ism. I have yet to find a Spiritualist half crazy enough to adopt these notions. Such fantastic puerilities are presented to us in the exalted name of Science! And all this, and much more of the same sort, is cherished by men who have little faith in their own souls, and still less in the being and power of God's "ministering spirits."

You admit that men have ever been essentially the same, in the constituent elements of their bodies, and that phenomena depending on material causes are ever substantially the same. Then, why not accept this conclusion, namely: If the genuine manifestations depended on physical agents merely, they would inevitably occur in all ages and countries, with such modifications only as could be directly traced to existing physical conditions. If you can not accept this, be kind enough to show that the inference is illegitimate. The deduction appears to have frightened you off, and, terminating your paragraph abruptly, the attention of the reader was at once diverted by a flourish about the effect of 'steel on the od-force,' and its resemblance to "moon-light among thistle-blows"!

Again, when required to authenticate your facts and statements, you commence anew to talk of your 'martyrdom,' and of the profound ‘respect you have for the feelings' of your witnesses-their intense sensibility precludes their being summoned before a public tribunal—who must be allowed to remain incog; and then, in a derisive spirit quite inappropriate to the circumstances of the occasion, you propose to prove your personal credibility by one whose individuality is altogether uncertain. And thus it is manifestly intended to avoid the necessity of proving anything—even the facts adduced by yourself—in the present controversy. By this time the cloud may be so dense as to render it difficult for the reader to determine who raised the dust.'

Your quotations from the newspapers prove nothing for or against your views. Whether certain terms and images, employed in your recent letters, are in good taste, I may not decide; also, how far you are successful in your attempts to be facetious, when argument is demanded, and to what extent, in the advocacy of your present hypothesis, you pour contempt on certain Spiritual phenomena narrated in the New Testament, is left to the decision of impartial judges.

Hoping that your next letter will evince a more serious and candid spirit, I am, Yours faithfully,

S. B. BRITTAN.

PHYSICAL PHENOMENA.

DR B. W. RICHMOND TO S. B. BRITTAN.

LETTER XI.

DEAR SIR: The important question still remains-can eels prophesy, and tables and bedsteads dance? I append two examples to show the possibility of the latter. The first, I have from Mr. A. J. Davis, recently in our place. At High Rock, Mass., at the house of a friend, an Irish servant began to have the raps, when she gave attention to it communications were received by a number indicating considerable intelligence. One night she retired to bed, and the family were awakened by a tremendous noise up stairs. On going up to her room, Mr. D. with the family, saw the girl wrapped in her cloak, lying on the floor under the bed, singing at the top of her breath-raps were on the wall, and about the room, loud and frequent. The singing continued, and directly the mattress rose from the bed and began to float in the air, and kept time exactly to her singing, it finally fell in front of the bed," and then the bedstead began to move, first one leg, then another, then all, and kept time to the singing of the girl, and was moved with such violence as to nearly demolish it. The Irish od-force had charged the mattress and bedstead, and the vibrations of the tune seem to have been the medium of keeping them in motion.

The second case is found in the N. Y. Tribune of Dec. 4.

Singular results are obtained in this City from a very simple application of the nervous fluid, animal magnetism, or whatever be the agency, to brute matter. Let a party of six or eight persons sit around a common pine table for twenty minutes to half an hour, with the palms of the hands held flat on the top of the table; it is not necessary that their minds should pay any attention to the process, or the ordinary conversation be suspended; but presently the table becomes so charged with the mysterious fluid that it begins to move; then rise from it, push away your chairs, still holding your hands near, though it is not necessary to touch it, and it will turn around from end to end, and even proceed rapidly about the room, without any visible agent, on which excursions the persons must bear it company, or the current is broken and the movement stops. This simple experiment may easily be tried; it requires no faith and no outlay of physical or moral strength; and the result, with a table that is not too heavy, is pretty sure to follow; at least, we have known of several instances in which it has been most astonishingly produced. The fact, when scientifically established, must throw light on

the obscurities of Mesmerism, Spiritual Manifestations, and all that unexplored class of phenomena.

These cases approach a demonstration that the human mind can move matter, through contact with the od-force of the human body, as nearly as the facts approach a demonstration, on which we base our belief in the laws of gravitation. To make it approach the closeness of chemical demonstrations, let some of the dear-seers be taken into these experiments, and let them test the facts as did Von Reichenbach; it is easy to do so; the very sensitive, sickly, magnetic persons, can see the fluid as it is thrown from the hands of the operators on to the table, and the response of the vibrations of this fluid to music, shows it to be controlled by the notes of the singer. My victory in this matter is to be too easy---friend Brittan I feel provoked.

