Chapter I: Front Matter

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THE SPIRIT LAND.

by

S. B. EMMONS.

Philadelphia: John E. Potter and Company. Nos. 614 and 617 Sansom Street.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by L. P. Crown & Co., in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts

TO THE READER.

This volume is intended as an antidote to a species of errors that have been rife in every age of the Christian church. Notwithstanding the disclosures the Most High made of himself to his ancient people, they were yet prone to turn aside from the worship of the true God, to follow the lying spirits of the prophets of Baal, and other deceivers, from the days of Moses till the destruction of Jerusalem. So, likewise, under the Christian dispensation, there has been a succession of Antichrists, until their name is _legion_, whose teachings have clouded the understandings and blinded the moral perceptions of men, subverting the faith of many whose mountains stood strong, and who had been counted the chosen people of God.

The present is viewed as an age of _isms_. Men have run mad, and are chasing phantoms. They are roaming round to find some fulcrum to overturn the church and the Bible; they are imagining they are receiving utterances from heaven, when nothing is uttered but the vain fantasies of their own minds and hearts. It is the grossest fanaticism--fanaticism in its most frightful form, leading its unhappy victims, not unfrequently, to flagrant crimes, and to the most horrid of all--that of self-destruction.

These pages are submitted to the public with the counsel of the wisest and best of all ages, that, amid the wily arts of the adversary, we should cling to the word of God, the Bible of our fathers, as the only safe and infallible guide of faith and practice.

NOTE.

We would here give credit to the principal works from which valuable and important matter has been selected for these pages: Whitman's Popular Superstitions; Upham's Lectures upon Witchcraft; Christian Freeman and Family Visitor; Abercrombie on the Intellectual Powers; Influence of the Imagination upon the Nervous System, by Rev. Grant Powers; Life of Adam Clarke; Hayward's Book of all Religions; Miller on the Second Coming of Christ; Borrow's Gypsies of Spain; Stone on False Prophets and Christs; Dickens's Household Words; Capron and Barron on the Spirit Knockings; Dick on the Improvement of Society; Revelations of A. J. Davis; The Great Harmonia; Rogers on Human and Mundane Agents; Miss Crowe's Night Side of Nature; Spiritual Telegraph, &c.

As the work embraces a mass of facts of an absorbing and intensely interesting character, we trust that it will commend itself to an enlightened and judicious public.

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

PART FIRST.

INTRODUCTION.

THE OBJECT OF THIS WORK.

PAGE

Nursery tales of giants, dwarfs, ghosts, fairies, and witches.-- Their effect upon juvenile minds.--A belief in ghosts still prevalent.--The excitability of the public mind.--Ghost reported as having been seen in Waltham, Massachusetts. 17

CHAPTER I.

ORIGIN OF POPULAR SUPERSTITIONS.

Ignorance of correct reasoning.--Conclusions from particular facts.--Water boiled by heat.--Signs.--Breaking a mirror.--Gene ral conclusions from a few facts.--A victim to superstition in New Hampshire.--How signs may be multiplied.--The design of the Creator in endowing us with reason. 19

CHAPTER II.

INDUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY NOT UNDERSTOOD.

Ignorance of it the cause of many superstitions.--Lights seen in marshy grounds, &c.--Supposed to be supernatural.--Causes of these lights, and phenomena connected with them.--Shrinking and swelling of pork in boiling.--Cause.--Supposed influence of the moon in making soap, grafting trees, cutting timber, &c.--Lunar influence in matters of wedlock.--Love not to be fed on moonshine. 22

CHAPTER III.

IGNORANCE OF THE CAUSES OF DREAMS.

Fruitful source of superstitions.--Opinions of ancient divines. --Dreams related in the Scriptures.--Their object.--Principles of mental philosophy applied to modern dreams.--Examples of singular dreams.--Dreams occasioned by sickness.--Fulfilment of certain dreams.--Causes of the same.--Remarkable case of a German student.--Case of a member of Congress.--Amusing case concerning a passage of Scripture.--Necessity of a pure conscience, and a careful attention to our stomachs. 24

CHAPTER IV.

EFFECTS OF THE IMAGINATION ON THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.

Ignorance of it has given rise to many superstitions.--Experiments of Mesmer and Deslon in Paris.--Singular developments.--Trials at Dr. Franklin's house.--Children uninfluenced by mesmeric operations. --Magnetizing a tree in Dr. Franklin's garden.--Experiments upon two females.--Effect produced.--Experiment upon a female by Dr. Sigault.--Practice among the Chinese.--Girl frightened to death by a Gypsy.--Practice among the New Zealanders.--Killing others by incantation.--Intercourse with departed spirits.--An account of Perkins's metallic tractors.--Their supposed influence in various diseases.--Suspicions concerning them.--Experiments with wooden tractors.--Result of these experiments.--Statements of a modern mesmerizer. 29

CHAPTER V.

IGNORANCE OF MENTAL PHILOSOPHY.

