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.
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