Eight months after the book containing this passage was published, and more than a year after the words here…
- Date of account
- Published 1886
- Source
- The Salem Witchcraft, the Planchette Mystery, and Modern Spiritualism With Dr. Doddridge's Dream
- Reference
- The Salem Witchcraft, the Planchette Mystery, and Modern Spiritualism With Dr. Doddridge's Dream · selected passage 54
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
Eight months after the book containing this passage was published, and more than a year after the words here quoted were dictated and written, strange rapping sounds were heard in an obscure family in an obscure village in the western part of New York
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyEight months after the book containing this passage was published, and more than a year after the words here quoted were dictated and written, strange rapping sounds were heard in an obscure family in an obscure village in the western part of New York. On investigation, those sounds were found to be connected with intelligence, which, rapping at certain letters of the alphabet as it was called over, spelled sentences, and claimed to be a _spirit_. The phenomena increased, assumed many other forms, extended to other mediums, and rapidly spread, not only all over this country, but over the civilized world. And wherever this intelligence has been interrogated under conditions which _itself_ prescribes for proper answers, its great leading and persistent response to the question, "What are you?" has been, "_We are spirits!_" Candor also compels us to admit that this claim has been perseveringly maintained against the combined opposition of the great mass of intelligent and scientific minds to whom the world has looked for its guidance; and so successfully has it been maintained, that its converts are now numbered by millions, gathered, not from the ranks of the ignorant and superstitious, but consisting mostly of the intelligent and t
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a historical account assembled under the reporting and publishing conventions of its period. It may preserve testimony, hearsay, retelling and editorial interpretation together.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyA modern comparison can identify recurring descriptions and possible explanations, but the account is not treated as independently verified evidence merely because it appeared in print.
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