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ANNUAL  ADDRESS
BEFORE THE
H€0 Jtteilital Jlimdeti)
DELIVERED DECEMBER 21st, 1874,
By  HENRY  GIBBONS,  M. D.
PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY. ^^J
       SAN FRANCISCO:




Woman's Publishing C'o.'s Print, No. <;()."> Montgomery St.



            1875. 
OFFICEES
OF THE
 Shq  STYhijdigdo >lecli£i1  $odiety for i8ft>.


  President, Henry Gibbons,  Jr., M. D.
  1st Vice-President, P. Chamberlin, M. D.
  2d Vice-President, K. H. Plummer, M.  D.
  Treasurer, H. S.  Baldwin,  M. D.
  Librarian, B.  D.  Dean, M. D.
  Corresponding Secretary, C. G. Kenyon, M. D.
  Ptecording Secretary, W. T. Wythe, M. D.
  Committee on Admissions.-—W. A. Grover, M.  D.,  B. H.
Plummer, M.  D.; J. P. Whitney, M.  D.; James Simpson,
M. D.; H. Gibbons, Jr., M. D.
  Committee on Finance.—-C. P. Chesley, M. D.;  C. G. Ken-
yon, M. D.; C. E. Blake, M. D.
  Committee on Ethics.—A. B.  Stout,  M. D.; Joseph  Haino,
M. D.; A. G.  Soule, M. D.; H.  Gibbons, jVL D.; H. Fiske,
M. D.
  Commit tee on Publication.—C. N. Ellmyvood, M. D.; W. T.
Wythe, M. D.; J. D. Willson, M.  D.
  Executive Committee.—B. D. Dean, M. D.; P. Chamberlin,
M. D.; C. B.  Holbrook, M. D. 
      MODERN   SPIRITISM:

ANNUAL ADDRESS BEFORE THE SAN FRANCISCO
                MEDICAL SOCIETY. X"

                            ub
        By HENRY  GIBBONS, M. D.
  At the commencement of the eighth  year of our existence
as a society, we are entitled to felicitate  ourselves on the com-
plete success of our organization.  With nearly one hundred
members—a larger number than ever  before belonged to a
local medical society in California, and a larger number than
the aggregate of  all  the other societies in the State—with one
thousand dollars in the treasury as the  nucleus of a building
fund, and an annual  income of more than five hundred dollars
clear of expenses—with meetings entirely undisturbed  by
personal difficulties,  but forming a school of medical science
for the  reading of papers, the discussion of topics, and the
exhibition of a constant supply of rich pathological  speci-
mens—our society has become to its members a benefactor
whose power and influence,  increasing as the years roll on,
are essential to their advancement and  success in the profes-
sion.
  Within a few years past there has been  much enquiry into
the  effects of various occupations  on health.   With great
attention and industry, many causes of suffering and disease 
4
not appreciated or suspected in  former times, have  been
brought to light.  Drains, and sewers, dwellings and school
rooms, sewing machines and wall papers, have been scrutin-
ized with microscopic acumen to detect hidden seeds of evil.
And  the whole world  has appreciated  and applauded the
effort thus made to guard the human family from influences
of a thousand kinds, supposed to affect injuriously the physi-
cal structure  and  the intellectual  development of men,
women and children.
  I propose to make a few observations on the present occa-
sion, in reference to a pursuit which is operating extensively
on  the bodies and minds  of individuals in America and in
Europe, and which can not be ignored in the contemplation
of hygienic influences.   I allude to what is called "Spiritual-
ism," and which  I prefer to call  Spiritism,  and I shall  en-
quire whether the practices connected with this subject  are
not inimical to the bodily and mental organization.
  In  the first place, look at what  is called a "seance."  A
number of individuals sit around a table, with their hands
resting on it.   They  expect or desire to witness some extra-
ordinary  phenomenon, having relation to departed friends.
Their minds  are  solemnized by the nature of the occasion,
and indeed the direction of their  thoughts towards  another
world is considered essential in some degree to the success
of the experiment.  In this state of anticipation and  sus-
pense they sit for an hour—sometimes for two hours or even
longer.  It is evening—it is night—it ,is midnight.  It is the
hour when nature calls for sleep.   There they sit, transfixed
almost as  statues, in  solemn silence,  in  breathless expecta-
tion, in anxious anticipation, the reason in abeyance and the
imagination wrought up to the highest pitch of excitement.
Will  any sane man or  woman assert that all this is  compati-
ble with the normal and healthful action of the brain  and
nervous system?
  Suppose the expectations are realized.  The rappings com-
mence, or the  table begins to move; it dances over the floor,
or it rises in mid-air.  Its sounds and movements are intelli- 
5
gent, and they are interpreted into messages from departed
spirits.   Other phenomena  in great variety and still  more
unusual and astonishing, transpire.   What effect has all this
on the brain and nerves of the performers and witnesses ?
