PSYCHOMANCY. SPIRIT-RAPPINGS AND TABLE-TIPPINGS EXPOSED. BY PROF. CHARLES G. PAGE, M. D., ETC. NEW-YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 200 BROADWAY. MDCCCLIII. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York. SPIRIT-RAPPINGS. The wide-spread and alarming mania of _Spirit-rappings_ and _table-tippings_ of the present day, is only a modification, or new garb, of _devilish instrumentalities_, operating through human machinations, which have infested society from time immemorial. We start with this proposition, harsh as it may sound to some, and if we should fail to sustain it by facts, reasoning, and common sense, to the entire satisfaction of all, we still say to the unbelievers in our doctrine, show us the proof to the contrary; and with a confidence firm as our belief in Holy Writ, and the unfailing laws of God, we challenge the exhibition to our senses of any performance with spirit-rappings, or table-tippings, which cannot be explained upon natural, and _well known_ natural laws. We will here premise, that we do not attribute to Satan any direct agency in this matter other than has always been ascribed to him in the crimes and misdeeds of man from the fall down to this present time. That neither the "prince of the power of the air," nor his imps (unless they be in human shape), rap out intelligence by sounds, get under tables and tip them over, swing them round, or perform any of these extraordinary feats, which so many among us are determined to invest with supernatural character and origin. Nor do we consider that the arch-enemy of man has brought any _new power_ or _agency_ into operation to further his mischievous designs. FAR FROM IT. _A new power?_ It would frustrate his schemes in their very inception. _A new power?_ It is a lawful subject of pursuit, to the very exhaustion of mental resources. _A new power?_ Its bare mention is an arousing signal to the devotees of science, and upon the first scintillation of plausibility, the midnight lamp will burn throughout Christendom, till its capabilities and subserviency to man's actual wants are unfolded. No! the tempter knows his game and tools, and perhaps his own limits, all too well to give to man a new and legitimate object of research, and thus divert investigation from hallucinating and mercenary sorceries to that which is lawful and truthful. He works with his own and old tools, upon and through that most successful instrumentality, over which, by long and dire experience, he has acquired such mighty ascendency--the human soul. This is his pliant tool, and here his stronghold. To those who regard the Scriptural account of the devil's existence and agency as allegorical, our argument, in its cardinal character and bearing, will apply with the same force, for they have only to invest the mind of