jglrsmcusm, &jrmtuahsm,
WITCHCRAFT,   AND   MIRACLE
              &  3Mtf STreattge,


SHOWING THAT MESMERISM IS A KEY WHICH WILL UNLOCK
           MANY CHAMBERS OF MYSTERY.
         ALLEN PUTNAM,
ACTHOK OF "sriRIT-WOHKS;'" AND "natty", a spirit.
Amazed I saw how calm they were,
  With all this spirit-rising:
They only called these magic arts
  A kind of magnetizing.
Oh, what a miracle sublime !
  It shows the world's advance,
When spirits leave their bright abodes
  To make a table dince ! "
           Fitch Poole : Giles Cory's Dream.
            BOSTON:
BELA  MARSH, 14, BROMFIELD STREET.
               18c8. 
 
tsmmsm,  jSpiritttaiism,
WITCHCRAFT,  AND   MIRACLE:
& Brief Ereattse,
SHOWING THAT MESMERISM IS A KEY WHICH WILL UNLOCK
           MANY CHAMBERS OF MYSTERY.
          ALLEN  PUTNAM,

AUTHOR OF "SPIRIT-WORKS;" AND "NATTY, A SPIRIT."
" Amazed I saw how calm they were,
   With all this spirit-rising:
 They only called these magic arts
   A kind of magnetizing.
 Oh, what a miracle sublime !
   It shows the world's advance,
 When spirits leave their bright abodes
   To make a table dance! "
            Fitch Poole : Giles Cory's Dream.
            BOSTON:
BELA MARSH, 14, BROMFIELD STREET.
               1858. 
IT
\est?
       BOSTON:
printed by john wilson and son,
     22, School Street. 
PREFACE.
The design of this little treatise was formed in the autumn
of 1855.  In February, 1856, the substance of it was  given
to the public  at Salem, in  the form  of a lecture, and has
since been repeated in many other places.   Now its facts
have  been rearranged, and the  comments somewhat ex-
tended, for the purpose of letting it reach the public without
the author's presence.
   The view here reached — viz., that the marvels of all the
ages have been  produced in  obedience  to some  universal
law or laws — is one of no  small importance, if it be cor-
rect.   It is sent  forth that the reading world may look at it,
and judge, each  man for himself, whether it possess intrinsic
value.  It goes forth with the  prayer, that it may shed light
upon the direct  pathways to truth, and prove to be a germ
of benefit to man, as both mortal and immortal.
Roxburt, Mass., Jan. 15, 1858.
ALLEN PUTNAM. 
 
TEEATISE.
                 INTRODUCTION.

As far back  and as wide-spread  as  the sweep  of
human history,  we get  distinct accounts of many
phenomena, whose nature and character imply some
other  cause than any  which science  satisfactorily
defines.  The  magicians of Egypt in  the days  of
Moses, the Delphic oracles, the visions  of Mahomet,
the voices heard by Joan of  Arc, Scottish  second-
sight, the  works  of Witchcraft in  both the Old and
the New World, the visions  of Swedenborg, those of
the Seeress  of Prevorst, together with many curious
results of Mesmerism, as well as those of Spiritual-
ism, — these occurrences, and others like them, all
point  to  some agency not well defined by  science.
The world continues to ask, as it has ever asked,
" Who  or what produces  these  strange  works 1 "
And the learned give, as yet, no satisfying answer.
  Possibly the phenomena of Mesmerism and Spirit-
ualism may point out to  us the direction in which the
true answer lies, and may throw  some light upon
                        1* 
 6      MESMERISM A KEY TO  OTHER MARVELS.

 the processes by which the unaccountable works have
 been wrought.  Perhaps enough has been witnessed in
 our day to render it  probable that all such works,
 in  all ages, have been performed in compliance with
 some universal law.
   My purpose is to exhibit some of the facts of Mes-
 merism which  are free  from  all  suspicion  of  the
 miraculous or supernatural, and to let such facts carry
 us, step by step, up  into the  region of Spiritualism.
 When  this  has  been done, Spiritualism may or may
 not appear to you just as natural as Mesmerism.   If  .
 it should, you will find a way  opened for the admis-
 sion of new light into the long-darkened  chambers of
 Witchcraft, and other mysteries in human history.
  As  seen  by me  now, Mesmerism,  Spiritualism,
 Witchcraft, Miracles, all belong to one family, all have
 a common root, and are developed  by the same laws.
 The spirits of men perform these wonders ; and all  of
 them do it, and have ever done it, by substantially the
 same processes.  When these spirits are embodied,
 we  call their work mesmeric, or a result of animal or
 human magnetism:  when the spirits are disembodied,
 we  call their operations  Spiritualism.   Living men,
 and dead ones too, are mesmerizers.   If this can  be
 made apparent, the world's wonders  are  at once and
 easily traceable to competent authors; and the world
 is favored with  a glimpse of a universal law which
 has not heretofore been duly recognized.
  A ladder of many steps might be constructed, on
 which one could go, by easy and gradual ascent, from
the simplest forms of Mesmerism up  to the  highest 
          MESMERISM STIFFENS  THE LIMBS.         7

phases of Spiritualism.   But I must confine myself to
seven rounds only.  The spaces from one to the next
above may be rather long; but I shall not take time
to put in more.
   First Step. — The first step up from the ground, or
from man's normal state, is that in which a mesmerizer
gets control of only the limbs of the person magnetized,
— of the limbs only, — not the mind.
   About  three years ago, a lady came  from the far
interior to her friends in Boston, having been driven
from home by the tormenting will-power of a mesme-
rist.  The man had made to her proposals of marriage,
which it was her pleasure to decline.  Chagrined or
vexed by her refusal, he went to  meeting  early on
Sunday mornings;  seated himself in his pew;  and,
when the lady arrived, her  steps would be arrested
while she was walking up the aisle,  and  she would be
held there, immovable, by the  man's invisible power.
Imagine  her mortification, and  the  amusement of
many thoughtless beholders.  If, perchance, you think
that God will restrain evil  spirits from  coming and
working among men, what ought you to require  him
to do in the case of such a man ?   Whatever you  may
think the occasion called for, God did  not  prevent
such a man from using natural  laws in the accom-
plishment of a cruel  purpose.
   Soon  after the suffering  lady arrived in  Boston,
others with me listened to he,r story  ; and, as she had
asked our advice, we recommended that she should 
8
MESMERISM SMOTHERS  THE MIND.
 submit herself to the operations  of another magne-
 tizer, of great  power and friendly dispositions.   The
 man upon whom she called was  a spiritualist and a
 medium; yet his process with her was mainly mesme-
 ric.   Without  explanation, he read the nature and
 cause  of her troubles, stated  them  accurately, made
 mesmeric passes over her for  several minutes, subse-
 quently repeated this process, and, in a few days, put
 her in such condition that she returned to her home
 saturated with  an element which the shafts  of her
 enemy could  not penetrate.  A stronger than he  had
 entered, and dwelt there.  Both bad spirits and good
 ones, then, while in the  body, are  allowed to use the
 same natural forces and laws, — the former to harm,
 the latter to help, the same individual.  The malevo-
 lent magnetizer of this  lady put forth a spirit-power
 which controlled her limbs : the benevolent operator
 put forth a spirit-power which unbound her  chains.
 Both conformed to the same natural  law, — a  law by
 which some men are enabled to bring the  bodies of
 certain other persons in subjection to their own wills.
 This is the first step on  our ladder.
   Second Step. — Take now a second step.  There we
 shall find the body controlled, as before; and shall also
 find  consciousness and  sensation   apparently  put to
 sleep.  Several  years ago, a mesmerist brought to a
 public hall in  Roxbury two female subjects, whom
 he soon  entranced.  At this  exhibition, a position
 was assigned  me which was very favorable for noting
carefully the  condition of these subjects while in the
trance.  Their limbs were very rigid; and they seemed 
        MESMERISM INDUCES  CLAIRVOYANCE.       9

insensible to every thing excepting what was said or
done or willed by the operator.   While I was trying
vigorously, but unsuccessfully, to' bend  the  out-
stretched arm of one of them, whose normal strength
must have been much less than my own, I contrived to
thrust a pin quite forcibly into  her bare limb;  and,
to my surprise, she manifested  no sign of sensation.
That, and other tests, showed that the  mesmeric  pro-
cess in that case took from the nerves their sensitive-
ness, when acted upon through  other  channels than
the operator.  Rigidity of limbs, insensibility of nerves,
and an apparent suppression  of  individual  conscious-
ness, were the observable phenomena of that exhibi-
tion.
   Surely that power is not unimportant, which, going
forth from the mind of  one living man, can so pene-
trate  and  act upon another's living organism as  to
render it rigid and insensible almost as a corpse.  Yet
Mesmerism showed  or  involved such a power.   No
one then and there thought .of the supernatural or the
miraculous: there was no miracle. The operator simply
worked in fitting compliance with some natural law;
and he seemed to expel or extinguish the mind of his
subject, and himself to  rule over that subject's body.
This case  steps beyond the  former one,  in that it
shows  an  apparent  extinguishment,  for  the  time
being,  of consciousness and  the mental powers.
   Third Step. — A third position may show us very dif-
ferent and apparently opposite results.  Let us, then,
step upon the third round of the ladder.  Twelve years
ago, or  more,  I  saw a  young man  mesmerized; and 
 10      MESMERISM INDUCES CLAIRVOYANCE.

 the operator soon put me in communication with him,
 as the phrase was.  Sitting by me, with his eyes ban-
 daged, this entranced subject soon began to speak of
 seeing the scars of  ulcers in my throat, and a pain in
 my left side.  " See a pain," said I.   " I should like
 to know  how- a pain  looks." — " It looks," he said,
 -- like a greenish smoke or vapor, moving and curling
 about."  Now, all the presumptive proofs I can fur-
 nish of his seeing as he represented  are the facts that
 I had several times, in early life, suffered from severe
 ulcers in the throat, and also that I  had a slight pain
 in my left side while he was speaking.
   Another manifestation made by  him at the same
 sitting more conclusively proved that he possessed ex-
 traordinary powers of vision.   Several times  I held my
 watch over the top  of his  head, and very near to it;
 and, though I  each  time changed  the position  of the
 hands, yet he, firmly blindfolded  as he was, told me
 the exact time as the hands stood.  At last I varied the
 hands, so as not myself to see or know how they stood;
 and yet he readily saw through the top of his own skull,
 and  told me accurately their  position.   Here was
 more than thought-reading ; for neither he,  nor  I,
 nor any one else, could have seen  the hands in  a nor-
 mal  way.   Mesmerism awakened an  eye  that  could
 and did look through the firm top of the subject's own
 skull, and which apparently looked deep beneath my
own  skin.   Clairvoyance, or a  vision which  granite
walls and solid mountains  do not obstruct, is  one  of
the  phenomena of  Mesmerism.  Perception,  which
seemed paralyzed in the preceding case, now becomes 
MESMERISM READS THE PAST.
11
intensified, and more than that: it becomes more alive
than life, — than its own ordinary life.
  Fourth Step. — Thus far we find Mesmerism speak-
ing only of things present.   Take, then,  the fourth
step, and we may perhaps see it reading  some hidden
record of the past.  A  mesmerizer, many years ago,
brought a young woman into a company of a dozen,
more  or less, who were all strangers to  him and his
medium.   Soon he put  her to  sleep;  and, at our
request, she took us in rotation to  describe our  seve-
ral conditions .as to health.  When half through with
the circle, she came to  a  robust  man, then fifty-five
years  old or more, and, taking  his hand, said  play-
fully  to  him,  " Ah!  you are a very sick  man:  I
prescribe for you a good piece of roast ox every day; "
and, turning from him towards the next sitter, added
in a quiet tone, " You were never sick a day in your
life, excepting when you swallowed that  tooth."  A
marked change flashed over  the  gentleman's face, —
such  a  change as induced me  to suspect that more
was signified than the words conveyed to me.  Being
questioned, the gentleman said, " When  a  small boy,
fifty years ago,  I did  swallo^ a tooth, which worked
out of the  regular passages of  the system into my
flesh,  and made me sick, — so sick, that  my parents
put me out to board in the family of a famous doctor,
where I could be watched and properly treated; and,
when  I had been  with  the  doctor nearly a year, he
detected the locality of the tooth, and cut it out of my
thigh."
  The wife of this  man, who  had lived with him 
12
MESMERISM SEES SPIRITS.
thirty years, and who before marriage was his neigh-
bor, did not remember that she had ever heard of that
tooth;  two of his three children  expressed entire
ignorance of the facts;  but a third  child seemed to
have  a faint remembrance  "that grandmother had
once said something about the tooth."  It is not pro-
bable — scarcely is it possible — that the mesmerized
girl knew, or had  ever  heard, any thing about that
tooth in her normal state.  Here, then, Mesmerism
seemed to  give power to read  upon that man's inte-
riors a record of his very strange experience  and suf-
ferings  fifty years  before.   Mesmerism brought up
before  her  the hidden pastx and made  it the obvious
present.
  Thus far, we see nothing but  the  facts and  results
of simple Mesmerism, or Magnetism.   The cases cited
are  far from  being as  striking or  instructive,  in
some respects, as are  contained  in books upon  that
subject; but they  have  all occurred under  my  own
observation, and, for that reason,  are to  me more
reliable, as fair  bases for my  own  reasoning, than
others  could be.   They take us fairly and fully into
the field  of wonder, but not the field of the proper
spiritual.   They lift us  towards it;  but, as  yet, that
field does  not come in sight:  one  step higher may
help us to a glimpse of it.
  Fifth Step. — Three  or four years ago, I called
upon a well-known clairvoyant, at her residence, in the
western part of Boston.  Her  husband magnetized
her; and, in a few  minutes, she  turned from the track
along which I tried to lead  her, — it being my pur- 
         MESMERISM SEES ABSENT MORTALS.       13

