an of Turkey, and more recently still
from the principal courts of Europe. As her stay in the city will be
brief, those who wish to know the past or future or wish to communicate
with deceased friends, are advised to call on her soon. Witchcraft is
as prevalent as it ever was, and the witches are as real. They may not
have cats on their shoulders or pointed caps, or broomsticks for quick
transit, but they differ from the witches of the past only in being
liberally paid, instead of liberally punished."

The Church does not deny the possibility of intercourse between the
living and the souls of the dead; she goes farther and admits the fact
that such intercourse has taken place, pointing, as well she may, to
the Scriptures themselves wherein such facts are recorded. The lives of
her saints are not without proof that this world may communicate with
the unknown. And this belief forms the groundwork, furnishes the basic
principles, of Spiritism.

Nevertheless, the Church condemns all attempts at establishing such
communication between the living and the dead, or even claiming, though
falsely, such intercourse. If this is done in the name of religion, she
considers it an insult to God, Who thereby is trifled with and tempted
to a miraculous manifestation of Himself outside the ordinary channels
of revelation. As an instrument of mere human curiosity, it is
criminal, since it seeks to subject Him to the beck and call of a
creature. In case such practices succeed, there is the grave danger of
being mislead and deceived by the evil spirit, who is often permitted,
as the instrument of God, to punish guilty men. When resorted to, as a
means of relieving fools of their earnings, it is sacrilegious; and
those who support such impious humbugs can be excused from deadly sin
only on the grounds of lunacy.

Hypnotism and Mesmerism differ from Spiritism in this, that their
disciples account for the phenomena naturally and lay no claim to
supernatural intervention. They produce a sleep in the subject, either
as they claim, by the emanation of a subtile fluid from the operator's
body, or by the influence of his mind over the mind of the subject They
are agreed on this point, that natural laws could explain the
phenomenon, if these laws were well understood.

With this sort of a thing, as belonging to the domain of science and
outside her domain, the Church has nothing whatever to do. This is a
theory upon which it behooves men of scien