicability to the subject of discussion, but not because of their incorrectness. It is, perhaps, to this fact that in no small degree the fate of new discoveries are to be attributed. It is a dark reflection upon the intelligence of mankind, which no redemption can efface, that the whole history of scientific and religious research and discovery presents but one fea- ture in this regard, the popular mind has always waged an uncompromising warfare against the promulgation of newly discovered truths, whether of science or revelation. It would, indeed, seem that the present boasting age of progress would have at least so far profited by such an an- cestral example that, when any new truth, or that which purports so to be, is brought forward, claiming impartial investigation, that the demand would not only be consid- ered respectful but important ; but how far otherwise are the facts in the case as illustrated by the phenomena of spiritualism. We behold those who should investigate them arrayed as mighty antagonists against each other ; on the one side those marvelous manifestations are either denied or ignored, notwithstanding the unquestionable evi- dence upon which they are based, while on the other is assumed the equally absurd position of attributing their existence to the agency of supernatural spirits. But not- withstanding this, it is consoling to contemplate the fact, that there are others at least as capable of this investiga- tion, who assume neither of these extremes, and who have become so far disenthralled from the antiquated notion that impartial investigation is dangerous to the progress of truth, that they have the moral courage, regardless of con- sequences, to investigate any subject whatever; before 103 such minds thus engaged mystery and error become trans- parent, which is fatal to their existence, while the great temple of truth rears its proud proportions, radiant with its native majesty and illustrious splendor, shedding its benignant beams on the mental and moral progress of the world. In whatever department of the works of Deity we rumi- nate in our contemplations, nowhere do we discover such a display of his infinite wisdom and power, involving prin- ciples so much akin to himself, as those which are found interwoven in the creation of the human mind ; between all other works of nature are found approximate traces of similarity, sufficiently obvious and analogous to enable us to reason from cause to effect, but within this realm it almost ceases its application. But as something of scientific discovery and artistic in- vention will enable us to more fully illustrate the princi- ple of communicating intelligent impressions, by a mere act of the will, independent of muscular effort or the or- gans of speech, we propose to introduce for this purpose that almost superhuman achievement, combining art and science, the daguerreotyping of pictures, the result of which, as we shall see in the various points of parallel be- tween the philosophy of this art and those embraced in the human mind, acting upon mind producing pictures on each other for future reference, is strikingly illustrated. We have denominated that agency of the mind by which the will is capable of transferring pictures or impressions from itself to other minds electrical, simply because of its sublimation, being endowed to such a degree with this characteristic, that all other surfaces of matter or substan- tial bodies are rendered transparent in their relations to it, because susceptible of its penetration, nothing in nature having been discovered impervious to its approach, or pos- sessed of those chemical properties necessary to its suc- cessful resistance. It is this feature which gives it its 104 peculiar adaptation as the mind's agent — the cranium — with all its membranous surfaces offering no resistance either to the reception or ejectment, not even an atmos- pheric vacuum, possessing the least power to impede its progress. The important fact which we wish more particularly to illustrate by the philosophy of this art is not so much that the mind is capable of receiving permanent impressions by the intermediate connection of this agency, through the ordinary channels of sensibility, but that after their reception it is qualified to transmit them independent of any such arrangement, they being read by other minds from its material brain-plates. Daguerre, the discoverer and inventor of this sublime art, and after whose name it is designated, seems to have taken the mechanism of the human eye as the pattern from which to construct his machine. There is in this ar- rangement what is called the camera obscura, into which is placed a sheet of co}">per, plated with silver, and well cleaned and polished with diluted nitric acid, after which it is exposed to the vapor of iodine, which process forms a very thin coating on its surface, and after remaining there a short period of time it is taken out and again exposed to the vapor of mercury, and then heated to a certain de- gree, when it is found to contain the likeness of the object which had been placed before the machine. There is also, in the formation of this machine, the con- vex lens, which, like the retina of the eye, looks at the object placed before it. On this lens the image is struck, and from which it is conveyed into the camera obscura, where the plate, as already described, is placed for its reception, and on which it is permanently struck, feature answering feature, as in perfect similitude. And so it is with the human eye. Its convex lens receives the image of the object placed before it, and if the mind is not so much engaged at the time with other matters, it becomes 105 suddenly aroused by the visit of this new image thus brought into its dark chambers, and, after having delinea ted all its features, receives its perfect image permanently imprinted or daguerreotyped on its living and plastic tab- lets, which is ever afterward retained, and is susceptible of being called into vivid remembrance by any similar cir- cumstance or coincidence, or by the discovery of any other object possessing similar features of identity. It is readily admitted that impressions produced upon any surface chem- ically prepared by the artist may fade and even become so far marred and obliterated by the lapse of time, that no feature of the original may remain by which to identify it. But it is not to be inferred from this that impressions pro- duced upon the human brain will thus fade, for when it is considered that, while man is the originator and constructor of this enchanting machine, that the originator and maker of the human brain, with all its arrangement of functions, claims the Deity as its architect, and hence its distinguish- ing superiority. Another of these features of correspondence between this human machine and the mind is that the eye is only capable of receiving and conveying to the seat of intelli- gence those images placed before it in the presence of light, emanating either from the sun or some other luminous body, or from one that is dark in itself, if it is endowed with power of emitting particles of its own substance with a sufficient degree of force that their velocity would set on fire the inflammable gases of the atmosphere through which they passed, which is more than probable is the philosophy of the production of the sun's light. The pres- ence of light, however, with all its constituents of hydro- gen, oxygen and electricity, is indispensable to the phe- nomena of human vision. This is also true in regard to the successful accomplishment of the above art ; no da- guerreotypes can therefore be taken in the dark. The presence of those elements requisite to create the light of 106 day are, if any thing, more indispensable to the successful performance of this art, than to render the mind suscepti- ble of the reception of impressions through the organs of vision, inasmuch as artificial light is sufficient for the ac- complishment of the latter, while the light of the sun alone is requisite for that of the daguerrean's art. This fact, however, does not affect the principle upon which the artist's machine and the eye acts in the production of these common results, but simply proves the superiority of the human eye, with its connection of nerves and brain, to the instrument of the artist. Another fact which exhibits this comparative superiority is one to which we have already referred, namely, that while the artist's machine, together with the plates pre- pared for the reception of a picture, is capable of receiving but a single one on its surface, the plates of the mind (if we may so speak) never become blurred or confused by any number of impressions which may be produced on them ; but, on the contrary, their increased number only serves to enlarge its sphere of action, and which in the same degree develops its capacity for the reception and retention of the future imagery of thought. Upon its God-like leaves may be piled image upon image, scene upon scene, picture upon picture, until the vast earth, with all its variety and infinity of objects, embracing their peculiarities of form, color and shade, becomes quite absorbed, and yet the re ceivability of but an individual mind remains compara- tively empty, and is infinitely further from being satiated than when it received its first impression. As we have assumed electricity to be the agent of the mind, through whose medium it conveys duplicate impressions of those images, previously produced upon itself, and that even as to color and shade, it follows that this substance is pos- sessed of the properties called coloring matter, of all the pristine colors that variegate the landscape and beautify the face of Nature. ' 107 In order to demonstrate this character of electricity, we tried the following experiment : We procured two round plates of common glass, each about an eighth of an inch in thickness and three inches in diameter, the surfaces of which were flat and smooth. We then rubbed them to- gether until there was a sufficient quantity of electricity excited so as to cause them firmly to adhere to each other, and immediately there appeared, as by magic, all the pristine colors, perfectly resembling those of the rainbow in the clouds. We have often repeated the experiment, and found it to be of unexceptionable uniformity, the col- ors appearing perfect as long as the plates were left adhering to each other, which they would always have done, because exhibiting the phenomenon of a perfect magnet ; but when they were forcibly separated, the colors immediately disappeared, proving conclusively that it was the electric fluid thus excited and retained by the non- conductorial power of the glass plates which contained the coloring matter, and which this simple operation developed into the colors themselves. Another fact in regard to this experiment is, that the greater amount of electricity excited by a corresponding degree of friction, manifesting its pres- ence by the comparative firmness with which the plates adhered to each other, the deeper in proportion were the colors thus produced. This experiment may suggest the principle which will enable the artist, eventually, to take his pictures with all their variety of tint, color and shade ; however this may be, it illustrates the capability of the substantial agent of the human mind to communicate, not only the precise imagery of its own impressions to other minds, but to color them in their perfect similitude. Another important principle exhibited between this art and the transmission of intelligent impressions is, that all the elements which enter into the composition of light, and which intervene between the machine of the artist and the object to be daguerreotyped, are thrown into mo- 108 tion and formed into lines, circles and angles, simply by the relative position of it and the machine before which it is placed; it is also immaterial whether the object is ani- mate or inanimate, and notwithstanding also that there are no moving, mechanical devices in the construction of the machine adapted to convey force to these intervening elements, compelling them to convey the impression of the object whose likeness is to be taken, nevertheless, this is as really the result of the operation as though they all ex- isted and were thus controlled by the ingenuity of mechan- ical skill, because it would be impossible to produce such a result unless all the intervening elements were thus thrown into motion. Were this not the case, not an evanescent impression of any object whatever could be produced, or one that would not vanish like the mirrored form when the object before it is removed, or when an opaque body was placed between them. In this operation we observe the existence of the three-fold law before dis- cussed as an indispensable prerequisite to the production of physical impressions, a moving cause, consisting of a mechanical machine, an agency or medium consisting of atmospheric air with its constituents of inflammable gases and electricity, and in the third place the effect consisting of an image permanently struck on the surface of a metal- lic plate chemically prepared for its reception. In this wonderful display of art we are furnished with an ap- proximate solution of the principle of this strange mental intercommunication. Here we have simply a machine and an object placed in a certain relative position to itself and upon the condition that the operation shall be performed in the light of day. These taken together constitute the natural law, controlled by artistic skill and scientific knowledge, exhibiting this sublime result, all these inter- vening elements electrically and chemically adapted to produce it, being thus compelled to move from the object to the lens in the machine, and from thence again conveyed 109 into the camera obscura in the precise lines, circles and angles corresponding with the identical features of the object whose imagery is thus transferred. This achievement of art, we repeat, furnishes an illus- tration which may be comprehended, and hence appreciated even by ordinary minds, and which must forever settle the question as it regards the philosophical principle upon which the mind acts in communicating tangible and intel- ligent impressions by a mere effort of the will independent, and therefore of a superior character to that upon which it ordinarily acts in the accomplishment of its purposes, and we cannot conceive how any individual, properly weighing its force and applicability to the spirit theory, can avoid becoming fully convinced that there are no such beings or things as spirits in any way connected with these phenomena. 