Part 5

The raising of Samuel's spirit, and his prophecy of the result of the battle, was a professional trick of the witch of Endor, and no more remarkable than many of the doings related of the rappers and tippers, and of mesmerizers who send clairvoyants to explore the UNKNOWN WORLD. Considering all the circumstances, we think that many hits, or conjectures of false prophets, or fortune-tellers of the present day, have been quite as successful, and even more wonderful, than this feat of the witch of Endor. We know that some Commentators regard the raising of Samuel's ghost, and the prophecy of the result of the battle, as the work of God, and not of the witch herself, or her master; and to such a conclusion they seem to be forced, if they admit any thing superhuman about it, for it would not answer to accord so much power to a witch, accursed of the law. How such an explanation can be reconciled with Divine attributes and teachings, we are at loss to conceive. The account tells us that Saul had sought the Lord in vain. The Lord had refused to communicate with him. Shall it be said then that the Almighty is capable of trifling? (for this seems to be the alternative.) That he made known his will through a witch; and that, in Saul's (the Lord's anointed) last extremity, the Lord forced him to believe a lie or an accursed witch? Is not this the inference, the inevitable conclusion? How readily all difficulty vanishes by expounding this transaction upon the very same principles that we apply to spirit-rapping, viz.: that it was a juggle, and like all witchcraft of whatsoever kind, was of human immediate instrumentality. To affirm of such performances that they are inexplicable, and amazing, is no argument in favor of their superhuman character. They are not more wonderful or difficult of explanation, than hundreds of tricks which we see, and of which we read every day, as performed by jugglers. To the great mass of mankind these latter are equally puzzling, and would undoubtedly pass for miracles, were it not for the fact that they are _professedly_ tricks. We believe in the all-pervading, all-controlling, all-sustaining power of God, in Divine interposition, special Providences, and the efficacy of prayer, as taught in the Scriptures, after our own interpretation. _We believe that miracles are God's prerogative, and believing thus, we conclude that the working of miracles by the devil, or evil spirits, would furnish an excuse for man's unbelief or infidelity._ Most earnestly, therefore, do we deprecate the advancement of any theory (for it can be but _theory_ at the best), which attributes these and kindred delusions, to the direct agency of the devil, or evil spirits. Such teachings are mischievous in their tendency, and militate with the true interests of Christianity, just as far and as long as they have no better foundation than theory, speculation, or conjecture, and are wanting in proof positive, invincible and overwhelming, of their correctness.--C.G.P., Ed.

[4] We were thus given to understand that spirits retain their earthly names, and answer to them. It occurred to us, therefore, that if we put down the name of John Smith we should be sure of a response.--C. G. P., Ed.

[5] The expression was very common with them that "_they could rap_, or _had rapped_." Rather careless, certainly!

[6] We, of course, had no more thought of electrical agency here than in the rap of an auctioneer's hammer.--C.G.P., ED.

[7] We have made excellent rappings with this instrument, and accompanied them with very wonderful communications.--ED.

[8] Whatever respect we may have for the memory of the great, we feel at liberty to banter their spirits if we catch them in bad company, and at base tricks.--ED.

[9] We believe in the fundamental doctrines of phrenology, but have no faith whatever in this common empirical trade of delineating character promiscuously by the contour of the head alone.--ED.

TABLE-TIPPINGS.

This fallacy demands our most rigid scrutiny, and none the less of severe reprobation, from the fact that it is engaged in, to a great extent, by respectable and intelligent persons. The business of Spiritual Rappings is a sheer and miserable imposture, and as the performers are obliged to invent and manage the machinery, or whatever instrumentality produces the sounds, there is no possibility of their deceiving themselves. The table-tipping is rather a case of delusion, or self-imposition, though there are occasionally actors in this performance who betray insincerity, and some whose actions give the _lie direct_ to their professions. How it happened that TABLES were selected for the demonstrations of departed spirits, or the operations of the "_new fluid_," is beyond our wisdom to explain. Why should not the pump-handle work _sua sponte_, the cradle rock itself, or the coach start off without horses, as well as tables jump about the room at the mere imposition of hands, or the behest of those wonderful personages entitled _mediums_? Is there any thing in the shape, material, purpose, or history of a table that it should become, _par excellence_, the connecting link between the natural and the spiritual world? or that it should be the great reservoir of electricity, magnetism, "_new fluid_," "_od_," or what not? Perhaps _legs_ are indispensable to this new species of dancing and jumping. But, as in many of the best _authenticated_ cases, the table moves along the floor with a gradual, slow, and dignified motion, without jumping, and more especially as many of the tables are upon castors, we see no reason why wheels should not be better than legs, and why coaches will not do as well, or better, than tables--for the rolling friction is much less than the sliding friction, and carriages could be made very light for this particular purpose. These tipping magicians are not very fruitful in expedients or they would have attempted long ago the speculation of a _new line of spiritual coaches on common roads, propelled by mediums_.