pose to obtain for a friend some information as to
the whereabouts of a man who had strayed from his
home.   She turned from  my  track, and  began to
describe the spirit of an aged man whom she saw, and
who,  she said, was  strongly attracted to me.  The
form, features, complexion — the whole description
— brought my own  father at once to my thoughts;
though, up to that moment, I had no idea that she, a
subject of Mesmerism, would allude to any one who
had left the form.  Yet she did, in opposition to my
own intention, carry my thoughts to the spirit-spheres,
and fixed them upon one  whom  the world calls dead.
Scarcely had this been done, when  there came from
the lips of  the clairvoyant a description  of an  aged
female; and, though my mother  is yet living, I was
obliged to see and to feel  that she was very accurately
described.  She was more than fifteen miles away in
the country, and was a  stranger, as I  was  myself,
to the medium.
  Here was something  new in my experience  and
observation.  Where  I  had gone to inquire  about
things of earth, there came, unexpectedly, a descrip-
tion of one whom I had followed  to the  grave;  and
while my thoughts were thus turned to him, a spirit,
there came out, with equal clearness, a description of
one who is still living; and yet not a word or tone
from the medium intimated that they were  not both
there  present, and  seen with equal clearness.  Both
the dead and the absent living seemed to  be seen by
her.   This  surprised me; but,  without  hinting  the
surprise, I quietly asked her if they were both in the
                         2 
11
MESMERISM HEARS  SPIRITS.
 same sphere.   " The same sphere % " she answered.
 " Why, no.  Your mother is still in the form."  And
 then, although fifteen mile's from her, she examined
 that mother's physical condition.
   Afterwards, at the same sitting,  she  described my
 wives, — two that are gone, and the one that remains;
 and, though the living one was then  three miles off,
 she  described them  as if all were  at the same time
 equally within her range of vision: and  her descrip-
 tions were all discriminative and good.   Here, then,
 on the fifth round of our ladder, we  behold Mesme-
 rism  enabling one to see both those who have de-
 parted, and persons at a distance who are still in the
 form.
   At a subsequent sitting, this same  clairvoyant not
 only  described  two male spirits, and gave, as their
 names, the names of two  distant  relatives, though
 near  friends, of mine,  but also professed  to  hear
 them speak, and repeated their words.   She seemed
 clairaudient as  well as clairvoyant.  She heard  as
 well as saw the spirits.
   This lady has not, to my knowledge, been suspected
 of Spiritualism.   Many  years  ago,  long before the
 Rochester  knockings, her  clairvoyant  powers were
freely used and  widely known.  Whether spirits do
or do not assist her in her work; whether they volun-
tarily present themselves, so as  to be  seen by her, or
whether she sees them without their  approach, their
knowledge, or consent, as was obviously the case with
my living mother and wife; whether they knowingly
come to  her, or whether she merely sees them where 
        SPIRITUALISM BRINGS CLAIRVOYANCE.      15

they happen  to be, — is of no consequence  at this
stage of our  inquiry.  The only point in which  she
went any farther, in my presence, with the dead than
with the living, was that she reported to me the words
of two spirits, while she has not given any message
from living mother and wife.   But I am not prepared
to say that she could not do this, and even then be
only a mesmerized subject, — such a subject, however,
that her internal eye could see  the objects, and  her
ear  hear  the sounds, of the spheres above.  This
might be; and yet it might also be, that" the dwellers
above would  not intrust to her, or  give through  her
organism, any messages.   Mesmerism may lift a mor-
tal to the skies, and yet fail to bring an angel down.
We  have had, in this  case, a glimpse  at something
which seems  much like  Spiritualism;  yet we  are  dis-
posed to call it only ripening Mesmerism.   Thus  far,
each medium has had  a  visible magnetizer.
   Sixth  Step. — Take  the sixth step,  and we shall
reach a case  in which there was no visible, certainly
no avowed, mesmerizer;  and yet the apparent marks
of Mesmerism were "manifested.  The medium passed
into a sleep, or trance, like  the  mesmeric; and he
seemed to see and hear marvellous things,  as mes-
meric  subjects do.  Probably he was mesmerized, —
mesmerized by some spirit, or band of spirits.   Call
the case one of Mesmerism, if that name please  you
best: the name will not  alter the  facts.  I  am will-
ing  to  call  it  mesmeric; for, since men and  spirits
produce many identical results in these entrancing
processes, there  is obvious propriety in  designating 
16     • SPIRITUALISM TELLS  THE UNKNOWN.
 some of the works of the two  classes  by the same
 term.
    While I was sitting beside a  stranger, in a room
 where twenty or  more persons  had assembled, he
 closed his eyes, and exhibited the usual appearance of
 one in the mesmeric sleep, or trance.  Soon he said,
 " I see the  spirit  of a young lady approaching, who
 has been but  a short time in the spirit-world.   I
 wonder what she wants.   Oh! I see: she wants to
 send a message to her friends in earth.  She says,
 ' Sarah Dunn told me, that, if I  would come here, I
 could get a  chance  to  send a  message;  but who
 will write it V "   My right arm  was resting upon  a
 table; and  I said, " I will."  Her message, in sub-
 stance and in brief, was, " Tell William not to mourn
 so much for my death: if he  does, it will  unbalance
 his mind, and injure  his health.  Tell  him that I
 shall be with him, and watch over and befriend him,
 even  if he forms  other connections," &c.;  and  she
 added, " Do persuade him that this really  comes  from
 me."
   " And who are  you ? "  was my  query.   She  an-
 swered, "Lizzie."  No  cross-questioning  could  bring
 out the other  name.   Soon I asked  to  whom and
 where her message should be  sent.  She answered,
 " To  White-field, Me.;  to William Crowell, care of
 Maj. Crowell.   William is a young man:  send  it to
 the care of his father."   Upon questioning the  com-
pany then present,  including the medium, not one of
us, as  far as could be  learned, had ever  known or
heard of William Crowell or Maj.  Crowell, or Lizzie, 
SPIRITUALISM TELLS  THE UNKNOWN.       17
or Sarah Dunn; nor  did any  one of the  company
know where Whitefield is.
  When Lizzie  had done with  the medium, another
spirit,  supposed  to be  Sarah Dunn,  spoke  to  him,
urging  us  to comply with  Lizzie's request, because
her relatives were much distressed at her sudden and
unexpected  death,  and  were   anxious  about  her
future  state,   " Yet,"  said Sarah, " she was a  good
girl, — far ahead of  them."   My pencilled notes,
made at the time, were carried in my pocket three or
four days.   It seemed foolish  to comply with the
request of a ghost, a phantom; and there was no pro-
bability that a letter, if written and directed in accord-
ance with the instructions, would be  opened till  it
reached the dead-letter office  at Washington.  Yet I
had promised to  write;  and conscience was not  quite
easy under neglect.  At last I wrote out  the commu-
nication, directed and mailed it to — nobody, nowhere,
as seemed most probable.   Ten  or twelve days  after-
wards, the mail brought me a response, the important
parts of which I give verbatim: —
                              " Whitefield, Me., Nov. 27,1853.
" Mr. Allen Putnam.
  " Dear Sir, — Your letter of the 18th instant is received, and read
with the most profound interest.  Its contents are equally mysterious
and startling; the more so, as we are entire strangers to each other.
I will say that the facts stated are, in the main, correct; and we are
intensely interested in putting the main fact to a further and more
satisfactory test."

