The Missing Link in Modern SpiritualismUnderhill, A. Leah (Ann Leah)
Religion
The Missing Link in Modern Spiritualism
Underhill, A. Leah (Ann Leah)
Fox family; Spiritualism
It was also announced to the audience that no ordinary minds would be
accepted on the committees. We had, at that early day, discovered
that the greater the intelligence, the more satisfactory were the
manifestations. At this lecture the audience listened with very
respectful attention. The editor of a Second Advent paper also delivered
his little speech, telling the audience that the sounds were spiritual,
he had no doubt; but it was the spirit of the devil, and that the
persons in whose presence the sounds were heard should be cast into
prison. He said his "little say," and we never heard of him afterward.
When this episode had closed, the following gentlemen were named as a
Committee of Investigation, and requested to report the next evening,
viz., A. J. Coombs, Daniel Marsh, Nathaniel Clark, A. Judson, and Edwin
Jones.
Thus the first great step was taken, in order to lay the facts of Modern
Spiritualism before the world. It was now to be tried in a way by which
no guilty person could hope to escape detection. Any one guilty of fraud
as great as this would have been, had it consisted of simulation on our
part, must certainly have met with swift exposure, and been stripped of
all power or opportunity for further mischief. In fact, could it be
rationally apprehended that we, or any one, would have dared to face an
adverse public, of a thronged city, and the entire sentiment of a world
against us, as we had been directed to do, with nothing but a damning
falsehood at our backs to lean upon?
The appointment of an intelligent committee was readily agreed upon by
the audience; and they--most of them perhaps--felt confident that the
supposed fraud would now be probed to the bottom. So sure seemed the
editors of the _Rochester Democrat_ that this was "the last of the
rappings," that they wrote a long article on the "humbug" which had
deceived so many, rejoicing that the end was near.
But when, on the following evening, the Committee made their report, the
newspaper men were obliged to substitute something else in place of the
anticipated detection and exposure, as the result of their examination
did not verify the theory of these newspaper quasi-leaders and
instructors of public thought. The following was the report of the
Committee:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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