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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 derived from the Latin word intuo, to look upon. "Intuere cœlum," according to Cicero, means to look at the sky.

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