Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-05-04


been swindles, and deception prospsrs
oest in the night.
J Some Of the performances Of spiritual
mediums are not to be ascribed to fraud,
but to some occult law that sitter awhile
may be demonstrated. But believe that
new 999 out Of every 1000 achievements
on the part OF spiritual mediums are
errant and unmitigsted humbug. The
mysterious red letters that used to come
out on the mediums arm were found to
have been made by an iron pencil thst
went heavily over the flesh, not tearing
It, but 80 disturbing the blood, that 1t
came up in great round letters. The
I; witnesses Of the seances have locked the
door, put the key In their pocket, ar
rested the operator, and found out, by
searching the room, that hidden levers
moved the tables. The sealed letters that
were mysteriously read without opening,
have been found to have been
cut At the side, and then after
wards slyly put together with gum arabic;
and the medium who, with heavy
blanket over his head, could read book,
mas been found TO have had bottle of
phosphoric oil, by the light Of which
anybody can read q book; and veDtrilo-
quism, and legerdemnin, and
| SLIGHT OF HAND,
and optical delusion account for nearly
everything. Deception being the main
staple of Spirituslism, no wonder it
chooses the darkness.
You have sll seen strange and unac-
counts5le things in the night. Almost
every man has at some time mad touch
of hallucination. Some time sgo, after
had been over tempted to eat something
indigestible before retiring st night,
after retiring saw the president OF one
Of the prominent colleges astrlde the foot
OF the bed, while he demanded of me q
loan Of cents! When awakened had
no idea it was anything supernatural
And have to advise you, IL you hear and
see strange things ct night, to stop eat
ing hot mince pie and take dose Of
bilious medicine. 1t is an outraged ply
steal organism, enough to deceive the
very elect after shutdown, and does nearly
all its work in the night. The witch Of
Eador held her seances at night; so DO
sill the witches. Away with this religion
of spooks.
sill further: learn from my text thst
spirituaiism is doom and death to its dis
ciples. King Saul thought that he would
get help from the "medium," but the
hrst thing that he sees makes him swoon
away, and no sooner is he resuscissted
than he Is told he must die. Spiritual
| ism Is
DOOM AND DEATH
to everyone that Yields to 1t. 1t ruins
the body. Look in upon an audience Of
spirituslists. Cadaverous. Weak. Nerv-
Gus: Exhausted. Hands clammy and
cold. Nothing prospers but long hair
soft marshes yielding rank grass. Spir-
ltualism destroys the physical health. Its
disciples are ever hearing startling news
from the other world. Strange beings
crossing the room in white. Table
fdgetty, wanting to get its feet loose as
ii to dance. Voices sepulchral aud
ominous. Bewildered with raps. l never
knew q conf mad spiritualist who had q
heslthy nervous system It is incipient
epilepsy and catalepsy. Destroy your
nervous system and you might as we'll be
dead. have noticed that people who
are hearing raps from the future world
have but little strength left to bear the
hard raps OF this world. 1t is an awful
thing to trife with ones nerv-
GUS systems. Il Is so delicate
1t is so far reaching-its arrangements
are so terrible. Get the nervous system
jsngle, and 30 far as your body and soul
sGe concerned, the whole universe is 8
jangle. Better in our ignorance expert
ment with chemists retorE that may
smite US dead,o or with an engineers steam
boiler thst may blow US to atoms,
than experiment with the nervous
system. A man can live VITA only one
lung or with no eyes and be happy, IS
men have been under SUCH im ct!ons; out
woe be to the man whose nerves sre shat
tered. Spiritualism smites first Of all,
and nightly, against the nervous system,
ard so makes life miserable.
| indict spiritualism also, because it Is
social and marital curse. The worst
deeds Of RIGHTEOUSNESS and the worst
orgies of obscenity have been enacted
under its patronage. The story is too
vile for me to tell. will not pollu:e my
tongue nor your ears with the recital.
Sometimes the civil Isw has been evoked
to stop the outrage. Families innumer-
sble have been broken up oy it. Il has
pushed OF hundreds OF young women into
life of profigscy. 1t talks about
"electivs afiinities," and "afflnitsl rels-
tions." and "spiGitual Matches" aud
i adopts the whole vocabulary Of free
lovism. In one OF its public journals 1t
declares "marriage is the monster curse
of civilization" at is
SOURCE OF DEBAUCHERY
snd intemperance." II spirituslism could
have it's full swing it would turn this
world into a pandemonium OF csrnality.
1t is an unclesn, sdulserous, dsm1able
religion, and the sooner it drops into the
hell from which 1t rose the better both
for earth and heaven. For the sake of
mans honor and woman's purity. say
let the last vesrigs of 1t perish forever.
1 wish could gather up all the raps il
has ever beard from spirits best or
damned and gather them aIl on its own
head in one laundering rsp Of annihila-
ton.
further indie. spirituslism for the fact
that it is the cause of much insanity.
There is not an asylum between Bangor
and San Francisco which has not the torn
and bleeding victims Of this delusion.
Go into any asylum, care not where it
is, and the presiding doctor. sf-
ter you have asked him: "What
is the matter with that msnf" will say:
"Spirituslisn demented him." or "Wnst
is the matter with that womsn?" he will
say: "Spiri.uslism demsnted her." Il
has taken down some of the brightest iu-