The subject professing to represent "Christ among the Spheres" is a better and more finished drawing; but, according to all the laws and rules of proportion, the figure of Christ, by the side of our globe, would be 30,000 miles in height, and a lily which he holds in his hand 15,000 miles long! All these gross absurdities show, that the real spirit has nothing whatever to do with such absurd doctrines or productions. This "drawing medium" gives an account of the trials and sufferings, bodily and mental, which she went through before she became an accomplished and complete medium; and, according to her own statement, she must have gone through a most fearful and horrible schooling. In one part it is stated she went through "several months of most painful bewilderment and extreme distress of mind;" and in another part she says that the intensest antagonism between truth and falsehood, between light and darkness, encounters the astounded and unprepared pilgrim upon his first entrance into the realm of spirit. "I felt frequently as if enveloped in an atmosphere which sent through my whole frame warm streams of electricity in waving spirals from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet; and occasionally, generally at midnight, I was seized with twitchings and convulsive movements of my whole body, which were distressing beyond words. All these symptoms at length came to a crisis in a frightful trance." And this drawing medium signs herself "Comfort!" and further states that—
"Waking in the night, the strange drawing process instantly commenced, and I felt and saw within me the figure of an angel, whose countenance resembled that of Christ, descending from a morning sky towards me, and bearing upon his shoulders a large cross, whilst from his lips proceeded these words—'Love, mercy, peace, but not till after death.' Again my soul trembled with anguish, for that strange portentous word, 'death,' was ever written within me or without. This peculiar stage of development soon produced a singular affection of my throat, an affection of the mucous membrane, which caused several times a day, and especially when rising in the morning, the most distressing sensations. After suffering thus for several days, the mysterious writing informed me that I must take a certain quantity of port wine every day, and then the sensation would leave me." And she adds, "I followed the spiritual direction, and found almost immediate relief."
The spirit doctor, in fact, after the dreadful suffering the scholar had gone through, prescribed a "drop of comfort," a drop of the spirit of Alcohol, which spirit is very much like these rapping spirits, deceitful and dangerous, and this, we may presume, is the reason why the medicine adopted the name of "comfort." Well, some people will say that some little comfort was needed after so much discomfort and suffering—but why, all this suffering? Cannot these spirit drawing-masters instruct their pupils in this poor, wretched, miserable style of drawing, without all this misery and punishment? If not, I should think that very few ladies or gentlemen would like to take lessons in drawing, or, indeed, in any other art, under such painful circumstances. A spirit drawing-master's card would, I presume, be something like the following:—
TOM PAIN,
Drawing Master.
MEDIUM SPIRIT DRAWING TAUGHT, UNDER EXTREME TORTURE,
IN TWENTY-FOUR LESSONS, AT SO MUCH ILL-HEALTH
AND SUFFERING PER LESSON.
N.B.—Private Residence, under the Table.
All the Drawing and Writing Materials to be provided by the
Pupils. The lashing supplied by the Spirit, and the Medical Advice Gratis;
but the Pupils to find the "drop of spirit comfort" themselves.
In taking one more extract from "Comfort," I hope that I am not giving any discomfort to that "medium," who, from my inmost heart I hope and trust, is now enjoying that rational and natural comfort which all well-wishers to their fellow-creatures wish strangers to feel, as well as their friends. The medium proceeds to say:—"Ignorance of their real nature and of their alternate purposes in the progress of civilization and development of mind, has already caused immense misery in many directions, and will cause more and more, even infinitely worse, until the time arrives that the medical world will follow the example of Dr. Garth Wilkinson in his valuable pamphlet on the treatment of lunacy through spiritualism, and calmly regard this growing development not as insanity, but as a key whereby to unlock insanity"!!!