INTRODUCTION.

From that time forward, the boy was frequently thrown into the abnormal state, and Mr. Levingston’s house was for months the common resort of the curious, who were indiscriminately invited to come and witness the experiments. But after submitting for two or three months to all species of tests for no other purpose than that of gratifying curiosity and establishing the reality of the clairvoyant state, the boy—while in the latter state—protested against being longer subjected to any tests, except those that might involve matters of practical utility. He informed Mr. Levingston that the great object of his powers, in the stage of development they had then attained, was to enable him to examine and prescribe for the diseased. Shortly after this, he left Mr. Armstrong, to whom he was an apprentice, and entered, with his magnetizer A "magnetizer" or "mesmerist" was someone who induced a trance state in another person, believed at the time to be caused by "animal magnetism." Mr. Levingston, into the exclusive employment of treating the sick. In this employment, as it appears from all the testimonies we have received, he was surprisingly successful. Not long after this, and by progressive stages, his scientific powers became immensely unfolded; there was no science whose general principles and specific details he did not seem to comprehend while in his abnormal state. He also from time to time presented many novel and highly interesting ideas concerning the nature and powers of the human soul, seeming to demonstrate an intimate connection between the present world and the spirit world.

On the 7th of March, 1844, he fell, without the assistance of the magnetic process, into a strange abnormal state, during which phenomena occurred of the most surprising character. For the greater part of the time during two days, he seemed to be entirely insensible to all external things and to live wholly in the interior world. Possessing, however, an increased power over his physical system, he traveled a long distance during this time without any apparent fatigue. It was during this extraordinary state of his mental and physical system that he received information of a very general character regarding his future and peculiar mission to the world. The process by which this information was received, along with many other things of intense interest, shall be made public after questions by which the phenomena may be rationalized To "rationalize" here means to explain through logic or scientific principles. have been more thoroughly discussed on independent grounds. By minds duly prepared, it may now be conceived by reading the portion of this volume which treats on the Spiritual Spheres.

The reader is now requested to observe that, according to the foregoing statements (which are open to refutation if false), the first magnetic experiment performed on Mr. Davis by Mr. Levingston was manifestly suggested by the prevailing excitement growing out of Mr. Grimes’s lectures and experiments. It was apparently the casual prompting of a momentary thought, and not the result of a long-premeditated and ingeniously arranged plot. Let it also be observed that on the performance of this first experiment, the boy Davis suddenly became a general object of interest such as he had not been before, and was freely visited and tested by numerous persons while he was (professedly at least) under the influence of magnetism. Now, unless the reality of some strange abnormal condition is admitted, some more rational explanation should certainly be given of this uneducated, unsophisticated young boy thus suddenly, and to all appearance accidentally, being brought out from obscurity and becoming a public wonder on account of his strange and inexplicable powers. But if an actual abnormal and inexplicable condition is admitted, the reader—