But to the point. One of the first table-tippings that came under our notice was one which had become quite celebrated, and of which we had heard a great deal before we came to witness it. We were informed, by persons of high intelligence, who had been eye-witnesses, and participated in the experiments, that when several persons joined hands around this table, in connection with the medium, the table began to move about the room with force, celerity, and apparent life. That forcible resistance could not stop it, and that the performers were hardly able to keep up with its motion. That, on the same occasion, heavy bodies were lifted from the floor by the mere superposition of hands, without grasping; in other words, that by laying the hand upon a heavy article, and raising the hand, the dead weight _lifted itself_ from the floor, and followed the motion of the hand. Our informants were men of high standing, of high endowments and general intelligence, men of veracity, and men whose opinions were worth much in legal questions and matters of state. Oh! what a discovery and development was here. ADIEU YE LEVERS, SCREWS, WEDGES; PULLEYS, SCREW AND LEVER-JACKS, CRANES AND BOOM-DERRICKS, STEAM, GAS, AND EVERY KIND OF ENGINE, HORSE AND ALL OTHER POWERS, FIRE, AIR, AND WATER, ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM, CHEMICAL, MECHANICAL, AND ALL SUBSERVIENT AGENCIES, ONE AND ALL, ADIEU! Mind has subverted the laws of matter; all philosophy is merged in spirituality, and volition has become the all-potent, all-sufficient, all-pervading power; the crazy and pitiable seekers after perpetual motion are become the master spirits of the age, and gravity and friction have given way to two new controlling principles, levity and non-resistance. Suffice it to say, we laughed at our informants, and gave them a flat contradiction, "that they had not seen what they related." It is well worthy of remark here, that we have never yet known any one of our acquaintance to take serious offence at the most positive contradictions upon this subject,--a proof, to our mind, that there is a secret, deep-seated, smothered conviction against the reality and genuineness of these manifestations. A curious element of our composition it is, that honest men find no little difficulty in deceiving themselves, and take so little or no umbrage at being charged with this kind of deception.

Imbued deeply ourselves with an ardent _penchant_ for novelties upon every subject, and a determination to _ferret out_ the extraordinary pretensions of this new wonder, we have taken occasion to inquire of persons, from all parts of the country, where these exhibitions have been made, and we assure our readers that although the time may thus have been profitably spent, the inquiry became tedious even to disgust. We heard substantially the same story from all; viz., that the tables tipped and moved about "without visible agency," and yet, in almost every case, upon close sifting and careful cross-examination, we found that somebody had hands upon the table during the whole of its gambols. Surely the _devil has to do with table-tippings_, for we have never seen honest-minded persons so unfair and oblique on any other subject before. Not that the fiend tips, kicks, or propels in any way the tables, but that he tips either the conscience or the judgment to a deplorable extent to sustain the cheat. In every inquiry and investigation we have found gross and weak exaggeration, and have fully resolved that we will maintain, to the last extremity, the position of unqualified, uncompromising denial and opposition, to the _highest testimony of earth_, as to the verity of _table-tippings, spirit-rappings, or any kindred chicanery of miraculous or spiritual purport_. We were much gratified recently at the remark of an experienced friend, that "he would not believe these things, even if he saw them with his own eyes." There was meaning in the remark. He would not admit the testimony of others to such an anomaly, and he would not trust or believe _himself_ if he should give way to the conviction that all of mathematical and mechanical science, all of religion and bible teaching, and all of common sense, was to be contravened and exploded by these new manifestations, promising endless perplexity, confusion, crime, and insanity, and no good to any body. Our friends repeatedly say to us, "we don't see how these things can be, but we cannot discredit the opinion and testimony of Mr. A., Dr. B., Prof. C., Rev. Mr. D., Judge E., Hon. Mr. F., &c." "We think it hard to impugn such testimony, and why should not their word in this matter go as far as yours?" Our plain answer is this: if we tell you that black is white, and white is black, we do not expect our testimony to be regarded; and we take the same privilege in repudiating all testimony, from whatever source, of a similar character. It was a strong, though reverential, position of St. Paul, that "even an angel from heaven would be accursed if he preached any other doctrine than that which he, Paul, had preached," for he well knew that an angel from heaven could not preach any other.

