SPIRITUALISM AND INSANITY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 229, 16 January 1877, Page 2

SPIRITUALISM AND INSANITY.

According to tlie evidence 01 Professor Forbes V/inslow. there are at present over 10,000 persons conlinecl in ti:e lunatic asylums of the United States mad from the results of spiritualism. Professor 'Winslow tells us that insanity from this cause is no v." very prevalent in England, and is constantly increasing. In a letter oil the subject of the genuineness of the Slade' manifestations, i'.ii*. Sergeant Cox made a strong point of the slate message professedly written by the late Sir John Forbes. In the memoir of Dr. Forbes we are told that truthfulness was one of his great characteristics ; also, that he had great command of words. A correspondent of the Timet, an " appropriately asks how it came to pass that the spirit of this truthful man introduced itself with a falsehood —"I am Dr. John Forbes ; I was the Queen's physician" (a post Sir John Forbes never held) ; and also how the spirit of a man who was a " sensible " thinker and writer, "with a command of words," could, put 011 a slate such a sentence as " Man must not doubt any

more when we can come in this way." The late Lord Amberiey once remarked that he had formerly been imposed upon by certain mediums, and that in order to test the truth of what they said, he asked them to summon the spirit of Socrates. They did so. Not only, however, was Socrates utterly ignorant of Greek, but he spelt the word happiness without an "h. : ' "After that," said his lordship, "it was about time to give up the pursuit of such knowledge altogether."