Modern Spiritualism, Vol. 1 of 2
A History and a Criticism (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Modern Spiritualism, Vol. 1 of 2: A History and a Criticism<br><br>My chief amongst many and weighty obligations for help and counsel given is to Mrs. Henry Sidgwick, who kindly placed at my disposal the material collected for her article in the Encyclopdia Britannica on "Spiritualism." At a later stage Mrs. Sidgwick read a great part of the following pages in typescript, and gave me many valuable suggestions. To the late Henry Sidgwick I am indebted for some wise counsel in the writing of the earlier part of this work; that I could not submit to his clear judgment some of the delicate questions dealt with in the last Book I regard as an irremediable loss.<br><br>To Dr. R. Hodgson also I owe much. Alike by natural endowment and by his unrivalled experience, Dr. Hodgson is probably better qualified than any living person to deal critically with the history of Spiritualism; nor did I venture to set about the present work until I had ascertained that he was not prepared to undertake the task himself. I had hoped, however, that he would have been able to contribute to the book his own version of his investigations in slate-writing, and an account of the Eusapia sances, with his own criticisms. Pressure of other work prevented the fulfilment of this scheme; but my own account of these matters is based, as the reader will see, almost exclusively on Dr. Hodgson's writings, supplemented by his criticisms and suggestions on the completed chapters.<br><br>Not to Dr. Hodgson alone, but also to the late Frederic Myers, I, in common with all others who are engaged on the investigation of these obscure and widely neglected problems, am indebted not only for much of the material used, but for the means of using it.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.