and breathe with difficulty, often declaring that the entrance of the coarse outer air is painful to them, after the pure atmosphere of the spirit world in which they have been breathing. It is said, and I believe with truth, that no real influx can take place till the medium is susceptible of this state. It seems to be an ebb and flow of the spirit within, agreeing with the waves of influx from the spirit without, whose action, as has been said, is so often perceptible as fanning, or a current of fresh, pure air. When our pulmonary breathing and spiritual breathing are brought into harmony of action, or polarised together, we shall all be receptive, as a natural condition of every-day life, of the streams of influx from higher beings.

WE

CHAPTER VIII.

MEDIUMSHIP-NATURE OF INFLUENCE.

HEN an enquirer ventures into a new region of knowledge, he has not only to establish, but to systematise facts; and in the first arrangement, these will probably not hold the same rank as they will take when the now unrecognised territory has been measured, observed, and cultivated. The order, too, in which facts present themselves to such an enquirer, is not always that in which the whole is most easily communicated, and the earliest information must be rather a history of discovery than a welldigested essay on the subject.

I do not forget that the theme of spirit life and impression has been far more fully discussed by Swedenborg and a few others than it can be in such a slight account as this. But the seers do not assume that every step is to be established. They speak with the authority of teachers; as a dweller in the land can give descriptions of every part from his own knowledge; while one who undertakes to gather from the

accounts of travellers, must needs have a very undigested mass of material to work upon. This may explain the seeming repetitions and returns to the same subject in its different forms, which could not be avoided in framing an explanation like the present from many and various experiences.

Supposing the explanations as to the cause of drawing, writing, &c., generally offered to the scientific world to be received, and these processes with the more internal ones to be attributed to irregular cerebral action, self-delusion, &c., we must then fall back upon that portion of the phenomena which has been declared to be of the most material kind; namely, the raps and movements. And we shall find their use, for no explanation involving subjectivity can apply to experiments whose results can be seen, heard, and felt by a number of persons in a quiet waking state, and which can be repeated whenever the trial is made under favourable conditions. After the subjective theory, the next in order is imposture, and when this is disposed of, we have to deal with the Devil,' whose name I really did not wish to have introduced here. Now, having shown ample reason to believe that all the manifestations emanate from one source, we must settle which of the three is the moving power. Unconscious cerebration, self-delusion, or any other mental vagary, can produce writing and drawing; it cannot make intelligent sounds audible to eight or nine people

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at one time, nor can it cause the movement of furniture either with or without an intelligent aim. The instances of tables rising from the floor to the height of three or four feet are so well attested that I hardly feel it necessary to refer to them. I have myself

The

often witnessed this marvel under circumstances which put delusion or visual deception quite out of the question. Neither could it be any hallucination of the kind which made the sceptical gentleman against whom the table rushed call out to beg that it would stop.* And there was neither hand nor foot on that table, nor any professional medium in the room. heaviest weight which I have ever seen rise by means of invisible agency, was a mahogany dining-table. It rose evenly a few inches from the floor, remaining raised while the friend who accompanied me placed his hand under one castor, and I had mine under that which stood diagonally opposite. Two other friends had their hands under the other castors, but it is evident that if my companion and I could be certain that the cross castors rested on our hands, the table, if level, must have been entirely off the ground, and the possibility of ocular delusion vanishes.

With respect to raps and movements, then, the ocular delusion or general delusion theory must be abandoned; so must the unconscious cerebration. As to the

* See p. 26.

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Origin of Evil, who has been flattered by being supposed to be the chief actor in all the manifestations; of his and all other agencies I need only say, on the highest authority, By their fruits ye shall know them.' But it is to the nature of the agency used, and then to the intelligent but unseen being directing it, that our next enquiry must be directed. In Chapter IV. several cases of mesmerism have been detailed. I have chosen these from among many others, not for their novel or striking character, but because they will furnish a key to the knowledge of the agency employed in producing the spirit manifestations.

The different forms of mediumship, as has been seen, are often accompanied or preceded by feelings such as are produced by mesmerism. Fanning, a warm or cool current of air, chilliness or drowsiness, with sometimes a tingling like that produced by the wires of a galvanic battery, and, during the raps, slight shocks like electricity passing through the arm of the medium, are among the commonest of the sensations. It is indisputable that the medium is under mesmeric influence, but what is that influence? and in these cases whence does it proceed?

The instances already given, and which might be supported by hundreds beside, prove that their source is not to be found in the medium or in any other member of the circle. The communications are coherent and intelligible; often, too, quite new to every person