110 CHAPTER X. A HEALTHY BKAIN ESSENTIAL TO HUMAN INTELLIGENCE. It is not only true, as we have before intimated, that the mind in its lowest department of physiological organism is endowed with all the principles embraced in the Daguer- rean machine, in their exact order of arrangement, but it is also endowed with additional attributes and appliances, rendering it still more capable of receiving and transmit- ting the images of the objects with which it is brought in contact. To illustrate this superiority of the mental struc- ture, it must be remembered that the lens of the eye is connected by the optic nerve from the retina to the brain, forming a direct and unbroken channel of communication between external scenes and the seat of reason and realm of vision where all objects are seen, whose physical plates, all prepared and polished by the skillful hand of the Divine Architect, all images are traced, whereas no such conducting medium exists between the lenses of the artist's machine and the camera obscura where the images of objects are formed, the intervening atmosphere alone being compelled to subserve this purpose. Another fact exhibiting this comparative superiority of organic arrangement is, that while it requires a number of seconds for the artist to procure his pictures, the mind acts instantaneously in their reception and transmission, its wonderful agent as it regards time and space, most strik- ingly corresponding to the velocity of thought — on its electric or lightning wings are borne intelligent communica- tion hundreds of leagues in a computeless period of time, in fact far out-stripping the speed of the revolving earth, and hence its measurement of time ; but in addition to this it must be remembered that while there is no moving Ill apparatus in the arrangement of the artist's machine, and which necessarily disqualifies it to convey its pictures to any considerable distance, the organs of the mind, consist- ing of convolutions of brain, possess an inherent power of motion, and when by the excitement of some intense thought or occurrence sends out its impressions with noth- ing less than telegraphic speed. To demonstrate the existence of the motion of the organs of the brain in their intellectual exercise, we might pre- sent a multitude of facts, if it was a point upon which existed much doubt, but the following example will suf- fice for this purpose. It was in Paris where it occurred : A man received a fracture of the skull, occasioned by a fall. The effect upon his mind was that of perfect insan- ity, as the fracture had not been properly examined when it was produced. Some months afterward it underwent a second examination, when it was found that a piece of the skull had been driven down into the substance of the brain, there acting as a wedge to prevent its delicate movements. At the time of this calamity the individual was engaged in conversation with a friend, and it was remarked that when the surgeon removed the piece of skull from the brain he immediately resumed the subject of his discourse and fin- ished the precise sentence which had been cut short by the accident. It is evident from such facts as these, and they are numerous, that the motion of the convolutions of the brain or the mental organism is indispensable to the pro- duction of human thought and intellectual exercise. This function of the organic department of the mind, we re- peat, furnishes another feature of its superiority to the mechanism involved in the construction of the machine under consideration. This phenomenon may also be tested by our senses. For instance, let any two individuals try the following experiment, and all doubt as to the actual motion of the cerebellum, conveying the vital force to the organs of life, will be removed. Let them each place one 112 hand firmly against one of their own ears, so as to shut off the atmosphere from the drum, and then let them put the uncovered ear as close against each other as possible, and they will hear the vibratory oscillation of each other's brain, and it will be perceived that there will be a striking resemblance between these vibrations in carrying on the operations of life, and those produced by the action of the galvanic battery. The legitimate inference from this is that if the motion of the convolutions of the cerebellum are necessary to the existence and continuation of vitality, that also of the cerebrum, comprehending the intellectual organs, is as necessary to the performance of thought and human rationality. But there is one more analogical principle existing between this art and one of the most singular manifestations of spiritualism, which so evidently comes within the laws of science that it seems to us that, in the absence of all other arguments, it would prove these phe- nomena to be simply the results of the physical depart- ment of the minds of men while here in a mortal state . The phenomena to which we refer is that many of the communications by the writing mediums are inverted or back-handed. It is a well-settled principle in the science of optics that all objects are inverted before they are struck upon that part of the organs of vision where they are seen by the mind ; this is owing to the two extreme rays of light reflected from the extreme points of the object looked at, which cross each other at the optic angle in the center of the pupil of the eye, which is effected by the different forms and textures of the humors of the eye ; thus the rays begin to converge in the aqueous humor, are per- fected and brought fo a point in the crystalline humor ; but when they strike upon the vitreous humor, which is of a concave surface in front, they diverge or spread out, and hence on the back part of the eye the object is perfectly pictured, but in a reversed position. 113 The front surface of the aqueous humor being of a convex form, contracts the rays of light reflected from an object, and the same surface of the next humor, the crys- talline, also, being that of a convex form, continues this contraction to a point. To illustrate : suppose a plume one foot in length were placed before the eye of an individual, and, as the rays of light pass equally from every part of that side of it toward the eye, those which proceed from the extreme points are contracted by the aqueous humor to the length of one-half inch, and, again striking the con- vex surface of the crystalline humor, are contracted to a point ; and, as this humor is of an oval form, and as the point of convergence is at the center of this humor, the next surface which these rays of light meet is of a concave form, being the anterior half of the crystalline humor, pass- ing through which they next come in contact with the vitreous, which is also of a concave form, and hence con- tinues the expansion of the rays received from the plume ; those, however, which proceeded from the top of the plume have conveyed that part of its picture to the bottom part of the eye, where the mind sees it, and those which ema- nated from the lower part in a reversed order ; that is, to the upper part of the seat of vision ; hence, according to these laws of vision, the mind actually has painted on its beautiful tablets an inverted panorama of all the objects with which it has come in contact. Here an objection arises to the effect that if it is the mind that sees, and all objects are thus inverted to its eye, why are they not seen upside down. Without stopping to present the various theories of Locke, Buffon, Berkeley and others of like philosophic skill as opticians, suffice it to say that for the mind to see an object it must be remembered that the rays of light which we have described invert the object by their differ- ent humors while conveying its image into the realm of vision. 8 114 They also reverse this order as the mind follows the same rays of light back again to the object itself, which is therefore seen in its true position, hence the objection weighs nothing against the inversion of the images of ob- jects struck upon the physical organs of the mind prepared by Divine skill for their reception. Now, with this philos- ophy before us, we are prepared to understand and also to appreciate the spiritual phenomenon of the medium's writing being inverted. For instance, here is a medium whose familiar spirit has enabled her to glide on its elec- tric wings into the picture gallery of another mind, and she there sees all the images and descriptions of objects traced with which it has ever been acquainted, but in an inverted order of nature. There is seen, among other things, the handwriting of the individual, and the medium proceeds to transcribe his signature, and as she sees it inverted on his brain she writes it in the same manner, and hence the philosophy of this phenomenon. How strikingly do we behold this phenomenon explained, when we look into the camera obscura of the artist and see a tight, dark box, containing a lens fitted into it, through which the light passes as it falls upon a screen behind, forming an inverted image of the object to be represented ; how completely do we here discover also the fact that this instrument is copied in its contrivance from the mechan- ism of the eye. May we not from the light thus afforded conclude that there is in the manifestation of spiritualism no necessity for the intervention of the spirits of the departed dead, and if any contend for their existence may it not be from a deficiency of the light philosophy affords in their possession, and which accounts for the strangeness of their position ? 115 CHAPTER XL THE DEGREES OF ELECTRICAL IMPRESSION. This sublime combination of science and art furnishes arguments and illustrations which must be satisfactory to all who are capable of reasoning from cause to effect and vice 'versa, through the analogy of principles and things, and exhibiting the same philosophy as that involved in the singular mental intercourse effected by a mere act of the will, independent of the exercise of any of the organs of sense. In addition to this, may we not infer that if a machine produced by the inventive genius of man is thus adapted to convey the images of objects to a limited distance and there paint them in living similitude, that the God-like mind, with all its wonderful paraphernalia of physical organism, is thus adapted, claiming as its origin- ator and maker the skillful hand of Him who spread out the heavens as a curtain, and lit up its otherwise dark concave with the starry night-lamps of beauty ? Are we not here presented with sufficient evidence for the belief, not only of the existence of the singular phenomena, but that their origin is found in a combination of natural causes ? Indeed, this principle of mind-reading owes its existence to the philosophy of negative and positive in the science of electrics. In these magnetic relations of mankind, one of the pri- mary laws of electricity, that is two negatives and two pos- itives equally resist each other, while the negative and pos- itive come together, applies with scientific precision . An individual may become charged and even surcharged with the animal as well as the galvanic electrical force, or may be naturally so, and while in this condition assumes or sustains, in relation to all others within the circumference 116 of their magnetic atmosphere, the condition of positive, and it naturally follows that upon whomsoever from among them such an individual, while in this medium state, fixes his attention, that his mental electric agent glides as quickly and unmolestedly as the lightning's flash within the sensorium of that mind and there reads from its pic- torial scenery all the past impressions received from wit- nessing objects, or from hearing or reading descriptions of them, as well as his present designs and future calcula- tions, which constitute his individual history, much of which may have passed from his present mental concep- tion, or, to use a familiar expression, are forgotten. It is evident that this knowledge, thus strangely acquired by the familial spiritualist, may be returned to the same individual in the form of revelations from the spirit world either by writing, raps, or oral declamation. In regard to the distance at which these communications may be interchanged, we remark that it depends upon the difference of the magnetic temperament possessed at the time between the individuals thus communicating. The principle being the same as that exhibited by the lightning passing from one to another cloud in a storm, this distance depending upon the degree one of them is charged with electricity above the other, with this difference, however, that the negative and positive in men depends upon the different quality of electricity in their nerves. The following is a remarkable instance of this sym- pathetic transmission of intelligent impressions: On the day of Lieut. Dale's death in Syria, who belonged to the United States exploring expedition to the Dead Sea, which was sent out some years since, whose wife being then in Pennsylvania, remarked to a gentleman, who afterward testi- fied to the fact : " I wish you to note this day ; my feelings are so unaccountably strange, and my spirits are so depressed, that I am sure some great calamity awaits me ; note it, that it is the 24th day of July," and which afterward proved to 117 be the very day on which her husband, in that far distant land, had expired. In regard to the philosophy of this singular occurrence, we would remark that on the day this lady received this impression her mind was turned with peculiar solicitude toward her beloved husband, the inten- sity of whose feelings were produced by his sufferings. Under these afflicting circumstances, his mind was deeply fixed upon his wife, fervently desiring she should know his condition, producing in her mind as intense a desire to be thus informed, when, as quick as the lightning's flash, these sympathetic impressions were communicated. Simi- lar occurrences are so frequent that it would be tedious and useless to continue their relation. How common for an individual, while approaching a friend after a long absence, for the latter to have his mind suddenly arrested with thoughts of him, when he immedi- ately enters his presence, hence the adage, " talk of the devil and he is always at your heels." We are aware that it is contended that individuals susceptible of this medium state, or that of magnetic influence which are identical, are said to be in a negative magnetic condition, but the fact that adding to always renders more positive, and as this is the principle of magnetizing, it proves this to be untenable, the fact being that such are rendered positive just in proportion as they have been charged higher than their natural condition by the electric forces received from other minds, hence it is not the impressions being conveyed to the minds of the mediums which gives them this power of spirit familiarity, but the ability thus acquired to read the secrets of other minds ; we speak now of making mediums by magnetizing them to sleep. There was a lady in one of the western States whose mind and body, while in this medium condition, was so highly charged with the electric force that chairs and other arti- cles would fall in the vacuum produced by her simply walking through the room. 118 CHAPTER XR THE WITCH OF ENDOR. Let us now examine the case of the witch of Endor, who is supposed to have raised the prophet Samuel from the dead, in order to show the superior advancement of an- cient spiritualism, but at the same time of its identity with that of the modern spiritualists. Although this prac- tice was prohibited by a divine statute, the infringement of which was held to be a capital offense, which was an- nounced by the use of such emphatic language as that " Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live ;" " There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of the times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer, for all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord, and because of these abom- inations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee." Here we perceive that the divine inhibition was equally against those who consulted the familiar spiritualists as well as those who possessed them, and that these terms comprehend every imaginable phase and feature of spirit- ualism, which, in all ages of the world, has manifested itself, every characteristic of which has been practiced by idolatrous priests, to give a mysterious and false dignity to their various forms of man-degrading superstition and folly, and even the modern charmers have selected sub- stantially from this nomenclature the badge of their pro- fession, spiritualists. We repeat, that, notwithstanding these practices were thus inhibited