CHAPTER V

A CHAPTER OF GHOSTLY ACCOMPLISHMENTS


Spiritualism began in 1848 with the humble and entirely fraudulent
phenomena of raps. Within three years there were hundreds of mediums in
the United States, and a dollar per sitter was the customary fee for
assisting at one of the services of the new religion. It soon became
widely known that raps could be produced by very earthly means, and in
any case the rivalry of mediums was bound to develop new "phenomena." As
in all other professions, originality paid; and as the wonderful
discovery was quickly made that darkness favoured the intensity and
variety of the phenomena, the spirit power began to break upon humanity
in a bewildering variety of forms. In this chapter we will examine a
number of these accomplishments which our departed fellows have learned
on the Elysian fields.