  And then comes the repetition of it.   No one who has wit-
nessed all this, and who  has-faith in it, will fail  to follow it
up.  Night after night, the body and mind  are  subjected to
the same excitement and strain. The subject is ever present in
thought, and is the theme of constant conversation.  Before
the brain has recovered from  the impression made  by one
seance,  there comes another.  Nervous  and susceptible per-
sons must  soon feel and show the noxious influence.  Those
of cold and phlegmatic disposition may  not  exhibit the con-
sequences, but this does not prove that no hidden evil results.
   I do not assert that all the disciples of Spiritism are  sub-
jected to the ordeal as described. But that processes equiva-
lent to them are generally practised will not be denied.  Nor
is it essential to my purpose to deny the truth of the alleged
phenomena. It is better for my argument to admit the validity
of the statements made  by  Spiritists.   If  all they  claim be
true,  their practices are the more deleterious to health.
   Mesmerism and clairvoyance are analagous  in practice to
Spiritism.  Individuals have had their health seriously impair-
ed by being frequently  subjected  to  the  mesmeric sleep.
The case of a young lady is before me,  who was very  sensi-
tive in this respect, and who was the subject of repeated ex-
periments  in a circle of friends. The effect on her health was
so manifestly injurious as to be apparent to every one; and
though she desisted entirely from the practice,  she died in a
few months from pulmonary consumption,  the development
of which was  undoubtedly  hastened  by  the  somnambulic
exercises.
   Another case presents to my mind—that of  a young lady
who had been repeatedly thrown into the somnambulic con-
dition,  and who  at  length would sometimes pass into that
condition involuntarily and without outside agency.  I have
seen  this  lady fall  into the  sleep  merely  from  looking 
6
at two individuals, one of whom was trying to mesmerize
the other.  She told me that she had once been  overcome
in the same way whilst walking in the street in Schenectady,
in spite of her utmost resistance,  and  that she discovered
afterwards that the fit had been produced by a gentleman in
Troy, fifteen  miles  distant, who  at that moment had zuilled
that she should fall asleep.   This lady was perfectly honest
in her belief.   She possessed an art which is  highly  devel-
oped among  Spiritists—the art of believing.  Will any one
pretend that the  brains of  such  individuals are in a normal
condition?
  Writers on hygiene declaim in severe language against the
overtasking of children at  school, and  the excessive labor
of literary and ^professional men.  By common consent the
brains  of children are acknowledged to suffer from the prac-
tice, and we are yvarned almost daily of the ill effects of over-
work on the brain by the sudden deaths of eminent men in
the meridian  of life.   And what is the stress on the brain in
either of these cases, compared with that to which it is sub-
jected by the exercises of Spiritism as described?
  It should also be noted that persons who engage in the prac-
tices referred to, as a class, make great account of the dictates
of reason and the  laws of nature. They would be regarded as
philosophers, and to some extent, reformers.   Their condem-
nation  must be in proportion to their profession.
  The  argument against Spiritism may be fortified by refer-
ring to the extreme  credulousness  which it  engenders and
which indicates anything but a healthy tone of mind.   When
Mesmer aimed to make proselytes, he  was careful to direct
his neophytes to avoid reflecting on the wonderful and  in-
credible nature of the results.  He  taught them  to lay aside
their reason  and confine  themselves  to experimentation.
Cutting loose from  the  anchorage  of reason, and drifting
away at the mercy of imagination and of undisciplined sensa-
tions and perceptions, little by little the  mind forgets  its
reckoning and is finally lost in the mists of credulity.   There
is nothing too absurd for belief under these circumstances. 
7
Rushing from one extreme to the other, in accordance with
the well-known law, those who once believed the least now
believe the most.  Take, for instance,  the case  of  Robert
Dale Owen, who devoted the early part  of  his life to a zeal-
ous warfare against what he deemed the incredible  and the
absurd, and who is noyv spending his last days in a still more
zealous  warfare for  the very same beliefs, with accompani-
ments a  hundred-fold more absurd than the "superstitions"
against which he formerly contended.
  Not very different was  the experience of the late Professor
Hare,  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania.   Accustomed
through a long  life to developing and dealing with the prac-
tical and demonstrable results of  chemistry, and believing
only what was palpably revealed to the senses, he engaged
in his advancing years in a studied investigation  of the claims
of Spiritism, with the design of  refuting them.  Becoming
absorbed in the pursuit, he soon began to observe extraor-
dinary phenomena; and  little by little was drawn into the
vortex of unlimited credulity, until his reason was stolen
away and his intellect wrecked.   A similar case occurred in
this city some years ago, in which a man of intelligence and
mental   activity  and  saturated  with  German  unbelief,
launched  into the exercises of Spiritism, syvallowed all  its
monstrosities and ended his career in an insane asylum.
  If a certain gymnastic sport or form of exercise were found
to do injury to the  bodies, even  of  a  small proportion of
those indulging in it, sentence  of condemnation would be
passed upon it yvithout delay.  That the majority  of  persons
are  benefited  by it,  would  not prevent its  prohibition.