by divine statutes, with pains and penalties affixed, yet it is recorded of Saul, the 119 king of Israel, after he found that the Lord had forsaken him, and he could obtain no more answers from him, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by the prophets, that he had recourse to this practice, hence said to his servants, " Seek me out a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may inquire of her." It is rather significant that it was the women of ancient as well as of modern times who were possessed of the familiar spirit. But, after their research, they found such a woman who dwelt at a place called Endor, and who was probably a witch of great celebrity, especially among the higher classes ; so at night (the season most appropriate for such dark business) the king dressed himself in disguise, and followed his servant-guides through the dark and lonely thickets of Endor, until they arrived at the door of the secluded harem where dwelt the interdicted spiritual- ist; after obtaining an entrance, and the preliminaries being arranged, one of which was that the stranger should swear unto her that, if she would consent to divine unto him, no evil should befall her in consequence ; then said the woman, "Whom shall I bring up unto thee?" and he said, "Bring me up Samuel the prophet," And when the woman saw Samuel she cried with a loud voice, and the woman spake to Saul, saying, " Why hast thou deceived me, for thou art Saul," and the king said unto her, " Be not afraid, for what seest thou ? " and the woman said unto Saul, " I saw gods arising out of the earth ; " and he said unto her, " What form is he of ? " and she said, "An old man cometh up, and he is covered with a mantle ; " and Saul perceived that it was Samuel, and he stooped with his face to the ground, and bowed himself. Then follows the communication (as it was supposed) from Sam- uel the prophet, through the witch medium, the substance of which is as follows : — First, that in consequence of the king not having given heed to the calamities which Sam- uel the prophet had predicted would come upon him for 120 his having forsaken the Lord, that the Lord in return had abandoned him, and that he was now not only to lose the kingdom in his own person, but it was to be rent from his whole posterity and turned over to his neighbor, David, and his line of succession. This theomancy closes with the fearful announcement that on the coming day both Saul and his sons were to be with Samuel among the dead. We are aware that it has been supposed that this witch did actually raise the prophet from the dead, and had it not been for the revival of the divination of antiquity under the pious name of spiritualism, but which consists in the magnetic influence of mesmerism, such an idea might have still been entertained with no small degree of plausibility, and the book which contained the narration still been exposed to the ignorant jeers of infidelity, which skepticism has delighted to pour upon its sacred pages, but, with the light thus afforded, such are left like Samson shorn of his locks. We observe, in this account of ancient spirit familiarity, that the witch required the king to tell her the name of the person with whom he desired to hold converse, to which he readily consented. It was probably new business for Saul, who had not yet learned the lying deception thus practiced upon the credulous. The Chaldean king having been favored with this experience, and who on one occasion summoned all the magicians, astrologers and sorcerers of his empire to make known to him his dream, and the interpretation thereof, which duty he imposed upon them ; they answered him : " let the king tell his servants the dream, and we will show the king the interpretation thereof, for there is no king, lord, nor ruler that asketh such a thing of any magician, astrologer or Chaldean." "Nay," said he, "but tell me the dream, and I shall know that ye can show me the interpretation thereof ; there is but one decree for you, for ye have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before the king." Although it is not absolutely essential that the 121 inquirer should tell the name of the individual who is to be consulted, nevertheless it greatly facilitates and renders correct the responses, inasmuch as the name of an indi- vidual is always associated with his particular history, and as every mind has within itself the prominent historic events of those with whom they have been acquainted, therefore by naming any one of whom directly introduces that individual to the mind of the medium, enabling her to select and read from the mind of the inquirer that chain of historic facts which belonged to the person about whom the consultation is being prosecuted, with much greater ease and correctness than though the medium was obliged to depend upon the sympathetic association and mental concentration existing at that particular hour between the inquirer and the individual about whom the inquiry is being made. If Saul, therefore, had been skeptical in regard to the honesty and ability of the medium to reveal to him what he desired, and had with- held the name of the deceased prophet, it would only have taxed a little more severely the familiar spirit of the Endor witch. Although Saul had this confidence in regard to information coming from such a source, still it must be remembered it was his last extremity, and hence only applied to after all other sources of instruction of such a nature had utterly failed him, proving that it was of the most doubtful kind, in which he could repose confidence. The God of Israel had turned a deaf ear to all his solici- tations, he could obtain no more answers through the divinely arranged medium of the Urim and Thummim in the tabernacle ; the voice of the Lord's prophets, whose warnings and reproofs the rebellious king had long since ceased to regard, were heard no more bearing their instructive messages, and in this state it was that the abandoned king desperately concluded to hold a midnight consultation with a witch, notwithstanding a statute of his own kingdom required their utter extermination, and 122 which, in the former part of his reign, he had most zeal- ously executed. If we pay particular attention to this history of divina- tion, we will see that Saul did not see the person of the prophet, but, from the description the witch gave of him, in answer to the question of Saul, " whom seeth thou ? M which he put to the witch, " and what form is he of ? * saying " an old man cometh up and he is covered with a mantle," we say it was from this description of Samuel that Saul perceived that it was him whom the witch saw, and immediately was he seized with those feelings of awe and reverence which characterizes the spiritualists at the present day, when some notorious spirit announces its presence by insignificant raps or otherwise. This Endor witch had attained a superior state of development ; her power of spirit familiarity being so great that, with the least effort, she could put herself into the mesmeric or spirit-medium state, and immediately she was in electric sympathy with the mind of the excited king, and, on its living tablets, beheld the likeness of Samuel the prophet vividly transcribed, and no sooner had she made this dis- covery than she also perceived, from the relative associa- tion of events which had existed between these two notable personages, that it was Saul himself who stood before her, and, becoming alarmed for her own safety, exclaimed, " Why hast thou deceived me, for thou art Saul ?" which, however, was quieted by the king's response, "Be not afraid, for whom seeth thou ? " That part of the communi- cation which announced the death of Saul and his sons on the coming day was simply a confirmation of his own fearful apprehensions, which the surrounding circum- stances, portentious of disaster, defeat and ruin, naturally suggested. In this extremity the abandoned king's mind, intensified with excitement and absorbingly concentrated upon one subject, presented a picture as easy to be read by the witch 123 medium as could possibly be conceived. This was proba- bly the first circle Saul had ever attended, and he seems to have become perfectly charmed by the medium, re- ceiving her announcements with as much reverence and dignity as though they issued from heaven itself; he bowed himself and stooped to the ground. Saul must have reasoned thus with himself: The Lord, whose " throne is high and lifted up," sends me no more answers and now, if these be gods who thus communicate, they must be of an earthly nature ; this thought the witch caught from his mind, and hence she exclaims, " I saw gods ascending out of the earth" and Saul supposing she saw Samuel, whose venerable form was now vividly in his mind, inquired " What is he like?" two features of whom the witch proceeded to describe, relating to his age and raiment. " An old man cometh up, and he is covered with a mantle ; " this had the effect to completely overpower the king, and as his coming fate was thus declared it be- came a fixed fact in his mind. So powerful was this im- pression that we hesitate not to say that, in no small de gree, it worked out its own fulfillment — from that moment naught could he see before him but discomfiture, defeat and death. On the one hand every source of encourage- ment which presented itself to his bewildered mind dwindled away, as he contemplated it, into mere insignifi- cance, while, on the other hand, the least unfavorable oc- currence was magnified and its features distorted into a dark and hideous omen ; thus was he rendered an easy prey to his enemies. So confidently did he credit the witch's prediction of his approaching doom on the coming day that he seems to be intent on its literal fulfillment, and long before the day passes he is found soliciting one of his armor-bearers to slay him, and failing in the attempt he madly throws himself upon his own instrument of death, and thus suicidely perishes, which might have been averted had he not consulted this infamous witch. 124 CHAPTER Xin. THE BIBLE AND SPIRITUALISM. How strikingly does this example of ancient spirit famil- iarity correspond to the modern spirit intercourse, the cir- cumstances and features of which are perfectly identified. Both turn away from the revelations of Jehovah, and both in proud defiance of the Divine inhibition of the sin of witchcraft, nevertheless seek unto women that have famil- iar spirits, with whom nightly consultations are held, both send their invocations after the spirits of the dead. There is, however, much more dignity in the solemn conjurations of the ancient magicians, than the questions and rapping answers of the spiritualists, an example of which we will introduce : " Whatsoever ye are, shadows, substances or spirits, appear ; ye who have left your clay to wither, and are become the messengers of space, and tread the winds of the stasome wilderness, come forth from your stately heights and stand visible before me. Thou pale tenants of the dread Elysian, arise and be manifest. I recall thee, thou phantasy of the past ; thou who livest in solitude and darkness, appear; come like the shadows and so de- part." It must, however, be admitted, that Saul's peculiar con- dition furnishes something of an apology for applying to the witch of Endor, while the modern spiritualists, placed under no such circumstances, yet deliberately and per- petually have recourse to this dark and soul-destroying practice, and not only so, but superciliously declare that familiar spiritualism entirely supersedes any further use for God's holy book, but while they thus excel in wicked presumption those of ancient times, they come far short in equaling them in spirit exhibitions, from the days of 125 the famous witch of Endor, and even back as far as the days of Moses, before the exodus from Egypt, this spirit witchcraft had arrived at a degree of perfection that the modern witches, with all their boasted degrees of develop- ment, have scarcely began to approximate. If it were proper to denominate this practice anciently, familiar spiritualism, how much more appropriate that of modern spiritualism. Individuals who have believed in seeing and hearing spirits or ghosts, have been, perhaps, but once so favored or terrified by their appearance or noises in their whole lives, and so important an event has this been considered, that, if the lives of the individuals have been written, it has always been recorded of them, or if not, their children or grandchildren, from generation to genera- tion, would be found rehearsing this event as perhaps the only one of the history of their grandparents, which had survived oblivion. But these ghostly visits have become so familiar that their manifestations have ceased to alarm, though they rap never so loudly, and instead of the noises being con- sidered the return of some remarkably uneasy spirit, they are now hailed with delight, and are consulted with as much gravity and solemnity as though they were indeed a reality, and we can but suppose that so they seem to the spirit believers, as much so as that which Shakespeare supposed existed in the heat-oppressed brain of the mur- derous Hamlet, on the appearance of his father's ghost, exclaiming : "Angels and ministers of grace defend us ! Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned ; Bring with thee air from Heaven or blasts from hell ; Be thy intent wicked or charitable, Thou comest in such a questionable shape That I will speak with thee ; I'll call thee Hamlet, King, Father, royal Dane ; O, answer me ; Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell , Why thy bones, hearsed in canonized earth, 126 Have burst their cerements ; why the sepulchre, Wherein we saw thee quietly inurned, Hath oped its pondrous and marble jaws To cast thee up again ! What may this mean? That thou, dead corpse, again in complete steel Revisitest thus the glimpses of the moon, Making night hideous with tho'ts beyond The reaches of our souls." MACBETH. "Is this a dagger which I now see before me, The handle toward my hand? come, let me clutch thee! I have thee not, and yet I see thee still, In form as palpable as that which now I draw. Words to the heat of deeds to cold breath gives, I go, 'tis done, the bell invites me : Hear it not, Duncan ? for it is a knell That summons thee to Heaven or to hell." If Shakespeare had lived in our day of spirit familiarity he would never have disgraced the tragical scenes of Macbeth with the introduction of this imaginative, ghostly visit. But we conclude by expressing the hope, notwith- standing this sad picture of human frailty we are thus called upon to contemplate, that spiritualism has done its worst, having reached the culminating point in its ruinous career, from whence the mysterious veil is withdrawn and the ethereal travelers returning without a vision to the appropriate theater of human rationality. At this point we propose to consider the connection and contrast between spiritualism and divine revelation. As the advocates of the new religion assume that it super- sedes any further use for that contained in the Bible, we propose to investigate the grounds upon which it rests, to see whether indeed it is well founded. We remark, in the first place, that there is a vast differ- ence between the respective authors of these systems of revelation, while the one claims the Supreme Deity of the universe as the author and inspirer of its sentiments, the other has a combined authorship of three classes of beings, 127 namely, angels, devils or wicked spirits, and the spirits of the good who have died. As it is admitted that all these classes are created beings, and therefore subordinate, and