Houdin was near, seems to show that Home relied on an accomplice whom he
was unable to conceal from Houdin, and who doubtless was a hypnotist
also.

It is a fortunate thing that "spiritualism" and its wonders have invited
scientific study. The tendency to become spiritists is, of course,
furthered in many by an uncomfortable belief that without spiritualism a
future life is not insured; only the coming again to them of the spirits
of the dead assures them that they rise again.

Of course all the heathen ideas of a resurrection were founded on the
keen recollection of themselves the defunct have inspired. Our belief in
the Christian revelations is founded on its ethical system, part of
which, however, is of course for missionary effort only, but which is the
more remarkably connected with previous revelations, not so distinctly
reported, to the Jews, and with the history of the world at large.

Of course spiritual impressions are of no more value than the stigmata on
hysterical girls, in whom the emotional element was over developed, and
the religious understanding too little developed. The reversion to
ancestor worship in spiritism seems more clear, and dinners at Kensal
Green with five shillings tomb money, after the system of some low-caste
Indian tribes, should be instituted by the spiritists. But the Chinaman
also conciliates other spirits--those of friends or patrons or the great
men of past generations; why do not the spiritualists sacrifice gold leaf
and roast pork like the inhabitants of the Far East?

The Catholic Church has exorcised spirits and put them in their place as
improper and disturbing elements. It thereby told its members that
spirits were conjurable: of course really the minds of the members were