Spirit manifestations examined and explained : Judge Edmonds refuted; or, An exposition of the involuntary powers and instincts of the human mind / By John Bovee Dods.

  • Dods, John Bovee, 1795-1872.
Date:
[1854], [©1854]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Spirit manifestations examined and explained : Judge Edmonds refuted; or, An exposition of the involuntary powers and instincts of the human mind / By John Bovee Dods. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    sented to the fact, that it positively took place before their eyes. Many, I grant, do not understand the prin- ciples of what we term natural philosophy, and hence do not know its rational boundaries, nor where, so far -j as pertains to the power of man, it must stop as re- gards the application of its causes and effects. But the evidence of the audience being in harmony, it is for the intelligent and philosophic portion of that audience to decide what was the nature of the agent acting, or whether it was in the power of man, philosophically or otherwise, to cause a pen or pencil thus to write. I have named a promiscuous audience of four or five hundred persons, because there is no rational probabil- ity, as the universal test of experiment proves, that the whole of these could be naturally in the electro- psychological state ; or even in the mesmeric state, or e**i1 in some other abnormal condition. But such an ex- £_> - periment as this in the presence of ten, twenty, or - even five hundred good, impressible, selected mediums ., would be no evidence whatever, that the pen or pencil moved and wrote' on paper. It would be no evidence, that there was a pen, pencil, or paper on the table, or ■ even a table before them ! Entertaining the bare idea, that they were under the superior impression of spirits, a and were expecting such a result, they could be made to see the table, the pen, pencil and paper before them, **** and the whole scene produced, when it was nothing - more than the waking up of the original electro-embod- , <*- a ry -. 7* L-Cr^. /VWv-t)-C4^ 1 f-r Jl, I '-•-.; , /