depending upon the divinity of the scriptures for their existence and all the knowledge possessed by them of a future state, and as they are engaged, or are supposed to oe ; in instigating their congenial spirits of mortality to be- lieve and propagate sentiments antagonistic to those con- tained in the Bible, is the supposition admissible that they are of a character calculated to supersede those of divine revelation ? This presumption appears still more absurd, when it is considered that these spirits do not even pretend to act otherwise than independent, not even professing to be commissioned ambassadors of the Great Proprietor of the universe, and, if they were, would it be rational to credit their messages unless bearing the unmistakable marks of divine origin ? In order to be such, they should necessarily contain information relating to the origin and destiny of our race, more consonant with common sense and harmonious with scripture truth, furnishing additional instruction to their teaching upon these great topics ; ad- ducing also more light than they furnish in regard to the course to be pursued by men in the present state in order to answer the design of their being in futurity. We say this instruction must be in harmony with that which the Bible contains, because there is the most indisputable evi- dence for the belief that "the scriptures came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of old wrote as tliey were moved by tlie Holy Ghost" This evidence is spread out before the investigating mind of the world; and, in the present day, assuming more the form of conclusions than of premises. Indeed, we have now reached a promontory in " the controversy of Zion," including the truths of nature connected there- with, from whose elevation we may retrospect the past and behold the whole fraternity of the skeptical, though en- 128 dowed with the most gigantic intellects and towering degrees of mental culture, all along the wayside of the march of philosophy and scientific discovery, lay in van- quished and hopeless desolation. The two great sources of argument, which vindicate, beyond the possibility of successful controversy, the divine origin of the Bible, are : first, that its principles are found to be in the most beau- tiful concord with all the demonstrated truths of science and philosophy; and, secondly, its prophetic predictions are fulfilled in the civil and ecclesiastical history of the world, up to the present period. So far has the light of the past established the divine origin or authorship of the Scriptures, that it is as rational to conclude that no future discovery will be calculated to invalidate this claim and to show it to be not the book of all time and equally indis- pensable to all generations, as to suppose that the discovery of some future planet or satellite, revolving in space, will prove the whole system of astronomy to be false and of no further use to mankind. But some of these spirits not only teach that the Bible is without divine origin but openly declare, through their mediums, that there is no God, such as the Christian wor- ships. It may indeed be, though in their highest spheres they have never obtained a glimpse of His adorable per- son, and their opposition to the Bible would seem to iden- tify them with that class of whom it is written, " They shall be banished from the presence of the Lord, and the glory of His power." Engaged in making these revelations, professedly, are such spirits as those of Payne, Voltaire, Volney, Gibon and others of like sentiments, who, not sat- isfied with their earthly career of abuse of God's holy book, are still intent on the accomplishment of this idol- ized purpose of their lives, the destruction of the hated Bible. No marvel, therefore, that spiritualism should pro- fess to supersede any further necessity for it. It requires but a very superficial acquaintance with the 129 history of our race to convince any one that relinquish- ment upon the Bible is the very last requisition with which mankind should yield compliance. If that degree of advancement to which civilization has arrived is held in high esteem by the intelligent, it must be remembered that its first twinkling star was lighted at the shrine of divine revelation, and ev^ry additional one, developed by its onward progress, down to the nineteenth century of the Christian era, forms but a circling constella- tion around this great central sun, whose radiating force holds them within its territorial circumference, scarcely a ray of which has ever dawned upon any nation destitute of the Bible. Should civilization, therefore, yield its grasp on this sacred luminary, and consent that it should be forever obliterated from the remembrance of mankind ; would its sun not go down in an eternal eclipse, and retrogression henceforth mark its sad career? Can the world cease to be thus reluctant until it is demonstrated, beyond all possibil- ity of failure, that something was discovered better cal- culated to do its work in this direction? and can it be supposed that spiritualism, originating in no higher a source than the Fox family, and dating no farther back than the Rochester knockings, has already accomplished the transcendent achievement of eclipsing God's holy book, the moral, and I may also say intellectual, light of the world ? Are the principles of humanity held in admiration by the heart of the world ? from whence did they originate ? where, if not in the Bible, were its lessons first inculcated ? is it not true, that in whatever country the circulation of the scriptures are inhibited by law, there humanity is almost a stranger ; and where it is entirely unknown is witnessed a vivid picture of those beautiful lines of Burns : "Man's inhumanity to man, Makes countless thousands mourn." 130 But we would ask if this claim of spiritualism is, to say the least, not made prematurely ? Has its principles ever been tried independent of those of the Bible, or where it was unknown? Has its advocates ever turned mission- aries and gone with their rapping revelations and table- tippings to the dark wilds of heathenism, as the heralds of the Cross have done, with the " sword of the spirit, which is the word of God ? " and with such instrumentalities suc- ceeded in overthrowing the gods of the savage, and in con- verting his dark mind from rude barbarianism, to a peaceful member of human society and an example of humanity, having exchanged his instruments of cruelty for works of mercy, and the superstitious rites of idolatry for "the peaceful fruits of righteousness?" If its prin- ciples (we repeat) have been tested in accomplishing this great work more perfectly, and generally in a shorter period of time than it has been done in thousands of in- stances by the gospel of the Son of God in the hands of his ambassadors, then, indeed, would such a claim demand the respectful consideration of mankind. But, instead of having pursued this commendable course, their converts are only made where this work of humaniz- ing, moralizing and christianizing society, has been already accomplished by the power of the scriptures of truth, and even here, instead of these being the fruits (and the tree is to be known by its fruits) of spiritualism, to the disgrace of the system, be it said, that many a man, and perhaps many more women, have been seduced from the high and holy calling of Christianity, to the reception of these mes- meric (but supposed spirit) revelations, having thus thrown off the restraints of the Bible, they even seem to emulate each other in expressions of ridicule and contempt of this holy and awful volume. It is true that some confessed infidels, by their conver- sion to the new religion, say that they are somewhat more friendly to the Bible, their hatred is not so rampant as for- 131 merly in this direction ; but we think these are fairly represented by those converts which were made some eighteen hundred years since, of whom the Great Teacher declared, although sea and land had been compassed for this purpose, that the proselytes were two-fold more the children of hell, than they were themselves. But in the more direct discussion of this claim of the spiritualists, we remark, that any system adapted to supersede another must be superior to it in the accomplishment of the object proposed, both as a whole, and in its individual parts, if such it has. The object contemplated by the scriptures is the highest development of man of which his nature is susceptible, as a mental, moral, and physical being. Spiritualism, therefore, in order to be successfully vindicated, must be shown to be superior for the achieve- ment of this great work, in these several departments of human nature. In order to present the leading features of the spirit theory, so that they might appear in contrast with the leading features of revelation, we have found it almost impossible to select from among the scattered fragments of the new religion any thing like a consistent and tangi- ble system, touching its theory of a future state ; the gen- erality of the spirit revelations, consisting as they do of such a heterogeneous mass of contradictory confusion. Whether we should consult the writings of Judge Edmonds as standard works, or those of Andrew Jackson Davis, or the revelations of the notorious Foxes of Rochester, we have been at an utter loss to decide, and we are therefore left to select, as best we may, from this mysterious chaos, what constitutes the doctrines of spiritualism. The Bible presents the resurrection of the dead as one of its funda- mental doctrines, which is set forth by an inspired apostle in the following emphatic language : " If there be no res- urrection of the dead, then is Christ , not risen, and if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain ; yea, and we are found false witnesses of 132 God, because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ, whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not, for if the dead rise not then is Christ not raised, and if Christ be not raised, ye are in your sins, then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished ! " " If after the manner of men I have fought with the beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me if the dead rise not ? Let us eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die." Thus it is obvious, that the teachings of the Bible make the transpiration of this great event fundamental to that development of the saints in a future state of being, in order that they may be capable of the enjoyment of its eternal fruition. The spiritualists, on the contrary, believe that when each successive member of our race dies, he enters immediately into that peculiar sphere adapted to the precise degree of mental and moral development which he had attained while living, and from thence commences a progressive pilgrimage of disciplinary ascension toward higher spheres, and which movement is also interminable. In regard to the term " sphere" whether it is employed to signify geographical dimensions, theaters of action, or motion, or states of mind, it is equally impossible to ab- stract from it the idea of locality. From this view of sphere, together with the fact that no two individuals of our race died when they had reached that precise degree of mental and moral development, and hence no two were ever introduced at the event of death into the same sphere or place, and remembering also that it is claimed that each progresses steadily toward higher spheres, from these positions we argue that association is an impossibility, and the conclusion unavoidable, that there are as many spheres in this ethereal expansion as there are individuals who have ever lived and died, or whoever will thus appear and depart, each of whom, isolated, may with the island exile say, " I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute." 133 CHAPTER XIV. THE FUTURE STATE OF THE BIBLE AND SPIRITUALISM: CONTRASTED. Each of these spheres are ascendingly vacated as other spirits enter from below. If the claim is admitted that some progress with greater rapidity than others, still it only proves that the spirits may thus occasionally come within speaking distance of each other, like ships at sea, but such communications must necessarily be short and indistinct, transpiring only while being hurried along by the gravitating power of the higher sphere, but permanent association is utterly incompatible with this theory. Strange facilities such a state furnishes for disciplinary progress or the development of its inhabitants ; no marvel that the spirits should have retrograded since their entrance therein, as the interest they manifest in making the presumptuous and senseless revelations of spiritual- ism shows them to have done. In contrast to this, the Bible reveals a state of glorious being, whose inhabitants are to be eternally allied with the principles of immortal- ity and incorruption, formed and fashioned like Christ's glorious body. It requires but a very limited comprehen- sion to conceive the adaptation in the most perfect and exquisite degree, of such a state to meet the highest aspira- tions of the human mind; how absurd the presumption that such a future state of being is superseded by these ethereal vagaries of the new religion. Indeed, had it not been that the Bible reveals a future state of existence, we can hardly conceive how such an idea would have ever found its way within the realm of human thought. If it is said that heathen nations thus believe, we answer that their ideas in this direction are but traditionary corrup- 134 tions of the revelations of the Deity of that state contained in the Bible. This is easily conceived when the fact is taken in consideration that the Bible justly claims chrono- logical priority to all forms of religious belief ; this idea is also confirmed by the fact that they all bear some characteristic features resembling those of the Bible ; there is, for instance, an organized priesthood, common to all forms of heathenish and idolatrous worship. There is also that of sacrificial offerings, which are offered in the idol-temples, the virtue of which are supposed to render the gods propitious. There are many other features of identity between all the forms of heathen worship, no matter how degraded they have become, which we might introduce, but we suppose these to be sufficient to show them all to have had a common origin and that origin the holy scriptures ; therefore, we still maintain that, had they never been written, mankind would never have had the least concep- tion of a future existence, and, of course, of any thing re- lating thereto. The new religion of spiritualism entirely dispenses with all these elements, which characterizes all other forms of religious belief, showing it to have de- scended to a depth of corruption far below Bhuddism, Hindooism, Mohammedanism, and even Mormonism, all of which have their regularly established priesthood, and fully credit the doctrine of the necessity of sacrifice in order to obtain the complacency and favor of the gods ; but so perfectly etherealized is spiritualism that every thing like substantiality is magically dissipated, as well in the present as the future, by the touch of its spirit fingers, showing it to be in the widest contrast of all others of human invention, which have ever bewildered the minds of men, to that contained in the Bible. But what are some of the elements of that future state portrayed by the pen of divine inspiration? and how are' they adapted to meet the natural aspirations of the hu 135 man mind ? In answer to which, in the first place, we find man placing a higher estimate on the possession of life, than any other conceivable acquisition, to meet this longing element of the soul, the Bible proposes to confer this boon upon him eternally. Exclaimed the great Teacher, in relation to that state, " Neither can they die any more." On the last lovely morning shall the re- deemed turn their eyes from the dark and ruinable tomb to scenes of life and immortality ; they shall hear the voice of the author of the new creation exclaiming, "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; and the earth shall cast out her dead." In response to which the prophet declares, " Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they awake," and the song shall be chanted over vanquished sepulchres, " 0, death ! where is thy sting ? 