Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1884 — Origin of Spiritualism. [ARTICLE]

Origin of Spiritualism.

Bpirita&lkm in America was born in 1847, in Hyderville, Wayne Comity, N. Y., where ene night there was a rapping at the door of Michael Weekman, and a second rapping at the door, and a third rapping at the door, and every time the door was opened there was no one there. Proof positive that they were invisible knuckles that rapped at the door. In that same house there was a man who felt a cold hand pass over his forehead, and there was no arm attached to the hand. Proof positive it was spiritualistic influence. After awhile, Mr. Fox, with his family, moved into that house, and they had bangings at the door every night. One night Mr. Fox cried out: “Are you a Bpirit?” Two raps, answer in the affirmative. “Are you an injured spirit?” Two raps, answered in the affirmative. Then they knew right away that it was the spirit of a peddler who had been murdered in that house years before, and who had been robbed of SSOO. Whether the spirit of the peddler eame back to collect his SSOO or his bones Ido not know. But from that time on there was a constant excitement around the premises, and the excitement spread all over the land, and Judge Edmunds had his head turned by the excitement, and he says that he saw a bell start from the top of a shelf in the closet and heard it ring over the heads of the people who were in the closet, then swing to the back parlor and ring over the heads of the people in the back parlor, then swing to the front parlor and ring over the heads of the people in the front parlor, and then drop on the floor. A young man was said to have been lifted from the earth and carried through the air by an invisible power, and giving an account of it he says he went so rapidly he could not count the posts of the fence; and he held in his hand a sawbuck and a square, and he says while he went they rattled together and made most delightful music. All these are matters of history. People said: “Well, now we have a new religion.” But in all "ages there have been necromancers —those who consulted the spirits of the departed—charmers who threw people into a mesmeric state; sorcerers who, by eating poisonous herbs, can see everything, hear everything, and. tell everything; astrologers who found out a new dispensation of the stars; experts in palmistry who can tell by the lines in the palm of your hand your origin, your history, and your destiny. From the cavern on Mount Parnassus, it is said, there came up an air, an atmosphere, that intoxicated the sheep and the goats -that came near by, and under its influence the shepherds were lifted into exaltation, so that they could foretell future events and consult with familiar spirits. Long before the time of Christ the Brahmins had all the table-rocking and the table-quaking. You want to know what God thinks of all these things. He says in one place: “I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers.” He says in another place: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live and lest you should make too wide a margin between spiritualism and witchcraft, He groups them together and says: “There shall not be ionnd among you a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer, for all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lordand then the still more remarkable passage which says: “The soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set My face against that soul, and will cut him off’ from anrfng his people,” and a score of passages showing that God never speaks of these in any other way than with livid thunders of indignation. After all this, be a spiritualist if you dare.— Dr. Talmage, in Frank Leslie’s Sunday Magazine.