We are reluctant to use the word "miracle" because of its liability to be
construed as designating not only an act performed directly by an Almighty
One, but also that, in performing it, He acts "contrary to the established
constitution and course of things;" which course we believe was never
adopted. Therefore we shall use "marvel," to designate all works which
have seemed to require more than human power, and have been understood to
be "more than natural."
Such A MARVEL _is a result from application of powerful occult forces
which man neither comprehends nor can manage_.
SPIRITUALISM is phenomena resulting from use of occult forces and
processes by invisible, departed human spirits.
Most genuine spiritual phenomena are marvels; but there may be, and may
have been in witchcraft-scenes, marvels which spirits did not produce. We
left out from the definition of marvel, necessity for an _intelligent_
operator. Impersonal influxes to many mediums may at times produce many
things which are often ascribed to personal spirits.
Our broad definition lets the word marvel cover all supernal revelations
and inspirations from any god, spirit, or the impersonal spirit
realms,--all angel or spirit presence ever perceived by man,--all mighty
works, signs, and wonders ever wrought through prophets, apostles,
magicians, sorcerers, and the like,--all promptings, helps, and works by
spirits called "familiar,"--all necromancies, witchcrafts, &c., &c. As a
natural philosophy, our subject embraces all these. Its moral or religious
aspects do not come under special consideration in the course of inquiry
which is pursued by us. Spiritualism--as evolvements by finite unseen
intelligences, using none other than natural forces, however occult,
acting in subserviency to natural laws and nice conditions--has its
rightful place with whatever has come forth from action of intra-mundane
or supra-mundane forces and agents.
Hidden intelligences in all ages and lands have had credit for performing
in man's presence many "mighty works," and for making revelations from the
world unseen. Over the whole earth formerly, and over the larger part of
it now, such intelligences have been and are deemed to be of all
characters and grades, from very unfolded, pure, and benevolent beings,
down to the ignorant, corrupt, and malignant. But our Puritan ancestry on
this continent had inherited and brought hither with them a firm,
unqualified belief that no other spirits but evil ones could, or at least
that none but such would, operate among the Christian dwellers on New
England soil. The mysterious workers and their doings were here
excessively diabolized by the monstrous creed previously described, which
prevailed all through Christendom during the seventeenth and some prior
centuries, so that signs, wonders, and mighty works among our ancestors
assumed forms, characters, and horrors which were never known among Jews,
Christians, or heathen of old, and do not revive in our own times. There
was then lacking here any conjecture that the same laws which in Job's
time permitted Satan to mingle in company with the sons of God, might
permit a son of God--a good spirit--to traverse the paths along which the
sons of the devil--bad spirits--made approaches to the children of men.
Moses, Elias, Samuel, and John's brother prophet were forgotten. We
apprehend that facts of history teach beyond all successful refutation
that spirits of some quality acted upon and through many persons in the
American colonies during the latter half of the seventeenth century. Our
fathers were not mistaken as to that fact; but their inhospitable and
fierce slamming of doors in the faces of these visitants provoked terrible
retaliations. One leading object of this work is to refute the position of
intervening historians, that no disembodied spirits whatsoever had any
hand in producing American witchcraft.