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INTUITIVE EVIDENCE

OF THE

EXISTENCE OF SPIRITS.

NARRATIVE OF THE AUTHOR'S EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF

SPIRITURALISM.

122. THE first fruit of my attention to the phenomena of table turning, was the following letter. I trust I shall not be considered as self-complacent, when I allege it to be an exemplification of wise ignorance, which is about equivalent to folly. The wisest man who speaks in ignorance, speaks foolishly to the ears of those who perceive his ignorance. The great mass of men of science appear in this light to spiritualists when they argue against Spiritualism. Men who are only nominally Know Nothings have proved a formidable party in politics; unfortunately, Spiritualism has, in its most active opponents, real Know Nothings, who will not admit any fact of a spiritual origin, unless such as they have been educated to believe. In that case, many have powers of intellectual deglutition rivalling those of the anaconda in the physical way.

Letter in reply to an Inquiry respecting the influence of Electricity in Table Turning.

PHILADELPHIA, July 27, 1853. 123. "Dear Sir: I am of opinion that it is utterly impossible for six or eight, or any number of persons, seated around a table, to produce an electric current. Moreover, I am confident that if by any adequate means an electrical current were created, however forcible, it could not be productive of table turning. A dry wooden table is almost a non-conductor, but if forming a link necessary to complete a circuit between the sky and earth, it might possibly be shattered by a stroke of lightning; but if the power of all the galvanic apparatus ever made was to be collected in one current, there would be no power to move or otherwise affect such a table.

124. "Frictional electricity, such as produced by electric machines, must first be accumulated and then discharged, in order to produce any striking effect. It is in transitu that its power is seen and felt.

It is suggested that these words may be misapprehended. I use them in the sense given by Johnson: "Sight of any thing, commonly mental view.”

I understand that evidence to be intuitive which is obtained by the simultaneous action of the mind and the sight, and, of course, of any other of the senses. Intuitive is dorived from the Latin word intuo, to look upon. “Intuere cœlum," according to Cicero, means to look at the sky.

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125. "Insulated conductors, whether inanimate, or in the form of animals, may be electrified by the most powerful means, without being injured or seriously incommoded. Before a spark of lightning passes, every object on the terrestrial surface, for a great distance around, is subjected to a portion of the requisite previous accumulation. Yet it is only those objects which are made the medium of discharge that are sensibly affected. 126 "Powerful galvanic accumulation can only be produced by those appropriate arrangements which concentrate upon a comparatively small filament of particles their peculiar polarizing power; but nothing seems to me more inconsistent with experience than to suppose a table moved by any possible form or mode of galvanic reaction. It was ascertained by Gaziot that one of the most powerful galvanic batteries ever made could not give a spark before contact to a conductor presented to it, at the smallest distance which could be made by a delicate micrometer. If there is any law which is pre-eminent for its invariability, it is, that inanimate matter cannot, per se, change its state as respects motion or rest. Were this law liable to any variation, we should be proportionably liable to perish; since in that case the revolutions and rotations of our planet and its satellite might undergo perturbations by which the ocean might inundate the land, or the too great proximity or remoteness of the sun cause us to be scorched or frozen. If the globe did not carry the Pacific more steadily than the most competent person could carry a basin of water, we should be drowned by the overflow of the land. I recommend to your attention, and that of others interested in this hallucination, Faraday's observations and experiments, recently published in some of our respectable newspapers. I entirely concur in the conclusions of that distinguished experimental expounder of Nature's riddles.

ROBERT HARE."

127. This publication drew forth the following remonstrance in the subjoined letter, which does great credit to the correctness of the author's observation and sagacity. It contributed, together with a personal invitation from Dr. Comstock to attend a circle, to induce the investigation upon which I entered immediately afterward.

SOUTHWICK, MASS., Nov. 17, 1853.

128. "Dear Sir: I had the pleasure of a slight acquaintance with you, something less than twenty years ago, when I exhibited telescopes in Philadelphia. You will, I trust, excuse the liberty I take in writing to you now. I have seen your letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer upon table moving. I never believed it was caused by electricity or galvanism, but is it not as likely to be these, as muscular force? You agree with Professor Faraday that the table is moved by the hands that are on it. Now I know, as certainly as I can know any thing, that this is not true in general, if it is in any instance. There is as much evidence that tables some

times move without any person near them, as that they sometimes move with hands on them. I cannot in this case doubt the evidence of my senses. I have seen tables move, and heard tunes beat on them, when no person was within several feet of them. This fact is proof positive that the force or power is not muscular.

129. "If any further evidence was necessary to set aside Professor Faraday's explanation, it is found in abundance in the great variety of other facts taking place through the country, such as musical instruments being played upon without any hands touching them, and a great variety of other heavy articles being moved without any visible cause. If tables never moved except when hands were on them, the case would be different; but as they do move, both with and without hands, it is plain that the true cause remains yet to be discovered.

130. "I wish, sir, that you had leisure and opportunity to witness some other phases of this matter, which seem not yet to have fallen under your notice, and I think you would be satisfied that there is less hallucination' and self-deception' about it, than you have imagined. The intelligence connected with these movements has not been accounted for.

131. "If these things can be accounted for on scientific principles, would it not be a great acquisition to science, to discover what those prinples are? If, however, science cannot discover them, the public are deeply interested in knowing the fact. It is certainly of great importance that these strange things that are taking place everywhere should be explained. It is affecting the churches seriously; whether for good or for evil is uncertain until the truth is known. No cause has yet been assigned that does not imply a greater absurdity than even to believe, as many do, that it is caused by spirits either good or bad, or both.

132. "I have examined this matter for the last three years with as much carefulness as possible, and am not satisfied. If the force is not muscular, as it is certain that it is not, I wish science to try again.

"Yours, respectfully,

AMASA HOLCOMBE."

133. It will be perceived that the letter alluded to by Mr. Holcombe, written in reply to some inquiries respecting my opinion of the cause of table turning, was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, in July, 1853. This letter will show that I was at that time utterly incredulous of any cause of the phenomena excepting unconscious muscular action on the part of the persons with whom the phenomena were associated. The inferences of Faraday, tending to the same conclusion, I thoroughly sanctioned.

134. As no allusion to spirits as the cause had been made by this Herculean investigator in the letter which drew forth mine, they were not

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