The Salem Witchcraft, the Planchette Mystery, and Modern Spiritualism: With Dr. Doddridge's DreamStowe, Harriet Beecher
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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
But not only was this intelligence _distinctive_, but in several
instances even _antagonistic_ to that existing in the circle, as in the
case reported as follows:
"Some one desiring to pose this ready writer, asked for its theory
of the Gulf Stream; which it announced without hesitation to be
'Turmoil in the water produced by conglomeration of icebergs.'
Objection was made that the warmth of the waters of the natural
phenomenon rather contradicted this original view of the subject;
to which Planchette tritely responded: 'Friction produces heat.'
'But how does friction produce heat in this case?' pursued the
questioner. 'Light a match,' was the inconsequent answer--Planchette
evidently believing that the pupil was ignorant of first principles.
'But the Gulf Stream flows north; how, then, can the icebergs
accumulate at its source?' was the next interrogation; which
elicited the contemptuous reply: 'There is as much ice and snow at
the south pole as at the north, ignorant Clarkey.' 'But it flows
from the Gulf of Mexico?' pursued the undismayed. 'You've got me
there, unless it flows underground,' was the cool and unexpected
retort; and it wound up by declaring, sensibly, that, after all,
'it is a meeting of the north and south Atlantic currents, which
collide, and the eddie (_sic_) runs northward.' [At another time,]
on being twice interrogated in regard to a subject, it replied
tartly: 'I hate to be asked if I am sure of a fact.'"
Now, what could have been this intelligence which thus insisted upon
preserving and asserting its individuality so distinctly as to forbid
all reasonable hypothesis of a compounded derivation from the minds of
the circle, even were such a thing possible? A fairy, perhaps, snugly
cuddled up under the board so as to elude observation. Friend "Clarkey,"
try again, for surely _this_ time you are a little befogged, or else the
present writer is _more_ so.
"TO DAIMONION" (THE DEMON).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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