Punch,  37 (1859), 69.

What Spirit-Rapping Can Do

Anon

Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery; Illustration, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

wdct.

Subjects:

Spiritualism, Dynamics, Domestic Economy, Transport, Commerce


    Discusses a report by John W Edmonds of the astonishing levitating powers of 'Spiritualism'. Asks why such powers cannot be put 'to some useful purpose', such as 'moving furniture'. Outlines how the latter proposal could be implemented. Suggests that one 'effective spirit-rapper would be able to do all the business' and points out that the 'surpassing beauty [...] of this new motive power is, that it would do away with all the preliminary trouble of packing' because it can despatch everything 'precisely as it was'. Suggests that Edmonds would make a fortune if he could 'get some brother-rapper to send him flying over here'. Concludes by proposing that people might be transported 'by this invisible telegraph' and remarks that 'the boundary-line of the Spirit-World, and its marvellous powers, have not yet been defined'. The illustration shows some chairs and a male figure being levitated.



© Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical Project, Universities of Leeds and Sheffield, 2005 - 2020

Printed from Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: An Electronic Index, v. 4.0, The Digital Humanities Institute <http://www.sciper.org> [accessed ]