  Then followed a series of questions,  with  a request
that I would get them answered; and the. letter was
signed, " William Crowell."
                          2« 
18      SPIRITUALISM TELLS THE UNKNOWN.
    I saw the medium two or three times subsequently,
 but not in any full trance;  and soon he left the vici*
 nity,  and  I lost all track  of him.   In my further
 correspondence with William Crowell, I learned that
 Lizzie White and Sarah Dunn were intimate friends,
 and died at about the  same time.  Up to this  hour,
 no  fact has come to  light which hints  that either
 William Crowell, Maj. Crowell, Lizzie, or Sarah, had
 ever been  known or  heard of by any one who was
 present at our circle in Boston.   Yet the facts stated
 and implied in the medium's account  of what he was
 seeing and hearing  were,  " in the   main,  correct."
 Here  was  a power, — be it mesmeric, if you  wish
 — but here was  a power, in  Boston,  competent to
 give the names Lizzie,  Sarah Dunn, Maj.  Crowell,
 and William Crowell;  power to locate them in White-
 field, Me.;  power to indicate to us that William and
 Lizzie were lovers, that  Sarah was intimate friend,
 that  the Major  was  William's  father;  there  was
 power to frame a message suited to William's  con-
 dition; power  to  indicate the character  of Lizzie's
 death; power  to  depict the  thoughts of surviving
 friends concerning  Lizzie's  condition in  the spirit-
 world ; there was power in or  through a stranger at
 Boston to see and tell all these  things so precisely,
 that William  Crowell wrote to  me  that  the facts
 stated  " are, in the  main, correct."
  Whence  that power?   The medium, and  all  per-
 sons present at the sitting, denied all knowledge of
any one of the persons  named;  and four years which
have since passed have  brought  no evidence that  they 
SPIRITUALISM BRINGS RAPS.
19
either  falsified or were mistaken.   Who were  the
authors?  They purported to be,  and seem to have
been, Lizzie and Sarah, — spirits, — appearing to  the
sight, and addressing the  ears, of the  medium.   If
one can give a simpler or more probable  solution of
this, than the  claimed fact that Lizzie and Sarah  did
appear there and then,  and were seen and heard by
the medium, I shall be most  happy to receive and
to adopt it.  Let this case, too, be one of Mesmerism.
I care not for  the name: the name cannot alter  the
facts.  If your Mesmerism admits  the  presence and
action of  those spirits, then such Mesmerism and  my
Spiritualism are, to  some  extent,  the same  thing.
Both let the departed come, and give to us intelligible
communications.   On this  round  of  the  ladder,  we
find  that spirits give  information never before possessed
by any person present.
  Seventh Step. — Thus far our mediums  have all
been entranced.  They seem to be put into an  abnor-
mal condition  by some power outside of  themselves.
But take another step up, and the aspect will change
again.
  I went alone to a medium's room. I had never seen
her before;  and she said she did not know me.   I
believed her, because she  had but  just come to Bos-
ton from  the  country, and  because this was  months
before  the public, or many spiritualists, knew that  I
was investigating the subject.  I gave no name,  but
took a seat by her table, and asked for a sitting.  She
assented, but kept her position in a rocking-chair.   I
sat side to the table,  with the right arm resting upon 
20
SPIRITUALISM BRINGS  RAPS.
 it.   She sat  on my left, four or five  feet from  the
 table.  I asked whether she did not come to the table.
 She replied, that it made no difference in what part of
 the  room she sat.  She continued to sit at her ease
 in the rocking-chair, and entered into  conversation;
 being, to all  appearance, as  wide-awake,  and in  as
 natural a condition, as any one ever was.  There were
 none of the   usual evidences of Mesmerism, — no
 trance, no sleep, no  loss  of sensation or  consciousness,
 no abstraction of the senses from objects and sounds
 about her; but, in  all  respects, she seemed natural
 and  normal.
  Yet, on the table  by my arm, there soon came tiny
 raps, not louder than you would make by gently tap-
 ping with the head of a  pin.  " Is that," I asked,  " a
 friend of mine'?"   Three gentle taps.   "Is it a rela-
 tive ? "  Three taps  again.   " Will you  spell out the
 relationship1?"   Three  taps.    The  alphabet  being
 called over, the responsive raps brought out  the word
 daughter.  This took me aback; for I had never lost
 a daughter.   Yet, without hinting  at the mistake, I
 said, "My daughter, will you  give me your name? "
 Three taps; and the responses to the alphabet gave
 me, Louisa Putnam.  It surprised me  that  Putnam
 came out; for I had given  no name, and  could not
 understand how the medium could have learned who
 I was.   She denied  any  knowledge of my name, and
with apparent honesty.   The other name, Louisa, be-
longed to no  departed friend  that I  could think  of.
My next question was,  "What was your mother's
name %"  Ans. "Hannah"  Next I said,« My daugh- 
RAPS SPEAK.
21
ter, will you tell me how long you have been in the
spirit-land ?"  Ans. " I do not know; but I will go
and see if I can ascertain."  After a silence of two or
three minutes,  there came three raps, much louder
than the former ones.  " Have you  come," I asked,
"at  the  request of the  spirit who  just went  from
here ?"  Ans.  " Yes." — " What would you like to
say?"
   Ans. " I  have come to tell you, that your angel-
daughter, whom you never saw, and whose  spirit is
too  ethereal to be robed in flesh,"  &c. .  . . " often
comes to visit you, in company with  other angels, to
teach you lessons of innocence. — Hannah D.  P."
   I  thought, and my friends would  say, that I had
never  lost a  daughter.  Yet  I have found  one,—
strangely, yet most gladly, found one.   Hannah D. P.,
my second wife, would have  been a  mother  in  three
or  four  months, had  her life  been  spared;  but,
whether  of son or daughter, the grave alone seemed
able to tell.   No name had been  thought of for that
child; no clear faith was had that the unborn  child
had become a conscious dweller in the land of immor-
tality.   Yet the unthought-of child,  the  unnamed
daughter, did, by  the  use of  emanations  from  a
medium, gain her father's ear, give  herself a name,
give her  mother's name, and call that mother to come,
and vouch  for her presence.   The  daughter, never
seen or known in the form, — the unborn child, —
has reached her father's mind and heart.   She lives ;
and she  was the first to telf me that she lives and
loves. 
22
A CHAIR MOVES.
   Those little raps there became most eloquent and in-
 structive.   Man's  highest  learning, eloquence, and
 piety could not have so touched the parental heart,
 and given  such assurance of filial  recognition and
 immortality, as did those tiny sounds.  There was no
 vision here; no form was seen ; no words were heard;
 but little raps spoke at my elbow, when  the medium
 alone was present with me, and she sitting at her ease
 away from the table.   Here was no control of the
 body's organs,  or the  mental faculties; no apparent
 work within the medium, but a work outside of and
 distant from her.  Mesmerism  proper, so  far  as I
 have learned, does its work within, or directly through
 one living  human  organism,  and  upon   another.
 When man magnetizes, the effects are not outside of
 the subject's body, and not upon inert matter directly.
 This case differs from the former ones, because here the
 medium, as such, neither sees nor hears nor speaks;
 but a table  seems to embody intelligence, and power
 of expression.  The little rap is an effective  preacher.
 We have  reached the region of physical manifesta-
 tions.
  And, where we now stand, let  us  look  at another
 case.   Taking my seat, one bright summer afternoon,
 at one end  of a  medium's table, with her at its side on
 my right, she commenced to speak, and I to write, a
 communication  from  one of my near relatives.  While
 we were thus busied, my eye happened to see that a
vacant chair, at the end of the table opposite to me, was
sliding or moving on the floor.  Looking under the ta-
ble, I saw that the chair was at least a yard from any 
A CHAIR MOVES.                23
part of the medium, and also from myself; and we were
the  only persons in the room.  The chair kept on
moving.   The room was light, very light;  my view
was perfectly distinct;  and  there, before me, the chair
continued its movings.
   The late Robert G. Shaw and  myself had several
times met in that room;  and I  had learned, that,
while living, he had said, that, if it were possible for
him, after death, to come to that place, he would; and
also that he would try to move a chair, instead of the
table.  Remembering this,  I said,  " How do you do,
Mr. Shaw ? "   Instantly the chair brought up its front
legs at least four or five inches, and then struck firmly
back upon the floor three times.  " I am  happy to
meet you, Mr. Shaw." And  three times  again  the
chair gave its emphatic tips.  " Is Spiritualism true ?"
Three tips  again.  "Will it be  injurious to  the
world ?"  One tip.   By this  time the  chair had
changed its position, so that one of its legs came near
a leg of the table.   I next asked, " Do you, Mr. Shaw,
advise me to go on with my investigation of this sub-
ject ?" The chair  now poised itself upon a single leg,
and, by a  swing or sideway motion, brought another
leg forcibly against the leg  of  the  table  three times.
Then, while waiting my next  question, it held itself
still on  a single  leg; and, as successive questions
were  put, it  did,  by  one  swing  or  by  three, give
negative and affirmative answers.   In that position it
held  on  until ten or twelve questions had  been
answered, — till I had put all  the  questions  that
occurred to me, which could well  be  answered by a 
24
RAPS AND TIPS.
 simple yes or no.  When  I ceased  to question, the
 chair bowed itself slowly and gently over to the floor,
 without falling, and thus bade me good-by.   All this
 occurred in broad  daylight, and extended  through
 more than five minutes of time.  It was as fairly and
 as accurately seen by me as any object and motion
 ever were or ever can be.  With my own eyes  I saw
 all that, if I ever saw any thing.  If I see  the paper
 on which I am now writing, then I saw such  motions
 of that chair.  There was no mistake. The  medium
 did not move it; and I did not.   Some invisible, intel-
 ligent power seemed to be there, and  to do it.  This
 statement is carefully nrnde; and, so  long  as I con-
 tinue to hold God and truth to be  more  worthy of
 reverence than man and public opinion, my pen and
 my tongue  will maintain its substantial  correctness.
 This case is like  the last, excepting  that the power
 exerted upon inert matter seems much greater here.
   We  are now dealing with those rappings and tip-
pings which are sometimes ridiculed  and sneered at
 as  low and vulgar, —as beneath a  spirit's  dignity.
 Are they such,  in fact?  What did  those  strange
 movements of the  dumb chair teach ?  Dumb, can I
 call it?  No; oh! no;  because it gave forth  more
 instructive  and  commanding eloquence  than the
 tongue of any man could have uttered.  It  spake as
never man spake.   The chair was instinct  with life,
intelligence, and power, there in my  very  presence.
I could no  more doubt the  action of mind  in and
through that chair, than I can in and through your
body or mine, when our lips give utterance to  thoughts. 
RAPS AND TIPS.
25
A moving and guiding mind was  there: the motions
proved that.   It  was not  the medium's  mind, nor
mine: whose, then,  but Mr. Shaw's?
   When mind, whether in the body or out, acts upon
and greatly modifies a living human organism and
its indwelling mind, — call all such work Mesmerism,
if you will; but the common significance of that term
must be enlarged before it can designate that power
which puts a tongue into the dumb chair, — a power
more aside from man's ordinary force than the  clear-
est vision, the keenest ear, or  the  highest eloquence,
of the entranced.  In the rap and the  tip, you have
proof of some intelligence working outside  of and
apart from man's organs, muscles, and nerves.  You
may laugh at the antics  of household furniture; but
those little acts  embody proof of some strange and
mighty power behind  them.  The  little imply the
great.  Once, in olden times, apparently low acts were
connected with a most beneficent result.  One of won-
derful healing powers spat upon the ground, made clay
of the spittle, and rubbed such a mixture upon the eyes
of a blind man.  Would such an act as that comport
with your notions of dignity and propriety ?   Yet
ridicule  that  act, and  whom  will the gibe hit?   A
table, vocal with raps, may be the  most fitting instru-
ment of opening many closed  eyes  in our day, —
may help our blind ones to see visions of angels.
   The  tilting  chair, clearly heard  and understood,
will  bespeak  the presence and  power of  an  angel.
No  embodied  mind  can do the  works which that
mind does.   The philosopher, the profound thinker,
                         3 
26               THE SEVEN  STEPS.
the strong logician, finds that these slurred knockings
and tippings are among the strongest  grappling-irons
by which the other world could draw  this  one to
itself.  They prove the presence of more than man's
power;   they  imply spirit-agency: and  thus  they
become foundation-stones, on which faith in the pre-
sence and  communion of the  departed  may rest
immovable, —foundation-stones,  essential  in their
time and place, but which will be  generally covered
up, and  perhaps forgotten, when the fair temple of
Spiritualism they are to uphold in each believer shall
begin to  show its growing walls.
  We have reached the top of  our ladder, and will
recall the several steps  of ascent.
  1. Mesmerism controlled the  medium's limbs.
  2. It  stiffened the  limbs, deadened the sensation,
and smothered the mind, of the medium.
  3. It  induced  trance, and awakened a vision that
could look out through the skull, and into the inte-
rior  of another's body, and see things as then and
there existing.
  4. It induced trance, and awakened  a vision, which,
looking back  fifty years, could find an erratic tooth,
and trace the effects of its abnormal wanderings.
  5. It  awakened power  to see the forms  of  the
absent living, and power both to see and to hear de-
parted spirits.   Here Mesmerism  begins to ripen into
Spiritualism;  here lamb begins to look like  mutton,
veal to taste like beef.
  6. The trance  is induced by some  unseen power:
and  spirits  are seen and heard;  and they  give  us 
SPIRITUALISM IS  NATURAL.
27
facts not known before.  The lamb and the veal are
more matured here than in the former case: the Mes-
merism expands more distinctly into Spiritualism.
   7. No rigidity of limb, no action upon the body or
the  mind of the medium, is observable;  yet the spirit-
daughter communicates, and does  it by raps.   She
makes a table speak,  which Mesmerism  proper has
never done.  Her work is Spiritualism, is mutton, is
beef.  The same is true, and is  still more  markedly
shown, in  the case of the  tipping chair.  Thus, by
regular steps,  we  have ascended from the simplest
phases of Mesmerism up to distinct Spiritualism.   '
   Accounts of more  wonderful  manifestations  than
these which are now described might be cited from
the  published facts of Mesmerism and Spiritualism.
Quotations from others might show various  phases of
these subjects, which do not become apparent from the
few  facts here detailed.   But I am not attempting a
full  treatise; and I purposely confine myself to  cases
which have occurred before my own eyes,  the facts of
which I therefore know to be true.  These cases have
been cited in the above order, for the purpose of inti-
mating that Mesmerism, which is a generally admitted
fact, may, by a natural growth, run- up into some of
the forms of Spiritualism.  If they do show this, then
they take .from Spiritualism every suspicion  of the
supernatural, the miraculous, or the exclusively devil-
ish.  They then teach that Spiritualism is absolutely
but  an outgrowth from the  application of universal
natural laws,  and should be investigated as  calmly
and  as philosophically as is electricity,  magnetism, 
28
WITCHCRAFT.
chemistry,  or  any other natural science.  The pur-
pose of this little treatise is mainly to present the
claims of  Spiritualism  in  that  light, as something
natural.
  The influence which a powerful mesmerizer exerts
over a fitting subject,  the clairvoyance and  clair-
audience which the trance induces, together with the
intelligence which makes  raps  and tips, imply  ele-
ments of powers sufficient to produce all the  marvel-
lous phenomena of Witchcraft.   And now, with such
a lamp to our  feet, let us go back to  the dark day of
the most terrific scenes in New England's history.
  The commencement of Salem Witchcraft occurred
in the family  of  Rev. Mr. Parris, of Salem  Village
then, but Dan vers now.  One of the girls in his family
seemed to  go  into convulsion-fits; " her limbs being
twisted several ways, and being made very stiff."  She
named Tituba, an  Indian or West-Indian servant-maid
in the family, as the  cause of her strange condition.
Is it impossible that Tituba had mesmeric  powers,
and  that this  girl was  susceptible to her mesmeric
influence ?  This case looks like one of simple Mes-
merism.  But  if, as tradition long years  ago  told me
(though I have no remembrance  of noticing it in the
books), — if this  little  girl of eleven years wrote in
Latin,  though  she had  never studied tha$ language
then some  spirit  may have used her hand, and thus
have furnished a  case of Spiritualism.
  The agonies and  convulsions  produced in  those
days by the  eyes and  hands,  when  accusers and
accused were confronted, also the sudden reliefs expe- 
WITCHCRAFT.
29
rienced, were no  greater than are often experienced
now, and are conceded to be  the effects of Magnet-
ism.
  In their abnormal states, the "afflicted" ones  of
old Were accustomed to see " the Black Man ;" and
theology then called him the  Devil.   But Margaret
Rule, of Boston, was  attended  by "seven  or  eight
spectres  at  once,  whereof she imagined she  knew
three or four."   She was visited by a white spirit, and
" had a frequent view of his bright, shining, and glo-
rious garments."  This  girl,  too,  while lying  upon
her bed at night, in Boston, saw and named  a young
man who was in danger of drowning, away down the
harbor;  and, the next day, the  fact of his  exposure
and danger at the time when  she  saw him was fully
confirmed.  Also she was lifted from her bed, and, in
horizontal position, raised  to the ceiling above  by
some invisible power, and held there so firmly that
" it took three or four men to pull  her down."  Such
are facts according to Cotton Mather, — her minister
and her very constant attendant.  Here spirits were
seen; a living man was seen miles distant, struggling
in the  water, though it was in the night, and the seer
was in  a house in Boston,  upon her bed.  Also a
strong  physical  manifestation was shown when  the
invisible  power  raised and held  her to the top of
her room.  But all the facts in her case have their
parallel, generically, in the cases of Mesmerism and
Spiritualism before given.
   Take the case of the Rev. George Burroughs.  He
was executed  on Gallows  Hill,  in Salem.   And
                        3* 
30
REV. GEORGE  BURROUGHS.
 why ?  For Witchcraft.   And what were the  charges
 which  involved that particular crime ?   They  were,
 that he had kept his two deceased wives in a  strange
 kind of  servitude;  that he knew things which he
 could not have learned without the Devil's help; and
 that he  performed  superhuman  feats  of  strength.
 Cotton Mather  says that " Burroughs kept his two
 successive wives in  a strange kind  of  slavery, and
 pretended to  tell  the talk which  any one had  with
 them when he was absent.   His wives had privately
 complained unto the neighbors about frightly  appari-
 tions of evil spirits with  which their house was some-
 times, infested."   No wonder that they were uneasy,
 and felt  enslaved.  Knowledge by  the  husband of
 their private  talk with  others, and  the apparition
 of spirits  at their  home,  would have enslaved  strong
 minds, and disturbed stout  hearts, in days when all
 marvellous works were  ascribed to' the  Devil, and
 when the  belief was prevalent that the Devil could
 work through no man without  the man's own  con-
 sent and distinct compact.  Yet we have only to  look
 upon Burroughs as a good medium, and all the appa-
 rent supernatural becomes  natural,  and  is  easily
 accounted for.
   Again:  when Burroughs repeated to  Ruck,  his
brother-in-law, a conversation which  Ruck had  just
been holding  privately with his sister, Burroughs^
wife, « Ruck, being startled, intimated that the Devil
himself  did not  know so far."  Burroughs replied,
"My God makes  known your  thoughts  unto me."
This power of thought-reading is now possessed by 
REV. GEORGE BURROUGHS.
31
many, in both the trance  and the apparent normal
state; and it is a strictly natural, though not  a gene-
ral, possession.  It was a God-given power, as all our
powers are; and Burroughs, having it, used it legiti-
mately.
  Again: " Burroughs was a very puny man;  yet he
had often done things beyond the strength of a giant.
A gun of about seven feet barrel, and so heavy that
strong men  could not steadily hold  it out with both
hands, — there were several testimonies given in, by
persons of credit and honor, that he made nothing  of
taking up such a gun behind the lock with one hand,
and holding it out, like a pistol, at arm's-length.  In
his vindication, he was so foolish as to say that an
Indian was there, and held it out  at the same time:
whereas  none  of  the spectators ever  saw any  such
Indian; but they supposed the Black Man might have
given him assistance, — the Black Man, as the witches
call  the Devil (and they  generally say he resembles
an Indian)."  Ah! do  they say that, Cotton Mather ?
Do the witches generally say that  the Black  Man
which they see resembles an Indian ?   Yes, you your-
self  have so  stated.   Now, since  he resembled an
Indian, why was he not some Indian, — some Indian
spirit, neither  more nor less ?  He was that which he
looked like,—an Indian.  Forget your Devil, and
take your witnesses at their word, Cotton  Mather,
and how changed appears the agency in all the terrific
scenes of Witchcraft!  All becomes reduced to simple
Mesmerism and Spiritualism.
  Burroughs saw an Indian (invisible to others) handle 
32           REV. GEORGE BURROUGHS.
the gun as he himself did; and  possibly he believed,
as we can now believe,  that the  Indian filled  Bur-
roughs's own feeble body with more than the strength
of the strongest man.   The horns,  the tail, the cloven
hoof, now vanish;  and the acquaintances  of Marga-
ret Rule;  the red men of the forest; the bright and
glorious visitant who came to Margaret  Rule, and of
whom " the enchanted people have talked much, and
from whom they received marvellous assistances," —
these are the strange visitants, these the actors, in the
days of Witchcraft.  The very face of the record shows
all this.
  Burroughs "being upon his trial, one of the be-
witched ones was  cast into horror at  the ghosts of
Burroughs's two deceased wives then appearing before
him.   Hereupon several of  the bewitched  persons
were successively called in; who all, not knowing what
the  former  had seen and  said, concurred in  their
horror of the  apparition which they affirmed  that
he had before him, . .  . and said that the spectres
told them they were the wives of Burroughs."  Here it
comes out that the spirits of Burroughs's departed
wives were  both seen  and heard, and  that, too, by
several of  the bewitched  ones, or mediums, independ-
ently.
  There are, in Cotton Mather's writings concerning
this  man, indistinct intimations  that  the  creed of
Burroughs was not  fully coincident with the prevail-
ing  one;  and  it is possible  that sectarian bigotry
helped to find him guilty of a capital offence.  But if
there was  nothing worse about him than the report 
                 OTHER  MYSTERIES.               33

