CHAPTER XVII.. Banishment of Popular Superstitions.

BANISHMENT OF POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS.

How shall it be effected?--The proper use of our reasoning faculties.--The exercise of our understandings.--Persevering self-discipline.--Conduct towards believers in ghosts, signs, &c.--Misconduct in families; trying tricks, &c.--How we should employ our time.--Belief in an all-wise Providence, as Governor and Controller of all events.--Importance of a correct education of youth.--Nursery tales and marvellous stories.--Their baneful influence.--Correct examples before children.--Superstitious tales to be avoided.--Attention to the means of education.-- Immense value and importance of knowledge.--No lack of means to educate the young.--Money foolishly wasted in various ways. --Perseverance in laudable exertions.--The blessing of Heaven to crown our labors. 185

PART SECOND.

MIRACLE IN SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS.

Miracle performed by spirits in Springfield, Massachusetts.--Case of biological deception.--Case of a "writing medium."--Effects produced by pathetism.--Incident related by Miss Martineau.-- Travelling to other countries, and to other spheres.--Singular feat by a boy of Dr. Phelps.--Wonderful case of a lady in New Jersey.--Advice of Hon. Horace Greely.--Testimony of Rev. Dr. Phelps. 191

PERSONS TRAINED BY A LECTURER ON MAGNETISM. 199

SCENE AT EAST BOSTON.

"Circle" at the house of Mr. Hoyt, at East Boston.--Effects of vital electricity.--Imitating handwritings, writing poetry, music, &c. 200

EXTRACT FROM THE PURITAN RECORDER.

Facts related by a gentleman of Maine.--Renunciation of a spirit rapper.--Murder committed at the instigation of "spirits."-- Conflicting testimony concerning John Thompson.--Experiments of Mr. Kellogg, the table lifter.--Discovery by Dr. Taylor, the writing medium.--Renunciation of Mr. Cooley, of Springfield, Massachusetts.--Attempt to murder a family in Barre, Massachusetts. --Sacrifice of the innocent in heathen countries.--Great danger in civilized communities.--Reports concerning the burning of the Lunatic Asylum in Maine.--Testimony of Professor Stowe.-- Reply of Bingham to Professor Pond.--Singular confessions of the reviewer.--Intelligence said to be communicated by "spirits."-- Vital electricity of embodied and disembodied spirits. 203

EXTRACT FROM THE HOME JOURNAL.

Star singers, concerts, parties, and lectures in the other spheres.--Studies of French, Italian, geology, chemistry, drawing, &c.--Semi-clergymen, outsiders, or come-outers. 215

FORETELLING FUTURE EVENTS.

Prediction concerning the ship Staffordshire.--General Pierce's election foretold by Professor Anderson's glass bell.--False predictions of the "spirits."--Error committed by Professor Lester.--Suggestion of a lady to a sick friend.--Sentiments of Alexander Pope. 218

VISIONS, MIRACLES, AND WONDERS.

Sights, sounds, signs, miracles, maps, drawings, hieroglyphics. --Talking cow in Maine.--Her prophecy.--Proposition for another "NEW CHURCH."--Predictions concerning all other churches.-- Opinions three hundred years ago.--Fate of Galileo. 220

CLAIRVOYANT PHYSICIANS.

Prescriptions from the dead.--Power of the imagination.--Wonderful efficacy of brown bread pills.--Singular cure of palsy, by Sir Humphrey Davy. 221

STYLE OF "SUPERNAL" COMPOSITIONS.

Fishbough's new work.--Fancy-captivating publications.--Refined atheism.--Transcendental nonsense.--False communications relating to patriots, statesmen, orators, and divines.--Mountebank scenes of "psychology."--Testimony of A. J. Davis, upon the tricks of the spirit demonstrators.--Concealments, misstatements, and exaggerations. 223

MYSTERIOUS PHENOMENA, WITH THEIR AGENTS OR CAUSES.

Thumping noises in New Jersey.--Door opened as if struck by a mallet.--Great excitement.--Glass broken, &c.--Knockings heard in New Hackensack.--Pile of lumber shaken; tables, chairs, stand, and candlestick thrown about.--Bags of salt, tin ware, and cooking utensils thrown in a heap.--An English officer haunted by noises in the night.--Heavy marble top tables poising themselves on two legs.--Brass door knockers bewitched.--Commotion among crockery, tin ware, &c.--Firing a gun at noises in the walls. --Tearing up floor to get at the noises.--Suit brought for damages.--Bed of a sick girl raised.--Trembling of the house walls.--Singular pranks in a factory.--Jerking of the frames, and cylinder thrown at a distance.--Alarm and flight of the operatives.--A chest with three men, and a man on a tub, taken up by an invisible power.--A chair broken between two men's hands.--An image seated on a stool, clad in white.--Visions of beings like spirits.--Knockings on the walls, and noises in the air.--A lady suspended by the tips of the fingers, as a magnet suspends a piece of iron.--Electrical flashes from a lady's body.--Knockings made to be heard at a distance.--Quotation from a work by Rev. T. Hill, of Waltham.--Singular developments in New York.--Freaks of a knob of a door bell.--Fiery flashes, and fiery smacks, on kissing.--Blows in the mouth from a speaking tube.-- Account of two girls that could move tables without touching them. --Effects of storms on raising tables.--Electrical circles in Cincinnati.--Case of a lady in Strasburg.--Power of giving electrical shocks to persons at a distance.--Singular effects of the northern lights on a lady. 224

EXPERIMENTS IN BIOLOGY.

