and irrelevant, or movements only in sympathy with the
will of the assistant, one might rest in the conclusion that there is a
new and unknown force, which, mayhap, is a transmutation of one's own
nervous energy, derived from organic electricity, and this fact in
itself would be important; but the blows are apparently struck inside
the wooden substance of the table, and the movements are in response to
questions put to invisible beings.

In this way did the phenomena begin in 1848, in the United States, when
the Misses Fox heard, in their chamber, the noise of raps within the
walls and furniture. When their father, after several months of
vexatious inquiry, at last bethought himself of old ghost stories, and
appealed to the cause of these noises, the cause answered the questions
asked, by means of certain raps agreed upon, and declared itself to be
the soul of a former proprietor, killed in that very house. This soul
asked for their prayers, and for the burial of its former body.

Is this invisible cause within us, or is it outside of ourselves? Are we
capable of doubling ourselves in some way, yet without knowing it,--of
unconsciously giving, by mental suggestion, the answers to our own
questions, and of so producing certain physical effects without being
aware of it? Again, is there around us an intelligent atmosphere, a sort
of spiritual cosmos? or are there invisible beings, who are not human,
but so many gnomes, hobgoblins, or imps?--for such an invisible world
may exist around us. Finally can these effects really come from the
souls of the departed, who are able to return from the other world? And
where is this other world? Four hypotheses thus present themselves.

The lifting of a table, the displacement of an object, might be
attributed to an unknown force, developed by our nervous systems, or by
some other means; at any rate, these movements do not prove the
existence of an outside spirit. But when--by naming the letters of the
alphabet or by pointing to them on a tablet--the table, by certain
sounds in the wood, or by certain tips, composes an intelligent
paragraph, we are compelled to attribute this intelligent effect to an
intelligent cause. The medium himself may be the cause; and the easiest
way would evidently be to admit that he is tricking us, either by simply
striking the leg of the table with his foot, if he operates by raps, or
by directing the movements of the table, through bearing upon it more o