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

THE EXISTENCE OF SPIRITS. 59was prcscut. ' Dear, beloved aunty, I've got a peck of love for you, but Ican't make you trace my purified thoughts on the clean paper.'For those who endeavour to get rid of tlie evidence of respectable witnesses,such as Mr. I'utnam, by representing them as dupes, and the mediaas impostors, it may be well to quote the following passage from thesame publication : (Page 44.)272. "Within the last fourteen months I have seen twenty-two or threedifl'ercnt mediums—all but four of them private ones—taking no pecuniarycompensation ; and more than half of them are our own citizens, severalof whom are now present in this assembly. I have spent very many hoursin their presence. Have seen them at their homes—at my own homeand in the parlours of neighbours and friends. I have met and watchedthem in the broadest sunlight and at evening. Every desirable opportunityhas been furnished me for detecting machinery, jugglery, or imposture,and I have faithfully, but in vain, strove to find something munJanoa sufficient cause for all these wonders. That trick or humbug is sometimesattempted by pretenders to uncommon susceptibilities, no one willhave a wish to deny. But very many of the mediums, private ones, areas much above these things as are the very best persons among the witnesses.273. '^ One medium, an active, energetic business man, of more thansixty years, has submitted himself to be used by me at any time, howeversuddenly called upon, whether in his counting-room or in mine,—whethercalled in his shirt sleeves from the woodpile, or coalbin, or dressed up andready for company; and I have used him and watched him daily almost,and that through several successive months. Many mediums have beenwatched for long periods, and under quite varied circumstances; and,though the power exerted through any of them is very far from beinguniform, and though the mode of manifestation is in no two alike, yet Ihave seen no sign of its being anywhere applied by machinery; or of itsbeing varied by any preparation or act of the mediums themselves.274. ^' They deny, one and all, young and old, educated and ignorantalike—they all deny, and that, too, in the most private and friendly circles,where all the thoughts flow out,—they all deny that they exercise theirwills at all in the production of these wonders. And I cannot rate thatfairness very high which, in the face of such a fact, will persist in sayingthat all of it is trick, imposture, humbug. More than one hundred thousandwitnesses have looked on, and yet are unable to prove to any extentthe cheats alleged. More than five thousand mediums in this countryunitedly and persistedly declare that they use no machinery and practiceno trick."275. This charge is utterly futile when we see persons in affluenceconverted by their own mediumship, as in the case of two of my mostesteemed friends.