1023. As this demonstration was intended for my special benefit, and our invisible friends were fully committed for its performance, my attention was riveted on the lady who was to be the subject of it. ‘Madam, will you please put your feet on the spar of the chair?’ This being fully accomplished—‘and your hands in your lap,’ was added. As her hands dropped, the lady left my side, passed about two feet backward, and immediately returned to her former position at the table.
1024. My astonishment was naturally raised to the highest pitch, demanding of Dr. P., who sat on her opposite side, if I could believe my own eyes, and that Mrs. D. had really been moved from my side. ‘Oh, certainly,’ he replied; ‘that is nothing. I have seen far more wonderful manifestations than that.’
1025. The idea of collusion was too ridiculous to be entertained for a moment; every consideration condemned it. The carpet on which the chair stood on its slender legs, with at least one hundred and fifty pounds added to its gravity, must have been extensively injured had the chair remained in contact with it. But not even a sound was audible, and my mind was left to contemplate an invisible power that had effected the movement of a ponderous body in mid air.
1026. Showing the interest of my own dear invisible guardian friends, it was spelt out by the card, the primitive mode of communication at that time, that I should change my seat to the side of the medium; and it was only after this change had been made that my mind was impressed to ask for a demonstration.
1027. By this demonstration of supernal agency I was delighted, humbled, and convinced. As the octogenarian Robert Owen, of London, proclaimed to the world in a published letter, in relating his own case, I became a convert to spiritual life and intercourse by the force of this evidence, because I should have considered any man a fool, who, with a mind free from the curse of a bigoted education, and whose thoughts and feelings were not mortgaged to the world, could reject such palpable and convincing proof, and entertain a different conclusion.
1028. Being subsequently in the city of New York, I visited the public circles of Mrs. C., a medium for automatic writing and the sounds. Being requested, as the rest had been, but without response, to ask if any of my spirit friends were present, my interrogation was answered by three distinct raps on the table. ‘Now ask who it is; a father, mother, and so on;’ and I was informed it was a son. ‘Is your sister with you?’ ‘Yes.‘ ‘Will you spell her name?’ ‘Yes;’ and it was correctly given. ‘Is her little son with her?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Will you spell his name?’ ‘Yes;’ and a name of seventeen letters was correctly spelt out by the card, the letters being indicated, when pointed to, by three raps.
1029. My spirit son also informed me when he had died and of what disease. I asked if they were happy. It will be observed that my son’s name had not been mentioned, reserving it for a test. Three raps had replied in the affirmative to my question, when the medium spasmodically seized a pencil, extended a sheet of paper toward me, and wrote upside down, so that I might read it as written: ‘We are looking forward for you to join us, when we shall be more so;’ and to my perfect delight and astonishment, signed my son’s name to the communication, asking whether the name was correct.
1030. On a subsequent occasion, when a large and respectable company was present, I remarked to Mrs. C. that she had reported the fact that foreign languages had been written by her hand. ‘All kinds of language; but I don’t know any thing about them,’ was the reply. ‘If you have no objection, I should like to get a communication from my son, in a foreign language.’ ‘Oh, not the least; if he knew it in this world, he will know it in the next.’ ‘My son, will you give me a communication in a foreign language?’ Answer, three raps. The company were all intent on this striking and convincing test of spiritual intercourse. In French? no; one rap. In Spanish? three raps. The medium’s hand, as before, seized the pencil, and wrote upside down a communication to me in correct Spanish, though we all accepted her declaration, that she was not acquainted with one word of the Spanish language.
1031. As it is said of our beneficent almighty Father, that when two or three are gathered together in his name, he is with them, so it is with the spirits of our dear departed relatives and friends. When a few congenial, harmonious spirits of earth are associated in virtuous love, and their affinity for their supermundane spirit friends is strong enough to draw them here, they come on missions of friendship, and pour happiness into our hearts, provided the presence of a medium, possessing the required conditions, affords them an opportunity.
1032. It has been my good fortune to be a member of such an association, called a spirit circle; and the communications which have come to me from my dear departed children, and others who are dear to me, filled with love and interest for my welfare in the world, have given a value to life which it never had before, supplying a stimulus to the heart and mind which has guarded them from the influence of surrounding excitements, and strewed that path with many sweets which was too apt, with less humility and resignation, to be regarded with doubt and pursued with remorse.