Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1853-05-28
spIRITUALIsM.-ANIMAL MAGNETISM.
, The Editors of Me National Intelligence.

To H.e Editors of The National Htelligencer
CAmBR1pcr (MAss.) MAY IA, 1853
GENTLEMEN: If may be INDUCED the privilege of re-
spending to the communication of your Tallahassee
respondent shall be under many obligations you If
space can be granted your columns to make such
response The gentleman himself have seen
can any one else have seen with greater pain than have
the widespread contagon Of the Spiritual Deusion
can he depore than myself the long catalogue Of
evils which have resulted from its spreadthe insanity
the lost peace mind the denial Of the Bible the Book
Of God, and all the foulmouthed blasphemes and thou
sand and one crude and undgested fances with which it
has filed the hearts and heads Of those who weak
of judgment as to be captivated byit.
Being moreover, native Of the South and expecting
soon to return to her sunny shores am but the more
deeply panied that this worst of all delusons has at last
found its way her quiet hOmesteads and shaking
its CHASTITY locks upon the very thresholds Of her citizens
While il was confined to New England did not appre-
bend great danger from its spread for was well
aware Of the of her citizens and Of their fondness
for higher laws than the enactmens Of human tribunals
those penned by the finger Of the Everlasting God
well knew that their fathers had been before them
and that they, duful children, followed the foot
steps Of their worthy progentors Of witchcra memory
Knowing this could not well be surprised to see the de-
scendans Of the Purtans Notwithstanding the dogmas Of
Cotton ather and casting aside the somewhat antquated
title Of ,citch for that Of medium in order TO meet the
etheriazed Of the nineteenth century But,
that the coolheaded and predetermined citizens Of the
South are becoming the dupes Of these modern commun
cants with the devil reluctantly forced to contem
plate the enormo evils the great social and moral de-
rangement which must inevitably result from permitting
such monster Of absurdity to stalk in midst un-
shorn Of its gorgon locks which turn and common
sense into stone and make the immortal part Of bow
down before its shapeess hdeousness and give to itself
that alteration due only to the Father Of Spirits But
with all due Difference to the author of the communica
ton from Tallahassee must say that this deuson is
not to be stayed by penal enactment the interference Of
Of civil power. Did pursue such course the shades
Of the unfortunate victims Of death for conscience sake
in every age would rise up like the murdered Banquo,
and cry shame shame And our descendants hundred
years hence would look back and blush for we now
blush for fathers Of the middle ages No. no II will
do attack this modern delusion by the Legislature
We must strip the Of the gossamer veil which
ceas its hideousness This onybe done by using the
weapons Of Persecution yet effected any
thing, and never will
Now the first inquiry which presents itself to us when
contemplate the spread Of the belief in the so-caed
Spiritual Manifestations is, what has induced il?
swer as follows When the manifestations began to be
first developed was said that the whole sham
hoax that the raps we're produced by machinery the
connyance Of parties DESTROYS to perpetrate fraud upon
the public. "Humbug," cried some; and the learned
professors Of philosophy and natural science cried out
treason against the established relations Of
matter In their wisdom they we're unwilling to acknow-
ledge that matter might possess relations Of which
they entirely ignorant. They were too much
crossed with the contemplation Of their own greatness to
acknowledge that there might be things both heaven and
earth which they had dreamed Of in the deep sleep
Of their folly What then, to be expected from the
whole subject being thus ignored the part Of cultivated
SCIENCE Just such results as have followed and which
we daily witness When men found that the raps were