Research source

THE HEAVEN AND HELL OF SPIRITUALISM CONTRASTED WITH THE HEAVEN AND HELL OF SCRIPTURE 141

Date of account: Published 1855
Source: Experimental Investigation of the Spirit Manifestations Demonstrating the existence of spirits and their communion with mortals. Doctrine of the spirit world respecting heaven, hell, morality, and God. Also, the influence of Scripture on the morals of Christians.
Reference: Experimental Investigation of the Spirit Manifestations Demonstrating the existence of spirits and their communion with mortals. Doctrine of the spirit world respecting heaven, hell, morality, and God. Also, the influence of Scripture on the morals of Christians. · selected passage 128
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

“An opportunity was not long wanting

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

287. “An opportunity was not long wanting. On the occasion of the visit of a well-known gentleman, long connected with the insane, and who never had seen any of these phenomena at the asylum, Dr. Bell invited him to go to a family where a medium of considerable power was visiting. The family was one of the most respectable of the vicinage, the head of it being a gentleman intrusted with millions of dollars of other people’s money, as the financial manager of a large banking institution. He and his wife had for some years been perfectly convinced of the spiritual character of these manifestations. The medium was a young lady of eighteen or twenty, of very slight figure, weighing eighty or ninety pounds, and had discovered herself to be a _medium_ while on a visit to these distant relatives. A family, from character and position, more entirely beyond the suspicion of even winking at any thing like fraud or irregularity, does not exist in the world. They were so fortunate as to find the medium at home, and the circle was made of the five persons mentioned.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This comes from historical psychical research. Methods, witness handling and standards of evidence differ from present-day research and should be assessed from the cited passage and edition.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

The passage can support a history of claims and recurring descriptions. It does not establish a paranormal mechanism, and competing psychological, social and physical explanations remain relevant.

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