contrary to received opinion, within the laws of Nature,--that is,
not supernatural."

Now, in all that I had hitherto witnessed, and indeed in all the
wonders which the amateurs of mystery in our age record as facts, a
material living agency is always required. On the Continent you
will find still magicians who assert that they can raise spirits.
Assume for the moment that they assert truly, still the living
material form of the magician is present; and he is the material
agency by which, from some constitutional peculiarities, certain
strange phenomena are represented to your natural senses.

Accept, again, as truthful, the tales of spirit manifestation in
America,--musical or other sounds; writings on paper, produced by
no discernible hand; articles of furniture moved without apparent
human agency; or the actual sight and touch of hands, to which no
bodies seem to belong,--still there must be found the MEDIUM, or
living being, with constitutional peculiarities capable of
obtaining these signs. In fine, in all such marvels, supposing
even that there is no imposture, there must be a human being like
ourselves by whom, or through whom, the effects presented to human
beings are produced. It is so with the now familiar phenomena of
mesmerism or electro-biology; the mind of the person operated on is
affected through a material living agent. Nor, supposing it true
that a mesmerized patient can respond to the will or passes of a
mesmerizer a hundred miles distant, is the response less occasioned
by a material being; it may be through a material fluid--call it
Electric, call it Odic, call it what you will--which has the power
of traversing space and passing obstacles, that the material effect
is communicated from one to the other. Hence, all that I had