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
And then, looking at this subject in its _moral_ and _social_ aspects,
the question should be answered: Why, on the supposition that these
communications really come from immortal spirits, have they made so
little progress, during the twenty years that they have been with
us, in elevating the moral and social standard of human nature, in
making better husbands and wives, parents and children, citizens and
philanthropists, in drawing mankind together in harmony and charity, and
founding and endowing great institutions for the elevation of the race?
Rather may we not ask, in all kindness, why is it that the Spiritualist
community has been little more than a Babel from the beginning to the
present moment?
Or, ascending to the class of themes that come under the head of
Religion: Why is it that prayer is so generally ignored, and the worship
of God regarded as an unworthy superstition? Why is it that in the
diatribes, dissertations, and speeches of those who profess to act under
the sanction of the "spirits," we have a reproduction of so much of
the slang and ribaldry of the infidels of the last century, and of the
German Rationalism of the present, which is now being rejected by the
Germans themselves? And why is it that in their references to the great
lights of the world, we so often have Confucius, Jesus Christ, and
William Shakspeare jumbled up into indistinguishability?
I do not say that all these questions may not be answered consistently
with the claims of the spiritual hypothesis, but I _do_ say that before
our Spiritualist friends can have a _right_ to expect the better portion
of mankind to drink down this draft of philosophy which they have mixed,
they must at least satisfy them that there is _no poison_ in it.
Having thus exhibited these several theories, and, to an extent,
discussed them _pro et contra_, it is but fair that we should now ask
Planchette--using that name in a liberal sense--what is _her_ theory of
the whole matter? Perhaps it may be said that after raising this world
of curiosity and doubt in the public mind as to its own origin and
true nature, we have some semblance of a right to hold this mysterious
intelligence responsible for a solution of the difficulty it has
created; and perhaps if we are a little skillful in putting our
questions, and occasionally call in the aid of Planchette's brothers and
sisters, and other members of this mysterious family, we may obtain some
satisfactory results.
PLANCHETTE'S OWN THEORY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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