One of the deepest English investigators into the Jewish and Christian antiquities wrote in one of his publications, that there is no society more like the society of the Old Pharisees, than the Society of Quakers is. He knew them in England, and I know them in America, and confess that it is true in regard to the Quaker speculators, who have enslaved the whole Quaker society, to be in their servitude and to prepare in their ignorance of matters the subjugation of the whole country under the yoke of monarchs. Joseph Dugdale is the principal medium who was carried soon after that spectacle to Pennsylvania, and demons were powerfully operating through him in starting the sect of the "Progressive Friends." But at that tent meeting he inspired the heads to be cautious in admitting our committee to speak. Therefore after the address of the man after whom our committee according to the promise of the chairman were to address the tent meeting, another was announced by name, to speak, and then a second, a third, and so on, although our committee were waiting on the platform from 9 o'clock A.M. till 2 or 3 P.M. At length the chairman announced, that teams had arrived, to carry the tent from that to another place. Provisions had been made, that if there should be danger for the infernal league, things might be prepared, to break of the tent. Therefore when the chairman announced the advent of the teams, another pharisee mentioned, that the waiting committee had not yet spoken and the chairman said, that they should speak.
The speaker, instead of reading directly the resolutions of our Convention, undertook to prepare the audience by telling them, that he knew how to value the great zeal of Mr. Garrison for the deliverance of slaves. And as far Mr. Garrison and others on the platform seemed to be pleased. But as soon as he mentioned, that "Garrison is not infallible," those who were ready for action, commenced to break off the tent, and there arose such a tumult amongst the assembled people, that nobody could distinguish the voice of the speaker from the noise of the crowd.
These items may suffice, to make known the infallible Pope, the Garrisonian Liberator, although I could write many volumes of extroardinary spirit manifestations in public and private meetings with members of that party, while I was endeavoring to deliver them from the shackles of the infernal Holiness and his armies. But they remained so fastened, as in their "Philanthropic Convention" in Utica, which I attended because we had been informed, that the Poughkeepsie seer, Andrew Jackson Davis, was the principal author of said Convention, or, the principal medium of speculators calculating to extend the government of the infernal liberator by using said Convention. Andrew Jackson Davis is the prince of mediums of spirits, who appear as angels of light, but when they are tried by us, they are made manifest as dreadful deluding and destroying demons. After they had been made manifest to me by his deceiving publications, I tried several times to reach him personally, and to show him his dreadful situation and how he could arrive on our ground. But his cunning demons carried him away from my presence. At length I met with him on the tenth of this month September, 1858, in the "Philanthropic Convention" of Utica. Ira Hitchcock was appointed chairman. His first name means in Latin "wrath" or "vengence," and the second name is in the English language appropriate to the important office which our duped and deceived friend did receive in said Convention. Mr. Davis offered some rules, to be observed in the Convention They were adopted. One of those rules was, that no speaker should occupy more than twenty minutes, except the audience should desire, that after the expiration of twenty minutes he should continue to speak.
Mr. Davis was called, to open the Convention with his speech. It was read from a manuscript and contained a very imposing and deceiving view of the past and the present in the history of mankind. Since his reading lasted more than one hour, I asked after its close, that it should be decided, whether those who open the meeting, should be bound by the adopted rule of twenty minutes, or be permitted to speak or read as long as they would be pleased also when they misrepresent the history in such an absurd manner as the speaker did. No regard was taken of what I said, and they proceeded in singing and speaking.
The afternoon session was opened with as long a reading as the forenoon session. After the reading they debated, whether it should be directly printed in a newspaper of the place and in extra copies, or not. It was unanimously decided that it should be printed, except that I disturbed the unanimous vote with a powerful "no." But when I desired to give my reasons, that its publication would not serve "to overcome evil with good," but to increase the evil, I was stopped, as being not in order in opposition to a resolution which had been unanimously carried out.