0, grave ! where is thy victory ? M Next to this inherent in the human mind, is found an insatiable thirst for permanent happiness, to meet which the Bible proposes conditions with which every one may comply, an introduction into an eternal state of un- alloyed felicity wherein " there are pleasures forever- more." The human mind also deprecates the existence of that pain, suffering and deprivation, incident to the present state of being. The future of the Bible forever excludes all these from its immortal realm. The mind, also, starts back at the idea of constitutional corruption and decay to counteract the ravages of these principles. It is not only proposed to re-create the dead into incorruptible beings, to bloom in eternal youth, but to introduce them into an inheritance which is itself incor- ruptible and as fadeless as immortality. How senseless that such a system can possibly be improved, and how impossible for human conception to invent a superior one, and which is indispensable in order to supersede this ; and how notoriously insignificant the chimera of spiritualism appears in the contrast. But the darkest feature of the 136 new religion is manifested in the adroitness with which the existence and importance of Jesus Christ, in order to the development of man in the present and future state, is treated. A being who comprehends in his own person all that is ennobling and worthy of imitation, and without whose example, which others have partially followed, Socrates would perhaps have been the highest example of human development of which the world ever could have boasted. They have ranked this glorious being, most blasphem- ously, at the head of this wizard tribe of familiar spiritual- ists. The necessity of His sacrificial death, in order to the elevation of man in a future state of perfection and endless glory, meets with no sympathy by the spirit frater- nity, who, by the merits due to their own virtue, climb from the lowest hell, or, to use their mild phrase, sphere, up to the highest heaven. That these are not new doctrines, but substantially those of heathen philosophy, will appear by a few quotations from the writings of Socrates and Euclid : Says the former, " When the dead are arrived at the fatal rendezvous of departed spirits, whither their demon conducts them, they are all judged; those who have passed their lives in a manner neither entirely criminal nor absolutely innocent, are sent into a place where they suffer pains proportion- ate to their faults till, being thus cleansed and purged of their guilt, are afterward set at liberty and receive the re- ward of their good actions which were done while in the body ; but those who have passed their lives with peculiar sanctity of manners, and are delivered from their bodies as base earthly abodes, as from prisons, are received on- high in a pure region which they inhabit, and, as philoso- phy has sufficiently purified them, they live through all eternity in a series of joys and delight which I cannot easily describe." The opinion, also, of Euclid, in reply to inquiries from 137 his friends in relation to a future state, upon which he had been discoursing, thus resumed the subject: "It is pre- sumed that there are above us an infinite number of other beings who escape our sight/' This opinion, conformable to the progress of nature, is equally ancient and general among various nations from whom we have borrowed it, and we believe the earth and heavens to be filled with genii, to whom the Supreme Be- ing has confided the government of the universe. We distribute them throughout all animated nature, but prin- cipally in those regions which extend around and above us from the earth to the sphere of the moon. There, ex- ercising an extensive authority, they dispense life and death, good and evil, light and darkness. The innumer- able number of spirits we divide into four classes: the first is that of the gods who reside in the stars; the second, that of the genii ; that of heroes ; and the souls of men after they are separated from their bodies ; and these are subject to changes by which they pass to a superior crder. From the rudest kind of existence we ascend, by imperceptible degrees, to our own species ; and, in proceed- ing from that limit to the divinity, we must, no doubt, pass through different orders of intelligence, so much the more glorious and refined as they approach to the throne of the Eternal Being. Although the doctrine of the so-called new religion thus originated, yet there is one point of difference showing it to be more inconsistent, as well in the nature of things, as with the teachings of the Bible. While Socrates taught that those who lived and died destitute of a moral fitness for virtuous and holy associa- tion, could never obtain it in the future state, the latter adopt the dogma that all, without regard to moral charac- ter, will finally reach the abode of holy beings. Says he, " Those who are judged to be incurable, on account of the greatness of their crimes, having deliberately committed 138 sacrileges, murders, and other great offenses, the fatal des- tiny that passes judgment upon them hurls them into Tartarus, from whence they never escape." But now let us see whether the claim of spiritualism, in regard to man as a moral being, is any more susceptible of being sus- tained. Any system or set of rules calculated to develop the moral nature of man must be adapted to enlist the feelings or sensibilities, by presenting to the judgment a certain course of action, the pursuit of which will enhance the pleasurable sensations of our nature, either in the present or future state. Admitting the correctness of this principle, it follows that that system of motives appealing to the greatest number of moral sentiments, and embrac- ing in the greatest degree those things after which the minds of men instinctively aspire, as a reward to induce virtuous action, is the one best calculated to develop the moral nature of man, and we are free to admit that it is the system destined to supersede every other and that it is right it should do so, and we will add that no man can be justly considered a benefactor of his race who withholds from it his influence and aid in order to insure its speedy and triumphant success. In order, therefore, to test the respective claims in this respect of spiritualism and revelation, let us consider these claims. In reference to the former, we remark, that we know of but two sentiments it contains possessing to any degree the power of incentive to induce moral rectitude. One of these is, that the spirits sometimes expose gross crimes and those who commit them, hence sinners should be cautious. In relation to the ability of these mediums to detect crime and criminals, we remark, that it is only available within the spirit sympathy or atmosphere of such mediums, and, therefore, if the self-conscious trans- gressor would avoid detection and exposure, he must simply absent himself from the spirit circles. If the influ- ence of the spirits through the mediums is not thus cir- 139 cumscribed, and they are able to expose all the crimes and criminals in the community, why do they not immediately commence the accomplishment of so desirable a task. It is true that they might by such procedure draw down the vengeance of the wicked upon their heads, and some of the mediums might be sacrificed in consequence, but what matters that, if they succeed in giving the world, as is conjectured, a new religion, possessed of this moral power and one that all men will embrace, they should consent to the immolation of a whole hecatomb of mediums, if such would be the result. But the fact is they can expose no crimes or criminals only such as they read from the mind of those in their presence who have been either guilty themselves or know of those who are. The other article in the spirit creed, of this character, is that the more moral and virtuous men become in this life, the higher correspondingly will be their sphere as a start- ing point in the ethereal ascension after death. At first sight, this seems to present something of a mo- tive to virtue, but which dissolves into pure weakness when it is considered that the spirit climbers have eternal duration stretching before them in which ample amends may be made for any failure in life. Upon this principle, how natural to reason thus : when a transaction presents itself, that, if indulged, would degrade human nature and moral sentiment, and which would infringe the rights and interests of others, to gratify our own selfish ends, what matters it suppose in consequence I am obliged to take a little lower seat in the Swedenborgian heaven, the circles of eternity spread out before me, in which I shall have ample opportunity to rise, from no matter how low the locality, to the transcendent heights above. In these ambitious flights the strains of Lucifer may be reiterated, and the transgressor may sing with the rebellious angel, " I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will set upon the mount of the congre- 140 gation, I will ascend above the clouds, and be like the Most High." He'll therefore do the inhibited deed. These lines of Burns, "The fear of hell 's the hangman's whip, To keep the wretch in order," has no terrors for him. As this is the moral cord with which spiritualism is going to transform human society, we feel no small reluctance in submitting the principles of inspiration for the accomplishment of this grand object, to comparison with such a system, lest their sublime and God-reflecting character should become tarnished by the contact. 141 CHAPTER XV. THAT SPIRITUALISM SUPERSEDES THE BIBLE. Nevertheless, as we intend to fully expose the weakness and wickedness of this system of folly and presumption, we are under the necessity of introducing some of the moral precepts of the Nazarene, the dignity and glory of which sheds a hallowed radiance around his exalted name. To love them that love you had been the common dictate of human nature, but to love your enemies, to pray for them that despitefully use and persecute you ; to render good for evil, in a word " as ye would men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them," was first announced to the world by Him whose auditors acknowledged " spake as never man spake before." This moral law of Jesus pre- sents not only a sublime standard for the government of all the relations of human society, but a characteristic sim- plicity so free from ambiguity and mystery that its impo- sitions may be understood by all grades of minds who possess moral character. It is so broad in its application, that there is not an act which it is possible to commit in any relation of life, but to which this significant rule, as steadily as the needle to the pole, points the course to be pursued. The inducements here furnished to moral vir- tue, and the inseparable development of the moral virtue of man connected therewith are as comprehensive as that nature, and as individual as man's moral sentiments, each requisition of which finds its counterpart interwoven in that nature, and by adherence thereto crucifies the natural propensities to wrong, and establishes those of holiness and unsullied rectitude. And in addition to all this, and to render the whole system one of infinite perfection, we 142 are furnished with the pure example of the Lord Jesus Christ, who in his whole earthly career, although sur- rounded with circumstances of trial of incomparable mag- nitude, never betrayed a weakness or sign of fallibility. We have now presented but a very imperfect sketch of that state of futurity drawn by the pen of inspiration, and we have seen how beautifully its sentiments accord with, and are calculated to meet even to satiety, the most soaring aspirations of the human mind, and we have also pre- sented as good a view of the spirit theory as it merits, and we would ask if its spherical etherealism, strongly resem- bling the incomprehensible fabric of a vision, is possessed of that dignity and virtue calculated to supersede any farther necessity for the Bible. It were more reasonable to yield to the claim of Mahommedanism that the Koran was thus adapted, or the mysterious plates of Joe Smith, both of which are more sensible and calculated to accom- plish more good than spiritualism and infinitely less mis- chief. Although this is the character of spiritualism, still it is possessed of so much importance that its history is made a subject of apostolic prediction, and the church directed what course to pursue in regard to it, when it made its appearance. This picture and prediction is contained in Paul's second epistle to Timothy, which runs thus : " This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemous, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false- accusers, incontinent, fierce despisers of those that are good, traitors, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than God, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof ; from such turn away. For of this sort are they who creep into houses, and lead captive silly women, laden with sins, ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth ; now as Jannes and Jambres with- 143 stood Moses, so do these always resist the truth ; men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further, for their folly shall be manifest to all men, as theirs also was. As we are here referred to the fact of Moses having been withstood by two of the most renowned among the Egyptian familiar spiritualists, whose names St. Paul gives as Jannes and Jambres, it becomes necessary to refer to that event in order to understand the character of that opposition, and hence that of those whom they are introduced to repre- sent. God instructed Moses to go in unto Pharaoh and cast his rod down before him, and it would become a serpent, which was done in order to convince the King of the divine character of his mission. But Pharaoh called in his wise men and the sorcerers, and the magicians of Egypt, and they did in like manner with their enchant- ments ; their rods also became serpents, at least so they appeared to Moses and Pharaoh, their minds having become so charmed by the influence thrown around them by the magicians thus distorting or changing their vision just as mesmerism and spiritualism does in these days. According to another direction, Moses stretched his rod over the land of Egypt, and frogs covered the land, and the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs on the land. These were the only two of the ten plagues of Moses in which the arts of the magicians were at all successful, and, entirely failing to produce the third, they were constrained to acknowledge, " This is the finger of God." Although the magicians had thus signally failed in their resistance and opposition to Moses, still the folly of Jannes and Jambres was not fully manifested until Moses brought the next plague upon Egypt, which was done by sprink- ling the ashes of the furnace toward heaven, which became a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and 