of his trial indicates, and if the account of his fervent
and  charitable prayer at the gallows is true, I  am
inclined to think that a very good man paid the forfeit
of life because he was  for years a good spirit-medium,
and received, from the dwellers in the  spheres, teach-
ings and  influences which  raised him so far above
sectarianism and/cms of worship, that he could pray
with a free soul, and  worship on a plane too high
for the vision of his  accusers.   The worse  crucified
the better.
   The old records  abound  in facts  which might be
adduced in evidence that Witchcraft is resolvable into
Mesmerism and  Spiritualism, and therefore  into  the
legitimate operations of natural laws.   But we have
given to this topic all the space we can afford, till we
pass beyond our facts to some speculations and reflec-
tions.
   The clear-sighted logician will see, I think, that,
from the point now reached, a direct path extends on
to the Seeress of Prevorstvto Swedenborg, to Scottish
seers, to Joan of Arc, to Mahomet, to Roman augurs,
Grecian  priestesses, and all who  have given their
contemporaries assurances  that  they saw spirit-forms,
and conversed with  the departed or with angels.   The
prophets,  seers, and magicians of all ages and nations
may have been  all  that they claimed  to be, and yet
have been only mesmeric subjects and spirit-mediums.
   This view starts  the inquiry, whether any of the
Scripture-miracles were the  acts of unseen finite intel-
ligences, using their normal powers  in submission to
fixed  laws.   The question  is legitimate and proper. 
                                          *
34               BIBLE-MIRACLES.

And it gives me pleasure  to  make an  affirmative
answer; for, in doing that, I behold a God so perfect,
that his wisdom and power were, from the  beginning,
competent  to  devise such  laws as  should, without
violation, without suspension, admit, under and in
obedience  to  themselves, all the light  and all the
angel-visitations which his children  on earth  might
ever need.   When man shall see and feel that heaven's
inhabitants may come to earth  by natural processes,
and work among us just according to  their several
abilities and  characters,  then  the  greatest difficul-
ties of philosophical faith in the Bible, as a record of
teachings  from  on high, will  melt away,  and the
wisdom of  God himself will appear to us more com-
plete.
  The departed Samuel  did  appear to the woman of
Endor and to Saul;  Moses  and Elias did appear to
Jesus and  his companions: and, as spirits  are seen
and conversed with in our day, the fair presumption
is, that the processes of return were the same then as
now.   Angels rolled  the stone from the mouth  of the
sepulchre; they opened Peter's prison-doors.   Spirits
move heavy bodies now;  and why not by the same
laws as then ?  In olden times,  such works were done
in the dark:  they are mostly and most successfully
done in the dark now, and thus give ground for pre-
sumption  that both  are manifestations of  one law.
Unlearned  apostles spoke  in languages which they
had never  talked or studied before: many mediums
now do the same.  The sick were healed by a look or
a touch:  the  same  thing is  frequently  done. now. 
              GOOD  AND BAD SPIRITS.            35

Jesus, in a certain place, performed but few mighty
works, because of the unbelief which surrounded him;
and, at this day, unbelief on the part of those present
is a formidable bar to spirit-manifestation.   Jesus
walked upon the water: Margaret Rule floated in the   ,
air; and so  have  others quite recently.  These  and
other points of  resemblance in  the  manifestations
indicate a compliance with the same law or laws.
   The above conclusion by no means requires  one to
ascribe the same wisdom and holiness to the spirits
who come now as  to those who came of old; nor does
it bring the moral  and religious character of Jesus
and the apostles into comparison with that of modern
mediums.  Formerly there was occasion  to " try the
spirits ; " and most surely the need exists  at the  pre-
sent day.  Far back in Jewish history, God said he
would put a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophet;
and it is written, that an  evil spirit from the Lord
troubled  Saul.  Lying and  evil spirits  from some
source, as well as  truthful  and good ones, find their
way into  mediums  now.   The mediums themselves
are not all supposed to be above treachery and deceit.
There was one Judas of old: perhaps our times  fur-
nish many.  There were both good and bad spirits and
prophesiers in Bible times; and  there are both good
and bad spirits and  mediums, too, at the present day.
   One  fact  of   Scripture,  showing  the  immediate
 author or authors of John's inspiration when writing
 the Apocalypse, may throw a bright light upon the
 subject of spirit-action.  Jesus sent his angel to John,
 "in the spirit;"  and, "in the spirit" John  saw and 
36
THE  BIBLE.
heard  that angel, and learned  from him that he was
not God, but one of John's brethren,  the prophets.
This seems to  be a clear statement that the spirit of
one who had been  a prophet on  earth  was sent by
Jesus to John ; and that, when the angel was present,
John,  "in the  spirit" (trance?), saw and  heard the
things  which he described and recorded.  That angel
was a speaker to  John; and it is  his words, in part,
which  come  to  us  as inspiration. Let  that  light
shine back upon the Book of Daniel, and some other
parts  of the Scriptures, and see  if the Bible  itself
does not contain internal proof that individual, finite
spirits  furnished  many  parts of it to  the recording
mediums,  and  thus indicate that inspiration  from
above comes in  obedience to  some universal law.   Let
a view  like this  become  general; and  then, if its
effects  upon those who already take it warrant a pro-
phecy,  the world will turn  to  the Bible with fresh
interest, and find there, more than ever before,  a
storehouse  richly furnished  with  treasures of truth
and love and wisdom from  the heavens.  The Bible
will hereafter find its truest  friends, its only invincible
defenders, among  those who  shall guard it within the
walls of Spiritualism, and read it there in the light of
heavenly inspiration.
  If enough has been exhibited to furnish plausible
reason  for  asking whether  Mesmerism  is  not a key
which may unlock many long-closed chambers of mys-
tery, then I have no occasion for further presentation
of facts, but may,  in the future pages, indulge in some
explanations and  reflections. 
mesmerism: what is it?
37
  Every reader has doubtless asked, " What is  Mes-
merism ? "  This being put forth as a solvent of many
great mysteries of all  times, and  among all people,
what is this Mesmerism itself?   Frankly, it is  itself
quite a mystery yet; but it is not looked upon as in-
volving any thing  supernatural, devilish, or in such a
sense miraculous as to imply either a suspension or
a violation of natural laws in its processes of manifes-
tation.  Through it we learn that some men, by a con-
centrated application of their mental forces, aided often
by the eye or the hand, can either take from or impart
to certain persons some property or fluid which enables
the operator to become master in the subject's house
or body.  Through that other body he manifests  him-
self; but he does this only imperfectly.  He has power
there, but not power equal to that which  he can dis-
play through his own organs. A man is cramped when
he has to take a borrowed body;  therefore a spirit well
may be so too.   In successful Mesmerism, the subject
will walk or sit or kneel or lie down ;  will move this
way or that; will say this thing or that;  will perform
the most ludicrous or the most appropriate acts;  will
see  one object or another; will taste or smell or feel
any imaginable substance, whether present or not, just
according to the will of the operator.  But this is not
all: frequently such possession.effects a  liberation of
the subject's intellectual and perceptive faculties from
the control, not of the operator alone, but also from the
crampings of his own external organs, and  thus  ena-
bles hifn to look out through walls of solid masonry,
through hills of granite, and into  the most interior
                         4 
38          mesmerism :  what  is it 1
                                      •
recesses of the human body, or any other animal or
vegetable organism.   He seems to possess perceptive
faculties which enable him to see  and hear and sense
through all material objects, at vast  distances,  and in
all directions.   Thus conditioned,  he can  read the
autobiography of any natural object, scan  the distant,
and get glimpses of the future.   He  seems like  one
freed from the body, and endowed with organs which
use electricity as  their medium of sight  and  sound:
and thus can he see and hear through whatever  elec-
tricity can penetrate; that is, through almost, if not
quite,  all material objects.  Some men  then possess
and can put forth  such will-power as makes  certain
other men their abject and unresisting tools, — simple
unconscious  organs  by  which to express their  own
thoughts  and  purposes.   Sometimes such control is
absolute, but in more cases only  partial;  and such a
subduing force, when carried beyond a certain point,
pushes the subject's intellectual and perceptive facul-
ties into  unwonted  freedom  and independence, and
makes him a  more independent and gifted man than
before.   Such are the results of human  Magnetism,
called  Mesmerism only because  Mesmer applied it
and drew attention to it more definitely  and exten-
sively than any one had done  before his  time.  The
getting control  of another's  organism, either  by ab-
stracting from it or imparting to it human  Magnetism,
is Mesmerism.  It is the action of  one mind, in con-
nection with its enveloping body, upon another's body
and its indwelling  mind.   It is  some action*of the
living upon the living, and not upon tables and chairs. 
        SPIRITUALISM is ripened  mesmerism.     39
           •
  Many tell us that Spiritualism is  nothing but Mes-
merism.  Of course, such a  statement admits that it
is as much as Mesmerism; that it is, in fact, the same
thing.   Thanks for this concession  ; because Mesme-
rism, if permitted to mature, may ripen into Spiritual-
ism.  Our tree, like the orange, often shows flowers,
and green fruit and ripe, at the same time.  Much
that is supposed to be only Mesmerism is, in fact, Spi-
ritualism ;  also much of what is regarded as Spiritual-
ism is only Mesmerism.  Often, when man magnetizes,
he puts his subject into such a state, that some spirit
quietly slips in and works there,  and yet the spirit's
presence is not suspected.  At such times, an angel is
entertained unawares ;  Spiritualism is there, under the
name of Mesmerism.  On the other hand,  our spirit-
mediums often get mesmerized by the company present,
 so as  to become  clairvoyant and  clairaudient.   The
 internal or  spirit eyes and  ears of the mediums get
 opened by the undesigned, unwilled flowings of human
 magnetism to or from those around them.  Their words
 may report to  us spirit-utterances, and describe spirits
 and spirit-scenes; and yet the real speakers  may  be
 only entranced mortals, listening to the voices above,
 and looking into  the homes  of the ascended.  There
 may be a pure Mesmerism, which opens a way for
 mortals to see and hear the  departed.
    What, then, is a distinction between Mesmerism and
 Spiritualism ?   Mesmerism is something which a man
 does while  he has his clothes on:  Spiritualism is a
 similar act of  his after his  clothes have been put off.
 Suppose I magnetize you to-day;  and that I, the mes- 
 40    spiritualism  differs  from mesmerism.