Why should not the same rule be applied to the mental exer-
cises in question ?
  But, it is argued, there should be no limit set to the bound-
aries of  science ; the truth should be  investigated at  all
hazards.  To this it may be answered that science courts the
light and avails itself of  all means of enquiry.  Spiritism,
however, loves  darkness rather than light and covers its as-
serted phenomena with a veil of privacy.  So  far from en- 
8
larging the boundaries of true science,  it is in direct con-
flict with the established  laws of  matter, and promotive of
credulity  and  superstition.   All  its  modern  revelations
amount to little more than a rehash of the ancient annals of
witchcraft.  No new  truth  in  geography,   astronomy  or
physical  science  has it brought  to  light.  Even should it
claim to do so,  how are we to determine the credibility of
the    claim,   when,    by  universal   acknowledgment,
honest   spirits   and  lying  spirits  testify  indiscrim-
inately,   so   that   the  only   proof   of   the  truth
of any of the revelations, is a knowledge of the fact possess-
ed by a living witness.  That is  to say,  all the information
furnished from the invisible  world, which  is not already
known, is as likely to be false as true.  Is not  the applica-
tion of the term science  to such pursuits a gross prostitu-
tion?
  The pursuit of real knowledge  in certain directions may
cost more than the knoyvledge is worth when acquired.  The
polar explorations are of  this character.  All the  scientific
truths hitherto collected by the  Arctic expeditions are but a
poor equivalent for the suffering and loss of life involved.
Even should our present knowledge be extended by circum-
polar discoveries  and the demonstration of a North-West
passage, it is questionable whether that  consummation will
ever be worth  as much to the world as the life of  Sir John
Franklin.  And yet the plea for persistent effort and sacrifice
in that direction has vastly more force than  the argument in
behalf of the  pursuit of Spiritism for scientific purposes.
Those dismal  and dreary  regions have been made to yield
many facts  in physical science.   Besides, they are  not peo-
pled with the lying spirits which infest what mighl be called
the Arctic regions of psychology.
   Perhaps it will be urged that the pursuits in question have
 eliminated  some useful  results.  They have  enlarged the
 sphere of our knowledge in regard to the capacities and sus-
 ceptibilities of the human mind.  They have taught us an
 important lesson on the deceivableness of the senses and the 
9
fallibility of their testimony.  They haYe shown us to what
an extent the tension of  mind and the strain of  imagination
may disorder the brain and undermine the reason.  Having
at great cost learned this  much, it might be well to stop and
abandon the field, at least until we extend the accommodations
for the insane.
  The tendency of these  pursuits to disorder the intellect is
not to be tested by the records of insane asylums, or meas-
ured by the actual number of cases of insanity known or re-
puted to have  so originated.  There  is no  distinct line to
separate sanity from insanity.  Between the two is a wide
range of neutral territory, occupied by individuals who exhibit
peculiar  traits  of  character, which to-day pass for eccen-
tricities,  but in the future may prove to have been the incip-
ient developments of mental disease.  All persons are  not
capable of insanity. It is probable that the larger proportion of
mankind are so organized that none of the exciting causes of
the malady could produce it in them.  And  there are many
who live with reason undisturbed, only because  those excit-
ing  causes were fortunately absent or wanting in  force.
  I will not say that all such would  find in the belief and the
pursuits  of Spiritism a cause sufficient to lead  their minds
out of the domain of right  reason  ; but I will  venture  the
statement that no other one cause is capable of doing so much
mischief in that direction.   I never meet with an ardent be-
liever in Spiritism, and listen to his eloquent  story, and read
in his countenance  the disgust excited  by  my incredulity
when I decline to believe some wonderful account that he
has read in the newspapers, without a suspicion  that  the
ichneumon's egg is hatching in  his brain.
  Extreme credulity is not only  a shadow of the coming trou-
ble, but  a cause.  When  one suddenly comes to believe what
he has previously,  during a course of years, disbelieved or
treated with ridicule, the  change is revolutionary and trans-
fers the  mind into a new climate.   Thus may credulity  be-
come the starting point in the lapse from sanity to insanity.
It requires but  a trifling matter to  switch off the mind from 
10
the right line ;  and the  divergence, scarcely perceptible at
first, soon carries it out of sight of the original track. Spiritism
is a busy mischief-maker, always watching  an  opportunity
to misplace the switches on the rail-road of life.
  The course of .argument which Spiritists adopt—and they
are  excessively  fend of argument—is  always the  same.
They begin with a statement of asserted facts—extraordinary
phenomena which can only be explained on their own theory.
They have witnessed these phenomena, or some distinguished
individual, doctor or  professor, in America or Europe, has
witnessed them ; and  if you doubt such excellent authority,
you are a bigot or a fool.  You are required, not only to be-
lieve  the statement,  but to explain it  away, or  otherwise
accept the theory.
