The Spirit LandEmmons, Samuel B. (Samuel Bulfinch)
Religion
The Spirit Land
Emmons, Samuel B. (Samuel Bulfinch)
Occultism -- Early works to 1900; Spiritualism
_Seventh._ Occasionally we were made conscious of the occurrence
of a powerful shock, which produced a vibratory motion of the floor of
the apartment. It seemed like the motion occasioned by distant thunder,
or the firing of ordnance far away, causing the tables, chairs, and
other inanimate objects, and all of us, to tremble in such a manner
that the effect was both seen and felt.
In conclusion, it was observed that D. D. Hume, the medium, frequently
urged the company to hold his feet and hands. The room was well
lighted, and a lamp was placed on and under the table, and every
possible opportunity afforded for the closest inspection. They were
therefore positive that there was no deception in the case. The
conclusion was, _that it must be the work of spirits_--a singular
conclusion, indeed, for men of such standing and acquirements. It might
all have been accomplished, _biologically_; but admitting the whole
to be literally and substantially true, they fall far short of
well-attested phenomena, where it was not so much as _conjectured_ even
to be _at all supernatural_."
The fact is incontrovertibly evident, that physical agents, subtile and
unseen, are every where at work. "Force shows itself," as the elegant
Somerville remarks, in his Connection of the Physical Sciences, "in
every thing that exists in the heavens or on the earth." There is a
physical power which not only binds satellites to their planet, and
planets with suns, and sun with sun throughout the wide extent of
creation, which is the cause of the disturbances, as well as the order
of nature, but it physically binds man to man, and man to nature. And
as every tremor it excites in one planet is immediately transmitted to
the farthest limits of the system, in oscillations, which correspond in
their periods with the cause producing them, like sympathetic notes in
music, or vibrations from the deep tones of an organ, so every
vibration, thus excited, is transmissible to the delicate centres of
every organic being, provided the repulsive agent of those beings is
changed in its relative condition so as to admit its influx. (See
Geometry and Faith, by Rev. T. Hill, of Waltham.)
"It is well known to every chemist, that wherever there is chemical
action going on, there is a constant evolution of some force. Now, that
there is a constant chemical action taking place is certain, and the
sources of this action are very numerous. Among others, we have that of
water, (often holding in solution saline ingredients, thus increasing
its action upon metallic substances,) which, percolating through the
surface, acts upon all those surfaces whose materials have a strong
chemical affinity for the oxygen or hydrogen of the water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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