Читать книгу Experimental Investigation of the Spirit Manifestations - Robert Hare - Страница 19

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251. The evidence of the manifestations adduced in the foregoing narrative does not rest upon myself only, since there have been persons present when they were observed, and they have in my presence been repeated essentially under various modifications, in many instances, not specially alluded to.

252. The evidence may be contemplated under various phases: First, those in which rappings or other noises have been made, which could not be traced to any mortal agency; secondly, those in which sounds were so made as to indicate letters forming grammatical, well-spelt sentences, affording proof that they were under the guidance of some rational being; thirdly, those in which the nature of the communication has been such as to prove that the being causing them must, agreeably to accompanying allegations, be some known acquaintance, friend, or relative of the inquirer.

253. Again, cases in which movements have been made of ponderable bodies, either without any human contact, or with such contact as could not be productive of the resulting motion.

254. Cases in which such movements of bodies have been of a nature to produce intellectual communications, resembling those obtained as above mentioned by sounds.

255. Although the apparatus by which these various proofs were attained, with the greatest possible precaution and precision, modified them as to the manner; essentially all the evidence which I have obtained, tending to the conclusions above mentioned, has likewise been substantially obtained by a great number of observers. Many who never sought any spiritual communication, and have not been induced to enroll themselves as spiritualists, will nevertheless not only affirm the existence of the sounds and movements, but also admit their inscrutability.

256. But we have now, in a matter-of-fact, business-like publication, by E. W. Capron, a record of the original manifestations at Hydesville and Rochester, in New York; where, as it is well known, they produced intense interest, excitement, and controversy; which gave rise to successive town-meetings, and the appointment of committees by these meetings for the purpose of ascertaining whether any other cause could be discovered for the manifestations, except the spiritual beings who assumed them to be their doings. Some of the persons appointed to make the investigation, were prepossessed with the belief that the phenomena were due to some juggling contrivance. One alleged that he would throw himself over the Genesee Falls, or prove the knockings due to humbuggery. Another alleged that the media, aware of his prepossession, would not for one hundred dollars have him on the committee; yet both these persons being put on the committee, the latter came out in favour of the inscrutability of the noise; while the former neither accounted for it, “nor threw himself over the falls,” as Mr. Capron pointedly alleges.

257. Subsequently, in the city of New York, the mystery was subjected to the ordeal of a public investigation by a number of distinguished citizens, whose reports confirmed those of the Rochester committees. Fennimore Cooper was among those appointed on the New York committee, and was the means himself of obtaining an unequivocal test. His sister’s death, which had resulted from being thrown from a horse, was correctly stated by her spirit in every particular, in reply to mental inquiries by him made.

258. Again at Stratford, Connecticut, at a house of a minister of the gospel, manifestations were made fully as striking as those which had occurred at Hydesville and Rochester, so as to establish in the mind of this estimable clergyman, and in those of many others acquainted with the facts, a belief in spiritual agency. (1667)