Published in 1875 | 255 pages | PDF reader required
PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTION
It has been said, and we fear, with too much truth, that all new discoveries are "treated with hostility by the generation to whom they are addressed."
Forty years ago railroads were considered as impracticable. In an article in the "Quarterly Review," the editor said, "As to those persons who speculate on the making of railways, generally throughout the kingdom—superseding all the canals, all the wagons, mail and stage-coaches, post-chaises, and, in short, every other mode of conveyance by land and by water—we deem them and their visionary schemes unworthy of notice;" and in allusion to an opinion expressed of the probability of railway engines running at the rate of eighteen miles an hour (!) on a railway, then in contemplation, between London and "Woolwich, the reviewer adds: "We should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's ricochet rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of a machine going at such a rate."
It should be remarked that this volume is written in the interests of history—to put on record certain personal events and corroboratives in their chronological order which authentically reveal the rise, progress, and prospects of one of the grandest eras in the spiritual growth of mankind. The contents of the following pages are extracted from the author's private journal, and not before published in any of his many works on Spiritualism and Philosophy. He has kept memoranda of particular events, incidents, impressions, visions, correspondence, corroborations, etc., etc., embracing a period of over twenty-two years; during which time the most remarkable facts in Magnetism, Clairvoyance, and Spiritualism have been multiplied and established on both sides of the Atlantic.
All who want the author's philosophical explanation of the many strange facts and accounts which are presented in this volume, without comments, should consult his previous works, inasmuch as this book is designed chiefly as a semi-autobiographical contribution to the history of a new psychological epoch. This volume supplies links in the author's personal history which were omitted in the "Magic Staff."
In these plain, straightforward memoranda, it will be observed, the author has presented the "pro" and the "con" regardless of the bearing the quotations have upon himself, individually; therefore it is believed that this book will prove an excellent and reliable mirror, in which prejudiced opponents and calumniators may see themselves reflected at full length. "With regard to opposers as a class, Mr. Combe remarks, that "if they are to profit by the lessons of history, they ought, after surveying these mortifying examples of human weakness and wickedness, to dismiss from their minds every prejudice against the present subject founded on its hostile reception by men of established reputation of the present day." And he adds, that, "if the new theory should prove true, posterity will view the contumelies heaped on its founders as another dark speck in the history of discovery; and that he who wishes to avoid all participation in this ungenerous treatment should dismiss prejudice and calmly listen to evidence and reason, and thus not encounter the chance of adding his name to the melancholy list of the enemies of mankind by refusing, on the strength of mere prejudice, to be instructed in the new doctrines when submitted to his consideration."
The appendix to this volume contains Zschokke's remarkable and instructive story of the "Transfigurations," illustrating the curative power of human magnetism, and the spiritual beauty and purity of the "superior condition;" and, also, a carefully compiled, instructive, and most cheering history of the introduction of the Harmonial Philosophy into Germany.
