Thirteenth Century-M. Huc's Account of Spiritualism in Thibet-Similar Accounts from many other Eastern and Northern Countries-Turkish Der- vises. Lapps, and Negroes-Australian Natives-Ideas of the Deity from the Vishnu Purána - Extract from Dean Trench's Unconscious Prophecies of The Aborigines of America full of Eastern Tradition - Had Spiritual Intima- tions of the Coming of the White Men-The Author's Sensations on Seeing the South American Coast-The Mexican Zemi-The Trance of Paranzin- Kohl's Account of the Spiritualism of the Ojibbeways-The Red Man's Life Dream-The Dream Tree-The Visions of Cloud-The Indian Jossakid- The Jossakid's Vision of the Whites-Ojibbeway Tradition-Hiawatha The Fathers Acknowledged the Pagan Miracles-Their own Miracles-State- ments of Irenæus - Montanist Seeress-Tertullian and St. Cyrian on Exorcism-Origen and Athanasius on Miracle-Sts. Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome Record of Miracles by the Early Church Historians, Hegissi- pus, Papias, Eusebius, Sozomen, Theodoret, and Evagrius-Support of the Fathers and Early Historians by Locke, Bacon, Cudworth, and Sir Thomas Browne-The Banner of Constantine-Discovery of the Cross-Miracle at the Tomb of Evagrius-Speaking without Tongues-True Value of Historic Origin of the Neo-Platonic Doctrines. Apollonius of Tyana, Porphyrius, Plotinus, Iamblichus-Iamblichus familiar with Clairvoyance-The Various Kinds of Spiritual and Magnetic Knowledge common to the Ancients-The Apocatastasis - Other Views of Iamblichus on Spiritualism - His Remarks on Prayer-Doctrines of the Neo-Platonists inherited by the Mystics of the The Church of Rome always True to the Doctrine of the Miraculous-Cost to Protestantism of its Renunciation of this Faith-Instances of Miracle in the Catholic Church-Also amongst the Old British Christians-Rising in the Air-Various Cases of it-Sts. Philip of Neri, Loyola, Catherine, Hildegarde, Theresa, Bernard, Philip Benetas, Francis of Assissi, Dominic, Edmund, &c. -Maria Fleischer-The 'Estatica'-Joan of Arc-Savonarola-Disorderly Spiritualism The Devils of Loudun - The Flagellants - Scenes in the Orphan Houses at Amsterdam and Horn Therapeutists in the Catholic and Old British Church-Case of Mademoiselle Perrier-Destruction of Port Royal - Divine Judgements - Perkin's Metallic Tractors - Stigmata in Ancient Fathers -Also in many Saints-Maria von Mörl, Catherine Emme- rich, Dominica Lazari, Angela de Fuligno, Nicholas de la Flüe-A Peasant Girl Predicts the Death of Pope Ganganelli and Election of Cardinal Braschi ---Popes Accused of Sorcery - Modern Catholic Therapeutists The Curé D'Ars-Sœur Collette — Guardian Angels—Effect of Spiritual Belief in them THE HISTORY OF THE SUPERNATURAL, CHAPTER I. AN APOLOGY FOR FAITH IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Tous pensent, personne n'ose dire. Pourquoi? Le courage manque IN my papers in the Spiritual Telegraph' on the wonderful story of the Prophets of the Cevennes, I endeavoured to demonstrate, that though there may be, from time to time, more extraordinary manifestations of the influence of the spiritual world operating on the incarnated world, the principle is universal, and belonging to all times and nations; as essentially a part of God's economy in His education of the human race as the rising and setting of the sun. Since writing that, every day has further convinced me of the great fact thus asserted. There is no part of human history, or human literature, which does not abound in the plainest demonstrations of this influence. We find it in almost every book we open; we have it in the Scriptures from the first page to the last, from the Creation to Christ, a period of 4000 years. We have it in all contemporary literature; in the Grecian, the Roman, the Egyptian, the Persian, the Indian, and the Arabian. It glows in the ZendAvesta; it stands mountain-high in the Vedas; Buddhu lives in it in divine reverie; Brahma proclaims it in his Avataras; it is the very life-blood of the Scandinavian Eddas. There All succeeds to the will, If we go into nations that never had a literature, this eternal truth is walking there in all its strength. The American Indians North and South had it ages before the white man arrived. The Red Men felt the inspirations of the Great Spirit in their forests, and spoke as inspired by it at their councils. They declared that the angels of the Great Spirit walked as friends amongst their ancestors. The Mexicans prophesied of a people coming in a ship from the East to take from them their long-possessed sovereignty. The Australian natives refuse to go out at night because then, they think, the powers of darkness are in the ascendant. The Obi of the Africans speaks the same language. The conviction of the permanent contiguity of the spiritual presses on the earth-walls of humanity wherever spirit lives. Passing from the Bible to the book containing the finest writings next to the Bible, the Apocrypha, we find the same great principle taking its easy, natural stand, as a perpetual agent in human history. Josephus takes it up with the same sober assurance as he takes up his pen. We have the miraculous deeds of the Maccabees; we have the grand apparition of the fiery horse and horseman, and the radiant youths who punished the intrusion of Heliodorus into the Temple of Jerusalem. We have the inspired harbinger of and the dread apparitions and prodigies of the siege of the woe, |