The Spirit LandEmmons, Samuel B. (Samuel Bulfinch)
Religion
The Spirit Land
Emmons, Samuel B. (Samuel Bulfinch)
Occultism -- Early works to 1900; Spiritualism
The most celebrated fortune teller, perhaps, that ever lived, resided
in Lynn, Mass. The character of "Moll Pitcher" is familiarly known in
all parts of the commercial world. She died in 1813. Her place of abode
was beneath the projecting and elevated summit of High Rock, in Lynn,
and commanded a view of the wild and indented coast of Marblehead, of
the extended and resounding beaches of Lynn and Chelsea, of Nahant
Rocks, of the vessels and islands, of Boston's beautiful bay, and of
its remote southern shore. She derived her mysterious gifts by
inheritance, her grandfather having practised them before, in
Marblehead. Sailors, merchants, and adventurers of every kind visited
her residence, and placed great confidence in her predictions. People
came from great distances to learn the fate of missing friends or
recover the possession of lost goods. The young, of both sexes,
impatient at the tardy pace of time, and burning with curiosity to
discern their future lot, especially as it regarded matters of wedlock,
availed themselves of every opportunity to visit her lowly dwelling,
and hear from her prophetic lips the revelations of these most tender
incidents and important events of their coming lives. She read the
future, and traced what, to mere mortal eyes, were the mysteries of the
present or the past, in the arrangement and aspect of the grounds or
settlings of a cup of tea or coffee. Her name has every where become
the generic title of fortune tellers, and occupies a conspicuous place
in the legends and ballads of popular superstition.
A man was suddenly missed by his friends from a certain town in this
commonwealth. The church immediately sent a member to consult the
far-famed fortune-telling Molly Pitcher. After making the necessary
inquiries, she intimated that the absent person had been murdered by a
family of negroes, and his body sunk in the deep waters behind their
dwelling. Upon this evidence, the accused were forthwith imprisoned,
and the pond raked in vain, from shore to shore. A few days previous to
the trial, the missing man returned to his friends, safe and sound;
thus proving that the fortune teller, instead of having received from
Satan certain information of distant and unknown events, actually
played off a piece of the grossest deception upon her credulous
visitors.
We are told by travellers that there is scarcely a village in Syria in
which there is not some one who has the credit of being able to cast
out evil spirits. About eight miles from the ancient Sidon, Lady Hester
Stanhope, the granddaughter of the immortal Chatham, and niece of the
equally immortal Pitt, recently lived in a style of Eastern splendor
and magnificence. She spent her time in gazing at the extended canopy
of heaven, as it shed its sparkling light upon the ancient hills and
sacred groves of Palestine--her soul absorbed in the fathomless
mysteries of her loved astrology, and holding fancied communion with
supernatural powers and spirits of the departed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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