  We have lately had a very striking and a very useful lesson
on this subject, in the Katie King exhibitions.  These were
perhaps the most extraordinary phenomena ever yet asserted,
involving not only the materialization of departed spirits,
but the actual creation of matter.  Patches were torn out of
garments and their places supplied  with  new cloth by the
touch merely of the spirit hand.   This and other statements
equally marvelous, were  declared on the authority of a num-
ber of eminent scientists. It was impossible that they could be
mistaken.  They  were known to the world as men of truth,
and to doubt their testimony was to stultify one's self.
  And yet they were mistaken. They'now announce that they
were the victims of imposition.  These scientific  observers
—sharp-sighted men,  who subjected the extraordinary dem-
onstrations  to all sorts of tests, and who could not,  by any
possibility be deceived ; whose disciples took offense at any
one who  dared to doubt their' infallibility ;—they were  the
dupes of a girl's legerdermain.   Others have been duped in
like manner.  Not only have departed spirits shown  a strong
inclination to tell lies, but living spirits have been repeated-
ly detected in the same  unseemly practice.
  To  claim for  the pursuits and practices of Spiritists the
character of a science, is not only unreasonable but absurd. 
11
   Science has  fixed laws.   It is  common  property.  It is
   demonstrable to all.  Electricity, galvanism, magnetism, sub-
,  tie and mysterious as are their movements,  can be made pal-
   pable in their phenomena to all the world.  When the  elec-
   trician in Europe makes a discovery and announces it,  we
   can verify and repeat it here.  And so of all chemical, physi-
   ological  and scientific processes and discoveries.  Conceal-
   ment, darkness and  mystery do  not appertain to  science.
   Science works by day rather than at midnight. She courts
   the light of the sun, not the darkness of the secret chamber.
   She has no favorites for whom exclusively to perform her
   wondrous processes.   She gives herself alike to all mankind.
   She sets her light on a hill, and hides it not under a bushel
   or in a "cabinet."
     But there has always been evinced by the human mind a
   tendency  to prostitute science to  speculative purposes, and
   to  give it to the control of the  imagination.  Study and
   labor  exact  investigation and  experimentation, are  less
   attractive to the  common mind  than the ideal  and specu-
   lative.  Thus  astronomy  was formerly  lost in  astrology,
   when men left the study of the material world to ramble in
   the  world of imagination.  So chemistry was merged into
   alchemy, and philosophers so called spent their lives in the
   search for the Philosopher's Stone and the  Elixir of  Life.
     Spiritism bears the  same  relation to  Physiology  and
   Psychology.  It is Physiology sleep walking, or run mad.
     An objection to Spiritism is the trickery incident to it, as
   cause  or effect, or both.  Its whole history is full of fraud
   and imposture. Again  and again have its wonderful  mani-
   festations flashed forth and dazzled the world for a season,
   and procured the endorsement of great names.   And  then
   the  hand of a juggler  appears,  and the  curtain  falls  for a
   time.
     There is also, something repulsive in the venality which it
   seems to engender.  Its theme is lofty beyond utterance.  It
   deals with immortality and  eternal life.   Its interests are
'   those of the undying soul.  It cherishes companionship with 
12
the departed spirits of the beloved of our hearts.  Of all hu-
man pursuits,  it is the most solemn and sublime in its pro-
fessions  and associations.  And yet, whilst every other mor-
al and religious concern has its missionaries who labor with-
out hire,  the apostles of Spiritism exhibit a venality about in
proportion to the richness of their divine endowment.  What
a farce do they present in their public announcements !  A
medium  of extraordinary poyver will give a seance at  which
will appear the spirits of the martyred Lincoln, the immor-
tal  Washington, Socrates the philosopher, and other bene-
factors of mankind.—Admission ten cents !
  It is very convenient for one who has gulped down volumes
of fiction and legerdemaiu  scarcely sugar-coated with truth,
to fling in the face of those more slow of belief the imputation
of prejudice and bigotry.  The discoveries  of Harvey and
of  Jenner were ignored by professional men ; Lardner  as-
serted that it was impossible to navigate the Atlantic by steam;
Galileo was punished because he promulgated the great facts
of astronomy, and so forth.  Therefore the wildest specula-
tions and projects are worthy of serious consideratiou,  and
he  who refuses to accept them is a fool.
  Now I have not come to my  opinions in regard to Spirit-
ism and  kindred subjects without some inquiry.   From  my
boyhood I  had a fancy for  the curious in science and art,
and a disposition to investigate such matters as ventriloquism,
fortune-telling, legerdemain and clairvoyance.  My first im-
portant  experience with the latter was at a series of exhibi-
tions given by a traveling company of mesmerisers, who re-
quested  the audience to select a committee  to inspect their
operations  and to  prevent or detect any collusion.   I was
appointed on that committee, with my own hearty approval;
for it  was  just the  opportunity  I  sought.  The experi- •
ments were openly conducted on the platform of the lecture
room.   There  was  no  cabinet, no curtains*  no darkness.
 The eyes of the committee-men were everywhere, and the re-
 sult showed  the  disadvantage  of such an  arrangement.