Buchman's Journal of Man, for January, 1852, contains interesting experiments, by a lady in Illinois, on wrilling matter. They seem to eunfirm the above experiments on the tables. I must now return to symptoms with occur in witcheraft-mental and moral diseases,

Dr. Horneck states that, in the Swedish village of Moran, in Elfand, witchr craft became general. Several hundred children were draws to it. Fifteen were executed-thirty ran the gauntlet, and were lashed at the church dovr weekly for a while year. Twenty of the youngest exffered three Ayeonly

-The spected witches were confronted with the culares, and sure hundred eldren were greed in the filowing story: The care were told by the vides si go to a stream and ́zrike the Der'), was angeared for y treebo. ■ tải Enyent, red excking, red beard. i gi lat, various elores „am vngel aranda and garters id pert)ar lengua He suited the en

ble and suple that the bone seemed dissolved; they had violent convulsions in which their jaws snapped, with the force of a spring-trap set for vermin; their limbs were curiously contorted, and seemed dislocated and displaced. Amid these contortions they cried out against the poor old woman, whose name was Glover, alleging she was in presence with them, adding to their torments. The oldest girl, to show her minister it was of the Devil, could read a treatise in defense of the Quakers, but nothing against them; could read a Church of England prayer book, but not the Bible. She was sometimes merry, and would in imagination mount a pony, and seated in her chair, mimic riding; would canter up stairs, but could not enter the Parson's study, but when pulled in, she stood up relieved. For this, says the simple minister, reasons were given (6 more kind than true." Dame Glover was hung. In the family of Mr. Parvis, two children were taken. Their symptoms were: "Their mouths were stopped, throats choked, limbs racked, and they saw the specters of those who bewitched them. An old Indian and squaw were tried and hung. Finally the afflicted began to see the specters of those in high life, and some escaped; others were arrested; some executed. A child five years old was indicted, its ghost having been seen, and a dog (poor Tray) was hanged, having been seen busy in the mischief. A Mr. Cory was pressed to death; in his agony he thrust out his tongue; the sheriff crammed it back with his cane. Nineteen were executed, and two hun

dred were imprisoned.*

The really innocent in this devilish outrage were those who were executed, the bewitched being under a magnetic disease; some who were suspected were also diseased. Cotton Mather says the more they apprehended the more seemed to be affected; terror seemed to develop the condition. The Indians themselves were amazed at the foolish Colonists. (Sir Walter Scott's Demonology and Witchcraft, p. 234.) In the same work, page 181, we find the following: "In the beginning of the sixteenth century persecutions for witchcraft broke out in France, and multitudes were burned by authority of law." The deluded in this case supposed they were taught by the Devil, but his promises failed, just as promises made through mediums fail. He told them to face the rack and faggot and they should not be hurt; but Government burned them by thousands. They accused the Devil of lying. During their torture, they fell into "profound stupor," which had something of Paradise in it, being gilded, says the Judge, by the presence of the Devil.

The witches came together in multitudes, in conventions, before the See Appendix, Note P.

gates of Bordeaux and in the square of Galienna. The Devil told them he would confound their enemies; but he failed, and lost much credit. When they attempted to confess before the Royal Commissioners, they were stopped with "open mouths, as if the throat was obstructed." They upbraided his majesty, and said, "Your promise was, that our mothers, who were prisoners, should not die; but see they are burned and are a heap of ashes." To evade this mutiny Satan had two evasions. He created illusory fires, and encouraged the mutinous to walk through them assuring them that the judicial pile was as frigid as the fires they saw. Again, taking his refuge in lies, he stoutly affirmed that their parents, who seemed to have suffered, were safe in a foreign country, and if their children would call on them, each would receive an answer. They made the invocation accordingly, and each was answered by Satan in a tone that resembled the voice of the deceased parent (speaking mediums) almost as successfully as Monsieur Alexander could have done. Just refer to the Farmington mediums and note the exact resemblance. The failure of the Devil must have been for want of "harmony" in the meeting, as the Cleveland mediums failed.

President Dwight, in his account of New-England witchcraft says that most of the convictions rested on (6 spectral testimony." Dogs and children were implicated. One man who complained to a magistrate, received half the fees-ten lashes, as due to the informant. Another man prosecuted the accusers and the cases ceased. One man bewitched and rode a dog; being suspected, he ran away. In the Conn. His. Col. a case of witchcraft is detailed. The affected fell on the floor and rolled over and over with such violence that he had to be restrained from going into the fire. The hogs would run around on their hind legs and squeal. One pig's ear was cut off, and the old woman suspected always kept her ear muffled (she was in leaugue with my friend "Hog Devil, doubtless.) Soap would boil over, potash boilers also were tormented with their potash running over. They shot into it and the old lady was found dead in bed. Another case occurred where " specters talking" were seen by the man-two females-he accosted them in the name of God, and they vanished so quick that they left their "hoods" on the spot. Ghosts wear bonnets and costumes. Whoever will look into the records of this disease-for such it is-will find it attended with rolling of the head-subsultus of the hands and arms-clairvoyance-spectral illusion -magnetic en rapport with those around them. Some of those accused. seem conscious of an ability to put themselves en rapport with those they wish to affect. Hence they burn wax images, or bake clay images;