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| Preface.—Letter from J. F. Lanning, Esq.—Spiritual communication, through the mediumship of Mr. Lanning, to the author—Author’s Reply—Communication from an assembly of eminent spirits, sanctioning, under test conditions, the credentials transmitted through Mr. Lanning—Postscript by the author—Supplemental Preface | 3 |
| Introduction.—The evidence of the existence of a Deity, by the author—Theological Axioms | 17 |
| Intuitive Evidence of the Existence of Spirits.—Narrative of the author’s experimental investigation of Spiritualism—Letter in reply to an inquiry respecting the Influence of Electricity in Table-Turning—Of Manifestations founded on Movements without contact, or such contact as cannot be sufficient to cause the result—Hymn chanted, and reply | 35 |
| Corroborative Evidence of the Existence of Spirits.—Evidence afforded by the Rev. Allen Putnam, of Roxbury, Mass.—Evidence of Dr. Bell, of Somerville, near Boston—His errors, arising from ignorance of facts, (110, 283, 864.) | 55 |
| Foreign Corroborative Evidence of the Existence of Spirits.—Manifestations which occurred in France in 1851—Letter from T. R. P. Ventura—Letter of Dr. Coze—Letter of M. F. De Saulcy—Spiritualism in Paris—Spiritual Manifestations in France and Germany—Spiritualism in Great Britain—Letter of Robert Owen, Esq. | 66 |
| Communications from the Spirit World.—Remarks introductory to my spirit father’s communication—My father’s communication—Communication from a spirit son of the author—Additional communications from spirits who died while infants—Communication from a very young spirit child to its parents | 85 |
| Of Spiritual Birth.—Narratives given by spirits of their translation to the spirit world—Narrative of his spiritual birth, by W. W., a most benevolent spirit—The spirit Maria’s narrative—My sister’s account of her translation to the spirit world—My brother’s account of his spiritual birth, &c. | 101 |
| Convocation of Spirits.—Sixty-four queries addressed to a convocation of worthies from the spirit world; also their replies to the same, (through the mediumship of Mrs. Gourlay,) confirmed under conditions which no mortal could pervert | 113 |
| Exposition of the Information received from the Spirit World | 119 |
| Apology for my Conversion.—Reasons for my change of opinion, and belief in the existence and agency of spirits—On the whereabout of heaven—Correspondence with Mr. Holcomb, of Southwick, Massachusetts | 125 |
| Moral Influence of Spiritualism | 136 |
| The Heaven and Hell of Spiritualism contrasted with the Heaven and Hell of Scripture | 141 |
| Instinctive Impression as to Heaven being overhead.—Discordance as to the whereabout of the scriptural heaven | 149 |
| “The True Doctrine.”—The Rev. H. Harbaugh’s opinion respecting heaven | 151 |
| Of Mediumship | 159 |
| Of Counter-Mediumship.—On the influence of the ill-treatment of media on spiritual manifestations—The author’s discovery of his powers as a medium | 166 |
| On Psychological Explanations of Spiritual Manifestations | 168 |
| Alphabetic Converse with Spirits.—Modern process for alphabetic converse with spirits as new as that of electric telegraph | 173 |
| Influence of Mundane Wealth in the World to come.—According to the spiritual code, riches elevate or degrade according to the morality displayed in their acquisition and employment | 176 |
| Mrs. Gourlay’s Narrative of her Conversion to Spiritualism | 179 |
| Practical Benefit of Spiritualism.—Illustration of the practical benefit of Spiritualism, in the happiness imparted by the conversion of an unbeliever to a belief in immortality—Letter from a spirit daughter—Correspondence with a spirit brother | 192 |
| Marriage on Earth and in Heaven.—The hymeneal tie in the spirit world grows out of the necessity of the connubial union in the mundane sphere—“Free Love” imputation refuted | 204 |
| Influence of Scripture on the Morals of Christians.—The morality of Christendom being irreconcilable with the New Testament, cannot be its legitimate offspring—Inspiration can have no higher authority than the human testimony on which its existence is arrogated—Injurious influence of unreasonable restriction—No one would believe that a capable farmer would make such a mistake as to sow garlic instead of wheat; yet God, while represented as having intended to sow Protestantism, is considered as having caused throughout Christendom a crop of Catholicism, in the Roman or Grecian form, for more than a thousand years: those weeds still occupying more than half of the whole soil—Letter of William Pitt, afterward Earl of Chatham—Offer of guidance by a mundane spirit—Improper use of the epithet Infidel—On Atonement—On the massacre at Sinope—Opinions of God held by Sir Isaac Newton—On God and his attributes, by Seneca—On the better employment of the first day of the week—Additional remarks respecting the observance of the Sabbath, so called—If creatures be not so created as to love their neighbours