This ignorance a cause of many superstitions.--Case of a person who slept in a bed room supposed to be haunted.--Skeleton seen by moonlight.--Apparition seen by Dr. Gregory.--Case related by Dr. Conolly.--Ship's crew frightened by an apparition.--Young lady supposed to have been murdered by pirates.--Cases of impressions connected with bodily disease.--Phantasms in febrile diseases.--A farmer frightened to death by a light in the road.--A figure like Death striking a lady in her side with a dart.--Illusion of sight and hearing.--Case of a lady who saw her absent husband standing by her side.--Countenance of a friend seen in a mirror.--Tunes heard.--Inverted objects.--Visions of the world of spirits.--Case of Baron Swedenborg.--Case of a lady in Boston, who saw her deceased grandmother.--The phantom ship seen in New Haven.--The science of optics.--Of nauscopy.--Cases of mirage. 38

CHAPTER VI.

IGNORANCE OF TRUE RELIGION.

God the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.--The natural world governed by regular laws.--Sign of the howling of a dog under the window.-- Lucky and unlucky days.--Sir Matthew Hale's opinion.--Early laws of Connecticut.--Superstition of sailors.--Timidity of Voltaire.-- Peace and happiness on all days.--How procured. 50

CHAPTER VII.

BELIEF IN WITCHCRAFT.

A witch as regarded by our fathers.--Compact or agreement with the devil.--Carried through the air on brooms and spits.--Anointing their bodies with a magical ointment.--How to prepare the same.--Singular ceremonies at the meetings of witches.--How they afflicted others. --The bewitched pins shown to Grace Greenwood.--Mode of examining and trying witches.--Witch catcher in England.--How he was arrested and condemned.--Singular record on a church book in Scotland.-- Notice of the Salem witchcraft.--How such superstitions are to be done away.--Witches and wizards of modern times. 53

CHAPTER VIII.

NECROMANCY AND FORTUNE TELLING.

Moll Pitcher, the queen of the race.--Her place of abode.--Company that visited her.--Member of a church sent to consult her.--Casting out evil spirits in Syria.--Account of Lady Hester Stanhope.--The astrologer of Hopkinton, Massachusetts.--Chief characteristic of fortune seekers.--Effects produced upon them. 58

CHAPTER IX.

FAIRIES, OR WANDERING SPIRITS, AND GYPSIES.

Description of fairies, habits, localities, &c.--Subterranean spirits in Wales, called _Knockers_.--The _Brownies_ in Scotland.--A farmer in Ireland who was tormented by fairies.--Method taken to appease their anger.--Spenser's poem of the Fairy Queen.--Gypsies and their employments.--Casting the evil eye.--Safeguard against it.--Charm of the Bible and key.--Superstition called the _elf-shot_.--Practice of poisoning animals, and the cure.--Superstitions concerning the loadstone.--Translation of St. Luke into the Gypsy tongue.-- Singular notions of the Gypsies concerning it.--Condemned by the royal edict at Madrid.--The Gypsy choirs at Moscow.--Anecdote of Madame Catalini. 61

CHAPTER X.

OMENS, CHARMS, AND DIVINATION.

Books published upon these things.--Their injurious tendency.--A sample of their contents.--Practice of boxers.--Whistling in a storm at sea.--Setting hens on an _odd_ number of eggs.--Salutes of an _odd_ number of guns.--Omen concerning the number _thirteen_. --Methods of ascertaining who will be a future husband.--Crossing of knives.--Click of insects.--Advent of comets. 76

CHAPTER XI.

MODERN MIRACLES.

They partake of superstition.--Instructions of the Savior concerning them.--Object of Scripture miracles.--Modern miracles not satisfactory. --Judge Howe's opinion concerning Christianity.--Times of miracles ceased. 79

CHAPTER XII.

FALSE PROPHETS AND CHRISTS.

History of the prophet Matthias.--His career in Albany and New York. --His deceptions upon conspicuous individuals.--His arrest for alleged crimes.--Account of John of Leyden.--Sketch of Cochrane, and his impositions. 81

CHAPTER XIII.

MORMON SUPERSTITION.

Account of the golden plates found by Joseph Smith.--Their translation and publication in a volume.--Peculiar style of the writings.--Attempt at imitation.--Mormon preachers speaking with new tongues.--Increase of the doctrine, and why.--Mormon cities not to be identified.--Strong indications of fabrication.-- Fluency and earnestness of their preachers.--Traits of the Cochranites.--Effects produced upon their hearers.--An account of the _real_ origin of the Mormon Bible, and its author.--Of Joseph Smith, Jr., the Mormon prophet.--His early characteristics. --Exposure of the indecent ceremonies at Nauvoo; as established by Smith and others. 96

CHAPTER XIV.

MILLER DELUSION.

Prophecies of Mr. Miller.--His computation of time.--Management to suit his own particular views.--Keeping the world standing thirty years on a simple _if_.--Various blunders and mistakes. --Confession of his errors.--False information respecting signs. --Disappearance of stars.--Of the Aurora Borealis.--Shooting stars.--Sun and moon turning to blood.--Darkness of the sun.-- Its cause.--Remarkable appearances in various ages of the world. --Opinion concerning Halley's comet.--Ignorance of the constitution of comets.--The comet of 1770.--Tests of signs that shall indicate the end of time.--Scientific men stationed in various parts of the earth.--No such changes as have been spoken of by the second advent preachers, observed by them. 102