 When the clairvoyant  was called on  to communicate to the 
13
audience through the senses of the performer and tell what
the latter was looking at, failure rather than success  was the
rule.  The master of ceremonies confessed the failure  and
attributed it to the heated and humid  atmosphere of the
crowded lecture-room.   Another  exhibition was appointed
for the next evening.
  I had observed that when the speaker called for an object
to be exhibited, it was of necessity a hat,  cap, cane, watch,
or some other particular object such as people always carry
about them. This led  me  to  bring in  my pockets to the
second  trial a variety of things not commonly  found  in a
lecture-room—for instance a hat-brush, a sand-box,  a razor-
strap, and so forth.  At the proper time these objects were
produced by persons to whom I had distributed them,  with
the effect of balking the performance and making the second
exhibition a more decided failure even than the first.  There
was one  exception however,  and that was in the case of the
sand-box.  This the mesmerizer took in his hand and shook
it sharply over  the head of ' 'Frederic," whilst questioning
him repeatedly as to what  it was, and  finally  turned  it so
that the sand should run out and fall on Frederic's neck. At
this  moment I said in a  whisper—"you are spilling my
sand!"—when Frederic instantly responded—"a sand-box!"
The audience applauded vehemently, and then called for the
committee to report on the experiment, whereupon I men-
tioned the whisper, reminding them  however that,  accord-
ing to the law propounded by mesmerists, it was impossible
for Frederic, whilst in the mesmeric or  clairvoyant  state, to
hear any voice  except that of the individual who had  mes-
merized him.
   At the close  of the second entertainment the  performer
again acknowledged the failure, and  on  this occasion attri-
buted it to a magnet which  some mischievous  person  must
have brought into the room; for such would be the effect,
he said.  But he would give a third  exhibition and have a
new committee  from which doctors should be excluded; for
doctors were always too conceited and too bigoted to inves- 
14
tigate fairly.   By  this time the audience had got enough of
clairvoyance for the present, and those only yvho sympathized
with the performer attended the third meeting.  A commit-
ter of the right kind  was now selected, and a young  girl
named  Harriet, some relation  of  the  mesmerist,  was the
subject.  Harriet  having  been properly  manipulated  and
somnambulized, succeeded  tolerably well.  Foreseeing  this
result, I had procured a horse-shoe magnet and  placed it in
the hands of  a friend, a stranger to  the  mesmerist, that he
might test its effect. This was Dr. James S. Naudain, son of
Dr. Arnold Naudain, then  U.  S.  Senator from Delaware.
He sat by the side of  Harriet and actually held it in con-
tact with her  arm whilst she was performing with the greatest
success.  At the conclusion the mesmerizer addressed the
audience and declared that he would have succeeded on the
former occasions but for the supposed presence of a magnet,
and the unfair  scrutiny of  the  committee.  As I had been
chairman of the committee so accused, I took  the liberty of
giving to the  audience the  story of the real magnet.  I an-
nounced also that I would,  at a  time appointed, give an ex-
hibition of  seeming clairvoyance which should far  excel the
performance of the mesmerist.
  A few days afterwards my exhibition was duly announced.  I
enlisted in  my service a younger brother, now Rodmond Gib-
bons, of Oakland,  who was  then a lad of 13 years, and the
only training  which he had, occupied less than two hours,
in the afternoon previous to the performance.  He had never
witnessed a mesmeric experiment, and was totally unacquaint-
ed with the subject. An audience of several hundred persons
filled the lecture-room.  It was  composed largely of persons
of the best order  of  intelligence.  A  committee  of  four
gentlemen was appointed  by them to overlook the proceed-
ings and prevent collusion.  I  stated that my  performance
would be altogether trickery, and  requested  the  audience
and the committee to use the utmost scrutiny and detect the
tricks if they  could.  My brother was seated on the platform,
his eyes securely bandaged by  the  committee,  and I  stood 
15
behind  him and requested  persons  in  the room  to  hold
up any  objects  to my view.  I then  asked the  "medium"
a few questions, and he gave the names  of the objects
in  every  instance.   This  shoyved   that   he  saw  with
my  eyes.  To prove that he possessed also my  sense  of
feeling,   I desired  the  gentlemen of  the  committee  to
touch or strike me.  I had only to ask one or two questions
to get correct answers as to the part  of the body impressed.
This proved that he  felt with my faculties of sensation.  So
of taste, he answered promptly what was the taste of anything
put in my mouth.  To prove that he was  under the influence
of my will, any one in the room was invited to write on a slip
of paper a request that I should will him to  perform some
particular movement,  such as raising  the right hand or the
left hand, or moving the right or left foot, or rising on his feet.
I had nothing to do but to look intently, as I stood behind
him,  on the part to be moved, and it was done.
  These experiments were continued  for nearly two hours,
yvithout a single failure.   At the conclusion I requested the
gentlemen of the committee, or any persons in the audience,
to explain if they could the modus operandi.   But  though a
number of individuals attempted  it, not one even approach-
ed a solution of a single trick.  And yet when I came to ex-
plain to them, as I did, the method employed, it was so sim-
ple and at the  same time so infallible as almost to appear lu-^
dicrous.  It was like the old story of standing the egg on
end.
