usand and One Nights.
Although I have been thus thwarted at every turn in my investigations of
Spiritualism, and found fraud where I had looked for honesty, and
emptiness where I had hoped for fulness, I cannot think it right to pass
a verdict, universal in its application, where far less than the
universe of Spiritualism has been observed. My field of examination has
been limited. There is an outlying region claimed by Spiritualists which
I have not touched, and into which I would gladly enter, were there any
prospect that I should meet with more success. I am too deeply imbued
with the belief that we are such stuff as dreams are made on, to be
unwilling to accept a few more shadows in my sleep. Unfortunately, in my
experience, Dante's motto must be inscribed over an investigation of
Spiritualism, and all hope must be abandoned by those who enter on it.
If the performances which I have witnessed are, after all, in their
essence Spiritual, their mode of manifestation certainly places them
only on the margin, the very outskirts of that realm of mystery which
Spiritualism claims as its own. Spiritualism, pure and undefiled, if it
mean anything at all, must be something far better than Slate Writing
and Raps. These grosser physical manifestations can be but the mere ooze
and scum cast up by the waves on the idle pebble, the waters of a
heaven-lit sea, if it exist, must lie far out beyond.
The time is not far distant, I cannot but think, when the more elevated
class of Spiritualists will cast loose from all these physical
manifestations, which, even if they be proved genuine, are but little
removed from Materialism, and eventually Materializing Seances, held on
recurrent days, and at fixed hours, will become unknown.
HORACE HOWARD FURNESS.
INDEX.
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Appendix
Briggs, Mr. Fred., medium
Caffray, Mr. Joseph, medium
Flint, Mr. R.W., medium
Fullerton, Prof. G.S., on the Slade-Zoellner investigation
Furness, H.H., on materialization
On mediumistic development
On Slade
Independent slate writing
Kane, Mrs. Margaret Fox
Keeler, Mr. P.L.O.A., medium
Keeler, Mr. W.M., medium
Kellar, Mr. Harry
Knerr, Dr., on slate writing
Koenig, Prof. Geo. A., about Mrs. Thayer
Leidy, Prof. Joseph, about Mrs. Thayer
On mediums
Letter from Mrs. Kane
Letters, sealed
Lord, Mrs. Maud E., medium
Mansfield, Dr. James
Martin, Mrs. Eliza A., medium
Martin, Mrs. Dr. Eleanor
Ma
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