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The author purports to set forth the claims of modern spiritism, together with the argument against it. It is an extraordinary book, filled with detailed accounts of the banal evidence of table rappings, spirit messages, apparations, and the whole childish armamentarium of mediumism. It discusses seriously such problems as obsession, necromancy, and the like, and shows in no place the slightest appreciation of the real explanation of all these phenomena. The character of the work can perhaps best be apprehended by the following quotation:
“With regard to the residue, attributed by Spiritists to the agency of the spirits of the departed, I have endeavoured to show that this is, to say the least of it, most improbable, and that a far more likely solution is that they are due to demons—some minor form of evil spirts.”
There is a foreword by the Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis. The existence, the forward, and the publication of such a book must be its own commentary to readers of the Review.
White