  And what was the moral ? Not  that  mesmerism and clair-
voyance are all a trick, but simply that intelligent and sagacious
people can easily be imposed on, and that the testimony of
our  senses is not to  be hastily  accepted in regard to  phe-
nomena which  contradict our universal experience of the laws
of nature. If the brief training of a single  lesson could enable
two  unpracticed performers thus to perplex and mystify an
entire audience, what might not be  accomplished by my
brother  and myself if we should  devote our whole lives and
energies to the pursuit ? 
16
  From this time onward I sought opportunities of witness-
ing the phenomena of clairvoyance, but my presence was al-
most always singularly preventive of them.  I could read and
hear of marvelous  results, in all  directions, but  I did not
hold myself bound to explain or even to believe without see-
ing with my own eyes.   At an exhibition given in Philadel-
phia by some itinerant performers of great celebrity, when I
stood on the stage  as one of a committee appointed by the
audience, a young girl in a clairvoyant condition told the de-
nomination of a  bank note which I held in my closed hand,
and even read the name of the bank.  At this I was staggered ;
but learning  soon afterwards that  the girl was loose in her
morals, I suspected trickery,  though I could not explain the
trick.
  After a somewhat  brilliant career of ten or fifteen years,
clairvoyance grew stale and unpopular.  The practical mind
of the people demanded a positive sign of its truth.  A re-
velation of distant occurrences, such as a shipwreck, or the
death of a friend, was within the range of its claims.   Let
it demonstrate itself by some revelation of the kind.   In all
attempts of this character it failed signally.   The  occupation
of its  votaries being  gone,  they turned their  attention in
another channel and began to talk of psychology and biology.
Many  really  wonderful phenomena were exhibited under
these names, all illustrating the extraordinary operation of
mind on mind and mind on body, and all coming under the
cognizance of scientific law.  I had frequent opportunities of
observing  these phenomena.   They did not shun my pre-
sence like the more recondite and dubious wonders of clair-
voyance.  Public performers in this line became ' * Professors"
and  perambulated  the country turning their art into gold.
And when that style of exhibition was, in turn, growing stale
and unattractive, some of them  invaded  the domain of  phy-
sic, and went about  curing diseases by the  " laying on of
hands."  Many cures were effected by them, which appeared
wonderful to  a populace ignorant of the history of psychical
epidemics.   Their cures however did not begin to approach 
17
in number or importance those of the " Metallic Tractors" of
Perkins, at the close of the last and beginning of the present
century. Besides, the most notable of them lasted no lon-
ger than the " sympathetic snout" of Talicotius.
  Up to this time, the spirits of the departed had not  come
to the aid  of explorers in the "Debatable Land."  It was
claimed only that the mind of a living person might, under
certain circumstances, vacate the body and journey  abroad
in the exercise of the perceptive faculties, and return with
much knowledge so acquired—knowledge limited mainly how-  »
ever to the material world.  But a new dispensation was at
hand.  The law of epidemic  perturbation, it seems, is not
only active on earth, but also in the  dwelling  place  of the
spirits of the dead.  Disturbed in their repose, the souls of
the departed left their sphere, and uninvited at first, engag-
ed in  a series of noisy manifestations, which,  if done by
mortals, would have  been regarded as riotous and unlawful.
Prowling around in the dead of night and  disturbing the
peace of families and tumbling and smashing the furniture,
one might consider rather vulgar employment for spirits that
had been for years enjoying the refinement and glory of Hea-
ven.   But so it was.  The souls of sages and philosophers,
of  saints and martyrs came down from the eternal throne,  to
play  the role of mischievous school-boys.
  In the year 1852, a posse of these spirits made a descent upon
California, and entertained, or were entertained by a company
of  young gentlemen who were wont to assemble for the pur-
pose at a house on Stone street.  After verifying their mis-
sion  by turning the furniture topsy-turvy, they became the
 bearers of news  from  the Atlantic  States.  It was  at the
 time of the Presidential election, and there was no telegraph
 in those days.  The spirits brought news in  advance of the
 mail that Gen. Scott  was elected, and some of  the believers
 made heavy bets with ignorant  outsiders  that  such was the
 case.  The loss of their bets convinced them that they had
 been duped by lying spirits, and I believe induced them to
 drop  their acquaintance. 
18
  Following up my enquiries, I sought opportunities to wit-
ness this newr phase of the marvelous.  But I was still doom-
ed to disappointment.  My presence was always offensive  to
the ghostly visitors and they fled from it.  On one occasion
when I entered a room on  Jackson street during a seance,
the spirit of William Penn announced itself by the custom-
ary raps.  I was delighted,  as I had a personal interest in
ascertaining the place assigned to Quakers in the spirit world.
But the invisible  presence had but a few words to say, and
that in language such as no Quaker ever employed, and then
hurried away to make another call.