Chairs, tables, and persons moved.--Biological table-liftings in East Boston.--"Mediums," as visible human operators.--Resolve of the "rappers" at Poughkeepsie.--The unseen agent that moves tables, beds, &c.--Dancing plates, knives and forks, &c. 264

FACULTY OF IMITATION.

Delivering speeches; imitating orators.--Case related by Walter Scott.--Case of a man haunted by the devil.--Effects of wine and heavy eating.--Voice heard by Judge Edmonds.--Lady in Providence who writes music by "spirits."--Diagram of the spheres, by a lady in a magnetic state. 268

UNSEEN LETTERS AND SIGNATURES.

Imitating unseen letters, signatures, and languages.--Suspicions concerning Professor Bush.--Singular feat attributed to spirits. --No difficulty in raising chairs or tables.--Spirits shown by Egyptian boys.--Unbelief of practising "mediums."--School children forbidden to move tables, &c. 273

A DANCING LIGHT.

Dancing light seen in Southboro', Massachusetts.--Ignis fatuus seen by Dr. Derham.--Corpusants seen by mariners.-- Dampier's account of them. 274

SAILORS' OMENS.

Sailors' omens and superstitions.--Devil's power in stirring up winds.--Losing a cat overboard, a bucket, or a mop. 276

LOVE CHARMS.

Othello winning Desdemona by conjuration.--Execution of a young lady for giving a love powder.--Her dying confession.--A charm or an allay for love. 277

EFFECTS OF A BELIEF IN A GHOST.

Effects of a belief in the reality of ghosts.--Case at the University at Cambridge.--A student frightened to death. 279

THE INVISIBLE LADY.

The invisible lady in Boston.--The invisible girl in London.-- Joice Heth, the India rubber woman.--Professor Grimes's discovery among the "rappers."--Mrs. Culver respecting the Rochester rappers. 280

SORCERERS IN THE EAST.

Persons killed by the enemy's fires.--Singular custom in Java. 281

SINGULAR METAMORPHOSES.

Men turned into tigers by eating a certain root, and turned back again by eating another.--A tiger-man shot in the woods and recognized, after having devoured some of his neighbors.--Account of the wolf mania in Egypt and in Brittany.--A husband that lived and died a wolf. 282

PERNICIOUS ERRORS RELATING TO HEALTH.

Astrology.--Vegetable oil of swallows, &c.--Cleanliness, diet, &c.--Ablution.--Ventilation.--Food.--Quality of meats. 284

THE SPIRIT LAND.

INTRODUCTION.

The object of this treatise upon some of the various errors of the past and present ages is to explain their nature--investigate their origin--describe their injurious effects--and to offer and recommend the necessary measures for their banishment. Most persons, even those who have been well educated, can call to mind the avidity with which, in their days of childhood, they listened to the nursery tales of giants, dwarfs, ghosts, fairies, and witches. The effects of these juvenile impressions are not easily effaced from the mind, and the impressions themselves are but rarely, if ever, forgotten.

To doubt, in former times, the power of charms, and the veracity of omens, and ghost stories, was deemed little less than atheism. The terror caused by them imbittered the lives of persons of all ages. It either served to shut them out of their own houses, or deterred them from going abroad after it was dark. The room in which the head of a family died was for a long time untenanted; particularly if he died without a will, or was supposed to have entertained any peculiar religious opinions. If any disconsolate maiden, or love-crossed bachelor, became the instrument of their own death, the room where the fatal deed was committed was rendered forever uninhabitable, and not unfrequently nailed up. If a drunken farmer, returning from market, fell from his horse, and by the fall broke his own neck, that spot, ever after, was haunted and impassable. In truth, there was scarcely a by-lane or cross-way but had its ghost, which appeared in the shape of a headless cow or horse. Ghosts of a higher degree rode in coaches, drawn by six headless horses, and driven by a headless coachman. As for the churchyards, the legitimate habitations of spectres, clothed all in white, the numbers who swarmed there equalled the living parishioners; and to pass such a place in the night was more perilous than the storming of Badajos.

Confuted and ridiculed as these opinions have been, in later days, the seeds of them are still widely diffused, and at times attempt to spring up in all their earlier excess. In the year 1832, crowds of men, women, and children flocked to the village of Waltham, a few miles from Boston, to see a ghost which was said to make its appearance towards midnight, walking to and fro in a turf meadow, declaring itself, in unearthly tones, to be the spirit of a murdered man, whose bones lay in a mud hole near by. The excitement spread many miles around, and hundreds from the city and neighboring towns hied to the spot, with eyes agape, to behold the solemn visitor from the spirit world. And such was the credulity inspired in the minds of the people, that a clergyman in the vicinity declared from his pulpit, on the following Sabbath, that the awful crime of murder had been revealed by the spirit which had appeared in Waltham! Such is the excitability of the mind, and its tendency (notwithstanding the light that has been scattered abroad) to give credence to all the vagaries and nonsense of the darker ages.