After his rising up he relates all the circumstances belonging to the business that was inquired after.” Among the special spiritualistic phenomena which are recognised among uncultured peoples are spirit-rapping, spirit-voices, and the cord-unloosening, which, when first exhibited, created in England so much astonishment. The last-named phenomenon is not unknown to the North American Indians, and is practised by the Greenlanders and by some of the Siberian Shamans. Thus, among the Samoyedes, “The Shaman places himself on the ground upon a dry reindeer skin. Then he allows himself to be firmly bound, hands and feet. The windows are closed, and the Shaman calls upon the spirits, when suddenly a noise is heard in the darkened room. Voices are heard within and outside the court; but upon the dry reindeer skin there is regular rhythmical beating. Bears growl, serpents hiss, and squirrels seem to jump about. At last the noise ceases. The windows are opened, and the Shaman enters the court free and unbound. No one doubts that the spirits have made the noise and set the Shaman free, and carried him secretly out of the court.” We have here the noises, voices, and rope untying which are so common in spiritualistic _séances_. These find a still closer parallel in the curious rites of Greenland Shamanism, the object of which is to enable the spirits of the sorcerer to visit heaven or hell as occasion may require. The historian Crantz thus describes the ceremony:— “First the devotee drums awhile, making all manner of distorted figures, by which he enervates his strength and works up his enthusiasm. Then he goes to the entry of the house, and there gets one of his pupils to tie his head between his legs, and his hands behind his back with a string; then all the lamps in the house must be put out and the windows shut up. For no one must see the interview between him and the spirit; no one must stir, not so much as to scratch his head, that the spirit may not be hindered, or rather that he may not be detected in his knavery.... After he has begun to sing, in which all the rest join with him, he begins to sigh and puff and foam with great perturbation and noise, and calls out for his spirit to come to him, and has often great trouble before he comes. But if the spirit is still deaf to his cries, and comes not, his soul flies away to fetch him. During this dereliction of his soul he is quiet, but, by-and-by, he returns again with shouts of joy—nay, with a certain rustling, so that a person who has been several times present assured me that it was exactly as if he heard several birds come flying, first over the house, and afterwards into it. But if the Torngak (or spirit) comes voluntarily, he remains without in the entry. There an Angekok (or magician) discourses with him about anything that the Greenlanders want to know. Two different voices are distinctly heard, one as without and one as within. The answer is always dark and intricate. The hearers