Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/36



GAVE last month some account of my first experiences in investigating the mystery of Spiritualism. Whether my experience was or was not singular, I am not prepared to assert. I believe, however, that others will testify to similar visitations and trials. Perhaps the majority of those who undertake to explore this great subject may sooner weary of the task than I did; perhaps they may not be so impressible by spiritual influences as I; or, it may be, they stoutly refuse to listen to supernatural communications, refusing to believe them to be such. I cannot advise any one to hold converse with the spirits as I did, and I do not blame those who soon turn away bewildered, awe-struck, and shocked by what the mediums reveal to them.

But, harassed, tormented, and almost maddened as I was by my self-appointed task, I was irresistibly led on to continue my intercourse with the unresting inhabitants of the other sphere. I have told how a spirit, calling himself Franklin, appeared to me through every medium I consulted; how he strove to remold my religious convictions, and to teach me a new system of morals which would lead me to abandon my wife and children, and ally myself to the spiritual affinity which came to me in the guise of a beautiful and intellectual woman, and at last announced herself tome as Charlotte Brontë. I have described how, excited by what I had passed through, I seemed to be given up, one night at the Astor House, in a strange, wild vision, to the dominion of the spirits, and that when morning found me threatened with congestion of the brain, my physician warned me to give up this unhallowed intercourse with the other world, if I wished to keep outside a mad house.

I was half insane, I know, but I determined before I slept to learn the reality of my vision. The physician had no sooner gone than I rose, dressed myself, and, ordering a carriage, rode to the house of a famous spiritualist, living on one of the up-town avenues. I knew him for an honest man, and I thought his experience might help me to solve this mystery.

I found him about leaving his house to go down to his business; but he kindly invited me into his library, and listened patiently to the recital of my strange experience. I had nearly finished my story, when he said, suddenly, "He is here now, standing beside you."

"Who?" I asked.

He hesitated, and then, in an uncertain tone, answered, "Franklin. Now he has one hand on your shoulder, and with the other is