144 beast, and the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils which fell upon them as well as upon the inhabitants of the land ; thus was their folly made manifest, but which was not fully consummated until the horsemen and chariots of Pharaoh and his hosts were dashed beneath the waves of the sea, so that not a man was left to tell Egypt the sad story. " They fled like the chaff from the scourge that pursued them t Vain were their steeds and chariots of war." In the history of these Egyptian magicians, in their resistance to Jehovah's truth, may Judge Edmonds and Dr. Dexter, including the whole fraternity of spiritualists, read their approaching fate which will overtake them, when the great author of the Bible whose inspired truth they are like Jannes and Jamb res engaged in resisting, by declaring them to be superseded, shall arise in majesty to vindicate his own immortal record of truth, their folly shall yet be made manifest, but alas ! it may be too late with them for repentance. How strikingly is the seductive course of the spiritual- ists here portrayed, "they creep into houses and lead captive silly women." How often we are shocked at the announcement that such and such a woman of our neigh- bors have become mediums or spirit-believers, at whose dwellings circles are nightly held, and the presence of spirits familiarly invoked; the sly and crafty haters of the Bible have crept therein, and, by the aid of a medium or familiar spiritualist, succeeded in completely captiva- ting the minds, especially of the women, by these hallu- cinations. They are also learned men, as Paul says, ever learning, but never come to the knowledge of the truth. They are also a religious body which corresponds to the prophetic portraiture of Paul, "having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof, as manifested in the sudden 145 conversion of a sinner, such as that of Saul of Tarsus ? " They are here said to be blasphemous ; how strikingly do their sayings of Jesus Christ fill up this part of the picture, traducing his god-like being to that of a mere wizard or superior medium. And so on we might con- tinue to enlarge on every characteristic sin presented in this graphic picture, but which only represents the infamy of spiritualism ; alas ! for the world, if it is to be converted to match this portraiture, and which no one acquainted w T ith the converts to this new religion can deny repre- sents its entire features. Before concluding we propose to examine some of the most prominent causes which has. conduced to the rapid spread of spiritualism, instead of admitting the claim of its advocates that it is in conse- quence of the superiority of the system to the religion of the new testament. The first argument we suggest upon this subject is, that it is founded in error. He must be indeed a very superfi- cial observer of human events who has not perceived the fact that, in the march relatively of truth and error, the former has always traveled slow, in the very nature of human thought and feelings, or perhaps more properly for the want of thought, having been doomed to perpetual contest, fighting her way, inch by inch, through every phase of determined opposition, which the combined igno- rance and superstition of the world has crowded into her pathway. While error, in her march of moral and intel- lectual virus, has not only escaped these impediments,, but the popular voice, in its infatuation, seems to have been intent in its infusing vitality into all its arterial ramifications, wherewith to poison and destroy the suffer- ing sons of men, who under its delirious effects have emu- lated each other in the embrace of the hideous featured monster. Although this picture presents a sad reflection on the history of our race, yet what great truth, either of science 10 146 or revelation, which has now reached its appropriate alti- tude, but which has been doomed to pass this dreadful ordeal ? Another reason which enables us to account for the numerical conversion of men to spiritualism, we may mention the fact that its appeals are directed to those pro- clivities for the marvelous which they generally possess. Why men manifest such an insatiable thirst for the strange and marvelous is foreign to our subject; various have been the causes, both in theory and practice, which have conduced to the development of this phenomena, which for six thousand years has interwoven their delu- sive charms around the theater of human thought and pas- sion, but it is only with the fact of its existence which we are at present interested. In regard to which, we think, the history of the theories entertained by man in relation to a future state justifies the conclusion that the more strange, marvelous and mysterious and therefore the more incomprehensible, are its sentiments spread and in the same proportion will its converts be multiplied. It is true that many of these systems, and, perhaps, those which make the greatest demands on human credulity, are corruptions of the rational principles of Divine revelation, which a depraved priesthood and igno- rant populace have invented and practiced, but for whose existence the Bible is no more responsible than for that of Joe Smith's metallic plates, or for the mania of Mormon- ism, or for that of spiritualism, which owes its origin to the same source, but which excels all others in marvelous fabrication, mysterious credulity, and transcendent extrava- gance, and, therefore, if we except Mohammedanism, which made its converts by fire and sword, the new religion of spiritualism, according to the above principle, should have spread with greater rapidity than any other, and multiplied its converts in an unprecedented ratio. But, in addition to this, if we take into the account the fact, in its com- parative relation with Christianity, that while its requisi- 147 tions demand no change of human nature, in order to this end, while that of the Bible demands a crucifixion of all those moral propensities which inclines man to infringe the principle " as ye would men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." But the new religion imposes no such obligations, and applies no such restraints ; on the contrary, proclaims to mankind, indiscriminately, eat, drink and be merry ; give loose reins to all your propensi- ties, assist to curse the world by your ungodly example, and all will be well in the end; there's no danger; all will, without fail, reach the highest spheres ; sin on, you shall, nevertheless, become as gods. Here are we furnished with an overwhelming reason, and which would be suffi- cient, in the absence of all others, to show, in the most satisfactory manner, why spiritualism is calculated to make more adherents, in the same period of time, than the religion of Jesus Christ. But in addition to this, and to swell the number of its devotees, it can boast of the conversion of thousands of infidels, who are now its sym- pathizers. Hitherto the whole fraternity of the skeptical have prided themselves in crediting no sentiment, but which, to their minds, reason dictated to be true, on which ground they disbelieved the miracles of the Bible ; but that this was mere pretension is now proved from the fact that it has been sacrificed at the shrine of the marvel- ous gods of the spiritualists, embracing all of its most visionary and incomprehensible features contained in the mystic creed ; thus exhibiting the fact that the former attitude of skepticism was only assumed for the purpose, as was vainly hoped, to destroy the confidence which, in ail ages, has been imposed in the Bible by the good and really intellectual ; but, having utterly failed in the attempt, they now eagerly embrace the spirit theory, not that they have real confidence in its pretensions, but because they see in it elements calculated to accomplish the dark design of the destruction of the hated Bible, and 148 therefore, tliey have clothed themselves with its shining garments, and sing enchantingly as a seraph of light ; the Bible is good enough, but there is no further use for it. Here, therefore, are we furnished with the true reasons to show why spiritualism has so rapidly spread and multi- plied its disciples, instead of being ascribed to its superi- ority to Christianity. The idea to let it alone in order to check its advance- ment should no longer be tolerated. While the church has up to this day assumed this position, in regard to it, it has steadily spread until it claims millions of converts. Did the great founder of the Christian church act thus in regard to sin and error ? Did he let them alone and teach this as the best course for his followers to pursue, believing it did " more harm than good" to expose and de- nounce them publicly ? Did he tell his disciples, when he sent them out to preach his gospel, to let error and " damna- ble heresies" alone ? Were they not to preach " Jesus and the resurrection," and does not the spiritualists deny that there is, or is to be, any resurrection, and, therefore, teach that Jesus is dead ? Is this using the talents which the great Master has put into our hands for the defense of truth ? Indeed, we are shocked at merely asking such questions, and all we will permit ourselves to say in regard to such a monstrous sentiment is, that if the devil ever in- vented one more effectually to accomplish his work and defeat that of Christ ; this, merits the patent, and those who teach and act on it may read their doom in advance, thus : " Take, therefore, the talent from him and cast the unprofit- able servant into outer darkness ; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Neither does it remedy the evil to say it is the devil who manifests his satanic arts through these spirits, for this is admitting the existence of supernatural spirits in connection with these phenomena, and which is also claimed by the spiritualists that wicked spirits sometimes 149 operate at their end of the spirit telegraph ; this admission is calculated to give a false dignity to these manifesta- tions ; men will go to witness the exploits even of the devil himself. But the remedy we propose, in order to effectually prevent its further mischief, is, in the first place, to meet its assumptions philosophically with the arguments science affords, which are fully calculated to ex- pose the sophistry and untenableness of its theory, and which course will satisfy the intelligent that there are no spirits connected with these manifestations. And in the second place, let every possible effort be made to obtain access to the spirit mediums, through whom the doctrines of the spherical heaven are taught, and when accom- plished, magnetize them to sleep, by which means they will be brought under the minds of those who thus effect them, and may be impressed with the opposite setiments to spir- itualism, and upon the same principle by which they had been inculcated by the spirit believers; let them then stand up before the same audiences who had heard them preach the spirit doctrines, and they will denounce them as eloquently as they had ever defended them, and as being founded in superstition and error, and in opposition vindi- cating the Bible and its sentiments. There is not a good medium but who is very susceptible of mesmerism, there- fore this task can be accomplished with great ease, and after having been effected a few times they imbibe the sympathies and sentiments of those who have thus mag- netized them. How clearly, therefore, does this simple process suggest an effectual exposition and refutation of the presumption that these mediums write and speak as they are dictated by supernal existences ; let this be done, and in less than six months the gigantic fabrication of spir- itualism will lose every vestige of hold on the minds of men. Of course this adds no argument in favor of the Bible, but only shows that it affords none against it ; that it proves nothing relating to the future state at all, but only relates the views of those who thus impress them at 150 the time. We close this argument by introducing a quota* tion from Pope's essay on Man, and which contains such a reproof to spiritualism that it would seem to have been written at the present day : "Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is man — Placed on this isthmus of a middle state, A being darkly wise and rudely great ; With too much knowledge for the skeptic's side, With too much weakness for the stoic's pride, He hangs between in doubt to act or rest, In doubt to deem himself a god or beast, In doubt his mind or body to prefer, Born but to die, and reasoning but to err ; Alike in ignorance his reason such, Whether he thinks too little or too much, Chaos of thought and passion all confused, Still by himself abused or disabused : Created half to rise and half to fall, Great lord of all things, yet a prey for all, Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled, The glory, jest and riddle of the world. Go, wondrous creature, mount where science guides, Go, measure earth, weigh air and state the tides, Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old Time and regulate the sun ; Go soar with Plato to the empereal sphere, To the first good, first perfect and first fair, Or tread the mazy round his fellows trod And quitting sense called imitating God. As eastern priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the sun. Go teach eternal wisdom how to rule, Then sink into thyself and be a fool ; Go, wiser thou, and in thy scale of sense, Weigh thy opinions against Providence. In pride, presumptuous pride, our error lies, All quit their sphere and rush into the skies, Pride, still aiming at the blessed abode, Men would be angels, angels would be gods, Aspiring to be gods, angels fell, Aspiring to be angels men rebel, And he who wishes to invert the laws Of order, sins against the eternal cause. " 151 We have endeavored to show that the claim of spiritual- ism, that it supersedes any further use or necessity for the Bible, is without force and utterly fails in its pretension. But in order to fully convince every candid mind that the so-called religion of spiritualism and which deifies only the spirits of the dead and pays its devotions upon their ghostly shrines and the religion of Christianity are per- fectly irreconcilable, and, therefore, those who embrace the one must abandon the other ; because it is upon funda- mental principles they differ, which will be apparent as we contrast the sentiments each inculcate in relation to the nature of future existence. However spiritualists differ among themselves upon almost every thing else, there is wonderful unanimity of sentiment relating to the nature of future existence, which is that that which dies of men remains dead forever, which is the body, and that which survives death lives forever ; the body being nothing but a carcass " to be got rid off/' and that man loses nothing by the death of the body. The doctrine of the future state of existence taught by Christianity is, that whatever condition the dead, or any thing appertaining to them in an intermediate state, is, merely temporary, and its eternal future commences at the resurrection of the dead, at the last day. By merely stating this doctrine of spiritualism, it is certain that it rejects absolutely the three fundamental principles of revealed Christianity. First, the resurrection of the dead ; secondly, the Bible which teaches it ; and, thirdly, the existence of Christ ; indeed, every thing in regard to Christianity depends upon the question, Is Christ dead or alive ? According to the spiritualists, that there is no resurrection, He is dead ; but, according to Christianity, as there is a resurrection of the dead, therefore, Christ is alive ; hence, this doctrine is the foundation truth of the Christian religion. Though the doctrine of the resurrection is everywhere taught in the 152 Bible, from Genesis to Revelations, yet it is so fully brought out and arranged in order in the 15th chapter of Paul's 1st epistle to the Corinthian church, that it will only be necessary to introduce a part of it, in order to have a perfect understanding of the nature of the doctrine. " Now, if Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead ? but if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen ; and if Christ be not risen, then our preaching is vain and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ, whom He raised not up ; if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not then is not Christ raised, and if Christ be not raised your faith is vain, ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. " "But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept, for since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead ; for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, but every man in his own order ; Christ the first fruits, afterward they that are Christ's at his coming." " But some man will say, how are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou so west is not quick- ened except it die. (This is as much as though He had said a man was a fool to suppose a seed could grow unless it was first decomposed in the earth or died ; either that a man could have a resurrection who had not died, indeed, which is a contradiction in terms.) It (the body) is sown in corruption (in the grave), it is raised in incorruption ; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory ; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power ; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. Behold, I show you a mys- tery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. 