  At another time I attended a seance  on a Sunday evening,
at a house also in Jackson street, to which I was invited with
the assurance that I should  witness  something  pronounced
and marvelous.  About thirty persons were seated in a circle
around the room, whilst three or four others were at a table
in the centre.  One of the latter  requested the spirits to in-
dicate their presence by rapping or tipping the table.  No
answer being given,  he renewed his request several times
with sweet persuasion, but in vain.   The circle of spectators
joined hands, but still there was no response.   I should have
mentioned that  Lola  Montez,   who  was  quite  an  en-
thusiastic  believer,   was  in  the   circle?  At  length  it
was suggested  that  the spirits might prefer  to  indicate
their  presence  by   means  of  light; and  if  so  they
were requested to give three raps.  The raps came,  and the
lights were extinguished, and we sat in utter darkness,  look-
ing for illumination.  At this  instant I saw, or believed I saw,
a distinct flash of light at one end of  the room, but lest I
might be mistaken I said nothing.  Another person however
spoke up and confirmed my observation, but as a (Joubt was
expressed by others, I thought it right to declare that I too
had seen it.  I was delighted now to get hold of something
real, and I hoped for other developments.  But the cup was
dashed  from my lips by Lola Montez, who exclaimed ; "I
can explain all that;  I made  the light lighting my cigarito !"
  Such are a few illustrations of my  experience  in search of 
19
knowledge in this field. I have been pursuing a phantom for
nearly half a century—a phantom it has proved to me, call it
science, art, mystery, or what you  please.
  But,  I am told, it is presumptuous in me to set at naught
the testimony of thousands of people, including men of note
as scientists and philosophers, who have witnessed the phen-
omena.   To this let me answer that the honesty and veraci-
ty of a witness are one thing, and his  infallibility  another.
How  often  do  we find conscientious and  truthful men
swearing in a court of  justice to opposite conditions of fact,
observed by them in broad daylight !  Who has not witness-
ed  feats of legerdemain  which he could not by any possi-
bility account for !  A man will take  my watch and put it
in  a mortar and pound it to pieces  before my eyes,  then
throw the fragments in a  hat and give  the  hat a shake  and
return the watch to me sound  and perfect.  Must I admit
that he did really  crush and reconstruct the timepiece,   be-
cause lean not detect any artifice? R. D. Owen, determined
not to be deceived, subjects to close  scrutiny the doors  and
windows of the apartment, and the cabinet from which the  ap-
parition is to come,  and then he beholds  the form  and  the
substance and converses with it  and feels it.  His eyes and
ears and hands all unite in  testifying  to the fact.   He not
only  believes everything, but contemns the understanding
of persons who decline to accept his statement with his  ex-
planation, and  who suggest  a possibility of deception.   In
this he acts the part of spiritists everywhere; for it is their
universal custom to require those with whom they  converse
to see with their eyes, to believe with their faith, and to  ac-
cept their explanations.
  But at the critical moment when Mr. Owen and his scien-
tific friends succeed in bridging over  the  chasm  between
the two  worlds,  the glorious  vision is dispelled  by some
mar-plot who  discovers the  spirit of Katie King  clothed
in an every-day garment of flesh  and blood !  What assur-
ance have we that  the  Katie King of Wallace and  Crookes
was not a real personage, like the American Katie with whom
Owen had  such a pleasant flirtation ? 
20
  Suppose a navigator arriving at San Francisco should re-
port that he had discovered an island in the Pacific, in which
the sun rises  in the  west and sets in the east.   He  would
pass for a fool or a madman.  But what if his whole crew and
a company of intelligent passengers besides, should confirm
his statement?  Still no one would believe it, though the sin-
gularity  of the asserted  phenonenon  thus substantiated,
might induce the sending of a deputation of  savants to solve
the mystery.   Suppose  they should  return and testify to
the same fact.  Would you believe it ?
  And why not ?  Simply because your observation and your
knowledge of the  laws of nature teach you that  it is impos-
sible.  No weight  of human testimony would suffice to con-
vince you of its truth.  You  might come to the conclusion
that there was  some extraordinary condition  of things on
that island capable of perverting the senses in a mysterious
manner, but you could not be convinced that  the sun does
really rise in  the west at that  place, and set in the east.  To
remind you that the sun once stood still at human command,
and that miracles  of  equal wonder were wrought in  olden
times,  would scarcely shake your unbelief.
  The  reductio  ad  absurdum  is a legitimate method  of dis-
proving a false proposition in mathematics.  It  may not be
easy or practicable to disprove it by direct means, but if the
consequences are impossible,  it cannot be true.   A school-
boy will  demonstrate the proposition  that a hound in pur-
suit of a hare, and running exactly  twice as fast as the hare,
can never overtake  it.  For the hare, in the first minute, mak-
ing half the distance of the hound, will  continue at the end
of any given  minute to be  just half as far in advance as at
the former minute  ; and as the continued division of the dis-
tance by two cannot destroy it, so there must forever be some
space between the  pursuer and the pursued.
