The Fox Sisters and the Spiritualism Movement

But was it a delusion?

In order to solve this question, we shall minutely describe our experience, merely premising that the mediums in question are generally admitted to be genuine cases.

We arrived later than the rest of our friends, and found the spiritual manifestations in full blast, and the whole party seated round and close to an oblong table with the gravest possible faces. Indeed we observed in two or perhaps three of the countenances an expression of superstitions awe, which at once told us that all hope of free critical judgment was for the time over with them. With corresponding gravity, although intensely tickled by the latent humor of the whole proceeding, we took our place at one end of the table facing the three mediums.

And here - to avoid being mistaken for mere matter of fact skeptics - we think it as well to state that apart from long and grave labors in the domain of what is called mental science, metaphysics, and the most abstract transcendental philosophy, we were probably the only one of the party who had seen and tried an elaborate course of experiments in animal magnetism, the effect of narcotic stimulants and kindred subjects. It is also possible that we were as well versed in the facts of physical science, most useful for purposes of deception, as any of our companions. We were, therefore, fully prepared to believe in spiritual agency the moment that material agency should appear to us impossible, and were furthermore ready to suspend our judgment in the event of even extreme improbability of possible means being employed.