as themselves, precepts can no more alter them in this respect than change the colour of their hair or the number of cubits in their stature—Attacks upon the authenticity of Scripture cannot endanger the prevalent morality, which, while superior to that of the Old Testament, indicates a recklessness of the precepts of Christ, excepting so far as faith is upheld as a counterpoise for sin—The doctrine of a peculiar belief being necessary to salvation, and a counterpoise for sin, a source of discord originally confined to Judea, expanded with Christianity and Islamism: verifying Christ’s allegation, that he came “as a sword, not as a messenger of peace”—Superior morality and far less questionable certainty of the communications from the spirit world—Quotation from Mosheim—Quotation from Gibbon—For more than a thousand years, the Grecian or Roman Catholic clergy were the solo depositaries of the word of God, so called, and regulators of religious morals; yet, according to Bishop Hopkins, during that time, the clergy were for the most part pre-eminent in vice, as compared with the rest of the community; whence it is inferred that, like Pope Boniface, the wicked clergy in general were unbelievers in the truth of the gospel—If the morals of the modern clergy are better, it is neither from the barbarous example furnished them in the Old Testament, nor the ultra precepts of the gospel; being too much enlightened to be governed by either—Summary made by Bishop Hopkins—Any religion, like that of Moses, which does not make immortality a primary consideration, must be chiefly confined to worldly objects, and, of course, unworthy of consideration. People profess Christianity more from a desire to do right, than they do right in consequence of their professions—A calumny against human nature to represent men as wilfully ignorant of the true religion—To appreciate the Jewish representation of the Deity, a reader should first form an idea of this planet and its inhabitants, comparatively with the hundred millions of solar systems, and the inconceivable extent of the space which encompasses them, and which falls within the domain of one common Deity—Our actions dependent, under God, on organization, education, and the extent to which we are tempted extraneously—On probation—World least moral when the Christian church had most sway—Honour and mercantile credit more trusted than religion. Virtue due more to the heart than to sectarianism. Bigotry acts like an evil spirit—Progress of literature and science in Arabia, under the Mohammedan pontiffs, called caliphs | 206 |
| Additional Corroborative Evidence of the Existence of Spirits.—The opinions of MM. de Mirville and Gasparin on Table Turning and Mediums, (considered in relation to theology and physics,) examined by the Abbot Almignana, doctor of the common law, theologian, &c.—Mechanical movements without contact, by Mr. Isaac Rehn, President of the Harmonial Society, Philadelphia—Communication from J. M. Kennedy, Esq.—Communication from Wm. West, Esq.—Koons’s Establishment—Communications from Joseph Hazard, Esq.—A visit to the Spiritualists of Ohio—Letter from John Gage—The home of the mediums, and the haunts of the spirits—What they did, said, and wrote—The house of the Spiritualists—Presence of electricity—The room where the spirits manifest their power—The furniture and occupants—The manifestations commence—The spirits play on drums, harps, French horns, accordeons, and tamborines—The manifestations continue, and the head spirit writes a communication—The spirit’s letter—Concluding remarks—An evening at Koons’s spirit room, by Charles Partridge, Esq., New York—Experience of the Hon. N. P. Tallmadge—Letter from Mr. D. H. Hume—Spiritualism in London—Lord Brougham with the spirits—Evidence afforded by the Rev. J. B. Ferguson—An exposition of views respecting the principal facts, causes, and peculiarities involved in spiritual manifestations; together with interesting phenomenal statements and communications, by Adin Ballou—Testimony of the Hon. J. W. Edmonds—Testimony of Henry Lloyd Garrison.—Testimony of Mr. and Mrs. Newton—Testimony of members of the New York circle—Testimony of the Rev. D. F. Goddard, Boston—Manifestations at Stratford, Connecticut, in the house of the Rev. Eliakim Phelps, D.D.—Remarkable exhibitions of power—Singular occurrences—Image-making—Destruction of furniture—Incendiary spirits—The spirits identified—Unhappy spirits, from the remembrance of wrong done in this world—Wrong doing revealed—Directions given for restoring ill-gotten gains—Discontinuance of the manifestations—Idea of the existence of a spiritual sun, and a vital spiritual oxygen, found to exist, independently, in the mind of a much-esteemed author | 273 |
