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

THE EXISTENCE OF SPIRITS. 45179. The mcdiuni und nil present were strangers to my family, and Iliad never heard cither name mentioned, except by my father. Even myyounger brother did not remember that of my father's partner.180. Subsequently, in the presence of a medium utterly unacquaintedwith my family, to whom I was first introduced in December, 1853, andwho had only within two years previously removed toour city from Maine,I inquired of my father the name of an English cousin who had married anadmiral. The name was spelled out. In like manner the maiden nameof an English brother's wife was given—an unusual name, Clargess.181. The principle of my apparatus for spiritual manifestations hasbeen employed on a smaller scale by Mr. Isaac T. Pease, of Thompson-Tille,Connecticut, substituting the reaction of a spring for that of a weight,and making the index revolve instead of the disk. (Plate 1.)182. By the modification which I made for the employment of thissmaller instrument communication was greatly facilitated. I had subsequentlya copious interchange of ideas with my father, brother, and sister,and other friendly spirits. (See engraving and description, Plate 1, Fig. 2.)183. At the house of a spiritualist who had been holding circles formore than a year, I had confirmatory evidence of the intelligence by whichspirit rapping is regulated. I was allowed to subject the table emplo3'edto a strict scrutiny, removing the drawer to obtain a more thoroughinspection. This table was nevertheless repeatedly agitated with an energywhich could not be ascribed to the hands placed quietly upon itssurface by a circle of persons perfectly quiescent.Often at this circle, andat others during the chanting of hymns, have I seen a table thussituatedkeeping time by its vibratory movements with a sympathetic tremour.184. The spirit friend of a medium present, who called herself AmandaFord, used on request to make a sound like that of the hammering byblacksmiths, designated as ^Hen-pounds-ten.^'This sound would be shiftedto that of sawing or sweeping. Doubtless, these manifestations might beimitated by certain ventriloquists; but I had not the smallest reason tosuspect ventriloquism, and Amanda gave me the following unquestionableproofs of her spiritual existence :185. Taking up the alphabetic card, and holding it up near my face,in a feeble light, with the back toward the medium, so as not to be inspectedby any one else,I asked Amanda, as I should pass my fingers overthe letters, to indicate those necessary for spelling out her name, by theusual manifestation. The name was in this way correctly spelt out,186. In the next place, at the same time and under the same circumstances,I asked her then to spell the name of AVashington. Passing myfingers over the letters of the alphabet, not regularly but zigzag, and stoppinga short time at the letters adjoining the right ones, that much-reveredname was correctly spelt out, with one single error, the omission of the G.187. Suspicion that the rapping or tapping could arise from any me-