For a better understanding of the spectacles which will be mentioned afterwards, we must remark the following incident, which happened on that day, to wit, somebody mentioned, that there came many female mediums from a great distance in the expectation to be moved in the Convention by spirits to speak, that therefore all these mediums should come on the platform, and speak, whenever any of them should be moved by a spirit to do so. I think that others felt the absurdity of that proposition, which if it had been, accepted, would have created great confusion and hindrance to the realization of their speculations; therefore they did not respond to his suggestion. Readers should know, that if not all, certainly most of the heads and the agents of that Convention were spiritualists of the latest fashion.
On the afternoon of that day, after singing, I suddenly took the stand, to make use of the twenty minutes time, conceded by the rule of the Convention to every speaker. I wished to show, that nobody in the Convention touched the root of the evil; and that when others have neglected to study our message of Peace, which shows that root and how to extirpate it, at length spiritualists have been urged to do so. But they, instead of progressing and learning by our message, how to overcome evil with good, were attached to evil spirits, and they deluded people regarding our message of Peace, when we endeavored to move them to study it and act accordingly. Instead of many instances of our experience testifying this, I would mention only my experience at the last public meeting of spiritualists which I attended in the City of New York. A female medium whose lying spirits were exposed by me in a public meeting of spiritualists in Philadelphia on the first day of the last month (August 1858) came on the 22d of the same month to a meeting of spiritualists in New-York, in which meeting I spoke. During my speech the demon by whom she was possessed, propelled her three times to stop my speech. But when he was rebuked so terribly, that her friends could not bear any longer, they awakened her from her sleep and carried her out of the hall. But as soon as I ceased to speak, she returned; and the demon shut instantly her eyes, and said through her, that I am a Judas Jscariot, a Jesuit, an emissary of the Pope, &c. The chairman was induced, to ask the name of the spirit; but he refused to tell his name. Then he said through his medium, that he is "Donquixote Thomas Paine." The first name he pronounced so that I knew by the pronunciation, who amongst my departed friends was the controller of the lying spirit, by whom the medium was possessed. My departed friend compelled him in the first place to tell, that he was Don Quixote, known as the hero in the celebrated Spanish romance or fable called Don Quixote. A similar fiction was also the speech of the demon by whom that medium was possessed, only that those who do not know me, might take the calumny of the devil for truth. After the confession that he was Don Quixote, to make which he was compelled by a higher power, he added according to his lying propensity, that he was Thomas Paine, although he was not Thomas Paine.
When I desired to explain, from which sphere of spirits that liar came, I was stopped by a man crying behind me to the chairman, asking him whether I should be permitted or not to occupy an hour, while nobody could understand me. At such interruptions I strike sometimes the impudent demons, as they deserve to be stricken. I think, that I did not speak ten minutes, when that interruption took place. To draw my attention from the disturbing demon, Henry C. Wright jumped to me, saying that I should not speak, because I am not understood, and he told the audience that he knew me to be a good man, but that I could not be understood by Americans. I interrupted him saying with indignation, that he did not know me and that those do not understand me, who have ears and will not hear and eyes and will not see. I felt that the audience were not prepared for further explanations; but the truth is, that while I have been speaking English on more than one thousand places in America, those who have acquired some education and paid attention to my discourses, understood me; but enemies of truth complained, that they could not understand me, or they made disturbance. Not to give to demons any opportunity to enrage their mediums against me at the night session of that day, I would not attend that session.
On the 11th inst. at the first opportunity at the forenoon session I offered the resolutions to be read, for a better understanding of which these remarks are a preparation. But the chairman remarked, that that was not the proper time for reading my resolutions. Then I kept silence at that session. But during the afternoon session I offered several times my resolutions to be read. But Ira Hitchcock always interfered, pointing to some other, that he was in order to speak, although I did not see, that he arose before me for this purpose.
I found proper not to attend any of the following sessions of said Convention, in which I have offered the means, "to overcome evil with good;" but the infernal league hindered their communication to the people, and when the mediums of the infernal league thought, that they were removing evil and promoting good, they were doing just the contrary. If we have the mission which is proved in many of my volumes and expressed at the end of the resolutions for which we are preparing readers by these remarks, then all those who are hindering the circulation of our message of Peace, are the most dreadful slaveholders and destroyers of human life and property. They keep people in shackles of delusion and ignorance of what they should know, to prevent destruction of many and subjugation of the remnant by cruel tyrants.