| Of Matter, Mind, and Spirit.—Of matter—Strictures on a speculation by Farraday respecting the nature of matter—On Whewell’s demonstration that all matter is heavy—Additional remarks on the speculation of Farraday and Exley, above noticed—Of mundane, ethereal, and ponderable matter, in their chemical relations—Suggestions of Massotti, respecting the nature of matter—On electro-polarity as the cause of electrical phenomena—Of mind, as existing independently, and as distinguished from matter—Of spirit independently, or as distinguished from mind and matter—Of the soul, as distinguished from mind and matter—On the odic, or odylic force | 363 |
| Religious Errors of Mr. Mahan.—Proposition of Mr. Mahan—Of the origin of the Books of Moses no higher evidence exists, according to the testimony of the Bible itself, than that of an obscure priest and a fanatical king—Scriptural account of the finding of the Books of Moses by Hilkiah, the high-priest—Account of the finding of the Books of Moses, by Josephus—If the Pentateuch had been previously known to the Jews, it is incredible that it could have become obsolete and forgotten prior to the alleged discovery of it in the temple in the reign of Josiah—Great importance attached to a belief in immortality by Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, as contrasted with the recklessness of Moses respecting the same belief—The worship of a book, idolatry—Evidence of Josephus and Gibbon vs. Mr. Mahan—The worshippers of the golden calf more righteous than their assassins—Just denunciation of the religious imposture and usurpation of Moses, by noble-minded Israelites—Remarkable observance of the golden rule by Moses, in his last advice to the Israelites—Straining at spiritual gnats while swallowing scriptural camels—The evidence which is insufficient to establish the iniquity of a sinner cannot be sufficient to establish the divine authority of a book—Word of God, so called, or the golden rule inverted by God’s alleged commands—Pagan fearlessness of death—Observations of Mr. Huc, a Christian priest, that it is their religion which makes Christians more fearful of death than the Chinese—Mr. Huc’s observations—Conclusion of strictures on Mr. Mahan’s religious errors | 396 |
| Conclusion.—The Pentateuch inconsistently represented as the basis of a belief in human immortality—Injustice of representing disbelievers in the Bible as not having as good ground for belief in immortality as those who rest their belief on a work which, by its silence, tends to discountenance the hope of a future life—Those who uphold the Bible against Spiritualism, the real antagonists of the only satisfactory evidence ever given to man of a future habitation in the spirit world | 423 |
APPENDIX.
| Letter to the Episcopal Clergy.—Letter from Dr. Hare to the clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church, offering to lay before them the new evidence of immortality. (Submitted to the late convention, Philadelphia, May 15, 1855.) | 427 |
| A Letter from Dr. Hare.—Addressed to the Association for the Advancement of Science, at their meeting, August 18, 1855—Preliminary remarks | 430 |
| Farraday’s Speculation.—Speculation touching electric conduction and the nature of matter. By Farraday | 432 |
| Motives for Republishing my Memoir on Electrical Theory | 437 |
| Electrical Theory.—Objections to the theories severally of Franklin, Dufay, and Ampere, with an effort to explain electrical phenomena by statical or undulatory polarization—Supposed grounds for a theory—Proofs of the existence of an enormous quantity of imponderable matter in metals—Electrical phenomena attributed to stationary or undulatory polarization—On the perfect similitude between the polarity communicated to iron filings by a magnetized steel bar and a galvanized wire—Process by which the ethereo-ponderable atoms within a galvanic circuit are polarized by the chemical reaction—Difference between electro-ethereal and ethereo-ponderable polarization—Competency of a wire to convey a galvanic discharge is as its sectional area, while statical discharges of frictional electricity, preferring the surface, are promoted by its extension. Yet in proportion as such discharges are heavy, the ability of a wire to convey them and its magnetic energy become more dependent on its sectional area, and less upon extent of surface—Difference between frictional electricity and galvanic does not depend on the one being superior as to quantity, the other as to intensity; but on the different degrees in which the ethereo-ponderable atoms of the bodies affected are deranged from their natural state of neutralized polarity—Of ethereo-ponderable deflagration—Summary. | 439 |
Robt Hare M D.
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, GRADUATE OF YALE COLLEGE AND HARVARD UNIVERSITY, ASSOCIATE OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE AND MEMBER OF VARIOUS LEARNED SOCIETIES.
Engraved at J. M. Butlers establishment, 84 Chestnut St. Philada.
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, GRADUATE OF YALE COLLEGE AND HARVARD UNIVERSITY, ASSOCIATE OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE AND MEMBER OF VARIOUS LEARNED SOCIETIES.
Engraved at J. M. Butlers establishment, 84 Chestnut St. Philada.