My Library

table began to turn, to tip, to move, to rise and float in the air, precisely as is done in spiritual circles. “ ‘Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will please act just as if that before you was a human spirit, invisible to you, and desirous of imparting information. I dare say you will be surprised at the results. You see already that it is a capital table-mover, and I beg you to test its mental and physical powers also—for I assure you there is nothing to fear, now that I give you leave to break the silence—which was quite essential in the first part of the curious experiment.’ “Thus assured, several of us asked the thing to show us what it could do. Whereupon it made motions as if it wanted to write. Paper and pencil being placed upon the table, it seized the pencil with its long claw-like fingers, and its hand flew over the page like lightning, and in ten seconds it finished, and striking the table three heavy blows with its fist, signified that it had finished; whereupon Mr. D—— reached for the sheet, and read therefrom one of the most tender messages conceivable, from a dead mother to a living son. Even the hand writing was a perfect fac-simile of his mother’s; the name—Lucy—was correct, and certain dear and peculiar phrases, used by her when alive, were given with minute precision and fidelity; as, for instance, ‘sweet one, mine,’ instead of ‘my sweet one.’ Mr. D—— turned pale. ‘Is it possible I have