With all reverence we say it, we feel a sort of inspiration upon the laws of reaction, gravity, and friction, based upon the experience of every moment of remembered life, that compels us to reject peremptorily the testimony of our best friends, of the most distinguished and credible persons, or of the most exalted intellects, when they tell us that by the mere superposition of hands, or by the effort of the will, a table moves off by itself, or lifts itself from the floor without visible agency. There are several individuals in this place, ourselves among the number, who have agreed to give two thousand dollars to any person who will show to us such a feat performed by a table. We feel entirely safe in the offer, and moreover think it prudent, in case we should deposit the money, to deposit it in a Savings Bank paying interest, for otherwise the money might be lying idle for a whole lifetime. We might hesitate, if there were the remotest chance of explaining such extraordinary appearances upon any principle of science; but the fact is, these assertions contravene all science, and bear absurdity on their very front. We hear some say, gravity, electricity, and magnetism cause bodies to move without visible agencies or connection. Yes! they _do_; they always _have_, and always _will_. But here, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, we must be told, for the first time, that the human body has analogous powers to magnets and thunder-clouds; and, more than this, that no regular law of traction or attraction, propulsion or repulsion, governs this marvellous, new, nervous, corporeal, carneous power, _odylic_ force, or what not, but that it is subject to all the anomalous, capricious and vicious directions and governance of _human_ volition.

We have too much contempt for _odylic_ philosophy, or any such chimera or vagary, to stop and discuss it here. We have for twenty years, ever since the revival of Slumbering Mesmerism, by Dr. Poyen, of Lowell, Mass., made diligent inquiry and patient, persevering effort to obtain from among the great mass of mesmeric performances some evidence of a new principle, new force, or any resolution of nervous or sensorial agency into physical power other than that of a mind upon its own body, and have never yet seen the most faint indications of any such nervous power as these modern psychologists pretend to unfold to us. What! a nervous force that acts exterior to, and independent of, its own tenement and rightful fulcrum? that propels masses heavier than the _body corporate_, without rending the latter in twain? Of one thing we feel assured, that this new-fangled philosophy is a poisonous, though covert fang, secretly gnawing at the very root of Christian faith. It made a bold sally in that coarse proposition of Miss Martineau respecting our Saviour's miracles--too coarse indeed to meet with favor--and now assails, under a less offensive and more sophistical garb, of "_odylic force_;" seeking to explain a mystery of the Bible (always an _infidel effort_), and to bring miracles and God's prerogatives within the scope and control of human reason and action. We ask any theologian who may incline to apply such tests to the solution of miraculous performance, if he supposes that if the mountain had removed, and been cast into the sea, at the bidding of the disciple (with faith as a grain of mustard-seed), that disciple would have been the source of the propelling power, and felt fatigue, depression, or reaction in proportion to the mass to be removed? If, when at the call of Joshua, the huge orb of earth stood still upon its axis, the vast momentum recoiled, through _odylic ether_, upon poor Joshua's brain? We can all accept the proposition of Archimedes "_Give me a place whereon to stand, and I will move the world_;" but who upon the largest latitude of plastic, ductile OD, or any other principle or pretext of mesmeric sophistry, would venture to arrest and propel the earth by the odylic, nervous, sensorial agency of one of its little creatures, held to its centre by indomitable gravity. Perchance it may be reasoned that from Joshua's cerebral fountain there issued a vast stream of odylic essence, or psychological fluid, whose mighty gushing into space was equal to the momentum of huge earth, and reacting, like water in the mill-wheel, caused the great sphere to stop. Oh! how hazardous, yea impious, is the attempt to _explain_ a miracle--God's prerogative, God's interposition in former times, though not above human _command_ upon the touchstones of prayer and faith, yet always and _forever_ above human _ken_. Our Saviour himself said, "Of myself I can do nothing," and his miracles were prefaced with prayer. GOD of the Bible! while thy word stands, the wisdom of the wise and prudent shall not prevail over the faith, simplicity and common-sense philosophy of thy "Babes."

