111. Nevertheless, I am not surprised that an inference should have been made, which holds good as respects certain spirits or media, though not others. If a pack of cards be so cut that the card exposed cannot be seen by any mortal present, it may be found that although certain spirits cannot describe the card, unless seen by some person present, yet other spirits can describe the card under these circumstances. Among my guardian spirits, there are two who have repeatedly described the card exposed fortuitously by cutting a pack, as in the process for determining trumps in a game of whist.
112. Since reading Dr. Bell’s remarks, cards, taken indiscriminately from a pack, and laid down behind the medium and myself, the denomination unseen by any mortal, have been named correctly by one of the spirits alluded to, although, about the same time, another eminent spirit could not name cards when similarly employed.
113. Agreeably to my experience in a multitude of cases, spirits have reported themselves who were wholly unexpected, and when others were expected. When I was expecting my sister in Boston, my brother reported himself. Lately, when expecting her, Cadwalader was spelt out, being the name of an old friend, who forthwith gave me a test, proving his identity. As this spirit had never visited my disk before, I had not the smallest expectation of his coming.
114. My spirit brother referred to a confidential conversation had with my brother Powel, in which the former was alluded to, when nothing was farther from my mind than that he had been present as an invisible listener.
115. I will now mention a fact of recent occurrence, which completely refutes Dr. Bell’s inference: Being at Cape May, one of my guardian spirits was with me frequently.
116. On the 3d instant, at one o’clock A. M., I requested the faithful being in question to go to my friend Mrs. Gourlay, No. 178 North Tenth street, Philadelphia, and request her to induce Dr. Gourlay to go to the Philadelphia Bank to ascertain at what time a note would be due, and that I would sit at the instrument at half-past three o’clock to receive the answer. Accordingly, at that time, my spirit friend manifested herself, and gave me the result of the inquiry.
117. On my return to the city, I learned from Mrs. Gourlay that my angelic messenger had interrupted a communication, which was taking place through the spiritoscope, in order to communicate my message, and, in consequence, her husband and brother went to the bank, and made the inquiry, of which the result was that communicated to me at half-past three o’clock by my spirit friend.
118. This differed from the impression which I had from memory, and was not, of course, obtained from my mind. And it is evident that the medium could not have known of my message until she was made to receive it.
119. But independently of the inability to communicate ideas, not pre-existing in the minds of mortals present, which has been so erroneously inferred to exist by Dr. Bell, let this eminent physician suggest any conceivable explanation of the phenomena attested by him, excepting that founded on the agency of spirits.