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

THE EXISTENCE OF SPIRITS.G3ment ceased, ami a delay of three or four minutes occurred before it recommenced,giving the idea tliat, if broken off, a certain reaccumulation offorce \v:is needful to put it in motion again. The tabic reached the upperend of the parlour, from which it had started, but was left some four feetfrom the medial line of the room. Dr. Bell expressed the thanks of thecompany for the very complete exhibition with which they had beenfavoured, but remarked that the obligation would be enhanced if the'spirits' would move the table about four feet at right angles, so that thechairs would come right for their late occupants. This was immediatelydone, and the performance was deemed so perfectly full and satisfactorythat nothing more was asked at this session.291. ''Dr. Bell was understood to say that this made some five or sixtimes in which he had seen the table move without human contact, andall under circumstances apparently as free from suspicion as this justrelated. He also stated that the Rev. Mr. P., a clergyman of extraordinarysagacious perceptions and mechanical skill, took this same medium to hisown house, without previous thought, where she never before had been,and where his own table, in the presence of his own family alone, wentthrough the fullest locomotion without human touch. Dr. Bell mentionedthat in his last experiment, that just narrated, the entire space movedthrough was over fifty feet.292. ''Dr. Bell then passed to the topic of responses to mental andverbal questions, and gave several narratives of long conversations withwhat purported to be the spirits of persons dead for twenty-five to fortyyears, in which every question he could devise relating to their domestichistory, and to events in it known only to them and him, had beentrulyanswered. Some of the subjects put mentally i. e., without speaking orwriting—had half a dozen correct replies, forbidding, of course, completely,on any doctrine of chances, the contingency of accident or coincidence,as such menial questions, jjer se,negative the explanation of previousknowledge on the part of the medium.293. "A brief abstract of one of these will give a general idea of theircharacter: Dr. Bell had frequently remarked to his 'spiritual' friends,that if any medium could reproduce the essential particulars of a finalinterview which had occurred between himself and a deceased brother in1826, he should be almost compelled to admit that it came from his spirit;because he was sure that he (Dr. Bell) never had communicated itto anyliving being. Hence, as it never had been known to but two persons, andwas of so peculiar, well-marked a character, asconfounded by generalities, he shouldnot to be capable of beinghardly be able otherwise to explainit. A few weeks afterward what purported to be the spirit of that brothernarrated the essential particulars of that interview, the place where,down tothe well-recollected fact that he icaa adjusting the stirrujys of hissaddle, preparatory to a distant journey, when it was held ! Pretty early.