 merizer, speak,  write, act, through  you, you being
 unconscious:  this is Mesmerism.   Suppose, farther,
 that I die to-night;  and that, to-morrow, I, a spirit,
 come and magnetize you, and then speak, write, act,
 through you:  this is Spiritualism.  Here we have the
 same operator working  upon and  through the same
 subject; the only difference being, that, to-day, I, the
 operator,  am in  the  body, — have my  clothes on;
 while, to-morrow, I am to be out of the body, or to
 have my clothes  off.   Such is the only essential differ-
 ence between Mesmerism, and Spiritualism in some of
 its forms.   If man's powers are not diminished by the
 death  of his body, then some spirits  can mesmerize
 susceptible subjects.   No increase of power is needed;
 no miracle is wanted.  Mesmerism and Spiritualism
 may differ no more than the green fruit and the ripe
 on the same tree.   They are nourished through the
 same roots, the same trunk: one ripens into  the other.
 Those who are so inclined may pluck all the oranges
 from their own trees while the fruit is yet green: but
 I beg of them to leave mine upon the branches; and,
 when an orange there shall have become fully ripe,
 I trust they will not  dissuade me from eating it, by
 alleging that their own green  ones have never  tasted
 good.
   Spirits, then, often have to perform the difficult and
 uncertain process of inducing a full mesmeric sleep,
before they can manage the hand or the tongue of flesh.
Several persons, who are susceptible to both the mes-
meric and the spirit influence, have told me, that, when
the controlling fluid comes to them from one  in the 
spirits mesmerize.
41
body, they feel it flowing in horizontally, and entering
mostly about the region of  the  eyes;  but, when it
comes from spirits, the stream is  vertical, and enters
through the spiritual organs on the crown of the head.
That the processes of mesmerizing and of spiritualiz-
ing a subject are very similar, might be argued from
the fact, that both  succeed best under like circum-
stances.  Both are most easily performed where all
minds are  quiet  or  passive;  both ask for good air
and an harmonious circle;  and both generally succeed
best with the same organisms and temperaments: in
other words, in most cases, but not in all, good spirit-
mediums can  be easily magnetized.   The difference,
then, between Mesmerism, and Spiritualism in some of
its forms, is not enough to let us  regard them as gene-
tically different.
   If any spirit can visit earth, and work here,  why
cannot all others ?   If my spirit-friend can communi-
cate  through a stranger, why can he not do the  same
through me ?  Why cannot all  spirits come ?  Why
 are not all  persons  mediums ?  Such  questions have
 come up in every mind.   You have said, if spirits come,
 why do they not come to# and through  me ?  Proba-
 bly they are  hindered by natural obstacles, inherent
 in either them or yourself.   How is it in Mesmerism ?
 There are  but few successful  magnetizers, but few
 facile subjects.   Mr.----  can very  easily magnetize
 several of my acquaintances and friends;  but he can
 produce no effect  upon me.  Why this  difference?
 Feed two oxen alike for years, and then bring them
 to the shambles:   you may find the meat of one
                         4* 
42       NOT  ALL spirits can mesmerize.
 tender and juicy, that of the  other tough and dry.
 One man  has fine and soft hair, while another's  is
 coarse and hard.   Why so ?  Who can tell me why ?
 The facts are obvious ; but the  reasons for them can-
 not be given.  We can only say, such are the results
 of God's modes of working.   Now, then, if in  our
 fibres and fluids and  emanations we differ one from
 another, why may not  some of  us be very susceptible
 to certain influences which others cannot feel at all ?
 Why may not some  impart much more easily and
 powerfully than others ?' Till the mesmerist can mag-
 netize any one person just as easily and as thoroughly
 as he  can any other,  why expect  that spirits can ?
 Till all men are efficient magnetizers, why think that
 all spirits can be ?   Till all men are facile subjects for
 the embodied  magnetizer, why  suppose  that they can
 be for a disembodied one ?  The hidden reasons which
 exist in the one case, ought, as we view these subjects,
 to exist also in the other.   We  believe that they do.
  Beyond a certain point, Mesmerism fails to furnish
 illustration of Spiritualism.  We come now to the
 raps and  tips.  This working outside  of and distant
 from the medium's body, and this infusion of anima-
 tion and intelligence into inanimate wood, is more than
 Mesmerism has ever claimed or seemed to perform.  The
visible  living man, acting  upon a visible livimg organ-
 ism, is always involved  in  Mesmerism ;   but many  of
the physical manifestations of Spiritualism imply some
invisible  power revealing intelligence  through inani-
mate matter.
  The  raps and knockings and  table-tippings have 
          RAPS  AND TIPS NOT MESMERISM.        43

never come out among the works of Mesmerism.  The
harsh poundings, the childish tiltings, the unmannerly
antics of heavy pianos and large dining-tables, are, as
many say, too low and vulgar for any decent mind in
the body to wish for or to prompt:  no  well-bred mes-
merist ever calls for  such results.  True,  true; but
would they come, if  he did call for them ?  No: he
does not show  the raps  and  tips.  And why not?
Simply because he cannot.  These low and ridiculed
works lie beyond the farthest stretch of his powers.
A table rising and floating gently in the air; a piano
dancing to  the tune that is being played upon itself;
a human form rising gently from floor towards the
ceiling, and moving dovelike around the room;  a chair
tipping in  answer to questions; and  all this where
neither muscle nor machinery, nor any tangible me-
chanical power, was applied; — these  things, and
others like them, which are happening every  month,
and are seen  over and  over again by  many credible
witnesses, — these things are not  found in Mesme-
rism.
   Did animal magnetism, did  electricity, did odyle,
did either  or  all  of  these,  constitute  the  intelligent
actor in the chair which answered my questions ?  No:
these fluids or forces  of nature  are not mind.   They
do not, they cannot, guide and control action so as to
converse with  man.  They may  be, and  doubtless
are, instruments, through which one  mind imparts
intelligence  to  another; but they, in  and of them-
selves, are not mind, and cannot think nor act  intelli-
gently.  Let the most powerful embodied mesmerizer 
44
MAGNETISM IS  NOT MIND.
 which the world contains try his will upon the insen-
 sible chair, and will the  chair move at his  bidding ?
 No ; not the fraction of an inch.   Charge the chair,
 even incased in  glass or coated with sealing-wax, —
 charge it with all the magnetism, electricity, and odylic
 fluid, imaginable, and  will they all  generate in it or
 convey into it  mind  enough  to  understand and to
 answer my question ?  No;  obviously no. You know
 that if an embodied mesmerizer should will the chair
 to move, and keep on willing it to move for hours, that
 it would not stir an inch* unless he  applied his hand
 to it.   His will-power controls only living organism.
 You know, too, that neither magnetism, electricity, nor
 odyle,  could be made to give or to generate a mind in
 the  chair; yet its motions proved that mind was there.
 Common sense demands the admission of this.
   But mind needs tools or organs when it gives intel-
 ligent  movements  to  matter.   We  usually find  it
 expressing itself through the eye, the face, the tongue,
 the hand.  The acting  mind surely needed a hand, or
 something with the powers  of a hand,  to .move that
 chair.   So also did the one  angel to roll away the
 stone, and the other angel to unlock  the prison-door.
 Something with the powers of a hand was needed in
 each case.  Perhaps a  hand was there.   Spirits pro-
 fess to have power, under  favorable circumstances, to
 gather up and use some,  to us, invisible  emanations
from the bodies  of our mediums, and elements  from
the  atmosphere  in some  localities, and to combine
these with certain properties inherent in themselves,
and from these materials to construct hands, arms, &c.,' 
SPIRIT-TOOLS.
45
varying in strength according to their own inherent
powers, and the qualities of the foreign materials used:
they profess to be able to form hands, arms, &c, vary-
ing in strength from those of a feeble infant up to those
of a  veritable Samson.  When  such tools have been
constructed,  the invisible ones  work out  by aid of
them results which man  can see  and hear and feel.
Then raps and tips are heard and seen;  then the low
things become high.  A hand from out of the invisible
did once appear, and write upon the walls of a banquet-
room ; and the form of another was put forth,  and
took  Ezekiel by a lock  of  his head, and the  Spirit
lifted him up between the  earth and  the heaven.
When were the laws  repealed by which such hands
were formed, and did their  work?
   Our whole train  of remark implies the supposition,
that  refined  electricity, magnetism, odyle,  or some
unknown, but yet eternal and universal,  fluid  has
been  an essential  instrument in  all past spirit-com-
munication, as well in Judea as in  other lands.   It
implies, too, that this instrument can never have been
wanting in any age.  Why, then,  have angel-visits
been  so  " few, and far  between" ?   We need  not
answer  a query like this because of any bearing it
may have upon the question whether spirits come now.
That  ocean  and   those  winds  had always existed
which bore Columbus to the New  World;  but  the
question  why Europeans  had  so   seldom,  if ever,
reached America before, could not invalidate  the  fact
that Columbus  himself had reached it.   If it be
proved that spirits come now, the infrequency of their 
46          SPIRIT-VISITS : WHY SO FEW ?

