From another source (a well-known country gentleman in one of the midland counties) has been obtained a series of questions and answers which were put, given, and taken down in the year 1856, at a gathering at which the practice of table-turning and spirit invocation was tested by those whose conviction, in the main, regarding them, as the Editor is informed, agrees with that of the correspondents already quoted. Similar strange phenomena occurred on this occasion likewise:--
"Are you a Spirit who inhabited this earth? Yes.
Will you point them out? Yes. (It then crossed the room three times violently and stopped before three persons.)
Will you spell your name? Yes. R---- J----[49] (the way he always spelt it).
Will you spell the true religion? Yes--Saients.
Will it be the end of the World or the end of wickedness? The end of wickedness? Yes.
Will the World be destroyed by water? No.
Will it be partly destroyed by fire? Yes.
Will it be in the reign of Queen Victoria? No.
The testimony of Mr. Crookes, the discoverer of a new metal, and a Fellow of the Royal Society, may here be suitably recorded. Unlike some other so-called "scientific investigators," he is reported to have resolved upon a careful and thorough examination of the spiritualistic phenomena. He is said to have maintained originally that, even if the alleged facts were true, he might be able to explain them by some natural law. Accordingly he thoughtfully pursued his inquiries and investigations over a series of years, taking unusual care to render deception out of the question and impossible. The result has been given to the public in the "Quarterly Journal of Science" for January, 1874,[50] from which the following quotations are made:--
"The phenomena I am prepared to attest are so extraordinary and so directly oppose the most firmly-rooted articles of scientific belief--amongst others, the ubiquity and invariable action of the law of gravitation--that, even now, on recalling the details of what I witnessed, there is an antagonism in my mind between _reason_, which pronounces it to be scientifically impossible, and the consciousness that my senses, both of touch and sight--and these corroborated, as they were, by the senses of all who were present--are not lying witnesses when they testify against my preconceptions. But the supposition that there is a sort of mania or delusion which suddenly attacks a whole roomful of intelligent persons who are quite sane elsewhere, and that they all concur to the minutest particulars in the details of the occurrences of which they suppose themselves to be witnesses, seems to my mind more incredible than even the facts they attest" (pp. 77-78).
