The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1892-03-30

as was its origin, and insignificant as was
the character of its first manifestations,
1t soon found a multitude OF be-
LEVERS in both hemispheres. Spiritual
mediums soon sprang up all over the
country and were soon multiplied by
hundreds and even by thousands. No
better evidence of the power of the new
faith over the minds of men and of its
perpetuity could possibly be desired than
the fact that even its announcement as
the shallowest, fiimiest humbuggery by
those who founded it, and their state
ment that it is an out-and-out fraud.
originated by two little girls solely in a
spirit OF mischief, have been powerless to
overthrow or even to shake it.
Their Faith Not Shaken.
But believers in spiritualism now go far
back beyond the Fox sisters for the origin
OF their faith. So long ago as the seven
teenth and eighteenth centuries there
were many persons who professed to be
under the direct guidance of the Divine
Spirit, and who may in that sense have
been called spiritualists. These same in
dividuals also claimed to be in full and
open communication with the spiritual
world and to hold daily conversations of
the most familiar character with
spirits and with angels. Promi-
nent among such mystical thinkers
were Jacob Bohme or Boehmen, Spencer,
J. Godfrey Arnold, John William Peter
son. John Albert Bengel, Heinrich Jung
Shilling. Madame Guyon, Oetinger and
Swedenborg. The last named, when on
his death bed in 1772, predicted that in
about eighty years from that time there
would be general revelation from the
spiritual world which would bring his
teachings into general notice and confirm
their truth, a prediction which, it is
claimed, was fulfilled in 1913, just seventy
six years after the death of Swedenborg,
by the manifestations of spirit power.
which were then made here in Hydes-
vile and which soon attracted general
attention throughout the world.
Beside the prediction of Swedenborg the
birth Of modern spiritualism was twice
prophesied. In 1915 some members OF the
Shaker communities at New Lebanon
and Watervliet, y. V, seemed to be
under some strange psychological influ-
ence which threw them into a trance
state. While in that condition they deliv-
cred long discourses in the names Of
eminent men OF bygone ages, by whose
Andrew Jackson Davis
After these manifestations had con-
tinued for nearly year the spirits one
dav babe the brethren a solemn adieu.
telling them to say nothing to the world S
people of what passed, but to treasure it
in their hearts, and promising that in a
few years they would return and show to
the whole world the same manifestations
which they had revealed to a chosen few
OF the pious members Of the Shaker COM
munities. In that same year of 1913 one
Andrew Jackson Davis, a poor. ignorant
country lad, IN the employ of farmer of
Orange county, New York, was mesmer-
lied into a trance state by one William
Lexington. and ever afterward seemed to
have the power OF passing into such a
condition at will. Though he was so
lllterate that he could scarcely read
or write, yet in the fall of S46. while in
the trance state, he dictated. under the
title Of THE Principles of Nature, Her
Divine Revelations and a Voice to Man
kind, learned treatise on ontOlOgiCal,
cosmical theological, spiritual and social
subjects. In this work he predicted that
communication with the spiritual world
would ere long assume the form of q liv-
/ ing demonstration, a prophecy which
! spiritualists believe TO have been fulfilled,
/ as were that of Swedenborg and that OF
/ the spirits of the Shakers by the nantes
tatiOns at this village in lS47-4S.
GEoFFREY WILIsTON CHRISTINE.