visits heretofore will not disprove  the  fact.   Still, the
question, why they should come  so  much more fre-
quently and generally now than in former times, is a
very natural and proper  one, and is worthy of the
best answer we  can give.
  That answer, however, will have little weight with
any but those who are already prepared to give  some
credence where statements are backed by no authority
beyond that of utterances through spirit-mediums.
  Is it impossible that modes and means of using the
subtile fluids in man and nature are better understood,
even by the spirits, now, than they were in ages past ?
Can the departed continue to make advances in scien-
tific and practical knowledge ?  Who among  us can
tell?  *Electricity and  magnetism have always existed;
yet  it was  but  quite recently that man became  ac-
quainted with their extent  and nature, and that he
learned how to subject them in any degree to his con-
trol ; still more recently did he invent the  telegraph.
Man, by his discoveries in electricity and steam within
the  last half-century, has become able  to convey his
thoughts and his person much more widely, speedily,
and definitely to people and places on the earth now
than he  could  before.   Possibly  spirits  may have
made  recent  discoveries  and inventions,  by  which
they can come to  us more  easily, speedily, and defi-
nitely, and make themselves more distinctly felt and
better understood  by us, than formerly.  Either this
is true, or mediumistic fancy has been highly fertile
and ingenious.  I  will cull  and arrange.
   When  Swedenborg reached the  spheres  above, he 
SWEDENBORG.--MESMER.
47
did not forget  the privilege he had enjoyed,  while
in the form, of  looking into the abodes of both good
and bad spirits, and  of  conversing with the dwellers
there.  This great natural philosopher soon perceived
that his  uncommon  privileges had  come to him in
conformity  with  universal laws;  and the inference
was a necessary one, that many men might have simi-
lar visions  and illuminations, and be instructed  and
improved by them.   He saw that  he  had been no
special favorite of Heaven, in whose behalf some mira-
cles had been  wrought.  All in his experience  had
been natural.   Others might attain to the same expe-
rience, could they but learn its laws and conditions,
and be subjected to  them.   The point which he  had
attained unwittingly, many others  might attain by
care, and by help from above.
   Swedenborg was a philanthropist; and his love for
man below continued to burn as ardently after he had
left the body as it did before:  and he states, that he
made it  his leading business in the spheres to draw
 the attention of philosophic and inventive spirits to the
 privileges which he had enjoyed while in the form,
 and to incite them to such investigations, studies, and
 efforts as should discover the laws by which his bless-
 ings  had come, and learn how those laws might be
 applied by  spirits and  men, so as to bring about an
 habitual and mutually beneficial  intercourse.
   When Mesmer ascended to the spheres, he became
 interested,  as thousands were, in these views and pur-
 poses of the Swedish seer.   His own experiences and
 operations  in  his earth-life were calculated to make 
48
FRANKLIN.
such a work attractive; and now, more  philosophi-
cally and under more favorable circumstances  than
when on earth, he  entered upon a scrutiny into the
nature and laws of those fluids and forces which had
enabled him to be a wonder-worker among men.   His
studies, combined with his native powers, have fitted
him to be a very useful  and efficient  co-laborer in
the band of experimenters.
  We find it stated, that Franklin's discoveries of the
presence and action of electricity while on earth, and
his studies into  its  properties and  workings,  had
fitted him  to become, soon after entering the spirit-
world, the wisest and most efficient of  Swedenjborg's
co-laborers in his  difficult but philanthropic project.
In  the spheres,  in  the world of  mentality,  divested
of clayey encumbrances, able to be the lightning's tra-
velling companion through the  clouds, able  to trace
it to its birthplace, and track it in  all its wanderings,
he  loved the exciting chase.   The  project  of  Swe-
denborg had intense charms for him; and his  mighty
intellect and noble heart bent  their fullest energies
upon discoveries in  refined electricity.   In  that, or
co-extensive  with  that, he  everywhere  found  life-
principle, — found  God.
   This  element was omnipresent;  it  pervaded the
whole ethereal ocean, in which suns  and stars  and
planets  and comets swim; it was around them all,
and in them all; it reached everywhere, from point to
point, throughout the limitless  universe.  Then  why
not try to bridle and harness it?  Why not seek to make
it  a manageable and trustworthy bearer of messages 
FRANKLIN'S DISCOVERIES.
49
from sphere to sphere, from world  to world ?  The
inquiry at once welled up in that mind which had
taught terrestrial lightning to restrain  its  wayward
gambols, and move orderly down the rods of iron; it
welled up in him  who had  found the elements of
lightning diffused throughout  our earth, and showed
us that portions of it could be stabled in the Leyden
jar, and held there ready harnessed for man's use; it
welled up, per force, in him who had been chief pio-
neer on the road which led man to his electro-magnetic
telegraph.  The question demanded an  answer; and
who more  competent to find  it  than Franklin?
None  other had carried  from earth to  heaven such
acquaintance  with  earth's electricity  as his ;  few
others had gone  up  with equal powers of investi-
gation.  Who, then, more competent to  discover the
principles, develop the powers, and invent the instru-
mentalities, by which  the  refined electricity  of the
universe  might be  made the reliable instrument of
regular  intercommunion between men  and spirits?
He found that  this instrument had been used inci-
dentally  in every  age  and  every  land, but  never
scientifically, — never, to any extent, with certainty
and precision.  Success had been but a chance result;
or if measurably constant in  a few places and times,
and with a few persons, its laws were not understood,
and therefore no instruction could be given as to the
proper modes and means of its use.  There was  no
needle pointing north, — no steam-power to counter-
vail  adverse winds and currents.  The voyager from
heaven to the  shores  of earth had  less certainty of
                         5 
50
SPIRITS INVENT.
 reaching his place of destination, and much less pro-
 bability of entering a specific harbor, than was desira-
 ble.   The  clearances were  "few  and far  between,"
 because of the difficulties and uncertainties  of naviga-
 tion.   Landings, it is true, had been effected in Egypt,
 Greece, Judca, and many other places; but no means
 for continued intercourse had been devised, no post-
 office  established, no  telegraphic wires  stretched.
 Spirits had not learned  how to  provide  themselves
 with such accommodations.  But " the spirit-world is
progressive, like unto this."
   Swedenborg,  Mesmer,  Franklin, with  hosts  upon
 hosts of others, long sought and labored for methods
 and means  by which to control  refined electricity as
 effectually  as  we  do electro-magnetism when  tele-
 graphing.   They sought how they might, by means of
 this element, write their thoughts in  man's  language,
 at this end of wires which they could let down.   They
 sought, too, to construct, as it were, submarine armor,
 in which they could descend, and tarry briefly in, the
 dense and  stifling atmosphere which man inhabits.
 Researches and experiments, continued through many
 years, brought partial success.   Spirits acquired  the
 power to approach us with more than former certainty,
 and to act among us with more  than former definite-
 ness  and precision; and  now they trusted  that they
 could do something better for man than the  occasional
 presentation to him of frightful ghosts, and the alarm-
ing of him by those sights and sounds which make a
" haunted house."  They acquired the power, and had
the will, to come in wisdom and  benevolence.  But 
             SPIRITS ACHIEVE SUCCESS.           51

man did not know this;  and how could • they inform
him ?  To  speak  through human lips,  and proclaim
their presence, even though they should  do it with the
eloquence and wisdom  of an ancient prophet, would
produce no conviction of their presence.  A Fenelon, a
Chalmers, a  Robert Hall, a Channing, has  done as
much; at least, man would say so.  Let them state new
facts, and unfold new laws of natural science, and their
organs would be deemed mere dreamers, because man
has not  made the attainments,  nor constructed the
instruments,  by which he could take  cognizance of
what they might assert.   Let them make a human
tongue  speak in  a ■ language  which  it' had  never
learned, and the world  would charge that the tongue
was drunk, or that disease had  created a tongue for
conjectured old memories.  Science seems often more
fertile than scientific in its conjectures.   The spirit of
the old Hebraist himself would  seem   to be  much
more competent  to talk Hebrew through the  sick
girl, than was her own conjectured memory of what
she  most likely  had  never learned,  and therefore
could not remember.
   How, then, could the spirits make known their
presence ?  They hoped to succeed by giving a tongue
to dumb matter, and life and intelligence to the inani-
mate.   This they attempted.   They worked first in
Germany, then France, then other places in  Europe;
next  came to America; almost  obtained success seve-
ral times, but not  quite.   They  made  sounds at
several  points, which  were  heard and wondered at,
but not traced to  the proper authors.   At last a little 
52
MAN RECOGNIZES SPIRITS.
girl near Rochester, grown  familiar with  the knock-
ings because of their long continuance, and in no great
awe of the invisible authors because  of her  infantile
lack of mental power to make them permanently very
frightful,  said to  the spirits, "Do as  I  do."   She
snapped  her fingers  three times;  and they rapped
three times.   " Now five times," said she;  and the
girl snapped and the spirits rapped five times.   " Now
ten;"  and ten came.  Thus the girl's  mother, who
was present, learned that the unseen actors, who  had
for days and nights disturbed  and wearied the whole
family to exhaustion, possessed intelligence enough to
count ten; and soon she learned that they  could com-
prehend  a question, and give  a pertinent  answer.
This was success :  the telegraph  worked;  man recog-
nized spirit-action;  the  despised little rap  evolved
itself into a majestic  sound; and joy — deep, thrill-
ing joy — swelled  in  the bosoms of the wise  and pa-
tient laborers  above.  They felt  that man  would soon
cease to regard spirits as frightful demigods from  ou"
the mists of a mysterious ocean;  that man would cease
to regard a spirit Columbus  or Cortez or Cook as
belonging to a different order of being from  himself.
Their anticipation is partly realized.   Only ten years
have since passed, and they now  have  their telegraph-
offices — their mediums — in nearly every  village  and
hamlet in the American Union, and very many scat-
tered throughout the Old World.  At least three mil-
lions of our own people, it  is supposed, are believers
that they can communicate with  us. — Call this whole
account, if you please, but  a fancy sketch: yet it is 
      LAWS  OF EARTH AND THE SPHERES ALIKE.   53

not my fancy's work ; its teachings have come to me
through the pens or the lips of others; and it perhaps
refutes the charge, that  Spiritualism has told man
nothing new.
   No reader will fail to see that we regard spirits as
being learners in natural sciences and in mechanism
as absolutely as  man is;  and from  this will follow,
not the possibility alone, but the probability, that the
spirit-world is becoming more and more rich in instru-
ments,  skill,  and power to extend and multiply its
operations,  and its  spheres  of influence.
   Spirit-communication  is  as strictly  natural  as  is
man's telegraphing.  It is subject  to nice laws, to dif-
ficulties, interruptions, and often  to  absolute failure;
yet it is, in the main, so far  successful as to give good
promise, that, in  coming times, it will be quite re-
liable, and give  pleasure and  benefit in both worlds.
Thousands of spirits are experimenting.  Let them
rap ;  let them tip; let them enchain our attention  as
best  they can; and cease your wonder —

              " That souls in bliss should come to earth
                To say their A, B, C."

These playful lines, and  the others on our titlepage,
 quoted  from the " Dan vers Centennial Celebration,
 1852," may have a direct significance, and  may assert
facts, even  though seemingly veiled under the garb and
 showing the aspect of' amusing irony.  For pleased
 attendance upon the self-dancing  table does bespeak
 "the world's advance"  to such knowledge, and such
freedom from superstitious  fears, as enable it  calmly
                          6*
» 
54            BAD SPIRITS  CAN COME.

to subject the most mysterious occurrences to rigid
scrutiny, and trace them beyond the agency of demons,
whether good or bad, up to God's legitimate action,
or to legitimate action in  the universe to which  he is
lawgiver.  Also it is " a  miracle  sublime,"  that man
has risen to where he can tranquilly hold communion
with  heaven's  inhabitants   through  animated  and
instructed wood.  Never before, in all the ages, has
his philosophy qualified him for his present calmness
amid the wonder-workings of unseen intelligences.
  But we do not look for a  time when the mere fact
that  a  message comes from  the spheres will of itself
be conclusive proof of the  genuineness, authenticity,
or truth, of that which  is brought.  The process is
natural; the agents are fallible; the authors may be
foolish  and  false, or they may be wise and truthful.
So long as man's  telegraph will  convey falsehood as
well  as truth; and so long as no  moral qualifications
are essential in an operator of the telegraph; so long
as the bad  man is just as  free  as  the good one to
breathe God's air, eat the fruits of the soil, use  his
own  limbs, use his tongue  and his pen, or use the
mail and the telegraph, —just so long will bad spirits
be as free in the use of the spirit-telegraph as are good
ones.   God's  restraints  are in no wise different in
principle or in relative degree there and here.
  Bad spirits, then, may come?  Certainly.  Also bad
men may be your chosen correspondents;  may be your
best-beloved  companions:  but whose  the fault, or
where  the cause, of this ?   The reason is within  your-
self.   Like loves and cleaves to its like.  Yet the best 
WITCHCRAFT A  STUBBORN FACT.        55
man may occasionally be visited and  annoyed by the
vilest.   The worst man in the nation may write  a
characteristic  letter to  the  best  one.  A  very  bad
spirit may enter into  a very good man, and  annoy
him:  but the home will not be congenial; and such a
spirit will not make it his abiding-Lidice.  Also a good.
spirit — a Howard or a Mrs.  Fry — may visit de-
praved mortals.   The spirits who prevailingly visit any
one who believes in, and invites and helps them to
come, will,  in their essential moral  and  intellectual
traits, be such that the intercourse will be mutually
pleasant, as is the case between  us  and those friends
here with whom visits are exchanged freely and with-
out ceremony.   And yet the frequent visitor at circles
will meet with  spirits of vastly varied characters, —
as varied as are  the characters of J;he men who sur-
round us.   How much ground, then, is there to appre-
hend that all  the  spirits  who visit earth  are evil?
Just as much as there is to suppose that all the  men
and women of the  world have been evil.  How much
ground is there  for you to  suppose  that none but evil
spirits would come to  you, if you opened your doors
to spirits ?  Just as much  as there  is for  you to sus-
pect that your  own strongest loves  are  evil.   Devil
comes to Devil.
   The  matter  of  Witchcraft  is  worthy of  farther
notice.   There have been some efforts made of late to
give the public  an  impression that most of the trou-
bles  of  the Witchcraft-times were traceable  to  the
diseased fancies and croakings of a few bedridden old
women  and some  weak and silly  children.   Such 
56
WITCHCRAFT A  STUBBORN FACT.
efforts result, no doubt, from that state of mind which
inclines  one  to  ignore  and  disbelieve  any  facts
which seem supernatural,  however  strong  the testi-
mony to their occurrence.  But it is a libel  upon  our
fathers to  regard  their  testimony as  false, and then
exhibit the strong, brave men themselves  as so weak,
foolish, and timid as to let  mere ghost-stories disturb,
to its very foundations, the peace of  both  Church and
State.  Unless we ignore ten eventful years of New
England's history,  we must  allow  that  the leading
facts of Witchcraft did occur.   Its sights were  seen,
its  sounds  were heard, its  extraordinary  works wore
performed.   That age believed so.   Nineteen persons
were  executed;  and  the sturdy octogenarian, Giles
Cory, was pressed  to  death.   There was  some cause
for such bloody punishments as  these, beyond the
tattle of  simple girls and bedridden old women.   The
sober senses and solid judgments of the strong men of
that day  were not so easily  befooled.   They witnessed
and learned feats beyond the power of man  in the
flesh to perform ;  and it was upon startling facts that
they based their stern, exterminating action.
  Behold those strong men, those active  servants of
their God, bold of heart and firm of nerve, — behold
them believing that the Evil One himself  was con-
verting broomsticks into saddle-horses ; exciting meal-
chests to  dance jigs; making well-trained children lose
all reverence and propriety; luring men and women
into his own fearful service, to the everlasting ruin of
their  souls;—behold them   seeing  the  arch-enemy
of God and  good men in all  these things; and then 
FREER  TIMES.
57
laugh not at the folly, but respect the heroism, which
could go  forth with  firm tread to meet  Satan - him-
self in direct encounter.  Trusting in God, those men
went to conflict where the bravest on earth's  common
battle-fields might have feared to wage battle.  Turn
all the leaves of human history, and not one  of them
will describe a scene requiring truer courage, or more
firm reliance upon God.  Let fair respect,  and not
shame, — yes, let respect, — crown their brows. They
were true to their convictions;  therefore honor them.
But they were mistaken ; they mistook an Indian spirit
for the  Devil; and  out of that mistake came the
horrors  and fatal wrongs  of Gallows Hill.
   It is our privilege to live amid like wonders.  What
happened then in Essex County is occurring now  in
many  of the cities, towns, and villages throughout our
land.  In most instances, the works go on noiselessly
 and gently, failing to create much public stir.   Our
 stand-point  of view  is different from that on which
 our fathers stood.  The Great  Devil  is not visible  to
 us: some  smaller ones  appear;  but  they  are out-
 numbered, and  held  in  check,  by better spirits.
 Margaret Rule's glorious and shining bright spirit is
 in the ascendant now.   Thought moves  less in  deep
 ruts than formerly.  Freedom — intellectual, religious,
 civil,  moral  freedom — is  greater now  than in the
 times  of Witchcraft.   The cold shoulder, a sneer of
 contempt, or a basting of scandal, is about all the
 punishment which  existing opinions  and  customs
 allow to be inflicted for the  crimes of thinking freely
 and logically, and of acting out the honest  thought. 
58            REV. CHARLES  BEECHER.

