Fish: "you seem to
be nearer to them than most people."
I summoned, in succession, the spirits of my mother, a younger brother,
and a cousin to whom I had been much attached in boyhood, and obtained
correct answers to all my questions. I did not then remark, what has
since occurred to me, that these questions concerned things which I
knew, and that the answers to them were distinctly impressed on my mind
at the time. The result of one of my tests made a very deep impression
upon me. Having mentally selected a friend whom I had met in the train
that morning, I asked,--"Will the spirit whose name is now in my mind
communicate with me?" To this came the answer, slowly rapped out, on
calling over the alphabet,--"_He is living!_"
I returned home, very much puzzled. Precisely those features of the
exhibition (let me call it such) which repulse others attracted me. The
searching daylight, the plain, matter-of-fact character of the
manifestations, the absence of all solemnity and mystery, impressed me
favorably towards the spiritual theory. If disembodied souls, I said,
really exist and can communicate with those in the flesh, why should
they choose moonlight or darkness, graveyards or lonely bedchambers, for
their visitations? What is to hinder them from speaking at times and in
places where the senses of men are fully awake and alert, rather than
when they are liable to be the dupes of the imagination? In such
reflections as these I was the unconscious dupe of my own imagination,
while supposing myself thoroughly impartial and critical.
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