A Party at Ragley Castle. The Miraculous Conformist. The
Restoration and Scepticism. Experimental Proof of Spiritual
Existence. Glanvill. Boyle. More. The Gentleman's Butler.
'Levitation.' Witchcraft. Movements of Objects. The Drummer of
Tedworth. Haunted Houses. Rerrick. Glenluce. Ghosts. 'Spectral
Evidence.' Continuity and Uniformity of Stories. St. Joseph of
Cupertino, his Flights. Modern Instances. Theory of Induced
Hallucination. Ibn Batuta. Animated Furniture. From China to
Peru. Rapping Spirit at Lyons. The Imposture at Orleans. The
Stockwell Mystery. The Demon of Spraiton. Modern Instances. The
Wesleys. Theory of Imposture. Conclusion.

In the month of February, 1665, there was assembled at Ragley Castle
as curious a party as ever met in an English country-house. The
hostess was the Lady Conway, a woman of remarkable talent and
character, but wholly devoted to mystical speculations. In the end,
unrestrained by the arguments of her clerical allies, she joined the
Society of Friends, by the world called Quakers. Lady Conway at the
time when her guests gathered at Ragley, as through all her later
life, was suffering from violent chronic headache. The party at
Ragley was invited to meet her latest medical attendant, an
unlicensed practitioner, Mr. Valentine Greatrakes, or Greatorex; his
name is spelled in a variety of ways. Mr. Greatrakes was called
'The Irish Stroker' and 'The Miraculous Conformist' by his admirers,
for, while it was admitted that Dissenters might frequently possess,
or might claim, powers of miracle, the gift, or the pretension, was
rare among members of the Established Church. The person of Mr.
Greatrakes, if we may believe Dr. Henry Stubbe, physician at