he most unquestionable character. There is
always the feeling that the observer may have been deceived by some
shrewd trickery, or have credulously accepted what others would have
readily seen through, or that the senses may have been under some form
of mesmeric control. Instances of such phenomena, therefore, need to be
attested by the names of persons of well-known honesty, judgment, and
discrimination, and attended with an exact statement of the tests
applied, before they can be accepted as thoroughly trustworthy accounts.
Some instances of this character may be here given.

The phenomena known under the general name of spirit-manifestations vary
greatly in different instances. In some cases they take the form of
strange dreams, in which some warning or information concerning coming
events is given that afterward proves true. In others they occur as
seeming apparitions of persons recently or long dead. In others, as in
the case of haunted houses, there are noises of great variety, moving of
objects, opening and shutting of doors, appearances of unknown forms,
and all the phenomena which might be produced by an invisible inhabitant
of the house who was able to become visible under certain circumstances.
More ordinary manifestations are rapping sounds and lifting of heavy
bodies, writing either with or without apparent human agency, and mental
communication of facts unknown to or forgotten by the persons present.
Other phases are those presented by professional mediums,--the tying and
untying of ropes, playing on musical instruments, the production of
luminous phenomena, slate-writing under tables, and the like.
Performances of this character are usually done in the dark, and the
fraud which may be present is therefore not easily detected. It is
impossible to apply tests under such circumstances, and nothing can be
accepted as positive that cannot be tested. Performances similarly
surprising are constantly offered by professional conjurers, and nothing
claiming the high origin of spiritual phenomena can be received in
evidence where trickery is possible or has not been rendered impossible
by the employment of adequate tests.

To the same class belong the cabinet performances and the so-called
materialization of spirit forms, which have been the favorite cards of
professional mediums of late years. So far as yet offered in public,
they may be dismissed in the mass as pure trickery. The fact that
stage-performers of sle