Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

38 I-\tuiti"\t: evidence ofcontemplated in my view of the subject. Had I ever heard spiritualagency assignedas a cause, so great was my disbelief of any such agency,that it would have made no impression on my memory.135. Though present on several occasions when table turning was thesubject of discussion, it was not, within my hearing, attributed to spiritualacrency. In common with almost all educated persons of the nineteenthcentury, I had been brought up deaf to any testimony whichclaimed assistance from supernatural causes, such as ghosts, magic, orwitchcraft.loG. Subsequently to my publication corroborating the inferences ofFaraday, having, in obedience to solicitations already cited, consented tovisit circles in which spiritual manifestations were alleged to be made,I was conducted to a private house at which meetings for spiritual inquirywere occasionally held.137. Seated at a table with half a dozen persons, a hymn was sungwith religious zeal and solemnity. Soon afterward tappings were distinctlyheard as if made beneath and against the table, which, from theperfect stillness of every one of the party, could not be attributed to anyone among them. Apparently, the sounds were such as could only be madewith some hard iustniment, or with the ends of fingers aided by the nails.13S. I learned that simple queries were answered by means of thesemanifestations ; one tap being considered as equivalent to a negative ; two,to doubtful; and three, to an af&rmative. "With the greatest apparentsincerity^ questions were put and answers taken and recorded, as if allconcerned considered them as coming from a rational though invisibleagent.139. Subsec^uently, two media sat down at a small table, (drawer removed,)which, upon careful examination, I found to present to my inspectionnothing but the surface of a bare board, on the under side as well asupon the upper.Yet the taps were heard as before, seemingly against thetable. Even assuming the people by whom I was surrounded, to becapable of deception, and the feat to be due to jugglery, it was still inexplicable.But manifestly I was in a company of worthy people, who werethemselves under a deception if these sounds did not proceed from spiritualagency.140. On a subsequent occasion, at the same house, I heard similar tappingon a partition between two parlours.I opened the door between theparlours, and passed to that adjoining the one in which I had been sitting.Nothing could be seen which could account for the sounds.141. The medium to whose presence these manifestations were due,then held a flute against the panel of the door, and invited me to listen.On putting my ear near to the flute, tapping was quite audible. On theensuing evening, I carried with me a sealed glass tube, a hollow tube ofthe same material, and a brass rod.These being successively held against