Under the  old faith, and  the old powers of Church
and State, the jail and the gallows would have had
me, and many a nobler one, long ere this.  Thanks to
God for the intellectual  freedom we enjoy in this
favored land;  thanks to him that the  church can no
longer enslave; thanks to him for the  civil freedom
which  knows  no  creed;  thanks, thanks,  to him for
the moral freedom which lets  the tongue be true to
God and fearless of man, in  telling frankly what the
eye has  seen,  the ear heard,  and the  heart  con-
ceived.
  Our facts found their analogies in  the  Bible; and
we  express distinctly our faith,  that  the Bible-facts
are true, that its wisdom is  heavenly, that its power
was inflowed to it from above, and still  that its  mar-
vels were wrought, and its wisdom inspired, in con-
formity with universal laws, — laws  which are still
in force, and  under which  the  departed can revisit
earth.
  The Rev. Charles Beecher, when reporting officially
upon  Spiritualism, said, "It  is  not  enough  that  a
theory can, by great effort,  embrace  the  phenomena
of clairvoyance,  rhabdomancy,  apparitions,  oracles,
haunted  houses, rappings, &c.: it must  also take in
the facts of the Bible.  It must  give to  the  Bible its
natural meaning;  not  explaining away, by false ac-
commodation-principles, its demoniac possessions, its
pythonesses, its laws, its  history of  the  evoking of
Samuel, and of the false prophets. Whatever physio-
logical law accounts for odylic phenomena in all ages,
will, in the end,  inevitably  carry itself through the 
             EFFECTS  OF SPIRITUALISM.           59

whole  Bible. ... If a theory be adopted everywhere
else but in the Bible, excluding spiritual intervention
by odylic  channels in  toto, and accounting  for  every
thing  physically, then  will the covers of  the  Bible
prove  but pasteboard barriers.  Such  a theory will
sweep  its way through the Bible and its authority. . . .
On the other hand, if the theory of spiritual interven-
tion,  through  odylic  channels, be accepted in the
Bible,  it  cannot be shut up  there."
  This is common sense and sound  philosophy.  We
accept the -- theory of spiritual intervention, through
odylic channels, in the  Bible," and,  of course, al^o in
modern spirit-manifestation.  The two stand or fall
together.   In advocating and  defending the position
that spirits come to us by natural  law, we  are  advo-
cating and defending the Bible.  The  miracles and
inspiration of the Bible, as well as the repeated  mani-
festations of disembodied intelligence in all  ages, have
a deeper foundation and a broader basis in  the nature
of things, than the science, reason, and theology of our
times are accustomed to recognize.
   What are the usual and legitimate effects of Spirit-
ualism ?   Before we answer, let us make a few preli-
minary statements.   One  often finds it said,   or at
least implied, that Spiritualism does more harm than
good, and that therefore it is not produced  by spirits,
and cannot imply any action of theirs.   Such an infe-
rence is not legitimate.   The moral character of agents
may be proved by the good or  harm they do or may
do.  The effects of Spiritualism may be properly used
in answer to the question, whether  the acting spirits 
 60          EFFECTS  OF SPIRITUALISM.

 are  good ones or bad ones; but the  effects are no
 answer to the  question, whether the agents  in  Spi-
 ritualism are embodied or disembodied.  Prove, if you
 can, that all the actors  in it are  bad,  and what fol-
 lows ?   Why,  this, — that  Spiritualism  should  be
 shunned; but by no means does it prove that disem-
 bodied spirits cannot be its authors.   Prove that the
 actors are good, and what follows ?  Why, this, — that
 the  subject  is  worthy  of favorable  regard, but  not
 that those actors come  from the  spheres above.  The
 fact being suspected  that spirits come, the  moral
 character and influences of the acts witnessed  cannot
 prove either that the authors  are or are not spirits, but
 only that they are bad ones or good ones, or both, as
 the acts shall indicate.
   The dangers, sufferings, privations, hardships, and
 permanent debility, of Dr. Kane, and the most of his
 companions, consequent upon their efforts to penetrate
 the ice-barred North, may be a good reason why we
 should not ourselves attempt,  nor encourage others to
 attempt, to  hold communion with  the walrus and
 grisly  bear ; but  cannot disprove the  presence  of
 the walrus and  the  bear where Kane went, nor  the
 statement of William  Morton, that he and  Hans
 reached the shore of an open  Polar Sea.  Such a  sea
 may exist without being of any definable use to man.
 It may exist, contrary to the supposed  laws  which
require  greater cold at  eighty-five degrees than  at
 seventy-five  degrees north, — contrary to the  deduc-
tions  of  science.  Science may even  deny its exist-
ence ; but she cannot successfully demolish Morton's 
EFFECTS OF  SPIRITUALISM.           61
testimony.   She may assert that he  was deluded or
deceived, or that he lied;  but her word will have less
power to produce  conviction  than  his, because he
stood on the proper spot to witness  the fact.   Facts
are the creator of science; and when the thing formed
hastily attempts to demolish its creator, or the distinct
and  apparently  honest  testimony  by which  that
creator's existence is proved,.it will meet with signal
and shameful defeat.   Let the  stoutest ship of science
rush, " bows on," upon a heavy iceberg of facts, and it
is her own  timbers which must  give way.  Morton
says he reached that Polar Sea: his words, as yet, are
fair authority for that fact.   Spirits say they  reach
the earth: their words, the words of thousands upon
thousands of them, are part of the fair authority for
this fact; and the words of as many thousand truthful
men and women, that  they have seen and  heard the
spirits, are  another part.
   Is it  wise and useful to investigate Spiritualism,
and yield at all to its influences ?   Who shall answer
such an inquiry ?   Nearly every man will; but who
is best qualified to reply, — those who can speak from
experience; or those who are, at most, but external
observers?   I, a receiver of Spiritualism, can  assert
that its effects upon the heads  and hearts and lives of
those who embrace it are, in the main, highly salutary,
and that most spiritualists  will and do confirm my
declaration.   You, a rejecter of it, may assert that this
faith unbalances the  mind, depraves the heart, and
unfolds  itself in immorality; and  that your own
observations, and the general observation of the com-
                         6 
62
EFFECTS OF  SPIRITUALISM.
munity, will  sustain you in your position.   If bare
assertion be  all,  you and I may chase  each  other
round and round  in a circle for ever, and yet make no
real  advance.   But that is not all.   The bases of the
assertion are proper items  for use in the discussion.
In my case, it rests partly upon inward experience ; in
your case, upon  your  outward observation of another.
My position is the best for getting at positive knowledge
of what is  asserted; and therefore (our characters for
truth and veracity being alike, and predilection on one
side  balancing prejudice on the other) the world will
give  more weight to my assertions than it can to yours.
It does the like in other cases.
   The mere  outsider and looker-on at a Methodist
camp-meeting may  honestly  conclude that  such  a
gathering  and its appendages,  and  also  the faith
which develops itself in the begetting and cherishing
of such meetings, cannot fail to result in much debase-
ment, indelicacy,  and immorality.  Perhaps all these
evils are actually seen  upon the  surface and outside.
The  objector may hold a perfectly just and correct opi-
nion ; yet those within — the hearty believers, the true
worshippers, the  genuine Methodists — may not only
believe, but  know,  that they themselves  are  made
purer and more spiritually minded by their faith, and
its peculiar outworkings at the camp-meetings.   They
see a different phase of Methodism from that at which
the outsider looks.   But who are the best judges of
the true nature and influences of genuine Methodism ?
Most obviously,  it is  those who are within the tent,
and receive it in  its fulness and purity.   The common 
EFFECTS OF  SPIRITUALISM.
63
sense of  the world adopts this answer;  and it will do
the same, eventually, in the case of Spiritualism.
  Again, then, what are the usual and legitimate effects
of Spiritualism ?   No one  spiritualist has  any autho-
rity to speak for others.  Coincidence of faith among
spiritualists, beyond a reception of the fact that the
departed  do  communicate, is  not required by them.
Diversity of faith is expected, but unity  of spirit is
desired.   There is no one leader, there  is no band of
leaders;   and nothing of  the kind is  looked for, or
admissible.   The question can be answered here in
behalf of one believer only.  My experience has been
considerable, and my observation not very  limited nor
careless.  The following  are  a part of  my conclu-
sions : —
   1st, That a large proportion of those who call them-
selves spiritualists believe  that spirits come, just as
they believe that two and two make  four, that  is, in-
tellectually,  and  receive  no  moral  influence  at all
directly from the faith itself.  They believe it as  they
believe the facts of astronomy, geology, or  the exist-
ence of a Polar Sea.   Some require much and  strong
proof; while, with others,  a little evidence is sufficient
to  produce  an intellectual  assent,  and such  assent
makes them nominally  spiritualists.   Such persons,
however, remain  morally  such as they had become
amid the influences of home, of the pulpit, the  Sun-
day-school, the day-school, and their associations  with
the world.  Their new  faith makes them marks for
every observer, and their every act is often charged to
the new faith; while really they are, in the main, only 
64
EFFECTS OF SPIRITUALISM.
showing what they had grown to be in the midst of a
nominally Christian community.  Outwardly they may
become subjects of new moral and  social influences.
Many of them assemble in circles, meet new associates,
resort to a new kind of entertainment or excitement, and
will, of course, feel new influences,  which may make
them better, or may make them worse.  Qn the whole,
such influences are elevating, because there are  very
many pure and devout men and women among them,
and meeting with them frequently, whose every look
and word and act bespeaks the true-philanthropist, and
who feel that they can move  among even "publicans
and  sinners " without contamination, but not without
sowing good seed there.   Common faith  in  spirit-
presence gives the higher believers an opportunity to
instruct the lower;  and  it is embraced even where
circumstances are not congenial to refined taste.  But
germination and education are slow processes;  and
their results do not appear until after long-continued
and patient waiting.  The buried, as also the sprouting,
seed is unseen ;  but the sower knows what  and when
he planted, and can predict the character of  the future
harvest better than another.
  2d, There is a portion of the spiritualists who  take
the words through any medium, from any  spirit,  as
true, and receive advice thence as being sound, and
(without " trying the spirits ") give way to their ad-
vice, — some to good deeds, and some  to indulgences
and acts, which, in the opinion of  our  community, the
moral teachings of Christianity forbid ;  and they  do
this  under a belief,  confirmed by spirit-declarations, 
             EFFECTS  OF SPIRITUALISM.           65