153 For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed ; for this corrupti- ble must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortal- ity, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written. Death is swallowed up in victory. O death! where is thy sting ? O grave ! where is thy victory ? We see by this revelation that the elements through which the resurrected pass, in emerging from death to life, consist in eternal vitality and hallowed investment, and in nowise proposes to change or destroy the material sub- stantiality of the man ; there are five of these elements which constitute the resurrection change. From corrupt- ible to incorruptible bodies ; from dishonorable to glorious bodies ; from weak to powerful bodies ; from natural to spiritual bodies ; from mortal to immortal bodies. Now, as there is but one of the elements entering into the resurrection body about which there is difference of opinion, namely, "the spiritual," we shall pass the others and only examine this one. We may say here those who desire to examine the subject fully discussed will find it in our large work just issued from the press, entitled " The philosophy of God and the World." The question now is, what is a spiritual body ? Mark it is not a bodiless spirit, or a spirit of any kind other than a spiritual body. It will be observed that the body which died and lived again, through all its contrasts, is the same body. "It" is sown a natural body. "It" is raised a spiritual body. The direct answer, however, to this question is, that the resurrection body is a spiritual body, because it is quickened into life by the spirit of God. In proof of this we need quote but the following passage in which it is so condensed, that in one verse we have the resurrection relationship of God, His spirit, Christ and His saints, forcibly and comprehensively brought to view. 154: Rom. viii, 11 : " But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His spirit that dwelleth in you." Here we see that Christ's mortal body that died was quickened or made to live again an immortal body by the spirit of God, rendering it a spiritual body, and therefore, also, is the dead mortal bodies of those who sleep in Him, having had the spirit of God dwelling in them when they died to be quickened into life and immortality by the same spirit, and are, there- fore, spiritual bodies. From this teaching it is certain that the resurrection body of Christ was a spiritual body, and also, that it was the same body that died and lay in the grave, the contrast is not that it was a natural body before death and a mere spirit after and forever, for then there had been no resurrection of that which died, and as it is nonsense to talk about the resurrection of a thing or being who had never died ; therefore, there is no resur- rection, for no spirit, ghost, or God ever died, and could not, therefore, have risen from the dead ; and, if the body of Christ was a mere spirit after His resurrection, then the spiritualists are right, in saying there is no resurrection of the dead ; instead, however, of this being true, we shall find by His history subsequent to His resurrection, that it was the same identical body composed of flesh and bones that was crucified and was buried, that rose again, went into heaven and shall so come again, unchanged and un- changeable forever more, " Jesus Christ the same yester- day, to-day and forever." Early on the morning of the third day after Christ's crucifixion the two Marys were at the sepulcher to watch concerning the destiny of their dead master, and received the following information : " And the angel answered and said unto the women : fear not ye, for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified ; He is not here, for He is risen as he said ; come, see the place where the Lord lay. And 155 go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and, behold, He goeth before you into Galilee ; there shall ye see Him ; lo, I have told you. And as they went, behold, Jesus met them, saying : All hail ! and they came and held Him by the feet, and worshiped Him/' Mat. xxviii. Here we see that it was the Lord Himself which had risen from the dead, and they held Him by the feet, thus submitting Himself to be tested by their sense of touch ; and which, if He had been a spirit, would immediately have been discovered. " And, as He thus spake, Jesus, Himself, stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them : Peace be unto you ! But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed they had seen a spirit ; and He said unto them : Why are ye troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts ? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is i", myself! Handle me and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have ; and when He had thus spoken, He showed them His hands and His feet, and while they yet believed not, for joy, and wondered, He said unto them : Have ye any meat ? and they gave Him a piece of broiled fish, and of an honeycomb ; and He took it, and did eat before them." Here we see that He not only submitted Himself to the test of their senses of touch, hearing and sight, but, also to that of their reason and judgment. He ate food before them, which they knew a spirit could not do, in order to convince them that it was Him, Himself, and not a spirit, which stood before them, and holding daylight conversation ; and that He was not a spirit, as they supposed Him to be, we have His positive declaration : " For a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." As the following passages are supposed to contain evi- dence that Jesus was a spirit after his resurrection, but which, of course, does not, for it would contradict the positive declaration of Christ, Himself, as we have seen ; but let us look at them. Luke xxiv, 30, 31 : " And it came 156 to pass, as He sat at meat with them, He took bread and "blessed it, and break and gave them, and their eyes were opened, and they knew Him, and He vanished out of their sight." Verses 15, 16: "While they communed together, and reasoned, Jesus, Himself, drew near (mark, it was not His spirit), and went with them; but their eyes were holden, that they should not know Him." The one of these passages explains the other. John, xx, 19 : " Then, the same day, at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst of them, and said : Peace be unto you !" Now, what is there here to show that Jesus did not come in at the door, and which was opened for the pur- pose ? The idea is simply that, for fear of the Jews, their assembly was private or with closed doors, and which were only opened to let in their friends, and thus gave Jesus entrance. Such a course shows to what extremes men are driven to wrest the Scriptures into contradiction with themselves. But we go on with the argument that it was the very Christ that died, who rose again, and ascended into heaven, " Wherefore He (Christ) saith, when He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. Now that He ascended, what is it but that He also descended first into the lower parts of the earth ? (grave) ; He that descended is the same that ascended up far above all heavens." Eph. iv. Here we see that it is declared, as definitely as words will admit, that it was the same body that ascended into heaven that first descended into the grave and which was resurrected from it. The history of this ascension is recorded Acts ii, 9, 10, 11, and which shows he is to undergo no change forever. " And when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight, and while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, 157 two men stood by tliem in white apparel, which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? this same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven." But now let us consider what we are taught the con- sequences are, on the supposition of the non-resurrection of Christ. First. The preaching of the gospel is vain. Second. The faith of the Christian church is also vain, and hence, there is no salvation, because it is by faith men are saved, and Paul declares, " if Christ be not risen ye are yet in your sins." Third. The apostles were false wit- nesses. Fourth. They also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. Fifth. Christ is also dead. Now, what can be more positively taught than that, if there is no resurrection of the dead, then there is no truth or value in Christianity, its founder is dead and has thus perished, and, of course, those who sleep in Him are also equally perished, which would be a necessary consequence had it not been declared. If Christ is still dead, then the Holy Ghost has not come, for He said, " If I go not away the Comforter will not come." If Christ is still dead there is no mediation, and no way whereby a sinner may approach to God, and reconciliation is impossible. In a word, and oh, what a word of horror is it, Christ is dead and all is lost. " Let us eat and drink (as common animals) for to- morrow we die," and that is the last of us ; there is no falling back upon any other theory, or hope of a future state, all is lost and that forever. If, therefore, spiritualism is true, and there is no resur- rection of the dead, then is the system founded upon a dead Christ ; a sublime failure. But we turn with holy rapture from the horrible picture and sing with Dr. Young, over the ruins of the grave, who makes the living Christ exclaim : 158 "Then, then 1 rose, then first Humanity triumphant passed the Crystal ports of light, and seized Eternal youth. Hail, hail ! heaven All lavish of strange gifts to man. Thine's all the glory, man's the Boundless bliss." And with the great apostle of the Gentiles : " Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept." But we close this argument by introducing the sublime description given by the revelator, who sees Him as he returns again to earth as He went up, when a cloud received Him out of the sight of men : Rev. i, " Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him shall wail because of him." i, 11, 18: " Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last ; I am He that liveth and was dead ; and behold, I am alive forevermore, and have the keys of hell and death." xxi, 6: "And he said unto me, it is done, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end." xxii, 13 : "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." i, 8 : "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." "After his resurrection, Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth " — Luke xxviii, 18. Therefore, He that was dead and had risen, was, from thenceforth the Lord Almighty, hold- ing in His hands all power in heaven and in earth, and to be wielded when it will be sung, " We give Thee thanks, O Lord, God, Almighty, because Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power and hast reigned." It is certain that the Lord Almighty did not die, and was not therefore raised from the dead ; and was, therefore, the body in which He had incarnated Himself that thus died and rose again. It was that body which hung on the 159 cross, and which died in consequence of the withdrawment of God, thus expressed : " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ? and again He cried with a loud voice and yielded up the ghost " — Mat. xxviii. That God took this same body again from the dead, and this was its resurrec- tion, is positively declared in scores of passages of scrip- ture ; we only repeat one : Cor. xv, 15, " Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God, because we have testified that He raised up Christ whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not." With such views of the resurrection body, how ridic- ulously absurd does the theory of the spiritualists appear that the human body is a mere carcass to be disposed of, containing so much corruption and elementary con- fusion that even its maker can appropriate it to no use in His future world, though it is the grandest display of divine mechanism the universe presents for contempla- tive reflection. Behold its eternal honors in the estimation of the great Deity, making it the house of His incarnation. " God manifest in the flesh." Yes, " For in Him (Christ) dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily " — Col. ii, 9. As the 50th verse of the 15th of Cor. is supposed to contain an objection to the views of a spiritual body here presented, we shall consider it. " Now, this I say, breth- ren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." The idea here taught is, that a body composed of flesh and blood is a corruptible body, and as such cannot inherit the kingdom of God any more than corruption can in- herit incorruption, as thus declared in the last member of the passage, but it does not say that flesh and bones cannot inherit the kingdom of God, for this was the formation of the spiritual body of Christ after his res- urrection, and if "Flesh and bones" cannot inherit the kingdom of God, then is Christ excluded from His own eternal kingdom. But the fact brought to view in this 160 passage is this, that the animal life blood which vitalizes the natural human body, chemically prepared by the action of the system from the food taken into it, and the air inhaled, is not the vitalizing principle of the resurrection body, but it is the spirit of God, as we have already shown, Christ spilt his blood for the sins of the world, and never resumed it again, and there is not a passage of Scripture which speaks of the resurrection body but as being blood- less, and, therefore, corruptless and immortal, spiritual and eternal. There is one other feature of Christianity which distin- guishes it from all other systems of religious belief and worship to which we wish to refer before leaving this part of our subject, which is, that while