ere are a few marvels that Spiritualism has in its secret power to do. Our informant is Judge Edmonds, our American friend, who may be said to have fairly given his mind to the study of the subject, for there seems but little doubt that he has gone stark staring mad upon it: —
"I have seen a chair run across a room, backward and forward, with no mortal hand touching it I have seen tables rise from the floor and suspended in the air. I have seen them move when not touched. I have known a small bell fly round the room over our heads. I have known a table, at which I was sitting, turned upside down, then carried over my head, and put against the back of the sofa, aud then replaced. I have seen a table lifted from the floor, when four able-bodied men were exerting their strength to hold it dowu. I have heard, well vouched for, of a young man carried through the air, several feet from the floor, through a suite of parlours. I have seen small articles in tho room fly through the air aud fall at the place designed for them, and some times so rapidly that the motion was invisible, and all we could see was that the object had changed its location."
Now, we want to know if Spirit-Rapping is capable of achieving all the above flights of genius, why it is not brought to bear upon some useful purpose? Why is it not engaged in some profitable pursuit, that would bring in money as well as bring down surprise? If it has really the power of making small articles fly through the air, and fall at the places designed for them, could not it be valuably engaged in moving furniture? There would be a considerable saving in time, bother, and expense. No horses would be needed, no cumbrous carts required, whilst the services of drunken porters, who touch few articles of value without breaking them, could be entirely dispensed with. One effective spirit-rapper would be able to do all the business. He would only have to be put en rapport with a fourpost bedstead (a rap-porter would not be a bad name for these new spirit-carriers), and, hey presto! before you could give a double knock at a nobleman's door, it would be sent galloping as quick as any four-poster through the air all the way from Pentonville to Belgravia. and that done so rapidly that not a soul would be able to notice its magic flight! Aladdin's Palace must have been moved by some such mysterious agency. The surpassing beauty, too, of this new motive power is, that it would do away with all the preliminary trouble of packing. Everything might be despatched precisely as it was, and no fear of smashing the largest article apprehended. Glass-cases, looking-glasses, washing-stands, would all "fall at the places designed for them" with a charming precision, worthy of a flap-scene in a Pantomime. We suspect that Harlequin's wand must have a sly touch of spirit-rapping in its wooden nature, or else it never would transport things and persons with such wonderful touch-and-go nicety and dexterity. If Judge Edmonds could only get some brother-rapper to send him flying over here (for if spiritualism has the power of carrying wardrobes, why not human beings?) we are sure that a rapid fortune awaits him. He has only to turn PiCKFORD on this new expeditious principle, and he will soon have more goods than he will be able to find rappers for. We vote that he exhibit over his warehouse door a board with the inscription: — "Goods Removed in Town or Country to any Distance by Spirit Medium of a 500 spirit power."
Could not the same inscrutable influence be likewise most serviceably employed upon travellers, commissionnaires, cabs, and omnibuses? By this invisible telegraph, an alderman might be sent flying from Paddington to the Bank for twopence, in less than two minutes. How convenient, too, when one wanted the children sent home from school, instead of having to go to fetch them! It is clear that the boundary-line of the Spirit- World, and its marvellous powers, have not yet been defined.
Related Material about Spiritualism
- Victorian Spiritualism (homepage)
- Victorian Spiritualism — Proponents and Opponents
- Emanuel Swedenborg and Swedenborgianism
- Last News from the Spirit World (Punch 10 June 1876)
- “A Spiritualist Alphabet” (Fun (1862)
Last modified 31 May 2020