  Problems like this are  often encountered when common
sense is the only corrective of demonstrated absurdities in
human experience.   More frequently the judgment is called
on to correctthe evidence of the senses.  But both sense and 
21
 judgment are disordered by prolonged attention and strain in
 one direction. In the division of labor required by the immense
 extension of the field of scientific research in modern times,
 specialists become a necessity.  And it is the  universal and
 almost inevitable  tendency of special studies to magnify if
 not to distort, the  objects of study.  In  every  human pur-
 suit,  intellectual or material,  the  judgment and  the con-
 science are  warped by  the predominant thought.  Robert
 Dale Owen  says  that whilst  investigating  the subject, he
 had fifty seances in three months, besides reading a multitude
 of books on  the marvelous and supernatural. Such an ordeal
 could scarcely fail to disorder  the perceptions and vitiate
 the judgment.  After that, he was  well  prepared  to resolve
 the problem of  creating something out of nothing.
  It  is a matter of frequent boast that  the  spiritists  have
 seven millions   of  adherents  in   the United   States.
 They sometimes   claim  ten  millions.   When we  reflect
 that  there are  less than twice ten millions  of adult  pop-
 ulation  in.   the  republic,  the  claim  appears  to  be  a
 bold  one;   and   yet  it   may  be  true.  In   all  ages
 and  in  all   countries,  the   ignorant   masses .have  be-
 lieved in  spirits.   Very few  of the negroes of the South
 have  yet risen above the superstition.  Among  the whites,
 in sections where education and intelligence are at the lowest
 ebb,  the belief  in witchcraft or some  other  form  of spirit-
 ism is general.  Within my  recollection, a carrier-pigeon
 which had missed its way and taken refuge  in a farm-house,
with a packet tied to its wing, was seized with the tongs by the
 terrified inmates and  roasted alive  in  the  fire. And  this
 transpired in a thickly  peopled  rural district, not thirty
 miles from Philadelphia.  Under the recent excitement,  the
belief in the  supernatural has changed its phase and risen
to the  surface,  rather than  increased  the  number of its
converts.
  I have heard it said that jugglers never believe in spiritism.
The practice of  their arts  fortifies them against deception.
They  know how easy it is  to cheat men's senses, and they 
22
 are on their guard.  Had the men and women who have sur-
 rendered their minds to modern spiritism, received a prelim-
 inary training in legerdermain, they would have been less
 credulous.   Superstition is the offspring of credulity.
  When Roger  Bacon made  some striking  discoveries  in
 chemistry,  he was so startled that he declared nothing there-
 after was too strange for his belief.  There are many phe-
 nomena resulting from the mutual influence of body and mind,
 which produce the same impression when observed for the
 first time.  Persons  unused to rigid scientific investigation
 require only the  first impression to secure  their easy faith  in
 all  that follows.  In this  way great numbers  of sensible,
 honest and conscientious people have been entangled in the
 mazes of spiritism.
  I would not be understood as asserting that there is nothing
 true or worthy of inquiry in the subject under consideration.
 If investigated by men  of  science, some  valuable results
 might be attained.   But as the case now  presents, the  less
 of science  in the pursuit,  the more fruitful and marvelous
 are the developments.  If there  were no other fields of in-
 vestigation, if every other department were thoroughly ex-
 plored, if all the secrets of nature  in other directions  had
 been extorted, then there might be some reason for the la-
 bor and sacrifice expended in the wilderness of modern spir-
 itism.   But we  may fairly conlcude that a study which, by
 its own acknowledgment, evokes falsehood and truth promis-
 cuously from the invisible world ; which  invites imposition
 and trickery, and indentures them with  its sublimest exhibi-
 tions ; which  develops the sordid love of  gain, and clutches
 at the purse whilst it pretends to open the everlasting gates,
 which perverts the intellect and hands it over to a disordered
imagination; which  fosters credulity and  superstition  and
revives the  crudest delusions of past ages; which does violence
to the plainest laws of hygiene, and opens wide the door to
 mental derangement—might well be expunged from the mod-
ern curriculum and laid on the shelf, together with astrology,
alchemy, necromancy and witchcraft. 
21
  But I have wandered from my original design, which  had
reference only to the hygienic aspect of the question.   Let
me conclude by quoting the opinion of a distinguished "me-
dium" in confirmation of my  own  views.  Mr.  Home,  the
Scotch-American as he is sometimes called, built up a repu-
tation as a Spiritist  not  surpassed  by any other individual.
His capabilities in this direction  enabled him to stand  be-
fore  the kings of  Europe, to  bask in the sunshine of  the
Russian court, and to grow rich in diamonds and jewelry
presented by royal hands.  He has an  only son who, he  be-
lieves, inherits all the powers  and gifts of his father.   But
we are told he will not alloyv  his son to execute  them.   He
does not wish "Sacha" to have  anything to do with Spiritism,
"because the boy will be happier if he grows up in the normal
condition of humanity."  These are his own words. 
4