all others, including spiritualism, leaves man disintegrated at death, and pro- poses only to save a part of him, or that gives only a part existence in the eternal future ; Christianity proposes to save the whole man, spirit, soul, mind and body. Said the great resurrection Lord for the encouragement and hope of His saints, " Not one hair of your head shall perish, for I will raise it up at the last day. Luke xxi, 18. In the light in which our subject now stands, it cannot but be seen that Christianity and spiritualism are the most hostile and antagonistic systems which can possibly be contemplated, and that no man hereafter who has a mind, a shade above an idiot, can possibly make the mistake to suppose that he can be a spiritualist and a Christian both. " Choose ye this day whom ye will serve, Christ, the Lord/' or the idolatrous deities, entities, or spirits of the dead. 161 CHAPTER XVI. THE ADVANTAGES OP THIS SCIENCE. Now, as this is a natural endowment, and, therefore, to> a greater or less degree possessed by every individual of our common race, it follows that it has its appropriate use, and, of course, like every other natural faculty may be abused, and, indeed, just as it is being prostituted in the present age by the spiritualists, and has been by the familiar spiritualism of all ages, and it becomes us to destroy their craft by explaining its mystery. Before entering upon the discussion of its advantages we wish to allude to an objection to the effect that if it is a natural endowment, why does the Bible contain laws and penalties for its suppression ? to which we answer : That it presents such marvelous features and phenomena, in- volving the necessity of such an elevated comprehension of human physiology, in order that it might be seen to be simply the results of the natural laws of human organiza- tion, and this knowledge being impossible in the earlier ages of the world, so that they might not be attributed to the intervention of the spirits of the dead and their sup- posed communications, instead of tracing their origin to the forces and powers crowded into the wonderful mechanism of created man ; hence, we see the propriety of its practice being prohibited by law ; but, with the light science and philosophy affords in our day, we venture the remark that no such laws or restraints would have been passed, because it only requires a careful investigation of the subject to convince even ordinary minds of the true source of its power and its benefits to the race ; and we submit, if this be so, if it is not a shame to have a mind so uncultivated that it cannot comprehend all the science and philosophy 11 162 now known concerning it, and is it not a greater shame that any human being who has access to this light should, through ignorance and self-deception, choose to take the easy, indolent course which requires no thought and refers all its manifestations to the spirits of the dead. But, in regard to its usefulness, we remark : That by its agency almost every disease, which is not absolute organic destruction, may be cured, and, of course, without the use of medicine, but this great advantage, at present, is limited to those susceptible of this magnetic impressibility ; we mean that such can only receive the greatest benefits it proposes to accomplish, and, of course, it will readily be perceived that if in the future development of the art some process is discovered by which every one may be thus magnetized, then every one may be thus benefited. Not only may diseases be thus cured, but surgical oper- ations may be performed without producing the least pain. Teeth drawn, etc., and while the subjects are in their perfect senses, yet feel not a throb of pain ; and if it has been an amputation, the remaining part of the limb may be kept in a magnetized condition, for any part of the system may be magnetized, and no other, and heal more rapidly and without pain. Now, what is the philosophical principle upon which these healing effects are produced, and, we believe it to be just as philosophical as that medicine cures; indeed there can be no cure except upon the principles of nature and according to the laws of being ; and, we believe the de- finition unquestionably correct of cures effected even by miraculous power, that it is not done contrary to natural laws but in accordance with them. For instance, when Christ fed the multitude with a few loaves and fishes, He simply did, by an act of His will, what He had done in the creation of the first stock of wheat from seed ; He had collected and combined in the seed those chemical elements in the air, moisture and 163 soil, adapted to form a wheat seed, and, according to the Jaw of vegetation, endowed it with, the power to re-pro- duce seed after its kind, as food for men. So that from it He made bread indirectly. But on this occasion He makes bread directly, but upon the same natural and chemical principle. Again, collecting, by His knowledge and will, those same chemical elements from surrounding nature, and, in perfect accordance with those laws, they adhered to the loaves, which thereby enlarged or grew in the hands of those distributing and eating them. In regard to this philosophic principle of cure, we can say but little in this small book, and to do it justice re- quires a volume of itself, and which we may publish at some future day, and which proposes to explain the philosophy of those effects produced upon the physical system by the power of mere mental impression, which are so common and powerful that it gave rise to the old Scotch saying : " A thought will kill and a thought will cure." We remark, then, in the first place, that it is to the agency of animal electricity that the entire motions of the human system, both voluntary and involuntary, are to be attributed, even to the circulation of the blood ; that it is this force received from the brain by which the heart is made to expand and contract, thus giving it its power to force the circulation of the blood through all the rami- fications of the arterial and veinous system, and we have but little doubt but that the investigation of the electrical theory of the human system will yet discover that the relation between atmospheric inhalation and the circula- tion of the blood are so dependent on each other that the number of natural inhalations and pulsations will be found to be in exact proportion to each other. It is also true that the regular motions of the vital organs and the circulating fluids results in health, and, of course, their irregularity in disease ; and, therefore, any obstruction in 164 the circulating force is the direct cause of disease, and to remove that obstruction is the cure. In order to illustrate this curative principle, let us sup-* pose an individual to have taken cold, the consequence of which is, he has inflammation of the lungs, and the in- quiry is, how has this cold produced this effect? In attempting to answer this important question there are a number of things to be taken into the account. In the first place, we remark, that the human system is undergo- ing a continual change of decomposition and formation ; that is, there is a continual wear or waste of every part of the system by its natural action in the performance of their respective functions. Just as a steam engine wears away by use, this waste of matter is forced to the surface of the body, and from thence into the atmosphere through the pores of the skin, by the excretory vessels, called " insensible perspiration." Now, this waste material is being continually supplied from arterial blood, made by the system from the food taken into the stomach. It must also be understood that this decomposed matter, thus thrown off from the surface of the body, is poisonous to the system, and if its escape is obstructed, it is again forced by the action of the cir- culating organs and fluids through the system , and as every organ resists it with all the power it possesses, it follows that it will locate on that one which at the time is the weakest, and every man has his weakest organ, because this organ has less power to throw it off. In this case we will suppose the lungs of the individual to be his weakest organ, and the result is, that this matter, with its charge of virus, locates on them, and the individual has inflammation of the lungs. There is another fact here to be understood, that when the cold was taken the individual had a chill, and this chill was at the moment the pores of the skin were closed ; indeed, the chill was the immediate effect, and this prevented the poisonous matter from 165 escape ; and here we see how it is that disease is caused by taking cold. We also see how it is that almost every disease results from colds, the only condition being as to what disease it is, that the poisonous matter when thus prevented from making its natural escape, and again thus forced among the vital organs locates upon that which is the weakest, and which thus becomes the seat of the disease. This brings us to the question, how may diseases be cured by this electric human power ? We answer, first, that as it is by the animal electricity that all the fluids of the system and its organic motions are carried on, as well as its voluntary motions, and if I have the control of all this force of the system of another, and, of course, can send any amount of it anywhere I please in that system, and therefore upon the lungs, and from thence to the surface of the body, and through the excretory vessels into the atmosphere, and as it carries with it the virus from the lungs into the air, that the inflammation, the result of the poisonous matter, is cured, and this can be done in as short a space of time as I have been writing the process, and I will add, that I have done this very thing, and thus cured inflammation ; and I may add, that if medicine can cure such a case it must be of that chemical nature which qualifies it to produce the double effect, first of dispersing the virus from the lungs and forcing its escape through the operation of " insensible perspiration/' which it has restored. We will introduce another case to illustrate this method of curing diseases, and it will be one of palsy. Here, then, we have a man who has had a shock of palsy, and one side of his voluntary system is perfectly helpless ; if it is the right side then the left hemisphere of his brain proper, that is of the cerebrum, is in a spasm, and this being the source of the voluntary nerves by which man moves his limbs, and now the electric agency of the mind being thus 166 shut off, the man may will and will forever and the limbs cannot obey, not because there is any thing the matter with the limbs themselves, but simply the electric force, the appropriate agency under the control of the will, is shut off. Now, suppose I have the absolute control of the whole electric force possessed by an individual affected with paralysis, is it not certain that I can force a sufficient amount of it through the brain to take it out of this tonic spasm, or whatever it may be called, and immediately the man wills and his limbs obey and he is cured. And here again I say I have done this very thing, or that of the same character and still more difficult : It was that of a young lady who had never walked but by the aid of crutches, and who was about fifteen years of age, and was made to walk perfectly well and strong as any one in less than fif- teen minutes' time. If a man is deaf the auditory nerves are obstructed, so that they cannot be made to vibrate by sound struck upon the drum of the ear ; now force the electricity through them, removing the obstruction, and the hearing is restored. This we have also done in a few moments and upon many individuals. Another of the advantages of this art and science is, that these impressible subjects are able to examine and accu- rately describe the nature and location of diseases, no mat- ter how complicated they may be, and if this is true then every physician should have access to one in order to examine his patients before prescribing for them, so that no more mistakes may be made and men die because their disease was not understood. And especially is such ability inestimable in the detection of such diseases as the " con- cretion of the appendix " which requires the most skillful surgical operation to remove, if, indeed, it can be done at all, and which is certain death unless thus removed ; and as it offers but slight hopes of recovery, the hazard is too great to be undertaken unless it is certain the disease 1G7 exists, and the symptoms are too various to render it so in every instance. Now from what we have said of the ability of these mind-readers, it is absolutely certain that they must see the impressions transcribed on the organic brain, and, if so, does it not follow as a natural consequence that they can also, with much greater ease, see and describe the derange- ment and disease of any mere vital organ of the human system. That they are thus qualified we here relate a single instance of scores of others as the results of our own experiments. This was in Belfast, Me. . The name of this subject was George Frost, and with him I made a great many wonderful experiments. " A man came into our rooms in a hotel in that place, and wished for an exam- ination, and he was so skeptical that he would not even tell his name. The two then sat facing each other, Frost holding the man by the hand ; he now made a long in- spection looking into his body, as a mechanic would inspect a machine which was out of order, occupying about twenty minutes, the latter part of which was spent in putting him into a peculiar attitude in which he was made to lean forward and a little to one side, and with one hand raised higher than the other and in front. Not a word had yet been spoken, but now, said Frost, " You cut grave stones, your lungs are affected and it has been produced by the attitude in which I have placed you, and which oppresses your lungs, and you must give up the business or it will kill you." He went on to describe all the particulars of his case, of which these are the leading features. The man then said he was right, and also that his business was a grave stone carver, and that he had given it up as he believed it injured him. Of course he was no more skeptical but humble enough, and knew that the man in contact with him could read his entire system. He inquired if Frost could recommend any thing for his relief, but got no reply. 168 It may be said, indeed, that Frost read the impressions from the mind of this man, but if he did it was from his physical brain and which, as we have before remarked, was much more difficult to see, read and describe than simply to see and describe the condition of the lungs. But this Frost would not only describe organic disease, but also tell the patient what he, himself, thought of it, and whether he was right or wrong, and it was more common for him to oppose their impressions concerning themselves than to confirm them, thus also showing him to have been independent of the thoughts and impressions of other minds in the prosecution of such examinations. But we bring our little work to a close, wishing only to make it small so as to secure for it a large circulation, and believing the subject of such vital interest to the commu- nity, who seem eagerly waiting for information concern- ing this most important, although the most complicated, department of the works of God, at least connected with our world ; and it seems to us that the man who manifests no interest in such a subject has no sympathy either for the physical or religious well-being of mankind . LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 022 204 281 1 WM Wsm