Seeing then, that we can _rap_, yes, and give the double rap, how shall we account for the extraordinary prophecies, messages, coincidences and communications in accordance with facts? We wish this had been the only difficulty to surmount, for it perplexes much less than the _feminine security_ of these rappers against the inspection of their actual _quomodò_. We can most safely presume that if by search warrant, stratagem, or _vi et armis_, the rapping instrument of these Fox girls had been exposed to the public, there would not have been one doubt about the nature and origin of the _spiritual communications_, nor the question ever asked, how it happened that these communications were so wonderfully true to fact. Brains, books, good and bad spirits, devils and all would not have been needed for this discussion. Indeed where is the necessity at all, of dragging out human weakness, credulity, and duplicity to solve the psychological part of this fraud and forgery, if we can rap as well as the Fox girls (the great guns of rappism), and on the strength of our rappings tell _more truth_ and _fewer lies_ than their spirits, what need have we of metaphysical disquisitions on the handwriting found in a drawer or any where else, resembling Mr. Calhoun's, John Smith's, or any other of the great departed?[8] So far as our experience went, the Fox girls made few, very few good hits, and perpetrated a vast amount of most intolerable nonsense and contradiction; enough of itself, even if the rappings had been made outside the pale of their _queenly robes_ one inch, two feet, above their heads, in the aerial centre of the room, disconnected with every tangible and visible thing, to have turned any sensible man on his heel instanter, with contempt and disgust. But for the sake of those who are duped or perplexed by these communications, we must spend a little breath to enlighten them. When a man _suspects_ supernatural agency or interference in physical, really visible, sensible, or tangible demonstrations, he is ready to believe any thing communicated at the time, and when he comes to the full belief in divine interposition, his faith is perfected. Where, by long practice, preparation and skill, tricks are performed with a view to imposition, it requires the highest degree of coolness, calmness, and self-possession, to resist the impression of the superhuman, and however well fortified we may be in these respects, it is hardly to be expected that we should be able to discover the real nature of the performance without some experience and practice on our side. The instant the idea of the superhuman gets possession of the mind all fitness for investigation and power of analysis begins to vanish, and credulity swells to its utmost capacity. The most glaring inconsistencies and absurdities are not discerned and are swallowed whole, and so deep is the blindness and so extraordinary in its character, that we have seen a convert made to _spiritual rappism_