The Salem Witchcraft, the Planchette Mystery, and Modern Spiritualism: With Dr. Doddridge's DreamStowe, Harriet Beecher
History
The Salem Witchcraft, the Planchette Mystery, and Modern Spiritualism: With Dr. Doddridge's Dream
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Spiritualism; Upham, Charles Wentworth, 1802-1875. Salem witchcraft; Witchcraft -- Massachusetts -- Salem
I do not dispute that there is such a power of the human mind as that
known as clairvoyance. I have had too many proofs of this to doubt it.
But I have had equally positive proofs that the development of its
phenomena is dependent upon certain necessary conditions, among
which are, that the agent of them, in order to be able to reveal the
secret thoughts of another, must possess by nature peculiar nervous
susceptibilities, enabling his psychic emanations, so to speak, to
sympathetically coalesce with those of the person whose thoughts and
internal mental states are to be the subject of investigation. But this
sympathetic coalescence can not take place where there is the slightest
psychic repulsion or antagonism to the clairvoyant on the part of the
interrogating party. Moreover, even when all these conditions are
present, nothing can be correctly read from the mind of the questioner
unless there is on his mind a _clear and distinct definition_ of the
matters of which he seeks to be told.
But even in class No. 1 of the above series we find that "electricity,"
hitherto believed to be only an imponderable and impersonal fluid, has,
upon Mr. H.'s theory, been able to accomplish the revealment of secret
thoughts entirely independent of all these conditions. It is distinctly
stated that those young persons whose hands were on the Planchette knew
nothing whatever of the matters which formed the several subjects of
inquiry; and for aught that is stated to the contrary, they appear
to have been perfectly awake and in their normal state. In addition
to this, it is to be observed that Mr. Headley here appears in the
assumed character of a captious, contentious, and somewhat irritating
questioner, which, whether he intended it or not, was entirely the
opposite of that harmonious and sympathetic interflow of mental states
known in other cases to be necessary to a successful clairvoyant
diagnosis of inward thoughts. And yet "electricity" overleaps all these
obstacles, seizes facts that occurred many years previous, some of which
were known only to Mr. H. and wife, others only to Mr. H. himself, and
instantly flashes forth the appropriate answer! Here is science! If
there were no other phenomena connected with Planchette, this alone
might well challenge the attention of philosophers!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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