that many things are sanctioned above which are con-
demned here.   Some spirits do  tempt to immorality.
So do some men.   My own observation gives the infer-
ence, that, in  most cases where such temptations are
successful, the yielding individuals  have previously
failed to conform, in heart ancWn secret, to the require-
ments  of sound moral laws.   Congenial  spirits  come,
and their words find an inward response.  The gos-
pel, and public opinion, and the civil law, have perhaps
restrained their hands in public heretofore, but have
not  tended  to purify  and strengthen the heart, nor
restrain from  secret wickedness.  The evil has existed
inwardly; and the only effect of Spiritualism there, is
to make its  receivers less careful to cloak their sins.
As yet, how can the greater portion of spiritualists be
much else than nominal or real Christians scrutinized ?
A Christian community gave them  their education,
principles, and habits.   Some, when  stripped,  appear
worse, and others better, than before.   A general strip-
ping off and throwing aside the garments of hypocrisy
might, and probably would, startle the world, and yet
might, in the  end, be a public benefit.  Some apparent
evils do attend Spiritualism, as seen in a portion of its
receivers ; also some real ones, we apprehend, do occa-
sionally result from perversion of it;  and none lament
this more, and none will pray and labor more earnestly
for the uprooting of these evils, than the devout and
hearty  receivers of this faith.   Belief that our most
secret acts are or may be seen by finite intelligences is
legitimately a worm which will gnaw at the roots of
hypocrisy, and cause it to wither; and, as hypocrisy
                         6» 
66
EFFECTS OF SPIRITUALISM.
withers, the heart may seem worse than we deemed it,
without,  in fact,  being changed at all.  Should such
effects  flow copiously from Spiritualism,  they would
give the philanthropic a clearer insight into the quality
and extent of man's depravity, and consequently make
them more competent t$ prescribe and apply the best
remedies,  and that, too, in the best way and most fit-
ting time.  This dark side may not be all blackness.
  3d,  The remainder, — and they  are  vastly  more,
proportionally and absolutely, than would have been
needed to save Sodom, — the remainder believe  with
the heart as well as the head.  They are, or are seek-
ing to become, honest, earnest, true worshippers  of
God, and brothers among all who  wear  the human
form.   Some are wise and prudent: others are impru-
dent, having much more zeal  than knowledge.  Like
the honest members  of any religious sect or  any poli-
tical party, they exhibit a  vast variety of character;
yet it is to the character of this class  as a whole, com-
pared with the character they exhibited as  a whole
before  they became spiritualists, that  the world  looks
to determine the usual and legitimate effects of Spi-
ritualism, so far as time and  circumstances have yet
permitted those effects to be unfolded.   The full
effects, of  course, cannot be seen until some future
generation shall be  subjected to  its influences from
the cradle up to ripe  manhood.
  What, then, are the changes, if any, which Spirit-
ualism has thus far wrought in those who  embrace it
with the heart?  Varied, no doubt, and yet prevail-
ingly  similar, according to my observation.  All, — 
EFFECTS OF  SPIRITUALISM.           67
whether the Infidel, the orthodox  Christian or  the
liberal  Christian, — all exhibit a tendency  to regard
the Universal  Father  as  more fatherly  towards all
men, Gentile as well as Jew, sinner  as well as  saint,
Heathen as well as Christian, — a tendency to  regard
him as  more fatherly and more impartial, both now
and in all past  ages, than their previous education had
made him appear.  Of course, they incline to  go to
him more lovingly and freely, and begin to  feel  a
greater nearness to him.  Unwonted cheerfulness and
kindliness spring  up in the heart at his felt presence,
and the felt presence of his  charitable angels.   Love
to man as man begins to expand and deepen, and become
more active.  Believers become more liberal in thought,
 and charitable in heart. Partition-walls begin to crum-
 ble, so that sectarianism and creed become less and less
 a barrier of access and of kind regard to man, be he high
 or low, Protestant or  Catholic, Christian or Heathen,
 good or bad.  Generally,  the  feelings become liberal-
 ized ;  the judgments become  charitable ;  the  actions
 become freer, less conformed  to custom  and fashion,
 and, of course, often obnoxious to the world's censure.
 The hearty spiritualist becomes less and less the slave
 of cramping society;  asks less often and less earnestly,
 " What  will  the public  say  ?  what  will the public
 think ?"  but  does  the things to which  his impulses
 prompt, as a free child of his heavenly Father.  Yet,
 loving that Father more  than formerly, he changes
 into a nearer likeness to him;  judges man on a broa'der
 and less partial basis;  and becomes more calm, self-
 possessed, and  forgiving, under  insult,  injury, and 
68
EFFECTS OF SPIRITUALISM.
 abuse.  Thus, though he  act  out his  impulses with
 more freedom, those* impulses themselves incline  to
 the more generous and forgiving, the less selfish and
 retaliatory.
   Creeds, as such, melt away.  Creeds, as  essential
 passports to heavenly joys, are ignored.  The great
 natural and  Christian doctrine, that " whatsoever a man
 soweth, that shall he also reap," is held to, as applied
 to man here, and to be applied  to him in every future
 stage of his existence; and it  is  not his  overt acts,
 nor the tenets of his creed, but it is the inner motives
 which prompt  the acts,  that  constitute the  seed.
 Love to God and love to man, sown  and  cultured
 inside or out of  the pale of Christendom, will yield a
 heavenly harvest.  The tendency of spiritualists is to
 views like these, whatever may have been their former
 faith.  Spiritualism does liberalize the creed, and the
 action,  and  the  motives to action;  and  though  it
 wage no war, and stretch out no ruthless hand, yet, as
 it spreads, and does its legitimate work,  it may under-
 mine the walls of sectarianism,  strip  off from the
 simple gospel of Him who  preached upon the Mount
 the monstrous and  forbidding appendages which the
 intervening  ages have added, and let each and every
man see, that, " in every nation, he that feareth God,
and worketh righteousness, shall be accepted  of him."
  Spiritualists, generally, do tend toward freer thought,
freer and more kindly emotion, and freer expression of
emotion in all the outward acts, than observers of the
outside  only of the cup or platter are ready  to ap-
prove, and to more generosity than our  selfish world 
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.
69
is ready to adopt.  But that world is  not their only
teacher:  the one aboveWso sends instructors, who ad-
vise  to  the course which their  pupils  pursue,  and
embolden them to move forward with steady and  firm
step  in their freer  paths, because such paths lead most
directly  and safely to God, — to  Him  whose spirit
gives liberty.  The world cannot be made to compre-
hend that great familiarity  and fraternal freedom in
social manners, that hilarity and dancing even, that a
smiling religious faith, that a moderated regard for
ordinances  and forms, and. that cheerfulness in  the
midst of devotion and in times of bereavement, may
be the legitimate results of comprehending and  obey-
ing Christianity as it comes# in purity and power from
the good Christians of various sects who are now reap-
ing  in  heaven what they sowed on earth, and whose
experience  gives them eminent wisdom.   Yet so  it is.
Truth comes, and makes her receiver free, — too  free
to be a satisfactory servant of man, but none too free for
a good servant of God.
   The foregoing remarks, in answer to  the question
as to the general  and legitimate effects  of Spiritual-
ism, exhibit some of the conclusions of a pretty exten-
sive  observation,  and are as full as this  short treatise
admits.   But I feel unwilling to bring this little work
to  a close without adding  a few pages which  shall
exhibit  more of  personal experience:
   Having  felt  the  obligations of religion from very
early childhood up to the present hour; having, through
all life's phases of trial and of ease, of sorrows and of
joys, been a believer in God, in revelation, and in im- 
70
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.
mortality; having wished to be an  habitual  doer of
God's word;  having been  frofh early manhood very
free  from slavery to creed or sect; having been long
used to find God  in  the outward universe and in  my
own self, as well as in the Bible ; and having felt free
to listen to his voice, wherever  uttered, and to learn
his will, however promulgated, — it  is probable that
less change has occurred in my own belief, and in  the
modes of its expression, than most others have expe-
rienced as  consequences of  embracing  Spiritualism.
That faith has wrought in me little, if any, change in
personal habits; little in my principles, and modes of
doing business with  the world;  little in my relations
to the church;  little in forms  of domestic worship;
little in any aspect in which the  world views  me,
excepting in the  single particular,  that this  subject
now  consumes  considerable  of my  time and  means
which were formerly devoted to  other matters.   My
creed, such as it was when my calling placed me in
the  pulpit, has undergone no  abatement, unless  the
mode or the immediate  authorship of inspiration  and
of miracle-working  be a part of a Christian creed.
Inspiration and miracles are themselves believed in by
me  more intelligently and satisfactorily now than in
former times.
   The creed stands without abatements, but not with-
out  addition.   A revived  and  living  "ministry of
angels " is now believed in. ,  Spirits come to us as
surely as they did to  disciples and apostles of  old.
Seers now astonish and gladden us by descriptions of
their  " vision of angels."  This  item, and the much 
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.
71
that it involves,  is added  to  my former creed.  The
departed return ;  parents, brothers, sisters, and friends
come and rekindle, and keep vividly alive, the  flames
of love and sympathy which their former relations and
deeds had fed on my heart's hearth-stone.  The wise
and good out of all past ages, and from every land,
come, and give lessons of wisdom and  sound philoso-
phy ; the degraded and fiendish come,  or are brought,
that  we may help these " spirits in prison " to their
deliverance ;  the desponding come for encouragement
from our lips.   From every  quarter, and  of every
grade, spirits come;  some to help us, others to get
such assistance as we can render them: some for  our
gratification; others for their own pleasure, amusement,
 or benefit.   They come unfolding the laws of spirit-
 life to the careful observer, and teaching more or less
 directly, and in widely varied modes, the  processes
 of wise preparation for usefulness and joy in  the life
 above.  The fundamental principles of Christianity, the
 beauty and holiness of the doctrines and life *of Jesus,
 the facts that we  shall reap  as  we have  sown,  that
 judgment will be according to our deeds, that  love to
 God and love to man should be in the impulse to every
 act of life, that love towards  the  unseen  Father is to
 be  manifested by deeds of kindness to the  brother
 who is seen, — these, and other great truths which the
 gospel  contains,  are repreached, often with  striking
 illustration and power, by those teachers returned from
 the mansions in the Father's house above.  They come
 not to destroy, but to fulfil, to illustrate,  to  enforce,
 the gospel, and the truths of natural religion.  They 
72
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE  AND HOPE.
 are welcome friends, wise and persuasive teachers, ex-
 perienced guides, and efficient helpers.
   When faith in the ministry of angels has become
 firm;  when  it seems like knowledge, and  works like
 knowledge upon the judgment and the  affections;
 and when processes of trying the spirits have become
 familiar, — then the  departed may wisely  be applied
 to, as  joint counsellors with men and one's own good
 sense, in regard to the healing of disease, preservation
 of health, regulation of the diet, personal  habits and
 indulgences;  in regard to many  of the complicated
 and difficult questions which arise in  regard  to the
 real motives  and designs of the men and women with
 whom we become associated in life;  also in regard to
 our duties generally, to  both God and man.   There
 is no one field of human duty where they fail to come
 as our advisers  and assistants.  Sensible of this, the
 future becomes  to  man  as  an ever-present  reality.
 Then one feels — by day and by night, abroad and at
 home,  on the housetop and in the closet — that the
 eyes of the  pure and good look upon his heart;  and
 he feels, too, that unless heavenly purity and love
 rule within himself, and blossom out in  active benefi-
 cence,  then  sadness  will  shade  the  brows  of the
 loving ones  above,  who surround  and help  him.
 There  is  restraining, cheering, and uplifting power in
 this faith.
   Undoubting trust in the presence of our departed
friends, as angels from the brighter land to  this, keeps
the next  life and its great interests habitually present
to the mind.   Their prevailing joy and gladness make 
         PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND HOPE.       73

that future  life  seem cheerful, and  to  be welcomed
when the fitting  time to enter upon it shall come; and
also make cheerfulness, hope, and loving  affections,
not less than Bible-reading,  stated acts of worship,
and specific  creed, the seeds  of  future  enjoyment.
Heavenly help is experienced to lift the earth-prone
soul towards realms above.  This one feels more  sen-
sibly, and is more strongly moved by, when he carries
within himself  a  consciousness that  watchful  and
loving angels are near at hand, and cognizant of his
needs, than  when the departed seem  to  him but a
something, he knows not what, he knows not where.
   Helpers they  are, between  man  and God, to teach
and help the soul  to rise  in  steady progression, ever
on and up,  towards  the  Highest,  the Holy One, the
Father of angels and  of men.   At the communion-
table ; in every season of prayer; in every devotional,
in  every beneficent work, — they, as sharers in the
acts, give depth  to pious gratitude, warmth and vita-
lity to devotion, and strength  to the working hand.
Aided by their presence, and by  inflowings from
them,  the heart expands,  love  grows  more  all-em-
bracing, charity  enlarges her mantle, sympathy flows
out more widely, and one  becomes more  a growing
and helpful  child of  God.   In the  deepest recesses of
the heart, which the outward eye cannot explore, and
where the mere observer  can  never enter, — there,
where experience alone can be witness, — there,  pure
Spiritualism  applies, with  new skill and  power  and
efficacy, the  fundamental teachings of Christ, and does
its  legitimate and uplifting work.  And it is because
                        T
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 74       PERSONAL  EXPERIENCE AM)  HOPE.

 experience has brought them to a knowledge of its
 celestial workings in the heart, that thousands labor,
 and will labor on, through evil report and good report,
'to implant Spiritualism in the broad field  of the
 world, and enable their brethren to taste the fruit of
 this tree  of life.   They, a host of them, with hearts
 filled nearer to fulness than ever before with grateful
 piety and living  philanthropy, — filled  by inflowings
 from hovering angel-bands, — will work on, praying,
 toiling, hoping,  for a  universal extension  of that
 faith which is able to lift mortals up, and bring angels
 down, to a happy and blissful communing.