If the critics undertake to determine, by any recognized rules of art, to what class of literary productions the following unpretending work belongs, I think they will be sorely puzzled. I am sure I am puzzled myself to say what it is. It is not a novel; it is not a romance; it is not a biography of a real individual; it is not a dissertation, an essay, or a regular treatise; and yet it perhaps has some elements of them all, thrown together in just such a way as best suited my convenience, or my purpose.
I wanted to write a book, easy to write and not precisely hard to read, on the new superstition, or old superstition under a new name, exciting just now no little attention at home and abroad; and I chose such a literary form as I—not, properly speaking, a literary man—could best manage, and which would afford me the most facilities for bringing distinctly before the reader the various points to which I wished to direct his attention. If the critics think that I have chosen badly, they are at liberty to bestow upon the author as much of the castigation which, in his capacity of Reviewer, he has for many years been in the habit of bestowing upon others, as they think proper. I have thought it but fair to give those whom I may have offended by my own criticisms in another place, an opportunity to pay their debts and wipe off old scores.
The book, though affecting some degree of levity, is serious in its aims, and truthful in its statements. There is no fiction in it, save its machinery. What is given as fact, is fact, or at least so regarded by the author. The facts narrated, or strictly analogous facts, I have either seen myself, or given on what I regard as ample evidence. The theory presented as their explanation, and the reasoning by which it is sustained, speak for themselves, and are left to the judgment of the reader.
The connection of spirit-rapping, or the spirit-manifestations, with modern philanthropy, visionary reforms, socialism, and revolutionism, is not an imagination of my own. It is historical, and asserted by the Spiritists, or Spiritualists themselves, as any one may satisfy himself who can have the patience to look through their Library. I have endeavored to be scrupulously exact in all my statements and representations in this respect. The shafts which the author shoots at random may perhaps hit some well-meaning persons who get crotchets in their heads, or astride of hobbies; but they are not poisoned with malice, and will titillate the skin, rather than penetrate the flesh.
I have not aimed at originality, or at displaying my erudition in the Black Art. I have certainly read some on the subject, and at one period of my life made myself acquainted with more “deviltry” than ever did or ever will do me any good. I have however drawn very little from “forbidden” sources. In writing, I have used freely a recent French work, from which I have taken the larger portion of my facts, and many of my arguments, although I had previously studied the subject for myself, had learned the same facts, with one or two exceptions, from other sources, and had adopted the same solution. The work I refer to is entitled, Pneumatologie des Esprits et de leurs Manifestations fluidiques. By the Marquis Etudes de M——. Paris, 1853. There are some views, not unimportant, in this work, which I am not prepared to accept; but, upon the whole, it is the only really sensible and scientific work I have seen on the subject, and I freely confess that I have done little more than transfer its substance to my pages.
The volume when it was begun was intended to be published anonymously, but my publishers have preferred to issue it with the name of the author. I think they have judged unwisely, but as they ought to know their own trade better than I, and as there is nothing in it that I am particularly ashamed of or unwilling to avow, I cheerfully comply with their request, and send it out with my name, to make or mar its fortune. If it tend in any degree to throw light on the dark facts of history, to check superstition, to rebuke unreasoning scepticism, and to recall the age to faith in the Gospel of our Lord, the purpose, the serious purpose, for which it was written will be answered, and I shall be content, whatever reception it may otherwise meet from the public.
