New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1852-12-23
GHCST LITERATURE.

Few OF our readers except those VINO are
themselves engaged in the great business Of
ghost-seeing, spirit-rapping, tablejumping,
speaking in tongues, mysterious writing, and
other phenomena Of the kind, are aware Of
the extent to which these practices and reve-
lations are carried on in this free and indie
pendent country. There is hardly rural
parish, or city one either, which does not count
its mediums" and circles Of explorers into
this department of the misty unknown. Every
where, the curious and the credulOus are re-
ceiving high moral and spiritual commonplace
from their defunct uncles, aunts, grandames,
and posterity. Dear, believing souls exult at
the new winks, and blinks, and squeezes of
the hand, and slaps on the back, vouchsafed to
them from the transmortuary world; and the
aspiring and hopeful long for the greater reve-
lations that are promised, but never received,
from the same dubious source. Those wise
acres who proclaim that the delusion is ex-
ploded, and triumphantly knock their knee
joints or crackle their toes by way of demon
stration, receive little attention and make no
converts. But the ghosts do. They go on
conquering and to conquer. The number Of
their disciples multplies from Maine to Cali
fornia. If il be all delusion, there was never
one more widely disseminated, and it is time
for those who deprecate its influence and deny
its spiritual claims, to really explode it if they
can. 1t will not do TO wait till il dies out of it.
self, for, as we hear, scores ofpeope are actual.
ly made crazy by it, and the received faith with
respect to the life of man after death is being
so widely and dangerously undermined that it
cannot for years recover that general assent.
which, in the minds of religious people at least
it has hitherto enjoyed.
The literature of the soi-disant ghosts. al.
ready extensive and daily increasing. affords a
striking indication Of the temper of the public
appetite toward the manifestations in question
There are some dozen periodicals devoted al.
together or in great part to setting forth the
high pretensions Of these invisible gentry. and
the press groans with spiritual pamphlets and
books, in every style from grave treatises on
the inmost secrets Of Being, down to nara.
tiyes OF how Peter Simple learned from the ran
pings that his grandmother died five years and
three months ago of phthisic and is now in
the Second Sphere, which wonderfully agreed
with his own previous knowledge of the fact
or Of how Orsamus Smudge was lifted from the
floor by the ghosts and violently bumped against
the ceiling when there was no other person in
the room. The titles of these publications are
often as curious as their origin. What do YOU
say to Light from the Spirit World-Compr;.
sing series Of articles on the condition Of Spir.
its. and The Development Of mind in tie Ruai.
mental and Second Spheres being rri,ten bu the
control Of SPirits"i Or, howwould YOU like to
Try course Of lessons under the Spir;tnai
Teacher, By Spirits cftse SirM cirelsrY Or. win
you look at the " Pilgrimage of Thomas Paine,
ieritien BY the Spirit Of Thomas Paine through
C. Hommend, Msdism'i Or dare you dive into
SYernal Theology" or take dose Of "Levs