138. The means of communicating with spirits are numerous and varied. As
spirits act on all our organs and on all our senses, they are able to manifest themselves,
to the sight, by apparitions ; to the touch, by impressions, occult or visible, on our
bodily frame; to the hearing, by sounds; and to the sense of smell, by odours coming
from we know not whence. This last mode of manifestation, although real, is,
undoubtedly, the most uncertain of all, owing to the various sources of error with which
it is environed ; and we will therefore not pause to examine it more fully, but proceed at
once to consider the principal means of obtaining communications, in other words, of
establishing a regular and consecutive exchange of ideas with spirits. The means of
doing this are : 1st. Raps and Tiltings; 2d. Speech; 3d. Writing. We will examine each
of these in a special chapter.
