Publisher's Synopsis
It has been strongly impressed upon me for some years past to write an account of the wonderful experiences I have passed through in my investigation of the science of Spiritualism. In doing so I intend to confine myself to recording facts. I will describe the scenes I have witnessed with my own eyes, and repeat the words I have heard with my own ears, leaving the deduction to be drawn from them wholly to my readers. I have no ambition to start a theory nor to promulgate a doctrine; above all things I have no desire to provoke an argument. I have had more than enough of arguments, philosophical, scientific, religious, and purely aggressive, to last a lifetime; and were I called upon for my definition of the rest promised to the weary, I should reply-a place where every man may hold his own opinion, and no one is permitted to dispute it. But though I am about to record a great many incidents that are so marvellous as to be almost incredible, I do not expect to be disbelieved, except by such as are capable of deception themselves. They-conscious of their own infirmity-invariably believe that other people must be telling lies. Byron wrote, "He is a fool who denies that which he cannot disprove;" and though Carlyle gives us the comforting assurance that the population of Great Britain consists "chiefly of fools," I pin my faith upon receiving credence from the few who are not so.
