As for the readers of this
periodical who still insist that even animal and spiritual magnetism are
humbugs, I can only say, with the author of the 'Night Side of Nature,'
'How closely their clay must be wrapped about them!' For one, I have
generally avoided any witnessing of marvels of this class--priding
myself in believing in their occurrence because of the pure _a priori_
reasonableness of the thing.

It will be observed that in this, as in most other alleged intercourses
with the invisible world, there is persistent, continuous attempt to
excite _the vanity_ of the mortal who is venturing the dangerous
experiment. If the secret history of all the modern mediums were
revealed--no matter what their natural disposition to vanity--it would
be found that the vast majority of them had been incessantly flattered
by their spiritual familiars, and each informed that he or she was the
very individual of whom a forlorn, misguided world had been all this
while in anxious expectation! This appears to have been the history of
necromancy from the beginning. Flattery has ever been the chief stock in
trade of those beings who are so properly called 'seducing spirits.'
'Tis ever with glozing words that these children of the wilderness gain
the ear and the affections, and entrance through the heart-gates kept by
Parley the Porter. Let me not be supposed to include in this class all
the spirits who have been of late years so busy among us mortal and
immortal Yankees. I consider that the old expression 'white, black, and
gray' fully describes the denizens of the 'interior.' In fact, all seers
insist that human creatures, in and out of the body, appear to them
white or variously shaded toward black, according to their moral status.
It is probable that the reason why the black and gray varieties have
been so almost exclusively heard from, of late, is to be found in the
fact, that it is contrary to the laws of God and nature for us to _seek_
society beyond the terrestrial plane; and that our only proper course,
in this regard, is to avoid the supernatural, as a general thing; and
when it is apparently thrust upon us, to have only so much to do with it
as is quite inevitable. When the authorities of heaven have anything to
say to a mortal, they will _force_ him to listen, if necessary--even if
they have to throw him, like Paul, from his horse.

Well, I had embarked, like Virgil, or Dante, on my perilous tour through
Hades. There was, at o