We would here give credit to the principal works from which valuable and important matter has been selected for these pages: Whitman's Popular Superstitions; Upham's Lectures upon Witchcraft; Christian Freeman and Family Visitor; Abercrombie on the Intellectual Powers; Influence of the Imagination upon the Nervous System, by Rev. Grant Powers; Life of Adam Clarke; Hayward's Book of all Religions; Miller on the Second Coming of Christ; Borrow's Gypsies of Spain; Stone on False Prophets and Christs; Dickens's Household Words; Capron and Barron on the Spirit Knockings; Dick on the Improvement of Society; Revelations of A. J. Davis; The Great Harmonia; Rogers on Human and Mundane Agents; Miss Crowe's Night Side of Nature; Spiritual Telegraph, &c.
As the work embraces a mass of facts of an absorbing and intensely interesting character, we trust that it will commend itself to an enlightened and judicious public.
Nursery tales of giants, dwarfs, ghosts, fairies, and witches.-- Their effect upon juvenile minds.--A belief in ghosts still prevalent.--The excitability of the public mind.--Ghost reported as having been seen in Waltham, Massachusetts. 17
Ignorance of correct reasoning.--Conclusions from particular facts.--Water boiled by heat.--Signs.--Breaking a mirror.--Gene ral conclusions from a few facts.--A victim to superstition in New Hampshire.--How signs may be multiplied.--The design of the Creator in endowing us with reason. 19
Ignorance of it the cause of many superstitions.--Lights seen in marshy grounds, &c.--Supposed to be supernatural.--Causes of these lights, and phenomena connected with them.--Shrinking and swelling of pork in boiling.--Cause.--Supposed influence of the moon in making soap, grafting trees, cutting timber, &c.--Lunar influence in matters of wedlock.--Love not to be fed on moonshine. 22
Fruitful source of superstitions.--Opinions of ancient divines. --Dreams related in the Scriptures.--Their object.--Principles of mental philosophy applied to modern dreams.--Examples of singular dreams.--Dreams occasioned by sickness.--Fulfilment of certain dreams.--Causes of the same.--Remarkable case of a German student.--Case of a member of Congress.--Amusing case concerning a passage of Scripture.--Necessity of a pure conscience, and a careful attention to our stomachs. 24