_Respected Friend_: We cheerfully accompany your father to sanction
the communication given through our medium, Mr. Lanning, to yourself.
My friend, we have sought media in various localities through whom
to accredit you as our minister to earth’s inhabitants, but owing
to unfavourable conditions, we have, in most instances, failed. We
perceive with pleasure that your heart is fully imbued with the
importance of your holy mission. It needs no fulsome flattery from
us to incite you to action. A principle of right and truth pervades
all your movements in this spiritual campaign. We truly style it
a campaign, since you are battling fearlessly against Error, that
hydra-headed monster who has slain his millions and tens of millions.
We have looked forward to the publication of facts involved through
your experimental investigations with interest. The communication
above referred to was given by one who stood high in the estimation of
the people of our great republic; but, for personal reasons, he wishes
to withhold his name.
Be it known to all who may read these credentials, that we sanction
them, and authorize our names to be affixed thereunto.
GEO. WASHINGTON,
J. Q. ADAMS,
DR. CHALMERS,
OBERLIN,
W. E. CHANNING, and others.
_Postscript by the author._
It is a well-known saying that there is “but one step between the
sublime and the ridiculous.” This idea was never verified more fully
than in the position I find myself now occupying, accordingly as those
by whom that position is viewed may consider the manifestations which
have given rise to it in the light wherein they are now viewed by me,
_or_ as they _were two years ago viewed_ by _myself_, and are _now
seen_ by the great majority of my estimable contemporaries.
I sincerely believe that I have communicated with the spirits of my
parents, sister, brother, and dearest friends, and likewise with the
spirits of the illustrious Washington and other worthies of the spirit
world; that I am by them commissioned, under their auspices, to teach
truth and to expose error. This admitted, I may be reasonably inspired
with the sentiment authorized in the preceding credentials, that I hold
my office to be greatly preferable to that of any mundane appointment,
and for the reasons above given in those credentials. But how vast is
the difference between this estimate and that which _must ascribe_
these _impressions to hallucination!_ my _position being that of a
dupe or fanatic_. Yet there can be no man of real integrity and good
sense, unimpaired by educational bigotry, who will not respect sincere
devotion to the cause of piety, truth, and human welfare, here and
hereafter, however displayed. Hence, although the foregoing prefatory
pages should have no other influence, they may operate to show my
own deep conviction of the righteousness of my course, founded, as I
believe it to have been, on the most precise, laborious, experimental
inquiry, and built up under the guidance of my sainted father, as well
as under the auspices of Washington and other worthy immortals.
Those who shall give a careful perusal to the following work will find
that there has been some “method in my madness;” and that, if I am
a victim to an intellectual epidemic, my mental constitution did not
yield at once to the miasma. But let not the reader too readily “lay
the flattering unction to his soul” that ’tis my hallucination that is
to be impugned, not his ignorance of facts and his educational errors.
_The sanction of the spirits, as above given, was obtained under test
conditions; so that it was utterly out of the power of any mortal to
pervert the result from being a pure emanation from the spirits whose
names are above given._
It ought to be understood that the sanction given by the spirits whose
names are attached to the preceding certificate, was obtained under
test conditions, as explained in paragraph bb., dd., in the description
of Plate iv. Moreover, I placed my hand on the instrument illustrated
by Fig. 2 in same plate, so as to question the spirits directly as to
the reliability of the affirmation, previously given to me, and the
fidelity of the medium generally. In both cases the index moved so as
to give an affirmative reply.