Research source

Opening books, tricks, fortune telling.--Practice of a lady in a clergyman's family.--Disadvantageous…

Date of account: Published 1857
Source: The Spirit Land
Reference: The Spirit Land · selected passage 8
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Opening books, tricks, fortune telling.--Practice of a lady in a clergyman's family.--Disadvantageous matrimonial alliances.--Anticipation of dreadful calamities.--Practice of Rev

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 only

.--Opening books, tricks, fortune telling.--Practice of a lady in a clergyman's family.--Disadvantageous matrimonial alliances.--Anticipation of dreadful calamities.--Practice of Rev. John Wesley.--Temperaments of Melancthon and Luther.--Luck, chance, fatality, &c.--Saul and the witch of Endor.--Conjurers and impostors.--Injury done to the cause of medicine.--King's touch in scrofula.--The _ninth_ son of a _ninth_ son.--The _seventh_ son of a _seventh_ son.--Cure by the cold hands of a malefactor.--Plaster on a pitchfork; polishing rusty nails. --A female heart made into pills for consumption.--Heart taken out of a female in Maine, and in Waltham, Massachusetts, and made into pills.--Influence of the imagination.--Account of a Mr. Austin, in Vermont.--His singular mode of healing the sick. --Account of the celebrated _rain-water_ doctor.--Sketch of an _astrological_ physician in New York.--Of Valentine Greataks and Francisco Bagnone.--Momentary relief obtained, and why.-- Injury done to the cause of religion.--Account of the Pharisees, compared to vipers and toads, and their numerous progeny.--How we may know a Pharisee.--A young man catechized by our Savior. --St. Paul once a Pharisee.--Proof.--Customs among the Catholics.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This 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 only

A 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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