It is painful and humiliating to see the efforts of certain prominent men publicly advocating the genuineness of these manifestations, and especially so when we consider the character of the assertions and arguments brought forward in support of their doctrines. One of the most recent and striking is this. Mr. Calhoun's spirit on being consulted through the Fox mediums as to the object of these spiritual manifestations, replies, that they are "instituted to prove to the unbelieving the IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL, and to propagate peace and harmony among men."[10] Hear it, all Christendom, believers, readers and hearers of the WORD! The great conflict and triumph of the Gospel is to be crowned by the deductions of these new FOX THEOLOGISTS, or, rather, as a more legitimate inference, the Word of God is to be superseded and must now give place to the higher manifestations of Rochester spirit-rappings and table-tippings. It is no less than a denial of the sufficiency of revelation for the very purpose for which it was intended, and denying this it denies the whole. All other reasons, arguments, developments, experiments, doubts, suspicions and manifestations aside, this rapping and tipping theology has now taken a decided and hostile stand against the BIBLE, and as such it must be treated. Hear it, and mark it well! The Bible is discarded as plainly and fully as if it had been uttered in so many words. In vain does Holy Writ every where teach of the immortality of the soul, in vain are its maledictions against sorcery and witchcraft, in vain does it pronounce "Anathema Maranatha" against additions to its divine pretensions, in vain its precept "that no prophecy of Scripture is of private interpretation," in vain does it declare that an unbeliever "would not believe though one rose from the dead,"[11] in vain have been the Bible societies, missionary and all the mighty efforts to spread Christianity, ALL is to be blotted out before the new light of "_Rochester knockings_" and Fox legerdemain. But why should we indulge in appeals, tirades, irony, or satire, knowing all the while that we have positive demonstrations yet to present of the utter fallacy of table-tippings; proofs irrefragible of the mundane, mortal, corporeal, physical, muscular character of table-tippings? We have our reasons. If we are to encounter fools and fanatics, witches and wizards, devils and dupes, we must assail in every vulnerable quarter, for even demonstrations of fact are sure to be denied upon some impudent pretext, and in such cases facts are not all-puissant weapons, and require an auxiliary guard. With the candid and the wavering, however, our demonstrations will be appreciated, and we trust conclusive. Reverting to the first case of table-tipping that came under our notice, having heard much of the extraordinary performances we went in company with a scientific friend to see for ourselves. The medium was a sprightly young girl, whose reputation for sincerity might have been her dearest treasure. The wonderful feats of this medium were recounted to us, and we longed for the verification. After a brief conversation, she with another young lady, (about half medium) placed hands upon a small table, our friend joining the circle. Their hands were so placed, that the right hand of one concealed the left hand of the other. After a while, the table began to move. This was natural, certainly, for we noticed that this medium was working very hard with her concealed hand to move it. Perhaps her mother saw this, for she rose from her seat and said, "You are not tricking, now?" "No, indeed, mother, I'm not tricking; see how lightly I _press_!" What a comment was all this upon the recital just made by her mother to us of the astonishing feats of moving heavy dining-tables, tearing up the carpets, moving pianofortes, &c.! Our friend beginning to suspect the voluntary character of this motion of the table, made a counter effort with his fingers (better concealed than that of the medium for the reason that he was possessed of far greater strength), and the table stopped moving. But this was not all. We detected upon the countenance of the medium an expression of disappointment, and further, a more palpable striving to move the table, in consequence of this resistance, which she seemed not to suspect. All this seems too farcical to relate, and yet the _superhuman_ performances of this very medium had been described to us by eye-witnesses of the highest respectability as marvellous, and astounding in the extreme, and our principal informant was a gentleman well known for his astuteness, had some years back published an excellent work upon mathematics, and was as well qualified as the average of learned men to observe and decide upon such matters. His testimony was confirmed by several others, all witnesses of the highest respectability, and what was it all worth? and what is all other testimony worth upon this _aerial vaulting_ of tables? Perhaps we are mistaken as to the effort made by this medium to move the table. Let us see! We placed a sheet of paper on the table under her hand, and as soon as the table was desired to move, behold the sheet of paper moved over the table-top, while the table stood still. Here is the demonstration of this fallacy, and although in such a shape that it may be cavilled at, yet it is, however, the elementary key, and to us all-sufficient in itself. We will, however, develope it in such form as to be beyond all cavil. We witnessed, after this, many abortive attempts by mediums and others to move tables, and some other attempts that began to succeed, till we applied our mechanical tests, when the new fluid, electricity, magnetism, nervous power, odylic force, all resolved themselves into muscular action, and the tables never moved unless clearly pushed. As to tables moving in _any way_ without being touched, we repeat that it has never been done, and challenge proof to the contrary.