s branch of necromancy. The marvelous things that Aaron and the
Egyptian sorcerers did before Pharaoh, are really as nothing compared with
what the modern jugglers of India and China perform. All of the
developments of the art that have taken place in the West, seem but
trivial imitation beside these, and indeed they are little better.

No sooner had Spiritualism made many proselytes, than there was no limit
to its audacious pretensions. Its apostles imagined that they could go on
duping the world and even hoodwinking the scientists, and that by
appealing to the Federal government for a formal investigation of its
claims, which they could not have believed for a moment would be granted,
they could obtain a sort of quasi-official recognition of their so-called
new religion.

Accordingly, on the 17th of April, 1854, a petition was sent to Congress,
bearing fifteen thousand names, and was presented in executive session by
Senator Shields of Illinois. As a rather skillful contemporaneous
characterization of the matter, what he said on this occasion is of
historical interest. The following were his words:

I beg leave to present to the Senate a petition, with some fifteen
thousand names appended to it, upon a very singular and novel
subject. The petitioners declare that certain physical and mental
phenomena of mysterious import, have become so prevalent in this
country and Europe, as to engross a large share of public attention.
A partial analysis of these phenomena attest the existence, first, of
an occult force which is exhibited in sliding, raising, arresting,
holding, suspending, and otherwise disturbing ponderable bodies,
apparently in direct opposition to the acknowledged laws of matter,
and transcending the accredited power of the human mind. Secondly,
lights of different degrees of intensity appear in dark rooms, where
chemical action or phosphorescent illumination cannot be developed,
and where there are no means of generating electricity, or of
producing combustion. Thirdly, a variety of sounds, frequent in
occurrence, and diversified in character, and of singular
significance and importance, consisting of mysterious rapping,
indicating the presence of invisible intelligence. Sounds are often
heard like those produced by the prosecution of mechanical
operations, like the hoarse murmer of the winds and waves, mingled